A Different But Similar Assignment

by Tactition101

It wasn't expected to work, just R&D humoring some wacko Celestial Dragon who wanted immortality for himself and maybe his fellow World Nobles. But this time, the experiment went right, although in a way that wasn't expected. But just because they are in a new world doesn't change the fact that they are still soldiers of Justice. They'll just be Heroes rather than Marines now.

7. Chapter 7

7. You Call Them Robots, I Call Them A Warm Up

Story Start: One Week Before UA Entrance Exam

All Might stared at his clenched fist. His obsidian clenched fist. It had taken him several months, but he had finally managed to get Armament Haki, the last of the techniques the Marines wanted to teach him, working.

Shave? Got it down in a day. Moonwalking took barely an hour. Rankyaku was a fifteen minute lesson and twenty minute practice given All Might was already used to creating shockwaves with his punches. Tekkai just took a morning for the Marines to be satisfied. Kami-e admittedly took a week but that was mostly because All Might had to leave the group the day that lesson was taught in order to deal with a 'minor' earthquake that had still managed to knock down a city block. (The company that had built said buildings were rather promptly sued for failing to follow safety codes, a depressing occurrence given it was hard to tell if a building fell due to the villain attacking it or shoddy construction) All Might had declined learning Shigan, and given he had shoved his whole hand into a tree trunk all the way up to his wrist with the fingers held straight, the Marines agreed that that technique would have been rather redundant to know.

Learning Haki turned out to be the hardest part. It took All Might four months to become proficient enough in Observation Haki that the Marines felt he didn't require further instruction and could train in it during his free time. But Armament, oh boy.

Seven Months. It had taken All Might seven months to get to the point where he could cover one fist with Armament Haki. The problem had been that All Might kept subconsciously using his Quirk to reinforce his limbs rather than Armament Haki. It took him a long time before he could find the 'well' of Haki and bring it past One For All's infusion of his entire body.

But through perseverance he had finally managed and the watching Izuku nodded in approval, the pair of them the only ones in the park. The other three lived just a bit too far to regularly attend these lessons so it was often just the two of them, though this did have the benefit of All Might able to stay in his 'True Form' when the others weren't around helping him save his precious 'Hero Form' time. Back to the present though, gesturing at All Might's hand, Izuku stated "Well done. When you manage to infuse your entire body with Armament Haki we'll teach you how to inject it into others. But for now, since you can use both All For One and Armament Haki in conjunction then I believe we can consider the training of what we set out to teach you complete."

"And none too soon given how UA's Entrance Exam is a mere seven days away." All Might mused to himself.

Izuku hummed to himself and changed topics as he asked "Any luck finding a successor yet?"

All Might allowed the Armament Haki to fade away and his body to go back into his 'true form' as he said "My former sidekick has brought a potential candidate to my attention but since I have you as a backup option I can take the time to properly observe him to see if he is the right fit." Toshinari coughed into his fist as he said "I'm somewhat afraid that Sir Nighteye only recommended him due to how much he resembles me, both in looks and attitude."

Izuku hummed at that and asked "So would this guy be anyone I know?"

"He is not yet a Pro Hero, but is instead a student who attends UA and work studies under Sir Nighteye. He will be a third year this school year." Toshinari stated.

Izuku cocked his head as he thought for a moment before he said "Well, the only second year from the last Sports Festival that I remember being blonde with blue eyes is Mirio Togata."

Toshinari nodded and confirmed "That's the one."

Izuku hummed again and said "If I'm remembering right, he's got a phasing quirk. It'll be pretty hard to explain why he can suddenly knock over buildings with a single punch if he's given One For All."

"True, but Sir Nighteye believes that he has a believable explanation we can use if Young Mirio is chosen." Toshinari stated with a small dismissive wave of his hand.

Izuku nodded at that and there was a comfortable silence between the two for a few minutes. Afterwards, Izuku gave a low sigh before he said "Well, I suppose this is where we part ways for now."

"Indeed Vice Admiral. Once more, thank you for the instruction you and your fellow Marines gave me and I'll see you in a month at UA." Toshinari said, offering his hand.

Izuku shook it with a nod and said "See you then Sir."

The pair released their grips and an instant later that section of the forest was once more empty of human presences.

Time Skip: Day Of UA Hero Course Practical Exam

Izuku stood in front of the Gate of UA. Standing on his right was Ochako while Denki and Tsuyu stood on his left. The four watched as student hopefuls streamed in and Izuku stated "Well, this is it."

"Yep." The other three said together and Ochako giggled as she said "I feel like I'm back at the Recruitment Office."'

That got laughter from the other three as well. A few moments later, Izuku took a mostly unneeded breath and said "Well, as they say, into the breach once more."

With that, the four Marines stepped forward and entered hallowed ground. The four split up when they reached a massive auditorium, moving for the seats they had been assigned. To Izuku's displeasure, seats were assigned by school and so he had to sit by Bakugo. The ash blond scowled at Izuku but thankfully didn't start anything and Izuku in turn did his best to ignore his presence in favor of analyzing the applicants as they filed in.

When it was time to start, the lights of the large room turned off, leaving only the lights over the stage on. Into this light stepped the Pro Hero Present Mic who practically swaggered up to the podium and called out "HELLO UA HOPEFULS! CAN I GET A YEAH?!"

"OORAH!" Denki called out causing Izuku to lightly snicker to himself.

"THAT'S CLOSE ENOUGH FOR ME LISTENER!" Present Mic called back with a grin shooting finger guns at Denki before he continued "NOW THEN, ALLOW ME TO TELL YOU HOW THIS PRACTICAL EXAM IS GOING TO GO DOWN. LIKE YOUR APPLICATION SAID, TODAY YOU ROCKING BOYS AND GIRLS WILL BE OUT THERE CONDUCTING TEN MINUTE MOCK BATTLES IN SUPER HIP URBAN SETTINGS!" The massive screen behind Present Mic shifted from the school's logo to a box with "You Are Here" written inside of it that was quickly surrounded by seven boxes lettered A through G and he continued "AFTER I DROP THE MIC HERE YOU'LL HEAD TO YOUR SPECIFIED BATTLE CENTER, SOUND GOOD? EACH SITE IS FILLED WITH THREE KINDS OF FAUX VILLAINS, POINTS ARE AWARDED FOR DEFEATING EACH ACCORDING TO THEIR RESPECTIVE DIFFICULTY LEVELS!"

Silhouettes of the three different robots appeared on the screen and a miniature Present Mic walked down a simulated city street, met by one of each type and 'defeating' them.

"OF COURSE, PLAYING THE ANTIHERO AND ATTACKING OTHER EXAMINEES IS PROHIBITED! LET'S ALL BE GOOD SPORTS LISTENERS!" Present Mic continued before one of the applicants stood up with his hand raised as he said "Excuse me, I have a question!"

"GO AHEAD LISTENER 7111!" Present Mic called out and a spot light shone down on the teen revealing a tall blue haired teen. Izuku could see the end of glasses poking out from over his ears from his spot behind the teen and going by how stiffly the teen was holding himself could tell that the kid was very much one who wanted everything to follow the 'Order of Things', something that was borne out when the teen spoke.

Holding up his explanation sheet and pointing at it, the teen stated "There appear to be no fewer than four varieties of faux villain on this handout! Such a blatant error, if it is one, is highly unbecoming for UA, Japan's Top Academy! We're all here today in the hopes of being molded into model Heroes!"

Before Present Mic could answer, Denki called out "Hey dumbass, ever think that's because there's a, oh I don't know, second part of the exam?" His question caused multiple people to snicker and Izuku to give a quiet sigh of "Come on Kano..."

Yeah, he had thought that the teen was jumping to conclusions as well but that didn't mean he'd just out right insult him for it like that. He did his best to ignore Bakugo being one of the people snickering.

The standing teen radiated indignant embarrassment in Izuku's Observation Haki but before he could fire off a retort Present Mic called out "ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT LISTENERS, LETS NOT DEVOLVE INTO NAME CALLING SHALL WE? TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION LISTENER 7111, THE FOURTH FAUX VILLAIN VARIETY GETS YOU ZERO POINTS! HE'S MORE OF AN OBSTACLE! HAVE YOU ALL PLAYED THAT RETRO GAME SUPER MARIO BROTHERS?! IT'S KIND OF LIKE A THRWOMP! ONLY ONE AT EACH SITE! A "GIMMICK" THAT'LL RAMPAGE AROUND IN CLOSE QUARTERS!"

As the teen bowed and apologized for the interruption, Tsuyu raised her hand and asked "Excuse me, sir, could I ask a question, kero?"

"WHAT'S UP LISTENER 8212?" Present Mic asked as the light that had been on Iida came onto her next.

Deciding against standing up, Tsuyu asked "How many robots are in each battle arena? I'd rather not take out a few hundred or so robots only for there to be none left for the others of my area, kero."

While her question got several people calling her arrogant, Izuku knew she wasn't exaggerating. As Vice and Rear Admirals, the Marines were well used to taking on non Yonko (or Giant) pirate crews by themselves. Even if they weren't back up to that level yet, going up against a bunch of robots? Those things might as well be soda cans.

Present Mic grinned and said "CONFIDENT, I LIKE THAT! BUT NO WORRIES LISTENER 8212, EACH BATTLE ARENA HAS A COUPLE THOUSAND ROBOTS IN IT, THERE WILL BE PLENTY OF POINTS TO GO AROUND!" Tsuyu nodded her understanding and as the light over her turned off Present Mic asked "ANY MORE QUESTIONS LISTENERS?!" When no one answered, he continued "THEN THAT'S ALL FROM ME! I'LL LEAVE MY LISTENERS WITH OUR SCHOOL MOTTO. THE GREAT HERO NAPOLEON BONAPARTE ONCE SAID 'TRUE HEROISM CONSISTS IN BEING SUPERIOR TO THE ILLS OF LIFE.' SO GO PLUS ULTRA OUT THERE! BREAK A LEG, EVERYONE!"

As everyone stood up to leave the amphitheater and get changed, Bakugo growled out "I'm gonna leave whatever pathetic score you get in the dust Deku."

"You will try Bakago." Izuku muttered before he slipped through the crowd leaving a furious Bakugo behind him.

Time Skip: Thirty Minutes Later

Izuku, now wearing a green track suit with a seagull with stretched wings on its back studied the testing site in front of him. None of the other Marines were with him, something Izuku would wager All Might had something to do with. Not that he blamed the Number One. Having two of the reincarnated Marines in one testing site would have been completely overkill, never mind three or heaven forbid all four of them going at it together.

Feeling a spike of anticipation, Izuku looked over his shoulder at the massive tower over looking all seven battle arenas. Sure enough, Present Mic was stepping up to the ledge of the large tower's roof. As such, Izuku was the only one of his group not caught off guard when Present Mic called out "AND BEGIN!"

While everyone else looked around in confusion, as the doors swung open, Izuku leapt up twenty feet in the air, swung the collapsed bo staff in his right hand out to assemble it then with a combination of Shave and Moonwalk shot over the heads of all of the contestants into the battle arena. A second later, the three closest robots to the gate, all of them one pointers were sparking wrecks on the street and Izuku was ten blocks in.

As he dropped out of Shave and rapidly tore apart anything green and metallic in the surrounding area, Izuku heard "WHAT'S WRONG? THERE'S NO COUNTDOWN IN REAL LIFE, THE TEST'S STARTED! RUN! RUN! THE DIE IS CAST!"

Izuku snorted a little in amusement at that even as he finished clearing the robots in the intersection he stopped at and entered Shave again, going further into the battle arena before coming out to take out another batch of robots. He did this solely for the benefit of all of the cameras in the area. After all, the people watching needed to be able to see him destroy the robots if he wanted to be credited their points.

Scene Change: With Ochako

Ochako was hopping from building to building at their roof top levels with her Quirk active on her body. (more specifically, she was leaping off of the tops of the buildings' sides) With every leap, Rankyakus were launched from her limbs slicing apart robots, both on the top of the buildings and down on the street leaving nothing but sparking remains for the rest of the contestants who had tried to go down the middle street of the testing site. (Well, nothing but sparking metal until the robots in the buildings themselves came out to replace those destroyed.) Quickly reaching the other end of the testing site, Ochako landed back on the street and turned around. Seeing more robots coming out of the buildings, Ochako put her hands together, the first segments of her fingers touching back to back and rolled them, earning a few popping joints. The next moment, she reactivated her quirk on herself, this time at half power and charged the three pointer that came rolling out of the closest alley, slapping a hand on its shell before picking it up and hurling it at a bunched up group of one and two pointers, canceling her quirk on the three pointer just before it hit and knocking them all over like bowling pins even as she moved onto the rest.

Scene Change: With Tsuyu

Those who thought Tsuyu was arrogantly talking out of her ass earlier had to abruptly readjust their opinions of her as they watched her blurred form leap from robot to robot, covering several dozen feet in single leaps each time, kicking off the robots and hurling them into walls with crushed inwards as she kept constantly moving. And it wasn't just her powerful legs in action either. Her tongue also shot out, punching through other robots or wrapping around them in order to hurl them at others that were hiding in the alley ways. Those contestants following her down the entrance street were quick to learn to allow her to get plenty of headway so that way they could at least get the robots that were coming out of the buildings after she passed through.

Scene Change: With Denki

The moment the exam had started, Denki had zipped over to the first man hole cover in the street (UA really hadn't spared any expense in making the battle field realistic) leaving sparking robots behind him that collapsed after their systems were short circuited. Soon as he was on the plate, Denki surged electricity into it causing it to float twenty feet up into the air. Now madly cackling, Denki sent streamers of electricity out to the robots he had disabled and all of the test takers behind him gave nervous gulps as all of the weapons detached from the robots (Some with limbs ripped out of the rest of the body to do so). Said weapons were drawn towards Denki and began orbiting him even as he turned his attention towards the robots ahead of him. Moments later, his purloined weaponry opened fire, destroying even more robots even as Denki floated down the street with arms crossed. And every robot he destroyed had their weapons assimilated to the orbiting mass around the blond, adding further to the fire power he had.

As Denki continued cackling, throwing the occasional bolt of electricity at a robot along with making his captured weapons fire, one particular student hopeful watched with stars in his eyes for a few moments as he shouted "THAT IS SO MANLY!" A moment later though, he shook off his awe and quickly ran for another section to get his own points.

Scene Change: Practical Exam Observation Center

In a darkened room lit up only by the multiple screens showing the examinees, a small being took a sip of tea before it set it down on its plate and said "I see now why you told us to keep those four seperated All Might."

"Those four are making off with the points like bandits." A teacher wearing a cowboy hat and a mask stated.

"It's like watching members of the Top Ten at work." A teacher wearing a space suit marveled.

"What I want to know is how that electro kinetic is destroying the robots with their own weapons since they're loaded with rubber bullets." A hero wearing the bucket of an excavator as a helmet said with a frown.

'He's probably sending armament haki through the strands of electricity connecting him to the guns and from there into the bullets.' Toshinari thought to himself with narrowed eyes.

The teachers continued to watch as the test takers did their best to rack up the points. The four examinees they were talking about at the start continued outperforming the rest but as the minutes ticked down to the end the teachers saw them occasionally pause in their focused destruction to help others, from Ochako lifting up a large three pointer that had pinned a test taker to the wall when it's steering had been destroyed to Kaminari sending empty weapons to form a wall around contestants who were about to be overrun, allowing them to catch their breath. Tsuyu was seen wrapping a test taker with a limp with her tongue to pull them away from a missile that another three pointer had launched, and Izuku suddenly came out of Shave back to back with another contestant, bo staff deflecting the swing of a one pointer when it tried to take advantage of the contestant's tunnel vision on the robots in front of them.

These acts and more played out on the screens and the teachers made a note of each instance, most nodding in approval whenever they spotted said instances, as they did whenever the other test takers helped someone else out as well.

As the time wound down towards two minutes, one of the female teachers said "This year's quite the bumper crop, huh?"

"Perhaps, but this should tell us more about their true natures." The smallest being in the room said, nodding to the bucket headed teacher who in turn nodded as he flipped up a clear plastic panel over a button labeled YARUKI SWITCH and pushed it.

Scene Change: With Izuku

Izuku yanked his bo staff out of the side of a one pointer even as he looked to his side and asked the girl with an acid based quirk (HAH!) "You alright?"

The pink skinned and haired girl nodded and said "Yeah, thanks for the save."

The next moment, Izuku, the girl, and everyone else in the section they were in felt a massive shudder rumble through the ground and a moment later the ground exploded upwards as a massive robot larger than most of the buildings appeared four city blocks away where a large city block sized park had been.

"Oh my god." The acid user whispered out in a combination of fear and amazement.

As the massive robot lifted up an arm to crush the top corner of the closest building on its right, Izuku frowned and said "Me and Present Mic have two very different definitions for the word 'gimmick'." Giving the acid user a gentle nudge to snap her out of her shock, he ordered "Begin evacuation of the area, I'll deal with the Not So Jolly Green Giant."

"Huh? Deal with-" The acid user asked in confusion only for her eyes to widen as her brain caught up with her ears and she shouted "Hey wait-!"

But it was too late as Izuku was already gone, Shaving forward before skidding to a stop a city block from the robot. As panicking test takers ran past him away from the 0 Pointer, Izuku pushed the button on his bo staff and the knife blades swung out, already gleaming black with armament haki. Glaring up at the massive figure before him, Izuku took a stance and then began spinning his staff in circles on either side of him, making a bent infinity symbol as he called out "TEMPEST STORM!"

The barrage of wind blades slammed into the base of the 0 Pointer then walked their way up the middle of its torso leaving a two inch wide slice almost completely through the robot, intentionally stopping a mere six inches from exiting the back. The perfectly straight line went right up to the top of the exhaust vent mounted above the robot's head and Izuku stopped swinging his staff in loops, smoothly bringing it to a stop resting on his shoulders with hands resting easily on its shaft.

There was silence for a few seconds...then, the 0 Pointer slumped forward with a loud metallic groan, a few explosions coming out of its torso region from where Izuku had cleaved into its power generators.

Scene Change: With Tsuyu

The 0 Pointer rocked side to side on its treads as a green blur shot all around it, large parts of its plating crumpling inwards as Tsuyu fouled up shoulder and elbow joints, kicked its head from below so hard it was now resting against its segmented back, held in the air only by the strong hoses that went from the head to the rest of the robot, and just to be thorough, kicked off each of the fingers from the hands, every single one of them slamming downwards through the metal plating over the treads and burying themselves into the ground under said treads.

Scene Change: With Ochako

The 0 Pointer flailed around in the air, currently floating a hundred feet over the buildings. Ochako shot up into the air behind it and took a quick look around. A moment later, she zipped to the right side of the robot and gave it a hard kick.

The 0 Pointer rapidly flew through the air over the city scape, reaching the edge in just four seconds. Ten seconds into its flight, it was over a wide open space and Ochako placed her finger pads together as she said softly "Release."

Immediately after, the robot's level flight took a sharp nose dive and it slammed down into the ground throwing up a large spray of dirt as it buried itself roughly twenty feet into the ground and digging out a trench of a few dozen feet as it skidded to a stop.

Scene Change: With Kaminari

Kaminari zipped over the rooftops of the last city block seperating him from the 0 Pointer of his area. As he came in range from the left side of the robot, all of the not so insignificant number of weapons surrounding him oriented on his target and opened fire as Kaminari began flying higher. This made the robot stop moving and focus on Kaminari for the few seconds it took him to reach its head where he leapt off of the man hole lid he had been riding since the start of the exam.

Landing in a crouch, Kaminari grinned as he slammed his hands down on the metal and he lit up like a star flare as electricity surged off of his body and into the robot underneath him. Within seconds the metal heated up to its melting point and the 0 Pointer sagged as Kaminari turned its outer shell and joints into slag, not to mention fried all of the computer equipment inside of the head.

Scene Change: Practical Exam Observation Center

As most of the teachers stared in shock, the Principle gave a delighted laugh as he said "Oh, very impressive!"

"Damnit, it's going to take forever to replace those." The bucket headed teacher groused.

The female teacher from before took in a deep breath before she said "Okay, I'm going to go ahead and say what everyone else is thinking: What. The. HELL?"

As the Marines all moved to help those who were trapped or injured by the 0 Pointers' short rampages, in the back of the room, Toshinari grinned wide enough to split his face as he thought 'Well done Marines.'

His grin was still there when the exam ended just over a minute later.

Time Skip: One Week Later, Midoriya Household Kitchen

Izuku popped the seal of the letter from UA off with a finger. (And wow, talk about fancy that was real wax!) Reaching into the envelope, Izuku took a quick glance at the folded sheath of five sheets of paper. Seeing 'PLAY HOLOGRAM BEFORE READING' printed on the fold facing him, Izuku set it down on the table and reached into the envelope a second time for the concave disk that was about the size of the palm of his hand and with Inko watching on in eager anticipation, pushed the play button on the side.

The hologram projector hummed as it projected a large screen that was blank for only a moment before All Might's grinning face appeared taking up the entire screen as he boldly declared "THIS IS A PROJECTION WITH A MESSAGE FROM UA HIGH SCHOOL!"

Inko jerked back in surprise, hand going to her chest in shock. A moment later, All Might leaned back from the camera showing he was wearing a yellow pin striped suit. Still grinning, All Might stated "I AM HERE, TO GIVE YOU YOUR EXAM RESULTS! FIRST OFF, THE WRITTEN EXAM! YOU'LL BE PLEASED TO NOTE THAT YOU SCORED IN THE TOP TEN PERCENT OF ALL OF STUDENT HOPEFULS! AS AN ASIDE, YOU MAY WISH TO STUDY UP A BIT MORE ON YOUR PERIODIC TABLE AND CHEMICAL CHAINS!

"NOW THAT THAT IS COVERED, LET'S GET TO WHAT YOU'RE MOST LIKELY TRULY INTERESTED IN, YOUR RANKING IN THE PRACTICAL EXAM SCORE! AS YOU NO DOUBT ALREADY KNOW, YOU AND YOUR THREE COMRADES FAR OUTSTRIPPED THE OTHER TEST TAKERS IN POINTS GAINED BY DESTROYING ROBOTS. AND YET, WE DID NOT COUNT JUST THOSE POINTS WHEN CALCULATING YOUR SCORE! AFTER ALL, WE BOTH KNOW THAT IT IS NOT JUST A HERO'S JOB TO DEFEAT VILLAINS BUT TO HELP THOSE IN NEED AS WELL! AS SUCH, ALONG WITH VILLAIN POINTS, WE AWARD RESCUE POINTS!

All Might gave a thumbs up as two numbers appeared on the screen behind him and he continued "1,295 VILLAIN POINTS! 227 RESCUE POINTS! COMBINED TOGETHER, YOU EARNED A GRAND TOTAL OF 1,522 POINTS! CONGRATULATIONS! YOU BEAT THE PREVIOUS ENTRANCE EXAM RECORD BY AN ABSOLUTE LANDSLIDE! AS DID YOUR COMPANIONS!"

The two numbers on the screen were joined by the third then columns of numbers fill out below them as a grid appeared with names on the left.

1. Izuku Midoriya: 1,295 227 1,522

2. Uraraka Ochako: 1,235 249 1,484

3. Asui Tsuyu: 1,255 225 1,480

4. Kaminari Denki: 1,278 195 1,475

5. Katsuki Bakugo: 77 0 77

6. Eijiro Kirishima 39 35 74

7. Ibara Shiozaki 36 32 68

8. Itsuka Kendo 25 40 65

9. Tenya Ida 52 9 61

10. Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu 49 10 59

'Bakugo's probably blowing his top right now for being in fifth place with such a large disparity of points between his and Kuno's scores.' Izuku thought in amusement.

All Might gave a boisterous laugh as he said "NEEDLESS TO SAY, YOU'RE IN!" Holding a hand out to the camera, he finished with "COME MIDORIYA, THIS WILL BE YOUR HERO ACADEMY!"

As the hologram turned off, Inko hugged her son hard enough he instinctively coated his ribs in Armament Haki to keep her from accidentally breaking one of them. Tears of joy in her eyes, Inko declared "This calls for a celebration!"

As she zipped into the kitchen to grab the large cake with CONGRATULATIONS written on the top icing she had bought that very morning, Izuku huffed in amusement before he turned serious and thought 'Well, here's the starting line, three years to reach the finish line.'

END

Author's Notes: I apologize for the massive delay in between the last updated story and this one. Four weeks ago, I managed to get a new job working at a cinderblock plant factory and in between the job being a Monday through Friday 7AM to 5PM job and me and my mother doing the Ultimate Outsider challenge, there hasn't been much time for 'Me' activities like writing. Hopefully I'll managed to get used to my new schedule soon so I'm not conking out for a couple of hours after getting home each day and can write some more.