She-Ra and the Heroes of Power 3 (She-Ra/MHA)

Entrance Exam

“Everyone’s looking at us,” Bow whispered as they walked into the large auditorium. Around them there were thousands of students, and indeed, a few of them were looking at the group.

“It’s fine, they’re barely paying attention,” his girlfriend, Glimmer stated, striding ahead. It appeared teleporting into the Yuuei School Entrance Exam caused a bit of a stir, even among the hero hopefuls. But quickly even that attention faded away, the young students distracted by their own woes.

“We’re here to apply for the entrance exam,” Glimmer declared, slapping down the papers Bow had printed out for them.

The lady at the desk smiled at her. “Of course. Wow, all four of you are applying together? That’s great, I hope you do well.” Glimmer resisted the urge to grit her teeth. She’s perfectly polite and helpful, but it just feels like she’s looking down on us. We fought in a war! Multiple wars, depending on how you consider the conflicts being broken up! I’m queen of a country!

The way the Etherians were being viewed was at least partially her own fault, however. She had cast an illusion to disguise themselves as a few years younger to blend in with the students, so of course the attendant didn’t treat them like young adults. Even then, everyone here looks… soft. Even for those who weren’t Rebellion fighters in Brightmoon, everyone was prepared for battle, able to flee at a moment’s notice. In a way that made her both proud and sad. Proud that her people were capable, but sad that they’d needed to.

Such thoughts left her longing for home, wanting to see how her people were doing, but she knew they were in good hands with her father. Glimmer’s slight melancholy wasn’t missed however.

“What’s got you so down?” Catra asked, a gesture that was half-kind and half-annoying. Mostly annoying from the fact that the taller girl was leaning down atop her head and shoulder.

A quick teleport shrugged Catra off, but the girl had too much balance to be made to stumble like that. “Nothing, just the test and… stuff.” She wasn’t trying to hide the details from her friends, just didn’t want to air that publicly, so Glimmer glanced up at the sky and Catra nodded.

Adora however, missed it, her gaze focused down as she paced back and forth. “I know. I’m so worried we haven’t studied enough! I went over everything at least twice but what if we weren’t studying the right things or this test is radically different than the test materials…”

“I think I’ve studied everything pretty well, but the history is so complex. Oh, if I fail that section my dads will kill me.” Bow moaned. “Okay, they wouldn’t,” he added after barely a second. “But they’d look so disappointed that it’d be worse.”

A boy with unruly green hair picked up on their mutterings, getting drawn in with his own. “Oh gosh, I didn’t even look at the old exams with my training on the beach. I’ve kept up with my studies at middle school but is this enough for a high school entrance exam?”

“There’s more of them?!” Catra and Glimmer exclaimed. The pink haired girl rushed forward, grabbing Bow. “Quick, separate them before they draw in more worrywarts!”

“Hey!” Adora pouted, snapping her head up. She turned to see the green haired boy beside her. “Oh, hello there, I’m Adora.” She held her hand out for him to shake and the nervous boy stumbled backwards, nearly falling over until another girl touched him on the shoulder and he began floating.

“Hu-wha-?” He questioned, confused until the girl gently pushed him into being upright and then put her fingertips together.

“Release,” the girl said, Glimmer noticing the words and physical action like a focusing mechanism, much like she might do with her magic. “Sorry about that, Just thought you might need a hand there.” The girl had a similar build to Glimmer with short brown hair in a bob.

“A-ah n-no worries,” the boy stuttered out. Before he could say anything else, an announcement blared out.

“Attention all examinees, please make your way to the examination hall for the written portion of the test.”

“Ah, gotta go, good luck in there!” The floaty girl said, racing off to join the throng of students forcing their way through.

The boy let out some indistinct mumbling that might have been an introduction before racing off to join the others. For the Best Friend Squad, most of the nerves from before melted away as they adopted serious postures, striding forward. It’s battle time. We simply have to give it our all here.

***

Two hours later, they left the hall and were quickly directed on buses to the different sectors where they’d be taking the practical exam. Glimmer grabbed everyone for a quick group hug before they were separated, each of them being placed in different sectors.

The students marveled at fake city blocks constructed for the exam, and the Etherians even moreso. The Horde on Etheria had shown what advanced technology could do for infrastructure, but the thought of building such sprawling sites simply as training facilities was boggling.

Present Mic (apparently a famous hero and teacher at the academy) explained the exam, outlining the test through speakers and massive screens which displayed silhouettes of the robots they’d be fighting and how much points each one was worth. In Adora’s section, she noted Midoriya muttering strategies again before being berated by a taller stiff looking boy in glasses. The other students snickered at the display before the teacher’s voice boomed out again.

“Okay, start!” The voice on the loudspeakers called out. Almost everyone in every sector froze up, wondering at the abrupt announcement. All the regular kids wondered if it was real with no countdown or warning, but for the war-hardened Etherians in their midst, the quartet burst into action, rushing ahead on foot, grappling arrow, and teleportation.

***

“Boom. Kablam!” Glimmer whispered to herself as she blew up two bots with a couple of blasts of sparkly light. A flash of sparkles and she was a hundred meters down the road, glancing down the next intersection. There, she saw three more bots, a mix of all three point values, among the street. 

Upon seeing her they began charging ahead, rolling down the street at her. Such motion was far too slow to keep up with teleportation however, and she was above them in an instant. Glimmer’s arm was cocked back, ready to fall down and hit the ground with a shockwave that would take all the bots out before she paused. Wait, is that something a teleportation ‘Quirk’ could do? Ugh, and I can’t just pop over to Bow and ask him, he’d get the physics stuff better.

Lacking that option and not wanting to risk it on so basic a test, Glimmer aborted the move at the last instant, teleporting away from the spot she would have landed and reorienting around one of the robots that had swiveled in towards that spot. Fist still blazing with power, she punched through the robot’s armor and released the blast.

Before it had even blown up, she was gone, hitting another robot of the trio approaching her, blasting it away as well. The third, despite being slower, reacted faster than the others, swinging an arm back at Glimmer as she teleported behind it. The young Queen still easily dodged out of the way of the blow, but it left her shot glancing slightly off the bot’s thicker armor and only denting the machine, not destroying it.

“Gah,” she exhaled, slightly annoyed. Clearly, the robots had some sort of learning mechanism going on. While not as advanced as some of the counters Entrapta had made, it was enough to throw the young woman off a little. 

Should I use a stronger blast? Nah, I’ve got a better plan. Reaching out, she just touched its arm with the tip of her hand and teleported, taking the bot with her.

Drifting away from each other fifty meters in the air, she teleported away, letting it crash into the ground with a mighty bang that shattered it completely. In the distance, Glimmer heard shouting, panicked cries from students trailing in her wake. She tuned them out, focusing on the bots she still had to destroy. I should have dropped it on another bot, would have gotten even more points that way! Oh well, I can do that next time, she thought, popping over to the next cluster she could see, a nice swarm of five bots.

It had been a while since she’d needed to destroy bots like this, so Glimmer could admit she had some rust to shake off. But with each one she destroyed, she felt herself getting back into fighting shape. A flurry of blasts and teleportation saw that grouping (and the sixth bot that had joined from around the corner) destroyed, and she was onto the next, zipping around the sector.

***

“Hahaha, just di- huh?!” Bakugo exclaimed as his attempt to destroy a two pointer was interrupted. Down from a nearby rooftop, Catra dived down, taking off the head of the robot he had already weakened.

“Hey! That was my kill!”

“You snooze you lose,” she shot back, not even glancing behind as she raced across the street on all fours. A one pointer stood in her way but rather than waste time destroying it, Catra hopped atop it, using it as a springboard to the three pointer behind it.

The Etherian heard the angry blonde boy give a cry of rage as his explosive blasts destroyed the bot while she tore into the bulky three point bot. It gave clumsy swings at her with its mechanical arms that she easily dodged around before shredding through the weak metal plating and wires around the joints before ripping off its head.

These things have off switches, but it looks like they’re tough to press in the middle of a fight. Especially for the three point bots. It made sense, the strongest bots were supposed to be the toughest villains, so even when given a weak point, theirs would be harder to reach. Though the fact that these kids need weak points feels lame. We were busy crushing bots at least this tough during Horde training and I know the Rebellion chewed through things tougher than these guys by the dozen.

A leap took the girl above a two story building, and then another to a higher one with a better vantage point across the street. Also away from that boy yapping so much. Geez, talk about anger issues. 

Staring down, she saw where the bots were moving nearby and the students cutting loose and trying to take them down. Succeeding, in most cases as well, but the efforts were… sloppy. Over enthusiastic, with wasted motions and effort that slowed them down. Shadow Weaver taught me to avoid that fairly early on, she thought, suppressing an urge to shudder at Shadow Weaver’s unique brand of ‘encouragement’ when it came to Catra.

With a plan in mind, she tensed, ready to leap down and take out the next batch of bots. Ears flicking atop her head, Catra caught a scream in the air where no person was, but a bot was barrelling down. Sighing, she jumped down, using the momentum to strike a clean shot on another two pointer. 

“You okay?” She asked, her sense of smell confirming that there was indeed someone in the open space right ahead of where the bot had been charging down. A girl from the smell of her and then the sound as the invisible girl spoke up.

“Yeah, thanks.” The girl responded, taking the hand Catra offered and standing up. “How did you-”

Rather than answer the question, Catra flicked her tail over at the group of students behind the invisible girl. “Watch out for your surroundings - even if the bots can’t see you, they might hit you if they go after others.” Then she raced away, looking for more bots to hunt down. 

My old plan won’t work; all of those bots are out of alignment by now, half of them fighting other students. But there- another line! Zipping ahead, she cleared through four bots, timing it such that by the time she beat the three bots out in the open, she was perfectly poised to destroy the one that had been lurking behind the walls, waiting to break out. The ambusher became the ambushed, each bot cleared faster than the last. I think I’ve got it now, even these three pointers crumple in one blow if I hit them in the right spot, and with all their armor, they’re actually slower than the one pointers. Let’s see how many I can take down in the time I have left. Maybe I’ll beat the others!

***

“Where did he get a bow? That’s not fair!” One of the other students bemoaned as Bow shot out another bot from his perched vantage point.

“A techmaster is never without his weapon!” Bow declared dramatically to the grumbling student far below as he aimed another attack. That being said, I am running out of arrows here!

Bow had thought that the exam wouldn’t require much fighting, so the arrows he could sneak into his satchel alongside his folded up bow would be enough for this exam. There were limits to how many he could conceal there as if it was an average writing bag, and so he was starting to run low on arrows.

We need to get the most points, and I’ve been aiming mostly at the one pointers. Hitting the faster, less armored bots has always been my go to in the Best Friend Squad, but it means I’m getting less points here. Plus, as the battle moves ahead, less bots are showing up here, near the entrance.

The young man had picked a solid sniping position to start, the height of the building letting him rain death down from above on many of the nearby bots. The densely packed buildings also gave the bots cover, however, making it hard to hit the ones further out.

Difficult, but not impossible. Narrowing his gaze and sticking his tongue out in concentration, Bow took the last of his explosive arrows and fired the shot. It soared through the air, streaking down along the street before the spin he put into the shot kicked in and curved the arrow around a building, right towards an alley a three pointer had just gone down.

The explosion and bits of metal that came flying out demonstrated his shot and struck true. “Yeah! Take that! Bots: zero, Bow: a bunch. Arrows: one… left.” He sighed as he realized the state of his quiver.

These things aren’t as annoying to fight as the bots back with the Horde were, or especially the ones Horde Prime used, but the situation still isn’t great. I can fire my last arrow and grapple line over to where the fighting is. Maybe I can take out the one pointers in melee?

Looking at how the bots were moving and comparing it to the past, an idea came to him. Instead of chasing the horde he used his shot to disable one of the stragglers nearby, zipping down towards it. The bot wasn’t destroyed and struggled, but using that grapple line, he quickly wrapped up its remaining functional limbs before prying open the hatch near its head.

“Alright, let’s see what makes you, and all these other bots, tick…”

***

Gotta get a point, gotta get a point… The words repeated in Midoriya’s head, like a mantra. Everywhere he ran, he saw destroyed robots all around. The girl with chestnut hair that had saved him at the entrance touched a pair of bots and let them float up in the air before releasing them and sending them crashing to the ground. 

“Yes, that makes sixteen points!” She called out excitedly. Similar cries of points and robots defeated came from the other heroic hopefuls, students using their quirks to disable the machines in spectacular ways. It was so much that the green haired boy felt overwhelmed trying to catalogue it all.

Caught off guard, he fell back as a robot unexpectedly burst out of a nearby wall, bricks flying through the air as it bearing down on him. Before its metal limbs could break his decidedly more squishy ones, a laser beam shot out from the side, destroying the robot.

“A-ah thank you!” He called out to the boy who had rescued him. He had bright yellow hair and a belt with a focusing lens around his stomach.

“Non non mon amie, it was my pleasure to score a few more points. We’ll need all we can get with her sparkling so hard,” he said, gesturing up in the air. At that very moment, a rainbow blur rushed by. Whoever it was, their Quirk let them hop on small multicolored platforms they made in the air at incredible speeds. Waves of rainbow light washed over the streets leaving broken robots in their wake, clearly their doing.

The guy with the laser is right… I think, kinda hard to understand him, but I get the gist of it. I need to go somewhere they’re not if I want to score any points. How do I do that with them moving so fast though? While hard to track from the ground, Midoriya was sure the powerful student had been all over the sector at least twice by now.

Picking a direction, he ran towards it, hoping he could run into at least one robot. Just one, if I can just get one… His thoughts stalled out as he saw what he wished for in the worst way possible. One, singular, gigantic robot appeared at the end of a long road. The Zero Pointer was taller than many of the buildings and was barreling down the path.

The few students ahead of Midoriya turned, running away at the sight of the machine, and on trembling legs, he started to as well, before stopping. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the girl that had stopped him from falling before. But now she was trapped under rubble, no way to escape the massive robot about to crush her.

Turning back, he ran forwards. The machine was closer to her than he was, so he wouldn’t be able to free her in time. I might not be able to, but All Might could! He’d save her and defeat this robot in an instant… and I have his power. Following his teacher’s advice, he clenched his butt cheeks, trying to draw on that incredible strength he’d been promised.

At first, nothing, and then, it was like a dam breaking open all at once! Power surged through his body, and he was launched into the air, flying high in the sky. As he reached the peak of his jump, he was on level with the head of the large robot. Pulling his arm back, punched it, focusing, dreaming that the smash would be everything like that of his idol’s. And it was.

The blocky metal head crumpled heavily inwards, the entire robot staggering and crashing backwards. I did it! I saved her! The moment hung brilliantly in the air, like Midoriya himself… until gravity reasserted itself and he began falling down to the ground.

Ahhhh now I’m going to die! Wait, if I can just hit the ground with a smash at the right timing, I’ll stop myself! But I’ll need to use my left arm. I can feel that my right arm and legs are probably broken now. If I do that though, I won’t be able to defeat any robots and get any points!

He held it, waiting for the last possible moment as he fell - before suddenly his descent was arrested. A pair of arms caught him midair, absorbing his momentum and saving him. Looking around his shoulder he saw her, standing on a rainbow platform. She was at least eight feet tall with flowing blond hair and bright blue eyes. Her outfit was a pristine white bodysuit with a sword at her side.

“Are you alright?” She asked, concern in her voice. Her familiar voice.

“A-adora?”

“Ah, right, we met at the entrance! Yeah, this is me as- with my Quirk. You look kinda beat up, I can-”

“Ah there’s no time! I need to score some points. Oh wait, is the girl okay?” Midoriya glanced down but couldn’t see her under the rubble. Swinging him around, Adora pointed him at the girl, who had managed to free herself, hanging onto a piece of rebar that was floating in the air.

“You need to score some points? Got it!” Adora said brightly, hopping forward in a blur of rainbow light as she searched for some robots.

“Ahhhhh!” The boy cried out, his limbs waving in the air before she came to a stop in front of a group of three robots. It took him a moment to get a hold of his bearings, realizing Adora was holding him out in front of her like a weapon to point at them. Or more like a teddy bear a kid would hold out in front of them. Alright, enough of that! This is where I show All Might he was right to choose me as his successor! I just need one good Smas-

“Times uppppp!” Present Mic’s voice echoed over the sector just before Midoriya could fire off his punch. Huuuuuuuh?!?!... I’m too late. 

He froze like the robots did, just sorta slumping over as Adora carried him back to where she had saved him. “Sorry about that, tough luck there. Hopefully you still got enough to get in!” Adora cheered him on brightly.

“Uh,” he said, not having the courage to admit that he almost certainly hadn’t made it into U.A. with no points on the practical exam, Even if I’d aced the written exam, I couldn’t make it into the hero course without any points here, but she’s so optimistic that I’d hate to burst her bubble. So powerful too; she was destroying robots all over the place while I couldn’t manage it even with All Might’s power.

“How many points did you get?” Midoriya asked, unable to help his curiosity. Even if he himself got zero points, heroes were so inspiring that he couldn’t help but want to know more about them. And she definitely cuts the figure of a hero. Larger than life, long blond hair, the white and gold costume, exposed arms to show off some well-defined muscles…

He shook his head free as Adora answered. “Oh, uh, not certain. Destroyed a lot of bots, but I don’t really try to keep track of stuff like that while in the field. Just if there are still enemies around or not.”

The tall girl set him down gently. “Just wait a moment and I’ll heal you.”

“Wha- you can do that?” How does her Quirk let her jump around on rainbow platforms, make beams from her sword, and heal?! And she looks different from what she looked like at the entrance too…

She misunderstood his question. “Of course! You got hurt saving that girl,” she said, waving at the brown haired girl now free of the rubble and jogging over to them. “It’s the least I can do.” Then, she began to glow with a golden light, it seemed to ripple off of her, and then covered Midoriya as well. He felt warm and fuzzy inside, and when the light faded, he felt normal. All of his limbs were healed, he didn’t even feel tired.

The girl he had saved stopped where she was, staring slack-jawed at that display. As was most every other participant. The blond girl rose from where she’d been kneeling, up to her full eight foot height, waving at them all. “If anyone needs healing, please come over here.”

Most of the teenagers drifted over, even the uninjured ones. They’re all curious to see what she did, what she can do, who she is. “What do you think you’re doing?” A voice shrieked out and the forming crowd parted to let an old lady with a cane through.

The boy who had scolded him earlier said aloud, “That’s Recovery Girl! She’s the reason why U.A. can run such destructive exams; her Quirk can heal people!”

“That’s right,” the U.A. staff member said. “My Quirk is also dangerous - it only accelerates the natural healing of the body. If they’re too badly hurt and too tired, it can be fatal.”

“I-I-I feel fine!” Midoriya stammered out. “Honest, I’m not tired at all.”

“I think my, uhh Quirk, tires me out instead of the person I heal.” The amazonian woman said only to receive a poke to the stomach from the old lady with her walking stick.

“And what if it tires you out too much and your health is at risk?”

“That would be bad?” The tall girl said with an uncertain chuckle. “Not sure how much it would take to tire me though. I healed Bow once and was still able to go out on a mission afterwards.”

“Bow?” Midoriya inquired, and the girl brightened up.

“Oh, he’s one of my best friends! You saw him along with my other friends Glimmer and Catra.” His mind flashed back to those people he’d seen alongside Adora, and he wondered if the names were almost too on the nose. There’s no way the girl with sparkly hair is the one called Catra, right?

“Midoriya Izuku,” he introduced himself properly this time, barely stumbling over his words. I talked to a girl! Like, actually talked to her this time!

Beside them, Recovery Girl cleared her throat. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but since the test is done, you can leave the healing to those with their hero licenses.”

“Right,” Adora muttered, a determined look darkening her face for a moment. “Guess I’ll be heading out now since I can’t heal anyone else.” The blond girl said brightly to Adora. 

Before he could say anything else, ask her any questions, there was a sparkly flash of light and three new people appeared in the middle of the wrecked street. “Hey Adora,” the cat-like one said, reaching out and grabbing Adora close. “Time to go before Sparkles gets too swelled a head - oh wait.”

The short girl with sparkly hair stuck her tongue out. “You’re just jealous that I beat you-” and in another flash they were gone, Midoriya having to blink twice to take in everything that had happened. He felt a tug on his elbow and turned around to see Recovery Girl trying to get his attention.

“If you can stay behind a moment, I’d like to give you a checkup before you go. Adora might mean well, but it’s best to check on healing Quirks to make sure nothing has healed wrong, before it’s too late.”

“Oh, uh sure. Right, you’re a medical doctor in addition to being a hero and…” As he mumbled she sighed and walked off, treating the other students, who looked rather put out that the amazonian girl was gone and about the mechanism for Recovery Girl’s Quirk to activate.

A/N: The Entrance Exam! I had fun with this one, showing off the different ways the Etherians dealt with the robots. Considering they’ve been fighting bots for years now, they did a lot better than the other kids. Which will definitely be a theme in this story. They’re starting at post Season 5, with a bunch of power ups and general skill improvements from where they started, while for the hero kids, this is their starting line. As things ramp up, so will the people in MHA-verse, but for the moment, expect them to be fairly OP.