deercountry | [open] Oh the weather outside is weather

"No," Paul calls up out of the basement, "I think you have the wrong place."

So perhaps Paul's opinion will not be shattered, because he is also like this.

If Midoriya chooses to come to the hole instead of leaving after that, he'll find Paul looking up at him with an expression that manages to include gratitude he came, embarrassment he found Paul like this, and anticipation of how Midoriya will get him out. Somehow, he thinks it's not going to involve throwing a rope.

"I'll still owe you for this," he says, half-smiling up from the bare floor. There's no sign of any disturbances besides the one he caused, the house otherwise as it seemed on the call: dusty, but empty of threat.

"...Funny," he sighs in the mildest manner possible. It's a treasure, something even those who get to know Midoriya over a long time rarely see, worth its weight in gold: Midoriya making a sarcastic comment about someone else.

Midoriya doesn't move. The last thing he wants to do is cause extra cave-ins by trampling around on an unstable floor. He can, however, just make out a figure standing below in the darkness if he leans at the right angle. Midoriya doesn't tally owed or owing things, nor is he likely to cash in on a favor, but he does want to spend more time with Paul now that he's here.

"...Can we get some yakiniku after this?" he asks shyly. He's not used to asking things of others outside of work or school, particularly things that could contribute to his own happiness.

It's for the best he's half in shadows. Paul doesn't care to think about how he might look at the question, except that it would likely bury any notion he has any dignity left.

"...I'd like that," he says, and he does fail to keep the quiet, skittish surprise out of his voice, especially when he adds, "I don't know what it is, but yes."

It had never occurred to Paul before he came here that there were areas of socializing he had no experience in. The blind spots were of scenarios he never would have been in, back in his world, that's true - but there are times he still feels fumbling and obvious. Admitting he has no idea what he's agreed to is one of them.

"Does that mean you'll still get me out?"

Midoriya wasn't even aware that the suggestion came from missing eating yakiniku with his class. It was just the first thing that came to mind.

"Oh, uh, it's..." a pause while he reaches for something he thinks will translate and hopes concentration does the rest, "grilled meat skewers. I don't even know if they have that here. We could just go eat anything, really." He grins. "Pretty sure I can't get food with you if you're stuck down there."

He peers at the rest of the room, particularly the ceiling, with a careful eye. He's muttering to himself, a slightly off-putting habit, unintelligible somethings about structural beams and haven't tried that...

"The safest way to do this is for me to carry you out. Keep clear of the hole, please. I'm going to jump down."

Now Paul gets to see his Quirk activate in person. He clears half the room in a calculated leap, arcing down to land on the basement floor. His Iron Soles strike the stone. With super strength, he doesn't need to roll.

Paul steps back from the hole immediately, providing ample space for Deku's landing, which he watches with avid eyes and a wide, closed mouth smile. He has an entire fleet of new questions ready to launch, but he holds them at bay - he can wait until they're out of here.

"I'll pay. I insist." He has a few fairly unusual stones on him, enough, he's sure, to cover the costs of grilled meat skewers or whatever else they find. The concept of paying for things himself is still novel, possibly noticeably so in the emphatic way he says it.

And then there's the idea of been carried. Paul knows, objectively, that Midoriya is right, given his abilities. It would be inconvenient to rig up a rope, and he might not be lucky in a fall again. But.

"...you won't tell anyone about this part, will you?" Paul steps towards Midoriya, studiously averting his gaze, as his Omen scrambles up his pant leg and into his pocket. "How do you want to...you know what you're doing. Go ahead."

He'll let Midoriya manhandle him however he sees fit, and swallow his pride about it. He knows (hopes he knows, an uncharacteristic anxiety) the other boy won't hold it over him.

"No, it's no trouble," he protests automatically. It's polite to. (Either Paul has a lot to barter with, or he's woefully inexperienced with bartering in Trench.)

He knows that in rescues, a victim might be reluctant, too scared, or, in Paul's case, embarrassed. For better or worse, Midoriya has a focus on saving others that eclipses everything else.

"You just have to hang onto me. On my back, that will leave my arms free to--"

He's hardly aware of cutting himself off and bracing himself slightly as a small tremor travels up through his shoes. It's gone before he can be concerned.

"...Earthquake?" he mutters in the mild way one does when growing up in a country that frequently experiences them. Anyway, he should hurry.

"...let's go." Paul circles around and bends to wraps his arms around Midoriya's shoulders, embarrassment superseded by the practical aversion to being underground in a doorless room during an earthquake. (His knife is thrust, for lack of a better place to secure it, loosely through his belt - not entirely safe, but it will be brief.)

Caladan is a seismically stable world, its violence confined to its skies and seas. Paul's feelings about shifting earth are new, and not resigned to it.

There's another tremor. This is when Paul's concern shifts into heightened preparatory alertness, and as the vibration ripples up his body, there is a sense of recognition -

"Now."

The second tremor can't be a coincidence. Midoriya activates his Quirk through his whole body again, as he did on his way here. He follows the orders of both instinct and Paul and jumps high into the air, clearing the basement.

The ground should crack and rumble, but the Unsnakely moves through earth like water. It's large enough to crowd a sitting room and long enough to lunge through the hole after the two humans. Being of earth itself, it takes and leaves rocks as it rises straight up out of the ground to snap its flaming jaws--

Midoriya twists in the air. There's no time to finesse a gentle landing like he wanted. He shoots Blackwhip from his hand at the top of the large glassless window frame he used as an entrance, yanks, and hurls himself and Paul through it.

The last time Paul clung to someone's back, he was a fraction of their size, which registers only because it takes a moment to work out how to best manage it when the height disparity is partially reversed. He ends up settling for using his arms alone, bracing down into his shoulders and working to otherwise try to make his own weight more a living than a dead one - in several senses.

As they hurtle through the air, Paul looks down at the creature below, and the relief at seeing it's not a sandworm is quickly replaced with the realization he would have preferred the worm after all.

There's nothing he can do about it for now except hold on, so he does, but it's not a clinging in fear.

"We can't leave it there!" He shouts, over the rush of wind around them and the crashing of the beast, and he's emphatic about the we - if Midoriya plans to drop him on a roof and head back on his own, Paul is going to have to waste time climbing down.

Midoriya skids into a landing outside in the front yard. It's a bumpy ride, but this isn't the first time he's had someone clinging to his back in a fight. Paul is much taller than a small child, though.

The monster follows the sound and vibration and shoots out the window. Its rocky body thrashes against the building as it leaves. Midoriya quickly rules out using an unstable structure as high ground, especially one in danger of going down in flames.

"If it follows us, it'll set the city on fire," he agrees through gritted teeth. The nearby woods are not an option in his eyes either. The Unsnakely whips its tail in the direction of Midoriya's voice, but he dodges with something between a grunt and a hiss.

"It's fast! Help me find an opening."

He speaks to Paul, but his Omen wants to lend a hand. They materialize in a silent burst of black smoke spilling behind him. The Eastern phoenix swells to an intimidating size nearly as large as the snake, throwing them in shadow. They spiral up high in watchful flight instead of defending or distracting as Omens are known to do. The Unsnakely takes no notice.

Paul nods, a sharp motion, and detaches himself from Midoriya with an ease that belies the balance he has to bring into play to do it gracefully. The blade at his waist is suddenly in his hand; his Omen springs into the air at her usual size, then bounds into the cloud of choking dust and ash that Unsnakely casts into the air.

The light must reflect strangely off of it, because for an instant, Paul's eyes seem to shine over with silver.

"Left side, four meters down from the head!" He calls, then twists sideways and back as the Unsnakely lashes out at the sound, and Paul is unaware of his eager closed mouth grin. It's recklessness to have cast himself into the midst of this, as relatively fragile as he is, this thing so beyond him - but he feels none of the looming fear that he should.

A mismatched shifting and grinding of rocks, a gap just a little too wide, anything will do. Paul leaves him in one smooth motion. As Paul calls out the spot, precisely and efficiently, Midoriya's Omen uses that to keep their sights on it and relays that information telepathically. Immune to fire and smoke, Omens can go where neither of their humans can.

Midoriya switches tactics. He darts around the monster fast enough to be difficult to follow by sight, using trees and the remains of stone walls as footing, intending to confuse it enough to come at it by surprise. This inherently makes Paul bait, but Midoriya doesn't intend to let anything happen to him.

Predictably, the Unsnakely lunges for Paul. Midoriya is already in the air, arm pointed like a gun at the outstretched neck. It's more super strength than is strictly safe to be putting into his fingers, but he only releases that much for an instant. The wrist of his gauntlet springs out in a circle to concentrate the air blast from a flick of his fingers.

"DELAWARE SMASH AIR FORCE!!" he shouts in English.

The Unsnakely buckles, several pieces shattering. Midoriya lands and takes aim again.

The monster slips into the ground like falling into water. The yard is silent. The earth doesn't so much as ripple. A few bushes burn forlornly. Like a glitchy video game, Midoriya thinks. Oh no... It's not exactly the same, but he lost soundly the last time he sparred with someone with phasing powers. He rushes to Paul's side.

"We need to get off the ground. That tree..." He's not sure why he's whispering.

Paul is. He would take more time to admire Midoriya's intuition of the beast's hunting pattern if not for two things: his nearly overwhelming amazement at 'Delaware Smash Air Force', whatever that means, and their possible impeding death at the hands of a vibration seeking burrowing tube, which he is familiar with. Ditto to being used as bait.

"I see it," Paul answers, in a matching quietness, then begins to make his way towards the tree. The sandwalk motions won't serve the same purpose here, so he, as much as possible, mimics Midoriya's approach of staying off the ground itself.

Across the courtyard, Sophia has swelled in size to resemble the first half of her originating species' name - kangaroo like, she sits with one enlarged foot raised and ready to pound out a distracting cadence at the first sign of the beast's emergence.

Midoriya doesn't always have time to shout out his moves with an attack, but it is part of his training. At first it was just marketing ploys to him--which of course worked. He was such a fan of All Might as a small child that he copied his brand of naming his moves after US states.

However, as he began to work with Pro Heroes, he began to see that it helps both allies and bystanders remember the things one can do. It reassures them as much as a costume or catch phrase and provides a shorthand for referring to personal techniques as various as Quirks. For better or worse, heroes are public figures in his world: celebrities, civil servants, and protectors all in one.

He leaps towards the tree and extends Blackwhip to yank himself the rest of the way without touching the ground. He crouches on a thick branch. He doesn't know it for sure, but he allows for the possibility that the snake might still feel vibrations from the tree. However, meters between him and the snake's point of emergence would give him more time to react. He selected this tree for its isolation from the others to prevent a fire spreading to the forest. That's part of his training too.

"Did you know what it was?" he breathes. He remembers how, in the basement, Paul knew what was coming before Midoriya had time to really think.

Paul skims silently up the tree shortly after, exercising freshly Trench-polished skills - scaling trees was a thing the young future duke rarely had time to do, even as a child, but out here in the wilds there's been no one to call him back in to do anything he doesn't feel like doing.

This place is a nightmare. It is wildly dangerous. It is full of unknown perils and constantly shifting threats. It's a playground, and Paul is grinning fiercely as he joins his new playmate on the branches. Sophia remains in place on the ground, just in case.

"No, but I've seen something like it. Sandworm." Paul answers Deku in an equal quiet. "Fewer flames."

Then, because Paul is at times painfully earnest, he asks with genuine interest: "Delaware Smash Air Force. What does that mean?"

He glances at Paul to more closely assess if he took any damage, and nostalgia punches him in the gut. Confidence is one thing, but he doesn't know too many people inclined to grin fiercely in the face of danger. His mentor told him he does it to trick the fear inside him. His rival hardly ever talks about how he really feels, but Midoriya knows he loves to win against all odds and hates being seen as weak. He showed him what it means to thrive in the face of a challenge.

So, Midoriya doesn't balk or ask Paul if he's crazy. He respects that. Admires it, even.

He's about to answer. He nearly launches into a long-winded explanation they don't have time for about how he wanted to name all his moves a combination of Smash and a US state in the style of his mentor, and how Delaware wasn't taken, and how the air pressure caused by his super strength is directed by his gauntlet so the wind won't cause damage to people and buildings around him, thus being named after the airborne branch of the military...

"...I'll tell you later. How do you fight them?"

Midoriya avoided the ground just to give himself space to react, thinking the Unsnakely must have earth-based phasing powers. Or perhaps it's similar to the earth constructs one of the instructors at summer camp created for his class to fight. It hasn't yet clicked that it relies on a sense other than sight. He looks at Paul's Omen. What is she doing?

Paul follows Midoriya's gaze with the battle-intuition of this heightened state of awareness, and it takes him less than a moment to realize the source of Midoriya's perplexed expression.

"Sandworms use vibrations to hunt," Paul tells him, leaning forward slightly to scan the field of battle and the possibilities it presents for them, "You wouldn't happen to have an atomic weapon?"

Paul pauses, and amends that with: "That's a joke."

It is true about sandworms, but Paul has the taboo against the use of atomics etched in him as deeply as any other shield fighter does. When you always carry a potential bomb on your person, a sense of extreme caution at the concept is a requirement for civil society to function. He wouldn't want Midoriya to think his humor fit for the gallows instead of games.

"We can use Sophia to bring it up, and then you can hit it again while I distract it." He blinks at the smoke in his eyes, rubs them one handed, and nods. "It's smaller than a worm. We should be all right."

He looks at Paul like he just turned into something as gross-sounding as a sandworm. Everyone knows atomic weapons are terrible, Paul!

"I knew it would go for you last time, but that was risky."

Midoriya isn't in a hurry to improvise something like that with Paul in danger again, but Paul seems to have more experience with tube-shaped ground monsters. Apparently.

He looks up at his Omen still confidently circling overhead. Their nature comes off as passive, but Midoriya knows better. Even now, they are training him. "...You see more than I do," he mutters under his breath. It's the best they can do for now. He's in.

Against the smoke, he just lifts the mask around his neck and fits it over his nose and mouth. He fixes the ground and Sophia with an intense look.

"Whenever you're ready," he says, whisper slightly muffled. There's a rough edge to it, like he's baring his teeth under his mask. "Try going upwind."

Paul isn't precisely relieved to get that look of horror, but it is good to know that Midoriya understands. People in this city often have a shockingly loose grasp on risk assessment.

"On two," Paul says, with a sharp nod, bracing himself to leap out of a tree to distract a massive underground fire wyrm made of stone and death, "Zero, one, two -"

Sophia begins to pound the earth, her oversized paw thumping steadily as Paul lands on light feet and falls forward into a sprint, making his way in the opposite direction of the drifting smoke. The ground shakes furiously under his feet, and he feels as much as hears the beast surge from the earth in pursuit of him.

He thinks of Midoriya's teeth-baring edge, and even as he runs, he wonders what Midoriya would have actually done in his memory, if Paul had tried to see it through. He's as glad he never had to find out as he is that he's going to find out what Midoriya will do here.

The Unsnakely hurtles towards Sophia first, momentarily unaware of the lighter, second pair of feet. As planned, it puts Paul in a position to both surprise and distract it.

Midoriya jumps into the air, cracking the tree branch and not caring; just another vibration down the trunk to confuse the monster. He puts his arms in front of him. He plans to aim two decisive blasts at one spot with both hands.

Its head rears up into the air while its fiery tail swipes towards Paul, and Midoriya is unwilling to chance that again. He's faced with a split-second choice between attacking to defeat it for good, risking Paul, and defending Paul at the risk of the snake overwhelming them. But he learned not too long ago that the strongest heroes believe in both winning fights and saving people. Why not both? He wants both with a ferocious intensity he didn't have a year ago.

He moves his arms apart. He points one down at the tail, fingers poised to flick. The other he throws to the side and a little behind, guided with wordless, telepathic instructions from his Omen towards a target he can't see.

The blowback from two air blasts at once in different directions jangles his shoulder joints and jerks him midair. It doesn't hurt enough to incapacitate Midoriya, but it forces him to be cognizant of where his improvisation meets the limits of his body. He clamps his teeth on a Damn it!, not sure if the snake can hear as well as feel vibrations.

Matching his aim to his Omen's is still imperfect. Part of the tail is destroyed for good. The damaged head, however, can still lurch clumsily. The snake opens its mouth.

It can spit fire. Of course it can.

There is a shiver in Paul's blood, a pressing awareness, that spins him on his heels to witness Midoriya's arcing leap, the spread of his hands, and it's like watching a thanergy ward bloom, a pillar of fire roar: this is a thing of wonder, a marvel, a honor to witness and to know.

But the beast is not quite yet done, its head rising, and this time, Paul's eyes flood entirely with a lunar glow, a silvery, pale light that looks past the moment, through it, and he sees -

"No!"

Sophia hits the Unsnakely just under its unhinging jaw with an audible crack, her once-small legs propelling her nearly black bear-sized body with furious concussive force that skews the flame wide, and Paul climbs to the top of a nearby wall in three quick hops over other obstacles, his fierce joy turned to protective rage. From his perch, he stares at the beast with eyes that flicker and throb with seething light, heedless of the revelation of them as long as the threat exists. Sophia whirls where she landed and prepares herself to leap again, her ears pinned back to her skull and (much less adorable, at this size) teeth bared.

Midoriya's Omen clamors in his head just after Paul shouts, but Midoriya isn't fast enough to dodge. In the wake of Sophia's blow, pieces of the snake's jaw shatter in a rain of sparks. The worst of the fire misses. Before he can be targeted again, Midoriya kicks in midair, sending a similar but less strong shockwave to batter the snake. The backlash propels him out of the way to the ground. He doesn't have the time to yell New Hampshire Smash!

He lands in a haphazard, bruising roll to snuff out flames, and his mask is knocked askew. He smells singed, extra-curly hair. Belatedly the exposed skin of his face and neck warn him how close he came to that heat.

Paul is standing on a wall, eyes glowing. That and his premature shout shake something loose in Midoriya's memory, but he has no time to catch on to exactly why Paul looks like he's about to summon the wrath of the heavens. A word comes to him from his native language that means amazing, but it carries with it a meaning from the other side of the coin: terrifying. Midoriya's pretty sure it's not aimed at him though.

He's crouched and ready to dodge a fiery gob of heat and light... that doesn't come. The snake's mouth is too damaged. His eyes widen, and he bares his teeth in steely triumph as the Unsnakely lunges drunkenly. He aims and flicks both fingers again.

THOOM. The recoil jerks his arms up, but he remains planted like a canon. The twin blows that buffet and thresh the Unsnakely sever it. Rocks scatter, and the fire dissipates. It's a win.

Paul comes down from the wall before the final blow quite hits, racing across the shattered, burning landscape, and he all but collides with Midoriya only moments later with outstretched hands closing around his shoulders. The glow of his eyes begins to dim as soon as contact is made.

"Are you all right?" Paul's voice is sharply urgent, pitched low and dark with the trailing edges of both fear and fury. His fingers are digging in too hard, clutching, and somehow, the tremor of the earth is still vibrating down his arms.

It's the smell of smoke, and flames casting shadows on ruined buildings, and the barely perceived slivers of that unhappened future. There's a thing moving in his chest that shouldn't be, or things that should be moving but aren't. All he's certain of is that the sensation is wrong, clawing, and his breathing is shakier than it should be, even after that run.

He visually assesses the passing of the threat in a sweeping glance at what's left of the inert, smoldering rocks, then turns his eyes to his rescuee-turned-ally--

"Augh--Paul-kun--I'm fine--"

Paul clutches him like a rag doll. It hurts on top of the rough landing that will surely turn into colorful bruises tomorrow, but Midoriya still feels adrenaline more than pain. Paul sounds like... him. He sounds like Midoriya, guttural and struggling as he roars to life after being hurt in a fight. But there's nothing fierce in the shaking of Paul's arms.

He waves the thinning smoke away from the both of them, not wanting Paul to suffer from it. It's weird, like the Unsnakely, and he doesn't like that. It doesn't matter that Paul ran so quickly here. He hovers his hands under Paul's arms near his sides in case he needs support, but doesn't grab him in case that might hurt. That's part of his training too, as is passing a scrutinizing gaze over all of Paul to take in his condition.

"It's all right. Paul-kun. It's over. Listen to me. Look at my face."

He tries to secure those waning moon-filled eyes with his own. He speaks clearly and firmly, meticulously ending his sentences like prayer beads being counted. Since having marks taken off his Provisional License exam for not immediately going to calm a mock victim, he's had more practice in Trench, for better or worse.

[open] Oh the weather outside is weather

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let me know if i can change anything XD

friend backpack time

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