"So you failed."
"Lay off me, lady," Alistair said with his lips melded on the edge of his whiskey glass. "It's not like i've done this kind of thing before."
Edith Void shook her head, a tut of indignation escaping her full lips as she stretched out the arms on her pinstripe jacket blazer. She held a golden cocktail glass that glimmered under the crystal chandelier that hovered above the mahogany dining table her and Alistair sat around.
"You had the perfect candidate in Shoto," Edith huffed before taking another drag of her Old Fashioned. 'Damaged, suicidal, just begging to be taken here and work with us. Instead, he's gone off to Neverland."
"I didn't even get to do my musical number," Alistair groaned before waving at Edith and observed the chess board in between him and Edith. His finger dangled over a rook before grabbing a pawn by the head and moving it forward a space. "Whatever. It's not like California is lacking in envious people. And there's already a few nominees the creator has told me about."
After being whisked away form the hospital, Edith had learned little about the whole scheme. She peered around the room and spotted the five empty seats that surrounded the table. The house was quite large, a beachfront condominium just inches from the sand barrier that led to the ocean waves lapping closer to the foundation. With two granite mountains wedging the house within this small bay, there were no roads that led towards the home. No birds flapped above and there was not a hint of cicadas chirping in the distance. They were on some sort of island placed between reality and hereafter.
At least that was how Edith thought of it. There was little else Alistair had said to her other than this mysterious being called the Creator that would communicate with him and her. All she knew was that this was the only option for her to return to Earth and be rewarded with her objective.
The lady snapped her hand over a rook and zoomed it forward. She knocked over one of Alistair's knights before gripping her hand around the chilled glass smacked her lips.
"I think it's my turn to get our next sin," Edith sucked a drag from her drink. "Speed things up so we can reach our objectives. I can get back home and create my perfect and precious Martel. You can go back to fantasyland and shoot fireworks out of those strange sticks you have."
"But you did try to help me and failed also," Alistair pushed his king to the side one square. "You used your quirk in conjunction with my powers."
"Not my quirk," Edith said. "A quirk that I happened to have when you took me to this dump. And I'll have you know that Shoto was fooled about Katsu being under that rocket until you saw your crush in the cockpit."
Alistair choked on his soda and slammed down his glass. "She is not my crush. Moxie is...she's...the crystal wielder! If she had died, then we'd be out of business. She's very important to both of us!"
"Yeah, and it has nothing to do with having feelings for her," Edith rolled her eyes.
Alistair shrugged. "Well, she is very sweet and nice to me. It also doesn't hurt that she has a killer rack."
"A what?"
"Uh...nothing."
"You kids and your hormones. That's why I told Martel to stay far away from women. They're so distracting and needy," Edith moved her knight diagonally from Alistair's king.
"She says as a woman," Alistair grumbled under his breath. Distracted, he pushed another pawn forward allowing Edith's knight to take his king.
"In biology, of course," Edith knocked the king off the table and set sights for the queen. "I'm not naive to how other people saw me throughout my years. Other men. Great men who got hypnotized by some bimbo strutting down the street with fifty pounds of makeup sweating off their fake eyelashes. I didn't get to where I am by acting like a lady, Mister Leonhardt. Although that work I got done "
With a final move, Edith surrounded the queen in the corner of Alistair's side of the board with a rook on one side and a knight on the other. She slammed down the last of her drink in her throat and scrunched out of her chair. Her heels clacking on the hardwood floor, Edith clutched a thin paper file in her small hands.
"It's my time to shine, and I know exactly who is going to help us," Edith walked over to the boy.
Next to Alistair, Edith planted herself beside the teenager and loomed over him. She held out the file at Alistair. The boy snatched the file away and split it open. He poured over the lines on the page.
"By the way, you mix a terrible Old Fashioned," Edith wiped away some moisture from her lips. "I know you're only sixteen in your world, but I knew how to make them by that age."
"That teacher with the spiky hair?" Alistair ignored Edith's insult, something that he had become very accustomed to by this point. "The sin of wrath? Well, that's pretty obvious. But he's way too powerful and his will to live much too strong. I was thinking that Abel kid could be of use to us. He seems to be very distrusting of authority. Or that Blake kid. He may be a villain very soon anyway."
"Uh, I met that kids parents once," Edith placed her palm on her forehead to cool herself off. "As annoying and talkative as him. Can't imagine that blabbermouth in this house."
"But Bakugo won't do it," Alistair said. "And besides, you still need someone's energy."
"I know exactly who to go to for that," Edith said. "But don't worry about Bakugo. He might be a hero for now, but after I finish with him, he'll be begging me to take him away," Edith said.
"But based off what I know of Bakugo, he's a pretty straight arrow," Alistair said. "I was able to siphon some energy from him, but only enough to appear in front of Shoto. He'd never actually come with us."
"He will," Edith said. "You haven't read everything about him. And I'll just say, if anyone found out what Bakugo did to that poor girl, he'd never be a hero again. Once the threat of that secret comes out, he'll be putty in our hands."
"What'd he do?"
Edith smirked.
"Something he'd cross universes to forget."
The new stadium was just as ornate as the rest of the campus. A bright blue transparent glass ceiling with a dash of periwinkle twinkling in the auburn rays raining down to the open grass field in the center. A long rubber track ran around the outer edge with a tall silver retaining wall separating the crowd from the field below. From the ventilation holes in the roof, the breeze peppered salt that Drake licked off the corners of his mouth. He shivered when the breeze brushed at his spiked hair, and he rubbed the long cotton sleeves of his cerulean track suit.
Hundreds of students stood in the center of the field wearing similar uniforms. The class had been dispersed into the cacophony of other first year students and mulled about on the turf. Drake preferred to be right in the middle of the group waiting for their teachers to come out onto the circular stage. It was a metal saucer with a wooden podium and the school flag wafting in the mist on either side of it. He bumped shoulders with a few other students that he had not seen before. He brushed through them as if he were passing walls of shrubbery in a garden maze before stopping right at the midpoint of the field.
The crowd in the stands traversed all around the field. Every chair filled all the way to the top of the seating area, the mob of reporters, talent scouts, and the curious stranger clapped and cheered with the arrival of the students. The roar of the audience shook the floor with a miniature earthquake vibrating Drake's scarlet shoes. He peered over towards the sidelines where a television camera was pointed right at him.
Staring into the black screen, he crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.
Upstairs in the press box, Drake's face illuminated the screen of the camera labelled "B" and flickered across the screen in front of two men with headsets on their bald heads. One of them pressed the red button on his microphone and kissed his lips to the bulb.
"Come one, come all! It's the United States Academy of Heroics and Support Sports Festival!" The man said in a wisecracking, nasally voice. "Yes, the best and brightest of our future generation of superheroes will prove themselves and what their spines are made of in a series of weird and absurd challenges."
Next to the man, a taller man adjusted his headset and pulled down on his tie. "Right you are, Bill. These young kids will bash each other's skulls into the ground to prove which one of them is worthy of two weeks of slavery a-er...I mean, a two week unpaid internship at the Marvelous Hero Agency in New York City. What more could a kid want to start their career, Bill?"
The man raised an eyebrow and pointed at the camera in front of him. "An agent that gets them something other than a commentating gig."
Down on the field, Synaes pushed her sunglasses up with two fingers and squeezed on the handle of her cane. She pulled back on her platinum hair and stretched the neck of her groggy head. She felt the rumbling of the floor before her and counted the exact number of students that surrounded her on the outer fringes of the gaggle of students. Her forehead already bubbled with beads of sweat from the hot day, she dug her cane into the fake grass. Her spine tingled when she felt a familiar rhythm pelt the ground heading towards her. She looked to her feet hoping for the girl to go away.
"Oh, Synaes, I thought you'd be back here," A light voice chirped from beside her.
Synaes sighed and pushed a strand of hair away from her cheek. Next to her, Robyn bounded on her tip toes to face the taller girl.
"You don't seem to be in the Festival spirit," Robyn smiled at her.
"All of these people are unfamiliar to me," Synaes said. "It's way too hot. It smells like steamed ass in here. And we're already ten minutes late."
Robyn crossed her arms. "Whatever we're doing, we should team up. I bet some part of this is going to rely on team work. Us girls gotta stick together, you know what I mean?"
"No," Synaes said.
Back in the press box, a frumpy old lady stared throw binoculars down at the field. In her gaze, a certain green and scrawny teenager stretched his calves by the edge of the central stage. However, he bumped into James which caused the boy to stare laser beams into the boy. Anton backed up and separated himself from the boy before bumping shoulders with another student from a different class.
Linda slams down her binoculars from the press box and grabs a whistle hanging on a rope around her neck. She blows it, a piercing scream echoing in the small room. The Advisor next to her hops up in her chair and swivels around like a twister towards the old politician.
"Why is he still alive?"
The Advisor propped up her glasses and stared down at the field.
"The kid that threw a hot dog at you?"
"No! Well, also him," Linda said. She pointed down at the lower rows of the enclosed press box towards the commentators. They were interviewing a decrepit and fragile old man with tufts of white hair threatening to plummet to the ground at any second. He took off his thin wire glasses and huffed on the lenses. He grabbed the edge of his black blazer covered in dandruff at the shoulders and wiped away at the surface.
"Howie Goldstein," Linda lowered her voice into a growl.
With the commentators, the old man with a tout Brooklyn accent lectured the camera in front of him.
"The top one percent of the top ten percent of quirk users are taking up the top five percent of all crime in this country, adn that's not fair. I promise as Governor of California to make crime equally accessible to all citizens. And marijuana must be tuition-free!"
Next to Linda, the Advisor shrugged. "The kids like him," The advisor said.
"Kids don't matter to me," Linda said. "Unless they're voting age."
"That last poll only showed him back five," The Advisor scrolled through her phone. She flashed a line graph that showed Linda's arrow getting closer and closer to Howie's.
Linda smacked the phone away. It tumbled into a trash can on top of a half-eaten shawarma.
Before she could say anything else, loud trumpets played over the speaker system. A giant spotlight shined down on the central saucer stage that sparkled like bubbles. A cloud of neon electricity erupted from by the podium as the crowd buzzed with excitement.
"Ladies and gentleman," Principal Tommy's barely decipherable voice razzed through the speakers. "Deku!"
From outside the stadium, an arc of electricity buzzed over the top edge of the stadium. Like a thunderous rainbow, the energy arched and fizzled from the roof all the way down to the back of the podium.
Smash!
The green light erupted and flashed as bright as the spotlight raining down on the stage. The light emanated and disappeared in a cloud of thin smoke. Consumed by the smoke, a broad and intimidating figure in his classic hero costume stepped out of the humming energy right up to the podium.
The crowd roared when Deku brushed away some of the smoke and stepped up to the microphone. Down in the crowd of students, Lloyd held his hands up into the air and clapped like an old choir girl. Next to him, Katsu felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up like a wooden soldier. Austin, apprehensive by the large crowd, stepped backand hugged himself as the mob of students hopped up and dow to catch a glimpse of the world's number one hero.
"Students of USAHS," Deku said. "Welcome to the Sports Festival."
Behind Deku, a wide screen rose up into the air. With a plume of smoke wafting away from the opening, the screen reached its apex and glowed with a map of Los Angeles.
"This is your first challenge in this festival. We have nearly three hundred students in the first year class. All considered apart of the General Studies course until next year. How hard you want to compete is up to you. We will be whittling the field down in an aggressive fashion for this year's contest. As such, this is...The Race."
The map of Los Angeles was illuminated with a red line that snaked around most of the city. It started at the stadium, ran through the city and the outer suburbs, down past Huntington Beach all the way back to the campus. A long trek through the urban jungle awaited the students.
Behind Deku, another platform opened under the stage and rose up to his level. On the platform was a mahogany vehicle about the width of Deku's shoulders. Not unlike a pinewood derby car, the cockpit was open-air with four seats able to fit passengers two-by-two in plush velvet chairs. Four rubber tires with wide metal spokes sat on the ends of the front and rear axels.
"You will be paired up in teams of four," Deku said. "Your goal is to drive on the route laid out for you in these vehicles. You are not allowed to voluntarily exit your whole body from the vehicle. Also, the designated driver must by the only one to steer the vehicle. This will test how you can handle having roles in your future hero teams, and if you can adhere to it. You will be disqualified if you go off the track for shortcuts. Also, if you leave the ground on purpose for longer than five seconds, you will also be disqualified. So you won't be allowed to fly around the track and avoid conflict," Deku gazed over the class towards Drake. The dragon boy huffed and crossed his arms in a shiver.
Deku turned and pointed over at a pile of metal parts and strange aluminum instruments that seemed to appear out of nowhere at the right edge of the field. "You have thrity minutes to make any modifications you can think. Of course, you can use your quirks in any way you see fit as long as it doesn't break any of these rules. Other than that, you have been assigned groups of four. That means seventy-five cars for this race. Look on the screen for your teams."
On the screen, a digital clock flashed with the number thirty blinking on the face.
30:00.
29:59.
"Excelsior!" Deku shouted.
The spotlight turned off on the stage. The students rushed over to the screen and scanned for their names. Synaes hung back, knowing that she would have to ask somebody where she ended up. However, Hunter shot his webs out at the screen. He thrusted himself forward and crawled onto the edge. Getting a better view, he zoomed his vision in towards the names on the board.
"Oh, shit," Hunter said. "I'm with...Martel?"
CAR 37
Hunter Payne
Martel Void
Blake Marseilles
Robyn Guang
Hunter used the arms on his back to scoot off the stage and shot another web above him. He flew over the scrum and landed at the edge of the mob. With the wind blowing over his head, he swiped around on his hips and crawled through the crowd.
"Martel! Blake! Robyn! We're in a car."
Seeing the bushy head of black hair, Hunter shot a web out at Blake. He snickered as Hunter shoved him over towards him. He grabbed Blake with one of his strong arms and turned to the back of the crowd. He scanned through the people and noticed Robyn right at the edge with Synaes. He shot another web which collided with Robyn's chest. She laughed and held her arms up while she flew through the air. She slammed into one of Hunter's arms and stuck to the webbing like a starfish.
"Where's Martel?" Hunter said. "I didn't even know he was out of the hospital."
"Oh, yeah," Blake snapped his fingers. "The Robot is over by the hunk of junk we're supposed to use to help us."
Hunter whipped his head towards the support items in the corner of the stadium. Sure enough, a head of graphite hair with mulitple cowlicks strained off his crown stood facing the items. Hunter heaved himself forward and crawled like a striking cobra over the grass. He landed right by the shorter boy and released Robyn and Blake from his grasp.
"Martel?" Hunter asked.
The boy turned around. He looked very much like Martel from before with piercing yellow pupils and sky blue scelera, however with a strange blank film that made his eyes appear dead. He stood pin-straight and craned his head to the side in a smooth motion akin to a hydraulic robot on a theme park ride.
"That is affirmative," he spoke in a monotone voice. "I am Martel. And you are Hunter Thomas. African-American. Spider-like abilities. Beep. Boop."
"Uh...you alright?" Hunter scratched the back of his head. "I didn't think you'd be allowed to compete."
"The mechanics-I mean, doctors assessed me and ensured that I would be able to partake in this. Beep boop," Martel said. "After all, I am a human being that is also male."
"Are you sure," Blake joked as he grabbed onto Martel's shoulder. "You could be one of those weird Terminator things sent here to kill us all. Which would be kinda awesome."
Martel grabbed Blake in a vice grip. Blake heard a light crunch from his shoulder as Martel's fingers squeezed on the bone like a baby's hand sliding through putty. Blake gasped out in pain when Martel pushed back on the boy. Blake clutched the throbbing joint and seethed through his teeth.
"I am in fact, a human male. I have the proper DNA and appendages," Martel said. Then, he turned around towards the parking lot of cars next to the pile of metal support items. "If you excuse me, I will be making a few modifications to our vehicle. I suggest you assist by grabbing the various parts I will direct you to get. Beep boop."
The rest of the team shared gazes. Hunter just shrugged and followed Martel over to Car 37 as he began to list out the different parts they would need for the ride.
CAR 69
Abel Chevelle
Austin Bordette
Synaes Hauksudottir
Anton Nosoi
By the car, Abel leaned on the edge of the door frame to the cockpit and flipped a coin in his hand. He brushed his lengthy coconut hair aside and flipped through his music player. Already donning fingerless cream driving gloves, he smirked from under his gaze at the mob of students working on their cars around them.
"You know, I don't really think much about God," Abel said. "But he has to exist. How else would we get Car 69? Although I'm jealous of Car 21. Megan and that other girl there. Man, what legs!"
Abel doubled over when Synaes jabbed him in the middle with the end of her cane. She dug it into him and loomed over the gasping boy. "Keep talking like that, and I'm going to rip out your taint. You got it?"
"Ye-yes, ma'am."
Synaes pulled back on her cane and headed over to the hood of the vehicle. It was open with Austin poking at the grease-coated engine. His large hands covered in black soot, he tightened the bolt on the top of the cylinder and examined the radiator.
"What is it?" Synaes asked.
Austin, feeling the girl's breath off his angular jaw, shrieked and waved his arms like a drunk ninja. He stepped away from Synaes and held out his hands in a protective fashion. Why he had to be stuck in a class with such attractive girls was a mystery to him, a poor trick played on him by fate. His heart palpitated in his chest as he tried to rub away the flush on his reddened face.
"It...just a four-cylinder engine. Unleaded gas with eleven gallons. Basically a souped up lawnmower. I could probably get a cold air intake to increase the horsepower. Maybe larger pipes on the exhaust."
"Hmm." Synaes took a step towards where she felt Austin stood. "You seem to know a lot about your cars."
"Just tinkering around in dad's garage," Austin wiped a bead of sweat away as the tremor in his voice strained his throat. He felt like he was being suffocated by air as Synaes got even closer.
"So you're...good with your hands then," Synaes smirked and took another step towards him. Her head almost at the top of his chest. "I must say you are the least annoying of all the boys in this class. You have the best traits of knowing when to shut your asshole. Among other things..."
"Other things?" Austin spat out in a squeal.
"Endurance. Height. Being tall and strong," Synaes braved a reach of her hand out to Austin. She placed it right in the center of his chest. "Muscular," She said feeling the tight ridge of his muscles.
Austin cried out and spun around towards the engine. AS he did so, he flet the slightest of bites from what he thought was a mosquito on the top of his head. Brushing it away, he reached down and pretended to tinker with the machine further. "I-I'm just gonna finish on this."
Synaes hummed to herself. Strolling away from Austin, she looked down at the tuft of straw blonde hair in her hand. A light smirk etched itself on her face. Another student she could now predict.
Behind her, Anton grunted out in stress as he carried over a large metal dish on his back. His thin arms shook with the strain of the weight before he collapsed right by Austin on the hood of the car.
"I found...the damn...exhaust pipe." Anton huffed.
Austin grabbed it and lifted it up like a pillow. He thumbed over the surface and gazed down at Anton who was drenched in sweat.
"This is a satellite dish."
Anton groaned and lifted himself off the hood. He stumbled forward and headed back for the pile of items. He bumbled past the other students running past with air wrenches and tire jacks whirring in the sky.
Behind him, a camera crew snaked through the crowd and bumped into Anton. The reporter's heel tangled with Anton's ankle. The boy yelped out and faceplanted into the ground. The reporter did not notice and grabbed her microphone wire as she sashayed through the field of small cars.
"I am now approaching one of the cars of Class 1-A, the most anticipated students at this school. We are now approaching one of the cars and we will try to interview one of the students."
Car 43
Lloyd Thomas
Moxie Lee
Leo Agravain
Drake Kaiset
Drake sat in the back of the car. He was placed on top of the open cockpit and reached his arms out towards the opposing sides. His shoulders broad enough, he gripped the door hinges and closed his eyes. He imagined his wings would be valuable for just the few seconds they would be allowed to stay off the ground at a time. It would be heavy, but based on his hands gripping the vehicle, he could lift the car and fly past.
"Excuse me sir," The reporter said. She shoved a microphone right onto his face. "Leona Simpson. What are you planning with this strategy of laying on top of the vehicle."
Drake frowned. "I'm resting," he said. "Leave me be."
Drake closed his eyes and hung his head down again.
The reporter huffed. "Well, as we can see, Public Relations is a class the students have not had yet. Let's move on to the next vehicle."
The reporter swung her hips and left Drake in peace. When she disappeared, Drake spouted his wings and lifted himsef into the air. He floated above and sailed towards the head of red hair that hugged a bunch of metal shanks and pipes in his arms. He lowered himself in front of Lloyd and raised an eyebrow at the boy's allotment of junk.
"Yes, Drake," Lloyd said. "Have you rounded up the others?"
Drake pointed over at Moxie who was at the engine. She flailed her arms in the air and pointed down at the engine.
"So that's how my quirk works. So I'll give it just enough energy to get it going, and then it should increase as time goes by. No, it won't. Though I wish I kinda had some beer. That would be the best way to cool it down if it overheats...Well, you Brits don't know nothing bout engines. I'll just get it jazzed up with an extra cylinder and we'll be good."
Lloyd scrunched his eyebrows together. "So...why is she speaking to herself?"
Drake shrugged. He spun around in the air and fluffed his wings at Lloyd. He twisted himself upward towards the car breathed in the crisp air that flowed past him. He landed right at the back of the car where Leo stood with a long knife.
When he landed, Leo gasped out and dropped the knife into the gound. He scrambled for it and gripped it in his hand above the tire.
"Drake," Leo cried out. "What are you up to?"
"Preparing. You?"
Leo looked over at the tire. "Oh, right. You see, Moxie thought it was a good idea if I was like the mechanic on the race. So, I'll try to fix anything that goes wrong."
With a light breath, Leo clutched the knife and plunged it into the rubber of the tire. He pulled back the knife, and Drake's jaw dropped at the hiss of air that sizzled out of the tire.
"What are y-."
Leo pushed both his palms open towards the tire. The puncture reversed course with the rubber knitting itself back into the treads of its previous shape.
Drake nodded. "Impressive."
Leo scratched the back of his neck with the knife. "I just don't know if I can do it with the tire spinning hundreds of times a minute. Maybe even a second. Hopefully we can at least stop when something is wrong. Also, I think traveling in my own time dimension is out of the question on this challenge. But i can at least be useful."
Drake lifted up his hand in front of his face, a shadow casting over his eyes. The hand turned into a scarlet claw with ivory talons replacing fingers. He grabbed Leo by the shoulder and looked down at the lanky kid.
"You are useful."
Before Leo could respond, Drake turned back around to leave. Before he could, he bumped shoulders with a certain black-haired Floridian.
"Watch it, iguana."
Car 21
James Guzman
Katsu Muteki
Megan Shaw
Helena Steele
James flipped off Drake and headed over to the hood of the car. He leaned over to Moxie who was talking to herself and tightening the crank on one of the pistons.
"Moxie."
The cajun girl yelped and smacked her head on the top of the hood. The hood fell and was about to slam into her head until James lifted his arm and grabbed the edge. He lowered the metal opening right above the crown of her head. They were obscured from the rest of the students with only the back of their arms visible from the standpoint of passing students.
James reached over and kissed Moxie on the lips. She giggled and stroked the collar on her track suit.
"James," Moxie laughed. "Not in front of everyone!"
"No one saw," James said. "And besides, if they did, I'd kick their ass until their balls became their eyes."
James lifted up the hood fully and allowed Moxie to hold it. He hardened his face with bursts of neon energy spitting out from his hands.
"Don't think I'll go easy on you."
Moxie chuckled and point a wrench at James. "S'alright. I like to get down and dirty, too."
James blushed at the statement. Moxie realized what she said and blinked. She set down her wrench and stammered out. "I mean, like when I'm going mudding in a pick up truck. I always did that back home, so it's kinda like that and all!"
Before she could say anything else, James power walked away towards his car. A rare blush on his face, he sniffled at the smell of gasoiline that permeated overhead like a depressed cloud. When he rounded the corner to Car 21, he saw Katsu who had his gaze locked onto another car. James turned and folloed the sight of his auburn eyes over towards Moxie.
"Oi, Spongebob," James smacked Katsu's shoulder. "Are we ready?"
"I dunno," Katsu shrugged. "I was just gonna give the car a big boost at the start of the race. Not really any other plans. You, Megan," Katsu turned over to the girl in the back passenger row of the car.
Megan sat next to another girl and waved her hands at Katsu. "My part isn't till we get really fast. Whatever the top speed is, I'm gonna increase it tenfold."
James grunted at the girl next to Megan. "Who the hell are you?"
The girl was tall, just a shade more than Megan. Her soft, heart-shaped face held a vibrant, warm chocolate pair of eyes with a wild mane of ebony hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. What struck James were the pair of dark, grey ears poking through her hair and the tail that spiraled into a tuft pressed between her back and the seat.
"Obviously, I'm a student from Class 1-B," Helena said. "Would think that was obvious."
Helena Steele! Her quirk: Wolf. She has wolf powers.
James looked up at the voice that just reverberated into the ether. "That's it. Wolf powers?"
"Yeah, that's it!" Helena said in a thick Scandinavian accent. "Sorry I don't spit out fireworks from my breasts."
The heterochromic boy rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Just don't turn into a werwolf and eat me."
Helena bit her lip. "Not like I'd get much protein from you, anyway."
James lurched forward. "What did ya say?"
Katsu held him back as the boy cursed out at the girl. Megan chuckled and patted the girl on the shoulder.
"I think we'll get along just fine."
At the starting line in the stadium, Deku stood at the podium and tapped on the microphone. The engines of the cars roared and rumbled on the frontstretch. They were lined up six-by-six in fifty equal rows. Class 1-A was dispursed through the field in various areas with a wide variety of other students not seen before fitting their seat belts into the car.
"Your starting spot has been determined by your teams grade average," Deku said. "So the front row is perfect straight A's so far. The back row..."
Deku gazed over at Car 69 starting in the back of the pack. Abel flashed a nervous smile at his homeroom teacher. Austin shook his head while Synaes gave him another smack on the top of his head.
"You need to do better in History," Deku said.
Behind Deku, the screen flashed a countdown. Twenty seconds.
"Your preparations are final. No killing of your competitors, and your entire team must come across the line for you to win. Only the top three finishers of this field of seventy five will move on."
The students murmured to themselves. It was going to be that cutthroat. In the front of the field, Megan gripped the steering wheel. She squeezed the leather on it, her heart ramming through her chest as she looked through the crowd. She stared at the television camera, knowing her parents in London were watching.
"I hope to make you proud," Megan said.
Ten seconds.
"You can use your quirk in any way you see fit. Just remember, don't leave your vehicle! And the driver has to be the driver for the whole race."
In car 69, Abel pressed start on his racing playlist. "China Grove" would be the perfect starting song.
Five Seconds.
In row seven, Martel revved the engine on his vehicle which was Car 37. A new eight cylinder engine with manual transmission, the powerblock screamed to live like an angry dragon.
Three seconds.
Moxie ripped her hand away from the engine, her hand having given it more energy to crank through the pistons than ever before. She slammed the hood down and leapt over the precipice of the car door. She slammed herself in the chair and ripped the vehicle into gear with other hand glued to the wheel.
One second.
In the flag stand, Principal Tommy waved at the students below. "Be good. And hi doggie," he said towards Car 21.
Helena pushed herself back and blinked. "Did he just say 'Hi Doggie' to me?"
Zero.
The buzzer rang out over the stadium.
Principal Tommy waved the green flag.
Megan slammed her foot on the gas, her lungs drilled back into her body. The only sound clear to her was the engine and the buzzing swarm of cars rocketing into the distance.
Begin.