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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2018 12:23:43 GMT -4
”I mean, there’s like a water sink inside and I usually just scrape off the paint with my quirk. It doesn’t take too long and gets at least most of it off.” he called out over his shoulder in response to Yumi’s lackadaisical approach to cleaning after herself… or, well, the jacket wouldn’t be covered in paint if he had just aimed better. So it was his own mess, really. At least he had already made the decision to swap his loadout so it didn’t happen again, other people might not be as… uh, understanding as Yumi was when it came to being pelted by a teammate. Swapping to the rifle was probably good for his physical health too, and if he got into a fistfight here he would probably be kicked out. Much easier to just prevent a fight from happening by swapping weapons and being a smidgen more careful.
Oh, this was exciting. More people started streaming in and making a beeline for some of the equipment, but since the American was already done with setting up his gear he just went to stand beside Yumi before the event start. ”Yeah, this is great.” he breathed, looking around to see anyone he remembered from his days of doing an absurd amount of these games. ”I’ve never done one of these big clusterfucks before. This should be super fun.” he paused for a second to look at Yumi’s goddamn riot shield and a smile spread across his features at how cool that was. ”If I would’a known you were getting that much protection I would’a stuck with what I had before.” he teased. ”Try not to get knocked out too early, I’m gonna do something super cool this round.”
The buzzer sounded suddenly, and Alex almost out instinct ran right back out the door with his rifle in hand. The boy had a very risky and very ill-advised plan, but he was off to the races before thinking about it too hard. As soon as he got out the door he made a hard cut to the right and started moving towards the wall at the very edge of the paintball arena almost immediately. His strategy was simple – if he only had one side to look out for he could be much more alert and there probably wouldn’t be anyone specifically looking for people right at the very edge of the arena. Nobody that at least he saw had done that, so he was going to be the first and take at least one or two by surprise. It was a flawless plan that only relied on him being stealthy enough to make sure nobody noticed him over here, and he was making a great start towards that by stomping around and crushing every twig and branch under the sun by accident while moving around and also accidentally kicking around rocks left and right. It wasn’t that he was clumsy, quite the opposite, but it was more like he had next to no experience in actual woodland conditions and had no idea how to adjust his movements to suit the environment.
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1,884 Posts
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18 Years
Female
"x"
Student-Rank Quirk:
U.A Third Year
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Post by Yumi Tasukai on Sept 1, 2018 12:51:23 GMT -4
Yumi smiled at Alex but didn't get long to form any sort of plan when the buzzer blared. Before she knew it the team that had assembled in this rest area were forced to go out without much time to co-operate, and Yumi could only rely on the fact she and Alex had something akin to training for this stuff to offer them any advantage. An advantage she realized potentially any member of the other team might have too. Ah fuck, if they ended up with a surprise Jaz like the other day, that girl could just explode handfulls of paint pellets towards them with her quirk. That'd be a bitch to deal with...all she could do was think of how to actually use her and Alex's quirks to their advantage, but as she moved forward, she realized a little too late that her partner was darting off to the side, leaving her with her shield charging up forward with some members of their team crouched in behind her, trying to use the natural cover, and her, to advance forward.
Yumi felt just a little weight against her arm when the shots splattered against the shield, it made her a target but it let her get away with all the inaccurate shots hitting it rather than her. She slammed it down as best she could, forming a stationary guard and putting her side into it as she crouched low. With only a handgun and two grenades of paint, she didn't have many options here and her team could only lay down suppression fire. She and Alex were basically wild cards to the team now, and if they didn't become useful quick the opposing team would just push forward with numbers and fire power and start picking them off till sneaky Alex was all that was left skirmishing the edge of the arena.
Yumi took a deep breath, holding her back to the implanted shield now and resting the top of the paint gun against her forehead, trying to think...she did tell herself before if she used her quirk she'd probably be disqualified for losing her clothes in the process, but if just she got disqualified...she could probably think of a VERY easy way to get her team to win this whole thing in just a few seconds. She started looking to the way Alex had ran, eyes trying to find him and see if he was close enough to be ready to move in if she tried something. She needed to make sure all of her team could move up the moment she went kamikaze again.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2018 20:47:09 GMT -4
Enemy contact didn’t take long to emerge. The advance of the U.A. flanking wing did not go unnoticed, and soon pellets forced the American soldier behind enemy lines in a foreign land to go prone in order to avoid getting knocked out immediately. Once he got down on the ground, he got visual contact on the person shooting at him. Young woman, slender build, probably super pretty with long blonde hair underneath that paintball gear. Honestly, it was the type of girl that in most situations he would saddle up next to and flirt with relentlessly. Unfortunately for her, this wasn’t most situations and Alex used his quirk to create some matter with a slot for his rifle and eye to poke out of to defend against frontal attacks while in the prone position.
He pulled the trigger of his rifle three times, but by the time he had aimed the rifle the girl had adjusted to his new height and put up a barrier of what looked to be light just in time. Fortunately for him, her next move was to attack his shield with what seemed to be some sort of light beam that also carried some heat along with it that was enough to burn through some of the paintballs that he continued peppering in her direction. His shadow construct did weaken significantly during the assault, but it did not entirely break because light had no real effect on the constructs themselves. She threw a grenade alongside the light beams that caused Alex to drop his head to the ground and close the small gap in his small frontal shield to absorb the impact of the paint splatter, though, and his shield thankfully held through that as well and a quick visual check across his body showed that he was covered in dirt from the ground but not any paint. Good, that meant he could win this little duel.
Light quirkers were rare, thankfully, but usually on first encounter they all made the same mistake. They thought that their light could cut through his shadow constructs like butter, but that’s not how it worked. The original shadow needed to be destroyed for his construct to be destroyed easily, otherwise the construct itself was just as strong against light as it was against any other element or physical trauma. The girl damaged the original shadows he used to create the construct and weakened it largely by accident, but due to the attacks not being very powerful to begin with and also not directed in the correct spot meant that he was unscathed and likely had the element of surprise. Once the grenade exploded, Alex pushed his body up in a kneeling position and fired his rifle as fast as he could pull the trigger for several seconds as he reformed the frontal shield he made to protect himself. The girl thought for sure the grenade got him, so even with his poor accuracy he managed to tag her twice out of around ten shots. She returned fire, of course, but not with good enough accuracy to get around the shadow barrier.
”What, how did my light not break your shadow? Shouldn’t I counter you?” the girl questioned aloud in clear frustration, voice slightly muffled from the mask that she wore. He could see her fist clench, she must be a competitor like he was. If this wasn’t an active paintball game, he would have been more than happy to stay and explain along with his gloating… but time was too valuable in these sorts of situations to waste with an opponent who was out of the fight already.
”I’m from U.A., blondie.” was the immediate response that came out with the same vocal distortion. ”You can’t expect to be a hero candidate and also just lie down and die against a ‘counter’. Remember my quirk, though, you’ll be seeing it a lot on TV here soon.” he commented as he dissipated the wall and walked past the blonde with a cheeky wave as he made his way to the center of the arena where both teams were no doubt duking it out. If his mental map of the area was correct, the girl had the same idea that Alex did or split off without telling anyone when she noticed him on the outskirts. The rest of her team should be faced forwards unless his team all did something weird, so he would have a chance to put out a flank and take at least one more person by surprise. He had already done his job, really, in taking out one enemy. He wasn’t a load to the team, and had done exactly as much as he was expected to do. Anything else was gravy, honestly, and he could take even more dumb risks knowing that fact.
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1,884 Posts
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18 Years
Female
"x"
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U.A Third Year
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Post by Yumi Tasukai on Sept 3, 2018 16:20:25 GMT -4
The battle of light and dark off to the side was hard for Yumi to miss, and she was glad it gave her a sign that Alex was in prime position to move if she went through with her plan. Most of the other soldiers on the opposing team were closed in tight, and with Alex coming in from the side, and her own team behind her, she had the perfect opportunity to move in and finish them quick. She knew full well it'd take her out of this game personally, but sometimes you had to sacrifice the queen to win the game. Steeling her nerves with a long breath, she turned and tucked her arm back into the holder of the riot shield, yelling to the teamates behind her.
"COVER ME!~"
Hoisting the shield out of the muddy ground, Yumi started to charge forward, holding the shield high and keeping her body low, watching paint pellets fly from behind her as she fired off some pathetic shots from her handcannon, unloading the clip and tossing it aside. She was starting to get close, the fire of her teamates distracting all but one of the opposing team, who seemed to be using their quirk to coat themselves in a suit of armor that could only be described as a blue version of the stay puft marshmallow man from that old ghost movie. To distract him, she pulled the pin of a paint grenade with her thumb and rolled it between his legs, wanting him to be distracted by that as she moved in.
In a weird move, as she finally got right into the midst of enemy ranks, she turned on her heels and slammed the plastic shield back into the ground, only behind her and facing her own team in an odd move. It wasn't so odd when Alex realized what she was doing however. A few of the opposing temas lined up shots, one with multiple arms even got ready to fire a volley her way, but if Alex remembered Yumi well, he'd recognize the way her ponytail was starting to flick wildly like a live cable in a cartoon. In an instant after, her body ignited in electrical energy, vaporizing the jacket and camo pants she was wearing, leaving the bikini top and electro proof spats she wore under most of her outfits when she expected she might need to use her quirk at some point. Streams of electricity fired at the entire enemy team around her, forcing them into spasms, and the insulating shield at her now-front protecting the team she'd left behind her from her discharge. As she expected, a blare soon sounded saying she was disqualified, dropping to her knees and holding onto the shield, her body holding a thin layer of sweat from the sudden exertion, but even with her out of the game, the game itself wasn't over, and her team moved forward, rapidly tagging the downed members of the enemy team, Yumi's dazed eyes more focused on the one that got away however.
"HEY! ALEX!" She called, shouting, but far weaker than she intended. "Runaway! Get 'em!"
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2018 1:26:43 GMT -4
Now, granted, Alex was all for winning and all but this seemed a little excessive. Weird for him of all people to show restraint, right? But there was a difference between winning fairly and overtly cheating in a way that could really actually hurt someone. Yumi’s quirk was strong and without her suit she didn’t exactly have a lot of control over it. What if one of these kids had a weak heart or something, she could have accidentally actually killed someone. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be any elderly people among the people… grounded by his classmate’s quirk.
”Hey blondie, get back here.” he barked over his shoulder almost instantaneously after the discharge knocked down the girl’s team. Better safe than sorry, and if all those rescue classes did one thing it made him a lot more aware of when people might potentially be injured. His other teammate seemed fine charging forward and getting the other team out, so he was happy just ditching the rifle and making sure none of the little shits was actually hurt.
One of his teammates decided to be a little cheeky and fire multiple shots into a poor dude as he recovered, so he the fourth or fifth round that fired out two shadow tendrils came out from behind him to both smack that fucking rifle out of his hands and also violently yank his leg so that he fell on his face. He went over and lightly smacked the faces of his downed opponents to make sure they were lucid and getting up just fine. Thankfully, none of them seemed to be injured and they all seemed to just be dazed.
If this was for any stakes or he actually knew the other team, sure, shock the hell out of them. But he had actually come into this field to play paintball and pretend to be a badass super soldier for a bit, so he wasn’t exactly thrilled with winning in a way that robbed him of that opportunity. Winning was good, sure, but not like this. When he cheated, it wasn’t in a way that actually hurt anybody. It was always harmless like using his quirk to get extra points in a dance game or something, not shocking the shit out of people who might very well be normal humans and definitely probably weren’t used to taking full force quirk hits from U.A. caliber students.
He wordlessly helped his former opponents up and helped them get up on their way to reset back in their base area. The game was over, after all, and he didn’t even spare a glance in Yumi’s direction until he had made sure all of them were okay and he had gone back to pick up his rifle from where he dropped it on the ground. ”What was that about collateral?” he teased, but there was no venom in his voice. Shit happened, and he was going to be the last one to judge someone at least outwardly for getting a little too caught up in a competition. After all, that was one of his own trademarks.
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1,884 Posts
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18 Years
Female
"x"
Student-Rank Quirk:
U.A Third Year
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Post by Yumi Tasukai on Sept 5, 2018 14:27:58 GMT -4
Her burned jacket falling off her shoulders as she stood back up, and her long pants vaporized to the point they were, at best, shorts now, Yumi brushed the ashy remains of her clothes off her arms and legs, standing mostly in just the shorts and her bikini top now. While Alex seemed okay just leaving one of the runaways to get off, the rest of her team tagged the downed opponents and even managed to catch the straggler now that they were on their own, leaving Yumi a little more than satisfied with her choice to sacrifice herself, looking to Alex just as her own hair fell loose, not having worn one of her electro proof hair ties today.
"What collateral?" She looked around, the shield she'd planted down still sticking out of the ground, and the other members of her team completely unnaffected by her discharge. Not only that but she had no worries about the opposing team as her electro discharge, while flashy, currently ranked as a weak tazer at best. Now sure maybe someone with an exceptionally weak heart could be at risk, but as a hero she wouldn't be expected to know that about every opponent, and even if Alex made her consider the possibility, its not like the base didn't have it's own medical center...
She really had no idea what he was talking about, rubbing the back of her neck with a confused look just as a buzzer blared and came with the announcement their team had won, leaving her flashing Alex a cheeky smirk and sticking her tongue out playfully. "Hey you can explain it on the way back. Pretty sure they'll need to give me a new jacket if they've got anything else planned. Maybe we'll be on opposite teams if there's another round!~"
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2018 14:28:05 GMT -4
”I dunno, that just seemed a little extreme for a paintball game.” he started, his tone carefully neutral. ”Most of them didn’t even get a chance to do anything. Like I know your quirk isn’t super defensive, but going in for the first strike and sending them all into convulsions on the ground like they just got tased at full blast seems kind of excessive in a ‘for fun’ paintball game. Like if the police ran out and tased like five people for no reason that’d be super illegal. There’s a good chance most of them were quirkless, too, and were just trying to have a bit of fun and will probably be all tingly and shit the rest of the day. Not everyone is as, uh, resilient as U.A. students after all.” he continued, his tone never moving to judgmental and staying in that neutral, flat tone.
”For me it’s like going into a boxing match and me using my quirk to trip the guy and then put the boots to them. They signed up for a boxing match, expecting a boxing match. Instead, no boxing is ever done and they’re left pissed off that they never got to actually do the activity that they signed up for – yknow? I get disqualified, sure, but they still got beat up. They win, sure, but they also didn’t get to practice or have fun.” he continued, trying to convey that just because you could do something doesn’t mean that it was necessarily correct. It might have been weird, especially coming from him of all people, but he had been thinking very carefully about the concept of heroes being the ones to uphold promises and how everything that he did fit into that paradigm of thinking.
A big disconnect, of course, was that Alex simply thought that Yumi’s power was stronger than it was. It was extremely visually impressive, and in the American’s mind was similar to the number one villain’s power which was shown to be extreme. They were both lightning, right? So they did the same thing, and lightning was super duper strong. What was lightning anyway except electricity that moved super fast, right? Another big disconnect was likely that Alex perhaps for the first time was prioritizing the enjoyment of others over winning, which was likely a bit of a shock for someone who only weeks ago cheated without a care in damn near everything without a shred of remorse when there was any risk of losing and who had taken the Class Representative elections so deathly serious that he made a slogan and actual platform handouts to give to the members of Class 1-C.
For someone who took the student rankings so deathly seriously that he almost immediately publicly called out the number one student and said that he was gunning for her spot and that he would take it by any means necessary. When Rin tried to deflect with the help of her cronies, the American pressed on undeterred and announced again that he was coming at her from the front instead of trying to backstab her like a scumbag would do. The walk back was largely uneventful, and honestly Alex was too lost in thought to be really distracted by the Yumi with much less clothes on at the present. There was also the fact that ever since he and Aki got together it was actually kind of weird. It was like everyone else suddenly got just a smidge less attractive than before just because they weren’t Aki. He didn’t really know how to explain it, but it was a phenomenon that he had definitely noticed because it was so weird.
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1,884 Posts
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18 Years
Female
"x"
Student-Rank Quirk:
U.A Third Year
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Post by Yumi Tasukai on Sept 9, 2018 6:30:41 GMT -4
"..." Yumi's confused look narrowed little by little as Alex spoke and her brow furrowed, her fists tightening just a little, not a true fist by any means but tighter than anything she'd really done before coming to UA. Yumi wasn't exactly a fighty girl afterall, but hanging out with Darren and Jaz so much was bound to rub off on her a little. Not only that but hearing a line of 'you went too far' from Alex of all people was enough to rub a raw nerve with her. Still, the fight wasn't in her like it might have been with Jaz or Darren, and while she was pretty sure either of them would storm away or gut-check Alex for putting her down like this, the red head took a long, slow breath, calmed herself down, and almost looked through Alex.
"Right. Couple of things to get straight there yeah?" Her arms folded and she made sure the two of them remained still in the emptying battle ground as she met his eyes. "Firstly, sure, that'd be illegal, but if a police officer somehow managed to take down 5 armed individuals with a damn taser they'd be a bloody hero rather than committing any illegal acts. Secondly, yeah some people are probably here for fun, but you do remember we're on a military base right? There's probably at least 3 soldiers watching every match recording what us quirkers can do to other quirkers and non-quirkers alike." She spoke from experience, having literally battled Jaz for an audience of soldiers making recordings. "I'll give you even the quirkers aren't as resilient as us, we've got training, but my quirk can be walked through by someone who's pissed enough at me to grit their teeth, so excuse me if I'm not feeling guilty for a light spark."
With a long sigh she shook her head, not about to tackle the boxing analogy. She got the point he was trying to make, but she felt circumstances were different too. Instead she just turned on her heels and started to walk, her boots still majorly fine from the outburst and held together, digging into the mud as she pushed herself forward towards the rest area again, winding back her shoulders and cracking her neck as she tipped it far to either side.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 9, 2018 14:45:57 GMT -4
”If they wanted to record quirks, they wouldn’t be disqualifying people for using them in the game.” Alex retorted, growing a bit frustrated at this point and his voice finally losing that detached tone he was so bad at holding for extended periods. They were alone in the area now, so he felt like he could talk freely as long as he kept his voice low. ”Like, I could probably get away with going out there and tripping people with my quirk and firing at them with my rifle and the moderators would probably just see the trip as accidental if I did it right. I don’t use my power offensively at all unless I know I’m against other U.A. kids, though, because at the end of the day this is a public event.”
”What the military thinks of us at the end of this doesn’t really matter. What matters is the impression that we make on the people who came here for the demonstrations that we need to earn the trust of in order to function as pros. They’re going to assume that every quirker here is from U.A. whether you wear the uniform or not, and getting an early reputation as someone who takes cheap shots whenever they can get it won’t help you when you actually try to do work. How many quirkers do you think there are with bright red hair that shoot out a ton of electricity from their body? It’s not like they won’t recognize you. Just guessing that nobody has a weak heart or won’t have a panic attack and injure themselves isn’t good enough, because if it does happen the school gets shut down from the 24/7 news coverage of the incident. This isn’t just about you.”
Which was the real crux of the reason why Alex cared, public image. At the end of the day, the public image of the school and the public image of himself were intrinsically linked. If the school was known as a shit show by the time he graduated, then he would be assumed to be a shit show by the public when he tried to take his first steps as a pro and that would be a major roadblock. Alex may be a petty bastard at times, but he could also see the big picture when his livelihood and future were perceived to be at stake. For him, it wasn’t *just* a strategic move to get herself disqualified to win the match. For the American it was a larger issue that put the reputation of U.A. in jeopardy if that behavior was considered ‘normal’. Reputation was really all they could get at this point, because there were no graduates and the first class of heroes ever were only in their first year of training. There would be no results for a very long time, and in the absence of results there was only public perception – and public perception could kill the school before anyone graduated if an incident like a student accidentally killing a civilian in a paintball game were uncovered by the press. It was completely avoidable, and that was another main issue. It was taking a huge and unnecessary risk for everyone unilaterally and without anyone’s consent.
Alex was a complete jerk to some people himself, sure, but they were all quirkers who were more than capable of fighting back and were anything but defenseless. To him, those were internal issues and completely different than something like this which was purely external issues and also conveniently separate in his mind than quarrels between students. She could’ve done the exact same thing to a bunch of students and he wouldn’t have blinked twice, but doing it to a bunch of civilians was something he would definitely speak up about because he considered it both wrong and stupid. While he wouldn’t necessarily care of Yumi decided to make an ass of herself on her own, in this case it made an ass of their school too and that was simply something that needed to be brought up and discussed because that could not happen over and over again if they wanted to get any traction as pros down the line because the public would fucking hate them all due to the immense name brand damage dealt to U.A.
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1,884 Posts
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18 Years
Female
"x"
Student-Rank Quirk:
U.A Third Year
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Post by Yumi Tasukai on Sept 9, 2018 15:08:50 GMT -4
"..." Her hands really were fists this time, not having started walking again since they were having this out. Had he not even been listening today? Flipping the paint hand-gun she still had in her hand, she lightly jabbed his gut, her eyes getting a little harsh as she used the handle of the gun like a knuckle-duster to give him that little jab. "Right, I told you before, it isn't using quirks that gets you disqualified, its the fact mine burns away my clothes. They can't tell I've been shot if I get rid of my clothes, clear enough?" She hoped so cause she felt this was the third time she'd explained that, or at the very least the second. "I literally told you, first thing when we started playing, quirks were allowed today."
"Now, as for your condescending ass tone, how about we start to look at this another way." She gave another jab, this one against his shoulder with her empty hand, perhaps more like a shove honestly given the open palm, her eyes turning to a full glare. "You think they're gonna assume everyone here is from UA? No, if anything they'll do the exact opposite. The population of quirkers compared to UA's student base is VERY big so it'd be stupid to assume as much. Furthermore, they're hoping to entice quirkers to join the army. They probably think none of us are from UA, cause the people in UA already have careers!" She gave another shove, this time with both hands, really starting to get angry...an emotion that felt quite foreign to her but her body was already on a roll with it and refused to stop. "And lets talk about perception huh!? Cheep shot!? Who the fuck do you think I am!? I chose a shield cause I had a plan. I ran in and thought of the best way to neutralize opponents, and guess what jackass they probably ARE watching us, cause like I said, QUIRKS ARE ALLOWED." Another shove, a little lower this time. "Look at me through their eyes. One girl, carefully chosen gear, rushes into an enemy encampment, a risky, but tactful move to neutralize the enemy and win the game. Imagine if that WAS a real world situation, I just took out a whole fucking situation with no 'casualties'. And as for weak hearts, do you think I don't know my own quirk!? How to use it!? That's literally all I came here for! I don't wanna be a hero I just wanted to be able to get scared and angry and upset without being a danger to everyone and you have the fucking audacity to think I don't know how to make my quirk safe by now!?"
Her body was sparking and her eyes were on the verge of tears...she didn't know in this moment why she was so angry, and may never even with time, but in the lower levels of her conciousness, Yumi was reacting to the feeling of being judged by Alex for her own actions. The fact he, one of her classmates, the person she was trusting Aki with, was the one criticizing her...she thought she left crap like that behind, crap with her sense of intimacy, crap with her appearance, crap with her quirk, call behind, and she'd been open and trusting with those around her. Now it was backfiring. She didn't give a damn what any stranger thought about how she lived her life or what she did...but hearing one of her trusted classmates go off at her like that, to feel like her views and her purposes were outright dismissed. To feel like a lesser person in Alex's presence despite the experiences she'd had at this base the past few days...!
A tear started rolling down her cheek just as she took a shove that may have truly been a swing for him. Her toes slipped in the sloppy mud, and she ended up face down in the mud with her head roughly between where his feet would have been if he didn't move. She started to push herself up a little, but she didn't get up even to her knees or lift her head, her eyes stinging a little now, still furious at him for how he was seeing all this and furious at herself for getting this angry. Especially when she didn't understand why entirely herself.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 9, 2018 16:00:19 GMT -4
The American found himself quickly feeling an emotion that he quite frankly didn’t feel that often. He felt his stomach drop and his body temperature immediately fall from the heights it had been moments earlier because instead of getting more angry and frustrated with the physical contact like he normally would be he just felt worse emotionally with every shove. Yumi wasn’t the type to get physically aggressive, so she was really pissed off. That in and of itself shocked the delinquent enough that he didn’t speak and was paying full attention to his classmate in that moment. It just seemed so out of character he didn’t know what to do. Was he supposed to just sit here and take it? Was he supposed to retort back like an argument? Whatever he was supposed to do was irrelevant, though, because he just stood there like a statue with his eyes noticeably wider in surprise.
Her point about looking at it through the eyes of the military made a lot of sense, too. From a purely tactical perspective, she was right. She was looking at this like a combat simulation and approached it from that point of view, while Alex was looking at it like a game to have fun with and approached it from that point of view. What he initially viewed as excessive she viewed as using all of her training to prove to the military that she could think like them.
The bit about quirk safety, too. The girl still couldn’t control her quirk without her hero suit, and it was probably and very understandably now that he thought about it a very sore spot for her the same way that Alex was self-conscious about the perceived weakness of his own quirk. He didn’t mean it as a personal attack, he had just hoped to make her aware that there was risk involved and that it should be avoided. The girl was almost at the verge of tears as she went on, and Alex still stood there like a statue because he had no idea how to deal with this. Could he even deal with this even if he knew what he was supposed to do? God, why were social interactions so damned complicated?!
When his classmate swung her hand towards him to strike, Alex didn’t move a muscle and kept his gaze matched with his classmate’s. While he didn’t agree, he would accept the hit if that’s what she needed to do to cool off at this point. When she fell, Alex was so surprised because most of his concentration was bracing himself for the hit that he failed to catch her because his reaction time was simply too slow even with an instinctive step forward to try and save the day he just wasn't positioned correctly to do so.
Immediately after the girl fell, the delinquent crouched down and offered his hand next to her head so it would be in her field of view. ”All right, Curved Lightning.” he started, his voice while still low in volume clearly imitating some sort of radio or television announcer. ”Your hero suit broke down after flawlessly taking down the first wave of villains, saving all of the innocent people in the building behind you. I think we can edit out the slip from the highlight reel.” he continued, having no idea how effective this tactic would be but really and truly having no idea how to respond to situations like his. A lot of emotions were quite frankly just so new to him he didn’t really know how to handle them, and he also didn’t know enough about social interactions to deal with anything except for the most common situations.
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1,884 Posts
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18 Years
Female
"x"
Student-Rank Quirk:
U.A Third Year
Played by:
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Post by Yumi Tasukai on Sept 9, 2018 16:46:26 GMT -4
Seeing his feet shift Yumi lifted her eyes just enough to see the hand infront of her, staying down just a few moments longer before lifting her hand out of the mud and grasping Alex's with a sloppy smack, grasping it firmly enough to start pulling herself up and out of the dirt, though she took her hand back the moment she was on her feet, the mud wet enough to be dripping off of her where she'd hit it hard enough to come back with a thick layer on her skin, rubbing her bicep as her body shook a little, a mix of lingering anger and regret...as much as she hated feeling like this, tapping into this emotion for the first time made it very hard for her to turn off. She appreciated his attempt to laugh everything off...but for once, despite it being a favorite tactic of her own, she couldn't really accept it, her eyes skimming along the muddy ground before she just turned and began to walk away.
Assuming Alex kept somewhat of a pace with her, she'd flash her eyes back over her shoulder to him, and let out a slow breath through her nose. "I'm...sorry...I don't know what came over me there..." She was already trying to search her brain for it, but she couldn't. She was however a lot more aware of eyes around her...even caked in mud she usually wouldn't care about the people looking at her, some still pervily so, others curious why she was watery eyed and caked in mud...this time she was shrinking into herself, holding her arms around herself tight.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 9, 2018 17:20:01 GMT -4
Okay, this was very not like Yumi. Eyes downcast and walking away sullenly? Oh no, this simply wouldn’t do. The guilt of knowing that he caused this compounded with the fact that he actually cared about Yumi meant that he felt the need to do something. He wouldn’t just let her sullenly walk off the field covered in mud like that without some kind of intervention. Some way for him to convey that he was sorry and that he would do his best to make amends. An apology wouldn’t do, though, because he still felt he was right and above all else he was a stubborn guy. There had to be some way he could convey those emotions without directly apologizing, because he didn’t think Yumi’s apology was necessary either. She wasn’t wrong either, it was one of those weird situations where he felt they were both right and just looked at the situation differently. He had forgotten already about the swing, mostly because to him it was irrelevant and he wouldn’t have held it against her even if it had connected. He understood perhaps more than anyone how someone could get irrationally angry over the course of a conversation, as his engagements with the Evil Overlord of Class 1-A have shown.
For better or for worse, one of Alex’s most consistent personality traits was that he was extremely decisive and willing to do things without thinking about them very much. He upped his pace and hugged her with his right arm around the shoulder despite the mud getting on both of them as he did so. ”It’s just fire, and every hero needs it.” he said in a low voice next to her ear so nobody else would be able to pick up on it as he squeezed her bicep a bit and then released the hug to fall into step beside her. ”If you’re able to get that level of fire out and control it too, you’ll be a lot higher than tenth the next time the rankings roll around.” he added in what he hoped was an encouraging tone.
The delinquent firmly believed that any hero candidate needed ‘fire’, or emotional attachment manifested in that outpouring of that emotion in order to be successful. Simply put, if you didn’t have a passion for what you were doing, you were doomed to a state of mediocrity which was simply unacceptable as a hero. It was the existence of that fire as well as the ability to harness it that would make a hero be able to go beyond their normal limits and be the superhuman that they needed to be in order to win the day.
”If you could knock someone else down instead of me to get there, though, I’d appreciate it.” he added in a lighter tone. It wasn’t exactly a secret that he took the rankings extremely seriously, and he didn’t want to make it sound like he was just going to lay down and let her take his spot or anything. He was just saying that she could rise up and take someone else’s spot. Like Jasmine’s, since it seems like she had the blonde’s weakness all figured out already.
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1,884 Posts
0 EP
EXP
Total
18 Years
Female
"x"
Student-Rank Quirk:
U.A Third Year
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Post by Yumi Tasukai on Sept 16, 2018 11:43:05 GMT -4
Yumi froze up as she felt the arms wrap around her, her body freezing up entirely even as Alex tried to make her feel better. In truth even as he tried to support her, and she could definitely feel that and take it in, a part of her was heavily conflicted about it. On the one hand Alex had struck a raw nerve she didn’t even know existed and it was hard to accept the hug, but if anything, the hug was precisely what she needed. She felt like he was ignorant of thoughts behind her acts, ignorant of what she’d said, but the acceptance she always enjoyed at UA, the ability to be intimate with her friends, to just give her friends hugs and cuddles when she felt she wanted one or when they needed it, that was something she definitely enjoyed and feeling Alex hug her just made her brain skip a few assumptions to the fact he must like it too. Or at least be showing acceptance for her appreciation of it.
Even if it made her heart colder with conflicted thoughts for a second, she decided to eventually just see the simple version of things, the general, nice version. He was trying to comfort her, and that was good. Her eyes drifted to his, not fully okay, not one hundred precent or even 70. More a safe 60 percent okay as is, smirking at his last comment and rolling her eyes as she lightly jabbed him with her elbow. “Oh shut up you. I don’t even care about those dumb rankings. You probably deserve top place a lot more than I do.” She smirked back at him as they started to get walking again.
For Yumi, she was kind of foreign to the concept of having fire in your belly. People around her were determined, competitive, exciteable, easy to anger, they had something in them Yumi hadn’t really experienced before in her life, but thanks to Darren, Jaz, maybe even a bit of Maxi and just generally the rest of class C around her, she’d started developing it bit by bit. She felt a tingle under her skin sometimes, a drive to do new things and do better in whatever it was she put her mind to. She still couldn’t believe half the shit she pulled with Darren the other day, but all in all…she didn’t regret this fire developing inside of her. Heck, if anything, wanting to actually maybe be a hero one day just made it grow, and made her want it to keep growing. It came with a downside perhaps, sure, but damn did she love it when it was good.
“Don’t worry, with your charisma you’ll even be president soon enough. Pretty sure we might re-elect after Christmas or something.” She gave a shrug, not actually sure if that was a thing, but if it wasn’t she’d make it so. It would be good to have a change of leadership and representation, or to at least open up the floor to a second vote to see what the class wanted. The boy who’d tied with Alex for VP seemed pretty popular afterall, maybe he’d get the most votes next time eh?
Whatever the case they soon got to the rest area between the paintball zones, and without warning Yumi immediately started stripping the fried remains of her pants, leaving her in matching camo spats to the camo bikini she was wearing, though still pretty caked in mud. Some eyes turned to her as the other people playing the game spotted the curvy red-head so blatantly stripping, and just as an on-watch soldier came to speak to her, she raised a finger to him and offered a smile as she asked. “Hey sorry, I might have to hold off on the next game. You guys must have showers around here right? Mind if I use one?”
The soldier was a bit dumbstruck, but he supposed getting her somewhere private to wash off was better than her standing out and about in no clothes. He pointed a thumb off towards the communal showers the army used, a big open area behind the walls with a few shower heads and soaps. Yumi bowed her head in thanks and started off, but turned on her heels when she remembered Alex had gotten a bit muddy hugging her too, and, with a casualness only Yumi could produce when asking a guy what followed, she said-
“Hey you er, wanna join me? We can catch one last game after we’re done together. Though, I don’t blame ya if you wanna go back onto the field while I wash up.~”
Of course it took Yumi a second, but looking over herself she added with a smirk. “Oh and don’t worry, I’ll keep these on so you don’t have to worry about where your eyes wander.
Probably…60% of the rest room was looking at Alex with mixed sensations of confusion, jealousy, and awe.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 16, 2018 14:17:09 GMT -4
When Yumi said that he deserved the top rank more than she did, the delinquent let out an audible snort. ”I just want to beat Rin. The next ranking, Jaz is probably going to be number one and shadows don’t do very well against light-producing explosions.” he responded matter-of-factly. ”You or Darren is gonna have to beat her.” the delinquent continued, spelling out clearly who he thought was the one who stood above all the rest at U.A. at the present. Everyone else in Yuuei was beatable, if not now than by the end of the year. Jasmine Noir was the only student where Alex has flat out just accepted that he would never win against because she had the perfect skill and quirk set counter to his own.
At the comment about a re-vote so soon, the American shrugged his shoulders. ”Sick of us already?” was his immediate response, a joke because he was caught off guard. ”You gotta give me at least a little time to try and do stuff—“ was the immediate whine that came afterwards before he composed himself and realized how pathetic that sounded. ”Just one school event is all I’m asking for – one actually done by the school and not something like this. After all, you wanna actually represent at least once don’t you?” he continued, taking on a different take and his tone shifting much more to the realm of conspiratorial than whiney. Whatever the method, the intent was clear that he wanted to hold onto that Vice Presidential spot just a little bit longer than what was it – three, five months?
When Yumi asked Alex to come shower with her, he completely froze for several seconds. The conversation that she had before with the soldier, the delinquent was mostly zoned out from but this wasn’t something that he planned for and he didn’t know what to do. His first instinct was to say no, but he had no real reasoning for it just yet and just kind of just stood there dumbly for a bit as a result. His face turned noticeably more red as he started to process the implications of what she was asking involuntarily as he sorted through and tried to make his brain come up with a response.
This was a situation. An unexpected and uncomfortable situation, but a situation nevertheless. There would be people, much like most people in the locker room and most of U.A. that would literally knife the delinquent in order to be in his shoes right in that moment. At the end of the day, though, he wasn’t a touchy feely type of person to begin with and there was no way in hell he was even partially undressing with Yumi right next to him so the only option would be to walk in, full kit on like a fucking dweeb and suffer that embarrassment and awkwardness for what? A chance to see boob? Not worth it. There was absolutely no way he would be able to justify that to Aki without resorting to some bullshit and lying -- which he wasn’t willing to do at this point. At the end of the day, even if Yumi was fine with it and even if Aki was theoretically fine with it doesn’t mean that Alex himself would be fine with it because it would feel too much like a violation of trust for him to go through with it.
Yumi was definitely a very attractive girl, but her behavior was definitely more on the ‘weird, even for Alex’ end of the spectrum as far as he was concerned. Really, Aki was too, but at least she respected his personal space a lot more. His girlfriend was also much more weird in a way that he saw as innocent and adorable rather than awkward and nosebleed-y. It was good that Yumi was so confident in her own skin, but as long as that confidence was lacked by the other person it would always lead to awkwardness in situations like this one. Plus, he could totally spin this into being an example of how loyal and good that he was to Aki later. While it was really awkward now, it would pay off in the end because his girlfriend would know that she could trust him even when super hot women like Yumi wanted to take showers with him!
”No.” he responded, probably a bit too firmly. ”I’ll just wait out here and just hand you the clothes that the nice man over here,” he continued, turning his gaze back to the dumbstruck soldier who had pointed out the showers in the first place, ”is going to provide so the whole decency thing is taken care of.” he said, his tone of voice turning that request into an explicit command until the guy finally got the hint to fetch some clothes and ran off to do so.
”Take your time.” the delinquent added with a dismissing wave when the soldier ran off. ”I’m not sure that dude knows where clothes are anyway so we probably have a bit.” he added with a smirk returning to his face. He had also produced what amount to a scraper with his quirk that he materialized and then grabbed out of the air to start peeling off the mud and dirt that had gotten on him from the hug and the paintball round before. It wasn’t too much, and certainly didn’t require a shower to begin with and the scraper would do a more than serviceable job with just a couple of minutes of work – ten, max.
All in all, he was very proud of himself for the way he handled that awkward situation. It would be easy to spin this off into a positive story and show Aki how seriously he was prepared to take their relationship. Yup! And Yumi could back him up, too, which was also really nice. Maybe this whole thing was just some sort of test that he just passed, that would be crazy. Some whole loyalness test to see if he would be some sort of jerk and hurt Aki, but he wouldn’t do that. Nope. Not him.
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