Bloodlust (Part 1)

1A entered the classroom and sat in their seats, quieting down immediately. They wanted to start class as soon as possible. Today was the day. Aizawa entered and froze, not used to things being quiet this early. "...Did somebody die?" Mina was too giddy to keep quiet. "Today is the day, Mr. Aizawa!" The class got riled up, chanting 'Today's the day' over and over again. Iida's shouting managed to quiet down the class. Aizawa just looked around at his students before nodding. "Yep. Today's the day." More cheering ensued. "I didn't get much rest last night, so I'll be taking a nap. Midnight will handle today's class." The R-Rated Hero entered. "Hi everyone!" The class cheered her on. She smiled and sat on the desk. Aizawa wrapped himself in a sleeping bag and dropped to the floor, passing out before he hit the ground. The class and Midnight stared at him for a second before she smiled at the class. "As you all may or may not know, you all will be going to go work with a pro hero that you have selected for a one week internship. Since you all will likely be doing hero work during that time, you all get to choose your hero names!" The class cheered. She handed out white boards and markers. "You all will think of a name, but I have to approve it. So no 'King Explosion Murder'. Got it?" Kirishima looked up from his phone. "Does a hero have that name?" "He tried. Now get to thinking!"

Kirishima was quick to go to the front of the class. Midnight was a bit surprised. "That was fast. Let's see what you got." The red head smiled at the class. "Crimson Riot has always been my all time favorite hero. I looked up to him growing up. I know he's gone, but I want to carry on what he stood for." He showed the class his white board. "I choose the name Red Riot!" The class nodded in approval. Midnight wasn't smiling. "That's a big name to live up to. Are you sure you can handle it?" "Absolutely!" She smiled. "Alright then, Red Riot. Approved." He sat back down. Momo was next. "I spent a long time thinking about this. I choose Creati: the Everything Hero!" "It matches your quirk! I approve!" Mina rushed up. "I like mine! I'm going with Alien Queen!" "Denied." "What?!" "Your name can't be scary. Go try again." Mina dragged her feet back to her desk. Jason and Shoto were whispering to each other. Shoto finally went up. Jason had a big smile. Shoto stood in front of the class and presented her white board. It just read her name. Jason looked disappointed. Midnight smiled. "I see you aren't quite ready for a hero name yet. That's ok. I approve." Shoto sat down. "...Sorry." Jason shrugged and went back to thinking about what hero name he should have. The other students slowly picked their names. Some were cool, others were stupid, most were flashy, but all were approved. Jason finally smiled as he wrote something on his white board and went to the front of the class. "Alright, I got it." The class waited for the dramatic reveal. Jason flipped his white board around. "You all can call me Endgame!" The class was silent. Midnight was just as confused. "Endgame?" Jason smirked at her. "Because when all else fails, I won't." The class nodded approvingly. The hero smiled. "I would say that you have to live up to that promise one day, but I think you already know that. Approved." Jason sat down. Chris was the next one up. "I don't really have anything. I wanted to have a name that shows everyone that I can be there for them. I also wanted to sound really tough. I think this is a good compromise." He turned his white board around. It read a single word: Impact. The class nodded. Jason held a supportive thumbs up. "Denied." The class looked to Midnight, who started laughing. "Just kidding. I like it. Simple and tough. Approved."

One short week later, Chris and Jason stood in front of a broken down building. Both men were nervous. The man who trained All Might lived just inside. Chris remembered All Might nervousness when delivering the news about a hero volunteering to train Chris. Of course, both rookies wanted to train together, and the pro didn't seem to mind. Chris knocked on the door. No answer. Jason shrugged and opened the door, which was unlocked. Both guys entered and saw a man laying on the ground in a pool of blood. Jason swore. "Call the police!" The man looked up. "What? Why are police getting called?" Both guys were frozen at the seemingly unhurt man. The small hero stood up. "I just slipped on a spilled drink and fell asleep. Who are you and why are you in my house?" Chris smiled. "I'm Chris Harper, and I'm here to train with you!" "What? I don't train heroes." Jason sighed. "Great. He's senile." He turned to the door. "Let's call All Might and-" Chris shoved Jason out of the way as the old man flew past him, landing on the wall. He zipped around the room, hitting Chris and Jason at lightning speeds. Both rookies were knocked around before managing to get to their feet. Chris swore loudly. "He's too fast!" "Back to back!" They fell back on the tactic that kept them mostly unhurt during their school years: keeping each other's backs together, limiting their blind areas. The man stopped moving. "No!" Both guys looked at him. "This isn't any normal combat training! This is so I can see how far along you are with One for All!" Both guys froze up. Jason lowered his guard. "How the hell do you know about One for All?" "I taught All Might, you whipper snapper!" "...Whipper snapper?" "Not to mention that I knew the previous holder of the quirk before she even passed it on! Didn't Toshinori tell you twerps anything?!" Chris shook his head. "Not really. He told me that Gran Torino requested to tr-" Realization hit both boys. Then Chris exploded into fanboy mode. "Holy crap you're Gran Torino!" "About time you caught on. Now you, guy in the back. Jake, right?" "Jason." "Stay out of this. I need to test All Might's replacement." Jason shrugged and went to sit in a corner. Chris took a deep breath and charged One for All into his arm. One shot. Gran Torino just sighed and walked off. "Nevermind. You don't know what you're doing." Chris just stopped. "What?" The old man pointed at him angrily. "You keep destroying your body! That's no good! How can you save people if you can only get one or two punches in before you're out of the fight?!" Jason nodded, unable to disagree. Chris just sighed in defeat and powered down. "So what should I do?" Gran Torino pointed to the fridge. "You can start helping prepare dinner! James, help him!" "Jason." "What did I say?"

After dinner, Chris took some Taiyaki, a Japanese treat, out of the microwave. "I don't understand why you like these things, sir." "I just like sweet things." Jason was washing dishes. "You need to be careful at your age. Your sweets could cause a heart attack." The hero yelled a retort. "You need to show some respect to your elders!" "How about you remember my name!" "I remember, Joshua!" "Jason!" "Who's Jason?!" Chris put the treats in front of the old man before going to help out Jason. Before he could even roll his sleeves up, Gran Torino shouted. Both students turned, ready for a fight. The treats were on the floor. "Come on, you idiot! They're cold in the center!" "...What?" "You need to rotate them so they are warm all throughout!" Chris sighed and picked up one of the treats. Then he stopped. "...Wait." "What?" Chris held up the treat. The answer was so obvious now. He couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it sooner. Chris smiled and announced his revelation. "This treat… is me." His friend and new teacher were silent for quite some time, just staring at Chris. "...No. Are you feeling alright?" Jason looked down at Gran Torino. "I think you broke him." Chris laughed nervously. "No no, I meant that, like the Taiyaki, I can't just focus on a single point. I need to evenly distribute One for All." He crouched and focused. "...One for All… 2%..." Green electricity sparked around his body before settling. Gran Torino smiled to himself. He learns fast. He has a much steeper learning curve than his predecessor did, but he just completed the greatest hurdle. But he has a long way to go. Jason smiled. "One for All throughout your body, huh? Pretty neat. Almost like a new technique." "...Yea. I got a name!" "A name?" "One for All: Full Cowling!" "...Sure." Come on, that's a good name!" "Why 'Cowling'?" "Shut up, Jason."

The next day was nothing but mobility training, which involved Chris and Gran Torino chasing each other around the apartment. Jason had gone jogging to stay out of their way. Chris had quickly picked up on using the walls to leap around, doing his best to improve his speed and was already trying to comfortably utilize One for All at 3%. Gran Torino stopped. "That is enough. Rest up now." Chris landed. "What? Why?" "I now feel comfortable taking you out to do some crime fighting." Chris was excited. "You really think so?!" "Yes. You've shown some major improvements within these 24 hours. We should be able to get in even more training than I thought. Now rest and make sure your hero outfit is ready. Also tell Jeremy to be ready." "Jason." "Yea yea."

The streets of Sacramento were riddled with crime long before the All Might era. While the rest of the country had an average of 8% crime rate, California's capital city still held a 30% crime rate. It was the perfect place for both boys to train. Chris and Jason exited the taxi. "I see this place hasn't changed at all." "Wait, you used to live here, Jason?" "For a little while. Didn't stay long. Hated it here, but-" "Focus, you two. We're here to fight petty criminals. Stay close and stick together. Remember, don't fight unless you're sure you won't get hurt." Jason looked back at Gran Torino. "That's stupid hero advice." "You're not heroes yet: you're students, and we're technically not supposed to be fighting anything above petty crime." "Fair point." Chris smiled. "Our first patrol. I wonder if-" The sound of screeching tires cut him off. The group looked down the street to see a crowd running away. A large bipedal creature was walking through the area, destroying everything in its wake: chaos. Jason's eyes widened. "Is that a Nomu?!" Chris was hit by the same realization. "I thought there was only one!" Gran Torino tossed his wooden cane to the side. "You two are not to partake in any fighting! Understand?!" Jason nodded. "We'll help with evacuation and crowd control!" "Good idea, Jeremiah!" The old man sped off towards the fighting as Jason shouted at him. "That's not even close!" The two new guys ran after him.

Several hours had passed since they had seen the Nomu, and things had only gotten worse. The Nomu they had seen was one of three rampaging across the downtown district. Heroes from all over California were responding to try to contain the chaos. Jason ran up to a nearby building. He looked to his left and shouted to a very familiar face. "Shoto!" The young woman turned in shock before running over to her friend, shouting over all of the noise. "What are you doing here?!" "We came here to go patrolling with Gran Torino! I thought the Endeavor Agency was hours away from here!" "It is! When dad heard more Nomus popped up, he rushed to get here and fight them!" They heard shouts from up above them. There were people in the building still. Jason pointed to a destroyed column. "One of the building supports is destroyed! Get on it!" Shoto rushed in and created an ice column to replace the destroyed one. She then focused on keeping the structure stable while Jason evacuated people.

Chris was using his superior mobility to help get civilians away from the fights. He saw Endeavor going head to head with the big Nomu. "I guess that means Shoto is here too. I hope she's ok." He then jumped across a few more buildings. He heard a shriek. Looking up, he saw the flying Nomu diving down towards him. Gran Torino kicked it away and continued the fight. Chris ran to get out of the way of the battle. He took a deep breath, trying to catch his breath before going to look for more people. He then heard a scream in the distance. Chris instinctively ran to help. It came from an alley a fair distance away from the rampaging. Chris hurried over and saw a man holding a knife up to a hero's throat. Chris recognized the hero: a fairly popular one named Native. The man was about to drive the blade into Native's throat. Chris jumped forward and punched the criminal away. The man back-flipped, landing on his feet with a sword drawn. Chris tensed up. The man had cold dead eyes hiding behind blood stained rags wrapped around his head. He was decked out with dozens of knives. The man pointed his sword towards Chris. "What do you think you're doing, kid?" Chris swallowed his fear and got ready to fight. "I'm Impact, and I won't let you hurt him!" The man narrowed his eyes. "You talk like a hero. Let's see if you act like one."