As the battle raged on outside the giant robot, Midoriya took the time to inspect his surroundings. Yaoyorozu was still catching her breath on the cold steel floor, giving the inheritor time to look around. Besides it being a small room, large avenues of steam pipes could be seeing running in various directions. A few symbols of U.A. were still evident on the walls, though they appeared to have been scratched out by a key by someone.
While she was on the floor, Yaoyorozu's mind was racing. We're inside the robot...I got here on the back of my best friend's boyfriend...we almost got crushed by a giant robot's fist...it's cold...
The Everything Hero picked herself up and rubbed her head. She looked around the room and noticed that Midoriya was standing nearby with his back toward her. His head was tilted downward and a bright light was illuminating his hair. Checking his phone...maybe hoping for an update from Ochaco? she wondered.
As she stood up, she felt a chill run by her. "M-Midoriya?"
The green-haired inheritor perked up and pocketed his phone. "You okay Yaoyorozu?" He asked as he turned to face her. "I understand if I went too fast for your liking but we needed to-OHMYGOD!" He whipped back around with a beet-red face.
His sudden outburst startled her. "What? What happened? Are there QICDs here?!" She panicked.
Midoriya pressed his palm into his face and shook his head. "N-No..."
"Then what? Don't scare me like that!"
Midoriya pressed into the wall and turned slightly. With his free hand, he grasped and lightly tugged on his own shirt. Once he did that, he gestured to her. "Y-You might want to do something about it..." He muttered.
Yaoyorozu tilted her head in confusion. "I-I don't get it?"
Midoriya groaned. "I-Isn't a little c-c-c-c-cold in here for you?" He asked her.
She nodded and pressed her hand on her waist. When her fingers brushed against unclothed skin, her blood suddenly felt very cold. Her hand traveled up her side, continuously being unabridged by the shirt she was wearing earlier. As her fingers inched near her breasts, her own face turned bright red as realization dawned on her. She immediately looked downward to see her shirt was nearly destroyed. The front was fine though the back of her shirt was gone. The parachute she had created tore through it and the bra she was wearing as well.
She immediately covered herself up and spun around. "DON'T LOOK!" She screamed.
Midoriya was shaking his head violently. "W-WASN'T PLANNING ON IT!"
Their combined embarrassment could've turned whatever water would be in the room to steam. She quickly used her Quirk to create a duplicate of her leotard from her hero uniform. Since her pants were still intact, she breathed a sigh of relief as she stood up and grabbed her torn old shirt. "O-Okay...I'm good..."
Midoriya didn't immediately turn to face her. Instead, he slowly removed his hand from his face and slowly turned so she was at his side. "I-I-Sorry! I didn't see anything!" He quickly apologized.
Yaoyorozu quickly nodded. "I-It's okay...You're not like Mineta..." She said. "P-Plus...y'know...with you and Ochaco and-"
Midoriya coughed and shook his head. "W-We should get moving...and probably not mention this ever again," he said.
The Everything Hero nodded in agreement and walked over to the inheritor. She handed him a small communicator. "I-I saw Marinette gesturing to her ear. I think she wanted us to have them," she said.
The inheritor grabbed one of the communicators and placed it in his ear. As Yaoyorozu hooked hers up, Midoriya connected their headsets and called Marinette. Once she picked up, Midoriya gasped as the Miraculous hero sprouted a very vulgar curse at a QICD.
"...amn fuc...Hello?"
"Marinette? It's Midoriya!"
"Oh hey! You guys made it! Hang on, I'm gonna connect you guys to Adrien and Uraraka...stupid mecha-asshole!"
Yaoyorozu connected as soon as Marinette cursed, earning wide eyes and a suppressed laugh from the Everything Hero. "Sorry, but these things are getting faster. I think Abigail knows you guys are inside the mech," she explained.
"Yeah I think so too. You guys doing alright? You okay Deku?" Uraraka asked.
"Yeah...just tired. I went over my limit a little bit getting in here," he explained.
"You can't be doing that Deku, but I'm glad you guys are safe," she said.
Midoriya and Yaoyorozu made eye contact for a brief moment. The silent message was understood and the two turned back toward the mission. "Is it possible that Abigail is listening to us?" The inheritor wondered.
"Not likely. I took the specs from the communicator that was in Ochaco's helmet when it popped in from the other dimension and kept the same frequency. I have to thank Hatsume for that one," Yaoyorozu said. "It seems pretty closed-circuit so it had to be exactly the same."
"The magical power of Miraculouses. Adrien, how is it on the ground?"
"Not too good. These mechs just keep on coming. I break 10, and 20 more pop out. Where is she getting these things?" He wondered.
"There were a lot of mechs inside the robot when she dispatched the first wave. She could be making more inside but that would require a lot of hardware and time. The mech could be scooping up whatever it can find and rebuild them..."
"But we can't be sure," Adrien said. "Buuuuut...you guys are on the inside and you can find where these mechs are being rebuilt."
"We can find it," Yaoyorozu said as she grabbed the specs of the robot from her pocket. "Alright, I can already see a few routes leading up to the head of the robot. One route seems to lead straight to the core."
Midoriya neared her and looked over her shoulder. "I see a lot of smaller routes leading from the core. Energy veins probably?"
Yaoyorozu nodded. "Disrupting a few of those should disable the robot and give you guys some breathing room, though I'd imagine that Abigail has countermeasures against sabotage," she noted. "Safeguards like QICDs."
"Which is something we can handle. Although...Marinette, Adrien, what if we caused a massive shortage of available QICDs? Abigail would be forced to divert any mechs inside to fight back, possibly giving you guys some breathing room?" Uraraka suggested.
"It's possible, but everyone is looking pretty tired out here. We'd have to really push ourselves to seem like a worthy distraction," Marinette mentioned.
"We've survived worse, trust me."
Midoriya and Yaoyorozu nodded in agreement. "Okay, we'll be heading out. We'll keep you updated," Yaoyorozu said.
"Great. Good luck guys!"
When the communication cut off, Midoriya and Yaoyorozu both fist-bumped and ran into the belly of the beast.
Meanwhile, inside the main control room at the head of the robot, Abigail Winters continued to stare with wide eyes at one of her surveillance monitors. She watched as Midoriya and Yaoyorozu ran off, and while she didn't have sound enabled due to an oversight on her part, she already knew that they had a plan set up. On her face was a slight blush as her finger hovered over a button on her console.
She shook her head clear. "Ooookay. Quirks aside...well..." She felt her face burn up bright.
Behind her, one of her QICDs approached her. Creator's heart rate is...elevated...
"Shut up! Send some reserve units to secure any vital points they may attack! They may attempt to sabotage us!" She barked at her other units.
The QICD that approached her relayed the order to the units. As the units left to perform their duties, Abigail turned her attention back to the monitor and pressed the button her finger was hovering over. "I'll just...saaaaaave that one..."
When the call cut off from the two inside the robot, Uraraka turned her attention back to the QICD that she, with Kirishima's help, skewered with her bo staff. The edge was flattened and sharpened to a lethal point. The QICD was then impaled and stuck onto the hood of a mock car. "Damn machines aren't letting up though," she said to Marinette.
Flying high above the battlefield, Marinette watched as Tokoyami's Dark Shadow swiped away at the mechs getting too close to Aoyama. "They aren't. It's like they getting desperate!" She observed.
"Maybe they know they're inside?" Adrien wondered while he flipped over a bladed QICD and slapped the back of its head with a Cataclysm. "Winters is overseeing these things so she may have a plan!"
"Yeah...could be. Adrien, how are you feeling?" Marinette wondered.
"Pretty good now that Plagg is back. I'm not running out of magic anytime soon, but I'm starting to get tired down here. We need to wrap this up!" He said. "I can destroy a lot of them, but it depends on how long it'll take before they realize that I'm a Quirked threat."
"Then we need to work fast. Uraraka, you need to rally your friends and start focusing on thinning the herd. Adrien, I want you and Mina to do that pit of acid thing you guys did the other day. Once that's done, I need heavy hitters to start filling the hole with scrap metal!"
"Got it bugaboo!"
"On it!" Uraraka chimed in.
Marinette smiled. "Alright, it's time to junk these tin cans!"
Climbing through the giant robot sounded a lot easier than the duo previously thought. For one, the spaces were cramped and only allowed one of them at a time. Midoriya, while still retaining much of his slender frame, had little difficulty managing the climb. For Yaoyorozu, however, a problem quickly arose: Claustrophobia. The pipes and steel walls all felt like a rapidly closing-in prison and she was finding it difficult to climb as fast as he did.
As they continued to climb, Yaoyorozu found it easier to talk and climb, keeping her mind away from the feeling of the walls closing in. "So...how long?"
Midoriya stopped a little further ahead. "How long what?"
She chuckled. "You and Ochaco? She didn't really get to say anything before the mechs came and ruined dinner," she said.
Midoriya cracked a smile as he neared a ledge to a larger room. "Well...I'd say about 5 months...I think," he estimated.
"5 mont-wait a minute...that was right after you guys came back from that other world!"
"Yeahhh..." Midoriya blushed as he reached the ledge. "There's a bigger room here. I'll help you up." He reached down and toward Yaoyorozu's outstretched hand.
As he pulled her up with little effort, she continued. "You...you guys were dating since then? How did we not notice?!"
The inheritor smiled. "We were keeping it secret on purpose. It was a lot of fun and, and this is even funnier, it became a sort of training for going undercover. I'll be honest, I'm glad we picked up on our internships right afterward because I don't think we could've kept it secret for very long if we weren't so busy," he explained.
Yaoyorozu chuckled and shook her head as she stood up in the bigger room. She pulled out the specs and looked around. "I can't believe you guys kept this a secret for months. Hell, I'm shocked you told Bakugo of all people!"
"Well...we couldn't keep it a secret from him. I've been doing some extra training with All Might and those two are usually with me," he said.
"That Black Whip thing?"
Midoriya nodded. "That's a weird thing of yours Midoriya. If I'm being honest, it almost reminds me of Todoroki's power," she continued.
"Oh?"
She nodded. "See, he's half fire and half ice. I thought all you had was super strength, but here you are with black energy shooting from your hands. I can't imagine how it would've looked at the Sports Festival. I think you would've gotten to Bakugo," she said.
Midoriya coughed violently at her remark. "G-Ge-Get to Kacchan? I don't know..."
Yaoyorozu shrugged. "We'd never know unless we saw it in action. Would be pretty impressive to watch," she admitted. She continued looking around before spying a ladder leading up to a duct a story up. "Looks like a maintenance hatch leading to some massive room. Best guess is that something important is up there..."
"Possibly. Let's go break something," he said.
Yaoyorozu nodded as she replaced the specs in her pants. The duo started climbing the ladder before the Everything Hero remembered something to stop her in her tracks. "Wait, you said that you're doing some training with All Might, right?"
"Yeah...?"
"So...So does he know?"
Midoriya blushed as he nodded. "He, uh...well, I got some advice from him actually."
Yaoyorozu's eyes went wide. "H-He did?"
"Yeep..."
"Was it good advice?"
"Nooope."
The duo shared a good laugh as they climbed the ladder and through the duct. Midoriya, seeing that his luck so far had not been good with Yaoyorozu's...wardrobe malfunctions, elected to go through first to avoid any more situations. As he made his way in front of the Everything Hero, he constantly smashed the walls of the duct, widening them out a little bit for easier movement.
When they duo exited the duct, they were met with an incredible sight. A massive room was open to them with several conveyor belts with hanging QICDs constantly in motion. Multiple repair stations had mechanical arms replacing broken arms and torsos with newer parts. A few mechs had black craters in their heads, which were discarded and replaced with shiny new heads.
The duo watched a single QICD come in with two spears of ice jammed into its torso and a massive hole in its head. The head was surgically removed as well as the remaining arms and legs while the torso was taken away. A new and slightly larger torso appeared behind it and the arms and legs were replaced. The head was thrown into a bin and replaced with a new one. After it went through a test where it raised its arms and legs, the mech was taken to a large container and compacted along with other mechs. The bin, once it was full, was raised up and stacked along with other identical bins.
The duo watched with fascination and horror. Yaoyorozu created a small digital camera and quietly snapped a picture. "I-It's..."
"Genius. I-I mean it's completely wrong for a villain to be doing this, but keeping the illusion that she has a ton of mechs on standby and constantly being created can give any hero a sense of doubt and failure as they fight what seems to be countless waves of robots! But how is she able to keep everything stable inside with the fighting outside? Perhaps she thought of that before conceiving the idea of a fight, thus focusing her time on...perhaps shock absorption technology? No, couldn't be keeping the belts in line since they..."
As Midoriya continued to ramble on, Yaoyorozu carefully eyed the young inheritor. Jeez, Ochaco is right...he does mumble a lot. Kinda weird...
"...hen she could've just created sturdier supports hidden carefully behind the machinery. No, that would have an opposite affect on the structure and cause the mechs to-"
"Midoriya?" Yaoyorozu interrupted.
Snapping Midoriya out of his trance, the inheritor looked up at her. "Eh?"
"You mumble way too much. How does Ochaco deal with you?"
He shrugged. "I'd figure she has earbuds or something. Anyway, sorry about that."
She waved it off. "So...a repair station inside a giant robot. Possibly, like you said, it has strong supports to keep all of this stable," she said.
"Yeah. If you can make some bombs..."
"You can take to the structural weak points and bury the conveyor belts, halting their progress!"
Midoriya nodded. "We would be bottle-necking their deployment and give everyone outside some breathing room."
Yaoyorozu smiled and activated her Quirk. "How many points can you see?"
After scanning the room for a while, the young inheritor gave her a number to work with. With a suitable number, Yaoyorozu began to create several star-shaped bombs with an adhesive backing. As she created the bombs, two QICDs entered the room.
The two ducked behind cover as they appeared. Quirk detected! Locate Quirk user! They announced.
The mechs unsheathed their blades as they looked around. Midoriya gave a small smirk as he prepared to jump out to attack, however Yaoyorozu pulled him back and sat him back down. As she did, more units appeared behind the first two. "If you engage them, they'll probably activate all the others in here. We'll be overwhelmed," she warned him.
The inheritor took a quick glance back at the mechs. "Right...sorry. We need to divert attention."
Reaching to his comm unit, he made a call. "Marinette? Adrien? It's Midoriya. We found the repair station where they're refurbishing these mechs and sending them back out. We need a distraction to draw more out," he called out.
Outside the massive robot, Adrien smiled as he swiped at a mech, severing its head from the body. "A distraction is what I'm good at. Ready Pinky?"
Mina Ashido slid by him on a trail of acid. "Always ready for some fun!" She then made a beeline toward a small group of mechs and smiled. "ACIDMAN!"
The giant blob of acid that was Acidman enveloped Mina as she barreled through the group. As she pushed through the other side, she dropped the attack, spilling a large amount of acid onto the ground. She then slipped around another group of mechs and created a larger pool of the substance. Once it was large enough, she slipped away with a wide smile.
Above her, Adrien leapt into the air and slammed his hand into the ground. "CATACLYSM!"
Destructive energy surged into the road as the ground under the pool of acid collapsed. Now a large pool sunken into the ground, Kirishima and Sato slammed into a few QICDs and knocked them into the pool. "Lifeguard On Duty!" The Hardening Hero shouted.
Almost as it it caused an avalanche of snow on a mountain, Kirishima's declaration caused all the immediate heroes in the area to appear. Nejire and Amajiki, previously incapacitated, charged in with their Quirks active and joined in the fight. The mechs stood no chance, even with their Stand Your Ground protocol active, as Amajiki's Clam hands with Nejire's speed pushed them into the pool.
As they continued to fight, Marinette worked with Bakugo (against his wishes to the contrary) and grounded many of the Fairy QICDs still on his tail. Using her yo-yo, she wrapped her weapon around the propulsion packs they used to fly, destroying them in the process. The metal of their armor crumpled like an aluminum can as they fell to Earth.
While she grounded them, three QICDs slipped out of her grasp and bee-lined straight to Bakugo. The Explosive Hero growled as he spun in the air and tossed three grenades into their view at point-blank range. "This'll hurt you more than me assholes!"
The mechs couldn't move out of the way in time. The grenades exploded, creating a flash of bright light aimed right at their ocular sensors. Bakugo then redirected himself so he flew above them and blasted their propulsion packs, sending them to the dirt. Marinette watched the whole thing unfold and chuckled at the little trick of his.
When the mechs landed on the ground, Sato and Kirishima scooped them up and tossed them into the pool of acid.
Inside the mech, Abigail started growing furious at the display. "I couldn't figure out how to properly make them acid-proof! DAMMIT!"
She turned to her mechs. "SEND OUT THE RESERVE UNITS! CRUSH THEM!"
Ma'am, the reserve units are not yet complete...
"I don't care, SEND THEM NOW!"
With the press of a button, the mechs inside the repair station were activated. The large containers with reinforcements were immediately dispatched to the battle outside, however, the heroes were counting on just that.
As soon as they all cleared the battlefield of mechs, Mina and Adrien went right to work by creating another large pool of acid. The pools were nearly aligned with the containers as they shot out, eliminating more mechs instead of providing more for the fight. The few containers that largely survived dispensed their mechs, continuing the fight with the heroes.
Inside the mech, Midoriya saw the opportunity and took it. Launching at his maximum power, the young hero quickly cut through the mechs with little difficulty. Yaoyorozu watched as the mechs, which were able to stand up to him before, crumpled under his power. They have stronger armor...360 degree sensors...countermeasures for our strongest heroes, and yet...
Midoriya ducked a swing from a mech and launched a single punch to the bend of its knee. It jerked away as Midoriya came swinging back around and delivered a heeled kick to the crook of his neck, shutting it down.
In awe of his performance, Yaoyorozu secretly wished that they could trade Quirks for a little while, though she remembered that it took him a while to gain control over it. After all, it's nearly been a year since she got to see his new technique in action.
The Everything Hero smiled as she called him out and tossed a bag she made with the bombs inside. He smiled and waved at her before setting out to do their job setting up. As the young inheritor leapt from weak point to weak point, Yaoyorozu stayed on the ground with a detonator in hand, setting it up as each bomb came online.
When the deed was done, Midoriya returned to the Everything Hero. "There's an elevator up there that leads directly to the head of this thing. It's an express route to Abigail," he reported.
Yaoyorozu checked the specs she had. "You're right; it's even on here. It bypasses the core of this machine, but I think the bombs should be more that suitable in destroying this thing," she said. "And if we destroy the program for these things, that'll be even better."
Midoriya nodded. "Hop on. I didn't see a clear path from down here," he said.
Pocketing the specs, Yaoyorozu leapt onto his back once again. While they both wore brave faces, the earlier incident still came to both of their minds. Yaoyorozu shook the memory from her mind as Midoriya shot into the air, leaping from support beams and conveyor belts.
Smashing through the elevator doors, the duo decided against simply taking the elevator up and risk Abigail shutting it down. Instead, Midoriya smashed through the roof and leapt up the shaft. After a few moments, they smashed through the doors leading to the Control Room.
Once inside, Midoriya immediately recognized several QICDs. The basic models from their training session some time ago all had their swords unsheathed and poised to strike against the duo. The room had a large, circular table in the middle with a model of the massive QICD. The walls were lined with monitors with live feeds of outside as well as certain corridors inside the machine.
There was a second level where more monitors were present. Several members of Class A as well as the teachers were all present on the monitors with their Quirk descriptions and examples of their special moves. A young girl stood in front of the monitors with her back turned against them. She was flanked by 3 QICDs with stronger armor and samurai-like heads. Their armor were spiked with the mark of the Paranormal Liberation Front on their chests.
The girl turned to the heroes. "Y'know, I realized early on that your class was the one to beat. I mean, I heard about it all last year: The U.S.J. Incident, Hosu and how the three of you were involved with The Hero Killer, the Summer Camp attack, Kamino, all of it. It's funny that, for a bunch of first-years, you got into a lot of trouble with villains. You're all probably more experienced than some of the pros," she said.
Yaoyorozu stepped off of Midoriya's back. "You've been keeping tabs on us?"
"More like 'Satisfying Curiosity'. The P.L.F. seems to have its sights on you, Midoriya. I thought it was mainly because of all your run-ins with them at first, but after seeing you stop my QICD that day in the gym, I knew they wanted more," she said.
She performed a dramatic bow to them. "I'm Abigail Winters, The Tinkerer. And you...you're exactly what I need."
BEHOLD! Abigail Winters and her QICD Vanguard! I'll have the next chapter out soon so I'll be catching you all in the next chapter. Also, stay safe everybody. I hope everyone is healthy or fighting through this pandemic.
-Newage