The next thing Denki knew, he and Bakugou were being shoved down into metal chairs and chained up with metal chains. Bakugou had the extra torment of his hands being restrained in a metal box as to not be able to utilize his quirk. Denki immediately knew that his quirk would be sufficient, but without the ability to aim and avoid including Bakugou in the aftermath, it wasn't a valid option.
Denki looked over at Bakugou, hoping that the strategic genius might have a battle plan already that he could somehow communicate to Denki, but Bakugou wasn't acting right. Instead of squirming, fighting back, swearing, or any other typical behaviors, he sat still and calmly as the villains worked quickly to secure him.
"Bakugou? Are you okay?" Denki whisper-yelled, despite the fact that all of the villains were in earshot and could definitely hear him.
Bakugou slid his eyes in Denki's direction before looking back down again, and Denki just knew that something wasn't right. It wasn't just Bakugou's behavior, either, but he couldn't quite figure out what made him think that. He started struggling against the chains, trying to get to Bakugou to see what the hell was wrong and if there was anything he could do to fix it.
Everyone had seen how Bakugou had reacted at the sports festival when he was tied up, and that was by staff of UA. He should be fighting even harder against villains.
"Not much of a fighter. Maybe you chose wrong, boss," a deep voice from behind him said.
Denki tried to strain his neck to see behind him, but he could not get a visual on the person who had spoken.
"Maybe he just knows he's in good company," the red-eyed, blue-haired villain, who the students knew as Shigaraki Tomura, had responded, though he did not sound confident. He was probably also fully expecting Bakugou to fight with everything he had.
Denki recognized Shigaraki from the USJ incident, and his breath caught in his throat. It was terrifying enough to be in his presence among the chaos of the USJ invasion, but to be one of two UA students, stranded in the middle of the League of Villains' hideout, was another thing completely.
"Something's wrong," Twice stated, grabbing at his hair under his mask, "everything's fine." Everything had seemingly gone of without a hitch, so why was Twice so unnerved? Maybe it was that little blonde nuisance who, for some reason, seemed to have sought him out, tagged him on the exposed skin of his neck, and darted away laughing manically, like it was some kind of game. That kid was nuts, surely, even more so than Twice. So why did that incident keep replaying in Twice's mind? He didn't quite understand what he was missing and would have put it down as just his craziness getting the best of him, as it often did, if it wasn't for the others who quickly figured out just what was wrong.
From behind Bakugou, a scarred hand reached out and grabbed a fistful of his blonde hair, pulling back so that Bakugou was forced to look up.
Denki realized it right away, being close friends with Bakugou, but it took the villains a few extra seconds before they had realized what had happened. Denki realized, then, what he had noticed before was the shade of red of his eyes was not quite the same. It was too dark and muddy instead of the bright, clear scarlet that he was used to.
"That little, crazy bastard!" Toga had screamed, as she realized the same, plunging a knife directly into Bakugou's chest.
The class had quickly gone into recovery mode, despite the dreadful feeling of failure when it mattered most. An unfortunate part of heroics was failure; no one could win every time. They had broken off in pairs to gather any stragglers to head to the academic building to debrief and get medical attention for anyone who was hurt, including anyone who had breathed in the poisonous gas from one of the villains.
It was Kirishima and Tetsutetsu who came across Neito's unconscious body in the forest. They had almost missed him, and Kirishima's heart stuck in his throat as he feared for the worst. Kirishima wasn't fond of Neito, but he didn't want him dead. Checking his vitals, though, he sighed in relief, realizing that Neito was just knocked out and not dead.
Kirishima and Tetsutetsu knelt down on either side of the unconscious student and shook Neito gently at first, increasing the roughness until he began to stir.
"Monoma?" Tetsutetsu spoke, trying to give him a familiar voice to latch onto and not immediately freak out. "There was a villain attack. You were knocked out. We're all gathering for debriefing."
Neito had sat up and shook his head, trying to get rid of the fuzziness in his eyes and the dull ache at the base of his skull.
"What happened? What's the damage?" Neito asked as he was pulled to his feet by Tetsutetsu and Kirishima.
"What's the last thing you remember?" Kirishima asked, leading the way back toward the academic building where they were to meet.
"They were after Bakugou. Bakugou is safe. Denki and I were taking on the blonde girl," Neito spoke aloud, even as the memories were just coming to him. "We won, but then everything went dark."
Kirishima and Tetsutetsu shared a pained look, knowing that telling him then was better than waiting until later. If either of them was in his place, they would want to know instead of being kept in the dark.
"The League of Villains successfully captured Bakugou and Kaminari," Tetsutetsu answered.
"Bakugou is safe," Neito repeated, continuing to walk forward before stopping suddenly. "They took Denki?"
"They took both Bakugou and Kaminari. Is your head okay? Are you hearing what we're saying?" Kirishima asked, trying to gauge Neito's pupils for signs of concussion.
"I hear you fine," Neito mumbled, looking away and gripping at his hair at the revelation that he had saved his crush's best friend, but not his crush. "Bakugou is safe," Neito insisted.
Kirishima had had just about enough of Monoma and was about ready to knock him out again. He was close friends with both Bakugou and Kaminari, and despite his normally kind personality, he was at the end of his patience. If it wasn't dangerous, he would have attempted knocking Monoma out again and leaving him there in the forest.
Before Kirishima could retort and say something that he would have regretted in the next millisecond, Monoma stopped and pointed upward before taking a seat against a tree to process that Kaminari had been captured by the League of Villains. He just needed time to think, dammit.
Kirishima and Tetsutetsu looked up to where Neito had pointed and just about collapsed. Immediately, Tetsutetsu climbed up the tree and untied the capture scarf from the branch, allowing the angry, struggling Bakugou to fall, only to be caught safely by Kirishima. The three struggled to get the capture scarf off of Bakugou, freeing his mouth first so he could send scathing insults and threats toward Neito, who still sat against a neighboring tree, trying to think about what he could possibly do to get his ray of sunshine back. Also, how the hell was he going to tell Hitoshi that he couldn't protect him? That he had failed them all?
When Bakugou was finally freed from the capture scarf, he lunged at Neito, pushing him against the tree. He held his hand next to his face, ready to blast it right off of his head, sparks already flying, when he asked, "what the hell was that for?!"
"You would have jumped right in because you feel like you have something to prove," Neito muttered, not even flinching away, enraging Bakugou even more.
"Like that's not exactly what you did?!" Bakugou seethed.
"I do have something to prove, and this was my first and maybe only chance," Neito said, though he still sat numbly instead of yelling back like Bakugou expected. He didn't even brag about how he had tricked him and beat him and saved him. "And I failed," Neito finished, tears gathering in the corner of his eyes as he tried desperately to blink them away.
"The fuck you talking about?" Bakugou growled, letting off an explosion next to Neito's head, sending bark from the tree flying in all directions.
"They have Denki," Neito said, trying to keep composed, but unable to help the sob that escaped his throat as he tried to say his crush's name.
At that instant, Bakugou's anger had deflated and immediately turned into concern. His hands that were sparking ceased immediately, wrapping around Neito's shoulders, pulling him in, and cradling his head against his chest as Neito started sobbing uncontrollably.
Kirishima and Tetsutetsu were very confused.
As far as Kirishima was aware, Denki had a crush on Neito, for some reason that he could never figure out. To see Neito reacting that way was a shock. Kirishima wanted to think that it was just because he felt like he failed, but he could tell, especially from Bakugou's reaction, that it was much more than that. For the first time, Kirishima wondered if Neito returned Denki's feelings. It seemed so far-fetched, but looking at him now, he didn't see anything else.
Tetsutetsu and most of Class 1-B thought that Neito hated Denki, with the whole standoff and the rumors about what must have happened in the gym that Denki was running away from Neito. He thought that Neito might be upset about losing classmates, but not this upset. He was acting like villains had just kidnapped his soulmate, not a classmate that he hated.
Bakugou was silent as he carried the crying Neito to the meeting spot. Bakugou was glad to do it, in fact, because it lessened the sting of being caught off-guard by Neito in the first place. Bakugou knew he was facing villains, but he did not realize that he also should have been on the lookout for backstabbing Class 1-B students. Caring for Neito while he was in that state evened the score a bit, at least in Bakugou's mind. Neito was able to pull himself together before they reached the academic building and was able to explain why Bakugou was currently still among them and not being held hostage with Denki when multiple witnesses saw them both being pulled through the portal.
The initial commotion of Bakugou walking in through the door gave Neito enough time to calm himself further and collect his thoughts.
When all eyes were on him, and it was positive, rapt attention instead of annoyance for once, he couldn't even find it in himself to enjoy it.
Neito quickly explained how he had copied three quirks throughout the invasion.
Neito copied Yaoyorozu's quirk and was able to make a capture scarf. Ever since the sports festival, Hitoshi had been having training sessions with Aizawa, and of course practiced on Neito as well, in his free time, to improve faster. Neito was intimately familiar with the material, as he had helped Hitoshi research different fabrics and methods to optimize his own fighting style. With all of this intense knowledge about capture scarves, it was easier than he thought it would be to make one after copying Yaoyorozu's quirk.
With this capture scarf he made, and all of the practice with Hitoshi, it was easy to follow the sound of explosions and tie Bakugou up securely until the crisis would pass. What better way to make the crisis pass than to give them a fake Bakugou to take and leave them the hell alone?
So, Neito had copied Twice's quirk. His Bakugou double wasn't perfect, like it might have been if Twice had done it himself. Neito's mother had fashion connections, and Neito himself had dabbled in costume design when he knew that no one else would be able to make a better costume for him than himself. He was able to guess the measurements pretty accurately; accurately enough for the clone to be able to stand and run, but he didn't look quite right. His face was too narrow, his shoulders were too broad, and he was a little too short. Bakugou would have been rightly insulted if he ever got to see the clone Neito had made of him, but it suited his purposes in the crisis, so he decided it would have to work.
Neito had copied the blonde girl's quirk. Uraraka helpfully supplied that the girl called herself Toga Himiko when she had faced Uraraka and Midoriya earlier in the evening. Neito reported that he and Denki had been fighting against her when he must have been knocked out by another villain.
Others chimed in then, stating that it must have been the marble villain that a few of them had run into in the forest: The same one who had released Denki and knock-off Bakugou right before they were forced through the portal. It would make sense of how Denki was so easily overpowered after Neito had been knocked out.
For once, everyone was solemn and straight to the point as they talked. They had all started to plan a way to get Denki back before being stopped by the teachers, commanding them to leave it to the Pro Heroes, lest the League of Villains get their hands on another student during a failed rescue attempt.
"It's bad enough that the villains have one of our own. It would be worse if they had more than one. Let's be grateful that no one is there for them to use against Kaminari," Vlad King had announced over the murmured worries of the students.
"Grateful?!" Bakugou sneered, never one for just letting things be, especially not when it came to one of his best friends.
"It's fine," Neito said quietly from beside him, placing a hand on Bakugou's shoulder, to get Bakugou to sit down or to make sure he heard him, Bakugou wasn't sure.
Bakugou turned on Neito, then. "Nothing is fine!" Bakugou barked. "What's wrong with you?!"
"Denki will be fine," Neito insisted, just as quietly as the first time, before standing up and walking out, heading toward his room to scream and cry in peace.
Bakugou was still raging, but he toned it down, understanding exactly where Neito was coming from. Others didn't understand, thinking that maybe Neito was just shutting down mentally. Others, still, thought that Neito was being a heartless dick who might be jealous that Denki was getting more attention than he was, and he wasn't even there to bask in it.
Bakugou understood, in a way that Denki's other close friends did, that Denki is truly a social genius who can get along with anyone. It was terrifying that the villains had one of the students in their grasp, but it didn't get any better on their end than it being Denki. As far as luck goes, if someone had to be taken captive, it was a good thing that Denki ended up being the one. Bakugou still paced his room. He still tossed and turned all night. But, ultimately, he knew that Denki would be returned unharmed. He didn't know when or how, but he knew that Denki's personality and talkative spirit would quickly gain the favor of the villains, even if he didn't give up any information. Throwing a "no, sorry," with a regretful grin in their direction before changing the subject would be enough. No one else would get away with that. Denki stood the best chance.
The real Bakugou kept repeating these things to himself, and he knew they were all true, but he still didn't sleep at all that night.
The fake Bakugou had quickly turned to mush, the chains falling and clanking against the metal chair. The villains started arguing amongst themselves about whose fault it was that Bakugou escaped their grasp. All blame initially fell on Twice, since it was his clone that they had unwittingly captured in place of the real Bakugou, but he said that there was a student that must have copied his quirk and made the Bakugou clone. At first, everyone thought he was just making up wild excuses because they would have noticed such a student at the sports festival, but Toga grudgingly agreed that that same kid was an absolute menace and had also gotten the better of her.
Denki was relieved that Bakugou wasn't also captured. It would have been too easy to use them against each other, though he felt awfully alone in that moment. His heart swelled with pride at how well Neito had done to mess up all of their plans, flitting around the forest like some kind of hyperactive rabbit getting the better of foxes, or maybe a sly fox himself, perfectly messing up just the right things at just the right time.
With Bakugou being a fake, Denki realized he was currently strapped to a metal chair, restrained by metal chains, and no one else was in the vicinity except the villains. Denki couldn't control the smile spreading across his face as he activated his quirk, lightning zapping across his skin as his smile widened. The villains jumped back, swearing.
Denki was about to electrify the whole place to hell. He figured if he short-circuited, he wouldn't be any worse off than he already was. He was helpless either way if no one untied him, so he might as well make everyone else useless as well! They can all sit there, drooling together, if recently inspired Denki had anything to say about it.
But there was a figure moving along the perimeter of the room. Denki caught the shadow of him out of the corner of his eye and whipped his head around to finally see the member of the League of Villains that he had not been able to visually observe up until that point, always staying out of his line of view.
Denki's eyes widened, even as his electricity stopped and he struggled against the chains holding him down. Everything had suddenly connected in Denki's mind, and suddenly, something else was more important than showing the villains just how much they screwed up.
"Let me free!" Denki demanded, not taking his eyes off of the icy-blue ones, straining his neck as far as it would turn as to not lose sight of him in fear that he might disappear.
"Yeah? So, you can electrocute us better? Not a chance!" Toga sneered, still backing away in case he decided to charge up his electricity once again.
"I won't," Denki pleaded. "Unchain me, please."
"Do it," the figure, still half-hidden in the shadows of the room, demanded, though he didn't move forward to do so himself.
"What?! Dabi—" Toga tried to argue.
"I'm with Dabi," Shigaraki stated, eyes darting between the blonde captive and his most loyal recruit. "Free him."
Shigaraki didn't know if Dabi was thinking of trying to get the kid to trust them and put them on a level playing field or if he felt like they were absolutely screwed, even if the kid was tied up, if the kid decided to unleash his electricity on them, and maybe he would cooperate better if he felt like he had some freedom or control, but he trusted Dabi's judgment and it had never steered them wrong before.
Twice had stepped forward to do the task, trying to ease the residual guilt of his quirk being used against them, muttering, "please don't shock me," and "electrocute us all," in some weird, contradictory chant.
As soon as Denki was freed, he leaped up, shaking the chains off, fully intending to run toward the person still in the back of the room. He spun around only to see Twice on his left and Toga on his right, blocking the obvious paths to the man they called Dabi.
Denki was creative, though, and knew how to find his way to the man, deciding to take the shortest, most direct path.
Denki rushed straight forward, putting one foot on the seat of the chair that he was just unchained from, the other on the backrest of the chair and transferring his weight so that the chair would fall. He used the momentum to fling himself forward so that the stunned villains wouldn't be able to catch up to him and stop him.
Denki leaped over the couch, and launched himself at the scarred, black-haired villain, wrapping himself around him like a koala as soon as he was within reach and holding on tight, lest the other villains come to pry him off.
The other villains were on their way to pry him off, thinking that the kid was going to turn up his electricity any second and electrocute Dabi to death, but stopped when Dabi had wrapped a supportive arm around the student's lower back, using the other hand to wave them off before wrapping that arm around the kid's shoulder blades, squeezing him back just as tightly.
The villains thought they were confused before, but when a loud, sudden sob came from the blonde boy, currently clinging to Dabi, they had no idea what was happening. They had never felt so much like an outsider in their own damn villain base. They shared confused looks, but backed off, earning a grateful glance from Dabi.
"I didn't think you'd figure me out that quickly," Dabi had muttered against Denki's hair, neither making a move to release the other.
"I'd recognize those eyes anywhere, Aka," Denki said, trying to catch his breath.
Dabi went to put Denki down, but Denki just held on tighter.
"I thought you were dead, Touya," Denki whispered in protest.
"I actually go by Dabi, now," Dabi informed, but didn't try to put Denki back down again.
Dabi felt Denki's hair swish back and forth along his jaw as he nodded in understanding.
"Okay, Dabi," Denki said, testing the name. "I'm so glad that you're alive."
"Even though I turned out to be a villain?" Dabi asked.
"It was inevitable since the moment you lost the plank contest," Denki retorted matter-of-factly and without hesitation.
The villains all whipped their heads in their direction when they heard Dabi laughing. They had heard menacing laughing, and maybe some chuckles here and there, but they had never heard the unfiltered, pure, uninhibited, happy, loud laugh that Dabi had just let out, throwing his head back and stumbling under the effort as he still held onto their blonde captive.
A/N: I feel like if Neito had been set loose on the villains in canon, he would have absolutely used their own quirks against them! How frustrating for the poor League!