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Noone in his class really, properly noticed when it started. Bakugou saw the ‘quirkless nerd’ shutting up and keeping his head down as him finally giving up on his dream, and didn’t look any further. The other bullies looked even less, being mostly riled up by following Bakugou anyway, so they didn’t even process a change.
The teachers were a bit more perceptive being able to tell that he moved with purpose, no longer muttering and carrying around a sturdier leather notebook which he seemed to use to compare information with a larger binder. However they brushed it off with the apathy they’d applied the previous year.
However people definitely started noticing when thirteen year old Izuku Midoriya started consistently evading random pranks and attacks, when he started climbing through the ranks during physical exams and when he began to always be in his seat when the bell rang, yet none of his classmates remembered seeing him enter. But Izuku didn’t have a quirk, so what was going on?
The answer required going back a few months. Izuku had been going over some interview footage from snipe when the pro mentioned being in awe of another hero, lady nagant. The western themed hero talked about how his quirk, homing, let him lock onto anything within a six hundred metre range so that projectiles he launched always hit their target.
But Nagant, named after a type of rifle, didn’t have that ability! Despite this, she was still able to outshoot him, and could maintain that accuracy for up to four kilometres with just skill! For all intents and purposes, she could replicate the feat without her quirk at all! This got Izuku thinking about something. Why was he just waiting for a quirk to miraculously appear, when he had evidence that a person could reach and surpass quirks with just training?
Looking into lady nagant showed that she had been arrested and sent to tartarus just months prior for murdering two heroes. It was also assumed that she had a hand in an incident against some vigilantes. Following this path allowed him to also discover knuckleduster, a quirkless vigilante who could fight on par with a number of pro heroes!
Determination set at the proof he could achieve his dreams, Izuku got to work. First would be to reclassify quirks into easily understandable groups, so that he could measure where he fell on any single scale. While the widespread three aspects of mutation, transformation, emitter suited most just fine, Izuku found it lazy and worked to make something better, writing and rewriting his list until he had 12 types of quirk classification;
Movers - mobility quirks and aspects. Superspeed, teleportation and portals all came to mind.
Shakers - AOE types. You make earthquakes or have a high range for whatever you do, you're a shaker.
Brutes - the types that just keep trucking regardless of injury, typically with a strength boosting aspect.
Breakers - they shift into a predetermined alternative state. Turning to stone, or into a dragon for example. Damage doesn't typically transfer over.
Masters - some form of control or manipulation ability, whether it's of people or something else.
Tinkers - they can make things, the best being able to make crazy high end support gear. Most people don't know about them.
Blasters - long range offence. Lasers, fireballs, that kind of thing.
Thinkers - the smart ones. Precogs, hyper intelligence, telepaths, any ability based around the mind.
Strikers - melee range offence. Super strength, disintegration, time stopping.
Changers - like breakers, except they can regulate it - the degree of transformation, where it occurs, what they become among other things.
Trumps - these are powers relating to other powers. Copiers, nullifiers, occasionally there's a quirk scientist with a quirk scanning ability.
Strangers - those who specialise in stealth and infiltration. Invisibility, presence nullification, depending on the case memory manipulation.
With this list, a person could be rated on a scale anywhere from 0 onwards in categories they have a bare minimum for, a slash meant a hybrid ability rating, and subratings were denoted with parenthesis. As an example, a hero kitted out with advanced support gear, which he called tinker tech, that they knew how to operate and maintain would be a tinker 0. In order to scale it Izuku decided to give All Might, the number one hero, a brute 15 rating, with a striker/mover 10 subrating.
Izuku then set up a home workout plan. A search online showed him that the local beach, dagobah, was used as an illegal dumping ground because of the sea currents. It would be the perfect way to do weight training, and he'd be able to collect materials for tinkering. Setting everything up with an alarm, Izuku went to bed, ready to start his journey to be a hero in the morning.
(izuku midoriya: mover 0, shaker 0, brute 0, breaker 0, master 0, tinker 0, blaster 0, thinker 1, striker 0, changer 0, trump 0, stranger 0)
Over time, Izuku upped his workouts. He began taking things home from the beach to experiment with them, worrying his mother until he explained he was trying out inventing. One of his first creations was an arm mounted grappling hook, for covering large distances. It was shoddily done and the rope line frayed and snapped during stress testing, but that was fine: it was more a proof of concept than anything.
Izuku also started experimenting with his natural intelligence. Challenging himself to find as much information about a person as possible in a certain amount of time, to predict actions, to bring up data on building materials in his head and calculate both how much force was being outputted and where any shrapnel would fly, to craft the best plans he possibly could to anything that came to mind. He wasn’t naturally good at any of these, but with every attempt he improved.
As the months passed he saw incredible results, his already athletic body from chasing hero fights gaining much greater muscle definition. He could run faster for longer, hit harder, take harder hits and lift greater weights. With his beginning forays into tinkering and his growing repertoire of mental techniques, Izuku had a decent number of classifiers under his belt, but he knew it wouldn’t be enough. Soon he’d hit a glass ceiling, and when that happened it would take everything he had to break through.
So he began looking into developing his other ratings, and looked to fiction to provide inspiration, and provide it did. A thousand and one ways to move faster, finding structural weak points and using that to cascade destruction, using resonant vibrations to do the same, forcing calculations onto the world through willpower in order to manipulate vectors, air pressure attacks, hiding presence to render the user basically imperceptible and more. Frankly he was spoiled for choice, but Izuku knew to keep it simple, within reason.
So the verdant teen started working on a basic Striker/Thinker power, using vibrations in order to scan something. So he began tapping things as he went about his days, holding his hand there in order to receive the feedback. From there he’d try to convert what he felt into a mental image.
Like everything else it was slow going at first, his inability to differentiate between different materials hindering him. But when he took a mechanical pencil apart and scanned each portion individually, Izuku eventually learnt to feel the subtle changes in the vibrations for different parts, or empty spots that only had air in. As time progressed, he started using this ‘seismic sight’ through his feet, to take in his surroundings even when not looking. Toph Beifong, your contribution is much appreciated.
Izuku hit the plateau nine months into his training. While he knew it was coming, and that he’d eventually get past it, that didn’t make the sensation of having your physical progress screech to a halt any less unpleasant. So he decided to compensate by working on his presence concealment, walking with a total certainty that he was meant to be wherever he went, while simultaneously keeping his body language neutral and his steps silent.
However, four months into this new schedule, a year since it started, everything changed once more. And Izuku’s journey to reach and surpass the pinnacle of human capability, would continue once more.
(Izuku Midoriya: brute: 2 (mover 1, striker 1), thinker: 3, tinker: 1, stranger: 2, striker/thinker: 2 (shaker/thinker variant: 4))
Izuku entered his classroom the same way he had every other day in the last couple of months; confusingly, since no one remembered him entering. Chuckling, he put down his training notebook and prepared as the homeroom teacher walked through the door. In the man’s hands is a stack of papers.
“Now, I’ve got your highschool application documents here, which you should have taken seriously when filling out… but I know you all want to be heroes!” the teacher cried, throwing the documents into the air. Most of the class cheered, showing off their quirks with abandon, except two. Midoriya didn’t join in both because he found it silly and lacked a quirk to show off, while Bakugou went for something a tad more extreme…
“Yes, you’ve all got very impressive quirks, but settle down-”
"Oi teach! Ya might as well stop encouraging these extras, they'd be lucky to make it as a sidekick to some nobody C-lister!" Bakugou snarked, provoking a wide array of insults to be thrown his way, but he just smirked. "Complain all you want, it doesn't matter. Meanwhile, I have enough raw talent, skill and instinct to surpass All Might as number one, and because of that I even aced the UA mock exams!"
“Hm, indeed you did Bakugou, that’s very impressive. Now where was I- ah, it seems you’ve also applied to UA Midoriya,” the teacher smirked. He’d found the little shit annoying for the last two years with how he never got a question wrong, even if the answer was difficult to understand through his stuttering. Although that had ended near the beginning of his second year, hadn’t it?
Izuku’s surprise at being called out was strong enough that he almost didn’t move his training notes. However almost didn’t is not the same as didn’t, as he snatched the leatherbound book out of the way of a blast from Bakugou, lightly scorching the desk. “DEKU!” the blond yelled.
“You quirkless bastard! I thought you gave up your stupid dream! Everyone knows that a quirkless loser like you could never become a hero!” Bakugou screamed at him. Izuku just raised an eyebrow, causing the explosion user to grit his teeth. However before he could go further on the offensive, the teacher called him back to his seat, and the day continued on.
As Izuku was packing up at the end of the day however, a hand grabbed at his arm. Turning around, the green haired teen was faced with Bakugou and two of his cronies. “What do you want?” he asked, voice completely deadpan.
“Oh, that’s easy.” Bakugou chuckled faux calmly, clapping a hand on his would-be victim’s shoulder. “See, I’m something of a perfectionist. In all of the best heroes, you hear stories of greatness from a young age, and I’m going to be the guy who surpasses All Might so of course that includes me. So I’m going to be the only one who so much as applies for UA from this crapshoot of a school, you get me?” as he spoke he gradually applied pressure and heat from his quirk to Izuku’s shoulder.
The other boy, however, brushed that hand off without so much as a blink. “Yeah, I get you. I get that you’re a self-obsessed prick with delusions of grandeur. But I’m gonna tell you something: Fuck Off.” he replied. On his way out of the room, he muttered, “Holmes, Design.” These were command words that he’d ingrained into his psyche to regulate his Thinker techniques, Holmes correlating to his information gathering and Design for his Path to Victory technique. Because of the first he knew about the right hook from behind, and the second would let him counter the opponent.
(First, distract target.) Izuku pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and threw it in Bakugou's face. This caused him to flinch back slightly, aborting the right hook and instead…
(Then block his blind jab.) The other hand was smacked away, leaving the pomeranian open.
(Counter with cross to left cheek.) Izuku’s own right arm snapped up, directly into the other teen’s face.
(Discombobulate.) His extended arm pulled back slightly to mirror the left, before both came forward and Izuku’s hands clapped themselves over Bakugou’s ears.
(Dazed, he’ll employ a wild haymaker. Deploy elbow block.) Bakugou’s right arm swung up, only to encounter Izuku’s left forearm as opposed to his head.
(Add bodyshot.) The young Brute let the momentum push him so that he could get a rib shaking right hook.
(Block feral left.) A wild swing countered.
(Weaken right jaw.) A left elbow hit Bakugou in the face.
(Now fracture.) The arm retracted slightly so the forearm could unfold from where it had been tucked, and a fist hit the explosion user in front of the right ear.
(Bodyshot right side to avoid breaking cracked ribs.) The arm lowered and shot out again. The school nurse could deal with fractures and dislocations: full breaks, not so much.
(traumatise solar plexus.) Izuku delivered a right jab to the centre of the chest.
(Dislocate jaw entirely.) The hand came up and slammed into Bakugou’s face again.
(Heel kick to diaphragm.) Izuku’s left leg came up, straight into the middle of Bakugou’s chest.
(in short: ears ringing, jaw fractured, seven ribs cracked, diaphragm haemorrhaging, physical recovery six weeks naturally, an hour if he visits the school nurse, full psychological recovery, six months. Capacity to be an obnoxious bellend during this time neutralised.)
Bakugou staggered back, falling into one of the free chairs. Izuku simply picked his bag and notebook back up, said “you may want to get him to the nurse’s office,” to the toadies, and walked off.
(Izuku Midoriya: brute: 2 (mover 1, striker 1), thinker: 3, tinker: 1, stranger: 2, striker/thinker: 2 (shaker/thinker variant: 4))
(Katsuki Bakugou: striker/blaster: 4 (mover: 2, brute: 1))
As he was walking under a bridge, Izuku heard something come from the sewer entrance behind him. On a whim, he started using his presence concealment and backed up to the tunnel wall. This was the right move, as a being made of green sludge burst out of the sewer, looking around confusedly. Realising they were probably a villain, he tossed some pebbles at their eyes, causing them to curse and make threats at the sky.
Then All Might showed up from the same sewer entrance, and took the sludge villain out in one go! Then he gathered the unconscious sludge villain into a couple of large cola bottles, checked to make sure there was no one nearby who got hurt, and jumped into the air. Throughout all of this, Izuku stood by the wall, eyes wide and completely unnoticed. “Woah.”
Then he realised. “Damn it! I forgot to get his autograph!”
(All Might: brute: 15 (striker/mover: 10, breaker: 7))
Later, as he was coming home from running some groceries, Izuku heard an explosion occur the next block over. Rushing to the noise, he found a grim sight. The sludge villain from earlier had escaped somehow, and had gotten a hostage. The heroes in the area couldn’t do anything either at first glance: Mt. Lady couldn’t reach in there without possibly crushing the hostage for example, and Kamui Woods couldn’t get his branches close without them being set on fire.
That was when he saw who the hostage was: Bakugou. Seeing the fear in those eyes, Izuku’s legs moved on their own. He dashed past the police and the pros, dodged an out of control blast from bakugou’s controlled hands but came face to face with a whipping tendril from the sludge villain and froze. Time from Izuku’s perspective slowed down.
‘Move!’ Izuku yelled in his mind. ‘I need to move! If I don’t, I could die! Bakugou could die! Others could die, and it’d be because I didn’t move!’ slowly, the sludge whip got closer. ‘So move, body! Just do it! JUST, FUCKING, MOVE!’ And his body listened.
…Bumb.
Ba-bumb.
Ba-bumb ba-bumb.
Babumb babumb babumb babumb.
Almost subconsciously, Izuku used seismic sense on himself, feeling all of his muscles tensing, blood pulsing through his veins and electricity along his nerves. He knew that for these few moments, he’d have complete control over his body, total access to his full physical abilities. He’d limit broken, and after this he’d be able to start improving his raw physicality again.
Crack!
Izuku pushed off of the ground, cracking the concrete and swinging his lower body upwards to leverage his head out of the tendril’s path. He continued the motion, spinning so that he was upside down, next to the extended attack. With every ounce of force he could put into the motion, Izuku sheared down with an axekick, roaring with exertion. “RAAGH!” The force was great enough that it actually generated a gust of wind, cutting the sludge off from the main body!
On landing, he used his increased speed from the adrenaline fueled strength boost and his presence concealment to blitz over to the restrained Bakugou and yanked him free, before kicking off again to launch himself over to where the pros were standing. “Here.” Izuku grunted, dropping the still stunned blonde. “Now, I’m going to go home, this has been the most painful experience of my life.”
(Izuku Midoriya: brute: 2 (mover: 1, striker: 1), thinker: 3, tinker: 1, stranger: 2, striker/thinker: 2 (shaker/thinker variant: 4), brute: 4 (mover 3, striker: 3), blaster: 1)
Upon getting home, sorting the groceries out and calming his mother down, Izuku flopped onto his bed and just groaned. “fuuuuuu-”
After that, Izuku’s training picked up even further in preparation for UA. With unrelenting willpower and a helping dose of spite, he began growing stronger and faster through back-breaking (figuratively) workouts. The limit-broken teen began taking up parkour, combining the agile motions with his growing physicality to leap across rooftops, taking fewer and fewer steps as time went on.
Taking more inspiration from pre-quirk fiction, Izuku also started working on moves from One Piece, Baki, Kengan Asura, Bleach, A Certain Scientific Accelerator and more. He used his seismic scan to observe how his body moved, fine tuning his control until he could command himself to generate more electricity and direct it inside of himself, enhancing his muscles and learning how to tense them to give him greater durability.
By all known laws of biology and physics, what he was doing shouldn’t have even been possible, even with how bullshit quirks were. But he continued, refusing to falter for even a moment, and so he kept pushing.
He didn’t slack off on his other fronts though. His tinkering grew with his knowledge, creativity and access to materials. He eventually refined his grappler tech to a slim bracer with half a dozen coils of thin, durable cable that could be used for mobility and capture. He made sure that the capture-coils had blunt rubber ends, so as to avoid accidentally flaying someone. The wires themselves were controlled from very careful muscle contractions and imitating the rare footage of Eraserhead.
Izuku also made a light exoskeleton that could be worn under clothes, with servos that helped boost his strength further even if he didn’t wear the whole thing most of the time. The jump-boost boots got considerably more use, working on a mechanic not dissimilar to blade-leg prosthetics in order to spring the user forwards based on their own leg strength.
Speaking of imitating, the green haired boy gradually learnt how to mimic movement through only seeing it, reverse engineering the taskmaster’s photographic reflexes. With his thinker techniques, fine motor control and this he was able to mimic any pro’s fighting style with relative ease, taking on Vlad King’s, Ectoplasm’s and Eraserhead’s moves and incorporating them into his own style.
He also developed a number of blaster and shaker techniques like air pressure blasts, with both blunt and cutting force, shockwave strikes that incorporate his seismic scan, and he’d even theorised an attack that capitalised on any potential injuries by ionising the haemoglobin in any blood on his hands to let him fire it like a laser! Admittedly he hadn’t figured out how to build enough charge without waiting an egregiously long time, but he was getting there!
Before he knew it, ten months had passed and the entrance exam for UA was the next morning. As Izuku went to sleep that night, he smiled; tomorrow, he’d truly start his journey to prove himself.
(Izuku Midoriya: brute: 4 (mover 3, striker: 3), thinker: 5, tinker: 4 (mover/striker: 2, striker: 2, Mover: 1), stranger: 3, striker/thinker: 2 (shaker/thinker variant: 4), blaster: 4, brute/changer: 3, thinker/striker/trump: 3)
At the shout of “START!” Izuku shot off like a rocket, swinging into the testing area on a wire-whip. Flinging himself onto the roofs of buildings, he checked the streets first, noting the numbers of bots and where they were going before leaving a small device on the side of a structure and employed another tinkertech invention. The headphones he put on beeped, before appendages folded out to frame the sides of Izuku’s eyes and a transparent hud was projected onto his vision. He tagged each of the obvious bots he saw, before moving on.
Dropping into an alleyway on top of a two pointer, he struck at the joints to disable it before punching the large deactivation button, then started bouncing around the walls to dodge the gunfire from a trio of one-pointers. Blitzing between them, Izuku helicopter kicked one into a wall, ducked beneath a swing from the second before uppercutting its head off, and launched a wind blade at the third with a combat knife he’d found and repaired to bisect the enemy.
Pausing to take a breath, Izuku checked to make sure he didn’t miss anything. “Right, that’s five points. Now let’s see how everyone else is doing. Overlay tracker comms to the map.” he ordered into the mic on his headset. Walking out of the alleyway he flipped onto the top of a three pointer before caving it’s head in with a palm strike. “Eight.” he calmly intoned. On the inside of his arm, a minimap of the test site lit up, and numerous dots bearing a letter and number appeared, each moving about and contacting bots before the latter disappeared.
“F7 looks to be a speedster, but they have some tunnel vision, they seem to be ignoring the robots that keep nearly sneaking up on them. I should probably warn them.” Izuku muttered, using his other hand’s wire-whips to rend another couple of attacking bots. “Thirteen. Activate comms system for designation F7.” He ordered.
Iida took a moment to breathe. The day had been good so far: he was pretty sure he’d passed the written exam by a decent margin, and now he was getting to show off his training in a simulated environment filled to the brim with robots of different values and difficulties to beat. However it hadn’t been all sunshine and rainbows, despite him getting a decent score of 17 within the first six or seven minutes. There was an applicant who unnerved him slightly.
There wasn’t anything directly imposing about him; a couple inches shorter than the Engine user, with fluffy green hair that was shorter on the sides to clear the way for custom looking headphones, but the way he carried himself once they all got on the bus was unnerving. Like he was on a mission, a task that he was devoting one hundred and ten percent effort to. It was a look the blue haired teen had seen occasionally on his brother, before a particularly stressful operation.
His clothes also gave an aura of professionalism, being dark green chinese martial arts trousers and an obviously armoured sleeveless shirt, a thick sleeveless trench coat, the previously mentioned headphones, and a pair of sleek looking green and black bracers. He was about to approach the other teen regarding his intimidating ensemble, thinking it an attempt to sabotage his fellow examinees, when he seemingly disappeared. He next saw the verdant boy when the exam started, swinging into the site on wires, before putting it out of his mind.
Just as he stood up a tinny voice spoke up. “Behind you.” On instinct Iida swung into a roundhouse kick, just in time to decapitate a two pointer. Looking around, he tried to see whoever said that, but he was alone in the street.
Who’s there?” he called, but to no effect. Just as he thought he’d imagined the voice…
“My apologies, I was dealing with something. Anyway, I am… let's call me twelve. I hope you don’t mind me not using my real name, but that’s in case neither of us get in.” the tinny voice spoke again.
“How are you talking to me, why can't I see you?" Iida asked.
"That would be because I'm roughly six blocks south-west of you. We're communicating via one of the comm pieces that I slipped on several people prior to the exam starting, yourself included." Twelve answered succinctly.
"You placed surveillance equipment on unknowing examinees!?" Iida gasped, scandalised. "Are you quite sure you want to be a hero?"
"Dead certain, and it's communication gear, not surveillance. I'm treating this entire event as a simulation in which I have to act as realistically as possible. This is a city completely overrun by villains and we have to do everything in our power to change that. Now, are you going to help me with coordination efforts or not, we still have seventeen minutes of this."
"...What do I have to do?" Iida finally asked. He recognised what the other potential student is doing now, taking the position of The Guy In The Chair.
"Thank you." The relief in Twelve's voice was palpable. "There's another examinee with a comm link down the street on the left of that intersection. Go and work with them, from what I can tell they have some form of five point gravity quirk, so if they tag it and you land the killing blow you could likely split the points, provided the pair of you agree in front of one of the obvious cameras.” There was a pause. “By the way, I've alerted her to your approach so you may want to get a move on."
"Shit!" Iida heard an amused chuckle before it was cut off, but he didn't have time to get annoyed. Twelve was right, they should be focussing on the exam as if they were proper heroes.
Izuku chuckled a bit at the speedster’s squawk of urgency. He seemed to be a good guy, if a bit uptight. Still, he set up the next stage of his plan: form a rudimentary support and info network with the help of subtler quirk users for those more daylight inclined. Of course he made sure to narrate this to a surveillance cam so as to maximise the odds that the undersiders as he dubbed them would get in. He wanted to maximise pass rates, and if the backbones of this team failed to get in, what did that say about him?
Linking the five comm-links together, he flicked the transmission on as he entered a wide alley with a strangely high number of bots, nearly a dozen of various values. “Alright time for stage two people.” he started as the first robot noticed him. It went for a rightward backhand, which he ducked under and knocked into another, alerting the rest. “You’re currently all on a line with four others. Upon establishing your codenames and quirks, you five are going to handle the bots in the alleys, either taking them out yourself or goading them to the streets for the next five minutes.”
“And what will occur after those five minutes?” asked a male voice verbosely. Izuku grunted as he was punched in the chest, but grappled the machine into taking several attacks meant for him. He kicked the robot corpse into the throng of enemies, before using a wire-whip to relieve one of them of their arm.
“I’ll open the comm system to the rest of the people with comm-links, who will be directed by you five. Each of you will be able to hear each other, the units you’re guiding and me, but not each other’s units to avoid confusion. I’ve already sent a message for those with standard links that directions would be incoming in a few minutes, and I’ve also sorted out who’s working with who so you shouldn’t need to worry about people being aggravating. I chose those who looked the most serious about this after all, and I’ll tell you who you’ll be working with as you do your tasks. So, role call!” Izuku cheered.
In the observation room, the various members of UA’s staff were watching the numerous screens with interest. It wasn’t even ten minutes into the twenty five minute task, but already they were proving to hold the best group of potential heroes they’d seen in years.
Then one of them, a tall muscular man wearing a red and white armoured jumpsuit noticed something odd. “Hey, there’s something weird happening in site B. Tensei’s brother just spent the last thirty seconds or so talking to air, cursed for no reason, then rushed off to help someone he couldn’t have possibly seen and they just started working together.”
Bringing attention to the site B cameras, Nezu turned the audio on the screens up just in time to catch Izuku's visor covered face. “There we are,” he muttered. “Now if I did this right they should have access to the comm Audio in their recordings. You’re welcome, UA!” he chuckled, before leaping off of the wall he was hanging by and swinging back to the ground.
“Hm, that was Izuku midoriya.” Nezu hummed. As the comms went online and the teachers listened to their plan, Nezu chose to focus on the green haired teen’s fight while bringing up his file. What he saw set him to cackling. “Oh, I do hope he passes, He’d be such a delight to teach!”
This quickly got all of the teachers on edge, whatever put Nezu in such a good mood was normally something terrible for other’s health, sanity or both. Slowly calming down with a last laugh, Nezu took a deep breath. “Ladies and gentlemen may I introduce Izuku Midoriya, the first official quirkless hero candidate, with the recorded ‘psuedo-quirk’ as he calls it, Twelve-fold.” As if on cue the green haired boy blitzed into view, punching straight through a four pointer’s chest, before dropping the deactivated enemy and leaping through the alley.
While most were processing the quirkless bit, not out of anything negative but admiring the guts it took to go against society for your dreams like that, or processing that same quirkless teen literally tearing through a robot with their bare hands, someone picked up on that last part. The someone being a woman in an incredibly puffy spacesuit themed costume, to the point where it was impossible to tell their gender by body shape alone. ”’psuedo-quirk’, sir?” she asked.
“Yes, it’s quite the interesting phenomenon. You see, roughly two years ago now Midoriya was doing research on some of UA’s staff when he came across a mention of Lady Nagant. Naturally he did some digging and discovered a decent number of people, both heroes and vigilantes, who either had a quirk that granted them no true bonus to their abilities, that had a quirk that could be replicated and surpassed with pure skill, or were quirkless themselves.
“So, deciding to forge his own path, he set to work putting a plan together. First he completely reworked the quirk labelling system, coming up with up to twelve possible classifiers that a person’s skills, techniques and quirk could be measured with. Then he put a frankly maddening workout routine up and stuck to it religiously. For the last two years, nearly every waking moment of his free time has been some form of training, something that while incredibly unhealthy, I can and do respect greatly.”
“I agree, both that his resolve is so impressive and that it’s actually rather worrying that he threw himself into training so heavily. Any idea what class he’ll be in?”
“So sure that he’ll pass?”
“Sir we just watched him earn over thirty points in a minute and a half, while holding a command brief over home-made comm-links, with only his bare hands and other support gear he also made himself.” The rescue hero replied incredulously. “Not to mention the stealth needed to deliver those comms without anyone noticing and the raw physical abilities to get over fifty points on his own. Unless something game changing happens, he’s getting in.”
“Point.” Nezu mused. “I think I’ll put him in Aizawa’s class.” At the back of the room a deep groan at future headaches echoed from a sleeping bag.
“Right, now we’ve got introductions out of the way,” Izuku continued, “Grue. You’ll be working with a strength enhancer who hulks out, a girl who generates and I think controls acid, and I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but someone with a navel laser. You’ll know them when you see them. You got all that?”
“Revelry in the dark.” was the only reply from the verbose teen.
“Perfect. Tattletale, you’re up.” Twelve sat on the edge of a roof. “You have an electric boy that seems to work at close range best, a girl who can grow and shrink her hands at will, and a boy who produces and shoots scales. Blonde, ginger, brunette. We clear?”
“Crystal, bossman. Heading to my area now.” responded a chill sounding female voice.
“Good, now moving on to Skitter. Now all of your allies were selected based on how calm they seemed to be, so you shouldn’t have to talk too much. They’re a green haired girl with a frog mutation of some kind, a blonde guy with a tail, and a girl who seems to be able shrink and grow whatever she touches. You okay with that?”
Getting a nervous but determined hum in return, Izuku smiled. “Excellent, thank you. Regent, you’ll get to boss around a blue haired speedster, a brunette gravity quirk user and another brunette with some form of barrier quirk. What do you reckon you can work with that?”
“I can think of a few ideas,” a lackadaisical voice answered. “Thanks for lending me this gear, by the way.”
“No problem, you needed better mobility to get the deactivation buttons. Imp,” an enthusiastic “sir!” was given. “You’ll be working with a girl with vine hair, a monochrome boy who can inhabit shadows and a girl who seems to create and control mushrooms.”
“On it!” was the overly exuberant reply.
“Right, then I guess it’s time to get to work. Undersiders you have your orders and four minutes to set yourselves up before wider range comms come online, let's move!”
Their strategy worked flawlessly. With the knowledge that they could work together and split the points from equally contributed kills, all twenty teenagers worked like a well oiled team when the ability to collaborate better was given.
Iida would distract and corral the bots into an area for the barrier making Tsuburaba. The third member, Uraraka, would then nullify the bots’ gravity, making them unable to get a lock on a target and fire. Finally, Regent would bounce around to hit the floating machines’ deactivation buttons.
Grue, whose quirk was a sentient projection of living shadow, led his group well. By having dark shadow, the projection, encompass his body his physical parameters were raised considerably, letting him lock bots down with Ashido’s more viscous acid for the strength enhancing Sato and laser shooting Aoyama to destroy.
Imp’s trio of the shadow diving Kuroiro, plant haired Shiozaki and fungus manipulating Komori made for a terrifying nonlethal disabling crew. Shiozaki would whip a vine at a bot, and Kuroiro would fling himself between the two shadows, leaving mushroom spores in the servos. Komori expanded the fungi to lock the joints up, and Imp cheerfully skipped up to press the deactivation buttons, completely invisible.
Skitter’s group also did well. While he ran interference and gave directions with his various animal helpers, the other prospective students would attack from all ranges. The tailed Ojiro used a degree of martial arts to disable the bots’ limbs and weapons, the the frog mutation bearing Asui whipped and kicked at the deactivation buttons with her greater agility and tongue, and Kodai used her size altering quirk to set traps and barrage enemies with car sized nuts and bolts.
Tattletale wasn’t slacking either. She disrupted the mechanical sensors with her sonic attacks to render the bots blind, so that Kaminari, Kendo and Rin could Zap, punch and shoot them respectively.
And running amongst them all was Izuku, helping examinees when they needed it, but generally sticking to alleys and inside buildings to take down the bots hidden from most eyes. The twenty five minute exam was stressful enough that he was getting a decent workout, and his Path to Victory didn't work against the machines, which granted an additional layer of challenge and let him refine better versions. All in all, Izuku was having a great time.
When the zero pointer showed up, the Undersiders and their squads worked perfectly to make sure that no-one was left behind, as well as to hinder the giant robot. Collapsing the ground under its feet, suddenly growing the screws in order to shred the treads and more.
Now, while the prospective students thought that defeating a bot while collaborating with others would result in the points being split between them, every teen that contributed to the disabling of a robot gained the entirety of the point total. If three examinees took out nine points worth of enemies, each of the three got nine points.
This meant that of the thirty six who passed, there were twenty who’s scores were significantly higher than the rest. Izuku was actually in second place to Imp’s group, who had a four way share hold over first. A fact that he was sure would infuriate Bakugou, who not only got ranked seventh in terms of score total, but twenty second in terms of who actually sat above him on the leaderboard.
(Izuku Midoriya: brute: 4 (mover 3, striker: 3), thinker: 6, tinker: 4 (mover/striker: 2, striker: 2, Mover: 1, shaker/thinker: 3), stranger: 3, striker/thinker: 2 (shaker/thinker variant: 4), blaster: 4, brute/changer: 3, thinker/striker/trump: 3)
(Kyoka Jiro, “Tattletale”: thinker: 3, striker/blaster: 3, stranger: 4)
(Fumikage Tokoyami, “Grue”: master: 7 (striker/master: 4), shaker: 6, trump: 4)
(Hitoshi Shinsou, “Regent”: master: 6, tinker: 0 (mover: 1))
(Toru Hagakure, “Imp”: stranger: 7, blaster: 2(undiscovered), brute: 1 (mover/striker: 1)
(Koji Koda, “Skitter”: master/thinker: 8, brute: 2 (striker: 1))
On the second day of school, all might held a combat simulation. The students were split into teams of two and set against another team, where one would play the role of heroes and the other the villains. Midoriya ended up on a hero team with Uraraka, and they were going first against Bakugou and Iida as the villains. The villains were given five minutes to prepare, and then had to defend against or beat the heroes over fifteen minutes.
Sighing, Izuku adjusted his mask. His hero costume was similar to what he wore to the entrance exam, but heavily reinforced with much stronger and lighter materials. It also came with an armoured face mask that had a respirator and filter built in and connected to his comm-link headset, a number of support pieces that he hadn’t the time or materials to build, and covered a better version of his exo-bodysuit with additional reinforcement. The materials the support course had access to were brilliant.
“Design, Holmes. Alright,” Izuku started. “I’m working on a plan, but any ideas or suggestions you have would be much appreciated.” As the pair planned, Izuku’s clue gathering and strategising came across a sound strategy, but it required his partner to have some extra oomph to her attacks. So when they went in, he gave the girl a pair of shock palms, essentially just inverted taser knuckle dusters in function, before they split up.
As Izuku walked along a second floor hallway without his presence concealment, he paused, counted to three, then dove back to avoid an explosion as Bakugou came flying round the corner. Kipping backwards into a flip to gain distance, Izuku studied his opponent. He appeared almost feral, face set in a snarl.
“Deku, you useless bastard!” he roared. “I’m not going to beat you badly enough that they’ll stop the match, but it’s gonna be close!” With another blast he launched himself forward with a right hook, and Izuku sighed again. He’d almost hoped Path To victory would be wrong. But oh well, no skin off his back, maybe Bakugou’s though.
(Intercept right hook with grapple. Twist and brace against opponent, then leverage arm. Let go before impact to avoid recoil.) Bakugou was flung through the air and landed heavily on his back, knocking the wind out of his lungs. Flipping over, he got up from his hands and knees and actually looked at his opponent. Hair tied back, face covered, with practical body armour mixed into the costume. But it was the eyes, half-lidded and completely at ease…
Mocking him…
“You know, this is my first time getting to test my second version of Path to Victory, let’s see how well it works shall we?” Izuku asked casually, slipping fully into the Path and taking a ready stance.
“DEKU!!!” Bakugou yelled charging, only for his (Left cross dodged, proceed with counter three) attack to be ducked, his opponent duking to his right and delivering a kick to the sternum that sent the explosive blonde flying backwards. Choking on his breath for a moment, he went back into the fray. During the second long interval, Izuku activated his HUD visor to (better read intentions and refine Path calculations).
Bakugou threw his signature opening right hook, which was quickly (deflect with bracer while backstepping) veered off with the back of an arm, sending him into a crouch that he turned into an explosive uppercut. That was batted away and Izuku responded with a (headbutt to stun, rugby tackle to bruise spine and inhibit movement) grapple, slamming the blonde into a wall and backing off.
Flicking his wrists, Izuku deployed a pair of unfolding tonfa. Bakugou switched his fighting style up, using his quirk to propel himself into a flying axe-kick, which was blocked (deflect inwards, disengage to avoid followup spin-kick) and backed away from. What followed was a cat and mouse game, as Izuku deflected and dodged all of Bakugou’s attacks, gradually riling him up further and further.
Eventually, they ended up on opposite ends of a hallway when one of Bakugou’s grenade shaped gauntlets pinged. “It’s ready.” the blonde grinned, (anticipation. Expected outcome. Possible weapon - likely. Shaping would imply quirk related, possibly some form of timer based explosive? No, too much risk to user with outside explosive. Stockpiled sweat? High likelihood, produced over time. Way to maximise excess sweat. Likely yield: too much to counter at baseline, tinkertech accounted for. Activate Advance.) Izuku’s eyes widened.
“With your fuckin’ stalker books, you probably know how my quirk works already.” Bakugou braced himself in a stance, left arm pointed outwards and right arm at the grenade handle. “Well I made these to deal with bigger threats, but using them to make you realise you’re just a pebble on my path!” A pause, the, “he’ll be fine if he dodges!” Then he pulled the pin.
Time slowed down. (Probability that this deeply impacts the building’s structural stability: 30%, minimum.) Unacceptable. (activation of Advance changer technique raises odds of being able to counter without injury to 85%.) With a whispered word, Izuku’s body started to speed up to his perception, skin glowing red slightly, steam escaping from his exposed skin and sclera turning black. (optimal plan: counter barrier to buffet explosion, split force with air blades, redirect force with void shield. Blitz opponent, render unconscious. Path made. execute.)
Izuku’s left foot slid back, fist readying and he breathed out. His arm rocketed forwards again, the force creating a visible shockwave which rippled out towards the massive explosion. Lengths of wire-whip shot out of both bracers, and Izuku cleaved them through the collision of forces, before retracting them and drawing the remaining energy around in a similar style to a tornado, manipulating the air currents with his speed to prevent anything being significantly damaged.
The only thing Bakugou saw was his explosion getting ripped apart by some kind of whirlwind before a fist to his face knocked him straight into dreamland. Izuku tied up the insensate blonde, and waited for the capture notification, and the one that would quickly follow. Sure enough, a mere twenty seconds after Bakugou’s detainment, Iida was announced as knocked out by Uraraka.
(Izuku Midoriya: brute: 4 (mover 3, striker: 3), thinker: 8, tinker: 6 (mover/striker: 2, striker: 3, Mover: 1, shaker/thinker: 3, striker: 1), stranger: 3, striker/thinker: 2 (shaker/thinker variant: 4), blaster: 4, brute/changer: 3 (all physical ratings raise by up to 3 levels when active), thinker/striker/trump: 3)