Lightning – My Hero Academia
Chapter 45: A Training Exercise!
It was the last school day of the week. Ako was about to head to 1-A for his afternoon hero classes. However, on his way there, he passed by Lula, who stopped him by grabbing hold of his arm.
"Hey, Tanaka. Where are you going?" She asked with an amused smile.
"Uh...to class?" Ako answered slowly.
"You didn't look at the schedule, did you?"
"Apparently not. Why, what's up?" He asked, turning to face her.
"Mr. Aizawa wants all of us to meet at the entrance of Ground Beta for a special training exercise." Lula informed him.
"Oh! Well let me hurry and get my costume on then." Ako said.
"Yeah, you better! And read your schedule next time, you dork!" Lula teased him and playfully pushed him. Ako chuckled and went on his way...
Ako recognized Ground Beta from the entrance exams: UA's mock city for large-scale tests. This was more or less where everything started for him – his shaky beginnings here at UA. Whatever today's test would be, hopefully it would give him a chance to show how much he's improved since that day.
"Hey, Ako," Chikashi noticed him and walked over to greet him. "Been awhile since we were here, huh?" He said with a chuckle.
"Yeah, for real. Feels weird being back here. I haven't seen this place since the entrance exam." Ako commented.
"Me neither, man, but whatever Mr. Aizawa's got in store for us, it's gotta be something crazy if we need to use this place." Chikashi shared this thinking.
"You mean you don't know what this is all about?" Ako asked, looking at him in surprise.
"None of us do." He answered.
"But you're the class president, aren't you? You don't get, like, special representative privileges or something like that?"
"Ha! Nah, Mr. Aizawa doesn't care about all that. We're all in the dark here." Chikashi clarified.
"Gotcha. I guess we'll see then...by the way, Chikashi, I don't know if I've ever said before, but your hero costume is cool." Ako complimented him.
Chikashi's hero costume consisted of classic ninja garb complete with padded shoes, a fabric belt, and a mask that covered up his face except for his eyes and a little bit of white hair peeking through. What set his costume apart, however, was a large print of white kanji lettering on his back.
"I'm pretty sure you did, but I'll gladly take the compliment again. Thanks!" Chikashi said with a laugh.
"Heheh, my bad if I did. What does it say on your back there?" Ako asked, pointing to the kanji.
"Oh! It means 'mimic' or 'imitate', since, you know, that's my quirk. Pretty sure I told you that before too." Chikashi chuckled again.
"Alright, class, settle down. Fall in line and follow me." Mr. Aizawa instructed the class. Everyone quickly stopped talking and followed their teacher as he led them into Ground Beta, with its empty, city-like streets.
"Mr. Aizawa, sir! What're we doing today?!" Erena Ogawa asked excitedly, raising her hand and asking the question at the same time.
"Well, I guess now is as good of a time as any to explain what we're doing today. Before we get to explanations and the rules of this exercise though, let me be clear about something: this will be a test of your skills, your strategy, and above all, how you work together as a team.
"We've stacked the odds against you here, and while we don't expect any of you to succeed on this mission, we do expect you to do your best." Aizawa said.
"I hate when he's blunt like that. It's scary." Ako overheard one of his classmates mutter under his breath. It was that guy with the long black hair who usually kept to himself whenever he wasn't sitting outside drawing; Ako couldn't remember his name right now.
"With that out of the way, today's test will be a situational exercise – namely, a hostage situation. The 21 of you will be split into 7 teams of 3. One by one, you will need to infiltrate the location we've chosen and find a way to rescue the hostages inside while also dealing with a team of 5 'captors', all of them possessing quirks." Aizawa continued.
"Jeez, that's intense. Now it makes sense why we're here." Chikashi commented to Ako, nudging him with his elbow.
"This is the location where you'll be performing your test," Mr. Aizawa said, drawing their attention to the building ahead of them. They looked and saw that it was modeled to look a lot like Musutafa city hall.
"The hostages will be located in the back of the building. That's the only information we can give you before you go in.
"You'll begin out here. How you choose to enter the building and extract the hostages will be entirely up to you, so long as you get them out safely. Keep in mind though, the team of captors will have the sole task of stopping you and taking you and your team down.
"You'll be outnumbered, so communication will be vital to increasing your chances." Aizawa advised.
"Oh man, I can tell this is gonna get wild real fast. Ako, you wanna form a team?" Chikashi asked him. Ako looked at him and nodded.
"Sure, man. We'll just need a third person." He said in reply.
"I say either Lula or Midori, since Lula has the paralysis quirk and Midori's snake quirk makes her the most evasive. Actually, scratch that, we should take Lula – she'll be able to make our round quick and easy." Chikashi reasoned.
As Chikashi started to pick out a team for them, Ako could hear the others starting to talk amongst themselves whom they should pick for their teams. Mr. Aizawa, however, quickly took notice and shut this down by motioning for them to be quiet.
"Simmer down, all of you! I'm not finished...oh yeah, for those of you already putting your teams together, you can scrap that right now. I've already chosen your teams for you, as well as who you'll be facing.
"Now, to ensure that everyone will get a chance to participate in this activity, I've arranged for another class of students to come and help out with this exercise." Aizawa brought up.
"Another class?" Some of the students repeated, looking at each other.
"You might remember some of these faces from the sports festival last year. Each of your teams will be facing a group of 5 students from class 2-A. Of course, 3 of them will have to go twice just to round things out."
As he spoke, the students of class 1-A watched as the 20 second-year students made their way over, all wearing their gym outfits. Ako immediately recognized a few faces among them, but considering that he would have to be going against some of them, he wasn't too happy to see them.
"Hey, everyone! Those hero costumes are awesome! Man, the new first years look mean!" One of the second-year girls with pink hair and pink skin said with a laugh.
"Settle down, Ashido," Mr. Aizawa told her. "Now then, while most of you will be watching from other rooms that will allow you to spectate, I need 6 of you to play the hostages. Any volunteers?"
"Ooh ooh, I'll be one!" The pink girl, Ashido, spoke up again, raising her hand to volunteer.
"Sounds like that might be fun! We'll be hostages too!" Uraraka raised her hand, placing her other hand on her friend's shoulder: a girl with long, dark green hair who was sticking her tongue out.
"Ribbit."
"Uraraka and Asui, you can be hostages this time. Ashido, not you. You'll be one of the captors for this first round." Aizawa said, pointing at her.
"What?! Aw man!" Ashido grumbled in disappointment, slumping over and letting her arms hang down to express her dismay.
"I'll be one too!" Lula volunteered.
"Why are the girls the only ones volunteering right now? They just wanna be saved, I guess." Zachary joked.
"Mr. Russo. Would you also like to volunteer to be a hostage?" Mr. Aizawa quickly singled him out for talking out of turn.
"No, sir. I would like to be first to go." Zachary answered.
"You'll be in the third round. Now quiet."
"Heheh, well since Zachary wants to save some dudes, I'll volunteer as a hostage." Chikashi said just to tease him.
"I will also be one. It sounds like fun. And I want to see the fight up close." Hideo volunteered with a snicker.
"One more." Aizawa counted, holding up one finger.
"I'll go," The guy with the dark hair that commented about Aizawa earlier raised his hand. "I would also like to observe up close the different possible strategies."
"A wise choice, Mr. Sakurai. Okay, so Katsuo, Chikashi, Hideo, Lula, Tsu, and Ochako; all of you stand over here." Aizawa directed them. The 6 students gathered together to his left.
"This is crazy, man," Cain shuffled over to Ako to talk to him. "I wonder who's gonna go first."
"I don't know. I'm just nervous. Feels like we're all gonna get boned." Ako commented.
Alright. I'll announce the first captor team: Izuki Midoriya, Katsuki Bakugo, Mina Ashido, Minori Mineta, and Yuga Aoyama; step forward." Mr. Aizawa instructed.
Ako watched as the first captor team stepped up. Right away, Ako recognized Bakugo and Deku from when he talked to them not long ago. He didn't know either of them well, but he knew about Deku's rising star status as well as Bakugo's explosive quirk and equally explosive temper.
"Oh god, we are gonna get boned." Ako said with widened eyes.
"And the first hero team: Ako Tanaka, Yui Okamoto, and Koko White; please step forward." Aizawa instructed.
"Never mind, I'm gonna get boned." Ako sighed...