They were all piled on a bus heading to learn more about rescue training which included accidents, shipwrecks, natural disasters, and so forth. All Might and Aizawa Sensei had decided to accompany them on this trip.
They were planning on coming either way but Aizawa was put as All Might's personal assistant for teaching much to his chagrin, it was almost impossible to get sleep in with how boisterous he was… though given the screw up earlier Aizawa supposed that was a good thing.
It'd also help keep an eye on this Ben Tennyson...something about the way he intervened and lectured All Might in front of everyone definitely says he's not only used to being in charge, but far more experienced than any kid his age had a right to be.
During the ride Tsu had made mention of how Izuku's quirk was similar to All Might's. Izuku wasn't good on lying on the spot so he had to blabber his way through it like usual.
"You could do a lot of cool and flashy stuff with a quirk like that. My hardening isn't really the same."
"Hm? What do you mean Kirishima? You can do a lot with that especially if you can selectively harden parts of your body. Imagining you with something like Krav Maga is… honestly a bit frightening. Or even the Drunken Fist, if you could selectively harden and sharpen parts of your body you'd basically be able to multiply the amount of force you can bring into a fight."
"Oh you think so? Yeah it is kind of cool and strong but it would make things a lot easier if it was a bit flashier!"
"My naval laser is the perfect combination of style and strength!"
"Yeah but super lame if it gives you stomach aches after using it sweetie!"
"Well I know one thing though. If any of our classmates have pro quirks, it's Ben, Todorki, and Bakugo."
"Yeah but Bakugo is always angry so he'll never be that popular."
This caused Izuku and Bakugo to get surprised at Tsu's sudden bluntness.
"What did you say?! I'll kick your ass!"
"See?"
Ben snickered as he coughed.
"Yeah, being angry all the time just kinda gives away your Quirk doesn't it? I mean obviously the person with explosive outbursts would have a Quirk to match…. It'd actually be a pretty effective psychological warfare tool to be a silent fighter for you. Like an explosive ninja, once they hear you coming it'd be too late."
Bakugo didn't have anything to say to that but only just covered his mouth looking out the window muttering.
"Plus, it'd probably do you some good to take some anger management classes. You know, reshape your temper and personality to be a little less like...that. It's sort of like hot fire and garbage...in a volcano."
"Oh yeah?! I'm gonna make you regret coming to this school!"
"See you're only proving my point!"
"This conversation is so disgusting."
"Yeah but it's kind of funny watching them fight!"
"Hmm out of curiosity how do you all think you'd fight if you had Bakugo's Quirk? I'd probably use some type of triggered heat pads to build up sweat faster for a finishing blow and I'd definitely focus on using the environment as much as I could for smokescreens."
Ben said as he rubbed his chin in thought.
"Honestly I'd be too happy with having exploding hands to come up with good battle strategy at first."
Ben laughs and shrugs.
"I suppose that's true but flashiness isn't everything. Skill and smarts often triumph over power and experience."
Ben leaned in to whisler to Izuku with a smile.
"I should know. Vilgax was at least 300 years old when I first fought him you know."
"Seriously?! How'd you win then?"
Izuku whispered back, interested in how Ben won against an at least 300 year old being. That's a lot of experience and combat intelligence considering he was a genocider.
"Simple, I didn't do it alone. Teamwork makes the dream work and all that jazz. You can do most anything with good teamwork."
Izuku smiled and nodded at Ben's words. It was the truth and the best part was that Izuku has friends! It wasn't like before, he had people who really cared for him! Aizawa Sensei soon turned to the class on the bus and spoke.
"Hey listen up! We're about to park and leave the bus. So I don't want any of you idiots fooling around or setting a bad example. Got it?"
"YES SIR!"
They were soon off the bus and met another hero 13. An astronaut like hero who could create black hole suction from her fingertips. Pretty cool if you asked all of them. They all walked inside and marveled over all the different centers they had for rescue training.
"Wow this place is like an amusement park!"
13 soon gave a speech about how they were going to be using their powers not to hurt or fight anyone but to save others. Quirks can be deadly when not trained in all ways of using them and with proper training, you'll end up hurting a lot more people than you're saving. After all, one of the fundamentals of being a hero is saving people and making sure they're safe. Aizawa Sensei soon spoke.
"Right. Now that we're here let's get to it."
The students were amped up for doing the rescue training but soon the lights started to flicker getting everyone's attention. Even the teachers were shocked so this wasn't planned. Soon a swirling vortex started to appear at one of the fountains and a bunch of creepy looking villains and thugs started to come out of the vortex. All Might and Aizawa Sensei stiffened as they looked at the people coming through.
"13! Keep the students safe! This is real everyone! Those are villains!"
Ben glared at the obvious attempt to gang up on a class of Heroes as he stiffened. In a flash of light he was gone and in his place was Gravvatck in case they decided to teleport drop villains near them.
"What's the big idea, are you second rate villains so incompetent you need a small army to deal with a class of year 1 Hero students?"
Ben yelled out wanting to bait them into making the first move as he put a Mana barrier construct around 13 and the others in his class, the inherent multi dimensional properties of it making it a great defense for teleporters.
The one with multiple hands all over his body and face stared at the group with that one unnerving eye and simply just laughed. Sort of like a child really. A giddy homicidal child. The group of villains soon started walking towards the group. Their "army" would deal with 13 and the children with the help of Kurogiri when they separate them all. Tomura Shigaraki was after All Might for their one goal...to kill him.
"I'm not here for you children. I'm just here for All Might! Just to kill the Symbol of Peace that's all!"
They all gasped as they all stared at All Might who only stared forward with that fearless grin. This wasn't good in theory. If they all came here with that intent, then they must've found a way to actually kill him. They would have to be careful about this.
"Hey, 13 aren't there automatic defense systems in this place? Why hasn't an alarm been rung? Also how'd they know we would be here today, an insider maybe?"
Ben asked as he stared at the villains making sure to expand the gravity field naturally formed around Gravvatack to only operate past the boundary of his Mana field. It wouldn't be all that strong but it'd definitely cause the villains to be lighter causing them to adjust to the new normal.
"Yes, one of their quirks must be interfering with the alarms! We do have those put in place! We just need to find out which one!"
Kurogiri let out a startled noise as he attempted to wormhole his way in only for him to exit just outside the strange green barrier. He grunted as he focused on keeping his smoke self together due to the lighter gravity outside it.
"My my. It seems like one of you has a Quirk that can cancel mine out. How frustrating. Still this shouldn't take long to get past."
In a few moments another hole appeared on top of the shield as tons of water fell along with a shipwreck.
Gravvatack grunted as the hole closed and the full weight of the ship bared down on the shield, rapid cracks beginning to form. He clenched his fists as he inverted the ships gravity to send it right at the pale manic with hand coverings as the barrier broke from the strain. With another hand he formed another gravity field on Kurogiri in an effort to take him out of the fight.
Said smoke-like villain grunted in pain as gravity started to compress on the solid part of his body breaking a few ribs even as he opened holes to drop the students in disparate locations except unfortunately for Gravvatack himself who was floating in the air.
Izuku struggled to open his eyes as he saw the blue background around him. He held his breath realizing he was underwater and soon felt something wrap around his torso. It was a giant tongue! He felt himself being pulled up over the water and gasped for air as he turned to see Tsu retracting her length tongue into her mouth.
"T-Thank you Asui."
"How many times have I told you to call me Tsu? Ribbit."
"Oh right! S-Sorry!"
Izuku soon turned and noticed 13 pop out of the water as well. Well that was a relief, they weren't totally without help in this water.
"13! Over here!"
The space suited hero noticed the two kids and swam over admittedly with slight difficulty. She wasn't that used to being in the water.
"You kids ok?"
"Y-Yeah, we're fine. What do you think we should do here?"
"Well looking at the villain's so called army they only seemed to be low level thugs. They most likely underestimated you but that also brings up another question and possibly a bigger problem."
"Yeah, if their goal was to kill All Might then they probably should've brought stronger villains than those common thugs. They must have some trump card that we don't know about. Let's get out this water and then we can-Oh no!"
Izuku turned to see a few villains with water based quirks swimming towards them. Shit, what was he going to do?!
As that was happening the ship finally neared the white haired man only for the hulking monstrosity near him to step in to take the brunt of the impact, roaring as it punched a clean hole through the ship so it'd miss him completely even as it landed in a crumbled heap.
"My, it seems at least one of your students isn't afraid to go for the kill. Unfortunately for you All Might, my Nomu here can deal with you as easily as this ship. Nomu, kill them all."
With an almost pleased roar it attempted to do just that rushing towards Aizawa with incredible speed.
Gravvtacked tsked as his plan to end this fight early failed even as he further increased the Gs on the teleporter and wrapped himself in Mana just in case he could use his gates to cut people in half.
"If I increase the gravity any more you'll implode and collapse in on yourself. Considering your stated intention to kill someone I'd be well within my rights to kill you. So, I'll make you a deal. Information for your life. If I stop now you might very well be able to live without a respirator for the rest of your life."
This only caused the smile on Shigaraki's face to grow even wider although it wasn't like you could see a lot of it due to the multiple hands on his head.
"Do you really think I'm afraid to die here? If All Might is killed, then my mission is complete. It'd be a shame that I died but it'll be a success regardless if I make it through or not! And don't even begin to think I won't take a couple of you pawns with me to shatter his spirit beforehand!"
"Oh? Well alright then. Without you there's no way any of your crew will escape here once we're done."
Before he could respond Gravvatack did as promised, increasing the gravity so much that space temporarily warped and all at once a huge crater formed in the stone as he imploded, painting the ground red. Without letting himself think about it too much, Ben closed his eyes for a second before seeming to vanish in a flash of green light, a now invisible Ghostfreak charging to attempt to possess Nomu before this got worse.
Aizawa Sensei was not doing incredibly well as Nomu sent powerful quick punches his way. Something was wrong even after Aizawa removed whatever quirk he seemed to have, he was still just as fast, powerful, and unstoppable. He was strong even without whatever quirk he had. He soon saw that he couldn't dodge another incoming hit in time and took the hit trying his best to block it. The punch to his face dazed him before sending back a great distance.
He struggled to get up with his glasses shattered and blood running down his bruised face. Nomu was terrifying. He didn't speak, he didn't look angry, he didn't seem to have any complex thought, he just was. Those blank eyes stared forward as Nomu continued running towards Aizawa before was put to a halt by All Might though even then it looked like All Might was struggling ever so slightly..
"Enough! I thought your battle was with me! Now then TEXAS SMASH!"
All Might punched the emotionless figure sending it back a few feet while wind whirled around them crazily. Any other villain would be down for the count but Nomu just seemed to absorb the punch. The beaked brawn only stared forward rushing All Might again sending hits that were blocked and given back to him by All Might. The insane amount of pressure and power continued to be sent out as Nomu continued to keep up with All Might despite taking multiple hits by this point. What the hell was this Nomu?!
Ghostfreak finally reached the fight and flew into Nomu only for him to be kicked out with a gasp.
"Senseis Nomu is mindless! I'll try to see if possessing the leader lets me stop him!"
All Might gave a thumbs up with his signature smile as he continued to keep Nomu at bay and blow out hits to the monster who only seemed to absorb every one of hits. All Might was doing better than he would've thanks to Ben healing his wound but he couldn't keep it up forever.
With that Ghostfreak dove into him and tsked in his voice as he failed to register to the Nomu before smiling.
His voice might not register but Ghostfreak would bet the Frankenstein-like monster has been programmed to not hurt him… and given what his Quirk can do…
Using his stolen body to rush the lab experiment it only took one firm grasp on his leg for Nomu to still least harm his master even as the Quirk got to work turning first one leg than his whole bottom half to dust.
Even as Shikaragi viewed in horror at his plan falling apart all around him he seethed in utter rage at what he was forced to do, glaring hatefully at the now visible Ghostfreak even as he lost consciousness. The last thing he saw was Ben turning back to normal as he looked at the crater he had to form, a slight look of regret on his face at having to take another life.
"Seeing as the alarm system has been tampered with and the main threat is gone I could teleport in the staff here to help clean out the villains."
Nomu wasn't dead surprisingly enough. He was still making use of his upper body jumping and still trying to lay out powerful blows to kill All Might like his objective called for him to do.
Though having his bottom half being permanently destroyed did make things a lot easier for All Might. Though Nomu was still a problem considering any one of those hits would obliterate anyone else so they would need to lock him up or find a way to kill him.
The other students were doing well considering they were only dealing with low level thugs. They messed with the wrong class. Izuku got to one side of the water and nodded over to Tsu and 13 who started to suck up the villains on her side.
Izuku soon started to focus and a mana construction was created slamming the villains into one group on his side. Perfect. Izuku soon formed his hand into a flicking motion and called for One for All in his middle finger and thumb.
A large flash of pressure hit the villains head on causing them great damage, knocking them out. He groaned looking at his broken flapping fingers but decided not to focus on it for now.
"Asui now!"
"I told you to call me Tsu!"
Froppie grabbed Izuku with her hand and wrapped up 13 in her tongue and soon jumped out of the water making them get out of the shipwreck zone. The other students started making good progress but these thugs just didn't know when to quit.
Unfortunately not every student had a quirk that was good for putting villains out of commissions for longer than a few minutes. They started to get overwhelmed until they soon heard a gunshot go off in the area.
They all turned to see with smiles growing on their faces to see Ben standing with the rest of the pros.
They all smiled, some cried in happiness, as the pros got down and assisted in taking down the thugs more permanently.
At least long enough for them to arrest them. This is why they're considered pros they supposed.
It's not that any of them were weak or anything, it's just that only a few of the students were striking with the intent to kill such as Ben or Bakugo. Sometimes that force is the only thing to keep your enemy down.
As the heroes cleaned house and finally had everyone arrested a police investigation soon started as to the motives of the bunch.
Unfortunately none of the mooks had any info besides their objective. To kill All Might. Try as best they could to get information out of their white haired leader they couldn't get him to crack.
Not that it mattered because it seemed the smoke villain wasn't as dead as Ben and the others thought. Before he could be stopped both vanished into the night a few weeks later.
When he heard the news Ben barged into the teachers lounge in a hurry.
"Where's the blood sample taken from the white haired no name? I can use it to track him and his down."
"While we would love to hand it over, young man, to find this monster, there is no blood sample. All the evidence in the area got destroyed. We're sorry."
Ben gritted his teeth.
"Damn it. Do you know how? We can at least see that if you'll take me to wherever it was being kept."
"You can? How?"
"I have a form that can allow me to do basically anything with time. If you show me where it was being kept I can rewind so we can see how it got destroyed."
The teachers leaned forward in interest and soon nodded. Ben would be late to his class but Izuku would just let him know what they're doing.
The teachers showed him where the evidence would've been if not for the explosion that destroyed it. With a thought Ben transformed a bright green light covering him and left behind a large, tall yellow robot.
As soon as he appeared the gear on his head started spinning counter clockwise and soon a green hue overlaid everything. Holograms of the destroyed evidence stayed that way for a bit before time got rewound faster and faster.
The explosion soon manifested in reverse until they were back to undetonaited bombs. Bombs placed by a figure that made All Might grit his teeth and just barely hold inna gasp of surprise.
There, moments before the bombs detonated, a figure could be seen behind the murky portal. One that struck fear into even All Might. All For One.
The whirling stopped as Clockwork shook himself and held his head.
"Sorry, I rarely use that form to do this. I would suggest time traveling but I'd hate the deal with time paradoxes or worse time loops."
Once he got his bearings Ben transformed back and looked at All Might with a raised brow and folded arms.
"Let me guess, is he your arch nemesis? He definitely gave off that vibe and I don't think anyone else would get that reaction from you."
All Might didn't say anything at first but simply nodded at the teen.
"Yeah...yeah he is."
Ben leaned back against a relatively stable wall and sighed.
"Well, fuck. If I had to guess that… Nomu was it? Wasn't the only one of it's kind and now that his first plan was an utter failure he'll definitely bide his time and considering what I did to both of the co leaders of that assassination attempt I wouldn't be surprised if I was number two on his shit list."
Ben trailed a hand through his hair before popping his neck and grinning.
"Seeing as that's likely the case I'll definitely be needing any information you have about him. Especially if he has enough genetic mastery to make something that could give even you pause."
All Might nodded and walked out of the room ushering Ben to follow so they can speak in private. They entered his private room at the school and All Might sat down in a chair and offered one for Ben to sit in.
Ben did so, a pensive look on his face knowing from personal experience that arch nemeses are ever really easy to talk about.
"His name is All for One. He's incredibly dangerous. He has strength, durability, and speed to rival mine. He's not only physically strong but he's got more than enough tricks up his sleeve. He can steal people's quirks and render them his own. He can even combine stolen quirks to create destructive attacks. He has stolen an obscene amount of quirks since he's been around."
All Might started off seriously with no real sense of joy that was usually present on his face.
"He can monitor and observe up to a hundred people at a time, which includes their location and weak points. Another stolen quirk from a pro Ragdoll. He has warping similar to the villain we fought against during the USJ incident. He can make multiple but even they have their limits. He can only warp things depending on his location, his focus, the location of the person, and if he has a close relationship with that person."
From what was being said this All For One wasn't sounding like someone to take lightly. Not at all.
"He is also capable of releasing air shockwaves from his arms. This can be combined with other quirks to make it stronger. He can force someone's quirk to activate regardless of if they're awake or not. Against their will. Another ability of his is that he can reflect the impact of an attack back at its user. All For One is blind but he can use his infrared ray to sense his surroundings."
The more Ben heard the more he was sounding like an unholy mix of Kevin's mutations and Vilgax during his stint of power stealing.
"Damn. He definitely sounds dangerous. How old is he anyway? I can't imagine it'd be easy to find a dozen useful Quirks that synergize well let alone the dozens he has."
"When I was eighteen he had to be a least a hundred forty or a hundred sixity. I'm 49 now so he's got to be nearing two hundred. Besides, I wasn't finished."
This caused Ben to look more serious as All Might began to continue All For One's abilities.
"He can levitate in mid air, has a quirk that can allow him to live for long periods of times basically making him immortal, he can increase his physical prowess which includes the power of his other quirks, can create multiple arms, increase the size of said arms, can create river-like growths on his arms, create drill-like structures on said arms, and to top off his abilities, possession. And that's not even the worst part about it. He's terrifyingly intelligent, charamisatic, and manipulative. He knows how to get what he wants and has all the intelligence and power to back it up. To be completely honest with you Young Tennyson, a lot of the time I wonder how I'm still here."
All Might finally finished leaving the room so empty that it was deafening.
Ben huffed as he leaned back in his chair.
"I know the feeling. My arch nemesis back home was so manipulative we had to build an entire automated prison for him to inhabit alone. Still… seeing as you'll be the one to fight him, and he's so fond of stealing other people's powers, I think it'd be highly ironic if you stole his once you do fight. I don't know how long it'll take me to make it considering my suit upgrades aren't done yet but I could definitely give you something to cut him off from his powers."
All Might nodded but soon rose to his feet writing down a late pass handing it to Ben and placing a hand on his shoulder.
"You be sure to do that but for now get back to class and try not to stress yourself out too much alright?"
Ben nodded as he did so, though he didn't pay much attention to school the rest of the day. On the way back to his apartment with Izuku in tow he was uncharacteristically quiet before pausing and inviting Izuku over to his place instead.
Once they were both inside Ben activated the defense system he built the 2nd week he came here and waited until it was fully powered on and they'd be safe from any prying ears as a faint Mana barrier covered every inch of the apartment.
"You might want to sit down for this Izuku."
Izuku did so and Ben told him everything All Might did about All For One and how it's extremely likely he was the mastermind behind not only the Nomu but the attempted assassination at USJ.
Izuku looked like he was going to pass out. Thankfully he didn't and only took in all the information he was given and thought it over in his head. All For One was an obvious threat to all the heroes especially since he's that good for All Might to acknowledge him as such. He needed to be ready.
"So what should we do? Or I guess what should I do to be more specific. I can't break my body again using All Might's quirk and hope for the best. Not against him."
"Hopefully you'll never have to fight him since he'll most definitely know you have his Quirk. In fact I'll give you a beacon you can use for emergencies that'll synch up to my Omnitrix and teleport me to your location. As for what you can do… well we definitely need to train you more since they've already shown to be fine with trying to assassinate others."
"Alright. So should we do that now? I'm ready for more training if you are!"
Ben grins and nods as he activates a system he's been wanting to show Izuku for a while. A miniaturized version of the holographic training sim available to Plumbers.
"Great to hear. You won't be fighting me this time though. I've been analyzing everyone in the class including our teachers. That hologram can mimic everything they can do. Don't worry about dying or anything since it's just hardlight at the end of the day, but it'll definitely hurt if you get hit in a vital place."
As Ben spoke the hologram shifted as if being put on a random character select in a video game. Izuku started at the holographic training sim and nodded.
"So we'll be focusing more on fighting style as opposed to my quirk for now?"
"Well that and being prepared for sudden changes. The construct won't stay the same person the whole fight and will even start comboing Quirks together at higher difficulties along with adding two more clones."
Ben gestured at his apartment.
"I would be able to do more but the space isn't there for realistic jungles and the like."
"Oh yeah that makes sense. Well, I'll try my best."
Izuku knew that he was probably going to end up on the floor more times than not but he'd make good progress soon enough and be able to hold his own. Especially with the sudden changes the construct would be making. He'll try his hardest!