UPROAR

Summary: Just because you're a Pro doesn't mean you're immune to the shit life throws your way. But that's part of the fun, right? Right…? Ugh, All Might made it all look so easy. Aged-up. Rated T for now. Connected drabble series.

A/N: Bam! First of the month, y'all! Okie dokes, first thing's first, though. I always respond to the reviews I receive (which gives me a chance to check out your profiles too!) but I wound up receiving one from someone logged in as a guest, so I can't directly PM them my response. So, I figure I'll just answer it here and hope they're the type of person who bothers to read the author's note before a fic! Their question was if this was a Kacchako or IzuOcha fic…and it kind of put me in a bind because my answer right now is IzuOcha, but there's an upcoming event that I'm currently writing that doesn't guarantee that things won't change. Or maybe they'll stay the same. It all depends on how this plot point works itself out because we're so close that it would actually be a waste to spoil it all here! So, right now, this is an IzuOcha fic with a pretty decent chance of that changing after a specific plot point. So, with that out of the way, let's resume our regularly schedule programming. Today's title is brought to you by one of my faves: Barns Courtney. Enjoy!

Chapter 14: Fun Never Ends

Same Night of the Fire

"Alright, I'm in position."

"Roger. Remember, after I kill the power you will only have 25 seconds before the generator kicks in, so every move here counts."

"Got it."

"How many guards do you see?"

"Just the one. Twenty-five seconds seems like plenty of time."

"Good. Just be careful, please, Deku-kun. Something doesn't seem right about this."

"I agree." He clapped on the night-vision visor that Melissa had crafted and closed his eyes to wait for her signal to open them again. "Do it, anyway."

"Standby." She replied, voice transmitting through a tiny earpiece that she had also designed. "Engaging systems…aaaaand…go!"

"Oi! Who hit the lights!?"

Dark green eyes snapped opened and Deku exploded from his hiding spot in the ventilation system. The grate clattered noisily from his kick and crashed to the floor, but he remained stealthily high overhead while the enemy investigated the commotion down below.

"What was that!?"

"Stay seated, sir! It's an ambush!" The one security guard in a fancy suit fished his phone from his pocket and flicked on its flashlight in order to locate the source of the crash, and Deku would have cursed if he could have afforded it. In their haste to plan the perfect strike, they had completely forgotten about cell phones…

"Twenty-three seconds." Melissa counted down in his ear.

Suspended from the ceiling using his Black Whip, he silently rappelled into the elegant meeting room where Shield Industries' board of directors often met during the daylight hours. His prize waited for him at the head of the heavy wooden conference table, in front of a stout balding man in an expensive suit. It was a slim black laptop that essentially wielded the key to the entire company in its hard drive, and it had been stolen from Melissa when they had seized control.

"Twenty seconds."

Deku landed on the table as covertly as a cat stalking a bird, gently wrapping his fingers around the computer and prying it free from the various cables that had been plugged into it.

"Who's in here?"

"Sir?"

"Someone's here! I can hear them!" The fat man lunged for the laptop but Deku was too fast for him in the dark.

"The computer's gone! They stole it!"

"Who did?!"

The security whirled his phone at his boss and nearly managed to catch Deku in its light, were it not for the spectacular one-handed backflip he'd executed in order to avoid it. Unfortunately, he could do nothing to stop the way his weight shook the table upon his landing, startling the agitated boss even further.

"Ten seconds, Deku-kun. Get out of there."

She didn't need to tell him twice. Using Black Whip once again, Deku secured himself to the open grate in the ventilation tube and quickly hefted himself back inside. He was thankful for the new dark suit that Melissa had loaned him. It was still a generic prototype that supported the most basic of abilities, but at least it wasn't green and white.

"Get these lights on now!" The boss commanded, pointing at the spot that Deku had just vacated.

"The generator should be kicking on any second now, sir!" The guard turned his flashlight every which way up and down the table to assuage his increasingly irritated boss.

"Eight seconds now."

Deku shoved the laptop into the small padded backpack and slipped it over his shoulders in order to make his hasty exit.

"Five seconds, Deku-kun. Where are you?"

"The vent still." He whispered. "The security guard used his phone for light."

"Two seconds now, take off the visor, quick."

He did as told, and a moment later he felt the cool breeze of the air conditioning before he heard the whir of its fans activate. The power was back on, but luckily, they didn't think to have security cameras in the vents. A flaw that Melissa had been more than aware and willing to exploit.

"What now?" He started to slink his way back the way he came now that the A/C rumbling would help cover his trail. "Same escape route?"

"You were always further along in our practice runs, but it should be fine as long as they don't try to follow you into the vent."

It would be obvious to even the most incompetent of mooks where Deku had infiltrated the building from, considering he'd accidentally knocked the grate to the ground in his haste to get started. He made the rookie mistake of not checking whether it was the type that had hinges and would swing open like a door or if it was screwed in on all four corners. Unfortunately for him and his attempt at a silent entrance, it had been the former.

But he could take tiny solace in the fact that they would need a quirk like Black Whip in order to reach up this high, and Melissa had assured him that nobody in Shield Industries did. So, for now he'd be safe.

Until he reached the roof, that is. And then all bets were off.

But he had a lot of climbing to do long before he could even consider coming up with a way to sneak off the helipad without anyone noticing, so there was no sense in worrying about it now. Right now, he just had to be as silent as possible as he wormed his way through these dusty vents and do his best not to get lost. To reach the roof, there was luckily only one direction he needed to go, so as long as he didn't start descending, he would eventually find his way.

"You need to pick up the pace a bit, Deku-kun."

"I'm crawling as fast as I can."

"It's not fast enough." Melissa replied, trying to keep her voice even to keep from panicking. "They're tracking you as we speak."

He froze. "They're what?!" His Black Whip fired from his body out of reflex and clung to the sides of the vent walls.

"I don't know how to get them off your trail."

Getting an idea, Deku scooted backwards until the tendrils were nicely taut like a rubber band and slingshot himself through the vents. Quick as a bullet, he zoomed through the dark tunnels using One For All to pad his landings at each corner before ricocheting back off of them. He bounced around like a pinball for a few short minutes before running out of steam and finally laying low again.

"That was great!" Melissa chirped into his earpiece. "You completely disappeared from their grid!"

He wasn't sure if he could have handled anymore bad new at this point, so he was more than relieved to hear it. The praise gave him a moment to catch his breath since using all that enormous power in such a cramped space had taken a lot out of him. Never mind the strain using both quirks at once put on his body, he needed to maintain a laser focus switching power levels in the blink of an eye every time he landed and took off again to avoid denting the walls and giving away his position. A delicate touch was needed to maintain his cover, but none of his quirks could be considered "delicate."

"There's still seven floors to go, though." Melissa got right back to business. "If you can manage that move again, you can clear them in no time at all."

Wiping sweat from his brow, Deku nodded before remembering they were communicating through audio-only.

"Roger…"

He stuck Black Whip to the sides of the walls again and got into position to fire himself off. He released and soared upward to bounce off the top of the next level, careful to avoid damaging the metal and compromising his position. He could feel his legs beginning to tremble with each consecutive rebound and unintentionally dug his fingers into the next wall to catch his breath again. His grip was strong enough to warp the metal, but he highly doubted the whine of it had been loud enough to give him away.

"Deku-kun?"

"I'm alright." He dismissed between huffs. "I just need a second."

"Just four more floors and you're home free."

He would have chuckled if he could spare the breath. Home free to him meant Tokyo, watching the day's Hero Highlights on the news with Uraraka on the couch snuggled under a blanket.

"Okay." He'd found his second wind. "Let's finish this."

With Black Whip clinging to the walls for a third time, he braced for his final takeoff and vanished from the corner. In a flash of electric green sparks, he neared the next turn and flipped like a swimmer in order to kick off in the direction of the next level. But he realized too late that he'd overshot this one by just barely half a percentage. So instead of pushing off the wall like he'd done at the previous corners, he smashed through the metal like a high-speed missile. He crashed through the ceiling and tumbled onto the hard floor along with the rubble.

"Deku-kun!?" Melissa's panic roused him from his temporary stupor. "What was that? What happened? Are you alright?"

Gingerly rolling over to sit up, he slipped the backpack from his shoulders to inspect the laptop. It had cracked perfectly in half, screen and keyboard separated like he'd broken it over his knee. The glass of the screen had splintered and there were plastic crumbs of some sort littering the bottom of the bag. Dejected, Deku dropped it back inside and hung his shoulders.

"I'm fine." He ran his hand through his sweaty mop of hair and looked around the dark room. "But the laptop's shot. It broke my fall."

"That doesn't matter." She spat. "As long as nothing internal is damaged, I can still recover the data. Where are you?"

He stood and shrugged on the backpack. "I dunno."

"Well, what do you see around you? Can you get back into the vents?"

He didn't answer, his jaw was too busy crashing to the floor. Before him lay a series of what could be called prison cells at best and animal pens at worst. Behind a thick wall of glass, the prisoners slept on lackluster cots in a sterile room full of white and steel and plastic.

Cautiously, Deku ventured forward practically on his tiptoes. Though if his dynamic entrance hadn't stirred them, then he doubted his footsteps ever could. On the outside of each panel was a clipboard that he quickly snatched up and eagerly scoured its many pages for whatever information he could decipher.

"Melissa…" He breathed, eyes wide as he flipped through page after page of medical jargon. "Has Shield Industries always kept the people you're treating in jail cells?"

"In what?"

He replaced the clipboard to its hook and reached into his backpack to retrieve his cell phone.

"I'm standing in front of jail cells full of people undergoing treatment for their quirks."

"That's impossible." She insisted. "We may keep some research participants isolated from the controls if the experiment calls for it, but they always have access to every other facility they could ever need."

Deku shook his head negatively and held up his phone to snap some photos. He struggled to focus the lens in the darkness of the room but pressed the shutter button, regardless. He was sure Melissa could fix them up later in order to make sense of his poor photography skills, anyway.

The flash burst forth from his phone like a solar flare had exploded from the sun itself, basking the dim cell in near daylight-level brightness. Deku froze. His breath caught in his throat as he struggled to become as invisible as humanly possible. But the damage had been done and he couldn't take it back now. The inmate began to stir in his meager cot, small movements at first that dragged his blanket across his body until he jostled himself awake like breaking free of a suffocating ocean wave.

His bleary gray eyes immediately zeroed-in on Deku and he launched off his cot with enough force to send it careening into the wall behind him. The monitors in his cell began to spike and set off an alarm as he banged his fists against the glass like a raging silverback at the zoo.

"Deku, what did you do?!" Melissa's frantic voice had dropped all semblance of formality as the panic set in. "An entire fleet of security bots are headed your way right now!"

"Dammit." He spat, eyeing the clipboard that was currently bouncing against the glass with every whack from the inmate's mighty fists. Phone in hand, he flicked the flashlight to its highest intensity and shined it into the cell in an attempt to stun the guy long enough to grab the clipboard again.

But all it did was piss him off even more.

Lacing his fingers together, the inmate swung his new mega-fist behind his head and launched it into the barrier with the strength of a catapult. To Deku's horror as he clutched the clipboard to his chest like a frightened nurse, the glass began to splinter. Jittery green eyes met manic gray and for one terrible moment, the inmate appeared to grin at the intruder's visible unease.

Black Whip sprouted from Deku's back like angel wings and ripped him from the spot that would have been his final resting place. Like a deadly double, the inmate's fists finally smashed through the glass barrier at the same time that the security bots began to spill into the room like the proverbial flood. Their sirens wailed in a high-pitched cacophony that sent those giant fists of his to cover his ears, falling to the floor with a scream of his own.

Deku watched the seemingly mindless monster in a mix of horror and confusion before a security bot came whizzing by and clapped its metal claw around his wrist like a handcuff, delivering a shock that forced the clip board from his fingers. Activating One For All, he was able to pry it off and leap away before its pals could do the same. While still airborne, Black Whip tethered him securely to the ceiling and he swung himself to the gaping hole he'd fallen through earlier.

"Melissa, do you copy? I'm headed to the roof now." He pressed his finger to the earpiece, receiving only static in return. His fears over that tiny electrocution had been confirmed – the communicator was fried, and he could only assume the same was true for the tracker in his suit, as well. He was on his own from here on out.

A security bot plunged its claw into the ceiling, just shy of spearing Deku in the thigh, and discharged another bout of electricity into the metal vent. Gritting his teeth to bear the dose, his muscles began to seize and his body went rigid as consequence. The bot roped itself into the vent with him and finally ceased its discharge when its sensors indicated that the intruder was no longer struggling.

When it clamped a claw around Deku's leg to drag him out of the vent, he struck. Green lightning exploded from his body as his anger automatically triggered One For All. It attempted to electrocute him when he tore the claw from his ankle, so he plunged it into its own chassis with a feral roar. Stabbed and sparking, he kicked the bot back down through the hole and glared as it fell into the sea of its fellow mechanical brethren, incapacitating the ones closest to it.

Stealth be damned, Deku just wanted to escape in one piece, so he used what would probably be his final adrenaline rush of the night to propel himself through the remaining floors of vents. When he finally burst through the final vent and clambered onto the roof, he was so relieved to feel the cold night air on his face again that he almost cried.

"Freeze!"

But his reverence for fresh air would have to wait.

"Hands in the air, dirtbag!"

He sighed as he surveyed how many guards he'd have to fend off now. The plan that he and Melissa had spent days devising had gone wildly off-course, but he had finally made it to their rendezvous point. Assuming everything could resume according to plan from here, all Deku had to do was hold these guys off until Melissa could arrive to extract him.

One of them fired their gun and he was able to dodge by pure reflex, diving off the helipad and knocking one into another hard enough to take them both out. He stood again and wiped his brow, shoulders heaving from exertion as he scoured the battlefield again. He just needed to hold out until Melissa arrived. That was all.

"Two down…" He huffed.

"O-open fire!"

He stayed low to the ground and made sure to keep moving. It was harder to hit a moving target, especially at such an awkward angle. Using a combination of Black Whip and One For All, he was able to neutralize as many firearms as he could sink his inky tendrils into, doing his best to strike with just enough power to stun his opponents afterwards.

As he darted across the rooftop, he couldn't shake a nagging sensation that pulled the faintest strings of familiarity within his mind. It was like catching the scantest whiff of perfume that an old friend used to wear – it was strong enough to trigger that needy memory but not solid enough to stand up to search for it. Even though he was distracted with dodging gunfire, he was able to take note of all the bullet holes in the ground. There were far too many to be from this current skirmish, which meant there had been a previous spat before this one. Something wasn't quite right here, but he wasn't able to quite pin down why.

When Melissa's passenger drone finally arrived, it found him standing alone on the helipad huffing hot breath into the cold night air, encircled by a handful of unconscious men in black suits. He turned to the craft hovering above him and gave a weary smile, pointing a thumbs-up into its spotlight.

A/N: Yes! It's been a while since I've been able to post a self-contained chapter that doesn't split between characters, and I'm glad it was this one. Six pages of Deku kicking ass and taking names, what more could you ask for?