U.A. was a big, big place. Valley knew that the school was the most prestigious out of all other schools in Japan, and had a hunch that it would be quite large, but he didn't expect it to be THIS daunting. Poiro, of course, blithely ignored any factors of intimidation and rushed straight for the exam room the second they got onto campus, a notion that Valley wearily followed, taking a few deep breaths to quell his raging nerves.
The written portion of the exam wasn't what Valley fretted over, for he felt naught but upmost confidence when filling out his answers. It was nice that Present Mic, a pro hero with hair like a cockatoo and a quirk that allowed him to amplify his voice to levels that shattered glass, was the one to teach them, and the pro hero Hound Dog (one hero who Valley admired since he doubled as a therapist), a man with a dog mutation, watched over them with a piercing eye. He was quite intimidating, though - even his overzealous friend didn't find any room for amicable interactions with him staring at them all.
Oh, and not to forget Ectoplasm, the one who passed out the tests. His quirk allowed him to create duplicates of himself, which was handy.
Valley finished up his final few answers with plenty of time to spare, and set his test aside. His hands folded across the table, and he waited patiently, his tail occasionally twitching from its spot within his lap.
Eventually, Present Mic announced the end of the test, and in his ever boisterous manner explained how the exam would work - the students would be thrown into one of many faux cityscapes, and were tasked with destroying as many robots as possible. They were worth a different amount of points, ranging from 1-3, but there was also a Zero Pointer, which was more an obstacle if anything.
The exam was balanced towards those with offensive quirks, which was something Valley hated about the hero society - it always favored those with quirks more flashy, more damaging, rather than expressing equality. It essentially created a hierarchy of sorts, placing people where they belonged because of something they could not control, and that, right there, was something that Valley wanted to change.
Pushing his qualms aside for now, he grabbed his entry card and gazed upon the exam area - he was to be placed within cityscape B. B to what, who knows. Maybe F.
A teacher who's hero name escaped Valley led him and a conglomerate of other students towards the testing site. Some were perturbed, some were confident, a few seemed to be lost in thought, one looked ready to wet their pants, and the last one was psyching themselves up.
They arrived at the front gates.
"GO!"
The doors opened, and many students looked around in confusion, not expecting the sudden start. As Present Mic went on to explain 'there was no countdown for heroes', a few students had already taken off, Valley included. A white aura flared around him, his muscles bulged, and his tail waved like a flag in the wind as he dashed forth, covering several feet of ground in only a few short strides.
As he leapt up and delivered a swift roundhouse to a nearby robot, decapitating it almost immediately, he couldn't help but pray that wherever Poiro was, he was doing alright for himself.
-
7 minutes had passed, and Valley was very assured that he had already cemented a spot for himself in the hero course. He had taken out plenty of robots during the time spent, either with his physical prowess or blasts of ki. He was surprised to find that they actually do fight back, either by swinging their metallic limbs or launching harmless lasers at them, though it didn't matter, since Valley took them out before they could get any good hits in.
Robot debris littered the streets Valley ran through, his veil of ki a little more subdued than what it was earlier. There were two left, one of which was already occupied by a boy with spiky red hair.
The other locked onto Valley and fired a laser his direction, of which Valley lithely avoided by strafing to the left. He conjured a sphere of ki within his palm and flicked his wrist outward; the attack soared through the air and punctured the robot's right arm, rendering it useless.
Valley got in close, and dodged a swipe by ducking underneath it. He pulled back his fist, shrouding it with ki, only to then thrust it forward, leaving a deep dent in the surface metal. He reared his leg back and twisted around, delivering a swift side kick that knocked the robot to the floor. He finished it off by blasting it with one final sphere of ki, causing it to explode, shrapnel raining down around him.
He let the aura around him disperse, taking a deep breath. He was able to use his ki in order to amplify his strength, but it sapped at his stamina and ki reserves. He could only use so much before he was completely drained, which he supposed was his only drawback. With training, he's managed to increase his maximum limit, but it was still annoying to practice and then run out in the middle of a technique.
THUMP.
He was torn from his thoughts by a tremor, accompanied by a reverberating sound that came from...somewhere.
THUMP.
The buildings around Valley shuddered. The windows wobbled. Loose debris shifted.
Screams rang out.
From behind a large building arose a titan unlike anything Valley has ever seen before, a robot that nearly touched the clouds - at least, in his eyes. Really, it was about as tall as a large office building, but that didn't make it any less intimidating.
It took a step, and it felt as if everything around Valley had shifted. His tail helped him keep balance, at the least, yet that didn't mean he was going to have a hard time navigating around.
But did he really need to? This was probably a test, his mind told him. A test to see who was truly brave, a test to see what people would do when faced with something beyond what they had imagined before.
Everyone else ran.
Valley stayed in his place.
The ki around him erupted, loose pebbles flying around him in a vortex formation as the veins lacing his arms and legs nearly burst, resting atop his tightened thew. His hair and clothes wavered with the squall of wind that formed around his feet, and sweat poured down his head at how much strain was put upon his body - he was pushing himself to the absolute maximum, knowing that he would have to give it his all in order to take this thing down.
His success in his task was filled to the brim with contingency. But it was a risk he was willing to take.
He cupped both of his hands against his chest and shifted his stance, so that his left foot was facing the Zero Pointer, his right behind him, both his chest and back facing a building on either side of him. A glowing blue sphere of energy immediately formed between his cupped palms, shining through his caged fingers, growing in output as the seconds ticked by.
The Zero Pointer came closer.
His ki ballooned; a spiderweb of cracks began to form along the street around him. The pressure in his head was mounting to dramatic levels, darkness flecking at the edge of his vision, but he pushed on, pouring as much energy into his attack as he could.
Closer…
Closer…
Closer…
Now.
He thrust his arms forward, screaming at the top of his lungs.
His beam tore through the sky, fast enough to split the air around it as it traveled in a straight line. It slammed into the Zero Pointer and immediately skewered it from front to back, where it then soared high before dissipating completely.
The robot released a skirling sound, shrieking metal grinding against internal compounds as it toppled. Explosions rang out from the inside, pieces of metal flying from its internal skeleton and external plating, all the way until it slammed against a section of buildings, a plume of dust and flames bursting up around it.
Valley, who was still as a statue, allowed the faintest of smirks to dance across his face, and then, only then, did he succumb to the realm of unconsciousness.