Chapter 4: Conversations
—Note: This is going to be a very long stream of them talking back and forth, so I'm going to format it like they are texting. Also, webnovel doesn't keep my italics and bold letters, you guys can find my fic on AO3 and FF.net for a better experience.—
Shockingly, Hoshiko did not just accept the response 'you're hired' with grace. After some convincing, she got the older man to actually talk with her.
When things were more calm, he started the conversation, "I do have a few things I wanted to ask."
"Sure"-H
"If your quirk is Matrilineal, how have we not seen it in the past?"-AM
"You have, actually. My aunt is the pro hero Kaleidoscope."-H
"The one with the illusion powers? That's…the same quirk?"-AM
"Fundamentally. I'm much, much more powerful but my fine control is worse. It's difficult for me to manipulate light in that fashion, though I can. That's why I can go invisible."-H
"For clarification, all the women can create this…Hardlight?"-AM
"Most of the men too, it just happens to be matrilineal. No one can create it to my level, the most my cousin, who is second on the power scale, can make is small constructs, none bigger than this desk. The rest of my family suffers a fatigue that I don't."-H
"Oh? Why not?"-AM
"My father's quirk was called reservoir. He had this…bank of biochemical energy that he could fill using special receptors across his body. That energy slowly killed him, he wasn't immune to its radiation, and when he figured out about my mom's family he offered himself as a candidate; he thought he could offer the world something by creating me, I guess."-H
"That's uh…that sounds terrible."-AM
"Maybe, and if I wasn't the type of person I am, if I hadn't met all the expectations my mother had for me, I might be more upset about it. But I did meet those expectations and from what my mom told me, he truly didn't feel like he had anything else to live for excluding his eventual love for her and the resultant creation of me."-H
"I guess…but moving past that, his quirk assisted you?"-AM
"I was born with the same receptors that allowed his quirk to function. Through my skin I absorb radiation, and while I don't have that same storage he did, I can directly convert it into useable energy for my quirk. Essentially I can take my energy from outside myself whereas my family cannot."-H
"Wait…is this habit of finding good matches for your quirk common in your family? Quirks don't usually combine like that."-AM
"Yup! From the very beginning. The family doesn't shun those who don't marry for quirk power, and they certainly don't begrudge any women who married for love, but those who increase the power of our quirk line intentionally or unintentionally are pretty heavily rewarded. Is it a great practice? Absolutely not. Has it worked for us? Yuppers."-H
"I suppose I can accept that, it still doesn't feel right. Are you pressured to marry someone who will improve the quirk?"-AM
"Not particularly. If I did, I could accept the same reward others have, like my mother, but I'm in heroics and that's money I definitely don't need. My family is content with who I am."-H
"Well, that's good. How did your father find your mother? I know that's very personal but I'm intrigued."-AM
"Well, my grandmother found him. He was poking around at various quirk research agencies, offering his body for science. My family keeps pretty close tabs on those agencies, looking for people like him, and especially quirkless men, where they are then set up on dates with those women in my family who are willing. My mom was young, only 18, but he wasn't exactly old either, and he was dying. They had 4 years together, my dad dying when I was 3."-H
"Your mom is 19 years older than you?"-AM
"18 and a half."-H
"Well damn."-AM
"My grandmother was worse. Had momma at 16. But she and grandpa are happy and apparently find having 10 children-"-H
"Fucking hell!"-AM
"Yup. Had her last kid at 34, he's a month younger than me, has a kid. My family is an odd thing we could analyze for a long time but in the end we have an advantage."-H
"Oh? What would that be."-AM
"We take energy from radiation, we grow faster. I'm physically closer to the average 20 year old and my brain is closer developmentally to 23. At the same time though, I don't mature any faster. At 7 I was still very much a 7 year old and I'm still, very much… 18. Grandma probably shouldn't have had kids that young, but she did, and I won't knock on her for living a life she apparently wanted to."-H
"I'm not going to over analyze what you just said because it will lead to some uncomfortable revelations. Is there something mental involved with your quirk that causes you all to like…seek people early? That…feels like a creepy question to ask a child."-AM
"Contextually it's fine. And no, not directly, but people can't lie to us. Not easily at least. The women who have cared about love have known that their partners loved them before said partners knew themselves and other wants and desires come to the surface very quickly. Relationships are sort of…fast tracked."-H
"…that's creepy as hell."-AM
"Maybe. It's the life we live though."-H
"I suppose. Moving on, can I get a sort of…list of what you can do, so that I know what situations to involve you in?"-AM
"Hmm…I'll just break down the quirk. The original two quirks are 'Hardlight' and 'Dynasty'. Hardlight allowed my 4 times great grandmother to make small crystals of light. She could also glow. Her husband's quirk ensured that all subsequent generations would have a similar quirk to the first; what it does is increase the efficiency of the quirk combination in the offspring's DNA. Moving forward, her only daughter married a man that had x-ray vision. This was intentional. HER only daughter married a quirkless man, once again intentional. Going down my specific gene line, all the women had Hardlight, my great grandfather could consume all energy, my grandfather is also quirkless, then we have my dad."-H
"With that backstory done, the modern capabilities of the quirk include transforming light into a dense, physical construct with similar properties to plastic. It's actually very bendy, it's difficult to create the constructs that I do. Moving on, I can process all radiation present around me, going up to cosmic background radiation, but when I do that the world gets…weird. This means seeing x-rays, seeing heat, seeing electrical currents, electromagnetic radiation…so on and so forth. This means we can create illusions that are real in pretty much every detectable sense, but they shatter on contact. My ability to absorb radiation is pretty unique to me, it allows me to suffocate fires by siphon the energy and create EMP's…though that tends to fuck with the electricity in my brain causing…problems. I essentially go brain dead without much benefit.
I can't manipulate things other than light very easily, if at all. The bigger or smaller the amplitude of the waves get from light the less control I have. This means I'm weakest at controlling Gamma Radiation and Direct Current electricity. I also cannot siphon Ionizing radiation, it gets turned into non ionizing radiation nearly instantly. That's why I glowed when I entered Niigata, I was turning all of that Alpha,, Beta, and Gamma radiation into light, and I was turning x-rays into heat. In theory, positrons would also turn into light but…I don't encounter those enough to notice, if at all."-H
"…so you can make things out of light, you can go invisible, you can put out fires, you can see freaky shit, and you can fuck with vision. That a good list?"-AM
"Yeah about."-H
"Okay, good to know. You're also good in close combat…why?"-AM
"Exercise. That was for my mental and physical health, as well as developing the training mentality."-H
"And medical knowledge?"-AM
"That was my mother's doing. She's a doctor, used that good ole x-ray vision in the medical field."-H
"Interesting. Well then, you are an incredibly well rounded hero, young woman."-AM
"Thanks. Worked hard for it…really hard."-H
"Shifting the conversation, what is your goal in life? From what you've said, becoming a hero was something decided for you, not chosen. That has historically not worked well."-AM
"To be honest? I was more worried about that before Niigata. After everything…I saw too many families fall apart that day because I just wasn't enough. That's not me harping on myself, I know I did good, but there was just too much territory to cover and no one to assist me. To stop things like that is enough."
"Yeah, you never get used to it. You get better prepared for it, but not used to it."-AM
"I guess my goal boils down to keeping people safe.
"I imagine. I'll get that paperwork ready soon, but I suppose it's my turn to share. There's…other people that need to be aware, though, before you know any large amount about my life."-AM
"That's fine. I'm going to go patrol anywho, you have my number if you need me."-H
"Good luck. I'll send you a message in a couple days…I think there's someone I'd like you to meet."-AM
"Well, see you then."-H
"See you then."-AM
——-
Hoshiko found a bathroom on her way out, in which she changed from her civilian clothes to her proper costume.
The thing wasn't much, yet was also too much. A nano weave material was used to make a compression sports bra, exposing most of her stomach and back so that she could absorb as much radiation as possible. Besides that, the same material was used to make compression shorts. She had two sleek compartments on the outside of each leg that held medical supplies, cuffs, and a multi use power pack that could start cars, charge phones, or be drained by her in an emergency.
The set came with boots made from carbon fiber, they were heavy enough to knock someone out, light enough to kick with, and durable enough for heavy use. They had a small hole in the bottom, allowing Hoshiko to secure herself to structures with her quirk.
The true beauty of her costume was her head piece. Essentially headphones with a light blue glass band across her eyes, it worked as a cellphone, recording device, comms system, and transponder all depending on what she needed. She also had fingerless gloves reinforced at the knuckle in case she needed to get physical or clear debris with her hands. The entire thing was white with a light blue, glowing grid pattern on the fabric. The only thing completely white were the boots.
The costume was practical, fitting her quirk and allowing her full use of her flexibility, while still being that touch of sexy that would help her in the rating department.
The set made her feel powerful, its freedom of movement was glorious. It was probably more revealing than many would think practical but she needed that skin exposure and she could protect herself in other ways. Plus, female pro heroes tended to get…shafted in the costume department as a whole, so she was happy she got to decide everything regarding it.
She threw her civvy clothes in her backpack and left it in the lounge, she'd gotten permission to, then went on patrol.
The first thing she did, once outside, was fly. As quickly as she could, she rocketed into the air until she was at least 7 kilometers up, using her light to create a pocket of air around her to avoid the dangerous lack of pressure. The light pushed the air around her, breaking the sound barrier in seconds. The noise alone probably concerned some people, but she was planning to make it a calling card of sorts.
She stared down at the city, smiling. Closing her eyes, she relaxed as she sat cross legged in her bubble, and she waited. She started to process the light and other information flooding in, her closed eyes allowed her to see with another sense. In her mental scape, she used the information from her quirk to pick out people, groupings of them and individuals. As time went on, she crept deeper into the flood, her mind picking out thousands of small individuals, creating a precise heat map for them in the city. She complied x rays and whatever else she could detect, then opened her eyes, and attached her focus on certain information to her headpiece. The advanced neuralware used input from her quirk to create a live overlay she wanted, in this case seeing everyone and everything as gold outlines through walls and barriers within a world of gray. The headpiece allowed her to single out all information she didn't need, like color, and focus on what she did need.
She made herself invisible and got to work.
Now that the overlay was active, she was only aware of physical objects as gray silhouettes. It was enough to avoid objects though, so she flew back Down into the city, and started to wander. Street by street she scanned up and down, looking through walls and underneath, for disturbances. She couldn't really make out features on people through the overlay, only golden heat maps of them. Sometimes she could vaguely make out what they were doing, sometimes they were just a blob. It took nearly 20 minutes before she noticed anything out of the ordinary among the thousands of Tokyo residents around her.
Walking in front of her, a man slipped his hand into a purse as a woman walked by, pulling out a wallet as he went.
Hoshiko smirked and created a cage of Hardlight around him, walking towards him. She tapped the woman on the shoulder, because she had been walking in Hoshiko's direction, revealing herself as she did so.
"Oh my god- don't do that!" The woman shouted.
"Sorry miss, a man just stole your wallet, he's right down the sidewalk."
"Oh!...thank you."
The man was screaming profanities at Hoshiko as she walked up, a few people had stopped to record him in his cage. Hoshiko cuffed the man, called the non-emergency line, and continued working once he was in the back of a car. She took her cuffs back when the police took over, things were damn expensive, and she continued through the city.
No longer invisible, she was stopped by a near constant stream of people to take photos, get autographs, and generally ask questions. It was Tokyo, everyone had shit to do, but they could take the second or two to get a memento of the pro.
After she felt she'd mingled enough, she turned invisible again. Just as she did so, she heard a roar.
'What?! That was coming from…Naruhata'
——-
Eraserhead
'Oh shit' Shota thought to himself. He wasn't often put in situations he wasn't equipped to handle. His quirk made fighting most villains childsplay, and even when it didn't apply his capture weapon was impossible to prepare against, seeing as he was the only one capable of teaching the counter moves for it.
But every now and then, a villain with a transformation quirk came along and put him shit out of luck.
The man…he knew it was a man because the thing was very naked, had a large, gorilla-like appearance, except he was possibly the size of some locomotives, and he was very, very angry.
King Kong, as he would now be called, was in the habit of using cars as ammunition, and Shota was the target. He ran along the rooftops, doing his best to get people time to run away, but there wasn't much he could do in this situation besides being a target. Eventually, King Kong picked up a sedan and threw it, only for it to be stopped mid air by a glowing net. The horrified driver made eye contact with him, before the car was gently let down. Suddenly, a wall started to form around the angry gorilla with shocking speed. That's when it clicked.
"Entropy?", he said to the afternoon air.
She materialized next to the monster, a spectral fat slamming into the site of its skull. Once it was staggered, she leaped onto the side of a building nearly too quick for Shota to perceive, after which she began an assault against the villain in earnest. Leaping back and forth across the street, hitting a different pressure point each time, she slowly drained King Kong's energy. This entire time the beast man had attempted to trap her from the air, he just wasn't fast enough. Her final move was to shoot both hands forwards, creating a concentrated beam of light that launched the creature into her constructed wall. The walls then closed around King Kong, trapping him and reducing his range of movement as much as possible.
"Hiya. That's not going to hold him long, the light isn't any stronger than your average plastic straw, there's just a lot of it. Do I knock him out here or get him out of the city" She spoke slow enough to be understood but fast enough not to waste time.
"If you can, dump him in the harbor. Further than that if possible, bring me as well. He's all muscle, he's not going to float and swimming will tire him out." He ordered.
"Copy."
And suddenly Shota was rising in the air along side the new hero. People below flashed their cameras, getting photos of the incident for the news and their social media.
Entropy shouted, "Everyone please leave the scene!"
After she spoke, walls slammed down on each entrance of the intersection, everyone inside forcibly removed as she created layer after layer of light around King Kong, who was now fighting back.
"Okay…okay. I'm going to launch him, this might get me charged with excessive force depending on whether or not the pressure differential bursts his eardrums. Close your eyes" And then they were moving, quick.
He didn't cover his eyes, much to his regret, because they started moving FAST. She created a massive rope of light, encasing the beast in a ball as she lifted them up. He heard spectral threads groan as she spun the thing, moving the ball in an ark like a massive sling, and then the light just dissolved, launching the gorilla towards the harbor.
Then, faster than he could blink, they were next to it, Entropy catching the massive creature on an enlarged fist of light. Her punch sent it flying again, until it was in the territory of the open ocean. Through her headset she contacted the coast guard, before gently floating back towards him.
Entropy heaved next to him, the endeavor clearly having sapped her energy. But they were still floating.
"Holy…shit." Was Shota's graceful response.
"W-what's..up?" She shakily asked.
"There's no way that thing didn't weigh 2 tons. You got it up 30 meters in about a second. That's…the force involved alone…you'd have to have the same energy output an entire volley from a battleship. What. The. Fuck."
She just laughed. Eventually she responded in between slowly recovering breaths, "that..had a price…that power grid…is going to be suffering…for days. Have..to pull energy from s'where. Today I just drained the local grid."
He wanted to complain about the illogical power of the quirk more, but his usual mask of apathy was sliding back into place. And to her point, that couldn't have been great for local infrastructure.
"Had I known your construct would hold that well I would've just kept him there." He gave his half question, half statement.
"It wasn't holding. I was just continuously reconstructing the inner layer when he broke it. I'd say I used…3 days worth of the city's usual power consumption. I am going to have hell to pay with the commission in a bit." The last part was said with a truly exhausted downturn. He commiserated.
Eventually, the coast guard arrived, and Entropy created a net for the ship to drag the big monkey back to shore with. Both heroes had a statement taken, then they were left to their own devices.
"Mind bringing me to UA? That's all I got in me tonight." Shota had lesson plans to make and didn't particularly feel like going home.
"Sure." After her affirmation, they drifted south towards Musutafu. It was 3 hours outside of Tokyo by car or Train, but Entropy wasn't bound by land.
Or the sound barrier.
He didn't get much warning as they literally shot towards the city at speeds humans were just not meant to go. He couldn't even process the ground below them. He didn't often get surprised at this point in his life, but he certainly had his share today. He allowed himself to sink into the bubble of light he was contained in and rested.
It took her 6 minutes to get him to the school, at which point he realized she needed to grab her ID anyway. That's how they ended up in the staff room, drinking coffee and discussing the year to come.
"What's your strategy for teaching close combat to…what, 120 kids?" Shota asked as she sat down, genuinely curious. He still had his doubts about the necessity of hiring her; it felt like Nedzu's political aspirations were creeping into his profession.
"Actually, hero course students and anyone from the other classes who apply. I don't have it…100% figured out, but I'm only with any given class 2 times a week. That means I get Monday and Friday to focus on non hero course students. When I do get hero students, I'm scheduled for 3 hours at a time. 3 hours is hopefully enough for 20 kids." Shota understood being woefully underprepared for education, seeing as he'd never actually applied for this job, but he was responsible for 20 kids at a time.
"Do you have a general plan?" He asked, figuring he'd hear the usual 'just out of college' term plan teachers tended to make when they were new.
"…a what?" She questioned timidly.
"You…don't know what a general plan is?"
"No?"
Aizawa sighed.
"Grab a notebook from the resource room, I'll give you a head start."
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone