Giant robots and rival classmates. This was a familiar sight to Shouto Todoroki, more familiar than any other these past few months.
If one had taken the time to ask Class 1-A's heterochromatic loner how he felt about the results of the last six months, he wouldn't have been able to answer in a particularly quick fashion. He was still asking himself the same question, after all.
It seemed impossible to him that such crimes as Toga's could be forgiven. Murder and the absolution thereby forgotten, there was still the rape. The irreversible damage to Midoriya's mind and soul she had caused enraged Todoroki, because it was at once a devastation familiar yet alien to him. He knew what it was to be hurt, deeply, irrevocably... and he also knew what it was to absolve the source of that hurt. But Toga...
His fingers tensed, hands curling into fists. He did not make them adapt that shape; they took to it naturally. Anger was common to him now, a raging heat constantly burning away beneath the icy facade he had erected for years. He wasn't even certain what it was he was angry at; Toga? Midoriya? His father? The world? Nothing seemed to directly spark his ire into being. It simply was... and so he hated.
The ground shook, reminding him of the behemoth of steel hunting him. The Warhound was on the hunt, and he needed to focus. He took a breath. In. Out. Another. Push down the fire. Bury it in ice, he told himself. Apathy was better than anger. He had an exercise to win.
His partner he considered for only a moment. Kaminari. A middling student, both written and practical. Free-spirited, quick to laughter. Close friends with Sero, and friendly towards Ashido, Kirishima and Bakugou. Formerly a partner to the juvenile antics of Mineta, before the latter's removal from Class 1-A. Expulsion, full on, and a lawsuit for good measure. The irritating midget had gone, and with him many of Todoroki's more consistent headaches.
Back to Kaminari. Could he rely on the blonde to reach him? His Electricity Quirk was powerful enough, but they were in gym uniforms, not costumes. Most of Kaminari's support gear besides his headset was out of the equation. That left him with only his wilder, more uncontrolled blasts of energy. Less than ideal...
And also Todoroki's only fallback. Could he take the Warhound? It was huge, larger than the Zero-Pointers before it. Heavier, and likely faster gauging by the way it had charged into the arena. He didn't want to risk standing still to try and freeze it, and his fire was unlikely to melt through. He would avoid, he decided, using cover to evade its fire. It was a worthy enough foe, and the presence of nineteen other targets was promising. Eighteen. He needed Kaminari conscious to win.
Or at least, to win properly.
Snipe's gun fired, a familiar sound to his students. Shouto tensed; it had begun. The Warhound… no, just Warhound, let out that terrible mechanical bellow again, before surging forward on its treads, blasting through a small warehouse and setting its sights on Todoroki's starting group. The rotary cannons on its chest began to spin with a mechanical whine that slowly deepened to a steady thrumming, and Todoroki raised an ice wall before beginning a slide.
Immediately, something broke his ice wall. It wasn't Warhound, which was still revving its guns with that fearsome whirring sound. Something huge and dark surged into motion, smashing his cover and returning to the shadows. Todoroki cast an eye towards Tokoyami, who was already sinking into the dark space between two buildings, a glint of competitive challenge in his eyes.
Todoroki narrowed his own, and sent a wave of ice towards Tokoyami. Then Warhound fired, and Todoroki felt a hammer blow smash into his back. He staggered forward, ice fading as his concentration snapped, before turning towards Warhound, more rubber bullets pinging off the pavement and cement around him like a downpour of black rain as it narrowed its aim. He cursed, and back-pedalled towards a nearby wall to hide.
Another round drove into his shoulder, and he nearly stumbled off his feet before diving behind the wall. The Warhound continued its rumbling advance, and he cursed his luck, Tokoyami's audacity and the nature of the mechanical monstrosity bearing down upon him. Power Loader had clearly gone mad with power, gauging by how far he had gone with this latest design.
Suddenly, the Warhound shifted its focus, turning away and peppering a different stretch of road with rubber. Todoroki peered out at it from his cover with narrowed eyes, before moving from his cover. He kept low to the ground as he ran across the open street, ducking into a nearby alley and using that as his escape route. The Warhound was taller than many of the buildings, but hugging the walls would provide him visual cover.
Did it have proximity sensors? Presumably not, gauging by its design and actions. It was hunting based on sight, then, target identifiers in its head and body like as not. Shouto sighed, before a crackling green missile hurtled through the air above him with a whoop of exhilaration. He followed it with his eyes for a moment, watching Midoriya bounce from wall to wall some twenty feet above him in the alley, catching for a split second a look of determination in the boy's face.
Todoroki turned away. Let Midoriya have his fun, he told himself. He had bigger issues to deal with. A thunderous explosion from nearby encouraged him to run again, generating ice beneath himself to slide along. He would find Kaminari and put an end to this. He didn't even care for the reward; he wouldn't fall behind his classmates. He had to strive for more, to be better.
He had let the League escape that night. He would not fail again.
Izuku punched his metal hand into a brick wall, and watched as the sturdy material gave way under his fist with little resistance. He ran up and along the wall, using his newly anchored arm as a point of contact, before jumping sideways and grabbing the edge of the rooftop with both hands. He clambered up, and marvelled at the performance of the Crescendo Mark IV. It truly was Mei's magnum opus, insofar as he was concerned; it was strong, responsive and able to keep up with his One For All-enhanced strength and speed with ease.
He crouched low, watching the Warhound pass through another building, it's arms slowly swinging by its side like a person mid-stride. It wasn't looking his way, which was good. He was confident in his ability to dodge punches, explosions and most forms of ballistic weapons, but he hadn't actually tried bullets yet. A thunderous sound filled the air as an explosion washed over the machine's front, and Izuku grinned. Kacchan, of course.
He scanned the street below. No sign of Komori yet, not even a single mushroom. She had little mobility in any environment, especially not an urban one. A concerning scenario, but he was confident she would be able to keep herself out of harm's way until he found her.
If she wanted to be found, that dark part of his mind reminded him. Why would she? He had hurt her.
He clenched his jaw and shook his head. Internalized angst later. Field test for his new robot arm now. Once more he looked to the Warhound. It trundled along with all guns blazing, no doubt trying to take down Kacchan. Perhaps it was even succeeding. But he had another goal in mind.
He took off in a flat sprint, body surging with green lighting, and leapt off the edge of the building, clearing the gap between it and the next rooftop and continuing his run on the other side. He did this three times, constantly checking for Komori. No sign of her still... until he spotted a flash of brown ducking into cover. Not Uraraka, who he had already seen two blocks back and one over. Then Komori, he decided, leaping off the building.
He landed with a perfectly executed dive-roll, dispelling all his momentum but that which he could use, sliding into the same alley he had seen the flash enter. Sure enough, Komori was ducked down in there, eyes tracking him as he approached.
He came to a halt and held up his half of the 'doohickey', smiling at her. She lifted her own, and wordlessly they clicked together. There was a quiet beeping sound, and Izuku relaxed, taking a breath.
Then he opened his mouth to say something, and was rather impolitely cut off by the sound of asphalt grinding on asphalt. He turned and watched as a section of the road split open, and parting along clean lines he hadn't noticed before, and began disgorging six metal entities arranged in a vaguely human shape, with hunched backs and huge arms dangling down, ending in various claws, hooks and other such makeshift melee implements. Izuku blinked once.
"That's not good." he said, before the lead machine let out a mechanical growl and charged him.
Behind him, Kinoko squeaked in surprise and fear. Izuku, meanwhile, lunged towards the creature, checking its advance by driving his fist into the side of its stumpy head, crushing two of its six red eyes and crumpling the metal it was made of. It twisted away and collapsed to the ground, but already the other five were charging him.
"Midoriya!" he heard Komori shout, before he took a step back to dodge the swing of a metal fist the size of a Christmas ham, countering with a devastating kick to the head that cleanly decapitated the thing.
Only then did he glance over his shoulder to see Komori dodging another one of those metal fists, ducking underneath its swing as she frantically back-pedalled toward him. He looked up for a moment, calculating. Then he triggered Full Cowling, and surged into motion, slinging an arm under Komori's chest and grabbing her around the middle, before jumping straight up.
To her credit, she didn't panic and flail. He kicked off a junction box, then a hole in the wall, and soon enough they were on the roof. Beneath them, the machines crashed into one another, their head's turning this way and that. Izuku backed away from the roof's edge, letting go of Komori and sighing.
"That was close..." he murmured, and he heard Komori hum in agreement. "Okay... I get the feeling we aren't actually done yet."
"Did we do that?" Komori wondered aloud, sitting down on the cement roof.
"I-I think so, yeah..." Izuku agreed. "I mean, they showed up right when we activated our device. This must has been the real test all along."
"But what do we do now?" Komori wondered. "Is there an evac point or something?"
Izuku thought for a moment, scratching his chin with a metal finger. Crescendo had rounded fingertips though, so it was more like rubbing his chin while he hummed to himself. Was this the end? No. If it was, there wouldn't be new robots to fight. Then it must have been the start of the second phase. But what was the goal of the second phase?
Crescendo thrummed with energy as he wondered, and he could hear Komori scratching her head. Their first objective had been to unite with their partner and combine their devices. The second...
"It's kinda weird that Snipe-sensei told us to compete," Komori interjected. "Vlad-sensei never wanted us to fight during exercises unless they were combat focused. He always told us to work together."
Work together.
'So don't go thinking you can smash her up the way Midoriya did to her last year.' Snipe said in his mind.
It clicked.
"We aren't supposed to compete." he said, snapping his fingers. "It's a logical ruse, like Aiza... Aizawa-sensei. They're testing us, seeing if we'll work together even when we're set against each other. Each of these devices wakes up those robots down there..."
He looked at their finished device. It was unassuming, two halves of a metal disc now combined into a single flat circle of metal, with a little red dot in the middle that slowly blinked on and off. Then he paused, and looked again. A blinking light...
"This thing's emitting a signal." he realized, before looking at the Warhound.
"But what kind?" Komori asked, and he frowned.
"I have no idea." Izuku admitted. "But I bet it has something to do with the Warhound."
He turned to Komori, offering her a hand up. She stared at him for a second before taking it, the motion hesitant. He smiled reassuringly at her, before glancing sidelong at the Warhound again.
"We need to find the others," he said. "Any ideas"
Komori nodded once.
"I have one." she said, before pointing up towards the Warhound. "But we need to get on that thing."
Izuku smiled again, brighter now, with a gleam of mad delight in his eye. Climbing up a giant robot to send a message?
"Let's do it." he agreed. "Get on my back. I have plenty of practice carrying people that way."
"But… what if you need to fight?" Komori asked.
Izuku laughed.
"Plenty of practice," he repeated, turning around. "Now hop on."
AN:
Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated, I assure you. Rumours of my illness, meanwhile, have not. I'm on antibiotics right now but it isn't for anything deadly, so don't worry; this story isn't going to die. At least, not until I do.
The story is cruising along. After this lovely four part chapter (yes, four parts, I am a madman) we'll be getting to the main thrust of this arc, which involves fire, death and dogs in equal measure. Let it be known beforehand that I do not condone the usage of your fellow man as kindling for societal revolution under any circumstances.
And at the insistence of my lovely and supremely talented editor Unsettling-A.I.R I will now be adding an outtakes segment in which we will have a short discussion about the future of this story so he doesn't remain some nebulous being that exists in the shadows and is potentially a figment of my imagination.
AIR: YEEES! After a thousand years I finally get to appear in the fic!
Son: God knows why you'd want to, given what happens to most of the characters in here.
AIR: Yeah, but if shit didn't happen then life would be mighty boring, masochists, that's what we all are I tell you.
Son: I can't disagree with that, I suppose. Now, do be so kind as to tell me why on Earth you wanted to edit this story of all the stories?
AIR: To be honest? I really liked the idea, felt the need to do something most of all, and lastly wanted to try my hand at editing, it can be quite fun.
Son: Ah, the holy trinity of intrigue, boredom and curiosity.
AIR: Works every time. That and a bit of courage. Can't leave the Zelda fans hanging.
Son: So, any words as to the future of our jolly cooperation?
AIR: Hmmmm, hope to actually have a say so in what happens to a character, nothing major really, that would be more work for the both of us. That and I hope to be able to make the fans of this fic smile when they read, that is one of my goals, or rather hopes. That and guilt trip you in the future to write something,maybe, possibly. Only the future can tell, until then dear readers, please stay tuned!
