Chapter 02: The Starting Line
"This is it, Kaachan. Our first step to becoming Heroes!"
Standing at the front gates of the illustrious UA High were two best friends; Izumi Midoriya and Katsumi Bakugou. Izumi was a cute and petite girl with fluffy viridian green hair that ended in black tips. Freckles dotted her soft face and her eyes were a shimmering jade.
As for Katsumi, she had spikey ash-blonde hair and fierce burgundy eyes. Despite being a girl, her entire posture screamed a tough male delinquent, yet still had the feminine curves and lithe build to distinguish herself from the opposite sex.
"Heh, you fuckin' know it, Deku! We're gonna destroy this exam and put everyone who tries to get in our way to shame!"
"Hey, you guys are here! I knew you'd be!" A cheerful voice came from behind as the two girls turned to see another of their friends approaching them.
"Occhan!" Izumi cheered as she ran over and hugged the approaching brunette. Ochako Uraraka was a girl with chocolate brown bobbed hair, a chubby frame, and rosy cheeks. The two girls embraced and spun around, Ochako and her shorter frame making her easy to pick up by Izumi.
"What took you so long, Round Face?" Katsumi asked with a smirk.
Ochako blushed as Izumi set her down. "Well, Ms. Inko needed me to help her clean the dishes and set up the guest room for her cousin, Ippan Josei, whose moving in with us."
"Well, you're here now. If only Momo and Melissa could join us but they took the Recommendation Exam last week." Izumi said, recalling how the other two members of her friend group had passed said exam in the Top 6.
As the three girls prepared to head inside and enter the building, Ochako's eyes caught notice of a boy tripping over his own two feet. Quickly thrusting her hand out as pink energy formed around it, Ochako halted the boy's descent and then righted him back on his feet.
The boy had curly ebony black hair with bangs that shrouded his right eye. The one eye that was shown was crimson in coloration and he had freckles on his cheeks that were eerily similar to Izumi's. He patted himself to make sure he was unhurt before sighing as he continued on his way into the building.
"I hope he didn't mind me using my Quirk on him. It would've been bad luck if he fell during initiation." Ochako said as Izumi and Katsumi smiled at her.
"You're a good soul, Occhan."
After an eccentric introduction to the exam that they would be taking, courtesy of the Voice Hero: Present Mic, Izumi had arrived at one of the starting gates. She, Katsumi, and Ochako were placed in different zones because apparently, UA didn't want friends helping each other, which seemed weird to her.
"That girl is trying to focus. What are you doing? Trying to distract her and harm her chances of success?!" Came a boy's voice as Izumi turned to see a tall young man with neat blue hair and glasses confronting the black-haired boy that Ochako saved from falling earlier.
Deciding to help clear up the misunderstanding, Izumi stepped to the black-haired boy's defense.
"I don't think he was trying to distract me, sir. If anything, from the look in his eyes, I'd say that he wanted to wish me good luck."
The black-haired boy blushed as Izumi spoke for him. The bespectacled boy flustered but before he could offer any apologies of any kind, the gates swung open.
"GET MOVING, KIDS! HEROES DON'T WAIT FOR COUNTDOWNS!" Present Mic's voice screamed from afar as Izumi gave one last quick look to the two boys.
"Good luck!"
With those final words said, Izumi launched herself with a burst of compressed air as she flew into the faux city. No sooner had she entered did she find an enemy robot that was needed to destroy for points. With a wave of her hand, a sharp spire of rock erupted underneath the automaton, skewering it instantly.
Manipulating air currents to twist herself in a different direction, Izumi saw two more enemy robots that seemed to be cornering a boy with blonde hair who for some reason was emitting sparkles and was wearing a fancy belt with a glittering core.
Figuring the boy needed help, Izumi made a finger gun gesture with both hands and a small ball of flame flickered to life before growing in size as she charged up before firing, striking both robots and engulfing them in an explosive inferno. Making sure the boy didn't get caught in the blast, Izumi flew down to make sure he was alright.
"Are you okay?"
The boy nodded before gasping and thrusting his hips as a sparkling laser shot out of the core of his belt, slicing through a third enemy robot that was approaching from the burned remains of its comrades like a hot knife through butter.
"Merci, I think you and I are even now, mon chéri."
Izumi blushed and giggled at the boy's gratuitous French before flying off after knowing he could handle himself from now on.
Katsumi was honestly having the time of her life. When her [Explosion] Quirk first manifested back in kindergarten, she had been ecstatic, knowing such a potentially powerful Quirk could surely make her dreams of becoming a Hero a reality.
Of course, that was until Izumi got her [Elementumkinesis] Quirk, which put her power to shame. Despite the gap in their powers, Katsumi refused to be seen as weaker than her best friend and trained her absolute hardest every day. In the end, she had the feeling that, even though Izumi's Quirk was much more versatile in its abilities, Katsumi's explosions could still keep up with the many different elements.
Also, considering the potential dangers her Quirk brought, Katsumi had to restrict herself from using it on other people, lest she ends up getting charged with Quirk Abuse. Thankfully, what she was dealing with now were unfeeling machines...and she was gonna milk this opportunity for all it was fucking worth...
If you had asked Ochako what her desire to be a Hero was once, it'd be to make money for her parents so they could live an easier life.
But that was no longer the case. Her parents were dead, killed in an accident caused by a fight between a Hero and a Villain. Ochako was grateful for the relatively minor Pro, Eel Boy, rescuing her that day and knew that if her parents hadn't already been crushed to death, he would have saved them as well.
Now, Ochako's reasons for being a Hero were more simple; To prevent anybody else from suffering the same tragedy that she had faced. And with her fully awakened [Dynamokinesis] Quirk, she was going to make sure she fulfilled that goal.
As two robots approached her, she thrust both her hands out as pink energy flowed from them. A similar aura formed around the robots as they floated into the air, their own personal gravity being used against them as Ochako clenched both hands into fists and just like that, the robots were crushed into themselves as if gravity had increased on them despite being in mid-air.
Turning around, Ochako noticed a robot about to attack a boy with a rock-shaped head. Quickly thrusting her hand out again, Ochako used a different force; Electromagnetism. Pink bolts of electricity traveled from her hand and arced around the boy before grabbing onto the robot like a chain. With a pull, Ochako lifted the robot into the air via the electricity chain before swinging it into the side of a building, pulverizing it on impact.
"Are you okay?!" Ochako called out to the rock-headed boy, who shakily gave a thumbs-up to her as she smiled and manipulated her own personal gravity to fly off and find more robots to destroy and/or examinees to help out.
"We have a good crop this year, I say."
"Indeed. A lot of these students are showing excellent prowess. Some of them don't even know about the secret Rescue Points and are already helping their fellow examinees without anything in return."
Principal Nedzu, the current acting Headmaster of UA High, hummed in agreement with the words of his fellow teachers as he observed the students not only using their Quirks to great effect but also putting in the effort to help their cohorts. The ones who caught his eye were Izumi, Katsumi, and Ochako, who were all ranking very high in the points in both Villain Points and Rescue Points.
Alongside him was a skeletal blonde man with sunken electric blue eyes and wearing a mustard yellow pinstripe suit. This was Toshinori Yagi, but in truth, he was actually the true identity of Japan's #1 Pro Hero and Symbol of Peace; All-Might. Only his fellow staff present with him knew the secret.
"Ah, I see Young Mikumo is showing excellent marks as well!" Nedzu pointed out as Toshinori looked at the monitoring screen he was referring to. The black-haired boy that Ochako helped from falling had just reflected the impact of an enemy robot's attack back at them to protect a dwarfish boy with grapes for hair.
"He does have the makings of a Hero...unlike his father." Spoke the Gunslinger Hero: Snipe. Toshinori remained silent as he flashed back to six years ago when he and that same boy first met. When he fought the greatest fight of his life...
*Flashback*
"It's alright, my boy! You're safe now!"
"LOOK OUT!"
"THAT BOY BELONGS TO ME, ALL-MIGHT!"
"YOU'VE ALREADY TAKEN SO MUCH FROM HIM! AND HE'S SUPPOSED TO BE YOUR FAMILY!"
"I AM THE ONLY THING HE NEEDS!"
"YOU MONSTER...! YOU WON'T TOUCH THAT BOY EVER AGAIN! UNITED STATES OF SMASH!"
*End Flashback*
"Young Mikumo, I know for certain you will prove yourself greater than your father ever was." Toshinori thought as he saw the boy, Akatani Mikumo, firing a Laser Quirk from his palm to punch through another robot to save a pink-skinned girl.
"Well, I say it's time for the final obstacle to be set loose, don't you think?" Nedzu asked impishly as he slapped his paw on a big red button that had a '0' written on it.
Izumi was going over the points she had tallied when a tremor ran through the testing grounds. Before she could ponder on what was happening, a large shadow began forming over the area she was in.
"Huh, odd, I don't remember a forecast of sudden giant robot-shaped shadow-OH SWEET MERCY!" Screamed a boy with spikey black hair and a zigzag-patterned headband as he saw the source of the disturbance.
Izumi followed the other currently present examinees' gazes to see a giant Kaiju-sized robot looming over the surrounding buildings as it began moving forward slowly on giant tank treads.
"Where does UA get the budget for that sort of thing?" The verdant-haired girl thought before hearing a cry for help and turned her attention to see a girl with light blonde hair, satyr-like horns, a rounded muzzle-like nose, and big round blue eyes being pinned under rubble...and directly in the giant robot's path.
"NO!" Izumi shouted as she rushed forward before digging into her arsenal of elements and pulling out the best one she could think of for a target of this caliber.
"Combining the elements of Light, Earth, and Metal...I call upon this sacred power..." Izumi chanted to herself. She didn't really need to do it, but the heat of the moment made her act without thinking. Besides, she always did enjoy Magical Girl shows besides her Hero nerdisms.
"STARDUST IMPACT!"
Creating a massive fist of pure stardust, Izumi thrust the construct forward as it flew towards the giant robot's face and impacted against it, exploding in a beautiful array of stars as the force exerted not only pulverized the giant robot's head but OBLITERATED it.
All the nearby examinees gazed in awe at the spectacular display they had just witnessed and would no doubt carry in their memories for the rest of their lives. Izumi panted at the energy she exerted from such a technique before slowly making her way over to the trapped girl.
"It's okay, I'll get you out of there."
"Hey, do you need some help?" Came a boy with short black hair as he helped Izumi move the rubble off of the girl.
"Thanks. I could have just moved the rocks off her since they're stone in nature." Izumi said as she and the boy got the rest of the debris off the girl and helped her to her feet.
"Nah, you looked like you needed help what with all the energy you must have put into that attack on that Zero-Pointer. I'm Sen Kaibara, by the way." The boy introduced as Izumi smiled while checking the girl for injuries.
"Izumi Midoriya. Pleased to meet you, Kaibara-Kun." She then turned to the girl. "And what about you?"
"U-Um, I'm Pony Tsunotori...Pleeeeaaaase call me Pony?" The girl said in broken Japanese. From the looks of it, Japan was not her native tongue.
"Oh, you must be from America," Izumi said, beginning to speak English so the girl could better understand her. "Can you understand me now?"
"Yes! I can understand you!" Pony excitedly said with a bright smile which only made Izumi give a radiant one of her own.
Sen was watching this as a blush formed on his cheeks. "What the hell?! Is this girl Mother Nature?!"
"Truly an amazing sort, that Midoriya girl," Nedzu said with a smile as he saw Izumi helping Pony alongside Sen.
"I normally don't say this, but I want that kid in my class." Said a disheveled man with black hair and scruff who was watching alongside Present Mic and a gorgeous woman with a voluptuous frame and long purple hair.
"Always hogging the better students to yourself, eh Shota?" Gruffly asked a muscular man with silver hair as he looked at his fellow teacher with a cross look in his eyes.
"You've got some fine choices of your own. Didn't you want Tokage, Yoarashi, and Honenuki from the Recommendation Exam in your class?"
"Yes, they all have remarkable Quirks. But you got that Yaoyorozu girl, the daughter of David Shield, and Endeavor's son on your end."
The other man, Shota Aizawa AKA The Erasure Hero: Eraserhead, rolled his eyes as he leaned his head against Present Mic, real name Hizashi Yamada while the sole female of their trio, Nemuri Kayama AKA The R-Rated Heroine: Midnight, giggled into her hand.
"Well, don't blame me. Blame the blonde idiot who suggested that Melissa Shield should be in my class. If it were up to me, I'd trade her for Yoarashi."
"Inasa Yoarashi almost rejected his application into UA because of Shoto Todoroki. He managed to change his mind at the last minute but asked he be put in Class 1-B." The silver-haired man, Sekijiro Kan AKA The Blood Hero: Vlad King, retorted.
"We'll dig into the bad blood between those two later. Right now, the exam is over and we need to tally up the scores." Nedzu said as the teachers nodded and began working on seeing who scored enough points to make it into the Hero Course classes of Class 1-A and 1-B.