AN: James Birdsong - I'm glad you are still enjoying the story!

When the time came for his new class, Izuku gathered his quirk analysis notebook and other materials before quickly exiting the classroom, meeting Momo outside the door.

"I'm glad you decided to join us." He told her as the two began walking down the hallway towards Nezu's office.

"Thanks. I was unsure about the offer at first, but decided that it was a wonderful opportunity. I just hope I don't hold everyone else back." Momo replied.

Izuku offered her a reassuring smile. "Don't worry if you're lost at first, I'm sure Nezu has accounted for that. After all, if he plans to expand it, he will have to plan for different levels of experience."

Momo smiled back, relief evident on her face. "Thanks."

The two continued their journey in silence, until Emily intercepted them in the hallway. "Izuku! This is so exciting!"

"H-hey Emily. It really is, isn't it?"

Emily stopped in front of them and shot Izuku a flat look. "Seriously, where is your enthusiasm?"

Izuku laughed nervously. "Do I need it when you have enough enthusiasm for all three of us?"

While Izuku was excited for the opportunity, right now he felt more nervous than anything. He was aware that Nezu had high expectations of him, and he didn't want to let him down. Not after all of the help Nezu has given his family over the past two years, both directly and indirectly.

The three continued along until they entered Nezu's office. "Ah, right on time! Please, sit down." He gestured to a table that had been arranged with four chairs surrounding it, a folder filled with papers sitting in front of three of the chairs.

"I had thought to start the course off with a simple exercise, to establish a baseline of your knowledge. So for today, we will be going over your classmates' quirks."

The three students sat down and opened the folders in front of them, and Izuku flushed in embarrassment. The page consisted of his school ID photo, as well as the school's writeup for his quirk. His quirk profile consisted of the official description on file at the quirk registry office, along with an additional paragraph of notes that the school appears to have added.

"We're starting with m-me?" Izuku looked up.

"But of course! When going over your classes, what better place to start than the three of you. I would hope that, if nothing else, you each should have extensive knowledge of your own quirk. Besides, it is helpful for me to know how you think about your own quirk, compared to how you three analyze someone else's quirk."

Izuku looked down at the profile. He knew what it said, of course, but it helped get him in the right mindset - he didn't want to slip and say something about One For All. "At its most basic level, I have a somewhat generic energy storage and enhancement quirk. Essentially, my body burns slightly more energy than average, and that excess is stored for later use. Whenever I am in a resting state, such as when I am sleeping, my body obviously stores more energy than when I am active, such as during heroics class. Then, when I need to, I can tap that energy, directing it to my limbs to strengthen them, giving me temporary super strength and durability."

"A concise explanation of your quirk. Now then, what else can you tell me about it?"

Izuku looked at his hand. "Due to the fact that my quirk has come in late, I have several major drawbacks at the moment. One is that my body has excess energy stored, due to the fact that even though I only recently was able to use it, I have been storing energy since I was young. The other is that I lack the level of control I would have if my quirk manifested earlier. These two facts combined form a major weakness of my quirk, in that if I make a mistake I could easily hurt myself, or even incapacitate myself if I break all of the bones in a limb. Over time, I should be able to overcome both of these problems, as I gain more control over my quirk and build up my body."

"Indeed, those are serious problems for the time being, especially if you face someone who is aware of them and could exploit them. Now then, Miss Song, what do you have to add?"

Everyone turned their attention to Emily, and she lit up. "Izuku failed to mention the fact that when he punched the Nomu at the USJ he did not feel any of the usual feedback. This has me wondering about the specific mechanism behind how his limbs are being strengthened. After all, even if two quirks operate in essentially the same way, there are usually fundamental differences between versions of the same quirk. If the energy is being used in such a way that a shock absorption quirk is able to nullify it, it should be possible to build some support items that allow Izuku to punch and kick at higher strengths then what he is currently able to, temporarily offsetting some of his current issues."

"Excellent idea!" Nezu said. "Now then, Miss Yaoyorozu, what are your thoughts on Mr. Midoriya's quirk?"

Momo looked like a fish out of water as she stared at the profile in front of her. "I-I'm not sure what I could add that these two haven't already discussed."

"It's ok, Yaoyorozu." Izuku said. "I know Emily and I have spent a lot of time analyzing our own quirks, but that just means we can tell you if your thoughts are right or not!"

"Yeah! In science, you only learn through failure! The same goes here, if you don't start somewhere, even if you get it wrong, you're never going to get anywhere!"

Momo looked up, and hearing everyone's encouragement a look of determination filled her own face. She looked back down at the profile. "I have noticed that Midoriya has a distinctive indication when he is using his quirk, and you can use that to know which limb he is currently enhancing. If I were to be facing him, I could use that to anticipate his attacks. While I suspect someday that may not matter, for now, you can use that window to either block his current attack, or counter him by targeting another, more vulnerable, area."

This earned a cheer from Emily, while Izuku's face was heating up from embarrassment. "See! That's important to know!"

"Indeed!" Nezu was taking notes. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

"No." Momo admitted. "It just took me some time to think about it. Time that I'm not sure I would have in the middle of a fight."

"Well, that's why we're here! Do you think Izuku and I started as fast as we are? No!"

"Emily is right, it's just practice. Once you get the hang of it, it gets easier and faster." Izuku added.

"They are correct, which is why I agreed to bring you in for the class. After all, what is the point of school, but to learn?"

Momo smiled at the three. "Thanks. I'll do my best!"

"Excellent. Now then, let's move onto the next profile. Miss Song, if you would do the honors."

The three all flipped the page to reveal the school's profile for Emily. Once again, Izuku and Emily scanned it quickly, confirming what they already knew, while Momo read the document more thoroughly. "So my quirk is registered as light arrows, which is a bit of a misnomer, but it's close enough! I can generate orbs of light of various sizes and intensities, and then "fire" them in a straight line towards a target."

Izuku jumped in. "The problem with your quirk is immediately apparent, in that your projectiles, despite all appearances, actually have surprisingly little kinetic energy behind them - it is mostly light and heat. While this is fine stopping anything coming at you - you can either incinerate the object with intense heat, or you abuse physics by having an object's kinetic energy counteracted by running into a ball of energy traveling in the opposite direction, it poses a problem if you want to gain distance from an enemy. You have no way of pushing them back once they are in close quarters, and are forced to rely on your own physical abilities to gain space."

Emily grumbled at that. "Way to remind me I suck in close quarters."

"There is also the scaling issue. The larger an orb you generate, the less strength you can put into it."

"I'm actually working on that!" Emily exclaimed. "Just like you need to build up your body to enhance your limbs more, I have to exercise my quirk to increase the power I can put behind it!"

Momo finally broke in. "How does your quirk handle something that is designed to be heat-resistant? There are ceramics designed to withstand intense heat, would they counter your quirk?"

"Probably." Emily complained. "My support gauntlet helps me offset some of my quirk's drawbacks, and was constructed primarily out of heat-resistant materials, so if you had the proper materials you could likely counter it to some degree."

"Is it possible to dial up the light without increasing the destructive force? One of the blueprints I have memorized is how to create stun grenades, and I could see the ability to generate an intense light to blind your opponents being useful."

"Not that I have found, no, but that's a feature of my support items!" Emily grinned. "My gauntlet actually has a flash bomb setting! Where I capture an intense orb of light and basically siphon off the destructive energy to either use later, or discharge after the fight, but when I discharge the gauntlet it emits the blinding flash of light!"

Momo thought about that. "Using support items to offset your quirk's drawback…"

"See Yaoyorozu, you're already getting the hang of it." Izuku said.

Momo blushed at that. "T-thanks! It is easier now that I am in the right mindset."

"Now then, since you appear to be thinking about it already, Miss Yaoyorozu, why don't you tell us about your quirk."

The group turned the page in their packets and revealed Momo's profile. "Y-yes. My quirk is creation. I can essentially transform the lipids in my body into any non-living object, provided I know the right molecular structure and have a blueprint of the object in my head. The obvious drawbacks are that I am limited by my lipids - if I push myself too far, my body will begin consuming more important cells, and I am limited by the size of an object - I cannot generate something that is larger than the surface area of my body. If I wanted to, I would have to create multiple smaller pieces and assemble it."

"So the obvious drawback is how many fat cells you have in your body. Do you know how your body stores excess fat? After all, our bodies should have natural adaptations to handle our quirks - like Emily has some inherent heat resistance, to protect herself from burns when she creates a miniature star in the palm of her hand."

"N-no." Momo admitted. "I have always had a carefully curated diet."

"That would be the first thing you could experiment with, see what happens if you eat extra calories and find out how your body stores them. My question is how complex of an object can you make? Like you said you could make a stun grenade, could you make something as complex as a computer? Or a robot?"

"I-In theory I could? But the complexity of something would be the problem." Momo admitted. "For a stun grenade, the most complex part is the firing mechanism, which is still relatively simple compared to something like a computer."

"If you are merely limited by what you can keep in your head, then your ability to counter quirks is endless! Can you duplicate quirk-suppressing cuffs? That would be huge!"

"I could try, but I would need pretty detailed blueprints of how they work."

"I believe I can handle that." Nezu offered. "I will reach out and speak with some people. Because I do agree that if you could create something such as that, it would be quite useful in your line of work."

"I would be up for the challenge." Momo responded confidently.

"Excellent! Now then, those were the easiest entries. Let's continue by examining the rest of Class 2-B next, as Midoriya and Song have the most experience with those students."

The group flipped to the next page and began to review the next student as the lesson continued.

"Do you mind if I sit here?"

Izuku and his friends looked up to see Hitoshi standing there, a tray of food in his hands.

"N-No, go ahead!"

"I do not have any problem!" Tenya announced, while Ochako and Tsuyu merely nodded their approval.

"Thanks." Hitoshi sat down with a groan, and only then did Izuku notice that he appeared even more exhausted than he did last week. "Since I was wrong last week, I thought maybe I should actually take some time to learn more about you hero course types."

Izuku smiled at that, and looked at his friends who seemed surprised. "I don't mind, anyone else?"

Seeing everyone agree, they went around the table and introduced themselves. Feeling welcomed by the group, Hitoshi seemed to grow more comfortable as he picked up his chopsticks.

"I don't know how you hero students do it." He complained.

"Do what?" Ochako asked, confused.

"Put up with Aizawa-sensei's training. I've only been training under him for five days and it's been hell."

"It is necessary to stay in top form to fulfill our duties as a hero!" Iida exclaimed.

"Y-yeah, you don't think any villains would take it easy on us, do you?"

"Hmph." Hitoshi just looked down at his food. "I guess I underestimated the hero course after all. If this is what you go through regularly then it's no wonder I failed the entrance exam."

"Being a hero is about more than just your quirk, kero."

"Yeah! Some people may be able to get by on just their quirk, but there's also a lot more to it!"

"More than just your quirk, huh?" Hitoshi was looking at his food, but Izuku could tell he was staring far away.

"Remember what I said about how I almost ended up taking the exam quirkless? I went through ten months of intensive training to prepare for that."

"I guess I never really thought about it that way before." Hitoshi took a bite of food. "I just took the standard pre-hero PE courses that they offered in middle school."

"Ah! That simply wouldn't have been enough to handle those robots! At least not without a strong physical quirk to compensate, such as the one Midoriya has!"

Examining his face, Izuku felt a flash of familiarity. Hitoshi had already admitted that people wrote him off as a villain in middle school, and he had internalized that. It was similar to how he and Himiko had internalized the prejudices that they had faced. And unlike the two of them, Hitoshi never had someone in his life to help him grow past those assumptions.

Until now, that is.

"Sadly I agree with Iida." Izuku said. "While it is possible to pass the exam with your mental quirk, it would have required extensive additional training."

"Hmph. Yeah, I guess I learned that lesson the hard way." Hitoshi says wistfully.

"Do you regret agreeing to Aizawa's training?"

Hitoshi looked at Izuku like he was crazy. "Are you kidding? Sure the training is rough, but I feel myself getting better every day. You all are going to have to watch out by the time the sports festival arrives."

The students laughed at that. "I gladly welcome the challenge!"

"Yeah, if you want to be a hero, you'll have to give it your all, because we're going all out too!"

"We won't go easy on you, kero."

Izuku smiled at him. "If you pull it off, you'll have earned your spot in the hero course!"

This earned a chuckle from Hitoshi. "I guess I need to get ready for all of the work you hero course students put in, if I want to join you."

Tenya slammed his fist into his palm. "Of course! You shouldn't expect anything less from an institution such as this!"

Because the sports festival was coming up, the hero course students were given open study periods for several of their heroics classes in the two weeks leading up to the event. This gave them extra time to work on specific areas they wanted to improve before the festival. For the first years, these were mostly used for general improvement. For the second years, however, they had a much better idea of where they wanted to focus their training.

For Himiko, she was using it as a chance to further work on her natural speed and agility, as she was leaping from building to building in the training ground. Each training ground had several preset courses mapped out that were used for races and training, and Himiko was currently racing through the most difficult course available.

She was panting heavily by the time she reached the finish line, looking at her stopwatch to check her time - she had managed to shave a full five seconds off of her personal best from last year already. She let out a small cheer.

"Hey Midoriya, dial it back, you're going to embarrass the rest of us!" She heard Amaya call out from the sidelines, where she was greedily drinking a bottle of water.

Himiko responded by sticking her tongue out. "Just because I can't use a quirk to get around doesn't mean I'm going to let myself fall behind!"

"Good!" Amaya walked over with a grin on her face and handed Himiko a water bottle. "If you don't push yourself I may get complacent, and that would be terrible."

Himiko rolled her eyes as she drank some water. "I'm sure someone else would have kept you on your toes."

Amaya laughed. "Probably! But with you it's personal! I still owe you from last year's sports festival. I won't lose to you this year!"

"We'll see in two weeks!"

Himiko gave her a predatory grin before waving goodbye, as she walked across the training ground to where some of her other classmates were sparring. She arrived just in time to see Tomoe knocked to the ground, before her opponent offered her a hand back up.

In an effort to expand her skills further, Tomoe had recently been trying to copy Himiko's stealth technique. While she now carried around smoke grenades, that wasn't always an option for her. So she was trying to incorporate other moves into her fighting style.

Unfortunately for Tomoe, so far she was unable to replicate Himiko's stealth technique. After a few more minutes of trying, she finally gave up, waving Himiko over as her opponent moved on.

"You still can't figure out how my stealth trick works?"

Tomoe shook her head. "I think I might just not be able to do it."

Himiko's face fell. "Why not?"

"I think it has to do with my quirk. Because I am processing so much extra sensory information, I am having trouble clearing my head properly. I could show you sometime? I can just boost your hearing and you can try being sneaky."

"Oh."

Tomoe put her arm on Himiko's shoulder. "That's ok though! Thanks to Izuku and Emily I have my own fighting style, between the tasers and the blind fighting. That just means you get to keep your special move for yourself."

"I still hate the fact that they gave you the idea to learn how to fight while blinded." Himiko grumbled.

"What, just because I'm the one person who can break your stealth move?"

"Exactly! What if I have to stop you someday."

Tomoe laughed softly at that. "You'll just have to find some other way to deal with me. Although you have been getting better - even Atsuko's having a hard time keeping track of you, and she's had the most practice out of all of us."

"I wonder if it will be enough for the sports festival this year."

"Look at you, all concerned about the sports festival all of a sudden."

Himiko blushed at that. "Shut up! I just don't want to fall behind is all!"

Tomoe smiled at her. "I thought you hated the idea of rivalries? I get it though - now that there's two full classes we have more competition."

"Yeah, and all of the extra attention Izu's class has been getting from the media circus." Himiko frowned.

"We just have to show them up, won't we? Remind everyone that there's more than one class at the school."

Himiko grinned. "Yep! We'll teach them a lesson for underestimating us!"

AN: A bit of a slower chapter this time, but I wanted to let the kids nerd out about quirks. This is the last slow bit before the sports festival though, so I will see you all next Sunday when the first years kick off the event!

For those curious - I currently don't have plans on writing my own version of the three movies, which is why the idea of the Mid/Full Gauntlet showed up here, instead of from Melissa Shield. I may bring the Shields or villains in later, but I already have a lot going on!