You didn't expect this chapter, did you? Well, neither did I! This was written today, in about three hours!
Warning: Extreme bizarreness. Read at your own caution.
-SpiritOfErebus
"Man, these quirk protests are getting out of hand." Kaminari said, tapping away on his phone.
"Yeah." Kirishima said, leaning over Kaminari's shoulder. "There was this ice guy too, that a journalist caught on camera, right? His quirk was pretty manly! It's almost like Todoroki's quirk, except he can actually move his ice around after he's made it."
"Just because they have ice quirks doesn't mean that they're similar." Hans said, "For all you know, that guy's quirk could work on controlling temperature or something."
"Well, talking about flashy quirks, other than Todoroki, Bakugo and Midoriya sure are the flashiest of us all!"
"By the way…" Tsuyu croaked, turning her head reptilian towards Midoriya. "I've wanted to say something about your quirk. It's really like All Mights."
"Just because they're both strength quirks doesn't mean that he's All Might's successor or something. There are tons of strength quirks out there." Hans argued, irritated. "It's the same thing as trying to compare two ice quirks. Besides, All Might doesn't glow or break all his limbs when he tries to fight."
"Y-yeah!" Midoriya said, muttering nervously.
"But if we're really talking about strength, then Bakugo's really got it, right?" Kirishima said, excitedly. "My quirk is useful and all, but I can't really do anything significant with it."
Hardening his arm, Kirishima's arm suddenly got a lot more angular.
"This… is all I can really do."
"Well, if Bakugo's personality wasn't as explosive as his quirk, then maybe he would actually be admired." Kaminari teased,
"What did you say about me, you little shit?" Bakguo shouted. "I'll kill you!"
"Kacchan is actually being teased?" Midoriya mumbled. "UA's really amazing…"
"That was pathetic. I could do better in my sleep." Hans said, crossing his arms and shaking his head.
"It… really is kind of childish, right?" Yaoyorozu said, "To just be insulting each other like this."
"Sadly, this is a normal occurrence in teenagers." Hans said, shaking his head. "These types of insults and interactions are what apes use to form a society."
"...Apes?"
Hans looked at Bakugo hunched over the back of his seat, eyes furious, brows wrinkled, and mouth in an animalistic snarl.
"I think that calling him an ape is pretty generous." Hans said, looking across the bus. Sato's yellow monkeysuit aside, Tsuyu was literally returning to frog with a green costume and webbed shoes. As soon as he saw Yaoyorozu's costume, however, he nearly spit out his nonexistent tea.
"What… is that?" Hans said, pointing a shaking finger at Yaoyorozu's red vest.
"That's… my costume?"
Worrying about what type of animal Hans called her classmates was the least of Yaoyorozu's worries that bus ride.
…
"Welcome, UA students!" a puffy astronaut said, waving a hand and wadding up to the group.
Hans stretched his legs out, and looked up at the great dome before them from below a forest of people taller than him.
"I wonder how much this costs."
"Hans, I thought we agreed that-"
"Yes, yes." Hans said, sighing. "I won't start arguing about budget again. We all know that UA is very irresponsible with their money."
Yaoyorozu bit her lip, stopping herself from continuing down the train of arguments that came with the budget.
But honestly, the dome was a bit unreasonable. Why did they need a dome, anyways? It was supposedly disaster training, right? Wouldn't having the sun's heat overhead be a little more… realistic?
As Hans walked into the building, however, he realized why the environment needed to be contained. The whole thing was a big death trap. In one sector, simulated rain was pouring down from rooftop sprinklers, while in another sector, fires and smoke spiraled up to the sky. Entire biomes were contained in this facility with overly dramatic lighting.
As the heroes in training walked down the stairs to the central plaza while looking about, and seeing nothing but boundless opportunity, Hans lamented his future. If he really graduated from this hero school, would he have to travel around the nation and help people? A glorified emergency worker, worked to the bone because of his healing quirk?
Hans sighed, before brightening up. Couldn't he just go to college after graduating from a hero school? This was a high school, after all, and there was no mandate to continue doing mindless hero tasks after he finished four years. He wasn't contracted to a master that did overly heroic/suicidal things to save humanity anymore.
For once… he was free!
Hans… suddenly smiled. Maybe going to a hero school didn't mean he would be strapped to the warship of heroism forever.
Then, as Thirteen droned on about various activities, Hans's eyes wandered over to a black portal opening next to the unnecessary decorative fountain.
"What the hell is that?" Hans muttered, pointing towards the portal.
"Is this like the entrance exam, where the test has already started?" Kirishima said, looking strangely excited.
"No." Aizawa said, holding out a hand before his students. "These are villains."
Hans watched as out of the portal stepped… a man wearing several severed hands on his body, and a blob of black mist with a metal collar and large, yellow eyes.
"Oh, fuck." Hans said, cursing. "We're all going to die. Sensei, can you open the gates?"
"No…" Thirteen whispered, her voice quivering slightly. "We… we've been hacked!"
"The comms are jammed!" Kaminari shouted. "I can't contact UA!"
Out of the black mist that now stretched across the courtyard, many more villains stepped out. There was a big, bulky guy with an exposed brain that briefly made Hans think about whether or not brains ever got itchy. There were various nondescript buff people that were wearing tacky outfits from a halloween costume and carrying axes, or actual, slightly professional looking villains with sophisticated gear.
Basically, Hans was screwed. The only real option was…
"To escape…" Hans muttered, before summoning the little mermaid. "Do you see that gate up there?"
The little mermaid nodded.
"I want you to open that thing, but be quiet, okay? You're the smallest summon I have, so I hope you can be stealthy."
The mermaid saluted and swam away, as Hans's mind whirred furiously. He had to buy time for the gate to open, but they couldn't escape out of the gate. After all, the enemy had a guy that could teleport into the USJ. Obviously, with his stubby little legs, he wouldn't be able to climb the stairs in time, but there was somebody that could sneak out without anybody noticing. Somebody so transparent that even the plot forgot about them for the past couple weeks.
"Hagakure." Hans muttered. "Get to the gate. I've sent one of my summons to open the gate, and when it's open, run back to UA or wherever you can communicate with people and call heroes over."
The class looked at the two, rather confused.
"Hans already has a plan?" Kirishima muttered. "That's so manly!"
"Shut up, dude!" Jiro hissed, slapping Kirishima's arm. "If the villains hear you saying that, we're all done for."
"O-okay?" Hagakure whimpered.
"And take off your gloves and boots, for god's sake!" Hans shout-whispered. "Those things are so counterintuitive!"
The pair of gloves fell to the floor as boots were left unattended. Hans took this as a sign that the girl was now climbing up the stairs.
"And now… for my distraction…" Hans said, scratching his head and walking forwards. "The people with the most defining character traits are probably the hand fetishist and mist guy, so I'll assume that they're the leaders, but-"
"Who the fuck gives a shit about distractions?" Bakugo erupted, blasting forward and sending Hans tumbling back into the floor, racking up bruises. As Hans sat up, nursing his somewhat injured arm, he watched with an odd sense of satisfaction as Bakugo was teleported away by the black mist guy.
"Now that all the hotheads are out of the way…" Hans said, shouting loudly. "Can I get a megaphone?"
Yaoyorozu wordlessly handed him a megaphone.
"Can we get to speaking terms?"
"Terms?" the bad touch man said, scratching his neck creepily. The hands clipped to his body jiggled ominously, and Hans felt his stomach turn as he realized that they were actual, somewhat mummified hands.
"We're here to kill the Symbol of Peace."
"Yeah, right." Hans said, pointing at the group. "Let's get to talking about why you're really here."
"Andersen, get back!" Aizawa shouted. "Stop being irrational! These villains are dangerous, and not just somebody you can-"
"I refuse! Now listen, you two-bit blotches on society! Those two are using you!"
The grunts surrounding the two began to mutter.
"Can't you see?" Hans shouted. "They never came here with an expectation to succeed! They're just tarnishing your reputation!"
"Shut up, you midget!" one of the villains shouted back. "You're a hero student! You don't know about the struggles we've gone through! In high school, people would always-"
"Called you an ape or something, right?" Hans shouted back, looking at the guy's ape arms. "Then, you were denied a job because you were too intimidating, is that right?"
The guy nodded, slightly stunned.
"Do you know why you're ostracized by society?" Hans bullshitted, thinking about the various bits of socioeconomic theory he had spoken about with Yaoyorozu. "Do you know why employers never give you jobs? Why kids have an instinctive fear of you? Is it because you're a psychopath?"
"Yes~" a guy with metal claw arms and a bug head moaned.
"Well, maybe that guy is, but not you people." Hans shouted. "Sure, I'm a hero student, but the hero system is broken!"
"It is not!" Iida shouted, waving his arms rigidly and forgetting that there were villains attacking them all.
"Shh!" Jiro said, slapping Iida's helmet. "He's trying to use the talk-no-jutsu! Hagakure's already planning to go for help! If Hans can stall for a couple of minutes, then let him slander us! I don't care!"
"Again, before I was so rudely interrupted…" Hans said, faking a glare at Iida, "The hero system is broken! We spend way too much money on things like this and dump truckloads of money into making big hero agencies and getting sponsors so heroes can boost our rankings!"
"So what's stopping us from killing you all, right now?"
"Yeah, why shouldn't we?"
"Stop repeating everything I say, Tatsuki!"
"I'm getting to that!" Hans said, "It's because it's all a conspiracy by the government!"
There was silence. Hans sweated, and prayed that the villain's instinctive denial of society and the bullshit he sprouted is good enough to keep the mob listening.
"They want to keep your reputation bad, so they send agents like these…" Hans said, pointing to the hand fetishist and the black mist guy, "To convince you to attack places that are obviously impenetrable! Like the middle of a UA facility! You all are attacking a place that is basically a glorified death trap while a teacher with a quirk erasure quirk is staffing! We can get rid of your teleportation and trap you in here!"
"I am not a government agent!" the hand fetishist snarled.
"That's what he wants us to think!" a villain shouted, pointing at the hand fetishist. "That's what a government agent would say!"
"Young master, we should attack." the black mist guy whispered to the hand fetishist.
"No, no." the hand fetishist said, smiling from underneath the hand mask. "Let's listen. This is like a cutscene! It's a perfect setup for this stage! Besides, they're not moving at all and according to the schedule they have, they're going to be here for the whole day! And if they can't escape or call for help while the blue brat talks, what's wasting a couple of minutes to listen to some lore?"
"...I suppose." Kurogiri said. "But-"
"Shut up!" the hand fetishist said. "You're interrupting the lore, and there's no replay option here, either!"
"Do you all want to listen?" Hans said, trying to disturb the leaders from thinking about what plans Hans was cooking up.
The thugs, and even the leaders, nodded.
"Can somebody get me a whiteboard?" Hans said, "I might need a marker too, while we're at it."
Todoroki, of all people, began to look interested. "Government conspiracy?" he muttered. "I knew it. There's no way my father would be able to become number two hero without conspiring with the government."
Around Todoroki, several students backed away.
"Do you.. uh… not realize he's bullshitting?" Kaminari said. "I'm stupid, and even I know that!"
"The marker and whiteboard?" Hans said, snapping his fingers impatiently while sweat ran down his back and stained his lab coat.
"Oh, uh, here." Yaoyorozu said, creating the objects out of her impractical costume.
The villains sat down and muttered to each other, probably confused about why a midget wasn't scared of them, or why the midget suddenly acted in such an authoritarian way.
"Okay… So let's first get started with this positive feedback loop that is villainy. Do you all know what a positive feedback loop is?"
"This is so surreal." Jiro muttered to herself.
Nobody raised their hands down on the crowd. Yaoyorozu opened her mouth to speak academically, but Hans kicked her in the shin.
"Let me explain this." He said, with an intense glare.
"A positive feedback loop is…"
…
Hagakure looked back at the crowd of villains that somehow sat down and began to raise their hands or claws or whatever appendages like they were students.
"What the hell is going on down there?" she muttered.
The little mermaid burbled again, before poking her… somewhere suspicious… and gesturing towards another piece of metal.
"Do you want me to pry this open too?" Hagakure said, wiggling a piece of the lock.
The mermaid nodded.
"Fine, fine…"
As high-pressure jets of water sprayed out from the mermaid's mouth, Hagakure listened to the lecture broadcast throughout megaphone. Shaking her head in disbelief, she returned her focus onto the more urgent task at hand: opening the door. However, noting a distinctive lack of exposions, Hagakure began to wonder.
"I wonder where Bakugo went."
…
Boom.
Bakugo grinned savagely as he detonated another explosion. The grunt with the lizard head flew back into the wall and slumped over, his knife clattering to the floor.
Behind him, a grunt leapt down from a wrecked ceiling and swung a fist at him.
Another explosion answered the attack, and the masked man was thrown away.
"Come at me, you villains!" Bakugo roared to the heavens. "I'll kill all of you!"
"Wait, who was the villain in this scenario again?" the grunts muttered.
"Who cares?" another lizard man shouted, gritting his teeth. "You hurt my brother, annoying student! Prepare to die! Lizard form attack, third fan-"
Another explosion.
…
"Now, what do we think about paying taxes?" Hans said, looking at the villains.
"I hate them! The govamint hasn't done nothin' for us, so why shouldn't we wreck their hood ? Why should we pay them our money?" a villain roared.
"What the fuck are taxes?" a particularly clueless villain said. "I just put zeros on a ton of forms and the next thing ya know, the police come knocking on my door! Is it just because I have guns for hands?"
"...Did you finish middle school?"
"I dropped out on my fourth grade." the gun-fingered villain said proudly. "You don't learn nuthin' in school except fa how ta count shit!"
"...Honestly, my lecture doesn't really even apply to you." Hans said, breaking his persona for a small moment. "Why are you listening?"
"Because my bros are listenin' to ya!" the gun fingered man said, smiling. "See my brotha over there? He can multi-ply! I don't even know what that means! He went to high school! And when he applied to be a cashier, he was rejected by that store for bein' too scary? Who could be scared of this face?"
A man that looked like Frankenstein's monster waved dejectedly. "I spent four years on that GED, and nobody wanted to hire me…"
"You see that?" Hans said, pointing at that man. "A college educated man couldn't even get a job as a cashier! Do you know what's wrong with society now?"
"What's wrong?"
"It's very simple! you all remember what a positive feedback loop is, right?"
"Yep!"
"Nah."
"What loop?"
Hans tried to not let his irritation and glee show.
"Do you want me to explain again?"
"Does it tell me why society is bad and why people called me a penis head in middle school?"
"...Yes!" Hans said. "Basically, because you all are denied jobs, you turned to crime, right?"
"Yup." the gun-fingered man said. "I earn my bucks hustlin' kids down at the arcade! Then my old pals told me that this gig was going on, and when we're done with this shit, we would go for pizza!"
"A-anyways…" Hans said, trying to speak before his already flimsy logic gets derailed by the elementary school dropout. "Because you all turn to crime, you get bad reputations! And because you have a bad reputation, nobody wants to give you a job! Is that right?"
"Sounds about right."
"Makes sense?"
"What was he talking about?"
"So because you're unemployed, you keep turning to crime! And what do heroes do?" Hans said, pacing around the whiteboard where he spent a couple of minutes detailing a loop while talking just to waste time.
"Beat us up violently and send us to jail?"
"And what happens when you get sent out?"
"We go do it again!"
"And do heroes get stuff from capturing you?"
"They get rankings and stuff!"
"Now this… is where we get our motivation." Hans said, making a fist and mimicking politicians. "Because heroes benefit from stopping crime, they make the government spend tax dollars on places like this instead of helping you guys. Without help, you guys keep committing crimes! And if you keep committing crimes, heroes benefit more and gain more and more cash as you eventually die of old age. So in the end, you die while heroes get rich! And heroes pay taxes to the government so that politicians can get rich!"
"So they've been using us! The government! To gather their own wealth!"
"Yup." Hans said, nodding.
"And these fuckers are government agents trying to give us a bad rep!"
"Yup." Hans said again, smiling. Somehow, his bullshit had worked.
"I have a question."
"Ask." Hans said.
"Can we get with the murdering now? You've bullshitted us enough."
"Why should we listen to these guys? Come on, gang! Let's rub those guys!"
"Wait, wait, wait." the Frankenstein-looking guy with the GED said, standing up. "If we really do continue to fight them, won't we just… be perpetuating the cycle and-"
"Yeah, man! Like, shouldn't we act to better ourselves instead of mindlessly following a leader that tells us to do stuff that's basically suicide."
"Whatever, you grunts. Remember what we promised you?" the hand fetishist said, standing up and stretching his hands. "We can overthrow society! We can remake the system so it works for you, and not just the people at the top! Are you all with me?"
"Yeah!" the villains shouted. A reluctant group near the back, however, along with gun-finger man and the Frankenstein look alike began to step away from the students.
"Are you done, by the way?" the hand fetishist said, scratching his neck.
Hans looked at the little mermaid, who had been sitting on his shoulder for five minutes. Hagakure was already out, and he couldn't really think of anything else to say.
"I would say more, but you wouldn't let me, right?"
"Alright, Kurogiri."
"Young master?"
"Let's start killing kids until All Might shows up. Various goons?"
The crowd before the students shuffled. Axes were brought out. Machetes were unsheathed. The psychopath stopped licking his steel claws and began to grin menacingly.
"Kill them."
Hans sighed. In the end, he was still probably going to die. "Ah well. Never say I went out without a fight." Hans threw the microphone as hard as he could at the nearest villain.
It clattered onto the floor, ten feet away from the mist man. The megaphone squealed and blared, before finally fizzling out.
The villains charged, and Eraserhead leapt forwards.
And if everything went right, Hagakure would be back with more Heroes, and Hans wouldn't have to do anything. Still, something was wrong…
"Why do I have a feeling that I made a horrible mistake?" Hans muttered, as Eraserhead's capture scarf billowed out into the wind and ensnared three villains.
…
"How… much… longer…" Hagakure muttered, almost collapsing on her way down the road in the wilderness. "Why is UA so far away? And why didn't I work on my cardio?"
Her feet, without shoes, was bleeding onto the asphalt. Still, she ran on.
I have to do this… I have to!
…
AN
This was weird, wasn't it? I know it's dubious at best, but if you think about it, who actually becomes villains? Not college educated people, but people that are ostracized by society and stop trying to improve themselves. Hans's speech blaming everybody else for their problems is exactly what they wanted to hear.
Also, Shiggy was very confident in his prospects of isolating the group. Hans did breach the gates, but by the time Toru gets to UA, hmmm….
Discord link: discord . gg / 9t9MK3jHmV
-SpiritOfErebus
Also, just for the memes:
Heroism is a myth. Villainy is a joke. We are all pawns, controlled by something greater: positive feedback loop. The backbone of the hero society. They shape our era. They are the culture — they are everything we pass on. Expose someone to anger long enough, they will turn to villainy. They become a carrier. Envy, greed, despair... All positive feedback, all looped along…