Chapter Sixty
We stared, as Momo was covered with containment foam, half of the students gathered turning to look at me. "What?" I asked. "Why is everyone staring at me."
"What have you been teaching that girl?" Recovery Girl asked, giving me a serious amount of side-eye.
"Proper tactics?" I shrugged. "I didn't know she knew how to make that, but, well, are you really going to say her plan was wrong?"
The school nurse hmphd, turning back to the screen, the window displaying my friend minimizing as two others took prominence, one showing Ida, carrying Yuga on his back, the boy's cape held tight against his armor, both of them streaking down alley after alley. The other displayed an overhead view of arena, which showed us that the two boys, represented as paired dots, were almost to the exit, even as another dot, representing Power Loader, made a bee-line for their destination.
"He's moving slow," the school nurse commented. "That young lady really did a number on him."
Watching the two sets move, the paired blue and green dots darting around while the yellow one could move without obstruction, a window opened showing the sharp division where packed construction gave way to an almost desert environment.
A flash of silver heralded the pair making it out before Power Loader could reach them, Ida breathing hard as he carried Aoyama, the speedster grinning as he finally saw the exit, while the French boy just looked worried.
Tenya ran for the gate, only for the ground to give way underneath his feet, starting to fall as Yuga tightened his grip on the student carrying him, twisting his arms inwards, firing his lasers through both shoulders, shooting both of them backwards to safe ground, as capture foam mines exploded below them.
From our end, we could see Power Loader still making his way to the exit, digging underground, though the two students couldn't know that.
"Very good!" Ida said, eyes wide from their near defeat, tension thick in his voice as he stared out over the innocuous, though likely trapped, landscape. "I thought the lack of obstructions near the end meant we had outpaced Power Loader, but I see I was mistaken. Perhaps we should run around? No, he is a professional and would have considered that possibility." Yuga shifted, and Tenya looked back at him. "You have a solution?"
"Oui, though it is unpleasant," the French boy admitted. "Be ready."
Ida nodded, looking forward, and Aoyama concentrated, his pauldrons shimmering, before he fired dozens of bolts of light that struck the ground in front of them, exploding on impact, kicking up a dust cloud that cleared in seconds, revealing eight more pit traps between them and the exit, the caved-in sections already filling with foam.
The blond boy slumped, looking ill, but gave his partner a thumbs up.
"Very good, you've managed to reveal the traps!" Ida congratulated, "Now let me carry you to the finish line. Recipro Burst !" he yelled, flames pouring from the exhaust ports on his legs as he blasted forward, running as fast as he could, leaping over the pits in single-minded determination.
He was three hundred feet away, two hundred, one hundred. Everyone in the monitoring room went silent, watching, waiting, knowing there was going to be one more hurdle.
Fifty feet away, Power Loader erupted from the ground, mechanical arm arcing up to catch Ida square in the chest, but, the boy just smiled at the attack, yelling, "Now, Aoyama!" Bucking upwards, it looked like the speedster was going to dodge, his opponent compensating, but Tenya threw the boy he was carrying up, his partner standing on the speedsters shoulders and leaping for the exit himself.
Power Loader struck Ida, hard, sending the boy skidding backwards and into a pit, and turned, mechanical legs working as he leapt after the last student, who twisted around to face the teacher, one hand reaching behind his back.
The student's arm dipped beneath his cape, pulling out the capture cuffs that he'd hidden there, and Momo's words about not having them, despite them visibly being on her belt, came to mind. They were a decoy, I realized, as the real pair swept in, opening wide to catch the Support Hero's outstretched mechanical arm.
However, the man wrenched himself back, the bright yellow restraints missing him by inches as the teacher fell backwards, away from the student, who didn't seem bothered in the slightest that he'd just missed his chance to capture his opponent.
No, the boy smiled, wishing the older man "Au revoir!" as his belt and knees shimmered with light, before the student unleashed a trio of beams, almost point blank, at the teacher, blasting his opponent back even as the attack propelled Aoyama backwards, Yuga holding them as long as he could, the light fading, but still just enough to propel him through the gates, the buzzer ringing, and the rest of the class erupting into cheers.
Yuga hit the ground, rolled, popped to his feet with an enormous grin, and posed for the camera, for a second, before losing his composure and becoming very messily sick on the ground, which, if anything, just made his performance even more impressive.
"Damn," I laughed, shaking my head. I'd honestly overlooked the blond, who, from my memory, had been kind of a joke, but apparently there was a reason he was at U.A.
While Shoto and I made our way to our testing ground, I took out my phone, knowing how to navigate the school's network from my work with Mei. While a lot of it was locked down, I had access to the feed from the monitoring room, which let me watch Sero and Mineta's match.
"Do you have a plan?" the two-toned boy asked beside me, as we stepped onto the transport provided, which lifted up into the air, taking us towards our destination.
Huh, this explains how they didn't know the way out, I realized, having thought that Momo would've paid closer attention to her path, in order to follow it back out. If they'd been air-lifted, however, they wouldn't have had that luxury, and the floor of the craft was wide enough I couldn't just look down to get an idea of the territory.
Realizing Shoto was waiting for an answer, I replied with a shrug, "Nope. Aizawa doesn't have any kind of movement-based abilities like we do, but he's damn fast, so splitting up could work for us, letting one of us escape while the other's caught, or it could just make us easy pickings for him."
The other boy brooded, as usual, finally asking, "You don't think we can beat him?"
The look I gave him back hopefully encapsulated my level of scornful disbelief at his statement, but he just stared back, so it obviously wasn't enough. "Are you high?" I questioned. "Do you think the two of us, two of the strongest emitters in the class, could take out the man whose main power is stopping emitters? If we had someone like Momo, or Shoji, or even Mineta," I said, indicating my phone, which displayed the boy in question, "then maybe, but what kind of fighter are you without your Quirk?"
The boy stared at me, then turned away. "And you think you have a better chance?"
" Fuck no!" I shot back, the boy glancing at me in confusion. "My strength enhancement is very much a Quirk, not natural, and this," I held up a hand, making it spark, "is the same. I've got some gear, but it's nothing he hasn't seen before, and I'm not sure how to use it in a way that will catch not-Batman off-guard."
"Not-Batman?" Todoroki echoed, confused.
"Fictional superhero. Effectively a Quirkless Hero." The skeptical look Shoto sent me was almost palpable. "He was rich, which is almost a Quirk all its own," I explained, finding an interesting parallel between my memories of the setting and the history of this world, "and it was pretty much set right before the chaotic century, when adults with Quirks were rare, pre-collapse, so most of the people he fought were Quirkless."
On my phone, the buzzer rang, Mineta turning to Sero and saying something, the taller boy cocking his head, slowly nodding, starting to extend tape from his elbows, folding it back and forth. What is he doing? I wondered, but it became quickly apparent, two rough masks being formed that the boys could wear without sticking tape directly to their faces. Well, not a lot of tape, the edges of the masks sticking to their jaws, but it let them breathe better than Mineta's attempt in the original timeline would've.
"That. . . I suppose that could work," Todoroki mused. "Mr. Aizawa takes away other people's Quirks, so they have to fight him without them, where he's fighting the way he's trained."
"And have you trained to fight without your Quirk?" I asked, the boy shaking his head.
"Have you?" he asked right back.
"A little," I replied, getting a surprised look from the thermokinetic. "My power can't be aimed like yours can," I pointed out. "Hell, I only figured out how to shift the source point on my body the day of the entrance exam. That meant if I was fighting around friendlies, I couldn't just let fly with my Quirk and hope for the best." That and I have a decade of mundane martial arts experience, I added internally.
It hadn't been at a McDojo, instead a place that taught Brazilian Jujitsu, before it became 'trendy'. There were few things more humbling that getting your ass kicked by a guy almost two feet shorter than you, though getting your ass kicked by his similarly sized wife was one of them. It'd given me a much better sense of how, while strength was important, enough of a gap in skill could easily overcome it, as well as putting to lie a good deal of the 'women are weak' narrative I'd grown up with, reinforced by the females around me whenever they needed something done, or wanted me to step in to save them from a situation they'd gotten into by being an idiot, banking on the very gender roles they often decried to protect them when they needed it.
I frowned, thinking about it, only now starting to realize something that had been bugging me for a while. I'd put it off as 'anime physics' before, but given I was working with those very physics on the regular with Mei, I knew that copout was one-hundred percent, gold-plated bullshit. "So, um, this might be a stupid question, but how the fuck is he so strong? Or Endeavor? Or. . . pretty much any non-mutant, non-power type Hero?"
That earned me a squinty eyed stare from my partner, as our hoversled set down in the middle of Japanese suburbia, the robotic drone informing us to wait here until we received the announcement that our match started, and flying off. "You don't know?" Shoto asked, doubt dripping from his tone, as on my phone I watched Mineta and Sero carefully try and make their way to the exit, their heads on a swivel.
I looked back at him, "No, I'm asking because I don't know. No," I winced, at the boy's hurt look. "I do do that sometimes. Right. Sorry. No, I really don't know. It's never come up before." And it hadn't, as, searching Denki's memories, I came up empty.
"Oh. . ." Todoroki replied, silent for a moment, and I wouldn't blame him if he didn't answer. I was being an ass, it was just. . . so obvious that I felt like a complete idiot for missing it.
"It's. . . it's called the Atlas Quirk," Shoto explained, and I paid attention to what turned out to be one of those 'so obvious no one talks about it, or even thinks about it' aspects of this world, which fit along with the others I'd been slowly accruing, right up there with 'how come everything looks like the early 2000's, despite having hyper-tech?' along with others.
While he explained just how ridiculous someone with any Quirk could get, while also explaining why Quirkless heroes were treated with such disbelief, I kept watching how the match before ours was progressing.
The pair of students moved through the rocky area, small stone hills a dozen feet tall all around them, obscuring sight lines, and allowing Midnight to sneak up on them, which she promptly did. This time around, when she came up behind Sero and popped open his helmet, filling the area with her anesthetic scent, the boy dove forward, turning and lashing out with his tape while Mineta tossed his balls at her.
However, while not up to Aizawa's level, the woman was still physically capable and dodged most of the tape, and all of the balls. Even from behind his mask, I could tell Sero was grinning as he pulled at the tape he'd stuck to her, bringing her in as he cocked back his fist.
Which, incidentally, was the moment I realized he was going to lose.
Instead of keeping his distance, and leveraging his Quirk, the boy closed with a vastly more experienced combatant, who caught his fist and almost languidly flowed around it, sliding up the boy's body to almost gently peel off his mask.
Then she sunk a knee into his gut.
The boy reflexively gasped, taking in a solid lungful of pink mist and passed out. The cougar seductively caught him and lowered him to the ground, looking around with a frown on her face when she found it was just the two of them.
Minetta? He'd bolted the second Midnight had closed with Sero, seemingly coming to the same conclusion I had.
The Pro Heroine scowled, looking back and forth, before taking off running in the direction of the exit, immediately stumbling to a halt, swiftly moving to avoid the small minefield of sticky balls the other boy'd left behind to try and stop her from pursuing him.
I wished I had audio, as Midnight murmured something, licking her lips, before she took off running once more, steps careful as she moved through the trapped area, almost dancing, at a speed I'd be hard pressed to match without transforming my legs.
The screen split, and Mineta was hauling ass, shifting back and forth in what was obviously a practiced pattern as he'd pull a ball from his head and put it on his foot right before he landed, slamming the leg down to bounce off as he was pulling off another ball with his other hand, wiggling back and forth as he moved at a speed I'd be hard pressed to match even with transforming my legs.
The terrain even helped him, the small hills just high enough for him to bounce over, while Midnight was forced to weave between them. Once she was out of the minefield he'd left behind, she sped up, moving faster than an Olympic sprinter from my own world, now that I was paying attention to such things.
She called out to him, but the boy just shook his head, not looking back, tears streaming from his eyes for some reason, but not missing a beat in his movements. When that didn't work, she scowled, and tried to lash out with her whip.
Mineta pulled a ball from his head, trying to block it with the sticky substance, and only half succeeding, the sphere sticking to the end of the whip, which cut his glove in the process, a thin line of blood quickly welling up. The boy was sent into a spin, but threw down a ball right before he hit the ground, bouncing off that and giving himself time to recover as Midnight flicked the whip back as she ran forward, preparing for another swing.
However, in doing so the end of the weapon brushed against the ground, where it stuck fast, and the professional heroine was rather comically yanked off her feet as her weapon went taught, her momentum alone not enough to break it free.
Mineta risked a glance behind himself, seeing her fall flat on her back, and a lecherous look crossed his features, his free hand making a grabbing motion before he shook his head and turned to face the exit once more, grabbing another ball to propel himself forward.
On the ground, Midnight pouted, kipping up to her feet in a second, showing herself to have been waiting for the boy's attack, and tried to give chase, but was quickly outpaced, the small boy blowing through the finish line with over twenty minutes to spare, the best time of any of our exams.
The buzzer rang, and I looked to Shoto, who'd wrapped up his explanation a few minutes ago. "Decision time Todoroki, what's the play? We trying this together, or we going alone?" The boy didn't respond. "Shoto?" I pressed.
"Separate," he determined, holding up a hand, creating a candle's worth of flame. "Keep your Quirk going, and don't put yourself into a position where losing it will put you in danger."
Just like with Hawks. I wonder if he and Aizawa ever got into a scrap? "Got it." I hesitated, knowing what was going to happen. "Quick question, you blast your elements with your hands, but always stomp your feet. Any way to blast it from your feet?" Like if you were tied up over caltrops?
The boy frowned. "I. . . my father can, with his fire."
"Can you do the same with ice? Make a platform you can stand on, even if the ground's hazardous? Eraserhead's got a utility belt, like us, and his standard kit includes tape, smoke bombs, and caltrops," I questioned, having looked up all our teachers, yet I still somehow missed the entire 'superhuman physique' thing.
"What is he, a ninja?" Shoto asked, and I just shrugged, as it wasn't an inaccurate description of the man. "I. . ." the boy awkwardly lifted a foot, and brought it down in aborted stomping motion, ice shooting down when he pulled the kick up short, making a small platform. "Huh."
"Fire's transitory, and powerful, but ice seems more stable," I remarked, "And the way you use the two sides of your Quirk seem interchangeable, so I figured that might work."
The boy seemed miles away, looking at his hand consideringly. "I guess it is. . . I wonder what else would. . ."
Another buzzer rang, jolting him out of his thoughts. "Our exit's that way," I said, pointing , before moving my hand to the left a little. "I'll go this way," I moved my hand to the right, "you go that. Watch the rooftops, and good luck."
"Same. And remember," he said after a few steps, holding up the small flame in his hand, nodding when my legs turned to lightning. "That works," he noted, deadpan, though the corner of his mouth quirked up just a hair, and he took off riding a path of ice, while I bolted away on electric limbs.
Heading off to the side, I made sure to put a good bit of distance between myself and Todoroki, before turning a corner and heading for the exit as fast as I could. The grid setup of the area let me move in pretty much a straight line, but that would also make me easier to spot. This arena was one of the larger ones, likely to combat the fact that both of us effectively had Mover powers, the apartment maze Momo'd dealt with being child's play to the two of us, as we could've just gone high and moved across them.
I didn't hear anything from Todoroki's direction, which would've been comforting, if not for the fact that I had no idea if that meant he was still moving quietly, or if his powers were suppressed. Regardless, I ran as fast as I could without my limbs crackling from the electricity or without rising above the level of the homes around me myself. It'd be simple to ride the power lines, but it'd also get me sniped in three seconds flat by Aizawa's power.
It'd shut me down, hard, in my fight against Shigaraki, and I was not looking forward to fighting the unholy lovechild of Batman and Captain America without powers. How does the enhanced physique fit in, I wondered, unable to keep my mind from drifting as I moved, a third of the way there already. Is it a mutation so ubiquitous that it's unremarkable? Mutations are genetic, just look at Koji 'my head's a rock' Koda who's power is beastspeech of all things.
As I ran, I felt something slam into my Defenses, so much that I stumbled, my legs still lightning as I glanced around, trying to figure out what the hell just happened. It was then that I saw Aizawa staring at me from a rooftop, hair flaring, Quirk active, while my Quirk remained fully functional.
The man leapt off the building, dropping his Quirk, using his scarf to hook onto a power-pole, swinging in front of me and landing with barely a sound. Make that the bastard child of Batman, Captain America, and Spiderman. Or maybe just the first and last, since Spidey had strength as well. I knew my thoughts were racing out of my control, but the spike of panic that I'd felt bounced off paralyzing and had settled into an odd sort of manic.
Again, Aizawa's Quirk activated, eyes glowing red as his hair floated upwards, and I felt it slam against my Defenses, to no avail.
Eraserhead tried to Erase my powers, and I instinctively said no.
Regardless, I let my legs snap back as realization dawned. Mind or Soul Defense. Maybe both. I'd bought them when I was freaking out over having 'captured' Mina, but, with everything else that'd happened, I'd completely forgotten about them, but that hadn't made them any less present. Either way, with them, I was apparently immune to Meta-Quirk powers. And from the glare the man was giving me, he'd just learned that as well.
"Um. . . hi?" I offered with a cheery wave, trying to figure out what the fuck I was going to do.
The look I received in return was many things, but impressed was not one of them. "Hello."
AN: Next Three Chapters Up On !