Our day-to-day routine was established quickly. We had normal courses, such as English, in the mornings, and Hero training in the afternoons. Our first combat training exercise was to be hosted by the #1 Hero himself, All Might, dressed in his usual sort of over-the-top uniform and sporting his trademark grin. For the sake of the exercise, we were asked to change into our costumes and meet at Ground Beta.
Costumes in the Hero course are designed via submission to the Hero Records. Students submit their own designs and preferences, and state-of-the-art support companies design the costume according to our specifications. Originally, I designed my costume to expose as much possible skin, for the sake of convenience for my quirk. The company responded that my original schematic violated the "regulations for exposed skin in costumes" bill and designed it to be more cumbersome than I had intended. The look is about what I had wanted - red and yellow coloring, a space on the back to hold a dictionary, short skirt-like apparatus, boots and leotard with a slit down the front for my chest and stomach. Still, I can't help but be a little disappointed. Nevertheless…
I joined my fellow students, all in their own costumes, and waited for All Might's explanation of the exercise.
"This will be an indoor battle trial. Villain cleanup is usually seen out in the open, but statistically, the better part of it is an indoor job. Most acts of villainy are committed indoors. Imprisonment, house arrest, the black market. In this hero-saturated society. For this test, you'll separate into 'villain' and 'hero' groups for a two-on-two team battle."
"What about the foundational training?" asked a girl with frog powers.
"This is foundational training!" announced All Might. "Only this time, there won't be any robots it'd be ok to just destroy!"
"So, how will we determine wins and losses?" I asked, followed by a chorus of other questions. Once everyone got through shouting, All Might explained "For this training, we'll have some 'villains' guard a nuclear weapon they intend on deploying. The heroes must stop them and their nefarious scheme before it's too late. If the heroes capture the villains, or reach the nuclear core before the time runs out, they win. If the villains manage to keep the core the whole time, or capture the heroes, they win. Your teammates and opponents will be chosen by lottery."
"Is that really how we'll do it?" asked a tall boy with glasses; his friend, the boy with the finger-breaking powers, reassured him, "Well, pros are often forced to amen impromptu teamups with other heroes they might not know very well, so this is probably testing that."
The lots were drawn. I was placed in "Team C" with a strange little boy who sits in front of me in class, who wears a purple costume. Minute something. His name was placed very low in the quirk apprehension test, if I recall the names correctly.
The first two teams called included Midoriya, the boy with the bone-breaking powers, and Uraraka, the girl who zero-gravity powers, on the heroes team, with first-place Bakugo and the tall boy with glasses - Iida - on the villains team. We gathered in an observation room as a class to follow their progress, though we had no audio.
The match began with the Heroes sneaking in, and Bakugo sneak-attacking them. I frowned to myself; based on their team makeup, it would have been far better to have Iida act as Vanguard and Bakugo guard the weapon. Something seemed rather off.
"That Bakugou's a cheater!" cried out the hardening boy, Eijiro Kirishima. "An ambush is so unmanly!"
"They are in the heat of battle, after all," All Might told him.
"Midori actually ducked away from it pretty well!" said the acid girl.
As we watched, Bakugou charged at Midoriya again, trying the same attack in a row. Midoriya anticipated his move, seized his arm, and tossed him over his head, body-slamming him into the ground, though without enough force to have been using his quirk. In spite of myself I was rather impressed.
As the two of them stood up, they both started yelling at each other, though we could not hear what they were saying. From their expressions it seemed likely that they were in the heat of some sort of emotional confrontation and not thinking rationally.
"What is he saying? There's no sound through the surveillance footage," asked Kirishima.
"Teammates can communicate through wireless transceivers," replied All Might. "And they all have a rough sketch of the building! And then there's this capture tape! The second someone's wrapped this around their opponent, that's the sign they're captured."
"The time limit is 15 minutes, and the heroes don't know where the core is being held, right?" asked Ashido.
All Might assented.
"The hero side is at a pretty heavy disadvantage in this scenario," she said, looking awfully concerned. Well, what would be the valor in winning an easy contest?
"Didn't Aizawa teach you kids our motto? Say wit with me now!" said All Might. "PLUS ULTRA!" We all in turn put our fists in the air.
THe fight continued, with Bakugou changing his trajectory to kick Midoriya instead of punch. Midoriya moved quickly enough to begin wrapping the capture tape around his ankle. Still moving quickly and logically, but refusing to use his quirk.
He dodged Bakugou's hit again, as if reading his mind and anticipating his move.
"Look at him go!" exclaimed the rest of the class. "He hasn't used his quirk once, but he's still going toe to toe with the kid who got 1st place in the entrance exam!"
He can't keep this up forever. It won't allow him to win in the long run, I thought.
Midoriya then ran off, leaving Bakugou to yell after him still. Neither one was making particularly good decisions, in my opinion. Bakugou's anger was obviously clouding his judgement, Midoriya was hesitating too much out of fear, possibly, of over-using his quirk.
Upstairs, Uraraka was struggling against Iida, giggling and alerting him to her prescience. Iida had prepared for her, however, by hiding everything in the room she could possibly use as a weapon. I approved, really. He had thought ahead, unlike the others.
Bakugou had finally found and cornered Midoriya, and was aiming some kind of massive attack at him from a gauntlet, like a gun. All Might called out "Bakugou my boy, stop this! You'll kill him!" Whatever Bakugou said in response, it seemed to have mollified All Might, because Bakugou then unleashed a giant explosion against Midoriya that destroyed half the building.
You're not bothering to role-play, Bakugou; you're destroying your own stronghold. That's foolish.
"This is supposed to be a lesson!" Kirishima was calling out. "Midoriya!" The smoke cleared and we could see Midoriya was still alive, but singed. "Sensei, please put a stop to this. That Bakugou kid's gone mental! At this rate, he'll kill him!"
"No," said All Might, but he seemed to have considered some of Kirishima's words, as he said into the mic, "Bakugou, my boy, if you shoot another blast like that, I'll end the exercise forcibly and you will lose. Launching an attack with such an extensive damage radius while indoors defeats the purpose of protecting your strong hold! It doesn't matter if you're a hero or a villain. That was just foolish! Once more and you'll earn yourself massive demerits."
Well said, Sensei.
Bakugou seemed to have listened, because he jumped forward and aimed another blast at Midoriya. However, instead of hitting him head on, he blasted out behind him and hit him in the back with a blast.
Todorroki, my fellow recommendation student, was saying "He deliberately misled his opponent and used his explosion ability to redirect his midair trajectory to his advantage. "You wouldn't think him the clever type looking at him, but those were some subtle motor skills."
"Landing a telling blow while resisting inertia at the same time means he must be able to adjust his explosion power finely", I said, agreeing with his analysis.
"Can't say I like him, but the kid's got talent," mused Kaminari, a blond boy with explosion powers.
As we watched, Bakugou continued to beat the crap out of Midoriya, his actions becoming more and more petty and violent.
"This is just torture!" said Kirishima. "It's clear he's already captured him!"
"That's not the behavior of a hero," agreed Tokoyami, a boy with a bird head.
Midoriya was running away now, headed towards the opposite end of the room. The two kept on shouting, then suddenly aimed their biggest attacks straight at one another, as if about to blow out everything.
"Sir, that's enough already!" Kirishima was pleading, almost begging All Might. "Sir!"
"Attention, both teams!" All Might was saying "ST- "
He was stopped then, as Midoriya aimed his punch not at Bakugou, but at the ceiling.
The ceiling broke open and Uraraka suddenly had enough weapons to use against the nuke. She batted them at Iida, jumped into the air, and seized the device, successfully completing the exercise.
"The Hero team wins!" shouted All Might, as Midoriya and Uraraka collapsed in pain.
"The losing team is fairly uninjured, but the winning team has collapsed," mused Kaminari.
"In other words, they lost the scuffle, but won the war." concluded Tokoyami.
A little while later, Bakugou, Uraraka and Iida were gathered in the monitor room for a review of their performances. I had thought them over a great deal…and it was clear to me that -
"Hm, I'd say the best in this match…was young Iida!" said All Might, completing my thought.
"But weren't the winners Ochako and Midoriya?" asked Tsuyu Asui, a girl with frog powers, looking perplexed.
"I wonder why I would say that," said All Might, rather cheekily. "Who knows why?"
"I can tell you why," I said immediately. "It's because Iida was the one who adapted the most to the situation. Having watched the fight, Bakugou's behavior was clearly driven by some personal grudge, and thus totally arbitrary. Further more, as you said, sensei, a large-range attack in an indoor arena is just foolish. The same reasoning goes for Midoriya. Uraraka lost focus halfway through, and her final attack was too reckless. If she'd treated the dummy weapon as if it were real, she'd never have launched such a large-scale attack. Iida was fully prepared for his opponent's arrival. He had a counterstrategy, and never lost sight of his mission to protect the dummy weapon. Technically the hero team won, yes, but they took advantage of the fact that this was training, and didn't respect the spirit of the trial."
Everyone stared at me in silence for a moment including the teacher. After a moment, All Might said,
"W-well, young Iida might have been a bit too stiff, but, correct!"
"We should always start with the basics and devote ourselves whole-heartedly to learning," I said, glad for once to have the floor. "That's the only way to become top pros."
All Might called out the next match. Todorroki and the duplicate arms boy Mezo Shoji against the tail boy, Ojiro and invisible girl, Hagakure.
This match seemed a little unbalanced in the Hero Team's favor. Ojiro and Hagakure's best bet would be to avoid any contact with surfaces, in order to avoid being frozen. As we watched, Hagakure stripped to sneak up on them and left Ojiro to guard the weapon. It was quite clear then what would happen.
Todorroki effortlessly froze up the entire building, locking Ojiro and Hagakure to the ground and securing the weapon all on his own.
"He made sure his comrade didn't get caught in the attack, and he refrained from damaging the core. He even weakened his enemies' position! He's something else, this one," said All Might. With all that buildup, I was starting to feel a little nervous. I would have to do something impressive to show that I was, in fact, better than this, my fellow student of recommendations.
My teammate and I were on the Villain team, and our opponents were Kaminari, and Kyoka Jirou, a girl with earphone jacks that hung from her lobes. Both had placed low on Mr. Aizawa's test, but both were formidable opponents.
I had quickly created thermoconductive shoe coverings for myself and my partner, to cancel out Kaminari's electricity, and headphones to avoid any noise-based attack Jirou might supply.
"The other Villain teams all made the mistake of splitting up and letting a single vanguard fighter take on the Hero team," I told Mineta as I began sealing off the door by creating nonthermoconductive bars. "We will stay together, so as to avoid those mistakes."
"We'll be together?" he said, in a tone of voice that distinctly sounded less than focused on the task at hand, and more on the implications of 'together'. I turned to glare at him. He was looking at my breasts.
"Pay attention to the task at hand," I told him. "Your quirk allows you to create sticky balls from your head, correct?"
"You want to know about my balls?"
"Are they electroconductive?"
"Wha? Oh, no."
"Then cover the ground with them. That way we can avoid being electrocuted."
He was still looking at my breasts, but he did what I said. I was pretty sure I'd covered all my bases.
Just as he'd finished laying out the trap, the ground started buzzing and sparking. Clearly Kaminari was releasing his electricity throughout the building. They had acted as I'd anticipated.
"During the test, Kaminari showed that he had limits for his powers," I mused. It occurred to me that Jirou could probably overhear us with her quirk, so I couldn't talk about my scheme aloud. I turned to look at Mineta, hoping to figure out some way to communicate with him, only to see that he'd been electrocuted thanks to standing on the bare floor without wearing his electroconductors.
I almost cried out, but remembered Jirou. Even if I was now on my own, Kaminari's quirk limit meant that he'd lose his ability to pay attention or use his brain once he used too much electricity. It would come down to a one on one between me and Jirou.
I quickly put on my headphones in order to avoid any follow up attack from Jiro, and kept my eyes on the door. I had to be prepared to fight.
I felt a vibration pulsing through the building - and saw my guards to the door vibrating out of their place. Jiro's vibration quirk.
I should have reinforced them more, I reprimanded myself. Jiro was standing in the doorway, though as I had predicted, Kaminari had lost his wits; he was standing behind Jiro and gesturing wildly.
So me vs. Jiro. I could still feel the ground vibrating, as she was facing me.
She looked hesitant, though, as if she wasn't sure what to do. Time to fight.
A metal staff emerged from my thigh. Jiro slammed her fsts to the ground, clearly about to blow it up. My voice muted through the earphones, I said "Can you really afford to displace the nuclear weapon, Hero? You can't be so desperate as to take out both yourself, your partner, and the villains you are supposed to be apprehending."
She stopped, looking irritated. She was stepping carefully, avoiding Mineta's sticky trap, and started moving over to the side of the wall. She extended her earphone jack into the side of her boot, and I realized two seconds too late that she was aiming a sound blast at me - from a direction that wouldn't hit the weapon.
I tried to move, but I had to be careful to avoid stepping on the trap, and the sound wave hit me at full force. Without the headphones, I probably would have been knocked out. As I was recovering my equilibrium, Jiro was sprinting towards the nuke.
I had to act fast; I created a net, aimed it, and trapped her, tripping and encircling her as she hit the ground and stuck to the trap. Kaminari had already tripped onto Mineta's trap and was struggling to get himself free. I walked over Jiro and wrapped the capture tape around her leg, then over to Kaminari to do the same. Both heroes were judged captured. My team had won.
"Well done, everyone," said All Might, before launching into our performance evaluations. Mineta was criticized, fortunately, for his lack of focus. He reprimanded me for failing to look after my partner, though; which I thought was a little unfair. I was supposed to be playing the Villain, wasn't I? Villains usually don't have much concern for their partners' wellbeing.
Kaminari was reprimanded for overusing his quirk too early , despite knowing the consequences, and Jirou for failing to coordinate with her partner. However, they were both praised for hard work as well.
I felt hopeful that I'd been able to live up to the expectations of the others. After a few more matches, the battle trial was finished. All Might said, "Good work, everyone! Apart from young Midoriya, there were no big injuries. Never the less, no holds were barred. For your first exercise, you all did wonderfully."
"Such an honest lesson right after Mr. Aizawa's is kinda anticlimactic if you ask me," said Asui.
"We're free to hold straightforward classes if we wish," said All Might brightly. "Change and return to the classroom!" He was gone like a streak of lightning, and we were all left to disperse back for afternoon courses with Mr. Aizawa.
Much to my annoyance, all anyone was talking about was Midoriya and Todorroki's performances. The class was gushing about that first match all afternoon, and had very little to say to me. A straightforward, quickly ended match is less memorable than a wild fight, I suppose.