Izuku Midoriya-Overhauled

Chapter 20: Liberating Ideas

Chapter 20: Liberating Ideas

Chapter 20

Izuku grunted as the horde of earth beasts overwhelmed him again, forcing him against the ground. He could hear Ragdoll and Pixie-Bob talking to each other nearby, even if he couldn't see them currently due to the earth beasts on him.

"You're getting better, Midoriya," Came Mandalay's telepathic message, "You lasted 10 seconds this time instead of 9!" Ah, yes, what a wonderful improvement. An improvement which had taken at least an hour. An hour of non-stop combat against the unstoppable horde of earth beasts. An hour of growing annoyance towards the very earth itself. An hour of wishing he had decided to go with Pepsi Man or something instead.

"Don't beat yourself up, kid," Tiger said as he pulled the slightly depressed Izuku out from the pile of dirt, "By the end of the week, you'll be fast enough that you'll maybe last 20 seconds!" Ah, yes, the whole point of this exercise. Even while he was currently getting kind of annoyed by it, he could still admit it made sense. Tiger and Ragdoll had explained how the two most important skills a Rescue Hero can have are speed and precision, as if you were too slow or too imprecise, you could easily be a moment too late to rescue a civilian, or you could make the situation worse by not being precise in your movements.

Of course, it was decided that the best way to train these skills was to have Izuku fend off a horde of Pixie-Bob's earth beasts. Now, this would be fine if it weren't for the simple restriction that had been put in place: he could only use one spike at a time. Essentially, he had downgraded from a machine gun to a revolver, which meant he had to be both precise enough to take a beast down in one shot and fast enough to get them all before they reached him.

"We'll take a break now, kitten, just so we don't break your spirit just yet. After all, young spirit is such a beautiful thing, and I'm so glad that I can say I still have that!" Pixie-Bob exclaimed, and Izuku felt like she was sparkling.

"No offence, Ms. Pixie-Bob, but aren't you in your 30s?" Izuku asked. Before he could even blink, Pixie Bob's comically large paw was wrapped around his face, with the claws brushing a few strands of his hair.

"I'm still 18 at heart, god damnit!" She hissed, which reminded Izuku of a weird part about Pixie-Bob: she was desperate for love and did not like being reminded of how she was only getting older by the day. Even when Izuku mentioned how old the Hero Team was she got pissed, and he wasn't even talking about her directly! At least the other pussycats seemed mostly sane. Izuku would say completely sane, but that's a hard argument to make when the people you're calling 'completely sane' seem to be obsessed with cats. So yeah, mostly sane it was.

"Oh! Midoriya, you should put on your hero costume! We'll be heading out in a moment!" Ragdoll said, energetically hopping from one foot to the other as if she was overflowing with energy. Izuku brightened up at that. Did that mean they were going on patrol? Only one way to find out, he supposed. Although, he couldn't help but wonder how Kendo's internship was going. Miruko was probably trying to kill her as training or something if her hero persona was anything to go by.

Kendo stood outside the abandoned warehouse, utterly confused. She cross-checked the address she was given with what she'd put in her phone but saw no mistakes. She knew Miruko was a nomadic hero, but she expected something a little nicer than...this. Still, she went up to open the small door at the side of the massive gate into the warehouse when she stopped. If she knew anything about Miruko's personality from the news, it was that she'd probably try and attack Kendo as soon as she entered to 'test her awareness' or whatever. So instead, she walked around the warehouse, looking for another way in, and she eventually found one in the form of a broken window a couple stories high.