She-Ra and the Heroes of Power 4 (She-Ra/MHA)

Afterthoughts

The third year business track students had all been given the entrance exam to watch over and review as part of their final exam. Assessing someone’s potential from the start was a key factor in setting up successful hero agencies, and other businesses, so the review served as a good test for them. After they had all left however, the same footage and review room was used by the teachers, as they were the ones who actually had to deal with the kids for the next three years.

Or at least I hope we get three years. The life of a hero was never easy, and  young Midoriya had a tough road to hoe to even make it in the door. 

“Hey,” All Might said as he opened his own door, entering the review room and greeting the rest of the staff. While he’d never admit it, it could get tiring having to be that big, that bombastic, all the time, so with the staff of U.A. at least aware of his injuries, he was glad that he didn’t have to be as bold there. Not all of the staff could make it for this (and some focused on the other courses wouldn’t be much help here), but Aizawa, Sekijiro, Nemuri, Hizashi, Snipe, and Nezu had all gathered to review what the new batch of students could do.

Most of the students were fairly easy to rank, the results double checked to make sure no corner cases were missed in the chaos as to who destroyed which bot or the like. The rescue points were a bit trickier to decide, needing some level of debate in some cases, in particular Yagi was quick to jump in on.

“Young Midoriya put his health on the line to save a fellow, I feel that’s worth a large amount of rescue points. Not to diminish Adora’s healing that she did after the test, but…” All Might paused, the man having difficulty articulating his thoughts on the matter.

“Fine, we can give him a few dozen Rescue Points. Not like we aren’t going to have to adjust for that section of the exam in any case,” Aizawa sighed. “All four of their little quartet present problems for this exam.” As he spoke, he pulled up an image captured of Adora, Catra, Glimmer, and Bow walking into the facility they’d set up. The four were obviously quite close, Glimmer and Bow holding hands, while Adora had an arm wrapped around Glimmer’s shoulder with Catra leaning in on Adora’s other side.

“All four of them?” Vlad King inquired. “I see why Bow is an issue, but the others weren’t as bad.”

“What did Bow do? Sorry, haven’t got to that portion yet,” Midnight said, distractedly running through the videos. “Huh, nice weapon, very fitting name- oh. Yeah, that’s a problem.” On screen the young man was seen rooting into the mechanics of the robot. It took him a few minutes, but he was able to mess with the wires and coding in the robot until suddenly, every robot in that sector shut down.

“We may have to give the others a callback since he shut down the test early.” Ectoplasm opined, but the principal shook his furry little head.

“That feels like opening a can of worms. We’re on a tight schedule, and bringing them back would give them foreknowledge, an edge in future tests.” He steepled his paws together for a moment before asking, “Bow would make it in by the points he scored before that, no?”

“As of last count… yes. Just barely though, he’s in the low thirties ranking-wise, and I suspect he would have had a tougher time if his fellows hadn’t done so well.” Aizawa commented, scrolling through the results on his own tablet.

“Very good! Then if he isn’t given any points for shutting down the rest of the robots, I’m sure no one else will be able to complain.” Even Toshinori doubted that. Suspect it’s more that no one will have the grounds to make a formal complaint, which isn’t the same thing. There were more important things to discuss however.

“Should he even be in the Heroics Class?” Everyone who was in the room turned to Hizashi at that. “Don’t give me those looks, I’m not saying toss him out! I think he’s a good kid, but just look at that hack he did in the middle of the exam. Combined with how funky some of his arrows were, his collapsible bow, he feels like a shoe-in for Support. Plus there’s the fact that he’s, y’know…” Present Mics voice trailed off, uncharacteristically awkward.

He’s Quirkless. It was clearly listed in Bow’s file that he was Quirkless. It shouldn’t be seen as shameful, to be born without a Quirk. It was more common when I was young, but even in the modern day, people like Bow and young Midoriya can still be heroes.

“...No.” Snipe’s quiet input cut through the nodding most of the rest of the room had been doing (though not Nezu or Aizawa, Toshinori noted).

“Care to elaborate?” Aizawa asked, and Toshinori had to hold back a snort at the usually taciturn man being the one to ask that.

Snipe continued. “I sought him out briefly after the test and inquired why he wanted to be a Hero instead of some other course, and he said ‘I can’t reach the people I care about down those paths.’”

“He has a steadfast heart at least, and that is a large part of being a hero,” Vlad King noted. “Thank you for your initiative on this matter.”

Snipe shook his head. “That part only came later. I originally sought him out because I wished to learn how he made that shot.” At the other’s confused faces, Snipe rewound the footage, showing him shooting. 

“See these shots?” It showed Bow taking out three enemies in short order. “Impressive, well-aimed. This one?” The next was him taking down two one pointers with a dual shot, the two arrows splitting off to each find their mark. “The Olympics might not be as popular these days, but there’s still a fair bit of training to compete in them and that shot would be on par with any archer there. And this one?” The final shot was one that curved around a building to hit its target, with some kind of explosive attached to the arrowhead that destroyed the machine. “I’d have to use my Quirk and work hard to match that level of skill.”

I feel like I should be worried about the fact that Bow brought explosives into the exam, but on the other hand, it’s hardly any more dangerous than what anyone with Quirks had. As All Might thought that over, Nemuri gasped. “Is that even possible with skill alone? Are we sure he’s actually Quirkless?”

Nezu answered. “It is possible, just barely.” The principal rewound the footage, slowing it down and showing the exact motion of the shot, how Bow managed to curve it. “I don’t see why he would be lying about it either; it would be fairly easy to tell if he’s actually Quirkless from our medical examinations.” I’m glad that I decided to tell Nezu the truth; at least don’t have to worry about any complications with young Midoriya and his ‘sudden Quirk’ with the principal aware of his situation.

“The stigma would hardly be worth it either,” Aizawa pointed out. “Even before he’s been accepted, there’s already a call to remove him from the path he wants. No, it would be far more likely for someone to try and pretend they had a Quirk and fake it when they didn’t rather than to do the opposite. If he’s that skilled, then he should be a hero.”

“I’m surprised you’re getting so sentimental,” Nemuri teased Aizawa, who bristled.

“It’s not sentimentality, it’s self-determination. If we went by the standards of placing students where they best fit then we’d have to be tossing in recommended students like Yaoyorozu into Support and people like Midoriya into business. He has a good analytical eye… and a poor sense of self preservation.”

“What did you mean by Bow having a tougher time?” All Might asked, eager to divert the topic away from Midoriya. I know it was too early, but this is his dream! I had to let him take that shot, and I think even if I didn’t know him personally, I would say that his progress today was worthy of a hero. 

In response, Aizawa threw up a couple of videos on the large screen in the review room. In each one, it showed Bows friends taking down the other robots with ease. Considering Bow had spent a good chunk of his time working out that hack which was no longer counting towards his score, he likely would have gotten more points now had he just taken down the robots normally. Even still, from the display of his comrades, he would not have come close to their scores. 

Each one had power, speed, and flexibility in spades. Tracking on to the heteromorphic girl, All Might spoke up. “I see what you mean. She’s ‘stolen’ several points, finding weakened foes and purposefully taking the kills. Hardly heroic behaviour.”

“I suggested a ‘Thief Point’ system to subtract from such actions, but sadly I was overruled,” Sekijiro said, crossing his arms and glaring over at Aizawa.

“It showcases tactical skill. Not to mention speed, to get there in time. That being said, I think Catra was the least problematic of them.”

“Oh?” Nezu said, the faint hint of a smirk on his face, if you knew where to look on the mouse-bear.

“She scored a decent number of points-” Over a hundred is ‘decent?!’ “But not enough to actively reduce what was available for the sector as a whole. Glimmer and Adora? Did.” He took down Catra’s video to free up room to better show the two girls blasting apart foes.

All Might noted that it took her a few minutes to get a handle on the capabilities of each robot type. While she wasted no time from the start, teleporting far into the fake city from the get go, scouting out and attacking the robots, she was only a bit slower in the beginning. Sometimes it took her an extra shot to take down a two or three pointer. After that though, she was off to the races. Glimmer’s video was a barrage of clips pieced together, as if the cameras were having trouble keeping up with her rampage. Every other second a teleport, and a blast between each one, the size of the blast calibrated perfectly to destroy that enemy.

For Adora’s part, the girl showed great speed, blurring forward in rainbow bursts, jumping from building to building, easily bounding over faux-skyscrapers. While not quite as fast as the instantaneous movement of her teleporting compatriot, every robot she encountered from the start was destroyed in a single hit. Most of the time she stabbed them with her blade, but the young girl could also project waves of rainbow energy from her blade or simply punch them apart. 

She has some close quarters combat training as well as her powers; those unarmed moves are smooth and efficient, but designed more for fighting humanoids than robots. With the sword though, she clearly has plenty of practice fighting robots or some form of tough, non sentient enemies. Not that she needed it here; I think she could have destroyed the Zero-Pointer just as easily as the others had Midoriya not gotten to it first.

Secretly, Toshinori was glad that it turned out that way; it gave Midoriya the chance to show off the heroic heart Toshinori knew he had. Many other students in Adora and Glimmer’s sectors hadn’t had that chance. The two heroes-to-be destroyed the robots so fast in their respective sectors that it was truly difficult for the other students to find enough remaining robots to get points. They might see an enemy down the street, run after it, and find it destroyed and either girl off to the next, well before they got there just due to how fast and effective those two were.

Each of them had well over two hundred points, with Glimmer’s close to three hundred. Adora’s was slightly lower, but that was only because they hadn’t calculated the Hero Points yet; with all of those added on, she would likely beat Glimmer and possibly clear three hundred points herself.

“How is Glimmer teleporting and firing blasts out of her hands?” Nemuri asked. “You can’t have two Quirks.” If only you knew… though, on second thought, it’s better you don’t. All for One is a ghost that deserves to be forgotten.

“She might be teleporting in concentrated photons. If her limit is mass-based then a series of rapid fire ‘micro’ teleports could create those blast effects.” It was a reasonable explanation to her power, but considering the private message Toshinori received as Nezu spoke requesting he stick around after the meeting was done, he suspected the principal had other theories.

“That explains her, but what about Adora? She transforms into a giant, summons a sword that she can fire rainbow beams out of, has some degree of super strength, and can heal? How is that all one power?!” Hizashi’s voice rose, leading them all to wince slightly. “Sorry, but still. I even asked with Recovery Girl after and she said she’d never seen healing like that. That it was better than even she could manage.”

A penny dropped into the room would have rung out loudly with the silence that followed. I knew it was impressive, but I hadn’t realized how much so. Recovery Girl was world famous for her skill, and for this Adora, healing was merely a small part of her overall skillset.

Better than anyone I’ve ever seen. And All Might had seen plenty, after his own brush with death. Recovery Girl was one of the first ones he had asked, and one of the best, but she couldn’t heal him. There was no one reputable enough who could fix the damages he had sustained, and only a few rumored in the underground that might have been able to. Most rumors turn out to be nothing, and I could hardly trust the villains that might have those quirks if they could, but this girl…

He shook those thoughts out of his head. The injury was painful, but Toshinori could deal with pain. I already chose to pass One for All on to Midoriya, being healed wouldn’t give me that old strength back. It won’t make me a hero in my prime, so I need to focus on keeping mine, and now Midoriya’s secret, concealed, rather than asking her for help.

“How is she that strong?” Eventually Nemuri broke the silence after seeing a shot of Adora slicing a building in half to catch the robot hiding within. “We haven’t even begun yet and she’s as strong as…” Her voice trailed off, but Toshinori could feel the glances directed at him.

Adora isn’t the only one. Bakugo demonstrated plenty of power too, and that Glimmer… usually the Zero Pointer’s entrance triggers the end of the exam, the students too busy fleeing to grab more points, especially with the smaller robots programmed to run off anyways. But in her sector many students didn’t even notice the Zero Pointer. Glimmer had blasted the neck of the Zero Pointer to oblivion as soon as it entered the scene, then teleport the large severed mechanical head atop a bunch of other robots to crush them before moving on to hunt further. She did seem a bit winded by that move though.

“We’ll likely find out in the course of teaching her,” Nezu declared cheerfully. As if he could care less. And he really might not be worried in the slightest. Aware of the potential dangers, but never worried, not Nezu. I have the power to crush a city flat, but that brain of his… it’s scary.

“As for her power, I believe the transformation is the base of it. All her other abilities appear to flow from that.”

“But what kind of transformation could do that? What would that type of power even be called?” Ectoplasm asked. Nezu simply shrugged.

“According to her file, it’s called ‘She-Ra.’” At the confused stares leveled at him, the principal shrugged. “Quirks might fit into the context of words to describe them, but who’s to say that word has to be in a language we understand? Or that there’s any limit on the number of words needed to describe a particular ability? Many Quirks seem simple at first glance but have a surprising number of niche interactions that can’t be summed up so easily.”

“Philosophy aside,” Aizawa said. “Adora and Glimmer still took out the majority of the robots in their sites. And they did so fast enough that it actually limited the chances of the candidates in those sectors. Do we grade the students with them on a curve to compare them more accurately against their fellows that weren't in those sectors?”

Despite him asking the question, Toshinori already knew that he wanted Nezu to answer in the negative. But why ask- probably to give him more leeway for his own stunts in the future. The top hero had been informed about Eraserhead’s schemes and how he had expelled an entire class.

Nezu clearly saw the gambit for what it was as well. “Of course not. Still, we’ll take in those who got good grades and a few points into the general courses, we have a little more wiggle room there. Now if that’s settled, I believe you and Sekijiro have to discuss how to split up students. Or rather, keep them together, in your case.”

Sekijiro grinned viciously. “That’s right, you like keeping together kids that already have a connection, don’t you? Helps you ‘get a feel for what they’re like with new and existing bonds?’” The burly man chuckled, tossing up eight names. “But this year, we’ve got eight students that have connections. Which means you’ll be giving up the first eight picks to me.”

“Fine,” was all the other teacher said, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“Ugh, try to show a little emotion, will you?” In response, Aizawa just gave Sekjiro a shit-eating grin, which soured the other hero further. Likely because he just realized that he gave up the four highest point scorers in getting eight ‘free’ picks. Sure, Sekjiro has a good lot of other students to grab, and alot of them have a ton of potential, but Eraserhead has the strongest. Not that we teachers are supposed to focus on that.

It was inevitable human nature to try and be the best, however, and that applied to teaching too. Every teacher wanted to raise up their students, to one day hopefully see them doing great things. Toshinori wasn’t immune to that either, hoping that Midoriya would indeed claim the rank of Number One from him some day. For the first time since I agreed to teach him, I feel doubt over that. And not because I doubt his potential; I’m certain that Midoriya will do great things, no matter what, but Adora…

The selections were made and the meeting died down. For now, all they could do was wait and see how those young students would grow. As the others were leaving, Nezu bid the others farewell and requested, “All Might, could you stick around for a minute? There are a few administrative matters I need to discuss with you.”

After the others were gone, the principal pressed a few buttons and brought out a small device which he placed on the table. “There, that should ensure no other devices can be listening to us.”

“You don’t trust U.A.’s cybersecurity?” All Might asked, slightly incredulous.

“Well, it did just get hacked by a teenage boy. Different branch of it than we use to monitor the inside of the school for sure, but still. Makes me worry that I’m losing my touch.” He chuckled, but there was a hint of ice to the mouse-bear’s voice. People always think of me when they think of U.A., and yes, it is my alma mater and now the place where I teach, but this place is Nezu’s fortress. Designed to be impregnable, untouchable by the outside world.

“Speaking of… you don’t actually buy those explanations for Glimmer and Adora’s powers, do you?”

“The explanation for Glimmer is plausible, if showing a rare amount of dedication and skill, while Adora’s is… less so,” he admitted. “I think that Adora’s power must be closer to that of Stars and Stripes; an example of limited reality control - or perhaps not so limited - if it is just one power. If.”

“He’s gone. I- I killed All for One, there’s no way he could be controlling her.”

“Hmm, yes, from your description it is unlikely he could have survived your encounter five years ago. But Adora is more than five years old, isn’t she?” Toshinori’s blood ran cold as Nezu continued. “Her appearance and strength seem a bit too similar to be a mere coincidence.”

Frowning, the top hero paused, taking the time to consider the words of the most intelligent being on the planet. “If he really was behind her powers, then usually there would be a sign of wear on the body. There’s almost no one who could handle that many Quirks.” Sometimes he would give his top lieutenants a single extra Quirk, but even that was risky. The body is only designed to handle so much power. Yet she seems to carry it easily.

“There’s also the question of how much All for One would have taught her before expiring, if that is the case.” There was a pause from All Might and Nezu chuckled. “While it’s certainly a theory that bears investigating, there are other avenues to ferret out. As we said, there are Quirks out there like Stars and Stripes which could allow her to do all she’s shown thus far.” 

“But there’s other inconsistencies too,” Toshinori pointed out. Not just for her, but for all of their quartet.” He pointed at the supposed ‘address’ listed for all four of them. It was the same place and simply a mailbox, not an actual address.

“Indeed, and it’s hardly the only thing suspicious in their backstory. I’ve sent some feelers out and found a disturbing lack of evidence or character witnesses available for them from the middle schools they supposedly attended. While the files look sound, we’ve just gotten a first-hand look at how skilled a hacker at least one of them is.”

“Then you think this could be remnants of All for One?”

“Paw-sibly, but for such remnants to have remained at large since his passing, they would be far more cautious than this. Besides, there are alternative theories. Off the top of my head, there’s a few organizations that jump to mind which might be behind not just Adora, but all of her friends, as well as go a long way to explaining some of the… discrepancies they display.”

“The HPSC,” All Might said flatly. The Hero Public Safety Committee is supposedly a force for good, but… They’re also quite secretive in what they do behind the scenes.

“Indeed, that name is at the top of my list. I’ve heard nasty rumors about what the HPSC can get up to in their training methods, but they also supply us with our bots. It could explain how quickly they dealt with the robots as well as what would push the teenagers to have that level of skill so young.” Nezu calmly took a sip of his tea before continuing. 

“I can’t imagine why they would send trainees of theirs to my school.” ‘But they will live to regret it,’ was unsaid but not unheard. And Nezu wouldn’t hurt the kids, oh no. He’ll turn them against the HPSC, break down whatever loyalty they held to the organization and set them to tear it apart.

Toshinori shook his head. “I don’t think they trained them. Some points don’t add up. And why hide it in the first place? Despite any rumors, the HPSC wouldn’t need to conceal their enrollment here, or even use U.A. in the first place.”

“If they were merely looking to elevate the four as Pro Heroes, then they wouldn’t need to. But if they were looking to spy on my school, perhaps snare a few budding heroes to their midst? Well then it makes sense.” Then the principal frowned. “Of course the HPSC would know to hide their tracks a smidge better than that, unless they’re sorely underestimating me. Again though, only one of many groups that might seek to use such promising students…”

The mouse-bear teacher concluded with, “The puzzle rarely looks perfect until you have all the pieces. And they’re only one possibility out of many. For now, like I said before, we’ll just have to wait and see. I know you’ll be busy with your protege, but please keep an eye on them as well. They might need your help.”

“Of course. They, and everyone else, need not fear, for I am here!... Or I will be, soon. I still have some things to pack up from my agency and move to my new office-”

Chuckling, Nezu waved him off. “Don’t let me hold you, then. See you soon.” As the principal waved him off, Toshinori heard him mutter, “This is shaping up to be an interesting year.”

A/N: Yeah, even trying to hide things and play them cool, the BFS sticks out like a sore thumb. In their defense, they haven’t adjusted quite enough to realize certain things about the setting, and some details (like All-for-One and the HSPC) are details most average people even in the MHA-verse wouldn’t know about.

I worry I made All Might and Nezu too knowledgeable/worried about the HPSC but I hope it feels fitting, given how intelligent they are and connected to the hero scene, and how weird the BFS looks. But surely they'll fit in just fine amongst their fellow classmates, right? Right?