Chapter 14: Getting into the Groove
Summary: Both regular classes and heroics core classes have started rolling along, the students are finally starting to get into a groove without life-altering interruptions. Well, probably. A certain mad inventor and Momo meeting probably has terrifying implications down the road...
Chapter 14: Getting into the Groove
Momo had the distinct impression that she was in danger.
Not the sort of danger that had her busting out her battle suit. Physically, she was certain she was…mostly safe. Actually, given who she was currently feeling like she was in danger from, she wasn't quite as certain of her physical safety, on more mature consideration. Maybe she could subtly add a skintight ballistics weave under her clothes? This girl had blown something up at least twice in the first week of school, after all. So it might not be remiss. That, however, wasn't her primary concern at the moment.
Regardless of her slightly questionable physical safety, Momo was most definitely sure she was in danger. Specifically, in danger of the gremlin known as Hatsume Mei creating some sort of mind control device in an attempt to use Momo as her own personal 3D Printer. The idea was something of a special nightmare of hers, though at least in this case she was fairly certain she was being overly dramatic. Even if, given the level of badgering the girl was capable of, she felt fully justified she had legitimate cause to indulge in being so.
It had, as such things often go, started entirely innocently. Hatsume had been begging Power Loader to authorize her to use a bit of platinum. But Power Loader had been adamant than such materials were too expensive for brand new first years to requisition. Momo had been close enough to overhear Mei's passionate argument on behalf of her 'baby,' and suitably impressed by the potential of the device in question. Used to working with Izumi, she'd simply reached over and created the required amount of platinum. It had only been a couple of grams. Well below the self-imposed limit she had long ago set herself for precious metals so as not to damage the market. As such, the action had been almost automatic…but the results had been far more catastrophic to Momo's sanity than the same casual action normally was when she provided Izumi with the occasional extra material.
Mei was now obsessed with Momo. More accurately, she was obsessed with trying to wheedle the things she 'needed,' out of Momo via her Quirk. And, unfortunately for Momo, the girl was a genius whose inventions were almost always interesting enough that Momo kept breaking down and helping her make bits and bobs that would otherwise be hard to come by. Not precious metals, usually, which is one of the reasons it was so hard to resist giving it. It was more typically simply custom parts, or custom fittings and adapters for existing parts. Components with a material worth so low as to be negligible even by the stingy standards of their usual project budgets…but which would normally have to be put on the list of parts to be custom fabricated. A list on which first year student requests took the lowest possible priority.
Yes. Momo was definitely in danger. She'd fallen into a vicious trap that she really didn't know how to get out of, being intrinsically weak to interesting ideas. Oh well, at least she was getting lots of interesting designs for things she could make in the field. Particularly things that went boom. Mei was really good at making things go boom, after all. Even when they really weren't supposed to…
... ...
Izumi was fascinated. She was also ever-so-slightly horrified. But that was currently taking a backseat to her fascination as she ran test, added calculations for other to follow on the room's whiteboard, and absentmindedly answered questions. Today was supposed to have been a simple demonstration day in her Theoretical Quirk Sciences class. Someone with a Quirk that was unable to be properly quantified had been brought in, with the intent on showing how much people still didn't know about Quirks and how they worked…and how badly that knowledge was needed.
The man, Azusahawa Sakuta, had a Quirk that was detrimental to him. That wasn't all that unusual, to be fair. People were born all the time with odd combinations of their parents Quirks that didn't quite pan out. It was, in fact, why Quirk Marriages were so frowned upon. One classic example, a well known one that was cited in many laws on the subject, was of a man and woman with a telepathy quirk and a telekinesis quirk respectively. They'd had the bright idea to get together and try and have a child with 'general' psionic abilities.
Unfortunately, what they'd actually ended up with, was a child who moved thoughts. Specifically, they moved thoughts from one person's head to another, with the new person believing the thought had been entirely their own. Dozens of people had suffered identity issues when the Quirk came in under adverse conditions, including a number of early pro heroes who had responded to the chaos. Ultimately, the child had needed to undergo long-term Quirk suppression, as the ability proved to be difficult to control. He turned up dead by the age of nine, having accidently moved an important secret from one person to another when he'd forgotten his meds. The secret had nearly ruined a corporation…who everyone suspected had sent an assassin after the child in the aftermath. Though, since it had happened during the chaos of the Quirk Wars finally ending, that had never been proven.
Azusahawa Sakuta's Quirk was, it had to be said, both a far more horrifying and far less horrifying example, at the same time. The latter because the man had eventually learned to deal with it. The former because of what the Quirk actually did. It, put in the least complex manner possible, made people forget about him. This had been utterly tragic when the Quirk had first come in, as his own parents had forgotten him. Thankfully, through a series of lucky events, the right hero had taken notice of him. The hero had managed to figure out what was going on and found crude workarounds. Such as making sure someone constantly observed the then 4-year-old child. The Quirk's passive field only worked when no one was actively observing him. So having someone observe him at literally all times had worked to prevent people from forgetting him while better solutions had been found. Quirk suppressants had also worked, somewhat, but were unreliable since even the small amount of leakage such methods allowed was enough for the Quirk to eventually take effect.
In the years since, other methods had been found, allowing the man to live a mostly normal life. An implant that reminded an electronic system that he existed at set intervals had been created, and counted as observation for the purposes of the Quirk. This allowed him to function fairly normally, though it was a very, very lucky thing that the man hadn't decided to turn to crime. That power in the wrong hands would have been a holy terror.
It was all supposed to have been an object lesson. An example of the reason why it was so important to keep trying to understand Quirks. No one, after all, knew exactly how Azusahawa-san's Quirk did what it did! Sadly for the Professor of the class, he hadn't actually informed Izumi of that fact when he'd told the class to break down possible ways the Quirk might function and how to help someone like Azusahawa-san.
Which is why there was now an extremely enthralled class watching as Izumi taught them all enough QE theory to understand how Azusahawa's QE was interacting with the world, defusing into the general QE field and using people's own QE against them to make them forget he existed. Numerous people were already lost. The professor was considering a new thesis. And an extremely surprised Azusahawa Sakuta was going to leave the class with not only an understanding of how his Quirk worked, but with a primitive grasp on how to intentionally control it. And, of course, a recommendation that he visit Nishimura & Croft for farther training…
... ...
"Good Afternoon Students!"
All Might's entrance was…stereotypically bombastic. Despite being a fangirl, Izumi was starting to see why 2B got so exasperated with the man, even if she secretly didn't share the sentiment. Or, you know, not-so-secretly. Since he was still her favorite hero and she wasn't exactly quite about that fact. His bombast didn't appear to have worn out it's welcome among the rest of her class yet, either. Though to be fair, 2B had been putting up with it for significantly longer than they had.
"Each of you has now gotten a detailed breakdown of your baselines from Midnight! I trust that my coworker had done an excellent job of guiding you through understanding them, as they will be the cornerstone on which you build yourself up! Today, however, none of you have had the chance to completely work through the material, so your first individual lessons on building up those baselines will start with Midnight's next practical session. For today, we have something that will benefit you all equally!"
All Might flourished the classroom remote in his enormous hand, but this time stayed away from the big button that released their costumes. Instead, he tapped a much smaller button…somehow. Seriously, how was he hitting anything that tiny with those huge fingers? However he managed it, the effects were immediately obvious, with the overhead projector flashing an video up onto the screen at the front of the classroom. In it, was a slowly planning shot of one of UA's mock urban areas, shown from what seemed to be a drone's eye view. After a dramatic pause to let his students take it in, All Might held up another colored Cue Card. This one was crosshatched with pipes and wires, and labeled 'Urban Transit.'
"As it happens, today's subject is actually something of a specialty of mine! Though few really think about it. A key matter of importance for every Hero, in virtually every situation, is the ability to respond quickly to an emergency situation! The advent of the Hero Scan Network, and its increased ability to near-instantly alert Heroes within range of a disaster to that disaster and its nature, has only increased this need. To the point, in fact, that there's been something of a boon industry for the last several years in rapid-movement support gear for the everyday hero!"
Another button press on the remote exchanged the panning view of the city area for a montage of different heroes. Some, like a shot of Miruko, simply showed a hero or heroine using their Quirk to rapidly move across a cityscape. But others showed a wide variety of exactly what All Might had mentioned. Support gear intended to aid rapid response times. Limited-endurance flight or jump packs were common, deployable wheeled transport such as a motorized skateboard slightly less so, and several far odder options were mixed in. Such as, for example, an honest-to-god propeller hat. Which Izumi assumed must be using the man in question's Quirk somehow, as she doubted even YorHa tech could make that ridiculous thing work otherwise.
"There are many options for Urban Environment traversal. And each of you will eventually need to zero in on one to use for yourself. However, there are some far more important considerations!" Another button press shifted the projection to a street view of a typical city block. All Might immediately began pointing at various places, each one highlighting as he mentioned them. "Power lines. Cross traffic. Construction. Varying durability of buildings. All of these are things that I have to consider quickly, on the fly, when I'm both taking off with and landing one of my Mighty Leaps! These factors, as well as dozens of other details, are things I must also keep a constant eye on when I'm employing rapid movement on the ground, as well."
All Might powered off the projector, and smiled at them in a way that was…remarkably more sinister than his usual, encouraging smiles. Izumi shuddered as she recognized the weight of that gaze from when All Might assigned Momo and her some particularly brutal exercise set. Mostly the ones he claimed were developed by a former sensi of his, who Izumi had very mixed feelings about wanting to meet.
"Today, we'll be going through an Urban Zone. First, we'll walk through as I point out things to be aware of. Then, however, all of you get to try and navigate to a random distress signal, through the environment, with all its hazards running! Each signal will have a failure time limit and several of them will go off at once. You'll need to employ rapid judgement, as well as your memory of the terrain we just walked through, to decide which one you specifically are able to both reach and deal with. Choosing the wrong one will lose you points. Choosing the right one but causing collateral damage will lose you points. Failing to reach a target, or failing to avoid one of the Hazards that will be going off, will lose you points. You'll start off with 100 points at the beginning of the exercise, and this one is Pass/Fail. If you have points remaining at the end, you pass. If not, you fail and have to run it again in a remedial lesson on your off days!"
All Might held up the classroom remote and triggered the Costume release button.
"Time to sink or swim, boys and girls! Up until now, we've just been getting your baselines. We were even gentle about it! But now the pressure really starts. You have fifteen minutes to get changed and meet me at Urban Area 7!"
All Might vanished with a blur and an instant later everyone began to scramble for their cases. Urban Area 7 was halfway across the campus. Their training in rapid response, it seemed, had already begun…
... ...
Izumi grumbled irritably as her QE hit near-zero again, causing her transformation to fail. There was a reason she'd never trained like this before, since every single time she fell out of her transformation like this her entire body ached. All humans with active Quirk factors required a baseline amount of QE in their bodies. The amount required to simply function varied wildly from person to person, based on their Quirk. In Izumi's case, the amount was particularly high, and it was entirely the fault of the 'Progressive Heteromorphic Changes' that her body had been undergoing since her Quirk first awakened. In theory, the end result of those changes would result in the elimination of her Transformation. Effectively, once they were one hundred percent complete, Izumi would always exist in a version of full transformation. Not the max power output version, since Earth's QE field couldn't support her at max power for prolonged periods. But there would at least be no physical changes when she 'powered-up.'
Unfortunately, the root cause of her time limit wasn't entirely related to the Earth's QE field. Instead, it was sourced from three factors, of which the QE field strength was only the first. The second was the fact that a certain percentage of her energy while transformed was always going toward her progressive changes. That percentage had fallen off significantly when she reached her full height of 168cm (5'6"). She was still technically growing, very slightly, but only as a result of those continuing changes. And it would be highly unlikely she'd ever gain more than another half centimeter of actual height.
This was compounded by the third factor, which was the amount of QE required to temporarily alter the remaining physical changes between her base state and transformed state. While she had largely finished growing, that didn't mean that her body wasn't continuing to alter. Her muscles continued to get progressively, impossibly dense. Her skin was still developing some of the more esoteric properties she was mimicking from 2B, such as EMP resistance. Given she wasn't truly mechanical, that resistance took a more generalized electrical resistance form, which was quite useful. Kaminari would discover trying to shock her in her transformed state would be an exercise in futility. Worse than useless, actually, since the QE in his lightning would help empower her as she absorbed it. These and other passive changes were still being 'copied' over from her full transformation to her base body, resulting in a constant drain of QE.
All of which both explained why she was currently being forced-at-whip-tip to repeatedly run her QE dry, and why it ached like a bitch when she did so. It ached because her entire body was normally infused with a constant level of QE, which served to suppress a lot of pain…like the pain of muscle and bone constantly changing. And she needed to drain herself utterly dry, to the point that infusion stopped being the case, because it was inarguably the fastest possible way to increase her time limit. The more time she spent transformed, the more her changes toward completion finished, slowly reducing how much the third factor took from her reserves when she transformed. The more times she filled and exhausted her QE, the larger her reserves grew and the more efficient she got at converting it from the environment. Ultimately, finishing the changes would even eliminate the second factor altogether! All of which would help extend her endurance.
Now, if only it didn't feel like getting constantly run over by a truck.
Why couldn't her biggest weakness have been lack of combat training or something? Even Momo wasn't being tortured like this! Her girlfriend was simply being put through an ever-changing obstacle course to refine her enhanced movement and suit thruster usage! That wasn't anywhere near as horrible as what Midnight was putting Izumi through!
That's it.
Izumi was demanding a massage tonight. A full body massage with hot oil! Preferably rubbed on by Momo's—
Izumi yelped as a whip cracked right in front of her nose. Whimpering piteously, she concentrated on absorbing the concentrated QE everyone in the room was letting off willy-nilly, allowing her to recharge much quicker than usual. She still had another hour to go, which meant at least three more cycles of this hell…
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A/N: Here we see snapshots of actual classes and training. It's not something canon really shows us, which I think is a shame, since it leaves viewers with the impression of jumping from crisis to crisis with no actual training. I won't be showing TONS of this sort of thing, since doing so would slow the story to a crawl. But there will be more of it than canon showed, assuming I can keep it interesting.