4 Chapter 4

"I don't actually know what I expected."

As much as U.A. was known for heroics training and the like, you'd be forgiven for forgetting that, at the end of the day, it was a university. The main difference? The teachers were pro heroes.

English class? You get Present Mic (rip Kyoka). Art History? You get Midnight (and about half a dozen innuendos every 5 minutes). Math? Ectoplasm. Japanese? Cementoss.

In short? Never let it be said that this was a normal college. That being said, Venn would be kind of a dick to complain about going to college with a mostly new start. He grew up quirkless, so one can assume that middle school kinda sucked, before he was homeschooled during high school. The only part of U.A. that was kinda… not great, was that all of the teachers had to repeat most of their sentences in English just for him. English class wasn't so bad, he was basically a tutor for everybody else, but the other classes left him feeling like he was being pitied a little. It sucked. But other than that, it was alright. Everybody else in class, sans maybe Katsumi because she was a bitch 24/7, was pretty understanding.

Venn was sitting at a table with Mina, Izuku, Kyoka (who was nursing a steady headache from Mic's class), Ochaco, and the blue-skinned girl with the soap, who Venn had now learned was named Kaoruko Awata. His legs were crossed on his seat, a pair of disposable chopsticks held expertly in his right hand with a bowl of poké in front of him.

Izuku shrugged. "I-I mean, it is a university."

Venn shrugged. "I mean, yeah, but I guess it just feels… too normal? I don't know." He took a rather healthy mouthful of raw spicy tuna, rice, and fried garlic. Only his unbending will to keep up the cool-guy exterior prevented him from just melting in his seat. Lunch-Rush apparently could put together a mean poké bowl.

Izuku, his notebook in the middle of the table, was using a notebook (that wasn't dedicated to quirks), to translate most of Venn's sentences for Kaoruko and Ochaco. Venn inwardly dubbed Izuku as the Multi-Tasking Master to be able to write Venn's words in Japanese at the exact same time that he spoke them in English. 'I hope and pray that I never end up on the wrong side of his intellect.' He suppressed a bit of a shiver.

Mina groaned. "Ectoplasm couldn't be more boring if he tried, I don't think."

Venn laughed. "I'd rather get geometry drilled into my skull by a dude who has a cool mask than feel my brain cells dissolve trying to learn Japanese. I feel so out of my element. What the fuck even is an 'L' anymore?" He took another scoop of his food.

Kaoruko spoke. Venn picked up the smallest of snippets, wherein he just recognized the word fragments rather than meaning. Izuku's handwriting somehow switched to English the moment she began to talk, so Venn kept his attention on Kaoruko as he read out of his peripheral vision. "I don't know, actually. It's not a letter or sound I'm familiar with. So I guess we've got the same issues, just for different reasons."

Venn shrugged in response. "Fair." He set his chopsticks down for a second to stretch his back out before he picked them back up.

Ochaco tilted her head to the side a little, seeming puzzled. She spoke, and Izuku translated. "Hey, Venn? I have a question. How do you know how to use chopsticks?"

Venn raised an incredulous eyebrow. "Uh… because there's Japanese cuisine in the U.S. too. America is one of the most diverse places in the world when it comes to cultures. You're just as likely to find a burger joint as you are to find a sushi bar or a taco truck."

Mina, of all people, looked confused. "I don't know if you'd consider this an offensive question, but what's a taco?"

Venn froze in the middle of moving his chopsticks to his mouth. He slowly put them back into his bowl and put his hands together in front of him and bowed his head.

"Uh… what are you doing?"

"Praying for you."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The class right after lunch was their first Heroics class. Venn was excited not so much because "Wooo hero work" but more because "Wooo something that isn't a lecture, hopefully." That's not to say Venn didn't want to do hero work, but can you blame him for being bored?

He'd just gotten done picking off small bits and pieces of shedding skin (and throwing it away, because he's not an animal), when there was a booming voice near the floor.

"I AM-" The door flew open, "COMING THROUGH THE DOOR LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!" Lo and behold, All-Might himself, tall as fuck, as broad as the U.A. gates themselves almost, and blonder than Venn, barreled through the door. He was sporting the ugliest damn suit that Venn had ever had the displeasure of looking at, so much that he put a hand over his eyes and groaned lightly. "I will be your instructor for your Heroics classes!" The students, sans Venn, began buzzing. "It took me a while to come up with a plan, I'll admit, but I figured why not throw you into the deep end!" He brought a large red index card of some sort out from behind his back with a large "BATTLE" printed on it in large white letters. "Battle trials!" There was a mad cackle near the front of the class, coming from Katsumi, naturally. "That being said, any hero in action needs to look good doing it!" He stuck a hand in his suit's breast pocket and produced a small grey remote. He pressed a button, and a section of the classroom wall next to the blackboard opened up, revealing many suitcases. "These are the costumes you submitted in your applications! Take your case, labelled with your name, and change in the locker rooms. Meet me at Ground Beta."

All-Might left, easing Venn's nausea. He waited until most of the class had gotten their costumes before he snagged his own. He was one of the last to step into the boys' locker room with a sigh. He found a locker and began to throw his uniform into the locker. He knew he'd get what he got moments after beginning to strip, but he was just hoping it wouldn't be so soon.

"Slater! How disgraceful!" That was Iida, pointing at the tattoo on Venn's left hip bone. "Is that a tattoo?"

Venn sighed. "The U.S. has very very different stances on tattoos and piercings and the like. You don't have to like it, but keep your damn judgments to yourself." Said tattoo consisted of three snakes. Two of them were curled into a circle, devouring each other's tails. One of them was blue, and one of them was red. In the middle of their circle, was the third snake, a yellow one, curled into a circle and devouring its own tail. "It has to do with the history of my quirk. That's all you need to know." He threw his costume's suitcase open and began to dress.

First, was black pants, made out of Venn's black scales, interlocked securely like scalemail. His feet bore black combat boots, made of the same scales and reinforced by a denser cluster of the scale on the toe. On top of his boots were blue shin guards, made of his blue scales. His torso was adorned by a black vest, again made out of his blacker scales, and buttons and lining made from his blue ones. He left it open. His hands were covered in sturdy black fingerless gloves, made from, you guessed it, his black scales. His wrists though, were covered by blue bracers, made from his blue scales, with the silhouette of a snake's jaw opening, decaled using his black scales. His whole suit was made from his scales so that they would grow and conform to his transformation and his scale shapes. Upon closer inspection, one would note that as sturdy as his costume was, his gloves and his shoes were porous. Around his throat was a cord made out of his black scales, but compressed and curled. Attached to the cord was a strange, seemingly interlocking pair of steel cylinders. In reality, these were collapsible tonfas, meant for him to partake in combat outside of his transformation, that he could snap off the cord to use. The cord would conform to his shape, so the weapons were unharmed by his "Shifting".

His pants rode at a tilt, high on his right hip, but low on his left. The top half of his hip tattoo was displayed, enough to see the blue snake eating the red's tail and the yellow one eating itself, alongside a prominent V-line on that side. His hair was tied up in a low ponytail to keep it out of his eyes, revealing his malformed eye.

He was just about to leave, when he spotted something in the corner of his eye: A hole in the wall. His eyes narrowed, before he turned to his locker. His thoughts ran for about 5 seconds before he simply picked up his locker, and then set it back down in front of the hole to block it.

Considering he'd had to rip his locker out of the floor to do that, it caused a significant amount of noise. Iida came stomping over to him, even as Jiro and the other girls were on the other side listening for what had caused the horrible metal screech.

"Slater! Why have you committed such vandalism?!" Iida's hand chopped the air a few times, while Venn just looked at him with no expression.

"There was a peephole in the wall. I put my locker in front of it to block it. So this vandalism I just committed fixed an existing act of vandalism and perversion." Venn rolled his eyes, his right eye seeming menacing as it did so, and walked out.

As luck would have it, Iida knew a decent amount of English, enough to carry relatively complex conversations, so he could mostly understand Venn. Izuku had to translate for most of the other guys though.

On the other side of the wall, Jiro summarized what she'd heard, and the girls collectively appreciated his actions (sans Bakugo, who just wasn't paying any attention).

"He wasn't even defending us from active perverts. He just saw something that could lead to it, and fixed it." Mina smiled, a small purple blush on her face. "Defending us to such an extent when he doesn't even know us all that well." She sighed a little before she hastily got into her costume.

Venn was the first person to show up at Ground Beta, crossing his arms and leaning his weight onto his left hip (and accidentally exaggerating the low cut). He glanced at the grounds and squinted lightly. "This is the same city as the Entrance Exam."

All-Might, off to the side, smiled. "Correct, Young Slater. Or would you rather I call you Venn? I'm familiar with American customs."

Venn gave him a grateful smile. "That would be wonderful, thank you. I'm trying to adjust, but it's just a bit disorienting. I can't thank Izuku enough for translating for me." He scratched the right side of his head.

There was a proud gleam in All-Might's gaze that Venn didn't catch. "Ah, yes, Young Midoriya. You are staying at his home, yes?"

Venn rose an eyebrow at this, but figured the Number 1 would know this type of shit. "Yeah. Damn good host in my opinion. Smartest motherf-" He coughed. "-Smartest guy I know. To a rather terrifying degree. He can communicate with me in English, looking at me, while he translates both of our sentences in his dedicated notebook for it. At the same time. I never ever want to be on the wrong side of his intellect."

All-Might's smile got wider, if that was possible. "Most don't pick up on his brain amidst his mutterings and his stuttering. How did you pick up on it?"

Venn sighed. "He learned to speak English better than most Americans I know within about a year, once they knew they'd be hosting me. I also have somewhat heightened senses, including hearing. I've decomposed his mutterings into digestible sentences a few times, and let me tell you: the questions he asks himself and the conclusions he comes up with are scary if they turn out to be true. The instant he saw my transformation, he caught on to my serious weakness to water, and we were nowhere near water. He even picked apart my regen factor, and I haven't even shown that to anybody." He shook his head. "Excuse my language, but Japan is fucking lucky that he wants to be a hero."

All-Might suppressed his growing pride and his shock at the words. 'My word, Venn's right.' All-Might had a second thought, that made him inwardly sick. 'I told a quirkless genius that he couldn't be a hero. I'm stupid. He almost became a seriously problematic villain.' He suppressed a shiver. "Young Midoriya has an intense heroic drive, as you probably noticed. We should be thankful for that drive."

Venn nodded, as people began to join them. Venn mostly ignored the guys, they weren't really all that impressive or cool looking, except for maybe Shoji, Tokoyami, and Kirishima. Those were kinda neat costumes. Izuku just looked like a green All-Might cosplayer. His brain went into serious tunnel vision when the girls started to show up though. His eyes brisked right over Ochako, considering Venn was already shipping her hardcore with Izuku. He had to abide by the bro code there. That being said, his eyes nearly crossed when he spotted Mina. 'Holy hell, woman. Are you trying to make me pass out?' A light blue blush appeared on his cheeks. (A/N: Human form, he blushes blue. Transformed, his blue scales take a purply hue when he blushes.) He reluctantly tore his eyes away from Mina, just in time to miss her hungry gaze when she spotted him. The next person he saw was Momo. She was just a tad too elegant for his tastes, but he felt the need to say something, so he moved. He did not see Katsumi, Jiro, Mina, and Kaoruko licking their lips as he passed.

He cleared his throat. "Mo- I mean, Yoayorozo." Momo turned, knowing a decent chunk of English considering her family. She suppressed her own blush when she saw him, but focused on his words. "You uh… you need a new costume."

Her eyebrows furrowed. "I'm sorry? I need skin exposure for my quirk, I couldn't help it."

Venn shook his head. "You absolutely can. Take Midnight's shirt for example. Maybe some one-way cloth? My point isn't how damn raunchy the costume is. I couldn't care less. My point is how exposed you are, in terms of protection. All anybody has to do is target your middle torso and you're screwed."

She narrowed her eyes. "You don't have room to talk with an open vest like that."

He shook his head. "I always have my own armor. My scales are right under my skin, so very few things could actually pierce me." He gestured to Kirishima. "His quirk immediately creates armor. Your protection is equal to how fast your brain can come up with an item to create." He shook his head. "Come up with something else, or I'll have Izuku and his massive brain do it for you." He turned away and moved back to the guys, crossing his arms and cocking his hip again.

He shook his head to clear the concern from his mind and looked at more costumes. Jiro looked perfect as far as he was concerned. Best costume aesthetic he'd seen so far from the girls, simply because it wasn't trying to be sexual. He cocked his head a little at Katsumi's costume. He knew she was at least a little bustier than that. She looked flat in her costume. Then it hit him. 'A binder. Makes sense.' She wasn't Momo or Mina level, but he could get why she'd wanna keep those things tamped down.

Kaoruko's costume was… interesting. It consisted of a skintight dark blue crop top with a white turtleneck-ish collar with a zipper down the middle. Said crop top was just a little… TOO cropped, and she was presenting a relatively generous underboob. She wore black tights with loose white shorts (That looked unbuttoned, despite there not being buttons. It was pretty suggestive.), two yellow markings down the either side of them. On her feet were thick white boots with lines running down their sides, with yellow rings in the center of them. Over her entire face, she wore a transparent visor with an air filter on each side, and on her hands she wore plain dark blue gloves that mostly matched her crop top.

Long story short, considering dark blue was his vibe, she was rather… striking, to understate it. If she hadn't shown her ability to use her bubbles like soap and display her agility in such a way during the Quirk Assessment Tests, he might have had a similar issue that he'd had with Momo's costume. Instead, he was just struggling momentarily to tear his eyes away. Shortly after, Mina began teasing Kaoruko about it.

Venn turned back around when All-Might cleared his throat. "Good to see you all made it! You all look like full-fledged heroes!" He raised a cheesy thumbs-up. "Okay, the way this class will work is two-on-two battles!"

"How are we being paired up?"

"How much am I allowed to hurt people?"

"Am I sparkly enough?"

All-Might put his hands on his ears. "Stop, stop, stop! My quirk isn't super hearing!" He sighed. "More often than not, heroes and villains collide in narrow spaces. Back-alley deals, hostage situations, bank robberies, and more. As such, we'll be doing team battles inside a building. You'll be paired into teams randomly by drawing lots. I will pair teams up, and then assign one team as a hero team, and one team as a villain team."

Iida tilted his head. "Why are we being paired randomly? That sounds inefficient."

Before All-Might could answer, Izuku of all people beat him to the punch. "Think about it. Heroes don't always have the luxury of knowing who they're working with."

All-Might nodded. "Correct, Young Midoriya. The hero team's goal, or win condition if you will, is to capture the villains or lay a single hand upon the fake bomb the villains are guarding. Villains, your goal is to capture the heroes, or defend the bomb until time is up. Now, all of you come up to this box, one at a time and take a ball. Find your classmate with a matching letter, and that will be your partner, and your team's letter."

Venn let his classmates go for a few minutes, including Mina, Kirishima, Izuku, Katsumi, and a few others, before he stepped up. He took a ball, tossed it up in the air, and caught it again. "Okay, I got E." He held it up in the air so his teammate could find him.

He was suddenly attacked by a pink-skinned, squealing missile. "Vennnnn!" Mina jumped on his back and hung off of him like a koala.

He sighed in exasperation and then smiled, choosing to ignore the softness pressing into his back. "Hi Mina. Guess we got lucky, huh?" Mina got off of him and beamed at him. 'GAH! Too bright!'

She nodded so hard he thought her head might roll off her shoulders. "Yep! And we can understand each other too! It'll make planning a lot easier."

Venn nodded. "Good point. And I think I already have one or two ideas. But let's wait and see who our opponents are and whether we're heroes or villains."

After all of the students got their lots, they found their partners:

Midoriya Izuku & Uraraka Ochaco (Team A)

Todoroki Shoto & Shoji Mezo (Team B)

Koda Koji & Aoyama Yuga (Team C)

Bakugo Katsumi & Iida Tenya (Team D)

Slater Venn & Ashido Mina (Team E)

Yoayorozo Momo & Awata Kaoruko (Team F)

Hanta Sero & Kaminari Denki (Team G)

Tokoyami Fumikage & Asui Tsuyu (Team H)

Mashirao Ojiro & Hagakure Toru (Team I)

Kirishima Eijiro & Jiro Kyoka (Team J)

All-Might looked at the list he wrote down, thought for a second, and then drew two balls from the same box for the lots, but with only one ball of each letter. "Team H vs. Team G!" The announced teams stepped forward. Tokoyami and Asui looked cool as cucumbers. All-Might fished into his pocket and produced a coin. He labelled tails for heroes, and heads for villains. He presented the result to Team H. "Team H! You are the villain team! Team G, you are the hero team!"

Battle selections went like that for 3 battles. 2 of them were… kind of sad. Tokoyami and Tsuya flattened Hanta and Denki. All they had to do was hide in a dark room and let Dark Shadow do the job. Once they were dealt with, Tsuyu used her stronk frog legs to break the wall so that the sunlight would reign in Dark Shadow. It was a squash match.

The following match was Team C (Koji &Yuga) vs. Team F (Momo and Kaoruko). This match was basically just Girl Power: The Movie. Yuga was basically a glass cannon because of his quirk's drawback, and Koji had a very limited arsenal of animals to use.

It was ultimately just Momo making a net gun and immobilizing Koji immediately, and Kaoruko showed off some serious martial arts, sliding across the floor with speed and around Yuga's laser before flipping forward with an axe kick, followed by a low sweep from her other leg. Yuga hit the ground hard with his head, and he was immediately unconscious, and probably with a concussion.

Venn was extremely concerned during the next match, Team A versus Team D. The building they were in stood no chance, especially when Katsumi pulled the pin on her gauntlet. Ya know, exactly what All-Might told her not to do. He held himself back from taking Izuku to Recovery Girl only because Ochaco beat him to it. That, and he and Mina were up next, against Kirishima and Jiro (Team J). About here was when Venn learned that Mina and Kirishima were apparently good friends from middle school. Venn noted a forlorn look on Kirishima's face when he spotted Venn and Mina together, so the reptilian teen filed it away for something to keep an eye on in the future.

All-Might did the normal coin flip thing. He presented the coin to Venn and Mina. "Team E, you are the villain team! Head to your base, that building over there, and prepare."

Venn and Mina began to plan on the fly as they walked through the building. They eventually came up with a relatively solid one: They situated their bomb in a room that had only 2 ways to approach, that being a stairwell or a straight corridor. Venn just shrugged and tore up the floor of the straight corridor, after Shifting of course, and essentially made the straight corridor impassable. He immediately Shifted back to his more human state. He unclipped his tonfas from the cord around his neck, detached them from each other, and clicked buttons on them, which shot out the handle and the longer baton-like section. Mina took up a position at the top of the stairwell and prepared acid with the highest viscosity she could with the lowest acidity she could. They then both backed up. Venn took up a spot just on the other side of the door, flush against the wall, and forced himself to take relatively shallow breaths to mitigate his presence. It was easy to infer that someone with earjacks attached to their ears would probably have heightened hearing. Mina stayed nearer to their fake bomb, made of paper mache. She'd used her acid relatively liberally to put craters into the ground around her to make the floor harder to traverse (at Venn's recommendation), and then they simply waited. Venn made sure she tried to keep from talking as much as she could, just so they could keep hidden for a little longer.

The whole hiding thing? Yeah, that didn't work. Turns out, Jiro has insane ears. What did work though, was Mina's slippery… lube for a lack of better term, on the stairs. Neither Kirishima nor Jiro had the means to avoid the stairs, nor the means to get past the torn up corridor. It took half of their time just to get up the stairs, which involved destroying the stairs themselves to give themselves handholds.

Once they found the room, chaos reigned. It was true that Jiro found their bomb pretty easily. But she could only really pick up Mina. Venn had forced himself to take shallow breaths, and at the same time, stilled his heart to just 1 beat every few seconds. She had no idea he was there.

As soon as Kirishima knocked down the door, Venn's breathing and heartbeat surged back to normal, and his right tonfa shot out, nailing Kirishima in the side of the head before he could harden all the way. Kirishima saw stars for a second.

A second too long, as Venn immediately spun the same tonfa within his grip, the long baton side swinging around from along his forearm to spin into the top of Kirishima's head, causing more stars to swim in his vision and a stumble. The stumble was long enough that Venn could afford to split his attention for a moment, his left tonfa lashing out and striking Jiro's earjack before it could hit him. She winced. Venn swung his left tonfa in a wide arc back from where it was into the back of Kirishima's head, dizzying him and sending him in Mina's direction.

Mina gave a grin, before she filled the craters in the floor with her slippery acid. Kirishima stumbled right into one, slipping forwards with his momentum. He crashed directly into a tornado kick from Mina, her dancing background and natural agility allowing her to execute it in the first place. Kirishima promptly experienced whiplash and fell unconscious.

During that quick exchange, Venn had been blasted back a few feet to the side by one of Jiro's leg amps. He grit his teeth and rolled forward from where he landed, springing from bent knees to swing his right tonfa her direction, spinning it in his grip at the same time. She made the mistake of trying to block with one of her earjacks, instead of parrying. He struck her earjack, immediately eliciting a small yelp of pain from her before he spun lower to the ground, his other tonfa swinging out and into her knee. There was a loud THWACK as her leg buckled. He was on her in an instant with capture tape.

It was a dominant victory. Venn immediately undid the capture tape on Kyoka and helped her stand, replacing his tonfas around his neck. "Sorry, that hit to the knee was a little harder than I meant it to be."

She shook her head and winced, as he offered her an arm to lean on. "It's fine. I might limp for a bit, but it's fine. I'm a little more bothered by the hits to my earjacks."

He winced. "Yeah, sorry about that. Wasn't my first choice." She nodded but didn't verbally respond. Venn turned back to Mina. "Is he still out?" She nodded, taking the tape off of Kirishima's wrists. He glanced between Jiro and Mina and shrugged. "Let's swap."

They did so. Mina slung one of Jiro's arms over her shoulder, while Venn hoisted Kirishima onto his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Kirishima woke up just before they got to the monitoring room. Venn set him down and did a quick check-up. "Yep, that's a bit of a concussion. You'll be alright for a bit. There's only one more fight. Afterwards, you really should head to Recovery Girl." Kirishima just blinked for a second before Mina translated, eliciting a nod from him.

The class, sans Izuku because he was still with Recovery Girl, gathered around All-Might. "Well done, Team E! Now, can anyone tell me who this match's MVP was?"

Nobody answered for a minute or so. Just as All-Might was about to answer himself, Yoayorozo spoke. "I'd say Slater was the MVP here." Mina, in Venn's ear, translated. "He came up with the plan, and he also trusted his teammate to do their part. Granted, he did most of the physical heavy lifting, he still left Mina to handle Kirishima, as he trusted her to do. Furthermore, he conserved his transformation abilities in favor of fighting mostly quirkless."

Venn shook his head. "Not quite quirkless. Yes, my Serpentine form is powerful and on All-Might's level if I move correctly, but outside of my Serpentine form, I do still have relatively buffed strength. Like, as I am at this moment, I have the physical strength of a mid-level strength enhancement quirk. That's partly why my strikes were able to get through Kirishima's hardening. I was pulling my strikes against Jiro, but I guess I wasn't holding back quite enough." Jiro flushed in embarrassment and pouted. "Not to say Jiro is fragile, I just didn't gauge my strength correctly. If I'm not careful, I'm on a power level that can be lethal."

Momo nodded. "This further supports my assessment."

All-Might gave a belly-laugh. "Couldn't have said it myself, Young Yoayorozo! And well done, Young Venn. One more fight, and then class is over! Team B versus Team I!"

Much like the first two matches of the class, this match was sad. While team B won by a landslide, Todoroki had put his own teammate, the buff Shoji, at a disadvantage by spreading ice everywhere. It got the job done, but Todorki was criticized by All-Might for endangering his partner.

Sero escorted Kirishima to Recovery girl, while Momo took Kyoka. Venn and Mina stuck around a bit after changing back into their uniforms, waiting to make sure Kirishima and Kyoka were alright.

Kirishima ended up being told, after getting healed by Recovery Girl, to rest for 10 or 20 minutes just in case. Kyoka was out very shortly though, with a very slight limp and with her earjacks stuffed in styrofoam tubes to block out any magnified sound. She was still able to hear, but not with her enhanced version so she could give her ears a rest.

Venn and Mina left together until they had to split up for their respective trains. Venn knew Izuku would be staying with Recovery Girl for the night for observation, so he prepped himself to run damage control with Inko.

He had no idea that he'd be running a very different kind of damage control the next day, damage control that would change the course of the entire school year and his life in general.

Next time: The USJ