Chapter 74: More Work Than Study
The only thing louder than his own agony was Mina's.
"AAAAAAH!" she shrieked, tears streaming out of her eyes.
"AAAAAAAAH!" he echoed, his teeth clenching, all his muscles locking up in blatant resistance. His whole body felt like it was about to fall apart. They could not endure this much longer. They could not-
"Oh, stop your yappin'," Mirko groaned. "You've got a long way to go yet."
"Are you serious?!" Mina cried. "This is worse than our summer training camp!" She was currently being made to burn through a massive pile of bricks, gathered by Mirko, with her acid. One by one. Alternating between maximum viscosity and maximum acidity, requiring her to constantly switch her focus.
"Much worse," Doko agreed with a hiss. He had his own pile of bricks and debris, only he was having to warp them at fast speeds, and then back to the exact spot on the pile where they came from. Both his arms and brain were under immense strain from the focus it took.
"Giving up already?" Mirko asked them from the upper balcony, which the gym had. It circled the perimeter of the room, and the bunny hero had been running around it in a circles, randomly throwing stuff at their heads from above. Every time she did it, she would shout, "LOOK FAST!" and Doko and Mina would have to instantly break their concentration of what they were doing, look up, and warp or melt the thing away before it hit them and gave them permanent brain damage.
This had been going on erratically for about two hours now.
"No," Doko and Mina both answered in low voices. Doko warped another brick away, and then brought it back to him with a closed fist before it could smash against the ground. The brick wobbled on the spot where it had just been. He had been off by a few inches. It tilted off the precipice of the stack, and then plummeted to the ground and smashed. The pieces scattered apart on the slick gym floor.
"You missed, Everywhere!" Mirko shouted down. "Gonna have to punish you!"
She leapt off the balcony and bounded down toward him.
Doko looked up, screamed, winced inwardly, and warped backwards away from her. She landed so powerfully next to the brick stack that the whole thing fell over, scattering all over the place. The bricks cascade down toward him, and he released his whole Quirk at once through his body. Warp Field.
BOOOOOOM! The percussive purple blast spread out through the room, dissipating just before reaching Mina on the other side. Mirko was unperturbed, though, and while the bricks had been discarded on all sides, she was still coming straight for him.
"DODGE IT!" she commanded, folding into a kick that was coming for his face like a hurtling arrow. Doko waited for her to get close, and then warped forward, through her leg.
They both skidded across the floor and whirled to face each other again. Mirko took off, bouncing off one wall, then another, and coming at him from the left. "USE A BRICK!" she told him.
He picked up the nearest one off the floor with one warp, warping it from the ground to the air, and then threw his arm across his chest in a swipe, warping it toward her. Mirko kicked it out of the air, and bounced upward again over his head. "ABOVE!" she commanded.
He warped another brick in that direction. She dodged and re-angled herself again. Doko realized what the game was, what the training was.
"RIGHT!" she shouted. He warped one right. "FORWARD!" Forward. His arms moved here and there, his brain focusing on each warp, finding each brick and positioning it in the right spot to maybe stop her. "LEFT! BACK! LEFT! RIGHT! ABOVE!"
She came at him from the right again. Doko warped a brick toward her, turning, and then closed his other fist and underhanded it, bringing up to his chest, anchoring another brick with his Quirk and warping it toward himself, and then to a spot behind Mirko. She gasped, somehow figuring out immediately. Does she have weird rabbit-sense instincts?
She re-angled her flexible body in midair, letting the brick whoosh past above her belly, her hair streaming out behind her. Doko's eyes widened in panic, and he had to skid sideways to dodge his own attack.
Mirko hopped off the ground again. "ABOVE!" she said this time.
Doko warped the brick back to his feet, picked it up in his actual hand, and then threw it at her. He warped it forward, retaining its velocity, to get it to her so fast she'd have no time to dodge.
She dodged anyway.
The next thing he knew, her powerful legs had wrapped around his neck, and he was pulled to the ground in a takedown. A spike of panic went through his brain, worrying about the back of his head hitting the floor, but her thighs cushioned the blow.
He choked for a moment, and then patted her leg repeatedly, like a fighter tapping out. She released him with a toothy grin, and then helped him up.
"I can't believe you threw one at me, you cheeky little bastard," said Mirko.
"Little? Usagiyama-san, I'm taller than you."
"And what did that do for ya, huh?" Her grin widened. Doko was trying not to let his cheeks heat up in embarrassment. Just beyond them, Mina was walking up.
"If your flashy warp powers aren't good enough to stop me from getting close to ya like that, what are they good for?" Mirko poked his chest with a gloved finger. "You've got to be on top of it at all times. Absolute focus, you understand?"
"Well, my brain has been on its last freakin' legs for a couple of hours now…"
"What was that?" Her rabbit ears twitched, and she put her hands on her hips. "An excuse? Surely I didn't hear that right."
"Yeah, yeah, okay." Doko sighed. He knew she was right. "I don't think most villains I'll be going up against will be fast as you, but that just makes me glad I'm training against the best. If I can beat you, I can beat anybody."
Mirko beamed. "That's the spirit. Now…" She turned on Mina. "It's lunchtime, so you two take a break. Get changed out of these sweaty practice clothes and into your costumes. I'll come back with some food, and then we'll go on patrol. How does that sound?"
Mina was drenched in sweat, her normally fluffy pink hair drooping down around her horns. "Patrol?" she managed, weakly. "I…"
"Ah, don't worry, you'll feel better after a half hour break and with some food in ya. I'll get on that. Be back in a jiffy."
Mirko hopped away toward the doors. "Get me a large drink, please!" Doko called after her sarcastically.
"Go fuck yourself, kid!" And then she was gone.
Doko and Mina exchanged a long glance, exhaled, relaxed their shoulders, and began to trudge toward the changing rooms.
"At least you got a happy ending to your training," Mina muttered.
"Hmm? You mean her completely wiping the floor with me?" They walked into the same changing room, a dreary white-lit space lined with old lockers.
"Yeah, but it must've been nice to have her thighs around your head like that." Mina leaned down to get her hero costume out of her bag. "Do you have any idea how many guys have dreamed about that?"
"I realize you're teasing, but your voice is so tired it sounds serious."
"Your voice sounds worse." She lifted her head up a bit. Doko saw the slightest golden twinkle in her eyes.
"And I was being kinda serious," she continued. "There's an actual pattern of males with no prior criminal record suddenly turning to villainy in areas where Mirko has shown up publicly. They're down bad enough to risk jail time just to have her take 'em down."
"Imagine being that horny," Doko said, getting his own costume out of his bag. When he looked back up, Mina was staring at him.
He stared right back. She was still sweaty, and looked positively exhausted. Her shirt had even soaked through a bit. His eyes darted down to her chest, and then back up.
Neither of them were sure what it was: either the topic of conversation, or all the built-up frustration from the incredibly difficult training, or just the constant work and stress giving them no time for each other at all.
But they surged toward one another, and kissed passionately.
Mina sighed into his mouth, pressing her entire body against him, articulating her back and running her fingers all through his hair and across his frame. He held her tighter and tighter. Her boobs squished against him. Their crotches rubbed together. They separated lips, took a gasping breath, and went back again.
There was nothing graceful about the kiss. They attacked each others' lips relentlessly, and Doko felt a stirring inside him, hungrier and hungrier. He wanted more.
He grabbed her ass and lifted it, and she responded by spreading her legs. He braced his hands against her thighs and wrapped them around his waist, and carried her backward to the wall, slamming her against the lockers with a crash. "MMMmmph!" Mina moaned.
The room filled with the sounds of their sloppy makeout, faster, faster, faster. Her legs tightened around him. They grinded against each other like animals. He began to work at pulling down her shorts, when…
"Wait," she gasped in between kisses. "Wait," she repeated, and Doko faltered, stepping away, breathing hard. They were both incredibly flushed, and sweaty, and gasping. All his nerves were buzzing.
"I'm…" She swallowed. "I'm sorry, but not now. I mean…I'm horny, but I'm also just so tired."
"Yeah," he said, taking her legs and setting her down gently to stand on the ground again. "Yeah, you're…you're right." Already, the fatigue was getting to him again. If they did this now, they would have even less energy for patrol.
It was frustrating, but they had to be responsible. Slowly, he let the excitement in him wear away.
They looked into each others' eyes, and then kissed again. This one was more gentle, loving. He let himself taste her lips for a moment. They were salty with sweat, but the lingering sweetness was still under there.
When they separated, she traced her fingers along his cheek before backing away. "I think I'm gonna take a shower first before changing," she said.
"Good idea. I'll do the same."
They stripped, their eyes no longer searching each other, and stepped toward the two showers. Both of them turned the knob at the same time. Mina's shower turned on, the water streaming out in a fairly low-pressure, cold trickle. Doko's did not turn on at all.
They looked at each other awkwardly. Doko sighed. "Ladies first, I guess. I'll go in that one after you."
Mina smirked. "If I start screaming, it's because the water is too cold. Come rescue me."
"Right. Don't freeze."
He went back into the changing room, of which the shower room was just a small branch off of, and put his clothes back on. He heard the sounds of Mina showering behind him.
Just a minute or two later, Mirko returned, and poked her head into the changing room. "You modest in here?" she asked, her eyes shut.
"As modest as I'll ever be," he answered frankly.
She opened one eye. "You're too enigmatic." One gloved hand lifted up, with a white bag of American-like fast food, complete with a grease spot on the bottom and everything.
"That was quick," Doko commented.
"What else would you expect from me?"
"You can't be serious about us eating that before we go on patrol."
Mirko seemed offended. "This is food the way our ancestors intended us to eat at its finest."
"My stomach is going to cramp up, one hundred percent."
"Don't be such a wuss," she complained. "If you're really worried about it, I have some granola bars. Pinky in the shower?"
"Yeah. Only one of them worked, so I'm going next. You should have rented a gym with functioning utilities."
Mirko raised an eyebrow, and smirked a little. "You didn't just go in with her?"
Doko blushed. "Shower sex in a freezing, low-pressure gym unit? You must be joking."
"Hmm. You're so difficult to tease."
"Mina found that out long ago, Usagiyama-san."
"At least I got a blush out of you. You didn't even seem embarrassed when I used my thighs on your head."
"I was embarrassed…at losing to you so quickly, that is."
"You two are sexually active though, aren't ya?"
"I'm not entirely sure that's any of your business."
She lifted her hands up defensively. "It's good exercise, is all I'm saying. Especially for her, if she wants to keep those thighs and hips lookin' that healthy. You wouldn't want her to lose those, I bet."
Doko blushed again. Mirko's grin widened. "There it is. Anyway, I'll be out here when you're ready to eat. Then we're heading out into town."
…
Twenty minutes later, both students had freshened up, and were now following behind Mirko on the sidewalk.
They walked on the quieter street where the gym was for a while before turning onto a busier one.
"It's Mirko!"
"Mirko? Oh my God!"
"Mirko, hello!"
"Hi!"
"Can I get your autograph?"
"She's got UA students with her!"
"It's the first year sports festival winner! And that girl he fought!"
"Ohhhh my goodness, are you guys dating?!"
"Can I get your picture, please?!"
They tolerated all the public attention for a while, Mirko being surprisingly good at handling relations with her fans. She signed a few notebooks, while Doko and Mina awkwardly confirmed to the others that yes, they were dating, which caused a few girls to squeal.
"Man, I hope I find a hero boyfriend…the couples at UA must be amazing…"
"If you guys became like, a hero duo…you'd be super popular!"
Doko weakly nodded and repeated "thank you" a few many times, before they had to follow behind Mirko and keep going.
Mina seemed unusually quiet. "What's up with you?" he asked. "Those chicks back there were speaking your language."
She deadpanned at him. "I'm still kinda tired."
Mirko overheard them. "Well, look alive! Something's going on up ahead."
At the next intersection was a decently-sized park. There was a little boy standing under a tree there, looking up into the branches. He was sniffling, and his lip trembled.
"Hey, kiddo." Mirko walked up to him, hands on her hips. "What's the matter?"
He blinked at her, slightly dazzled, and then looked at the two students behind her. "Are you heroes?" he asked.
"That's right," said Mirko.
"Oh. Well…" He wiped his face. "It's no big deal, just my balloon stuck in the tree. I'm sure you guys have bigger things to worry about right now…"
Mirko looked up at the balloon, which was blue and snagged in the branches. "Nothing's too big a deal for heroes, you hear me?" she told him. Then, she nodded back at Doko.
He understood well enough. He lifted his hand and warped the balloon down. It immediately began to try and float back up, but he grabbed the string, stepped forward, and handed it back to the boy.
The boy's eyes widened. "That's a neat Quirk, mister."
"Thank you. Keep a strong grip on that now, alright? You want it to last as long as possible, don't you?"
The boy nodded. "What are your hero names?" he asked. "If it's not too much trouble…"
"I'm Everywhere," said Doko.
"Mirko," Mirko greeted with a funny salute.
"Queen Pinky," said Mina.
The boy nodded again. "I'll remember. Thanks a lot."
He turned and walked away.
The three heroes continued on their walk. "That's what most of the job consists of," said Mirko. "I like to pick fights, so I don't do that sort of stuff as much as heroes…but I still do it sometimes, and you guys should do it even more. I hate to be cynical, but…with more and more heroes in society, you're gonna have to make a real impression on the area you operate in if you wanna be popular. Even as UA students, not everything's gonna be handed to you."
Doko and Mina both murmured assent. Inwardly, they were both thinking: Great, but we kinda already knew that. As tired as they both were of the training in the gym, that had felt like proper progress toward a goal. What was Mirko's game now, with this patrol?
They passed a flower shop, which seemed to be run by an elderly man. He hailed them as they approached, or rather he hailed Mirko.
"Usagiyama-san!" he wheezed, waving. "Nice to see you! Lovely day, isn't it?"
"How many times have I told you to call me Rumi, old man?" Mirko responded.
"At least a few more, heh. Oh, and who are these babies?"
"This is Mina Ashido and Doko Katayama. They're hero students."
"Hello, sir." Doko bowed his head to the elder. Mina did the same.
"Hmm." The man chewed on that for a second. "You goin' soft?" he asked Mirko. "I never heard of you taking on hero students before. Finally decided you don't like workin' alone?"
Mirko seemed flustered for a moment. "I'm just getting these two up to snuff so they don't embarrass the rest of us heroes when they're out on their own! They're not my sidekicks or anything."
"Tsundere," Mina giggled in a low voice, only loud enough for Doko to hear.
"Whatever you say, Rumi." The flower shop owner looked at the students. "You kids look out for her just as much as she's lookin' out for you, alright?"
"Yes, sir," Doko said with mock seriousness. Mina grinned.
"Ugh! You're way out of line, old man!" Mirko whipped around, her hair whipping with her. "Let's go, you two."
"Aww." Mina pouted. "Shouldn't we give him some business, at least?"
"I like this girl!" the old man said excitedly, pointing at her. "Say, I got some hydrangeas in the back that would go just perfect with your whole look there. If you'll let me-"
In a split second, Doko's stomach flipped, and it could not be chalked up to the greasy burger he'd eaten earlier. It was his Quirk. Something bad. Something-
A loud CRASH filled their ears.
Mina looked up wildly. It was somewhat distant, but it sounded huge. Huge and disastrous.
Mirko looked back at the two of them. "Let's go for real now," she said, seriously. Her red eyes narrowed. "Come on!"
"Yeah," Doko squeaked.
"Right!" Mina echoed. "Bye, sir!"
The flower shop owner waved them on in earnest, as Mirko hopped forward, bouncing off street lamps and the sides of the buildings on the left, back and forth.
Doko warped after her, keeping up. Mina activated her Quirk through her shoes, and began to skate on her acid, following behind them. Even as fast as she was, she was the slowest of them, but kept up okay.
They rounded the corner, and all came to a brief, stunned stop.
Ahead of them, an entire apartment building floated in the air, ripped from its foundations and hovering over them about fifteen feet up. Water and piping and rebar were crashing down off of it, leaving a gaping, messy hole of concrete where it had been ripped out.
But that wasn't all. The building was also upside down, flipped completely on its head. Doko could tell from the strange angle of the windows.
Police cars and ambulances and fire engines were blaring, coming up the street. There were several civilians scattered out on the street, some spectating, others pointing, others screaming. Further calls and screams could be heard from inside the building as well.
"Heroes!" Mirko shouted loudly, hopping into the middle of the crowd. "Heroes here! What's the situation?"
There was a woman wailing in the center of them. "It's my sooooon!" she sobbed, inconsolable. "His Quirk…his Quirk manifested…it lashed out…"
Oh no. A little boy? Doko looked up toward the building. "His Quirk flipped the structure?" he asked, in disbelief. It still hung there.
"Y-y-y-yes." The woman sobbed. She was young, with brown hair in a bob. She was still wearing an apron, as if she'd been in the middle of cooking something. Doko felt a strange pang go through him. "My Q-Quirk…it slows the trajectory of falling things…I used all the power I had to…to slow everything in the building down from falling…but…"
"It's not floating," Mina said, suddenly, looking at it. "She's right. It's just falling really, really slow." She pointed at the bottom (top) of the apartment complex, which was almost imperceptibly inching downward to the ground. It was like the movement of a minute hand on a clock, but it WAS happening.
"Please," the woman sobbed. "My Quirk isn't meant to do s-so much…and my son is still in there!"
"And my wife!" another man called out.
"My piano!"
"All our stuff!"
Other calls came up, from the crowd. The police and other rescue crew had now arrived and were forming a perimeter around the building.
"Okay." Mirko clapped her hands together. "EVERYWHERE!"
Doko stiffened. "Ma'am?"
"Don't call me ma'am, but also, use your warp voice to let everyone in the building know we're coming! Pinky, you're with me on the lower four floors! Prioritize getting everybody out, don't worry about possessions yet! Everywhere, you take the two highest floors. Both of you, use your Quirks to break through to get to people when necessary! Let's go!"
Doko's heart raced. Mina and Mirko raced ahead, and he sent his Quirk into his vocal chords. He belted out, "ATTENTION! THIS IS PROVISIONAL PRO HERO EVERYWHERE! HELP IS ON THE WAY! STAY WHERE YOU ARE IF YOU CAN! HEROES ARE COMING TO GET YOU!"
He turned quickly to the police that were gathering up. "Do you guys have catching mattresses?" A support item that had been invented in the last few decades, it was in common use for heroes who needed to get people out of tall buildings fast.
The nearest officer frowned. "We'll have to call in for 'em. They can probably get here in a few minutes."
"Okay. We may need them soon." Doko turned back to the building, and took a deep breath.
My first real earnest rescue situation. I can do this. He called upon his Quirk, focused…and jumped into the air, warping at the same time. He warped as high into the air as he could.
Down beneath him, the crowd gasped. He felt himself fall, and warped forward toward the building. Warped again, and again, down in a diagonal, aiming for a window in one of the middle floors.
Doko braced his elbows and tucked in his knees, using his Quirk to shred the glass of the window with a CRASH! and a shatter. He flew through the window, hit the ground (ceiling), and rolled, letting air blasts out of his costume's new boots to slow and skid to a stop. He crashed somewhat messily against the far wall, and got to his feet.
Immediately, he swayed, feeling very strange. Whoa. The gravity of this place is all wacky. What exactly is this boy's Quirk?
The ceiling lights of the hallway stretched along ahead of his feet. He stepped over one carefully. It was flickering. The flip must have been sudden and violent, to loosen up all the utilities of the building. A stray electric cable was upright like a cobra, and swaying. Sparks flew from it.
Doko half-walked, half-swam down the hallway. He wasn't sure if it was the mother or the son's Quirk making the gravity all out of whack, but he had to get upstairs. Right now, he was on Mirko and Mina's highest floor. His two were still above him.
Distant cries for help and whimpers. He swallowed, and kept moving down the hall. Doors hung upside-down, their knobs at a height where he would have to reach up to open them. The building was creaking and groaning like some great beast, occasionally punctuated by some loud CRASH. Is the mother holding onto her Quirk still? That's for our benefit. Though, he honestly wasn't sure what the worst thing that could happen was, considering everything in this building was going to land at a very slow speed. Maybe the release of the Quirk will have built-up energy that releases like a cascade. If only we'd had time to figure out more about it.
Doko reached the stairs, and went up to the second floor, crawling up the two flights with his elbows. He warped up the rest of the way, though it felt very strange while in the zone of the gravity Quirk, and flipped over to enter the second floor hallway. His stomach flipped again, and mewled. He hoped his lunch would stay firmly put down there.
He warped to the first door, and threw it open.
All kinds of loose objects - furniture, appliances, random books and pens and papers and lamps - were slowly falling toward the floor (ceiling) from their former spots on the ceiling (floor). It was strange and ethereal, but he had no time for objects. "ANYONE HERE?" he yelled. No answer, though he did hear someone cry out from the next room over. He warped over there, and pushed the door open.
A father and two kids, huddled up and hugging, braced against the ceiling. "Come on, with me now!" Doko waved for them, and carefully, they walked across the ceiling over toward him. "Alright, we're gonna…" He briefly hissed, weighing his options. Should he direct this lot to the stairs now without him, or bring them with him to keep them in sight while he rescued the others? "Walk over to the staircase," he told them finally, pointing to it. "Wait there. I'll be sending everyone on this floor to that spot, and then we'll all go down and out together, alright?"
They nodded, terrified. "Thank you," the father said.
"Of course, sir." Doko gave him a smile, and warped again, to the next door. This one wouldn't budge, so he warped it off the hinges and into the room. It floated, flipping down toward the floor slowly.
It was then that Doko realized: the Quirk was passive. It was activated on everything in the area. I wonder where the boy is? She didn't tell us that, either.
This apartment was much the same as the last two, full of floating objects. There was a woman inside, cowering in the corner. "Come to me," Doko called to her, reaching his hand out.
She shook her head frantically, scared.
Doko sighed, pulled with his Quirk, and warped her into his arms. She let out a squeal, and wrapped herself around his neck. "Ah! You…oh…you…teleported me?" she blushed.
Doko gently removed himself from her. "I'm gonna do it again now, and send you to the stairs. Wait there with the others. I'll be rounding up the whole floor and then we'll all go down together, alright?"
She nodded. He took a deep breath, focused, and activated his Quirk again, warping her over to the father and kids.
Next apartment was empty, as was the next. Then, an older couple with no children. Then, a man living alone. And another. Each time, Doko warped them to him, and then warped them to the stairs. His Quirk sung. He'd never warped so many people successfully before, but he wasn't even thinking about it. He was just thinking about getting them out.
The building let out its loudest creak yet, and he picked up the pace a little. The hallway was a rectangle, going around the perimeter of the building. It came back around to the stairs on the other side. Once Doko had finished the entire floor, he came back to the full group of them. "Alright!" he said. "We're gonna head out to ground level now! Be careful in the staircase room, alright? We're gonna have to slide down the ceiling like it's a ramp. There's a few small drops. If you need me to, I can warp you down each one, but it will take a bit of time. Is everyone ready?"
…
Back with Mina and Mirko…
They were rushing through the lower (higher) floors, opening doors, rounding people up, the same way that Doko was. Only, a lot of the apartments were empty. Not just of people, but of…items.
Mina met up with her idol at the corner of one of the floors, next to the stairs. "How many people had already gotten out out there when we got here?" she asked. "Surely not that many."
Mirko shrugged. "It's an old building. A lot of the rooms might just not be in use. Come on."
She hopped down the hall, and Mina followed, skating on her shoes. Her heart was racing. Something about this whole situation felt strange, but she couldn't put her finger on it. All around them, things floated, falling in slow motion, responding to the strange gravity.
"These inward-facing apartments aren't big enough to take up the whole space that sits in the middle of the building, where the hallway doesn't go," said Mirko. "As I thought!"
She hopped toward the elevator and pressed the button. The doors opened halfway, stopped awkwardly with a squeak. The bunny heroine sighed, and kicked them roughly, opening them the rest of the way. "Pinky! Melt out the back wall of this!"
"Huh? But it's…it's made of metal." And my acid reserves are still recharging from this morning. She knew she was making excuses regarding her Quirk again, but…the side of an elevator?
"Just do it! We don't have a lot of time!"
Mina lifted her palms, and sprayed two hard, thin shots at the elevator back wall, using maximum velocity and acidity. It hurt, but she kept it up, watching smoke rise up, smelling something acrid, weakening it…
"Alright, that should be good enough!" Mirko kicked the wall in, and her feet crushed it, creating an opening in the spot where Mina had already weakened the surface.
The two of them peered out through the hole, and Mina gasped.
It was a central atrium. Six floors of balconies ringed it, and high above their heads, was the first floor lobby. A desk was slowly falling away from it, having nearly reached the second (second-from-the-top) floor. Mina could even see the front doors, in the upper corner of the space.
Down below them was a pit of a ceiling that tapered to a point. If they fell down there, it would hurt. It was about twenty feet beneath them.
"In normal circumstances, we'd have entered through here," said Mirko. "Look there!"
She pointed up. A bunch of objects were slowly falling down from the lobby floor, and at their center was a floating boy. He was crying out, his arms outspread in a strangely arresting visual. His eyes were glowing blue.
"That's our boy," Mirko said. "Everywhere's not gonna catch this in time. We've got to get him down."
"Wait! If we try and get him, he might wake up from that…trance." Mina nodded up at him. "Then his Quirk might deactivate, and all this stuff - and all these people - are gonna fall!"
Mirko clicked her teeth. "That woman…she's put us in a weird situation, huh? I wish we knew more about how these Quirks worked. Still, we don't have much of a choice." She leaned a bit further out of the elevator, and then hopped upward, using her arms to grip onto the balcony directly above them. She swung herself up, stood, and then hopped again. "Ashido! Finish the evacuations! I'll get the kid!"
Mina understood what she meant. It's too dangerous to try and get up there for me, but she's agile enough. "Okay!" she said. She turned back out of the elevator, and…
...Saw two people running down the hallway away from her.
Mina raised an eyebrow. It was two men. Her first thought was I don't remember seeing them around. Her second thought: They're not going toward the stairs. Her third: Why are they carrying big sacks around like Santa's toys?
And they were handling themselves very well through the gravity, running along the ceiling. Almost like they had experience.
"Hey!" she called after them, impulsively. "STOP!"
The two of them looked back at her in alarm, exchanged a wild glance…and then took off at a run.
"STOP, I SAID!" She went after them, skating along on her acid, her heart pumping. She would catch up. She would.
…
Doko reached the ground level with all his rescued people, and led them out toward the police perimeter. Some people ran toward their family or partners outside the perimeter, hugged. Others from outside pushed and fought to get past the police and meet up with their family or partners. It was a surge of civilians pushing toward each other.
"Is that everybody?" one policeman asked him.
"From the second-highest floor, yes. I've got to go back up and get the ones on the top."
"Okay." He nodded. "We'll keep this lot here. Hey!"
It was the woman from before. She tried to push past the police, sobbing. "My SON!" she wailed. "He's still in there, he's at the top, he…" The police pushed her back, and Doko tilted his head. His Quirk felt strange again. Like it was telling him something was wrong.
A walkie-talkie fell out of the woman's apron pocket, and hit the ground.
Everyone paused. The police and the woman looked dumbly down at the device.
With a rush of action, Doko reached out, activated his Quirk on the walkie-talkie, and pulled it into his hands. The woman surged forward, fighting and hissing at the police. "HEY! That's private property! MY property, do you hear?"
"Who is this?" Doko demanded, yelling into the radio. "What are you doing here?"
Bzzzzzztttt….
"Ey, lady! The operation's gone south, ya hear me?" It was, by all accounts, a generic criminal's voice. Doko had that figured out instantly. "There's a pink girl after us…bzzzzt…oi! RUN!"
Doko looked sharply back up at the woman. She had panic in her eyes, and once she saw the intention in his, she broke herself free of the policemen, and took off running.
"HEY!" The police's hands went to their belts, as the woman broke through the crowd and took off down the street.
Doko warped after her, once, twice, and then closed the distance to two meters. He warped her shoe off her foot and into his hand, causing her to trip and fall. Then, he warped in front of her, and looked down at her.
"What is this?" he hissed, shaking her shoulders. "What did you do?"
"My son…" she wailed. "He…they wanted him for something…I had to help…it was the only way…"
"Who's they?!" he demanded. "What are they doing in there?" He knew they were inside the building, if they were being chased by Mina. "WHAT ARE THEY DOING IN THERE?"
"Stealing everything…the accident is a cover for the operation…get everyone out of their apartments…please, have mercy!" she wailed.
"Stealing everything? How? What are their Quirks?"
…
Mina skidded round the corner. One of the guys had just spoken into a radio, and had lagged behind the other. That was her chance. She closed the distance. Three meters. Two.
"Stop right there!" she told him, sweeping up a wave of low-power acid at him vertically. He panicked and slid sideways to avoid it, crashing into the wall. He dropped his sack of stuff.
The other man had come back to help. "Back up, Hakamichi!" he hissed. He pulled something out of the sack - an electric mixer. He activated his Quirk on it; Mina could tell because his fingers glowed, like Uraraka's did. Then, he threw the object at her.
Mina wasn't sure what to do, so she panicked and didn't melt it with acid in time. She swatted it away toward the ground. Like everything else in the building, it was falling slowly, but the power of her hit made it go all the way to the ceiling of the hallway at once.
It brushed against the surface, and exploded.
…
Rumi hopped the last bit of distance up to the little boy. And then heard something explode. She whipped her head around in a panic, but there was no time to worry about that. The boy was the key to all of it, right? If she got him, then she could worry about everything else…
"Hey, kid," she said gently, leaning out over the balcony, getting as close to him as possible. He was floating in the center of the atrium, and she had no way to reach him. Her mind turned. I could make the jump, grab him out of midair, and land on the balcony on the other side…but that might be too jarring for him. If he flips the building back over, we're fucked.
"Kid? Can you hear me?"
"I…" the boy gasped. His eyes still glowed. "I…I'm sorry…I can't…"
"Kid, I need you to hold your Quirk for a little bit longer, alright? I know it feels as if its out of control, but…"
"It's not," he breathed. "It…my mom made me…she said I had to try it on the whole building…oh, it hurts…"
Rumi's blood ran cold.
…
Right as Doko released her, stunned by what she'd just told him, the woman switched from an expression of despair…to one of gleeful malevolence.
Her face and eyes seemed to swell. Her lips spread apart into a toothy, evil grin. And she stood up, backing away from him.
"There's nothing you can do to stop it!" she sang. "I was going to bargain with you, but with a hero like Mirko on the scene, there's no time." She pressed her hand against her face, and her face glowed.
In that split second, Doko realized: she just deactivated her Quirk. Everything in the building is going to fall.
…
Doko's warped voice roared into Rumi's ears.
"IT'S A COVER FOR A ROBBERY! ONE OF THE ROBBERS HAS A QUIRK THAT TURNS OBJECTS INTO BOMBS THAT EXPLODE WHEN THEY HIT THE GROUND! THE WHOLE PLACE IS GOING TO BLOW!"
Rumi gasped.
A strange aura shimmered through the atrium, and then everything began to plummet.
…
This is a wild setpiece I've had in mind for a while. Tune in next time for the thrilling conclusion!