Heroes of the High Seas Chapter 2 (Patreon)

Hey everybody.  I wish you all a safe, pleasant Sunday something we cannot take for granted in this screwy world.  My thoughts and prayers are still with those in Israel and those children and families in the Gaza strip who are caught in the crossfire between their own government-backed extremists, and the IDF.

Anyway, like it says on the tin, this is the second chapter of Heroes.  As Tomon is still wrestling with the chapter of Death's Avenger, he has given me the okay to post this without his input.  Primordial Vortex (If you haven't read his stuff, go check it out) gave it a light beta-reading type look over, but didn't go into as much depth as Tomon would given RL and his own work.  I hope that there aren't any immersion breaking mistakes.

Now without further ado, here is the chapter. I won’t tell you all much, but I will say I rewrote the teaser segment of this chapter pretty heavily if any of you read that already. With that said, here we go!

Enjoy!

Chapter 2: The Ocean can be a Bitch

Even as the giant dolphin disappeared under the waves, the shock of seeing a dolphin the size of a blue whale cavorting around their boat had everyone bar Izuku stunned. For a few moments Izuku’s mumbling didn’t register to the others, who could barely make out one word in four.

Eventually getting tired of that, Melissa reached over, tugging on an ear and ruffling his hair. “Snap out of it, Izuku! This isn’t the time to get lost in your own mind, we’re already lost in a large freaking ocean!”

Izuku blinked, coming out of his fugue more from hearing his first name again from a pretty girl he was so unused to it, then the tug on his ear. Nonetheless, he decided to share his thoughts, pointing towards where the dolphin had disappeared. “The size of the dolphin is worrisome.  If a dolphin is that big, it stands to reason there could be far, far larger predators.”

That served to bring Tsuyu and Kirishima out of their own paralysis as both of them began to laugh, Kirishima’s loud guffaws drowning out Asui’s cute keros. “Bro, dolphins are not easy to pray on for other animals. They work in pods, and they can be manly battering rams if they want to be. I saw them chase off a huge shark once. It came too close to the dolphin school, and a few dolphins peeled off and pounded it until it ran away.”

“Kero, giant octopi maybe would attack them, but even killer whales don’t bother them,” Tsuyu added.

“Maybe not, but the bigger the animal, the more food it needs to consume. And if the dolphin is that size, then everything else might also be larger,” Izuku admitted his own ignorance but still wanted to get his worry across.

“Are you saying we’re in the land of the giants?” Jirou asked, playing with one of her earjacks nervously.

“Kero, there is another problem.” Tsuyu peered ahead of where the boat had been moving before the dolphin grabbed their attention, her face creased in worry. “I don’t see the island we were making for anymore.”

“Wait, what!?” Kirishima tossed the oar he had still been holding into the boat and twisted around, staring all around the boat front to back and along the sides. “How the heck… we were close enough to see it, could we have been pushed entirely away from it by an undercurrent? I didn’t feel anything.”

“No, there wasn’t anything like that, although the waves here are pretty strong, Kero,” Tsuyu said worriedly. Where before the waves had been gentle, now they were more like being out in the deep ocean, constant crests and a lot of up and down. I hope none of the others get seasick, that would be really hard to deal with.

Kirishima took the hint, and went back to work along with Iida to keep the ship steady. For several minutes the boat moved forward in the direction everyone agreed the island had been, but found nothing. They kept on going, but now worry and concern set in, and Melissa and Momo moved to join the two boys in rowing.

“Oh drat it, I wish I had thought about giving us a power boat. These waves are really difficult,” Momo grunted, trying to get the timing right with her current rowing partner.

“S, sorry, Yaoyorozu-san. I, I cant take over for you if you—” Izuku said, before being interrupted.

“NO!” shouted everyone there, with Jirou going on in irritation. “Your body is still too tired from Recovery girl’s healing, just like Todoroki’s. And your fingers look black and blue even if they aren’t broken, Green.”

“Shoto.” Shoto stated as Izuku looked down, embarrassed once more at his lack of control. “Call me Shoto.”

“Er, okay, Shoto…” Jirou muttered, still surprised at the change that had come over their previously standoffish classmate. “For now. I’ll come up with a nickname for you soon. Anyway, just lay there for a bit like Shoto, Green.”

With that, Jirou and Tsuyu joined the efforts to keep the ship going in one direction. But after an hour, the teens had to admit defeat. There was no island out there, not in the direction they had been going. Despite Tsuyu and Kirishima both saying they would have felt something like that, it was clear they had been pushed well off course.

“We need to think of ways to protect us from the elements, Kero,” Tsuyu said, shaking her head while continuing to row as well as she could, hoping that they would see something whenever they crested a wave, but being disappointed every time. “When lost on the ocean like this, there are a few things you need to worry about: dehydration, and exposure. We need to keep the sun off us.”

“Darn it. We should have thought about that before rowing for so long. We could have made use of the balloon I made to save us all from the fall,” Momo muttered, looking around for it but obviously not seeing anything through the heavy waves around them. “If we need one, I can make us a tarp. I can also make us sunscreen.”

“Both would be good,” Tsuyu responded promptly. “Nothing beats actually get out of the sun, kero.”

She glanced at Izuku and his now black and blue fingers, then over at Todoroki who was now laying out on the boat. His leg, although healed from being squished like an empty tube of toothpaste, was still nowhere near as strong as his other leg. To say nothing of his other barely healed wounds, and overall tiredness. There was a reason why both boys had been in hoverchairs the night before. More to the point, Shoto’s skin was very pale, and he looked to already have some sunburn on his face.

“That would be midships from port to starboard,” Kirishima interjected, more concerned about nomenclature than his manly friends.

With no real goal in place, the group took a break from rowing, finding instantly that the waves made for a very interesting time when moving around the ship. Luckily most of them had very good footwork normally. This meant everyone bar Tsuyu and Kirishima only fell once during the scramble, and there was only one embarrassing moment where Mei stumbled, smacked into Melissa, and sent them both tumbling onto the two boys on enforced rest time. Not that even Izuku complained overmuch.

Still, despite them all needing to work on their sea legs, the work was done quickly. With Momo providing everything they needed, they quickly rigged up the tarp over the center of the boat. Along with that, everyone bar Tsuyu and Kirishima were provided with life vests. As they worked, Kirishima and Tsuyu did what they could to fill in the others about the nomenclature used by sailors the world over to get them used to ship life.

“Although, calling it a ship’s really stretching the point. This thing isn’t even big enough to really serve as a ship’s boat, let alone a modern survival craft,” Kirishima grumbled.

“Well excuse me,” Momo answered, sounding somewhat affronted, although a narrow-eyed Jirou frowned at a small, breathy gasp the heiress let out as she finished making a bottle of sunscreen. “It was the best I could do under extremely trying circumstances.”

“Kero, where did you get the design from?” Tsuyu asked, staring at the bottom of the boat contemplatively. The sides of the boat were very good looking almost like it had been taken from a picture, complete with spaces along the gunwales, and wooden seams as would be normal in a wooden rowboat. But the bottom was a solid piece.

Momo blushed a bit, looking away even as she continued to hold the tentpole in place for Izuku and Mei who were carefully hammering in nails into the flanges at the bottom to make it stay upright. Thankfully, the bottom of the boat she had made was quite thick, so they were able to nail the tentpole down without causing leakage. Izuku was also happy for something to do, even with his bruised hand and shaky legs. “From a children’s book I read when I was younger. I really liked the description of the boats in it, and I found some pictures online. It was the biggest thing I’d made at the time.”

The others all chuckled a little at the heiress’s embarrassment, but kept on working. And there was only one more fall before the job was finished. Luckily, Iida fell backward, and damaged nothing but his pride.

Once the tarp was up, Todoroki and Midoriya were moved underneath it. Shoto especially looked as if he would need to remain underneath it, and Tsuyu asked any of the others if they knew they needed to watch out for too much sun. “I know I’ll need to jump in and get some water on my skin every few hours, Kero.”

Before any of the others could answer, the wind began to pick up. Within one second and the next, the clouds darkened and rain fell like a torrent. The waves grew too, tossing the rowboat around, the bright clear day but a memory in seconds. It was literally that sudden. And Iida, who had been moving back to take his position to row once more, found himself in the air and over the side before he could blink.

Luckily, Jirou heard his scream, and quickly shouted. “Iida went overboard! Left to the back of the boat!”

She might have gone unheard, given the background noise of the storm, but Kirishima heard her and took up the cry, his voice punching through the storm like a foghorn. “Man overboard, starboard aft!”

Tsuyu reacted quickly. From where she had been near the prow she leapt into the air, looking around quickly. Right where Kirishima said to look, she spotted Iida’s hand sticking out of the water. The tall boy had already gone under, pulled by the weight of his legs and unable to fight through the heavy waves.

“KERO!” Asui lashed out with her tongue as hard as she could, needing to stab into the water, which, as choppy and heaving as it was, was not easy. I’ve never seen a storm this heavy!  She thought, trying to push down a shiver of fear.

Limbs flailing wildly, Iida tried to make for the surface. For the first time he cursed his family’s Quirk as it dragged him down no matter how hard Iida tried. No, no, I can’t die like this, brother I…

A pink thing flashed through the water beside him, barely discernable through the water. Iida saw it though, and grabbed it quickly with both hands. A moment later Iida felt himself pulled upwards at an angle. He was gasping, his mouth opening despite his best efforts as he burst out of the water, gasping in air.

Asui grimaced in pain but was still able to land on the prow of the boat before losing her footing and falling forward as the ship dipped under her. This would have her head into the bottom of the boat if not for Melissa and Jirou catching her by her shoulders. Yet the two other girls kept Tsuyu stable as she slowly pulled her tongue back in, tears of pain coming to her eyes to join the rain running down her face.

Pulling Iida in was extremely awkward in the storm as the ship kept moving with the waves, almost going over several times, as Izuku and Kirishima worked, the others too busy trying to balance the boat to help. By the time they hauled Iida out of the ocean, Asui’s tongue was badly pulled to go with the end having been squeezed so much it was undoubtedly bruised.

All of them looked at one another, huddling down and hanging onto the boat as best they all could. Even Kirishima did, shaking his head, his eyes wide enough to be seen through the deluge by those closest to him. “I’ve been to the sea a lot of times with my Pops, and I’ve never seen a storm come up so quick! That’s not natural!”

Izuku leapt to what he thought was a logical conclusion, ignoring the fact that his fingers were throbbing badly from helping Iida into the boat and that he had jammed one of them badly before that when the ship lurched, making the pain in his hand even worse. His pain was worthless right now in comparison to making certain that everyone lived through whatever was going on. “Could there be a weather controlling Quirk user out there targeting us?”

“Don’t know, don’t care! Momo has the right idea, link everyone together and to the rowboat, but make the ropes loose. In this seas, were in danger of capsizing, and that wouldn’t be manly at all. Keep the weight in the center of the boat, ready to move so we can balance the boat against the swells!” Kirishima ordered.

Everyone did so, although Shoto was frowning in thought as he did. For several moments, the group battled the storm as best they could, which wasn’t very well at all. After all surviving in a rowboat stuck out at sea was a horrible place to be on a clear day. In a storm, people could only really buckle themselves down, try to keep the boat from capsizing and pray. There was a reason why people thought that the term SOS stood for Save Our Souls.

“We, we’re not going to make it!” Kirishima shouted as the rowboat plunged down a wave so steeply those at the prow nearly fell out. “The sea’s too rough!”

“I have an idea. Sorry ahead of time, Asui,” Shoto announced, before ice flowed out from him. Not in a sudden charge of ice, but a slow crawl, filling the rowboat, capturing all oft the teens from the waist down. Then it spread out in every direction, creating a large plate of ice. The ocean tried to tear it apart, but it wasn’t quite able to.

Almost instantly everyone could tell it was working. They were still going up and down enough for Izuku and Momo to both begin to turn green, but they were in no danger of going over the side.

How long the storm lasted none could tell, but when it ended, the storm subsided with the same abruptness that it arrived. Once more, before she could even blink the sky was clear, the storm vanishing with a truly terrifying abruptness.

“Okay, maybe there is a Quirk user involved, but if so, that is one scary Quirk. Most weather based Quirks either specialize, like ones who can summon lightning, or work slowly, like that worker in Canada who manipulates the weather on demand for farmers throughout the country,” Melissa said between chittering teeth pulling out her glasses from a button pocket on her chest where she had quickly stowed them as the storm hit.

“It doesn’t matter. If we’re being attacked, or if this is natural, it doesn’t matter!” Kirishima said, emphasizing his words by thumping his fist down on the ice covering his bottom half. Since he had changed into his stone form automatically as the ice washed over him, this shattered the ice., hastening the destruction of it quickly. “We just got really lucky thanks to Shoto-bro. We need to find land quickly, or else. A rowboat is not going to cut it out here guys, not even with Shoto-bro doing his work. Not with storms like that coming at us so fast. Even Shoto-bro is going to run out of endurance, and then where will we be?”

Izuku became aware of the throbbing in his fingers once more now that the immediate danger had passed and winced trying to hide his hand behind his body and the ice which quickly began to disappear, melted by Shoto and the general heat, which had returned and intensified. In an effort to push the pain aside, Izuku examined the others, wondering how they were taking all this.

To his surprise, Momo, Jirou and Melissa seem to be handling it pretty well. Jirou, sitting between the two taller girls looked nervous and concerned, but dealing with it well enough. Momo, Izuku was certain, was pushing things aside for now to concentrate on immediate needs. Currently, she was looking at her forearm as a long metallic cylinder began to appear there, while Jirou watched her like a hawk. They were a bit battered from being flung about the boat, but none of the trio had any serious wounds. Nor, thankfully, did anyone else.

As he watched, Melissa began to issue orders, which Kirishima and Iida hastened to obey, scooping out the water from the ice that Todoroki had used to link them altogether out of the boat, as Todoroki apologized before the blonde girl shushed him. “You’re quick thinking saved us all. A little bit of discomfort is a small price to pay for all of us staying in the boat.”

The orders served to push Iida to get out of his funk. He had been unresponsive through the storm, shivering and clinging to the side of the ship. Now with the storm gone he went to with the will, thanking all and sun-dried for saving him in an overdone but heartfelt manner, which ended abruptly as Melissa ordered, “less hand chopping, more scooping.”

Izuku understood where his friend’s former paralysis came from though. Iida’s legs were far heavier than they looked, thanks to the engines within, and the ocean during that storm had been such that even an expert swimmer would’ve been terrified if he didn’t have a Quirk specialized for that environment.

To his surprise, the one who seemed to be having the largest case of the jitters was sitting next to Todoroki, who had reacted just as he would in a training exercise back at school. But Mei was shivering in place next to him, and Izuku could sense that it had nothing to do with still being cold. Indeed, the warmth of the day was almost oppressive, and Izuku could feel himself start to dry out already. It was evident though that Mei had never faced the fury of nature before. She had been in life or death situations during the fight back on I-Island, but Izuku wasn’t the only one who was looking at Mei little worriedly as she began to mutter, “No babies, no tools, nothing to build, nothing to fight with!”

“What are you talking about?” Momo asked, smiling slightly as she held out the cylinder she had made toward Mei. “You still have your Quirk, and you still have your mind. Your mind will help us get through this once we reach someplace where you can build your ‘babies,’ it’s only a matter of time. But for right now, your Quirk will be the most useful with this.”

May took the spyglass, peering into it, then nodded gratefully to Momo, pushing yourself to work feet, and moving to the prow of the ship. “Thanks, Busty.”

Momo spluttered at that, while Izuku and the other boys looked away, and Iida and Jirou took Mei to task for the inappropriate nickname. Unfortunately, after a few seconds, Mei, who had been ignoring them, pulled the spyglass away from her eyes shaking her head. “I still don’t see anything else out there but more ocean. Not behind us, not in front of us not anywhere. That island is lost for sure.”

That brought a somber silence to the group for moment, which Izuku broke, knowing that he couldn’t let any of them become depressed. They had to keep pushing forward, or else they were all going to become crushed by the impossibility of the danger they were facing. “Right, that just means we need to start moving then. Did we keep the oars?”

“We lost them over the side,” Melissa said, having seen it happen. “Yaomomo, I hate to ask, but are you up to…”

Momo nodded, wordlessly holding out two metallic looking paddles, each the size of her own body which she had just extruded from her hands. They were lightweight titanium, with rubber ends, far easier to make than a similar wooden oar would be, and cost her less in terms of her reserves. Whatever those actually might be, she reflected, holding back an entirely inappropriate chortle as she remembered the conversation she’d had with Melissa and Izuku on that score back in Melissa is laboratory.

That was made easier by a loud gurgle coming from her stomach. Jirou looked at her sharply and when Momo couldn’t stop herself from looking down at her stomach announced firmly, “That’s it for now folks. The Yaoyo-store is closed until we get some food.”

The others all agreed, even apologizing for forcing Momo to use her Quirk so much.

“That’s well and good, but we need to think about what we can do if another storm comes upon us,” Todoroki said in his normal monotone. A tone of voice that everyone knew after their adventure on I-Island was false, but which served to further calm them all dow. “I can freeze us into a glacier to shield us from it and keep us afloat like I did this last time it won’t be pleasant for anyone. Least of all you, Tsuyu.”

Tsuyu waved her hand weakly from where she had sat half in and half out from under the tarp, slowly rolling her tongue back into her mouth wincing with every twist of the tongue. The chill had actually helped a lot with her tongue, frankly. “I’m still wearing the coat Momo gave me, and going into hibernation isn’t all that bad so long as it doesn’t last very long, kero.”

“So that is one viable way of getting through it. Did anyone see anything that could’ve warned us it was coming?” Todoroki asked, taking Tsuyu’s words at face value. “I need some warning to craft enough cold to create an iceberg like that without hurting us. Mid storm is okay, but it would be better if we can stop anyone from being flung out of the boat like Iida was.”

Jirou slowly raised her hand from where she had slumped next to Melissa, not having anything to do right now. “I might have felt the wind starting to pick up a little. My earjacks are sensitive to that kind of thing. But that’s about all. I may be able to warn us, but don’t bet on it.”

Todoroki just nodded, while me shook her head, reminded of the storm may began to panic again. “What’s it matter if we spot a storm coming, we can’t stop it! And eventually, we might be hit by a real storm, one that stays around for a while and then we’ll be dead, either frozen like popsicles or sunk or…”

Izuku reached for her hand, squeezing it briefly, causing her worst hole for a second as she looked at him. Oh my God, I’m holding a girl’s hand willingly! The extremely socially stunted Izuku exclaimed mentally, a but he couldn’t allow any of those thoughts to show on his face. Although he did stutter a little as he spoke. “H, Hatsume-san, you’re surrounded by hero students. Yes, t, t, the situation might be dire, but so have some of the exercises we’ve been put through by All Might and Eraserhead.”

“Especially when he puts in logical ruses,” Jirou grumbled, causing nods from everyone from 1-A bar Iida. The class president quickly began to take her to task about impugning a teacher at such a vaunted Academy as UA.

Izuku however kept concentrating on Mei’s face, trying not to let his eyes wonder. All of them had been dressed for bed, and Mei’s version of bedwear had been a sports bra and boy pants. Really, really short boy pants. And she wasn’t the worse of the girls. That had to be Momo, whose silk pajamas clung to her like a second skin. Izuku tried hard not to look at anything but her face, but it was hard. “T, the rest of us can get us to land. But you, Momo, and Melissa might be the keys to us surviving afterward. So, so stay with us okay? Don’t panic, Hatsume-san. We need you.”

May stared into Izuku’s eyes for a moment, then nodded, breathing in a few times deeply, causing her chest to heave in such a way that Izuku, who despite being socially awkward, was a red-blooded teenager, had to fight to keep his eyes trained on the pink haired inventor’s. “Right, got it Green.”

With that, she resolutely turned back, scanning the horizon once more with the spyglass.

Melissa nodded, happy that Izuku had broken her fellow inventor out of her funk. Now if only his stuttering hadn’t come back. Well, we can work on that, just like his self-preservation and quirk control. Izuku’s a project, but I think he’ll be worth it. “Let’s break into groups here. We’ve got the tarp and sunscreen to keep us from getting sunstroke, and Shoto… you really need to stay underneath that,” she murmured, looking at his now red face, getting a glum nod in agreement. “But you can create ice for us that we can melt into drinkable water, right? Your Quirk doesn’t do anything to the ice to make it not drinkable?”

Todoroki nodded, and to the surprise of everyone, actually had experience with that. “I have drunk the water from my own ice quite a few times after particularly hard training sessions with Endeavor.”

Hearing something in the tone of voice from Todoroki, and the use of the fiery hero’s codename, Izuku’s eyes narrowed. He had made certain leaps of logic during their time together on I-Island when it came to Endeavor that his hero worshiping side was not happy about. But hearing that tone in Todoroki’s voice, he now knew for certain that there was something bad going on there. Some kind of abuse, maybe? Physical or emotional it doesn’t matter. Shoto’s been hurt somehow in the past.

He didn’t Interrupt now though. There would be time enough later to maybe ask Shoto to open up a little.

“We might need food eventually,” Melissa continued, ignorant of Izuku’s thoughts. “With Tsuyu out of action, we might have to try our hand at fishing. Eiji, you said your family was one of the fishermen groups supplying I-Island, maybe you can teach us how to fish? My dad always says that it’s therapeutic for some reason.”

Kirishima blushed a bit at being called his first name by the attractive older American girl, but Momo disagreed. “While I am famished we don’t need food yet, so let’s not get sidetracked. What we need to do instead is figure out a direction to go and a way to keep us on that course without any landmarks.”

“That means you’ll need to make us a compass and a sextant then,” Melissa warned, both of the terms coming out in English. She’d never had cause to look them up in Japanese after all. While Momo and Izuku nodded, the others looked at her blankly, and she sighed. “Dammit, the language barrier. Sorry, there are just some words I’ve never used before in Japanese. The thing that always points north, small, fits in your hand?”

“Compass,” Kirishima said quickly getting over his embarrassment. “No ship ever goes anywhere without one.”

“Oh dear, I don’t think I’ve ever made that… Although I have made magnets, and that’s how they work right? A loadstone I think they are called, always pointing north?” Momo muttered.

Somehow, Izuku was suddenly holding a pen and notebook, causing Iida, who was sitting next to him, to twitch in shock and shift away pointing at the thing is if it was from the devil. “W, Midoriya-san, where did that notebook come from!?” The girls bar Mei all nodded agreement, having seen Izuku do that back on I-Island and still wondering about it.

Izuku ignored that as he always did when people wondered where he kept his notebooks. It wasn’t his fault that people didn’t know he always had a notebook on him. “A compass looks like this…” Izuku began to draw, and within seconds, held up the notebook to show a small circular object, the exterior made of wood, covered over at the top with glass, with a dial inside and numerals around the outer circumference of the circle. “Does this help?”

Momo smiled at him, causing Izuku to blush this time, although it looked far redder in comparison to his hair than in Kirishima’s case.  At least in Momo’s opinion. And those freckles of his are quite cute. “That will help immensely Izuku, thank you.”

She closed her eyes, holding out her hand and willing what she wanted into existence. Much like the autocannon she had used during the battle trials back on I-Island, it came far faster than a part of her mind had really expected, and Momo once more thanked Melissa and Izuku in her mind for their help in better understanding her own Quirk.

However, when Momo opened her eyes and looked down at the item in her hand, she sighed in dismay. “Drat it! I must’ve made it wrong. Look, it’s spinning all over the place.”

Before anyone else could say anything, Mei, who had turned away from watching horizon to watch events, reached down and plucked the compass up out of Momo’s hand, staring at it. Those nearby could see her eyes shift as she activated her Quirk, the crosshairs within them suddenly dialing down almost like a sniper staring at a particularly long range target. “No, you made it right… It’s just, wherever we are, this place has more than one magnetic pole.”

Tsuyu and Kirishima both looked shocked at that, while Melissa stated assertively, “that’s impossible!”

“Maybe, but that’s what’s happening. I can see this thing taking little minute jerks and twitches in each direction for a few seconds as one pole starts to get stronger than the others, before then spinning around like a top,” Mei handed back the compass, shaking his head. “Nice thinking, but I think we’re just going to have to pick a direction and pray.”

“Well, since the ship is pointing this way, let’s just keep going in that direction, then,” Izuku said, causing Tsuyu and Kirishima to shake her heads

“Bro, you are among the manliest guys I know, but that was such a landlubber comment, my Pops would smack you over the head for it. There’s the current to consider, waves, the wind might pull us a little off course. Not to mention any storm that comes up screwing with our visibility and course. Keeping on a course at sea is a lot tougher than you might think.”

“Perhaps so, but while Izuku spoke in ignorance, we cannot simply wait here, we need to be moving. Even if we are moving haphazardly, that is better than waiting in a vast expanse of nothing, isn’t it?” Momo asked.

To that, none of the others had anything to say, and Iida, Kirishima, Melissa and Tsuyu began to row while Jirou sat next to Mei on the prow, ready to grab her if she overbalanced and fall out of the boat. She also extended her earjacks as far as they would go in every direction. This way, she hoped to pick up enough signals to tell her if the weather was about to change.

It worked, and the next time a squall came up, Todoroki had time to cover the interior of the boat, and perforce all of them, with ice, from the waist down just like he had near the end of the first storm that hit them, the ice extending outward once more. With this, they rode out the storm somewhat well.

On the other hand, Tsuyu reacted more poorly this time than she had before. Because with this storm came cold. The rain actually began to turn to ice, shocking everyone aboard the ship and pushing Tsuyu further into her cold-induced torpor. Thankfully for the frog girl, Mei was close enough to draw her upper body into a hug, and Momo pushed herself to create another pair of hand warmers, sliding them along the ice to Mei. Better, the tarp warded off the actual ice, causing it to slide out, although several times Iida, the tallest of the group, had to strain to poke the top of the tarp to get rid of accumulated ice.

When the storm faded, the chill remained in the air, and it took Todoroki several moments to develop enough heat to slowly start to fall them out. Then the weather changed once more stupefying all the teens as the warm, tropical heat came back.

By this point, everyone was wet, bedraggled, and still shivering as the last of the ice disappeared from around the boat. This included Todoroki himself, who was shivering so much at his position in the center of the boat, that the tent pole was shaking in turn. “I’ve never enjoyed being stuck in my own ice like that, and now I like it even less.”

Melissa hurried over to him, crouching down and beginning to poke and prod his right side for a few seconds, holding up his hand and moving his fingers gently, feeling at the bones in his elbow and shoulder. “You still feel a little rigid to me, and your arm looks as if you were in danger of giving them frostbite. The cold you create doubles back on you, doesn’t it? Keep using your heat side for a bit until your fingers are back to normal, okay? That’s about all I can tell you unfortunately. I’m a scientist, not a doctor.”

“That’s better than any of the rest of us,” Izuku said, holding up his hand for emphasis. Momo had been making him small finger guards when the storm hit, and while one of them, a cross between a guard to prevent further injury and a splint, looked very good, the others didn’t, much to Momo’s chagrin.

With a good-natured chuckle, Melissa came over, unwrapped Izuku’s fingers and began to rewrap them properly, with Mei and the 1-A students looking on, even Kirishima and Iida from their positions rowing the boat. Izuku began to feel a little self-conscious at all this attention, which Iida pointed out, before stating bluntly, “if you don’t want such attention in the future, Midoriya-san, perhaps you should undertake to not break anymore fingers. However, knowing you, you will almost certainly break some other portion of your body. Perhaps if enough of us know how to treat you afterwards though, oh we can save you a little bit from yourself.”

Izuku blushed at that, while the rest of his classmates, and even Melissa and Mei to his horror, nodded in agreement.

Me however was distracted a second later, and she stared into the distance, saying, “Hey, I can see a dolphin out there! No way I can tell if it’s the same one though.”

“Let’s make for it,” Kirishima said. The others all looked at him in confusion even as Tsuyu, who was now standing by the aft of the ship with the tiny tiller, had begun to do so. Seeing this, Kirishima explained. “Dolphins are friendly. Not only that, they’re smart. Dolphins sometimes help swimmers, and who knows, if this dolphin is just a regular dolphin done large, it might even be smarter. The size of the brain matters right? It could be leading us to safety somehow. And it might also be living around that first island we saw, so even if its not trying to help, moving in that direction’s a good idea.”

While this sounded really farfetched, no one else had anything better to do, they did so. Moments later, they were rewarded by the dolphin flipping through the air, splashing about in the distance, and remaining there, until they came a little closer, whereupon it moved away again. If this was to help them, or simply to stay away, none could tell. Jirou jokingly asked Tsuyu if she could speak dolphin, to which the frog girl simply deadpanned no, causing everyone to laugh a little as some more of the tension of their arrival in the strange world and the storms they had faced began to subside.

The group of teens dealt with a few strange currents over the next few hours, but nothing horrendous, pushing on through the day. Todoroki occasionally made ice for them all to melt into water, while the others rested or rowed in turns, two on an oar at a time rather than four for now as the ocean seemed calmer. Yet despite that, all of their stomachs were rumbling by the time evening began. Worse however, was the fact that the heat and the tiredness of their exertions meant that several of them were beginning to nod off.

Which was when a third storm hit them.

At first, this one seemed downright gentle in comparison to the others, and once more Todoroki froze them all together in the rowboat. Yes, there were a lot of waves, but not so much, instead, it was the torrential downpour of rain that was a major concern. Iida and Kirishima stopped rowing for a bit, stowing the oars under the benches. They then began to help the others bail out as droplets the size of their heads crashed down into the boat almost like cannon shots, although not causing as much damage.

Then suddenly, the rowboat was being turned twisted around and turned, so hard it was almost pulled over onto its side. Todoroki quickly expanded the ice within the ship out to create an iceberg but to his astonishment, the ice shattered, torn apart the instant it began to expand out from the boat. Before he could think of anything else to do, the boat heaved again this time a combination fo the new current and a massive wave. The ship was flung into the air, where it flipped.

Seeing what was about to happen, Izuku shouted orders, straining against the ice as much as he could with his still broken fingers. “Shoto, full burn, melt the ice and let us go! Or will be trapped underneath it when we hit the water!”

Todoroki did so, flames roaring out from his shoulder and neck as below that, his side heated up to the point where they would’ve burned anyone in direct contact. The ice around him melted instantly, the rest thawing quickly. Kirishima, Izuku, Mei and Kyoka all broke free quickly thanks to their own strength and Kyoka’s earjacks shattering the ice.

But Melissa and Iida, were still frozen in place by the time the boat slammed back down onto the water, having indeed capsized. Instantly, the water snuffed out Todoroki’s fire. He could barely make up enough to heat the water around his own body, let alone the remaining ice trapping the twosome in the rowboat. And then he had to concentrate on swimming too hard to worry about anyone else.

Kyoka saw the same thing through the deluge, and quickly continued to use her earjacks to break Momo and the comatose Tsuyu out, noting the frog girl was already beginning to rouse in the warm water. Good because I don’t think most of us can swim in this! She thought, wrapping her arms around the gunwale of the rowboat and holding on for dear life.

While Kokya and most of the others were keeping their cool even under these conditions, Iida began to panic. Upside down, his lower half still frozen to the boat, he had no way of saving himself. Melissa also began to panic, but she had the presence of mind to at least cover her mouth and nose before they hit the water. Alas, that impact nearly knocked her unconscious. Her eyes began to roll back into the side of her head, but before Melissa could completely lost it, Izuku appeared before them, barely visible in the darkness underwater and the shadow of the rowboat above.

Control it, control it, only a tiny amount, less than a percent! Izuku chanted internally, bringing his undamaged hands down onto the ice coating the two of them. It shattered, and Melissa and Iida found themselves grabbed and tossed upwards at an angle to get them out of the water.

Both of them burst out of the water, and found Jirou’s jacks wrapping around their arms, hauling them back down and towards the others. She in turn was clinging to the side of the boat, her arm locked around the gun whale in a death grip, looking soaked pistol and terrified all at once. The pair of them dropped into the water nearby, and were quickly joined by Momo, who had helped Todoroki to reach the side of the rowboat. It was now floating upside down, but that was enough for them to grab onto at least, and all of them did so, their hands clenched white knuckled about the wood.

Kirishima and Tsuyu were the only ones able to swim in these heavy seas, and Kirishima couldn’t do so very well. But he was clinging to the prow of the boat, having grabbed Mei the instant the ice around him had thawed.

Tsuyu was able to somewhat fight the waves, and went after Izuku, pulling back towards the boat.  I’ve never seen waves like this, or that current, it’s as strong as the nastiest undertow I’ve trained against!

The two of them clung on to the aft of the rowboat, as Todoroki shouted, now finally showing some concern, indeed, quite a bit of fear as the boat tossed and turned, and all of them had to fight to hold onto it lest they be dragged away by the waves. “How do we get this turned around!? I can’t… my ice just breaks, this current, it’s too strong!”

The water was also noticeably warmer than where they had first arrived in this world. But that didn’t matter as much right now as the current. Something that bothered Tsuyu a lot, although if her voice was raised more out of fear than the need to be heard over the storm, none of the others could tell as she began shouting out instructions.

Eventually, Izuku and Kirishima were on one side of the boat pushing upwards. This was not easy, the water was sucking and trying to pull the ship down even as the two strongest members of the group pushed up, and they had to concentrate just as much on treading water with just their legs in monstrously heavy seas.

Everyone else clung to the other side, weighing it down, and eventually the combination let them stand the rowboat on its side for a second, before plummeting back down right side up this time. That impact nearly had many of the girls lose their grip, but Jirou, who had yet to move her arms from where they were locked around two of the posts in the gunwale, grabbed at them with her jacks, pulling both Momo and Melissa back in, while Tsuyu, who had released her grip, was able to float for a brief second, reaching up and grabbing onto the gunwale, and pulling herself up onto the boat.

The storm continued to rage, nearly having them over again as Kirishima clambered in. But he was followed by Momo and Melissa, then the others one after another, with Izuku and Iida being the last of the boys.

But the storm wasn’t done with them. Even as they all hunkered down and Todoroki began to use his powers once more to try and create a iceberg around the boat, it shattered, and Tsuyu watched, her eyes widening. All of the ice is flowing in a single direction, even from the other side of the boat, which means… “Mei! Get the spyglass, look in the direction I’m pointing, Kero!”

By the time she finished, Tsuyu could feel the boat again being tugged in that direction, and after a second, May’s voice floated back to her, nearly distorted despite the fact there were only four yards or less between them thanks to the power of the wind and the tumbled of the waves.  “There’s some kind of big whirlpool thing out there… Oh, crap…”

Todoroki grimly began to cover the boat again and ice, but Izuku scolded him, shaking his head. “It won’t work. That current will just pull the whole iceberg in that direction, you can’t make it big enough to weigh us down fast enough with the ice shattering all the time. Don’t tire yourself out.”

Given all of his exertions up to this point, Todoroki could only agree. Frankly, as battered and tired as he was feeling, even sealing the others together in the boat might well have been beyond him.

“Hatsume-san can you see the dolphin!?” Izuku asked. He wasn’t certain that he believed that the dolphin was trying to lead them to safety, it obviously wasn’t going to be helping them any further than that like in some of the made up stories Izuku had read when he was younger.

May quickly scanned the horizon, and then pointed at what looks like 120° angle away from the whirlpool. “I can! It’s over there, splashing around big time!”

Izuku took a quick look at the direction she was pointing, then turned directly away from it, and held up his unbroken fingers. From nearby Momo stared, worried how much the boy was going to hurt himself this time, but she obeyed as he barked out, “everybody hold on!”

Jirou took the opportunity to wrap her jacks around Momo’s arm while everyone else hunkered down, grabbing at the gunwale or benches of the rowboat. Seeing that, and the fact they were halfway towards the center of the whirlpool, Todoroki gritted his teeth and within seconds froze them all, one after another into a single ice block, although the ice was only hip tall.

Can’t hold back this time, have to bet it all on one strike! “100% Finger Smash!” Izuku shouted as he pointed down at the ocean in front of him. The boat was blasted up and out of the water at an angle, but boats were not very aerodynamic, and they began to twist and twirl through the air, end over end and then side to side, as everyone aboard screamed. But it had gotten them away from the whirlpool, and that was the most important thing, even as Izuku began to scream for an entirely different reason.

Moments later they slammed down into the ocean, somehow the right way up. The ship skipped along the water for a few bounces and for a moment, everyone just clung there, looking around to check that yes, everyone was there, and alive. Then everyone else became aware of Izuku’s whimpering. Quicky everyone began to try and break out of the ice, finding it much easier as the ice had cracked in various places thanks to the reflected impact from Izuku’s attack.

Then, the boat was coming down a final time, bobbing in place for a second. The nighttime sky was clear above them, and there were few waves once more, a tranquil sea around them.

Several more moments of frenzied followed, until finally Jirou, who had used her jacks to shatter the ice around her, was free. This let her be the first to reach Izuku, who was cradling two more broken fingers to his chest while also moving his waist gingerly, possibly having pulled something there. “Damn it, Green, you can’t keep this to yourself, dude!” She growled out, staring down at his hands and beginning to pull them away from one another so she could examine the damage. His previously injured hand was looking bad now. The fingers were no longer straight in their splints and one was obviously broken from some kind of impact. But the fingers of Izuku’s other hand looked way worse.

Iida and the others followed a bare second later, and Iida roughly pulled his friend into a hug, even as one arm began to chop in the air along Izuku’s back. “Indeed! As a student of UA, you should start looking for alternative solutions rather than simply breaking yourself. Or else how can you be a hero fit for other generations to follow?”

At the center of the group hug, Izuku mumbled, “They’re just my fingers, that’s a small price to pay.”

“Not to us,” Momo said, shaking her head.

Kirishima got into it too. “Izuku, you are manly as hell my dude, but come on! This time you might’ve been right in doing it, but still…”

As Momo and Mei, the last two hugging him released Izuku, he stumbled to his knees, and would’ve fallen forward if not for Melissa quickly reaching out and taking him by the shoulders, lowering him gently onto his side. She then twisted him around to lay on his back in the center of the battered rowboat, his feet propped up on one of the boards that served as a chair.

His head, however? Izuku found his head laying on something soft, and he wondered for a moment what it was before Melissa leaned over him, and began to stroke his green hair shaking her head. “You just rest right there Zuk. You and Todoroki are out of it for now, let the rest of us do some of the heavy lifting.”

“Zuk?” Izuku mumbled, staring up at Melissa.

“Yep, Zuk. It sounds cool, and it’s short for you name. It also isn’t as generic as Green or that strange Deku name,” Melissa answered with a giggle.

“O, oh, I see,” Izuku mumbled. He found himself unable to look away from her face even as he began to be aware of swell of her breasts getting in the way of looking into Melissa’s eyes. W, wait, this angle, then, then that means that the softness underneath my head is…

“Holy ship! A lap pillow!” Kirishima exclaimed, staring at the scene, astonished. Jirou was also staring, her eyes wide, and Iida seemed torn between also staring and going into a diatribe about how such things were inappropriate.

Momo on the other hand was fighting an urge to either pull Jirou’s head into her own lap to see how it feels, or pushing Melissa aside somehow and taking over with Izuku. My! Where did that thought come from?

Trying to concentrate on something else, she looked around them, then decided to take charge of it. “Mei, do you still have our spyglass? Kirishima, Iida, scour the rowboat. we lost the tarp, but did we lose all of the nails? Given how I am feeling presently I don’t know if I would be up to making much to bolster our material supplies unfortunately.”

Nearby, the dolphin swam, circling the boat for a moment, then swam in one direction and back, then back and forth again. Mei took note of this, and waved at the dolphin. The dolphin flipped onto its side, one flipper waving back, before diving down and away, disappearing into the depths. “Well, I think it wants us to go in that direction. And since it seemed to lead us into this calm area, maybe the dolphin really was trying to help us.”

“We have no other option right now. Let us row in that direction,” Iida said, putting himself forward and castigating himself for not having done so before this. He was the representative of UA’s 1-A class. As a member of that illustrious academy in a position of authority Iida felt he should’ve been the one to take charge in this emergency. But it had been the others, Izuku, Momo and Melissa at different points, which had done that work.

Kirishima nodded and as the others slumped in place, the two young men got to work, thankful that they had been able to stove the oars away and that Todoroki’s ice had kept them in place just like the students.

Meanwhile, Izuku’s brain, frozen and torn between how exhausted and in pain he was and his embarrassment, decided ‘fuck it, I’m out’. He closed his eyes and simply lay there, falling asleep quickly. Todoroki, Jirou, and Melissa all did the same, the young man propped up against the forwardmost bench on the other side from where Izuku was laid out, with Melissa and Jirou squished against him.

Momo took over for Tsuyu at the tiller, and they continued to move in the direction that the dolphin had indicated as the evening darkened above them. Soon, they were rewarded with the greatest gift any of them had ever imagined possible under the circumstances: Mei shouting and pumping one fist into the air, her now dry hair bouncing wildly. “There’s something out there. It looks like land.”

OOOOOOO

Well to the left and out of sight over the horizon from Mei and her spyglass, there was a small ship. It was a tiny sloop, well-made, but small, and although lovingly cared for, it had seen better days. It also seemed to have been trawling for trash recently given all the debris scattered across the deck.

It’s crew of two didn’t seem to care about that, though as they were in no hurry to clean up. One was fishing while the other, a young boy stood in the Crows Nest, such as it was. He wore a pair of pants cut short to fit, a jacket, a pair of goggles and some other knickknacks.

He was staring out towards where the interdimensional travelers were with a much longer, more powerful spyglass than the one Momo had created. Pulling away, he looked over the side of the Crows Nest down to the deck, which was only about 14 feet away given the size of the mast and the ship in general. But that was enough to let him see the hero students and their companions without being spotted in turn.

“Borodo, there’s some old rowboat making for that island over there. It looks as if it came off of a bigger ship, but I don’t see any bigger ship out there. Maybe their survivors of a shipwreck? They don’t seem aware of us.  Do you think we should help them?”

The man below was tall, his build obscured by a heavy green jacket, one that would have oddly made Melissa think of the coats pilots wore on the ground in WW1. One of his hands was made of metal, all of the joints and everything else having been crafted to the point of clockwork, allow Borodo to move his hand as if it was his real one.

Now he brought that same hand up to his chin, tapping thoughtfully as his other hand kept hold of the fishing rod.  After a second, he shook his head. “No, there’s no need, Akisu. If there are this close, they can probably make it to that little nothing island without any trouble… well as long as they don’t run into one of the few sea kings around the area anyway. And while that island isn’t much, it still has fruit, a few crabs and other things. They’ll be okay and survive.”

Borodo sent a grin up at the younger boy who had scowled at Borodo’s plans. Hopping to his feet, he moved over to the ropes that controlled the sails. “More importantly though, their arrival might pull one of the Trump Pirates ships to investigate. And if so, we might be able to take advantage of it…”

“You’re so cool Borodo! That sounds like a great plan!” Akisu said enthusiastically and older boy laughed, as he began to twist the sales away, moving the ship further around the island away from the small rowboat and further out to sea. There was a series of rocky shoals there that they could use as cover to watch both the island and out to sea for their real quarry.

OOOOOOO

Soon, the rowboat was close enough that even those without Mei’s superpowered eyes they could see the island ahead of them through the spyglass. Each of them took turns, grinning at one another bar Izuku and Todoroki, one of whom was still asleep. The other had woken up, but was once more frozen, staring up at Melissa as she grinned at the others, not having moved from her position using her lap as a pillow for his head.

She didn’t even move a few moments later, when there was a thunderous roar as something burst out from the water nearby, instead looking up calmly. A giant sea creature of some kind looking like a cross between a lizard, lion and fish reared its head up above them, glaring down at them and chomping its teeth.

“You want some of this!?” Kirishima shouted as his body turned into his stone pharmacy and he smashed his feet fists together.

It seemed as if the monster did, for its head dove down towards them. But before it’s head could lash down towards them, Tsuyu appeared behind Kirishima, and gave him a swift kick to his rear, launching them upwards into the creature’s face. “Modified Fastball Special, Frog Style, kero!”

“Manly!” Kirishima howled, bringing his fist forward and battering into the creature’s nose, with such punishing force that it retreated quickly.

Whereupon Jirou’s earjack slammed into its chest.  “Yeah no. Fuck off. I’ve had enough of this damn ocean.”

The same sonic vibrations that she used to corral Mineta and Kaminari and fight the villains of the USJ lashed the monster.  Despite being far, far larger than any of her previous opponents, it began to spasm and jerked away. Now thoroughly put off of its possible meal, it dove back into the water, and swam away rapidly.

“Is it going to come back and attack us from underneath, do you think?” Momo asked, talking over Kirishima’s shout of at last having a problem he could actually punch.

Izuku heard her from where he was still in Melissa’s lap. The moment he’d made to sit up his waist had argued against moving, and Melissa ha put a hand on her forehead, pushing him back down into her lap. “W, we should be able to tell if that happens. Jirou-san, can you put one of your earjacks into the water? With that and your hearing, you might be able to make a primitive sonar.”

Jirou blinked, and then began to smack her head with her hand. “Why didn’t I think of that?” She did so and a moment later reported that the creature seemed to have decided that their boat had just a bit too much bite to it for it to bother with.

The others all laughed, and as Kirishima rejoined Iida in rowing the ship towards the island, Melissa began to giggle, which caused extremely interesting things to occur to her chest. A chest that was directly above where Izuku was currently laying. Indeed Melissa’s curves almost blocked out his view of the setting sun above. Izuku couldn’t help but notice the hills above him, the fact that Melissa’s clothing still clung to her, all of them still bedraggled if not wet from their experiences prior to arriving in the strange calm zone around the island. Indeed, she had lost a few buttons somewhere, and before he could stop himself, Izuku saw a bit of Melissa’s creamy skin directly underneath where the button had been. The soft curves grabbed his attention for a second before he looked away.

Luckily Melissa hadn’t noticed his gawking, pointing at Kirishima and Tsuyu. “You were so close, although I suppose, it would be better for Zuker to be up to help.”

Kirishima looked over at her, brows wrinkling. “What are you talking about?”

“That old meme, using one motherfucker to beat another motherfucker! You and Tsuyu kind of created your own version of it. It’s not as strong as in the original photo that caused that meme though.”

At that point Momo of all people began to break out into giggles, causing everyone else to laugh at the somewhat lame joke and eve lamer setup. Even Todoroki, who’d been woken up by the commotion with the monster, smiled, much of the tension of the battle against the ocean beginning to leave them all.

Momo and Mei moved to help the two boys rowing, Momo creating two more oars for them despite how hungry she was, although she swayed for a moment nearly falling thanks to a bout of tiredness and the movement of the rowboat underneath her. It took them a bit to get into rhythm, but once they did, they began to move much faster towards the distant island, which began to grow ever larger as they closed. It looked almost like an ideal tropical island: a nice looking beach, with a forest in its interior and no shoals or rocks as far as they could see. But they would’ve still open rowing for it if it was just a bare rock sticking out of the ocean. Any island would’ve done for them after what they’d had to deal with that day, and with night coming on quickly.

The four of them continued to row forward until the boat began to scrape along the bottom, whereupon Tsuyu leapt out of the prow, and began to pull it along, with Iida joining her a second later. Soon all of them bar Izuku and Todoroki clambered over the sides and began to haul the ship and the two wounded boys further up and away from the water until it was fully beached, laying half on the beach, and half into where the jungle began. At that point, Izuku and Todoroki were helped out of the boat, with Izuku protesting that he could walk.

But the pain etched on his face, and the way he huddled, clenching his hands against his chest told the real story. Jirou and Mei insisted on helping him forward, as the taller Melissa and Iida helped carry Todoroki.

Soon, all of them were standing in the shade of the tropical trees that seemed to cover the interior of the island. At that point, the last of their tension and adrenaline left them, and the still standing teen just flopped to the ground where they were. Even Tsuyu did, although she was further away from the others, half in and how half out of the water, enjoying the feeling of the warm water on her legs and the cool breeze coming off the ocean as night finally began to fall.

For a few moments, all of them were just silent, grateful the ordeal was over. Then, Kirishima sat up, and whooped. “We made it! Manly! Oh and fuck you, ocean!”

Everyone blinked, and Iida instantly began to remonstrate with him, one hand beginning to chop in midair. “Kirishima! While I realize we are not on school grounds, that is no way for a student of UA to speak!”

“Iida, I believe we could afford to lighten up a little bit,” Momo said in her normal high-class tone. She then abruptly began screeching out towards the waves, “FUCK YOU OCEAN! My, that is therapeutic.”

Soon, all of them got into it, cursing out the ocean and the storm and the whirlpool and everything else they’d had to deal with since splashing down in this weird world. The only one who didn’t curse was Iida which surprised no one. Instead, the one who really surprised everyone was Todoroki, who began to curse like a sailor. “Fuck you up the ass with a weathervane you cunt of an ocean, I hope you dry out like the god damn Sahara mid enema!”

Everyone stared at him, and Todoroki looked back blankly. Only the twitching of his lips showed he was making a joke. “What? My father is Endeavor.  Those are just a few of the words I’ve heard my older brother used to describe him.”

This caused many of the others to frown a little, while Izuku simply nodded, certain now that Todoroki had been abused in some fashion. Thus he turned back towards the ocean, and took his own turn to shout at it, before adding, “And screw you, Endevwhore!”

The others all laughed before falling silent, looking at Todoroki for his reaction. In return he was looking at Izuku as if he was a little boy who had just been told that every Saturday would be Christmas. “Izuku, you were already my best friend for life, there was no need for you to take that extra step. But thank you anyway.”

“Best friend for life?” Iida asked, frowning and wondering what Ochako, if she were here, would say to that. Judging by the fact that she was the daughter of construction workers and fiercely protective of her place as Izuku’s best friend despite only knowing him for three weeks, he doubted it would be printable. But he was still wondering how Todoroki, who hadn’t exchanged more than a few sentences with Izuku before they came to I-Island, had suddenly decided he was Izuku’s best friend.

“Isn’t that how it normally goes? We argued a lot, then fought a villain together and nearly died. That’s the way it happens in my big brother’s Mangas, anyway.”

Everyone else laughed at that, while Izuku’s simply nodded and gave Todoroki a thumbs up before the pain of his hand reminded him of itself once more. He flinched, pulling his hand back down to his chest, cradling it with his other one, which was just as if in pain at the moment.

Seeing that, Melissa hurried over, examining the two boys. Todoroki just needed time. Eventually, what remained of his wounds from the battle against the metal using villain on I-Island would fade. His sunburn was concerning, but aloe or something else would help there, and he hadn’t taken anymore of a battering than any of the others out at sea.

But Izuku’s renewed breaking of his fingers was a problem, and she quickly called Momo over, tearing at a portion of her pajama top near the bottom of the hem. “I’ll need some kind of soft material, and some sticks. We’ll break the sticks down, and create makeshift splints. Momo, just make the soft bits, I know I’ve heard your stomach grumbling for the past few moments.”

By this point Momo was not only as exhausted and as battered as everyone else, she was well past the point of running on literal fumes in terms of her reserves. She didn’t know if she could even make the soft portion of a splint, let alone the entire things as she had before when they were out at sea. So she was very grateful for Melissa’s perspicacity.

Quickly, they worked on Izuku’s fingers, first straightening them out, causing him to wince, before binding them tightly together. This meant his hands were more blunt objects then usable manipulators, but that was all right by the girls. So long as Izuku didn’t injure himself again.

As Momo was finishing up with that, and causing Izuku to blush and look away as she leaned over him, Melissa turned her attention to the others. Tsuyu’s tongue was still hurting her, but there was little Melissa could do for that unless she could make some kind of numbing agent that the other girl could put on her tongue. The short froglike girl had also been battered about when they were holding onto the rowboat, and had developed a cut over one eye. Melissa created a small makeshift bandage to go around the girls head from the bottom of Tsuyu’s pajama top, but that was it as it didn’t seem to be infected. It was something to watch though.

Jirou’s forearms and inner arm up to the elbow were badly bruised from where she had locked them around the gunwale, having been flung around with punishing force but holding on through sheer determination. She had also taken a nasty bruise to her leg and her feet were bruised as well. Mei had taken a blow to the shoulder which had left a very nasty and still growing bruise. Melissa herself had a large bruise growing on the side of her face, and her neck and shoulders all felt ridiculously stiff.

The others had survived with only a few minor scrapes and cuts. Melissa would have to be aware of them going forward, as well as her own injuries, But she didn’t think any of them were in danger of infection.

Strangest of all the injuries though was that Iida reported he could not use his engines. “Alas, this is something my family has long understood, and is why none of us have ever worked near the ocean. Seawater interferes with our engines badly, corroding the interior, and causing us physical pain if we try to use them until they dry out.”

“That, that makes no sense,” Melissa mumbled, kneeling down to one side of the young man’s legs and staring at the engines which stuck out of the back of his shins. Mei was on his other side also examining them, poking them, pulling them this way and that as she examined them with her eyes. “Normal metal doesn’t corrode that quickly, and certainly not to the point where an engine wouldn’t be able to work because of saltwater residue. It is the water itself which causes issues if you try to start an engine that’s been waterlogged.”

“Well, when you think about it, there’s no way legs is engines can be made of metal right? Not any of the common more ones anyway. First, they are ultralight. If these engines weigh as much as they should, he’d be moving at a snail’s pace, let alone be able to wear that clunky thing he calls armor,” Mei opined.

“How do you know about my armor?” Iida asked confused.

“Support course students are allowed to look at people’s uniforms if the school has made them on-sight. Yours confused us a lot, considering we all thought that someone with your Quirk would want something lighter,” Mei explained. “I kind of listened, because I thought maybe we’d be able to make you a new baby, but we weren’t, and your design was okayed despite it looking so stupid.”

While Iida was torn between depression and an urge to defend what was essentially a more knightly version of his family’s patented outfit, Melissa had shrugged her shoulders and turned away. If Iida understood that his engines would not work for now but was certain they would eventually, then they just had to accept it for now. “All right, although we’ve made land, we can’t really relax just yet. Food, water we can actually drink, and shelter first. I know its dark now, but we still need to keep moving for now.”

At that, everyone there suddenly realized how thirsty they were. Momo in particular slumped down as the last of her energy left her. She then began to get the shakes as the full import of what they were facing sank in.

Jirou and Izuku instantly moved to comfort her, with Jirou leaning in and whispering, “Come on Yaomomo, don’t think about it. Just think of this as, as a small personal island your family owns. Okay? We’ll do some survival camping for a bit and then go from there.”

“I don’t think even my family is that… Well perhaps if we… but no, that’s impossible I…” Momo subsided, staring out into nothing for a moment as she considered whether or not her family really was rich enough to buy a personal island.

But Melissa looking around at the others and saw the realization of what they had left behind, the fact that they were very, very far from home sinking in. But just like Izuku had before she couldn’t let them become depressed. Or me either, she thought, shaking her head. Come on Melissa, you’re the oldest one here, and even heroes sometimes need direction.

Clapping her hands together as loudly as she could, Melissa gathered everyone’s attention once more. “Food, water, shelter,” she said again emphasizing each word in turn. “Jirou, you stay and watch over the wounded. Tsuyu, Iida, move around the beach, see if you can find crabs or something else we can cook up for food as well as fallen wood for a fire. Mei, can you climb?”

Her fellow inventor gave her a thumbs up. “You bet I can!”

“Then get climbing. Get some of those fruits we see above us down. Coconuts and bananas will do for a meal for now. Momo, your job is just to sit there and eat whatever she brings down. We’re going to need materials, nails, and tools as soon as you can make them. Keep things low-tech for now, nothing major. The easier stuff won’t take as much out of you, right?”

Momo nodded weakly, and Jirou gave her another sideways hug, letting the taller girl rest her head on Jirou’s thin shoulder. Which made Melissa’s request she stay to watch the camp superfluous, but she still said it before going on. “Kirishima, you’re with me. We need to find if there is a source of water we can use on this island and see if we can find someplace to use as shelter. Barring that, enough wood to at least put up a few walls for a camp.”

With that, everyone nodded and began to break up into the groups she had ordered, with Kirishima and Melissa setting off deeper into the islands interior.

As the others walked off, Shoto instantly fell asleep. With his body as exhausted as it was, even discounting the new contusions from their ordeal out at sea, he logically deduced that there was nothing much he could do now. Shoto was also not bothered much by their strange situation and had little to contribute to planning for the future, so sleep beckoned once more.

In contrast, Jirou and Momo had to sit on Izuku to force him to not try to get up and help. “Come on, dude, your legs literally shake every time you try to move them, let alone put any weight on them,” Jirou exclaimed, gently pushing Izuku back down as he tried to sit up. Her earjacks began to wave in front of his face like snakes ready to strike as she pointed at him warningly. “If you try to get up again, I’m going to jack you like I have to do the two idiots back in class.”

Izuku was about to protest when he saw Jirou freeze for a second, her eyes flicking away, fear and worry crossing hir face. At that, his hero instincts kicked in. Casting his mind around for another topic, he quickly remembered one way he could help. “W, well, if I can’t help physically, I s, suppose I can help with my m, mind.”

Suddenly holding a notebook, Izuku flipped to the back of it, not noticing how much both Momo, who was currently too busy watching Mei to take part in their conversation, and Jirou to flinch backward. The two girls exchanged glances, the same thought going through both minds. Where did he get that from!?With Momo going on to add mentally, it doesn’t even look wet! And it’s a different color from the one he used to draw a compass for me.

Izuku’s words broke into their shock, and they looked back at him as Izuku spoke, his words coming out confident and determined now that he had something he could do to help. “There are a few kinds of fires we can make to help cook, but because we’re concerned about what might be out there, we should make one that doesn’t create a lot of smoke. There are a few like that, and since we’re on a beach, one of them will work better than any of the others.”

Jirou leaned in, not noticing how Izuku blushed brightly as she did so, her chest pressing against his shoulder and back. “Zuk… where did you get all this from? I mean, some of these notes about survival look seriously legit to me. Have you gone camping a lot or something?”

At that, Izuku laughed hollowly, although his blush increased because Jirou’s breath hit the side of his face as she breathed, and she used his Melissa-given nickname. ‘Zuk’ was just a shortening of his name, not something really clever, but he was beginning to like it better than ‘Deku’. The conversation with the girls and Melissa’s opinion about Kacchan… Bakugo… was still rattling around in his mind, although pushed well into the back by the battles on I-Island and the challenge they had faced at sea.

Despite his blush, though, Izuku answered Jirou’s question readily enough. “N, no. My mom and I, we never could find time to do stuff like that. And I was, w, w, well, you know. Never invited o, o, on trips of that kind. But there was this series of specials on the TV, Surviving in the Wilderness with the Wild Wild Pussycats, and one of them had Selkie on as a special guest star.” Izuku’s eyes practically sparkled, and both girls stared, fighting back an urge to reach out and ruffle his hair, put off by how cute he could look when he was enthusiastic. “That one was about surviving if you crashed on a deserted island. You know there are still several of them around Japan and the Pacific, so…”

Gathering her self-control, Momo coughed, causing Izuku to stumble to a halt. And if Izuku hadn’t already been blushing from Jirou still leaning into his side, he would have at the gentle smile the heiress bestowed upon him. “While that entire TV series sounds fascinating, Izuku-san, we should concentrate more on what can help us right now.”

She looked up then, her smile instantly disappearing. The other two looked in that direction, where they saw Mei climbing around the trees. She was holding on with one arm, showing amazing strength while reaching out with the other to grab a pile of bananas. Even from here, they could hear Mei muttering something about trajectory before she heaved the bushel of bananas down towards a bed of fronds Mei had already made before beginning the climb.

There was a distinct squelch, and then Mai was back to climbing. “Dammit, still too little padding.”

“I swear, Hatsume-san has a monkey’s lack of self-preservation,” Momo muttered, shaking her head.

None of the interdimensional travelers realized that at that moment, three people sneezed at several places elsewhere in the world. This resulted in one beat down, one chase, and one long, drawn-out sigh as a young man carefully began to clean his face from the resulting mucus.

“I’m sorry, you were saying?” Momo began, turning back to Izuku.

Thankfully, Jirou had shifted away from Izuku, only now realizing how close she pressed against the boy. Tapping her earjacks together bashfully, she looked away, not noticing the blush on Izuku’s face. “Yeah, big brain, lay it on us.”

“R, right, well, there are a few types of fires you can make that cut down on the smoke that will show up. And since we’re on the beach, this one sounds like the best bet.” Izuku held up the notebook to show the girls what he was talking about and then read the description as Jirou stood up and made her way toward the waterline. “You’ll need an area of sand that is wet enough to dig into, and you’ll need to dig two holes. Given how many of us there are, maybe you should make them about a foot in diameter?”

Grimacing at that, Jirou used her earjacks to create two circles about a yard away from one another, as described in the picture that Izuku had drawn. “Great, digging in the sand. What am I, twelve? At least back then, I’d always have a few toys with me.”

“You don’t need toys. You have me,” Momo said with a smile before cocking her head quizzically at the twin splutters this won her.

Even Izuku wasn’t so socially awkward to miss that double entendre. He shared a quick glance with Jirou, seeing the equally bewildered look on her face. Then, as one, they decided to set it aside. Momo’s innocence was too precious to poke fun at.

Shrugging that off, she moved towards Jirou. There was the flesh of Creation from her forearm, and then Momo was wobbling and falling forward.

She tossed what she had created towards Jirou, who knocked it aside as Jirou rushed to grab the heiress before she collapsed. “Oh, oh dear, I am so sorry Jirou-chan…”

“Don’t ‘so sorry’ me, Yaomomo, god girl, I knew you spent some lipids whatever Melissa and Zuk said! You didn’t tell us you weren’t feeling bad. If you had, I would never’ve asked you to make me anything!” Jirou said as she held Momo against her, hissing in dismay. In the light of the torches, she could see that Momo’s cheeks had noticeably thinned, and she felt somehow lighter in Jirou’s arms than she had when Jirou had helped her after the battle on I-Island. And are those ribs I can feel?! “Zuk, turn around!”

Izuku blinked but obeyed, his own face creased with worry. There was a rustle of clothing behind him, and then Jirou hissed again, the sound like an angry kettle. “Dang it, Yaomomo! You should’ve told us how bad you were feeling, girl.”

“While we were all doing our best to survive that… that dratted ocean?!” Momo asked tartly, although the tartness was that of a dry twig rather than with any real bite as she leaned against Jirou and allowed the girl to help her sit down. “How could I when everyone else was doing all they could to help us survive?”

“You two are a pair, I swear! Momo, if you even try to move or create anything until I give you the okay, I’m going to… Well, I don’t know what I will do, but you won’t like it, okay?” Jirou said, shouting Mei down from the trees. “Bring down as much fruit as you can!”

What Jirou had felt as she had grabbed Momo was indeed her ribs. Throughout the ordeal on the ocean, Momo had lost significant fat reserves. After all, she was the source of much of the material the group had used to survive, including the rowboat. Now, her ribs could be seen on her stomach, and Jirou had seen her breasts had shrunk noticeably, so much they looked kind of nasty. In short, the heiress looked like she had faced starvation for several weeks or more.

Mei came scrambling down and quickly brought up a banana, grinning as she stuffed it into Momo’s mouth. Izuku, who had just turned around to look at the girls, began to blush along with Jirou as they watched. The inventor was seemingly unaware of the image she was portraying as she stood over Momo, where Jirou had set her leaning against a tree, pushing the banana into Momo’s mouth. “Don’t worry, Ears. We’ll have this girl stuffed to the gills soon.”

“… Stop it, just stop it!” Jirou muttered, shaking her head and turned away. She looked at the item Momo had prepared for her, which looked like a small, extremely well-made shovel, complete with a telescopic shaft. Oh God, I just thought the word shaft, and now I’m blushing! What the hell! Was that biology class we all had to take in middle school right about adrenaline feeding into horniness?

Shaking that thought off, she turned her attention to more important things. “So I need to dig these holes and connect them under the sand, right? How deep?”

Izuku instantly answered her, grateful for a reason to turn his gaze away from Momo and Mei. “About as long as your forearm should work. The trick will be to connect the two holes. Gathering enough wood bits should be easy, and any flat rock with flint to light the fire will work like we found out with the torches. The sand will contain the heat and let us cook our meals faster, while the tunnel will pull away the smoke, dissipating it before it comes above ground.”

“Right.” With that, Jirou went to work with her trench tool, resolutely not looking over to Mei and Momo.

While this was going on, Tsuyu and Iida were making their way along the beach. Almost as soon as they were out of sight of the others, they began to find snails, shellfish, and two crabs locked in combat on the beach. Crabs as large as Iida’s hands pressed together.

But here, they ran into a problem.

“I believe that Melissa did not quite think this through. How exactly are we supposed to transport these back to the others? And how do you kill such creatures without destroying the meat within? I confess I have never even been to the ocean, let alone had to hunt for my own meals like this,” Iida said, shaking his head. “There are survival guides the HPSC demands all heroes learn, but those are divided into different territories. As a future hero who wanted to work in urban environments, I was told it was not assigned reading for me.”

“Kero, what did you have to read instead?” Tsuyu asked as she went over to the edge of the jungle, which was never more than a few dozen yards away.

“Sights and sounds of the city. How to recognize if something is wrong,” Iida answered promptly, watching her in confusion. “My big brother recommended it to me, and as with every other recommendation he’s made, it was most informative. I confess I did not understand some of the… Humor that the authors tried to impart in certain segments, but it was still fascinating. Might I ask what you are doing, Asui-san?”

“Kero, I’ve told you to call me Tsu.” Tsuyu gestured Iida over to help her as she began to pick up several large fronds, leaves the size of her body that had fallen from the trees above. “I’m going to make us a primitive carry basket. We can at least transport the crustaceans we catch. If I could use my tongue, kero, that would be easy. But as it is? That’s going to take some thinking. Any ideas, kero?”

Deeper into the jungle that dominated the island's central area, Melissa pointed ahead of them through the darkness. I am so grateful there is a moon out. It is in the full moon, but it at least lets us see enough to get by, even under the tree canopy. “There! I swear I saw something move over there.”

“Me too this time. Are you sure we shouldn’t get back to the others? A torch would be great right about now.”

Before Melissa could answer, a low growl came from the foliage above them, and something jumped down towards them.

Kirishima heard the growl and instantly shifted his body to stone, stepping sideways and bumping Melissa to the ground, causing her to yelp. That yelp quickly became a cry of shock as the creature above them in the trees hit Kirishima, bearing him both to the ground in her stead.

It was a large feline of some kind, around the same size as a sabretooth tiger, but looking more like a panther and hunted like one, given how it attacked. It had a large tail, which looked almost prehensile, and began to bite and claw at Kirishima, the tail knocking Melissa off her feet.

In his stone form, Kirishima barely felt the scratches and bites and grabbed the panther thing around the neck in a bear hug, squeezing hard. As it tried to wrench away, he kicked one leg out from under it and pushed hard, slamming it down onto its side. There, despite its best efforts, the panther couldn’t break his grip, and he quickly shifted behind the panther’s head, tightening his hold. “Oh, yeah! Come on, Kitty, time for your bedtime!”

The creature heaved and got to his feet despite Kirishima’s weight in his stone form. He then heaved again, trying to toss Kirishima off, and succeeded this time, slamming him into a tree, which cracked at the impact so loud that Izuku and the others back on shore heard it.

Izuku made to stand up, but Jirou, who was sitting beside him again, stopped him, shaking her head. “You don’t have to be the first hero on the scene all the time, dude. Remember, everyone else here except Mel and Mei has also been training to be heroes. Trust Kirishima.”

Izuku subsided, looking a little rebellious and despondent but not wanting to disparage his classmates and withering under the dual glares Momo and Jirou gave him. While nearby, Shoto kept sleeping, and Mei continued gathering bananas and coconuts.

Tsuyu and Iida, on the other hand, decided to go and investigate, not having had much luck trying to figure out a way to transport their finds. Every basket Tsuyu tried, the crabs could cut through or simply came apart under the weight.

Following the noise, the pair made their way through the jungle, finding Kirishima and the beast squaring off. The beast had not retreated after getting Kirishima off its back, having instead gone for Melissa again. But Kirishima got in his way again, and the creature now sported a nasty black guy from a punch. Dodging his attempt to grab him again, it smacked Kirishima to the earth with a sideways swipe.

Now it was grabbing at his leg with his feet, worrying at it like a dog with a bone, tossing Kirishima this way and that. It wasn’t hurting him, but he couldn’t break the creature’s grip. “Oh, come on, this is so not manly!”

Iida raced forward to engage it, and the beast turned, releasing Kirishima to leap towards this new attacker. But this opened it up to an attack from Kirishima. Kirishima again grabbed onto one of his back legs and held on. He twisted around, bringing the panther thing into the air and slamming it headfirst into a nearby rock. The rock broke, and the animal looked dazed, letting Tsuyu get a kick on it.

While her tongue was out of action, her kicks were still immensely powerful, as Kirishima had learned when he was hurled at the sea monster. Her feet crashed into the back of the creature’s neck, breaking it and finally sending it to the ground dead.

Kirishima gave Tsuyu a thumbs-up before raising one hand before his head and bowing in prayer. “Sorry, big dude. But it was you or us, and I’d much rather it be us, no offense.”

Melissa looked at the thing, then at Tsuyu, shaking her head and deciding not to reflect on how little help she was in the sudden fight. “I was trying to make a torch. I don’t suppose you’re good with hiding things together, are you?”

The frog girl chuckled at that, moving over to Melissa, and between them, they made a makeshift torch as it was now getting too dark to see even with the moon full above them. Getting it to light was the work of a moment, and with that light, they made two more. Now, in a larger group, Melissa led the others forward, further exploring the island. “We still haven’t found any shelter yet or water.” Melissa looked back over her shoulder at the panther. “Although we’re set for food, anyway.”

The now enlarged group continued on, passing by an area where several dozen bamboo shoots mixed in with the rest of the foliage, which Melissa made a note of. She then blinked, staring to the side, waving her torch in that direction. “I just saw a glint of something that way, something reflecting the light.”

Moving in the direction indicated, they quickly found a stream. Following it, they arrived at a small pond about two yards in diameter. Nearby, a large rock led upwards, and there was a small ledge where a small waterfall fell into the pond.

Everyone stared at the scene, awed by the area's natural beauty. “Kero, if we are taking votes for places to set up a camp, this one will get mine.”

“Mine too. We can even use the side of that rock formation to help us put together a lean-to of some kind,” Melissa agreed. “For now, though, let’s head back to the others. We can do without shelter for one night, and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am dead on my feet.”-

The only answer she got to that statement was a trio of yawns, but their work for the night was not done. With Izuku’s hands so badly battered, it fell to Kirishima and Iida to drag the panther carcass back to the shore. Luckily, Momo had recovered somewhat by this point, thanks to being stuffed full of fruit. And like during the battle and I island, she was able to instantly turn any kind of meal into energy.

When she explained this, Izuku blinked, staring at her. “H, how did you discover that? That sounds fascinating! It adds what could be called a subconscious portion to your quirk!”

“Well, that’s a tale for sure,” Jirou cut in, poking a suddenly pouting Momo in the cheek. “It turns out that our hime here has a bit of a thief. We were fighting those criminals, right? And Yaomomo was running low on energy to make ammunition. So she broke into a what was it, a wedding store or a cake store? Whatever store it was, Yaomomo began to eat everything she could find inside. It was hilarious. She looked like a cross between a hungry chipmunk and a kid who refused to use a fork.”

“I took pictures!” Mei exclaimed before sagging. “Using my emergency cam recorder on my belt. Which I lost with all the rest of the stuff in Blondie’s room during the dimensional jump. The darn thing is a little too big to sleep with. The one time I did that, I had a bruise on my stomach that lasted for days.”

Thankful for small mercies, Momo blushed a bit as everyone looked at her in surprise. Even the now awake Shoto was amused by Jirou’s short story. Gathering what remained of her dignity, Momo stared at Jirou haughtily. “I suppose that means you won’t need a set of knives to help carve that beast up?”

With Izuku and his notes on the survival series from the Wild Wild Pussycats helping them along, the others were able to first remove much of the fervor of the beast and then let it bleed out, tied to a rope with the blood running into the ocean nearby. While that was happening, Shoto helped some of the others make long skewers and gathered materials for torches and the fire. They had already gathered enough fuel for the kind of fire that Izuku had directed Jirou into making, and Mei also began to share the fruit that she’d been able to recover from the trees.

All the while wheedling Momo about her abilities. “The possibilities! If we just keep feeding you, surviving out here will be easy, and then we can get imaginative!”

Izuku took over the cooking of the meat once it was ready to be put over the fire. The meat was first skewered on the prepared sticks and then placed down into the hole so that they crossed over the fire at the bottom of the hole, held there by wedging the stick’s ends into the sides of the hole.

The smell of the cooking meat spread quickly, causing many of the teens to gulp in hunger, and Jirou hastily offered a torn bit of her clothing to Momo, directing her attention to her mouth, where Momo had begun to drool a little. Momo gave her best friend a smile and then went back to staring at the fire, where Izuku was lying next to it, watching intently as Tsuyu, the one with the fastest reflexes, waited on the other side of the small hole. She had wrapped her hand in several rags, wetting them in the ocean.

At his direction, she pulled out each of the skewers as they were ready, replacing them with more, and soon, everyone there had meat skewers, three apiece, with more meat left over from the panther-like creature.

“Now, I don’t know if this creature’s meat is precisely the same kind as a panther or lynx, but I think I got it all cooked. I wish I could have asked and considered everyone’s personal tastes, but this is the first time I’ve cooked with this kind of fire… or well, any kind of fire, and this is also the first time we’ve used this meat, so I…”

Momo held up a hand, then very daintily bit into one of the bits of meat on her first skewer. The black-haired young woman practically moaned in delight as the taste hit her taste buds, her incredibly hungry taste buds at the moment. Frankly, she would’ve been perfectly fine with the meat, even if it tasted like charcoal. But it didn’t. In fact, it tasted delicious, like prime steak almost.

“Izuku, I think you have outdone yourself,” she mumbled before beginning to eat as quickly as possible, yet somehow still retaining her genteel manners.

The others looked at this in surprise for a few seconds before digging into their own skewers. Izuku had some trouble eating with his hands, but the one he had used upon first arriving was just good enough to hold the skewer, while Tsuyu had a bit more trouble chewing, thanks to how much pain her tongue was in. Yet even so, the meal was so good that she could push past that.

The group was silent as they ate bar mumbled thanks to the chef, causing the boy to blush rosily. Melissa’s comment of, “You would make a great house husband, you know?” especially brought out his color to the point that he looked nothing so much as a strawberry, complete with a green top.

However, as the teens finished eating their feel of the heavy meal, the enormity of what they were facing once more reared up out of their minds. Not just the fact they were probably never going home, but what they had left behind.

Once more, it was Melissa who noticed this at first. While she wasn’t exactly a socialite by any means, she was a little older than the others and had more experience in reading people’s expressions and the feeling of a group. The older girl floundered momentarily, wondering how to proceed, before deciding to rip off the Band-Aid. “Okay, folks, now that we’ve all been fed and watered, we must take the bull by the horns.”

“T, that reminds me of an old American heroine for some reason,” Izuku mumbled before falling silent as Melissa looked around the group.

“First of all, we’ve all been doing great working together. We need to keep it up.” That got nothing but nods from everyone. Even Shoto, thanks to the wake-up call he’d had on I-Island, knew that working together would allow them to do a lot more than separately.

However, when Melissa went on, her words were far less welcome. “And I think we all need to acknowledge right now we just can’t make any long-term plans. Not to get back home. Even if we are on a planet with an insanely high level of technology and we can work with the locals, both of which we have no way of knowing, we may not make it home. Like Mei and I said when we first talked about it, there’s just no way of figuring out where home is from here, what one number of billions, of trillions of different dimensions it could be. Or even if we did jump dimensions, rather than simply finding ourselves on an entirely different planet in our own dimension. We have no way of knowing.”

She let that sink in and went on more softly. “So I think we need to concentrate on the here and now. We need to get all the crying and sadness out of the way to face our lives in this new world as positively as possible. I know that will be hard. I miss my Dad already, and the prospect of never seeing him or Uncle Might again hurts. But we can’t let those thoughts make us depressed, make us stop trying to move forward, okay?”

That brought out actual sniffles from a few.

Shoto simply shrugged and was the first to speak up. “I don’t actually care all that much. I will miss my sister and brother a bit, but we were not all that close, and they will survive without me. Plus, there’s no Endeavor here.”

“No Endevwhore!” Izuku ship shouted, thrusting his hand into the air, causing Shoto to grin at him.

This was the first full-blown grin any of them had ever seen on his face, and it stunned them all for a moment.

Beyond that, the others were a little confused, wondering where the hatred for Endeavor came from, while Iida looked as if he wanted to speak up to support the man simply because he was a hero. But he said nothing. There was obviously something deeper that Izuku had seen that the others had not.

“I am quite… sad. My parents… we are, I do not believe we are as close to one another as many of you might be to your own, but I do care about them and vice versa…” Momo paused, staring, and everyone turned to look at Tsuyu, who was quietly crying, great heaving sobs.

Through her sobs, the others could only make out a few names. The other 1-A students quickly recognized them as the names of Tsuyu’s siblings. Tsuyu had mentioned them several times and how she had to take care of them after school because her parents both worked. The others quickly gathered around her, and soon, some of the rest shared what they had been forced to leave behind.

Izuku was not the only one who was an only child, something he had in common with Melissa, Kirishima and Jirou. The punk rocker spoke disparagingly of her parents, talking about how her Dad was so lame and always looking to embarrass her. That was until Momo gave her a small, wan smile, and Jirou began to break down. The taller girl quickly gathered her into a hug, and the two girls began to cry together while Izuku and Iida concentrated on comforting Tsuyu.

For his part, Izuku was horrified at what his leaving like this, disappearing without even leaving a body behind, would do to his mother. But there were other people around him, people far more important and worthy of comfort than him. And intellectually, Izuku knew there wasn’t anything he could do about it. That helplessness wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t anything he hadn’t dealt with for most of his life as a Quercus person.

Iida was taking the fact that he was here and away from his family in the same manner. He couldn’t do anything about it, but Iida trusted his family to console one another and was simply sorry about how much pain his disappearance would cause.

Seeing that the two other boys had Tsuyu well in hand, Kirishima spoke up, wanting to get his circumstances off his chest. He spoke about his family, having an extended family comprised of a lot of uncles and nieces, but Kirishima himself was an only child. “I think it’ll hurt my old man, my mom, well… She’s no longer in the picture. But he’ll his brothers and sisters there to help him through it, and it won't be the first time someone from our families has been lost. We’re fishermen. That kind of thing happens occasionally.”

“This won’t be the first time my Dad’s dealt with something like this. There’ve been a few scares in the laboratory, if you know what I mean...although it will be the only one that doesn’t end up being a false alarm. I’m just hoping he doesn’t beat himself up about it, about the device that transported us here being something he handed over to me because he didn’t have enough time to look into the project,” Melissa worried.

“Never had that problem. Me and my parents we don’t get along well, I suppose. Neither understood how important my making babies were, and we drifted apart.” Mei shrugged her shoulders. “Never really bothered me. Being here, away from technology, bothers me a lot more.”

Looking around at the others, Mei saw no sympathy directed her way and huffed in annoyance. “Philistines.”

“Not the time, Mei,” Melissa said, wiping away tears before looking at Kirishima, who had just begun to cry. “Come on, you must have some funny stories of your family. I know I have some of my Dad. We can’t just cry about this. We have to remember the happy times, too.”

To everyone’s surprise, Tsuyu laughed at that through her tears. It was a very weak laugh, but she followed it up by telling a story about her siblings. This was followed up by Izuku, who embarrassingly told a story his mother loved to tell everyone she knew. It was about the first time he had tasted katsudon and how much of a mess he had made.

That caused everyone to laugh, and slowly, mind-numbing grief and sadness began to fade away as the night wore on until finally, exhausted physically and emotionally, people began to fall asleep wherever they sat. The last two awake, Shoto and Izuku, looked at one another across the sleeping bodies of their friends. “One of us should keep watch. I’ll take the first watch. You take second?”

Shoto nodded and mimed holding up his hand for a fist bump, which Izuku automatically did the same, before chortling as Shoto quickly pulled his head back, glaring at Izuku’s bandaged hands. “No problem. Don’t try to stay awake the whole night, or I’ll tell everyone about it and let them keep babying you every night.”

“Urk,” Izuku grunted, then shared a chuckle with his friend and settled in to look towards the ocean and the forest while Shoto slumped nearby, closing his eyes.

OOOOOOO

For once, All Might and Endeavor were united in a single emotion. Horror. That was all either could feel as they stared at the perfectly circular bite taken out of the building where Melissa, Midoriya, Todoroki, and the rest of their friends spent a sleepover together.

David was also horrified at what had happened to his daughter and their friends but was using the need to discover what had occurred to push through it. He was moving through the debris with two scanners sticking out of a large backpack. One looked like an old-fashioned radar dish. The other seemed to be shooting out a wide-angled greenish light. Both moved under their own power, working in tandem in a way neither hero could understand as David moved through the area in a grid-like search pattern, his face tight with grief.

But Endeavor was not the type to care about the emotions of others in any normal situation, let alone one where his masterpiece, his son, was involved. “Do we know anything yet?” he growled.

“It wasn’t an attack. After the fight, the whole island was under enhanced surveillance. No one and nothing came near this building that shouldn’t have. Nor was this caused by a Quirk. All Emitter types on record have a specific energy spike in the residue left behind after they use their quirk. It isn’t present here, unlike that Teleporter who attacked the USJ. That’s how we can block teleporting abilities without knowing any specifics. Simply create a randomized flux at precisely the right output to cancel out the spike,” David said absentmindedly as he read off some data on a screen set into his arm, which led back to the computer on his back.

Something beeped there, and David smiled a little sadly. “Well, I can tell you something else on top of that now. The energy involved in causing the immensely smooth edge to this circle was dimensional shearing. Whatever was in the circle was teleported across dimensions, torn from our reality. That… isn’t good.”

Endeavor was not an idiot. He understood what the man was saying, even if he didn’t know the particulars, and ground his teeth together. “How!? You said it wasn’t a Quirk, and given your reputation, Shield, I won’t argue. But that means it was some kind of technological device, and I’ve never…”

“It was a secret project for the United States that never got off the ground. The scientists who first thought it up believed it’d be the key to the stars. But they never got enough funding when it was first developed and handed it over to me. I didn’t have enough time to work on it, so after my daughter showed that she had mathematical and engineering knowledge to work on it, I allowed her to work on the engine itself.”

At that, Endeavour began to snarl, his flame beard erupting all around him, and David hastily went on. “Melissa was indeed making some headway with the engine but didn’t have a power source! Not only did she not have a power source, she hadn’t asked it to be connected to the island’s power grid! Running the darn thing would have caused blackouts all over the place! I don’t understand where she would gotten the power source. There’s no record of any draw on the local power grid…”

All light coughed, gently holding his hand to his face and then sighing as he saw a small blood splatter there. He knew through harsh experience that he only had five minutes before he began to emit smoke, which would give his secret away quickly. “I believe that Hatsume-san, the pink-haired girl who apparently fought yesterday with some kind of spider construct might be the cause of that. But can you at least tell us if they are alive?”

“I can tell you that the teleportation, the energy readings I’m seeing and the fact that the edge of this circle is so smooth are all good signs towards them arriving alive at their destination. It wasn’t an implosion of any type, that would’ve left formal residual energy and a far less contained sphere,” David stated grimly, knowing precisely how many holes that left in any thought that the teens might be alive somewhere.

The two heroes both gaped at David, one with shock, the other with concern at that last statement. “How exactly are you able to tell that? You’re sounding far more certain about that than you were about the hyperspace engine itself,” Endeavor said, scowling faintly.

“Let’s just say that I-Island has way more dangerous experiments than those villains tried to steal,” David answered coldly, shaking his head. “More than that, you’ve no need to know, and I’ve signed several dozen NDAs.”

Both Japanese heroes looked a little put off by that but turned their attention back to the sphere carved out of the building for a moment in silence. David did as well, simply pausing in the center of the vanished zone, looking around with a lost, pained expression.

The silence was broken by All Might, who tapped Endeavor on the shoulder. “You and I must speak when we return to Japan. Not now. I will not intrude on your family’s morning. But there are things you need to know that, as the number one hero, I need to tell you… my… my replacement.”

Endeavor bristled at mentioning All Might’s rank as the number one hero, but that bristle died quickly as he looked back at where his son had disappeared. Several dozen conflicting emotions crossed his face: anger, regret, pain, fury, and loss before he nodded abruptly and turned away, stalking off towards the hotel he was staying at.

It was good he did because All Might was running out of time. He hurried to the nearby car that had delivered him and David to the site of the disappearance and deflated instantly as soon as the door closed, the tinted glasses of the Windows making certain that no one outside could see him. He sagged further against the seat, raising his hand to his eyes as he mumbled, “What am I going to tell Midoriya-shounen’s mother? What is Nezu going to tell any of their parents? They survived a villain attack, only for some kind of, of scientific experiments to spirit them away? And we have no way of knowing how to find them? This will cause so much heartache, and even as the number one hero, even as the Symbol of Peace, I can’t do anything about it!”

Toshinori continued to belabor himself until David joined him, sliding into the chair after heaving the heavy computer he had been wearing on his back in front of him. “Well, I can confirm that they took all of the air within that pocket with them and that there was no vacuum on the other end,” David said brusquely. “At least from the evidence I’ve been able to collect via my various scanners. I wish I could tell you precisely where they went, but when you’re talking about dimensions, that’s just… I do trigonometry in my head for fun, and even I don’t want to tackle that kind of math.”

“What about someone with a supersmart Quirk? Not to denigrate your mathematical skills, David, but would someone like Nezu have an easier time of it? He’s almost undoubtedly already on his way. After all, it was his students who disappeared.” Toshi had a moment to shiver in fear from the thought that Eraserhead would also be coming, or at least he assumed so. He was 1-A’s homeroom teacher, after all. But when he called UA originally to ask for Recovery Girl to be sent to I-Island, Nezu hadn’t mentioned that Eraserhead would be joining him when Nezu came by to look at the details of the battle the night before last. I haven’t even had time yet to tell Nezu of this tragedy, for goodness sake.

“No. It isn’t so much the numbers we’re dealing with as it is building the equation. We have essentially a third of the equation needed to determine how to go to a specific dimension. But even that isn’t the same as figuring out which specific dimension Melissa was sent to.” David seemed to shrink in on himself almost as much as All Might had when he released the embers of One For All. “I am not saying I will give up. I will never give up. But I need to be realistic. I could work on this problem for the rest of my life. I could figure out how to transport myself to a different dimension. But I would still be centuries away from figuring out which dimension they were transported to. No… wherever Meliss… the kids are, they’re on their own.”

The two of them sat silent for a moment, and then All Might shook his head. “The school and I will have to, will have to deal with telling the families about their lost children. I’ll stay here with you, David, I think. No one should be alone at a time like this.” Toshinori said, grabbing his friend’s arm.

“You too, my friend. I lost my daughter, but you lost your apprentice. An apprentice you look to’ve been treating like a son yourself,” David said, smiling wanly. “If you’re here to support me, then I’m for sure going to do the same with you.”

Toshinori nodded, and momentarily, the two of them sat silent, taking what comfort they could from one another’s presence.

Later, there would be time to think of the long-term ramifications. Of All For One no longer existing in this dimension. There would be time to think of what to tell Endeavor, how to prepare for a future where there was no All Might, no One For All to face off against All For One. But mentioning he needed to speak to Endeavor was enough for the man behind the Symbol of Peace’s persona at the moment. Right now, there was just the shared grief of two friends who had lost young ones far before their time.

OOOOOOO

The next day, Jirou Kyoka learned something new about herself and Momo. First, Yaomomo tosses, turns and apparently likes to climb ladders in her sleep while also sleeping on her chest. Weird. And as for me, I’m now officially bi,Jirou thought as she woke up with her head sandwiched between Yaomomo’s booms. That had only been a question before this. Jirou hadn’t been attracted to girls before meeting the one smothering Jirou into her chest. But feeling her body responding to the sensation, a familiar heat building up below, and her heart hammering like the drum solo in Led Zepplin’s Moby Dick, she couldn’t deny her intense attraction to her best friend any longer.

That smothering led to Jirou’s second revelation about herself, and she stopped fighting and just let her head remain where it was, caught between the ground and the heiress. Yep, this is how I want to die. Death by the Yaoyoboobs. Truly a noble way to go.

Alas for this ambition, noises nearby began to rouse Momo. A moment later, she yawned and slowly pushed herself up on her elbows, enough to let Jirou get some air, although her face was still trapped between Momo’s breasts. “Oh my, I didn’t think I would be so tired as to sleep on my chest, but the ground is rather softer than I…”

Looking down, Momo’s eyes widened, and she scrambled away. “Jirou-chan!? I am sooo sorry. I tend to toss and turn in my sleep even when I am exhausted, and I, oh my, I am sooo sorry I…”

“Hey, it, it’s cool,” Jirou hugged the girl before she could move too far away, propping her head on one of Yamomo’s boobs as she smiled up at the taller girl. Ignoring the blush on her face or her body's ongoing reaction to Yaomomo, she addressed her friend’s (crush’s) mortification. “We aren’t responsible for things we do while asleep, Yaomomo. Besides, it wasn’t… well, it was nice after last night, you know?”

Despite Jirou beginning to curse herself for not being good about talking about her own emotions, her words seemed to do the trick. Momo calmed down and then, after a second’s hesitation, returned the hug eagerly before turning to look at the others. And if the pair of them still leaned their shoulders against one another, none of the others commented. After last night, who would?

All of them were feeling emotionally fragile, their self-control on eggshells. Even Melissa, who had been so strong the night before, looked fragile in the morning light, her hair a mess, her eyes dull. Dreams of her father’s reaction to her sudden disappearance, the knowledge she would never see him again, had wracked her mind last night, and it had not been fun. Even though the night had ended with them sharing good memories of their families and trying to power through their grief, all the teens were dealing with similar issues, bar Shoto.

Izuku saw this, and though he was dealing with bad dreams and would never see his mother or All Might, he knew that someone had to step up to get them all going. Looking around, he gulped and, seeing that Iida and Momo were not speaking up, did so in their and Melissa’s place. “I, I can’t imagine w, what everyone is feeling. But Melissa said it last night, and it's true now. We need to push on.”

The others looked at one another and watched as Izuku got to his feet. He was still very shaky and nearly fell when he took a step, and while one hand looked semi-mobile, the fingers, on the other hand, were still in their braces. Yet at that moment, all the others could not help but feel buoyed by the raw determination in Izuku’s face as he held out his only badly bruised hand in a fist. “I, I’m still standing. I’m still going to go forward with whatever that might entail. W, what about all of you?”

Momo and Jirou rose as one, and Jirou lightly bumped her knuckles against Izuku. Her general attitude made her push through her turmoil from last night easier than the others, and she even smiled at Izuku. “Hell yeah. Let’s hear it for surviving, Zuk.”

The others followed, even Todoroki, who was even more wobbly on his legs than Izuku. Neither boy could stand upright for long; their muscles had been too badly strained, and Recovery’s Girl’s healing had reached a limit thanks to their lack of energy. But everyone was smiling and determined now, thanks to Izuku’s little speech, and a moment later, Momo added just a bit more humor to the scene as a spray bottle of some kind popped out of her arm.

Stepping back from the group fist bump, Momo picked it up and sprayed herself while Jirou and the others looked on. “Bug spray. In a place like this, mosquitoes and others might carry something we’re not equipped to handle. We’ve been lucky so far, but I will wager the bugs here will start to investigate us soon enough. Best to take care of it now, yes?”

Everyone there chuckled at that, but another problem arose as each took a turn with the bug spray. Melissa was the first to notice as she took a surreptitious feel of her skin before accepting the spray, but Kiri, who had just taken a whiff of his armpit, was the first to say something about it. “God, I reek!”

“I’ve been trying not to think about it,” Momo admitted, while Jirou shrugged. While she was feeling dirty, the smell wasn’t all that bad. Like being in a mosh pit that had just been washed by ocean water.

“Right, s, so um, I think the first thing we need to do is have a bath. Being clean will make us all feel better. Um, after that, I’ve got my notes from the Wild Wild Pussycat specials to help us find some vegetables.”

“You mean us,” Iida interjected, watching Izuku closely. “Not only are your hands still looking very bad, but your legs and Shoto’s still aren’t looking good. Or are you not trembling just standing there?”

Izuku blushed a bit at that as everyone piled in, which told him that he would not be getting away to try and help anytime soon.

Beside him, Shoto took the order to wait there stoically, knowing his own limits. On the other hand, that seems to be something that Izuku appears to have a tremendous problem with. When the metachromatic boy said that aloud, it caused a laugh to go around the group, although he had simply stated what he saw as an obvious observation. Like the sky was blue or water wet.

Tsuyu spoke up then, pointing to the carcass of the dead panther. “We might want to try to do something with its fur, although after being left out all night, the meat will have gone bad, kero.” She hopped in its direction, holding her nose and pulling in her battered tongue for a moment so she didn’t have to deal with the smell. Looking down at the carcass thoughtfully, she noted the edges of where they had carved out their meal the night before, then returned to the others, reporting that it had been gnawed on a bit during the night. “That means there are at least small-scale predators like foxes or similar here, kero.”

Some of the girls looked stricken at the idea of needing to eat a fox as they were quite cute, and many Japanese still connected them to Shintoism and Inari-sama.

Kirishima thought the solution was simple and pointed with a finger towards the ocean. “Well, since Momo is now back to being able to create stuff for us if I can get a fishing net, I can bring in as many fish as we need.” He thumped his chest, a sharp grin crossing his features. “I told ya all, my family’s been fisherfolk a loooong time. The sea’s the most manly of places to be.”

“Is that why the sailors of nearly every nation in history have referred to the ocean as a woman?” Melissa taunted, causing several others to chuckle and Kirishima to roll his eyes.

While the others were discussing that, Jirou looked at Momo in concern. She was about to complain that they shouldn’t abuse her Qurik like that when Momo smiled and nodded. “I would be happy to do that for you, and in fact, I have several nets already memorized. They are easy enough to create and work great as capture tools.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Jirou whispered into Momo’s ear, causing Momo to flush as Izuku had the day before. “I’m not going to touch your stomach and feel ribs again, am I?” Mind you, I sure didn’t feel anything wrong last night or this morning when I was dying in her Yaoyoboobs. Damn, but Momo’s metabolism is weird. She looked like she was a sharp breeze away from dying of starvation. Then, within what nine hours during which she put away more than any three of us, she suddenly looks back to normal.

Momo caught Jirou’s gaze dropping to her chest and flushed faintly but still took mental stock of her reserves as her best friend asked. While her body looked back to normal, that didn’t mean her reserves really were. How she could tell that was something that Momo had never been able to explain well to someone, but many emitter-type quirk users had the same issue.

“I *ahem*, I will admit that I am not back at one hundred percent. A single meal will not do that for me after the rigors of the ocean. But I will say I am far better than last night. So easy things like nets are easily within my current range.” Momo sent a beaming smile at Jirou, trying to convey her gratitude for the other girl’s care. “But thank you for looking out for me.”

Yep, definitely a crush. Damn it, Jirou thought as she tried to play it off.

“We still need vegetables, though. So while Momo is making Kirishima his net and something to help us gather fruit safely without having so many of them splatter, please, Momo,” Melissa said, starting out with a smile Momo’s way before sending a glare towards Mei, who shrugged unrepentantly. “Let me show you the place we all found the night before. We think it will be a great place to make our permanent base on this island.”

Everyone agreed with that once they saw the spot, even Izuku and Shoto, who had to rest several times on the trek. Both of them were several days rest away from having the energy to move on their own, unlike Kirishima.

Indeed, all of the girls instantly demanded they take some time to have a bath. When Momo created soap bars for all of them, it was obvious that any argument against that point would fall on deaf ears, and none of the boys even bothered to try. Instead, they convened on the other side of the rock, trying to ignore the sounds of the girls having fun in the water and the images that popped into their heads.

“Ugh, that’s the stuff! What kind of soap is this? It smells great, and I can feel it doing my skin some good already!” Melissa stated.

“Oh, um, well, I suppose it doesn’t matter. That soap is copied from a South Korean Heroine’s Quirk, Power Soap. I was amazed at what she could do with it as a young girl, and then I went to South Korea once with my parents. I was able to get a sample and synthesize it. My parents were kind of incensed, but it works so well as soap and shampoo that they allowed me to continue using it as long as I never shared it. They did not want to deal with any lawsuits from Power Soap.”

“OOoo,” the girls all cooed to Momo’s words. There was a lot of giggling at that point, and then Tsuyu grumbled, “Ugh, now I am getting a little jealous. Jirou-chan’s the only girl smaller than me, and I’m not talking about height, kero.”

“Seriously, Mei! Where the heck did you hide those. They aren’t as big as Yamomo’s or Meli’s, but they weren’t there back on I-Island.”

“Hah! That’s because of my patented Hatsume Industries Iron Bra!” Mei said with a laugh. “So strong it can hold back anything and doubles as great body armor in a pinch. *Sigh* I suppose I’ll need to make a new one here. I can’t remember the actual makeup of the metal, but I’m sure I can figure it out with a lathe and some time. Ugh, but there isn’t even a lathe here or a smith’s forge. All this green…”

To the boys, there seemed to be a bit of an awkward silence before the girls returned to the previous conversation, with Jirou taking up the complaint. “Like, seriously. This is making me feel a little inadequate. Here’s plain old me surrounded by beauties. Even Tsuyu has it going on. You could kill someone with those legs of yours, and they would thank you for it. Me, I’m just pla---

*SPLASH*

*KERSPLASH*

“Don’t you dare put yourself down like that, Kyo-chan!” Momo barked, seemingly the source of the splash noises.

“Seriously, girl. Sure, you don’t have as much up top, but you have your own style. I saw guys checking you out just as much as any of us at the restaurant. They just tended to be the quieter, more subtle sort, the sort looking for a girlfriend instead of a roll between the sheets,” Melissa opined, causing silence to spread for a moment before she went on a giggle in her tone. “Besides, even setting aside your punk swing style, you have a cracking rear.”

As Izuku imagined he could almost hear Jirou’s mind shut down, Tsuyu addressed Melissa. “Cracking Rear? That sounds more British than American.”

“Eh, I kind of prefer British style when saying stuff like that. I’m a proud ‘Murican most of the time, but sometimes we can be a bit crude regarding courtship and praising the female form,” Melissa admitted, trying to sound British at the end and failing but getting a laugh from at least two of her listeners.

Jirou seemed to still be out of it until a series of small splashes and Momo’s voice came. “While I prefer not to comment on the physical features of others, I got far too many comments sent my way after puberty, Jirou-chan. Believe me when I say you are quite attractive.”

There was a squeak, a series of splashes, and Momo’s voice raised in laughter over Jirou and Tsuyu’s shouts of exclamation as Mei shouted, “And you two really don’t need Boob’s special soap to make your skin smooth. Like, what the hell, what’re your secrets.”

“KERO!”

The boys all glanced at one another, then groaned and looked away into the jungle around them. Even Iida was having issues, muttering about miles per hour under his breath, and Izuku was mumbling hero trivia. Although none of them were as overt about their desires as a certain purple-themed, height-challenged classmate, they were teenage boys. Some things just could not be controlled. And after the past few days, thinking about girls was much easier than unpacking all the turmoil they’d gone through, or worse, the emotions of being stuck here and leaving everything they knew behind.

Eventually, the girls finished and let the boys have their own baths. Soon after that, Iida and Kirishima went off to try and find vegetables, coming back with several that looked like a wilder version of daikon radishes, carrots and several dozen oranges. On top of that, Kirishima mentioned something he’d found that looked kind of strange. “I found this strange lumpy white rock. It looked weird, so I thought I might mention it to the others. Could be some kind of mineral or something like the flint that Melissa found last night.”

Izuku frowned, then slowly stood up on excessively wobbly legs. “Show me, please.”

By the time they arrived, Izuku and Shoto were feeling the strain, and Shoto leaned against a nearby tree as Izuku fell forward onto his knees rather than simply slumping down onto them. But he examined the rock quickly, smiling as he ran a finger over one side of it.

When he then licked his finger, Iida gasped. “Midoriya! That is most unsanitary!”

But Izuku held up his other hand, the one with several broken fingers, as he pulled the hand that was merely black and blue away from the rock. “It’s salt! Kirishima-san, this is one heck of a find!”

By mutual consent, the rest of the morning was spent taking it easy around their new base of operations as Momo made some tools and workbelts for everyone. Kirishima went off to fish, Tsuyu inhabited the pond in a new one-piece suit, and the boys began to unpack a bit, talking about the battle against the ocean and how they could have done better while the girls talked about I-Island.

As they gathered for lunch that afternoon, Izuku and Iida set up a primitive grill for the fish Kirishima had caught after he and Tsyuyu prepared them. They had done this before and didn’t need anyone’s help to do it quickly or efficiently. When it came to cooking, though, the girls took over, all save Momo, who, after nearly cutting her finger off with a knife, was sent away from the grill by Melissa, shooing her away as if she was a duckling, much to Momo’s chagrin.

“I just wanted to try. I’ve never cooked before!” Momo muttered sulkily, pulling at her ponytail.

“M, maybe ask one of the others for cooking lessons? Sometime in the future though, not right now,” Izuku suggested, causing Momo to nod as she watched the girls begin to grill the fish, along with some salt and some other spices that the girls and the boys had spotted thanks to Izuku’s survival guide. Her sulky attitude didn’t extend to making her ignore her stomach rumbling, though, and she ate at least twice as much as any of the others, still building up her reserves.

After having their midday meal, the groups broke up again, their desire to get to work renewed and with several objectives in mind. First, they had to survey the island. Tsuyu and Iida took up that job. They would head back to the shoreline and walk around the entire islet until they returned to the starting point. The others would survey the jungle and continue searching for edible plants and vegetables.

Specifically, Momo and Mei were tasked with collecting more coconuts and bananas from around the shoreline where they had first reached the island. Despite Mei’s best efforts the night before, she hadn’t made much headway thanks to the lack of light and nothing to catch her bounty with. Then, most of what she had brought down from the trees had gone to feed Momo before the others returned.

When Izuku once more made to walk with the others, Jirou and Iida held their hands to his shoulders and gently pressed him back down, shaking their heads. “Once more, you show a true hero’s desire to help Izuku, and yet not the self-preservation I would like to see in a friend,” Iida said sternly. “With your hands as you are, you would be useless to us even picking out berries. You told us all what to look for. Now stay here and take it easy until your hands are better and you can walk without trembling.”

“Yeah, let the rest of us do something. Your hands might not be totally useless thanks to all of your fingers being in Yaomosplints--”

“Please, no. You can’t just add my name to everything I make. That would be just silly,” Momo groaned.

“Yaoyorictionary,” Jirou deadpanned, causing her best friend to flush a little and look away, whistling innocently as if she had never heard the term before.

“Heh.” Snorting, Jirou turned back to Izuku, finishing her previous sentence. “But they aren’t all that good either. And we don’t want you to hurt yourself again. Save your energy for if you need it, okay?”

Izuku grumbled a bit, then slumped near Shoto to one side of the pond, the opposite side of the one everyone had used to enter and leave the pond during their baths, so the ground here was nice and firm. For a moment, the two boys were silent, then Izuku reached over and picked up a small stick with his black and blue hand, wincing at the touch even through the bandages but unwilling to let it go. Boredom was even worse than pain. “So… You want to play tic-tac-toe?”

Shoto looked at him, then at the ground and the stick, before shaking his head. “How about something more difficult like shogi? We could make an entire board on the ground.”

Izuku nodded and got to work.

OOOOOOO

Mei was going up a little bit stir-crazy. While all of the others seemed ready now to treat this as some grand adventure, Mei was not used to being around so much nature. She didn’t like it. Mei had also never willingly gone without having at least a few tools on her since turning ten and being allowed into her parent’s garage on her own. She didn’t like that feeling either, and although she really liked the idea of abusing Boob’s Quirk, asking her for a hammer or some other fundamental tool felt… wrong to her. Like she was cheating on her own equipment back in their own dimension. But more than that, just the lack of babies and the amount of green around her started getting to Mei.

About two hours had passed since they had left the area by the pond behind when her frustrations had boiled over. Nearby, Momo had collected enough fruits for the group to see through at least two, maybe three meals, depending on how hungry Momo was, but she stopped and stared as Mei kicked the tree she had just climbed down from several times, shouting at it. “You are such a horribly inefficient way to create oxygen! Seriously, fire whoever designed you! You’d be better as kindling for the fireplace!”

“That… is a philosophical debate, I think? And one I am not equipped to handle. Are, are you all right, Mei?” Momo asked, feeling chipper herself but now worried about her new acquaintance. Half of her attitude might be because she had been snagging the occasional fruit for herself, which helped rebuild her still-depleted reserves after her latest round of creation. The girls had wanted bras for themselves as well as panties after their bath, and there had been the need to create nets for Tsuyu and Kirishima and many other small tools for the others to use in the kitchen or around the island as they went in search of vegetables and information alike.

But for the most part, despite her concerns about how her parents were responding to her absence and the overall nature of why they were here and their future prospects, Momo was having a good deal of fun. Being around Jirou, Izuku, Melissa, and her other friends was pleasant regardless of the circumstances. She had also greatly enjoyed the debate with Izuku about their disparate powers during their lunch meal. Seeing more of Izuku’s analytical skills and intelligence was thrilling.

“No, I’m not, Boobs! You’re useful as all hell, even setting aside your Creation powers. You have a brain, know something about survival, and are comfortable around all this nature! Melissa’s good. She knows about biology, fruit and all that nonsense. The rest of you, you’re useful here. Me? I’m a city girl! I’ve never been out in nature. I thought nature came in tiny parks where you could see the buildings beyond the trees, and even then, I never really liked it!” Mei shouted suddenly, waving her arms to either side and looking quite manic. “What am I supposed to do here?! There’s no lab, no metal to work with, and I’m missing my tools, damn it! There’s no way for me to create babies!”

Jirou and Melissa had been gathering from another tree and came over as Mei’s shouting reached them. Melissa shook her head, saying that Mei wasn’t thinking right. “Don’t think about just babies like your small support items, Mei. Sure, we can’t afford to let Yaomomo create the tools we would need to create the tools for those right now. But that doesn’t mean you and I can’t make our own babies with the simpler things she can. For example, why not think of a design for a lodge for us all to live in? Taking into account our limited resources, of course.”

Mei looked a little excited at first but then frowned at the mention of a house. Seeing this, Melissa went on smoothly. “And eventually, we might have to leave this island. Why not make up some plans for ships, start experimenting, make up little models, that kind of thing.”

It will be both useful in the long run and keep her upbeat and not making trouble in the short term, Melissa thought. She liked Mei; the girl's cheerful attitude and her admittedly somewhat manic need to create was something fascinating to watch. But it needed to be directed. She couldn’t just be left alone to try and make a miniature, extremely primitive version of Melissa’s lab, for example.

Mei thought about it, then nodded rapidly, holding her hands out to Momo. “Boobs, pad and pencil! And a ruler!”

Scowling again at that hated nickname, Momo decided she would need to take the inventor task for it at some point. But she obliged and even smiled as Mei remembered to say thanks, although her smile instantly disappeared when she used the hated moniker again.

Melissa and Jirou both snickered a bit, although Melissa was honest enough to realize that she could be labeled like that just as easily as Mei had Momo and was thankful that it was the other girl rather than herself. Both of them paused as Mei turned away and, without another group word, raced off towards the ocean for some reason. “I wonder what she’s up to?”

No sooner had Melissa asked that question than Mei was back, holding several bits of wood underneath her arm. Several Melissa recognized as actual wooden boards. They must have come from the rowboat! “Mei! Did you take apart the rowboat? How did you take apart the rowboat?”

“A necessary sacrifice to make a better baby in the future,” Mei said, not answering Melissa’s second question. She moved over to where a tree had fallen in some storm. There, Mei propped up her wooden stakes and went to work with a knife, one of the many tools that Momo had created for everyone, whittling away. As the others watched, she stopped to make notes on a piece of paper, flipped to the next page, and began drawing out designs. Small, broad ones for now, denoting this or that part of the ship she could remember from seeing in pictures.

“Heh, methinks Mei has ADHD. Still, it should keep her out of trouble,” Melissa mused. “The last thing we need is for her to try and build a primitive forge, light a fire and watch to see what happens.”

“I think the last thing I need is for her to keep using that dratted name.” Momo pouted. “Honestly. Would you like her to call you, er, Rear, Jirou-chan? Or just American, Melissa?”

Melissa chuckled weakly at that while Jirou tried hard not to react to her butt being acknowledged once more by her crush.

The others watched this go on for a few moments before shrugging and returning to gathering fruit. Melissa also asked the others to take wood samples, admitting, “While I know a lot about fruits and vegetables, I don’t know much about wood or building with it.”

They worked for another few hours at that, with Melissa and Jirou getting to know one another through music and Momo and Melissa through movies. They were almost done exploring this area of the jungle when Mei shouted, “Finished ship babies round one!”

To Melissa’s surprise, Mei had done as she had suggested. In front of the girl were several small boats carved out of wood, each slightly different. Most of them had no sign of propulsion, although two had what looked like very primitive s at peddles back to push them forward. When she held one up to her eyes, Melissa could also see that each of the small boats had different keels to them: sharp, thin, or wide.

“These look good. Are you going to try them out of the ocean?”

“Nah, I’ll try them out in the pond. I don’t like swimming much, and I’d prefer to get at least the better ones back.” Mei looked down at herself and then cackled, shaking her head. She was covered with wood shavings, sticking to her skin thanks to her sweat, and “This way, I can take a second bath too. I kind of need it.”

The others all nodded. They’d all worked up a sweat. While the others were merely sweaty, Melissa was drenched, never having pushed her upper body as much as climbing trees did and not having been in as good a condition overall as any of the hero students. But they still had work to do, and after a few minutes complimenting Mei on her whittling skills, they returned to it. For her part, Mei walked off, carrying her new babies in her arms, using her shirt as a bag as she made her way toward their camp.

At first, none of the others thought anything about it. But then, Momo remembered. “Wait, aren’t Izuku and Shoto still back at base camp?”

“They are… And Mei just said she’d be taking a bath. But she’ll tell them to look away or to go around the other side of the stones, won’t she?” Melissa asked. “They aren’t entirely immobilized, after all.”

“I don’t know her well enough to answer that, although, given how absentminded she seems to be…. But no, she still has enough feminine modesty, surely,” Momo muttered.

The others all looked at one another, and Jirou quickly stood up. “I’ll head back, too. Make sure she doesn’t embarrass herself or the boys.”

Mei raced through the woods, carrying her charges, cooing at them, asking them questions like, “You’re going to be my experiment in aerodynamics on the ocean, aren’t you? Yes, you are.” And, “Wind? Wind power is for chumps! You are going to prove that the paddle concept works way better! We’ve got Engines around. Why not use him somehow? Either paddles or just his engines until we find some coal or oil. And if we can… oh, if we can… Combustion!!! WOOO!”

“Her Woo was still echoing through the jungle as she burst into the small clearing around the pond. To one side of it, Mei spotted Zuk and Icy bent over the ground between them, staring at some squiggly series of lines. But Mei didn’t care. Instead, she set down each of her new experimental miniatures in a row, then pulled off her sleep shirt and pants, uncaring entirely that she was putting on a show for the boys.

Both looked up upon her arrival and were now staring blood from their noses dripping down their chins into their chests. While Mei didn’t normally dress to impress, her body was just as good as any of the hero students. Thick, powerful hips led to a nicely trim waist, flowing up to breasts that were a bit on the large size compared to Tsuyu or the majority of other students. They drooped noticeably, like Mei hadn’t bothered to put on a bra too many times, but they were the first breasts either boy had ever seen, and the dark pink nipples grabbed their attention like magnets attracted metal filings.

When Mei began removing her panties, the boys broke out of their paralysis. Izuku looked away instantly, creating a whooshing sound around him as he moved so quickly. Covering his eyes, he shouted, "H, Hatsume-san, w, what’re you doing!”

Shoto simply stared as Mei waved at the two of them from the water before turning around and leaning over, presenting her bottom towards them as she picked up her new babies. Unlike Izuku, he just kept on staring. “I now know why suddenly Mineta was always so interested in seeing the girls.” He paused for a moment, shaking his head. “I would still peel the grape, but I understand his motivations at least a little now.”

At that point, Jirou arrived, breathing heavily. She looked at the pile of clothing, then back to the blushing boys and groaned before sending her earjacks into the water, grabbing Mei and pulling her to the side of the pond despite the girl’s protests. “Damn it, Mei, what the hell do you think you’re doing? There are boys present!”

“What’s the matter, Ears, jeez! I just didn’t want my clothing to get wet again,” Mei complained, trying to pull away only to flinch as one of Jirou’s earjacks released her arm to hover directly over her neck. This caused Mei to question something that had been bothering her. “And how the heck can you use those things on people? Where are the entrance and exit wounds?”

Jirou paused, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Izuku whip out another of his seemingly innumerable notebooks. The intense look in his eyes caused her to shiver a bit as he ignored Mei’s nakedness to look at Jirou. But Shoto’s stare and both boys’ bloody noses kept her concentrating on the issue at hand rather than thinking about why that felt good. “Don’t you have any idea about modesty?”

“Modesty, what’s that? Just sounds like something that would get in the way of planning my next major baby!” Mei laughed.

Izuku pushed himself to his feet, turning resolutely away and then sitting down again, causing Shoto to do the same, as Jirou continued trying to beat some common sense into Mei’s head. “I get the impression that this will take a while.”

Shoto sat beside him, nodding, then glanced over his shoulder at the makeshift shogi board. “I think it was your turn…”

“Eyes front, Shoto, or else your nickname will be One Eye!” Jirou barked, causing him to turn rapidly away once more. And sighing, Jirou returned to remonstrating with Mei, trying to ignore how sweaty and dirty she was compared to the girl.

OOOOOOO

When the others returned that night, Iida spoke up first, reporting that the island was somewhat small. “I would estimate that we went around three miles in total going around the island’s shoreline. For a group our size, that means there is probably enough fruit, if not vegetables, to feed us,” Iida reported, his tone serious and matter-of-fact. “We did not see any sign of human habitation.”

“We didn’t see anything like that either,” Melissa reported, looking at the others who had ventured inland.

Kirishima shrugged. “I didn’t look for anything like that, although I did find a few downed trees we can use. Didn’t see any larger animals either, although I saw a few foxes like we thought we might.”

At this, Izuku frowned pensively, tapping his chin, glancing over at Melissa and Momo, who he could tell was wondering the same thing. “Could this be some kind of primordial world? Instead of dimensions, could we have traveled back in time?”

“Back in time and place? Remember, I-island was artificial. If we just traveled through time, we would’ve been a lot further away from any island than we were when we first arrived, Let alone where we are now.” Melissa argued.

Momo clicked her fingers and pulled out from a small utility belt she had made that morning, holding the compass out so everyone could see it. It was still spinning wildly, and she shook her head. “If this was a primordial world, it still wouldn’t explain what is going on with this, would it? No, I think it’s an entirely different world. I’m hoping that there are people out there, aliens or humans. But if they are, they aren’t around here.”

“Then I think our priority should be to heal up a bit. Tsuyu’s tongue, Iida’s shoulder and his engines, everyone’s bumps and bruises, and Shoto and Izuku. Izuku will be the main issue, given his recently broken fingers. We’ll need to watch them carefully, ensure the breaks are healing properly,” Melissa announced. “Beyond that, simply making our time here easier. That will let me and Mei work on shipbuilding and stuff.”

“I, I’m sorry to be so much--” Izuku began, looking down. The years of dealing with hiding his injuries and trying not to make waves came back to him for a moment, despite all the positive reinforcement he had gotten on I-Island from Melissa and the others. But his self-flagellation was interrupted before he could finish the sentence.

“Enough of that!” Melissa moved over to them, grabbing both of his cheeks. She began smooshing them together, then pulling them apart, glaring at him. “We, all of us, will keep saying it until it sinks into that thick skull of yours. We care and don’t want to see you hurting yourself, putting yourself down, or thinking that you’re less useful or less important than anyone else. That is your years with that bully Bakubrat and the assholes at your past school talking for you. Okay?”

Izuku felt his eyes start to water, a sure sign of the Midoriya secondary Quirk Endless Tears threatening to activate, aided further when Izuku saw the others all nodded firmly in agreement with Melissa's statement. The phrase “But I’m not as important as any of you” appeared in his mind, but Izuku couldn’t get it out. Not under the glare that Melissa was giving him as if she could read his thoughts or the strange, undefinable emotion he could see in her eyes.

Instead, he meekly nodded, and she nodded back, letting go of his cheeks and turning away. The others also politely looked away, allowing Izuku to regain control.

“So that is one thing we need to do. Short-term, make this place more livable and… defensible.” Melissa sighed, shaking her head. “I’m not so naïve to think that if there are people out there, alien or human, they’ll all be good.”

That seemed to take many of the others aback, but Jirou and Izuku nodded, understanding where she was coming from.

“Awesome! Maybe that means I can build some trap babies while we’re debating what kind of ship design to go with,” Mei said, smiling happily.

While the boys were still somewhat thrown about how Mei used the term babies, the girls simply rolled their eyes bar Jirou, who pointed at Mei dramatically. “That’s not all we need to do! We need to teach this one some damn modesty!”

“Wait, what?” Kirishima asked, looking around at the others. Iida and Tsuyu were just as confused, while Momo and Melissa had been told about what it happened.

Before anyone could stop her, Mei explained. “Oh, that! Haha, I might’ve ignored the guys when I came back to experiment with my babies, and I didn’t want my clothing to get wet. So I just dove in naked, ooh, but more importantly, I learned a lot about ship keels and stuff.”

At that point, Tsuyu and the other girls joined in on remonstrating with her about needing to be more modest. But all the boys gained faraway looks for a moment, even Iida. Kirishima gently nudged Shoto in the side. “Y’know, I’m not a perv, and it might sound unmanly, but… damn, you lucky!”

Izuku babbled, looking away and trying not to blush at the memory, while Shoto simply nodded sagely, fully agreeing with that statement. Which seemed to break Iida out of his momentary stupor. The tall blue-haired teen instantly began to lecture all three of the other boys about how heroes hopefuls should act, his hand chopping so quickly it looked like a power axe.

OOOOOOO

A week passed with them taking it as easy as they could under their current circumstances, healing up from their various wounds. During that time, Melissa, Momo and Mei created tool sets for everyone, not pushing Momo too hard. But clothing and tools were necessary, and Momo was more than willing to make them for everyone.

With those tools, the teens set about making their new temporary home more livable. With Melissa and Mei planning it out, the teens made an extremely well-made lodge, using a portion of the stone leading up to the small waterfall as one side while building the others out of green wood.

Izuku helped as best he could, although what he mainly did was help the others figure out things they could do with their Quirk during the process. That continued after the lodge was built, of course.

Once the lodge was built and a simple cooking area made, Mei and Melissa spent most of their time experimenting with types of ship designs and setting out small traps in the forest, ensuring everyone knew where they were. Meanwhile, the hero teens turned their attention to further training with their Quirks, wondering what they might run into out there.

For example, instead of adding to Jirou’s firepower at range between them, Izuku and Momo designed a sword for her. At first, Jirou didn’t realize what it could do, but then she plugged her jacket into the hills, and the blade began to vibrate at a high velocity, making its cutting edge simply incredible. After that, she was put to work chopping all the wood they would need for the lodge and their future projects. The fact the wood would need to dry out before they could use it for a ship kept Jirou busy every day.

Iida was given a special kind of salve to rub along the insides of his engines made out of orange juice and aloe, which helped to clear them of salt and allowed him to start using them within a day rather than the five or six they would normally need after having spent so long in seawater.

The others lapped up his ideas about training concepts while he and Melissa had a great time thinking of ways to help them.

Shoto was able to get up and start helping physically within a few days, but the others sat on Izuku as much as they could, even though his legs were fine. His hands would take more time to heal, especially his broken fingers. That didn’t mean he couldn’t train his legs, and he began to do so. First, he raced Iida around the island, and then he, Shoto and Kirishima created a small, cleared area near their camp where he and Kirishima could train.

Beyond these differences in their quality of life and housing, the group created a hidden lookout on a series of large rocks near the island's center. Although it wasn’t all that higher than the trees, it did give a little more elevation, and the group put together a camouflaged area there, thanks to Momo. By that point, Momo was back to near one hundred percent and becoming more adventurous with the things she could make. Size and weight still limited her, so she wouldn’t be making them whole ships anytime soon, not even simple rowboats like the one that had saved them before.

But a camouflaged net with his spyglass and a few questions was easy. Especially when compared to the things she began to create in conjunction with Mei and Melissa.

Mei and Shoto were the ones assigned up there most of the time. Shoto was patient enough to sit up there for hours without getting bored, while Mei could compartmentalize to a tremendous degree. She could keep a lookout for things, and her hand could still be moving, blindly writing out any ideas about ships she had and then talking about them to Melissa and the others.

Melissa was the only one who knew anything specific about shipbuilding, but she had never been part of a ship design team. She knew about the nature of the keel and quickly picked out the two designs that Mei had come up with which seemed to be the most viable to her, and the two began to build larger models to test certain things.

The dynamics of the group slowly solidified during this time.

Tsuyu and Kirishima seemed to pair up more often than not, being the two most knowledgeable about the ocean boats and fishing. They also got along well, with similar blunt mannerisms and thoughts on heroism and friendship.

Shoto, Iida and Mei somehow got along, with the two boys playing a pair of perfect straight men for Mei’s craziness. Shoto surprisingly proved to be very interested in Mei’s version of the scientific process, while Iida recognized Mei as the source of any future friction between the boys and girls given her uncaring attitude when it came to her modesty, and took it upon himself to keep an eye on her.

Meanwhile, Momo and Jirou had been a pair before coming to I-Island. None of the UA students was certain how, but from the day they’d met, the punk rocker and the statuesque heiress had gotten along. Being under the strain of their current straits had simply added to that. It was a very unusual day when they weren’t together for most of the daylight hours, and if they weren’t, one or more could be found around Izuku and Melissa.

Melissa and Izuku had become fast friends on I-Island before the villains appeared. And if Izuku wasn’t with Momo helping her figure out more about her Quirk or working out with Kirishima, he was found in the blonde’s company as they devised plans to help the others train their Quirks or discussed plans for the future. What kind of supplies they needed, what type of ships and so forth. Often join those conversations, with Jirou joining in occasionally as well, more to be the person with common sense to shoot down any wild ideas the others came up with than anything else. Still, she kept them grounded and often supplied conversation topics outside of Quirks and their living conditions. For that, Izuku and the others were extremely grateful.

So, despite their current circumstances and lingering grief about their lost families, the teens were getting along quite well. This continued for another two weeks after their lodge had been put up. But at that point, the rest of the world began to intrude…

By this point, Izuku was one of the few who continued to sleep outside. For one thing, he was a very light sleeper and occasionally had nightmares. He didn’t want to wake anyone else up.

For another, well… he’d had the ‘misfortune’ of sleeping next to Momo at one point and had discovered that she didn’t care who she slept with next to. Momo would still toss and turn. Waking up with Momo’s face pressed into his chest, her hair like a cascade of black velvet caressing his skin, had been one of the most trying experiences in Izuku’s life up to this point. And, although he would never say anything, one of Izuku’s most treasured memories. A girl hugging him, feeling comfortable enough around him to snuggle in like this at night? That was up there with the memory of All Might telling him he could be a hero.

Strangely, though, Izuku had felt dreams beginning to change. Most of the time, they were just regular dreams, him being a hero, making All Might and his mother proud. Sometimes, they were nightmares of his taking Bakugo’s advice or his friends reacting negatively to him if they ever learned his secret: that he had not been born with a Quirk. Rather, it had been given to him.

But these days, most of his dreams were dominated by a weird, shadowy landscape filled with fog. In that fog were voices, several men and one woman arguing. Every one of these dreams started the same. They would all talk to one another and then seemingly become aware of his presence. Izuku couldn’t see his body in that dream, but it was evident that despite the fog, whoever owned those voices could see him just fine. They tried to say things to him, but Izuku couldn’t hear them. All he could tell was that they were addressing him somehow.

He occasionally got one word out of the multitude, and as he woke up this morning, Izuku could swear he had heard three of them in a row. All for One? What’s that? It sounds like something to do with One For All. Some aspect of the Quirk, maybe?

Izuku had read the Three Musketeers at one point and knew that those phrases went together. But the context of it now was beyond his understanding. And I could swear that woman sounded almost like my mother. Strange, or is that just another sign that these dreams are just some strangeness that my subconscious is cobbled together?

Shaking those thoughts off, Izuku stood up and left the small area of the clearing around the tiny pond that he had decided was his own, nodding to Shoto, who had done much the same. Izuku looked around the clearing, smiling happily at how much work they’d done to make this place livable, even comfortable. Heck, Tsuyu and Kirishima had installed a small slide from the top of the rock waterfall into the pond. Kirishima and Shoto had then put down small blocks in the water near the pond's edge so people could rest there. And everyone had blankets and pillows now, to say nothing about the cooking utensils or the small area devoted to Melissa and Mei’s tinkering.

We’ve come a long way, and I think our plan for a ship is also coming along. I still think it leans too heavily on Momo for the parts, and Mei’s insistence on using Iida’s jets to power it is silly. But we are making progress. Heck, the last two models we made actually floated properly. When we put them out on the ocean.

His thoughts were interrupted by the door to the Lodge banging open. Jirou stood there, shouting out to the others. “OY! Everyone get over here!”

Gone was any semblance of her former nighttime clothing. Over the past few weeks, Momo had created clothing for them all, and they had taken advantage of it to a certain extent. She had made two outfits for each teen and bathing suits. But that was more than enough to make everyone feel far better about themselves than the nightwear they were all wearing previously.

Currently, Jirou was clad in short dungarees and a blouse that hugged her figure, and Izuku had a brief moment to wonder why the girl seemed to have such strange problems with realizing how pretty she was even as she trotted over to her. I mean, she doesn’t have the curves of the other girls up top, sure, but she’s got a style on her all her own, and her eyes pop!

Izuku tried to keep such thoughts about his female companions to himself. But occasionally, he couldn’t stop thinking about them. Melissa and Momo grabbed his attention, but he wasn’t certain how much of that was how much he simply liked them as people, how much time Izuku spent in their company or how much was leaning into areas he had never dared even contemplate about girls. Girls he might feel… feel more than friendship towards, as hard as that was to think.

Jirou was also up there, but he had kept his thoughts well away from Mei and Tsuyu despite Mei’s… presentation on the first full day of their stay on the island. He didn’t spend nearly as much time with either of them as he did Momo, Jirou and Melissa, so distance at least let him keep away from thoughts of those two.

However, all thoughts about the girls left his mind as Jirou answered a question from Iida, who had just come out of the jungle. “Mei’s using the walkie-talkie! She says there’s something out to sea!”

Soon, everyone crowded into the lodge, sitting around the long table they used for meals where a walkie-talkie sat. It was the first technologically advanced thing that Momo had created, and it hadn’t taken her much time or resources, which was a good sign for when they started to build their ship.

But now, everyone was staring at the thing as Mei’s voice came through. “Yep, I’m positive. There’s a ship out there. I don’t know if it’s making for the island, but it might pass nearby. It looks a little big, I guess, although it’s all wooden. What’s the rigging thing that you mentioned before, Kirishima?”

“Masts, you can tell the size of a ship by how many masts it has,” The formerly red-haired teen answered quickly. He’d forgotten to ask Momo for coloring dye, and now everyone could tell his hair was turning slowly black. “How many masts does it have?”

Mei fell silent for a moment, then answered, “Three. And it’s got to be windy out there because they’re all full of air. Hard to tell from this angle. Why anyone would use sailpower, I have no idea, but I guess it’s moving.”

Her disgust was plain, but that didn’t stop Iida from asking her questions, pushing the conversation on before it could be sidetracked.

“Can you tell us anything about the design of the ship? Is there anything unusual about it, or does it match Kirishima and Tsuyu's descriptions of wooden sailing ships?”

“It actually reminds me of a few wooden sailing ships I’ve seen in action movies more than anything else,” Mei answered. “It’s got a lot of cannons, and if I zoom in with my Quirk, I can see… Okay, that’s kind of weird. It has a large tub on the prow. And…” Her voice fell silent and then came back, more chipper than ever. “I can confirm people sighting! Human-type people! Well, human and animal-type people anyway. One looks a little animal-like. The rest are humans.”

There was a loud whoop from Kirishima, which many of the others joined in. If there were people here, human-type people even better, that meant their biggest concerns, this being a prehistoric world or some alien species world, were both gone. They needed to know what kind of people these were and if the group could learn the local language.

“I say we light the emergency flare! Tell them we’re here. Get them to take us off the island to wherever that ship goes.” Kirishima exclaimed.

“I would be willing to make whatever amount in local currency we need,” Momo said reluctantly. She’d been trained not to do something like that most of her life, but it would be for the best of causes right now. Their own survival and continuing to learn about their new world. So long as I can keep how I am doing so hidden, right? I truly don’t want people after us to try and take advantage of me.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Mei interjected before the others could chime in. “I didn’t read many fantasy books or watch much TV. But in all the action movies I watched set in the time of sail, people who flew under the skull and crossbones were normally bad, right? At least, I think that’s what that is. It’s got the symbols of all the card suits at each corner, and the middle is dominated by a bear skull rather than a regular skull. But the backdrop is black, and it’s got white bones behind the bear skull so…”

“I think we should head out to see this for ourselves. We’ll see you soon, Mei,” Izuku announced before looking around at the others. “Who else wants to go and look at this mystery ship?”

Since everyone wanted to look at this ship, the whole group soon joined Mei at the lookout point. There, Melissa and Izuku set up a rotation to let everyone look through the spyglass quickly. Momo hesitantly raised a hand, but Izuku grasped it before it was halfway into the air. “No Y, Yaoyorozu-san, d, don’t. We can’t always rely on you to be around to solve a, any resource deficiencies we have. W, we need to get into the habit of b, being willing to share.”

“Yep,” Jirou said from the buxom black-haired girl’s other side. “We can’t always rely on you to save our bacon Yaomomo.”

“Very well, I agree with your reasoning, Kyo-chan, Zuk.” She pointedly used Izuku’s nickname, practically glaring at the green-haired boy, who looked away, understanding she was demanding he start using her nickname as everyone else on the island did. Izuku was the only one who still used their last names most of the time, and Momo was not the only one becoming somewhat annoyed by it. Although she said nothing about the fact he was still holding her hand.

A cough from Iida brought their attention back to the more important events going on currently.

First up was Kirishima, who knew the most about boats, although he confided to everyone that he had never seen a wooden warship outside of picture books and some museums that, in his words, “Had stuff like that from before more important stuff happened.”

When he heard the term ancient times to denote history before Quirks, Izuku’s face began to twitch, and Momo, seeing him about to have an aneurysm (something she didn’t recommend), quickly reached over and began to run her fingers through his hair. They had learned over the past few weeks that this was a surefire way to calm him down if he was about to launch into a lecture, and it seemed to work just as well now.

That, and all the girls believed Izuku’s hair was illegally fluffy. Drat it, my latest attempt to make myself a pillow as soft failed again! And it is still as soft and silky as ever. I know Izuku doesn’t do anything special with his hair. Is it just good genes?

Kirishima was oblivious to the reactions to his words and took the spyglass from Mei, quickly looking through it at the ship. “All right, well, I can tell you one thing right off the bat: it’s way wider than it should be. Is that some kind of structural thing for wooden ships? That ship looks like it wallows in the water, not cuts through it.”

“Having a wider beam helps stability for wooden craft,” Melissa said shortly, having also somewhat miffed at Kirishima’s words. I love Quirk research, but what has happened to teaching history since quirks came along is criminal! And that’s in the United States. I shudder to think what it’s like in Japan.

“Yeah, that makes sense, I guess. I can tell it’s moving a little faster than it should for its size, thanks to the number of sales. It is a three-master, but it’s a little on the short side for a galleon from what I can remember of the ones I’ve seen in history museums. The rigging looks… Weird to me, although I’m sorry, I can’t say whether or not that’s because of distance or because it really is weird. It isn’t running very low in the water line, although there is a strange cannon on the deck near the center mast. And then there’s that even stranger tub at the prow. That must be weighing it down, despite what I said earlier. Weird.”

Kirishima pulled back from the spyglass, handing it over to Izuku, who was next on the list. “I can tell it’s coming closer, but an angle. It’s not aiming for the island anymore.” He then began to scratch at his hair, causing a sound like a rock on a metal mesh. “I don’t know, guys. It looks like it’s a ship of war, yet it also looks like someone really went crazy modifying it. I don’t think it would be as effective as a regular warship. Well, except for that major cannon on the deck. Maybe that could help?”

“It’s a bombard,” Izuku reported quickly, momentarily zooming in on the gun and trying to ignore that a blonde woman was swimming in the tub naked. Hatsume didn’t mention that part! A portion of his mind whined. Luckily, what he saw elsewhere on the deck consumed the rest of his attention. “It looks like most people over there are sailors… or I suppose you would call them pirates if that flag means the same thing here as it would back home. All this is really strange.”

“I would call this a perfect example of parallel evolution,” some murmured. “But there seems to be far too many such parallels. Not least of which, there are actual humans here. If not for the magnetic pole issue that Momo mentioned earlier, I’d almost think we had traveled back in time.”

Momo smiled. “I think it's fascinating, really. It almost reminds me of the Isekai genre I liked to read when I had time at home. But you were saying about the bombard?”

“I’ve seen bombards like that several times on ships owned by Heroes who make their living out at sea. The Heroes use the bombards to send themselves over long distances quickly,” Izuku said, smiling happily as he talked about heroes. “After all, just because you have a quirk that allows you to swim in the water doesn’t mean you can swim as fast as ships can move. So having a fast delivery system is actually quite smart.”

He paused then, pulling out the spyglass away and looking over to Kirishima, whose face was practically beaming, almost like Izuku’s did when he talked about Heroes. “Kirishima no!”

“Aww, why not! It’s not like it would hurt me. It’d be just a better version of the Fastball Special that Tsuyu and I worked out to beat off that sea monster,” Kirishima whined.

“For one thing, you would have to be in your stone form up to the point of impact. If you missed your target, you would hit the water and sink like a stone!” Melissa said tartly. “While you swim quite well, Kirishima, you don’t swim well enough to regain the surface if you have sunk more than 120 feet, which you would if you didn’t see the miss coming.” Everyone looked at her, and she shrugged. “I worked out how much Kirishima weighed recently when we discussed how he could speed up his transformation time. I figured out how quickly he could sink relatively easily. Back to the matter at hand, please?”

Everyone looked sheepish for a second before Izuku handed Momo the spyglass. She reported that the ship seemed to be making for a series of rocks sticking out of the sea to their left. “The pig person that Mei reported has also come back on deck. I don’t think he actually is a pig person. The pig man is just remarkably obese, as mean as it is to say. He also seems to have some strange cloak on his back and some accouterments that make him look more like a pig.”

Kirishima shook his head slowly, exchanging a glance with Jirou, who looked a little sick. “Well, um, some people, er, that is, they kind of like to dress up like pigs…”

Momo pulled the spyglass away from her face to stare at the spiky-haired boy along with the others, nodding her head in agreement with Shoto as he stated bluntly, “That’s disgusting.”

Shaking that little side comment away, Momo turned back to looking through the spyglass and reporting what she was seeing. “Well I count at least forty men spread around the ship’s main deck, with more undoubtedly below. The tub looks to be for the woman’s exclusive use strangely and I… Oh my word, how gauche. If that is what that woman will wear when she gets out of that tub, my mother would slap her silly for her taste in clothing. And is she naked in front of all those men!? ”

It had been Iida’s turn next, but he hesitated as he heard that, and Jirou took it quickly, staring through the spyglass herself. She dialed up the readout on the spyglass as much as she could, staring at the woman in particular as she seemed to turn into liquid, flowing up and into the robes the man held out to her. She reported all this to the others and added, “Her face also looks like Queen Bitch material to me.”

“What color was the liquid? Did it flow as if she merged with the water in the tub, or was the liquid separate from the water? How quick was the change? How mobile was the woman in water form?” Izuku said quickly, cursing his embarrassment and handing over the spyglass too quickly. Secondhand information on quirks was never as satisfying as getting it for himself.

“I don’t think she turns into water, just some other liquid. It looked purple from here, but given the distance, don’t quote me on that. It didn’t become water like the rest of the tub,” Jirou answered, somewhat frazzled by the rapid-fire questioning. “She could fill out her clothing before returning to her flesh and blood body. That’s about all she did. Sorry Zuk.”

Jirou turns to wink at Momo. “And I agree, she and the fat guy are fashion disasters. Whoever heard of someone wanting to dress up like a pig?”

Izuku scratched his chin with a pencil that had appeared in his hand, along with a notebook. By this point, that had happened several dozen times, and none of the others reacted to its sudden appearance. Although Melissa and Mei were both still extremely annoyed at Izuku’s answer of simply, ‘I always have them on me’ whenever questioned about it. “It could be some kind of martial art. There are martial arts based around specific types of quirk, Armadillo martial arts, for example.”

He opened his mouth to explain, but Iida, who had taken the spyglass from Jirou, who had stolen his spot, interrupted quickly.  “There’s another ship out there. It’s smaller than the pirate ship and moving away rapidly from the rocks it was hiding in. The pirate ship must have spotted them somehow.”

The others all fell silent, and Iida continued, reporting what was happening as events out at sea continued to move. “It looks smaller and maybe more maneuverable than the other one, but there seem to be only two people aboard: a boy I can barely see from here and a young man handling the sales as the boy mans the wheel.”

Kirishima snickered, trying to lighten the suddenly tense atmosphere. “Are you sure the guy at the tiller isn’t just a short dude like Mineta?”

“No, I am not. Thank you for the correction, Kirishima-san,” Iida said, nodding seriously as the others all chuckled. “As for any other observations, they were surprised, but the small ship was already speeding up. I think that it is faster than the bigger one. It might be able to get away despite starting from a standing stop.”

They all looked at one another, wondering what to make of this newest development, when Jirou frowned, turning back to look at the ocean. “I hear something. Are they firing their cannons or something?”

Before Iida could answer, there came a far louder booming sound as something struck the rocks in the distance, causing a massive explosion that everyone on the island heard despite the distance. “What the heck!?”

Mei quickly grabbed the spyglass from Iida, pushing him to the side and staring through it despite his protests. “There’s no smoke rising from the bombard, and the ship is still going full speed. Physics says they would’ve had to come to a stop for a bit! That was something else, a giant cannon kind of baby.”

She kept watching as the others commented on what was happening, wondering if they should get involved and how. Izuku had a plan and was willing to implement it, but was leery of whether or not this was simply two groups of pirates fighting one another. The second, the smaller ship, didn’t seem to have any flag on it. Whereas Melissa and Momo were concerned about the logistics of fighting out on the water.

Another shot rang out, according to Jirou, and Mei instantly began to report. “Wow! There is some other cannon out there, way bigger than anything on that first ship, and it’s taking potshots at the smaller ship from way further than I can see. Is it out of sight, high up, or angled, maybe? I can’t tell. And it’s really powerful.”

A moment later, there was a monstrous splash that everyone on the island could see with their naked eye it was so big. “It might have been able to destroy those rocks from impact alone,” Mei said. “It would easily shatter any ice thing that Ice Boy could make and splatter any of us if it hit.”

Kirishima looked mulish at that, but Izuku laid a hand on his shoulder, looking around at the others with concern and determination. “That’s good information to know. Seeing that we are in a world where guns and cannons are used just as often as quirks is important, they aren’t just for intimidation here. But that doesn’t really matter. I’ve always been told that the essence of being a hero is sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. And this looks like a prime example of something we should be sticking our noses into.”

The other hero candidates all nodded, losing their hesitation to get involved instantly at Izuku’s words, and Momo once more had to smile internally at the amount of resolution Izuku had and could instill in others with his attitude. I would not say Izuku is a natural leader, but he is naturally inspiring. I love that about him.

That thought caused her to pause, blink, and look away with a faint blush as the heiress hastily amended that thought to, Like, I likethat about Izuku. This is not the time or place to think about attraction or feeling affection greater than friendship towards anyone.

As the others had been talking, Mei was counting. While Izuku laid out his plan to get involved in what was going on out there, and the others began to argue about it, particularly Shoto, ten minutes elapsed before another shot arrived. Mei reported this to the others. “Distance and loading time mean they can only fire once every ten minutes. And look, their shots aren’t coming any closer. I thought the first ship might be spotting for whatever cannon was out there, but I don’t think so anymore. Or if they are, they are doing a really poor job of it.”

She turned to look at the others, setting down the spyglass and thumping her fists together eagerly. “Now come on! I must stop at the base camp to grab some of my babies.”

“You want to get involved in the actual fighting? I thought that was a one-time thing for you and Melissa-san?” Iida asked before anyone else could. “I cannot say I approve. You and Melissa-san do not have the training that the rest of us have had, nor have you ever evinced any interest in training here on the island.”

“Because training is boring while making babies is fun,” Mei answered, speaking slowly as if talking to a child. “Trying babies out on other people is also fun! I learned that back on I island. What about you, Mel-sempai? You’re in, too, right? You had those tazer tonfa things you were working on.”

Melissa blushed a little, exchanging a glance with Momo, who looked embarrassed but nodded at the older girl encouragingly. While the girls hadn’t gone crazy about it (too much), the three of them had spent many a night experimenting with hand-to-hand combat gear for the group. Last night, Momo had gotten into it so much that after creating enough tools for the two engineers to build their own weapons, Momo worked on crafting an exceedingly deadly multi-purpose staff. A staff that incorporated a lot of Melissa’s technology from I-Island.

“Well, I kind of have my own weapons I’d like to live test…” Melissa began, poking her fingers together sheepishly.

Bar Iida and Tsuyu everyone smiled at that, both of them having some concern about putting the two engineers in danger.

But then Shoto was heading down the rocky outcropping to the ground below, forcing everyone to get moving. Izuku was quick on his heels, shouting behind him, “Anyone can be a hero! Melissa and Mei both proved that back on I-Island. If they want to come with us, I say they proved themselves more than enough.”

Melissa beamed at that and hurried after him, with Momo leading the rest a moment later, even though Iida and Tsuyu were still concerned. Mei, on the other hand? “OOH yeah, testing time for babies six and nine! Don’t worry, babies, Momma’s coming!”

OOOOOOO

Borodo cursed himself and the situation under his breath, keeping a confident look on his face to encourage Akisu even as they sailed further away from the now-demolished hiding place where they had waited for the Heart Pirates to notice the shipwrecked group. Damn it, how did they know we were there. They were making for the island and then turned our way so fast! And then they brought in the fucking Clockwork Cannon!

With that thing involved, getting away would be hard for a bit. Even the waves from a miss from that massive cannon caused trouble, slowing the ship down. And if they got closer, it wasn’t impossible for the waves it caused to upend the vessel.

“Borodo! Look at the island! There’s smoke coming from around the side of it.”

Borodo glanced away from his work at the sailed momentarily, frowning pensively, then shrugged. The waters around the island were known to him, and he could go in farther than the Heart Pirate ship could without bottoming out. “Turn us, we’ll change course so we come closer to the island, and we can take advantage of that smoke to escape.”

As he finished changing the position of the sails slightly, another shot arrived from the clockwork cannon. It hit the ocean nearby, and their ship nearly capsized from the waves. But the pair of brothers righted it quickly and raced on.

Not an hour later, they entered the smoke, with the pirate ship following. {Speed of sailing vessels and how far people could see is so hard to figure out, WAH!}

OOOOOOO

“I told you timing and distance is something we're going to be aware have to be aware of if we need to take on ships like this in the future. It allows for a lot of prep time,” Izuku said to the others, staring out to see where Shoto had created what amounted to a wall of ice going straight down, which was not very wide but long enough to get them out to where they could intercept the ongoing battle. Nearby, a large fan that Momo had created sent monstrous amounts of smoke from a smoke device out to the ocean, obscuring everything from long range and making it look like the whole island was on fire… and said fire was sending the smoke nearly sideways.  Still, the suspicious nature of the smoke didn’t matter so long as they blocked anyone using the monstrous cannon from continuing to get involved in events around the island.

Iida raced along the ice, testing it and waving his hand over his head like a madman every fifty yards to signal it was stable. Shoto stayed where he was on the shoreline, his ice hand touching the water there. He would be the last to join in the battle, unfortunately.

But he was stoic about that. There would be other times he was certain. After all, where there is one pirate ship, there are bound to be many more. I do not know about the others, but I am assuming that pirate equal villain, which means it will be our job to stop them. Just like we will now. He held out a fist bump in Izuku’s way as he joined the others, and his green-haired friend grinned at him as he returned the gesture before racing to join everyone else at the far end of the ice path.

It seemed as if the pirate ship had decided to start taking things seriously as it entered the smoke. Or perhaps this was in response to the smoke, and the pirates feared being ambushed. Whatever the reason, there were several cannon booms as the pirates tried to fire blindly at the fleeing vessel, and as Izuku came close to the others, Jirou quickly reported, “I’m hearing curses and a young boy shouting somewhere that way. The sound is distorted in the smoke, but I can get through it. I can also hear the splashing of the other ship in that direction as it makes its way through the water.”

Izuku estimated where the two ships were and concluded they were almost directly on top of them while everyone else looked at Izuku a bit in awe. He had come up with this plan on the fly, and while everyone else had supplied the means, Izuku had been the one to plan everything and had gotten the timing down almost perfectly.

“Yaoyorozu-san? I think we don’t need to smoke any more.”

The smoke and the ability to use it had brought the first ship around the island from where the giant cannon shots were coming from. The island itself would block them from sight to whoever was controlling that huge cannon, and since the smoke was blinding them too, it was not worth it.

Momo nodded and pressed a small device in her hand, a radio transceiver connecting to a second back on the fan sending the smoke out to sea. That smoke would now rise straight up, adding to the island's effect of blocking everything from the view of whoever was behind that cannon.

Izuku looked back at the rest as the smoke around them dissipated, opening his mouth to try and give some kind of speech. But he found himself floundering, blushing and ruffling his hair in embarrassment as they all looked back at him.

Hoping to take some attention away from his suddenly embarrassed friend, Iida spoke up. “As students of UA, we are not supposed to get involved in conflicts, but as was shown on I-Island, I believe that circumstances sometimes dictate that rules must be bent. And so…”

“Oh my God, stop making such a big deal of it! UA doesn’t exist here. We're just who we are, heroes!” Jirou said, to a furious nodding from Kirishima and a loud croaking agreement from Tsuyu. “Let’s just get it stuck in!”

Jirou had been mildly annoyed over the past few weeks as it dawned on her that she didn’t have much besides her common sense and a pair of hands to contribute. Momo, Melissa, and Izuku were at the center of their push to adjust to living in this world. Kirishima and Tsuyu were their main food sources, and Mei was the most enthusiastic when designing a ship for them. She and Iida were a bit of the odd dogs out, although Iida had never seemed to feel it as much as Jirou had on occasion, such as when her upper body strength wasn’t up to a task or when she had nothing to contribute to a discussion of how to build boats or anything else.

To top it all off, Jirou was well aware that she was the only unattractive girl on the island, and that had hurt her self-esteem several times over the past few weeks when she spotted the other boys gazing at the other girls but never her. The only one who seemed to pay attention to her among the boys was Izuku, and he never looked at any of the girls at all as the other boys did occasionally. There was also her crush on Yaomomo and thoughts like ‘I’m not attractive enough for her’ that she had been dealing with. Now, to have a ready-made source of victims for her anger made Jirou quite happy.

“Tsuyu, are you ready?”

The frog girl nodded, looking down at where her feet were in a large pair of heavy-duty snow boots, chuckling happily at them and the gift from Momo.  I might have to wait a bit for actual combat stuff, but the shoes and the thermo-regulating body suit was more than enough. “Kero. One frog launcher reporting for duty. Kero, Kero.”

The smoke dissipated then, and the two ships came into sight.

Instantly, Tsuyu’s tongue lashed out, and a second later, Izuku found himself in the air, launched towards the pirate ship. He was quickly followed by the others, one after another. Once Iida, the last of them, was in the air, Tsuyu drove into the water and swam for the two ships, zooming through the water far faster than anyone without an amphibious cork could ever have gone.

Since the group of interdimensional travelers assumed there would be some kind of language barrier despite so much being similar to their own world, Izuku and the others didn’t even bother to announce their presence or call for the pirates to surrender. They’d probably be able to mime that the pirates should surrender once they had beaten them down.

It was a major shock for Izuku to hear someone on the pirate ship shouting, “Look! There’s some kind of ice thing sticking out from the island! And there are people in the air! They’re coming this way!” in perfect Japanese.

Everyone, even Melissa and Mei, who had also been flung along with the others and were now having second thoughts about this entire endeavor, just stared as they plummeted toward the pirate ship. While Mei was gleeful at what this could mean going forward, Melissa’s brain had just decided not to face this reality. Nope, there is no way we are still on a planet that speaks Japanese! There is no way even alternate dimensional theory could explain that one away!

On the other side of the surprise spectrum, Momo held back a squeal with some difficulty, giggling aloud even as she hit the parabola of her descent towards the pirate ship. It really is like we’ve been Isekai’d, just like in all the novels I liked to read.

Shaking his head to rid it of that surprise, Izuku tensed and reached out his left hand. Fully healed after three weeks, he used it to grab onto one of the mast’s bars, flipping himself upward onto it, at which point he dashed sideways, his fist lashing out with punishing force into the head of one of the pirates, sending him flying towards the distant island to splash into the shallow water there.

5% seems more than enough to deal with these guys. Izuku smiled, even as he held his other hand against his body. Three weeks wasn’t enough for his broken fingers to heal from saving the team from the whirlpool.

Kirishima had wanted to land like a literal cannonball. He pulled himself into a cannonball, shifting into his stone form in the air. He hoped to smash into the center of the main deck, damaging the mast and the bombard.

But instead, he found himself intercepted by the pig fetishist. “You have a lot of guts to start a fight with the Heart Pirates!” he shouted as he hurled himself upwards. He was immensely light on his feet for all his weight, making even heroes like Fat Gum or Gang Orca look slow, and he got some major air. Midair, he curled into a ball, and the fleece-like coat heat the pig man wore on his back suddenly sprouted hundreds of metal spikes as he did.

The two of them crashed together, losing all momentum and bouncing off in different directions. “FUCK!!” Kirishima shouted, unable to direct how he fell now, while the man seemed to be able to, landing near the aft of the ship. Looking below, he hastily transformed back into his normal body. A second later, he hit with a splash. That was so not manly!

Even as he thought that Tsuyu grabbed him and began to drag him towards the pirate ship, which had quickly started to lose speed thanks to Momo, Melissa and Jirou. The three girls hit the masts one after another and began to shred them before falling down towards the deck below.

Momo landed first, and while not being nearly as durable as the two boys – or Iida, who had landed nearby on top of several pirates - she had boots that protected her from much of her remaining speed. Ducking forward, she rolled, coming up with her staff lashing out at pirates all around, the ends of it flickering like a taser for a moment. No need to bring out the plasma torch just yet.

Melissa landed nearby in much the same way. Her own weapons, twin tonfas, flicked out in every direction as she put in as much of her martial arts training as she could remember from when she was younger into her motions. The ends of the tonfas exploded with electrical energy like a Taser with each hit she landed. One man fell, spasming from a direct hit, while another squealed and released his cutlass as the metal worked to conduct the shot into his hand.

Seeing this guy from above, Jirou decided to at least land with some style. “Geronimo!” Her feet caught the man in the face, and then she was pushing off and away. One earjack was plugged into the sword Momo had made her, and she sliced it into the side of the mast while fending off two cutlass wielders with her earjack.

Above, the mast creaked, and then it broke along her cut, the weight of the rigging overbalancing the mast, causing it to crash over the side, dragging the ship to a near stop. Several pirates screamed, while others shouted in fury and charged forward to engage the attackers just as Izuku landed near the wheel. His kick caught one man, hurling him into several more, and then he was on them, precise strikes from his usable hand knocking each out. Then the pig man was on him, hurling himself toward Izuku toward Izuku like a runaway train.

“YYIPE!” Izuku leaped upward, dodging the man, who came out of his charge to land feet first against the gunwale. Then, the pig man was hurling himself toward Izuku once more.

The woman with the aqua-form power had seemingly been somewhat in shock but had quickly transformed into her water form when Mei came screaming down toward her. The girl landed and rolled without much of the finesse Momo or Melissa had shown. Despite that, she popped up quickly, her gleaming eyes freaking the older blonde woman out. “WH, what are those eyes targeting crosshairs?!”

“Yep! So run or hide, I’ll still get ya!” Mei shot back. A disc shot out from a gauntlet she wore on one arm, causing Mei to pout when it went straight through her rather than sticking. “So, not gelatin then. Not water, but some other kind of liquid, weird.”

“Why you! I’ll show you!” The woman shouted, waving her hand and slashing at the trio of young women amidships with a blast of what looked like purplish liquid. “I’ll show you all what happens when you mess with the Heart pirates!”

It struck with all the force of a blow from Mezo Shouji, one of the superstrong members of their class back home. Momo was knocked off her feet, and Mei was sent over the side, but she grabbed onto it, her gauntlet extending catlike claws to sink into the wood. With no apparent effort, Mei pulled herself back upright but quickly dodged sideways around a sword strike from one of the other pirates.

Those pirate members were now everywhere, fighting all three girls and Izuku, backing up the pig man. Izuku was being forced to dodge musket balls coming his way. He was durable but didn’t want to see what would happen if a musket ball hit him. They might have low velocity compared to modern weapons, but they would still pack an impact! I can’t get hit! I might be strong, but there’s a limit to my durability!

This made the fight tricky since he had to keep moving to dodge the piggy man, so he couldn’t close to the musket users. Others kept Iida pinned down near the rearmost mast. Unable to get up to speed in the close confines, he couldn’t fight very well here, although his kicks still had incredible power. Meanwhile, more pirates began to join their fellows on the main deck.

The others were faced with cutlasses and knives, which was not an easy proposition either, but they had faced similar close-quarter conflicts before first in the USJ, where the villains had lost most of their long-range fighters to Eraserhead. And then the robots and villains on I-Island, who were all deadlier at close range despite using guns at long range.

But the heroes also had some backup coming. Tsuyu leaped out of the water, her legs lashing out with a kick that sent one pirate into the group of shooters, keeping Iida occupied. “Kero! Strike!”

The pig fetishist turned around and leaped towards Tsuyu, and Izuku instantly took advantage. Launching himself forward, Izuku brought his fist into the man’s back before the metal points could protrude from his cloak. “Intercepting smash!”

The below smashed the man down into the deck, and blood spurted from his mouth as he gagged in agony. Both man and deck took quite a beating that the wood did not survive. It shattered, and he disappeared down the hole.

Izuku used the momentum of that blow to toss himself back into the battle near the girls amidships. Grabs, light taps and tosses sent pirates flying as the woman near the prow shouted, “Boo Jack!”

She sent another wave of her strange attack towards them. Izuku raced forward, bracing himself against it, and then Tsuyu was there, leaping past him, lashing out with her tongue towards the woman. “Kero, help Kiri!”

The woman quickly turned into water, and Tsuyu’s tongue splashed straight through, grabbing the other side of the ship and pulling her forward to crash through the woman. Landing on her feet, she bounced around repeatedly, sending the woman’s watery form splattering everywhere.

While this didn’t seem to hurt the woman, it kept her occupied, and Izuku hastened to the side of the boat, tossing over a line. Meanwhile, Iida, who hadn’t had enough space to get up enough speed, broke through the tumult of the main battle with the pirates. Between them, they helped Kirishima back up onto the ship.

More pirates were coming up from below, presumably having been manning the cannons, and they were armed with more muskets. Uncaring of their fellows, they fired into the meal a day, hitting more of their friends than the heroes. And of them all, only Momo could respond quickly enough to shield herself. With a flick of a finger, the memory metal at the center of her staff expanded into a square shield that deflected the musket balls hitting her.

Beside Momo, Melissa took a blow from one of the musket balls that caused her to cry out in pain, but the Kevlar vests that Momo had made them all before this fight served her well, and she rolled away, possibly sporting a broken rib, but that was hopefully it. Iida’s leg went out from under him as a musket ball bounced off the deck into his leg. Tsuyu’s assault on the liquid woman halted as she hastily dove into the tub to avoid several more musket balls.

The pirates were not so lucky.

“AGGHH!” Mei and Momo both cried out in shock as they were splattered with blood from the pirates they were fighting being hit. Mei’s upper body was covered in red, and Momo stumbled back, blinded by blood splashing into her eyes.

“Damn you! Those were your own friends, you unmanly bastards!” Kirishima shouted as he charged forward. Several musketeers tried to fire at him, but their bullets spanged out of his stone form. A second later, he crashed into them, pushing several of them back down into the ship’s interior via the hatch they’d come out of, going in after them with a roar.

The others left behind hastily began to reload, but before they could, Iida and Izuku were on them, knocking them out or hurling them off the ship. “Villains, you will face justice for what you have done!”

Neither noticed which direction they were tossing the prisoners or how hard. Indeed, after seeing them kill their own crewmates, a lot of the self-control the heroes had been using had gone out the window.

The first to take it a step further didn’t even know what she was doing until too late. Slashing around, Jirou brought her vibro-blade into and then through a cutlass strike aimed at her side. The vibro-blade wasn’t even slowed as it cut into the cutlass wielder, slicing well into his chest.

Seeing the blood scattering from her strike, Jirou froze, her eyes wide at the sight of the body collapsing to the deck. But before any of the pirates nearby could take advantage, Momo battered them aside, her shield-shape staff acting like a club to crack bones and skulls alike.

Behind them, the woman reformed, and seeing Tsuyu poke her head over the side of the tub, instantly attacked, covering her head with the strange purple liquid, filling her mouth and nose. “DIE, you little Zoan bitch!”

At the back of the ship, Boo Jack pulled himself out of the hole he had made when Izuku struck him.

Izuku saw both Quirk users returning to the battle and devised a plan quickly. “Melissa or Momo, take out the water user with one of your tasers!” And then charged toward Boo Jack.

“Ggg… you want to hit me, let’s see if you can hit this!” Boo Jack shouted, pulling his armor over himself, the iron spikes flashing.

But Izuku didn’t care. Lightning crackled around him as his use of One For All rocketed to 20%, and for the first time, it didn’t hurt him. His fist hit the tip of one of the iron spikes and flattened it, nearly smashing the blunt edge of the iron spike back into the man’s stomach with enough force to embed it there. With a cry of pain, the man was launched out over the ocean, where he began to skip like a cannonball before finally sinking into the waves.

Pushing through the realization that he might have just killed someone, Izuku returned to the battle. Racing forward, he caught a blow meant for Mei with his forearm, the inventor still down and nursing her chest from the musket shot. The cutlass cut into Izuku’s forearm deeply, biting into the bone there. Ignoring the pain, Izuku brought his other fist around, which still had several broken fingers. Thankfully, a one percent flick was enough to knock the man out, sending him flying over the gunwales.

A second later, Izuku was once more helping Iida and the others against the main band of pirates still on the deck, and Momo turned her attention to the woman choking out Tsuyu. “Kyo-chan!”

“R, right!” pulled out of her existential crisis by her crush’s voice, Jirou launched her earjack toward the woman. The whole jack sunk into her watery form, and Jirou let loose with a sonic attack that caused the woman’s liquid body to burst.

“GUH!” Tsuyu grunted, falling to her knees.

The woman tried to bring herself together, but then Momo stabbed her staff into the woman’s watery body, activating the electrical discharge.

“AGGGGGGHHGGHGHGHGHHGH!” the woman shrieked. Yet even in pain, she twisted around, trying to lash out at Momo with one of her watery attacks.

“Compared to dealing with the villains back on I-Island, you’re too slow!” Momo growled, trying smack talk again as she dodged around her opponent’s attacks. She brought her staff into the woman’s watery face, smashing it and again electrocuting her.

That did it, and the woman collapsed, first into a puddle, which slowly reformed into her human body. Whether she was unconscious or dead, none of the heroes had time to check.

Jirou took position over the still-gagging Tsuyu, using her vibrating sword and earjacks to fend off anyone who came close, as Momo took it to the Pirates again, pushing to reform with the others. Even while needing to protect Mei and Tsuyu, Izuku and the others were soon battering the last pirates into an ever smaller area towards the hatch where their reinforcements had come through before Kirishima had blocked it.

And now Kirishima appeared there, his face grim, his forearms coated with red. He stood in the doorway between the surviving pirates and the heroes who had now been able to form a line amidships on the other side of the mainsail,

Seeing this and knowing that they had probably knocked out the two leaders of this group, Izuku took the chance. No more killing! “Surrender! Surrender, and we’ll maroon you on that island. We don’t want to hurt any of you anymore!”

Surrounded by the strange power users, without their leaders and with their ship wrecked, the pirates had no choice but to surrender. A few argued back, but most simply threw down their cutlasses and muskets, causing a loud clatter as they hit the deck.

“Iida, Mei, Yaomomo, with me. Let’s tie them all up and put them to the side momentarily. Melissa, just, just sit there, okay? We’ll get the vest off and see about your ribs once we know these pirates can’t bother us anymore. Kirishima, did you do any damage to the outer hole down there? Are we in danger of sinking?” Izuku said rapid fire, trying to push through the now growing shock and horror at what he had done to the one called Boo Jack. It would be time enough for him to collapse later, but his friends needed him now.

Kirishima shook his head grimly, looking a little shell-shocked himself. The fight within the ship had been brutal, and several times, the pirates had shown callous disregard for their fellows, firing at him with muskets even though he was immune to them and hurting their fellows far more than they did him. “Still intact, bro. We’re good.”

“Are we?” Jirou muttered, staring down at the sword in her hand, then with a shiver, releasing it and moving over to help tie up the prisoners. “Good. If I keep that idea in my mind, I might believe it after this.”

Momo was handling the fight somewhat better than the others. Knowing how close she had been to killing the two main villains she and the others fought, Momo had seen a counselor on I-Island after the battle while the boys were still recovering and understood that sometimes, well, there was no other choice to make other than killing the ones who were causing everyone else pain. She wasn’t proud of it, and Momo doubted she would ever come to see it as second nature. But she could handle it, and looking around at the others, resolutely made a mental note to speak to them all one-on-one in the future about what had happened. Especially Kyo-chan. I’m afraid I might have to confiscate that sword of hers for a time. It is simply too deadly.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a groan from near the prow, and turning in that direction, she saw that it was not Tsuyu as she had hoped, recovering from being suffocated, but the woman who was rousing. Fascinating, the water of her body must act as some kind of insulator, not perfect, but enough to let her take more voltage than I was comfortable giving her. Well, we live and learn, I suppose.

Momo marched over to the woman, thrusting her staff down into her face as her eyes opened. They widened at the sight of the crackling polearm in front of her face. “Surrender. Or I set this thing to lethal.”

The woman paled and weakly held up her hands. “I surrender.”

Realizing she had given up too easily, Momo quickly divined what the woman was thinking. She thinks to use her watery form to escape. Sorry-not-sorry, but with me here, that is not a solution.

From one of her outstretched arms, the light of Creation appeared, dazzling the woman for a moment/. This was followed by a dull thunk as what she had created fell to the deck below. “Kyo-chan, could you come over and uncork that bottle? This woman will go into it for us, so we know she won’t make any trouble.”

The woman scowled at that, but with Momo hovering over her and the staff directly in front of her face, she didn’t argue, instead falling back on bluster. “Fine! But you don’t know what you’re in for! We’re the Heart Pirates, and Bear King Nii-san will avenge us! You might have been able to beat us by surprise, but this is only a third of our crew, and you’ve got nothing that can even put a dent in his Devil Fruit body!”

“Sounds like an interesting theory. We’ll have to see how the experiment goes,” Mei said cockily, showing none of the heroes' semi-stunned, somewhat grim attitudes as she helped tie up the prisoners despite her cracked rib. Momo didn’t know if that was because she hadn’t killed anyone during the fight however accidentally, or if that was simply her attitude.

The group was just finishing tying up their prisoners when they were suddenly hailed from nearby. Looking in that direction, the teens saw the small ship had turned around and come closer, and the man manning it was waving at them, while what indeed looked like a small boy rather than someone stunted was manning the wheel. “Ahoy there! Thanks for the help!”

Most of the heroes were dealing with the fact that they had killed someone too much to carry on a conversation with a stranger. This left it to Melissa and Momo, and both moved to the side of the ship, waving at the man, who stared at them as the boat came alongside, a flush appearing on his face. Pulling alongside the larger vessel, the youth and the man climbed aboard quickly, and he and his brother soon stood there, surveying the damage to the ship and the Pirates being taken captive.

Or rather, the young boy did. “Wow, you guys really are strong! Like Borodo said, thanks for the help. We would’ve gotten away, but it would’ve probably taken us the rest of the day to throw them off course. And with the bear King taking potshots at us with his grand canon all the time. Plus, they’re down two of their officers and crew! Let me tell you, it’s going to make our plans going forward a lot easier.”

Borodo didn’t even look around at the ship, instead keeping his attention on the two beauties who had waved him aboard, bowing grandly from the waist. “Ladies, my name is Borodo. This is Akisu, and together, we are the Thief Brothers. Who do I have the honor of addressing?”

Somewhat creeped out at even that low-key flirting from a guy they’d just met and the fact he admitted to being a thief, Momo and Melissa backed away, and Izuku, seeing that they were uncomfortable, stepped forward, pushing through his ongoing shock at committing murder to smile somewhat wanly at the man. “My name is Izuku, and my friends and I are not from around here. We found ourselves on that island and have been making plans to leave before was saw you being chased. We had to stick our noses in then, but we lack even the most basic knowledge of this area. I don’t suppose you could help us by telling us how to work this ship, more about these pirates and what is happening around here in general?”

The next few hours, the prisoners were ferried onto the island via the ship’s rowboat, and Mei, Momo and Melia, who had not thankfully broken anything despite getting her breath knocked out of her, got to work on fixing what damage they could. This did not include the mainmast, but at least Momo, using Jirou’s sword, could cut it away fully.

Jirou clung to her side as she empowered the vibrations needed for the sword, taking comfort in her friend’s presence. Something that Momo wasn’t going to complain about one bit. She would do whatever her friend needed to get over the horror of this fight. Fighting so many people was a great deal more horrifying than fighting robots led by a few villains, after all.

Shoto, Kirishima and Izuku went ashore with the prisoners, taking what they wanted from the things Momo and the others had created over the past few weeks but leaving the food there for the prisoners. The prepared lodge and cooking area would probably allow them to live somewhat comfortably until Izuku and the others could send someone to pick them up.

None of the prisoners tried to make trouble. A single example of Shoto’s ice and fire terrified them all into going along with everything without complaint.

The someone who tried to police pirates in this world was apparently an organization called the Marines. At that, Melissa had simply given up. This planet was far too alike to Earth in far too many ways. “Hell, I’m happy to see an entire fleet of peacekeeping people were called Marines rather than something like the United Nations Navy or something similar. It would’ve been more accurate, and I know a few marines who would die laughing at the idea they were ‘policemen of the ocean’.”

Beyond learning about the marines and pirates in general, Borodo explained where they were. The teens had been deposited in one of the five oceans that dominated this world called the Grand Line. Unlike in the four other major oceans of the world, here in the Grand Line, every island apparently had its own magnetic polarity. Something that appalled Momo and Melissa while intriguing Mei, wondering how such a thing was possible. But the fact that the pirates had what he called an Eternal Pose proved the man’s story.

It pointed to an island called Clockwork Island, where the pirates had apparently set themselves up as conquerors, dominating the local populace, and building the gigantic artillery cannon they had seen in action. While not very accurate just yet, it was intensely powerful, able to destroy any ship in the world with a single shot at ranges well, well beyond what any ship could fire or Devil Fruit user could use their power.

The conversation bogged down at that point. Mei and Melissa looked at one another, both intrigued by the Idea of this Clockwork Island. But the idea of getting powers through eating some strange fruit was bizarre to the Quirk users, bar Izuku, who knew that at least one quirk could be passed down. Indeed, he didn’t know what to think about being on a planet where most people didn’t have special powers and had to find one of these fruits to gain such, and looking over at Melissa, he could see interest flaring in her eyes even more than about Clockwork Island.

But even so, the Devil Fruits sounded weird to him. And the one example they had already faced didn’t seem all that powerful. Izuku decided to put that down to the fact that she probably had never really trained all that well with it.

Momo agreed with that statement, saying aloud, “She seems to be a woman who got by with seduction and scheming, at least judging by her choice of clothing and the way that she never really tried to get close in with anyone until Tsuyu did the same with her.”

Izuku was more concerned with the overall story and exchanged looks with everyone around him. Once more, this definitely sounded like a job for heroes, battered or shocked or not. They’d need some time to get over the raw violence of this battle, so different from facing a few villains and a ton of robots or even the villains at the USJ who hadn’t bothered much with guns. But still, there was a whole island out there to be saved, and Izuku was not alone in being unable to leave that alone. “So, what can you tell us about this clockwork Island…”

End Chapter

So there you go.  I could have gone into more detail on Borodo and the kid's reactions to Izuku and the rest, but as characters, neither interest me enough to do so. Regardless, our adventurers got some info, and know about Devil Fruits, the oceans, and the marines.  The next chapter will have them face the other Heart Pirates and meeting more locals.  

Be aware folks I will be posting this over on A03 as well to try and drum up more interest for it going forward as a reward for any new patrons who join us for the privilege of voting for it.  If it works, I may bring it back next month, but that is... very doubtful.  

In other news, Patreon is being weird.  I had to go into my creator profiles and change a few things, before posting this here for patrons only and had to enable paid memberships again despite the fact that I have had such for several years now to let me post patrons-only posts.  Doing so I had to comment on tiers, the inclusion of which seems to be automatic, although thankfully I didn't need to set any such thing   I will say now I don't have tiers.  Your money get you more votes, not more access. That feels too annoying LOL.  

I will playing with the collections a bit today and tomorrow as I finish up the chapter of Magic. I admit it fought me more than I expected it to.  But since this is the last chapter before a LOT of combat stuff happens, I suppose that is acceptable.  

I hoped you all enjoyed this chapter, and again, stay safe guys and girls.