Author's Note: Hi everyone, I'm finally comfortable with this draft. I had to rewrite it a couple times. I'm still working on my schedule, it's a rough one guys, it's going to be a long haul, I'm sorry. Please enjoy.
Disclaimer: I do not own Halo or My Hero Academia
"Speech"
'Thoughts'
"Radio"
"Enhanced"
USJ: Part 1
0845 Hours, Tuesday, 05 April, 2525(2125) (UNSC Military Calendar),
UA, Japan, enroute to the USJ,
Class 1-A, PO2 034, Samuel,
Current cover: SGT Mendez, Samuel, C.
…[]
Upon the start of their school day, Aizawa had made it clear that they needed to pick a representative for their class. With the normal class, this would have taken much longer. Being class rep also meant that whoever was chosen would receive more attention from hero-agency scouts. Most students would naturally try to elect themselves to the position with intentions to capitalize on the extra attention drawn to them. Ironically, many of them fail to realize that attention can be a double-edged blade. In regards to the four of them however, quite a few things were going to be different compared to the normal course due to the current changes. The faculty weren't even sure whether or not they were going to split the four of them up every year like the normal.
When the topic was brought up, his classmates unanimously decided on Sam for their class rep. Well, more accurately, Aizawa assigned it to him and his classmates agreed. While not a direct one to one comparison, Sam could see parallels between the blonde and his former squad leader, John. They both shared a deep sense of conviction and unflinching resolve. In another life, Mirio would have made a perfect class rep and leader, one he would gladly follow.
"Hey, Sam?"
Wait…they're calling him now. During the drive, Sam elected to take a short nap, due to him only half sleeping, he was able to wake up fully aware of his surroundings upon healing Mirio's call. Sam's eyes shoot open, he casually lifts his feet off the seat and sits straight from his up, depolarizes his visor as he faces the blonde.
In awe at the gadget, Nejire murmurs "That's pretty cool."
Sam bemusedly smiles as the girl trails off and excitedly gushes at his kit. As entertaining as the sight was, Sam also knew that if Nejire kept going on her tangent, she was going to completely forget what she had originally asked for. He snaps his fingers twice in front of her face, snapping her right out of her tangent.
"Hmm?" She looks innocently at Sam before remembering what she wanted to ask. "Oh, what has Aizawa-sensei planned for us?"
Rather than respond directly, Sam instead just gives her a blank stare. He held the look for a solid few seconds, just long enough to make the poor girl start to fidget in her seat.
Deciding to put her out of her misery, he bemusedly asks "Anything wrong with waiting for our teacher to tell us when we arrive?"
Half-joking, Mirio says "Well, it would give us time to mentally prepare."
Now to someone with Sam's rather peculiar upbringing, that response was almost alien to him. Everything that needed to be discussed was in the briefing, that's why it was called the "briefing." Discussing what it could be before getting any proper details leads to at best mild speculation or preposterous rumors at worst.
"Come on, man," Mirio pleaded. "What's wrong with telling us what we're doing in advance? The class schedule was a little vague"
He could hear Nejire vocally agreeing and Tamaki silently nodding in his peripherals. Generally speaking, information on a mission is supposed to be discussed strictly within the confines of the mission briefing. There are various reasons why, but the most prevalent one is to prevent speculation. Though visibly sees the anxiety amongst his teams' faces and speculating on something without the details won't help.
"For future reference, wait until we get to the briefing. Explaining the details of a mission is the job of the person running the brief and they will be in the best position to answer any questions you may have," he casually informs. "Speculating will not help with your nerves."
Looking around, his team all looked at the very least anxious if not outright worried. Even the ever-upbeat Mirio was at least slightly agitated given how he kept shifting his gaze between each of his fellow classmates. Sam may not fully empathize with them, but he did understand. For him, this was just training and thus he knew there was really nothing to fear. They were simply here to learn. To them though, this would be the first time ever experiencing this kind of training. It's only right for them to be nervous and worried.
"We're conducting hostage rescue training," he dryly states.
There was a collective "oh" amongst the trio.
"Speaking of which…" their instructor announces from the front of the bus. "Mendez-San, we're almost there, start handing out the safety gear."
"Sir," the armored blonde sharply acknowledged.
Jumping straight to it, Sam pulls out a pelican case from beside him.
"The support department made these for you," he explains.
The three look inside and see three pairs of goggles and headsets, or at least a pair of earmuffs, a headset and pair of earbuds.
With a raised eyebrow, Mirio jokes "A little early for Christmas, isn't it?"
"I took the liberty of making sure they were as slimmed down and conspicuous as I could for you."
"Aw," Nejire coos while examining a pair of blue framed goggles. "You even made sure they matched our costumes."
Tamaki could be seen putting on a pair and looking towards the others.
Mirio nods his way and comments "That's a good look."
Tamaki returns with a small smile.
"Wait a second." Nejire raises her hand and asks "Why are mine bulkier than theirs?"
Sure enough, unlike the safety glasses the other two got, Nejire's was literally a pair of ballistic goggles. In her other hand was a pair of heavy duty ballistic earmuffs.
"Yours were easier to make," Sam flatly replies. He furrows his brow and asks "You've never been blinded by your quirk before, have you?"
Nejire places a finger under her chin and tries to recall a moment. After a moment of thinking, she frowned and shook her head.
"Well, you should still wear these regardless. The lack of interference from your quirk allowed the Support Department to put a HUD into the googles and the headset will also enhance your hearing on top of protecting them from damage. You wouldn't be able to hear someone fire a gun next to your ear, yet you'd be able to hear someone whispering from the other side of the classroom."
Looking back down at her two pieces of equipment in surprise, she simply murmurs "Huh."
He turns to the others as this applies to all of them. Nejire was about to ask why, but then saw his guns and recalled how deafening the gunfire was during the battle trials. They would later find out that his guns were that loud with a suppressor.
As he sits back down, he adds "They all have radios built into them. If we're going to be a team, we will need to be able to effectively communicate with one another."
Tamaki had similar pieces but his were more slimmed down. Instead of earmuffs, he had a more slimmed down set of wireless, over ear headphones. Unlike Nejire's earmuffs, Tamaki's lacked a rigid frame connecting the two earpieces together and instead had a silicon like cord with a head retention strap to keep it anchored. There was even a strap to help keep his goggles in place. As with his eye-pro, instead of Nejire's ballistic goggles, he had a smaller pair of tactical goggles that had a small screen inserted into the left lens to provide the HUD. Last was Mirio who only had a pair of safety glasses, and a pair of hooked earbuds linked together by a cord.
"As I recall, we were able to phase with you when you used your quirk during the Battle Trials but ran into performance issues."
Mirio nods.
"The signal basically cut out the moment I was two floors away," Mirio reported.
"If you would," Sam politely requests while motioning towards the two pieces of kit.
With a nod, Mirio activates his quirk on his hand holding the earbuds, and slowly sticks them through the window. They wait for a few moments before the blonde slowly reels his arms back in. To his shock, the earbuds had remained firmly in his grasp. With a satisfied hum, Sam records the results into his clipboard.
Sam points to the glasses and politely requests "Again."
Mirio was even more unsure about his glasses than the earbuds. His quirk historically speaking, had never worked with plastic, glass, or metal. He had a theory why the metal in the earbuds worked, but he had no idea how the support department expected the clear plastic for the glasses to do the same. The others shared similar feelings and were on the edge of their seats, quite literally in the case of Nejire.
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained," he mutters under his breath.
Mirio repeats the same action as earlier, only noticeably more cautious and slower. He takes a deeper breath as he carefully pushes his hand through the bus window. He stares in disbelief as the glasses don't just get stuck on the wall, and in fact phases together with his hand. When he pulls it back, he glances around to confirm if the others saw what he had seen. Nejire was shaking with excitement, Tamaki sat frozen with his eyes as wide as dinner plates, and Sam silently watched with a satisfied smirk on his face.
In fact, Mirio was so surprised, he lost control of his quirk and started sinking down through the bus's floor. Mirio looks down and opens his mouth and lets out a surprised yelp before Sam reaches down and forcefully yanks back up. He makes his legs solid once again and the armored teen releases the blonde, letting him plop back down into his seat.
"Thanks," he murmurs. Now, getting back to the matter at hand, he holds up his new visor and simply asks "How'd you do that?"
"Remember when you donated a liter of blood to the labs over the weekend?" asks Sam.
Mirio nods. Rather than speak, Sam simply glances at the visor, and back to Mirio with a knowing look. Mirio looks down at the visor, then back at Sam, then repeats.
"From only a liter?" he incredulously asks.
"Well yes, but actually no," Sam cheekily replies. "The lab had to clone your blood cells a few times to get enough material so that they wouldn't just shatter if you dropped it. They may need another donation soon if you want replacements."
"This is my blood?" Mirio asks while examining the glasses more closely, clearly impressed by the support department's resourcefulness.
"Cool!" Nejire snorts.
She and Tamaki were slightly grossed out but were also impressed.
"Your plasma actually," Sam corrected. "Also harvest the copper and iron from your blood to make your earpieces."
"Huh, so that's why it's that color?" the other blonde muses as he examines the opaque tint of his visor.
As with the rest of his equipment, for any clothing to work with his quirk, it had to be made of, well, him. His costume, for example, had to be woven from fabrics made from his hair. Not that it was explained, a visor and radio made from his blood didn't seem too farfetched. The bus came to a stop shortly after a brief functions-check for their new equipment.
Their teacher stands up and announces "Alright, everybody out!"
The four of them excitedly piled out of the bus and gathered around their teacher.
"Normally, we would be performing search and rescue training," Aizawa lectures. "However, in light of the performance of heroes during the Tokyo Square Shootout, it will have to take a backseat to hostage rescue training."
He hands out packets to each of the students so they can read along and continues "We will also be covering evacuation of civilians during an active combat zone later. So, I'm not going to waste anyone's time, do any of you have any questions before we start?"
"Will we be fighting aliens too?" came a quiet voice.
Aizawa's eyes narrow in on Tamaki. It was a simple question, and one that had been forming at the back of both Mirio and Nejire's minds. Even Sam had been silently contemplating over an inevitable confrontation with the still missing remnant Covenant forces. Mainly going over the best strategic action short of nuking them off the face of the planet. It bothered him how limited his options are when they only have one planet to work with.
"At this time, it is believed that a large contingent of Covenant forces had managed to survive and escape the battle. There are no concrete numbers on how many, but it is known to be a sizable amount, and we have no idea where they went."
Following immediately after the events of the battle, an estimate of an almost battalion sized contingent of hostile alien warriors and crew fled the country. After weeks of searching and a great deal of effort spent with the cooperation of hero agencies and militaries from around the world…nothing. They just vanished.
"When they are found, Mendez-San will be deployed to deal with them and…" Aizawa's solemn as he spoke. "You may be deployed alongside with him depending on how far along in your training you are."
"Don't worry," a deep, confident, female voice bellows out. "We'll find plenty of chumps for you kids to practice on until then."
They watch as three additional people walk up to join the class.
"Class, The Space Hero: Thirteen, who designed this facility, and…" Aizawa introduces. He then deadpans as he moves to the other two who need no introduction "Mirko and Hawks who've volunteered to help us with teaching you. Multiple pro-heroes have volunteered to participate in your training, but these two will be regularly popping in."
With a feigned hurt tone and a wide smile, the Rabbit Hero cries "What, no title introduction for us either?"
The two stood before the group: Mirko with her hands on her hips and Hawks who stood off to her side with his hands in his jacket pockets.
"Glad to be here," he graciously announces.
The seventh and third top ranked heroes in Japan were here, and they were going to help train them. This was something none of the students had expected, hell, even Sam didn't see this one coming.
"Wow!" squeals an excited Nejire.
The energetic girl was practically dancing, Mirio wasn't too far behind her and watched on with stars in his eyes. Tamaki was more reserved, but the quiet boy still looked on with a childlike wonder in his eyes. Sam's reaction was a lot more direct because it seemed as if the two pro-heroes showed off their bias by interacting with him directly. Mirko raises her eyebrows suggestively to the armored teen, making him roll his eyes, and Hawks casually nods and mouths "sup." Trying to hurry things along, Eraserhead takes a step back and lets Thirteen have the floor.
"Everyone, welcome to the USJ!" Thirteen happily announced. "Short for the Unforeseen Simulation Joint!"
With a push of a button, the massive gates open, revealing the entire complex to the students and staff.
"Woah," Nejire breathes. "I didn't know you guys got us a day pass to Universal Studios Japan!"
Everyone stops and gives the poor girl a blank look.
Slightly red from the extra attention, she bashfully stutters "O-oh, you know, cause, USJ?"
The awkward silence before a slight metallic rumble filled the air. The trio turn and see Sam softly chucking, much to their chagrin. The periwinkle haired girl seemed to grow even brighter at the armored teen's response. Mirko nudges Hawks and nods in their direction while he shoots her back a questioning look.
"I can see it," he comments.
"Yeah," Thirteen agreed. "It kinda is. I would know, seeing as I built this place. This is my baby!"
She walks ahead and begins pridefully presenting her baby.
"This place is built to simulate all kinds of conditions you may face as heroes," pulling up to the map for a reference for her lecture. "You got the flood-zone, landslide-zone, conflagration-zone, etc." She turns back from the board and continues "Basically every type of disaster scenario and accident you can imagine."
"Kid was right, this really is Universal Studios," Hawks whistles, clearly impressed by the Space Hero's elaborate playground.
Feeling slightly jealous, Mirko playfully gripes "Man, you UA guys get all the good shit."
"Oh yeah, you two didn't go to UA, did you?" Thirteen muses.
They shook their heads. Conveniently, both Hawks and Mirko were the only heroes within the top ten on the popularity leaderboard who didn't attend UA. This was a whole new experience for them as well. Thirteen took this moment to warmly welcome the pair as well.
"Well, I welcome you here as well," she replies and humbly bows.
She begins leading them deeper into the complex.
"We got a busy day ahead of us, and I wanted to go over a few points with you before we begin," she explains, while leading them deeper into the complex. "We'll still do some normal rescue scenarios as we really can't skip them, but a couple of the other scenarios will be repurposed to suit your modified course."
They pass by the flood zone where a mockup of what looks like a cargo vessel has been placed in the middle of it.
"So, my quirk is called Black Hole, and it can already be incredibly dangerous under normal conditions and can easily kill the person I am trying to rescue. I've read your files and I know this lesson applies to all of you. This gets exponentially harder when you have to deal with enemy combatants on top of an already difficult job. It is here more than ever that you must exercise extreme discretion when using your powers."
She stops and turns back to the group.
"Our jobs as heroes are to help people. How do you secure the safety of the civilians?"
"Neutralize the threat, and evacuate the civilians," Sam sharply states.
"Which ones are most necessary?"
"B-both."
It was Tamaki who answered that time.
With nods of approval from the team, he repeats with more confidence this time, "Both."
Tilting her head slightly, Thirteen asks "Why both? Why not just remove the threat and call it a day?"
"No." Nejire shook her head. "Those tasks aren't one in the same."
Nodding in agreement, Mirio elaborates further.
"The civilians may still be in danger even after the threat has been dealt with."
Impressed, Thirteen happily applauds her class.
"Very good!" she cheers.
She gives the group a bow and wraps up her lecture.
"That is all! You have my gratitude for listening so intently and patiently!"
As she steps aside, Aizawa moves forward with their day plan.
"Show time," Hawks whispers.
Mirko cracks her knuckles and neck.
"Alright, we're running two scenarios for today…"
First scenario codenamed: Consulate
A team of six terrorists have invaded the embassy and have taken twenty-six hostages. They're threatening to blow up the embassy if their demands aren't met. They've just executed one of the hostages and the government has now given you four the green light to go in.
You have twenty minutes to either capture or kill the terrorists and save the hostages. They're just bots, so they won't have quirks, but they'll be hiding within the crowd. To simulate this, the bots all look the same, save for some slight differences. Differentiating between a hostage and terrorist will be left up to you to be able to spot these differences, just like in a real scenario.
Any hostage killed will be noted, and any terrorist that is picked up at the exits or entrances will be noted, but they won't necessarily count against you. I will be evaluating your performance afterwards.
In the planning room, the team is presented with a 3d skeletal model of the four-story office building.
"This is so cool!" Nejire excitedly chatters. "We're like in a tactical shooter video game."
"Like…Ready or Not?" asks Tamaki.
"Not with the way we're dressed," snorts Mirio.
Cutting them off, Sam asks "You three ready?"
They each gave their acknowledgement.
"You betcha."
"Yeah."
"Always!"
Breaking the ice, Mirio asks his fellow blonde "So, how do you wanna do this?"
"Amajiki and I will breach in through the back exit and the front entrance respectfully and work our way up."
Tamaki nods, accepting the position.
"Mirio, you're going to rappel down the front of the building and go in via the first-floor windows and work your way in."
"Does it matter which window?"
"No, we'll meet up by the spiral staircase."
Sam moves on to the final member.
"Do you know how to stun with your quirk?"
"Like a flashbang!" she cheerfully quips.
"Okay, then you're going to go in through the skylight on the roof." Sam turns to the others as this applies to all of them, "We need to all be in the building around the same time. We have to move quickly, while the intelligence has deemed that they likely don't have the ability to blow up the embassy, it's not completely off the table."
"Any preference on how we take them out?" asks Mirio.
Sensing the team's uneasiness, Sam had an idea on what they were feeling apprehensive about.
"I'll leave that at your discretion, just remember that they'll be actively hiding amongst hostages," he replies. "We need to clear every room and check each person until all of the targets are found."
"Understood."
With no further questions, Sam closes the briefing.
0915 Hours, Tuesday, 05 April, 2525(2125) (UNSC Military Calendar),
Office Building Zone, the Unforeseen Assimilation Joint (USJ), UA,
Class 1-A…]
From this point on, the team would be speaking to each other only through their radios.
"The longer we take, the higher the risk of losing another hostage," Sam warns.
Sam places a small, wired thermite charge onto the doors and uncoils the det-cord.
"Are you all in position?" he asks over the radio.
From his position at the back exit, Tamaki replies "I'm in position."
Nejire peers over the skyline and spots one of the terrorists patrolling the halls while keeping a vigilant eye on the cowering hostages before quickly ducking away when the terrorist looks up in her direction. Seeing nothing was there, he leaves the room and continues.
"I'm good," she reports.
That left Mirio who had just reached right outside his intended window. One of the terrorists on the inside heard something coming from one of the offices and went to investigate.
"I'm ready."
That was everybody.
"When this kicks off, things will be moving fast. We need to go deep, and we need to go hard."
Snickering at Sam's words, Nejire incredulously asks "Surely you can't be serious."
With a smirk, Sam sassily fires back with "I am serious, and don't call me Shirly."
In the office Mirio was by, there was a mirror facing the window which gave the blonde a good view of most of the office.
"Sam, I think they're growing suspicious," Mirio whispers as he watches the terrorist enter the office with his gun drawn.
All Sam said was "Hold."
He watches as the terrorist who had been negotiating with the police makes his way to the front door.
"On my mark…"
At this, Tamaki transforms one of his arms into a giant crab claw, Nejire charges up her quirk, and Mirio takes a deep breath. Sam readies his M7S and activates his VISR.
"Mark."
Sam yanks the cord and the explosives around the door explode, and with a swift kick, it slams open. Tamaki rams the back door open with his claw arm and rushes in. On the roof, Nejire crashes through the skylight and fires off her quirk. With their sectors clear, they proceed deeper into the building.
On the second floor, the terrorist is standing roughly on the opposite side of where Mirio was and is wearily peeking out the window. In one swift move, Mirio is launched by his quirk and close lines the terrorist as he enters the room.
"One down," he reports, before removing the weapon and restraining the incapacitated terrorist.
Linebreak
As Sam clears the rooms, a bot swings around the corner. His SMG fires once and the bot ragdolls to the floor.
"Strike one," he reports to his team.
Hearing what sounded like shouting coming from the other room, Sam moves to the opening side of the door and stacks up against the wall. Multiple gunshots go off before the door gets blown off of its hinges and slams into the wall. Looking back, Sam could see the crumbled body of one of the terrorists against the backside of the door.
Over the radio, Sam calls out "Tamaki, is that you?"
There was a pause, before a reply "Yes, I'm coming through the doorway."
Despite the call out, Sam keeps his weapon trained onto the doorway as Tamaki slowly rounds the corner. When he is in clear view, Sam lowers his weapon and gives a curt nod which the other team returns. Tamaki moves to secure the fallen bot as Sam gets on his radio.
"Another down, tally three down, three targets remaining."
With his off-hand, Sam directs to behind himself and Tamaki nods again before stacking up behind the giant, armored leader. Then, with his hand, he points to Tamaki and to the left, then he points back at himself and to the right. Instantly understanding the intent, Tamaki nods and gets ready to move.
"First floor cleared, making our way up."
"Moving to meet you!" Mirio snaps back.
"Chasing a guy through the rooms on the top floor!" Nejire cries.
As the two reach the second floor, loud and rapid thumping is heard followed by frantic shouting. The armored teen instinctively pushes Tamaki back against the wall and uses his hulking mass to shield him. Not a moment later, the terrorist reaches the railing and fires at them. The paint bullet splatters the area they were previously standing. Sam steps out and fires at the bot, forcing it back into cover.
"I got him pinned, move!" he barks.
Tamaki nods and runs across the hall into one of the adjacent officers.
"He's running!" Sam barks.
Tamaki steps up and says, "I'll cut him off!"
"Togata, Amajiki is pursuing a target through the East offices!"
"Got it!"
"Hado—"
He senses movement from behind him before he could finish. Swinging his weapon around, he spots a group of civilians rounding the corner. He begins checking each one of them and sends the cleared ones down the stairs.
Upon getting spotted, the terrorist presents a grenade and pulls the pin. At this point, Sam was already on the move. He firmly grasps the grenade hand with one hand to prevent the fuse from arming and wraps the other arm around the subject's waist before wrestling him to the floor.
A single punch to the gut left the bot completely incapacitated. Now that his hand is free, the Spartan brings out capture tape and ties it securely around the grenade's arming spoon.
"Tally another one," he reports.
Tamaki was currently chasing the other terrorist through the offices. Despite the terrorist's best efforts, throwing things in his path and literally shoving the hostages in his way, Tamaki managed to catch up. Frantically looking around, the terrorist scoops up a hostage and holds it at gunpoint. This made him freeze.
Ducking back around the corner, Tamaki radios to Mirio "Togata-San, he has one of the hostages."
There was a pause, and then the blonde replied, "I'm coming, where are you?"
"Manager's office."
"Keep him busy!" Togata instructed.
'Well crap,' he thought.
The introverted teen was afraid Mirio would say that. Here goes nothing. Tamaki peeks out from the corner with his hands raised in a disarming manner. He doesn't step out all the way, seeing as the terrorist still had a loaded weapon.
"H-hey, easy!"
"I will shoot her…beep…boop, boop…beep."
"Help me…boop…beep."
Tamaki feels his eye twitch, as he internally cringes. Okay, the bots may behave semi-realistically enough, but their speech definitely broke his immersion.
"Hey, let's just…let the hostage go," he suggests.
"…. No."
The bot opens fire, making the teen back away.
'Darn, now what?'
"You here yet?" he whispers.
"Hey buddy!"
The bot turns and is met with a flying knee into its gut, courtesy of one blonde teen and was followed with a straight uppercut.
"Oh, hey guys!" He happily waves while restraining the knocked-out bot's hands. "This is what, four?"
"Five, Mendez-Sama said he found another one," Tamaki corrected. Looking at the bot, he murmurs "Nice shot."
"Oh, thank you," Mirio replies, soaking in the praise. Getting on the radio, he announces "Mendez, we got him."
"Understood." There was a pause before he continued. "And that makes five. Hado, how's the second floor looking?"
Silence.
"Hado, report."
Again, only silence followed.
"Hado, do you read me?"
Now the two started growing concerned before the radio activated.
"Yeah," she replies. "I got a guy."
"That's six targets," he confirms. Sam then announces to Aizawa "All targets neutralized."
The intercom springs to life.
"Understood, this exercise is now over, please proceed to the meeting room for your evaluation."
0933 Hours, Tuesday, 05 April, 2525(2125) (UNSC Military Calendar),
Mission briefing room, Unforeseen Assimilation Joint (USJ), UA,
Class 1-A…]
At the entrance of the makeshift embassy, Sam stood by and watched as each of his team exited the building. Tamaki exited first, giving their leader a curt nod. Mirio was next to follow, and he gives Sam a frown and looks behind himself before joining Tamaki in the meeting area.
When Nejire exited, he understood why Mirio had looked the way he did. Instead of her usual bright smile and upbeat attitude, she was downtrodden and had her smile replaced with a frown. Upon seeing Sam's concerned look he tries to smile; he then motions his head towards her and Sam gets the picture.
Leaning over to her, he softly asks "Did something happen?"
She looks down and gloomily mumbles "I messed up."
"Mendez-San, Hado-San!"
They look over and see Eraserhead and their other teammates waiting for them.
"We'll talk after."
Looking up, she could see that he had his visor depolarized and could see straight into his deep green eyes. Though it came off as more of a command, his eyes looked like he meant it as an offer.
She was going to just bury her thoughts and deal with them later, but in the end, she thought 'What the hell.'
When the pair joins the others, Aizawa shows them a replay of their exercise.
"You four managed to complete the exercise in eighteen minutes. You managed to neutralize all six terrorists, three dead, three captured, but had lost four civilians," he explains while playing the playback.
Flashback Start
At the same time as the shootout on the stairs, Nejire was chasing one of the targets through the rooms. She manages to corner him in the ambassador's office along with a group of the civilians he was holding hostage. The makeshift terrorist fires upon her as she reaches the doorway, making her drop to the floor and roll back into cover.
Without a clear shot, or anyway out, the terrorist turns menacingly to the hostages. From the doorway, fires a stun and rounds the corner. She hears the bot blindly firing and charges around the corner and reflexively fires her quirk, annihilating the bot. The smell of cordite hits her nostrils, and she turns to face the downed civilians and her breath hitches.
"Hado, report."
Wait, that was her radio. The noise breaks her from trance, and she suddenly remembers where she was. She looks down at the four hostages and the smoking remains of the terrorist. Though, instead of a terrorist or hostages, they were just bots on the floor. From this, her breathing slows, and she starts to calm down.
Her radio comes to life again, and Sam asks "Hado, do you read?"
Her voice, still a little shaky, she takes a deep breath and replies "Yeah. I got a guy."
They were then given the announcement that the exercise was over and to meet up back in the briefing room. Taking one last look at the offline bots, she lets out a frustrated sigh and grumbles to herself as she leaves.
Flashback End
His voice was leveled and even, neither showing praise or disappointment.
He also adds "Keep in mind that the origins of the siege this exercise was based on had a total of thirty special forces operatives raiding the building."
"This is your first exercise, don't take it too harshly," Hawks says reassuringly.
That made Nejire feel a little better.
"This number needs to be zero though!" their sensei sharply adds. "You can't avoid it in a real-world scenario, but in training this number needs to be zero. Understand?"
"Yes sensei," they replied.
The group were given a ten-minute break before moving on to the second exercise for the day. Seeing their opening, Sam proceeds to take Nejire off to the side. The two sit down on a bench and Sam rummages through his bag and pulls out a protein bar and a bottle of Gatorade.
"Oh, no thank you. I'm fine," she replies, politely trying to turn down the offering.
"I know how taxing your quirk is, and we have another coming up. You need energy, and you need to hydrate," Sam tells her and presents the two to her. "Eat…and drink. It will help."
She takes a long look at the snacks before relenting and taking the protein bar, unwrapping it, and taking a large bite out of it. With a deep exhale, she begins to chew, and it starts to feel the sinking feeling in her gut subside.
'Guess I was hungrier than I thought,' she quietly muses.
The two sat in silence as she ate. Then the silence broke.
"What happened?" was all he asked.
She freezes and could feel his metallic voice vibrating through her.
"I want to hear from you."
It was best she went straight to the point. She knew there were very few things that Sam genuinely hated, one of them were excuses, and the other was wasting time. Any excuse or attempt to dance around the subject wouldn't help her.
She shuffles little in her seat before glumly answering "I didn't get to the hostages fast enough."
Sam ponders for a moment. He was right now trying to decide between his normally pragmatic nature and something more encouraging.
"Did anyone actually die?"
Nejire slowly shook her head.
"N-no," she whispers.
"Don't dwell on it. It's only training," Sam almost dismissively replies.
As they sat in silence, he began to think of a follow up. Knowing Nejire, the last thing she needs to hear is that she won't fail the exercise or that she did the right thing.
"What if it happens while we're in the real world?" she asks. "With real people?"
"Are they dying right now?"
She shook her head.
"No," she repeats.
"Then there's nothing to worry about. Don't worry about what could happen and focus on what you can do right now," he replies, turning to her with a small reassuring smile. "Just keep training and we'll confront that situation when it comes. Together."
There was emphasis on that final word. Uplifted by his response, Nejire perks up and smiles back before screwing the cap back into the bottle.
"Want the rest?" she offers, holding the bottle with a third of the liquid remaining. "I'm not gonna finish it."
Sam nods and wordlessly takes the bottle from her. He takes off his helmet and unscrews the cap.
Looking back, he quickly adds "Oh, that number does have to eventually reach zero during training though. Keep working at it, yes?"
Feeling motivated by her friend, she enthusiastically fires back "I won't let you down."
The young Spartan gives her a satisfied hum before tipping the bottle back and waterfalls the rest of the contents. As he screws the cap back on, he spots the recycling bin within his peripherals. Doing all the calculations in his head and without so much as glance directly at his target, he rears his arm back and tosses the bottle straight into the trash can.
Impressed by the throw, Nejire comments "Nice shot."
"Thank you," Sam grunts, with a satisfied hum, he leans back against the bench. Eyeing the time, he says "We should get going."
Standing up from the bench, he does a small stretch and turns back to Nejire an extended hand. Seeing his expecting look, she takes it and he gently hoists her up.
"Ready?" he asks.
Crumpling up the wrapper, she attempts to throw it into the trash as well. She frowns as it bounces off of the trash-can's outer ring. Sighing, she walks over and picks it up.
With a deadpan look, she comments flatly "Bottles are easier."
"Eh, I wouldn't worry, with your quirk, a near miss would've still obliterated the target," Sam replies with a shrug.
As he stands up, he puts his helmet back on and picks up his weapon and the two start to walk off. Sam began to ponder a bit on the applications of Nejire's quirk.
"Hey Nejire-San, since you can blast out your quirk in a wave, have you ever tried focusing it into a narrow beam?"
"Like one of your laser pointers?" she asks, pointing at the one on his SMG.
Sam nods. The girl places a finger under chin in a speculative manner as she thinks about it.
"I mean, I've thought about it, but I don't think I've ever tried it before."
"We should look into it during our next hero training session," he pointedly advises.
Excited by the prospects, Nejire was quick to agree.
"Okay! But on one condition."
Sam nods.
"I get to use finger guns and say "pew" whenever I use my quirk."
The childlike excitement she had made Sam snort. Her pout only made him laugh even more.
With a more humorous tone, he agrees.
Author's Note: Originally this chapter was going to be twice as long and this had to be cut in half due to pacing problems I ran into. That's why I am confident the next chapter will be out by next week at least. I'm gonna have to stop playing OSRS for a week, but that game is the reason why I keep getting distracted anyway. As you can see, I'm also going to try to set up a few things going forward, sorry to disappoint you if you wanted this story to go a certain way and what I give isn't it.
The character submissions for Sports Festival fights are still open, if you have something worth it, by all means, let me know. Conveniently, I didn't know there was a solid month between the USJ arc and the Sports Festival in canon, perfect for a quick filler episode.
Review Responses (CH10): (Only a few though, Jesus it's been too long since I've updated.)
spartan418: I am, I promise, just updates have ground to a halt right now.
hoovyman117: I promise, he's gonna be driving it too, no crazy gadgets, gonna get another car for that.
Sci-Fi Guy 22: I am glad you like it. As for the suit upgrades, he's friends with Mei and a Huragok, those are bound to come eventually.