A/N: Ok, it's been two months since the previous chapter and I wanted to get it out since then. But I wanted to focus more on my college work and also recover from the term. Also I had no idea how to get the two into the U.S.J before All-Might gets there, but I got that figured out.
Anyways, here's the new chapter.
The next couple of days went as normal as it could be for the two mercenaries, well, normal for their standards. There wasn't any more devices or gear from the Support Course Laboratory exploding in the bathrooms, though there were occasional pieces of debris flung into the hallway as well as some scorch marks that needed to be cleaned up. But other than that, the two's days went by uninterrupted by any abnormal events.
They both hoped that things would stay that way for the time being, but given their team's track record of normality, it would be only a matter of time before someone or something would come along and ruin it.
It was yet another day for Engineer and Heavy. It has been a little over a couple of months since they've started working at U.A, but progress on getting back home was almost nonexistent. Engineer was able to figure out what caused the malfunction with the Teleporter. It was due to a short within the wiring which caused the power source to flux and overload. Even though he figured out what was going wrong so it wouldn't suck them into yet another dimension, he had no idea how he would be able to safely recreate the temporal gateway to get them back home.
There were several issues regarding this, first off was the power source. The final measurable wattage that was recorded by Engineer's PDA for the Teleporter maxed out at 1.0 gigawatts. He estimated that the true wattage was greater than that. This led to the second problem: materials. He needed more materials to upgrade the Teleporter to make it safe for dimensional travel, to power the thing, and so it didn't explode after one use. Lastly, was making sure it took them back to their dimension, and that was pretty self explanatory.
For the power source, Engineer figured using Australium would help lessen the amount of input power. It was very conductive and amplified the current as it passed through the metal. Only problem was that he had none on him, nor was it likely that he could find it in Australia. Mann Co. never existed in this world and Australia was never a leader in technology.
For the other two problems, he still had to think about them. Sure he had twelve PhDs in science, but other than the theories of quantum mechanics, actually traveling to different worlds was not something he learned in the class room.
"Engineer, many people ahead."
Breaking his concentration, Engineer looked up and saw what was Heavy talking about. A large congregation of people crowded the entrance to the school. A couple of security guards tried their best at keeping them back to no avail.
"Ah, reporters...wonder what they're doing here?"
"Heavy wishes he knew, but maybe it was due to All-Might working at school."
"Hm, maybe that's it." Engineer did read in the newspaper that the Number 1 Pro Hero All-Might was working here. He figured they wanted like some kind of interview with the staff or someone on it. "Though it seems they really want to get that story from the look of it."
"Da, but they are in way."
U.A had only one way onto campus and that was from the main gate, at least from what they both knew. But considering the amount of people crowding the front gate, that made it a little hard.
"Ah guess we gotta push ourselves through the crowd."
As the two steeled themselves to wade through the pool of reporters, the entire crowd suddenly shifted left for some reason.
"Uh, where're they're going?"
"To those kids." Heavy said pointing the a trio of students, two boys and a girl. "Heavy sees green hair boy, pink-cheeked girl, and boy that remind Heavy of Doctor."
"Say aren't they in that Aizawa teacher's class? Ah think we saw them just the other day."
"Da."
"Ah think we better go help them. No telling what them media mongols gonna do to them."
It was supposed to be just another day for the recent One for All user, Izuku Midoriya. He met up with his two new friends Ochaco Uraraka and Tenya Iida so they could walk to U.A together. If anything, the only thing that they were expecting that day is homework from the teachers. However, they did not expect to be mobbed by a gaggle of reporters.
Just as they were going to be bombarded with a flurry of questions, a large shadow loomed over the entire group.
At first the green-haired boy thought the shadow belonged to All-Might, given the shadow's size and stature. But he was quite mistaken when he looked up.
'MENACING'
Ok, that was not All-Might.
Digging through his memories, he remembered that it was one of the two janitors that caught his attention during the Assessment that Aizawa Sensei gave on their first day. That particular person was a large man who's size rivaled some of the popular Pro Heroes. He watched as the man parted the sea of reporters and walked right up to them.
He pointed to each of them, "Go. Now. School."
It was apparent that this person was not from Japan from the first glance, but given his foreign accent and his trouble pronouncing those two simple words confirmed that thought.
Back to the situation on hand, the three students were so bewildered by the man's sudden appearance, as well as what he just said, that they were all unable to properly respond to him.
Heavy silently wished he studied a bit more Japanese before doing this. Foreign language was not his strong suit and he did not like talking in general. He preferred to let his actions speak for themselves.
And that's what he did.
Letting out a sigh, he picked up the three students, tucked them under his arms, and walked through the school gates. All while being watched with blank stares by the reporters and gate guards. He them placed all three of them down gently, waved good bye, and left to meet up with Engineer.
Until he was out of sight, the three were still in the same position they were outside of the school. Only then they were able to break out from their trance.
"W-w-what just happened...?" Uraraka sputtered out.
"Nice job there partner." Engineer said as Heavy walked up to him, having watched the entire ordeal.
"Heavy think he could do better, language is hard."
"Ah that's nothing. It's a hard subject for everyone."
When the two got to their room, they were given outdoor duty. Besides cleaning the inside of the building, the custodians were also responsible for some of the landscaping for the school. It mostly involved just cutting the grass with a ride-on mower and trimming the low-lying shrubbery. Anything that required more expertise, like tree trimming, was done by a outside third-party.
Engineer took the lawnmower job since he knew how to use it and Heavy took the shrubbery trimming one. The jobs weren't that different than what they were used to, it still was a great deal of manual labor, but a saving grace was that Japan was significantly cooler than the southern United States.
As Engineer rode around on the lawnmower, Heavy used some comically large shears to cut any branches off some bushes and hedges that decided to grow outwards. After finishing, they would gather all the lawn clippings and branches into a large pile before dumping it into composting bins.
The two slowly made their way around the campus cleaning up the grassy landscape, only stopping for a few minutes to rest under the shade. They managed to get halfway around the school by midday and was beginning to start on the front side of the school, near the main entrance.
There wasn't much shrubbery near the main entrance so Heavy instead was sweeping the excess grass off the path and back onto the lawn.
While waiting for Engineer for make another pass, Heavy decided to lean against the concrete wall that separated the school from the outside world. He took off his hat and wiped the sweat off his face. When Engineer was finished, he did his part and went back waiting.
On the third time, he went back to the wall and leaned back...only to fall flat onto his back.
Engineer saw Heavy fall from the corner of his eye and stopped the mower. He got off and ran towards the Russian. "You ok there partner...?" he said before trailing off.
"Da, Heavy is fine," he said before noticing that Engineer was staring at something. "Engineer, is something wrong?"
Heavy was unsuccessful trying to get the Texan's attention by waving his hand in front of him, he sighed and decided to see what was bothering Engineer.
But as he turned around, his jaw dropped, just like Engineer's.
The wall was gone.
Well, saying it was gone is a bit of an overstatement, as most of it was still there. But a large circular hole leading to the outside world was present in the seemingly impenetrable wall.
And it was getting bigger.
"Ah...ah think we should tell someone about this." Engineer finally said after finding his voice. He fumbled around for his radio and was about to call it in when he noticed a large congregation of people gather around the hole.
It was those reporters from earlier.
They both knew what was going to happen. Heavy's eyebrows slowly tabled.
"FACK."
Meanwhile...
Nezu quietly enjoyed his tea as he took a break from his principal duties. The mouse-like humanoid was particularly bothered by the increased media coverage the school was getting the past couple of days. Sure it was their job, but he believed they were going a bit too far by harassing the students and staff just to get more information about All-Might.
Just as he was about to place the teacup to his lips, a loud siren went off, sending the teacup and its contents flying all over the place.
Quickly composing himself, he scrambled to a window to see what was happening. His eyes quickly spotted a large crowd gathered near the front gate area. He saw that most of them were the reporters that were camping outside the school gates, but in the midst of all that chaos, was the two janitors trying to control the crowd.
Or just trying to survive the mob. He couldn't tell.
"And I wanted a bit of excitement for today." he said to himself as he exited his office to help coordinate the response team.
Nonlethal crowd control was something that Engineer and Heavy were not really versed in. After all, they were mercenaries, not cops. Nevertheless, they had to improvise, as this is what they often do on a daily base when things go south.
Engineer was using a broom as his choice of weapon and Heavy was using a plastic garbage bin as his. They were trying their best to hold the reporters back in a small area from the breach site. The only thing they could really do is push them back, they couldn't really hit them cause they didn't want to delve into any legal trouble.
Luckily for them, the Pro Hero teachers came in the nick of time and were able to drive the reporters back outside. Considering they were the only two people present when the wall came down, they were heavily questioned by the staff.
"As what ah said earlier, that's just how it happened. We don't know why the wall went up and disappeared." Engineer said. "If it was an explosion, it would have been quite obvious to us. But ah don't think that's the case."
Nezu quietly nodded, "Well, it's quite apparent that you two weren't the cause of this," he said. "You two were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Not the first time something like that happened..." Engineer muttered under his breath, referring to the situations the TF team got into over the many years.
Nezu heard that but chose to ignore it. "Anyways, I would like to thank you two for taking control of the situation. This is something that has never happened before in the school's history."
"Well, the important thing is no one got seriously hurt and the students are safe."
"Yes, luckily nothing more serious occurred. Say, why don't you two take the rest of the day off. I think you had enough excitement for today."
Engineer and Heavy looked at each other and shrugged. "Ok, we'll just pack up the lawn equipment first," Engineer said. "Later sir."
Heavy replied with a nod and grunt before turning to gather the equipment.
As the two left on their respective vehicles, the teachers turned back to matter at hand. The U.A barrier was mostly destroyed, disintegrated by the looks of it according to what little information they had.
"Do you think one of the reporters caused it?" the Gunslinger Hero Snipe asked aloud.
"I highly doubt that," Nezu replied. "I do not think a reporter would go so such lengths just to get within the school's walls. Though I do believe something more sinister is at play..."
With their work day cut short due to a possible Villain attack, the two retired back to their apartment. Engineer went to work on some translation devices so they could communicate with other without having Principal Nezu translating for them. While he was doing that, Heavy was quietly doing maintenance on their weapons. These things were important to their survival in this world as it was one of few things that could give them an edge against Quirk Users.
They had no Respawn, so their deaths would be permanent. Dying was not an option.
Engineer was able to finish the devices about five hours later. It consisted of an earpiece and Walkman-sized speaker that could be attached to the belt. The earpiece would take in and translate what is being heard and the speaker would output what the user says. A few tests showed it worked at least 85% of the time, as in translate properly, but that was good enough for now. Only problem was that the voice that came out of the device was a bit robotic, but it was a small price to pay. Engineer also hoped to downsize the device in the future, but they had to make what they had for now.
Also while scavenging the Dispenser for spare parts, he found the head of an Engineer Robot. Like all robots Gray Mann built, most functioned and acted similar to what the mercenaries were. The Engineer bot was no different, however it served more of a strategist than a fighter. This was due to the literal supercomputer Gray somehow implanted into robot, a marvel that Engineer was kinda impressed at.
Something Engineer needed was another set of hands to help him with more projects down the line. He also planned on building a more secure and permanent base he and Heavy could operate out of. That's where the Engineer bot came in.
Not only could the bot operate as a second Engineer, but it could also build other robots as well. Allowing them to have a robot army as well.
Engineer considered himself lucky for finding the robot head mostly intact and functioning. This part of the robot housed the important programming that made it act how it was supposed to act. It was also that Engineer was unable to accurately replicate an Engineer robot's programming on his own.
The only thing to do now is build the body and find another source of power than money. He never understood how it worked or why Gray Mann made the robots run on that, but he could care less. The money allowed the mercenaries to upgrade their weapons to defeat the robots.
Seeing that night had fallen, he decided to turn in for the night. He saw Heavy watching the news, which showed the infiltration of U.A via the destroyed barrier.
"Heavy still wonders what happened to wall."
"Ah don't know partner, but whoever did it, ah hope we don't run into them."
"Da, but Heavy hope they cannot outsmart bullet."
A/N: And that wraps up this chapter. Next time, U.S.J and killing tiny baby men...Texas Style.
-D.W
