"Ahhh! Come on!" Felix cried out to the heavens as once again the suit of armor he had been working on again failed to power up.
Currently it was just him and his brother in a small separate work studio adjacent to the main development studio. These smaller work studios were spread out throughout the entire Support Department and each one had three different students of the same year assigned a single one, each with assigned spaces for them to work on their side projects when they weren't in the main studio for their in class practical lectures. Felix and Skyler were assigned to the same studio naturally given that they were brothers. The addition of Hatsume however brought chaos to the natural order that would've normally existed in the space otherwise.
Both Skyler and Felix respected Hatsume's brilliance. She was by far one of the smartest students in their course and year group, cranking out inventions and brand new ideas like there was no tomorrow. They just wished that she had the decency to respect health and safety protocols. She had on average one successful invention after ten failures or so, which actually wasn't bad at all. They just wished that her failures didn't result in a massive explosion like they normally did.
Eventually it had gotten bad enough that both boys had approached Cementoss and Power Loader in the teacher's lounge about building her a separate bunker far away from the main campus. Power Loader was instantly all for it at first. However, that was until he realized it could have been viewed as preferential treatment with her being the only one to have a private workshop. He feared that the other students would start deliberately blowing up their inventions to get their own private space. That was a trend he wasn't willing to start.
"Let me guess." Skyler chuckled as he sealed up the last compartment on the drone he was working on. "Your new power source failed ? Just like the last five?"
"Yeah!" Felix groaned as he collapsed into his chair and leaned back. "I'm starting to understand the struggle Iron Monger went through when he tried to copy Tony Stark's suit that he built in a cave!"
"I don't understand your obsession with that comic book character." Sky laughed as he moved onto his next invention, a high tech area scanner. "He was made before quirks were invented. His super power was essentially being rich. How can you emulate him if you can't afford the stuff that he could? Besides, why would you want a suit like that in the first place? You aren't trying to get into the hero course were you?"
"Nah. I don't want to be in the hero course." Felix sighed dejectedly as he waved off the idea before removing the now and burnt out power core from the chest compartment of the suit he was working on. "This is nothing but scrap metal now."
He then handed the destroyed power core to his brother who began to use his quirk to break down the metal components, turning the now low quality metals into higher quality lesser metals. All three first year support course teachers encouraged Skyler to use his quirk as often as possible. Mainly because it saved them money from buying new materials when he could help them make new ones, and also it was a form of recycling.
"Do you have any other support items to bring to the Sports Festival tomorrow? " Sky asked, a look of concern on his face as he put down the last of the refurbished materials on the cold metal table. "You'll have no luck getting a good internship at a support company if you don't have at least a few items to show off in at least the first round."
"I got a few." Felix groaned as he turned in his chair before standing up and walking over to a large cabinet, opening it up and pulling out the small handful of items that populated the mostly empty shelves. "This is all I've made for myself when I wasn't working on my suit, Hiro's costume, or my project that I just turned in."
Now laid out on the metal table were a small handful of support items. They included a grapple gun that shot some kind of energy beam, a hover pack that consisted of helicopter blades that folded out of a backpack like case. The blades were only powerful enough to lift him into the air by a couple meters, but they would help him glide over distances and control his fall speed. In addition to the backpack, he had an electrical stun baton, and some electric powered roller skates.
"I know it won't be enough for the Sports Festival, and now I have no idea of what I could make in an hour or two. We have to put down what we are going to bring on the forms we were given at the main office in a few hours for tomorrow. Everyone will have loads of stuff to pick from, but not me." Felix grumbled loudly, but jumped as the door opened and four people walked on in.
"You know Mr. Springfield, that actually might prove to your advantage. " Power Loader kindly said as he, Ms. Repair, Ms. Roast, and Hatsume entered the room. "You see, we've now established new guidelines for the support course that puts in place a limit on the number of items that you are allowed to bring with you for the Sports Festival. It just so happens that number is four, exactly the number of items I see you have laid out on the table here."
"WHAT?! I'M ONLY ALLOWED TO BRING ONLY FOUR OF MY BABIES?!" Hatsume cried out in terror as she turned to stare at the massive pile of inventions of hers in the corner, "PLEASE! YOU CAN'T FORCE ME TO CHOOSE AMONG MY BABIES!"
The teachers wouldn't admit it, but the whole reason the rule was created last minute in the first place was because of Hatsume. With Bakugo being kicked out of the hero course, Hatsume had a lot more free time to make new babies without having Bakugo's suit and support items to work on. So the teachers had to come up with a way to limit her. The second and third years were grandfathered into the old status quo however. This rule will start with the current batch of first years and carry onto the future subsequent support classes when the current batch moves up a grade. Fortunately, it took little to convince Nezu on the idea. Apparently support companies were complaining about the quantity of support items being brought when they were looking for quality.
"Well I'm very sorry Hatsume, but the new limit is four items. Please let us know which items you want to bring by 5pm." Power Loader reiterated to a dejected Hatsume, "And they have to be quality working items. You are on public display to all of Japan. We don't want to publicly embarrass and humiliate ourselves, tarnishing UA's reputation in the process?"
"No sir." Hatsume whimpered as she trudged to her pile and began sorting through it.
"So boys." Ms. Repair said as she rubbed her new metal arm that replaced her original that got ripped off by Thirteen's quirk during the USJ incident as she turned her attention to the brothers. "Do you know what you want to bring tomorrow? We can approve it right here and now so you won't have to worry about whether or not your items are approved tomorrow."
"Well, all I have are these four things right here. " Felix said softly, gesturing to the gadgets on the table. The teachers then each took a turn examining the items, asking Felix questions about each one including the steps he took while assembling them. All four items were approved and Felix smiled a bit when all three teachers praised his work.
"So what do you have for us tomorrow then Mr. Springfield?" Ms. Roast asked, turning towards Skyler who then went to his own cabinet and pulled out a few more things to set out on the table.
He pulled out a visor with a type of Heads Up Display connected to a powerful scanner. Then there were the miniature drones he was working on earlier that were connected to his visor. He also chose to lay out a multi-use gun that fired tranquilizer darts, tracking beacons that latched and stuck onto things, or it could shoot metal discs that sent a powerful electrical shock, knocking out a person, all depending on the ammunition that was loaded. The final item he chose to present to bring to the Sports Festival was a pair of hover boots.
"All of these look good and as though they are in working order." Ms. Repair said as she handed the final invention back to Skyler.
It took much longer to sort out the stuff that Hatsume was going to bring to the Sports Festival however. Many of her inventions were rejected for simply being too dangerous. Sometimes for the other students, but mainly for herself because there was a big risk of them exploding and injuring her. In the end, she was allowed to bring her backpack which had many inventions attached to it, her hover boots, her goggles, and a gauntlet that she wouldn't let Felix or Skyler know what it would do.
They shortly left the support studio wing with their inventions to drop them off at the main office so they would be in their respective locker rooms tomorrow. It was on their way back to the dorms and before they managed to leave the building that they ran into an altercation that had all three teens dead in their tracks out of shock.
"Just get the fucking hell out of this school you filthy villain!" the brothers and Hatsume heard and then the sound of someone being thrown against a wall and the snapping of bone being broken. The support trio then rushed down the hallway and turned the corner to see none other than Hatsume's old hero course partner Katsuki Bakugo crumpled on the ground looking up at the three bullies who were laughing at Bakugo's defeated form.
"To believe you got into the hero course." The one in the middle snarled, "You know, that's where some of us wanted to end up. But no, our quirks weren't suited for that entrance exam that favors flashy villainous quirks like your own!"
"Yeah!" the one on the left growled, "I almost got into the hero course myself! But someone stole the few remaining combat points I needed to get in. That person was you villain!"
"Some of us had dreams of being a hero.. But life wasn't fair so I had to settle with being a second rate police officer! And to add insult to injury, I have to share a class with someone who did get into the hero course, but was kicked out for being a villain!" the one on the right ranted.
"STOP IT!" Felix shouted at the top of his lungs, a natural growl coming into his voice. The trio of boys turned to look in their direction as their eyes all collectively went wide at the sight of three witnesses.
"Shit!" yelled the leader and he began to run in the opposite direction of the support course students. He was quickly followed by his lackeys. They didn't seem to get very far however because with blinding speed, Euphoria-Sensei appeared out of nowhere, launching his golden tentacles out of his back, picking them up off the ground and restraining them in the process. His quirk erasing all the fear and panic as their faces became drunk with happiness.
"Hey! No running in the halls!" he called out to the three restrained boys, "You three seem to be in an awful hurry. Now, I wonder why that may be?"
"We were running back to our dorm." One of the boys said drunkenly as a slumped in the tentacle restraining him.
"That was a rhetorical question my fine young gentleman." Euphoria huffed, steam coming out of his ears, "We caught the entire incident on our wonderful and lovely security cameras! Aren't they amazing?!" This caused the trio of support students to sweatdrop out of confusion at his cheerful attitude towards the whole incident, "Hatsume, could you please take Bakugo to Recovery Girl's office please? Springfield brothers, would you kindly please follow me to the principal's office?"
With nods, the support course trio did as they were told. Hatsume helped Bakugo to his feet, all of her usual cheerful exuberance gone as she helped him limp towards the nurse's office, clearly not happy about being stuck with her former hero course partner. Internally sighing, both boys followed Euphoria to Nezu's office.
They didn't spend that long waiting outside before being ushered inside. Waiting inside for them were several people: Principal Nezu, Detective Tsukauchi, Ms. Osore, the homeroom teacher for the boys who were with her in Class E and also by chance the teacher in charge of UA's police academy program, Euphoria, and the three boys who were still restrained by the happy teacher's quirk.
This wasn't by far the boy's first trip to the principal's office, just their first time at UA. They were known for pulling a lot of pranks in middle school, but not without good reason or justification. They were bullied relentlessly in middle school, specifically in their middle school PE class with Felix constantly being hurled insults about not being born in America. What didn't help even more was that they had the same teacher for each year of middle school and he refused to do anything about the bullying and the brothers theorized that he was encouraging it behind their backs.
What made things even more worse was the school's policy that had been in place since a major event in the pre-quirk era that meant they just punished all those involved in an incident of bullying, rather than bothering to investigating in cases of he said she said. That meant they were regularly punished for being victims of bullying. They didn't take that lying down. So if they were going to be punished for simply being the victims, then they decided to wreak havoc in the form of pranks instead.
Unfortunately for the school, they were too good at it and it is where they developed their skills in inventing. Sufficed to say, if they weren't bullied to the breaking point in middle school and the school did their job and actually gave a damn about both the physical and psychological health and well-being of their students, they wouldn't be in the Support Course at UA.
They could never prove that it was Skyler and Felix who were behind the pranks, but that wasn't without trying. Eventually they tried a kind of sting operation, except they caught one of their bullies who they viewed as a star student when the boys were nowhere near the scene of the incident and accused them anyways. They soon learned that they only made themselves look like daft morons when their parents brought a lawyer with them to the principal's office because they too had gotten tired of the school district's ever increasing apathetic attitude towards their kids, and they agreed with the theory that the bullying was mainly brought upon solely because of Felix's Japanese heritage. Then miraculously, the bullying backed off dramatically. That didn't stop the pranks however. Needless to say, when they went off to high school, their PE teacher had promptly retired and moved to a different state.
"So Mr. Springfield and Mr. Springfield. Koro here informs me he encountered you both along with Ms. Hatsume when he came upon the scene with these three men running away with Bakugo on the floor injured." Nezu said, his voice cheerful as always, but the aura he was giving off was at odds with the disposition in his voice. It was the same aura Felix had felt when he was last with the principal back in the USJ control room, he did his best not to wince.
"Yes Nezu-Sensei." Both boys said right after one another, glancing at the guilty trio who were drunk with silly grins on their faces, still trapped in Euphoria's tentacles as he then took over the explanation.
"We all had just dropped off our support items at the main office and were heading back to the dorms when we turned the corner and saw those three physically and verbally attacking Bakugo. He was already beaten and bloodied a bit when we found him. We all froze for a moment when we realized what we had just come across. They only stopped when I made our presence known when I yelled at them to stop what they were doing. That's when they all sprinted away, and then only to be caught by Euphoria-Sensei."
"He told the truth." The detective sighed, causing Ms. Osore to lower her head as he took his phone out and began to type away. She than took a deep breath before speaking.
"Koro-san, release them from your quirk." She said, causing him to produce the first frown the boys had ever seen on the teacher's face. His ethereal golden tentacles retracted into his back as the boys began to regain their normal emotional state. However, that was until Ms. Osore stepped forward in front of them and activated her own quirk.
Ursa Osore:
Quirk: Fear
Hero Name: Phobia
She has the ability to make those around her go into anything from a state of anxiousness, to the state of absolute terror. She can control the area of effect of her quirk. However, the more spread out the area, the weaker the fear.
"Didn't I tell you three that I would not tolerate any form of bullying already?!" She growled, and the boys began shaking while under the effect of her quirk. "Didn't I warn you that if I caught you harassing anyone again that you would be out of UA?"
"But seriously Osore-Sensei." The ringleader of the trio spluttered out, "Bakugo—"
"Has done nothing except be a model student in my class." Osore interrupted, increasing the power output of her quirk to discourage any further interruptions. The area of effect started to bleed into the area where the others were in the room and they all took a few steps back from the four individuals to not be in the AOE.
"Unlike you three, he understands the seriousness, ramifications, and consequences of being on his last and final chance. I told you on the first night when you three moved into the dorms, you only have one chance at redemption in my class if you run afoul of the rules. Bakugo lost his before he came to Class E for what he did when he was a member of Class-A. You three lost yours when you were caught pushing Bakugo to the ground by Yotte-Sensei when he first got transferred to this class. You three clearly haven't learned your lesson, and it is plain as day that none of you have any desire to do so. That is why you three are summarily expelled from Class-E and by result UA as well."
"But you can't!" one of the lackeys tried to say, but was cut off again.
"For not only breaking school rules, and my explicit instructions, but for also breaking the law!" she countered as there was a knock on the door and Officer Sansa walked inside.
"When you applied to the hero course, you also made a promise to uphold the law. That was the same promise you made when you couldn't get into said course and thus came into Class E. You broke that promise when you ganged up and attacked Bakugo." It was then that Sansa stepped forward, unhooking 3 sets of quirk suppressing handcuffs.
"All three of you are officially under arrest for battery, illegal quirk usage, and usage of a quirk with the intent to harm another party. You three will be coming with me to the station to be processed."
With that the boys were led out of the principal's office in handcuffs. Their future at UA and every other hero and police academy in tatters. The teachers then left the office, but the brothers were asked by the principal to stay behind.
"Is there something you wanted Principal Nezu?" Skyler asked, confused like his brother as to why they were asked to stay behind.
"Only to let you both know I have full knowledge of what your middle school failed to do, which was the opposite of what just happened here and now."
The brothers straightened up in their seats, a tingle of fear spreading throughout both of their bodies.
"And I must say I'm quite impressed." Nezu said extremely cheerfully, causing both boys' eyes to widen in confusion. "In order to do what you did back in middle school required some serious cunning and guile. I understand you carried a little on into High School? Don't worry, you aren't in trouble for any of that stuff, after all it took place in another country."
"Um… yes sir." Skyler said while his face flushed a bit, and he attempted to act casual while running a hand through his floppy blond hair, but he was fooling nobody. "But we only did it to those who deserved it."
"Excellent!" Nezu said cheerfully, "Although sometimes a good prank is fun to pull off, just as long as no one individual or group is constantly targeted!"
"Hold on-"
"Are-"
"You-"
"Giving us-"
"Permission-"
"To prank?"
"Wow!" Nezu said cheerfully as the brothers then cringed at realizing what they just did, "You two mastered twin speak despite not being twins! Remarkable!"
"Well. It isn't something we advertise." Felix groaned, thoroughly getting embarrassed by all the praise.
"An excellent idea! That way when you do reveal it after keeping it a secret for a long time it would be even more hilarious." Nezu laughed, "But anyways, as long as you aren't caught, and your pranks are in good fun, unlike what you witnessed today. I most certainly have no problem. But anyways, I suggest you two go back to your dorm to get some rest."
With that the boy's left the room right in time for Nezu to get a phone call. Sighing he picked up his phone and it was his secretary who let him know that Bakugo's parents were on their way to take their son home for the weekend of the Sports Festival.
"Think it's for the best." Nezu sighed, as he hung up and was disturbed by the thought that Bakugo flat out even refused to fight back against his aggressors. He was more than in his right to use his quirk to defend himself. Riku's quirk only caused long lasting and powerful depressions like this when the subject was capable of learning from their mistakes. He just wished that there was a way to fast-forward through the stages of grief. The sooner they helped Bakugo forgive himself, the sooner he could start on the path of becoming a hero once more.
