The students of Class C each let out a yawn as they stood outside the building they were staying at. It was early in the morning with the sun just barely beginning to rise, a time none of them were used to being awake for. With them were Class B, who seemed equally tired. But Yamagori and Vlad had no intention of going easy on their students.
"Alright let's get a move on." Yamagori told them. "Starting today, you'll all be working to develop your Quirks."
"Develop our Quirks?" Kendo asked.
"That's right." Vlad confirmed. He motioned for everyone to follow as he and Yamagori began walking. "Class A is already doing it. Let's go."
The two hero classes followed their homeroom teachers out into the woods. In the distance, they could hear noise, likely the students of Class A already hard at work.
"Last semester, Class A got all the attention." Vlad told his students. "So next semester, it's Class B's turn."
"Well, well, somebody's sure arrogant. Announcing such a thing in front of my class." Yamagori said with a smirk. "Hate to break it to you, Vlad, but Class C is going to steal the spotlight next semester. We'll try to leave a little bit of attention for your class."
"Hmph. We'll see." Vlad said, eager to accept the teacher's challenge.
"Geez, Ms. Yamagori's gonna work us to the bone for her rivalry with Vlad and Eraser Head, isn't she?" Hyde complained.
"We'll just have to grin and bear it I guess." Sarah commented. "At least we'll get stronger from it."
"Um, Ms. Yamagori, I have a question." Sakura said. "You said we're going to develop our Quirks, but all of us have different ones. So how do we know what we're developing and how to do it?"
"Quirks are similar to muscle fibers. If you use them a lot, they'll break down and get stronger." Yamagori explained.
"In other words, there's just one thing to do." Vlad said as they approached the source of the noise that they had been hearing. "Break through your limits!"
As the students reached an open clearing they all gasped at what they saw. The students of Class A were scattered around doing different things. Each activity was related to their Quirk in some way. But they all looked like they were going through hell itself.
"What the hell…" Shiro said in disbelief.
"Normally, these improvements would happen as your body grows." Vlad explained.
"But we don't really have that kind of time." Yamagori added. "Us three teachers, along with the Pussycats, will be assisting you with your training simultaneously."
"Can seven people really handle a total of sixty different Quirks though?" Fiona asked.
"Don't underestimate us Pussycats!" Ragdoll said with a smile. "We can help you all out no problem!"
"If you understand then get to work, Class C!" Yamagori commanded. "Time for you slackers to surpass Class A and show you're the best of the first years!"
"Yes ma'am!" the students said together.
Hours upon hours went by as training commenced for the sixty first year hero students. Class C could tell right away that the training would be difficult with how much agony Class A seemed to be in.
They realized quickly that Yamagori hadn't been kidding when she said they'd wish they were dead.
Hyde created various structures one after another with his Quirk before returning them into the ground. By doing it in quick succession, he would reduce the time and effort needed to make his structures with his Quirk.
Nene kept making full armies of clones with her Quirk and quickly dismissed them before doing the same thing over again. This would reduce the time needed to make clones, as well as increase the maximum number of clones she could make.
Satoshi continuously performed pull ups to strengthen his arms, and as a result, his wings. This would allow him to flap his wings more strongly to create more powerful gusts, as well as increase the time in which he could fly without getting tired.
Merci swapped between increasing the scent of various flowers and manipulating them, in order to both boost the extent that he could increase the effect of a flower's scent and the extent that he could manipulate the length and durability of flowers.
Lilina was given a large rock, and had to repeatedly change the basic elemental structure of it. She was told it would start for now with single elements like silver, iron, magnesium, and such. But Yamagori warned her that as the training camp went on she would have her start including materials made up of multiple elements.
Alicia's training was two-fold, just like her Quirk. She would fire off sunlight stored in her body as large concentrated blasts. Then, she would spend the next hour doing physical training with Tiger before firing off all the sunlight that had accumulated in her body into a single concentrated blast. This was to increase the amount of sunlight she could store in her body, the rate at which it was absorbed, and her overall physical ability since the night-half of her Quirk was mostly a physical boost to her body.
Fiona was over at a nearby lake, wearing a swimsuit as she swam around in the water without rest. Buoys were scattered around the lake for her to slice with her fins, made from Yaoyorozu of Class A on the side to help with her own training of creating things.
Dan was also at the lake, changing large amounts of water into ice and water vapor before changing it back into water again. After seeing him learn to begin manipulating moisture in the air after his internship, Yamagori had decided it best for the student to work on improving his control over it so that it wasn't so sloppy.
Marcus was hard at work clawing at the rocky structure of a cliff with his arms and tail, in order to improve the power of both. The training for his arms would also serve to increase his flight power too.
Vivi was flying around in her tiny fairy form continuously at top speed. This served to increase the strength of her wings and her overall flight speed.
Fujino had learned to keep her Quirk from going off on its own for the most part thanks to her training with Yamagori. But the teacher was anything but subtle with pointing out how she still needed to work on her accuracy. So Fujino found herself hard at work doing target practice against tiny earth beasts created from Pixie-Bob's Quirk. It also helped further implement the vocal input she created to activate her Quirk.
Kenji trained with Shoji and Hagakure of Class A. Multiple pillars had been made in advance by Hyde's Quirk in order to create shadows for Kenji to hide in. His goal was to avoid detection from Shoji and avoid bumping into the invisible Hagakure to increase his stealth skills.
Melody was another one working with a Class A student. She stood with Koda, doing vocal exercises to increase the strength of her vocal chords and thereby increase the range of her Quirk.
Hikari was running through an obstacle course designed to work on improving her overall cat-like features, from the strength of her claws to her delicate sense of balance. She ran through it time and time again, working to improve her time with each run.
Sarah was continuously using her Quirk to warp between two spots, in order to decrease the time it took for her to disappear and reappear as well as the amount of time it took for her eyes to adjust upon warping and allow her to use her Quirk again.
Shiro was working on his crocodile attributes. This ranged from working to increase his already tough physical strength to biting down on things to improve the strength of his powerful jaws.
Rekka ran laps while creating embers with her Quirk as she ran in order to increase the amount of embers she could create at a time. Since the embers automatically detonated after a minute if they didn't touch anything, there were usually none in her way by the time she finished a full lap of the ring made for her.
Jill was put through jumping exercises, working to increase the strength of her legs and the maximum height she could jump using them with her Quirk.
Sakura fought against Pixie-Bob's earth beasts, using her Quirk to deal with them via tangling them up or simply smashing through them with a barrage of tree trunks. With each one defeated, Pixie-Bob increased the size to make things gradually difficult for the Class C representative.
Daiki ran his body through a generator without end. This served to get his body even more used to its electric form and increase his control while in that form.
Shinobu fired off blasts of psychic energy with his Quirk repeatedly to lessen the toll it took to his stamina. He didn't quit, even when it looked like he might drop dead from exhaustion.
Yamagori watched her students hard at work as the hours went by. She knew that this was by no means the way things would normally be done. But it couldn't be helped. The end goal of this training was to get the students ready for the provisional license exam, which would usually be taken during their second year. Trying to get the first years to pass the exam could be seen as rushing it, but with the increased villain activity lately and the repeated incidents involving U.A students, it was clear that the students needed to be able to act in these times of crisis. And the only way to do that was to get the provisional license.
After hours upon hours of training, signs of the sun beginning to set could be seen over the horizon. The students all dragged themselves back to the campsite, barely able to muster up any energy since all of it had been spent on the non-stop use of their Quirks. But they weren't allowed to rest just yet. Unlike the previous day, they would be doing their own cooking from this day onward for the remainder of the training camp.
Dinner for that night was curry. Even though it was far from high quality, each of the students found themselves scoffing the food down. It didn't matter if the taste was average. Anything would taste like 5 stars with how drained they all were.
"Aw man, I'm starving after today." Shiro said as he gulped down every bite of his curry. With how tired he was though, he neglected to eat in a neat manner and drops of curry from his plate ended up scattering around.
Sakura was pleasantly enjoying her meal when one such drop splashed against her cheek. She could understand Shiro's starvation after today's training, but she would not tolerate it ruining everyone else's meal. "Shiro…"
The warning tone from Sakura made Shiro freeze up. He glanced slightly at his pink haired classmate and saw that a serious scolding awaited him if he kept up his bad table manners. "S-Sorry Sakura. I'll try to eat more slowly."
"Thank you." Sakura said with a smile, causing Shiro to sigh in relief.
Dinner continued on as everyone chatted together. It helped a lot with washing away the exhaustion everyone was feeling after training. Afterwards, they each took turns bathing in the hot springs and went to bed.
-The Next Day-
Training went on the same as yesterday for the hero students. Just like before, the students quickly found themselves tired before noon even came. Their bodies felt like they would collapse any minute now.
It was especially difficult for those who had extra classes due to failing the final exam. Shiro, Jill, and Merci had been forced to stay up until 2 am for extra lessons with Yamagori. And with training starting at 7 am, they barely got any sleep.
However, there was one thing the students were told that gave them some excitement. That night they would be having a test of courage between the three classes. After grueling training for a full two days, a night of fun and excitement was just what they needed.
After eating their fill from dinner, everyone gathered for the test of courage. Night had already darkened the skies, making it the perfect setting for it. Alicia had been a little nervous about it, since the night-half of her Quirk would be in effect and most of the boys from her class were still unaware of it. But the class had gotten together earlier for Alicia to show it to everyone and to her relief none of them minded in the least. With that out of the way, she could finally focus on having fun with her friends in the test of courage.
"Woohoo! Test of courage!" Jill cheered. "Let's do this!"
"Yeah, I'm so pumped!" Shiro said. "I can't wait to scare somebody!"
"Yeah… about that…" Yamagori chimed in. "I'm afraid the extra lessons group will be having class with me now."
"... What?" Jill question. "Come on, Ms. Yamagori you have to be joking!"
"While I do love a good cynical joke at the expense of my students, I'm afraid I'm serious this time." the woman said. "Now, we can do this the easy way where you come quietly, or the hard way where I use my Quirk on you and drag your paralyzed bodies to the classroom." Yamagori then cracked her whip. "Just know that if I have to drag all three of you, I will not be in a good mood."
Not wanting to incur any further wrath from their teacher, the three students of Class C walked behind Yamagori as they made their way back to the building. Aizawa brought the students from Class A that had failed the final as well, with the one failure from Class B already waiting for them with Vlad.
With everything ready, Pixie-Bob began explaining the test of courage to the students. "Ok so we'll be doing three rounds of scaring. In each round, two classes will make up the scarers. First, Classes B and C will be the scarers, hiding out in the woods. Class A will leave in pairs every three minutes. There are tags with your names on them in the middle of the route, so bring those back with you. Those being the scarers aren't allowed to make direct contact. Show us how scary you are with your Quirks."
"The class with the least amount of people scared wins." Tiger added.
"Now then, you'll draw lots to determine your partners!" Pixie-Bob told them. "As for you scarers, hurry up and get ready cause we won't give you too much time!"
Classes B and C quickly made their way into the woods, splitting up into groups as they scattered around the path that Class A would be walking. Meanwhile, Class A waited in the clearing as the teams were chosen. Once it was time for them to move out, the pairs went one after another. Once three minutes passed after one team went, the next team was sent into the woods right away. Before long, five teams from Class A had gone into the woods.
Those still in the clearing could hear screams throughout the woods. It was clear a few of them had been gotten already. But having this sort of experience was also lots of fun in its own way.
Little did they know however that their fun times were about to draw to an abrupt end.
Deep in the woods, a man with black hair and charred flesh held his hand against the trunk of a tree. Azure blue flames spread out from his position, beginning to cover the whole forest.
"Now… it begins." Dabi said with a grin.
Back at the clearing, Pixie-Bob couldn't help but notice when an odd scent began lingering in the air. She took a whiff of it with her nose. 'What's this burnt smell?'
Mandalay soon noticed it as well, and could soon see the source. "Is that… black smoke?"
"Is something burning?" Iida wondered. "Could there be a fire on the mountain?!"
As everyone tried to grasp the situation, Pixie-Bob felt a sudden force pull her backwards. "Wh-What is this?!"
"Pixie-Bob!" Mandalay exclaimed.
All heads turned to the direction Pixie-Bob flew, only to see her on the ground with blood coming out from her head. A large wrapped up item was on her head, most likely the cause of the wound she had. Gripping the item was a woman wearing shades and an orange jacket and a white shirt underneath. At her side were two others, a man with a lizard-like appearance and another with a dirty brown jacket.
"Those pet cats are in the way." the one with the shades said.
Mineta backed away as everyone widened their eyes with fear. "Wh-Why… I thought they made doubly sure… Why are there villains here?!"
"Pixie-Bob!" Midoriya exclaimed. He rushed to help the pro hero, but Tiger quickly held an arm out to stop the student.
"How are you this evening, U.A High School?" the lizard villain said. "We are the Vanguard Action Squad of the League of Villains!"
"Shall I crush this girl's head?" the one standing over Pixie-Bob with the wrapped up item said with a smirk. "What do you think?"
Tiger glared at the villain threatening his teammate. "Like I'd let you, you-"
"Wait up, Big Sis Mag! Don't be hasty. You too, tiger. Calm down." the lizard man said as he stood between them. "It all depends on whether having power over life and death follows Stain's tenet's or not."
"So you're the ones his ideology brought?" Iida glared.
"That's right!" the lizard said as he brought out a large blade from his back. "I apologize for the late introduction. I'm Spinner, the one who will spin his dreams into reality!"
Tiger stepped forward, glaring at the villains. "I don't care, but you bastards… That woman lying there, Pixie-Bob has started worrying about getting married recently. She was doing her best to find happiness as a woman, despite her age. You can't damage that woman's face and then just stand there laughing thoughtlessly about it!"
"What's a hero doing trying to be happy like the average person?!" Spinner shouted as he rushed at Tiger.
"Tiger! I've broadcast instructions to everyone!" Mandalay told her partner. "Leave the safety of the other students to Ragdoll. The two of us will hold them back here!"
"You really think you can handle us when you're this outnumbered?" the woman with the shades asked.
"Even if it's 2 against 3, we can handle you no problem." Tiger told him.
To Tiger and Mandalay's discomfort, the woman let out a chuckle. "2 against 3, you say? I'm afraid you're mistaken." She looked over to the final member of their trio. "You know what to do, Death Metal!"
"Man… I totally hate doing this. But I guess I gotta." Utocha said. He took a deep breath before letting out a loud wail. "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
As Death Metal wailed, dozens of shadowy figures appeared, floating in the air. They each had a ghostly form to them with a black cloak over their bodies and transparent ghastly green arms.
Utocha finished his wailing and brought out a throat lozenge. "Man, my Quirk always hurts my voice so damn much."
[Utocha Yomi. Quirk: Apparition. When he yells for extended periods of time, he can create ghostly apparitions that fight for him. The longer he yells, the more apparitions he can make. The apparitions will vanish if they receive enough damage, and are weaker if exposed to light.]
Mandalay turned back to the students. "Get back to the campsite! Hurry! Do not fight them! Class rep, you're in charge!"
"Understood!" Iiida confirmed.
"Where do you think you're going?" Utocha said as he sicked his apparitions on the students. Tiger quickly moved to try and block their path, but the villain with the shades intercepted him.
"Sorry, big guy. You're fighting me."
With Mandalay having her hands full with Spinner, there was no one to protect the students. The teens widened their eyes as the apparitions came at them.
Suddenly however, a new voice spoke up. "I don't think so."
Out of nowhere, a barrage of transparent violet blasts rained down on the apparitions. Everyone gasped as Shinobu came out from the woods, showing he was the one responsible for the attack just now. With him were Sakura and Rekka.
"It's a good thing we were close to the starting point." Shinobu said with a smirk.
Alicia and Hikari stood together in the woods. Hikari had come up with the idea to use the darkness of night to make their beastly appearances seem more terrifying. Not having any better ideas in mind to scare the other students, Alicia went along with it.
"Man, what's taking them so long? I would have thought we'd pass one of the Class A pairs by now." Hikari said. "This is part of the path, isn't it?"
"Maybe the others before us got them really good?" Alicia suggested.
"Ugh, maybe. I guess we should have picked a better location." Hikari said.
Suddenly, the two girls heard a voice in their head that they recognized as Mandalay's. "Everyone! We're being attacked by two villains! It's possible there are more! Everyone who can move, get back to camp immediately! Even if you come across the enemy, retreat and do not engage!"
Alicia and Hikari stayed silent for a few moments, wondering if they had misheard the message just now. But the looks on both their faces as they turned to look at each other only confirmed their fears.
"The villains are here?!" Alicia exclaimed.
"What do we do?" Hikari asked.
"What indeed?"
The sudden voice from behind caused Alicia and Hikari to jump in fright. They both rushed out into the open and turned to face whoever had just spoked them. They had thought it was just a student. But they soon realized they were very wrong.
Cougar stepped out from the trees, showing a sinister grin as she brought out her claws. "Well lookie here. Two little kittens alone in the woods."
Alicia widened her eyes, recognizing the person standing before them. It was the same villain that had attacked them a few months ago. "You're… Cougar!"
Hikari glanced at her classmate. "You know her?"
Alicia nodded her head. "Yeah. She's that villain we fought before. The one we told you all about."
"So you know who I am?" Cougar asked. "I can't say I remember you from the time I fought that U.A bunch. Did we meet somewhere-" Her eyes suddenly widened when she recognized the white hair and fur on Alicia. "Now I recall. You were that bitch who got in my way last time. I still need to pay you back for that."
"What are you doing here? How did you even find this place?" Hikari questioned.
Cougar turned her head to Hikari. "That voice…" Her eyes widened after a few seconds. "Hikari?"
Hikari tensed up. She felt like she knew Cougar's voice from somewhere. But she couldn't place it. "How do you know my name?"
"Heh, seems fate really has a weird sense of humor." Cougar said. She brought her hand to her mask and lifted it up, revealing her full face.
Hikari gasped in shock, unable to believe her eyes. She realized why Cougar's voice sounded familiar to her. "No… It can't be…"
Cougar narrowed her eyes at the blonde teen. "I didn't think I'd see you here, little sister."
A/N: Hello readers. Hope you enjoyed this early chapter as a special Christmas present. Next chapter will still be out at its normal time of the start of the month, or in this case the start of the year. Until 2021, readers.
