Monkey Showdown! [Darren][Semper Fi]

“Me!” said someone annoying.

The obstacle course was fun. He ran it the first day with Oliver. It was a good workout, but it made him realize one thing. He had been trying to improve the power output and endurance of his quirk through the practice of, among other things, skydiving without a parachute while hugging the class president -- it was complicated.

While he definitely needed to improve the output of his momentum generation should he wish to fight the likes of Jaz, the obstacle course reminded him that he needed finer control as well. He had always unconsciously figured that sometimes, a lesser amount of power meant that he could direct it better, the same way a racecar driver braked before a corner so as to clear it faster.

Not only that, but clambering over an obstacle with small activations of his power kept him unpredictable and conserved stamina. Any fighter worth its salt knew how important these things were. As such, he decided to check out the obstacle course again. It was good practice; practice that he desperately needed.

And today, he spotted the perfect person to practice with, or probably against, given both their relationship and his proclamation which Darren readily answered. He walked up to the starting line, side by side with Yoruhi. He greeted him with a bow that was more mocking than respectful.

“My liege,” he satirized in a faux-polite tone. “I came to thee on thine fhine day thee challenge thine excellence thy Monkey King henceforth to a race for thine crown.” It was becoming increasingly clear that Darren had little to no idea about how to speak politely, but that much was probably already clear as day to the fiery boy of 1-A.

The blonde delinquent of 1-C smiled, and for a second a serious look passed over his eyes. It was a challenge, after all, and he hated losing in both fights and contests of speed. It was personal. He was the god damn speedster of UA, and he wasn’t about to get overtaken by a monkey boy, god damn it.

And to top it off, Yoruhi was a 1-A kid. While he launched the idea of inter-class wars as a joke, before Alex took it way too seriously, the class did feature some of the strongest students in school. He knew his classmates would be disappointed if he lost here.

“Ready when you are,” he said mustering his most confident smile.

“Dead serious,” Darren said with a smile and a very not serious tone. I think that guy hates me, he thought to himself, ever since that thing with the redhead in Support Studies. He recalled that he saw her holding hands with a white-haired boy once. Doing nothing to help his reputation in Yoruhi’s eyes, he decided to poke fun at him when he saw him grumble something to himself. His ever-annoying elbow poked at the fire boy’s ribs.

“Hey now, Dumpster Fire, don’t be miffed. If you love her, let her go,” he said, doubling down on the overly dramatic gestures, not even sure if Yoru would even understand what he was talking about. Nothing about his voice, his words or the nickname he just found him spoke of respect, compassion or empathy. It was just Darren being Darren, ever pushing the boundaries of shitposting out of the internet and into real life.

Nonetheless, Dumpster Fire took him up on the challenge. Soon, they lined up and a private shouted a countdown. Before he could fire the blank that would announce the beginning of the race, Darren turned to Yoruhi, and for the first time, he addressed him in a tone that was a little serious. “By the way, nice job at the music night.” He didn’t need or want to say more; the 1-A boy knew what he was talking about. A loud bang was heard, and they were off.

Since the obstacles had no particular order, the delinquent followed, letting Yoruhi take the lead. He wasn’t using his quirk, so in the interest of fairness and a fun contest, Darren didn’t either.

Yoruhi was a little faster when they ran, probably thanks to his parkour experience. Darren ran slower, with the rhythmical breathing of a boxer doing his roadwork. Soon they were upon the first obstacle, a series of railings like those which could be found surrounding stairs. Dumpster fire leapt over them gracefully. Darren grabbed it and pulled himself over forcefully. Again, Yoruhi was a little faster. The delinquent wouldn’t waste any time and was on the pursuit once again, his breathing like the buzzing of a fly behind the fiery boy’s back.

The next obstacle was a ladder, a giant wooden one. They has to clamber to the top, get their legs over and clamber down. Darren jumped on the ladder a second after the other kid and started climbing vigorously.

Yoru was a quick bastard, he had to give him that, but Darren was a tenacious one. If the quick bastard wanted the keep the lead, he’d have to contend with an annoying bastard on his heels.

It seemed like Darren’s girl-related jokes hit the wall that was Yoruhi’s sense of humor and fell flat on the ground. Too bad, shrugged the delinquent. He was confident in his ability to find another way to poke fun at Yoruhi, eventually. He was a renowned expert on the subject.

Maybe there was an angle with the music night, given Yoruhi's surprised reaction right as they broke into their initial acceleration. He sarcastically commented on the “noise” they had played that night, which made Darren grin. “Likewise,” he answered, referring to the drum break he’d used to shut everyone up. It had been very rock n’ roll. “Come bang those drugs with us anytime. Maybe Levi will stop bitching at me and my hands if we have a drummer.”

There was no more time for talking or shit-talking however as they reached the first obstacles. As expected, Yoru was no slouch. Jumping over those bars seemed like it was second nature to him, and he didn’t bother with the last three steps of the ladder, jumping off and landing smoothly, barely breaking up his pace over the obstacles.

Darren’s own style of parkour was a lot rougher than his opponent in the lead. In fact, it would even be a little insulting to its practitioners to call what he was doing “parkour”. He lost a few precious seconds over the bars, as jumping was something he usually did with his quirk. He had to catch up over the ladder, and he had an idea: if Yoru was skipping three bars, then he would skip four!

This ‘genius’ plan in mind, the delinquent jumped off the ladder with a war cry. It was quite the height to fall off from, enough that a bad landing might cause a serious injury, but Darren was used to seeing the ground get closer very fast. His legs were used to the impact, and muscle memory made him transition into a judo forward roll.

He managed to catch up a bit to Dumpster Fire with his little stunt, but his roll was meant to absorb the impact of a rough landing, not convert it into forward momentum, so the fiery boy was still a few steps ahead. None the matter, Darren tried to convince himself, but it was very much the matter. He was forced to admit that firecracker boy was a lot better at this than he was.

A far cry from the gracefully smooth navigation of the obstacles Yoruhi showed off, Darren went over them in a mad scramble. He almost fell a couple times over the suspended bridge, barely catching his balance, relying on strength and grit to push himself through. He still lost precious seconds.

The next obstacle was net-crawling. Finally, though Darren, something I can do. He dove under the net, eating dirt on the way, and thanks to his upper body strength, pushed on the ground, chasing after Yoruhi.

Maybe he wouldn’t overtake him, but the fiery boy certainly wouldn’t leave him in his dust either.

What a cheeky bastard, though the delinquent with another one of his grins as Yoru answered him. It would be hard to burn any grin off Darren’s face; a new one would grow right back up as he did. “Hey, if you like beating your drum all by yourself better, your choice,” he answered, innuendo very much intended. What was a little shit talking between the boys?

After that comment, though, there wouldn’t be any time left for pleasantries. Crawling under the net allowed him to regain a couple seconds, but he was still well behind Yoruhi. It was annoying, having to chase him for so long; a quick burst of Autokinesis and it would be over. But Darren was competitive, and fiercely so, and so far, Kid Firecracker -- he really couldn’t decide on a nickname -- had managed to outpace him without using his own quirk, so the blonde delinquent would never allow himself to fire his away before his adversary.

And again, he displayed his monkey-like agility, jumping from rope to rope like a god damn bishonen Tarzan. It was infuriating how well Yoruhi could move around without the help of any quirk; ever since his first manifested, Darren had always associated quick movement with quirk usage, believing no human could match him in sheer mobility. And he was being proven oh-so-wrong right now, enough that it began to tug at his ego incessantly, like a kid who kept asking his mom why they couldn't go home on the day she had to bring him to work making her reconsidering her whole career.

He felt a delinquent’s warcry rise from his chest and get past his lips without him having any say in it. “ORRRAAAAAA!” he shouted, like a third-rate direct-to-TV movie delinquent, and the shout gave him a second wind as he dashed for the ropes and leap heroically through the air to catch the first one, as did Yoruhi. For a moment, the delinquent thought he looked pretty slick, daringly leaping through the air, like an albatross or some other kind of bird with a similarly kickass name.

But then came the time to grab the rope, and boy did it burn. Despite his natural toughness, he had to make a conscious effort to keep clenching his fists on the rope and fight against the primal instincts that screamed at him to let go. As with the rest of the course, Darren's crossing of the rope obstacle was less an exercise in grace and precision than it was a show of strength.

Indeed, the delinquent missed the last rope and caught it too low to cross the last hurdle. His instincts kicked in and he pulled himself up impressively fast -- rope climbing was a cheap and extremely efficient way to train upper body strength, which were the two things Darren looked for in a training exercise, so he was used to it. He barely made use of his leg as he climbed the rope like a hungry tiger climbing a tree atop which delicious-looking prey were trying and failing to retreat to. He certainly had the same look in his eyes.

Nonetheless, he had lost a good amount of time, and his chances to press behind Yoruhi all the way to the finish line vanished. Or so he thought. He saw the dumpster fire kid jump on to the next obstacle and fall down into the water.

A chance! Without looking at what it was, Darren ran here with all his might, charging the obstacle like a bull. It proved to be just as fatal a mistake for him as it had been for Yoru, or perhaps even more so. He leaped over bravely and landed on the third log. It immediately rolled, throwing his leg back. He made a split-second demonstration of his incredible balance for a second here as he reflexively slammed his other foot down on the log. It was not the first time the fighter had the ground swept off his feet; he was familiar with the feeling.

What he was not familiar with however was the log. His other foot slipped just as beautifully on the spinning log, sending the blondie head-first into the next log and sinking in the water sadly, like a children's toy dropped in the water, disappearing unceremoniously under the surface of the water.

Bubbles came to the surface for a few seconds, and then Darren’s head emerged, a red bruise clearly imprinted on his forehead, as well as an exaggerated, but very genuine look of defeat on his face. Even when he failed the obstacles, Yoruhi failed them better.

“Fine, fine, I lose,” conceded the delinquent. “We’re not about to run the fucking hundred meter sprint to the finish line, are we?”

Every right the blondie had to laugh at the firecracker kid, he lost them instantly with his earlier stunt, transferring them back to Yoruhi with interest.