The small room off to the side of City A's observation deck was a hub of anxious energy, as Eraserhead lounged at a desk, his focus locked on a decapitated robot head with lifeless, grey eyes. He sat there, fingers forming a steeple, and wore his trademark deadpan expression as two students stood before him.

"Okay," he began, but before he could say more, Midoriya couldn't contain his panic any longer.

"Please, don't expel me!" Izuku blurted out, terror stricken. "I didn't mean to destroy school property, honest!"

Yaoyorozu, on the other hand, was cool as a cucumber, "Midoriya's approach may have been a tad lacking in finesse, but it was a necessary display of strength, I assure you."

Aizawa rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. "No one's getting expelled. If anything, we're grateful that you two took care of that robot," he assured them, pushing his unruly hair out of his eyes. Under his breath, he mumbled, "We certainly don't need another sentient AI running around... I doubt the world is ready for another Wash..."

"What was that, sir?"

"Nothing, don't worry about it."

Relieved, but still more than a little lost, Izuku scanned the room. "So, if we're not getting expelled, then why is my mom here?"

Decked out in her Green Magnet costume, having come here after patrol, Inko calmly explained. "Because you're my son, and you nearly got shot. I did tell you that hero school could be dangerous, but usually it's not 'attacked by an evil robot on the second day' dangerous."

"Oh…" Izuku nodded in understanding, "Then, why is Koichi here?"

Skycrawler scratched the back of his neck, "Ehh, I may have accidentally recorded myself as a legal guardian when I made you my intern. I really should remember to read the fine print on those contracts…"

"Oh… Then why are the Hagakures here?"

The elder Hagakure waved her partially see-through arm and smiled."Because I'm your registered quirk counsellor, and what happened today falls under quirk registry law."

"Oh…" Izuku's expression shifted, and he turned his gaze towards someone quietly lurking in the corner of the room."Then why is Sero here?"

The boy shrugged, "Because Koda didn't want to come here alone."

"Oh, okay."

With a cough, Eraserhead drew attention back on him. "Yaoyorozu," he said, pointing to the robotic head on his desk, "Could you take this over to Power Loader's workshop?"

"Yes, sir! Of course!" Yaoyorozu replied with enthusiasm, standing up straight. "Consider it done!"

Eraserhead handed her the head, his expression serious, but he kept a firm hold of the robot for the moment. "When you get there, don't open the door head-on. Stand to the side before opening it. Trust me on this."

Yaoyorozu nodded, a bit puzzled but willing to follow his advice. "Um, okay, got it."

After she left, Eraserhead slumped back into his chair and closed his eyes, leaving everyone in the room waiting for his next move. Finally, he broke the silence. "Alright, Midoriya, Magnet, Crawler—nice to see you again, by the way—and Hagakure, you're with me. We've got some things to go over in my office."

"I've gone through your files more times than I can count," Eraserhead began, dropping a manilla folder in front of the group, "But I'm still struggling to wrap my head around how 'Stickiness' led to you launching a marble that could slice through steel. Can you break it down for me, step by step?" Eraserhead requested, fluffing up a pillow and tossing it on the floor in the centre of the room, before having a little lie down.

Midoriya scratched his head nervously, trying to figure out how to say it. "Um, well, sir, it's kind of hard to explain. I just… make the sticky go away?"

Eraserhead gave Midoriya a sceptical look from the floor. "You make the sticky go away?" he repeated.

"Y-yeah," Midoriya stammered. "I mean, not completely. Just, mostly. Most of the sticky."

Helpfully, Hagakure tried to offer some clarification, "What he means is that he can control how sticky his skin is," she said. "When he was little, he couldn't turn it off at all. Everything would stick to him. Then he learned how to turn it on and off, but only completely. He couldn't adjust the level of stickiness."

"Yeah, exactly!" Midoriya nodded, grateful for her support. "In the last couple years I started figuring out how to control my stickiness by percentages! And I figured out I can change the percentage at a really precise level on my skin, which is how I can fire things."

"Hmm," Eraserhead closed his eyes again, and for a few moments everyone thought he had gone to sleep. "...So what percentage were you at today?"

Midoriya tilted his head, thinking hard. "Huh, I've never really measured it in numbers before. It's more like a feeling? Maybe 1% sticky?" he guessed.

Suddenly, Aizawa sat bolt upright like a vampire rising from a coffin, and turned his attention to Koichi. "Crawler, when you stick to surfaces, how does it feel compared to repulsion?"

Nervous under Eraserhead's eyes, and suddenly feeling like that young kid in Naruhata again, Koichi tried his best. "Oh, jeez, putting me on the spot…" he mumbled, "It feels like using my quirk in reverse, is the only way I can think to word it."

"Mm." Eraserhead shifted his gaze ever so slightly toward Inko, "Green Magnet, if I may, what's Izuku's father's quirk?"

"Fire Breathing. Why do you ask?"

"Formulating a hypothesis." He said. "How exactly did his quirk operate?"

Inko thought for a moment, it had been over a decade since she last saw her ex-husband, but she could still remember enough. "He had a flint wheel in his throat, when he opened his mouth fast enough he could create a spark, which ignited into a flame." she said.

As Hagakure gasped with sudden realisation, Eraserhead nodded and lay back down on the floor, clearly having played his part. "I'll let your counsellor explain."

Izuku looked at Hagakure with confusion. "What's going on? What's wrong with my quirk?"

She smiled and put her opaque hand on his shoulder. "Nothing's wrong with it, but I don't think your quirk is being sticky. It's something else." she said softly.

"It is? Then what is it? I thought it was simple, I make myself sticky and not sticky, that's all." Izuku protested.

"Maybe not." Hagakure said, shaking her head gently, "It sounds like your quirk has more to do with friction. You're increasing and decreasing the friction of your body. That's how you can slide on surfaces, or climb walls, or shoot things. You're not changing how sticky you are, you're changing how much force you apply."

Izuku's eyes glazed over, utterly confused. Friction? Force? What did that have to do with his quirk?

"This is just a theory, but it seems like your mom's Attraction and the friction aspect of your father's quirk combined in such a way that you can be both adhesive and completely frictionless."

"Wait, let me get this straight," Inko said, "You're saying that all this time, Izuku could have been slippery?"

Visions appeared in Izuku's mind of him as a child, tripping on an upturned paving slab and sliding into traffic.

"Izuku?" Inko asked, taking his hand. "How are you feeling?"

Izuku was silent for a moment, his brow furrowing and his lip twitching slightly. "...This is so cool! I could be one of the fastest heroes to ever live, maybe even faster than Gran Torino! I don't have to worry about air resistance, right? But stopping might be a problem, unless I can gradually slow myself down, use the air like a cushion, I wonder if I'll be able to jump higher by increasing the friction in a certain way incrementally and-"

As Izuku excitedly continued to brainstorm his quirk's potential, the adults in the room huddled together to discuss the situation.

Aizawa cleared his throat to address the group. "Dealing with a new aspect of a quirk like this can be a challenging time, as you're all no doubt aware. However, I won't be able to dedicate a lot of time towards its development. I have a considerable number of other students to attend to."

"Well he is my intern, right? And you know I have some background dealing with this kind of thing." Koichi added, "I could train him as part of my patrols. I could pull some strings with the Ingenium Agency and have their tech guys work on some support gear if he needs it, too." He pondered this for a moment, then quickly said "That's if you're alright with it, Miss Midoriya!"

"It all sounds fine to me. Hagakure, how do you feel about handing the training reins over to Skycrawler?"

"I'm fine with it on the condition that I look over any proposed training plans beforehand." Hagakure agreed.

Aizawa stood up from the floor and stretched. "Then it's settled. Midoriya,"

"-it would probably be better to limit myself to begin with due to the thin atmosphere, even if I can essentially glide or float I might still- Huh? Yes, Mr Aizawa?" Izuku stumbled, his long train of thought broken abruptly.

"Crawler and Hagakure will be working on a new training plan for you. We'll be starting off small, so in the meantime, don't try to figure any of this out on your own. We don't fully understand how your quirk works yet, with you being a new member of the breaks the laws of physics club." Aizawa explained. "Now if that's everything, I have to see to some of my other students. Three of my second years also discovered life-changing aspects to their quirks today."

"I understand," Izuku replied earnestly. "I promise I won't do anything reckless."

Later that evening, Izuku and his friends had met up at their favourite park, after the young hero had texted them to say he had important information.

"Come on Eijirou, try and grab my arm! Go on, just try!" Izuku held his arm out, a huge grin plastered on his face.

Eijirou didn't look convinced. "No way bro, you're just gonna stick me! Then you'll flip me over! Toru already body slammed me twice today, I don't think I could take much more."

"I didn't slam you that hard." Toru interjected, currently hanging upside down from the monkey bars.

With a hand on his chest, Izuku put on an innocent expression, "I promise I won't flip you."

"Uh uh," Eijirou shook his head, "I'm not falling for that one again."

Sarcastically, Izuku put his hands behind his back and walked away, taking deliberately long steps, "Well, okay then," he said with his head tilted back, "If you're too much of a chicken…"

"H-hey, I'm no chicken!" Eijirou protested, reaching out to grab Izuku's wrist.

Izuku suddenly made a very worrisome face.

"...Why are you looking at me like that?" Eijirou asked nervously.

Grinning a devilish grin, Izuku lowered the friction on his arm. Eijirou's hand immediately slid off the arm as though it were made of soap. The sudden change caught him off guard, and Izuku took the opportunity to grab the other boy's wrist instead.

"Gotcha." He said with a smile.

"Dude! Nice move!" the spiky-haired teen enthused, before trying to pull his own arm away, only to find it stuck fast. As predicted, Izuku twisted and flipped the unsuspecting Eijirou over his shoulder.

The poor sucker landed on the ground with a thud. "You lied to me…" he whimpered.

"Sorry, sorry, I got over excited. But what did you think?"

"I don't really get it?" Mina said, confused. "You just got out of his hold and flipped him, what's new? Kiri sucks at grappling, we've been through this."

"Hey!"

Izuku looked slightly offended too. "It wasn't just a hold! Did you guys really not see what I did?"

With an impressive flip, Toru dismounted the bars. "Didn't look like anything, Izuku. Was this the big announcement?"

"Maybe I didn't demonstrate it in the best way," Izuku mumbled, scanning the park for a way to illustrate his newfound skill. His eyes landed on a particularly appealing rock. "Here, look!" he exclaimed, placing the rock on his forearm, only for it to promptly fall off. "See?! Huh?! Did you see?!"

Mina placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "Izuku, are you feeling alright?"

"I'm just not explaining it right, that's all… My quirk isn't being sticky, it's manipulating friction! I can make myself completely frictionless!"

"I mean, I guess that's cool and all bro," Eijirou said, "But how's it that much different to what you could do before?"

"Well it's like, I can slide around and… Huh, I guess I was doing that already." Midoriya looked away in thought, "...Oh! I might not be affected by air resistance, I haven't tried it out yet, but that would be pretty neat, right?"

"Oh!" Mina said with more excitement, "Would that mean you could move super fast or something?"

"Why didn't you start with that?!" Toru gave him a punch in the arm. "You gonna try it out or not?"

Izuku nodded with determination in his eyes, casually rubbing where he just got punched. "Alright, we'll call this quirk test number one. Frictionless running, from this end of the park over to that tree."

"Wait wait, I'll put the timer on my phone," Mina said, scrambling for the app, "Okay, I'm ready!"

Quirk test number one. Izuku imagined himself a frictionless bullet, cutting through the air with ease. He took a deep breath and tried to centre himself. "It's just like going 0% sticky, but going further… I can do this." He closed his eyes, and took one final deep breath.

Then his trousers fell down.

Katsuki Bakugo stalked the grounds of UA with a feral look in his eyes, like a hungry lion, sending shivers down every spine he passed and casting an aura of fear around his very being. There was almost a visible red glow around him, and more than one person could swear they saw a literal fire in his eyes.

"Grrrrrr…" he grr'd.

Ahead of him in a hallway, a second year general education student froze like a deer in headlights.

"YOU!" Bakugo shouted, pointing an accusatory finger toward his prey. "YOU'LL DO."

Petrified, the student looked from left to right rapidly, their fight or flight response kicking into overdrive. As Bakugo started to sprint down the hallway, the poor student made a split second decision. They jumped out of a window.

"Damn it! One of these damn extras is going to be my friend!" Bakugo roared.