"GO!"
With those words, all the students began racing through the gate. As this was going on, Aizawa and Present Mic observed from the commentator's booth.
"AND THEY'RE OFF TO A BLAZING START! SHO, WHO DO YOU THINK IS GONNA WIN THIS?!"
"I can't give a rational answer off the top of my head but I can only guess that Midoriya, Shield, or Uraraka will arrive first. However, even General Ed students can find new uses for their Quirks that they didn't think of during the Entrance Exam. It was designed to be as impartial as possible, but sometimes a promising student slips through the cracks because they didn't fully understand how the exam works. It'll be interesting to see if any of them can prove they have more potential than a student from the Hero Course."
"WOW, THAT...makes a lot of sense, actually..."
Back with the students, they were all pushing and shoving to get past the gate considering how narrow it actually was. Suddenly, with a burst of ice, quickly got through the crowd and began skating away, leaving many of them with frozen limbs.
"Not cool, Todoroki!" Izumi shouted as she held her hands out and pulled all the ice off of everyone before melting it into water. Forming a surfboard construct with the water she collected, Izumi made it big enough for her to get Kouji, Minoru, Rikidou, Yuuga, Momo, Eijirou, Katsumi, and a few Support and General Ed students on board as well.
"LOOK AT OUR SWEET LITTLE GREEN TEA GAL! SHE'S PROVIDING A LIFT FOR HER OPPONENTS AFTER TODOROKI'S COLD OPENING!" Present Mic commentated as Melissa smirked, thanks to her power, she had already cleared the entire track but had immediately gone back in the blink of an eye before anyone noticed it.
"Makkari's Speed...An instant-win for me but I like to play fair."
"Damn Two-Face! You won't get away that easily!" Katsumi snarled as she launched herself off Izumi's waterboard and propelled herself forward with her explosions. Akatani had flown over the other contestants with the Quirk [Heat Force], emitting blasts of heat and force from his hands and feet.
"Those guys in Class 1-A are no joke..." Hitoshi noted as he was being carried by several students who seemed to be in a trance of sorts.
"THIS IS FRICKIN' GREAT! EVERYONE IS GIVING IT THEIR ALL!" Inasa roared in excitement, manipulating wind currents to fly through the air as he managed to keep an even pace with Akatani.
"He's sure pumped up..." Akatani thought as he watched Inasa overtake him briefly.
"Sorry guys, I gotta make this on my own!" Minoru said as he was the next to jump off Izumi's water board. Using his hairballs as trampolines, the dwarfish boy leaped across the track as he soon caught up to Shoto.
"AH-HA! YOU'RE WIDE OPEN, TODOROKI! NOW PREPARE YOURSELF FOR MY ULTIMATE ATTACK! GRAPE RU-!"
Sadly, before Minoru could make his move, he was suddenly punched by a giant metal fist and sent flying away, tumbling across the track.
"MINETA-KUN!" Izumi cried in horror as Ochako flew past, a pink aura surrounding her as she controlled her personal gravity to fly. Quickly, she caught Minoru and righted him on his feet before flying ahead, turning around to quickly give a thumbs-up.
"Looks like we hit the first obstacle," Momo said as she saw the robots from the Entrance Exam appear, one of them being responsible for knocking Minoru out of the sky.
"AND HERE'S THE FIRST OBSTACLE, PEOPLE! ROBO INFERNO!" Present Mic loudly announced.
"Any of you want to get off here?" Izumi asked those currently riding her water construct surfboard.
"Madame Midoriya, I appreciate your assistance but this is my stop," Yuuga said, giving a sparkling wink and a two-finger salute as he flipped off the board and began running across, using his laser to punch holes through some of the robots that approached him.
"Aoyama's got the right idea, we can't let Midoriya just carry us to victory!" Rikidou said as he jumped off next, taking out a vial of sugar from his pocket and downing the contents as his muscles bulked up thanks to his [Sugar Rush] Quirk. As soon as he hit the ground, Rikidou was already beginning to throw away the robots in his path as if they were minor annoyances.
Izumi landed her board and dispelled it, deciding to run the rest of the way as Kouji called out for a flock of birds to distract the robots, allowing several more students to bypass them. Fumikage used Dark Shadow to scale a Zero-Pointer, Sero using his tape to follow suit.
"They certainly make it look easy," Shoto admitted, conjuring up an ice wall. "But I wish these robots were a bit more challenging. My dear old dad's watching, after all."
The ice hit another zero-pointer, completely wiping it out. He deliberately timed it so that it was frozen while off-balance. Too late to stop most of his classmates, who had pulled ahead, but perhaps enough to give himself more of a lead and hurry to catch up.
One of the robots fell on top of Eijirou and Tetsutetsu. A few of the students panicked, believing them to be dead, only for the two boys to tear out of the back, both in hardened states. Tetsutetsu's Quirk was similar to Eijirou's but he instead coated his entire body in solid steel using the iron in his blood.
"Dammit! Now people are gonna compare us as siblings separated at birth even more!" Eijirou complained as he and Tetsutetsu climbed out of the robot carcass and ran to catch up with the rest of their classmates.
With a collection of teamwork and creative thinking, most of the students managed to take down and/or bypass the robots. However, it was then that they arrived at the next obstacle.
"AND HERE WE HAVE OUR SECOND OBSTACLE! IF YOU FALL, YOU'RE OUT, SO YOU MIGHT HAVE TO CRAWL! IT'S THE FALL!"
"Do you always have to announce it like that?" Aizawa asked flatly.
"Haven't you ever heard of a little thing called showmanship?"
"Iida-Kun, slow your engines down or you'll get hurt!" Izumi cried out.
"She's right!" Akatani called from above, having managed to see the next obstacle from his higher position.
The Fall was a deep pit, with numerous columns inside connected by tightropes. Tenya noticed and began to slow down but he wasn't able to stop before reaching the Pit and promptly fell. The bottom was full of foam cubes like those at an acrobatics gym, so falling wouldn't hurt.
"WHOA THERE!" Inasa cried as he flew down and snagged Tenya before placing him safely on one of the columns. "Just because we're in separate classes doesn't mean our hot-blooded run should end here!"
"Thank you..." Tenya breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm in your debt, Yoarashi."
"No problem! Keep showing that hot-blooded passion!"
With that, Inasa blasted off with his winds while Tenya used his engines to skate across the tightropes, making a rather silly pose while doing so to keep his balance.
Ochako, Izumi, and Akatani also flew effortlessly across the pit without much problem. Katsumi followed after them with her explosions and Shoto used his ice to skate across the tightropes similar to Tenya.
"This is where I get to shine, kero," Tsuyu said as she made a great leap and effortlessly landed on one of the tightropes, clinging to it with ease before crawling across. The girl with pink dreadlocks who was leading Class 1-H smirked as she stepped over the pit as well.
"This is my chance to show what my super cute babies can do. My support items will steal the spotlight!"
Melissa was watching the pink dreadlock-haired girl with interest from her position across the pit, having simply flown across.
"Mei Hatsume from Support Course Class 1-H...I really admire her passion and her Quirk [Zoom], while simple, is good for seeing faraway things or scouting out places.
Mei fired off grapple lines attached to her waist and flew across the pit using a set of hover soles.
"My super cute babies are sure to make a splash! I hope all those companies out there are watching!"
Focusing on Shoto, he was pretty pissed at the moment. He had completely underestimated his classmates and he was now paying the price.
"What's wrong, Two-Face?!" Katsumi taunted as she blasted past the two-toned boy. "Didn't think we'd get past you, huh?!"
Shoto growled as he slammed shoulders with Katsumi, who smirked as she pushed back, everyone about to make it to the final obstacle.
Many of the Pro Heroes were watching the race with intrigue, some of them taking special notice in the likes of Izumi, Ochako, Katsumi, Shoto, Melissa, and Akatani.
"Man, check out the guys up in first."
"They not only have strong Quirks but natural athletic ability."
"The Ice Kid is pretty dauntless."
"Yeah, I heard that's Endeavor's son!"
"Really!? But still, he is getting kind of shown up by the exploding girl! And that girl who can use water and all those other elements!"
"And that girl is flying? But she's also used electricity to pull apart a few of those robots. What is her power?"
"I think what she used was a mixture of Gravity and Electromagnetism but I could be wrong."
"That girl with the blonde hair...isn't she the daughter of David Shield, one of All-Might's old sidekicks?"
"Yeah! I could have sworn I saw her at the end for a split-second!"
Izumi, who was currently in first with Akatani, Ochako, and Melissa following close behind, saw a sign that had one word written on it: "Minefield".
"Oh no...GUYS! HEADS UP, IT'S A MINEFIELD!"
"Good thing most of us can go airborne!" Akatani said as he continued using [Heat Force] to keep himself in the air.
"AN ASTUTE OBSERVATION FROM MIDORIYA! WELCOME TO THE FINAL OBSTACLE; THE MINEFIELD! THEY WON'T KILL YOU, BUT THEY'LL SURE MAKE YOU PEE YOUR PANTS IF YOU'RE NEAR THE BLAST!" Present Mic announced.
"Even so, Minefields are just too dangerous!" Ochako protested as she threw her hands down and unleashed waves of pink electricity from her palms, the electromagnetic bolts magnetically pulling out all the minefields and gathering them in a cluster before she spun it around, removing gravity to pick up speed before throwing it into the stratosphere, a majestic purple explosion briefly flashing across the sky.
"UH, I GUESS URARAKA OBJECTED TO THE MINES… SHE JUST BLEW UP THE LAST OBSTACLE! SHOTA, WHAT DO YOU TEACH THESE KIDS!?"
"Don't blame me… the mines were a dumb idea."
Ochako panted heavily, having overexerted a lot of energy with that stunt. She soon began falling to the ground but was caught by Inasa.
"Man, I don't get why Monoma hates on you all. Class 1-A is frickin' awesome!"
"Thanks for catching her, Yoarashi-Kun!" Izumi called out as Inasa smiled, continuing to carry Ochako in his arms. Shoto tried to catch up, but Katsuki elbowed him in the stomach and blasted ahead with her explosions while Tenya moved into Third Gear with his engines to catch up. Shoto got up as fast as he could and tried to follow suit but the race was soon over.
"WELL, WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT!? THE ONE WHO MADE IT BACK TO THE STADIUM FIRST IS NONE OTHER THAN… IZUMI MIDORIYA!" Present Mic announced.
In the League of Villains' hideout, Tomura, Nine, Number Six, and Curator were sitting on separate couches and watching the Sports Festival. Their 'Sensei' had told them that it would be good to study their enemies this way.
"Should've figured that little Broccoli-Haired Girl would take the Gold Medal for this race," Tomura said. "Heh, it ain't like Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games but it's fun to see nonetheless."
"A shame that Aka-Chan couldn't take first but he always was a humble sort..." Number Six grumbled.
"Still, this provides us with intricate data. And Sensei has also kindly hacked into the cameras across the stadium in order to get significantly juicy details from any corner we can come across." Curator said.
"A good thing too. After Aoyama was found out, we no longer have a mole on the inside of UA, so we have to improvise now." Nine commented.
Already the students of the Business Course were talking about how Izumi's Quirk would be easy to market. Since the Business Course had no interest in truly participating in the events, none of them had any desire to be actual pro heroes, they instead performed market simulations on the other participants and ran vendors around the festival grounds.
Katsumi came out of the gate in fourth place behind Akatani and Melissa but was still satisfied with the result. Ochako and Inasa were in fifth and sixth respectively and Shoto was fuming as he found himself in tenth place, having been overtaken by Momo, Minoru, and Tenya.
"Deku-Chan!" Ochako said, running over, having regained some of her energy. "That was amazing! I can't believe you got first place!"
"Indeed, it was truly outstanding work, Midoriya," Tenya said. "Even with my speed, I was only able to get seventh. Still respectable, though. I just hope my brother was watching."
"Well, Yoarashi-Kun from Class 1-B was no slouch. The level of control with that kind of Air Manipulation...I don't think even I can compare with my own Aerokinesis!" Izumi commented.
"You hoping to intern with him when this is over?" Izumi asked.
"Our family has had a long history of learning from each other. Though sometimes we branch out and improve what we already have by learning from other agencies. While I would like to show Tensei how much I've improved, I feel I could learn better from someone outside my family's agencies."
"Two birds with one stone, I'm a genius!" Minoru triumphantly sighed as he hoped off Momo's back, having piggybacked with her using his hairballs.
"Ugh, you're the worst," Momo grumbled as she created a special spray to unstick the hairballs from her back.
All of Class 1-A and 1-B managed to qualify for the next event alongside Hitoshi and Mei. With that, Midnight made her announcement.
"Our next competition will be...CAVALRY BATTLE! All participants will form teams of two to four, with one person riding on top. No different from your typical playground game, but with one difference. Each of you has been assigned a different point value based on your position in the Obstacle Race. Depending on who is teamed up, they will have a different point value. The points go up in increments of five, with the person in 42nd only being worth five points and so on up."
"Seems simple enough," Akatani said.
"However, to spice up the competition, the person in first will be worth a whopping ten million points!"
Izumi squeaked as she noticed everyone giving her challenging looks. Katsumi sighed as she walked over and put a hand on her best friend's shoulder, Ochako doing so on the other.
"Don't worry, Deku-Chan, we got your back!"
"Look, Deku, I'm not gonna be on your team. I ain't riding on your coattails for this...but you better hold on to that ten million points, even as I try to take them."
Izumi gulped and nodded. "I'll try, Kaachan..."
And so began the harrowing Cavalry Battle, which is also the author's least favorite part in the story.
"Really?" Izumi asked.
YES, REALLY! END CHAPTER NOW!
"Geez, touchy isn't he?" Minoru commented.
Next Time: Cavalry Battle!