Sixteen students on one side, one teacher on the other, and dozens upon dozens of small beige soldiers awaiting orders from Commando surrounding them. The ease and excitement the class felt had been quickly replaced with fear and uncertainty, something which the teacher took notice of. "You're nervous. Good. Means the classes will help."
Before he could speak again, two students stepped forward. One, Ignatius recognized as the boy in the chainmail from earlier. The other was Sutaa, the off-white gi top and dark brown pants contrasting with his blue skin. He grumbled quietly, but the other boy spoke up. "Are we going to be facing you, our teacher, for our first class?"
At the question, the older man chuckled, threatening a guffaw. "Stand down, Goff, Magnison. If the class today was all of you against me, you'd have lost already. You're outnumbered and out-experienced." With a wave of his hand, the soldiers moved from their position, returning to him and saluting, allowing the more keen-eyed to see at least 50 small creatures awaiting orders.
"My name's Cley Cooper", the teacher started, brown eyes catching every detail of the students and their costumes. "As you've learned already, I go by Commando on the field, and my Quirk lets me create these tiny soldiers." He raised a hand to shoulder level, his palm shimmering before a new soldier no taller than a few inches erupted from within and saluted, moving to a post unseen in the crowd of Miniatures.
The small showcase finished, his arms once again went behind his back. "Ava may have told you about training your muscles and your Quirk alike in her introductory class. But if power was all there was to being a Hero, there'd be no need for a Support class or even Support Heroes in general." A few of the class flinched at the idea, and he nodded in solidarity.
"Teamwork", the word was loud, but poignant. "Any good hero needs to learn how to cooperate. I already see some of you being buddies, which is good, but you're not always going to be able to partner up with your friends." He retrieved a small device from his pocket, pointing it behind him to allow a screen to form, with all of their names in a small list.
"The exercise will be simple", he continued. "Four groups of four each, each group fights another. Each team will be randomised, so there's no guarantee you'll be with whatever friends you've already made." He motioned past the students, most looking behind to see the mock city around them.
Large streets, buildings outlining most, and rubble in select spots was all the class could see. "The situation is as follows – your group of four is the last line of defence holding the other group back from breaking into the city. Your objective is to either stop them entirely, or to slip past them to call for help. If even one of you manages to make it to the other team's flag, it's as good as a win."
"What counts as 'stopping them' in this case, Mr. Cooper?" A girl with silver hair asked, light bouncing off a few of her freckles.
"Knock them out or restrain them with the capture tape you'll all be given on the bases", the teacher replied, retrieving the example tape. "They're not a perfect solution, especially for the more physically strong of you, but if I consider that you've been restrained, you will know, and you'd do best to follow. My Miniatures will be standing watch across the battlefield." His voice turned sharp then, the nerves felt across the class compounding. "You'd all best hope not to be too aggressive nor continue to attack after you've been treated as out of the fight."
With his warning delivered, Cley turned to the screen, pressing on a button and allowing the names to shuffle into four teams. Some of the class was excited at the prospect of teaming up with new folks, while a few breathed a sigh of relief seeing a more familiar face. For his part, the teacher displayed little to no emotion at the groups formed.
"That's our four teams", he started, motioning to each side. "Watts, Seo-Jun, Paws-Felixis, Savage, Team A, to the left. Maxine, Barbaros, Redd, Beolda, Team B, to the right. When you all find your flag, you'll have five minutes to come up with a plan, and then the exercise will start." Each of them looked to their partners, then started towards their respective sides, leaving eight others with their teacher.
"Rest of you, come with me. We'll be watching them."
Ignatius was thankful to at least know Alora from his team, making the process of coming up with a plan a little easier. He had also recognized the sandy blonde with notably sharp incisors as the boy who turned parts of his body into that of an insect's. He tapped his foot rather impatiently, leaving the taller girl of the two slightly annoyed. To the redhead, she was the wildcard, her Quirk a complete unknown to him.
"Is anyone gonna say something, or do I have to come up with the plan?" The blonde started, green eyes glancing over each of his teammates. His red overalls and white jumpsuit made him look a little more like a scarab, especially when it was combined with the helmet that left most of his hair exposed.
"I'm thinking", the silver-haired girl closed her eyes, trying to picture each scenario in her head. "They've got a pretty strong-looking team, so it's probably going to be next to impossible to win with knockouts." The green cloak over her brown jumpsuit fluttered slightly in the artificial wind.
"Unless we jump them first", the toned teen grinned. "I'll catch them faster than they can react-"
"And then get caught yourself", she interrupted. "We'll be down a heavy hitter when they could have four of their own. That's not going to work."
Seeing the little argument, the redhead motioned to the both of them. "Maybe we should figure out what we have and introduce ourselves before figuring out a plan?" A finger pointed to his other hand, flexing it a bit. "I'm Ignatius Redd, and I can fire beams of plasma from my fingers with my Quirk. Can't do it for too long before they start to burn, though."
For her part, Alora had kept quiet, only truly speaking up when Iggy nodded to her. "Oh, uh... Alora Beolda, I can project light from my eyes for illusions, and doing it too much can blind me." She adjusted the dark purple hoodie and goggles before doing the same with the lighter purple of her bodysuit.
"So I'm the only one here with an actual physical Quirk?" The blonde groaned quietly, but shook his head. "Ellix Barbaros. I can turn parts of my body into bug parts." He raised his arm, turning it into an ant's arm before changing it back, slightly unnerving the thinner girl next to him. "Still working on hybrids."
"How fast can you shift your body?" Maxine was quick to ask, a new thought coming to mind.
"Pretty fast, to and from", he replied, leaning into a nearby pillar. "Why?"
"I have an idea on how you could 'jump them' more safely..." She finally opened her blue eyes, a small smirk gracing her round face. "Eir Maxine. I'd rather not get into what my Quirk does exactly yet, but I don't think it'll help here much."
"Fair's fair, Eir", Iggy cracked a small joke, making the girl snort. "You'll probably be away from the big fights, then? Me and Ellix could cover for the rest while Alora causes distractions and runs for the flag if she sees an opening."
Eir raised a hand, the smirk not leaving just yet. "That's not a bad idea, but we're going to need something bigger, and I have a plan..."
The observation booth, despite having half the amount of students, was a mild cacophony of sound to Cley. He had thought himself immune to the rather loud conversations after two fights with the other class and a whole last year of teaching, yet he came up short with easy solutions to tune out the noise.
"Money's on the pretty boy!"
"Between him and the big girl with the mean punch... gotta be hard for Team B, right?"
"And the guy with the sugar? Can't be a breeze to punch through that either."
The bets from the class had been nothing new to him, either, but for the first time in a while, they had been very lopsided, something which lit a fire of annoyance under him. "First lesson while you're in here: never underestimate your opponents, no matter how weak their Quirks might look on paper." This had mostly shut them up, making the brown-haired man hide a smile while having his back turned on them.
There was hope for the group yet.
"What do you think, sir?" The question caused Cley to turn around, seeing the boy with the chainmail speak. "Who do you believe has the advantage in this fight?"
The corner of the teacher's mouth twitched into the beginnings of a smile. "Two big things I've learned over all my years of being a hero, Goff – never go into a fight without at least five plans..." He turned back around, pressing the button that would sound the siren to begin the match.
"And never think of odds without all the information."
The two boys ran in front of the group after the exercise started, Alora and Eir sticking closely behind for the time being. Streets were filled with rubble, parts of destroyed buildings and other such litter filling out the fake town rather nicely in a controlled, yet seemingly chaotic environment for the students.
"What if he doesn't come after me?" Ignatius asked, glancing at the silver-haired girl behind him. "The plan's not gonna work then."
"Plenty of reasons for the plan not to work", she replied, taking careful steps to avoid tripping on a taller rock. "But I saw how he looked at you before we split up into teams. He's definitely gonna come after you first, at the very least."
The labyrinth of ruin eventually opened into a large clearing. While there were a few places to hide behind, it was open enough for it to allow easy fighting and even easier chaos to unfold with larger teams.
It was little surprise when the first attack came and forced the two teens up front to just barely dodge, a small amount of water grazing the redhead's cheek and a bit of sugar avoided by the blonde.
Ahead of them, the other team, the difference in colours and shapes of their outfits making them easy to distinguish. Radiant blue eyes stared down the four most up front, but took most notice of the teen in the red suit. "We meet again, Ignatius! You may be more accurate than I for now, but how well can you hit a moving target?"
"Remember the plan", the silver-haired girl whispered to the rest of the team before moving to one side, Alora sticking behind the other two and looking over the battlefield in a more general sense for the time being to watch for any stragglers. Ellix launched forward, grasshopper legs making it far easier to hop towards the four, but especially Beau.
He took the attention in stride, twirling past the insect teen with grace unseen in any other member of the class. "Sorry, but you will have to wait – I hope you understand!" His flips towards Ignatius made it hard for the blonde to follow, especially when he was forced to jump away from multiple attacks at once.
The first was a hard punch aiming for his torso, the large girl in the helmet and tron-like suit attempting to grab at him. The second, a slithering tendril of sugar pouring over from a container of the boy in the dreadlocks. The punch from the girl in the pink and black outfit did graze his shoulder, but he managed to keep his balance and avoid stumbling towards the ground.
"You know what to do", the pink-haired girl spoke up, weaving back when Ellix dared to launch a fist at her, keeping his legs as they were for the time being in order to continue his dodging.
With the blonde and the others occupied and nobody else in his way, Ignatius started to fire. Beams of plasma whizzed past the blue-eyed grace ahead of him, keeping even the white top and black bottom of his costume completely intact. When a beam came close, he twirled, allowing the water to flow from the container on his shoulders and slam against the plasma, combining the two into hot steam.
"Our Quirks really do not mesh together, do they?" Beau's question was followed by another spin, launching a bit of water from another container, which forced the redhead to fire another beam to clash against it even as the black-haired teen came closer. "Those beams are so different from fire, but work just as well to stop water."
Up close, the fight was rather uphill for Ignatius. It was hard to fire beams point blank at someone who could move with so much more finesse than himself, and while he wasn't slow to swing, he simply couldn't keep up with someone this agile. "What's the matter? Where's the spark you had in the tests?"
Iggy didn't have an answer. This aggravated him as he tried swinging at a blind spot, easily deflected before a water-coated fist slammed onto his chest and launched him towards the ground, air knocked out of his lungs. Above him, the black-haired teen's smile was unflinching, seeing the redhead as another step towards greatness.
"Trust me when I say this isn't personal", his voice was levelled as he gracefully pulled some liquid from two containers at once now that he didn't see his opponent as a threat. "But I am here to be the best." Light shone upon him almost in a spotlight, which he took in stride by spreading his arms and allowing the water to flow more freely around his body. "And I will show you all that I can, and will be!"
Before he could speak or act further, a purple blur dove into him, knocking the hydrokinetic off his feet and forcing the water to fall from its place in the air. Ignatius managed to take a new breath and see Alora jumping back after her initial attack, with Eir offering a hand to help the redhead up. "Next time, try not to swing at people when you know you can't hit them?"
"Noted..." Iggy groaned, rubbing the certainly sore spot on his chest before turning to the chaos ahead. "New plan?"
"Me and you take this guy on, Alora goes to help Ellix", the reply came immediately. "Sound good to you?" He looked ahead, the blonde struggling to keep three people at once at bay. "Better than what we have now." The silver-haired girl motioned to her shorter teammate, which she understood immediately before rushing past Beau to assist the half-insect.
"Diving into me when I'm distracted and then running away..." The blue-eyed student sprang up, retrieving most of the fallen water with some pointed flicks of his wrist and joining it with the liquid still in a few containers. "I will admit that caught me off guard, but no matter. Once I defeat both of you, I will prove my strength!"
Ellix wasn't having a good time.
It had started with Eir telling him he should be keeping the other three away from the black-haired kid so that they could take him out as the apparent biggest threat. He'd have preferred to go on the complete offensive with his Quirk and learned fighting style, but Beau went after the beam user for some reason, leaving him alone with the other three.
He quickly understood the guy in the dreadlocks was trying to brute force his way into a quick knockout with the sheer amount of sugar he had moving close to the ground to trip him. In a similar fashion, the big girl was trying to grab him, and while she wasn't the fastest, each step carried a terrifying prospect of being embedded into the ground.
The biggest mystery, however, was the more lithe teen. She was calm, composed, and only attacking when she saw an opening neither of the other two saw. While he couldn't manage to get a hit on the other two without risking a complete failure, he did try to attack her, but his fists always met air and hers were only barely avoided. Worse still, there was a black cat moving circles around him, and he had no clue if it was related to her or the girl in the helmet.
Another narrowly missed swing of a fist made the blonde skid back, a hand partly supporting his form before he turned back to see the dark-skinned girl. She nodded at him, and he grinned, incisors in clear view.
"Finally! Keep the other two busy, I'm going after the sugar dude." Without another word to guide her, Ellix moved, weaving past the cat and teens alike with the prominent grasshopper legs and leaving her to deal with the rest.
"Wha- oh jeez..." While initially trying to catch the blonde, the two students turned their attentions on Alora, the larger one rushing her in a grab attempt that was swiftly dodged while the cat nearly tripped her up.
Further ahead, the half-insect swung a long, powerful leg in an arc, forcing the dark-skinned man into a crouch before the other leg went downwards, barely missing his back. "I'm so tired of all this jumping around!" Ellix's legs shifted back into their normal shape, before he raised his arms, consciously changing them to ones of a praying mantis while taking a new fighting stance. "I'm not here to be a moving target, I'm here to be a hero!"
Getting up, the teen in the long-coat stretched his shoulders with a grunt. "At least you're not here to be the best hero, whatever that means." Sugar started to pour from his two containers, slowly surrounding him before most of it launched towards the blonde. Without the legs to simply hop away, Ellix was forced to swipe at it, avoiding having his limbs bound.
However, this was exactly what he had hoped for. Only one person to fight, only one Quirk to focus on. While the sugar was rather hard to deflect entirely, the damage that was being done was negligible at best, and each swipe got him a little bit closer to his opponent.
In spite of the inherent advantage, the half-insect still had a difficult time actually catching the boy in the dreadlocks. He was more agile than his build gave him credit for, especially with the hero costume he chose, and focused attacks were deflected, though only barely. As much as it pained him to consider, he needed a new plan before his own exhaustion caught up to him.
This plan only came after he was nearly grabbed by a tendril of sugar and the fatigue forced him to shift out of his arms, taking on the grasshopper legs again. While he could certainly use those legs to kick the sugar away more easily, he needed a way to break through entirely, and what Eir had told him was a possible key.
Ellix swiftly jumped towards one wall, then used the momentum to hop towards the wall closest to it. It took a few seconds to get used to, but he was starting to edge out an advantage of speed over the other teen. They were quick to notice, sugar starting to compact a bit in an attempt to find an easy way to block the haymaker that would likely come.
Perfectly lined up, the blonde focused. Both legs pushed away from the wall, launching him before they were changed back to normal. His fist cocked back, he waited for his opponent to make the flowing wall of sugar, blocking sight entirely.
It was exactly what he had hoped for. The arm changed into the tough horn of a beetle, and he swung it forward, breaking through the sugar, slamming the appendage onto the chest of the teen controlling it and sending them sprawling onto the floor. The remnants of sugar hovered for a few moments before collapsing atop Ellix, who shook it off while quickly getting up and retrieving his tape.
"Can't have you messing up anyone else here..." He turned the boy in the dreadlocks over, tying the capture tape over his wrists and hearing a satisfying beep in response.
"Jordan Watts has been captured" , the voice came over the intercoms as the blonde looked towards the nearest building. Surely that was enough to help the rest of them fight on. He glanced towards Alora, who was having a bit of a harder time dealing with the two girls, then behind him. "'Next to impossible to win with knockouts'... sorry, 'Lora." He changed his legs into grasshopper ones once more, then leaped ahead into the 'enemy' side.
Water and plasma clashed anew to form steam between the two elemental teens. Despite an advantage in numbers, both Ignatius and Eir struggled to get a clean hit in – the former's beams either grazed past or were blocked by water entirely, and the latter's fists and kicks were gracefully avoided.
However, it didn't exactly make them helpless against Beau either. With each beam that hit water, there was less for him to control. It didn't seem like he could create any on his own from what they saw, which meant that his supply could run out in this particular situation.
The silver-haired girl moved back, joining her teammate with a small noise of annoyance. "We're not gonna be able to make him run out of water before we run out of steam..." She looked towards his fingers and grimaced. "Those look close to being burnt, too..."
"I can handle it", Iggy quietly reassured the girl. "Let me get his full attention, I have an idea."
"You're gonna keep using your Quirk?" Eir's eyes widened. "But won't that risk burning your fingers more than they already seem to be?"
It was then she noticed an almost imperceptible change in his expression. What was once a strained smile faltered into a sadder one, the soft glow only she saw around his body shifting. While she wasn't particularly used to so many different types of emotions and their colours, she knew full well what his current aura was from past experience.
"I'll be okay." His voice nearly broke then, but he stood firm, aiming four fingers from both hands in the shape of a gun towards the hydrokinetic. The black-haired teen rushed forward once again, using the remaining water as a jet to close the gap much faster than he had before, but keeping the agility that made him so dangerous to the two and easily avoiding the stronger beam fired.
The redhead winced at the slight pain starting to come, but aimed again... only to see Eir stand in front of him. "I don't know what you're trying to pull, but we're not gonna win if you just throw yourself in harm's way! We'll figure something better out that won't have you burning yourself to a crisp!"
Unfaltering, Beau simply spun away, the water he had gathered in a jet moving with him in a sort of liquid hook that nearly caught the shorter girl by her side. However, the follow-up was quick, and the water slammed into her other side with much more force than she expected, sending her rolling to Iggy's left. "One down, one to go..." His voice was still practised, composed.
It was more than enough to make the redhead see his own colour.
A hand balled into a fist as his Quirk came alive, making his fingers sting. However, the heat persisted, and it took everything not to look at what was going on as he was forced to dodge the water that came towards him. Only by jumping further away did he get the time to see exactly what was happening as he opened his fist.
Small, red and bright, a ball of plasma rested upon his palm. It shook slightly in his vague grasp, which was only released once the blue-eyed boy came closer and he lobbed the orb in a panic. It had caught both of them off guard when it exploded on impact with water, further diminishing Beau's reserves and blocking their view temporarily.
"What was that...?" Ignatius spoke up quietly, uncertainty coming to surface as new questions about his Quirk arose and other parts of his skin heated up in response.
"A neat little trick", the black-haired teen spoke in front of him, emerging from the steam. "But your fingers are looking rather burnt, and I still have enough water to defeat and capture both of you!" His movements were slightly more fierce than before, but with less water, Iggy found himself more able to endure Beauregard's assault.
It was this fixation on the redhead that made him unable to respond when his legs were swept from behind, the slightly battered Eir retrieving her capture tape while Ignatius used his weight to hold onto the hydrokinetic for long enough that his wrists were bound behind his back.
"Beauregard Seo-Jun has been captured", the intercom came to life once more. "...and on that note, so has Alora Beolda." The teens looked beyond, seeing the blue-haired girl dazed on the ground, the tape wrapping around both arms and torso. Unfortunately for both of them, the duo that had done it looked no worse for wear, besides the pink-haired teen wiping away the light from her eyes.
"Where'd Ellix go?" Eir called out, standing up with Iggy's help. "Don't tell me he went for the flag..."
"Not a bad plan if we can stall them..." Ignatius took a deep breath, steeling himself. "He's pretty fast, I'm sure he'll get there before we get taken down."
Despite her fatigue, the freckled teen took a battle stance. "I have a feeling we're missing something, and I don't know what that is..."
The maze was certainly different on the other side, as Ellix had come to notice. Different walls to climb, different rocks to step over, even a tunnel or two clearing gaps that weren't there on their side. He had considered changing his back to gain the wings of a bee and simply fly over, but there was little space and not enough energy to spare.
He heard the intercom come to life a few times, helping him vaguely understand what was going on. Beauregard – the water kid, he surmised – had been captured, no doubt thanks to the efforts of the redhead and that silver-haired girl who he had to thank later for the idea. Alora had been captured around the same time, which was less ideal, but the two could stall until he got to the flag, right?
It was then he saw a small clearing, just like their starting area, and a blue flag compared to their red. The blonde was almost there, victory was in their grasp...
"Team A wins", the half-insect nearly tripped over himself hearing the words from the intercom, shocked by the rug being pulled right out from under him. "Barbaros, back to the center." As he changed his legs back to get his breath back, he missed something about someone retrieving their cat from their flag.
"The cat counts?!" Ellix's outburst got a few of the class to chuckle, with the teacher ahead of them giving a slight nod. Alora was, thankfully, fine, despite having been slammed into the ground by the large girl earlier. The rest were bruised here and there, but nothing that warranted close attention from the medical staff, thankfully.
"Moreso than any of my units, Barbaros", his response came swiftly. "Especially as Paws-Felixis has a deep connection with them."
"But I didn't see it leave before I did... you're telling me the cat's faster than me?" His indignation rose, before a soft hand, belonging to Eir, landed on his shoulder, as she motioned to his right.
He saw the girl that apparently had them all beat, and the one black cat next to her... as well as a calico on her other side. Both of them were getting their fair share of attention from the pink-haired teen, purring filling the ears of the closest students.
"There were two of them, Ellix", she reassured the blonde. "I'm not exactly happy that I didn't notice either, but one of them slipped by while we were focused on our opponents." At this, he slumped slightly, letting out a sigh of annoyance. "Can't believe we lost like that..."
"It's nothing to be ashamed of", Commando continued. "This goes for all of you. Yes, you may have all made mistakes, but you're expected to. This is your first combat class of your first year, with people you barely know. Even heroes with decades under their belts will make mistakes. What's important is that you only make those mistakes in training, and not out there, where real stakes exist." The class stiffened at his words, but he simply looked towards each of the winded teams.
"I'll give each of you your notes once classes are over. For now", he glanced behind him, towards the other site to be used. "Frye, Berzins, Goff, Arclight, Team C, to my left. Donelle, Miura, Magnison, Espinoza, Team D, to my right. Rest of you are coming with me to watch." The class split up once more, as preparations for the next match began.
Most of the students watching the second match had sat down, fatigue having taken a toll on them. Both Ellix and the taller girl – Mallory, Ignatius's mind offered – had chosen to sit alone, the former at least making known that he needed some time to think. The rest had sat fairly closely together, with a couple of groups forming among themselves.
"You doing okay, Alora?" The redhead asked to the girl on his left. "I didn't see how you ended up on the ground, but..."
"Mallory uh... caught me." The dark-skinned teen spoke quietly, shuddering in her seat. "I don't remember much after, but I felt the tape wrap around my body. I'm fine, though..."
Before either of them could say anything else, Commando spoke up, grabbing everyone's attention. "Does anyone have any thoughts on this particular match?" He glanced back, seeing the pink-haired teen's hand raised. "This isn't a normal classroom, Paws-Felixis. Speak up if you want to."
"Feydin and Margo are two of the fastest in our class", she started, lowering her hand. "Ideally, the two of them would be rushing for the flag, seeing as nobody in the other team seems to have the capability to catch them."
"I wouldn't count them out, though", Eir continued, feeling the yellow eyes peering into her. "Adela definitely has more than raw strength, I saw some tools next to her hero costume."
"We don't know everyone's Quirks, either..." Ellix interrupted, leaning against a wall from his sitting position. "I mean, we know Margo teleports, Rayleigh has the beams, Feydin's part bird, and Sutaa has that mean-looking transformation..."
"And Valeria has the snakes, yes", the girl with the cats finished, two of them shuddering in their seats while the dark-skinned teen muttered out a 'don't remind me'. "Going by what we know, I believe Team D's best course of action is some sort of surprise attack."
The teacher nodded at the discussion, cracking his knuckles a bit. "Information is a very important asset to have. With it, we can make decisions far more easily. Without it..." His finger hovered over the button to start the match, seeing a fair few of the students both out and in the building tense.
"We're liable to make costly mistakes." Pressing the button, he watched both teams charge in at different paces at the sound of the roaring siren.
"So we just have to let Margo and Feydin charge in through different places, right?" The spiky-haired blonde glanced towards his equally blue-costumed partner, jumping over a small obstacle while ensuring his red cape didn't snag. "We don't even need to stop the other team as long as they can make it through..."
At this, the boy in the chainmail grunted. "Won't be that easy. They don't have speed but they might have something we don't expect." He readied his chakram, clutching it in his right hand. "Just cover for them when we decide to split."
"Wouldn't it be better for us to go now?" The bird teen to their right started, the red-and-black feathers of his costume glistening in contrast to the ones on his body. "I trust you can protect us, but the farther away we are from one-another, the harder it'll be for them to catch us."
"Could be a trap if we let you move on ahead", Mikhail's eyes snapped to Feydin, then looked towards Margo. "We don't know what all their Quirks are, we need to play it safe."
"I'm perfectly fine with safe", the lone black-haired girl pitched in, twisting the batons in her grasp. "Did you see how hard Sutaa punched that machine? I don't want to deal with that..."
"We've got each other's backs, right?" Rayleigh's palm started charging in anticipation of seeing the clearing just up ahead, but stopped when nobody seemed to be up ahead. "Huh... you think one of them can go invisible?"
The brown-haired teen pondered, then shook his head. "It's a possibility, but it's unlikely they'd let someone invisible go in alone. We keep moving." He took point, with the two speedsters behind him, side by side, and Rayleigh in the back, slowly covering the distance of the entire clearing.
Each step made the two in the middle more and more nervous as time went on. There was definitely a trap waiting for them, it was just a matter of what, when and where. While Margo kept quiet, Feydin decided to speak up once they reached the other side. "We have to split up, they can't account for both of us at the same time!"
In front of them, Mikhail stopped, trying to listen in for anything unusual but finding only silence for his efforts. "If we stick together, we can more easily break out of whatever trap they have for us, and then we can spread our efforts." He put a finger to his lips after, indicating they needed to stay a bit more quiet traversing the other side of the battlefield.
The teen with the chakram was the one to motion to the ground, getting the group to focus on it a bit more. They walked quietly, with only the occasional louder step of gravel possibly giving away their location. Every single step, no matter how quiet, was one that made three of them more nervous about what may be coming.
It was then the four of them heard hissing for a split second, causing the bird to flinch and shudder. All four readied themselves for an attack with bated breath... until they realised two key things about their situation. Not only could they not hear the sounds of snakes all of a sudden, their own breaths had seemingly failed them, as if air was missing.
Panic immediately set in. Mikhail was most composed, nudging to the rest and trying to get them to focus – while it helped with the blonde, the more lithe classmates were terrified of whatever was going on. In particular, the avian felt his lungs burn with the sudden loss of air, eyes rapidly trying to find a culprit.
Colour entered the corners of their sight. Pink, blue, yellow, few colours were missing within the new onslaught of snakes. They counted at least 5, with the lanky, black and emerald-haired teen popping out a sixth, in green, from the palm of her hand, slightly uncomfortable with being in the spotlight.
Between the lack of air and sound, and the reptiles surrounding them, Feydin bolted, his sheer speed getting him away from the scene in a reckless attempt to escape. Noticing this, Margo blinked after him, not wanting them to get too far. The two remaining boys noticed that Valeria, having cast a guilty glance to the right for a moment, hadn't taken a single step after either of them.
They'd been split up, and it was likely they were playing right into their hands.
The sound was back, but it was muffled over the noise of his recovering heartbeat. Feydin'd left the three – two with Margo after him - in a panic. The low lighting and space was uncomfortable, the hissing had put him further on edge, and the five – no, six, there were six - snakes had outright terrified him. He thought he would have gotten more used to them after the first time, but he simply did not expect so many at once. How could he have?
"Feydin, wait!" Behind him, the caped teleporter tried to catch up, finally appearing next to him and grabbing his shoulder, spinning him around to face the teen despite him flinching at the touch. "What happened back there?"
She couldn't hear his heartbeat, but she could certainly see his trembling and rapidly moving chest even below his costume, taking fast, short breaths. "S-snakes, too many snakes, and I couldn't hear or breathe, and it was just too much!" His eyes darted constantly, not once neglecting any sound that wasn't their own.
"Breathe! Just... just breathe..." The black-haired teen didn't feel like she was the best person to try and calm someone down from panic, especially when she was close to feeling the same way. "I can't tell you how to feel, but I can say those snakes were under Valeria's control. She wouldn't have made them hurt you."
The bird teen pursed his lips as his breaths slowed, pushing down most of his thoughts while his foot kept tapping, unintentionally giving away their position. He went to open his mouth, but stopped himself hearing a click.
Without a second thought, he pushed Margo away with a bit more force than he intended. While this made the girl fall on her behind, it was more than worth it when the thorn whizzed past both of them, clearly an aimed shot.
Ahead of the pair, the green-skinned teen, donning a costume fit for a cowgirl, let out a quiet 'tch', tipping her hat a bit before holstering her gun to retrieve her lasso with her free hand. While this initially confused the two classmates, a blue hand almost grabbing Feydin tipped them off to why she had only fired one bullet.
Thankfully, he managed to pull back, seeing the gi-clad beanstalk of a teen eyeing the two up. Feydin got only a single second before he had to block Sutaa off from reaching Margo, glancing back at her in-between attacks. "Go! I'll hold them off!" His voice still had a clear hint of nervousness, but he knew this was their only obvious shot at taking the win.
With her footsteps rapidly echoing in the distance – and not a moment too soon, as the avian found just how hard it was to keep eyes on three people at once even with his heightened reflexes – his wings fluttered, strings of light reflecting off the sheen of black and red of his costume.
He wouldn't let them down a second time.
While still a little panicked about the loss of air and two of their teammates running off, Rayleigh had quickly agreed to his current partner's silent plan, charging up two beams of energy. Valeria stepped back a little at the light, and with her focus split, it was only by sheer luck that the snakes had managed to dodge the beams that followed.
Unfortunately, it meant not having time to circle them back to keep them trapped, and both Mikhail and the blonde managed to escape the strange area they were in, managing a deep breath for their troubles.
"Find who's hiding... I'll cover you." Still catching his breath, the chakram wielder readied his stance, staying between her snakes and the light user, who started to look about for the other Quirk wielder. He'd kept the chakram handy, knowing he'd have to take out more than a few snakes to get to her, but made no intention of using the weapon on her directly.
In a straight fight, the brown-haired teen had a clear advantage over most everyone in the class, at least up close. Sutaa could maybe challenge that notion, but the only ones here were someone who could take their breath away and Valeria.
The snakes had chosen to circle him instead of chasing after Rayleigh, the emerald-eyed girl carefully assessing the situation. If he ever got up close and she didn't have a snake ready, she was as good as defeated. Her palms clenched, she took a deep breath, shrugging off nerves while having the six reptiles move in closer.
It came to a big surprise when his first move was to jump, turning faster than his figure had any right to in his suit in order to actually kick off a wall to vault over the reptiles. The ones immediately behind him tried to strike, and he turned back to slash at them with the chakram, cutting their heads clean off and making the teen wince.
In response, she fired a snake from her palm, trying to keep her distance while finding advantage in blind spots. His momentum covered for this, entire body turning faster than it should allow to deflect the living projectile with his weapon. Fear and panic started setting in, and her snakes acted accordingly. Mikhail was a threat to them, he needed to go.
Uncoordinated and weak as they were, they still had the advantage in numbers. The four remaining creatures slithered along the ground silently, knowing full well that the teen kept his eye on them even as he started to step closer to their host. Instinct drove one to strike from one spot, another moving from a different side.
The first lost its 'life' for its troubles, a swing from the chakram all that was needed to take it out. The other had managed to reach his body, but found itself twisting involuntarily mid-air. This, however, gave Valeria the time she needed to close the gap and get her own hands on the teen's back.
He felt a sting from her palm before he had managed to spin her around, his own leg twisting to kick her side and sending her sprawling to the ground. Acting quickly, he retrieved the capture tape with his free hand, rushing towards the girl before she could recover. The comms came to life as her wrists were tied together, announcing her capture while the snakes eyed him warily.
"Well played", he spoke quietly, taking a few breaths to steel himself, but finding his stamina a bit sapped. "They're venomous, aren't they?" A nod was all he needed to know he was on a time limit himself, and he pondered his options while keeping guard over the tall girl, reptiles having approached him.
Rayleigh finally found himself fired up. Hearing the sounds of combat was a lot more fun when you heard nothing moments before, and having a task to find and defeat someone was even better. He wasn't particularly excited about having to possibly hurt one of the girls – there was no way Sutaa was the one taking their breath away – but they were all training to become Heroes.
In the midst of trying to take another breath, he found it suddenly stopped. A flash of red and black entered the corner of his vision, and when he saw his path was undeterred by snakes, he rushed forward, exiting the vacuum as quickly as he had entered it with another deep breath.
Charging up light in his right palm, the blonde turned the corner and fired a beam practically indiscriminately, knowing it not to be one of his allies. It barely missed the red-haired girl, but it got her attention as she turned around, brandishing her knife.
"There you are! I won't let you get-" Rayleigh's words stopped as the air was almost pulled from his lungs mid-sentence. The girl's eyes, partly matching her hair, bore into his blue, free hand beckoning him to approach.
The declaration of challenge struck true, and he rushed in with a grin, surprisingly not using his Quirk while he deflected the swings of her blade with the back of his gloves. He noticed she seemed to be breathing fine – whatever she had over her mouth clearly had to do with the reason.
He got more aggressive, and she noticed; her slashes more desperate in trying to keep her weak point out of bay in hopes of wearing him out. While she did manage to cut his arms a couple of times, a quick burst of light caught her off guard, blinding her. Ariel had no time or real way to react then, when the blonde knocked the respirator down and caused the air to leave her lungs, breaking her focus, and subsequently, her Quirk.
Both were left gasping for air, but Rayleigh was faster to recover, expecting it to happen. He rushed in, a fist striking her gut to put her on her knees before he grabbed both her wrists with one hand, knocking the knife from her grasp. The other reached for the capture tape afterwards, and despite her possibility to turn on her Quirk, she chose not to, accepting her own capture with odd dignity.
"Sorry about that", he turned her around, setting her against the nearest pillar. "I hope I didn't hit you too hard there!"
He got a cough, and strangely, a slightly red face in response, the girl quirking a brow at him. "Losing hurts harder than your punch, don't worry about it." As he looked towards where he came from, she took another deep breath.
"Valeria got captured too, right? Can't hear any of that damn hissing."
The bird teen's heart raced. He felt more than heard another bullet whizz by as Margo left behind him, and he worried that the thorn had hit her. Unfortunately, he couldn't worry long – even untransformed, Sutaa dwarfed him in height, and was comparable in muscle mass. Adela, though only barely taller, was obviously on the higher level of strength without an obvious Quirk to support it.
He was careful enough not to blindly swing at either of them, knowing that one overstep could mean an easy capture. Instead, Feydin let them come to him, the blue-skinned teen's hands just barely grazing his form while the green-skinned girl couldn't even get close without risking getting hit herself.
It wasn't particularly easy, but he knew it to be necessary – the longer he could keep them away from Margo, the easier it would be for them to win. Another fist, another nearly failed dodge. The lasso came into play after a full minute of dodging close range, the cowgirl-themed student pulling back to try a different approach.
It felt easier to deal only with Sutaa, at first, but fatigue was catching up to him, the sudden transformation from the horned teen meaning a lot less room for error. Eventually, he overcommitted to a dodge, wincing as his back hit the wall, and he knew it was over when the lariat wrapped around his legs.
He fell onto the floor gracelessly, pain coating both of his sides as he struggled to get out of the incredibly tight grip Sutaa had, even trying to reach for gravel but finding none in his attempts. Moments later, the tape was around his arms and torso, and the moment of capture had been announced.
"Go find Margo. I'll deal with Rayleigh and Mikhail." The blue-skinned student glanced back, getting up from his position and running towards where he had seen the two smaller opponents come from. Adela reeled her lasso in, breathing a sigh of relief.
"Your speed's something else, ain't it, feathers?" She grinned, looking towards where she remembered the other girl blinking towards. "Might have cost us the whole match."
"If I hadn't left them there..." Feydin took a deep breath, still struggling in his restraints uncomfortably. "We could have taken it all on, together."
"Easier to say that when you look back, isn't it?" Her smile faltered, but she knew not to wait longer, leaving the captured bird teen for the time being to look for the brunette.
Enough time had been wasted, after all.
The other side felt smaller, somehow. Maybe it was, as she ran down the closed hallways. But Margo knew that she couldn't take any of them on in a fight. Valeria's snakes would overwhelm her, Adela was clearly physically stronger and had a gun, Sutaa was probably the most bulky in the entire class and even Ariel was likely to take her down unless she was caught off guard.
Instead, she looked for the flag. The electronics buzzed above and around her, giving her a vague idea of what was happening. Valeria and Ariel had been captured in fairly quick succession, and she at first thought that maybe the team could regroup to capture the rest, but she then heard the announcement of Feydin's capture.
It was only a matter of time before they'd catch up to her, likely the both of them. Rather than playing it safe, she brought her Quirk to life despite already having used it a few times. One Blink brought her to a pillar, another was made when she moved around her. She tried to ignore the slight blurring of her eyes that came forward as signs of overuse.
She had to run. If she got caught now, there was no chance of her escaping. Feydin's hopes were on her, and she couldn't let those hopes down. Another Blink, down the path she felt was closest to the other flag. She knew it couldn't be the clearing, the light was different, even if it was blurry. A brown form stood in the distance, two blinks away.
A Blink got her closer, the other came when she tripped on the rock the moment she took a step. She clenched her eyes shut, barely supporting herself with the form she had seen. Panic set in for a few moments when she felt something at her feet, but the comms came to like to dissipate any worries.
"Team C wins. Berzins, wait by the flag, we'll come get you." She wasn't sure if he meant the class or the miniatures she could only barely see as she opened her eyes slightly.
A cacophony of voices came to life as the class was fully reunited, some more worked over than others. Cley could never get accustomed to the noise, but a loud cough at least brought their eyes – for those that could see for the time being – towards the teacher.
"Well done, to all of you", he started, a slight smile gracing his face. "I'm not going to sugarcoat it, you've all made mistakes. Nobody is perfect, not even the top of the top. It's up to us to minimise those mistakes over the years." He looked over the class's expressions – some were clearly excited to be able to do this again, others were in a bit of pain, whether physically, mentally, or even emotionally.
Uncrossing his arms, Commando placed them firmly behind his back. "Before you go back to your dorms, you're to go to the medical staff. Doesn't matter if you feel hurt or not, regular check-ups are essential to our line of work. Your notes will be waiting for you after." With a small wave, he dismissed the class, making sure that Margo was at least being supported by someone.
Ignatius clenched his fists for a split second, wincing at the burns he'd caused himself. Once again, he overused his Quirk, and once again, he had paid the price for trying to protect someone else over himself.
An arm wrapped around his shoulder, and he turned to see the smiling visage of Rayleigh, his excitement clearly not having faded. To his other side, Alora walked quietly, and Sutaa was a bit further away from the rest. His fists unclenched, and he took a deep breath before his own soft smile came to life, not quite matching the blonde's energy, but at least reciprocating some of it.
He remembered his mother's words, the ones she repeated again and again to plant them firmly in his memory.
The first time you do something is always the hardest.