Tag team of towering intellects

”Hell no you’re not bad under pressure! Holy shit, you’re like famous now!” Alex said with pride, not because he did anything – but because his classmate and friend did and he was happy for him! When he said he would do his best to make sure Class 1-C was the leading class at U.A. during the elections, he meant it. 1-C was his tribe now, and any member’s success would be cheered on as much as possible and encouraged. Plus, what Darren did was actually super cool and deserved praise from the public as well as himself.

When the blonde delinquent laid out that he was fine taking out Jaz if he took out Rin, the American let out a laugh. ”If we take them out, 1-A has like nobody left.” he said perhaps a bit more seriously in tone than most would have. ”I mean, who in 1A can really fuck with people like Akane, Risaka, and Yumi? Rin and Jaz are really all they got aside from like, Maxi. Kanna might be able to put up a decent fight, but grit only gets you so far. I mean, she could probably shit stomp Akio real good though.” he kind of just did that whole thing that he did sometimes where he just talked out his entire stream of consciousness, and most of the time that stream of consciousness was extremely offensive. This time was no different, but at least it was around Darren and not more sensitive members of the class who might get butthurt about it and snitch to the teachers.

”Ok, sure! Let’s just go on to the—“ the American had already started moving toward the nearest ring, unfortunately moving right in reach of the soldier who had just told them both to ‘come at them’. Alex, being the socially off individual that he was, saw basically nothing wrong with how the military man was asking and was ready to walk right by him until he caught a knife hand to the throat and a punch to the gut in quick succession that floored him in an instant. It took the boy completely by surprise and he couldn’t even process the attack fast enough to even attempt to fight back. He basically just fell forwards in a heap while clutching at his throat and coughing in an attempt to breathe.

Okay. Now he was pissed. At first, this was just a friendly way to get some training in with some military guys. Those fuckers just made this personal, and as he hit the ground beside the Lieutenant he reached out with his quirk to yank as hard as he possibly could at the ankle of the bastard who just floored him to make that fucker’s face hit the ground as violently as possible. The whole struggling to breathe part made it to where the American couldn’t exactly physically move too much aside from writhing in pain on the ground for a couple of seconds, but he could definitely still lash out with his quirk -- and by God he was going to!

Had it not been for the quirk, Private Tsukishima Keiji might have just laughed a little at how easy it was to utterly ground pound the kid with the red-eyes. Sure, one could argue that it was a sucker punch and by all rights it was. But, then again, these kids were training to be these supposed heroes, right? Considering where they found themselves and under what pretenses, they should've expected this coming. Especially after that other delinquent opened his mouth. And yet the second something tugged at his leg Keiji found his view of the world shifting, his sturdy frame slowly going prone. It wasn't until a knee met his gut out of nowhere that the Private has groaned aloud, confusion that was very quickly replaced with anger flooding his veins.

Private Takeuchi Rentaro was, for better or worse, not fast enough to react to Darren's high-speed movement. As trained as he was, this was one of the very few times he was facing a quirk user head on. The few times he had gone up against one it was always someone who he was told was an 'emitter' type - someone who could use some kind of ability externally. He wasn't too aware of people who could actually modify their bodies and enhance them, but, then again, this was valuable training, he reckoned.

As Tsukishima fell, Takeuchi acted almost immediately. Darren wouldn't even have enough time to reach the ground before two hits would smash against his torso, all with the same hand. The first was directly to his stomach, likely knocking the air out of him. The next, a very quick successor - an uppercut crashing directly into the blond's jaw. Using this momentum and the opening to the Aussie's neck, the soldier very firmly grasped it, his fingers clasping against Darren's skin without a shred of care, and then he proceeded to slam the younger male into the ground, raising his other fist up before he would proceed to beat the kid senseless.

Tsukishima, for his part, growled the second he hit the floor, his mind a little hazy, yet infuriated him all the same. These little shits... he growled under his breath, eyes manic with rage. A rage that turned slightly smug when he saw Takeuchi make short work of the kid that had managed to blindside him. Glaring back at Alexander, Tsukishima Keiji was very painfully aware of the arm that had his leg locked. Without a shred of hesitation, the male spun in his prone position, thus flipping himself over onto his back. His free leg kicked at the shadow, immediately making it burst into shadowy pieces before he continued his spinning motion. On the ground, sideways from the red-eyed kid, Tsukishima raised his leg and brought his heel down, aiming directly for Alex's chest in an attempt to end this dumb shit of a fight as soon as inhumanly possible.

They had the reputation of the military to uphold, and there was no way they'd be sucker punched but two good-for-nothing kids with a bark that was clearly louder than their bite. Spunk? Sure, they had spunk. What would now be tested was how far that would get them.

Cool. His maneuver had worked, and the soldier he was facing off against didn’t immediately rush back and was likely trying to figure out how the delinquent’s quirk worked. That was the ideal situation, but the student also knew he could not come to rely on people not knowing what his quirk did long term because it was so distinctive the first time he went public with it everyone would know if the incident was big enough just like with Darkshine and the Tokyo Hospital incident. For now, though, he would take any advantage he could get because he knew damned well that a grapple would have ended the fight instantly with a guy that strong and able to just smash through his quirk. If the guy had any sort of offensive quirk in addition to strength like that, Alex would have already lost this decisively. There was still a huge gap between where he was and where he needed to be, and until that gap was closed he needed to be extremely clever since he was not strong. He couldn’t just brute force this, or he would just lose as badly as he almost did just now.

He had a bunch of shadow built up behind him, and the soldier in front of him raised his arm and made absolutely no move to attack to buy Alex yet more time to think this through. Suddenly, though, he had an idea and just decided to execute without giving himself time to doubt himself. If the delay was meant to fuck with him, it wouldn’t work. His quirk moving out, since it was all concentrated behind him, would naturally be visible so that meant he needed a distraction and an actual attack. He went all in on attacking, because he knew damn well that if he half assed this then the guy would just come charging in twice as pissed as before. He needed to put the soldier on the back foot and press the advantage by attacking, because if he was ever put on defense again the best he would be able to do was create distance and run for his life against any grapple attempts. Eventually, the soldier would be able to grab hold of him and he would be fucked if he played defensive. It was admitting defeat, basically, because to be defensive in this scenario was to refuse to even attempt to win, and that just wasn’t the style of Alexander Deraine. Winning was worth playing with a lot of risk, even when that risk included massive bodily harm. What kind of hero would he be if he just resigned himself to lying down and dying in a combat simulation, after all?

He split all of his shadow matter into two directions at first, and a third several seconds later. The first direction was directly in front of him and used roughly a tenth of the shadow matter he had accumulated, but looked like far more because he actively stretched out that matter as far as it would go quite literally. It coalesced into what amounted to a wet slime cascade that charged towards the soldier solely to look spooky and catch his attention. He didn’t directly telepathically control that attack except to guide its direction, and it would do nothing except feel disgusting and gross even if it did hit. It was basically just slime expanded to look as big as possible, and would generally act like the same.

Roughly a fifth of the matter shot out to the left at the same time, and skated across the ground very rapidly using the middle attack as a cover. This one was partially telepathically controlled and would actively follow the soldier if he moved to dodge, and would skate across the ground until it hit the soldier’s feet and just sit there as liquid until the third attack was imminent, where it was solidify like concrete to fuck with the guy’s ability to dodge. The guy was definitely strong enough to break out of it, but it would take his attention and trick him into looking down at least for a moment was the hope while the third attack came through.

The third attack would fire off about two seconds after the first two were off to the races, and held four fifths of the shadow matter that the delinquent had accumulated. This attack would circle wide and hit a few seconds later than the other two and ideally fire off behind the soldier when he was focused in a completely different direction. This attack was carefully kept as close to ground level as possible, and was kept as far out of the warfighter’s likely line of sight as was humanly possible. This attack was the primary one that the delinquent was controlling telepathically, and would both follow the soldier generally and also actively dodge any strikes made against it if needed. If it got close enough to attack, it would use roughly a tenth of the matter to reinforce or redo the gumming up of the soldier’s feet and the rest would quickly shoot up to roughly the back of the enemy’s head before slamming down on the soldier’s back with full momentum plus whatever force gravity decided to provide in turn.

Whether this was successful or not, if the matter wasn’t destroyed immediately all of the shadow matter in the area would then come back up and do the same attack again with hopefully even more shadow matter and thus weight to work with to just pummel the guy whether it merely knocked him off balance or flattened him on the ground. Against almost anyone else, the delinquent would try to bind them to the ground but that strategy was useless when his enemy was strong enough to straight up overpower his constructs. No, he needed to keep the construct mobile and offensive and just use it like martial artists used punches and kicks. He would feint, and then attack from behind and get that bastard off his feet as quickly as possible.