Chapter 4

And here we are again! Here's #4 of And Then There Were Quirks! Thanks to all of you for the continued feedback, it's been real appreciated to look through while I (and the IRL friend I'm working on this story with) make my way through this! We're finally getting to the proper start of MHA canon in this chapter, with Ben and Gwen truly starting out at U.A. High... because come on, did anyone REALLY think that they weren't gonna get in after how well they did in the exam?

Also, both because I have a feeling someone's gonna ask about it sooner or later, and just because I want to keep track of it myself, here's the list of the aliens Ben's transformed into throughout the fic so far, as well as how many times he's transformed (on-page at least) throughout the fic so far:

Jetray: 3

Four Arms: 2

Humungousaur, Spider-Monkey, Diamondhead, Upgrade: 1

Anyway, once you're done with this chapter, which I seriously hope you enjoy, hope you've got it in you to keep leaving your thoughts via review, or if you want to chat with me (about the fic, Ben 10 or MHA in general, or something else entirely, drop me a PM or look me up on Discord (name for it is on my profile), or better yet join my server (link also in profile, just take out the spaces). Any of those methods works out just fine for me, and I hope to chat with you soon!

Now, ON WITH THE SHOW!

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"Are these things made of sandpaper, or something?"

Gwen resisted the urge to let out an exasperated sigh, instead settling for just rolling her eyes as she and Ben passed through the gates of U.A. High, just as they'd done for the Entrance Exams a couple of weeks ago: not as hopefuls this time, but as full-on students, members of the hero academia. Rather than their own clothes, this time they were both clad in the school uniforms that they'd received a few days ago, consisting of a long-sleeve button-up white shirt, a red tie and a grey blazer with blue-green stripes on the collar and hem of the sleeves. Since they were enrolled in the Hero Course, the blazers had one button on each shoulder.

The only way the uniforms really differed between Ben's and Gwen's was in what they wore on/around their legs, with Ben sporting a pair of dark blue-green pants, while Gwen had a dark blue-green pleated skirt.

"They're just new, Ben." Gwen replied, rolling her shoulders and adjusting the position of her bag on them as they got closer and closer to the building. "All new clothes are like that."

"Doesn't stop them from itching." Ben replied, tugging at his waistband, as though that would help. "In places pants aren't supposed to itch!"

"Maybe you'd have gotten used to new stuff itching if you didn't wear the same pair of blue jeans for three years straight." Gwen replied. "You'll survive."

"Hey, it's not my fault my jeans are so comfortable!" Ben shot back under his breath, but still loud enough for Gwen to just hear above the excited chatter all around them. The Omnitrix-wielder let out a breath as he continued to tug and play with the waistband on his pants. "Come on… ahh, that's a bit better."

Gwen rolled her eyes again. It really stunned her at times, how much Ben could fuss and fiddle over something so comparatively small and minor. When they'd faced down world-ending, sometimes universe-ending threats in the past, without even flinching… THAT was what got her cousin so worked up? Itchy pants? For real?

Either way, at least he'd managed to get the pants into some kind of position that was comfortable to him, so he could stop his whining. As U.A's massive main building loomed above the pair of them, Ben and Gwen slowed down their walking pace a little as they looked up, taking in where they'd be studying to become heroes… in this universe, at least.

As students of all shapes and sizes passed the slowing-down cousins, heading towards the open doors of the main building, Ben and Gwen shared a look. The moment they'd been anticipating, ever since the idea to try enrolling there had first popped into Gwen's head back in the library several months ago, and that they'd realised was actually going to become a reality after receiving their exam results last week… was here.

Flashback

It took quite a bit to usually get Ben's attention away from the show he was currently watching, lying on one of the tatami mats he'd dragged out of his and Gwen's bedroom like he was. His eyes glued to the TV as a news broadcast explaining how a top-tier heroine who could turn into a dragon had carried a bunch of civilians out of a burning building, after a hostage situation involving a villain with a fire Quirk had gone wrong.

Definitely one of the cooler things Ben had seen, both in reality and on TV. Though as that action in the broadcast died down and he flicked to something else, some kind of Japanese-dubbed American drama about a trio of siblings fighting for control of their father's media conglomerate, he couldn't help but wonder if something like Sumo Slammers was a thing in this world. He hadn't found it yet, but he was still on the lookout, he thought as he flicked to something else.

A logical part of his mind found that unlikely, though, considering how crazy and comic-book-like this world seemed to be. It was a possibility that no-one felt the need to make something like that, with how crazy the reality of this place was.

Stretching, Ben looked away from the TV, craning his neck to look over at his cousin, who was carefully stirring the contents of a pan while a pot of rice simmered on one of the other burners.

"Need any help, Gwen?"

"Thanks, but no thanks." Gwen replied. "I've got this just fine, and I'd rather not risk you burning this place down."

Ben let out a snort of mock-offence, pushing himself into a sitting position and fully turning to face her.

"Come on, I make a mean instant ramen."

"You did." Gwen remarked. "Last night. And three times last week. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not subsist off of processed noodles forever."

"Then why do they make them so cheap, and taste so good…?" Ben asked, attempting to be playful. But when Gwen didn't rise to his verbal bait, too focused on the meal she was making, he shrugged and slumped back down to the mat he was lying on. "Dinner DOES smell good, though."

"Thank you." Gwen replied, allowing herself an unseen smile as she continued stirring the vegetables in the pan. Though when the sound of something sliding through the letterbox and lightly dropping to the floor met the cousins' ears, she was the first to react. Turning off the stove and wiping her hands on a nearby towel, she headed towards the door, with Ben looking up but not making any move to follow.

Not until he heard Gwen letting out a light gasp at whatever had just come through their door.

"What's up?" he asked, getting to his feet. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah." Gwen replied, coming back into view, with an envelope in her hand. An envelope with a very distinctive seal, that the pair of them recognised immediately: the insignia of U.A. High. "Looks like they're here. Our results."

Ben's eyes widened slightly as Gwen made her way over to the table, tossing the envelope down onto it and looking over at him.

"Gotta be." He replied, picking up the envelope, tearing it open and shaking out its contents. A couple of folded pieces of paper dropped to the table, though what caught the cousins' attention more was the small disk inside that span a couple of times upon coming to a standstill on the table.

Gwen looked at it, blinking a couple of times before reaching for the folded pieces of paper, but when a faint whirring sound filled the air, she paused, her eyes widening and her body tensing up slightly. Ben's hand instinctively moved towards the Omnitrix, but before he could transform or even touch the watch, a holographic image flickered into view, of a familiar face standing in a room with a screen beside him.

"Tennysons Ben and Gwen… greetings!" The chimeric Principal Nezu's voice chirped from the projector. Ben's hand fell away from the Omnitrix as soon as he realised there was no danger. "Given that you live together, we decided it'd be best to present your results together. I've got a lot of these to get through and send out, so might as well save some time where I can, you know?"

"As good a reason as any." Ben remarked, more to himself than anything.

"Anyway, you've waited long enough, so let's get right to it, starting with the written exam results!" Nezu continued, his voice remaining cheerful as Ben and Gwen shared a glance with each other. This was- as they say- it.

The holographic Nezu adjusted his tiny bowtie before carrying on, in the same cheerful tone.

"I'm pleased to report… that both of you passed!" he spoke, pausing for effect in the middle to try and add some kind of suspense to it all, as a graph appeared on the screen beside his hologram that- the pair of cousins assumed- displayed all the grades from all the examinees. "Starting with you, Mr. Ben Tennyson, you achieved a score of 79.1%, placing you firmly within the B range. In fact, a couple more marks and you would have crossed the border into an A-, very good effort from you."

Ben let out a breath of relief, grinning over at Gwen, who was shooting him an amused smile in return.

"Not too bad." The Omnitrix-wielder muttered, his voice low.

"Could've been worse." Gwen whispered in response, a teasing hint in her voice.

"And as for you, Ms. Gwen Tennyson," the holographic Nezu continued, as the pair of cousins refocused on U.A.'s principal. "Your performance in the written exam was truly exceptional. You scored 98.8%, the highest of any of this year's hopefuls, and achieved an incredibly rare SSS-grade. In my tenure as Principal, I've only seen one or two other hopefuls achieve that kind of score before enrolling here, so you have my personal congratulations."

As Nezu, in the hologram, inclined his head in a bow, Ben gave a low whistle as he looked over at Gwen again.

"What was that about not showing off too much, Gwen?" he asked, it seemingly being his turn to have the teasing hint to his voice as he leaned over. Gwen let out a noise from her throat as she playfully pushed Ben away, but the smirk on her face as a result of her mixed pride and embarrassment at the praise didn't go unnoticed.

"I'll take it." She murmured.

The holographic Nezu straightened back up, attracting both Ben and Gwen's attention again.

"Now, the practical exam." He continued. "You might or might not have some idea of how many points you were awarded purely by defeating the faux-villain robots, and those were certainly important. However, while combat ability is certainly a crucial part of heroism, it requires more than just strength: hence, the rescue point system!"

Ben and Gwen shared another look with each other as the screen changed off of the graph, and to a list of names of examinees that took part in the practical exam, how many points they got as a result of defeating Villain Bots, how many rescue points they got, and the combined total. It slowly scrolled up from the 15th-placed examinee, with the total point scores climbing higher and higher as it went.

12) Awase Yosetsu: 50 Villain Points, 6 Rescue Points: 56

11) Tokoyami Fumikage: 47 Villain Points, 10 Rescue Points: 57

10) Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu: 49 Villain Points, 10 Rescue Points: 59

"A panel of U.A.'s own faculty observed the exams, and awarded rescue points to examinees that performed heroic acts during the practical, beyond just defeating the Villain Bots." Nezu explained. "Those rescue points factor into your total score, as you're seeing now."

Gwen blinked, focusing on the list as it scrolled further and further up, her hands subconsciously balling into fists as she wondered just where she and Ben were going to place on this list.

6) Shiozaki Ibara: 36 Villain Points, 32 Rescue Points: 68

5) Uraraka Ochaco: 28 Villain Points, 45 Rescue Points: 73

4) Kirishima Eijiro: 39 Villain Points, 35 Rescue Points: 74

"Hey, I met Kirishima!" Ben called out, pointing at the holographic screen as Kirishima's name came up. "Told him he'd got-"

3) Tennyson Gwen: 51 Villain Points, 25 Rescue Points: 76

Ben's declaration died in his throat as his cousin finally showed up on the top-scorers list. At the exact same second, a flat "What." left Gwen's throat, as she stared at the screen. She didn't say anything other than that, though as Ben looked over at her, he could see a wide smile reforming on her face.

And the best was still yet to come.

2) Bakugo Katsuki: 77 Villain Points, 0 Rescue Points: 77

1) Tennyson Ben: 85 Villain Points, 15 Rescue Points: 100

"Ho-ho-holy crap!" Ben half-whispered half-chuckled to himself. He'd always figured he'd place pretty high as far as the practical was concerned, probably even get first place… but he didn't expect the gulf between him and the second-placed examinee to be THAT large.

The holographic Nezu's smile widened, as he adjusted his tie while the listed top 5 examinees lingered on the screen behind him, before continuing.

"Your performances in the practical exam were nothing short of extraordinary, Mr. and Ms. Tennyson." he spoke. "Special praise, Ben, must be directed to you: not only did you set the highest score out of this year's hopefuls by quite some margin, but you've actually set a new record: since the introduction of the current format of practical exam, your total score of 100 points is the highest we've ever seen!"

Just as he'd done for Gwen's written exam results a moment ago, Nezu inclined his head in a bow that Ben could only blink in response to. Even when holding back, he'd managed to STOMP the other examinees into the ground with his performance, AND set a record along the way… he couldn't help but feel a rush of pride at that.

"It's with these results in mind," Nezu concluded, straightening back up. "that it gives me great pleasure to officially welcome you- the pair of you- to U.A. High. Not as hopeful applicants anymore, but as full-fledged members of our illustrious Hero Course. We look forward to helping you go beyond: Plus Ultra!"

With that, the hologram flickered out, leaving Ben and Gwen in silence as the weight of Nezu's words sunk in for the pair of them. Ben was the first to react out of the pair of them, letting out a whoop and pumping a fist into the air.

"We did it, Gwen!"

Gwen let out a short laugh, reaching out to share a quick, triumphant hug with her cousin. Such was her own jubilation at hearing that they'd passed, and with such flying colours, that she didn't even comment on how judging by how he smelled, Ben hadn't showered in at least the last day or two, though she did pull away after a couple of seconds.

They stood there for a moment, sharing a laugh with each other and basking in their success: all the stress and sometimes-panic that had come from the trip from their home universe to this one, studying like hell for the entrance exams, actually TAKING the entrance exams, and anticipating the results, all of it seemed to melt away into a pleasant feeling of pure accomplishment.

Gwen was the first to settle down, though, smoothing out her clothes and reaching for the folded letters that had come with the holoprojector.

"Okay, okay," she said, taking a breath as she took one of the letters in her hand, unfolding it. "Let's see what else came for us…"

Ben was visibly still riding the high of the moment, but he nodded and watched Gwen skimming through the letter she'd picked up.

"Uniforms… they'll be delivered to us in a few days." She spoke. "There's info on our student IDs… here's mine, and the classes we've been assigned to."

Picking up the other folded letter with her free hand, she shoved it in Ben's direction.

"Check yours." She spoke. "Looks like I'm in Class 1-A…"

Flashback end

"And I'm in 1-B."

Ben slipped his student ID back into his pocket as he and Gwen made their way through the open doors of U.A.'s main building. Along with all the other students, of all shapes, sizes and some with visible Quirks, they moved into the building. They made their way towards a nearby bulletin board, which showed a map of the school that Gwen glanced at as they passed.

"Looks like third door on the right, west side. First floor for me." She remarked. "You're the same, just on the second floor."

"Right." Ben replied, as they turned towards a set of stairs and began making their way up. "So, yeah… different classes."

"Yup." Gwen nodded, adjusting the position of her bag on her shoulder, before shrugging. "Not a big deal for you, is it?"

Ben shook his head, scratching a random itch that formed on the back of his neck as they ascended the steps towards the first floor, and stopped just before the open doorway to the west-side hallway.

"Nah." He replied, leaning against a wall as he looked over at his cousin. "We've been going to different schools for pretty much our entire lives, Gwen. How's this any different?"

Gwen took a couple of steps into the corridor, before turning around and looking back at Ben.

"You're right. It isn't." She replied. "At least we can meet up at lunch, or something."

"Or at the end of the day, if not then." Ben nodded. "Anyway, see you later."

Turning on his heel, Ben continued up the stairs, raising his hand and waving to Gwen as he left her sight. Once he was gone, Gwen turned on her heel and began making her way down the corridor, counting the doors on the right in her head before she reached the door to Class 1-A's classroom. The door was… bigger than one would normally expect a door to be. Not just bigger than Gwen, but SEVERAL times bigger, to the point that she half-wondered if she'd be having someone with some kind of gigantification quirk as her classmate.

Kinda like that Mount Lady heroine… Ben liked her. She couldn't imagine why.

Sliding the door open, Gwen stepped inside, greeted by a surprisingly normal-looking classroom and a few early arrivals that were already seated at their assigned desks. Pulling her student ID out of one of the pockets in her blazer, Gwen checked it to see which seat she'd been assigned before heading to it, quickly glancing over at the people that had arrived earlier than her.

At the middle desk in the closest column to the door, sat a short girl with oval-shaped eyes, waist-length sea-green hair tied at the bottom in a large bow and a blank expression on her face, scanning through a notebook that she held in notably large hands. Next to her was a muscular guy with bright red, spiked-up hair that was leaning back in his chair. A couple of seats back from him was another boy, larger and more muscular in build with short brown hair, rather thick lips and a large nose, who looked like he was rummaging through his bag for something.

Gwen made her way to the seat at the front of the column that the redhead and the large-lipped guy were sat on, closest to the teacher's desk out of everyone here so far. Sitting down and placing her bag on the floor beside her, she took a couple of breaths, joining the other students in waiting for their future classmates to arrive.

And arrive they did, at a steady pace. Gwen was quiet, her eyes mainly focused at her desk and her mind on her own thoughts as everyone filed in and took their seats, though something about one of the boys that came in caught her attention. A boy with striking two-toned hair, the right half half stark-white and the left a deep crimson red, with a nasty-looking burn scar on the left side of his face: from his hairline, over his left eye to halfway down his cheek. Gwen caught the serious expression on his face for half a second before he passed her, and took a seat at the back of the room.

Just behind him was a girl with short, dark-purple hair and what looked like earphone jacks hanging from her earlobes, one of which was extended longer than the other and plugged into her phone. When she got to her desk and sat down one seat back and to the left of Gwen, she unplugged her phone and transferred it to her blazer pocket, lightly drumming on the desk as she sat with legs crossed.

Gwen had a feeling she'd seen the earphone-jack girl before. Probably passed her in the street when out shopping or something.

One of the last students to enter was a tall, spiky-haired blond boy with a scowl seemingly etched on his face. While everyone else looked like they were wearing the full U.A. uniform, he seemed to have forgone the red tie, and had a few buttons undone at the top of his shirt. His pants also looked rather loose, and sagged at his ankles as he strode across the room, tossed his bag under the desk next to the earphone-jack girl, and dropped into it. A few of the other students, including Gwen, looked over as he and his bag landed on the chair and the floor, but he looked back, his sharp eyes seemingly silently daring anyone to approach him or call him out as he raised his legs, resting them on the desk.

'He looks pleasant.' Gwen thought to herself sarcastically as the door slid open again, revealing the tall glasses-boy that had called out the supposed error during the introduction to the practical exam a couple of weeks ago, before being corrected by the DJ. He looked as serious as ever as he took one step into the room… and immediately clapped eyes on the blond boy with his feet up.

"Hey! You!" he called out immediately, striding over to the blond's desk. "What do you think you're doing?!"

"Uhh, sitting down?" the blond replied, tilting his head in the glasses boy's direction, his eyes narrowing slightly as if he was preparing for a fight.

"Take your feet off of that desk, now!" the glasses boy replied, stopping in front of the blond's desk, as the blond just let out a grunt in response.

Seemingly undeterred, the glasses boy leaned over the blond slightly.

"School hasn't even started yet, and you're already scuffing school property!" he cried. "You're insulting those who came before us, and the craftsmen who made that desk by resting your feet on it!"

"Like I care." The blond replied, letting out a dismissive scoff. "What, did your old school put a stick up your ass, you extra? Or were you born with it?"

Seemingly taken aback a little by the pushback he was getting, the glasses boy took a breath.

"I-I'm from Somei Private Academy." He replied, extending a hand. "My name is Iida Tenya, it's nice to-"

'So that's the guy who got 8th place in the practical.' Gwen thought to herself, scanning Iida up and down. 'Nice enough to put a face to a name.'

"Somei?!" the blond cut across Iida, shifting himself a bit while leaning forward. "That tracks, you looked like an elitist back at the entrance exams! I'm gonna enjoy blowing you to bits!"

Seemingly slightly intimidated, Iida took half a step back, staring down at the blond in shock.

"Are you sure you're in the right place, threatening your own classmate like that?" He asked. The blond had opened his mouth to respond, but something by the door had caught his eye, so he closed it and looked over. Everyone else, who had turned to watch the brewing confrontation, looked over to where the blond was looking, towards the door where a short, plain-looking green-haired kid was standing in the doorway. Gwen immediately noticed that his tie wasn't exactly done up properly, leaving it much shorter than it really should have been.

Better than not having it done up at all, she thought to herself.

Seemingly caught off-guard by the sudden attention on him, the green-haired boy immediately started sweating, which certainly wasn't helped by Iida immediately turning away from the blond (who was looking over at the green-haired boy with a mixture of anger and confusion clear on his face) and making his way over to the door, his movements rather stiffer than how Gwen figured a normal person should really walk.

"Good morning!" he called. "We've met before, I'm Iida Ten-"

"Y-yeah, I know! I heard you…" the green-haired boy cut across him, prompting him to stop in his tracks. "Uh, I'm Midoriya Izuku, it's nice to meet you… again."

"Midoriya…" Iida spoke, inclining his head to the shorter student. "I must apologize for misjudging you."

Midoriya- the guy who'd gotten 9th place in the practical- blinked as Iida straightened up.

"You were a far more perceptive candidate than me, I must admit." Iida continued. "You realised that there was something more to the practical exam, and proved yourself a superior-"

"Hey, messed-up hair! Falling Boy!"

Midoriya turned in surprise as the short, auburn-haired girl from the Entrance Exam popped up through the doorway. Gwen immediately noticed him blushing at the sight of her, and resisted the urge to roll her eyes and smirk.

'Someone's not good at hiding his crushes…' she thought to herself as the short girl continued.

"I should've known you'd get in, that punch you threw was amazing!" she cried, throwing a couple of mock-punches through the air. "I never got the chance to say thanks for saving me by the way, so, thanks!"

"I, uh…" Midoriya seemed to have finally found his voice after just staring at the girl while she was talking. "I should probably be thanking you. F-for speaking on my behalf and all?"

"Huh?" the girl blinked, stopping mid-mock-punch. "How did you know about that?"

"Oh- I- uh- wha-"

"If you're just here to socialise, then get out."

Gwen's initial wonderings about whether or not she was missing something about Iida, Midoriya and the other girl's conversation were interrupted by the new voice. Not being able to see who'd spoken just now, she leaned forward to look out of the door, having heard the voice coming from there… and had to blink a couple of times as she saw an exhausted-looking unkempt guy with black hair and eyes, lying in a sleeping bag.

"Welcome to U.A.'s Hero Course." The man spoke, unzipping the bag a bit and taking a couple of gulps out of a juice pouch, before getting to his feet and unzipping the rest of it. Once he was out, he moved past Iida, Midoriya and the other girl into the classroom. "Eight seconds, that's how long it took for you all to shut it. Wasting precious time like that isn't something rational students would do."

The man turned to the rest of the class, looking them all over for a couple of seconds before speaking up again.

"I'm your homeroom teacher, Mr. Aizawa. Pleased to meet you. I'm sure you had some idea of some kind of pointless opening ceremony, but we're not going to be wasting our time with that."

Tossing the sleeping bag behind the podium at the front of the classroom, Aizawa stretched a bit, before pointing down the hallway.

"You'll find gym uniforms in the first-floor locker rooms at the end of the hallway. Put them on and meet me outside."

With Aizawa's immediate emphasis on not wasting time, it didn't take long for the guys and girls of Class 1-A to get to the aforementioned first-floor locker rooms, get their gym uniforms (dark blue pants and short-sleeved T-shirt with blue lines that formed the letters U and A on the front) on and make their way outside, meeting up with their haggard-looking teacher in one of the fields around U.A.'s main building.

If Aizawa noticed how relatively quick they'd been about it, he didn't show it beyond letting out a short grunt, and stretching again.

"Alright, let's get to it." He began. "Your first task today will be a Quirk assessment test, through multiple exercises that you'll have done back in elementary and junior high. For reasons unknown to myself and all known forms of rationality, you weren't allowed to use your Quirks during those physical tests… but here it's different. You'll get to use your Quirks during these exercises, starting with a fifty-meter dash."

The class turned their attention to a pair of fifty-meter-long running lanes, as Aizawa walked over to some kind of robotic camera on a tripod, and tinkered with it a little bit while doing something with his phone.

"Bakugo, Tennyson." He called out. "Out of everyone here, you two got the highest scores in the practical exam, so you can go first. You remember what your best fifty-meter times were in junior high?"

"Six and a half seconds." Bakugo, the blond boy that Iida had gotten into an argument with back up in the classroom, replied immediately, while Gwen shrugged.

"No, I don't."

"Whatever." Aizawa replied, shrugging and pointing to the start-lines. "Get to the start-line and, well, you know."

Letting out a grunt, Bakugo made his way over, with Gwen following behind him. She could use her powers for this… but how would mana-manipulation, with what she could currently do, help her get across a fifty-meter dash as fast as possible?

Looking to her right, she saw Bakugo rubbing his hands together a bit, before setting them behind him. A couple of seconds later, she created a mana-platform at the starting line, just above the ground, and stepped onto it.

"Best, uh, dasher win?" Gwen asked, looking over at Bakugo as the robot Aizawa had been fiddling with called out for them to take their marks.

"I'm going to." Bakugo replied, his voice almost a snarl as he stared down the running-lane, a psychotic smirk appearing on his face. Gwen couldn't help but allow herself a small competitive grin of her own as the robot chirped up again.

"Ready?"

After a couple of seconds, a gunshot-like noise sounded, and Bakugo immediately took off, setting off what looked like explosions from his hands that blasted him forwards at great speed. An instant later, Gwen took off too, thrusting the mana-platform forward as fast as she could go without falling off. The pair of students rocketed along the 'running' lanes, with Bakugo initially looking like he was going to get to the end faster than Gwen was… until Gwen tilted the mana-platform she was standing on forward and made a flying leap off of it just as she and Bakugo were about to cross the line.

"4.13 seconds!" the robot chirped out as Bakugo and Gwen crossed the line. "…It's a tie!"

Aizawa didn't comment, only watched Gwen and Bakugo (who was glaring at the back of her head something FIERCE) land on the ground, as some of the students spoke up.

"One point apart in the practical exam, and now dead-even in the dash? Jeez!"

"I'm gonna suck at this, no way Hardening's gonna help with running!"

"I wanna have a go! This looks like fun!"

That last comment seemed to have gotten Aizawa's attention, as he turned around to fix the person who'd said it- an athletic-looking girl with pink skin, black and yellow eyes and yellow horns- with a particularly hard look.

"This looks like fun, does it?" he repeated, his voice rather dangerously calm. "Becoming a pro hero, fun? Dealing with natural disasters, rampaging villains, highway pileups, and all the other calamities that can come at a second's notice, that all sounds like fun and games to you?"

All the talk that had erupted as a result of Gwen and Bakugo's demonstration of the dash had died out in an instant, as Aizawa's stare seemed to intensify. Gwen shifted slightly, figuring that a certain cousin of hers would have had something to say about her teacher's stance on heroism and fun. Maybe not so much now, but five years ago… woof.

"How's this for some fun?" he continued. "I'll be tallying up the results of how well you utilise your Quirks throughout each of these eight physical tests. Whoever comes in last, and who has the least potential out of all of you to make it to the big leagues as a Pro… will be expelled immediately."

With that dire threat in mind, he turned around, gesturing for Gwen and Bakugo to rejoin their classmates, who were all looking at him in abject horror, before pointing at the start-line again.

"Kirishima, Uraraka. You're up."

…

Gwen could swear that she felt herself sweating as she held onto the handheld device that Aizawa had handed to her. Her hand coated in mana for extra strength, she squeezed as hard as she possibly could… until she just couldn't anymore, and had to let go. Taking a couple of breaths, she looked down at the device's screen and saw the number blinking back at her: 139.0kg.

Letting out a short snort at that respectable number, she handed the device over to the red-headed Kirishima, before the sound of electronic sparking met her ears, quickly followed by an "Oh, crap!"

Whirling around, Gwen saw a boy with short gold hair holding onto one of the other grip-strength-measuring devices, with electricity sparking from the hand in which he held said device in. The device itself seemed to be smoking slightly, and blinked rapidly while displaying: 999.9kg.

"Uh… I think I broke it." The boy spoke, looking somewhat sheepish as he handed the shorted-out device over to Aizawa, who took it without comment before tapping something on his phone.

…

"Okay, steady… steady…"

The shortest kid in the class, with a stubby nose and four large ball-shaped clumps atop his short purple hair pulled one of the clumps from his head, standing at the edge of the sandbox. His eyes narrowed slightly, he tossed the ball into the sandbox where it landed and stuck a short ways in. Pulling another clump from his head, he tossed it further into the sandbox, before taking his shoes and socks off and leaping into the box, towards the first clump he'd thrown.

He managed to land on it pretty solidly, and bounced off of it towards the second clump, which he also bounced off before landing on the other side of the sandbox, which he celebrated with a happy whoop. As the next one in line to take the test, Gwen stepped up, stretching a little bit as she considered a solution to the task before her… an extremely EASY solution.

Reaching her hand out, she cast a series of mana-platforms that stretched out across the sandbox, which she immediately used to walk across before landing lightly on the other side. She looked over at Aizawa, who looked back with an unreadable expression for a second, before shrugging and tapping something on his phone.

…

Stretching, Gwen waved a hand to dispel the tilted mana-platforms she'd conjured for herself on either side of the area that was meant to measure the class' ability to do repeated side-jumps. She stepped away from the area and continued stretching, looking over at the white and red-haired boy as he stepped up.

After a second, he tapped his right foot onto the ground, from which a structure of ice formed over the area. It looked like a halfpipe that one would see someone doing skateboarding or snowboarding tricks on, just a miniature version. Letting out a cool breath, the two-toned-haired boy made his way up onto one side of the ice halfpipe he'd formed, waiting for the timer to start.

"So, uh, what happened?" Gwen asked, looking over at him and touching the same part of her face on which the burn scar was on his. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." The white and red-head replied. "And that's none of your business."

Gwen held up her hands in a faux-pacifying gesture and stepped away as the boy jumped off the side of the icy halfpipe he'd built for himself, and began quickly sliding up and down it, from side to side, building up to a much faster pace than almost anyone else there had been jumping.

…

"INFINITY?!"

Uraraka, the girl Midoriya had been talking to earlier and apparently saved during the practical exam, blushed slightly at everyone's shocked declaration of her score, and sidled out of the circle that Aizawa had instructed everyone to stay in while doing the softball toss.

'Somehow I doubt she'll be the one going home.' Gwen thought to herself as she watched the short girl settle next to a blond boy with a funny-looking belt over his gym uniform. 'Unlike…'

Her eyes flicked to Midoriya himself, who stepped up to the circle after Aizawa tossed another softball to him. Everyone else in the class had had one really good- or at the very least decent- demonstration of their Quirks in one of the tests so far. Hell, some of them had had multiple good showings, like the white and red-haired boy, Bakugo, a tall dark-haired girl who she'd learned was called Yaoyorozu, and herself.

Midoriya, on the other hand, had been doing every single one of the tests without any usage of any kind of Quirk, and seemed to have been coming up EXTREMELY short in comparison to everyone else.

After a couple of seconds of just standing there, Midoriya suddenly pulled his arm back, ready to throw the ball. For a split-second, Gwen swore she could see some kind of unnatural red light spreading through the green-haired boy's veins over his entire arm as he made to throw the ball…

Only for said light to disappear just before the ball left Midoriya's hand, and to travel far, FAR less distance than he seemed to have been expecting, judging by how he looked to have frozen for a second when the ball he'd thrown touched down on the ground ("46 meters!").

"I erased your Quirk."

Before the green mophead could wonder out loud what the hell was going on, Aizawa (whose hair was now standing on end) spoke up, and Gwen found herself involuntarily gulping.

She and Ben had heard of Eraser Head, one of the more well-known underground heroes, that worked away from the spotlight and avoided attention altogether. Someone that could nullify another person's Quirk (with the exception of some Mutant-types) just by looking at someone.

Since her mana control, as well as the Omnitrix, weren't Quirks, the cousins had initially both agreed to try and avoid any encounters with Eraser Head if possible. One wrong move around him, and their situation in this world would suddenly become a LOT more complicated.

Suffice it to say, a hero like him was the LAST person Gwen expected to be turning up as her goddamn homeroom teacher!

Line Break

Adjusting the position of his bag on his shoulder, Ben made his way up the stairs to the second floor of U.A.'s main building, and immediately began heading down the west-side corridor, towards the huge door that led to 1-B's classroom.

He couldn't help but marvel at how he was kinda missing his cousin already. When they were younger, pre-that fateful roadtrip they'd taken with their grandpa, they didn't really see each other all that often. And even then, that 'not all that often' was probably too much for either of them considering how much they butted heads in the past, over what seemed like everything. Over stuff that, sure, was probably justified, but other times… not.

But now? Even though they'd be seeing each other again in a few hours, at MOST, Ben was actually beginning to miss her. Ever since arriving in this universe, they'd stuck together like the Omnitrix to his wrist (before he'd gotten it off), having had no-one except each other in this strange land. Maybe he'd gotten so used to having Gwen around over the last few months that suddenly being apart from her, like what used to be normal, felt… weird.

If his younger self could see him now, he'd probably be calling him crazy over how close he was with the Queen of Cooties. Before mocking him over something small like his voice breaking, or something like that. Maybe the fact that he was- for once in his life- early to arrive at school.

Forget the stuff with Gwen, THAT was probably the least conceivable thing about all of this, Ben thought to himself, chuckling to himself a little. School was, quite literally, his worst nightmare when he was younger, and now he was actually excited to be here, and the slightest bit disappointed he wasn't going to be sharing a class with GWEN, of all people? What was the world- or the multiverse, more accurately- coming to?

Coming up on the door to 1-B's classroom (helpfully marked out by the fact that it had a giant 1 and a just-as-giant B embossed on it), Ben momentarily paused, looking at the door that was multiple times his height, before down at the Omnitrix. Ever since coming into this world, it had actually been behaving itself… Ben could only hope that didn't change in the near future. That would just throw an unnecessary wrench into how things were panning out for him and Gwen so far.

'Alright.' He thought to himself, resting a hand on the door before sliding it open. 'Here goes.'

Stepping through the doorway into the classroom (which looked a hell of a lot cleaner than damn near ANY classroom he'd entered back in his home universe), Ben slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out his student ID, checking it to see which seat he'd been assigned: the middle seat at the furthest column of desks away from the door he'd just come through. Slipping the ID back into his pocket, he began making his way over to the desk in question. As he got closer, he mentally registered the sight of a couple of his new classmates at the desk directly next to his, and one place back from there, chatting to each other.

They were a guy and a girl: the guy with messy-looking grey hair, thick jagged edges around his black eyes that Ben could only guess were his eyebrows, a rather aggressive-looking expression and sharp, pointed teeth. He was listening to the girl, whose teeth were also rather long and pointed, talking while playing with her dark-green hair with one hand. Though her eyes, which were a matching green, were initially on the grey-haired guy she was talking to, she paused whatever she was talking about when she noticed Ben making his way to the desk next to the guy's, slipping his bag off his shoulders and dropping it under his desk.

"Heya!" the girl spoke, catching Ben's attention and standing up, sticking out a hand. "Nice to see another early classmate! I'm Tokage Setsuna, good to meet you!"

"Tennyson." Ben replied, taking the girl's hand and shaking. She was… very pretty. "Ben... you can just call me Ben. Transferred from the US, that's what I'm used to."

"Fair enough!" Tokage remarked, stepping back after the handshake was done and perching on the edge of her desk, crossing her legs and looking over at the grey-haired guy. "Well Tetsutetsu: you wanted to meet him, there he is."

Ben blinked, tearing his eyes away from Tokage and towards the grey-haired guy, who'd jumped to his feet.

"Wait, wha-"

"Man, you're insane!" The grey-haired Tetsutetsu called out, closing the distance between himself and Ben in a single step. "You got 100 points, that's gotta be a record or something!"

"Funny you should mention that..." Ben remarked, taking half a step back to get Tetsutetsu out of his personal space. The grey-haired boy didn't seem to have heard him before continuing.

"We've gotta train together sometime, Tennyson!" he remarked. "You're the strongest out of anyone in the course this year with whatever busted Quirk you've got that got you to 100 points, but you'd better watch out: I'm gonna catch up and surpass you before you know it!"

Ben couldn't help but let out a chuckle.

"Heh, I look forward to it." he replied, backing up onto his desk and perching it like Tokage was on hers. "You weren't too bad yourself, getting the 10th-most points and all."

"Yeah, but you still got nearly twice as many points as me!" Tetsutetsu answered. "If I'm not pushing myself to be even better than you, then what's the point of even being here and trying to become a Pro Hero in the first place?!"

'Someone's passionate about this.' Ben inwardly remarked. He glanced over at Tokage, who was bouncing her legs a little as she watched the two boys having their back and forth.

"He's got a point, Ten- Ben." she remarked, the grin on her face growing a little as she noticed Ben's eyes flicking to her bouncing legs before shooting up to her face. "We're all here with the same goal, competing against each other's bound to happen to a degree. But with all that talk of points, I dunno if I'd have gotten as many as Tetsutetsu, never mind you. My Quirk isn't exactly suited for wrecking stuff."

"Pretty sure there were other ways to disable the robots and get points that way." Ben replied. "I think Gwen- my cousin, she's in the other class- said she saw some midget climbing up a three-pointer and smacking some button that disabled it."

"Come to think of it though, Tokage," Tetsutetsu added, in a slightly calmer tone than he was using when making his declarations to Ben. "I don't think I saw you on the list of top scorers for the practical exam."

Tokage let out a giggle, uncrossing and recrossing her legs as she shifted herself slightly on her desk.

"I didn't take it." she replied. "I wasn't even at U.A. that day. I got good enough grades, plus a personal recommendation from a Pro, to get a spot in their recommendation exam. I think only three other kids managed to get in that way, not counting me."

"You're kidding, a goddamn Pro?!" Tetsutetsu called out, his voice back to full volume as he approached Tokage. "Who?!"

"Majestic." Tokage replied. "He and my dad were roommates for a while, before he met my mom. So yeah, kinda lucked out on that one."

"Yeah, no kidding!" Tetsutetsu replied. "But hey, if you got good enough grades and you're good enough with your Quirk, it doesn't matter that you knew a Pro if you managed to get here after being recommended."

Tokage blinked a couple of times, looking down at herself for a couple of seconds before back at Tetsutetsu, reaching up to play with her hair with her fingers a bit.

"Thanks." she replied. "Was kinda worried you'd think of me as a..." she trailed off for a second before shaking her head. "Whatever. Even if I was some kind of pseudo-nepo-baby or whatever, I wouldn't even be the worst example there. There were a couple of Pros' children there, I heard one of them was End-"

The door slid open, catching Tokage's attention immediately. Ben looked up as he heard the sliding door, catching sight of another of his future classmates stepping into the room: a pale-skinned boy with spiky beige-coloured hair, black eyes and a flat nose. His most distinctive feature were his teeth, which seemed to sit outside his skin. He had no discernible lips, either, giving his face an overall skull-like appearance.

"Hey! Honenuki, right?" Tokage raised a hand as she called out. "You got in too! Nice one!"

"Thanks, Tokage!" The skull-faced boy, Honenuki, replied as he made his way towards the desk two spots directly in front of Ben, dropping his bag down. "Didn't think I had a chance, with where I finished in my race. Must have aced the rest of it."

Tokage shrugged as Honenuki made his way over.

"Guess so." She remarked.

"Hang on, race?" Ben asked. "You didn't have to fight, or anything?"

"Nope." Tokage replied. "We had to get through an obstacle course as fast as possible using our Quirks. Oh, Honenuki?" she gestured to Ben and Tetsutetsu. "Ben Tennyson and Tetsutetsu… uh, Tetsutetsu. Ben's transferred from the States, so his first name's what he's more used to."

"Ahh, okay." Honenuki remarked, inclining his head to Ben and Tetsutetsu. "Honenuki Juzo. Nice to meet you both."

He then made his way back to his desk a couple of spots in front of Ben, and sat down before beginning to scroll through his phone. As Ben, Tokage and Tetsutetsu began to do the same, continuing to chat with each other about the different entrance exam that she, Honenuki, the son of Endeavour and all the other recommended students took to everyone else, the door to 1-B's classroom slid open and a few more students began to file in. As their conversation carried on, in conjunction with some of the other conversations between some of the other students that came in at a steady rate, Ben couldn't help but find his eyes flicking to some of the more unusual appearances of some of the people that were to be his classmates.

Two desks directly across from him, and one directly across from Tetsutetsu, there was a girl with what looked like waist-length green vines in place of hair, that was holding onto something in her hand and whispering what seemed like a prayer of some sort. One seat across from her was an aggressive-looking guy with a head shaped like a praying mantis', green hair done up in a mohawk, with a pair of hooked blades jutting out from his cheeks.

At the desk directly in front of Ben, sat a very large (in terms of both height and musculature) guy with a glue-dispenser for a head, and lappet on top. When Ben had seen him coming in, he didn't see any regular-looking facial features on the guy's… glue-dispenser-face, just seven holes that Ben assumed served as his eyes, and a square-shaped crack around halfway down the dispenser that COULD serve as a mouth… honestly, he wasn't certain.

One seat across from Tokage, there was another tall guy with shaggy brown hair/fur covering most of his body, and rather sharp teeth: his two lower canines stuck out from between his lips, which when combined with the hair/fur all over his body, served to give him a rather beastly appearance.

Honestly, some of these guys could have passed for aliens in the Omnitrix, Ben thought to himself as, when the final student to arrive- a short girl with hair in a mushroom-shaped bob that reached to just below her shoulders and completely covered her eyes- arrived and took her seat just in front of the vine-haired girl, the class seemed to quieten down of their own accord, seemingly waiting for their teacher- whichever Pro Hero it turned out to be- would arrive to greet them.

Even the chatty Tokage quietened down, which Ben was somewhat okay with. The conversation they'd been having was moving dangerously close to the topic of his Quirk, and he still wasn't a hundred percent certain the explanation he'd come up with for his 'Quirk', and the existence of the Omnitrix, would hold up under any kind of scrutiny.

The fully assembled Class 1-B didn't have to wait long for the door to slide open again, and for a very tall and muscular guy to walk in. With his skin-tight red suit, white boots and wire going from one arm up to his neck, Ben immediately recognised him, having seen him around the campus at the entrance exam. Looking into the room and quickly scanning it over, he nodded approvingly as he made his way to the front.

"Alright, it's good to see you're all here!" he spoke, his voice rather gruff as he got to the podium at the front of the room and looked out across the class. "Welcome to U.A.'s Hero Course, and welcome to Class 1-B! Some of you might know me as the Pro Hero Vlad King, but while you're students here you can call me Mr. Kan: I'll be your homeroom teacher for the next three years."

Line Break

"Mr. Aizawa… I'm still standing!"

Gwen swore she could hear Eraser Head whispering to himself "This kid…!" as she, along with the rest of the class, stared at Midoriya as he clutched his hand after his real go with the softball throw. The green-haired kid's index finger looked awfully red, and even though he was clutching his hand in a fist, said index finger looked like it was sitting at an odd angle compared to the rest of his fingers and thumb… almost like it was broken.

Some of the class, Gwen included, found themselves wincing at the sight as Midoriya made his way out of the circle, making to rejoin the rest of the classmates. Bakugo, however, couldn't be counted among those as his initial expression of sheer open-mouthed shock morphed into one of pure blind rage, before he took off towards Midoriya, threatening-looking explosions blasting off in his hands as he ran.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT, DEKU?! EXPLAIN YOURSELF OR YOU'RE DEAD, YOU FU-"

Midoriya almost jumped a foot, yelping in fright and moving to try and defend himself, but whatever moves he was or wasn't going to make didn't end up mattering. Before the angry spiky-haired blond could get anywhere near him, Aizawa moved, sending the scarf around his neck out towards Bakugo. Some of it wrapped around his head and chest, and was seemingly strong enough to stop him from moving any further in spite of his visible struggles against it. His hair was up again, and though Gwen couldn't see it from where she was standing, but his eyes were glowing an eerie yellow.

"Stand. Down." Aizawa spoke, even more sternly than he had been before with everyone. "Only warning before I expel you too, Bakugo, along with whoever gets last!"

Bakugo seemed to get the message after a couple of seconds, and stopped resisting Aizawa's restraints. Eraser Head took that as the cue to release the blond from his scarf, pulling it back towards him as his hair dropped back down to its regular unkempt look.

"Midoriya, you can get that finger fixed up once we're done here." He spoke to Deku, turning around with his eyes closed. "Whoever's next, step up."

As a girl (at least Gwen figured it was a girl, considering…) who was completely invisible sans the gym uniform she was wearing stepped up, Gwen's eyes shifted to Midoriya, who was stepping over to Uraraka and Iida, before over to Yaoyorozu, whose eyes were flicking from Midoriya to Aizawa like she was working something out in her head.

"Something you want to share with the class?" Gwen asked, her voice low as she took a half-step closer to Yaoyorozu, who looked up.

"Oh, it's nothing." The dark-haired girl replied, her weight shifting from one foot to the other as she looked over at Gwen, her voice also low. "It's just… I don't think anyone's actually getting expelled."

Gwen let out a breath as she watched the invisible girl take her throw, before returning to the group.

"How'd you figure that one out?" she asked.

"I heard about one of the zero-pointers getting blown up in one punch during this year's entrance exam." Yaoyorozu replied. "But at the cost of whoever did it breaking their whole arm with their Quirk, and I think both of their legs too."

'Yowch.' Gwen thought, as her eyes slid over to Midoriya, who was reaching up with his other hand to touch his broken finger, and immediately wincing as he did so, before shifting back to Yaoyorozu. "You think it was him?"

"After what we all just saw, who else do you think it could have been?" Yaoyorozu asked, by way of reply. "And as one of the homeroom teachers here, Mr. Aizawa had to have been watching your entrance exam, and seen that happen."

"'Your' entrance ex-? never mind." Gwen blinked, as things slid into place for her, as her eyes. "Ohhh, you think he was trying to teach Midoriya something? Control over his Quirk?"

"In his own way, yes." Yaoyorozu replied, nodding. "With how… unorthodox, Mr. Aizawa seems, would you put it past him to do something like that?"

"At this point, I don't think I'd put anything past him." Gwen replied, letting out a small giggle as she stuck out a hand. "I'm Tennyson… but you can call me Gwen. Transfer student from the States."

"Ah, I see." Yaoyorozu replied, clasping Gwen's hand and shaking while inclining her head to her. "Yaoyorozu Momo. Nice to meet you, Gwen."

…

"One-thirty-one… one-thirty-two… one-thirty-three…"

"You're pretty good at this, Tennyson!" Kirishima, who was holding Gwen's feet down, commented as Gwen brought herself up and down for the one hundred and thirty-fourth, thirty-fifth times. "Guess your brother's in the other class, huh?"

"Brother?" Gwen blinked as she brought herself up again. Thoughts of Ken flashed through her mind for a fraction of a second, before her mind caught up with her ears. "Ohh, you mean Ben. He's my cousin, actually."

"Huh." The redhead shrugged as he adjusted his grip on Gwen's feet, and she continued doing her sit-ups. "Kinda crazy that you both managed to get into the same Hero Course. And apparently the best one in the world, at that!"

Gwen let out a noise that sounded like a mixture between a giggle and an exhale as the sit-ups continued. As she did so, she glanced over at the pair next to her: the earphone jack-earlobed girl with her feet held down by a guy with a head resembling that of a crow or raven's. The girl looked far more worn-out by the prolonged exercise than Gwen did or felt, to the point that the part-Anodite wouldn't have been surprised if her body had just given out and she hadn't been able to do any more situps throughout the rest of the five minutes that they had been instructed to do as many as possible within.

Though before she seemed to give out, the girl extended her earphone jack-earlobes downwards, driving them into the ground on either side of the mat she was lying on and using them to force her body up off the ground in a motion similar to a sit-up, before seemingly relaxing them and allowing herself to drop back down.

Gwen couldn't help but smirk to herself as she looked away, feeling slightly rejuvenated by the display in front of her to keep going herself. There wasn't that long left to go anyway.

"One-forty… forty-one… forty-two…"

…

Gwen got to her feet, stretching a little. After Aizawa had judged her to have done a successful seated toe-touch (quite easily too, thanks to just extending mana out from her hands towards her toes. She didn't even need to stretch herself all that much while sitting down, if at all), she began making her way towards the exit of the gym they'd been doing some of the physical exercises in, in preparation for the final one.

Assuming (unlikely as she and Yaoyorozu had judged it to be) that Aizawa actually WAS going to send whoever placed the overall lowest once the final test was finished home, she was pretty confident that she wasn't going to be the condemned one.

Every test, up to and including now, she'd either got incredible scores in thanks to clever usage of her mana, or she'd managed to do well in thanks to her own physical skills alone. From effortlessly clearing the sandbox with her platforms to getting a pretty decent score of 527.3 meters with the softball throw (though she definitely could have gotten further had the whole 'stay in the circle' rule not applied), she was definitely making a better showing for herself than Aoyama, who'd been looking like he was about to puke from overuse of his Quirk (being able to shoot a laser from his belly-button) ever since the fifty-meter dash at the start of the day.

Or Midoriya, who after his decent showing during the ball toss, had gone back to doing the exercises Quirkless, while presumably having to fight through the pain of having a broken finger.

But oh well, Gwen thought as she watched the blank-faced frog-looking girl sitting down, then quickly sticking her tongue out far enough that it touched one of her feet, before getting back up. One test to go, and then it'd all be over. They'd know their results.

…

"Mr. Aizawa… come on, that HAS to be against the rules!"

"Meh. I'll allow it."

Gwen couldn't help but let out a giggle at Mineta's protests. Ever since the white-and-red-haired boy, who'd been using ice to slide along throughout the endurance run, had been forced to stop via what looked like some of his body freezing up from overuse of his ice Quirk (though the quarter-Anodite had a feeling that there was something more to that boy's Quirk than he was showing off), there had only been one person left going in the 'endurance run'.

That had been the case for nearly fifteen minutes now, as Gwen's eyes flicked from Aizawa shrugging off Mineta's continued protests and stepping away from the comically short boy, to Yaoyorozu- perched on a scooter she'd created out of her very body- crossing the start/finish line of the running track for… actually, she'd lost count how many laps she'd driven.

She wouldn't have been surprised if Yaoyorozu herself had lost count. Or just stopped bothering to count after everyone else had dropped out.

"But now that you mention it, we might as well move things along." Aizawa mused to himself, looking up and calling out. "Yaoyorozu! You've made your point, you can stop now. Get back here so we can do the results!"

After driving back to her classmates and parking her scooter up, Yaoyorozu moved to join the rest of the class as Aizawa pulled out his phone.

"I've ranked you all from best to worst, based on how you performed in all eight exercises." He declared. "With how you yourselves did, and by observing how everyone else has done," he spoke. "You should probably have a good idea of where you stand in relation to your classmates. It's not worth explaining the process, or going through everyone's score individually, so I'll just pull up the whole list."

There was tension in the air as Aizawa pressed a button on his phone, displaying his ranked list of students. Gwen's eyes slid over to Midoriya, who looked the most visibly stressed out of anyone there… and she SEVERELY doubted that it was solely to do with the broken finger. After a couple of seconds, her eyes slid over to the displayed list, working her way up:

20) Midoriya Izuku

19) Mineta Minoru

18) Hagakure Toru

Gwen could HEAR Midoriya's audible gulp beside her as he saw his own name ranked dead-last. The silent tension of the class anticipating their results seemed to- somehow- grow simultaneously thicker and fade away as everyone looked upon their results. Gwen continued scanning up the list, feeling nothing at the realisation that she didn't rank low on the list. She knew that didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of happening anyway.

10) Uraraka Ochaco

9) Ashido Mina

8) Kirisihima Eijiro

Gwen looked over, and noticed the red-headed Kirishima and the pink-skinned Ashido sharing a quiet moment of triumph together over the fact that they'd placed decently well, before returning to the list and continuing her way up.

4) Bakugo Katsuki

3) Todoroki Shoto

2) Tennyson Gwen

1) Yaoyorozu Momo

A smile crossed Gwen's face as she noticed her name second from the top, just behind Yaoyorozu. Her eyes slid over to the dark-haired girl, who wore a small, confident smile on her own face at the sight of her own name at the very top of the list. A couple of paces' length away from her, though, Gwen noticed Bakugo staring at the list, clenching both his fists and his teeth in seeming frustration that it wasn't HIS name at the top of the list.

As the silence of everyone taking in the results, and their placings on Aizawa's ranking set in, the beginnings of uncertainty in Gwen's shared theory with Yaoyorozu regarding whether or not Aizawa was ACTUALLY going to send someone home began to creep into her mind. Seemingly right alongside it was sympathy for Midoriya, who'd be the victim of their homeroom teacher's wrath if-

"Oh, by the way." Aizawa spoke, pressing the same button on his phone to dispel the list. "About the whole expelling-someone thing? I was lying, no-one's going home. That was just a rational deception, to make sure you all gave it your all!"

After flashing his mostly (apart from Gwen and Yaoyorozu) flabbergasted class a grin (that looked WAY closer to being outright creepy than anything close to reassuring), he turned away from the group and began walking off.

"There are some documents about the curriculum back up in the classroom, head back up and give them a look." He ordered. "And Midoriya!" he called out, turning around to look over at the green-haired boy, who looked like he was about to cry with relief at the fact he wasn't actually going home. "Go see the nurse about your finger. I've sent a message on ahead that you'll be seeing her, so just go. Class dismissed."

And with that, he was gone, leaving the rest of the class standing out in the field. Midoriya quickly headed off as Eraser Head had ordered, while the rest of the class began making their way back to the main building at a slower pace. As she moved with the small crowd of her classmates, Gwen couldn't help but allow herself a small smile, proud of what she'd done.

Second-place in a Quirk test on the first day of hero training? Not the worst first impression in the world to make.

Line Break

Checking his bag again to make sure the envelope that Mr. Kan had given him, full of documents regarding U.A.'s Hero Course curriculum, wasn't getting all messed up in there, Ben made his way through the front doors of U.A.'s main building. His eyes reflexively narrowed as the sun's rays struck his eyes, though it wasn't too unpleasant. A nice day was still a nice day.

Nicer that he and his class had been dismissed for the day earlier than he thought they would be. Stretching as he descended the steps from the main building's open doors, Ben slipped a free hand into his pocket and pulled out his phone, making to text Gwen about how he'd been let out of class early and how he'd meet her at home. But before he could even open his phone, he spotted a familiar back of someone's headed bobbing slightly as it moved towards the front gates.

Pocketing his locked phone, the Omnitrix-wielder quickened his pace, walking up towards the back of the person he'd clocked onto and tapped her on the shoulder when he got close enough, just as they passed through the gates together. As she'd been looking at her own phone, Gwen jumped slightly and whirled around before realising just who it was had tapped her on the shoulder.

"Guess we both got out early." She remarked. "Never mind the message I just sent you, then."

"What message?" Ben asked, pulling out his phone again and opening it, seeing the message-notification from Gwen and the message beneath: 'Got let out of class early. I'll see you back home.' After briefly considering sending something stupid back, which would only be made funnier by the fact that the pair of them were walking right next to each other, but eventually deciding against it, Ben slipped his phone back into his pocket and fell into step with his cousin as the pair of them made their way away from U.A.

Some uniform-clad students from other courses and years were on the same path and street as them, but they all eventually turned off onto different paths and streets as they made their own ways home, leaving Ben and Gwen (relatively) alone.

"So, how'd things go for you?" Gwen asked, tugging at the strap of her bag. "Anything interesting happen?"

"Nah, not really." Ben replied, shrugging. "Just went through the curriculum with Vlad King- he's our homeroom teacher- and spent most of the rest of the time just getting to know our classmates. Everyone seems pretty cool… I think I'm gonna like 1-B."

"Glad to hear it." Gwen nodded, before giving him a slight sideways glance. "Anyone in particular you're hitting it off with?"

"Tetsutetsu, I guess." Ben replied, letting out a small chuckle. "He's loud as hell, already started going on about how he's gonna catch and beat me one day, but he's nice. Honenuki too, he's pretty chill. Oh, there's a transfer student from the States- this world's States- in 1-B."

Gwen let out a giggle of her own.

"Right after you probably claimed you yourself were a transfer from the States…" she remarked. "Heh, what are the odds?"

"I know, right?" Ben replied. "Anyway, there was this other girl, Tokage… she's pretty cool."

Gwen continued to side-eye her cousin for a few seconds, raising an eyebrow but not offering up any response, other than a hum and a nod when Ben didn't elaborate on his feelings on Tokage.

"Well, we had a Quirk test." She remarked, when the silence began to stretch out. Now it was Ben's turn to raise an eyebrow, as he looked back over at her.

"Already?"

"Yup." Gwen replied. "A bunch of physical exercises but with Quirks added on. Would've been kinda fun if our teacher didn't threaten to expel whoever he ranked lowest…" she paused for a second, letting the suspense hang before smirking. "Turns out he was bluffing, though."

"Sounds like fun." Ben dryly replied, raising his hands above his head and stretching. "How'd you rank? Hopefully not last."

"Second from the top." Gwen remarked, her smirk widening slightly. "Only behind this really smart girl Yaoyorozu with a bonkers Quirk: created a damn scooter to ride during the endurance run and lasted fifteen minutes longer than anyone else!"

"Say what, now?" Ben blinked a couple of times, letting out a snort as he looked over at Gwen. "Doesn't that seem a little against the rules?"

"That's what I thought, at first!" Gwen replied, raising her arms above her head. "But hey, second place isn't bad. At least I beat that Bakugo guy who got more points than me in the practical exam… he's got issues."

"What kinds of issues?"

"The 'can't go five minutes without screaming at someone or trying to blow something up' kind." Gwen replied, just as dryly as Ben. "I should consider my past self lucky that I only had to put up with you instead of… that."

Ben could only let out a chuckle at Gwen's summation, before the two fell into silence again… for only a few seconds, before another question popped into Ben's head.

"Hey, who'd you get as your homeroom teacher? I'm guessing you got a Pro Hero, all the teachers at U.A. seem to be pros."

"They are." Gwen replied, her face falling slightly as she looked over at Ben. "…and my homeroom teacher is Eraser Head."

…

Ben was silent for a few seconds as he looked away from Gwen, his grin seemingly freezing on his face as he took the information in. Gwen only barely heard the next two words that left his mouth, but she felt they surmised her overall feelings on that particular aspect of their situation.

"Aw… shit."

Line Break

And that'll just be one of the many things that the two of you will have to deal with, to keep up this act you're putting on. But on the bright side, you managed to get through one day at U.A. Let's hope you can get through the rest.

Also language, Ben!