Momo Yaoyorozu blinked several times, her eyes glued to the security monitor footage playing out before her. From up in the high rise where the recommendation students and several professors were watching the exam, she could just barely see the cluster of students gathered down at street level. On the monitor, however, she could not only see the angry blond boy with twitching fingers ranting angrily, but she could hear the conversation between him and the other students perfectly.

"Kacchan, I don't have time to explain, but if we can take that thing down…"

"That thing?" Shoto Todoroki asked from his place standing next to Momo. "The zero-point villain? They're not seriously considering going after it…?"

"That is the impression that I'm getting, yes," Shota Aizawa answered. The man had his arms folded across his chest as he watched Katsuki and Kyoka Jiro bickering on the monitor. He shook his head in disdain before turning his attention toward Present Mic, who was smiling from ear to ear. "Mic. Make it clear that this is a bad idea."

"Only ten minutes remain!" Present Mic called as he leaned closer to the microphone mounted upon the massive control board before himself. "And it looks like a bunch of kids are gathered around to do something potentially stupid! Are we really about to see a group of hopefuls take on the zero-point villain!? But why would you bother? After all, it's worth zero points… isn't it?"

"Professor!" Tenya Iida called as he threw his arms out to the side, nearly hitting Toru Hagakure in the face before she stepped back out of the way, unseen. "Was that last part truly necessary? That sounded more like a challenge than a warning!"

"Cool your jets, man!" Present Mic said with a devious grin, before tilting his glasses downward slightly and giving Tenya a wink. "I know it did. After all, Eraserhead and I are at the controls. They'll be fine! This is the most interesting thing that's happened during an entrance exam in years!"

Momo stiffened as she watched Present Mic grip a pair of joysticks with childlike glee. The view on the monitor switched from the group of students to a first-person camera of the zero-point villain, which slowly rotated to face its incoming attackers.

"But… Professor, doesn't this fly in the face of all of your directions? You told them to avoid that particular obstacle…"

"Did he?"

All four of the recommendation students turned to face All Might, who stood at the back of the room with his arms crossed over his barreled chest. The number one hero's confident smile was in place as he spoke, though his eyes were squinted even more than usual in a worried expression.

"Present Mic told them to fight as though they were in an actual city, under real conditions. To focus upon heroism and doing what is right, given the circumstances. If the zero-point villain is causing this much property damage and costing lives- even manufactured ones- within those buildings… I would argue that this is less about going against directions, and more about reading between the lines. Even if I… don't particularly agree with this form of evaluation."

Present Mic blinked, before looking over his shoulder at All Might.

"…oh yeah! I guess they are actually doing what heroes should do, huh?"

"That wasn't the point of you taunting them this entire time?" Professor Aizawa questioned with an incredulous look.

"What? No! I just wanted to see if they could take me down!" Present Mic answered with a wicked grin. "Now, all of you, hop on the controls for the escort squad! Give 'em a challenge, but nothing too crazy!"

Professor Aizawa watched in disbelief as the recommendation students each took up a battle station, looking uneasy. He, too, sat down before a set of controls before shaking his head and letting out a weary sigh.

"This is why Vlad King and I have teams of our own and you don't, Hizashi…"

"Wh-… this Kacchan dude's crazy!" Eijiro exclaimed as he ran alongside Mina. He threw his arms out to the sides and hardened his skin before bringing them back in and holding them out in front of himself. Countless rubber bullets pinged harmlessly off the surfaces of his arms and chest, effectively turning Eijiro into a human shield as he ran. Mina, Ochaco, Izuku, and Kyoka Jiro, the girl with the extended earlobes, ducked behind him as they approached the wave of robots around the zero-point villain's legs. "How are we supposed to follow him!?"

"Just… just be ready for anything!" Izuku offered as he fired a black tendril from his palm and wrapped it around a steel plate upon the zero-point villain's shin. "He knows what he's doing!"

"He's passionate, I'll give him that," Kyoka pointed out as she dropped to all fours and plunged her earlobes into the earth, the metallic tips burrowing easily into the asphalt. "Everyone, get behind me or off the ground!"

Eijiro, Ochaco, and Mina backed up, leaving the ground fodder to train their guns on Kyoka as she narrowed her eyes. Quite suddenly, the very pavement beneath the crowd of automatons began to splinter and quake, rendering them unbalanced. Vibrations pulsed through the ground, widening the cracks and gaps and causing some of the robots to fall over as they tried their best to remain standing. A long, slimy tongue lashed out over Kyoka's shoulder and wrapped itself around the leg of one of the more stable robots. The appendage wrenched itself back with an audible snap, dragging the unfortunate robot down and into a jagged split within the earth.

"Whoa! That's cool!" Ochaco praised as the sunken-eyed girl snapped her tongue back into her mouth. "Who are you?"

"…call me Tsu," the mysterious girl replied. "For now, let's focus o-"

A massive explosion sounded through the area, providing a sudden flash of yellow and orange light from up near the zero-point villain's chest. The explosion died off just as quickly as it had begun, leaving only a black mark the size of a door on the zero-point villain's chest. Katsuki fell backward slightly, only for a bat-winged girl to snatch him out of the air by gripping his arm and beginning to circle.

"What in the… you!?"

"Do I know you?" Himiko asked as she beat her wings furiously, trying to keep them both afloat.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Katsuki seethed as he allowed himself to be carried. "Just… whatever! If you can fly or climb somehow, get up here, now! People on the ground, clear out the extras and be ready!"

"You heard the man!" Mina chimed in as the spaces between her fingertips began to bubble with frothy acid. "Clear out the crowd!"

"That's my cue," Tsu said with a nod toward Mina, Eijiro, Ochaco, and Kyoka. "Good luck down here. I'll jump back down if you get overwhelmed."

"We'll be fine!" Eijiro reassured as he moved to stand ahead of the three girls while bashing his fists together. "Only a couple left standing!"

Tsu leapt up onto the giant robot's skin, her palms adhering to the cold steel immediately. With a frantic scramble, she began to climb her way up onto the robot's side, bracing herself as the massive machine sank a fist into the side of another skyscraper. A torrent of glass flew down toward her from above, only for a jet of emerald wind to blow it out of the way before it could reach her.

"Hey there," Daisuke offered with a lazy salute. "Joining the air crew?"

"Something like that," Tsu acknowledged. She arced a brow as Minoru's head appeared over Daisuke's shoulder, his grin almost as wide as his face. "Uh…?"

"Dat tongue, though," Minoru said dreamily. "Look me up after this is o-uwah!"

Quite suddenly, Minoru found himself plummeting through the air after being brushed off of Daisuke's back by the boy's gigantic tail. Thinking quickly, he ripped a gooey sphere from atop his head and stuck it to the zero-point villain's waist. Minoru dangled precariously as the machine began to walk once again, and he quickly stuck a second ball to the villain's metallic plating to stabilize himself.

"Not cool, man!"

"Sorry about him," Daisuke said with a shrug. "Come on, let's not keep Bakugo waiting."

"Alright, people!" Katsuki called as Himiko held him aloft to survey the gathered fighters. "If this thing goes down, it's not getting back up! None of us can hit it hard enough to knock it over alone, so we're gonna have to make this quick!"

"Five minutes remain! What are these kids doing!? I can tell you right now, some of 'em don't have the score to be wasting time on this!"

"Kacchan!" Izuku called as he hung from the zero-point villain's elbow joint by a black tendril. "I… I can do it! I think I can knock it over!"

"What?" Katsuki seethed as he stared down at his friend. "You…"

"I can," Izuku said confidently as he gave the other boy a meaningful look. "You know I can, if I go all-out. I've got a plan! Let me take over! If everyone else works to destabilize one leg, it'll be enough!"

"I say we listen to him," Amaya said quickly as she kept up a steady hover. "We don't have time for bullshit, and most of the people here need the potential points from this. If he screws it up, lay into him later. I'll help."

"C'mon, Kacchan!" Izuku pleaded. "Just you and me in the air! We can do it!"

"Fine!" Katsuki spat back. "The rest of you, whittle down the left leg! Reptile, tell the ground team and use your wind to keep the leg up after it's lighter!"

"You got it!" Daisuke answered before dropping into a backward, spiraling descent.

"Get moving!" Katsuki ordered as he suddenly let go of Himiko's arm and began to fall.

"Hey!" the girl cried, her following statement drowned out by a series of propelling explosions that carried Katsuki over to Izuku.

"What's your plan?" Katsuki asked angrily as Izuku detached Blackwhip from the robot and clenched his fingers around Katsuki's forearm.

"I'm gonna hit it in the face, with your help," Izuku answered. "At 100% power."

"Can you even do that yet?" Katsuki asked through clenched teeth as he began to boost them upward.

"…we're about to find out, aren't we?"

Ochaco touched her fingertips to a humanoid robot's chest in a hard shove. The metallic combatant suddenly began to float, dropping its gun. Eijiro ran forward and stepped hard onto Mina's cupped hands before launching himself into the air and slamming a hardened fist straight through the robot's chest, causing it to spark and jitter. The machine unceremoniously fell to the ground in a heap of scrap along with the boy, who turned and gave the assembled girls a thumbs up.

"Alright! The ground crew's cleared out! What now?"

"Left leg!" Daisuke called as he landed down near the assembled teens. "Can any of you do anything to unbalance the robot? Get its leg off the ground, after we whittle it down?"

"Yeah, that'd be me," Kyoka said as she raised a hand. "I can make a mini-earthquake underneath it, if you guys can make it unstable."

"And I can keep its leg in the air once it's reeling," Daisuke reassured.

"I can get its leg in the air," Ochaco said uncertainly, "but it's dangerous to get that close, especially while it's still attacking buildings!"

"Then we'll try to make it safe!" Mina yelled over the sound of scraps of metal being torn off the robot above. "Trust us!"

"Two minutes remain! Get those last few points in, kiddos!"

"Alright, no time!" Mina called as she clapped her hands. "Babe, tear off as much metal as you can from its foot!"

"On it!" Eijiro replied before running forward and beginning to assault the villain's appendage.

"Ochaco, be ready to run in! Uh…"

"Jiro," the girl said as she bent over and jacked her earlobes down into the earth once again.

"Jiro, do what you're doing! I'll soften the pavement!"

"Uh, guys?" Ochaco asked. "What are they doing up top…?"

The crew looked up in unison to where a brawl was going on all along the robot's left leg. Several small mounted guns were firing rubber bullets for the various students as they flew, climbed, and bounced around the limb, doing as much damage as they possibly could to wear away the metal plating. Scraps rained down from the leg and caused sparks to fly about liberally, though an even brighter lightshow was going on high above.

Way up in the air, about level with the robot's face, was an odd sight. Katsuki was in hovering in place, wrapped within a cocoon of Blackwhip tendrils. The boy was spinning rapidly, explosion after explosion causing him to roll while maintaining his altitude. Held to his spinning form by a single tendril and whirling around like an out of control midair pendulum was Izuku, holding on for dear life as Katsuki continued to propel him through the air in a wide circle.

"I don't have a damned clue, but I don't think they can keep that up for long!" Mina answered as she thrust out her palms and shot a torrent of acidic slime all over the pavement near the villains' foot. "Uraraka, touch it now!"

Ochaco nodded and let out a small grunt before running forward and leaping the ring of slime. With a dainty touch, she tagged the side of the zero-point villain's foot and leapt back out of the ring. Slowly but surely, the foot began to raise, and Eijiro gave it a powerful uppercut before following Ochaco out of the way. A ripple of breaking pavement flew forth to unbalance the robot further, and as the foot visibly cleared the ground, Daisuke flew forward and summoned up a high wind beneath the foot to try to keep it aloft.

As the villain began to wobble, Katsuki fired off several more explosions and began to spin faster. He kept a death grip on Izuku's lifeline before making one final rotation, and at just the right moment, he released his grip.

"Get it done, Deku!"

Izuku screamed through the air at dangerous speeds, straight for the zero-point villain's face. As he gritted his teeth and squinted his eyes, bright pink crackles of energy coated his body, and his right arm began to glow a furious fuchsia. With a feral roar, Izuku pulled back his fist and then threw it forward as hard as he could just as he reached the robot's face, which stood as tall as a two-story house. A deafening clang followed the impact, and for a moment, he felt nothing as all other sound in the area seemed to fall silent. Immediately afterward, a shooting pain unlike any he had ever felt before coursed from his fist to his arm, and Izuku was certain that he had lost the entire limb. As tears stung at his eyes and his vision blurred, he tried to focus through the pain to see the result of his handiwork.

The zero-point villain's head was gone from its shoulders and hurtling through the sky down to street level below. Its body remained upright for only a moment, before beginning to fall backward like a toppling building. Somehow, it seemed to be getting bigger as it went toward the ground, and that was when Izuku realized that he was plummeting along with it.

Senselessly, he reached out to try to claw at the air and found that he couldn't move his right arm at all. In an act of desperation, he thrust out his left arm as his vision began to fade, and then felt a hand clasp around his wrist as a weak explosion echoed above him.

"I've got you!" Katsuki called. "But I'm… I'm dizzy, and I… I can't…"

Katsuki clenched his teeth as hard as he could while straining to fire off another blast, only to come up with nothing. Faster and faster, the boys approached the ground without a safety net in sight. Katsuki let out a string of curses as they came within 50 feet of the pavement, and he found that he couldn't maintain his grip on Izuku any longer. Their hands separated, and Katsuki fell backwards helplessly as Izuku lost consciousness.

A spiral of verdant air manifested beneath Katsuki, causing him to bounce gently a few times just before he would have hit the ground. He watched as Ochaco appeared seemingly out of nowhere and slapped Izuku's unconscious body, causing the boy to float peacefully along in midair. Suddenly, Ochaco doubled over and let out a stream of vomit onto the pavement, and Izuku fell the final three feet to the pavement in a heap. Immediately afterward, Katsuki fell a similar distance onto his back and let out a hiss, only for Daisuke's wobbly form to appear above him, holding his forehead.

"You two… are out of your damned minds…" the redhead accused as he fought to stay standing.

Katsuki took several deep breaths as he splayed his arms out to the sides and stared up at the other boy.

"…yeah? Well get used to it, dumbass."

Daisuke chuckled softly before leaning back and letting his tail keep him from falling over.

"…yeah. I think I will."

Katsuki only managed to raise a half-hearted thumbs up before his arm fell back to the pavement, and his vision went black.

Author's Note:

Now the entrance exams are finished. What could the next chapter be? Mysteries abound.

-RD