Chapter 2: Growing Up

Summary: Time Skips about as we watch Izumi grow up! Let's see some critical moments of her development...

Chapter 2: Growing Up

-Izumi: Age 6-

"Wait, I can dataize normal things? Not just summon ones you already have a blueprint for?"

"Of course. It should be easier, in fact, since the object is real. Also, I believe the correct term is 'digitize.'"

"Why didn't you tell me I could do that! That would make carrying my school stuff so much easier! Ohhhh and I bet I could do hero stuff with it, too! Like carry extra cookies to give sad people when they're hurt!"

"You didn't ask. You seemed intent on training with basic telekinesis and your partial-transformation strength. As both are core assets to your future skill set, focusing on them made sense to me."

Izumi froze as a thought occurred to her.

"Wait. 2B. How many things other than telekinesis and transformation can I do?"

"Well. Since I was given comprehensive blueprints for all YoRHa models when I became your Quirk, you should be able to do anything any model can do. In theory. Such as…"

Izumi's eyes grew wider and wider, the juice glass and snack she'd been consuming forgotten. She was going to be so awesome! Oh…but she was also going to have so much training to do…

-Izumi: Age 7-

"Ugh! 2B, why is this material so hard to understand!"

"According to my research into human learning. It has to do with the fact that you are seven years old, and this material is usually not covered until a human is in middle school. The enhancements to your memory and processing speed only go so far. Particularly as they are still ongoing."

Izumi pouted at the wall. She really wanted to understand some of the words the Quirk specialists had used about her Quirk. But, when she'd asked, they'd explained that she'd need a serious grounding in biology, engineering, materials sciences, and nanotechnology to truly understand it. That even they were consulting with experts to understand what was happening to Izumi's muscle and bone when she transformed. Let alone to understand the slow process by which those changes were becoming part of Izumi permanently.

They'd indulged her when she'd asked to learn, loading her down with more advanced math books and basic engineering texts. But, as Izumi had been finding out over the last several days, understanding something wasn't the same as memorizing it. She'd already memorized much of it, but she didn't understand very much of it yet. 2B was helping her by providing practical examples for lessons, but it was still going so slowly. She might be old, like twenty or something, before she figured all this out! Sighing and glancing at her favorite poster of All Might, one that featured him working alongside several other heroes at a disaster site, she summoned up her will to be like all of them someday and got back to work…

-Izumi: Age 8-

Izumi scowled at her former friend, standing between him and the boy he'd knocked to the floor with his explosions. It was a surprisingly intimidating scowl, coming from an eight-year-old. Though it was possible it had something to do with the way her school uniform was moving and flowing in a non-existent wind.

"Heroes don't beat people up, Bakugo. Take your minions and leave."

Those minions looked more than ready to flee. But, predictably, Bakugo Katsuki did not. He snarled at her, firecracker-sized explosions popping in his palms, even if there was a hint of wariness in his eyes. He already knew that this wouldn't end without a lot of pain if he pushed things. Yet…Izumi pissed him off. They both knew it. And it had only gotten worse now that he knew Izumi was about to escape his immediate orbit by essentially skipping grades. Katsuki, despite being the top of his year now, still had three more years of middle school. Izumi, with the ever-increasing benefits of her Quirk, had qualified for a program meant to deal with those that had intelligence-boosting Quirks. This would be her last year of middle school. In another three months, she would be moved into a private school system that would let her start on high school material, alongside others whose Quirks gave them some sort of academic boost.

Her acceptance into the program had sent Bakugo into a frothing rage, resulting in him actually being suspended from Aldera for three days. He'd only been back for two and a half days since that suspension ended…and it was painfully clear his rage had only been bottled up, not dealt with. Despite knowing most of his anger would fade once she was gone, Izumi wasn't about to let any of that rage spill out on their classmates. She could handle anything he threw at her, and the school wasn't about to let him get away with targeting her, anyway. There was too much attention on her from the advanced program. Aldera would be in for a world of trouble if she was attacked. A point she was sure the principal had driven home to Bakugo, a clear warning that had likely been the only thing holding her former friend back. As it was, one of the minions actually grew a spine. Mostly, she was pretty sure, in self-defense. Both of them had been suspended along with Bakugo, after all.

"Come on, Kats. She'll be gone in a month anyway. Just leave it be."

Unfortunately, the minion hadn't grown a brain along with the spine. Reminding Katsuki of his 'inferiority' was the last thing that the idiot should have done. With a cry of rage, Katsuki launched himself forward at Izumi, palms crackling with explosions...

It was over in an instant. Katsuki had amazing natural instincts and he'd recently figured out how to boost his speed with his Quirk. But Izumi had already had her Quirk active and her speed and reaction time with it engaged were so far beyond human that Katsuki might as well have been standing still. Despite that, and despite her enhanced strength, Izumi was extremely gentle as she grabbed one of his wrists and spun. She pulled him off balance, down to the ground, in a near-flawless execution of a basic Aikido move. A precise strike followed a moment later…and Bakugo slumped into unconsciousness. Izumi sighed, even as she heard the two minions running away. She really hoped she wasn't in trouble for this…

-Izumi: Age 9-

"Are you…serious?"

"Of course. You know I would never lie to you Izumi. I only waited this long to tell you as I deemed it would have been difficult for you to comprehend at a younger age."

That was…absolutely true. After all, even as far ahead of her peers as she was, and as mature as she acted compared to most of them, Izumi was reeling from what 2B had just explained.

"Okay. Okay. So, let me get this straight. I mean, I know I remember it right. But I kinda need to process this. So…you existed before becoming my Quirk. That…I'd honestly sort of figured that out. Kinda. Some of the things you've said over the years made it pretty obvious, even if I hadn't really thought through what it meant."

Izumi closed her eyes, tipping back in her desk chair, very very glad it was the weekend. She had a feeling her poor brain was going to have a lot of trouble understanding all of what 2B had just dumped on her. Not that she was blaming her oldest, closest, and only friend.

"Before being my Quirk…you were an Android. One of what was basically an entire race of Androids. A race created by a dying humanity, in a reality other than this one. You're…completely sure that it was another reality? Not, like, the future of ours?"

"I am 99.596% sure. It took some time to correlate the data, particularly given how much was lost both to my people and to this world regarding the most relevant time periods. From everything I have been able to compile, however, the first appearance of a Quirk matches almost exactly with the first recorded case of White Chlorination Syndrome in my original reality. I have also detected considerable levels of ambient Maso in your atmosphere. The levels are lower than my original world, however. My current theory is that the same event which caused Maso contamination and WCS in my original reality also affected 'nearby' realities. Such realities only got a fraction of the dose, rather than lethal levels, and it resulted in mutation of your humanity to use Maso, instead of being destroyed by it. Thus, Maso is identical to Quirk Energy, which I have been referring to as QE for both you and your doctors. Humans are absorbing it and using it to fuel singular abilities, 'Quirks,' with those abilities growing in power as farther generations are born with more refined absorption and conversion abilities."

Izumi felt faint. All this time, nearly 200 years, with no one on the entire planet having any real idea where Quirks had come from. And now she had a working theory…one with significant evidence to back it up if 2B's scans of 'Maso' and 'QE' were truly as identical as she said they were. At the very least, it meant that she knew the energy was extra-dimensional in origin. And, presumably, no one else knew it. Izumi's mind was blown. Eventually, after a long, long pause to try and process that, Izumi gulped and took a deep breath.

"Okay, 2B. I think you need to start from the beginning…"

- Izumi: Age 10-

"You know you can't keep this up, Izumi. It's not healthy for humans to have so little social contact."

Izumi flinched, reaching for the obvious excuse.

"I don't know what you mean. I have plenty of contact, between mom and you, 2B. Not to mention my trainers!"

"You know full well that your mother and trainers don't fulfill all your complete psychological needs. And I'm even less suitable. I still struggle to understand humans."

"You're getting there, 2B! You're loads better than you were at first! I mean, you even realized that…" Izumi groaned. "Damnit, 2B. Stop using the psychology books you memorized to make me admit my problems. It's not exactly playing fair."

Izumi could feel her constant companion's smug smirk as 2B replied.

"Now that you've admitted it. I've identified an ideal candidate that would make a good friend for you."

Izumi whimpered…but 2B was literally inside her head. Unless she flat out ordered the Android to stop, something she hated doing, 2B would continue to harass her about this until Izumi at least heard her out.

"Fine. Who does my oh-so-amazing-at-humans Quirk think would make a good friend for me?"

"Why, the only one keeping up with you in class, of course. Even better, she appears to be as socially isolated as you are, so any mistakes are likely to be forgiven."

Izumi blinked. Wait, what? The only person that was keeping up with her was…but she was…surely she wasn't as isolated as…

"Explain why you think that please…"

- Izumi: Age 11-

Momo's head cocked to one side, looking adorable with their prototype covering her eyes like a bulky blindfold. She frowned, then sighed.

"Damn. The eye-tracking was a good idea Izumi, but it's still not fast enough. I just don't know that anyone without some sort of cyberpathy is going to be able to get full use out of these visors."

Izumi slumped, nodding agreement with Momo as the other girl took the crude replica of a YoRHa tactical visor off. The thing would have been completely impossible for them to make, regardless of 2B providing the full specs on it, if it hadn't been for Momo's Quirk. It had been a bit mind-breaking for poor Momo when Izumi casually informed her new friend, almost a year ago now, that 'no' her Quirk wasn't what she thought it was. Momo had been resistant to the idea, having been seen by high-priced Quirk counselors from a young age…right up until Izumi asked her where she got the programming for the electronics she could make.

Her inability to answer that question had caused a bit of an existential crisis for Momo. Followed by her bringing it up to her parents…followed by lawsuits against several expensive-but-useless Quirk counselors. All of which had ultimately resulted in the Yaoyorozu family suddenly being a new client of Doctor Nishimura. Which had made both Momo and Izumi happy, as it had meant more time they could spend together, exploring their Quirks and training with them at the Nishimura & Croft facilities. It was the most freedom that Momo had ever gotten, and the rapid improvement she'd shown had won her parent's approval of both Doctor Nishimura and Izumi.

All of which had led to their current project. The Yaoyorozu's were okay with Momo spending time with Izumi now, so long as that time was being spent productively. They weren't against their daughter having fun. They were both simply very driven people who believed that even 'doing what was fun' should be pointed in a useful direction. A direction like tinkering with Momo's Quirk to try and replicate advanced tech. It was, thankfully, something that both of them enjoyed anyway. Tinkering in general had become a hobby of sorts that didn't really directly benefit either of them, save perhaps in expanding Momo's options bit by bit.

"Well, we always knew it was unlikely people would be able to get full usage out of them, Momo. And the Scouter is still going to change heroics in a big way, if we can sell the idea to your parents."

Momo's face twisted into a scowl. Between the two of them, she was definitely the perfectionist. Even so, both of them were out of ideas at this point. Maybe they could come back to it later, but for now they were stuck. And Momo knew it, sighing a moment later as she discarded the visor.

"They're already sold on it. They are just waiting to discuss the profit split with your mother. I think they recommended a lawyer to her, just to be fair."

Izumi looked at her friend weirdly.

"Profit split?"

Momo's scowl shifted to one of confusion.

"Yes? The blueprints were almost entirely your and 2B's work. I might have helped at the prototyping phase. But the Scouter is like, ninety percent your work." Seeing the lack of comprehension on her friend's face, Momo's own took on an expression of incredulity. "Izumi! You didn't intend to just give the tech away, did you? The ability to detect Quirk Energy levels alone is worth billions of yen! And that's just scratching the surface of the Scouter's abilities! Real-time facial comparison to wanted lists, tactical feeds, weak-point scanning, thermal and night vision? All in one wearable device?"

There was a long pause where Izumi failed to answer…and Momo slumped. Carefully putting the visor away, she reached over to Izumi…and grabbed her by the ear.

"Ow! Ow! Hey! What…"

"That's it! Our next project is hammering basic business sense into your thick skull, even if I have to use an actual hammer! Come on, Izumi. I think our library still has some decent beginner books. Even if I haven't touched them since I was, like, six."

Izumi could only whimper as her mortally offended friend towed her off to learn about something she'd never considered the need for before…

- Izumi: Age 12-

Izumi shifted nervously.

"Are you sure about this 2B? I mean, the first time I manifested a weapon it…went poorly. And this is…more than that."

"Yes. That incident was unfortunate. But it gave us a good measure of your reserves. After all the effort we've put in since then into expanding those reserves, I'm completely confident you'll be able to handle the summons. The only question that remains is for how long."

Izumi took a deep breath and nodded. Focusing hard on what she wanted to do, she began materializing the data 2B had provided her with. This was a much more complex set of data than any of the weapons that Izumi had previously summoned. Nor was this an object that she'd previously converted into data and was merely bringing back from her 'inventory.' These were blueprints from 2B's memory, modified slightly for a new purpose. Slowly but sure, the object she wanted took shape. In total, it took nearly three minutes and left her feeling slightly drained, but…

"Excellent job, Izumi. I must admit that I never thought I'd see the world from a Pod's perspective. But having a form of mobility restored is quite relieving. I will be better able to protect you once we've built up your reserves enough to keep this form summoned."

Izumi smiled hugely as she heard 2B's voice coming from the floating, overly-well-armed drone in front of her, instead of from inside her own head. 2B's core consciousness still resided in Izumi's Quirk, of course. But the Pod was made entirely of her Quirk's energy. Meaning that 2B could link directly to the Pod and control it! It would help in combat immensely of course, but for now…

2B made a strangled, embarrassed sound as Izumi glomped the pod, hugging it for dear life. It was amazing for her oldest companion (aside from her mom she supposed) to finally have a solid form. Izumi immediately began planning how to put 2B in a far more huggable form…

- Izumi: Age 13-

Izumi ducked with a yelp as her best friend tried to shoot her.

"Momo!"

Said best friend looked utterly unrepentant, actually pouting at Izumi managing to dodge. When Izumi directed an injured look at her, Momo just rolled her eyes.

"What? You're practically bullet-proof even without transforming Izumi, and it was a low velocity round."

"You just Ambushed me in the library! With a gun!"

"So? There's no one else here and this is private property. Plus, how else am I supposed to hit you! Your reflexes are just unfair! I haven't been able to get you in training for months. And now I can't even manage to ambush you, either! It's a good thing you're not evil, or the world would be so screwed."

"Hey! All Might could still take me, if I went evil or something!"

Momo's expression was flat as she calmly reached up and flicked Izumi between the eyes, causing her friend to yelp and flinch on instinct, even if it didn't really hurt.

"Yes. Because it's totally normal for a 13-year-old to only be afraid of ALL MIGHT."

Izumi pouted.

"There are others! Miruko is still faster than me, I think! And I bet Edgeshot could bypass my armor…probably."

Momo's lips twitched, her expression shifting from exasperated to amused.

"Izumi, the fact that you immediately had to reach for two members of the top twenty to back up your argument isn't doing you any favors."

Izumi's pouting intensified. Then, with an instant of inspiration, she grinned.

"Oh! That's what we can do next! Let's figure out how to make you faster! I mean, you'll probably never match my reflexes but Ibetwecanincreaseyourstraightlinespeedifyoulikeproducerocketsinyourbootsor…"

Momo lost her fight to keep a straight face, giggling as her best friend got lost in a mumble storm. Still, she made sure to pay attention. Izumi didn't do this nearly as often as she used to, and when she did, it meant she was too excited by a thousand ideas for even her ridiculously enhanced brain to cope with the overflow…

Who knows, maybe she'd actually come up with something that will let Momo keep up?

- Izumi: Age 15-

Izumi groaned, flopping back on her friend's bed, throwing one arm over her eyes. She heard a giggle and half-heartedly lifted her head to glare at her best…honestly only…friend. Well, if you didn't count her Quirk, of course.

"Oh, come on Momo. You know what it's like even more than I do!"

Momo's giggle was interrupted by a much-less refined snort, a sound she'd never make where her rather uptight parents could hear. The young beauty was sitting, perfectly poised, on her desk chair, even as Izumi pouted at her from Momo's ridiculously oversized bed.

"I do. But I think I handle it quite a bit better than you do. That would have been painful to watch, if it hadn't been immensely funny at the same time."

Izumi's pout redoubled.

"I've been a terrible influence on you."

Momo nodded agreeably, eyes dancing with mirth. It wasn't exactly something that could be argued against, after all. Izumi groaned and let her head flop back again, covering her eyes as she blushed.

"It's totally not fair that you literally got a course in how to politely turn down suitors when you…developed."

'Developed' was understating things. Despite being slightly younger than Izumi, Momo had been the first between the two of them to develop a figure that women half again her age would cheerfully commit murder for. And Momo was still growing. The side effects of a Quirk that stored lipids were…obvious to anyone with a brain that looked at Momo for more than five seconds. Despite absurdly dense cellular structure being part of Momo's Quirk, the material still had to go somewhere. What few people realized was that Momo could actually control where, and that her best friend did have some measure of vanity. Hence an hourglass figure that might or might not feature in Izumi's dreams from time to time. She firmly blamed puberty for that and refused to look closer at the types of dreams those curves featured in.

Of course, Izumi had come to regret initially teasing Momo over how many guys twice her age hit on her when something similar had started happening to Izumi as the carry-over mutations from her Quirk had built up. As she'd learned, if not quite understood, clear back when she was all of five, Izumi's transformation had a slow but steady carry-over into full Heteromorphic mutation. What had started as having nanocarbon covered bones only while transformed, had eventually shifted as Izumi's entire body structure slowly altered even in her un-transformed state. For most of her childhood, the changes had all been internal. Ridiculously strong bones. Muscle fiber that was now made out of some material no one even had a name for, let alone understood. Better ligaments. A brain overhaul that left her with insane computational power and a perfect memory. All useful, but all internal. Aside from her eyes shifting from the same green as her hair to much more of a teal, there hadn't been much in the way of visible change.

That reality had taken a sharp turn when Izumi had hit puberty. While the effects weren't nearly as quick or dramatic as Momo had gone through, the end result was rapidly becoming just as eye-catching. While Izumi's breasts were only a modest B-cup to Momo's C-cup, that still put her at the upper end of average for her age. And that was definitely not Izumi's standout feature. Having seen mental images of 2B since she was a little girl, Izumi had long since figured out what was happening. Namely, that her body was slowly shifting towards 2B's body density and sizes. She, much like Momo, already weighed an absurd amount for her apparent size. And a certain…'ass'et…was becoming rather obvious. And attracting just as much attention as Momo's ridiculous-for-a-15-year-old boobs.

The fact that Izuku's mother remained quite attractive in her own right, having joined Izumi for training quite a bit over the years, helped keep people from thinking it was too odd. But, for those who knew about 2B, it was pretty obvious that Izumi was slowly beginning to resemble her 'Quirk' far more than she did her mother. Even the earlier changes to her eye color had been a sign of this, with 2B's blue-silver eyes mixing with Izumi's own green. It was a comparison that took added point whenever Izumi fully transformed these days…but the mature form of that transformation was still taxing enough that Izumi rarely used it outside training. The fact that it was tied to her…well…'ultimate move' wasn't quite right. But 'last resort' came close. The fact that it was tied into her 'last resort' option, only made her more wary of showing it off.

Of course, the teenage girl part of her wasn't exactly complaining about any of this. Knowing that she was pretty much destined to be a knockout took quite a bit of the angst out of puberty. Angst that might have gotten ugly if she'd had to constantly compare herself to Momo while remaining plain herself. But the problematic side effects were still annoying. Namely, the side effect of an uncomfortable number of guys, many of them several years older than her or worse, asking her out on a regular basis. And unlike Momo, Izumi tended to freeze up and revert to stuttering when it happened, rather than smoothly letting them down. Speaking of which…Izumi rolled over onto her stomach, to better face her companion-in-woe. Fixing Momo with an intense stare that stopped the ravenette's smirking laughter, Izumi employed the dreaded Puppy Dog Eye Attack.

"Please, Momo! You have to teach me your magic! Help me practice letting guys down easy! Or using a taser on them! Either one!"

The taser comment caused Momo to grimace, remembering that she had done that last week to one of her more…persistent…suitors. Still, there was no way she could tell Izumi no. If, maybe, not for the reasons that Izumi thought. After all, she wasn't about to let some random guy butt in on her Izumi-time…

- Izumi: Age 16-

Yaoyorozu Momo wasn't nearly as socially inept as her best friend. Which wasn't to say that she really understood people all that well. It's just that, with all the knowledge forced on her as the sole heir to the Yaoyorozu Group, she could at least recognize social cues. Even if she didn't exactly know what to do with them when it came to her private life. All of which explained why she recognized the fact that her best friend constantly sneaking peaks at her boobs meant something. She was even fairly sure she knew what it meant.

This did not, unfortunately, mean she knew what to do about it.

It probably would have been simpler if she hadn't been doing the same thing to Izumi's ass whenever the other girl wasn't looking. The thong she'd convinced a red-faced Izumi to try on, at least in the security of Momo's bedroom, had certainly gone a long way to cementing one certainty of the situation for her. Momo was now completely, 100%, sure that she was physically attracted to Izumi. And she was roughly 98% sure that Izumi was equally attracted to her. Sadly, she was also 115% sure that Izumi hadn't figured it out yet.

Which left the ball in Momo's court. And Momo was feeling very unprepared for that fact. Maybe she could put it off for…annnndd Izumi was bending over in a gymnastics unitard. Nope. Momo wasn't waiting. She'd read one too many romance novels where waiting backfired, damn it! Time for action!

Izumi was very, very confused a few minutes later when she received her first kiss from a very unexpected source. She was considerably less confused several minutes after that when they finally managed to stop…mostly because Momo moaning into her kiss as Izumi instinctively groped her friend's chest had sent them both into nuclear meltdown.

They would both remain blissfully ignorant of the number of people at the training center that quietly exchange yen over a certain bet.