WE'VE FINALLY CAUGHT UP WITH THE AO3 RELEASES! YAY! Jesus, I can keep one less google docs tab open, I can hear my browser quietly thanking me for this mercy.

(***)

"Okay, so I think that after analyzing all the new meta-abilities, me and Izu pieced up something resembling a taxonomy for those." Mei announced during the joint dinner the next day.

"Taxonomy? Ribbit." Tsuyu asks.

"You know that there are many types of fishes out there?" Izuku leans towards the frog girl. "Taxonomy is giving every type of them a name, and establishing which types are related to each other, based on such things as similarities in their build, the placements of fins and so on." Tsuyu nods.

"Thank you, ribbit." She seems vaguely interested, but equally in the fish on the plate in front of her and in what Mei and Izu had to say.

"Something besides 'meta-abilities are bullshit'?" Mei's bodyguard comments. "Because that is what I kept hearing from you recently."

She has wormed her way into the hearts of the Network due to being able to cook delicious meals despite doing it in such a primitive environment. They unofficially adopted her. Her status as a not-metahuman was promptly ignored.

"Oh, they totally are bullshit!" Mei replies cheerfully. "Honestly, I have no clue how they work. They absolutely violate the laws of science, and figuring out how that works in practice is something that I'm leaving for some international research committee with enough funding from the United Nations to buy out a small country. For now, I'm doing the basic investigations."

"So?" Kirishima finished eating his share of food and switched fully to the talk. "What can you tell us?"

He possesses a deep-seated belief that attempting to tackle the unknown in the heart of the meta-ability phenomenon through the usage of your intellect and knowledge is super manly, and is supportive of that. Even if the most that he can do is encourage Mei and Izuku to speak their mind.

"Well, thus far, there are clearly three major categories of meta-abilities." Izuku takes the wheel. Mei is a brilliant scientist, but he is the person who has read almost every imaginable thing about superheroes. Oddly enough, this makes him highly qualified in finding new applications of meta-abilities. "We've decided to refer to them as emitters, transformations and mutations."

"Emitters are basically the ability to generate, manipulate or alter something that's away from your body." Mei takes over. "Examples of emitters-type powers include the meta-abilities of Izuku, Uraraka, Ashido, Shinsou, Eto and also both supervillains we know of. So Mustard and Overhaul."

"Then we have transformations, the ability to alter your own body." Mei continues. "Here it would be Kirishima, and Toga, although in her case, I suspect we are dealing with two somewhat fused meta-abilities. However, both cases have one clear common factor - they are powerful, but have a time-limit."

"Finally, we have mutations." Izuku takes over again. "So the permanent alteration of one's biology, that just happens to grant you some degree of supernatural ability. That'd be Tsuyu, Jirou and Mei, although honestly, we suspect Tsuyu might be a special case."

"Special case? Ribbit." Frog girl asks back.

"Jirou and I have a single biological alteration." Mei replies. "You, in the meantime, have almost every single part of your body altered away from the human baseline. This is a completely different level. It's also something that I believe you share with Toga, as her vampiric qualities seem to grant her numerous mutation-type adaptations. Hence her double-quirk theory."

"In fact, for as much as we know, you two are technically subspecies of humans rather than humans per se." Izuku adds. "We do not know if you can have children with baseline humans. This is something that will require some extensive DNA tests. Considering how… consciously streamlined meta-abilities seem to be, we suspect you can, but your children will either pick either of their parents' subspecies, or they will all take yours. For now, we're referring to your type of mutations as 'complex mutations', while what Mei and Jirou had is 'simple mutations'."

"What about my skin and horns?" Ashido asks. "And your hair?"

"Perfect question!" Mei beams at her. "The answer to this is… honestly, we aren't sure."

"But we have a theory." Izuku says while people are still busy staring at increasingly confused Mei. They really expected her to say something constructive there. "Let's take you, Ashido, as an example. You have an emitter-type ability to control acid. However, you are also clearly acid-proof yourself, yes?" Mina nods. "So it's not like the meta-abilities come entirely alone. There are also clear biological adaptations to make them work better, as otherwise, you'd simply dissolve yourself during the first manifestation of your ability. So, for example, an emitter meta-ability allowing you to generate fire would come with an adaptation of being partially or entirely fire-proof."

"It makes sense for the acid-proofness, yes." Mieko Eto cuts in. "But how's green hair an adaptation to telekinesis?" She actually finished high school with very good grades and was about to get to the UA before things happened. She escaped her family after her ability manifested.

"That's a potential counter-argument to this theory." Mei admits. "But it's also possible that the adaptations aren't as streamlined and well-adjusted as the meta-abilities themselves. So sometimes you get some illogical random changes thrown into the mix. Like colouration changes and minor mutations. So, horns and so on."

"Okay, question two." Mieko Eto continues on. "Let's go back to Carmilla. Thus far, we're all seeing people have a single meta-ability. So can you have more than one, and Himiko won the lottery twice, or is the complex mutation not registering as a meta-ability? So she simply won the lottery once, while Tsuyu didn't? Because honestly, if you can have more than one meta-ability, then I don't think this world will exist for long."

"Huh, why?" It's Jirou. Mei and Izuku were clearly thinking it over.

"Because there is a fair chance that, if this scenario is correct, you can actually inherit your parents' meta-abilities." Izuku caught up with Mieko's trail of thought.

"And this is absolutely freaking me out." Mieko admits. "I mean, let's have a completely theoretical scenario here. Pinky and Gargoyle have a kid who can both harden himself AND generate acid." The people in question blush at those words. "Then Defiant and Singularity have a kid who can both manipulate gravity and has freakishly strong telekinesis." Izuku blushes, Uraraka does a spit take. "If those kids then have kids with each other, we'll suddenly move from people with powers to almost literal physical gods in three generations. You can't exactly run a civilization when there are people around who can level a city district by sneezing too strongly."

"Okay, that's just horrifying." Shinsou comments. "And I'm like one hundred percent sure that if something akin to this mechanism is at play, someone's gonna start breeding said physical gods in their basement. And this is going to suck big time for everyone involved." Now that's an image none of them wants to have in their minds.

"Well, we won't know for sure until we have children." Mei replies after a long while. "Considering the fact that meta-abilities appear to be, as stated multiple times, streamlined for sustainability and optimized in general, I'm willing to hazard a hypothesis that you might be right about complex mutations not registering as meta-abilities. I speculate based on the fact that Toga has her vampirism AND a meta-ability requiring blood intake. This is certainly not a random thing, but a clear thematic connection centred upon human blood. Perhaps if Tsuyu 'won the lottery' as you said, she would get water or poison-themed meta-ability of non-mutant type. Izu?"

"I agree, more or less." Izuku replied. "As for theories, I'm willing to make one that descendants of meta-ability bearers will either have one of their parents' powers, or a mix or two, or perhaps something random. The only question is if it's possible for a meta-human to have a non-metahuman child, because if not, then eventually there'll be only meta-humans left."

"Oh, most likely." Mei nods. "But that's many generations in the future, and it also depends on how many meta-humans will manage to have children. We can expect some pushback from non-metahumans, a fact that honestly saddens me. But it doesn't surprise me. Also, Mieko-chan… can I call you that way?" The teleporter girl nods, obviously slightly taken aback. "You are officially invited to our meta-ability brainstorming sessions."

"Uhm, thank you?" Mieko blinks at them from the other end of the table.

"Are the weird talks over the dinners going to be a standard thing for this crew, or is it just a one-time thing?" Shinsou asks. He looks exasperated by it, in his own emotionless way.

"Yes." Izuku and Mei reply almost in unison, eliciting a lot of laughs.

(***)

"So, by the way, are we all superheroes, or is there some sort of grading in play?" The meal is over, but they are still chatting around the table. The 'who leaves first cleans the plates' challenge that Mina announced took care of that. This time it's Kirishima that spoke, saying words that drew everyone's attention.

"What do you mean?" Uraraka asks him back.

"Like, listen. I'm not discriminating against anyone here." Kirishima says officially. "You all sound like pretty swell people. Most of you could easily get away with committing crimes, but you all joined the guy who told you that you could become superheroes. And that's manly like hell."

"You really should expand your compliment variety." Mina comments. Kirishima smiles back at her.

"How about 'masculine'?" He replies and she chuckles. "Well, the point is, it's rather clear that only some of us have the meta-abilities to actually fight people. I kind of thought that superheroes are meant to fight villains, mostly. Just, considering it being the real world and people having guns out there, I kind of think that sending someone NOT bulletproof out there is begging for trouble and I think we should work on naming? You catch my drift?" He is clearly not sure how to put what he has in mind into words. Izuku catches up to his drift immediately.

"Yeah, I get that." Kirishima looks at him, clearly relieved. "Honestly, our combat party is me, Kirishima and Uraraka, although she is supposed to keep a distance from the enemies. Maybe Tsuyu, if the enemy is an aquatic one, because she could probably beat us all underwater." The frog girl looks vaguely smug. "The rest are more of a support role. Though I think that Ashido-san has the potential to get there."

"I do?" Mina blinks at him. "I mean, I can only project acid around. That's not exactly a combat-worthy power?"

"I just have to make you an acid-proof hero suit." Mei speaks up. "Then you just have to cover yourself with an acid armour of sufficient density and solubility that it would intercept rounds and dissolve melee weapons."

"Wait, when did you come up with that?" Ashido is clearly interested in the idea, but also in where it came from.

"We had that figured out soon after we met you." Izuku replies. "Just in case you joined the Network. We weren't going to pressure you into our ranks simply because we had an idea on how to make you a great superhero, though. It was more of a thought exercise."

Mei agrees with him and makes the world know by a rather vigorous nodding.

"Oh." Mina blinks a few times in a daze. "You guys are kinda scary, but in a good way."

"The best one." Uraraka pipes in.

"The manliest one." Kirishima agrees. Mina reacts to that with a chuckle. Izuku is at this point almost certain that Kirishima is using this adjective so often recently because it makes her laugh so much.

"Well, so in a way, we have several… uhm, regular superheroes." Izuku adds. "Just with almost no combat experience. And a bit more… uhm… sidekicks? I mean, if we get to work with police, you're probably going to get more screentime than we do, unless supervillains pop up. Especially our new friends from Hosu."

"Name as good as any other." Shinsou comments dryly. Jirou agrees with a nod.

"What about villains, then?" Eto pipes in. "We're clearly establishing the naming conventions, right?"

"Villain and supervillain work well enough, I think?" Izuku replies. "Overhaul's clearly the latter. He has a powerful superpower and the mind and resources to back those up. Mustard is a particularly dangerous case of the former. In the meantime, Carmilla and Hijack are both former villains."

"Frankly , aren't you kinda Overhaul's equivalent?" Kirishima asks while scratching his head. When Izuku's eyes turn towards him, he clarifies. "Like, my meta-ability is awesome for fighting, and I can shrug off gunfire like it's not there, but you? You have that to only a slightly smaller degree. But you can also fly, carry others around, manipulate your surroundings at a distance, and I'm fairly certain you also count as a scout if you just fly above someone at night in silence. So aren't you a superhero while I'm more of… an… uhm… hero?"

"Hell no!" Izuku leans back. He looks genuinely outraged at what was just said. This takes some of them off-guard. "Listen, if we ever get public and there is a popularity poll or a rating, you're free to vote for me. But otherwise, please don't elevate me like that. I don't even like the term metahuman, because it makes us sound like we're somehow better than an average person out there."

"Aren't we?" It's Shinsou that asks. Izuku looks at him weirdly, and the brainwasher recoils slightly. "Hey, I don't mean in some sort of 'we are superhumans, kneel before us' way, but I vaguely recall us having skills that other people do not. Doesn't that make us in a way better than others?"

"Do you know how to draw, Shinsou-kun?" Izuku asks. Shinsou's brow raises.

"Uhm, no?"

"Well, there was a girl in my class a few years ago that was a very good drawer." Izuku replies. "And she wasn't born with that skill. She actually put an effort to get there. Does it make her better than you as a human?"

A few seconds of thoughtful silence at the table. Finally, Shinsou arrives at the destination.

"Point taken." He admits. "I guess if I want to maintain a moral high ground when the muggles try to kill me for having mind control meta-ability, I should at least have the decency to not look at them as subhumans. Besides, I vaguely remember such an approach generating a lot of hostility in whoever's treated like that."

Izuku is at this point almost certain that there is a decent person under all that grit. He just needs to scrub Shinsou clean and he won't be afraid of him going OBEY ME MORTALS route further down the line.

"So what term would you prefer?" Mei asks Izuku. "Rather than meta-ability?"

"No, meta-ability is a term I'm mostly okay with." Izuku shoots back. "Don't get me wrong, when it comes to abilities as a whole, what we have is kinda meta. Either something completely unique or super-rare on a worldwide scale. It's the 'meta-human' bit that I dislike."

He just didn't feel about it strongly enough to complain when Mei announced the name of their organization. Maybe he should have complained? Is it too late to change it?

"How about 'quirk'?" Mina pipes in.

"You just want to make a 'we all have our little quirks' joke or something like that." Mieko comments. Few of the people at the table chuckle at that, including Mina.

"Let's consider that a synonym." Izuku decides. "Anything else you think we need to develop a terminology for? I don't want things to sound odd when I meet that police officer. We ought to look professional."

"Uhm, about that?" Oddly enough, it's Jirou who speaks. "Am I the only person who actually named my meta-ability? Because you keep referring to them as 'meta-ability of that person' or 'that person's meta-ability' and it kinda sucks?"

After five seconds of pregnant silence, Jirou sighs loudly.

"You suck at anything even remotely resembling marketing, you know that?"

(***)

After a long and intense discussion, they finally settle upon their quirk names.

Mei takes a simple Scope. It more or less fits her meta-ability, and she of all people is very narrowly interested in the issue. She grew so used to her mutation quirk that she barely recognizes it as a quirk. It's just a part of herself now.

Kyoka sticks to Earphone Jack. A bit of a mouthful in some of their opinions, but it's already established, and she likes it.

Uraraka picks up Gravity Control. It makes sense, especially considering her recent developments in that field.

Kirishima ended up going for a simple 'Hardening'. It describes his quirk's mechanism well enough. Mina wanted him to go for a slightly flashier Golem, but he ended up refusing (even when she employed the most dangerous of her weapons - the fact that she knew where he was very ticklish).

One of the main reasons for that was that Mina took a simple Acid, and Kirishima announced that after going for such an uninspired name, she has no right to chastise him for Hardening. Truly, he earned that tickling.

Mieko settles for Warp Gate. More or less correct term. It also doesn't include the term 'teleportation', which seems to work at Mei like holy water on a demon. Just with more crying.

Tsuyu opts out of the game. She is just a half-frog, in her own words. Not even sure if it counts as a quirk.

Shinsou goes with Hypnosis. He originally wanted to call it Brainwashing, but Izuku talked him out of it. Terrible connotations of a name, for a power that already has some bad connotations due to how it works in practise.

Toga deliberates on it for a while, then writes Blood Transformation on a piece of paper. They all agree that it's a pretty good name.

Izuku struggles a lot. He wants to go with a simple Pull, but Jirou tells him it's a kinda dumb name for a meta-ability this strong. Telekinesis feels too mundane, although it's always an alternative term to refer to it. Eventually, he settles upon Force.

"Oho, that explains why you are flying so much." Mina announces triumphantly once that's done. "You are making sure that you always have the high ground!"

Izuku chokes on his tea.

(***)

Izuku spends two hours quickly rewriting certain documents that he prepared for the meeting with the police. He had to take the new terminology into account. Then he decided to face something significantly more… problematic.

He quickly went home. Mom was there, reading a newspaper.

"Mom." He braces himself for the talk. "We need to talk."

"Is it the moment when you tell me what exactly you are doing when you aren't at home?" She says, while putting her newspaper away. "Probably not. So it's the moment when you tell me you are going to do something extremely heroic, but also potentially emotionally harmful to everyone involved. Like, say, that you are moving out of our home in order to not endanger me."

Izuku almost trips over. That's literally what he came home to do. He had friends now. A lot of them. And Overhaul who was still out there, and was probably waiting to get his hands on Izuku.

"Uhm, are you sure that you don't have a mind-reading superpower, mom?" He asks, and she gives him one of her patented Worried Stares. "Because… yeah, that's actually what I wanted to do."

She sighs. It's a long and painful sigh, the one that clearly indicates that she is past ever her standard crying fits.

"Don't tell me anything." She says, and he stares at her for a second. He is about to say something, but she continues. "Izuku, baby, I trust you. Whatever you are doing, you are doing it to help people. You truly are your father's son." She shakes her head.

"Mom…" Once again, he tries to speak, but she doesn't let him.

"Since you are playing the 'I need to go or you'll be in danger' card, it means that you got yourself a powerful enemy." She sighs. "Once again, just like your father. But it works both ways, you know. If I know something about whatever you're doing and someone gets to me, they can also get to you. And this is something that I'll absolutely not stand. So… do not tell me anything. But if you need my help, this home's door is always open. Got it?"

He barely manages to not cry at that. C'mon, Izuku. You are a superhero. And you have a job to do.

"There is… something." He admits. She looks at him, wordlessly encouraging him to speak up. "You remember the girl I mentioned saving? She is only six years old, but she went through things that no human should have. I… She can't even leave the house, at least for now."

And he doesn't want to put all the eggs in one handbasket. He is the only person within the Network who knows where Eri is, and he will die before sharing that knowledge.

Mei knows the general location, but not the exact house in question. Thankfully, she spends most of her time away from Overhaul's grasp. Good luck trying to attack the Hatsume Industries' headquarters.

Besides, if the worst comes to happen… if the meta-ability's existence is revealed to the public AND it reacts badly… having some safehouses to hide at the very least the young kids with meta-abilities might be a good idea.

"If it's possible, could you… come check up on her from time to time?" He says. His mother's expression softens… but she is yet to know the truly problematic part.

"I… think that shouldn't be a problem." Inko replies with a faint and somewhat proud smile. Proud of him, no doubt. "Where is she?"

Well, time to walk through that minefield.

"At Bakugous'." He replies.

Something nasty flinches on her face. Something particularly horrible. Something completely out of place on his mother's face.

"Izuku…" She starts, but he isn't letting her.

"Mom, I know what Katsuki did." He says. That makes her stop. "I also know that if his parents knew, they would stop him immediately. When I asked them to help Eri, they agreed immediately. Despite knowing that she means trouble, and that I wasn't going to save her… entirely… legally. And I know that Auntie Mitsuki is treating her well. But…

"Izuku, she…"

"Mom, you ignoring Bakugous won't bring her back." Izuku says. His mom recoils as if he slapped her in the face. "Auntie Mitsuki was your best, pretty much the only friend. Now you won't even have me around for most of the time. I'm not letting you stay alone. Eri needs you just as much as you need Eri. And you also need Auntie Mitsuki. So if you truly want to help me, promise me you'll at least try. That I won't have to be worried about you living alone, slowly draining away or… having a stroke and nobody finding you until a few days have passed. Please, mom."

It's less coming to a decision and more an internal fight. Izuku stands there quietly, waiting for it to finish.

"I…" She takes a deep breath. "I'll try. I can't promise you anything more than that."

It's good enough. He can't hope for more. But he can give her just a little bit of a push… and perhaps let her into one small secret. He is fairly certain she would kill him if she found out about it after a long, long time.

"Do that… and once this is all over, I'll introduce you to my girlfriend." He smiles at her, maybe a bit smugly. She, in the meantime, is briefly shocked. Before she smiles widely at him in return.

"Girlfriend? How did that happen?" She looks briefly as if pondering the answer to this question. "Wait, let me guess. You did something crazy, but also heroic and admirable, and she totally fell for you for that. Am I right?"

Now that Izuku thinks about it, it's kind of what happened. Just with some additional inventive engineering and superpowers thrown into the mix.

He is about to answer her question, but she reads everything from his face.

"I swear, just like your father." She sighs. "Is there anything you got from me? Like, anything at all? I'd have said that hair colour, but something that you aren't telling me about has clearly changed that part of you as well."

He lets her banter for a bit. Then he joins it. They ignore all the important subjects and simply act as if none of their previous talk happened. They both need it.

Once this ends, and there are no more hugs to give (and crying to do), Izuku goes to his room. He packs everything he feels like taking and leaves his house. It's not much.

(***)

Some naming conventions had to be established. If only to give me more synonyms to use. Being able to showcase the characters at a table and showing how they interact with each other was a bonus.