A/N: Somehow 'soon' turned into a few weeks. Sorry, I just redid the whole chapter a few times. Now, here is the final product. Also the Rhodey poll ended. 6 for 'Yes' and 4 for 'No'. It was close for those ten who voted, but her version of Rhodey will happen. Finally, Happy Thanksgiving, and to those who are not celebrating it uh...Happy Thursday!

"OH MY GOSH!" I yell out suddenly as I begin to jump around my room, "THIS IS INCREDIBLE! THE AI IS COMMUNICATING WITH ME! THE AI IS ACTUALLY TALKING TO ME!" I pause and look at the screen, "YOU!" I say as I jump in front of my desk with the AI looking rather annoyed, "YOU ARE ACTUALLY TALKING TO ME!"

"Kid! Calm down!" Tony yells at me as I am unable to contain my excitement.

"I CAN'T!" I say while jumping up and down like a child at a candy store.

"Then just-"

There is a knock on my door, "Hatsume? Are you okay?" My dad asks me on the other side of my door.

"Don't tell anyone I am here!" Tony aggressively tells me.

I look back and forth between the door and Tony before replying, "Yeah I am fine daddy! Just getting very excited about a new invention!" I reply back to him, clearly lying.

There is a short pause from my dad before he speaks,"Okay, but stop yelling. You know the rules already sweetie." He says as I hear him walk away.

I immediately turn back to the computer with the biggest smile on face in a long time. "Oh my gosh! This is just-"

"Could you just stop for a second?" Tony says while rubbing his temples. I stop talking and shut my trap, but my heart and thoughts are racing so fast it will put any speedsters max speed to shame. "Geez kid, I can tell you're going to be a handful…"

I chuckle a little, "My parents and teacher like to remind me of that everyday."

"Well, they aren't wrong. You should listen and make yourself less of a handful then." Tony says before he straightens himself out. "Anyways, yes I am Tony. Gaze your eyes upon my magnificent form. And before you ask, I just transferred my conscious into the internet."

"HOW?!"

"Simple. I am a genius, and I have more money then the top ten pro heroes combined and twenty times that." Tony brags before he coughs into his hand, "Let's get to business, though. If you may take a seat." I do as told and sit back down, my eyes staying focused on him. "So, kid. Like I said, you have a quality set of inventions in your room for a rookie. The dog though that's advanced."

Tony just praised my work. He praised me. What do I do?! "Thank you, I worked very hard on them." I say with a smile, while inwardly I can hear myself saying: "STUPID!"

"As you must. Any great inventor should know that all of their inventions should take their greatest efforts and more. If you don't put all your heart into it, then it's crap. Simple as that."

"Does anyone else know about you?!"

"No, so feel special kid." Tony then lifts up a finger as I was about to reply, indicating for me to silence myself, "But there is a reason why I am talking to you, though."

Tony then smirks and waves his hand as a recording replays something I said a few minutes, "Someday, I will be a hero like you. I will build my own suit and show everyone that I can be a hero just like everyone else." Tony then waves his hand again as it stops, "You want to be like me? A hero? An 'Iron Man', or in this case, an 'Iron Woman'?" He says to me.

I nod my head furiously and smile my biggest smile, "Yes! I want to be a hero! I want to save people! I want to build my own suit, and show everyone that has ever doubted me that I can do the impossible like you!" Tony stares at me for a moment before his smirk fades.

"You have heart and a drive kid; I'll give you that. But, you aren't ready to be a hero yet." Tony crosses his arms, "You know why?"

My face turns from one with excitement, to pure confusion and some disappointment, "I don't have my license?" I ask as I am not sure if my answer is the right one.

"Well, yeah, that counts. But that's not the answer I am looking for." Tony says as he points to his head, "It takes more than just a drive and heart to be a hero, or like me in your case. You need to have a brain too. Your brain is like an ant compared to mine, even if I wasn't in the internet."

I look down, and mutter under my breath, "Thanks Tony, I really feel stupid now."

That causes Tony to laugh a bit, "That's a normal feeling anyone gets when they meet me."

I glare at him, "Jackass."

"I'm a proud jackass." Tony sarcastically says, "Back to the point. You are not smart enough to build one of my suits, nor experienced enough to even be a threat to anyone else other than a normal thug outside of a suit. Let's say I was to give you Armor Model 13 right now and you had a hero license, one of two things could happen. One, you cause an insurmountable amount of damage and destruction that you are perceived as a villain instead of a hero. Two, you kill the villain. Of course there are many other possibilities, but those two might be the most obvious outcomes of the bunch."

I opened my mouth to respond, but closed it. He is right. I am inexperienced in many aspects. I have no clue on how to work a suit, I don't know how to control the fight so a minimum amount of havoc is caused, and most importantly, I have never been in a fight nor do I even know a fighting style. If I was to fight a villain now even with one of Tony's suits, I could lose the fight potentially.

"See? You understand. You know your weaknesses, and that is great. I can not tell you how many people would think my suits could make them 'invincible.' The reason why I am called the 'Invincible Iron Man' is because I knew what I had to do, I knew how my suit worked inside and out, and I knew how to make the battle favor me." Tony paused for a moment before he straightened himself out, "So, Hatsume. What do you think you need to do first before you think about becoming a hero?"

I ponder with my thoughts for a moment before I come up with an answer, "Well. If I do want to be a hero, I should learn how to defend myself because it is better to throw calculated punches then wild ones. So I should get the basics down first." I answer him with a confident look on my face.

Tony, nods briefly, "If you don't know how to fight, you will lose your first battle. There is no victory without some type of power. Now, since you know what you should do first, I'll leave you to do that." Tony says to me, catching me off guard.

"Wait! You are leaving already?!" I almost yell out, "But I have so many questions for you and I-"

"I'm not leaving forever, and we will have time to answer everything you want to question me on. But the bigger priority is to have you train now." Tony smiles a little and claps his hands together, "But I am feeling rather generous, so I'll let you ask one question."

There were so many different types of questions roaming around my head, so many things I want to know. For a few weeks I have looked into Tony's history, and with that came a variety of questions. Just one question? One question can't satisfy my mind, but that is all I am given at the moment. Should I ask him about his suits? How did he create technology that is still light years ahead of my time? What was the biggest challenge he ever overcame? What is his favorite suit? How did he invent JARVIS? Of course, all of these questions came to mind, and as I guided my conscious through I landed on one specific question.

"Why reveal yourself to me?" Tony looked a bit surprised as I continued to talk, "If you stayed hidden for this long, there would have to be a reason why you didn't want to be discovered; yet here you are talking to a girl who is in high school and taking a support class. There are many others you could have divulged this with, and some of those could be ten times smarter than me, more athletic than me, or even both. So, why? Why come to me? There are more than seven billion people and you chose me. Why make yourself known to me?" That was only question I needed to have answered now. Earlier he said no one else knew about his existence in the internet and that I should feel 'special' because I am the first to even know about this. Well, what made me stand out from the rest?

Tony and I stared at each other. His eyes just as fixated on me as mine were to his. Neither of our gazes broke off, not even the slightest. I knew he was still processing the question and his answer. He may part of the internet, but when it comes to questions regarding a person's philosophical point of view to another person, not even the Internet, can have the correct answer for that without acknowledging the person in question.

"Why did I choose you?" Tony finally spoke, "Hatsume, I have been in the Internet ever since my physical body could not function anymore, and all of my internal organs gave out. Or in other terms, I died. I have seen many things, and I have learned so much about society during my time here. I didn't just put my soul into the Internet for fun, or to be immortal. I did it to find my successor, the heir to my throne, the next 'Invincible Iron Man' or 'Invincible Iron Woman'. I have scoured the Internet for decades, trying to find a worthy successor. Would you believe me when I say I found no one worthy?" Tony takes a breath as I keep all of my attention on him, "I have found many who I believed who could be my pupil, yet for every 'Achilles' I found, I always found their 'Achilles' Heel.' A lot of them just wanted to do it for the money, some for sex, some were just completely incompetent, and others for rather disturbing or outrageous purposes. But the most common one I found was just doing it for a job."

I noticed the slight venom in Tony's voice as his brow lowered in agitation. "Being a hero isn't a job; it's a self-sacrificing lifestyle that requires you to be able to put your own life on the line for the sake of others every minute of your life without asking for anything in return. If you want to be a hero just so you can have fame and fortune, then I don't want to waste my time with you. Yeah, I know that sounds hypocritical coming from me, but that wasn't the reason why I became a hero in the first place and you of all people should know that. I kept finding so many people who could have fit the bill, but I never found 'the one'."

I could hardly believe my ears. This man has seen so many people who could have taken his spot, but always had one trait about them that made Tony turn his head away from them and look for another. Yet he never found anyone. My perspective on the society changed in that moment. How many people were wanting to be heroes because it was just a popular job? Doesn't anyone fully grasp the situation that they can die?! I thought long and hard about becoming a hero because of all the risks that come with it; I didn't just decide it by watching the same video every day for years to come!

"However, all of that changed when you came."

My mind stopped, again.

"I was thinking about stopping my search for a champion, but all of that changed when you came. When you created your profile, I gave you a few days to do your thing before I checked what you have been up to, and what I saw intrigued me. Not only were you looking at all of my schematics, but you wanted to know me me. Not Iron Man, but Tony Stark. You wanted to know everything besides the suits. In turn, I started to dig through the Internet to find more about you, and what I found was surprising but also depressing." I shifted a bit because I already knew what he meant, "I saw your entire life. How you were treated at school, how you were always the one left out, how you were…beaten." Tony's eyes softened a bit, "I am truly sorry that you had to go through that experience, no person should ever have to live in a world of fear when attending school." Tony then smiled quite warmly at me, "But what was inspiring about you was how you wanted to turn all that experience into a drive, a will. A will to overcome what everyone has ever said or done to you, and show them you have what it takes to be a hero. And then, I was sold on you. You directly told me why you wanted to be a hero."

With that being said Tony replayed my message to him once more, "Someday, I will be a hero like you. I will build my own suit and show everyone that I can be a hero just like everyone else."

Tony looked determined, proud, and…faithful, "Any regular person would just see that as a wannabe, and I almost did too. But when I saw the look on your face, the fire in your eyes, the will underneath that skin, and the heart of a hero. I knew, I just knew right there, I found my potential champion. Sure you may lack a lot of the aspects I wanted, but you had the one thing no else did. That heart and drive of yours. Everything else can be taught or strengthen, but no one can ever teach someone the real value of a hero. And Mei Hatsume, I know you can be that hero I am looking for." Tony takes a moment to look at me.

When Tony said that I could be a worthy advocate to take over the role of Iron Man, I almost fainted. I felt my vision blur, my heart stop, the hairs on my skin rise, a shiver sent down my spine, goosebumps, my eyes are as wide as they can get, my eyebrows could literally fly off my forehead, my jaw fell to the floor, my breathing stops, and so much more. Everything you get when you are beyond shocked all happened in that moment. I remember when I first saw his speech, and I how I felt. I never thought I could ever relive or feel something beyond that feeling. I was wrong. This, having the chance to not only meet my idol, but to also be his successor, his apprentice?! This was a feeling I never thought was possible.

Tony chuckled for a second, "So, what do you say Hastume? Do you accept the invitation to be my student? To allow me to mentor you in becoming this generation's 'Iron Woman'?"

"Yes!" I say instantly with nothing but pure excitement on my face. This was officially the best day ever!

"I knew you wouldn't turn it down, it's something one could only dream of, and yet it has become a reality for you. Now, there are a few things I should clarify, though." Tony said whist I paid attention closely, "First off, don't expect a suit now. You are not ready for a suit, take it from me. I had no formal training with any of my suits, so when I first tested my Mark II I got hurt bad. We will instead have you train in various ways, such as using a jetpack and practicing your aim with laser shots." I took mental notes of these ways of training with my inventions coming to my mind. "Secondly, I hold every right to stop this teacher-mentor relationship. So if I fully believe that you are not worth my time, I will leave. So don't screw this up." I know that, but it's still a bit scary to think about. "Finally," Tony said as he took a breathe, "Finally, if we ever get to this part, I will help you build your own suit."

I can feel my heart pumping with adrenaline, it is beating so fast that I may be having a Heart Attack, but I'll be fine. "My own suit. Oh, how will enjoy building that! I could add repulsor blasts, stun shots, capture weapons, thermal vision, and-" I gasp as a brilliant thought comes to my mind, "I can have an A.I buddy to help me!"

"Don't get ahead of yourself, that is if we make it that far in terms of your growth overall." Tony reassured me as I nod and calm myself a little. "Hatsume, we are taking baby steps right now. It's okay to think ahead, but not too far ahead. And don't forget that a suit and an A.I are two different realms themselves. Building a suit is complicated enough, but an A.I? That is a task that is much more complex, not to mention delicate." Tony clapped his hands together, "I want you to stay focus on two things right now. Get training from a combat instructor, and coming to terms that your Quirk isn't useless."

"Wait…" I never said anything about that; how does he know, "How did you know that?"

Tony merely chuckled, "When you threw a mini-tantrum awhile back when your boot propellor wasn't working properly, you compared it's weakness to your own Quirk." Tony's face fell straight, "You also ranted on how much you hate it."

I stayed silent for a bit. I didn't hate it my Quirk. There are ways to utilize it properly, and it still provides me with help whenever I need it. But… I just wish…"I just wish it was different…" I mumbled and looked down.

Tony sighed, "Hastume. Life isn't fair, and not everyone is created equal. You will always meet someone who has something that is better than you whether it be intelligence, physical capabilities, mental stability, or whatever. But that doesn't mean that whatever you are at a disadvantage at will always be a weakness of yours. I was gifted with the Quirk of Super Intelligence, and it wasn't fit for hero work." Tony shifted a bit, "I hated it for that reason you know?"

I look up to him in complete surprise, "You...hated your Quirk?"

"Yeah, I did. It didn't fulfill what I wanted to realize which was to be a hero." Tony said, "Sure there were many positives to it, but the only negative property to it was that I couldn't become a hero with it, or at least that is what everyone told me." Tony looked down a bit with a finger on his chin, and he grinned a bit before looking up, "I proved them wrong didn't I? I mean, I'm Iron Man. I was tied for second place with Captain America, and behind Nana Shimura who was number one at the time. And want to know a secret Hatsume?" Tony said as I nodded. Despite being in the internet, I saw a fire lit in his eyes . "I did all of that with my Quirk. The one thing I thought was holding me back the most, was the reason behind my success. I won't say your Quirk will be the reason behind your success, but I know that if you use it properly, it will become one of your greatest weapons. Having a Quirk is more than a gift, it makes up who you are. You can not live your life wishing for another one or hating your Quirk, you should embrace it because there are people who would kill for a Quirk like that whether they be Quirkless or not. It may seem useless now, but one day, one day you will see just how powerful it really is." Tony finally finished his monologue to me.

When Tony finished, I was still processing everything he told me. Tony disliked his Quirk the same way I disliked mine. Both of our Quirks deemed us unable to achieve our one goal, and that was to be a hero. During his time, he found out how to make it useful to help him attain his dream and not only did he shut up his critics, but he became one of the greatest to ever live.

Me? I was still struggling to accept my Quirk for what it is. For what it can and can't do. It can do so many wonders, and it is one of the reasons why Sprocket even exist in the first place, but it can never be the one thing I want it be. But…I understand what Tony is trying to tell me. He is telling me that it is okay to have a weakness like mine, to be at a disadvantage. So many people have a better Quirk than me, and that's okay because I do not need that. I do not need to have Quirk like All Might or Power Loader. My Quirk is good enough to help me pass by, and if I use it properly, be a hero.

"Hatsume!"

I snap out of my thoughts and look at him, "Yeah?"

I didn't notice at first, but Tony had an almost disturbed look on his face, "You were mumbling, a little too much." I blushed in embarrassment and let out a weak laugh while rubbing the back of my head. I guess I was thinking out loud. Tony shakes his head with his eyes closed, "Jesus, you were mumbling so fast I thought I was with Spider-Man for a second because that guy can't shut up." The Friendly Neighborhood Hero: Spider-Man; or The Web-Slinging Hero and the number three pro hero during Tony's time. One of the only heroes who is still alive from Tony's time. He is retired and lives in an unknown area, but I am sure he is enjoying his retirement.

Tony crossed his arms, stopped shaking his head and looked at me. "Anyways, that is what I want you to do. I want you to focus on training your body to fight, and to think about how your Quirk is not as pointless others made you to believe it is."

I nod my head firmly with a determined smile on my face, "Gotcha!" I say with some pride in my voice. Neither were going to be easy to pull off, especially changing my mind on my Quirk. But if I am going to be a hero and impress Tony that I can be his student, then I have to overcome these obstacles.

Tony then opened up a message that contained an address, "Go here. This is the nearest dojo I could find, and luckily, the best one too. They specialize in training pro heroes, and future heroes, but they are not ones to turn away regular people who wish to be able to defend themselves from threats. For money of course."

I pull out a sheet of paper and a pencil and write it down, "How much does it cost?"

"¥12,314. But that shouldn't be a problem for your family." Tony said to me, and truth be told he is right. "Okay, you should get some sleep now. Tomorrow, I want you to visit that dojo and check it out. Okay?" I nod my head firmly. "Okay." Tony then smiles, "See ya around kid." And with that, he was gone.

"Bye Tony." I say as I take a deep breath and turn off my computer. I get up, change into sleeping clothes, and jump onto my bed. I was so happy for this opportunity, and for the chance to meet my idol, but even then I still had one question in mind. How am I going to convince my parents to let me train at a dojo so suddenly?

Surprisingly, that was a lot easier than expected. All I had to say was that I wanted to learn MMA, so I could defend myself if I was put into a situation where I had no choice. Both of my parents agreed with me, my mother moreover than my daddy. After school I made way to the city and headed towards the dojo. I looked at the piece of paper with the address on it and searched for awhile while asking for directions. A kind man pointed it out to me and I made my way to the building. The building was your typical state of the art dojo. I checked the addresses on both the sign and paper once more, and they matched. With that, I made my way inside.

As I entered, I was greeted by a secretary who spoke politely. "Hello miss." I was not expecting a secretary in a dojo, but I guess if you are the best then you need some sort of assistance. "How may I help you?"

"I am here to see if I could train here. I want to learn how to defend myself if I am ever put in a situation I am forced to get physical in." I say to her with the same kindness.

"One of the master's classes is actually about to end, so if you can wait a little you can meet with him." The secretary tells me as I smile and nod before taking a seat on a nearby chair.

As I was waiting, I was rethinking of what Tony said to me. "If you don't know how to fight, you will lose your first battle. There is no victory without some type of power." I know how to kick and punch, but I don't know how to counter or read my opponents moves. If I am going to succeed, then I will need to learn hand-to-hand combat. As I was in my thoughts, I didn't notice a man had appeared by the doorway until he called out to me.

"Excuse me, miss?" A masculine voice called out to me.

I looked up, and what I saw was intimidating. A man with a heavy muscular figure and spiky, gray hair appeared. He wore a white mask with four holes that resemble gun muzzles. He donned dark gray pads that cover his neck to his shoulders over a black vest with no shirt underneath. He also wears brown pants, black boots, and his signature steel bracers, in the shape of a revolver chamber.

"Is this the dojo teacher?!" I screamed in my head as I felt quite fearful of this man.

The man saw this immediately and let out a laugh, "Oh, I know my presence can be scary, but I am a nice man." He tells me with a somehow adorable voice. How is this possible? "My secretary tells me you came here to learn how to fight, so you may defend yourself if you ever need too?"

I get up from the chair, "Yes, that is correct." I reply to him firmly, but respectfully. I then reach into my pocket and have pull out the Yen, "I have the finances required too."

"Well, I do not turn down those who wish to defend themselves." He says with his arms crossed now. "Tell me, what is your name?"

"Mei Hatsume."

"Hello Miss Hatsume, I am the Pro Hero Gunhead." Gunhead says with some confidence in his voice, "And I will be your sensei."