Entrance Exam

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my original characters and works, if you recognise it from somewhere else, surprise it isn't mine.

Betad by morde24, Atrius, Hermes, Priapus, Marethyu, Old man of the mountain and TheDonFluffles

The Guild of Gamers: The Tamer

Chapter 05: Entrance Exam

Listening to the teachers explain how the entrance exam works, I grin to myself, fidgeting as I'm unable to keep myself still due to the excitement.

Sure, I'd rather fight the other students since they seem to have an interesting variety of 'Quirks', but giant robots work just as well.

I completely disregard their words about not fighting the zero-point robots, you don't put a giant enemy in front of me then tell me not to fight it, and I'm pretty sure Blue can take it.

Hopping from foot to foot, I glance at Mankey who is equally excited, glaring at literally everything that moves, student or robot. I told him only to attack the robots and he seemed to understand (even if he was obviously disappointed).

He's put some more muscle on during our training, and he's getting better at harnessing his rage instead of just flailing at whatever angers him.

[Tamer's Training - Rank D]

You have a natural affinity for training, both monsters and people, to bring out their full potential.

That said, he's still a furry ball of rage, but he's my furry ball of rage.

I can see the other students watching us, hear them whispering, it sounds like I'm pretty famous already as the Monster Tamer, not that I particularly care about my renown.

Though dad once told me that when you get famous (or infamous as is usually the case for him), strong people will go out of their way to try and fight you, so maybe I should want to become incredibly famous?

Blue is sitting in my water bottle at my waist, he's a little too strong to be honest, so I don't want to rely on my adorable squishy killing machine.

I'll use him for the zero-point robots, but me and Mankey are going to handle the rest. I can feel that Mankey is on the cusp of something great, so I want to use this opportunity to push him further.

The exam area is made to look like an abandoned city, with towering buildings, which makes sense since this is exactly the kind of environment the students will be working in if they become heroes, but it does put me at a minor disadvantage, I'm used to the wilds. Heh, just something else for me to learn.

I'm distracted as I hear Mankey squeal angrily, turning to see a student kneeling down to pat his head, making me blink.

The girl is short blonde, dressed in a short black skirt, a pink cardigan and white stockings, a weird smile on her face as she ignores Mankey's obvious anger and continues patting his head.

She looks weak, with absolutely no muscles and no weapon in sight, but I've learnt to not judge people at first glance. Quirks are strange things and someone who seems as squishy as this girl could be powerful.

"Oi" I say, making her turn to me with a blink, large blue eyes staring up at me innocently. "Mankey doesn't like to be touched."

It's only my orders that have stopped him from attempting to rearrange her face, hopping around in anger as he glares at her.

"But he's so fluffy," she says, pausing as she looks up at me. "You're big."

"Nah, you're just small," I say, looking her over. Well, she's small in some ways, large in others.

Reaching up, she starts petting my head, making me blink in confusion.

"You're soft, I thought it'd be rougher," she says, her smile unchanged as she stands on her tiptoes just to be able to pat my head easier.

Mankey finally stops glaring, instead I think the chittering sound is the little bastard laughing at me as I try and work out how to deal with this girl.

"Carol!"

Running up to us, a girl with short red hair attracts Carol's attention, making her blink as she pauses her head rub (which admittedly felt kinda nice).

Now the redhead? She looks like she belongs here, dressed in a simple white martial arts gi, I can see the muscles formed from years of experience, and she moves with an efficiency that comes with much practice.

"Tomo-chan, come stroke his hair, it's nice and soft," Carol says happily, making Tomo sigh. "Oh, right. Tomo, this is… who are you?" Carol asks, turning back to me.

As I go to reply, she pokes me on the cheek.

"Sorry about her, she's a little-" Tomo starts, turning back to where Carol has wandered off to try and pet Mankey again. "Well, like that."

"It's all good," I say with a grin, watching her try and pick up a struggling Mankey, unable to hurt her, who's laughing now you little bastard?

I go to speak, but the rambling of the teacher finally ends, and I lose all interest in this conversation as the exam finally starts. I go to at least say goodbye to Tomo, but as I turn I see that she's already grinning, staring towards the robots with excitement.

Heh, my kinda girl.

"Oi, Mankey, stop playing around, we've got fighting to do," I say, making Mankey let out a frustrated, offended sound as I pluck him out of Carol's hands, making her pout.

Tossing Mankey forwards, I start running towards the robots with a grin, but I don't reach the closest robot first.

Mankey apparently has some anger to work off as he leaps forwards and lands on one of the two-point robots, shaped like a scorpion with another stinger for a head.

Mankey easily dodges its attempt to dislodge him as it rips the head stinger off, bellowing as he tosses it aside and just starts whaling on it, smashing its body with repeated furious strikes until the robot collapses, and he bellows again in victory.

Without any prompting from me, Mankey jumps off his defeated prey and lunges at a one-point robot, who was utterly unprepared for the ball of rage and fury.

Heh, can't let my own monster beat me, so with a grin I charge forwards, seeing a three-point robot. Another student is running towards it, but he's slow and I easily bypass him in a dead sprint, following Mankey's example as I leap forwards and land on the almost-turtle like robot's head.

I don't know robots anywhere near as well as I do monsters, but the same principles apply, and scanning its metal body with narrowed eyes I grin and stab my dagger right into the seam at its neck, pushing it in deep.

Everything has weak points, and these guys are designed to look like monsters so it tracks that the weak spots would be the same.

— Nezu —

"I thought Kaito was already accepted into the school?" Cementoss asked, watching Kaito skilfully destroy another robot with his knife.

"He wanted to take part in the exam regardless and I saw no reason to deny him this chance, frankly he could have got exactly zero points and he'd still get accepted," Nezu explained, chuckling at the sight of Mankey beating a three-pointer with the limb it had torn off another robot.

What an angry little creature, but despite its rage it hadn't harmed any of the other examinees which was a good sign of Kaito's control, even when they had separated.

Naturally, having essentially two people sharing the same score meant that Kaito had quickly risen to the top, Mankey alone would have been in second place overall and Kaito wasn't far behind in fourth, taking longer for his battles since his Quirk was better suited for controlling his creatures instead of fighting himself.

Put them together and they easily skyrocketed into first place.

He knew Kaito could take the form of his creatures, but oddly enough Kaito didn't seem interested in doing so. Did he want to fight with his own strength?

He was clearly enjoying himself, a savage smile on his face as he fought.

"I wonder why he isn't using his Slime, it's his strongest monster isn't it?" Snipe asked, making him frown briefly.

It was true, and he could see the water bottle Blue lived in hanging by Kaito's waist, the incredibly powerful monster contained within.

"Blue is too strong," Midnight explained, Ekans wrapped around her arm. "Blue's acid could melt any of the robots in seconds, and he's gotten far bigger than any of them except the zero-pointer. Kaito doesn't want to rely on Blue's strength, plus it would hardly be fair for the other students in his group as they'd struggle to get any points with Blue devouring any robot it found."

Ahh, that makes sense. With Kaito having no real reason to care about points, he was just treating them as a game, or perhaps a training session?

— Kyoka Jiro —

She was pretty sure she had gotten enough points, her Quirk made finding the robotic 'villains' easy enough, and they weren't that hard to take down (even if some weird pig-monkey had stolen a few of her points).

As she moved towards the next robot, she paused as she reached it, seeing another examinee already fighting it.

Her first thought upon seeing him was 'metal', because that's exactly what he was.

Long messy black hair that came down to his shoulders, his bare chest on display since while he'd worn a leather jacket not unlike her own, he hadn't bothered to wear anything under it.

He filled his out much better than her, and she could see several scars on his heavily muscled body.

Blushing slightly, she watched him rip the head off a two-pointer, grinning as he tossed it aside, already looking for another victim.

It was stupid of her, but as he turned to her she froze in place, a pair of deep red eyes locking with hers. It'd be easier to focus if he wasn't basically topless, but as he started charging towards her, her eyes widened at the sight of the very large man rushing her.

At the last second he sidestepped, going past her as he punched the one-pointer in the face, knocking it away from her.

"Oi, don't zone out," he said, giving her an intense look as her blush deepened, but before she could reply he was off again, leaving her watching him charging through the streets.

Shaking her head, she tried to focus as she used the vibrations to find another villain, unable to fully suppress the blush on her cheeks as she glanced into the distance, watching her saviour turn a corner, a playful grin on his face.

— Kaito —

As the timer counts down, I grin to myself. I haven't been counting but between me and Mankey (who seems to be having the time of his life) I'm pretty sure I'm first.

If this is what classes are going to be like, Midnight and Nezu should have started with that when they were trying to get me to sign up.

'Join us and punch robots' would have been enough to get me to sign up, I'm a simple man.

An alarm blares, making me turn and look as a bunch of students run towards me, or more specifically run away from the building sized robot that shakes the ground with every step.

My grin grows wider at the sight of the truly massive robot, but I have to admit I have no real way of hurting that beast myself.

But that's why I've kept Blue on hand, patting the water bottle as Blue jiggles in anticipation. It's time to show them all what you can do, buddy.

My excitement fades slightly as I spot the blonde girl from earlier, attempting to run from the massive robot, I say attempting because she's exactly as slow as I thought she'd be, pausing after running for all of five seconds to pant, before she starts walking from the giant, still smiling the same airhead smile as I pause, before sighing and rushing forwards.

If she's unnerved by the robot almost stepping on her, breaking the ground under her and making her stumble, she doesn't show it as she falls over, nor does she seem to care as I grab her and pick her up, tossing her over my shoulder with one arm as I undo the top of the bottle and throw it towards the giant robot.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Mankey climbing up the robot's leg as I sigh. I have a soft spot for cute, harmless looking things so I'm gonna be late to the actual fight until I can get this idiot out of the way.

"Hello, Big-chan," Carol says, seemingly uncaring of her predicament as I run away from the giant robot, which has more to worry about than me as Blue rapidly grows, sticking to the robots chest as he starts to melt the metal, only growing larger as he starts to engulf one of the robots arms as it tries (and fails) to pull Blue off.

Getting a safe distance away, I put down the girl and sigh as she stares up at me with the same dumb smile she's had this entire time.

"You realise this is a hero exam, did you sign up for the wrong thing?" I ask, making her tilt her head. "And it's Kaito."

I'm mildly annoyed at her, because she's hilariously out of shape. What's she doing here if she can't even run for ten seconds without needing to stop?

"Hm? No, I'm in the right place?," Carol says, sitting on some rubble.

"Ah, whatever, try to stay out of trouble while I-" I say, turning around and pausing as I watch the massive robot fall over, entire chunks of its body simply gone as Blue calmly slides off it and jiggles.

Aww, come on… already? You couldn't wait for me?

Mankey, standing on the half-dissolved head of the robot, lets out a victorious cheer as he jumps on the robot, entirely convinced he took it down himself as Blue jiggles contently, happy to let Mankey continue his delusions.

I can hear the other students whispering as they watch Blue start to consume the remains of both the zero-pointer and any other robot he can find, but my attention is on Mankey himself, watching as he starts to glow.

I've seen this before, with Blue as he moved into the next stage of his evolution, so I'm pretty happy watching Mankey glow brighter until his body starts to shift.

Growing larger, Mankey lets out a happy cheer as his formerly rather skinny limbs bulk up and grow a light brown, gaining what look like metal shackles on his wrists and ankles, with his face becoming more harsh as he beats his chest.

Mankey (Rank D) has evolved into Primeape (Rank B)

Primeape, the Pig Monkey Pokémon (Rank B)

Primeape exists in a state of near-permanent rage, only briefly calming down when it has its favourite food, even when asleep Primeape will get angry at their own dreams. This constant anger gives in immense power, at the cost of lowering its intelligence.

…so he's still angry, but now he's stronger and dumber?

Watching it rip the zero-pointers head off (likely helped by the half-melted neck) and toss it at one of the buildings, leaping at it and smashing it to pieces, I chuckle.

Never change, Primeape, you glorious dumbass.

Tamer's Might skill gained from [Primeape]

[Primeape - Too Angry to Die]

While angry, you gain damage resistance and increased strength equal to your rage. If you are in a true fury, you will not go unconscious no matter how much damage you take, however you are still taking the damage and may just fall over and die when you calm down.

Yup, that's about what I expected from him, hopefully I'll never be so angry as to actually need it but I won't turn down a new power.

— Nezu —

"I think I see your point, Blue is certainly impressive," Nezu said calmly, sipping his tea as he watched Blue happily devour the wrecked robots. "And I do believe that's the first monster evolution ever caught on camera."

The hordes of researchers, desperate for any scrap of information, would certainly gobble up the video of such a transformation. Kaito probably hadn't quite realised how many researchers were currently completely focused on him.

Not only has U.A got a large amount of funding from several organisations and countries for having Kaito, he'd had to fight off other countries who wanted Kaito for themselves.

"Mankey has certainly grown in strength, the head alone should have weighed far too much to be thrown around so easily," All Might mumbled, watching the very angry monkey reduce another robot to literal scraps, only stopping when the timer hit zero and Kaito called him back. "Especially by such a small creature."

It was true, even evolved, the monkey was barely four foot tall, a large furry ball of anger ready to be unleashed at Kaito's enemies.

Not that his size stopped him from picking up massive chunks of metal and tossing them around as if they were practically weightless.

"I think it's fair to say Kaito has easily taken the number one spot this year, both with his villain points and a surprising number of rescue points. I didn't expect him to go out of his way to help others, an embarrassing misjudgment," All Might said, rubbing the back of his neck in shame at judging Kaito in such a way.

Indeed, he hadn't expected Kaito to do anything but fight, given who they suspected his father was and how he had been raised, but Kaito did seem to go out of his way to help people.

Well, to help women, as all the students he aided were female, maybe he made exceptions to his might-makes-right mindset when it came to potential mates?

In second place for this group was Carol, despite how difficult it was to work out which points should belong to her, given how her Quirk worked.

How do you judge 'luck' after all, many of the robots just malfunctioned when they tried to aim at her, and any time she was in danger, another student would come to her aid, knowingly or otherwise, including Kaito himself.

One of the robots even got its targeting data mixed up and started attacking the other robots, who weren't programmed to defend against themselves and just stood there and let the three-pointer destroy them.

Of course, she also had absolutely no danger sense, perhaps she was so used to things going right for her that she wouldn't even react to threats, just calmly waiting for the danger to resolve itself.

Seeing that the exam was over, Kaito seemed oddly upset, almost pouting as he looked over whatever was left of the zero-pointer… ahh, he wanted to fight it himself but put it aside to save Carol?

A good sign that he placed saving a future classmate over his own wants and needs, good heroic tendencies that would serve him well.

Which raised a question, why would a potential son of All for One have heroic tendencies? Perhaps his mother was a better influence than All for One expected?

Of course they didn't really know much about how Kaito had been raised, or his family, only that they were apparently very powerful.

It was a mystery for them to unravel during the school year because he doubted pressuring Kaito for answers would end well for anyone involved.

— Kaito —

No, I'm not pouting over not getting to fight the zero-pointer. I'm entirely fine with the fact that Primeape has gotten a massive head over his great victory.

Watching Primeape bounce off Blue as he attempts to punch the gelatinous blob, which immediately lashes out and sends him flying, I nod. Yeah, I'm not being petty at all.

They're both Rank B monsters, but Blue is a very bad matchup for my rage monkey, because he's basically immune to physical damage and physical damage is all Primeape can do.

But good luck telling Primeape that, as he jumps up and charges forwards again, determined to defeat Blue and claim the title of my strongest monster.

Blue just sits there, jiggling menacingly as Primeape ineffectively attacks him.

'How did the Entrance Exam go?'

Glancing at my phone, I smile at Momo's question. She's a scholarship student so she didn't need to do the exam, her loss in my opinion.

'It was fun, me and Mankey got to smash a bunch of robots, Blue ate a massive robot then Mankey evolved into Primeape.'

Momo has met all three of my monsters, we've had quite a few tutorage sessions lately.

'That's great! Is he nicer now? I swear it always looks like he wants to punch me, which is a shame since he's so cute.'

'Nope, he's bigger, dumber and angrier, still cute though.'

'Somehow, I'm not surprised. It wouldn't be him if he wasn't angry. Here's hoping we're in the same class!'

As I talk with Momo (who clearly types much faster than me, replying almost immediately after I finish my message, Caterpie squeaks cutely to get my attention as I feed her another piece of the salad I grabbed for her.

I definitely wasn't taking Caterpie into battle with me, her string-shot is a good debilitating move as the string is surprisingly hard to break, both slowing people down and binding them completely if they can't get out before she sprays enough, but beyond that she can't attack at all.

I've already learnt how to use partial transformation to shift my arm and allow me to use string-shot myself, so she's useful even if she can't fight for herself yet.

I'm not sure how to evolve her, but when in doubt just keep feeding the monster until something happens.

"Excuse me, do you have a moment?" a soft voice asks, making me pause as I turn to the entrance of the training room I commandeered.

Seeing another blonde girl, I briefly go on edge preparing to deal with another Carol, but she immediately looks smarter than that airhead, maybe it's the glasses?

Everyone looks smarter with glasses.

"Sure, something I can do for you?" I ask, putting Caterpie back on my shoulder.

"I'm Melissa Shield, assistant researcher at the Monster Research Association, and you certainly need no introduction Kaito, the Monster Tamer," Melissa says with a smile, ah right, the dog-rat-teacher mentioned the Monster Research Association, they're the ones footing the bill for the new building.

Which apparently is almost done already, they really don't waste time around here, but then they built an entire fake city for an entrance exam, U.A certainly doesn't hold back when it comes to things like this.

"Right, I heard you guys wanted to come and study my monsters," I say, taking the offered hand and shaking it. "Wasn't expecting you to show up so quickly."

"Ha, this is the biggest breakthrough we've ever had since the emergence, the only surprising part of this is that I'm the only one here so far. Principal Nezu is holding off the horde, but my father is an old friend of All Might's so I got permission to arrive early," Melissa admits, ah nepotism.

"So, how is this supposed to work? I'm not exactly a scientist, academic study isn't my style," I admit easily, making her smile.

"I wouldn't be so harsh on yourself, I've been following your journal posts, you might not use scientific language but I'd certainly say you're rapidly becoming an expert researcher yourself," Melissa says warmly, making me shrug.

"I just happen to like the material, monsters are what I know," I say, reaching up and patting Caterpie on the head.

"Regardless, your Quirk alone gives you an understanding of monsters that puts researchers who have studied them since the emergence to shame," Melissa says encouragingly. "But moving on, I'll be handling the logistics of our side of the bargain, arranging for food for your monsters, designing rooms for them to live in when they're not with you, things like that. We'll probably be working closely so I thought I'd introduce myself."

"Nice to meet you, and good luck. These three are pretty simple, Caterpie is a herbivore, Primeape likes fruit and meat and Blue will eat literally anything, but I plan to increase my numbers massively over the next year so your job is probably going to get complicated," I admit, making her smile.

If they're going to take care of the duties, I have no reason to not grab loads of monsters, even if they just live in the rooms made for them, I'll still get some benefits from their existence.

The rooms better be nice though.

"Oh, I'm counting on it, we all are," Melissa says happily. "Now, I've designed rooms for these three based on the dungeons you found them in and your own notes, so I wanted to show you them and work out if we'll need to make any changes to keep them happy."

"Sure, Oi you two, come over here. Primeape, stop that, you're just hurting yourself," I say, watching Primeape attempt a flying kick at Blue, bouncing right back off him.

At no point during this fight did he realise that Blue is immune to blunt damage, but that might be a little too much to expect from my angry boi.

Blue calmly slides over to me, shrinking as he goes up my leg and into his bottle, and I have to stop the angry Primeape from grabbing the water bottle from my waist, making him grumble as he kicks the ground, cracking the floor.

"He's quite the character, isn't he?" Melissa says with a small smile, making me chuckle as I notice the unease she's trying to hide. She's basically a civilian, and there's a very angry monster three feet away from her.

"Don't worry, I've been very clear on what he's allowed to attack, he can't attack any humans without my permission," I reassure her, patting Primeape's head as he settles down.

He's still angry, but it's a quiet anger.

"Ah, that's smart considering what you've written about Mankeys, the video of him evolving was rather interesting," Melissa says, moving closer and reaching forwards hesitantly, patting the soft fur as Primeape grumbles more.

Despite his grumbling, I can feel his enjoyment, and beyond a half-hearted glare Primeape doesn't put up a fight, instead choosing to glare at the water bottle.

After a moment, she moves back (much to Primeapes hidden disappointment), leading us to the new building which is a fair distance away from the school itself.

I briefly frown as she leads us into the basement, but my frown doesn't last as we reach the first 'room', apparently made for Mankey before he evolved.

Frankly, it's massive, bigger than most zoo exhibits, with an artificial sun. A massive tree is in the middle of the room, with several smaller trees, a pool and plenty of foliage for him to hide in, and as we enter Primeape looks around in confusion before he moves quickly and rapidly climbs the tree, swinging from the branches as he makes himself at home.

I have no idea how they managed to make this, or how much it must have cost, but Primeape seems happy with it.

Honestly, there's no real changes I'd make to it and Melissa is happy to hear that, though she does tell me to let her know if I think of anything later.

Apparently there are cameras hidden all over the room, which will be live-streaming constantly so they can study how Primeape acts.

It's not his natural environment, but since you can't leave cameras in dungeons (because the dungeon will destroy any unnatural buildings or items left in them), it's as close as they can really get.

Leaving Primeape to settle in, we move into the next room for Caterpie. It's smaller for obvious reasons, but it's another patch of forest that Caterpie happily settles into, disappearing into some brush and not coming out. I can sense her location, but she seems to be exploring so I leave her to it.

Blue's is the biggest room, with a large flat grassland with a small patch of trees in the corner, another corner holding a large pool of water.

Despite finding Blue in the forest, I've learnt that he prefers large flatlands, especially when it's raining (which Melissa assures me can be replicated in his room), and Blue happily grows to his larger size and wanders around the room, falling into the pool and sinking into it. He seems happy but I don't think he has very high standards since his old room was a water bottle.

"If you discover any special needs for your monsters, please let me know immediately and I'll make sure they are seen to," Melissa says as we head back upstairs, showing me the live-streams in one of the observation rooms (and how to access the live-streams myself on my tablet).

"Primeape is lonely, but that's a problem I'm going to have to deal with. I'll go catch a few Mankeys to serve as his pack later, but that's a problem for me to deal with," I say, making her eyes widen as she makes some notes. "Aside from that, they seem to like their rooms so far. Thanks, Melissa." I say, patting her head.

"You know I'm older than you, right?" Melissa asks, blushing slightly as I grin.

"Yeah, but you're also smaller than me," I counter.

This blonde is much nicer, she takes care of my monsters and doesn't poke me, or make me miss out on fights because she's too slow to get away from an enemy.

But on the brightside, there's no way Carol actually got into the school, right?

"A-anyway, if you have some time, do you mind if I ask you some questions? I've read everything you've written so far but I have some questions about your monsters," Melissa asks, making me smile and shrug.

"Go ahead, my training session has been thoroughly interrupted anyway," I say, making her go to apologise before she realises I'm just teasing, pouting slightly.

With my monsters busy getting used to their new homes, I spend the rest of the day with Melissa, playing a hundred and one questions with her.

Yeah, I'm definitely not cut out for being an actual academic researcher, but I don't mind playing along and helping the actual egg-heads do the research.

— Next Day —

Huh, that's a new one.

Tamer Skill Acquired

[Material Extraction]

Convert some of a monster's energy into a material that can be used in a variety of ways, without harming the monster.

[Essence Extraction]

Convert some of a monster's energy into solidified essence, which can be ingested to gain benefits which vary based on the monster, this does not harm the monster.

I have no idea what caused this, it was waiting for me when I woke up, and checking the live-feed, nothing seems to be up with my monsters.

Blue is sleeping (I think, it's hard to tell with him), Primeape is punching a tree, Caterpie is just wandering around his enclosure.

Checking the numbers, I pause. Why are several thousand people watching Caterpie eat a leaf?

Not to mention, even more people are watching Primeape pick a fight with a piece of wood, and the chat from Blue's show that at some point he was bouncing around and he hit fifteen thousand viewers during it.

Do you people have nothing better to do?

Somehow, I just know the egg-heads are going to go mad when they find out about my new powers, but the energy it converts is the same energy that makes them evolve so I'm hesitant to use it too much.

Ah, it's limited to once a day for each monster anyway, I'll never get used to just having new information enter my head like that.

As I get up, I pause, years of hunting in the most dangerous jungles warning me that something is watching me, something powerful.

I can feel the gaze of a true predator on my back, and spinning around I narrow my eyes as I search my room quickly. I know I didn't imagine-

Watching a small white and green butt try and fit back into my underwear drawer, I blink.

That's Shaymin. Why is Shaymin in my underwear drawer?

Walking up to it, I open it up and Shaymin rolls onto its back, managing to look both shocked and innocent at the same time as I reach in and pick up the legendary monster as it squeaks and its tiny legs attempt to run in the air.

…it followed us home, that was almost a week ago. Has Shaymin just been wandering around the U.A grounds ever since?

That's going to be a fun one to explain to Midnight and Nezu, 'oh yeah, there's been a legendary class monster just chilling in the school, we just didn't notice'.

Somehow I doubt they'll find it funny. The way I see it, if Shaymin wanted to hurt people, U.A would probably be a mass grave by now. I doubt 'Legendary Rank' is for show.

"Shaymin, what are you doing here?" I ask, lifting it up to eye-level, it's small eyes expressing innocence as it almost purrs.

I can sense its curiosity, and some mischief as it wiggles in my hands.

"You want to stay with me, little guy?" I ask, making it beam up at me as I sigh. Yeah, I better go and explain this to Midnight before I have a horde of heroes chasing this cute little bastard down.

Putting him on my shoulder, I start heading towards Midnight's room, since I didn't actually sleep with her last night.

She's both a pro hero and a teacher (with the school year about to start), so she's understandably busy, but then so is everyone…

The building is a hive of activity, people rushing around as I spot Nemuri talking with a hero I don't recognise, before they split off.

"Kaito! Sorry, I don't have time- is that Shaymin?" Nemuri immediately asks, spotting the tiny green hedgehog sitting on my shoulder proudly.

"Yup, he followed us," I admit, making her pause.

"That's- damn it, any other day I'd have a million questions, but another Kaiju has attacked, one we've never seen before," Nemuri explains, making my eyes widen. "It's too soon, people haven't even finished healing from the Gameciel attack, we've never had a Kaiju attack so soon after another before. Sorry, Kaito, I've got to run. It's all hands on deck."

Given everything that's happening, there's only one thing I can really say.

"Take me with you," I say immediately, a grim look on my face.

— Bonus Scene — ???

Lounging on his throne of magma and volcanic rock, he stretched out as he rose to his feet.

It was time, he'd grown powerful enough to leave the dungeon, and as with every monster who reached this level, images flashed in his mind as an unknown entity gave him direction.

A massive spire of metal and glass, a large man with a flaming beard and a scowl on his face.

He didn't know who the images came from, nor did he care. The humans were his prey, the spire would be toppled and the man would be feasted upon.

With a languid pace, he walked towards the dungeon entrance, none of the other monsters daring to challenge him and as he stepped through the portal, breaking the barrier that was meant to keep monsters in, the presence appeared again. He felt himself be teleported to his target.

With a fearsome roar, Teostra, the Emperor of Flame, announced his presence and lit the city ablaze, his mere presence enough to cause his surroundings to catch alight.

Leaving a trail of fire behind him as he charged towards the spire, the buildings on either side of the street igniting in his wake.