(( For spoiler reasons, I'm not going to go into detail about the joint testing arc, so if you have read the arc, hopefully it still works for you, if you haven't, you should, its good!
in other news: 5,000! holy shit! 3 Ya'll that brightens my day considerably. I hope you guys can keep enjoying the fic, this chapter is going to be the last one for awhile due to the holidays. Sorry I was late getting it out too. ))
Chapter 22
"Testing Anxiety "
Alarice was doing considerably better, so was his own... 'teachers pet' as Mic was insistent on calling Shinso, despite all the comments that he stop. The work and involvement was finally bearing fruit for both students. He'd never say it, but he was having little bubbles of pride for both of them, though their finals would be a big test. Having Mic as support for her was working extremely well for Alarice, and she was bouncing back from the issues of earlier.
Aizawa had to admit he somewhat regretted encouraging Yamada to help out Stone. It wasn't that she was blowing up the blonde's phone, far from it. Nor was he being particularly out-of-hand in helping her out, both parties were being perfectly respectful to each other, on close inspection. Even so, somehow Aizawa felt like he'd participated in something terrible. Even if Stone had looked, to a degree, relieved after having someone to cry on, he did wonder if this much contact was good, for either of the individuals involved. There was one too many sly smiles about having his own teacher's pet that Aizawa disliked, and kicked him in the leg for, at the table.
To Alarice the pace had only changed in that, suddenly, she didn't have mandated extra training.
Which, was surprising, but she did take advantage of this "extra" time, to work on her own abilities, anyway. It just wasn't "Aizawa-sensei" controlled or led any more.
To her intense surprise, ( and her relief ) of being on Bakugo's team for what turned out be a joint training exercise... was also refreshing change of pace. She had never considered the boy stupid, but he displayed that he was far more observant than she had initially realized. Covering it up with all that aggressive attitude and behavior that went too far, so as to make it hard to believe he would ever be a hero.
Despite the abrasive speech and attitude, he had lead the team to victory. Alarice had found herself falling into step despite being called Mutt, and even Bitch once or twice. The times he had chosen to rely on her were fitting for her quirk and behavior.
Now, all of the Hero class students were hanging out in the 1-A dormitory commons. Stone found herself being talked to by Jurota, and found herself rather confused on how to respond to him.
"How far can you track a scent?" He asked, his voice deep and she kind of figured a nerdy cave beast might sound like him. "I've been working on mine, and I've got a pretty good 1 mile range."
"That's good." Alarice said, trying to figure how long her range roughly was. "Mine's about the same.. I think. I haven't measured it in awhile though."
"You should, it's important data to have when improving as a hero!" Stone found herself just nodding stiffly, as he began to talk about what he'd managed to do with his, similarly bestial quirk.
"Do you think we could train together?" She offered. "I mean, I know we're in different classes, but I don't think it's against the rules?"
"I've never heard that we couldn't... but we do have different scheduled times for training." Jurota began; "Also what would we be working on? Surely not just fighting prowess!"
"Maybe stuff like tracking and memorizing scents?" Alarice just shrugged, and fiddled, struggling to find something to add on. "Sorry it just sounded like a good idea. There's not that many people here with quirks like ours."
"It's fine, that's perfectly understandable! And I'm not opposed if we can work it out!"
The teens smiled at each other, and Alarice remembered she had forgotten to share the news that she had passed her final. Her father would take awhile to answer, though he would, now that he had a new phone. Much to Alarice's relief of course.
Alarice: Hey so 1-A won the training thing.
Alarice: It it was really weird the whole time.
The Microphone: Heyyyyyyyyy Good Job, Kiddo!
The Microphone: Also make sure you go to bed, you got a big test coming!
:Alarice: Thanks. Gonna try.
Alarice: To sleep
Alarice:Thats what I'm going to try
And his next text was a mish-mash of dogs and blank boxes, because their phones didn't share the same emoticons apparently. Alarice hadn't the heart to tell Mic they didn't show up or work on her phone.
000
Morning brought with it the frustration of cold weather, and her classmate, whom she'd previously been teamed up with, giving her the most vicious glare. Worse than the one right before he'd blown up the fridge during the cryptid hunt. For a brief moment she considered taking cover somewhere.
"What the Fuck are you doing?" He snarled out while Todoroki in front of him, looked back at them, face blank.
"I'm uh... I'm coming with?" Alarice answered, still considering where she could throw herself to avoid being exploded. Bakugo instead whirled to the only teacher currently there, Yagi.
"Why the Fuck does Mutt get to go!?" He demanded, gesturing too aggressively for Yagi or Alarice's comfort, the latter taking a small step back from him. "She can't possibly be taking the fucking test, too!"
"She is." Yagi said, trying to calm the situation down just a little despite knowing it was somewhat fruitless. "Young Stone was also supposed to re-take her test, this was agreed upon as a good-way to test you all together."
Bakugo whipped his head back around to Stone, glared heavily again, and let out a huff, storming over to the car. Todoroki, doing the noble thing and suggesting that he'd sit in the middle between Bakugo and Stone.
000
Enigma settled into their role as a 'villain' for this little act, a little to easily. Then again, the Hero knew, he frequently made himself seem a villain to real villains, to lower their guard. Enigma, who refused an epithet for his name. It would ruin the spell, and he, much like Eraserhead, were heroes who valued their secrets. His quirk was Illusionist, and within a space around him, he could create extremely convincing illusions. He'd once made a man think he'd shattered both his legs, despite standing there perfectly fine. His helmet allowed him a greater range, as well as allow him more subjects he could control. He remained out of sight of the young testing students grouped below.
"Are you ready?" Gang Orca challenged, unbothered by a single new addition to the group.
"Bring it!" Bakugo barked out with a growl, for flavor, to his taunt. Engima, smirking to himself as the students quickly found themselves sliding backwards as the ground caved beneath them and they were dropped into total darkness.
To them, any way; to everyone else very little happened to them. Gang moved into the cityscape to take his position, now that he'd largely vanished from the students' consciousness.
The students themselves were deep in the illusion, dropped down into some underground part, where it was pitch black around them.
Alarice pulled herself back up to a sitting position, ears sprouting out to listen and regretting it almost immediately.
"What the fuck! This is some SHIT!" Bakugo shouted, Tensing as if he was going to go for the closing doors above, but didn't. His voiced echoed off their surroundings, painfully. Alarice put her ears back to normal since she certainly wasn't a bat.
"Who knew they had this much beneath them! So wild!" Camie chimed, dusting herself off as she brought herself up to a standing position. Some one cracked something, and a dull light appeared within Inasa's hands. Glow sticks. Really nice ones, He handed one to Camie, then one for Alarice, who accepted it quietly. He continued the process, only leaving out Todoroki since he had his own ability to light the way: Fire.
"I wonder if it's going to be like a maze?" Some one mentioned quietly, but no one had an answer. The darkness felt heavy around them as with some grumbling that they should stick together, they headed into the only direction they had to go.
.
Lit up by one half-human torch teen and several glow sticks, they found that the environment they'd been dropped into, matched what they saw above.
"Todoroki, kill the flame. If we're underground, there might be gasses that could be ignited. Here." Inasa waved an already cracked and glowing tube over to Todoroki who took it without too much question. Though his face was blank as he took it and hooked it into his pants.
A shift of air had Stone assuming her were-hound shape, listening fervently, and occasionally audibly sniffing the air around them. Her foot-falls were surprisingly silent, not breaking stride to change form, though the glow stick lit her up into a more frightening shape. Especially obvious now, was that her glowing eyes didn't actually give off any real light, they just looked kind of eerie in the dark.
000
Yagi sat in the bleachers of the building, watching the teens below. Their response to whatever the Illusionist had done seemed reasonable, and everything seemed quite calm for now. The soft click of heels signaled that Miss Sunshine had walked over and settled herself into a chair to watch below.
"Did I miss anything?" She asked softly, the soft shuffle of cloth as she got comfortable.
"The start. They appear to be looking for any potential victims." Yagi said, shifting his angle to see if he could note anything else. "Though... It doesn't appear they have anyone out there for that."
"It also seems rather quiet for a test." Sunshine offered shifting her angle as well to see if she noticed anything.
"That's likely because of the Hero they called in for the test specifically. He's made some sort of group Illusion. " He pointed out the man in the well tailored suit, looking like an unassuming but dapper gentleman. "I'm not sure what he's cast on them, but I think they might be in the dark. They lit glow sticks."
Before sunshine could respond to him, there were several popping explosions, and even what looked like one of Bakugo's 'flashbangs'.
000
Stone, still a were-hound, bound the henchman in the zip-cuffs, handing him off to one of their team-mates. Some tough-looking young man, who held the man firmly. Standing to the side and quiet were a couple of 'civilian victims' they'd found. Just two.
"We need a place to keep suspects" commented one of the others, a young woman with a leaf on her head. Another individual nodded. Stone, and Bakugo were quiet, Todoroki as well but that wasn't particularly new. Though Inasa was nodding enthusiastically, the group was quiet in regards to figuring out where to place their few found suspects. It took them awhile, and another brief scuffle, Todoroki taking down a henchman himself, picking up another suspect not long after that too, before they found a spot.
It was difficult to tell in the dark but with the careful use of Todoroki's fire, a location was set up. Though the lights made them easy to see, the group of students had no intention of leaving the prisoners alone, setting up between themselves a designated zone to protect.
"Hey Mutt, follow me!" Bakugo barked out, and despite the words were already mean, he managed to make them sound meaner. Even so, Stone didn't argue and actually just followed along. The test had been plenty proof to her that for the most part he could lead, even rudely.
"We have defense here covered." Todoroki said though he was pretty sure he wasn't heard. It didn't much matter, he supposed. Inasa in the dark, if he had any feelings about it, didn't show or voice them.
Stone couldn't quite keep pace with Bakugo, not the in the same way, and definitely not in the dark, Thankfully he didn't get that ahead between jumps, and finally came to a stop. She could swear she heard him grind his teeth before the finally broke the silence in an aggressive whisper; "Can you smell that asshole still?"
"Only faintly." the were-hound took a moment, before answering again in that slightly hollow sounding voice. "There's no one close, either. Its just us."
"How many of those whiners we found were real?" He asked.
"None, only the henchmen are real." She answered, he could only see the vague shapes of her ears as they shifted constantly in the dark, listening. Alarice had whispered to him early on, that something was wrong. The first person they had found had no scent. There was some sort of trick afoot. After that, they hadn't said anything else, to avoid giving away the knowledge that the rest of their senses, were being lied to. Bakugo hadn't voiced it, but after he noticed he couldn't smell blood where he knew he should, he knew she was right.
"Then I'm taking out that Trickster dick! Get moving, Mutt!" He managed to growl out and whisper. Stone simply accepting that for what it was, in the dark, and with a big sniff, began to track down the scent of the person likely causing the trick. It only had one place in this area.
000
Enigma had to admit, he was finally really starting to have fun with this group. The Standard Civilian illusion wasn't hard, and he had to admit it was made easier on him when they grouped them together.
Working with Gang Orca, with a coordinated at attack on the main group of kids was exceptionally entertaining. Keeping them on their toes with, to them, very real attacks. Keeping Gang Orca shrouded as much as possible, and of course, making excellent use of the duplicate Gang Orca he'd made. A broad smile across his face as he gesticulated like a conductor to his band.
Maybe he was enjoying this a little to much? Maybe, he thought as he definitely put one of the students down for the count with the duplicate-gang. They had said to make this test tough, and he was going to follow that instruction to the T.
An eruption nearby pulled Enigma's attention away from harassing the main group. The two stragglers he'd been keeping lost in a maze-like situation, they were closer than he would have liked! He set his duplicate Orca onto them immediately. Smirking to himself, before he realized, that they were onto the trick. Not enough to break the illusion completely but as the blond one delivered an extreme explosion, and the other followed past the fallen duplicate, as if it wasn't there, he knew.
These two had figured him out, and hadn't just been out looking for 'stragglers' they had gone out hunting for him. Smart kids, though he was probably bound to be figured out soon and given that one appeared to look like a dog... well that explained it.
He focused on the two, creating more unique illusions for the pair, and since one was a dog, he had to stick to a select few things for that one. Thankfully, he'd came prepared, pulling out a bag with a folded piece of gold cloth in it, soaked in perfume. Another contained a few vials to enhance the illusions.
"So you found me." Enigma challenged rather calmly, as the two teens made it up to the roof. Glad he prepared, the one with the skull was downright disturbing, especially when paired up with someone he equally found rather troubling. Before he could do much else, Bakugo was on him in explosive fury. The Sunshine duplicate landed gracefully as she if she'd jumped, the light off Bakugo's explosions reflected beautifully off her shiny body. The Hell-hound hesitated before closing her eyes and charging in, much to Enigma's surprise. She'd decided faster than he would have thought, to attack Sunshine.
Sunshine's duplicate sun-burst the two teens, Both managing to avoid being stunned by the light, in their own way. It dodged away from the snap of the Hound's jaws on her ankle, and pushed Bakugo's attack onto said hound. It didn't seem to do anything to her, but further Enigma's surprise. His duplicate Sunshine, lacking real sunshine to go off in the fight, unlike his Gang duplicate, failed to hold them off, The hound herself, must have realized it first when the scent didn't track with the vision.
Enigma had to focus on these two completely now. The illusion for the others down below would start to wane, as he had to put all his focus onto the pair fighting him. Creating duplicates of himself next to keep them off, and dropping a form of stink-bomb to clog the dog's nose.
000
Alarice was starting to get frustrated with this, Even being paired up with the absolute powerhouse that was Bakugo, this man with his illusions was keeping them at bay. Her nose was on fire with the stink bomb he'd dropped, she was also sure it was bleeding. With a snarl she pounced on the next Enigma she could, as it popped into dust under her paws.
Bakugo was loud and staying focused on the goal: beating this guy and lifting the illusion he'd cast on everyone. Suddenly, to Alarice anyway, he managed to hit the real one, knocking him to the ground hard. When she looked to the ground, there was a soft layer of ice on it, and some of it, she noted, had ended up the 'villain's fine leather shoes, but his clones.. didn't have it.
She scrabbled to pounce on him, shifting her shape to the faster were-hound one. She hit something other than his scalp when she went to grab his head. Instead, grabbing his helmet in her weird were-hound paw-hands. A helmet! She pulled it off quickly, attempting to crush it between her hands. It was almost impossible to do, so she held onto it. Jumping back to avoid the knock-out blow from Bakugo, who was busy shouting "MOVE, MUTT!"
All the Illusions quickly dissipated, light came right back and there were shouts from below from the few students who hadn't known that the 'victims' weren't even real. Back on the roof top, Bakugo left restraining Enigma to Alarice. The pair looked down below, and at the ice that had helped them identify which was the real Enigma in the fight, though it looked like it had been purely accidental. Inasa and Todoroki it looked like, with the others below, had managed to hold their own and defend the "people" below against Gang-Orca.
With his associate down, they were closing-in on the victory. Though there quite a few participants who recovered quickly enough to start working together to take out Gang Orca together. With Enigma secured, Alarice and Bakugo jumped down to help finish the job.
It wasn't long till the test was over. It was now time to find out who had earned their right to hold a provisional license.