Chapter Eighty-One

"Is he going to be okay?" Kendo asked, glancing at Sparky as he jogged off like nothing was wrong, and with an energy that just wasn't fair.

"He'll be fine," Mina smiled, even as she shot another glance at her boytoy, trying not to worry herself. "His Quirk means he heals quick. That's why he's all bright and squirrely instead, of well, like the rest of us."

The orange-haired girl to her left shook her head, as she worked her pan full of peppers, "Wish my Quirk was like that."

"I know, right?" Pinky grinned, her smile turning salacious, "Not that I'm complaining about his stamina in other ways, you know what I'm saying?"

"Mina," YaoMomo gasped to her right, blushing.

Unable to help herself, the pink-haired girl shot back, "It takes both of us to try and tire him out, and even then we can barely manage it."

Kendo froze, looking at the two of them, ". . . what?"

"She means training!" Factoria squeaked, turning bright red. "We train together after school!"

That's not all we do together, though we could do more, Mina thought to herself, trying to look innocent, and failing. "Well, yeah. What else would I be talking about?"

Now it was Kendo's turn to blush a little, cute in her own way, as she tried to find something to say, failed, and turned back to her cooking.

"But he's great in the sack too," Mina offered offhandedly, causing the other girl to sputter, laughing uproariously at the ginger's reaction. "Oh, your face!" she giggled, as the other girl shot her an embarrassed glare.

Collecting herself, Kendo tried to pretend nothing had happened, asking after a moment, "Is he always like. . . that?"

"Do you mean the hot bod, the sexy take-charge attitude, or the weird Quirk stuff out of nowhere?" Pinky questioned. "'Cause the answer's yes. There's a reason him and YaoMomo are our class's Prez and Vice. And Sparky's absolutely the 'Vice'," she remarked, smiling at her own pun.

The other girl nodded to herself, clearly working over that in her head. "And he was like that at the USJ?" she asked, after a few minutes of cooking.

The pink-haired girl felt her smile fade a little. "Yeah, then too. It was sooo scary, but he just rushed in. And then there was I-island," she added to herself.

"Mina!" YaoMomo hissed, and she winced, even as Kendo glanced over, asking, "I-island?"

Aware of the fact that others from class 1-B were listening in, and that they weren't supposed to talk about that, Pinky smiled abashedly, "Can we, uh, pretend I didn't say that?"

The Class Prez of 1-B stared at her for a moment, finally asking, "Does it have to do with the lockdown that happened? And the building that exploded?"

Mina didn't say anything, but winced, remembering the fact that 1-B had been at the expo too, even if none of them had been invited to the gala-dinner-thingie before the expo started.

". . . Okay," Kendo said, nodding to herself, and saying nothing else.

"Wait, really?" Pinky asked, incredulous.

"You're not supposed say anything, right?" she checked, and Mina nodded. "Then I won't ask." She sent a glance over to Tokage, who suddenly looked like she was trying to be all chill, and totally hadn't been listening in with a floating ear, "But I can't speak for the others."

Mina slumped, "Thanks," she sighed, glancing down at the onions she was trying to caramelize. "Uh, do these look okay?"

"Not quite," YaoMomo, told her. "They should be darker. A golden brown would be best."

"Oh, like caramel," the acidicly inclined girl laughed, lightly smacking her own head. "Like, duh, Mina!"

Her friend smiled, "Don't worry. If you've never done this before, it can be quite confusing. It took me almost a dozen attempts before I could make a proper souffle!"

Sooo bougie, never change YaoMomo! Mina thought to herself, rolling her eyes and glancing to Kendo, who looked skeptical, and she gave the other girl a 'what can you do?' shrug, focusing back on her cooking. She was exhausted, but it was fun hanging out with these two, and that made it way less sucko then it would've been otherwise!

MHA

I made it back in time to help with the last of the cooking, the curry we ended up making was. . . well, it was certainly curry, but the gnawing hunger that had started to gather in my stomach added a spice all its own. From the way Momo, to my left, was chowing down, though, you'd think she was starving.

"Haven't you been eating cake all day?" I asked her between my own bites. "How are you still hungry?"

She paused, groaning, "Don't remind me, Denki. It's not the same."

I considered that. "Perhaps your Quirk isn't a straight caloric exchange?" I wondered aloud. "But is there an additional requirement, or maybe the fact that lipids are normally used to store vitamins and so on mean you're losing those in small amounts with each activation, and only heavy power use makes it an issue, or does your stomach just hyper-convert things once you really get going in a-"

"Sparky, not now," Mina sighed to my right. "Let's just get some gub, 'kay?"

"He does raise some interesting questions," Yaoyorozu disagreed. Her stomach growled loudly, demanding to be fed, and she blushed, adding, "but perhaps ones pursued at a later date."

Thankfully the Pussycats hadn't skimped on the ingredients, as we'd made enough for each of us to have several servings, Mina eating three full plates, I had five, and Momo had eight, obviously her Quirk at work allowing her to 'process' the food far faster than normal digestion would allow, and I wondered if I had that secondary ability, as even for me what I ate was a lot, and I could still probably have one more bowl, though then I'd be into the 'possibly ate too much' territory anyone who'd tried to get the most out of an all-you-can-eat buffet was well familiar with.

Everyone was relaxing after, a few classmates picking at the last of the food on their plates, when I felt a soft hand running down my left arm, and glanced over to see Yaoyorozu examining me, a look of intense curiosity on her face as she felt the spot where the largest splinter, one several inches long, had impaled my arm. "See anything interesting, Momo?" I questioned her, and she froze, glancing over at me.

"I, that is, it's fascinating that you have recovered so quickly," she stammered a little, finding her mental footing. "Your Quirk truly is multifaceted, Denki."

Mina laughed, knowing my status as a Power Copier, and she quickly tried to suppress it, but Yaoyorozu frowned at her, catching the odd reaction regardless. Covering for my girlfriend, I replied, "I'm pretty sure yours still takes the 'cake' when it comes to versatility." From her look, the Creationist doubted me, so I reminded her, "And before you argue power, remember what you did for our finals."

"Ah. That," she replied, looking a little embarrassed, before holding her head high, "But it worked."

Laughing, I shook my head, "Never said it didn't."

From the table behind ours, Tokage leaned over, asking, "What'd she do?"

Sero laughed from a different table, "She blew up Power Loader!"

"I did not 'blow up' Power Loader," Momo argued, "I merely threatened him with a multiple rocket launch system. Which I then used to create a sufficiently large distraction to delay him so that Ida and Aoyama could make it to the exit."

"Yeah, by blowing him up," Sero stressed. "Along with, like, a dozen other buildings."

Sighing, Yaoyorozu admitted, "I might have had to have a talk about acceptable use of force, but it was an area without civilians, and Power Loader sensei only suffered light burns and minor shrapnel injuries."

"Wait," the pull apart girl said, disassembling and reassembling herself so she was standing next to us, in way that made my head hurt a little, as her Quirk also sectioned off and reattached her clothing in perfect lines, "You guys fought the Teachers? What gives? All we fought were robots!"

Mina laughed wistfully, "I wish we coulda fought robots. Principle Nezu is really freaking scary for such a little guy!" Smacking my shoulder, her hands having healed enough to be only slightly tender, her Quirk already 'adapting', she added, "This big lug took out one of the big bots down in the entrance exam!"

"That was you?" the grey-haired girl from 1-B questioned, voice dull. "That was kind of spooky, having it suddenly light up like that. I thought it was some kind of special attack."

"Fried my brain in the process, if it weren't for Mineta and this cutie I would've probably been hurt pretty bad from the fall," I smiled, shoulder-bumping my girlfriend. "I've gotten better since then, but so have most of our class, which is probably why I ended up going toe to toe with Eraserhead along with Todoroki, even if all the teachers were wearing weights to slow them down. It's also why Midoriya ended up failing the final, because he tried to fight All Might, a weighed down All Might but still All Might, instead of running like he should've."

"Little Green tried to fight All Might?" Tokage echoed, smirking and looking at the vine-haired girl a few tables away. "Hear that Ibara, green power for the win!"

Monoma butt in, "Class 1-A's golden boy failed the final? After setting expectations so high after the Sport Festival? How embarrassing for you all!"

Kendo, who was sitting beside the annoying teen, added, almost sounding bored, "You failed too."

"I. . . whose side are you on?" the temporary power copier demanded, surging to his feet.

"Mine," she replied without missing a beat. As he opened his mouth to say something else, she held up a hand, which grew slightly, asking, "Can you behave?"

He promptly shut up and sat down.

"So you guys fought bots?" I asked into the slightly awkward silence.

"Yeah," Tokage agreed, shrugging. "A whole mess of 'em!"

Glancing towards Monoma, the guy was an unmitigated asshole, yet, I supposed, still not as bad as Shinso was. After all, despite having the same limitation as the other boy, that being needing other for his Quirk to be effective, the blond braggart from 1-B had passed the entrance exam after all. Additionally, from little I remembered of him from the Sports Festival, he'd just copied his teammate's Quirks in the cavalry battle, not trying to do so to the heavy hitters before the event even started. "So you didn't have anyone to copy for your final?" I questioned my fellow blond, who's expression twisted hatefully.

"I don't need pity from-"

"You should talk to Eraser-head, see if he has any tips," I cut off the other boy. "His Quirk just brings people down to base, and if you're dealing with any minion-creating Villains, they'll keep you at arm's length. Vlad's got super-strength, but Aizawa's is all training, and that makes him all the more impressive for it. You might not be able to train it here, but it's still something to look into. Actually. . . Shoda!" I called, leaning over and looking of the 'hit stuff twice' boy.

". . . Yeah?" he called back hesitantly after a moment.

"Do you do strength training so you can hit things harder?" I requested, getting the attention of most of the others, at least the ones that hadn't already been paying attention.

". . . Yeah?" the short boy repeated, still confused.

I nodded, "And your Quirk doesn't actually make you any stronger, right?"

"Yeah," he replied, much faster this time.

Nodding, I looked to Monoma, and pointed in Shoda's direction. "Yeah, talk to him, if you haven't already, but definitely talk to Aizawa."

From the surprised look on the short boy's face, he hadn't thought of helping his classmate at all, while Monoma turned his nose up at me. "I don't need help from class 1-A."

". . . um, pretty sure the little guy's not in our class," Mina pointed out, gesturing towards Shoda. "And Mr. Aizawa's a teacher, not part of the class either, honey."

"Pinky's got ya there, M," Tokage remarked, and for a second I wondered how she knew my nickname for Mina, except, well, it was kind of an obvious nickname, given her appearance.

Glancing around, I looked for Midoriya, as while I was decent at figuring out power uses, he was way better than I was, half of my 'insight' just cheating with foreknowledge, but he was nowhere to be seen. I guess the more some things change, the more they stay the same, I mused darkly, wondering how far that maxim extended.

Because if it held true, despite my own attempts, this time tomorrow we'd be fighting for our lives.

MHA

The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn, ready for another day of training, most of us well rested.

Others. . . not so much.

The 'remedial' students showed up after we'd been at it for a couple hours, and they weren't looking too hot. Midoriya was sporadically using OfA to try and perk himself up, Kirishima, Sato, and Cero were wavering, and Bakugo seemed like he was trying to intimidate the very concept of tiredness itself so that it'd leave him alone.

From the way he was swaying, it wasn't working.

Taking a break from my own training, ejecting myself from my rod before I hit my hard limit, I landed, temporarily cycling OfA myself to deal with the minor muscle spasms. Pretty much everyone was doing the exact same training they were last time, with a few exceptions.

Koda was still screaming to the heavens, and Todoroki was once more spending the day in a hot/cold bath as alternate bursts of ice and fire extended from him, but Asui was wearing herself out hopping as high as she could, and Ochaco was. . . carrying a rock without touching it? That. . . wasn't how her Quirk worked, or so I thought, but as she stumbled to the port-o-potty, carrying a stone twice as big as her head without making contact with it, but, with it moving in time with her halting steps, slowing down and lurching forward as she did, I was apparently wrong.

That said, some of the training that people were doing. . . didn't seem to make a lot of sense. As Bakugo stumbled over to his barrel of near-boiling water, he obviously couldn't do that at home, nor could Aoyama repeatedly fire off his beam into the sky like he was, but there was absolutely nothing stopping Momo and Sato from pigging out and mass-producing dolls and pumping iron respectively at home, other than possibly zoning laws, and those were only enforced when violations were obvious.

Others, however, would've been perfectly fine, as they didn't seem to actually be using their Quirks at all.

Staring at them, Toru and Shoji stood out, the former working on her stealth while the other focused on his ability to search. While such training would eventually overly specialize each other in how to hide from/spot someone with the other's capabilities, neither had obviously worked that hard on doing so, from how a snack bag caught on nothing at all behind the many-armed boy's back, before it was quickly plucked away. However, both were training skills, which, as far as I could tell, was not the purpose of this camp.

Looking around, Tiger was running the furry boy and the one who could spin himself through a hardcore calisthenics program, which. . . again, seemed odd as you could do that in your room, and doing so required no Quirks at all; the blonde one was lounging on the pile of boxes containing our lunches, seemingly doing nothing at all; and the green-haired one was butting in on a conversation between Aizawa and Midoriya, a good fifty feet away from her position, as she yelled, "That's why you get to work out with us four Pussycats!"

However, the brown haired one, who Midoriya had reminded me was named Mandalay, while the blonde was Pixie-something, walked around, keeping track of everyone, and noticed my stare. Jogging over to me, up the stone ramp to the top of my mini-plateau, she asked, "Something the matter?"

"More of a question," I replied. "We're here to work on our Quirks, right?"

"Yep," she nodded. "Eraser said you were learning how to use them better at school, but here is all about making them better." The dark-haired Pro smiled, "He also said you'd probably be difficult."

I considered that. "Only when people are being dumb," I offered, and she gave me a look that said 'See? Difficult.' Which was more of a her thing. That or I've been spending too long with Mei, I added internally, but I moved onto my next question. "So, some of this stuff is obvious, like mine, or Mineta's," I waved at the grapist who was pulling balls off until his head bled, and then kept going, "but if we're here to train our Quirks, why aren't those two?" I asked, waving towards Shoji, and, presumably, Toru.

"What do you mean?" Mandalay asked right back. "They're working on their Quirks."

"I. . ." I paused, as just insisting 'No they aren't!' wouldn't help. "The use of their abilities right now is passive, or low level. Not. . . this," I said, waving towards the next plateau, where Sero, gritting his teeth in pain, was continuously creating tape, already having produced his body weight in the stuff in the few hours he'd been at it. "They should be doing something else."

That got me an unimpressed look. "You think you're better than the Pros?"

Rather than be intimidated and stutter an apology as my model of 'pre-me Denki' would at having 'overstepped' and upset an authority figure, I just snorted. "Have you seen some Pros? Am I better than Pros in their specialty? Of course not." Waving towards her, I easily admitted, "When it comes to search and rescue, I'm sure you're better than me by a country mile. But if we were to fight, I'd win. No question."

My declaration seemed to amuse her, and while some small part of me wanted to disabuse her of the notion that I wouldn't take her down in seconds if I had to, that wasn't the point of this. "But that doesn't matter when it comes to training others," I stressed. "You normally rent this place out to Pros, right? Ones that are established and looking to polish their skills and techniques?"

From the way the 'dorm' we were sleeping in was set up, it very easily matched the kind of 'communal suite' that was common in Japanese vacation locations, thirteen of us being packed in the space making things a little tight, but if it was six or seven, like if we were a Pro and their sidekicks, it'd be rather nice. Combine that with the 'multiple people in one bathroom is no big' attitude that was more prevalent and the 'communal' bathroom just became a large one. It would also explain the lack of a larger kitchen, the one the Pussycats had only enough to feed 1-A instead of cooking sufficient rations for both us and 1-B, necessitating the use of the outside firepits.

The Pussycat didn't answer at first, studying me, before she nodded. "Why would that make a difference, kid?"

If it had been Pixie, I would've returned fire to that 'kid' appellation, one that seemed like she was trying to remind me of my place in this setup, with a 'well-experienced' descriptor of my own to highlight her age, but that wouldn't win me any favors, and this wasn't for me, it was for the others. Instead, I nodded, seeing the outline of the issue at play, but needing more detail. "And how does the green one's power work? I know it doesn't work on me, but what kind of data does it provide her? Does it actually tell you the totality of our Quirks or. . ." I trailed off meaningfully, waiting for the Pro to fill in the blank, because if I was correct, there was a blank for her to fill.

Again, Mandalay considered her response for several seconds. "You're right," she finally said, and I was momentarily confused, as there wasn't anything in what I'd said to be right about, "Ragdoll's Quirk lets her know location, strengths, weaknesses, and more, of everyone in a mile or so. And we were given your files before you arrived. But it doesn't let us know everything about your Quirks." She smiled a little. "If it did, she'd make a meowtain of cash as a Quirk Counselor, helping kids identify what they can do. But if they haven't found it out themselves, she can't see it either, as it's not a strength or a weakness." There was a sharpness in her gaze as she studied me, one that hadn't been there before, but not any anger, as she then asked, "And you think we missed something?"

"I know you've missed at least one thing, because I have a feeling she hasn't done enough with it to rate to Ragdoll's power," I replied. "Let me show you."

Taking a few steps, surging OfA, I leapt off the plateau, calling, "Toru!" as I came down, to get her attention, hoping that I wasn't going to land on her, and her, "Yea-Damnit!" from the side, as Shoji immediately glanced at her, told me I wasn't going to hit her.

Landing on the dirt floor of the pseudo quarry we were training in, skidding to a stop, I looked back to see Mandalay casually sliding down the side of the plateau and coming after us with an easy grace, the faint stirrings of what I was pretty sure was Martial Talent picking up how to do what I was seeing the Pro effortlessly pull off myself.

"Toru, come over here," I requested, looking in her general direction, "Do you remember what we talked about when we were picking out internships?"

"Wha?" she asked, and, trying to figure out exactly where she was, I spotted a bit of dust that shifted as the invisible girl stepped on it, but after that I lost her, the sound of explosions, lasers, flash-forming ice, and more hiding her the sound of her footsteps. "Oh, the light thing!" she exclaimed with a little jump. "I, uh, tried to do stuff with it, but I'm not sure what to, you know, do."

"Light thing?" Mandalay questioned as she came up beside us, shooting me an indecipherable look, and turning back to the invisible girl. "Can you show me?"

"Oh! Sure!" Toru replied, likely smiling nervously by the tone of her voice. A noise of concentration came from empty spare, and it seemed to distort, the trees warping, only leaning to the side it was just the light that passed through that space that was changing. However, as it was doing so, it wavered oddly, not really doing anything other than wiggling a little.

No, what this needed was purpose.

Looking at it, knowing she could eventually send out flashes of blinding light, I suggested, "How about concentrating it? I don't know if you can store it, but. . . think of it like a river that's flowing around your hand, and see if you can push it together, or maybe braid it like hair, something like that." If I was right, the girl was constantly redirecting light around her body, allowing it to pass by her without it touching her skin, or perhaps just enough to make sure she didn't get Vitamin D deficiencies, but kept the bit that actually hit her from bouncing away to hit the eyes of others, and in doing so kept her from being seen. "Just redirect it into one tight, main stream, and keep adding more to it."

"Okay, Denki!" Toru chirped, the warping disappearing for a second before it started to intensify, before everything seemed to snap back, but the area around us started to darken instead, shadows forming oddly on the ground despite the sun high above us, as one point on the ground remained the same- no, it brightened, and continued brightening, the darkened zone slowly growing, outward until, on a whim, I grabbed a bit of lint from my pocket and tossed it into the dime-sized bright spot.

And it caught fire.

Toru screamed in surprise, and I could hear her stumbling away, the illumination in the area suddenly normal as if someone flicked on a light switch. Meanwhile, the bit of lint merrily burned, quickly consumed by the flame.

Smiling over at the Pro, I tried my best not to sound smug as I asked, "So, what do you think?"

Mandalay nodded slowly, looking back at me, and almost playfully asked, "What else ya got?"

AN: Next Four Chapters are up on , as usual!