-Chapter 18: Round 2-

Ben, Ashido, and Yaoyorozu made it to the 1-A sweet just in time for the Present Mic to call out the next fighters.

"There is no rest for the weary sports fans! We are kicking the second round with a terrifying display of power. First, we have the man you froze half the arena for his flawless victory, Shoto Todoroki! His opponent is the secret powerhouse, the boy who can flick with gale-force winds; it's Izuku Midoriya!"

"Hey Ben, how do you think this match will go?" asked a curious Ashido

"It's hard to say. Green is smart, but he doesn't have many shots to take out Todoroki. While Todoroki can play defensively to have Izuku take himself out or attack from the beginning and force the win."

"So either way, the odds aren't good for Midoriya?"

"Sadly. Plus, Todoroki is making this personally with the declaration of war."

When Present Mic announced the start of the fight, Todoroki stomped the ground sending an ice salvo at the greenette. Luckily, Midoriya was prepared and flicked his middle finger, breaking the flange and the wall of ice. Several larger chunks of ice were caught in the wind and were sent back to the dual-haired boy.

Quickly making a small wall behind him to stop being thrown out of the arena. Not seeing another option, Todoroki went for the same attack forcing Midoriya to break another finger.

"This isn't good Izuku is already on the back foot," Ben mutters to himself.

"What do you mean? He's holding Todoroki off pretty well." Ashido asks as a gust of wind blows past their sweet.

"There's three fingers. He only has five flicks before he doesn't have any fingers left."

"Izuku has a big brain, and he's probably trying to come up with a plan."

With one more flick Midoriya was able to protect himself from another ice salvo but broke the last finger on his right hand. Seeing an opportunity, Todoroki closed the distance creating an ice platform to get to higher ground.

The freckled boy flicks away the ice, forcing Todoroki to leap high into the air. Once he touched back on the ground, he went for an ice wave catching Midoriya's foot. Not wanting to be frozen solid, Midoriya punched the ice shattering his arm along with destroying all the ice in the arena.

Todoroki was thrown to the edge of the arena but was saved by a last-minute ice wall. Part of his right side is now covered in frost. The ice user seemed to say something to Midoriya, but Ben couldn't tell from this distance what was being said.

"That's how Izuku is going to win." Ben comments.

"What do you mean?" Kirishima asked.

"Look at Todoroki's right side. There's ice building up on it, and his body isn't like mine with Big Chill."

"I'm still confused."

"When I transform into Big Chill, my internal body temperature drops dramatically in order to balance my cryokinesis, but his body is still warm."

"He can't equalize his body temperature meaning the longer the fight goes on, the more he freezes himself." Yaoyorozu finishes Ben's thought.

"He can, though." The Omnitrix user turns to the rich girl, "His left side can prejudice fire, but he refuses to use it."

"Wait, so he has been handicapping himself? WHY?!" Ashido asks while shaking Ben by the shoulder.

"It's not my place to say, but it's working in Izuku's favor. If he can outlast Todoroki, he could win."

"It's easier said than done, especially with a broken arm." Kirishima comments.

Another ice barrage is sent at Midoriya with all his fingers broken; the boy doesn't have many options. Suddenly a large gust of wind blasted through the arena stopping the attack, and Todorki had to reinforce his ice wall behind him not to be blown away.

Much to everyone's shock, Midoriya used an already broken finger to blast away the ice. The broken boy seems to be talking to Todoroki again, but Ben can't tell from the 1-A sweet. The heterochromatic boy began charging at Midoriya, only this time; he was noticeably slower.

When Todoroki got close and left his right leg, Midoriya dropped down like a boxer before delivering a solid punch in the ice user's stomach, sending him back to the edge of the arena. The boy's already broken fingers begin to swell as the greenette shakes out his hand.

"Look at his arm!" Ashido calls out, pointing at Midoriya. "Looks like Todoroki was going to freeze him solid." True to form, the boy's left arm is covered in ice.

"Yeah, looks like with his body slowing down due to his ice, he went in close to make sure his attack landed," Commented the Omnitrix wielder. "Wait, look at his other arm. He used his quirk for that punch, and his arm isn't broken."

"He's getting more control; good for him," Kirishima comments.

The two combatants began blindly throwing attacks at one another. Todorki's ice blasts are becoming slower, while Midoriya uses his already broken fingers to send out powerful shockwaves.

The greenette suddenly headbutts the ice user while yelling something. Todroki's right side suddenly freezes over in what looks like anger, only to be blown back with another punch to the stomach.

The two got into a screaming match before suddenly Todorki's left side erupted in flames melting the frost on his right side and scorching half the arena.

"That idiot," Ben mutters.

"Huh? What did you say?" ashed Ashido.

"All the yelling that those two have been doing, Green has been trying to save Todoroki from himself," Ben whispers to his friend.

"I'm lost."

"I'll tell you later; it's not my place to say it in front of everyone."

"SHOTO!" Endeavor declares in the stands. The flame user makes his way down to the railing. "YOU FINALLY ACCEPT YOUR PURPOSE! THAT'S IT! THIS SPARKS A NEW ERA FOR US! YOU WILL LIVE UP TO THE REASON I CREATED YOU!" His flames begin to grow in size and intensity. The people near him start to back away due to the head coming off of him.

"That dick," Ben mutters to himself.

"Three guesses why Todoroki didn't use his flames, and the first two don't count." the stars are now aligning for Ashido to realize what happened.

Todoroki suddenly begins to use both sides of his quirk simultaneously. Air pressure builds around Midoriya as if an outside energy source starts to flow through the boy. A glacier rockets from Todoroki, and Midoriya disappears in a green blur, launching himself headfirst into the attack. Seeing that his ice missed, a torrent of flames is expelled from his body, melting all the ice in the immediate area.

As the two boys grow ever close to each other, Todorki raises his arm showing the greenette his palm, before sending a flash fire at him. Midoriya moves all the energy in his body to his arm, pulling it back to deliver an earth-shattering punch.

Milliseconds before the two could mack contact with one another, a cement wall erupted out of the ground blocking both attacks. The combined blows sent debris everywhere, even into the stands forcing people to run for their lives. The wind produced knocked those who weren't running over.

Ben and the other students started to use their quirks to anchor themselves to the ground. The brunette was currently a mummy-like creature with pharaoh-like garbs across his body. He was current;y using his wrappings to hold onto his classmates.

As the dust settled, the stadium could see Midoriya collapse against the wall while Todorki supported himself with an ice wall to his side.

"Todoroki wins!" Midnight declares. "He advances to the third round!"

Recovery Girl's door was suddenly thrown open by Midoriya's friends, minus Kirishima, Uraraka was at the front of the group.

"DEKU!" the brunette called out.

"Quite, students." Recovery Girl chastised the group. "Your friend is ok, and he is in the corner sleeping. The backlash of his quirk is still too much for him. I did what I could, but he must return tomorrow for a second dose."

In the chaos of everyone charging in, they narrowly missed a tall, blonde, skeletal man wearing far too baggy clothing pressed against the wall. It looked like he was doing his best to avoid being noticed by the students.

Ben sort of recognized the man for a second. "Excuse me, sir, I don't want to be rude, but who are you?"

"Oh, let me introduce myself then. I'm Yagi Toshinori; I work for All Might's agency. The big man wanted to ensure Young Midoriya was doing well, but the teachers can't leave the viewing area." The tall man said nervously.

"Ah, well, it was nice to meet you, Toshinori," Ben said kindly, but something was wrong. The Omnitrix wielder couldn't feel any ill intent from the man, but something seemed familiar about him. "We should probably head back; Kirishima's match is going to start soon."

"Crap! I can't believe I almost forgot about that!" Ashido called out, dragging Ben out of the room.

"Anyone else think that there's something going on between those two?" Asked Tsu.

"Maybe, if there is-" Iida was suddenly cut off by his body vibrating violently. Pulling out his phone, the boy stopped. "Sorry, everyone, I must take this call. It's from my mother." The speedster then left to take the family call.

Tokoyami and Kirishima's match was a blink-and-you-miss-it moment. Having learned from their past fight during the battle trial, Dark Shadow launched across the battlefield, tackling Kirishima and lifting the redhead off the ground, and threw him out of the arena.

"Talk about a quick match," Ben calls out to his durable friend.

"Yeah, I guess Tokoyami didn't want to risk me throwing them around like I did before." Kirishima despondent says

"That just means you helped them grow as a hero."

"Yeah, I guess so. You will never grow if you don't learn something from your failures."

"That's the spirit, man! So what did you learn from this?"

"Hmm, instead of waiting for them to attack me, I should stay mobile?"

"I can see that, but you specialize in being a tank, and tanks aren't that fast, so what if you go in the opposite direction."

"You mean becoming immobile?"

"Yeah, with your powers, I bet you could become a wall to stop any villain."

"THAT SOUNDS PERFECT!" Kirishima calls out. "Could I train with you later to work on this? It's going to be so manly."

"Of course, dude, anything for my friends. I'm going to head out, and my match is after Mina's, so I'm going to start prepping myself."

"Ready! Start!" Present Mic called out.

At that, Bakugo launched himself high into the air as Ashido threw her acid across the arena. The blonde bomber then made a diving run, getting close to Ashido and exploding the ground under her. The horned girl used her quirk to acid skate away.

In the locker room, Ben was using to prepare himself was watching the match on a tv screen. "Come on, Pinky, get him to the ground." The Omnitrix Weidler mutters to himself.

Ashido knew she couldn't get a good shot on Bakugo as long he stayed airborne. While throwing acid into the air, she changed the properties to sit longer. In doing this, as the battle progressed, it provided less and less space for the blonde bomber to land.

After losing the soles of his shoes in the acid, Bakugo started to throw out larger explosions in anger. If Ashido didn't already cover the arena in acid, it would be unlikely she could have avoided the blasts. The boy's shout became so loud that the spectators could hear his expletive language.

"YOU PINK BI#$%! GET BACK HERE; YOU C#$%!" Ben could faintly hear from the monitor.

"It seems like our microphone is picking up Bakugo's, um, war cry in the commentator's booth." Present Mic awkwardly states. "We will briefly mute ourselves until the match calms down."

Facepalming, Ben has almost no words for what his angry classmate is doing. "I thought he would keep the swears down for when he was on camera."

As the duo played their game of cat and mouse, the available undamaged ground was dwindling. Bakugo was tearing up the terrain with explosions while Ashido's acid melted what was left. Ashido was beginning to fumble across the rubble, and Bakugo was starting to stutter through the air as his arms began feeling the strain of the overuse of his quirk, keeping him in the air for so long.

Bakugo knowing he didn't have much time left before his body gave out, he went for one last bombing run. Releasing the largest explosion yet, the blonde bomber dive-tackled Ashido. The two of them collided with the edge of the arena. The pinkette was on her back with her hands in her opponent's face burning him with her weakest acid. Bakugo began to pant like an animal, swiping explosion after explosion across his opponent.

From the stands, people could only hear explosions and see smoke clouds. Once the dust settled, only one person was standing. Their face hung low as they were panting heavily; an arm was raised high as he finally fell over in exhaustion.

Present Mic and Aizawa were saying something on the monitor, but a deafening quietness washed it out. All Ben could focus on was the blonde asshole and how he would put him in the dirt.

Cementoss was beginning to fix the arena, allowing Ben just enough time to get to the nurse's office. Once the emerald-eyed teen arrived, Bakugo left, leaving Ashido behind on one of the beds asleep.

"She will be out for the rest of the day." Recovery Girl called out, startling Ben out of his thoughts. "That last fight took a lot out of her. Once she wakes up, I will use my quirk on her again. Then, she will be as good as new. Nothing to worry about."

"Yeah, nothing to worry about," Ben muttered while he saw her skin tone change from pink to dark tanned, and her hair shifted to black while growing in length. The Omnitrix Wielder shook his head to see Ashido as her usual pink self.

"Alright, sports fans, are we ready for the final fight of the second round?!" Present Mic called out across the stadium. The crowd roared in excitement. "Let's get this party started then! This match is between the Mysterious General Ed Student Hitoshi Shinzo and the Changeling of 1-A Ben Tennyson! These two students have several tricks up their sleeves. We will just have to wait and see what will happen next!"

"Ok, boys," Midnight called out to the fighters, her hand on her hip with her whip raised high, "let's have a clean fight, no scratching or biting. That's my job." She finished off with a sultry wink.

"Hey, American, you're a little far from home, aren't ya?" Shinso yells across the arena, "Don't disappoint Mama by losing to a general ed student." the purple-haired teen stretches out his shoulders while smirking at his opponent, hoping for a response from Ben.

The Omnitrix Wielder didn't say a word, only activating the watch and bringing up the holo wheel.

"What? No prefight banter? Fine, just start the fight Ms. Midnight."

"Is that ok with you, Tennyson?" asked the teacher. He only responded with a nod.

If that's the case, then let this match begin!" Midnight cracked her whip.

Before Shinso could take a step, the boy was blinded by a flash of green, then a strange sticky substance. The purplette could hear an ape's chittering. "What? Not going to call out this form's name? You've been doing that all day." Tearing the substance from his eyes, the boy could see a blue ape with four large green eyes and four arms.

Spidermonkey leaps into the air, his tail twisting to point over his shoulder, shooting a stream of webbing at the ground. Shinso narrowly dodged the webbing, letting it stick to the ground. Pulling on the webbing, Spidermonkey was launched to the ground delivering a double right hook to the face of the general ed student.

Needing to create space, he rolled backward when Shinso collided with the ground. "I'm surprised, Tennyson. Rumors say that you can't shut up during a fight. You haven't said a word this whole time."

Instead of yelling, Spidermonkey pulled on his webbing once again; this time, he pulled a chunk of concrete with it. Swinging it like a flail, the Arachnichimp hit Shinzo's side, sending the boy flying towards out of bounds. When he landed, the wind was thoroughly knocked out of him, but he was just short of being disqualified.

"That's just like you hero course bastards. Using your power to put down us lesser students." Shinzo pants as he stands back up shakily. "We are powerless compared to you lot. I've been given a quirk of a villain while you have won the lottery with your quirk. I've had to claw my way here while the world has given you everything!"

Leaping over the boy Spidermonkey finally connects a web line to the purple-haired boy. Performing a front flip to slam the boy into the out-of-bounds area, the blue-furred alien yanks his opponent into the air, yelling, "Shut up! You know not-"

Spidermonkey then zoned out, going limp in the air. Shinzo was flailing like a maniac trying to control his fall, but it was for not. The duo landed out of bounds.

"This is incredible, sports fans!" Present Mic called out. "A photo finish! We are going to need to review the slow mo for this!"

The last moments of the fight were played on the screens across the stadium. Starting with Spidermonkey's leap, the Arachnichimp shot a line of webbing wrapping around Shinso's torso, trapping his arms by his sides. He pulled the purplette off the ground so hard that one of his shoes was left behind. The alien then started yelling once Shinso was overhead, then suddenly, all four eyes dilated as his body went limp. Shinso and Spidermonkey were now in free fall. The camera slowed further as the duo got closer to the ground. Shinso collided with the ground two frames before Spidermonkey did.

"You saw it here, folks! Ben Tennyson is making it to the next round of the festival!" Present Mic declared across the stadium.

Back in the arena, Spidermonkey was rubbing his head. "Ugh, my head. What happened?"

"I happened," Shinso said dryly to his side. "My quirk is called Brainwashing; it allows me to control people's minds as long as they respond to what I say. I figured since you are a chatterbox, this would be an easy win, but you stayed quiet."

"Oh, damn, now I don't feel as bad going into this fight angry."

"What do you mean? Also, could you get me out of this?" Shinso attempts to gesture to the webbing but has difficulty with his arms tied down.

"Right, sorry," Spidermonkey quickly tore the webbing. "One of my closest friends was in the fight before ours. Seeing her get blasted like that brought back some bad memories. It set me off, and I have a bad habit of being brutal when I'm like that. Plus, you talking bad about my family didn't help." Transforming back to human, Ben and Shinso began walking into the tunnel.

"I can see that. But I wasn't lying about winning the lottery with your quirk."

"Not really," Ben said, catching the brainwasher off guard.

"What do you mean not really? You have at least four powerful transformations, one being a freaking dragon, and if the rumors are true, you have several more!" Shiso said in disbelief.

"You got me there, but I can't use it without this." The American Boy pointed to his wrist where the Omnitrix sat. "This watch allows me to access my transformations for a short amount of time. If this thing gets disabled or I can't reach it, I'm powerless. But you shouldn't sell yourself short. Your powers don't make you a villain; it's how you use them."

"What do you mean?"

"Back home, I had a friend who allowed his powers to control him. He ended up absorbing too much energy and went insane because of it." Ben started. "It took him a lot of time and effort to regain control of himself. He went down that path because he allowed what others called him to dictate what he became. He was called a freak on a daily basis until he absorbed my powers and truly became one. Ok, I'm rambling; you are in control of your own story, no one else."

"Ok, I'm going to see Recovery Girl now. I have some stuff to think about."

"Sounds like a plan. Good luck, by the way." Ben said, walking away from his former combatant.

"Good luck with what?"

"Some of my friends told me that you came by our classroom to scare us, saying, 'If you made a good showing at the festival, you could take one of our seats in the hero course,' at least I'm assuming that was you."

"Yeah, that was me. Thank you."

AN: Thank you for reading this chapter. As of uploading this chapter, it is not too long after the one-year anniversary of this story. We recently hit 200 favorites and follows, with 57,641 views on this story. I wouldn't be as dedicated to this story as I have if it wasn't for each and every one of you. I want to say thank you for leaving every comment and for reading.

As always, if you have any comments or critiques please do so in the reviews.