Chapter Thirty
All set and ready to go, we moved to our assigned spot, all of the teams creating a ring around the open field arena, a red material with some bounce to it, likely some kind of rubber. I was at the front, the lead horse, not the Rider as Todoroki, Bakugo, and, ironically, Pony were, seemingly taking the positions as the respective tops scorer on their teams. Knowing what King Explosion Murder was planning, it made sense, but for Todoroki? It was a pride thing, all the way.
Back and to my right was Mina, ready with her improved acid gauntlet to blast anyone that came that way, and Yaoyorozu was to my left, completely kitted out with gear, from a pair of high-end hover-skates, to a bandolier of non-lethal grenades, to the stun-gun on her right side, able to be drawn and fired, but hidden from sight. Both of them had their harnesses connected to mine in a way that'd create a stable platform for Mei to rest on, while leaving all our hands free. The inventress, with me assisting, had been able to restructure the pieces of gear to serve this purpose. It wasn't up to her standards, so I couldn't use it to drag around All Might in his muscle form, but it was more than enough to stay intact even if, for instance, I needed to jerk forward, dragging the other three with me.
Said inventress was now strung up between the three of us, her legs effectively immobilized, but that just 'made it more secure!' She'd originally wanted to just piggyback again, like last time, and just have the other two girls keeping a hand on her so it technically counted, but the other two girls quickly argued her down to the current setup. Momo's argument against Mei's first plan being against the 'rules and spirit' of the task fell on deaf ears, but Mina, having had more experience with the eccentric Support student, had instead asked if the current setup was too hard to do in the time provided, and Mei went out of her way to 'Prove the heroes wrong! No offense Denki!'
Now, with the headband that read 680 on Mei's forehead, we were ready to go.
"Oh goody," Ms. Midnight announced, stretching for no particular reason. "It's time to get this party started!"
Present Mic took over, announcing, "After fifteen minutes to pick their teammates and talk strategy, eleven cavalry teams are prepared to go head-to-head!"
"I see some unexpected student combinations," Aizawa noted, and I wondered who it was that he was referring to. Looking around, it was actually hard to guess. Maybe Todoroki and Yuga's teams, that had students from both Class 1-A and 1-B in equal measure? Or Jiro joining a team that was solidly class 1-B otherwise? Or maybe it was the possible interaction of powers he was referring to? I wasn't sure.
"Come on!" Mic continued. " Everyone get your hands in the air! It's time for an arena-pumping UA Battle Royale! Let me hear you scream!"
Glancing to the right as the crowd cheered, where Deku stood, he gave me a serious look, though a hint of a smile was present under his determination. I smiled broadly, nodding right back, looking to my left where Yuga and Koda, along with a fat boy with silver hair, all sat astride the back of a huge, hairy, and generally bestial student, who had grown three times as big as his already large starting height. The student in question growled as he caught me staring, the menace slightly off-put by the thick-rimmed, square glasses he wore. With the fat boy wearing the 200 point headband, in between the other two, I'd go for it if they went for us, but if they ran the other direction I'd lead us to easier prey.
"Let's get this party started !" Present Mic announced, the crowd cheering. " One final countdown before the game starts! Three! Two! One!"
"Begin!" yelled Miss Midnight, and we surged into motion, even as Midoriya, trailing green sparks, headed right for us.
I'd be worried, be we planned on this, and turned our back on him, as the beast-man indeed started to run in our direction, but his eyes were on Deku as he tried to skirt around us.
Not gonna happen, I thought, running on legs of electricity, my other two teammates able to keep pace without moving their feet, letting me take longer strides as I started to feed energy into our harnesses.
"Hahaha!" Mei laughed, her backpack opening up into the same four tentacles as before, splaying them around her, as she reached into the ad-hoc backpack I was carrying, pulling something out.
As we closed, the beast-man growled something, Koda's voice barely audible as he said " Fire!"
Yuga, belt shining, smiled at us as he pointed it in our direction, and I dodged to the side as the glowing, kinetic beam punched right where we would've been if we'd tried to close. However, Mei had a similar idea and hurled what I had nicknamed the 'banana bomb' at them instead.
They almost dodged as the sphere erupted into yellow, frictionless fluid, dousing one of the beast-man's legs, and he slipped when he landed, his covered leg flying off to the side.
As we reached them, I jumped over the slick, taking the other two with me, and a near-weightless Deku flew up to us, smiling as he used us as a platform to push himself off in an unexpected direction, even as half a dozen teams converged on us, turning and following the green-haired missile as he went flying through the air, Ochaco hanging on for dear life.
We came down next to the beast-man, and I blocked a blow from him as he slammed a giant hand into me, and I thanked the low level of One-for-All that let me match the enormous man's strength, if only just. Mei's robo-tentacle darted forward, grabbing the team's headband, yanking it off as she yelled "Got it!"
Prize in hand, I let the beast-man push me away, and Mei brought the headband to her, going to grab it in her hand only for headband to suddenly yank itself out of her grip, back in the direction of the boy we'd just taken it from. Telekinesis? I thought, but the movements were jerky as it flew back, enough to dodge Mei's striking tentacle, but even when it was out of grabbing range, its flight was still jerky as it made its way back to the silver haired boy, suggesting something else was at play.
However, whatever it was would have to wait, as Mina yelled, " Go left!" Doing so automatically, we barely missed a long, thorny green tendril as it shot down towards where we were, and I pushed off into a jump that'd put us in an open spot as I turned to see what was going on.
Following the tendril, looking up, I saw a sphere of vines floating over the battlefield, Ibara sitting, cross-legged, on a platform of her own plant-like hair. Buried in the vines were four horns, levitating the entire thing, with Jiro leaning over the edge, pulling back her jacks, one a little red from where it'd been hit by Mina's acid.
Right, flyers , I thought, as Ibara moved to go after someone who hadn't seen her, and, glancing around, I could see Deku flying across the field, Bakugo jetting up to meet him on a collision course, reaching outward with a primed explosion.
Before the bomber could get him, though, Ochaco activated the jetpack she wore, pulling them even higher, and while Bakugo tried to follow, the pair were able to dodge him twice, Midoriya blocking one enormous blast with crossed arms and using it to move himself further away, before Bakugo had to fall back to earth, Sero catching him while the bomber recharged his internal reserve of explosive sweat.
Glancing around, I saw the Mind Controller high-tailing it away from us, beast-man's headband around his neck as he smirked in our direction, and Koda shaking the fat boy who blinked, as if coming out of a daze.
Deciding that I'd go after the asshole if he started winning, I instead turned towards one of the 1-B teams, who was playing cat and mouse with Shoji's team as the former started throwing out tiny mushrooms which ballooned outwards, until they were the size of small cars, or bigger, littering one corner of the field and turning into a mycelial forest.
Charging after them, the others following my lead, I called, "Shoji's sheltering his team with his arms. I'd guess Minetta and Asui, since I didn't see them."
"With only eleven teams, And Midoriya and Ochaco being one of them, the others all must have the full four people on them," Momo advised, and I nodded, not having considered that. "It must be someone small, or at least light, to fit under his-"
"It's Tokoyami," Mina interrupted as we started to close on the two teams. "He's hiding under Shoji's arms. I saw them talking." I nodded, not having thought of just looking at the teams as they formed, and was glad for the intel.
A dozen purple balls shot out from the cover of Shoji's arms, towards the orange-haired, big-handed girl, only to suddenly stop, then reverse course as the lead girl of the other team, a white haired teen, glared at Shoji.
Okay, now that's telekinesis, I thought, from how smoothly they all moved. Shoji ducked for cover behind a now tree-sized shroom, which suddenly shrunk to only a few inches tall. A black-purple hand reached out from the back end of the flesh-tent Shoji's arms made, catching the balls, and pulling them behind cover, even as Asui's long tongue shot forward for the rider's forehead.
The girl, however, grabbed the appendage, her hands growing as she pulled, the frog girl yanked right off her 'horse' and sent flying. Shoji broke off his attack, going after his teammate, and as we closed and I heard Mei yell, "Can you block this?"
I winced at the stupidity of warning them, as the group spun about, the lead girl giving us a flat emotionless "yes" as a glob of capture foam flew forward, to jerk to a stop only a few feet away from the other team.
A red glob.
I skidded to a halt as Mei fired twice more, the other two globs caught and pushed into the first, the enemy rider, her hands shrunk down to a more manageable size, commented with a confident smirk, "You think they'd learn that-"
" Thanks!" Mei interrupted, and I could hear her flick the safety off the laser component of the pistol, now that I knew what she was doing. However, with the globs combined like that-
" Take cover!" I yelled, panicked, and, thankfully, the other girl listened, shoving her once again enlarged hands forward, covering her team as the blob started to accelerate towards us, but far, far too slowly.
Stomping my foot down as a spike of electricity into the grass, kneeling to take cover and forcing the other two to move with me, the blast-wave from the explosion slammed against us but I held us steady, even as the mushrooms around us, several of them shielding us from the view of the crowd, were blown away, stalks cracking with a sound like splintering wood, but somehow wetter.
The other team didn't fare nearly as well, blasted backwards, the rider's hands red but thankfully unburned. The group slammed into one of their own shrooms at speed, the impact breaking their grip, the team falling apart as they hit the ground.
"Huh, that was more than it should've been," Mei commented, and, despite the fact I couldn't see her, I couldn't practically feel her cocking her head in confusion.
"Mei, the effect is exponential with additional reactant mass!" I chided, even as I ran forward for them. Looking over the other students, they seemed okay, thank god, and the teacher's hadn't stopped us, so I didn't feel bad reaching down and yanking the headband from the handsy girl, who was staggering to her feet, handing it to the inventress.
She slipped it around her neck as we made our way out of the mushroom forest, nodding. "Oh, right! My bad," she said, in a way that I could tell meant she didn't really care. "Maybe they shouldn't combine unknown materials then! That's like, day one of class!"
Ignoring the hypocrisy of Mei telling anyone not to combine things randomly, I shot back, "They're Hero students, Mei, not Support course!"
"Well that's not my fault!" she replied a bit defensively, though with the tone that meant she understood what I was saying, and felt a little bad.
"Talk later, we're in the middle of a fight!" Mina chided, and I had to give her that, looking around, trying to get a handle on things.
Bakugo had seemingly given up on Deku and was now going after the blonde power-copier, while Shoji was trying to chase down Ibara, having lost their headband to them. Todoroki, however, was still going after Deku, who dodged out of the way of a blast of ice as he touched down, leaping, once more careening over the arena, though his partner was looking a little green around the gills.
" And that makes five minutes! Oooh that explosion looked bad, but everyone's A-Okay!" Present Mic announced. " Let's look at the scores!"
Glancing up, I saw things hadn't changed that much, and regretted not learning the names of class 1-B as I didn't know who was who, so the display wasn't that useful. Focusing on what I could see, beast-man was trying to chase after the Mind-Controller, only for Shinso to say something, and the large-student to suddenly stop and run in the opposite direction. That left one last team, who was just standing right there, in the middle of the field, right next to a statue of the word ' IGNORE'.
And that's what everyone seemed to be doing to them.
Staring at it, I could feel something push against my Defenses, and had to wonder if the statue of the word was literally making people ignore them. "Mina, Mei, Momo, you guys see the team in the center?"
The two girls I hadn't accidentally captured replied with negative statements, a formal "No" from Yayorozu and a "Nah, how 'bout we go after blondie instead?" from Mei
Mina however replied, "Yeah. That's weird. Why are they. . ." she paused. "Wait, you guys don't se-"
"Not the time," I cut her off. "Okay, follow my lead."
Running towards the other team, I dragged us forward, Mina pushing herself with her acid as I felt Momo start to turn away, before she started pushing forward as well. Glancing back, I saw she had her eyes closed, and her teeth grit, but was trusting me. Looking up, I saw Mei was trying to peer forward, to see what I was and she wasn't, while her metal arms were splayed out, ready for anything.
The team we were heading for spotted us, or I assumed they did, as the rider had what looked like a text-bubble for a head. They turned, and a guy with no lips, but a large skeletal grin stomped, the hardened floor darkening in a wave out towards us.
Right before it hit us, I jumped, pushing OfA as hard as I could, carrying us forward, but with the extra weight it wouldn't be enough. "Mei, propellers back," I directed, and she did so, as we sailed over what I realized was now quicksand-like floor. One of the guys in back, a heavy mutation type with an odd head, spewed a white substance from his mouth, nose, and eyes, set to hit us.
"Mei, up," I directed, the metal arms swinging down to give us a little more boost, even as Mina responded with a geyser of her own. Her's, however, was a concentrated, pressurized acid blast that speared through the boy's geyser, and, as it was still connected to her, she could control it. Twisting her arm, the ripple shot down the acid steam still pouring out of her, sending the liquid lance spiraling outwards into a small tornado that shoved the white substance everywhere, including over the nearby statue.
I could feel both Mei and Momo jerk in understanding as, now covered, whatever was stopping them from noticing the enemy team was no longer in effect. "That looks like glue," the creation specialist noted, and a blue dust shot down from her pant legs as we started to fall. "I'll neutralize it.
"And I'll neutralize them!" Mei cheered, pointing her pistol next to my head and firing downward. Goo, blue goo this time, streaked outward from her repeated shots, each one slamming into the other team's legs, our opponents having managed to avoid most of the glue shoved back at them. The substance, which hardened around their feet, started to turn back to liquid where it touched the lip-less boy, but the others were still stuck fast, and even the lead horse wasn't completely free.
Landing next to them, Mei reached out with a metal tendril as the glue-boy inhaled, ready to blast us again, only to get a face-full of acid from Mina, at minimum strength. It wasn't enough to hurt him, but was enough to make him cough as Hatsume grabbed the headband from around the rider's 'neck'. The word 'AWAY' started to emerge from the speech bubble, but we were already leaping free, and as the physical word shoved us, hard, it just gave us extra velocity as we streaked away, prize in hand.
"Oh, and Todoroki seems to have made his own way to Ibara's flying fortress!" Present Mic announced, and, looking over, I saw a glacier had formed, encasing the bottom half of the flying vine-ball, and Todoroki, with Iida leading, engine legs burning brightly, shot up the slope.
A mantis-looking boy stepped up to the edge of the vine-platform, swinging large blades that came out of his arms, cutting through the ice. The vine-platform started to detach, Jiro jacking into the remaining ice and shattering it, but Todoroki's team wouldn't be stopped. Launching themselves off the edge of the ramp, arrowing towards Ibara, the girl from class 1-B on his team seeming came apart as if she were slashed to pieces, bits of her dismembered body shoving themselves under the rest of her team's feet and keeping them aloft as Iida blasted them towards them towards their destination.
Vines shot out from the platform, but the other class 1-B member of Shoto's team, a boy, shoved his free arm forward. The limb was suddenly covered in glowing green scales, which shot forward, slicing the vines to pieces, as his team continued on their collision course. Ibara's platform dropped suddenly, in a way that Iida couldn't correct for, his team having too much forward momentum to change course easily. Ibara was dodging, but I didn't think would work, and neither did Jiro, who shouted something at her team, too far away to hear.
Todoroki, vapor streaming from his hand, gave his own command and his group flipped upside-down, controlled by the pull-apart girl. Directly over his opponent, he shoved downwards, even as Jiro, grabbing Mantis-boy and Pony, dragged them to the side of vine-ball, an enormous glacier shooting down and freezing the vine platform to the arena floor, grounding them.
Seizing the opportunity, and noticing Shoji trying to come up behind us, I took off, but I wasn't the only one.
As I closed, the beast-man, his team still lacking any headbands, cut us off, loping straight for us. I tried to jump over them, my teammates helping, but the larger man leapt for us with surprising speed, slamming into our entire group in mid-air, enormous arms circling around all four of us. Reflexively, I let loose with my electricity, lighting everyone up, even as we started to fall, the Beast-man's attempt to slam us into the ground aborted as he spasmed, though he still held tightly.
From around me four metal limbs slammed into the beast-man, peeling open his arms, and Mina, in a move that was practically lifting herself up by her bootstraps, excreted acid but held it tight to her feet, pulling at it, and herself, and us, as hard as she could as I pushed us backwards, away from the other group.
It wasn't enough to fly, nowhere close, but it did give us just enough directional spin that I, shoving my hands and arms forward as lightning, was able to catch us without Mei hitting the ground, which would've force us to drop our headbands and start from scratch. That said, I hit with the weight of everyone on me, which cause me to strain OfA for a moment, but I was able to take the impact, leaning backwards and dropping the others to their feet, our interconnected harnesses keeping me from electrocuting them like I had the other team, a feature I wasn't sure would work when we put them together.
The other team wasn't so lucky, all three riders hitting the ground as the Beast-man slammed down on his side, but since they had no points, they could have just gotten up and attacked us once more, even if all four were smoking slightly.
Could've if an angry sounding Yaoyorozu hadn't sprayed them down with blue containment foam, a lot of it, at point blank range, demanding they "Stay Down!"
However, the time it took us to do so was too long, and, looking back up, I saw an annoyed looking Ibara trying to free herself while Jiro was shattering large chunks of ice. Todoroki, running down the glacier he'd made, jumped, bits of the come-apart girl catching him and bringing him back to his riding position. Bakugo, moving in the other direction, blasted off the glacier, Sero's tape reaching out and tagging him, bringing him back to his team. Both teams now in possession of two headbands.
" Is that allowed?" Present Mic demanded.
"As I said before, you need to touch the ground," Miss Midnight countered, and I realized I'd missed some of what was going on when our team took out Big-Hands. "Neither of them did, or else Pony's team would be disqualified for getting caught!"
Present Mic just laughed. " Fair enough! We're ten minutes in, and let's look at the scoreboard once again!"
Now at the point where I needed to determine strategy, our team running away from the bound beast-guy. I had to say it wasn't looking that bad. Izuku, obviously, was in first place, still with ten million, two hundred and five points, even if the board said 'Team Uraraka'. We actually sat at number two, with twelve hundred and fifteen. Third and Fourth was Todoroki's at ten-ninety-five, and Bakugo's at eight-eighty. Monoma, the power copier had an even five-hundred and Shinso, the mind controller, sat at four-ten. However, that left five teams with zero, and I could already see the orange-haired, big-handed girl charging towards us, out of her mushroom forest, with a look that promised payback.
Monoma's team joined her, the girl not going after her classmate in the slightest, and Shoji joined them to, though I could see Asui glancing at the power copier's headband, likely waiting for an opportunity. All three teams were coming after me, as Izuku, completely untouchable, once more rocketed across the sky, Bakugo yelling in rage as they outmaneuvered him once again. Unfortunately, Ochaco hit her limit and Midoriya started to drop, as she lost her lunch, leaving a rainbow trail behind the pair that thankfully disappeared into nothingness.
Word-head was running for Todoroki, beast-man was still trying to free himself, and I sighed, as there was five more minutes left in this, forever in a fight.
However, we'd done what I wanted, and gained enough points to pass.
Now we just needed to keep them.
AN: Next Three Chapters Up On !