The next morning at UA Izuku couldn't shake an odd feeling. It was a strange sensation like every inch of his body was uncomfortable, but he still had class today there was no point in skipping for something so trivial. Checking the time, he figured he had time for a stretch and a short jog around the campus. Coming out that morning in sweatpants and a hoodie, he found Iida stretching in front of the dorm's entrance. Izuku spoke up first "Had the same idea this morning Iida?"
"Ah, Midoriya, yes I decided that it would be good to get a nice jog around campus in before classes started. Of course, you would think the same. How diligent of you!" Iida replied
Midoriya could barely hide his grin as he watched Iida chop his arm. "You up for a friendly race around campus, two laps?"
"Of course, it will help keep both of us sharp." Izuku finished stretching and set a timer that would signal the start of their race on his phone. When it sounded, they both took off into the distance determined to win the competition. Ultimately Iida was too much for Izuku, but they both made great times around the campus. As they returned to the dorms, they noticed not all their classmates were up and about yet. Only about a quarter of the class was up and they all looked tired. Since he still had a bit of time, Izuku slipped off and got ready for class and headed in early.
Leaving early for once, he was the first one into class. Even beating Iida and the rest of the early morning people. Being that early gave him a chance to greet everyone of his classmates on their way in and get them situated a little before Mr. Aizawa walked in for class.
"It looks like you're all becoming a little more rational, good, let's get started for the day." Aizawa said in his same dreary tone. And so, the school day began at UA. They hadn't been there a full week, but they were falling into a somewhat normal schedule at UA. Since the freshness of having pro heroes as their teachers had started to wear off, UA started to look more and more like a normal school. Which led to them flying through the day and arriving at lunch in seemingly no time.
Izuku's group that he normally sat with had started to expand from just Iida and Uraraka to taking up almost a full table at lunch. He even noticed out of the corner of his eye that Bakugo had his own little group starting to form. It put a smile on his face to see his old friend starting to make actual friends, not like those assholes from when they were little. Izuku focusing back on the conversation at his table which was mainly about the work that had been given.
"Midoriya, did you understand how to do the stuff Ectoplasm was showing us?" asked Jiro, who had joined the table along with Yaoyorozu and Asui.
"Trust me, I'm definitely not the one to ask for help with homework," Midoriya began, "Maybe Yaoyorozu would know though." The girl looking up from her extremely large lunch. She seemed to take pride in being named as the one to help and instantly began to break down some of the problems given in class. Izuku listened intently as his school was not always the best at explaining certain concepts. And learning from someone who had obviously absorbed the information could only help in the long-term. Honestly from her explanation it was clear that she had a deep understanding of math beyond what they were learning in class. And at the end of lunch they all came back to class to finish the rest of their classes before heroics. They pushed through the last few classes of the day. Most of the class was excited for their next foundational heroics class. They were waiting for All Might to burst into the room again in the same fashion as before when suddenly Mr. Aizawa entered the room.
Fear entered the class at the thought of Mr. Aizawa teaching their heroics class. Suddenly he held up a card that said 'rescue'. "Today's class will be a special class away from the main campus, it will be taught by myself, All Might, and another surprise hero." With that announcement, Mr. Aizawa hit the button to get their costumes out of the wall. "Some of you may decide on not using your costume if you feel it could hinder you, or if it was damaged in the earlier exercises." The class burst into excitement and was immediately met with Aizawa's glowing eyes to shut them up.
With order regained, Aizawa left the class to their own devices. Non-surprisingly everyone chose to use their costumes. With that they all headed straight to the changing rooms and got changed and headed out to find a bus waiting to take them off campus. When Iida saw the bus, he began trying to get the class together to get them to file into the bus easier, but Izuku and Yaoyorozu informed him the bus wasn't structured that way. He was deflated but filed in regardless with Izuku and Yaoyorozu taking whatever open spaces they could find at the end. Mr. Aizawa sat at the front near the driver. As the bus pulled away from UA's front gates, the class burst into chatter.
It was mainly idle chatter about what everyone thought was going on or how excited everyone was until Kaminari caught everyone's attention. "You know Bakugo could be a great hero if his personality wasn't ass." That caught everyone's attention and the blonde in question voiced his objection. Kaminari, however, continued his rant "It's really telling that we all know your personality sucks this early in the year. Even though you're up there with the powerhouses, your personality might hold you back."
That comment sparked a different conversation from Kirishima. "If we're talking about powerhouses with flashy quirks, it's definitely Bakugo, Todoroki, and Midoriya." A lot of the class voiced their agreement of the assessment and at that point Izuku joined the conversation.
"There are a lot of people in the class you shouldn't overlook though. We all must have potential since Mr. Aizawa didn't expel us." At that some of the class perked up from the encouragement.
"I mean that's true, but I just wish I had something flashier than hardening so I could get noticed myself." Kirishima said looking a little dejected.
"I mean it's simple, but simple quirks are the best. They have less weaknesses to them. And besides with a quirk like Hardening, you can definitely take hits better than us 'powerhouses." That seemed to simultaneously make Kirishima perk up and Bakugo seemed to have to restrain himself with the seats. At that point all conversation was cut off by the bus arriving at their destination. It was a huge dome shaped building. The class looked at it awe struck as they got off the bus. They had been so focused on their conversation they hadn't even noticed the building coming into view. Aizawa chose that time to speak up.
"This is the USJ, where All Might, and another teacher will be waiting for you." With that Aizawa led the class inside where they were introduced to the space hero: Thirteen. There seemed to be a noticeable lack off All Might which Mr. Aizawa asked about. They turned away for a moment to talk about it and when they came back Aizawa looked even more annoyed than before. He mumbled something about irrationality as Thirteen addressed the class.
"Some of you may not know me, but I am the space hero: Thirteen and my quirk is- "
"Black hole right! Its such a cool quirk, you save so many people with it!" Uraraka interrupted in her excitement. And when the class started to get riled up again Aizawa regained their attention with his glare before Thirteen continued.
"Yes, and as many people as I have saved, my quirk is dangerous and could just as easily be used to kill." That statement horrified the class. "Just as you all have amazing quirks, you can also harm others with them. Today's lesson is to put together your lessons from All Might and Mr. Aizawa in order to learn how to best use your quirks to rescue others." With that everyone clapped for Thirteen and her speech. The class started to look around the USJ when suddenly the lights flickered. Mr. Aizawa started calling out orders for everyone to stay away from the entrance.
"Is this part of the exercise?" asked Kirishima.
"No! These are real villains!" Aizawa called out as the villains started to file in from a portal. Aizawa started to take count on the villains as he put on the goggles that were hidden in his capture weapon. He launched himself at the villains below. Several of the villains ran forward to intercept him, but found their quirks not working and were quickly dispatched. Suddenly a giant wave of ice poured out from one of the zones coming dead at the class.
Due to Thirteen's position she couldn't use her quirk because of the kids in her way and as the ice closed in the temperature started rising. Izuku threw his arm forward and a mass of flames came out and stopped the ice from advancing. Izuku frowned as he tried to locate the source of the ice when he suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder. As he turned to see who it was, he saw an unfamiliar man holding onto his arm. Before he could react, he suddenly felt as though he was pulled through a tube. When he re-emerged, it was raining, and his head was spinning a bit.
When his vision and head finally returned to normal, Izuku found three villains in front of him. The one who grabbed him and two others. One had ice creeping from his feet and the other seemed to be cloaked in shadows. He glared at the three villains as they started to circle around him.
As they started to make a formation around him, Izuku found a nearby stop sign and heated it up to remove it from the ground. He flung it at the roof above him blowing a hole in it. He then manipulated the flames around the stop sign to make a thumbs-up sign. Even if his classmates didn't know exactly where he was, he could at least let them know he was okay.
The villains took this as an opportunity to send both ice and shadows forward. Izuku rolled out of the way and headed down a nearby alley. It was only when he saw ice in front of him that he realized his mistake. This part of the USJ had been specifically prepped for him. Not only was it raining, but they had also made an ice area to lower the temperature and make it even harder to fight against them. The ice even blocked off most of the roads ahead of him that he could escape to effectively walling him in and forcing him to fight the villains head on.
The villains emerged from the alley with the teleporting one in the back. Most likely so Izuku would forget about him and he could get clean hits on him while he was distracted. With the odds beginning to stack against him, Izuku took a fighting stance and stared all three villains down. The first two sent a large area attack forward and Izuku stomped down his right foot sending a fire wall to intercept the two attacks. The teleporting villain surged from the side and cut Izuku's cheek with a knife. He teleported away before Izuku could attack and suddenly one of his feet was encased in ice.
A shadowy fist sent him crashing backwards as he rolled back to his feet to take account of the situation again. The ice and shadow villains were maneuvering to be as far apart in his vision as possible while he couldn't see or hear the teleporting villain. Realizing his disadvantage, he ignited his feet and took to the air to put himself in a better position. As he flew up, he looked over and saw a black portal opening in another part of the zone. Before he could see what came out, he was hit in the back and sent careening towards the ground. The other villains also seemed to be preparing to intercept him with attacks. Taking a deep breath, he blew fire out at them to preempt their attack.
The ice villain made a dome to block the fire and as Izuku's attack ended a shadowy arm surged forward. His arms were grabbed from behind by the teleporting villain who disappeared again as the attack connected. He landed with a groan and sat up slowly as the villains began to speak.
"This is the 'demolition king' that they were so worried about, what a joke!" One villain mocked.
"He's definitely strong for a student, but nowhere near enough to need experienced guys like us, and definitely not a king." Izuku stood up slowly and locked eyes with the three villains. The ice and shadow villain moved forward together and hit him back towards the frozen wall. Hitting his back on it, he was suddenly struck with an idea and smirked as the villains began to pelt him with attacks. He focused his flames into arms in front of him to block the attacks as he let them push him into the wall. The villains had gotten so cocky they didn't notice until it was too late that their ice wall had melted to the point that Izuku could retreat.
He ran into the nearest building and sat for a moment to get his plan together. 'The biggest problem is the teleporting villain, but he could only land hits because I couldn't maintain flames in the rain. Its time to turn the tables on them especially now that they've gotten overconfident.' As Izuku tried to plan how he could track the teleporting villain, he remembered a distant lecture in an old broken-down building.
'Remember Izuku, when you're fighting you need to be aware of life. Your life and the life of your opponents that way you can be less tense when you fight. You'll also be able to distinguish between lethal attacks.' Izuku recalled. It had been one of the last lessons he had learned before he left, but he could never master it. Instead he had always just relied on opponents giving away their position because of the heat he could release, but that wasn't an option right now. Izuku smirked, remembering all the hits he took trying to perfect it. "What was that old phrase, better late than never."
Izuku smirked as he heard footsteps nearing his building. He gathered his flames and burst forward through the wall and faced down the villains one more time. Using his flaming arms, he shot them at the shadow and ice villains as the teleporting villain shot forward again. Izuku noticed that he seemed to be moving only within his line of sight, but Izuku's goal was to learn how to track him better. He exhaled and listened. The villain moved around quickly leaving several small cuts across Izuku's clothes and face. Suddenly Izuku felt a sensation from behind and ducked. The knife the villain had been using flew over his head and Izuku slammed a flaming arm into his torso full force sending the villain sliding into the wall knocking him out.
When he made contact with the villain, Izuku caught the knife in his mouth and flung it forward with his flames at the wall next to the shadow villain blowing him into the building next to them. Then Izuku was on the ice villain in force. "Iai Chop, Form One: Fire Moon.' Izuku blew the villain back, knocking him out.
The shadow villain finally emerged from the building and found his two allies knocked out. When Izuku noticed him, he started to let his flames roam free melting all of the ice from earlier. The villain could only make out green eyes staring him down in the fire. The villain felt a familiar sensation of fear, and that made him act rashly.
"You're just a student! Don't underestimate me!" The villain ran forward and Izuku blocked his attacks with his hands. Two flaming arms extended from his back and smashed the man down, rendering him unconscious. Izuku looked over the men and grabbed them with a flaming arm each and dragged them to a light post before heating it and wrapping them in it.
With that taken care of Izuku made his way through the zone to see if any of his classmates had ended up here. Hopefully he wasn't too late.
Meanwhile the rest of his class looked on in horror as Thirteen was hit with her own quirk and went down, and the situation was looking dire. With the pro down it would be up to them to make an escape route for Iida to get back to the school and get in contact with the other pros. Otherwise they would be left at the mercy of the villains. The villain seemed to be underestimating them since their task was to deal with Thirteen, and they decided to try and take advantage of that. While Thirteen was trying to suck the villain up earlier, Sero noticed what appeared to be a metal brace. All he needed was a chance to stick it to the villain and hopefully they would be able to send for backup. Suddenly Ashido launched acid at the villain sending it flying down, and close enough to Sero where he had a chance to wrap him in tape. With the villain wrapped the stronger members of the class used the connection to keep the villains distracted as Iida made his escape.
As he tried to pry the doors open and run the villain regained his bearing and tried to open a warp gate only to be hindered again. Then Iida finally pried the door open and used the engines in his calf to start making his way back to UA. It would take a bit for him to get to campus and return with backup from UA, but this would be their best chance at making it out of here.
A/N:
I promise I'm reading all your comments. I'm just an awkward noodle that doesn't know how to respond. Thank you for all the comments and support!