ATOMIC STRUGGLE

0「training prep」8

The class made their way into the training ground, and All Might was standing at the entrance. "They say that clothes make the pros, ladies and gentlemen, and behold you are the proof!" Everyone finally emerged into the light, revealing their costumes to his eyes. "Take this to heart, from now on you are all heroes in training!"

"Now, shall we get started, you bunch of newbies?" He grinned at them once everyone was gathered around in front of him.

"Sir!" Iida said. He was wearing an almost full set of white armor with dark blue cloth underneath. It suited him well in Izak's opinion. "This is the fake city from our entrance exam. Does this mean we will be doing urban battles again?" He asked.

"Not quite!" All Might held up two fingers. "I'm moving you two steps ahead. Most of the villain fights you see on the news are outside. However, statistically speaking run-ins with the most dastardly evildoers occur indoors!" He explained.

"Think about it: back room deals, home invasions, secret underground lairs." He continued. "Truly intelligent criminals stay hidden in the shadows." Then All Might began to explain the exercise. "For this training exercise, you will be split into teams of good guys, and bad guys and fight two on two indoor battles."

"Isn't this a little advanced?" Asui asked, seeming to ponder his words.

"The best training is what you get on the battlefield! But remember, you can't just punch a robot this time." All Might warned. "You're dealing with actual people now."

"Sir, will you be the one deciding who wins?" Yaoyorozu asked.

"How much can we hurt the other team?" Bakugo demanded, Izak glanced at him, blinking a few times. He's the one that would be a good villain, why is everyone so concerned that I'm gonna be like that?

"Do we need to worry about the losers being expelled like earlier?" Uraraka said timidly, causing the maroonette to quickly do a double take of what she said. Since then was expolsion on the table?

"Will you be pairing us up based on chance or relative skill?" Iida raised his hand again. Then Aoyama flashed his cape and asked if it looked cool. Izak wanted to make it disappear, but decided not to act out.

All Might looked annoyed. "I wasn't finished talking." He gritted out. "Listen up!" He then explained exactly how the drill was going to work. Basically, bad guys are hiding a missile in the building, good guys either have to catch the bad guys or recover the weapon. "Young Morgan will be inside the weapon, just in case anyone was thinking of trying to get rough with it! Now, time is limited, so we will choose teams by drawing lots!" He held up a box that said 'Lots' on the front.

"Isn't there a better way?" Iida commented.

"Think about it, pros often have to team up with heroes from other agencies on the spot, so maybe that's why we're seeing that here!" Midoriya piped up, causing Iida to nod.

"Yes I see. Life is a random series of events." Then he bowed to All Might. "Excuse my rudeness!"

"No sweat!" All Might grinned. "Let's draw!" Once everyone had been assigned a partner, it was time to begin. "I declare the first teams to fight will beeeeeeee...." All Might had his hands in two boxes, one labeled Villains and the other labeled Heroes. "These guys!" He produced two balls, D the villains and A the heroes. "Team A will be the heroes, and team D will be the villains! Everyone else can head to the monitoring room to watch." All Might instructed, so with that, everyone that wasn't Izak, Iida, Bakugo, Midoriya and Uraraka moved to the screening room.

"Izak, I just wanted to say that your hero costume suits you well!" Iida told him as they went inside the building. Izak's costume matched his hair on the outside, and had lighter tones on the inside of his cape along with tassels on the end. He has shoulder tassels too. There were some designs on the bottom of his outer layer, and everything had gold trim. His sash had two little purple stones that matched the ones on his boots, which were offset by gold belt straps.

"Thanks, you look pretty badass too," he returned.

"Much appreciated! I do have a question about yours, though," he gestured to his eyes. "What is the blindfold for?"

"This," Izak fingered the cloth over his eyes. It was black with purple embroidery on it, which would compliment his eyes if they could be seen with it. At the moment, his eyes were shielded by the cloth, so that wasn't possible. "Is to keep me from seeing molecules. If my eyes are closed, I can't see them. I can still hear them, of course, but it's just one aspect that keeps me more grounded."

"How intriguing," Iida said thoughtfully.

"... You can still see even though it's not through your eyes right?" Bakugo asked quietly, causing the teen to nod.

"Kind of. It's more like the molecules are leading me rather than me seeing, though if I really wanted to, I could make a mental picture in my head using the molecules," he explained, and the blonde huffed. It was silent for a while after that.

"Even though this is training, it pains me to be aligned with criminal behavior," Iida said once he, Bakugo and Izak reached the floor the weapon was on. "So this is the weapon we must protect," He knocked agaisnt it with his fist. "Fake, of course. Say, Izak--"

"Hey," Bakugo suddenly spoke up, causing Iida to turn his attention to him instead of the contraption in front of them. "Do you really think Deku has a quirk?"

"Hm? You saw how he threw that ball," He supplied. "Though I think his power hurts his body."

"I wasn't talking to you, four eyes," The blonde sneered as he whipped to face the two standing by the weapon. "Izak, you know."

"I do, and he does," Izak nodded to him, seeing the boy's jaw clench. "Though it is odd."

"Odd? You mean the way he hurts himself?" Iida cocked his head.

"Partially. I mean, I could fix that if I really wanted to, but I'm talking about the power in general. It's molecular structure... I'll just say that it's somewhat of a mutation of a normal quirk," Izak decided to lie.

He recalled someone at the lab coming out to him, and when he'd exposed them to one of the other doctors, the person had been expelled for being gay. Apparently the doctors and scientists didn't want something like that around their prodigy, so after that, he'd gotten a bit better at holding his tongue.

"Ah, I see, that would be odd. In any case," Iida knocked on the weapon again. "How are you even going to get inside this?"

"Like this," He phased himself through, causing the other boy to gasp slightly. "Try not to throw me around."

"I certainly will not! The heroes may, though I will do my best to keep you from them Izak!" Iida proclaimed.

"Alright!" All Might's voice came through some speakers. "Let's begin the indoor combat training! Team A, and team D, your time starts now!"

And just like that, Bakugo bolted. "Wha--Bakugo, where are you going?!"

"Just shut up and stay there!" He bellowed back. Iida was left speechless as he gazed at the now empty doorway. He started pacing a bit, and then an explosion was heard.