"Well, we were also planning on figuring out exactly what kind of fighting style best mixes with humans and the powers of a Klyntar."
"Couldn't you… I don't know… Teach me some Alien martial arts?"
Venom actually cackled in laughter.
...
"Alien martial arts! HAH! Izuku, do you know how many sentient races across the cosmos who has a body structure like humans do?"
He blinked.
"Um… Some… A lot? Most?"
"The answer is bloody few. While yes, two legs, two feet, one head, and no tail is common enough amongst the species of the universe, that is where your similarity to most ends."
"The common body structure of most races who walk on two legs is a hunched over posture, more similar to apes than it is to human beings."
"In fact, the last time we saw a race with a straight spine was a bunch of 3 meter tall lizard-like people with sharp point bits on their arms, head's and legs. And those fucking morons didn't even have the basic concept of warfare in their skull. They were too stupid to wage war at all."
"Okay, but… what does that have to do with martial arts?"
"Everything. It has everything to do with martial arts. Different races across the cosmos have invented countless martial arts, each of them based on their own body structure, mental way of thinking, and natural limits. Just like humans have."
"Let's take the stupid lizards as an example. Let's say they actually invented a martial art. Do you think a race with sharp point bits all over and a tail, would ever invent a martial art that could be used by human beings?"
When he said it like that, it sounded pretty silly.
"Probably not" He admitted.
"Exactly. You, humans, have this insane idea that most aliens are like yourselves. It is a common trait amongst species that has never gone through first contact. It is also completely wrong. There are no Alien species that are built exactly like your kind."
"Point is, that we will have to figure out how to best use your natural build alongside our powers. You seem to have settled nicely into a fighting style relying on jumping around while using our web to pull yourself around. That is not a bad way to fight, but if that is the only way you know how to wage a battle… Well, you remember what happened with Rhino right?"
He did. He did not fancy being cooked alive by steam again.
" Yeah… I remember."
"Let that be a lesson from burned fingers then. Speaking of alternate ways to fight… We don't suppose we are allowed to use any technological inventions of our to fight?"
Izuku went cold.
"Not unless we are in the tech department no. Those in the Heroic department don't even get to use their own tailor-made costumes."
Izuku had initially been interested when Venom had told him that he knew how to create many inventions far beyond anything humanity had ever known. Sure, Venom wasn't a scientist, but that didn't matter as much when he had a photographic memory and had lived a long, long life alongside those machines.
He had actually detailed several blueprints for these things. Then, two hours later, he had ripped the pages with them out of the black book, and thrown them in the toilet. After having ripped them to shreds.
The world was much, much better off without the things Venom knew how to make.
"Pity. This would be so much easier if we could just erase all oxygen in the stadium."
Case in point. The oxygen destroyer, that did exactly what the name implied. A small baseball-sized sphere that obliterated breathable air around it. Izuku shuddered at the thought of what would happen if that kind of thing ended up in the hand of criminals.
"Somehow, we'll just have to do without that."
---
The boulder shattered with a massive "CRASH!", as she put her foot into the kick.
She panted, completely drenched in sweat.
The whole area around her was completely destroyed, with uprooted trees, shattered pieces of stone that had been massive boulders, and with pieces of the earth having been split, so that it looked like it had been cut from above by a giant sword.
Which wasn't that far from what had actually happened.
Uraraka staggered towards a relatively large rock that had been a boulder taller than she was just a few hours ago, and plopped down on it, completely drained. Her hands in particular were shaking like a small boat in a storm.
30%. That was how much she could use now. She should feel ecstatic about that. But despite her amazing leap in power over the months, there was another side of that coin, namely that she still had 70% left to go. She wasn't even at the halfway point yet.
I Am Here.
All Might's words echoed in her head.
She had to show the world she was here, that she was ready. She had to win this tournament. She had to. She had willingly signed up for this position, and she would damn well do what she could to live up to it.
She should have felt confident. She had mastered her powers now. She had even developed a technique of her own, and the days of wrecking her hands were completely behind her. But the fact of the matter was that she didn't feel confident.
There was a huge Boulder in her way. One that was small, and black, and cute with green hair and adorable freckles.
Izuku Midoriya had stood out from the rest from the day he had first stepped foot on Yuei.
He'd saved her life during the entrance exams. Then he had done the best of the entire class during Aizawa's test. Then during Toshinari-san's exercise, he had matched her blow for blow and then defeated her on top of it.
Then, during the invasion, he had defeated Rhino, a villain she wasn't familiar with, but apparently, he was some big shot guy from America.
Either way, he was a villain. A real one, unlike the weak guys she had defeated alongside Tsuyu-Chan.
The fact of the matter was that if she had to pick someone she thought would win, it would be Izuku.
Which would have been perfectly fine if she had just been a spectator. But she wasn't, she was a participant. And if she wanted to win, she had to defeat Izuku Midoriya.
She had to beat Todoroki Shouto, Mina Hardy-Ashido, Katsuki-Bakugou, and the entire rest of the class as well. All 3 were powerhouses that could not be taken lightly.
But it was the thought of fighting Izuku that drove her right now. He was the goal she had to surpass if she wanted to triumph in the tournament.
That would have been hard enough on it's own, to just surpass him. The fact of the matter was that she didn't want to fight Izuku. She LIKED Izuku. He was a great friend, and frankly, she didn't want to think about the reaction he would have if she did win against him.
Would he be crushed? Sad? Not want to be her friend anymore?
She had made a point to dig around regarding the tournament, and she had learned that Yuei's sports festival had a nasty tendency to break friendships. Especially the first one, where students generally weren't as close as they were after a year together.
The thoughts of any of her new friends breaking off their friendship with her over being defeated by her was terrifying. She didn't think any of them would, but thinking and knowing were very different things.
To her side, she heard footsteps and as she turned her head, a towel was offered to her. She took it and began wiping her head.
"You're kinda terrifying Ochako." Tsuyu said in her general blunt manner.
She saw the area around her and the sheer destruction she had caused by going all out.
Yeah… She probably was.
"I don't think Izuku would think so though."
She winced. But it was the truth.
"Probably not. Anyway, you done with training too Tsuyu?"
"No. But we can go to my home anyway. I'm sure you want to clean up. And eat with us too. "
Her mouth watered at the thought. God, she had missed real, home-cooked food. It wasn't that she had starved during her muscle training, but she had exclusively consumed only bland, Uber healthy food and drink during that training, and it had lost all flavor for her as the months of training had gone on.
It had been amazingly good to taste real glorious food again!
As the two went to go pick up Uraraka's bag, they passed the lake Tsuyu used had used for her training over the passing days.
The frog girl had originally been using a public lake in Mustafa, but after being knocked out on separate occasions by both Kaminari and Jirou(Both of whom had though using their powers to knock out the local fishies had been a good training exercise for control) that had lost a lot of appeal.
Thankfully for her, Tsuyu had brought the topic up, and since there was a lake on her training grounds, she had offered to let Tsuyu come along to use it.
The grounds they were on was a relatively large piece of land owned by Toshinori-San, and he had effectively let her use it for training as she saw fit.
It was amazing that he just owned this huge piece of land, that he'd bought along with some property he had apparently never used.
Frankly, him just letting her use it was also another lesson in how she wanted to live her life as a hero. She wanted to help people, but to help people on a truly massive scale, you needed money to be able to be generous with more than just a token speech.
Money made the world go round, and if you wanted to actually do something good on a large scale, you had to have money to burn.
...
AN :
For those wondering where the hell the scythe originated, it's based on a move from the Spiderman game Web of Shadows.
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