Chapter 10: School Days part 1 of 2
"You do know him!" Hatsume Mei practically screamed as she got ever closer to Tanya. Her eyes shined with excitement.
Tanya was stunned by what she was hearing. 'Someone else has made contact with Being X in this world!' She remembered the mad scientist Schugel and his unsafe inventions. A pale crept onto her face as the dots began connecting. 'Support course, they make things. Mei's eccentric, even by these worlds standards. Threat to herself. Being X contacted her… Oh no.'
"Mei!" Tanya snapped her out of a ramble, "did you make anything for him?!"
Hatsume blinked once… then twice as she realized for the first time, she had turned down an offer to make a baby. "He wasn't offering anything other than a vague promise, accepting it would have been bad for business. Besides, why would I make things for free?"
It was music to Tanya's ears. 'Stupid old man, why would anyone in the 25th century work for free at the whim of a so-called god? Schugel was an manipulatable idiot who happened to be gifted with magic tech. Mei seems to be a proper entrepreneur and engineer.'
Hatsume spiraled into a new ramble, "I mean, I technically do make free stuff for the hero department but that's because of the scholarship and sponsorship program provided by UA; we practice making babies for heroes practicing their hero stuff, but even though I passed the support course entrance exam with their highest grades I'm not allowed to skip up to the more advanced subjects unless given express permission from a teacher -"
'She's worse than Midoriya!' Tanya cried to herself as she was buried under a wave of rambling. It was all super interesting to her, just so fast she could barely keep up.
Recovery Girl looked to Power Loader while reaching for her faculty phone. "I don't think there would be any legal issues bringing in Midnight. It appears Mei is experiencing sleep deprivation and a manic episode."
Loader squinted through his helmet, he could already foresee the headache that Hatsume would bring him. In frustration, he admitted, "Ms. Mei's not usually this bad. Bring her in."
He watched on in apathy as Tanya held a conversation with Mei, despite having to dodge and skip around her attempts at feeling her wings. 'Mei can be a bit handsy when she's interested in something. With a mind as great as her's, taking her out of the school for behavioral reasons would do more harm than good. When determination meets genius, there's nothing in the world that will stop them.'
"I can make you a super cute baby! It'll help you with your hero work!" Mei pleaded as she stumbled after Tanya. 'I need her measurements! I need to know what kind of baby she needs!'
'B-babies!? What kind of Quirk does she have!?' Tanya screamed to herself as she dashed around Mei's next seemingly playful attempt to touch her. 'Why does she want to touch me so badly!? Is it part of her Quirk? Just a mental oddity like Bakugo's rage?'
"Does your Quirk make you a mother of inventions!?" She asked the inventor as she skidded to a stop on the tile floor.
Mei activated her crosshair eyes to zoom in on Tanya's soft down feathers. She could practically count each ridge, and had already calculated the average number of ridges. "Of course my Quirk helps me make super cute babies. If you'd just," She reached out to touch the softness, "agree to work with me, I can make you a super cute baby to help you!"
Tanya jumped into a summersault, pushed the ceiling with her wings before landing behind Mei. "We barely know each other and you want to make babies ! How will that help me be a hero!"
Like a wild animal, Mei spun around, a manic, joyful grin lit up her face. "My babies can do anything I make them for!" She stood up straight, arms spread wide like she was talking to a crowd. "I can make some for your feet." Mei began slowly walking towards her. "With legs like those, you must do a lot of kicking. Why not put some weight behind them?"
'She's trying to cut off my escape routes.' Tanya began circling Mei to avoid being cornered. 'This is the strangest business proposal I've ever been in.'
"Explain to me how your Quirk works, and what does it have to do with weaponizing babies?" She decided to ask as straightforwardly as possible.
Mei paused in thought without a change to her pose, arms still stretched out wide. 'I had never considered weaponizing infants before! Oh, I could make a baby doll that crawls and self-destructs!'
Power Loader sighed as he watched this display go on. 'Ok, this joke's gone on long enough.' He called out, "For the love of engineering, she calls her inventions babies."
Tanya's jaw nearly fell off as she spun to the support teacher. "So it has nothing to do with actual babies!"
She could see the eyes roll under the giant helmet. "You wouldn't be the only one who thought that. Mei can be… unique."
"Why does everyone think I'm talking about human infants?" Mei asked as she tilted her head. "Is there something I'm not aware of?"
"..." Tanya could only stare at the pink haired mechanic. '...'
'This never gets old.' Power Loader chuckled to himself. He was happy his helmet hid his expressions.
"Under new light…" Tanya gathered her thoughts as she tucked her wings back into a resting position. "I would like to hear more about your… babies ."
Before Mei could begin her sales pitch, the door opened. The rated 18+ hero stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the orange afternoon behind her.
Mei and Midnight locked eyes. Mei slipped into a low athletic stance, ready to bolt. Meanwhile Midnight continued to stand at the door, a hand delicately placed on a cocked hip.
The teacher licked her lips with a smirk. "I hear a certain young lass needs my care."
"YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!" Mei screamed as she tried to run past her.
Before she could blitz by, Midnight easily slipped her arm across Mei's stomach, tucked under her chest. She swiftly spun behind her target and waved her hand in front of Mei's face. A faint magenta mist smothered the girl.
"N-nho. Ho haps." Mei sleepily begged as she became dead weight. She let out a snore as she slumped into her teacher, only supported by Midnight's legs and her arm tuck.
Midnight grunted as she heaved the engineer over her shoulder. "She's, agh, heavier than I thought."
"Thank you so much Midnight, sweetie." Recovery Girl brought out her sweet grandma voice. "It's always a pleasure having you help."
"Seriously." Power Loader added as he watched his protégé being carried away.
"Tanya dear, I think it's high time you left." Recovery Girl demanded softly. "Power Loader and I have much to discuss. Don't we?"
"If you want to talk to Mei again, just stop by the workshop. Odds are, she'll be there." Power Loader shrugged.
"She's truly industrious, isn't she?" Tanya asked on her way out.
"Never stops working." Power Loader said, tone mixed between annoyance and pride. He began to close the door after Tanya.
"We need to talk about that, actually." Tanya heard from Recovery Girl right before the door closed.
'Hmm. I wonder if they'll let her move up to the higher classes like she mentioned.' She thought to herself as she walked down the dimming halls of UA. By now, the school was more lit by their lighting system than their usual employment of wall to wall windows.
Tanya glanced at her shoes. 'Weapons for my feet… that'll be a first. It would have to be light but effective at doing damage. Perhaps I really should go talk to Mei tomorrow, get some new gear.'
'Also, need to talk to Aizawa about my training.' Her wings shifted in anticipation at the thought of becoming stronger. 'I want to see if I'll have clearance to fly around campus, strengthen my wings, and strengthen my wind attacks as well.'
The fight earlier that day began playing back in her head. It had gone incredibly well, up until the last five seconds. 'If I had more ranged options, could I have taken them out faster? Mina held me at bay with her acid, perhaps if I had cleared it, I could have gotten more hits in… That Uraraka girl,' A shard of annoyance crawled under her skin, 'I must have kicked her senseless fifteen times! How did she not go down! Does she have some secret durability Quirk as well?!'
After grumbling about Uraraka's ability to take kicks that would have downed full grown men, she leveled her emotions. Her teammates came to mind with that ending thought. 'Their hearts? Is that the best advice you could have given me All Mi-' She froze up.
Bakugo's last line before the fight started came careening through her mind like a train off it's rails. He had given her a genuine smile, and said "I like your style, Chicken Wings." Just before the fighting had begun. 'He had gone with my plans. Even if he didn't target Midoriya off the bat, I would have sent him anyway. He was proactive, focused, and dedicated to his role on the team. He just lacked the flexibility to change targets. Had I misread him? And he had changed my nickname! When we first met, I was Angel Bitch, and we weren't really acquainted. After the strategy talk, he changed it to Chicken Wings, a decidedly more friendly name! Certainly that would mean…' She shook the thought from her head.
'No, no. Gotta focus on what I can work with. All Might had also stated that Sato had gone too far, what did I do…' It dawned on her. 'I had sent him after Midoriya. He wanted to help me, but didn't know why I didn't want his help. I'll more thoroughly explain my plans to him in the future as well as why the targets I've chosen for him need to go down quickly.' She promised herself to be a better commander in the future.
'These guys aren't fully trained soldiers following the orders of a commanding officer. These are passionate rookies with a drive to fight and no discipline to back it up. I'll be accommodating for this later… Perhaps I'll show them why discipline is a necessity for a healthy team.'
'Speaking of targets, Midoriya .' A deep seated anger took hold and wouldn't let go. 'He's too strong for any of our good. Overly reckless, self destructive, impulsive, a nightmare of traits armed with the strongest Quirk in our class. He has come between me and All Might's favor, which means he's in my way. How were we supposed to take him down? What, short of nearly killing him, could stop him?..'
She glared out the window, where the Greenette stood with All Might by the gate. The number one hero, the man who's endorsement would get her into any agency she desired, stood before Midoriya with a hand clasped over his shoulder. 'He favors you despite your wild, endangering behavior because you're strong. Very well Midoriya. I've been left with little choice. Next time we fight, I will break you myself.'
The next week was equal parts intense and interesting.
Ectoplasm and Midnight had given out quizzes to gauge their students current capabilities, much to the suffering of many in the class. At least Present Mic didn't quiz them early.
Ecto's math quizzes were amusing to Tanya. She could almost tell which problems were his, and which belonged to Nedzu. The teacher enjoyed designing questions that looked big and scary, but were actually harmless. Meanwhile, Nedzu was the opposite. His questions looked small and harmless, even to her, only to expand wildly out of control. She was pleasantly surprised by the difficulty of the test, and was equally surprised that Momo had tied with her at 100% score.
As Kaminari had later cried "Why was there a 0-pointer on our quiz?! Will every test in this school have 0-pointers!?"
"You… didn't have to answer that bro." Sero had tried to comfort him. "It wasn't worth anything."
"It was on the first page!" He had cried as he held up his quiz. A fat 0 sat on top. The poor boy had wasted all his effort trying to solve Nedzu's 0-point nightmare.
As for Midnight's quiz , if Tanya could call it that, was a deconstruction and examination of their hero costumes. All of which were subject to Midnight's incredibly subjective tastes.
On Tanya's costume, Midnight had scored it a B with a comment "Exposed back and arms, good choices. Use of color theory, good choices. Lacks personality and identity on its own. Ask yourself, would a cosplayer be recognized as you if they wore your costume? Passable, utilitarian, but not timeless. B."
'Huh?' Tanya was confused and bewildered by her grading. 'Sato had scored an B+ for minimalism, Momo had scored a perfect A+ on appeal. The worst scorers were Todoroki and Midoriya at F's. How was I supposed to score better? What?' She squinted at Midnight as the teacher strutted around the room, her tight corset swayed with each step. 'You favor sex appeal, don't you.'
She decided to put her hypothesis to work. "Hey Bakugo," Tanya asked, "What did you score?"
He huffed as he handed her his review. "Check for yourself Chicken Wings."
She read through the commentary. 'Good color choices, memorable silhouette, really exposes and exaggerates your pecs, very appealing, A- score. Yep, his score jumped up because of his pecs.'
"It appears you did well." She told him as she handed him his paper.
"I scored 4th! There's nothing well about being beaten out of first!" He jabbed a thumb over at Aoyama. "Much less placing behind Glitter Boy here!"
'First place or bust. I can understand that.' Tanya made a mental note. 'The backbone of any meritocracy is the desire for perfection after all.'
The man in question seemed to have a sixth sense for when people were talking about him. Aoyama posed dramatically as if ill. "Uhh, I truly am ahead of my time. Fashion hasn't caught up with me yet."
The support workshop was a lively place, and one Tanya wouldn't wish to return to unless absolutely necessary. The whole place was full of eccentric engineers. Even if Mei had her senses, odds were that Being X was combing through the class for a new pawn. Last thing she needed was another type 95 being strapped to her chest.
Mei's new baby she had built for Tanya was a set of talon boots. In much the same design as Mirko's expanding shoes, Tanya's talon's sat above and in front of the boot itself. When she kicked, they would expand outward for another hit as well as repelling her away from her target. Where the design got even better then Mirko's shoes, were that Tanya's held another set of functions. Being able to latch on with her feet, much like true talons, opened a realm of new combat options for her.
Tanya sat on the workbench, she stretched and retracted each talon, even the heel hook. "This is amazing Mei, how long did it take you to design this?"
Mei was nearly vibrating with energy. "Well, I first said I would make something for your feet about two days ago. Researching Mirko's shoes took half an hour, they were custom built by a support company that she doesn't advertise so finding that was really the bulk of the half hour. Modification and redesigning took another twenty minutes, good heavens Mirko hasn't upgraded her gear in ages. After that, manufacturing took twenty two hours and fifteen minutes."
"Really?" She replied as she rhythmically tapped her talons against the workshop floor.
Mei awkwardly reached out to touch her feathers, only to be denied by a quick twitch away. "Heh, ha. Yeah, it took longer than I had expected really. You're wearing the seventh version. I designed them after falcon talons, the same as your wings actually!"
Tanya hummed in amazement as she stood up. The weight of the new contraption was unfamiliar to her. Sure, she had the support gear from the old flight suit, but that wasn't comparable to wearable weapons. They were remarkably clunky to walk on, as the balance of her feet were thrown way forward to the toe. It would just take adjusting to.
Mei put her googles back on before chuckling. "Anyways, back to work! I need to rig a set of power armor!"
"Industrious as always." Tanya smiled as she watched Mei zoom across the workshop. She examined her new talons.
A small grin crept onto her face, visible in the reflection of the talon's nails. 'They're sharp.'
Tanya kept up her personal training after having asked Aizawa if flying above the school was acceptable. She still remembered the boredom in his sleep deprived eyes as he had told her "This is a Quirk school. As long as you don't do anything illogical, knock yourself out."
Her back ached as she continued flying laps above the school campus. As she soared over the testing grounds, she continued to plot how to take her place as number one in the class.
Midoriya had been granted an immeasurable amount of strength, one she doubted anyone in the class could contest in a one on one fight. A victory against him would require a coordinated team effort, and even then, the only way to take him out of the fight would be to either knock him out or kill him. Bypassing him and achieving victory through alternative means might be the only reasonable option.
She practiced her wind attacks between laps. Targeted gusts that could keep opponents at bay, wind walls to parry projectiles, they were her bread and butter. If balanced out just right, she could hover with barely a wing movement and glide in place.
Some part of her felt the call of magic when she performed these wind moves. It defied traditional logic and reason, but maintained its own. Even if the mathematics of computational magic were gone with her last life, it felt reassuring to know there was more to explore.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone