The following is a nonprofit fan-based parody all rights reserved to Brandon Sanderson and Horikoshi Kohei. Please support the official releases.
Izuku fought against the surf as he swam laps. He was ten or twelve meters out from the beach and he constantly had to course-correct so the tide wouldn't pull him back into shore or too far out to sea. The weather had been getting warmer so he could finally start to follow Mr. Yagi's advice and add swimming to his workouts. As he swam he lifted his face from the water for a breath and looked to the beach to see if he had reached his turn around spot. This month he had successfully finished clearing out a swath of beach about 50 meters wide. He was using the trash heaps that still existed on either side of the clear section as markers for where to turn back as he swam so he knew that each roundtrip was roughly 100 meters. After completing his tenth lap, Izuku swam one more at a slower pace to cool down before leaving the water. He was breathing heavily as he went and the familiar burn in his muscles let him know he had a successful workout. Walking up the clear sand to where his bag was at the bottom of the stairs, Izuku stretched and rolled his shoulders to prevent stiffness from settling in. When he got to his bag, Izuku reached in and pulled out a towel and began to wipe off any excess water. A few moments later Izuku was wearing a dry shirt and had his shoes and socks back on ready to continue the garbage disposal for the day.
"Good form out there, Midoriya," Izuku heard Toshinori say as the thin man carried some junk up the steps to his truck.
"Thank you, Mr. Yagi," Izuku responded happily.
When the man made his way back down he stopped next to the youth and the two took a moment to look out over the beach at the progress they had made.
"We are almost halfway done," Toshinori said as the two observed their work.
"Just in time," Izuku remarked, "when we started I had ten months until the UA entrance exam. Now we are only six months away. If we keep up this pace, then I will have a month before the exam to focus on studying and practicing for it."
"You're lucky you started using your quirk when you did, it sped the process up." The older man commented before getting back to work.
Izuku blushed slightly at the comment because it reminded him of the unease he used to feel regarding his abilities. Now that he had grown so accustomed to using them, he could hardly believe that he had ever been hesitant in the past. Shaking the thought from his mind, Izuku left for the portion of the beach he had been working on this week. As he was leaving he grabbed a roll of heavy-duty bags as well. He had finished hauling away most of the big stuff yesterday so he planned to pick up the little things today.
"Izuku," Sera's bright voice called to him as he walked, "are you finally done playing in the water?"
"You know I wasn't playing," the teen said, giving the spren a faux stern look before the two partners smiled at each other. "Find anything interesting while you were out wasting time?"
Sera giggled at the return jab and floated along at Izuku's side, "I saw a stray cat. I still find it so interesting how furry the animals around here are. Animals like that were very rare on Roshar."
Izuku shuddered as he thought of what she had told him about her original world. How anyone could find the idea of giant crustaceans normal or even preferable to the fauna of earth Izuku would never understand. He had once seen images of a coconut crab and it was nightmare-inducing. Thinking about a creature similar to it but the size of an ox was too much for him. Pushing aside the topic he looked at his small ephemeral friend. She was the same as always with a bright and sunny disposition. She had started getting more memories of her homeworld, which she loved to share with Izuku, but she still seemed to have a hole in her memory surrounding how she got here. Izuku hoped to find the answer but at the same time, he dreaded it. If they found out how she got here, then she could probably use similar means to return home, and even though he was secure in their friendship, Izuku feared that she would want to leave more than she would want to remain with him. He cared about her too much to deny her something like that, so if she wanted to leave then that would be goodbye.
"Izuku are you even listening to me?" the spren's insistent voice pulled Izuku from his musings.
"Huh?" Izuku said reflexively.
"Jeez, what would you have done if this happened while you were a hero and a villain had snuck up on you?" Sera accused.
"Then I would have you to warn me," Izuku responded.
"Of course you would," Sera said back haughtily, "but you shouldn't always rely on me you know."
Izuku chuckled and bent down to start filling one of the bags he had with trash and Sera got back to telling him all about the exciting adventures of an alley cat.
The next day Izuku was back at work moving garbage, though, now he was once more using his powers. He had discovered as he grew more familiar with the power that it appeared to have two aspects. The first was the familiar one that he had seen Sera use since he was a child. Which Sera had told him was called adhesion. It was essentially the ability to bind objects together and it worked by using herolight as a glue between two objects or surfaces. The application of herolight could be done by either touch or from a distance though with a greater distance the process became less efficient as the herolight dissipated into the surrounding air. The bond that was made was incredibly strong. Izuku had tested it one day with a broken chair, he had sprayed the retaining wall with Light and stuck the chair to it, then climbed up onto the chair. Even with his whole weight on it, the chair hadn't moved. He had even tried jumping on it but stopped when the seat started to crack. As far as he could tell, an adhesion bond would only end when the herolight ran out or he pulled it back into himself.
The second ability was called gravitation, if Sera's memory was to be believed, and with it Izuku could alter the pull of gravity. Izuku had discovered this power as he made more and more use of herolight. He began to sense that there seemed to be two channels inside of him that he could push the light through to alter how it affected what he pushed it into. The first one was familiar and activated adhesion. After some practice, however, he eventually learned how to use the second and managed to use the new power on a tennis ball he had found amidst the junk. Not knowing what else to do, he tried placing the ball on the wall in front of him. He wasn't sure what to expect but was shocked when he let go to see the ball rolling up the wall. Picking the ball back up, Izuku held it in his fist and noticed that instead of the familiar pull of the ball's weight down onto his hand, he felt the ball pulling to the side. Opening his hand he watched in wonder as the ball fell to the wall and bounced as if it had fallen to the ground. He had then tried using the power on himself, he knew that he could make himself stick to walls with adhesion from his experience on the day he had first met Toshinori on the beach, but to leave the wall he had needed to cancel the power. With this new ability, Izuku was able to walk on the wall as though it were the floor.
This discovery had led to a lot of speculation concerning what he could do with this power, because if he could make himself walk on walls, then what would happen if he were to reverse gravity on himself completely. As much as he wanted to experiment with the power, however, he held himself back for now. He didn't want to accidentally send himself rocketing through the air and force Kamui Wood to follow through with his threat so all thoughts of flight were placed on hold, for now. Today, instead, he was planning to test if it was possible to mix the two aspects of his power and if it was, find out what the results were. Izuku studied the piece of junk that he planned to use in the experiment. It was an old wooden table leg that had lost any paint or stain after the time it had spent on the beach. As he studied it Izuku tried to theorize what the results could be.
"Though they appear completely distinct, adhesion and gravitation can be seen as complementary forces. Maybe it will but create a stickyobjectthatfallsinaspecificdirectionandbutthatwouldn'treallybemixingthepowersjustapplyingthembothtotheobjectSerasaysthatthenatureofthepowersisn'tcompletelyliteralandthattheyinsteadinteractwiththespiritualconceptsofadhesionandgravitationbutshedoesn'tevenknowwhatthatmeanswellenoughtoexplainitsoIamcompletelylost,maybeIshouldjustgiveupcompletelyonthisideabuttherehastobesomereactionIjusthopeitdoesn'tcreatesomekindofsupermassiveblackholethatsucksalllifeinandendstheworldasweknowit,nostopIcan'tbesopessimisticmaybeitwillinstead…"
"Izuku!" Sera suddenly shouted directly in his ear, "you're mumbling again."
"What?" Izuku blinked as he was pulled from his cognitive spiral. "Oh sorry."
"No worries, you are getting better at not doing it so often. You are just lucky there are no logicspren around here or you would be swarmed by them all the time." Sera said with a smile.
Izuku smiled through his confusion at the topic, though he could somewhat piece together what she meant from what he had learned about her homeworld, and decided to ask her about their planned experiment
"Do you know what will happen if I mix the two?"
"Nope," She responded quickly, "I remember vaguely that these powers were called surges and that each order of the knights radiant had access to two of them, but I can't remember anything about combining the powers."
"Oh well," Izuku said, accepting that his friend's memory was still incomplete, "here goes nothing."
Grabbing the table leg from one end he channeled herolight through both conduits at once before pushing both streams into the piece of wood. He felt the two slightly altered streams of energy mix and Izuku quickly cut off the power, not wanting whatever resulted to be too strong to control. Normally when he used his power it resulted in the object he had imbued glowing with herolight while being affected by either adhesion or gravitation, the effects of his powers ending if he either reabsorbed the Light or if the Light completely dissipated over time. When he finished imbuing the table leg, however, it was different. Instead of being luminescent with herolight the end of the wood was darker, like the light around it was getting sucked in. It wasn't pitch dark and in shadow you might not notice it at all but in the bright rays of the sun, it was noticeable enough. Making a mental note of the effect for later, Izuku then moved on to the next test and placed the table leg against the retaining wall to see if it would stick, and nothing happened. He tapped the table leg against the wall a few more times and again there was no discernible difference than if he hadn't placed any power into it at all. Discouraged by the lack of any significant finding Izuku dropped the table leg to go write down what had happened. As soon as he let go of the object, however, Izuku saw that the light dimming effect vanished. Normally if he didn't consciously drain the herolight the glow would stay in an object for at least a minute or two. Having the effects of his power end immediately was new and Izuku quickly grabbed the table leg and inspected it.
"What happened, what'd I miss?" Sera asked at Izuku's sudden reaction.
"Whatever the effect that mixing the two surges has, apparently, requires touch to operate. Why would that be? Could it be that it needs a constant influx of new Light to stay active? no, I charged enough herolight for it to have run for at least a minute or two. Maybe I need to be in contact to balance the two distinct signatures of each surge, that is possible though there is no way to make a control to test if it is true-"
"Sounds like you need to do more tests," Sera said, preventing Izuku from falling into another muttering spree.
Izuku looked to Sera then smiled. "Always," He said cheerfully.
Running to grab his notebook, Izuku held the table leg under his arm so that he could record his current findings as well as some of the hypotheses that he hoped to test. When he finished writing, Izuku placed his pen behind his ear and grabbed the piece of wood keeping his open notebook in his other hand. Activating the mixed power again, Izuku took care to charge it slowly to see how it reacted as he added more herolight. As he watched it, the light dimming effect seemed to intensify rather quickly as he added more herolight. It appeared that this ability was much more cost-effective than the other two at the expense of having a lower range. Wanting to record the finding, Izuku passed the leg to the hand holding the notebook, taking care not to lose contact with it, and pulled his pen from his ear to jot down the find. However, when he placed the pen back behind his ear it wasn't positioned correctly, causing the pen to fall. Turning so he could catch it, he was instead shocked to see the course of the pen's flight veer to the side and then pull toward the shadowed stick in his hand. Izuku's eyes bulged in surprise and excitement. Running quickly to a pile of junk nearby, Izuku grabbed a loose handful of various random bits and pieces then made his way over to where Toshinori was working.
"Mr. Yagi, Mr. Yagi," Izuku called.
The older man looked to Izuku curiously just in time to see the boy shove the handful of scrap at him.
"Throw these at me, please," Izuku said excitedly.
Later as Izuku finished noting down the results of the experimentation in his notebook. He tried to ignore Sera's giggles from near his ear.
"Why are you still laughing about it?" Izuku asked exasperatedly.
"Because the look on his face was hilarious, then you were just tripping over your words trying to explain yourself for like five minutes. How can I not laugh?" Sera explained.
Turning away from the spren Izuku focused back on his notes. It appeared that his new ability was, in a way, the reverse of gravitation. Rather than making what he touched feel the pull of gravity differently it instead made it have a gravitational pull on everything else, but it seemed to be more effective if whatever it was pulling was already in flight. After some more experimentation Izuku found that it was possible to pull something stationary but it took an exorbitant amount of herolight to power his reverse gravitation up to that point. Sera had reassured him that as he swore more ideals his powers would increase in potency so Izuku contented himself with being able to redirect projectiles. As he closed his notebook Izuku smiled, thinking about how grateful he was for the abilities he now had. Standing up with determination Izuku refocused on his current task of cleaning the beach.
Izuku stared at the small piece of scrap suspiciously. It was part of a broken drill bit and by all indications, it should be inconsequential, except that it was glowing and not in the same nebulous fashion that other objects did when Izuku pushed his power into them. Instead, it sparkled like it was covered in tiny Christmas lights. This discovery was made by accident while Izuku was performing another test with adhesion. He had been trying to see if it was a more efficient use of stormlight to apply adhesion to a large surface to stick a large number of smaller objects to it, or if it would be more efficient to apply the power to each smaller piece individually and then stick them to the larger surface. He knew that timewise just painting a large surface with herolight was the way to go. But, if he had the time and was more worried about conserving energy he wanted to know if he should change his tactics. So he had been meticulously charging each piece of scrap when he had suddenly felt an odd drain on his reserves and noticed the new phenomenon.
"Sera" Izuku called out, getting her attention, "Do you have any idea what this is?"
"Hm?" the spren emoted as she flew over to see what he was talking about. "Ooh, pretty."
"Yeah, but what is causing this, any idea?" Izuku asked
"Um," Sera's face contorted as she searched her memory. "Well, do you remember how I told you how that on Roshar stormlight is collected during highstorms?"
"Vaguely," Izuku said, trying to remember back to that conversation.
"Well, in order to keep the light between storms it was stored in gems until they wanted to use it," Sera explained.
"What kinds of gems?" Izuku said intrigued by the new information.
"I… can't remember the details," Sera said, becoming slightly disheartened that she couldn't answer the question.
"That's fine," Izuku reassured her, "this is already a huge breakthrough, we just have to figure out what is on the end of this drill bit."
Looking at it once more Izuku considered what Sera had said about storing power for later. If he could figure out the mechanics of this it could be a way to mitigate his reliance on caloric intake for his powers. He could spend his time building up stores of energy outside of combat so that he would be in less danger of becoming debilitated by hunger in the middle of a fight. Experimentally, Izuku focused on the sparkling points of Light and inhaled the power, immediately the lights on the end of the broken tool winked out and Izuku felt his reserves fill slightly.
"Let's see if Mr. Yagi knows anything about what this is made of," Izuku said to the spren at his side and the two made their way over to where the older hero was packing garbage into his truck.
"Mr. Yagi, could you help me out with something?" Izuku called as he approached.
Toshinori straightened up and looked at his young friend nervously, his mind flashing back to last week when the boy had frantically asked him to launch projectiles at his face. Seeing that the boy had another piece of scrap in his hand but not wanting to be rude he hesitantly replied.
"Of course, Midoriya, what can I do for you?"
When he was close enough Izuku held up the broken tool and pushed some of his herolight into it, dazzling Toshinori as the end was covered in brilliant specks of light.
"I was using my powers to collect small bits of garbage and as I was putting my power into them I noticed that this seemed to take in more light than normal, and upon closer inspection, I found this odd phenomenon. Whatever is on the end of this drill bit appears to act as some kind of energy storage device for herolight."
"Hmm," Toshinori puzzled over the information he had been given. Izuku had explained to him that with his power he had to use it or it would just sit inside of himself until it slowly leaked out. A few weeks ago Izuku had also discovered that if he focused he could hold in the light which kept him from glowing and helped him hold his charge longer, but this was the first time that he had discovered anything close to an alternate way to store his unique type of energy. Toshinori quickly recognized that being able to have a store of herolight that didn't rely on the speed of the human body's metabolic processes would be an enormous benefit for the young hero so this was a great discovery. Taking the small piece of junk from Izuku, Toshinori looked at it closely.
"It appears," he said after a moment of inspection, "that this is a diamond-tipped drill bit."
"Wonderful," Izuku said with a despondent sigh, "good to know that this aspect of my quirk relies on something that is so accessible."
"Don't be so down Midoriya," Toshinori said energetically hoping to lift his young friend's spirits, "you don't know that diamond is the only substance that this will work on. Maybe you can try it with other gemstones. In fact…" Toshinori trailed off as he pulled out his cell phone and started navigating through his emails. "Here we are. Look at this Midoriya. I got this invite from the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo, they are having a special exhibit planned next month all about gemstones and minerals, and they wanted extra heroes in attendance to protect the collection. I was, unfortunately, unable to accept the invitation due to certain limitations that you are aware of, but I could still get you some tickets."
Izuku looked at him in awe, "I-I c-can't ask you to do that Mr. Yagi, you have already helped me so much."
"Nonsense," Toshinori said with a laugh. "I will always gladly go out of my way to help a friend."
Tears began to well up in Izuku's eyes, but before they could fall he centered himself with a few calming breaths before opening his eyes again and looking to Toshinori with a joyful smile.
"Thank you," Izuku said sincerely.
Special thanks to ACreativeMindAtWorkHere for being the beta reader.