Chapter 1

Adrenaline

He lived for the rush. Those times when distractions faded away, and there was nothing but him and the moment. His heart pounded in his ears, his skin flushed, and his breath quickened. That is what made him feel alive.

Those times where you cannot think, cannot feel, because if you do then you will fall. The crashing tide of the moment will sweep you along and all you can do is to stay on your feet and fight and run and win go go gogogogogo and then it's over. And you can think again. And you realize what happened, and you can do nothing but laugh.

It was only fitting that his power reflected his attitude.

He had magma in his veins. Light and heat and power flickered, and burned beneath his skin, shining through the skin in places. And when he stoked the fires? He burned.

His skin would hiss, crack, and crumble falling away into ash; revealing the glowing power hidden beneath. Muscle and bone would show, blackened and terrible, but containing strength beyond their kin. Eyesight would start to narrow, his field of vision reduced to naught but his obstacle, and the road leading to it, and his furnace would burn in his chest.

When it was over, he would cool. His skin would solidify and the light and heat would fade from his eyes, the world fading back into view.

He lived for the times that he could dig deep. When he could just go until all was dust and slag, and he was the only thing that was still standing in the end.

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Musutafu, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan

February 26, 9:30 am

He got off the bus alongside the other students, looking toward the large testing area they were assigned to. Two large gates loomed in front of the group of adolescents milling around in front of them, scattered conversation echoing slightly.

"GO!" A voice from the speakers yells, "A real battle has no countdowns!"

He watches the other students react slowly, as he feels time begin to slow. The ones standing closest to him recoil from the heat suddenly radiating from his area, exclamations of surprise on their lips that die as they see what is causing the rising temperature.

His back coughs, blowing him ahead of the group and knocking over those closest to the back blast. As soon as he is clear of the group, jets open along his legs and arms, and he is gone.

The mock city blurs by, and the robots start to react to his appearance alongside them before his blows turn them into little more than fancy scrap. The other students start to recover from their stupor and give chase, some following the trail of cracked ground shimmering from the heat, while the majority of the group split up and start their search for bots to destroy.

After several minutes of chaos and destruction, the teachers up in the control room take notice of the seeming lack of available robots in testing area 3 and search the cameras for the source of the deficiency.

"Damn, that kid is fast," Mic says, the others nodding in agreement.

"Send out the Zero pointer to slow him down, Nezu," Aizawa says, "And let's see how he deals with it."

Nezu grins and hits the button to release the building-sized robot from its containment area.

Back in the testing ground, the whole area begins to shake violently, dust rising, and rubble shifting. A shadow falls over the kids' city, and the giant shape of the Zero pointer looms overhead.

He stops behind yet another two-pointer when the ground shakes from something other than himself and grins slightly, as he sees the large form of the new challenger arising in the distance.

A line of buildings collapses as the Zero Pointer moves through the area, its large sensors locking onto the source of massive heat discharge in the distance. A plume of smoke rises as a blast turns the area surrounding Him into molten earth, and he blurs towards the huge robot.

The onlookers in the control room watch with something approaching awe, as what looks like a glowing line traces its way to the base of the Zero pointer, and then up the bot, solidifying into the tester that had caught their attention earlier above its massive head.

A jet of fire and force suddenly erupts in the air, and the Zero pointer crumples down as if crushed by the fist of God. A shockwave expands from beneath the robot as the student impacts at significant speed, and what little glass still exists in the surrounding area bursts with the blast.

The control room shakes in the distance as the sound finally reaches them, and the teachers turn to each other with looks of concern etched on their faces. "Well Aizawa, I think we have one for your class."