Spacetime Anomaly: MHA Fanfic

Chapter 14.2: Physical Conditioning Cut Short

Now at Dagobah Beach, as everyone attending the Joint-Class Training was present, it was time to begin warming up. Of course, with the way things had already derailed, Izuku wouldn't allow for unwarranted mishaps, so he turned to Kendo and asked, "So… What 'did' you say this training camp would consist of?"

"Oh, you know..." Kendo rolled her eyes, "I said we would be working together to improve before the Sports Festival. Doing things like sparring with Quirks and some physical conditioning." She shook her head in exasperation before pointing at Monoma and adding, "Last Friday, I managed to get half the class to come and he had yet to do anything ridiculous. But then this morning, he gave this long-winded speech that convinced more than half of the attendees to change their minds; all in the name of "strategy" or whatever..."

"Tsk, tsk," Monoma waved his finger tauntingly at Izuku as he cursed, "You and your little ragtag group of failures can laugh at me all you want. It's not going to change the fact that you're playing right into my hands and letting me lead you like dogs by the nose!"

Sighing, Izuku asked, "Does that mean that you plan on interrupting our training? I don't care if you're only here to take note of our skills, but butting into our progress won't be taken kindly..." Clearly, Izuku had not developed much of a skill for threatening others…

"Hmph! Could it be that your undeveloped Cro-Magnon peanut of a brain has already forgotten that four of my comrades from Class 1-B are attending? If you just thought for a nanosecond, you'd see that it's in my best interest that they at least get something out of this; aside from the obvious. Though, if your training camp isn't up to snuff with what we need to get stronger, you better believe I'll be the first one to call you out on your shoddy methods."

Squinting at the unrelenting insults, but never letting them hit too close to home, Izuku asked, "So you'll agree to follow our lead?"

"Tch," Monoma clicked his tongue, "Part of Kendo's recruiting announcement for this gathering involved her fangirling out on your training methods. Vlad-sensei was also quick to point out how it would be good for those of us who could manage to complete it to the end, so there's no use in trying to argue with who should lead the camp." Vlad-sensei being Class1-B's Homeroom teacher and the mighty pro hero Vlad King, the only reason Monoma didn't continue with his cursing spree was mostly due to his respect for the man. Though, he didn't believe for a second that Izuku's training could be that good; or hard…

"I guess that settles that." Izuku smiled, happy that there should be little to no more obstructions to the afterschool training for the day. He called for everyone to line up and promptly started the week of nightmarish training by declaring, "Alrighty then, in favor of allocating more time to Quirk Development later, let's cut out the simple warmups and dig straight into the main routine for this week. So to start things off, let's do 12 cycles of the 'Ab Routine.' Today's goal will be, say... forty-five minutes~"

Immediately, all the newcomers to the training camp aside from Kendo paled as they fully understood what this 'Ab Routine' consisted of. At U.A. during most of the regular Foundational Heroics Classes, before getting free training time, the Ab Routine made up one of the common workout routines All Might put them through. To summarize, a single cycle of the Ab Routine consisted of 50 sit-ups, 50 alternating sideways crunches, a full minute plank, and another minute of bicycle kicks.

"What?! That's like almost impossible!" The silver-haired boy from Class 1-B yelled. "Even if we took a minute to complete every exercise in the routine, we could at most finish 11 sets!"

"So?" Kirishima asked, "Just finish the sit-ups and sideways crunches faster and you'll make the goal."

"Are you insane? Unless you have some sort of Endurance or Speed-type Quirk it's borderline impossible to ask a normal person complete such a high-intensity routine 12 times over in less than an hour. To do so in forty-five minutes has to be a joke..."

"Um… I'm not demanding you meet the goal," Izuku cut into their conversation. "Just try your best and you'll be fine. To be honest, most of the people in my group still can't make the goals..."

"Some of you can?" One of the girls who had long and wavy dark-green hair from Class 1-B that Izuku didn't know, asked.

"I expect those two over there," Izuku said as he pointed at Bakugo and Todoroki, "can complete all of today's goals since we're skipping the lighter portion of physical conditioning. The rest might be able to complete one or two goals, but everyone should at least get through fifty percent of each goal."

"Oh!" Izuku suddenly started speaking again, "Before I forget, let's add your suggestions to the training camp playlist~" After recalling the struggle Uraraka faced when she joined, he didn't want to make the same mistake twice. Thus, it was only after he added music from all the newcomers that the training camp officially started.

As can be imagined, to complete even the first goal, everyone — including Izuku — struggled. Recently, the Spacetime Esper had ramped up his physical conditioning training by increasing the gravitational pressure he faced. Currently, he was completing the already inhuman goal he had set for the training camp at 2.25x gravity and by his left and right, Bakugo and Todoroki were completing their cycles at 1.25x gravity.

Forty-five minutes came and went and true to his prediction, the explosive blond and heterochromatic half-hot half-cold teen completed the goal with him. Class 1-B could only gawk in disbelief, not only at the fact that they had completed the goal under additional gravitational pressure, but also because they finished ahead of time; and not by a small margin…

Perhaps more impressively, aside from Class 1-A's three most well known physically apt trio, several others from the class had managed to get through the first goal of the day. Some, like Shoji and Sato, managed to get through mostly because of their innate advantages when it came to performing physically. But then there were those who had worked their way up through previous training, like Mina and Kaminari. It made it clear to the doubtful newcomers that it was indeed possible to complete one of Izuku's seemingly absurd goals; even for normal, or at the very least, relatively normal people.

A short break gave the joint training camp a moment of respite, though one that was short-lived as not more than five minutes after the time limit for Goal 1 passed, Goal 2 was declared and crunch time came again. Goal 2 ended with more than half the people that made it through Goal 1 not being able to reach completion and Goal 3 was even more brutal, leaving only "the big three" able to finish today's physical conditioning routines.

All in all, what would have been four or so hours for a normal day's physical conditioning training ended in two and a half hours; breaks included. Though during the break that followed the last Goal of physical conditioning, Kaminari couldn't help but joke with Izuku, walking over to his side and asking, "Sucks that we have to cut the physical training part in half with the Sports Festival almost here. Wouldn't it have been hilarious to see that dude's reaction when you completed one of the usual ones?" His chuckles turning into full-out laughter, he added, "Idiot thought he could triple our usual training routine and he couldn't even make it through half of one that's already nerfed! Hahahaha..."

Monoma, who clearly heard Kaminari's jeers, was too exhausted to fight back. Though he didn't have a Quirk that naturally made himself physically superior or trained his body to its peak possible state, he definitely wasn't a pushover, nevermind a weakling. To make up for the conditional nature of his Quirk, Copy, which needed the help of others to even be useful, Monoma did rather well for his first time training at Izuku's pace; despite never completing even one goal.

Izuku wasn't the type to kick people while they were down, and though he disliked the blond for his unwarranted malice, he didn't have it in himself to laugh with Kaminari. Instead, he simply sighed and said, "I'm sure he wouldn't have said what he did if he knew more about our training sessions."

"Still," Kaminari pressed, "he got what he deserved." Sneering, "Insulting us as a class and attacking you personally... I for one don't feel sorry for him."

"Kaminari-kun," After more than a week of training together, Izuku had grown close enough with some of his peers to address them with less formal honorifics. Alas, the familiarity with which he addressed his friend was canceled out by the serious look on his face as he said, "Right now he's done nothing but try as hard as the rest of us. Let's not give him reasons to antagonize us any further..."

"Whatever you say, bro," Kaminari shrugged his shoulder before taking a swig of ice water from his insulated bottle.