CONTEST

"Today, we're having a competition between your class and mine," Vlad King told the assembled 1-A students. "Twenty questions, and each student in the class must answer one. Whichever class wins gets a pizza party."

Vlad King smiled as the class cheered. He smiled harder when he added, "My class got nineteen right." The cheers died. Mina and Kaminari groaned. Vlad King inwardly fumed about how Pony had mangled her answer - how both her Japanese and her English could be so incomprehensible eluded him. Well, this class wouldn't do any better. He made sure of that.

"Which organelle in the human cell produces ribosomes?"

Yaoyorozu raised her hand. "Nucleolus."

"Correct," Vlad King said amiably. First question done, and already one of the class's geniuses was out of the picture. Now for the other one. "What are three differences that distinguish prokaryotic cells from eukaryotic ones?"

"Eukaryotic cells have a nucleus, membrane-bound organelles, and a linear DNA structure, while prokaryotic cells have ring-shaped DNA and lack the former two."

"Very good. Just eighteen more to go." Most of the class paled in the face of biology levels reserved for third-years, if not college undergrads. Smirking to himself, Vlad King asked his next question. "Name the structure of a eukaryotic cell membrane."

Vlad King smugly stared down his rival class as they exchanged worried looks. Just as they were about to surrender, Izuku raised his hand.

"You may not answer another question."

"May I ask questions?"

"You may." Best be gracious in victory, after all.

"Since this is a class exercise, are we allowed to tell our classmates the answer?"

"You may not."

"Then can we write it?"

"No. You can't do that either."

Izuku mulled over Vlad King's instructions. Then a lightbulb lit up inside his head. His back morphed into a screen, and the answer appeared on his back. Mina, sitting behind him, grinned and raised her hand.

"Phospholipid bilayer."

Vlad King looked at her in shock. He scowled at Izuku, but being front and center in the room, directly under his scrutiny, he couldn't see a way Izuku could have cheated. "Correct. Which strings of RNA code produce the protein tryptophan?"

Vlad King panicked as he ran out of questions. He knew Izuku was hiding something. Dark Shadow had crept behind his back, and Shoji had made an extra eyeball to peer behind him. Yet, when Vlad King checked, Izuku had nothing there.

"Iida, you're up."

The bespectacled teen grimly stared forward. "I cannot condone my classmates actions, but I cannot let them down either. What a quandary. Nevertheless, I can answer this one. Glucagon's stored in the liver."

All tied up. Vlad King turned to Katsuki. "Bakugo. Final question."

Bakugo pointedly turned away from Izuku. "I refuse to be dependent on a machine like everyone else."

"You better not screw this up!" Sero shouted at him. "It's for pizza!"

Bakugo sneered. "Like I need the robot's help. The answer's proto-oncogenes. You're welcome."

Vlad King's eye twitched.

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