my-hero-aaron

[my-hero-aaron]

Here’s to show how different my sketches are to what the digital outcome usually becomes! This is my BNHA OC Hoshihime Kumiyo (or K for short)! It does take lots of time and effort but digital art is so fun! You can see some other art and written stuff about her and her best friend Aaron on my friends side blog @my-hero-aaron

[my-hero-aaron]

Happy Birthday to Stellaria!

Or K as you all know her!

16 years old today! Happy birthday you funky little spacetime bisexual.

[my-hero-aaron]

Embarrassed?

I fidgeted uncomfortably, tugging a bit at the incredibly close-cut fabric of the swimsuit where it fit me the worst. (Spoiler: it was between my legs)

“K, how long do I have to wear this again? This is so embarrassing...” The blush that firmly planted itself on my face showed no signs of leaving soon.

“An hour, Aaron! ‘Sides, if it’s so embarrassing, you shouldn’t have bet with it!”

I hear ya, though. “What bet? How did you lose?” Relax, I’m getting there! Just let me have my record scratch moment, sometimes you’ve gotta lean into the cliches.

So, there I stood, in the middle of the room. Thankfully, it we were in K’s dorm, instead of someplace public, so I didn’t have to hear the endless jokes from my classmates (although I’m sure Oliver was gonna absolutely lose it laughing when he saw the snapchat Kailey had sent him). As the blush stuck around, darkening as it passed down into my neck, I reflected on just what had gotten me here.

“No way, Kails, I’m telling you, Superman’s home planet wasn’t what exploded, it was the sun!”

“Yeah, sure Popsicle, if all you’re paying attention to is the movies!”

“No way, I’m telling you, I can clearly see the scene from smallville in my minds eye!”

“Well your mind’s eye is just as blind as your normal ones then, ya nerd!”

Kailey and I weren’t doing a whole lot when the topic of conversation had come up. It was just an average friday night in with my girlfriend, and we had just tucked into some of the curry we had learned to make at summer camp. A bit sleepy from all the food, I was idly scrolling through my phone to try to find something to watch on Netflix, snuggled up cozy next to my best pal. The little preview for supergirl had crossed my screen, and it pretty immediately lead to the topic that would be my eventual downfall.

“Blind be they may, darling, they can still see the whole entire sun exploding!”

“You’re absolutely remembering wrong, Aaron, I’m telling you! First off, how would they get him off planet if the sun was going kaboom?”

“Aw c’mon, it’s science fiction, not everything has to work right!”

“Yeah, okay, but let’s say you’re right. Why is there any kryptonite then?”

“Because Rao exploding made it, duh DOY!”

“Oh sure, as if the sun going nova would leave any kind of trace behind?”

“Again, it’s comic books, not everything makes sense!” I had sat up and untangled myself from K at this point, hands clapping to emphasize each of my words.

“Aaron, I know it’s Krypton that exploded, you’re not gonna change my mind on this!”

“See, but I know I’m right! And you know how much I know I’m right?”

“No, fill me in, genius!”

I panicked a bit, my eyes bouncing around the room in search of a retort. I had been hoping she wouldn’t call my bluff, but alas, she did. My eyes pretty immediately settled on the swimsuit that lay in a crumpled heap atop a towel across the room. It was one of K’s cuter pieces, covered with a repeating pattern of little cartoonish strawberries and polka dots. Thankfully, I hadn’t been silent for too long before the cogs rolled over in my brain. I had an idea.

“I know I’m right so much, that if I’m wrong, I’ll wear that swimsuit over there. For a whole hour. You can take any pictures you want, as long as I don’t have to go anywhere.”

“Y’know what Aaron, I’ll take you up on that bet, because I know I’m right here.” The sharp gaze in my girlfriend’s eyes really underscored the seriousness of her supposed knowledge.

“Alright then, to the google we go!” My phone still in hand, it was only a matter of a few keystrokes to google the answer to my question. After typing “Krypton superman” into the searchbar, and getting pointed at the wikipedia page, what I read there made my heart sink.

“Krypton is a fictional planet, blah blah blah...” I mumbled while reading. “It has been consistently described as having been destroyed shortly after Superman’s flight from the planet.” My voice was hardly above a whisper at that point, in hopes that Kailey wouldn’t hear how she was right.

“Huh? What’s that? You’re gonna have to speak up and tell me how I’m RIGHT!”

“It says the planet blew up...” I murmured, clearly not ready to eat my slice of humble pie.

“Try again, you know I can’t hear anything!~”

“It says the planet blew up...” I mumbled, a little louder.

“Hmm? What?”

“It. says. the. planet. blew. Up.” I grumbled, through gritted teeth.

The elation on Kailey’s face almost made up for the fact that I had to realize I’d been dunked on.

“Mmmmhmmmm, thaaat’s right~” A wicked grin slipped across her face, she clearly wanted her revenge right now.

“Now, get undressed and get yourself into that swimsuit, ya hunk!”

I had to admit, even though I was major embarrassed? It flattered my body well.

[my-hero-aaron]

Blank Slate, Part 3

It had been a few weeks since K and I had re-started dating. It was kinda surprising to see just how confused by it my parents were, and apparently they were more confused than I thought, because they had asked to talk to me one day after school.

“Aaron, honey, we’re worried about you. You’ve been acting strangely after those three weeks we couldn’t find you.”

I knew I was going to be nervous, (I always was, talking to my parents) but this was having even more of an effect than usual. I felt a few beads of sweat catch at the base of my neck, and my heart was pounding with such force I could swear I saw my shirt moving just a bit.

“What-what d’you mean, Mom, I’m fine!”

“Well, son, we’ve been talking to Kailey’s parents-”

“What about? If it’s about that time I almost dropped the family’s precious vase, I already apologized, and besides, I caught it after all-” My babbling sentence trainwrecked into the middle of my father’s, and my mother pretty quickly returned the favor.

“Aaron, sweetie, it’s nothing like that. You two have just been spending a lot of time together, and all four of us are worried about the effect that could have on the both of you.”

It was pretty obvious what my dad was going to say next, but I was hoping to avoid that freight train bearing down on me until I knew how it was going to hit me.

“To make a long story short, kiddo, your mom and I think you should take a little break from Kailey.”

Knowing it was coming didn’t make me see any less red. My pulse now became a tidal thrum in my ears, and a few small pieces of frost grew between my hands.

“Spend less time with her? Why the HELL should I? She’s done more for my memory in the past month and a half than you two, or anyone for that matter, has done!”

“Memory...? Aaron, sweetheart, you didn’t mention anything about memory! Oh I knew we should have taken him to the doctor, honey...”

I’m sure my mom had more incessant babble pouring from her mouth, but I didn’t catch any of it. I was too busy kicking myself for my slip-up. Kailey had the right idea when she asked me to keep this a secret, all the fuss they were making know was such an inconvenience.

“Mom, Dad, I need some... time to myself to think over just how I’m going to manage this.” Again, the cries of my parents fell on deaf ears. My mind was already spinning on just how Kailey was going to handle all this. And handle it she did, but nowhere near how I was expecting her to.

Instead of anger, or even annoyance, all I saw from her was a flash of that hunger again, then such placidness that it was honestly a little unsettling.

“Snowball, they’re just trying to keep you from me so we don’t get any further with your training.”

“K, I trust you, but... why? Of all things for them to-”

“That’s right, you do trust me. So don’t ask why, just trust me.” The twinge of pain across my head had become endlessly familiar now. I honestly had come to like it a little bit, since it reminded me of my girlfriend.

“If-if-if you say so, hon...” The silence hung heavy in the room as I trailed off, and after a few beats, emotion returned to K’s face all at once, as though she was remembering she had to show me that. The rapid-fire looks crossing her face weren’t exactly clear to me, but eventually she settled on something that looked like a kid in a candy store.

“Ooo, d’you wanna go down to the convenience store again and see how much we can get?”

A small, wry smirk crossed my face as I replied. “Oh fuck yeah I do!”

[my-hero-aaron]

Blank Slate, Part 2

A few days later, while I was working on homework after school, I found that I needed my notes on practical applications of service items. However, even after a little while of rummaging through my things, it seemed as though my notebook had evaporated. “Kailey? Have you seen my hero tech class notebook? I’m kinda stumped on this assignment.” I called into her room, crossing the little bridge between our balconies. Almost immediately, K produced my notebook, though it looked significantly lighter than the last time I saw it. “What’s with the abridging, dude?”

“Oh, I guess you didn’t remember, there was a bunch of worksheet stuff in there that you’ve been meaning to tear out anyway! I just did ya a favor and got that done!”

“Aww, K, you didn’t have to do that! How nice!” The beaming smile had found its way onto my face again.

“I’ve got to save you some time, you need it to get your brain back in order after all!” Kailey now had a smile to match mine plastered on her face. At that moment, a small alarm started to ring. Immediately, the noise made my spine stiffen, and I stood ramrod straight, my senses hyper-aware of every little thing that made up the room around me. The wince on my best friend’s face was sharply etched into every inch of her face.

“Aaron, it’s a little cold in here, could you relax?”

“Sor-Sorry, I just-” A wince crossed my own face, and the thrust of my hand was almost reflexive. The alarm had become too much for me, and in a mere moment the offending alarm clock was splintered on the ground, rattling gently as it vented the cold around me.

“Oh goodness gracious, Kails, I-I-”

“You acted without thinking, I noticed.” The sharpness of her tone didn’t seem to align with the moments I had seen her angry. Her next sentence just baffled me further. “I don’t think I mind it, actually. That’s a lot more power than I was expecting.”

“Expecting? What do you mean, I-”

“Don’t worry about it, Aaron, just seems like that loop did you more good than you think.” I opened my mouth to reply, but words just wouldn’t come out. The next thing I knew, the world blurred slightly, and I was practically dozing off next to Kailey. A cursory glance around showed assorted piles of what amounted to dust, where previously there had been a few small trinkets.

The next day, we were covering something of no particular importance in class when things came back to me. While the teacher droned on about the effects of popular culture on the design of american hero suit design, I was, for lack of a better word, flashing back. That section of time where things blurred came back into focus, or at least pieces of it. The first thing that clarified was K urging me on. “You should push yourself a little harder hun. It’d be good to get this new strength of yours more easily accessible.” That doesn’t make any sense, why would K talk to me like that? As soon as I questioned the thought, a twinge of a headache flashed across my forehead, and a different sentence was all I could remember. “Good job, Aaron! You’re really improving!” Kailey chirped as I blasted the neat piece of beach glass I’d found for her the day before the loop. But she said she liked that glass, that doesn’t make any sense either! Again, the headache snapped across my face like a clap of thunder, and the memory made sense. I was just helping her reduce the size of her trash so she could get it out with less effort. Before I knew it, Kailey was snapping me out of my reverie, hand shaking my shoulder.

“Hey, earth to Aaron? Anybody in there?”

“More than the last time you asked, I think?” I quipped, smiling down at K as we rushed to our next class.

A few more days passed without anything dreadfully eventful happening, and once again, Kailey and I had found ourselves sitting next to each other on her bed, watching the news roll in. The story getting blasted our way was pretty standard fare, some nondescript hero managing a pretty big save in a search and rescue operation. Honestly, I would have ignored it if the tension wasn’t so obvious in my childhood friend’s posture.

“Well who the hell does he think he is, one big save and he’s a perfect paragon of a hero? You have to earn your spot.” K spat, the annoyance now clear in both her voice and stance.

“Yeah, what a schmuck, amiright?” The little twinge of pain in my forehead was hardly noticeable at this point, so I just disregarded it.

As I opened my mouth to continue, I found my best pal mere inches from my face, an odd hunger in her eyes.

“Uh... hi, Kailey...” I stammered, the next word in my sentence getting stomped on by my best pal’s breathy response.

“A-Aaron, I almost kissed you there. I’ve been trying to push down these urges since you got back because you didn’t remember we’re dating...but it’s been a month and I miss those things we would do like that...” The look on her face now made... a lot more sense.

“Oh-oh golly, we are?” At my response, K backed off a bit.

“Of course, Aaron, what reason would I have to lie to you?”

“I guess you’re right...” I mumbled, leaning back and tapping my hand to my chest. “Well since we are dating, come give your boyfriend those choice snuggles!”

As she obliged me, an odd swelling feeling filled my chest. It just pressed harder as Kailey looked up into my eyes. The strange hunger flashed across hers for just a moment, but once it passed, she pressed her lips to mine. I had to admit, though I feel like I didn’t know it until she brought it up, I had been wanting to kiss her for a while. Honestly, even though I didn’t remember it all that well, I’m really glad that past me had actually gotten around to making his move.

[my-hero-aaron]

Blank Slate

Not that it hasn’t been fun telling the stories of the ordinary Aaron and K, but I think it’s about time that we shed some light on their more villainous selves, hm?

There was a slight ring in my ears as I came around. Looming over me, filling my still swimming vision, was the face of my best pal. The last things I remembered were what felt like an explosion, then a sound like an eternity’s worth of alarm clocks.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Aaron. How are you feeling?” Kailey’s voice was a balm to my wearied ears, and I had to admit, the strangeness of my vision gave her quite the appealing halo. “Hey, Earth to Snowball? Anyone up there?”                                                         

I could feel my eyes saccade at her question, and an overwhelming blankness rolled over my mind. “I-I-I’m not sure if-if there is...” It was odd, I felt like any thought I had just wouldn’t stick around.

A bemused look flicked across K’s face, immediately followed by something I didn’t quite understand. I shook my head and stumbled to my feet, swaying a bit. “Kailey, just what happened to me?”

A few days later, I had readjusted pretty well to life as the average person knew it. Sure, I still couldn’t remember hardly anything from before the incident with Overclock, but Kailey was thankfully very patient with me, filling me in on all the little details that made me well, me. We needed to keep up appearances, after all. It was bad enough that she had had to cover for me for three weeks while she built up the power to come get me, the last thing we needed was a parent or teacher to come looking at the whole shebang with a much closer lense.

“Kailey, remind me, do I like crunchy or smooth peanut butter?” I mumbled at my best pal, who was giving me a surprisingly intense look while I held up the two jars in the grocery store.

“Well, duh, Aaron, you like smooth peanut butter like me!” I smiled warmly at my childhood friend as I set the proper jar of sandwich spread into the cart without a second thought.

“Thanks for filling me in, it’s the little stuff in particular that won’t come to me.” I blurted out a few hours later. The thought came to me all at once, like I had just realized how much she’d been doing for me.

“Of course, Aaron, you’d have done the same for me, after all! What are friends for if not to help you out?” Kailey’s hand settled on my shoulder and gave a reassuring squeeze.

Once again, I found myself acting before my thoughts had caught up with me. The beaming smile that had painted its way across my face made sense, Kailey was being so good to me after all, but it was still strange to feel myself react like this. My eyes flicked up to meet my childhood friend’s, and thankfully, before the awkward tension could build too high, we were startled out of our moment by the blaring of the television. They had finally apprehended Overclock properly. He’d been caught in an attempt to rob a bank, only to be stopped by a quirkless individual.

“The young man, who asked to remain nameless, was definitely a bit shaken by his experience, stating the following in a phone interview.”

“Uh, well, yeah, y’see, one second, I’m uh, handling the money, y’know, like I normally do, and well, I, well I saw all my coworkers like, collapse. It was major weird, and I uh, like, hit the alarm thingy pretty quick. The next thing I knew, the uh, guy, he was looking at me like I um, well, what’s the phrase, uh... oh! Grew a third eye, that’s it. Anyway he was looking at me like I grew a third eye and I don’t know, I just felt my legs move before I thought about it. I guess I tackled him, since the next thing I knew, we were like, wrestling on the floor. Lucky I paid attention to coach in high school, or I wouldn’t have been able to hold him until the cops-er, officers, I guess, showed up.”

“What insightful testimony from someone who many are declaring as a paragon of the average human. In another story tonight, All Might was spotted-”

The anchor was cut off by the sudden powering down of the television. As I looked over to K, I saw a flicker of that expression I couldn’t quite place before cross her face again, but it was so momentary I just put it off to my eyes not being all there in the moment.

“Sorry, Aaron, I just... well, actually, we both kinda don’t have the taste for all that cape-chasing nonsense.”

A few small gears slipped into place at my childhood friend’s suggestion.

“Ugh, I know, right? Just let them do their job, ya vultures!”

[my-hero-aaron]

Hotaru Amber and Zanshin Meikai! Two of my My Hero Academia OC’s that are side characters in @improbable-implosions and myself’s little corner of the MHA universe! Hotarus quirk is Furnace and Zanshins quirk is Situational Awareness! They don’t attend U.A. (Yūei) High they’re apart of the hero department in another school.

[my-hero-aaron]

Provisional Licenses, Part 4

Well, everyone else did, anyway. I was the last one in, and I didn’t really get any prep time like anyone else. Instead, I stood still, reaching out with my senses to see if there was any cold for me to hold onto. Thankfully, there was someone dashing by in what looked like a full suit of armor, and that much metal, even in this heat, had plenty of cold for me to pull in.

My hand thrust outward toward the stranger, and the cold had the air shimmering slightly before it slipped into the bracer on my arm, and from there into my chestplate. By the time I had taken all that was safe to pull, the chestplate had enough of a store that there was at least some slushiness occuring in the liquid within. It’d have to do, I mused, rushing to catch up with K, who was staring contemplatively at a tower of rubble. A cursory glance with my thermal vision made it clear there was someone ensconced in the rock. The solution looked pretty simple to me. “K, I’m just gonna shatter the rubble, that’ll make for a simple path!” My arms crossed slightly, one steadying the other as my fingers splayed in a familiar gesture. The residual cold in my hand from the harvesting I’d pulled earlier blasted forward, but before the ring of superchilled air could slam into the rock, Kailey had reacted with an outstretched hand of her own. A little waver materialized in the air, and the next thing I knew, the blast that was headed away from me mere moments before was now sticking pieces of frost in my hair.

“kAILEY WHAT WAS THAT FO-”

Kailey’s outstretched finger begged me to shush, or at least wait with my outburst.

“Aaron, if you had broken that piece of rock, the whole pile would have come down on that guy in there. Look a little closer, there’s no other support for the biggest piece on the right. We need to lever them apart, not break them up.”

I cast a little more critical eye at the pile, and, surprising nobody, she was right. The whole thing was essentially a precariously balanced henge with no keystone, and I definitely would have, at best, endangered the guy, and at worst, required some incredible intervention from K to save him. Taking a deep breath, I stepped in closer, this time pressing my hand against the rock on the right. This would take finesse, but I was pretty sure I could manage a small pillar of ice to widen the opening in the rubble. I could feel my pulse, well, pulsing, in my hands as the passage of time seemed to slow. For all I knew, K was lending me a helping hand, and it was. The thought had my breath pick up a bit, but soon enough the rhythm stabilized as my focus shrunk to the rock in front of me. The rock could only take so much before getting fragile, and it was pretty clear any decrease in what was required to break the rock would go poorly. With a bit of coaxing, the pool of cold started to form in just the right spot, and soon enough with a bit more pushing the rubble started to creak and rumble, ice expanding between the two largest pieces.

“Alright, it should be stable enough. Can you move to get out?” I called into the darkness, the heat of the victim’s outline sharp against the chill I’d been putting into the concrete. The guy had hardly gotten the negative reply out of his mouth before K set to work crawling in to save the dude. Once she’d pulled him out, I squinted, focusing on seeing just where the most heat signatures were. That was, odds are, where my fellow heroes had set up triage. Well, that, or a group of schoolkids had gotten trapped. Either way, it’d be best for us to head that way. Judging by the noticeable limp the actor was effecting, there was no way I could make him walk all that distance at any kind of speed.

“Sir, I’m going to lift you, okay? K-I mean... Stellaria, grab onto my cape, we’re gonna need to get places fast, as usual. Hang on tight.” With a bit of effort, I swept the victim off his feet, and nodded back at K, skates forming on our feet. I really should talk to support about getting some actual skates built into my boots. Would save some time. I mused as we started to sail over to the (now a bit more clearly marked) triage area.

We carried on saving folks like that for a bit, digging them out of the rubble with great precision thanks to Kailey’s analysis and my leverage. Most of the time was spent skating them over to triage as fast as possible. However, it wasn’t long before another large blast rung around the arena, and feedback slammed the speakers above our heads once again.

“The villain’s attack is not over yet! You now have to deal with their onslaught on top of the rescue efforts, good luck!”

Somewhat unceremoniously, the victim overdramatically slumped in my arms was dropped into the outstretched arms of Kailey. As interesting as it was to play the rescue role, my place was in opposition to the villains, and I knew it.

“Stellaria, get this person safe. I’ll handle the attack.” I hurriedly said, taking the cold from K’s skates as I set a hand on hers for a moment. The spin I pulled to get moving toward the now-smoking hole in the wall wouldn’t have looked out of place at a figure skating arena, but that wasn’t the only move I had borrowed from ice-sports. A hapless looking minion had rushed ahead of his peers, and, unfortunately for him, slipped onto my incoming path of ice. A well-placed shoulder check that was clearly borrowed from the hockey playbook had him slam, butt first, onto the ice. A simple thought was all it took to bind his hands and feet to the ice as I skated around him. One down, a whole lot to go. I mused, my skates dissolving mid stride to transform my gait into a jog. I was one of the first ones to arrive, and it showed, the large crowd of nondescript, black jumpsuited villains still spreading out to cause mayhem. As I stalled, trying to come up with something clever to distract the villains, a familiar face strolled up next to me, his stride remarkably confident for the ice coating the ground. I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes at Zanshin’s analytical expression, and instead turned to him, my gaze slipping up to his face. Had he gotten taller since I’d seen him before the test?

“Zanshin, any ideas? There’s a lot of them, and I’ve got a few options for crowd control.”

“As far as I can tell, they’re going to be spreading out quick. I can give you a few places to build walls to hamstring them, if that’s what you need.” Zanshin intoned, cool as a cucumber despite the strain of the situation. I did my best to not squint at the noticable increase he’d had in muscle mass since we’d last actually spoke as well, shaking my head a bit to clear it of the clutter. What the heck am I doing? This is a CRISIS, not an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

“I was thinking a few small snowstorms, but I’d need either some wind pulses or someone with a water quirk to pull that off. Walls would be a good start.” The pace of my breath picked up a bit, and to aid in my focus, I started stomping my feet a bit, the rhythm of my steps synchronizing with the pulses of cold I was putting out. Out of the corner of my eye, Zanshin was giving me what could most easily be described as a bemused look. Unfortunately, that was just enough to throw me off, and only one of the three walls I was planning on making had materialized before I stumbled, face planting with a great deal of force in front of the tall, dark, and handsome young man at my side. Doubly unfortunately, the one wall I had made now funneled the villains in the direction of the triage area, rather than into the second wall, then into us. Thankfully, that was still a long way off, but we had to get moving quick if we wanted to cut them off. I rolled over with a groan, my hand finding Zanshin’s outstretched one like it was fate.

“On your feet, twinkle toes, we’ve gotta get recalculating.”

I grit my teeth, heaving a sigh to let go of my anger. It wasn’t worth making a fuss right now, and more important things were at hand anyway. I sprung to my feet, and nodded, glancing forward to see a group of the minions hopping the obstacle I’d tossed in front of them, rushing at us.

“Well you can know what they’re doing, Zanshin, let’s see how well you take advantage of that.” I quipped at my compatriot, dashing forward into the fray. Feeling dramatic, I let a little fog slip from the palms of my hands, and a little frost creep onto my face to give me a bit of a harsher edge. As I ran into the midst of the group of the ski-masked dudes, it was clear that those little touches were absolutely having an effect on them. They seemed, at the least, a bit rattled. Almost reflexively, I snapped a set of finger guns at them, and my abilities responded in kind, blasts of cold slamming into each person’s chest as I pointed, leaving them stumbling backwards, winded. Once they had all gotten a taste of what I was giving them, I slammed a hand, palm down, into the ground, restraints blooming out of the dirt and concrete around us to keep them neutralized.

“Huh. I wasn’t expecting that to work, honestly.” I mumbled, flicking my hands a bit to keep them from freezing up completely.

“Gonna be honest with you, Frigius, I’m shocked you pulled that off too.”

“Oh you shush, I totally meant to do that.”

“Did you, Mr. I didn’t expect that to work?”

“So much for me getting away with mumbling anything.” I mumbled, Zanshin simply responding with a chuckle this time.

As we geared up to rush into the fray proper, where a noticeable number of our fellow testees were embroiled in a fight with some dude who had a, if I was honest, a pretty gross looking bug-head, a final screech of interference blasted out of the speakers above our heads.

“Alright, everyone! The victims have all been handled, and thus, the test is over! Head to the medical office if you’ve got wounds to be treated, or the gathering area if you don’t! Additionally, you’ll have to remove your costumes now. I’ll be seeing you in a little while to present the results of the test!”

Thankfully, I didn’t have any damage that I could notice, other than maybe a little stiffness in my fingers, so after getting out of my costume, I eagerly awaited the arrival of the results, fidgeting a bit in my energy. A little bit of waiting later, K wandered into the room, a small bandage marking a little scratch on her head. She was otherwise unharmed, thank goodness. Oliver wasn’t far behind her, and he was no worse for wear. With my pals beside me, the wait for the results flew by. Before we knew it, the list of 80 names had scrolled onto the screen. They were in alphabetical order, so first I spotted my name, then K’s, then finally Oliver’s. We’d managed to pass, and I couldn’t help but let out a whoop of glee, moving to sweep K into a deep dip, kissing her. I had felt that I’d barely gotten started before K placed a gentle hand on my chest, pushing us apart.

“O-okay Aaron, we can... celebrate more later.” K’s little moment of sensibility didn’t do a thing to dampen my mood, however. We now all had our provisional licenses, and this was a huge step forward! Looking a bit closer at the list, I saw every one of our classmate’s names. Well, everybody but one: Neito. That was going to be atrocious to deal with later, he’s always so dreadfully overdramatic. Thankfully, Zanshin’s efforts had put him on the list as well, so his efforts, valiant as they were, weren’t in vain. However, before I could really get to stewing on Zanshin’s performance, the more detailed results sheets were being handed out, and I got mine. Unsurprisingly, I got docked points for how I handled the arrival of the villains, but to my shock, I got just enough points back to pass for my work with Zanshin. The fact that I was working with someone outside my own group, even despite my major fumbling, reflected well for my cooperative efforts in the future, or at least, that was what the comments on the page said. Regardless, I’d take it. A pass was a pass, no matter how strange. I could tell a new page was turning in our lives at this point. We now had the authority of full heroes, at least in certain circumstances, and the adventures coming for us because of that were going to be simply remarkable.

[my-hero-aaron]

Provisional Licenses, Part 3

Perched up on the roof, atop a positively huge flower, sat Oliver, ready to hit some targets of his own with what looked like an improvised slingshot built from vines.

No sooner than I had pieced together just what Oliver was up to, was when he acted. A ball went whizzing over my head, and impacted with a dull thud. Before I could turn around to see what (or who) Ollie had hit, however, a sound like the world’s loudest vaccum tube being opened assaulted my ears, and I felt the air start to tear from my lips. Thankfully, there was a harsh drop in temperature to go with this odd effect permeating the air around me, and, in hindsight, that kept me lucid enough to channel the cold into a mask over my mouth and nose, keeping all the air from ripping from my lungs. Unfortunately, that momentary reaction gave whoever was behind me the opportunity they were looking for, and I heard the sound of a ball slamming into the target at my back.

Oh HECK, that’s not a good thing... was the only thought to cross my mind as I spun to face my opponent. The first thing I noticed about the girl was her hair, which, while a bit over the top, was an absolute look and she wore it well. It started out dark blue near her head, and gracefully blended to white at the tips. She wasn’t much taller than K, and her grey eyes were sharp with what looked like either shock, fury, or a dangerous combination of both. The rest of her face was covered by a pretty utilitarian gas mask, and there were a few tanks that it was connected to on her back. Immediately, I noted that two of the three targets scattered around her body were already lit, and I knew that this was my chance to take a step toward passing.Stepping forward out of the roaring din of air-weirdness she’d stuck me in, I threw what was in both hands at her with a surprisingly practiced motion. The snowball in my left hand, having been thrown just a bit earlier, worked magnificently as a feint, disintegrating against her chest harmlessly, forcing her to dodge into the path of the actual ball I’d thrown.

“Who are you and HOW THE HELL DID YOU NOT GET AFFECTED BY THAT?” Despite the muffling of her support item, the rage in her voice was incredibly evident.

In one smooth motion, I raised a hand to toss a finger gun the girl’s way, dispelling the mask around my face.

“Let’s just say I don’t freeze up like most folks! Thanks for the charge-up!” I quipped, turning to Kailey and taking her hand once again as I dashed off past the girl, who now looked so beside herself I was shocked she didn’t burst a vein or something.

After a bit of jogging, Kailey and I found ourselves in the middle of what looked like a town square. The lack of cover from the surrounding buildings had hardly begun to make me nervous before a few somewhat quiet footfalls could be heard from one of the surrounding buildings. Rather than whirling to face the sound like K did, I grit my teeth a bit, and stomped a foot, putting into motion the special move I had been working on. The balance between flow and surface area had been hard to pin down, and it still was nowhere near the efficiency I needed to really pull it off effectively. I could feel the collossal drain it was putting on the store of cold left in my chestplate, and I knew that we had to act fast. As best as I could, I reached out with my thermal senses, hoping to get a ping nearby. Other than my best friend right next to me, there seemed to be one other person in the area, obviously the source of the footsteps. Slowly, I let go of K’s hand, and started to walk toward them, the cloud of fog I was putting out coming with me. Clearly the cloud was having the intended effect, as a few stray balls came swirling through the fog in a vain attempt to hit me. Only one came close to it’s mark, and it was relatively simple to slip my arm out of the way. Thankfully, Kailey was behind me when I slipped into the building, and I did my best to maintain the cloud as we snuck up the stairs to try to find the person’s vantage point. She spotted the person ages before me, and a small flicker formed around Kailey’s prey as she threw three balls, aimed perfectly to hit the unaware young hero-to-be. Judging by the slowness of their reaction, that little flicker was K messing with time, and it was only a moment before the person let out a startled groan. With that, my best friend had passed the first part of the test, and now all that was left was for me to find one more person to knock out.   

Unfortunately, as I stepped down into the lower floor of the building, I found, upon examination, it was obvious that my chestpiece didn’t have much as far as stores of cold go. I knew the fog cloud was going to burn off a lot of what I had stored, but the fluid inside my armor was well, just that. Fluid. Even before we’d snuck in here under the cover of a bubble of mist, the thing had been frozen stock solid. Whatever I was going to do, it had to be two things: clever, and simple. Not to mention the fact that all I had keeping me from getting knocked out was the one target on the inside of my arm.

I slipped a palm against the wall, hoping there would be at least some sort of water piping in these buildings, but all I could feel, at least in my immediate vicinity, was concrete and plaster, and they were all plenty warm from the sun that was beating down into the arena. I’d really have to keep it economical, the last thing I needed was to overextend myself in the middle of a hostile arena like this. My moment of thought afforded me one grace, though. There was the telltale crunching sound of frozen grass outside reaching my ears, and it was obvious that it wasn’t K walking away. I scrambled to hide somewhere, anywhere in the building I was standing in, and thankfully, my dive behind the full-length bookshelf got me out of sight of whoever was walking in. Unfortunately, my movement was less than silent, so it was pretty clear there was someone else in the room, and my adversary tipped off that they knew this, calling out “Hey, I know you’re in here. Come out, face me! I want a good fight.”

My pulse quickened noticably at this. There weren’t exactly obvious actions to take here, and I could feel my brain screaming through options, trying to piece something together to pull off this fight in my favor.

“I saw you had two targets lit up, and I’m in the same boat. How about a duel?”

I pressed a hand to my chest, double checking just how much cold was stored there. By my estimation, I could maybe get away with one little blast of smoke, just enough to make whoever was challenging me’s throw that much harder. The last piece clicked into place, and taking in a deep breath, I unsnapped my cape from my shoulders, rolled out from behind where I was hiding, and put up a column of fog directly in front of the young man who was standing in the doorway. As I dashed forward to get in close, one hand had a tight grip on a ball, ready to strike, and the other flung my now loose cape into the fog. A small thud rang around the room as the cape did just what I was expecting it to: catch a ball that was heading for my now-open arm target. A few more dashed steps, and my target was directly in front of me: One of K’s childhood bullies.

“Game over, Hiraba.” I spat, my hand slamming into the third target on his chest. Apparently, I put a little bit more into the blow than I was intending, because he visibly stumbled, his heels slipping on the ice underfoot.  

“I-I-I- that’s not FAIR, Aaron! I couldn’t see you, and you were so much faster than I was expecting-”

“Consider yourself lucky I kept it to something small, you deserve worse.” I really hoped my face didn’t belie the incredibly obvious bluff I was pulling. Judging by the fear in his eyes, either he remembered that time I practically exploded when we were kids, or I was really selling the whole stabby mcgee angle. He had a few spluttering words for me as I turned on my heel, snatched up my cape off the floor, and stepped over him and through the doorway. I honestly didn’t hear a single one. Heck, I was so enthused about making it through this trial that I almost didn’t notice that Hiraba’s two partners in crime, Osaki and Kanai, were outside as well, more than a bit dumbfounded at the burning frost in my eyes and the smoke at my back, a bundle of cold-stiffened fabric in my hands.

As I walked into the little area that they had set up to gather all the folks who had completed the test, I spotted K’s vantablack gloves standing out in the crowd like someone had sliced the space they occupied out, leaving a sharp black void in their place. Thankfully, Oliver’s green hair was poking through the crowd next to her as well, and I jogged up to my pals, a smile on my face.

“Looks like we all made it, y’all! Got your snipe on, huh Ollie?”

“Golly, well it sure worked, I’m just glad that flower was so helpful!” Oliver chirped, bubbly as usual. I flashed a broader smile K’s way, a chuckle bubbling through it.

“Jeez hon, you really put the smackdown on Amber! Not like she didn’t have it coming or anything, but that was quite the trouncing.”

“As if you didn’t get a hit in on Mekai of all people!”

I opened my mouth to, if I was honest, get a little overexcited about the fact I managed to tag the guy who was aware of everything, there was a screech of interference blasted from the speakers, and the whole room was wincing as the screen in front of the table full of food flicked on.

“Alright, now that the last of you have arrived, we can make clear just what the second phase of the test is going to look like. If you’d direct your attention to the screen, please, everything will become clear.”

Mere moments after he’d stopped speaking, the camera view of the test field where we had just struggled to pull off that whole combat scenario filled the screen, and with a colossal roar, began to shake, the screen filling with smoke. Once things had cleared up, however, it was obvious just what had went down. The entire landscape of where we had just been was in ruins.

“As you can see, there has now been a terrorist attack by villains on the area. There are going to be a large variety of victims in the wreckage, and they need saving. Before the EMTs arrive, you’ll have to fill in. Get moving!” Once again, the walls of the room we were in fell with a creak, and we rushed in.

[my-hero-aaron]

Provisional Licenses, Part 2

After a bit of fumbling and fiddling to get the weird archive I had found to actually play on K’s tv, I finally got to snuggle in next to K. She’d set up a little pile of blankets, pillows, and assorted fluffy whatnots on the floor while I struggled with the wonders of modern technology. Thankfully, everything seemed to be running smoothly as I nuzzled into K’s back, my chin gently perching on her shoulder, an arm comfortably slipping around her waist. A small whistle started to emanate from the speakers of the television, while a father and son wandered toward the camera, fishing poles in hand. The theme, thankfully, was short and sweet, and the show pretty much immediately launched into its plot. The dad from the opening, who turned out to be the sheriff in town, welcomed a travelling salesman into his home after he’d gotten stranded in town because of car trouble. Sure, it wasn’t exactly thrilling action or anything, but the show was just endearing enough to hold my attention. At the end of the episode, I finally zoned back into the world around me, only to find that not only was one of my hands noticeably stuck in K’s hair from my absent minded fiddling, but also that K had laced her legs into mine, surprisingly comfortably.

“Well... I’d get up and change the show, but I’m comfy. You down for one more episode, see how things shape up?” I queried my girlfriend, kissing her cheek gently.

“I think I can handle one more. This show… isn’t really my speed. It doesn’t really hold my attention very well.” She smiled apologetically

“That’s fair, I’m not... entirely sure why I like it, but there’s just something going on that won’t let me stop watching.” As I was responding, the next episode rolled, the theme once again filling the room. This time around, the sheriff’s kid was having trouble with history class, but after some clever set up to make it sound like an adventure story, the kid (and all his pals, to boot) were major history buffs. Cheesy, but definitely enjoyable.

“Okay, that’s one more. Your turn to pick, hon.”

As K untangled herself from me to get up, she pressed a small kiss into my cheek. I could feel the heat brush across my face, and I must have zoned out a bit, because the next thing I knew, she’d booted up an episode of Star Trek... or was it The Next Generation? I could never keep them straight. Regardless, I smiled slightly, patting the space K had vacated.

“C’mere, einstein, I’m getting cold.”

“Oh, you, cold? Who would have thought it, popsicle?” Kailey quipped as she slipped into my embrace.

I had to admit, K had good taste when it came to movies and tv. The episode immediately caught my attention, it was a bit of a high concept piece this time around. The ship’s android, Data, was tied up in a legal battle over whether he should receive rights as a sentient being. It was a real brain tickler of a question to be posed, to put it lightly, and even despite just how comfy I was getting with my girlfriend, I could practically feel the gears whirring in my brain as I considered the little bits and pieces of the conundrum posed by the show.

The next thing I knew, K was shaking me awake, and the credits were rolling on a favorite movie of hers, Coraline.

“Hey, Aaron, wake up sleepy head. You were kinda snoozing there. Maybe you should head back to your dorm now?”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea, K. Last thing we need is Vlad finding me asleep in your dorm, after all.” I let out a small yawn, stretching while I got up, and gave my girlfriend a little peck on the cheek. “See ya tomorrow, K. I love you!”

With that, I padded out of the room, trying my best not to make a huge racket while I left, and conked out for the night.

Soon enough, the little bit of time we had to actually design our special moves had run out, and the day of the provisional hero license exam had come up on us. After we’d filed out of the bus they’d crammed us into, it was clear that we were going to have an absolutely absurd amount of competition when it came to whatever they were planning to have us do. A little bit of shuffling and bumping into people later, Kailey, Oliver, and I had found ourselves, along with what seemed like several thousand other students. Thankfully, we were getting at least some personal space, since nobody wanted to get too far into the bubble of cold my chest plate was putting out. After a few moments, the din of chatter that was filling the room tapered off, an incredibly exhausted-looking man taking his place at the podium.

“Given the massive volume of applicants this year, we’re going to have to make this explanation quick. The long and short of the test is, you have three targets to place on your body. They have to be visible, no hiding them. You’re removed from the test when all 3 of your targets get hit. First 100 people to get two people out, move on to the next stage of the testing. Now, your targets activate in 15 seconds. Let’s begin!”

As he finished his sentence, the walls around us fell to expose an absolutely cavernous arena. Hurriedly, I slammed a target onto my leg, contorted a bit to stick one in the middle of my back, and, after a moment’s thought, stuck the last target onto the inside of my bracer. It isn’t technically out of sight, I would just have to rotate my arm. I know that having one on my back probably isn’t the best, but it’ll work well to make me notice everything around me. I mused, glancing over at K to see just how she’d set up her three targets. At that point, I noticed the major redesign to K’s costume. Somehow, I had managed to not catch her basically rebuilding her suit from the ground up, and not piece it together that it had changed until just now. The most obvious change was accented by the test target, there was a target set up directly under a clasp that was clearly holding the iridescent cape that draped over her shoulders. Similarly, K had slapped her second target on her thigh, and the last target was somewhat obvious on her upper arm. My eyes cast over to Oliver, who had made a few small modifications to his costume (including what looked like a solar concentrator on his chest), and he’d stuck all three of his targets around the circular device on his chest. Having sorted out just what my companions were up to, I dashed off toward the miniature cityscape that was set up off to our left.

“Kailey, Oliver, we need to stick together! Let’s get moving!”

I heard two pairs of footfalls drop in behind me as we dashed for cover. Judging by the cacophony of thuds behind us, the crowd behind us was an absolute web of scattered balls. Clearly, some people had immediately forgotten that the targets weren’t active just yet. As we dashed into the city’s main street, it was obvious that we weren’t the only ones with the idea to camp out here. In fact, there was a familiar shock of flaming red hair peeking out of a first floor window, and by the time I got over my surprise at seeing Amber here of all places, the smoking ball she’d pitched at me slammed into the target on my leg.

“K, how much is it for you to get us into one of those buildings?”

“Portals take a lot, Aaron, we’re gonna have to run.”

Eyeing the red glow coming from my target, I turned toward the building that I’d seen my former... fling? I suppose you’d call it that in, a minor revenge plot in my mind. You could only imagine my shock as I saw yet another person from K and I’s past in the building beside her.

Zanshin looked almost... giddy at my surprise. Obviously he knew I was coming, his quirk wasn’t called situational awareness for nothing. He moved to throw a ball, and it sailed right over our heads. Thankfully, I’d put together just what he was trying to do moments before he pulled it off, and the ball struck, relatively harmlessly, next to the target on my back. Almost on reflex, I flung two balls at the targets on Zanshin’s chest. Obviously, they didn’t find their mark, he saw them coming from a mile away. It was at that point I noticed a slight blush spreading over Zanshin’s face.

“Wait, you’re dating Amber of all people?”I said, the shock clear in my voice.

“No WAY, snow-for-brains, he’s just helping me out because he’s smart enough to know a winner!” Amber snipped in response, clearly insulted at the mere idea of them being that close.

“H-hi, Kailey.” A rare stammer slipped into Zanshin’s speech as he waved somewhat sheepishly at K.  

“Hey Mei. How’ve you been holding up.” she smiled gently as she replied.

Doing my best to quash my entirely unreasonable jealousy at that, I looked more closely at Amber.

“I like the costume! Needs more fire theme, though.”

“Ugh, as if I’d be as tacky as you with your gross ice shirt, frosthead.”

“Yeah well at least his costume is functional and isn’t tacky and revealing” K snapped back without missing a beat.

“I dig the trench coat, Zanshin. Very you!” I quickly blurted out, trying to at least dial down the tension.

“Thanks! Those bracers are a good choice, and I’m surprised the support department let you get away with that much silver! Can’t have been cheap to produce.” Zanshin said, matter of factly gesturing toward my arms.

Amidst all the back and forth, someone threw a ball, and K took a hit to the target on her thigh.

Even though it wasn’t clear at first, a glance over at her expression said volumes about just who managed to tag her. A roughly contained fury was crossing the face of my best pal, and despite the odd shimmering of the air in front of her, it was drop dead obvious that Kailey was incredibly upset about this turn of events. The next thing I knew, there was a sound like a crowd running by, a bright flash of light, then the raucous sound of Amber tumbling to the floor in a daze, all three of her targets flicked on.

Knowing what K’s abilities did to Zanshin, I took the advantage she gave me, and flicked a ball at the group of three targets on his chest. The hyper perceptive young man looked almost nauseated at the lack of information he was getting, and the interruption of his flow was just enough to let me tag one of his targets.  

“You’re still so pathetic Hoshihime! The only reason you got me was because you couldn’t face me head on! YOU COWARD!” Amber screeched.

Kailey clearly had some words for her foe, but I knew our window was small, and getting smaller.

“K, we gotta get out of here, Zanshin’s not gonna be out of it much longer!” Before she could respond to Amber, I grabbed my girlfriend’s hand, rushing out of the building we had just taken cover in. Oddly enough, as we dashed out, I didn’t hear Oliver’s footsteps behind us, but once we got out into the road, it was pretty clear what he’d done.

[my-hero-aaron]

Provisional Licenses, Part 1

The remaining few days before classes started up again absolutely flew by, and thankfully, when the time came for us to enter into the new training are that the school had prepared for us, I at least had some idea of what I was planning to do for my special move. K wasn’t exactly so well off just yet, but I’m sure she’d come up with something clever to do.

We had all suited up in our costumes, and were now waiting outside the space they’d alloted for us to get working. The gym we were going to practice these moves in was less like a gym proper, and looked more like a retrofitted aircraft hanger. At least, the structure of the building did. I gave it one more glance before turning my attention to Vlad, who was explaining, in a bit more detail, just what we were supposed to be pursuing with this stage of our training.

“Now, the idea behind a special move isn’t just that it’s special. The main point I want you all to work towards with this is something that’ll either end a fight or give you a huge advantage in one. That doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be a direct attack, but that’s an easy category to aim for. If you’re short on ideas for something to work with, I’d suggest trying to find an aspect of your quirk you hadn’t noticed before the training camp. The work you all have done expanding your range should have opened either something new or amplified something you could do before.”

I had a few small ideas rattling around in my brain already, but Vlad’s speech clarified them greatly. Clearly, the blast of ice idea wouldn’t work, at least for now. Sure, it’d be a real fight finisher, but something big enough to have the intended effect would really tire me out, not to mention the trouble I could run into with frostbite. At the end of the day, something like that would be more of a disadvantage than an advantage. There was something involving snow blindness I was originally dismissing based on it not being much of a special move, but after Vlad’s saying it was supposed to give you a huge advantage, I was already coming up with a few changes that could really turn it into a signature move for me.

As we were wandering into the space for the first time, I took in the inside of the building. It was... chaotic to put it lightly, a wide variety of rock and dirt shapes forming all sorts of terrain shapes for us to work with. 1-a was supposed to be wrapping things up and heading out. Or at least, that’s what I was told, it sure didn’t look like they were getting finished with what they were working on. A few of K and I’s classmates got into a bit of an argument over just who was supposed to be here, but after it became clear we were simply here early, the topic shifted to the license test that had spurred on this whole exercise. Of course Neito was being over competitive about it with the 1-a students, saying how we would totally best them or something. Thankfully, before he got to boasting too hard about our “prowess”, Aizawa shut him down. He made it clear that 1-a and 1-b were going to be taking the test at different locations, as is tradition for all schools. Nobody wanted to have their own students pitted against each other, at least as far as the process of becoming a prospective hero went. Finally, after what seemed like ages of quibbling and quarrelling, we had the gym to ourselves to get tinkering.

Immediately, I walked over to the wall, pressing my hand against it, and reached out to see if there were any water pipes in the wall. I was going to need as much cold as I could get my hands on, and water has such a high thermal mass it would work phenomenally. O figured I could get away with heating the water a bit. Thankfully, I didn’t have to worry as much about my limits as far as holding cold went, the new piece of support equipment I got would see to that. Not only was the theming of my chestplate absolutely dead on with the ice texture, someone clever in the support department had sandwiched a layer of,, well, I wasn’t quite sure what, but it definitely could hold a simply remarkable amount of cold. I let out a small, involuntary sigh as the little feeler I put out hit paydirt, and the cold started to feed back into my arms, rolling into first the bracers at my wrists, and with a bit more coaxing, flowed through the metal and fell into the eager mass that was ensconcing my chest and arms. As soon as I took as much as I thought the plumbing could handle, I took a deep breath. It was time to get to work.

The move I was considering for now was meant to give me a combat advantage. You couldn’t hit what you couldn’t see, that was the theory I had in mind at the moment. The cloud of fog I had cooked up at the training camp seemed like just a neat parlor trick at the time, but if I could get the cloud to be dense enough, it’d be a simple enough move to strike while the villain was confused. Additionally, I’d still be able to see them, or at least sense where they were, with my thermal vision. I didn’t realize it while I was training, but in hindsight, it was startlingly obvious that my thermal vision wasn’t strictly based on my own sight. It was just a way that my brain was feeding me my own broader feelings about the temperature of things around me. That’s why I should be able to see them through the cloud of otherwise impenetrable fog. However, I had stalled trying to pull off just what I was planning long enough. Just like before, the slow flow of cold trickling between my fingers set off the fog to flow through my fingers like sand. However, this was clearly too slow for the instant cover I required for what I needed to pull off, not to mention that how small the cloud started out wasn’t doing me any favors, either. A few things needed to change, and I felt it was more effective to break those bits off. First, the cloud needed to be bigger. I blew a bit of the mist that was still leaking from my hands off, and cupped my palm, to let the fog pool in my hand, rather than slipping to the floor uninhibited. It was only a few moments before a little puddle of vapor had accumulated in my hand. What immediately sprung to mind was the fog that boiled off dry ice, and the comparison certainly wasn’t inaccurate. The smoke that I was tinkering with certainly wouldn’t look out of place in a cheap b-movie horror, and that had a spark of an idea rising out of my mind, and as though my legs had a mind of their own, I found myself jogging over to Kailey, who was struggling with... something, though I couldn’t quite tell just what yet, across the gym from me. The air was shimmering a bit occasionally, but it seemed like what was going on was nowhere near stable yet, as it only happened for half-second pulses.

“Kails, I have an idea, can yo-” I was cut off mid sentence by a feeling like 10 hand-sized semis blasted into my chest, and to say I stumbled off my feet was putting it lightly. After shaking the stars out of my eyes, I saw K’s outstretched hand swim into view in front of me.

“Sorry about that, Aaron, I’m... getting the hang of this, and you kinda surprised me. What’d you need?”

“I... figured you’re the alchemist around here, and I need a pretty large puddle to work with. I want to check if something works like I think it does.”

K’s confused look betrayed that it wasn’t exactly clear what I was pushing towards with this move of mine to just anyone, but by the time I opened my mouth to explain my ideas about surface area, airflow, and water vapor, the gears had already clicked into place behind K’s eyes.

“I think that would work, but you’re gonna need a lot of area, and I don’t exactly have the energy for a stuff swap that big along with what we’re supposed to be doing. Maybe try it on the dirt instead, I don’t think the water is quite necessary.”

I blinked a few times, rolling over the suggestion my best friend had just given me. It could make sense that the cold alone was the crux of how this was going to work, and there was only one way to find out.

“I’ll give it a shot, K! Good luck with... are those high-mass punches?”

“Something like that, sure!” K chirped, clearly not ready to filter it down into words I would get quite yet.

So I strode off to my side of the gym again, this time kneeling with one knee on the ground, superhero style. Like before, I let a small amount of cold flow through my hands, which were now splayed on the ground. A few small bubbles of fog started to rise from the ground beneath my hands, but it was still clearly nowhere near the amount of fog I’d need for something like what I was planning. I grit my teeth, focusing deeper on just how the cold was flowing. Clearly, the surface area of where I was effecting wasn’t quite high enough just yet, so I pushed slightly harder into the ground around me, feeling the circle of cold slowly expand at my feet. The cold was pressing not only from my hands, but through the leg that I had pressed to the floor as well. The circle of cold was pretty easily visible, since as the boundary grew, the fog started to rise from it as well. With greater surface area, comes greater effects, and the cloud of fog was now much more substantial, the smoke pretty handily coating me. Unfortunately, as I started to rise to my feet, and the flow of cold slowed, the circle immediately shrunk, a great deal of the fog covering me boiling off. Doubly unfortunately, I threw a few test punches and found that the fog simply slipped out of my way, making my movements dreadfully obvious. However, before I could do anything to tinker with my methods, a rather loud whistle cut through the din (that I’d somehow managed to not notice) that formerly filled the gym.

“Alright everyone, that’s your gym time for the day! Head back to your dorms, that’s all we have for you today!” Vlad’s shout echoed around the gym, and almost in sync, K and I jogged to the door of the gym, my hand slipping into hers.

I did my best to not have the most cheesy grin on my face as we strolled across campus to where we were supposed to stow our hero costumes, and after jumping through all the hoops required to check our gear back in, I met back up with K, once again taking her hand.

“K, it looked like you were working on something clever, are ya ready to clue me in yet?”

“Sure! I’m still not entirely sure it’s what I’m going to focus on but if you’re really curious I can try to explain!” She smiled

“Dear, all the stuff you do with your quirk are mega neat, feel free to explain!”

“Well currently my approach is based on time dilation as far as I can tell, well moreso warping space in such a way that time essentially stops for my target, which makes it practically trivial to hit everywhere that would do a great deal of damage to any opponent, and I figured that while I was at the trouble of warping space I’d lend some extra oomph to my punches as well!”

I could feel the confusion written into my face, and I blinked a few times to try to resolve just what my best pal was trying to tell me. “I... caught like 5 percent of that, Kails, you gotta dial it down for me.”

“Well essentially, I’m using something related to how I got you to my room, along with slowing down time for the enemy, so I slam, at least from their perspective, a ton of their pressure points at once.”

“That’s cool as heck?? Golly gosh!”

K’s quirk, while always cool, seemed to be getting more and more interesting as the days passed. However, as much fun as babbling about our quirks was, I wanted to spend my first night off spending some proper time with my best pal, and I made that clear as we stopped in front of K’s dorm.

“H-hey, so... d’you wanna hang out in your dorm and watch a movie? I found a huge database of old public domain american movies and I think I found one you’d be into?” I wasn’t quite sure why I was blushing at the prospect, it was just watching a movie, I’d probably done it a hundred times before... but here I was, my face rapidly going from a slight pink to a bright red. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one to blush, as K went a little pink in kind, glancing down at my hand, which was still in hers.

“Sure, you know I’m always happy to spend time with you.” I smiled softly at her response, and followed my girlfriend into her dorm.

[my-hero-aaron]

Heights Alliance, part 3

A great deal of packing and fiddling and, well, fuss from my parents later, I found myself on the receiving end of the most tense two days of my life. Somehow I managed to survive the looming threat of the rest of my life staring me in my face for a while, and eventually found myself standing outside the rather imposing dorm building with my classmates. As usual, K, Oliver, and I had grouped up, and Oliver was regaling us with the tales of his seemingly endless herd of cacti’s antics over the break. Apparently, Jimothy wasn’t getting along with Jamesmothy, and he had to split them up lest they begin fighting. Personally, I didn’t even know cacti were any kind of fast enough to hold a conversation with, let alone get into a fight, but clearly my green-thumbed pal was well aware of an entire layer of the world I’d never wind up being privy to. An awkward silence settled over the three of us as we valiantly quested for something else to talk about, but thankfully, we were saved from our struggle by Vlad attempting to get our attention. Once he’d managed to rope in our more... talkative classmates, he launched into a description of our new home, walking in as he talked.

“The buildings are set up so that there’s plenty of space for everyone. The first floor is a common area, as you can see. There’s a laundry room available, as well as a kitchen. Both the male and female baths are down here as well. We’ll go over your room assignments floor by floor.”

I quashed a little wave of nervousness at this as I realized this was, probably, the moment where I found out whether I was close to my best friend or not. I knew that it was going to lead to quite a few minor adventures if she was too far off from me.

“Aaron, you’re on the left side of the second floor, along with Oliver, Yotsestu, and Neito.” I let out a small sigh of relief at my teacher’s proclamation. Even if I didn’t wind up with K close to me, I at least had my green-thumbed pal close by. However, as the teacher continued listing off who was on the second floor, I didn’t hear K’s name. I cast a worried glance in K’s direction, who looked similarly tense about things. “On the third floor, we’ll have Tetsutetsu, Kosei, and Hiryu on the left. On the right, there’s Setsuna, Itsuka, and Kailey.”

I’m sure that Vlad had more to say, but I was already whirring on how I was going to be able to get to K’s dorm on the third floor, at least with some measure of stealth. Soon enough, K elbowed me out of my reverie, and I found that we were standing on the second floor.

“Welcome back, Frigius, glad to see you’ve joined us again. You’ve got the corner room, and, like everyone else, your things were sent over. I’d suggest unpacking!”

I could feel the flush of heat run across my face, and I rushed into my dorm to try to avoid further embarrassment. What I found was honestly about what I was expecting: a pretty standard (if a tad bare at the moment) dorm room. A simple bed was pushed into one corner, and the back wall was dominated by a rather large window that was (thankfully) curtained. Above this curtain, there was an ac unit (which I absolutely needed to look at asap). There was a desk on the opposite wall of the bed, and a dresser directly next to it. In the middle of the room sat the things I decided to bring to school with me, clothes in a few duffel bags, and the gamut of everything else I had brought in a few assorted storage totes. It wound up mostly being little things I had found handy in training my quirk, whether that’d be the surprisingly large collection of heatsinks I’d gathered over the past few years, a few cans of spare air-conditioner recharge gas, or even the few small double-walled canisters (usually reserved for storing something like liquid nitrogen) that I had been practicing focusing into to help deal with particularly resistive materials. I had spent no more than a few moments unpacking my clothes before the small whirr of the air conditioner had distracted me. It needed to be colder in here, and I could tell the poor little unit didn’t have much more oomph in it. I knew the canisters of freon I had on hand could certainly help things. Unfortunately, this model wasn’t exactly familiar to me, and the manual wasn’t available on the internet, so it didn’t take much time before I found myself sitting in the middle of the air conditioner’s pieces amongst all my (still packed up) items.

“Great, now I’ve got NO air conditioner.” I grumbled, glaring at the pieces of tubing walling me off from the rest of the room, which had frost spreading across them, and they’d begun to steam a bit. “I’ll get it back together later.” At that point, it hit me that I didn’t exactly have easy access to K like this. I’d have to like, climb all the way around the building and up a floor to get to her. It didn’t take but a moment’s thought for a solution to come to me, though, and I whipped out my phone hurriedly to fire off a text to my best pal.

K, can you do space portals? I think so, popsicle, why? I wanna come see ya and folks seeing me walk into your room may not,,, be a good Makes sense. Try walking into your desk, I think I linked the space in front of mine to the space in front of yours

I stepped, rather carefully, over the now solidly frosting pipes encircling me, and found myself disoriented for just a moment, like where I had stepped was a super short hallway cast in harsh negative color, but a few blinks cleared my vision, and I could see that I was standing in front of K.

“That’s so NEAT! I can’t believe that works, K!”

I’m sure K said something to reply, but I got pretty forcefully distracted by just how well her room was already put together. The curtain was the first thing to catch my attention, while I had a simple green curtain over my window, K’s was bedecked with a super neat galaxy pattern. The rest of her room seemed to follow that incredibly fitting theme. The bedsheets were covered in constellations, a few brightly colored “tourism” posters for assorted planets were on the walls. Speaking of the walls, there were a few clocks surrounding a small television, which sat next to her desk. Thankfully, there was a digital clock amongst them, so I didn’t have to think too hard about reading the time. The desk was something that boggled the eye for just a moment, then came together into something that practically required remarking upon. To say the organization was meticulous was a colossal understatement, there didn’t seem to be anything more than a speck out of place. A similarly meticulous schedule coated one wall of the desk’s overhang, which seemed to have time budgeted down to single minutes at times. A few hourglasses of varying sizes were framing the schedule, and the laptop sitting in front of everything else on the desk was, despite being closed, whirring softly. The last thing my view settled on was a bookshelf absolutely bulging with books. It honestly seemed like if I put much more onto the shelf, it would collapse. Speaking of books, as I finished taking in the room, my eyes settled on my best pal, who was currently curled up with an absolutely massive tome with Quantum Phenomena emblazoned across the front. I felt myself flush slightly as I took in the simply remarkable view in front of me, with K possibly the most at ease I’d seen her in a long while, a pair of gym shorts and a JAXA tank top adorning her frame. K, as though sensing my gaze, glanced up at me.

“Oh heck, like my room, popsicle?”

“Jeez K, this looks like it took you a small age, how long was I out trying to fix my air conditioner?”

K glanced down at her watch, then over at a clock on the wall. “For you? Probably around a half hour. This took me about an hour, though.”

“All this only took you an hour? Dang, and all I’ve done to set up is unpack all my clothes!”

K opened her mouth as if to say something, but she was interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Hoshihime, could you open the door? Itsuka complained about a really loud wind blast, and I’ve gotta come check things out.”

Immediately, I started to panic, fumbling around for a place to hide, but K just calmly put up a hand to stop me, and crossed to open the door, handing me the huge book with her other hand. The door swung wide, and Vlad’s brow wrinkled at the sight of me.

“Huh, so that’s what that was. Want to clue me in as to why you felt the need to sneak Aaron into your room, Miss Hoshihime?”

I was about to start in on some rapid-fire excuses, but this time K cut me off with a somewhat harsh look.

“Well, Vlad, if I’m honest, this was somewhat of a test run for when things get serious. My quirk has a bit of an odd side-effect sometimes, where my brain gets just a little overloaded by just how much knowledge my quirk grants me, and I first I start to babble, then I start to overheat, and then, as far as we know, things start getting bad. For now, all we know that helps is Aaron cooling me off in a very particular way, so having him close at hand is pretty important.”

“Hmph.” Vlad grumbled, continuing, “I’ll take your word for it, Hoshihime, but you really should have reported this to the school before move-in day. See what you can do about notifying either Recovery Girl or Nezu about this, as soon as possible, please.” With that, Vlad gestured toward the door while walking out. “Come along, you two. We’ve got some more stuff to go over in the common room now that you’re more.. Settled in. Oh, and Frigius, Try to keep these... unmonitored visits, shall we say, to only when they’re necessary, alright?”

“Wait, so does that mean I can’t visit Kailey?” The worry in my voice was clear, even to my own ears.

“Oh by no means, kid, but I’d much rather that you visit her like the rest of your classmates. Makes it a bit easier to keep track of you.”

We were lead down to the common room on the first floor, where the rest of our class had gathered. Vlad then proceeded to make things clear as to what was going to be coming up in our schooling.

“Now, in no small part because of what happened at that training camp earlier this summer, the school has decided to accelerate the pace of your program slightly. We’re currently going to have you go for your provisional licenses in the next upcoming session. However, to do something like that, you’ll need to have at least one special move designed and ready to submit to the licensing commision, so that’s what we’re going to focus on in the interim. Thankfully, the portion of the quirk training you all got done will hopefully have opened you up to a new understanding of your quirks and their limits, so this should allow you plenty of room to work with.”

As soon as Vlad mentioned special moves, I could practically feel the gears in my head turning, but thanks to Oliver’s urging, I managed not to space out completely. Vlad must have said a few parting words, because he had turned to walk out of the room, and I found myself in a crowd of my classmates.  

“Hey, Oliver, I does is has to know, what’s your room look like?”

“Oh golly, well, I managed to get at least some of my smaller pals over here, I gotta show you filbert!”

And so, off we went to go see just what Oliver had done to set up his dorm. A glance showed me just about everything I was expecting out of his room, though there was certainly something odd occupying his (somewhat disorganized desk). There was a small line of cacti and succulents along the windowsill, and a string of gently flashing fairy lights crossed the room along the ceiling. However, the odd green ball floating in a jar full of water had pretty firmly grasped my attention.

“Oliver, what the heck is that green fluffy thing on your desk? I mean obviously it’s a plant but... what kind?”

“Oh! That’s my good good boy filbert! He’s a marimo! He’s bit shy, and dreadfully stubborn, but he opens up wonderfully when he gets to know you!” Oliver’s obvious cheer over his pal brought a smile to my face, and I wandered over to his desk, observing the oddity a bit more closely, mumbling a little hello its way almost subconsciously, and giving the jar a gentle tap.

“Ooo, Aaron, can I see your room? Did you like, set up some neat ice stuff?”

“Well... I think I kinda did. Mostly on accident, but it might have done something neat?”

We moved over to my dorm, and despite the pile of things looking most inelegant in the room, the ac being in a ring around the items actually had lead to a small ring of frost that was building rather quickly around the piping, and it actually added a nice touch of my own aesthetic to the room.

“I’m not quite done unpacking quite yet, as the giant pile of stuff in the middle of the ring there lets on, but hey, I accidentally made my ac cool the room much better, so that sure is a thing!”

After Oliver had taken in the chaos of my room and moved back on to his own, I spent the rest of the evening unpacking. Clearly, with what the school had planned for the upcoming year, there was going to be plenty to do, and my mind was already whirring on the possibilities for my special move.

[my-hero-aaron]

Heights Alliance, part 2

Time to find out who was opening the balcony door!

“Popsicle, did your parents get the same email my mom and dad did?” Kailey said as she walked through the door.

“I... yeah? I mean, they got an email about UA trying to be a boarding school, I would assume they emailed all the parents about it?  What’s your folks think?”

“Well, overall they were pretty positive about it? Dad was definitely excited about me being that much more like, able to focus on school, and even despite Mom’s worries she seemed like she was willing to let me go, I guess? The big surprise was my brother being home, even if his two cents were pretty in line with everyone else...”

“Your brother was home? How’s he doing, I heard he was consulting at a police force in america?”

“He’s been good! New York is kinda chafing to have him away for any kind of time, he’s kinda indispensable, but they let him come after the big fight the other day, thankfully.”

“That’s good!” I paused for a moment, trying to piece together just what I wanted to say next, but instead of being witty, I just came across blunt. “K, I have to know which way you decided to go.”

“I-I... well, I kinda agree with my parents, if I want to keep trying to be a hero, I’ve got to go with it. I know there’s other schools with Hero Courses of course but UA… it’s the best place I really could ever be and you know how elated I was when I got accepted. It’s been such a dream come true now that I’m actually there… I can’t just leave cause the school is changing its status...”

Again, I came across more blunt than a century-old kitchen knife. “There’s my decision then, I’m going.”

“Aaron... you know I love you, but you can’t decide just because of that. This is huge! It’s a life altering decision, I won’t let you just follow me on this. You really need to be sure for yourself if this is what you want. I know the whole reason you even wanted to be a hero in the first place was because you wanted to work twice as hard since we both thought I couldn’t have my dream… I don’t know if that's changed or not but if you don’t want that for yourself now is the time to decide that!”

“Kailey, I can’t just leave you behind like tha-”

“NO! Aaron, I’m glad you worry about me, and I love you too, and of course I want you to stay by my side, but you have to look at yourself for this one!”

As much as I knew on the surface that I wanted to stay with my best friend, I also knew she was right about things. I needed to decide just what I’m doing this for. Being able to help Kailey and fight at her side really has been what I felt was my drive from the moment she saved me from face planting in that park, but what if that wasn’t enough to carry me through the years? I needed to be sure of myself, know that there was more to my yes than just a need for... companionship. The air around us seemed to hang still as my eyes bounced around the room, hoping to find something, anything to remind me of what I’d been pushing myself for. Pretty quickly, my eyes settled on the silver pendant hanging from K’s neck, and as the sunlight flashed from the medallion, I remembered, vividly, the day I gave it to her.

It was the day before our internships started, and I wasn’t looking forward to splitting from K. It’d be the longest amount of time I was properly away from my best pal, and I knew K was pretty apprehensive about it too. However, for once, I had actually managed to plan a little ways ahead. While I was out and about the other day, I saw a necklace and knew just what I had to do. The small snowflake-shaped pendant brought a smile to my face as soon as it caught my eye, and when I picked it up and gave it a little pulse of cold, I could tell by the lack of resistance it was a pretty high purity of silver. Perfect for my idea, since it was the most conductive metal for cold. I slid the box into my pocket as I crossed the bridge to K’s room, focusing to steady my breathing (and hopefully my nerves with it). As I entered my best friend’s room, she could tell within moments something was on my mind.

“Aaron, are you ok? What’s up?”

“Ye-yeah, just worried about internships, I guess, I just-I’m gonna miss you and well there’s this thing-I’m just gonna stop talking and show you...”

I could tell from the heat pouring off my face that I was bright red, and my hands were shaking a bit as I tugged the box out of my pocket. Cheesy be it may, I extended the box toward her, and lifted the lid on it’s hinge to show the small trinket I’d gotten my best friend. Immediately, my eyes flicked upward, questing to read her face for a response. However, I guess the nerves had made me dreadfully impatient, as mere moments after Kailey looked down into the box I found myself babbling, words pouring out of my mouth at a speed to rival my mother.

“See, my thought was since it’s silver and silver conducts cold so well I could charge it up with cold which it would then hold for a while so you could remember me a little better while we’re apart during the internship and I know that it’s kinda cheesy what with it being a snowflake and all but I figured it would fit well yaknow? And hey I mean if you don’t like it you don’t have to wear it after all I’m not like the fashion police or anything I just figured it would be kinda cute on you I really don’t see you wearing necklaces or jewelry-”

“Aaron stop, it’s perfect. Of course I’m gonna wear it. It’s from you. The only reason I don’t wear jewelry often is cause I don’t really have any to wear silly”

Somehow, my blush deepened even further, and I couldn’t manage to stammer out a word properly, so rather than trying for too long, I simply pulled the necklace out of the box, and stepped in close to Kailey, the small clasp fumbling in my hand after I threaded the simple chain around to the back of her neck.

“S-so I’m going to start putting cold into the necklace, let me know when it’s too much for you, okay K?” My voice wavered a bit, hardly over a whisper since I was practically up against her ear anyway.

“I will, popsicle. Go ahead.”

This moment didn’t call for brute force, but rather a delicate hand in using my quirk. Thankfully, I had that in spades, and there was a leftover glass of ice water sitting on K’s desk, so I didn’t have to strain her refrigerator. I noticed my breathing fall into a practiced rhythm as I focused, at first only the slightest wisp of cold sliding down my arm to swirl around my knuckles. It didn’t take much persuasion before the necklace started to hungrily wick up the energy I was giving it, and as it did, I looked up into K’s eyes for a moment, The smile she gave me made my heart skip a beat, and I knew that as sweet as it was to hold her gaze like this, I wasn’t going to be able to focus enough to do what I wanted to in the moment if I kept it up. So I looked down at the necklace, the cold flowing through my finger greedily being stored by the glimmering snowflake. A few moments just like that passed by, the calm beat of my breath getting picked up by K, and the cold pouring into the necklace. Finally, after the seconds had stretched incredibly long, (and I was starting to wonder if the necklace really was storing the cold properly) Kailey finally tapped out, a gentle grasp of my shoulder telling me that she’d had enough. A small flash of nerves once again bound my stomach into knots as I glanced up into my best friend’s eyes, and this time it was my turn to flash her a smile.

“Th-th-there, now you’ve got something to remember your best pal by!” I chirped, the smile beaming out of my face mere moments after my sentence.

“I-I love it, popsicle, thank you so much!” The waver in K’s voice was startlingly obvious to my ears, and I felt my eyes narrow as I brushed the pendant away from where it was resting with my finger as gently as I could. I found exactly what I was hoping not to find: a harsh, purplish-black burn, left in the impression of the snowflake.

“Kailey, what the heck? I told you to tell me to stop when you couldn’t handle it!”

“Aaron, it’s just a little burn, it’ll heal up just fine, it’s no big dea-”

“NO, K, it’s a HUGE deal! I never want to hurt you, let alone anyone else!”

“I-I-I’m sorry, Aaron, I just thought that-

“I get where you’re coming from, K, I forgive you, but please, if ever I really do hurt you, you have to let me know so I can change what I did, okay?”

I was snapped out of my reverie by, fittingly, K snapping her fingers in my face.

“Aaron? Hey, earth to popsicle! I know I told you to think it over, but you kinda froze up, are you okay?”

“I froze up, huh?” The finger guns were practically a reflex after any pun at this point, and now was no exception.The smile on my face just grew a little bit more with K’s annoyed groan at my pun. Pretty quickly, however, the smile fell off my face, and things got serious once more. “I was doing some thinking, though... I’ve come to a real decision, I think? I’m gonna go to UA. Sure, most of why I want to go is still you, I won’t lie about that, but deep down, there’s something else to it. When it comes down to it, I want to be a hero to keep people from getting hurt, and that goes double for you, K.”

“I-if you’re sure, Aaron. I just... like I said, this is a huge decision for your life...”

“Trust me K, even though you’re a big part of it, like I said, I want to do this to help people!” I stood up slightly straighter at this, and nodded slightly. “I’m gonna go tell my parents my decision, okay? Wish me luck...” I flashed K a wobbly, nervous smile as I strode out of my bedroom door in a way that certainly didn’t belie the state of my stomach. However, that facade immediately came down when I walked in and saw my teacher, Vlad, sitting across the kitchen table from my parents. If I’m honest, he was probably the last person I had expected to drop by today.

“Aaron, wonderful timing! I was just about to ask your parents to go get you. It sounds like your parents filled you in on what’s coming for UA, huh?”

“Ye-yes, sir, that’s right.”

“And your parents told me just before I went over to the Hoshihime’s place that they wanted your input on the matter before they made a decision. Do you think you’ve come to a decision?”

“I... yes, sir, I have. If it was only my decision, I’d stay with U.A. in a heartbeat. I want to help people, Mr. Vlad, and it seems like being a hero is the best way to do that.”

“That’s wonderful news, young man!”

At this point, all it came down to was my parent’s decision. What I didn’t know at the  time was, they had made it, mere moments after I had gone into my room to talk things over with K: they were going to support me in whatever decision I made. My dad, of course, felt the need to tell me this in the most dramatic way possible.

“Well, son, sounds like you’ve got some packing to do, huh?”

[my-hero-aaron]

Heights Alliance

After the events of the training camp, UA knew that measures had to be taken. The scale on which our classmates had been injured was absolutely unprecedented. However, something took place while Kailey, Oliver and I were enjoying the rest of our summer that changed the whole world’s outlook. It was worldwide breaking news everywhere (and probably everywhen) the next day, but Kailey and I saw it happen live on the news the same night. All Might had gotten into a confrontation with someone named All for One, and after a huge warehouse had been leveled, neither showed signs of stopping. As the fight wore on, though, something became clear: All Might was losing... something. By the end of the exchange, the world’s hero looked to be little more than a withered skeleton, but true to form, he ended the fight, and in spectacular fashion, as well. The final blow he’d dealt out sent a column of debris and rushing wind so high into the air, Kailey actually managed to see it out the window of my room.

Setting aside possibly the most dramatic piece of news of my entire life, however, UA’s hand was clearly forced by not only the adventure K and I went on, but the shocking change to the entire hero landscape as well. I thought they were just going to up security measures, maybe hire a few more patrol heroes, but the real decision they made came out of left field.

I had come back from wandering around the park with K (we got to discussing the particular strangeness of what happened to All-Might) to find my parents seated around the kitchen table, the tension so thick I was practically swimming through it.

“Uh... K, looks like you should head over to your place, I’ll let you know if you can come back over, okay?” A quiet nod was all I got back from my best pal, she clearly didn’t want to interfere with what was about to go down. As she rushed out, I took a seat at the table, hoping the news wasn’t too bad.

“Aaron, hon, we got an email from the school today.”

Immediately, I started to panic. Did I do something wrong and I don’t remember doing it? Was this the repercussions for the three day absence I had while I was dealing with Overclock finally catching up with me? Or, even worse, did someone catch me using my quirk outside of school? I knew that usually carried a pretty hefty fine if you didn’t have a good reason... Oh NO WHAT IF THEY’RE KICKING ME OUT, I CAN’T JUST LEAVE K LIKE THA-

The runaway train of my thoughts derailed pretty hard as my dad knocked on the table to catch my attention. “Aaron, it’s nothing bad. Well... actually I think it’s a bad decision, but you’re not in trouble, I should say.” I did my best to mask my sigh of relief at this news as my mom picked up where my dad left off, speaking at a rather high speed as she tended to do when she found herself under pressure.

“Aaron honey the long and short of the email is that they’re considering making UA a boarding school and your father doesn’t think it’s really the best idea and when it really comes down to it we need your opinion on the matter since I think that it’s the least terrible course of action that they could have potentially taken.” I blinked a few times, trying to process just what the pile of words that had come out of my mother’s mouth were trying to convey. Sure, it wasn’t like I was unused to her high-octane style of talking at me, but that sure was a whole lot of intensity all at once.

“Mom... you’re telling me, after everything that’s been going down in the last few days, that the best idea the school could come up with was keeping us all on the campus?”

“Well, sounds like you agree with your dear old dad, huh?” my dad quipped, smiling at me with a look that seemed to plead for my answer to line up with his.

“I-I-I don’t know, Dad, I was expecting some kind of security increase, maybe I would get in more trouble for being late-err... I mean, almost late,” I saw my mom chuckle at my hasty correction, “but keeping us all on campus really feels like a last ditch thing! Maybe this has something to do with that huge fight a few days ago?”

“I’ll be honest with you, son, I think that huge fight is the least of UA’s problems right now. Tell ya what, this is a lot to think about, how about you head on into your room and think it over?” I started to say something, to protest, but it pretty quickly rolled over for me that was my dad cueing me to leave so he could talk things over a bit more with mom.

I’d been sitting in my room, meditating on the idea of just what moving to UA meant for me, but a restlessness had settled over me, and I just couldn’t sit still any longer. I rose to my feet, and started wandering around my room, hoping that getting some movement out of my body would burn up this nervous energy, and it wasn’t long before I found myself mumbling to myself, musing over what I thought the future could hold.

“If I go for this, what’s gonna happen to my parents? I already don’t wind up seeing much of them, if I have to jump through hoops to get home, I’ll see even less of them! But if I’m on the campus, I probably won’t have to worry about time nearly as much. Oh JEEZ what about K? What if the dorms are all separated out and she’s super far off, not seeing her was bad enough when we were at camp, I really like having her this close to me...” I was wandering around my room, talking (and walking) myself in circles for a while longer, before I snapped up, startled by the sound of the sliding door.

[my-hero-aaron]

Childrens

Oh boy, time for a HUGE timeskip! (Don’t worry, we’ll go back and fill in the blanks, I promise) This one takes place a pretty long way after where we just were, long enough that our two star children are pro heroes, and have kids of their own!

I had been waiting anxiously to find out what Kohana and Toshi’s quirks were for at least 5 years now. Sure, ostensibly, K already knew, and could have told me at practically any time, but I preferred to find out myself. Well, that, and K didn’t like revealing the future anyway, she says time’s supposed to happen in the direction it does for a reason! We found out about Toshi’s quirk pretty uneventfully, thankfully. He saw his dear old dad make some ice for a drink, and the next thing I knew, his juicebox was frozen solid! However, the way that Kohana managed to stumble onto her quirk was miles more eventful.

I was just sitting in my easy chair, taking in the latest hero news. Something about keeping an eye on my former classmates from UA was immensely satisfying, and I was always a sucker for the occasional happy save story, so it had become a habit over the last few years to just unwind by perusing the local paper. Of course, since the wonder twins were entertaining themselves on the rug in front of me, I couldn’t exactly zone out too hard. So, I glanced over the paper every now and again to keep an eye on them, giving them a small smile when they looked up at me. It was just after I gave Kohana one of these smiles and returned to a story of Deku’s escapades helping out some high-profile american hero that the... shall we say, incident occurred. One moment, I’m reading up on UA’s golden son, and the next, the rug had a small fire blossoming, right in front my dear sweet kiddo! Half on instinct, I leapt to my feet, blasting the fire out with a thrust of my arm. The moment having passed, I gave Kohana and Toshi a once over, making sure they were alright.

“Goodness gracious, Kohana, sweetie, you gave your poor dad a heart attack. You okay, kiddo?” Thankfully, she gave me a beaming smile and nodded vigorously.

“I made hot!” She chirped, clearly pleased with her efforts.

Finally, it seemed to roll over in my mind that Toshi wasn’t far from the small fire that had sprouted up, and I resisted the urge to sweep up my dear sweet daughter and praise her for her progress (for now). “Toshi, buddy, are you alright?” I smiled down at my son, who simply flashed a smile and a nod my way, clearly more enthused with melting and solidifying the pile of blocks on the rug in front of him than the tiny chaos that had unfolded in front of him.

Once again, I turned to Kohana, sweeping her off the floor as a beaming smile crossed my face. “Wonderful beautiful work, my dear sweet gumdrop!” I burbled, ruffling her hair slightly with my other hand. However, my moment of sheer excitement didn’t get to last too long, as my poor much beleaguered wife burst into the room, face all panic, shouting: “I SMELLED BURNING”

I set down Kohana hurriedly, putting my hands up toward Kailey.

“Hey, no worries, hon, we’ve all got our eyebrows out here, it was just the rug is all!”

“jUST THE RUG? ARE YOU SURE THEY’RE OKAY?”

“Oh for sure, chill out, Einstein!” I once again turned to my dear sweet daughter with a smile, adding as I swept her up into my arms again, “Sweetie, let’s go outside and show mommy what you just did, huh?”

So we wandered out of our house, off into the yard, where I set down Kohana again. “Alright, kiddo, there we are! Go right ahead, honey!”

Kohana’s face screwed up in concentration as she rubbed her hands together at great speed, at least for a five year old, then pressed them into the ground. The grass between her hands stopped swaying in the wind for a moment, then burst into flame!

“Wonderful work, kiddo!” I cheered, leaning down to put out the fire before it rolled into an annoying blaze, then turned to take Kohana back into the house. Before I managed to, however, I noticed that K had bent down and worked her magic, persuading father time to do us a solid, so as to avoid leaving a little charred patch of grass in front of our house. After she’d gotten the cleanup done and over with, she gave Kohana a little pat on the top of her head, and cheered her progress.  

A little while later, after I had snapped a little photo of the rug, Kailey and I were discussing just what Kohana’s quirk actually was. “Wait, so how did she wind up with a fire quirk from you and me, hon?”

“Well, first off, ya dingus, your dad had a fire quirk, and second of all, that’s not a fire quirk, honey.”

“If it wasn’t a fire quirk, then how did she manage the scorch on the rug?”

“It’s actually energy control! She was using the kinetic energy from rubbing her hands together to do that.”

“THAT’S SO NEAT! Like, ALL ENERGY?”

“Well… we’ll see how her quirk continues to grow and change as she gets older, but it seems for now that she can at least control kinetic energy and the other forms of energy that stem from it. That is considering the fact that she started with Kinetic energy and directly only then chose to use the thermal energy that was produced.”

“Oh golly gosh, there’s gonna be so much I get to teach her! You got to help Hisa get her head around time, and now I get to give Kohana a hand!” I could tell I was beaming broadly at the thought, it was going to be so wonderful to give her all the advice I could manage. I was sure she could be an even greater hero than her dear old dad!

[my-hero-aaron]

Walking on Air

Kailey and I had gotten back from the field trip that UA had taken us on a few days ago, and I was more than eager to show off just what I’d learned while she and I had been doing some intensive training (separately for once), but I wanted to do it dramatically. I mean, what was the use of holding back a reveal other than to be extra surprising about it, after all! So I managed to drag myself out of bed before the sun rose, gently shaking my best pal awake rather groggily, mumbling a whisper to her about a surprise I had to show her. Kailey was still blinking the sleep out of her eyes as we rushed down a deserted sidewalk, the thin layer of ice that I left while we skated along actually staying intact behind me. Finally, we skidded to a stop outside a surprisingly empty parking garage, and by this point my partner in crime had managed to wake up enough to question just what was going on.

“Aaron, it’s bad enough you dragged me out of bed on a day off, what in the world could be so important that we had to rush all the way out to this random spot?” Kailey grumbled, a yawn punctuating the end of her sentence.

“C’mon, if I spoiled the surprise, wouldn’t that take all the fun out of it?” I chirped, grabbing her hand. “We gotta get up the stairs quick, or you’ll miss it though, so hurry up!”

My grip on Kailey’s hand tightened as I started up the stairs, rushing up them two at a time as my pal struggled to keep up. Thankfully, I managed to get us up to the top floor with just enough time to spare. The sun slowly began to rise, tracing its line of light across the city, and I drew a deep breath in, my eyes fluttering half shut as I took in the view along with the air.

“I figured we could watch the sun rise, Kails. I never get to see them anyway, so I feel like sharing a rarity like that with you is fitting! A-also I missed you while we were off training, but that’s less poetic so...” I trailed off, my gaze slowly tilting over to see Kailey’s reaction to the first part of my surprise. Unfortunately, she looked pretty underwhelmed at the view, probably thanks in no small part to the earliness of the hour. I faltered for a moment at her clear distaste for what I had done, and bit at my tongue, shifting awkwardly as I went over the second half of the plan. If it didn’t work, well... things would go from bad to worse. I was pretty sure I could do what I had in mind, I had managed something similar to what I had planned at camp, but there always was that chance, and that’s what had me all ruffled.

“Popsicle, the sunrise is nice and all, and I missed you too, but... well, I was expecting something a bit more dramatic.”

I felt a smirk crawl across my face.

“Well, my dear, I can do dramatic if you’d like!” I calmly stepped in close to Kailey, and slipped a hand around her waist, gripping her to me.

“Kails, do you trust me?” I stared into her eyes, hoping to see the answer there, but thankfully her mouth provided a much simpler to understand option.

“I.. yes, but wha-”

My smirk broadened into a smile as my other arm swept Kailey up off her feet, and I stepped up onto the ledge of the parking garage.

“A-A-AARON WHAT’RE YOU DOING OH MY GOSH-”

Kailey’s voice caught in her throat as the shock of just what I was doing caught up to her. What was I doing? Leaning back into the wind, of course. With a final shove of my feet, we leapt into the air properly. 

Now or never. I thought as I extended my quirk down below us, drawing cold into my body with as much force as I could manage. Mere moments later, the absence of cold in the air below us forced a raucously noisy wind to kick up beneath us, to such a forceful degree that it halted our fall. The thermal continued to apply it’s pressure as we rose into the sky, a gentle leftward spin turning us toward the sun. The orange brushstroke of sunlight was painting its color onto the patchwork of roofs underneath us, and I smiled down at Kailey as we rather shakily started to tilt backward, the subtle movement putting the parking garage beneath my feet.

“This the dramatic part of the surprise you were looking for, Einstein?” My quip had lapsed my focus just enough to make us drop an inch or two suddenly, and I almost didn’t catch Kailey’s cry of “AARON!” as I wrested the thermal that held us aloft back under my control. Slowly, I lowered myself so that I was only a few inches above the parking garage, willing my shoes to frost over. I suppose I’ll have to stick to the easy way for now. I mused as I tugged at the cold ensconcing my footwear, holding us aloft much more steadily as I beamed down at my girlfriend.

“AARON JESUS CHRIST YOU COULD HAVE KILLED US YOU ABSOLUTE D-”

I hurriedly attempted to muffle her shouted beratings with a kiss, but alas, all I got out of that was an incredibly annoyed MMFF sound and a squirmy Kailey in my arms.

“YOU DON’T GET TO KISS ME, YOU ALMOST KILLED ME!”

“...but I didn’t, though.” I smiled, setting down first myself, then Kailey, onto solid ground. The almost joking pout that had found its way onto her face made all the struggle worth it, but I figured I might as well try to be a big romantic sap at least one more time. I flicked a finger over at the radio I knew to be sitting over by the door, and thankfully the song I’d requested to play about now came over the speakers. It was a slowdance song, old enough that it’d come out before either Kailey or I had been born, but it would work just fine for the actual moment I had in mind, rather than just the showing off I had been doing.

“May I have this dance, my dear lady?” I extended a hand dramatically her way, a slight bow entering my posture as I moved.

“I guess..” I could practically hear the grumble on her face, and when she set her hand in mine, I looked up to find that, by golly, there was indeed a begrudging look on Kailey’s face, as if to say, “I’m only humoring you because I love you.”

And so we danced, to a vaguely static-y radio, on the roof of a random parking garage. I held my girlfriend close to me, and as I leaned in to kiss her gently, we were once again walking on air.

[my-hero-aaron]

Summer Camp, Finale

“K, I can see where to go now. Just take my hand, I think I can walk us out of here on the path.” I half-mumbled, starting to walk along the path, which held the slightest bit more heat than the ground around it. Off in the distance, I could see a few blobby heat signatures, one looking like a person standing with their arms outstretched, and two more right next to each other, seeming to be hiding from the first person. I continued to walk, this time toward them, and it became clear just who the two hiding were pretty obviously. I could recognize that colossal hand anywhere, and judging by the way the heat from her hand was moving through the other person, it was clear that our steely classmate was the person with her.

“K, Tetsutetsu and Itsuka are about to do something to a third person, and from the way he’s standing, he sure seems like the source of our purple problem. Let’s run over there to help!”

As I started to dash over toward our classmates, however, I felt K’s hand slip from mine, and I stumbled to a stop, whirling back to look at my best pal. However, when I noticed why she wasn’t holding my hand anymore, I had to bite back a startled scream.

K was trying to grip at my hand, but the hand she was trying to do it with kept... breezing past mine, and I could see through it, like it was made of glass.

“kAILEY WHY IS YOUR HAND A GHOST HAND?” I whisper-shouted at her, and the panic was clear in her face as she shrugged, continuing to try to catch my hand.

“O-o-okay, so, we’re not going to do much to help them out when you’re kinda... short hands, I guess we’ll just get the heck out of here.”

I did my best to quash down the little ball of panic that was forming in my chest, and spun, hoping to see any more heat signatures off in the distance. There was one a long distance off, and it looked to be in a rather wobbly conversation with the tree to their left. I quietly pointed in the direction of the wavering pillar of heat, and started to walk, hoping that K was behind me. We got about halfway to the person, before K let out a small startled noise, and a few moments after I stopped to turn around, she had fumbled into my back.

“Are you okay, Kailey?”

“A-a-Aaron, I... my eyes, they’re-” K cut herself off, and I glanced over her, worried that she had started to dissolve from the head down while I wasn’t looking. Thankfully, the ghostliness seemed to have only tracked a little further up to engulf her wrists, but she was clearly squinting as if she couldn’t see.

“Kails, I’m going to snap every couple steps, just listen for that, okay?”

Kailey nodded at this, and we continued our trek toward the heat signature from before, which had been becoming increasingly wobbly as we moved. When we had managed to get within a few feet of the person, a small groan came from their direction, and they collapsed to the ground.

“hECK that’s not good!” I shouted, drawing in a deep breath as I rushed forward into the fog, only to find that the person that had collapsed was Oliver. I resisted the urge to shout his name, and, with a grunt of exertion, tossed him over my shoulder. I spun back toward where I knew K to be, and saw a familiar shape arise out of the colder trees. K was stumbling around as if she had no idea what was going on. 

Shoot, she can’t see, can she? I thought, rushing toward my best pal. As I re-entered the bubble of air, I let out the breath I had been holding, and, out of breath, muttered to Kailey, “I’m right here, Kails, I found Oliver and he’s kinda passed out. We gotta get out of here!” I didn’t catch her reply as I scanned the treeline, hoping to find any kind of sign of camp proper. Thankfully, after a moment’s searching, the bright red outline of the house I’d woken up in earlier rose out of the trees, and I started rushing toward it, my free hand snapping quickly in an attempt to let Kailey know we were in a remarkable hurry.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of trudging more, we stumbled out of the forest, the gas cleared up, and I heard Kailey’s heavy sigh of relief as the pressure on her quirk eased.

“A-Aaron, I still basically can’t see, are we just going to run forward?”

“Yeah, the house is right in front of us. Let’s get moving, the last thing we need is to get caught up in whatever’s going on out here.”