As soon as the race started, Mallory flipped the dial on her mask. "I'll need just a couple of minutes, so let's stay away from everyone else!"
"I know," Togaru snarled, and she flinched. They already went over the plan as much as they could, but there wasn't much time after they agreed to team up. Reviewing it again kept her calm, but it seemed Togaru wanted to focus completely on the moment.
Fortunately, they didn't have to worry about drawing attention to themselves. Just as they suspected, everyone charged Izuku's group. Despite not knowing him for very long, Izuku had given her the impression of being thoughtful and analytic; she didn't expect him to be caught in the crossfire easily, but she also predicted that everyone would give it their all. Given that she knew he couldn't use his Quirk and she didn't know the Quirks of anyone outside of her class, Pony, and Togaru, she wasn't certain how much time he had - or rather, how much time her team had - to survive or take the lead spot.
The reaction was almost instant. A team of class 1-B students struck first, with one of them producing a slimy, brown substance that slid across the ground and spread around Izuku's group, sinking their feet below the earth. However, to her astonishment she watched them soar into the air, thanks to a jetpack on Izuku's back. Looking at them more closely, she noticed a pink haired girl she vaguely remembered from the obstacle course. Did she bring that?
Kyoka tried to reach him with her ear jacks, but Fumikage's Dark Shadow swatted them away easily. Mallory frowned. Both their defense and offense would be strong with Dark Shadow; he was an impressive Quirk, and Fumikage seemed to have a good grasp on how to utilize him. He was certainly going to make things even trickier for the already risky plan that Mallory's own team had come up with.
They landed only meters away, but Mallory wasn't ready yet. Togaru and Pony continued to skirt around the other groups, waiting and searching for openings. As they observed, she watched a team approach Toru's from behind, and was shocked to see a blonde boy reach out, and in the next instant his skin completely disappeared from view, leaving only his clothes. He easily snatched her headband while everyone was focused on Izuku, and his team quickly moved away. A moment later, his body came back into view, and he nonchalantly spun the band on his finger.
"Who is that?" Mallory gasped.
"That's Monoma-kun!" Pony replied, and Togaru muttered something in annoyance under his breath, likely upset with Pony for so easily giving up information. Ignoring him, she continued, "He can copy people's Quirks by touching them."
Mallory almost fell off of them in shock. That was a very impressive Quirk, but horrible thoughts immediately filled her mind. If someone with no knowledge of chemistry and gases were to suddenly have her Quirk, the odds of a positive outcome were slim. She knew instantly that he was someone to avoid at all cost.
"You could at least keep your balance!" Togaru barked, shifting slightly to keep her in place. His voice reached Neito, who swiveled in their direction with a cool, calculating smile.
"What's this? Why're you two working with someone from the other class?" he scoffed. His team, goaded by his taunts, turned towards them. Mallory froze as Togaru and Pony stopped, trying to keep a safe distance from him.
Neito spread his arms in disbelief. "After all that planning to upstage 1-A after stealing the spotlight from us?" He shook his head, that serenely cold smirk never leaving his face. "Well, Pony is a pretty open person, but I didn't expect this from you, Kamakiri-kun."
He snorted indignantly. "When we make it to the finals, she won't stand a chance."
Mallory didn't like the sound of that, but Neito barked with laughter. "Already planning on fighting with your own teammates? That's not very sportsmanlike." His grin broadened. "Although, I guess it doesn't really matter. Sorry, you two, but I think I'll try racking up just a few more points."
His words spurred action. His group was suddenly charging them, and Mallory's heart jumped. She wasn't ready yet, but worst of all-
"Oh, no you don't!" Togaru shifted, pushing Mallory more firmly onto Pony's shoulders, and raised his arms. Long, sharp blades jutted from his skin, glittering in the sun. From behind, Pony's longhorns shot out, straight for the opposing team.
A boy with light, almost reddish brown hair and dark eyes retaliated. He sucked in a deep breath and pushed it out, and Mallory could just barely make out a shimmer in the air as his breath moved towards them, before becoming a clear but definitive wall. Pony's horns hit the wall and fell to the ground, losing all momentum as the wall dissipated back into the atmosphere.
Neito's team closed the gap in an instant, and the arm of a boy with dark brown hair was spinning at an incredible speed, like a drill. Togaru raised his arms, but the boy used the velocity his Quirk generated to knock the blades aside by striking the flat side of them.
Mallory reared back as far as she could as Neito's hand reached for her. She didn't understand the specifics of his Quirk, but she didn't dare risk even the slightest touch if it meant brief possession of hers.
She was scared. His hand stirred a deep, primal fear within her. One mess up, one breath was all it would take to hurt everyone around them, to hurt himself, or even worse. She had a flash of a vision in her mind's eye, and her heart seized in her chest.
"Don't touch me!"
The intensity of her scream carried throughout the arena, echoing against the crowd. There was a pause where she could feel all eyes on her, and her stomach sank. But most of all, the desperation in her voice reached Neito, who pulled back in shock, his confident expression finally falling away as his eyes went wide. Whether he understood exactly why he shouldn't copy her Quirk or not didn't matter; she just needed to get away from him.
Mallory's teammates capitalized on the confusion that followed. Pony shot out more horns, forcing Neito's team to backpedal to avoid getting hit, and Togaru kept up a defensive wall as they stepped away.
For a moment, Neito glowered at her, and seemed to be considering trying again.
"Come on, we should go for more points!" someone on his team shouted, and he nodded mutely in response. An explosion caught everyone's attention, and they turned to see Katsuki soaring through the air. At that, Neito turned and ran for Katsuki's team.
Just then, Mallory heard a long beeping sound. She looked down and noticed a green light on her wrist. She had almost forgotten the original plan in the chaos that had just unfolded. She took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to calm the pounding of her heart as she was repositioned more evenly between the two below her. "It's ready," she croaked weakly, fiddling with the knob on her mask.
"Are you okay?" Pony asked in concern. She nodded, though it wasn't the truth.
"Yeah, it's just...it could be bad for someone to borrow my Quirk."
Before anything else could be said, Togaru jolted her attention back to the tournament. "Never mind that; they're coming!"
Looking to her right, she saw the boy with messy indigo hair from weeks ago approaching. To her surprise, Mashirao and Aoyama were on his team, but they weren't even looking at her. They seemed unfocused, staring blankly ahead, but she didn't have time to wonder what was wrong.
"Hey." His voice was low and cool, and he looked almost bored as Togaru and Pony braced themselves for a fight. He held out his hand expectantly. "Can I have your headband?"
The blunt question completely threw her off guard. "What? No, get away-!"
For a second, everything went out of focus, narrowing to black as a ring filled her head. She blinked, and when her vision returned, her gaze was frozen onto his steely eyes, and everything else remained dim.
"Give me your headband."
His voice echoed above the blood roaring in her ears. Her body suddenly weighed a thousand pounds, and she could only nod as she reached for it.
"Mallory?" Pony asked worriedly.
She wasn't sure who was talking, but she didn't respond. She had to give him the headband.
"What're you doing?" Togaru growled.
She lurched backwards, but it wasn't her own doing. People were trying to take her away from the boy with the bags under his eyes, but she had to give him the headband.
Mallory shifted, breaking from her team's hold. The boy was patiently waiting, unmoving. Just as she prepared to jump down and give him what he demanded, Pony grabbed her wrist and pulled her backwards, hitting the button on the cuff at the same time.
There was a quiet hiss, and a thick, yellow-white cloud exploded over them, engulfing half the field and climbing into the stands. Cheers quickly turned to coughs as the stench of rotten eggs permeated the air, and Mallory scrunched her nose. Even with the mask, the smell was too strong to block it out entirely, and it made her eyes water.
Distracted by the sulfur, she suddenly snapped to attention. "What?" she gasped, scrambling to reposition herself between Pony and Togaru. She couldn't see anything but smoke, and her teammates were already pulling away.
"Woah! Normally I feel sorry for the people that don't get tickets to the sports festival, but not this year! That stinks!" Present Mic's voice boomed from the press box, shaking the mysterious veil that had been draped across her mind.
"Why the hell were you about to give up like that?" Togaru snarled, but Mallory could only shake her head.
"It must be his Quirk...I felt like I couldn't stop myself. Pony saved us."
Pony coughed and shook her head with a smile. "Don't worry about it! Let's just get away!"
The gas was already beginning to clear, and they headed for an empty patch of land. Despite obscuring their own vision with sulfur, they had the advantage of an overall stimulus overload with the smell. They were betting on being prepared enough to be able to escape a sticky situation, or trap opponents in obscurity to take their bands. Mallory looked over her shoulder at the clock. Just a couple minutes left, and with nothing to show for it.
She didn't want to let her teammates down! She surveyed the arena. Far to the other side of the grass, a semicircle wall of ice had appeared - Shoto must have been trying to trap Izuku's team. It was too risky to try to join with what little time they had left, so they had no choice but make a mad charge for the closest teams.
"C'mon, let's go!" Mallory cried
Togaru and Pony broke into full sprints, and Mallory held tightly to Togaru's shoulders to avoid being thrown off. Everyone seemed to be converging on Neito's team or frozen to the ground; they needed to take advantage of the lack of eyes on them.
They were nearing Neito, hoping to grab the points while he was fighting off Katsuki and another team from Class 1-B, but the boy with the rusty hair noticed them. He puffed out his cheeks and exhaled, but they were going too fast to stop themselves. The group crashed into a wall of air, causing Mallory and Togaru to smack their faces square against it.
By the time they recovered their senses and stepped away, Katsuki had just snatched Neito's remaining bands.
"Damn it!" Togaru barked. "We'll just have to go for Bakugo's team!"
Pony launched her horns straight for them, and Katsuki turned just in time to see them. He put out his hands and blasted them aside, but Mallory had an idea.
"Keep going!" she told her team, and within a few more bounds, they were close enough to touch. Mallory reached towards the bands around his neck, but the intensity of his glare bore into her, even without her looking him in the eye. She couldn't help but feel a little afraid, however she promised herself she would give this her all. She wanted something to show for all her effort, to not let her teammates believe she wanted to drag them down, and took a deep breath.
Katsuki glowed with fury as he blocked her, palm aimed for her face. "I don't have time for you, Stinker!"
A spark glowed on his hand, but she released the breath she had been holding, killing it before it could ignite with an above average concentration of carbon dioxide. A thick pillar of smoke grew between them, separating the teams between an ashy wall. It was way more than would be generated by Katsuki's Quirk alone, but before anyone could even exclaim in surprise, Katsuki swatted Mallory away and launched himself into the sky, the powerful blasts he left behind stirring her hair and stinging her face with light and heat.
Blinking as Togaru and Pony stumbled away, Mallory's arms dropped to her sides as a chill ran down her spine. Togaru was yelling in frustration; there were only seconds left, and all they had accomplished was protecting their own measly points. But Mallory could only hear Katsuki's words, and the gas mask was suddenly stifling.
She pulled it off and inhaled deeply, then coughed on the remnants of smoke. In her mind's eye, she saw a glimpse of herself, small and shy and scared, with a mask forced over her nose and mouth while she sat alone at her desk. Childish chatter of years ago filled her ears.
"Why does she wear that? It's weird!"
"It's 'cause her Quirk makes her breath smell super bad."
"Eww, that's gross! She's gross!"
"Yeah, you should stay away. I heard her breath can make people sick, too."
"She smells so bad it makes people sick? She's disgusting!"
"Stinker Tinker, Stinker Tinker!"
Years of loneliness made her shiver as the sun beat down on her, making sweat form across her forehead and trickle down her neck.
The deep blare of an alarm made her whole body vibrate, snapping her from a painful reverie. "And that's it! The cavalry battle is over!" Present Mic declared overhead.
The raucous of the crowd grew to a fevered pitch as the students finally wound down. Mallory slid off Togaru's shoulders and landed heavily, staring at her feet in shame. She felt terrible.
"I'm so sorry, you guys…" she mumbled in defeat.
Togaru crossed his arms and turned away with a grumpy huff, saying nothing. However, Pony put her hand on Mallory's arm and smiled at her.
"Don't beat yourself up about it," she whispered, sharing her kind words in English. "It was a team failure. We all messed up. Kamakiri-kun is just mad that our best wasn't enough." She paused, then added, "Didn't you try your hardest?"
"Of course I did!" Mallory replied.
"Then we just weren't good enough for the finals this year, that's all. Let's work hard and make it to the finals next time!"
Her words comforted her, and Mallory relaxed a little. "I just didn't want you or Kamakiri-kun to think I wanted you guys to lose. I really wanted to go as far as I could, without sabotaging anyone."
Pony nodded. "I believe you. Next year I'd love to be on a team with you again!"
Mallory's eyes widened. "Really? But...isn't my Quirk hard to work with?"
She shook her head, even laughed. "No, I think it's great! If I wear a gas mask, we could do even more with it!"
Warmth spread through Mallory, burning away the icy melancholy of her past that clung to her like frost. "Then I...I really want to team up with you again next year, too."
They hugged, and Present Mic announced the top four teams. Mallory broke away to formally shake hands, then stepped away to congratulate the winners. At the very least, maybe she could say she made just one more friend.
A/N: So at this point instead of trying any kind of semi-weekly update, I'm just going to post chapters as soon as they're completed. Thanks for sticking around!