My Hero Automata

Chapter 51: Coastal Rescue Training!

Summary: Water Terrain Training begins!

Chapter 51: Coastal Rescue Training!

The first day of the Terrain Training Camp, which was scheduled to last a full two weeks in total, had been dedicated to getting everyone trained and checked out on various safety procedures. Even that had been turned to a useful purpose, however, as it had been more of Selkie's sidekicks that had taken them through the processes. In doing so, they'd added additional information on how many of the same emergency procedures could be applied not just to themselves, but to others. Merely being aware of the common dangers, as well as the equipment every properly registered vessel was required to have on board to deal with them, was extremely good information to build off of.

Which, as it happens, was what Day 2 turned out to be all about. The training vessel and the Oki Mariner had both set out to sea toward evening of Day 1, with the students and heroes starting Day 2 in a pre-prepared location a few dozen kilometers down the coast. The vessels were at anchor off a rocky beach, in relatively shallow waters. Said beach was no tourist spot, and had been setup in instead as a launch location for a series of 'Terrain Related' disaster scenarios. The older students were currently aboard the Oki Mariner, practicing 'man overboard' scenarios, and trying to determine how their Quirks could be used to help with them. If they could at all. Meanwhile, the First Years had been taken via a ship's boat to the shore, where Selkie had met them. Standing alongside the man was Manual, drawing some curious looks.

"Alright, UA First Years! I've been informed that all of you have already passed basic life-saving courses for shallow waters using UA facilities. Frankly, that's good enough for me. Which means we're now moving into specific, highly dangerous water scenarios that you might need to rescue civilians from. The first one is a mankiller at beaches the world over...and one of the primary reasons that good beaches employee lifeguards. Does anyone have a guess?"

Momo instantly raised her hand, getting a nod from Selkie.

"Given the formations of rock around here...are you perhaps talking about Rip Tides and Rip Currents?"

Selkie beamed, the expression...surprisingly cute.

"Indeed I am, young lady! Dozens of people die every year to Rip Currents in Japan alone. While our ability to detect and warn about them had improved prior to Quirks...the simple truth is that so many Quirks and ambient Quirk Energy fields interact with the water that, on an island nation like ours, it has become nearly impossible to truly monitor them."

Selkie gestured to Manual, who waved at them all.

"That is, in fact, why Manual is helping our group out today. His own Quirk is one such example. The rock formations that Miss Yaoyorozu pointed out, create anomalies and narrow channels both above and below water. This gives this specific beach a natural tendency to create Rip Currents. But with Manual's Quirk, we can outright cause such currents to be triggered. We will be doing so repeatedly, while using various dummies as 'civilian swimmers' you need to rescue."

From there, Selkie began to explain how to spot such tides and currents, how to survive them if they got caught themselves, and how to help others escape them. The gist of it boiled down to 'don't panic, and don't try to directly fight the current.' Instead, the best way to escape them was to either swim parallel to them to get out of their flow, or else to float/tread water until the current weakened, then swim diagonally back to shore. There was more to it, of course, particularly when other people and Quirks got involved, and he promised to go over the best options for each of them individually...once they experienced such a current for the first time themselves.