The future Fullmetal Hero: Biónica. . .

    I couldn't let go of how that sounded in my head. Not only did it title me as one of few Heroines with fake limbs, but it was also in Spanish, which would be an eyecatcher for recruiters.

    I just wished I had that Hero name before all the Pro Heroes in the area rejected me as an internship candidate. I understood why, but it also was a letdown to think I wouldn't be able to intern like everyone else.

    I was glad to know that I could at least participate in Heroics training with the A-class during school. After homeroom, Aizawa instructed us that our next lesson would take place in the Gym Rana where we were to meet in our tracksuits for our assignment.

    I left my backpack in my chair then met Aizawa for him to hand me and Shinso our gym uniforms. I never needed anything like this in Support, but I was willing to hang up my welding suits in place of it. After grabbing the bright blue and red tracksuit, I made my way to the girls' locker room to change.

    Most of my lady classmates were already ahead while I had found my size in a uniform. By the time I got into the bathroom, the majority of them were already dressed and ready. The girls inside didn't pay me much mind as I walked in, which was to be expected. Like the rest of their class, the only interaction I've had with them came from the Sports Festival, if that. So, I prepared myself for a few days of the cold shoulder.

    What I wasn't expecting was the weight of someone's arm slung around my shoulder the second I walked in.

    "There's the new member of the Messy Pink Hair Gang!" After regaining balance, I looked over to see the hyper girl that welcomed me with a side hug.

    The pink-skinned girl didn't wait for me to respond before she moved out in front of me with a stretched-out arm. "I'm Mina Ashido, and on behalf of all of the girls of 1-A, thank you for transferring." I recognized her as one of the girls that responded to the news of the transfer with celebration. I wasn't exactly sure what it was I did to make them so happy; the kid I pushed out of the class didn't seem too thrilled. But if it started me off on a good foot with these girls, I wasn't about to argue.

    "I'm Rose. It's good to meet you, Ashido," I told her. She responded with a bright grin and two thumbs up.

    Ashido. I've gotta remember that. Something I had picked up since UA was that it was common for people in large schools to use formal last names for strangers they just met. My parents never got the hang of that after moving to Japan, and I was usually the same. I've tried practicing with last names, but it didn't help that everyone in Support used short nicknames.

    "Nice to meet you too! And feel free to call me Mina, if you feel like it," she added, making my social dilemma a lot easier.

    I left Mina's side to find a free stall to change in. Doing so, I ran into yet another girl in my new class who was ready to introduce herself.

    "I'll be honest, Rose, I wasn't expecting you to be the one placed up in our class," a girl with jet black hair stopped me. I recognized her as one of my opponents from the Festival, but we weren't close.

    Momo Yaoyarozu was one of my first fights, and she didn't make it easy on me. She started out giving it her all, but in the end, it was as if she wasn't prepared for me to be different from Mei and actually care if I won. After I beat her, we parted ways and hadn't spoken since. I wouldn't have guessed she even remembered me by then.

    "First time for everything, huh," I told her.

    Yaoyarozu nodded, holding her head slightly down as she spoke back. "From the way the Sports Festival ended, many of us were expecting for Shinso to be taking the opening in our class." The room of students stayed quiet, but even Yaoyarozu didn't continue.

   "Geez, Yaomomo, way to welcome the girl." I looked around to find the source of the stern whisper, but I only found a set of gym uniforms hovering next to Yaoyarozu.

    Toru Hagakure. She was one of few students I knew of, and it was only because of her reputation in my old class. Toru had a Quirk that made her completely invisible 24/7. If one could imagine, that wasn't a power you'd want to work with when designing costumes and gadgets.

    Momo held her eyes closed before looking back up towards the exit. "We should start heading for the gym. We don't want to be late for training," was all she ended with before leaving the room. I didn't need to hear much more from her. As long as she wasn't declaring war on me, I could live with it.

    Most of the girls followed out, but Mina was nice enough to offer to wait for me. I hurried to change, which was a breeze with the loose pants and top, and I met her outside.

    As if I couldn't make it three feet without someone stepping in front of me ready for a meet & greet, that's exactly what I walked out to. Rather than one of Class A's girl students though, this was a guy about my height with dark blue hair and bright glasses.

    "Hello there, Rosemary," he greeted with loud energy, already bent down into a bow by the time I opened the door. "I wanted to apologize for raising my voice to you this morning. If I had known you were the Heroics transfer we've heard about, I would have been a bit kinder about it."

    I smirked at this kid as he stood up straight to me, understanding what he meant by that but still feeling good enough to tease him about it. "So you're saying you would be alright to yell at Support students if they bumped into you? That doesn't seem very 'plus ultra' of you guys."

    This man jolted back before I could even finish. His hands were up and swinging as if his words were so urgent they needed as much emphasis as possible. "That is far beyond the truth! Being tolerant of others is the top priority of a UA student, and I would never try to disrespect a fellow classmate!" I almost wanted to laugh at how serious and stiff this guy was. He reminded me of a stable version of Q, so I was used to the flowery language and polite mannerisms.

    The guy looked as if he was ready to lecture me on the other priorities of a UA student; I was willing to bet he had a PowerPoint and script already made. Before he could though, the sound of kids yelling from down the hallway grabbed his attention.

    The voice exclaimed, "Hurry up, Iida! You're always preaching about attendance, so you better not be late to training!" When the person pointed this out, the boy was quickly issuing a quick wave to me then turning around and dashing towards the direction of the gym.

    I watched Ashido cup her hands over her mouth as she cheered him on, shouting for him to run like the wind as she laughed at his dedication. She began to fall into step with me as we both filled along to the gym. Her arms gently swayed by her side as she gestured ahead to our classmate.

    "That would be Iida. He's pretty much our voice of reason, which of course, we tease him for," she explained.

    I nodded in return."Makes sense. I'm guessing he's one of your representatives."

    "Wow, how'd ya figure?" Mina laughed along. "Yep, he's Mr. Authority. That leaves Yaomomo as Vice rep, and myself as Honorary Class Extrovert"

    "Really? What exactly does that do?" I asked her, to which she waved a hand over the space between the two of us.

    "Basically this," she joked. After that, Mina went on to tell me all about this class. She told me all about the ones she thought I would get along well with and the ones she advised me to avoid. As silly as it was to watch her rant and ramble about her friends and all the inside drama, it helped me start to familiarize myself with my surroundings.

    I then knew that trying to get along with Bakugo would be a dead-end..but I could have probably guessed that one. The kid named Todoroki wouldn't likely take kindly to a new student well nor would a few other guys that kept to themselves. Most of the girls were friendly, but I had to be careful as I wasn't sure where Yaoyarozu and I stood. Other than that, Mina assured me that I would fit in just fine.

    And my next assignment would prove that right or wrong: it was time for class training.

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

    We all made it to Gym Rana on time, much to Iida's satisfaction. When we arrived, we were greeted with the bright fluorescent lights of our training grounds. Gym Rana was the second smallest at UA with reinforced walls and low-hanging ceilings. The short design meant that this gym was intended to be used for close-up combat with minimum damage rather than distanced training.

    That was enough to give me a heads up on what to expect. While I was grabbing a uniform, Aizawa instructed me that for this day of training only, he wouldn't limit the number of gadgets I could bring. Of course, I took this as my cue to bring everything I could fit into my duffle bag. Although, I did wonder what he had in store for us if he was allowing me to bring my own upgrades.

    Aizawa walked up to the center of the ring painted around the floor in a large rectangle. As he did, the class hushed down to listen to his instructions.

    "It's my understanding that some of you are concerned with why these two are with us. I tried explaining my reasoning to you all when we first announced this news, but it seems like a few of you still don't get it."

    As he brought this up, my eyes could only drift to the back row of students huddled around where Yaoyarozu and Bakugo both stood on either side. He had a point. Even the students who didn't seem to mind our being there were still confused as to how we were advanced up.

    Aizawa moved his arms to cross in front of his chest, his eyes narrowing down at his group of students. "If any of you think that Rosemary or Shinso don't belong here, that their wins in the Sports Festival were fraud, then this is your chance to prove it. . . You can take them on yourselves right here."

    My shoulders dropped with the lingering words of that last sentence. All the anticipation for this class left my body, and all I could feel was dread for what was to come.

    He can't be serious. . .

    "This exercise will pin Rosemary then Shinso against my entire class. For my students, if you beat them in an instant, then great, find something to improve on. If they put up a fight and give you a hard time, then maybe you should think about that. Rosemary and Shinso, if either of you survives, congratulations, you won't be dead weight on the Hero battlefield."

    He is serious! What kind of training regiment is this‽

    "Rosemary and Shinso are both allowed to use anything they bring with them as well as their Quirks to their full extent. Their job is to stand against the rest of you as long as they can without getting themselves killed."

    "Don't die," that's our job here? What is that supposed to accomplish‽

    It was then that I truly realized that this man was insane.

    I desperately wanted to go up there and object to this madness, but I was stuck to my spot with the eyes of nineteen Heroics students watching my every move.

    I was going to die out there.

    Before anyone could step in and mention the many flaws in this plan, Aizawa had already called Shinso up to take his turn. With Shinso waiting at the center of the white box marked around the floor, anyone could offer to take him on at once.

    Lucky for him, not everyone wanted to fight. Many of the guys and a few of the girls marched up to the opposite end of the box to wait for Aizawa's signal, but a few knew better and hung behind.

    I couldn't believe that I was actually going to watch this go down. Sure, Shinso and I weren't exactly buds, but seeing the looks on his opponents made me feel bad for how outnumbered he was.

    When Shinso looked over at the group of students that didn't want to fight him, he met my eyes with a glare. He was probably thinking I was standing back as my way of refusing to take him in a fight, but really I was saving my own energy for my turn. That didn't matter though as Shinso still shot me with that dead scowl. I felt just a little less bad for him after that.

    Aizawa marked the start of the fight by shouting "Go!" The group of kids began to storm Shinso without hesitation. I watched Shinso try to talk to them, and it surprised me that it was his first instinct. If I were him, I'd be running out of there for my life, not asking questions.

    It seemed like none of the students bothered answering as they continued to fight him. A layer of ice covered the floor as one student slid in, but Shinso was fast to dodge. I watched him use the combat lessons from Aizawa to defend against the student with a tail, but he was still pushed back.

    I didn't expect Mina to be at the front of the group, but she used her Quirk to project acid against Shinso, unknowing that it was just enough to melt the ice below him. Things were looking up for Shinso, but they didn't last long.

    Explosions cracked from the back of the group as Bakugo came charging in, screaming as he shoved his classmates out of his way.

    Shinso had no way of blocking the fiery attacks, and he was sent flying back upon impact. His back smashed against the floor where he laid for moments without getting up. When he began to move, we knew he was fine.

    He had survived after lasting 11 seconds against that class. Aizawa called his students off and motioned for them to back off Shinso.

    "Congrats to Shinso. Now, will one of you take him to Recovery Girl?" He asked as Shinso lifted his arm to hold the side of his head.

    "I can do it," the boy of curly green hair agreed even after delivering some harsh punches to Shinso earlier.

    Once they set off to the school nurse, it was my turn. Knowing how none of these students held back against Shinso, I began to worry. I reminded myself that I fought them one on one before, so this couldn't be much different, right? Even so, I didn't have to win. I just had to live. More importantly, I just had to do better than 11 seconds.

    Bring it on.

    "Alright," Aizawa called as I walked up to my spot on the floor. "Anyone who thinks they can take out Rosemary, please have your shot."

    Immediately I saw Bakugo walk up with Todoroki close behind. Next was the flamboyant boy with shiny blond hair followed by another blond guy with a dark streak through his vibrant hair. Yaoyarozu seemed just slightly hesitant to walk up, but she made sure to take a spot in front of the others to face me.

    From the group of kids that didn't agree to fight me, I watched the kid I sat next to of a bird-like mutation Quirk nudge the tail boy to his left. I couldn't tell what was asked or exactly what the tail guy said in response, but there was a part of his sentence that I couldn't miss.

    "No, man, I'm not gonna fight a girl."

    I couldn't help but stare at this guy from my spot on the floor. He had six other girls in his class, but something told me he would think twice before using that excuse on them. I knew he likely had good intentions, and that some people used that to be polite. But I couldn't shake it. It hit me that I didn't have a lot of people challenge me because most of them didn't think I could handle this.

    There was nothing I hated more than being looked at as an easy win.

    That's what fueled me for this challenge. I made up my mind that no matter what, I would finish this fight. I dug through my bag and began to suit myself up. I slid on my metal gauntlets for a power boost as well as strapped on my knee brace for support on my bionic. After finally grabbing my shield out, I tossed my duffle bag to the side and readied myself.

    "Go!" As the call left his mouth, Aizawa's students began to run towards me. Similar to Shinso's fight, a wave of ice stormed out to cover my feet, but I used my shield to breakthrough by slamming it against the ice.

    From up close, I could hear the conflicting dialogue between my opponents. "Seriously, Todoroki?" A feminine voice asked. "You can't keep doing this. We can't walk here!"

    Up ahead, a brunette girl was running with her fingers placed together, careful of her steps ahead to avoid tripping.

    With a spot of ice chilled away from my shield, I planted my foot there and grabbed at the girl running ahead to knock her off balance. Just my luck that she fell down, but I was unfortunately hit with more attacks ahead.

    When the sight of a weapon was in my peripheral vision, I threw up my shield to block. I pushed back against the bow staff to see Yaoyarozu behind it, trying hard to push my back and onto the ice. I tried to defend against her, keeping one foot on the cleared section of the floor and fist fighting to keep her away.

     Before I could do much, I felt my hair stand on end. I looked up at the bright flashes of electrical sparks as they flowed my way. The electricity crawled up my metal leg until my whole body was shocked by its power.

    This put my guard down, and it was over from there. Up above me, I saw nothing but fast flashes of fire in front of loud explosions. My eyes shut to brace myself.

    I felt the blasts push me back. My body was numb from the electrocution, but the feeling of the icy floor against my face told me I was down.

    My ears rang, and the voices around me began to slowly fade out. However, I managed to hang in there and listen closely to Aizawa's voice before blacking out.

    "14 seconds. Good job, Rosemary."

    Thank God.

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

    I woke up to the smell of rubbing alcohol and hand sanitizer. I struggled to tear my eyes open, feeling my whole body ache with every little move. As much as it pained me, I pushed my arm back to sit up on my bare hospital cot.

    "Good, you woke up in no time," a gravely yet kind voice greeted me. I looked over to my side then down a few inches to find UA's most underrated staff member.

    "What's up, Recovery Girl?" I asked her, stretching my good arm up and rolling my shoulders.

    "We need to stop meeting like this, Rosemary," she frowned. It was true that the majority of my time spent with this lovely lady was because of a workplace accident in the Support Lab (mostly thanks to Q), but in all fairness, there were plenty of other times too.

    Recovery Girl was one of those staff members Q treated like family. He loved all of her corny jokes and how she didn't mind helping clean up his disasters, and she was happy to talk to someone as passionate about science as she was.

    My eyes strained awake not only by the sight of the bright lights in the nurse's office but also by the blurry headache I got from not wearing my glasses. I squinted to see Recovery Girl, hoping for some good news.

    "You received a mild concussion, and you were seconds away from breaking another arm." Shit. "Thankfully, those nice classmates of yours brought you in quickly. I was able to heal your body just in time, but you should really be more careful next time, dear."

    I could tell it took a lot of Recovery Girl's Quirk to patch me up, feeling the energy drained from me as a side effect. I wondered who it was that helped me get here. Mina was great, but I wasn't so sure she could have done it by herself.

    "Do you have my glasses?" I asked the nurse, glancing around and finding nothing but fuzziness.

    My near-sighted vision sucked, but with Recovery Girl sitting at her desk away, I could see her head of grey hair shake sadly.

    "Smashed to pieces," she said. I began to worry that I'd have to spend the rest of the day blind until I got home, but the older woman was ready with a solution.

    "You know, I could heal your eyes for you, and you could be done with glasses for good."

    Despite seeing hardly anything, I turned in her direction with wide eyes. "You can do that?"

    Recovery Girl nodded this time. "That is my Quirk. Would you like me to?"

    "Yeah!" I tried not to sound so eager about it, clearing my throat and saying again in a more polite manner. "Yes, please."

    Recovery Girl hopped out of her chair and walked over to me where I met her at the foot of my bed. I leaned down, knowing that she would have a hard time reaching my forehead from the ground, and let her plant one of her healing kisses against each of my eyes.

    When I blinked them open, it took a few seconds for the hazy vision to clear up. Pretty soon, I was able to look around the room clearly without the aid of glasses. Once in a while, my vision would waver, but it was well worth it.

    "You might experience headaches for the first couple of days, but give your body some time, and you'll be fine," Recovery Girl explained, turning back to the clipboard at the end of my bed.

    "That's amazing," I told her.

    She smiled at me, waving a hand down. "Oh, love, it's nothing. I do this with a lot of kids. Many Heroes know that glasses aren't very practical, so I heal a lot of eyes at the beginning of the year." That definitely explained why out of forty kids in the Hero department, only one of them needed glasses.

    I thanked Recovery Girl once again for all her help. As always, she offered me a cherry lollipop when she was done and let me chill in her office for a few minutes.

    As I was biting the last part of my candy, I felt my phone bombard me with missed messages. Before I could open a single one of them, the door to the nurse's office crashed open with another UA teacher rushing in.

    "TALLULAH, WHAT ON EARTH HAPPENED‽" Q panicked as he ran inside.

    Recovery Girl treated this as normal. However, I jumped back against the headboard of the bed, terrified for my life for the second time that day.

    "Please stop doing that!" I yelled at Q, sitting back up and catching my breath.

    "Good afternoon, Professor Qonstance," Recovery Girl calmly welcomed, opposite to my stressful response.

    "Good greetings, Miss Chiyo," Q kindly waved to Recovery Girl before shifting his tone to sternly address me. "What happened‽ You got into a fight?"

    "I was training! I guess Eraserhead thought it would be an effective icebreaker. Besides, it was only for a few seconds before he called it off," I defended myself, tip-toeing around the truth but keeping my explanation honest.

    Q sighed as if he let go of hours worth of concern hearing that I was alright. "Very well. In the future though, I'd be quite content with a heads up if you're going to be fighting an entire class by yourself."

    I figured that was at least fair. I knew the second that I was in her office, Recovery Girl probably notified Q I was in there, but it wouldn't hurt to let him know beforehand.

    Before he could go on a tangent about the importance of safety, I quickly changed the subject. "There is something I wanted to ask you, Q." Q grabbed one of Recovery Girl's rolling chairs and slid over to the end of my bed to listen.

    "So I talked to another kid from my class, and I've been wondering. . . I know that my Quirk has its own set of biology rules, but is there any way that I would be immune to someone else's Quirk?"

    "What kind of Quirk are we referring to?" Q asked. I thought back to my confrontation with Shinso, and all the clues leading to this one question. What he remembered from our fight, what he's said to me, and his hero name all pointed to the signs of his Quirk.

    I looked up to Q and answered, "One that can brainwash others."

    Q leaned forward with his fingers pressed to his chin. He stood up in his chair and turned to Recovery Girl.

    "Any student like that here?"

    She faced down at her clipboard that likely held a short file of the students who recently visited her.

    "Hitoshi Shinso, Quirk: Brainwashing. His power is activated when someone answers his questions if I'm not mistaken," she told Q. Before he could ask, she predicted then answered his next question. "Your whiteboard is in the closet where you left it."

    Q hurried over to the small door at the front of her office. When he came back, he was rolling out a giant board in front of us and began sketching down while speaking.

    "Let's see. We know the cerebellum is located behind the brain stem obviously. Then there's the frontal lobe that controls action, but the cerebellum fine-tunes everything. So, Tallulah, this area of the brain is responsible for fine motor movement." Q pointed to his drawing of the human brain while writing out more terms and labeling each part.

    "There's also the frontal lobes. These are responsible for motor skills like voluntary movement, speech, intellectual and behavioral functions. From how you describe young Shinso's Quirk, it seems as though the voluntary action of answering his question and directing it to him generates an electromagnetic pulse in the primary motor cortex or the precentral gyrus."

    I had to concentrate hard to follow half of what he said, but even my few weeks in AP bio didn't help much. I nodded to Q and asked, "So, those are the parts of the brain that give Shinso access to brainwash someone... How come that didn't happen to me when I directly answered him?"

    "Because, my dear, you don't have a brain," Recovery Girl said. I looked over to her, surprised for the hurtful comment to come from her of all people.

    "Precisely!" Q pointed to her.

    "Hey!"

    Q waved his hands and pointed back to his whiteboard. "No, no, she's right. Tallulah, you're made of light. Shinso's Quirk takes control over the physical brain and its motor cortex, not the subconscious mind itself. But all you are is your consciousness. Your light is merely a projection of her thought, your being, but there is no literal brain behind it all. You feel as though you have bones, nerves, a heart, and a brain, but everything is simply an illusion made to present your thoughts physically. Without you knowing about Shinso's Quirk, there's no way for your mind to generate any nero pulses he can invade without the presence of a brain.

    For example," Q continued, moving over to draw out more stick figures to illustrate his point across. "If someone had a blood-bending Quirk, you would be immune as you have no blood inside of you. However, if someone had a Quirk that put your conscious mind to sleep, you would be vulnerable."

    "Weird. I guess that makes sense though." It was a lot to take in, but it pieced together the last few weeks. I wasn't sure how Shinso's Quirk would affect me now that I was mentally aware of what he could do, but that was a question for another day.

    "It's simple science really," Recovery Girl mentioned. "I hope you've been doing more in Class A than wondering about this."

    I leaned back on my hand as I responded. "I wish. We haven't done much other than discussing the internships, but it looks like I won't be a part of that either."

    "Oh, if only that were the case," Q sighed, pulling out a paper envelope from his lab coat. "Hero internships are so dangerous. Often there are times you'll be facing small villains while on patrol. I advised Shouta to give you time to catch up to your class, but he insisted on finding an alternative for you."

    Q handed me the envelope, and as I tore through the paper, he said, "He asked me to hand this off to you. It's apparent that no Pro Heroes volunteered to take you on as you were still in Support during the Festival. However, UA called in a few favors from graduated alumni, and they found you an offer."

    I stopped breaking open the envelope to look at Q as he said this. Could this really be true? Here I thought I would be waiting by the sidelines, but instead, I held in my hands the name of a Pro Hero that was interested in working with me.

    I wasted no time to tear through the paper, finding a typed note from the desk of somewhere called the Geo Agency. I skimmed over the writing from this Pro to find his name signed at the bottom.

    I read it aloud to Q, "It's from the Bravo Hero: Huntsman."

    I expected Q to go on a long explanation about this Hero, but the only reaction I received was a dramatic gasp followed by Q scoffing.

    "Huntsman? Well, good luck with that," Q huffed.

    "Do you two know each other?"

    Q threw his hands up as if he was appalled by the memories of this guy. "He was a part of my old class, back when I was a Hero student. An irksome man with the ego of a giant.. I'll try to let you see for yourself, but trust me, my dear, you will find him. . . difficult."

    Q rubbed his temples while trying to find the kindest possible words to describe Huntsman. There were very few people that Q didn't get along with, so I wondered how bad this Hero could be. Q's warning alone put me on even more edge for this internship, but the voice inside me did its best to stay positive.

    After all, I wouldn't know anything for certain until I left for my internship.

A.N.
Thank you guys so much for joining me here today to release the final chapter in the Opening Arc! This was so much fun to write, and I really enjoyed sharing it with all of my background baddies.

Here we talk about the upcoming internships for first-year students. In the cannon anime, we got to see a lot of different kinds of internships and even more in the fanfic community. I want to know what your favorite internship was to see. This can be fan-made with original characters, or it can be cannon, whatever was your favorite!

While I've read a few stories with really interesting internships, I'd have to still go with Froppy's internship in the cannon anime. Not only am I a huge fan of the ocean vibe, but it was definitely exciting to see!

Character Spotlight: Chiyo Shuzenji
AKA: Youthful Heroine: Recovery Girl
Quirk: Heal
Likes: mahjong

Thank you all for reading! The next arc of RLR has been started and will be published as soon as the arc is written. More will be announced along with some new and exciting information, so stay tuned!

Until we meet again, extraordinary extras!

Dedicated to sun_jin