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“You asked me if someone could be a hero without a quirk. I was wrong to tell you no.” All Might began.
“So! I have an offer for you, my quirk.” He almost immediately sensed the need to elaborate.
“It can be transferred to someone else and I want you to be that person.”
Izuku tilted his head. “Uh. Cool. No thanks?”
If blinking had been an audible thing then Tonshinori Yagi would have deafened an entire city block.
“What.” It wasn’t a question, or an adequate response but he said it anyway.
“Well, sir. I specifically asked ‘if someone who did not have a quirk’ could be a hero like you. Not that I don’t have one.”
Toshinori sputtered. “B-But you charged into danger to save your friend without using your quirk!”
“Well duh!” Izuku answered, rolling his eyes. “I’m a civilian, I’m not supposed to use my quirk! Doesn’t mean I’m gonna stand around and watch my best friend get killed because everyone else is!”
"A-Are you sure you have a quirk?" Toshinori asked, scratching his chin, he had not imagined that this kid would just turn down becoming his successor like that.
"Of course I have one. Pretty strong one too." Izuku tried and failed not to sound indignant. "I just like to think that I should be more than my quirk, ya know? Also my friend’s gonna be here in a bit, he's probably just checking where I am."
A few loud crashing sounds made it obvious that he was as Katsuki landed on the roof next to him and froze almost instantly. "Damn! You got to meet All Might before I did! Fucking hell Deku!"
Izuku shrugged. "I met him before he saved you too." He admitted blithely.
"Goddamnit! That's like what? Eight to three for you?"
"Nine to two." Izuku corrected.
"FUCKING!"
"Language boys." Toshinori interrupted slightly, "Uhm. So. You do realise that I am indeed All Might? How?"
Katsuki rolled his eyes, "Your eyes are a big hint, only All Might's eyes glint like blue stars."
"Also the smile. That's just a Player One smile." Izuku added.
"Can you stop it with the video game analogies?" Katsuki growled.
"Will you ever stop nicknaming me after a Deku Scrub?"
"No!"
"There's your answer then."
“E-Excuse me,” Toshinori himself felt at a bit of a loss here, “Video game analogies?”
“Yeah, Deku here’s got a quirk that lets him spawn video game power ups. Ya know? Cool shit.”
Izuku rolled his eyes, “Almost accurate. I can do this.” Izuku held out his arms in front of himself and with a soft golden glow a large, yellow box with a question mark appeared a small distance away from him.
“….That’s a Mario block.” Toshinori observed. “Haven’t seen those in a few decades, and the games I saw those in were old even back then.”
Izuku shrugged, “Yeah, turns out my family on my fathers side used to collect old video games obsessively for generations. Guess that ‘Quirks and Culture’ article I read a while ago was right.”
Izuku idly kicked the block, making it jostle and produce a large red flower with eyes out of the top.
“They work pretty much like you’d expect. Powers included.” Izuku intoned as he touched the flower. With a strange sound, his hair turned white and the colour palette of his clothes became a selection of bright whites and intense reds. His eyes turned from green to a deep red as well.
Izuku held up a hand, a fire ball forming in it. “It’s kinda neat.”
Katsuki rolled his eyes. “Kinda neat. That’s what his quirk is to him, ‘kinda neat’.” He looked at Toshinori, “Seriously, he could spawn an invincibility star and think it’s ‘sorta fun’. Right next to ‘pretty alright’ and ‘somewhat unusual’.”
“A way to notice that Kacchan’s meds are still in the process of kicking in: he’s still a bit of a jerk.” Izuku shrugged as the brown block disappeared with a ~poof~ and a small dust cloud.
“Fucking! Let me have some issues for fucks sake!” Katsuki growled.
“No. You’re just lazy with ordering your meds.” Izuku grumbled. “Don’t blame the rest of us for not wanting to deal with you when you’re not on them.”
Toshinori blinked. “I feel the need to ask once again: ‘Meds’? Also you both really take my physical condition oddly well.”
Katsuki shrugged: “You just punched a slime guy off of me hard enough to shatter multiple windows nearby, why would I give a shit how you look any other time?”
Toshinori blinked, not really having a response to that.
Katsuki sighed in exasperation.
"Yeeaah. My quirk makes me sweat nitroglycerin. It's cool and strong and all that but it's not healthy. Had constant migraines and shit like that until Deku here," he waved to Izuku dismissively, "pointed out to my mom that the stuff is hilariously unhealthy for a person to be exposed to. Since it can't be removed from me, I get meds now instead and thank fuck for that, I was kind of an asshole."
"Kind of? Only kind of?" Izuku asked in the tone of 'that's calling an ocean a raindrop'.
"Okay fine, I was a major league asshole, happy now?"
"....Better."
“Are you sure you two are friends?" Toshinori asked, with a light sweat drop.
Katsiki looked slightly livid. "Hey! No need to be insulting. We play Mario Party every week and don't want to strangle each other over it."
"Unless 'Chance Time' comes up." Izuku qualified.
Katsuki rolled his eyes. "Well duh! But that's 'Chance Time'. That's mitigating circumstances."
“I’m not certain how high that rates as a qualification for being friends.” Toshinori mumbled, increasing sweat drops appearing above him.
“At least ‘best man at the wedding’ levels.” Katsuki replied.
“Eh. That’s not a high bar to clear though. Not like any of the other guys in our class are worth the time.”
“Harsh.”
“You can’t even remember their names! I at least know who Tsubasa is.”
“Who?”
“Winged fat kid? One of your hanger-on gophers?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“See?”
“Fair I guess.”
Katsuki shook his head for a moment. “So what’s this about your quirk?” He asked Toshinori with a raised eyebrow.
Toshinori blinked slightly. “You heard that?”
Katsuki’s eyebrow was a hair's breadth away from making its exit from reality .“Dude, you yell louder than I do, half the street heard that. People on Mars heard that.”
Toshinori sighed. “Long story short: My quirk wasn’t just mine but that of a few other people, it can get transferred and the guy who injured me is the reason I’m looking for someone else to take it.”
Izuku tilted his head. “That guy must’ve had some power to him, I recall you catching a sniper bullet with your teeth on live TV once. While in the air, above the open sea.”
Toshinori blinked. “You two really are big fans then I guess?”
“Oh totally!/FUCK YEAH!”
There was a small pause of complete silence before Katsuki looked thoughtful.
“Hey Deku? Think your blocks can help?”
Izuku shrugged. “I dunno. Most of the Power Ups don’t work so well for this situation. Can’t hurt to try though.”
"So these blocks work for other people?" Toshinori wondered.
"Sure do." Izuku intoned, as another block with a question mark appeared in front of him.
"Hit it. They tend to 'adjust' to giving people things they can use."
With cautious curiosity, Toshinori punched the block, it felt like a weirdly metallic cardboard box.
It wobbled slightly, before turning a darker brown without the question mark and a large mushroom with eyes on its stem, red cap and yellow star markings on its cap appeared from the top of it.
"Huh, first time I’ve seen one. I think it's a 'health up' mushroom? From Mario Galaxy I think?" Izuku mumbled as the mushroom moved to Toshinori and touched him.
The change to his physical appearance was instant, instead of a gaunt nearly skeletal appearance he stared down at himself. He had gained a lot of weight in both muscles and otherwise.
In fact, he was fairly sure he looked about a decade younger, and for the first time in years, he was absolutely sure that he couldn't feel his ribs through his skin.
"This is insane," he muttered to himself, "I feel like I never got injured. I'm pretty sure this quirk of yours is some kind of magic." He carefully pulled his shirt up, seeing that his injury was completely gone.
He blinked and took a deep breath, in fact a deeper one than he was capable of for years. “You literally just made my lung come back!”
Toshinori paused, looking at his arms with the kind of reverence one did when they suddenly realised that life previously lost to them had come back. “So what’s the catch here?”
“Depends.” Izuku mused aloud. “The Power Ups tend to vary in what they do and why. If memory serves, though, that was a Mario Galaxy life extension mushroom. Soooo there really isn’t one? You’re good as new, if not better.”
“But that’s not a power up.” Toshinori argued.
“Sure it is! In Mario Galaxy you have three hit points normally, touching one of those gives you all your health back and extends it to six.” Izuku argued back. “And since you obviously were below three before, even if you get injured again, you’d at least stay at three.”
Katsuki cut in, “Honestly, man. Just don’t argue with Deku on this, he’s a rules lawyer, he could argue his way out of getting cement shoes and argue someone else into the same cement shoes.”
Toshinori dragged his left hand down his face, still very much trying to parse that both his face and hand did not feel skeletal at all.
“Alright, so I’m having a small crisis because I was all set to give this job up for a new generation, but you just fixed my problems so I don’t have to. How about I help train you two until U.A starts?”
If tackle hugging had been a Sports Festival event Izuku and Katsuki would have won the first place prize for the next ten thousand years.
“Come on really?!” Izuku exclaimed annoyed as he bashed through the twentieth big robot. “This is boring! Give me something fun! Where’s the boss?! The big puzzles?!” He casually ripped a robot's head off and threw it in the direction of someone else.
Nailing another robot that was about to hit them in the head and making it topple. “You’re welcome!”
He heard a shriek behind him and noticed a girl stuck under rubble. He turned back and rushed over.
“Hrrrg.” He ripped the large chunk of rubble off of her. “Hi! You might wanna go help some others.” With a spin, he threw the rubble piece at one of the robots that Tenya Iida was fighting.
“Hey! I was fighting that robot!” Tenya exclaimed angrily. “It’s not your job to help me with it!”
Izuku blinked before turning serious. “Hey F-Zero! Last I checked, being a hero was about helping people. If you think that’s not the case, then why are you even here?!”
Izuku didn’t catch Tenya’s frozen face as a loud siren signalled the end of the test.
“Aww. No boss fight?” Izuku looked around.
“No boss fight.” He eventually concluded as nothing happened.
“It’s quite impressive.” Nedzu noted. “Neither Izuku Midoriya nor Katsuki Bakugou appear to have used their quirks at all in this test. Yet, here they are, leading their respective groups, by a wide margin even.”
The U.A staff, old and new, were busy grading the Entrance Exam. Some of the results were both interesting and a bit concerning in places.
“Tch,” Aizawa grumbled, “they’re obviously not taking it seriously enough. In their cases, any proper hero would have used every advantage they had.”
Most of the staff just rolled their eyes at Aizawa’s insanely high expectations but All Might decided to speak up.
“Well they are not ‘proper heroes’ yet are they? Neither is the current hopeful you have noted as a ‘preferred’ student.” He intoned calmly.
“His quirk is unsuited for this test.” Aizawa growled, already finding himself at odds with their new celebrity teacher.
“So are those of Hagakure, Mashirao, Tokage, Monoma and finally Koda.” All Might countered.
“All of their quirks were ‘unsuited’ for this test. Yet all of these examples managed to at least clear the threshold to be accepted. Your personal preference, however, fell short, and looking at the video footage, I see why.”
“Oh? And what would that be?” Aizawa grumbled.
“Absolutely laughable physical training.” All Might stated flatly. “The boy could not run a half circle around one of the smallest robots without being out of breath. That is beyond ‘failing basic P.E.’ Aizawa.”
“That just shows that…”
“He failed to even consider making the robots attack each other? That he failed to realise that the robots were deliberately slow enough to run around them to hit an off switch?” All Might asked lightly. “Monoma figured it out, his quirk literally does not work without outside help from others and he was forbidden to use it because that would have muddled the results. He passed anyway. Without using it. As did those two.”
Aizawa paused “...What’s your game here All Might?”
“That you cease downplaying genuine hard work. What is yours?” All Might countered.
“To keep you from giving some random flashy kids preferential treatment.” Aizawa snapped lightly.
To his surprise, instead of yelling, All Might merely raised an eyebrow. “Who would you be talking about here exactly? If it escaped your notice, Nedzu was the one to bring up the first two, I merely bought various examples why your own preference did not fit your objections.”
Aizawa paused, before giving up on trying to argue about this.
“So!” Izuku exclaimed as he and Katsuki stepped up to U.A’s gates and then past the threshold.
“Passed?”
“Of cucking fource!”
“...you got that one reversed.”
“Regretted it the moment it left my mouth.”
“My ears regretted your choices, reimburse me for the damage to my brain please.”
“You play video games for fun, I can’t fix that!”
Their friendly bickering continued as they walked all the way to their class of 1-A.
Izuku casually hit Katsuki in the ribs and motioned to the front of the classroom.
Laying there was what could at best be described as an orange cocoon.
“Oh that bastard.” Katsuki grumbled. “The fuck is this shit? He’s asleep?!”
“Either that or pretending he is.” Izuku snarked back.
Walking carefully as most of the class took their seats, Izuku casually started placing blocks in a wall at the front of the lectern that his homeroom teacher was invariably planning to use.
Eventually leaving a wall of blank blocks where the teachers lectern should have been.
Katsuki couldn’t help but chuckle as Izuku sat down. “That’ll teach him to sleep in.”
Momo Yaoyozuru was the first to notice a few minutes later what Izuku had done. “Is there a reason you just effectively walled our homeroom teacher in?”
Izuku shrugged, “I don’t know about you, but if we get in trouble for being tardy or sleeping in, then so should the teachers, and I refuse to let someone who can’t bother to be awake on time on my first day here lecture me about things.”
Momo blinked. “You did leave a way for him to breathe, right?”
“Bottom left most corner block’s missing, so he’ll get air but almost no light. And, unless someone starts screaming, he’s not gonna notice that we’re here. Wonder if he’ll sleep in until tomorrow.” Izuku responded. “He’ll be fine, he can worm his way out that opening.”
“That...that...that I do not know how to answer any of that, that’s insane. You cannot do things like that! Undo it! Now.” Tenya, who had finally noticed the wall, looked angrily at Izuku.
“Alright.” Izuku smiled, making Tenya freeze as he got out of his chair and casually strolled over to the wall he had created just a bit earlier and hit the block right on mid height with his fist a few times, each time making the block shake before it disappeared on the fourth hit.
With a few more ~poof~ sounds the rest of the wall disappeared along the single block a moment later.
“Urrrgh.” Aizawa growled, groaning as he glared at Izuku. “What is it? I was sleeping, damn it!”
“Sorry Mr.” Izuku squinted at the name plague on the desk slightly, “Aizawa. I saw you sleeping earlier and figured it was rude of us to wake you up. Figured our orientation could wait until you’re well rested.” Izuku bowed in faux-politeness before going back to his seat.
“Thanks for reminding me to do that.” He said to Tenya just loud enough for Aizawa to catch it as he sat down.
If a death glare could make a noise, Tenya Iida would have heard horror movie strings in his ears for the next day or so.
Aizawa glared at them all for a moment, he had missed something and he was sure that Midoriya had something to do with it.
“Get up, all of you. We got work to do.” He growled and stalked out of the room.
“Word of advice, Sonic Riders.” Izuku smiled as he jumped out of his seat and smiled slightly at Tenya as he passed. “I don’t like you. You already made a bad first impression during the Entrance Exam. Either learn that rules aren’t always the thing to follow, or live with people like me making your life experiences un-fun.”
Katsuki was not nearly as restrained. “Man, you pissed him off. I don’t think I’ve seen Deku this angry at someone in years. Last time this happened was when someone insulted his first Pokemon team.”
Tenya sniffed derisively. “If he cannot see the errors of his actions, that is not my problem.”
Katsuki blinked, before shrugging. “You’re a teenager, not a forty year old bureaucrat. Get the stick out of your ass before someone rips it out and beats you with it. People in this job get hospitalised fast enough as is.”
Tenya froze, not quite sure how to take that response.
“Alright.” Aizawa grumbled. “Midoriya, Bakugo. You two are the ones that scored the highest in the Entrance Exam. Without using your quirks at all. So--”
“Wait a minute, who scored higher?” Izuku interrupted, “You can’t just drop that and not say who scored higher.”
“Yeah that’s bullshit.” Katsuki agreed. “That’s like saying ‘three people made it to the top of the Sports Festival rankings’ and then just leaving the winner out!”
"It doesn't matter to me which one of you got the highest score." Aizawa said, clearly annoyed.
Izuku blinked in an increasingly intense manner. Unlike any other time something like this happened, his blinking was clearly audible.
"Oh no." Katsuki sighed, exasperated. "Way to go, you just made yourself an arch-nemesis for the time he's in your class."
"What?" Aizawa growled.
"You pushed the 'high score' button. You don't push the 'high score' button." Katsuki stated cryptically.
"I feel that I have errored." Aizawa intoned, remembering that Nedzu made similarly cryptic statements whenever someone insulted his shogi play style.
“I am going make you want to quit by the end of this month.” Izuku said in a very quiet voice “And every one of your coworkers will be very confused that you were driven mad by your best student ever.”
"Easy there Louie," Katsuki snarked, "Leave some Pikmin for the rest of the class."
"...I'm not sure if I'm angrier or calmer that I want to play that now. Weird." Izuku switched back to his normal tone.
If the entire class could have sweat dropped in the same second the P.E field would have been flooded.
"Okay honest question." Jirou turned to Katsuki. "How can you stand this guy? He seems to see-saw between a complete sociopath and a gaming nerd at the drop of a hat!"
Katsuki blinked. "Oh my sweet summer child, if he's your gauge for unbearable then you don't want to know the things I put him through until we were ten."
"...I rescind my question, you're both insane."
"He'll take that as a compliment." Izuku muttered.
Katsuki shrugged. “Honestly, it’s not that hard to deal with him. He’s a competitive video game nerd with video game superpowers. Challenge him, compete, don’t insult things in games, let him have his fun and if you cheat him out of things get ready for the beating of a lifetime but he’s harmless otherwise.”
Aizawa wordlessly threw something to Izuku who still seemed distracted only to be surprised when Izuku caught it without even looking up.
“Well since you care so much about high scores,” Aizawa began, “you get to start. Consider this a basic P.E test but you get to use your quirks to improve your scores.”
Aizawa’s tone made it clear he wanted to say more but he had stopped himself. He had wanted to make his usual spiel about expelling whoever scored the lowest but he had the feeling that trying to do that would end in Midoriya doing everything in his power to get him fired.
He almost expected a notification saying ‘avoided the obvious death flag’ to appear above his head.
“Okay then.” Izuku mused, stepping up to the ring, spawning a block from his left and punching it. A fire flower appeared as usual.
“Is that…?” he could hear Tenya of all people begin asking.
“A Fire Flower, yes. Everyone’s played Mario.” Katsuki snarked, rolling his eyes, “Way to pay attention.”
Izuku touched the fire flower, cracking his neck slightly as his hair changed to a pure white and his eyes to red.
“Haaa. That never stops being the best feeling.” He muttered before stepping into the ring and winding up a throw.
There was a sound like a sound barrier breaking as with a giant burst of fire the ball disappeared into the distance.
The display counter ticked up for a few seconds
999.7 metres.
Izuku flexed his fingers for a second “Aww. Not even a kilometre? I must be getting rusty.” He rolled his shoulder for a bit.
He looked over to Katsuki, smirking, “Guess you’ll win this one.”
Katsuki scoffed before they switched spots “As if that was a secret.”
“Well I gotta let you win some of them, you get cranky if you lose every time.” Izuku chuckled.
“Fuck off.”
“Likewise.”
Aizawa blinked and looked between the two and figured it was best not to ask before throwing a ball at Katsuki who caught it and threw it with a loud bang and massive explosion.
999.8 metres.
Katsuki blinked “Fucking. Damnit!”
Everyone except Izuku looked slightly confused.
“How the fuck do you keep getting this shit down exactly Deku?!” Katsuki ranted slightly as he left the ring.
“Stop being a sore winner and just hand over your yen.” Izuku giggled “Not my fault you’re that marginally better.”
Aizawa raised a curious eyebrow “Would the two of you care to share with the rest of your class?”
“No.” Izuku answered.
“What.”
“I said no. It’s not anyone else’s business. So we’re not gonna share what we’re talking about.” Izuku smirked at Katsuki “You owe me more now.”
“I FUCKING know.” Katsuki groaned.
The Assessment tests continued like that.
To Aizawa’s surprise Midoriya and Bakugo kept alternating between being far in the lead and being in the middle of the pack.
They also seemed to alternate between being ahead of each other as they went.
Midoriya managed to really annoy him, if only because the kids' powers kept shifting to different things and it was genuinely headache-inducing to know what each of them did.
But the kid was doing what he could charitably call ‘his best’ so he really couldn’t justify throwing him out.
It helped that the competition between the two seemed to help the rest to try and do their best.
In fact he couldn’t find one of them worth throwing out, yet.
“Alright. You all passed. Congratulations. Now get back to class. You have a lot of work ahead of you.” He grumbled before disappearing.
Izuku blinked for a while. “I’m never gonna like him am I?”
Katsuki shrugged “You never liked any teacher before either, so that’s not saying much.”
All Might’s “Battle Trials” would be fun, Izuku decided.
Izuku didn’t have a hero costume, mostly because it was rather pointless to have one when each of his power ups changed his appearance to something else anyway. So he had opted to just wear the U.A standard P.E outfit, though he had asked for a green version, just for fun really.
Meanwhile, their teams were an absolute mess.
Shouto Todoroki and Tenya Iida as the heroes vs. Izuku Midoriya and Katsuki Bakugou as the villains.
Giving Izuku any amount of time to prepare was a mistake, but giving Katsuki the same amount of time just meant you wanted them to win.
Izuku focused for a moment.
Half a minute later the entire bomb was surrounded by blocks from all sides, basically removing it from direct contact with the rest of the building.
Sure if it had been an actual bomb it wouldn't have caused any damage now but that wasn’t the point of the exercise. The point was to teach the ‘hero team’ prioritising.
“So?” Izuku asked as they waited for the timer to count down. “Any guesses on what happens?”
Katsuki laughed, slightly adjusting his gauntlets.
“Honestly? Both of these idiots are aiming for you. Twix kid was glaring at your ass since the tests, he really hated those Fire Flower moves, and Top Gear was a given since you two first exchanged words.”
Izuku chuckled, “Meh. I should be force feeding Todoroki a Fire Flower out of spite, just to see what happens. Ridge Racer isn’t getting all the way up here either way if I know you.”
Katsuki blinked. “You really keep switching names for him huh?”
“Hey I already used Big Rigs, not much worse of a racing game to call him.”
“Fair.”
“Of course it’s fair, I’m always fair.”
“He says, lying through his teeth.”
“Oi!”
They were interrupted as the signal to start was given.
“So what is the plan Todoroki?” Tenya asked as they approached the building.
“The plan is that you do nothing and let me handle this.” Shouto grumbled tersely walking up to the side of the archway.
As he spoke, ice rapidly spread across the wall and throughout the building.
Izuku and Katsuki paused, noticing the change in temperature and on instinct jumped, Izuku creating a block beneath himself as the ice passed the floor. Katsuki merely kept himself in the air for a moment with an explosion as the ice completely encased the building.
“Heh, bastard thought that would work.” Katsuki growled.
“In his defence, if it weren’t us it would have worked.” Izuku smirked, “You wanna handle them? I’ll keep making things difficult for them.”
“Read my mind.” Katsuki grinned before running off.
Izuku sighed and shook his head, “Always with the Knuckles approach.”
“Was your attack successful?” Tenya asked carefully.
“I have to inform you that no, it was not.” All Might’s voice rang through the area, “The Villain Team remains at large and the bomb remains intact.”
Tenya couldn’t even ask what their next move was as Shouto ran into the building with a very angry expression on his face.
Before he could try to go up the stairs, several small shining glints fell in front of him, he barely had a moment to create a wall of ice before several explosions tore through it, followed shortly by a metallic armoured knee.
Katsuki kneed him in the face before kicking him backwards.
“Hey guys! You remind me of some assholes I’m about to kill!” Bakugou yelled before propelling himself up the stairs with an explosion.
The thing that many people did not get about Katsuki Bakugou was that while he was loud and angry looking, he certainly wasn’t an idiot.
Todoroki had the advantage of wide area attacks so hit and run tactics as well as ambushes were key to defeating him.
Setting some traps was key to getting Iida to not ambush him with his speed, which despite Katsuki’s derision of the guy was still superior to his own, or at least more consistent.
He could hear Todoroki rush up the stairs on a wave of ice before halting ever so slightly, not fast enough for the proximity bombs to not trigger though, sending Todoroki out of the building and knocking him out.
“Hah! Gotcha fancy pants!” Katsuki chuckled, not realising that Tenya had charged up the other set of stairs on the opposite side of the building at max speed.
Tenya however had very little time to savour his temporary advancement as he reached the top of the stairs and immediately got hit by what seemed to be a boulder.
The impact didn’t send him sailing out of the building but sent him into the wall, knocking him out in the process.
Izuku landed, light footed, cracking his neck slightly, his clothes had changed to a dark brown and his hair had small stone-like fragments scattered through it. “Ow. That never stops being uncomfortable to use. My poor head.”
“Nothing in there, anyways.” Katsuki mocked.
“Oi! I take offence to that. It’s full of neat video game trivia!”
“Like I said, nothing.”
A gong sound signalled the end of the exercise.
“Think we could’ve been faster?” Izuku asked amusedly as he and Katsuki walked back into the room the rest of 1-A had been watching their test.
“Meh. Not by a lot, our position was kinda optimal. IcyHot got overconfident and threw the game.” Katsuki shrugged.
“You really need to decide what to call him.”
“Not like you don’t call glasses racing game names.”
“Well yeah but at least I’m consistent! You called Todoroki a candy bar, various flavour combinations of ice cream and a stick figure with nice pants respectively.”
Toshinori rolled his eyes. “Boys!” He barked lightly, “As much as your enthusiasm, or lack thereof, is noted, we are going to go over this scenario and will determine who handled the task the best.”
There was a pause in which Izuku and Katsuki shrugged and let their teacher take over.
“So! Who can tell me who is the MVP of this scenario?” All Might asked, genuinely curious.
The room devolved into a few different arguments before Izuku spoke up.
“Iida, actually.” He mused, he hated having to give that guy credit but in this situation he felt like he had to.
“B-But he and Todoroki lost!” Izuku wasn’t sure who had said it, Kaminari perhaps?
“So? The task was either to catch the villains or stop the bomb from exploding and only one of those was actually important.” Izuku shrugged. “While Todoroki was busy being overconfident and blindly rushing into a fight out of wounded pride Iida at least tried to figure out a plan and when that didn’t work focused on the bigger issue: The bomb. No point in catching the two guys guarding the high yield explosive if the damn thing goes off anyway. Catching us while technically part of the exercise wasn’t the main goal.”
Katsuki grumbled. “Big error he made was that he sounds like a damn car engine, not exactly subtle.”
All Might blinked. “I’m surprised you’re both not arguing for getting one of you the MVP designation.”
“That would just be bm.” Izuku answered indignantly.
Katsuki shrugged lightly. “That aside, we know each other since we can think, these guys don’t! That’s like rewarding ourselves for knowing the obvious!”
“Tch. So you admit you only won because you had an unfair advantage?” Shouto growled, he hadn’t moved from the back of the room.
“No.” Izuku answered lightly, summoning a block and hitting it. This time a light blue flower showed up, a small touch later his hair had turned blue and his clothing changed to light blue “I can make ice too. Unless you suddenly decided to start using your fire...”
“Never gonna happen.” Shouto almost reflexively growled.
“...you basically lost your main advantage from the word go.”
“...Fair enough.” Todoroki growled through grit teeth, making Izuku roll his eyes.
“Welcome to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint!” Thirteen introduced them to the giant domed area in which many different environments were housed.
Aizawa raised an eyebrow. “Where is All Might? That big oaf was supposed to meet us here.”
“Unfortunately, something came up, but he’ll be here with a bit of a delay.” Thirteen smiled, though it was impossible to see through the helmet.
Aizawa sighed resignedly, “Will that man ever stop saving every cat up every tree?”
“Oh you know he won’t.” She giggled. “I’ll have to excuse myself for a few minutes if you don’t mind, my lunch does not agree with this suit.” Thirteen admitted sheepishly before running off.
Before they could get the rest of the introduction to the place underway, the entire area shook slightly and the lights blinked out.
Most of class 1-A looked around worried, except Katsuki who was glancing at Izuku and Izuku himself who was smiling a predatory grin, “~It’s boss tiiiiiimmme~” He muttered in a sing-song.
He had played enough video games to know exactly where this was going.
Sure enough, a black portal started opening up on the other end of the massive hall.
Before anyone could react to it or it could open far enough for them to see what was going on, Izuku spun around and created a box.
“Iida!” He called out harshly, snapping the other guy out of his staring, “Hit the block, take what it gives you and run. Get help and get it as fast as you can. We’ll need back up soon enough.” Izuku didn’t wait for his response before turning right back.
Tenya blinked, that was the first time that Midoriya had said his name, let alone treated him with any amount of respect.
This, if nothing else, convinced him that the situation was not a training exercise.
He stared at Midoriya’s back. He had gained a bit more of an appreciation for him.
He blinked, the block was different from the previous ones Midoriya had made. It wasn’t like the others at all.
It looked like a TV with white static on it. An image blinked every once in a while.
A red shoe with a white stripe.
Now Tenya Iida had never been much of a child. He had almost constantly been a serious person, even when he had turned five.
But he remembered that design.
He had been a bit sad as a kid, because he had always seen the ‘engine’ quirk somewhere near the upper parts of their bodies. While had prided himself with being mature, no five year old was ever rational.
So his brother had bought him a single game, one that still stood pristine on its shelf to this day.
With the sound of the TV breaking and loud ~boom~ of a breaking sound barrier Iida was out of the building faster than the doors could snap shut behind them.
Several windows of the domed area cracked by the sheer force behind Iida’s speed.
If anyone had been able to see his legs they would have noticed that the lower fourth of his boots had turned red.
Aizawa blinked, having turned towards the noise. “That was...good thinking.” He grumbled, turning back to the opening portal, where a head had appeared.
“The fuck was that?!” The head, which had a hand on its face asked. “Where’d the Fire Emblem looking fucker go, Kurogiri?”
With a sound like a storm, a lanky looking guy covered in grey, dead, hands and a guy made out of black mist wearing a bartenders outfit with a strange metal high collar appeared fully out of the portal, the mist guy’s head appeared to be where the portal came from as it closed.
“Unfortunately I am unable to track his location sir, he appears to be going too fast for my quirk to keep track of him.” The mist guy, Kurogiri it seemed, intoned sadly.
“Damnit! Damnit! Damnit!” The hand-covered guy growled before staring around. “Where the fuck is All Might?! He was supposed to be the high level player here! I only agreed to fucking do this because we thought he’d be here!” he started stomping his feet rather petulantly.
“Oh god it’s like watching myself when I was eight from the outside.” Katsuki groaned, making the scene in front of them freeze in confusion.
“Six. You were a bit more reasonable at eight.” Izuku countered.
“You say that after the Dokapon Kingdom thing?” Katsuki asked almost a bit in disbelief.
“Meh. I’d send twelve robot assassins after me too.” Izuku shrugged.
“...You are a true friend.” Katsuki stated with the kind of sincerity usually reserved for someone who they’d ask to be the best man at the wedding.
“Who in their right fucking mind plays Dokapon Kingdom?!” The hand-covered guy half-yelled.
There was a sound like a window shattering, because it had, one of the panels that had cracked earlier broke.
“Fair.” Izuku and Katsuki conceded.
There was a bit of a blinking contest between the three. “Kurogiri, just drop these low levels somewhere around the place. I wanna have a boss fight.”
With that several portals started opening, with barely any fanfare most of the class fell into them.
“Oh goddamn it guys! Spacial awareness! Learn it.” Izuku yelled, creating a block underneath his feet and immediately jumping away from it as it dropped into a portal forcing him to keep moving.
“Fucking turning my own blocks into Yoku blocks?! Come on!” Izuku yelled.
With a sound like a gunshot, a small glint hit Kurogiri in the side of his metal high collar, causing a massive explosion.
“Hah! Got your teleporter ass!” Katsuki mocked, only for a portal to barely open up underneath him and send him away anyway. “Goddamnit!”
Izuku created a block which fell after Katsuki into the same portal.
“You’re one annoying little shit.” The hands guy growled as Kurogiri, who had barely held onto consciousness, created a final portal letting something big in. It looked like a massive man with an exposed brain and a very wide eyed look.
“Well of course.” Izuku stuck his tongue out petulantly. “Wouldn’t be Player One if I made it easy for the villains.”
The Hands-Guy stiffened slightly. “Oh that title is gonna be mine kid.”
“Nah. That title’s inherited, and I ain’t getting disowned any time soon.” Izuku mocked, casually placing a block in front of Aizawa. “Use what’s inside. I’m gonna try stalling him.”
“I can hear you, smartass.”
“Oh I know. I just don’t take a fashion disaster seriously. You’re dressed like an RPG dumpster fire.” Izuku chuckled.
“Seriously. I’m not sure who told you that the hands look intimidating but they were lying. You just look like you smell bad.” Izuku intoned, creating a block next to himself and hitting it. “So what games ya play?”
The hands guy stared “...Fucking hell you make power ups?! What kind of bullshit genetics ya got in there?!”
There was a soft swishing sound and Izuku went partially transparent. “More entertaining ones than yours.”
Tsuyu Asui landed in the flooded zone, Minoru Mineta and several boxes that Midoriya had created right behind her.
She looked around, stuck on a ship, with several villains in the waters around them.
“ASUI! SAVE M—” ~smack~
“Get yourself together, ribbit.” She hadn’t even turned to acknowledge Mineta, noticing that one of the blocks had landed near her.
She scratched her chin slightly with a finger before kicking the block. With a wobble something jumped out of the top side.
Tsuyu looked down at herself. “A...frog suit. But I already am a frog! Ribbity.” She paused, okay so it made her sound even more like a frog than usual.
Which meant it made her froggier.
She blinked, several times, staring at the villains in the water who seemed to get increasingly uneasy.
A few seconds later all of them started flying out of the water as Tsuyu swam at far higher speed than she was usually able to.
“I am queen of the frogs!”
Katsuki landed on his feet in a rock covered area, apparently the USJ had cliff simulations in it.
One of Izuku’s blocks landed next to him, though it looked different than any he’d seen him create before.
He kicked it, glaring around, there were a lot of villains in the area, how the hell had these goons gotten so many idiots to work for them?
Katsuki blinked. That wasn’t a usual power up.
Instead of a mushroom or flower or star or hat, or anything mario related it looked like a spiky yellow orb with a red bomb symbol floating inside it.
Katsuki’s face twisted into a huge smirk as he touched it.
“Alright you damn extras! Who’s on first?! Papa’s got some brand new bombs!”
Eijiro barely had time to land on his ass before the block that fell after him into his portal landed on his head and broke open.
While he couldn’t have seen it, it looked white with green stripes and a “!” in it. He barely felt a metallic hat land on his head before staring at his hands.
He had turned entirely into metal and while he didn’t say anything, the villains nearby did not need to hear him say anything to realise that they’d best start running now.
Mashirao frowned, slightly miffed, at what the power up he’d found had done.
He wasn’t mad, it didn’t bother him that all the swirly mushroom did was turn his tail into a spring.
It didn’t bother him, it wasn’t that big of a deal.
It didn’t bother him… Okay, it bothered him a lot! Why did he get something so uncool?!
With a ~doing~ his tail absentmindedly sent a random goon into a wall.
He blinked slightly.
Nevermind, he’d take that.
Toru was busy sneaking, specifically because she had seen one of the power up blocks land on a slightly elevated position and right now she could really use something to defend herself with, being invisible was sadly not an offensive ability.
She stopped as she heard something big approaching from the side, hoping to god that whoever was looking in her direction did not notice her.
She didn’t need to worry however as a loud high pitched screeching drew any attention from her to what was causing the rumbling.
“sssssSSSSSOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEBOOOOOOOODDDY STOP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeee----!”
Suddenly the ten villains that were skulking around looking for her were bowled over by what seemed to be a purple boulder made of Mineta’s sticky orbs. He had apparently found a Rock Mushroom.
She blinked “Huh. Guess I should thank him for the save.” she mused before heading over to the block and hitting it.
Izuku casually kept jumping in front of the hands guy, the big thing chasing them both.
“Gah! Stop! Doing! That!” The hands guy kept yelling as Nomu's fists harmlessly passed through Izuku and almost hit him.
“Nope!” Izuku giggled. “Not a chance, nuhuh. Missed me!”
The hands guy snarled. “Nomu! Kill Eraserhead! I'll deal with this punk myself.”
The big brute stopped in its tracks and slowly turned on its heel until it was facing Eraserhead before charging at him so fast that he barely had time to react by crossing his arms.
~DOOONG~
Instead of hitting Aizawa the Nomu instead hit a statue that looked conspicuously like a statue of Aizawa.
“...the fuck?!” The hands guy exclaimed only for Izuku to punch him in the face.
“Turns out power ups don’t all look the same for everyone like you’d think.” Izuku chuckled as his invisibility cap wore off.
The hands guy snarled trying to lunge at Izuku who reflexifly created a power up block in front of himself.
Izuku’s eyes widened, “Oh shit,.” he muttered as the guy hit the block.
Instead of creating a useful power up however a purple mushroom appeared from the top of the block and hopped onto the hands guy.
“Gaahrrrgh!” He keeled over forward unconsciously.
Izuku blinked, “So, good news! power ups don’t work for bad guys, gotta keep that one in mind.”
There was a loud rumbling as Izuku saw a huge pair of gloves swiping through an area of the USJ, sending several villains flying. “Guess Hagakure found a Mega Mushroom.”
Izuku shook his head, no time to admire the carnage, he had to help Aizawa somehow. “Blocks don’t fail me now.”
He created a new block and hit it.
Denki felt more than a bit backed into a corner, why was this class so unlucky to deal with like fifty bad guys in the first week?
He backed away a bit further at the encroaching goons, only to almost trip over what seemed to be a TV screen.
He blinked at it, out of the corner of his eye he could see that it had a small lightning symbol blinking in the static.
He kicked lightly backwards, breaking it, only to with ~Dwoang~ have a lightning bolt aura in a sphere shape appear around him.
He splayed his fingers a bit, a weird tingly sensation coursing through his body.
He pointed at the villains with a finger gun gesture, focusing his quirk and with a loud bang, a lightning bolt from his hand hit in the space between them.
Denki blinked, that hadn’t set off his usual short circuiting. He smiled, rather widely.
“Hey fellas. Guess what? I can do that a lot more than once. Now, I don’t gotta tell you that’s bad news for ya right?”
In hindsight, Izuku thought as he kept ducking into a ball, maybe trying to get the big brute’s attention away from the invincible Aizawa statue was a really dumb plan!
Izuku had the only saving grace that Nomu was stupid enough to keep trying to hit him from above, which thanks to a Hammer Bros suit, Izuku could armour up by crouching, but he really didn’t want to know if that could ability could run out and the creaking sound the armour was making on his back told him the answer was YES .
Fortunately with a crash like the sound barrier breaking several times and a wind gust the Nomu was thrown backwards.
“No need to worry, students of 1-A for we are here!” All Might’s voice boomed near him as Izuku came out of his crouch, creating a block and hitting it, once again taking a fire flower.
“Are you alright, Young Midoriya?” All Might asked, his eyes still fixed on the boulder he had thrown the Nomu into, it was nice to be at full strength again after so many years it made fights like this much easier.
“Yeah I’m fine. So is just about everyone else I think. We got lucky, while we got separated pretty much everyone got some of my blocks near them.” Izuku answered.
“We really got lucky there.” Aizawa grumbled, having stopped being a statue.
All Might blinked.
“Not. A. Word.” Aizawa snarled, the Tanooki ears on his head twitching in irritation “I’m at least glad it didn’t force the onesie on me.”
“Uhh. Can we focus on that thing first?” Izuku asked, as the Nomu dug itself out of the rock “I have the feeling it’s not gonna stop unless it’s either dead or close to it.”
All Might blinked at it “I’m surprised that it can stand after that hit. Most people couldn’t.”
“I think it has a quirk that helps it ward off strong hits.” Izuku muttered, mind racing what power up could help. He had one idea but he wasn’t sure he could force his quirk to make that.
With a soft golden glow a power up block appeared and Izuku kicked it.
A star, shimmering in the colours of the rainbow, appeared at the top.
“Go on. Touch it! Before that thing gets ideas.” Izuku exclaimed, just fast enough for the Nomu to charge at them again.
Both Aizawa and All Might took it as their cue to grab the star.
The Nomu punched at them, kicking up a massive dust cloud that made Izuku cringe away, as he had not been sure that the star had taken effect already.
A soft but familiar tune could be heard throughout the entire domed USJ structure, one that made many of the villains realise just how screwed they were.
Aizawa blinked at himself, his entire attire shimmering lightly “Is this how you usually feel?” he asked himself more than All Might.
“No. This is different.” All Might answered before uppercutting the Nomu so fast that its neck snapped upwards shortly before the rest of it flew up after it.
Aizawa looked up. “Well then, when in Rome…” With a motion impossible to follow, Aizawa jumped far higher than he should have been able to, overtaking Nomu in the air and kicking it straight back down where All Might punched it in the stomach.
A moment later the Nomu was flung through the USJ walls and through several trees before crashing into a hill, knocked out for good.
Aizawa landed, rather light footed just before the star wore off.
There was a pause in which the collective villains still present surrendered, they were not gonna compete with that.
“Well, all's well that ends well I suppose.” All Might said as the class did a headcount “Doesn’t seem like anyone is injured or missing, really this all could have gone way worse.”
Izuku looked around and said “Hey wait a minute. Where is Thirteen? She left before this mess started.”
“Was stuck in the toilet until we turned the power back on, turns out the electric doors in this place lock when the power goes out.” All Might stated sheepishly.
Izuku sweat dropped, that was a dumb design decision.
The rest of the week went without incident for class 1-A, though many of Izuku’s classmates got increasingly interested in testing out their quirks with the power ups.
Aizawa realised he would be in for a long couple of years by the seventh time Mineta had gotten himself punched for trying to get someone to put on a Super Crown.