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Spiderling
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Chapter 2
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One of the things Izuku disliked the most was showing off. For one, spiders are shy creatures that mostly kept to themselves and just did their own thing. But more importantly, he felt it cheapened his powers and the price he had had to pay for them. He understood that popularity, showmanship, and lip service played a large role in the rankings of heroes. But that didn't mean he had to enjoy it.
Still, Aizawa-sensei was right. The teachers had to know the students' limits in order to help them improve. He was already quite aware of his own, given all the research he had done into it. Yet he had never tested it in such a way where he would get proper hard data, so he was actually a bit excited.
He wasn't aiming for the top spot, but he'd still follow the motto of "Plus Ultra".
All those thoughts instantly left his mind the moment he lined up for the 50 meter dash and found Katsuki Bakugo next to him. Bakugo, whose quirk must have developed further to his eyes, from the explosive glare directed his way.
"It's been a long time, Deku. I'll crush you like the insect you are, bastard," the ash-blond teen promised menacingly.
Since Izuku's brain had paused for an unscheduled server maintenance, his mouth decided to take control. "Spiders are arachnids, Kacchan. Also, my parents were married and everything."
Some deep part of Katsuki registered the past tense, however the rest of him was too preoccupied to take notice at the moment. "You're still a bug underneath my foot! And stop calling me that!"
"When you stop calling me Deku! And you still have that scowling expression. What happened, did your face freeze permanently like that during the years?" Izuku's mouth found it really enjoyed having freedom like this. His body was on the cusp of losing bowel and bladder control, but it really didn't care.
"HAAAH?" Katsuki grabbed Izuku's collar and readied a massive one in his hand. "You wanna go, fuckmunch?!"
"I'm glad your wrist got better. Shame the same can't be said about your nose," by this point Izuku's brain had realized what was happening and was desperately trying to put the reins on his stampeding mouth. It was too late though, because Bakugo had let loose.
There was an underwhelming fwip and Izuku stared at the palm that had been stopped right in front of his face. The palm now wrapped in white cloth, along with its owner.
"Hey hey, what are you two doing? Do you want to get expelled so quickly?" Aizawa-sensei said dangerously. Izuku noted his hair had gone up and he was staring intently at them. There were also a pair of white goggles around his neck, revealed underneath the scarf.
"Wha.. What happened to my quirk?!" Katsuki yelled.
"I erased it," the teacher said and something clicked in Izuku's mind.
"You are Eraserhead, the underground pro hero!" Izuku blurted.
"Care to explain what's going on here?" the teacher ignored his exclamation.
Seeing Bakugo take a deep breath to completely mis-explain their history, Izuku's brain loosened the hold on his mouth.
"We knew each other from when we were kids!" the spider-boy hastened to say. "I accidentally broke his wrist and then his nose and kind of launched him several meters through the air."
"WHA..!? THAT'S NO-mmpff.." Bakugo was cut off by the scarf wrapping around his mouth.
Everyone in the background took a moment to contemplate what Izuku said, until..
How can you do that to someone accidentally?! they thought furiously.
Aizawa-sensei's eyes narrowed further. "There is no place for vengeance or settling old grudges in the Department of Heroics. Now, are you going to behave like future heroes should or..?" He trailed off.
"Yes, sir! Sorry, sir!" Izuku bowed quickly so he only heard Bakugo's muttered "Yes, sir."
They lined up at the starting line, neither of them even looking at each other. That's right, no grudges in the heroics department.
Yes, indeed. Absolutely.
When the signal was given, both shot off with incredible speed. Bakugo managed to narrowly win the race, by a split second. He also won the sustained sideways jump thanks to his quirk. They tied in the standing long jump with both clearing the sandbox quite easily, the endurance run, although Izuku felt he could go on for another 8 km, and the seated toe crunch. Those draws didn't surprise Izuku much – Bakugo had built quite the endurance and strength to be able to withstand his own quirk. The ash-blond lost on the softball pitch though, with 705.2 meters, and the grip strength test where Izuku got a score of 620 kg.
It was the upper body strength trial where Izuku really shone. The test itself consisted of a bar attached to a machine. The machine would adjust the resistance of the bar, and the student was supposed to lift it and hold it for at least 5 seconds. It was a trial designed to test one of the basics of heroics – lifting large heavy objects and holding them up long enough for the people underneath to get saved.
Izuku gripped the bar and lifted with almost no effort at all. It started off easy, at only 50kg. He cleared 100 kg, 200 kg and 500 kg with the same ease, and barely broke a sweat off at 1 ton. Everyone had started talking excitedly about his strength at that point which made him embarrassed and almost lose concentration for the 1.5 tons. It got much harder after 2 tons, with Izuku feeling more and more strain after each lift. He hit his limit at 3 tons, where he dropped the bar off with relief after barely managing to clear the 5 seconds.
He knew he had the proportionate strength of a spider, but that differed depending on the species. His abilities mimicked closest the ones of the jumping spider which was one of the strongest species of spider, and while 3 tons was quite the achievement, he still had a long way to go.
On his way back to the other students, he noticed Bakugo glaring heatedly at him. That's right, with this Izuku had won. That thought made his brain halt immediately.
What was he doing? He wasn't here for this. Did a meeting with an old childhood bully manage to break his resolve so easily? While friendly competition was fine and could even be beneficial, Izuku was honest enough with himself to admit it hadn't been about that. Seeing Bakugo after all this time had brought that horrible nickname to the top of his mind. He had wanted to show him again, once and for all that he wasn't a good for nothing. But that wasn't his goal.
He shook his head and turned away from Bakugo. He resolved to ignore him and his attempts to get a rise from him. Aizawa-sensei was right, this was the Department of Heroics - not a place to settle grudges.
"Dude, that was amazing!" Izuku was startled when that blond boy from earlier yelled at him and raised his hand. It took a moment for the spider-boy to realize what that meant and blushing, he gave him a high five. "I did not expect you to have so much strength in that lean scrawny body of yours."
"W-well, this is the first time I did that," Izuku said embarrassed.
"I think it's a first time for all of us doing these kinds of tests," the pink-skinned girl from earlier joked from his left, which almost made him jump. Unfortunately for Izuku, his spider-sense did not agree with his brain that talking with girls fell in the dangerous interactions category, so he never did get a warning when said girls approached to talk to him.
"N-no, well I l-lift heavy objects when I train, but I never knew exactly how much they weighted.."
"I have to say, you keep surprising me," a tall boy with straight hair and glasses approached. "First at the entrance exam when you figured out the true purpose of the test and now here."
"O-oh, that was.. I didn't so much as figure it out, but more.. I just thought helping people was more important than destroying robots," Izuku said embarrassed and looked away. Moving and switching schools hadn't done much to improve his social skills. While the stigma of being quirkless didn't follow him, his shy nature and demeanour did. He always thought that was another effect of his quirk. Losing his father at an early age, and his obsession with his quirk and heroism (not to mention those trust issues because of Bakugo) didn't help much either, so he tended to be by his lonesome, even in the new environment.
It was surprising to see so many people want to talk to the nerdy loner who kept to himself.
"I see," the boy in glasses' reply made him come back to the conversation. "Your resolve is truly commendable. I now understand I can do well to learn from your example. But where are my manners, I didn't properly introduce myself! I am Tenya Iida!"
"That's right man! You were late so we didn't get to talk beforehand! I'm Denki Kaminari" the blond boy introduced himself.
"We did get to see that cool entrance though!" the pink-skinned girl exclaimed, which made Izuku blush even further. "I'm Mina Ashido and tell me, did you aim for the chair or was that just a coincidence?"
"I'm Izuku Midoriya, pleasure to meet you all," he bowed. "W-well-"
"If you brats want to socialize, you should probably go somewhere else," Aizawa-sensei cut in and they all instantly looked at the teacher. "Good, the trials are all done with. Time to present the results." he clicked on the device he was holding and a hologram with all their names placed between 1 and 20 appeared.
The only one surprised that Izuku was at 1st place was Izuku himself. But after he thought about it, he realised it wasn't that surprising. His quirk had helped him achieve incredible results in some trials, while placing consistently in the top 5 in all. He noted Iida was 5th, Ashido was 10th and Kaminari was 17th. Excluding Iida, he hadn't seen any obvious quirk use from the other two so he wondered what their quirks were. Kaminari's was probably related to lightning in some way, given the black lightning painted in his hair. Izuku was never one to ignore obvious signs like that from the Universe. As for Ashido, she had to have some physical mutation quirk given her bizarre appearance. While they talked he had taken a chance to look closer, without hopefully seeming creepy. She had a pair of slightly curved horns protruding from underneath her pink curly hair and her eyes were yellow, with black sclera.
He wondered who Minoru Mineta at 20th was, but a panicked scream from a really short boy with purple balls for hair answered him.
"Don't worry, I won't expel you," Aizawa-sensei said and mostly everyone was still for a bit before exclaiming loudly in surprise.
"C'mon guys, use your brains," a tall girl with a big ponytail said with exasperation. "It was obviously a ruse to draw out our full potential." Mineta seemed to let a sigh of relief at that.
"Ruse?" Aizawa-sensei said and stared at the ponytail girl, making her lose colour in her face. "If you'd let me finish you'd have realized how foolish that is. I'm here to judge and sign off on whether you'd all be heroes one day. If I judge someone is below the zero-mark and is merely half-assing their way to a dream, it's not cruel to kick them out." His eyes passed over and met the stare of every single student. "I kicked out a whole class last year," he ignored the gasps of horror and continued as his eyes settled on Mineta, "and this year I'm kicking you from the Heroics program. But I am not expelling you from the school, you can continue trying from the General Educations program. Or you can transfer to a different school with a Heroics program, I'm sure the fact you managed to pass the Heroics exam for U.A. will play in your favour. The choice will be yours." Aizawa-sensei finished and approached the boy. Ignoring his tears and shocked expression, he placed a hand on the back of Mineta's head and started leading him away. "As for the rest of you, change into your uniforms and go back to the classroom. You can all take the time to properly introduce each other until I come back. Now is finally the right moment to socialize and get to know the competition."
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The walk to the classroom was filled with silence. No one seemed to want to talk after what happened. With one single action, Aizawa-sensei had showed everyone what was truly at stake here – their future as heroes.
Some weren't showing much emotion. Some seemed obviously frazzled and nervous. A few even looked pleased that U.A. could back up its reputation of highest academia that produced only the best of the best heroes.
They decided to do introductions by student numbers. Most kept it short, only name, age, and name of their quirk, although there were some extravagant individuals. Izuku resolved not to involve himself too much with whatever was going on with Aoyama. He also noted Ashido had a loud and bubbly personality, and her quirk was named Acid because she could secrete it from her body at will. That surprised him since he thought she'd have a different type of physical quirk. There was a girl with a similar quirk like his, except hers was Frog. The nice-girl's name was Ochaco Urakara and while she was introducing herself Izuku couldn't help but remember how he'd made a fool of himself and from the snickering when he did his own introduction, it seemed others remembered too. He had been right about Kaminari's quirk – it had to do with electricity. Bakugo didn't miss the opportunity to declare his goal of being number one and for the rest of the extras to stay out of his way. There was a moment of tense silence when Mineta's turn came, but the ponytail girl, Yaoyorozu, rallied quickly and finished the introductions.
They didn't have to wait long for Aizawa-sensei, who after coming back dismissed everyone for the day. The Quirk Apprehension test had taken quite a lot of time, after all. Izuku quickly grabbed his things and rushed to follow the teacher who had somehow managed to jump into his sleeping bag and slither halfway through the corridor.
"E-excuse me, Aizawa-sensei," he called and the teacher rolled to his side and looked up at him, with his tired bloodshot eyes. Izuku couldn't help but compare him to some weird caterpillar at that moment.
"This better not be why you stopped me, Midoriya.." Aizawa-sensei said. Izuku realized his treacherous mouth must have blurted his thoughts again and rushed to apologize.
"It's fine," the teacher dismissed his ramblings. "What do you need?"
"W-well, I was wondering if I could use the chemistry lab," Izuku said nervously. "Um, maybe I should show you." He took out one of his web-shooter gloves, put it on, and fired some webbing at the ceiling.
Aizawa-sensei stared at him, "I hope you're planning on cleaning that."
"W-what?! Of course, but actually it will dissolve by itself in 15 or so minutes," Izuku hastened to explain. "I made these myself, they shoot ropes of really tough webbing which I can use for various tasks. And this," he showed him a small canister, "is where the substance is stored before being shot out. However, I'm running low on it so I wanted to ask if I could use the chemistry facilities to make more."
Aizawa-sensei raised a brow at him. "Why didn't you give the formula along with your specifications for your hero costume?"
"A-actually.. I'm planning on patenting the formula and keeping it a secret. I think it can have many applications and benefit society a lot, but at the same time if villains got a hold of it, things could get messy," he cringed at the accidental pun, but still did his best to look at Aizawa-sensei in the eyes. He didn't mention he hadn't given any specifications to the support company at all.
The pro-hero stared a moment longer at him, before he told Izuku to follow him. It was weird walking after what looked like a caterpillar in the corridors and attracting a lot of attention in the process, but this time Izuku managed to keep his mouth from blurting that out. They finally reached a set of large entrance doors made from what looked like steel and a lot of rivets.
"This is the workshop," Aizawa-sensei said after getting up. He took a hand out of the sleeping bag and knocked on the doors. "Power Loader, who is in charge of the support class, is the one you want to speak to in order to get access. He should be in, giving a tour to his new students."
Just as he finished the doors opened to reveal a skinny man with long orange spiky hair wearing a large yellow helmet. Izuku instantly recognized him.
"Aizawa? Is everything okay?" Power Loader questioned.
"Yeah, everything's fine, Higari. This is Izuku Midoriya, one of my students. He needs access to the chemistry lab for.. I'll let him explain. I have to go look at candidates to fill the spot that just opened in my class. I'm leaving him in your care." Without waiting for a reply, Aizawa-sensei slinked to the floor and began crawling away.
Power Loader shook his head and muttered, "At least it's only one this year." which sent a shiver down Izuku's spine. Just one more confirmation of how real things were now. The pro hero looked down at him and introduced himself. "My name is Maijima Higari. Please, come in."
"Izuku Midoriya, pleased to meet you sir," Izuku bowed quickly and followed the teacher in.
"I have to say, it's very rare for students from the Heroics department to come work on something themselves. Usually they just send a request in. It's quite refreshing."
"Well sensei, it's more because I wish to patent the formula of what I want to make and keep it a secret. It can be dangerous in the wrong hands." Izuku then quickly explained about his web-shooters and web formula, hoping he wouldn't offend the teacher.
"Everyone is entitled to their secrets, even heroes. Perhaps, especially heroes, given the field we are working in," Power Loader dismissed his worries at the end with a smile, and continued. "You're coming at a good time – I was just giving the tour to my students and telling them the safety rules and regulations of using the workshop. If you plan on coming here regularly to work on things, you should know them as well."
Izuku looked around the workshop. It was so large! And it gave both an orderly and a messy vibe at the same time. There were so many tools and materials as well! Oh the things he could do here – no more going through trash and scrap to find what he needed.
"Yes sensei, I think I would love to come back here often."
Power Loader smiled and turned to the rest of the students who were looking around and exploring the workshop. "Everyone," he got their attention, "this is Izuku Midoriya from class 1-A. He has expressed interest in working on some things for his hero gear, so you'll be sharing the workshop with him in the future. Please make sure to welcome him."
The teacher then went on to give the safety rules and regulations lecture. It was pretty standard stuff - make sure to wear proper safety equipment, no starting fires unsupervised, no working with electricity unsupervised, no experimentation on life forms unsupervised, no creation of weapons grade explosives unsupervised, no work on bioengineered plagues unsupervised, no addition of instant kill mode to costumes unsupervised.. All in all, Izuku already expected most of that.
Afterwards he was shown to a corner of the room that contained two chemistry sets and various available chemicals and acids. To his delight, the lab had everything he needed on hand. He put his backpack on a corner of a desk, took out a notebook titled "All things Spider, vol. 6" and opened it on the section with his formula notes. Before he started mixing the ingredients, he put on the goggles and one of the lab coats like Higari-sensei had insisted.
He used the first set to start on the regular formula. The only thing left at the end was to let the chemical reaction runs its course, so he switched to the second set and started working on an experimental modified version.
While 15 minutes was pretty good, especially when he started patrolling around the city more often once he was a hero, it was still insufficient for certain tasks - like detaining villains for a longer period of time or holding up debris of a collapsing building long enough for evacuations to happen.
So far he had managed to modify the formula to extend the time to 30 minutes, unfortunately at the cost of the strength of the web. Of course, even if he managed to make it stronger, he'd still need to modify his web-shooters so he could use two different type of cartridges. Izuku figured if he switched to a longer lasting web entirely, he'd get a lot more complaints from people.
So after he left the chemical reaction of the 2nd modified formula to run its course as well, he took out one web-shooter and grabbed a tool kit. He separated it from the glove first and then began disassembling it. The challenge would be cramming a second canister in without having to sacri-
The hairs on the back of his head stood up as his spider sense jolted. He quickly turned around, just in time to see a pink haired girl with yellow eyes invade his personal space. He immediately jumped to the ceiling and shot a web at her, only to realise his other shooter was still in his backpack, since he hadn't thought he'd need it in U.A. of all places. Something to change in the future.
"Whoa easy there, you startled me!" the girl exclaimed in surprise.
"That's my line!" Izuku yelled back, still hanging upside down.
"Those are some good reflexes," the girl said and turned her attention to the disassembled web-shooter that had ended up on the ground. She bent down and picked it up, "I couldn't help but notice you were working on some invention and just had to come take a look! So what is this and why is it broken? Did you make it yourself? It looks homemade.. and kind of low quality actually."
"Hey, I had to use thrown out scrap to make that, give me a break," Izuku said, annoyed that some stranger was touching his web-shooter. He fluidly fell back to the ground, landing on his feet and facing the girl. "And it's not broken; I was taking it apart for modifications. Can I have it back, please?"
She ignored him, seemingly more focused on turning the web-shooter and inspecting it all over, "What does it do? Wait, I can see a trigger.. so what does it shoot?"
"Webs," Izuku answered and deftly grabbed it from her hands. "There's a special fluid contained in a small canister. I was looking at modifying it to add an additional slot for one so I can have different types of why am I explaining this to you?" Izuku asked rather confused with what was happening.
The girl ignored him, again, and entered his personal bubble, again, to have a better look from his hands. "Oh I see. You probably don't want to sacrifice the size of the canister and volume of the fluid for that additional space either."
"I'm.. Y-yes, that's wha-" his spider sense practically screamed at him. Quickly realizing what was about to happen, he grabbed the girl and ignoring her startled yelp, jumped to a nearby desk and hid them behind it, while yelling "EVERYONE DUCK!"
The explosion that followed wasn't loud or grand. Really, there was just some glass shattering followed by the usual sound his web-shooters made when they shot. Just more. It only lasted about 10 seconds too and the two students peeked from behind the desk after it was over.
Oh, that wasn't too bad. Izuku had been worried that the entire room would be covered in webbing, but it was actually pretty contained. The entire wall the second set had been against was covered in a thick white web, naturally burying the set underneath as well. It had also spread to the corner and the other wall, but thankfully the first set was unaffected. He quickly jumped over the desk and removed the beaker with the regular web fluid from the fire. At least he caught that one in time.
Izuku's spider sense tingled again and he heard from right behind him, "Wow.. I'm impressed and kind of jealous. You managed to blow the experiment on your first day."
"You distracted me!" Izuku shot back, "I wasn't trying to do that!"
"Now now, don't blame others for your mistakes," the pinkhead said while inspecting the wall of web and poking it with a glass rod. "I know my genius can be awesomely distracting, but you should've been paying attention." The glass rod was caught in the web and after two tugs, she just left it hanging there. Izuku felt a headache coming and pressed hard on the bridge of his nose with his fingers.
There was an insistent clearing of a throat and both students slowly and carefully turned around to look at a very unimpressed Power Loader. "I concur with Hatsume," the teacher said. "An accident in the workshop on the first day, this is definitely a first."
Izuku's body immediately bent into a 90 degree bow with apologies streaming from his mouth so he missed his spider sense warning him of the slap on the back that toppled him to the ground.
"Don't be discouraged!" he heard the girl's voice saying cheerily from above, "Mistakes are part of the process of creation! Just learn from this one and carry on with the same vigour in the pursuit of Science and Innovation!"
Higari-sensei got the feeling that this girl would be trouble. He sighed and helped Izuku to his feet, making a mental note to keep a close eye on the boy as well. "So, how are you going to clean this?"
"Well, the web is pretty sticky and short of removing the walls, it's normally a bit difficult to get rid off. We could probably use acid or something similar to dissolve it, although it could damage the floor and walls. Fire would do it of course, if we could contain it." Noticing the teacher's look, Izuku hastened to say, "Of course, there's no need for that! The web is supposed to dissolve by itself in 15 minutes. Except.. Oh.."
"That doesn't sound good," the pinkhead said cheerfully. Izuku gave her an annoyed look, but continued.
"Well, I did a slight modification on this one to increase the time before it dissolved while uhm.. Hopefully retaining its strength," Izuku winced as he said that.
"So.. How long?" Power Loader asked.
"I.. don't know? It shouldn't be that much longer thought, maybe 20 to 30 minutes?" the spider-boy said with hope in his voice.
From that day onward, that particular corner of the workshop would become known as the Spider's Nest or the Nest for short. It was the area that was unofficially reserved for Izuku and occasionally Mei Hatsume when she invaded it, since no one else wanted to get close to the webs. Of course, they could've used someone with a fire or acid quirk to remove the web, but Power Loader opted to keep it to serve as a reminder to the two teens of the effects of improper experimentation. And besides, the three of them were curious how long it would actually take before it dissolved. They were all inventors at heart after all.
Speaking of Hatsume, Izuku achieved two more firsts, in addition to the first day lab incident – the first time he talked for so long with a girl without being embarrassed or stammering over his words, mostly due to the incredible annoyance he felt; and the first time his spider sense agreed with his brain that interactions with a girl, should be classified as dangerous.
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To be continued..
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Author's ramblings: Uh-oh! Is that the last we see of Mineta!?
I never liked the character. I understand his purpose in the story is to set the bar for heroics really low and to act (unsuccessfully) as the comedic relief. Unfortunately for him, I think I can manage the comedic part of this story just fine.
And shame on you Izuku, blaming an innocent girl with a drive for invention and a disability of having absolutely no social manners at all for your mistakes! Tisk tisk.
Thanks for all the reviews, favs, and follows. Keep them coming, let me know what you think. Update schedule is on my profile page.
Ta-ta~
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