Izuku stood in front of the entrance of U.A., one of the most prestigious hero schools in the world, where heroic hopefuls from around the world came to study. The literal and metaphorical gateway to his dreams, everything he had trained for since he was a child. He couldn't help but stop to take in the sight of them. He took a deep breath and felt for the tether in the back of his mind that was his Quirk. The moment he did his nerves dissipated with the alien, yet paradoxically comforting, hum of power. It had been eight months since receiving the power and he still found himself reaching for it from time to time just to make sure it was still there, that it was real. With a final deep breath he made a step through those gates into his future.
Only to be immediately stopped when he rammed right into the back of a brunette girl who had gotten in front of him as he was gathering his thoughts, knocking her over. Izuku shot forward in an attempt to catch her, only to stop when he realized that she wasn't falling. She was floating, suspended before she righted herself, tapped her finger tips together and dropped back to the ground. "I am so sorry, I wasn't paying attention to where I was going!"
The girl turned to face Izuku with a small understanding smile on her face and a light blush on her cheeks as she tried to wave off his concern. "Oh it's okay! I'm sorry! I shouldn't have stopped right in front of the gates. I'm just kinda nervous for the exam, you know?"
It was then that Izuku got a proper look at her. She was shorter than him by at least half a foot with brown hair cut into a short bob and what he thought was a blush were actually two light pink ovals on each of her cheeks. Realizing he was starting to stare, he lightly cleared his throat.
"Still," he said, "I should have been paying attention to where I was going. I got a little caught up in taking in all of…this." He gestured to the large gates and the sprawling campus beyond them.
The girl perked up a bit at that. "I know right! You read about U.A. and how great it is, but then you get here and it's suddenly real, you know?"
Izuku couldn't help but chuckle and nod at the girl's response. The two of them ended up making small talk about their middle schools and what they expected for the tests as they made their way towards the exam hall. It was nice just getting to talk to someone like a normal person. Throughout most of middle school, he had people who would either be intimidated by the fact his father was a famous hero or want to use him like an ATM because his family had money. By the end he had pretty much stopped trying with most people. He still interacted with people in class and was friendly, even having a few classmates he respected, but that's as far as he went most of the time. It was part of the reason he was looking forward to U.A It was a new start. It wasn't long for them to make it to the testing room and part ways to their assigned seating. The moment Izuku sat for the written test, he realized he never got the girl's name and never offered his… Well crap. He couldn't help but flinch. Well hopefully we both pass and I'll ask at school. Shrugging off his social faux pas, he focused on the test ahead of him.
Stretching his arms above his head as he left the written exam hall, Izuku felt the tension leaving his back. The test had been long and difficult, but didn't contain anything that he hadn't studied before, so he was fairly confident he did well on it, which meant all he had to do was ace the practical.
After finding his seat in the new hall with all the other examinees, he listened to the proctor explain the rules of the exam. They would be split into groups and dropped into mock cities full of robots standing in for villains that were split into four categories based on basic threat level and number of points given. One, two, and three, respectively, leaving the fourth and most dangerous robot to give paradoxically the least amount of points at zero, acting as more an obstacle and judgment call than a test hurdle which is why there would be only one per test site. It was explained that the hero hopefuls would be graded on how many points they could rack up in the time frame, along with things like collateral damage caused, the ability to keep calm in battle, and dealing with unforeseen circumstances.
As the proctor finished everyone was handed slips of paper telling them which of the testing grounds to head to. Checking his slip with the signs set up for the test takers Izuku marched toward testing ground D.
After making his way to the testing grounds Izuku stood with the rest of the students in front of a large metal gate waiting for the exam to start. Everyone seemed to be doing last minute warm ups and stretches for the tests and Izuku couldn't blame them. Despite the aura of nervous tension surrounding him, he stood perfectly calm, hands in his pockets not a trace of worry to be seen. This was, after all, what he had been training for since he was ten, and even though he hadn't yet fully mastered it, his uncle's Quirk was still a force to be reckoned with. Izuku's musings were interrupted when he spotted a familiar bob of brown hair. He couldn't believe his luck, the girl from earlier was standing no more than fifteen feet away from him seemingly trying to psych herself up if the fierce look on her face was any indication. Making his way towards her he waved at her to get her attention and when she saw him she perked up and waved back to him.
" Hey, it's you! Uuh…" she paused, seemingly realizing what Midoriya did and that neither of them got the other's name .
"Midoriya, Izuku Midoriya." Izuku answered the unspoken question.
" Ah, sorry about that, I'm Uraraka," she replied, looking a bit embarrassed at the mistake. Then, upon realizing that he had given a full name introduction, she hastily added "Ochaco Uraraka."
Izuku waved off her apology with a chuckle. " Don't worry about it. I realized I forgot to introduce myself when I sat down for the exam, although I didn't think we'd meet again so soon! I was afraid I'd have to wait until we got into U.A. to find you."
Her cheer dropped a touch as a flash of nervousness ran across her face and she looked away slightly. "Ya… just gotta pass the tests…"
Izuku cocked an eyebrow and the sudden shift in mood. " Do you not feel confident about the written portion?"
"No no, nothing like that!" she denied. "It's just…my Quirk isn't exactly made for direct combat so I'm a bit nervous about getting enough points."
Izuku thought back to the incident at the gates. " You have a floating Quirk right?"
"Sort of. My quirk's called 'zero gravity' I can completely nullify the gravity of anything I touch with the tips of my fingers then return it by touching my fingers together, good for rescue missions, bad for fighting robots."
Izuku thought about her explanation for a moment. "Couldn't you make the robots float, then drop them? Or just make them float into space?"
Ochako looked like she was going to reply before a loud buzzer went off and the gates shot open, shocking both of them along with most of the other contestants.
Izuku shook off the surprise quickly and turned to his companion. "Best of luck, Uraraka." Then took off into the city as fast as he could, he saw that Uraraka began to run after him but most of the other testers seemingly hadn't realized that the test began.
Well you snooze you lose, villains don't wait for heroes,
Izuku thought with a small smile. He was a few blocks in before he saw his first villain; it was a two pointer, a bulky humanoid standing at about eight feet tall with two glowing red eyes . Izuku barely slowed as a golden portal opened to his side and a pole extended outward. grabbing a hold of it he continued forward pulling it out of the portal revealing the large rectangular head of a shimmering golden warhammer the size of a cinder block. Using the momentum of his charge Izuku swung and watched in satisfaction as the mid section of the robot crumpled like tissue paper and it dropped, not stopping to admire his work he stowed the hammer back in the Gate.
His uncle wasn't kidding when he said the power was deceptively simple. Izuku could pull anything from the Gate of Babylon with a thought. Simple enough, you'd think, but he had to KNOW what he was pulling or the Gate would simply give him something random that met the parameters of his request. For example, just asking for a weapon could give him a dagger or a hand grenade, making it incredibly dangerous to randomly pull from his portals. Unfortunately, the only person who knew exactly what was in the Gate was Gilgamesh, and he didn't leave a ledger and his organization was best described as… non-existent. Akin to a vainglorious hoarder than the so-called "King of Heroes."
After Izuku had gotten the Quirk his dad helped him with the very basics, such as how to summon the portals and how to enter the vault. It was there that he saw the full scope of the treasury: Mountains of weapons, vehicles, gear, tools, all pristine and glittering and also all thrown haphazardly into piles higher than some buildings as far as he could see. It took months to comb through a small percentage of what was in there and he had only found a few of the things he knew for a fact were in there somewhere. The things he had seen his uncle use while he was a hero had become needles in the endless haystacks of treasure. Just a few days before the exam Izuku uncovered an entire yacht somehow completely buried under other junk trying to find his uncle's famous armor.
The test continued much like it began, a spear in the joints of one bot, an ax through the faceplate of another. He kept it as simple as possible, both to conserve energy and because of his limitations with the Gate. After a while, Izuku started slowing down, finding fewer and fewer villains as he went along. No sooner had he stopped to try and figure out his next move than an explosion went off behind him. Turning to find the source of the noise expecting to see a blonde rocket soaring at him instead he saw a four story building labeled HOSPITAL two blocks south with a chunk of the top floor now missing and the sounds of screaming resonating from that direction. Without hesitating Izuku bolted that direction as hard as he could.
Arriving at the hospital he saw a girl with short cropped red hair standing outside in lab coat over a U.A. gym uniform casually glancing around. As soon as she saw Izuku she went from casual to panicked. "Please, hero, you have to help. Some of my colleagues are still trapped inside! Other heroes went in but none of them have come out yet!"
Her speech was a bit stilted and obviously practiced but luckily Izuku caught on rather quickly. This was part of the test and the 'civilians' were probably U.A. students like this girl obviously was. Izuku simply nodded and smiled at the girl. " Don't worry," he said, "I'll get them out safe and sound, but I need you to get to a safe distance just in case more rubble falls from the building." She nodded at him before heading across the street to wait and Izuku ran inside the building.
He went through the first two floors as quickly as he could without being sloppy, to lessen the risk of missing anything, but it wasn't until the third floor that he actually ran into two other students. One was a boy in a full suit of armor was lifting a slab of fallen concrete bigger than he was over his head without any noticeable strain as two students dressed in the same manner as the girl outside nodded their thanks and headed for the stairs Izuku just exited. Seeing that the armored man had the situation here handled , Izuku made his way deeper into the floor with little more than a nod between them. Making his way down a hall, Izuku nearly ran into a girl with purple hair and long whip-like ear lobes slamming her shoulder against a metal door upon seeing him she stopped her assault.
"Hey green, care to give me a hand with this door? There's no debris blocking it but it's jammed pretty good, and there's someone on the other side." Izuku simply nodded and ran to the door. Upon closer inspection he saw that the door had warped slightly during the damage to the building.
"Alright step back, I have an idea." Opening another portal Izuku pulled a large golden hydraulic rescue tool, more commonly known as the jaws of life. He jammed the tip of the jaws into a gap in the door from the warping and activated the device and just like that the door started to crumple like paper. Izuku pulled his jaws out of the way and the door swung open without issue. Stepping aside the purple haired girl went past him as he stashed his item back into a gate before following after.
Sitting in the center of the empty room was a large muscular blonde man sitting in the fetal position with a large toothy grin on his face. "Oh Heroes! Thank goodness you're here during the excitement from the explosion I hurt my leg and can't move!" he explained cheerfully.
Without missing a beat Izuku opened another gate and pulled out a medical gurney and gave a smile to the 'civilian'. "Don't worry sir we're here now and we're going to get you out of here safe and sound." Izuku lowered the gurney and turned to the other student. " Hey purple mind helping me get him onto this, then we can get him downstairs."
She did move to one side of the 'civilian' but shot him a quirked eyebrow. "What kind of quirk is that? Also purple? "
Izuku moved to the other side before motioning to lift and getting the man on the gurney before shrugging his shoulders. "If I'm green then it only makes sense that you're purple, and the very handy kind of quirk." She paused for a moment as if considering his logic before shrugging her shoulders and helping him get the gurney down the two flights of stairs and out onto the street.
The girl from earlier was waiting next to two robots with red crosses on their chest with their own gurney. "Togata come on, we're almost out of time!"
The Blonde, supposedly Togata, quickly sat up and saluted the red head. "You got it Haya." he then somehow fell through Izuku's gurney and popped up beside it like a video game glitch before hopping towards the robot medics on his 'uninjured' leg. Upon reaching them he hopped on their gurney and looked back at the two test taker's with a wave. " Thanks again for the save! And good luck !" before all of them made a hasty exit down the road before rounding a corner out of sight.
Izuku looked to the girl who helped him who was also staring quizzically down the road the 'civilians' disappeared down. "So was it just me or was that really ominous?" The purple haired girl looked to him to answer but before she could, as if waiting for its que, the entire city seemed to shake and a crashing sound even louder than the hospital explosion resounded from the opposite side of the city. Turning around Izuku saw the source easily because there was only one thing that it COULD be.
"They really under sold that thing."
Izuku could only nod at the purple haired girl as he saw, towering head and shoulders above even the tallest building in the exam city was their final obstacle, the Zero pointer.