Gathering- Part 1

A blonde-haired boy slowly walked through a country path, his hands in his pockets as he slowly sauntered through the pathway, appearing not to have a care in the world. In truth, the boy's mind was busy with dozens of thoughts that crowded through his head, each idea clamouring for his focus so that it might be resolved. The upcoming entrance exams to UA High were at the front of his mind, but all sorts of other thoughts related to this exam were flying through his mind.

In short, Neito Monoma was feeling distracted and more than a little nervous, two states of mind that he had experienced frequently, but that doesn't mean he was entirely comfortable with them. He wouldn't let these weaknesses in his thoughts show in his expression as well, and so he wore his well-practised mask of smug superiority.

Though Monoma was a proud soul, there was one person that he knew that he was able to confide in without fear of mockery or judgement, and so he went to find her, knowing that she would likely be training in one of the fields nearby.

Soon enough, he found the person he was looking for, currently she was running laps around one of the fields that bordered the village that they both lived in. Her pace and endurance never ceased to impress Monoma, and he would always find himself struggling to keep up with her when they trained together. As soon as she caught sight of him, the girl changed course and jogged over to a waiting Monoma, who leant against a tree to give the impression that he was more relaxed than he felt.

"Kendo." Monoma said as soon as his friend was in earshot "Still out training? I'm pretty sure that you we here when I came by a few hours ago."

Itsuka Kendo pushed a lock of Bright orange hair out of her blue eyes as she addressed her friend, though slight panting from exhaustion hampered her conversation skills for a moment.

"You know I can't afford to slack off Monoma." Kendo replied, recovering from her fatigue impressively quickly "The UA Entrance Exam is only a few weeks away, and I don't want to get caught out by whatever they throw at us."

Monoma nodded his agreement, they had both spent hours on forums and webpages looking for any hint as to what the UA Entrance Exam entailed, but information was hard to come by and what they could find was little more than scraps of hearsay. The only concrete information they could find was that the exam changed frequently and was apt to be altered at the last second, so even if they did find anything it could very easily be incorrect.

The result of all of this uncertainty was two nervous teenagers, both of which dealt with their anxiety in different ways. Kendo preferred to throw herself into some kind of draining physical activity until she was too exhausted to even think about what was meant to be bothering her. Monoma had a habit of getting caught up in his own thoughts, and although he had tried to curb this habit it still caught him out on occasion.

"That's why I'm here actually…" Monoma chuckled, referring to the exam "We really don't have much time left, do we…"

Monoma trailed off, turning from Kendo to look over the sweeping landscape that they had both grown up in. In the distance, he could just about make out the grey patch that made up the edge of the Tokyo metropolis. Though nothing was clearly visible, the knowledge that UA's campus was somewhere in that patch of grey made his stomach churn, he mused that seeing it from a distance made it seem more real.

He couldn't bring himself to tell Kendo how nervous he was feeling, part of him felt selfish for wanting to put his worries on someone else, knowing that Kendo was just as nervous as he was. But beyond that, he detested his own weakness and reliance on others to get anywhere, a weakness that was reflected in his own Quirk.

"Monoma." Kendo stood beside him, her voice the kind of stern tone she usually reserved for when he did something truly stupid "You shouldn't doubt yourself."

Monoma looked back towards his childhood friend, both impressed and irritated that she could read him so well. He knew that he could read her expressions just as well, but it didn't make things any less irritating in the moment.

"We've been preparing our whole lives for this exam." Kendo smiled this time, placing a hand on Monoma's shoulder "We'll make it, I know we will."

A small part of Monoma's mind wanted to contradict her, to say that she would make it while he was left in the dust.

"Thanks Kendo." Monoma squashed the though and smiled back, thankful that he had sought his friend's counsel "I take it that you're up for training of some kind."

Kendo didn't respond, instead she grinned a far more fearsome smile before holding out her outstretched arm. Monoma grinned and grasped her hand with his own, activating his Quirk as he did so. Monoma felt the familiar feeling of the Quirk he copied most often course through him, and an experimental stretch of his other hand confirmed that he had an active copy.

"Just because you're feeling nervous don't expect me to hold back on you." Kendo called over her shoulder, walking towards an open patch of grass that the pair could safely train in.

Kendo cracked her knuckles and enlarged her hands to about double their normal size, dropping into a combat stance. Monoma knew better than to underestimate the strange appearance of Kendo's Quirk, as he strikes grew exponentially stronger the larger her hands got, and even at this size, they packed a punch.

Monoma sighed and dropped into his own more casual fighting stance, raising his hands and hoping that he wouldn't get beaten too badly.

A girl knelt at the foot of her bed, her eyes closed, and hands clasped in prayer, for the girl sought guidance from the God that she had revered her whole life. Though she didn't wish to use her prayers for what felt like selfish gain, her nerves and anxiety over the coming UA Entrance Exams had almost gotten the best of her, and so she sought guidance.

Ibara Shiozaki had always been guided by faith and belief in God, and she did her best to live her life well and to the best of her abilities.

The Quirk that had been granted to Shiozaki was a powerful one, but the devout girl looked beyond their physical power and into the innate symbolism that they evoked. Vines were part of nature, representative of the purity of the living world and given strength by the sun itself, and both of these aspects of her Quirk strengthened the connection that Shiozaki felt with nature.

Despite the Quirk that she believed to be a divine gift, Shiozaki found herself easily swayed into doubt, often thinking that she wasn't strong enough to overcome the trials that she would face in the future. She cursed herself for her own mental weakness, but no amount of training and practise could improve her own perceptions about her strength and ability.

She had felt lost and confused, and so she had prayed.

Halfway through reciting another prayer in Latin, Shiozaki felt her thoughts stray towards her power again, and though she tried to stay focused, her mind seemed to wonder of its own accord. The memories of her time training over the past months came back to the forefront of her mind, though they now seemed to take on a new light as she recalled them again.

Shiozaki remembered her limits when she had first begun her training, and then compared them to how she acted a few days ago. Her growth and improvement had been enormous over the months, and she had exceeded her limits many times over. And something within Shiozaki, though she didn't know if it was her own thoughts or something else entirely, told her that she would grow even further, and become even stronger.

Finally opening her eyes, Shiozaki felt at peace for the first time in many weeks, and although she knew that nothing was certain, she at least believed that she had a fighting chance in the coming trials that would be placed against her. Shiozaki stood from her position and pushed the long vines that made up her hair back over her shoulders, as they had fallen over her eyes while she prayed.

Shiozaki readied herself for the scant rest she would get before her training resumed, she was already planning out what parts of her Quirk she would train tomorrow. She gave one last whisper of thanks to God for this new surety of purpose, and she hoped that it would be enough.

A scrapyard would seem like a strange training ground to some, rusted metal and crushed cars weren't exactly ideal training implements, and most would find little use for such an environment. Some people with strength-boosting Quirks or an obsession with physical fitness could find the challenge of moving enormous chunks of metal to be a suitable way to test their skills, but even these individuals usually just preferred the usage of weights and other modern training devices. Because of this, it was strange to anyone that passed by to see a young girl training in this place, especially given that she lacked a strength-boosting power or a strong physical frame.

Yui Kodai didn't mind, she liked the solitude of the place. The scrapyard was silent for most of the day and she was unlikely to be bothered by anyone who did come by for their own reasons, two facts that she greatly appreciated.

Beyond this solitude, the scrapyard also gave Kodai an abundance of objects and material to practise usage of her Quirk on, and she didn't have to worry about causing collateral damage to lumps of scrap metal. This place had become her preferred training ground a few month ago, when she heard that somebody was delivering vast quantities of scrap from a nearby beach, and simply giving it over to the scrapyard.

Kodai reached for a nearby refrigerator that sat tall in a mound of other scrap metal, the white surface scratched and covered in marks and small dents. With a touch of Kodai's fingertips, the appliance shrunk down almost instantly, being reduced to only a few inches tall. Kodai knew that she could have shrunk it less or more, but it was still a good size for what she had planned.

Kodai bent down and reached for the miniaturised appliance, and picked it up with a single hand, her stoic expression didn't shift as she inspected the device. Anything affected by her Size Quirk would have it's weight changed proportionally as well, making the task of moving heavy objects far easier, a fact her parents came to appreciate the last time they re-arranged the furniture in their house.

She walked to a clearing in the middle of the scrapyard and set the refrigerator down, she took a few steps backwards before placing her fingertips from both hands together, releasing her Quirk. The refrigerator changed back to it's normal size in an instant, displacing the clumps of dirt around it as it shifted and expanded.

Without hesitating, Kodai placed a hand on the device again, this time willing it to increase in size. The appliance obeyed this command, growing to around five metres in height and almost throwing Kodai to the ground with the sudden expansion. Once Kodai had assessed her work again, she placed her hands together and returned the device to it's normal size again, though this time she turned and left it where it stood. Kodai was already searching for the next thing to practise her Quirk on, trying to practise as much as possible before the UA Entrance Exams arrived.

A girl sat in forest clearing, a large book open on her lap as she intensely studied it's pages, the information on her chosen subject entering her mind as she devoured the information on each page. The girl moved through the information at a frightening speed, flicking through the pages at a rate that most people would see as just skimming, though in truth she was abosrbing all of the information.

Kinoko Komori loved to learn about all kinds of fungi and mushrooms, an obsession that she attributed to the nature of her Quirk. She searched for every scrap of information on fungi that she could find, committing it to memory for better use of her Quirk.

Komori's Spore Quirk allowed her to produce any kind of fungal life form, from single-celled fungal organisms to various kinds of mushroom. Komori had always wanted to be a well-known idol hero, and while she was initially disappointed with her Quirk when it first manifested, she didn't allow herself to give up on her dream, and so she did everything to learn about her Quirk.

As it turned out, Fungi had a surprising amount of uses, particularly when Komori could produce enough of them to cover a large house within a few seconds. When in damp conditions, Komori's fungi could spread at an incredible rate, and she could continue to propagate them for as long as she wanted.

Komori was a naturally withdrawn soul, not much given to socialising and making friends of her own volition. She got on well enough with people in her Junior High class, but she wasn't especially close with anybody, and her obsessive studies didn't do much to improve her social life. Komori was aware of this, but her own confidence in herself and her Quirk was lacking, and so she stayed withdrawn, doing everything she could to get better control and discipline with her Quirk.

As her research continued, Komori began experimenting with different kinds of fungal life, putting into practise all of the things she had heard in school and read about in various libraries and online articles. Paralytic spores, poisons, sleep-inducing spores and various other applications of her Quirk came to her attention, and Komori realised that she could indeed use her Quirk to capture and immobilise villains.

Setting her book aside, Komori set to work on producing a new species of mushroom that she had read about, intent on gaining proficiency with this new species before the looming UA Entrance Exam came about. Any advantage in this coming exam would give her better chances of getting into the school of her dreams, and so Komori threw herself into practise and study, intent on gaining as many advantages as she could.

Komori promised to achieve her childhood dream, and UA was the first step on that path.

In a large house in Central Tokyo, a pale-skinned youth sat cross-legged in a training room, having just ran through several hours of gruelling training exercises with various teachers and tutors. Everything had been covered, strength, endurance, speed and combat proficiency had been just some of the many skills that had been impressed on the boy since the small hours of the morning. The sheer variety of skills and training types that he was expected to learn would have staggered anyone in how erratic the training seemed to be, demanding a flexible mind and an open approach to any task.

Juzo Honenuki had both of these traits in spades however, as they had been taught to him as being the most important traits that a hero could have.

There were several heroes in Honenuki's extended family, and although none of them had ever reached the dizzying heights of the top ten greatest heroes, they were all well respected and diligent heroes. Honenuki's grandfather was still talked about as an example of distinction in early pro heroes, and his father had recently retired from active duty with a respectable record and an ambition to open his own support company to better assist his erstwhile comrades who were still in the field.

Both of these ex-heroes, as well as more distant relatives from both sides of Honenuki's family had taught Honenuki their accumulated experiences from time in the field, both fighting against villains and rescuing civilians from disasters, both natural and man-made. Amongst all of the lessons that had been taught to him, the most frequently stressed lesson was that of flexibility, and adaptation to circumstances that he hadn't foreseen. Heroes could be faced with dozens of different villains with hundreds of different Quirks, and trying to approach them the same way every time could only end in disaster.

So Honenuki learned from a young age that a problem could be approached from many different angles, and it was important that he assessed them all and took the best course of action. This, they had all said, was the mark of a successful hero. Honenuki had taken all of these lessons to heart, and his grasp of unconventional strategy and adaptability to whatever circumstances he was placed in meant that he frequently excelled the expectations of his tutors and teachers.

Right now Honenuki was tasked with breaking out of a locked room without causing any damage to the room itself, something that ruled out any real usage of his softening Quirk, as a liquified wall likely counted as fairly excessive damage. As he paced around the room, Honenuki's gaze was drawn to the window that sat in one of the walls, secured from opening too far by a small chain.

A touch from Honenuki melted a single link in the chain, and he swung open the window and hung from the frame, another touch let him bend the link in the chain back into place, and a skeletal grin came to Honenuki's face at his escape.

The room that this next student trained in was darkened, the windows had been blocked with thick sheets of blackout paper, and the gaps in the door were blocked with thick masking tape. Only thin wisps of light were able to enter the room, and without these lights it would be nearly impossible for any ordinary person to make out a single detail of the room.

Then again, Shihai Kuroiro had spent a great deal of time in the darkness, and he had adapted well to making the best use of the shadows.

A small black sphere rolled across the floor of the room, it's erratic movement patterns and changing speed made it clear that it was being propelled by something other than momentum or gravity, but very few would guess that a Quirk was at work. The ball stopped in the dead centre of the room, and the black-clad figure that was Kuroiro stepped out of the ball silently, his appearance from the sphere defying any sense of spatial logic.

Kuroiro knew that he couldn't use his power on anything that wasn't black in colour, and the tests he had performed in this room told him that simply putting an object in a completely dark room wasn't enough to make it count as a black object.

It was an irritating setback, but Kuroiro was used to working with what he had in front of him, and he allowed himself a small measure of pride in his ability to improvise on the fly.

The darkened room had a purpose beyond helping Kuroiro work on his stealth, though that was still the skill that he spent to most time training and perfecting. Kuroiro wanted to know if he possessed the ability to detect where items he could use his Quirk on were without directly seeing them, as this would give him a great advantage in darkened environments.

Sure enough, if he closed his eyes and cleared his thoughts, he could feel a gentle 'pulling' towards several black objects in the room, from the black sphere to the opaque paper he had used to darken the room. Kuroiro focused on one of these sheets of paper and used his Quirk to leap into it, merging into the sheet with a silent motion.

Being trapped in 2D was a sensation that he suspected that he would never get entirely used to, but he was at least able to move around while restricted to two dimensions, it just took a little getting used to. Focusing again, Kuroiro outstretched his arm, pushing it beyond the confines of the sheet of paper and out of the object. To an outside observer, it would seem that an arm had simply appeared from the sheet of paper, with the rest of his body totally out of sight.

His test complete, Kuroiro silently leapt from the sheet of paper and back into the room. Once he had gotten used to being 3D again, Kuroiro grinned at his success, white teeth and silver hair drawing a dramatic contrast to his jet-black skin.

A hulking figure stood in a large field, stretching his pale-yellow arms in exhaustion as he prepared to continue his Quirk practise. A good distance behind him was a device that was built to shoot clay pigeons for rifle users to practise with, and despite this specific usage it would serve the boys needs fairly well. The device was set up just right so that it's projectiles would fly around ten metres in front of him, perfect distance to allow him to practise his accuracy.

As he heard the distinctive clicking that told him that the device was about to start launching it's projectiles again, Kojiro Bondo readied himself, the glue that was produced by his Cemendine Quirk flowing up to his golem-like eyes, ready to be released at a moment's notice.

The first disc flew free, spinning through the air before it reached Bondo's line of sight, and he fired the glue ahead of the disc in order to catch it and bring it to the ground, the main function of his Quirk. He had been practising with various distances and speeds of the discs for several days, and he had become fairly adept at intercepting them right along their flight path and landing his glue on the discs.

Sure enough, the glob of glue caught the disc on one side and quickly began to set, the sudden weight of the glue threw the disc off of its path through the air and sent it spinning to the ground, where the quickly-hardening glue rapidly bound it too the ground. Bondo knew that the glue's stickiness would decay after a time, but the disc would be stuck to the ground for around an hour, and it couldn't be removed without bringing a significant chunk of earth with it.

Bondo continued his practise like this for a time, catching every disc in the air, though some of his shots only scraped the edges of the disc, and so they weren't glued to the ground as well as they could have been. Bondo inwardly chided himself for this, knowing that fumbled or incomplete captures in real life could have serious consequences. Because of this perceived deficiency he pushed himself and tried even harder to get each shot and glob of glue dead on target, doing his best to imagine the training taking place in a real-life battle, and sure enough the last five discs were all hit dead on.

When the discs stopped flying, Bondo strode back to the machine to refill it with fresh discs, as the ones he had used were fused to the ground for a good while. As he refilled the machine, he silently thought about the UA Entrance Exam, and while he was aware that his intimidating size and physical strength would make whatever fight awaited him easier, it didn't make him feel any less nervous.

A diminutive figure was in the middle of a boxing gym, repeatedly attacking a hanging punching bag with a series of quick but well-focused strikes. Every so often, the boy would adjust his position or execute a practise dodge, knowing that his real world opponent probably wouldn't let him stand there and attack them with impunity.

Nirengeki Shoda was thoroughly exhausted at this point, having been training on-and-off for most of the day. Only fresh tape on his knuckles hid the myriad scrapes and cuts that he had acquired over the dozens of sessions that he had spent in this gym, and despite the sting that each punch caused, he kept going, working through the pain and continuing to attack the punching bag.

Shoda had based his fighting style on boxing for years, it let him better make use of his mobility and combined well with his Quirk, and resources and lessons on boxing were fairly easy to come by, letting him constantly find new techniques or old videos to study.

Pre-Quirk society used boxing and other forms of televised combat as a means of entertainment, as it was one of the most exciting forms of entertainment available at the time, and it provided a great example of the limits of human strength. Quirks had changed all of that, and now boxing matches were few and far between, and even the gym that Shoda frequently trained in was half-empty. Despite this downturn in boxing's prominence and popularity, the internet was still full of videos and interviews for Shoda to study, and he did his best to learn from these myriad examples.

Switching his stance slightly, Shoda activated his Quirk, feeling the mental switch and the slight feeling of static on his hands flare into life. Outwardly, nothing about Shoda's appearance or actions had changed, and he continued to punch with the same vigour and strength as before. But after every punch, Shoda felt the 'tagging' sensation as the punching bag was marked by his Quirk, though this change was still invisible.

Pushing himself harder, Shoda would strike the punching bag a few more times before hopping over to the next one along and punching that one instead, repeating the process for all ten of the punching bags along the row that he stood on. Once he had reached the final bag, Shoda gave it a few punches for good measure before stepping away and pausing to catch his breath. Shoda waited for all of the bags to stop swinging on their chains before uttering the words that would trigger his Quirk.

"Twin Impact."

As soon as the words left Shoda's lips, every single punching bag flew around wildly on it's chain, and it was only luck that prevented any of them from flying free. Every 'tag' that Shoda had placed had unleashed the latent energy within it, each one exploding at exactly double the strength of his initial punches.

Shoda grinned as he inspected his handiwork, before walking back to the first punching back to repeat the process.

In a Quirk training gym, a boy ran on a treadmill, an oxygen mask strapped to his face as he did his best to keep his form and breathing steady. The oxygen mask was hooked up to a monitor that registered his breathing rate and lung capacity, both of which were incredibly impressive for somebody of his age.

Then again, Kosei Tsuburaba had spent most of his life training his lungs, important as they were to his Quirk.

Endurance had been the focus of his training for the last week, as he knew that whatever UA had in store for him would likely be a fairly draining affair, and he wouldn't be able to do much with himself or his Quirk if he was too exhausted to use his power in any meaningful capacity.

Besides, running was at least relaxing, and the music that blasted through his headphones at least stopped him from stressing over the Entrance Exam. He had been running for over twenty five minutes at this point, and although he was capable of continuing for longer periods of time, this was his third repetition of this exercise today, and he wished to test his Quirk again before he totally keeled over.

Tsuburaba's arms and chest were still dotted with bruises from the close combat class he had taken last week, and he still ached whenever he stopped training for a moment. The trainer was an excellent teacher, and even though hand-to-hand combat wasn't really Tsuburaba's area of expertise, he had still picked up a great deal of helpful advice and techniques from the lesson. Despite that, the trainer was also little under seven feet tall and possessed an impressive strength-boosting Quirk, and he had thrown Tsuburaba into a wall on at least two occasions.

So it was a bit of a mixed experience overall, but at least he had gotten some good experience out of the whole affair.

A beep from the treadmill shook Tsuburaba from his thoughts, and a look at the digital timer on the device confirmed that the half-hour mark had passed. Tsuburaba ripped the mask from his face and turned on his heel to jog into the adjacent room, a large hall where gym users were free to use their Quirks.

Tsuburaba inhaled as much air as he could manage, triggering his Quirk as he did so. After holding still for a second, he exhaled, and unleashed a large orb of solidified air that hung in the air in front of him. Tsuburaba waited to catch his breath before observing the structure of the sphere.

Though he didn't fully understand the mechanisms of his Quirk, Tsuburaba knew that his Quirk didn't produce a one-to-one ratio of air, as the orb was about as tall as he was and just as wide. A rapped knuckle on the orb produced a tiny crack in the glass-like surface, and Tsuburaba sighed before turning back to the treadmill, determined to do better on the next repetition.

Author's Note

And here's my other new story, Underdogs follows the oft-neglected Class 1B, and it will show them having their own adventures and story arcs as the students grow as people and heroes. I've had a soft spot for Class B for a while and it's great to finally be able to write something about them.

This Chapter and the following one are mostly just introductions to the class, as I know a lot of people aren't very familiar with Class B and the student's Quirks so I thought that it would be an opportunity to refresh people on what they're capable of. The story will follow canon for a bit, but will divert at some point after the USJ, though Class A will mostly proceed as in canon as these changes won't affect them too much.

Characters and their Quirks will be the same as in canon, though both their personalities and Quirks are apt to evolve as the story goes on. The only change is some of the character's birthplaces, as I wanted to write in some childhood friendships for some of the characters.

This story will get a new Chapter every Tuesday and Friday, and like The New Heroes it will be a bit slower paced than usual as I want to give all of 1B a fair showing instead of leaving characters in the background for ages. After all, this story is all about being left out of the spotlight, and it doesn't make sense to leave half of the class in the background.

Thanks for reading, and I will see you on Friday for the next Chapter.