73: 𝙴𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚑𝚚𝚞𝚊𝚔𝚎𝚜
Bakugou and Zel both got their wish for action granted.
The calm patrol started to go downhill after Zel insisted they stopped for a snack break, which surprisingly jeanest hadn't argued about. Apparently it was important to him to support local businesses and make appearances at them as well. To help the economy flourish and help people feel safe.
At least that's what he said to justify buying a rather large amount of cotton candy from a street vendor.
Nova only got water, taking small sips as they walked down the more crowded streets. Nova caught several stares from the civilians around her. Some seemed to recognize her from the festival, Bakugou too. Unsurprisingly neither got the best reactions. Though Bakugou seemed more well liked than Nova, which happened to be the opposite effect of their personalities.
But the thought of the crowd almost disappeared from her mind as Nova was practically thrown sideways. She wasn't the only one. The earth shook and the whole crowd tumbled into each other.
Nova had experienced earthquakes before, Japan had plenty of small ones per year. But usually they didn't happen this bad this quick. A small tremor here and there for a few minutes was what she was accustomed too.
The crowd shrieked and Nova stood up again to see what was going on.
"This doesn't feel natural." Jeanest said, unraveling parts of his costume.
There were creaking sounds that immediately alarmed Nova. The buildings around them shook down to their metal cores. Nova looked forward, it almost seemed like these tremors were coming from a specific direction. One the crowd was trying to stumble away from.
"Oh yeah, looks like we are getting some action after all!" Zel said, getting in a fighting stance. Nova panicked, she had been hoping things would remain calm for the entirety of her internship.
"Bakugou! Nova! Clear the area, there seems to be a fight. Bakugou remember what I taught you about crowd control!" Jeanest yelled, both pros seemed ready to take off.
Zel unsheathed her swords. "Don't boss around my intern! Nova, you're with me. Unless you want to be stuck with Mr Denim and skinny jeans over here." She said with a smirk. Nova glanced at Bakugou and Jeanest, then nodded and pulled out her own swords.
"I'll stay with you."
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The source of the tremors was a single man. Nova couldn't see him well through the clouds of dust billowing up from the man as he destroyed the street around him. Nova and Zel moved around via the nearby buildings, but Nova could tell they weren't that strong. Vibrations traveled up the planted wires and threw off the trajectory of their movements.
They landed on a roof, Nova stumbled far more than Zel did. Who tucked into a roll to prevent being thrown off her feet. Nova braces herself closer to the surface, her hands pressed against the building. She couldn't touch the metal inside, but she could feel it.
"Any of these buildings could come down if there's too much of this!" Nova shouted at Zel over the grating sound of the quake. Rumbling of rocks scraping against each other and buildings shaking from their foundations up.
"Jeanest is engaging already. I think the best idea is removing him from his position on the ground! See his hands? It seems like he needs contact to keep this going!" Zel shouted back, Nova looked down at the man. Having a better view of him now she saw how his hands were practically buried in the ground that cracked around him. It seemed to be where the source of the quake was.
"So you're gonna attack?" Nova asked. Zel nodded.
"I'll pull him back, you keep an eye on the buildings. You're the only one who can tell how close they are to collapse. There were a few other pros around who were clearing the streets and buildings already." Her mentor explained. Then she leapt off the roof without hesitation, swinging perfectly towards the man in the center of the crisis. She swooped down right at the same moment Jeanest seemed to reach him. Nova could see the villain's clothes constrict around him the same second Zel snatched him up with a lasso of her own hair. The moment seemed to be a perfect moment of teamwork between the two who had been arguing just a few minutes prior
Zel strung him up from a telephone pole away from the ground far away from the point of his original attack.
The ground still rumbled but it seemed to have eased. The tremors seemed more natural, as though the ear beneath them was still recovering from the forced earthquake.
Nova let out a breath as she felt the building under her calm. That was a quick save on Zel and Jeanest's part, just goes to show what great pros they both were.
She heard another rumble and the scream of metal and brick crying out in distress. Two buildings across the street from each other creaked and seemed to just barely... Tilt.
"ZEL THE BUILDINGS!!" Jeanest yelled. He looked around, the only possible way he could stop this was by taking every single fiber from the crowds that were being pushed back. But that was obviously completely unethical. He didn't have a quirk that would catch these two buildings.
They stood directly across the street from each other, tilting in opposite directions. One could tumble into the street behind them, one that wasn't completely evacuated yet. The other would crash into the ocean, dooming any civilians that remained inside.
Zel launched into action again. Nova saw her hair grow out longer than she ever had as she traveled through the air towards the top of one of the buildings. She looped around it, her hair stretching so long she wrapped her entire head of hair around it and used her gear to launch herself into the opposite direction. Towards the other falling building, repeating the same movement.
An infinity symbol of hair looped around the two falling buildings anchoring them towards each other. Using each building as a splint to each other. She fell to the ground after tying a knot in the center of the cross and used her sword to slice through her hair, freeing her scalp from the two buildings.
Nova jumped to the ground from the building she had been watching on. She could see the red on Zel's scalp, her quirk has a limit of how much hair she could grow this fast and she had obviously reached it.
The buildings stilled, no longer moving away from each other. Nova's heart thundered in her chest and everything stilled. Zel looked up at the two buildings, before pulling back towards the crowd instructing the scared and confused civilians on where to go now. While Jeanest did the same with Bakugou by his side, the two buildings still had people pouring out of them. More disoriented than everyone else.
Nova stepped after them to help her mentor. But the ground began to shake again.
This type of earthquake was familiar. It was smaller and felt more natural, but there was no way this was a coincidence. His quirk must've triggered more, meaning it hadn't just disrupted the surface. But the deeper fault lines. The two buildings groaned and the hair started to snap, strand by strand. Nova was between them now, the metal whined and the earth around it started to crack. While the other buildings were shaken, these two seemed to be especially weak.
The people around them screamed, families ran out of the buildings but stumbled on the shaky ground. Jeanest and Zel scooped up who they could and ran them to the safer areas.
Nova pulled out the triggers for her gear and shot lines in both directions, gripping the metal in her fists and closing her eyes in concentration. "Stop... Please just stop..."
She grabbed hold of the metal around her. The beams tucked inside the infrastructure of the buildings and begged them to stop moving. Begged them to hold still. She had never used her quirk in this scale, sure she could feel the metal inside buildings. But she never attempted to move it.
Instantly every muscle in her body tightened. Nova sucked in a breath and then felt as though her lungs were dry. Every muscle, every ligament and every vein in her body tensed up. She felt like she was trying to pick up a thousand ton dumbbell, like she was being pulled in two different ways. Her hands held onto the wires as though they were grounding her to the buildings. Her arms spread wide and her face contorted in agony. But she didn't make a sound.
The buildings stopped moving. Nova felt like a small strand of hair connecting them, like if she snapped it would all come crumbling down.
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