The second task consisted of a game of "Capture the Flag", where the remaining 32 contestants were going to be split into four teams of eight. The contestants were free to choose who they wanted in their teams, as long as they were the correct number of people. Each team would be given a flag to protect, which they could place anywhere within the confines of their team's corner. The stadium had been fashioned with obstacles and shelters in each corner, giving each team ample room to hide their flag. Every team would be fighting at the same time. The objective was simple: steal the flag from the other teams by any means necessary and bring them to their team's corner. The two teams with the most flags would then move on to the third and final part of the festival.
Once the signal was given, Fey started to look for some teammates. Immediately, she was approached by Todoroki and Yaoyorozu, who had already joined forces.
"Hey Fey!" greeted Momo. "Would you like to join our team?"
"I think we stand a good chance of winning with the combined forces of our quirks," Shouto added.
Fey hesitated. She had thought about asking Iida to be her partner, but Todoroki and Yaoyorozu were formidable opponents. Having their quirks backing her up would definitely cement her position in the next phase.
"Can we invite Tenya as well?" she asked, looking back at him in the distance.
"We were just thinking about inviting him," Momo answered. "Great minds think alike, as they say."
"In that case, count me in!"
They walked over towards Iida and extended their invitation to him. Tenya eagerly agreed, happy to be working alongside Fey for once. With their combined strengths, they would be an unstoppable force on the battlefield. They four of them then set out to find more to join their ranks before the clock was out. Once the countdown had gone to zero, they had a full team and were ready to begin the second trial.
They had been assigned to the blue team and were preparing their strategy for the upcoming game. Fey and Tenya would be on the offensive team, while Todoroki and Yaoyorozu would be running defense with a few others. Since they were the fastest in their team, Tenya and Fey had a lot riding on their shoulders, but they were more than willing to shoulder the burden together. As the game was about to start, Fey turned towards Tenya, holding out her fist towards him as a sign of camaraderie.
"We have 30 minutes," she said to him. "We need to at least secure one flag before the time runs out. Let's do our best."
Tenya nodded and fistbumped her, smiling confidently. "I'm with you. We'll watch each others' backs."
With Tenya by her side and Shoto and Momo defending their flag, Fey was confident that they were going to pull off their plan and win the competition. Midnight signaled for each team to get ready, then blew her whistle, marking the beginning of the game.
Tenya and Fey bolted out of their base, making their way towards the green base that was directly connected to theirs. This was Ochako's team and it showed. Floating all around their team's base were huge chunks of debris that were probably being levitated by Uraraka's quirk. This meant that she was probably running defense for her team. Fey proceeded towards the green side from the air while Tenya ran towards it on foot. As Fey crossed into the green team's territory, she almost got knocked down by one of Uraraka's boulders. After evading the falling debris, she looked for her somewhere in the green team's corner. She spotted her a few meters away at the top of a platform overlooking the battlefield and flew straight for her. Unfortunately, her charge was intercepted by Tokoyami's dark shadow and this time, she was knocked to the ground. She braced herself for impact, rolling as best as she could as to avoid hurting herself, but the fall had knocked her prone. As she was picking herself up from the floor, Tokoyami swooped in to try and pin her down, but Fey's reflexes were faster and she managed to evade his attack.
"Approaching our base from the air wasn't really the best idea, Fey," Tokoyami said in a flat tone.
"That's what you think," she answered smugly.
She started fighting him, trying to find an opening, but his shadow was quick to intercept all of her strikes. Now that they were at ground level, hidden by debris and cover, Tokoyami's shadow was even stronger because of the lower amount of light. This was going to be a tough fight for Fey, but luckily, she wouldn't have to face him alone.
An explosion suddenly caught both their attention. The red team had also decided to attack the green corner, with Bakugou and Sero leading the offensive. The two of them flew across the battlefield like it was nothing, bypassing most of the green team's defenses with ease. While Tokoyami had been distracted by them, Fey finally had found her opening and was now running away from him to go look for his flag. Unfortunately, her search was quickly over when she heard Bakugou's voice yell out for her.
"YOU LITTLE BITCH! I'M GONNA KILL YOUUU!"
Not good. He was now flying straight for her. Looks like she was going to have to run defense after all. If she could buy Iida some time to find the green corner's flag while she distracted Bakugou, maybe they could win this. She flew up to meet Bakugou, using the floating boulders Ochako had put up as cover against his attacks. She knew she couldn't face him head on, so she had to be careful. Meanwhile, she looked down to see if she could spot Tenya or any of her other teammates from where she was. Sure enough, she found Tenya locked in a battle with one of the green team's members. He seemed to be holding his own against his opponents, just as Fey had expected it. After running circles around Bakugou for a minute or two, she heard someone from her team call out for them.
"I've found it!"
He held out the green flag in his hand, but as he did this, he inadvertently had painted a huge target on his back. For a split second, Bakugou and Fey exchanged a look, then bolted towards the flagbearer. Her teammate's eyes flashed with terror as he saw everyone converge onto him. As everyone was running to reach him, Ochako started dropping even more debris onto everyone's heads, blocking off certain passages leading towards the flagbearer, but also boxing him in. The only person that could reach him now was Fey, and she pushed herself even harder in order to out fly Bakugou. In a matter of seconds, she had reached her teammate and had grabbed hold of the flag, changing directions suddenly to fly back up into the air. Once she was airborne again, she could see everyone from the green team and the red team trying to converge onto her. Most of them couldn' reach her though, since she was so high up in the air.
Fey started flying towards her team's base but was quickly cornered by Sero and Bakugou, who were also utilizing Ochako's boulders to their advantage. Sero shot at her with his tapes while Bakugou propelled himself forward to meet her mid-air. Fey barely managed to evade the two of them, flying high in hopes of finding a way out of this situation. That's when Iida caught her eye from ground level. He had freed himself from his previous opponent and was trying to see how he could help Fey from where he was. Fey went to dive towards him, but her wing had been caught by one of Sero's tapes. She groaned as she tried to fight against it, but she had no time to free herself with Bakugou hot on her trail. That's when she decided to put her contingency plan to good use. See, when she had swooped down to retrieve the flag from her ally, she had also swiped a rock from the ground. She then wrapped the flag around the rock in case she needed to quickly throw the flag at one of her teammates, which she was currently doing by throwing the rock at Tenya on the ground.
Unfortunately, her aim had been completely thrown off by Sero pulling on her wing with his tape and the flag landed a few meters away from Tenya. With a row of obstacles between him and the flag, Tenya quickly made his way to it, only to be intercepted by Tokoyami himself. Fey cursed as she saw what was happening on the ground and shot daggers at Sero, who was now shooting more tapes at her to incapacitate her.
"Now I've got you," he snickered.
"Good work Tapes," Bakugou congratulated. "I'll take care of the flag..."
With that, he blasted off towards where the flag had fallen and Fey was now completely immobilized by Hanta's quirk. He grabbed hold of her as he descended to the ground, placing her down in a secluded corner of the green team's territory.
"No hard feelings Fey but..." he began saying as he broke off another piece of tape. He slapped onto her mouth to prevent her from speaking. "I can't have you slowing us down."
He then leeped away to rejoin his teammates, leaving Fey tied up and gagged in the green corner. She tried to undo her bonds but it was just no good. If no one came to help her, she would spend the rest of the match completely incapacitated and unable to help her team. She felt so helpless, writhing on the ground, desperately trying to free herself, and when she finally thought all hope was lost, she saw a familiar shadow appear at the end of the alleyway.
"I've got you, Fey!"
Tenya arrived next to her and ripped the tapes off of her. He freed her from her sticky prison and Fey gasped as she could finally move and breathe properly.
"Tenya!" she exclaimed, visibly happy to see him. "What happened to the flag?"
"Bakugou took it," he confessed. "I'm sorry, Fey... I couldn't get to it in time with Tokoyami on top of me. I have failed you..."
He lowered his head shamefully and Fey stepped up to place her hand on his cheek. She lifted his face to her and tried to smile reassuringly.
"It's okay, Tenya," she declared. "We still might have a shot at winning this."
They still had a few minutes on the clock. Now that she was free, she could return to the fray and help out her team. Tenya nodded in agreement and held out his hand.
"I may have a plan to get us that flag," he declared. "But it'll render me completely useless to the team afterwards."
Fey looked at him curiously, waiting to hear what he had in mind as she grabbed hold of his hand. He swung her into his back, wrapping her legs around his waist.
"This might be a long shot," he warned." But I think it's our best chance at winning this. Do you trust me?"
"I trust you, Tenya," she answered without hesitation. "Just tell me what you need me to do."
"I'm going to launch us into the air. Once we start descending, I want you to slow our fall with your wings. I know this is going to be hard for you, but I think this is the only way we can cover as much ground as possible."
Fey seemed unsure at first. Tenya was a big guy and she previously had tried slowing him down when he fell during their training. But she had gotten stronger since then, or at least she thought she did. This would be the moment she would truly find out...
"Alright, let's do this," she nodded.
Tenya braced himself as he prepared himself for lift off. Fey squeezed her legs and arms tightly around him to avoid being knocked off him once they were in the air.
"RECIPROOOOOO... BURST!"
His engines burned hot with intense blue flames as he kicked off the ground with incredible force and speed. Fey was almost caught off guard by how powerfully his engines had propelled them into the air. The pair soared above the green team's corner, narrowly missing one of the few remaining boulders that were still floating around. The crowd's eyes were fixated on them soaring across the battlefield, blue flames trailing behind them in an impressive display of power. Once they were mid-air, Fey spotted Bakugou in the distance carrying the green flag towards his base. If they didn't retrieve it before the end of the match, their team would be eliminated from the festival.
As they approached the red corner, Tenya and Fey started to lose altitude fast. Iida yelled for Fey to start slowing down their fall, which she did. She gave everything she had into her wings, flapping them harder and faster than she ever had done before. Her legs squeezed around Tenya's waist like a python coiling around its prey as she tried not dropping him as they descended. They were still falling pretty fast, but they were gradually slowing down as Fey's wing buzzed furiously behind her.
"Tenya..!" she groaned. "I won't be able to keep this up for much longer!"
She was feeling her stamina wane rapidly through so much effort. Tenya could feel her falter, but they were so close to their goal.
"Just a bit longer Fey!" he encouraged as they approached Bakugou's position.
She kept them afloat with all the strength she could muster, focusing all of her energy into her legs and her wings.
"NOW TENYA!" she screamed with urgency.
This made Bakugou turn around. He stared in complete shock as they soared above him, snatching the flag from his grasp before crashing down in front of him. Tenya pulled Fey against his chest as they both rolled around on the floor before stopping a few meters ahead of Bakugou. They landed one on top of the other, with Iida propping himself up with one arm so he wouldn't crush her underneath him. Fey moaned in pain as her entire body cried out from all the effort and from the fall. When she opened her eyes, she could see Tenya standing over her. Her cheeks immediately started to blush as she realized what position they were currently in, but before anyone had time to react, the timer buzzed loudly, marking the end of the second trial.
Tenya helped Fey up, but she could barely stand on her own after expending so much energy during the last few minutes of the game. They both looked at the green flag in Iida's hand as they started celebrating, taking each other in each other's arms like they did at the end of the first trial.
"We did it!" Fey exclaimed. "We got it!"
They then heard Bakugou roaring in anger next to them. Tenya kept an eye on him in case he would try something against him, but the sound of Midnight's voice announcing the winners distracted him from doing so.
"That concludes our second trial! Congratulations to the winner of this match: Blue team coming in last minute with the green and blue flag, and red team also making a last minute swipe with the yellow and red flag!"
Fey and Tenya both stared at Bakugou who, despite having lost his flag, had still won. He glared at them for a moment, before walking away towards the exit. Fey exhaled, relieved to see him finally leave, then turned her attention towards Iida.
"That was incredible, what you did Tenya!" she cheerfully exclaimed. "I didn't know you could channel so much power into your engines!"
"It was something I had been holding on to for the festival," he explained. "I wanted to give myself an edge in case things got especially hectic during the trials. You were also impressive, Fey! You managed to keep us in the air longer than I had anticipated!"
"Yeah but look at the state of me now," she groaned. "I'm definitely going to have to eat something after this..."
They both laughed as they rejoined their teammates at the gate. They mused at how the pair had managed to secure them a victory at the very last second. While Fey was really proud of what she and Tenya had accomplished, she also knew that this would be the end of their cooperative work together. Now, they would all face each other off in one on one combat, and Tenya, as well as any of her classmates, could end up being her opponents in the third part of the Sports Festival...