Chapter Eighty-Seven
The first team returned, was congratulated, and then commanded not to tell the rest of us anything about what was in the buildings. From their demeanors, they were all on edge, telling me that it wasn't just Todoroki that'd encountered issues. Manga's face reading, 'But it was scary!' was informative, but not as much as I'd like, while the others nodded and moved to the side, accepting towels and drinks. With them taken care of, the next team was called, Awase, Yanagi, Bradley, and Jiro.
The four quickly conferred, moving to the side as Awase used his Weld Quirk to bond four stretches of sand into cohesive strips, the grains fusing together into thin pseudo-sandstone boards, then he gathered some more and poured it together to form into a small rod which he tossed to Bradley. Once all four students clambered onboard the creations, Yanagi telekinetically controlled them, flying them to the buildings in less than a minute. The boards circled around and, after a quick conversation we could see but not hear, all four crouched down and gripped the edges of their transports, which dropped below the waves.
Going down, they paused as Jiro held up a hand, her jacks waving in the water. Looking to the others, she nodded, Awase and Bradley both open their mouths and. . . yelled? Their sandboards were taken up to the surface, to let them refill their lungs, while Jiro, a look of concentration on her face, nodded to herself, pointing back up, Yanagi taking them both out of the water as well. Another conversation later, all four dropped back down, moving as a single group as they darted inside a building, Jiro leading, pausing and gesturing right before they entered, motioning to the side, one jack stabbing into the building. Bradley nodded, striking his sandstone rod against the steel of that structure. Jiro, listening, nodded, then pointed inwards, as Yanagi took them through a shattered window, and out of sight.
She's using her jacks like sonar receivers, I realized, the girl normally having to plug into something to feel its vibrations, but she'd apparently figured out how to do the same to water. Having someone make the amount of noise the boys had would normally have her flinching away, like headphones suddenly turned to maximum, but perhaps the differing medium, and the fact that she wasn't fully 'jacked in', meant everything was muted?
Less than a minute later they were out, each of them carrying a mannequin, Yanagi lifting them to the surface, where Awase welded the 'civilians' hands to the building, and they went down again. They repeated this, over and over, carrying out more, and only when they reached the bottom did something happen, but we only knew that by the fact that they came out on three boards instead of four, Jiro hanging onto Yanagi's, but both girls carrying mannequins, as well as Awase, while Bradley's rod was broken in half, bringing the total 'saved' up to twenty-one.
They breached the surface, but before they could add the newest ones to the chain, a buzzer sounded, which, glancing at the timer, didn't make sense, as they still had four minutes left. The four students dutifully got on the dirt-whale, and were carried back, Bradley frowning.
Before he could say anything, though, Pixie-Bob grinned, waving her hands in the air as she announced, "You got all of them! Good job!"
"Full Marks!" Tiger thundered in agreement, with a manly nod, though his demeaner twisted oddly as he added, in what I'm sure was supposed to be a cutesy manner, "You guys were purr-fect!"
The transfer from the Business course just stared for a moment, before he nodded, remarking, "We were early then. And it was really my teammates who are responsible for our win, not me."
The blonde Pussycat shook her head, "They might not be able to hear you, but I could! You're just as responsible as the others, Patches!"
"Yeah, dude," Awase disagreed. "If it wasn't for you, we would've been swimming down there, and that would've sucked! Especially when-" he paused, seeing the warning looks from the Pussycats. "Uh, when the thing happened. Which I'm not talkin' bout. That thing."
Shrugging, and smiling a little, the precog tried to defer the praise once more, stating, "If you say so."
"So there's twenty-one people we need to save," Midoriya frowned, looking out across the waters.
"We add or take away 'civilians' between each attempt," Mandalay disagreed, the dirt-spiders trying to take apart the mannequins, but having trouble, eventually making way for a larger one which. . . was that a fucking plasma blade?
It was, and the terrakinetic constructs just sliced the fake people away from the wall they'd been fused with, keeping them mostly intact, Pixie-Bob frowning in concentration, before she had her creations drag them back down once more into the depths, resetting the exercise.
The next team was put together, made of Kuroiro, Shoda, Aoyama, and Mineta, however their performance wasn't nearly as stellar. Kuroiro was the 'one with darkness' kid, which wasn't that useful, to be honest, though, once he finally got to the buildings, he showed he could zip around inside them. However, being part of the darkness didn't negate his need to breathe, so his performance wasn't as great as it could've been. Getting to the submerged building was a bit of an issue for the team, however, as they didn't go with what, to me, would've been the most obvious method. Looking at their capabilities, it would only take thirty seconds, tops, to make a raft of Mineta's balls, then cover it with sand so the others could use it, and then have Aoyama use his laser for thrust to get them over quickly.
No, instead they all tried to swim. Individually. Well, Aoyama did use his laser to speed himself up, but only himself, which meant he got there first, frowning and visibly nauseous, but then was left to try and swim down on his own, something the boy was clearly not comfortable with. Shoda was impressively strong, especially for his stocky, heavy looking build, showing off the fact that he'd likely pushed his Atlas Quirk in his training, taking only a moment after arrival before taking a deep breath and diving down. Mineta and Kuroiro, meanwhile, were both tired by the time they even got to the sunken buildings, and had to take a solid minute of rest before submerging.
When it came to completing their task. . . well they tried, sticking the few mannequins they could find to a wall above the water line with Mineta's balls, but they'd only managed to gather six before the bell rang. Halfway through their attempt Aoyama learned he could use little stutter-blasts to move himself around, but that was pretty much it for any sort of progress.
They came back dispirited, and, to be honest, they kind of deserved it for ignoring the lecture we'd just gotten, which emphasized teamwork and communication in rescue scenarios. I mean, Todoroki hadn't really communicated that well either, but Sero had figured out a plan, and the two from class B had gone along with it with impressive speed. These four, however, were all truly acting as individuals, and it showed in their performance.
The next team, meanwhile, wasn't even fair.
Monoma, Shiozaki, Yaoyorozu, and Midoriya being put together caused everyone to groan, much to the Pussycats confusion. That lack of understanding was quickly rectified when Momo made a fucking ship in ten seconds, which unfolded and locked into place as it emerged from her back; Shiozaki attached some vines to the vehicle and others to Midoriya, careful to not score him with her thorns; those two and Monoma jumped into the watercraft; and then the green-haired boy, crackling with energy as he jumped in the water, towed them all the way there at powerboat speeds.
The damn thing fucking skipped over the surface and everything!
From there Monoma tried copying Midoriya's and Yaoyorozu's quirk, even as Midoriya started to freak out, and it took me a second to realize why.
Thankfully, the power-copier's arms and legs did not pop off, his body unable to handle the power he was channeling, and instead he sparked for half a second but that was it. When he touched Yaoyorozu's shoulder, seeing the blond boy try and make something with Momo's power, only to create a vaguely shaped block of metal, had me laughing. That got me a couple of cross looks from 1-B, but I knew that fucking struggle, and I could absolutely relate to him trying to utilize the unwieldy beast that was Yaoyorozu's Quirk, not that I could tell them that.
Regardless, Momo popped out four rebreathers, handed them out, then created a large inflatable raft, the kind that you'd see in oceanic plane crashes, which quickly filled on its own when she pulled the ripcord. With all four wearing their scuba masks, they dove down, Momo generating a trio of sea scooters for herself and the two from class 1-B, while Midoriya practically arrowed through the water, swimming straight down in a breaststroke that shouldn't work with physics, heading for the lowest level.
Nine minutes after they'd started, they'd gathered all twenty-five mannequins, and placed them on their raft, Momo even starting to run through breathing checks on one, in case it needed CPR, before she realized they weren't made to handle that.
Next up were Tokage, Rin, Tokoyami, and Mina, the last of whom ran up to the bird-headed boy and gave him a flying tackle-hug yelling, "Final Buddies!"
When told to go, the others looked at each other, not sure of their plan, but my girlfriend was already dragging Tokoyami towards the water, every inch of her pink skin starting to excrete acid, causing the dour boy no small amount of panic as he was splattered with it, the fear turning to confusion when he realized it didn't burn him at all. The other two followed, unsure, as Mina called to them to, "Get a move on, slow-pokes!" leaping into the water herself, more weak acid streaming from her face and into the lake.
As soon as the pull-apart girl and the scaled boy got waist-deep, they were yanked forward, both with surprised expressions, and terrified yelps, as, still spamming acid from every pore, Mina suddenly shot off towards the buildings, dragging the rest of her team with her, and only picking up speed as she went.
Arriving about as fast as Todoroki had, she paused, looked around as Tokage said something, then my girlfriend threw her hands up in the air, shooting a geyser of Acid straight up. As it fell, however, it spread out unnaturally, making a dome around all four of them, and, with her grinning and shooting an unheard comment at the others, all of them were dragged straight down, into the depths, their heads all in the bubble of air she'd created, which, thinking about it, was genius.
The projector shifting vantage points as they went deeper and the water got a little murkier, the camera started to pick up her acid, which was abnormally clear, showing they weren't just floating down on their own. No, my girlfriend had created an enormous jellyfish of acid, easily fifteen feet across, three tentacles wrapped securely around the others, pausing as they conversed. With a grin from the pink-haired girl, the other three were tossed in three different directions, something they expected, as all three moved to enter the buildings around them with varying degrees of grace.
Tokoyami had Dark Shadow carry him inside, his 'partner' not bothered with anything like Newtonian physics, Tokage splitting up and 'flying' herself in much the same manner, while Rin swam with a surety and speed that spoke of borderline superhuman strength. They each returned a couple minutes later, bearing Mannequins, which Mina grabbed and maneuvered so their artificial heads were in the air bubble, each of the three taking a moment to catch their breaths as my girlfriend descended. Getting nods from her teammates, she then threw all three out again, her jellyfish construct now a good twenty-five feet across, though I could tell she was starting to hit the limit on the amount she could control, as the furthest edges of her acidic creation started to blur and mix with the waters around her.
"Dude, your girlfriend's kinda scary," one of class 1-B commented, the boy who could make solid constructs from his breath.
"I know," I grinned, "isn't she awesome?"
"I, uh, sure dude," the blowhard replied, a little weirded out, but screw him, Mina was the best, and it was good that people got to see her in action!
Rin, the scale-guy, showed that growing his armor made him heavier, letting him run along the bottom when they finally got there, but he also figured out he could fire them off, kind of like Aoyama did, to give himself some speed, and it'd only been twelve minutes on the clock when they surfaced, Mina carrying twenty-two mannequins with her. When the buzzer didn't go off, they frowned, Tokage saying something, and they all dove back down, coming back up two minutes later with one more, and only then did the buzzer sound.
Team six was Kodai, Shishida, Ida, and Sato, and. . . well, to be honest, it was almost as much of a shitshow as Mineta's team had been. Then again, given that half their group required equipment to function, that kind of made sense. With no sugar to consume, Sato was just a muscular dude, and without anything to shrink or grow, Kodai was just a girl, and not a particularly fit one at that. Well, not Hero fit, as, like everyone here, she was in good shape, but from the way she was moving, it was a 'not fat' kind of in-shape, rather than the style of movement I was starting to realize stemmed from having enhanced physiology.
The beast-teen went full feral, growing, and had everyone hold onto his furry back as he swam as hard as he could for the buildings, making decent time, but after that they broke up and all tried to do their own thing with. . . mixed results. Ida showed he could use his leg engines, legines? He could use his legines underwater, but was clearly not adept at using them in that manner, having trouble dealing with the fact that they were located so far away from his center of gravity. That meant that if he didn't pull them up like he was squatting they'd just spin him about in nauseating looking circles.
They got eight mannequins, which wasn't bad, but half of them were found by Sato, who was surprisingly maneuverable, clearly having not relied on just his Quirk to bulk up, or maybe his Quirk interfaced with Atlas in a such a way it left lingering gains? Either way, the boy had obviously dove before, and, again, the team's performance wasn't bad, but compared to the others, it certainly wasn't good either.
Oh, and Ida managed to get captured by the 'Villain', disappearing inside a building for a solid twelve minutes, enough that the Pussycats had to reassure us he was fine, but no one else on his team noticed, looking shocked, and then a little ashamed, when they were informed of that fact when they returned, only realizing something was wrong when the dirt-whale came for just the three of them, Ida being ferried back afterwards.
That said, the following team, made of Honenuki, Kamakiri, Koda, and Asui, was better, despite most of them being just as out of their element. The guy who could soften things couldn't use his Quirk on water, and using it on the buildings was almost a guaranteed collapse, while the edgy boy whose Quirk was literally 'I can make blades from my body' was just as useless, and clearly hadn't even trained himself like Honenuki had, in addition to his mantis-like physiology not being suited to the water at all.
Thankfully, the lake actually had fish stocked, and Koda could talk underwater. . . somehow, so they got an absolute school of scouts. Asui, meanwhile, was unquestionably the MVP, dragging all three boys out to their destination, and having Kamakiri and Koda just wait there on the surface while Honenuki followed her down, the boy an expert swimmer, moving towards the upper areas of the buildings while the frog girl, moving as fast as Midoriya had, with a level of fluid grace little green hadn't been able to match, and she practically flowed into their lower reaches.
When she darted back out, a moment later, and just tossed the mannequin upwards, leaving it to rise on its own, I frowned, the movement oddly cavalier for the normally serious, if sardonic, girl. Seeing Manga do the same thing earlier, even accidentally, I knew that, at its depth, it wouldn't reach the surface before its timer ran out and it started to drop, but a small school of fish darted in, butting up against the 'civilian' and carrying it upwards, where Koda and Kamakiri, both having taken up positions on a half-submerged office building's floor, waited, the rock-headed boy paddling over and handing it to the mantis-teen, who hauled it up onto dryer land.
They were on minute eighteen when the last one bobbed to the surface, Asui and Honenuki emerging from their buildings and heading up at the sound of the buzzer, the dirt-whale coming up under the boy to help him, Tsuyu needing no such assistance.
Looking around, as the next team of Tetsutetsu, Kendo, Hagakure, and Kirishima were called forward, I considered who my possible teammates would be, and could see Bakugo doing the same. It was possible that I'd get paired with him, but just as likely I would be going out alongside Uraraka or Shoji. Would his Dupli-arms work as fins? I wondered, as that would make quite a difference.
As for Class 1-B, Pony would have the same strengths as Yanagi, just with her horns instead of literally anything under a certain weight, and the others. . . I wasn't sure. One guy could spin his limbs, one could shape and harden his breath, and the last could do something with. . . glue? The guy's name was literally Bondo, and he was big, but, from breaking logs yesterday, I knew he had stamina issues.
Meanwhile, the eighth team was already on their way, Kirishima and Tetsutetsu swimming in tandem while Kendo blazed past both of them, her enlarged hands able to give her an enormous amount of forward force with each stroke, a flash of light blue fabric behind her showing that Toru was holding onto her back.
Getting there first, Toru let go of the other girl and started to swim down. I expected to see a void where her body was, but, surprisingly, it just looked like her bikini was floating. Kendo, after a moment to catch her breath, went down as well, able to move a lot faster as she went for the middle of the submerged structures, instead of the upper reaches like Hagakure was.
The two boys arrived almost a minute later, and, nodding to each other, both took a deep breath and clasped arms. I was confused, until Tetsutetsu's skin turned to metal, and the boy dropped below the surface like, well, a steel stone. Both teens plummeted down, passing Toru as she swam up, carrying a mannequin, Kirishima giving the invisible girl a grin and a nod as they continued their rapid descent.
When Hagakure reached the surface though, it was odd, her entire form seeming to ripple as she was now a girl-shaped void, as she'd been when she'd first waded out into the ocean. Hauling the Mannequin through the same building that Koda and Kamakiri used, she dove back into the lake, creating a momentary void that vanished the second she fully submerged.
She's projecting what's on her other side, I realized the 'void' not really a void, but more a fake display of the 'surface' which wrapped oddly around her, and, when the top of her head was underwater, she merely projected the water behind her instead. So transition zones, like the edge of a smoke cloud, would give her away, but inside of it she'd disappear. Mind you, the movement of something like smoke might still show where she was, as it wouldn't flow as it would through the space she was occupying, but display the movement of it behind her, though for water that wasn't an issue.
While she was doing that, the two Defense Bros had reached the bottom and were heading inside, Tetsutetsu dragging Kirishima as he ran along the lake-floor, both boys disappearing into the building, the same as so many had before.
Know where we need to go, at least, I observed, as every person who'd done so had come out with Mannequins, but they also had come out with signs that they'd run into trouble.
Sure enough, a couple minutes later both boys came swimming out, both carrying two mannequins each, though without visible signs of injury. I frowned, as Tetsutetsu did not look like he was that good a swimmer, but Kirishima maneuvered himself so the other boy could almost sit piggyback, wrapping his legs around the red-head's waist.
I wondered what that was supposed to accomplish, when, a moment later, Kirishima bulked up, hardening himself, and instantly started to rise. Unfortunately, they both spun about, the crystallizer the source of their lift, so Tetsutetsu was being dragged to the surface, upside down, by his legs, but damn if the two of them didn't make it work.
Breaching the top, Kirishima flailed a bit before Kendo, who was unloading her second mannequin, yelled something at him, and he let his Quirk fade, both boys doggy-paddling over to hand the girl their 'civilians'. Both teen boys grinned, high-fived, grasped arms, and then Tetsutetsu shifted once more, again dragging them down into the depths.
They finished with seconds to spare on the clock, but they got all seventeen of the mannequins, the buzzer sounding, both boys looking worried until they were told by the Pussycats that they passed, at which point they fist pumped in unison on the beach, chest bumping with joy.
Then came the announcement of the second to last team, and, by default, the last one as well. Uraraka was called up, the girl kind of a wash, power-wise, for this situation, but she did have a go-getter spirit I could work with. Pony was announced, and I nodded, able to start to get an idea of what I could do with these two, their powers syncing nicely, then Tsuburaba, the blowhard, who. . . I'd find a use for somehow, only the last name called wasn't mine, it was Shoji's.
Which meant that the last team was me, rotation lad, glue boy, and Bakugo.
Glancing at the explosive teen, he shot me an assessing look as the others ran off, Ochaco lightening the two boys so Pony could carry all four of them, suspended on three horns, both girls holding one of their own and the central one, while the boys hung onto the outer ones, floating weightlessly.
Striding over, Bakugo practically accused, "You've got a plan in that big brain of yours, don't ya Kaminari."
"Getting one," I replied, moving over to the other two in our group, "but it'll depend on some things. Hey, Bondo?"
"Y-Yeah?" the large, seemingly faceless boy replied, his tone oddly like he had a head-cold as his mouth flapped like a South Park Canadian.
"You make glue, right?" I checked, and he nodded. "How much control do you have over it? How fast it dries? If it's sticky or not? Can you change it on the fly?"
"Yeah. To all of it," the boy replied, as the second to last team made it to their destination and Ochaco released her quirk, the boys diving down. Both girls pierced the surface and were dragged down quickly as well, passing the two boys as they went deep, moving together as they headed straight for the bottom. "Uh, but when it's hard, it's hard. Can't change glue after it's set."
I considered what I could do with this, pressing as I questioned, "How about Hydrokinesis? Glue-kinesis? Can you control it? If so, do you need to be touching it, or can you manipulate it at a distance?" I rattled off.
While the other boy didn't have any eyes, I got the impression that he was blinking, confused. "Huh?"
"My girlfriend can control her acid, but only if she's touching it," I informed him. "We just saw her do that. Okay, first of all, where does your glue come from?"
"My face," the boy replied, which. . . ew, but also, given his head looked a little like a nozzle, of course it did.
"Then cup your hands and dump some inside, keep it from sticking to anything, and see if you can move it around with just your Quirk," I instructed.
He did so, and, yeah, it looked just as gross as I thought it would, the boy having been out of my sight the last couple days, but since he had an 'ex nihilo production' style power, they probably just had him making as much as he could.
The boy concentrated, and, yes, he made ripples in it, not nearly as pronounced as Mina could, but if he'd never known doing so was possible, it was almost certainly an aspect of his power he'd never trained, and thus was something that wouldn't show up on Ragdoll's Search scan.
"Okay, you can control it, at least a little, now test and see if you have to be touching it," I commanded.
The heteromorph just stared blankly at me, eventually asking, "How?"
"Just fuckin' throw it, Elmer," Bakugo snapped, annoyed, but thankfully letting me do my thing.
"O-Oh!" Bondo replied, looking around and tossing it onto the sand, where I could clearly see it moving in ways that it shouldn't, making a rough grid pattern on the ground. "Oh," the boy muttered, shoulders dropping, "I thought I was just a good shot."
"You might be both, but this can work for us," I smiled, running through possibilities. "So when we're in the water I'll need you to-"
"Doesn't work in water."
I paused, looking at the metal-headed teen. "What?"
"Doesn't work in water," Bondo repeated. "It just kinda. . ." he trailed off opening his hands in a gesture of dispersal.
"Well. . . fuck. But it stays hard in water, right?" I checked, and he nodded yes. ". . . Okay. Okay I can work with this." I turned to the other boy, Kaibara, and asked, "And you can spin your body parts?"
"Any of 'em," he agreed cockily, holding up a hand, which proceeded to rotate so fast it was hard to see.
"Can you do anything else?" I checked, trying my best not to mentally agree with Monoma that 1-B was, indeed, where they put the B-tier Hero students.
Now considerably less sure of himself, the boy glanced at Bakugo and Bondo, before admitting, "Uh. . . no?"
Katsuki snorted, but I ignored him, plans affirming themselves, shifting from vague thoughts into defined schematics. Asking them all their weights, I held out a hand, palm down, fingers spread, and asked Bondo to cover it and harden it in such a way that it was one complete piece. Confused, he did so, and, shifting my flesh to lightning to free it, I looked at the bowl he'd formed, hefting it and then squeezing it, increasing my strength with OfA until it finally cracked.
It was heavy enough, strong enough, and most of all it was watertight.
"I know that look, Sparkplug," Bakugo smirked, his face full of borderline malicious anticipation. "What're we doin'?"
Matching his with one of my own, I looked around at my teammates, as the group before us started to bring up their first set of mannequins.
"Hoisting the colors high."
AN: Next Four Chapters are up on , as usual!