Chapter 5. Arrival - Part. 1

"Locals," Scott Matthew 'Slim' Summers, AKA Cyclops, thought to himself as their tour bus passed by another street, onwards towards their entry exam into UA that Friday. "So many locals these days."

He was no neophyte.

Bayville may not have been the biggest city in New York state, yet still, he'd been around the block, around the region, around the country, around the continent, around the world, even.

Barring his personal experiences, he was taught by some of the best, both within the X-Mansion and without, and had listened to, read, and watched a lot in his day.

From the moment he'd accepted The Professor's and Fury's request, well before the grueling mental and physical bootcamp he'd just been subjected to before saying bon voyage and bon débarras to the tri-carrier and its many, many, many instructors that made Sergeant Hawke look like an accommodating chauffeur and Logan look like… well… Logan… he had figured he already knew full well what to expect.

But ever since yesterday, about twenty-four hours ago, when he and the rest of the forty teen heroes SHIELD had slapped together for this mission had clandestinely exfiltrated the ship and traversed Naha to their first objective, he'd been steadily… disabused of the notion he was completely prepared for the sheer number of people per square foot. Or square thirty point forty-eight centimeters, as the case was.

True, their brief time on Okinawa Island wasn't that bad compared to all the long hours of his life he'd been in the Northeast Megalopolis, and it certainly wasn't a Gotham or, heaven forbid, a Metropolis. Nevertheless, it'd both amazed and unsettled him seeing how the Japanese had managed to cram together enough folks to rival the population density of the most packed part of Manhattan on a relatively small island over five hundred miles away from their nearest mainland port.

But that was only the beginning.

Everything changed when they set foot on the mainland isle of Kyushu.

Everything.

Kagoshima.

Fukuoka.

Hiroshima.

Osaka.

Kyoto.

Nagoya.

And then finally, of course, Tokyo. Tokyo. Tokyo!

Driving through all those cities had felt every bit as grueling as going through multiple New Yorks and change plus a Gotham-light plus Bludhaven plus Philly plus GOTHAM and METROPOLIS COMBINED… and change.

And he hadn't even been the one behind the wheel.

Cyclops had to hand it to Agent Lee. Stan was the man. He had reserves of patience he'd pilfer if he could. A little over half a day of driving a Class 7 vehicle through all… that… was a type of trauma he didn't think or want to think he'd endure.

Especially considering people in this country wrongly drove on the left side of the road.

OP SEC, SCHMOP SEC.

Whatever risks they incurred just using the high-speed rail system like most normal people would in this situation was infinitely preferable to having to slog through traffic like what they'd caught. What they were catching even now. Besides, it's not like they really got to stop and enjoy all the beautiful and not so beautiful scenery they passed by, so it's not like that part of the cover story justifying their use of a bus for this leg of the OP was particularly strong.

Plus, having checked the maps and times back at the tri-carrier and in real time on his phone during all their traveling yesterday, it'd take an hour and seventeen minutes each morning to travel via bullet train to Musutafu City from their designated station in Tokyo.

Completely inconvenient and incredibly unfeasible with this lot.

In a unanimous vote from everyone, a show of solidarity surprising to all involved, even Cyclops, the entirety of their little Foreign Legion–which they'd voted on calling themselves by the margin of a single vote, Cyclops' own–had given Fury the verbal business back on his boat. With one voice, they'd cried out against their housing arrangements and insisted that they had to be temporary. That once the entry exam was kaput, they'd be saying bye-bye to the American Embassy's Mitsui Housing Compound and that SHIELD would get them a place to stay somewhere within, at most, a thirty minute walk of UA.

Fury understood their complaint, but insisted that until they could find a place in Shizuoka Prefecture they could scope out, vet, and ensure was safely out of the enemy's reach and firmly within theirs, they were gonna have to button up and tough it out and deal with the short sleep time and long commute.

Tonight when they got back to the embassy's lodging, however, he was gonna rally all the other Legionnaires he could and have another chat with SHIELD'S director pressing the matter again. Because seriously, if they were going to be stuck needing to get up early to catch a train and then zombie walk half tired to school for the near future, he could have at least given them the common courtesy of letting them take bullet train once they hit the Japanese mainland yesterday so they had way more time to rest in their rooms last night before hopping on a two and a half hour bus trip to Musutufu like they were now doing.

Rail access yesterday sure would have beat most of the members of their superpowered platoon going in and out of the bathroom at a pace of once every half hour because of car sickness.

Or because of bad stomachs due to bad sushi in bad bentos prepared in advance by a bad bureaucrat in the State Department.

Or because they just wanted to get away from all the excited and argumentative chit-chat, practical jokes, and/or Gojiro movies Agent Lee played nonstop on the built in TV–or at least as well they could with all the wonderful smells they no doubt discovered wafting out from there.

"Toad," Cyclops grumbled mentally to himself, reflexively pinching his nostrils at the memory of the nasty aromas from yesterday. "Why'd Professor Xavier insist on him going with the rest of us old timers?"

"Because technically, he's just as much an old timer as the rest of us. Even if he's new to being on our side."

Cyclops smiled, the bus catching a stoplight, his eyes noticing an elderly couple composed of a brown haired gentleman and a fiery redheaded lady crossing the street, what must've been a couple hundred other people following behind.

"Sorry. Am I thinking too much again, Jean?"

"No. Not anymore than you usually are. Just too loudly."

"Right. Sorry. All these years and I still can't help but trip over that distinction."

"Well, if it's any consolation, I heard your concerns and am happy to report they're shared to varying degrees by basically everyone I'm also talking with right now."

"Which ones? Concerns, I mean?"

"Heh. All of them I think. But I was talking mostly about how chock-full of people this country's been everywhere we've been. Even for way more serious reasons than just… congestion."

"Really? Like what?"

"Like the fact anyone at any moment could strike out from crowds so large and dip back into them without being spotted or the insanely heightened potential for collateral and casualties if the big meta brawls we've all been in ever broke out without proper crowd control."

"I bet." Cyclops guffawed. He'd honestly given that line of scarier consideration quite a bit of time as well during the previous day's road trip. It actually kind of made him appreciate the stealthy and proportional nature of the mission and made Fury's comment at the briefing about not every problem being a nail that needed a hammer all the more apt.

However, since that line purely hypothetical–for the moment–and far less annoying, noisy, and smelly, congestion was honestly and absolutely at the forefront of his thoughtlife about the crazy amount of people crazily compacted so crazily together like sardines, packing peanuts, and spam combined.

"If it's any further consolation, even after all these years of knowing you loved Gilbert and Sullivan, I still can't help but trip over what you went with for your JID."

Mentally, Cyclops chuckled.

JID.

During the crash course aboard the tri-carrier during the Tiger Cruise portion of the OP, a running gag had cropped up from some of the more complainy, class-clowny of their ad hoc, forty man band, about their false identities.

It was originally supposed to be just a funny little thing to help them and others get through all of the work, naturally. Yet by Cruise's end, it had stuck even amongst the members made of sterner and/or smarter stuff. It had become a sort of official, unofficial shorthand–much like Foreign Legion was for all forty of them–to refer to the sum totality of their false ID's during their stay in Japan, just the civilian aspect, or just the superhero portion.

In this case, Cyclops knew Jean was referring to the latter.

Something that made quite the stir during the big brainstorming sessions that went on from their first lunch on Fury's boat to their first midnight on their first day there after the cyclopean super spy's briefing, and that had continued to do so for the rest of their time aboard.

Not as much as certain other teens' decisions, namely, of course, Toad's, which caused one of the bigger commotions. And constant jokes at his expense, which Scott was not ashamed to admit he laughed along with. But Cyclops's choice was still in the top five biggest controversies that had arisen, nevertheless.

In his mind, he shrugged.

"What can I say? Guess not everyone's cut out to handle real culture."

Jean giggled in his head. Such a lovely, dulcet sound.

"You pretentious–I love The Pirates of Penzance as much as you do! Stop it! That's not what I'm ribbing you for and you know it."

"Do I?" he asked, playfully sarcastic.

"Scott," she half laughed, "I'm just saying that most of us made JID's where our superhero personas were–"

"Less cultured," Cyclops interjected. "Yeah, I said that already. Thanks a BUNCH for the reminder."

Jean snortled. Less lovely and dulcet, but still a nice tune coming from her. "Well yes, but incredibly creative regardless."

"One word: Gero."

"Stop picking on him, Scott. He has just as much a right to our hopes and respect as anyone."

Inwardly, Cyclops sighed. "Yeah, yeah. I know, I know. You're right, you're right. He's already got enough flak from everyone else for his incredibly creative fake superhero title and doesn't need me thinking ill of him, even psychically." Inwardly, he then chuckled.

"I WILL psychic blast you if you keep this up, VERY MODEL…"

Mentally, Cyclops put his hands up and said, "Cease fire! Cease fire! Please! I surrender! I surrender!"

"Wise. Now, would you be the VERY MODEL of an extraordinarily cultured gentleman, as I know you are, and make yourself and your thoughts useful? I'm sure the younger kids will love hearing your critique of their Japanese."

"If my diva commands…" Cyclops said aloud with his normal, physical voice in a stuffy, maestro tone as he got up out of his seat, moving past a slumbering Toad sitting down on his right, to the aisle as the light turned green and the bus began to move once again.

"Yes, I do!" she responded in her best exaggerated, Italian opera star accent totally taking everyone around her off guard, especially the Legionnaires she'd just been last minute tutoring.

T-T-T

The morning was going surprisingly normal for it being the proverbial hour of the foreign exchange students' arrival. Izuku kept glancing up and eagerly staring out the window, which thankfully had not been covered by the roller blind when he'd first stepped into the classroom.

He was not often thus distracted, however… today was THE DAY, and he was rather nervous and anxious. If All Might himself was sanctioning this temporary merging of schools, then things were indeed in trouble. Yet at the same time: new heroes from an exotic foreign shore to meet, talk for hours with, and write about in his new hero notebook!

Unfortunately for Aizawa, the entire class would cease to function in exactly five minutes due to the fact that a certain bus would be pulling up and depositing its passengers onto the very heavily guarded campus. A bus that had an engine as obnoxious as Present Mic on a bad day. The ninja-esque teacher was not looking forward to…

What was Midoriya doing!?

"Midoriya! Unless you want to lecture on the importance of not leaving your classmates behind, I suggest you pay attention."

The young man jumped about five feet and saluted before trying to disappear into his seat like a turtle, looking guiltily at Bakugo, who just sneered and snorted literal smoke out his nostrils. The cowed attitude didn't last long however, because just as expected, the roar of the Tourbus just gave the entire class permission to rush the windows, squishing and squeezing against each other as well as they could to get proper line of light in the limited space they had.

Aizawa, irate and irritated as he was, didn't even bother stopping them. He just sighed, took out his yellow sleeping bag, and hunkered down to ride out the madness.

"Move over!"

"No! My spot!"

"Let me see the MELONS!"

"Mineta, you midget! Lemme see ANYTHING and just SCOOCH a little, why dontcha!"

"You are disgusting, Mineta-kun. Oh! There is a hoppy one! I think."

"EVERYONE! We will disgrace the sanctity of UA by acting like wild animals! Proceed to the windows in an orderly fashion! Take turns! Take turns!"

"Stop crowding me, Extras! DIE!"

"ATTENTION! CLASS 1A! My dear listeners, it is time to go to an early lunch and PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB THE FOREIGN CANDIDATES! YEAAAAAAH!" Present Mic declared as he suddenly jumped into the class with a firm sideways kick to the door, hands pointing, throwing up signs as he was want to do.

The buzz was killed almost immediately, and the crowd dispersed in a more orderly fashion as Aizawa un-caterpillered himself and evolved into a grumpy, tired teacher once more. "Thank you, loud mouth. I suppose I'm expected to be judging."

Present Mic chuckled and gave a thumbs-up. "YEAAAAH! You got it!"

Aizawa grumbled.

MHA-MHA-MHA

As soon as the two teachers left, and were a noticeable distance away, several of the students, including Midoriya, gathered at the giant windows that framed one wall of the hallway. There, they eagerly waited for the foreign recruits to appear. Todoroki stepped next to Deku, and the two looked with fixed gazes. The half-and-half son of Endeavor folded his arms, placing a finger on his chin in thought.

"Midoriya, these new students, do you suppose that they're any good? All Might went to America and came back powerful. So maybe there's something special about these Americans too."

Midoriya took out his new notebook and scribbled something down, drawing the three new students he saw as they appeared from under the building. "Dunno. But we should be sure to learn all we can. I can't wait to map their quirks! Maybe they'll even let me see them in full! Maybe they'll let me interview them….mumblemumblemumblemumblemumble-"

"Midoriya-chan… you're doing it again… the scary thing you do…" Froppy said as she tongue-slapped his face to get him to stop.

"YEEEOW! Sorry! Hehe hehe… eeeeeeh." Midoriya groaned sheepishly.

"I don't care how powerful they are. I'm better!" Bakugo boasted, snorting and quickly losing interest. He brushed past everyone and took Red Riot by the hair. "Come on hardass… we're getting lunch before ALL these extras contaminate the food."

"Hmmmm," Momo said, as she saw the new students enter the arena. "I predict about… eighty five percent of them will actually pass."

Pinky grinned happily. "That many?!"

"Yes. Several of them look powerful enough, but we all know power isn't everything in this field. If you're too self-centered, you'll fail. I've been to America." Momo's eyes narrowed. "Their entire culture is built around the self."

"Yes, but… there must be something admirable about them." Pinky said, "They are hero students, just like us, afterall!"

"I sense great darkness in the blue cloaked one. It appeals to me," Fumikage said, "Dark Shadow likes the purple and black cloaked one as well. Though for some reason it makes him agitated."

"Why are we all just standing around staring at them like they're koi?! GET TO LUNCH!" Iida demanded, running past and grabbing Midoriya on his way out. Midoriya grabbed Tsu, who used her tongue to grab Momo, who grabbed Mineta by his ear and flung him into the nearest planter.

"I couldn't see anything anyway! YOU ALL DEPRIVE ME!"

The other students, seeing the recruits disappear into the stadium, made their way into the mess hall, Izuku cheering about how he'd managed to jot down the general sketches of ten of the newcomers before they were out of view.

Todoroki stayed behind a minute, looking suspiciously at the teachers who were also making their way in. "There's something in the air. I doubt my flames could even spark with how thick the tension is… What is happening, really?"

MHA-MHA-MHA

ARENA 1

"Duuuuuuuuuude!" Michelangelo yelled out as he got flung high through the air by an explosion.

"What is happening, I don't even!?" Ron Stoppable shouted as he took refuge under a wide, overturned garbage bin, his eyes barely able to make out the horrors he was witnessing.

Just then, Michelangelo crashed hard onto Ron's hiding space, denting it deeply enough to pin him and Rufus to the asphalt beneath.

"Hmmmm! Carnage!" Rufus said next to him, just as jittery and afraid and pinned and hurt and thrown for a loop as his owner. Though several times more angry. So much so that he managed to shake off the pain and miraculously slither out from the bin, crawl into Michealenagelo's shell, and proceed to bite him repeatedly on the neck.

"Ah! Duuuuuuuuuude!" Michelangelo yelled, all agony from the explosion and collision with the overgrown trash can forgotten as Rufus's bites made him vertically leap ten stories straight up into the air.

"Hey look everyone! Flying turtle supreme! Hehe!" Toad said as he used his sludge to gum up the gears on one of the two pointers, sending it crashing to the ground . "And that makes 57! Suck on them eggs, starry eyes!" he taunted Starfire as he hopped past, heading for a roof to scout out his next target.

"Hi-yah!" Starfire shouted as she spun around in the air, kicking aside the metal monstrosities surrounding her, and eyebeamed one that was divebombing towards Spider-Man, who was busy bashing together two one pointer by their heads like said heads were coconuts. "70!"

"Thanks for the save, Star! Was having way too much fun over here! These tin cans crumple better than Doom Bots and Ultron Sentries combined!"

"Do not mention it, friend!"


ARENA 1

On the other side of the 'city', there was a mighty "KYAAAAAA!" as Iron Fist crashed through his 80th point with both fists, then leaped out of the way of a Zero Point villian, dodging with expert style and grace.

Unfortunately, Dagger, panting as she tried her best to keep up, was struggling to score even 30 points. Her powers, limited by the short straw as they were, seemed inadequate for reliably piercing the armor of robots of the two pointer caliber and above, and those models comprised most of the mobs she and Danny were running into.

As Iron Fist continued to carve out a path ahead with chi infused kung-fu as he was want to do, Dagger dived into an alleyway and leaned against a wall there, catching her breath. She briefly thought about reneging on the promise she'd made back on the tri-carrier, because sweating so much on machines she would have made mince meat of if she wasn't intentionally holding back was proving to be too taxing on her resolve and too wounding of her pride.

Then, she remembered the briefing, the things she'd seen and heard.

Then, Fury's advice not to make their foreign exchange group look too good so as to lessen the peak of the mountain of suspicion they all .

Then, the decision of the Legion, herself included, to take this advice to heart and hold a little lottery.

Sure, she hadn't expected to come up, well, short when they were drawing lots to determine who would have to fail the entry exam. But say she hadn't been selected out: would she not be insisting that those who had needed to maintain their part of the bargain and stick to the story they'd all agreed on?

After resting a bit longer in an alleyway to ponder, she sighed. Finally, reluctantly, she accepted her intentional handicap of only putting so much energy into her daggers, determined to give it her all regardless. To see if she could at least get a skillboost from this bum deal, if nothing else.

However, before heading back stateside, her and Cloak WERE NOT LEAVING until they visited the Japanese Sword Museum in Sumida City. Protocol, schmotocol. If Fury complained, tough. He'd just have to take two of his agents lingering in an AO on the chin.

She soon caught up to Danny and did what she could.


ARENA 1

Elsewhere, Kevin Levin absorbed the metal of a bot and used his acquired steel exoskeleton to shoulder check through three two-pointers, roaring like an insane beast as he chucked them into the air. "81! 82! 83!"

He leapt high into the air, morphing one hand into the shape of a blade and the other into that of the head of a morning star, and brought them both down upon the head of a three pointer. He slammed through the bot's entire body and let the ensuing explosion propel him to the entry area of a nearby faux museum with lots of stairs leading up to it that he'd managed to bypass thanks to the big kaboom.

Kevin then hopped in place triumphantly like in one of his favorite boxing movies. "84! Tennyson, eat your heart out!"

As he basked in his moment of perceived victory, however, a missile parried away by a certain keyblade wielder up above accidentally struck him and launched him through the boxer statue behind him and through the facade of the museum's entrance.


ARENA 1

In another part of the 'city,' an entire 'city' block went black, including seven three pointers, who were very surprised to have their parts dark magically taken out of them, immediately making them explode gloriously. "This is too easy…" Raven complained.

"Tell me about it," Static said, flying down next to her, holding up the head of a Zero Pointer held aloft his head with electricity from only two of his fingers. "My two pinkies here haven't even broke a sweat!"

"Man, why don't you two get a room already!" Toad said as he hopped past, on his way to more points.

"Because Rae-Rae here already gots the hots for Beast Boy!"

Raven, with a casual swipe of her right hand, sent a wave of darkness that severed Static's electricity, causing the Zero Pointer head to fall on top of him.

"Man, everyone's a critic," Static grumbled beneath the hundreds of tons of metal.

Toad too soon regretted running afowl of Raven as a Zero Pointer chased him right back out of the alley he just entered. "OK OK I regret everything!"

"Good." Raven's eyes narrowed on the semi-amphibious mutant. "You better."

She took off into the sky and casually dodged a missile a certain keyblade wielder had accidentally sent her way through his defensive actions up above.


ARENA 1

Concurrently, Sora flipped from house to house, and batted incoming missiles from three pointers away from himself with reckless abandon, not really noticing that each time he hit one, it went careening towards one of his allies.

One of these being Mikey, who had just successfully thrown Rufus aside like so much refuse after landing on the hood of a car before being exploded again. And when Mikey once again sailed through the sky like a turtle eagle, he knocked into Static on his way to another street soon after he had lifted off the giant robot head he'd been under.

They both careened into a pizza truck, crunching it under the full weight of Mikey's shell.

"Lay off the pizza, homey…" Static groaned.

"Master Splinter says 'a full mind is buffered by a full belly'!" the terrapin pouted. "I live by that wisdom!"

"You can do that, sure, but try to live it AWAY from me, Missile Magnet!"

"Seriously though, you think the others are having this hard of a time in their arenas?" Toad asked, hopping onto Mikey's head out of nowhere, sitting like a frog on a turtle log, much to the teenage mutant ninja's annoyance.


ARENA 2

"I swear if you get in my way again, Jake, I will phase through your body and rip out your larynx!" Danny raged as said dragon again made him miss a three pointer. "I'm trying very hard not to hit any of you, but YOU keep getting in my way!"

The American Dragon snarled and blew out his nose after decapitating with a tail swipe a one pointer Danny had meant to ghost ray. "L to the A M E, ghost brat! I'm just out here doing my best, living my best life! I don't need you backing me up here right this second!"

There was a giant explosion, and a Zero Pointer appeared along with a two, a three, and two one pointers.

The boys looked at each other.

"Let's ummmmm… deal with this later!" Danny said as he phased through the ground and left Jake to fend for himself.

"NOT cool, bro!" The dragon said and flew up to avoid the ensuing missile swarm. "Not cool at all!"


ARENA 2

At the same time, somewhere else in the second arena, the ground shook as Cyborg slammed his fists in the ground. This destroyed three two pointers outright and threw a one pointer straight to Beast Boy, who rhinoed it to explosion before continuing onwards to ram into a wall with his rhino head, revealing a shortcut to more robots. They didn't even need to speak, but they did anyway, because these boys didn't care about the fight as much as they did about getting to blow things up just like a video game in the coolest way possible… even if it was cliched!

"You hit 'em high!" BB said as he morphed into Australia's most famous marsupial and kangaroo-kicked the legs out from under a bot.

"And you'll take em down low!" Cy finished gleefully as he punched that same bot's head off effortlessly.


ARENA 2

Agent Venom, meanwhile, was not as gleeful about the bots he had found, soon finding himself surrounded by no less than a dozen one pointers, a half dozen two pointers, and a single three pointer. Even with all of the free ammo the automatons inadvertently gave his own missile launchers he had long since appropriated from The Beetle (not Blue Beetle, just The Beetle), all the fire and sound blowing up so close was causing the venom symbiote surrounding him grave distress.

"I know, I know buddy!" Agent Venom thought as he used the leftover metallic carcass of one bot as a mechanical meatshield to both tank the incoming fire and batter aside more of the bots as he charged them. "I promise when this is all over, we'll take a nice long dip in a chocolate fondue fountain! I hear they have some pretty big ones in this town!"


ARENA 2

Elsewhere, Kim Possible was flabbergasted. She was good, there was no denying that… but she wasn't quite prepared to handle so many bots at once, and her score was hurting because of it. She was tuned for evasion, not direct confrontation, and had to resort to the former far more than she could if she wanted to at least be allowed entry into UA.

"Knew Ron and me should've brought the Battlesuits for this part of the exam!"

Fortunately, she wasn't alone in her duress, having caught a lot of commotion down and to her left that she quickly analyzed to be her ticket to pass go as she sneaked as quickly as she could over a rooftop.

"Thank you, Lady Luck." She flipped to her left and dived down towards Gear, who she had just witnessed being knocked off his Jet-Board by an errant clothesline he'd failed to catch and who was now lying in some conveniently placed garbage right behind some bots who were slowly turning around and about to blow him up skyhigh.

After shooting out her grapple hook, she shouted down, "Gear! Up here! Take my hand!"

The frightened teen thankfully took a lot shorter to oblige her than Kim had suspected and reached his arms out towards her swiftly, the intrepid adventurer just as swiftly grabbing both his hands and swinging up to an adjacent building right as the missiles washed the spot he'd just been in with flame and smoke.

After they both landed in a heap on the aforementioned adjacent building a lot rougher than Kim had intended thanks to the force from the cacophony of explosions, she helped Gear up and they both dusted themselves off, the two of them having to lick their fingers before pinching parts of their hair that were partially on fire to properly put them out.

"Whew! Thanks for the save back there, KP. Promise I'm not usually such a missile magnet, but that clothesline just jumped out in front of me at the last second! I swear!"

"No prob. It's what I do. What we're all here to do." After a couple seconds of thought, though, her eyes widened and she said, "Actually, would you mind giving me a huge solid and take those things down for me for me, now? Please and thank you!"

Gear sighed, shrugged, and nodded. "What can I say? Pretty girl pulled me out of the frying pan. Least I can do is lend a hand."

Without another word, he did just as Kim wanted, stepping backwards as close to the ledge as he could and using Back-Pack's EMP function and chucking mk.1 zapcaps behind him to clear the area. The teen's eyes never once left Kim's direction during this, and said eyes suddenly turned over confident, a bit of a haughty smirk on his lips. "Unfortunately, they're all mine. The points I mean. You really ought to have thought this assist through, Kimmy."

Kim tapped her chin and tilted her head in an exaggeratedly pensive manner. "Didn't I?" she faux asked, before the look on her face mirrored Gear's. "Oh wait. I did."

She made sure he soon ate his words by front flipping over him and off the roof, grappling towards an adjacent and taller building, and raining down bomblets she swiftly tossed from her utility belt with expert precision as she went. Just as she expected, the finishing blows were hers, the bots' CPUs exploding in understated showers of silicon and metal and plastics that nevertheless propelled her point count to the heights she wanted if the giant hologram hovering over the arena showing mugshots of all the prospects and their current tally was anything to go by.

Turning around on her new perch, Kim couldn't help but chuckle at how low Gear's chin was back on his rooftop as he stared gobsmacked between what remained of the bots, Kim, and the holographic scoreboard way up top.

"ImpossiblE!"

"Nothing's impossible for a Possible, Gear. Sorry!" Kim declared before backflipping, running away out of his sight, and quickly calling back, "That makes 42-thanks for the help-bye!"


ARENA 2

For several more moments, Gear stood there–his countenance still conveying great disbelief beneath his helmet's faceplate. Almost as much as when he'd first found out Kim Possible of all teens was on this OP and that literally no one, not even himself, not even the two super psychics of the Legion, had recognized her for hours. Not until she finally took off the thick shades she and Ron had been wearing since boarding the flying tub during that first fateful lunch they'd had on said tri-carrier.

And the worst part about that?

She wasn't even INTENTIONALLY trying to disguise herself!

She just thought everyone knew since Ron and Rufus's names had been dropped a bunch by then and that everyone was just super chill with her being there. A complimentary thought no doubt dashed when basically everyone and especially the girls–save for a few Legionnaires who actually took the discovery rather well and really were as chill as Kim had gathered–swarmed her table and begged her for the works as all rabid, crazed fans did. And not in relation to their burgers and/or sandwiches. Works like autographs, to be their best friend, and of course: deeply personal questions.

Questions like:

If she and that other guy–whose name and face all escaped them along with his equally unremarkable pet mutant rat–she was seeing sometimes who sometimes joined her on her adventures sometimes were finally going to get married sometime soon?

Or questions like if she'd dumped him by now and was going steady with someone more memorable with a more memorable animal companion that were both less prone to causing her accidents on missions?

But yeah, her ghosting her way till that moment without anyone noticing it was her!?

ImposslE!

Seriously!

How'd she get away fooling people with just glasses!

Glasses!

That'd never work as a disguise!

Intentional or not!

And yet it did!

Just like now!

Just like how she'd just managed to get away with tricking him into doing the lionshare of her work after he just got done thinking he'd tricked her after he thought she thought she'd tricked him!

Trickception!

Deception!

Disgrace!

Finally, the shock of this shocking turn of events wore off, and Gear shook his head, gnashing his teeth as he shouted, "Not cool, KP! So not cool! I'm so throwing out that lunchbox you signed for m–I mean, my sister back home–when I get back to the embassy! Do you hear m–!?"

Unfortunately, Gear never got to know for sure if Kim had heard him or not and had said anything back in that moment. Because out of literal nowhere he noticed several shadows growing darker upon him and looked up to see tons–quite literally actually–of robots falling down on his location.

"Ahhhhhhh!" Diving out of the way and over the roof's edge, he just managed to pull out his spare Jet-Board and ride to safety away from all of the explosions engulfing his prior location at the last second. "And here I thought Japan was supposed to be less dangerous than America! Silly me!"

Gear really hoped there weren't any more clotheslines in this alarming mock city.


ARENA 2

Cloak had racked up over 100 points simply by teleporting the robots he found into the air in pairs and just letting gravity do the rest. However, he remembered the short straws and slowed down the awesome a bit, knowing that he should play things safe here.

He was soon briefly distracted from playing the hand fate/the lots had given him, though, by a raging red and green entity… and it wasn't a christmas tree…


ARENA 2

"Hurry up and get lost unless you want me ta pound your pajamas off too!" Raph snarled from below as he dodged the explosive robot rain Cloak had inadvertently sent crashing down his way and then sliced through a three pointer with his sais then threw his weapons into the treads of a one pointer, halting it in the knick of time before it could run over Kurt as the blue furry X-man had just teleported in from elsewhere and hadn't actually seen the monstrosity coming.

"YikeS! Vas is DAS! Zank you, turtle guy!"

"Turtle guy?!"

"Ah! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! It's just… you and your brothers… you all look the same to me! And I forget which Italian renaissance painter's name goes with which colored mask, headband thingy!"

"Why I oughta–" Raph shook his fists and head. "Ya try to be nice to some people." Pointing one of his fists at the fuzzy teleporter, he said, "I'll POUND you later, blue boy, but right now–" before he was caught off guard as missiles sent him flying into the air like a keratinous frisbee.


ARENA 2

"Vell… I can't say I envy him…" Nightcrawler said as he made a point of moving behind a bot, and used his smarts and tail to dismantle it. He sighed. "Vat I Vouldn't give to have Kitty's help right now…"