Prelude: Course Preview

"Tenya, we need to have a talk."

The tone of his voice brooked no disagreement. He was standing in the bedroom door, backlit by one of the lights outside. In his hand was a letter…

Oh. Oh no. No no no not like this! His dreams of becoming Ingenium couldn't die here!

"I'm afraid that…"

Tenya's rapidly paling face made for such a funny image that Tensei decided to immortalize it right there and then. He didn't even need flash; the lamp that Tenya was studying by was enough to light his horror stricken face.

On second thought, leaving it on video would be a much better option, because then he'd get to see all the stages of his reaction.

"You've made it into UA!"

Shock, relief, anger, and then a pout all played across his face. Tensei allowed himself one cackle (his family was way too good at pretending to be villains) before schooling his expression.

"Seriously, though, we need to have The Talk."

"We covered that in sex ed, brother."

Tenya was still sulking about his joke. It was a bit nasty, if Tensei was being honest with himself, but he'd get over it soon enough.

"This one's about pros."

Tenya's head snapped up, eager with anticipation before he remembered that he was supposed to be sulking about Tensei's misleading choice of words.

Tensei gestured for Tenya to follow him. Again, Tenya jumped up, and then slouched when he remembered what he was supposed to be feeling. His attempts were comical in how seriously he took slouching.

-o-

"Let me cut to the point. You want to be Ingenium bad, right?"

Tenya nodded. His brother, leaning forward in his maximum serious face (When pushed by Tensei about his nickname for that expression, Tenya fell back to the classic strategy of "DENY EVERYTHING"). This was serious business, which meant random quizzes over the next few weeks about the material he'd cover.

"Alright. Let me tell you what being a pro hero is today."

Tensei sighed and rubbed his nose. The truth hurt, and being a celebrity a constant drain with no end in sight.

"It's basically a spectator sport. Any dreams you had of saving people in burning buildings from some evil villains pretty much never happens nowadays. You saw the debacle where Mt. Lady debuted, right? Four pro heroes showed up to take down one villain, and there was a fight about who got the credit!"

"All Might might just be the one hero that's still completely serious about the whole heroism business. He also has enough power and fame to make it work though, so no one really gets on his case. However, that's not the reality for the holders of Ingenium."

First, let me tell you about a few other agencies, so that you can roughly understand what the average truly pro agency requires. Endeavour, the No. 2 hero has such an abrasive personality he should never be allowed near any advertisements, so his agency subsists off of getting paid for settling cases by the government, and action figure sales. Unfortunately, because Endeavour apparently was never forced into taking etiquette classes for advertisements, he's an abrasive jerk who acts pretty much as he pleases, no matter how much everyone hates his attitude."

Tensei snapped his fingers.

"Speaking of which – yours is next Thursday, don't forget it like you 'forgot' the two years ago."

"I forgot once, okay?"

Tenya's pout was still absolutely hilarious to Tensei, no matter how many times he saw it. Luckily, his socialization training allowed him to completely hide his laughter (no it didn't), so why was Tenya pouting more?

"Heh. Loosen up a bit, okay? I know that's how you respond when you're nervous, but most people aren't out to bite your head off; it'll be fine. It's your biggest issue in etiquette classes, from what I hear. Anyways, moving on."

"Another example is Mt. Lady's new agency. Because Mt. Lady herself pretty much can't do any sort of villain fight not in spacious areas, or have any finesse in disaster relief, she needs to get all the money she can get from advertisements and endorsements, while also being seen at as many villain fights as possible, just to get paid. Come to think of it, that's probably why she chose her outfit the way she did, not that I'm complaining. I mean, look at all that skin and those cur-"

"Tensei!"

Teasing his brother was way too much fun.

"What? It's true, unlike Thirteen, who covers herself up in a spacesuit. Hmph."

"Speaking of which, Thirteen's agency shows up to disasters rather than villain fights, and mostly gets paid by the government, with a few advertisements, which are paid by the government search and rescue department, just to show that being a hero who focuses on rescues is totally viable."

"So the government's paying for her everything, then."

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Alright, how does this all tie back to Ingenium? Well, the thing is, I've run Team IDATEN to handle all of the above. Personally, as Ingenium, I'm the figurehead, the one that always has to show up to the news conferences, press releases, advertisements, and so on. I'd like to be able to show off some of the other sidekicks whenever possible, like but usually they'll put in a demand to see Ingenium personally. Let me make this clear, Tenya."

A pregnant pause filled the air. Tensei's eyes sharpened, no longer Tenya's brother or even Ingenium the smiling Turbo Hero, but Ingenium about to give one of his subordinates a supremely serious lecture.

"Do not let this attention get to your head."

Tensei took a deep breath.

"That's what happened to Grandpa, and we love him, but it's taken a long time to pick Team IDATEN and the name of Ingenium up from where it fell thanks to his inflated ego."

The Todorokis still hadn't forgiven the Iida for that insult, and Tenya and Tensei were secretly in agreement with the Todorokis.

"As the head of Team IDATEN, there are generally two field divisions with IDATEN that you need to know: Search Branch, and Ground Branch. The skills that we use for villain captures are often the same ones used in disaster relief, so we can usually switch between them at will. Search Branch will usually coordinate with the Van to direct the Ground Branch and you. You'll have to coordinate with the branches to come up with a plan, though worst comes to worst the Van will come up with one for you."

"Team IDATEN usually shines when either in planned takedowns or coordinated rescue ops. Large villain groups by and large just don't exist, and the groups that tend to show up to those takedowns don't tend to like having IDATEN run the show."

"Speaking of which; in large groups with multiple hero agency, Team IDATEN is usually deferred to, unless someone's trying to snub us or establish themselves. Don't let them – or at least, try to be subtle and voice everything as a suggestion until they're eating out of your hand. The exception to this guideline is as usual, All Might."

"All Might? Doesn't he just smash everything?"

"That's what I thought too, until I looked at the casualty reports. Every single rescue or villain takedown that he's shown up to have zero casualties after he shows up, and he's second only to Endeavour in the amount of incidents he's resolved."

"I also had the good fortune of serving with him a few times, and at first his tactics all looks like a series of improbable circumstances, things like a building that was about to fall on a civilian get blown away by Fatgum's charged attack, and the pieces of the building juggled by Snipe as he attempted to shoot the villain Fatgum had knocked in the air while All Might himself used the midair pieces of concrete one at a time as ammunition against another villain. When I asked him what his plan was if Fatgum was out of position, he responded that he would have stepped in for a moment, and if Snipe wasn't there Endeavour would have blasted the concrete aiming for the villains, and there was really no reason to worry."

"Bottom line, that guy is the most terrifyingly intelligent coordinator I have ever had the good fortune of meeting as well as having an insanely powerful quirk. If you ever happen to find anybody he respects, it would serve you well to respect them too."

"Anyway, you need to learn to coordinate with multiple heroes against villains and keep as many people as you can alive as the leader of Team IDATEN, as well as work with the police to ensure smooth handling. I'll help you in the beginning, but it's not all that different from all the hero fights you've been imagining since you were three."

Tenya blushed again. Tensei wondered if he should push for a record number of blushes.

"Come on, I'm your older brother, as well as a living, breathing, representation of pro heroes, of course I know you've been staging hero fights since you were three."

"T-that was a long time ago, okay? I grew out of it!"

"Sure, sure you did, Tenya." Tensei chuckled.

Regardless, we've got a lot of footage from all the after action reports that everyone in the field hates me for except for that one masochist in the Search Branch, so we can review those, speed them up or pause them to discuss tactics. You'll start by directing things at school, and you've already demonstrated a wonderful aptitude for leadership in middle school, so between your pedigree and your current leadership skills there shouldn't be a problem."

Tensei made a gentle shooing motion.

"So, Tenya, off to bed. I know you're excited; the chair vibrating a whole foot away from the table is proof enough of that. You'll need energy for the upcoming days though, because you'll only have one chance to impress on everyone what I already know:

The Fourth will be better than I ever was."

Tenya felt the tears welling up. He was ready, and almost shot out of his chair (no wait he did shoot out of his chair, that's what the tumbling sound was) in his hurry to go to bed and get some rest so that he could impress his classmates and –

"Tenya. Wait. You can become doesn't mean you're ready yet."

Those tears suddenly streaked down Tenya's face for a different reason. W-Why? What had he done wrong? Was he a disappointment, like he always knew he was since he failed to master such a basic skill as turning with his quirk on?

"Your grasp of your quirk is excellent. Your problems with restraining yourself go away when you're not nervous, so that really can't be helped except by exposure like you're already about to do.

But.

Your biggest problems are that you don't ask enough questions to make sure of something, your drive comes from where I'm sitting rather than from where you are, and you want to be a pro, not a pro hero. Think on those, and I'll tell you when you're ready to take the name."

Tenya dried his tears and set his face, nodding sharply. He would become worthy.