S1 - Ep 9: Search and Steal - Part 3
As a hurt Luz contemplates All For One's words and her team prepares to get supplies, Governor Maxwell adjusts his plans involving Luz's Quirk. Later the Alpha Squadron face their first battle as a team.
This chapter contains examples of:
- Are We There Yet?: Ronny whines this to his team as they search for supplies in the scorching heat. Judy threatens to hurt him with her Quirk if he doesn't stop complaining, but luckily Luz breaks up the fight before it begin to get physical.
- Ass Kicking Pose: Luz and her scouts do this at the climax of the chapter by summoning their Quirks before taking on Cody.
- The Big Guy: Stanley is described as having massive muscles large enough to make some professional bodybuilders cry. Its mentioned he can punch hard despite not having Super-Strength.
- Bilingual Bonus: Jean sometimes speaks French. Translations below.
- Tu vois (You see).
- Blatant Lies: He promised to keep the winning team alive and give them billions, when he had no plans on letting them any of them live. He also claims he didn't legally kidnap them, when he obviously did.
- Bring It: After he tanks Cody's attack, Stanley proceeds to laugh, start Knuckle Cracking and give a wordless look that says this, which encourages his teammates that they could take on their attacker working together.
- Clothing Damage: Stanley only receives a singed shirt and pants from Cody's fire attacks thanks to his Shock Absorption Quirk.
- Conveniently an Orphan: Ronny Armstrong sees himself as this.
- Creepy Blue Eyes: Like Stanley, Cody has blue eyes. Unlike Stanley he's a bad guy.
- Detectives Follow Footprints: While not a detective, Cody Johnson claims he found the Alpha Squadron by following their footsteps.
- Don't Go in the Woods: Luz, seeing too many horror movies based in the woods, views the forest she and her team in as this, despite it being beautiful. Though this case its enemy teams in a Death Game to be worried about.
- Evil Red Head: Cody has deep orange hair and attacks Luz's team with intent to kill.
- Exposed to the Elements: Inverted and Defied. Luz and were being beat down by the 45 degrees summer heat, with Judy seemingly to had it the worst, wearing a thick leather jacket. Though Luz, being more used to the hot summers, is least affected.
- Eyes Always Averted: Luz notes that making eye contact with anyone was hard enough for herself as it was when she's in a good mood, let alone when she's upset.
- Fantastic Racism: As far as Rodger Maxwell is concerned, the fewer of these superhuman "freaks" that existed, the better. He also refers to Luz as the "parasite".
- Final Solution: His Evil Plan is to try and wipe all superhumans from his state out of Fantastic Racism.
- Foreshadowing: Governor Maxwell notes that Luz's Power Parasite Quirk either had no limit, or there was one, and she just hadn’t reached it yet.
- Fireballs: Cody introduces himself to Alpha Squadron by firing a massive one of these at them.
- The Gambler: The Governor sees himself as one, with him creating the Death Camp being his biggest gamble.
- Gratuitous French: Jean at one point speaks in French.
- Greed: Exploited. Maxwell also adds the incentive of a bigger cash prize of $1.1 Billion for Heaven's Devils and Foxtrot to pull an Enemy Mine on the Alpha Squadron. Not that he had any intention on paying up.
- Home Base: The Alpha Squadron's team base is hidden in the forest with moat surrounding it and a draw bridge for a door.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: In a story that has superhumans, Rodger Maxell a state governor is Luz's most despicable villain so far.
- Hypocrite: Governor Maxwell believes no one person should have that so power, despite a Governor of a State who regularly abuses his lately.
- Indy Ploy: The Governor admits that the Death Camp he arranged is a half-baked plan. This was all sprung at him with no sudden warning, including Luz’s power. This whole thing was slapped together in a matter of hours.
- Innocent Blue Eyes: Stanley is described as having blue eyes and is a Nice Guy.
- Innocently Insensitive: Ronny, one of Luz's teammates, makes a joke to Luz that their parents must hate them if they sent them here to some shoddy education camp. A depressed Luz, who Shigaraki put in her head that Camila is a Resentful Guardian, says he might be right, making the boy grimace and immediately takes it back telling her not to take him seriously.
- Internal Reveal: Luz reveals to her team that her Quirk can give powers others, as well and could potentially turn someone brain-dead. They take this better than she expected.
- It Can't Be Helped: Luz notices her Nerves of Steel team seems to have this attitude towards their situation now.Everyone seemed so… happy? No, not happy. No one here was happy. They were doing what it was that anyone in this situation would do. Coping. Coping at the fact that their families threw them away, unaware that they would be subjected to this. But even so, the act of throwing them away, it was something everyone here could at least relate to. They were doing the best that they could. And if moving forward was what would distract them from the truth, then she’d go along with it.
- Kick the Dog: The Governor doesn’t plan to give the kids back to their parents. He plans to make the camp counsellor lie and say that some tragedy occurred and they all died.
- Kids Are Cruel: Governor Maxwell has this opinion on children.Kids were greedy like that. Money was money was money. Kids didn’t care the amount, pay’em and they’d do it. Morals? Who needs’em when you can be a billionaire? Rights? Pfft! What do human rights have to do with them getting rich?
- Leave No Survivors: If the first round of intimidation when he rounded the superpowered teens all hadn’t worked, then the governor's Plan B would’ve just had to kill them all outright. Though he admits this would create new problems for himself.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: One half the team; which includes Luz, Jean, Ronny, Stanley, and Judy goes out to get supplies. The other half stays behind to guard their base.
- Manipulative Bastard: The governor plans to set something up between the 3 groups that would cause a massive fight to ensue, and once it was done, introduce Luz to the situation, in where then she could take the powers from the fallen, and kill the rest of the stragglers after taking their powers, then rinse repeat until there were no more left in his State.
- Mirthless Laughter: Luz gives a nervous chuckle as she tried to stop a fight breaking out between a heat-stressed Ronny and Judy.
- Nice Guy: Ronny was genuinely concerned about Luz's wellbeing after her talk with All For One.
- Nuke 'em: The Governor plans to do this to Luz if his project succeeds.
- Playing with Fire: Cody's Quirk "Flame" lets him morph his body parts into fire and launch Fireballs or be used as a deadly flamethrower.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Rodger's main motivation for putting 33 superpowered kids into a Battle Royale-style Deadly Game is so that he can get rid of those with superpowers, due to his personal disdain for them. He is very open about his hatred for them while thinking over his plans for the future, that being making Luz take all of the powers of those in Connecticut while contained in the forest, before then bombing the area with Luz inside; all because of his disdain for superpowers.
- Pungeon Master: Downplayed. Cody states to the Alpha Squadron that they're toast as he launches a pillar of fire towards Jean.
- The Reveal: In Maxwell's POV, its reveals his Death Camp wasn't sanctioned by the government and is running it illegally out of fear and Fantastic Racism, as a test run. He also plans to make Luz take all of the powers of those in Connecticut while contained in the forest, before then bombing the area with Luz inside.
- Say My Name: Luz screams Stanley's name as takes full blast of Cody's attack. He's fine, by the way.
- Starter Villain: Cody's first superhuman enemy Luz fights and has her team back her up.
- Sarcastic Clapping: Cody does this when Jean points out he's an enemy calling him a smarty.
- Shout-Out: Cody Johnson's Quirk "Flame" is based on Portgas D. Ace's Flame-Flame Devil Fruit from One Piece, allowing him to create, control and transform into fire.
- Stunned Silence Luz's scouts are left in shocked silence when she reveals her Quirk could potentially be a Touch of Death power.
- Super-Soldier: Maxwell notes while he could make Luz into the perfect super soldier after she steals all the Quirks in the area as another easy alternative to get her out of the way, but he'd rather than just have her killed after he pulls a You Have Out Lived Your Usefulness on Luz.
- Take Cover!: Luz tells her team to scatter as Cody attcks them.
- Taking the Bullet: As the rest of the team scatter away from Cody's flamethrower attack, Stanley pushes Jean, who couldn't get away from the flames, and takes the full blast... only to No-Sell it being no worse for wear due to his Super-Toughness.
- Thou Shall Not Kill: No one on Alpha Squadron wanted to even think about the prospect of spilling someone else’s blood, despite being in a Deadly Game. They agree only to do so when there are no other options.
- Trying Not to Cry: Luz does this when she thinks back on Shigaraki's words not wanting to believe the idea that her mother was glad that she was out of her hair.
- Villain Has a Point: Luz acknowledges and hates this aspect of Shigaraki.She hated how he was right about damn near everything he said. Wake-up call after wake-up call was something that [Luz] was used to, but not with the bluntness that Shigaraki provided. Most people danced around every subject, but Shigaraki didn’t. He went straight to the heart of the problem and ripped the bandage off with a pair of pliers each and every time. First, it was about using her power, then it was about the reality of the situation she was in, and recently it was about her mother and her actions.
- Villain Takes an Interest: Governor Rodger Maxwell readjusts his plans as soon as he witnesses Luz use All For One viewing her as the perfect solution to contain the power boom that occurred which is leaving the government in shambles.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The governor tries to present himself as this, explain his motive for kidnapping 33 superpowered children to contain the power outbreak. Though its clear he's just making excuses for his bigotry and fear for his position of power in jepordy.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Downplayed. Stanley briefly calls out Luz for using her Power Parasite Quirk on Julia at the risk of causing her brain damage. Luckily, after Luz explains to him that she informed Julia beforehand and it was consensual he accepts it.
