Chapter 2: Calm Rest

Waking from my sleep, I groggily got out of my bed, slightly opening the blinds at my window to see how late it was.

Still dark out. There's a little bit of light, though. Probably going to be day time soon.

Well, I can't sleep after I've woken up, so I might as well get some practice in.

After putting on some clothes and organizing my hair, I made my way outside the house.

My mom and her team, the Wild Wild Pussycats, live in a large mountainous area surrounded by forest. If you were to drive here in a car starting from the nearest part of the city, without any breaks on the road, it would take you 45 minutes to get here.

It was nice and peaceful. It was also the perfect place for me to practice with my Quirk. Rocks and dirt were plentiful, and there were several rocks with small amounts of metal in them that I could make use of if there were lots of such rocks in my range.

Most of my practice was dedicated to improving my physical prowess, and training my Quirk was only the second highest priority. The way I see it, people who are overly reliant on their Quirks are all fools. It should be common knowledge that if you rely so heavily on one thing, you're only crippling yourself. If that thing you are so dependent on is supressed or taken away, you become useless and drag everyone else down.

That's why I dedicate most of my training to my physical power instead of my Quirk. That doesn't mean I neglect my Quirk though.

Getting to my exercises, I began going through my warmups, getting into my sets afterwards.

I always made sure to do multiple exercises that improved every part of my body when done together. I also made sure that my build didn't get too bulky or large, as that would hinder me more than it would help me.

After finishing my exercises, at which point it was likely only an hour until day began, I got to my Quirk.

I started off with something I started practicing 2 months ago: Incorporating my Quirk with my melee moves. I had this idea for a while, but it took more control to even begin with it than I had thought.

A very basic and crude form of this that I achieved a while ago was adding a layer of stone and rock to my arms and legs to enhance the damage done by a punch or a kick.

While it did work as intended, it made the covered areas a bit heavier than I would like them to be, so I wanted to see if I could refine it and achieve the same effect with less effort, and without the added effect of the covered areas being too heavy for my liking.

For example, something I fairly recently got the idea to do to try and get a similar effect was, instead of covering the entirety of my hands, I would simply cover the knuckles and fingers. I had achieved relative success with this idea so far, being able to cover the aforementioned areas, but there were a few things I wanted to work on to make it at least a little bit better. Small things, really. Manifestation speed, being able to keep the areas covered without having to be focused on it 24/7, stuff like that.

I had achieved something similar with covering my legs in this "rock armour". I achieved this before the idea of covering my knuckles came to me, since this idea was much simpler and easier to think of. Instead of covering the entirety of my legs, I only covered up to my kneecaps. There were also small things that I wanted to work on for this, and they were the same things as the covering of my knuckles.

For now, I wanted to keep working on covering my legs. Kicks are much more powerful than punches, so it would benefit me more to refine that first.

I willed the rocks to come to me and cover my legs from the bottom up to my kneecaps.

The rocks around me began floating up before shooting towards me and covering my legs, forming what looked like an armour of rock around them.

Once they were encased, I got to practice with them. The first thing I wanted to achieve was to be able to keep the area covered without constantly focusing on willing them to be covered. I've almost succeeded with this, actually. In yesterday's practice, it held around 90% as well as normal when I didn't focus on it, and it didn't dissipate. So, I guess it would be more accurate to say that I did achieve it, it just wasn't as strong as it would have been were I always focusing. That's the thing I want to change. Best way to do that is simply to practice without focusing on keeping it there.

By the time the day had started, I had achieved it fully.

It stayed there, and it was just as durable as it would have been had I constantly focused on it.

The rocks left my leg, as I willed them to.

Stretching to relieve some muscle stress, I wondered if Mom and the others are awake yet. They wake up pretty early most of the time.

Making my way back to the lodge, I saw that Mom was up.

"Oh, hey sweetie! I couldn't find you in your room, where were you?", she asked me.

Despite what I think of anyone and everyone else, I don't hate my mom. Both my biological one and the planet.

"Woke up really early, decided to train for a few hours. I didn't worry you, did I?" I responded.

"Not really. I know how you often go out to train for hours and hours. I just wish you left a note telling me you were training so that I know I have nothing to worry about if you haven't returned by the time I wake up.", she responded.

"Okay, I'll try and remember to do that.", I said.

"Thanks, sweetie."

I went to the kitchen area to make myself some tea. I used to have coffee a lot of the time, but when I tried tea, I not only found it to taste much better, it's also much healthier in the long run.

Since I was already there, I decided to make some coffee for Mom. Hero work is clearly very tiring, as Mom and the others are almost always very tired when they come back to the lodge after work. Coffee would help her at least a little bit.

I already knew how she liked her coffee. 3 sugars and a small amount of milk.

I made her coffee and brought it to her as soon as I was done mixing the sugar into the coffee.

"That's very nice of you, sweetie!", she thanked.

Nodding, I went back to the kitchen to make my tea.

Looks like today will be a calm day of rest.

(This chapter was more or less meant to show more about the character, his relationship with his mother, as well as a calm read before we get into the events of MHA. Next chapter, you'll see how he is with literally anyone else.)

(Edit: There will be a love interest. I'll say who it's going to be in the next chapter.)