The damn Plant Factory was super hard to write about and describe... I tried my best...
Together the ten of us immediately began running up the winding stairs of the tower, seeing the floor numbers rise with each staircase we climbed up. It was making me slightly dizzy as we had to turn with each set of stairs, but I concentrated hard on keeping up my stamina. I was finding it incredibly difficult to run in my tight dress and heels, but I knew we couldn't stop so I kept on going.
By the time we reached level thirty I was panting quite heavily and my feet were sore. "Level thirty? Melissa, how high does this tower go?" I asked her, stopping to catch my breath.
"The two-hundredth floor," she breathed and my eyes widened.
"The what?!" Kaminari exclaimed.
"That's way too many stairs!" Mineta complained.
"But it's still better than running into the villains," Yaoyorozu said. We carried on running as fast as we could, the entire group beginning to pant a little. The difficulty of running in my outfit was beginning to frustrate me too much, so I took ahold of Todoroki's arm, stopping him in his tracks.
"Shoto, I need you to make me a sharp piece of ice," I practically demanded and he looked at me, confused.
"Sure... but why?" He did as he was told, handing it to me. I took the hem of my dress and pulled it up a little, unaware of the blush coming to Todoroki's face as he stared. I slashed my dress with the ice, making a slit from the top of my thigh all the way down, ripping the skirt completely. I knew mum was going to be frustrated that I had torn such an expensive present, but right now I didn't care, it allowed me better manoeuvrability. "(y-y/n)-,"
"It's okay, I can run better this way," I said, kicking off my heels also and discarding them down the stairs. I noticed Todoroki's eyes glance down towards my slightly exposed thigh, but I was too high on adrenaline to be embarrassed. The others had run ahead, so I took ahold of his warm hand and pulled him along, snapping him from his gaze. "C'mon!"
The stairs just kept on coming; they felt endless but I had powerful legs, and now that my feet weren't hurting from my heels and my legs weren't constricted by my dress I was able to run faster. We reached the seventieth floor when suddenly Iida and Midoriya stopped. We all caught up with them, looking around the wall to see there was a large metal futuristic style shutter blocking the path. "What do we do now? Break through it?" Todoroki said through panted breaths.
"If we did that, I'm sure the security system would be alerted," Melissa said.
"Then why don't we just go this way," Mineta said lazily, reaching up to open the latch on a door in the stairwell. Everyone shouted at him immediately to stop, but he opened it anyway, a light on the door turning from red to green.
"That can't be good," I pointed out the obvious.
"The security systems probably been alerted!" Melissa exclaimed.
"Mineta you idiot!" Jirou shouted angrily.
"We've got no choice, we'll have to head through this corridor and find another stairwell that isn't blocked," Iida said and we all nodded in agreement, following his lead. As fast as we could the ten of us ran down the slightly curved seventieth floor corridor, looking out for any other way up the tower. Suddenly in the distance we heard a loud clanging sound, the sound of metal clashing together harshly. It was then that we spotted large thick metal shutters closing one at a time in front of us, blocking off the corridor. More clanging sounds came from behind us, and we all turned to see that they were shutting also. It seemed as though the villains had discovered us, and were attempting to trap us.
It was then that I spotted a metallic door to the right, between us and the shutters. "Shoto! Right there!" I shouted at him, needing him to use his ice to block the metal shutter that was about to block us from the door.
"I'm on it!" He shouted, shooting his ice out to do exactly that. I jumped through the shutter and landed a kick on the door without really thinking where it could possibly lead, it bursting open immediately. Due to the doors thickness, a pain was sent up my leg and I wished I had now had the strengthening brace on that I tried in the Museum of Support.
"C'mon! We can go through here!" I called out to everyone who was on the other side of the shutter. Together we all ran through the broken down door and I was admittedly a bit shocked at what I saw inside.
"What is this place?" Midoriya voiced my thoughts.
"It's a Plant Factory," Melissa said. "They research the affects that quirks have on fauna here."
It was truly breathtaking. It was an incredibly tall open space, probably interrupting about twenty floors of the building. There were large bodies of water with small grassy islands in them covered in various shrubs and trees. There were even mini buildings inside of this large room, which all looked like small labs but were decorated with more bushes and trees, and even had waterfalls cascading down them. Large concrete paths were laid out heading in all different directions around the plant factory, and above us there were many walkways high in the air which seemed to lead to some of the higher up floors. Melissa led us down what looked like the main path which, like mostly everywhere else in this gigantic space, was decorated with grassy verges, bushes and trees.
In the centre of the room there was a futuristic circular building several stories high, but even from this distance I noticed that there was a tube in front of it that looked like a lift shaft. It was then that I noticed the numbers on the screen above the doors were ascending, fast. "Wait! Look at the lift! Someone's coming!" I shouted out to everyone and we all stopped.
"Don't tell me the villains found us!" Mineta squeaked and I rolled my eyes. 'Yeah, and who's fault is that, pervert?' I thought.
"The best thing we can do is hide and wait for them to pass," Todoroki said, surprising me a little as he grabbed my hand and took me over towards some of the large bushes. Everyone else followed, crouching behind them and watching the numbers on the lift rise closer to seventy.
"I wonder if we can use that lift to get to the top floor once they're gone," Kaminari said.
"No, only authorised people can use the controls unfortunately," Melissa said. "And it's built like a bomb shelter, so we can't even break in and try."
The number on the screen finally reached seventy, and the doors opened. We all ducked behind the bushes, Todoroki actually wrapping his arms around me protectively - not that I minded. He was holding me so close to him that I could feel his heartbeat in his chest, which admittedly made me blush but I knew that right now wasn't the time to be getting flustered. Two villains in dark clothing emerged from the lift, growling at the fact that they had let a group of kids slip under their radar. "Hey! We see you, stupid kids!" One of the villains suddenly shouted, and the colour drained from my face. I looked up at Todoroki who had tensed up and looked down at me, sharing a worried glance.
"What'd you say you bastard?" A different voice said, a deep growl that we all recognised too well. We peeked behind the bush, surprised to see Bakugou and Kirishima there.
"What? What are they doing all the way up here?" I whispered my thoughts aloud as we watched from our hiding place.
"What are you two doin' here?" One of the villains scoffed.
"That's what I wanna know too-,"
"Hey man, just leave this to me, okay?" Kirishima said nervously, stepping in front of Bakugou. "Um, we kinda got lost looking for this party... can you maybe point us in the right direction?"
We watched the situation unfold before us, the two villains sharing a suspicious glance. I felt uneasy, and didn't like where this was going. No doubt the villains were going to attack, and the likelihood was that we were going to be found out. "Don't lie to me or you'll regret it!" One of the villains shouted, a growing webbed hand ripping his glove off, him then throwing what looked like a large gust of wind towards Kirishima. I gasped, immediately wanting to jump out and push Kirishima out of the way.
"Hey, watch out!" Bakugou yelled to his best friend, a rare tone of worry evident in his voice. Todoroki however let go of me quickly and jumped from our hiding spot, blasting an incredibly large ice blockade between the villains and Kirishima, stopping their attack.
"Shoto!" I exclaimed, knowing now that a fight would begin.
Bakugou and Kirishima looked over to where we were all hiding, apparently surprised to see us all there. A large, terrifying clatter came from the other side of the ice, and it sounded like the villains were attempted to chip away at it. "The three of us can keep them busy here. You guys look for a way to the top," Todoroki said, slamming his right hand to the ground and forming a sheet of ice under the rest of us. It began to rise in the air, Todoroki creating a large column of more ice with us on the top, sending us closer and closer towards the walkways above.
"Wait! Shoto!" I shouted down, wanting to stay with him and keep him safe. "Let me stay-,"
"No! I'll be fine, I'll be right behind you once I've cleaned up this mess!" He shouted up to me. I knew I had to have confidence in him, and I knew he would be able to beat these villains easily but that didn't stop me from being nervous. I watched him as he sent us higher and higher into the air, the ice column suddenly stopping when we reached one of the walkways.
"(y/n), c'mon, he'll be fine," Jirou tried to convince me, pulling me away from my gaze at my crush who I noticed nodded at me confidently, trying to mentally tell me that he'd be okay. With one last pang of worry, I followed the others, climbing over the railing and onto the path way up in the air.
The nine of us remaining ran along the walkways towards each of the doors we saw, but after Iida and I burst open each one we noticed that the corridors beyond were blocked with the familiar shutters that attempted to trap us earlier. "We can't get through here either!" I shouted out to the rest of the group who ran to catch up with Iida and I.
"Great, so what are we supposed to do?" Mineta complained. The others were attempting to form a plan, but my eyes couldn't help but be glued on the fight below, seeing large spikes of ice being created and the villains causing them to crumble seconds later. I heard explosions, presumably from Bakugou, but my mind was fogged with worry for my crush. A hand on my shoulder made me jump, and I turned to see Uraraka looking at me with comforting eyes.
"He'll be okay," She tried to convince me. I knew he would be, he was powerful and knew how to fight; he could probably take on those two villains by himself and win no problem but it didn't stop me from worrying. "C'mon (y/n), we have to press on, otherwise Todoroki would've stayed behind for nothing.
"You're right," I sighed with realisation. "We have to carry on!"
"Melissa! Where does that vent go, up there?" Midoriya suddenly asked, pointing to a small metal slab on the ceiling of the gigantic plant factory.
"I think it runs under the maintenance room for the sunlight system," she said thoughtfully.
"There's probably an emergency ladder in the maintenance room, right?" Iida pointed out.
"There is, but it's manual release, so someone would have to be inside it to let it down for us," she said.
"Is this really as far as we go?" Uraraka asked.
"No, there's still a possibility," Yaoyorozu said, creating a small disc and throwing it up to the vent. It latched on perfectly and blew up the metal slab covering it, revealing the hole leading in. "Somebody climbs through the vent and to the exterior wall, they can get into the maintenance room!"
"There must be another vent leading inside, they can get in that way!" Uraraka said excitedly.
"But who can go through such a cramped space and then climb the outer wall without falling?" Midoriya mumbled. All of us immediately turned towards Mineta who apparently had seen it coming, as he had already disgustedly wet his trousers. He attempted to deny the plan, but the rest of the girls begged him repeatedly. Finally, thanks to the girls begging, he agreed to do it and climbed up and out of sight.
He indeed did as planned, and was able to lower the ladder down for us all to climb up. With one last glance at the fight below, and one last small glimpse of red and white, I turned my attention to climbing the ladder up into the maintenance room, knowing that we all needed to press on to the security system above us.