My Hero Automata

Summary: The Heroics Tournament begins! Obstacle Course is a go...but very different than the sort they ran in canon!

Chapter 17: Heroics Tournament - Day 1

The entirety of the first-year heroics department was gathered in a single auditorium. Admittedly, since UA only admitted forty students a year into its heroics track, that wasn't a staggering crowd. But the fact that all of them were in Mark II versions of their hero costumes certainly made it a visually busy one. Given that there were also a number of instructors, support staff, and a double fistful of observers, the room wasn't feeling particularly empty despite the low number of students. At the moment, it didn't matter much anyway, as the Dean had taken the podium and all attention was laser-focused on him.

"Good morning, students! Welcome to your first day of the Heroics Tournament. As all of you have by now been made aware, first years such as yourself spend the first two days out of public view, going through a series of trials intended to seed you for the 1 vs 1 tournament. I will warn you now, since there's always someone who thinks they can game the system. Do not try. While these events are not open to public viewership, Hero Agencies can and do request to view them. Indeed, those most interested in taking interns may even be watching the events via livestream! As such, underperforming in an attempt to influence your seed position will only harm your chances of being offered internships."

Izumi…actually hadn't considered that. A quick look around showed a few of the Group B students looking a little pale, though. She frowned at that, noting them down. She wouldn't judge them too harshly without knowing their reasoning. But she was struggling to see any way that it wouldn't have been a scummy move, since they'd essentially be trying to push down others hero potentials in order to make themselves look better. That wasn't exactly heroic behavior. Quite the opposite, actually.

"Now! Since all of you have already been given packets with the rules and regulations for today, let's get right into the day's event! Which…is a combat obstacle course!"

With that dramatic pause and well-timed bit of showmanship, the lights dimmed and the screen behind the Dean lit up. The large display first showed a sweeping view of an obstacle course significantly more dangerous looking than anything they'd run with Midnight so far. Instead of passive obstacles, this one had moving walls and platforms…as well as energy turrets, steel tentacle whips, saw blades, and goo guns whose payload quickly hardened into capture foam. After they'd all gotten a good look, clips of students, presumably from previous years, began playing on loop. Some made it through, others fell prey to one or another of the various dangers.

"As you all can see, this is a major step up from the difficulty you've faced so far! Each of you will be given three attempts at the course, though the obstacles will shift and change for each attempt! As a result, some of you will likely fail to complete the course, even with three attempts. Even if that happens, rest assured, you will be judged on how far you got and how well you improved with each attempt. Others, who manage to finish, will be judged on their time of completion and the methods they used. Do your best and good luck!"

The Dean, looking entirely too cheerful at the expressions of concern on many of the students' faces, quickly handed them off to Ectoplasm. The Professor quickly split into eight clones and called the first set of students forward. Apparently, the staff would be running several courses simultaneously. Which made sense, given that they had 120 runs to get through…

... ...

Izumi's grin was huge as she spun in place, knocking a trio of tentacles away with her copy of Virtuous Dignity before half-dancing through the gap she'd created. Her replica of the original spear wasn't perfect, since she'd been creeped out by the face on the original version. She'd tried to replace it with All Might's face when she was younger…only for 2B to aggressively talk her out of it. Instead, it bore the YoRHa emblem. Even if 2B had mixed feelings about the organization, they were still a part of her identity, and it was less tacky than sticking 2B's face on it in place of All Might's. Which had also been a proposed option by younger Izumi. One that she'd only given up on when she'd been reminded that her transformation looked more like 2B every day. A fact which would likely have ended with her being accused of plastering her own face on the spear if she'd gone through with it.

Regardless of the little details, the truth remained that Izumi had an odd affinity for the spear. One that couldn't be explained by 2B's presence, given that the android had possessed a strong preference for her oversized Katana above all other weapons. It was one of the little differences that set their fighting styles apart…and the difference was proving a boon here. While a regular human might have suffered some mobility issues with such an unwieldly weapon, Izumi's brute power whipped the spear around in some unholy combination of staff and spear fighting techniques. The style of combat emphasized constant momentum and movement, making it perfect to use on the fly as she jumped from platform to platform. She even, twice, used the neigh-indestructible nature of her construct to turn the spear into a pole-vaulting tool.

Leaving a smoking trail of wrecked turrets, dented or sliced tentacles, and perforated platforms behind her, Izumi revealed in this new form of exercise. This was fun! She was going to have to build one of her own! Ohhhh, with upgrades! Maybe she could add sharks? That was a villain thing she should practice against, right? Pools of sharks? Oh, or maybe flying sharks! And lava pits! Maybe some sort of exploding darts, too? Glorious destruction awaited her on a weekly basis! Maybe even more often than that! This was soooo stress relieving!

... ...

Momo did not cackle as she used the giant mallet to turn the debris-that-used-to-be-a-wall into a shotgun blast of concrete, the fist-sized rubble turning the pair of laser turrets in her way into so much scrap. She wasn't Izumi, after all. She was quite capable of keeping her cackling internalized! Thus, she would remain entirely dignified as she ripped a steel tentacle out of the wall and tried that whip technique Midnight was always showing off. Maybe she could get it to do the Indiana Jones thing? Sure, she had jump-thrusters in her suit that would be more efficient. But she had to have something to improve on during this run. The first two had been so easy after all…

... ...

"Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck fuck!"

Ashido Mina had never been so glad to have met the maniacs that were Izumi and Momo as she was right now. Without the deep, desperate desire they'd ignited in her to not get hit by their dodgeballs, she never would have thought to turn her breakdancing moves into a frantic sort of unholy parkour. Said desperately developed skills were all that was keeping her alive as she barely dodged a saw blade (She did not care that they were supposedly dull! They looked terrifying!) and lobbed a glob of acid to intercept the spray of capture foam trying to pin her down. Heartbeat running wild, she dove for cover behind a bit of wall as a laser blast tried to tag her, only to yelp and scramble forward on all fours when the wall betrayed her by retracting into the floor.

"If I live through this, I promise I'm asking Kiri out! I'm too gorgeous to die a virgin and I just know this course is going to give those two lunatics ideas!"

... ...

Jirou was torn between being terrified of the new gear Momo and Izumi had made her, incredibly grateful the Sonic Canon and Base Boosters were making this course actually survivable, and regretting all the life choices that led her here. Was this why there was such a high attrition rate in the UA Heroics program?! She'd thought maybe it was just that Aizawa dude. Apparently, all of the staff here are crazy! She yelped as another entirely-too-hentai-looking tentacle tried to grab her. Heartbeat running wild, she pumped it into the Base Boosters, ankle mounted thrusters that let her use sound waves for big jumps or high-speed dashes. Barely having gotten any practice in with them, she was abruptly far too focused on not crashing to worry about anything else. Her last, half-panicked thought was that she wasn't sure if she was going to kiss those two, or find a way to catch them off guard in a dark alley…

... ...

"I AM INVINCIBLE!"

It was, part of Kaminari reflected, slightly possible that he'd snapped after spending a month as Hatsume Mei's guinea pig. As his electrified whip destroyed another turret and the boost pack on his back chimed an alert into his ear that it was charged again…he decided he didn't care. If this was insanity, he wanted a double dose! Also, he wanted to live to see Mei in that low-riding tank top of hers again! He couldn't die here! Onward! Destroy all opposition for the glory of Boobs and Explosions!

... ...

"Mmmffmmmf."

Kirishima sighed as he focused on sharpness as he slowly cut his way out of the capture foam again. Sure, the trick Izumi had helped him with, pointing out that he could harden into pretty gnarly sharp edges at times, was awesome. But this was the fifth time in this run alone that he'd had to cut himself free. Apparently, Izumi was also right that he needed to stop charging everything head on…

... ...

Toru giggled as she refracted another energy blast, shifting it from the weirdly concussive result it normally struck with into a thinner ray of slicing heat. Said ray carved two tentacles in half where they'd been sweeping the platform, trying to find her. This was fun! Though those 'lasers' were a little cruel! Whatever energy other than light was in them felt like she was being tickled every time she did that. Ah well, might as well lean into the psychopath image her mad giggling was probably giving her. Maybe she could wear one of the turrets' decimated tops as an accessory on her next run? That would be sort of like wearing the skulls of one's enemies, right? Only cuter!

... ...

As the day wound down to an ending, the professors were looking over the results of the first round testing. Vlad King was looking more than a little dyspeptic at the results. Only six of his students had placed in the top twenty, with only Tokage and Tsunotori managing to crack the top ten. Both of them squeaking into said top ten mostly on the backs of the high-mobility their quirks allowed them. It was unusual, to say the least, for the classes to be so lopsided. And that didn't even factor in that some of them had seemed a little…unhinged, or prone to bizarre approaches.

"Midnight, just what have you been doing with those kids? It hasn't even been a month!"

Midnight was smirking, but her voice came out fondly exasperated, rather than in the throaty purr of her hero persona.

"Don't blame this on me. It's entirely the fault of my two adorable monsters."

She reached forward and pulled up side-by-side images of Izumi and Momo on their third runs, both of them wearing similarly huge smiles as they mowed down all opposition…despite the fact that Nedzu had doubled the difficult of the courses for all first year students and tripled it for those two in particular.

"Honestly, Kan, you shouldn't complain. Given what Nedzu did with the test this year, you should be pleased with how many of your kids at least managed to finish it. Only two outright failures, right? Monoma and Tetsutetsu?"

The Group B Heroics instructor nodded, frowning as he brought the results for the two in question up.

"Monoma is somewhat understandable. No Quirk he could copy would let him finish within his time limit. Though I'm going to have to bring up, again, that he needs to come up with ways to compensate when he can't copy a Quirk. Even if he ends up on a hero team, his time limit means he can't lean entirely on borrowed Quirks. Tetsutetsu is a bit more irritating and far less understandable. He failed simply because he refused to try anything but the direct approach on all three runs. He got caught by the capture foam twice and tentacles the third time."

Midnight hummed for a moment, then nodded.

"Maybe see if we can get him and Kirishima to talk. They are a lot alike, but being around my two little monsters seems to have forced Kirishima to realize he can't charge everyone face first."

Vlad nodded but gave her a quizzical look.

"Why not just introduce him to them directly?"

Midnight smirked and pointed to a looping video on another screen. It was showing what appeared to be a floating turret cap giggling maniacally as it concentrated fire from several other turrets at once to carve right through a wall that runners were supposed to have to go around. Brief flashes of a cute girl with multicolored hair could be seen under the turret top as the concentrated light overwhelmed Toru's invisibility.

"Do you really want to risk it?"

Sekijiro Kan slowly shook his head, making a warding gesture as if to keep away the crazy. Midnight laughed. A delighted, fiendish sound that made every other instructor present flinch. Maybe giving her Group A's first years hadn't been the best idea…

... ...

A/N: Just another 'Hey, I have a Patreon Page,' reminder! Check out my Patreon Page for early access to new chapters of all of my works (including this one). Currently, as of first posting to Scribblehub, 42 chapters of My Hero Automata are public, with 7 more (about 16k worth) currently in Early Access. ALL of my fanfiction content is ultimately free, with nothing stuck permanently behind a paywall. So, while I deeply appreciate anyone willing to help support my writing time...if you don't want to support me, don't :-p. You'll get the content eventually, one way or another, Patrons simply get it sooner.