Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Slowly, Izuku’s heart settled into a normal rhythm. For too long each increasingly protracted period of calm had been punctuated by ever more dire cataclysms. Now, even the assurance that All for One and Shigaraki were finally gone couldn't completely quell the ghosts of panic haunting his nerves. And then there was the absence of the literal ghosts–the void left by the previous wielders of One for All who remained mysteriously silent. He couldn't shake the feeling that soon the next obstacle would appear or the next calamity would erupt. Things just couldn't be this easy, could they? 

But for now, somehow they were. In newly mended costumes, Class 1A attended class today for the first time since the final fight against All for One. Many of the parents had protested, Izuku knew his mom sure had, saying that the kids needed more time to recover. Some of the parents had threatened to pull their kids out of U.A., spurring another round of home visits with Mr. Aizawa and Present Mic while All Might recovered in the hospital. Still, they must have been pretty persuasive because in the end everyone was back, except for Mineta who had opted to resign from the hero course. Although he wouldn't have admitted it to anyone, Izuku was a little bit glad to see him go. 

The scars of the recent past, both physical and mental, would stay with them all for a long time, maybe forever. They were damaged. None of them were exactly the bright-eyed students who had first walked through these doors, but they were renewed with purpose and united in joint friendship. Together they knew they could do anything now. Because they already had. 

So the parents were probably were right about the students needing more time, but after the hospital and then two weeks of lazing around, playing board games with his mom and visiting friends in the hospital, Izuku was ready to return to U.A. He needed to keep on training if he was going to be the world's greatest hero, and although this month had been healing, he'd also mourned each passing second that delayed him from his dream. This was where he belonged: on the training grounds going through the paces of a rescue exercise in the U.S.J. The teachers were currently watching from afar, so they had space to horse around. He appreciated the thought, and it felt so good to stretch his limbs and think through the puzzles of teamwork and combat, and, if he was being completely honest, to simp over Kacchan. 

He’d said ‘I love you’ to Kacchan in the battle. It had just slipped out. Kacchan had called himself Izuku’s pet name to the lord of evil, oh, and had also sacrificed himself to save Izuku at least twice. They hadn’t talked about any of that, but it had to mean something. 

Could they officially be together by now if both of them hadn’t been rushed off to the hospital for intensive care? But maybe Kacchan’s intensity and that connection he’d felt had just been the heightened emotions of battle. Maybe he was reading too much into it, imposing his own dreams on any interpretation. 

Still, they’d been texting nonstop since he and Kacchan could hold a phone again, and the texts had been warm: warmer and more candid than Izuku had hoped. The two of them hadn’t really been able to connect much after that aside from a couple walks. Once, Izuku could have sworn Kacchan was about to kiss him, but turned away at the last moment, complaining about stitches that Recovery Girl hadn’t been able to remove yet. It left Izuku full of tantalizing questions and frustratingly few answers. He burned to pester Kacchan but didn’t know if it was a good time and didn’t want to be annoying or ruin whatever it was they had. He and Kacchan had almost died so many times; it was a miracle that either of them had survived to even think of the future. When was too soon to bring up all of the feelings buzzing around him?

Still when Kacchan helped him up after a nasty tumble earlier today, they’d remained holding hands much longer than necessary and when Izuku stared into Kacchan’s face he saw nothing but calm and maybe was that a blush? The moment was quickly marred when Kaminari got too close. Izuku quietly waited for another moment.

It was low-key and nostalgic, the way that they ran around laughing and half heartedly trying to save mannequins with creative uses of their quirks, more like a game than anything. Shinso had joined them for this exercise and Izuku knew they all hoped he would be enrolling permanently in Class A when they officially began year two at the end of the week. Japan was still putting itself back together, but of course that meant that heroes were needed more than ever. There would probably be little rest in the future, so they should probably make the most of this. 

After the chaos of the battlefield and helping with the destruction after Gigantomachia’s rampage, these rescues were nothing. They moved around in a pack by unspoken consent. Even Kacchan and Aoyama stayed with the group for once. 

Aoyama. That was a bit of a puzzle. Izuku was glad that he was there, but it seemed a fragile sort of truce. Nobody had the infrastructure right now to adequately address the huge influx of cases into the criminal justice system. Although Aoyama had been a hero in the big battle, Izuku knew that there would be some sort of consequences for his betrayal. As far as Izuku knew, Aoyama’s parents might still be in prison. For the time being though, he was allowed to stay in the class. 

At least they knew how to work together. Sato and Tokoyami worked together to carry mannequins out of the way of a fire in the Conflagration Zone, Tokoyami’s Dark Shadow quailing from the flames before Todoroki’s ice extinguished them. Yaoyorozu unfurled another specially treated emergency rope ladder, while downing a squashed onigiri. Shinso helped Sero use his tape and a couple sticks to make an impromptu stretcher, facilitating the ‘rescues’. Tsuyu and Shoji pulled off a couple of water rescues in the Flood Zone, effortlessly swimming out and hauling the mannequins onto Todoroki’s ice bridge. While Hagakure, Koda, Jiro, Aoyama, and Kaminari worked together to scout the Downpour Zone, Yaoyorozu and Tenya shored up damaged supports with materials from Creation. Kacchan blasted any falling debris to rubble and Izuku braced structures with Blackwhip. 

They approached the Landslide Zone, fanning out to tackle different obstacles, while still staying close enough to cheer each other on. Uraraka and Izuku ended up falling into step, working in easy teamwork. He launched her weightless self toward pieces of debris and used a tendril of Blackwhip to send the weightless boulders skyward. 

“Your quirk makes this almost too easy.” Izuku told her with a grin, after they removed a particularly difficult Jenga stack of rocks pinning a couple of mannequins to the rocky slopes. 

“Thanks.” Uraraka said, her eyes hooded with exhaustion, though a small smile flickered across her lips. She tented her fingers and closed her eyes, “Release.”

Where had their old banter gone?

Izuku didn’t know exactly what happened at the Gunga Villa site, but somehow Toga had wound up dead and Uraraka refused to talk about it. She’d been thinking a lot about Toga before the battle and while Toga’s confession had caught Izuku off-guard on Okuto Island, that had been before Sad Man’s Parade and the sea of clones. Seeing Uraraka smile, even briefly, was a small ray of hope: a sign that things could get better. 

Below them, Kirishima clapped and whistled as Ashido melted an escape tunnel through the site of a cave-in so that Tsuyu could use her tongue to extract the three dummies trapped inside. 

“Why does it have to be so hard? I suck at this rescue stuff!” Kaminari whined from a nearby ridge.

“But you make a great phone charger.” Todoroki deadpanned. “That might be helpful in a real rescue.” Izuku smiled. 

“Those are the last ones here!” Iida shouted, “Get situated everyone and let’s efficiently move on to the Ruins Zone!”

Everyone was in a good enough mood that no one bothered to tease Iida for his punctiliousness. As they moved on to the miniature city offering simulations of urban rescues, Izuku felt his cheeks hurting from the power of his grin. He’d missed this, all of them working together. There was nobody getting hurt. Nobody was at risk of dying: they were just learning together and appreciating the payoff from their first year of study. 

It really was too perfect. 

Chapter Text

If someone had told teenage Victoria that she would be traveling through the space between dimensions to visit Taylor Hebert, the notorious villain from the Undersiders who had forced spiders down her throat, she would have laughed in their face. If they’d told her she would willingly be visiting while arm and arm with Tattletale, she probably would have laughed in their face before suplexing them into a wall. 

If someone had told a post-Gold Morning Victoria, she would have flown the fuck out of there after the Wretch tore off their arm. Sure it was better than facing…a certain person, but still. Even now, it wasn’t exactly a prospect that gave her the Engel warm-and-fuzzies. 

But Lisa had asked and Lisa rarely, seriously, asked for anything. 

So here they were, just a few scant months after the Infallible finally succeeded in rooting out the Machine Army, making interdimensional travel possible again without the threat of seeding other dimensions with self-replicating machine seeds. Lisa had wanted to slip through a portal unnoticed, but Victoria had insisted on going through the proper channels and somehow they’d received permission for this: a ragtag group of capes visiting Khepri of all people. Sure, Victoria knew that Taylor technically wasn’t a threat after Contessa’s bullets, but it still felt like an unnecessary risk. Why kick the hornet’s nest when the buzzing had finally died down?

Navigating the Shardspace was the least of her problems for once. Things had really calmed down in here once the cracks stabilized. Still, she tried not to look too closely at any of the crystal faces around her and instead focus on following Lisa’s directions. 

She flipped her perspective and started sliding down the crystalline slope in front of her, the others lagging behind. She always forgot that they had more trouble in this space, particularly Aiden and Kenzie with their shorter legs. It was a small group: just seven of them. 

Nobody else had wanted to come. 

Lisa was here for Taylor. Victoria was here for Lisa. Kenzie and Aiden wanted to go anywhere the two of them went, and Weld and Sveta were there to sightsee, to add another earth to their travels—as friends this time. Neither of them were particularly warm to Taylor either. As for Dennis, he probably had his own reasons for wanting to come. 

“Hey.” Sveta said as she caught up to Victoria, her tendrils rippling nervously, but not quite pulling free. The way that Shardspace deadened powers was disorienting. 

Victoria grabbed Sveta’s hand and gave it a reassuring little waggle, like she used to before Sveta got her new body. Gone were the days when her clunky prosthetic body would send her crashing into Victoria. Now Sveta moved with grace, finally looking comfortable in herself and rocking a vibrantly printed sundress over rugged leggings, the colors augmenting the striking blues, greens, and oranges of her new tattoos.

When Victoria looked over her shoulder, the others were a good distance behind them. It looked like Lisa was trying to wrangle the kids. 

“How are you doing?” Victoria asked Sveta, as they navigated a particularly spiky cluster of crystals flashing with images. Victoria looked away.

“Fine, I guess.” Sveta gave a little laugh, “Well, as fine as you can be in this place. I like it better here now, but it’s getting old.”

“Yeah, about that.” Victoria said. “I wanted to check in and make sure that you’re okay coming all this way and not seeing Taylor. I mean, I know you weren’t close, but it’s kind of the purpose of us getting through this, so I wanted to check in.”

Victoria had been doing a lot of checking in lately: checking in on the Majors. Checking in on the Patrol. On districts of the shattered city. On a sulky Damsel. On Carol. 

On Tristian. 

“You know I hurt her really badly once.” Sveta said quietly, and Victoria had to do a mental contortion to remember that they were talking about Taylor, not her mother, “Sliced down to the bone. I didn’t mean to, of course, and I didn’t really know her well at all. She carried me at the Cauldron Base before I, uh…before Doctor Mother…” Sveta paused. “I don’t want all those memories to come back now, not when I’m finally wrangling my past. So yes, I’m fine not seeing her. I just want to see the city again. I’m not even attached to Boston: mostly I just want to see a normal city. I’ve never really experienced just being a person in the crowd and being able to explore without worrying about accidental deaths or being recognized as a monster.” 

Monster. Accidents like the ones that had led Cauldron to drop her in a population center before she could control her tendrils. 

“What about you?” Sveta asked Victoria, raising an eyebrow “How are you feeling about this? It’s not too late to go exploring with me and Weld.” 

Exploring an alternate version of the city with Weld and Sveta would be fun, and Victoria could tell that Sveta would appreciate her presence to shatter some of the awkwardness around the pair, but she couldn’t. “I don’t feel great about it,” Victoria said, honestly, “but it’s something I need to do. It’s another step toward being a better version of myself.” She glanced back, where Lisa was stabbing a finger at Kenzie’s chest, her tone stern but not strong enough to carry, “And of course I want to support Lisa. I think this will be good for her.”

Sveta wrinkled her nose, “I still don’t get what you see in her.”

“That’s okay. You don’t have to.”

Sveta shrugged, “All I want is whatever makes you happy, Victoria. I know that you’re good for her and almighty Titans, I hope that she’s good for you.”

“She is. You don’t have to worry. Trust me.”

Victoria waggled Sveta’s hand again before drawing level with Lisa. 

All of them had opted to wear casual clothes instead of costumes, trying to blend into Aleph. Lisa wore a pair of skinny jeans, a flowing black shirt, and dark grey combat boots, hair pulled back into a simple braid. Her eyes stormy. Lisa had finally calmed the kids down and was dry-swallowing a couple of pain relievers. She had the tiny trickle of her power that Shardspace allowed running this whole time to help them find their way. It probably also meant that she’d deduced Sveta’s comments, but none of that would exactly be news. 

Victoria gently touched the fine spray freckles on Lisa’s nose, jolting Lisa back to reality. 

“We there yet?” Victoria asked.

Lisa smiled, the shark-like snarky smile of when she was being clever. Obviously it would be another few hours yet. They couldn’t be close, it would be too easy just to… “Actually, yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes!” Lisa grabbed Victoria’s hand, kissing the fingers gently, before pointing to a formation nearby. The crystals there were dark, but Lisa looked even more excited. Victoria hoped that she wouldn’t be crushed by whatever state they found Taylor in. If Taylor was even alive. 

“This is it!” Lisa said, her bottle-green eyes shining even in the weird half-light. She stomped her feet adorably in her combat boots. 

Victoria gently kissed the faint scar on Lisa’s cheek. It would be okay. Somehow they’d get through this visit, and if Victoria got to do some Aleph shopping in any spare moments, well she wasn’t going to complain.

As Kenzie drew closer, the device clipped to her belt whirred to life and the crack appeared against the crystals. The rest of them gathered, relieved smiles. 

“Thank fuck..” Dennis whined, “I need to pee so bad.”

Victoria laughed again, releasing some of the strain of the long hike.  “Ready everyone?” She asked. 

Together they stepped through the crack and into a city. 

For a moment, Victoria just savored being in a city. The City, still unnamed, on Earth Gimel was becoming a bit more developed everyday, but it was still so achingly new that it didn’t feel quite real. It was too mass-produced, too well planned, and above all, too marinated in the aftermath of Gold Morning and the cracks. Boston though was a real city. Victoria had hungered to see it again from the first moment they started planning. 

But this wasn’t Boston. 

The buildings were all wrong. They were sleek and shiny, yet many had jagged cracks running up them. A few buildings had crumbled completely, littering the shocked streets with lumps of rubble. Glass littered the street like after a Shatterbird attack. Victoria frowned, had there been an earthquake? She could smell traces of smoke, but nothing that seemed immediate. The more she looked, the more details seemed off. And above her, what she’d initially thought was an overcast sky was revealed to be a roof, curving overhead and studded with industrial lights. They were in a gigantic bubble surrounding the whole area, the buildings and streets, the lake Victoria could see glinting in the distance, even some tiny excuses for mountains. 

What the hell? Where were they? This was clearly not a bustling city. 

There were a few people here, standing in a cluster a few hundred feet away. They were talking and some of their voices reached Victoria. That was all fine, she expected that their arrival would cause a stir, except…

Except that her time in the care facility as the Wretch had done nothing but given her time to think and learn. There was only so much cape knowledge even Victoria could glean from the internet, so she’d started soaking up everything she could, including some languages. And one of them was something she was hearing all around her in the frantic murmurs. Japanese. And those signs over the exits were all in kanji.

So much for Lisa’s navigation. Victoria allowed a little bit of her irritation to pulse through, as a treat. 

“Japan?” Victoria shrieked, “Lisa, you brought us to Japan? I thought we were aiming for Boston!”

She’d always wanted to visit Japan, but that wasn’t really feasible after Leviathan sank Kyushu well before Gold Morning decimated the rest. Gimel’s settlements just weren’t the same. This though wasn’t the time for casual sightseeing. 

“Um, Victoria.” Sveta said, but Victoria was too busy glaring at Tattletale. She let go of her hand.

“Is this some sort of joke? We slog all the way through Shardspace to go on vacation?” Victoria said, “I mean I’ve always wanted to go to Japan, you know that, but this was not on the itinerary!”

“Victoria!” Sveta said, louder, her skin parting slightly to release long tentacles, “Something’s wrong.” The kids were babbling by then.

“Yeah, I’d say something’s wrong.” Victoria said, frustration winning over the calm of the Warrior Monk, “We trusted Little Miss Always Right. Now look what happened? Do we get a plane or what? I can fly, but I’m sure not carrying all of you, no offense Weld.”

“None taken.” He said, “But I think we have bigger problems.” 

Victoria squinted. Some of those distant figures wore the unmistakable garish colors of costumes, while others were obviously Case 53’s. “Capes?”

“Sure looks that way.” Weld said. 

Sveta sighed, “Somehow I don’t think this is Earth Aleph.”

Oh, fuck. 

Lisa nodded, “Earth Aleph has some weak capes, but nothing like these. My best guess is that we’re in some new alternate earth that we missed when we catalogued all of them. How did it slip through? This is definitely Japan, but we’re in some sort of fake environment like a training center? And also Glory Girl,” She scowled at Victoria, “I got the coordinates through Shardspace from Dragon. This is not my fucking fault!” 

“They’re yelling something!” Kenzie said, bouncing up and down so that her space buns jiggled, “I don’t understand it but I wish I spoke every language ever! I wish I had more time and all my tools but Victoria wouldn’t let me bring them. Maybe I could reprogram my time camera to photograph the information into my head retroactively!”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Aiden said, while Kenzie stuck her tongue out at him. 

Victoria silently agreed with the little chicken. Tinkers never seemed to make any sense. She listened to the yelled Japanese, “I can’t tell what they’re saying. Do any of you speak Japanese?” Her long-forgotten textbooks had prepared her for politely ordering from restaurants. This was outside her range. 

Everyone else shook their heads. Damn. With all their skills, this suddenly seemed like a glaring omission. 

She looked at Lisa. 

“It’s all garbled bouncing off the walls.” Lisa spat. “And I’m pretty spent already. I wish I had more of my power available, but fuck, my head hurts already. I need more context. I should be able to communicate if they’d just be clear.” 

They all quieted down as a second shout rippled their way. 

“I definitely caught the word ‘you’.” Lisa said. “Sorry, not much to go on.” 

“Figures!” Dennis sighed. “When is your power ever useful when we need it? Oh yeah, it only conveniently works against the Protectorate and to help you cheat at cards!”

“Do you think they caused all this destruction?” Sveta asked, “It looks old, but they definitely have powers.”

“Heroes or villains, what do you think?” Victoria asked, “Or rogues.” She added after a pause. 

“Villains aren’t always so bad.” Lisa said, pouting at Victoria as Dennis fake gagged. He was resembling more and more his old self. 

“We don’t know their powers,” Victoria muttered, “and I don’t recognize them, which makes sense if this is another Earth. There are enough of them that they probably cover a wide range of powers.”

“They’re going to attack!” Lisa said. 

That jolted them. Victoria considered her outfit: she was wearing her Brockton Bay sweatshirt dress from Parian’s company: comfortable, but not the best for fighting in. At least she was wearing shorts underneath so she wouldn’t flash anyone. 

They all set down their bags. Sveta unraveled and removed her bag from within her body, depositing it on the ground.

“So they’re villains?” Dennis asked, “A whole mega cluster of teenage villains? This is the Undersiders all over again, but on steroids!”

Lisa shook her head, “This isn’t right. It shouldn’t be happening. How could there be another earth with powers that we never knew about? They should be located too close to Bet to miss.”

“I don’t know about ‘should’, Li, but it’s happening. That blond one and bird-head sure don’t look very heroic.” Victoria said. She glanced at Weld and Dennis, the other former Wards. “Standard defense formation C5?”

“What does that mean in not Protectorate-speak?” Sveta asked, elbowing Victoria a little too hard in the ribs. Sveta was still getting used to having elbows, so Victoria gave her a pass. 

“Protect the kids, that’s you.” She said, to Aiden and Kenzie’s groans. Not that she exactly expected them to listen, they were full-fledged capes after all and had been through worse, but she had to give at least the semblance of protecting them. As if Aiden didn’t have a prehistoric eagle to protect him and if Kenzie didn’t have a whole load of tinker-tech concealed somewhere, Victoria would wear socks with sandals. “Step two: circle up, let the ranged attack cover us.”

“That’s me I guess?” Dennis asked. “We don’t really have a ranged attack. Where’s Missy when you need her?”

Vista was always helpful, in any situation. 

“And read the situation.” Weld said, “Defend, don’t attack, and try not to hurt them. It’s supposed to be a defensive formation. They look young, so nothing that will cause permanent damage. Try to be gentle.” He assessed the numbers, “Well gentle-ish.” 

“Blah, blah, blah.” Lisa said, giving Victoria a little kiss to take out the bite of her statement, “I’ll let you know what I find out from my power.”

A cry of “Shine!” burst from the other group as a pair of figures sped toward them, achieving impressive speed though they seemed to be powered by explosions and sticky black strings.

“That means die.” Lisa said helpfully. Aiden whimpered. 

Victoria engaged her aura, trying to tune out her group so they wouldn’t be caught in the effect. They had a few moments before the exploding kid reached them. 

“Here they come!” Lisa said. She cracked her knuckles. “We’re in an alien world, we just hiked like five gazillion miles through the Firmament, and I need to pee, but hey there’s only twenty of them. Should be a piece of cake.”

Chapter Text

A vertical rip in reality blazed in the fake downtown, stirring up dust, the edges of the crack blending into the lights above. Inside Izuku could dimly see a landscape of red and black crystal, filled with flickering images. Seven figures stepped through the portal to stand in the center of the U.S.J.’s Ruins Zone. 

Immediately sweat bloomed, all the tension springing back in an instant to set hooks along his spine. Was this one of Camie’s illusions? How would that get here? Or maybe it was a villain attack, but that couldn’t be right. They were safe. 

It was hard to see through the sifting dust and blazing lights, but these people seemed dressed in normal, casual clothing. Maybe it was a villain attack meant to catch them off guard, but then why bring the showy portal? 

Could they be ‘friends’ of All for One who had come here to seek revenge, at the site of their first interaction with the League? The League had looked similarly relaxed right before they fought. Izuku’s thoughts began to whirl, his breaths coming shallow. The situation was just too creepy, too perfect. Today was a day when their class was alone, without any teachers, and still in the process of healing. If there was any time to strike, it would probably be today. But he didn’t recognize any of these faces. Maybe that was the point, ensure that the students wouldn’t have the advantage of knowing their opponents' quirks. 

All at once, like a switch flipping, the portal shut off, leaving the two groups at opposite ends of the street. 

“Who are you?” Ashido yelled, loud enough that Jiro and Shoji, bedecked in ears, winced. 

The opposing group was still talking amongst themselves and ignoring them, which seemed like a bad sign.

“Let me try again.” Ashido said, before cupping her hands and hollering, “Who are you? Are you here for practice?”

“It has to be part of the setup, right?” Tsuyu said. “With all the extra defenses there’s no way villains would have made their way onto campus. We’re supposed to have sensors to detect intruders, ribbit! I don’t hear any alarms.”

“I agree with Tsuyu.” Koda ventured. They all quieted down to hear him. 

“I don’t think anything’s impossible anymore.” Kirishima said, “The Principal’s smart and he designed this place well, but they said that security’s kinda been more lax lately. I mean, villains have attacked us here before and they’re more focused on getting the academic buildings in shape again.”

“Perhaps it could be part of the scenario…” Iida started, but Shoji shook his head.

“It doesn’t feel right and that’s not a teleportation quirk that we know.” Shoji said, “They aren’t H.U.C.’s. They sure don’t stand like civilians and they’re not in need of rescue. But whether or not it’s part of the scenario we’re probably supposed to engage them, the question is how.” 

They nodded in mutual agreement. 

“Why can’t anything be easy?” Kaminari whined. 

“This was posited as a simple scenario. I know our teachers let chaos occur on occasion, but they’re not cruel.” Yaoyorozu said, then seemed to acknowledge their classmates’ incredulous looks, “I mean usually they aren’t this cruel. Chances are that this is a real emergency. If it is, the teachers probably already know, unless one of the intruder’s quirks messes with electronics. I suppose no one has a phone?”

They all shook their heads. No use risking them getting broken during a simple training session. 

“We should go out there and kill them before they take the fight to us.” Kacchan said. “Get the jump on them and pummel them until they tell us what they’re here for.”

Conversation erupted as half the class tried to talk over the other half. They’d been through too many fights recently. Izuku shuddered as the perfect day crashed and burned into another crisis. Still, he could at least make sure they all got out of this okay.

“What to do?” Iida mused, “We must strategize carefully.”

Still, even if they were villains, there was that little thrill of learning new powers, new dynamics. If he didn’t recognize any of them, that meant that either they were new to the scene or that they weren’t dangerous enough to make a name for themselves yet. That was a good sign: maybe they could take them down easily. They had the numbers advantage after all. And even though many of them were still healing, they had an awful lot of experience for students. But then there was a third option as well. What if they were simply villains who’d been functioning in the underground, villains who preferred to remain anonymous and secret but still had the experience to be dangerous? Their small numbers were a point in favor of that option: an elite hit squad. There seemed to be kids as part of the group, he was pretty sure of that, which didn’t sound like any of the options. Maybe they really were lost civilians, but lost civilians didn’t take battle stances after appearing in a secure area. 

He stopped, noticing a few of his classmates' eyes on him. Oh, he’d been muttering, again. 

“Go on, nerd.” Kacchan said, nudging him, “Speak up.”

Izuku gulped, trying to rein in his thoughts, scattered by the casual contact. “I think…Iida, you should go for help again.” Izuku said, “In case the teachers can’t see. These villains probably know our quirks, even if we don’t know theirs. Todoroki, can you try to immobilize them, maybe with Tsuyu? And Shinso, look for an opening for Brainwashing? I think the rest of us should try to engage, but be careful. Does that sound good?” He asked, looking at Kacchan. 

Kacchan didn’t wait around for everyone’s agreement. 

“Let’s go kill them!” Kacchan roared, firing himself toward the interlopers with one gauntlet. He snagged Izuku’s hand in his free hand and towed him along, forcing Izuku to use Float to avoid dragging his face in the cracked asphalt. 

Although Izuku admired the grace and Kacchan’s easy assurance that Izuku could handle himself, he would have preferred being asked to come along for the ride, instead of being yanked along like a sack of rice. Still it was very gallant and Izuku felt a little bit of excitement that Kacchan had chosen to touch him, crowding out the dread. Over the blood rushing in his ears he barely heard Iida’s plaintive “Get back here! We haven’t finished planning!” 

“Get out of here and go get help, you shiny idiot!” Kacchan yelled back, “We’re depending on you!” He looked forward again, “Now die!”

Izuku clutched Kacchan’s sweaty gauntlet and hoped it wouldn’t detonate. He used Float and Blackwhip to speed up their progress.

As they approached, Izuku felt a sudden wave of fear, sharp as a slap. It roared against his nerves, encouraging him to turn around, but he grit his teeth. He felt Kacchan’s hand tighten briefly in his and then Kacchan growled, “Ready Dek…Izuku?”

“Yeah!” Izuku said, heart fluttering at the utterance of his name, barely wondering what he was supposed to be ready for.

“Be safe, nerd.” Kacchan said, and threw Izuku at the unassuming blond lady whose aura of fear made Izuku want to curl up in a ball. But he’d faced more than a little fear. He could do this. 

He took a deep breath and readied Air Force at 8%.

Chapter Text

She watched in amusement as the angry blond kid threw the little green guy in the bunny outfit straight at Vicky. That kid clearly didn’t know what he was getting himself into. As the rabid blond veered toward Weld, Lisa darted in the other direction and dragged her kids behind a fake bus shelter. 

From the meagre cover, Lisa could see the rest of the horde approaching, although one tall figure in shiny silver armor was beating a retreat. No, not a retreat: he was going to get help. They had people they could rely on for backup nearby, watching through cameras. Cameras. 

Lisa looked up. There: the glinting lenses of several cameras nestled against the roof of the building. She quirked a finger at Aiden. “Hey, Chicken?”

He looked up at her and quit his bitching about being dragged, “Yeah?”

She pointed out the cameras and Aiden’s giant Haast's eagle flew off at his command, presumably to go destroy some tech. Kenzie wouldn’t like that, but it needed to be done. A few pigeons who’d been stuck in the rafters of the building also flew off in pursuit. Hopefully that would buy them some time and they wouldn’t regret the lack of an accessible surveillance network later. 

Eh, if they needed to, Kenzie could kludge something together. 

Kenzie was scrabbling around with some tools that she’d produced from…somewhere. Right, she had those dumb little phone case tools. Lisa watched as Kenzie unearthed one of her godawful eye spikes and started fiddling with it, while Aiden zoned out, focusing on controlling his birds. 

Good, that set a few defensive measures in motion. The phony bus shelter offered some protection, but wouldn’t be enough to conceal them in the long-term. With so many adversaries, the fight would spill over to them eventually, particularly if these capes could count. Lisa felt at her waist for her gun and ended up groping empty air. Oh, right, she had decided that bringing a weapon from another dimension would look bad to the folks in Aleph. Lisa cursed the imbecile that was her past self. 

Okay, no gun. Fine. Not for the first time, she wished that her power was the kind of Combat-Thinker prowess that lent itself to absolutely Contessa-ing her way through a fight. Instead, all she got was a power that overwhelmed her with the information that she was overmatched. She didn’t have a weapon and her power didn’t exactly protect her in a fight. That was fine; she was used to it. Time to play armchair general. 

At least Aiden was getting a chance to be useful. Initially she hadn’t been keen to let Chicken Large come on the trip, but any worries she’d had about losing that gigantic bird were easily quashed now that the animal was coming in useful. Plus, it was good to see the Chicken standing up for himself. 

Her little guy was growing up. 

Now, if only she had thought to arm herself. She still had her backpack, but she had deliberately packed light. Why lug a duffel across dimensions when there were better stores on the other side? She essentially just had snacks and a couple changes of clothes, unless she could brain these teens with her half-empty canteen. With her luck, that would backfire spectacularly. She could potentially make a weapon from the metal and glass littering her surroundings, but she didn’t need a power to know that any weapon made of broken glass would mess her up in the process. 

Lisa nudged Kenzie with a shoe, “Hey Lookout, can you rustle me up a weapon?”

Was it a little fucked-up to ask the twelve year old for a gun? Maybe, but Lisa could deal with fucked-up once they were out of danger.

Kenzie didn’t even look up, “I’m kinda busy! I’ll try and see what I can do, but somebody, I’m not saying who, wouldn’t let me pack all my tools and I don’t have a lot to work with here!” She smacked the ground with a miniature screwdriver, sending up a puff of dust, “And the ground is a terrible place to work! Why can’t you ever have us fight in a place without dirt?” 

She returned to her work muttering to herself. Lisa shook her head and picked up a chunk of brick. It would have to do. Tinkers could be so damn useful, but take away their equipment and they were helpless as anyone unpowered. Of course in her experience of fighting Tinkers, separating them from their gear was not easily achieved. 

Lisa peered around the shelter, surveying the battlefield. Things were starting to heat up. Clockblocker had tried to set up a screen of frozen objects to shield the group, but without the wires on his costume, the spread was haphazard. Instead of the sheets of paper that he would usually use, Clocksie was limited to whatever was in his pockets and backpack: some tangled earbuds, a couple granola bars, some receipts, a couple shirts, a few chunks of asphalt from the nearby cracks, and some smaller things that Lisa couldn’t make out. It wasn’t much, but it did confuse the rival capes, slowing their head-on charge. As she watched, the first of the objects timed out and started to fall, but by then Clockblocker was charging after a boy in a hideous yellow costume, freezing him in place. 

She watched the blond guy shoot another intense explosion from the palm of his hand. Ice grew up around the heroes’ feet, only to be shattered by the Fragile One or Weld. It sprouted again, faster this time, and again was shattered. A rippling vibration ripped through, rattling the buildings and upsetting Sveta’s balance, but otherwise did little harm. Moments later, a boy swiped at Sveta with his hefty tail. A laser shot past, carving a swathe across the ground that Weld had to dodge and evade. More figures were trying to duck around the barrier of frozen objects and approach the group from behind, but Sveta unraveled and blocked their progress, her tendrils twisting in all different directions, grabbing, dragging, and gently restraining people. 

Sadly the teenage combatants did not have the consideration to line themselves up and attack one by one for Lisa’s viewing pleasure. Regardless, Lisa could tell that the first pair seemed to be the real contenders here. Everyone else was good, but those two were in a league of their own, though they weren’t a patch on battling Titans. The angry blond was currently frozen in place, face locked in a snarl. He would thaw soon, but for at least ten seconds he was no threat. 

The kid was around Chastity’s age and wore a sleek mask like he wanted to seem dangerous. Adorable. He created explosions, but how? How well could he control them? Explosive sweat, her power told her, collected from the pores of his palms. His costume was too warm for the weather. He needed to sweat in order for his power to work, which begged the question of how he kept hydrated. Gross. He couldn’t use too much at once or he’d hurt himself. He was being careful in this fight. He was recovering from an injury to his chest and shouldn’t be up fighting. 

Shouldn’t be up fighting? That sounded promising. Lisa pushed a little further, her headache deepening into something more profound. 

Heart problems. Tenacious. Brutal. Never feels good enough. Must win at any cost. 

Snoozefest, were there any potential weaknesses they could use? No matter. Though costumed shapes swarmed over the field, her group seemed to have everything handled over there. 

She focused on Vicky, who was weaving through the air, followed by the green haired boy. Another flyer–Vicky must be enjoying that. Even from a distance, Victoria was radiant in the midst of the fight, something in her coming alive. Lisa knew it was a part of herself that Victoria tried to mask, the keen violent edge inherited from her teenage Glory Hole years, but sometimes it popped out like a sharpened claw. The green haired boy seemed to be holding his own, but doubtless he was getting more than he’d bargained for. Lisa smiled ruefully, whether a smackdown in a bank or a scolding about tidying up, nobody went for the jugular like Victoria Dallon. 

Except perhaps for herself. 

The two of them battled back and forth in the sky. The green haired boy, Midoriya Deku, her power told her, kept trying to ensnare Vicky, but she kept adjusting the shape of her forcefield to break free. He could fly and had the black strings, and by the look of those punches he was some sort of Brute. Super strength, if not superior durability. He must be a grab-bag cape of some sort.

She wanted to push more and learn, but there were too many details floating around and she doubted whether anyone would hear her over the noise. Better to do what she could to protect herself and the kids. She couldn’t risk becoming incapacitated, particularly after using her power so much in the Firmament to navigate. When they escaped, she’d need any remaining spoons to get them back through to Aleph instead of this backwater dimension. Still, there was so much information that she needed and it was her only real tool in this situation. Sometimes she really wished that her power could be slightly more accommodating. 

She sighed. Break time was over: it was time to get back to work. 

While the flashy offensive group was probably drawing a lot of attention with their tendrils and flying and time hijinks and whatever the hell Weld was good for, eventually someone would notice that half of their group was missing from the fray. While the bus shelter was pretty good cover from one side, it left them exposed everywhere else. Unless these teens had the IQ of dirt, and Lisa wasn’t holding her breath on that one, someone would come looking for them. Possibly someone had seen their giant ass eagle fly off and could pinpoint their exact location. 

In hindsight, possibly not her best idea. 

“Yo,” Lisa nudged Kenzie with the toe of her boot, “any progress on that weapon I asked for?”

The girl grunted and didn’t answer. 

Lisa sighed and nudged her a little harder, “It’s been all of two minutes since I last checked in, so I know you have something. Don’t pretend like you don’t hear me. Don’t make me kick dirt over your…” she hesitated. She didn’t know what most of the weird circuit boards and five dimensional camera parts Lookout was working with actually were, “stuff.” She finished. 

It was such a weak threat, but it had the desired effect. 

“Nonononononono!” Kenzie said, all in one breath. “I have made some stuff, but not the weapon yet, okay? I adjusted the eye spike into a camera that can bounce people’s actions through four dimensions so we can see them before they happen–it’s something I had in the works already. I want to work on something to make projections, but I just don’t have the time!”

Lisa ground her teeth, “So basically you made another time camera? Is that really the priority right now?”

“Kenzie’s making good stuff!” Aiden said, “Don’t yell at her.”

“I’m…” Lisa said, then lowered her voice to an approximation of calm, “I’m not yelling at her, Chicken, I’m just emphasizing that sometimes we need to get our priorities straight. Like sometimes in a dangerous situation we need tools to actually get ourselves out of that situation.”

“She is though.” Aiden said with perfect sincerity, to a backdrop of shouts, screams, metallic clanking, pulsating vibrations, and the groan of tortured ice.

“Thanks Chicken!” Kenzie said, then cocked her head. “Oh! Time camera’s online. It’s going to be buggy, but people are going to be coming for us soon! See!” Kenzie said, “It’s already useful!”

“Where?” Lisa asked.

“Here, here. Like for us.”

People coming for us. 

“Well when are they coming?” Lisa was surprised it had taken them so long. 

“I don’t know.” Kenzie said, “I didn’t get a chance to calibrate it all the way because someone kept bothering me when I was trying to work on my totally important project, and it’s completely fine because of course things are happening, but I don’t kick you when you’re doing your work and force you to stop. So I don’t know, but it looks greenish purple, so soon? Maybe?”

Lisa rolled her eyes: yeah, real helpful, Kenzie. So they had hostile capes with unknown offensive powers coming for them at some nebulous future time, and Lisa had a halfbrick. She couldn’t hide behind the preteens either, particularly as neither of them were good at close-combat. Fuck. 

“Okie, dokie.” Lisa said, with exaggerated patience, “I’ll just stay here and cover your retreat unarmed and defenseless. The two of you are going to skedaddle and get your asses under some real cover. Stay together and all that. Take out some of them if you can. Try not to hurt anyone too bad though, or I’ll take away your snack privileges. Okay? Be safe. Love you.” She shoved them away and for once they didn’t argue. Little shits probably were happy to be unsupervised. 

She didn’t have long to wait before a guy with yellow, not blond, hair and a little black choker came creeping around the edge of the bus shelter. From the lightning bolt marked in his shitty hair, Lisa made the amazing deduction that he must be an electricity type. Sometimes people were such idiots. Could he make it easier for her? Not that it meant she could defeat him, but it was a first step. 

Unless it was meant to throw her off. 

Eh, she’d find out soon enough. She didn’t want to waste her power on something like that, not with her headache in the process of tearing through the thin barriers of pain medication. Maybe after she had this guy hostage she could figure out what was going on. 

Yellow Hair seemed a little surprised to see her there alone, but started pointing his hand at her, a strange contraption on his wrist. Tinker-tech? Fuck!

Lisa gave up and used her power. A system to disperse the guy’s electricity using projectiles. Was he also a Tinker of some sort? Lisa couldn’t stand the idea of dealing with another flipping Tinker, not when she was already babysitting Kenzie. He didn’t seem to have the right vibe though. Could she knock away the projectile and foil his aim? Maybe, but she watched stray sparks fizz along his hairline. 

So he didn’t just emit electricity as projectiles, but also through contact. Could he conduct through the ground? Yes. There had to be a reason he wasn’t doing that right now. Did he just want to spook her? No, it wasn’t about intimidation. The buffoon couldn’t control his power, so there had to be a teammate nearby who he didn’t want to shock with an indiscriminate attack. Somewhere out there was another person, sneaking up. 

Lisa cursed. 

She needed something to distract Volts so she could buy the kids some time and hopefully keep the other assailant away. What nearby was an insulator? All she had were smooth unforgiving surfaces and glass. Here there wasn’t even any trash because it wasn’t a city, just a stupid simulation of a city inside of the U.S.J., which conveniently shared an acronym with Universal Studios Japan, which…

Interesting, but not helpful at the moment. Lisa forced her thoughts to change tracks. 

She needed to focus on communication and maybe find something to use. If these kids were villains, that was fine. Villains always had something that they wanted. But there were also the little details gnawing at her that didn’t seem quite right. 

She needed some answers. What did she have to go on? 

This kid was part of a pack and had a stupid, fucking electricity power. Perhaps she could get him talking about that. Electricity. What was Japanese for electricity? She wished her agent would form the connections faster. Why when each of the parasites consumed a world’s worth of energy did hers have to be so shitty? She tried to lay out the pieces and make it as easy for her power to connect the dots as possible. She knew French was électricité, Hindi was bijalee, Korean was jeongi, Mandarin was diàn, and Japanese? Japanese was…

“Denki?’ She asked. 

The guy stopped short, finger frozen on the trigger of his little shooter, mouth falling open. 

She’d meant to just gab onto something to distract him, but her power informed her that she’d got more than she bargained for. Lisa grinned. Jackpot. What were the odds that this guy’s name was ‘electricity’ as an electric cape? It seemed a bit on the nose, but it was a windfall for her.  

“Denki…” Kaminari, her power supplied, “Kaminari.” What a stupid name.

If the guy looked shocked before, now he looked absolutely pants-pissingly confused. Lisa mentally downgraded the guy’s intelligence to somewhere between Oni Lee and a Spree clone. That was okay, she could use that. He mumbled something and her power allowed her to translate with only the merest increase in the severity of her headache: “How do you know my name?”

He’d bitten her hook, clumsily baited as it was. Gotcha.

She almost, almost, made a remark about it being as plain as a tattoo on his forehead, but thought better of it. This was not the time to make enemies, although diplomacy was such a drag. 

Lisa pushed a little bit harder and her head started throbbing in earnest. She spoke slowly, each word arriving independently, aware that one wrong word might send her power down the wrong track. “Not important.” She said, the deflection from her power coming as second nature. She forced out one of her trademark sly smiles past her pain in her temples, “Are you…”

“What are you doing here? Are you villains?” Denki asked, before she could get the words out. “Why are you fighting us?”

“Because you attacked us first!” Lisa said. “We’re not villains.” She lied, she wasn’t sure what she was anymore, but she didn’t need to tell this little piece of shit that. 

He looked relieved, enough that all the pieces Lisa had been too busy to consider clicked into place. 

Oh fuck. 

She’d thought that all the kids looked like they were exactly the same age: around 16 to 17, like a high school class. They weren’t a group of wannabe Undersider-esque villains: these were high school students. Was this their version of the Wards training camps? No, it wasn’t a field trip. This was Japan–their school year was ongoing, which meant that high school was in session. Ergo, somehow, impossibly, this was a high school. U.A. High School to be precise. They’d dropped into Musutafu, in a training facility for heroes. The kids had been injured recently. They were jumpy after fighting a big battle. All for One…but that wasn’t important to Lisa right then. What was important was that the students were stressed and traumatized, likely to overreact and attack if, per se, a strange group of unknown capes moseyed out of a rip in space. These kids weren’t thinking clearly, but neither was Lisa’s group. These kids were students training to be heroes and the Gimel capes had interrupted their class. 

Crap. They were fighting heroes after all. Vicky would be so mad when she found out. 

Denki said something else, but the pain of using her power exploded to the point that Lisa had to stop. Double crap. The words stopped coming. “Oh, fuck. Fuck that.” She moaned, clutching her head. So much for their conversation. Just when she was finally getting some intel.  

Surprisingly, Denki’s face brightened, “You speak English?” He asked in halting, but perfectly understandable English. 

Maybe he wasn’t so dumb after all. 

“Yeah.” She said, “Congratulations, apparently you do too. So if you’re heroes, can you fucking stop attacking us? Just saying: not very heroic of you. We’re literally just passing through.”

From the look on his face, Denki probably wasn’t impressed with her glowing witticism, “We are heroes!” He said, “We weren’t trying to attack you, but why are you here?”

“Nuh uh.” Lisa said, “Don’t give me that crap.” Okay fine, her diplomacy wasn’t going to win her any prizes, but she deserved to let off a little steam with the throbbing behind her eyes, “You were the ones who attacked us first, so you have some explaining to do.”

Denki winced, “We’ve been through a lot, okay?” 

“No shit, everyone has!” Lisa said, with a bit more bite than was strictly necessary, “You don’t get to use that as an excuse. Was ‘die’ supposed to be a friendly greeting?”

He groaned, “I know it doesn’t look good, but can you believe me when I say that he’s just an asshole, like the meanest hero you’ve ever met? I swear the rest of us are friendly. Come with me and we’ll fix this, okay?” 

But Lisa was already shaking her head. 

“Nah. You seem like you’re nice and all, Sparky, but I’m not going anywhere with you. Fool me twice and all that. You haven’t won my trust this easily, not by a long shot. I’m not coming anywhere near you, you human taser.” She raised her halfbrick, “But, you’re coming with me.”

Now that she knew they were heroes, and students at that, it was clear that they were holding back. There would be no lethal force invoked here. Lisa was wondering how she’d sidestep Denki and alert the others when a long, sticky, and above all juicy tongue whipped around her and catapulted Lisa into the air.

Chapter Text

At some point, as a vigilante, fighting villains had all become routine. As much as he hated the idea of diving into a fight, once the opportunity was in front of him, the rest of his fears receded. The tingling thrum of Full Cowling ignited across his body, charging him with the power and strength of One for All in a barely manageable outpouring. He knew what to do. Even after a month lazing in a hospital bed and then being pampered by his mom, it just took a flip of his usual mindset to enter the fight. He was doing this to protect his friends and, of course, he was doing this for Kacchan. It would be okay. They would both come out of this okay. They had to. 

He would make sure of that. 

This lady likely wasn’t a top tier villain. Maybe she was one of the splintered, surviving members of the P.L.F. who hadn’t engaged with the final battle or a villain who had escaped during the chaos? Perhaps she was a mercenary. Either way, despite the pounding aura of fear, she didn’t have any armor. He didn’t want to hurt her, just prevent her from hurting anyone else. Air Force was a good compromise: a warning and a targeted strike that wouldn’t completely annihilate her like even a toned-down smash could. 

The comforting sound of a blast told him that Kacchan had also entered the fray. Izuku figured that he would take this villain down quickly and restrain her with Blackwhip, then wait for Sero’s tape or Todoroki’s ice to immobilize her before focusing on the others. Easy enough. 

It didn’t go as he’d planned.

Moving faster than he expected and without any discernible effort, the woman blocked his jet of air. He tried a second time, keeping his distance, and had the same result. Not even her hair rustled in the breeze, which was a little bit spooky. 

Izuku tried using Blackwhip to ensnare her, but she dodged the tendrils and then, to his surprise, she pursued him into the sky. 

The fear waxed and waned, but never truly went away. Just when Izuku felt that he’d gotten used to it, a fresh burst would catch him off guard. She didn’t seem to have a ranged attack, but he didn’t really have one that worked against her. At a distance they stalemated. The only thing to do was to get in close. 

Izuku dove back toward the woman, using Blackwhip braced against the fake ruins to change direction. He tried to snare her too, but the woman was indefinably slippery. He couldn’t get a grip and sometimes it felt like extra, ghostly hands were grabbing at him or prying apart his Blackwhips. 

He needed to raise the power if he seriously wanted to have a chance against this woman, but that could mean risking cataclysmic levels of damage. Sure Recovery Girl could probably fix them, but smashing people to a pulp just to get some healing really didn’t appeal to Izuku. Besides, the teachers would be here soon and would hopefully be able to nullify this fight. He just needed to hold out until then, while keeping this flying tank away from the rest of the class.

How ironic that he might lose this fight because he was too powerful. What a way to go from the quirkless dreamer he’d been before he met All Might. 

There did seem to be a pattern to the way the villain fought. None of his hits seemed to faze her at all, like she was using Kirishima’s Hardening, however, after every punch she’d waver and evade before engaging him again with a flurry or grabs and holds. She wasn’t punching, he noticed, just blocking him and seeking to contain him. 

It didn’t make sense: why would a villainous mercenary avoid punches? Could it be that she was new and wasn’t an accomplished fighter yet? But her reflexes and precision begged otherwise. 

He steadily increased the intensity of his attacks from 8% to 20% and although she evaded some, none of them seemed to hurt her at all. Was she invulnerable? How many quirks did she have?

Izuku wondered if All for One had gifted these superfluous quirks to her, like he had with Lady Nagant. Izuku hadn’t really thought much about those particular aftereffects of the fight. Would there be other assassins after him, given quirks and tasked with permanently removing One for All from the planet before Izuku could really hit his stride, much less find a permanent successor?

Now that he was thinking about it, this woman’s sheer confidence and dangerous poise did remind him of Lady Nagant.

Izuku glanced down at the battle on the ground, where Class 1A seemed to be holding their own. He noticed that Uraraka, darting and weaving, seemed to be embroiled in a game of tag with the red haired man. She was on the defensive but didn’t need his help. 

He needed to focus on his own fight. 

Izuku grabbed the villain again with Blackwhip, trying to hold her far enough away that she couldn’t strike him. Plus with that fear he wasn’t really excited about getting her up close. Even that went haywire. Instead of being towed away, the villain grabbed the black ropes of energy and yanked with superhuman strength that belied even her fit frame. He came crashing towards her and fired off Air Force, but missed. Izuku winced: too much more of that and he risked injury. He needed to watch his arms, that was the condition his mom had made for him to go back to school, and Hatsume hadn’t fixed his bracers yet. He tried Shoot Style, aiming a kick at her chest where it was unlikely to severely damage her. She caught his foot in her hand, brutally arresting his momentum and absorbing the energy of his kick. To his surprise, the slipperyness surrounding her disappeared and his whips wrapped around human flesh, not whatever shell or forcefield she’d been using. 

Was that it? Had he won?

Izuku hurried to wrap her tighter, cocooning her like a spider, only for all his Blackwhip to suddenly get shoved away by a rapidly expanding invisible something. With a rip, she tore free as if he was trying to contain her in cobwebs. 

He launched himself away as what felt like a mouth latched onto his ankle. With one kick at 20%, the thing released and he was free. 

She had to have some sort of forcefield, but what shape was it? Why had it gone away and why did it come back? He’d hit her with attacks before. Was it the way he’d hit her? The specific spot? Maybe he could test it. 

But the way she fought…flight and super strength, yet with a bit of hesitation, it all reminded him of himself. A weird sense of déjà vu settled on him.

As he intercepted a grab, he ran through the mental checklist of One for All’s quirks. Sometimes there were too many to keep track of, with the flip in thinking he’d gained in blossoming from zero quirks to seven in the span of two years. He really didn’t want to use Gearshift if he could avoid it and Smokescreen would just cloud the sight of his friends. He was already trying to use Blackwhip and Float, of course. He’d tried using Fa Jin to help with kicking off of objects and changing direction, but he didn’t want to hurt this woman too badly if he didn’t have to. And…

Danger Sense. That was what he was missing. 

During this whole fight, even with the scary powers being used, he’d never been pinged by Danger Sense. Had it really only taken a month for him to grow rusty and forget a whole portion of his quirk? Shinomori would not be pleased. 

Why wouldn’t this woman spark Danger Sense, when she was clearly fighting him? Was it a situation like with Toga? But this lady didn’t seem attracted to him and Izuku couldn’t imagine that happening twice. He felt the fear pulsing out, but maybe that made the whole fight feel more dangerous than it was. Was she…going easy on him and trying to be gentle like he was for her?

He shook his head: that was ridiculous. No villain would do that. 

Izuku and the villain grappled close together again and the girl said something to him in what might have been Japanese, but it sounded garbled and the accent was strange. She switched to what sounded like English. He wished she would slow down like they had on I-Island so that he could understand better. He really had been neglecting his studies the past few months, although he supposed he had an excuse for that. Still, he chided himself. A hero must always be prepared, and All Might was fluent in English. 

“I don’t understand.” He said in English, hoping he had the vocabulary right. 

The woman nodded, like she understood. The invisible force was grabbing him again and he used One for All again at 20% to shatter the hard barrier. 

She didn’t sound particularly angry when she’d been speaking, just out of breath and frustrated. The thought was distracting enough that the woman seized an opening to grip Izuku’s costume and toss him a few hundred yards. Izuku managed to stop the rotation, but Float only slowed his headlong fall into an inelegant tumble, crashing to the asphalt. 

Izuku took a moment to assess the situation as he rolled to his feet. The villains were putting up a good fight, but with only seven of them, it should have been a breeze for Class 1A to mop them up.

It was not a breeze.

“Hello, uh, little friend.” Koda called to the dinosaur of a bird flying around the U.S.J., “Fly away, okay? Please don’t hurt us. Hey! Stop damaging the cameras!” The bird ignored him, though it shrieked as another one of Jiro’s vibration waves tore through. The vibrations were weaker than before her injury, but still plenty effective. 

“My Anivoice isn’t working.” Koda wailed. 

“Try something else!” Shoji’s voice called from somewhere nearby, “Mice? Insects? Are there any bugs nearby?”

Shinso tried his capture cloth on the tattooed woman, who had peeled up and dissolved like Edgeshot, except that instead of a single thin thread, she became a whirling mass of tentacles. Only her face remained intact, a pale oval thin as a mask. Izuku heard Shinso scream something at the woman, but she didn’t respond, managing to evade each of Shinso’s attacks with the capture cloth while refusing to be Brainwashed. Each of her flat ribbons seemed to be able to move independently: simultaneously ripping away streamers of Sero’s tape, though some of her tendrils caught. 

Yaoyorozu herself stood near Izuku’s landing site, ripping the wrapper off a protein bar. She had figured out that although they swelled his size, metal objects temporarily immobilized the metal man as they stuck to his skin. She threw frying pans one by one as she created them, but she couldn’t keep that pace up forever. The metal guy was morphing the extra mass into a giant hammer, all while absorbing blows from Kirishima. At a shout, Izuku’s classmates all backed away and a wall of flame engulfed the metal man. Just like Tetsutetsu, his metallic skin began to glow but he didn’t seem to care. 

Izuku wondered briefly where Hagakure was and was rewarded by a flash of light that made Dark Shadow howl. 

He couldn’t see Kacchan anywhere, which worried him. Of course Kacchan was a capable fighter, but all it took was one mistake for everything to go horribly wrong. 

Uraraka had ceased her game of tag and was now holding perfectly still as if she had become a living statue. She wasn’t breathing, her eyes glassy and sightless. Izuku gripped her arm but there was no reaction, her flesh stony. Did one of the villains have a quirk like Rock Lock’s, but for people? He hoped that she would be okay.

Izuku was about to spring back into the air when the red haired man ducked out from behind a frozen Sato to tap Izuku’s arm. 

Immediately the red haired man disappeared. Everyone around them shifted as if they’d all teleported, but none of the heroes or villains seemed concerned. None of them even seemed to notice that anything was wrong, but Izuku did notice one of the objects, which had previously been frozen, drop out of the air. Those had also been touched by the red-haired man, he was pretty sure. 

What just happened to him was clearly a contact-based effect of a quirk. Izuku glanced around and saw Uraraka and Sato still standing completely motionless, as frozen as those objects hanging in the air. Ah. 

The redhead’s quirk wasn’t something that immobilized objects, as Izuku had first thought. No, it had something to do with time. How long had he been out and why had he revived sooner than Sato or Uraraka? He had so many unanswered questions if his hunch was right. It was such a unique quirk! He’d never seen anything like it and his fingers itched to take notes, but this was not the time. 

The red haired man himself struggled on the ground, encased in a net–likely Yaoyorozu’s work. Each movement he made only tangled him further, the net constricting around him and leaving no chance to use his time-stopping touch. 

With no warning, Uraraka unfroze. She stumbled, blinked a few times, glanced at the net, and turned to Izuku with an apologetic frown. “Hey Deku! I’ve been thinking, does this whole thing feel wrong to you?”

More wrong than being attacked by villains and frozen in time? The unnecessary retort died at Izuku’s lips. He knew what she meant. “Yeah, I don’t sense any danger, and it feels like they aren’t trying to hurt us. They’re really acting defensively for the most part. Do you think that we read the situation wrong?”

“Yeah, I suppose we were a bit jumpy. It’s hard to tell with everything going on, but it looked like at least two of them are kids.” Uraraka said. ”We should regroup.”

Around them the battle raged and Kacchan was still missing. Izuku’s first response was to go find him, but Kacchan wouldn’t welcome a rescue, particularly if the villains might not be as villainous as they’d first thought. Shame burned his cheeks. 

Izuku nodded.

Chapter Text

It took about ten seconds for Katsuki to find out that the shitty robot man wasn’t affected by his explosions. Whether AP Shots or Point-Blank Stun Grenade, the heat and light just didn’t seem to faze him. The force made him rock a bit, but that was about it. The knockoff version of Real Steel must be as heavy as a refrigerator. Much as Katsuki itched to stay and pound the man into aluminum foil, he knew that this was a terrible matchup. He withdrew, grimacing, to let Tokoyami take a try. As if the birdbrain had a chance. 

Izuku had his own fight against Goldie well-in-hand, so the best thing for Katsuki to do was to protect the others in his good-for-nothing class. 

Katsuki aimed for the peel-apart mobster, but in midair he impacted something hard and small, right to his thigh, sending him spinning out of control. A projectile: were the villains shooting at them? He tumbled and rolled, using his explosions to arrest his momentum and cushion his fall against the asphalt. From the ground, he squinted and saw the offending object hanging in the air: some sort of fucking candy bar still encased in its shiny wrapper. 

How had a cheap-ass candy bar been enough to rip him out of the air? It didn’t even have any momentum. Maybe it was a quirk like Rock Lock’s, freezing objects in space? If so, a candy bar was a weird-ass choice. Maybe it only worked for small or light objects? Fucking loser excuse of a quirk. 

His thigh throbbed with what would likely be an epic and extremely ignoble bruise. He’d got lucky; if it had been sharp, the frozen object would doubtless have sliced right through him. A whole slew of similarly frozen random objects were spread out around him, anchored in space  As he watched the red haired man pulled a sock out of his backpack and held it up. When he removed his hand, the sock remained hanging in the air. Izuku would have a field day with this. Katsuki grinned: now at least he had a good idea of what a few of the villains’ quirks were: some kind of hardening or metal manipulation, tentacles, locking objects in place, and the flying/fear package villain Izuku was fighting. There had been three others, but Katsuki didn’t see them. Hopefully the rest of Class 1A could manage to cover his back and prevent him from being blindsided.

Growling in frustration, Katsuki dodged around the stationary objects, firing explosions at the tattooed woman, only for Sato, the big lug, to get in the way throwing useless punches at the rippling tendrils in a sugar-fueled fugue state.

Katsuki barked out a quick, “Watch out, you idiot!” before approaching from a different angle.

Sure fighting as a large group gave them the numbers advantage, but it also meant devoting attention to avoid murdering each other with friendly fire. Class 1A was full of dolts whose quirks were only applicable to niche situations, or who couldn’t strategize to save their asses. Although not everyone could have a quirk as awesome as Katsuki’s, why didn’t the idiots just take the time to think? It didn’t cost anything. It was why he’d rather fight alone or with Izuku, who he could trust to be smart enough to synergize with Katsuki, instead of getting in the way. 

The tattooed gangster unspooled like a ball of yarn, or like…Edgeshot, but more like a tangle of many intersecting ribbons than one long strand. Each ribbon was edged with gnarly zipperlike teeth. As layer upon layer of the villain unwound, Katsuki could see tiny, shriveled organs pulsing beneath the face, which hung in the morass of tendrils like a mask. The ribbons speared out in all directions, reaching farther than Katsuki expected.

Okay, so her tendrils were like Blackwhip: fast, flexible, and good at grabbing things. They seemed to be pretty strong and she was currently using them to fend off Dark Shadow as Kirishima charged the metal man. Fine, he had enough experience countering Blackwhip: should be a fucking piece of cake. The best strategy would be to stay out of the villain’s reach and target her vulnerable head. He’d try not to do too much damage, but it was easier to beg for an apology than wind up dead. 

But a tendril snapped out and gripped Katsuki securely by his arm. He pounded the tendril with explosions, which only made it constrict tighter. Then, ground became sky as the villain threw him. 

This time when he landed, ribcage aching more than he cared to admit, he was mere feet away from the red haired man. Sato stood beside him, frozen like the frigging candy bar had been. As the redhead turned to face him, Katsuki’s fist hit the man in the face.

Katsuki blinked. One moment he was punching the red haired man and the next, the man was gone. Had he teleported? Katsuki’s fist followed through and he almost fell over. Suddenly the entire scene of the battle was different. The fight had moved farther away. It was like someone had hit fast forward on the fight and skipped ahead. Or it was like time had been paused for him alone. 

Katsuki grinned. 

Time, that was it. The red haired asshole froze things in time, not in space. That was how he immobilized objects in the air: they weren’t falling because they didn’t exist in the normal flow of time, and that seemed to mean that nothing could alter those objects either, at least while the effect lasted. It made a kind of sense: after all, how could something damage an object when there wasn’t time for the damage to occur? Apparently those objects didn’t have to be small, considering this Pause-n’-Play guy had frozen a whole-ass Katsuki, but there was some sort of a time limit on his quirk. There had to be. Otherwise there would be no reason to let Katsuki thaw while still in the middle of the fight. The question was how long that limit was.

Uraraka was frozen near him, and so was Sato, which was weird because Sato had been tagged before Katsuki. Otherwise the battle had moved on, away from the maze of frozen objects. Somebody had destroyed some of the overhead lights and Tokoyami was completely swathed in a growing Dark Shadow, reveling in the dimness. Katsuki should probably keep his distance to avoid weakening Tokoyami’s delicate quirk. With all of the movement he couldn’t see Izuku, but the nerd could hold his own against these B-listers.

The same pocket junk that made it hard for the heroes to move was also trapping the villains in place, although some of the objects were beginning to fall. Ashido’s acid had about as much effect against the shitty robot as Katsuki’s explosions, so now she was trying to tag the time guy from a distance with Acidman. Good luck, Katsuki thought, although he wondered if Pause-n’-Play could also freeze the acid in place. Maybe Pinky could trap the red-haired bastard that way, in a cocoon of time-stopped slime. 

Yaoyorozu sprinted past, straight toward the time guy, which seemed uncharacteristically stupid until she threw a large net. Katsuki had to admit that it was a decent plan: the net completely swathed the man, trapping him. The mesh was too small for him to touch anything through and it was weighted at the ends so that it draped evenly. If he froze the net in place, he’d just end up trapping himself worse. While he was down, Yaoyorozu added several larger weights to her net.

Yaoyorozu looked fucking exhausted. She’d been creating a lot of things today and must be near her limit.

 “Go!” She said to Katsuki, “These are only four out of the seven! Find the others!”

Katsuki could do math. “Don’t give me orders!” he muttered. But it was a good idea. He wasn’t needed here.

He blasted himself above the ruins for a better view of the battle, just in time to watch a tiny green shape arc through the air. Katsuki waited just long enough to watch Izuku catch himself with Blackwhip and Float, before surveying the situation. Asui and Kaminari seemed to be handling one of the other villains, and Katsuki really didn’t want to team up with either of them. Shoji and Koda were going after another of the missing three.

The third: where was the third? He scanned the cracked façades, and…there: a dark skinned girl in a blue dress and tights crouched down by the edge of the fake city block.

“There you are, you fucker.” 

She saw him coming and fled down a side street, hurrying so fast that she dropped a piece of junk. Katsuki smirked. He could easily outpace her dinky little legs. He jetted towards her, only for what he’d mistaken as a dropped machine part to grab onto him with a bunch of cables, trapping him again. Fuck!

This was, Katsuki reflected while squirming on the ground, not how he’d expected his day to go.

The morning was fucking fantastic. Kirishima had been there with a hug, which Katsuki’d pretended to endure even if he was grateful. He and Todoroki staged some pretty freaking awesome rescues and Kaminari had even been less annoying than usual. Katsuki was glad that the rest of the class was all okay, really, although he wasn’t about to make a big song and dance about it. 

He’d finally just had time to hang out with Izuku again and maybe the nerd was finally receiving some of the signals he’d been sending. Really what else did Deku want: a straight up confession of love? If so, fuck that. Katsuki had basically done that twice now and each time not even a flicker of realization made its way through Izuku’s adorably dense skull, even when the thought of Izuku had pretty much brought Katsuki back from the dead. Well there was Edgeshot too, Katsuki supposed, but besides that. And then there was that time last week when Izuku had started rambling about how excited he was to finally see all their friends again and train, casually calling him ‘Kacchan’ in the way that short-circuited Kasuki’s brain. It had been all Katsuki could do not to kiss the nerd. 

Excluding the years of bullying, which he had to admit was a pretty big ask, Katsuki had basically done all the legwork so far. 

That night at Ground Beta, fighting Izuku had cracked Katsuki open like eggshell, spilling his guts all over the pavement. All of the buried feelings he’d been having for Izuku for so long suddenly snapped back into perfect relief. It was confusing and terrifying to suddenly realize he had been so wrong. Izuku was a lesson in contradiction: soft yet tough, hopeful yet damaged, brilliant and yet such a doofus. Over the months since, getting to know the nerd better, despite all the stress, had made Katsuki happier than pushing Izuku away ever had. He wanted to keep that up and let their relationship get closer still, if Izuku even wanted him like that. It was a stupid hope considering Izuku was already the most important person in his life.

Still, he couldn’t make things too easy for Izuku. For one thing, Katsuki was fucking well-worth fighting for, he was sure of that. He also didn’t want to be the one forcing them together, considering their past. It was time for Izuku to take the lead, and if he was being completely honest, Katsuki wanted Izuku to chase him like he always had, except this time Katsuki wouldn’t push him away.

Izuku was many things: quirk geek, freaking nerd, soft and squishy, dangerously compassionate, willing to put others before him in any situation and yet somehow capable of melting Katsuki’s hard-won craggy exterior with a single word, but he wasn’t stupid. Maybe Izuku was playing coy or maybe he was politely telling Katsuki to fuck off…Katsuki didn’t fucking know. Unless Katsuki had read the situation totally wrong...no, fuck that. He knew there was something between them, even if he’d never felt like this for anyone before. It was time to tell once and for all whether Izuku had any interest in him, or was dumb enough to ignore Katsuki’s affections. 

And then of course all those plans had to get sidetracked by idiot villainous extras showing up and freaking everyone out. 

Katsuki ground his teeth. After fighting Shigaraki in the Coffin in the Sky and even going toe-to-toe with All for One, he was not about to get his ass handed to him by a preteen. Heart stitches or no stitches, he was the fucking Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight and he was not going down easy, despite his abysmal performance so far today. 

He writhed until he finally managed to blast the box attached to the cables. By the time he shucked off the bindings and followed the little villain, she was crouched by the main thoroughfare in the shadow of a balcony, feverishly fiddling with weird little tools on something that was squat and metallic with lots of little tech pieces and looked suspiciously like a bomb. 

It was clear by now that the villains weren’t actively trying to hurt them; if they were, they were really fucking bad at it. Maybe they were trying to keep them contained until a bigger threat arrived. Maybe his analysis was wrong and they were about to set off a bomb. Katsuki figured everyone would be mad if he hurt this little shit too badly, but nothing said that he couldn’t do a bit of intimidation. 

“You’ll pay for that, you little shit sack!”

As he lunged forward, the girl, he saw now she was about eleven or twelve, pulled something long and sharp out of her eyeball. His stomach gave an inadvertent lurch. How had that fit in her eye? It was longer than her head, but there was somehow no damage or blood. 

His heart couldn’t take Cluster, but he could at least see how this shrimp liked Stun Grenade. He readied a shot in her direction, but the moment he took to shake off some sweat and dial down the intensity of his blast cost him. A blinding blaze of light erupted from the girl’s hands and everything went white.

Chapter Text

Izuku retreated with Uraraka back to where some of the class were regrouping. The blonde woman did not give chase, just continued hovering imperiously over the battlefield, pounding them with her aura of fear. 

As soon as they got close enough, Yaoyorozu pulled Uraraka and Izuku into the huddle with Ashido, Shoji, Aoyama, Jiro, and Shinso. "Something's wrong!" she said, “Or rather I think that we…I mean I…was wrong.” He hadn’t seen her so flustered since the autumn. 

“They're not villains are they?" Izuku asked, hoping he was wrong. 

Yaoyoruzu shook her head, “It’s good to know you came to the same conclusion. I’m afraid we were a bit hasty.” She turned her back, using Creation as she spoke over her shoulder. “Our thought was that we could propose a truce. If they don’t agree, perhaps then we use force, but Shinso, are you ready?” She handed the simple megaphone she’d made to Shinso, “You shouldn’t need your vocoder as they don’t know your quirk. This is just to amplify your voice.”

“I asked a question earlier.” Shinso said, “Either they’re wise to my quirk or maybe…”

They all started at a sudden commotion, ready to defend themselves, but it was just Tsuyu hopping around one of the nearby buildings. A soggy captive trailed her like a captive balloon with an extra helping of mucus. Kaminari followed her at a jog. 

“Good work, Tsuyu!” Izuku cheered.

Tsuyu retracted her tongue and Kaminari gasped in a final breath, “About that, Midoriya….” Tsuyu said, “We found out that these people…”

“Aren’t villains.” Uraraka finished. 

Tsuyu nodded, “Yeah, I’m glad we’re all on the same page, ribbit!”

“This lady speaks English.” Kaminari panted, “She’s…kinda rude though. She used to speak shitty Japanese and now she just says her head hurts.”

They all turned to the captive. The woman was younger than Izuku had realized, maybe in her early twenties. She really wasn’t too much older than them. Her blonde hair was matted to her skull with mucus. 

“English!” Ashido moaned, “I hate that class.”

“Me too.” Shinso muttered. Ashido offered him a fist bump, and after examining her hand for a moment, Shinso hesitantly returned the gesture. 

“We do need information though.” Yaoyoruzu said, “And we need it quickly, before anyone gets hurt.” If they hadn’t already. 

Izuku was usually okay at English, and Yaoyorozu was passable, but they all knew who in class was best at the language. 

“This is my time!” Kaminari gloated, “Prepare to be saved by the awesome linguistic abilities of Chargebolt!” 

“Oh no,” Jiro groaned, “We’re having him take the lead? Are we really that desperate?”

Silence. 

“I think we are.” Tsuyu said. 

Kaminari deflated a bit, but turned to the captive woman. They spoke back and forth for a bit before Kaminari turned back to report. The woman seemed exasperated, but she had sat up and was de-sliming herself. Tsuyu was busy rinsing her mouth.

“She says her code name is Tattletale.” Kaminari reported, “She said it’s none of our business why they’re here and her mission is secret. They’re from the United States and came here by accident. They didn’t expect us and they got blindsided.”

“That’s not good enough though.” Shinso said, “Are we supposed to believe they’re really here, attacking us, by mistake? Why can’t she just tell us why she’s here?”

Kaminari repeated the question to the woman. 

“Ugh.”

“What?” Izuku asked, concern rising like Float.

“Oh, nothing. She’s just kind of annoying.” Kaminari complained, “Skipping the insults, she says she can’t right now without her team and that we don’t have time for this and we need to stop it now and a bunch of other stuff. They don’t want to hurt us, but uh, she says her team is way stronger than our lame-ass heroes and they’ll really start turning up the heat if this goes on too long.”

Not the most useful interrogation, it brought up so many more questions than it answered: like why did Tattletale’s team mistake them for villains when Class 1A’s faces were known worldwide? How could they teleport perfectly to the middle of the school grounds without trying? It just didn’t make sense. Why did everything have to be so secretive? 

Izuku hoped they could get those answers later, but concern for his classmates twisted his guts. They had to end this fight. And then hopefully the teachers would be here soon with Iida…

All talking ceased as a scream exploded from nearby, eclipsing the other sounds of battle.

Chapter Text

Katsuki rubbed his eyes, hoping the puny villain wouldn’t try for a sneak attack before he could regain his sight. Flashes and glare didn’t usually bother him—how powerful was that shit?

When he tried to move, his whole brain throbbed. His palms were slick, ready to fire, but…fuck, he couldn’t risk setting off the bomb or burning an ally. He’d already had way too many lectures after burning Hagakure. There were too many freaking idiots in his class and now that Balls for Brains was gone, he found he actually cared about all of them. 

Minutes stretched on, excruciating, with distant sounds of battle urging him to act. Any moment he expected an enemy to lay hands on him. Just when his vision was starting to come back, a scream ripped through the battle, followed by some miscellaneous shouts. Everything suddenly sounded a lot more chaotic. Katsuki glanced over to the main fight, where Koda had amassed a pretty good sized swarm of insects. The villains were all losing their shit. Katsuki laughed: were they all freaked from a few bugs? What losers! It was like Present Mic all over again. Sure that many insects would be enough to give anyone the heebie jeebies, but this was a fucking battle. Shit happened, especially with quirks. At some point you just had to put on your big hero costume and learn to fucking deal with it. 

He glanced back at the villain, who was fiddling with something again. This time though, even with his crap vision, he could see her expression shift. Was she…smiling?

In any case, it was a perfect opening to finally get the upper hand. 

Chapter Text

The spreading wave of bugs moved with unnatural deliberation. They didn't form swarm clones or move with quite the unison Victoria was used to, but there was no doubt that somebody was controlling that roiling stew of black bodies. There was only one Master Victoria knew of with insect control as her schtick, but it couldn’t be her. It just couldn’t, could it? This wasn’t even on the right earth and she didn't have her powers and what would Taylor fucking Hebert be doing in Japan? 

Dennis screamed. Sveta was frozen, the kid with freaky elbows half trussed in her tendrils and still kicking. Even Weld looked stunned. 

Fuck! Could one of these kids have insect powers?

There weren't really that many bugs, but her hands shook, her breaths coming quick and shallow. She thought she'd grown past this. She was Antares, perfectly in-tune with her Shard. Logically, it couldn't be Taylor. Likely someone just had a similar power, but her body was fully in reaction mode. 

What the hell was Lisa thinking?

Keep calm. She had to keep calm. Victoria splayed the ribs of her forcefield and sent the Fragile One to go kill the bugs, curling up in a defensive ball in midair. Her forcefield gave her a quick squeeze before she left. 

Victoria forced herself to breathe, waiting for the moment when wasps would clog her windpipe. 

Chapter Text

Izuku looked in the direction of the scream. It seemed Koda had given up on birds and was relying on bugs instead, like Shoji had suggested. Sure there were a lot of bugs and Izuku had never been the biggest fan of insects, but this reaction seemed...extreme. Did these attackers all have a phobia? In that case it would be cruel to continue.

The birds who had been circling purposefully began to squawk and fight with each other, losing all direction. 

Izuku glanced over at the woman who called herself Tattletale, and was surprised to see that even with the tide of the battle shifting, she looked…elated?

"Taylor?" She asked.

Chapter Text

Lisa heard Dennis’s scream. She watched the swarm gather. She watched, but all she could see was…

“Taylor?”

Taylor, delicately depositing mosquitoes on coat sleeves to eavesdrop and monitor enemy movements. Taylor, speaking with the buzzing, chirruping voice of the swarm. Taylor, spawning off swarm clones to distract an Endbringer. Taylor, arranging an assembly line of insects to be dipped in capsaicin. Taylor, pouring over reports from her territory in her cozy apartment, as thousands of spiders worked in concert to weave replacement costume parts. Taylor, reading that stupid biography about the Triumvirate, her bugs combing her hair and dragging over choice snacks with silk strings.

A deep and pulverizing sense of loss as Taylor moved on to her dream of being a hero. 

Taylor’s cold, stylized face on posters, wreathed in a swirl of butterflies.

And of course, Taylor: her mind devoured by her agent after Amy’s tampering, crying though she didn’t seem to realize it, controlling her new human soldiers with the precision she once wielded with her insects as everyone started to finally work together.

Could it be Taylor? It should be impossible, but was anything truly out of their reach? They ate impossible for breakfast. 

Maybe, just maybe, Taylor had found her way back. 

Lisa needed to know. She needed to jump over that cliff of knowledge. Forget her agent. Forget limits and headaches and consequences. The only thing that mattered, the only thing thrumming through her body was the urgent need to know. It was like she was another insect in the swarm, pulled along, all autonomy stripped away. It wasn’t an option. It was a need.

If there was even a chance, she had to take it. 

Her head blazed with agony, but she pummeled her power into action. Who was controlling the bugs? Was it Taylor? Was there any conceivable chance that it was Taylor? Could it be?

No.

She’d known that would be the answer, but the frigid finality of it still rocked her. She pushed harder.

No, it wasn’t Taylor. Of course it wasn’t; Taylor didn’t have a power anymore. This was something else. Animal control—Anivoice, a power of some rock-headed kid named Koda. He could control animals. He could control insects, not as well as Taylor, but this was his doing.

Lisa wanted to pulverize the little punk. He’d done nothing but have the misfortune to have a passenger, but she itched to smash that stupid craggy face in. To scream at the alien gods who could tunnel through dimensions and yet couldn’t, wouldn’t, give an inch. It hadn’t been much, but for a moment she’d had a crumb of hope. But no: it wasn’t Taylor, because of course Taylor was off in Earth Aleph, if she was even still the Taylor that Lisa knew.

The aftereffects of using her power left her retching, her muscles convulsing. And through the pain Lisa watched as the swarm completely coated the struggling Clockblocker, hundreds becoming immobilized from his power, entombing him even further. As Weld and Sveta stopped, gazing at the mass of insects in raw horror, in ignorance of the teen heroes converging on them.

As Vicky shouted and swatted at the insects before curling up and going still.

That jerked her out of her torpor. Beneath the pain, thoughts moved slowly, but she still managed to move her lips, an enormous effort that left her even more nauseated. “You need to stop this now.” Lisa rasped to the teens around her, begging them to understand. 

The purple-haired boy raised a megaphone to his lips. 

Chapter Text

His costume wasn’t made for tying people up, but Katsuki made it work. He unfastened one of the bandoliers that usually held his sweat grenades and bound the little villain's arms and legs as she squirmed. Whatever her quirk was, it was clearly too shitty for combat. Out of respect for her as an opponent, Katsuki tried to make the bindings tight, but not uncomfortably so. Out of respect for when she’d tried to kick him in the nards he let out a few warning explosions and kept a hand aimed at her face, exuding his best aura of malice. 

She kept saying something, but Katsuki didn’t understand and that only fueled his rage at this whole situation, because fuck this. This, this was why foreign language classes only helped so much in the real world. All of his English class vocab was too polite for a hostage situation. And now here he was, helpless to figure out key information. Damn it all. 

His vision still danced with black spots from the girl’s camera flash.

Then there was the tech: Katsuki wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. He’d considered smashing it or blowing it up, but that would be a really bad idea if it was a bomb. He settled for chucking the stuff in a nearby building and moving his hostage slowly towards the place where he’d seen a lot of the class converging. Maybe he could get some of them to watch his charge so he could re-enter the fray and quit being a damn babysitter. 

Out of nowhere the giant eagle flew down towards him, cruel pounces ready to bite into his skin. Great, another target for Katsuki to blast. He raised his arm and…

“Stop!” Shinso’s voice yelled in English, “We do not want to fight you! We are heroes! Um, to authenticate this message, Tattletale says that Imp is a butt, whoever Imp is.” He repeated the same message in Japanese, but it seemed slightly shorter.

Before the echoes could even die away, the fighting ground to a standstill, accomplishing all that Katsuki’s blasts had not. Koda’s insects dispersed and the pounding fear, which Katsuki had forgotten was artificial, disappeared. The girl beside him stared up at him with surprised eyes and quit her struggling. Katsuki readied an explosion, but even the eagle wheeled and flew away. 

“Good one!” Kaminari called from somewhere. The idiot. 

“He didn’t use his quirk.” Izuku muttered. Katsuki jumped. Somehow Izuku had managed to sneak up to his side. 

“I didn’t use my quirk.” Shinso called back, “They just stopped on their own.”

“It was smart to use Shinso.” Izuku said, “Because then he could Brainwash anyone if they didn’t follow through. But it worked! They were heroes after all; it was all just a big misunderstanding, Kacchan! The fighting’s done.” Together they worked on releasing the little captive girl, which was trickier than Katsuki had expected because he’d tied damn good knots. Occasionally their hands touched as he and Izuku tugged, until the straps fell away. 

As people yelled back and forth across what had been a battlefield, Katsuki realized Izuku was holding his hand, “The fighting’s done!” Izuku repeated. 

“We weren’t ever in any danger Izuku.” Katsuki said, wondering what he was supposed to read into this. He couldn’t feel Izuku’s touch through glove and gauntlet, but he’d know that fucked-up hand anywhere. 

Izuku’s wide, honest face grinned up at him, tears in his eyes, “It’s over, Kacchan. We’re okay.”

And Katsuki realized that Izuku had been worried, worried that somehow this was another life threatening villain battle, surging on the tails of the last one. Maybe worried that Katsuki would be hurt again. He flushed. The damn nerd. 

Katsuki pulled Izuku into a rough hug, overwhelmed at his own feelings of relief. The fight was a farce, but he still felt victorious, “Yeah, it’s over.” Katsuki said thickly. Eyes fixed on the girl they’d released, even as he held Izuku close. “The fight is, at least. But we still have to figure out what the fuck is going on.”

He tried to savor the moment while it lasted, his chin nestled in Izuku’s curls. Every second was a tense, electric one as he waited for Izuku to pull away, but he didn’t. Hesitantly at first, Katsuki pushed his luck and stroked Izuku’s back, waiting as everyone else figured out their shit.

 - - - - - -

The strange ‘heroes’ recovered their members, some of them glaring at the U.A. students. Well Katsuki glared right back. Sure they had a few scrapes and burns, but it was their own fault for showing up unannounced in the middle of a training exercise. What was a pack of English speaking heroes doing in Japan anyway, much less at their school? All of Star and Stripe’s remaining goons had taken off weeks ago and, as far as he knew, the United States was a fat fucking mess right now. Whatever their ‘mission’ had been, they were much too ready for a fight. Katsuki didn’t trust them, at least not until they could clear some things up. 

The rest of the class chattered and Izuku muttered beside him about quirks and strategies, but all Katsuki could focus on was how useless he’d been in this fight. He was supposed to be the best; that was the whole fucking point of being Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight. Yet, he’d failed to make an impact on the shitty robot or tendrilled mobster. Pause-n’-Play had frozen him in time, and even the little squirt with the gear had managed to blind him. All that he’d managed to do was capture an elementary schooler. To his surprise though, nobody else in his class had fared much better, at least until the bugs arrived. 

Kaminari was lording it up in his role as interpreter: proof that any crumb of power granted to that idiot was too much. Katsuki wasn’t sure how much he trusted Kaminar’s interpretations, even checked by Yaoyoruzu and Todoroki. The other group didn’t seem up for socializing. For once the rest of the class seemed to share his doubts, so they mostly chatted amongst themselves. While Goldie, the fear blonde, occasionally said incomprehensible words in mangled Japanese, she mostly was hovering over the other blonde one, the one who called herself Tattletale.

Finally Sato unfroze and Yaoyorozu had to launch into a whole other round of explanations for the dolt. Aside from some bruises and scrapes, Class 1A was in pretty good shape. Katsuki had to admit that the tentacle lady had thrown him almost gently, though he had a vivid weal and small cut on his arm from where the toothed edge of a ribbon had sliced him. His chest hurt, but that was nothing new. More annoying than anything, his eyes still stung and his head pounded from the flash, but there didn’t seem to be any permanent damage to his vision. Izuku had, for once, minimized damage to his arms. Maybe the nerd was finally learning to take care of himself. 

Aoyama shivered in half a costume. Somehow during the fight his armor had gotten stuck to the metal man. Although the little girl’s tools and Todoroki’s fire had managed to detach Aoyama, the left arm and part of the back of his costume were slowly absorbing into the man’s metallic skin.

Katsuki also still wasn’t sure how he felt about Aoyama. Sure Izuku trusted him again and Aoyama had been useful setting the trap for All for One, but Sparkles had also been a traitor from the very start. He compounded it by being so fucking weird: an enigma flitting around like a damned dragonfly. And Katsuki couldn’t forget that Aoyama’s info was the whole reason he’d been kidnapped by the League back during their stupid little training camp. He was never going to live that down, although at least it got the extras in the streets to finally shut up about the sludge villain. Izuku might expound about the heart of a hero and the value of standing together, but Katsuki knew that, at heart, Aoyama was a selfish bastard. Worse, he was a coward. The guy may occasionally come in useful, but Katsuki kept one eye on him, just in case he ever tried anything again. 

Though they’d broken the hug, Katsuki retained Izuku’s hand as long as he dared, straining for any sign of how Izuku felt about it. There were too many damn extras around for him to feel comfortable for long. He didn’t want to push the nerd too hard at the wrong moment and fall into old patterns, and he definitely didn’t want to become a spectacle for all the class busybodies. He’d already noticed some side-eye from Todoroki and Asui, but neither said anything. Mostly though, he didn’t want to get burned by Izuku and ruin the progress they’d made. 

He hated that he was afraid, but there were stakes here that there just weren’t with other people. Katsuki didn’t really care what a bunch of extras thought of him, so he let them have a piece of his mind. Izuku though: Izuku was increasingly becoming a different case, one where Katsuki did care. A lot. 

They all jumped as a piercing, “YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” shook the U.S.J., driving nails through Katsuki’s headache. Jiro clapped her hands over her ears and Tattletale retched.

By the entrance, several Ectoplasm clones spawned off, riding a cresting wave of cement like an imminent tsunami. Aizawa limped in, his hair standing erect, his one remaining eye flashing red, next to a fountain of grasping vines. Flying body parts whizzed past them. A carpet of mushrooms crept across the ground, which engulfed the strangers up to their waists.

The teachers had finally arrived, and they hadn’t come alone.

 - - - - - -

Katsuki got bored during the explanation to the teachers and the other class. There was too much yapping in these types of situations: shouldn’t everyone be doing something useful like questioning the self-proclaimed American heroes? Present Mic had asked for the bare basics and then gone over to chat, but it didn’t seem like much of an interrogation was happening. Katsuki wondered what the teachers were all waiting for. 

Iida jogged up in his ridiculous armor. “I apologize that it took me so long, but I do believe that I did the name of Ingenium proud.” he said, his bearing as stiff as the broomstick up his ass, “I could not find our teachers anywhere at first! They were having a staff meeting, can you imagine that? How irresponsible is it to leave students unsupervised while using dangerous quirks, in particular while we’re so far from campus?”

“Hey man, we were fine!” Kirishima said, clenching a hardened fist. “Together we proved how tough we are and that we can hold our own, teachers or no teachers!”

It was enough to make Katsuki roll his eyes. Somehow he’d missed these dorks? “We just fought a fucking war, Four Eyes. I think we can take care of ourselves.”

Iida sniffed, irritably chopping at the air, “Perhaps, but there is such a thing as following the correct procedure—they are our teachers after all! None of them were even pretending to pay attention to the cameras. In a case like this, where the unthinkable actually occurs, it is a severe breach in protocol. I think you would be singing a different tune if it went any other way here. I found Class B first and then it took some time to coordinate the buses.”

Katsuki knew that battles were always shorter than they felt, but he still couldn’t believe all of that had fit within half an hour. It was still well before lunchtime, which meant that their morning rescue exercise was technically still in session. 

“I’m so glad you found them, Iida!” Izuku said, then his expression shifted, “...Oh. Uh, hi Monoma.”

“Oh, if it isn’t the famous Class A. It’s so good to see you finally getting humbled! All you jerks in Class 1A think you’re so incredible, but we had to come to your rescue!” Copy said, each syllable slathered with condescension. Just a look at his smarmy grin was enough to make Katsuki’s hackles rise. 

“But we didn’t need…” Todoroki began. 

But Katsuki interrupted him, “We didn’t need any of you losers!”

“That’s not what your precious class president said.” Copy said, “Just think, the great Class A couldn’t even win a fight against other heroes! What’s wrong with you? At least Class B, as the  superior class, has the acumen to think before blindly charging into a fight!”

He turned to Katsuki, “Oh, I did hear that you did something! Who could have thought that the loose hand grenade could manage to defeat a little kid?” His cackles set his entire body vibrating.

Beside Katsuki, Izuku made a little whining noise, like a dog strangled by a leash. Katsuki was about to storm over there and fry the moronic magician’s face when Big Hands beat him to it, with a smack. “Sorry everyone.” She smiled, as if she wasn’t restraining the struggling sleezeball, “It’s so good to see you! We should all catch up sometime. I hope we can train together again soon, well, after all of this is sorted out! Later!”

She dragged the Copy guy away.

“But we didn’t need them to rescue us.” Todoroki said, as if he had to get the statement out, “They weren’t trying to hurt us. It was all a misunderstanding and we have more raw firepower than them.”

Sometimes Half and Half could be so dense, “Yeah, yeah.” Katsuki said, “Don’t get your weenies in a twist. Someday we’ll bail those bastards out of trouble and he’ll be begging us for help for a change.”

“I hope not, but wish that All Might was here.” Izuku sighed, and grasped Katsuki’s hand again, short circuiting some of his brain cells. “He’d know what to do.”

“I am here.” 

Katsuki winced. Even before his most recent fight with All for One, All Might had been in rough shape: kind of like a sad Halloween ornament left out for the rain. Now he somehow looked worse, especially with the bandages. He rolled slowly, in a wheelchair, but that did nothing to discourage that familiar flutter of wonderment from whenever Katsuki saw All Might in the flesh followed, just as doggedly, by the usual flash of guilt. He was accompanied by Recovery Girl. Aizawa and Present Mic strolled over to meet them. 

“And I am here!” The Principal said, springing from the depths of Aizawa’s capture cloth like a possessed jack-in-the-box. 

Katsuki winced again, but with a different flavor. Why couldn’t their principal at least pretend to be professional sometimes? Still he had to grant the rodent-thing a bit of respect after destroying Raccoon Eyes and Dunce Face in the finals last semester and planning the whole U.A. Defense system. And of course, it was Nezu who let them all go after his Deku when Izuku had almost lost himself. He held Izuku’s hand a little tighter. He saw Shinso and Ashido glance their way, but neither said anything. 

All Might smiled slightly, before turning his attention to the other teachers, “Thank you all for the update about the situation and for waiting for me. I’m ready to learn more about these wayward heroes.” 

Chapter Text

Dismissing the bugs helped. Slightly. None of the bugs had bit or stung, yet the gathered swarm had bypassed the carefully curated persona of Antares, thrusting Victoria back five years to staring at the blank yellow lenses of Skitter’s mask. 

In the uncertain truce they weren’t exactly prisoners, but they weren’t not prisoners. The ill-definedness of it itched, but Victoria supposed their situation was better than being clapped immediately in cuffs. The students announced that they were waiting for the teachers, and then conveniently inserted themselves between the Undersider-Breakthrough-Wards-Flock crew and the exit. Still icy, but the climate had definitely thawed a bit: just now nobody knew what to do. 

So they waited. Victoria’s collarbone ached from the green haired kid lucky blow, right over the recently healed break. Weld popped in some earbuds, his head bobbing to the beat. Miscellaneous half-melted kitchen equipment was still fused to his skin, as well as remnants of some kid’s armor. Sveta, Dennis, and the kids played cards, and Lisa bitched incessantly about her migraine. 

“It’s just so embarrassing!” Kenzie said, “And now they’ll look at this stuff and think that’s the extent of what I can make, but it’s not! I didn’t have the time to make it less fragile or suck less.”

“I mean they also tied you up.” Aiden said.

“Yeah, but that’s not the point, dummy! At least I held my own, kinda. My stuff though…this stinks!”

When the teachers finally arrived, they brought with them an abundance of theatrics and a whole new horde of teen capes. There were easily several dozen of them–enough for several cities’ worths of young parahumans–all gathered in one place. So many powers to discover. A nervous girl with horns and a low-cut dress stopped over to chat in English, but was called away by her friends before Victoria’s group could reveal their complete lack of knowledge about this world. Then the obnoxiously loud man with a clunky speaker system around his neck checked in on them briefly. Thanks to him they had water, but no answers. 

Finally things seemed to be moving. A lanky man with the healthy aura of a skeleton approached them in a wheelchair. Though the long hair framing his face hung in sad golden tendrils, he wore pressed black slacks and a white shirt, the crispness of his outfit contrasting with battle-scorched ruins around them. He was flanked by a man in black pajamas whose lank, hair that failed to hide his scruffy beard and the man with three feet of hair gelled into a dangerous spike atop his head. At first it looked like the kid in the bunny suit and the blond with the hideous gauntlets would follow the adults. Instead, they hung back, watching carefully.

The skeletal man, wheezing slightly, extended a hand. “My name is…Toshinori Yagi. Welcome to U.A. High School. I’m one of the teachers here and I see that you’ve met our students.”

Victoria glanced at the kids. ‘Met’ was an interesting choice of words. 

The other adults introduced themselves as well, flashing unfamiliar hero licenses. Victoria’s friends had none to offer in return. The small animal in the waistcoat turned out to be the principal of the school, but at this point Victoria wasn’t even surprised. Cape life had thrown enough weirdness at her that nothing could truly faze her again. His little peaked muzzle reminded her a bit of Ratcatcher’s pets.

“My students tell me that you are heroes.” The principal said in a piping voice.

“Yes.” Victoria’s usual philosophy didn’t really cut it here. They didn’t know the law and she couldn’t ask for help without tipping her hand. Ordinarily Victoria would want to cooperate with local heroes to the best of her ability, and of course these people said that they were running a school for heroes, but it could be a farce or an elaborate trap. That cynical core of Victoria that had, since Amy, always second-guessed and mistrusted everything was all too often right. 

The problem was that Victoria did believe them. The costumes here might be unfamiliar, with far fewer skintight bodysuits than she’d expected, but these people carried themselves like heroes. She had a hard time believing that villains would resign themselves to a polite cease-fire and what would even be the point of subterfuge? Then there was how she’d watched the kids laughing and joking with each other. Sure, she knew that villains, like the old Undersiders, could share that sort of camaraderie, but they just seemed so pure. It would feel so right to come clean and be truthful here. 

But dimensional travel threw a halberd-sized wrench into the mix. Earth Aleph had, reluctantly, cleared their visit under the impression that the group would be checking on the state of the cracks. Although they would be doing a cursory look, that fabrication had allowed them to bypass the dimensional lock-down. If Aleph knew that their true purpose was to visit the most dangerous living entity in the known worlds, secretly residing on their planet, they may have reconsidered the visit. But still, Earths Aleph and Bet, and now Gimel, shared history. It had been less than forty years since Aleph and Bet’s timelines split: a significant but not an insurmountable difference. Navigating the politics between divergent earths was enough to weaken the fervor of the most diehard diplomat: after all, they were still managing the Cheit fiasco back home. Even being the daughter of a lawyer wouldn’t get Victoria far here if she was oblivious to the law. 

This earth was a complete unknown. Superficially it looked similar to Bet and Aleph. They even spoke Japanese and English. They seemed at a similar level of technological prowess and even the capes seemed to be organized into heroes and villain teams: but what was lurking under that thin guise of similarity? This earth had somehow been bypassed up to now. It was too much to hope that this alternate reality would be close to their own. And exposing that they were from an alternate earth could never go well. In the best case scenario they might be questioned, studied, and inconveniently detained. In the worst case scenario, they might be tortured or executed, or start another interdimensional war with a world ready to plunder the shattered remains of Gimel and the corner worlds. Anything was in the cards, leaving a plethora of unpleasant options.

Like it or not, they were stuck here, at least for now. Kenzie had tried to contact Dragon, with no luck. None of their phones worked, of course. They also couldn’t ]access Shardspace from this side, which was ridiculous because that was how they’d entered this whole situation, and Kenzie retained her gateway doodad. Lisa was out of commission, so they couldn’t consult her. And they were fucking exhausted: tired from the long slog through Shardspace and their little fight with the teen capes. Although they could probably overpower the teens if they went all-out, playing break-the-cape wouldn’t do much for their credibility on this world, and there were an awful lot of capes. Even if they managed to escape the U.S.J., where would they go? They could break rules and social norms without noticing, or run headlong into even worse trouble. 

The question was whether playing along would help them find answers or would lead to immediate arrest.

Aside from Lisa, who advocated for plots rife with subterfuge, lies, and violence, the rest of them preferred the option of least resistance. In their discussions before the teachers had arrived, they’d decided on a simple plan. There wasn’t enough time to flesh it out and they didn’t have the knowledge needed for a convincing lie, but it should serve with a bit of luck. It wasn’t like anything they could cobble together would hold up for long if these people were halfway competent. 

First: avoid suspicion to hopefully dig themselves out of this mess while not disclosing anything incriminating. Victoria hoped to avoid actually lying when possible, if only to avoid tripping hidden Thinker powers or tinker-tech. They’d decided she would be spokesperson because nobody else cared to,: and even Lisa had to acknowledge that right now she was in no shape to guide the conversation. At least Victoria’s merciless cape childhood had coached her in PR skills.

“We are heroes.” Victoria said, with a bright smile. She tried to portray the guileless unflappability of someone with nothing to hide, leaning on the misleading youth of her face. “It’s so good to meet you! I’m sorry we disrupted your class! We really didn’t mean to intrude, but it really was an accident on our part. Anyway, we’ll just get going and get out of your hair…”

“Not at all.” The Principal said, “I’m told that it was simply a big misunderstanding. Now if you’d just clear a few things up, we’d be happy to let you on your way.”

“Of course.” 

Crap.

“Delightful. Now, how exactly did you get here ‘by accident’?” Nezu asked. Though his tone stayed light, he clearly wasn’t a fool. 

Victoria matched his tone, “We have a friend offered to help transport us for a mission. I think they got the coordinates really wrong though, because we were supposed to be far from here. Really, we’re just as confused as you.” 

“So you had no aim to come to our campus?” Nezu asked. 

“No, none.” That at least was a truth. 

“Ah, that is a relief. And why did you attack our students?”

Careful. “We didn’t mean to.” Victoria said, “We didn’t know where we were, and we were suddenly under attack in a strange location. We tried to be gentle, but, well, none of us speak Japanese.” She remembered Lisa and amended her statement, “At least not well.”

“What are your names?” Yagi asked. His tone still rested on the cusp of friendly, but it was clear that the nonanswers were already raising a red flag. In his position, Victoria would be suspicious as well. 

“I’m afraid we promised to keep our identities secret while on our mission.” Victoria said, hoping against hope that would suffice. 

“I’m afraid that we have to insist.” Said one of the teachers, Eraserhead, Victoria remembered. With the enormous bags under his eyes and five-o’clock shadow, he looked less like a hero and more like an overworked PRT director. Victoria desperately wanted to fix his outfit because clearly it wasn’t working for him. 

“Yeah we all know what it’s like juggling an identity and hero life,” The one called Present Mic half-shouted, “but we need to know who we’re working with. Fair’s fair. After all, you’re the ones trespassing on our campus!”

“You can call me Antares.” Victoria said. Going by cape names wasn’t ideal, but it would be suspicious to keep withholding and the names wouldn’t mean anything to these people anyway. Even on Aleph anyone younger than 30 didn’t exist on Bet, so none of them were likely to exist on this earth in duplicate. If the faculty tried to double-check their identities, they’d find that Victoria and her friends didn’t exist, but fake names wouldn’t help with that. At least, she supposed, they’d know when they were being referred to. “This is Tattletale, Lookout, Chicken Little, Tress, Clockblocker, and…” Victoria didn’t know if Weld wanted to use his real name. She cursed herself for not checking.

“Weld.” 

“Nice to meet you.” Nezu said as Present Mic coughed, “Kinda weird names.”

Like he was one to talk. 

Still, Victoria kept her mouth shut and her smile on display. Every sentence she uttered was a minefield. If she got a term wrong, would it be attributed to errors in translation or would it be a glaring signal that they were not from this world? 

“Those are some pretty impressive quirks, but I haven’t heard of any of you.” Yagi said slowly. 

That was okay. She could still rescue this. If a school this big could survive and churn out heroes-in-training, there had to be thousands of smaller teams in the United States alone. “Oh, that makes sense. We’re relatively new. We all tri…” she caught herself. She didn’t know if they would call it triggering, “...we got our, uh, quirks recently.” It was a safe bet. If they were new, it would make sense why there was limited, i.e. no, information about them online. 

“Recently?” Present Mic yelped, “All of you?”

The other teachers looked equally shocked. Crap. Somehow she must have messed up. How had talking about triggers set off an alarm? All capes who didn’t get their powers from a vial had to have trigger events: it was one of the only commonalities they’d found across realities: part of the Shards’ connection to the Entities. Sure some of them were on the older side, but all seven of them were still well within the reasonable ages for trigger events. Was it because of the rising incidence of broken triggers that they were surprised? Perhaps she should have phrased that differently. 

“How in the…” Present Mic began.

Victoria cut him off.“Should we go somewhere more private to chat?” She hadn’t had high hopes for this conversation, but it was rapidly going downhill. Going to another location would give them a better chance to flee when they inevitably had to.

“No, I think this is a good learning opportunity for our students!” Nezu said, killing that tactic. “And while we’re all here, we might as well continue. I’m finding all of this so very interesting.”

Victoria was starting to hate that mild little voice. 

“A relatively new team composed entirely of late bloomers.” Yagi mused, “Fascinating. Where did you say you all come from?”

If diversion didn’t work, they’d share minimal information and lie if necessary. Suspicions were already raised. There was the small chance that with a few small formalities and token cooperation would satisfy the heroes, though it was a pretty fucking small chance. 

They’d verified with Lisa, before her power had completely shut her down, that this earth had the United States at least. The City on Earth Gimel was roughly between where New York City, Boston, and Brockton Bay had been on Bet, but they didn’t know if any of those cities existed on this earth or if they had the same names. They could have really used Tattletale about now, but Lisa wasn’t exactly in a position to be helpful. At least they were in Japan. What were the odds that the teachers knew the geography of the U.S. in any detail?

“New York.” Victoria said, opting for a larger city, hoping that it was more likely to exist on this earth. If not, she could fall back and say it was a smaller town, so small that no one would have a hope of knowing it. 

“Through what agency?” Yagi asked. 

Crap. “The…the Wards.” Victoria said. It was an innocuous enough name. There had to be someone who’d called themselves the Wards here, right?

“I’ve never heard of them.”

“We’re a small team.”  

“And new?” Eraserhead asked, dryly. 

“Impressive quirks for a small team.” Present Mic drawled. 

They were all ganging up on her now, the ‘conversation’ rapidly metamorphosing into an interrogation. When she looked to her friends for support, Weld waved her off. Dennis gave her a thumbs up. There would be no help there. 

“Thank you.” Victoria said, trying out the smile again. “I’m glad you think so!”

Yagi looked to the principal, who nodded. Victoria braced herself. “I have connections in the United States, particularly in California and I-Island, but also in New York. I’ve never heard of these so-called ‘Wards’. Even as a small agency, registered heroes should always have some sort of ID and you never mentioned any. Have you worked with any other agencies who can authenticate you? Any villains you’ve fought?” His eyes said, ‘if you aren’t villains yourselves’, “Anything at all?”

Of-fucking-course. Victoria shook her head, cheeks flushing. Fuck. She wasn’t ready to be treated like the bad guy again, not when she’d already soiled her name so much in service to defeating Teacher and the Titans. It was a bitter pill to swallow that after all her battles and Breakthrough’s twin bursts of fame and infamy, she had no villains to name for these people. None they would recognize. 

Yagi shook his head in confusion and the barest hint of disgust, “There’s no one you can name? New York is crawling with heroes–surely you’ve worked with someone before. Tell me anyone and we can get you out of this mess. Trust me, keeping this close to your chest is admirable, but you have to know how this looks. Anyone at all?”

As Victoria shook her head again, Yagi muttered, “Have you even heard of Star and Stripe?”

Victoria stayed silent, sensing a trap. She had no need to dig them in deeper still. The air of civility was dropping away from the teachers, precipitating the gathering storm. In their position, with unknown capes in close proximity to her team, she wouldn’t just let the subject go. 

“And where is this friend you mentioned located?” Present Mic asked, “Where were you trying to go? Why?”

“To be frank.” Eraserhead said, “The pieces are not coming together for me.”

“I’m hearing a double helping of lies here!” Present Mic agreed, spearing a finger at Victoria. 

“Let’s start this again.” Yagi said, eyes lost to shadow. “Care to tell us the truth this time?”

Three, their fallback plan: tell the truth and fight when it inevitably came to a battle. It wouldn’t be the first time she fought rival capes on a hostile earth, but she didn’t want to make a habit of it

Sveta and the others in her group looked resigned. Victoria had hoped that somewhere along the way one of them would come up with some sort of dazzling strategy, but nothing seemed to be materializing. Victoria could scoop Lisa up with the Fragile One if necessary to make a quick exit, but there were plenty of capes around with strong offensive powers. She’d seen lasers and fire and she shivered to think of the bugs flooding back. She also had the distinct impression that green-haired kid had been holding back. Shit. What could they do if the heroes seriously tried to subdue them instead of mere capture?

If it looked like it might come down to another fight anyway, they didn’t have much to lose by telling the truth. Victoria glanced at Lisa, who was sitting with her head in her hands, next to a puddle of vomit. 

“What do you think?” Victoria asked all of them. Their short-lived train of lies was fully off the rails, but she was fairly sure the teachers were heroes now. Only heroes used so much fucking bureaucracy. She was exhausted, hungry, and just ready to get out of here. Why, for once, couldn’t something be easy? 

“Just tell them.” Lisa groaned, echoing the general consensus, “This is painful to listen to.”

Victoria took a deep breath, letting the embrace of the Fragile One settle her. In moments like this she was tempted to release her aura again, but power use wouldn’t exactly make them seem more trustworthy. She’d learned that lesson the hard way, “Okay we didn’t just accidentally teleport to your school and we came a lot farther than just the United States to Japan. We were traveling from another earth in an alternate reality on a personal errand. That’s why I can’t name teams or places, why we don’t have the correct identification. We don’t know your rules. We sincerely didn’t mean to be here and it looks like now we’re stuck. We’re heroes, but not from your dimension.”

Present Mic laughed and Aizawa scowled, but Nezu and Yagi both relaxed slightly. Somehow, that admission seemed to have drained some of the tension. Maybe they were as used to the impossible as Victoria was. 

“I know how it sounds.” Sveta said, “But that really is the truth.”

“Can you prove this?” Nezu asked. 

“We’d be happy to provide proof,” Weld said, “but what kind of proof do you want?” 

“You have to admit that this is a hard story to believe.” That was Eraserhead. The man seemed to be more of a robot than Dragon. 

“Don’t you have anyone who can read our minds or say if we’re lying?” Dennis blurted. The teachers all shook their heads. 

“Don’t you think we would have already if one of us could do that?” Present Mic said. 

Okay, apparently their Thinkers here were utter crap. 

“Look at our phones. Have you ever seen one like this before?” Victoria asked. 

The teachers considered the sleek phone with tiny solar cells on the back.  “It is certainly unique,” Aizawa said, “but our own Design Studio is full of innovators and technology is always improving.”

Victoria hadn’t brought much with her from Gimel, just enough for a day-trip through Shardspace, on the assumption that there would be amenities in Aleph. Some clothing and underwear wouldn’t prove anything. Of course everything would be an unfamiliar brand, but smaller brands lived and died all the time. She had a book with her, which may prove slightly more useful. She doubted she could prove her Shard was from another dimension. While she knew a lot about cape history and current events on Bet and Gimel, most information she shared could be dismissed as fabrication. There were plenty of holes in her knowledge about this planet, but proving ignorance would be next to impossible without any thinkers. She glanced at the rest of her team. Weld was frowning while Sveta and Dennis patted down their pockets, as if they’d forgotten where they’d stashed away unalienable proof. 

Victoria opened her phone, showing the usual apps. The portal to her cape files. Text messages and emails, which refused to load. Her music app, which currently recommended playing a mix entitled ‘Run, Run Away’. And her photo album. Ah. 

“I have some photos.” Victoria hazarded, “Would that be…”

“Lookout, your cameras!” Aiden shouted and all eyes swung to Kenzie. 

“Oh! Me! Yeah, you wanted proof? I have videos of everything! What do you want to see? I downloaded some of the memories from my cube before we left! If you give me a minute I can make them fully immersive, wouldn’t that be cool?”

Of course. How could Victoria forget about Kenzie’s cameras, or perhaps she’d wanted to forget. She’d never get used to Tinkers; just when she thought she could understand their powers, they had to change the entire dynamic. “I think just projections would be fine.” She managed.

“What do you want to see?” Kenzie asked, plunking her phone down in front of the heroes. A projection sprang above, slightly transparent but fully detailed, “Oh, I mean I guess you don’t know, but I can show you so many things! So this is Breakthrough and that’s the Simurgh–she was one of the Endbringers. They’re all gone now. This is my old Wards team before the Tenders. See how little I was? This is Houndstooth, but I’m not supposed to have photos of him. Oh, this is what Kyoto looked like after Scion ripped it apart. Sorry about that. These are the Titans fighting. This is Antares fighting Titan Oberon…” 

Victoria looked away from the flickering images as Kenzie continued. 

“This is Scion destroying the UK–I saw that one on a monitor, but I think I did a good job rendering it. Oops, that’s one of Darlene. I shouldn’t have shown you that. Here is the City on Earth Gimel, after Scion destroyed our old earth. Oh, and here are the cracks again…”

“Destroying the earth?” Present Mic asked, flabbergasted, before getting a grip on himself. He rubbed his sunglasses, “These could have been doctored,” he said, but with less certainty. If only he knew how easy it was for Kenzie to create fake images. 

“Perhaps.” Yagi said, “But I think it would be helpful to learn more before we make a judgement.” He glanced at Nezu with thick, hooded eyes. The Principal nodded. “Tell us more about this.” Yagi said, “I’m afraid to say that I’m starting to believe you.”

“Oh, I’ve got loads more.” Kenzie said, bouncing, “Do you want to watch the videos? I have oodles of footage. You know, proving this is a lot harder than I thought.”

Victoria took a deep breath. This would take some explaining.

Chapter Text

Izuku watched the meeting carefully, painfully aware of Kacchan doing the same. They stood next to each other, almost touching, though not quite. While Kirishima and Sero tried to chat with Kacchan, Uraraka joined the conversation with Izuku and Iida, though Izuku was only dimly paying attention. 

The woman who Izuku had fought, the one with the paralyzing aura of fear, seemed to be the spokesperson. Was she the leader of their team? Although too far away to hear anything, the discussion seemed heated. There was no smile on All Might’s face. Raised voices drifted across the intervening space, Present Mic’s hair quivering with indignation. 

Something here was wrong. Had they made a mistake? Were they villains after all? He danced uncertainly from one foot to the other. Any moment now the fighting might resume. 

Izuku watched the little girl fiddle with something, releasing images projected into the air. Izuku couldn’t see the shifting visuals too clearly from his vantage point, but the entire atmosphere of the group shifted in response. The teachers leaned in, more engaged in the conversation. Izuku wished he had Jiro’s or Shoji’s abilities to eavesdrop, if only to know what was going on. A fight seemed less likely, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away. 

Eventually Recovery Girl made her rounds. She sighed as she saw Izuku, “I came just in case. Knowing you children, especially you,” she pointed her cane at Izuku, who flushed, “well, I knew that some healing might be in order.” Beside Izuku, Kacchan let loose a growl of irritation.

Could Kacchan be annoyed on Izuku’s behalf? No, he must be imagining things. He still couldn’t believe his audacity at holding Kacchan’s hand earlier, or Kacchan’s patience with tolerating the affection. Even now, the small space between them was charged with possibility, but Izuku couldn’t force himself to move and stretch his already straining luck any farther. 

For once Recovery Girl didn’t chastise Izuku about his bone density or mistreating his arms. He really didn’t have many injuries, aside from some scrapes during his tumble and the bite on his ankle. A smooch and a couple band-aids later, and he was feeling much more comfortable. 

Kacchan, on the other hand, received a lecture about taking better care of his recovering chest, which was completely unfair because he had been careful-ish. 

After a long conversation with the American heroes, the teachers retreated to the entryway of the U.S.J., summoning Recovery Girl and Ectoplasm. Cementoss left, presumably to teach a class. That seemed like a good sign. If the teachers felt safe dismissing some of the faculty, it must mean that they viewed the danger as low, right? He scuffed the toe of one boot against the other. What was taking so long?

Finally the impromptu little staff meeting broke. The teachers herded all of the students over to the U.S.J. entrance plaza; the seven American heroes next to them in a ragged group. 

“I’m sure all of you students are curious about these young heroes,” Principal Nezu said from his perch on Mr. Aizawa’s shoulder. “and I wanted to thank you all for your patience. We’ve learned much during our conversation and we’ve found that these circumstances are far more extraordinary than we had anticipated. There is no easy way to say this, so I will be direct. These heroes are, indeed, from the United States, but on an alternate version of our earth. They traveled through dimensions to come here, and now they are marooned in our world.”

The students exploded into dozens of voices overlapping in disbelief, shock, and laughter. Someone demanded to know if it was all a prank, but the Principal wasn’t one to joke. If he was telling everyone this, then it was something that he believed. Kacchan just shrugged and grit his teeth, ready for this next challenge. Uraraka’s eyebrows furrowed. Iida gaped, shell-shocked, his orderly universe turned upside down. Of all the things they had expected to hear, this was not it. 

It was preposterous, but wasn’t that what quirks did in their infinite possibilities: mold the ludicrous into reality? Was this any more groundbreaking than the inheritance of One for All or experiencing Rewind at work? A rush of excitement so intense that he almost forgot how to breathe enveloped Izuku. If it was true, then these were brand new heroes and powers never before seen! If dimensional travel was possible, he needed to know more. How did they travel between dimensions and why were they trying to in the first place? What was their hero society like? Was their world the same? What were their licensing and training programs like? What about their costumes and support items–-what was the story there? Did they even have costumes? Did any of them have new ideas about quirk synergies? Was there possibly anything like One for All in their world and if so, who was the successor? If it was possible to visit other dimensions, then did that mean that other Izuku Midoriyas were out there, struggling with One for All or battling Shigaraki? Who knew what possibilities abounded! They came from an entirely distinct dimension, yet they still seemed so normal, talking about heroes and villains. Were all realities similar and how many were there? Did they even know? How did they get stuck here and were they trying, intentionally, to cross dimensions? If there was more than one dimension, then didn’t that open the door for there to be thousands, or more. Were there any limits? In sci-fi novels they talked about there being infinite universes, but that seemed like an awful lot. These heroes knew things that nobody else knew! What did being a hero mean to them? What if he…

“Calm your nerd-ass down.” Kacchan stage-whispered, “You’ll get your chance to learn everything eventually.”

Izuku squirmed with a whole different kind of excitement from Kacchan’s warm breath in his ear and quit muttering, “Oh—okay, Kacchan.”

Principal Nezu continued speaking and the tumult eased as everyone strained to hear, “Until these heroes can find their way back to their home planet…” Izuku couldn’t believe how casually the Principal was mentioning other planets, “or until we can secure a more permanent arrangement, we have decided to once again open our doors and welcome them as our guests to stay here at U.A.”

That started another clamor from the gathered students. 

“Hah, what? I don’t trust them.” Kacchan rumbled from beside Izuku, “Do they think we’re idiots or some crap? Why is the Principal buying into this?”

“I do though.” Izuku said, knowing he was inviting reprove. “Trust them, I mean. Well kinda. I don’t know about other dimensions—it feels very implausible—but I don’t think they’re here to kill us, Kacchan. And at the worst, having them on campus means that we can monitor them, right?”

“Why here?” someone yelled. Izuku couldn’t tell who it was. Someone from Class B?

Principal Nezu raised a paw, “As you all know, the Hero Public Safety Commission has been rendered essentially nonfunctional and is currently rudderless. The government is in shambles and we can’t just turn these heroes away when we are their best hope for aid. U.A. is a bastion for heroes, particularly in dark times. In the past several months, we have kept our doors open, providing aid to those who need it. Is this any different, just because their challenge is like none we have encountered before? We also have certain clout in situations to do with quirks.

“These heroes are marooned here, but we can ensure that they are not friendless. They will need some rest to rejuvenate their bright eyes and healthy fur, and I think we could all stand to gain much in learning from each other. We have plenty of beds available, now that many of the refugees have left campus. Allow me to handle the logistics as you extend your hospitality, until we can assist them in finding their way back home. Over a short time at our school you have all blossomed into quite the capable heroes…”

“Yeah, Koda totally kicked their butts!” Kaminari called. 

The Principal didn’t react to the interruption, “You certainly all showed how capable students with a U.A. education are, although I must acknowledge that today’s skirmish was not your most impressive feat to date. Soon you all will officially ascend to your second year at U.A. Now perhaps we can focus on other essential skills for budding heroes: compassion and strategy, in addition to your combat experience.

“We know that you all have questions, and we do too, but our guests are hungry and tired. I hope you will all give them a warm U.A. welcome…”

Izuku wondered what kind of warm welcome Principal Nezu meant. His own introduction to U.A., though exciting, hadn’t exactly been full of companionable warmth. 

“...and for now I must ask Class 1B to leave.” Principal Nezu continued. 

“No you can’t! Class 1A always gets all the attention!” Monoma shrieked. 

Vlad King stalked up to Principal Nezu, stabbing a finger, “You’re always giving that class preferential treatment! You have more than one hero class, you know! Do you expect us just to leave and twiddle our thumbs? Pretend this never happened?”

The Principal wasn’t cowed, just smiling indulgently, “Although that is a valid concern. Your class will get their turn tomorrow,” Principal Nezu said, “after all: with a conundrum this complex, we will require all of us to help return these heroes to their home. However, right now they are overwhelmed. I think it’s prudent to introduce them to our campus gently. In any case, we can’t pull all the students out of class when they have barely restarted. Class 1A is already acquainted, albeit in less than ideal circumstances. I believe they could benefit from learning to see these young heroes as something beyond than opponents for today. We are all heroes, after all. As allies, we will all need to work together, but of course studies come first!”

Vlad King grumbled, but he still led his students out of the training center. 

Principal Nezu’s dark eyes twinkled as he gazed at the gathered class, “My speech time is over. I must get back to my office and start situating this situation! Eraserhead, Present Mic, and All Might have volunteered to lead our visitors on a campus tour before an early lunch. Your assignment for today is to act as ambassadors for our guests. Your challenge is to information and present yourself as U.A. heroes should. I know you will rise to the occasion. Get to know them, learn from each other, and enjoy all the benefits of this unique opportunity. Plus Ultra!”

Chapter Text

Lisa tried to pay attention during the meeting with the teachers, but certain details were lost in the eddies of pain. Ideally when faced with a migraine of this magnitude she would secret herself away in a dark room with some industrial-strength painkillers. Instead she had to deal with the humiliation of being the sole casualty in their farcical battle. All she had was the hard ground and merciless light as Vicky and the rest gave away their secrets like Halloween candy. Idiots. If only she could have focused, she could have spun this whole situation to their advantage. Watching them stumble through the little interrogation was really its own lesson in torture. Although she loved Vicky and could at least tolerate the other members of their weird rag-tag little group, she could have murdered the idiot do-gooders for divulging it all. That information had been their one card to keep in reserve. 

But that card was in play now and surprisingly things hadn’t gone all the way to shit. When the teachers went off to have their little individual staff meeting, Vicky ministered to her, which doubly irked Lisa. She was a stone-cold badass. She didn’t need to be coddled. 

An older woman in a white coat stumped over to them, using a giant syringe as a cane, “Yōkoso!”

That much cheer should be illegal, “Load me up on drugs. I’ll do it—I’ll interpret for you.” Lisa moaned. 

“No need.” The woman said with a warm accent, “Do any of you need medical attention? I can see that you do, my dear.” She said to Lisa. 

“Yeah, she does.” Vicky said, the traitor, “The rest of us got through this with only scratches and some minor burns. Well, and some not-so-minor burns.”

“I see.” the woman said, squinting at Lisa, “Did one of our dears injure you?”

Lisa would have loved to tell the woman that her ‘dears’ were adolescent psychopaths, but Vicky beat her to it, “No, nobody hurt her except herself. This is what she gets for being an idiot and overusing her power. I’m not sure if there’s anything you can do about that, unless you have pain meds.”

“Poor thing. I may be able to heal some of the physical side effects from using her quirk. Oh yes! I almost forgot, allow me to introduce myself. My alias is Recovery Girl. I am one of the staff here at U.A. As you can imagine, my quirk can be quite useful at a school like this where plenty of young heroes get into scraps!”

Recovery Girl? The woman had to be at least eighty. 

“Recovery Girl?” Vicky asked, a brittle edge creeping into her voice, “Your power is healing people?”

Oh. Even through the lightning bolts of pain slicing through her thoughts, Lisa knew that tone. No healer could be trusted by Victoria after Amy and all that, which was completely fair because: fuck Amy. But still…

“That is correct. My quirk speeds up the body’s recovery using your own healing factors. The body is such a marvelous machine! In a pinch, I’m also a capable surgeon.” She said with a wink.

“You’re an actual doctor?” Vicky confirmed.

“That is correct. I’m a doctor and I also happen to have a healing quirk!”

Vicky hesitated.

Lisa grit her teeth. Maybe this woman could heal the mental backlash of Lisa’s agent, maybe she couldn’t. Maybe she would do some sadistic bio-tinkering for shits and giggles. At this point, Lisa didn’t really care. If there was even a chance to stop the pain and get back some semblance of control, Lisa was ready to give it a try. She couldn’t just be out of commission on a strange earth. They all needed her power. 

“Do it.” Lisa gasped, hoping Vicky wouldn’t clobber the old lady. “Heal me. Worth a try.”

“Okay then.” Recovery Girl said, then pursed her lips and leaned towards Lisa. 

“Woah woah woah!” Lisa said, scooting away. Her head rang like a gong, but she wasn’t about to let some old lady make out with her, “The fuck are you doing?”

The old lady laughed. “Oh yes, my apologies: I forgot to explain. My healing is administered with a kiss.”

“On the lips?” Vicky asked, “Why does it have to be a kiss: does your power have to do with saliva? Why can’t it just be any physical contact? Also, what kind of messed-up power is that to use on children?”

Vicky was so adorably nerdy sometimes, but this wasn’t the time for a deep-dive into powers. 

“My dear it simply has to be a kiss near the site of the injury, which would mean her head. I don’t make the rules. Would you like me to heal this girl or not?” 

“Whatever.” Lisa said, letting ‘girl’ pass for now, “Do your worst.”

“Here.” Recovery Girl gave Lisa a peck on the forehead, “Smooch!”

Immediately a wave of relief blasted through Lisa’s skull, her vision clearing. Recovery Girl handed Lisa a lollipop and patted her on the shoulder. “You may feel a bit tired. You will want to get plenty of sleep later and eat a hardy meal to replenish your stores of vitamins and minerals. It’s such a pleasure to meet you, but hopefully I won’t have to see you in my office again soon!”

She turned to Vicky, who was already shaking her head. “Thank you, but I’m fine.” She said. Recovery Girl, Shuzenji, moved on. 

Immediately Victoria was at Lisa’s side, eyes searching, “Are you okay?” She asked, “Did it work?”

“Yeah.” Lisa said dimly, too distracted by the bliss of being pain free. The exhaustion from the healing wasn’t too bad; she felt like she’d barely survived one of Vicky’s obnoxious morning workouts, but it was nothing that a few cups of coffee wouldn’t be able to fix. Having her power back online was invigorating enough to combat the fatigue. She smiled a little, hoping to beam the information straight into Victoria’s perfect head: I’m alright. Everything’s okay. For the love of all things, no Master-stranger Protocols. 

Vicky’s shoulders slumped in relief. Lisa gave her a kiss, parodying Recovery Girl, “Smooch!”

When the teachers were done with their little meeting and called all of them over, she slung an arm around Victoria’s waist, the other hand ruffling Aiden’s fluffy fauxhawk. She half-listened to the bogus little speech about cooperation and all that, relishing her power now that it was back to full functioning. She might still be crusty with drying mucus from frog-girl, but she hated feeling ignorant more. Now the information flooded in. With her power she might not be invincible, but she was almost guaranteed to be the smartest person in any room. Without her power she was a nobody, unrecognizable to even herself. Fuck not knowing things. 

Her power supplemented her with the stream of data and connections she’d been craving, starting to pull the situation into focus. She learned a little bit about Nezu and the teachers, with a surprising detail about Yagi. 

All Might, her power told her, number one hero in Japan until recently. Currently retired. That Midoriya kid respected him. Him and the kid were connected somehow… She needed more data, but that taste was tantalizing. What the hell had happened? Maybe bunny-suit-Midoriya would tell her more later and shore up some of the holes. She could probably make it happen, after all, they were all so fucking trusting here. She itched to take advantage of these suckers just to prove that she could, but she’d be good. For now. 

They had their little introductions with the horde of kids and Vicky elbowed Lisa in the ribs, just for trying to use a fake name, as if it made any difference As she learned some of the kids’ names and watched them interact, she could deduce some aspects like their powers, a couple grade point averages, a cape name here and there, bits and pieces about their dynamic, and tantalizing tastes of a couple dark, delicious secrets, but jack shit about getting home. At least it provided a base, although any information to do with interpersonal relationships remained infuriatingly fuzzy. Still, she learned the barest smattering about this superhuman society, which was in shambles after a fight against some sort of big bad villain, but nothing indicating that her friends were in any danger. She figured it was only a matter of time before they learned the terrible secret at the festering heart of this school: nobody could be this charitable without ulterior motives. 

But, much as she wanted to dig in her heels and start the process of rerouting them on their original mission, Lisa could deal with a little pit stop here. They were safe, or at least nobody was actively attacking them, and this whole situation presented an enticing little puzzle. She could live with gaining information and collaboration from these schmucks. In any case, it was only a matter of time before one of Kenzie’s efforts to contact Dragon bore tinkered-up fruit. 

Aiden, reluctantly, agreed to relinquish Chicken Large and the eagle was coaxed into an impromptu enclosure. Lisa changed into some clothes not sopping with mucus. They boarded buses in a few groups, Weld treading carefully to avoid touching any more metal. A quick drive later and boom, they arrived at the main campus of the famed U.A.: the best hero high school in all of Japan. 

Lisa was a little smug about that. At least, if they had to be stuck at a high school, they were stuck at the best high school. It would be just plain embarrassing to be trapped at a shitty one. 

Although the teachers talked about the Business Course, General Studies, and Support Course, it was clear that everyone’s focus was on the Hero Course. Vicky oohed and aahed about every little tree, statue, classroom, and chalkboard on campus, going full cape nerd. It was kind of adorable, her fascination with the details. Although Lisa was sure that Vicky could have happily given a slide presentation about the ways in which heroics were integrated into the curriculum here and the implications of that for heroism, Lisa could sum up all of campus in just a few words: 

It was big. It was impressive. There were students swarming everywhere. 

Much more interesting to her was the wealth of information available. Eavesdropping on the conversations around her introduced new tidbits all the time. Connections became simple, often establishing new bridges of knowledge to span the gaps. After touring a fraction of campus, she could have confidently drawn a map. 

Sveta had out her little paintbox and sketched as they walked. There were so many Case 53’s here and they were just treated as normal students. It was surreal, if chilling after Brockton Bay. Lisa knew that Cauldron wasn’t involved, so what produced the monstrous capes?

Her power took that lead and ran with it, ranging far and fast. Apparently they were born like that, with mutations running in families. Mutant quirks. Heteromorphs. Many were shunned by society, encountering bigotry and prejudice…

Lisa derailed that train of thought. If Cauldron wasn’t involved, it was something they could address later. 

Finally the group stopped outside a sign that read ‘Development Studio’, which was good because Lisa’s legs were killing her from all today’s walking, compounded with the side effects of Recovery Girl’s kiss. Stimulating though her research could be, she tended to ride a desk more than dogs these days. 

“This is the Support Course Development Studio where students get their groove on creating new items for our illustrious heroes!” Yamada said, with every bit as much verve as the last twenty statements. 

One of the students, Midoriya, reached a hand toward the doors. 

“Oh no you don’t.” Bakugo growled, lunging forward to grab his boyfriend by the scruff of his uniform jacket. 

Lisa looked at the imposing doors. Why was..?

Shit. 

She yanked Aiden and Vicky away as the large steel doors exploded. A green skinned boy with a serpentine neck and goggles sprawled across the floor, waving away residual smoke. “Sorry!” he yelped. 

“That’s weird.” Someone said, “Usually Hatsume does that.”

The studio was a large space rendered small by scattered piles of random tinkerish junk. Students bustled. While some gawked, others didn’t even seem to register their presence. Lisa had to restrain Kenzie’s grabby fingers from reaching toward a couple power suits and some rocket-powered boots. As Yamada jabbered about the studio’s amazing equipment and a bunch of other crap, Yagi slipped away from the group. 

Intriguing. It was enough reason for Lisa to follow as he navigated the wheelchair through the debris. He made a beeline to a girl with ropy pink hair, at an isolated worktable. 

Ah, was there some secret? Yagi didn’t seem to mind Lisa’s presence, which made it unlikely, but maybe this was where Lisa could start to dig up some dirt beneath U.A.’s overt kindness. 

“So sorry to bother you Hatsume,” Yagi said in Japanese, “but did Power Loader pass on my message about the…”

“Already done!” Hatsume announced, each word fired like a bullet. 

The emaciated teacher frowned, “But I only asked about half an hour ago!” 

“Oh, that was more than enough time for me.” Hatsume said, assembling some arm braces with efficient twists of a tiny screwdriver. Grease streaked across her forehead in an angry eyebrow. 

Something was odd about that. Not the grime, but the device that Hatsume was working on. It had a company stamp on it. How could she work on another Tinker’s work so easily?

Mei Hatsume. She was apparently exceptionally prolific, the progenitor of hundreds of, often explosive, patents. Her power involved zooming in to see distant objects. 

She…wasn’t a Tinker. Her power had nothing to do with technology, which meant that she couldn’t be one. None of these kids were Tinkers in the powers sense. They were just some sort of genius kids making futuristic tech without the benefit of an alien Entity crouched in their brains. How far ahead was this earth technologically from Gimel? 

A claw of irritation ripped through Lisa’s brain. She knew she was smart, but it was hard to tell how much was the undeniable advantage of her power. Hatsume and the others here were able to contribute so much with just their own, innate skill. They might as well be mocking her own ineptitude. It made her itch to humble them. 

Hatsume dumped a bag in Yagi’s hands. “These babies are all ready for you, All Might! I already had a prototype in-the-works for Pony months ago, but she said she wanted to learn on her own. This was a great excuse to use my design!”

Even while speaking, Hatsume’s hands moved ceaselessly. The effortless multitasking reminded Lisa of another non-Tinker, always focused on many projects at once. 

“What are they?” the big haired girl, Yaoyorozu, asked.

“Universal interpretation devices.” Lisa said in halting Japanese, relishing her power’s intuition. Several of the nearby students looked stunned. Yeah, they’d just figured out that healed-up Lisa could understand them. “They fit in your ear canal like a hearing aid and allow nearly instantaneous interpretation from any language into the pre-set target language, building on the same premise of existing accessibility tech from our world.”

“That’s right!” Hatsume said. Either she didn’t process Lisa’s ‘our world’ line or she was already in her own, personal, world, “These babies should make communication a whole lot easier for you all, but they’re not perfect yet. Like she said, there will be a bit of a delay and there’s a chance that the translation could be buggy, but I can work more on that later. We made sixty of them so far.”

“At least I finally got to work on something.” One support course student moaned.

“Tell me about it.” Another student said, “But she still managed to make fifty in the time it took all the rest of us to make ten.”

What losers. 

The class gathered as Yagi portioned out the little devices. Lisa noticed that Weld’s had been coated with plastic to keep the interpreter from welding to his ear. It was one of those little details that Vicky and the rest would go gaga over. 

Kenzie examined hers. “I could make these so much better if you’d let me plug it into your brain. I already have an access node, but nobody else wants one. And I even have some solid chatbot voices to choose from.”

“No.” Vicky said, firmly. “Nothing in the brain, okay? This is fine for now.”

“But I can…”

“No.” 

Lisa smirked. It was nice not having to look like the bad guy this time. She might be a villain, but shooting people was so much easier than shooting the kids down and telling them ‘no’.

“Oh, and Midoriya, these are for you.” Hatsume threw the red arm braces at the boy, who fumbled the catch. 

“Watch it.” Midoriya’s overprotective gremlin of a boyfriend snarled, as the green-haired kid squeaked, “Thanks Hatsume!”

“Hey Hatsume, do you have the additions I asked for?” The girl with a noodly appendage coming out of her earlobe asked, like this pseudo-Tinker girl was hot shit. 

“What do you think, Kenz?” Vicky asked, as the students’ attention swept to Hatsume, “Are these safe?”

She already had her tools out, “You see this part here? It’s meant to equalize the pressure but if it’s shifted to the side a hair, it would reduce feedback. At this size with a battery power source, the lifespan will be stupid short. You know, with such cool tools she really could do a lot better if she just…”

“Kenzie!”

“Ugh, fiiiine! They’re so, so basic, but, yeah they’re safe, I guess.”

Vicky made eye contact with Lisa, who shrugged. That seemed to be enough: each of them stuffed a device in their ear. 

Chapter Text

After the amazing tour, they just…had lunch.

 It seemed like such a waste to wait; Victoria wanted to maintain their momentum and keep learning more. She was so curious about how this hero society functioned, all kinds of questions bubbling up. What the fuck did ‘U.A.’ stand for? What did they learn in their heroics classes? And of course, how did they have so many capes enrolled at a single high school, when in all of Brockton Bay there had only been a maximum of ten or so teenaged heroes? This was a whole school filled with heroes! There was so much to learn and they were just having lunch?

Still, they needed their energy and the meal provided time to chat. It was strange to be in a school cafeteria again after five years. Again, Victoria couldn’t help but appreciate how familiar everything looked to Arcadia, a bit different sure, but diametrically opposed to the uncanny architecture of Shin. They’d pushed together some tables to fit their massive group in the mostly empty lunchroom. 

The food was good. The fighting…not so much. 

Weld excused himself to go chat with Yagi while Kenzie and Aiden had an epic chopstick battle. Dennis was hosting a playful debate with the pink-skinned girl who vaguely reminded Victoria of Nyx. Sveta was trying her best to remain innocuous, chatting with Froppy and occasionally stealing morsels off of Victoria’s plate. 

Tattletale though had come out to play. 

”So let me get this straight.” The kid with the choker who called himself Chargebolt, said, “Some golden alien dude destroyed your world and a bunch of other worlds and then your bug friend, the same friend you want to visit, possessed everyone to kill him?” 

The earpieces interpreted the spoken Japanese into English, relayed by a vaguely robotic approximation of the speakers’ voice. The echoed speech was delayed by a couple seconds and it could be confusing when multiple people spoke at once, but just being able to communicate made a Flower of Hecatomb-sized difference. Now they just needed all these kids to wear name tags. 

“Pretty much, yeah.” Lisa said, taking a much too casual sip of water, “I mean that’s the two second version.”

They’d all lost so much after Gold Morning. Victoria knew this cool façade of Lisa’s all too well. It had taken her forever to burst it, even if she found Lisa’s vulpine grin irresistible. Even if Lisa was being a brat. 

“Why couldn’t you just go to this other earth through the portals you’d used before?” Creati asked. 

Lisa puffed out her cheeks, “Would have, if we could.” She raised a finger, “The original portal into Aleph, created by Dr. Haywire, was sealed off after Gold Morning.”

“For good reason.” Victoria interjected. 

“Yeah.” Lisa said. “Sure, because our world was a lot and also because Taylor got sealed up on Aleph after the whole Khepri thing and nobody was supposed to know she was alive.”

“If so, how did you know?” the glasses-wearing Mover asked. 

“I make a habit out of knowing things.”

Victoria had only recently learned that Taylor was still alive, in the context of ‘hey Victoria, want to visit Taylor with me?’ It had been an epiphany akin to finding an awkward stain on her shirt only after giving a school presentation: if the ‘stain’ was a threat rivaling that of Scion. 

“And you’re visiting her after she Brainwashed everyone?” Chargebolt confirmed, incredulously, “Not to judge, but that’s all pretty messed up.”

Lisa shrugged, but Victoria saw the slight waver in her steely Tattletale façade. Lisa sipped her tea and by the time she lowered the cup, Lisa had forced her composure back into place. 

“You kinda had to be there.” Lisa said, “Anyway, like I said, that portal is sealed. We have plenty of other portals to dozens of other earths, but not Aleph. The problem is that we couldn’t make a new one because of the two capes we needed: Scrub is dead and Labyrinth is finally in good enough shape that she can barely use her power. A lot of potential replacement capes are dead. Kenzie used to make portals all over the place, but after our powers got scrambled around, she’s had less of a knack and we don’t want that tech leaking out. Doormaker wasn’t an option since Valkyrie kicked it, sorry Clock. Since we couldn’t use an established portal, we had to get creative. So we decided to slip between dimensions. Easy-peasy. We may have taken a wrong turn somewhere, but the theory was sound enough.”

“So how will you get back?” Creati asked, “The teachers said that you were stuck. Will you be trapped here?”

Lisa hesitated. None of them knew for sure, but…”No.” Victoria said, elbowing Lisa in the solar plexus, “We’ll find a way back, don’t you worry.”

“Yeah.” Lisa said, “I figured out how to make most of our portals in the first place. I’ve got this.”

“And Lookout.” Victoria added, earning a glance from Kenzie. 

“Yeah, her too.”

“So you could have come here this whole damn time?” That was the surly blond kid with the extravagant hero name. Victoria was usually a quick study with cape names, but that one clearly needed workshopping. “Where were you a month ago when we could have used your help to fight All for One and Shigaraki?” 

“In another dimension silly!” Kenzie said, around a mouthful of tofu, “We already told you that.”

“Silly?” The blond kid snarled. 

“Yeah.” Kenzie said, and slurped up a noodle, “Obviously we had our own stuff going on. Our Thinkers didn’t even know you all existed. I guess you must be one of those little dimensions scrunched up between the important ones.”

She was sounding more like a teenager all the time. 

“Uh, it’s kind of important to us.” Pinky said. 

Kenzie’s eyes widened, “Sorry! I mean yeah, of course it is. I meant to us. Obviously you’re important! You’re just not one of the big worlds we use for trading stuff, that’s all. I didn’t mean for it to sound like that!”

“You think you’re better than us, don’t you?” The explosive kid seethed, “You don’t know anything about us and the shit we’ve been through!” A couple of small explosions popped off his hand. Deku, the hero Victoria had battled, had to pull on his sleeve to keep the guy from rising to his feet. 

Victoria shook her head. It was an honest slip-up on Kenzie’s part. What was that kid’s problem?

“Let’s just…” Victoria said, before Lisa cut her off. 

“Oh, did a twenty-something guy with abysmal fashion sense and a freaky hand fetish try to destroy you too?” Lisa asked, “No offense buster, but I somehow don’t think your dinky little villains here compare to the utter fuckery we had to go through. The Endbringers caused this amount of destruction every other month and your All for One dipshit had nothing on Scion.”

Explosion boy snorted. 

“It’s not a contest Lisa.” Victoria said. She almost shut it down right there. This was the last thing they needed when trying to be diplomatic: Lisa was getting into her battle mode, forging herself a shield of barbed remarks and sharp retorts. Usually Victoria would reign her in, and perhaps she would, but for now, tired and frustrated, she was just curious enough to let the conversation go. She noticed that Sveta wasn’t butting in either. 

“You see this on my arm?” Lisa said, pointing at her tattoo. “It’s a reminder. On our world alone, thousands of capes died. He killed over ten billion people over a score of dimensions. People got scooped from every available reality and sifted together. We lost our world and then when we finally had peace everything got stirred up again by, of all things, our frigging powers fighting us. Don’t sign up for a pissing contest you have no chance of winning. We’ve seen it all, kid.”

Okay, she was laying it on a bit thick. 

“And we haven’t? We’ve been in plenty of fights and I have the scars to prove it. I’ve been speared through the heart like three times! You want to know what gave me this little reminder?” The kid said, gesturing to the expansive scar on his face.

“Chill, Bakugo.” Chargebolt said. 

“Back off, Dunce Face.” Bakugo muttered. Yeah, the guy was a real charmer. 

As Lisa retorted, Victoria hung on that last comment of Bakugo’s. Many of the kids and teachers here did have wicked scars. Victoria’s body had been healed, reverted, and renewed so many times that she didn’t have many physical marks of her battles beyond the past year. What had these kids been through? 

Sure Victoria doubted that these kids had been through anything to the extent of Gold Morning or endured horror like after the ice broke, but, no matter what Lisa said, these kids were too young for all of this. They all were. Cape life wasn’t easy, even for junior heroes: Gallant and Aegis could certainly attest to that. There were too many other names Victoria could add to that list. These kids had to be just as traumatized as the old Wards and New Wave had been. Victoria wondered if they had therapy or if they were simply left alone to stew with the memories. 

“...I’ve been freaking dismembered and put back together again!” Lisa finished, wrapping up her tirade. 

Victoria winced and squeezed Lisa’s arm, “Don’t remind me.” 

“It was totally your own fault.” Sveta muttered, “What did you think would happen working with someone like Cradle?”

“I had it all under control!” Lisa said. 

“Yeah, obviously you had it so under control when you gave him the secret for ultimate power.” Sveta shot back, “You know, just because you’re smart, doesn’t mean you’re always right.”

“Yeah, well you…” 

“Lisa stop.” Victoria said, slightly conciliatory but also slightly stirring the pot. She might regret this later, but a mischievous corner of her brain relished the shock factor. It was educational at least. If these students wanted to learn about Victoria’s world and the greater multiverse outside of their sheltered bubble, there was an awful lot of context needed, “Just because we had to go find your severed head doesn’t make you better than anyone else. Plenty of people have experienced dismemberment and they don’t complain nearly as much. Just look at Dennis. He died.”

Instantly she regretted the outburst, as all eyes swiveled to Dennis.

“You…died?” Tentacole asked with one of his tentacle mouths. 

“I was one of the casualties of ‘the golden dude’.” Dennis said, with a wry smile. 

“But…you’re alive. Right?” Pinky asked. She wiggled her fingers, “Ooh, are you a zombie or is it a Bakugo situation?” 

A Bakugo situation? Oh yeah, the ‘speared through the heart’ thing. Apparently the kid had made a full recovery. 

Dennis laughed with a touch of bitterness. He looked almost normal. Valkyrie, Nilbog, and Riley had done a good job, aside from the static hair and strange transparency of his skin, “I don’t even know anymore. I was dead, but my Passenger, my power, was taken up by a villain. Later she became a hero and worked with a team to bring many of us most of the way back to ourselves, before she became a Titan.”

Many of the Flock, including Aunt Sarah. 

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Pinky said, “That sucks! Wait…most of the way?” 

“Most of my memories are the ones that were attached to my power.” Dennis said, “Friends, family, hobbies, school–anything else is hazy, although more and more of those are coming back. Maybe they all will in time. I’m still not the person I used to be, but I think I’m getting closer. I hope so anyway.”

The table lapsed into slightly melancholic silence. 

“Way to kill a mood, Clockblocker.” Lisa said, but at least the tension had fractured. Bakugo no longer looked like he actively wanted to charbroil Lisa, and was instead vengefully attacking his meal as if his curry had insulted his mother. 

Slowly, like breezes ruffling through a forest of trees, conversations restarted around them. Victoria slowly let herself relax. They hadn’t irreparably hurt relations after all. These kids were tough. Victoria wondered, as she chatted with Froppy about her class schedule and heroic aims, what Lisa had meant about the hand guy and this ‘All for One’. She’d have to ask the students later. 

She’d almost finished her meal when she heard a gasp, a tumble, and a splash. Turning in her seat, Victoria saw Chargebolt on the ground, watching a cup of water float across the room. Stray sparks fizzed out from his hands into the small puddle where his own cup had upended. Earphone Jack was holding her stomach laughing at him. Others looked slightly freaked out, but were mostly chuckling at Chargebolt.

Oh crap.

She’d sent the Fragile One out to get a refill of water, the action as easy as thought. She hadn’t thought about what the disembodied cup would look like to everyone else. 

“Ha-Hagakure?” Chargebolt asked, “Is that you?”

Out of all the possible reactions, that was not the one that Victoria had been expecting. Who was Hagakure?

“I’m here!” chirruped a voice.

Oh no. Victoria could see the floating uniform, but nothing else of the invisible girl. In the U.S.J. she hadn’t seen any floating clothing but she had that name, and hadn’t one of the young heroes been named Invisible Girl? At the time, Victoria had written her off as a standard perception-based Stranger, making a mental note to learn more about the power, but that had taken a back seat compared to the many other powers on display. If this girl, Hagakure, had been there invisibly, then she must have been running around the battlefield stark naked. 

What the fuck? What kind of perverted school was this?

“Sorry, it’s my forcefield.” Victoria accepted her glass of water from the Fragile One. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Your forcefield? It can move on its own?” Chargebolt asked, “What…”

They were interrupted by a shout of, “Fight me if you think that! Put your money where your fucking mouth is and prepare to die!”

“Fuck.” Chargebolt groaned. They both swiveled back toward the table. 

Victoria had only been distracted for a few moments. Surely nothing could have erupted that quickly, but then again, leaving Tattletale and short-fused bomb boy in close proximity was looking like its own recipe for disaster. The half of the class who had wandered away to watch Weld and Yagi were staring. Great, now they had an audience.

Lisa slouched back in her chair, a sardonic grin pinned to her face, even as Bakugo postured and shouted, “Nah, I’m not about that.” Tattletale said, “Although I’m fine trading custom insults or maybe, if you really want to go at it, we can recite some slam poetry.”

“Coward!” Bakugo spat, glaring at Lisa.

“Hardly, but whatever Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight.” Lisa said, with enough venom to melt the name into an insult. She glanced at Deku, “Hey, Midoriya: is this guy stable?”

Midoriya blushed, “Come on, Kacchan. I’m sure she didn’t mean it like that.”

Kacchan, Victoria noted. Were the two of them an item? 

“Define ‘stable’.” Shoto said, slurping some soba as Aiden muttered, “Oh, she meant it.”

“You’ll pay for that, Icy Hot!” Bakugo snarled, resisting Midoriya’s tugs at his sleeve. It was all Victoria could do to keep a straight face. 

A year ago, Victoria would have written Lisa off as a bully, manipulating the situation to her own ends, preying on the teenagers for her own gratification. Now Lisa’s strings were obvious, beyond the delight she took from getting a rise out of people. With her agent, the easiest way to glean information and control a situation were often one and the same. In a way, she was similar to Rain, using the edge of her power to cut down doubts and fears, leaving space for new lessons to take root. Of course, Rain wasn’t nearly as manipulative and didn’t have that edge of savage Tattletalean joy. 

Still, there had to be a reason she was addressing the situation like this. Was it a power play, or just Lisa indulging her mean streak?

“I just realized something.” Lisa said, “He reminds me of Bitch!” She glanced at Kenzie, “I mean Rachel. He reminds me of a little tiny Rachel. Except he’s a tiny bit more eloquent and has even worse costuming.”

Or, perhaps she was just having fun. 

“What did you say?” Bakugo demanded. Dick. They all knew he’d heard. 

”Eh, I don’t see it. Aunt Rachel could beat him up.” Aiden said.

“Totally.” Kenzie agreed. 

“Fight me already!” Bakugo howled, like a teenage Glory Girl. 

“Bro.” Lisa said, not looking impressed despite Bakugo’s intensity. She grabbed Victoria by the shoulders and held her up like a shield. Victoria let her. “I’m not about that. This is why I have my super hot girlfriend to bust up little punks like you.”

Victoria sighed, “You can’t just pick fights and expect me to beat kids up for you. Seriously Li, they’re just kids.”

Meanwhile Bakugo was muttering to Midoriya, “Let me go, nerd. Come on! I can take her!”

They only quieted down as Aizawa and Weld came over to the table, Weld shot Victoria an ‘I thought you were going to keep the peace’ look. 

“Good to see you’re all getting along.” Aizawa said wryly, “If you’re all done, it’s time for some afternoon sparring and quirk assessments. I think it will be interesting to learn more about your powers.”

Chapter Text

Izuku waited impatiently through Mr. Aizawa’s assurances that each battle was voluntary and would be scrupulously monitored. Of course the teachers’ assessments would take the form of sparring matches. Really, what else did he expect?

The teachers wanted a better picture of what the American heroes could do, probably to understand what trouble Principal Nezu had invited onto their campus, so afternoon classes were swapped from English and mathematics to an impromptu sparring session. Only Iida and Yaoyorozu were disappointed by the switch; the rest of them were okay putting off regular classes just a bit longer. 

Chicken Little’s giant eagle had wrecked most of the cameras, so the teachers only had fractured stories from Class 1A. The American heroes had provided information about their individual quirks to the teachers, which they would be augmenting with footage from the timed battles; Class 1A though would be going into the scrimmages blind. For his part, hummed with curiosity to see these new quirks outside of the chaos of the battlefield, particularly now that they knew the visiting heroes’ secret. 

Kacchan insisted on going first, raring to go toe-to-toe with Antares, as Tattletale’s chosen champion. 

Contrasted with Kacchan’s fitted gym clothes, Antares wore a loose hooded dress and canvas sneakers, her hair pulled back in a tail. Blond and imposing, they were about the same height. It was weird knowing what he knew now. She’d crossed dimensions this morning and now was just…chatting with the little kids as she stretched. It would be an interesting contest. He’d fought Antares when she was going easy on him and she’d still been formidable. Of course Kacchan was powerful and smart with an incredibly versatile quirk, but Izuku still fretted. From the way that Tattletale had spoken at lunch, it was clear that all of the visitors were pro heroes. Even though Antares looked just a couple years older than them, she had been a hero for years. What kinds of tricks did she have?

But then again, Kacchan had more than a few tricks of his own, if only he watched his heart. 

Mr. Aizawa hadn’t allowed any support items or costumes in an effort to even the playing field. Izuku tried not to stare at the way the gym uniform showed off the taut lines of Kacchan’s physique, remembering how his lithe yet muscled body felt pressed up against Izuku’s when they hugged. Usually Kacchan only touched or carried him in the middle of fights, when Izuku wasn’t in a space to appreciate the contact. Now, all he wanted was to pull Kacchan closer and kiss those scowling lips into a smile. 

“What is it nerd?”

Kacchan had caught him staring. He was so perceptive, as always. Izuku blushed. There were so many things he wanted to say, but he settled for saying, “Good luck, Kacchan!”

“I don’t need luck.” Kacchan blustered with the roughness that Izuku knew well, but then his expression softened. He ruffled Izuku’s hair, “But thanks.”

Izuku froze. Those gauntleted fingers brushed through his hair one more time, so gentle, and then Kacchan was gone. It took Izuku a moment to smash through the Kacchan-induced brain fog and refocus. This was the opportunity of a lifetime, after all!

As Kacchan jetted away, Izuku meandered over to Tattletale. He was reluctant to approach her after how she’d needled Kacchan, but she also seemed to be the one with all the answers. And the talking, of course-–she seemed to love talking. 

The upside of Tattletale’s notoriety was that the rest of his classmates were giving her a wide berth; they gathered at the edges of the makeshift arena, taking guesses about who would win the match. Although technically these matches were just for gathering information, they all knew that it was an opportunity to show off and see conclusively which group could come out on top. 

“Come on Bakugo!” Kirishima shouted, “Show them how it’s done!”

All Might was talking with Kacchan and Antares, presumably telling them the rules. As Izuku made his way over to Tattletale, he noticed Tress and Weld speaking with Tokoyami, Mr. Aizawa standing nearby. Tattletale was sitting alone in the improvised bleachers, scowling, and Clockblocker hovered nervously by Lookout and Chicken Little. Neither of the kids could be older than twelve, although both had full-fledged code names. The two of them had already been cleared by the teachers, probably because they didn’t want the kids getting hurt. Izuku still didn’t understand why kids were out fighting battles with these heroes. Their quirks were strong, but so was Eri’s! Were things really so bad in their world that heroes couldn’t let these kids be kids? Weren’t heroes supposed to be there to make sure that kids like this could smile?

“Hey Midoriya.” Tattletale said as Izuku drew close. She hadn’t moved her head and he didn’t think she’d seen him coming. Spooky. 

He bowed nervously, “Um, hi Tattletale, Lisa…What should I call you?”

Tattletale shrugged, “Doesn’t matter, kid. Tattletale works, or you call me Lisa if you really want to. Whatever strikes your fancy.” The robotic voice of the device in his ear took some of the sting from her tone, but he already felt like he’d stepped into a battle of his own. 

“Um, is that your name though?”

She raised an eyebrow, looking up for the first time, “I’ve been called a lot of names. Lisa’s the one I’ve gone by for a long time. Now, what do you want, kiddo? My power’s telling me you want to ask me something.”

He took out his notebook and flipped to a fresh page, “Yeah, I do, if that’s okay. I know that there’s a lot going on and you just got here, so I don’t want to overwhelm you, but I have a lot of questions, actually. Um, what is your power?”

A taunting smile haunted her lips, “What do you think it is?”

“You read people’s minds?”

Below them, the match started. Kacchan immediately launched into a brutal fusillade, flicking beads of sweat from his palms. Though his explosions lacked the power and precision granted by his gauntlets, the flares of the fireballs dazzled Izuku’s eyes. Dodging adroitly, Antares sprinted towards Kacchan. Izuku wondered for a moment if the match would end right here. There was a flash as the light outlined Antares’ body but a moment later, she took to the air unharmed. She dodged several blasts, her body moving blurringly fast. Kacchan pivoted and swept a new salvo after her before chasing her into the sky.

Izuku had almost forgotten his own question when Tattletale shook her head, “Nah, not mind reading. I wish my power could help with that, but minds are too hard and way too fucking murky.” She sighed, “This is so bizarre: I’m not used to my power being public knowledge, but if I don’t tell you, another one of those idiots…” her friends? “probably will. If you can wrap your brute-y brain around it, my power helps me fill in gaps in knowledge, kind of like superpowered intuition. I need a seed or a place to start from. If I get enough information, my power compounds itself and I can find out a whole bunch of stuff you probably wouldn’t expect. Since my power’s a bitch, if I push too hard I get migraines, like earlier. It’s pretty nifty, sometimes though the flow just dries up.”

Izuku’s mouth dropped open, “That’s so cool!” he said, “You must be great at intelligence gathering! I’ve always thought that we needed more people with mental quirks at U.A., but our entrance exam really skews things towards flashy physical ones. Like mine I guess.” He said, apologetically, “Oh, that must be how you spoke Japanese earlier! How much can you push before the migraines? What does it feel like—can you tell when stuff came from your power or does it all feel like your thoughts? If you need some facts to connect the dots, what happens if…”

“If I’m deprived of info?” Tattletale completed, and yawned, “What Sorry kid, it’s hard to have conversations sometimes when you can anticipate how the other person might answer. I glean a lot of information,” She gave him a vulpine grin, “even stuff people don’t necessarily want me to know. It’s kind of my specialty.”

Izuku’s big secrets about inheriting One for All and being All Might’s successor were common knowledge now. He was a public figure somehow, which had made his month at home extra awkward. Now he wasn’t just the quirkless loser or dumb berserker from the Sports Festival who broke his own bones in pursuit of victory. People saw him as a real hero. It was bizarre since he had so far left to go and he really didn’t deserve all the credit, but he never knew when someone might recognize him in public.

Kacchan, of course, had many of the same problems. 

“What are her powers?” He asked, distracted by the dancing light show, thumb poised at his lip. 

“Oh, Vicky? You want me to spill her secrets?” She cracked her knuckles ostentatiously. 

“What? No! No! I didn’t mean it like that…”

“Eh, she wouldn’t mind me telling. She’s a pretty standard flying bruiser in some ways: flight and super strength. She has a forcefield that gives her that super strength: like that woman can bench-press a motor home if she wants to.” Tattletale’s eyes crinkled fondly, “She’s almost invulnerable. The thing is, that same strength is also fragile. It just takes one good hit to break and then a few seconds to come back. She also has her emotional aura, which you’ve sampled. If you want to know more specifics and power jargon and stuff, go talk to Vicky about it. She hoards case files and loves talking shop about powers crap.”

That description made sense with what Izuku had experienced during their fight. So that was why she’d stood up to Air Force, yet dodged his strikes! He would definitely have to find Antares’ perspective. He wished that he could read her files, but for now Izuku dutifully jotted down notes. 

Antares’ quirks were impressive. Still, a fragile forcefield against Kacchan’s explosions…

“She’s going to lose.” Izuku realized, “She can only dodge for so long, so at some point Kacchan’s going to hit her.”

“That’s cute, but nope.”

“But you don’t understand—Kacchan is really fast. He’s the best of us and he just keeps on improving all the time. Whether she keeps her distance or gets in close, all he has to do is double-tap her.

Tattletale snorted out a laugh, “Nah, kid. Did you think that whole forcefield tidbit was a weakness or something? My girlfriend will definitely kick his ass.” She looked at his worried expression and laughed, “Don’t worry, she’s holding back so she won’t annihilate him, but don’t underestimate Collateral Damage Barbie.”

She said the nickname with a curl of humor, even though it sounded like an insult. 

“But you said her forcefield is fragile? If it just takes a hit to break it, against Kacchan I really don’t see how that will work. His explosions can be really powerful, especially on a warm day like today, and he can fire them off in rapid succession.”

“You’ll see.” Lisa said cryptically. 

“Okay.” Izuku said, changing tracks, “Well, what about her forcefield shape? It sometimes seems to be shaped like a person and sometimes…” He thought about how, in their fight, he’d sometimes felt more than two hands grasping him, or the extra mouth, “...not.”

“It’s not really my story to tell. Not that I’m being nice, mind you, but because if she finds out I told, she’ll kick my ass.”

A sudden wave of nervousness washed over them and it took Izuku a moment to realize that the emotion had to be artificial. It felt so realistic! He steeled himself, channeling All Might, and turned back to Lisa. 

“That was her? She can use other emotions besides fear?”

Lisa nodded, “It’s hard for her though: she has to find memories and feel the emotions she projects. It gets messy.”

If Antares could use other emotions in her aura, why had she focused on fear during the fight this morning? Wouldn’t radiating calming emotions have worked better, or would that have been less effective? Then again, she needed to tap into the emotions to emit them, and probably calm and peace were not the ones close at hand during the confusion. 

Each time Katsuki tagged Antares, her forcefield flashed with petals of fire. She managed to get in close and locked his arms away from her, but his explosions into space sent them recklessly spiraling through the air. Finally Kacchan blasted her with concentrated fire and she tumbled away. A new emotion washed over them, of bone-weary exhaustion. 

Kacchan was really heating up now. The fight couldn’t last that much longer. 

“Why does she have so many powers?” Izuku blurted through a yawn of his own, prying his eyes apart. He couldn’t afford to succumb to artificial emotion, not when the answers were this important, “Did she get them from somewhere?”

“I think I see where you’re going with this. No, she did not get her powers from some big baddie gifting them to her, or from a drug. She comes from a family of capes,” Like Todoroki or Iida, Izuku thought, as Tattletale continued, “and they all have kinda similar powers. Let’s see, you guys don’t seem to have grab-bag or clusters in class, that’s weird, so let’s just say that her Shard…”

“Shard?”

“Power, quirk, whatever you want to call it: the assclown doling out our abilities and squatting in our brains.”

“In the brain?” She knew what caused quirks?

“Anyway, her quirks came mostly from her family, although the emotion power came from her old boyfriend.”

“Her boyfriend?”

“What are you, a parrot? Yeah, her boyfriend. Got a problem with that?”

“No! No. I mean…” Izuku frowned, “She got quirks from…her boyfriend? It wasn’t hereditary?”

“No, her Shard pinged off his when it was still growing and…” Tattletale frowned, “Wait, you guys don’t have trigger events?”

“What’s a trigger event?”

“For us it’s where we get our powers, at least people who have the potential to get powers. It’s like: picture the worst day of your life. Sometimes a really traumatic moment like that triggers a connection to the source of our powers. You though…you don’t have trigger events. How do you not have trigger events? Everyone with powers that we’ve seen has trigger events unless they’re Cauldron.” Lisa massaged her temples, “But all of your powers are hereditary. No, there’s some diversity there…with some mutations?”

Cauldron? He was struggling to follow her train of thought, but she made it sound like this was a big breakthrough. It didn’t make any sense—why were their powers impacted by people who weren’t related. One for All was unique, or did all their quirks function like One for All? 

In the battle, Antares flew at Kacchan, avoiding his shots, as something invisible pressed him to the ground. He fired off an AP Shot and the disembodied forcefield vanished for a moment, then the pressure reappeared. With a roar, Kacchan unleashed a Howitzer Impact, obliterating the force holding him back in a glare of roiling flame and the accompanying shuddering blast. For moments, curls of smoke obscured the fight. 

A similar haze, unfurling with intoxicating danger, seemed to be growing in Izuku’s brain, “Yeah, kids usually manifest their quirks when they’re around four…” 

“But some get their quirks from birth or a little on the later side. Why do the agents here need such a specific time window? Fuck! I need more data points. Wait, 80% of you have powers?”

Agents? 

“Y-yeah.” Izuku stammered. It was surreal experiencing Tattletale’s quirk at work–it felt like she was reading footnotes that he couldn’t see, “I mean that’s an average. I mean it’s more than that in the younger generations. There aren’t many people my age who don’t have a quirk, which made it kinda difficult for me…”

“Until you ate that hair, yeah, yeah.” Tattletale said. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “None of this matches up. This is so wrong. I need to have a meeting with everyone, find out more. What in the actual, living, fuck is happening here? Is it just because the Firmament is fucked-up? I need to see more records.” Izuku caught a few more isolated phrases, clutching his notebook as she lapsed into incomprehensible muttering, tapping out notes on her phone. 

Izuku didn’t understand why Lisa was getting so excited about this. Sure it was interesting, but they still didn’t understand what gave people quirks in the first place. Why was this difference so important to her? Surely the abilities themselves were more interesting?

After a few awkward moments, Tattletale looked up, teeth clenched in a rictus smile, “Oh this is going to be good, kid. Thanks for the intel.”

“What did you figure out?” 

She shrugged, “Maybe nothing, maybe something huge. Ask me again later. For now…” she gestured to where Mr. Aizawa had called the fight. Although Antares had several burns on her clothing and arms, she held a writhing Kacchan in a complex hold. His arms were locked so that even as explosions ripped across the battlefield, none touched Antares. They seemed rooted in place, long scratches almost like claw marks radiating out from at least four invisible hands. 

Izuku stared in incomprehension. Kacchan had lost? 

He was not going to like that. 

“Come on, let’s go see our heroes.” Lisa said, and Izuku had just a moment to wonder about the wording of that, before she continued, “And we’re definitely talking more about this later, kiddo. This is huge.”

- - - - -

“Great job, Kacchan!” Izuku said, running up and pulling his startled and sweaty Kacchan into a hug. “You were so amazing!” Antares was still debriefing with All Might, who looked as impressed as Izuku felt. 

“I lost, nerd, don’t congratulate me.” Kacchan growled, breaking the hug and glaring at the class, “But I think I put up a decent fucking fight.”

“We were watching.” Kirishima said, “And your performance was totally manly, but she was even manlier! Midoriya, I can’t believe you fought her this morning!”

“I don’t think I really won then either.” Izuku admitted. He longed to pull Kacchan close again, but contented himself with their proximity, the distance between them seeming to fizz as though Electrification were at work. 

The students cheered as Tsuyu and Clockblocker stepped down to begin their match. 

“Yeah, good job!” Lisa said, and Izuku could detect only a faint twinge of sarcasm, “Feel better now, kid? The mat looks pretty clean now that Vicky finished wiping the floor with you!”

“Stop calling me kid!” Kacchan snarled, but there was little bite to his words either. He jutted out his chin, making the most of his height advantage in a way that only accentuated the sharpness of his jaw and fine sculpting of his features, “I’m only a few years younger than you, you dumbass.”

Tattletale tilted her head back and laughed, “I’m 22 for your information, wise-guy. I’m a full-fledged adult who can legally drink, so suck it.” She said, poking Kacchan in the chest, “Anyway, when I was your age, I had part of a city under my thumb and had a hand in every part of the black market. You gotta try harder if you want to get ahead of me. I shot people and terrorized a city. People feared me. I ruined her life.” Tattletale said, pointing at the distant Antares.

Izuku looked nervously at Antares. What did Tattletale mean by that? What had she done to Antares? And all of the other stuff…how could she mention that all so casually? Was it a cruel joke? 

Someone had mentioned that Tattletale had been a villain before, but Izuku assumed it was a Gentle Criminal situation. Not whatever this was. Ruining Antares’ life?

“Weird flex.” Jiro said. 

“Yeah, that’s not something I’d brag about.” Kirishima said.

“Oh I fixed it again.” Tattletale said, “Trust me though: at heart I’m a big, bad villain.”

“Antares said you saved the world twice though.” Izuku said, trying to push all this new information into context. 

“She’s exaggerating.” Lisa said, “I mean pfft, yeah I had something, a really big something, to do with that. But I mean, the world ended once, the whole shebang, and we’re still evacuating our old earth. Scion came and torched us, and a bunch of other worlds for good measure. The second time, we’d barely started wearing the shine off our new earth and we’re still on Gimel and a bunch of corner worlds, so I guess we saved them. Not counting all the weird little corner dimensions and sheer infinity of the multiverse, we’re 1:2 as far as actually saving a world goes.”

It was still odd hearing her talk about other worlds so casually, and also just admitting to being a villain. It was jarring. Sure some people blurred the lines more than others, but they were heroes! They fought villains. They didn’t just have normal conversations with them. 

“So if you’re a villain,” Ashido said. Thank you Ashido for asking the important questions, “are you all villains? Did you all lie just to us?”

“Nah. Yeah? Maybe? It’s complicated.” Tattletale said, “I’m increasingly finding myself working with the heroes on a lot of stuff, and all these good deeds are really cramping my style. But that’s my shit to deal with. Everyone else in our group is a hero, except that little guy there…” she pointed to Chicken Little, who was monologuing to Koda with a lot of dramatic arm movements, “is a terrible, heinous villain.” Izuku hoped that she was joking.

“Lisa’s a lot of bark these days.” Antares said, strolling up behind Lisa and looping her arms around Tattletale’s waist, “Don’t let her fool you—she’s been working with the heroes for, oh, has to be a good few months now. She’s actually been pretty damn heroic. I’m not sure if she even counts as a villain anymore.” Lisa opened her mouth but Antares cut her off. “And even as a villain she fought Endbringers and the real monsters, all while rescuing children, puppies, and baby birds. She was just a total pain in the ass while doing it.”

Lisa shrugged, “It’s all a matter of perspective about who’s a hero or not. I needed all that hard-earned illegitimate cash to fund my heart of gold. And my mercenaries, of course, can’t forget them.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Antares said, kissing the side of Lisa’s head. Tattletale ignored her, but her smile curved into something slightly more genuine. 

“Anyway, yeah, I guess I’m on ‘the side of good’ or whatever right now.” Lisa said, her hand hooking into Antares’, “So don’t give me any reason to regret it, capiche?" 

Izuku’s heart fluttered a bit. The two of them together were really kind of sweet. It was little things like this that kept his spark of hope ignited. 

Antares inclined her head to Kacchan, “That was a good fight, Bakugo! I’m really curious about your power—you’ll have to tell me more about those special attacks! You have so much maneuverability!”

“Thanks.” Kacchan muttered, looking away, “You’ll find out more when I wipe the floor with you next time.”

There was Izuku’s Kacchan, never giving up. Izuku had no doubts that he would. Kacchan never gave up, never gave less than his all once he put his mind on a goal. Izuku had been the beneficiary of that himself enough times. 

As the conversation shifted, Izuku searched for Kacchan’s hand, daring himself to make the contact, prematurely berating himself for when Kacchan pulled away. But he didn’t pull away. Their fingers tangled between them, bridging the intervening space, as Tsuyu and Clockblocker chased each other through the field. 

Other dimensions. His world was ballooning, leaving him far behind, just when he thought that his dream was in reach. But in that smallness, perhaps there was still some good he could do in his own corner. It was a moment sharp as a knife thrust, yet slicked with sweet anticipation. A new year, a new start, and a new mystery to untangle where they could maybe, finally, rest. 

And then Tattletale’s sardonic tones Overhauled his thoughts, seeming to come from a great distance, even as they reknit the reality around them:  

“Oh, yeah! Vicky, while you were off beating up Bomb Boy, I had a good time talking to his boyfriend here. What do you say we leave the lovebirds alone ‘cuz I’ve got some intel…” Izuku froze. 

Boyfriend. 

Suddenly he couldn’t tear his gaze off the ground, his cheeks as red as his sneakers and hot as Flashfire Fist. 

It wasn’t like he hadn’t been dreaming of the two of them becoming boyfriends practically forever. For so long he’d merely watched Kacchan from a distance. He knew it wasn’t healthy and he didn’t welcome the bullying, of course, but he’d never been able to tear himself away. He wanted to fluff up Kacchan’s spiky hair when it was slicked with sweat after a workout and cuddle up to watch All Might documentaries. He’d always been open about his admiration for Kacchan, treasuring all the time they spent together, even when Kacchan tried to push him away. Finally they were close again, and shouldn’t that be enough? Just because Izuku wanted more, it didn’t make sense to upset their fragile balance. Even as he knew Kacchan would never want him back. It didn’t hurt to dream, did it?

But now Kacchan knew. 

The sharp sting of betrayal. Tattletale, Lisa, whatever she wanted to call herself, she put things together, made connections, filled in gaps. She had obviously sensed Izuku’s feelings and used them against him. He felt like such an idiot for not expecting this from a self-proclaimed villain, and a total stranger at that. 

When he looked up, Kacchan wouldn’t meet his eyes and everyone else was staring.

“We-we’re not…” Izuku stammered into the silence. 

Was Kacchan ashamed? Had Izuku misread everything: the sudden hugs, the casual hand holding, the somewhat flirty comments? He had to have. It had been in Izuku’s mind that Kacchan was hinting at wanting something more than friendship. Maybe now Kacchan was disgusted to learn that Izuku had feelings for him. After all this time and through everything it had finally seemed like Kacchan was maybe returning his feelings. But why would somebody as incredible as Kacchan ever have eyes for Izuku? He wasn’t attractive. He wasn’t particularly smart and he could only be an effective hero, still, by breaking his bones over and over again. As a younger Kacchan liked to point out, he was a nerd, a dork, a nobody. Sure Izuku had stumbled his way through defeating All for One, but that was only with Kacchan and All Might and the rest of his friends by his side. In this, as with everything, he was such a delusional loser. 

Now a couple words from Tattletale and everything was ruined, their closeness shattered. Izuku had fought so hard to even be friends with Kacchan. Would that be okay now?

The class was quiet. The minute stretched long. 

Uraraka reached for his shoulder and he shook her away. He needed to be alone for a moment, just until everything stopped falling apart. 

“I...I’m gonna go see if Mr. Aizawa needs another matchup.” Izuku mumbled, using Blackwhip to pull himself away faster than strictly necessary, telling himself he wasn’t running away. 

Chapter Text

Almost as soon as the words left her lips, Lisa wished she could take them back. It must be this stupid empathy Vicky kept trying to instill in her. One look at the two boys after her statement had really said it all, but her power erased all doubt: quiet, confusion, hurt. Feel like they are being made fun of. They are not together. But both want to be. 

She’d meant to just flaunt her power a little, but nope, it was immediately painfully obvious that she was dead fucking wrong. 

Fuck. 

“We have to go to the bathroom.” Vicky told the class in her calm-rage voice (not to be confused with her all-out-rage voice or her stealth-rage voice). 

“No I fucking don’t…”

“Yes. You. Do.” It was that voice of command that moved heroes on the field, the one that brokered no nonsense. She didn’t leave room for a retort before dragging Lisa into the nearest washroom. 

“What’s gotten into you?” Vicky hissed, “You’ve been on-edge all day, but that, that was uncalled for, Tattletale.”

The name hit Lisa like a slap. 

“You’ve done nothing but antagonize them since we got here.” Vicky continued, “We’re their guests here and it will be a whole heck of a lot harder to get back home if we don’t have their support.”

“You didn’t exactly stop me from antagonizing them.” Lisa muttered. 

Vicky sighed, “Yeah. I should have.”

“In fact, if my memory serves me right, you aided and abetted it, so don’t act all high and mighty.”

Lisa relished the flare of irritation that flickered across Vicky’s features. Her girlfriend took a deep breath, exhaling long and slow, “Yeah, maybe so. I fucked up too. I’ll own up to that. But this isn’t about me and I’m not your emotional babysitter. Sometimes you have to freaking grow up and get along with people instead of constantly needling them. It’s one thing to tell them about our experiences, and another to say that theirs don’t matter.”

Lisa had already learned enough with her power to verify that much. These kids were mega fucked-up, but needling them was so much fun. 

“And you know,” Victoria said, “that was a really shitty thing to do, outing them like that. I thought you were past this kind of thing! I mean that was just straight-up bullying, Li. It’s clear even to me, even without a Thinker power, from their reactions that they’re not out and they’re not together, so why did you have to say anything?”

Lisa winced. She already knew all that, so why did Vicky feel the need to keep twisting the screws? It was probably the Brute mentality. 

“Listen, Vicky, there’s something else that we need to talk about.” Lisa said, thinking of the revelation about trigger events. This was huge for knowing about capes and figuring out this whole world’s business. If it distracted Vicky, all the more reason to say something. Even if she knew that distraction would probably fail, she needed to try. 

Vicky paused, “Is it important?”

“Well duh it’s fucking important. This is vital, Vic. It’s about…”

“Is it urgent?”

“Well not super urgent, but I think you’ll want me to…”

“Then tell me later Tats. You’re not weaseling out of this, this time.”

When Victoria got that look in her eye, there was no escape. 

Lisa sighed, “What does it matter? Soon we’ll be on our way and we’ll never have to see them again Vicky. They’re young, they’ll figure it out—like you said, there’s no need for a Passenger to tell that something’s going on between them. A few hours or days from now and we’ll be sipping iced teas with Taylor while they kiss between classes. It’s not like I murdered someone this time.”

“I don’t care.” Vicky said, “It doesn’t matter if we don’t stay here for long: you have to learn that people aren’t disposable. We aren’t little toys in your grand masterminding plan. So what if you never see them again? They still matter and they deserve an apology. It’s the right thing to do. We might have come here by mistake, but that’s no excuse to go muddling up their whole thing. And there’s no assurance everything will be okay.” She said bitterly. 

Okay, maybe Lisa hadn’t completely fixed how she’d ruined Vicky’s life. She still felt a stab of guilt whenever she thought of how she’d inadvertently kickstarted Vicky’s Wretchdom. Fucking Amy. 

“Look,” Lisa said, “I didn’t mean to expose them like that. I somehow messed up. I got a bad read from my power. I thought that they were already established.”

Vicky’s face softened slightly, some of the anger escaping, “Your power can be wrong, Li. I know you never think it can be, but people are complicated and…”

“I know, I get it. It just seemed so obvious though! I mean all the handholding and the mushy way they look at each other and everything…”

Victoria cut her off. “What was obvious was their reaction. You need to apologize. Now.”

“Apologizing isn’t my mojo. It’s not in the Tattletale toolbox.” Lisa whined. 

Vicky’s face had that cold prom queen look, “Well then,” she said, “you need to figure it out real quickly. Maybe your power can help you with that at least.”

- - - - -

“I want to apologize.” Lisa said, the words tasting like dishwater on their way out. 

Being genuine was such a drag, at least that’s what she told herself. Usually she tried to avoid apologizing for anything in case it led to her apologizing for everything, of not being there and doing enough when she had a chance to. Being in control of how she and others felt was always much simpler, even if it didn’t win her many friends. Better to be aloof and not care than to remember that all these people around her were complex and unique and had their own feelings and their own shit, and yet she couldn’t save them all. 

Or even one of them when it came down to it. 

But of course that wasn’t the way that Vicky did things, because Vicky was brave enough to dive into those deep emotional spaces. Lisa supposed she had been the one to push her in the first place, but now Vicky was taking the lead. And, much as she didn’t want to admit it, it did feel frickin’ nice to know that Vicky had seen some rough sides of her, yet still was there and still cared. Some things had changed, but Victoria Dallon didn’t run from a fight, and Lisa was a messy battle all on her own.

So a part of her was here because Vicky was forcing her to, but also because…oh fuck, because people did matter, whether or not she wanted them to. She’d already found Izuku Midoriya and that chat had been exhausting enough. Why did anyone here need showers when they could just have that guy cry all over them? Midoriya had been shaken and really, really down on himself, but he believed what she had to say. That kid really wanted to believe in people and natural heroism and all that garbage that Vicky talked about, though Lisa supposed that didn’t mean it wasn’t true for them. 

One done, one to go. 

This Bakugo kid, he had a big mouth, but he didn’t seem like all that bad of a guy, despite the unfortunate similarity of his name to Bakuda. What was it with people’s naming schemes here? Did they take a look at the potential quirks and go ‘yep that sounds like a perfect name’. Cretins. Still, it did keep things interesting and at least Super Ultra Explosive Bomb Man couldn’t replicate his explosions with tech and stick them up somebody’s nose. Probably. 

Maybe she shouldn’t give him ideas. 

She’d enjoyed their back and forth at lunch, watching him get a little steamed up. The kid definitely had guts and she could also respect the things he’d done. If anything, he reminded her of herself, a little bit younger and a little bit more cutthroat, still trying to bully this huge, scary world into submission to find any kind of stable ground. 

The last thing he probably needed was someone humiliating him when he was trying to open himself up and finally be vulnerable, Lisa noted, with a bilious tinge burning her throat. She shoved all those weird little feelings away, focusing on this conversation. There. She’d apologized: mission completed. 

Bakugo grunted and turned away. “Did your girlfriend send you?”

“Nah.” Lisa said, “Well she kind of did, but I also needed to.”

She waited and he didn’t respond.

“I can go away if you want me to,” Lisa said, “but I really am sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t know that you two weren’t together. I…I did say it to dig at you, but I was honestly going for more of the witty, snarky villain aesthetic than being an outright jerk. I swear there’s a difference. My power fills in a lot of knowledge gaps for me, helps me figure things out that I shouldn’t know. Sometimes my power gets things wrong though, or starts building up on wrong details. You have no idea how much it hurts me to admit being wrong. My power’s not infallible, apparently, and I’m sorry I just fucked that up.”

“Yeah you definitely fucked-up.” Bakugo agreed, and while it stung, Lisa took it for the tiny crumb of forgiveness that it was. Splayed on the bench, the kid was all angles: a knobbly collection of knees and elbows. The corner of his face that she could see beyond the spiky hair and scars, the downturned mouth and determined jaw, it almost fooled her. But she knew a mask when she saw one. Even here, when the casual arrogance was painted so thickly that it almost looked genuine, she knew it for what it was: a shell. 

She could have walked away and left it at that. Instead she surprised herself in sitting down on the bleachers next to him

“Plus I haven’t really been the most heroic this whole time.” Lisa said. “I should know better than to go running my mouth and starting something with you. I’m the adult after all, or whatever.”

Bakugo snorted, “Most adults don’t know shit.”

“That’s true.” Lisa said, “I sadly have the opposite problem. I know too much.”

“You sound like a real fucking know-it-all.” 

“I kinda am—it’s my whole schtick. It sucks when there are times, like today, when I don’t know things because I’ve overused my power. And I hate not knowing things, and this whole world of yours is a giant blank spot right now. Not too much makes sense.” The last part just came out in a rush. 

“Your world sounds really fucked-up.” He said. “But I don’t really care as long as you don’t go messing with ours.”

Lisa shrugged, “We’ll try our best, probably. We’ve made treaties before, and the current leader of our corner at least is very rational.” And conniving. And furtive. And ruthless. “I think we can just about keep this under wraps.” She paused, “You’re taking this whole multidimensional thing kind of well.” Midoriya had seemed much more freaked out. No, not freaked out, hungry maybe? Nerd.

“I have other things on my mind.” The kid said. He shifted. Lisa thought that he was about to get up and flee the conversation, but he only changed position.

“You and Blondie are together, together. Like dating, right?” Bakugo asked. 

Abrupt tone shift, but Lisa could see a glimmer of where this conversation was going.

“Yeah. We’ve been together almost six months now, but we’ve known each other for years. It was a real classic romance. I’d taunt her, she’d threaten to kill me. She’d come crawling for me for help and I’d shoot down all her hopes. Normal shit, you know? But our paths kept on crossing and eventually our kids started hanging out. I mean they aren’t really our kids, not biologically, but you’ve seen them. Eventually we stopped trying to murder each other.”

Bakugo’s posture changed at that, some of the tension escaping. He glanced around. They were alone for at least the next few minutes.

“This won’t go around to everyone else, will it? I’m only telling you because you’re gonna be going back to your own dimension, or whatever, soon.”

Lisa avoided pointing out that they still had to figure out how to get back.

“Yeah, I won’t tell anyone.” She said, “Believe it or not, when I’m not blabbing them to the world, I’m pretty good at keeping secrets.”

“You better not blab!” Bakugo snarled, “I’m not gonna go all mushy just to have you tell everyone.”

“Okay, fine.” Lisa said. 

“You swear?”

“What are you, five? Yeah, whatever. I swear I won’t tell everyone your deep, dark secret.”

For the first time, the kid turned to face her, the blush on his cheeks unmistakable. 

“You got it right.” Bakugo said quietly, “I mean, at least for me. We’re not together, but I like Deku. A lot.”

Yeah, duh. As if that part wasn’t obvious. Still, she never got tired of being right. 

“Please don’t tell me that I just outed you to your entire class.” 

He shrugged, “I think most of them knew already that I’m gay, and they’d have found out eventually anyway. Not that I wanted that to happen. It’s just…” he sighed, “I didn’t know how Izuku felt yet. The damn little nerd is kinda hard to read when he’s not exploding his emotions all over the place. I thought…I thought that maybe there was something between us and then…” he gritted his teeth, “He went and ran away. He ran away from me. I thought he was finally done running after last time, especially from me. Was it really that terrible of an idea, us being together?”

After last time? It wasn’t the time to ask though as Bakugo quickly wiped away a couple tears, glaring as though each was personally responsible for his pain.  

“Your power tells you things.” He said, “Deku knows that. Everyone knows that by now with the way the nerd goes on about quirks. So everyone knows and he knows how I feel, but he doesn’t care. I should want that. I should be glad he’s waiting for someone better than me. It’s just shitty.”

Save me from hormonal adolescents, Lisa thought, smug in the knowledge that at least she was more mature than that. She wanted to scream ‘just talk to each other’, or better yet, lock the two of them in a box together until they finally figured things out. It would be effective, but Vicky as the reigning Queen Killjoy probably wouldn’t approve. 

“Maybe he does care and he just didn’t understand the situation.” Lisa said, with excruciating patience. 

He does care, you utter imbecile. 

The kid scowled like he could hear her internal monologue, “Well that’s stupid. I think what you said was pretty damn obvious. He can be an idiot, but he’s smart enough to put the pieces together.”

Yeah, and both of these kids had somehow hammered together the pieces of their jigsaw until they made a bookcase. 

Lisa sighed, people could be so dense. “Maybe, maybe not. A relationship is two-sided and my power pulled stuff from somewhere.” She said with exaggerated care. 

Bakugo’s eyebrows shot up. Okay, the kid wasn’t a complete idiot. 

“Maybe you should go talk to him and not the self-proclaimed villain.” Lisa prodded. 

“You came over to talk to me!”

“Yeah, well you let me. Nobody who knows me actually lets me talk.”

“Why?”

“Afraid of what I’ll say. The aforementioned ‘ruining of lives’ might be part of it.”

He smirked a little, “You do have a big mouth, I’ll give you that,” he glanced at her, “but you gave me a little bit of hope, even if it was a totally fucked-up thing to do. I wanted to let you know that you weren’t wrong. But you better not tell, even if they already know.” He hesitated and looked away, “Please.” 

Why tell me then? Lisa wondered, but she understood. She doubted that there were many queer couples Bakugo could talk to, especially ones only around for a little while. That kind of expiration date could do wonders for conjuring intimacy.

Bakugo’s hard, scarred face had collapsed a bit, softening in uncertainty. Lisa really hadn’t signed on to become a therapist for angsty teenage boys, but she couldn’t exactly refer him to Jessica Yamada. 

“I promise I won’t tell anyone.” Lisa said. “And for the record, I, not my power, think that Midoriya might feel the same way about you too.”

The kid blushed harder. “I still don’t trust you.” He muttered. He was on the cusp of saying more when Lisa heard a familiar shriek.

“Lisa!” That was Kenzie, “You have to try the toilet! It’s so cool! I could definitely improve it, but you’ve got to see!”

As if she’d never seen a freaking toilet before. 

“I have to go now.” Lisa told Bakugo, “But let me know if you want to talk again. I can listen, even if I am a shitty person. I’m here for you, or whatever, which is a pretty premium deal. At least I’m here for you while I’m here.”

As much good as that would do.

Chapter Text

Why was it all so complicated?

The teachers had shepherded the visitors away after the quirk assessment bouts. It was probably for some meeting or another, but good riddance either way. With them gone, he’d finally taken off the stupid ear thing. Finishing up his little report about the strange capes had taken all of ten minutes. Now there was nothing to do: no more classes and nothing planned. A big hole in their evening swallowed up by dimensional shenanigans and quirked-up bullshit. 

There was nothing to do but go back to the dorms and unpack their shit. With Cementoss, Power Loader, and the principal’s deep pockets ready to fund recovery efforts, it had taken only a week to rebuild the dorms. Convincing most of the parents to let their brats return had taken longer than the actual construction, although Katsuki’s dad and the old hag had been enthusiastic enough. Many of the new buildings used materials recovered from the Coffin in the Sky; which was badass, but also a constant reminder of what they’d been through just a month ago. The whole Heights Alliance smelled new and unfamiliar but looked much the same as when they’d first moved in, back in August.

The rest of them were hanging out downstairs in the common space, probably drinking Yaoyorozu’s tea and unpacking the day, while Katsuki just unpacked.

But unpacking was good. It felt good to move and stretch while making the world, in some small way, a more orderly place. It was a melody of small decisions, manageable decisions: where to put his cookbooks, which All Might poster to put in the place of honor, above the desk. He’d left most of his stuff, including his hiking gear, at home for now. He’d just focused on the essentials. At his dad’s insistence, he’d also brought a couple of plants, but he already knew he wasn’t a plant person. The damn leaves got everywhere. Aside from that, he kept the space clear of junk. He didn’t need any more than that. He was going to be a pro hero, not some homebody. 

The problem with unpacking was that it didn’t take anywhere near long enough and thoughts managed to creep in around the edges.

We’re not, Izuku had said.

The damn nerd. They weren’t dating, yeah, but did Izuku have to be so quick to say it? Was there something wrong with the idea, or with Katsuki? Well he knew the answer to that one. He’d done a Mount Lady sized amount of fucked-up stuff to Deku over the years. Just because Katsuki had changed his mind, didn’t mean all of that was forgotten. He was lucky that Izuku tolerated him at all and seemed to offer him any modicum of forgiveness. Becoming friends again didn’t mean Izuku was suddenly giving Katsuki his whole heart. And Izuku was always so full of emotions that they squished out the edges. Katsuki had probably just misinterpreted Izuku’s usual overzealousness as something more. He knew that he had a lot to account for. But still, it hurt when the nerd ran.

Because Izuku was a runner. He never ran from the chance to save others, ever, but he didn’t put himself in that same bucket. He never, ever gave up even when he probably should have, and he still managed to be the most disgustingly magnificent bleeding heart, through it all. He never really thought of himself and what he wanted, as if the thought that people might earnestly care about him was as incomprehensible as Aoyama’s ramblings. It used to make Katsuki want to ram a fist in Izuku’s trusting little face, back when he thought that Izuku was just wearing a façade. He’d yearned to show Izuku that reality wasn’t fair. To tear him down. Anything to drown out Katsuki’s own fears of failure; but he couldn’t, because in the end Izuku had even sucked Katsuki into his orbit.

Frickin’ Tattletale playing with his feelings and getting him to confess things.

There had been too much in today and now, thanks to Loudmouth, the weird visiting heroes were part of his own personal drama. He didn’t want to go downstairs and see what people were saying. He could guess well enough. People had been avoiding him more than usual since the whole thing this afternoon. They probably expected him to explode or something, and maybe he would.

We’re not.

Still, afterwards Tattletale had seemed to think that maybe Izuku did like Katsuki after all. Dumbass. Clearly her quirk was curdling her brain.

But if there was even the smallest chance, Katsuki wasn’t about to give up. Izuku didn’t have a patent on stubbornness. Katsuki was not about to let the possibility of being with Izuku escape if he could help it.

“Tomorrow.” He said. It was the same thing he’s said every day for the past two months. Tomorrow would be the day that he’d finally confront the nerd and get some answers.

Someone knocked on his door.

Katsuki sighed, of course he couldn’t be allowed to have five minutes to himself. “Go away Kirishima!” He yelled, “I don’t want any of your shitty snacks!”

After a slight pause, the knock came again.

While he liked having friends, these friggin’ idiots really didn’t like to take ‘no’ for an answer. Hadn’t he made it clear enough that he wanted to be alone?

He stomped across the room to the door, already speaking as he opened it, “I said to…”

It was Izuku.

But he didn’t really want to see Izuku now either. “Yeah?” He asked, a little more roughly than he’d intended. He hoped that Izuku couldn’t tell he’d been crying.

“Hi Kacchan!” Izuku said, with his usual gut-wrenching warmth, as if everything was still okay. “I’ve never really seen your room before. Mine is still a mess! Mind if I come in?”

Katsuki nodded.

Usually he never let anyone in his room except for Kirishima and Kaminari, neither of whom asked for permission.

Of course Izuku immediately gravitated to the All Might stuff. Katsuki hovered behind him, unsure. “Don’t touch it.” He said, for the sake of saying something. Only after it left his mouth did he realize how sharp the statement was.

Izuku didn’t seem to notice, “Of course not, Kacchan, I wouldn’t want to mess anything up.”

“I mean you can touch it, just don’t rumple anything.” He stopped as Izuku delicately picked up a framed photograph of the two of them as kids, standing in identical poses with a fist raised. Little Katsuki was missing a couple of teeth and Izuku held an All Might action figure aloft. It was from before Katsuki had manifested his quirk, back when they were going to be the world’s best heroes together. It was one of the few photos he had where they both looked happy. 

“You kept this.” Izuku said. “I didn’t think you would.”

“I like looking at it.” Katsuki mumbled.

“We’ll have to take more.” Izuku said, “Now that we saved the world together. I think we need an update!”

“We have plenty of photos, Izuku.” 

“Yeah.” And here Izuku’s smile faltered, “But we can always add more, right?”

“Fuck yeah, but only if your mom doesn’t take them.”

“Kacchan!”

“What? She’s a terrible fucking photographer. Ask Raccoon Eyes or something. Even Dunce Face takes better photos and he’s likely to fry himself at any minute.”

“He’s not that bad, Kacchan. You can’t just diss your friends like that.” But even as he chastised him, the nerd was laughing. Once upon a time, Katsuki would never have believed that this sort of genuine laughter could be his to share again. His heart clenched.

There was an awkward pause where the wall heating unit came on. Izuku put down the photograph, careful to place it exactly as it had been. Then he slid to the floor, leaning against Katsuki’s bed. The nerd looked so small. Katsuki had watched him fight the biggest bosses the League of Villains had thrown their way and smash bad guys to smithereens, yet now, sitting on Katsuki’s floor, the nerd looked more nervous than he had in ages. Was he disgusted by Katsuki? He’d come knocking, which had to be a good sign, and that talk of photos, shit that implied more time spent together in the future, right? Fuck—he couldn’t lose the nerd, not now. Katsuki slid down to sit next to Izuku and picked at a loose thread in his shorts. Fucking Tattletale was wrong again. 

“I don’t want to pretend that this afternoon didn’t happen.” Izuku said.

“I mean yeah, we both heard what Tattletale said.” Katsuki said, looking everywhere but in Izuku’s eyes. Better to face this head on, then maybe he could quiet the nerd’s nerves and salvage what remained of their friendship, “She was obviously just trying to stir shit up.”

“She’s not very nice, is she?”

“Fuck no: villainous busybody spouting total bullshit.”

“Oh I didn’t mind what she said, Kacchan.” Izuku said, his freckles blending into the blush on his cheeks. “I, um, I didn’t like how she said it, but I actually didn’t mind what she said. I was worried though about what you thought.”

He paused and Katsuki’s gaze was dragged magnetically back to Izuku’s intense, compassionate green eyes. He’d spent so long not really looking at Izuku over the years. In hindsight, it was such a waste. 

He could feel himself teetering at the edge of a precipice. One step and it would be just him in the open air, either tumbling or finally free to fly. The future unfurled, ready to flare into new life. It was all so close, that brilliant new possibility he’d kept close to his chest like a montane vista or a fist raised in victory, or that ferocious light in Izuku’s eyes. 

“Did you mind what she said?” Izuku asked.

Katsuki’s first reaction was to bluster and avoid this conversation, every hard, heavy, intoxicating moment of it, but he wouldn’t back down, “No.” He said, choosing his words carefully. “It wouldn’t be bad, if it were true I mean. If you wanted it to be.”

He braced himself for it all to come crashing down: their years of history, their tenuous hero partnership, the fragile seedlings of their regrowing friendship, the building itself. He wouldn’t be surprised at anything by now. But Izuku’s wide, dopey smile only grew wider. 

“I would like it a lot.” Izuku said, “Love it actually. Would you…want it to be true?”

Katsuki’s heart was racing, great juddering thumps that tingled his body like a Cluster attack. He wondered if Izuku could hear the beats. He was entirely too conscious of Izuku sitting here on his floor, his thigh just a few inches away. They’d been closer, but this distance was meaningful. He scooted a little bit closer, still half-expecting Izuku to pull away, but he didn’t. Time to jump. 

“Yeah.” Katsuki breathed and wasn’t even sure if Izuku could hear until Izuku’s eyes filled with tears.

“Do you really mean that, Kacchan?” He asked, the ‘Kacchan’ soft, almost a sigh. The damn nerd. 

“Of course I do, Izuku. It’s exactly what I want.”

Izuku pulled him closer into an awkward hug, right there on Katsuki’s sterile floor. For the first time, Katsuki let himself just appreciate how unnervingly right Izuku felt tucked in his arms. Izuku, who could stand up against heinous villains and still manage to pin on a smile. Izuku who had come back to him after those dark weeks and now had come a step farther. His Izuku.

“So what do we do now?” Katsuki asked, drawing back to see Izuku’s face. Somehow they’d climbed this mountain and they were still here, in one piece, together.

“I don’t know.” Izuku said and he laughed, the sound bubbling brightness, “I’ve never done this before. But, can I hold your hand, Kacchan?”

“You’d held my hand plenty of times before, nerd, and we were literally just hugging, you don’t have to ask.”

“Yeah. But this is my first time holding my boyfriend’s hand, Kacchan. I mean, if we are boyfriends, if it’s okay to call us that?” Katsuki nodded and Izuku smiled even harder, “I want to celebrate all the firsts with you and do it right. I mean whatever you want to do. I’m just so full of happiness right now.”

Somebody was that happy about being with him, but not just anybody, Izuku. Katsuki didn’t know that he could provide that kind of happiness, it felt almost too powerful. He wanted to protect it at any cost. “You can damn well hold my hand whenever you want to.”

Izuku wasted no time threading those scarred fingers between Katsuki’s, where they fit. As if this was what they were always meant to do. 

“Do we tell people?”

“Do you want to? Tell whoever you want, I’m not trying to hide us. I just don’t feel the need to put it in the morning announcements.” A horrible thought occurred to him, “but wait to tell your mom, okay? Until I tell mine?” His mom would be furious if she learned from Inko in their book club. She’d want to know first. 

“I’m so excited to tell people!” Izuku beamed, “I want to keep it from Tattletale though.”

Katsuki scoffed. Even after less than a day knowing the batshit villain lady, he wasn’t so sure about that, “We can try.”

Izuku scowled, screwing up his little freckled face, “I don’t really want to think about her.”

“You brought her up!” Katsuki said, “Well then, imagine All Might’s face when he finds out.”

“You know, I think he probably saw this coming.”

“I think so too.”

Izuku was chewing on his lip like he did when he was thinking. Katsuki wished he could kiss away that tension, and the thought of kissing Izuku made his cheeks burn all over again, but tonight was too big to fit any more into. Everything was so full, so sweet and real that he could hardly take any more.

He wondered if he should ask Izuku to stay and watch a movie or something. At the same time he desperately wanted to hold Izuku and not let go and also get as far away from him and his dangerous kindness as possible. 

“I…” He said, at the same time Izuku said, “I should probably go. I mean, I don’t want to, but I told my mom I’d call so she knew I didn’t die my first day back.”

Katsuki nodded, marveling at how the sour bile of anxiety had been transmuted into helium in expectation of all that came next. Untangling himself from Izuku felt more like detaching a limb than anything else. And he’d been walking around like this all this time? Fuck that. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow then.” Katsuki said as they reached the door. 

“Um, bye, Kacchan.” Izuku said, not moving.

“Bye.” Katsuki said. Should he do something? What was Izuku waiting for? Fuck, this was all such a mystery. 

“Good night.”

“Good night, nerd.”

“See you tomorrow, boyfriend!” Izuku said, then turned and walked into the wall. He blushed and then ran away, back to his own floor, his steps light enough that he must be using a touch of Float.

Without Izuku the room seemed emptier than before. Katsuki couldn’t shake the grin from his face, even as unfamiliar muscles began to cramp. Maybe it wasn’t such a lousy night after all. Sure it had been a weird day, but hadn’t they all been lately?

He’d barely reached his bed again when there was another knock.

Had Izuku forgotten something? He bounded across the room and tore open the door, “Oh.”

It was Kirishima.

“Hey Bakugo!” Kirishima said, smiling wide with shark teeth, “Want any snacks or anything? It’s been another long, weird day! We missed you in the common room!”

“Yeah. Didn’t feel like talking.” Katsuki said, hoping that Kirishima would take the hint. But the man was brazen.

“When do you ever?” Kirishima asked, “Now is our resident grump looking happy, or do my eyes deceive me?”

“I’m happy.” Katsuki muttered, “Sometimes.” He didn’t see how it was anyone’s business anyway. Did they keep a fucking log of his moods?

“Only really around Midoriya.” Kirishima said, “Does he have anything to do with this? I ran into him on the stairwell and he looked like someone just gave him All Might’s dirty gym socks! Hey, can I come in?”

Without waiting for a response, Kirishima pushed himself past Katsuki and settled himself in Katsuki’s desk chair. “Nice room.” He said, “You really need to make it more you, though. I haven’t even started unpacking, but look at you! Now spill! Seriously, what happened?”

“I, um,” Katsuki said, scratching his head and turning away to hide his blush, “We kinda…”

“Oh there is something! Something did happen!” Kirishima crowed, then craned his head, “Wait…are you blushing?”

“Fuck you.” Katsuki said, automatically. 

“No, seriously man, You are! You have to tell me.”

Katsuki considered evicting Kirishima at that moment, but he had a sick urge to share his joy. 

“We’re dating now.” Katsuki said, “Me and the nerd. It just happened. I still can’t really believe it.”

He waited for the surprise. Everyone knew that he and Izuku had their rivalry, and that Katsuki had bullied him for years. Nobody in their right mind would ever think that beneath the surface something like this had been simmering…

“Fucking finally, man.” Kirishima said, “We've been waiting for this moment for a while now.”

“What?” Katsuki asked, blindsided, “Who?”

“Some of us.” Kirishima said, counting off on his fingers. “Me, Mina, Toru, Tsuyu, probably Denki. Couple of others. We’ve been rooting for you, but who would have thought that it would take this long?”

That was almost half the class. Half the class had seen this coming?

“You know, I meant no offense comparing you to a sock.” Kirishima said, “You’re better than any gym sock. I’m so happy for the two of you!”

Katsuki decided not to tell Kirishima that All Might’s socks were collectable, “Thanks, I guess. I am really happy. I just don’t know what to do now.”

“Way to let yourself be emotionally vulnerable!” Kirishima cheered. “Do you have a date planned? Have you texted him yet? Are you telling people? Can I tell Mina?”

So many questions, but Kirishima’s enthusiasm was catching. Somehow, even at his worst, Katsuki had managed to make really good friends. He tried to answer Kirishima’s flood of questions until the adrenaline wore off and he finally managed to kick Kirishima out.

He lay on his bed, still trying to parse what had actually happened, the fierce joy burning in his chest forcing him to check and make sure he hadn’t started an accidental explosion.

Tomorrow he’d get to spend the day with Izuku, his boyfriend.  

Chapter Text

“Is anyone else kind of proud of how calm we are about this?” Dennis asked, around a mouthful of chips. “I mean we’re trapped on an alternate earth with no contact with our home world. Our plans are toast and we’re somehow stuck in back high school, but we’re just chilling. I feel like we deserve a prize or something.”

The rest of the day had been a blur of new information. There had been a stop at the Nurse’s Office where Recovery Girl had insisted on re-vaccinating them, despite the boosters they’d taken before entering Shardspace. There had been a brief meeting with Aizawa, Yagi, and Present Mic. Then, after dinner, they were escorted to their temporary quarters: one of the apartments recently vacated by the refugees. 

“Nobody?” Dennis exclaimed, “Really? This is all just fine for you?”

“We’re in Japan.” Kenzie said, with a happy little wriggle, “That’s more than fine to me!”

Aiden shrugged, “It happens sometimes. I’m just glad we’re safe and we’re all together, and that nobody’s in prison this time.”

“And we’re trying to keep it that way.” Victoria added, from her place on the bed. While Victoria went through her daily stretches, teasing the stiffness out of her sore limbs, Sveta paged through her sketchbook.

“I wish that Darlene and Candy were here though.” Kenzie said, “It would be so, so cool if we could explore this place with them!”

“Alright then.” Dennis said. “Just build a portal. Easy-peasy. Do your Tinker thing and get us back to our earth lickity split.”

“It isn’t that simple without the right scans.” Kenzie didn’t deign to look up from her phone, thumbs tapping furiously. “And I can’t even locate Aleph or Gimel or any of the others from here.”

Which was disturbing. Even when they’d been Goddessed on the prison world, Kenzie had always held some signal that could orient them toward home. 

“Enough chitchat.” Lisa grumbled from her place on the floor, glaring at some notes, “Enjoy your fucking vacation. You might be just chilling, but I have work to do. After all, some of us have actual useful powers.”

Dennis paused, “I thought you were going to say ‘no offense’ or something.” His face didn’t hold out much hope. Even before dying, Dennis had clashed enough with the Undersiders. He knew who he was dealing with.

“Plenty of offense meant, Clocksie. Lookout and I are crucial to getting our asses out of here. The rest of you? Not so much.”

“Tattletale.” Dennis huffed and sprawled on the other bed again. He winced at the lack of give to the mattress, “Ugh, seriously, Vic, what do you see in her?”

Victoria glanced at Lisa. She was proud of Lisa for apologizing to the kids and hopefully not irrevocably messing things up between them, but why did Lisa feel the need to butt-in in the first place? Still, that petulant little smile of Lisa’s tugged at her. 

Victoria shrugged, “She kind of grows on you.” 

“Yeah, like athlete’s foot,” Sveta said, resting her feet on Victoria’s stomach, “or maybe like hives.” 

Victoria was just still annoyed enough at Lisa to get a vindictive thrill from the insult. 

The suite had four rooms, each with two beds, around a communal sitting room and kitchen. Though plain, it was all ridiculously nice: more like a hotel than the crappy dorm Victoria had been expecting.

To support Weld’s weight, they were on the ground floor. The U.A. staff had clearly tried to remove metal wherever possible, but Weld already had a couple nails sticking to him like puzzled piercings. A bed had been specially reinforced for him, which was a kind gesture, but Weld didn’t really sleep. For now he leaned against a wall, an earbud dangling his fingers drumming on the plaster. 

Kenzie also lay on the floor, fluctuating between typing furiously on her phone and tinkering with her eye spikes. There seemed to be another one now, her eye hook in tatters. Victoria hoped that she wasn’t cannibalizing appliances for parts—that probably wouldn’t make the best impression on the school. 

“How’s it going Kenz?” Victoria asked, “Any luck connecting to Dragon?”

“Not yet!” Kenzie said, “I need more materials to really get anything started. I can make a list of things I need, but I don’t even know if they have them here. Maybe that workshop can help with things!”

It would be worth looking into, even if connecting Kenzie with a workshop full of Tinkers sounded like a really efficient way to make something explode. Clearly U.A. was hemorrhaging cash. The question was how far they could stretch that goodwill and whether the school would fork over the funds to fuel those tinkerings. 

Kenzie seemed at ease, jumping into the flow of the conversation and back to her tech, space buns bobbing as she hummed. As much as Victoria scrutinized her for any hint of that frenetic energy, Kenzie just seemed to be dealing, at least as much as Victoria could expect of any kid in this sort of situation. Perhaps this detour would be good for her. 

“While we’re making a list of requests, I want to add something.” Victoria said, “I know that none of us want to be here long-term, but since it looks like we’ll be here at least a few days, I wanted to bring this up. Either we need to go shopping or someone needs to go for us. I’m not living in the same three outfits the entire time we are here. And if we’re also going to be helping and training, and I think we should at least offer to, we’ll need costumes of some sort.”

“I second that.” Weld said. He didn’t sweat, of course, but his clothing still took a beating from sheer friction, gaining embarrassing holes at the joints and seams no matter how rugged the fabric was. Today’s canvas shirt and jeans had also been shredded by a sparring match with Red Riot. 

“Thirded!” Sveta said, “I want to see what their fashion is like here, beyond hero costumes and school uniforms.” 

Victoria smiled. Her fashion protégé was taking off on her own. 

“Not to burst your delusional little bubble,” Lisa said, “but last time I checked, all of that requires actually having capital at our disposal, and we don’t have any cash. Or rather, all the cash we brought is useless here, so we’ll need to depend on Nezu and his goons for handouts.” 

They’d set out from Gimel with Earth Aleph currency, but with the dimensional differences, they would be lucky if those bills were considered bad counterfeits of this reality’s American dollars. Gimel’s Trading Dollars would be even less recognizable. 

Lisa continued. “And that’s only if they let us off the school grounds. I mean, think for a moment: why would they let us out in public anyway? On campus we’re all nice and contained where we can be studied like docile little mice. Out there: all bets are off. Just think for a minute: I mean this place is built like a prison, literally built like a prison.”

Victoria scowled, “Just because you don’t trust anyone doesn’t mean that they think the same way. They’re helping us Lisa; they chose to believe us.”

“No shit.” Lisa blustered, rolling her eyes, “They made a big speech about cooperation and how they want us all making friendship bracelets and flower crowns for each other, but I don’t trust that shit. I especially don’t trust that weasel of a principal. Trust cuts both ways, Vicky. Logic says that they’re monitoring us. At best we’re an added burden and at worst they’ve afraid we’ll massacre them while they sleep. Anyone care to illuminate me about the rose-colored goggles you’re obviously using. Come on! So tell me, my credulous compatriots: why should they go out of their way for us if they’re getting nothing out of it?”

“Maybe because they’re heroes.” Weld said, “It’s quite literally in the job description to help people.”

“They’re heroes, not idiots!” Lisa said, “I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume there’s a difference. I mean I’m unfailingly charming, of course, but I sure wouldn’t trust us if I were in their shoes. Why should they give a rat’s ass about us? How can you be that naive?”

“It’s not naive to have some compassion, Li.” Victoria said, sitting up straight, “I have some doubts, sure, but they’ve done nothing but support us all day. We have no reason to suspect them of anything. Treating them like the enemy will only forge new enemies for us.”

“And what about when your big fairytale utopia comes crashing down?” Lisa asked, “You all know ‘hero’ could just be a fancy moniker to gussy up the usual steaming load of crap.”

Sveta snorted, “Didn’t you say that they just fought a big villain and a lot of the country is devastated?”

“Yeah, your point?” 

Sveta stretched, some of her tendrils briefly writhing free before settling, “Well then, maybe they just don’t have the resources to fight us. Or maybe they just want the help of any extra heroes they can get. Unless or until things go south, or your power tells you they’re actively trying to harm us, I say we work with them and we don’t worry about it.”

“I agree!” Aidan said, pumping a fist. 

“Admit it, Lisa.” Victoria said, “You like the people here.”

“Why the fuck would I do that?”

Victoria leaned over to poke Lisa in the side once, twice, before she squirmed away, “You like them.”

“Fuck off, will you? Maybe I do, but so what? That’s an admission under duress. Whatever, look, if they’re likeable, that just adds to my suspicions.” Lisa said, “Nobody’s motives are this pure. Mark my words: they’re watching us. There has to be something really fucking wrong with this place to explain why they’re being so damn nice.”

Victoria had harbored some of the same doubts, but that was before really working with the kids. Nothing here gave her red flags or even an indication that Master-stranger Protocols should be in effect. They would keep vigilant, of course, but for once it seemed like they’d landed in a healthy situation. 

“Which leads me,” Lisa said, dragging over the large dry-erase board on wheels, “to this.”

“Which leads me to ask where you even got that.” Weld said. “Plus, who died and made you leader?...Sorry Dennis.”

“It’s okay.” Dennis said, “Since I didn’t die for you, ‘Sir leader’.”

“It’s a school, Weld.” Lisa said, yanking the cap off a marker with a pained squeal, “I just asked for it and they had one sitting around. Now: ‘what’.” She wrote the words as she spoke, “‘have we noticed about this place?’ Anything feel a little off to you?”

“Aside from being in a different dimension?” Dennis muttered.

Victoria thought of something that had been bothering her all day: “It’s really amazing to see a functioning school like this, but even a lot of kids outside the Hero Course have powers. There must be a few hundred kids with powers in high school alone. That’s a shit-ton of kids, even from across all of the prefecture. If all these kids triggered, what is life like here?”

“That’s true.” Weld said, “Even our biggest Wards teams never had enough to fill one class at this school, and this isn’t counting the villains or anyone who didn’t make the program.”

“Okay, let’s start there.” Lisa said. “Now get this, Prom Queen.” Victoria hated that nickname, “First of all, this school isn’t even for all of Shizuoka. There are loads of schools like this one in every prefecture.”

That didn’t make sense, statistically only one out of every 10,000 people had powers. Many more than that had the potential to develop powers, but only if the right conditions were met. 

“Then we’re talking about thousands, potentially tens of thousands of kids with powers across the county.” Victoria said, “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Oh yeah, we’re not talking about thousands of kids with powers.” Lisa said. “I mean, obviously that would be complete horseshit.”

Victoria relaxed, then what had…

“We’re talking about hundreds of millions of people in Japan alone with powers. Billions worldwide.” Lisa continued, emphasizing ‘billions’ and writing it down with two underlines, “Did I break your brittle little brains yet, cause that’s the sitch. Around 80% of them have powers out there, but that’s just the average across all demographics. The ratios are only getting more skewed over time. Over 97% of kids tend to have some kind of power these days, so it’s becoming increasingly rare not to have one.”

“That makes even less sense.” Sveta said, “97% of kids have the potential and experience trauma intense enough to trigger? Even if they were all third generation capes, that seems like a stretch.”

“Not even Brockton Bay was that fucked-up.” Dennis added. 

“It’s true.” Lisa said, “And it’s possible because they don’t have trigger events.”

“What?” Weld asked. “How?” Victoria demanded. 

“Cauldron?” Sveta asked. 

Trigger events: they were the one commonality across every earth with parahumans: Shards required trigger events to connect to the human host and manifest powers. It was part of the conditions of the Shard, immutable. Cults often put their members in danger just for that reason: to try and induce trigger events. Worlds may have more or fewer capes, but unless they were Cauldron capes derived from Eden’s corpse, everyone triggered. 

What must it be like to be part of that 20% or 3%: the unpowered navigating a superhuman society where the extraordinary had become the ordinary?

For so long Victoria had hoped for powers as a kid. She’d planned her life around them, wishing for them every birthday. Other kids could dream about superpowers. She’d needed them, not only to keep up with her high-flying family, but to even be seen at a base level. Brandish would take nothing less after all and nothing, not stellar grades or popularity or a perfect smile, would make up for the deficit in Carol’s eyes. When being more than human was the norm, the bar was so high as to scrape the moon. 

Perhaps she did understand. 

“Not Cauldron,” Lisa said, “I hope you appreciate all these truth bombs I’m dropping.”

“Then what?”

Lisa shrugged, “Fuck if I know, not yet at least. So lets put a pin in that. Anything else you notice? Anyone?”

“Can you stop pretending to be a teacher?” Dennis groaned, “Nobody asked for this.”

Lisa ignored him, “Okay, specifically let’s take a look at their power classifications.”

Victoria was ready for this, “Among these kids we’ve seen today, they’re overwhelmingly Brutes, Strikers, Blasters, and Movers with a couple of Shakers and Changers, and a weak Stranger. Then there are those three Masters in Class A.” Including Anima, and his swarm of insects. 

“Where are the Thinkers, Tinkers, Trumps, and Breakers?” Weld asked, picking up her thread. “I get that they’d prioritize flashier physical powers with such a focus on combat and rescue, but it’s still odd that there’s none with the heroes of that class. Are all the Tinkers in the Support Course?”

Lisa grinned, “I asked around and there’s one Trump in the other class and one Breaker. No Thinkers, no Tinkers. There was one well known precog who died, used to be Yagi’s partner for a while back when he was a pro, if you can believe it. Then there’s that Hatsume girl, I guess you could say she’s a really weak Thinker. The principal is a Thinker too, by the way. He has to be. That’s all well and good, but I’ve kept my eyes open and I can’t seem to find any Tinkers.”

She wrote ‘where are the Tinkers?’ on the board with a frowny face. 

“Maybe they just aren’t at the school?” Aidan ventured.

“But there have to be Tinkers!” Kenzie said, “Not in that shop because none of that was the level of tinker tech, but they’re still more advanced than normal people without Tinker powers. They somehow figured out how to mimic powers on their own in tech, isn’t that cool?”

“They all also seem to have one power,” Sveta said, as Lisa’s marker squeaked across the board, “where are the cluster or grab-bag capes?”

“Froppy, Earphone Jack, and Deku all have more than one power.” Weld said.

“I’m not so sure about that.” Lisa said, “But we’ll get back to that. Anyway, going back to the trigger thing, this Deku kid got his powers directly from Yagi—he used to be a big shot hero here. That’s a whole other story, but it seems to be a glaring exception.”

“And there are so many Case 53’s.” Sveta said, “Is it Cauldron? I don’t see the tattoo, but…” And here her expression hardened. Victoria reached out and squeezed Sveta’s hand, giving it a little waggle. She knew that Sveta would want to connect with Case 53’s who didn’t consider her a traitor. She hoped that they would finally give her friend all the kindness she deserved.

Lisa shook her head. “Nobody’s tampered with their memories and they’re not Cauldron. They’re apparently just born that way. I have no idea why yet, but another thing: notice how, out of everyone, Aizawa was following us around all day?”

“Yeah.” Weld said, “Do you think he’s their heavy hitter?”

“It seems likely he’s a Trump of some sort, though could also be a Master. I don’t know which yet. I do, however, have a theory about him.”

“Well spit it out!”

“I can’t say.” At the influx of glares, Lisa threw up her hands, “I’ll tell you at the staff meeting tomorrow, I swear! All will be revealed.”

“Classic Tattletale.” Weld muttered. 

“And check this out.” Lisa said, whipping out a fan of printed sheets, “It took some convincing, but I got the teachers to give me these.”

They all squinted at the scans. 

“Well, they look like brains.”

“No, duh, Clocksie.”

“What are we supposed to see?” Sveta asked. 

“Wait.” Victoria said, “Is this supposed to be a parahuman?”

“Yeah.” Lisa said indulgently.

“There’s no Corona Pollentia.” Weld said, catching on, “How can there be a power without a Corona?”

“Weird, right?” Lisa said. “The others are all the same. Somehow they acquired powers here without a Corona. Beats me how that happened. Truth is, I don’t have a lot of answers yet, but there’s something deeply peculiar about this world. It’s like they’re deliberately fucking with everything I figured out before, so I think we need to ask some serious questions.”

“None of this helps get us home though.” Aiden pointed out.

Lisa shrugged, “Maybe not, but you gotta admit it’s pretty fucking fascinating.”

“Anything else?” Weld asked as Aiden gave a so-so gesture. 

They all shook their heads, but then Kenzie perked up. “Oh yeah!” She said, “I figured out a way to connect our phones to their internet and rigged up some chargers for the outlets.”

“Oh my gosh, please connect me!” Victoria said, “I need to see what I can find online.” She grabbed her phone. This would be a prime opportunity for research. Did they have something like PHO? What kinds of research on powers were out there and what was superhero culture like? Sometimes it paid having a Tinker as part of the group. 

“Is it safe?” Lisa asked. 

“Duh!” 

Lisa shrugged, apparently deciding to trust Kenzie. “Works for me I guess. Get some beauty rest y’all, ‘cuz you need it. Another wonderful day on an alien earth tomorrow!”

Chapter Text

Anywhere else, the visitors from another dimension probably would be the talk of the school for months. At U.A. though, at least in Class 1A, everyone had their minds on another, more pressing issue. 

“Oh my gosh, you two are so cute!” Ashido gushed over breakfast, “I can’t believe this day has finally come. I mean look at you—I didn’t even know Bakugo did cute!”

“Très mignonne!” Aoyama agreed, as Kirishima tried to fistbump Kacchan. 

That morning Izuku had dressed as fast as humanly possible, before floating downstairs like an invisible string was tugging him forward. Helping Kacchan make breakfast and then eating it with him in a little mini-date had been adorably intimate, until the rest of the class caught wind of the news.  

“Good for you two!” Shoji said, slipping down his mask to eat some rice. 

The crush of love and support around them was enough to make Izuku’s heart ache. What had he done to deserve such caring friends? Over and over again they picked him out of the crowd and believed in him. Someday he hoped to return the favor. 

“And you all somehow saw this coming?” Kaminari groused, “Why didn’t anyone tell me? I still can’t believe it.”

“Believe it, Sparky.” Kacchan said, pulling Izuku close “Because I’m going to be the best fucking boyfriend ever!”

And when Kacchan put his mind to something, he always followed through. He’d always put his all into being a better hero. Now to hear him say, with the same fervor that he would pursue Izuku? Izuku wriggled in happiness as his classmates squeed. 

With the class’s attention, Kacchan became increasingly flustered, but never once dropped Izuku’s hand, “Let’s just go already.” He growled, shouldering his backpack in one smooth, effortless motion. Izuku distantly heard Iida fretting about the time and then about the mess as Bakugo left their plates in the sink for later, but by then they were already out the door and into the blue skies of June. 

“What I can’t believe is that we even have class today.” Hagakure moaned, “How can we just pretend that everything’s normal now? We have legit aliens on campus!”

Their pack of classmates seamlessly entered the torrent of students pouring toward the academic buildings. There were fewer students than usual. Some hadn’t returned after the war and some parents had pulled their kids out, but the ones who remained were humming with anticipation. They were still caught in the race to catch their futures and this morning everyone was on the move to get to class. 

Izuku felt like he had Float turned on permanently, like gravity had less of a hold on him than before. The world faded to the background, picking out only Kacchan in sharp focus: his astute red eyes crinkling against the sunlight, the confident jut of his chin, and even the jagged scar running like a river across his face—Kacchan was just so beautiful. Yesterday everything had seemed so hopeless, and then, with a few simple words, everything changed. 

Izuku still wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to do. They’d been touching casually forever, but now every contact was new, electrically charged, and significant. Was his hand sweaty? Did Kacchan think his scars were gross? Kacchan’s hand was sweaty, but that was just because of his quirk, but was Izuku gripping too hard? He relaxed his hand a little bit. The balance felt precarious. 

In class he’d have to contend with the agony of staring at the back of Kacchan’s perfect blond head, him being so close yet just out of reach. For now though his thoughts raced. Things were going so well now, but how could he keep the momentum going, to make sure everything was perfect for Kacchan? He thought about moonlit picnics in gorgeous parks and sunlit strolls along beaches and sharing sweets in streetside cafes. Perfection was what Kacchan deserved, but Izuku wasn’t sure how to go about that. Sooner or later, he was bound to mess up and Kacchan would see that Izuku was still just…Izuku. Of course Kacchan had already seen Izuku at his lowest, had gently carried him back home in fact, but that had been as a friend. Izuku didn’t really understand why anyone had gone through such lengths to get him back in any case. It felt like he’d somehow tricked Kacchan into this. Now that they were dating, what would Kacchan do if Izuku messed up again?

“Quit muttering, nerd.” Kacchan said, his calloused free hand cupped over Izuku’s mouth to halt the flow. It smelled like lemon and sage soap and sweat, warm over Izuku’s lips. When he saw Izuku’s eyebrows raise, Kacchan removed his hand and leaned in close to say, “You can just talk to me.”

Kacchan’s face brightened with the small, genuine smile he pulled out too rarely and it was all Izuku could do not to cry at the sudden warmth, like his own personal sun breaking through a layer of cloud. His mouth went dry, all thoughts immediately blasted out of his head, “Y-yeah.” He said, aware he sounded like an overexerted Kaminari, “I can do that.” He wracked his wrecked brain, “Um, what do you think class will be like? We haven’t been in so long.”

Kacchan shrugged, “Probably Aizawa fucking with us while he still can.”

“He does like to do that.” Izuku laughed, and held the door open for Kacchan. 

“He fucking loves it.”

Back during the first weeks of class, Mr. Aizawa had terrified Izuku. But that was before he’d seen the lengths Mr. Aizawa would go to ensure all of their safety. He couldn’t imagine leaving  Mr. Aizawa behind and progressing up to some unknown teacher. In a way, Mr. Aizawa had been their U.A. experience. Izuku had never felt closer to a teacher, aside from All Might, but of course most of his past teachers hadn’t bled quite so much for their students’ sakes. 

“I wonder how much what happened yesterday will change things.” Izuku said, “Maybe we’ll get to learn more about the…you know!” He lowered his voice a little in the confines of the hallways, dodging other students. Their class group fractured, but he and Kacchan kept close. 

“Can you be more vague, nerd?”

“I mean the…um, you know: them.”

“In class?”

“I mean they can’t just keep the syllabus the same right? This is huge! It changes everything we know about the world.”

“It does and it doesn’t.” Kacchan said, “Quirks are some weird-ass shit. We’ve always known that. Look at the Nomu: everything changed when they appeared too. Or those quirk drugs.”

Izuku shuddered, “Both of those are different though.” He said, “Who knows how many universes there are out there? This means we aren’t alone, right?”

“You were never alone, nerd.” Kacchan said, “Especially not now—look at how many people fucking love you.”

The word ‘love’ threatened to suck all the breath out of Izuku’s lungs. “And just think, out of all the universes, I get to be in the same one as you!” Izuku finished. Was that too cringey? Would Kacchan be offended?

Instead of an explosion, he was treated to another rare smile and, was that a blush? Izuku dared to swing their clasped hands a little before they headed to their seats. Time to stare at the back of Kacchan’s head and daydream, pencil in hand. 

Mr. Aizawa limped in, his yellow sleeping bag slung over his shoulder. Drippy smiley faces and glitter decorated his new eyepatch. Izuku’s heart cramped in a different way. It was looking like Mr. Aizawa would be officially adopting Eri soon, at least if the rumors were true. 

“Quiet down everyone.” Mr. Aizawa said, “And get ready for your examination.” 

That was enough to shock Izuku out of his reverie. 

“Wha-what?” Kaminari quavered. “A test?”

“Yes Kaminari. If you recall, none of you ever officially had your finals from your second semester. This exam will determine whether you pass my class and enter your second year, or whether you will remain my problem for another year.”

“But we weren’t warned!” Ashido wailed, “Why couldn’t you have told us while we had a month at home to study?”

“We thought you needed that time to rest and recuperate and ‘just be teenagers’.” Mr. Aizawa said. Izuku hated it when adults talked about ‘just being teenagers’. They were teenagers, they couldn’t really be anything else, yet somehow it implied that there was some specific thing he should be doing. 

“You thought?” Kacchan snarled as the other members of the class voiced their protests. Kaminari put his head down against the desk in defeat. Yaoyorozu cracked her knuckles, “Is this the thanks we get for saving all you shitheads? Next time we should just let everything fucking Decay.”

Izuku frantically tried to remember his class notes. He’d been focusing so hard on training his quirks this spring that all the regular school stuff had slipped away. What had they even been studying before the war? He thought he had time to catch up. He thought he had time to…

“Actually, I was lying: you don’t actually have an exam today.”

The words cut through the tumult, dicing it into silence. 

“That was just a rational deception…” Mr. Aizawa continued, “to get you into the right mindset for your exam at the end of the week. I am guessing that none of you would be prepared if it was today, so take this time to study and prepare. With the severe delay your schedules in the next year will be even more compressed than usual and we’ll be pushing you harder. There will be no summer break, for example. Think of this as a warmup.” He grinned at them all, as if he expected them to be thrilled with three measly days of preparation. 

Izuku’s warm thoughts toward Mr. Aizawa cooled by a few degrees. 

In front of him, Kacchan snorted. As always, Kacchan was right about Mr. Aizawa. Izuku had no doubts that Kacchan would be able to pass any test. He was just so brilliant. 

“Is that a lie too?” Kaminari asked, hopefully. 

“No, Kaminari, and I understand that it’s been a while, but this is a classroom. You will raise your hand instead of just blurting out your thoughts.”

“Excuse me, sir.” Yaoyorozu said, “But how is this fair? We cannot be expected to score as highly as usual, even with three days to cram. And Class B clearly has an advantage here.”

“Class 1B learned about this yesterday while you were otherwise occupied.” Mr. Aizawa agreed, then held up a hand as the class dissolved into complaints, “But in the interest of fairness, their exam will be a day earlier than yours. There also will not be a practical component, as you all have amply demonstrated your field abilities and snap decision making.” He sighed, “And in the interest of honesty, we will be taking your unique situation into account while grading. But do not use this as an opportunity to slack off. You are U.A. students. You are expected to be exceptional. I expect all of you to figure this out.”

Immediately all eyes went to Yaoyorozu, who gave a fractional nod. Clearly some study sessions were in order. 

Izuku’s eyes glazed over as the homeroom turned to more mundane concerns until it was time for their next class…

“Midoriya,” Mr. Aizawa said, “before I go, may I have a word with you?”

His tone made it clear he wasn’t asking. Instantly panic snapped Izuku back to reality. Had Mr. Aizawa noticed that he wasn’t paying attention? He followed Mr. Aizawa out to the hallway, feeling the eyes of his classmates follow him until the door clocked shut. 

Mr. Aizawa fixed him with a steely gaze and lowered his voice, “You missed quite a bit of class, even before your classmates. You will have a ways to go in order to catch up. I wanted to let you know that we understand that and we will be taking it into account. However…” He held up a hand as Izuku relaxed, “even though it would put us in a bad light if we had to fail you after everything you’ve done, we still will, unless you put in some effort. Everything I said for the others also applies to you. You chose to attend U.A., Problem Child, and we’re going to keep on pushing you as a student because that’s our role as your teachers. Don’t worry though. We can find tutors for you.”

Izuku nodded slowly, taking it all in. Mr. Aizawa smiled, though not the crazed grin from earlier, “I’m proud of you, Midoriya.” He said, “Now go.”

Izuku knew, he knew, that Mr. Aizawa was right about needing to have an education. Outside of the exceptional circumstances of the war people probably wouldn’t be so accommodating to letting a provisionally licensed hero without a diploma cruise the streets, even a famous one. The whole reason he chose to attend U.A. was to learn from the best and become the best hero he possibly could. It was just that after everything class seemed so mundane. He’d shown that he was capable at taking down villains and rescuing people. In all this time he could be doing something. 

And on top of that, it was hard to think about anything around the enormous bubble of happiness ballooning Izuku’s heart. School just didn’t seem like a priority. 

Still, as he said, “Yes, Mr. Aizawa.” he tried to mean it 

- - - - -

Ideally Izuku wanted to have lunch with just Kacchan, but Ashido had towed Kacchan away with a gleefully mischievous expression. Ashido was strong enough that Izuku knew he wasn’t getting his boyfriend back for a while.  

It was unfortunate, but maybe Izuku could at least do some good. He saw Shinso standing alone with the unmistakable false casualness of someone who didn’t know where to sit. Izuku knew that look. He’d been the cafeteria loser back when Kacchan hadn’t been nearly so kind. It had only been five minutes and he already missed Kacchan, but he tried to tamp his disappointment down. 

 “Do you want to have lunch together, Shinso?”

Shinso jumped, “That would actually be great, Midoriya. I don’t really know anyone in this lunch section, and Class A is so close-knit, I didn’t really want to intrude and B freaks me out a little.”

That was not understandable. “We’re not that scary.” Izuku said, “We’ve just been through a lot together—you have too though and you’re one of us, hopefully.” He paused, “I mean, if you want to be. I’m not trying to pressure you. Just, you have a place here if you need it. I mean I’m not saying that you need us. or anything, but…” He trailed off awkwardly. 

“Really, it’s okay. Thanks.”

“Oh, good. Good.”

“Yeah.” Shinso inhaled sharply between his teeth before looking away, a hand cupping the back of his neck, “Look, Midoriya. I’m sorry I ribbed you back then, and all that stuff about Bakugo. I, uh, didn’t expect this to happen.”

‘This’ as in them dating or ‘this’ as in them being in the same place? “Yeah, I mean it’s okay.” Izuku said. “You did what you had to do, and I can’t really fault you for wanting to win. We’re a team now, right?”

“Yeah, sounds like a plan and thanks, but I really am sorry. You must think I’m a complete jerk.”

“No! No. I mean, thank you for apologizing, but it really is okay. There’s a free table over there.” He was already regretting the offer. How awkward would this lunch be?

As Izuku turned to get in line, he ran into Uraraka. She already carried a tray.  “Oh, hey Deku. Mind if I have lunch with you?” She asked. 

“Of course! I mean yeah you can.” Izuku said, before his brain caught up, “Oh, and can Shinso come too?” Her face fell, but the damage was already done. He resolved to arrange some time for just the two of them to talk, like they used to, back when he thought he liked her. 

“Sure. Oh, and Bakugo of course.” She smiled weakly.

“I think he’s sitting with Kirishima and the gang today. Ashido says she wants to interrogate him, whatever that means.” 

“Well hopefully he survives then.” 

“Yeah.”

They were both quiet for a moment and Izuku wondered whether he should walk away when Uraraka said, “Deku, you’re a really great friend.”

“You too and you’re one of the best heroes I know, Uraraka, only I’ve wanted to ask you…it feels like something happened. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Uraraka said, eyes downcast. Izuku had never before met anyone worse at lying than he was. He’d done it, he’d asked and she was still pushing him away. Maybe he just needed to find the right time to coax the truth out of her. 

As Izuku scanned the cafeteria, he spotted Antares waiting politely in line as if she was a student. Tattletale, thankfully, was nowhere to be seen. 

“I’ll be right back.” He told Uraraka, “Shinso has a table over there. I’m here if you want to talk, there’s just something I have to do.”

Izuku inserted the little interpretation device into his ear and took a deep breath before walking up and tapping Antares on the shoulder, “Hey, Antares? I’m Izuku Midoriya from yesterday.”

She smiled, “I remember you. What’s going on?”

“Tattletale,” He winced a little at her name, but not even that could break his good mood, “yesterday said to talk to you about quirks and I’m really curious. I was wondering if you could tell me sometime. I mean not right now because it’s lunch of course, but I’m really curious. And also…” He hated asking for things and this was two requests in a row. To a stranger of all people, but when would he get this opportunity again? “I saw how you were flying and I was wondering if you could give me some pointers. I haven’t met many people who can fly like you can and it seems pretty similar to my Float.”

Ordinarily he’d ask Shimura but all the past wielders had been so quiet lately. 

“Of course!” Victoria said. It was that easy? “Flying is one of my favorite things. I used to do flying drills with my family and I’m always happy to geek out about powers. I wish I had my files! When works for you?”

“I really need to study for this big exam.” He said, “So maybe as a study break? Whenever fits into your schedule?”

“I don’t really have a schedule right now,” Victoria said, “but if it gets cleared, I’ll let you know. What kind of exam?”

“A big one, kind of about everything. I’m pretty good at history and Japanese, but not so much at mathematics and I need to study my English..” He watched as her face lit up. Of course, she spoke English! Could she help him? “...conjugations and prepositions.”

The smile slipped from Victoria’s face, “Okay maybe I can’t help with English grammar, but I can definitely help you with flying and our world’s powers jargon. Only if you tell me about yours though.”

“Yeah!” He gushed, “That would be great! Thank you!”

Chapter Text

Victoria watched Midoriya join the line somewhere behind her. She’d needed that conversation after her morning with Class 1B. It wasn’t that it was a bad class, it was just that a single individual made it impossible to focus on any of the other teens. 

After a difficult night’s sleep, it was much too early to walk in on a full-blown episode of maniacal laughter from a certain student: his limbs akimbo, full body vibrating. Apparently Phantom Thief, or whatever, was a Trump who copied other people’s powers. Limited duration and other bogus limits, but it was a powerset eerily familiar to a certain Advance Guard hero. To top it all off, this Monoma even acted vaguely like Spright, with a similar affliction of arrogance. Victoria could only hope he matured out of his douchebaggery and didn’t keep going down the same road. Scion knew the multiverse could use fewer Sprights. 

“Lookee there.” Lisa said, nudging Victoria as she joined the table. 

“Lookee, really?” Victoria asked in bewilderment. Who used terms like ‘lookee’ anymore? Well, Lisa apparently. She glanced over her shoulder, but there was nothing particularly unusual in the sea of monotonous grey uniforms—although that very sight of so many teenage capes would never be normal. 

“Guess who was right about those two dorks from yesterday? Me! They’re totally together now!”

Victoria scowled, nudging Lisa back, harder. “Just drop it, Tats. It’s okay to be wrong.”

“Nobody ever trusts me!” Lisa wailed, “How could you, Vicky? I am wounded. Even my own girlfriend doubts my intellect.” She feigned death in her chair, which Sveta awarded with small applause. Lisa straightened back up. “Seriously though, something’s changed since then. There’s been a,” she waggled her eyebrows, “development.”

“Oh, gross!” Victoria said, “They’re in high school Li; they don’t need you ogling them! Look, if you were right, I’d give you a hundred bucks or something. But. You’re. Not.” She bumped Lisa’s shoulder again, “So stop being a jerkwad!”

“Jerk I may be, but I’m your jerk.” Lisa said smugly, stealing a bite of Victoria’s curry. 

Meanwhile, Weld chatted with Aiden, “...he can turn it on and off at will though. I’m still not sure how deep it goes—if it’s just his skin or his internals as well.”

“He’s not as tough as you though!” Aiden said, “I heard someone say he has limits, maybe something about diet?”

“Still, must be nice to turn it off.” Weld muttered, gazing at the busy lunchroom. His own place setting bare and metallic skin was mottled with various half-absorbed objects, including an unfortunate wedding band. 

“I found Battle Fist really fascinating!” Dennis said, “Her power is really simple, you know, but she does so much with it! She doesn’t have a space-warping effect like Fenja and Menja so she has to play it smarter.” He paused, “I bet she must get hella calluses.”

Phantom Thief had been extremely, concerningly, eager to copy Victoria’s powers. She wasn’t thrilled about that, considering what happened when Spright had sampled the Wretch, but decided to give him the benefit of a doubt. To her relief he hadn’t been able to copy the Fragile One, or the powers of any of her friends, which left him wailing about hitting blanks.

Though this class in particular had a variety of hard-hitters and some truly fascinating dynamics, Victoria didn’t particularly relish hanging around with them again. 

Still, Mudman was very cool with the broad area of effect for his Shaker power. She was also curious about Shroom and Comicman. There were so very many of them, though fewer than Class 1A. Apparently a couple of them had dropped out and had yet to be replaced. There were some interesting parallels to powers she’d encountered back home. While Phantom’s Thief’s power was similar to Spright’s, Tsuburaba’s power reminded Victoria of Stormtiger and Lizardy’s was reminiscent of Disjoint, although the levitation was a nice twist. Hopefully these junior heroes would use their powers more wisely than the villains Victoria was acquainted with. 

She would have to peruse the PRT records in more depth to find more analogous powersets. She still couldn’t wrap her mind around the sheer variety of powers in this world, where heroes walked unmasked, their abilities common knowledge in the Quirk Registry. It was like everyone suddenly was a member of New Wave. 

And then there were more oddities. Shroom and other young heroes bypassed the Manton Effect as if it was just an expression. Lisa had been very interested in that, smiling the whole time but refusing to say anything in that annoying Tattletale way: gathering the clues just before dropping a revelation. 

While Victoria was stuck entertaining Monoma and Dennis spread his efforts around the class, Lisa had spent some time talking to the American exchange student called Rocketti to find out more about this version of the United States. According to Lisa, Brockton Bay simply did not exist on this earth. The surrounding cities all did, but Brockton Bay itself was just a blank space on the map. Well that was a lie, there were homes and crap there, but the entirely metropolis never was. There was no Protectorate and no PRT: instead, the heroes, organized into agencies, liaised directly with mundane, but often powered, police. 

It was almost like Brockton Bay had incurred enough calamities in Bet, that other realities didn’t even want to touch it. 

“I learned a lot from Bondo.” Sveta said, fumbling a bit with her chopsticks. Even months after her surgery, her fingers still struggled with fine motor skills. “He and the others here, they call them mutant quirks. Or heteromorphs.” She smiled, “It doesn’t seem like Cauldron is involved, so I guess they’re not really Case 53’s, but it still must be hard for them here. Bondo says that this school is the only place he’s ever really fit in.”

Usually any group containing Weld, or Sveta pre-operation, immediately stood out like a Dragon mech at a baseball game. Capes were rare enough back on Bet: Case 53’s or capes with physical mutations were even more so. And of course, there was the overwhelming prejudice, even from those who didn’t ascribe to the anti-parahuman bullshit. Peat and Fen were just the tip of the iceberg there, really. Weld, through simply becoming a member of the Ward and attaining the position of team leader, was still unique. With the worlds fractured, yet recovering, that stigma had not disappeared. Though Sveta wore her tattoo with pride, the remnants of the Irregulars and other Case 53’s were struggling. 

So Victoria had expected her group would attract stares anywhere they went. While that was still true here at U.A., it was for a drastically different reason. Her friends clearly stood out, but not due to Weld. It was because they were Westerners, none of whom were high school aged, and they wore casual clothes in this ocean of prim uniforms. It seemed that while Nezu hadn’t announced their presence, they weren’t necessarily a strict secret on campus either, as evidenced by their invitation to this busy lunchroom. Victoria could occasionally hear snippets of rumor about them, though the earbuds generally ignored the background noise. Compared to the rest of the students, Weld almost blended in. 

There were students with scales and horns, claws and fangs, or any number of additional limbs. She could see students with the heads of animals and skin of every color or texture. Some kids had features reminiscent of plants or rocks or random household objects. One girl was wreathed in growths of crystal, like Crystalclear. There was even the nice kid they’d met this morning, Comicman, with a head composed of shifting onomatopoeia.

There were so many of them and even if, as Sveta said, they weren’t completely accepted by society’s bigots, this world clearly was several steps along from Gimel in accepting those commonly viewed as ‘monstrous capes’. Little things, like the number of different dietary choices, hinted at levels of acceptance Gimel couldn’t yet conceptualize. Despite the myriad forms, each pristine uniform was tailored to fit. 

Perhaps finding clothes for Weld would be, for once, easy.

Victoria’s gaze slipped to the student she’d been trying to avoid: the French guy. Can’t Stop Twinkling, was that it? Ridiculous though his name was, his costume’s armor reminded her sickeningly of Dean, though with more sparkle. Then there was that laser power, eerily similar to the Pelham family specialty. 

His very existence was like some sort of sick joke: an alternate reality fusion of Glory Girl and Gallant, or what their kids might have been like if Dean hadn’t died.  

Dean, who had bought his powers without ever saying. Her knight in shining armor forever memorialized in Shardspace as a 17 year old kid. She thought they’d shared everything at the time, but of course he’d neglected to mention the tiny detail that his parents purchased powers from the people very responsible for Sveta and Weld’s pain and innumerable crimes against humanity. 

He’d been there though: on again, off again, on again. Eventually she’d lost count, but he was there at that basketball game when she triggered, watching, sitting next to…Amy…

Fucking Amy. 

The Red Queen, Victoria reminded herself, think of her as the Red Queen. Even a dimension away wasn’t far enough. She felt the Fragile One stir and dismissed her forcefield. 

She forced herself to think of black text on white pages: notes on powers and costumes and protocols and cases. Manila files with typed pages. Safe, tangible things that she would return to soon. 

Fuck. Just when everything was going so well, freaking Amy always came up. But no, she was strong. She could do this. She looked away from Mr. ‘I Can’t Stop Twinkling’ and gripped the edge of the table, hunching forward. The Red Queen was far away, farther now than she’d ever been before. Victoria’s brain was her own. Her body was her own. 

“Hey, Vicky.” Lisa murmured, “I’m here, it’s okay.”

She extended a hand and Victoria held it, grounding herself firmly in the present. These kinds of blips were occurring less frequently now, but every so often she slipped and found herself back in that dark place. Here, sunlight gilded Lisa’s eyelashes and picked out each of her freckles like flecks of gold. Victoria reached out to touch the light spray, which had always been hidden by Tattletale’s mask, but Lisa intercepted that hand too, holding both and tipping her head forward so that their foreheads touched lightly. 

Victoria exhaled raggedly, inhaled again breathing in time with Lisa as her heartbeat whirred back down from that sickening edge. Sometimes it wasn’t so bad having a girlfriend more perceptive than most. 

“I love you.” She blurted. 

Lisa laughed, “Yeah, I love you too.”

“But I love you most.” Dennis joked. 

“Fuck off, Clockblocker!” Lisa said without missing a beat, as Dennis laughed. “Oh, and Vicky?”

“Yeah?” Victoria said, pulling back so she could see Lisa’s face.

“You owe me a hundred bucks.” Lisa said. She pointed and Victoria turned just as Midoriya, recognizable amongst the throng by his seaweedy hair, ran to Bakugo and hugged him tight around the waist, lifting the larger boy off the ground.

Victoria shrugged. It wasn’t conclusive, but at least the kids seemed to have patched things up. She hoped that Kenzie wasn’t listening and wouldn’t decide to make Lisa’s predictions her new pet project. “Maybe, maybe not. But why do I feel like you learned the wrong lesson from this?”

“What lesson? That I’m awesome and people should always listen to me?” Lisa asked, aiming twin finger guns at Victoria, “I think at this point, that’s just fact.”

Beside them, Aiden snorted into his soup.

“Shut it kiddo and eat your veggies.” Lisa said, as Victoria reached over Lisa to give Aiden a high five.

- - - - -

“You mean to tell me that after more than a hundred years, you’ve managed to learn fuck-all, diddly-squat about where your ‘quirks’ come from?” Lisa asked, “How is that possible? Seriously, are you even trying? We were contending with Endbringer attacks every few months and we still figured out more in the first ten years than this crap!”

They were gathered in a spacious, modern room where rectangles of sunlight spilled from generous windows. On one side of the conference table, Victoria’s friends glared at Lisa over cups of tea. Victoria took notes on her phone, Sveta sketched, and Dennis played a little game: freezing bits of paper to create ephemeral sculptures in the air. Weld stood and occasionally paced. Kenzie and Aiden poked each other and giggled as Kenzie fiddled with her eyespike. They’d already been meeting for hours, so Victoria couldn’t blame them for getting fidgety, but she wished that everyone was paying a bit more attention. Every once in a while, one of the teachers would frown at Kenzie and Aiden, but nobody suggested that the kids leave the room.

On the other side of the table sat Yagi, Present Mic, Aizawa, Cementoss, and a teacher called Thirteen. Instead of commandeering the head of the table, Nezu cuddled in Aizawa’s scarf, which the teacher didn’t seem to mind. Aizawa himself sported the same unflattering ensemble as the day before, except for his eyepatch, which sat on his face like a lone flower in a compost heap. Did he have a kid or something? Present Mic still wore the clunky speaker necklace and small, round sunglasses, his blond moustache waxed within an inch of its life. Cementoss and Yagi both wore similar outfits to the day before and Thirteen wore a bulky all-enveloping suit like she was about to take a spacewalk. Victoria wondered if they would ever see her face, but Thirteen seemed comfortable keeping her visor up. All of the teachers looked a bit rough around the edges, slightly frayed with exhaustion. Neither teaching nor hero-ing provided much of a work-life balance, but the fresh situation provided by Victoria’s friends couldn’t be helping their sleep schedules.

Apparently the strings Nezu pulled were holding and they could stay at U.A., at least in the short-term. Victoria couldn’t begin to conceptualize how those negotiations must have gone, but she was grateful. Returning to Gimel, or even Aleph, would be much easier with a place to rest and guides to this strange world. 

Much of the meeting so far concerned the specifics of their arrangement, both groups openly sharing information. It was invigorating to cooperate with people who weren’t actively hostile, though Victoria’s group refrained from sharing anything that could be used against their world, keeping current events vague when possible. Thanks to Kenzie’s cameras, they had a gruesome little slide presentation to accompany Lisa’s information about Shards and Entities. Victoria provided background on the evolution of cape society and power classification schemes, and the others shared bits and pieces. Nezu in particular seemed fascinated by the sheer diversity of dimensions Sveta and Weld had visited together. 

In general, the Gimel capes were respectful and diplomatic, hopefully cementing a new image over the chaos of yesterday’s battle. Of course that only applied to some of them; Victoria was convinced Lisa wouldn’t know diplomacy even if Othala gifted it to her. Victoria could understand a tad: this many people seeing Lisa’s face, hearing her be vulnerable, was a perfect recipe for pressing Lisa’s buttons. The problem was that a stressed out Tattletale immediately tried to poke her thorns into as many people as possible. Victoria couldn’t help wishing that it was just the two of them and Lisa could finally let the mask go. This was the side of Lisa that reminded her a bit too much of the warlord from Brockton Bay. 

“We learned that the presence of a quirk is correlated to the presence of only one joint in the…” Present Mic began, then fell silent as Lisa shook her head.

“That whole ‘next stage streamlining of evolution’ bullcrap? Nah. Sure there’s a correlation there with the foot junk, but I guarantee it’s peripheral.”

“Why does there have to be some dramatic ultimate cause?” Yagi asked. Yesterday Victoria had wondered if he was getting over something, but he appeared at this meeting on his last legs yet again, “Couldn’t quirks just be tied to a freak mutation? I’d like an explanation as much as anybody, but the only lasting conclusion we’ve been able to draw is that quirks simply don’t embrace rational lines of inquiry.”

Lisa scoffed, “Like I was saying earlier, our powers each consume enormous amounts of energy, the energy from entire worlds.” Victoria shifted uncomfortably, she hated thinking about all of the other worlds their powers might be impacting, although it was one of Lisa’s favorite topics. Lisa took a sip of water and continued, “A mutation doesn’t spontaneously arise that requires that much freaking power. It isn’t something that can just occur naturally, at least not to humans. I’m going out on a limb and guessing that it’s the same for you, although some of the powers your planet has are kind-of dumb. Nothing on the scale we’re used to.”

“Dumb?” Present Mic blustered. 

Lisa snickered, “Yeah. I saw someone online whose quirk was growing lichen on their fingernails and then there’s that horny news guy…”

“Did we let them onto the internet?” Present Mic muttered to Aizawa. He probably meant it to be subaudible, but the teacher didn’t really have a low-volume mode. 

Lisa plowed on, as if she couldn’t hear him. “Anyway, that’s another clue: your powers aren’t all geared for combat in the same way ours are. You somehow exist outside of the cycle of conflict, which, as we just explained if you were paying any attention, the whole point of our powers in the first place. You don’t have trigger events, the timeline is way off, and your powers are even structured fundamentally differently. Still, there needs to be an energy source for your quirks and it sure as hell isn’t natural.”

Thirteen tilted her visored head, “How do you know that?”

Lisa laughed, “There may be a lot of you, but that doesn’t make these quirks ordinary. They defy physics and mere biology: you have to know that. You couldn’t physically consume enough calories for even simple abilities and how would they even power something like your Black Hole or Erasure? These abilities don’t just sprout from nowhere, and for us that was extremely relevant when our cycle almost ended.”

“If all of that happened to you, should we be vigilant about similar occurrences?” Aizawa asked.

“Good question, Eraserhead!” Present Mic exclaimed. 

“Isn’t there already one?” Thirteen asked quietly, “The Quirk Singularity Doomsday Theory.”

That sounded intense. 

“Exactly, Thirteen. Lisa, what you said about your ‘broken triggers’,” Aizawa said, “reminds me of the theory, although we’ve been told that the point of singularity is past. Could the calamity you experienced be just a glimpse into our future?”

“Oh is that what you’re worried about?” Lisa asked, “I think we pretty much figured things out on our side, for at least the next few hundred years. And the Entities laid a trail behind them just to discourage others following. Plus…well I need a demonstration.” She glanced at Victoria, “Hey Vicky, mind using your power? Nothing flashy, hon, maybe just fly up a couple of inches.”

“I don’t think…” Thirteen said, but Nezu said, “Please proceed.”

Victoria sighed and then stood, her knees cracking as she stretched. She levitated about six inches, enough to be noticeable, but not enough to be in danger of the ceiling, “Okay, now what?”

Mask or no mask, there were times where Lisa decidedly slipped back into her ‘Tattletale’ persona, and this was one of them. The bow of Lisa’s lips stretched into a smirk, “Try doing your thing, Eraserhead.”

The sombre teacher stood from his chair, solemnly lifting his hair away from his good eye and fixing his piercing gaze on Victoria. She tensed, waiting for the Trump power to kick in or whatever power Lisa was subjecting her to. 

And…absolutely nothing proceeded to happen. The reaction was deeply split across the table. While the teachers gasped and generally acted like someone had suckerpunched them, the Gimel group just squinted in confusion. The teachers mumbled amongst themselves and Victoria caught something that sounded like “...just to check” before a Snuff-sized black hole erupted from Thirteen’s finger, then promptly fizzled out. 

Lisa wore one of her smuggest smiles. While Victoria preferred the action of the training center or poring through files conducting research, Lisa lived for the verbal sparring hall. She had a dramatic streak a mile wide. Victoria had been pushing Lisa to take up theater for a while now because she would be an amazing actress, but Lisa refused to take the bait.

“Was something supposed to happen to Victoria?” Kenzie asked, “Because that was kinda underwhelming.” The kid was sounding more and more like Imp every day. Maybe she needed more time away from the Undersiders.

“Ungrateful little brat.” Lisa mumbled, “That was my big reveal.” She raised her voice, “This is my biggest clue about your powers, my capstone, if you will. Your Trump abilities are kaputso for us, or to put it in layman speak, powers affecting powers don’t do anything to us. If we had a Trump with us: probably would be the same for you. In combination with what I’ve told you about the brain scans and the ways our powers are gained, it’s obvious that you derive your powers from a different source than our Entities. Somehow we arrived at a similar place through completely different means, some sort of quantum quasi-convergent evolution. Simple answer is that means your powers could do anything: be stable for another thousand years or start the apocalypse tomorrow. So yeah, you don’t have to worry about Titans, but maybe you have to deal with a similar load of bullshit. So keep that in your pretty little minds. Still, I don’t know about this Quirk Singularity Doomsday Theory’s specifics, but it sure sounds like a load of tosh to me.”

The teachers shifted uneasily. None of them seemed convinced. 

“Do you have any ideas about this energy source or the source of our powers?” Yagi asked. 

“Nope, not in the slightest.” Lisa said. “At least, not yet.”

“Not yet?” Thirteen asked, “You…actually think you can figure it out?” 

Lisa shrugged, “It’s only been what, a day? I figured out how we got our powers, well me and some other people. I don’t see why I can’t do that here, but to hit that fucking homerun and smash it out of the park, I need you to play ball with me. Give me the info I need and I’ll get it done.”

Despite Lisa’s confidence, somehow Victoria doubted that even Lisa could unravel that mystery before they left this dimension. But if it kept Lisa’s intellect occupied, Victoria wasn’t about to complain. 

Now that Lisa was finished, Weld stepped in, “In order to contact our home earth, Kenzie needs certain tools and materials. I don’t know exactly what, with all the Tinker jargon…”

“Tinker?” Yagi asked, which started a whole explanation about Tinkers and how they were different from the mere technological geniuses of this world. It didn’t take a Tinker to realize that this world was technologically decades ahead of Bet, or even Gimel. Maybe, just maybe, if Bet hadn’t been stalled with Endbringer attacks, the Slaughterhouse Nine, the Three Blasphemies, Sleeper, the Ashbeast, and the literal end of the world, maybe then Gimel would be at the same technological level as this world at a baseline. It was a window into possibilities that for them had long since crumbled to dust. 

Victoria only half paid attention to the back and forth. Powers in general were interesting and varied, but Tinker powers were downright infuriating. It was the way that they could do just about anything, with enough time. Victoria preferred static powersets, ones where she could delve into the specifics of the individual and glean strategic keystones. Tinkers simply rebuilt the entire house. Get enough Tinkers together sharing insights, and the hive could swap around knowledge to completely reconfigure what each individual could accomplish. Catch a Tinker unprepared and you would often win handily, even against someone like Defiant. At the same time, a well-prepared Tinker could decimate a battle. The time she’d spent around Rain, Kenzie…and Chris, had helped to peel back only a bit of the Tinker mystique.

Rain. Victoria hadn’t seen him since Vista’s birthday party. She really should reach out, but that would have to wait until this was over. 

The discussion continued, Kenzie growing more heated as she tried to explain. Yagi listened, a small smile etched on his wasted features. 

Last night, after Kenzie had unleashed them onto this earth’s internet, Victoria eschewed news sites in favor of gaining a rough picture of this superhuman society, trawling through online encyclopedias and the U.A. website. She’d also checked, of course, to see if she existed in this world. Although she’d found a couple of Victoria Dallons, none of them were her and she couldn’t find anyone else she knew. While sifting through the unfamiliar terminology and histories of the United States and Japan, she couldn’t help but find mentions of a certain Toshinori Yagi, also known as All Might. Somehow this man had been, as close as Victoria could figure, something like Legend, Alexandria, and Eidolon: an entire Triumvirate rolled into one. 

She desperately needed to do more research tonight. 

“Also,” Weld said, “I don’t want to bother you after you’re doing so much for us, but, well I suppose that’s the point. I want to repay you.”

“We don’t require payment.” Nezu said, “What kind of heroes would we be if we didn’t assist those in need?”

Under the table, Victoria used the Fragile One to poke Lisa in the thigh, hard. Lisa didn’t even flinch.

“Okay, not payment, but isn’t there anything I can do for you?” Weld asked, “I can patrol the streets or do paperwork. Really any tasks you throw at me, I can take a stab at. I’d prefer to help out heroically but I’ll sweep floors if you want me to because I have a broad range of skills and I want to be of service. Please, it would be doing me a favor: I don’t sleep more than an hour or so a night and I’ve led teams of heroes. I’d be grateful if you’d let me help you while we’re here.” He did it the right way, confident with an admixture of respect.

“Me too.” Victoria said, “I come from smaller teams, but I’ve worked under Weld before. I can vouch for him and his conduct. As for me, I’ve weathered my fair share of patrols and villain attacks. We’re all heroes, well, experienced capes at least, and we want to serve people. Particularly with your generosity, it’s the least we can do”

Everyone looked at Nezu, “We could use more heroes on the streets.” He said, “But not unlicensed, unevaluated heroes, regardless of how capable you are.”

“Couldn’t you make an exception?” Dennis asked, “It sounds like you need heroes here now more than ever. I’ve been through recovering from this sort of thing and I know that crime spikes after a disaster. You need heroes and we’re literally volunteering to do something.”

“The law is clear.” Aizawa said, his expression hard, “We can’t authorize the unlicensed use of quirks—imagine the liability just when heroes are starting to recover our image in the public eye…”

He stopped as Nezu raised a paw. 

“I think,” The small principal said, “that you raise some excellent points. We will have to give them due consideration. You are right: we do desperately need heroes in our current climate and I appreciate your passion. You have to understand, however, that this is a unique situation for us. We have set procedures for onboarding foreign heroes whose home countries may have different licensing requirements, but none for visitors such as yourselves. I think this matter is worth looking into, but, as Aizawa says: you’re currently unlicensed and unknown entities. Our harboring of you is dependent on keeping our circle of knowledge relatively small. On campus we permit the use of quirks for our students and we have decided to be lenient to you, but should you step beyond our walls, power use will not be tolerated, no matter how noble your intent.”

Victoria frowned. She was used to using powers constantly, fluidly, as an extension of her being. This took them right back to the ice breaking. 

But the principal wasn’t done speaking. “In the meantime, Kenzie Martin?” Kenzie raised her head out of her tinkering, “I will alert Power Loader of the supplies you need. You are welcome to use our Design Studio within reason, but we will need documentation of all that you make. For the rest of you, we can probably arrange you a shopping trip if you don’t mind accompaniment, and we will see if there’s anything we can do about even provisional licensure. Your fervor does you credit and it truly would be a great assistance to have your aid in these dark times.”

Aizawa and Present Mic exchanged a glance. Victoria wouldn’t have noticed if not for the swiveling of Present Mic’s horrendous hair spike. 

“We might also have a project for you, Tattletale.” Aizawa said. 

Nezu’s ear twitched and he snuggled deeper in Aizawa’s scarf, “Oh? Ah yes, that would be a good idea. Now, all of this is very interesting, I have to admit that. What else…?”

He was interrupted by a sudden racket: a man’s confident voice repeating what Victoria’s earpiece interpreted as “I am here!”

All of the teachers groaned. “So embarrassing.” She heard Present Mic mutter. 

Yagi sighed and pulled out his phone. It was a ringtone? “I’m so sorry.” He said, gazing at the screen, “I should take this.”

As he wheeled out of the room, just before the door shut, Victoria caught him saying, “Hello? Dave?”

“I believe we had just about concluded our discussion for today in any case.” Nezu said, “I look forward to continuing these conversations tomorrow. You have certainly opened our minds!” 

Chapter Text

The words blurred on the page. Katsuki rubbed his eyes: he usually didn’t have so much trouble concentrating. One measly break from classes and his focus was toast. It must be the stress of the impending exams, and definitely not the memory from earlier of Izuku’s lips soft against his palm. 

The common room had calmed down a bit since Kaminari and Jiro’s tiff about some biology concept. By now, Yaoyorozu’s review group had also lapsed into self-study. Izuku was reviewing one of Katsuki’s notebooks from last semester, one where he’d purposefully neatened up his notes and corralled his sloppy penmanship, just in case Izuku ever came back and needed to catch up. 

As Izuku’s arm bumped him for the second time, Katsuki sighed. Part of him wanted to snap at Izuku for making it so freaking hard to focus, but also it was just nice to be wanted. And he was trying to be more patient, or whatever. When he glanced up, Izuku was watching him and not the notebook, with those adoringly soft, green eyes.

“Study, you nerd.” Katsuki murmured, his voice blending into the shuffling of notes and occasional coughing.

Izuku stuck out his tongue, a darker pink against his lips, “So bored, Kacchan.” He said, barely mouthing the words. 

Tough. The nerd had broken half the bones in his body recently; he could cope with a little boredom. But Izuku had been studying for a while, on top of additional tutoring this afternoon. 

“What’s so boring about…” Katsuki leaned forward and squinted, “integrals?”

Okay, he could see the point. 

Izuku made a disgusted face, “They’re fine, but they aren’t you. I miss you.”

“I’m right here.” Katsuki said, exasperated. Was this what dating did? They were already on the same common room couch right next to each other. What did the nerd want: to get closer? He lifted an arm, “Want to…?” Izuku immediately snuggled himself underneath, relaxing against Katsuki with his legs curled up underneath himself. He tipped his head back and whispered, “That’s better.” 

“Study.” Katsuki directed, pointing at the notebook. Izuku dipped his head back down to study, but Katsuki could feel his own cheeks reddening. No matter how casually he tried to play it off, he was entirely too aware of Izuku’s warmth seeping into his side. Constant, but pleasant. He wiped his sweaty hands on his shirt and willed himself not to combust. 

Sure enough, Raccoon Eyes caught his eye. She quirked an eyebrow before mouthing something incomprehensible, winking at the two of them curled up together. 

Everyone needed to freaking focus on their studying, including himself. Fucking Aizawa fucking with them and giving them no fucking time to prepare. Katsuki knew that the teachers would probably be lenient out of respect for literally saving the whole damn world—or at least they better be—but he still wanted to murder these miserable tests. 

With all of his classmates together in one room again, complaining and studying together, it finally felt like things were normal again. He dove back into quirk history, bullying the concepts into submission. 

Thirty minutes later, Katsuki again surfaced from his notes when Izuku shifted position for the third time in as many minutes. Sure enough, Izuku was idly paging through his phone. Embarrassingly, Katsuki saw a picture of himself in mid-snarl skim past. When the fuck had that happened? 

“Hey.” Katsuki, “What the fuck is that?”

“I need a break.” Izuku said softly, “I’m sorry, Kacchan.”

Katsuki wondered if he was being too tough. He could be a hard-ass for Izuku to make sure the nerd passed his classes. There was no way he was going to let his Deku fail, but he wasn’t a drill sergeant. And they had been studying for hours. “Fine. Wanna take a walk or something?”

Izuku’s face lit up. The nerd could power lightbulbs with his smile. 

Katsuki sighed. He could also do with stretching his legs. “I’ll quiz you when we get back.”

They wouldn’t be out long and a lap around the dorm wouldn’t be noticed, probably. He figured it wasn’t worth asking for permission, even if Iida gave them the stink eye. Katsuki gave him a one-finger reply. 

“Ah!” Izuku said as soon as they got outside, inhaling deeply. “Doesn’t the air smell good to you, Kacchan? It’s so nice to be outside!” 

The fuck kind of weird-ass statement was that? Katsuki’s first reaction was to retort that it smelled just like the U.A. campus always did, but now that Izuku pointed it out, there was the faint perfume of blossoms from replanted shrubs and the heavy scent of recently turned earth. Though clouds scuttled across the night sky, it was still comfortably warm. 

“Yeah.” Katsuki decided. He kicked a pebble into the bushes, hands stuffed in his pockets. They turned a corner, steps scuffing in sync. 

Katsuki knew he should say something, could feel the pressure to say something squashing the pleasant night, but what should he say? Neither of his parents had really helped him figure out how to navigate these kinds of conversations. Somebody else then: what would All Might do?

“Are you, uh, doing okay?” It sounded stupider than he’d anticipated, once it was out of his mouth. 

Izuku shrugged, “I’m okay. Nothing’s really sticking though.”

“It’s kinda not like you, nerd—usually you’re interested in all this crap.”

“I mean I am, but why am I the nerd when you study just as hard?”

“Because you’re such a nerd about it. Sure I study hard: it’s how I know it’s a load of crap. What’s with you?”

“I’m trying. I really am!”

“Well try harder then.” Katsuki said, “Am I distracting you? I can go somewhere else if…”

“I just can’t focus Kacchan!” Izuku said, with more force than Katsuki expected. “I’m trying, but don’t you just want to be out there doing hero stuff and helping people? I know I can and it feels like a waste to be cooped up here in the classroom learning about integrals and other stuff that might, maybe come in useful once or never again. I know it’s important, or I used to think it’s important, but it just doesn’t feel as important anymore.”

All their time waiting to get back to U.A., texting about their goals for the year, and Izuku had the gall to turn around and pull this as soon as the textbooks came out? 

“What’s not important?” Katsuki asked, “Graduating high school? Having your own life? Making sure you don’t give your mom a freaking heart attack?”

“It’s just…Now I’ve been out there on the streets saving people. I’ve lived being a hero already. I don’t need to go back to school and re-learn when I could be doing something!”

“Dammit Deku!” Katsuki snapped, “You are doing something!” It was as if Izuku thought that out of all the shit they’d worked so hard for, none of it mattered anymore. 

Izuku shrank back a bit, retreating, and Katsuki resisted the urge to yell, to gain more leverage and pound the concepts through Izuku’s thick skull, but he also knew the anger was really directed at himself for snapping.

One fucking day and this was what he did: some boyfriend he was turning out to be. 

“I mean,” Katsuki said, in a more measured voice, “We’ve still got a lot left to learn to be pros.’

“We know how to be heroes, Kacchan. It feels selfish to be here.” Izuku said, “Like I’m wasting my time.” 

“Do you fucking think any of the rest of us are being selfish by staying here and learning?”

“No, of course not. You’re all such incredible heroes.”

“It’s no different for you then, Izuku. Fuck, this was your dream to be here, once upon a time. Have you forgotten that? And on top of everything else, you’ve got a crap ton of quirks to master. You have the whole successor business to figure out. Isn’t that enough pressure? You deserve to enjoy yourself and be here with us and be safe. That’s not selfish! How much will it take for you to realize that what you did before…” to me, he wanted to say, but choked back the words, “...wasn’t fucking okay?”

“Maybe.” Izuku said. “But I was out there, Kacchan. I wasn’t putting it off for another day; I was being the symbol, the symbol that we need right now. It was terrible and lonely, but I made a difference. You can’t tell me I didn’t. It just feels like every minute I’m here is one that I could be spending preventing people from dying. There’s still villains from the prison breaks out there. You know that things are still recovering. We need heroes!”

“Yeah we do, and you’re busy training to be one.” Katsuki said, “You can’t save everyone single-handedly, dork!”

“I can do my best.”

About fifteen different arguments lined themselves up to die on his tongue. How the fuck was he supposed to argue with that? This wasn’t what Katsuki had expected. When had Izuku stopped being the scared little kid he’d grown up with and turned into this adrenaline junkie? Except that wasn’t it. There wasn’t a selfish bone in Izuku’s body. Katsuki knew that Izuku cared ferociously: anyone who spent five minutes with the nerd knew that much. The thought of him teetering close to the steep vigilante slide again, was terrifying. And how dare Izuku still manage to feel guilty after everything he had done. Nothing was ever enough. Even if the nerd spent all of his time out there saving people, sacrificing every other aspect of his life, Katsuki still had a hard time believing even that would satisfy Izuku. 

Without warning, Katsuki took off running. He could have used Explosion and put on some real speed, but this late, that would just startle awake a horde of prying eyes. Awesome though his quirk was, he just needed to get Izuku out of his own head. 

“What? Kacchan?” Izuku warbled behind him, “Where are you going? Kacchan!”

Katsuki slowed and whirled “Come on, Izuku, or do you need One for All to catch me?”

He extended his arms, as if for an embrace, and that was all the prompting Izuku needed. For a moment Katsuki simply savored the determination pinching Izuku’s features, sloughing off the bleak resignation of before. Then, just as Izuku was almost within reach, Katsuki darted away.

“No fair, Kacchan!” Izuku wailed, but there was an edge of a laugh to his voice. He lunged at Katsuki again, shorter legs pumping to keep up with Katsuki’s strides, and again Katsuki managed to dodge, stepping off the walkway and slipping behind a tree. 

They ran, puffing and laughing, weaving between the trees and pools of shadow, streetlamps emerging like miniature moons to light their path. With all of the stress of the past few months layered on top of school and injuries, he’d forgotten how good it felt to just run: not running away or blasting with his quirk, but sprinting for the sheer pleasure of it, the night air flowing over his skin like silk. He managed to stay just a stride or two ahead of Izuku, though the nerd was surprisingly fleet. Back when they were kids, Izuku had always fallen well behind Katsuki in any kind of race, but that was before his One for All training, Shoot Style, and the daily ass-kicking that was U.A.

At some point Katsuki’s stupid heart just couldn’t take anymore and Izuku managed to grab his hand again. They slowed and then stopped, bumping into each other as they huffed out breaths. 

“I caught you.” Izuku said, as if it wasn’t obvious.

“Yeah,” Katsuki said, ruffling Izuku’s hair, “you got me.” He paused. Words were always so much harder than actions. Izuku though was the one who was good at words; so often Katsuki’s words got tangled and he didn’t have the patience for all the small talk everyone else seemed to love so much. For Izuku though, he made an effort. 

“Listen,” He said, “If we’re gonna be heroes together, you’ve got to pass these stupid classes. It won’t be fun, but it is important. There’s no way I’m letting you give up that easily.”

After all, Izuku had never let him give up. 

“Really Kacchan?” Izuku looked up at him, face going all squishy and eyes brimming with tears, which made no sense. Of course Katsuki wanted that: why was Izuku so surprised that Katsuki wanted him around? They were freaking dating now, wasn’t that answer enough?

“Yeah.” Katsuki said, “Don’t you wanna be hero partners someday?”

It was an old dream for them, only recently dusted off again, but also a bit of a gamble. Sure they’d texted about it after the war, between healing and the hospital in the last month of uncertainty, and Izuku had seemed to like the idea. Still, Izuku was All Might’s successor with a whole new stash of quirks. They made a good team, but Katsuki couldn’t help worrying that someday, no matter how Katsuki tried, Izuku would overtake him and leave Katsuki like a retreating dot in the rearview mirror. Katsuki had taken every opportunity to rub in Izuku’s face every potential flaw. Now, despite Izuku’s every inclination, Katsuki worried that the same thing would happen to him. Perhaps it would be fitting, but…

“Yes of course, Kacchan!” Izuku said, “I’ve always wanted that more than anything! Are you sure though that you’d want me there? I know that we fight really well together, but that’s a lot of time together and I don’t want to annoy you.”

In response, Katsuki pulled Izuku into his arms, eliciting a small “eek” of surprise from Izuku. 

“This okay?” Katsuki checked. 

“More than okay.” Izuku breathed. They stood there for a moment, swaying gently. Katsuki rested his chin atop Izuku’s head and closed his eyes. He could feel the twin spots of dampness on his shirt from Izuku’s tears—the nerd seemed to have a limitless supply. He held Izuku until the tears stopped flowing.

Izuku was so strong, strong to the point that it scared Katsuki, and what scared him more was that he couldn’t seem to yank the dark thoughts out of Izuku’s head. He knew this wasn’t the end of this conversation, but maybe for now it would be enough. Next time Katsuki would do better, and then better still until someday he was enough to keep Izuku anchored in place. 

“Better?” Katsuki asked.

“Better.” Izuku said, snuggling even closer. Katsuki cupped the back of Izuku’s head against his chest, an odd, pleasant peace permeating him along with the slight chill of the night. 

“You’re not alone, Izuku, and we’re going to save those people together. Just, take care of yourself okay? I’m here for you.”

He felt Izuku nod. 

“I’m here for you too.” Izuku whispered, as if the nerd had to say it. As if that wasn’t one of the few things Katsuki knew for a certainty: that Izuku, overflowing with love and compassion, wanted to be there for Katsuki. The only problem was getting Izuku to see that the nerd’s own happiness was part of that equation. 

Katsuki didn’t want to break the moment, but it was time they went back inside. There was still just enough time for some more studying before it got heinously late.

He stepped back, leading Izuku by his scarred, fucked-up hand, “Okay, come on, time to go.”

“Five more minutes?” Izuku whined.

Katsuki almost gave in. Almost. But Izuku needed to study if he was going to stay in Katsuki’s class, if they were going to be the best together. Maybe it was selfish reasoning, but he couldn’t let the nerd go. There would be plenty of time for late night walks later, right? “No, you need to study, dingus. But I’ll get you some snacks. Come on, you big shot hero.”

Izuku followed him inside, the warm air enveloping them in the cozy calm of the common room. Another review group was in session and Kacchan ushered Izuku over, plonking him down in a chair.

It was time for Katsuki to find some snacks. 

Chapter Text

“Hey Weld, what music are you listening to?” Dennis asked, jolting Victoria out of her phone. 

Weld pulled out an earbud. “Some new stuff. I asked around and that punk girl, Jiro? Yeah, her: she gave me some song recommendations.” 

“Anything good?” Victoria asked. Weld leaned over, showing her his brick of a phone, “‘Bokurano’, ‘Shout Baby’, ‘Datte Atashi no Hero’, ‘Starmaker’…’I’, just ‘I’? Huh, what do you think?”

Weld shrugged, “They’re okay. Some of them are good, but mostly it’s just nice to hear something new.” He offered an earbud to Aiden, who took it after a moment’s hesitation. With any luck, Earphone Jack’s picks wouldn’t be abysmal. They all knew what Weld’s taste in music was like now; after all, there was a reason Victoria always claimed the aux. 

Victoria returned to her phone, laying on the softer mattress beside Lisa and Aiden. While Lisa typed away at a borrowed laptop, her fingers a blurring like striking snakes, Dennis and Weld sprawled on the other bed. They were using Sveta and Weld’s room again as a temporary base. Although they could have spread out across the suite, there was just something reassuring about all gathering in one room together. Only the seven of them really understood what it felt like to be pulled so far off-course, alone against an entire world, or maybe against was the wrong word; Victoria had to admit that this was the most pleasant experience she’d had on an alternate earth. It certainly beat Earth Shin, although that wasn’t saying much. 

Her own screen blazed with news articles from Japan’s recent battles. The names: Eraserhead, Present Mic, Uravity, Can’t Stop Twinkling, Shinso, Shoto, Tentacole, even Phantom Thief…she already knew so many of them. Clearly this school was at the crux of it all. She’d gathered that these people had just fought a supervillain, but seeing the news stories was different, hitting her on a visceral level. It threw their current situation into sharp relief seeing these faces that she had been chatting with only hours before, splattered across online discussion boards. Then there were some names she couldn’t help but catch from earlier conversations. All for One and Shigaraki she’d expected, but there were also many unfamiliar names: Hawks, Dabi, Endeavor, Himiko Toga, La Brava, Spinner, Mirko, and Gigantomachia among the long list. 

Midoriya and Bakugo claimed most of the spotlight and the pictures of them were unexpectedly gruesome. They had earned their scars alright, and Recovery Girl and the hospital truly had worked wonders repairing those wounds. Victoria knew that at their age she’d been in the thick of fights, and of course the Tenders and Vista had been in costume years younger, but those kids looked so achingly young while bleeding for the entire country, and apparently the world.

One other name popped up relentlessly, over and over again: All Might.

All Might. Victoria found a recorded clip from just over a month ago. How, in the middle of everything, had someone managed to keep the cameras rolling? The footage was shaky, but provided the full awful sequence of events. She winced as Yagi, as All Might, was pounded to a pulp by some strange child glowing like Purity, his power armor splitting like eggshell. Who was the boy? She read the caption and then re-read it: the kid was All for One? How had he somehow managed to turn back the clock? She added that to her list of topics to revisit.

She knew the basics though: this All for One could gift powers to people, powers he’d collected from other parahumans. Even though the power didn’t grant him direct control over his pawns, he still managed a fair amount of puppeteering. And he was out there fighting on the front lines of the fray when he wasn’t backpacking in someone’s brain. So he was like Teacher but more hands-on, or maybe like a nightmare combination of Glaistig Uaine and Teacher? Victoria’s mind hummed with the possibilities. Either way, it was clear that this guy wasn’t small potatoes like Lisa had insulated: he’d caused devastation on a scale comparable to a moderate Endbringer attack. Perhaps it didn’t compare to the mind-numbing destruction of Scion on Gold Morning or the cracks spreading during the Titan war, but she’d seen enough to know that this country was a wreck. 

Any loss was too much, but it was still a little frustrating that these people were so messed up when they lived such comparatively easy lives.

Flipping to her stomach, Victoria paged through the dozens of reports. Occasionally a rough translation would slow her down. Pictures of the devastation poked through the descriptions of human misery. What had Nezu said, that 18% of the U.A. student families were still displaced due to the damages? This country was only just piecing itself together and yet the kids here were still able to smile. 

She tried to pursue that thread, but kept getting sidetracked though by footage of All Might. 

All Might: a name with an allure of its own, but he seemed to live up to the hype. Victoria was used to heroes. Sure, they seemed like grandiose figures, larger than life, above all human concerns and grievances, but growing up in a family of heroes had removed a bit of the sparkle. New Wave’s missions used to be like weekly family meetups, after all: catching up while cuffing the latest E88 goons. And while seeing Flashbang hurling grenades or Brandish with her blazing axe of light was impressive, it was quite another thing to help Brandish repair her costume or assist Flashbang with the groceries. They were real people: flawed and afraid, just a little more than human. In a way, that only made them better, even more fascinating for their faults. Powers were extraordinary by definition, and so were the people who wielded them. Over the years Victoria had worked with some of the best, but All Might still managed to strike a chord. 

As Yagi he was often soft-spoken, even a little melancholic. She hadn’t expected the Herculean figure living on the internet, practically thrummed with vitality: he would be unmissable in a crowd, even without the flamboyant hairstyle. When he said he was there, he meant it. This was a man whose every movement promised hope. Without the clear link between the two forms, Victoria would have said Lisa was full of shit, except for those same intense eyes. She watched footage of his final battle with All for One at least three times. It left her a little starstruck. She desperately wanted to talk to him about his hero career, but how to do that without coming across as another gawking fangirl?

To be the best was a heavy burden, and he bore it well. 

Ordinarily she would have thought baseless confidence was the force behind his grin, but nobody could disregard this man as a vacant-headed fool. Intelligent and skilled in battlefield strategy, she could respect that after so often being pegged as the idiotic brute or dumb blonde. It was so easy for people to think that Brutes thought with their muscles. No, he smiled at the danger, reassurance rolling off of his shoulders like a cape. He wasn’t just a symbol: he was justice. Unmoveable and unbreakable. How could anyone stand before him? He was a force akin to a natural disaster, ready to punch his way to oblivion just to save one person. A shining light standing out against the darkness. The kids here spoke of him with such respect—it was either some damn good branding, or this man was something special.  

She found a video of a fight where All Might just barely hung on, flickering between his forms like a guttering candle.

She watched footage of him pummeled into the ground, taking hits that would each slay a rhinoceros or pound another man into pulp. Victoria knew how it felt taking punches like that and her stomach clenched involuntarily, but he kept on fighting, long past the point that anyone would be forgiven for turning tail. Those eyes blazed out of the screen like twin blue sparks, even as his body faltered, wrecked and ruined. 

Like Arms…Defiant in his suit, battled and bloodied, gutted by Leviathan and still fighting on, without the murder. 

On her third rewatch she spotted a tiny blip at the far end of the Kamino video as Bakugo took off…were those the kids from Class A? She rewound and froze the image. Barely visible in the blur of movement were some green and red smudges. Could that be Deku and Red Riot? She bookmarked the video for later.

Yes, Victoria was used to heroes in name, but All Might was on another level. Now she had a taste of why everyone treated this man with awe. She needed to learn more about his power and how it worked, needed to ask him questions. This man seemed to be all that a hero should be, the kind of hero Victoria had wanted to be once, although it proved to be a level she could never attain. And apparently he had some connection to that kid, Midoriya. 

Victoria drummed her fingers on her phone. At the very least, the sheer amount of evidence available online had banished any last lingering doubts about this all being an elaborate trap.

She paused on an older headline: Only the Best for the Best: All Might to Teach U.A. High School Hero Course.

Dennis flopped on the bed next to them, “Woah, who’s that guy.” The image showed All Might wearing a golden suit and his more muscular form, posing with a briefcase. 

Victoria tapped on the headline. 

Dennis gasped, “That’s Yagi? He looks totally different! Wait…how long ago was that taken?”

“That was him last year.” Lisa said, without checking the date. “You’d know this stuff if you spent even a minute researching. What the hell have you been doing, Dennis, if you haven’t been learning more about where we are? I’d have thought that all the new powers would pique even your interest. You used to be not completely useless at strategy.”

Dennis shrugged, “I figured the two of you had that covered, so Aiden and I were checking out the different media they have here. Did you know that they don’t have Star Wars or the Lambsbridge Orphanage series?” He stopped, looking at their incredulous expressions. “What? Haven’t we spent enough of our lives obsessing over the same shit? I know that it’s a prime opportunity to do some comparative anthropology or whatever, but it is so wasted on me.”

Meanwhile, Kenzie was off in Tinkerland, still puttering around in the corner. Tomorrow she’d be working more with the Design Studio, ready to stock up on materials and tools to crack the interdimensional communication barrier. Now her fingers danced over the keyboard as she programmed something or other. 

Kenzie’s dinner was growing cold beside her. Kenzie had assured Victoria she would eat and Victoria was trying to believe her, but this was growing to be the norm. Victoria had hoped that this trip would be good for Kenzie to pry her mind off the whole Tristian situation, and in a way it had. Kenzie seemed more stable, more positive than she had in a long time, but Kenzie was also good at slipping on a mask. Even though she was a full-fledged team member, she was still a minor and Victoria was responsible for her. The kid had been through just too much. Even after all this time, Victoria still had little idea how to wrangle a Kenzie not willing to accept support.

The door creaked as Sveta let herself back into the room, dressed in an expertly tie-dyed sleep shirt. The multihued swirls branched into more elaborate patterns than Victoria would have thought possible, if she didn’t know who the artist was. 

“Okay, let’s have a team meeting.” Weld said, as Sveta settled on the other bed. 

Lisa, Aiden, and Kenzie groaned. 

“Not another meeting!” Dennis complained, “We’ve had so many meetings lately. What could you possibly have to say that we didn’t already go over?”

Weld sighed, “Dennis, can you please at least try to take this seriously? Okay, Tattletale, you’ve been sucked into that computer, want to tell us about anything? The meeting with the teachers today didn’t tell us much, so please tell me you have some plan to get home.”

“Who, little old me?” Lisa asked. Either she was attempting to bat her eyelashes or her eyes had suddenly developed a bad twitch.

Weld’s metallic features furrowed like he’d just encountered Chugalug, “Why did I have to get trapped here with all you smart-asses?”

“Hey!” Victoria exclaimed in mock-outrage, “Don’t lump me in with them!” She dodged a halfhearted kick from Lisa and flew to the other bed, which only provided room for Kenzie to clamber on board. 

“As I was going to say before I was so rudely interrupted.” Lisa said, shutting the laptop and holding it to her chest, “I’ve been doing some research on this place and putting thought into how we got here. As far as I can tell, this entire fucking universe is cut off. It’s not connected to Shardspace, even though that’s how we came here. It doesn’t take an intellect like mine to realize that there has to be some sort of outside force responsible for bringing us here.”

That was interesting, “So you think it was a power?” Victoria asked.

“Don’t you?” Lisa asked, “Their tech is advanced, but nowhere near Dr. Haywire level and powers do all kinds of fuckery. That’s just the ones we’re used to, too. These people’ve got a thousand times the number of powers our Passengers give us, with more springing up all the time, recombining into new configurations every time someone pops out a new kid. And, as the cherry on top of this fucked-up cake, all those powers align to different rules than ours. Anything goes. I checked the Quirk Registry. They don’t have any quirks on record that can bust between dimensions, but it could have been an unregistered villain or a new manifestation.”

“Or an interaction between powers.” Sveta said. “Like Labyrinth and Scrub erasing the boundaries between worlds.”

“Right.” Lisa snarked, “Thanks for explaining my own revelation back to me, Svets. Really appreciate it. But anyway, yeah it could be a combo: there are lots of possibilities there. Or it could have been someone whose quirk was misdiagnosed, or someone who was hiding their true abilities. Could have been an unregistered villain. Jury’s still out on that one, but I have some interesting theories and leads on where to ask for more access. It’s only Day 2, I’ll figure that one out. In the meantime I’ve been examining their dinky quirk scholarship. For a world where the vast majority have superhuman powers, they really spend a lot of space just to say that they have no fucking clue. Even reading between the lines, it’s clear that all those blowhards don’t know dick. They’re lucky I’m here.”

“As you try to single-handedly solve all of their mysteries.” Dennis said.

“Yep, as I succeed.” Lisa said, “Somebody’s gotta do it, and it sure isn’t those amateurs. I mean it will help us if we understand how their quirks work as we try to get home. “She smiled and winked at Victoria, “So yeah, I’m gonna blow that mystery wide open.”

Victoria couldn’t tell if Lisa was just absorbing the jab or whether she seriously had a grand unraveling as her end goal. She hoped that Lisa wasn’t biting off too much.

“Didn’t that take you years last time?” Sveta asked. 

“That was with the entities actively fucking with me, Svets. Not a problem here.”

“We can leave you here to work on it for years.” Dennis muttered, “All in favor?”

Lisa unfolded her laptop, grinning, “Anyway, a couple names keep popping up in their quirk research here. Most of the stuff is bogus, just PhD’s waffling around about mouse vectors and parasites, but this one guy seems like the only one around who actually knows his shit. Remember those Nomu monsters that the kids mentioned?”

Victoria had seen some pictures of the ‘Nomu’ online, but she hadn’t quite cemented what they were, “Yeah, they said that they had multiple powers from that All for One guy?”

Dennis leaned forward, suddenly interested. He caught Victoria’s glance and rolled his eyes. 

Lisa shrugged, “Yeah if you want the two second version. To put it in a nutshell, they’re bioengineered bodies infused with multiple quirks, at the cost of their cognition. There were some exceptions to that, some Nomu on extra steroids, but it sounds like the ones with any brains worth beans are all dead. The point is that these Nomu were created by someone who actually understands how quirks work. He could manipulate them, copy them, mimic them: this guy.”

She turned the computer screen around, showing them all a photo of a portly man in a lab coat with an unflattering mustache. 

“The next time we see the teachers,” She continued, “I’m going to be gunning to make an appointment with the doctor. He’s in prison, so it shouldn’t be too hard, aside from the usual bureaucratic bullshit. Once we have a little chat though, that should illuminate more about quirks and could help us figure out a way home, once we understand how the powers function..”

 “Great.” Weld said, in full leader mode, “Just please try not to make more waves there. It sounds like that might be a sore subject, particularly if he’s in prison. Any final updates, Tats? No? Okay: Kenzie, how’s it going figuring out the portal tech?”

“You’re not even going to check in with the rest of us?” Dennis asked, “What if my extensive research turned up some vital information?”

“Has your ‘extensive research’ on movies and video games turned up any vital information?” Weld asked. 

“Yes actually, widespread powers make media really bizarre. You wouldn’t believe what special effects look like, or their dating shows! Fine, but yeah, back to you Kenzie.” 

Kenzie bounced a bit in place, an arm around Aiden, “I’m working on it. It’s really tricky and I don’t know why; it feels like all my signals are getting lost along the way!”

“From dimensional fuckery or a power?” Lisa asked, her eyes straying back to the computer screen. 

Kenzie shook her head, “Not everything is about powers—I mean maybe this is, I don’t know—but it’s irritating! I want to use the Design Studio tomorrow and see if they have any ideas. All Might said something about contacting friends for better tools. Apparently there’s a whole island full of innovators somewhere in the ocean! I wish I could go there.”

Kenzie with unlimited access to an island full of high-tech machinations was an idea that potentially scared Victoria more than getting stuck in this dimension forever. 

“Thanks, Lookout.” Weld said, “It sounds like we’ll be waiting at least a bit then?”

“Yep.” 

Weld scratched at a half-absorbed staple attached itself to his arm, “I guess the question is what we do with our time then. The teachers are busy with classes and if they don’t want us out in the streets or to reveal our presence to the larger community, there’s not much we can do. Maybe we could observe some classes while we’re here? Is that too invasive?”

Victoria had been thinking along the same lines. “The hero first years, or are they second years? Whatever, those kids in Class A, at least, are studying for an exam right now.” Victoria said, “But I have a flying lesson with Midoriya tomorrow. While I’m there, I can ask him for more background, try to fill in the gaps. He already wants to know more about our classification system. Maybe we could spread out and shadow the other years as well? If the teachers are willing.”

Weld smiled, showing off silver teeth, “Good, I’m glad that you’re making connections. I’m going to keep pushing to go out and patrol the streets. It feels like a waste to have us all cooped up in here when they’re hurting for heroes. I’m also going to familiarize myself with as many of their protocols and guidelines and laws as I can. And you, Aiden?”

Aiden jumped, “Me? Um, I’m going to help Kenzie as much as I can. I don’t know, what else can I do?”

“Have fun.” Sveta suggested, ruffling his hair. “Maybe get to know some of them. Making connections is important when that’s really our only currency here.”

“Schmoozing is so much work though.” Lisa groaned.

“Which is why you won’t be doing it.” Weld said, “I think…that your talents align better elsewhere.”

Lisa smirked, “That’s the most amicable ‘fuck you’ I’ve heard in a while. I’m not complaining though. You do your little networking gig and see how far it gets you, while I do the real work.”

They all turned back to Dennis.

“Hey, I’ll figure something out!” He said, “Or give me a job and I’ll do it. Why are you all looking at me like that? I’m not the only one; what is Sveta doing?”

“Making connections.” Sveta said, “Talking to people. Observing. Generally being friendly and charming to make up for the rest of you.” She said it with a huge, endearing smile, cuddled up in her flowing pajamas.

“Ouch.” Dennis muttered, “I remember when you used to be nice.”

“She is nice!” Kenzie said, glaring at Dennis, “She’s the kindest, most wonderful person ever and one of my favorite people. Just because you don’t appreciate her doesn’t make you right!” 

“It’s okay Kenzie.” Sveta said, then glanced at Dennis, “You’re right, that was uncalled for.” She frowned, “I must just be tired. Weld, is there anything else you wanted to talk about?”

“I think that’s it for now. I just wanted to make sure we’re all on the same page.”

“This meeting could have been an email.” Lisa said, “Just saying.”

Clearly Sveta wasn’t the only one getting crabby with exhaustion. Victoria had to stifle a yawn herself. It had been a long day. 

“Well if that’s all, then everybody out!” Sveta said, as she ushered them out the door, “Begone! It’s past my bedtime.”

Victoria stood by as Kenzie ate her dinner, complaining the whole time, before saying goodnight and slipping back into the room she shared with Lisa. She still didn’t understand how after less than forty eight hours Lisa had already accumulated so many papers. The whiteboard from yesterday was covered in a new constellation of diagrams with little arrows and boxes marked in Lisa’s ciphered shorthand. While Victoria’s meagre possessions were neatly organized into the bureau, Lisa’s had free-ranged. She was, at least, better than Crystal since Lisa had some standards: it was just that cleaning was a lower priority and Lisa’s power counteracted her lack of organization. 

Lisa was nowhere to be seen, but Victoria could hear the shower running. There was a communal Japanese bath somewhere in the building, which Victoria would have to investigate if they were stuck here for a bit, but for now they were all sticking to the showers. She brushed her teeth and wondered if Lisa had already brushed hers. Lisa tended to have a bit of a laissez faire approach to oral hygiene, basing her routine on the bare minimum of what her power told her she could get away with. 

And that was just the thing: Lisa’s power was nearly always on, lurking unseen in the background. She was always amassing new information, cataloging it, and expanding her knowledge base in unpredictable leaps. It wasn’t a problem really, until something snagged Lisa’s attention, and then she was about as easy to deter as the Siberian. When Lisa had a project, everything else, and everyone else, was secondary. 

Victoria hadn’t exactly gone into their relationship blind on the subject, but it still stung sometimes. While she loved Lisa, Tattletale was a bit more bitter to swallow. She’d seen the worst of Lisa well before any redeeming qualities: a predatory investigator stalking myriad prey. And here they were, in a new world filled with enigmas: this whole place was a bit like a drug that Victoria had been hoping to wean Lisa off of. At least she was working toward concrete goals this time. Victoria had no doubts that they would find their way home sooner or later, although hopefully sooner so that she wouldn’t miss her next rent payment. 

This other quest of Lisa’s though, to untangle the mysteries of power manifestations in this reality…Victoria trusted Lisa and respected her brain and agent both. Nobody understood perseverance like Tattletale. Though Victoria had little doubt that Lisa could eventually find the answers, there were no assurances that they would be here long enough to reach that point. Not that Lisa would see it that way, because nobody had an ego like Lisa either. 

As Victoria finished up her skin care routine, the sounds of the shower cut off. Lisa emerged, wrapped in a towel, a hand pressed to her temple. 

“Gimme the pain meds.” Lisa mumbled, “I need some drugs.”

Victoria sighed and fetched the little bottle from the bedside table, “Hi, I love you too.” 

“Gimme drugs, I love you?” Lisa mumbled, her eyes far away, before accepting the bottle, “Oh fuck yes. I love you so much.” She kissed Victoria’s hair, careful to avoid the moisturizer soaking into Victoria’s face. 

Lisa poured two tablets into her hand, scowled at them, added a third and then swallowed them dry. Victoria almost interjected, but Lisa probably knew what she was doing. Probably. Victoria decided to skip her physical therapy just this once and sat down on the bed, or beds: they’d moved the two beds together to make a superbed. Was this what college was like? She picked up her phone and remembered a question. 

“I was watching footage of the U.A. Sports Festival.” She said, “And I found some stuff about Izuku Midoriya.”

“You’re really obsessed with that kid.” Lisa said, rummaging around in her piles.

“I’m curious about all of them, particularly Creati and Tsukuyomi. Oh, and Mudman. I mean Uravity reminds me of Rune…” Victoria said, and then realized how that sounded, “although obviously not Rune’s personality. Not trying to say she’s a bigot, it’s just her power—the whole floating things...thing. And then Ingenium’s a classic speedster, yadda yadda…”

“That Aoyama kid is such a budget-price Legend.” Lisa interrupted.

“...Yeah, anyway, some of them are really interesting to me, and one of them is Deku. Based on what I’ve read, how many powers does he have? I can’t get a read on it and yet at the Sports Festival he broke a whole bunch of bones while only showing super strength. I get that his control wasn’t fine-tuned yet, but where was the flight? Or those black tendrils?”

“Or all his other quirks, yeah. The missing link you want is called One for All.” Lisa said. “You know, I had a little conversation with that kid yesterday and he reminds me of you.”

Victoria thought of Midoriya’s painfully awkward request for flight lessons. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“Maybe.” Lisa shrugged on a Miss Militia t-shirt, one of her favorites for sleep. It had to be black humor, but still Victoria smiled to see it. Miss Militia had always been fair to her. 

Victoria typed the term ‘One for All’ into the search browser and a new slew of articles popped up, interspersed with the usual clickbait and online discussion forums. She bookmarked the search for later. 

“All these little brats, I can’t believe we’re trapped in a high school.” Lisa moaned, slumping on the bed. “I got my GED just to avoid this crap. The antics, the rules, the hormones, ugh! Prison might honestly be preferable.”

“Yeah.” Victoria lied. She didn’t mind being around these heroes and was enjoying the feeling of being in a dorm on a campus and the snug atmosphere of learning. If she’d been accepted to college, she might have wound up in a dorm room similar to this one. It made her wonder whether she should try re-applying again. 

She nudged Lisa, “All the more reason to get us out of here.”

The smile slipped from Lisa’s face, “Yeah, I’m working on it.”

“I know, and I know you’ll get us home.” Victoria gently moved a tendril of hair that had fallen across Lisa’s face, and then removed her braid. Lisa tipped her face upwards for a kiss and snuggled closer as Victoria began brushing out Lisa’s hair. 

“I’ve been on the business end of your power too many times to underestimate it.” Victoria said, “We got here okay, so I see no reason why we won’t get home. After all, we have Kenzie and we have you, and you know Dragon will be figuring things out on her side.”

Lisa sniffed imperiously, her posture relaxing a tad, “If it was just me, Dragon and Defiant would probably leave me stranded here forever.” 

“Probably not forever,” Victoria joked, “just a couple decades to enjoy some peace and quiet.”

“As if that’ll ever happen. But they can’t dump us here because we have Kenzie here and they love Kenzie! Oh and they’re okay with you too, Vicky.”

“Hah.” Victoria said. Defiant mostly seemed to have forgiven her about the dream-room situation. She put the brush down. “Let’s get to bed. Masterminds need sleep too.”

She turned out the light, settling back on the bed where it was just their breaths and the faint whirring of some fan. Somewhere a door squeaked softly. 

“It’s not like you to be so naive.” Lisa said, “Just blindly believing everything will be okay.”

And then there was this side of Lisa. 

“It’s not blind belief.” Victoria said, “I believe in you, you dummy.” 

“Good thing I believe in me, too.” Lisa said, with just a hint of sarcasm. Victoria could hear the smirk. Lisa rolled over and Victoria pulled Lisa close. She felt the tension ease from Lisa’s body as the pain meds did their work. These moments when all the façades dropped away, these were the moments Victoria treasured. Here in the darkness she had her own private Lisa without the world watching, precious and hers, shedding off the brittle Tattletale confidence. This was Lisa unmasked. There was so much she still didn’t know about Lisa, but that was a journey she was willing to take. 

She almost drifted off when she felt Lisa’s arm move. 

“Nope!” Victoria used a limb from the Fragile One to snatch the phone out of Lisa’s hand, “No more research tonight; you need sleep! Honestly, you’re as bad as Kenzie!”