Test of Heroism (Part 5)

Kirishima hardened himself and blocked a few incoming liquid cement bullets. The cement hardened on his arms. "The hell?!" Gang Orca's troops charged forward to get better shots at the civilians. Mora's hair raised up, protecting civilians behind him. "Get ready!" Inasa smiled, preparing his quirk. "Let's take them down!" Jason turned around and shouted. "Shoto!" Knowing what to do, she slammed her right foot down and created a massive wall of ice between the first aid station and the troopers. Even Gang Orca was surprised by the quick reaction the students displayed. Jason turned to his girlfriend. "We'll get the civilians to safety! Buy us some time!" Shoto nodded and sprinted to the ice wall. A girl from another school shouted over the chaos. "You're just sending one person to go fight all of those thugs?!" Jason smiled. "Her quirk is best in open environments with no civilians! She'll wipe the floor with those guys!" Mora shouted at Inasa. "Inasa! Go help her!" Inasa clearly wasn't happy about having to work with Shoto, but he flew to the ice wall.

Shoto ran up her ice wall and leaped off. A few troops down below saw her. "There's one!" They fired their rifles. Shoto unleashed a wave of fire, which melted the liquid cement. The troops were hit by the fire and scattered. She landed and rolled so she wouldn't break her legs. More troops appeared on her right, raising their weapons. They were picked up by giant gusts of wind and slammed back into the ground. Inasa was floating up above. Shoto nodded to him. "Thanks." Inasa ignored her, staring at Gang Orca. Shoto looked forward. The real fight started now.

Gang Orca quietly nodded to himself. "They sent the two who's quirks wouldn't be great for transporting civilians, but would be amazing at crowd control and head to head combat." However, there was a clear lack of teamwork between these two. He would use that to his advantage.

Shoto got hit with some liquid cement. It started to harden on her left shoulder. She let out a powerful ice attack. Using the power of his Killer Whale Quirk, Gang Orca emitted a shriek powerful enough to shatter the ice. She could no longer move her left arm. But she still had her flames. She unleashed another wall of fire, this one was directed at Gang Orca. He raised his arms to block the fire, but the fire never reached him. An air based attack sent the flames up. Gang Orca and Shoto looked up into the sky. Inasa shouted down at her. "Why did you use your flames?! Air makes heat rise! You fired your flames just to get in my way, you useless piece of shit!" Shoto tensed up. His harsh tone brought back many unpleasant memories.

Shoto fell to the ground, holding her stomach. The six year old girl cried as her father yelled at her. "Get back up! How can you become a hero if you fall after a single hit like that?!" Endeavor grabbed his daughter by the hair and yanked her to her feet. "Now use your fire! Come on!" Shoto's mother ran in. "Stop this, Enji!" The white haired woman grabbed Endeavor's arm. "Stop this! Please! She's just a child!" Endeavor shoved his wife to the side. "Stay out of this, Rei! If she doesn't learn how to take a hit now, she never will!" Shoto ran to her mother. "Mommy!" Endeavor glared down at Shoto. "You're a useless piece of shit." The giant of a man walked off.

Later that year, Shoto walked into the kitchen to see her mother crying. "...Mommy… are you ok…?" The mother turned to her daughter with a crazed look in her eyes. After years of physical and emotional abuse, she had snapped. She grabbed the nearby teapot. "You're just like your father." Rei poured boiling hot water on her very own daughter's left eye. Shoto screamed in pain as the boiling water burned her left eye. Rei snapped out of her trance. "Oh my god! Shoto!" She dropped the pot and immediately tried to use her ice quirk to stop the burn. Ice only made things worse. Endeavor ran in. "What are you doing?!"

The police took the crying Rei away, where she would later be committed to a psychiatric ward. Shoto was taken to a hospital to be treated for her burn. The burn would have normally healed itself, but her mother's ice had caused the burn to turn into a frost burn, meaning she forever had a scar covering her left eye. It was a constant reminder of the monster of a father she had.

Shoto had no time to be reminded of her past. She shook her childhood memories out of her head and faced Gang Orca once more. She summoned her flames and unleashed another volley of fire. The pro hero didn't bother trying to dodge or block the flames, which were once again lifted up and away from him by an air attack. "Again?! Are you serious?!" Shoto angrily turned to the floating Inasa. "Why don't you go bother someone else!" "You're just as hateful as the day I met you!" Shoto finally remembered Inasa. Like her, Inasa had been accepted into UA based on recommendations alone. Inasa had come up to talk to her. She had shrugged him off. "You're in my way." Shoto had been focused on becoming a hero and not on making friends. Inasa then left UA to join Shiketsu Academy. Shoto shouted up to Inasa. "I was different back then!" "No, you were the same as you are now! You're just like your father!" Shoto was beyond enraged now. "I am nothing like my father!" Inasa was about to shout something else at her, but he got hit by another one of Gang Orca's screeches. He fell to the ground, landing with a very loud thud. Shoto turned to the hero and got punched in the face. She was flung several feet and landed face first in the dirt. She tried to get up, but Gang Orca slammed his foot down on her back. "Ah!" The hero stepped off of her. "To think I was actually afraid of you two." He turned to look at Inasa. "You two need to put your petty differences aside. If this were a real scenario, the villain would've killed you both. Now it's time for me to finish the job."

Mina finished using her acid to melt the cement off of Kirishima's arm. "There. Good as new." "Thanks." He looked over his friend's shoulder. "Shit! We've got incoming!" The nearby heroes in training all looked over. Gang Orca's troops had gone around the ice wall and were now approaching the first aid station. Chris passed an actor to Iida. "Keep getting them to safety! I'll buy some time!" Chris stood in between the on coming enemies and the first aid station. Jason walked up next to him. "This should be fun." Momo stood on the other side of Chris, creating a shield and baton for herself. "This fight won't be easy." "That's why you aren't doing this alone." The three of them looked over. Mora walked up, his hair covering all of his body. The man who had caused the giant earthquake in the first round was next to him, smiling. "We have your back!" Kirishima and Mina also walked up. Katsuki stood next to a surprised Jason. "You made it through the first round?" Katsuki yelled in Jason's ear. "Of course I did!" Chris prepared himself. "Get ready!" Mina clenched her fist, preparing to throw acid. Katsuki ignited tiny explosions in his hand, ensuring his explosive sweat was good to go. Kirishima hardened himself. Moro's hair rose up, forming fists. Yo Shindo, the man who can create small earthquakes with his 'Vibrate' quirk, smirked and dropped to a knee. Jason smiled and raised his guard. "Alright! We just need to buy enough time for the others to evacuate the civilians! Let's rock!" The group charged head first into the enemy lines.

Shoto was struggling to get up, but Gang Orca's hits had been too much. She could barely lift her head off of the ground. Gang Orca turned his back to Shoto and began to approach the fallen Inasa. Shoto looked up at him. She was partially to blame for this. She tried so hard to be different from Endeavor that she ended up driving herself more in that direction. She glared at Inasa and ignited her flames. She couldn't make up for what she's done, but she could try to fix the mess she helped create. Inasa locked eyes with her and nodded, understanding what Shoto was trying to do. He had plenty to fix as well. He unleashed his wind, sending it flying around Gang Orca and at Shoto. Their quirks weren't compatible and they had no teamwork. However, they had a single goal in mind: they needed to fix this mess. The wind caught Shoto's flames. The two quirks together created a lethal prison of fire and wind around the pro hero. This teamwork would be the key to their redemption.

Gang Orca fell to his knee, breathing heavily. His Killer Whale body was taking a toll from the fire and wind surrounding him. "Incredible. Neither of them can move, but they managed to overcome their weaknesses and work together to try and trap me. It's a shame that they can't earn points back during this event, but they're still continuing the fight." He smiled. "If I was anyone else, their strategy would've worked too." Gang Orca stood up. "Now it's my turn to try my best." He unleashed a powerful screech, destroying the fire and wind prison trapping him. Shoto's flames were extinguished and Inasa's wind had died. Gang Orca was free.

Jason spun and kicked a trooper away. "That's my last one!" Yo slammed his hands on the ground and shattered the ground around him, trapping his troopers. "Same!" Kirishima slammed his fist into the gut of a trooper and took his cement rifle, immediately turning and firing upon some troopers behind him. "Clear!" Mina raised a wall of acid that melted the incoming cement rounds. Momo came up behind the enemies and beat them with her baton. "Clear!" Chris grabbed two troopers by their helmets and slammed them into each other. "I'm done!" Something caught Chris's attention. Jason looked over as well. They watched as Gang Orca freed himself from the fire and wind prison. Jason swore. "Shoto and the air guy are down!" Chris was about to start running, but there were more incoming troopers. He turned around. The first aid station was still a few minutes away from being completely evacuated. Chris looked back at Gang Orca in the distance. "What do we do?" Both Chris and Jason lit up and looked at each other before smiling.

Gang Orca approached Inasa. "That was a good try, you two. Maybe you can take what you learned today and try again next year." He raised his fists up to smash Inasa. Then two men shouting in the distance caught his attention. "Vengeful Cannon!" Gang Orca looked to his right and brought his arms down to protect himself just in time. Jason, having been thrown by Chris and completely covered by red energy, crashed into gang Orca. The hero kept his feet planted, sliding several feet before coming to a stop. The heavy weighted gauntlets on his arm had been completely shattered and fell in pieces to the ground. He looked up. Jason stood defiantly in his signature combat pose with a smile. "The name's Endgame, and I'll be your opponent now!" The hero smiled. "I remember you. When all else fails, you won't." The pro hero had been a part of the raid on the Nomu Factory several months ago, and had nearly been killed by All for One in the initial shockwave. He was barely conscious at the time, but he remembered Jason challenging All for One alone. Gang Orca was excited now. He reached down and grabbed the heavy weights on his ankles. "Alright, Endgame!" The hero tore off the weights, no longer planning on holding back. "Let's see what you can do!"