09.06.2023

It is I, the Absolute Madman and I'm back with your weekly dose of Stranded which is late due to a minor burnout, more on that in the End Notes. For now let's dive into the comments!:

Guest - Hmm... Well, I could do that, or I could give you some of-screen IzuxItsu observed by KyoxSets.

hbJnAWyvblkD6821jn - Don't look at me like that. I have a technician's degree in mechatronics and write fanfics as a hobby, I know nothing about cooking. I actually do have pasta in me fridge rn. At least I'm pretty sure it's pasta. We call it spaghetti so I don't know if it makes a difference? One google search later I'm still not sure...

ForthWallBreaker - Alright then, I'll have Martha send you the bill for the two walls you already owe me. You're lucky I patched it with some cardboard after last time so it wasn't that expensive. Can't you just use the door like me? Getting back on track - how about having Izuku catch one of his girls in a snare so we can cross the 'I'm stuck step-zuku' tag off the bucket list?

Tellemicus Sundance - Well, the directors of the Witcher series from Netflix through the source material out the window as well, yet they continue to smear the name of this great series with their politically-correct shit. If they can do it, why can't I do it? Although I'm very relieved to see that you didn't force yourself to read something you didn't like like that other guy a couple of chapters ago.

And with comments answered, the chapter!:


"Master, you really got to see this." Martha suddenly stated over the speakers, her voice carrying an undeniable sense of urgency.

"Oh for quarks' sake, can't you just tell me what it is instead of using this overrepresented trope from Hollywood?" Martin responded, traces of annoyance in his voice, though there was a smirk on his face, indicating the annoyance to be fake.

"I could, but where's the fun in that?" The assistant responded in their usual style of banter before pulling up the images she mentioned just now.

Martin stopped fiddling with yet another one of his new projects and shifted his focus towards the pictures floating next to him. The images showed two shots of the exact same place, though they were made at different times. He was already familiar with the old picture as he made sure to study anything and everything of importance and something about that particular site made him pause for a moment. The more recent shot however, whilst mostly identical to the old one, had one staggering difference that caught his attention right away.

"What is this structure?" Martin mumbled out as he took in the image.

The image itself showed one of the vast mountain ranges that surrounded the area where Izuku and the rest had conveniently set their base up. There was nothing except for stones, rocks and the occasional tree here and there. What stood out from the environment however was tiny detail poking out of one of the caves - a fancy looking entrance.

"Have you mapped out the inside yet?" Martin asked, still studying the picture with an eerie sense of recognition.

"I tried, but whatever it is it has a complete set of measures in place, our satellites can't even dream about peering inside. I went ahead and focused the Harrier's sensors on it and while it made some progress, I'm still nowhere near finding out how big it can be." Martha reported whilst digging up the images of the initial scans.

Martin studied them as well, recognizing more and more patterns both in the design and in decor. His interest piqued beyond imagination, his latest projects were forgotten, his focus shifting to the discovery at hand.

"Don't bother continuing the scans." He ordered as he stood up and stretched his legs.

"Pardon?" This request puzzled Martha, she was going to comply of course, but couldn't help wanting to satisfy her curiosity.

"I'm going down there to take a look at it myself. Prepare the Pathfinder-series suit and mobilize the entire Clean House squadron. And one Dynamo-series model." Martin stated as he went to leave the room, the hanger being his next destination.

"That's an awful load of firepower for ruin dwelling." Martha remarked, though began the necessary preparations anyway.

"While that might certainly look like an overkill for such a menial task, if I'm right about this structure then we'll need all of this firepower to get to the bottom of this." Her master responded and this was all she needed to hear. Although she had one more thing to say.

"I'll also prepare the Handmaiden if that's alright with you." Martha voiced her request.

"Sure thing." Martin agreed right away. "The more the merrier!"

And so the two headed towards the hangar to prepare for one hell of a trip.


Things on the ground level were looking similarly hectic, though for a vastly different - and most important less grandeur - reason.

"These are even more amazing than I thought!" Mina declared as she marveled over the small ceramic statuette in the shape of a horse.

"Of course! Our 'Bara is a mastercraftswoman!" Tokage declared proudly, basking in the glory of being friends with the aforementioned artist.

Shiozaki herself had somewhat of a tough time dealing with all the praise as she was a rather humble girl herself and was not used to being swarmed like this. Thankfully Izuku was there to reign in the others if they got really out of line whilst offering some of his own praises in the meantime. His chivalrous deeds and kind words were almost enough for Shiozaki to forget about the lustful debauchery that he engages in. Almost.

Ever since she learned of what he was up to in his spare time and behind closed doors, Shiozaki couldn't stop those intrusive thoughts from invading her mind time and time again. Needless to say that revelation had warped her opinion on her crush really hard, but she still harbored some feelings for the fellow greenhead. And that's what puzzled her greatly. She expected those feelings to fade out rather quickly, but nothing like that happened. The opposite was true even!

At first she thought that her resolve was simply reinforced by the Lord so that she could try and bring Izuku back to the right path, but as time went on, she started doubting that to be the case. She suspected even that instead of her fixing him, he was corrupting her. She found her eyes tracking his movements and focusing on his physique more often than she'd have liked for that to happen and she had no control over it. It was like an instinct or a reflex even.

She was starting to worry that she might end up losing her purity and betraying all of the values ingrained into her mind, body and soul just because of one man. And the scariest thing of all was that a part of her had nothing against it.


The giant smelter meant to allow Momo to work with all of the newly discovered minerals in their mine was a great project and the add-ons only enhanced its value in their eyes. How they managed to complete both the clay firing kiln or the pizza oven before the smeltery itself was a question none of them could answer.

Once there was nothing else left to do however, they put everything they had into finishing the main furnace, though they made sure not to rush the construction either and stick to the design perfectly. It's best to measure twice and cut once than the other way around afterall. With so many hands on board, it took almost no time to wrap up the construction, yet this achievement revealed a very serious issue that somehow eluded everyone - they had where to smelt the ores, but in their euphoric state they failed to realize that they actually needed stuff to smelt too!

This resulted in Izuku and Itsuka being basically sentenced to work in the mine for a couple of days with absolutely no oversight whatsoever. To no one's surprise, they spent a fair share of their breaks tiring each other out instead of resting. And since the other girls made a habit of delivering food to the couple so that they could work as long as possible - Momo's idea - there were times when people took advantage of their blissful unawareness to pleasure themselves - mostly Kyouka, though this time it wasn't due to luck and was planned every time. Well, except for that one time.

The unmistakable sound of flesh slapping against flesh - an obvious indication that Izuku and Itsuka were both immersed in something other than work at this very moment - was like music to Kyouka's ears. She enjoyed being the one who got Izuku's intimate attention and Momo's ministrations were able to bring her immense pleasure as well, but there was just something about spying on others that really got her in the mood like nothing else. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that due to her quirk giving her enhanced hearing she continuously stumbled upon secrets and eventually grew fascinated with them? Whatever the case, the food delivery had to wait for now, as Izuku and Itsuka wouldn't be too pleased if anyone was to interrupt them right now.

Kyouka tip-toed her way through the mining tunnels and managed to find a crevice in the wall - formed by the mining operations that Izuku and Itsuka carried out when not indulging in carnal pleasures - with the perfect line of sight. Once in position Kyouka quickly undressed herself completely and began pleasuring herself to the rhythm of Izuku's thrusts. Lost in the scene in front of her, Kyouka herself became blissfully unaware of her surroundings, focusing solely on what was happening in front of her and paying no mind to anything else that could distract her from the pleasure. It was no surprise then that she almost had a heart attack when someone whispered directly into her ear.

"Well, whatcha lookin' at?" The voice caught her off guard and Kyouka was about to scream like she's never screamed before but a hand pressed firmly on top of her mouth muffled the mighty yell into a pitiful whimper.

Kyouka struggled against the attacker's grip, fear creeping up her spine as the assailant dragged her deeper into the crevice so that they were completely hidden from sight. Kyouka closed her eyes tightly when she was pushed against the wall, fearing for her life and expecting the worst to happen. She was greatly surprised when she noticed the grip on her shoulders loosen up. Eventually she was able to crack one of her eyes open to see what was going on and when she did she was met with Tokage's trademarked toothy grin.

"You alright?" She asked in her usual smug manner, though Kyouka's sensitive ears picked up a strangely apprehensive undertone in Tokage's voice.

Once Kyouka realized that her life was not actually in danger - although she'll probably be teased to death in the days to come… maybe dying right here and now was actually the preferable alternative? - her fear transformed into embarrassed rage. She was once again about to scream at the top of her lungs, but Tokage was quick enough to muffle her flawlessly a second time.

"You wouldn't want those two to catch us, now would you?" Tokage warned, her grin not faltering, though a hefty amount of reddish dusting began creeping up her neck and onto her face.

The conveniently brief silence was enough for Kyouka's ears to pick up that slapping noise that started this whole exchange and she suddenly remembered her state of undress. Her arms quickly flew to protect whatever shreds of decency she had left and her face was instantly flooded with an unhealthy amount of blood, turning her face into an impression of a tomato that could compete with Izuku's any day of the week.

"Turns out I'm not the only one having fun with this food delivering service." Tokage said, acting uncharastically shy all of a sudden. Whether this was genuine discomfort or just an attempt at working past the awkwardness of the situation.

"C-Can you turn around for a moment?" Kyouka asked, finally pushing past her embarrassment.

"So that you can put your clothes back on?" Tokage guessed and this time Kyouka only nodded meekly. "Yeah, I can do that. Or we can do something else." Now, she didn't know what the offer might be - although she should've expected it from the context of the situation - but Kyouka found her curiosity winning over her reason.

"Something else?" Kyouka questioned cautiously.

Instead of a verbal response, Tokage decided to go a step further and offered a visual presentation of her idea, one that anyone would find hard to misinterpret. Hooking her thumbs underneath the waistband of her shorts, Tokage proceeded to pull down her shorts and - in an impressive show of accuracy - threw them in the vague direction of Kyouka's neatly folded pile of clothes, accidentally managing to land the shorts right next to the pile.

Before Kyouka had the chance to react in any way, Tokage decided to go even further and pulled off her shirt as well, throwing it aside in one smooth move and closing the distance between them in a matter of seconds in nothing but her underwear.

"W-What are you doing?!" Kyouka whisper-shouted, her face improving on her previously flawless tomato impression and her body burning up once again.

"Seducing you I guess?" Tokage responded with a grin, though there were hints of nervousness in her voice. "As far as I'm concerned we've come here for the same thing, so we might as well help each other out, right?" That was one of the sketchiest sounding explanations to be ever provided, but it somehow worked.

At least if you count the fact that Tokage was not wearing her underwear ten seconds later and being eaten out the next minute as the sketchy explanation working its sketchy magic. This was a surprise that neither of them were expecting, but it somehow was able to get them worked up to the point of not needing the fap material that Izuku and Itsuka were providing with their live performance. You could say that this chance interaction got Kyouka and Tokage a bit too worked up as they failed to notice that Izuku and Itsuka had already wrapped up their shenanigans and there was no way they wouldn't notice the moans reverberating all over the mine. For a fully natural cave, this place had some awesome acoustics.

It was obvious that Izuku and Itsuka would investigate those noises, after putting their clothes back on of course and it was equally obvious that Kyouka and Tokage would have some explaining to do. A lot of it. And this time sketchy explanations were not going to work at all.


"Entrance in sight, opening airbrakes." Martha stated through the comm-link as the eight flying suits rapidly descended from the sky.

Upon her command the plates of the armors unfolded to maximize the drag and allow for a smooth landing. The eight sets of feet clanked against the ground softly as the thrusters died out. Martin and Martha wearing the Pathfinder and the Handmaiden respectively stood at the very front of the formation.

The Pathfinder-series armor was a part of the still on-going project centered around making the perfect infiltrator-style suit. It had quite the quirky way of going about being designed for stealth however. Whilst normally you'd paint it with some dark green/gray/black paint to make it blend into whatever environment it would serve in - the Pathfinder was snow-white in color. Yes, not the sneakiest of colors - that'd be purple of course - but it was chosen for one specific reason - Martin didn't have enough white armors in his arsenal. If anyone wanted to object and state that white is an awful choice for stealth then Martin would gladly challenge them to a game of hide and seek and win every time of course. Paint wasn't all that reliable, it could get scratched up, dusted over, dirtied with mud and whatnot. The solution? Regenerating micro-displays.

The entire outer layer of the Pathfinder suit was covered by a swarm of microscopic robots that could project various patterns on their backs, thus being able to adapt to any environment they might find themselves in. And to determine what was going to work best in the current situation, the Pathfinder suit had a couple of high-resolution cameras mounted on to constantly survey the color palette around itself and change the current camouflage pattern on the fly. Supplying power to the whole thing was a challenge, but one that Martin was actively working to solve. Once that was done he'd finally be able to consider the Pathfinder Project finished.

Handmaiden on the other hand looked less like an armored suit and more like a robot with a very… detailed physique. Made sense since this was basically Martha's personal armor and there was no way in hell anyone was ever even going to touch it. Many may try but they'll be met with Martin's fury right away and believe me when I say it, no one is prepared to handle the amount of heat he can bring with him.

The Handmaiden looked basically like a female elven warrior from some fantasy books, with the parts imitating skin being colored in gold whilst the 'clothes' had different shades of blue, mostly the deep ones and sapphire-like. Further driving the elven design on was the fact that the Handmaiden's sole weapon was a collapsible compound bow hidden within her left arm. It might sound primitive in comparison to everything else that the armor had going on in its favor, but Martin made sure to add some flair to it by including two assembler units in the armor's legs capable of sucking in particles from the air and combining them to 3D print an infinite supply of fully-customizable arrows.

Right behind the armored duo was the sole representative of the Dynamo-series. It would've been dubbed 'Tesla' if it wasn't for the fact that the Tesla-series already existed and had a vastly different role than the Dynamo. Whilst Tesla was all about damage, Dynamo focused on utility and was hyper-specialized in incapacitating electronics. The matte dark yellow suit housed an electric dynamo capable of producing powerful electro-magnetic pulses which could fry most electrical circuits in quite the wide area of effect. The Dynamo-series models had a couple of mishaps with frying their own circuits, basically short-circuiting themselves after a single use, but that's an issue that was eliminated a long time ago. The failed prototypes are still stored in the hangar though, just in case Martin ever needed an electro-magnetic suicide bomber.

Bringing up the rear were the five members of the Clean House squadron. Aside from being an insane genius with an over-inflated ego, Martin was kind of a maniac when it came to keeping order in everything he did. Every project - no matter how insignificant - had a name and all of his suits belonged to something - be it a project or a team. The Clean House squadron itself was made up of five Ghost-series armors. They had nothing to do with the supernatural, but Martin improved their designs many, many times, making sure to reduce the amount of noise they made to a minimum, thus causing them to move silently just like ghosts would. He also made it a habit of painting various skull-like designs on their deep-black faceplates. Martha vaguely recalled that it was meant to pay homage to some guy named Simon Riley or something like that, but she couldn't remember the exact story behind it.

"Alright, let's see if anyone's home." Martin stated as he approached the entrance, more than eager to either confirm or debunk his theories.

Both of the outcomes would be evenly intriguing in his books, but one was definitively scarier than the other. Which one it was they'd soon find out.


It's time for a field trip! Or at least it'll be in the next chapter!

Also, took you by surprise with the sudden KyoukaxSetsuna bit didn't I? I know I did. Even I didn't see it coming afterall! But now, time for some explanations!

I gotta admit I'm slowly running out of ideas, but mostly due to new ones popping up inside me noggin'. One of those is a piece of original fiction that's been haunting me for quite some time now and it'll most likely have to be written eventually, mostly because I'm really liking the idea of making something... well, original. I definitely won't abandon writing fics for MHA as there are still many many ideas I want to write, but writing something original is slowly becoming something of an end goal for me as a writer and if I were to really get down to it, I'd pull out all the gear and do something that I've never done before - plan the story out. Sounds crazy, I know, for I am the Absolute Madman, but with that title comes great responsibility and one of them is being unpredictable!

About the burnout though - I've noticed over the past few chapter here and over on Evil Within that I started to struggle with finding ideas for new scenes. Chaining those random scenes that float inside my head has become quite hard as of late and so I decided to take a step back, a good look from a different perspective and a week off to reorg and rearm, hoping to get back into the swing of things. I could continue pumping stuff out, but I definitely wouldn't want the quality to decrease overtime. To sum it up, no chapter for the next week and back at it again on the 19th for Evil Within and 23rd for Stranded.

I hope you'll understand why I decided to take a short break and that the quality will be back on its feet soon.

For now have a great day and I'll catch y'all in the next update!