Chapter Seventy-Seven
Our homeroom teacher didn't laugh long, only a few seconds, but that was more than enough to thoroughly unsettle the two Pussycats, who were looking between him and the rest of us, suddenly unsure.
Aizawa collected himself, wiping a small a small tear away, before declaring, "Told you," then turning on his heel and walking over to the nearest building, leaning against it and making a shooing, 'get on with it' gesture, though whether it was to the Pros, or to me, I wasn't sure.
Stretching, I leapt up onto the side of the ship, looking at my classmates, who seemed a mix of vindicated and fried, our flight not having been easy on anyone. "Okay guys," I announced, "Rides over, everybody off. If you need help, don't hesitate to ask." I started to move over to Momo, but Mina was already there, helping the girl get up, using her acid to burn through the tape tying the creationist to the rigging, and, seeing my look, my girlfriend gave me a thumbs up.
"Ugh. I need some help," Ochaco moaned, Midoriya there in an instant, stupidly powerful hands carefully tearing the tape to free her and get her onto solid ground as if it were paper, and then Asui. Everyone else was helped down, Mineta's immunity to his own sticky-balls allowing him to take them off just by grabbing them, which suggested a level of psychic control of them that the boy didn't seem to realize the importance of, but I'd make sure to talk to him about it later.
Of particular note, though, was that the boy was completely professional about the entire thing, tiredly removing them instead of trying anything like stating that he had to remove them by running his hand over the person, like a living spatula. Honestly, my worry about him doing that very thing was why I'd set up everyone's harness to be attached by a ball on their backs.
However I was pleasantly surprised to have worried over nothing.
"But, why a plane?" Mandalay questioned Todoroki, who shrugged, pointing in my direction.
Walking over, I lifted my hands to shoulder-level in a helpless gesture, "Well, given the extreme opposition we were facing, and the time limit, doing things conventionally wasn't an option, and we haven't done enough team tactics training to make a running battle work without leaving someone behind."
The brunette frowned, looking us over. "But you're missing someone," she pointed out.
"He left us," Sero practically spat, shooting an ugly look back towards the forest.
Ignoring the boy's comment, I continued, "I'm not sure exactly what that was supposed to test, but you dropped us in the equivalent of a fantasy death-wilds, except the monsters were pulling their punches, though they made up for it in sheer numbers. In the face of such overwhelming odds, and something so unrealistically extreme, something equally out-there was required to complete our mission."
"Wait, 'pulling their punches'?" Kirishima demanded, only for Bakugo to snort derisively.
"'Course they were, hair-for-brains," the explosive teen scoffed, having noticed the same thing I had. "Ain't none of us even broke a bone, 'spite fightin' shit that coulda done it to some of these scrubs in a fuckin' second," he observed, jerking a thumb back to the class at large, some of whom shot his angry looks for his, however rude, accurate description of their combat cabalities.
Mandalay, however, was still looking at me, asking, "What do you mean, 'they made up for it in sheer numbers'? There shouldn't've been. . ." she trailed off.
Looking over to Deku, who had probably been keeping track, I asked, "How many of those golems did you put down?"
"Oh, um, a few dozen," he offered with a shrug, and the Pussycat started to nod, giving me a look like she thought I was being overly dramatic.
"No, not you personally," I clarified. "I mean everyone on your team? And give me a ballpark number instead of being modest."
The boy blinked, eyes going distant, "In that case, a few hundred? Maybe three on the ground, and another eighty in the air?"
Mandalay stared at the boy, then at the others, Tokoyami and Mina nodding in agreement, the older woman turning to glare at her teammate, Pixie-Bob, who in turn was looking anywhere but at the brunette Hero. "Pixie," the telepath stated with forced niceness, "I said to make it a challenge. To students. Not Pros."
"They were handling it," the blonde woman hedged. "And if I made it that easy, they would've blown through no problem, they're just that good! And Eraser said to put them through their paces. Should I go easier on the last one?"
"Fuck that!" Bakugo practically yelled, glaring at the Pro. "That four-eyed bastard shouldn't get a pass just 'cause he ran like a little bitch!"
"While Bakugo's language is crude, he is correct in the fact that doing so would not be fair," Momo added, the others in my class nodding in agreement.
Pixie-Bob gave us an unrepentant thumbs up, then started to laugh evilly, looking at something through her visor, the sound of a distant crash barely audible back in the forest.
"Fine," Mandalay sighed, before looking back at the wrecked ship. "But, how did you make a plane?" she questioned, studying it. "Maybe a glider, but a full plane? Its even got a propeller and the flappy bits."
"Our Denki's in the Support program!" Mina bragged.
That caused the dark-haired Pro to frown, glancing back towards Aizawa. "I thought this was your class, Eraser."
The man shrugged, "He's in both."
Suddenly, Pixie-Bob was right up in front of me, and I twitched, holding back my Quirk, the blonde woman peering at me consideringly. "Smart and strong. What's your stance on older women?"
"The same as other women," I replied blandly. "I tell them I'm already taken."
The 'Pro' gave an audible moue of disappointment, and looked over to Midoriya, Asui and Ochaco both taking half-steps closer to him, the latter, leaning on him again, the boy quick to put an arm around the gravity nullifier and ask if she was okay.
The older woman turned her gaze to Bakugo, who flatly stated, "Fuck off, Hag."
Todoroki just stared at her, not moving, but his left side caught fire.
"How is the last one coming along?" Mandalay questioned, trying to change the topic, causing her teammate to perk up.
"Oooh! He's spirited, and such a naughty boy, but I'll groom him right!" the terrakinetic announced.
Her teammate just sighed, "That's not what I meant." At Aizawa's flat look, she apologized, "Sorry, she's at the age to take a mate."
. . . How the fuck is this okay? I wondered, able to make excuses for Midnight as she was inuring us to this kind of thing, but. . . was older female/younger male sexual predation just a thing here? Denki hadn't had any such experiences, but Denki had been in middle school, though, unfortunately, that wasn't always enough, but he'd gone to a good one, so that might've been why he hadn't seen anything like this before.
Still though, it made me. . . profoundly uncomfortable, in a way that nothing else had. I could tell from how Midnight acted that she didn't really mean it. Pixie-Bob. . . I wasn't so sure, but, more than that, was the fact that no one else batted an eye. It took me a second to run it by the little mental model of Denki that was still in the back of my head to see that it wouldn't've bothered him either, as obviously she didn't mean it, and, besides, if a male student slept with a female teacher, then the expected reaction was 'score', instead of 'what the hell is wrong with you?'
Not expected, mind you, and there would be some sideways looks and whispers, but things like criminal charges wouldn't happen, rarely happened in either direction, but especially not in this way.
Well, that's messed up, I thought grimly, Mandalay clapping her gloved hands together to get our attention, at which point I realized I'd been glaring at Pixie-Bob. "Okay everyone! Please get your bags from the bus, and put things away!" she announced. "Lunch will be ready at twelve-thirty, so come to the cafeteria when you're done!"
We shuffled off, grabbing our bags and unpacking them into the provided dorm, the guy's much bigger than the girls, but since the gender ratio was 3:1 in our favor, that made sense. Midoriya grabbed Ida's bag and dropped it on a bed on the other side of the cabin from me, something which wasn't as subtle as he seemed to think, but I had no complaints.
I wished I could send my parents a message, something along the lines of 'First day's going well. We made a plane.', just to mess with them a little, but we weren't allowed to bring our cellphones. I'd thought that we wouldn't have any service out here, but one of the small, subtle quality of life upgrades that showed the real progress of time was the fact that most phones available were satellite phones, produced by a Japanese company called Detnerat, and that meant keeping this entire thing under-wraps required certain security measures to be taken.
Mind you I could summon mine to me with just a thought, but explaining that I hadn't smuggled it in, somehow, would be a pain in the ass.
Wandering out, I saw that Kirishima was writing on the wrecked plane, in light blue paint, UAAF ARTICUNO.
Walking up to him, I asked, "UAAF?"
"Yeah, UA Air Force!" the sharp-toothed boy grinned. "I gotta ask, why Articuno?"
I shrugged, "Only ice bird I could think of."
"Not the 'Zapdos'?" Sato asked, walking up beside us, the sucrose-strengthened boy offering me a shrug. "You are the one that made it."
"It's a plane whose main hull was made of ice," I argued, gesturing to the shattered bits of blue littering the ground, and the trench our crash had dug. "This fit."
The red-haired hardener offered me the brush. "Wanna sign your work?"
"Only if you do too," I argued. "I might've designed it, but we all made it."
Kirishima fake-sniffled, proclaiming, "So manly!", before using the brush to write 'Red Riot!' down and to the side in jagged letters. Accepting the brush, I added my own name of 'Volt-aire', handing it off to Sato who, in blocky writing, added his own moniker of 'Sugar Rush'.
The others wandered over, and added their own Hero Names, Momo making another can of paint for them to use, having had a snack-bar, though not a hyper-caloric one, in her luggage. We'd just finished when I felt something bounce off my Mind Defense, the others around me pausing, and looking in the direction of the cafeteria.
Before I could say anything, they started walking that way, Mineta exclaiming, "Finally, some food!"
Walking with the rest of my class, I drifted over to Mina, asking, "That was Mandalay's Quirk, wasn't it?"
Momo, on my girlfriend's other side nodded, commenting, "Yes, it's quite useful," but my lover understood what I really meant, that being how our Defenses had blocked her, and nodded. Mind Defense was supposed to let 'friendly psychics' contact us, but then why had it bounced off?
"Yeah, kinda weird hearing it," Mina agreed, which made no sense, unless. . .
Leaning over I whispered, "Did you drop your Defences?" which got me an odd look.
In return, she whispered, "No, but I felt it go through. Didn't you?"
I shook my head, murmuring, "Bounced off. Didn't hear anything."
Which left me with a conundrum, one I grappled with as I reviewed memories of vague wording to tried and figure it out as we all sat down to eat, unable to pull my phone and double check. The food was actually really good, and our class was vocal in their enjoyment, while I turned the problem over in my head, only able to work out a theory.
Mind Defense allowed friendly telepaths to communicate with me, but I did not consider the woman to be such, given what had just happened, and the behavior of her teammate she was excusing. Mina, on the other hand, didn't take the situation as badly, nor did she see Pixie-Bob's behavior as anything other than 'a little cringy' when I broached the subject.
Which meant that, instead of determining who was 'friendly' by somehow deriving it from some objective measurement of 'congeniality' it did so by using the Defense-holder's attitude to determine what counted, which seemed. . . lacking. That or it did ping the psychic's mind, which meant that Mandalay was 'friendly' towards Mina, but not towards me, which was also a distinct possibility as, to be honest, the feeling was mutual. I was ostensibly here to train, but I'd seen precious little that counted today, and my true purpose was to keep everyone alive if, or more likely when, everything went wrong.
Regardless, it wasn't a problem, only an insight into the functioning of my purchased talents, and possibly my situation. Finishing lunch, I asked for Momo to make a tray, and piled up a plate, along with a couple bowls, of food, covering them with another plate and couple bowls to keep it all fresh, setting it to the side.
Tellingly, the Pussycats didn't have anything for us to do directly after lunch, which told me that they hadn't expected us to actually get here on time. Or, possibly, they expected us to want to rest, having tried to make it on foot instead of taking the aerial expressway like we had. I might've been a little bit miffed that they'd thrown a Pro-level challenge against us, which, yes, we'd overcome, but barely, and, with Pixie-Bob pulling her punches, that meant it very likely gave the others in our class an overstated sense of accomplishment.
It wasn't until one-forty-five that the sounds of combat neared, and the rest of 1-A, who had been milling about and relaxing, perked up. From the woods came Ida, bruised and battered, shirt and pants torn, wide eyed and panicked looking, running as if the hounds of hell were coming after him. From the large shapes that stopped just short of emerging from the tree-line, chitin plates, tusks, and claws coming apart into dirt clods, that wasn't too far off the mark.
The boy slowed to a stumbling stop, exhaust leaking from the pipes in his legs, which themselves shimmered with heat, and he looked around. ". . . What?" he questioned, confused and staring, as the rest of the class remained silent, looking at him with ill-hidden distaste.
"You finally made it!" Pixie-Bob announced, prancing over to him. "Good for you! You missed lunch, but you've got time before the afternoon lesson! Now go get nice and clean, your classmates moved your bag into your dorm, and hurry on back now, sweetie!"
Taken aback, Tenya defaulted to politeness, replying, "Oh. Um, yes. I will!" Giving a little half-bow, the blonde woman pointed him towards the guy's cabin, and he jogged off that way.
Once he was gone, the others started muttering to themselves, more than a few casting appreciative glances towards the wrecked Articuno, Mina commenting beside me, "Woulda been bad if we'd gone with his plan, huh?"
"With how everyone would've started to slow, tiring themselves out, we'd make it back at sunset," I replied, my lover knowing I was talking about the original timeline, the others seated nearby taking it as an estimation. None of them had commented on the tray, though Mandalay had shot me a disapproving look, one I'd met levelly, keeping her from taking it back to the kitchen.
When the engine-legged boy came back, I waved him over with a call of, "Ida!" A scowl flashed across his features, but he still made his way over, Midoriya walking over behind him, the small boy with a conflicted expression, one which of a few of my other classmates wore as well.
Tenya stood stiffly in front of me, casting a glance to the Articuno and questioned before I could say anything, "That was your plan?"
I shrugged, casually replying, "It was one of them, and it worked. I got everyone out in time. How was your jog through the forest?"
The teen grit his teeth, visibly angered, but wrestling it under control, finally stating, "Longer than I expected."
Knowing I was needling the dick, but not really caring, I nodded. "But not longer than I expected." I gestured to the tray, idly commenting, "Don't worry, I saved some food for you," throwing the boys own words back in his face.
Behind him, Izuku almost looked. . . relieved?
Tenya frowned, confused instead of angry, and moved over to it, removing the covering flatware to reveal the food I'd set aside, still fresh-ish and warm instead of dried out. He stared at it for a long moment, before he, to my surprise, turned to face me, bowing out the waist so deeply I thought he might tip over.
"I. . . I apologize for my harsh words," the teen stated with utmost seriousness. "They were uncalled for, and, because of the. . . lackadaisical and superior attitude you seem to display, I made certain unkind, and untrue assumptions about your character, and for that, I was in the wrong. I beg your forgiveness."
. . . what.
I expected anger at the reversal, or maybe for him to reject it out of spite, not. . . whatever this was. Hesitating, I wasn't sure what to say, but he just stayed bowing, not moving. "Uh, fine," I gave, a little awkwardly. "Just. . . know that I do shit for a reason, and I couldn't care less about who's in charge, as long as shit gets done."
Ida stood, nodding, "I will endeavor to remember that in the future, and how appearances can be deceiving."
Yeah, he's still kind of a dick, I thought, a little relieved that I hadn't completely misjudged the boy. I rolled my eyes, and Mina laughed beside me, leaning into me. Ida glanced at her, but visibly held his tongue as he sat down to eat. Nodding to him, and, deciding to leave before the boy decided to open his mouth and say something else subtly insulting, I stood and walked away, Mina trailing after.
The tense atmosphere that had built up as Ida had walked over to me had dispersed, though I wasn't sure why. Heading over to the Articuno, I looked over the damage, glad I'd gone for the thicker planks, as they'd held up better, and weight hadn't been that much of an issue. Thinner boards might've cracked, and sent everyone sprawling out amongst the wreckage, which would've been. . . bad, but, from the damage, we hadn't gotten anywhere close to that with this design.
Once we were out of sight of Ida, Mina couldn't contain herself and laughed, shaking her head.
"Something funny?" I questioned, lifting an eyebrow.
"You, silly!" she teased. "You meant the thing with the food as an insult, right?"
I shrugged, "Well, yeah. It was literally the passive aggressive bullshit he tossed out before he ran away and left us in the lurch. As close to 'I'll be magnanimous in my victory' as you can get without saying, which, if you have to say, you aren't going to be."
"And you have no idea why he apologized," she continued, giggling as she stated the fact, and I shook my head no, agreeing with her. "Sparky, the others thought ya were going to eat it in front of him."
"What? Why?" I replied, thoroughly confused. "Dude's been fighting for four hours straight. He's probably starving."
That just got another laugh from my girlfriend, who hugged me. "Sparky, never change," she told me. "No one was gonna say anything, 'cause ya did get us out of the forest, and Ida was being a complete butt-head about it, but they don't know you like I do!"
Thinking about it, and how Tenya had uncovered the plates with trepidation, I asked, "And, what, he thought I was going to just give him leftovers or something, when he took the top dishes off?"
"Bingo!" she smiled. "The rest of us knew ya didn't, but if you just left him scraps, he'd still have to thank you, and he'd be hungry enough to eat 'em too."
I didn't hide my look of disgust, "Who would do something like that?"
From behind me, Yaoyorozu replied, "More than you would think. Kaminari, you really don't understand?"
"Nope!" my girlfriend answered for me. "Our Sparky's clueless like that sometimes. You wanna explain it to him, YaoMomo?"
Turning to face the other girl, she was silent for a moment, picking her words carefully. "By offering the food, you offered him assistance, where he denied it to you. You offered an olive branch, when he'd tried to undermine you earlier today. You were being the better man, Denki."
I groaned, "I wasn't trying to be the better man, I was trying to be a dick to a dick."
Momo frowned, "Then why set aside food at all?"
I gestured towards where Ida likely still was, on the other side of the plane. "Because it cost me nothing, let me throw his arrogance in his face, and, well, being hungry sucks."
"And should he not be hungry, for rejecting your plan?" she pressed, watching me carefully.
"No?" I more asked than said. "Pretty sure the embarrassment, and also having to run himself ragged in the last few hours, is more than enough. I mean, I was trying to be a dick, but not, like, an asshole," I argued, which wasn't really that good an explanation, but, from the black-haired girls smile, was enough of one.
Momo inquired, smirking, "If that was the case, why accept his apology?"
"Well, I'd rather not have him be a problem going forward," I offered, "So, if that's the case, then what do I have to lose by going with it? It just makes sense."
"And so, you were being the better man," Yaoyorozu declared, shaking her head when I shrugged, still not seeing it, but smiling fondly as she did so.
Something bounced off my Mind Defense, and I hesitantly let it in, getting the tail end of the message, Mandalay broadcasting ~-ome back to the cafeteria!~ Glancing to Mina, she explained, "We're gonna have a lecture on proper rescue procedure."
At Yaoyorozu's questioning look, I explained, "Whatever let me no-sell the mind-controller from the Sports Festival means I can't hear the announcement, but I know it happens." That got me a thoughtful nod, as we all gathered back, Ida polishing off the last of his food, and settled in to receive a lesson on how to be a rescue hero, one that surprised me by the fact that it seemed obvious in retrospect, but we'd never gotten anything like it before.
We'd gotten lessons on legal procedures, branding, and the like, but how to actually save someone had been something that'd been skipped over, covering things like how, if you acted nervous, it'd make the others nervous, making the situation worse.
"Something you'll never have to worry about, eh Bakugo?" Sero teased.
The other boy, predictably, responded with a, "Fuck off and die, Elbows!"
Which then led into a discussion on how aggression like the explosive teen's could be just as bad, as there was line between confidence and anger, and most people would assume your anger was born of worry, whether it actually was or not, and would react just as badly as they would to visible worry.
"Why the fuck do I need to learn this shit?" the self-styled Explosion King demanded. "I'll leave dealing with extras to the weaklings, while I go kill the villain!"
It was Aizawa who spoke up, informing us all that, "Your provisional license exam will likely have a rescue portion. It is a test for all Heroes after all."
Izuku added, "And what if the threat is a flood? Or a tornado? Or something that you already stopped? Would you leave when people are still in danger, Kacchan?"
Bakugo glared at his childhood 'friend' for a moment, before folding his arms and looking away with a "Che. Fine, so how fuckin' nice do I have to be?"
Mandalay, to her credit, didn't so much as blink. "About that nice. Surly people can understand emotionally, but anger makes them scared."
Settling back in my seat, I listened, as, while the combat portion of our training today had been completely pointless, this, something that was the Pussycat's specialty, was actually something they could speak knowledgeably about, and I'd be an idiot to not at least lend them my time for this, especially since I had nowhere else to be.
To my left, Momo was taking notes, and to my right, Mina was a little out of it, not the best when it came to learning via lecture, but I'd go over it with her later, which would help me remember it more clearly as well.
Even though part of me still thought I wouldn't last long enough in this world to become an actual Pro Hero, when I got my pocket dimension, and my ticket to the multiverse, this would be applicable everywhere, so I settled in, and paid close attention.
AN: Next Four Chapters are up on , as usual!