Chapter 6: Three Times a Loony
I. Can't Stop Twinkling...When Things Get Hairy
The next match saw a slight change-up in the format, as here the goal took a page from sumo wresting tradition: the winner would be the one who got their opponent out of the ring. It was also decided that this would be a tag team bout, and representing U.A. for this would be the unlikely duo of Kirishima and Aoyama. Their opponents' photos weren't shown, so all the two heroes-in-training knew were their names, which were a bit strange: Gossamer and Li'l Sneezer. After their names were called, both Kirishima and Aoyama stepped into the ring set up in what was dubbed 'Recreation Area 1' of the training grounds, where they awaited the arrival of their opponents.
"So, what're you thinkin'?" Kirishima asked.
"Thinking about...?" Aoyama asked in turn.
"The guys we're facing," Kirishima said, "whaddya think they're like?"
"Hmmm," the flamboyant student pondered a bit, "their names may be our only clues. For instance, 'Gossamer', as I know it, refers to any kind of thin, fragile, transparent fabric. Think cobwebs, for instance."
"Uh-huh," Kirishima replied with a nod. "And 'Li'l Sneezer?"
"Present!" a new, tiny voice sounded. Kirishima and Aoyama, surprised looks on their faces, started looking around for the source of that voice. "Down here!" the voice said, causing the two U.A. students to look down in front of them. To their mutual astonishment, the one who answered to the name 'Li'l Sneezer' turned out to be a tiny, gray-furred mouse who for some reason or another was wearing what appeared to be a diaper. "Hi there! Nice to meet you two! I promise I'll do my best, and hope you do the same!" he greeted eagerly.
Kirishima and Aoyama blinked and did a double-take from Li'l Sneezer to each other and back. Then, Kirishima started snickering. Then giggling. Then finally, he burst into full-blown laughter, to the point where he was clutching his sides. "Seriously?!" he said in-between laughs. "I gotta get this little guy out of the ring?! That's way beyond too easy!" His stream of tear-inducing laughter continued. "Oh, man, this is crackin' me up-!"
Aoyama decided to step out of the ring so the first bout could start, but in doing so, he accidentally kicked up a bit of dust...which soon made its way to Li'l Sneezer's nose...
-X-
Buster Bunny, watching the action on the Jumbotron, nudged Midoriya. "Wuh-oh-your chum's in for it now..."
"Why?" a confused Midoriya asked.
"Just watch," Buster hinted with a knowing smirk.
-X-
Back at the ring, Li'l Sneezer felt the dust kicked up accidentally by Aoyama enter his nose, and soon, a familiar feeling overtook the mouse as he began to do what his name implied.
"Ah-" Sneezer started to say, "Ah...Ah...AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH-CHOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The sneeze the mouse unleashed sent a completely shocked Kirishima flying into the air with twice the strength of a gale-force wind. The sight of it was enough to leave Aoyama and his fellow students also sporting stunned expressions of their own. As for Kirishima, once the wind died down, he suddenly realized he was still quite up high in the air, and soon began falling back towards the ground.
"Something tells me I'm never gonna live this down..." he said with a sigh, before quickly using his Hardening quirk to make himself invulnerable before he eventually hit terra firma.
*CRASH*
The impact of his fall left a deep imprint in the ground roughly the same shape as himself. After a couple minutes of silence, Kirishima raised his right arm out of the hole and gave those watching a thumbs-up.
"I'm okay!" he said reassuringly.
With Kirishima knocked out of the ring, it was now up to Aoyama to do what he couldn't and somehow get Li'l Sneezer out. Thankfully, he'd already had an idea of just how...
Just as Li'l Sneezer finished wiping his nose on a handkerchief, Aoyama stepped into the ring and bent down to better speak with the mouse. "I'll bet your skirmish with Kirishima worked up an appetite," he said as he reached for something behind his person. "Tell me, feel like you could eat some...cheese?" he offered as he pulled out a block of Swiss cheese and held it in front of Li'l Sneezer.
-X-
In the audience, Midoriya groaned as he gave himself a facepalm, recalling a brief but strange period of time where Aoyama seemed to be set on psyching him out using, for some reason, cheese.
"Still not over that, are you?" Uraraka said sympathetically as she pat him on the shoulder.
"What's the matter?" Babs asked. "Lactose-intolerant?"
"No, it's..." Midoriya started to say, before shaking his head. "It's a long story."
-X-
The moment he saw the cheese offered by Aoyama, Li'l Sneezer's eyes lit up as a smile appeared on his face. "Oh boy! I love cheese," he said gleefully before diving into one of the holes on the top of the block. While Li'l Sneezer began nibbling away at the interior of the block, Aoyama nonchalantly picked it up, walked to the edge of the line that was the ring, and bent over to place it out of bounds.
"Li'l Sneezer is out!" Present Mic declared.
"N-n-n-now all Aoyama n-n-n-needs to do," Porky commented, "i-i-i-is get G-g-g-g-Gossamer out to w-w-w-win."
Aoyama stood up, triumphantly posing while making sure his costume sparkled. "Let this 'Gossamer' come! I'm certain he'll more than live up to his name," he boasted. "Why, I'm certain he's so transparent I'll be able to see the other end of the ring, in addition to whatever moves he'll use." As he kept talking, those watching felt their eyes widen as they saw a particularly large presence walk up behind the unaware Aoyama. "He'll be so predictable, he's...standing right behind me, isn't he?" The now-worried Aoyama slowly looked upwards, and then turned around to find his newly-arrived opponent. Gossamer, as it turned out, was the direct opposite of what his name implied: a large, red, hairy monster wearing enormous sneakers. Gossamer was so hairy, the only way Aoyama could make out any expression was by focusing on the toon creature's eyes, which were now furrowed in his direction.
Gossamer raised both of his arms menacingly before growling at Aoyama.
"Oh...my...STARS!" Aoyama let out in fright as he pointed towards Gossamer. "Those fingernails are atrocious!"
The mood of the moment stalled as Gossamer looked at his opponent confusedly. Those watching the match also felt the same.
"Oh, no, this won't do, this will not do at all!" Aoyama said with a shake of his head as he swiftly set up a table and two stools, seating himself on one side and a bewildered Gossamer on the other. On the table itself were a couple of bowls of water and a few other beauty and grooming supplies, including a hand mirror and the nail file Aoyama was currently using to give Gossamer a manicure. "At least now I get to use the styling skills I'd been practicing for the internship I wished I'd gotten. I don't think I've told anyone this, but I really wanted to intern with Best Jeanist-he's the no.3 top pro hero-but for some reason or another, he chose Bakugo-that's one of my classmates-to intern with him. Not to say the one I did end up doing wasn't any good, it's just Jeanist is one of my idols as a truly well-dressed hero." He then put down the nail file before putting the bowls of water in front of Gossamer. "All right, go ahead and dip them. Go on, don't be afraid, they aren't booby-trapped."
Gossamer, briefly glancing our way with one raised eyebrow, shrugged and took a quick look at the bowls before dipping his fingers in them.
"Splendid!" Aoyama said as he got up from his stool. "Now wait one moment while I go grab a couple more supplies. Be right back!" With that, Aoyama carefully crept a ways towards the other end of the ring, turned around, and proceeded to fire a bright, dazzling light beam with his Belly Button Laser quirk towards Gossamer.
Gossamer, on the other hand, wasn't as gullible as Aoyama had thought. Shooting a brief glance and a knowing smirk our way, he then picked up the hand mirror and held it in the path of the beam, causing it to be reflected back towards a dumbstruck Aoyama. Speaking of, Aoyama, a worried look once again on his face, shot a glance in our direction as he held up a bilingual sign that said:
Mother!
母親!
The beam hit its new target dead-on, sending Aoyama out of the ring and onto one of the mats surrounding it.
"Aoyama is outta here!" Present Mic announced.
"P-p-p-p-point goes to A-a-a-a-ACME Looniversity," Porky added.
-X-
In the audience, the Class 1-A students were quite shocked at the outcome, since moments before they thought Aoyama had Gossamer in the palm of his hand.
"Nice comeback, *ribbit*" Tsuyu commented.
Buster shrugged at this. "Eh, Bugs pulled the same thing on him a couple of times," he said.
"'Fool me once', and all that," Babs added.
II. An Elephant's Charge
The next match was to be a much simpler affair, with the goal of either capturing one's opponent or winning by KO. The competitors were Denki Kaminari and one of ACME Looniversity's guest lecturers; no photo of said lecturer was shown, as a matter of building up suspense.
Kaminari stood in the middle of Urban Area 2 of the training grounds as he awaited his opponent's arrival. Many of his classmates had wished him luck, and he was raring to go.
"C'mon, c'mon, show yourself already..." he said to himself with a hint of mild impatience as static crackled around him. Finally, his impatience was rewarded, for better or worse.
"PAWOOOOOOOOOH!"
Kaminari's eyes darted left and right as he looked for the source of that trumpeting, and when he looked down a few feet in front of him, his eyes widened in utter disbelief. Now, with all that he'd experienced in his young life since he began attending U.A. High School, from danger-filled training courses to unexpected supervillain attacks, all in a world where people manifested many different types of superpowered quirks...he was still unprepared for the sight of a 5-inch tall, fully-grown bull elephant standing before him. (The feeling wasn't lost on those watching the match on the Jumbotron either.)
The elephant trumpeted again, as if offering a friendly greeting. Kaminari blinked, did a double-take from the elephant to us and back, and then...he became a giggling idiot, something that usually happened to him under very specific circumstances.
In the audience, many a pair of eyes of the students in Class 1-A (and even a few of their teachers) widened in shock upon witnessing this.
"You're kidding-" Yaoyorozu said.
"Kaminari 'short-circuited'-" Sero started to say.
"-And he didn't even overuse his quirk?!" Jiro finished.
The three of them looked towards the ACME Looniversity students sitting next to them for answers. Buster and Babs, for the most part, merely shrugged.
"Whenever Professor Teeny meets new people," Buster elaborated, "he tends to have that effect on them."
"K-k-k-k-Kaminari is unable to c-c-c-con-proceed," Porky announced.
"Point goes to ACME Looniversity," Present Mic added. "A shocking development, without any shocks, literal or otherwise!"
III. Mina Ashido Conquers The Martians
Fifteen minutes later saw the next match-up announced, and soon Mina Ashido found herself entering a recent addition to the assortment of environments within the training grounds, dubbed 'Retro-Future Area 1'. The whole layout was like something out of a late-1950's 'Space Age' fantasy, from the buildings to the signs to the cutouts of civilians. According to Principal Nezu, it was built to help train students should they ever encounter the hypothetical 'time-travel scenario'. Mina stopped in the center of the futuristic cityscape as she awaited her opponents, announced earlier to be Marvin the Martian and his niece, Marcia.
"Gotta admit, the design team really went all out with this Space Age kitsch," she said as she took in her surroundings.
"Agreed," a new voice added. "In a way, it reminds us of home. Lovely, isn't it?"
Slightly startled by the voice, Mina turned around and found herself face-to-face with her opponents. Marvin, the older of the two Martians, had a head that appeared to be one big black void of a circle, with only two eyes visible, encased in a greenish helmet that looked like a centurion's from ancient Rome (matched in terms of accents by the skirt piece around his waist); he also wore a red shirt and pants. Marcia, the younger Martian, wore a similar garb, only with a purple skirt piece and a lighter purple shirt/pants combo, and instead of a helmet, a purple, pointy hat that ended in a bow crowned a head highlighted by long, curly red hair. Both Martians wore white gloves and what appeared to be sneakers.
"I assume you're to be our opponent?" Marvin asked, to which Mina nodded, her mouth slightly agape.
"I like your outfit!" Marcia complimented as she looked Mina over. "It's real gone, daddy-o!"
Mina, not understanding a lick of beatnik, simply smiled and returned the compliment. "Uh, thanks! I really like your sneakers, they're...out of this world? (Hope that doesn't offend you.)"
"Not at all! It's all cool," Marcia replied. At that moment, the starting buzzer sounded off, and the match began. Both Marvin and Marcia activated the hover packs on their backs and began to float in the air, and then each took out from somewhere on their respective persons what looked to be an alien-looking pistol.
"Now remember, Marcia," Marvin advised, "be sure to set your laser to 'stun'."
"Got it, Uncle Marvin!" Marcia said as she turned a small dial on the weapon.
Mina, doing a double-take from the Martians to us and back, showed them a sheepish smile and gave them an equally-sheepish wave. "Umm...bye!" she said before she started sprinting away from them as fast as possible. The Martians flew in pursuit as they began firing off stun rays from their respective laser pistols, with Mina jumping out of the way before the beams hit whatever spot she'd previously been in. She used her acid streams to allow her to 'skate' across the ground in order to pick up the pace, and began ducking behind all manner of concealing objects throughout the area as she tried to come up with a plan.
"Gotta think of something..." she muttered to herself, before a look of gleeful excitement adorned her face. "OHMYGAWSH, I can't believe I'm fighting actual, honest-to-goodness space aliens!" She then snickered a bit. "Cousin Ichigo, that UFO-obsessed nut, would be soooo jealous of me right now...!" It was then Mina heard a particularly loud *ZAP!*, and soon the retro-futuristic mailbox-or was it a payphone?-she was hiding behind crumbled to smithereens, leaving her clutching at the air behind herself. She turned slowly to find both Martians a couple of feet in front of her, laser pistols at the ready.
In an instant, an idea popped into Mina's head. "Hey, wanna see some disintegrating pistols?" she asked with a careful smile on her face.
Marvin and Marcia quizzically looked at each other on hearing this. "How odd," Marvin noted. "Last I had observed, this planet's technology isn't that advanced at this stage."
While they were distracted, Mina, a wry grin on her face, put her hands on both of the pistols and unleashed her acid. Both Martians watched, stunned, as their laser pistols dissolved into a liquid state at Mina's touch.
"There!" Mina said as she took her hands back. "Your pistols disintegrated!"
Marvin and Marcia, un-amused looks on their faces (or at least in their eyes), gave each other a brief look before swiftly drawing laser pistols identical to the ones Mina had just dissolved. Mina grew quite dumbfounded upon seeing this.
"Always have a back-up, right Uncle Marvin?" Marcia quipped as she set the dial to 'stun'.
"Indeed," Marvin answered as he did the same.
"And on that note..." Mina began to say, "...sayonara!" She then swiftly fled in the other direction, just as the Martians renewed their pursuit of her. Once again, Mina had to think on her feet, trying to figure out a way to come out on top. She then remembered one of the lessons she and the others learned during the summer training camp with the Wild Wild Pussycats, specifically the one about paying attention to one's surroundings. Her eyes darted all over the place as she looked for something, anything to give her an edge. It was then she spotted a large object on top of one of the Space Age buildings.
"Please be a water tower, please be a water tower, please be a water tower..." Mina muttered hopefully as she sent a stream of acid at the object's supports, and then one at the object itself. She then ducked to the side, just as both Martians arrived at the spot she was formerly at-which just so happened to be in the path of the falling, as it did turn out, water tower, its contents spilling out as the structure plummeted towards the ground.
Marvin and Marcia looked on with a stunned realization, before eyeing each other briefly, and then glaring in our direction. "Now this makes me very angry," Marvin said.
"Very angry, indeed," Marcia added, just before the two of them were enveloped by the vertically-descending tidal wave with a great *SPLASH*, followed by a *CRASH* from the water tower's parts. When the dust and water settled, Mina poked her head out from her hiding spot and walked over to the debris pile, just as both Martians emerged from it up to their waists. They couldn't hover due to the water shorting out their packs, but they still aimed both of their weapons at Mina. Before either could react, Mina swiftly brought her hands over the pistols and used her acid to dissolve them, smirking in triumph.
"Consider this little game of laser tag over!" she beamed as the buzzer sounded off and she was declared the winner.
To be continued...
**Author's Note(s)**
The chapter's title is a riff on "Three Times a Lady", a 1978 song by the Commodores.
Aoyama tries to pull the same beauty salon-themed strategy Bugs Bunny used on Gossamer (my #1 favorite Looney Tunes character) originally in two Looney Tunes shorts: 1946's "Hair-Raising Hare" and 1952's "Water, Water Every Hare".
Teeny the elephant (my #3 favorite Looney Tunes character) was a one-shot character who originated in the 1953 Chuck Jones short "Punch Trunk", in which he inadvertently scares whoever he meets while wandering throughout New York City.
The title of Mina's segment is a play on the 1964 film Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, known to be one of the worst movies ever made.
Mina's wordplay involving disintegrating pistols is inspired by a similar set of lines uttered by Daffy Duck in the 1953 classic short "Duck Dodgers in the 24th 1/2 Century". Marcia the Martian only made one appearance in Tiny Toon Adventures, in the episode "Duck Dodgers Jr.".
