Grimoire Ultra 7 (Patreon)

Class progressed like most high schools, classes were mostly stuff I’d experienced, the only things that weren’t more or less what I’d gone through already being Japanese Literature and modern History. Izumi’s reactions to the classes being taught by Pro Heroes was hilarious, but honestly, I didn’t have the cultural background to feel anything but weird by having people stand in front of us dressed in colorful costumes.

As the day went on, I couldn't help but feel a sense of annoyance towards the Pro Heroes. Sure, they may have been well-known figures in the hero community, but to me, they were just adults dressed in silly costumes trying to teach us about things I already knew.

Still, I kept my annoyance suppressed, as the day wound on and on. Despite my irritation, I felt a bit of the antsy energy permeating the rest of the class. The last period for the day was the first Foundational Hero Studies. As the bell rang, signaling the end of the second to last period, I bit back a smirk, keeping Izumi in the corner of my eye as the rest of the class talked back and forth amongst themselves, trying to guess who’d be teaching the class.

“I AM HERE!” a big, booming, and boisterous voice echoed through the room, as All Might appeared in the doorway. “COMING THROUGH THE DOOR LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!”

The urge to roll my eyes at the over the top display was strong, but I managed to resist as the rest of the class broke into quiet fanboying and fangirling as the Number One Hero entered the classroom. He came to a stop in the middle of the front of the classroom, his cape fluttering behind him.

“Foundational Hero Studies! Also called Hero Basic Training or Heroing 101,” the old hero pronounced, puffing his chest out in front of him. I know it’s largely an act, but I found myself respecting his skill as a performer all the same. “This will be the class that will define you into the heroes you wish to be! Be prepared, for today we will be going into a crucial element of Hero training!”

The blonde giant of a man held out a card with the word ‘BATTLE’ inscribed on it, and I thought back, remembering the Battle Trial in the original series. Things would be going differently, not the least of which being that there were a lot of students in this class that weren’t in canon.

As the class muttered amongst themselves, All Might pushed a button on a remote, and from the walls several briefcases, numbered one to twenty, slid out. Each one paired with a student in the class, each one containing a “costume” made by the Support Department. I hoped that everything was filled out as I’d hoped, but given the fact that I was a guy I probably didn’t have to worry about it being some fetishized, painted on crap.

Hopefully Izumi took my advice about getting some armor plating incorporated into hers, the thought of her running around in what amounted to a loose body sleeve made me nervous. Movie nights at the dorms, with my regular picks of classic superhero movies that showed how you could be a hero while being armored up, had seemed to make her more considerate about the topic.

Taking my own briefcase, I followed the rest of the class as we made our way to the locker rooms. No grape in the class meant no concern about the peephole, and I quickly picked a bench and opened up the briefcase. A gray-black bodysuit combined with green armor plating, belt, and helmet stared up at me. I grinned, hurriedly removing the school uniform (something that was still weird to my American brain) and putting it on.

Some people whose Quirks changed them into different forms had to worry about their clothes not changing with them, I had no such concerns. Thus, getting armor to protect my soft, squishy human form. As I changed, I thought back to the breakthrough I’d had in the spell in my Grimoire that I’d been studying. It was an Ancient Egypt type spell that summoned a swarm of scarabs, spiders, scorpions, and the like that could, in theory, strip a person to nothing but their bones in mere minutes. I had no plans on using it on the common criminal, but it would be a useful card to keep in reserve against the likes of Shigaraki and his Nomu.

Pushing that thought aside, I joined the rest of the male half of my classmates as we left the locker room and headed towards the Training Ground as instructed. A glance around at the other outfits more or less matched what I’d remembered, even if some of those memories were vague recollections. The same was more or less true for the girls when we met up with them. Izumi’s featured armor like a green version of the Nolan Batman’s, but that was the only major deviation I could see.

“All here then?” All Might asked as we all entered the control center. “Looking good, all of you!”

“Sensei!” Iida, in his racecar meets knight costume, called out, raising a hand. “This appears to be the same field utilized during the Entrance Exam. Will we once again be performing cityscape maneuvers?”

“Not quite, Young Iida!” All Might boomed. “You will be moving on to step two: Indoor Anti-Personnel Training! Villain battles are most commonly seen outdoors but statistically villains are more likely to be encountered indoors.”

“Makes sense,” I chimed in, crossing my arms. “Easier to hide what you’re doing if there’s a bunch of walls between you and everyone else.”

“Very true, Young Smith!” came the instant agreement, a single finger pointing my way. “Between confinement, house arrest, black market deals; in this hero filled society the cleverest villains lurk indoors! Now!”

All Might blurred briefly, a cardboard box with two holes in front appearing in his hands, “You will split off into teams of two for indoor battle trials, heroes versus villains!”

He took a brief pause, almost as if to catch his breath, and multiple students took the opportunity to ask questions:

“What determines victory?”

“Can I just blow everyone away?”

“Are you threatening to expel someone like Aizawa-sensei?”

“Isn’t my cape fabulous?”

“One at a time!” All Might said, his eyes widening ever so slightly as he leaned back from the deluge of questions. “My Quirk isn’t super-hearing!”

I grinned under my helmet as he gave the scenario: a fake bomb with the villains prepared to blow themselves and the entire city up, heroes having a limited time to find it and/or capture the villains, the villain team winning either by time out or capturing both heroes, teams would be chosen by random lots.

“Is that truly the best way to determine teams?” Iida asked, confusion in his voice.

“You don’t always have the luxury of knowing who you’re working with when a crisis hits,” I pointed out.

“That’s true,” Izumi agreed with a nod. “Pros often have to team up with heroes from other agencies on the spot during emergencies.”

“I see, I got ahead of myself, forgive me for my mistake,” Iida said, his arm chopping in the air like a Buzz Lightyear toy. One by one, each student came up and took a ball from the box All Might held. On mine there was a big H, and after looking around a bit, I found my partner.

“If I didn’t know better I’d think it was rigged to pair the Americans together,” I joked in English as I approached Pony.

“I know, right?” she asked with a grin.

The rest of the teams were soon divided, Team A consisting of Momo and Kiri, Team B of Iida and the French guy whose name I couldn’t pronounce, Team C of Jirou and Tsuyu, Team D of Ibara and Todoroki, Team E of Toru and Uraraka, Team F of Toga and Sero, Team G of Izumi and Kaminari, Team I of Bakugou and Shoji (who I might add was the only guy in class taller than me), and finishing with Team J consisting of Mina and Tokoyami.

“Now to determine who goes first!” All Might shouted as he took out another box and reached in. “For the first round, the Heroes and Villains respectively will be…” he pulled out his arm with a flourish, holding two balls up in the air and pronouncing, “Team I and Team H!”

I turned slowly to stare at Bakugou, the blonde giving me a savage grin in return. A toothy grin spread across my face, hidden by my helmet. This was going to be fun.

[hr][/hr]

“So, how do you feel about hamming it up?” I asked Pony as All Might left from guiding us to the room with the bomb.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“We’re the villain team, so why not have some fun with it and do all the cliche, mustache twirling comically evil stuff?” I asked while looking around the room. “I’m honestly better suited to hunting them down and facing them head on, especially Bomb-Boy. Think you can be the last line of defense if Shoji gets past me?”

She nodded, a grin on her face, “No problem.”

“Good, I can’t talk in my other forms, so be on guard when you hear the explosions, I meanwhile, should get into character,” I said with a grin as I forced myself into my kaprosuchus form.

As usual, it hurt like hell. Shaking the pain off, I turned my focus to the debris around us, including piles of scrap metal. That would make this easier.

[hr][/hr]

All Might kept a close eye on the screens as the match progressed. With Principal Nezu’s observations and questions regarding Young Smith, he was keeping a closer watch on the boy than he normally would. Especially with how close he was to Young Midoriya. But from everything about the young man that had been observed so far, he didn’t think the young man had any malicious intent.

All the same, it wouldn’t hurt to keep a close eye on him. Mentally, All Might noted to himself that Young Smith was apparently a lot stealthier in his metal form than would be expected.

[hr][/hr]

People think crocs and gators are big, lumbering, and slow. Modern crocodilians may be slower on land than they are in water, but that doesn’t mean they’re slow. Kaprosuchus especially, as a predominantly land-based hunter, was anything but lumbering. Every predator practiced at least some measure of stealth, the closer you were to your prey, the less energy it cost to get a meal.

“Hear anything?” Bakugou half asked, half snarled, Shoji’s extra limbs currently ending in ears.

“Nothing around us, I can hear someone pacing a few floors up, sounds like hooves,” the tallest student in 1A answered. “But I’m not hearing Smith-san anywhere.”

“Sneaky fucker,” the blonde pomeranian grumbled under his breath.

My muscles tensed, hydraulics and metal cabling preparing, and I held my position as Bakugou and Shoji walked past where I was hiding under some clutter and debris. Waiting for the perfect moment. After a few moments, I exploded into motion, dashing forwards and throwing myself into a spin. The thick part of my tail slammed into Shoji’s midsection, sending him flying back into and through a section of drywall. A flash of heat, light, and sound covered me, as Bakugou didn’t hesitate and immediately turned around to hit me with an explosion.

“COME ON, YOU METAL MOTHERFUCKER!” he shouted, launching blast after blast at me.

I moved, not staying in one place and changing up my movement patterns as he started adjusting his aim, doing his best to aim where I was about to be rather than where I was when he attacked. Much as I disliked what his behavior had done to Izumi’s self-esteem, I had to admit that Bakugou was good. Even through my metal body, I was feeling the repeated impacts.

I had hoped that I’d be able to overwhelm him and snag one of those bomb gauntlets like I had with the gatling gun during the Entrance Exam, but it was starting to look like I was going to have to instead focus on running the clock out.

“DIE, BASTARD!” Bakugou yelled as he unleashed a bigger explosion than before, knocking me off my feet and sending me flying.

I collided into a wall, the drywalling and other material collapsing around me. My ears were ringing, and as I tried to refocus, I vaguely heard Bakugou say something, probably to Shoji, before footsteps drew ever closer. My vision cleared, and I saw Bakugou approaching from the corner of my eye, an open hand pointed in my direction and a wary, cautious expression on his face.

As he drew closer, I continued to play possum, letting him get closer and closer. If he was going to try to eliminate me, he’d need to use the capture tape, and since he had no way of doing so at range, it would require him getting up close and in melee range.

Finally, I snapped into action, twisting in place with my jaw wide open. His eyes widened, and he let out a quick burst, but I didn’t let it deter me (plus, most of the blast hit the inside of my mouth and didn’t actually hurt). My jaw clamped down on the frame of his gauntlet, and with a savage twist of my head, it was Bakugou who went flying this time.

The metal casing of the gauntlet tore, the interior of my mouth and along the side of my jaw covered in a sweet, slightly burning liquid. Bakugou’s back hit the floor, and I jerked my head again, not giving him a chance to recover. There was a faint wrenching sound, and I mentally winced. I hope I didn’t hurt him too badly.

A fist slammed into my eye, and I reflexively winced, my jaw opening up just enough for Bakugou to slip away. He quickly rolled to his feet, his eyes glancing warily between me and his torn up gauntlet. He was visibly pissed, but at the same time managed to restrain himself from attempting to blow me to pieces. Probably for the best, given how there was now explosive sweat all over the place, and if he set them off, then there was a good chance that he could seriously injure his arm.

As the gears were visibly turning in Bakugou’s mind, hidden speakers crackled and All Might’s voice boomed through the building, “THE MATCH IS OVER.”