The Gunslinger Hero: Flintlock

by Professor Donger

After 8 years in America Izumi Midoriya is asked to return home to Japan to teach at UA. She won't be coming back as some quirkless little girl though. She'll be returning as The Lone Star State's Number 2 Hero. The Gunslinger Hero: Flintlock! Fem!Izumi! Izumi Has a GUN! Cowritten by Damian02 on AO3

20. Chapter 20

AN: Professor Donger: Hey guys welcome to Chapter 20! We hope you guys enjoy it! Remember when we said the Sports Festival was gonna be like one chapter? We lied. We lied bad.

Damian: You know, like liars, who lie. But I don't think anyone is complaining especially with this second event.

Side note, we now have a discord dedicated to our works! It's the best place to interact with us and get updates on Flintlock regularly, so feel free to hop in! Join D&D's Writing Dungeon: /FtncGPxWak

We have cookies.

---

Katsuki was having the time of his life. He thought it was fun to blow up robots in the entrance exam, but who knew putting robots in Stormtrooper armor and blowing them up would be even more satisfying?

He dodged a blaster bolt that had been aimed at his torso and fired back with one that he had stolen from a downed trooper. He knew his explosions would get the job done better, and that the wrist guards that Momo had made for him would help reduce the recoil he received, but he didn't want to waste any of his firepower on these small fry.

Plus, getting into a gunfight with blasters was way more fun. He was starting to see why Deku did this all the time.

He wanted to go after that boss, he wanted to break its shit with his own two hands! Unfortunately, he missed Deku announcing it earlier (the sound of blaster fire, explosions, and maniacal laughter tends to drown out other sounds), but that didn't stop his thirst for blood!

He blew a hole in another trooper before his blaster ran out of charge, he immediately discarded it by throwing it at the nearest trooper to him before jumping on top of it and bashing the shit out of it with his fist.

Yeah, this was heaven as far as Katsuki was concerned.

Momo flinched from her position near him as a concerning laugh that sounded a tad bit unhinged escaped from her friend's lips as he brutalized the robot under him.

"Are… are you okay?" She felt the need to ask before flinching as Katsuki pulled the Robot's head from its body, helmet and all.

Katsuki stood up, breathing heavily as he grinned and crushed the robot's head and helmet with ease, small explosions crackling from his hands as he did so, making it so he actually could destroy the head. "I've never felt so alive, Momo." He glanced at her "Any idea how many points we're at? I stopped counting after the blood rage kicked in."

"The… what?"

"Don't worry about it, some Khornite shit, what's the tally?"

"Uhh…"

"We're at a couple thousand at least," Kyouka added as she pulled her jacks from the remains of a few troopers and walked up to them, "Kaminari is already heading upstairs, I think he forgot we're a team."

"That bitch!" Katsuki growled, "He wants to steal my kills!"

Momo chimed in, "I think he mentioned wanting to scout ahead, actually."

"That's just slang for kill stealing!" Katsuki didn't even bother rushing for the staircase as he lifted his hands to the ceiling. Momo quickly covered her ears while Kyouka just shrugged, her jacks were already plugged thanks to the gear that Momo gave her so it wasn't any big concern to her as Katsuki blew a hole through the roof.

He was about to jump up into the hole in question when Momo power-marched up to him and started her lecture. "Katsuki Bakugou! You could have hit another team! What would–"

She didn't get a chance to finish as Katsuki grabbed her and slung her over his shoulder. "No time! We should be killing, not talking! More talking means less killing!" He glanced at Kyouka and pointed at his back. "Hop on!"

Momo started yelling and kicking, "Put me down this instant!"

Kyouka just shrugged once again and hopped onto Katuski's back without complaint, she blushed a little as her chest touched his back. 'Holy shit he's fit.'

Katsuki however, ignored both of them as he powered up an explosion in his free hand. "We ride for War!"

With that he leaped through the hole, fully expecting a battlefield that could sate his blood lust. Sadly, upon landing and putting the girls down he was face to face with Denki sitting leisurely atop a pile of robot corpses, fiddling with one of the blasters.

"I fucking told you he was stealing my kills! What the fuck Pikachu? You stole my kills!" Katsuki growled as he marched toward Denki with murderous intent.

"Hey guys! Did you know that these blasters work by shooting electric currents into your limbs and numbing them?" He quickly said as he threw the blaster to the side. "It's so uncivilized."

Kyouka looked at the mound of "dead" stormtroopers beneath Denki. "How the hell…?"

"Oh, these guys?" Denki kicked a helmet down the mound, rolling to a stop at the group's feet. "Yeah, turns out my quirk makes me immune to the intended effects of the blasters. Pretty convenient, right? I was eating their attacks like 'who is your god now?!'" He twitched as a current of electricity ran through his body. "Though I'm gonna have to discharge that extra energy soon or it's gonna start really fucking with me. I feel so… jittery."

"How did you even manage to find this many? I would have thought the other teams would take a couple out." Kyouka asked with a frown as she kicked away a blaster.

Momo was busy scowling at Katsuki before she shook her head and looked around, "Wait where are the other teams?"

"Oh, yeah, when I came up here, a lot of the teams were gunning it for the upper floors, mainly those guys from Class 1-B." Denki scratched his head. "I think they were going for the Boss. Anyway, they left all these guys behind."

Katsuki clicked his tongue. "Well, let's not let those fuckers have all the fun." He looked around for the path forward. "Where is the stair – … fuck! Pikachu, move!"

Denki didn't think twice before ducking forward, barely getting out of the way as something came crashing down on top of the pile he was sitting on, launching parts of stormtroopers everywhere. They saw three more figures drop into the smoke the impact caused.

As the dust cleared the group could hear the thumping of boots marching toward them as four black-clad stormtroopers faced them. Two with blaster rifles, one with a staff coursing with electricity, and a fourth with batons that were sparking with the same electricity.

"Those… aren't normal stormtroopers…" Momo mumbled as she quickly made a staff and got into her combat stance.

"Purge Troopers," Katsuki growled, sounding more excited than angry.

"These guys must be the Hunters." Kyouka backed up behind her more combat-effective teammates.

The Purge Troopers didn't move, outside of the lead one moving its head to look at Denki, who gulped nervously.

"That one's mine." It said with way too much excitement for a robot. It flicked its baton, turning the electricity off. "Don't bother shooting it, the Jedi's immune to electricity."

"How…How does it know that?" Denki whispered as he backed up.

"The fuckers were watching us!" Katsuki yelled below dodging out of the way of two high-powered blaster bolts. The two Purge Troopers with rifles tried targeting him first since he was the most skilled combatant. One of them grunted as a blaster bolt hit their armor, not damaging it but definitely getting its attention. It turned its red visor towards its assailant and saw Kyouka standing there aiming one of the blasters from one of the downed stormtroopers at it.

"...fuck." Kyouka said before ducking behind cover as the Purge Trooper switched focus to her.

"I've got the girl," It told its fellow trooper. "Take care of the other one." It then began to approach Kyouka's cover, firing at it to make sure she couldn't move.

Momo herself didn't have a moment to think before she was already being assaulted by her own Purge Trooper, the one wielding the staff. She blocked a blow, but the power behind it had her sliding back as she struggled to keep her guard up.

"You won't last long," the Purge Trooper taunted her before pressing its attack.

Their entire team had just been separated.

---

"This way!" Tsuyu shouted as she bounced around the walls of the hallway, kicking through stormtroopers and clearing a path for her team.

"Slow down just a little!" Minoru panted as he followed Tsuyu. He had decided to pick up one of the blaster pistols he had found on one of the commanders. Using that instead of his quirk. He blew a hole into a nearby trooper before turning to see if Vader had followed them.

"Wait, where did the others go?!" He asked when he noticed Ochako and Pony weren't with them.

They didn't have time to pause and look as more troopers narrowed in on their position. Tsuyu grabbed one and used her tongue to slam it into its compatriots while Minoru covered her using the small blaster, eyes swiveling as he tried to find his other two teammates.

He didn't have to look far, Pony was sprinting with Ochako in her arms like a woman possessed as she rounded the corner, coming into view of her two teammates.

"Run! Run!" Pony yelled.

Behind the two was an entire squadron of Purge Troopers, most of them armed with rifles.

"Don't let them escape!" One yelled as it opened fire.

Tsuyu looked around before seeing a sort of armored door next to her. Quickly she tried to open it and sighed when it was luckily unlocked. "In here!" She grabbed Minoru with her tongue and tossed him in, Pony running in with Ochako right after. Tsuyu went in herself just in time before blaster fire rained down on where she was just standing.

The Purge Troopers all convened on the door, one ramming its shoulder into it, only for it not to budge.

It let out a growl of frustration. "Get this thing open, now!"

On the other side of the door, Minoru used his quirk to make sure the door stayed attached to the wall and wouldn't be able to be blown open. "That should keep them out."

Nearby, Pony was panting, out of breath. She doesn't remember the last time she ran for her life like that. Even at the USJ she only ran a short distance at most, and it was towards danger. This time she was basically running for her life, and while carrying-

"Uhm, Pony?"

Pony froze at the voice next to her ear.

"You can put me down now," Ochako said. "We're safe."

Pony immediately dropped Ochako and backed up a few feet, blushing. "Sorry!"

Ochako giggled as she walked up to Pony and patted her on the head. "It's fine, you saved my butt from the Boss. My hero." She smiled.

"Speaking of," Minoru started to say, "what the fuck was that thing?!"

Tsuyu tilted her head. "The Boss."

"I know that, Tsuyu!" Minoru started pacing back and forth. "But what the fuck?! I mean, Ashido's team got wiped out! And I'm pretty sure that guy was alone! And did you see Ashido?!"

Ochako nodded. "She was messed up, was that even allowed?"

"I'm sure if it wasn't then the staff would do something about it, kero," Tsuyu said, looking around the room, noticing that there were a few catwalks above them. "Anyway, we should try to get out of here. I took out a few soldiers on our way here, but if we stay stuck here there's no way we'll get enough points to move on."

Minoru was about to interject once more when Pony shushed him and pointed toward the door.

One of the troopers had spoken, saying, "My Lord, We have the Jedi trapped, but–" before cutting out in a scream. The sound of fighting could be heard before a human-shaped dent appeared on the door.

"What the fuck?" Minoru muttered as he readied his blaster.

Cracks in the wall surrounding the door frame formed as something slammed against it. The slamming happened a few more times before the wall around the door exploded.

The entire team waited with bated breath as silence followed, and then they heard the breathing once again.

With a swing of a black-clad arm, the smoke dispersed to show the Boss, Darth Vader, standing amongst a literal sea of mutilated Purge Troopers, one still Alive and clutched in his free hand.

"You have failed me." He said before crushing the trooper's 'throat' and letting it fall to the ground. "I will handle this myself." With that, he walked forward to confront Team Tsunotori.

They all backed up and spread out, surrounding the mechanical nightmare before them. Meanwhile, Vader stood there glancing between all of them, seemingly relaxed about the whole situation of being outnumbered.

Minoru acted first, raising his blaster and firing. Vader didn't even look at him as he raised his hand and the blaster bolt refracted off his palm, having done zero damage to him. Minoru kept firing, and Vader finally turned to him and ignited the red blade of his weapon, using it to deflect the bolts back. Before they could hit Minoru though, Tsuyu used her tongue to pull him out of the way and towards her and the wall she was clinging to, her teammate continuing to fire all the while.

Seeing Vader distracted, Pony took her stance and started firing her horns at him. Vader immediately shifted focus, slicing her horns out of the air as they flew at him. Meanwhile, Tsuyu had put Minoru down and hopped around the room to try and get into one of Vader's blind spots. She got behind him and shot her tongue out to strike, sure that Vader would be too distracted by Pony to counter her.

She was immediately proven wrong when Vader caught her tongue while still effortlessly blocking Pony's horns.

Tsuyu blinked before sighing, "Not again."

She was immediately pulled by her tongue and tossed through the air toward Pony, who had to stop firing so as to not hit her teammate. Tsuyu crashed into Pony and the two went tumbling to the ground. Minoru tried to get a cheap shot in with his blaster, but his attack was deflected by Vader right back at him and struck his weapon, frying in his hand and forcing Minoru to drop it.

Vader was about to walk forward to strike them when he stopped and glanced over his shoulder. He saw a glimpse of movement coming at him from the smoke that had begun gathering in the room from all the blaster fire. He swung his blade through the smoke and sliced right through…

A floating gym jacket?

He heard a yell of fury and turned around just in time to see Ochako swinging the electro-staff of one of the Purge Troopers. He raised his own blade to block it just in time.

Ochako gritted her teeth as she tried to apply more force behind her next strike, but it looked as if Vader wasn't being affected at all. She swung once more, and this time Vader caught her weapon by the shaft and held onto it with a tight grip.

"Weak." Was all he said before pulling on the staff and whipping it around with enough force to cause Ochako to let go and go flying.

Thinking quickly, Ochako took in a deep breath and touched her own chest with her quirk, negating her gravity and causing her to float through the air toward one of the catwalks above the room they were in.

Hitting the rail, she quickly pulled herself to stand on the platform before returning her own gravity, letting out the breath she was holding.

So her plan was a bust, of course it wouldn't be that easy. She just needed to think of a new one.

She sighed as she leaned on the railing. "'Least he can't get me up 'ere."

Her eyes widened as she heard a whooshing sound and then a heavy thud behind her, followed by the same breathing that was definitely gonna be in her nightmares that night.

"Ochako, ye' dumb bitch," she said to herself.

The universe just seemed to love to spite her.

She heard the weird hum-like sound of Vader's weapon getting closer and yelped as she dived forward, narrowly dodging the attack. She ran forward, before noticing something shiny on the floor next to the corpse of a soldier.

It looked like a ball but with a button on top of it. She grinned and reminded herself to thank Flintlock for teaching her class about different types of grenades. It looked more futuristic than the ones Flintlock had shown them, but it was still a grenade! She quickly picked it up and took up a pitcher's stance, and armed the grenade before throwing it at Vader.

She prayed it was an impact grenade…

Vader raised his hand and immediately deflected the grenade toward the roof, only for it to detonate above him and cause the roof to collapse onto the catwalk.

Ochako yelled as she started falling back towards the floor, and quickly negated her gravity to stop herself, but couldn't do much else as she just started to float in the air. She looked up and saw some debris falling toward her, and her eyes widened as she realized she wouldn't be able to move out of the way.

Luckily her salvation came in the form of a horn snatching her by her shirt and pulling her out of the way. Her stomach began to roil as she was dragged around through the air while also under the effect of her own quirk, both of which not being a nice combination for her. Eventually, she couldn't take it anymore and instinctively put her hands together to return her gravity, not thinking about how she was still in the air. She began to yell again as she slipped from the horn and started to approach the floor rapidly, and once again she was saved as Pony flew in and caught her in her arms.

"Gotcha!" Pony flew them back to the ground using her horns, and upon landing let Ochako down, the poor girl wobbling on her feet.

"Ochako!" "Uraraka!" Tsuyu and Minoru ran over to check on their teammate.

"Did I get 'em?" Ochako asked nauseously.

The other three looked over at the debris that had all fallen and saw no sign of Vader. They looked around to make sure he hadn't somehow gotten out of the way and was about to attack them but didn't see the Sith Lord anywhere.

"I think… I think you got him." Minoru said, a smile creeping onto his face.

Tsuyu nodded quietly, patting Minoru on the back with a smile.

Pony let out a squeal of delight as she picked up Ochako and spun her around. "You did it!"

Ochako let out a sound as her breakfast began to evacuate her stomach, and covered her mouth as she quickly tapped Pony to put her down. Her friend immediately complied, and Ochako proceeded to puke up what oddly enough looked like a light show, Pony patting her back comfortingly.

"Wait…guys if he's dead why hasn't Midnight announced us as the winners?" Minoru asked once he realized he could still hear blaster fire and fighting on the other floors.

That was when they noticed the rubble start to shake.

"You have got to be kidding me…" Tsuyu mumbled as she picked Minoru up and put him on her back. "Pony grab Ochako."

Pony swept Ochako up once again and looked back towards the rubble. Her eyes widened as she saw that… it had started to float? But that wasn't right, Ochako had deactivated her quirk, so…

"Oh come on…" Ochako groaned out as she saw what was happening.

As the debris began to rise, they saw the dark form of Darth Vader beneath it all, on one knee with his free hand slightly above his head, with some small effort he started standing, the debris rising with him. As he stood his gaze shifted from the ground to Team Tsunotori. For some reason, the four hero students thought that they could practically feel hatred radiating off of him, which made little sense since he was just supposed to be a robot.

"If that doesn't kill him, what will?!" Minoru shouted.

"Not us!" Pony shouted as she turned and ran out of the room, past the dead Purge Troopers, Tsuyu following her with Minoru on her back.

As they fled, Vader finally stood up to his full height, and let his hand drop, the debris all crashing down behind him. He stood there for a second, the only sounds being his breathing and a few pieces of rock still falling before he once again began to walk after his targets.

He followed his targets into a large open room, a parking garage, and looked around for any sign of where they could have gone.

"Hey!" A new voice shouted, and Vader turned to see that a different team had found him.

"So, you must be the big bad boss then, huh?" Tetsutetsu slammed his iron fists together. "You don't look so tough!"

Vader stared at him, not saying a word. The sound of more movement caught his attention and he glanced around to see more teams had shown up from the other entrances to the room.

"Luckily, even if you were that tough, we've got you surrounded! What do you say about that? Huh?!"

Vader continued to stare until he glanced over his shoulder at the level above him as a red-headed girl with a massive fist came crashing down on him. The other teams covered their eyes as smoke and rubble went flying from the force of the impact.

"Dammit, Prez!" Tetsutetsu sulked. "You ruined my bit!"

No response.

Tetsutetsu furrowed his eyebrows. "Prez? Kendo?" He asked, concerned.

The dust began to clear, and they heard the breathing before they saw Vader standing in the smoke, still completely unharmed. Then he raised his left hand and showed that he was holding a struggling Itsuka Kendo by the throat.

"Kendo!" The majority of the 1-B students present yelled in concern. "Let her go!"

Vader didn't listen, instead raising his weapon and igniting his blade.

"All I am surrounded by is fear…"

He then ran the weapon through Itsuka, the Class President of 1-B yelling out in pain as her body started spasming as if struck by a taser. The other teams stood frozen in shock, watching as Itsuka spammed in Vader's grip before he dropped her to the floor.

Vader spared a glance at the twitching form of Itsuka, before looking back up at Tetsutetsu.

"...and dead men."

Tetsutetsu ground his teeth as he felt the damn robot mocking him.

"Get him!" He let out a yell of rage as he hardened himself into metal and rushed forward, the rest of his class moving to back him up and avenge their president.

---

Izumi sat in the commentator's booth, hands over her mouth to try and hide the massive smile on her face as she watched the event. "I am in heaven right now."

"Clearly," Yu smiled as she took a sip of a smoothie she ordered. "You know, maybe we should mention the bit about the lightsaber being non-lethal. People might think we actually let a student get stabbed with a laser sword on live television."

Izumi groaned as responsibility once again ruined her fun. "Fffiiinnne!"

Yu laughed. "Thinking about it, we've kind of been forgetting to do our jobs!"

"I mean, you can't really blame us," Izumi said as she leaned forward, getting ready to unmute her mic and relay the appropriate information, taking a glance beside her to see Eri engrossed in the action. "This is like watching a movie! Mel outdid herself with these robots, but they have always been her specialty, so…"

She shrugged as she unmuted and began doing her job.

She wondered how Melissa was reacting to all of this.

---

Melissa was smiling with motherly pride as she gave Cat a pat on the head, a glass of martini in her other hand. "Your younger siblings are doing such a marvelous job!"

Cat purred as she basked in the attention, while Inko looked between Melissa and the struggling students on the screen with concern. "Are you sure this is safe for the students? They're getting pretty banged up…"

"It builds character, Inko," Melissa said as she adjusted her glasses. "At least that's what Dad always said when he sicked his bots on Uncle Might."

Toshinori started coughing uncontrollably while Melissa just smirked as she observed the rest of the room's reactions to her most recent masterpiece.

Himiko was bouncing in her seat, excited that she got to help her mentor build something so advanced, the fighting was cool too, but the fact that she helped build them made it even more exciting than normal for the younger girl.

Aizawa was glaring at the screen, mumbling about flawed techniques and ways the students could have taken the robots down more efficiently, it was almost as if he cared.

Present Mic was looking at Melissa with something akin to fear, which she appreciated immensely.

Melissa was sure if Hisashi was still in the room he would be trying to interrogate her on how she built such beauties. Luckily for her, he stepped out for a bit.

Nezu, surprisingly, wasn't cackling, which concerned the technophile a bit. He sipped his tea and hummed. "These are quite remarkable Miss Shield. Tell me, were they supposed to be this brutal?" He asked pleasantly and Melissa tried not to flinch as he pointed a remote at another screen, showing Asui getting pulled through a window before fast-forwarding to Vader's brutal takedown of Kendo.

"Well… they're designed not to cause life-threatening or permanent injuries, so…" Melissa ended her answer with a nervous sip from her drink.

"Hmm, that's fair. I did say nothing permanent. Though…" He rewound to Ochako throwing the grenade, "How did this get there?"

Melissa almost spat out her drink, but she wasn't one to waste free alcohol so she swallowed before sputtering. "That's a thermal detonator! They aren't even supposed to have those on them! I instructed every trooper to take them out of their kit!"

Toshinori raised his hand. "Wait, for those not in the know, what's a thermal detonator?"

"It's a miniature thermal nuclear device." Himiko chimed in cheerfully, causing Melissa to glare at her and Inko to spit out her tea.

Aizawa slowly shifted his gaze over to Melissa. "...You made a hand nuke?"

"I wanted to be lore accurate!"

"...Why?" Aizawa asked with a frown.

"Pride and love for my nerd of a girlfriend, that's why!"

Inko stood up abruptly and marched over to Jin, who was once more manning the bar. "I'm too sober for this conversation."

"Hmm," Nezu hummed as he looked down at a tablet he was holding, "Power Loader scanned the building and it seemed that was the only one that was brought in, so hopefully the bot in question merely malfunctioned, at least its order to not use them seems to have been intact." He glanced at her. "You did order them not to use explosives, correct?"

Melissa nodded.

"Excellent! Now, I don't suppose you mind me asking about the Boss robot, do you? I find it very intriguing!" Nezu had a glint in his eye.

Melissa either didn't notice or didn't care as she said, "Sure."

Nezu hummed before asking, "It's rather powerful for a mere robot, where did you get the combat data for it? I also assume you gave it some form of anti-gravity abilities?"

"The combat data comes from, ironically, Izumi's suit. I used some of the recordings of her recent villain fights, as well as her beginning of the year class with the students to give him a wide repertoire of data to pull from."

She sipped her drink before continuing.

"Grav-tech is something I came up with a while ago. I've used it on a few things here and there, the best example being Cat here." She scratched her companion behind the ears affectionately. "She's actually really heavy, but the anti-grav tech kicks in when in docile mode like she is now, so she doesn't crush a person's lap, and it deactivates when in combat mode. For Vader I repurposed the tech so that he could use it to manipulate the environment around him, simulating a telekinetic ability similar to The Force in Star Wars. And I also gave him a crap-load of sensors to also mimic a Force user's precognition and awareness. That's how he's been able to react so quickly."

"Truly amazing." Nezu nodded. "And, tell me, did you implement any weaknesses?"

"Pfft!" Melissa laughed. "Why the hell would I do that?" She lifted her drink up to her lips.

"Oh, so the students would stand a chance, of course."

Melissa paused mid-sip of her martini and turned to look at Nezu. "W-wait… I was supposed to give Vader a weakness?"

"..."

Melissa slowly raised her drink to her lips and looked away nervously. "...Oops."

Aizawa started putting a hand to his ear to tell Midnight to call the event off when Nezu stopped him with a shake of his head.

"Before Aizawa calls off the event, is there any reassurance we have that this mechanical marvel you've built won't kill or harm our students? Any failsafe in place?"

"Vader is ordered not to fight seriously. He's also following the same orders to not permanently harm or kill anyone. Cat may look like she's being lazy, but she's monitoring the event remotely and can easily take control of any of the bots, including Vader, should something go wrong." She petted the cat to calm herself.

"Also all of the robots are programmed with very advanced threat detection software, even better than the bots here at UA, the software is set to see the students as 'mostly harmless' and to act accordingly, basically treating the fight like a game." She gestured to the screen as Vader decimated more of his would-be attackers by throwing Tetsutetsu through a wall. "Vader and the Purge Troopers are set to a higher threat level, naturally, but they shouldn't get high enough to cause permanent damage, broken bones at worst."

Nezu nodded and waved Aizawa down with a paw as he once more sipped his tea. "Well, our motto isn't 'Plus Ultra' for nothing. We shall continue."

Himiko had a feral smile as she jumped out of her seat and raised her fist into the air. "Blood for the Blood God!"

"At least Young Himiko is getting into the spirit of things." Toshinori chuckled nervously.

Inko was already on her fourth drink.

Hisashi chose that moment to walk in, wiping his hands with a paper towel as he looked around the room. "Sorry about that, the restroom was callin'. What'd I miss?"

He then looked over to the bar and saw his wife drinking.

"...Oh boy."

---

"Spread out." A Commander ordered his squad as they entered a new room. "There's been reports of rebels on this floor."

"Copy." A trooper walked off to check behind some boxes, turning around as he saw nothing. "Clear."

As he was walking back to his squad, the roar of engines could be heard before a blur blitzed past the trooper, kicking its head off.

"Not clear! Not clear!" The Commander aimed after their attacker as he ran down the hallway. "Blast him!"

As the squadron opened fire, the blaster of the downed trooper began to float in the air, angling to take aim at the squad. It fired, nailing a trooper in the head, followed by more shots that took out another.

"There!" The rest of the squad opened fire on the floating blaster, hoping to hit whoever was there as the weapon dropped to the ground. "Where'd they go?"

As they investigated, another blaster from one of the other fallen troopers was picked up behind them and took aim at the remaining three. A whistle caught their attention and they turned around just in time to see the blaster before it opened fire on all of them.

"Pew! Pew!" Toru gleefully shouted as she nailed the last trooper a few times in the head. Afterward, she turned the cloaking of her suit off, the silvery form of her hero costume coming into existence. She was so glad they let her wear it for this event. Normally they wouldn't let hero students wear their costumes or even have support items, but Toru made a very convincing argument.

---

"Do you want me to get naked on national television?" She deadpanned to Nezu, who hummed before answering enthusiastically

"Fair point. Request approved!"

---

Very convincing. And it was worth it, she was having way more fun than she thought it would be!

"Oh my god, this is so cool." She hugged the blaster she stole to her chest. "I just want to take you home with me!" She didn't notice the trooper sneaking up behind her, aiming his weapon.

The roar of the engines caused Toru to jump and turn around, only to see that Tenya had arrived and had kicked the trooper with enough force to knock its head clean off.

He then turned to Toru. "That would be uncouth, Hagakure! These are not toys!" He lectured.

Toru groaned. "Take all the fun out of it, why don't ya!" She looked around. "Hey, where are the other two?"

Her answer came from a dark mass crashing through the wall with multiple Purge Troopers clutched in its claws, slamming them into the floor over and over.

"...Fumi! I think I got 'em!" Dark Shadow called back.

"Excellent work, Dark Shadow." Fumikage droned as he picked up a blaster.

"Why are you picking one of those things up when you've got me?" Dark Shadow asked, concerned, sounding a little hurt.

Fumikage shrugged. "Just in case something gets past you. Best to have all angles covered." He looked over and noticed Tenya and Toru. "Ah, our allies."

"Tokoyami, where did you come from? And where is Todoroki?" Tenya asked as he and Toru approached.

"We got separated from you two by a group of Hunters, but we easily dispatched them." He gestured to the hole Dark Shadow made. "Come, Todoroki and I have found the path forward to the upper floors."

The group followed Fumikage, and they came upon Shouto who was standing in the middle of the room, a bunch of stormtroopers around him trapped in ice, but still moving.

He turned to address his comrades. "I've been waiting."

"No one told you to wander off," Toru grumbled.

"We got separated." He said with a shrug.

Toru sighed, not really able to fault Shouto for that. She looked around at the struggling troopers. "Why are they still moving?"

Shouto hummed. "They're neutralized."

"Yeah, but we don't get the points unless they're dead," Toru emphasized her point by blasting a trooper in the head with her blaster.

"...Oh, I see." Shouto looked down a hallway that was coated with ice. "Uhm…"

Toru may have been invisible, but her teammates swore they could see her incredulous expression.

"You… You left a bunch alive?!"

"I didn't know," Shouto said with a little expressed guilt.

Toru sighed as she readied her blaster, putting holes in all the remaining troopers before she began to make her way back toward where Shouto had come from. "Once again, I'm cleaning up your mess." She grumbled.

Tenya marched after her. "Hagakure, we are meant to be a team, do not discourage our comrades like that."

As Fumikage passed by Shouto, Dark Shadow popped out.

"Man, she really doesn't like you, huh?" It said before Fumikage pulled him back in.

"That was uncalled for, Dark Shadow. Apologies, Todoroki," Fumikage said.

Shouto shook his head. "No need, Dark Shadow is right. And Hagakure has enough reason to be upset, I've been making a lot of mistakes lately." He glanced at the path that led toward the upper levels. "Time to make up for them."

"Should we not wait for our teammates?" Fumikage asked.

"They can catch up, Iida is fast and can carry Hagakure. Let's clear the path." Shouto ran forward, Fumikage sighed before following behind him.

Meanwhile, Toru growled as she tried to shoot through the ice-encased around a still functioning trooper but to no avail. The blasters were electricity-based, not heat based so they didn't even put a dent in the thick glacier that Shouto had left in his wake.

She flinched as Tenya came up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder causing her to flinch and turn around. "How did you even know where I was?"

Tenya pointed at the blaster with a raised eyebrow. "Besides that?" If Toru's face could be seen she knew she'd probably be red as a tomato. "You forgot to turn your suit's cloaking back on."

"Sh-shut up!" She mumbled as she did just that, allowing her suit to fade back into its cloaked state.

"Hagakure, I understand that you're upset at Todoroki, but don't be so harsh on him, we don't want to ruin the team dynamic." Tenya muttered softly, "The Sports Festival always has one on one rounds, so focus on winning this event and working with us, and then hope you get to pummel him in the tournament." He smiled at her which caused the invisible girl to blink at him, not that he could see it.

"Holy shit you aren't a robot…"

"What?"

"Nothing, Vice-Prez! Let's just go get this over with, gotta make sure Todoroki didn't get Fumi killed."

As Toru made sure Tenya could hear her footsteps walking away, he stood there in thought for a moment.

"...Do people really see me as a robot?" Before leaving he swung his leg to shatter the frozen stormtrooper, then proceeded to follow after Toru.

---

Momo grunted and her back hit a container as she was knocked back by another strike from the Purge Trooper. These things were tough, a lot tougher than the other bots that they had dealt with thus far. She swung at it with her staff, causing it to block and fall back, giving her much-needed breathing room.

She took stock of her surroundings, Kyouka was doing surprisingly well, the Purge Trooper obviously hadn't observed her, even as it slowly approached her position and lay down covering fire it didn't expect her to start vibrating the ground, causing it to lose it's balance before she returned fire, though the blaster she used wasn't strong enough to damage it.

Denki on the other hand was struggling, he was dodging blows from the Purge Trooper like a champ, but he could only do it for so long before he got hit. Every time he tried to create an electric charge either in his hands or around his body the trooper would start attacking harder, which delayed Denki long enough so that he lost focus and thus his charge.

Katsuki was fairing the best out of all of them, he had abandoned his firefight and had moved into his element of close combat, he had even abandoned the blaster that he had picked up in favor of just using his explosions. He probably realized that wasting time in a shootout wasn't productive to them winning the event.

Despite that though, Momo needed a plan, and she needed one before things got too far out of hand-

She suddenly felt the air get knocked out of her as the Purge Trooper closed the distance faster than she thought it could and struck her in the chest, shocking her and launching her back. She rolled to a stop on the ground, her staff had fallen from her grip as her body spasmed. She looked for her weapon, only to see that it had fallen at the Purge Trooper's feet, and figured that she was going to have to make a new one. She stood up and held out her hand getting ready to make the first weapon she could think of, when she paused. A clanging noise caught her attention and she looked down to see that the Purge Trooper had kicked her staff over to her.

"Pick it up," it said as it twirled its own staff around. It paced back and forth as it waited, and Momo took the moment given to her to catch her breath and just collect herself.

'Think, Momo! Think!'

She glanced at her arm, before getting an idea. She quickly rushed the Purge Trooper, kicking the staff into her hands as she did so. The trooper stopped its pacing and got into a defensive stance, arms raised to block her strike as she swung with both hands in a wide sideways arc.

The moment it blocked her swing, her quirk activated across her left arm, the furthest arm from the front of the staff. She quickly brought the arm up horizontally, facing away from the trooper, and let her quirk go.

The moment she did, ten very sharp, very large knives shot out of her arm. The science behind making them do that was too complicated for Momo to even bother trying to articulate in her head, the only thing that mattered was that it worked. The knives slammed into the trooper's face and neck, breaking through the armor and cutting the circuitry within like it was butter.

The trooper fell immediately after that.

"I did it…" She said in awe as she stared at the body of the Purge Trooper. She then cheered and pumped a fist into the air. "I did it!"

"A little help!" Denki screamed as he narrowly dodged a flurry of blows, snapping Momo out of her moment.

"Oh crap, right!" She almost ran to help Denki but stopped as her foot hit the electro-staff of her dead opponent, and a new idea popped into her head. She picked up the discarded weapon and got ready to throw it. "Kaminari, catch!"

She threw the staff like it was a spear, and it soared through the air and almost hit the Purge Trooper attacking Denki, but it dodged just in time to avoid getting hit. Denki however managed to catch the staff out of the air.

He twirled it clumsily, though surprisingly to Momo not that clumsily as he got into a rough stance.

"Let's fuckin' go, shithead!" He let some of the excess electricity he had absorbed go through his body into the staff, powering it up. However, as he did this, he started to passively discharge small amounts of electricity around him, his already bombastic hair frizzed up even more than normal and the static charge clung to him, barely arcing off his body.

He felt… weird.

"Stop running," the Purge Trooper growled before running at Denki with insane speed, "and fight!"

It lunged forward and brought its batons up to strike, before quickly bringing it down. Denki was about to dodge when something tingled on the back of his neck. He quickly dodged to the side, as a blaster bolt raced past where his back was and slammed into the Purge Trooper.

This bolt wasn't electrified, it was just pure kinetic energy and it sent the Trooper flying back a few feet before he finally stopped.

"How the fuck did they turn lasers into kinetic energy?!" He muttered as he turned to face the Stormtrooper that had snuck up on him.

---

"Oh, interesting, how did you give the troopers electric bolts as well as kinetic ones?" Hisashi asked as he helped his very drunk wife take a seat, "Honey you're on your fifth drink you need to stop."

"I'm not a lightweight like y-you or Izu! I can stahp whenever…"

"Sure you can."

Melissa raised a finger to answer Hisashi's question when she paused and frowned. "Uh, I honestly don't know. I think I was reading X-Men at the time and thought 'hey Cyclops' optic blasts were cool, I wanna do that' and came up with it somehow." She nibbled on a slice of Pizza. "I probably have the notes somewhere."

---

The trooper took aim and fired at Denki again, and rather than dodging out of the way, Denki quickly positioned his staff to block the blaster bolt. His eyes widened as he did it, not even meaning to in the first place, he just… reacted.

"...Holy shit, am I a Jedi?" He asked no one in particular. Using the electrified end of the staff he slapped the bolt away, back toward the trooper that had shot it, immediately slamming it into a nearby wall.

It stopped moving.

"Holy shit I AM a Jedi!" He turned and grinned at the Purge Trooper that had recovered and had a notable crack on its chest plate.

"You're a dead Jedi!" It lunged forward and attacked Denki again, however, he managed to keep his defense up despite the rapid and fast attacks from the Purge Trooper. He blocked blow after blow until he dodged and saw an opening, swinging his staff at the Purge Trooper's unguarded side. The attack connected, and the Purge Trooper went flying as electricity exploded from the end of Denki's staff.

It rolled across the ground and let out a groan and it pushed itself to its knees. A laugh escaped it, and it stood up once again with effort as it faced Denki again.

"Yes, yes! This is a fight!" It twirled its batons before running at Denki. "More! Give me more!"

"You're way too into this robo dude!" Denki blocked another set of attacks before moving to attack himself, the Purge Trooper dodging his strike and counter-attacking, moving faster than it had before. The two continued their little dance for a while before Denki saw another opening and managed to sweep for the legs, knocking the Purge Trooper down again. He didn't stop though as he jumped forward and stabbed the end of his staff into the Purge Trooper's chest, electricity arcing off it as the robot yelled in pain before going silent.

Denki stepped back, breathing heavily as he tried to process what just happened. He pointed down at the now-dead trooper, looking around with a big smile. "Did anyone else see that?! How the fuck did I just do that?!"

"Little busy, Jamming-yay!" Kyouka scowled as she tried to figure out a way to deal with her own Purge Trooper, who was still shooting at her. "A little fucking help?!"

"I gotcha!" Denki started running, and a moment later he was right next to the Purge Trooper, who didn't even have time to flinch in surprise before Denki's staff had come up and slammed into its head, sending the head flying across the room.

"Holy shit! I'm fast!"

Kyouka stood up from behind her cover and looked at the headless body of the Purge Trooper, before looking at Denki.

"Dude… where the hell was that during our battle trial?!" Kyouka yelled.

Denki backed up and held up his hands in surrender. "Whoa, hey! Don't get mad at me! I don't even know what I did just now or how I did it!"

"Well, figure it out, because that shit is so useful! I mean you were over there and now you're over over here and…"

Momo watched from nearby, sighing in relief as her team was alright.

"...Wait." She blinked and looked around noticing they were missing someone. "Where's Katsuki?!"

As if hearing her question, an explosion erupted from a wall nearby and a Purge Trooper came crashing through it.

Or at least its body did. The head was gone.

"...Found him." Kyouka deadpanned as she pointed over her shoulder at the new hole.

Katsuki walked through the hole, his face surprisingly calm as he looked at his team. "'Sup?"

"Where did you go?" Denki asked as they approached him. "Weren't you in here with us?"

"Yeah, well Pervy the Purge Trooper and I ended up in the other hallway. Fucker was a bitch to deal with in narrow spaces."

Kyouka snorted. "'P-Pervy?'"

"Dude was way too excited when we were fighting, the thing sounded turned on when it spoke…"

"Sounds like mine..." Denki chuckled.

Katsuki looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Why the fuck am I tingling standing near you, Pikachu?"

Denki looked at him in confusion and Kyouka's eyes widened.

"Now that you mention it yeah, I feel it too." She backed up a bit away from Denki in worry while Momo hummed in thought.

"He seems to be emitting an electromagnetic field of some kind."

"And I also feel really jittery." Denki hopped in place as if he couldn't physically keep himself still. "Woo! Does anyone else feel a rush, or is it just me?" He said quickly.

Katsuki scoffed. "Well whatever this is, use it. It's making you actually useful."

"Hey!"

Katsuki ignored Denki as he continued. "Let's get to the boss before some other team fucks him up!" He pointed a hand up at the ceiling again to strategically make a new door when Momo slapped him upside the head. "What the fuck was that for!?"

"We're taking the stairs!"

"But stairs are for peasants!"

Momo glared at him, her eyes expressing so much pent-up frustration and rage that even Katsuki flinched back. "You are not picking me up again, nor are you going to blow a hole inside this structurally questionable building!" She pointed in the direction of the nearest staircase. "Mush."

'Did she just say… mush?' Denki and Kyouka internally questioned.

Katsuki looked at her with wide eyes before putting his hands in his pockets and grumbling his way toward the stairs, "Fucking telling me to mush. I'll make you mush…"

Denki watched Katsuki walk off, his own hand twitching as electricity flowed through it, before looking to Momo. "Okay, seriously, how do you get him to listen like that without getting blown up?"

Momo just shrugged, she honestly didn't know why Katsuki listened to her, she was just glad he did.

"Never gonna work for your stupid ass, Sparkplug!" Katsuki called back from the hole in the wall. "Now let's move it! I wanna get a few licks in on this Boss!"

---

Hitoshi was breathing heavily as he took out another trooper, he constantly reminded himself to get Yagi-Sensei and Flintlock-Sensei a gift card for the absolute hell they put him through. If he had tried to go through the Festival the way he originally wanted to he probably would have been knocked out in the first round.

He definitely wouldn't be doing so well in the second event if it weren't for all the training.

He glanced around, Itsuka and Ibara had run ahead to the boss, they had heard the fighting and wanted to capitalize on the confusion to maybe snag the kill from whoever was struggling…

He and Neito were left to deal with the remaining Troopers that were left behind, and thanks to Neito copying Itsuka's quirk the work wasn't too bad. At some point, the two had gotten separated, but Hitoshi was holding his own.

Sadly, he assumed Ibara and Itsuka had failed, judging by the fact that the event wasn't over.

Confirmation of his assumption came quickly as the wall in front of him exploded and a mass of vines crashed through it into the opposite wall. The vines receded to show Ibara panting, looking at the hole she came through with an expression of sheer terror. Hitoshi looked through the hole himself and saw something red approaching fast.

"Look out!" He yelled as he tackled Ibara out of the way before a red blade of energy sliced into the wall, exactly chest level with where she had been sitting before.

The two looked back before the weapon seemed to fly back into the smoke, into the waiting grasp of a shadow in the smoke, the towering form of what Hitoshi assumed to be the Boss, Vader. Hitoshi stood up with Ibara still clinging to him, and his eyes widened in shock as the smoke cleared enough for Hitoshi to see clearly into the room. There were unconscious and destroyed bodies everywhere. Stormtroopers, a few Purge Troopers, but also a lot of other contestants, many of which were his classmates, all on the floor groaning and twitching as their bodies spasmed.

And in the middle of it all stood Darth Vader, the only battle damage on his form being his singed cape.

Vader took a slow, menacing step forward and Hitoshi flinched back, sweat dripping down his face. He twitched as his ears caught Ibara frantically whispering. "Our Father, Which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done…" She had already repeated the prayer twice and she wasn't stopping anytime soon…

Hitoshi nudged her, which got her to stop.

"Prayer later, survival now!" He grabbed her arm and pulled her along as he ran back the way they came. They needed to regroup with the rest of their team, they couldn't take Vader on as just the two of them. "Where's Kendo?"

"She's fallen," Ibara hoarsely whispered as she tried to keep up.

"Fuck," he cursed under his breath. Just then a Stormtrooper rounded the corner and raised his blaster, but was quickly impaled by a thick mass of vines. Hitoshi went into a slide and picked up the fallen blaster, taking aim at the corner as a few more troopers rounded it, and he opened fire, nailing all his shots. He knew there'd be more, the soldiers always traveled in squads, so he was ready for them.

He heard more footsteps and got ready to fire again. However instead of more troopers rounding the corner though it was Neito, frantically waving his hands. "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!"

Hitoshi sighed and lowered the blaster, causing Neito to sigh in relief.

"Kendo's quirk ran out while I was trying to find you guys." He noted Ibara and Hitoshi with a frown. "Where is she anyway?"

As Hitoshi opened his mouth to answer, they heard a noise from down the hall where they had just come from.

Breathing.

Ibara's eyes widened as she stepped back. "It's him."

Hitoshi glanced at her with concern. "How are you this scared of him after one encounter?"

Ibara was shivering now. "He took down all the other teams, plus Kendo like they were nothing." She hugged herself nervously "She dove on him from above and got a hit in, or it looked like it, but he caught her by her throat and rammed his cursed blade through her." She looked at Hitoshi and said, "He is a demon."

They watched as Vader rounded the corner, the red glow of his blade casting him in a sinister light that made him look almost like the demon she claimed he was.

"Okay, so what do we-" Neito began to speak before he was suddenly yanked forward by an invisible force. "What the- Ah!"

He reached out a hand and Hitoshi grabbed it, trying to keep his teammate with them, but whatever was pulling Neito was stronger. Eventually, he couldn't keep his grip and Neito went flying right toward Vader, who had his hand outstretched toward them.

"Monoma!"

Neito came to a stop in the air right in front of Vader, his body frozen and unable to move, forcing him to look the Sith Lord in the face, or rather mask. All he saw where Vader's eyes would be was his own reflection, the humming of the lightsaber and the breathing being the only sounds he could hear.

"There is no escape." Vader's voice sent a chill down the spines of all present, and Neito began to panic as Vader raised his blade to strike.

Just as Vader was about to swing, he turned to where he had just come from as a dark mass of shadows crashed into him, sending him flying into the wall. Neito himself was launched back toward his teammates, who quickly moved to help him up. They looked back at the new arrival and saw that their savior was none other than Dark Shadow.

"Got 'em!" The living quirk cheered.

"Excellent work, Dark Shadow," Fumikage nodded as he moved next to his companion, eyes narrowing as Vader began to stand back up, "but the fight isn't over."

"Move!" Fumikage heard from behind and moved out of the way as a stream of ice courtesy of Shouto came racing down the hall towards Vader, intending to immobilize him.

Vader threw a hand out at the approaching ice, and it froze in place before completely shattering as a strong invisible force pushed its way down the hall, sending Shouto flying back down the hall.

Shouto was grabbed out of the air by Dark Shadow, who deposited him onto the ground while Fumikage opened fire with his stolen blaster, though it did nothing as Vader started deflecting the rounds back toward them, which Dark Shadow blocked, but not without letting out small noises of pain.

"These damn things sting!" He grumbled.

Team Kendo watched the fighting before realizing they were still in the game and moving to join in, Hitoshi firing with his own blaster as Neito picked up another discarded one. Ibara tried to use her vines to grab Vader, but his lightsaber just cut right through them, and they just got in the way of everyone else shooting at their common enemy.

Vader was about to start approaching them again when a Commander came up next to him, more troopers following and opening fire.

"Lord Vader, we found the priority target, they're currently on the second floor, they seem to have met up with another team and are making their way up here."

Vader continued to deflect the blaster fire for a moment before addressing the Trooper. "See to it that these rebels are dealt with." With that, he turned and made his way out of the engagement, not even looking back as blaster bolts went flying in all directions.

"These really are starting to hurt!" Dark Shadow complained as Purge Troopers started to show up as well.

"Take them down!" They heard a Purge Trooper as they opened fire, Shouto erecting a thick wall of ice to cover them.

Unbeknownst to any of them, behind the large group of robots, a floating blaster came from around the corner, approaching the Purge Troopers and taking aim. It opened fire on them quickly, putting holes into all of the elite troopers' heads. The Stormtroopers turned and were about to open fire themselves when Tenya came running in and knocked them all over with the wind he generated as he ran past them all. All the contestants present saw their opportunity and left their cover, quickly dispatching the remaining troopers with their quirks and stolen blasters.

Once all the enemies were dead, Toru turned off her suit's cloaking and came into view, putting her hand on her hip and holding her blaster up. "And who says invisibility is a useless quirk for heroics?"

Hitoshi looked around at all the dead troopers, nudging a Purge Trooper with his foot. "Idiots do, apparently," he said as he looked at Toru. "Remind me never to get on your bad side."

Tenya made his way to the group. "This Vader fellow seems a bit too much for us to handle on our own…"

Neito puffed up his cheeks and prepared to get in Tenya's face when he noticed Ibara muttering more frantic prayers. He looked at Hitoshi who just patted the distraught girl on the back and noticed how tired he was…

Maybe 1-A's Vice Rep had a point…

Shouto spoke up as he and Fumikage approached. "He shattered my ice like it was nothing…" He muttered, "I made that ice to emulate a glacier, it takes a lot of power to break it and he did it without any sign of effort."

Fumikage spoke up. "The Dark Lord took a blow from Dark Shadow like it was nothing. It's not that bright in this building, Dark Shadow is much more powerful right now but Vader shrugged off the attack."

"My quirk doesn't work on these things either…" Hitoshi kicked a downed Trooper's body. "I've tried, they just keep attacking." He groaned. "I hate robots."

Ibara looked up from her prayer with frantic eyes "But that demon took down the other teams and Itsuka!" She looked absolutely terrified. "What are we supposed to do against that?"

"I don't know," Tenya admitted. "However, now we at least know what we're up against, and considering the strength of Vader, it will take a lot more than just four people to bring him down."

Neito raised an eyebrow at that. "Are you suggesting…?" He chuckled. "Are you suggesting an alliance of some sort?"

"If we hope to take down Vader, and potentially pass this event, then yes." Tenya nodded.

Neito stared before sighing, remembering how worn out his team already was. "Fine. An alliance it is."

"Excellent!" He chopped his hand. "Now, Vader's focus appears to be on Team Tsunotori, as the first-place winner of the first event is with them, so does anyone know where they are?"

"One of the Troopers said they were on the second floor heading toward this one," Shouto informed him.

"Then that's where we go. Come on!" Tenya turned and led the way down the hall, back towards where he knew there was a way down to the lower levels.

As they walked, Toru found herself next to Shouto. She sighed and said, "Saving your butt again. Is this gonna be a regular thing?"

"I hope not," Shouto said. "I don't want to have to be saved all the time. What would that say about my strength as a hero?"

"You know, a 'thank you, Hagakure' would be nice." Toru shook her head, not that Shouto could see it. "Eh, whatever, I got to be a badass, so I don't really care."

Shouto sighed through his nose. "Thank you," he said, "for saving us."

He felt a rough pat on his back. "You're welcome!"

"Quickly!" Tenya urged everyone to live faster. "Before more Hunters show up and slow us down!"

---

Team Tsunotori was doing pretty well for themselves. After losing Vader to that giant group of students they had retreated to the lower floors of the building to try and build up points. They had just finished clearing out a multi-leveled room of all the Troopers in it, even managing to take down a couple of Purge Troopers!

Ochako sighed as she leaned against a pillar and slid to the floor. She was already tired after her "fight" with Vader if it could even be called that. Throwing up her insides hadn't helped at all. So now she took a less aggressive approach, sitting back with Pony and using a blaster to shoot Troopers while Tsuyu and Minoru used their superior speed and agility to get in close. But this has been going on for a while now.

"Why isn't this damn event over?" She groaned.

Tsuyu jumped to a nearby pillar and looked down at her. "Midnight did say that it only ends when the Boss dies or the teams are all dead. Kero."

"Eliminated," Minoru clarified as he walked up. "She said eliminated."

"What's the difference?"

"There's a big difference!"

While their two teammates sort of bickered, Pony came up to Ochako and sat next to her. "You okay?"

Ochako nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine, just tired. That whole thing with Vader earlier took a lot out of me… and the whole, uh, throwing up thing." She cringed. "Sorry that you had to see that."

Pony winced but nodded as she replied, "I didn't know you puke rainbows. But it makes sense since you're also pretty on the inside." She smiled with a blush as she looked at Ochako, who was just looking at her with a confused expression. "Right… English." Maybe it was for the best.

As Ochako was about to ask what Pony said, her horrendous English skills having not improved one bit since she tried to learn, they heard the sound of the blast doors into the room opening and their heads snapped in the direction of the sound, only to see a Purge Trooper march into the room with a weird hammer-looking weapon in hand, the "blunt" part of it sparking with electricity like the staves they've seen other Hunters wielding.

"Targets spotted," it said menacingly as it readied its weapon.

"Oh great, another one of these guys," Minoru groaned as the team got ready to take on the Purge Trooper. Their eyes widened when they saw more Stormtroopers running into the room to accompany the Hunter. "...Fuck."

"Open fire!" The Commander said as his troops aimed and started blasting.

Pony grabbed Ochako and pulled both of them to dive behind cover as blaster bolts whizzed past them, barely missing except for one that hit Pony in the arm, making her yelp in pain at the feeling of being shocked. "Ow! Ow, that really hurts! Fucking bitch!"

"Pony!" Ochako looked her friend over, seeing the small burn on her gym uniform, Pony let out a whimper as Ochako lightly touched it. "Are you okay?"

Before Pony could answer, the two heard the sound of something charging up and looked up and slightly over the cover just in time to see the Purge Trooper lifting the electro-hammer above its head before it brought it down with a yell of rage. Ochako pushed Pony, making sure her quirk activated as Pony flew through the air. The hammer came down and cleaved their previous cover in two, luckily Ochako quickly dove out of the way, rolling to stand and face the Purge Trooper. Pony meanwhile quickly adapted to her situation and fired off two of her horns and rode them through the air. The nearby Stormtroopers spotted her quickly and began to fire at her, a few bolts whizzed by a bit too close for comfort before she found new cover behind a pillar.

Ochako deactivated her quirk after seeing that Pony was safe and refocused on the Purge Trooper as it hefted its hammer in both hands and slowly walked towards her, making Ochako back up in fear as she didn't know what this particular Purge Trooper was capable of. In her retreat, she barely noticed that she and the Hunter had entered another hallway until the Purge Trooper was well past the blast door with her.

"You're mine, Jedi," it spat as it slammed its closed fist against the control panel for the door, forcing it close behind it and destroying the controls with its strength.

Ochako nervously gulped as she was now realizing she was all alone with a Hunter, her team stuck in another room with a bunch more Stormtroopers. She took a quick glance behind her, seeing that she could make a run for it before dismissing the idea and refocusing on the Purge Trooper. She couldn't run, not now, not on her own. More Hunters, Soldiers, and even Vader were roaming the halls, going off alone would be suicide. She had to fight.

She took a calming breath as she got ready. "You've got this," she said to herself, "you've got this."

"Come and die, traitor!" The Purge Trooper snarled and swiftly brought its hammer above its head to bring down on Ochako. She sidestepped the swing, but still wasn't safe as the hammer let off a burst of electricity upon impact with the ground, shocking her and making her hiss at the stinging sensation. It was not enough to put her down, but it definitely still hurt. 'The hammer does that. Duly noted.'

She moved quickly before the Purge Trooper could pick its hammer up and attack her again, lunging at it intending to use her quirk as she stretched her hand out. The Purge Trooper caught her hand by the wrist and pulled her forward, striking her with a headbutt that caused her to yell out in pain from the hard contact with its helmet and back up, clutching her head. The Purge Trooper took that moment to properly pick up its hammer and swung it in an upwards arc. Ochako barely had time to recover before she was struck by the hammer and sent flying into one of the walls, bouncing off it and falling to the ground, gasping for air, the strike had knocked the air from her lungs.

She noticed through the pain that the hammer wasn't electrified when it had hit her, which meant that the Purge Trooper either hadn't activated that function or maybe had to charge it up before using one of those area-of-effect attacks that it had used before. Good to know.

Ochako tried to push herself to her feet but faltered, falling back to the ground. She was so tired, and her body was hurting all over, but she couldn't stop now.

"Pathetic," the Purge Trooper taunted as it leisurely walked over to her. "I thought Jedi were supposed to be a challenge. A training Droid puts up more of a fight than you."

Ochako growled, she didn't know any of these damn Star Wars references, she didn't know what the fuck a Jedi was and she was honestly getting sick of it! With more strength than she honestly felt she stood up and rotated an arm before she opened her hands in a mockup of a grappling stance she had seen on some old wrestling program her father had watched.

"Ah'll fuckin' show you pathetic!" Ochako narrowed her eyes.

"I've had enough of this," the Purge Trooper's hammer cracked with electrical power and it quickly moved to do another overhead strike.

Ochako reacted quickly and tapped herself before kicking off the ground to the side just before the hammer came down, electrifying the floor. She landed on the wall and kicked off toward the Hunter, who brought a hand up to catch her again, but she was ready this time. As the Purge Trooper caught her wrist, Ochako turned herself so her legs were facing the Trooper's face and kicked with everything she had, making the Trooper grunt in pain as it let go of her, but Ochako didn't let go of it. She held onto the arm, managing to use her quirk, and pulled herself forward as she kicked again, this time sending the Purge Trooper flying into the blast doors, dropping its hammer.

Ochako saw this and reached out before she could float too far, grabbing the hammer and using it to pull herself back to the ground. Once her feet were planted, she then used her quirk on the hammer itself, and once more kicked off the floor and towards the suspended Purge Trooper. With a yell of fury, Ochako turned into the air and swung the hammer around, electricity crackling along it as she slammed it into the Purge Trooper, caving in the chest plate of its armor and crushing anything beneath. The force of her impact was so strong, it ended up actually blowing open the blast doors, which would have surprised Ochako if she was coherent enough to give a fuck, but frankly, she was out of any fucks to give at that point.

She breathed heavily as she floated in the air, before letting go of the hammer and pressing her fingers together. "...Release," she tiredly said as her quirk deactivated, the hammer falling with a heavy thud, the remains of the Purge Trooper clattering to the ground, and Ochako herself barely landing on her feet. She took a moment to properly catch her breath, before looking at the hammer and picking it up with one hand, using her quirk for assistance. "I'm keeping you."

She rested the hammer on her shoulder as she stood up fully and looked at the remains of the Purge Trooper. "How's that for pathetic, ye fuckin' bitch?!" She pointed at it as she yelled. "Am I tougher than a training Droid now?! Huh?!"

She huffed as she came down from her adrenaline rush, her breathing evening out as she processed everything and realized what she did. She took down a Hunter on her own, and she looked badass while doing it! She couldn't believe she just did all that, and she believed she deserved to be proud of herself.

It was then she remembered that she had crashed back into the room her teammates were in with the bunch of Stormtroopers, and she noticed the severe lack of blaster fire and overall chaos that had been in the room before. Looking up, she was treated to the sight of all the Stormtroopers on the floor, some with Minoru's orbs sticking to them, some with Pony's horns stabbed into others, and all of them very much dead.

Ochako looked around and quickly spotted her teammates around the room, all still okay, and all of them staring at her with weird looks.

"...What?" Ochako shrugged as if she didn't look like she had just stepped out of a brutal battle, what with her hair matted from sweat, a few bruises on her face, her tank top burnt, and a hammer held casually over her shoulder. Not to mention her triumphant yelling at the corpse of a Purge Trooper that the rest of the team had definitely witnessed.

Nope, nothing out of the ordinary at all.

"Damn, what happened in there?" Minoru asked.

Ochako gave a proud smile. "I kicked ass, that's what!"

"Clearly. Kero." Tsuyu looked at the scene with her usual neutral expression. She glanced to the side and saw a sight that made her laugh. "Pony, close your mouth, you'll catch a fly."

Pony let out a small "eep" and closed her mouth immediately. She had been staring at Ochako with awe the entire time, having seen her come flying in like some kind of vengeful Valkyrie. And Pony would be lying if she said she didn't find it hot as fuck.

"Alright!" Minoru got everyone's attention. "We should start moving now. Pretty sure I heard one of those guys say that Vader was on his way, and I'd rather not be within three rooms of that guy."

"Good call." Ochako nodded. "Let's move."

---

"Where the fuck are the stairs?!" Katsuki yelled as they entered another hallway that looked exactly like all of the others. He turned back to Momo and growled. "You should have just let me make the damn hole!"

"No." She sternly said again, not even bothering to explain this time.

"How is it so hard to find the stairs?" Denki idly twirled his staff around, keeping himself busy. "They couldn't have put signs up or something?"

Kyouka sighed before she perked up at the sound of something. "Hey… is that an elevator?"

"There's an elevator in this building?" Momo questioned with a frown, but Katsuki was more focused on finding their ticket to the upper floors.

"Lead the way."

Kyouka plugged her jack into the wall and focused on pinpointing the source of the sound. "This way."

The group followed her into a rather spacious room. It wasn't big, but it was more open than the hallways. On the other side of the room was the fabled elevator Kyouka had heard. The group all felt relief as they finally found a way to reach the upper floors.

"Alright, let's go!" Denki hit the button to call the elevator, but when nothing happened immediately he groaned and started to hit the button repeatedly. "Come on."

"Hey, quit it before you short-circuit the thing," Kyouka scolded him, causing Denki to back off.

Momo walked to stand in front of the elevator, looking at it and letting out a sigh. "Okay," she turned to her team, "Once we get up there, we have to keep an eye out for the Boss. We don't know what exactly it is because someone wouldn't stop letting off explosions so we couldn't hear Flintlock's announcement."

Katsuki scoffed and crossed his arms, grumbling something under his breath.

Momo was going to scold him for it but the sound of the elevator arriving drew Momo's attention and she turned back around, sparing one final glance at her teammates before she heard their ride stop. "Just… be careful."

As she turned, the doors slid open quickly and her eyes widened as a red blade came swinging at her. She gasped as she raised her staff, barely blocking the strike but still feeling the immense strength behind the blow as it knocked her weapon from her hand. She quickly made a shield to block another strike, and she wasn't given a moment to rest as she was attacked again and again, her aggressor pushing her back a few steps before a particularly powerful overhead strike forced her to her knees as she held up her shield to defend herself against the increasingly familiar-looking red blade of energy being pushed against it.

She looked up at her attacker and her eyes widened at the sight of the familiar black armor and mask. She remembered the attire well because she had just spent the previous night watching the trilogy he had originated from.

"D-Darth Vader?!" She yelled in shock as she looked into the eyes of the Sith Lord, seeing her reflection in the eyes of his mask. Her arms started to ache against the pressure being put on them by Vader's lightsaber.

She was pretty sure she heard Katsuki start squealing.

"It is futile to resist." The Sith Lord intoned as he lifted his blade for another strike. He stopped when Denki appeared next to Momo and lunged at him with his staff, electricity coursing through the air.

"Take this!"

Vader countered quickly by bringing his blade down and batting Denki's staff to the side, Denki spinning with the motion to bring the other side of the staff to strike Vader. The Sith sidestepped the swing, dodging it as he brought his lightsaber up to block the swing of the staff Momo had made for herself as she swung to attack him as well. Vader continued to block or dodge the two's attacks, before parrying one of Momo's swings and outreaching a hand to push her back. When Denki went in to attack again, Vader didn't even look as he lifted the same hand he had pushed Momo back with and did the same to Denki, who went flying across the room before he could even reach the Sith Lord.

"Pathetic." He was about to start making his way toward Kyouka and Katsuki, when Momo once again entered his line of sight, swinging at him with her staff rapidly, trying not to give him a chance to react.

Kyouka knew she was pretty much useless during an engagement like this, and quickly jabbed her jack into Katsuki's side, stopping his squealing, much to her ears' relief.

"Fangirl later! Murder the walking Cyborg now!"

Katsuki scowled at her for the fangirl comment but flexed his fingers. "You just needed to ask, no need to jab me with those things! Cover your damn ears." He turned to the battle. "Momo! Move!" That was all the warning he gave before he let loose the biggest explosion he physically could toward Vader and Momo's direction.

He fully expected the explosion to leave his arms shaking but Momo's anti-recoil sleeves seemed to work just like she had intended, dampening the recoil enough to leave his arms aching, not screaming in pain.

Momo immediately disengaged and dove off to the side, just in time for the explosion to slam into Vader, which caused Katsuki to grin, he couldn't wait to brag about this to Deku.

He made his way forward to make sure his target was down, and more importantly that Momo was okay, shouting out a quick "Hey, Pikachu, you good?" to make sure he didn't hit Denki.

"Yeah! He chucked me through a wall, but I'm surprisingly fine!" Denki's voice came through one of the adjacent hallways, "I'm pretty sure whatever this is, is like acting as a kind of force field or something. I don't know but it's cool!"

Katsuki didn't respond, making his way over to where Vader had stood and listened, waiting to hear the telltale sound of his respirator, before nodding. He must have incinerated the fucker. He then walked over to Momo and reached a hand down to help her up.

"I take it back, these sleeves rock." He said with a smile, grinning as he noticed Momo's face heated up in embracement.

"You're wel – Katsuki! Behind you!" Katsuki didn't even have time to react as the sound of the respirator hit his ears, he turned only to be grabbed by the throat and hefted off the ground.

He tried punching Vader's mask to get him to let go, but the Sith Lord didn't budge, instead, he looked at Katsuki for a moment before lifting him up and choke slamming him through the ground followed by a "Force push", sending him crashing down through the floor.

Vader then turned to deal with Momo, only for a yellow missile of electricity to crash into him like a speeding bullet, thunder cracking with the impact and sending the two flying down the hallway.

This gave Momo time to crawl toward the hole and shout down, "Katsuki! Are you okay!?"

A groan reached her ears and she began to fear the worst when she heard Katsuki mumble out, "I just got choke slammed by Darth Vader… Awesome." Before she couldn't hear anything else.

She turned to Kyouka who was approaching her quickly. "I need to go help Kaminari, I know you aren't the best at close combat so you need to go get Katsuki and make sure he's okay, can you do that?"

Kyouka nodded and Momo quickly unzipped her shirt, causing the other girl to blush and look away. A flash of light and a few moments later a pair of white boots with a metal curve on each heel were thrust into her hands "These are long fall boots, just put them on and jump down the hole."

Kyouka stared down at the boots in wonderment for a second before asking "How many of these weird gadgets do you have memorized?"

She didn't get an answer as Momo had already started sprinting down the hall to help Denki, causing Kyouka to sigh and start slipping on the boots over her shoes.

"Yo Katsuki, you better move! I don't wanna crush you!" With that she jumped down the hole, hoping he wasn't passed out or something.

---

Denki groaned as he sat up, shaking his head as the buzzing slowly died down. "What the fuck just happened?"

Everything came back to him rather quickly, and his eyes widened as he looked down at his hands. "Did… did I just do that? What the fu…."

Then he remembered exactly why he had basically turned himself into a living missile and scrambled to his feet as he looked around for Vader.

"Shit shit shit…" He didn't think it through, he's now alone with a robot Vader somewhere. A robot that could use the actual Force apparently? 'Note to self: look up who the fuck Melissa Shield is, and how she can make a robot that can use the Force.'

He noticed that he was no longer feeling tingly so that probably meant whatever weird bullshit his quirk was doing to him previously had worn off.

"Well that's just great," he sighed as he looked down the hall… which was now on fire, lovely. "Hey, anyone there?! Bakugou?! Jirou?! Yaomomo?!"

With no response from any of his teammates, Denki figured it would be best to just get out of the burning hallway before something bad happened. He moved forward, careful not to accidentally burn himself, the crackling of the fire filling his ears.

Through the sound of the fires burning, a hiss and then a hum cut through it all and Denki barely dove forward in time to avoid the red blade that swung for his head. He looked back and gasped at the sight of Vader standing there lightsaber in hand as he stood amongst the flames, completely intact with the exception of his cape being scorched in a few places. Honestly, Denki would have freaked out over how cool Vader looked if said robot wasn't trying to kill him.

"I must admit, that is quite the ability you possess," Vader spoke as he stepped forward, Denki backing up while still on the floor. "But it is insignificant compared to the power of the Force."

"Bro you are a Robot, the Force isn't even real!"

"I find your lack of faith disturbing." Vader immediately swung his blade at Denki, who held his arms up to block the blow as the Saber came down on him. As the blade connected, red and yellow electricity began to arc off of both Denki's arms and the lightsaber. The energy condensed until there was a shockwave, pushing Vader back as he slid to a stop on his feet.

Denki hissed instinctively but blinked as that tingly feeling came back. He looked down at his hands and saw red electricity arcing between his fingers as it slowly converted into his normal yellow. The energy then spread throughout his body and he felt the jittery feeling return.

"Oho! We're back in business!" Denki grinned as he flashed to his feet in an instant, facing Vader who tilted his head.

"Interesting," Vader swung his blade at Denki, only for the young man to vanish from where he was standing. Vader stared at the spot Denki had been only briefly before he quickly turned and held his hand up. Denki's electrified fist connected with a seemingly invisible wall, the electrical power behind the attack creating another shockwave that sent Denki flying back, and Vader skidding along the ground a bit, but otherwise still on his feet. "Very interesting."

"Yeah," Denki grunted as he got up, a smug look on his face, "Guess that Saber of yours is kinda useless against me, huh?"

Vader didn't respond, instead, he clicked a button on the hilt of his weapon that went unnoticed but Denki before he began to approach the hero student again. Denki scoffed and spread his arms out to his sides. "Didn't we just do this?"

Vader readied his blade, and Denki kept his arms up, not concerned with the lightsaber hitting him. He came to regret this decision the moment the weapon struck him in the stomach. It felt like getting hit by a hot metal bat, really hard. The air was knocked from his lungs as he was sent flying back, tumbling across the ground before he rolled to a stop, gasping for air.

Vader stood there, his breathing cutting through the sound of the inferno around them as he simply watched Denki coughing and gasping for air on the floor. Once Denki was able to properly get air into his lungs, he slowly picked himself up, staring at Vader in shock.

"Surprised?" The Dark Lord asked before he took a step forward, causing Denki to flinch back. "Ah, yes, there it is. The fear, the panic. It is as I said, child. Your power may be impressive, but compared to me, compared to the Dark Side, you are nothing."

Denki's back hit the wall behind him, and as he looked up into the mask of Vader, he couldn't help his snarky remark of, "Well that's very degrading."

Vader didn't reply as he raised his blade to deal the "killing" blow, Denki tried to move but couldn't, almost as if something was keeping his body in place. The blade came down and Denki instinctively closed his eyes as he waited for the pain to come, but it never did.

Instead of pain, he heard a female grunt and the twang of metal, followed by the hiss of Vader's blade.

He hesitantly cracked an eye open and saw Momo standing in front of him, holding up a shield and struggling to push back against the raw strength of Vader. Denki felt whatever was keeping his body in place disappear, and he felt control return to his arms. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a sparkle of light and noticed something coming out of Momo's back. He quickly caught on and reached out, grabbing whatever it was and pulling the rest of it out of Momo's back. His body flashed as he was suddenly behind Vader, and he swung aiming for the back of the Sith Lord's leg with what he now realized was a spear. The attack cut across the leg and made Vader grunt as he was forced to let up his attack against Momo, who took the opportunity to bash him away with her shield.

Both teens panted as they were given a moment of reprieve, and Denki looked over to his teammate and said, "Thanks for the save. Where are the others?"

"Kyouka is getting Katsuki," Momo told him. "It's just us at the moment."

"Oh… Joy."

They stared down their opponent, who made no move as he stared back from beneath his dark helm. The only sounds in the hallway were the crackling of fires and the breathing of Vader. Both contestants have honestly forgotten they were partaking in a sports event at this point, their minds concerned with nothing but the villain before them and how they needed to take him down.

Eventually, Vader made the first move. Catching both students off guard, he dashed forward with a speed that he had yet to exhibit, Denki's eyes widened as he barely brought up his spear in time to block the strike, and Momo went in to attack with her own sword that she made but was launched back as Vader lifted his hand in her direction. Her back hit the ground and she got up as fast as she could, all the while hearing the sounds of Vader's and Denki's weapons clashing as the two fought.

Denki tried to move as fast as he could, but even with his newfound speed, Vader managed to be the one to put pressure on him. He wasn't able to get a single attack in, forced to block blow after blow as he was pushed back.

"Help!" He yelled as he barely blocked another attack. "Yaomomo, do something!" He screamed in panic. Vader locked weapons with him once more, and Denki saw as he brought his offhand up and made a motion as if he was pulling something. Denki yelled as a block of concrete came flying in from behind and hit him in his legs, making him fall to the floor. He once more barely avoided a strike from the red blade as he held his spear between his hands and blocked it. "Momo!"

Vader struck the spear again and again, Denki's grip loosening. Vader then struck from a different angle and sent Denki's spear flying from his hands and leaving him without a weapon. Vader held out his hand and Denki felt himself get pulled off the ground out straight into the black-gloved hand of Darth Vader, held by the throat and dangling in the air. He panicked and started letting out electricity, but it seemed to do nothing against the Sith Lord.

Momo had finally gotten to her feet, and she looked up at her name being called, only to gasp as she saw Denki being held by the neck. She immediately went into action, the light of Creation sparkling in her hand as she made the first thing that came to mind.

She lifted the loaded rifle and aimed for Vader's head, intent on saving her friend and ending this now. But as she took aim with her rifle, she felt her heart stop and her breath hitch. She didn't see Vader in the scope. She saw the skull mask of that villain from the USJ, holding Katsuki by the throat as he was getting the electricity slowly siphoned out of him. Momo's breathing became shallow as she found herself in the same situation, she was starting to hyperventilate. She was in the same nightmare all over again. But… there was something different this time.

She had a clear shot at the villain's arm.

She didn't even hesitate, jumping at the opportunity and adjusting her aim. She squeezed the trigger, and there was a crack like lightning as the bullet flew through the air and went through the villain's arm. He screamed in agony as he let go of her friend, throwing him away to god knows where. And turned to Momo to reveal eyes filled with rage.

Momo lowered the scope from her eyes, and she once again saw Vader, standing there surrounded by fire with small sparks of electricity emitting from his injured left arm. He just stood there, staring Momo down, whose mind was finally catching up to the situation as she realized what had happened. She was never actually at the USJ, and she wasn't aiming for a living man's head. She was aiming at a robot and had missed her chance to kill it.

"Shit!" She quickly lifted her rifle and fired again, Vader merely raised his blade to block the bullet. He began to slowly walk toward her, Momo responded by firing again and again. Each bullet was blocked as Vader came closer. When he was practically on top of her, he swung his blade and sliced Momo's rifle in two.

Momo dropped the parts of her rifle and stared up into the mask of Vader as he towered over her. Her breathing came out fast and quick and her mind went blank. She didn't know what to do, she had no plan, no way out.

It all happened so fast.

She yelled as she felt the sudden rush of electricity throughout her body, turning it numb as she passed out. Vader withdrew his blade from Momo's stomach, letting her limp body fall to the ground.

Vader spared her a glance before looking up and lifting his hand. The fires all around them went out at once, leaving Momo's unconscious form safe from being consumed by the flames. With the noise of the fires gone, he heard the sounds of fighting and followed the shouts to his primary targets.

---

"And that's Momo Yaoyorozu out of the game!" Midnight announced, the crowd cheering wildly mixed with a bit of disappointment at the fall of another competitor.

Izumi was having a religious experience at that moment. She was getting the chance to see one of her favorite characters manhandle some of her favorite people! Live!

"Oh, I'm going to treat Mel real nice tonight.~" She purred around her soda, Eri looked at her curiously while Yu snorted out her own drink, barely covering her mouth in time.

After coughing and wiping her face Yu let out a laugh. "You're so lucky the microphones were muted, what if the crowd had heard that?!"

"Let them hear my passion for my beloved!" Izumi waved her friend off dramatically. "She has given me the gift of Lord Vader clowning my students, she deserves all the praise I can give her!"

Yu shook her head. "I still can't believe your girlfriend is Melissa Shield of all people. A combo like you two should be illegal."

"Then call me a supervillain I guess, I don't give a daaaaaa…" Izumi dragged out the sound as she slowly looked down at Eri, who was looking up at her with wide curious eyes. "Darn… I don't give a darn."

Eri smiled at Izumi before she started munching on her snack once again as she looked back to watch the event.

"Wow," Yu chuckled, "parenthood has turned you PG."

Izumi shifted her gaze to Yu with a look that clearly said: "fuck you".

The gunslinger sighed as she turned her attention back to the event. She was honestly a little sad to see Momo taken out like that, her student clearly panicked in the situation towards the end, but Izumi would be lying if she said she wasn't impressed with Momo's aim when she shot Vader's arm.

'She must have forgotten he was just a robot, she had a clear shot for his head,' she thought. 'Oh well.'

She hummed as she replayed some other notable events in her mind, such as when Vader absolutely massacred all those teams. It was glorious, and Izumi reminded herself to treat Melissa extra well for that scene alone.

Moving on to more wins for the students, however, there was Ochako's fight with that Purge Trooper, which left Izumi grinning like a mad woman, especially when Ochako let her inner badass come out. She always knew it was in there, Ochako just needed to do what Izumi did. That is to say, Ochako just needed to give absolutely zero fucks and let loose.

Then there was Denki exhibiting some new abilities she hadn't seen him use before, which allowed Izumi to start gushing to Yu and Eri about one of the things she loved, that being quirk analysis, third only to guns, and guns second only to her love for a certain blond inventor and her own family.

There was also what seemed to be an alliance forming between Team Monoma and Team Iida, Izumi liked to see that the two classes were able to set aside their rivalry in such a situation.

Izumi felt it safe to say that this Sports Festival would be one to remember for a long time.

Though… Izumi glanced at the time and noticed that the event had gone on for quite a while. Previous second events had run at most for thirty minutes, this one was pushing forty…

"I, uh, should probably call up Nezu and ask about the schedule." Izumi pulled out her phone to call her boss.

"Yeah, you do that," Yu said absentmindedly as she continued to watch art in motion.

---

Nezu had just hung up the phone with Izumi before making his way back over to his seat at the bar.

"Oh, Miss Shield?" He called as he passed Melissa. "It has been brought to my attention that this event has gone on for some time. Now, you have control over the robots being used, I don't suppose there's any way we could move this along?"

Melissa hummed as she ran her hand along Cat's body. "Well, there are a few things, but… How injured do you want the students?"

Aizawa glanced at her sharply in concern while Nezu chuckled.

"Just don't maim my students and no permanent damage please."

"Cat, you heard the weird mammal thing, ramp the difficulty up to Jedi Knight. Also, initiate the Kenobi Protocol, let's make this more interesting." She paused before pulling up her phone, her eyes widening slightly as she looked over some data. "Oh wow, Vader is literally the only robot left in that building, your students do thorough work."

Nezu chuckled while Aizawa sighed, "Do we want to know what the Kenobi protocol is?"

"Don't worry, it's nothing bad." Melissa waves him off, "Just giving the students… a little bit of false hope."

Aizawa simply stared at Melissa before saying, "You are just as sadistic as Midoriya, I swear."

Melissa smiled like that was something to be proud of.

---

"Phew," Minoru wiped the sweat from his brow with a sigh, "I think that was the last of them."

His team stood surrounded by dead troopers of every rank, glad to finally have some of the heat from Vader off their back for a little while so that they could finally start racking up some actual points.

Tsuyu nodded from her perch atop a mountain of troopers. "Kero, I'm glad we managed to get away from Vader for a little bit, give Ochako-Chan time to recover, speaking of." She turned, "How are you holding up?"

The gravity girl was busy slamming her new favorite toy down on her last trooper (a Purge Trooper at that) with a satisfying thud and a manic giggle. "This thing is amazing!" She hugged the hammer to her bosom. "I'm not giving it back!"

Pony was standing a few feet away, watching her friend with a smile (completely innocent and pure) on her face.

She was trying (and failing) to not stare at Ochako's sweat-covered arms. She was transfixed by her best friend's surprising amount of hidden muscles, they called to her, distracted her.

She was so distracted that she barely heard Ochako shout "Pony!" or have time to duck when the lightsaber came flying at her from across the room.

Luckily Tsuyu was on the ball and used her tongue to grab the saber out of the air and throw it back where it came from. "Pony-Chan, focus before you get bonked with the horny bat, Kero."

Pony backed up as fast as she could from the door, Ochako grabbed her and gently guided Pony to stand behind her as she stood protectively in front of her friend. Minoru quickly came up to join the group as well, already beginning to sweat nervously as he said, "Oh shit, he found us!"

They heard the breathing before they saw him. Emerging from the darkness of the hallway, almost as if he were coming out of the actual shadow themselves, was Darth Vader, his form looking ever so slightly battle-damaged, mainly his cape which had been singed from fires.

Ochako gulped, but activated the electricity on her hammer as she gathered her confidence. "Took you a while. What, did that roof I drop on you hurt your leg?"

"Inconsequential," Vader simply replied as he began to step forward. "It was foolish to believe you could ever escape me and even more foolish to think that you could ever defeat me. All the others have tried, and all of them have failed. They stood in my way and I cut them down, and now…" Vader had finally entered the room, and he raised his hand and closed his fist, the doors behind Team Tsunotori closing in response to the motion, cutting them off from any possible escape route that wasn't between them and Vader. "I have come for you."

Ochako didn't respond for a moment as her team got into their combat stances, tired, haggard but determined.

Vader ignited his lightsaber once more, the red glow reflecting off the eyes of his mask as he stared down the very targets he had been hunting the whole time. It was time to complete his mission.

"Let's end this," He said as he stalked forward.