NOVEL NEXT CHAPTER 042(Superhuman Potential)
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CHAPTER START---
---Friday, 2 Days After USJ...
Law sat at the patio furniture outside his home. The massive 20m by 10m pool was clear and stagnant under the mid-day sun, tempting him after his workout.
Leaning forward, wearing only his workout shorts, elbows resting on the table as he drinks some water from his bottle, MMA gloves and hand wraps in front of him, new but already torn up from constant abuse.
Law leans back and takes a deep breath, body covered in sweat and aching from another successful workout, but it wasn't enough.
"Not nearly enough," he grumbles, thinking aloud. "I won the fight but I didn't really beat Nomu, not enough...and my style just isn't compatible with something like that. Since the League Of Villains escaped with it then I may have to face it, or stronger Nomus in the future. But how do I solve the problem?"
He takes another large gulp of water and runs through the possibilities.
"Super-Regeneration is one in a two hundred million maybe, I doubt they'll have more Nomus with that, I should focus on the other aspects first. I never thought a Power Type would be able to make me actually try but that thing had a serious mix of power and durability, I won, but it wasn't clean, and it was far from economical or efficient," he grumbles, remembering how tired he was after USJ.
Law considers the scenario more thoroughly, "the main threat was the immense speed paired with my energy expenditure, I've got Shambles, Amputate, Incision, Booster Shot, Scan, Counter Shock, and Injection Shock, in addition to the cost of creating and maintaining a Room.
Amputate, Counter Shock, and Booster Shot are by far the most costly, but those are the ones I would need the most to deal with another Nomu, along with Shambles to dodge attacks. I need to either develop something that can deal with Nomu's power and regeneration or figure out how to make my moves more economical...or increase my stamina pool even more."
He sighs and rubs his head, "fuck, I've rarely really fought Power Types and they've always gone down in one hit, this Super-Regeneration shit is a nightmare. It takes me months or years to plan and execute new moves, not to mention how long it takes for me to practice enough that I can use them smoothly."
Horizon warps his phone into his hand, reading the most recent news alert, the 19th Hero Course attack by the League Of Villains and their army of Nomus.
"Looks like regenerating Nomus are super rare, and none as strong as the USJ Nomu, I've got a lot of offense already, if I'm gonna be a hero there may be times when I can't move myself or people for whatever reason, and I'm sure an army of monsters with multiple Quirks can have a reason or two... I'll need some kind of defensive move for a change."
Horizon taps the table for a minute, considering how he could solve this problem, never before needing to consider defense because he could always warp away, but now he actually had to at least pretend to care about other people and their lives. He rolls his eye at the thought.
SNAP!
He snaps his fingers as the thought forms," I don't need to create a new offense if I just upgrade the ones I have. Incision amplifies my slashes, paired with Booster Shot it can slash through a lot of stuff, if I increase my base strength and Incision then I can at least stall better until openings show up...assuming I have to fight that same Nomu again."
He quickly opens his phone and searches for 'Endeavor catches falling car,' and he instantly gets hundreds of video results.
Tapping the first he's greeted by a video of Endeavor hovering in the air and catching a car as it falls from the overpass above him, then descending to the ground and gently placing it down, with a lot of obvious effort.
"Ok he made that look a lot easier than I expected," Law admits, Endeavor was his gold standard for most things he considers when judging a hero. Perfect Quirk Mastery, perfect battlefield command, a great strategic mind, and excellent at Quirk analysis in battle, now he had to add this to the list.
"I don't know if I can tap into my latent superhuman potential to that level," he mutters. "Since his Quirk works by changing his skin and body structure and giving him a lot more energy we should be in the same boat. He's like an inch taller than me but I'm only 190lbs -86kg-, and he's like 260 -118kg-, that's a lot more muscle backing him."
Law considers this approach. Taking a more brawler style in certain situations and using his Quirk more sparingly. That's what Endeavor does and his Quirk has clear limits, he needs energy to use it and he makes sure to space out his big attacks from what Law can see, likely due to overheating he figures.
Certain Quirks give passive effects, for example, Iida's legs are super strong to compensate for the Engines in his calves. Other Quirks have bonuses that seemingly don't make much sense, like Endeavor and his low-level superhuman strength, even though his Quirk is all about fire.
This 'superhuman potential' is exactly what Law intended to take advantage of. Since his Quirk requires a high level of passive energy in his body the limits of baseline humans, -Quirkless people-, don't exactly apply to him in some regards.
This is mainly why he believes Quirkless people to be obsolete and that they simply cannot live up to the potential of those with Quirks. Because they operate with the now ancient expectations humans had, but now anyone with a Quirk could potentially exceed these limits in ways that their Quirk simply wouldn't lead you to believe.
'Quirks are just nature's way of pointing out that your limiters are off, that you've taken the next step to evolve,' is exactly how Law would put it.
"I'll have to bulk up, go from lean 193cm to maybe a few steps closer to Endeavor, but that means..." he frowns at the very thought. "Fuck, I already eat so damn much because of this Quirk and now I'll have to eat even more, and probably sleep more...that's gonna be a pain in the ass."
For the next half hour Law sits there crunching numbers and ordering a lot more food from his grocery delivery service. Realizing he'll have to drink a second large protein shake every day and either fit three more meals into his diet or make his existing meals a lot bigger.
"I wish I could just photosynthesize," he sighs. "Just wake up, drink water, lay in the sun, and enjoy the gains...lucky damn plants...I bet Ibara can do that if she tries hard enough, would make sense with vines for hair..."
Saving his meal and workout plan Law opens the class group chat for the very first time, seeing over a thousand unread messages over the last two days. Since this chat was only made minutes before boarding the bus to USJ he can already guess what they were talking about.
He sees a few mentions of his name with people tagging him to get his attention, but he just ignores them, clicking the members' list for the group to see Momo as the administrator, then scrolling halfway down the list.
"Gotcha, you're strong but not All Might strong, you'll be a good baseline for me to push myself to insane levels of base strength..." he says while hitting call on his classmate's icon.
A few seconds later and on the second ring his call is answered.
"Uh, hello?" Sato asks warily.
"Yo, Sato, you busy?"
"Wait, who is this?"
"Horizon," Law says, not understanding the confusion.
"Wait...why isn't your voice all robot-like, it's usually kinda roboty," Sato says.
Law looks genuinely confused at why this was so strange, "because I took off the visor since I'm at home."
"That comes off?! Dude, we thought that was your face!"
"Huh! Wait! Did everyone think that was my face? Is that why nobody ever asked about it?"
"Pretty much man, I mean we all had some chats about it and figured it best not to ask, I mean why else would you wear it 24/7"
"Because I don't want everyone knowing my business?" Law asks expectantly.
"Nah that doesn't make sense, why wear that thing in school anyway," Sato disregards his logic immediately. "Wait, is the body glove also just you being paranoid?"
"It's not paranoid," Law growls out.
"Dunno man, sounds like what a paranoid person would say..."
Law pinches the bridge of his nose and just sighs, "ok, can we get to why I called you please?"
"Oh right, sure thing class rep, what's up?"
"It's about your Quirk, strength enhancer right?" Law asks.
"Yeah it's called Sugar Rush, I eat 10 grams of sugar and get a time 5 boost in strength for three minutes. But as the time runs out I get really sleepy, then I crash. Every 10 grams more increases my strength by another one time and extends the limit, but only a little bit on the timer part, and I crash even harder afterward," Sato explains with a bit of hesitance, feeling rather self-conscious describing his clearly limited Quirk to Horizon of all people.
"Hmm, a rushdown Quirk that's good for one quick charge that's sure to take down some villains," Law says. "Clear strength and limits to be trained too, good potential."
"Thanks man!" Sato's voice suddenly had a small layer of pride.
"I'm actually calling you because I'm starting a new training regiment at home and needed someone to compare to."
"Oh, what do you need to know?"
"How much you can bench without your Quirk, I can solve the rest from there," Law says.
"Oh, just 700, naturally my Quirk makes it easier for me to hit high numbers since it's all about muscles. It basically puts my regular muscles into a 'power mode,' for a bit."
Even through the phone Law could tell Sato was shy about his personal records, even as impressive as they are.
"I see, I'm only at 400 right now, I think I can get my base stronger than yours but obviously you have a multiplier and I don't... that'll be a good challenge," Law says.
"That's awesome! And if you ever need a gym buddy you know how to find me!"
"I don't work out in the body glove or visor, sweat and all that, so I rather train solo, nothing personal."
"It's cool man no hard feelings, I'm just happy to help."
"Since you helped me I should at least return the favor, it's only fair," Law says, trying to keep the debts even between him and his classmates as much as possible. "I see you eating sugar cubes and cookies during training to trigger your Quirk, right?"
"Yeah, I bake em myself, taste great and the sugar is for my Quirk," Sato says plainly.
"Yeah well, half of being a hero is public image, so cut that shit out unless you only plan to market yourself to kids. Head to the support department and get some high-density sugar pills made, easier to store and you can label them 'Power Pills' or something for branding, and you can sell them as candy or whatever when you go pro, they won't taste as good but you'll get more sugar per handful and won't take as long to enter a fight."
"Oh wow..." Sato pauses for a moment. "I didn't even think about the support department being able to do stuff like that, I'll get on that right away class rep. Thanks for the advice!"
"Just returning the favor, I'll see you Monday."
"Yeah yo---" Law hangs up before Sato finishes talking.
"Honestly, he and cookie girl would have an epic bakery," Law mutters, nodding along at the idea of a bakery that sells meter-wide cookies. "Now that's a dream I can get behind..."
Gulping down the rest of his water Law gets up to go enjoy a shower, tonight Law Matani was going out on the town...
END CHAPTER---
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