-3 months later-
During this time, Madow had done nothing but study and train his control over his quirk, and now was the day to see if his efforts would pay off.
He arrives at the test location, surrounded by wannabe heroes. With a little disgust, he wonders if coming here was such a good idea. The others avoid him, thinking of him as just some stuck-up prick. The formal suit as his hero outfit doesn't really help their opinion.
The written exam goes by quickly, as Madow is one of the first to finish, getting a score of over 90%, way over the required 75%.
The students are then taken over to the practical exam site. Madow was going to follow them but stopped as one of the people who worked there called him and a few other students over, as they were going to do a separate test for having gotten recommendations from pro-heroes.
They arrive at what looks like an abandoned city that was built for the exam. The teacher stands at the entrance, waiting to explain the rules to them.
A tall woman with short black and purple hair, wearing a mask over her eyes, and a coat covering most of her upper body, but leaving her legs exposed, showed they were bionic prosthetics. Some of the students recognize her by her hero name, Nighthag.
"Well, so here are this year's candidates!" She says, opening her arms as if to hug them all with a smile on her face. Through the opening of her coat, the skimpy outfit she has on can be seen, a small dress barely reaching her thighs and showing a lot of cleavage.
'And of course, the teacher here is some skank. What did I even expect?' Thinks Madow while looking at how little she's wearing underneath the half-open coat, letting his prejudices cloud his judgment.
"So, my lovely candidates, the test will be simple; the setting will be a city overrun by villains, played by automatons, of course. Your mission is to rough the villains up and save some civilians, also played by robots." She goes around handing them some pamphlets with further information. "Do you best, kay?"
Madow looks at the pamphlet to see how many points the robots are worth as they walk over to the test area.
"S: 20 points.
M: 50 points.
L: 100 points.
XXL: 0 points.
Civilians: 1 point."
He then looks over at the other students taking the test.
Seeing to his left: a floating boulder with a face; a purple-haired girl wearing a black baggy outfit with glowing neon green streaks; a tall guy wearing a coat who has a full beard; a guy wearing a red beanie with chains around his forearms; a guy covered in bandages with glowing eyes and a hood with horns; a guy with a shield in one arm, a spear on the other, and an eagle on his shoulder.
And, to his right is a pretty blonde girl wearing light metal armor who seems to be glowing as the sun hits her. She looks back at him and waves, only for Madow to ignore her and look away, prompting her to laugh, thinking he got embarrassed.
Soon enough, the test begins with the sound of a siren and explosions all around town. The giant robot can be seen from here, as well as some of the smaller ones. Civilians can be seen running away from the city and turning off as they reach the borders. The students rush in.
Madow quickly makes an ice board underneath his feet, propelling it forward with a stream of water. Being met with an M robot while turning the corner, he points a finger at it, forming an icicle and shooting it at the robot's eye. The icicle drills into it and then changes its form to a mass of water tentacles, destroying it from the inside.
The blond girl shoots a big laser, instantly destroying a few robots. 'She has luminokinesis then.' Madow notes in his brain.
Madow continues surfing his board, going in the direction of a building and riding the board up on the side of it. Inside a nearby burning building, the bearded teen can be seen saving a couple of civilians from an S robot, prying it open with a crowbar. Reaching the top, Madow can get a clear view of the positions of the robots and the other students.
He pumps water from underneath his board, making water tentacles rise up, then freezing their tips and whipping the tentacles to throw them like he did with the first robot. On the robots that were by themselves, he simply aimed for their eyes and destroyed them quickly, while on the robots that were already fighting other people, he only hit the joints. So he could help the others without stealing their points.
He keeps going around town while repeating the same attack over and over. And also making note of the other's quirks: The boulder guy has gravitokinesis as a swarm of robots flies around his body, now with arms being used to control the gravity; the guy with chains apparently has kinetikinesis, redirecting the robots' attacks back to them; the neon girl has some tech quirk, controlling an L robot to attack others; the spear guy is working in tandem with his bird to fight a G robot, quirk unclear but clearly superhuman physically; and lastly, the bandage guy seems to have a physical enhancement quirk.
With 5 minutes remaining, Madow stands on top of the tallest building, eyes set on his next target, the 0-pointer. Using water propulsion and an ice ramp, he flies in the direction of the robot, making an ice drill around himself, going directly into the eye of the machine.
He finds himself in a corridor inside it, turning his drill into a ball of water around himself. He goes forward, leaving a trail of water where he goes and making some flow outside. Making it seem as if the robot were crying.
As he goes towards the core, he finds a metal door blocking his path. He quickly freezes it to make it more brittle and destroys it with some force. A wave of heat pours out as soon as the door is open, boiling some of his water. He has to make an active effort to cool it down to resist. 3 minutes left.
Inside, there is a walkway going over the core of the robot, a tiny sphere in the center of the room on top of a pedestal, with many cables connected to it. He picks up the door and throws it at the core. In a burst of energy, the core sends it back, flying in his direction. He narrowly avoids it by going back to the corridor. 2 minutes left.
He then gets his vapor, made with the heat emanating from the core, to go inside the core and starts shredding it from the inside. The core sends waves of energy, making the walkway fall down. Which he grabs, using the pointy metal along with his vapor to rip and tear the cables from the core, connecting them in random ways to cause short-circuiting. 1 minute left.
The core is going critical. As sirens blare in warning, he can feel the entire robot falling face-first to the ground. With only a few seconds left, he grabs into the ground with the "tears" that are streaming down the robot's eyes, making a water rope and pulling himself out of the robot. 10 seconds left.
He makes a ball of water on the ground to cushion his fall, and as the robot is going to fall on top of him, the core explodes, leaving a giant hole where the face used to be. The metal falls around him as he walks away on the path untouched by the falling machine. The sirens blare as the test is over.
The others are standing alongside Nighthag, staring as a Madow walks towards them, "I think I pressed the wrong button." He says in a humble tone.
"Wow, that was awesome! although it wasn't worth any points." Nighthag says impressed.
"No, I'm serious. There was a big red button there, and I just couldn't resist pressing it; nothing worth praising."
She just ignores his deflections and starts talking. "So now let's count up the points, shall we?
In eighth place is Issac Northwest, who, although killing a lot of robots, got a lot of penalties for indiscriminately destroying civilians with his gravity. 400 points, enough to pass.
Seventh is Viktoria S. Wheeler, who handled the robots with expertise and got 460 points.
Sixth is Bayek Medjay, with 500 points.
Fifth goes to Delsin Rowe, who used his quirk perfectly, getting 550 points.
Fourth goes to our show-off, Madow Lotan Bohai, with 600 points.
Third is Marcus Wayne. 700 points.
Second goes to our marvelous Luxanna Stemmaguarda, getting 900 points.
And first goes to William Butcher, who got a max score of 1200."
As the others look at the winner in awe, except for Lux, who is almost fuming like a spoiled princess, Madow says to Nighthag, "For the record, I promise it wasn't intentional."
"It's fine, honey; you pass either way." She raises her volume a bit. "In fact, everyone here passed!"
The students go home, most happy for having passed the test, except for two: Lux, who was still mad at not being number one, and Madow, thinking, 'I can't believe that skank called me a show-off.' feeling greatly insulted.