Chapter 1: Ready, Set, Go!

A thousand tons of steel abruptly emerged in the arena city the "heroes" had been fighting in. Whereas before, the heroes were cleaning out the mechanical monstrosities that had only been a few feet taller, this one was well out of their league. It crushed the top of an apartment building that never had any tenants, as if to demonstrate how powerless the heroes were.

The towering giant crushed all opposition in its way, destroying the very road it rolled on by its sheer mass. All the heroes that had clapped their eyes on it immediately turned around; here was an existence that was more natural disaster than obstacle. With a single punch, the street filled with dust, pushing the heroes back by sheer power.

Tenya Iida, not being an idiot, ran away. He had a practical to pass, a key part of the exam to get into UA, the most prestigious school of heroism bar none. There was no better school in all of Japan, for either heroism or just general studies. This practical was only graded on how many "villains" you destroyed, and nothing else. Taking down the big fat zero pointer currently annihilating the street would serve no purpose except hurting him unnecessarily and lowering his potential points by dint of wasted time.

His eyes flicked down to the right. A boy with striking green hair and a blue jumpsuit was on the ground. Hadn't he seen the insolent punk before? It had been nagging at him the whole day, that the applicant who had kept on mumbling during the presentation and tried to accost another applicant right before the practical.

It was of no consequence. He refocused his eyes forward, willing himself forward. The kid deserved it, after all the trouble he had made for everybody else, so it was okay to just leave him there, no matter what that little nagging voice said –

He stumbled, just a bit. Listening to himself think and taking his attention off the ruined road had made him miss a pothole, which was enough to make him stumble that brief step. He gave into his curiosity and threw a single glance back. The kid was crawling away, panicking at the one minute mark.

And then the kid stopped. Turned around and ran straight at it.

"What are you doing?! Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"

The kid ran on, heedless of his words. Iida quickly scanned the streets, double checking if there wasn't something he missed.

Suddenly, the street cleared of dust, and Iida could see what the kid had seen before he had; the girl with her foot trapped in the rubble. Iida knew he could keep destroying villains. He had earned forty some points up to this point, and could probably make fifty if he kept it up. But, that nagging voice grew louder.

"If not you, then who?", his brother, third holder of Ingenium, had said.

Tenya Iida only remembered that he had planned to be running away about halfway to the girl, flying down the street with jets of flame rocketing out of the back of his calves. New plan: he was going to get her out of the way and then get the idiot kid out of the way, because it was too early for them to suffer a career ending injury, and the girl had an interesting quirk. The exam could go on hold for this, surely. He didn't need to be number one, or get the highest score possible, because he knew that his brother would know when he told him, and his brother would be proud.

Speaking of which, where was the kid?

…

H-how?!

…

Where had this kid hid so much power?

The titan's face had a circular indentation from where the kid had punched. Fault lines spiderwebbed out from that indentation, spreading all over its face and body. Toppling over, the giant zero point villain started to explode as its fuel reserves crashed into engine components, or just cooked directly from the sheer power of that one punch.

Saying you could hear a pin drop wasn't quite right, because metal was crashing to the ground, creaking all the way, and a random smattering of explosives kept the environment noisy, but there was a distinct feeling of everybody who had ears and eyes in the city dropping their jaw on the ground.

(Present Mic was a pro hero, so when pushed, he said that no, he was totally composed and expecting this, thank you very much!)

Something was wrong though. The kid's right arm and legs were flopping around – did he just break his arm and legs with that power? No wonder he held back, he can't control that monster at all!

Tenya Iida finally picked his jaw up off the ground and dragged his eyes off the boy falling from the sky to haul the girl out of the rubble, shifting down from third gear into first gear.

No time for talking, or plans, just action. The girl was on the ground - that wouldn't do, grab by the scruff - gauge the distance to his landing location - within range of catch? - maybe - shift to second gear? not enough control.

The kid kept falling, but he had somehow, fighting through the pain of three broken limbs, pointed his finger at the ground, as if to flick the ground itself away.

Her gravity nullification was only a nullification of gravity's acceleration, not force. He was still falling at near terminal velocity. What did he have, what did he have? No choice for it, go for cushioning with body, jump and get quirk applied to self -

"DETROIT SMASH!"

Iida panicked. The kid had pushed himself up and him down with air pressure. New plan, ground rapidly approaching, throw girl at kid -

The landing of angle was wrong, Iida's left wrist screaming in pain (gotta ignore it if he can), both people in a zone that he could crawl to. He'd have to.

Just had to cross a meter in three seconds. He could do this.

Clap up using only right hand. Get on knees, push, and use third gear to slide in under them -

The wind rushed out of his lungs as both of them used him as a human cushion. One hundred kilos was a pain to catch with your chest.

ESPECIALLY WHEN ONE OF THEIR ELBOWS WAS IN HIS SOLAR PLEXUS OW OW OW AND HIS WRIST AIIIEEEEE!

Iida gave himself a moment to soundlessly scream in pain while the human tangle of limbs worked themselves free of each other. At least it was taking pressure off of his solar plexus, but he decided to "help them along" by rolling over and depositing them on the road next to him. Now their teenager awkwardness was their problem, and his hands were clean of it. Should be entertaining -

Well, ignoring the rainbows spewing from her mouth and he was not thinking about what she had for breakfast to make it that color.

Iida found himself slightly disappointed. Were they all so tired that they couldn't be bothered to do funny things?

(Recovery Girl would later conclude that he had a concussion)

"g-good, I did it. I-I-still need one point, i-if I could get … just one …" the kid said, pushing himself up with his left arm. His right arm was bent out of shape, his legs were bent all the wrong angles, and two rivers had streaked down the side of his whitened face, pupils turning into dots in his widened eyes. But he kept on pushing, no matter how weakly.

"You're... in no shape... to fight... most of... your limbs... are broken... are you... crazy?" Iida wheezed out.

"n-no… b-but..."

"TIME UP!", Present Mic shouted.

"…"

The kid had finally fainted from pain and exhaustion. The look of dried tears across his face framed with striking green hair, with red flames flickering around him, reminded him of where he had seen this kid before.

"Look closely, dear brother, and look at the most heroic of them all." Tensei snapped out of his exercise routine to watch the news feed.

On the news, a villain had captured a civilian with a powerful explosive quirk and was currently terrorizing a street, lighting portions of the surrounding buildings on fire. Many heroes had shown up; Iida recognized Kamui Woods, Mount Lady, Death Arms, Backdraft, and others at the scene. Not one moved to save the boy or stop the villain. All of them were waiting for someone with a better quirk.

Except for one stupid civilian, who had broken through the throng of onlookers, charging straight at the sludge monster.

"Why isn't he using his quirk? And why isn't he letting the pros handle it?" Tenya, sticking around to watch his cool older brother and train like him, asked.

"Because, dear brother, he doesn't care if he has a quirk or not. He won't wait to save someone in need." Ingenium replied, grinning with a shine in his eye.

When Iida told the story to his awesome brother Tensei, that he had saved the boy who had impressed Tensei so much and had a totally awesome quirk, Tensei smiled, mussed his hair, and told him today, he was Ingenium's hero.

(He would spend the rest of the week denying that he had ever used the words "totally" and "awesome" in the same sentence. Tensei just chuckled at that.)

Iida was giddy for the whole rest of the week. He hadn't even bothered opening his acceptance letter.