บท 2010: 29
The obstacle course!!!
Notes:
Sorry, I'm too tired to link anything today. Also, formal apology to literally anyone who knows anything about tech, I am just taking creative liberties with hacking.
Otherwise, happy New Year!
Chapter Text
"Ten bucks he insults everyone during the opening speech." Izuku muttered out of the corner of his mouth, leaning slightly closer to Mei so she could hear him above the noise of the cheering crowd.
"No bet." Mei whispered back. "From what you've told me, he seems like just enough of an idiot to do it."
Izuku's eyes widened and he found himself smiling. He didn't know exactly why it still shocked him that Mei was bold enough to be rude to Katsuki, even though he definitely couldn't hear them, but a part of him was still irrationally afraid of what would happen when his old bully somehow discovered what she'd said. He shook his head and both of them straightened attentively as Katsuki slouched up the stairs and took his place at the mic. He glared at the other students and even at the audience as class 1A shuffled nervously, shooting each other concerned looks. Well, at least they'd had enough time to get to know their classmates!
"I just wanna say," Katsuki grumbled, "I'm gonna win."
Mei grinned at him before loudly joining in the booing with the other students and Izuku couldn't help the surge of power he felt as he did the same. Sure, it wasn't a big thing, just a few yells. It wasn't like he was actually fighting Katsuki or anything, but still! It felt huge!
"Alright kiddos!" Midnight cracked her whip. "Are you ready to suffer?!"
Izuku gulped and adjusted his feet. His training with Shinso had made him a lot faster and he hoped strong enough to deal with whatever Nedzu had in mind. Speaking of Shinso, he glanced over to see him striking up polite conversation with some gen-ed and business students, playfully bumping shoulders with some or holding eye contact for just a half-second too long with others and Izuku gave him a proud smile, which he returned with a smirk. Assuming he made it past the first round, which Izuku didn't doubt he would, the distractions would make him that much more difficult to fight head on.
To his other side, Hatsume was fiddling with one of her babies with a screwdriver. Izuku caught her eye and she gave him a manic grin. Izuku knew that if he asked, either she or Shinso would help him in a heartbeat, but he couldn't bring himself to get in their way. Mei needed to use this round to catch the eye of future investors and Shinso needed to prove himself to the hero teachers watching. Izuku wasn't a part of those goals.
But that didn't mean he wasn't going to come at it with everything he had. Determination filled his eyes and he found himself smiling slightly as Midnight announced the obstacle course and began counting down. He wasn't just deku anymore. He was Cheat Code. He was capable of so much more than he'd been led to believe his whole life. He could do this!
"Begin!"
The moment that Midnight called the race, Izuku immediately began analyzing. The first obstacle was obviously the doorway itself. There was a slight chill and all Izuku could think was Todoroki before a thick layer of frost started racing across the ground toward him and it was only the quick instincts from years of avoiding explosions that had him jumping just in time to avoid getting frozen to the ground.
Checking in on his friends he was relieved to see that Shinso was already ordering some of the people who had escaped to carry him through the crowd on their shoulders and Mei was doing even better as she used her hover boots and jet pack to glide above the ice and race to the front of the group.
Izuku shook his head and ran forward, doing his best to avoid slipping and having to grab onto the other competitors for balance. He ended up on his butt a few times and the frontrunners had already reached the next obstacle by the time he finally passed the slick ice patch. He heard a few screams and a loud cracking crash and pushed himself faster. He couldn't afford to fall behind this early in the race!
He skid to a stop as a laser obliterated the ground in front of him, then had to roll into a sloppy dodge as some sort of rock was thrown at him. Izuku let out an embarrassing squeak as he realized that he was being attacked by the stupid robots from the entrance exam. There were even zero pointers! Was Nedzu trying to kill them?!
Izuku internally thanked Nedzu for assigning him to analyze the first years, though. He'd watched dozens of students fight these things and paid attention to how they took them down, which meant that he knew their weaknesses, he just had to figure out a way to take advantage of them...which was going to be difficult to do without weapons.
He frantically glanced around and tried to see if he could use the surrounding rubble as a weapon, but after trying to pick up a sheet of metal and almost immediately falling flat on his face, Izuku realized he still didn't have quite enough muscle for that plan to work, which meant he was back to square one. He was back to being a stupid, quirkless, worthless deku who couldn't even fight robots because he didn't have a weapon and it's not like he could just use the arena as a weapon like he had at the USJ…
Izuku's thoughts stuttored to a stop and he giggled hysterically in disbelief as he pulled his phone out of a zippered pocket in his gym pants. He'd ended up bringing it along to take selfies with Mei between rounds and because after hacking for almost a year, the idea of being completely without technology made him slightly anxious. He'd gotten a heavy-duty case, as well as some other personalized modifications, so he wouldn't be as worried about it breaking, but now he couldn't help but be grateful that his anxiety had convinced him to bring it along. But was he actually stupid enough to try to pull this off?
Yes. Yes, he was.
"Is that student seriously texting?" Eraser's tired voice echoed over the speakers and Izuku winced in embarrassment, but kept working. Hacking from his phone was a little harder than from an actual computer, nevermind that, it was way harder, but if he could just take control of even a single robot, it'd be worth it.
"I wouldn't trust him to be doing anything that innocent!" Mic announced gleefully. "That, listeners, is Izuku Midoriya from the support course! Those of you with sharp eyes might have already noticed his friend Mei Hatsume who used a flamethrower on those pesky bots. Midoriya, however, has a different specialty!"
Izuku almost cheered as one of the one pointers, which thankfully had a little less security than the more dangerous bots, suddenly stopped and beeped happily as its eyes turned from red to green. He didn't waste any time climbing onto the bot's shoulders and letting it race him through the battlefield. He had to use the laser systems on a few enemy bots, but thanks to his previous analysis, he knew exactly where to aim to take each one down with one hit. All in all, Izuku managed to pass the second obstacle in under half the time it had taken him to pass the first.
The fact that the one pointers focused on speed rather than firepower ended up being a huge advantage as well, since Izuku was able to just hitch a ride all the way to the next obstacle, passing dozens of students, including a few from the hero classes. He ended up reaching the edge of the pit just as Mei was clearing it. He couldn't see Shinso, so he could only hope that their extra credit project was doing well, but he didn't have time to worry about that at the moment because he had to figure out a way to cross a full sized canyon!
The various pillars were connected by ropes, which meant that Izuku probably wouldn't be able to bring the full robot with him...unless...He steered his robot over to one of the hero course students, who was just starting to try to cross the ropes like a tightrope. He jumped off the robot and grabbed her by the collar before she could get too far, or worse, fall.
"Uraraka right?" Izuku forced himself to ignore his panic at being so bold. "You have an antigravity quirk, right?"
"Umm…" Uraraka looked at him suspiciously. "How do you know that?"
"Entrance exam." Izuku answered evasively. "Would your limit be enough for this?"
He jerked a thumb back at the robot, "If you remove its gravity, I can maneuver it across the ropes without falling and we can ride it all the way to the next obstacle!"
Uraraka looked hesitant, and Izuku could tell that they were running out of time.
"It's faster than walking?" He tried. "And we don't know what the next obstacle is, so maybe a robot will be helpful! So...deal?"
He smiled and held a hand out hopefully. Uraraka only hesitated another second before grabbing his hand with a determined smile of her own, "Deal! And how did you get a robot?"
"Hacked it." Izuku answered. "Ready?"
Uraraka shook her head in disbelief, "Sure, why not. Just...float the robot that the random guy apparently stole. Sure!"
"Hey! It's not that bad!" Izuku pouted but didn't have time to argue further as the robot started to float ominously. He clambered back onto it's shoulders and lent Uraraka a hand to climb up beside him. The extra weight from the two of them kept the robot touching the ground, at least slightly, and Izuku hurriedly pulled out his phone again and started guiding it across the ropes.
"And that, listeners, is called teamwork!" Mic announced proudly. "And between courses too! Aren't you proud of your student, Eraser?"
"Why should I be?" Eraser answered coolly. "Working with support professionals is common sense for any hero, so if Uraraka wasn't smart enough to take advantage of such an opportunity, she wouldn't be in the hero course."
"Ooh!" Mic yelled. "And that's coming from the teacher with the highest expulsion rate at UA, so take that to heart kids! Still, I wonder if we're looking at a future business partnership?"
That would honestly depend on if Uraraka could handle Mei. Izuku chucked and got back to devoting his full attention to controlling the robot. It took him a second to get used to and at one point they'd almost fallen and were only saved by both of them grabbing the rope, but after that Izuku figured out it was best to have the robot basically grab the rope and pull itself along it rather than trying to roll along it like it normally would if it were solid ground.
Once they got the hang of it, it didn't take much time at all to clear the drop, and even less to speed to the next obstacle after Uraraka returned the robot's gravity. Izuku stopped the robot a few years back from the start of the visibly buried mines and turned to Uraraka, slapping the side of his robot as he spoke.
"This guy's armor isn't great." He explained. "But I'm probably still gonna try just driving across and seeing how it goes. You're welcome to join me, but…"
"But I'll probably be safer of my own." She finished and nodded in understanding as she jumped to the ground. "That's alright! It was fun while it lasted! Thanks for the help...Midoriya? Right? That was what Mic-sensei said?"
Izuku smiled brightly, "Yeah! Good luck!"
"Right back at you!" Uraraka pumped her fist in determination. "See you in the next round, Midoriya!"
"O-ok!" Izuku waved to her as he left, then shrugged and started rushing forward as fast as he could, not that he thought speed would really make much of a difference. "Let's do this!"
After he hit the first mine, there was a split second when Izuku thought his plan was actually going to work. That second ended when Izuku found himself ten feet in the air as the shattered remains of his robot came hurtling down around him. He grunted hard as he hit the ground.
So much for that plan.
"Oof, that looks like it hurt!" Mic called. "And that, kids, is why you don't charge head-on into a minefield, even if you do have a giant robot on your side!"
Wonderful, Izuku grimaced as he got to his feet, way to add insult to injury. Alright, time for a new plan. The safest plan would be to go through the field slowly like everyone else was, but Izuku wasn't sure exactly how many people were ahead of him. Probably at least forty would move onto the next round, but he didn't know where he'd fall in that unless he found a better way to pass this obstacle, so…
Izuku glanced around and sighed in exhaustion as an even more insane plan formed in his head. Good thing he was used to Katsuki's explosions, otherwise this was going to hurt. Actually, it was probably going to hurt anyway, but no pain, no gain, right?
As he dug up mines, Izuku seriously wondered if he'd lost his mind. Was he seriously about to use a piece of scrap as a sled and jump onto a pile of explosives? He'd know Katsuki for years, he knew how stupid that was! Why was he even considering…?
Oh come on, Izu-kun! You can't build anything worthwhile without a few explosions.
Izuku grinned, actually laughing as he grabbed a piece of his ruined robot and catapulted himself straight onto the pile of mines. He'd almost forgotten that Katsuki wasn't the only explosive friend he'd ever had and these mines were obviously more similar to Mei's explosions than his bully's. Her explosions lifted him up and helped him fly, literally apparently, instead of tearing down his dreams and leaving scars that would never truly go away. So yeah, maybe it hurt a little, but an analyst like Cheat Code couldn't afford to be afraid of a few burns.
Now if only he could figure out how to land. Unfortunately, his plan had ended up working a little too well and he was rapidly approaching Katsuki and Todoroki, who were obviously in the front of the pack. As the two caught sight of him, Katsuki's face obviously contorted in anger and he launched himself forward as quickly as he could with his explosions, while Todoroki started running along an ice path he was creating as he ran.
On the one hand, Izuku could just curl into a ball and hope for the best like he had throughout elementary and middle school, but on the other, if he were to land too close to Katsuki, he'd be getting hurt from more than one type of explosion, so the best option was to let Katsuki stay ahead, but his little scrap sled obviously had other plans, so that wasn't going to work. That left using the two frontrunners to give him an extra boost and landing ahead of them, then sprinting to the finish line before Katsuki could catch up. Well, good thing he wasn't in middle school still, right?
Knowing he'd probably regret it, he firmly planted a foot on each of his opponents backs and kicked as hard as he could, using the momentum to slam his sled against the ground at the same time, trying to hit as many mines as he could. The resulting explosion launched him another twenty feet forward and Izuku rolled as best he could to minimize the impact as he landed.
Then he ran for his life.
"I hope you were rooting for the underdog!!!" Mic screamed. "Because the first place winner of the first round is from the support course!!! Izuku Midoriya!!!"
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