"I freakin love UA," Yoarashi bellowed, as he and Maeve lounged on one of the building's roofs in the arena. They had mere seconds left until the start of the exam, which caused a swarm of chaos on the ground below them. Up there, Maeve rather felt like the only thing missing was one of those drinks with little umbrellas in them. If she passed the exam she'd call Jin and see if that could be arranged.
"The whole plus ultra thing is awesome! I love it!"
"Eh, it gets old after a while. Trust me. I hope I wasn't the one to scare you off with that drug test," Maeve replied, pressing a button behind her ear to allow a familiar visor to replicate over her face. Along with her bodysuit, that was the only piece of old equipment she'd kept.
5
"No, the test was super!"
4
"Thanks for agreeing to partner up by the way."
3
"I love working with other hot-blooded heroes in training-"
2
"-You were the one who was kind to me at the recommendations exam so-"
1
"-I can't wait! Plus ultra!!"
GO
Maeve took a deep breath and thanked her lucky stars, faint and far between as they were, that she'd never been afraid of heights. The girl then took a running start and catapulted herself into thin air.
"Ahem. There's still time to quietly step out and no one will think worse of you," Mera's sleep-deprived croaks resonated out of a microphone in her visor. They must've placed it there while hiding spy equipment in her apartment. Maeve could barely hear him over the screeching of the wind as she twisted in the sky like the girl had witnessed Bakugo demonstrate countless times. It was like a dance, a breakneck, wild dance, and if there was one physical thing she knew how to do, it was dancing.
"The Commission reminds you that in your current physical and psychological condition, this is extremely dangerous. You have no combat training whatsoever-"
Maeve touched down on a platform of compressed air and retracted her visor to cut him off. The sense of hanging, being enveloped by the sky, made her laugh even with air being sucked out of her lungs. Up there, she felt untouchable. She felt alive. Maeve focused her watering eyes on the whirlwind of balls and below that, stunned examinees who'd only just started properly fighting. However, some were already recovering from Yoarashi's quirk and spotting her as the easier target between the two. Time to change that sentiment.
Maeve gripped her staff and it came alive in her hands. An upside-down forest of writhing branches honed in on and pinned down everyone in the street in the blink of an eye. It was just like targeting a patient's cancerous cells on a larger scale. She felt a lurch in her stomach at the stretching of her quirk's limits, but it was manageable.
"I believe heroes should be hot-blooded! If it's not too much trouble, I'd love to join in this white-hot battle," Yoarashi boomed with barely contained excitement. Maeve didn't think there was much of a battle left to join, but he'd clearly spent a while thinking of the perfect lines so didn't rain on his parade.
"Please and thank you," Yoarashi roared, then streamed balls downwards on Maeve's helpless captives. A symphony of beeps fell on disbelieving ears as their opponent's targets were activated. Maeve willed her staff to retract and reopened her visor, blinking away a narrowing of her vision.
"Hi Mera. Love your work. Tell the Commission it's a bit too late in regards to other applicants thinking the worst of me," she said calmly, over the sound of a street full of failed examinees complaining and yelling insults. Maeve closed it again before he could answer. A few moments later, hidden loudspeakers around the arena delivered a message even more downtrodden than usual.
"Looks like we have our first two applicants to pass the first round... Ahem... they took out 200 other examinees between them. Keep up the pace please, ladies and gentlemen."
"You've passed," the target attached to Maeve's bodysuit whirred, "so please proceed to the reception room. Quickly now."
Yoarashi thrust his fist into the air in celebration. Maeve prised the microphone off her visor with a scrap of broken glass and crushed it underfoot. Also in celebration.
***
"Can you see who passed? I don't think anyone's ever done it that fast," Joke commented, craning her neck to get a glimpse.
"I can land a guess," Aizawa replied, just as Maeve and Yoarashi rounded the corner to make their victory march past the audience stands. His daughter was so short next to the towering Shiketsu student she could've been a child. Yet even from that distance, he could tell from their body language alone which of the two was more dangerous.
Maeve, clearly scanning for him, finally locked on. Instead of the over the top gesture he was expecting, she merely pressed a fist to her chest and continued on until the girl stood right in front of the judge's panel. There was a collective pause in breath as the audience realised they had absolutely no idea what Maeve was going to do.
The surgeon raised her arms, twirled her hands like a show woman, and bowed with far too many flourishes to be anything other than sarcastic.
"She got that from you," Aizawa complained, sinking lower in his scarf than he was already. Joke beamed and wiped proud tears from her eyes.
"Damn right she did."
***
"Here's to passing within five seconds and also wiping out a fifth of the competition for the rest of us!" Kaminari toasted enthusiastically, being the third to arrive at the reception room seven minutes after the first two. Maeve was too busy shoving pizza in her face to correct him. It was 13 seconds, not five.
"Surely that's breaking records," Kaminari continued. The girl swallowed with a decent amount of effort, washing it down with apple juice.
"Hawks did it in four."
"Minutes?"
"Seconds."
"Well, here I thought you were special," Kaminari teased, amber eyes twinkling as he loaded his pockets with sweets before other competitors got there. Which they did. Gradual trickles strengthened into a torrent and finally, Todoroki strode in, giving the room a heterochromatic sweep that landed on Maeve.
"What took ya so long?" She grinned, raising a juice box in greeting.
"I still can't use both sides at the same time. It slows me down," he replied thoughtfully, examining both hands.
"Jeez, I was joking. You made great time. It's only Kaminari and me from UA so far."
"Kaminari? I thought he went with Bakugo."
"He did, but they were ambushed and he activated all their attacker's targets before Bakugo and Kirishima could get in a shot," Maeve cackled, imagining the scene with far too much enjoyment.
"By accident?"
"He pre-programmed his support gear to lock in on enemy targets without specifying a limit to how many. Bakugo wasn't impressed, apparently."
"Difficult to believe. Where is Kaminari anyway?"
***
"Hey. How come the prettiest girl in the room is the one hanging in a corner?" An unfamiliar male voice crackled through to Dabi and Compress. Fuck's sake. The last thing Toga's mission entailed was being hit on by pubescents, but that seemed to be the recurring theme of the day. Why did she need to impersonate someone who Dabi mistook as a stripper when they first ran into her?
"How come you're spouting lies?" Toga giggled back, and Dabi had his finger hovering over the mute button. However, she actually did her job for once.
"That girl you were with before is super gorgeous. She's definitely the best in the room."
"What, Maeve?" The examinee laughed as if the thought of the doctor being remotely attractive was some kind of in-joke.
"I'll let her know you think so. But really, you're..." There was a pause as the guy thought of what to say next. Dabi worked to hold in his gag reflex.
"You know what, can we start over? From the looks of things, you completed the first part of the exam solo, which is what originally caught my eye. It doesn't seem like anyone's passed yet going at it alone. So, Congratulations! You must be really talented. I'm Denki Kaminari, by the way."
Dabi was shocked, simultaneously that Toga had managed to attract a UA student so close to Maeve and that their inside source hadn't been completely crazy in saying he was working on being less of a womaniser. Or, in their words, he'd become a 'dreamboat.'
"Oh, thanks. Is she the Maeve Aizawa? I thought all she could do was heal?"
"Nah, she can control living material. Took out 200 examinees by teaming up with Yoarashi and holding them down with branches, that woman, honestly. Listen, the reason I came over was that I noticed you were having a bit of trouble with your support items. D'you want me to have a look at that earpiece?"
All three villains froze at the same time, but luckily Toga was the first to recover.
"Nah, it's not malfunctioning."
"Oh, sorry. I noticed... Nevermind."
"Noticed what?" Toga asked, which was a dangerous move, however, Dabi had to admit the best. If Kaminari thought there was something suspicious better to come up with an excuse than have him make assumptions of something like cheating. She was there to ensure Maeve stayed safe and gather information, which wouldn't be possible if the villain got kicked out.
"You were testing the microphone by talking, I do it all the time when my voice control acts up. My bad for assuming there was something wrong, I'm such a nerd-"
"God, who'd want to be one of those," a familiarly wry voice cut in, "I'm Dr Aizawa, and this is Shoto Todoroki. You're Camie, right?"
"Um, yeah. How'd you-" Toga replied.
"CAMIE!! YOU MADE IT!"
That idiot was back. Wonderful.
"I was worried no one else from Shiketsu got through yet! Dr Aizawa and I just got ahead of ourselves, I suppose," Yoarashi continued. There was a cool clearing of another throat.
"Maeve finds physical contact difficult at the moment," Todoroki's voice slipped through. The prodigy's tone was as dead as Dabi was expecting the first time he heard him.
"Oh, I'm so SORRY," Yoarashi exclaimed. Dabi assumed he'd slung an arm around the girl in comradery without thinking.
"Don't worry about it, you didn't know," Maeve replied, although her tone was more strained than usual.
"Listen, could we talk?" Todoroki asked, and Dabi and Compress exchanged a glance. They'd already reached their threshold in regards to teen drama, and apparently, Maeve had as well.
"Shoto, you can leave it until after the exam-"
"I know, but I want to clear the air, crew cut. You've been giving me looks this entire time. Did I do something to offend you?"
Yoarashi didn't even pause to think through his answer.
"No. You'll have to forgive me, but it's 'cos you're Endeavor's son. You've changed a lot since we last saw each other, but those eyes still look exactly like Endeavor's."
Dabi was listening so closely, he nearly jumped out of his mutilated skin when an alarm went off before anyone could reply.
"For round two of the examination, you 100 examinees will venture into ruins as bystanders and prove your worth when it comes to rescuing innocent victims," Mera groaned over loudspeakers, with the sound of explosions in the background.
"Members of Help Us Company will join us as professional rescuees, feigning injuries across the field. It's your job to find and bring them to safety. You will be scored on how well you perform these rescues. We'll begin in 10 minutes, so take those bathroom breaks now."
The announcement was followed by silence.
"Toga? You there?" Compress asked into the microphone.
"Yeah," she replied.
"Where did the people you were talking to go?"
"Mm? Oh, they all stormed off after the announcement."
***
"Shoto," Maeve called, grabbing his arm before he could make it fully out of the building. They'd ended up in an abandoned corridor overlooking the disaster zone.
"Sometimes people say stupid things, okay? He would've said it without thinking-"
"He was right." Todoroki replied blankly, his eyes glazing over with ice.
"My eyes are exactly like Endeavor's. I used to think about digging out the left one, but never had the courage to actually do it."
"Hey. Look at me. Look at me," Maeve repeated, and Todoroki reluctantly dragged his gaze from the ceiling back to her.
"I of all people have the best reason to hate looking in them. But guess what? Apart from being worried about coming across as a serial killer, I have no issues with keeping eye contact. Because I know you."
"Which is messed up. Do you know how messed up that is? I should've turned myself over as soon as I found out about your scars to get justice, if not against me, against my father. But I was too much of a coward."
"Well, that would've been stupid. The authorities all know already and haven't done anything, so the only thing that would change would be you giving up your dream. You really think they'd let something so damning about the now number one hero get out?" Maeve replied, voice cracking.
"I thought I was over him. I thought I'd finally gotten free, and I could help you, protect you as atonement. Guess how well that went. I was so close," Todoroki croaked, face twisting in pain as he reached out a hand in demonstration.
"In the forest, if I stretched an inch further, an inch, none of this would've happened to you," he continued, breathing becoming erratic. Maeve felt rapid distortions in temperature as he struggled to control his quirk.
"What ifs are a whirlpool and you know it. The only people to blame are the villains, got it?"
When he remained unconvinced, Maeve sighed, "Come 'ere," and roped him into a tight hug. Todoroki somehow managed to bury his head in her shoulder despite the height difference and clung to her like a life raft, shaking.
"I'm a monster," he mumbled into the fur of her jacket, almost quietly enough that she couldn't hear. Maeve snorted.
"Yeah, you are. Finishing off the ice cream in the freezer every God damn time, it's fucking evil."
"I said I was sorry," the half and half student replied, exhaling into her braids.
"You didn't mean it. Little shit."
"I didn't," Todoroki laughed, wiping his eyes with the back of one hand.
"We should get ready for the second round," he continued, pulling himself together.
"Eh, I'm not too worried. Mera likes me more than he let on; I really think we have something special," Maeve grinned, picking her staff up from the floor and shouldering it.
"I've been doing disaster rescue since I was so small if I didn't get a juice box in my lunchbox I'd throw a tantrum. The break was like a warm-up in that regard."