To preface this, I'm doing my absolute best to understand the lore behind the power of warframes and how they work. DE has never really been all too clear whether or not it's the void that allows us to manipulate natural laws of the universe/world, or if we use space magic to pull off supernatural bullshit that defies the laws of physics and all things related to it. I don't know.
I love Warframe and its world-building, I've been playing the game since 2016. It's just that regarding certain aspects the world-building is just very vague (at least for me), so I'm gonna do my best to interpret what I at least know. So if you spot something that you know for sure is incorrect just let me know and I'll correct it before going forward with other chapters.
To wrap this up, this is about the 9th version I've come up with (I have counted) and the one I'm most confident in. However, if you don't like it or think it needs improvement in some areas let me know why you don't like it and where it can improve.
The school was big, but not as big as she had anticipated. It was twelve stories tall and the exterior wall was a series of windows that sat within steel frames. The main building as she approached was in the shape of an H and sat far behind an entryway.
Regardless of the size the academy was grand. The pathway to the front door was about as long as the gatehouse between Cetus and the planes of Eidolon. Its grounds were neatly kept with well-cut, dark green grass, and evenly spaced trees along the main path. Between the grass and the other candidates were hedges that were about waist high that were perfectly trimmed with no branches sticking out. The concrete path was smooth and clean as if it were recently applied and dried.
Despite the landscape being beautifully clean and maintained, the one thing that stood out most was the building entrance at the front. It was rather plain compared to the rest of the scenery, consisting of two open double doors that stood side by side. Each door had an A-frame sign with arrows pointing in the opposite direction of the other sign just behind it. The one on the left said "Exam Room 1" and the one on the right said "Exam Room 2".
She pulled out a paper card from her pocket and read its contents aloud to herself. "Exam Room 1..."
She approached the left-hand door of the building and was about to follow the signs when the sound of someone yelling came from behind her. Her attention went to the back of the crowd where a blonde-haired boy was pushing his way forward.
"Move it extras! You're in my-" his eyes locked with the back of another attendee's head. They were boring into him like a corpus mining drill into a planet's surface. "Deku!" He shouted, grabbing the attention of the green-haired boy.
The other attendee froze in place. He slowly turned around to look at the other boy, clearly dreading having to face the blonde. Barely a few seconds went by as the blonde began to speak to the greenie. She couldn't hear a word spoken, but given how the lad continued to shrivel up the blonde likely wasn't saying anything nice.
The blonde finished his scolding and walked back towards the entrance. If the blonde wanted to make it anywhere in this profession he'd need a major attitude adjustment. The other one, he needed to grow a spine instead of taking abuse from someone else.
Putting her eyes back at the door she did her best to navigate towards and ignore the bully calling everyone "extras". She merely hoped that she would avoid him and get inside before he reached her.
It didn't take long to avoid the blonde. She made it inside in only half a minute and began to follow the signs to her exam room.
Along the walls of the school to the auditorium were large wall paintings of the school's logo that still smelled of fresh paint. There were even placards of all the major heroes that graduated from the school. On one was a young woman in a bodysuit that hugged her body tightly, showing off everything without exposing skin, the name beneath reading "Nemuri Kayama". The next one was a man dressed from nose to toe all in the same material, the name under this one reading "Tsunagu Hakamada". Many more names cropped up on the wall. Shinya Kamihara, Aizawa Shota, and even a man named Todoroki Enji, which she imagined what she would look like if she had the appearance of a man in his young 20s.
Out of all of them, however, was a placard that seemed to be glowing despite no additional accessories being added. It was the same wooden frame the other alumni had, the same golden letters to spell his name, but it just seemed to stand out for some reason. It wasn't the suit, which was just as outrageous as the others, it wasn't the pose that was just as dramatic or the lighting which was the same as the rest. There were even more after this one, but it was the only one that stood out. So she read the name.
"All Might..."
They didn't even bother to use his real name. Was he that much more significant than the others to where his real name was obscured? Why treat him differently?
She had seen billboards hosting his face, and posters displaying him posing. She had watched children walk down the street with shirts with his face on them and loud captions beneath the images. There had been many message boards and online forums dedicated to him in this country. And not once has anyone mentioned his name. Was it simply not known? It's possible he used all connections to make sure no one found out his name.
In a world where being a super-powered human was a career, it made sense to prioritize their loved ones the most. Blotting out their names would be the most efficient way to do that, but it seems that All Might was the only one to practice such a method. Perhaps there was a special reason for that, but she couldn't ponder on it for too long.
She heard the blonde bully shouting his way down the hall again and made a move for the exam room. For once she was surprised, finding it to be bigger than she expected. She took the next open seat in the middle of the seating plan.
This is what she imagined the old Orokin academies to be like. A bunch of scholars, philosophers, mathematicians, and scientists gathered in a seating arrangement such as this and listened to some bloated old man rant about something. Except not as dark, wooden, and large, and instead being brighter more metallic and technical, and very, very gold.
She was glad they were gone.
Soon the room filled up. One by one they piled into the room, quickly flooding the seats. If only she took less time at the All Might placard, she would've gotten in sooner. She wouldn't have sat behind the green-haired coward who chose to sit next to his bully.
Eventually, the lights went out, darkening the room further. A man walked on stage, with electric-yellow hair that was slicked backward and up like a strange Mohawk haircut. He had a device around his neck that looked to have very similar additions like the Octavia frame had on her body.
Before she had a full chance to look at him he opened his mouth to let out the loudest voice she had heard. "HOW IS EVERYBODY DOING!" He shouted. "CAN I GET A 'HEY!'" He continued, jarringly shifting to another language.
The room was silent and her ears had just finished ringing.
"Tough crowd," he said, his voice still booming but nowhere near as loud. "WELCOME TO U.A.! THE BEST HERO SCHOOL IN THIS PART OF THE WORLD!" He shouted again, ringing the ears of many once more.
"It's Present Mic! The voice hero!" She heard the green-haired kid silently squeal in childish glee.
The kid may be a coward, but it seemed he was at least passionate about heroes. Passion does take people places.
"You all came here to become heroes, so let me tell you how to prove that you can be one!" Present Mic exclaimed in a normal tone of voice. He pulled out a remote and pointed it to the wall behind him. Immediately after pressing a button on his remote the school's logo appeared, lighting up the wall behind him.
The projection showed the image of eight separate rectangles labeled A through G connected to an oval, with "Exam Room" typed inside, by their own line. "There will be eight arenas where you will be fighting in mock urban battles against faux villains. You can find the exam room you will be assigned to on the back of your card."
The presenter stopped for a minute and let the students take out their cards and look at them. She looked at hers and saw she would be in Arena B.
By the time the room looked back up, the screen had already changed. It listed three different silhouettes of angular-looking enemies with numbers planted on them. He hadn't started talking yet but the green-haired kid had started nervously muttering to himself, dragging the eyes and ears around many around him.
She leaned over and lightly flicked him on the back of the head. "Mic's about to start speaking again," she whispered. "Eyes up."
"Th-thank you!" He quietly thanked, replacing his anxious muttering with a sort of jittering. Still annoying, but at least she could hear.
"There will be three enemies to score points off of," Present Mic resumed. "These villains will be scattered across each arena and will have to be tracked down by the individual." The first part held a few keywords anyone paying close enough attention would notice. She watched the blonde-haired boy lean back and take a curious posture. He probably got it. Not much to say for the next boy.
It was a relatively tall kid, male, with navy-blue hair and a pair of plain glasses adorned his face. He stood up with his hand raised and a spotlight shone on him.
"Permission to speak?!" He shouted like a soldier.
"Ask away Examinee 7111!" Present Mic returned with a smile.
"On the printout paper for U.A.'s entrance exams, there are four villains shown!" He shouted, slapping the paper with his one free hand, bringing attention to the pamphlet. "If this is a misprint then it should be nothing short of shameful that U.A., the most prominent and influential hero school in Japan, would make such a mistake! We have all come here to be molded into exemplary heroes and expect nothing but the best of U.A. and its staff!"
"Is that all?" Present Mic asked, his smile replaced with an annoyed visage.
"That is all!" The boy responded, still standing in wait of an answer.
Present Mic clicked the same button on his remote as before and another silhouette appeared, this time with the number '0' labeled onto it in white. "There will be a fourth faux-villain. One that you cannot score any points on..."
The boy sat down as fast as he could, trying to maintain a proper posture after embarrassing himself in front of nearly five-hundred other students.
Mic's smile returned and he faced the projection again. "It's not to say you can't beat this villain, it's just not worth the time trying." There was something both malicious and mischievous in the way he said that, something to watch out for if she ever encountered one of these faux villains. "Think of them like an obstacle in a racing game: while they can be overcome it's faster to go avoid them. So avoid narrow spaces, these things will go nuts in them."
He clicked the button one more time, going back to the school's logo from the beginning of the presentation. "Now that we have the bases covered, does anyone else have any questions?"
He waited a few seconds, and no one raised their hand.
"Well if no one has any more questions then we can finish up here! But first, listeners! Remember that if you purposefully harm any other examinees or commit any acts that may be considered 'villainous' you will be disqualified!" Quickly after he finished, the students began to get up from their seats and to the changing room. "Before the rest of you escape, remember to do your best and go Plus Ultra!"
'Plus Ultra?' She thought. 'Isn't that an ancient phrase?'
Escaping the slowly forming claustrophobic tide of students, she made her way to the locker rooms to get changed into her exercise gear. All she hoped for was for her clothes to be resistant enough to fire and not turn to ash immediately.
The day hadn't been all too bad. While he may have been heckled by Bakugo for showing up to the exams, it was countered by two nice acts from two different students. The first one being a nice female student stopping him from face-planting into the walkway after tripping over his own feet. The second one being another girl who got his attention and redirected it back at Present Mic. She could've at least nudged him instead of flicking the back of his head, but she helped regardless.
He looked at the crowd and saw the menagerie of different physical quirks. There were kids with tails, iron skin, and spikes all over their bodies and the one boy who asked about the zero-pointer had mufflers on his legs. It reminded him of Inginium's engine quirk that popped out engines on his elbows.
There were other students with more exotic colored hair which masked their emitter quirks. He saw one boy with sky blue hair and Snow White irises that stood out from his sclera. Another boy with orange-tipped brown hair and steely grey eyes. The next was a bit more recently familiar, a girl with long fiery-red hair reaching her shoulder blades and bright golden eyes.
The one person who stuck out the most was the nice girl who saved him from falling. She was a few inches shorter than him with fair skin and auburn hair. The large, pink blush on her cheeks is what made her more recognizable among a crowd of average-looking individuals.
He started to walk towards her, hoping to thank her for saving him earlier as he failed to do so at the time. Before he could make it halfway Izuku felt a hand placed on his shoulder.
"I would have a word with you!" A stern-sounding voice scolded. Nervous, Izuku turned around to see the boy who assumed U.A.'s incompetence glaring down at him. "To start with you are lucky another student was kind enough to refocus your attention or I would have done so myself! It was distracting and disrespectful to the examinees surrounding you."
"I-I'm sorry! I d-didn't-" Izuku didn't get the chance to finish before the boy cut him off again.
"Secondly, I saw you attempting to approach one of the other examinees. Don't distract the people here any more than you already have! These people are here to become heroes, not waste their time!"
Izuku shrunk in on himself as he felt the boy's words sink into him and the collective gaze of anyone close enough to hear the scolding lock onto the two of them. He could feel the pity radiating from all the witnesses and watched the other boy walk away from him towards the entrance. The nice girl also slipped away into the crowd, causing Izuku to lose his opportunity to thank her once again.
Shortly after the boy left, Izuku heard the gate of the battlegrounds begin to open. Without any notification half the attendees immediately ran in and began combating the faux villains, while he and a few others stood frozen in surprise.
"THERE IS NO COUNTDOWN IN A REAL BATTLE, WHY WOULD THERE BE ONE HERE? GET A MOVE ON!" The crowds heard Present Mic yell out.
Izuku tried to run to the gate but began to fall behind in the stampede of potential students. He was the last one inside and by the time he made it in all the first few points were taken. He watched the engine boy bend the chassis of a two-pointer inward with a kick. He saw the tailed boy break off the gun of a one-pointer with his tail and embed it into another one-pointer. He watched as the iron-skinned boy wailed on a three-pointer for six seconds until it stopped moving.
He ran further in, hoping to find more points but saw them being taken as well. The nice girl who saved him had two three-pointers and one two-point robot lifted in the air, then touching the tips of her fingers and letting them fall. There was a frog-like girl who wrapped her tongue around one of the robots and flung it into a building. The golden-eyed girl sent a torrent of flames down a street empty of students and filled with faux villains and melted the robots in seconds.
Izuku kept moving on and on and still couldn't get to a robot in time. Points were being gathered faster than he could keep up with. If he didn't find any points soon he would fail.
A gathering of U.A.'s staff sat inside a darkened monitor room with a series of television screens on display in front of them, each screen dedicated to a battle center. They looked at all the students gathering points and analyzed their quirks and tactical abilities. All of them looked quite promising, some more than others.
The screen they focused on was a display of battle center B. The first kid they locked onto was the boy who interrupted Yamada's presentation. He wore a skintight blue suit that was still a loose fight in the best possible areas. Nemuri focused on the engines in his legs and seemed to boost his speed.
"Isn't that Inginium's little brother?" Asked the provocatively dressed woman.
"I believe so," said a wide-set, white-haired man. "I'd be surprised if he didn't pass."
"What about that kid?" Asked an alien-looking man pointing over to battle center G, showing an energetic young boy letting off explosions from his hands.
"He has the raw talent to be a hero," said a strange, rat-like creature who had the best view of all screens. "His transcripts look promising too, though it did mention he has a bit of a stubborn attitude."
"Nothing a bit of a reality check can't curb," said the white-haired man.
"Check this one out," said a teacher in a gas mask, pointing to a student in battle center 'A' who had a hand placed on another. Said student then used the other student's quirk to take out several three-pointers in less than a minute.
"That's unique," commented the scantily dressed woman.
"Look at this girl," said a man wearing construction equipment, redirecting attention back to battle center 'B'. They proceeded to watch the girl incinerate an entire street of faux villains and casually move on. Little was left of the robots except for molten metal and scorched electronics.
"Good luck trying to repair those for next year," said the alien-like teacher.
The rat-like creature innocently chuckled to himself. "These new first years are shaping up to be promising individuals," he said, gazing at the screens. "Agility, power, intelligence gathering... all very important assets for a hero to have. It's important to be able to get in and out of a dangerous situation if need be. If they are unable to escape then adequate strength is needed to deal with the villain. Regardless, neither situation would have to occur if you were able to gather the necessary information beforehand."
Toshinori nodded in acknowledgment of Nezu's words. Agility was also important for moving around a battlefield and outpacing an opponent. Power was rather simple, not needing much more depth to the topic. The third option was the most important as intelligence grabbing could turn the tides of any battle.
Midoriya was the best of the last of the three options with his little quirk notebook. He had seen all the notes taken in his book, from newer heroes like Kamui Woods and even heroes from before the kid was even born like some obscure hero from northern Japan called 'Shroud'. That was a natural gift he had, but power may as well be one of his biggest trials. With how many times One for All had been passed down the physical strength had stockpiled from each user and passed down to the boy. Izuku's issue wasn't obtaining power, but controlling it. If he activates that quirk, a single step could level a city block if he's not careful given how much strength had been stockpiled over the many generations of users. Izuku's agility, though, could at least be trained. Just some standard agility drills could be of benefit.
Izuku hasn't even scored a single point yet. He kept running around the combat zone hoping to find something but was always too late. Yagi had begun to worry at this point. His whole plan had been riding on Izuku getting into U.A. and it's looking like that might not happen. All Might can't just quit the school and tutor Izuku privately. Word had already spread like wildfire among the public that he was going to be a teacher at U.A., so quitting all of sudden would draw unwanted attention.
Or Izuku could get into general education and work his way to the hero course. They don't go through quirk training so in-school tutoring wouldn't happen, but he'd figure something out. At least he could monitor the boy's progress.
"Two minutes left on the clock," said a sleepy-eyed man wearing a long scarf around his neck.
"It's time then?" Said a talking cement slab with a peaceful aura about him.
"I don't see why not," said the rat-like creature. "They've probably finished off most of the faux villains by now."
In the middle of the center console, a glass case lifted off a large red button with the number '0' painted on it. The strange animal slammed his paw down on the button and they heard a distant alarm sound from each of the far-off zones.
While the rest of the teachers leaned back in amusement Yagi was kept at the edge of his seat. He had never been more nervous in the last few years than he was right now. 'I should've had a backup plan,' he thought to himself, hoping that somehow Midoriya would pull through.
Everyone heard the loud noise of a buzzer over the area. It was followed by a short silence and soon after the ground began to shake. Some students lost their footing from the shaking earth while those who didn't began to look around for the source of the quake.
Eventually, all searching eyes landed eastward, looking up at a massive metal giant that had an extremely familiar shape. No wonder the eccentric teacher from before was trying to hide a mischievous laugh. The robot easily towered over the highest buildings in the battle center, making the students feel like tiny mites in comparison.
It was only a dozen streets down and slowly moving forward. The students who looked on were safe from its slow-moving charge. They could only slightly hear the panicked yelling from the students all the way down, as it was deafened by the loud sound of the metal giant crashing into buildings and its treads being moved.
There was only one minute left on the clock at that point. Instead of gathering more points, their eyes were stuck on the massive zero-point robot.
Suddenly, a small green dot appeared to fly through the air and towards the zero-pointer. It drew closer and closer, finally stopping when an arm extended out and made contact with the machine. The gun head of the machine was smashed inwards and parts flew all over the place. The students could see the wind kick about near the robot's crushed head, sending it flying backwards toward the ground. Then the sound of a large crash echoed over the next several dozen streets.
Why a student would waste energy on that thing was a mystery. From the way the green dot began to fall from the ground, it appeared the student didn't even have a landing strategy.
"Is that guy gonna be okay?" One of the students asked as the green dot disappeared below the buildings blocking their vision. The boy got a silent response in the form of shrugs or concerned faces.
"THIRTY SECONDS LEFT ON THE CLOCK PEOPLE!" Present Mic's voice boomed over the battle center.
Immediately the onlookers had their attention brought back to the original goal and began to destroy the faux villains again. Leaving the street behind, the students took off to further their scores and place higher on the list. The hero course was competitive after all.
Somehow the kid managed to pull it off. He may not have gotten a single villain point the whole exam, but this was clear grounds for rescue points that Yagi could easily argue.
"To put his life and body on the line to protect a fellow student is nothing short of heroism," Yagi said, hiding his bias as best he could. "If not for him who knows what could have happened to that student. I haven't seen such bravery from any other examinee through the entire test."
"Indeed," the mouse creature happily agreed. "If not for him that young girl would have ended up in the hospital for months, or dead at worst. Not to mention he saved our school from a potentially massive controversy."
"Despite the fact that he destroyed his body I can overlook it this once. That would have been a PR nightmare," said the sleepy-eyed teacher.
Yagi watched as Midoriya's place on the scoreboard skyrocketed from dead last to seventh place. With a score like that he had more than enough points to make it into the hero course.
For the first time today, he felt relief. Relief for Midoriya, relief that he wouldn't have to create a complex schedule for the boy, and relief that One For All didn't make him pop like a balloon. The kid made it in, and Toshinori had to think of a way to celebrate. He leaned back in his seat, but still maintained an excited look on his face. Now that Izuku has his spot guaranteed, he had about half a minute to look at the other contestants. Last he checked there was a boy who could create explosions in battle center 'G'...
The buzzer sounded as Present Mic ended his countdown. "TIME'S UP!" He shouted, his voice reaching every battle center on the campus.
All students ceased activity and took a much-needed break. Many of them never expected to use so much energy before and were left exhausted after the day's events. Many students looked sure of themselves, absolutely confident in their scores. Some students were unsure, not sure if they obtained enough points to get into the hero course. One student, however, was absolutely devastated. A student who was completely aware of his score and how greatly he failed and how greatly he must have disappointed his idol. He could do nothing but lay on the ground in a pitiful state, struggling to even cry despite the amount of pain he was in.
If he hadn't saved that girl then maybe he could have gotten at least one point, but he didn't regret his actions one bit. It was the least he could've done for her for simply being nice to him, a gesture only received by his mother and idol. Even that other girl, he could tell she only got him to focus on Present Mic just to get him to stop muttering. For her, he at least owed an apology, especially after the boy with the engine quirk went onto him for his distracting behavior.
For now, he could only lay on his front in pain.
"Move out of the way, coming through!" Shouted an elderly-sounding voice.
Izuku was able to lift his head just enough to see who it was. For the first time it was a hero he didn't recognize. A short, elderly lady with dark grey hair, wearing a strange doctor's coat and a strange visor around her head. She held an enlarged syringe that came up to her waist as a walking cane, that didn't appear to be anything more than a cosmetic accessory.
She walked up to Izuku and stopped at his face. She puckered up her lips, bent over, and kissed Izuku right on the forehead. "You really need to get that quirk of yours under control," she lightly scolded. "I don't want to have to see you in my clinic every other day."
Izuku could feel the breaks in his bones slowly mending and the slap mark from the nice girl fading away, as well as the pain from all of it. He stood up and finally realized how short the lady was, only barely coming up above his knee. "Don't go too hard on your bones or you'll break 'em even more than you did this time. I don't just heal you, kid."
The students around him began to gawk at the sight, trying to figure out who the healing heroine was.
"I'm surprised none of you know who this is," said a boy with golden blonde hair and a shimmering aura. "This is recovery girl, a retired pro-hero and U.A.'s school nurse." Izuku recognized him, but only from his quirk. If he recalled he could discharge a laser from his belly button. Very flashy and cool, but he looked to get nauseous after using it once.
"Looks like someone knows their stuff," the nurse said. She turned to Izuku and pulled something out of her coat and held it out to him with an open hand. "Candy?" She asked innocently.
"S-sure," He said, gratefully accepting the gift before she proceeded to hand out candy to the rest of the participants.
'Today was a disaster,' he thought. 'Maybe I could get in through gen-ed, see if I can find a way to earn my way into the hero course.'
Regardless, today's result was devastating for the boy. He would much rather get in through the hero course. Not to mention what All Might was thinking. Maybe he would give up on him and find someone else. The thought was enough to eat Izuku on the inside for days.
'Maybe I should sleep on it,' Izuku thought, knowing that today's results would keep him awake anyways.
Tossing the candy in his mouth, he walked out of the arena with the rest of the crowd and headed home. "Zero points," he silently muttered to himself. "I couldn't have failed any worse than I did."
She opened the door to her apartment and immediately decided for the couch. There wasn't a whole lot to do at this point in the day, so she decided to spend the rest of it trying to distract herself. Distract herself from the fact she wasn't truly home and that this distortion of the earth she knew was only temporary.
That hero school was also part of it. So many kids were there to become heroes like the ones they idolized, but to her, it was another distraction. A distraction from the fact that she had been stuck in this weird universe... for seven goddamn months! Seven months of no Cephalon, no Lotus, and no other Tenno. Seven months alone, with no one she knew. In a world where she didn't know the language and had to scrape by off of online learning, and putting words to definitions. Learning the language was easier after she managed to somehow convert what few credits she had into the local currency, therefore being able to pay for lessons. It was still hard, but she managed... barely.
For seven months her frame had been stuck on some backwards version of Venus, slowly dissolving in the planet's acidic atmosphere because she decided to go visit the Solaris first. She had to pull her drop ship out of the atmosphere before its hull took permanent damage. The acid melting away at her Liset should have been a sign that maybe taking the archwing down to the Venusian surface was a bad idea. It didn't take long for the atmosphere to completely melt through the harness and for her frame to crash down to the planet's surface, succumbing to the immense pressure and being forced out of transference.
When she tried to reactivate transference it only lasted a few seconds. She felt the weight of Venus's atmosphere pushing down on her chest and breaking through the shielding immediately, the feel of her frame's arms being melted away and dissolving into liquid, the intense heat of the planet's greenhouse gases. Despite it all happening half a year ago it was still a vivid memory.
She took out her wallet and tossed it on the floating counter in the apartment's open floor plan. The lone flap that was designed into the wallet came open and revealed the identification card she had managed to get ahold of. Homura Kanei was her identity in this world. It helped that the name fit the face too. Her features were similar but different from these people. She had a slightly stockier build but was still quite feminine, her height was a tad taller than average and her skin tone was just a tinge more tan. Her facial features were at least quite similar.
The entry test let her use her power to vent some built-up stress, but some still latched on like a leech, sapping away her energy. Maybe some television would take her mind off things.
She had grabbed the remote which sat on the cushion next to her and turned on the screen. The first channel that popped up was the news that was covering a villain scene. A wolf-like criminal had engaged with three different heroes, two of which she recognized and a third she didn't.
One of the heroes she recognized, Death Arms, had engaged the villain in close-quarters combat. The wolf villain was fighting in a more agile stance than Death Arms which allowed him to dodge his blows more frequently. To counter this the hero she didn't recognize used his quirk, which involved some kind of substance he spat from his mouth at quite a large distance, to catch the villain in his dodges. Some hit, which staggered the villain and let Death Arms get a strike in, while the ones that didn't at least kept the villain on his toes.
The third hero, the other one she recognized, Manual, used some hydrokinetic quirk to spray down the villain when he gained a distance from Death Arms. Apparently, a fire hydrant got uprooted in the fight, and water began to spray all over the place. The water spray left the villain stunned for long enough for Death Arms to close the distance again.
Kanei didn't even know what started this fight, but at this point she didn't need to. The criminal had done something wrong and wound up starting a fight between himself and the heroes. In the process, he had caused potentially billions of credits worth (or whatever that translates to in the local currency) of property damage and has potentially endangered the lives of dozens of civilians in the process. Jail time? definitely. No excuses.
Despite this, there was some level of admiration she had for his fighting capabilities. It's a miracle the Villain had lasted this long. At some point in the fight he had managed to put distance between himself and Death Arms in the best possible direction, towards Manual. Whether or not it was intentional didn't matter as it resulted in Manual being forced away from his position near the fire hydrant. It ended with the wolf villain sending a strong kick toward Death Arms, kicking him off balance, and targeting Manual. The water-using hero wound up being thrown offscreen across the camera, followed by the sound of him crashing through a window.
The criminal tried to make an escape through the crowd but was stopped by none other than this country's most well-known celebrity. The first thing she noticed upon entering this country was the absurd amount of products involving this hero, it's extremely hard to miss. She had seen children of several different age groups wearing shirts of his face with loud, bold, yellow captions underneath them. Billboards had his figure plastered onto them trying to sell clothes and figurines of the hero. When Kanei first went shopping there was an entire section dedicated to All Might fan clothing. If someone was a foreigner who had never heard of the man before, they'd practically be forced to.
She saw the hero, a large and uncanny smile plastered across his face, land in front of the villain before he could even make another step toward the spectators. He gave a quick and solid jab at the wolf-man's chest and sent him flying back towards Death Arms who caught him like a ball. If only All Might had been there sooner so many people wouldn't have lost their homes and businesses. In his defense, he was only a single person. He couldn't be everywhere at once and had appeared to arrive with a level of urgency as if he knew but had his hands tied just before.
While there was some level of excitement watching him work, it wasn't enough to take her mind off of everything that had happened. It was supposed to be a simple task: get in, clear out the tower, and get out. And it was simple. She got it finished in less than five minutes. The hard part was getting back to her orbiter. By the time her dropship got out of range a void storm had consumed her dropship and yanked her away and into a strange version of her system. For some reason it pulled her physical self along with her drop pod.
She turned off the television and stared at her reflection in the black screen. Homura saw herself curled up and hugging her legs tightly towards her chest, one arm lose and holding the remote.
"I miss home," she said, digging her forehead into her knees.
She couldn't sit and sulk all day or her thoughts would just keep bothering her. She let loose a heavy breath and began to stand from her couch. Not bothering to change the clothes she wore to the exam, Kanei headed towards the door. Maybe a stroll around town would clear her head.
Izuku pulled into the parking lot with his mother as they finally got home for the day. He had failed and he knew it, he was just waiting for the letter to let him know. His mother tried to cheer him up with words of encouragement and even stopping by a place to get takeout, but the Midoriya boy still had sullen look on his face. He and his mother got out of the car with their food and headed back inside for the night.
"Don't worry, Izuku, I'm sure everything will be fine," his mother tried to console him.
He heard his mother's words and held them as best as he could, but couldn't stop today's results from getting to him. As he went up the first flight of stairs he was finally broken out of his depressed stupor as he tripped on the final step up, and collided with another person. His eyes focused on the person he bumped into before he had even processed the event.
It was a girl who was about his height and looked strangely familiar. Her hair in the color of a red flame and her eyes a bright golden color. He recognized her as the girl from the exam room and one of the contestants from his battle center. There she was, at his apartment building and sitting on the floor because he wasn't paying attention.
His face started to heat up and he began to stutter nervously. "I-I'm sorry, I-I should have been paying attention! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry...!" He began repeating nervously as the girl began to pick herself up.
"I get it, no need to keep apologizing," she spoke over the young boy. "Why don't we both start paying more attention? I was kind of oblivious myself." She spoke Japanese perfectly, but there was a subtle accent she had that could be easily noticed. He wasn't sure if it was American or not.
Izuku stopped repeating himself as the girl finally stood up. "I'm sorry, I should have helped you up- oh, you asked me to stop apologizing. Sorry for-" he held his hands over his mouth to stop himself from speaking any further.
"You're weird," she said blankly, getting an odd stare from Midoriya's mother. Izuku saw the girl stare at him strangely, almost like she recognized him too. "Wait, aren't you the kid who was muttering to himself in the exam room?" She asked, causing Izuku to tense up.
"Y-yeah..." he nervously confirmed.
"Weren't you also in my battle center? I think I saw you around the entrance where you were getting chewed out by some kid."
"R-right, that-"
"I'm gonna head up now, Izu," said his mother with a warm smile, interrupting the conversation. "Catch up when you feel like it."
"I will," he said to his mother before returning to the girl. "I know you said I need to stop apologizing, so I did, and that-" he cut himself off, trying to shake off the anxiety to get to the point. "I-I'm sorry for distracting you during Present Mic's orientation. Thank you for getting me back on track before he started speaking again."
"It's fine," she said. "It doesn't matter anymore."
She was about to walk off to the parking lot, but Izuku grabbed her attention once more. "I saw your quirk!" He exclaimed to her. "It has something to do with fire?"
"Uhh, yeah, what about it?" She asked.
"There aren't many quirks that interact with classical elements like yours do," He answered all too excitedly. "I just think it was really cool watching you melt the faux-villains in seconds! How does it work? Is it like Endeavor's quirk or is it different? How long close can you be to your quirk's fire before it gets too hot?"
"W-well, it's just fire," she answered dismissively of her quirk. "It's just superheating the air around me to form fire. I can also just create fire, but again, it's just fire."
"So it's like thermokinesis?" Izuku asked, getting more and more excited. "Can you also decrease the temperature?"
"N-no... just increase it-"
"And what did you mean when you said you could create fire? Do you use energy in your body to make more or is this part of your quirk that's similar to Endeavor's?" His face was becoming brighter and brighter with curiosity. At this point the fact that he had utterly failed the exam had left his mind for the time as he became more enamored with the girl's quirk.
"I can use a built-up internal energy and convert it into fire, instead of having to superheat the air around me. I can still do the latter of the two, but converting my energy into fire takes less time and is more powerful."
"If it takes less time and is stronger, then why not use it all the time?" He asked, beginning to go off into his own world. "It makes sense to do so unless you're deliberately trying to nerf yourself. So the only reason you would have to superheat the air is that the energy you're converting isn't finite-"
"And has to eventually be built back up," The girl finished. "That's about the gist of it."
"So where does the energy come from?!" He asked, still beaming in excitement.
The girl looked nervous and became a slight tinge paler. "C-can't say, really," she answered with an anxious laugh. "I just know that after a certain point I need a bit to recharge."
Izuku could see her becoming uncomfortable with the topic of her quirk and tried to shift topics. "T-that's cool!" He exclaimed, shyly. "Y-you know, I've kinda asked you a lot of questions but you haven't asked any questions of your own." With the gesture he offered her he hoped that she wouldn't start asking him about his quirk, despite him hounding her for information about hers.
"We were in the same battle center, right?" She asked, reciprocating the offer and thankfully avoiding the topic of Izuku's quirk. "You see the guy who knocked over the zero-pointer?" Izuku shrunk in on himself, now just as anxious as he would have been if his quirk had been discussed. "Guy came out of nowhere and just hammered the zero-pointer with a single hit. It was kinda awesome..." Izuku's felt a tinge of pride when she said that, trying to hide a smile knowing she wasn't finished yet. "... but then he just started falling. No landing strategy at all. If you don't know how you're gonna land then why take the jump, am I right?"
"Y-yeah, r-really stupid. W-who would think of such a thing?" He fake agreed feeling the same as he did before.
"Anyway, I was gonna head out. I'll see you around I guess."
She began to walk away again. Izuku let her go past him before realizing he never got her name. "I don't think I got your name!" He said, turning around to the girl who was a few feet away. "I'm Midoriya Izuku," he said with a slight bow.
"Ho-" she paused to correct herself. "Kanei Homura." Instead of a bow, she extended an open towards him. He was confused at first but recognized the gesture as a sign of greetings from the west.
He nervously accepted the gesture and shook her hand. His entire body turned a bright red at the first contact he had with a girl that wasn't his mother. Izuku quickly let go and retracted his arm back to his side.
"G-goodbye, Kanei-chan!" He stuttered while walking back to his apartment.
He hoped he didn't make her too uncomfortable with his strange mannerisms. They were something he was trying to get control over and was making progress, but some habits held onto him tightly. Meanwhile, he was doing his best to remember the details of her quirk so he could write them down. There were a lot of people's quirks he wanted to write down now that he had seen so many in use all in a single place. With his mind distracted from the exam for now, it was the best way he could find to keep himself distracted until the dreaded letter would come in the mail.
The sun had just begun to rest itself on the horizon, turning the sky behind her dark and the sky in front of her a dark red and pumpkin-orange color. Some constellations began to fade into the picture and the moon slowly became more apparent just above the sun. The insects of the night began to sing their songs and the frogs joined in as well.
Traffic had died down significantly making the walk much more serene. The sounds of nature in a metropolitan area had an odd sense of peace to them, especially with the various shades of neon lights beginning to turn on in the distance. Some businesses that were closed during the day began to open, as employees turned on their neon signs in the window and flipped the wooden signs on the opposite side.
Fewer heroes were out and about as well, most having gone home to their families at this point. What heroes were out had a more ragged and bedhead appearance. At least most did. One particular hero who stood out was some guy sitting on a rooftop wearing a scarf around his neck and a yellow pair of goggles. He wore all black and his hair looked like he had just woken up. He simply sat there doing some arm stretches before moving on to a different place.
Eventually Homura crossed the threshold of the city and made it to the forest just outside. There wasn't much point in wandering too far in, but she knew which way she came from. Just a few dozen miles north of the city limits was her Liset sitting undisturbed in the forest. In the state it's in now it would get shot down by any anti-aircraft weapons.
Ever since she landed on this warped version of earth she had made a habit of returning to her ship at least twice a month. Without any sort of cloaking tech it was hard to fully disguise it. All's she could do was let the moss and vines overtake its outside, and cover the bottom half with dirt. Any day now a random kid could wander into the woods and find her ship. It's been almost six months and it hasn't happened yet. The only thing she could do is pray to that demented entity from the void that her ship stays unfound.
The only important part was making sure the fuel was good. It had been... she couldn't remember how long it had been since the last refuel. Decades, centuries even. Does the ship even need to refuel?
Regardless, her biggest concern is that she no longer has her orbiter. Whatever happened back in the void had only pulled her Liset out with her. No orbiter meant no weapons, no necramech, and most importantly, no other warframes. Maybe if she wasn't such a moron she would have her frame and archwing with her, but for some reason she had the bright idea to go to Venus first.
"Stupid acid rain," she groaned. "Burnt up the damn hull."
At least the insides were fine. That still didn't excuse the fact that even during the warnings she was getting from her control panel she decided to investigate herself.
"I'm a fucking moron." What did it cost her? "No weapons, no archwing... my warframe is gone..." her hands balled into tightened fists and a feeling of frustration came over her.
She took a deep breath and recomposed herself, straightening her posture. It was only a minor setback. She'd get home soon. It might take a while, but she'd find a way. She had to.
The Week After
It was midday and the sun was shining through the door into Homura's apartment. Accepting the mail from the courier she shut the door behind her and walked back to the living room. The envelope had a small amount of weight to it that took Homura by surprise.
Curious, she tore into the envelope to pull out a neatly folded piece of paper and a small disc that fit perfectly in the palm of her hand. She began by sitting the disk on the kitchen counter and looking through the letter she pulled out with it.
The first paper was nothing more than a schedule stating where her homeroom would be. The first part read "Classroom 1-A" and named a teacher: Aizawa Shouta. Her day would start at 8:45 am and would start with Hero Basic Training. It would then go to Language, Mathematics, a lunch period, the. Physical Education, History, and finished by homeroom to go over Hero Basic Training again. Homura folded the piece of paper and sat it on the counter next to the disc.
Next was the disc. There was a small red button on the side that she was enticed into pressing, causing the top of the disc to fold outwards. A hologram appeared and a tired-eyed, long-haired, barely awake man in his late twenties appeared as a projection. With a world as far behind in technology as this one compared to her own, she was surprised they managed to achieve holograms, let alone ones with color. Though she could at least credit them for the robots. They deal more damage than anything the corpus proxies dish out. For as big and expensive they had to be it appeared that the school could easily replace them, given how ready they were to use the proxies as punching bags for the kids.
"Kanei Homura, I would like to formally welcome you to U.A. Highschool-"
"Put some heart into it, Aizawa!" She could hear a deep and jovial-sounding voice say in the background. The voice was easily recognizable as All Might's. There were so many video interviews that his voice and face were ingrained in this country's memory. If she wanted to she could probably track him down by his voice alone.
The man on the screen rolled his eyes and continued. "I would like to formally welcome you into U.A. Highschool," he repeated with a tad bit of fake enthusiasm. "With a score of 76 villain points and 0 rescue points, you have placed second on the entrance exam. This with a score of 78% on your written exam has earned your place in the Hero Course." The man sounded like he was reading from a script, but it could easily be some level of sleep deprivation. His outfit looked familiar and unwashed, probably one of the night-shift heroes she saw last night.
"There we go-" said the same, distant but loud voice.
"Would you hush, I'm trying to record this, why don't you do yours," he scolded the man in the background. She heard All Might shuffle away from the man and a door open and close. "Your schedule should be in the letter sent with you, if not please contact the school to obtain it. Regardless you are expected to show up within the week to retrieve your uniform. School begins in one month, on April 3rd. Can't wait to see you, plus ultra." That last part had to be scripted.
The disc retracted back in on itself and the hologram shut off.
She did it. Her abilities weren't very well suited for anything technical and she lacked any skill in that area, so she decided the hero course was the best option. Being in a course that focused on a more combative role, the Hero and Support courses would likely have frequent contact.
She sighed to herself and fell on the couch. "How do I even introduce that topic to the support course?" She asked herself. "'I want your help to tear a hole in the fabric of the universe, which should grant me access to an alternate universe'," she said mockingly. Homura scoffed and pushed her head towards the armrest. "Even if they took me seriously I doubt they could come up with anything."
She let out a deep breath and looked worriedly at the ceiling. Several thoughts raced through her head. The Lotus missing a Tenno, her cephalon stuck alone in her orbiter. All of her stuff was locked behind a veil that wasn't still present here, but not physically available.
Her duties as a Tenno, a warrior fighting for the balance of the system at large, took higher priority than playing superhero in some alien world. Yet here she was. In an alien world, about to go to a school to learn how to become some sort of superhero and subdue 'Villains'.
She had to remember her goal in all of this: use the support course to find a way to breach the void and get home. But could they even begin to understand half the tech she has to describe to them, simply used to traverse the void and not even make another pathway into it? Even if they could understand it, could they make it? If so, how long would it take? Would she be alive by the time they finished?
Thinking about it she would have better odds making sure her liset stays hidden until she dies. Even with its poor ghillie suit disguise.
"Am I gonna be stuck here forever?" Homura curled up into a ball on the couch and stared through the ceiling, and into nothing. It was a possibility she had considered but didn't wish to entertain.
Her fists tightened the more the thought rang through her mind. She scratched at her eyes and tried to take a breath but couldn't. She used her nose instead, taking a long breath in and exhaling through her mouth.
It was best to keep her eyes on the positives. She never knew what could happen. She might even be pleasantly surprised. Deciding to keep her hopes up she thought only of getting home, ridding her mind of all the what-ifs. It didn't help much, but it was better than nothing.
Maybe she could do something to take her mind off the subject. The TV! Watching heroes beat the shit out of villains on television might be able to help keep the negative thoughts away. She uncurled from her position and grabbed the remote, turning on the television which was immediately tuned into the news. They were talking about traffic and the weather today.
Kanei began to flip through the various channels on the screen. There was one particular channel that hosted clips of Hero fights in the street. She liked analyzing the fights and the individual or team tactics used in fights. She didn't know if that was considered weird, but she enjoyed it.
It helped only a little bit.
The corners of her eyes itched, so she went to rub at the spot to relieve the sensation. When the her hands touched her face to scratch at the feeling, they felt wet for some reason.
AN: That's that. Hope you enjoyed the thing I made! If not, let me know why and how to improve it.
I'm gonna quickly go over the other Solo-Frame ideas I had and why I wanted to implement them
1. Valkyr: I like her abilities, that's about it.
2. Gara: Same as Valkyr. I also was maiming her when the idea of a Warframe Crossover popped into my mind, so that was also a factor.
3. Trinity: I wanted to play around with the idea of a student getting into U.A. solely based off of rescue points and healing and thought she could fit that dynamic. It would also be interesting when she pulls out things like Well of Life and Energy Vampire that slowly drain an enemies health to benefit the caster and her allies, showing a much more sinister aspect of Trinity's support role abilities compared to her 4.
4. Garuda: her abilities revolve around blood and goring an opponent to death. It would also have shown a student with extremely dangerous and violent abilities trying to use these to use them for a not-so-violent purpose. Abilities such as Blood Alter could be displayed against some Nomu's in the Kamino Ward attack that would heal people but also horrify them at the same time. Dread Mirror would also be something that would scare the shit out of pro-heroes having to be pelted with a highly dense ball of their own blood.
5. Nova: We see a lot of students with standard mutations, classical element manipulation, some kind of strength enhancer or something unique. None that manipulate universal forces such as antimatter. Nova would be that student, someone who can pump something or someone full of volatile antimatter and make them splode. Her ability to manipulate theoretical aspects of the universe is what drew me in.
6. Mag: Stand in for nova, because I couldn't find a good way to write the Nova story.
Those are all the frames I considered, but shelved in favor of Ember. Why did I chose Ember? For interactions with a certain character who refuses to use a certain part of their quirk, forcing them to to use the ability they refuse to use.
Any questions you guys have I'll do my best to answer. If I can't answer them it's either because I either don't have one or I'd be spoiling the story.
Bye now!