Chapter 23: Rescue Training Gone Wrong!
"YAAWWWWWWWWWWN!" Izuku yawned as they were in the All Might's truck headed back to school. They had just experienced their first weekend away from UA and were heading back to the dorms. "Why did we have to get up so early All Might?"
"I don't believe you of all people should be complaining about waking up early." Hiro deadpanned, also tired. "Don't you normally get up early?"
"Yeah…" Izuku groaned as he slumped in his seat, not being able to lean against a window because he was riding bench because he got the window seat heading to Might Tower. The real reason why he was so tired when normally chipper in the morning was because he stayed up later than usual… talking to Reiko. However, there was no way he was going to tell the other two men that information.
Yesterday, Kaito had left first thing in the morning after breakfast much to Hiro's disappointment. All Might seemed to have known what had exactly happened to Kaito's cousin, but he didn't spill, saying it wasn't his place to tell. There wasn't much Hiro could use in an argument to convince Kaito to stay for the day either. He said that as much as he enjoyed hanging out with them, he had to be there for his family for at least one day.
It was a short time later that they pulled into the UA Parking lot.
"You have just enough time to drop off your clean laundry and head to class." All Might said as they got out of the car.
"Thanks Toshi." both boys said at the same time as they parted ways and headed up into the dorms where they were greeted by Aoyoma, Tokoyami, and Shinso who were the only ones left in the common area.
"You two are nearly late." Shinso commented as they ran past him, "Nearly everyone else has gone to the classrooms by now."
"This won't take long." Hiro commented as they rushed past and went up the stairs and put their clean clothes away as they headed back down to rejoin the remaining boys who had yet to head to the main building.
"And I thought we were cutting it close." Aoyoma commented as they headed out the door to the main building. "What was the reason for your delay?"
"Traffic." Izuku groaned, "There was a villain attack that took forever to clear to let us through. But even if we were late, my mom's boyfriend could've helped us out. With being an administrator here, he could've just written us a pass because he would've also been late for work too."
"It is fortunate that you have such an excuse to fall back on." Tokoyami commented back as they were approaching the main building. "Did you hear the news about Bakugo though?"
"What news?" Hiro asked, "Don't tell me he has already gotten himself kicked out of the hero course already?"
Aoyoma's, Tokoyami's, and Shinso's silence was a good enough answer for the two brothers.
"Were any of you told why?" Izuku asked
"His darkness shows no bounds and has no beauty." Tokoyami edgily replied, "Even for myself who loves darkness, his darkness is too deep and foul. He has been reassigned to the police academy course so that he may find his light."
"Don't worry mon'cherri." Aoyoma said with a sparkle, "I can show the sparkling, dazzling light anytime."
"T-That is not necessary." Tokoyami said uncomfortably, as though he wanted to be anywhere but there at the moment. "And while you are at it, stop feeding Dark Shadow cheese in the middle of the night! Anything he eats goes into my stomach and I'm sick of waking up bloated and queasy every morning!"
"Non." Aoyoma replied miffly as they split off to head to their different classrooms, "He is my friend and if he wants cheese, I shall give him cheese!"
"Imagine those two as roommates?" Hiro joked as they headed to their seats.
"Someone could write fanfiction or write a sitcom based on their lives." Izuku joked, muffling his laughter. "It's the perfect set up for the next Friends. With them fighting over darkness and light in terms of decorations and hilarious situations."
"Who would be their neighbors across the hall?" Hiro asked, and Izuku thought before whispering back as Vlad walked into the room.
"Kendo and Uraraka. With Uraraka still being obsessed with saving money and that being a frequent trope that is a feature of the series and they all have to repeatedly tell her she doesn't have to go to such extremes anymore. Oh! And they live above a cat cafe run by Aizawa and Shinso."
"If they are the next Friends." Hiro asked as Kan began to call the room to be quiet, "Who would be the next Golden Girls?"
"My mom would be Rose, Bakugo's mom as Dorothy, Midnight as Blanche, and Recovery Girl as Sophia." Izuku stated matter of factly.
"Wouldn't that make her about 130 when the other three reach the appropriate age?" Hiro asked.
"Knowing our luck she'll still be alive and yelling at us for being stupid." Izuku chuckled
"Okay class, settle down." Kan-Sensei called and everyone turned around to face the teacher, "Today will be one of those new special classes where we have a new way of doing things."
"What will it be Kan-Sensei?!" Yoarashi called out in his loud voice.
"I was about to tell you Yoarashi." Vlad grumbled, "And if I have to remind you one more time this week to use your inside voice in class it is detention."
"Yes Sensei!" Yoarashi called out…
"Detention Yoarashi…" Kan grumbled, "Anyways as I was saying. We are to wait here for about thirty minutes while you all pick your other representatives like treasurer and secretary. In the meantime, the support and business course students are making their way to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint where they will be briefed what they are doing. In short, you are about to begin rescue training."
"So that means we will be playing the rescuers while the support and business course students are going to take the roles of the victims of natural disasters?" Koichi asked with his hand raised and Vlad nodded.
"That is right. Also, the support course students will be tasked with learning how to design better support equipment meant for rescue operations and the business course will be learning how to handle things from an operational side for major rescue operations. They will also be assigned an extra big paper if you screw up and cause the equivalent of a PR incident that they would have to help smooth over if you mess up big enough during the exercise. Keep that in mind because you want to remain friends with your business consultants."
Everyone sweatdropped at that. Izuku thought back to how Alex could really go on a rant, and he really did not want to have to endure another tirade. Hiro on the other hand did not want his crush to hate him for making him write more than was absolutely necessary, eating into his painting time.
It was about an hour later of waiting, presumably so the support and business course students already at the USJ could be briefed and begin getting in position that they all were heading down to the front of the school where two busses were waiting for classes 1-A and 1-B to head to the USJ together. They decided to mix and mingle rather than segregate themselves by class.
It was during the bus ride that Izuku was able to throw off a curious question from Asui. She claimed that his quirk was a lot like All Might's. Izuku was easily able to divert any unwelcome attention by reminding her that All Might can't make things move with his mind or shoot flames. That put everyone else at ease as conversation turned quickly to the latest gossip of why exactly Bakugo was kicked out of Class A and downgraded all the way to Class E of all places to end up.
Eventually they arrived and went inside where they were greeted by an ensemble of teachers. There of course were Aizawa and Vlad King, their heroics teachers. However there was also All Might, their heroics teacher and Thirteen, the school's rescue specialist. Alongside them there were the other six business and support course teachers. Ms. Roast (1-F), Ms. Repair (1-G), Powerloader (1-H), Euphoria (1-I), Empathy (1-J), and Party-Favor (1-K). All of them were dressed in all of their support gear and hero costumes.
Izuku wasn't the only one geeking and nerding out at the sight of so many pro-heroes dressed up in their costumes. They eventually were all calmed down by All Might who coughed a couple times to get their attention, allowing Thirteen to do their introduction.
"Now that we all have your attention" they called out, "We will be conducting rescue exercises. As you see behind me we have many different zones and this will be your home through this entire week of classes. You will handle one zone a day and rotate through the others. You will all be assigned into 9 groups of 3-5 people randomly. One group for each teacher to monitor. You will not get to pick your groups because normally when you arrive on the scene of a disaster, you have to work with who you have available. Do I have any questions so far?"
"Yeah Sensei?" Kirishima called out raising his hand, "What's that black cloud behind you."
Immediately all the teachers turned around and their blood froze in unison.
"EVERYONE GET BACK!" All Might called out.
Hundreds of villains were rushing out of the portal in the middle courtyard and dispersing themselves to the different areas of the facility, where the business and support course students were 'trapped'.
All the teachers jumped into the courtyard minus Thirteen and Ms. Repair who urged the students to run towards the exit but then they were blocked by the mist villain.
Thirteen immediately activated their quirk, but the mist villain was fast. Creating two separate portals, one right behind Thirteen and the other right behind Ms. Repair. The hero course students watched in horror as the back of Thirteen's suit was ripped off and Ms. Repair's arm was sucked into a portal before Thirteen could turn their quirk off. The portal closed, taking her arm with it, leaving a bloody stump with exposed bone poking out.
Before any of the students could act or retaliate, the mist villain then immediately encompassed them all, sending them into darkness, minus a few that managed to escape the dark cloud.
Hiro found himself falling through the portal and towards a boat in the middle of a small pond. His head hit the deck hard and he was seeing stars for a few moments before he was able to collect himself.
Next thing he knew, Tsuburaba was violently being thrown onto the deck by Asui's tongue as she herself came on board. With them were Manga, Shinso, and Awase.
"What the fuck just happened?!" Awase yelled out, only for Asui to smack him with his tongue and a reprimand about his language.
"We were dumped into the water." Manga supplied, which got him a deadpan from Awase.
"Where are the support and business course students?" Hiro asked, and that got them to look around and they went to the other side of the boat. There the students were all trapped in the flooded residential area of the zone, while they were stuck on the ship. The only good thing about this was all the villains were focusing on them and completely ignoring the support and business course students, knowing they weren't going anywhere.
"If we leave this boat they'll start attacking the support and business course kids." Shinso groaned as he pieced two and two together.
"Couldn't you brainwash all the villains and have them sit in a corner?" Hiro asked, saying the first suggestion that came to his mind, but Shinso just shook his head
"I don't have the ability to brainwash this many people at once. It is still a struggle to keep one person brainwashed as it is." He answered sadly, "Besides if I tried this many at once I'd pass out from the sheer mental strain and then I would become a liability."
"At least we know one thing." Asui supplied, causing all the boys to look at her, "They clearly know nothing about our quirks, just that we are hero course students."
"What the fuck makes you think that?" Awase replied and he got a tongue smack for his language.
"Because if they knew about our quirks, they wouldn't have sent either Fuji or myself here to the flood zone." Asui answered, "They would've put us in the fire zone."
"Fair enough." Manga sighed, "But that still doesn't give us an escape route without endangering the students in the flooded buildings over there. Hiro, can you create a giant whirlpool and trap all the villains together?"
Hiro shook his head, "I've never attempted one before, and nothing on a body of water this big."
"Well what do we do then guys?!" Tsuburaba yelled out, starting to panic, till Asui tongue smacked him again to calm him down.
"We need to calm down Tsuburaba." Asui stated in her usual monotone voice, "Does anyone have any suggestions?"
"Well…" Manga started, but before he could finish a huge claw of water cleaved the boat they were on in half and they began to sink.
"I could really use a move like that!" Hiro thought to himself in better judgement of the situation he was in.
"If you had an idea Fukidashi, I would suggest you tell us now!" Awase cried out as the boat began to fall into the water. "My quirk isn't strong enough to weld the boat back together!"
"Asui! Through me up high into the air with your tongue!" Manga cried out.
"I thought I told you to call me Tsu!" she cried out as she wrapped him around with her tongue and threw him high in the air.
"KABOOM! KABOOM! KABOOM!"
As soon as Manga activated his quirk, giant letters came out of his mouth and flew straight into the water creating a large explosion, launching all the villains out of the water with the resulting explosion. Only to then be knocked out by the violent impact of slamming into the water at high speed and from the great height they fell, or by knocking into one another in the resulting whirlpool.
"Quick! Catch me Tsu!" Manga cried out as Asui brought him back onto the sinking ship.
"Tsuburaba!" Hiro called out, "Can you make us some air platforms for us to use to get to the flooded residential area?"
"Sure," Kosei sighed as they got close to the water, "But it is going to take a lot out of me."
Tsuburaba created numerous platforms of air that jumped between taking them to the flooded homes where an upset Skyler was among the students waiting to be rescued.
"What's going on?" he said as Hiro and the rest of the heroes reached the rooftop where he and a few other fellow support course students were stuck. "What's going on?"
"Villains Sky." Hiro panted in reply after having to jump across numerous platforms, "This is not part of what we were supposed to go through."
"What are we supposed to do?" Skyler moaned, "When they were placing us here, this area wasn't flooded. They only filled it up with water once we were all in position."
"Looks like our first rescue training exercise has turned into an actual rescue operation." Manga mused, much to the annoyance of everyone around him for stating the obvious.
"Did you see how they filled the area up with water? Did they use any pumps or turn valves?" Awase asked and Skyler shook his head in response.
"I don't see how we could do it ourselves." he answered, "Thirteen used a device on their wrist to control the functions. Unless we get Thirteen here to drain the pumps themself, I don't see how we could get out the way we got into this mess."
"Tsuburaba?" Asui asked and the boy looked up at him, he was still slightly bend forward taking deep breaths, "Are you in any shape to create anymore platforms?"
"I could probably make a few more," Kosei wheezed out, "But I am nearing my limit."
"I can probably help weld some materials together to make-shift bridges of a sort." Awase supplied and the others nodded.
"We can help you with that." Sky said in response, and the rest of his fellows in orange PE uniforms nodded their heads, "Those of us in the support course are good at building stuff on the fly. With your quirk it will be easier."
They got to work, taking the metal roofing off of the buildings and turning it into bridges. Skyler using his quirk to alter the properties of the metal to make it sturdier and stronger before handing it off to Awase who used it to create makeshift walkways they would position between the buildings before picking them up and placing them between a gap between them and a building they haven't gone to yet.
It was a slow and arduous process. Eventually Awase's quirk timed out and the bridge fell apart right after a few business students crossed over to the next building towards the edge of the USJ. This happened two more times with two more bridges before several of the support course students including Sky and as well as Awase were at the limits of their quirks.
It was then that Manga took over, saying small controlled phrases as onomatopoeia words came out of his mouth, and then they would cross over the words before they would sink fully into the water. After thirty minutes or so, they managed to get back on to dry land.
Hiro and the rest of the hero students then ushered the support and students to an emergency exit, its siren screaming once they opened it, and escorted the business and support course students outside. Hiro and Asui were the last ones still in the USJ when they finally heard the level 3 alert alarm go off and the flood zone began to rapidly drain.
"Now the alarms go off and they drain the pool." Hiro said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Just be glad it is happening at all." Tsu monotonaly replied, "We still need to escort the support and business course students far away from the USJ and back towards the main campus."
Kaito was in the conflagration zone with a handful of other business and support course students. He was pretending to be stuck inside a burning building. Thankfully the fires were artificially fed in this space and they didn't produce any smoke. That being said, standing around waiting to be saved was getting rather annoying because he was starting to sweat all over the place thanks to the heat.
He looked around at the orange and green PE uniform wearing students as they were on their phones waiting to be 'rescued'.
"Hey?" One lime green PE wearing business course student who Kaito didn't know the name of asked the group in the room, "Did anyone else lose their cell phone service all of a sudden? Or is it just my network?"
"Nah, it isn't just you." one of Kaito's classmates moaned, "I got no service either?"
"Do you think that the building is designed to cut off cell signal when they conduct rescue exercises?" a support course student asked.
"I don't think so." Kaito replied, taking his phone out. He too had no bars and the wi-fi at the USJ was broken all of a sudden. He then saw a glimpse of the last text he received which was from Hiro, asking if he could talk to him later today after class about something personal. "They wouldn't turn off the wi-fi if that was the case. They'd have to use it for the cameras or other tech in the facility."
"Fair point." his fellow classmate moaned, collapsing against the wall.
"Do you hear that?" the support course student asked, going to the broken and shattered window, "That sounds like a lot of people rushing in."
"That doesn't make sense." Kaito replied, walking towards the window themselves, "If it was the hero course students, the teacher assigned to them would be talking about how this facility functions."
"THOSE AREN'T STUDENTS!" The support course student cried out as he saw a bunch of adults wearing jumbled and miss matched gear running through the facility.
"Are those real villains?!" the other business course student asked.
"We would've been told if they were using fake villains!" Kaito yelled, "HIDE!"
Not long afterwards a portal opened up in the middle of the conflagration zone and Ojiro, Monoma, Kaibara, Setsuna, Jiro, Ashido, and Kaminari all fell out of it.
"Ow!" Kaminari moaned as he got up and massaged his bum, "Guys watch out!"
The hero students immediately huddled up as the villains started to go after them as they were the only targets in view as the support and business course students were stuck in the faux buildings.
Setsuna immediately detached her body into twenty different pieces and went after four different villains at the same time. She rammed her pieces violently into their sensitive areas: groin, head, knees, and ankles, making sure to knock them out as fast as possible. All while keeping the body parts that housed her vital organs near her main body.
She took down her first two targets in a matter of seconds, but her other two targets managed to dodge her attacks. One of the villains had flaming hair that could be used as whips and immediately caught a piece that was her thigh and squeezed tight.
Setsuna screamed in pain. Even though her thigh was detached from her body, her nervous system worked wirelessly and she could feel its pain as it was violently constricted and burned at the same time.
Her eyes full of tears and her brain coping to deal with the pain, she focused on her left fist and delivered a blow straight to that villain's throat as hard as she could. The villain let her go as she fell backwards, gasping for air as her windpipe was now bruised and struggling to function. She only had seconds to get herself together before she was knocked out by the same thigh she had been burning previously came up straight to her face, knocking her out.
Setsuna then focused all of her other parts to violently knock out the fourth villain she had chosen as her target in one violent and brutal fury attack. Lining up her pieces to all violently charge at the villain's face in a single line, each piece delivering a bruising blow before she recalled all of her pieces back to her.
At the same time Jiro immediately plunged her lobes into the device on her wrist her support coordinator gave her, and one into a speaker built into her boots. She quickly pressed a button on the wrist mounted device for a frequency that humans couldn't hear, but animals could. The blast of sound was silent for the hero course students as well as a majority of the villains. However, it was not the same for the handful of villains with animal based mutant quirks.
They immediately clutched their ears as they screamed in pain. They were all suffering the same amount of ear damage as they would've gotten if they were standing too close to a jet engine. Some of the villains tried to clamp their ears shut as they fell to their knees and eventually onto the ground, before eventually passing out.
Ojiro meanwhile had taken on two villains at the same time who were heading to the buildings where the business and support course students were hiding. Instead of being able to go after easy small fry, they wound up underestimating the plucky hero course student.
Using all the skills he learned in the dojo to use his heteromorphic type quirk to the fullest, Ojiro began a violent sparring session with the two villains. One of the villains had a weaker version of Kirishima and Tetsutetsu's quirk, and the other one had a weak strength enhancing quirk.
However, neither were a match for the martial arts expert. They couldn't keep up with the speed and skill that Ojiro possessed. The villains fled into the building and Ojiro went after them, figuring that support and business course students were 'trapped' in there, he wasn't as dumb as he looked.
With a big blow from his tail, he struck the hardening villain across the chest, breaking and cracking his armor as he slammed violently through a door and impacted his head against a metal pipe, knocking him unconscious. The strength quirk villain, realizing the mistake he had made, immediately began to flee, but his path was blocked as Ojiro had used his quirk to jump over him to get in his way.
The villain only had enough time to put his hands up before Ojiro delivered a powerful whack with his tail straight to the villain's head knocking him into the cinderblock wall of the building, sending him to the Sandman.
Meanwhile Ashido immediately began filling up the storage tanks inside of the arms of her costume that her support coordinator designed for her. She immediately took advantage of her break dancing skills to dodge the attacks from a trio of villains that came towards her, making lewd comments about how they were going to have their way with her.
She immediately launched her acid through the new nozzles attached to her costume. She targeted with an acid attack powerful enough to cause painful burns, but not powerful enough to cause permanent damage like her business coordinator warned her to do. Targeting the villains in their joints like Setsuna, she aimed for the knees and ankles of her targets, making sure to avoid their faces which could lead to a reprimand from the HPSC. She managed to take down the trio of villains that went after her with prejudice and efficiency without them landing a single hit on her.
She takes a quick moment to breathe but right then a villain raises his arm to shoot organic bullets at her. She freezes in panic as she realizes she let her guard down and is about to get shot, only for the villain to be taken down by a violently spinning Kaibara.
Kaibara immediately drove his drill bit fingers into the gut of the would be killer and sent him reeling backwards and into another villain that Monoma was fighting with Kaibara's quirk, the only one of the group that Monoma could safely use.
The two teens immediately double teamed a large four armed heteromorphic villain made of some kind of stone. Both boys immediately grabbed a set of arms on each side and slammed the villain into a bunch of wooden crates before each boy delivered a spinning kick.
Finally there was Kaminari who was strategically shooting off his lightning. His support coordinator immediately called him a dunderhead when he submitted his costume design without any kind of aiming gear. He shot five homing darts into five different villains before shooting off a blast of lightning by pointing his hand into a finger gun.
The bolt of electricity arced between the five villains, going from one to another. Once they were out, Kaminari had to go to retrieve the homing darts from the villains because he only had a finite amount.
The seven hero course students huddled up, trying everything to keep the villains from going into the buildings where they figured the support and business course students were hiding. Kaito dared to take a peek from the building he was hiding in at the hero course students fighting the villains. They were all gathered in a plaza that was at the center of the conflagration zone. The villains were surrounding them. They looked absolutely beaten and if Kaito thought he was sweating from the flames, it was nothing compared to the 1-A and 1-B students.
He looked around the plaza and saw giant sand bags gathered in a corner next to a building. Perhaps they were used to replace the weight of actual victims when they didn't use 'volunteers' from the support and business course students?
"Sand is an artistic material." Kaito thought to himself, "Perhaps if I? Yes! And I can remain hidden. I just need to remain out of sight."
He reached out with his quirk and began to feel the sand inside the many bags come under the influence of his quirk. He felt himself become one with the sand and he was about to spread the rough and course material everywhere. The sandbags began to jump up and down as the material struggled to breach its casings.
Eventually the bags tore and the sand came flying out and formed into golems like he used during the mock entrance exam. They were loose and fluid creatures so they couldn't be affected by physical attacks, only hardening and compacting when Kaito commanded it when they swung blows at the villains.
The hero course students were alarmed at the appearance of the sand creatures, but their alarm turned into smiles when they realized the creatures were on their side. Much to the frustration of the villains they couldn't really hurt the golems. Many of them that came into this zone had fire based quirks that were instantly negated by the sand.
Kaito's action and fighting encouraged the other support and business course students to assist with their quirks when they could. Soon the villains found themselves starting to get out numbered, but they weren't down for the count and the hero course students were beginning to get on their last legs after around thirty minutes of nonstop fighting.
Kaibara's and Monoma's fingers were bleeding from the constant drilling. Kaminari despite not using indiscriminate shock was about to enter dum dum 'whey' mode. Ashido's skin was beginning to dry and getting crusty from constant use of her quirk and on the early onset of dehydration because of lack of fluids remaining in her body. Ojiro's tale was beginning to get sore and his body was beginning to collect bruises from him beginning to lose his concentration and slipping up in his evasion.
It was then there was a loud rumbling that shook the area. Both heroes and villains looked around, only to see a bunch of robots from the entrance to begin funneling out into battle as the flames for the entire zone switched off. They began attacking the villains and taking blows for the hero course students. Eventually a robot had come into the room Kaito was hiding and gestured to him and his fellow students to come with him.
He let control of the sand fall from him as he followed the robot and through a well-hidden door that was disguised in a wall. He looked around and saw many of the business and support course students that were sent to the conflagration zone. The room that he was in appeared to be a giant holding room underneath the plaza he was looking over previously and just happened to be where all the robots assigned to this particular zone were stored and charged.
Back right above them the robots along with the hero course students finally forced the remaining villains to retreat to the main courtyard, finally allowing them to collapse and relax. The robots then picked up the hero course students and took them to the floor below where they could be held for rescue.
Felix and Alex were huddled up together inside one of the buildings inside of the downpour zone. They were playing a game of blackjack against an invisible dealer with a deck of cards that Alex had smuggled in.
They had picked a very remote corner in the basement of a building in the zone. They both agreed that if they could pick their own hiding spot, might as well make it a comfortable one.
"You idiot!" Alex cried out, "You never hit on a sixteen when the dealer has a hand like that."
"I'm soooo sorry." Felix sassed back at him, "I'm not an expert at this game you know? You can't gamble in the states till you are 21, so I don't have that much experience thank you very much."
"Sky was right. You are a massive drama queen." Alex groaned as he reshuffled the deck, "The exercise must have started by now you think?"
"Most likely." Felix agreed, checking his phone and noticing that he had no signal and no wi-fi. "That's odd…"
"What's odd?" Alex asked.
"We should be getting wi-fi, even down here in the basement." Felix mused, "I can see phone signals being disrupted and iffy given where we are, but UA is known for their killer wi-fi."
"I don't see them taking the wi-fi down to make the situation more realistic." Alex mused, tapping his glasses as he thought, "But maybe they took it down to prevent us from helping our hero course partners find us? An anti-cheating measure?"
"An anti-cheating measure would make sense." Felix agreed as he laid down on the concrete floor and spread out starfish style, "But then how would all the remote cameras in the facility function without wi-fi? How would they monitor us?"
"That's also a good question." Alex hummed, "Anyways, it'll be sometime before we are 'found' and rescued."
"Fair enough." Felix groaned as he sat back up again.
They were about seven minutes into their new game of blackjack when Koichi Haimawari burst through the door completely drenched. Both boys casually sat up and began to pack up their cards.
"I guess we are finally 'rescued'?" Alex asked sarcastically as he took in the absolutely drenched Koichi, his All Might colored hero costume completely soaked.
"Do you two have any idea what is going on?!" Koichi yelled at the two boys who flinched at his tone of voice.
"Easy there Haimawari." Felix said in a nervous tone of voice you used to calm an angry dog, "Just calm down. No need to take this too seriously, it is just an exercise after all. There is no real danger."
"Yeah!?" Koichi yelled, "There are real villains out there!"
"Listen here Haimawari." Alex said in a placating voice, "I understand role playing to make things more interesting, but you need to calm down. There is no way actual villains-"
He was cut off as a villain burst through the door that Koichi had come in from. Alex and Felix screamed as Koichi turned around and performed some seriously cool martial arts and let loose some powerful air bullets from the palm of his hands, knocking the villain out of the room as he shut the door and barred it with a desk.
"Do you believe me now!?"
"But it doesn't make sense!?" Alex yelled, still in shock, "There is no way they could've-"
"They had a portal quirk villain." Koichi interrupted, "he dumped more than a hundred villains in the main courtyard before they spread out to all the zones before dividing us up."
"That explains why we lost all cell service and wi-fi." Felix muttered to himself out loud. "We have to get to the main control room of the USJ."
"How do you plan on doing that?" Koichi asked, "And what do you plan on doing there?"
"There must be utility corridors that run underneath the entire complex." Alex began theorizing, "The villains would only be concerned with the areas that students are normally only allowed to be in. If we get into those corridors we could probably and most likely navigate the entire USJ without running into any villains. What plans could you have once you get to the main control room though? We are students, we don't have any authorization or admin privileges to do anything in there?"
"Maybe you have forgotten Alex, but part of my quirk lets me actually 'talk' and negotiate in friendly conversation with computers. Without that ability I wouldn't be able to make my inventions assemble and create themselves now would I?" Felix reminded him, "If I could get to the main control room, I could talk to the main computer and convince it to raise the alarm and possibly activate any robots that are in the USJ to attack the villains."
"That sounds like a good plan!" Koichi commented, "One problem though."
"What's that?" Alex and Felix asked at the same time.
"How do we even find these utility corridors if they even exist?"
"We start looking now." Felix said as he ran to another door that led further into the basement of the building.
They ran around the basement of the building in the downpour zone, opening doors and going through various storage rooms. Eventually they wound up going in circles, but mercifully not running into anymore villains. Eventually they ran into a door they hadn't come across before and the handle had a keypad lock on it.
Felix reached out with his quirk. "Please open for us! I know we aren't normally allowed through here but it is an emergency!"
The lock chirped and flashed green as Alex grabbed the handle and opened the door. What greeted them was a cinder block hallway, with many colored pipes decorating the ceiling. The wall directly in front of them after opening the door had signage of a map pointing to various different zones. Luckily the words 'control room' were among the words clearly visible among the complicated map and they started to run, following the accompanying arrows painted on the walls, pointing them to their destination.
The boy's theory of them not encountering any villains in the utility corridors thankfully proved to be true as they were starting to run out of breath. Two of the boys' bodies were built to work in a workshop and an office, not running in the field, and the third boy's body was already tired out from fighting.
Clutching stitches in their chests after running around in the labyrinth of tunnels for about twenty minutes, Felix and Alex came to a halt as they came outside the door marked control room. To their horror, it was cracked open already. Peering inside they saw one villain in the room and was sitting at a computer, laughing at their fellow first years being attacked by the villains.
Both Felix and Alex turned and looked to Koichi who gave a sigh and a nod. He realized right away that he would have to be the one who dealt with this villain given that Alex and Felix didn't have the quirks or any support equipment to take this villain out. All he had to do was figure out a plan on how to beat this villain when they didn't even know what quirk he possessed.
He walked slowly behind the distracted man as he was looking over the consoles. His heart was beating rapidly as he slowly crept up towards the man till he was just right behind him. Going back to his training he got from Knuckleduster, he quickly delivered a chop to the back of the villain's neck. The villain collapsed onto Koichi who then had a hard time getting him off of him.
"A bit of help here!" he called out to the other two boys who were waiting outside the room.
Upon hearing the all clear, they rushed into the room and stuffed the villain outside in the hallway and deadbolted the door, piling as much movable furniture to barricade it in case he woke up before the heroes got there.
Felix immediately went to the controls and found them to be unlocked and completely hacked open. He was genuinely surprised that the system let him in without a struggle, but then he remembered the villain Koichi knocked out probably had a technopathic quirk and brute forced the system into complying with all commands. He activated his quirk calling upon the system to do what he needed it to get done rather than filtering through all sorts of menus.
The first thing he did was activate the campus wide Level 3 alarms. Immediately afterwards the same klaxon that sounded not that long ago rang throughout the entire USJ and all of UA.
He immediately called into a phone line directly to Principal Nezu who answered the call immediately.
"What on Earth is going on!? How do you have access to this phone line? Did you sound the alarm!?" Nezu cried out, he was clearly in a panic as they heard scared voices in the background on the call, and it was Alex who spoke up first.
"Yes Principal Nezu!" His voice getting rather fast, fearing the connection might be called off by the villains, "Haimawari, Felix Springfield, and myself are locked up tight in the USJ underground control room! A portal quirk villain dumped over a hundred villains right into the USJ! We managed to escape the downpour zone into the underground maintenance tunnels and found our way into the control room!"
"Calm down Adachi." Nezu said calmly, trying to reassure the three scared boys, "I sent out a distress call out to the police and will make an announcement to have all students not at the USJ to report immediately to their dormitories. Mr. Springfield, you have permission to use your quirk to hack as far into the USJ systems as you deem necessary!"
With that Nezu disconnected the phone line, but the boy's panic did not dampen as their hearts were beating fast out of fear for their classmates.
"Felix!" Alex cried out after about fifteen seconds of silence in the room. "See if you can activate any robots that may be in storage and have them engage the villains. Haimawari and I will try to direct the students to the emergency exits and get them outside as soon as possible."
The other two boys nodded as they rushed towards individual consoles. Felix immediately deactivated the rain in the downpour zone, the flames in the conflagration zone, the seismic systems in the landslide zone, the water pumps in the downpour zone and began to drain the lake.
Once he had done that he switched his attention to the robots that were stored underneath each zone. Each zone had numerous robots meant to engage hero students. Their weapons were all non-lethal but they packed a punch. There were 3 sets of the one, two, and three pointers, one set for each year of heroics course students, underneath each zone. He immediately sent them out with orders to protect any UA students or faculty they come across, and to guide them to their underground charging areas or the emergency exits, whichever was closer, and to knock out any villains they came across.
With the commands set, Felix took a deep breath as his head was starting to ache from over usage of his quirk. He crouched down and counted up to thirty and back down before opening his eyes. Alex and Haimawari where continuing to guide support and business course students through the security feeds to safety and direct them to the robots.
He looked at the feed of the destroyed city zone and his heart sank. There was Izuku, and he was beaten up. Walking down towards him and as though he was monologuing was a boy about their age in a black suit lined with red piping and wearing a helmet over his head. He was covered from head to toe in black and violet flames while carrying a sword of the same fire. His quirk was just like Izuku's who was almost down for the count.
Not knowing what else to do, he stood back up and placed his palms back on the console, he had to do something to save his friend.
