The things I do for collectibles [Jaz]

Jasmine coming in was a complication, and a huge one. The naked surprise and dismay on his face lasted for several seconds, and the soldier had picked up on that immediately. Her bet was five, and he knew damn well that she wouldn’t make that bet unless she knew she could do it. She was using his own fucking trick against him, and that was annoying as hell. Luckily for Alex, however, he was always quick to come up with a new plan when his initial one didn’t work. He just had to pivot the conversation away from one singular person getting all the winnings and convince the soldier, and then Jasmine would have to follow suit. The issue, of course, was convincing his original mark and then actually making sure he wasn’t the sucker in the end.

”How about this, since we have a new comer?” he started, voice smooth as silk. ”Let’s turn this into a tournament with a little twist. Let’s say a hundred thousand yen down, but only the loser pays out. First place gets two thirds, second place gets one third, and third place gets fucked.” he offered, gaze floating around the room. ”Surely you’re confident that you can beat one of us, right?” he offered, nakedly challenging the soldier who he had originally pinned as a mark. ”Same rules as before. No quirk usage. No spotter. Bar must touch chest. Unassisted reps only, and if you stall and need help that rep does not count. If there’s a tie, a five minute wait and then a pushup contest to failure will decide the winner. Sound good?”

”That girl’s one of yours, right? Some sort of strength quirk?”

”Nope! This girl’s quirk right here is explosions. Not really the most useful thing in picking things up.”

Luckily, the soldier seemed to accept this. The look of dismayed surprise on his face when Jasmine showed up was enough for him, it seemed like, to accept that whatever new complication the girl was that it wasn’t good for the delinquent.

”Fine, but I go first. Your max is two, or else you would have bet higher.” the soldier responded, a confident grin spreading across his face as he did so. ”So I just need to do three.” he concluded, his logic not really wrong.

This was a complication, and not a good one. Truth be told, Alex had no idea how many reps the guy could do. He just saw him struggling with it earlier and thought he could come in with an easy scam and walk away with a good chunk of change. Jasmine coming in complicated things severely, because he knew damn well he couldn’t beat her and made the mistake of not covering his surprise and dismay when she had originally entered the scene. The most he had ever done at this weight is three, and that was an abnormally good day for him. If this guy could also do three, even if the delinquent did do it he would be at a disadvantage because the soldier would have more rest time for the pushup competition.

Fucking hell.

”Fine. You go first, then me, and then Jaz.” the delinquent noted, voice back to detached and neutral.

The soldier had a grin that threatened to split his face in half as he went over to the bench and did roughly thirty seconds of adjusting his hands, feet, and body just right in order to pull the weight off the bar. He fucked up slightly and caught the weight for a second when he pulled it off the rack, which was good. It was wasted energy, which boded well for Alex not being forced to pay out a huge sum of money he absolutely did not have. The first rep was fast, which was the ideal. The less time holding up the weight meant that the energy that the guy did have was used efficiently and not wasted holding up a bar in ‘useless’ time. The second rep was noticeably shakier, and by the third rep it was clear the guy was straining. The son of a bitch stalled on number four, but powered through to clumsily re-rack the weight after he had managed to touch the bar to his chest to make it count.

Fucking hell.

The soldier got up with the grin returning to his face and gestured grandly for the delinquent to take his place on the bench. ”Hope you’re ready to pay up, kiddo.” he noted, giving a wink to Jasmine as he did so. ”Thanks for the save.”

Alex himself took a deep breath and sat down on the bench feeling the pressure. If he was last place, he was fucked. He didn’t have nearly enough money to cover this, and four was more than he had ever done before with this weight. Fucking hell. Most of the time, his bright ideas seemed to work out… but when they didn’t or were foiled by the dastardly forces of Class 1-A and other dastardly villains it usually ended up very bad for him.

He laid down on his back, though, and spent roughly the same thirty seconds adjusting every inch of his body until he had achieved what he thought to be the optimal position down to the millimeter. He would need it for this, because he had absolutely no faith that Jasmine would do less than four. The American lifted the bar off the rack perfectly without any hitching, which was absolutely fantastic. The weight was extremely heavy, being basically double his body weight. His first rep was slower than the soldier’s, mostly because the delinquent was always much more of a technique person who meticulously followed form even when it was to his own detriment out of muscle memory. Number two featured a sharp and very audible exhale and was a little bit faster, with his arms shaking a little bit at the end of it. The third one was a fucking struggle, with a stall on the way back up that lasted roughly five uncomfortable seconds before he finally powered through that wall with a guttural grunt of an exhale that was much noisier than the previous contestant.

The only reason he even tried for number four was because he was completely fucked if he didn’t at least match the soldier. His arms were very visibly shaking and his back was arched more prominently than the previous reps as he went down, and the bar stalled for another five seconds or so as he audibly struggled with getting the damned thing back up mightily. It did go back up, though, inch by excruciating inch. His first attempt to re-rack the weight failed, because he was unable to lift the bar enough to actually make it above the raised portion of the rack so it just banged noisily against the metal. Attempt number two, however, he managed to just barely get it over with his arms still shaking after a massive struggle.

The delinquent popped back up, clearly flustered, and went back to his previous spot without a word as he continuously rotated his shoulders in preparation for the pushup competition to come to get out any residual tightness in the muscles. He fully expected and was mentally prepared to get embarrassed by Jasmine doing some obscene number of reps next beyond the five she had said to flex on both of them or whatever, mostly because there was no way in hell she would raise the stakes so high unless she was confident she could smash both Alex and the soldier. It would make no sense, and it wasn’t a secret that the girl was probably the best pure fighter in the school for the moment. There were many who were flat out afraid of her, and from what the boy had heard about her combat style that fear wasn’t exactly unwarranted.

Well, this wasn’t the best thing to ever happen to him. Jaz had more trouble with her bench press than he expected, but that still didn’t change the fact that he was tied for last place and needed to ensure that he was not the last one by beating the soldier. It was possible that he underestimated the girl’s physical strength, and it was just rumored by weaklings who used their own lack of any physical ability as a baseline.

Well, with that done it seemed like there would be three rounds of pushups. His arms were still dead from the earlier run, but he pulled along briskly. ”Let’s do it this way. One at a time, the other two verifying that the chest hits the ground on the way down and the elbows hit a straight position on the way back up. If that doesn’t happen, the rep doesn’t count. I think it would be fair to go in order of who did the benching, with no time limit but any movement to sit or stand up or put the knees to the ground will be counted as you being finished. The longer you take, the longer the people after you have to rest.”

The soldier grinned and said something that the delinquent didn’t even pay attention to, a taunt probably before getting in position and doing his set of pushups. The man’s strategy was quite clear, to speed through a bunch of pushups in order to get it all over with as quickly as possible and try to make sure he never lost the initial high cadence to his reps in order to bust out more than he otherwise would be able to. He did his initial forty at lightning speed, but then faltered for a few moments before visibly and audibly straining in doing the next ten at a slower but still brisk pace. He then finished with two more pushups that required immense struggle before attempting his fifty-third one and collapsing to the ground and then conceding his turn by standing up.

Well, this was bad. For just maxing out a short time ago, fifty-two was a solid number. The truth of the matter was, while Alex had made great strides in this regard since coming to U.A. he was never exactly known as the endurance type of guy. Sure, he had improved, but fifty-two was a respectable number and he didn’t know if he could beat it… if he played fair, that is. Lucky for him, he made sure there was no time limit and that meant the only thing he was held back by was how long he was willing to make an absolute ass of himself. The fact of the matter was that he was absolutely willing to make as big of an ass of himself as he needed in order to ensure he wasn’t last, because the alternative was unthinkable.

He got down into position and then just started doing reps. Unlike the soldier, the delinquent did not explode upwards with each rep, nor did he do his reps quickly. He did each rep slowly and deliberately, focusing on form over speed. He was not in this to make a show of it or to prove how strong he was or how flashy he could be… he was in it to not be fucked over by his own arrogance and only in a position to dig himself out of the hole that he was in because he had slipped in a cheat code in the rules that let him do this for as long as he wanted. He was fifteen reps in, now, and his total time had already eclipsed the time it took for the soldier to do his fifty-two.

The pace did not change, either to get slower or faster. The pace was set intentionally slow so that it was easier in the beginning, and the time between reps would not lengthen noticeably until he was really exhausted. Since the entire process basically let himself shut off his brain as long as he kept rhythm but was monotonously boring as hell, his thoughts wandered pretty early on. Twenty-five in and he was already daydreaming about how great everything was going to be when everything finally clicked for him, when all of this training and all of this hard work would finally pay off.

Oh man, he could see it now. A big old stage at graduation, with the graduating class called out in order of ranking. He was first, obviously, first of all because this was his daydream and also because he would have long since vanquished his mortal foe and then fought back and forth with a couple of other top ranking hero candidates before reclaiming his spot in the last ranking to graduate as the top student at U.A. Now, who was on that stage with him rounding out the top ten? It was hard to tell this early on, but given what he knew now he had a good idea. He was now thirty-five pushups in and his pace was starting to slow enough to be noticed, his arms were aching but he willed his daydream to take up most of his active concentration so that he didn’t focus on the pain or the fact that his arms were starting to shake a bit now.

Yumi and Darren, of course, would be in the top ten. Naoru and Kutsu with their confidence built up and actually able to use their quirks to their full potential would be up there as well. That makes five 1-C students up there, and just the thought of five of them being in the top ten was enough to make the delinquent crack a smile that quickly threatened to split his face in two. Risaka would be up there too, if she ever managed to learn how to work with others and not be so self-centric. That made six from his class, but there were some students from other classes he couldn’t just ignore. Forty pushups now, his pace was continuing to slow and his arms were shaking even more than before.

Tetsuko would be up there, she was too much of a zealot to not will herself into that elite tier of students. Miku was another one from 1-B that would be up there, again she was too stubborn not to be. Someone needed to be the rock that kept that weakling Akio from getting sent to the hospital every time some random tried to snag a candy bar from the grocery store. The entrants from 1-A were obvious, and one of them was going after him in the pushup competition. Rin and Jaz would be up there, too, and would round out the top ten. He was now forty-eight pushups in, and he could visualize all of them on that stage. There was this giant crowd, all clapping and going absolutely batshit wild as Darkshine gave them all medals or something. It was his daydream, alright? Might as well throw everything he could in there!

By the time he made it to fifty, his pace had halved from his initial slow and deliberate speed to the point where it was almost absurd. His chest was still touching the ground and his elbows still went straight for every rep, though, even if he did take a few seconds to rest on the ground before the next rep. His knees never conceded defeat, so he was still in the game. The soldier was done with his entire set in approximately two minutes, give or take about thirty seconds. By the time he hit his fifty-first rep, Alex was probably around ten minutes and counting in time spent on ‘his turn’. At this glacial pace, using his advantages in form to waste as little energy as possible and the advantage he got from catching rest periods as needed in between reps, he was able to continue even though his arms were noticeably shaking and he had clearly past the point where any reasonable person would have stopped about two minutes ago. Still, he continued that pace through sheer stubbornness and force of will until a few minutes later when he had managed to push out a sixtieth rep and his arms finally collapsed. This resulting in a face plant to the ground which made his knees touch the ground, forfeiting his turn.

He legitimately did not have any feeling in either of his arms, and had to awkwardly get up mostly by generating force with his legs. He didn’t even look at the soldier or Jaz as he returned to his starting position, mostly because he was well aware of how he had abused the rules to get that high of a count and didn’t really consider it an accomplishment. There was probably some complaining during the time he spent doing his set, but he was so zoned out in that daydream that he didn’t even notice. He wasn’t last, and that was really all that mattered.

The goal of this entire scenario was done. He hadn’t lost, and that in and of itself was good enough for the American at this point. He wasn’t fucked, so he didn’t really care what happened after this. His arms felt like bags of stone attached to his torso, and every ounce of his earlier bravado was completely gone. He was really just done with this whole situation and wanted to leave, he didn’t even care about the money anymore. The delinquent had humiliated himself good and well today, so while he had not lost the victory was hollow and came at a cost that he wasn’t very happy with. The soldiers he would likely never see again, so he did not care for their scorn. They were insignificant as far as Alex was concerned, and he couldn’t care less what a bunch of randoms thought about him in this context.

Jasmine, though, was a different animal. Like it or not, he was stuck with her being around for the next few years. Like it or not, he wouldn’t manage to avoid her forever. He had never seen it in action, but it wasn’t hard to get the gist of her quirk from others who had. Explosions. Big booms that generated light and huge bursts of kinetic energy that trashed her opponents. Even if his number one goal wasn’t to defeat Rin at the present, a quirk like that he didn’t really need to see in action to know it was pointless to train with her in combat. It was the type of quirk that he would lose to pretty thoroughly and would negate his ability to function well if they even teamed up due to that light generation. Darren and Yumi both wanted a crack at her, anyway, so hopefully that would occupy her attention for long enough for the American to slip through the cracks and steal that number one spot from right under her nose.

He didn’t need to beat her to get the spot as number one, but he did need to beat Rin. Once he got it, he would have to work around the fact that his quirk was countered by the new #2 or hope that someone eventually beats her good and publicly so that the pressure to win against her becomes little to nonexistent. Those were problems that weren’t his just yet, though, because he still needed to do the hard part and get that top spot in the first place. Anything that came after that point, he would deal with once he got there.

When Jasmine started the pushups, the delinquent didn’t even bother to keep a mental track of the number. Once she started doing them one handed, he knew she was done doing whatever she had been doing before in terms of sandbagging. This was about what he expected to begin with, for her to be significantly better than he was physically. Why wouldn’t she be? Someone like Darren had been training essentially his entire life to be a better fighter, and Jasmine was his bitter rival and if his classmate’s soreness on the topic was any indication… she likely has won at least one fight with Darren so far. Darren was an absolutely fantastic in his own right as a combatant, so that meant that Jaz was better. Skill like that didn’t come overnight, and the fact of the matter was that the delinquent never expected to catch up to someone with that much more experience than he did. He was a decent lifter, that was all good and well, but the fact of the matter was that he wasn’t anything special beyond in a normal gym being one of the strongest if not the strongest there despite his low body weight.

By the time Jasmine got up, to be honest the American was zoned the fuck out and barely aware of what was happening. The soldier, though, was paying rapturous attention and immediately was on the backpedal when the girl turned to him for the money.

“Well, uh, I need to get my wallet. I’ll be right back. I’ll be right out. I just need to go to the locker room real quick to get it.” He sputtered, holding his hands in front of him as he backed off and retreated back into the locker room if nobody stopped him. He was getting jeers from the other soldiers who had gathered to watch, losing to a woman and a teenager much scrawnier than he was. That wasn’t exactly the most awe-inspiring combination for any man in good standing to lose to, so it was an unfortunate situation for him.

As for Alex, he was still just kinda standing there staring into space. It was entirely possible that he was simply wasting his time here, and in gyms like this in general he had just realized. He would never be able to overcome the enormous leads that someone like Jasmine had over him even over a span as large as three years. He had been working his ass off since coming to U.A. in June, and he was still nowhere close. He had to cheat, essentially, to even beat a quirkless human and the hotshot from 1-A was doing the exercises one handed in a cocky display of superiority over both of them. Matching physical strength for physical strength was not something that was ever going to happen, so maybe it was time for him to stop trying and focus on what he could make happen.