Chapter 24: Pass, Pass, Pass!

Mina always wanted to be a Hero. But what kind?

Well, obviously, the kind that protected people; she had been doing that ever since middle school. But that was what every Hero was supposed to do. She needed more. Present Mic was cool, Eraserhead was scary, even All Might was more than just saving people, right?

She decided to follow in Present Mic's path of being a cool Hero.

Which meant capturing the Villains in style.

"So, whaddya think?" the pink-skinned girl asked Sato, as the two of them ran through the city. "We'll definitely get a higher score for capturing instead of running, you agree?"

"Yeah, that makes sense –"

FWOOM!

Sato got cut off as the two of them leapt away from the sudden concrete explosion in front of them. Mina could see their target a little bit ahead of them: Cementoss.

"He can't move around very fast," the black-scleraed teenager said, letting her acid begin to leak. "Let's break through from the front and shoot for a high score!

"Aw, yeah!" Sato cheered, gulping down his sugar.

And with that, the two of them charged.

"So, you've decided on a full-frontal assault," their teacher said, shifting the terrain around him. Soon enough, there were dozens of slabs of concrete all around him.

"THIS IS IT, SATO!"

"LET'S GO!"

Eijiro Kirishima considered himself to be a man of action… probably. He did go out of his way to make sure he'd live his life without any regrets after what happened back in middle school, but with what has been happening during his time at UA… was it really working?

He got beaten up by the big maniac back at the USJ, and really didn't advance much in the Sports Festival. His internship was alright, but it felt like he could do more.

Would capturing a teacher qualify as more? Probably.

The only problem was… that Hero was Thirteen.

Her Quirk was sucking up everything in her path, and all he and Aoyama could do was hold on for dear life on one of the railings. Man, he was supposed to be better than this!

No! No time for a pity party or for any memories from the past!

How can I protect others if I'm being weighed down… wait a second…

Eijiro Kirishima had a plan. A really, really, stupid plan that just might work.

He let go of the railing, and let Black Hole pull him in.

Thirteen immediately freaked out and turned off her Quirk. But the momentum had already carried Eijiro straight towards her. Once he was close enough, he activated his Quirk…

WHAM!

…and tackled her straight into the ground, cuffing her.

"I must admit, that was a brilliant strategy, monsieur Kirishima," Aoyama said.

"You didn't even do anything!"

"They're starting us off in the middle of the stage," Shoji figured.

This place looked like a tower. Multiple floors, supported by columns that seemed sculpted to fit an ancient Greek thing. Weird choice, but whatever.

"In order to escape, we have to pass through the designated gate, right?" Asui… err, Tsu, asked. "Which means the teacher is probably there… waiting for us."

The multi-armed boy nodded at the logic, as the second the exam began, he saw multiple clones of Cementoss just rise up from the ground, surrounding them.

"Steel your nerves, and show me your resolve," one of the Ectoplasm clones said, before it, and the rest of them, lunged towards the two students. Time to put their plan into action.

Shoji sprouted his tentacles and grabbed the frog girl, who he tossed into the air, letting her reach one of the other floors. Good. That meant the clones had to divide.

While half of them went after the frog girl, the rest of them stayed at the bottom of the floor with Shoji, allowing him to push through them. They weren't very durable, one good hit was enough to make them dissipate, but he needed to hurry. They'd reform soon enough.

Luckily, the frog girl had a plan.

The two of them had started out so strong.

Ashido and Sato had been demolishing concrete wall after concrete wall for what felt like a few minutes now, and Cementoss had just been replacing them.

"ARRGH! This is never-ending! He keeps making more of them!"

As Ashido melted another hole into a concrete wall, she didn't notice that Sato was slowing down. Slow enough that the concrete around the sugar-lover was surrounding him.

"Huh? SATO, LOOK OUT!"

Too late. The concrete struck towards him like snakes, and then –

CRACK!

…it broke?

Ashido rubbed her eyes to make sure that she wasn't being punk'd, but sure enough, the concrete slabs shattered from Sato's… crystal… arm… wait –

"WHAT THE HELL?!"

"WHAT IS THIS?!"

Out from Sato's arm was a bunch of translucent crystals, the kind that resembled what fictional diamonds in the movies looked like. They had sprouted from Sato's arm, ripping the spandex off from his costume, and then covering his limb entirely, almost like some kind of gauntlet.

"A Quirk Awakening?" Cemetoss wondered to himself, before shaking his head. That could wait after the exam. Right now, he needed to make sure that they finished this up.

Even if he was stuped by whatever the hell Sato just pulled, Ashdio still noticed the massive concrete snake gunning for her. Shit, her Quirk was still on cool-down, he needed –

TSSS!

"Huh?"

She had no idea how it happened, but somehow, some of the acid she had spilled on the floor earlier just… leaped up and melted the cement snake that was about to grab her.

What?!

Questions for later. They had an exam to win!

Tenya Iida didn't really know what to make of Yui Kodai.

She was supposedly Uraraka's childhood friend, but she really didn't interact with her. She didn't really interact with anyone. She simply stood there, in silence, watching as everyone else did the talking, with her only adding her own input every now and then.

Maybe that was just the way she liked it; not being the center of attention. Regardless, she seemed to be taking Hero work quite seriously, if the Battle Trial was anything to go off of. So, he was fine with being partnered up with her for their exam.

Still, he didn't know how exactly the two of them would be able to make it across the field. It was completely made of dirt, something Power Loader was adept in traversing through, like some sort of land shark. Tenya honestly didn't know his teacher could do this!

"What now, Class Rep?" Kodai asked.

Tenya thought it over. With all the traps Power Loader left around the area, the best they could do with the situation they were given was to get out as soon as possible. The only problem was, they didn't know where either him or his explosives were hidden underneath.

Which meant that they had to run fast, and they had to run together.

"Hop on my back."

Kodai did as instructed, and Tenya ran like the Devil himself was on his heels. And then, he jumped, spinning as fast as he could. "RECIPRO… EXTEEEND!"

Tenya watched as Kodai was launched forward, and like a rocket, landed on Power Loader. Technically, her boots landed on Power Loader's face, toppling him over.

BOOM!

Before the Pro even had a chance to move, Kodai handcuffed him.

"Tenya Iida and Yui Kodai have passed!"

Dirty, but effective.

Ectoplasm had no idea how the handcuffs were placed on him.

The captured teacher looked up at his two opponents. "How…?"

"Don't question it," Shoji said. "Asui's got some crazy moves."

"I told you to call me Tsu, ribbit."

"Is that what your plan is?" Shouta asked.

He didn't know whether to sigh in disappointment or not. Apparently, Todoroki's big plan was to act as bait, all while Ojiro made a run for it. This was disappointing. Especially considering that at least Ojiro would have been a better opponent for Shouta, given his training.

No, seriously. Even if up against someone like Eraserhead, at least Ojiro would survive at least a few more seconds compared to the kid who, one, had a Quirk that could be erased by Shouta, and two, had little to no martial arts training. "This is gonna be simple –"

"POCKET ICE!"

Shouta was in the midst of wrapping Todoroki with his capture scarf, when the peppermint-haired kid decided to do something unexpected. When most Villains lost their Quirks, they immediately tried to charge at Eraserhead, or do something else physical, like trying to throw a bunch or hit him. Looks like Todoroki relied on that notion.

Because instead of doing any of those things, the kid's first instinct was to reach into his pocket, and throw a bunch of powdery snow straight into his teacher's goggles. And since said goggles had slits for Shouta to see, it meant that a tiny portion of that cold snow hit Shouta's eyes.

Those few seconds when Shouta rapidly blinked to get the ice out of his eyes were enough time for Todoroki to perform the next step of his big plan. "PROMINENCE… KICK!"

WHAM!

Shouta immediately doubled over in pain, as he gripped his nether region. He didn't know whether he should be proud of Todoroki learning to fight dirty, or expel the brat on the spot for doing something like this. Welp, so much for Eri getting a little sibling.

Suddenly, the Underground Hero felt his entire body cool down. He couldn't move. He was glued to the pavement, thanks to Todoroki freezing him to the neck and below.

Shouta groaned, "This was your plan, wasn't it?"

"Yep." Even without looking, Shouta could tell the little shit was smiling. "I kept making ice and snow in my pocket to make sure that the second I couldn't do it anymore, I'd know you were staring at me. The plan after that was to make sure I took you down right away, and if I failed, to distract you long enough to give Ojiro enough of a head start at finding the exit."

"Smart," Shouta grumbled. "But did you really have to hit me where it hurts?"

"You're the one who told us that Hero work isn't fun and games," Todoroki pointed out. "I just used everything I had to take down an opponent who had handicapped me."

"Fair enough."

Hitoshi had a plan. Okay, not entirely true. He had part of a plan.

Present Mic was literally gatekeeping them from the exit, all while shouting every now and then. Unfortunately, said shouting was doing a seriously bad number to Jiro's ears.

And given that the overgrown cockatoo was still a distance away from them, Hitoshi wouldn't be able to use any of his gear on him. They needed to stay hidden behind the trees of this forest, while also not getting blasted by screams every ten seconds. They needed range…

The only thing that the purple-haired teen had that could work at the moment was his bo staff. But the second they used that, Present Mic would know exactly where they were.

Still, it was better than nothing. Grabbing Jiro, the two of them went the long way around, hoping they'd avoid Mic's sonic blasts. Hiding through the shrubbery was nerve-racking and all that Hitoshi could do to calm himself down was quietly hum to himself, but…

"LET'S MAKE SOME NOIIISEEEEE!"

"Huh? What happened?!"

The purple-haired teen did a double-take as he looked towards Jiro. "Uh, we're in the middle of our exam? We're currently hiding behind a couple of giant boulders. Are you good?"

"I don't remember hiding behind the boulders. The last few minutes were a blur…"

Hitoshi raised an eyebrow at that. Did his Quirk work on people while he was humming? Those were questions for later. Right now, they were at the final stretch of the forest.

"Okay, I think I might have an idea… but I don't think you're gonna like it."

Toru Hagakure wasn't always the biggest fan of her Quirk.

She never knew what she looked like. Plus, in order for anyone to ever notice her, she would always need to be loud and use wild body expressions to ever get her point across.

Despite that, she knew her Quirk was good for Heroics, and, well… it was a part of who she was. She didn't want to trade it, she just… wanted more control over it.

And then she got her wish.

It just happened so suddenly. She was in her temporary room for her internship, looking at the bathroom mirror, wishing she could just turn off her invisibility… and it just happened.

She had to admit, it was quite a surprise to everyone when her real face was shown. Her green hair, with other splotches in there, her super bizarre eyes, that skin… If she threw off 1-A to the point they didn't recognize her, they should have seen everyone else prior to them.

There was even a new version of her Hero costume ready by the time their joint training with Isamu rolled around. She didn't know how Hatsume knew, or even if it was her, but she was still pretty grateful at that DNA-bound suit. It could even go invisible with her!

Which happened to be a massive boon when it came to this exam. Currently, Tokoyami and Dark Shadow were busy dealing with Snipe, leaving her to sneak up from behind, and…

CLANK!

"GOT HIM!"

Sometimes, Toru Hagakure really loved her Quirk.

The first thing Ochako noticed was the wind.

When she and Katsuki arrived at their testing ground, it was dead quiet. But as soon as their exam began, the wind picked up. Faster and louder, until…

BOOM!

…it blew them and everything around them away.

Right. All Might can change the weather. Should have seen that coming.

"Who really cares if I destroy this city?" All Might asked. "If you think of this as an exam and not a fight, you'll be sorry! I'm a Villain, so you better come at me with everything you've got!"

Time to run.

Katsuki shot a flash of light towards the big man, and… nope, All Might already caught his face. He didn't even give the teen a chance to run. The explosive blonde fired off some actually damaging shots to All Might's face, but the big guy didn't register them. He just…

WHAM!

…slammed Katsuki into the ground.

"Weak. Hardly more than a sting."

Ochako could feel her stomach drop to her feet the second her mentor turned around and stared at her. "Don't think I've already forgotten about you, young Uraraka!"

She couldn't tell if it was a reflex or just plain fear, but the brown-haired girl immediately activated One For All, jumping high into the air, hoping that would save her –

GRAB!

Nope. He already tackled her out of the sky.

Ochako didn't even hear the explosion when she impacted the ground. Between falling face-first into the dirt, and with how powerful that drop must have been, she was pretty sure that her ears were out of commission for the moment. All she could see was All Might talking…

"Novice… potential… room to grow… stronger…"

Was he trying to give her a pep talk? Kinda hard to do that when she couldn't exactly read lips. However, given that she could see that he stopped talking, it seemed like he was about to put Ochako out of her misery, if the fist he was winding up meant anything.

Welp, looks like it's game over for me.

BOOOOOM!

Suddenly, the brown-haired girl could no longer feel her face in the dirt. In fact, all she could feel was the wind blowing on her face, as the rest of her body was being held by –

"Huh?! Katsuki?!"

"DON'T YOU DARE PASS OUT! WE'RE GONNA WIN THIS!"

The explosive blond kept propelling himself through the buildings with one hand, while using his other to carry his downed teammate, until they made it far enough away that All Might wouldn't immediately catch them. Dropping her down, he caught his breath.

Ochako, meanwhile, had a killer headache. She wasn't sure if it was because she had her face planted into the ground, but for some reason, it wasn't going away. It was big, and heavy. As if something in her brain was trying to warn her. Trying to tell her that…

"He's coming."

"All Might?" Katsuki asked. "Yeah, I figured as much."

"No, I mean, he's coming here. Like, down this street, right now."

The blond narrowed his eyes at her. "How do you know that?"

"Not exactly sure," she answered. "All I know is that he's gonna be on top of us pretty soon. We need a plan to get away from him. I'm open to any suggestions."

Koda needed to save Sero. That much was obvious.

When the exam began, Midnight had immediately gone on the offensive, sending out her Quirk as far out as she could. Sero had used his tape to pull them both out, but he inhaled some of the mist himself. He was starting to get lethargic, and soon would pass out.

The two of them needed to get out of here beforehand.

Luckily, they were outdoors. Specifically, in a wide open field.

"HITCHCOCK BIRDS!"

As Midnight was busy shooing away the swarm of pigeons that were now harassing her, Koda grabbed Sero and carried him towards the exit. Phew, that was a close call.

Hizashi Yamada, better known to the world as Present Mic, was bored.

For the last twenty minutes or so, he had been yelling out into the trees, all while waiting for Shinso and Jiro to make their moves. So far, nothing. Maybe he'll just…

Hm? He could see out of the treeline that Jiro was running towards him. What exactly was her plan? Her eyes didn't even look like she was all there. Brainwashed, maybe?

"YEEEAAAAAHHH!"

There, that seemed to snap her out of it. Now, where was –?!

THWIP!

Holy shit! Shinso's staff just flew through the air like a makeshift javelin! If he hadn't gotten out of the way, that thing would have hit his gut, instead of flying rough out of the exit!

"Team Jiro and Shinso have passed!"

"What?! No way! Only the staff made it through the exit! That –"

Hizashi's eyes suddenly glazed over, as he saw Shinso come out of the shrubbery. He didn't know what he and Jiro were talking about, but it did end with Hizashi getting cuffed.

Oh, he got played.

Momo knew Principal Nedzu wasn't gonna be easy. The white-furred mammal wasn't going to engage her and Kaminari in a two-on-one physical fight; that wasn't his style.

Given his stature and intelligence, she figured that he would be the kind of Hero that used trickery to take down their opponents. She needed to keep her guard up.

BOOM! BOOM!

"Hey, what's that noise?" Kaminari asked.

The black-haired girl thought over what that noise could be. It was still loud, even from a distance, like metal hitting metal. Suddenly, she heard metal breaking above her head, and all she and Kaminari could do at the moment was run for their lives.

Nedzu's behind this! Momo realized. Wherever he is, he must be causing chain reactions to cause all of the buildings to collapse… while also blocking out all our exits!

"So, we should head for the exit, right?!"

Momo shook her head. "We don't know where that is. But we do know where Nedzu is: All we have to do is follow where the destruction started, and we'll find him!"

Quickly running back the way they came, they went even further from there, staying out of sight and keeping their movements silent, until they reached their destination… a crane.

"That's one big wrecking ball," Kaminari whispered.

Momo had to agree with that one. There wasn't a guarantee they would find the exit. All they could do was disarm Nedzu. Luckily, Momo had a plan. Quickly, she fabricated a bow and arrow, with a smoke bomb stuck to the tip of the arrow. Then, she fired.

CRASH!

The arrow went through and shattered the glass, filling the seat with smoke, blinding Nedzu. He began to swing his wrecking ball wildly, as the two Hero students charged their way towards the massive machine, dodging any debris that began falling all around them.

"Crap!" Kaminari yelped, as he got out of the way of some more falling rubble. "We won't make it to him like this! Yaomomo, stay behind me, I'm about to do something big!"

Momo didn't know what her classmate was talking about. His Quirk only worked in surrounding his body, and at the distance they were, he wouldn't be able to… WHAT THE –?!

The raven-haired girl did a double-take, as she saw Kaminari begin to exude blue electricity, concentrated a bunch of it around his hands, and then fired it through the air.

Momo could only watch with an open jaw as the electricity hit the crane, causing Nedzu to spasm inside it. As the two of them ran towards the building in hopes of cuffing their opponent, the Yaoyorozu heiress asked, "How did you know you could do that?!"

"I actually discovered this during my internship!" Kaminari explained. "I've been working on this new thing for a few weeks now, and I finally managed to do something impressive with it!"

"Huh. Well, consider me impressed, then."

Ochako couldn't believe that plan worked.

While the two of them were hiding in the alleyway, Katsuki had handed her one of his gauntlets, and gave her a quick explanation on how to unleash all of the sweat stored up inside it.

Needless to say, the improvised plan worked.

All Might ran into them again, naturally. But this time around, he was faced with two students who were both prepared, and packing enough explosives to bring down a building. To quickly summarize, their combined explosions served as the perfect getaway distraction.

The two teenagers were now running like hell for the exit, their Quirks functioning at their highest capacities. "I see it!" Katsuki shouted. "We're gonna make it!"

Ochako would have liked to agree with him, but her mouth was preoccupied clenching her teeth in pain. That headache was back again, only this time, it was sharper, and was…

"BEHIND US!"

The brown-haired girl didn't know how she knew, but the second she and Katsuki turned around, they could see a familiar giant of a man launching towards them. Before he had a chance to grab them, Katsuki had already redirected his explosions out of the way, while Ochako used Blackwhip to make a sharp turn, away from their teacher.

BOOM!

Ochako kept using Blackwhip to run away, her mind a both a blur and a sharp pain. She could see the exit! She was almost there! She ignored the massive pain in her brain and –

SLAM!

Bad idea. All Might had just slammed her down into the concrete. Again.

"I'm not sure how you've been able to avoid my attacks, but no matter," the Symbol of Peace said. "Now that I have my foot pinning you down, there's no way you can escape!"

He was right. No matter how much of One For All she put into her body, she couldn't remove his foot off of her. But he did make one mistake. He forgot that she wasn't alone.

"HOWITZER… IMPAAAAACT!"

BOOOOOM!

Even without his gauntlets, Katsuki came back and launched a massive explosion to All Might's face. While it didn't hurt the Pro Hero, it made him flinch, long enough for Ochako to touch him.

With all five of her fingers.

She took in as much air as her lungs let her, as All Might's foot floated up into the sky, along with the rest of the man's body. She could feel her arm being tugged, as Katsuki grabbed her, and the two of them made one last desperate run towards the exit.

"Team Uraraka and Bakugou have passed!"

Recovery Girl drew out the blood from the teenager in front of her, as the boy looked at her with minor suspicion. "Uhh… question? Why do I need to have my blood drawn?"

"Not to worry, dearie," the old lady said to the big-lipped teen, Sato, if she remembered correctly. "I'm just collecting samples from all of the students who participated in the exams today."

Technically true. It had been a few hours since the last of the 1-A students had passed, but something was up. A bunch of them seemed to have had their Quirks suddenly evolve while fighting against the teachers, and honestly, it was a bit suspect, in her opinion.

"Well, that's done," she said to the brown-haired teen. "You can head out now."

"Sure thing," he said, as he walked out the door.

A quick DNA-based scan of their Quirks should reveal everything to Recovery Girl while they were at camp. Hopefully, Class 1-B didn't have anything similar to this tomorrow.

Author's Note: YOU GET A PASS! YOU GET A PASS! EVERYONE GETS A PASS!

Okay, so I know you're all wondering what these power-ups everyone got are, and that will be explained… at a later date. I have a comment to respond to!

Knightmare Lord: The changes in the last chapter were subtle, as I was foreshadowing something that will come up later. Also, Monoma will never suffer, sadly.

Anyways, back to the regular old shilling…

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Thanks for reading, and once again, see you next time!

- Ernalore