Chapter Seventy-Six

With everyone aligned, it was time to go to work, and I looked to Midoriya. "Go join team one. I might need your, no, I will need your help with something later, I'll need most people's help, really, but for now we need to keep the golems off us without tiring everyone out. That includes you too, so don't overstress yourself showing off. Think of this like All Might having to do rubble clearing, not an actual fight. You'll never know when you'll need that extra bit of strength, so keep it in reserve."

"Understood!" the boy nodded, thin red lines spreading over his face as, crackling with emerald energy, he leapt away.

"Momo," I ordered next. "I need you to make me a pad of paper and a pencil, this isn't going to be easy, and if I have some way of keeping the plans and calculations straight, it makes this entire thing simpler." She nodded, her forearm already starting to glow.

"What about me?" Hagakure asked excitedly, and I winced.

"Unfortunately, you're a combat hero," I told her. "Against foes that weren't twenty-foot tall monsters that had no weakpoints, or if we had a target we needed scouting, you'd be great, possibly more useful than half of the people here." There was the distant sound of a shouted 'Die!' and 'Smash!' in the background. "Though, there's some people in this class who are combat beasts. If we were allowed to go after Pixie-Bob directly, you'd be central to that plan, but we have to let her chip away at us, so that's a no go."

"O-oh, okay," invisible girl replied, dispirited.

I started to respond, but Momo handed me what I'd asked for, giving me a little head-shake as the creationist put a hand on the other girl's shoulder. "Hagakure, the way you're feeling is the same way I felt during the last round of the Sports Festival. Remember my 'match' against Todoroki? I didn't have a chance."

"B-But you did really well against Ida! And you took down the mind control guy like it was nothing!" Toru argued.

I only half listened as Momo gave a modified version of the 'lift a truck' speech I'd given her, as I started to draw up plans, having to pause as I'd expected a handful of loose pages, but instead Momo had created a spiral bound notebook full of grid paper. Looking at it, there were even perforations on the spiral-edge of every page, just like I'd get if I bought one from the store.

Before I would've just gone to work, but now that I knew just how stupid difficult Factoria's Creation Quirk was to wield, I couldn't help but be damn impressed, and hope that being around her as she did stuff like this would help bootstrap my own use of the same ability. The pencil, similarly, wasn't just serviceable, but painted yellow, with all the proper markings, and had an eraser held on with a small metal fitting.

Just. . . how?

Pushing that out of my head, I shifted gears, really wishing that Mei was here, but I'd picked up enough at her metaphorical knee, though one of her favorite seats was mine, to manage this. With the area we had, it opened options, as well as how well Todoroki could shape his Quirk. The training he was going to undergo here, like all the others, was not technique but pure power, and I needed something I already knew he could create, and in a hurry too.

So, students by capabilities:

Strength: Shoji, Sato, Kirishima, Deku, and Asui. While they had other capabilities, they wouldn't be needed for my plan, and they didn't fall into another category here.

Creation: Momo!, Mineta, Sero, and Todoroki. Technically I could put myself on this list, but that was a 'if the needs are great enough' issue, and a training exercise didn't qualify.

Lift: Tokoyami, Mina, Uraraka. These people could do the 'lift yourself up by your bootstraps' trick, to a certain degree, but wouldn't be the best for forward directionality. That'd be-

Thrust: Bakugo, Aoyama?, and. . .

"Hey, Hagakure, go ask Todoroki if he can create thrust with his flames. It doesn't have to be enough to fly, like his father, but if it's enough he has to brace himself, and can he do it in a stream? That's good enough for this," I ordered, the girl, by the movement of her shirt, probably nodding and giving me a thumbs up before dashing away.

"Thrust, you mean to make an aircraft?" Momo asked, looking, well, not over my shoulder, as she was about 5'7" to my 5'9", but next to it, at the list that was forming.

I nodded, "Yep, we're gonna pull a Flight of the Phoenix, only from scratch, with superpowers, and in, like, two hours. On the bright side, no one wants to kill each other, at least now that Ida's gone, and I've literally done this kind of thing with Mei, only harder."

Yaoyorozu nodded, "Why does Aoyama's name have a question mark? And mine an exclamation point?"

"Because it's literally the name of your Quirk, and I'm not sure if that's the best use of Yuga's, since he's got a few sustained seconds and then he's out for the count.

I continued writing.

?: Koda, Jiro, Toru.

Me: Shapeshift? Thrust? Strength?

Note: Toru + Atlas = HSQ^

"HSQ?" Momo questioned.

"Holy Shit Quotient," I noted absently. "Imagine a Toru that fights like Aizawa."

The other girl blinked. "Oh, that would be a formidable opponent. You should tell her that!"

The girl in question jogged back, reporting, "He can but he'd really rather not."

Which was annoying, but. . . sure, I could make the plan modular. The real problem was power interaction, though, actually, in this case having Hagakure be my gopher helped a great deal. "Okay, Toru, you wanted to know what you could do? I'm gonna have a lot of questions, and not enough time to go around asking them myself, so I need you to. Next task, get two pieces of ice, have Mineta connect them with one of his balls, and see if Uraraka using her Quirk on one piece of ice works on the whole thing."

"Got it!" the invisible girl practically chirped, running off, as I started to make the rough shape of the hull, an idea forming.

Turning to the other girl standing next to me, I flipped to the next page and sketched out a basic saw, but one using. . . lets call them rare materials, which meant jack-all to the creationist. "Okay, I need you to make this to these specifications."

She nodded, understanding instantly, replying, "Creating the materials directly would drain my reserves too much, but tools to harvest them? That's ingenious, Denki!"

I shrugged, not really thinking so, reaching into a pocket and pulling out one of the hyper-calorie bars, this one safe for standard human consumption, and offered it to her. "And munch on this to keep those reserves up."

"What?" she asked, looking it over. "Why do you have this?"

"Saw it, thought of your Quirk," I replied absently, which wasn't really a lie, just lacking in some needed context to let her know that I literally meant her Quirk, which I now had, and that wasn't a roundabout way of saying 'I was thinking of you', as she obviously took it to be, by her suddenly demure look. "Sato's got his vials of sugar, so why shouldn't you be carrying a bit of extra fuel?"

"I, thank you, Denki," she smiled fondly, as she made what was effectively a diamond-toothed crosscut saw. It made for an odd sight, but not an unwelcome one.

Hagakure came running back, waving a bit of ice stuck to another, letting out an "Oh!" as it slipped out of her hand and went floating away, which was answer enough, and I grinned at the sight.

"Great! Okay Toru, next job, go grab Deku and. . ." I glanced over, Sato looking better, "and then Sugar Rush, and tell them I need them to cut down a couple trees with the saw we now have. Momo, I need a hatchet, same kind of materials. And then a couple, er, staples, but, um, this big," I sketched it out, an idea forming. "It's not gonna be pretty, but it doesn't need to be, it just needs to work."

MHA

I hadn't been lying when I said it wasn't going to be pretty, but it was coming together. The issue was in trying to use everyone's Quirks, not in some kind of 'Yay, we did it together!' participation trophy bullshit, but because everyone who didn't contribute was dead weight, not that such a thing was their fault in the slightest, and it was only when Momo asked if I was planning on leaving the ones that couldn't contribute behind that I'd realized that was even on the table.

Only, you know, it wasn't, and my well-deserved, "What the hell? No! We're doing this together!" while attracting some glances, had left the creationist smiling, and, out of the corner of my eye, I caught Jiro letting out a relieved sigh, leaving me to wonder if the question had been for me, or for her.

Regardless, Izuku and Sato had easily felled a couple trees and got to work cutting vague tree-width sized boards, Shoji removing branches and such with the hatchet, and Kirishima smoothing them out with his crystallized hands, while I'd done some basic calculations, trying to figure out aerodynamic lift ratios, sending Hagakure to ask everyone their weight.

The girl had at first been offended when I'd asked her, responding, "Kaminari, you don't ask a girl her weight!"

"I'm asking your weight, or I'm asking you to walk. I'm gonna have to balance this entire thing, with a minimum of inertia, as, if I'm right, the craft itself will have an effective mass of nothing, and that means my tolerances aren't enough I can just guess, especially with heteromorphs," I shot back, which, along with Momo informing me she was sixty-two kilograms without blinking, which was apparently a little on the heavy side given Toru's reaction, but given the girls strength, and muscles, made perfect sense to me, got Hagakure to run around and gather them up, while I started attaching design documents to a frame made of scrap lumber and a bit of Sero's tape, affixed with small nails I'd driven into the wood with an electric thumb combined with OfA, to better keep track of everything.

A couple of dirt golems had tried to come up under our feet, but after I'd instantly dropped them with rail-shots before they got more than the tops of their heads up, Pixie-Bob had stopped trying, the woman not realizing I was burning through a limited resource to do so. Then had been aerial attacks, but the anti-air team, combined with Deku and Bakugo's high-flying antics, had stopped them too, deflecting the falling dirt formations before they could crash into the construction, which was really more a leaky square boat with wings sitting on a thin metal frame than a real plane, but we weren't going to go high enough for it to really matter.

We'd be a bit cheek-to-jowl, actually, but it'd certainly be a short trip, one way or another.

Tokoyami and Mina both got center-line spots, a polymer bag created for each of their 'positions', hanging under the gap in the wooden floor. They'd both be sitting in them, for Tokoyami to give him a low-light compartment to strengthen Dark Shadow and give us some reactionless-flight, Mina doing the same with a bag full of acid further up, the material thin, but worth the cost to our Creation budget. Some wire lines and a few specially created hinges would let us have basic ailerons on the wings, allowing us to bank and turn, Kirishima and Sato on the left one, Shoji and Asui on the right, with Deku handling a similar assembly on the rudder.

Bakugo would be just below the green-haired kid, handling thrust, along with a somewhat reticent Todoroki, who'd agreed to be a living rocket when I explained the situation.

Sero and Mineta were busy connecting the pieces, while Shoji, and Kirishima, and I angled them into position, Kirishima and I driving in the occasional oversized metal staple for added stability with our hardened limbs, but it was all coming together, a mere hour later. It'd lack seats, or really any kind of safety feature, only strips of Sero's tape, double-layered sticky sides inwards to make a set of handles to hold onto, with tape harnesses we'd strap people into for a bit of extra security, but the connection had to be small enough that, if the need arose, they could tear themselves free.

Aoyama would be at the very front, his use as a cannon outpacing any thrust potential, handling the front end of our defenses, as I was certain that it wouldn't be free flying once we'd gotten underway. Bakugo could fight mid-air, but he'd be the last line of defense, Midoriya still having to at least pretend to follow the laws of physics, so him super-punching something while standing on the skyship would probably send it careening away, if not outright break it where he stood.

Getting the airfoils the right shape with green wood had been a bit of a stone-cold bitch, but super-strength and specialized tools covered a number of ills, though everything had a cost, and I was going to be playing things a lot faster and looser than I would've liked. I'd especially be saving the ionic-engine for last, as it was both parts intensive and I wasn't sure Momo could make it, as I'd had to give the girl a crash-course in some of the more complex components, but we needed things like wings before we could get fancy.

However, it was looking like we were going to come in under-budget, our use of local materials handling most of it, though Momo had admitted that, without the extra bar, nutrient scarce but calorie hyper-dense as it was, she would've already been tapped, and so I could start adding extra features.

Explaining it to Mina, who I was quickly running through the plan with, she'd just frowned and asked, "Wait, you're makin' a plane, right?"

"Yeah, that's the idea," I'd nodded, gesturing to the craft. The bottom was just a metal frame right now, but it'd look a lot more aerodynamic when it was time.

Pointing to the front, she'd questioned, "Well, why don't you just put a prop on over there? Like the really old planes?"

Staring at her, I'd blinked, and realized I was somehow pulling a Mei and over-engineering the solution.

"I mean, it's just an ide-mmf!" my girlfriend had started to hedge, before I'd grabbed her and kissed the brilliant woman, hard, quickly letting go as I realized where we were, though, thankfully, only a few people were looking our way, mostly girls, most of them blushing a little.

Mina blinked, a sly smile on her face, "Liked it that much, Did'ya?"

Leaning in close, I whispered, "If we weren't on a time limit, and, you know, being watched by teachers, I'd show you just how much I liked it, and you." Leaning back, my lover blushed fuchsia, and I smiled, patting her on the cheek. "That's great, and will help with thrust issue, but we'll need a basic airframe to deal with the backflow of air and keep it from flipping us. Keep holding off the attackers, we should be good to head out in fifteen minutes or so."

Mina leaned in, kissing me on the cheek, and, with a giggle, headed back to the front lines.

"So, you and Ashido," Mineta remarked, with forced nonchalance.

"Yeah, still not sure how I got that lucky, but we've got shit to do," I replied, grabbing the notebook and quickly sharpening the pencil with a focused Electrobody finger, sketching out the basic details. "Momo, I need a roll of this kind of polymer, and some carbon wireframe rods this big. Kirishima, I'm gonna need holes punched here, here, here, and here, mirrored on the other side."

The red-headed, shark-toothed boy gave me an odd look. "Dude, be cool with her," he semi-advised, semi-ordered, and I blinked at him.

"Oh, Mina? Uh, yes? I'm kind of a commitment type of guy, and the only reasons that we won't work out is because she wants to end it," I told him. "Also, not really the time?"

Kirishima gave me another measuring look, before he nodded, grinning and turning away, heading off to do what I wanted.

Thankfully, Momo had enough 'gas' in the tank to make the top-frame, Aoyama needing a slightly higher vantage point, essentially now being a living turret, but that was easily furnished, ending up looking like a tiny little pseudo-mast, as we arranged the material, stuck down with more of Sero's tape, this motor far simpler and something Yaoyorozu created easily, the propellor craftable mostly with bits of extra wood, and covered with the proper advanced material to shape it correctly, affixed to the front. Clear material at the top-front gave us a window to help us steer by, the back half of the skyship still mostly left open, as we had to skimp a bit, and as long as we broke up the first bit of air that hit us, deflecting it out and around, it should be enough.

Again, inefficient as fuck, but it didn't need good fuel economy, it just had to function.

Working with Todoroki, we fashioned the bottom out of pure ice, holding tight to the metal framework, and then it was done.

Well, the ship was, the platform still needed a minute or three, and, Pixie-Bob, finally recognizing what we were making, was not taking it well, the golem attacks starting to seriously pick up.

"Okay everyone, boarding call!" I ordered, waving to the ship, Sero frantically making the harnesses, Minetta adding a ball each to help it stick to our classmates' backs, the smaller boy's scalp starting to bleed, but we were down to the wire. "The Articuno's taking off soon, or it's not taking off at all!"

I helped Momo get into position, physically picking up the tired girl and jumping to her spot, helping her get secured as the others rushed on, Todoroki standing right behind the ship as Bakugo, pulling back, grabbed the torch I'd left him and dropped it on the fuse we'd left behind, Landing on the back of the ship with a yell of, "Anytime now, Icyhot!"

The boy slammed his hands down, lifting the ship, along with himself, high up on a pillar of ice, before, with a deep breath, he threw his hands forwards, freezing a ramp down and out, as a horde of golems started to close, only for the fuse to run its course, hitting the explosives we'd left, the blast blowing the enemies to pieces, and fracturing the ice-ramp, but Todoroki, frosted and shivering, quickly fixed it.

Midoriya and I took our positions at the back corners of the ship, me a bit further away than him to account for our strength differentials, both of us utilizing OfA as hard as we could safely, and started to push.

"Hold onta your butts!" Mina shouted gleefully as Izuku and I heaved, the ice shattering under our feet, Deku got traction from sheer force, while my legs were electric spikes, accruing more and more speed as we pushed the plane forward, hitting the drop, and, hanging on, as we kept pushing, going down faster and faster, Todoroki's power a roaring flame between us, speeding things up even further, the ramp cracking and falling apart behind us, until we were a third of the way to the bottom.

With my yell of, "Stage two!" both Deku and I leapt into the ship, the boy clambering up the rudder while I vaulted forward to the front, slamming hands onto the motor and running current through it, spinning it up the right way, and providing more force.

Hitting the bottom, I shouted, "Stage Three!" and the entire ship glowed pink for a moment, and the shaking violently as an enormous blast went off in the back, Bakugo kicking us that extra bit forward, even as more Golems were starting to form below us, and we were sent hurtling into the air, rising high above the tree line.

I could see a bit of dust to the side, a third of the way towards our destination, but I paid it no mind as I angled the motor slightly, shifting our path a little, tracking our flight. "Bank left one notch," I ordered, the aileron team doing their job, slowly repositioning us, until we were headed straight for our destination, "Return to center!"

We started to head in, only for a solid dozen dirt-dragons to start to lift into the air, heading right for us, and I swore, tracking them. "Aoyama, you're on anti-air duty. Bakugo, off thrust and onto interception. Midoriya, how's your mid-air combat?"

"Not the best!" the boy, terrified, responded, which, fair, as we continued to fly forward, and I tracked the incoming attacks. Watching the golems come in, though, gave me an idea.

"Sero, attach a line from yourself to the ship, and move to Midoriya. Anyone tries to close that way, tape their wings up!" I ordered. "They still are using physics, kind of, so that should help. Mineta, you good to go?"

"I can try," the boy responded piteously, and, looking at him, his head was bleeding again.

"Nah, that's fine. You helped build this dam thing. Shit, shit!" I swore, thinking, keeping the rotor going, the drain consistent, but low enough to make this work. "Screw it, we'll be there in a couple minutes, everyone follow the plan!" I ordered, and everyone else nodding, as I they focused as much as they could be on their various tasks.

The Dragons closed, and I maneuvered us through the first wave, Aoyama proving his worth, the boy's aim impressive as he cored attacker after attacker, a few smaller, faster pterodactyls trying to come in from the sides, but Bakugo handled them, physically launching himself off the ship to take them down, Asui grabbing him with her tongue to reel him back in, the boy starting to fall behind otherwise, his blasts not effecting the plane too much.

A few came right up our tails, but Sero stopped most, Midoriya launching himself backwards, landing on one, and leaping back with enough force to easily catch up, hitting the back of the plane hard enough to speed us up a little, but destroying the golem in the process, the shotgun blast of the force of the first destroyed golem taking out several others.

Ochaco was looking progressively greener, but was hanging in there, as the camp grew in the distance, and we closed more and more.

One of the dragons finally hit a wing, shattering it completely, starting to send us into a spin as I let go of the motor, running back and almost throwing myself out of the plane, calling out, "Mineta! Ball there!" the boy tossing a couple that I knelt into, securing myself while throwing my arms out, shifting them to solid electricity, shot-through with OfA, letting me stabilize the craft as I made a proto-wing, which, by shifting, I could bank us out of the way another dragon, which was promptly head-shot by a screaming Bakugo.

The camp was well in sight now, and I looked to Shoji, Asui, Sato, and Kirishima who were manning the other wing, commanding them, "Notch neg-two. Dive, dive!"

We went down, dodging a few more golems, and I yelled, "Notch Two, lift!" heaving myself as we pulled up, missing another golem, and I shifted us to curve in, so we'd plow through what was obvious the training field instead of the main buildings, but we were coming in way too fast.

"Bakugo, Todoroki, front, full burn, Aoyama, same, Mina, Tokoyami, pull back and up, Ochacho, just a few moments longer!" I commanded, as we threw everything we had forward, slowing us down as we came in, and I waited as long as I could before ordering, "Mina, Tokoyami, pull up and out!"

My girlfriend did instantly, joining the others, but the bird-man was struggling out of the darkness, Jiro and Koda on either side of him reaching down and hauling back on the boy's tape-harness, purple energy seeping from his form fighting them, but Momo tossed something their way which flashed, momentarily, with bright light, and the boy came free, almost knocking the other two over as we hit, the craft shuddering as it bounced off the ground, Ochaco unable to hold it anymore and releasing her Quirk, the second hit much harder, shattering the ice bottom of the plane with the screech of twisting metal as I released my 'wing', cycling legs to lightning to free myself of the ball, and looking to Midoriya.

We both nodded and leapt off the sides, both of us grabbing the ship and pulling as hard as we could, which was a lot more for Midoriya than I, as the entire thing started to spin around, still skidding forward, rotating once, twice, and then slowing on the third, coming to a rumbling, creaking stop, the wooden bottom holding firm, and the entire class looking a mix of terrified, rung-out, and absolutely exhilarated.

The red and blue Pussycats were there, starting at us with wide eyes, and I let my limbs snap back to normal, OfA fading, as I leaned casually against the destroyed side of The Articuno, after its maiden and final voyage.

"So," I commented, glancing up, and seeing it the sun was maybe. . . ten degrees off it's zenith? "Lunch in an hour, right?"

Behind me, Ochaco was very messily sick, and I could clearly hear the rainbows, though thankfully I didn't taste them.

Aizawa just stared at me, then the plane full of kids, then the gaping Pussycats, then back at me, before throwing back his head and howling with laughter.

AN: Next Four Chapters are up on , as usual!

Song:
Push - My Hero Academia OST You Say Run V2 Jet Set Run revived HD (revived again)