TheGreatBubbaJ - Let's be real, the Frog of the Lake should be protected, not put on the battlefield.
Detrametal - The Frog deserves the best lake out there :P
Shahryar - Slowly.
Jpx0999 - It won't happen any time soon for the record :v
(***)
"So, how exactly do we get more people?" Izuku asks Todoroki when they both show up in the communal space of the third level, soon after Izuku finished introducing Tsuyu to her new habitat.
"You should put an online advertisement." Todoroki replies calmly. "'Join Izuku Midoriya's cabal! We'll solve your boring old problems by replacing them with exciting new ones!' would be a good and honest summary of our normal day-to-day operations."
…
"Aren't you being a bit, errr, too…" Izuku is still looking for the right word, when Todoroki decides to speak first.
"Midoriya, I started hanging out with you to fight supernatural ennui." Shoto says, staring at Izuku over the table. "Right now I'm trying to keep you and the supernatural society alive in the wake of your inevitable meeting, all while trying to find a way to cope with the sudden loss of my asexuality."
Well, he isn't wrong, Izuku decides to his slight horror.
"Wait, I have a better advertisement!" Bakugou wakes up. " It goes like this: 'This is the Deku Exclusion Zone, where we keep the Deku away from society. Go to him if you ever get caught up into something absolutely ridiculous, but be warned-he'll help you by making it even more absurd, just in a different way.'"
…
"I'm being bullied." Izuku announces. "Despite being the Warlord, I'm being b…" Uraraka interrupts him by leaning towards him and grabbing him into a close hug, the sides of their heads meeting, Uraraka lightly rubbing into him.
"It's alright, Deku-kun!" Uraraka says, smiling like an angel that for some reason lost all their colors. "I won't bully you, ever!" Aww, isn't she the cutest?
"I will!" Toga smiles from her seat on the other side of him. "But in the way that makes you ask me for more!"
"What did I say…" Bakugou announces calmly, while pointing at Toga over the table. "... about being horny in front of my salad, Messy Hair?"
Right, day as any other.
(***)
It turned out that, to be honest, they don't have a lot to do before the Summit, aside from minor things. Such as expanding the third level to add a large section of it at the far end of the corridor that was going to include their collection of magical stuff.
It was the - currently, that is - rather populated part of the fortress, so it made sense to put it there.
Midoriya also expanded the security. Tough door, one normal lock and an electronic one, requiring a password to enter. After a moment of thinking it over, he did the same to the fourth level, the one where he lived - getting there required someone to input a password in the elevator, or the keys to another set of reinforced doors, the ones between the fourth level and the stairwell.
He also made the door to Aiko's Dark Cathedral be password locked, although he made sure that she knows the code just in case. Aiko appeared significantly unmoved by this situation, despite her being locked again.
She made it clear that it's alright because it's for her protection and her oniichan is visiting her regularly. Izuku still felt a bit guilty, but…
In short, security. Because while staging an open raid into the Special Exclusion Zone was nigh impossible, it didn't exactly mean completely impossible. And there were people - like Hagakure Tooru - that were, according to Shoto, sneaky enough to probably make it to their cabal's magical Vault.
Or, to his suite, probably with assassination purposes.
Or, worst of all, to the Dark Cathedral. Aiko was supposed to be a secret from everyone. Even Ibara wasn't going to know the truth.
For as long as they could get their hands on even a single key to the Special Exclusion Zone, those places were vulnerable. Which, to be honest, was a potential thing, because there were good pickpockets out there.
To be honest, Izuku wanted to see the look on the face of the thief that would sneak into their Vault, expecting fabulous treasures, only to see, well, this. Most of the place was either completely or nearly completely empty.
It became a tiny bit less empty in one segment of it because Todoroki casually moved his entire book collection into the Vault.
A lot of books.
Almost two hundred, somehow bringing the temperature in their section of the Vault (their own separate room, with a 'Primordial of Water/Aspect of Ice' written over the door) down to minus twenty with their sheer presence.
Izuku now really felt like a poor cousin of a wealthy family.
Toga surprised them all, by proving that she did have a few books connected to the Ancient of Flesh, stored somewhere. Twelve, actually. Izuku couldn't help but feel like something was lightly touching his skin whenever he looked at them packed side by side on the book shelf.
Creepy.
"So, I assume that the money we got is sufficient enough for us to buy some additional magical books for me, Kacchan and Ochako, yeah?" Izuku asks Todoroki a moment after the Vault tour is finished. "Plus some better equipment."
"That is correct." Todoroki nods. "But please, be aware, that with the odd degree of progress you've been making thus far, you shouldn't binge read those books. Frankly, one magical book a week is a large stretch, and you're going to reach this speed if you read just two more books this month. Bakugou needs only one more."
… right, Izuku keeps forgetting what pace they are on. It's a bit… probably insane, at least from the perspective of anyone who wasn't, well, them.
Wait.
"You think that we're learning magic so quickly because our Attention is for some reason high?" Izuku asks carefully. Because he remembers it working that way, and he also remembers it being pretty bad.
"That's a possibility." Todoroki replies. "You don't have any standard indicators of high attention, but with your parentage, discounting this option entirely is a bad idea. Thus, I heavily suggest slowing down with learning magic a little. You should polish your conventional combat skills more, too."
Right, for all the 'conventional combat, magic being the last resort' talk, they kind of didn't get a lot of opportunities to showcase it. Midoriya's skills with a gun were rising slowly, and… well, thus far it was mostly Kacchan beating things.
"Alright." Izuku nods. "We will buy some books for the future, but read them slowly. Wait, what about the 'complimentary' magic skills from other branches? Like your Overheat?"
Todoroki gives him a lengthy appraising stare.
"I suppose it would be alright, for as long as you don't cram five new spells in a week." Todoroki replies. "The problem is, the spells you learn from the book are mostly random. There is a logic to it, but it requires statistical analysis to be unearthed and is still a bit of a gamble."
"Uhm?" Izuku looks at him questioningly. Todoroki lost him at 'statistical analysis'.
"Each book has one 'default' spell to be learned from it." Todoroki replies. "But when you need to read five of them to learn another spell, the one you'll learn will be chosen at random. If you pick one powerful book worth four book 'slots' and one 'normal' book worth a single 'slot', you'll have 80% to learn a powerful spell and 20% to learn something weak."
"That sounds like learning the right spells is a bit of a… science in itself, really?" Izuku asks. Todoroki nods. "Especially as you can easily waste powerful books while obtaining attention and suffering from some side-effects from reading them."
"That is true." Todoroki nods. "This is one more way in which more established families of the Initiates have it easier. When I decided to learn Overheat, I read five books of Primordial of Fire belonging to my extended family that, in the past, were read alongside few others by initiates that obtained that particular spell as a result. Meaning that there was a large chance of me learning Overheat as well."
Oh. That explains how it works. Also, wait.
"So I assume that people sell books with notes attached 'I learned spell X from reading this one and five others'." Izuku replies - he did buy some books, but honestly it was just him pressing buy when and where Todoroki told him to. "Doesn't that mean that I can, potentially, sell people much more certain goods in the future?"
"And who is going to believe you when you say that you learned the spell after one read, so you guarantee that reading it will add that particular spell to the lottery pool for the next spell slot?" Todoroki asks back.
… right, people don't learn so quickly. Crap.
"Pool the remaining non-SEZ cabal funds on me." Todoroki replies. "I'll find you something good. Something with a large chance of getting you something useful. But this time you're sitting with me, to learn how to do it properly on your own."
Sounds like something to spend some time on. And magic from different Powers for him to experience.
Wait.
"Speaking of, how many Powers are there exactly?" Izuku decides to ask the big question. The one that he feels like it should have been answered by the faculty, but…
Well, now that he thinks about it, it's the sort of stuff that Initiates learn from whoever initiated them. Like Himichan did from whoever told her that Ancient of Flesh can heal her injuries, clearly enough.
"Seven Archons, twelve Ancients, six Primordials and four Shapers." Todoroki replies. "Though I also heard some people claiming that Primordials and Shapers should be treated as two parts of the same pantheon, typically called Architects. It's not like we can ask them what they call themselves. But if you hear someone using the term, know that he means either Primordials or Shapers."
Right.
That wakes Uraraka up.
"Wait, for the Archons we know Mercy, which heals, Defiance, which is about defense, Life, which is about, well, life, and Sacrifice, which is very much like Deku-kun." Uraraka says. "What more are there?"
Izuku sighs, slightly painfully. Will the jokes about his supposed self-sacrificial nature never end?
"Purity, War and Transfiguration." Todoroki replies. "Purity is a bit similar to elemental magic, except it causes additional damages to the supernatural, especially the more malevolent ones. Think white flames that aren't much hotter than normal flames, but will burn living things like a normal flame would burn dry wood, for as long as they are perceived as 'malevolent'."
"That sounds… uhm, scary?" Izuku decides.
"Magic is scary." Todoroki shrugs. "Wait until you find out that the flames in question can also burn minds, and some even more metaphysical things."
Ugh.
"War is the other half of Defiance, so offense instead of defense." Todoroki decides to return to the main subject.. "From strength amplification to pretty much DnD's Divine Smite spell for any wannabe real world paladin. Tends to make you more and more of an unforgiving Knight Templar, so most users eventually go on a rampage, slaughtering the dangerous supernatural entities until one of them bests them. Yagi-sensei's focus is here."
"Oh, that explains a lot." Izuku decides. Especially Yagi Toshinori's rather cold approach to the undead and people like Toga, not to mention her wanting to keep her distance from him for as much as possible.
After all, if he went too far, she would probably be his first target.
"It does, yeah." Todoroki nods. "The final archon is the Archon of Transfiguration. He's a… bit of a 'meta' archon. Lore of Transfiguration teaches you spells to alter the magic around you, like shut it down completely. His followers are rare due to their tendency to stop resembling humans or vanish quickly, but those that stay behind are a power to be reckoned with. Surprisingly enough, Aizawa-sensei is focused on the anti-magic aspect of this particular archon."
"Looks like we missed a joke." Bakugou says dryly. Having that talk in the middle of their Vault is a bit strange, but… "You know, when Yagi-sensei mentioned how he knows archon followers that are dicks."
Izuku lets out a loud pfft. Yeah, this was probably about Aizawa. Probably.
"As for the Ancients, we already have a practitioner of the Lore of Flesh among us, that's mostly about shaping the body for either healing or changes." Todoroki continues. "Reflections is mostly about illusions and lies. Desire is, well, Izuku can tell us more about it than I do."
"Thank you, Shoto." Midoriya says dryly, as the chuckles start around him. "Thank you very much."
"You're welcome." Todoroki either misunderstood or understood but decided to be like this. "The next one is Filth, so, well, filth, decay, corpses, undead, rot, pus, diseases and so on. That leaves us with eight more."
"That's a lot." Izuku replies. Todoroki shrugs. Ancients having numerical superiority probably explains a lot about the current state of the world.
"First one is Denial." Todoroki says. "It's about denying things. You start by denying your own exhaustion or the need to sleep, you end by denying your own existence, making it so that you never existed in the first place. Apparently, by the time you learn the appropriate spell, you'll be changed enough to think that this is a good idea."
"Wait, how the hell do people even know that it works like this then?" Bakugou asks the right question. "If those guys just fucking ret-gone themselves?"
"The higher levels of Denial's magic is about denying parts of yourself." Todoroki replies. "But by statistical analysis, they miss a spell that's pretty much their ultimate magic, like the Ancient of Filth's Full Rebirth. Or the Primordial of Fire's Prominence Burn. The number of people that reached the known top of their magic is also statistically the smallest of all the Powers. Do the math."
Oh, that makes sense.
"Then is the Ancient of Control." Todoroki continues. "Mind magic, telepathy, brainwashing and so on. Saiko Intelli and Hitoshi Shinsou are here. Right after it, Ancient of Secrets. It's about knowledge and obtaining it, veering slightly into the 'sacrifice a virgin to me when the stars are right and I shall tell you the winning lottery numbers', but also including a lot of detection magic. Sekigai is here."
"Sounds fabulous." Bakugou announces dryly. "But virgins are in short supply in my vicinity, so it's a hard pass from me. What's next?"
"Ancient of Night, which is about darkness, sneakiness, and a choke load of lunar themes." Todoroki replies. "Its unofficial counterpart is the Ancient of Days, which has a lot of solar themes, but his 'light' is always weird. Light without heat, light and heat but it's actually solid matter, and so on."
"That sounds fucking weird alright." Bakugou confirms, when Todoroki pauses to take a deep breath. "We're missing three more."
"Yes, first is the Ancient of Strife." Todoroki replies. "A bit of a darker equivalent of the Archon of War. Half war god, half god of a hunt, all around unpleasant, with a lot of 'might makes right' undertones in its cults. Right after him is the Ancient of Cogs, best summarized as a god of industry and research but also industrialized evil and human experimentation. The final one is the Ancient of Malice, but that one is a bit of an odd one."
"How so?" Izuku asks.
"He doesn't have a lot of spells." Todoroki replies. "All of them are very high level ones, achievable practically only when you're an extremely successful cultist. And let's just say that when you're a willing cultist of an Ancient of literal evil and malevolence, you tend to be a horrible person that ends up being targeted by the local initiates, and even other cultists. Someone actually learning a single spell of the Ancient of Malice is considered by the SPSC to be a danger equal to a Disaster-class Demi-Power."
"Oh, that's… wait, what do his spells even look like?" Izuku asks.
"Imagine a curse that switches your target's perception of pain." Todoroki replies. "And not with pleasure, this isn't a hentai world, despite your attempts to prove otherwise. So whenever they are fully healthy and not suffering, they actually feel pain as if their every body part was simultaneously being tortured. So, to take only a small example, that whenever their nails aren't torn off from their body, they feel as if they were all being torn off from their body simultaneously, over and over again, until their inevitable self-inflicted death or mind break. Now apply the same mechanism to every single body part of a human being."
Izuku stares at him in horror. He isn't the only one. That was… honestly, worse than he imagined when he heard the name.
"You need to be a special type of evil to even consider becoming a cultist of Malice, and, as stated, even most of the cults of the more 'malevolent' Ancients tend to go 'lol nope' whenever those guys show up." Todoroki continues. "Good news is that for some reason, Malice has no demihumans or servitor aberrants. One more oddity. Also, this is the only reason why I think that your secondary influence, Midoriya, isn't that of Malice."
…
"Wait, you mean that it's something similar?" Midoriya blinks at him. Todoroki sighs, clearly slightly disappointed at his student(?).
"Midoriya, I can think of scarce few things out there that could frighten Toga to this degree and have Uraraka actually drop dead in an instant." Todoroki says. "There are other schools with some fear-themed spells, Strife or Night for example. Malice makes most sense, especially as it's a direct opposite of stalker's 'love', but Malice has no aberrants. And if there was an Incarnation of Malice walking around in Japan, then by now there would be no Japan left."
Shoto Todoroki doesn't even want to imagine how that particular apocalypse would look like, to be frank.
"Oh, I… wait." Midoriya says, clearly horrified of something that was just said. "You're telling me that me bringing out my secondary influence actually killed Ochako?! And I did it twice?" Todoroki nods.
"I-It's ok, Deku-kun!" Uraraka sweeps in to save the situation and make the love of her life not feel bad about killing her twice. "You didn't know and I'm back here, so…"
Izuku doesn't let her finish, and instead pulls her into a hug.
"I'm sorry for that, Ochako." He says. Her words are clearly strangled out of her by her equivalent of heroin that his hugs probably are. Especially in a moment as emotional as this one. "I shouldn't have…"
"N-no one knew that the first time, and you'd die if not for this the second time." Uraraka lets out, hugging him as closely as possible. "It's alright, Deku-kun, you don't have to worry yourself with it. And if you have to, you have my permission to do it again. I'll come back to you either way. I'll always come back to you, master, for as long as you love me."
Bakugou sighs in the background. It's the sobbing type of dumbassery rather than the horny one, he can deal with it significantly better and he thinks that those two needed it, so… he's going to not go on a rampage over this.
"I'd tell you that you should be a tiny bit more selfish, but we're trying to avoid that and for a good reason." Izuku sighs, while pulling back a little. Uraraka looks saddened by it. "After the Summit ends, I'm going to invite you to a proper date to make up for it. You, me, a cinema, some restaurant and so on. How does that sound?"
"I love it, Deku-kun!" She announced cheerfully. No one doubts her utmost sincerity in the slightest.
"Great, are you done with this?" Todoroki asks dryly. He still didn't forgive Midoriya for his antics making him realize that sexuality as a concept exists. Izuku nods, still holding Uraraka's hand.
Great, let's get it over with, then.
"Six Primordials. Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Metal and Wood. Tend to have certain sub-branches, referred to as aspects." Todoroki replies. "It's not unheard of with the other Powers, but for them it's a standard thing. "Fire, for example, can be 'updated' to plasma. There are also other colors or types or flames, for example a blinding flame of burning magnesium."
There is an entire bookshelf of 'Blinding Flame of Magnesium' books in his house. His eyes always sting a little when he shows up close by. His example here is a familiar one.
"Water has ice, air has thunder, earth has stone." Todoroki continues. "Metal and wood are a bit more complicated. The former is mostly various types of metals, but in more recent times you also began to have aspects dedicated to manipulation of things like plastics, meaning the Lore of Metal is best described as one focused on 'artificial materials'. Wood in the meantime is mostly about plantlife, but it also has aspects focused on other elements of natural life. Those subcategories are significant enough that you can specialize in them, rather than in the general thing."
"Oh, so you, for example, are following the Primordial of Water, but you specialize in its aspect of ice." Izuku realizes it. "Shiozaki is about the Primordial of Wood, yes?" He then adds the correct question.
"Yes, although dryads can be spawned from both the power of the Primordial of Wood and the Archon of Life." Todoroki replies. "It's a rare case of dual-specialty demihuman, meaning that Shiozaki can also learn and use magic from the Archon of Life. Similarly, I suspect that Kinoko Komori is learning from the Primordial of Wood as well, especially if her life goal truly is becoming a dryad. Kirishima, in the meantime, specializes in the Stone aspect of the Primordial of Earth."
"Ashido?" Izuku asks. She felt like she was somewhere there, honestly. Izuku didn't see her cast any spell, but…
"Ashido is… to be honest I don't know." Todoroki admits. It's relatively rare, at least within UA, but there are things he doesn't know. "She's using acid magic, but her spells are clearly those of the Primordial of Water. I wouldn't be surprised if she was actually casting water magic, but with something changing the properties of water to those of acid. It might be some Shaper thing, or she might have a run-in with a Demi-Power of Acid that gave her their Blessing. Receiving a Cultist-style Gift from the Primordial of Water would also be a theoretical possibility, but she doesn't seem to be a cultist."
Midoriya and the others, thankfully, don't ask about the 'Blessing' term. Todoroki has no idea what sort of Blessing could Aiko potentially give those dumbasses in front of him, especially her apparent brother if he asked. But one thing is certain - enough dumbassery for now.
He doesn't want to make them too terrifying. And until he has something resembling a clue as to what exactly sort of 'Existence' Aiko is a Demi-Power of, trying to involve her anymore into anything at all is begging for trouble.
"Honestly, it might as well be a rare case of a beneficial combination of sanity and corporeal damage that altered her own magic." Todoroki continues. "She looks a bit strange, so it would check out."
"So, like, for her 'water' is 'acid'?" Izuku asks, blinking at him. "How does that even work?"
Yeah, conceptual damage was a weird thing, alright.
"No, but it might have altered her concept of her own magic." Todoroki replies. "It's rare, and harmful more often than not, but it happens. Even in Ashido's case, if this is what happened, it was a double edged sword. If she had some sort of 'cover myself with water for defensive purposes' spell, using it afterwards would probably be lethal to herself."
Izuku flinches slightly at the image.
"Makes sense." He then decides. While considering the option of just, well, asking Ashido. But it's probably something to leave until they move in, get used to their new place and stop being a little salty over the Shiozaki situation. He doesn't want to come out as a bit too insensitive. "Shapers?"
"Shaper of Form, who controls matter." Todoroki replies. "Shaper of Energy, who controls energy. Shaper of Change, that rules over changes, such as chemical reactions changing one thing into another, being a deity of transmutation and natural processes. And, finally, Shaper of Laws, which focuses on alterations of laws of physics. Like Primordials, Shapers tend to have multiple aspects, with an example being Uraraka with her clear focus on the Gravity Aspect of the Lore of Laws. Another example is Momo Yaoyorozu, who focused on the Creation Aspect of the Lore of Form."
Todoroki, finally, concludes his lecture.
Is it too much to hope that nothing stupid was going to happen betwen now and the Summit?
(***)
Finally, a full list of Powers is out plus some in-depth explanation of how magic is segregated plus how learning magic works in practice. Yay. It was honestly a necessary chapter for quite a while, ngl.