Hello earthlings! I own nothing except a dysfunctional computer.

Apparently Izuku couldn't go one. Stupid. Week without some huge catastrophe.

Aizawa and the home ec teacher, Thirteen, had decided to take Class 1-A on a field trip to a special training room- well, fortress was probably more appropriate- on the farthest side of the school's campus. It had a bunch of different environments that the students could practice in. Because the last combat-based-training they had done had gone so very well.

Kacchan still hadn't spoken to Izuku since the Incident. Maybe it was just because of the classes and absurd amount of homework and Izuku having to do extra chores and the fact that they had somehow formed different friend groups, but it seemed much more likely that the blonde boy was still mad. Izuku was sure he'd get over it eventually and come talk to him like nothing had ever happened. Until then, he spent most of his time with Uraraka and Iida. They were probably the first friends besides Kacchan he'd had since he was six.

So anyway, the twenty kids were walking across the campus towards the site. Ashido and Hagakure were jumping around at the front of the group- or at least Hagakure's clothes looked like they were jumping. Kirishima, Kaminari, and Sero had dragged Kacchan into their conversation about… well, actually, Izuku probably didn't want to know. Yaoyorozu and Iida were talking over possible strategies for whatever the exercise was going to be, with Jiro trailing just behind them pretending not to listen. Uraraka and Asui were talking about how much Uraraka wanted a pet snake, which had always been kind of weird to Izuku. Ojiro, Sato and Shoji were deep in a conversation that Izuku couldn't hear, and Tokoyami, Koda, Shinso, and Todoroki were all walking in silence. Aoyama was literally skipping alongside Izuku, talking to him about how shiny the capital city was. It was kinda interesting to hear about at first, but at some point Izuku had tuned out. Not that Aoyama would notice or care.

They reached the training area- a huge dome made of white and gray brick. It didn't look that interesting from the outside, but the inside was one of the strangest buildings Izuku had ever been in. There was a lake, a beach, a desert, a forest, a huge mountain, and what looked like a small city all in one place. Surely there had to be magic that made all of the stuff fit in there. It didn't look that big.

"Right," Aizawa said, standing in front of the group in the small dusty circle that served as a meeting area between the different zones. "There are several different obstacle and rescue courses in each of the zones. Everyone will have an hour to complete everything in that area before moving on. Do not bring the building down on top of you."

Izuku shrugged sheepishly as nearly everyone turned to glare at him. Well, he'd remembered the Ruling Sword, so hopefully he wouldn't need to.

"The first-" Thirteen trailed off. It was hard to see under their helmet, but it looked like they were looking at a random spot in the dirt. "I think something's-"

And then a portal made of something that looked like black liquid appeared. A portal. A freaking portal had just appeared in the middle of Uyay's campus, which was supposed to be one of the safest places in the kingdom.

A young man walked out of it first. He had light-blue hair and looked very skinny, but that was the only features Izuku could make out because of the hands attached to his face. Like that villager near the swamp… oh. Oh!

He seemed to recognize Izuku too, because he smiled and said in a raspy voice, "Hello again, kid. I didn't think you were the type to go to Uyay." When Izuku stayed silent, he turned to Kacchan. "You're that kid who ran around calling himself the Dragon King, right? Oh yes, I've seen you before."

"Who the hell are you?"

"Bakugo," Aizawa said softly, not looking away from the man. "Do not engage."

"You don't have to worry about me, Hero. I won't touch any of the students, as long as you give me what I want."

Izuku was expecting a lot of ways to finish that sentence, but he wasn't expecting, "All Might."

Aizawa frowned. "What?"

"Oh, don't play stupid. I know the old king is working on this campus. Bring him out to us, and no one has to get hurt."

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

The man sighed. "Ok, fine. Can't say I didn't try. Come in, guys!"

To Izuku's horror, a whole horde of demons and humans crawled out of the portal. More sprang up all over the area, until there were at least fifty villains in the USJ. The students crowded into a circle, not looking away from the villains as Aizawa and Thirteen got into fighting stances. Aizawa pulled off his scarf, which unfurled into some type of rope-like capture weapon. Strange black energy seemed to circle Thirteen's hand.

"We'll ask you again," someone said. A person who seemed to be made entirely out of mist appeared out of nowhere. Yellow eyes gleaming, they were standing beside the man with blue hair. "Go and get All Might, and everyone will be free to go. We do not wish to hurt children."

"We told you, he isn't here.'

"Fine." The blue-haired man sighed again and turned to the others. "Atta-"

'Like hell you will!" To Izuku's complete and utter… well, not surprised, he definitely wasn't surprised, Kacchan and Kirishima broke from the circle of students and lunged straight at the two people-ish-beings standing closest to the group- the blue haired man and the mist person. The first of the two looked surprised as the boys sprinted forward- Kacchan with explosions, Kirishima with… his fists? No something looked different about him.

Misty simply raised their hands and for a second, everything was pitch black.

And then Izuku was in a huge body of water, gasping and flailing to try and keep afloat. It looked like he was still in the USJ, probably in the lake zone, but how'd he get here? Did the mist person (or demon, but Izuku got weirdly human-ish vibes from them) have the power to teleport others? That would make sense, but-

"Hey, Elf-Boy!" A demon was swimming towards him. It was in the form of a giant shark, which didn't really make sense. It could choose literally any form, and it chose… that? What did it do on land? "Can you swim?"

Not as well as a shark. It surged forward, cutting through the water to grab onto the boy's leg and drag him down. Was it related to the shark he fought in the swamp? Why was it always sharks? Izuku twisted and was able to pull his leg free, but he wouldn't be able to make it to the surface before it attacked again.

Through the murky water, Izuku saw a shape hurtling at him. It grabbed him and pulled him to the surface. After blinking the water out of his eyes, Izuku saw that he'd been rescued by Asui. The girl looked much more like a frog than she had on land, but she was still strong enough to drag him onto the beach, where Shinso was waiting.

"Thanks, Asui."

"No problem." ribbit "And I told you to call me Tsuyu."

"Oh, um, sorry!"

"So how did we get over here?" Shinso asked. The purple-haired boy did not seem to appreciate small talk.

"I think it might have been that misty-thing. It looked almost like it was causing the villains to appear here."

"So-"

"There they are!" Three beings with swords crawled out of the lake- two human-looking women and a demon with the body of a person and the head and shell of a turtle. "Hey, little kiddies," one of the women said, grinning. "How long have you been at school?"

"How long have you been attacking schools?"

"Well, not too long, honestly-" The woman's eyes went blank. She turned towards the other two, pulling out her sword and lunging forward. Turtle-demon screeched as she stabbed it in the chest. After watching for a few seconds, Shinso pulled Tsuyu and Izuku away, towards the ship sitting on the shore next to the lake.

"What was that?" Izuku asked, sprinting after him.

I can control people's minds. It's not very useful most of the time, but-"

"How is mind control not useful?"

By that point they'd reached the ship and Asui- Tsuyu had started climbing up it. Channeling the power of the Ruling Sword, Izuku grabbed Shinso and jumped, somehow landing at the top. Shinso staggered away from him, gasping. "How did you do that?"

Izuku shrugged. To be honest he hadn't been one hundred percent sure he could, but he'd practiced using the power to do things that should be physically impossible a lot over the course of the quest. Nothing exactly like that, though… but Shinso didn't have to know all the minor details.

After a few more seconds, Tsuyu pulled herself over the top of the ship and rolled to her feet. "What's the plan?" she asked. "We can't stay up here forever."

"Well, um… first of all, what exactly can you two do?"

"I'm a nature spirit who has all the powers of a frog. That basically means I can hold my breath for a long time, stick my tongue out really far, stick to surfaces, jump high and far, camouflage, secrete acid…. probably some other things I'm forgetting. None of them are very useful in combat situations."

"No, that's great!" Izuku wasn't exactly what he was supposed to do with that, but it seemed like a good power set. "Shinso?"

"I can, um… control minds. And I have this scarf. It's good for capturing things with."

"It looks a lot like Mr. Aizawa's."

"That's not important. What can you do?"

"I have a magical replica of the Ruling Sword that gives me certain powers- you know, increased agility, strength, speed. And I can fight with it."

"I'd hope you could."

"Shinso, how many people at one time can you control?"

"I don't really know. The most I've ever tried is five, but it gets harder the more people there are."

Izuku nodded, looking over the side of the ship. The goal was to get back to the other kids and teachers, and he could faintly see the empty area where they'd first met the villains. It was a long way away though, and they'd probably have to fight through a lot of villains to get there. Maybe Shinso could force one of them to pretend they'd captured the kids and take them to that area? No, that didn't erase the problem of what to do when they got there-

"You're rambling again," Tsuyu helpfully pointed out.

"Ah! Sorry!" After another few seconds, Izuku nodded. "Ok, so I kinda have a plan of how to get there, at least, and the beginning of a plan of what to do when we meet up with Aizawa and the others. But it might not work."

Shinso groaned. "Considering that your last plan was to bring a building down on yourself, I'm sure it'll be awful, but unless Asui-"

"Tsuyu, and I don't."

"Let's hear it, Midoriya."

"Die!" Bakugo lit another swordsman on fire, sending him sprawling away. He and Kirishima were fighting in a small dirty room in the middle of the city section. Somehow about twenty of the villains had ended up in the same room even though they had an entire city to mess around in. Of course they did. Bakugo grinned slightly. He hadn't had a good fight in days.

Kirishima laughed as he punched another demon. "Bakugo, you don't have to yell die everytime you attack!"

"Shut up!" How the hell had he been roped into becoming friends with these people? He hadn't asked for it, but the four most annoying people in his classroom had decided that he was their friend. Stupid idiots. He didn't need friends. Didn't want them very much either. They'd just end up holding him back, the way everyone seemed to. The way Deku had.

Ei hadn't.

Nope. Not thinking about that right now. Right now, he had to fight.

But by this point there wasn't anything else to fight. All of the enemies were either on fire or unconscious on the ground. From across the room, Kirishima beamed. "You fight really well!"

"Whatever."

"Where'd you learn how to do that? Did someone teach you?"

"Shut up, Shitty Hair. We gotta find the rest of the damn villains and kill them!"

"But no one just learns to fight! Someone had to have-"

Bakugo blasted fire right above the boy's head. A chameleon-like demon who'd appeared behind him fell to the ground, stunned. Kirishima just kept talking as he walked towards the door. "Someone had to have- wow, nice shot- taught you at least a little bit!"

"Shut up before I kill you!"

"Kaminari was right, you are explosive."

"Dunce Face said what about me?"

These villains were idiots. They kept running at Shoto and trying to stab him, even with what had happened to their other teammates. Honestly, it was kind of annoying.

The boy moved out of the way as a female demon swiped her claws at him, trying to cut him in half. "You're Endeavor's heir, aren't you?" she hissed, black eyes glinting. "I can't wait to be the one to kill the future king!"

"Shut up."

"I've heard that no one's ever been able to get you to use your fire sorcery, even when you go out hunting. If you show it to me real quick, I'll let you die quick."

"If you'd just use your fire Shoto, this would all be over so much quicker."

Just like that, the entire fake mountain was frozen solid. All of the villains still struggling up it, the plants that had been put there for some odd reason, the demon in front of him- all ice. Shoto sighed, thawing the ice right in front of the demon's face. "Huh. Guess I overdid it."

"Wha… you're supposed to just be a kid!"

"You're going to freeze to death if you don't tell me why you think All Might is here."

"No way in-"

"I've heard hypothermia is a very painful way to die."

As Shoto started recovering the demon's face in ice, she shrieked. "I don't know anything! Shigaraki just told us he was!"

"What is your plan?"

"It kinda went wrong when Kurogiri split up the group. I know we were supposed to scare the kids before letting one of them go to get All Might and killing a few of the others. We're supposed to get out of the place when the monster comes out"

"The what?"

"I don't know! I told you, I don't know anything!"

Shoto sighed and started walking away. He heard the demon gasp and cry out, "Aren't you going to thaw it?"

"You'll get out eventually."

"What? You promised!"

"No I didn't."

"You're just like your father! A selfish asshole who doesn't care about anyone!" She was cut off by a layer of ice appearing over her face.

The boy ran down the frozen mountain. Damn. He'd gotten angry again. Mom had warned him about this. In its own way, ice could be just as destructive as fire. But that demon should never have even tried to get him to use his fire or compared him to his father.

Shoto would never be like him.

He'd continued running, towards where his classmates would be fighting a horde of monsters.

Ochako twisted out of the way of another demon, sighing as she sent it hurtling up into space… or the top of the USj building. There were already three up there, and it was starting to push her limits. Iida was a few feet away, sword drawn. Somehow Aizawa and Thirteen had been able to keep the villains mostly away from the seven students gathered behind them, but it wouldn't last. Both of the adults had taken a lot of hits but had forbidden the kids from helping.

"We need to do something!" she whispered, frustrated. Whenever a villain got past the adults and went for the kids she could get rid of it, but that was the extent of her usefulness.

"What can we do? We're not allowed to fight."

"The others who were sent away are probably fighting!"

Iida sighed, stepping towards her. "The most we can do right now is stay alive and try to help when we can. For now, there's nothing we can do."

"You're right about that."

The two whipped around to see the misty-being appear between them and the small circle of students who Aizawa had not ordered to help take care of any villains who got past the teachers. They were just… standing there, holding some sort of long metal stick. A weapon of some kind? Probably. "There isn't anything you can do. For now, you should just stay here until All Might learns about this."

"We keep trying to tell you, we don't know what you're talking about."

"You may not, but the boys do."

"What boys?"

"The elfling boy and the blond boy with spiky hair. They know where All Might is."

Midoriya and Bakugo? How would they have known? Ochako shook her head. They were just trying to confuse her. That was what villains did. She had to focus on the apparent lunatic in front of her.

Ochako looked at Iida and inclined her head slightly towards the door to the training ground. The boy's eyes widened and he shook his head, but this was the best plan. All Ochako had to do was cause a small distraction, and Iida would be able to get out. He was one of the fastest runners she had ever met, to an almost supernatural extent.

The witch ran straight at the misty-person, reaching out to try and touch the solid-looking silver things under the swirling black mist. Hopefully that would be their solid body. They whipped around to face her, pointing the metal staff at her. Ochako could see now that it had a sharp edge and skidded to a stop but they lunged at her and at best she was about to be teleported away and at worst he'd just stab her. And Iida wouldn't have enough time to get out so it'd all be completely useless.

Ashido lunged forward, producing some sort of silvery liquid from her hands and hurling it forward. The acid cut straight through the mist and while it didn't seem to bother the villain that much, they looked mildly surprised and flinched backwards. That gave Sero time to wrap his tape whip around the misty-person and yank him backwards. Sato picked him up and threw him across the USJ. "Run, Iida!" Ashido yelled. "Get help!" Ah. So they'd all had the same thought as Ochako.

"But…" The boy hesitated. He looked at Ochako one time before nodding and sprinting towards the emergency exit, which thankfully only had two villains guarding it. Iida took them out easily with his sword before throwing the door open and disappearing into the outside. The mist-person got back upright and walked calmly towards the students before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

As she got back into a fighting stance with the rest of her classmates, Ochako breathed a sigh of relief. Help would be here soon.

Assuming they could hold the villains off that long.

Kyoka had not considered herself a very optimistic person. Her mother had always told her to work on positive thinking, but it did not come easy. However, when one is facing a man who appears to be a lightning sorcerer holding one of your acquaintances hostage, a little bit of pessimism is probably fine.

Yaoyorozu, Kaminari, and she had been teleported into what seemed like some kind of cave region on the side of the mountain. On the bright side, only a few villains had ended up with them and most of them were easily taken care of by Yaoyorozu. She didn't look like a fighter, but she was good. On the dark side, a new villain had appeared out of nowhere and grabbed Kaminari just as the fight seemed to be wrapping up. Kyoka had seen her classmate fight. He was good, but most of his combat skills were based on tricks and illusions- typical for someone who was likely a former thief. Yaoyorozu was the best out of the three, but even she wouldn't be able to move fast enough in this situation. And Kyoka… she was a decent fighter, sure. But she relied a lot on her opponent not being prepared for a girl to pull a sword out of her guitar or whatever. She was training to be a hero so she could make her chances of being accepted into the rumored spy academy the king supposedly had better, not to fight demons head-on in her second week of classes.

None of them were remotely prepared for this.

"What do you want?" Yaoyorozu asked, faking a sense of calm. She was good at that. One had to be, when one was the future queen of the kingdom and a warrior princess.

"I want you kids to come with me to get All Might and bring him over to my co-workers."

"I told you, we don't-"

"Do it, or this boy gets shocked!"

Kaminari looked terrified. Kyoka couldn't blame him. Obviously he'd heard about what happened to people who were struck by lightning, which was obviously what this guy was planning. What could she do? Was there anything? Or would she have to either help an obvious madman or watch her friend be tortured?

The pretty dark-haired girl nodded slowly. "Fine, we'll go!"

"We'll what?"

"But first let him go."

"Yaoyorozu, we can't just…" Kyoka trailed off as Yaoyorozu subtly shook her head. Of course she had a plan. She was the smartest person in the class. "Fine. Whatever. Let him go."

The villain still looked suspicious. "But you said-"

"I was lying. I know where All Might is." Yaoyorozu was a good liar. She hung her head, looking guilty. "I talked to him on the first day of classes. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before, but please. Let our friend go."

"No way in hell, little miss princess. He stays with me until I see All Might. Now, lead me to the exit and then to whatever hole the king is hiding in."

"Fine." Yaoyorozu gestured for Kyoka to follow her. The shorter girl really wanted to ask what the plan was because surely she had a plan, right? But Kyoka trusted Yaoyorozu, which was weird because she was the future queen and they hadn't known each other that long, but whatever.

Yaoyorozu led the group around the side of the mountain. It was cold on this side. It hadn't been cold on the other side, had it? Or at least not this cold. Kyoka shivered slightly before realizing something. Prince Shoto Todoroki was in this class. He had ice sorcery.

The villain growled as Yaoyorozu gradually slowed down. "What's taking you so long, girl? Get moving?"

"But… the mountain…"

It was completely covered in ice. Statues of demons and sword-wielding villains were everywhere, all of them looking cold and shaking slightly. The lightning sorcerer stared out at the mountainside. "What the-"

Yaoyorozu silently ran up behind him and shoved him as hard as she could, yanking Kaminari away as the villain stumbled forward so he was standing on the ice. "Jiro! The darts!" she yelled as a wall of lightning slammed into her.

Kyoka quickly grabbed her bag full of sleeping darts off her shoulder, raised one to her eye-level, and threw one straight at the sorcerer. He didn't see it coming, so it embedded straight into his neck. He was stumbling forward to skid down the slope within five seconds. The stream of lightning shut off, leaving Yaoyorozu and Kaminari gasping on the ground. "Are you ok?" Kyoka asked, running to kneel beside them.

"Yay! Yay!" Kaminari tried to stand up but fell back down, smiling stupidly and doing a thumbs up gesture.

Smiling weakly, Yaoyorozu said, "Some people get like that after being shocked. He'll be fine in a few minutes."

"That was dangerous? Both of you could've gotten really hurt!"

"Not as hurt as Kaminari would've been if he had been touching the sorcerer when it happened. I felt the temperature shift like Shoto was using his ice sorcery, so I thought I could get him over here and push him down."

"But you had no idea if I'd get my darts out in time and be able to hit him!"

"I did. I trust you." The girl grinned again and collapsed backwards, staring at the sky and breathing heavily.

Kyoka couldn't stop herself from blushing. That was the first time a pretty girl told that she trusted her.

Which was stupid, anyway.

"If she drops us, I'm gonna be pissed!" Shinso screamed as he was flung through the air by Tsuyu. That was how they were going to get to Aizawa and the others- the frog spirit would jump up on the ceiling of the USJ, crawl along it, and fling the boys one at a time in front of her while carrying the other boy with her tongue. Then she'd fling that one forward and catch the free-falling one. It worked well, until some winged demon or shapeshifter (sometimes it was hard to tell) flew straight at them.

Tsuyu startled and tried to jump out of the way, which, of course, made it so she wouldn't be able to catch Izuku. As he hurtled down, the boy was able to draw strength from the Ruling Sword and land without breaking anything. So that was good.

The bad news was, he'd come down right in front of the weird blue-haired boy.

He laughed in surprise. "Well! I didn't think I'd see you again anytime soon! Not since Kurogiri teleported you away. I'll have to talk to him about that soon… but not now. For now, I have some things I want to ask you about."

"I won't talk to you." Izuku looked around for a way out, but he had nothing. Tsuyu and Shinso were fighting the bird villain, and none of the other Heroes were close. Aizawa was a few dozen yards away, struggling with some huge monster. Thirteen was lying nearby, their white suit mostly ruined. A small group of kids seemed to be fighting the misty-person (Kurogiri, possibly?). No one would be able to get Izuku out of this. The boy pulled out his sword.

That seemed to get the blue-haired boy's attention. "Where did you get such an incredible replica?" he asked, smiling slightly.

"Had it made by a smith in my village."

"Why'd you do that?"

"It makes me more powerful."

"Really?" The boy picked up a piece of metal that was lying a few feet away. After a second, it turned to dust. "Powerful enough to beat that?"

Izuku gaped at the scarred hands. He hadn't seen that kind of sorcery before. Was it sorcery? Or something different? Something worse? He took a deep breath and held the sword higher. "Yeah. I can beat you."

"Huh. You're a surprise. I've never had that reaction before."

"Why are you here? We just want-"

"I'm sorry to interrupt your oh-so-important class." He did not sound all that sorry. "But we need to get to the Ruling Sword."

"We don't know where it is!"

"Stop lying to me!" The boy seemed to snap. While he'd looked dangerous before, now he looked downright insane, especially with the hands still attached to his face. "I know that the fake king is here, and-" He cut off, regaining his terrifying smile. "It doesn't matter anymore. One of your fellow little hero-lings escaped to get the other teachers. So I might as well kill you before we leave."

He lunged forward almost before he finished talking. Izuku jumped out of the way, but the villain was still much too close to him. Damn, he was fast. Even though he was a little faster than the average human, Izuku didn't know how to use the Sword's speed to its full potential yet. That meant that if he lost focus for one second…

Shinso and Tsuyu fell out of the sky.

The frog-girl landed neatly. Shinso fell on his face but quickly climbed to his feet and joined Tsuyu and staring at the blue-haired boy, who seemed faintly perturbed at this turn of events.

"Where did you come from?"

"The roof."

"Sure. Whatever. You're a nature spirit, right? And a Koshai? And you look like a half-elf. Why are you training to be a Hero for UA? Don't you understand how much they hate people like you?"

"You're a Koshai?" Izuku looked closer at Shinso. Koshai, the group of people from the north, were supposedly super-dangerous Dark Sorcerers who'd figured out how to access the part of their minds normal people couldn't. That explained the mind control, now that Izuku thought about it. Most of the Koshai had been killed or imprisoned because of what they could do. But Shinso didn't seem dangerous or bloodthirsty, like they were thought to be. Then again, Izuku was a literal half-elf. He knew a lot about being different than people's stereotypes.

Shinso looked deeply uncomfortable. "I can control minds, Midoriya. What did you think?"

"You didn't answer my question," the blue-haired boy pointed out.

"Why the hell would we need to?" The purple-haired boy looked angry. "I have my reasons. They don't matter to you."

"You can join us." The villain spread his arms wide. "We can kill All Might and Endeavor and make a new kingdom. One where everyone can use their abilities as much as they want and not be afraid of who they are!"

That sounded awesome, honestly. But Izuku wanted to make that happen. He wanted to make Uyay a better place for everyone. And he wasn't sure that the people who broke into a school and tried to murder children would really do that. His classmates seemed to agree. Shinso laughed and said, "No way in hell," while Tsuyu just shook her head.

The blue-haired boy sighed. "Whatever. I'm sure the survivors will agree."

"Survivors of-"

He lunged at Tsuyu, hand out towards her face. It happened too fast. Izuku tried to move forward but he wouldn't get there in time because the girl had somehow ended up being the closest to the villain and Shinso screamed and all Izuku could see was a vision of Tsuyu crumbling to dust and he wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

There was a crashing sound from somewhere in the building.

Izuku paused to stare as a wall collapsed a few dozen yards to their left and a figure strode through the debris. The villain froze too, which gave Shinso time to quickly pull Tsuyu away, but Izuku didn't think about that.

He just stared at the figure walking out of the dust and thought no.

"Do not fear, students!" All Might boomed, glowing with a faint blue aura. "I am here!"

This took me a long time to write, and it wasn't very good so I don't really have an excuse. And Shigaraki is really hard to write. Like, really hard. Plus I couldn't remember the exact timing of the USJ arc. Anyway, leave a review with constructive criticism, plot suggestions, and/or words of encouragement! Later, potaters!