UA High only looks like a normal school if you ignore the giant lettered gates, the camera drones, and the crowd of kids who could bench-press city buses. I arrive in a proper uniform and an improperly calm heart, the Morpher hidden under my sleeve.
[Objective: UA Entrance Practical]
Recommendation: Test alternate forms. Combat bots resistant to blunt force.
Available Forms:
— Crimson Vanguard (Red): Melee/Power
— Azure Torrent (Blue): Mobility/Water-Type Control (Prototype)
— Volt Striker (Yellow): Speed/Electrostatic Drive (Prototype)
On stage, Present Mic narrates like a concert with math. "YOO, NEW BLOOD! YOU'VE GOT TEN MINUTES TO SMASH! ONE-POINT, TWO-POINT, THREE-POINT BOTS! AND A ZERO-POINTER YOU SHOULD RUN FROM!"
A bespectacled rocket of a boy—Tenya Iida—corrects a typo, and half the auditorium learns his name five seconds before the practical. The other half is trembling. The girl next to me with bobbed brown hair and warm eyes wrings her hands. "Good luck," she says, voice soft.
"Back at you," I answer. She trips on nothing; I catch her by the elbow. She blushes. Gravity around her hiccups. Uraraka. File that.
We get funneled into our mock city. The countdown blares.
"BEGIN!"
I punch the Morpher.
"Blue—Azure Torrent!"
Water slams up my spine like a tide too fast to surf—and the armor gels into a pearl-and-cobalt sheen. The visor shifts to a teardrop cut; my joints hum. The sword becomes a trident with three arcs of rippling light.
"Let's swim."
I sprint, vault a half wall, and thrust the trident. A wave shoots forward like a coiled rope that unspools, sweeping three one-pointers off their feet. My HUD tags two-point bots with warnings—metal too dense for the water alone.
"Yellow—Volt Striker!"
The suit flashes, trading liquid glide for tight plates and humming coils at my calves and forearms. The trident cracks back into dual tonfas. My legs buzz; the world leans.
I explode forward. A two-pointer swings; I juke under, tap the tonfa against its knee joint—a pop, a sizzle, a cut power feed. It collapses; I hop its falling bulk, land on the next bot's back, and plant both tonfas into the exposed control panel. White sparks. Shutdown.
[Combo Discovered: "Slipstream"]
Blue-to-Yellow morph grants momentum carryover for 1.5s.
"Noted," I say to the air, then to myself: Don't get cocky. Watch the Color Strain. Switch back to Red when you need impact.
The streets become a rhythm game. Blue to sweep, Yellow to dart in, Red to finish. I rack points, but leave targets for others when I can afford to. A kid with elbow engines laughs as he blasts a bot to pieces. Another with a tail whips three one-pointers into junk.
Then the ground moves.
The Zero-Pointer pulls itself up over the skyline like a bad idea given legs—metal screaming, shadow blotting the sun. Students scatter. "RUN!" Present Mic's earlier advice becomes prophecy.
A wall collapses near me. The brown-haired girl from before is pinned under concrete. She grimaces, tries to move, then bites her lip when the slab groans.
I don't think. "Hang on!"
"D-Don't!" she says, panic spiking. "It's dangerous!"
"Good thing I'm in costume."
"Red—Crimson Vanguard!"
Strength surges. The tonfas re-thread into a sword. I wedge the blade under the slab, exhale, and lift. For a breathless second the world is just grit in my teeth and the tremor in my arms.
The slab rises. Uraraka taps it with two fingers; the stone drifts, weightless. Her face relaxes. "Go!"
She floats herself free, touches her forefingers together, and hurls—a little too forcefully. She staggers, cheeks green. "Oop—heh—sorry—"
"Run," I tell her, turning to the shadow rising over us. "I'll catch up."
"Y-You can't fight that!"
"Yeah," I admit, grinning at the impossible thing. "But I can stall."
The Zero-Pointer's hand slams down. I sprint into it.
[Caution: Mass Differential Extreme]
New Technique Available: Crimson Vanguard — "Overdrive" (Short Burst Power Surge; High Strain)
"Overdrive!"
Scarlet lines blaze across the suit. The sword howls. I plant a foot on the giant finger and cut. Steel screams; a gouge opens like a yawning mouth. I race up the knuckles, flipping between plates, and jam the blade into a wrist joint.
"Blue!"
Water jets explode from my boots. I rocket upward, surf the newly created groove, and launch myself onto the forearm. The head looms like a building pretending to be a head.
"Yellow!"
I sprint. The HUD draws a dotted line—weak joint, anchor point, possible collapse vector. "Thanks for the hint," I mutter, stab the tonfa into a panel and dump everything I've got in a white-hot buzz.
The arm stalls. The whole titan stutters. Someone else—somewhere—shouts, and a blast of wind slams into its legs. It overbalances, tilts, and crashes in a thunder roll that knocks dust into my mouth.
Silence. Then cheers, a little wild, a little disbelieving.
I jump down—knees bending with shock absorbers I really hope are a real feature—and immediately demorph, lungs hitching. A gentle hand steadies my elbow. Uraraka again. "You okay?"
"Totally," I say, and then add, honest, "Mostly."
"Th-Thank you for saving me," she says, then bows so hard she almost head-butts me. "Thank you!"
"Team effort," I say, looking around: kids dusting themselves off, some crying, some laughing, some both. The Grid hums under my skin like applause.
[Practical Complete]
Provisional Score: 62 Villain Points
Bonus Assessment Pending…
I don't know it yet, but somewhere behind monitors, Nezu smiles, Aizawa squints, and All Might—All Might—leans forward with sudden interest.