#gotta be solidly mid teens at this point right??

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

nancy blackett definitely gives off queer vibes but her reaction to being referred to as "female" in Secret Water is really clinching it. she's so mad about it. this teenage pirate has nonbinary energies

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

Their Hero Academia: Chapter 19

My on-going, next-gen, My Hero Academia fan-fic!   Chapter 19, presented raw and unedited and featuring Shota Shinso! Chapters 0-18 (plus an interlude) can be found here

“Yow!  Look out and shout, listeners!  This is Present Mic and the time is 0630 on this beautiful Tuesday morning!  If you’ve got work today in Hosu City, better give yourself extra time, because there’s a Villain attack downtown that has everything all tied up!  Fortunately, new outlets on the scene are reporting that Ingenium and his sidekicks are on the case!  We’ll keep you updated when we know more.  But for now, here’s the latest hit from Jiro and the Jamming Wheys!”

Shota’s sleepy fingers prodded at his alarm clock until he found the volume button, lowering it to something less likely to jolt him out of bed.  He’d stayed up too late (again), reading through the various Hero News sites and watching videos of Heroes in action.  He always paid for it the next morning, but he always considered it worth it.

He threw back the covers and put both feet on the floor, blinking his eyes for a few moments as he adjusted to being awake.   Pro-Heroes stared back at him from every corner of the room, from the posters along every wall, to the statues and action figures that covered nearly every other available surface.  It had been a real challenge deciding what to bring to U.A. with him, but he’d somehow managed.  But maybe he’d trade a few things out the first time he went home.

As he set his phone to voice response mode as he started to get dressed.  “What’s the current Top Ten Hero Rankings?” he asked it, one of his pre-programmed searches.  While the Official Billboard rankings only came out biannually, there were plenty of other Hero-fans and communities out there using similar algorithms to track on a more regular basis.

A hologram popped up of the results:

1)     Deku

2)     Lemillion

3)     Shoto

4)     Ground Zero

5)     Nejire-chan and Suneater

6)     Ingenium

7)     Rodeo

8)     Gale Force

9)     Froppy

10) Red Riot and Real Steel

Most of those weren’t surprising.  Deku and Lemillion traded off spots fairly frequently and both had been working overtime in the advent of the Quirk Virus outbreak.  Shoto had pretty consistently held the Number Three spot for a number of years, though Ground Zero occasionally rose to the Number Three or Two spot for about a day or two before dropping down.  Ingenium had been pretty solidly Number Six for even longer.  

Neijire-chan and Suneater both worked at the same agency they’d founded with Lemillion after he’d gotten his Quirk back, and typically worked together still, even when his duties drew him apart from them.  Even without him, they’d racked up a number of impressive victories, rescues, and captures to their name.  Hero couples usually did.  His parents frequently worked together too and had similar results, her Quirk complimenting his quite nicely.  Even if they were largely Underground Heroes, operating below most people’s radar.

The only real surprise on the list was Rodeo, Mika Mineta’s mother.  After he fixed his tie and slipped on his jacket, Shota opened the article associated with the most recent list for more information.   She’d previously been hovering in the low to mid-teens, but it looked like a victory against the Villain group known as the Rustlers, she’d been propelled up several notches. It looked like the Villains had taken a bullet train hostage and she’d pulled off the rescue single handedly.

Unfortunately, there weren’t very many video clips of the rescue, just a couple of hastily taken and shaky cell phone videos.  There were more when the train had pulled in the station and she’d walked out with them all tied up, but those weren’t nearly as exciting.

On the other hand, a linked article showed that a newer Pro-Hero, Wreck-It, was rapidly rising in the ranks following his fight with Fullmetal last week, having hit Number Twenty-Seven already.  Most people were speculating he’d crack the teens by the end of the year.   Looking at the time, Shota saved a video of Wreck-It fighting Cy-Bug for later.  If he wanted breakfast, he’d have to go down now.

There was never enough time for the important stuff!

***

Shota came out of his room at the same time that Isamu Haimawari was coming out of his.  Tall and skinny, Haimawari had a good six inches or more on him. Shota gave him a wave.  “Morning, Haimawari!”

“Oh, morning, Shinso,” he said.  “You, ah, you look tired.”

Shota shrugged. “Stayed up too late again watching Hero videos.  I’d watch one, and then it just kept suggesting more!”

Haimawari laughed. “You do know that’s just what it does, right?  For the clicks and ads?”

“Yeah, well… they shouldn’t have so much cool stuff if they’re gonna do that!”

He laughed again as they headed for the stairs.  “If you say so, little dude.  Just don’t let Aizawa catch you napping.  I don’t think it’s be pretty.  He’s really scary.”  He held open the door to the stairwell for Shota.

“Oh, I don’t worry too much about that.   Uncle Shota’s not nearly as scary as he seems.”

Haimawari missed a step and began skidding down the stairs, only stopping himself by throwing out his hands and using his Quirk to brake himself.   He got uneasily back to his feet.  “’Uncle Shota’?” he asked, sounding as if he didn’t really believe what he was saying.  “How do you two have the same name?”

It took Shota a minute to remember that Haimawari hadn’t grown up with the rest of them.  It had only been a week, but he’d already gotten completely used to having him around.  “I’m named after him,” he explained.  “He’s my godfather.  He was my dad’s mentor, back in the day.  Helped get him into the Hero Course and everything.”

Haimawari tilted his head. “That’s a thing?”

“Oh yeah!” Shota said. “Lots of Pro-Heroes started off in the General Education Department but got to transfer to the Heroics Course after they made their mark in the Sports’ Festival!  It’s pretty much a U.A. tradition!  There’s the Negotiator, and the Safari Samurai, and Iron Blood, and Life Sewer, and…”

“Wow,” Haimawari said. “Too bad more schools don’t do something like that.  Dad applied to a Hero school too… but missed the exam.  He might have made it up after.  Course, if he did that, he probably never would have met Mom, so…” He shrugged.  “Guess things work out.”

“Your dad was gonna be a Hero?” he asked.  “Awww, man! You said he’s got the same Quirk as you, right?  Your Quirk is so cool!  I bet he could have made an awesome one!”

That got a smile out of Haimawari as they reached the bottom of the stairs and headed into the Common Room. “Yeah… well, guess it’s up to me then.”

“You’ll do great,” Shota said.  “I know it!”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, dude,” Haimawari said.  

The Common Room was abuzz with activity, with most either eating breakfast, fixing their breakfast, or otherwise engaged.  Shota saw Toshi sitting with Takuma Sero and the Iida Twins on one of the sofas.  Sora Iida was sitting very close to Toshi, practically in his lap, while Takuma and Tensei Iida were sitting close, but not as close, though both looked rather relaxed with each other.  Everybody had already known about Sero and Tensei Iida, of course, since Kimiko Ojiro had blasted it to the farthest corners of the internet, but Toshi and Sora Iida was new.  Good for them, though.

“Haimawari!”  Chihiro Kaminari’s voice cut across the room, from where she was sitting with Mika Mineta.  “Your mom’s a music reporter, right?”

Haimawari looked over in their direction, maybe looking a little pale from the attention.  “Ah, yeah?” he said.

“Then get over here! You’ve got to have the inside scoop on these Double*Pop girls!” Kaminari said.

“Bunch of wannabes,” Haimawari said, looking disgusted for the first time since Shota had known him. “Hang on, let me get a Pop-Tart and I’ll give you the real gossip.”  

He gave Shota an apologetic grin.  “Sorry, I’ve gotta get in on this.  Just… come check on me in about fifteen to make sure they haven’t kidnapped me to have their way with me,”

“Oookay?” Shota said. He wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but he’d still check up on him anyway.  He’d grab some cereal and then go join Asuka, Izumi, and Kirishima-Bakugo for some quick breakfast before class.

Hopefully the morning wouldn’t drag on too long.  He couldn’t wait to get back to the USJ!

***

“Go, Shinso!” Akaya Koda directed, pointing with one massive hand.  “My trees have grown strong, but they will not hold back rubble’s collapse for long!”

Back the USJ, they were continuing their Urban Rescue Training.  Yesterday, they’d been training with Doc Clock (she wasn’t very high in the Hero Rankings, but Aunt Eri was definitely one of the top Heroes in his book), and today they were working with All Might himself!  The former Number One Hero in Japan and the world! The Symbol of Peace!  And he was still teaching after all these years!   It was the coolest thing in the universe!

He was working with Akaya Koda, Takiyo Aoyama, Takuma Sero, and Izumi Todoroki.  The cityscape around them was in ruins, with numerous small fires and many of the buildings in states of significant collapse.  They’d already cleared three buildings and were on to a fourth.  Koda had used her Quirk to fast grow trees from seeds (decades of growth in seconds!), shaping their growth enough to reinforce a collapsed section of a building. But they wouldn’t hold forever. So they had to know how many people were inside to be rescued.

Shota took a deep breath and concentrated on his Quirk, sending out as high a pitch as he could manage, almost past the range of human hearing.  Invisible waves of sound penetrated the building, bouncing all around it, until they bounced back to him, painting a perfect picture in his mind. He could see every nook, cranny, door, pipe, light fixture, and “person” inside.

“Five people inside,” he said.  “Two on the ground floor, three on the third.”

He had spent a lot of time with Quirk Specialists and Quirk Counselors over the years.  His was a true, rare, once in a family line mutation, completely different from anything anyone else on either side of his family had.  They were still figuring out everything he could do.  He just knew he could make a lot of things happen with different sounds.  And every time he found something new, it meant it was a new way he could help people. But sonar was really useful here. Not that it didn’t have its drawbacks. There was the time he’d used it when Kimiko Ojiro was around…

“I can take Todoroki up,” Sero said, pointing to the third floor.  “I can get there, but I can’t get past the fires.  You up for that?”

Izumi nodded.  She looked a little tired; she’d been making lots of ice to fight the fires, only occasionally and carefully letting out little puffs of her own flames to balance herself out.  The silver pieces on her costume were flashing yellow. Shota knew they did something to help regulate her temperatures, but he didn’t know what the flashing meant.  He hoped she was okay.

“I can manage,” Izumi said. “Just get me close enough.”

“Guess that leaves us on the ground floor!” Shota said to Aoyama.

Aoyama shrugged, his glow bright and partially obscuring his features.  “I suppose they shall be grateful for the rescue,” he said.  

“Best hurry,” Koda said. “I shall do what I can to reinforce what I have already grown, but I fear providence shall not be with us for long.”

They moved.  With Todoroki on his back, Sero fired a strand of his Acid Tape upward, pulling them towards the third floor.  Shota sprinted inside, Aoyama hot on his heels and soon passing him.

He probably could have navigated with his Sonar—though the picture it had given him was fading fast from his mind—but Shota was grateful for Aoyama’s light.  With the power out in the ruined building, it cast a soft glow over everything.  

“You said there were deux,” Aoyama said.  “Where?”   He held up a hand and concentrated, focusing his light through the reflective armband he wore as part of his Support gear.  The armband focused the light into a powerful spotlight beam, which he traced over the dark corners of the room.

Shota pointed a little to the left of where Aoyama’s spotlight had fallen.  “One there… one further in the back.”

The ground began to shake and pieces of rubble fell from the ceiling.  Aoyama let out a frightened yelp and jumped to the side as one nearly fell on him.  “Then let us get them and get out as soon as possible,” he said.

Swiftly, they checked the first of the animatronics.  There was a fallen filing cabinet pinning its legs and the vital signs meters displaying on its chest told a story of a great many injuries.  Shota grabbed onto the cabinet and tried to lift it, grunting and straining with all his might, but it was too heavy.

Aoyama let out a sigh. “Allow me to show you how it is done.”   He pointed a hand at the filing cabinet and made some adjustment to his arm band.  A beam of light as wide as his fist shot out, striking the cabinet and slicing through it, splitting it into the portion that was over the animatronic’s legs and the portion that wasn’t.  The beam continued on and went into the wall behind it, leaving a smoking hole and red hot edges on the cabinet.

The lights on the animatronic lit up like a Christmas tree before shutting off completely.  Shota reached a hand towards it and pulled it back. The animatronic and the air around it was still hot from Aoyama’s laser beam.  No wonder it had…  died? Was that the right word for what had happened?

He knew Aoyama was powerful, but he also knew he mostly relied on his Support gear to control his Quirk.  Shota’s eyes went wide as he looked at his classmate.

“Non…” Aoyama said.  “I did not mean…   We… we must have been too late already!”  He gave his cape a flick.  “Let us see about the other one, Shinso.”

Shota was very sure that they hadn’t been too late and that it had been Aoyama’s fault.  But after seeing the horrified look on his French classmate’s face, he wasn’t going to push it.  Maybe he’d be a little nicer after that.

As they headed to the back room, the ground shook again and more of the ceiling began to fall.  A big piece of the ceiling fell near Aoyama, causing him to shriek and Shota to flinch at the noise of the crash.  More started to fall, but when Aoyama tried to move, he couldn’t!   His cape had been caught under the rubble that had nearly hit him.  And more was falling…

Shota screamed.  The air around the rippled with the sonic energy he had unleashed, forming a protective dome around both of them. Several more pieces of rubble fell from the ceiling, but they bounced off the dome.  Finally, it stopped and Shota could breathe again, coughing until his throat felt right again.  That had been longer than he typically used his Quirk for.  He was best in short bursts and could only keep it up as long as he could draw in enough air to make sound.

Aoyama looked at him with wide eyes.  “You saved me,” he said, his voice soft and quiet.  “Merci.”

“You’d have done the same!” Shota told him, even if part of him wondered if that wasn’t true.  “And they wouldn’t let us really get hurt, not during training!”

“Still…” Aoyama frowned and tugged at his cape, until it came away from the rubble with a long riiiiiip.  “A pity. My poor cape.”

Shota was going to tell him that he shouldn’t wear it, that very few Heroes wore them these days, exactly because of what had happened.  He even remembered reading about an American Support Gear and costume designer who had campaigned very hard for the international Hero community to outlaw capes in their entirety, though she had not been successful in that. Too many people thought they were too iconic to give up.  But Shota could quote a lot of statistics on why they were a bad idea…

“Aoyama!  Shinso!”  Koda’s voice rang out.  “The structure is becoming unstable!  You need to get out!”

Both turned and ran for the door.  Shota hated leaving the exercise incomplete…but it looked like they had no choice.

The second they hit daylight, the building finished collapsing, taking Koda’s trees with it. “Thank you for your sacrifice, my woody friends,” she said quietly.  “Rest well knowing the lessons I have learned here will mean it was not in vain.”  Her rocky features were tired and a little sad. Shota knew she took it hard whenever her plants were hurt, even in training.

“You two okay?” Sero asked. “You were in there a long time.” Soot covered his costume and he held his helmet in the crook of his arm, scrubbing at the faceplate with a cloth.

“And your cape is torn, Aoyama,” Izumi said.  She was letting flames dance over her fingertips, the blinking lights on the silver pieces of her costume fading from yellow to green.

“We just ran into un petit bit of trouble,” Aoyama said, putting on a proud grin.  But he only held it for a minute, Shota bet he was remembering that they’d all be reviewing the video later. “But… Shinso was quite good at getting us out of it.  Even if we did not complete the rescue.”

“An unfortunate truism of being a Hero,” All Might said, as he left the safe zone he’d been monitoring them from.  Shota had seen plenty of videos of him in his prime, but there was something captivating about the man he’d mostly known as Toshi’s grandfather.  He’d been a Hero longer than almost anyone; and Shota knew he was lucky to learn whatever he could from him.

“Sometimes,” All Might continued, “you cannot save everyone.  Sometimes… you will be pushed to your limits and it will still not be enough. We hold tremendous power and responsibility in our hands.  Our profession is an unforgiving one, one which demands perfection of us, when the slightest misstep or wrong choice can cost lives. But if you train your minds, bodies, and Quirks…  You can at least ensure those moments are as few and far between as possible.

“I think you all know where you can begin to improve, but that being said…  You are all showing great progress!  We will discuss the specifics later, but the other groups should be finishing up and Water Spout and Doc Clock will be wanting to continue your first aid lessons.  But know that I am very proud of all of you!  You are truly showing you know what it means to Go Beyond… Plus Ultra!”

Shota was pretty sure he’d never felt happier.  All Might believed in him!

***

“Remember, kids, playing by the rules is super manly!  If you see someone cheating, let them know that’s not fair!  And that’s what Red Riot Sayz!”

Shota turned down the volume on his computer while the ad between videos loaded.  Someone had uploaded a bunch of Public Service Announcements that Red Riot had done more than a decade ago and he just had to watch them all!  He wouldn’t be up too late if he did that…

“Shota, go to bed.”

He looked up from his computer to find Asuka, Izumi, Toshi, and Haimiwari in his room.  He must have been watching so intently he didn’t even hear them!

“Go to bed,” Asuka repeated.

“Sorry, dude,” Haimiwari said, an apologetic smile on his face.  “But you looked really tired this morning.  I had to call in the heavy artillery.”

“I’m only gonna watch a couple more,” Shota said.  And he was! Probably.  Sometimes they were just too tempting!

“Those’ll probably get taken down anyway,” Toshi said.  “That’s not an official video channel.”

They might?  Then he had to watch them all tonight!  He started to turn back towards his computer.

“Maybe not the best thing to say, Toshi, *chirp*” Asuka said.

“…Ooops?”

“Shota,” Izumi said.  “It is only Tuesday and you’ve already been tired both mornings this week.  This is not healthy for you or your future as a Hero.”

“Dad doesn’t sleep that much,” he tried.  

“But you are not your father,” Izumi continued.  “And besides… your godfather would tell you to rest whenever you are able.  We must insist you go to bed.”

Shota became uncomfortably aware of the four sets of eyes on him.  And of the fact that despite her soft voice, there was a firmness to Izumi’s words that meant he wasn’t going to win this argument.

“Okay,” he said, dejectedly, getting out of his chair.

“Turn the computer off,” Asuka said.

“And no using your phone either,” Izumi added.

They’d really thought of everything!  He was definitely trapped.  Well… one day without too many videos probably wouldn’t kill him.

He’d just have to watch even more tomorrow!