The rest of the week passed quickly and soon it was time for the students of UA to return home. Twilight made sure to give Shining and Cadence hugs before she and Izuku left.
Class 1-A was abuzz with excitement as the students talked about their internships with each other.
"Talk about an awesome week!" Elleanor cheered. "I was in the thick of it at Hosu with Manual!"
"Man, you wound up there?" Eijirou asked. "With me, it was mostly refining my Quirk into a style that was suited to my personality. Tetsutetsu from Class 1-B was with me too."
"I was there as well, Kirishima." Kira pointed out. "Puri-Puri Prisoner was surprisingly insightful in helping me with my own Quirk."
"I actually got to help out with a hostage situation," Kyouka said.
"Me too. But man, Drive Knight is ruthless against villains." Flash said, recalling how the cyborg hero had converted his Shape-Changing Box into an iron maiden-like configuration to crush the villain that had been threatening innocent people. "Thankfully, Demon Cyborg was there to temper him."
"Fluttershy, Marco, and I were able to help deal with some villains too," Tsuyu said. "We were taking down a group of drug smugglers posing as stowaways."
"It was a bit scary, but we managed to pull through." Fluttershy smiled.
"Hey, Uraraka, you went with Gunhead, right? What was your time with him like?" Junko asked.
"It was...illuminating," Ochako said, a battle aura coming off of her.
"Women...they are secretly demons hiding behind silk," Minoru muttered, shaking as he remembered the rigorous training Tatsumaki put him through.
"I actually got to work with my uncle, Elecplant!" Denki smiled. "But the real stars have got to be Midoriya, Todoroki, Iida, Twilight, Tempest, Tony, and Ghidorah!"
"Heh, taking out the goddamn Hero Killer?" Katsuki chuckled. "What happened to the wimpy nerd I used to push around back when we were little snot-nosed brats?"
"He grew up and stopped taking grief from guys like you, obviously," Twilight answered with a roll of her eyes.
"Man, I don't think I would've been able to handle being up against him, even with my Quirk," Derpy said. "What was he like, Iida?"
"He's rather difficult to describe. His tenacity is certainly to be admired, and his motives are understandable." Tenya admitted. "The trouble is he's fanatical, narrowed-minded, tunnel-visioned, and completely out of touch with how the world works. Not to mention, while he wanted to change the world, he did so through cold-blooded murder. Such actions cannot be condoned under any circumstances."
"Well, you bagged that rattlesnake so people won't have to worry about him ever again," Applejack said.
Later in the day, the class was out in the industrial simulation with All-Might and Celestia.
"Good to see everyone had a productive internship. And now's the time to put that learning into practice!" All-Might said with a smile.
"We're going to have a little race across the industrial zone. This is rescue training, but it's a little different than the disaster training you had at the USJ." Celestia explained as she brought up a nearby screen. "You'll be competing in groups of five, with each student having a different starting location on the outskirts."
"The interior is like a maze, and your only means of navigation will be a distress signal we'll be broadcasting from the center of the zone. The first one to reach our location, a simulation of citizens seeking aid, will be the winner!" All-Might finished.
The first group that went consisted of Izuku, Tenya, Mina, Sero, Oujiro, Twilight, Rarity, Elleanor, Derpy, and Junko.
"Most of them have good mobility options," Momo noted. "Derpy no doubt will be able to find a way to get around thanks to her Quirk's supernatural luck inducement."
"Wanna take bets on who's gonna make it first?" Eijirou asked.
"Deku, hands down." Katsuki said.
"Not like you to place such faith in him. What's stopping Twilight from teleporting to where All-Might and Celestia are?" Rainbow Dash teasingly asked.
"I got good odds on Oujiro." Denki decided.
"I'm betting on Sero," Tony said, Eijirou nodding in agreement.
"My money's on Ashido!" Minoru said before noticing everyone giving him looks. "And NO! It's not just because she's got a smoking hot athletic body!"
"Kinda find that hard to believe, little feller," Applejack said with an eye roll.
"I think Ida might be able to take it," Ochako suggested. "He is incredibly fast, after all."
"Well, so am I!" Rainbow Dash huffed, folding her arms.
As soon as the test began, Izuku, Sero, and Twilight all took to the air using their special skills. Tenya raced through the lower parts, Mina skated along some of the pipes, and Ojiro kept slamming his tail against the various roofs to leap from building to building.
Elleanor stretched her arms to jungle swing through the pipes, even making some playful monkey noises as she did. Rarity created a crystal umbrella and manipulated it to carry her into the air like Mary Poppins, Junko prowled on all fours while using her senses to tune into All-Might and Celestia's location, and Derpy just ran through, her luck causing her to take all the right directions, despite occasionally fumbling and tripping around.
"This is gonna be a breeze!" Sero bragged. "It's like this course was made for me!"
"Don't count on it!" Izuku called out, quickly racing past him.
"See ya at the finish line!" Twilight giggled as she blitzed past Sero in the form of magical sparkles flying through the air.
Izuku was ahead of everyone but suddenly ended up slipping on a pipe. However, instead of just falling, he suddenly found himself floating in midair.
"Thanks for the save, Twilight!"
"I didn't do anything!" Twilight clarified, making a magical platform to stand on as she checked up on Izuku.
"Wait...then that means..." Izuku's eyes widened in realization before quickly shooting out [Blackwhip] and slingshotting himself back into the fray, reaching All-Might and Celestia first.
"I think...I unlocked a new Quirk hidden in [One For All]." Izuku guessed since he was the first one there.
All-Might and Celestia were definitely surprised themselves. The significance of the new Quirk was not lost on them.
"[One For All] chooses now of all times for Young Midoriya to unlock [Float]? The Quirk belonging to my sensei?" All-Might thought before shaking his head and awarding Izuku the winner's sash as Twilight just arrived.
"That was certainly a tight race." Celestia giggled. "And congrats on unlocking a new part of your Quirk."
"Where did that come from, Midoriya? You were just floating in midair all of a sudden." Sero asked as he arrived next.
"It appears Midoriya's Quirk not only increases his superhuman physical characteristics but also grants him pseudo-flight." Tenya guessed as he arrived behind Sero, followed by Junko, Elleanor, and Mina.
"Like Superman?" Elleanor asked.
"Yeah, like that!"
After the class was over, the boys were getting changed in the locker rooms.
"Man, I may be better at my Quirk now but it's still not great for mobility." Denki sighed in disappointment.
"Hey, come on man! You were able to launch yourself into the air with electricity just now!" Flash reassured. "What should we call those? How about... The Static Thrusters!"
"Holy crap! I think this hole leads right into the girls' locker room next door!" Minoru gasped as he tore away a poster to reveal the aforementioned hole. "A present from previous generations passed down to our humble hands..."
"Don't go creeping out now, Mineta," Ghidorah warned. "Or else you might regret it."
Minoru didn't listen as he gazed into the hole, excitedly accentuating each of the girls' features...before getting one of Kyouka's jacks straight into his eye.
"MINETA-KUN!" Izuku cried as Minoru screamed and rolled on the floor while clutching his now swelling eye.
"WHAT DID I SAY?!" Ghidorah snapped.
"Honestly, how uncouth of him..." Rarity huffed from the girls' side.
"I was the only one he didn't talk about..." Kyouka said to herself bitterly as Fluttershy and Derpy comfortingly patted her on the back.
After class, Izuku, the Mane 6, and Marco were invited into the teacher's lounge by Toshinori and Celestia.
"Is everything alright? You seem more solemn than usual." Marco asked, Click chirping worriedly.
"To be perfectly frank, no," Toshinori admitted. "I recently learned something that troubles me greatly. Young Midoriya, I heard that the Hero Killer swallowed some of your blood. Do you remember what I said when I gave my power to you?"
"Here, eat this!" Midoriya recited, in an almost perfect imitation of All-Might.
This caught everyone so off-guard that they all ended up laughing hysterically. After everyone calmed down, Izuku got serious.
"You said that it's important to have a recipient ingest your DNA, but that you also need to want to pass the power on. Actually, I had no intention of passing on [One For All] at the time, especially when I don't even have full control over it, so there's no chance it'll wind up in Stain's hands."
"Indeed, that power is not something that can be just taken by force," Celestia said. "The name itself has a double meaning. First, it's a reference to the saying, 'One for all, and all for one, and heaven blesses the land.' Second, the name refers to how the Quirk works. One Quirk, for all people."
"So what does all this have to do with Stain getting a taste of Izu's blood?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"That's why we're telling you this now," Toshinori explained. "It has to do with the origin of [One For All]. It wasn't made like other Quirks. It didn't spring up into existence out of the blue like some others. In a way... [One For All] was engineered."
"A Quirk being created? How is that possible?" Twilight asked, surprised and more than a little curious.
"The reasoning goes back to the very beginning of Quirks," Toshinori explained, "I'm sure you know the story. How it all started with a young baby in Qing Qing, China who suddenly gained the ability to become luminescent."
"Yeah, his parents were pretty flummoxed from what I read," Marco noted.
"In those days, there was chaos. And out of the chaos suddenly came a different sort of Quirk." Celestia frowned. "If there's a [One For All]... Then naturally there would be an [All For One], its polar opposite. All Quirks, for one man."
"A Quirk that can steal other Quirks..." Twilight silently gasped.
"Ooooh! That's a super evil bad guy power right there!" Pinkie Pie realized.
"Not just taking, but also giving them away." Toshinori clarified. "It was even possible for him to return a Quirk he had taken to its original user. The user of [All For One], no one really remembers his name anymore, took advantage of the fact that during his youth, powers were cropping up in great numbers, making it impossible to say what was normal anymore. Laws and human rights were hotly debated, and civilization's progress stalled."
"Yeah, all the chaos pushed humanity back quite a few centuries." Twilight frowned. "Because of that, space travel is still years away despite all the developments since then."
"All For One rallied many people together. He was the apprentice of Grogar the Necromancer, and at first, he worked to quell the chaos for his own benefit. He took Quirks from people who didn't want them and gave them to people who did. All in exchange for favors. Some Quirks he kept for himself." Celestia explained.
"Before long, All For One had complete control over Japan alongside his brother, Tirek, who also had a similar power to absorb mana from others, stealing their strength and even copying their Quirks for himself to use," Toshinori added.
"Oh great, there were TWO of them!" Rainbow Dash groaned.
"When a person gains true power, they enjoy showing it off. All For One's power went to his head, and he started to pull away from his brother and Grogar to commit evil for his own sake." Toshinori said.
"But how does this come back to [One For All]?" Marco asked.
"There were many people that couldn't bear the burden of the Quirks they were given," Celestia explained. "They became mindless living dolls, incapable of speaking. Dead in all but name..."
Fluttershy gasped. "The Nomus..."
Toshinori nodded. "Conversely, some powers evolved as they moved on, or combined with other power sets. Now, All For One and Tirek had a third brother, who was Quirkless. He had no intention of being evil like the rest of his family. In fact, he had a strong sense of justice. It pained him to see his brother's evil deeds, and he kept resisting him. For some reason, All For One decided to transfer a Quirk to his younger brother, one that would allow him to stockpile power over time."
"Wait, stockpiling...that means...!" Twilight realized, her eyes widening.
"It turns out the brother wasn't actually Quirkless." Celestia finished. "His original Quirk allowed him to pass on his strength to another, but due to his sickly body, he was unable to make use of it. The two Quirks merged together in the younger brother's body and thus created a new power."
"Ironic, isn't it? How the power of the Symbol of Peace could come from the ultimate force of evil?" Toshinori chuckled mirthlessly. "Justice often tends to spawn from evil, like two sides of the same coin."
"Hold on a second! If All For One is as old as you say he is, shouldn't he be dead by now?" Izuku asked.
"You'd think that, but for one who can steal Quirks, the sky's the limit. More than likely, All For One has access to Quirks that can lengthen one's lifespan." Toshinori said. "And with combat being what it was at the time, this Symbol of Evil seemed almost immortal. So the younger brother, calling himself Scorpan, decided to pass on his power. First, he sought out someone who could make him stronger. Then, when the time was right, he passed on [One For All] to that man."
"He wanted to make the Quirk strong enough to defeat his brothers." Rarity realized.
"That he did," Celestia said. "The man he sought out had rescued him a long time ago from the clutches of his brothers. As thanks for such kindness, he knew he was the one to pass his power to. The man's Quirk not only allowed him to manipulate the velocity of whatever he touched, but he also had a second ability that let him speak with and train alongside his ancestors."
"This merged with [One For All] when he inherited it to allow future users to speak with their predecessors," Toshinori said before frowning sadly. "Each of us has fought All For One, Tirek, and Grogar at some point. Thus far, only Scorpan, his first successor, and my sensei, Nana Shimura, died by his hand, though up until me none of the others were able to truly defeat them, only hold them back temporarily."
"Hey! I remember my granny telling me about Nana Shimura! Wasn't she the High-Flying Hero: Nimbus?"
Toshinori nodded. "She made a crucial mistake when she faced All For One; She fell for his taunts. He had murdered her husband, tricking her into fighting him on her own, something no other [One For All] user did."
"Five years ago, we fought him together. He had committed a truly unspeakable crime and we took the fight to him." Celestia said. "Tirek and Grogar were pushed back by our friends while Toshinori and I overwhelmed All For One together, leaving him open for one final blow..."
Toshinori rubbed the area where his scar was. "Even then, he left a lasting gift on me. Celestia nearly worked herself to death trying to heal it. She was going through so much at the time..."
"What do you mean?" Izuku asked.
"I had a younger sister..." Celestia confessed. "Her name was Taiyo Gekko, but we called her Luna. We were a team when we first became Pro Heroes but she always felt overshadowed by me, always seen as the weaker of us by the people we saved..."
"Her jealousy, sadness, and resentment grew too much to bare." Toshinori sadly said. "And her Quirk turned against her, twisting her into a vile new form called Nightmare Moon. All For One saw an opportunity and he recruited her into his fold. All those horrible tragedies happening in quick succession spurred Celestia to chase All For One down...and I followed, leading up to our final fight with him."
"Despite defeating him, Nightmare Moon had vanished off the face of the Earth. For years, we've been trying to find her." Celestia said, closing her eyes as tears began leaking out. "But now, it seems All For One isn't as dead as we thought. The attacks on both the USJ and Hosu proved that. He was the one who was the brainchild behind the League of Villains."
"And there's something even worse I must confess..." Toshinori said. "Twilight, remember when you chopped off Tomura Shigaraki's hands at the USJ."
Twilight flinched, a scared look on her face as she recounted the memory. Her friends were all quick to console her though.
"Y-Yeah?"
"The police were able to run a DNA scan on the hands and..." Toshinori bit his lip. "His DNA is a match for Nana...he's her grandson, Tenko."
"A terrible accident had happened that was believed to have killed her whole family." Celestia sadly said. "But considering Tomura Shigaraki's Quirk and the state of the household and the corpses...it was clear the poor child suffered a terrible Quirk Awakening and killed everyone by complete accident."
"And no doubt, All For One has taken him under his wing to spite Nana's legacy..." Toshinori growled.
"We'll stop them. All For One, Shigaraki, Tirek, Grogar, all of them!" Rainbow Dash said with determination as she stood up. "If you guys could kick their butts, so can we!"
"It will not be easy..." Celestia said worriedly. "But I have utmost faith in all of you that you will be able to finish what we started. Perhaps...this is the day where we can get Luna back..."
"We'll save Luna and take down that mean ol' All For One! Believe it!" Pinkie Pie cheered.
"As long as our friendship stands, we will get through this; TOGETHER," Twilight said, holding out her hand as Izuku nodded and joined it, the others following in suit.
Toshinori and Celestia smiled proudly. Already the future was looking much brighter with these eight young heroes.
Meanwhile, in a large tower building, Dr. Daruma Ujiko was checking on All For One's life support.
"I wasn't expecting the Hero Killer to be caught," All For One admitted. "And in such a way that his ideals were shattered. If not for my brother and the others, Tomura wouldn't be able to gather needed allies for the true League of Villains."
"Heh, perhaps it's best the old generation bow down to let the new one take hold..." A wisened old chuckle emitted as a tall man wearing dark hooded robes walked in. He had snow-white hair, a gnarled beard, large curled ram horns, and an old bell around his neck.
"Grogar. Is there any reason you've come back after so long, my old master?"
"Can't I see my pupil for old times' sake?" The old villain chuckled. "We both know the fated end draws closer..."
All For One shook his head. "I have utmost faith my brother will be able to help Tomura unite the villains seeking us out."
"You still wish to use the boy as a vessel to succeed your failing body?" Grogar sighed. "A foolish notion. I have gazed into his heart and he is more than capable of overthrowing you. It is best you allow him to carry his own agency and perhaps...he will be an even greater Symbol of Evil then you."
"We shall see..." All For One frowned.
Yup, since Lord Tirek is All For One's brother in this story, it only makes sense that Yoichi becomes Scorpan to compensate!
-BIO TIME-
[Jackie 'Applejack' Applelane]
Hero Name: The Rodeo Hero: Apple Core
Quirk: Core
Quirk Description: Applejack is able to harden her cellular structure together, increasing her body's tensile strength. In addition, her body's natural pain trigger is removed. The result allows her to perform superhuman feats of strength and speed. She can keep this up as long as necessary. While she cannot feel pain in this state, she can feel the sensation of getting attacked, allowing her to recognize a dangerous attack on her person. It is difficult to believe anything could damage her in this state, though it can happen if her durability is pushed too far. Should that happen, all the pain she would normally feel from those injuries will hit her at once when she deactivates her Quirk, though it would be relative to the damage she actually took, which would be lessened by her Quirk's power.
[Ochako Uraraka]
Hero Name: The High-Fly Hero: Uravity
Quirk: Zero-Gravity
Quirk Description: Ochako is able to remove the effects of gravity from solid things upon touching them with the pads on her fingertips. The targets lose their gravitational pull the moment Ochaco makes contact with them, effectively making them weightless. Through her Quirk, Ochaco can make anything solid float in mid-air as long as they are within the weight limit of her Quirk.
[Shota Aizawa]
Hero Name: The Erasure Hero: Eraserhead
Quirk: Erasure
Quirk Description: Aizawa is able to cancel the Quirks of anyone he looks at. With his Quirk active, he is able to disable a person's Quirk Factor until he closes his eyes. Shota only needs one part of the target's body to be within his sights for Erasure to take effect.
[Chizome Akaguro]
Villain Name: The Hero Killer: Stain
Quirk: Bloodcurdle
Quirk Description: Stain is able to temporarily paralyze an opponent by ingesting samples of their blood. He only requires his tongue to make contact with a small amount of a person's blood, regardless of where and how it's found (for example, coagulated bloodstains on a curative). Once Stain gains access to his target's blood, he can activate Bloodcurdle and immobilize his target for a limited period of time, leaving them vulnerable.