etrayalogs | OPERATION: YOUTHFUL DISOBEDIENCE

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OPERATION: YOUTHFUL DISOBEDIENCE

WHO: Members of the grand curfew-breaking plan!
WHEN: During the Moorecroft event.
WHERE: Various Moorecroft locales.
WHAT: A bunch of youths have gotten together to break curfew in tandem to get to the bottom of the mystery at heart of this place -- but what they find leads to more questions than answers.
NOTES\WARNINGS: Probable violence, death, emotional trauma, cursing. All the fun stuff! I'll be putting the log headers for pre/during/post-curfew breaking logs in the comments, so just hang tight while I do that, though all members are of course more than welcome to post their own logs if that suits their tagging style better.

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Krouse holds onto Midoriya with more confidence than someone who has professed as little experience with this kind of thing as he has, but that facade has been wearing thin for a while. He hits the ground when Midoriya tosses him down with the same practised readiness, hugging the roof with his eyes still sharp as he edges closer to the lip of it and peers over.

Midoriya's cover is helpful. Krouse gives him a quick thumbs up without glancing his way, scanning the environment for things he can use. He would prefer better light, but that's the way it goes.

There's nothing in the immediate vicinity that has the right heft when he pushes his power into it that's also at the right height and position to do some damage. This would be easier if there were some fliers in the -

He snaps his gaze back to Midoriya, and grins.

"How do you feel about being my bouncing ball?" He calls over, raising his voice over the sounds of robot countermeasures. "You jump, I swap!"

What the heck? Is Krouse-kun even trained for this? Maybe he played a lot of dangerous yard games... Izuku decides to trust him and adjust for safety as necessary. Non-combatants aren't usually so quick on the uptake, but Izuku isn't going to grin and count his wins just yet.

"I jump, that immediately puts a target on me. Do it quick. One, two—"

He shoots into the air again, 10 feet, 20 feet, 50 feet, and the gun muzzles angle upward...

One of the fundamental tricks of a conflict is managing tempo. It's one of the things Krouse happens to be good at reading, even if he can't always sync to it.

This isn't one of the times he can't find a rhythm, fortunately for him and for Midoriya. Midoriya arcs up, slightly out, and Krouse pops up out of cover to tag Midoriya and one of the bots at the back of the crowd of upward drifting muzzles, and he connects, draws the humming line taut -

A bot tumbles out of the sky from where Midoriya leapt, and Midoriya is - however temporarily - safe and secure on the ground at the back of the robot onslaught, perhaps a second or so ahead of their reaction times.

Krouse laughs on top of the building, a sound interrupted only briefly by him ducking down into cover again as some of the bots readjust their aim for him.

"Count me in again!" Krouse shouts, his voice shrunk by the new distance between them. He moved Midoriya far out, more than several blocks away. "Keep it up!"

Edited 2024-09-23 21:13 (UTC)

It was easy to leap into this out of necessity, but it bothers Midoriya subconsciously that Krouse claimed to be as civilian and bystander as they get, and yet is skilled and proactive enough to attempt maneuvers in deadly situations. Videogames train reaction times and reading frames, but that only goes so far. It was, funnily enough, dance lessons with Mina Ashido that really helped Izuku visualize himself in space—not to mention copious amounts of combat training from day 2.

It would be tempting to take a swing at the robots as he leaps into the air again, but that would disrupt the rhythm and throw off his teammate without time to communicate. This is what the Hero business calls a team-up. Even before Krouse shouts, Midoriya has determined this. He internalized this kind of teamwork earlier than Bakugo.

He needs more juice for a takeoff from the ground than from an arc off a building. Fa Jin provides, releasing energy he stored in his legs while moving them. Midoriya soars upward again at a comparable speed despite having more distance and lift to meet. Something that looks simple requires a number of parallel processes, but that's the nature of One For All.

Some more robots down, they start to learn. Midoriya sees the lights in the distance when he's up in the air once again.

"They called in air support!" he shouts. "Changing priority to intercepting them! If they team up, we're pinned! If you can't hold under ground fire, swap me to you!"

Krouse is smiling when he pops back up over the wall, holding something difficult to make out in the dark at a distance in his left hand.

"Swapping to you!" He calls out, abiding by good etiquette in battlefield communication, and then he does just that.

Right at that exact second.

Midoriya snaps back to the building where Krouse was standing, his momentum carrying him forward until he can stop, skidding out of the immediate firing line. Krouse blinks into the chill, open air and starts to fall, the ground rushing up unforgiving and black -

He hits it on the edge of the crowd, pivoting on his knees as another bot plummets from the sky where Krouse had been, and he flicks up his left arm and lights the fuse with the lighter palmed in his right hand. He lets go of the firecracker and glances into a storefront display, pressing into the closest mass match -

A lawnmower pops up where Krouse was kneeling, and the firecracker's shortened fuse hit the explosive before it quite hits the ground, sending shrieking balls of blue and red light whistling into the robot crowd. Harmless to them physically, low impact damage for anything else, but a distraction was a distraction.

Inside the storefront, Krouse is up and moving, scrambling into the store and beelining for a side exit, careening back out into the night with a wild grin and his heart thudding bright in his chest. He looks up, scanning for the familiar figure of the green Hero who was probably about to abandon the bots in favour of kicking his ass for that stunt.

Midoriya changes direction on a dime with Blackwhip and kicks hard enough to propel himself. Part of being a Hero is knowing when to change plans according to the flow of battle, even when it's less "flow" and more "his teammate just broke the dam." He is hurtling through the air looking like he is indeed going to kick Krouse's ass.

"You could have done that later!" he yells as he puts out an arm to scoop him up. Even so, he does this with relatively few g-forces, because carrying someone means they're in his care. He doesn't feel confident leaving him behind to fend for himself, so he'll just have to try to bring Krouse along as he takes care of the airborne threats.

"I've got more fireworks!" Krouse says, grinning, throwing his own arm out to let Midoriya scoop him up as he hurtles by.

He knows that the fireworks are not the specific issue, although knowing Midoriya, there's probably a whole lecture about the dangers of modifying explosive fuses and safe fireworks handling tucked away somewhere in that frazzled green head. He also knows, as soon as Midoriya sweeps him up in an efficient, practised motion, that Midoriya is still going to make sure Krouse lives long enough to get that lecture.

"Veer left! Past the community centre, down by the park!" He says, loud but not yelling, in Midoriya's ear, making sure he's audible above the rushing wind. "Saw a blank patch there! We'll regroup!"

The fireworks are the furthest thing from the specific issue. As for explosives, that's more Yaoyorozu's department. (Yes, Bakugo handles them as well, but his body can make his own; he has no need to study the inner workings of wires and chemicals and fuses.)

And then there is the matter of Krouse's training. There's no denying he's had some and did not mention it. Midoriya is less concerned about the lie and more about how knowing this could have better ensured their safety. He would prefer to address the lie another day, preferably when their lives aren't in danger.

Midoriya swings them with Blackwhip into the shadow of the community center. Having broken line of sight, he sends out a full blast of Smokescreen from the whole of his body, obliterating vision across the whole street. Behind this tall wall of harmless smoke, he touches down in the park with the trees as cover.

"I didn't even get to see where those robot kids came from. Did you find out anything while I was gone?"

Yes he's still brimming with disapproval, but he would like to keep conversation low and quiet and mostly related to the mission.

Krouse shifts from being carried to lightly rocking to his feet without missing a beat, scanning the environment for the instant before Midoriya pulses out smoke. It reminds him of someone, although the effects aren't nearly as intense.

Grab bag, he notes, glancing at Midoriya. It's an interesting power suite. Even now, Krouse takes hold of the idea, rotating it in the back of his mind.

If Midoriya is part of a cluster, it must be a fuck of a cluster. It'd explain a lot.

"Not really," Krouse says, rolling back his shoulders and shaking his head, "There's something trying to come out of the cracks. Shadow emanation power, I'm thinking, or a minion implanted in shadows. Hasn't fully manifested yet, if it's trying to."

He can appreciate Midoriya hanging onto the lecture for later. It helps keep Krouse focused on the mission instead of having to get defensive.

"What's the next move?" He asks, straightening his hoodie, pivoting on his heels to watch the trees.

Whatever Krouse is describing sounds like some people Izuku has experienced before. But something?

"Sounds like a few Quirks I know, but I have no idea what that could mean here. Knowing they have backup they can call, and given how much noise we've made," the grumbling admonishment is barely being contained at this rate, "I don't want to lead them to the rest of the group."

He's not going to hide his powerset when it comes to his hero work. One For All must stay secret, but he can't let that get in the way of saving others. As for Krouse... why does he hide his strengths?

"Let's see... We take the robots out. My smoke will clear, and that's when we ambush. The trees are good cover. We should defend them as our position."

He starts stepping deliberately among the trees, frowning and leaning as he examines lines of sight. "It takes too long to hit them individually. We should break their formation, try to get them in a line. I'd like to defeat them in one blow."

Yeah. Krouse is picking up the barely contained grousing. But as long as it stays contained, well, that's a Midoriya problem. Or so the optimistic line of thinking goes. Krouse tends to get more optimistic the closer he is to things being fucked. It's perverse, but it gets things done.

Not always the best things, but still.

"Got it," Krouse says, flicking out his wrists and ticking his head from one side to the other, a gesture as much suited to sitting down in front of a keyboard for a gaming session as it is for this. "I can do positioning. You sure you want to take them out, though? Our instructions were to not cause too much damage. So are you talking take them out, or put them down for a minute?"

Midoriya tends to get more decisive the closer he is to things being fucked, which unfortunately leads to him disregarding his own safety. Bakugo thrives in adversity with incandescent joy bordering on madness, but at least he looks out for himself.

Izuku taps his chin then shrugs. "Depends on the durability of the robots. I don't consider self-defense against the robots property damage, even if it... technically is, I guess... Let's just try not to wreck the park too much."

Sorry, robots.

"I'm counting on you," he says, closing his fingers in a fist. "I'll bait them to give you time. Stay well clear of the final blow."

I'm counting on you, Midoriya says, with all the grit and determination of a hero on a kid's cartoon special, and fuck if some part of Krouse doesn't reluctantly resonate with that. His back straightens slightly as he steps into the woods, Midoriya's smoke starting to clear, revealing a mass of shiny metal bodies assembling in a search.

"Got it, cap," Krouse says, the title tripping off his tongue sardonically, but he still says it, doesn't he? "I'll stay clear of the AOE. Let's play some robo-dominos. Think you can handle me using you to set up the shuffle again?"

He points at a spot midway between them and the robots. The exact coordinates aren't that important. Just somewhere Krouse can start breaking the formation with swaps.

He feels rather like a Q-ball, but he's signed up for worse before. (That's not an excuse.)

"No problem. But no explosives this time, we can't set the park on fire."

He jumps into the air towards where Krouse has indicated so the teleporter can start building his line of dominoes. Charging up Fa Jin during his jump so he can release it later along with a large output of his super strength is no problem. The backlash from a mid-air kick is what's going to be the most delicate part of the procedure for him...

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OPERATION: YOUTHFUL DISOBEDIENCE

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his face contains multitudes

i love him

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