Chapter Eighty-Five

There was a moment of incomprehension before both classes burst out into excited cheers, and I stared, surprised, caught completely off-guard.

"But, we're nowhere near the ocean," I stated dumbly, confused. Were they going to teleport us there? It was possible, but that kind of Quirk-Use was heavily restricted and-

"Ah, don't be purr-plexed!" Pixie-bob teased, and I frowned, though it sounded more like she thought I was cute rather than her words carrying Ragdoll's normally mocking tone.

Tiger, thankfully, explained. "We don't just own this forest, we also own our own lake."

"Swimsuits were on the list of required items for a reason," Aizawa added.

The blonde pussycat waved us back towards our dorms, "So you little kittens go and get suited up. Don't be too slow, or I'll have to come see what's taking so long, boys!"

"Well, that's an effective threat," I noted neutrally, cycling up OfA and looking to my girlfriend. "Want a lift?"

Mina grinned, jumping onto my back. "High-Ho, Sparky. Awaaaaaaah!" she yelled in delight, as I leapt, moving as fast as I could, just because. It was less of a run and more of a lope, electric legs stretching out in large, ground eating strides, curling in like rough springs as I moved, then extending forward as hard as my super-strength would allow. I could only twist them in a little, limited in my number of 'joints', but legs were easier than arms to manipulate for some reason, letting me hurtle through the air at a good fifty miles an hour, though only achieving that kind of speed because it was pretty much a straight shot back.

Skidding to a stop, Mina jumped down and gave me a kiss on the cheek before sliding away on acid, Midoriya arriving, carrying Asui and Ochaco, a moment later, just as fast as I was with only his one Quirk, possibly faster.

"Thanks, Deku!" Uraraka smiled, her hair blown back slightly, Tsu nodding as she hopped off his other shoulder.

I headed inside, Midoriya following, and I couldn't help but tease the verdant cinnamon roll, "Both huh? Nice."

"Both?" he questioned, before nodding in understanding. "Yeah, I could carry both. I'm up to fifteen, sixteen percent now! Stably at least, so even if I'm still a bit tired I can carry them easily and still move!"

Nodding sagely I replied, "Yep. Just remember, it's all about balancing them. It's good that they know about each other. So many problems otherwise."

Izuku shot a confused look my way. "I, yes? I mean, I'm handling the balancing myself, but if they didn't know about each other, somehow, they might both move the wrong way, but I'm strong enough to handle that."

"A lot of men feel like they are, Izuku, but trust me, it's more trouble than it's worth to try and keep them in the dark," I warned.

". . . we're not talking about carrying people, are we?" he questioned, sounding a little lost.

"In way, we are, but I was more talking about your relationship with both girls," I smiled, chuckling as the boy reddened, hands coming up and waving frantically in my general direction.

After a few seconds of incomprehensible noises, he started babbling, "I, we're, they're just friends, good friends, great friends, we're not, like, dating or anything, like you and Mina are, not that there's anything wrong with that, they're great, both of them, I'd be happy to date either of them, not that I am, or they would, or they both would, is that a thing, well there's Boombird, and Carbon, and I guess Farol, but he didn't tell Baliance he was with Aonani and that caused problems, so I'd definitely tell them, but what if that's too presumptuous, and I'm sure they don't see me like that-"

"They do," I interrupted, trying not to laugh.

"I. . . really?" he replied, brought up short in complete disbelief.

"Ninety percent sure," I hedged, "and they might not know themselves yet. Feelings are weird, and girls can be weirder."

Sighing, the green-haired boy nodded. "Yeah. And scary."

"But worth it," I added.

Izuku just smiled fondly. "Yeah."

We both went to our suitcases, pulling out our swim-trunks, and I advised, "That said, we're here to train, so focus on that. But when we're relaxing, if they sit on either side of you, use both arms to give them a quick 'friendly' hug and see how they react. You don't need to rush into anything, but be aware that, as far as they're concerned, you're Hero material, and that's something impressive."

Glancing at the boy, he was frowning, and seemed on the urge of disagreeing, so I continued, "Whatever history you and Bakugo have, they don't know about, they just know the you that showed up for the entrance exam. Whatever you were in middle school? Doesn't matter. And I'm not talking about Quirks, I'm talking about character. Just be the you who you want to be, and that's the you they'll know, not whatever others put on you in the past."

"I. . . thanks," the boy replied, taken aback a little, and grateful.

I just shrugged, "It's the same advice I gave Mineta."

Shoulders dropping, Deku commented, "Why does that make me feel worse?"

"Hey, he's gotten better," I disagreed, standing up for the sticky pervert-in-recovery. "And if he can go from what he what he was to someone that could work at Naginata's Agency without getting kicked out, there's hope for us all."

That got me a thoughtful look from the boy, who probably knew more about that Heroine than I did, and he tapped his chin. "Kacchan has improved a lot."

"See, progress," I smiled, stripping. "So if that's possible, is it so hard to believe that someone who used to see themselves as a Deku, an idiot, can come to embody Dekiru, and be 'can do' enough to get a girl's attention? Or two?"

Midoriya didn't respond, just nodded a little, expression complicated, and we could hear our classmates approaching, so we cut off our conversation there.

MHA

When we got back to the main area, two busses were waiting for us, and a quick half-hour trip later we were at our destination, towels and beach umbrellas already set-up, Mandalay sitting by an impressive looking barbeque station.

What was more attention grabbing, however, were the office-buildings in the center of the lake.

Not on top of it, they were partially submerged, a couple slightly tilted, though, squinting, there wasn't any glass in the windows, and the interiors, though I couldn't make out what was inside, seemed devoid of color, though there were things in there.

Mei's Quirk would be useful right now, I couldn't help but think, but the copying mechanism seemed use-based, and, while she used her ability to zoom in on what she looked at for detail work on her Babies, she didn't utilize it nearly as much as Mina or Momo did, let alone someone like Midoriya.

"Hello everyone!" Mandalay waved as she made her way over to us. "You've all been purr-ting you're all into training, but pushing yourself too hard can lead to some seriously claw-ful results, so we'll be back to it tomorrow, but today's a rest day."

"But we're gonna let you all take cat-naps!" Ragdoll added, still not trying that hard with her puns. "You're gonna be workin' your minds 'stead of your bodies, so for you lot this is gonna be doubly hard!"

How much of your house is made of glass? I wondered internally, everyone else accepting the insult without comment.

"Oh, are we gonna do rescue training?" Midoriya questioned excitedly, glancing towards the half-submerged buildings.

"You got it!" Pixie-Bob cheered, prancing over to the other two, while Tiger moved to fire up the grill. "We're gonna split you up into teams of four, half from each class, and you'll be saving 'people' trapped by flooding!" In the distance a mannequin breached the surface, bobbing on the lake's slight waves. "Like that poor fella! Oh no, he's drowning!"

I lifted an eyebrow, "Real-"

"I'll save you!" about half of our combined classes yelled, taking off in an explosion of sand, a literal explosion going off a moment later as Bakugo launched into the air, yelling, "Too slow, nerds!"

Blinking, I looked over to Mina, standing next to me, who giggled at my surprised expression. Shaking the sand out of my hair, I walked over to Yanagi, the telekinetic girl from 1-B, and asked, "Can you pick that up from here?"

The grey-haired girl stared at me, eyes wide, arms half-lifted at the waist. Without a word, she turned to face the still-bobbing mannequin, and extended one hand. The drowning 'person' was surrounded by a momentary flare of purple energy, before it shot into the air, right as Bakugo closed on it, slipping through his fingers as he screamed, "Die!"

Yanagi paused, and the mannequin froze in mid-air as well, allowing the exploder to reverse course and slam into it, hooking one arm around it, and starting to make the return trip, but with only one arm to use the boy was visibly having trouble with his circumstance.

Though he was by far not the only one.

The students had hit the water and immediately floundered, their Quirks reacting to the aquatic environment in a number of ways, almost all of them clearly unexpected. Midoriya had adapted pretty quickly, swimming with decent form but at power-boat speeds, and others, like Ida, forewent their Quirks at all. Ironically, Asui hadn't even left, still standing next to Uraraka on the beach, and while Todoroki was sliding on the surface of the water on ice he created, when he tried to turn the several-hundred-foot-long strip cracked and tilted, throwing the boy directly into the lake.

"HAHAHAHA!" Ragdoll cackled, losing it, pointing at laughing as TetsuTetsu sank like a rock when he activated his Quirk, or really like a steel bar. Kirishima, on the other hand, activated his Quirk and shot up like a cork, floating completely on the surface, flailing as he tried to swim but his hardened flesh was apparently very buoyant.

Bakugo, meanwhile, didn't quite make it to shore, but landed on the Mannequin, using it almost as a surfboard, still propelling himself on his explosions until he ran the person he was 'saving' into the ground.

"I don't think you're supposed to do that to drowning people, ribbit," Tsu commented drolly.

"He's not drowning anymore, ain't he?" the explosive teen sneered. "And I actually got to him! Not like anyone else could-"

The Mannequin at his feet glowed purple again, the effect tamping down after the initial flare, and the fake-person lifted up, drifted over to the Pussycats, and planted itself, standing, in front of them.

". . . You already had it, didn't ya, Zombie?" he questioned Yanagi, who pulled her hand back, resting it again by her waist, and only then did I realize that her stance was mirroring the stereotypical appearance of undead in Asian mythology, she was just missing the odd hat with the paper seal over her face. But, wasn't that Chinese zombies? I thought, but it checked out, according to Denki's memories.

"Yeah," the girl replied, sounding tired. "Can't move people, but it wasn't a person."

Bakugo stared at the girl, narrowing his eyes. "Can you grab people's clothing?"

She shook her head. "No. It's part of them."

The explosive teen nodded, "Then I could take ya."

"How 'bout if you move something, and then they put it on?" Mina questioned, while Bakugo dismissed the telekentic as a threat.

As the other students made their way back to us, Yanagi shook her head, "Then it's part of them."

"Is it a percent mass thing?" I wondered aloud. "Because you still had it when Bakugo held onto it, so something bigger might work, but how would you utilize it?"

"Oooh!" Mina grinned, having sat in on the brainstorming sessions Mei and I had. "Could you make a hoverboard and fly it around? That'd be totes amazeballs!"

"Indeed. All of the amazeballs," I agreed, teasing my girlfriend for her terminology, the pink-skinned cutie rolling her eyes fondly. "Do you have measurements of the lift force?" I inquired, mentally sketching out ideas. "Newtons, pound-force, Joules?"

~Oh, diamonds are small, so a lot?~ Pony offered in English, having been listening in, along with a number of class 1-B. Switching to Japanese, she informed me, "She can't move as much as my horns, but she can move a lot of things, so it'd be the same as me if they were. . . in a bag?"

It took me a second, but I shook my head. "No, not jewels, J-O-U-L-E-S, it's a unit of energy, really a watt-second, but also how much to move one kilogram of mass one meter at one meter per second. . ." I looked around at the blank looks from my classmates, except for Momo who just nodded along. Mina and, surprisingly, Mandalay, just looked amused. "General guesstimates are fine for general stuff, but if you had actual measurements, I could draw something up, and tell you if it was possible," I offered, already getting some ideas if that was the issue, though I'd need the specifics for what, exactly, her power considered 'separate' from a person, or separate from each other, assuming that was even an issue, "or, like, if you were limited in per-item force vectors, I could figure out a way around it."

The grey-haired girl stared at me, a little wide-eyed. "I. . . .Uh. . ."

"Don't worry, girl, Sparky's just like that with everyone," Mina grinned.

"Like what?" I questioned, clearly missing something.

My girlfriend just laughed, shaking her head as the last of our classes, now soaked, gathered up.

Mandalay clapped, getting everyone's attention. "Now, I'm sure some of you noticed that your Quirks didn't work quite like you thought they would!" she called. "It certainly Cat-ched you by surprise!

"Yeah!" Kirishima agreed, shaking his head, and not commenting on that terrible pun. "I couldn't do anything. That was seriously not manly! Why'd that even happen anyways?"

"Hardness doesn't equal density, I guess?" I offered. "When you crystallize something happens that makes you more like a battleship? Same weight, but arranged differently?"

Tetsutetsu frowned. "Then what about me? Battleships are made of metal."

Midoriya answered for me, "Well, your Quirk makes you metal, but you don't change shape. So, while it might look that your Quirks are similar, the mechanics of how they function seem to almost be opposites!"

Kendo added with a smile, "But how you use them is exactly the same."

"Well, yeah! We're both manly dudes!" the red-head grinned, slamming one crystalline fist against Tetsutetsu's steel one.

The big-handed martial artist rolled her eyes, while Pixie-Bob took up the explanation of what we were doing. "We're gonna have you take an hour to splash about, find out what Quirks can do in the water, and then it'll be sink or swim time! I can't wait to see meow you kittens will do!"

"I don't know how much time they took to learn how to make those puns, but it was too long," Jiro noted, arms folded.

"Ah, come on, Jiro. You're sayin' you're not. . . feline it?" Mina teased, laughing at the jacked teen's groan. Grabbing my hand, my girlfriend dragged me towards the shore, smiling, even as I wondered how, exactly, my Quirk would interact with such a large body of water.

Reaching it, I started to turn a limb to lightning, before I realized that, if this went badly, Mina was right there. "Uh, lemme get some space," I warned, toggling OfA and leaping forward a good thirty feet, shifting my legs to lightning as I hit the surface, only to. . . land?

I bobbed slightly, on the surface, my feet feeling. . . odd. Lifting one, completely dry from the knees up, it was still electricity, but I almost immediately started to overbalance and had to put my pseudo-foot down, the spike stabbing into the waves and then spiderwebbing out in every direction. Tongues of electricity arced out like a tesla coil, creating an odd sort of spherical pseudo-displacement, which I realized I was shifting subconsciously to keep me stable.

So of course, the second I concentrated on it, the entire thing seized up and dumped me, face-first, into the lake.

Thankfully, Denki knew how to do that stupid 'slowly exhale through your nose' thing, something I'd never figured out in my last life, so it wasn't that bad as I tried to surface, only to have my electric legs keep me submerged. I panicked for a single moment, before I realized I was being dumb, and let them snap back to normal. Shifting arms electric didn't shoot me upwards, but actually served to anchor me exactly where I was, three feet under water, which. . . made zero sense.

Am I. . . grabbing the water? I wondered, trying to flex my electrical body, spread out like it was, but it was. . . difficult. And I was kind of having the problem of not being able to breathe. Snapping my arms back, I swam to the surface, breaching and taking a deep, lung filling gulp of air.

"You 'kay, Sparky?" Mina distantly called.

"Yeah, gimme a sec, though. I. . . I'm trying something," I called back. Trying Denki's original electrical powers, I released a bit of charge, only for it to be practically sucked out of me, some of the energy slamming right back into my chest, which I thankfully could just re-absorb.

Note to self, don't use electricity when submerged in the conductive material.

Shifting my arms to electricity once more , they just spread out in every direction under the surface at my shoulder, which didn't help my circumstances at all, but narrowing the shifted areas down to my hands let me leverage myself up a little with pure muscle power. With my arms out of the water, I could shift them back to lightning and use that to lift up the rest of me completely, shifting feet as well to once-more stand on the surface of the lake.

Taking a few steps, it was difficult to make it work, but by not focusing on it that was somehow easier. I'd need to figure out the mechanics, eventually, but for right now this was good enough. Starting up OfA again, it somehow smoothed everything out, because of course it did.

And, yes, there was the slightest nudge against my Defences, which I promptly ignored.

Jogging over, Mina looked up at me. "You know you're supposed to swim in the lake, right Sparky?" she questioned teasingly.

"Tomato, Potato," I smiled. "But can you try and feel out the area around my feet? I need to know if this is a problem in the field."

She nodded, not hesitating, wading over, hands carefully outstretched. Getting in range, the freely flickering arcs of electricity started hitting her fingers, but instead of pulling her hand back, she just giggled. "Tingly," she commented, at my concerned look, as I squatted down to see what happened. Pushing her hands deeper into the field, the bits of lightning curled around her arms, and I could sort of. . . feel her, in a way that was hard to describe.

Concentrating, I tried to 'grab' her, only for my girlfriend to stumble. I caught her with a normal hand, but, as she tried to move her arm, she couldn't, and I could feel her tug on my leg, but OfA meant my strength far outstripped hers, at least with her in such an awkward position.

Shooting me an amused look, Mina did. . . something, and not only did she lift up, the very lake itself moved with her, throwing me backwards, and once more dumping me right back into the lake.

Sputtering, I snapped back to normal and surfaced, the water moving around me, gripping me ever so slightly, and putting me back on my feet.

"W-what?" I sputtered, spitting out water, with just a hint of something else in it, as Mina laughed, and, looking down, there was something. . . off about the way light was hitting the lakebed beneath us. Following my instincts, I toggled my copy of Mina's Quirk, only for another sensation to bloom in my mind, and I understood.

I wasn't standing in water, I was standing in acid.

An incredibly weak acid, and it wasn't solid, but a spread-out three-dimensional matrix that took me a moment to truly understand what the hell I was looking at, as the entire thing was slowly swirling with the slight currents of the lake itself, spinning back and around us with just the slightest bit of force.

"Holy shit, Mina," I murmured, eyes wide, trying to figure out everything she could possibly do with this.

Grinning, she nodded, "I know, right? Now come-on! Momma wants some sugah!"

The acid shifted and flexed, picking me up off my feet and shoving me forward, into her open arms. Moving with her, I was able to exert just enough control of the viscus substance to let me hit the ground as I got to her, shifting a foot to lightning to post, picking my girlfriend up and spinning her around in the pseudo-water, as she moved the fluid around us to make the motion even more over the top, coming in close for a kiss, that was. . .

Needed.

For a moment I wasn't worried about the incoming Villain attack, an attack that might never come. I wasn't worried about All-for-One's open 'invitation'. I just was with a person who loved me, and who I had a strong feeling I loved in return, even if I didn't have her means of checking, and enjoyed her presence.

"Hey you two!" the green-haired pussycat calls out, and I could tell she's talking to us. "You don't have time to pussy foot around!"

Pulling back, I murmur, "I'm literally going to kill her."

"Litter-ly?" my girl questions, leaning in for a quick, much chaste-er kiss on the tip of my nose. "They're getting to you."

"They're going to get something, that's for sure," I promise, letting go of Mina, though she still catches my hand, squeezing it, and I take a long breath to get my head back in the game. "Okay, I can anchor myself, which might be useful, but most of my powerset's pretty useless here," I admitted.

"What about, ya know, your strength?" she questioned, glancing over to Midoriya, who was swimming at super speed in a way that makes the more scientifically inclined parts of my brain hurt, as, with the nature of fluid dynamics, you can't just 'swim, but harder', without the minor forces launching you up into the air, underwater, and certainly not without being pushed off-course unless you had a lot more mass than little green did.

But. . . Quirks were kinda bullshit, I was starting to learn.

No, they're just science I haven't understood yet, I corrected. The boy was somehow compensating in ways that should take a shit ton of training, and maybe even a secondary-power to achieve, and he was doing so naturally, which was just another data-point in my quest to make sense of this bullshit.

"I'm him, but, like, a quarter power, probably less," I shrugged. I was absolutely growing my copy of his Quirk, which was taking time, while he was just at a constant 'how much can I take' feed. Theoretically, with time and training, the gap between us would be enough to start bootstrapping me to catch up with him the more I saw him use it, and it was probably a factor in my growth already, but the back-end of how my Talent worked was convoluted enough that I couldn't understand it.

Yet.

Shaking my head, I told Mina, "I've got the basics of what I can do. It's pretty straightforward, I just needed to check I wasn't a danger. You, on the other hand, are going to be an absolute terror, if this works like I think I might." Cycling OfA, I let go of her completely, backing up until I was no longer touching her acid, that tiny sliver of her power only really useful for detecting her strong version. "So, step one, you've got all that, lets see how well you can use it."

Lifting a hand, a small 'waterspout' formed next to her, wobbling unstably, and she commented, "Pretty well, Sparky."

"But we're gonna be underwater, and speed is vital in these sorts of scenarios," I argued. Shooting me a confused look, she froze as I shot an electric arm up over the surface, and booped her on the nose. "Tag, you're it!"

I barely caught the movement under the water, but I leapt backwards, her attempt to grab me under the surface with acid missing me, the displaced water giving the closeness of her attempt away. "Oh it's on, Sparky!" my girlfriend giggled, gliding forward through the water with ease, as I turned around and tried to figure out how Midoriya was making this bullshit work, with adorable doom hot on my heels.

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