Author's Note: I made a slight change on the shotgun, this isn't necessarily canon don't worry, I'll explain further at the end of the chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own MHA or Halo.

Beta-read by Iowaman24

Sector Sweep

0830 Hours, 26 February 2225 (US Military Calendar),

Mustafu, Japan,

60 minutes until UA Entrance Exam,

…[]

"A girl?!" breaths a shocked and skeptical Mirio.

"Affirmative," Sam replies, he was slightly bemused by Mirio's disbelief.

With a glance over, Sam confirmed that Mirio was still in a state of disbelief.

He laughs and asks "So, you managed to convince a girl to give you her phone number?"

"Yes."

Mirio shook his head and chuckled "Now, did you personally ask for her number, or did she give it to you and asked for yours?"

"The second one."

His confused look disappeared and a more understanding one replaced it.

"Ah," he relents, "That makes more sense."

"Am I not allowed to meet new people?" Sam retorts.

Rather than answer, Mirio smiles and humorously says "You fascinate me Sam."

"In what way?"

Sam sounded genuinely curious which seemed to make Mirio inwardly laugh even harder.

"It baffles me how you can be so introverted and extroverted at the same time," he snickered.

Sam cheekily grins and says "I believe the term you're looking for is an ambivert."

"...What?"

"Ambivert," he repeated.

"You made that up, didn't you?" accused Mirio.

"Nope, it's a real term," he wittily assured. "Oxford dictionary defines it as a person who has a balance of extroverted and introverted features. Jeffrey Dahmer was likely one."

Mirio pinches the bridge of his nose and incredulously comments "The example you went with was an American serial killer from the 1980s that was found guilty of…several things, including eating his victims. Who also happened to be the main character of that miniseries you made me watch with you like several days ago."

One might be surprised how certain individuals maintained their infamy, even after quirked individuals had done arguably worse things since. It must really highlight how horrific some of those people were if their legacy lived on through time. Turns out many of them most likely were inspired villains that came after.

"Anwyay, you somehow manage to be one of the most charismatic people I know in spite of how little you speak sometimes," the blonde frankly explained, "Yet at the same time, you're almost as socially awkward as the green haired kid who follows you around whenever I'm at your place."

"You mean Midoryia?"

"Yeah him," he nodded. He then quickly adds "Side tangent, kid's cute and we need to take him out with us sometime. What is up with that by the way? It's been a while since I've seen someone that skittish."

"I actually haven't looked that much into it as it isn't my business," Sam pensively notes, "But given what I have seen, he hasn't had a lot of positive reinforcement in his life save for his mother."

"Okay, then we definitely need to bring him along with us in the future," Mirio firmly stated.

The pair stood in silence and watched as the city passed by their train window. Both Sam and Mirio were carrying duffel bags, Sam's was notably larger than the blondes. It was obvious to any outside observer where the two were heading. Wanting to bring up the sudden somber mood, Mirio quickly switched the conversation back to the earlier topic.

"She must have really been someone to be able to pull you out of your shell like that."

Sam could sense the playful tone in his compatriot's voice, but chose not to comment.

"So, when do I get to meet this mysterious woman?"

"She'll be at the exam," he reassured.

They noticed that their stop was coming up soon so the pair gathered their things and began making their way towards the exit. When they exited the train, they weren't alone, while the pair were thirty minutes early, just by looking around they could see a wave of students who had arrived before of them were dressed in some variation of a tracksuit or athletic clothing, funny enough.

Weirdly enough, Mirio and Sam were actually a little more of the rare side as they wore casual outfits while also bringing along a change of clothes in their bags. Sam pulls out his phone and shoots Hado a text letting her know that they've arrived. Almost as soon as he pressed "send," he heard a familiar voice calling out his name. Doing a quick sweep around, he quickly spots a familiar head of periwinkle hair amongst the sea of people.

"Oh hey! Mendez-kun, over here!" she boisterously calls out as she runs over to the two. "Was worried I would miss you before the exam."

"Good morning Nado-kun," he curtly greets.

As the three of them started walking, her eyes immediately turned onto Mirio with a curious look and then leaned in well past Mirio's personal space.

"And who are you?" she asks. "And how do you know Mendez-kun?"

"I see why you picked her," he snickers to Sam, who rolls his eyes in response.

He turns back to the girl and offers his hand.

"Togata Mirio, I'm Sam's training partner," he greets.

"Training partner? First names?!" she cries out in faux betrayal. She looks over to the other teen and accusingly asks "Are you cheating on me?"

With a deadpan look, he calmly replies "Technically, I've been cheating on him with you since I've known him longer."

"Dang, you got me," she pouts, she then perks up and asks "Can you call me by my first name then?"

Glancing just past her, he could see Mirio frantically, borderline angrily nodding yes at him.

"You can call me Sam, if you let me call you Nejire," he warmly answers.

She looks over to Mirio silently asking the same question to which he nods as well. The girl was practically jumping with joy.

She then turns her big curious eyes over to Mirio and asks "So…what's your quirk?"

"I can become intangible and phase through matter, you know, walls and stuff," he replies.

"Oh cool," she gushes, but then frowns and inquisitively asks, "Wait, anything?"

"Pretty much."

"How do you not fall through the floor?"

That was something Sam also asked when they had first met.

"My quirk also has this repelling property that lets me control my direction."

Satisfied with the response, she adds "Cool, I can shoot lasers."

Mirio blinks and flatly asks "Like straight up?"

"Yeah!" she vigorously nods. "I can shoot these rings of shockwaves and blast anything I am aiming at!"

Sam leans over and plainly tells him "I've seen her use it, it's pretty potent."

Now that made Mirio's eyes widen as Sam wasn't known to just throw around words like that unless he meant them.

"So we're all here for the hero course, yeah?" she asks.

They both nodded.

"Then that makes us UA buddies!" she excitedly announced. "We for sure gotta get in now right?"

To which Mirio enthusiastically agreed.

"Of course!" he confidently shouts and closes his hand into a fist.

Sam simply nodded, and the other two briefly thought about asking the Spartan to act more enthusiastic. They soon gave up and figured that was probably the most they would get out of him. The three were granted entry with their exam tickets attached to lanyards which they wore around their necks.

Sam quickly excused himself as he needed to get all his gear properly registered for the exam before making his way back to the auditorium. As the students flooded in, he was called over by his friends who had conveniently saved a seat for him. Upon sitting down at the tables, the room quieted down and an exam proctor came out and began giving a brief orientation on the written portion of their entrance exam.

"Time's up, pencils down!"

The written test now passed and the exam proctors came around to collect the test booklets and answer sheets from all the students. When all the tables were empty, the room was bathed in a bright light as the large screen before them came on. A leather wearing hero who Sam recognized but whose name he had never gotten walks into view. He remembers that the hero's quirk was based around his voice and that he may be a singer, he also recalled that the hero was a rather loud one.

"It's Present Mic!" Nejire excitedly, but quietly squeals.

Looking over, he could see the girl was practically bouncing in her seat upon the entrance of the hero. As Present Mic briefed the examinees on the layout of the practical exam, he tried to do his best to keep the crowd engaged, but it was clear that the dry presentation was starting to get to some of them. Sam's enhanced hearing picked up several distinct snores coming from around him.

On the other hand, he could see that Nejire was completely hyper focused on the hero. He feels a soft nudge on his arm and his gaze falls onto Mirio who motions for him to pay attention. At the moment, the hero was explaining the enemy types and how the point system worked.

Ten minutes later, Present Mic ends the briefing and passionately shouts "Alright, now on with the practical exam! Can I get a Plus Ultra?!"

Nejire literally leapt out of her seat and enthusiastically screamed "PLUS ULTRA!"

She wasn't alone either, as there were several others around the room who had also repeated the chant. Not many, but there were a good few, enough to satisfy the hero anyway. As the briefing comes to an end, the three of them are carted off to the locker rooms to change into their clothes for the practical part of the exam. Nejire split off from the group and went to the girl's locker room while the other two made a beeline for a pair of lockers closer to the entrance.

The two set their stuff down, and began changing and as Mirio mentions "Oh, I just remembered, I have a friend that I went to middle school with that is also here today, and I want both you and Nejire to meet him after the exam."

"Alright?"

"Yeah, the guy is extremely shy and is one of the few people I know who is more introverted than you, which boggles my mind how you are still able to start and hold a conversation despite how reserved you are at times," he thoughtfully comments while undressing. "It would be good for both of you if you tried to get to know one another."

"Alright," Sam casually replies, before turning and asking "Do you want me to look out for him?"

The blonde shrugs.

"No, you don't have to, but on the off chance you do run into him he has messy indigo colored hair." With a small frown, he abashedly explains "His name is Amajiki Tamaki and knowing him, he's probably gonna have his face tucked into a wall. He has pretty bad anxiety which gets worse the larger the crowd."

Mirio turns to face Sam and he sees that Sam had already changed out of his street clothes and into a matte green combat shirt tucked into a matching belt and set of cargo pants. He recognized it as Sam's tactical uniform that Sam had worn for his Junior Police Cadet Program that he would bring up ever so often.

"Jeez, you change fast."

"Thank you," Sam replies with a small grin as he blouses his pants over his boots. "Continue?"

Mirio decided to quickly summarize his point, "In short, he will actively go out of his way to avoid interactions with people, meaning if you do approach him, you would have to be the one who initiates it. You will also have to be pretty patient with him as he will also be reluctant to respond."

Sam pauses briefly before honestly replying "Noted."

Now that the conversation was over, Mirio had time to press his friend on a rising concern that had rather recently come up. It only grew as he watched Sam had pulled out a pre-configured coyote tan plate carrier and matching sets of Kevlar reinforced knee pads, elbow pads, and tactical gloves.

"Sam?"

"Yes?" he replies while opening the vest up to check that all the trauma plates were there before strapping it on.

"I've known you long enough that you wouldn't be wearing your uniform for no reason," he wearily comments as Sam straps more pouches onto his uniform.

Mirio's suspicions were proven correct when Sam pulled out two guns and a knife. The knife was a simple black and straight-edged KA-BAR, nothing too out of the ordinary. The two guns on the other hand were unlike anything Mirio has seen on a Mustafu cop, or any cop for that matter. The first was a hand cannon that was trying its best but failing at disguising itself as a pistol. The second was an intimidating shotgun that, like the pistol, was a good deal larger than what police carried.

"I don't think those count as support items," he nervously murmurs. Mirio then points at the magazine pouches on his vest and states "And those aren't rubber bullets."

"Technically, anything can be brought in as a support item as long as they're properly registered in advance well before the actual exam. They're prototypes," Sam lied, seeing the uneasiness in his friend's face, he reassuringly says "It's alright, I got the paperwork for it."

To prove his point, he flashes a downloaded pdf on his phone.

Turns out the spartan wasn't done unpacking as he then proceeds to pull out a grenade launcher and straps on an entire bandolier-belt of 40mm grenades around his waist.

"Woah, okay!" Mirio protests, "I can buy them letting you in with the guns, but a grenade launcher?!"

"Less-than lethal…" he replies flatly.

That was enough to calm Mirio down slightly, but he was still pretty shocked that Sam actually walked in with a grenade launcher in his bag. At least the school had some sense to not let the teen run around with explosives, but the launcher still put him on edge. It took literally moving heaven and Earth in order for Sam to even get the green light for the lethal-ammunition for his shotgun and magnum. Even then, he would still be under heavy scrutiny while taking the exam.

Using fragmentation and HE grenades in particular were completely off the table as his safety liabilities would be too far out of the optimal safety standards set by the school. While Sam could argue against people with quirks that are similar if not greater than the power output of a single 40mm grenade, Nejire Hado for one, that isn't the point. The entrance exam is probably not the best place to hold the debate on the overall ethics of firearms in the hero world.

"I wanna know whoever is sponsoring you, because this is clearly some high end equipment," he whistled as he gawked in disbelief while motioning to all of his stuff.

Sam remained silent and smiled bashfully as he loaded his weapons and placed them into their respective holsters. The pistol was placed into a holster along his right leg, the launcher was placed into the one on his left leg, the knife was strapped to the left side of his belt, and the shotgun was slung along his back.

Rather than ask more questions, the blonde deadpans and just thinks to himself 'I'll take it.'

Mirio had spent enough time with his friend to get a rough understanding of how gun laws worked in Japan. Obviously the school has let people register guns as support items in the past, even with lethal ammunition. Otherwise heroes like Snipes would have been severely handicapped. Still, it is a bit of a rarity as most people like that would've gone and applied for either the JSDF or law enforcement agencies such as the SAT(1).

Sam closes his locker, places a combo lock onto it and asks Mirio "Ready to go?"

Without another thought, he places his clothes into his bag and puts it back into the locker. Mirio nods and the two proceed to exit the locker room and wait for Nejire. Just by looking around, Mirio could already see that Sam's look was drawing some serious attention from the kids around him.

Sure enough, a voice excitedly cries out "Woah, Sam is that you?! You look like an SAT agent!"

"Told you," Mirio snidely remarks.

Sam subtly rolls his eyes before obscuring them with his auto-polarizing ballistic goggles which also doubled as his HUD. The uniform was complete with a matching patrol cap and a pair of electronic shooting earmuffs, Sam deceived to forgo wearing a helmet for today.

"Wait…" the curious teen leans over Sam's shoulder and rapidly chatters "Why does your badge say cadet? Woah, are you going to be a cop when you graduate?! Hey, you have a gun, can I have one?"

With a bemused look on his face, he replies "The answer to your second question answers your first, which is pretty much, yes. It's just not in name but I do get issued a badge and can get a gun. For your last question…"

The girl's hopeful smile grew.

"Short answer is no."

The smile immediately dropped into a disappointed frown.

"The long answer is maybe, but still most likely no." Sam then counters with his own question, "Your quirk is pretty powerful as it is, would you really need one over probably an equally if not more effective support item?"

Nejire pondered for a moment.

"Probably not," she relented.

An authoritative voice rang out through the PA system.

"ALL APPLICANTS PLEASE REPORT TO YOUR DESIGNATED TESTING AREAS!"

"This is it," Mirio confidently breathes. He turns to the other two and says "Good luck you two."

"Break a leg!" Nejire reassuringly chants.

The two looked over at Sam expectantly which led him to softly whisper "Good hunting."

1121 Hours, 26 February 2225 (US Military Calendar),

Text Site C, UA, Mustafu, Japan,

7 minutes until the start of the Practical Portion

…[]

While the kids around him were stretching around him, Sam decided to perform one last equipment check. First with his weapons, making sure all three were properly loaded and functioning. Next he made sure his equipment was also squared away such as his goggles and earmuffs. The last thing he did was do one last count of his ammunition. Weight isn't an issue for him, it is the other limiting factor, space. There is only so much stuff you can load onto a person before you just run out of space all together.

For the M90 CAWS(2), he has two pouches on his vest which each hold fifty Soellkraft 8 Gauge Magnum Shells. Combined with the twelve shells already loaded with one extra in the chamber, that gives him a total of five reloads for his primary weapon. He also had two ammo types, one of which was the standard 00(3) Buck represented by a crimson ring painted on the base of each individual shell which he had three reloads for. The rest were slugs which had a gray ring painted on their respective shells.

For the M6 SOCOM, he had five magazines filled with the standard 12.7x40mm M225 SAPHE(4). Finally, he had a total of thirteen 40mm grenades with one loaded into his M319 IGL(5), and the rest were packed into the individual pouches along his belt. Two of them were 9-bangers(6), two were decoys(7), and another two were high intensity flares. The rest of them, including the ones already loaded, were EMP grenades. With everything properly prepped, Sam now had a few minutes to and decided to spend it watching his fellow examinees.

With just a broad glance, he could see teens of all shapes and sizes gathered around him. Most of them were either stretching or warming up their quirks in some way. There were also those who were in deep contemplation with various states of nervousness and confidence. Everyone there was nervous in some way, but to Sam, he was at home. To him, this was nothing he hadn't faced before and it was just another day at work for him.

His scan comes to a stop on a teen whose physical description matched the info that Mirio had given him. The teen had shaggy dark blue hair and elf-life ears and was wearing a white short-sleeved hoodie and a pair of purple sweatpants. He was currently leaning into the wall in an attempt at hiding his face as Mirio had predicted, Sam thus inferred that this was the friends he had mentioned earlier. The kid was clearly in the midst of an anxiety attack, and it didn't sit right with Sam's personal integrity to leave the kid to suffer. While he can't help everyone, he can at least put up the effort to show he can at least help one who visibly needs it the most at this moment. Sam made his way over to him and it became apparent that the teen had heard him as his head snapped to him and nervously looked him over.

However, as with most of the other examinees, the teen thought that Sam was just some safety officer that was assigned to the test site. It was only upon closer inspection did people realize that he was way too armed for just a simple campus officer. The teen examines the officer from his boots up to his eyes which were partially obscured by his orange tinted goggles. The officer stretches out his arm and opens up his hand revealing a pack of gum. The teen snatches a stick and shoves it into his mouth without a second thought.

He nods appreciatively and mouths "T-Thank you."

All he got in the response was a small nod. A few seconds pass as the teen slows down his pace and regains his bearings. When it looked like he had calmed down, Sam gives him an inquisitive head tilt. The other teen gives him a thumbs up signaling that he was alright. In the end, it was Sam who decided to take the first step.

"Mendez."

There was a pause and it seemed as though the other teen was considering responding or not.

"A-amajiki," he softly introduced.

That was a confirmation of someone whom Sam already expected was the person Mirio had mentioned. It would seem that Sam was successful so far in getting him to open up. The indigo-haired boy spots the cadet budget on Sam's shoulder. He squints and then widens his eyes in realization when he sees how young Sam actually looked.

Sam ultimately chose not to bring up their shared association to the nervous boy. Rather than add more that could potentially distract him, that and plus Sam recalled how enthusiastic Mirio was on introducing the two of them together. That didn't mean Sam couldn't at least test the waters though.

With a page taken out of Nejire's book, he asks "What's your quirk?"

"It…it's called manifest," Amajiki started. "I uh, I gain the properties of whatever I eat."

There was a nod and a light hum as Sam was impressed by the power potential the teen's quirk held.

"That's quite a powerful quirk you have there," he replies honestly.

Amajiki returns the smile and nods. That was probably the most Sam was gonna get out of him for now. Best leave the talking to Mirio and Nejire. For the time being, the two silently shared each other's company for a little bit before the exam proctor announced to the students that the test will start soon.

"Good luck," Sam offers with a small but warm smile.

Sam gave him a complementary nod and a polite nudge and the two fell in with the rest. Amajiki watched as the other teens moved almost instinctively out of their way as the two made their way to the front. It would seem that most of the students seemed intimidated by his uniformed acquaintance…it's probably the shotgun slung along his back. When they reached the front a familiar voice rang out on the intercom.

"Alright, I hope y'all are ready!"

Everyone tensed upon hearing that, some like Amajiki actually grew more nervous. Sam on the other hand, he was in his element and his mind couldn't be more clear. Almost everything Sam did on this point was essentially on auto-pilot. Upon hearing the announcement, Sam swings the shotgun forward and pushes a discrete button under the pump which locks it forward. He flicks off the safety and moves it into the low ready position.

"Get ready!"

Sam looks downward and spits out his gum.

"Go!"

The spartan surges forward, his boots kicking up dust as he charges deeper into the test site. Amajiki looked over at the exam proctor and saw that he hadn't said anything. Catching on quickly, he also takes off in a sprint after Sam. There was a slight hesitation with the crowd as they watched the two teens disappear down the road.

When they looked back at the proctor, he rolled his eyes before exasperatedly groaning "I swear it's every year. What are you waiting for? There aren't any countdowns in real life, go!"

The stumble had actually given Sam a solid thirty second head start to which he wasted little time. He came upon an entire squad of six bots all lined up along an alleyway. There were one Venator(3 pointer), two Victorys(2 pointers), and three Victories(1 pointers).

On a side note, in spite of its general appearance, the M90 isn't actually a pump-action shotgun. It actually possesses a dual fire mode with the primary mode being a recoil operated semi-automatic. This is not unlike the SPAS-12, a weapon from the late 20th century where the semi-automatic fire mode was also the primary one and the pump-action was instead reserved for certain speciality cartridges that don't necessarily possess the force necessary to engage the action.

The first bot turns his way only to have its head blown clean off as a massive 8 gauged slug tears through its eye socket. The shotgun belches out another three times before Sam declares the street clear and moves on. By now, Sam's head start had ended and he knew he had to move quickly before he had to compete with the other students for villain takedowns. Sam treated the situation as a test book sector sweep; move in and clear out all hostiles, then move on to the next area, rinse and repeat. He repeated this in the next street, netting him an additional eight points from three more bots.

While moving between each street, he made sure to load in more shells into his shotgun when he could. His primary weapon had a rather lengthy reload and the last thing he wanted to have happen was get caught against an opponent with an empty weapon. Anticipating a future close quarters, he starts loading buckshot instead of slugs and even loosens the band securing his sidearm to its holster.

As he swept down the empty streets, he quickly found himself running down a street in an attempt to avoid interference and competition from the other students. He then sees a blob of red dots appear on his HUD's motion tracker and comes to an immediate stop. At one end he could see a handful of bots coming towards his way, but just as he was about to take aim, he heard a commotion coming from behind him as well. Looking back, he sees that another group of bots had moved in and managed to box him in. Sam grimaced upon this realization and mentally kicked himself for getting himself caught in this position.

They look him over with their evil red eyes before announcing "TARGET FOUND"

He then perked up as he also realized how well this situation was considering the number of bots approaching him plus the lack of other students. Maybe a little bit of John's luck had rubbed onto him after all. He couldn't dwell on these thoughts for too long as the bots were quickly losing the distance to him. Leaping into action, he immediately starts sending rounds down range before swinging around and also firing at the bots coming from the opposite end.

While Sam managed to drop several of them, they were still rapidly closing the distance to him and he was running out of ammo just as quickly. Out of his peripherals, he sees bright flashes prompting him to drop to the floor as a pair of rockets pass right over him. Oh, and they've now started shooting at him. He didn't have too much time to dwell on it as he dove forward just before another rocket struck where he was last standing.

A scorpion-like Victory bot came swiping down one its duel stingers at him. He jumps back and spiderwebs streak across the sidewalk from where the mechanical limb struck. As he sidesteps the second strike, he simultaneously brings up his shotgun and fires it twice as he brings the firearm to his shoulder. A Victory bot rushes full tilt at the distracted spartan and attempts to strike him behind. Sam promptly swings around and blasts the bot before it could reach him.

Now all that was left was the lone Venator at the end of the street who fires another volley of rockets forcing him to dive out of the way. While drawing a magnum, he rolls over into the prone position and proceeds to dump the entire magazine into the bot. As the bot tumbles into the ground, he dives behind a destroyed two pointer and with a deep breath takes out his grenade launcher. He loads a decoy grenade and a 9-banger and stares down the street where he could see other teens running through and destroying other bots.

Observation Room

Dr. Nezu and the other faculty members were observing the applicants through a set of cameras at fixed parts through all seven test sites displayed onto monitors before them.

"That's a good number of applicants this year," Midnight commented as they flicked through the cameras. She pauses on a girl, blasting robots with lasers and commenting "Some real power here. Ooh, that was creative…" she comments as she watches a familiar blonde phased a three pointer into the ground.

The diminutive headmaster was focused on one monitor in particular which gave the faculty an uninterrupted view of Sam's entire engagement. When the bots successfully cornered Sam, he paid particular attention to how quickly the teen was able to adapt to the stumble and curve the encounter into his favor. He wasn't the only one interested as behind them, a haggard and disheveled teacher was also watching the teen closely as he leaned against the back wall of the room.

"And there he is," he murmurs with a smirk on his face.

"Are you sure guns count as support items?" Present Mic winces and whispers as they watch Sam blast bots left and right.

Ectoplasm nodded in agreement and sheepishly muttered "We should probably reevaluate those rules after this."

Powerloader shrugs and replies "It wouldn't really matter …the practical exam requires that he shows us his combat prowess, he doesn't technically have to use his quirk."

"It wouldn't be fair to the applicants with non-combat quirks," Vlad King reasons while subconsciously glancing over at Midnight and Eraserhead. "That's why we have our quirk apprehension test after they get in."

"I agree," they're headmaster nodded. He then turns cheekily to Eraserhead and says "Besides, it's clear that he knows his way around his own equipment and we've never turned away a prospective student for having a Hero Support item that wasn't related to their quirk."

"That's fair," murmurs Ectoplasm, "He better not become too reliant on them though."

"He isn't."

Aizawa spoke for the first time, motioning for them to watch the screen. The Spartan pulls out his knife and begins engaging more bots in hand to hand combat. He effortlessly cuts down a one pointer before hurling the blade through the eye port of another. Some of the staff were impressed as a 1,000kg Victory gets sent flying across the street and into a concrete wall by a single push-kick.

"Jeez, I forgot how strong he actually was," Present Mic whistles as looks over at the robot's totaled form.

"We were expecting this given his powers and extensive training," Eraserhead comments.

The others agreed with him, even though they all had read the report and understood that Sam's abilities were out of armor, it was still an experience to actually watch it. Remembering that Sam reacted and processed things four times faster than any of them, they had to slow down the fights in order to get a good look.

Dr. Nezu keenly asks "Shota-san, what are you thinking over there?"

The others also looked to Eraserhead given that he was easily the most proficient one in hand amongst them. He didn't answer at first, he instead remained silent and continued to watch the screen with a keen interest.

Within only five minutes of the test starting, Sam had already received a steady forty-five points and was well past the minimum score required for a passing grade. If he really wanted to, which he didn't, he could literally just stay put and relax until the end of the exam. From his vantage point, he would see the occasional student run past, he even had a few close encounters with them as he swept through the alleyways.

Across the intersection, he spotted Amajiki charging down the street and batting bots aside with a pair of bull horns on his head. As more bots close in, Amajiki's right arm transforms into octopus tentacles while his left turns into a clam shell. From Sam's vantage point, he could see what Amajiki couldn't see while he was engaged by the bots. Rounding the corner were a squad of one-pointers planning on ambushing him.

Amajiki had just wrapped up with the last bot when another robotic voice announced "TARGET FOUND."

He turns and sees a group of at least five Victory bots all revving their Gatling guns at him. While they were only rubber-bullets, Amajiki still would've really liked not getting hit by them. The best he could do in this short time is raise up his clam shell to shield him from their fire. Right as he brought up his left arm, the sound was filled with a large cacophony of gun fire and it was coming from behind the victories.

The bots turned around to check out the noise and instantly spotted what looked like a flashing red 40mm grenade with a speaker built into it. Before anyone could react, another grenade lands in front of them and explodes on impact. Their sensors were completely overloaded from an almost incomprehensible amount of noise and brightness. The stun grenade flashed a total of nine times leaving them effectively blind and deaf. They were utterly defenseless from the oncoming onslaught.

Amajiki transforms into his centaur form and tramples down the stunned bots under his horse hooves, Any outliers were ripped apart with his vines. When the dust settled, he stood over the destroyed bots with a satisfied look. There was a sudden crisp grunt and the loud groaning of metal over to his right. His head snaps over and he sees Mendez-san from earlier, holding back a stinger strike that was clearly meant for him. The teen leaps into action and uses his octopus hand to pick up one of the still moving one-pointers and hurls into the two-pointer destroying them both. As the pair stood back up, they gave each other an appreciative nod.

"Two minutes left!" Present Mic announced.

The ground beneath them shook. Their gaze slowly travels upward towards the skyline as something massive moves its way through the buildings. It was the Arena Trap, and it was there to signal the ending portion of the exam.

"Right on schedule," Sam softly comments.

It was also their que to start making their way back to the starting area. The two were right about to leave before a cry broke out. Turning over, they spot a female applicant with short, cropped, salmon-colored hair caught in the 0-pointer's path. Without taking his eyes off of the 0-pointer, Sam snaps his fingers and points in the direction of the girl. Amajiki took off towards the trapped girl, neither of them ever uttering a word as there wasn't a need to. They were going to help the girl, no questions asked.

With his last EMP loaded, Sam fires it at the multi-story tall robot. He knew full well that the grenade would have close to zero effect o a target that big, but it was just enough to draw the bot's attention onto him instead. As the 0-pointer turned his way, Sam started running in the opposite direction of Amajiki and the girl, successfully luring the bot after him. He ran a good hundred yards before turning back and firing an illumination flare directly into the eyes of the bot. With it momentarily blind, the other two were able to escape to safety.

Sam proceeds to fire off his last flare and then his last decoy grenade down the street before falling back himself. When the Executor's vision had recovered, it scanned the streets for the lost targets and spotted the decoy's loud noise and bright lights. With the 0-pointer now moving further away, Sam sprints back to the starting area.

When he arrives back at the staging area, he is immediately greeted by a Recovery Girl who chides him over his injuries. Slightly confused by what she meant, he suddenly feels something dripping down his face and his nose and quickly realizes that he had a gash over his right eye and a broken nose. He could only conclude that those two injuries and his bruises must have happened when he was clipped by the two-pointer back when he went in to help out Amajiki. After some more light scolding from the elderly heroine, she healed his wounds and moved on to someone else. Sam spots Amajiki leaning against a wall again and casually saunters over.

"Are you broken?" he asks.

Amajiki shook his head.

Slightly out of breath, he replies "I'm good."

"And the girl?"

Amajiki gave him a nod and a thumbs up.

A short while after the test, the two managed to meet up with Mirio and Nejire. There was a brief and awkward interview between Amajiki and Nejire, to which he reacted as anyone would. Mirror was the one to come to his rescue and his explanation of Amajiki's quirk only seemed to make Nejire even more excited. Predictably, this made Amajiki clam up even more, if that were even possible. Slowly but surely, Mirio managed to coax him back out of his shell. He was still limited to short, one-worded answers for the most part, but hey, it was still an improvement.

Sam, he was just amused by how polar oppsites both Nejire and Tamaki were. Mirio had pretty much demanded that the two address each other with their first names. He was still showing some reluctance, so Mirio decided to hold off on that goal for another day.

Nejire smiles and announces "Guys, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

The quartet made their way to the train station and they all said their farewells and went their separate ways. Just like when they had arrived, Sam was also leaving with Mirio and when they were alone, Mirio was looking at him with this odd look on his face. When Sam asked what was up, Mirio brushed it off and said that he was just happy with how the introductions went and that he couldn't wait to see their results. He was absolutely confident that all four of them had made it in, and Sam could not help but think the same thing. Little did they know just how significant their admissions would be.

Reference Page:

SAT: Special Assault Team

CAWS: Close Assault Weapon System

00 Buck: Pronounced double-aught-buck. It pertains to the pellet size.

SAPHE: Semi-Armor-Piercing-High-Explosive.

IGL: Individual Grenade Launcher

9 Bang: A grenade which produces nine individual flash bangs with one device.

Decoy: It has a speaker attached which produces artificial gunfire at a similar volume output.

Review Responses Chapter 5:

Chadbunger: Hell yeah!

Gwynx: Thank you for reading.

Azure Sky Dance: I will work on that, I'll find a way to address it later on.

Bonanza: Yeah I know.

There are a couple more from Chapter 4 I never got to:

Yeesreader: 1984, but yes, good catch.

snipervtk4: First, off no, they would never get away with letting a fourteen year old be an instructor, at least not until he's eighteen. I am also aware of everything else you've mentioned, Sam would still need to get use to pulling his punches regardless. As special operations fighters, they would have to be proficient in whatever their mission requires just like in real life. That also includes the capture and securing of a high valued target. If you meant him getting suggestions from Midoryia, Sam is mostly humoring him at the time. He does find value in Midoryia thought he doesn't know what to do with it yet.

MarauderPrime12: Thank you.

Matt: Yeah, I followed a different path that a fellow writer I follow did. I moved Nejire, Mirio, and Tamaki a year back and they would all be in the class that would've gotten expelled by Aizawa. Only in this story as well as his, that didn't happen, they'll be more on that later.

Author's Note: That's my current tank and head canon on the Halo shotgun. As far as I know, this holds close to zero precedence in Halo lore as the only time anyone has ever seen the shotgun used like this was in Halo Legends episode "The Package." It does show up regularly in the games though, a lot actually. The original trilogy arguably had the shotguns being used as semi-automatics when used by the flood combat forms and brutes, how else would they be able to fire them with only one hand. Now, most likely it's only that because of the limitations of the game which doesn't allow for the pumping animation. After all, you can still hear the shotgun racking sound effect play every time it's fired by them. For the purposes of this story though, it's a semi-automatic shotgun.

Anyway, that about wraps up this chapter, I hope to see you guys the next time. Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it this month. I may be switching over to my other story so the next update will most likely not be here next month. As always Big Brother is Watching.