Mina had been craving an adventure—something wild where she could let loose, be reckless, and smash some robots. Well, she was definitely getting what she wished for. She blasted a robot in the chest with a jet of acid, watching with glee as it sizzled and melted through the steel plating. It wasn't quite enough to stop the horde of mechanical monsters, but for the time being, Mina was having too much fun to care.

"Yippee!" Mina shouted, flipping backward and sweeping the leg of another bot, sending it crashing to the floor. She laughed, adrenaline coursing through her. "Isn't this the best, Izuku? I'm loving this! Aren't you loving this?!"

Izuku yanked a robot off balance, its metal limbs flailing wildly, before delivering a precise kick that sent its head flying. "Doesn't this feel a little off to you?!" he yelled, barely dodging a pincer-like hand aimed at his head. "There are way too many of them! Why are there so many?!"

He had a point. Usually, in class they'd be up against five, maybe six bots each if the teachers wanted to push them hard. But this—this felt more like an invasion than practice. Robots were swarming them like ants, even if the mechanical menaces were assuming they were against a full class of twenty, the numbers felt way off.

"Maybe they know we're awesome and want to make it a challenge!" Mina shot back, grinning as she coated her hand in acid and karate chopped through a robot's arm. "Or maybe we're just that good!"

Izuku dodged another swipe, narrowly escaping a metal claw that slashed through the air just inches from his face. "I don't think that's it!" he shouted, flinging a robot and sending it crashing into a pile of its companions. "They aren't supposed to attack on their own like this! Don't they usually only engage when provoked?!"

"Maybe we attacked first? I don't remember!" Mina, barely paying attention, spun through the chaos like a dancer, launching acidic hadoukens at anything that moved. She leapt over another charging robot, raining acid down on the way, crumpling it's head. "We should be fighting robots like this all the time! Hey, do you think we could livestream this?!"

"Mina, can you focus?!" Izuku called out, smashing a robot by glueing his foot to its face during an axe-kick and slamming it into the floor. He could feel the intensity rising, but she just laughed, giddy with the rush of combat.

"This is so freakin' cool!" she yelled, sending another spray of acid toward two advancing bots. They crumpled, sparks flying as their circuits fried from the damage. "How often do we get to go this hard?!"

But then, as she prepared to face the next wave, something strange happened. One of the robots, lying dismembered on the floor, reached out for its severed arm. With a click and a whirr, it reattached the limb. Another picked up a companion's fallen head, and popped it back onto their shoulders, twisting it into place.

Mina's smile faded slightly as she glanced around. No matter how many they destroyed, the robots kept coming. It was like they were multiplying—each wave bigger than the last. And now they were starting to repair themselves.

She glanced over at Izuku, who was elbow-deep in his own battle. The robots were relentless, and even though they were fighting hard, the sheer number of enemies was starting to overwhelm them. Mina bit her lip as she dodged another swipe from a robot's claw, spinning out of its way and landing beside Izuku.

Her smile faltered slightly as she finally took a moment to properly assess the situation. "Okay," Mina admitted with a nervous laugh, "this might be a bit more intense than I thought."

They moved closer, instinctively standing back to back as the robots circled them, their glowing eyes and clanking limbs a constant reminder that this was no ordinary battle. "We can't keep this up forever!" Izuku yelled, his voice tight with urgency. "We've gotta get out of here—there's no end to them!"

Mina clenched her fists, acid dripping between her fingers, sizzling as it hit the floor. "Yeah, but how do we escape when we're completely surrounded?!"

"We'll have to break through to a wall," Izuku said, determined. "We'll climb out of here!"

"I'm not going to ask again—could everyone please stop going near the crazed robot head?!" Power Loader's voice wavered somewhere between exasperation and pure panic. The situation had spiralled way beyond his usual workload, and that was saying something. In his line of work, decapitated robots were a regular Tuesday, but usually, they needed a power source to keep moving.

This one, however, seemed to be running on pure spite. Its jaw hung at an odd angle, one eye was completely missing, and a gaping hole adorned the side of its skull. And yet, the head skittered across the desk like a wind-up toy gone rogue, very much alive despite looking like it had seen the business end of a baseball bat.

" 13 21 34 55 89 144 233…" The robotic voice droned on, rattling off Fibonacci numbers in a monotone hum, as though this were a perfectly reasonable thing for a decapitated head to be doing. The broken jaw clicked and vibrated, making the head wobble dangerously close to the edge of the table. The only thing keeping it from tumbling off were the hasty wooden barricades some brave souls had slapped onto the desk.

Hatsume, tongue poking out in fierce concentration, crept closer, her hands outstretched like a cat about to pounce. "Just a little closer…"

CLACK CLACK CLACK

The robot head snapped its jaw shut with a sickening crunch, somehow fixing its dislocated mandible in the process. "YAKYAKYAKYAK!" it barked, feral and rabid.

"Yikes!" Hatsume yanked her hand back just in time, narrowly dodging a quick trip to the school nurse with fewer fingers than she started with.

Power Loader rushed over, all but tearing at his helmet. "What did I just say about staying away from the crazy robot?!"

"But it's for the pursuit of knowledge!" Hatsume shot back, with several murmurs of support from her classmates. "There's something inside this thing, boss! You can't expect us to just leave it alone!"

"I expect you to not stick your hand into the mouth of a malfunctioning deathtrap!" Power Loader groaned, wiping a fresh sheen of sweat from his forehead. "At least try to come up with something that won't result in an amputation!"

Hatsume winked and nodded her head. "Reading you loud and clear, boss. What you're saying is... we should build a shrink ray—"

"No. Absolutely not."

"Or a—"

Power Loader immediately cut her off. "You're not building an enlarging ray, either."

Hatsume huffed and crossed her arms in mock indignation. "Fine, we won't use any rays! …Now a beam, on the other hand…"

"No beams! No rays, no cannons and no lasers!"

"Pft, fine, fine," Hatsume finally relented. "But you're really limiting our creative options here."

Power Loader sighed, rubbing his temples. "I'm trying to limit your funeral options, Hatsume."

Meanwhile, the robot head continued its chaotic, numbers-fueled rant, now rattling through equations nobody had asked for. "E equals MC Squared! The sum of the square roots of any two sides of a right angle triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side!"

Some of the more cautious students had taken several steps back, while others (those who hadn't quite learned how to value their own survival) watched with fascination. From a safe distance, Maina Furasu raised a finger.

"Could we just, you know…" She shrugged, and mimed pointing a gun at the robot and pulling the trigger. "Problem solved?"

Before anyone could respond, the head switched tracks again. "I AM BECOME DEATH, DESTROYER OF–"

Power Loader smacked it with a wrench before it could finish the quote. "I appreciate the out of the box thinking, as concerning as it was," he narrowed his eyes at Maina, "But I'd rather not solve our issues by shooting them in the face."

He took a breath and rubbed the back of his head, "Okay, okay," he muttered, pacing back and forth. "This thing shouldn't even be active, so what set it off?"

"Maybe it's haunted?" suggested a voice from the back.

"Don't you start!" Power Loader snapped, pointing a finger menacingly before marching over to his workstation. "Maybe something malfunctioned when it was destroyed, I'd better check the other robots for any abnormalities…" He frowned as the status reports loaded in, "Nope, no power surges, all the other robots are still in sleep mode. Everything looks completely normal."

"THIS IS NOT NORMAL!" Izuku yelled as he yanked another robot's arm off its body and started pelting the others with it. It was lucky enough for them that the bots were easy to destroy, one hit and they folded like a cheap suit, but the real problem wasn't their durability. It was the sheer, overwhelming number of them.

Robots were everywhere. They poured out from alleyways, spilled out of shops, tumbled from rooftops like a mechanical waterfall, even crawled up from the sewers. Every time Izuku and Mina glanced around, more appeared from all directions, the swarm multiplying faster than they could take them down.

"Normal?!" Mina yelled as she hurled another burst of acid, "This is goddamn unprecedented! Where the hell are they coming from?!"

It was as if the metal bastards were appearing out of thin air. Unprecedented was one way of putting it, but they were veering ever closer to ridiculous. When a car parked nearby and robots began pouring out of the passenger doors and trunk, that was it. That was the final straw.

Izuku scanned the area – they were surrounded on all sides, boxed in, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Even the small spot of concrete they had claimed as their own was rapidly shrinking under the never-ending encroaching onslaught of machines. He swore under his breath as a fresh wave approached.

"We can't keep this up forever!" he shouted, kneecapping another robot. "But how are we supposed to get out of here?!"

Mina winced as another glob of acid left her hands, her palms aching from overuse. "Drawing a blank here, dude! Come on, you know I'm not good with plans! Aren't you supposed to be the smart one?!"

"I'm not smart, Mina! I'm reckless, remember?!"

Then it hit him. An idea. An impossibly reckless, stupid, dangerous idea that had as much chance of killing them as helping them, but it was an idea. With a look that didn't invite the greatest of confidence, he turned to Mina. "Do you trust me?"

Mina blinked, momentarily thrown off by the question. "That depends! Is this falling exercise 'do you trust me' or you're about to push me out of a moving car 'do you trust me'?!"

"The second one!"

"Yes, Izuku! I trust you! Whatever it is, I trust you!" Mina parried another attack, "Whatever it is, do it quickly!"

Izuku's heart pounded in his chest as he reached out, the chaotic sounds of the machines climbing over themselves raged around him, but he needed to focus. With little warning, he grabbed Mina's hand and pulled her very close to him. Much closer than she was expecting, that was for sure.

"Close your eyes, and keep your head down." he instructed in a hurried voice.

"Wh-what are you-! Is this really the time for this?" Mina squeaked. Despite the tension of the moment, she flicked her hair coyly, and if her face could physically get any pinker it probably would have. "I mean, if you're going to be so bold about it…"

Izuku, completely oblivious, didn't notice. "I've only done this once before," he muttered under his breath, more to himself than to her. "If the force of it knocks you out... I'm sorry in advance."

"Uh," Mina blinked, her momentary flirtation turning into confusion as she stared at him. "This really doesn't feel appropriate anymore,"

Suddenly, Izuku wrapped an arm tightly around her waist, locking her against his side. "Remember, eyes closed, head down." he repeated. "God, I hope this works…"

With a deep breath, Izuku crouched down low, and clenched his teeth. Summoning every bit of control and focus he could muster, he visualised his quirk and how it affected his body. All the hours of training, of trying to understand Stickiness, the limits of his friction control, how to channel it efficiently. With one very important difference. This time, he was trying to share that control with another person.

Was it even possible? He wasn't sure, but there wasn't a lot of time to think about it.

Then, he pushed off the ground. Hard.

BOOM!

The ground cracked beneath them, a shockwave rippling outward and sending hordes of robots flying in all directions. Wind howled past their ears as the two of them rocketed upwards with an explosive force, the floor below becoming a blur as they left the swarm far behind.

As the city below shrank, Izuku's vision started to blur, thoughts of "I really should have put my goggles on!" were screaming in his mind. But the good thing was, he actually managed to stay awake this time! He was tired, yes, but this was a far cry from the sudden, immediate unconsciousness he suffered the last time. While his muscles hurt, and adjusting the flow of his quirk was taking all his focus, he managed to slowly ease their resistance, letting the air slip past them like water. This slight additional friction was all he needed to taper the speed off, and gradually, the dizzying ascent came to a steady halt.

Then, for the first time, Izuku managed to glide. Really glide. None of that 100% sticky feet stuck in the air like thick mud bullshit flying. This was the real deal. They weren't falling, they were coasting. Gently soaring.

"Oh my… Oh my god." With the rush of wind quieting, Izuku finally glanced at Mina, who was staring in awe. "We're….flying."

Mina clung on tighter, enjoying the trip but knowing she would like the fall even less. She turned to Izuku and asked, "How far up are we?"

"I'm not sure," he answered truthfully, looking across the horizon to the tallest towers of Musutafu. "Maybe… 120 metres?"

The view was incredible from this far up, and they could see clear out to the outskirts of the city. Mina shifted her position to get another angle, while making sure not to interfere with his balance. "This is… incredible."

Izuku gave her a genuine smile, feeling the pounding of his heart start to ease. It felt as though he was starting to figure out the exact amount of exertion he needed to keep this up, but was careful not to get too relaxed. "Yeah…" he said, savouring the moment. "It is."

The robot fighting adventure had, admittedly, gotten a little out of control. But this? This made it all worth it. Flying had always been the dream, and now that he had finally managed it… It was liberating. His quirk, his body, everything was finally working the way he hoped it would! He glanced over at Mina, her eyes wide with wonder, and he felt an unexpected warmth spreading through him. Sharing this moment with her just made the whole experience that much better.

Over time, buildings started to give way to trees as they left the confines of the testing facilities and headed towards the sprawling expanse of the UA Woods. Clearly, turning was something he would have to work on, as right now he could barely adjust their trajectory, but not enough to avoid the approaching treeline.

"Hold on," he warned, adjusting his grip as the trees drew nearer, their feet barely grazing against the highest branches. They were moving faster than he would have liked, but Izuku managed to gently steer them toward a small clearing.

Izuku kicked his legs forward, slowly cranking his quirk up to max in order to slow the impact as they both hit the ground with a thud. For a moment, they tumbled across the grass, before finally coming to a stop, the world still spinning slightly as they lay on the forest floor.

They lay there for a second to catch their breath, when Mina burst into laughter. "That was INSANE! Why haven't you been doing that all the time?! Oh my god, I would never be on the ground! I thought we were going to crash, for sure!"

Izuku rolled on to his back, panting but smiling. "I mean, we kinda did."

As the adrenaline started to fade, the magnitude of what just happened started to sink in, and Mina turned to him with a more relaxed expression. "You're really something else, you know that?" She said softly. "I knew your quirk was strong, but…this?"

"I had help," he replied. "Couldn't have done it without you."

"Oh come on, that's not true," Mina said dismissively, though liking the thought. "I didn't do anything except hold on."

Izuku shook his head, "No, it's true! Having you there got me to think more about what I was doing to keep us safe. You know that when it's just me I can get a little, you know… Reckless. But this time I knew I had to do better for you."

Mina blinked, her smile softening. "That's actually… kind of sweet."

Sweet? Izuku's brain screeched to a halt as the implication of what he said had just caught up to him. "Uh, I mean," he blurted out, trying to sit up quickly. "We should, um, focus on getting out of here first! Before it gets dark."

He awkwardly adjusted his grip on the grass, avoiding eye contact as he scrambled to stand, brushing dirt off his uniform. "We're not far from the edge of the woods, if we keep going that way we'll be out of here in no time!"

Mina smiled knowingly, in no way fooled by the desperate attempts to change the subject. She stood up and dusted off her clothes, "You got it, Izuku. Back to the real world, right?"

That blast from Izuku's super-jump was a little difficult to miss, windows were shaken as far as the training gym where Aizawa was overseeing Hagakure and Kirishima's training. The shockwave sent a small tremor through the building, and Aizawa knew straight away that something was off. Earthquakes weren't on the schedule for today. That was next Thursday, for earthquake preparedness training.

"What the hell was that?" Kirishima asked, while being held upside down by Hagakure.

She dropped him in a heap, "It sounded like something just blew up!"

Aizawa sighed and grabbed his scarf from the bench, another day, another explosion. "You two stay here if you want, I might not be back until later. Don't break anything." And without another word, he headed for the doors.

As he rushed across campus in the direction of the blast, Aizawa's instincts were telling him something either very important or very confusing had gone down. He was hoping for confusion. Confusing things you could just pass off to someone else. Important things, though, meant getting involved.

It turned out he wasn't the only one who had noticed something wrong, as he saw Hound Dog racing past, with Ectoplasm in hot pursuit. Eventually the three gathered at the testing city, where a massive crowd of robots (hundreds, at the very least) were relentlessly trying to scale the walls to escape. Cementoss was the only thing keeping them in check..

Hound Dog growled, his nose twitching as he paced back and forth, "They're almost through the walls, woof! What's gotten into them?!"

"I've never seen nothing like this," Ectoplasm said, his accent slipping a little before he coughed, "I will send out my clones, and attempt to hold the robots back."

From the side of the wall, Cementoss raised a hand to get the attention of the other heroes, "Don't bother, Ecto! There are far too many of them, we need to just keep them contained until we can come up with a better plan!" With a deep rumble, the earth shook as thick, towering walls of concrete began to rise higher around the circumference of the testing city. He was about to start putting a roof on the structure, when Eraser halted him.

"Wait, stop! Are you sure there's nobody in there? Hound Dog, do you smell anyone?"

Hound Dog sniffed at the air and barked, "I can't smell anyone, ruff. But I can't be certain."

Aizawa scratched his neck in thought, "Do you think we could get Ragdoll down here, get her to use search to check if there are any life signs? We can't afford to miss anyone before we go any further with this."

"Sorry to break it to you," Cementoss answered, "But her quirk doesn't work that way. She has to tag people before she can track their life signs."

"Huh, well then," Aizawa said, turning to look directly at you, the reader who is about to write a comment about this, "I sure hope that's not how her quirk works in this story."

"Yeah, fair." Cementoss shrugged, before fishing his Heronet headset from his pocket. But the moment he put it in his ear, there was a piercing shrill wail emanating from it.

"Agh, what the hell?! Headsets are off the table, gang. The machines nearby must be messing with the frequency. Does anyone have their phone with them?"

Ectoplasm shook his head, "I don't take mine on missions. I can't afford a screen protector."

Aizawa gave him a weird look, and got his phone out. "Yeah, I've got mine." he said, before dialling a number. "All Might, we got an issue. We need you to get Ragdoll down here, quick as you can. Thanks."

From the other end of the line, the other heroes could hear a confident laugh, and a muffled Never fear!

Cementoss continued to rise cement walls, struggling more and more to contain the onslaught, while the others stood around looking at their watches. In less than a minute, All Might landed beside them, a thoroughly windswept Ragdoll in tow.

"Hey Rag," Aizawa said casually, "can you check there's anyone in there for us?"

"That's what you dragged me down here for?! I was on a hot date, I'll have you know!" She was not on a hot date.

"At 4pm on a Thursday?" he tilted his head at her.

"It's called having a social life, Eraser." she said in response, looking toward the city and opening her eyes wide. After a few seconds, she shook her head. "Nope, nobody in there."

"Cool. Alright, Cementoss, box them in."

"Finally!" Cementoss sagged his shoulders, lifted his arms like he was conducting an orchestra, and put a lid on the entire city. "This is only a temporary solution, you know that, right?"

"Bark," Hound Dog barked. "Give me the phone." After a few tense moments of hound dog trying to use the touchscreen with his claw, making Aizawa wince at how close he was coming to scratching the screen, he finally managed to dial Nezu's number.

"Nezu, woof. Execute Order 65."

The cackling laughter from the other end of the phone was concerning, to say the very least.

Hound Dog ushered everyone to a safe distance, and the group of heroes watched as the entire city, gigantic cement cage and all, disappeared into the ground courtesy of a series of controlled explosions.

"Well then!" All Might said, hands on his hips, "That's one for the blog, eh fellas?"

"Antimonyarsenicaluminimseleniumhydrogenoxygennitrog-" The support course class watched in fascination and sight revulsion as the disembodied head suddenly stopped mid Lehrer.

And burst open, spraying lubricant everywhere.

Mei wiped a globule off her face and flicked it on the floor. "Oh, great. Now I'll never know how that song was gonna end."