My Hero Automata

Chapter 40: Finals Matches (Set 1)

Summary: The first set of Finals matches!

Chapter 40: Finals Matches (Set 1)

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The entire class was taken by surprise as only four people were initially called up. Aoyama and Iida, along with Ashido and Jiro were called for their matches, even as Midnight sauntered down to join her students. When they all looked at her in confusion, she smirked.

"We could run all of these simultaneously, but why should we? The rest of you will be observing and learning what you can. Even those who are defeated will, if Recovery Girl allows it, continue watching. Each of you has sufficiently different scenarios and opponents that it doesn't give you much advantage to watch your fellows...but it does give you a chance to see how they handle it. What they do both right and wrong."

There were plenty of nods of understanding at that, with the remaining members of the class quickly focusing back on the first set of testing sites as Aoyama and Iida began their patrol first, clearly not having wasted much time planning. Which...was going to bite them on the ass shortly, as it looked like they were up against Cementoss. In an urban environment. Ouch. Two minutes into the Patrol, the pair got the first hint something was wrong as Civilian Bots began screaming and stampeding. Iida raced off in reaction...only to find himself faced with a wave of concreate as high as he was that was rapidly consuming the street. To Iida's credit, he reacted quickly, grabbing Civilian Bots and moving them into buildings, which weren't currently being affected. Some were still lost to the consuming wave which left a jagged street behind, but more were saved.

Unfortunately, while Iida's reaction was admirable in a way...it had also been a terrible plan. Something he seemed to realize when Cementoss simply strolled through the street and Iida realized he couldn't reach him over the jagged terrain. Aoyama finally arrived, immediately attempting to shoot the Professor, only to have a series of concreate walls flex upward to absorb the best Naval Laser could do. Cementoss went to send a wave of concrete at the half-French student, only to be interrupted by Iida using spinning kicks to launch chunks of rubble at him.

Then Cementoss simply turned...and brought down a nearby parking garage on the civilians inside it, taunting the Hero Students as he did. Both of them were clearly shocked and enraged, Yuga lashing out again with his laser even as Iida used some of the free running Izumi had suggested to him in combination with bursts of thrust to attempt to close the distance. Cementoss reacted by creating a new wave of liquid concreate that consumed the laser and forced Iida back. Then he collapsed another building, with another taunt. The entire pattern continued twice more, before either of the heroes could come up with any sort of plan.

To everyone's surprise, it was the usually flamboyant and empty-brained Aoyama that came up with the idea, having used their HSN comms to suggest it to Iida. It was a risky gambit, using Iida's speed to throw his partner into the air. There, the blonde fired down at Cementoss...seemingly. Cementoss did the logical thing by creating a quick bunker as protection from the laser, only for Aoyama to immediately shift the output to come from the focus lenses in his hands, instead of from his main naval lens. Those hands swept a zone between the Professor and Iida, cutting through the jagged spikes that had been keeping Iida at bay. No longer rooted into the ground, Iida bulldozed through the spikes, trusting his armor to protect him from the unanchored concreate spikes. Cementoss lowered his bunker just in time to catch a flying kick to the face from Iida as a result. Their professor was tough, though, and that wasn't nearly enough to finish him. Even so, with Aoyama having managed to catch a third story balcony and now aiming laser fire down into the melee when and where he could, they clearly had their opponent at least contained...