A Rather Big Maze

This was perhaps the only event that he made sure that Aki was not with him for. Rescue Operations, except this time with a maritime element. He had to google what maritime meant, but once he learned it meant something about being underwater he made sure to come to the sign up area alone. He knew he wasn’t going to do very well, he was a poor swimmer and his quirk was pretty bad in moving water. It would likely be pretty embarrassing, so he didn’t want the wildling girl to see it. He didn’t necessarily mind looking silly sometimes in front of her, but he hated the idea of seeming pathetic again. He hated being looked at like that, and he didn’t want it to ever happen again if he could control it.

He got a little lost finding the sign-up area since he had gotten a bit distracted by how cool the place looked and managed to slip through the staff undetected while they were distracted but wasn’t exactly too worried about it because he was sure he was going to sign something or other before the training. It wasn’t like he was going to be mistaken for a member of the military with the getup he had on currently. Light grey shirt, leather jacket, thick denim jeans, and deerskin gloves made up his current ensemble – far from any sort of military uniform. Eventually he did get stopped by a worker, and was led over to the signup area after the American asked for directions. He thought he heard someone obnoxiously yelling at a volume far too loud for an indoors environment, but it was distorted through the walls so he couldn’t exactly get a good read on who it was or what they were saying. They might even be outside, but the amount of volume required to talk that loud with be as impressive as it was annoying.

When he walked into the room, the boy’s face lit up when he saw his friend Risaka sitting in one of the chairs already. ”Oh, hey Risaka! It looks like we’re teaming up for this again, huh?” he blurted out, the excitement clear as day in his voice. ”Oh, that’s super lucky! I’m glad you’re my partner, you’re really good!” he continued, almost bouncing along in excitement as he grabbed one of the sign up sheets and a pen and started scribbling down answers right there on the table without bothering to take a seat. He filled out the form haphazardly, not really putting any thought into his answers. Truth be told, he was kind of just hoping that nobody looked at it too closely before they let them in the training room. Once he had completed the training, he was out so he didn’t really care if things were incomplete or the answers given were only barebones. It wasn’t his problem, at the end of the day. It was theirs.

Oh, this was going to be fun. Risaka and Alex had done a rescue operation in a flood simulation in their first week at the school, and it might have even been his monochrome friend’s first day of classes. They went as far back as any dynamic duo at Yuuei, and he was excited at the prospect of getting another round of training with his buddy. Hopefully this time he would be a little more useful than last time, and he would be especially if it was standing water this time instead of just some crap running water. Running water is awful and the shadows moved too fast for him to reliably use them for any constructions for more than a few seconds, but stagnant water was just fine. The only thing that would hold him back if it was stagnant water was his own poor swimming skills, but if the water wasn’t deep enough to require swimming then he was golden. He had no idea what to expect from a training like this, so his mind was racing with the possibilities. It was advertised as a maritime exercise he was pretty sure, so he was positive water would be involved somehow or some way. Otherwise it would be false advertising, and the military wouldn’t do that – right?

Ah, crap. They were required to get into these wetsuits, which definitely meant that there was going to be a lot of water. It wasn’t exactly a secret that the American wasn’t the strongest swimmer at U.A., so this would be pretty interesting to see if the suit did anything to help that deficiency. Kirk was probably a good swimmer, he was super athletic and seemed to compulsively work out like a drug addict scratched their neck or something. He knew Risaka could do it because she carried him through the flood rescue earlier on in the year, so he just needed to do something and he was solid.

When it was revealed that the state of the art rescue center only had one locker room, the delinquent cocked his head to the side. That didn’t make any sense at all. They went super ham on putting in artificial woodland for a paintball arena, but chose to cut costs here of all places? When the guy told Risaka to change in the bathroom, a grimace passed over the delinquent’s face. If their staging area was this shitty, how bad would the actual rescue simulation be? Maybe this wasn’t the facility that he was hoping it would be.

When the guy was out of earshot talking to Kirk and they were all in the locker room, Alex voiced his frustrations with bad humor like he normally did to Risaka in a low voice. ”Hopefully the rescue simulation isn’t a blow up doll in a swimming pool or something.” he commented, with absolutely no amusement in his voice. He was much less excited for this now that the shit budget of the area was uncovered. There were wetsuits with sizes marked on the walls, and Alex just grabbed one and went to the locker his key was assigned to – number nine. He wasn’t exactly in the mood for too much more conversation at the moment, so he just opened his locker and changed into the wetsuit quickly while stuffing the rest of his shit in the locker and kicked the locker closed as he struggled to get the suit fully on a bit more than most because he had accidentally caught a part of it on a nearby bench without realizing it for several seconds and was wondering why his pulling of the suit wasn’t having any effect.

Once he managed to get the damn thing on, hopefully without ripping it or something, he felt really weird. The entire thing felt like he was being encased in Play-Doh or something weird. It didn’t feel like clothes, it felt like some weird synthetic coating like on plastic or something. ”I’ve never had one of these on before. I feel like I’m smothered in plastic wrap.” he said aloud, his mind going to a different comparison on how weird this wetsuit felt every few seconds. Unfortunately for him, he was next up to be interrogated by the overexcited military man, who went over and without any permission started ‘fixing’ parts of the wetsuit that Alex had put on less than optimally as he read over his sheet.

”So it says here that your quirk lets you create stuff from shadow, do you need any extra accomodations for your quirk to work? You weren’t very detailed in your description, here, and wanted to make sure.” he said in a tone that was about five levels of energy higher than the American’s own.

”No, I just need shadow. If it’s stagnant water, I’m really useful. If it’s running water, I’m less useful.” he said, his red gaze meeting the military man’s in what amounted to boredom and his tone reflected the same sentiment.

”It also says here that you rate your swimming skills a ‘3’, would you like some flippers to assist in your ability to complete the course?” the man continued, either not noticing or not caring at how disinterested the delinquent was.

”Sure, I could take some flippers. Thank you.” the boy replied, for the first time his voice approaching something closer to friendliness as the diver walked across the room briefly and hollered out, ”What shoe size?” to which Alexander replied simply that his size was 28cm and was tossed a pair of flippers that would hopefully fit him.

He pulled the things on, visibly a bit more cheery and willing to be excited about whatever was going to come because he felt like he wouldn’t just automatically be the load on the team like was last time. With the flippers he might even be able to kind of keep up with his two teammates, which would be a nice change of pace when it came to maritime missions in general. He was at home on solid ground, but knew that heroes didn’t exactly get to choose where and when disaster struck and he had to be ready to go on and perform a rescue in any environment so any experience in potential disaster environments that were not exactly his comfort zone was a great experience that he would try and learn from as much as possible.

If his goal was to catch the attention of the Number One Hero of Japan, he needed to be able to tackle any sort of challenge that was thrown in front of him once trainings in U.A. became more public. There was no way to predict when and if any demonstrations would be made with U.A. students, and when or if his idol would even be watching any of them. If she only watched one exercise, no matter how unsuited for the task Alex felt himself to be he needed to be able to excel in it. That meant he had to get good at everything, because he never knew what the magic moment that he could strut his stuff would be so if that meant running around in an under budget water simulation course a time or two with two classmates, then so be it. It was a time investment he was willing to make, multiple times if he felt it was necessary.