I'm happy to report that I've finished all my assignments for the semester, so now I can spend more time just relaxing as juggling this, studying for exams, basic life tasks and a social life isn't as easy as I thought it would be as I could be doing one thing, and then realize that I could add something to another. Also, I've released another story, it's called More than You Think.

Chapter 12: Second Wind

The defeats of both Mustard and Moonfish relieved some of the stress of the battered and rapidly decreasing pool of heroes and students, but with both teams responsible for handling the villains themselves exhausted and largely separated from the rest, in the short term, it would be more accurate to say both sides took each other out. With the smoke clearing up in the wrecked urban centre, many didn't even notice as they dealt with their walking calamity in the form of Muscular.

That same muscle-bond murder machine was tearing through Mora's hair faster than he could extend it. his efforts to restrain him before were fruitless as the villain just added on more layers of muscles, and increased his speed and power even more whenever he managed to get a grip on him. But he now could focus on fighting him properly as he saw the last of the wounded picked up and carried away by the others.

"Come on, is this all you got?!" Muscular tore away most of the fibres on his body, grabbing a piece of rubble that must have weighed 5 tons if not more one-handed and throwing it at the Shiketsu second year.

Mora didn't even flinch, keeping calm as some of his hair flew up and attacked the incoming attack, breaking it into pieces that harmlessly fell around him. Eyes narrowing, he created arms with braided fists at the end and sent them towards the villain. "Believe me, villain, I've still got some gas in the tank." Before his double-sided attack could land, Muscular dodged the first, his speed being crazy for a man his size, while he caught the second one, pushing him back a little.

Despite the situation, or perhaps because of it, rather than feeling stressed or angry, Muscular was smiling with murderous glee. Tightening his grip on the hair fist, he tore off its ending before rushing Mora. "Is that right? Well then, come at me!"

'Shit, he's even faster?!' Mora freaked, as he had seen this guy move but now his speed was insane. He moved his hair into place but saw that the distance between them was shrinking faster them he could manipulate hair into a suitable counterattack of defence.

Muscular was right on top of him, his fist pulled back and ready to turn him into a bloody smear on the ground much like he had done others, but at the last second, the villain caught something flying towards him, flying fast. He barely had time to look up to try and identify it when he felt a stone-like fist crash into his face, breaking his nose on impact. "Improvised move: Red Cannoball!" Kirishima, filled with nothing but righteous rage and sorrow at what he had already seen, yelled as he put as much power into his attack as he could, blasting the super muscular villain back several meters.

Landing in a crouch, he was quick to get back to his full height, his body entirely hardened as he stared down the villain who was on his knees, but he wasn't so foolish to think he was out. Mora was surprised for a moment, as he went from nearly becoming a statistic for the news to report, to still kicking. "You're U.A." He recognised him from their earlier crush attempt at the school, sparring a look back, he saw one of his classmates who had a mutant/transformation quirk that turned her into a superpowered beast, standing, assuming that she had been the one to pick up the hardened boy and throw him.

"That's right, call me Red Riot. Sorry, it took so long to get here." Kirishima kept it short, having been filled in on the situation by others as he rushed here. He would have liked to stay with Kaminari and Bakugo, but they were handling their villain well enough that Bakugo asked(yelled) for him to go help others. Seeing Muscular getting up after inspecting his broken nose, the villain was immediately attacked by 2 others, one using ranged abilities to bombard him with sand and water.

"Keep it at bay, we still need to get the injured out of here!" The sand user yelled as she felt herself sweating from the intensity of her attack, as he simultaneously turned the debris into sand and launched it.

"Dammit, this asshole is tough, does anything stop him?" The water quirk user yelled, feeling that he couldn't keep this up as his quirk relied on the moisture in the air to draw water from.

In the thick of it, covered in mud, Muscular's eyes could only see them as new challengers, new opponents he could test him against before breaking. He couldn't help but laugh. "All these fighters, man I really lucked out by joining. I haven't had this much fun in years." Forcing his way through the mud, he added even more muscle to his body, more the he's had to use in 8 years. despite this, he could see that the heroes weren't backing down, they were determined to fight him which made him happy. "Come one, heroes, show me what you got!"

Success, however, wasn't universal as while two villain powerhouses had been defeated, and the 3rd too busy dealing with his opponents to attack others, one such villain remained very much active and a threat which Camie was too familiar with. She had been in the mountain zone, helping get people out and using her quirk to keep them calm and distracted from their fake injuries. Then things hit the fan hard.

Villains poured in through dozens of portals, attacking them and forcing them to fight. Huffing as she ran, adjusting the cargo she was carrying, she recalled that she had done well enough, having been well aware her quirk was more support, she made sure to take classes on gymnastics and martial arts to ensure she wouldn't be a liability in the field. 'And things were working out so well too.' She bitterly thought to herself, wincing from the pain in her right arm.

They had been well...too well it seemed as another villain stepped up. Some dark-haired guy with a coast, within seconds, he incinerated 9 of them without so much as a blink or pause, the smell of badly burnt pork didn't faze him as he merely smiled and continued his assault. From there, things had fallen apart as they didn't have anyone who had an appropriate quirk to fight him. Asshole didn't even bother talking, monologing or gloating, he just threw those blue flames around, burning any and everyone close enough to be struck like it was his 9-5.

She and the invisible girl from U.A. tried to catch him by surprise, creating an illusion to cover her approach before she knocked him out. It wasn't the best plan, and they rushed through the planning part, but it was the best they could do in the situation. Looking at the invisible girl she was supporting with tears in her eyes from the pain and shame, she bitterly recalled how their plan blew up in their faces. Flame guy hadn't been caught off guard, dispelling her illusion with a powerful blast of fire before turning around and nearly burning Hagakure to ash, having only been saved by quirk survival instincts which made her jump behind a rock, but her legs had still been in the blast.

"Keep it together, girl. We'll get you some help." She reminded her, that she couldn't tell much since she was invisible, but seeing the state of her shoes was more than enough of an indication of how badly her legs had been burnt.

"It really hurts, I really wish I had a costume right about now." Hagakure hated how she was whimpering, having to be carried on the older girl's back like a kid but there was no way in hell she was going to be walking anywhere anytime soon. Once she got back to U.A. she didn't care who or what stood in her air, she was forcing the support department to either make her or get their hands on actual gear.

"Well, we'll just have to sit on them till they make you one. If you want, we can design it together, how does that sound?" Camie might have kept things simple with her costume, but she had a lot of ideas for them. Hagakure laughed, even if it was hollow but neither commented on it as she kept up the conversation light as neither was in the mood to discuss the slaughter they had fled from or the 18 H.U.C. agents they couldn't save from the villains and flames.

Back at the sight of the ambush, Dabi appraised the area, seeing that most of the hero wannabees and fake civilians had fled, those that didn't well, he kicked the charred corpse of one, though if it was a student or not, he couldn't tell. Turning to the side, he noted that the gas in the urban zone was gone.

"So, they took out that brat, did they? Figures." Dabi had seriously thought that brat was too annoying for his own good. He barely listened to the rest of the morons talk, but Mustard seemed to think he was anywhere close to his level and never left him alone for long. So, he was one of the few who knew he joined because he got rejected from a hero school, that's it. Frankly, someone with such a weak ego lasting as long as he did was thanks to that quirk of his, but he got shitty luck in terms of genetics and wasn't the slight bit resistant to his own power, though then again, who was he to talk?

"What's next, boss?" Someone asked one of the villains he had been put in charge of for their assault.

"Continue the attack, we came here to burn them," He lit his hands, the flames dancing over his skin as he looked towards the open space between the zones, an easy route to take to any of them and seeing how Mustard was done… "Why stop now?" He supposed he should go take his place.

"Guys! I got another one!" Ojiro yelled as he brought another person into the small area they had turned into a meeting point. They had been with the main group when the attack happened but had been one of the students who chose to remain out in the field, guiding people to where they had set up shop for treatment.

"Put them with the others, we're kinda busy as is!" Ashido pointed towards the side as she kept her curse slinging in check as she helped patch up someone, though she didn't feel like she was doing much, largely following the directions of a 3rd year from a school she didn't even have a chance to ask about.

Asui was in the group that was keeping a small group of villains at bay, turning off her invisibility, she surprised them with her tongue. Wrapping it around someone to drag them closer to her that she met with a well-timed double kick to the face, knocking them out and releasing her grip on them to allow the inertia to carry them back into the group, knocking a couple of others down. to

"(Gero), can we contact the others?" Asui remarked, sounding winded as they had been going at this for a while now, not helped that they had been in an active exam before this she looked to the side and saw Mineta's head was started to bleed a lot, but credit to the clasp pervert, he was still in the fight, tossing balls to make the approach as slow as possible.

"We don't have our phones, remember? Unless we scream and shout, we're on our own." Ojiro reminded them that the best they could do was send a runner to the makeshift medical station, but that was it. it would be too risky to send someone to try and find the others.

Keeping up the attack, he jumped around from foe to foe, smacking them with his tail and sending them crashing into the balls that Mineta had thrown all over the place. If he couldn't do that, he would knock them back as far as he could "We've have to maintain this position till help does arrive. Such an assault can't remain unnoticed for long." His statement was followed by a curtain of blue flames that nearly engulfed him, a scream rushing out of his throat as he fell back, rolling on the floor to extinguish the lingering flames.

"Well, wasn't expecting that a bunch of brats could be putting up this much of a fight. But then again, this is a licensing exam, so you're bound to be a cut above the rest." Dabi's remaining fireball grew in size.

"Let's fix that." He threw it, aiming for the weakened Ojiro who couldn't react in time, still on the floor in great pain from the burns.

"Acid Veil!" Mina threw up a wall of her acid, which despite it being liquid, she found out during training that it was extremely fire resistant which meant that even these super-hot flames didn't get through. Keeping up the wall just a little longer, the flames ceased, giving her time to turn to her classmate. "Are you good, Ojiro?"

"I'll survive." He replied, keeping his voice soft as he grunted, forcing himself back to his feet, part of his costume burned off and revealing reddened skin. Touching it, he winced from the pain but now wasn't the time for it.

"Got it, I'll handle it." Mina shot him a thumbs up before she turned her attention back to the villain who had ceased his attack while they talked, strange. Dabi had seen how her acid cancelled his flames, and felt a little pissed about that, so with a quick hand wave, he cleared away most of those annoying balls that were holding back their people by burning them, before turning his attention to the pink-skinned brat who met his fire with more of her acid.

"Jeez, what is up with these flames, they're even hotter than Endeavour's," Mina stated, before cancelling her quirk and jumping to the side.

Hearing her comment made the heavily scarred man smile, though she could tell there was something deeply wrong with that smile. "Endeavour wishes that he had flames this hot, it would give his pathetic life meaning." She didn't have time to ponder that boast as he shot out more fire towards her, forcing her to keep her attention on him while the rest battled with the other villains. Villains who were gaining ground as his injuries slowed down Ojiro considerably while Mineta was running low on balls to throw, only being able to plunk one every 5-8 seconds from his bleeding scalp.

"Midoriya!" Midoriya turned her attention to the underground hero running up to her, much like himself, he wasn't in the best shape but was largely just grime than any serious injuries. "What are you doing?" He was wearing his goggles, but she got the feeling he was glaring at her.

"I couldn't just sit back and let them rampage, Eraser-sensei." She replied, keeping it short and leaving out details that didn't matter at the moment, such as how she handled that first group that jumped her as she made sure that they'd live, but a few of them would need extensive care after she was done with them as Rappa had been clear in his lessons, ensure you hit as hard as you can at their weakest points, there's no such thing as rules in a brawl.

Deciding that it wasn't worth the argument as the rules didn't much matter at the moment, he chose to focus on getting information. "Any news?"

Midoriya pointed back to where she had dropped off Gang Orca, hidden by all the destruction and dust in the air. "They're a safe spot close to where Gang Orca was attacked. I've been trying to find people to direct there but I've only found a couple." She frowned, hating that she had encountered so few, mainly people who were already injured fleeing from other fights.

"Hopefully, things will get better. Even if they pulled a similar stunt to the U.S.J and jammed communications, someone's bound to notice and send help." Aizawa felt a phantom ache recalling that experience.

"Let's hope they get here-!" Midoriya was interrupted by something slamming into the ground in front of them, the impact sending the two flying into their backs. "What the-!" Getting up a little, the two tried to see what the hell that was, with Midoriya being the first to notice the exposed brain on the creature as it rushed her.

"Move!" Aizawa's warning came but she was too slow to react as the Nomu grabbed her face, its hand large enough to cover her face as it threw her like a rock into the distance, the girl crashing through multiple damaged walls as she went with the beast being quick to follow, ignoring the pro.

"Midoriya!" Aizawa tried to stop it with his binding clothing, but the Nomu was too fast for him as it soon escaped, leaving the pro to chase after it. 'Dammit, there was no way that was just coincidence, they're targeting her!' He thought to himself as he chased after it, being slower than the monster as even with his parkour skills, he was being hampered by how unorganised mess as he couldn't just swing from anything, or place his foot anywhere as any of it could be too loose and send him on his ass.

But his day only got worse as he noticed something flying towards him. Acting fast, he shifted his body to avoid what turned out to be a thin sheet of ice that if it had hit him, would have surely sliced him two. Landing, he saw that he had another group of villains to deal with, almost entirely mutants which couldn't be anything less than an attempt to delay if not outright take him out.

Even though his quirk was largely useless, he still flashed it behind his goggles in fury at these villains. "You just don't know when to quit, do you?"

Groaning from her unwelcomed little flight, Midoriya slowly pushed herself up, cuts and bruises aplenty on her skin but at least her clothing were fine, she'll have to send Re-Destro a gift basket for the rushed order his company made for her. "Those hits…hit hard." She grunted, getting to her feet as he knocked the side of her head a couple of times. 'Thank you, Rappa. All those punches are paying off.'

Before she could wonder more about the situation, or why that Nomu had decided to send her to where she was, she was hit by another attack, this one a high-pressure column of water from her Nomu attacker which sent her flying right back onto her back, pushing her like a rock for a couple meters before she managed to grab onto something to keep herself stable.

The blast stopped, leaving her soaked, pissed and alone which wasn't a good combination for anyone as she got up to her feet to see what the Nomu even looked like. It wasn't as large as the last one, but she could still track muscle on its body, one that looked like they mixed an elephant and a squirrel in a blender with its trunk still leaking water from the blast, and a large busy tail coming out of its back. She took it all but didn't let it faze her as she held up her fists, ready for more. "I'm getting sick and tired of being jumped. You want me, Nomu? Come get me!" She didn't care if the Nomu could even understand her, all that mattered was that it jumped right for her, with the girl meeting it with a flurry of quick strikes.

Waiting, he hated waiting.

He had always been active, always been moving, so much so his parents would joke he didn't so much cry when he was born, but giggled as if happy to be out and ready to play.

It was why telling him to sit and do nothing was such an effective punishment whenever he screwed up or got in trouble, he was always eager to learn, to play, to train, all the things that came with having a fiery heart and fearless mind. So when he was told to sit, he would keep himself entertained by counting the seconds, reminding himself that each one that went by brought him closer to the end even if each felt like it was 10.

Now? Yoarashi felt like each second that passed with him useless on the ground after his idiotic failure to keep himself focused felt like 100. Counting the seconds was why he knew he had been out for 28 minutes and 11 seconds. How'd he know he had been useless in the fight for 26 Minutes and 50 seconds. Had been forced to lay on his stomach and listen to the pained moans and confused and scared cries of students and H.U.C agents alike while others brought in more or treated the ones already present for 18 Minutes and 39 seconds.

It was when he started to regain feeling, he started shedding tears of joy. He knew that he should be out of it for longer, but he could assume that his distance from Gang Orca weakened the blasts and shortened the time limit of effect. Straining, he managed to slowly get to his feet, swaying like a sleep-deprived drunk. Shaking away the dizziness, he took a deep breath and centred himself. Finding that he didn't need to lean on the wall as much. A quick use of his quirk proved he could use it, but not to the same degree of control as before, but that would have to be enough.

Now being able to look at the entire space, he took a moment to take it all in. All the bodies of people, students, pros and H.U.C alike, some covered in thick bandages that had blood stains, or when they ran out, torn up clothing and capes. Some were awake and moaning in pain, others unconscious with students and those who could rush about acting as field nurses, tending to people the best they could, including the number 10 whose arms were seriously injured and wrapped up, as a healer did his best to decrease the damage. Looking to the corner, moved out of sight were some people not being tended to at all, the cloth covering their faces explaining why.

This was his fault.

He should have been out there, he should have been fighting from the beginning, saving people, keeping the villains back, ensuring that this…this wouldn't happen. But he let himself be blinded by rage, and now so many innocent people had to pay the price for that.

Wiping away his tears, he would cry about his failure later, right now he needed to make amends. However, as he moved to leave and join the right, a deep rage in his eye, he was stopped. "Wait, you can't just leave without a plan," Todoroki spoke up, the boy also getting some feeling in his fingers and toes, but it was a slow process.

"I won't sit here and do nothing." Yoarashi kept his back to him, his eyes focused on the entrance back into the field where he and everyone else could still make out the sounds of fierce fighting.

"I'm not suggesting that I have a suggestion for what you can do." If Todoroki had said that to him 28 Minutes and 47 seconds ago, he would have blown him off, but if he could interact with his past self, he would smack him upside the head and tell him to follow his lead.

"I'm listening, make it quirk." He may have complicated feelings towards Todoroki, but he had to accept that he was one of the only people here with prior experience with the League by being from class 1-A. If anyone could offer him some good information, it would be him.

"When the U.S.J and Hosu were attacked, there were two villains, the leaders that didn't fight at first. They stayed back and let the rest of the villains and their Nomu fight for them. But when pressed, they both fled, ending the attack." Todoroki relayed to him, with the taller boy nodding as he thought about what that could mean for the present situation.

"So, if I find them, and force them to retreat, this ends?" He asked him, happy that it meant he could end things much sooner than just flying around and taking out villains whenever he could.

"That was how it worked then. If I had to hazard a guess of where they were, it would be somewhere they can keep an eye on things." Todoroki replied, having read the report his father filed to the commission about the Hosu incident. He knew that the two had been there as well, that they had only left when local heroes spotted them.

"Understood." With that said, Yoarashi was out, willing his wind into existence as he created a tornado around his lower half, increasing his speed as he came bursting out of the entranceway back into the arena to see the chaos.

Outside, Mina kept up the fight against Dabi, his acid neutralizing his flames and forcing both to fight a little more creatively as his flames made trying to hit him close to impossible. Not helped by the fact he was nimble as hell, dodging her attacks that did make it through and answering it with his own. After throwing up another acid veil, she winced as her quirk's limits were starting to catch up to her, not just from this fight but from the others and the exam beforehand.

'His fire is way too hot, the only thing I have going is that he isn't blasting them off left and right like Todoroki would.' Mina had noticed that a little bit into the fight, Dabi wouldn't just keep up the floor and try and overwhelm her as while she could create barriers, she wasn't all that confident it would be enough if he fired off a blast of sustained fire like Todoroki and his father would.

But she wasn't fighting alone, so she waited and when she forced him back with a stream of acid from her hands, she capitalised. "Now!"

Dabi's eyes widened a little when he realized where he was, when he wasn't paying attention, Ojiro had broken away from the other villains and came right for him. With his arms still smoking from his previous attacks, he was forced to cross them and block the strike from the tailed student, he felt like his arms were about to bend under the pressure of the strike from the powerful appendage, sending him back some ways from the two. Landing, he heard something fly by him, turning to see what that was, he saw that it was some sort of disk that had landed on a piece of rock not too far from him.

Not a moment later, he was struck from behind by lightning. 9m behind him, Kaminari kept up the attack, having rushed on over when he saw the flames. His eyes were hardened and tear-filled as he had seen the damage these guys had done, just like that Magne lady back in the mountains. "Sorry I'm late, but Chargebolt isn't letting you off easy." He stated as he increased the power to knock this guy out, but Dabi proved to be tougher than most as even while ceasing up, he was still able to point a palm at Kaminari who cursed as he jumped to the side, avoiding the burst of flames.

With the lightning over, the villain twitched as he slowly got back up to his feet. "Damn, that was intense." Coming out of his hiding spot, Kaminari fired off a couple more pointers but now wise to these disks, Dabi either destroyed with fire or made sure he was nowhere close to where they landed.

"How the hell are you still standing?!" Kaminari yelled at him, he had used his quirk to knock out guys twice his size.

"I have a high pain tolerance," Dani let out a short laugh, his smoking hands lighting on fire once more, building strength before he roasted the blonde alive. "Kinda have to with a quirk like mine."

"Then I'll finish this off quickly," Quickly turning back to the other two, he cursed as he realized he had forgotten about them and was now caught with his pants down. Before he could burn the kid, Ojiro's tail struck home, hitting him right in the face and sending him crashing to the ground, down for the count. Seeing that the villain's main guy was down, the three students took a second to catch their breath, all of them exhausted in some way as Kaminari had rushed there from another fight, and had less than a 4th of his pointers left. Mina could feel her skin burning from approaching her limit with her acid, having been forced to use it far more than normal just to keep the scarred dark-haired villain at bay.

Ojiro was in serious plan, with his burns being the most serious of his concerns. Getting up, he approached the villain to restrain him before he could attack them again but was surprised when he saw the guy turning into a grey sludge.

Feeling his body failing, the clone laughed even in defeat as he had managed to cause some real chaos before the kids managed to defeat him. "Sorry, kiddos. You didn't think it'd be that easy, did you?" He asked them, not getting an answer before he was nothing more than a puddle of sludge. "Just what the hell was that? Did he die?" Kaminari asked.

"How should I know? His quirk was fire, I didn't know he had two of them!" A tired and freaking out Ashido yelled back at him as Ojiro inspected the stuff, noting that there wasn't anything left of the villain, no blood, hair or piece of clothing.

"I don't think that was his quirk," His statement stopped the two from bickering. "I think that was a duplicate."

"A what?" Kaminari scratched his head, not knowing what that word was.

Ojiro, despite the pain he was in, rolled his eyes at his classmate. "A copy, Kaminari. Which means that there could be more of them."

Hearing that, Mina fell onto her back, looking into the sky while sighing as loudly as she could. "Just great…like we needed any more pyromaniacs."

With the real Dabi, he was far away from them, in the forest area. The entire place was on fire but he was unbothered as he had enjoyed the fight against the hero who despite having the numbers, wasn't enough to take him as he now stood before the charred remains of 2 dozen of them, the meagre few that remained having fled, a smart move.

Before he would move on, he felt his earpiece vibrating, signalling he was being called. Reaching for it, he answered. "What?"

"Looks like your clone got taken out, Dabi-damn it was weak as hell!" The person on the other hand-Twice reported to him.

Looking around and seeing no one close by, he leaned against the wall of the burned-out warehouse. "Which one?"

"The one on the field-the one at the grocery store getting lemons and fruit cakes!" Twice replied. Interesting, he had expected it to be one of those inside the place with the commissioners, but apparently, he had given those pencil pushers too much credit. "What another one?" He thought about it for a second before answering the question with one of his own.

"Did it do its job?"

"Yep-it was horrible!" Dabi nodded his head, that was good as the reason they had decided to send a clone into the field was to sow further chaos and kill as many students and civilians as possible. Is it crude? Yes, but it served their goals so Dabi couldn't care less about them.

"Then we don't need to send out another. Just keep up the pressure inside the stadium, we need to keep the pros and commissioners pinned down a little longer." Dabi instructed him, sparing his watch, one made to be extremely fire resistant, a glance and saw that it had been around 30 minutes since the attack had begun. They had maybe another 15 minutes before the heroes figured out something was wrong and sent people.

"Got it, see you soon-Die in a ditch!" Twice ended the call, leaving the man alone with nothing but the remains of his victims. Sparring them a glance, he felt…something for it, but he wouldn't call it remorse nor guilt as it felt too light, but it wasn't joy either.

Deciding to throw whatever that feeling was into a box in the back of his mind, he decided to focus on what he could understand. "Crazy bastard."

"How'd you d-!" The smartly dressed man with an overcoat and cane started to speak, but Mera didn't give him time to say anything more, his gun already out he aimed and fired off two shots. One through the forearm and the other through the shin to disable him. However, while the man did stutter from the surprise and pain of being shot twice, his body started falling apart, reduced to a pile of brown sludge on the floor in less than 5 seconds.

Looking at the sludge with nothing but contempt, Mera ejected the magazine from his pistol to inspect how many rounds he still had left. "I'm getting sick and tired of these damn clones." That was the 11th one he's run into in less than 15 minutes. Seeing that he only had 3 rounds left, the man cursed as he placed the nearly spent magazine back into his gun. It wouldn't be too much of an issue but he only had the 2 mags on him, and he had already burned through the first one. Cursing the fact that his quirk just made him capable of understanding any language he heard, he wished for the first time since he was a kid for one that could be used in a fight.

Rounding the corner, he looked about for a second, confirming that there was no smoke on this side of the building, he took off his mask and instructed the two with him to do the same to conserve what little oxygen they carried with them. The only good thing they had going for them was the fact that the entire place wasn't on fire as whoever was spreading the flames was leaving them limited mainly to entrances and choke points.

Approaching a window, he looked out over the arena and saw nothing but madness, even from this distance he would make out the figures of students and teachers alike fighting, with corpses littering the place, no one in any position to retrieve and look after them. 'I just know I'm not getting any sleep after this mess.' Mero thought to himself, but he would be damn sure that there was hell to pay for this. That the villains would pay dearly for this attack and all the spilt blood.

'And we were dumb enough to think they wouldn't have the stones…now it's all gone to hell.' However, there was a part of him that recognised that by choosing to attack them during the exam, the villains had picked one of the best times and places to do it. Logic dictated that assaulting such a large gathering of hero students who had heroes to back them up would be suicide, peak stupidity but it was because it was so insane that lowered security and other safety measures, enough for the villains to slip on through and cause havoc.

"Report," Intelli asked her friends, the group of girls covered in dirt and smoke stains but still standing. Having been inside the stadium, they had been in the process of changing out of their costumes and back into their uniform, saddened by the fact they were returning without a single one of them having a license, only to be disturbed by the first shocks. Rushing back out, they had found the place in flames and had to fight their way out of the place.

"We've handled the fires in the 3rd and 4th floors, but it's going to take time to make it through to the 2nd. Someone demolished the place and the stairs are no longer useable." Gorgon replied, the girl's hair burnt a little form having used it to move debris and snuff out flames.

"We can't keep going like this," Intelli muttered, as that was the 2nd spot they tried to use to get to the lower floors. The first had been blocked off by a villain with a powerful flame quirk that kept them back. She had thought they could snuff out flames by depriving them of oxygen but dismissed that out of hand. It would take far too long to find the ventilation control centre and rig it if it was even still in operation as overhead lights were dying left and right.

"Ms. Psy. We can continue. We have to." Horibe, the ever-calm Horibe spoke up. Looking at the girls, at her friends, she saw each of them was ready to keep this up. Even if she felt like she failed them during the exam, she wouldn't fail them here.

With some extra energy in her step, she closed her eyes for a moment to think of a plan, using the last dregs of the tea she drank earlier to push her increased IQ to its limits before she spoke up. "Well said, ladies. Alright, if the stairs are a no-go down west, then we can try heading to-!" The wall close to them exploded, sending some of them to the ground on their buts or hands and knees with Intelli being in the latter.

Coughing to clear her lungs of the dust, she looked around. "Is everyone alright?!"

"We think so!" Ishizuka called back to her as the group started to get up, only to hear something coming from where the wall exploded, the sounds of grunts.

"What is that?" Turning to it, they only had to wait a couple of seconds for the dust cloud to clear enough to see what had caused it which scared them to the bone. Before them, was a Nomu, far larger than the ones that had rampaged through Hosu, its busy squirrel-like tail broken but still attached. It looked like the thing had been beaten quite badly as its pale yellow skin was covered with bruises, some small, most serious as if whatever was striking it had broken bone. Its elephant-like trunk was missing, the remains of which hanging off its nose after whatever this thing had been fighting tore that off.

However, it wasn't the beast that was making a sound. It was, but it was softer and didn't sound right. Instead, it was whoever it was fighting as they could see it was trying to restrain someone lying on the rubble of the wall they had entered through. "Hold on-it has someone in its arms!" With the dust clearing further, Intelli could make out that it was a girl, around their age but she didn't recognise her as anyone from a big-name school. She wasn't even in a hero costume, but just wearing specialised underwear.

It was only once she saw the green hair and eye peeking out from under the Nomu's hand that she recognised who this was. Throwing aside her confusion at how Midoriya Izuku was here of all places, she immediately analysed the situation before making her call.

"Yuki!" The elf-eared girl looked at her, but after a moment, decided to go along with whatever Intelli was planning as she rushed the Nomu which wasn't even paying attention to them. A mistake on its part as she activated her quirk, forming hammers attached to her back.

"Let her girl, you foul beast!" Getting close to the Nomu, she hit the beast as hard as she could with her quirk, knocking it off the girl who started coughing and spitting out the flesh of the hand she had bit into in her efforts to escape. Missing its target, the beast didn't even react to the pain of the additional attacks, just roaring at them as it saw them helping the girl it had been instructed to capture. But it was stopped once more when another one of the unimportant ones grabbed onto it with their hair.

"You're not welcome here." Gorgon fixed her glasses as she tossed the beast out of the hole it had formed on its entry. She knew it would back, they all did but it bought them some time to think.

Next chapter will be out October 18th, but if you want to read it early, head on over to my p-a-t-r-e-o-n at p-a-t-r-e-o-n / Ducksmakegreatminers, every cent counts and even if you join at the lowest tier, it will help me alot in improving this.

Special thanks to my Patrons(s):

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