Chapter 7: Pacer

It had been a full day since Maria had come to Valour Academy, and she was relaxing in the dorm hall with whoever happened to be there.

"So Archie, why do you want to be a hero?" Asked Maria

"Probably, if I had to say... Money," Archie sighed as he leaned back over the banister of the spiral staircase. He took a long sip from a bottle of water and wiped his forehead. Maria pouted and flung herself back into her armchair.

"Is that it? You seriously can't think of any other reason?" She sighed. Archie put his hand to his chin, looking up at the ceiling in contemplation, and then shook his head.

"I mean, do I really need another reason? So long as I'm saving lives should it even matter?"

"I never really thought about it like that

"What about you?" He asked.

"Well, it could be to do with the one time I almost got mugged, but the guy who saved me was pretty obscure. I don't think I could remember his name if you asked me,"

"So what is it then?"

"I think it's just that I always found solving other people's problems easier than solving my problems. So if I became a hero then my only problems would be solving other people's problems,"

"Wow. I can't tell if that's really selfless or really selfish," Quipped Archie. Archie stared over to two students in the corner. One of them, the one with enlarged pores up to his elbows and short brown curly hair who lay out on a sofa with their legs dangling off of one edge had been staring at them the entire time they'd been talking. The other one, with long white hair and haunting white eyes had been quietly reading a book while sitting just by where the other students head was.

"Hey, what about you guys?" He called over. Oboro (the browned haired child, who's name Archie had just recalled) beamed with excitement, while Ritsuo (whose name Archie had never forgotten) just silently looked up from his book.

"Well, it started when I was around 11 years old..." Oboro began.

"This is gonna be long isn't it..." Archie mumbled. Oboro had sat up in his and was already rambling chair while Maria listened intently.

"-So, then I got taken hostage by this stone looking guy, who had me dangling off a building. Lucky for me there were a bunch of heroes who were quick to respond, but one of them, a rookie I think, jumped the gun and completely blasted this guys arm. It made him drop me sure, but he dropped me off a building like 12 stories high. So since I was just a panicky kid I started blindly firing off my quirk which just ended up making me feel sick and disoriented without actually slowing my descent at all. But then, just as I was gonna hit the ground Deku came out of nowhere-"

"Let me guess, he caught you, saved your life and now you want to be a hero to repay him or something?"

"I mean, that's basically it I guess," Oboro said rather sheepishly.

"Explains why you're such a kiss ass."

Ritsuo began contemptibly glaring at Archie, while Oboro growled and turned away.

"Guys, don't be mean to each other..." Maria interjected.

"Yeah I maybe went a bit too far with that one..." Archie sighed. Maria smiled

"See, now you just apo-"

"Because it looks like I pissed off his boyfriend too," Archie taunted, giving an impish smile.

"Hey..." Maria groaned. Ritsuo began to laugh.

"What, did I say something funny?"

"I'm going to assume you meant that sarcastically?" he chuckled. Archie half nodded, although it was more of a so-so gesture.

"Hey, Oboro," Grinned Ritsuo. Oboro looked over to him, about to say something. He was cut off when Ritsuo gave him a kiss on the mouth, which persisted for at least a couple of seconds. There was a long awkward silence.

"What, you want a medal?" Archie huffed. He trudged down the stairs and towards the door. "I'm going to the gym,"

Archie turned away from the group. Ritsuo smirked, and waved his hand which was accompanied by a slight whistling sound. Maria felt a small draft as Archie was seemingly pulled from his feet and fell to the floor. Oboro began to giggle incessantly.

CHARACTER REPORT

Aspiring hero name: Monsoon the Hurricane

Full name: Oboro Namikawa

Age: 17 (barely)

Quirk: Cyclone
the enlarged pores on Oboro's arms and hands can generate powerful and precise gusts of wind that, due to their placing, shape into cyclones and tornadoes of varying sizes. Oboro can use these to increase his martial abilities or as an attack themselves. The more he uses the quirk the dizzier he gets, although the rate at which he becomes dizzy depends on the strength and size of the cyclone.

Favourite pastime: Skating

Statistics:

Power: B

Speed: A

Durability: D

Tactics: B

Quirk: B

"Oh, you're dead now you fucker." Archie flung himself from the ground over to Oboro, who himself flew up from the couch. Archie leapt dramatically onto and off of a coffee table, red energy began to crackle between his fingers like a cat's cradle while wind began to swirl around Oboro's feet, kicking up loose papers and rattling furniture.

"Guys!" Maria screamed, standing up in her chair. The pair stopped a hairs width from each other and glared at her. "Uh, don't fight each other... please?" She said, slowly sitting back down into her chair. They shrugged and went back at each other's throats. There was a brief scuffle before the lunch bell went off. Ritsuo pulled Oboro off of Archie, who fixed his collar and strode off in the opposite direction.

"Saved by the bell, asshole," Archie hissed. Oboro turned and tried to run at him, but Ritsuo held him back with one arm. He eventually gave up and trudged away, still seething.

"Hey, Ritsuo, we have a lesson in the gym right now, you know that isn't the way right?" Maria asked, packing up her stuff.

"Yeah, I think it's better if we take the uh, scenic route," He laughed. Maria gave a knowing nod and ran over to Aconite, who trailed behind Archie.

"Hey, do you think I should talk to him?"

"Don't bother," Aconite scoffed.

"Why not?"

"Boys are always gonna butt heads with each other, especially hot headed ones like him. I say let the teachers deal with it,"

"Ok, if you say so..." Maria whimpered. The gym was located above the 3rd test room which they'd been in the previous day. In fact the room itself was an extension of the gym. They took an elevator buried in the side of a hill to get up to the main building. There was short hallway with doors leading to gendered changing rooms. On the other end of the hall, there were a set of glass automatic doors. Ritsuo came from around a corner and walked through them, on arm laid consolingly over Oboro's shoulder. Oboro's eyes met Archie's and sparks flew for a brief moment. Archie pushed his way through a small group of students and dove right into the changing room. Everyone else piled into their respective rooms. Maria went over to Oboro as he was about to enter.

"Hey, are you gonna be okay?" She asked. Oboro took a deep breath, and turned to her, smiling brightly.

"Yeah, just fine, don't worry about me," Oboro said. He went in before Maria could a word in edgewise. Aconite put a hand on her shoulder.

"You know we have to get changed too right?

"Right,"

The pair stepped through the heavy doors into the changing room. The room itself had a modern aesthetic with a primarily white and chrome colour scheme and minimalistic design. The ceiling was open, so you could see into the guts of the building although it was only a couple of pipes and vents. Aconite and Maria went down one of the rows, past girls in various states of undress until taking a place at the end of a bench. Maria examined the locker closest to her. It was quite typical aside from instead of a lock there was a finger print scanner and a small black LCD display in the middle. She pressed her thumb to the scanner and it instantly recognised her. The LCD display now lit up with her name and the door flung open. Inside there was an empty shelf and a large bag, probably containing a gym uniform. She pulled the bag out and sure enough it was emblazoned in dark text "one size fits all", which could basically mean one thing only. She placed the bag down and began to undress.

"Hey, Aconite," Maria asked as she turned around. She was only about half way done unbuttoning her shirt, but Aconite already had her uniform off, and was unpacking her gym clothes. A laughed a little unwillingly, and Aconite blushes.

"Hey, what is it?!" She growled.

"Your underwear." Maria said, barely holding back laughter. Aconite blushes even more, probably more out of anger than embarrassment.

"What about is?"

"It's so… pink… and fluffy,"

"They are not fluffy. They are frilly, and it doesn't even matter so shut up." Aconite turned away in a huff, quickly putting on a shirt and zipping up the sport jacket.

"Hey, Maria,"

"Hm?"

"Do you know that girl? The one who's just staring at us." She pointed to Morticia, who sat at the very end of the room alone on a bench. Much as always she had that profoundly sad expression, but she was also totally red in the face. She was perfectly still, but not in a calm way. It was more like she had to constantly hold herself still and it was uncomfortable and difficult. She was the only one who was fully dressed.

"Oh, that's just Morticia. She's harmless… probably,"

"Well can you go tell her to look somewhere else, she's creeping me out,"

"Yeah, okay," Maria sighed. She went over and sat by Morticia. Morticia shifted away from her as she sat down, but mostly didn't acknowledge her presence.

"Hey,"

"H-hello" Morticia replied weakly, her gaze still affixed dead ahead.

"My friend wanted to know if you could stop staring? It's weirding her out,"

Morticia reacted without hesitation, putting her legs up on the bench and curling up in a feral position, staring down at her lap.

"Sorry," she mumbled.

"Are you ok?"

Morticia groaned, balling herself up tighter. Maria could just about hear her gently humming melodically to herself. Maria slowly shuffled away, keeping her eyes on Morticia at all times.

"Okay, she's a little strange but still harmless," Maria said, turning to Aconite.

"I still think she's a creep," Aconite replied. She was fully changed now, and packing her uniform into the bag neatly. "You should probably get dressed now,"

Maria realised she was still half naked whereas everyone else was fully clothed and giving her weird looks.

"O-ok"

By the time Maria had gotten her uniform on everyone else had long since left the room. She laced up her last shoe and hurriedly left the changing room, entering the main gymnasium. It was quite typical, the mess of lines marked into the floor and intermittent sports equipment told her that much. The floor seemed to be made of a polished concrete however, which struck Maria as odd. The students had been lined up at on end of the gym, being talked at by a athletic, brown haired man who was practically military in composure. Maria scampered up to take her place in the line, in between Archie and Oboro (too maybe stop them from going at each other's throats for a while).

"So as I was saying, this lesson will serve as an introduction to the subject of Quirk Apprehension, these lessons will act similarly to your physical education lessons, except for those lessons prohibit quirk use, while these lessons encourage it," He states drably. It was pretty obvious he was reading all of this from his clipboard. "For today's activity, we've enlisted the help of an old pro hero, who will also be acting as your modern literacy teacher"

The teacher whistles with two fingers, and 'old pro' he had mentioned stepped in through a set of back doors. His entire body was like a cement block, but not in a metaphorical way. The man was constructed entirely of a slightly worn and cracked cement down to even his dark grey grizzled 'beard' and long ponytail.

"This is Ken Ishiyama; you may know him as Cementoss. He's retired from his hero duties, but he still works frequently in the hero education system," Kasai said. Cementoss gave a small bow, before a chair formed from the cement beneath him. He settled into it carefully and gave a satisfied sigh. Maria raised her hand.

"Yes?"

"What exactly is today's activity?"

"Oh, its just a simple pacer test. Just get to the red line on the other side of the gym before the beep, Mr. Ishiyama will be using his certain expertise to help make it a little more interesting,"

This made Maria nervous.

"Alright then, if we're all ready to begin…" Kansai glanced at Cementoss, who gave a slight nod. Kansai slammed a key on the laptop, and there were a series of preliminary beeps. Everyone took position, except for Archie who took the time to slip in some headphones, and Hayato who opted for a more meditative stance.

The first cue sounded out, it was more of a shrill ringing sound than a beep. Everyone shot off from the line at top speed, travelling along in a line for a moment until a few began to pull ahead. Maria didn't concern herself with who they were, she had to focus on herself. She slowed down a little bit to pace herself, this wasn't a race after all, she just had to keep up with the bell and she'd be okay. Archie was quick to overtake her. He swerved to the left, shoving Oboro and speeding off in front of her. She would have to talk to him about that later. He leapt up suddenly, so did everyone else. Maria looked around confusedly for a second and turned her attention to the ground. A wall of cement, about a foot high had suddenly sprouted from the ground.

"So that's what the cement guy was for," Maria thought to herself, hitting the hurdle dead on. She tumbled downward, grasping for anything to hold on too. She hit her head hard right against the concrete floor and for a while everything went dark.

Maria awoke to Aconite sitting above her. She could tell she was lying on the ground by the cold hard feeling of the ground on her back. She tried to sit up, but felt dizzy so she lay back down.

"D-did I lose?" She whimpered.

"Embarrassingly," Aconite said. Maria groaned and tried to look around. She saw that she was by the side of the main floor behind a designated line and that there were other people all lined up there as well.

"Don't move your head so much, you probably have a concussion," Aconite cautioned "The nurse will be here in a second"

Maria nodded, then immediately regretted it. She heard a pair of footsteps and an unfamiliar, older sounding voice.

"Yo," it said, laying down a heavy bag. He kneeled over her revealing his appearance, and orange mop of hair that became more yellow at the roots, and a long white coat.

"Now, what's the problem?" Yashiru asked. Maria in her dizziness had to take a moment to process this, but eventually said

"I have a... concussion? Yeah," She slurred. Yashiru nodded.

"Right, what are your symptoms?"

"My head hurts, I feel dizzy..."

"Okay then, drink this." He thrust a vile in Maria's uncoordinated hands, and she brought it to her mouth shakily, finishing it in one big gulp.

"It's salty..."

She "It's my tears,"

Oh, okay then." Maria sat up slowly and blinked a few times. "I feel better! Thanks," she said, rolling over to Aconite and sitting by her. She looked out to the main floor where the rest of the runners were. It was a web of concrete columns and hurdles reaching up to the ceiling and going off in all directions. Cementoss sat on the opposite end of the floor, giving a satisfied smile while Kasai leaned against the concrete chair.

"What did I miss?" Maria leaned over to Aconite and whispered.

"Well, after you the next to go was Mado. He didn't fall or anything, he just gave up after the third lap," She explained. Maria looked over to where Mado was on the line. He was lying down with Randall lying opposite to him. Randall was red in the face and breathing heavily, Maria could hear his grumbling. It was mostly inaudible, but Maria caught a few lines about him wanting to beat the crap out of someone one day, though she didn't hear who. Mado nodded along, arms behind head.

"After him everyone without a movement based slowly got phased out, and then the floor started to get crazy like this,"

From out of the tangle of concrete a group of contenders could be seen. Hayato run nimbly over the top of the concrete, leaping from Collin to Collin with disciplined agility. Oboro and Archie were visible through the concrete, going at around neck and neck. The wind rushing around and through Oboro's pores made a barely audible whistling sound. He skated past each obstacle with ease on cushions of whirling air with perfect form. He looked almost weightless. Archie on the other hand, who was next to appear from the maze of concrete, was more long jumping than running, using an occasional explosion to give him bursts of extreme momentum.

"That technique, doesn't it remind you of Kacchan?"

"I don't know who that is…"

"He's a Japanese hero. I thought he'd be popular enough for you to know him. He uses explosions like that to move around,"

"Oh, is that like how Law Force does it?"

"I don't know who that is…"

The two hit the red line at the exact same time. Archie took a moment to clumsily take a swig from his water bottle, spilling it across all across the floor. Hayato leapt from the last pillar onto the wall, and back again before the bell even went off. Cementoss' eyes narrowed as the columns began to rumble. They shot upwards, colliding with the ceiling just as Hayato jumped between them. He was stricken with a look of panic for a brief moment but suspended himself between two columns before he collided with any of them (or the ground). The bell went off, and he gave a disappointed sigh, before setting himself gently onto the ground. He walked hunched over, slightly undignified, over to the rest of the losers when Archie and Oboro blew right past him.

Archie came at him from the side, using the momentum from one of his blasts to tackle Oboro to the ground, before running off. Oboro's face contorted with anger, and a colossal vortex of air threw Archie right into a column.

"Are they fighting?" Maria looked on worriedly

"I think so," Ritsuo replied in an equally worried tone.

"Are you all right?"

"I've never seen Oboro this competitive; I'm worried about him." Oboro bit his bottom lip. He was sweating although it was probably more to due to the exercise than anxiety.

Oboro turned to Archie, flipping himself over and kicking upward at him. A powerful gust blew away Archie's counter and he shot up into the air, more from the wind than the force of the kick. He came down heavy in front of Oboro, who raced right over Archie, stamping him to the ground as he went past. Archie grunted and called over to him weakly.

"Hey, you probably shouldn't step on that puddle,"

Oboro stomped defiantly on the puddle as he passed, grinning confidently as the water splashed with the currents.

"I told you..." Archie croaked, pulling himself from the ground. The scattered puddle sparked with energy and combusted suddenly. Oboro staggered backwards in a daze, tripping and falling over a concrete hurdle and ending up laying down right by Archie.

"What did you...?"

"Waters the only thing that doesn't blow up on contact with my quirk, so I slipped a X1000 in that puddle earlier,"

"What's your quirk again?"

The bell sounded, and neither of them were over the line. They had a light scrap, before Kasai quickly shut off his program and ran over to the two and gripping their shoulders like a vice, pilling them apart with ease.

"Maybe it's not my place to say as a Quirk apprehension teacher, but if you two can't even get over this stupid personal feud then how do you expect to be heroes?" Kasai spat. He yanked both of them from the ground but maintained his death grip on their shoulders. "I want you to apologise to each other,"

"Yeah, whatever, sorry I guess?" Archie mumbled insincerely. Oboro growled at him and then spat on his shoe.

"Those... were fucking designer... dude,"

Kasai thrust Archie away, giving him a stern warning about his language.

"So does this mean that nobody wins?" Oboro asked, clearly still a little miffed.

"Actually, I think the winner is that girl over there," Kasai said pointing over to Morticia, who sat calmly listening in on them, just past the red line. She saw them look over and shied away. She scampered off to the changing room alone when they didn't look away.

"I can't tell if this hurts more or less," Oboro groaned. Ritsuo pulled him up from the ground.

"Hey," He cooed reassuringly. Oboro looked up at him. "You look like you could use some tea,"

A/N

Well, I hope it was worth the wait :p

I lieu of school starting up again I've decided that Im going to move the update day to sunday rather than thursday, I think that just makes more sense. Im gonna post a mini-chapter this sunday and then get back to the regular updates. If you want to suggest a topic please do so on the forum.

Thanks for being so patient :)