"I think we should forget about saving the mannequins and save ourselves!" Henrik yelled as he jumped out of the way, a glass figure crashing headfirst into the spot he was a moment ago, shattering into a thousand pieces. A hit like that would definitely have seriously injured him point blank.
The other teams were faring just as badly. Team B1 had Inferno shooting firebeams at a majority of the glass bodies, blasting them away just to avoid being hit themselves. Only Maya, the telekinetic, had managed to save two figures, controlling them as they fell, but even she had a limit because of how heavy they actually were—only being able to control one falling projectile at a time and making them land safely while Ken and Anon stood uselessly at the corner. Mateo was sure Anon was cooking up a plan for his team, but would it work in time?
Team B3 seemed to be making real progress. Seraphine shot pillars of water into the sky, slowing the momentum of the falling targets, Marina using her temperature powers to freeze the pillars, capturing them mostly unharmed in ice cages. The others that were slowed down were caught by Ben, his invulnerability proving useful since the glass shards had no effect on him, and he caught most of the figures with only a few cracks. They had managed to save seven.
Mateo struggled to think against the onslaught of raining glass projectiles as he remembered what Reeves had said before she faded into the sky: "making sure you and your teammates survive, mostly unscathed." She defined being a hero as saving people, so they needed to save themselves too.
But they needed a plan. With each second, five glass bodies crashed into the floor around them. He couldn't use his slime lasso for all of them—they were too many and falling too fast. He had to rely on his teammates' abilities.
That could've been a child, he thought as another figure exploded near his feet, the impact sending a chill through him that had nothing to do with the glass shards.
A plan began forming in pieces in his head, but doubt crept in. Would Alex even listen to him? She still probably saw him as weak. And Henrik barely knew him. In fact, he had shown contempt for him the first day they met. But someone had to take charge, and no one else was stepping up.
"Alex!" He hesitated for a split second, then yelled to the girl who was still pushing past the pain and roughly pulling glass figures, though they ended up crashing and breaking on the floor.
"The hell you want?!" She yelled back, baring her teeth like a tiger. The look sent chills down Mateo's spine, but he pushed forward anyway. He knew their personalities would mesh horribly, but this was the only way to win.
"Pulling only won't work," he yelled, his voice stronger now that he'd committed. "There needs to be balance of forces. You need to push and then pull at the last second to kill the momentum so they land softly with you, not crashing into the ground."
He said this from the knowledge he had gathered during their brawl. He had no guarantee if she could do it. Maybe it would be too complex for her gravitational manipulation. He just had to get her reaction.
Between the glass shards glittering in the air between them, she looked like she wanted to shoot back a retort. Then she bit her lip so hard blood flowed out and looked with determination at a falling figure. She pulled on it. Hard. The fragile dummy flew towards her, cracks forming on its surface due to the force, and when it was about to crash into Alex's chest, she spread out her fingers. The glass figure stopped in midair, more cracks appearing as the back-and-forth gravitational tug strained the glass.
Finally, it fell into her arms, and she caught it with ease, setting it on the ground.
Without paying any heed or thanks to Mateo's advice, she repeated the motion on another target. Mateo quickly sighed. He at least hoped she would get more precise with her catches so they would have the least amount of cracks as possible.
He turned to Akira and Henrik behind him. He had no idea what their quirks really did. All he knew about Henrik was that he had somehow produced a gun and sword from his body during yesterday's assessment. He saw no way that would be useful in saving more figures—weapons that were ironically designed to hurt people.
"Henrik!" Mateo yelled, becoming the defacto leader as no one else had any better ideas. Henrik's eyes darted to him as he deftly dodged another projectile. "I need you to help protect the figures we've saved!"
He had to yell to convey his voice, the explosions of glass all around them drowning most of the noise. They had only managed to save two so far, and they couldn't afford to get them broken from the other falling ones.
Henrik nodded, since he wasn't doing anything better than avoiding the deadly rain. He picked up the two rescued figures next to Mateo and Alex, cradling them in his arms as he lugged them to the safety behind a building, cutting and shooting down the other projectiles that threatened their saved civilians.
Then there was Akira. He had zero idea what her power did, so he could only shout "Do anything you can!" to her.
That seemed to give her motivation. The snake slithering on her neck curled, leaping from her skin, and then transformed into a massive bird—a harpy eagle he recognized. The huge predator rose swiftly and picked a glass body from the sky, circling back to secure it. So that was her quirk? He needed to learn more about it if they were team members now.
Now they had three mannequins.
As for Mateo, the slime lassos weren't effective anymore, so he set slime cushions on various parts of the field to capture more targets. Then he created a barrier of slime on his body to protect his own skin, and some on his nose to guard against the glass dust, remembering that it could be incredibly harmful if breathed in, lacerating small cuts in the throat. The medics were going to have a field day today.
Just as he was wondering how many more figures were going to fall from the sky, the last ones fell into his slime mounds, and the air calmed.
The noisy cascade of breaking glass everywhere stopped, and a deafening silence followed, only being broken by the other students' heavy panting and groaning.
Mateo sighed and fell to the floor, completely exhausted, even though he doubted the whole thing had even taken up to a minute. He winced at a glass shard that cut through his palm and created a slime barrier there to protect the wound.
Other students looked completely wrecked too, blood flowing from various shallow cuts as they struggled to find any unharmed figures that they'd saved.
Mateo looked to his own team's collection. In addition to the three they had caught during the chaos, his slime cushions had caught two more. Akira's eagle had retrieved one more, and Alex had managed one additional save.
That meant they had seven in total.
Team B1 had only managed to save five, and Team B3 miraculously had fifteen.
He groaned in pain and tiredness as Reeves came back from the sky on her floating platform with what Mateo perceived as a sadistic smile as she prepared to discuss their performance.
"Team B3 is the winner of this contest with fifteen points," Reeves announced information they were already aware of. "Team B2 with seven points, and Team B1 with five."
They were in huddles of four according to their teams in front of Reeves, despite the injuries they sustained, because they were told that the injured would be taken to be healed and brought back to continue training once tended to. It was cruel, but every second had to be optimized if they were going to join the warzones in five days' time.
"Now not only did the teams fail to save most of the civilians," Reeves continued, "some of you even destroyed them yourselves to ensure your protection. Now, is that what I said heroes should do?"
"You said heroes should save people," Inferno said, clenching his jaw, trying not to let his disappointment show on his face because his team had saved the least and he himself had destroyed the most. "But the dummies we're supposed to save almost ended up killing us."
He tried being calm, but even Mateo could feel the seething heat boiling under the surface due to his failure. Mateo was no stranger to that feeling—the weight of not being enough when it mattered. But if he was Inferno, he was sure he could find some creative way to use his power. Surely, he could've flown into the sky and picked up the falling figures before they picked up enough speed to hit the ground, right?
Reeves' smile widened, and something cold settled in Mateo's stomach. "Zeke raises an excellent point. The civilians you were meant to save were indeed dangerous—to you." Her eyes swept across all twelve students, lingering on their cuts and bruises. "But tell me, in a real disaster zone, do you think the people trapped under rubble, hanging from windows, or caught in collapsing buildings will be any less dangerous to rescue?"
She stepped down from her platform, walking among them. "A burning child will still burn you. A panicking civilian will still fight you. A person trapped under debris will still cause that debris to shift and potentially crush you." Her voice grew harder. "Will you abandon them because saving them might hurt you?"
The silence stretched uncomfortably. Mateo felt the sting of the question deeper than his physical wounds. I couldn't save him, the familiar thought whispered in his mind. I had the power, but I wasn't strong enough, wasn't fast enough...
"This is why you train," Reeves continued. "Not just to become stronger, but to learn that being a hero means accepting that saving others will cost you something. Sometimes it's blood. Sometimes it's pain. Sometimes..." Her voice dropped to almost a whisper as a distant look crawled to her face. "Sometimes it's everything."
Alex shifted uncomfortably, her hand unconsciously moving to her deeper cuts. Henrik's jaw was set in a grim line, while Akira's serpent had long returned to her neck, now as a spider that crept nimbly on her lean shoulders.
"Dismissed," Reeves said curtly. "Medical team will tend to your injuries. Training resumes in two hours. When you come back, we will review the tactics used in your rescue operations and how they can be used more efficiently in the context of your quirks."
'At least there's a break."
As the students began to disperse, Mateo caught Alex staring at him with an unreadable expression. She walked up to him as they walked out of Training Bay Alpha, something resembling a dangerous glint in her eyes as got close to him.
"We need to talk."