POV - Emmy

Learning a new language is a lot easier when you have sufficient motivation and, boy oh boy was I motivated. I hated, hated, hated not being able to talk to people when I wanted to.

I tried to memorize a library once, back when I first learnt that I kept all the memories of my duplicates. Seemed easy enough, given I could make dozens or hundreds of duplicates, all learning at the same time right?

Wrong.

I failed miserably, interest lost just hours later. Ignoring how conspicuous it would be to have a few dozen look-a-likes all enter a public area, book learning takes a lot of effort! Memorization isn't the same thing as understanding and while stacking memories like I can do may be an excellent way to help memorize things, it doesn't actually make me smart.

In practice, I could enlist the help of five duplicates, helping me cram an extra 5 hours of study into a single hour. But an extra 5 hours of staring at the squiggles on a page doesn't do much good if you're not interested. I'd probably be the first idiot to 100% pass university entrance exams, but only if sufficiently motivated.

I'm rambling, but the point I'm trying to make is that I rather detest book learning. There's a reason why I'd avoided going to school for the last few years.

With my future on the line, though, I had no real choice but to buckle down and hit the books. UA had made it abundantly clear that they were investing in me, so I felt it would only be fair to give it a good try. With all, I had to gain in this world by becoming a 'government-sanctioned' (and most importantly paid) hero, how could I not?

With that in mind, UA put me through my paces, figuring out where I was exceeding, and more often, where I was lacking in my education. With english as my only language, learning from most of the staff had to be put on hold for now. As such, most of my time each day was spent on this deficiency with Hizashi, AKA Present Mic.

As UA's English teacher, he was more uniquely suited to helping me shift to Japanese as my new primary language. I was somewhat embarrassed when he explained the purpose of honorifics like -san/-kun/-sensei/-nee etc, and how rude I was being when I kept leaving them off.

This was just one of the many pain points being new to the language. At least people could understand, if not forgive me, for being an ignorant American. Hizashi-sensei assured me I'd become so used to honorifics that I eventually wouldn't even notice I was using them. I hoped that would be soon.

Since I couldn't monopolize all of Hizashi-Sensei's time (the school year was still running after all), I spent a fair bit of time alone. Fukukado had her own job during the day, leaving me at UA to steal what time I could of Hizashi's in between his classes.

My days generally started with Fukukado dropping me off at UA before she started work. I'd then have to wait in whatever classroom was assigned to me that day for Hizashi to finish with his homeroom attendance. He'd come set me up with my coursework for the day and then head back to teach his own classes.

This is where principal Nedzu's plans for me began. In the first week of settling in and figuring out what UA could do to get me up to par, he'd invited me to his office for a cup of tea while grilling me over what I could do. He was particularly interested in how I'd tried to take advantage of the memory transfer part of my quirk.

It was one of his off-hand comments that ended up helping the most. His idea was both simple and annoyingly obvious. Every time a duplicate had a breakthrough in understanding, merge everyone back together before immediately dividing again.

Let all duplicates have the same breakthrough knowledge to benefit from, rather than just combining things at the end of the day. Made things a hell of a lot less tedious when each duplicate didn't struggle with something while the others were ahead.

With that in mind, Nedzu had Hizashi break my duplicates into several teams of five, assigning each group a specific aspect of the Japanese language to work on. Then, once every hour if no obvious breakthroughs had happened, I was to have everyone merge back into one entity, before splitting back out into their separate groups again. Passive understanding of what they were learning could be just as valuable as a breakthrough.

This meant that, for every cycle of one hour, each duplicate was getting at least 5 hours total of studying crammed into their brain every time they merged and divided, totaling 40 hours each per day! That's assuming that they didn't merge multiple groups together. The math just gets messier from there.

Times that by 5 for the number of Emmy's in each team and then again by 6 for the number of teams in the room and you had 1200 hours in an eight hour day. That's like a month of learning per day, if you thought of it as a 40 hour work week.

All this is assuming you were being conservative with the maths. Or at least, I think so. I'm not so hot with numbers and it's hard to quantify the actual gains I get.

Either way, I was happy enough about the refined learning process that I wanted to kiss Nedzu's furry little face. He politely declined.

I end up pretty mentally exhausted at the end of each day, but that felt like a small price to pay for picking things up so much faster. I made plans to do something nice for the principal as thanks. Maybe get a gift card or something to his favorite shampoo store?

My grasp of the local language wasn't the only thing they had me work on though. With how much more rested I was, along with the much better diet, I was able to keep out consistently more teams of Emmy's before I'd get headaches or bloody noses.

One of the heroes working at the school (named Ectoplasm? Some kinda ghost?) wanted me to try to keep as many Emmy duplicates out as possible for a time so that UA could observe it's effects on me if any. So long as they stayed within specific areas, they were allowed to do whatever they wanted (assuming it could be considered 'Self Improvement', anyway).

Some would go steal a little bit more of Hizashi's time if they could, clarifying things that we hadn't been able to figure out by ourselves, or presenting small speeches in Japanese that they had been practicing.

As Emmy Prime, naturally I needed to eat, so I would go hang out with Lunch Rush when I could. The Food Hero fast became one of my favorites at UA, and not just because any time they caught me without a snack, I'd soon find one in my hands. In those first early days, we barely shared more than a few common words, but he seemed happy enough with the extra couple squads of Emmy's that he could direct to help get food ready or served to students. It doesn't take much to mime "hey, chop this cucumber" or "keep mixing this for me".

He didn't really need the help, of course. He was literally "The Cook Hero: Lunch Rush". I'd been told he was able to prepare a full course french meal for 10,000 people after a natural disaster a few years ago. Hopefully I was more help than hindrance.

After a hard morning of study, it was nice to turn off my brain and still feel productive. It had nothing to do with all the delicious food I got to have. Except for maybe the raspberry slice. If the whole heroism career doesn't work out, maybe I'd have a future in the hospitality industry?

All in all, I felt like we were learning a lot here. Hizashi even made a point to say he was both amazed and wished his own students had my 'cheat' of being able to cram so many hours of study into an eight hour school day. Honestly, the thought of how much I was covering was dizzying. Even accounting for my lack of affinity for learning, I was becoming reasonably fluent in just weeks rather than months or years.

My time wasn't just spent on language or cooking though. While Nedzu and Hizashi were making the most of my duplication ability by assigning my sisters the classwork, Aizawa had made a special point of getting me, as Emily prime, to work on my fitness.

Given that duplicates were literally duplicates of me, it was hard to argue with his point that having a fitter template to work from would only make things better for me in the long run. They might not fatigued the same way I would, but they still could only really do what I was capable of. Sometimes less, given their fragile forms.

I wasn't exactly unfit, but living on the street does not a healthy body make. I had very little body fat. Worryingly little, according to Lunch Rush, who informed me just how unhealthy it was. At length. In Japanese. It took a while.

Especially getting across that it was dangerous because I also didn't have much muscle mass to go with my lack of fat stores. How could I get fitter if my body had no energy to burn in the first place? Thanks to that, I was put on a diet regime that was primarily encouraging healthy fats and proteins to help me build up my body. The energy for all the shenanigans that heroes get up to has to come from somewhere, after all.

Luckily for Fukukado, who was covering most of the bills for my daily living expenses, UA was willing to help cover my meal plan costs as part of their investment in me. She'd joked that she'd have to keep me around if it meant she got to enjoy such fine dining herself. I was just happy that we didn't need to be eating separate meals. Cooking two different sets of dinners to have ready at the same time so we could eat together… that would be a real pain.

As far as the exercise itself went, I spent most of the day in whatever un-used gym was available to help me get in shape for what I was informed would be needed for the school year.

These gyms would sometimes have obstacle courses or weights or just be empty, and I'd be expected to make the most of whatever was provided. My personal favorite was the parkour course, given that it was directly obvious how practical it would be.

Most days would see Aizawa-Sensei joining me in my exercising efforts. Our conversations as he walked me through stretches and exercise routines becoming less stilted as the days passed. My thighs in particular burned from the yoga exercises he forced me through. The man was surprisingly flexible!

I did wonder how Aizawa had so much time on his hands, considering that he was also meant to be a teacher here. In the end, I figured I must have been assigned more of his time as part of UA's investment in me.

Eraserhead wasn't the only one to supervise my fitness though. The first time I met Mr. Yagi, I thought there'd been a mistake. The guy looked like a stiff breeze would knock him over, with his gaunt frame, sunken eyes and the way he occasionally coughed blood into a napkin when he thought I wasn't paying attention. At least he spoke English. Apparently, he was going to be a new teacher for the next school year.

When he mentioned how he worked for the number one hero in japan though, I decided to put my concerns to rest. Surely the guy had to know his stuff if he was working for a strength-based hero, right?

Mr. Yagi wasn't around every day but did generally seem nice. He encouraged me to speak as much in Japanese as possible before having to resort back to English, which helped far more than I expected.

What was actually surprising was how incredibly knowledgeable he was about bodybuilding, healthy diets, and fitness in general. I didn't ask why he looked why he did.

He was also surprisingly patient with me, happy to play translator when I couldn't figure out how to ask Eraserhead certain things.

Finally, at the end of the day, Emi Fukukado would pick me up in her little clown car and we'd catch up on how each other's days went during the ride home.

That was another thing. I had a home. An actual place where I was welcome to come and stay without any (unfair) obligations. Living with Ms. Joke was more like what I imagined having a flatmate would be like. A somewhat annoying prankster (if good-natured) of a flatmate, anyway. As if I was sharing an apartment with someone while attending university.

When I'd mentioned that to her, she'd laughed and said I was much better at doing my share of the chores than some of her previous flatmates. I was grateful that she didn't try to get me to do more than my fair share just because I could make as many duplicates as needed. Instead, we'd each take turns cooking and cleaning, sometimes tackling the task together or one of us taking care of things when the other had a stressful day.

It just felt so… wholesome. Domestic even.

It chafed at me. I loved it just as much as I started to hate it. Which was how, after only three weeks, I found myself sneaking a duplicate out just to scratch that independence itch.

POV - Emberley

It was surprisingly easy to sneak out into the city, considering. Prime just had'ta go use the restroom before Emi drove her to school, letting me split off from her. We shared a very cheeky smile before she left, with Prime miming the shush gesture while they left, to which I just rolled my eyes. We have the same memories for gosh darned sakes!

Once they were gone, I could use my duplicated copy of the key to the apartment to unlock and re-lock the door behind me as I made my own way out. Fool proof.

I was being careful of course. I changed out of my copy of Prime's clothes, letting them dissolve into mist as they hit the floor, and pulling on some of the new clothes that had been given to us. It felt… weird… not being able to wear my Iron Man hoodie, but at least it wasn't the real one I was leaving behind. Since I was wearing real clothes though, I'd have to make sure I got back to the apartment safe. If I just popped where ever I was in the city when I was done exploring, they'd just fall on the ground. Prime wouldn't be pleased if I lost our new clothes. They had pockets.

Not that I assumed I would somehow pop. I wasn't planning on getting into any mischief, or jumping into fights with villains if I could help it. We just needed to feel free. Just a little bit. Being under constant surveillance, working our mind and body so hard every day was just getting to us. Having so many of our sisters out that we were stacking weeks and months worth of memories every day… We deserved a day off to exist along side all that, right?

And Prime was still going to school! So it's not like we were completely shirking our responsibilities...

That's how I justified sneakin' outta supervision anyway. The sunshine falling on my face as I exited the apartment helped, and I let those worries drift away on the crisp morning breeze. I had a city to explore!

Even with the few weeks I'd been here, I still found myself surprised and maybe even a bit disturbed at how people looked. I'd heard of furries back home, where people would dress up in animal costumes, but nothing really prepares you for seeing the real deal here.

Sure, the lady with bunny ears might not be so bad, but you try keeping your face straight when a dinosaur (read 'lizard' or maybe gecko?) tries to offer you something from their store.

"Oh, no thank you, sorry!", I said, doing my best to smile politely and letting my feet carry me further away. One of the first phrases I had learnt was already coming in handy.

My aimless wandering lead me further and further away until I found what I'd been hoping for, a smile gracing my face as I took in the sight.

The park was absolutely overflowing with how many people were here attending what must have been a "Sunday market" or fair or something. I could see carts laden with delicious treats, and tables covered with everything from toys to kitchenware and everything in between.

There was even a guy selling things out of his coat, which I figured had to be pretty shady. It filled me with warm feelings of home.

Some rather more reputable looking stalls were selling what had to be hero merchandise and directing people to see more at their store locations. The park itself was equally crowded with the customers to match all the different stalls and merchants. Parents with children, others just obviously tourists.

I basked in the bustling sounds of the crowd, feeling like a cat finally getting to stretch in a warm patch of sun. This was what I had been missing for weeks. This was what I could never allow myself to lose access to, no matter what.

I don't count myself as an extremely social person (what a shock, given that I can literally make my own friends who all think like me and enjoy the same things that I do), but there's something about being part of a crowd that just satisfies something deep within me.

One, deep, relieving breath. Two. Eyes closed as I breathed in the delicious scents on the air. Withonly an absent thought, I let myself split as I made my way further into the crowd. This was exactly what we wanted, so we were fully intending to make the most of this adventure as possible. Couldn't afford to do this kinda thing every day, so best to make it count.

Some of my sisters split off to watch a group of street performers, some others others to go taste the local food (taking a bit of the legitimately real money I'd brought with my right out of my pockets). The last of my sisters decided instead that they wanted to look at the hero merchandise. We wouldn't be able to afford any of it with how much money I'd brought with me, but maybe we could get an idea of what we would like to market if we ever that far into the hero business. We were basically our own production team if we wanted to be so at least our initial 'limited edition' merch could be cheap for us to make.

Me though, after doing the full tour of what was on offer here, I decided to go sit on one of the park benches to just take everything in. Wandering near one of the few benches with a free seat, I took a place at one occupied only by a single green-haired individual.

The green haired kid seemed kinda familiar, but given how many of my sisters had been running around since I got here, chances were he'd made his way past them at some point.

I'd tried to ask him if he minded me sitting with him but he seemed so into whatever he was scribbling in his notebook, mumbling away, that he didn't even glance at me as I sat with him.

I wasn't quite good enough at eavesdropping (or at Japanese) that I could understand the quiet blending words coming out of his mouth, but he seemed content enough that I figured I would leave him to it. At least... I would have if I hadn't noticed that the page he was writing on contained sketches of Iron Man. A hero who didn't exist in this world. I knew, because I'd checked.

Not Ironman, I realized, focusing in on how the 'armor' only covered the torso up. Those are drawings of me. A dozen of my sisters with the hood from our ironman hoodie up over …our face

One page was nearly covered in these sketches, various annotations pointing at specific areas, with the other page of the spread seeming to contain a list of notes. I could almost read...

Without realising, I'd drifted closer and closer, till I was practically hanging over his shoulder, gawking at his notebook. A very still, very red faced boy was staring at me in shock. Absently, I noted his green hair and red face kinda made him look kinda like a tomato.

'Ah! Sorry!" backing away hurriedly, repeating myself again in Japanese. Funny how panic can prevent you from remembering the good habits you built up. Honestly, by this point I'd accumulated hundreds of hours just studying the basics. You'd think I'd remember how to say hello and apologise properly.

I also saw a few of my sister duplicates curiously looking over but, on seeing no danger, they went back to enjoying the park fair.

"Uhh..." The green haired boy replied, equally eloquent in return. Well, at least the kid appeared to be about as good at first impressions as I was.

"I like your drawings, that's a hero, right?" Gesturing at his book.

His eyes lit up, before beginning an excited babble that I caught a few words of.

"Woah, woah!" I laughed, putting my hands up in the universal 'slow down' gesture. " Too fast! Japanese language student, still learning, yeah?"

"Ah, sorry, I'm a bit of a fanboy about" the boy was sheepishly rubbing the back of his head while he spoke. I was just glad that he'd slowed down significantly enough for me to translate as he went.

"This is one of the new vigilantes that had their debut a few weeks ago," He began, gesturing at one of the larger drawings on the page depicting the 'mask'.

"They've only been seen a couple times that I know of, but I watched them save a park full of people against an American villain named "Finger Guns".

He went on to talk about what he'd seen, postulating about how my duplication ability worked, expressing his excitement about them being 'thinking automatons' rather than just illusions.

Honestly, I found his enthusiasm as he spoke about me both creepy and... well... endearing. It was nice to be appreciated, especially by people that I'd saved. Mr Yagi had also explained that his boss often felt similar. There would always be overly excited fans, but their appreciation came from a good place.

Once again, I realized I had let my attention wander. It was a wonder that people put up with me.

"Ah. Sorry. I got a bit carried away huh?"

On the bright side, the kid didn't look as freaked out by my invasion of his personal space anymore. Speaking of, I shifted myself slightly further down the bench now that he wasn't actively showing the notebook to me. Close space was for close friends.

"Don't worry about it! It was definitely informative!" Smiling reassuringly at him, I put my hand out.

"Hi, I'm Emily. What's your name, Green-san?" I even remembered the honorifics.

His cheeks reddened slightly, before placing his hand in my own, shaking once before his hand darted back away."Midoriya Izuku".

His family name had the word for green in it? Did I get that right? Well oops. So much for not being offensive. I felt it was a bit on the nose for someone with green hair but I figured it wouldn't be polite for me to comment on it. Different cultures and all that. It wasn't like I hadn't known people with colors for names. A teacher named Mr White and a Farmer Brown among them.

"Emily-san?"

Ah shit.

"Sorry!" I could feel my own cheeks heating up this time. "I get a bit stuck in my own head sometimes".

Thankfully, he wasn't upset, given that he had done similar only just before Talking with Izuku was nice, especially since I hadn't talked to someone around my own age in a while. The kids in the cafeteria at UA when I was occasionally helping serve at lunch didn't really count. He seemed to relax more when I was slow at translating and stumbling though my responses.

Naturally I stumbled through my words more often in order to help him feel better. Definitely wasn't because I was still a major novice at speaking the language and still sucked at proper sentence structure. Of course not.

"So are you an exchange student, Emily-san?"

"Yeah!" my firm nod tuning to the side, "or at least I will be. Currently I'm training to try get into UA. I'm not quite there yet. Still need to work on my language skills and fitness for the most part..." I trailed away as I noticed his expression.

Izuku eyes seemed. How did that even work? Some kinda quirk?

"You're trying to get into UA?! UA, the #1 ranked High School for heroics, also considered as the top Hero Academy in the world.!? You must have an amazing Quirk! Would you mind telling me what it is?" The kid had grabbed his note book, leaning forward with his pen ready.

"Eheh… funny you should ask…" my guilty eyes seeing him turn from the page that showed my 'vigilante debut'. Izuku cocked his head, a quizzical expression adorning his face.

I caught the eyes of a few of my sisters and gestured them over. Izuku followed my line of sight.

His brow furrowed, looking back and forth. Mouth opened, finger raised before freezing, eyes wide and locked on the three of my duplicates coming to stand before us.

"Did we, uh, break him?" One of them asked, waving a hand in front of his eyes, before exchanging a glance with the others. "Is he okay?"

Another of them snapping her fingers in front of the frozen boy.

Definitely one of the more extreme reactions. "Maybe we shouldn't crowd him. Temporary merge?" The others shrugged, each grasping my hand in turn as they became one with me.

Izuku's eyes tracked the movement, mouth still open. When the last of the duplicates had finished dissolving back into me and he still hadn't said anything.

"Midoriya?" A worried tone entering my voice. Please don't actually be broken... Aizawa would be pissed off with me. I gently reached out a hand to touch him on the arm.

"Izuku?"

Thankfully at my touch, he seemed to burst.

"You're 'Legion'!" He practically exploded, before clapping his hands over his mouth. A few passersby glancing over at his shout. I ignored them.

"Legion?" I prompted him, trying to keep him from clamming up again. It's worth noting that he said the word in English.

Midoriya brought his book back up, pointing at his drawing of me. "Legion! The hero who was their own army! I started this entry back then, but I hadn't had a chance to fill in more details till today and now you're actually here!"

I hadn't found out the reasoning yet, but all the heroes in this country seemed to share the fact that their Hero names were in English. At least of the ones I'd heard of so far, anyway. And Izuku had given me my own hero name..

I wondered if Tony would have gotten a kick out of it. The 'Iron Legion' was one of his things, what with the many autonomous suits of armor.

"'Legion', huh" I whispered to myself, before looking back up at Izuku, grin tugging at my cheeks. "I like it. The one woman army hero".

A matching grin adorned Izuku's own face. "No wonder you're trying out for UA. With a power like that, you're practically guaranteed a spot for the hero course. Ectoplasm is teaching there too, who has a really similar power to you."

His head snapped up to look at me with an intensity I would have found rude If I hadn't been so surprised.

"Do you have a mind palace?!" The full weight of his gaze upon me as he asks.

"Uh... mind palace?" People get a palace in their minds here? Can just imagine the crappy web adverts. 'Real estate agents hate them'.

"Yeah! A place for where all your clones go in your brain while they aren't out here in the world! Some quirks upgrade the persons mental abilities to the point where they have to dedicate some portion of their mental faculties to maintaining a 'fictional' place." Flicking through his notebook, he flashed several heroes who apparently could do this. "Kinda like a lucid dream, you control every aspect of the area. Useful for also keeping memories and things like that organized. Most people reported with the ability have eidetic memories".

"Uh..." single finger scratching at my cheek, "I don't think I have that. Only got the one brain, y'know? They don't really exist until they split from me, able to think on their own once they have their own brain?"

The idea felt like such a cheat code (which I realized was a bit hypocritical seeing as I was my own autonomous labor force with the ability to learn faster through mass repetition). I'd be lying if I said the idea of instant recall after only learning something once wasn't appealing though.

Izuku left me to my thoughts as we broke into an easy silence, punctuated only by the sounds of his excited scribbling in his notebook, his eyes darting between me and the last of my sisters still wandering the stalls. The corners of my mouth kept tugging upwards. His enthusiasm was infectious.

When he eventually slowed down, he looked up at me, seeming unsure of how to word want he wanted to say. "By the way, Emily-san... You really shouldn't be using your quirk so blatantly in public, it's …"

"Illegal, yeah I know" letting out a breath in resignation. Figures I'd get us all in trouble the first time I try sneak a day off. "Are you going to report me?"

He just shook his head. "Plenty of people ignore that rule. It's a bit hard to enforce." Gesturing at some of the crowd with more obvious quirks, like flaming hair.

"Generally, you're safe so long as you're being careful." He absently rubbed his singed notebook. "Besides it would be kind of rude to tell on someone who helped save your life right?" The corner of his mouth quirked into a small smile.

"Fair point. I probably shouldn't push it though. I'll send someone to collect the others still wandering around".

With that, I let a piece of myself peel away. I felt a little self conscious about how hard izuku was staring at the process. His writing was actually pretty tidy, even without looking at the paper though he did accidentally write off the paper and onto his leg a few times.

Briefly, I wondered what his thoughts would be if he realized that I wasn't Emily prime. If the excitement that he had shown so far was anything to judge by, he probably wouldn't react with anything but pure glee.

As he watched my sister duplicate go collect the others, grinning every time he saw a pair of them merge together, I wondered about whether I should try keep in touch with this kid.

If his initial nervousness was anything to go by, I doubted he talked to women very often. Or anyone for that matter. I hope that I at least made his day a little better. The idea of having a friend that wasn't a teacher or one of my minders was pretty appealing too.

BOOM.

A flash and an abrupt absorbing of memories. My head snapped towards where my sister clone had been heading back to us, seeing only a faint mist that faded even as I watched. I couldn't even tell what had happened to them.

Sound returned. Screaming. People running in all directions. Chaos. Was the place under attack? I can't be seen here. Especially when I was already probably going to get into trouble for just existing outside of UA supervision. I could at least try to minimize what I could and get Izuku and I the hell out of here.

Short term plan set, I yanked Izuku to his feet, grabbing his bag and shifting it onto my shoulder as I began pulling us to one of the park exits.

Briefly, I let myself grumble. Why the hell were villain attacks so common here! I swear, ever since I got here it felt like you couldn't go a day without seeing one!

"Izuku!" His face snaps towards me. Good, he hasn't frozen. "Is there somewhere we can go nearby?!"

He nods, taking the lead and heading us in a different direction. In the distance, sirens could be heard, as well as what I assumed must have been heroes engaging whoever started the attack.

I hope no civilians get injured, although I noted Izuku look longingly over his shoulder towards the sounds of heroes and villains are fighting.

Neither of us noticed the pair of eyes that were locked on our retreating forms.