Chapter Twenty-five

Mina sped towards me, fist cocked back, broadcasting her strike for all to see. That made me suspicious, as she'd stopped doing that even before we'd had our disagreement. I moved to block it, but at the last moment threw myself to the side as she jerked to a stop, the acid she'd been exuding on her skin, easily overlooked by all, including me, shooting forward faster than it should from just being thrown, hosing the area in front of her with a deluge of the stuff.

Shifting an arm to lightning, I stuck it in the ground and leveraged it, turning my roll into a cartwheel, and threw myself at her, feet first, as she spun around without moving her legs, only her acid. She formed a shield as she tried to move away, but couldn't accelerate fast enough and I hit, foot breaking through but only lightly pressing against her arm. Acid surged up my shoe as I shocked her, just enough to tell her that she'd lost.

*Zap* "Owie!" she whined, pulling her weak acid, barely more than water, back and tossing it to the side, its current potency doing less damage to our surroundings than a spilled soda. "How am I supposed to practice if you know all my moves!" she complained.

"Oh," Momo said from the side, "Was that something you've worked with him before? I didn't recognize it. Very good subterfuge, Mina!"

". . . no," the other girl admitted, turning an accusing stare my way. "So, how did you know to dodge?"

Shaking the last of the goop from my boot, 'helping' it off with a bit of my copied power, I pointed to the ground. "You looked at where you were going to stop, gauging the distance you could throw it at me. I didn't know a full body rain was coming, I thought you were just going to splash me with the acid in your hand," I told her. "I got lucky, but if I'd tried to play it cool and just dodge what I thought was coming, I would've gotten doused. It's a small tell, probably only Bakugo and Midoriya would notice, maybe Todoroki, but I am used to them, just like you knew I was going to counter-attack before I started to move."

"Well, yeah, your arm twisted up like you do before you push off," she replied, realizing what she was saying and smiling with chagrin. "Oh, yeah, the knowing moves things hits both ways, doesn't it?"

I nodded, "It does, I'm just a really fast learner." She rolled her eyes, knowing how Martial Talent was assisting me which was, and I quote 'totes cheating', and she wished I could've shared my talents in addition to my defenses, but, when eternal youth, beauty, and immunity to almost all of the scarier Quirks out there were part of the package, she was happy with what she got.

It was Tuesday, and, after Monday's training in the gym, which had turned into a makeout session, we'd both agreed that having Momo with us would tamp things down. We were lucky not to get caught the first time, and I didn't want to risk it again.

Mina had asked Hagakure if she wanted to join too, but the invisible girl had turned us down. When Mina had asked if I wanted to invite one of my friends over, as Momo was a mutual friend while Hagakure was just hers, I'd had to tell her that, other than her, Momo, and Mei (who wasn't leaving the design studio until Thursday to field test her Babies), I didn't have any other friends.

She'd gone a bit quiet at that, and changed the subject.

So now we were here, working together, switching off with sparring, though I was the one fighting more often than not, if only because I could take five minutes and be good to go again, while both girls got tired out faster and needed longer to recover. Well, my girlfriend was already noting a marked boost, probably from Body Talent starting to kick in, but Momo, for better and for worse, had no such advantage.

With Principal Nezu's statement in mind, Mei and I had helped direct Mina in the creation of a support item of her own yesterday morning, and tweaked it earlier today. It was incredibly inefficient, not to mention so basic it could barely be considered a support item, but it worked. That said, I could practically hear Mei grinding her teeth together in frustration during the design process, not able to just do it for her fellow pinkette, the inventress going off and building a version that was an order of magnitude better for the other girl to use after the festival, but the base concept was sound, and something that she had created.

Just like Mina's boots let her exude and control acid effectively, using them to travel, she'd built a glove with a forward facing nozzle built into hardened knuckles. By forcing the acid up from the top of her hand, the glove helped direct it more effectively than she could herself, giving her much more range to work with for her Acid attacks.

I'd know, she'd pegged me with it half a dozen times before I started to get a handle on dodging the damn thing, and then she'd started getting tricky with it, hiding the blast in other moves. Like an uppercut that was avoided, only to get a face-full of the stuff mid-dodge as she twisted her fist towards me and shot me, point blank.

Interestingly, the acid, even the weakened acid, never went in my eyes, not even once. Talking to her, she wasn't aiming it at all, and was horrified when she realized that was even a possibility, but every time I got splashed, even accidentally, it formed a ring around my eye-sockets. Finally, I ended up attributing it to the same kind of mental block that let me hit someone with a lightning bolt, but not risk cardiovascular damage, let alone death. It was a handy thing, especially for a somewhat civilized society, that powers followed a person's desire not to hurt or kill others subconsciously.

That also made those that killed indiscriminately, like Shigaraki, even worse. I wondered, had he been raised to be more heroic, if he would've had a mental block on using his disintegration Quirk on living things, only disintegrating gear, clothes, weapons, and the like. Checking the academic studies that had been published, the answer was a tentative yes, though the nature of personality obscured things, and the bad powers = bad people, because 'good people would temper their powers', sociopolitical BS just muddied the field further.

On a more positive note, my own items were coming along nicely, and, given the rules, I'd finally asked Power Loader why more Hero students didn't take advantage of it. Going into battle, even a highly sanitized one like the festival, without our gear would put us at a serious disadvantage after all.

"You think most of your classmates could use a mono-atomic binder, let alone tell it from a laser-scalpel?" he'd asked in turn, motioning towards the gauntlet I was working on.

"Well, if they spent the time to learn, they could," I'd argued, careful not to split my attention too far, lest I need to use the aforementioned scalpel, really more akin to a mini lightsaber, to separate them if I messed up. Again. "I didn't know what they were before Mei taught me. She's a good teacher."

The Pro had snorted. "No, she isn't."

"I'm really not!" agreed the girl in question, aligning the grapple assembly in the claw-foot. "Trust me, I've tried. Most people are just really dumb! That's why they can't understand how my Babies work, let alone help me make them better!"

"Skewed standards aside," the teacher had said, "You're just a natural, kid. If Aizawa ever goes through with it and expels you, I'm snapping you up faster than All Might can announce his presence."

"Oooooh, can he?" Mei had demanded excitedly, suddenly beside us. "Then we could work on Babies all the time! But then we'd have to get someone else to use them," she'd noted with a frown, tapping a finger to her lips, before grinning slyly. "Can he just half-expel Denki?"

"No, he can't," I'd informed her, and she'd just shrugged, going back to work.

Focusing back on the present, I walked over to Momo, who, while idly snacking on chocolates, and was trying to get her newest 'move' down.

With the knowledge that Creati could produce liquids, though it was difficult for her, I'd contacted Mei and gotten the composition of her webbing. Then, after making sure she hadn't set me the explosive version, I got the composition of her webbing that I'd actually wanted.

Now, one corner of the gym looked like it'd gotten bukkaked by an entire village of smurfs.

"How's it coming?" I asked, looking over what she'd splattered about, mentally pausing at my own phrasing.

"Pretty well, actually," she'd smiled, focused on the task and not. . . other things. "I'm still annoyed I had so much trouble with some of the other devices you showed me, but this is easy enough to memorize and synthesize. Now if only I could expel it with greater force. . ."

I'd tried giving her a 'simple' support item, a pretty basic bitch grapple device, not the overengineered, can-lift-a-city-bus monstrosity that Mei and I had put together, and Momo had sat through the explanation, but there were just too many moving parts for her to hold in her head at once, at least without a lot more studying.

Mei said she'd work on a better version of the electric rollerskates Momo already could make, but one that 'even someone from the Hero course could understand', in return for an extra couple of hours of assistance in the studio, but she was busy putting the finishing touches on a dozen different inventions, so it'd have to wait.

"It'll still be one hell of a surprise," I replied, shrugging. "I'd suggest focusing on speed of creation instead of projectile force, so you can pull it out in a second if you have the opportunity."

"They're the same thing," she disagreed. "The faster I create things, the more force imparted to it. It is the speed of creation, of new matter pushing what was previously created out of the way, while still being somewhat connected to it, that gives it velocity."

"Oh," I replied, thinking. "Then maybe practice switching between things? Can you, I don't know, create a mental blueprint that you can call upon quickly?" Momo shook her head. "Really?"

"Really," she affirmed. "I've gotten better at conceptualizing, but my Quirk. . . It's a blank canvas, as it were. I have to start from the beginning every time. I can remember compositions, but there's no way for me to 'save' them."

"Wow, that blows," Mina commented, from my side. "For me it's just: Acid? Acid." The finger guns, which shot tiny spurts of acid when 'fired' weren't needed, but they were adorable.

I shook my head, "You can still tweak the potency, and can control it after creation in a way that she can't, but we're dealing with incomparables. You both have matter creation powers, but you have versatility in use, Mina, while Momo has versatility in composition."

Walking over and taking a seat, back to the wall, I sighed. "So, we're making good progress, though just training against each other has kind of a 'rising tide' effect that makes depth hard to determine."

"What?" Yaoyorozu asked, confused.

"He means if we're all climbing, but only looking at each other, it makes it hard to tell how high we've gotten," Mina, used to the way I talked, clarified. "Right, Sparky?"

"You got it, Pinky," I smiled. "So, Momo, ready for another spar?" The hero grimaced, but started to get up, only to pause as I waved her back down. "We can wait a few if you're still sore."

"Thank you. I still don't know how you can keep going like you are," she commented. "I was still feeling last week's training until Saturday, and you've been going just as hard as you did then, but for twice as long. How you aren't exhausted. . ." She shrugged, sighing in resignation.

That gave me pause, and made me mentally facepalm. "Right, sorry, my bad. I'm used to doing this much, and your physical training beforehand, it was lighter than this, right?"

"I thought it was sufficient," she commented, a little defensively, and dejectedly, "but I see I was wrong about that as well."

"Nah, Sparky's just intense, and gotten worse lately," Mina disagreed, looking at me with a half grin. "Even with the two of us, we're the ones getting tired out, not him. Gotta admire that stamina," she winked.

"Yes," Yaoyorozu agreed, the innuendo passing over her head, or maybe not, from the very slight blush that dusted her cheeks. "His endurance is far and above what I would expect from anything less than a Pro. Does your Quirk assist with that, Denki? I'm not sure how, given what it is, but I have to assume it does."

Point Momo, I thought, nodding to her. "It does. Either it's not what I thought, I've got a secondary one, like Todoroki, or maybe there's something else going on entirely. Though it wasn't until after the USJ that I realized I had it, well, Recovery Girl noticed it, and commented on it like it was obvious," I corrected. "I'd never gotten that hurt before."

"Ah. Then it was as bad as it looked," she commented to herself, expression turning introspective.

"Yeah, it was," Mina sighed, sitting down next to me, leaning into me, arm threading around mine.

"So, topic change," I announced, getting a laugh from my girlfriend. "The festival itself. Have either of you looked it up? To know what we're getting into?"

To neither of our surprise, by Mina's look, Yaoyorozu announced, "I have. The events are in constant flux, but it is always a free-for-all, then a team competition, then individual competitions, usually with a focus towards combat. Last year's was a mass flag capture, with each student having a flag worth a single point; then a mass team combat exercise, where areas had to be held; and finally duels with foam swords, at least for the Freshman. The upper years tend to have larger and more involved events, but, as first years, the tasks are more restrained. Am I to assume you are suggesting that we all work together for the team exercise? That is assuming we all make it that far, of course."

"That's exactly what I'm suggesting," I smiled. "Though, I was actually thinking we could take it a bit farther than that."

"What'd'ya mean, Sparky?" Mina asked, even as Momo's eyes narrowed.

"Well, the first event's an every hero for themselves scenario, but if we were to work together we'd definitely make it to the team event. I know they don't repeat, but if it's another flag grab, then, even dividing the flags up between us, we'll be able to grab, and keep, more together than we could alone. And if it's something like dodgeball, or a race, or a stealth exercise, or whatever, then we could win through teamwork there as well," I proposed.

I'd expected this to be a no-brainer. I'd expected them to both smile and agree. What I didn't expect was for Mina to pull away from me, both of them frowning. "But it's a free-for-all. It always is," my girlfriend stated, as if that were an argument.

"Yeah," I agreed slowly, not seeing the problem, "and I checked the rules, and previous instances. You sometimes get pairs working together, and always get some participants using others to get ahead, though often unwillingly, given it's a competition. I'm just saying that the four of us, us three and Mei, should team up to completely crush it, and make sure we move on to the next stage. Then, if they let us make teams of four, we team up again and beat that one too!"

"But that is not the spirit of the event," Momo argued. "It is supposed to be an individual competition."

"And where does it say that?" I asked. "It's implied, but it's never stated. Besides, it's just a sports festival. It's not like I'm suggesting cheating on a test or something."

"Sparky," Mina winced, "it's worse than cheating on a test. It's gonna be on TV!"

I looked between the two of them. "I'm sorry, what? Why does that matter? This isn't for a grade, it's to show off a little, and to get some non-lethal and non-classroom practice. That's it. So what if we don't do it the same way that everyone else does?"

"Do you even hear yourself?" Yaoyorozu asked, offended, for reasons I didn't understand.

Pinging Denki's memories, yeah, Sports Festivals were a bit more of a big deal here than anything back home, but. . . "You know what, I'm gonna get another opinion," I announced, calling Mei.

"Hey Denki! Done already? Hey, do you think I should add in a magnetic reconnector to the grapnels?" she replied, picking up before the first ring finished.

I paused, mentally reviewing the schematics, and shook my head. "Unless you've figured out how to get it to play nice with the stators in the launcher, no. You're on speaker. I suggested teaming up on the first stage of the sports festival, and they're acting like I suggested we should kick a puppy. Insights?"

"They're being dumb?" the ever-tactful Mei instantly replied. "Wait, this is on speaker? Are they there?"

Sighing, I answered, "Yes, Mei, they are."

"Oh. Okay. They're being dumb?" she reiterated. " We're working together, but if the heroes don't get how partnerships work, that's their problem. We are still working together, right?" she asked, suddenly unsure.

"I understand how partnerships work!" Yaoyorozu shot back. "But it's supposed to be an individual event!"

"Gimme a mo'," Mei replied, a muted boom following, then a claxon, then silence, finally interrupted by the rustling of papers. "That the creation girl? The one you wanted me to make the skates for?"

"It is," I replied, resigned to this going just worse, realizing now that this was a horrible idea.

"Okay," she said, and I could practically hear her nod. "Can she read?"

Momo put her hands on her hips, scowling. "I can, including between the lines!"

". . . Creation girl does know there's nothing between the lines, right?" the inventress asked, sounding a little unsure. "There's just space. It's a separator. Right. . . so, when we work on the thing for her, if you still want to, Denki, make sure to explain it to her so she doesn't think there's something that says, I don't know, 'wear them on your hands' in the blank spaces of the instructions, alright? Actually, I could use that for something else! Gotta go! See you in a couple hours, Partner!"

And with that, she hung up.

". . . So, Mei can be a little rude, but I'd like to highlight the fact that she's not wrong," I finally stated, after I put the phone away.

"She doesn't count," Yaoyorozu pronounced, cultured facade fully cracking as she pouted. "She's probably not even going to make it into the second round anyways. At least not without you carrying her."

Mina, however, saw something in my expression, and hesitated. "Um, Sparky, if you didn't help her, how far do you think she'd've gotten?" she asked instead.

"Finals, easily," I replied, understanding the question as my girlfriend asking about the original timeline.

"I doubt it," Momo, fully offended, sniffed.

"And us?" Mina asked, letting the other's girl remark go without comment. "If we don't work together, or if you didn't help us train? How'd we've done?"

It took me a moment, but I understood, a little, what she was really asking. She was unsure of her own capabilities, and, from the way it'd been framed, didn't want to get through the first event just because she 'cheated', even if it wasn't cheating. "Same. Finals. Easily."

". . . Really?" Yaoyorozu asked, as Mina let out a sigh of relief. "Then why do you want to cheat? Do you think you wouldn't pass? Because I'm fairly certain you will, Kaminari."

Her attitude had gone from offended to comforting, and, on one level, I think I understood why, but on the other, she still hadn't argued the points.

"Not 'cheat', use the rules as written, not all the extra stuff people are apparently throwing on top of it," I insisted. "I really don't get the big deal here. It's a sports festival. Yeah, it's gonna be televised, which, when I think about it, is a little weird, but this entire school is, but we're freshman. We have three years. If you want to go, 'I'm independent, here me roar', do it in the last phase, or the entirety of your last festival, when we might get scouted by Pros."

"We get scouted this year," Momo argued.

That made me pause. "Wait. Really? But. . . we're Freshmen. I know we'd get an internship, it's on the syllabus, but. . . really?"

"Yes, really," the girl insisted, though, looking over, Mina was as surprised as I was. "We'll have long term work studies in the fall, if we get our provisional licenses."

" Really?" the pinkette checked, backing off with an, "Okay, really!" at Yaoyorozu's annoyed look.

I stood up. "So you think that working together is going to somehow nuke your chances of being asked to work on a team? Fine, whatever. You guys want to go back to what we were doing, or should we just call it a day?"

Mina looked torn, but as Momo stood as well, and primly announced, "That might be best," my girlfriend winced, and nodded.

"Yeah, same. See you both tomorrow?" Mina questioned, and Yaoyorozu hesitated, looking to me.

"Of course?" I questioned, not understanding how that was in doubt, and the brunette nodded in agreement, looking relieved for some reason.

Feeling like I'd just missed something, I helped them get their stuff together, and hugged Mina goodbye, as her mother had insisted that she 'spend at least some nights home instead of with her friends', and was left to my own devices once more as both girls walked out together. I could go see Mei, and help her out early, but. . . well, I just didn't feel like it.

Finding myself with time where I could practice on my own, something I hadn't had the last few days, not that I was complaining, I shifted gears, and pulled One for All to the surface. I hadn't used it in my spars with the girls, not wanting to patch my lack of technique with pure power, knowing if I had I wouldn't've made nearly as much progress.

Feeling the copied Quirk fill me with more than double the power that'd been available when it'd first activated, it settled down after a few seconds, and I took a couple long, loping steps, before launching myself in the air. On its own, it was a tremendous boost, but integrating it with my other abilities was a work in progress, especially as there was no one I could copy it from, building the technique from scratch.

Concentrating as I landed, streaked limbs of lightning stabbed into the ground, and I continued my work combining Electrobody with OfA for maximum speed.

AN: As always, the next 2 chapters are up on .