Denki turned his eyes away from the large crowd of villains advancing towards them. Their backs were pressed to a cliffside, trapped but better off than they were a few minutes before. The fire they had started was just ash now, the small flame they barely got to start was put out by the intense winds from one of the attackers. It was dark, but the light from the moon allowed them to see well enough even without their flashlights, which were beside their backpacks... At the villain's feet. All their supplies were in the bags.

Most of the group was exhausted and only Turo had her phone, which she already used to text the others when Aoyama was still at full strength. No one dared turn away from the battle now, but... Why weren't they coming any faster? Where was their backup?

"We're completely surrounded," Aoyama whimpered, ducking down with his arms wrapped around his aching stomach. His hands were trembling and his face was pale, a cold sweat covering his entire body. "I can't keep this up, I'll be sick!" His sparkling purple cloak was in ruins, his costume covered in dirt and scratches. He was doing worse than most of the group- not that it was really his fault. He was the first one that got jumped by the surprise attack, and it was purely thanks to his quick reaction they were able to escape being captured instantly. Who knew he could move so fast and think of a plan? It was because of him they weren't completely surrounded on all sides.

Aoyama was also the only one in their hero costume, mostly because he stole it out of the classroom before they left. He insisted on having it close, something about his stomach or whatever. Denki never really listened to him.

"We need you to keep going, we're all close range and there's too many!" Turo Hagakure yelled encouragingly. Her gloved hands rubbed Aoyama's back, trying to get him to continue, but he just shook his head faster. "We need you to keep them at bay, please!" Her uniform was dirty and ripped on the shirt, some man with spikes for hands nearly grabbed her before Aoyama managed to attack.

"I just can't!" Aoyama whimpered, curling in on himself more to hide his expression. "I've reached my limit." It's true Aoyama had been holding off the crowd for a while with several well-aimed attacks. Denki was always taken back by just how accurate he could be by pointing his stomach of all things.

"This couldn't be worse!" Mineta cried uselessly. His scalp was bleeding from all the purple balls he had already removed earlier in the battle. "The others need more time to get to us, you guys have to do something."

They just needed to last a bit longer or needed one really strong move to take the enemy out completely. This camping trip was an utter nightmare. They should have just stayed at the school dorms instead of sneaking out. Rules existed for a reason, why did they have to break them!

It was just the four of them. A group of four with a totally useless/awful combination of quirks. None of them worked well together, or could even back the others up properly. As much as Denki wished he stayed back, he was also glad he was here. He could do something to protect these three, they would be completely hopeless without him- well, he liked to think that. He was almost sure even if he wasn't here they could figure out something amazing and getaway.

Was he a burden to them? If he wasn't at this moment, he was about to be.

"Guys, take care of me." He really hated to do this, but what choice was he left with? Without his sharpshooter, he couldn't aim his quirk, and even then the group they were fighting was huge so a controlled attack really wasn't what they needed.

"Don't!" Toru yelled, knowing imminently what he was planning. The boys seemed a little slower on the uptake, but it was most likely because they were hurt and panicking. "What if not all of them go down? We'll be defenseless!"

He wasn't good at defending anyway.

"We have no other choice, I don't have my sharpshooter. Get down to the ground, electricity likes to arch upwards!" Denki yelled before turning away from his friends. It needed to be done, they just needed more time. He could buy them a little if he just…

He ran into the crowd, ignoring the cries of his friends. He would protect them! This was the least he could do, the only thing he could do. It's what a hero would do.

Why did he always have to be so useless to his friends, to everyone who depended on him?

Denki weaved between the attackers, managing to duck under flying fists with some difficulty. Most of these guys were huge hulking fighters that showed no restraint when attacking, even if they hit their own allies. Were they that desperate to kill some student heroes?

"Come get me, cowards!" Denki yelled desperately. Much to his hopes, the ones on the front lines were turning away from the main group, seeing that he was the only one that could still hurt them, and they had no clue what his quirk was. He could use that to his advantage.

As he ran deeper into the crowd, getting scrapped a few times by near-misses he had only one thing on his mind.

He just needed to get away from his friends. He couldn't hurt them. He never wanted to hurt them. Why couldn't his quirk be something useful, something where he never hurt his friends? He was so useless in group combat.

That's all he could think every time he fought alongside them.

"Grab him!"

Denki closed his eyes tightly as something cold and slimy latched onto his ankle, yanking him back harshly. He fell forward, but a strong hand grabbed his shoulder and pulled him upwards. His back hit the chest of an extremely muscular man, and his buff arms wrapped around Denki's smaller body with crushing strength. In a moment he was completely surrounded. Big mistake, for them.

"Here it goes!"

With a trembling breath, he let loose, his electricity shooting off of his body from his feet to the top of his head with no restraint. The larger volts arched into the air before curving and diving back down, bouncing between the enemies. Almost all of these idiots were wearing metal, easily attracting his quirk. Even the smaller bolts that could normally just zap around his body were being pulled towards the metal plates.

The screams of the villains were drowning out the hum of pure electricity.

People started to fall all around him, including the man who had grabbed him. He wobbled on his feet, his body was incredibly tense as he screamed out. It wasn't exactly painful, at least not at first. It just felt like his body wasn't obeying him- his muscles spasming under the intensity of his own power. It felt like he had no control over himself or his quirk, even if he stubbornly thought he could control it even in this state. Despite the lack of control over his own body and quirk, his eyes fell onto his friends. They were on the ground. Mineta, being the smallest, was tucked under Aoyama who was also using the remains of his sparkling cloak to cover Toru. Everyone's head was down, maybe, except for Aoyama. He really couldn't see Toru's head so he could only assume.

"Behind you!" Aoyama yelled out between his nauseous whimpers, tears filling the corners of his eyes.

Behind him? Everyone should be down. He felt like going down too. Sleeping sounded really nice.

Denki forced his head to turn despite his spasming body. He could barely focus anymore, the stinging in his skull was making him dizzy. Any logic was leaving him… why was he doing this? How much longer did he have to hold on?

Almost everyone was on the ground around him, their bodies twitching and moving against their wills. The only person still standing was deflecting the arches of electricity away. Denki didn't even notice how close they were before he was grabbed by his throat and lifted off the ground with surprising ease. He gasped for air, his hands clawing at the firm grasp as the yellow electric sparks started to rapidly die around him.

Before it was all gone, the villain deflected what was left sparking back around, and even some of his own quirk... Another electric user, of course.

"Denki!"

"Fight back!"

"Save us!"

He could barely hear his friends. They needed more time… Just a little more.

His hands grabbed the man's arm, giving up on trying to free himself. He just needed to focus. This was his quirk, he could control it! He could fight like everyone else!

Denki closed his eyes tightly, screaming in pain as he directed the revived electricity back into his hands and directly into the villain. This was a battle of control, and the villain had just given him an extra charge.

He felt like an overloaded battery, about to burst.

"You can do it!"

Do what…? He couldn't remember what, just pain. The spasms in his body were intense and he could practically feel the smoke coming off of him. Maybe he was smoking, didn't electricity cause fires sometimes?

He couldn't remember what he was fighting for, but he could feel whoever he was holding into was losing. The grip on his throat was rapidly loosening so he sucked in as much air as he could, but even that didn't help how light he was feeling. He felt fried… but he needed to let them know he was okay.

Two thumbs up, yeah, that's what he always did to tell everyone it was all okay… It was all okay. Nobody needed to worry about him, after all. He was just Denki, the class idiot.

"We're saved, yay!" Mineta yelled loudly, jumping on the spot.

Shota Aizawa, their teacher dully watched the beat-up group of 4 as he lifted his custom goggles up.

"You left campus without permission, without informing anyone. You're lucky Deku came right to me. Who just sends a location with no other information?"

"We didn't have time for texting in the middle of a fight!" Toru defended as she removed Aoyama's cloak off of herself. "We got cornered really bad."

"I can tell," Aizawa grumbled as his gaze drifted to Denki. He was walking back and forth, giggling and mumbling 'yay' and 'whey' as he gave two useless thumbs up. Electric was still sparking off of him. Honestly, after all their training this still happened? What was that kid thinking?

Aizawa wanted to scold them more, but internally he was happy the group survived, and none of them were seriously hurt. By the time he got here, Denki just finished off the last villain with a personalized attack. He was admitted quite the sight to witness.

"How did all the villains go down?" He pondered lightly. It looked like Denki's area attack was used, but he couldn't attack after that, especially not a personalized attack like the one he saw.

"What was that?" Mineta questioned. "You mumbled, sir."

"I said how are you all so irresponsible? Grab Denki, we're going to the school. You all are in trouble. I'll think of your punishment on the way back."

"Not fair!"

"Come on!"

He ignored their pleas and turned away. He started to walk away wordlessly, the tattered group falling in step just a moment later. Aizawa chanced a quick glance back, seeing Denki being guided by Aoyama, who looked like he was going to double over and be sick.

Honestly, the group lasted longer than he had predicted. It would have been impressive if they weren't so dumb.

"We'll all go see Recovery Girl once we're back." He said calmly. "After that straight to bed." He pulled out his phone, sending a message to the police who he had sent the location to a bit ago. They were going to need a lot of cars to transport all these villains. While he would like to stay and watch over it, he trusted the police to handle it and his students were his priority. Plus, he would have to write a huge report about this and he better get to it as soon as possible.