Aoyama Yuga stood trembling on the precipice of the ship, watching the villains get closer and closer. They cannot be serious about this plan!
But they were. Midoriya put one foot up on the railing, and let out a roar of rage, meant to intimidate. The villains hung back a moment. One of them manipulated a pillar of water and threw it at the ship. The structure buckled, and Yuga stumbled, trying not to trip over his own cape. Asui kept her footing, watching carefully.
Midoriya leapt off the railing, into the air. Below him, the villains gathered, and he seemed to charge up his fist.
"Ready?" Asui asked, wrapping an arm around Yuga. "One second for launching, one second for attack."
"Understood, mademoiselle." It was all happening too fast to argue.
Midoriya flicked his fingers in a snap, and a tremendous amount of energy erupted downward into the water, striking the villains and creating a whirlpool.
"NOW!"
"Ribbit!" Asui hopped upward with her legs, but both of their weights were too much. That was where he factored in! My time to shine!
Though he was sweating and shaking and terrified, Yuga let out his laser for one second flat, propelling them further into the air and bolstering Asui's jump. Her tongue wrapped around Midoriya in midair, and as they passed over the villains, Yuga shot again.
"ARGH!" one screamed in pain.
"MY EYES! MY FACE!"
They were all getting knocked together in the middle of the whirlpool that Midoriya had created.
Yuga let out a shaky exhale as they shrunk in his vision, as the three of them flew through the air towards the edge of the lake. He allowed himself to giggle, and then, slowly… returned to his former angular smile. "You're both amazing!" Asui declared, as their trajectory turned downward and they splashed into the lake close to the water's edge.
Yuga came up quickly, sputtering. The villains were not in pursuit. But ahead of them in the central plaza, something horrible was happening.
***
In the collapse zone, Bakugou Katsuki and Kirishima Eijiro were just cleaning up.
"DIEEE!" the former shouted, blowing up in a villain's face. Behind him, Kirishima chopped another with a Hardened hand.
Is that all of them? How puny! thought Katsuki.
"Is that all of them? How puny!" said Katsuki. He wasn't the type to keep such things to himself!
Tsk. Stupid fucking villains. They had a lot of nerve trying to pull this shit, although Katsuki had to admit that this was more interesting than rescue lessons.
"All right!" Kirishima turned to his comrade, breathing hard. "Let's hurry up and go save the others!"
"Huh?" Katsuki gave him a bewildered look.
Kirishima closed his fist. "They must still be in the building, and I'm worried about the ones who don't have as much combat ability. Besides… when the two of us went charging in on the portal guy like that… we got in Thirteen's way. We've got to take responsibility for that as men."
What the hell is he talking about? Who's we? "If you want to go so badly, then go, Shitty Hair," Katsuki told him, pretending to not know that his name was Kirishima. "Meanwhile, I'm gonna finish what we started and kill that portal guy." Currently there was some extra with a camouflage quirk crawling on the ceiling towards them, but what the fuck was he gonna do?
"Are you really gonna go for revenge at a time like this?" Kirishima demanded.
"Shut up! It's not revenge! I'm cutting off the enemy's escape route! The portal guy is there way in and out!"
"But we can't even hit him…"
The chameleon dumbass made a leap at the two students, but Katsuki simply caught his face with his hand and blew it the fuck up. "… as I was saying, we saw his physical body for a second there. He had some stupid ass collar on. So we CAN hit him. And besides…" he held up the unconscious villain as an example. "If THIS is the caliber of fighter that has been assigned to kill the students, then the others will be fucking fine."
Kirishima smiled nervously. "Since when did you get so rational? I thought you were more like… DIIIIIIE… DEKU, YOU PIECE OF SHIT… I'LL KILL ALL YOU DAMN EXTRAS, and so on, and so forth."
"I'M ALWAYS RATIONAL, SHITTY HAIRED PUNK!" You've got to be in a battle situation like this, personal problems be damned. With that being said, don't you DARE bring up Deku's wet blanket ass. "Like I said, if you wanna go help the others, go ahead." Katsuki turned to leave the building.
"Hey!" Kirishima yelled. "Believing in our friends to handle themselves, are you?"
"Shut up! That's not what I…"
"That's manly as hell, Bakugo!" He clashed his hardened fists together. "I'll do the same! Let's go with your plan, and take out their escape route."
***
The yellow eyes flashed at him, and suddenly all sound was gone, and Len was surrounded by a deep violet void.
"A warper." Kurogiri's voice reverberated in every direction, as if he was completely surrounding Len, as if Len was INSIDE him. "You have summoned the energy of the void. You. A teenager."
Just run with it. "Technically I was a toddler. My Quirk manifested when I was four, after all!" As he finished the sentence, Len warped forward towards the border of the purple soup, and then sideways. He swung an experimental punch, to see if it connected with anything. But the void swirled, the yellow eyes flashed again, and he was spun around, falling to the floor, disoriented.
"As cliche as it might sound, resistance is altogether meaningless. I can sense your energy, warper. Your powers are still in the larva stage. You can't even bring others along, can you?"
Len growled in frustration and tried to escape again. In three warps, he saw the outside platform and the bright light of the dome, but Kurogiri opened another portal beneath him, and he fell… sideways, the change in gravity nearly causing him to puke as he slammed into the floor once again, surrounded.
"I received no orders to keep students alive, or to bring any back with us. But that was only because we did not know your Quirks. The boss will be quite pleased with you. Quite pleased."
Len teleported in a circle, trying to get a read on the space. Everything looked the same; he had no depth perception.
"You can't recruit me, sir. Being a villain is sort of cringe, if you catch my drift."
"A warper working for the heroes is such a waste." Another portal opened beneath him, and then several more, making Len fall with increasing velocity through a loop, until he was allowed to hit the ground hard. He ground his teeth in pain. He thought he might have felt one of his ribs crack.
"Do you know why there are so few of us, boy? In the great quirk wars, most warpers fought for the villains. We were cast out as being lazy, unpredictable, too frightening with our potential. And when the war was lost, our kind nearly died out."
"Seems like we picked the wrong side then." Len struggled to his feet, holding his fists up to fight. He could feel bruises forming on his face. "I'll be the first one to remedy that. Starting by kicking your ass."
Kurogiri laughed deeply. "Who is kicking whose ass, exactly?"
Len grinned, hoping they'd figured something out by now. "I didn't say I'd do it by myself."