Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first thought that went through my head at the sight of UA was large . For someone of my stature, that was certainly saying something. The school was massive, from its giant sports stadium, to the enormous training facilities, even the main hall looked like four of my old high schools banded together. The doors were big enough to fit a truck though; my chassis didn’t even scrape the top as I entered.

I could not explain how much relief that gave me. Well, no, that’s not true. There were a number of different ways I could explain it. Kilojoules of energy that I would have spent while processing these problems throughout the day. The liters of coolant per hour needed to help fight off a red hot blush, glowing with embarrassment. Terabytes of memory filled with every single humiliating second to analyze later in order to make sure nothing like it ever happened again.

I could explain the amount of relief quite easily, in fact. I just don’t want to. Excesses are best removed. 

Suffice to say, all the worrying I’d done last night about how a three meter tall, one meter wide, polymer-coated android was going to manage to fit through doors meant for ordinary human beings was all for naught. 

It seems I wasn’t the first “unique” student to pass through these halls. It did make me feel a little bit better. My first steps into UA felt right, and not only because of the inertial dampeners. I felt like I’d achieved something I’d been aiming for since the moment we’d woken up in this wacky, backwards world. 

I was going to be a hero.

And yes, I knew people were still staring despite all that, but that was just something I had gotten used to ignoring. At least, pretending to ignore. It didn’t really bother me too much these days, honestly. 

I prayed that it would start to fall off over time. That hadn’t really happened at my last school, but that hadn’t been UA. Even with mutation powers being much more of a thing here, I tended to stand out no matter where I went. And the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. 

I was hoping I wasn’t the first person like me to attend. 

It was a desperate hope, a deep and painful little thing that stuck to my heart until it felt like it’d overflow, gunking up servos and getting onto my motherboards. The kind of hope that felt like broken seats and cramped desks. It felt like sitting alone in the back of the room, recording notes to try and copy down later with pencil and paper far too fragile to trust. It felt like smashing through the wooden stairs as everyone from my homeroom stared at me in shock.

I expunged the thoughts from my head the second I realized they were there. This wasn’t that crappy middle school and this definitely wasn’t Bet. None of that mattered anymore. Matt and I had both made it into UA despite everything put against us. This was going to be our brand new start.

Clinically, I was aware that I had “moods,” as Matt liked to refer to them and I could feel myself working up to one. A good one this time. I couldn’t help it; my speakers let out a squeal as I threw my arms in the air, punching a hole straight through the tile ceiling. Sheepishly, I raised them back down and tried to ignore the increased looks shot my way. 

I spent too much time in my lab, a discussion/argument I had at least once a week. Everything there was made for me, built specifically to accommodate and contain and deal with little accidents. Being so tall in a world so fragile always took some getting used to when I finally ventured outside. 

There was a spring in my step as I neared the doors to 1A— the floor didn’t even creak under all five hundred pounds of me! I did have to duck to enter, but I made it through easily enough. The class was half-full— I’d grown used to arriving early to avoid crowds as much as possible— but still everyone turned to look the second I walked in. I recognized one or two from my entrance exams, but most were a mystery.

“Oh sweet,” a blond haired boy yelled, jumping out of his desk the second he saw me, “a test already. Dibs on the villain bot!”

“Hey, no fair!” The red-head sitting next to him yelled out, body changing as he rushed to beat his friend.

I frowned. During the entrance exam it had been made painfully obvious that my previous appearance was not going to work. I’d had to fight off some of the students trying to defeat me . Something needed to be done.

Over the last few weeks, I’d upgraded my chassis in a frenzy from my previous box-y designs to more of an ovular shape. It removed many of the weak points inherent in something with corners while avoiding the movement issues of a giant, spherical robot. With a few alterations, it even gave me a more feminine appearance which was something I was not willing to settle on. 

If a single person called me “dude” when they saw me, I was rocket-punching them through a wall. 

 It was a work of engineering genius, if I didn’t say so myself. Layers of polymer, ceramic and metal cocooned machinery and my more vulnerable, squishy parts. Filtered air was pumped in to keep an AC unit running to protect control systems that ran a bit hot. A gel filled cushion running underneath my armor insulated my core like a womb. Within this technological masterpiece, it was very easy to feel like nothing in the world could hurt me. After all, I’d designed it to get as close to that as I possibly could.

So it was no surprise that the burst of electricity Blondie had been building up did about as much to me as trying to run current through a hunk of wood.

“Hah, nice try bro!” His friend shouted, body finishing up its final changes.

Brute, I immediately classified him as and targeting systems labeled him in a bright red. Despite myself, the HUD color caused a cold sliver of concern to start worming through my arteries. When engineering something, there is always an understanding that you are never going to make the perfect system. There is no impenetrable defense, no error-less program, and no design that doesn’t at least have some faults. You may get close in one aspect, maybe even achieve something rivaling perfection, but it will always come at the cost of issues elsewhere. 

There was one tiny little issue with my body and it was that, while strong, the durability needed working on. I needed more time to formulate a better poly-alloy, you understand I’m sure, and I’d had to make due with what worked just to have something I could actually move around in before UA opened its doors. I really didn’t think they’d enjoy seeing what I looked like not contained in my suit.

The problem was thus: enough good hits and I was cracking open like an egg in the microwave.

His fist was rushing towards my chest, but my arm was faster. I clamped his wrist in one clawed hand and moved quickly enough to grab the other before he got any ideas. He just looked shocked, like he hadn’t expected me to fight back. 

I hadn’t even broken anything! I was so glad all those tests I’d run on glass jars hadn’t had any miscalculations. 

Both offenders were frozen on the spot, confused that I hadn’t been willing to just stand there and break down. They were as stiff as mannequins. 

I kill myself, I really do. 

“Don’t you find it untoward to touch a lady without her permission?”

My voice was a thing of beauty. It wasn’t quite human, but neither was I. Something more a mix of man and machine. Melodic and almost auto tuned, but still easily understandable. It was distinctly me in a way that couldn’t be mistaken for anything but. 

My suit quickly picked up my mood and the display screen where my face was supposed to be projected eyes and a mouth in an angry expression. It was bare bones, just some LEDs on a screen essentially, but I hadn’t quite decided on what I wanted to look like and this was a nice stop gap.

My hands let go and both boys took a step back. 

“You’re a student?” 

The look I gave them was withering. I put my hands on my hips and leaned forward. “What else would I be?”

Both were too browbeaten to answer. The red-head held his hands up and with a few muttered apologies, they wandered back to their desks. 

They looked properly admonished, so I let them back off. A quick glance around and I was shocked at how few people were eying me afterwards; it didn’t look like I’d even made a stir. 

This was the hero class. I guess weirdness was the norm.

It wasn’t difficult to spot my desk. It had been put at the very back up against the window and was nearly twice as large as the others. I couldn’t help the smile and was positively thrumming with excitement as I made my way towards it. 

Thrumming turned to trembling turned to fidgets as the clock dragged on. To stave off breaking anything else in the room, I decided to keep my mind distracted. A few design documents opened up on my view screen and I started running through files, figuring out improvements on my current set up. It was on my mind after the fight and I wondered if it wasn’t too late to make a few last minute changes between periods. My normal functions fell back onto autopilot as I went through the comfortable task of sorting out blueprints, tinkering away at compositional upgrades. 

I probably would have been like that for the next hour if my alarm hadn’t gone off. 

I nearly jumped out of the seat and thanked myself for remembering to set in delays on movement. My viewscreen came back on and the classroom that unfolded in front of me couldn’t have been more different. Every seat was brimming with students and the buzz of frenzied conversation filled the air. A pale girl with a white bobcut play acting as a ghost was talking listlessly to a guy with his black hair pulled back in a ponytail. A guy with spiky blond hair had leaned so far back in his seat I was sure he would fall over. Three teenagers were yelling at each other in the doorway to the class. 

“I’m happy to see I won’t be the tallest girl in class this year,” a voice said from my side.

I turned to face a girl with her long black hair pulled back in a ponytail. She had a hint of a smile on her face as she looked me over. 

“You might not be surprised to hear I get that a lot.” 

A laugh; I got her to laugh! 

“Please, forgive me if I’m being forward, but I must ask. Is that something you grow?” She asked, gesturing to my arm. 

“Nope,” I said, “all me. Though you’d be surprised at the amount of work I put into fine tuning the material. It isn’t as simple as growing; I need to work on all of it myself from the ground up.” 

It was the truth, even if she would get the wrong idea from it. I gave a few tentative flexes; not as if I had muscle to flex, but it conveyed a similar idea. 

“We will need to share notes, I believe my quirk may work in similar ways,” she said, reaching her arm out. “Momo Yaoyorozu. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” 

I clasped her hand and shook as gently as possible. “Alexis Gramme, and likewise.” 

It was times like these I was thankful I didn’t have a normal human face, because I knew my smile would have stretched ear to ear. My first friend from the class, on my very first day!

I couldn’t wait to tell Matt about this.

Chapter Text

Did you know? The origin of the word classroom is actually a mistranslation. See, back in the sixteenth century, teaching was done in rooms with lots of glass in order to maximize the amount of sunlight they had to work with. Ergo, they were called glass-rooms. Funny, right? One little typo and suddenly there's an entire genre of architecture born. Same thing happened in Australia, actually. Only a century later, one Captain James Cook had his men sail towards that large landmass due south, and they found the Aboriginal people. And one of the sailors pointed to the animals that hopped around and put their babies in their pouch. And he asked what they were. And the Aborigines said kangaroo. It wasn't until much, much later that they learned that kangaroo means I don't understand.

Neither of those things are true. But humanity loves its fun little stories. What really happened is that prisons are just as good at keeping children in as they are adults, and the English sailors killed far more than they talked to the people whose land they were taking. Not fun or little, hm? No. History rarely is, save in small bursts of goodness or levity. To elucidate yourself on humanity’s past is to confront humanity itself; ergo, you observe man to be a very spiteful and cruel beast when given the chance. Power corrupts as swiftly as the earth tumbles through space— if you’re curious, that clocks in around sixty-seven thousand miles per hour. There is no greater accelerant than power over another man, when it comes to the complete collapse of one’s ethics. And now, at this point in time, every eight out of ten children have the potential to be born an arsenal unto themselves. What do you expect to happen to a brain not even fully developed when it’s given such power, when full adults succumb so easily?

And they wonder why cynicism is becoming more common.

I sigh, and try to rearrange the tracks of my runaway train. At least the scenery here was better than my last school. I honestly couldn’t even tell you what it looked like. Imagine a highschool. Imagine a lack of funding due to the state of America as a direct result of— no, no, damn it, happy thoughts. The grounds. They were nice. Almost impossibly nice, honestly. Grass good enough to be part of a golf course, with lots of healthy trees stretching up to a crisp, deep sky. I don’t think the last campus I was on even had grass. We had to make do with gravel and concrete, or…something like that.

I turn back to the board, and an empty chalkboard is so uninspiring I cannot even find a way to wax poetically about it. Okay I could, but even I have my limits for indulging in the melodramatic. At least, when there’s no purpose to it. I return to doodling in my notebook— not in the spaces I’d presumably need for notetaking, don’t worry. I find it calming to draw little roses by overlaying hexagon-esque shapes until you have a mathematically equal bloom— at least as close as my informally trained hand could get.

“That’s nice.” An unfamiliar voice, in English no less, brings me out of that state of focus that art has a tendency to inspire. I glance to the left and…well, it shames me to admit it, but the first thing I notice about the owner of the voice was her horns. I know, I know, how very uncouth of me.

“Thank you,” I respond, giving a flustered smile. “Little piece of advice I picked up somewhere. If you like looking at your notebooks, you’re more likely to remember what you put in them.”

“Ohhh, I'll have to remember that. I can’t draw to save my life but I love collecting stickers!”

“Whatever works, right? And if you don’t mind my saying, your English is excellent. I’d make some joke about being an obvious tourist but I’m sure you’ve heard that before.”

“Well, I should hope my english is good,” The girl says, a slight southern twang seeping into her voice. “I’m from America too. Did the blond hair and blue eyes not tip you off?” I make a show of glancing around the room, eyes lingering on my fellow classmates that look a bit more…esoteric than the others. It’s a struggle to not call them Case 53’s.

“Given the rather fluid nature of appearances thanks to quirks, I do my best to disregard physical traits altogether. Can’t spell assumptions without ass.” My poor attempt at word play pays off, and I get a snort out of her.

“Fair enough. My name is Pony Tsunotori, by the way. Pleased to meet you.” A hand, I shake— wait.

“Your parents named you…” I don’t even finish the sentence but she’s already rolling her eyes.

“Yeah. My mom was uh, pretty out of it when I was born, since the horns didn’t exactly make that whole process less painful. So she was very high on the good stuff when she first saw me, and…well.” She sighs with a shrug. “Not a whole lot I can do about it till I turn seventeen. Trust me, I’ve heard all the jokes.” I give a sympathetic grin.

“Well, at least here most people will just go by Tsunotori. I’m Matthew, by the way. Matthew Addams. But you can just call me Matt.”

“You can call me Tsuno!” There’s a particular edge to her smile. An illness that she’s trying to hide with exuberance and what she hopes to be quick wit. It’s an infectious disease called loneliness. Another thing we have in common, then.

“If we’re doin introductions,” drawls a voice from my right and I turn to see a smile with a very different kind of edge to it. More deliberate, practiced and polished. “Setsuna Tokage. Please and thank you and all of that. So you two are both from overseas, huh?”

“Mh. I came fairly recently by way of a transfer program. Suffice to say I’m very happy to be at a relatively clean highschool for a change.” Tsuno groaned beside me.

“I know, right? I swear, when I first got here I couldn’t believe how much better the air was, to say nothing of the streets. I kept expecting to find hidden alleyways with piles of trash in them or something.”

“Is it really that bad in the US of A?” Setsuna’s smile turns into something less deliberate and more genuine as she brushes some of her dark…green? Hair out of her face. “With how much All Might loves to talk about his time there, you’d think it would live up to the hype.”

“Well, I’m sure the governing body of my esteemed homeland is more than happy to let a famous hero talk up their country. They get good press without having to do any actual work. It’s their favorite thing in the world, besides the military industrial complex.” I spin my pencil through a familiar set of motions in my hands. “But enough about that. Do the two of you think —”

My question dies as the bell rings, and we all make an attempt to look more studious as a hero walks in.

Vlad King is an intimidating figure. He stands at over six feet tall at a guess, with a frame that doesn’t so much imply then it does shout his status as a bodybuilder. Between that and the oversized incisors he has peeking out from his lips, he’s an imposing figure.

“Hello,” he rumbles, voice about as baritone as you’d expect. “I am Vlad King. You may address me as Mr. Vlad, as Mr. King is and always will be Elvis Presley.” The joke takes a second to land, and then the more musically acquainted students chuckle a little, and he even gets a half-hearted whoop from a black-haired student a few chairs over from me. “Welcome to Homeroom— I will be your main instructor over your next three years at UA. I’m sure that you’re all familiar with the terms and expectations for your stay here, so I won’t bore you all with it. Instead, I’d like for us all to get to know each other first, and begin with some basic exercises. If you could, as I take attendance, rise and tell us three things about yourself: your preferred name, one of your hobbies, and your quirk.”

Icebreakers. My mortal enemy. We go down the list as formal names follow nicknames and confessions of mundane hobbies, capstoned by a quirk and quick questions from the rest of the class. Some of them catch my interest— fusion, telekinesis, gigantism. As the line begins to move towards me, I do my best to steel myself.

The last few weeks have been…rough. I’ve only had one person I can count on. And I love her, with all my heart, no questions asked. But this place, UA… well, it’s my shot. Our one shot to get some kind of normalcy. Normalcy, at a highschool designed to pump out superheroes. It’d be funny, if it wasn’t for everything else. And this could screw my chances of making friends, because one thing we’d learned very quickly is that this place wasn’t that much different from back home— appearances were everything.

“Matthew Addams,” Vlad intones, and I rise, forcing a smile on my face.

“Hi.” I say. “You can call me Matt, it’s easier. I’m a fan of English literature and mythology. And my quirk is edge projection.”

The class stares, eyes locked on me like sharks smelling blood. I keep smiling.

Hopefully, I can make it through the school year before anyone realizes I have the same power as a notorious serial killer.

Chapter Text

It must have been at least three years since I’d stepped foot in a cafeteria. Due to my…let’s say unique setup, I obviously didn’t, and often couldn’t, eat in the same way other people did. I mean yes, I still needed some type of nutrition— at least for now— but I didn’t really need normal food for that. I had put together a paste long ago that could feed the parts of me that still needed nourishment. 

Heading to a cafeteria was just a way to put myself in an unpleasant situation. I didn’t want to be taking up space in an incredibly crowded room full of hungry kids. It was just a lot easier to go off and be by myself. 

But, Matt had been clear we would be meeting here and my excitement on my first day had worn down any apprehension I had. The cafeteria wasn’t like I was expecting either. No rush of kids like I had grown used to at my old school. They must have staggered the classes or something, because the line was orderly and smooth and I didn’t feel boxed in by the press of bodies— not that most people ever dared to touch me, but my personal space was close enough. 

There wasn’t really a line so I moved past the counter only giving a quick glance at the food laid out on metal trays. It was a good variety, every type of cuisine you could imagine, probably to help with a pretty large and diverse student body.

I caught eyes with the chef. Well, no that wasn’t the right word. You couldn’t see anything about him beneath the massive pipe covering his face, or his baggy clothes. In fact, I couldn’t see anything human about him. And despite his missing face, I could tell he was staring right at me. 

I froze on the spot, a million thoughts processing in a second. Was that a robot? Why else have the pipe? Was this another person who’d enhanced themselves like me or was this an actual sentient robot? I wasn’t sure if that was a thing this universe had and it was something I definitely should know.  

Was there some protocol here I wasn’t picking up on? It’s not like I could ask and I didn’t think he’d tell me anyway. I knew that I certainly wouldn’t. He couldn’t know the truth about me, right? They’d probably kick me out if they ever found out exactly what I was. Neither of us moved, neither of us spoke. I was pretty sure nobody even noticed the internal battle we were having, him and I.

Then, he gave me one singular slow nod and I returned it. Siblings in steel, or something like that.

He gestured down to the plates and I realized I’d been caught in a trap. I couldn’t just walk away, that would be so embarrassing and he would probably hate me if I di.. But I didn’t want to take food only to throw it away, that would be a waste!  The food all looked pretty good, and I’m sure it probably smelled twice as great. I grabbed a tray with beef and rice, backing away without a word. 

Out of all the heroes I’d met so far, he felt like the most dangerous one. I’d need to avoid him in the future. 

There were several downsides to being so tall, things that wore down on me day after day after day. But there were of course upsides— I wouldn’t have designed myself so big otherwise— and aside from its obvious tactical advantages, it was very useful for situations like this. I towered over everyone else, especially since most of them were sitting, and it was short work to spot a familiar crop of black hair. 

Matt had already grabbed a table, looking over something on his phone. I didn’t need to even say anything before he turned his head just enough to catch my eye. 

“Matt,” I called out, maybe a bit too high pitched because I saw everyone jump around us. Matt just waved me over as he took a bite from his chicken wrap.

I sat down, happy to not feel the table bend like cheap plywood underneath me. I wasn’t sure what to do with the food so I just dropped it and turned to face my compatriot, leaning far enough forward that I was almost touching him. Close enough I didn’t think others would hear us.

“Hey Alexis,” he said.

“Matt, I take back everything I said. This is the greatest, this is the best!” 

The slight grin morphed into a genuine smile, but with Matt you could really never be sure.

“I’m guessing class went well then?”

“Well…no, the classes were kind of weird. The teacher was this lazy guy who just made us do a bunch of different tests. Running, jumping, hitting, that sort of thing. It was to determine who was getting kicked out. Obviously I got top of my class, but…”

As I kept talking, Matt’s smile slowly morphed into a less happy expression. Oh, right, the expulsion; that was probably a bad thing. I could imagine how I would have felt if I had gotten kicked out after everything we did to get here. I changed my expression to something more solemn. 

“I made a friend,” I said as a finale, “But I can tell you more about her later. How’d you like your classes?” 

Matt gave a little shrug and returned to his food. “Good,” he said, “Vlad King seems like a good teacher. None of my classmates seemed to recognize anything about my powers, so that’s one worry in the clear, hopefully. I’ll try to make sure I don’t stand out until I have a better grasp on the dynamics when it comes to p— quirks of unsettling natures.. I’d tell you to do so as well but…” 

“Yeah,” I said, gesturing at myself, “it’s not like I can’t stand out.”

“No, not that,” Matt said quickly. “I don’t think you could stop yourself from trying to excel. You just need to be careful. There’s a lot we don’t know right now. Too many things that could unintentionally prove just how much we’re outsiders.”

Matt could get paranoid about that sort of thing, but he wasn’t wrong. It was surprisingly hard to remember that we didn’t really belong here, after the day I’ve had.

“I wanna just have my chance to be a good person,” I said, quiet enough that I wasn’t really sure Matt could hear. “I don’t know how we got here and maybe I never will, but I wanna just get that chance. Even if it’s all lies, it’s…”

“Not all lies,” Matt interjected, a soft smile on his face. “You want to be a good person. There’s just some things we can’t tell the truth about. But everyone has their secrets, and I hope that people won’t begrudge us ours. All the same, I don’t want our shot at a decent life here to be ruined by carelessness. Case in point,” his voice dropped to a murmur, “We should do our best to avoid the principal. He might look like an overgrown mouse, but according to hearsay, he’s got a thinker power, and a scarily broad one at that. We have to make sure to avoid catching anyone’s attention.” 

Not really a problem, I don’t think I’d ever gotten sent to the principal’s office, though that was hard to say. There wasn’t a lot I remembered from before and I wasn’t sure if that was the process that had gotten us here or my own bad memory when it came to non-tinker things. I remembered a weak child who spent her time lurking in shadows and slowly dying. Doubt and suspicion from every angle until it felt like I’d be crushed under the pressure. 

I hadn’t asked Matt how much he remembered. It all felt too personal.

“You’re not gonna manage to get my mood down,” I admitted.

“Not what I intended,” Matt assured, his smile returning, “I just want to be sure I’m keeping you on track. Speaking of that, have you eaten anything today?”

Ugh, this again. Matt and I had gone through this same argument at least a dozen times these past few weeks and I just couldn’t seem to shake him off my case. I glared down at the tray. I knew I shouldn’t have taken it. 

“I don’t need that much to sustain my biological functions.” 

“Alex,” Matt chided, “you need to care about more than keeping your organs running.” 

I rolled my eyes as childishly as I could and allowed my suit to open up. Not truly, that would be such an obvious weak point that I think I’d have a heart attack installing a function like that. No, a small slot popped free near where a mouth would be on a normal person and I poured food into it. It sealed back up and my suit went right to processing it.

“Are you happy?” I not-quite snapped, looking at Matt’s disapproving frown.

“I know that it’s difficult for you, Alexis.” Matt said, not unkindly. “And I’m sorry I can’t do more than ask you about it. But I feel compelled to, when you skip several meals.” 

I glanced away, embarrassed he’d caught me. I hadn’t been hungry the last few days, so what was the point? There was so much work I needed to get done and it wasn’t a big deal. 

Matt sighed, uncannily able to pick up on what I was thinking. “Look, we’re in a high-stress situation. We’ve been here for weeks, and I know that reverting to old habits is one of the few comforts we have. I just worry about you when you don’t leave the apartment for days. Now that we’re here at UA, I was hoping you’d get out more.” 

"Well, yeah. Look at me, I’ve been out all day."

"You know what I mean, Alexis."

"Yes,” I bit out, “I went on a walk to the hardware store last week."

Matt and I both knew the hardware store was only a block away, but a walk was a walk. It shouldn’t be a big deal. It wasn’t a big deal, and I don’t know why he was being such an asshole about it. He sighed, rubbing his temple.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t wanna rehash this on our first day here. I just…you’re my best friend, Alexis. And we don’t have anyone else here, so I feel…I dunno, I feel like we need to look out for each other. And that means I need to ask you to do things I know you don’t want to. It’s not that I want to upset you, I just… I worry about you. That’s all.” 

Something seized in me at the face he made. If I was capable of crying, I would have. I was being such a jerk. I got ready to launch into how much he meant to me, but was shushed in a second by Matt. “Incoming, someone I met. We’ll talk later. Hey, Pony!” He said, his usual grin taking over his face. 

I pushed my emotions to the side as best I could and turned to see a girl heading our way. She was blond with large ram horns. I’d thought before of adding something similar on my suit— maybe spikes if I wanted to be like a walking reverse iron maiden— but there were just too many potential issues with cracking or breaking to try and work around. Maybe something for my arms…

“Pony, this is Alexis, my friend for…well, a long time now.” 

I let myself smile and reached out a hand. “Nice to meet you!”

I pretend not to notice the weird look in her eyes while she gave me a once over or the second she paused before finally returning my hand shake. 

“Yeah, good to meet you too. Are you in the support group?” 

“Nope, 1A,” I said with a peace sign.

“Alexis got the top score,” Matt added.

Pony’s eyebrows shot up and the smile I made was much more genuine. “Yeah, that Bakugo guy was pretty mad about it, but we worked it out in the end.”

Matt’s eyes slid over to me and even though he didn’t say anything, it felt like he just read me like a book. Bakugo had been more than “pretty mad.” He’d threatened me, he’d insulted me, and he’d probably have gone farther if the teacher hadn’t decided to appear and tell us we were all failures. 

Hopefully that wouldn’t be a problem later. Who could possibly care that much about getting second?  

“Did you want to sit?” Matt asked, ever the gentleman. For as far back as I could remember, he’d been the social bone of the weird, haphazard body of our friendship, since I was about as conversational as a particularly charming spoon. He was the one who made sure I had someone to be with when he was busy, the one who made plans to spend time with other people. Without him, I think I would have been alone for most of my life.

Pony did, eagerly. “Thanks, I really wanted to talk with some other people who know English. Still getting used to the language here.”

“Then you should probably be talking in Japanese,” I said, “you won’t be getting any better if you don’t practice your pronunciations after all.” 

She made a face and Matt stepped in. “Still, everyone needs the chance to just talk and I’m sure you’d want people who are at least acquainted with the things going on back home.”

Back home in America? That might be a sticking point. I could barely remember my time there, aside from the most mundane, boring parts of highschool. So much of my life then was this indistinct, gray blur. It was probably fine though, Matt could handle this conversation. Besides, if I misspoke or said something weird most people would just think I’m a crazy robot, not someone from a different world. 

“Is this seat taken?” Was asked from my right.

I didn’t need to turn to know who it was. “Momo! I wasn’t sure if you were going to sit with us.”

What did it say that I’d assumed she’d dip out on that invitation at the first chance?

“Of course, I wanted to continue our conversation on metal composites. I think I understood your idea on the different ways it could apply to how I use my power, but I wanted to pick your mind a bit before the next class. After all, I want to be sure I’m not getting sent home.”

I smiled as I started talking, going over the ideas I had recorded in my notes. This sort of thing was so much easier than small talk. My power did half the work and Momo was a joy to talk with. Matt and Pony got into a discussion on how different Japanese BBQ was right away— I didn’t really expect them to want to keep up with our conversation, it wasn’t a big deal.

Both of us had made friends already. It warmed my circuits, it really did. And it set me a little bit more at ease. Matt shouldn’t have to worry his head so much about how well we’d do fitting in on this world.

It seemed we were finding our place just fine. 

Chapter Text

It is a fundamental truth of the world that math is the worst subject within the schooling system. No potential for any kind of creativity or clever twists to find joy within the gray monotony, just rote memorization and applied logic. It’s like it was designed just to torture me and me specifically. I’m proud of being the kind of person who can find the positives in most things, but when it comes to math, the only upsides I see are so mundanely practical that it’s impossible to even fool myself into thinking this was fun. I had zero shame in asking (or just using) Alexis to help me with some of the more grueling questions back in our old school, but here that wasn’t an option— 1-B had different coursework then 1-A. At least our math teacher, a Ms. Honda, wasn’t a total slave driver. Even if some of my classmates had acted like she was, upon seeing the lack of a costume.

See, UA didn’t have the heroes themselves teach all the courses, that would have been ridiculous. After all, where would they have the time to get the necessary degrees and licenses to teach subjects like math and history given how blisteringly busy hero work is? No, ordinary people with the proper experience taught those classes, whereas the “hero courses” were taught by whoever had slotted out time for that hour, and the course itself was divided into subsections across the week. Quirk Combat, Search and Rescue, Costumes and Catchphrases (yes, seriously), Quirkless Combat, Hero Law, Quirk Strengthening, and then an elective class, which had a variety of topics we were allowed to choose from— I’d gone with Investigations. We had about a 4-3 ratio per day of regular highschool to hero courses, except for Saturday, which was only heroics.

A reward, if you were so inclined. I wasn’t. I had questions that needed answering, and it’d be hard to get them if I was too busy sweating my ass off. Thank god this place had decent showers— and the sensibility for privacy, each one being a small stall in and of itself. At last, high schools had realized literally no one liked public showers.

But here, awkwardness over showering is perhaps the least of my worries.

The least of my worries…

“Matthew? Is everything okay?’ I blink and look up at our instructor, her warm brown eyes wide with concern. While normally I’d find the amount of care odd, given how we were all hero-course kids, it made sense for teachers to be a little more sensitive to anyone who seemed to be having a moment. An emotionally struggling child is a tragedy, an emotionally struggling hero-to-be is a bomb ready to go off.

“Ah, my apologies, Miss Honda! I spaced out for a moment.” I say, giving her a small smile.

“No worries, we’ve all been there.” She assures. “And if I might say, your Japanese is really quite excellent! How long have you been practicing?”

“Ah, thank you. I had to really work on it to make sure I could fit in here,” I say. That is a lie, of course. I hadn’t even considered visiting Japan before I’d woken up in an unfamiliar apartment with Alexis. The two of us had…a very calm reaction, all things considered. By that I mean, we’d screamed, run out into the street, and very nearly gotten ran over by a car before calming down enough to try and guesstimate where we were— fortunately, neither of us were so much of a shut-in that we hadn’t recognized some of the kanji on storefront signs. I’d walked up to a man on his phone, prepared to painfully stumble through asking for help when he’d spoken and I’d understood him. Not that he sounded like he was speaking English to me, it was absolutely Japanese, but I’d all but instantly translated it in my head— and then I’d spoken back.

That had nearly sent Alexis and I into another screaming match, but we waited till we got back to “our” apartment beforehand, which was very adult of us, if I do say so myself. We hadn’t even thrown anything.

Regardless, to say I wanted to know how an entire language had gotten downloaded into our heads was an understatement. From what the two of us had remembered, it had been a perfectly ordinary goddamn day on Bet before we’d gone to sleep and woken up here. No cape encounters, no weird sensations, school had been as boring as usual, we’d gone back to my place (no parents for either of us, which had been half the reason we’d met; mandatory grief counseling. Both of us had a guardian, but Alexis’ wasn’t exactly stand-up, whereas mine was barely there half the time due to work trips, so the house was basically ours). Fallen asleep…boom.

There had been only one clue as to whoever was behind our sudden transdimensional immigration (and before you ask, yes, Alexis came up with that, not me.) After some digging into “our” lives, we’d discovered active applications for U.A, along with entire fake lives, complete with extremely convincing documentation. Someone had wanted us to attend this school. Wanted us to become heroes.

But that’s not all they’d done. Our powers had been more or less recognizable, you didn’t live on Bet and not pick it up. But those documents? Connected both of us to this world’s versions of those people. Mannequin— Alan Gramme— had been a hero here, one who’d died bravely in the line of duty along with his wife. No news reports had mentioned the existence of a daughter, but according to all the paperwork, Alexis was his kid. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if that got out, but we didn’t want the extra attention.

Jack Adams had been a serial killer All-Might had brought to Justice during his stay in America. But not before Jack had reached a near-triple digit body count. Small numbers compared to the man I remembered, but still. I guess some things are just immutable.

And according to the papers, I was his biological son.

I’m not, for the record. I just have his power, for…well, reasons unknown. Neither my mom or dad were serial killers, they were two average Americans who decided raising a kid would be just too much effort, you know? I can’t even blame them, really. Child-rearing? In this economy? Please. That’s nearly as hard as being a serial killer!

Sorry. That’s not important.

It’d been a really rough adjustment, to say the least. Navigating an entirely new world, and such a weird one at that. It was like a funhouse mirror version of Bet, everything half-a-step away from being familiar. History and conventions that were too close to be coincidence combined with events and evolutionary paths so wildly different I couldn’t begin to guess at the mechanics of them.

But I don’t really need to. While I’m curious of course, it’s not entirely relevant to getting us back home. What is relevant is getting into U.A.’s library. As the premiere school for heroes in Japan, it had the second-largest database regarding quirk theory and research in the country, only dwarfed by the government’s own. And since I’m not quite good enough to break through that kind of security, I’ll just take my handy dandy student ID down to those hallowed halls.

Of course, I have to find the time to do it— something UA seems keen on not giving to me. As if to remind me of how little control I have over my own life, the bell rings, signaling that it was time for us to move from this particular form of torture to the next…

“Anyone remember what we’re doing next?” I ask as I move my notebooks back into my backpack.

“I think we’re going to Costumes?” A brown-haired girl says…Uraraka, I believe. “Yeah, that’s what my schedule says. They’re going to get us fitted and then give us jumpsuits to use until we get our costumes properly made so that we can do combat practice and stuff?” I frown. “We’re going to be making costumes already? I thought that’d be much further down the line.” Uraraka shrugs as we continue out into the hall, making our way through the ginormous complex of UA, tile floor polished to an immaculate sheen.

“I mean, it makes sense when you think about it— most of our training should be done in what we’re going to be wearing on the job, so having us make suits right away isn’t a bad idea. I’m worried that mine will be seen as too boring, though. I mean, I drafted some stuff up already but— oh my god, I’m so sorry I’m rambling! I’m Ochaco Uraraka! It’s nice to meet you.”

“Matthew,” I offer, skipping past the usual “first or last” name question I get. “And please, ramble away. Honestly, I’d love to hear more. I have no damn idea what to do for a costume.”

“Really?” A new voice interjects into our conversation, I turn and see Setsuna striding up next to me, an impish grin on her face. “You’re telling me you haven’t daydreamed about becoming a hero, not even once?”

“I mean, sure, but like, I never thought I’d get this far with it, so my costume wasn’t exactly a well-defined part of the fantasy, you know?” I shrug. “Besides, it’s not like my quirk inspires any obvious themes that aren’t overly edgy or just cringy.”

“Oh, lemme guess. You’ll wear an all black leather costume with a sleek jacket and call yourself Blade, the Bad Boy Hero!” Senstuna cackles and I groan.

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid they’ll tell me to lean into. My quirk sucks, dude.”

“I leaned into a space theme with my designs? Not as bulky, but kind of an astronaut-inspired suit.” Uraraka offers, still looking nervous. “I wanted something more intimidating at first, but my mom kept telling me I was too short to pull it off, so I went with a more approachable design? I have some variations incase our instructor doesn’t like it, but—”

“Damn girl, you thought ahead.” Setsuna mutters, and Uraraka flushes red at the compliment.

“Th-thanks. I, uh, like designing things.”

“Well in that case, I might poke ya about about my costume! Unlike this poor boy, I had some ideas.”

“Yes, yes, I’m very disappointing, what did you have in mind, Setsuna?”

“It’s actually nothin fancy. Just a bodysuit with some scale theme— I’d love to have a utility belt for support items but splitting your body into little chunks means that anything attached to me gets split up too, and I haven’t really had the chance to test what’ll happen if I’m wearing anything more complicated than a belt, and I’d hate to wreck useful gear for my curiosity.”

“Huh,” I murmur, going over what little I knew about power mechanics before realizing what a golden opportunity this was— “maybe we could hit up the library sometime? I’m sure there’s gotta be quirks similar to yours somewhere on-record. Might give you a clue without having to destroy some equipment. I’ve been meaning to go anyway, look for some inspiration.” “That… is not a bad idea, actually. Maybe when we go on lunch break? I eat fast.”

“Deal.” I say, making a mental note to let Alexis know that I’d be busy at lunch— as instinctual as it was to worry about her isolating herself without me around, I had a feeling she’d be okay today. From what I could tell of Yaoyorozu, she seemed like a pretty upstanding person, and Alexis herself was more outspoken and sociable here then I’d ever seen her.

Which…

I’m happy for her. I am, really. She’s getting a chance she never got back home with a fresh start. Hell, I am too. I’d been a decently social kid, but not like this. It was like what I imagined being in the Wards would be like, if the Wards got their own private school.

But the longer we stay, the harder it’ll be to leave. And we have to leave. We don’t belong here, and the more time spent, the higher the chance that someone will learn about us.

A part of me wonders if that would really be such a bad thing.

Another part of me asks if I really want to find out.

In the meantime, I was hoping that Costume and Catchphrases as a class would be a more relaxed setting than the academics of the morning. For one, it’s being run by a hero I’m actually not familiar with, and to say the entire class did a trouble take upon reaching the door is an understatement: A tall blond woman in a stylish red dress and cropped leather jacket is sitting behind the desk, arranging some paperwork— but that’s not the thing that gives me pause. No, that’s the snakes. She has snakes in her hair. Snakes that are moving, and wriggling and…looking at me. Like, right at me. What the fuck. Should I avoid eye contact?

“Holy shit,” someone behind me says, “it’s Uwabami!”

The elegant lady gives the entire class a beatific smile and beckons us all to our seats.

“Welcome, welcome. As some of you already know, I’m Uwabami. I’ve been a Pro-Hero and model for nearly five years, and I thought it might be time to share what I’ve learned about managing the design aspects of Hero work with you young darlings.” Her golden gaze doesn’t petrify anyone, thankfully, but I really don’t like how those snakes are still following me as I get settled at my desk.

“Now, for our first class, we’re going to be throwing you all into the deep end and get straight to working on your costumes, but before that—” She dramatically reveals a role of measuring tape. “I’m going to need someone to be brave and start the process of getting measured! I’ll be calling you up one at a time, and whilst I’m getting the information I need, I want the rest of you to begin writing down names and finding references for the costumes I’m sure you already have in mind.” Ah yes, being physically examined in front of your peers, something highschools are notoriously eager to do. Predictably, not a single person raises their hand. I’m sure as hell not going to. I can already see a few people starting to feel guilty, so I’ll just wait it out until—

“Awww, shy things, aren’t you? Well don’t worry, I’ll train you out of that.” Her human eyes fix on me. “You, dear— Matthew, if I’m not mistaken? Yes, my little friends took a liking to you the instant you came in the door. Come this way, please.”

Fuck.

I sigh and get up from my desk, hoping this wouldn’t be too humiliating, as everyone else pretends to not stare while getting their materials out. Uwabami guided my arms into a pose, and began to pull the tape across me, occasionally writing things down on a nearby sheet, humming as she maneuvered me around like a puppet. I didn’t know if the occasional squeezes she gave to my arms were necessary but they sure as hell made me want to die, so I did whatever I do when I feel nervous: I start talking.

“So are they like…alive, or…”

“Hm? Oh! Yes indeed, my three little babies are indeed living, breathing creatures.” The snakes are still staring at me, by the way. They wiggle happily, leaning forward as much as they can. I try to smile, but I don’t quite manage it. “They don’t bite, so have no fear— and even if they did, as I said, they’re quite enamored with you. You should consider yourself lucky! They’re usually rather standoffish to new people.”

“Oh. Great.” I say, my mouth dry as she pulls the tape tight around my waist. “I’m attractive to snakes. That’s wonderful. I’ll need to avoid deserts and jungles.”

“Don’t be nervous, dear. It’s unbefitting of a handsome young man like you.” There’s a hand on my face now, trailing itself along my jaw. “Yes, quite handsome.” Her pupils are slitted, I realize, as her gaze bores into me, hands still gripping my face. “Whatever you decide on, definitely don’t cover up your face. I think you could quite easily land a few advertisement deals, if you continue taking care of yourself. Remember, it’s important for heroes to be charming!” She ends her speech with a pat, as she finally, finally lets go of me. “Thank you, Matthew. Next!”

I walk back to my seat, trying to stop the queasy, rolling feeling in my stomach.

“Dude, you ok?” Setsuna asks as I sit back down. “You look—”

“Yeah,” I lie, cutting her off. “Fine.”

I try to focus on designing or even finding inspiration for a costume, but it doesn’t work. I glance up and see that Jurota’s been chosen to go next and he’s looking about as good as I feel. His normally expressive face is carefully blank as the woman walks around him, tutting as she pulls tape across his animalistic body.

“Hmm, well I think for you, sweetie, the best course of action would be something armored. While some ladies like a more rugged approach, you’ll want to try and downplay your…ah, how shall we say, unique appearance. Of course, you could lean into it, but that’ll trap you in a certain niche area of appeal. But I’m told some enjoy that sort of thing. Personally, I can’t see it…” His eyes meet mine, and there’s a familiar hollowness shared, as we realize exactly what kind of class this was going to be.

God, I wanna hit something.

Chapter Text

I felt more than a little out of place changing with the other girls in the locker room.

This wasn’t a dig at the other girls, nobody was staring or looking at me like I didn’t belong, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling like I shouldn’t be here. Maybe it was just the size difference; it was hard to look anywhere without accidentally looking at me. 

Mostly I think it was the clothes. They’d put together our costumes fast; I don’t think any of the other classes even had their designs finalized yet. Everyone had the most amazing looking outfits. I looked to my left at Momo, judging how her hair looked in the mirror. She had gotten an absolutely killer looking red and black jacket-dress with an open back to make grabbing things easy. Perfectly designed to fit her power and make her look cool while she did it!

I was changing into a bodysuit that I’d manage to find online in an outrageous size— just barely big enough to fit me. It was pretty nondescript, a simple purple look that covered my arms and legs and could stretch without fear of breaking. 

I hadn’t wanted to get my uniform dirty and I didn’t have anything else to change into. 

 I’d wanted to be a magical girl, or at least have that sort of theme to my costume. Ms. Uwabami had told me there was no way that was going to happen. 

Not in those exact terms. I mean, she hadn’t been too harsh about it. I think maybe she just hadn’t understood some of the things I’d asked her. I guess she had thought that no costume fit me better than something put on top, but it wasn’t like I was gonna just run around without clothes on. Yes, I’d made my body so maybe it technically counted as a costume or whatever, but it just wasn’t right. I had spent so much time sewing just to put together a uniform that fit, I wasn’t going to just walk around naked! That felt so gross.

Once I had more free time, I’d see if I could find anything online. There were clothes out there for someone like me; I just had to find something cute that would work. 

I’d figure it out. I always did. 

“Ready to go?” Momo asked.

I put on a smile and gave a pose— my outfit might have been denied, but even that couldn't put a damper on my good spirits. “I’m always ready!” 

We made our way towards the exit, most of the other girls heading the same way. Walking out, surrounded by all these other people in costumes, all these other heroes…

Gosh, I felt cool. 

I did still feel a little out of place without a costume of my own, but I wouldn’t let that drag me down. Saturday was for Hero Class and Hero Class meant we got to fight! 

I didn’t consider myself a particularly violent person. I was a little worried that with the way I’d made my body people would be intimidated, but I didn’t do it for that reason— at least not fully for that reason. I might look scary, but I was a gentle giant. It just was better for keeping me safe to maximize stuff like that.

Still, the smile on my face felt a lot less fake at the thought of getting to fight. Most of the school week was full of boring stuff like math, science, english, and history— the type of work I could do (and sometimes did) in my sleep. The routine hero courses had some interesting bits, but were also mostly more boring stuff that I didn’t really need to learn. 

It was nice to finally get a chance to stretch my servos, so to speak. And hey, I was a scientist; I wanted to see what I was really capable of. You could run as many simulations as you wanted, but how was I supposed to get a real feel for what I could do without something to actually fight against?

I spent so many hours working over what would be the best combo to really stand out here. Nothing too dangerous— that would make me stand out in entirely the wrong way— but enough that I could be a threat all on my own. Nothing too big either; the more I added the more space it would need and it would throw all my other calculations and configurations for my body out of alignment. 

There were just so many choices too. It felt like every time I set my mind to figuring out one weapon, I’d walk away with five more on top of it. My imagination just went flying off at the concept of fighting and my powers were happy to oblige. I’d managed to narrow it down to four; a large enough selection to keep me versatile but few enough it didn’t require much fine tuning to make it fit. I couldn’t wait to show them off.

“Oh, ho! Heroes, over here!” 

There was a bounce in my step as we hurried over, the boys joining us as they left their own locker room. All Might! He was the one in charge of our Saturday hero classes and boy that was something I absolutely adored. 

Even not being from this universe, I’d fallen in love with All Might right off the bat. He was goofy, silly, super theatrical, and despite all that he was the most heroic guy you could find! It was the sort of hero I wanted to be. Even now, here only for us, he looked just as valiant as if he was facing a villain or coming to the rescue. 

He didn’t even say anything about my bodysuit, which was another big plus in my book. 

“Young heroes,” he shouted, “I hope you are enjoying your new costumes! With these, you take your first step on the long road to becoming a professional hero. Now, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, but the best way to determine if these costumes really do fit you, is to put them to the test.”

All Might sweeped his arms dramatically, gesturing to one of the training facilities behind him. The facilities that UA had at its disposal boggled my mind. This one was set to simulate the most common area a hero would come across a villain— in the city. It looked like someone had plucked any neighborhood out of the surrounding block and set it in the middle of UA’s campus. 

I couldn’t imagine how they’d manage to create something so perfect. It got my brain meandering over all types of mega-projects that I would have loved to focus my attention on. Massive, self-contained ecosystems for students to train in. 

Another time, another time; I needed to focus.

“Someday you may be able to face real opponents, but your first fight will be enlightening. No, it’s something that must be done safely and controlled,” All Might said, assuming the pose of some wise tutor. 

I could see a few people looking around, probably thinking the same thing I was— hadn’t we already gone through our first fight? But I guess the entrance exam hadn’t really been a fight. The robots hadn’t fought back, or if they did, it was pretty ineffectual. 

A fight meant opponents willing to try and go all out. If I had been a normal person, I would have been bouncing in place. 

“In several weeks we shall be putting students against each other, but your task now will be facing opponents you may recognize.”

All Might placed a hand on his chin and gave a wide grin, like he was in the know of some great joke no one else got… which was strange, cause the only way that statement made sense was that we’d be facing the same robots from our entrance exam.

I mean c’mon, what else was it gonna be? Were they going to have us fighting one of the teachers? Get real.

“You will be drawing numbers to form groups, so please young heroes, come forward.”

All Might walked around with a bowl that looked absolutely miniscule in his massive hands. It took a second before anyone was willing to move— you better believe I wasn’t going to be the first one to go up— but it didn’t take long before the spiky haired guy who had attacked me went forward. That opened the floodgates. This weird blob of students pushed their way to the front, each grabbing paper and yelling out their number in a rush. 

Groups formed, the pack thinned, and I finally stepped up. There were only a few scraps of paper left and I picked it out with very careful fingers.

I pulled it open with equally as much trepidation. I was in group two. 

It stepped out of the way quickly and looked around. I hadn’t really been paying attention when everyone had been calling out numbers and now was left floundering. “Group two,” I called out, trying not to let my speakers get too loud. “Group two?”

“Group two!” Answered back and I swirled around to meet it. 

There were two other people standing there already. I didn’t really know either, but tried not to let that get me down— maybe I’d been secretly hoping to get put in the same group as Momo, but the odds of that weren’t really high. 

I only knew the two of them by the reputation they’d manage to garner themselves, both by being very loud and incredibly memorable. Midoriya’s smiling face almost made me forget how he’d shattered his hands the other day. Iida was much more resolute and focused. He could be a stickler for the rules— I basically turned off my ears whenever I heard him getting started on a lecture— but he had a pretty good head on his shoulders for stuff. 

I would know, I had a pretty good one myself. 

They must have been talking when I’d caught their attention. They knew each other from what little I’d observed in class. I felt a bit like an outsider, intruding on their private conversation, and the way that their chat sort of awkwardly ended only seemed to reinforce it. I put a happy smile on my face and reached a hand out anyway. “Alexis Gramme.”

“Midoriya Izuku!”

“Tenya Iida.”

Something about the name pinged something in my brain, but I was in socialization mode and would have to try and figure that out later. Iida shook my hand like he was confused by the practice, or perhaps confused that I had offered a handshake instead of something else. 

God, I always felt like I was fucking something up with social interactions.

“Is this an American habit or…” he cut himself off there, shaking his head. “Where is our fourth member?” Iida asked instead.

The topic change was good enough to distract me from considering whatever he had been about to say. I took a look around and realized, yeah, where was our last person? The class had all split up into four groups, one of which contained five people, but we were three? It didn’t make sense. 

“Of course I get stuck with you wannabees. Fuckin handicaps.”

We all turned to face Katsuki Bakugo, the bane of class 1A. Okay, well, nobody called him that, but that was how I thought of him in my head. He’d been a jerk to me a few times and had some chip on his shoulder about me beating him— though I wish I had beaten him literally with how much he complained about it. 

Then again, with the way I’d seen him treat everyone, maybe I wasn’t alone in that regard, he just had more of a reason to do it. A very tense and awkward silence followed and I swear this time it just wasn’t me. Iida and Midoriya stood, daring glances at the surliest member of our team. 

“Now, I am sure our young heroes want to get started as soon as possible on this task, so I will not wait for words. This is a hostage scenario, the most important type of scenario to get right. You will encounter enemies and need to save the hostage located somewhere in the building, understood?”

Everyone nodded, a simple enough exercise, and one we’d gone over a few times in hero class this week. I should have expected it was what we’d get roped into doing.

“First group, forward,” All Might called out with his usual pep and the first four moved through the waiting doors.

All Might stepped away and we followed him to a small room off to the side of the entrance, almost like a shack next to the enormity of the fake city. Inside, several televisions had been set up, showing the proceedings of the first group. For their protection, in case All Might needed to jump in, or for us to watch and hopefully gleam something from, I wasn’t sure.

 There had to be some kind of protection in place. Maybe with the robots. Automatic programming to sense danger and stop if it went too far. I’d put something similar in my own suit in case I ended up getting too badly damaged. Maybe I could convince them to let me pick one apart and look at it. I’d love to observe someone else’s work to try and improve my own.

Getting off topic. I had to focus. 

It was a simple hostage rescue scenario. A number of robots were set up outside and inside the building, similar to what we’d faced in the entrance exam. Though, I couldn’t help but notice the slight modifications. More armor plating, obvious weapon upgrades; they’d outfitted these things with a few different tricks. 

I tried to remember the names of my classmates inside, but ended up just relying on my suit to do the heavy lifting. Yuga Aoyama, Reiko Yanagi, Denki Kaminari, and Hiryu Rin helpfully floated above each of their heads. It was interesting to see them work. I don’t think they’d been strategizing, but they fell almost into a pattern without needing to say anything. Denki and Hiryu took the front while Reiko and Yuga followed behind them, ready to strike. Their building had been marked with a big one, an easy enough way to direct students, and we watched as the four of them moved inside. 

The robots descended on them almost instantly. 

It was interesting! I so rarely got to see engineering like this that wasn’t online. I couldn’t imagine the sort of artificial intelligence they had manning these things— I’d need to look it up once I got home. A burst from Denki destroyed one as Rin took the brunt of the attack from another. Something bright ran down his arms and I realized those upgrades to the robot’s hands were tasers! Why, I could make something like that easily enough for myself— and I would be the second I had my hand on some parts. 

Another came out to pelt them from afar with some type of projectile— at a glance it was some kind of airsoft pellet— and was destroyed from a blast by Yuga. Reiko started grabbing things with her power and throwing them around to try and keep most of the other robots away, and from there things descended into chaos. Most of the gimmicks they’d given to the robots were hard to make out with things flying and metal bursting.

Not much to say after that. The robots were interesting, definitely upgraded from before, but watching on the big screen just didn’t have the same thrill as facing them first hand. The group advanced much slower after that initial wave and reached the hostage— a stylized baby doll— without too much issue. They held it up and I heard a loud ding go off.

“Good work group one! Group two, it’s your turn now,” All Might called, and I had never been more ready for anything in my life.

The four of us made our way out of the room and passed Group One, sweaty but triumphant. We entered the massive stadium and the building marked two lay in front of us.

“We should plan before we head in,” Iida said, taking the lead. 

“I can take the front,” I said in a rush. “I can take a few hits and I’m really good at dealing with threats. I’m pretty sure we’re stacked with brutes here, but you guys are kind of flimsy. I can cover while you take them out!” 

The look that passed over Iida’s face might have been confusion, it was hard to tell. I had sort of rushed through that— part of the problem with not having a mouth was that I didn’t need to breathe to talk. I couldn’t blame him, I knew I could be a bit much. Whatever he was about to say though, didn’t make it out of his throat.

“You can waste your time planning, glasses. I don’t need to,” Bakugo replied and just walked away, like he didn’t have a care in the world. “And I definitely don’t need protecting, tin can.”

Iida sputtered for a second and Midoriya started to say something but quickly thought better of it upon receiving a deathly glare from the blonde. “And Deku, I swear to god, if you ruin this for me I’m going to shove you in a goddamn locker.” Unsurprisingly, if anyone was going to talk some sense into him, it was going to be me. 

“Hey, we’re supposed to be—” I started to complain, but Bakugo wasn’t hearing me, or at least pretending he couldn’t over the explosion that sent him rocketing into the arena. 

The three of us hurried to follow him. The robots had already crowded around him, but Bakugo shot up like a rocket and blasted the first one that got near him. I rushed forward and a blunt sword shot out of my right arm— no use risking a talk about “lethal tactics not allowed at school.” It was strong, tough, and smashed in the side of a robot without any issue.

Midoriya kept his distance but watched carefully; understandable with his power. Iida rushed in right away and started smacking. Bakugo burst around the room, seemingly trying to prove who was the better cape here by killing the most robots.

Well, I wasn’t going to let him win without a fight. 

My other arm opened and a grapple hook shot out to wrap around a robot and yank him towards me. I smashed the head open with my sword and fired a quick grenade of my own design out of my left hand that burst on impact.

The robot it hit also burst on impact. 

I felt in the groove, more coordinated than I ever had in maybe my entire life. My suit could pick up nothing but explosions and every swing and shot flowed into the other, almost like a dance. The robots had tricks: enhanced strength, clawed fingers, tasers, and more. But all couldn’t even penetrate my armor enough to make a dent.

It was a fight that had taken maybe seconds, but we’d torn through the robots.

Only a few remained after that initial bombardment, one coming after me and the other Bakugo was racing towards, the gloryhound. Bakugo maneuvered around it a bit, before lighting it up and I saw the robot he was fighting break in two massive chunks of shrapnel. One was sent straight into the wall, but the other…

The calculations flashed through my head in a second. Without thinking I turned from my opponent, knowing my body could take the hit, and shot my grappling hook off. It was close, but it caught the edge and I sent it careening wildly off target. Midoriya stood stock still, his hand crackling with green lightning, clearly only noticing moments before impact what exactly had almost befallen him. I’d seen him on our first day. Midoriya was strong, but didn’t seem to have the resilience to back up that strength. 

If that thing had hit him and he hadn’t been able to charge up in time…

The last robot moved for a second strike and I swung around, nearly slicing the thing in two with a dull-edged blade. I let my sword retract— I didn't want to give any wrong ideas— as I turned to Bakugo and advanced, an angry expression on my face.

“What the heck, you almost hit him!” I shouted accusingly. 

“It was an accident, dipshit. Chill out,” he said, trying to brush past me.

It would have worked a lot better if you didn’t need a semi truck to move me an inch. As it stood, he basically did the equivalent of hitting your shoulder against a doorway as you’re walking through. 

“What the fuck is your problem?” I asked. “At least say you’re sorry, asshole.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Bakugo said, saying every word with a swift jab of the finger to my chest. I wasn’t phased.

“If you can’t act like a civilized person, then obviously someone has to tell you.”

“How would you know how to act like a person?” He replied.

I won’t lie, the insult stung and took me aback for a second. Seeing the hit land, Bakugo moved around me and headed for the door upstairs, where the hostage was sure to lie. I looked back at Iida and Midoriya, but, while both looked reproachful, it was obvious neither was going to speak or stop him. 

We weren’t done yet, and I wasn’t going to let that be the end of this conversion. I’d installed jumpers in my legs for this exact purpose. I leaped as my grappling hook shot out, catching the doorway and flinging me across the room in less than a second. I landed with a thump and stood to my full height, blocking any way forward. Bakugo didn’t even pause, moving inches from my chassis before coming to a halt. 

“Get out of my way, you shitty excuse for a robot.” 

I used my height to its full advantage as I bent over, just enough to look down at him with derision and whisper in my nastiest tone, “Make me.”

My fighting software was on, full swing, and I could see every move he was making in exact detail. The way his right leg bent slightly as he prepared to swing, the way his left fist clenched, the beads of sweat running down his face. The room was silent, and his arms tensed as he got ready to throw that first punch.

“Is there a problem,” called from the doorway and we turned to see All Might. 

How the heck had he gotten here so fast— oh, right, he was All Might. 

I realized belatedly that everything had been getting streamed and everyone in our class had most definitely seen my outburst. Thank god they couldn’t see me blush. 

“He almost hit Midoriya,” I said, indicating the wreck of a robot. 

“It’s a fight,” Bakugo spat, clearly annoyed he hadn’t gotten a chance to hit me, “shit happens.”

All Might had to bow down to walk inside and with a hint of his smile, I felt the tension in the room evaporate. His presence alone was enough to ward off any bad feelings. I mean, who is it who could keep up an angry face while All Might was here? 

“Now, now,” he said, already moving between us, “an accident is an accident. I’m sure young Bakugo didn’t mean for anything to occur. Your heroic spirit is admirable young Alexis, but we must contain ourselves from time to time to achieve an important goal.”

He looked around the room for a second, before seeming to decide no fight was going to occur. With a “be good,” and a nod of his head at Midoriya, he was gone. I’d moved away from the doorway and with a sniff, Bakugo was already heading upstairs, the sound of explosions following him as he went. Iida nodded at me as he passed and the look from Midoriya was somewhere between relieved and anxious. 

I understood it. Hard to say anything in this sort of situation.

“Th-thanks,” Midoriya said, almost under his breath, giving me a shaky grin. “I didn’t want to go to Recovery Girl twice in one week.” 

“Hm? Uh, yeah! No problem,” I said.  “What’s his problem, right?” Midoriya almost seemed to deflate at the reminder of Bakugo, his already pale face losing all hints of color as he looked at his hands. Hands, I noticed, that had faint traces of burn scars around his wrists.

“I wish I could tell you.” 

He walked towards the building, his frame tiny against the imposing complex of U.A.

After a second I followed behind them. Not tactically the best thing to do, but easier to prevent the fight I so desperately wanted to break out. Besides, they didn’t really need me. Based on the last fight, we’d blow through the rest of these guys easily. 

No, I’d half-ass the rest of this so I could devote my full attention to tinkering, because I knew one thing for certain: I was going to be adding some armor to my body. Because from what I saw, Bakugo’s blasts could hit like a tank.

And because I wasn’t going to let this one go.

Chapter Text

…as you can see from the findings of this study, Quirks, while not strictly physical in nature, do at least interface with the body on a biological level, with the basic changes manifesting early in childhood and then proceeding to make alterations throughout the rest of the user's lifespan, often varying depending on the amount of daily usage and specifics. After repeated testing, it was discovered that Quirks near-universally, irregardless of the classification or other notable differences, would begin releasing chemicals into the body that superficially resembled adrenaline but had far more long-lasting effects, promoting marked muscle growth and bone density, leading to a pronounced increase in the subject's durability. More personalized changes were noted within subjects with Emitter and Transformation type Quirks, increasing efficiency and output slowly over time by altering the internal structure of the body to facilitate better usage by the subject. The question now to be asked is whether or not this correlates with the noted lower life expectancy seen in Quirk versus Quirkless populations or if this is simply the result of how many engage in heroics or villainy, but as seen in…

I groans, rubbing my eyes as I let myself take a break from reading my totally legally acquired pdf copy of A Full Body Examination of Long-Term Effects of Quirks; Discussing Evolutionary Changes, settling on glaring at the pile of books next to me. Quirks; A History, The Modern Hero, Quirk Catalog, Your Quirk and You, and several other titles buried beneath, paired with dozens of tabs and documents on the library computer. Not a single goddamn one of them had even so much mentioned a quirk that had any relationship to alternate dimensions. There'd been a few scant references to teleportation powers, but those had been far and few inbetween, and the maximum recorded ranges seemed to be city-spanning at best, a far cry from what we needed. And with tinker-style quirks being more or less a statistical anomaly compared to Bet, chances are looking bad.

Still, I have a few ideas left. If I had a power that let me world hop, I sure as hell wouldn't advertise it either— also, most of these books and studies were fairly Japan-centric, so it was possible that other countries had made different discoveries. This was day three, not three hundred. I had time. I had—

The bell chimes, reminding me that my allotted time to spend here is over. Next would be…

"Ah, hell."

I have to go to gym class. 

Well, to be fair, it's not quite as miserable as your usual school phys-ed classes, on account of the superheroics angle. Still, Aizawa is doing his best to make up for that by being about as dower as physically possible.

"Listen," he all but whisper-growls as the class shuffles in, all wearing similar jumpsuits. "I know you're all bursting at the seams to start using your quirks. This is not that class. You're here to learn how to survive without them. If you so much as think about trying to use your Quirk in my class, you'll be running laps around campus for a week, and I'll make you write a ten page paper on proper Quirk safety after. Now, here's the sparring equipment we'll be using. Break it and your parents pay for it, so don't break it."

"Jokes on him," I mutter under my breath, strapping on the vest and fumbling around with the helmet straps. "I don't have any parents." Setsuna nearly chokes on her water.

"Holy shit, dude. Uh—"

"Relax, girl. I wouldn't be joking about it if I wasn't moving past it."

"Right. Um. Just not how I expected to learn that information, I guess."

"What? Were you expecting me to just unveil my tragic and mysterious backstory after some pivotal moment in our friendship?" I do my best dramatic pose, flaring my hands like some shitty actor performing shakespeare. Out of the corner of my eye, I note that all of the kids with mutation quirks have been sorted into their own group, with the one exception of Uraraka, who's valiantly trying to not look nervous as Juzo puts on the boxing gloves. "Ah! Now that you have saved my life, beautiful Setsuna, I shall at last reveal to thee mine sordid past. For you see, when I was born, both parents scorned me by refusing to show up, and I was raised by a wild pack of alpacas until the tender age of nine…"

"Oh my god, stop." Setsuna chortles. "You're such a drama queen."

"Drama king, thank you very much. Now, we should probably get to punching each other before Aizawa expels us."

"Shit, you right." Setsuna finishes putting on her own protective gear and we begin going through the same drills the rest of the class has gotten started on: nothing particularly complicated or strenuous, just practicing simple punches with the other student performing basic blocks, with Aizawa coming over to grumpily correct form and glare at us from under greasy hair. On some level, the logic makes sense, I suppose, as Aizawa announces a switch, and now it's my turn to go on the hypothetical offensive. People with full-body or even partial mutations from their Quirks typically experience some kind of heightened durability and strength in comparison to those who don't, but even then…

I catch Jurota's eyes, as he wipes his brow, having removed his helmet. His fur matted with sweat, the gear not designed for people without human skin. He looks tired.

"Break." Aizawa announces. "Get water, we switch to a different exercise in five."

"Oh, thank god." Setsuna groans. "Leave it to Aizawa to somehow make sparring boring."

"This is definitely not sparring," I say as I remove my own helmet, running fingers through my lightly damp hair. "I forgot to bring a water today, so I'm hitting the fountain. Be right back."

Setsuna nods, and I'm quite thankful that there doesn't seem to be much of a queue, most of the other kids actually thought ahead— although in my defense, most other kids aren't trying to solve extra-dimensional travel on their break periods. Speaking of, after this class they'll definitely be hitting the showers, so I might be able to send some of his finding to Alexis, see what she thought about—

"Matthew." I look up from the water fountain to see…Ibara, I think, yeah, that's right— the girl with the vines for hair, the one who'd— aw crap, bible girl. The one who'd all but cornered Uraraka at lunch about the school's Christian club before the smaller girl had made an excuse about forgetting her food and ran off. She's standing almost uncomfortably close, to the point where I can pick out little details in her skin. She wears a face that feels like it belongs to someone ten years her senior, sharp lines and grim angles.

"Uh, yeah?" I say intelligently, like an intelligent person would. "What's up?"

"You are new here, so you would not know. But I would advise against spending more time with Setsuna."

I...

What?

"She is…" The flat expression turns into something resembling distaste and I realize that shit, I'd said that out loud. "Her quirk is shameful. Unsightly, really."

"Excuse me?" I utter, but evidently she misses my tone or just ignores it.

"Do you not know? She splits her body apart. Shows you her insides. It's disgusting." I can't help it- I glance over at Setsuna who's only a few paces away, who's determinedly staring at the floor, her eyes flickering up for a moment before pulling her attention away as if her eyes burned at the sight of me. Something catches on my throat as I remember taunts and jeers flung at Alexis, people asking me why I hung out with her at lunch when I could do better. 

"Setsuna doesn't even bleed like the rest of us." Ibara whispers. "And when she takes off her head— ugh." A performative shiver. "Truly awful. You'd think someone with such an unheroic quirk wouldn't pass the tests."

"Rrrrrrrright." I drawl, all too familiar with this particular song and dance. "Well, thanks for the advice, Malfoy, but I think I'm doing just fine." Ibara glares at him, her expression fierce, if not for the clear confusion.

"I do not know that name."

"Oh, my bad, I forgot, you're a bible thumper. You don't read." At that, Ibara turns up her nose, not bothering to hide her disgust.

"I see I was mistaken. Sinners keep familiar company, after all."

I feel my face stretch into a smile. It doesn't feel like a familiar one, but hey, there's a time and place for teeth, right?

"Beatam Maria, and all that. I'm sure it's easier to feel better about having your head be the world's largest substitute salad dressing by trying to make everyone else look worse." Her hands curl into fists, and her hair begins to lose its carefully arranged shape, writhing like angry snakes. "You—"

"See you around, Ibara." I walk away, hoping that she'd take the hint and leave me the hell alone- in hindsight, maybe that last part wasn't too smart, but...well, anyone who knows me can tell you my biggest weakness is not knowing when to stop talking. God, I hate this kind of petty bullshit. I sight as I sit back down next to Setsuna. "Hey."

"Hey." There's a strained undertone in Setsuna's voice as she looks at her phone. "Let me guess. She told you I'm a filthy slut who has a black hole for a heart, right?"

"Well, not in those exact words, but—"

"Yeah. God." She snorts. "She's been doing that since elementary school, ever since my Quirk came in. Cause it's sooo creepy and weird that when I split apart, you can see that I'm just…" She trails off, glaring at the floor.

"Show me." I murmur, and Setsuna's gaze snaps to meet mine.

"Um. I think Aizawa said…"

"Just a finger or something. You can do that, right?" Setsuna glances around, clearly nervous, but eventually shuffles closer and holds up her index finger. Right in between the knuckle and her joint, the digit just…separates, like there's nothing keeping it attached to the rest of the body at all. It floats over to me, right in front of my face. I gently reach out and take it inspecting it. It wiggles, and despite myself I have to fight down and instinctive gasp as my brain insists that really sholdn't be happening. What's fascinating is that there is no wound where logic dictates there should be. Just a black void of sorts. I study it for a moment before looking up at Setsuna, face stern as I can make it.

"You should take this back before the intrusive thoughts win out and I try to stick something inside the hooooool hey I'm going to stop talking now."

She stares at him for a moment before her laughter erupts, high and wild as her index finger flies back to her; she's cackling like a gremlin in a children's cartoon. I bear it with as much dignity as I can muster- that is, not very much, as heat rushes to my face and I wish I could spontaneously combust.

"Bro. Bro you did not just say you wanted stick something in my—"

"Don't! Don't say it. Please. I'm begging you."

"Oh my gooood wait until I tell the other girls that you're actually a huge perv!"

"Goddamn it, Setsuna I'm trying to come off as suave, not—"

"Yeah that ship has sailed, buddy!"

We trail off into laughter. Setsuna wipes some lingering wetness from her eyes, and I pretend I don't see it. 

"Seriously, though." I say, after a moment of relieved silence. "It's not weird. No weirder than any other power. Seriously."

"It's a little weird—"

"Setsuna." I interrupt, staring at her. "Do you know why I'm not showing you mine?" I don't bother waiting for an answer. "Because if I misjudge the angle, I might kill someone." She stares at me, naked shock on her face, and I tries to smile but I can't quite get the angles right, it feels too sour. "I have an edge projection quirk, Setsuna. What did you think that meant? It means that I swing my arm with a pocket knife and I could cut down an entire crowd of people. Your quirk lets you split yourself into smaller, independent pieces. Mine lets me hurt people at a distance. If anyone should be getting judged for their power here, it's me." I shrug, trying to pretend that I don't care about this. "That's why we can't…we can't pretend that Quirks are some sort of personality indicator or something fucking stupid like that. They're not. It's a pseudo genetic lottery. They're tools. It doesn't matter what you have. It matters what you do with it. Who you are. And you're here. You're learning to help people, and you're nice to others— hell, you're nice to me, the kid who's a walking loaded gun. As far as I'm concerned, you're amazing."

"...thanks, Matt." Setsuna gives him a toothy grin. "Maybe you can work your way up to suave after all."

"Maybe. Come on," I say, getting up and offering a hand. "I think it's time to get back to work."

Setsuna lets me pull her up.

Chapter Text

How would you go about building the perfect defense? 

Unsurprisingly, it was a question that plagued my mind constantly. A neverending circular route of thought that passed over thousands of different ideas. A stronger outer shell to protect a delicate inner core? A flexible dynamic surface to better mitigate focused attacks? Different, more esoteric, body designs to avoid the need for armor entirely?

Which of these options was the best? Which one should I devote my very valuable time towards? How do you build the perfect defense?

The problem is that this is a trick question. Sorry, I couldn't help myself. This was the sort of logical conundrum I'd often pose to Matt whenever I needed to make a point; payback for all of the pseudo-philosophical rambles he liked to go on.  

The trick of the question is this: it leaves out a very important followup. What are you intending to defend against? 

Protection from an infectious disease is going to look very different than protection from an oncoming car. My power allowed me the versatility to coordinate many of these different failsafes together into one congruent mech, but that didn’t mean I could choose to devote my limited time trying to defend against everything . 

Though…from time to time I did end up trying to do exactly that. Listen, with superpowers I didn’t know what to expect most of the time. Any fight could involve so many different methods of attack. I needed to be prepared for a lot of oddball things. 

But in this specific instance, that wasn’t the case. I knew my enemy. I knew what I needed to do. I knew exactly what I was preparing for.

So the question was then this: what is the perfect defense against a hot-headed, idiotic, exploding teenager?

I let my sensors come online and just barely turned my head, until his messy blond hair was in my sight. I didn’t want to make it too obvious I was watching him. Thankfully, the bus they’d stuck us on wasn’t large enough to require more involved methods for discrete viewing. Shame, I’d wanted to test out the mini-drone. 

I wish I had come to an easier answer to the question of defense. I’d spent hours going over and over blueprints, trying to adapt, optimize, and improve every single piece of me. At some point, it just felt like it was going to drive me insane. A never ending attempt at improvement, no matter how minimal. 

My projects worked with closed systems. You would think that meant I was better prepared when creating stuff like this, but what it really meant is that I was just more vulnerable when those defenses failed. And while explosions weren’t really all that weird, it allowed him a lot of avenues to attack from. 

They could be focused, hitting in one spot repeatedly for maximum damage to a single part of me. They could be wide range, setting me in the middle of a massive blast from all sides. They could even come with shrapnel or blunt damage from the things they exploded, not the main worry, but something I’d have to consider all the same. That wasn’t even taking in things like heat or smoke that could mess with delicate circuitry inside. 

What was the best defense? What method should I choose? 

I let blueprints slip away as I leaned back in my far too small bus seat, at least as much as I could manage considering my height. Truthfully, I was probably overthinking it. Matt had more than once called out my ability to spiral when I really got going in a tinker fugue. I just couldn’t help it! There were too many thoughts in my head and I wanted to get them all out. 

Simple was probably best. An all-rounder basic defense, with several different potential fail points all covering for each other. That is to say, my current body. Why fix what isn’t broken after all? 

Though, if I could make that idea for a jelly suit work…

Our bus slammed on the brakes and it pulled me out of my reminiscence. Right, the trip. We must have gotten to the USJ already, because half the class had their faces pressed to the windows, staring at something outside. The driver opened the doors and it was like all of 1A vanished. With a bit of ducked shuffling and a thank you to the driver, I departed, joining everyone else outside the training facility. 

The moment my eyes landed on it, I couldn’t take them off the dome. It was massive, the sort of gargantuan construction I could only dream of making, and boy howdy, could I dream. My power jumped on it in an instant, imagining the kind of things I could make if I was allowed to work at that scale. It was amazing, it was beautiful, and I couldn’t wait to get inside it.

“Everyone, I have been waiting for you!” 

With a bit of force, I managed to pull my gaze lower. The moment I saw Thirteen, I knew she was a hero I could get behind. Firstly, because she was making the kind of pose I always wanted to replicate. But more importantly, because she was the only person besides myself who seemed to have the sound judgment to wear a full-body suit. And if the reactions from my classmates were anything to go by, they appreciated just as much as I did. 

And, without a moment to wait, she welcomed us inside USJ.

It was just as beautiful inside as out. At least a dozen different zones, all with their own theme to them, in order to practice heroics in a variety of environments. I could feel my mind buzzing with the idea. Self contained structures all encompassing one aspect, all containing one separate thing. Protecting what was inside of it, a fully self-sustained ecosystem.

I got so wrapped up in the idea that I spaced out through the entirety of the conversation about heroics or whatever until my class started cheering. 

The best thing about being a robot, I decided, is that no one could tell when you weren't paying attention. 

Aizawa stepped up, undoubtedly to bring us all back to focusing on why we were here, but he only managed a few words before everything got…weird. My vision wavered, like an old tv with a magnet held against it, and then everything else followed. Sights, sounds, and all my most important running systems “buzzed” for lack of a better word. It was fuzzy, I was fuzzy, and it took a handful of seconds before they snapped back into place, like someone had slapped a rubber band to my frontal cortex. Everything was woozy, I was dizzy from the shift in sight, and several different sensors were blinking bright red. 

I staggered, my body responding sluggishly to my commands, but no one even seemed to notice. My classmates' eyes were glued to the roof, where the lights had started to go out, one by one. I didn’t need to be at maximum efficiency to see the blackhole open in the middle of the dome either. Even less so, when people started pouring out of it. 

“Is this like the entrance exam,” Eijiro asked, “where the lesson’s already started?” 

But it couldn’t be, because what was the point of dragging us all the way here for a surprise combat drill? It didn’t even look like it was including the tertiary zones or equipment. The look on Aizawa’s face was all I needed to come to the obvious conclusion. 

This was an attack. 

Diagnostic programs ran, trying to shake off the cobwebs of whatever they were doing to me. Electromagnetic and radio wave interference; probably meant to stop any contact with the outside world, but more importantly, strong enough to bust through the minimal shielding I’d put in place. 

I should have planned for something like this. Annoying. I’d deal with it irregardless. 

“Kaminari, Gramme,” Aizawa called to us, “try contacting the school with your quirks.” 

When he turned his back on us, I could feel the thread of tension snake its way through the whole class, suddenly aware of what he was about to do. Izuku’s protests met deaf ears, and our teacher jumped into the crowd of villains without a second thought. 

I was happy my sensors were still working well enough to catch what followed, because our teacher was good . 

Outnumbered by dozens of unknown capes, he swung mercilessly into the fray, stopping attacks before they came, responding hand to hand as needed, and swinging around his cloth with the skill of a gymnast. Even the villains seemed taken aback, and these must have been hardened criminals. One group went down, and then another as he grabbed a brute to use like a flail.

“What are you doing?” Iida yelled. Hurry up and take shelter!” 

I blinked back to reality and realized Midoriya and I were the only students stupid enough to just stand there and watch as everyone made a break for it. We stared at each other for a second and, without a word, ran. It wouldn’t have mattered either way. The black hole opened up in front of us and out of it rose a human shape, glowing black and purple, like the shadow of a person rather than the real thing. 

“I won’t let you.”

Twin glowing, yellows eyes stared down at us from what could only charitably be called a body. 

“We are the League of Villains. It may be presumptuous of us, but we have invited ourselves in, in order to have All Might draw his last breath.”

You could feel the silence that followed that statement. A hushed murmur as if they couldn’t believe what they’d heard. As if shocked by the very idea someone might come for the greatest hero to ever live. 

I stood frozen in place, unable to act as a different feeling overtook me. Something I couldn’t quite place.

This all…this all felt so familiar.

“I believe All Might should have been here. Has there been some kind of change?”

His body expanded, the shadows growing into what almost looked like arms, and he loomed above us like a hawk ready to strike. Those closest stepped back, all except for Thirteen. She, if anything, looked unbothered, prepared. The demeanor of a hero.

I felt just the tiniest bit safer, knowing that she was here.

“Well, that’s neither here nor there. This is the part I am to play.” 

Honestly, I should have expected what came next. The two stupidest people in this class, Eijiro and Bakugo, made their play. They launched themselves over the rest of us, over the professional hero, and smashed into this villain with all the grace of a falling boulder. Whatever plan Thirteen had was lost in a cloud of dust and debris as Bakugo exploded. 

“Did you consider that you’d get beaten by us before you did it?” Eijiro called. 

For a split second, I was foolish enough to hope that they’d gotten him. A lucky shot from two dummies that had taken out a villain before they could get off their big dramatic moment. 

I should have known better. 

“Oh dear, that’s dangerous,” the villain said, his voice seeming to come from every direction. 

As the dust settled, I got to watch as his body reformed. Something metallic sat below where his head came back together, his two glowing eyes narrowed into something I could only approximate as anger. 

“That’s right. Even if you are students, you are excellent golden eggs.”

“No! Move away, you two!” Thirteen called out. 

His body swelled and the purple smoke spread out in a wave, too fast to escape from, until it surrounded us. 

“If you wish to fight so badly children, then you are free to die alongside your mentors,” he called. 

And then it rushed to cover us whole, like watching a tidal wave coming right at you. No matter what it was, no matter what he had planned, I knew I had to act. I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to keep others safe. And even if my suit could insulate me, my classmates would not be so lucky. 

I dove forward, pulling the first two people I could grab beneath me before they could get hit. Everything went fuzzy, my sensors lost in the wave of darkness he immersed us in and my mechanical body the only reason I wasn’t blown away by it entirely. I could hear the whimper of someone below me and the howl of an unearthly wind, but nothing else. My vision was blackness. 

And then we were falling. 

We were speeding towards a rocky, broken terrain, dotted with a few tree stumps and half-submerged cars, and it was only through quick thinking that I managed to build up enough momentum to reorient us. Otherwise, I was sure the two people I’d been trying to protect would  have wound up as smears on my chassis. I landed with a heavy thump on my legs, padded a bit by my dampeners and slid an uncomfortable amount before stopping. Only then did I let go of the two people I'd hugged to my chest. 

Yuga Aoyama and Sen Kaibara. Two of my peers that I had never really talked to before. Would it have been mean to say I was disappointed? 

It wasn’t anything personal. I just wish it had been Momo. 

“Are you alright?” I asked, awkwardly. 

Yuga looked like he was close to hyperventilating, so Sen took the lead. 

“What the hell happened? Where the hell did they drop us?”

Danger. Even with my sensors screwed up as they were, I was moving before I knew what was happening. I jumped to my right, in front of Yuga, and was suddenly flying to the left as a boulder smashed into my body with the force of a pickup truck. I fell hard, but in one piece, turning my sudden flight into a measured roll as I hit the ground. The panicked look on Yuga’s face only worsened, probably realizing if he’d been the one to take the blow, half of him would have been spread across the mountainside. 

“Heh, guess the kids can take a hit.” 

I rose slowly to my full height as I turned to meet our captors. Three villains stood below us: one with a shark’s head, one with a rock body, and a plain looking guy with spiky hair. Past them, I could make out more of their group slowly advancing. They must not have known where we’d fall, and spread out to meet us wherever we landed. 

Unknown capes were always the worst to fight. At least two had to be brutes, but what kind? And what about the third? It didn’t matter. They’d just tried to kill us . I flexed my arms, making sure I wasn’t going to miscalculate this. 

“Yuga,” I said without turning around, “suppressive fire. Sen, make sure they don’t get him with an attack.” 

“And what are you going to do?” Yuga asked, his voice an octave higher than he probably meant for it to be. 

“Taking them out.”

The distance between us wasn’t large, but the few steps forward to meet them felt like they took minutes. 

“Looks like the Iron Giant has a little cousin,” one of the villains joked.

The laughs that followed it were weak. I could be intimidating when I needed to be and silence was often better than speaking. The three villains fanned out and the first shot from Yuga is what I took as my cue to start. 

I rushed the hammerhead and he swung, his fist only clipping my arm and leaving a nasty gash in part of my armor. Some kind of cutting effect when he struck. He was the important one here, probably the only one who could get past my defenses. Yuga managed a direct hit on the spiky-haired villain and I used the space to land two heavy hits against the hammerhead. My sword shot out directly into his stomach and all his air left him in a rough gasp. Any further resistance was lost with an overhand smash to the back of his head. Yuga’s next blast sent him flying, ensuring there’d be no recovery. 

Spikes definitely wasn’t a brute, because he staggered to his feet, trembling in pain. The rock villain was pulling at the mountain side, forming a decent looking chunk that he launched at Yuga. The blond looked ready to flee, but Sen got there first, smashing the projectile into pebbles with one calculated hit. 

Another shot from Yuga landed between us and sent up a cloud of dust and dirt. In the confusion I rushed the rock villain, bursting through the cover like a linebacker. If the shocked look on his face was anything to go by, he hadn’t expected me to be able to move that fast. My hand grabbed his arm and I swung him as hard as I could against the ground, taking personal satisfaction at the pained moan it got out of him. I threw him skyward and used the blunt end of my sword like a baseball bat, hitting for all I could manage. He went soaring towards the mountain’s peak and impacted like a ballistic missile. 

I realized far too late my mistake. I thought that this had been the mountainous area, but as I felt the shift of the ground beneath me realized it was far too unsteady for that.

This was the landside area. 

I didn’t have a chance to move. No time to react. The top collapsed and came rushing towards us in a wave of gravel and loose dirt. I only had the chance to scream before all of us were picked up in it. Smashed beneath hundreds of pounds of falling rocks, we were carried and buried before we had a chance to fight it. 

Submerged beneath the might of the earth, I finally had the time to relax and think.

I was better prepared for this sort of thing than most. No need to panic when you won’t run out of air, after all. I wasn’t in danger. I could take my time.  And this dirt was loose, even if piled on top of me. I moved slowly. Limbs rotating, loosening spots until I could get enough leverage to pull and push. It was a matter of minutes, maybe more, before I got leverage, but from then on, it was only the simple task of digging myself out. 

I breached air slowly, unsure how much movement was even safe to do. Crawling on hands and knees, in a way that felt very undignified, I moved with care until I finally found a spot on the half collapsed mountain that felt stable enough to stand on. But I was alone on it. The villains weren’t in sight, but neither were my classmates. I stood alone on an empty, broken terrain, with the horrifying realization I’d buried everyone with me. 

No panicking. I couldn’t let myself panic. They needed me. I stood stock still and turned my messed up sensors as high as they could go. I pressed myself fully against the ground, hoping for anything. Any sign of hope.

It took far  too long, but I finally got something. A blast radiated outward and I could just barely pinpoint where it was from. Slow moving and careful, I traced it back to its source. 

A hole, less than a meter around that seemed to drop down for far too long. It was impossible to make out anything through the darkness, but Yuga’s voice penetrated, echoing up through the aperture. I could barely make out his cries.

“Yuga, it’s Alexis! I’m here,” I called into it

“I’m stuck,” He called back. “My legs are stuck underneath the rocks. You need to get me out!” 

He must have dug a big enough space to maneuver in and used a shot from his belly button to blow a hole open to the surface, but the terrain was treacherously unstable. It probably is what ended up burying him. He probably hadn’t wanted to risk an attempt at another one in case it buried him entirely. 

But, then what did I do? If I started digging could I get him out before it collapsed on him? 

Could I get him out before he suffocated? 

“I’m going to try something, let me know if you can see me.”

I dug at the hole, trying to widen the gap large enough for me to at least get sight on him, or try to reach further in. The ground didn’t seem to appreciate the attempt and started shifting. I froze stock still, afraid even the slightest movement would doom him.  

“What are you doing! Stop!”

I tried to move back, give me room to maneuver, but the shifting kept up and he cried, begging for help, begging for me to do something, anything . But I couldn’t. 

Large. I was too large. My arm couldn’t reach him, my body couldn’t fit through, and my presence alone was half the reason the ground was ready to collapse. He was buried too deep to reach and I was making it worse. I couldn’t move or he’d be buried again. What could I do? What could I do!

My grappling hook? No, I’d pierce him. He wasn’t a fucking fish, I couldn’t reel him out. My sword? To help with what, cutting his fucking leg off? All my weapons were that: weapons. Nothing designed to help people. Nothing that could actually save those who needed it.

I felt impotent. My fingers clenched and unclenched and I couldn’t do anything . 

Just like back then. I couldn’t do anything. 

“Help,” I called out as loud as I could, praying Sen could hear me. Praying he’d managed to get out. Praying that none of the villains would come rushing towards us. “Help! Help!” 

I sat frozen in panic, afraid to move and unsure if even the act of crying for assistance would be enough to send this house of cards toppling down. But there was nothing else I could do.

I sat on my hands and knees, staring down into a black void, screaming to the empty air for help. 

And praying anyone could hear me.

Chapter Text

I’m in my damn math class when it happens, struggling my way through the quadratic formula (math has never been my strong suit), when a low-pitched hum makes its way into my brain. I look up and realize everyone else has stopped too; the entire classroom is glancing out the windows, listening to a mechanical moan as it warbles through the air. For a moment, I’m struggling to place it in my memory, because it sounds so familiar.

In the next, I realize exactly what it is.

“Miss Honda, was there a drill scheduled for today?” I ask, my fingers twitching in anticipation. Ms. Honda turns to look at me, and even before she opens her mouth, I know that the answer is no.

“Students, please remain calm,” She says, her voice not quite steady, while pulling out her phone. “I’m just going to—”

“Attention.” Principle Nezu’s voice rings out across the P.A. system, sounding grim. “Attention. UA is currently experiencing an active villain incursion centralized at USJ. This is not a drill. We are entering lockdown.”

The whine of the emergency sirens continues as we all stare up at the little electronic speaker.

A villain incursion? At the USJ? But—

But that’s where Alexis is, I think. My stomach churns. But that’s where Alexis is. I take a step away from my desk (I don’t remember getting up but that’s not important right now).

“Mister Addams!” Ms. Honda snaps. “Please return to your seat!” It’s the first time I’ve heard her raise her voice.

“I—” I swallow. My throat feels tight. “Alexis…”

“Will be fine.” She tries to put on a comforting smile. I’m not convinced. “Eraserhead and Space Thirteen are already there, and the other heroes on-campus are on their way, I’m sure. The best thing you can do for your friend is to follow procedure and not get in the way.” Oh god, I think. What if they need me, and I don’t go? Or worse, what if I go, thinking they need me and I make it worse?

“Everyone, under your desks, please. I’m going to turn out the lights and drop the curtains. Be as quiet as you can.” The students sedately obey, crawling under their little shelters as Ms. Honda moves to shutter the windows and flip the switches. The classroom rapidly reflects my mood. Some people pull out their phones, searching the news, but the pale blue light on every face only makes the fear in their eyes more apparent. There’s a distant boom, boom, and Uraraka whispers to me: “I hope that’s Bakugo.”

“I hope it’s not.” I murmur back. “If he’s having to fight, then that means that the heroes are struggling with whoever’s there.”

I abruptly regret saying that, as the brunette’s face only grows more tense.

“Or he’s just, uh, leaping into the fight. Like he always does.” Kendo adds from my right. “Heck, if villains do try and go after him, they might regret it.”

“At least he’ll be good for something,” I mutter. By now the entire school has had at least one encounter with the dynamite dickhead, and as much as the brat got on my nerves, I couldn’t deny that he probably had one of the most offensively powerful Quirks of our year. And he sure as hell wasn’t afraid to use it.

But would that be enough?

Would Eraserhead and Space Thirteen be enough? Sure, their powers were nothing to scoff at, but when you think about it…all Eraserhead can do is put his opponent on the same playing field as him. For people who are overly reliant on their quirks, it’s a great advantage. But for mutation types, ones that don’t have an “off” switch…he’s essentially just a normal man.

Space Thirteen’s ability to manifest localized black holes is strong, but unless the order comes through to authorize lethal force, she’s limited in how much she’s allowed to do. Not to mention that anyone bold enough to attack the USJ and UA by extension had to have known All-Might was here, and unless they were stupid (and it’s a bad idea to assume your enemies are stupid) they would have done research. They would have come up with a plan or some kind of strategy for dealing with the Quirks of the hero faculty.

At least, that’s what I would do.

…my friend could be dead. I can’t get away from that thought, no matter how I try to distract myself with theories and possible outcomes. I’m sitting here on the floor, waiting and wondering if Alexis is still alive. If a man who wants to hurt me and my classmates will knock down that door.

If I die here, will anyone remember me? Back home, where I’m supposed to be— is anyone even looking for me? Do my friends still talk about me? Do my birth parents wonder what happened to me? Or are Alexis and I just two out of thousands missing children’s who’s posters go up and then go down after a month of no calls? Will we become ghost stories and then become nothing at all?

Will I ever get to know what I was made for?

These thoughts spiral inside, a whirlpool of anxiety and dread circling and circling down. There are more distant explosions. I see Jiro flinch. Sharp cracks that might be gunfire or just earth-splitting force makes us all hold our breath. A low, bass-y rumble that no one can identify but we all can feel, setting teeth on edge and shaking metal legs.

The League of Villain’s attack on UA ended at around 2:53 PM. It had only lasted about thirty minutes.

It had felt a lot longer.

We’re all sent home, of course. It was towards the end of the school day anyway, and every parent was insistent to check on their child. Make sure their precious babies were okay, thank or yell at the staff for doing the best jobs they could, and bring them home to swaddle them with care and comfort.

I went home to an empty apartment. They’d kept Alexis behind for a check up and questioning. By the time she got home, I’d already swept the floor and wiped down the countertops. Twice. I even finished my math homework that I’d assigned before…before. I hear the heavy thumps of Alexis’ armored footsteps and rush to the door to see her ducking her way into our tiny little living space. With muted horror, I see that her metal shell has been compromised in several places, dents or shallow perforations doing their best to substitute for cuts and bruises.

“Hey.” She says, electronic tones warbling, full of static.

“Hey.” I echo back, my own voice thick with tears that haven’t been willing to come until right now. I throw myself into her steel-alloy arms and don’t care a tad about how much it hurts to have my chin smack against the breastplate. I’m just so—

“I’m so happy you’re alive.” I whisper, hot shame running down my face. “Fuck me, Alex, I was so s-scared that…”

“I’m sorry, Matt. I should have— ”

“It’s not your fault!” I insist, pulling away to look right at her visor. “It’s not. It’s theirs. Those fucking…” I shake my head. “What did they even want?”

“They were there to kill All-Might.” I freeze. Kill…one of the most powerful heroes on the planet? Seriously? There’s no way they succeeded, that would have been all over the news, but…

“There was this…monster thing, they called it a Nomu, and h-he beat it, but… it nearly killed Mr. Aizawa and it hurt All-Might bad enough for him to start bleeding…” Alexis continues, trailing off at the end. “The rest of them, they just… wanted to hurt us. There were so many of them. I tried to cover for people, block blows and take hits, but…” Alexis voice goes warbly again, and she lowers herself to the ground. “Matt, someone got hurt and I couldn’t help them— It was my fault, and I couldn’t help them because of my stupid body…”

“Don’t talk about yourself like that,” I mumble, but in truth I’m barely there. I’m picturing Alexis diving in front of other people, taking bullets and blows. Knowing that she could survive it better than any of her more fragile classmates, but each blow threatened the integrity of the armor, more and more. How close had someone come to doing serious damage? How long did she have to fight and defend people while I was following instructions and hiding under my desk?

How am I going to sleep tonight, knowing that I stayed back and did nothing while she fought for people she barely knew? I start to cry again at the thought, despite myself.

“Sorry,” I say, sniffling, hating how much of a child I feel like right now. “You’re the one who actually got hurt and yet here I am bawling…”

“It’s not…I’m not mad.” Alexis stammers out, voicebox still adding slight delays to her words. “I cried too. When they gave me a ride here, in the car. I disabled my display and external audio systems. I didn’t want anyone to know.”

“Yeah.” I say. I try to laugh, but the noise kills itself in my throat, leaving a lump behind. “Yeah.”

“...I’m sorry.” Alexis mumbles. “I don’t know what to do.”

“That’s okay.” I promise, wiping at my eyes. “We’ll just do what we’ve always done. We look after each other.”

And if anyone tried to take my friend away from me again, I wouldn’t hesitate.

END OF ARC ONE: INITIATION

Chapter Text

Akane Kotomine has always suspected that she’d angered a god in her past life. That’s the thing about having a mutation quirk. You don’t get a nice, flashy power or harmless party trick. You get to be born looking wrong, and grow up with your parents fretting and worrying about how the other kids at school call you an ugly freak, try to force you to eat things off the floor, or just say you’re a bitch.

That last one is a favorite of hers. It’s technically accurate, so at least it’s mildly funny. She’d kept her head down and forced herself through grueling academics and training. She’d fought for the respect of her teachers and superiors and often had to settle for at least having them not grimace whenever she walked in. Because she couldn’t even get the head of a cute dog, like a Shiba or a Hokkaido. No, she got the goddamn Kai Ken. The werewolf jokes have never, ever stopped. By this point she’s mostly just accepted them, even if the way some children will flinch away from her stings something fierce.

She steps out of her car and almost instantly gets assaulted by the disgusting smell of this part of the city. Too many people living too close together with not enough money to go around results in a lot of trash and muck stinking up the place, and her nose is far too sensitive for her own good. While she takes a few moments to try and collect herself, feeling a tension headache already brewing on top of the more long-term one as a result of poor sleep, she catches a whiff of her boss approaching her car and immediately knows it’s bad. Kenta only makes a point of coming out to greet her if it’s…grisly.

“Victims are a Mister and Missus Tanaka, a couple who live out in the countryside. They paid for about three days of rent here, we believe on a weekend getaway. The bodies were called in by some local joggers who spotted the mess. We're interviewing them now. Mutilated both pre-and-post mortem, obvious signs of Quirk usage. One bit of good news: local forces aren’t interested in a pissing contest. Hell, they practically begged us to take it.” See, this is why Akane can say that Kenta is the best boss she’s ever had: He doesn’t give a shit about her appearance, her status as a mutant, any of it. He only cares about what she can do for him, and if her oddities make her a better investigator, then he’s going to make sure she has the license and approval from the higher-ups to use it. No kiddy gloves or tight leashes, she just gets to do her damn job.

“People happy to see PSIA? Wonders will never cease.” Akane huffs. “Shall we?” She gestures at the house that’s got about three other company cars in front of it, agents milling in and out. The small group of what must be the joggers— two men and women, probably couples who are friends— are talking to two agents, clearly shaken. Kenta hesitates, chewing on his lip in a nervous habit she knows his wife has berated him for.

“Akane, before I take you in, just…prepare yourself, okay? It’s a lot.”

“I’m prepared, sir.”

“Prepare yourself again. We’ve had to call three different techs because they keep throwing up.”

“Damn. Now I’m actually curious.” Akane says. “This worse than the Kyoto Carver?”

“Depends on what you tell me. Come on.” He leads her towards the house, and the overwhelming stretch of blood and other bodily fluids overpowers everything else. It always does, but this time is different; like a nauseating blanket covering the whole scene. It only gets stronger as they get to the front door, along with the smell of…frost? Not so much a smell itself, but the absence of it, like one would expect on an ice cold day.

He leads her through the entry, ducks past some pale-looking medical examiners on their way out, and takes a sharp right turn in the hallway towards a door that’s already got the tell-tale plastic tarp of a crime scene location.

Kenta swings the door open, and—

“Oh.” Akane blinks. “Okay. That’s something new.”

The husband and wife are embracing each other.

Or rather, their veins are. Somehow, they’ve been delicately extracted and then wound back through their bodies like barbed wire, spikes formed from the ice that had kept those veins posted like metal wiring.

She’s so focused on the macabre display of the victims innards that it takes a moment to notice the lacerations. Both victims are covered in stab wounds. There’s a clear distinction between the precise, deft incisions that removed the veins versus the sloppy, shaky gashes the two have carved all over them. It only takes a moment to deduce the source of latter: the two kitchen knives that each victim gripped in one of their hands, raised high as if to strike at each other even in death. Their faces are stuck in a horrified expression, frost still clinging to their bodies. The many threads of vein-thorns erupt in a tangled barb from their mouths to twist up and back to meet each other in the air— an almost cutesy depiction of a heart.

“Techies say that they made them cut on each other first before ripping the veins out.” Kenta mutters, pulling a cigarette out of his pocket and flicking his fingers to summon up some embers. Akane does her best to repress her instinctive gag. Damn things were repugnant. She had no idea how people with regular human noses could bear them. It made her want to tear her own nose off— but on the grand scale of things, it wasn’t worth annoying her only real friend over. Thankfully, she’d long gotten used to blocking it out. “Kept ‘em alive as long as they could throughout the whole process. They didn’t die from the cutting or the cold. The thorns grew on their veins while they were still in their bodies. Those were removed posthumously. At least, before too long.” A puff of smoke. “Well? Got anything for me?”

“This is…” Akane takes a deep breath and tries to sort through all of her senses. “A lot. First thing I’m picking up underneath all of the blood and ice is…chemicals? They dosed them with something, I’m sure. Probably will take a proper autopsy for what. As for why…this whole thing feels very, uh. Arthouse, you know? Like that one movie with the guy who’s trying to build himself a little cabin.”

“Mh. Keep going.” He glances back at the door. “Techies are taking their sweet time coming back, I see.”

“I’m smelling…” she sniffs again, doing her best to not gag. “It’s hard to say, but there’s at least more than one sweat signature here. At least two, if not three or more.”

“A group of killers. Fuck. I really wish that Hindsight wasn’t retired. Could have ID’s by the end of the day.”

“And give big brother more of an excuse to have Pro Heros supplant us? Perish the thought.”

“Say what you will, it made a lot of shit go by faster. Maybe I can convince Nighteye to give this a glance. I still have a few favors to burn…” Kenta muses, but Akane shakes her head.

“I really doubt anyone who owes you a solid has that much pull. Besides,” She continues as her boss gives her a half-hearted glare, “Nighteye’s pretty much neck-deep in the organized crime division, and with how much he does for them? They’d rather have their budget cut in half than let him vacation with our little skeleton crew.”

“Point taken.” He huffs another puff of smoke. “Anything else?”

“Hmm…” Akane inches closer to the corpses and takes another few pointed sniffs. “Not sure if this is just the blood messing with me, but… I swear I’m getting some other metallic smells. More…tinny? Might be some fragments of whatever cutting tool they used for the veins.”

“Mh. “l’ll tell the techies to keep a lookout for that. If they ever get their asses back in here. Seriously, what’s the fucking hold up?” He mutters, turning back around to march for the door. Akane sighs as she falls in line. She understands his annoyance, but can definitely sympathize with—

Wait.

Her hand lunges out and grabs his shoulder, stopping him cold. He turns around and nearly loses his cigarette in surprise, dark eyes wide with shock.

“Kotomine, what the hell—”

“Sir.” Akane says, tone low and controlled even as she has her stare flicker around the room. She’s trying very hard to repress a growl. “How did the group of civvies discover the bodies, again?”

“Why does that…” He trails off, picking up on on her mood. “What’s wrong?”

“Please, sir, just…what did they say?”

“The windows. They were jogging by the area, saw them through the…” He pauses, turning back to look at the windows, then back at the body. Akane swallows.

“You can’t see the bodies from the window, sir.”

Neither of them move for the longest second of her life, both thinking about how utterly quiet it’s suddenly become. They draw their weapons in tandem without a word spoken between them. Her superior opens the door without a sound and gestures— code, something she’d to learn back at the academy. He inched towards the entryway on the balls of his feet, stepping as quietly as possible, with her only a step behind him. Akane tries to smell anything new, any clue as to what was happening, but all she can get is that coppery tang of freshly spilled blood. The front door hung slightly open, but blocked any vision outside. Kenta hung for a second, his ear pressed to the door before motioning to her: breach on three. Akane holds her breath he ticks the numbers down on his fingers until knocking it open with one solid kick.

Then he’s out, guns waving as he searches for a target. And then he pauses. His grip tightens and his arm shakes. She peaks out.

Oh.

Blood and guts litters the ground, gore and viscera splashed across the front lawn with reckless abandon. Not the careful artistic piece of before, no, this is a blunt display of force. A worrying, all too worrying sign of the power behind these people. Not like the Kyoto Carver, not like anything she had ever seen before. Kenta slowly lowers the weapon, though doesn’t reholster. Whatever happened to these villains, they’re long gone by now.

And the entire squad is dead.

Chapter Text

There was something wrong with me.

I felt out of place, like a broken old fridge tucked tightly between the fresh and new appliances on a showroom floor. The classroom of 1A, which had always felt a bit too small for me, was now an incomprehensibly constrictive atmosphere. I would have probably tried to call in sick if I thought anyone was stupid enough to think a robot could get ill.

Everything still felt too recent, too fresh. There were still parts of my armor I hadn’t even fully finished repairing, wounds to myself that I hadn’t yet recovered from. How could anyone expect me to face the student body like this? We had only gotten the weekend off and it was back to business as usual. 

How could everyone act like this was normal?

I looked around the class and couldn’t see a single frowning face, not even a hint at something passing for the pain I felt. Well, except Bakugo, but he always looked like that. Friend groups had formed back up and were chatting as usual. I only caught snippets but while there was some conversation on the fight, a lot was just on their lives and things they’d done. Some even joked about how they’d enjoyed the long weekend.

Momo was off chatting with one of the other girls in class, noticing the lack of my usual cheer almost instantly. She was kind enough to not press on it, but the fact she couldn’t relate…I didn’t know how it made me feel.

How had everyone managed to recover from the fight besides me? 

Because that was the truth; I could see it plainly enough reflected in every single face. People had moved on and I hadn’t and I didn’t know if it was something weird with them, or if it was just something weird with me. Neither potential answer made me feel better.

I was the odd one out here. I was the one who didn’t fit in. It was a feeling I know all too well and it hurt a little to see it rekindled in a circumstance like this. If everyone else was doing fine and I wasn’t then what did that say about me? What did that say about what I was trying to do?

I felt like I had been made wrong.

Maybe…maybe that was the difference between a normal person and a hero. The ability to face danger and continue the next day with a smile on your face, ready to go against the world if need be. To compartmentalize, to push it all away after the moment has ended and the danger has passed.

Maybe this was just another sign I wasn’t meeting expectations. 

Another sign I couldn’t cut it as a hero.

I tried not to look at Yuga. He hadn’t faulted me for what had happened, how I’d just stood by helplessly until someone useful had arrived to save him. It didn’t make me feel any better for it. 

I could have saved him, I know I could have. My tinker powers allowed for contingencies, for additions, and for flexibility. If only I had planned for something like that to happen. If I had thought to increase the length of my arms. If I had thought to combat electro-magnetic interference. If I had made a device that dealt well with earth or digging. If I had been smaller. If I had been thinner. If I had been…

If I had been her.

A weak little phantom of a girl. Hiding behind others, hiding in her shell. Hiding, always hiding. I didn’t want to think about her. I didn’t want to be her, ever again. 

Disgust and revulsion crawled across my brain, but the steel alloy muscles and titanium plated skin that protect my fragile little neuroreceptors didn't so much as shiver. Why would they? Reactions like that weren't worth the input. They were a waste of much needed memory and time.

In a sudden need to prove ownership, I moved the fingers, servos quietly whirring as electric impulses carried out commands with a response time that mirrored organic bodies. Tink-tink-thunk. Tink-tink-thunk. 

Awareness and information, but no tactile sensation. No sense of heat or texture. A pantomime of humanity. 

I was the shell of a girl who had been.

It was a claustrophobic, awful feeling. A pain and sadness that seized me all at once and left me liable to shake. All encompassing, overwhelming. It left me feeling as weak as I had used to be. 

Aizawa’s abrupt entrance only managed to make it easier to push those feelings down, though they refused to fade. 

The classroom door opened with a slam and he fumbled his way through the entrance, more mummy than man. I couldn’t believe they’d let him out of the infirmary. Then again, it was Aizawa. There was a good chance they hadn’t and he’d just left the first chance he got. 

“Hey,” he mumbled through his bandages. 

I could still picture the way his body had been all but crushed by the Nomu, blood pouring out of wounds, more broken bones than I wanted to count. He’d been dropped and just lay there, crumpled on the ground like a broken doll. I had been convinced he wouldn’t be getting up ever again. If it hadn’t been for All Might…

He shouldn’t be walking like this. He shouldn’t be up and about. We shouldn’t be acting like nothing had happened. Human beings were so fragile. Every single one of them was so weak and easily hurt. They weren’t like me. They weren’t protected by layers of tinkertech. Last week had proven just how fragile the average person was and how much I needed to be out there protecting them.

I tried not to look at Yuga as that thought passed my mind. 

But, I didn’t say anything. I was afraid to speak a thought that could prove to everyone else how unsuited I was to be here. Despite my grades, despite my friend, and despite how consistently high I scored, I felt like I was teetering on the edge of some incredibly thin ice. And so I stayed still and silent. But thankfully, someone else said it for me. 

“Mr. Aizawa, should you really be teaching class?” Midoriya said from the front row. 

“I’ll be fine,” he said and everyone else just seemed to accept that. 

I deflated. Aizawa stumbled his way to the front of the class— he had bandages covering his eyes, how did he get here— until finally making it to his desk and taking a tight stance behind it. A few students looked back and forth in confusion or mirth before he cleared his throat and drew everyone’s full attention.

“To try and boost the morale of the student body after the recent attack, the Principal has decided to push up the Sports Festival.”

That did make me perk up. Even a shut-in like me had heard about the UA Sports Festival. It was one of the biggest events for not only the campus, but most of Japan. As the world renowned hero academy, it was treated almost like the Super Bowl or…or some other major sports event. 

Needless to say, it drew in crowds, really massive crowds. I’d probably never have attended it in person even if we had come from this Earth.

“You’ll be meeting with several different teachers, as well as your costume designer to make sure that you’re thoroughly prepared and ready for the action. Attendance is not mandatory, but I should expect most of you to apply.” 

And judging by the reaction of the rest of the class, he wasn’t wrong. You could feel the energy in the air as students started whispering, punching each other, bragging about how they’d win. Even Bakugo’s usual dour pout had morphed into a vicious grin as he bragged about how easily he’d defeat everyone else. 

I didn’t share any of it. I fiddled with my notebook and pen as Aizawa continued on about the different things we would do and what practice was coming up to prepare us for them. Setting up this after the attack we went through felt…disgraceful. Maybe if I had been kinder I would have recognized what it meant for the school, but I wasn’t. People had been hurt and we were moving into  another match to distract people from it? 

It felt cruel. But maybe that was because I just didn’t have what it takes to put my own feelings aside. I just didn’t have what it takes to be a hero.

I could tell I was getting too far into my own mind, but it wasn’t like that meant I could just get out of it. I shook my head, hoping it’d dislodge a plug and fix whatever was going wrong in the junkbox I called a brain.

“So, are you thinking of joining?” Momo said, leaning over from her desk.

Her smile was subdued, but I could still tell she was excited. She was putting on an illusion of calm for my sake. I appreciated that. Momo was just a much better friend than I could ever hope to be. 

“Yes,” I said with a pause before following up with a much more confident, “yes, I’m definitely going to join.”

I let a braver face than I actually felt take up my screen as I nodded to Momo. Because what could I do but fake it? 

“It looks like you’ll have some tough competition, present company included,” she said, reaching behind to pull a toy hammer out of her back. 

She had to stand on her desk to reach my head to give it a light bonk. This time the smile on my screen felt a little more real. 

“Well then you’ll have to bring it on! I’ve got plenty of new additions and attachments I’ve been meaning to test out.”

I grabbed my arm and posed like there was some kind of laser scope on the end of it and Momo giggled. Aizawa, finally noticing he’d lost all semblance of control of the classroom, called for attention and things began to diminish as an actual lesson got underway. 

I felt a little more grounded now. The Sports Festival was important for our future, it allowed for better internships when that sort of thing came up, but…well, maybe for me it was more than that. Maybe this was a chance to gain a reputation before I even graduated. If I had to fake it till I made it, I’d cement something in place that made sure no one would ever be able to just get rid of me.

This was going to be my chance to prove myself. 

If I couldn’t make myself a hero, I’d have to prove to everyone else I would work as one. If there was something wrong with the way I thought, I’d just have to make sure my actions mattered twice as much to make up for it.

If I didn’t have the attitude of a hero, I’d have to prove myself as one through force.