Back in class, it was time to choose class officers. In the anime, they’d basically skipped over this part for Deku’s nomination of Iida, so I was interested in what would happen now.

“We will need a Secretary, Treasurer, and Historian,” Momo said next to me at the head of the class. “Do we have anyone who would like to join any of those positions?”

“Pass!” Mina said, giggling with a hand behind her head. “Those all sound way too smart for me.”

“Honestly, they don’t require that much,” I said. “Secretary just has to maintain any correspondence we have, do any signup sheets, take accurate notes-”

“I can do that!” Deku’s hand snapped up. He blushed when everyone looked over him, but seemed determined nonetheless. “I can take notes!”

“It’s pretty much all you can do, shitty Deku,” Bakugo growled.

“Bakugo, if you don’t want to contribute, be quiet,” I snapped.

“You gotta problem with me, shitty turtle!?” he shouted, rising out of his chair and doing that white-eyed rage look he seemed to have mastered.

“So yeah, Deku can take the minutes. You down to be our Historian as well? They’ll need to basically do a narrative of all our activities and such.”

“Yeah, I can do that!” Deku said happily.

“Stop ignoring me!” Bakugo shouted, explosions rising from his palms.

“Oy,” Aizawa glared at him. “Seriously. I’m trying to nap. Stop yelling.”

The blonde stewed in his seat while Deku looked like his world was getting rocked.

“Is it really a good idea to combine both roles?” Momo asked me, looking a little bit annoyed.

“I think it is, to be honest. I always thought both jobs have a lot in common. Just in case though, Deku, do you have anything to prove you can do the job of taking accurate notes?” I asked.

Bakugo scoffed, and Deku nodded frantically. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a burned notebook, rushing to the front of the class and handing it to Momo. “This is my Hero Analysis For The Future journal. Number 13!”

“Why is it burnt?” Momo asked, looking it over hesitantly.

Deku flinched, eyes flickering at Bakugo. “Uh… there was an accident. But it’s still in good condition.”

She opened it up, looking it over. “Analysis on hero quirks?”

“Yes,” he said proudly. “I’ve spent years analyzing the quirks of heroes I admire to understand them! I even made a page for Uraraka-san and Iida-san.”

“You did?” Ochaco said, blushing just a bit.

“Yeah!” he looked around. “I haven’t made any for everyone else yet though. I haven’t seen a lot of your quirks in action.”

“Oh my,” Momo had opened the book to a page on Ochaco. There was a listed set of how her quirk worked, her uniform, thoughts on possibilities for her limitations, confirmed weaknesses. “This is very well written! Good job, Midoriya-kun! And you do this regularly?”

“Any time I see someone I admire using their quirks!” Deku said. Iida seemed touched, while Ochaco’s blush went nuclear. I didn’t have the heart to tell them Deku admired EVERY person who had heroic traits. He was an ‘all-loving hero’ after all.

“I retract my previous objections then,” Momo said seriously, handing him back his notebook. “Okay then. How about a treasurer?”

Things got a little awkward. Finally, Jiro raised her hand with a sigh. “I’d like to volunteer as tribute,” oh, that meme was still a thing. That or it had become a super common vernacular and I hadn’t heard it. “I need to practice my math anyway. Just don’t get mad if I mess up.”

“We’ll have each other's backs,” I reassured her. “Honestly, this job is likely going to be based around us working with the UA Super Sentai as a class. That should be interesting,” I said, looking over at Aizawa. “All right, teach. We have our class officers.”

“Fantastic,” he said with all the sarcasm old age had given him, unzipping his sleeping bag and rising to his feet, sighing as Momo and I sat down. “Okay. Now, we’ll be going over some basics of hero law. This will cover the current laws in place for structural damage, what a hero is liable for-”

Even as he went into it, my mind was on our after-school activities.

------

After School

When class was done, we all gathered in front of Battle Ground Gamma. It was a massive pipe-filled area, like someone with a vague idea of how factories, power plants, and other industrial sites worked, had smashed together a whole bunch of them to make a sprawling area with varying levels and sizes of pipes, catwalks, and platforms. Kinda an insane hodgepodge to look upon. And by far one of the dopest things I’d ever seen.

“-have been permitted to use the Battle Grounds as we wish, as long as it is for training purposes,” Iida said. Kendo and he were standing in front of us, the two leaders of the UA Sentai. Kendo had a confident smile on her face, while Iida was very seriously reading from a series of notes in his hands.

I took a look around at the students. Class 1-A and Class 1-B were here. All except for Bakugo. Surprisingly, Shoto had shown up. He was standing right next to me actually, with Pony on my other side and Mineta in front of me. I thought he’d be too cool for the class (no pun intended), but having him there would be useful.

Other than Class 1-A and 1-B, some other students had arrived. I didn’t recognize most of them outside of just walking past them in the halls. One that stood out was a short girl with a good build, shoulder-length pink hair set into dreadlocks, with a pair of goggles on her head, a giant belt, and... She had crazy eyes. I mean, yes, her eyes had an interesting scope-looking design that had to be tied to her quirk, but she had the crazy eyes in a way that reminded me of an old friend of mine. That girl was nuts. I could feel it in my shell.

Another student was standing just a bit to the side. He looked tired based on the dark bags under his eyes. He had messy, indigo-colored hair that flared out in large tufts around his head, and was looking around at us suspiciously, meeting eyes with me briefly before snapping his head away.

One person I recognized was the leader of the girls who I’d stopped Mineta from perving on. What was her name? Chiku-... something or other? The brown-haired girl with a ponytail. She’d glared at Mineta, and when she noticed I was standing near him, gave me a similar one. I’d clear that up later.

There were three other guys, all standing together in a group. An overweight guy with a beehive blond haircut, of all things, a skinny dude with glasses and green hair currently typing in his laptop, and a short guy with purple hair. The three of them were talking to each other, looking around at us with enthusiasm. I wondered what they were up to.

“As Iida-san said, we’ll be working together on ALL aspects of being a hero,” Kendo said. “Not just fighting, but skills we might need down the road like investigation, teamwork, management,” the trio of random dudes perked up. “And even working with the Support class to make items that will help us with our powers.”

The pink girl giggled a little bit. It was creepy and reminded me of an old adage all men must learn when it comes to crazy girls.

“Now, to start, I would like us all to begin with some discussion-”

“Discussion?” Kaminari mumbled behind me. “Damn, won’t this get boring quick?”

“We need to get to know each other’s quirks,” Kendo said, taking over for Iida. They were doing well at that, balancing each other. “We can’t exactly go running around fighting each other. We’ll have spars down the road, but for our first session, we’ll break up into groups of five and simply talk about our quirks, share ideas on training, and ways we can improve in the future!”

“We’ve already figured out groups we can break up into,” Iida began. “I will begin listing them off.”

“We’ll be on different teams, won’t we?” Pony asked, looking up at me.

“That was the plan,” I said sadly. “You and I have talked about our quirks to death. Better to see what advice we can give others.”

“That’s fair,” Pony said in English, pressing a finger to her lips.

“I just hope I get grouped with some cute girls,” Mineta sighed. “But it would also be nice to be teamed with Shoji.”

“...I didn’t know he was your type,” I mumbled, honestly confused.

“Not like that you dumb turtle!” Mineta shouted up at me, glaring. “He was my opponent in the Battle Trial, so I want to ask him what I could have done better.”

“Oh. Well, that makes perfect sense then.”

“What about you,” Mineta asked as he calmed down. “You hoping to group with someone specific?”

“Yeah. But only two.”

Kaminari was one. I had some ideas on how to upgrade him before the USJ incident tomorrow. Granted, that was more of a last resort. If things went right, then I wouldn’t have to do much for that. Still, preparation is key in all things.

The other was Koda. His quirk had given me some ideas for a few projects I wanted to work on, and I wanted to talk to the shy guy about them.

Hopefully, I’d get either one.

------

“Well, I guess we better get started,” I said, looking around. Izuku was holding onto his notebook, looking around nervously. We’d taken one of the rooftops looking over the area, and were sitting in a circle.

Reiko Yanagi, a Class 1-B student, sat next to Izuku. She was a quiet young woman, with chin-length, pale gray hair, parted to the left, hanging down over her eye and obscuring the majority of the left side of her face. She held her arms up at the elbows all the time, her hands hanging loosely, like a classic ghost or something.

Next to her, Hitoshi Shinso, a General Education student, was sitting on my other side. The kid was leaning against the fence behind him, quiet as he looked at us.

The final person there was Kinoko Komori. She was a short girl with very thin arms and legs, with honey brown hair, curved inwards in a mushroom-shaped bob that reached just below her narrow shoulders. She had yet to really meet any of us in the eyes.

I looked around. Izuku coughed. Reiko looked over at Komori, who fidgeted. Shinso eyed us all silently.

What, seriously? ALL of them were the quiet type? Damnit. Somewhere on a level below us, I could hear Kaminari and Kirishima shouting happily as they chatted with one of the Management kids, the praying mantis kid, and the steel guy. Now there was a group that wasn’t running out of things to say. Well, this would work either way.

“I’ll start then,” I began. “My name is Bowser Koopa. My quirk is Dragon Turtle. I can basically do a variety of things based on my body, with superhuman strength, durability, and stamina as my base powers. I’m hoping to master a few abilities that I should be able to do but have yet to master at all. Now, who’s next?”

The others looked at each other. Then Shinso leaned forward. He glared around before finally speaking. “Hitoshi Shinso. My quirk is…”

He hesitated. Finally, he spoke. “My quirk is Brainwashing.”

We all froze. I stared at him. “Wait, what do you-”

I froze. For a moment, I was locked inside my own body. I stared helplessly through eyes that wouldn’t move at my command. Shinso eyed me with a little bit of bitter amusement.

I immediately began to panic. Ever since I was a kid, I was terrified of getting my mind, my control, taken away. A whole combination of things had turned that fear into something potent. I didn’t do drugs or drink. And part of that was because I never wanted to lose control of my body. I prided myself on keeping control of my faculties. Hell, it was part of why being changed into Bowser had such a huge effect on me.

Locked inside my own mind, with no way to move unless Shinso willed it? I wanted to scream even with my thoughts dulled by his quirk.

“If someone responds to me after I use my quirk, I can control their actions. I just need to concentrate on one person at a time. And I can’t make them do anything truly complex, like speak. But anything else is under my control.…”

Suddenly my body was my own again. I gasped, staring at him in horror. The others did the same. He smiled, though there was no happiness to it. “That is my quirk. Villainous, isn’t it?”

None of us spoke. He didn’t seem surprised. If anything, it looked like he’d expected that.

I took a deep breath again. Then again. “I’ll be honest. I hate your quirk.”

Everyone flinched. Shinso only smiled sadly. “Yes. It’s the quirk of a villain after all.”

“No, that’s absolute bullshit,” I spat out, growling with a bit of anger. He snapped his head up to look at me. “I hate it because I fucking hate losing control of my body. I have enough hangups about that sort of thing. So I hate it. But it’s also a great quirk for a hero,” Shinso stared at me, eyes widening, his mouth opening just a bit. “You can make suicidal people get to safety, shut down hostage situations, distract villains by turning them against each other. Hell, just the threat of your Quirk is useful. If communication is one of the most important parts of warfare, making people too scared to speak to their allies is damn useful.”

“Ah, he’s right!” Deku leaned forward excitedly. “A quirk like that is perfect for non-violent solutions to problems! Even if it has weaknesses, it’s still very useful! Oh, what are the limits of your range?”

“Um, as far as my voice can reach,” Shinso answered, leaning back as Deku got close. “And I can’t use an electronic device to project my voice.”

“And I guess it only works on those of us who can understand the languages of man, the intent of human nature?” Reiko said, hands still in that praying mantis stance.

“...” Shinso stared at her, uncomprehending.

“Only works on humans,” Komori explained.

“Oh, uh, yes, it only works on humans.”

“So that’s why you had trouble with the practical exam,” Izuku mused.

“I didn’t even take it…” Shinso mumbled. “When I told people I was headed to UA, my teacher encouraged me to go for the general education course.”

“...Encouraged, huh?” I scowled. “Well, fuck him. I hate your quirk, but we’ll help you develop it, man. We’ve got enough punchy dudes. Having a guy who can shut down a bad guy with a word is too useful. As long as you prove you’ve got the guts though. Because we are going to be doing combat training here.”

“You want me to fight you?” he asked, smirking. “Now that you know my weakness, won’t you simply pick me up and punch me in the face?”

I hesitated to speak. Not because I didn’t know what to say, but because I was worried about his quirk. He sighed sadly.

“I’m sorry. I won’t use my quirk on you again. I just… sometimes I can tell a lot about someone's true nature based on how they respond to my quirk. I’ll hold off on it though. I really do want to become a hero. And I guess things like that aren’t very heroic.”

“Yeah, to say the least,” I sighed. “Anyways, a lot of heroes have quirks that, while useful, aren’t built for combat. They find ways around that, usually with support items. If you need a weapon, well,” I reached for the railing behind him, my forearm just next to his head. He flinched at the sound of squealing metal before my hand was back in his view. “You can’t wrong with a big fucking stick.”

A piece of railing landed on his lap, a piece of metal about the length of an arm, and thick around as a tennis ball. “The oldest weapon of humanity, and still useful as hell. We’ll figure out support items later, okay?”

Shinso stared at me before nodding quickly. “Y-Yeah! That would be great!” he winced while trying to grab it. “It’s um… a little hard to hold?”

I took the metal rod back. I squeezed it carefully near one end, slowly molding the steel, then handed it back to him, a grip of sorts on the end I’d squeezed. “There you go.”

As he took a hold of his new weapon, I looked over at Reiko. She pressed a finger to her lips in thought. “I am Reiko Yanagi. My quirk, Poltergeist, allows me to control nearby objects,” she held out a hand, and a couple of stones floated up from the rooftop to orbit her hand. “But my limit is the weight of the average person.”

“Poltergeist? Shouldn’t that be just, telekinesis?” I asked curiously.

“Oh, I know the answer to this!” Izuku said. “Early on, quirks were given names that were very similar to most commonly known versions of that power. So those who could throw fire were called fire-users, telekinetics were telekinetics, etcetera. But, as quirks became more common, they had to give them names that were specific to the variation of that power. My mother’s quirk lets her pull small objects towards her for example, so it would need to be called something specific to differentiate it from Reiko-san’s!”

That made sense. “Okay. So, Reiko. What is the limit on how many objects you can control?”

“How many? The limits of my power are tied to a body's relative mass or the quantity of matter contained by it, giving rise to a downward force. I have yet to wonder about a quantity of something, especially the total of a thing or things in number, size, value, or extent.”

Fuck me, she was a literal living dictionary.

“Okay. So you can probably control a bunch of, say, metal ball bearings? Sand? Even a bunch of crystals? That’s pretty epic.”

Izuku spoke up next. “How fast can you move the objects? What's the limit of your range?”

“The fastest I’ve thrown it was around 45.1 meters within a single second, however, I was forced to expend enormous energy and focus to do so. My most consistent is around 30 meters per second.”

“That’s still not bad at all,” Shinso mumbled, still hefting his new weapon a bit.

“As for my range, around 3 meters,” or close to 10 feet.

“Damn, that’s useful. How about you, Komori?”

She looked around at us. After a moment, she swallowed, girding herself. “My name is Kinoko Komori. My quirk is Mushroom.”

Oh, come on universe, seriously? Team the mushroom quirk-user with Bowser?

“It allows me to generate fungus spores. I send them out, and they make mushrooms wherever they touch,” she pressed a hand to the rooftop. When she took it away, a couple of mushrooms slowly grew from the concrete. “But it is easier in humid zones. This one here is little grifola frondosa,” her shyness faded a bit, replaced by excitement as she pointed at a very frilly-looking brown and white mushroom. “And this one here is Tricholoma equestre!”

“Ohhhhhh,” Izuku said, leaning forward to stare at them.

“Be careful,” Komori said with a small smile. “Some people think tricholoma might be poisonous,” as Izuku backed away in fear, she continued to smile. “My quirk isn’t really meant for direct combat, but it is useful for several things, even if they disappear in two to three hours. And they work very well on robotic foes, to gunk up their insides and prevent them from working.”

“Oh, is that how you passed the practical?” Shinso asked curiously.

“Yes! My little spores entered the robots and grew inside them, covering their circuitry and destroying them from the inside! So cute!”

I stared at the formerly shy girl as she gushed over that, a little horrified at the thought. Cause if she could do that to robots, then technically her spores just needed to contact any surfaces. So if they got inside someone's throat... Damn. I turned to Deku.

“Okay, Deku. How about you?”

“Oh, I forgot you’re calling me that too,” Deku mumbled, blinking.

Oh shit. “Uh, is that okay? I heard Ochaco calling you that earlier, so I thought-”

“It’s fine, it’s fine!” he said, waving a hand.

“Is it really fine?” Reiko mumbled. “Calling him that could be seen as an insult, right?”

Izuku continued speaking. “I’m Izuku Midoriya, but I don’t mind Deku, since it makes me think of ‘dekiru’ now!” he said, using the Japanese word meaning "to be able to do". Also, Deku… your crush on Ochaco is showing when you blush that hard dude. “And my Quirk is called… w-well, I don’t have a name for it yet,” One For All. “It’s a strength-enhancing quirk. But I don’t have much control over it. I… break my limbs whenever I use it.”

The other three kids stared at him.

“...Like, on purpose?” Shinso asked hesitantly.

“No, I just have issues with my control,” Deku sighed, staring at his right hand as it clenched into a fist. “My body isn’t able to withstand my own power. So whenever I throw a punch, or I try to jump, I end up using more power than I can handle.”

“...Well, looks like we all have something to work on then,” I said slowly. “Shinso, I suggest that when you train, you have two goals. Your body and your voice. Plus, maybe some heckling.”

“Heckling?” Shinso asked in confusion.

“You know, like Spider-Man, or Deadpool. Taunt, tease, mess with them, make them make a mistake,” I grinned. “I’ve got expertise in the subject.”

“I’m not really the… heckling type,” Shinso said with some hesitance. “I mean, I can make people angry, but I don’t really tease people like that.”

“That’s the point of training,” Reiko said idly. “Twist your words into the noose around the necks of your enemies, choking forth the utterances that will be their undoing.”

“...Uhhh, yeah,” Shinso sweatdropped. “I’ll do that.”

“I’ll share some videos that might help?” I said, getting a nod from Shinso. “And we’ll figure out how to get some agility in ya. Not much point in training you to piss people off if you can’t dodge a guy trying to rip you in half.”

Shinso suddenly looked a lot less positive about all this.

Reiko spoke up next. “I like your ideas about carrying sand and other small objects with me. I will practice my control with them.”

“If you do it right, you could end up being sorta like Toph from Avatar the Last Airbender,” I mused. “Tossing rocks, sand, controlling them to make defenses. Even if your limit right now is the size of the average human, the average human weighs a lot. And if we consider how lightweight something as strong as, say, titanium is, then you have a lot more options.”

Reiko nodded, her hands still in that weird praying mantis stance she seemed to favor. Then she quirked her head to the side. “Avatar… that is such an old series.”

“Yeah, are you an 80-year-old man?” Shinso asked teasingly.

“My tastes are straight out of the past. I blame my upbringing,” I said with a smirk. “As for Komori, I’ll be honest. I don’t know a lot about spores or mushrooms.”

“Can you focus your spores to grow the way you want?” Izuku asked the Greenette writing constantly in that notebook of his. “Make them specifically grow in one spot to catch your fall, or surround a limb like a makeshift shield to soften a blow?”

“I can’t,” Komori said with a little shy smile. “I tried, but my little babies go where they want.”

“Hmmm,” Deku stroked his chin. “Yes, if the spray of the spores is relatively random, then your quirk would mostly have use as an area of effect move.”

“But she doesn’t need to work about how her spores come off her body, just where they go after, right?” Shinso pointed out. “Maybe a gun?”

“A support item that can gather my spores and send them out as a projectile?” Komori hesitantly added, brushing back her hair a bit and revealing her eyes had an ‘X’ in her pupils. “I haven’t thought of that. I don’t know though…”

“We’ll have to test it out I guess,” I mused.

“How about me?” Deku asked hesitantly. “Do you think there is a way for me to use my power without breaking my arms?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted immediately.

“Ahhh,” Deku sighed out sadly.

“Sorry. I mean, I have some guesses,” mainly from those AMV’s I’d seen a time or two that showed him zipping around while surrounded in lightning. “But I think we need to think on your power a bit. Deku, are you a late bloomer?”

He flinched. I guess I was just a bit too close to the truth for his tastes. “S-Something like that!”

“Because, to be honest, you have all the control of a child with your power,” I said.

Deku seemed to fall into a depression. “I-Is that so…”

“But if you didn’t even know you had a quirk until recently, that would make sense. You’ve got all the power of a full quirk, but none of the experience withstanding its effects,” I scratched the scales on my chin. “Bakugo likely had to work up to being able to withstand his own explosions for example.”

“He did,” Izuku frowned thoughtfully. “When we were little, he couldn’t make nearly as big explosions without hurting himself. When I first realized what my quirk was, someone told me if you tried to get someone who suddenly got a tail to do tricks with it, they wouldn’t be able to control it.”

“Well, how do you use your powers, anyway?” I felt like I was grasping at straws. Without the context of the other seasons-

I shut down that thought immediately. If I kept complaining about not knowing what happened in the rest of the series, I might as well complain I hadn’t arrived with a boxed set of the manga and the creator of the series, Kōhei Horikoshi, giving me a breakdown on his universe. No, I’d need to discard those thoughts. From now on, focus on what I could do with the knowledge I currently had, not on what could have been.

“How does it feel?” I asked Izuku again. “When you use your powers, I mean. That brief second right between when the power activates and the moment after when your limb breaks?”

“There is a lot of talk about breaking limbs around here,” Shinso muttered to Kimori, who nodded quickly.

“It feels…” Deku frowned, thinking. He raised his fist and clenched it. “Like my powers are flooding through me. As though energy is pouring into whatever limb I’m using, filling it up and up.”

“So… it’s an energy that flows through you? Sounds kinda Dragon Ball Z-Esque…” I muttered.

“Again with the ancient references,” Shinso teased.

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t pour as much energy as you can into a single limb? I feel like I’m grasping at straws here since my own super-strength works off of muscle power, but if the problem is that you can’t handle the amount of energy, then maybe use less?”

“Ah, yes,” Reiko spoke up, looking thoughtful. “When a cup is full, and you have no other cup, you simply do not fill it further, yes?”

Deku looked struck. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Ah, that’s true. I haven’t thought of it, but-maybe-if-I-start-channeling-the-energy-of-OFA-in-smaller-amounts-my-limbs-would-be-able-to-withstand-it-better-and-I-”

“It makes sense, I think. After all, a boxer doesn’t put every last bit of their power into every hit. You put enough to hurt, but you always make sure you’ve got a bit of energy leftover,” I got up and demonstrated with some quick jabs in the air, followed by a cross. “See? I make sure to use enough power to hit, but I don’t exhaust myself. Control is more important than power sometimes.”

I lowered my fists. “What do you guys say we practice a bit then?”

“Practice?” Shinso asked while the three Hero students seemed to immediately get what I was saying.

“We have an hour or so. We won’t be able to do much, but the amount of effort you put into this hero shit is important,” I explained. “In fact, that’s the best advice I can give you if you want to be a hero, Shinso. If you really want it, then start training. Find ways to train every day. Doesn’t matter if it’s as big as a four-hour workout, or as small as reading up or watching the adventures of past heroes to get ideas from them.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Shinso said, rising to his feet.

“Deku. You and I should train together since I’m the only who can take a punch from you without breaking in half,”

“I’m not sure how I feel about you describing it that way,” the greenette said nervously.

“Shinso, I recommend you look up Deadpool’s movies, all nine movies are free to watch and it’s a good way to learn from the master of heckling people into making mistakes. Ryan Reynolds is an ancient treasure dude. And maybe look up videos on stick fighting.”

“I’ll practice with these stones,” Reiko said, looking over the gravel on the rooftop. “I believe I can use your advice to find new ways to apply my abilities.”

“I guess I should speak to that girl from the Support class?” Komori said, looking around. “So that she can help me with my spores. Where is she?”

I gave her a deadpan look. Then I pointed up and to my left. Komori looked up. Then her hair flew out of her eyes as they widened.

Ochaco was in the distance, rocketed above the battleground, screaming. A pink-haired girl with a pair of jet boots on was laughing happily while they flew together, shouting something we couldn’t hear.

“...Maybe I’ll talk to her later?” Komori mumbled nervously.

My ‘crazy chick’ senses were top-notch for a reason.

That aside though… a spar with the main character. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t wanted this.