The day was cold and clear, wind whipping through the academy's hallways every time someone opened a door, much to the chagrin of room's occupants. Class 3-B was starting to wonder where their social studies teacher was... and growing more than a little bored. After a few minutes, an unexpected visitor arrived. With unkempt white hair, a long leather duster jacket wrapped tightly around his skinny frame to ward off the cold, and a strange device stuck to the side of his face, a young man entered the room, clutching a crumpled piece of paper in one hand, a steaming cup of coffee in the other, and looking like he'd rather be anywhere else.
The classmates gave each other sidelong glances, muttering under their breath. "Who the hell is this guy?" whispered a gritty-looking young man with a sword strapped to his hip. "You got me, I don't think I've ever seen him before..." replied a tall, wiry student in the front row. One girl was looking down at something, her hair hiding her eyes as her fingers flickered across a touchscreen. "School database doesn't have anything that matches, that's... strange." Hearing the class' murmur, the newcomer sat down at the teacher's desk, rubbed his eye, and glared at them.
"My name is Yosuke Shirai. I'll be your substitute teacher for today. Mr Hamamura got on the wrong end of some aquatic bacteria after his cruise vacation, and is currently getting intimately acquainted with the wonders of his bathroom. So the school called me at 6 am to haul myself over here, no better options being available. Waking up this early is just as annoying now as it was when I studied here, so if you could just give me... five? Yeah, five minutes to let this cup remind me how to walk upright, I'd greatly appreciate it."
Yosuke leaned back in the chair, stretching his arms and back. The class could hear a faint series of cracks and pops, and Yosuke seemed relieved. He flattened the crumpled paper, held tightly in his grip to keep from blowing away earlier. "Now, I've got the attendance sheet here. Normally, I'd read it off and call you one by one, say your names, all that jazz. but my mouth has a date with this coffee and will be otherwise occupied, so go down the rows and tell me who I'm working with today, all right?"
The students looked at each other with some confusion, but only for a moment. After all, they were seniors, and this was far from the first time a teacher had been out sick, or injured, or called away to hero duties and other emergencies. You learned to roll with it at U.A. or you went home. The tall boy who'd been whispering earlier stood up, a beaming smile on his face. "All right, I'll go first then! As class rep, it's part of my duties to break the ice. I'm Jocko Homo, one of the seniors here in Class 3-B. Nice to meet you, sir!" As Jocko went to sit back down, he noticed Yosuke waving one hand in a circle, as if to request more. "Uh, oh yeah, that makes sense. You probably don't know much about us, do you sir?" Jocko rubbed the back of his neck for a moment, collecting his thoughts. "I'm Top Smile, the Shining Hero! Once I've graduated here, I'm aiming to become part of my family's hero agency, join the family business you know?" Jocko punched the air a few times, flexing his muscles. "My quirk turns off other people's quirks, so I can make my opponents fight fair, and my enemies unable to do much of anything at all!" Yosuke nodded, seeming pleased, then glancing at the next student in line.
Jocko sat down, and a skinny girl stood up next, seemingly eager despite her slouched posture and hands in her pockets. "I'm Meadow... Just Meadow. You don't need to worry about pronouncing my last name, it doesn't roll off most people's tongues. That's my hero name too, just to keep things simple. At least for now. When I sing, I can cause all sorts of interesting and helpful effects on people who hear me." Meadow's voice was strangely high pitched, causing a few strangled giggles from the back row, but also a big grin from a bubbly-looking blonde girl a few seats down. Rolling her eyes, Meadow kept talking. "I don't know where exactly I want to go and do after I graduate, but I'm focusing on being the best I can be and have a lot of options to choose from when I do." Yosuke took another long gulp from his cup, savoring the warmth, and gave Meadow a thumbs-up in response.
A short, chunky boy got out of his chair following Meadow. Lighting up a hand-rolled stick of something or other, the boy started slowly puffing on it, almost in challenge to see what Yosuke would do. The substitute teacher just rolled his eye, chuckled a little, and gestured for the kid to start talking already. "I dunno if you're trying to be like the cool kids or whatever teach, but thanks. Anyway, my name's Nekiro Nishi, and I haven't picked a hero name yet. Nothing's really seemed right. For us mortals it doesn't always come easy, unlike the bright bulbs over there." Meadow glared at Nekiro for a moment, but Jocko just laughed. "I can change my height and strength with gravity. Like squeezing a stress ball, you know? Short makes me strong..." Nekiro suddenly shot up to double his height. "And tall makes me jump high." He returned to his compressed state and sat down without another word.
A blue-skinned girl wearing elaborately archaic (yet oddly skimpy) clothing took her turn. She bowed her head, careful not to let the red-rimmed cap she wore fall off. "Honored teacher, this one's name is Yinzhen, of the Li family. I will be the hero Jiangshi, and show the world the strength and pride of my people's medical and martial traditions. My nails can become needles with life-giving medicine, or spikes filled with debilitating qi as I will. Someday my name will be spoken in the streets, by grateful citizens and terrified villains alike." By this point, Yosuke was about halfway done with his coffee, and it was starting to get a little cold. His facial implant glowed slightly, a small coal of reddish energy building up inside the previously dark and empty cybernetic. After a moment, the liquid began to steam again. Satisfied, Yosuke smiled at Yinzhen as she returned to her seat.
Further to the back of the room, the happy-looking blond girl practically jumped out of her seat. Her outfit was garish and loud, an assault on the eyes and a riot of color, but also strangely appealing. Such elaborate costumes were only worn by people who took pride in them, since they were a pain to take on and off. Yosuke's eye widened for a moment as the young girl practically shouted the beginning of her introduction, but let it slide as she reeled herself in a little. "Madoka Mikan here, the gorgeous young hero, everyone's favorite, star of stage and screen... HEARTBEAT!" She did a little spin beside her desk, and despite the room being illuminated only by flickering fluorescent lights... somehow everyone could SEE the accompanying fireworks in their mind's eye. Despite a couple stifled giggles, Madoka continued, either not noticing or not caring. "My family's big in the entertainment world, we're all artists in our own way! And I'm just like them! When I sing, I get amped up, and when I get pumped, so does everyone who can hear me! It's not quite the same as Meadow over there, but we're besties anyway! Girls of a feather, you know?" As Madoka carefully gathered her dress so as not to rumple it when she took her seat again, Yosuke noticed that judging by the strangled expression on Meadow's face... she couldn't seem to decide whether to be touched or irritated. Maybe both.
"Well, now that the show's over, I'll say hello." A tall, muscular boy rose, the sword at his hip clanking softly against the desk. Though the same age as his peers, he seemed... older, somehow. More serious. He bowed slightly at the waist. "Kyutaro Tanabe, the Insight Hero, Ichimaki. I'd like to say I know everything, but knowing the next few minutes is still pretty handy when I'm trying to figure out whether to use my blade, my fists, or just take off running. Nice to meet you, teach." Short, simple, and to the point. Yosuke merely nodded.
With just a little bit of extra effort and maneuvering, a... generously proportioned young woman stood up. Despite themselves, several of the boys in class fidgeted slightly as her skimpy costume showed off some truly heroic tracts of land. Though to be fair, on anyone else it would have been like wearing a tarp. Yosuke glanced away, burying his face in his coffee mug as the liquid inside came to a rolling boil. "My name is Chiba Chiyo, the size manipulating hero Animata! But you can call me Chichi for short, everyone does. Oh, it's so exciting to have a mysterious new teacher today, how thrilling!" For a moment, Chichi seemed lost in a daydream, blushing as she thought to herself. Jocko loudly cleared his throat, bringing Chichi back to earth. "Oh, oh yes, how silly of me. I can make things flat as a pancake, like they're on a TV screen or a piece of paper! And they look cute and colorful when I do!" She frowned, glancing down at a stack of well worn, dog-eared notebooks in her bag. "Sadly I can't do it in reverse though, and make drawings real. Someday though..." A little expert navigation later, and Chichi was once again filling up her desk chair, already holding a pen and rummaging through her bag for something... probably best ignored. Yosuke quickly gestured to the next student in line, then grimaced as the unexpectedly hot coffee scalded his tongue.
A young woman clad in greens and blacks looked up from the digital tablet she'd been playing with as the other students introduced themselves and hopped up. "Nobiko Moriyama, the hero Synthesis. I can... well, maybe it's easier to show you than explain." Splitting in half at the top of her head, Nobiko's upper body came apart like two large petals, revealing a seething mass of moving metal within. Little sparks of dust flickered up, moving to and fro in coordinated patterns before rejoining the main body. Merging back together, she smiled and bowed her head. "My whole body is made of little machines, and I can do all kinds of neat things with it. Maybe not the most elegant power, but..." Her costume flashed through a rainbow of colors and shapes before returning to its previous form. "Having an infinite wardrobe sure is nice, for one thing." As Nobiko curled up in her chair again, the soul-searing wave of envy emanating from Madoka was nearly palpable.
Finally, without Yosuke even making a move, the last class member popped into existence at the front of the room, disappearing from his slouched pose at the back. "Don't worry, teach, I'll wrap things up here. Ito Sukemochi's the name, but all you need to remember is that I'm Warpden, the teleporting hero. And as soon as I get out of the academy, I'm gonna jump to the top of the charts just as quickly as I hopped in front of your desk. Fortunately for the rest of this little crew, there's plenty of room to follow behind the trail I'll blaze. I'm happy to leave the door open for MY crew." And as soon as he finished, Ito was back at his desk, emerging from a rapidly fading tear in space. Everyone else just rolled their eyes.
The last dregs of caffeine disappeared down Yosuke's throat. He stood up, absentmindedly scratching at the join between his ocular implant and the right side of his face. Seemingly more energized, there was a faint smile on the lanky man's face. "Well then... Now that we've got the basics taken care of, I guess I should try and figure out what to do with the nine of you today. Mr. Hamamura left me a lesson plan, something about applied economics of metahuman theory and how it pertains to using your abilities to make good stock investments or some such, but... I know about as much about making money or whatever as I do about how to make a good Beef Wellington, so that ain't happening." Yosuke walked over to the window, looking out at the frosty winter day outside. "So here's the deal. Since I won't be back tomorrow, there's no point in me trying to teach anything longwinded. Seems like a perfect day for some sparring practice, yeah?" He turned back to the class. "So grab your gear, get into your costumes, throw on a pair of long underwear and some earmuffs, whatever you usually do to get prepped and ready. Meet me in Battle Block C in ten minutes." As 3-B hustled out the door, murmuring among themselves, several students seemed eager. Nobiko seemed a little downcast, clearly she'd been looking forward to discussing financial theory.
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Shivering slightly in a huddle, class 3-B gathered up, awaiting Yosuke's instructions. The wind whipped at them, but their blood was warm. After all, they were seniors, on the cusp of making their big debuts. They'd dueled teachers before, and a few had even bumped into villains during their internships. This was their job, or at least it would be soon. Everyone seemed ready to go, though none more so than Jocko, who was already jogging in place to get limbered up. "All right class, this one's gonna be simple. I'm your villainous opponent, and I've got some critical information lifted from a major hero database. Your group has been tipped off to me, and what was supposed to be a simple extraction has turned into a real fight now that I've been intercepted. My objective is to knock you all out or otherwise disable you, to simulate silencing the witnesses. Failing that, I have to at least escape with the "database". You don't know who I am, or what I can do. I've "read the documents", so I have at least some idea of your capabilities."
Yosuke pointed at the group. "Heroes rarely have all the facts at their disposal. Villains get desperate when cornered, and desperate people come up with some pretty wild tricks. I'm outnumbered nearly ten to one. You can come at me one by one, in groups, or all at once as you see fit. Use the terrain, use each other, improvise. Because I certainly will be. Sound good?"
Ito shouted back. "Seems like you've mistaken us for a gaggle of freshies, teach. This isn't our first rodeo, and we didn't just meet yesterday. We may not know your deal, but you're awfully confident yourself. Even a pro hero can get dropped."
Yosuke's eye gleamed. "Deal." And with that, he vanished from sight.
Jocko looked up, and Top Smile leapt into action. "Synthesis, you know what to do. Give me a wide net, I want sounds, vibrations, moving air, anything you can give me. Map this zone and give us a target. Warpden, get Heartbeat and Meadow to a central location. We can't risk them being disabled before we've got eyes on the teacher. They'll hold their ground until we can properly deploy them. Jiangshi, you're with me, we'll scout forward. Animata, you go with Ichimaki to the right. He'll give you the heads up to flatten our opponent and get the drop on him. Nekiro, head left and meet up with Warpden once he's deployed the girls." Warpden rolled his eyes, clearly irritated by Top Smile taking charge. But, the plan seemed reasonable. In a brilliant flash, they phased into his portal and were gone.
As the two flanking groups moved out, Top Smile turned to Synthesis, who seemed to be struggling to interpret what she was registering. Little motes of metallic dust drifted around her, vibrating to and fro as they slid inside telephone wires overhead and buried cables below. She looked up at Top Smile, showing him a readout flickering on a panel she'd manifested from her arm. "I'm getting something, but... this doesn't seem right. There's a slight thermal spike right where the teacher was standing, but I can't tell what's making it. Might just be his footprints where he was standing, warming the pavement a bit. That's good, means I can follow his prints even if he can cloak or teleport." Top Smile turned to look, right as the shadows started to distort and spread. Everything bent and twisted crazily around the two students, straight lines becoming curved and perspectives shifting wildly. "Synthesis, he's still ther-" The young hero was cut off by a shroud of darkness, and a hammerblow to the head.
When the ripples faded, Synthesis could see Top Smile unconscious, lying on the ground like a sack of potatoes. The world snapped back to normalcy, and Yosuke turned to face her. His right eye was blazing like a star, red-hot and crackling with energy. Synthesis whipped a net of metallic wires at Yosuke, trying to capture him in her nanomachines, but the man was a blur. "You're built different from the others, hero. I doubt I can take you out permanently, but let's see how you... hold up under pressure." Yosuke crashed into Synthesis at full force, ripping her left arm free in a shower of sparks and nanoparticles. In a fraction of a second, the older hero had dismembered his student, hurling limbs and chunks of torso across the battle arena. The last thing Synthesis' head saw before it hit the ground was her teacher vanishing again. Frantically, she began resummoning her components, but Yosuke was right. This was going to take a while.
Jiangshi rushed back arund the corner, disoriented from the confusing lights and shadows. She'd expected Top Smile to be right behind her, but now he was on the ground, and Synthesis was... everywhere. Kneeling beside Top Smile, she hardened her fingernails one by one and began piercing Top Smile's vital points. "Apologies, Synthesis, but I cannot heal one so... cutting-edge as yourself. Have no fear though, Top Smile will be back on his feet momentarily, I will see to it." Synthesis rocked her head back and forth as frantically as she could, making strange electronic clicking and chirping sounds as her jaw slowly melded back together. Before Jiangshi could interpret her teammate's crazed expression, her world turned upside down, the sky coming to meet her even as she hit the pavement. Yosuke dragged the sleeping students off to the side, hiding them in a nearby building where they'd be safe.
"There's no time to rebuild. Time for plan B then." Closing her eyes, Synthesis dissolved into a shower of particles, flowing down through cracks in the concrete and vanishing from sight. Frowning, Yosuke watched her go. "Clock starts ticking now, I suppose. The other groups haven't gone far. No doubt they'll come back to investigate the noise. Better get moving."
A few hundred yards away, Animata turned and looked back the way they'd came. Had she been paired with any other partner, they would have been knocked unconscious by the rotation of her lethally potent assets, but Ichimaki was already moving to evade. Top Smile had chosen the pairing well. Animata put her hands over her mouth. "Oh, oh no! Ichimaki, did you hear that!" The boy narrowed his eyes. "Yeah. Sounds like we've been tricked. Mr. Yosuke didn't evade, he counterattacked. Funny, I didn't get the impression he was the aggressive type. So forward!" Ichimaki looked Animata (carefully and specifically) in the eyes, causing her to blush profusely. "Flatten us both out, quickly. We'll slide between the atoms of the pavement and hide for a bit. If I sense him coming, we can ambush, and if Mr. Yosuke doesn't come this way, he'll at least lose track of where we are. Can you do that?" Animata nodded, and in the twinkling of an eye, they were gone. In the darkness below the street, Ichimaki chastised himself. "Foolish of me. Damn foolish. I let myself relax since this was just sparring. If I'd had my quirk going before we started, I could have anticipated Mr. Yosuke's maneuver before it happened, whatever it was. That won't happen again." After several long minutes, both Ichimaki and Animata became aware of a curious sensation, somewhere in their... middle? Center? Insides? Whatever the 2-D equivalent was, something was poking them. Something very small, almost wormlike. And it knew Morse Code.
Elsewhere in the city, Warpden had met up with Nekiro atop a nearby building. Cigarette still burning in his mouth, Nekiro stretched up tall, floating upwards to join his classmate before compressing back down. "Hey short stuff, I saw a big plume of dust coming up from our starting point. Looks like the opening gambit goes to greyhair." He tapped his ear, shaking out a small sprinkle of silvery powder. "Synthesis' mini-radio she gave me faded out a couple moments ago. It was supposed to keep me in touch with her no matter where I went in the city, but... Obviously that's no longer an option." Nekiro irritably looked up at the teleporter. "You've known me for three years now, and you still refuse to remember that it's only my quirk that makes me short. Tell you what jackass, let's have an arm-wrestling contest when this is over, and you can see how many portal jumps it takes to get back from where I throw you, huh?"
Warpden raised his hands, laughing. "You have your ways of dealing with stress, and I have mine, okay? I'll try to keep comedy hour to a minimum." Warpden looked out over the roof, thinking to himself. "Any ideas?" Nekiro seemed a little shocked to be asked for advice, but quickly racked his brains. "If the teacher dropped Synthesis, then there's no way Top Smile and Jiangshi are still standing. She's not great in a brawl, but I don't know of many students who can take a beating like she can with that fluid body of hers. And he DEFINITELY wouldn't have been able to touch Synthesis if Top Smile had been able to KO his quirk, too. Jiangshi might have dipped out, but... something tells me she's not the type to just flee. Means she was at ground zero too."
Warpden nodded in agreement. "So for now, we're wingmen without a formation. Do we take the time to catch up and group with whoever's left, or do we go on the attack? That's the question." Nekiro looked up at his (temporarily) taller classmate. "Do you really have to ask?" Warpden grinned. "No, but it's only polite." Nekiro rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Just... get me airborne." In a flash of light, they were gone.
Yosuke wandered through the streets, stretching his arms and legs. Little lenses of bent light drifted almost invisibly through the air around him, bringing views from dozens of angles straight to his organic left eye. He looked relaxed, but every blind spot was covered. His right eye, or at least the metal cuplike structure replacing it, glowed brilliantly. Though it was a chilly day, the air was clear and gathering sunlight was a piece of cake. Yosuke could feel the warmth permeating his body, filling his muscles with energy well beyond what his slender build was normally capable of. "Well, so far so good. Two down, a third disabled for a while, and the rest are split up. If they hold to Top Smile's plan, two of the girls are all but out of the fight as well, waiting for instructions that aren't going to arrive, hidden somewhere in the city."
Yosuke grimaced. "Shame this isn't an actual town, or I could go get some lunch. Sunbeams aren't exactly the breakfast of champions." The substitute teacher looked around, seeing no one. "Not all of them know their leader is down, but some likely will. Smart of them to keep their distance and regroup. Time to shift gears, then, and make my exit." The twinkling lenses of light vanished, and Yosuke along with them. Draining the ambient light into his false eye, the young teacher bent it around his body, cloaking himself from view save only for one tiny opening, to prevent him from also being blind. Slowly and quietly, Yosuke began moving toward the massive city gate. Behind him, almost unnoticeable, tiny little nodules of metal popped up one by one in the pavement, following his progress like a dotted line.
Heartbeat was grumbling, pacing back and forth in the empty fake auditorium Warpden had left her and Meadow in. This was boring! And worst of all, what's a concert hall without an audience? Her bubblegum-princess attire clashed with Meadow's muted palette too. Might get bonus points for a goofy/straight man duo, but that's about it. She sighed loudly, sitting on the edge of the stage and waving her legs back and forth. Meadow rolled her eyes. "Heartbeat, could you relax for maybe, I don't know, one full minute? Please? Warpden could be back at any moment, or for all we know the battle could come to us. We have to be ready if it does." Heartbeat pouted, but stopped fidgeting. "I know, I know. I'm not a little kid. I'm just all fired up with... nothing to do. What if our friends are already in trouble?"
Meadow sighed. "Part of being a hero is trusting other heroes. That includes letting them do their jobs to wear down our target, while we hold back and act at the right moment. Just get your head in the game, we'll make our move soon enough." Heartbeat looked around, a devilish smile forming on her face. "You know... this IS a music hall. And we ARE musical heroes, right?" Meadow frowned. "Yeah?" "So, shouldn't we be warming up?" Meadow's eyes widened. "You can't be serious." The blond-haired hurricane practically yanked the taller girl from her seat, dragging her onstage. "Of course I am! And I'm not just joking around either, you of all people know how hard it is to project when your throat's not loosened up. Now come on, come come come come, get up here, give me a mic check, and let's do... KARAOKE!" As Heartbeat started giving her best Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do to get ready, Meadow found herself kind of wishing she was back home in Iceland. Being hurled into a volcano.
But the beat was catchy, and... somehow, mysteriously, Heartbeat had picked Meadow's very favorite melody to start with. "How the fuck has she even HEARD of that band? This album was a Euro-only release, with a secret track in the gold-cover encore printing. This song, specifically! I'm one of like five people in this country who've probably listened to it, ever! She... Goddamnit, you... evil little witch." Meadow too, finally began to sing, flowing along with the harmony. Heartbeat's eyes only sparkled mischievously.
Elsewhere, two lines emerged from the concrete, almost invisible until they expanded, popping back into the third dimension. Ichimaki looked at Animata, and the two of them nodded. Without saying a word, they ran through the streets, following a trail of little metal dots.
High above the city, Warpden burst into the sky, falling freely with Nekiro for a moment. Down below, they'd noticed glimmering bits of metal drawing arrows and messages, visible from their vantage point.
[REMAIN SILENT]
[TWO DOWN]
[OPERATION HAMMERFALL]
[LOCATION MARKED]
[TARGET UNSEEN]
Somewhere, down there, Synthesis was doing her best. She'd never have time to recondense, so this was the best alternative. The last signal Warpden received from Synthesis before she got cut off was "Dust Protocol", the team's pre-arranged code for this sort of event. Having heard it, Warpden knew to look for oddities in his surroundings, telltale clues and signs from Synthesis. "You ready, Nekiro? I've kept us as high as I can go, and my portal flares have been as close to a match for this blue sky, so hopefully we haven't been spotted on approach. Synth's pointed out your landing zone, so crush up. Whatever's down there, I think it's stealthy." Nekiro merely grunted, barely able to speak from how hard he was focusing on his quirk. "I'm... Fine... You... Just... Aim... Straight..." Warpden laughed. "You got it, cannonball. Bombs... away!"
Nekiro began plummeting toward the ground, as Warpden vanished above him.
"Something's not right..." Yosuke thought to himself as he snuck through the empty streets. "I know I got the drop on them, but these kids have some fighting spirit, or they wouldn't have gotten this far at U.A. It's been quiet. Too quiet." Creeping closer to the exit, Yosuke looked around, carefully examining his surroundings. No one to either side, no one in front, no one behind. Just as Yosuke began to look up, a searing pain shot through his foot. Howling in unexpected pain, he jumped back, his light cloak flickering and vanishing. A thin metal spike, coated in blood, retracted through the pavement. "Fuck! I didn't think she could spread herself this far. One of her limbs must have followed me this whole time." Yosuke looked at his foot. "Too small to cause serious bleeding, but damn that fucking HURTS! Ok, stealth's out, they know where I am." A firestorm of energy began boiling in his implant, the sun's fury waking up once more. "Can't risk letting her infiltrate me with nanomachines. That could have been an injection, maybe worse if Jiangshi did wake up and give Synthesis something extra. No more time. Here we go, then." The air around Yosuke grew hot as sunbeams poured into him, bent around corners and pulled in from a hundred yards around.
"Lightspeed"
Yosuke started to sprint, blazing with energy. And as he took his third step, Nekiro hit the teacher like a meteor.
Pavement cracked, windows burst, and shockwaves pulverized everything within twenty feet of the impact. Yosuke fell, skidding and ricocheting down the road, smashing through a telephone pole and coming to rest embedded in a parked car a hundred feet away. His ears ringing, the disoriented teacher struggled to pull himself from the wreckage. Coughing and gasping, Yosuke only had time to register Nekiro's unconscious body lying in his own crater, before his feet fell out from underneath him, and the substitute teacher vanished into one of Warpden's portals.
Falling from balcony height, Yosuke pinballed through a dozen chairs, grabbing onto a spotlight frame to halt his slide. In front of him, a swarm of music notes seethed and boiled with energy, as Meadow hurled her serpent towards him. "I guess there was something to your plan after all, Heartbeat! It's so much easier to have a grand crescendo when you can take a moment to build to the climax!" Heartbeat nodded in agreement, sparkling back at Meadow from atop her portable stage. Revved up and singing... what appeared to be some sort of black metal vocal solo, Heartbeat's voice poured into Meadow, filling the empty hall with vocals ripped straight from the throats of a thousand demons.
Every time Yosuke made a move towards the stage, Ichimaki was there to block him, his jitte and sword tracing flashing arcs of steel through the air as Meadow's notes drew tighter and tighter around Yosuke, limiting his movements. Within that boundary, Ichimaki was in his element, intercepting Yosuke at every turn. Animata was just behind the swordsman, phasing him into 2-dimensional space whenever Ichimaki needed to dodge. Sometimes vertical, sometimes horizontal, always Ichimaki was just out of reach, only to respond with a vicious slash as soon as he expanded back into reality.
Ichimaki caught Yosuke with a brutal jitte thrust to the stomach, splattering himself with the remains of the morning's coffee. It wasn't pretty, but it was effective. Warpden portaled in above the dueling pair, bringing with him Meadow's musical battering ram emerging from one hand. As Yosuke was hurled across the room, cracking a hole in the far wall, Warpden called out to the teacher. "Told you we weren't rookies. You got in a few good licks when we weren't looking, but if you don't stand down "villain", this isn't going to end well for you."
Yosuke staggered unsteadily to his feet, laughing to himself. The noonday sun poured in through the gap in the back wall, haloing him in light. "Well, I suppose you're right. After all, this is a sparring contest, not a real fight." Warpden laughed mockingly. "Good thing too, or we'd have just let Meadow pound you into paste. You wouldn't even remember your own name after her music got done with you. We'd have to get you fitted for adult diapers, too." Warpden couldn't see it, but Meadow seemed surprised at his words. The boy kept speaking. "But I guess this is about what I expected. A fake fight from a fake-looking hero no one's ever heard of. Where'd you place in YOUR class, huh? If it's anywhere other than dead last, I'd be shocked. You'd think someone as bright as the sun would have left a mark somewhere, huh?"
Yosuke gritted his teeth, but said nothing.
"No answer to that? Fine by me. You may not have amounted to much, but we will. Everyone in 3-B will be a pro someday, and we'll make up for whatever you didn't achieve. The school's name is safe on our shoulders. Especially mine. Now let's get out of here, so you can do whatever pissant job you were doing yesterday."
Heartbeat stopped singing. From her vantage point on the stage, she could see something the others couldn't, since Yosuke was up on a balcony now and blocked from view from below. Yosuke's eye wasn't a burning yellow sun anymore. It had shrunk down to a tiny pinprick of bluish-white light, so intense it made her nauseous just to look at it. She could see odd flickers of electrical energy running up and down the broken hunks of metal rebar and destroyed audience chairs near the teacher, little wisps of blue fire crawling back and forth. He was trembling with rage, and that hurt to look at too. Heartbeat began to call out to Warpden, to tell him to stop talking, but... she could hear her cochlear implant fizzing and popping. The wires felt warm inside her, humming with interference. She gasped as her heart skipped a beat, crying out in pain as her music stuttered. The young hero fell down on her back, terrified and shaking.
Instantly, Yosuke's energy died with a terrified expression on his face. Whatever was building up inside him purged itself in the blink of an eye, and he leaped from the balcony all the way to the stage, lifting Heartbeat up to a sitting position. "You've made your point, Warpden. Go ahead and portal everyone else out of the arena. The medical team has already attended to Top Smile and Jiangshi. Synthesis will be along in her own good time. I'll take care of Heartbeat. For one thing, I owe her an apology." Warpden did as he was told, and 3-B vanished in a flicker of warp energy one by one.
Yosuke lingered for a while, helping Heartbeat catch her breath, and assisting her in packing her deployable stage back together. The two of them sat on the ruined balcony, looking out at the sun, setting and visible through the gap in the wall. In a timid voice, Heartbeat finally spoke. "What... what was that, earlier? It hurt. The look on your face... it didn't seem like you at all."
"That was my failing as a teacher. And as a student. I almost let Warpden get under my skin. Like so many of you young students, there are lethal applications to my power. That was one of them. I focus on controlling and absorbing light. Bending it, storing it, blinding and disorienting my foes with it. But, I can also amplify it. Change its wavelength."
Heartbeat looked confused.
"We talk of many different kinds of light, but it's all the same, fundamentally. Radio waves are the same as X-rays, just with different energies and different uses. I've done spy work for the government, toying around with intercepted signals and converting them into more accessible forms. I've been part of several astronomical ventures, upgrading the light collectors for telescopes. Sunlight can burn you, as everyone knows. That's the UV radiation within it. Our sun isn't a very hot star, as stars go. Only a small portion of its light is high energy photons. But what if it wasn't? What if it pumped out gamma radiation by the terawatt? What if I did?"
Yosuke looked up, sighing.
*"I've worked a long time to control my powers. The implant you see in my right eye? That was my fault, my own doing. As a student I pushed my powers beyond their limits, trying to win a competition. I wound up nearly killing several other students, and destroying my eye. Warpden reminded me of that failure. That shame. So my eye began to intensify the light, emitting ionizing radiation. Preparing for a kill shot in response to my anger. It began to interfere with your implant. Could have stopped your heart. So I wanted to apologize to you directly. Teachers should never lose control like that. Or heroes. It's why I stay out of the spotlight."
Heartbeat patted Yosuke on the shoulder.
"It's ok. I forgive you. I know what it's like to have a dangerous power. Everyone treats me with kid gloves, like I could drop dead at any moment. They're always hovering around me, keeping me away from anything useful. I'm always in the spotlight, but in some ways, I'm just as hidden as you. Mom and dad have already lined up my whole career in front of me. My whole life. I know they care about me, but they won't let me really experience much of anything. I hate to say it, but... when I felt my implant starting to short out... I felt alive. Ironic, isn't it?" Heartbeat jumped, suddenly thinking of something. "Oh, oh, oh, but please don't worry! I'm not gonna become some kind of death-seeking masochist or anything, haha. Although I have to admit, singing those songs Meadow likes WAS pretty awesome."
Yosuke nodded. "I appreciate that, it's a relief. Your parents aren't wrong. If you fought a villain who could absorb metal, or interfere with your brain, or emit radiation like I can, or a hundred other things... you'd simply have no recourse. I couldn't in good conscience recommend you for a combat role. It's too easy to shut off your body, and it's not something that training or tools can really fix. I think though... you CAN find freedom."
Heartbeat's eyes grew wide as she listened. Finally... someone heard her voice, not just her song.
*"There's so much you can do, I read your dossier. Being a pop idol, there's some fun to be had there. Nothing wrong with a happy, sparkly outfit. Reinforcing heroes in battle, that's fine too. But think... bigger. Imagine yourself singing to the United Nations, helping them to be intelligent enough to solve global disputes. Or being the headliner at a scientific conference, leaping humanity forward with discoveries we otherwise wouldn't have reached for decades, if at all. Standing in a crowd of artists, inspiring paintings and sculptures and poetry that will outlive us all, connecting generations culturally."
Yosuke stood up, helping Heartbeat to her feet.
"You'll be the mightiest hero of all... winning battles before they even begin, by making a better world."
Mind racing, Heartbeat followed the substitute teacher back to school.