Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Something’s wrong”

Izuku sighed, “Nothing’s wrong, Em”

“Something’s wrong”

Izuku opened his mouth to reassure him, when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He turned around to see a swirling vortex of purple and black. Great.

Izuku just wanted a peaceful lunch where he could talk to his alters. Was that too much to ask? Earlier this morning, he’d specifically told his friends that he needed some space. As soon as the bell rang, he had slipped into the vents and made his way out of school.

He’d run across the green, swiping his student card at the entrance of the fake city. Now, here he was, sitting on the roof of a skyscraper, where could talk to his alters uninterrupted, eat, take notes on quirks, and just generally relax. He really didn’t have the energy to fend off the League today. But maybe he could get notes on Kurogiri? May as well, I mean, they won’t let him leave so…

He watched the inky blackness as a figure emerged from it, rapidly analysing this new information and cataloguing it with the rest of his mental file on the mysterious warp quirk.

Izuku ignored the emerging villain in favour of scribbling furiously in his notebook. As such, he didn’t notice Emerald trying to switch until he appeared in the Inner World.

“Aww shit”

Emerald blinked, scowling at the villain. They could feel Izuku watching but ignored him. They had more important things to worry about.

“The hell do you want?” Inside their head, Izuku whined at the brash tone they used.

“Em, he’s dangerous. I don’t want you getting hurt”

Emerald scoffed, “As if he could lay a hand on me”. Shigaraki looked outraged.

“You’re just an insignificant NPC, Midoriya. Sensei wants you for some reason, probably for an experiment. But you have the chance to be part of something greater, you have a chance to be part of Sensei’s great empire! Join me.” He dramatically reached his hand out.

Emerald burst out laughing. Shigaraki recoiled.

“What are you laughing at, Brat? I’ve offered you the chance of a lifetime” Emerald stopped, blocked the others from viewing, and straightening to look Shigaraki in the eye.

“Ok, several things. One, I’m laughing at you, Man-Child. Insulting people isn’t a great way to get them on your side. Two, I fucking hate you, so there’s no way I’d join you. Three, I ain’t insignificant, bitch. I’m the hidden boss of this level.”

The villain lunged, hand reaching for their face.

Emerald twisted to the side, grabbing his wrist and forcing it backwards, taking sick pleasure in the resounding crack.

Shigaraki let out a strangled cry, wrenching away from the other and cradling his broken limb.

“Like I said, I fucking hate you.”

This time, Emerald lunged, sweeping across the ground and pulling Shigaraki’s legs out from under him. The man landed on the concrete with a thump and another crack. Emerald smirked.

“Oh, that sounded like a fractured skull. If you don’t stop fighting now you could make it so much worse.”

Shigaraki pushed himself slowly off the ground, taking a few staggered steps towards his opponent.

“Looks like a concussion too, fingers crossed for brain damage.” The man collapsed, finally succumbing to his injuries.

Emerald wandered over, breaking another two of his fingers and delivering a sharp kick to his side, before taking his phone and dialling Kurogiri.

They collected Izuku’s belongings, before running down the stairs and into one of the building’s bathrooms.

Shouta was having quite a good day. ‘Zashi hadn’t woken him up with his screeching, he had gotten a whole 5 hours of sleep, and none of his problem children had done anything stupid. He was even feeling somewhat peaceful. This peace was completely shattered when Nedzu popped his goddamned snout out of the vents and dropped a flash drive onto his desk.

“I think you may want to watch this. When you figure out why and how and such, please tell me.” With an infuriatingly calm smile, the rat-bear-mouse-thing popped back into the vents and was gone.

As much as Shouta had planned for the day’s gym class, this was more important. He set everyone to sparring and left Yaoyorozu in charge of assigning partners.

“Problem Child, could I speak to you please?” Normally he would be blunter, but the kid was undoubtedly traumatised, and that meant he had to be soft. Problem Child shot up, eyes wide.

“Uh, of- of- of course Aizawa-sensei” Shouta swept off, turning the corner and into a small courtyard, fenced in by trees.

“You know that Nedzu has cameras all over the school, yes?” Midoriya’s nod was slow and more than a bit confused. “And that he notifies me, as your homeroom teacher, if you do something worth investigating?” The nod was even slower this time. “Then could you please explain this?” Shouta pulled out his phone, unlocked it and pressed play on the video.

Midoriya watched in silence, eyes widening minutely. Shouta clicked the off button, stowing his phone back in its pocket.

Midoriya didn’t move.

“Problem Child?”

“Problem Child?”

“Problem- Midoriya?”

“Mid- Midoriya!” The kid snapped back into reality, flinching violently. Shouta frowned, filing the response away to analyse later.

“Yes, Aizawa-sensei? Oh, sorry. Did I zone out again? I do that sometimes, sorry. It isn’t really something I can help though, but I’ll do my best to not do it again. Wait- I’m not going to get in trouble am I? because I know that some teachers don’t like when I zone out, but I didn’t think you would mind. Oh, damn. I’ve probably annoyed you. You probably think I don’t care or something. I’m sure whatever you were saying is very important, only I don’t know what it was. If you could repeat it, that would be amazing, but if you can’t that’s fine. I- oh, I was rambling, wasn’t I? Sorry Aizawa-sensei.” Aizawa blinked.

“Right, so. I understand zoning out, it’s fine. No, you won’t get in trouble. I’m not annoyed, but I am worried that you expected me to be. That’s a problem for later, though. I was just asking you what you were doing, why you didn’t call for backup, and why you have apparently been hiding majority of your skills. Also, what did you say to him?” The kid tensed almost imperceptibly.

“Right. Well, um, see, the thing is, I kinda- can’t tell you?”

“You- can’t tell me?” the Problem Child almost tripped over himself to explain.

“Well, I’m physically able to tell you, but I think there are some people that wouldn’t like it if I told you. They’re pretty secretive. I do want to talk to them about telling some people, you being one, but I don’t know how well they’ll respond to the idea. And even if they did let me tell you, I don’t know if I’d be comfortable with telling you everything just yet, and without certain facts, it really won’t make much sense. And also, it pretty complex, so I wouldn’t be able to explain it all and answer your questions and stuff between now and the end of class.” The more he heard, the more his heart sank.

“Problem Child, you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but are you involved with a gang, or drugs or something?” Midoriya’s eyes widened.

“Oh, gosh no! I- well-” He paused. “Yeah, ok. I have not engaged in any illegal activities that you aren’t already aware of. I have knowledge of some crimes that you don’t necessarily know about, but I wasn’t part of them in any way, shape or form. I cannot tell you how I know about them, or what they are. Nothing I am withholding from you has any potential to cause you or others harm by virtue of not knowing it.” It was kind of disturbing how iron tight that statement was, as if the kid had practised this kind of stuff. Shouta hoped he hadn’t.

“Ok, I can live with that, Problem Child. But if you decide you want to tell someone, or need to talk about anything, I’m here. Ok?”

“OK.”

In the privacy of his office, Nedzu frowns, replaying the footage of his student’s statement. The pauses seemed almost as if someone was feeding him lines. This was worrying. But, given the statement, he wouldn’t intervene just yet. It was much more entertaining to see Aizawa struggle, anyway.

Chapter Text

“Ok class, today we are going to be discussing a very controversial topic, so I expect you all to be paying attention” Aizawa’s tired drawl easily cut through the background chatter. “You were meant to do this in third year, but given the number of situations you get into, we pushed it forward. Today, we’re going to be discussing the quirkless and how to deal with them.”

Whispers spread through the classroom, dying down when Midoriya put his hand up.

“What do you mean by ‘how to deal with them’, Aizawa-sensei?”

“It’s a well-known fact that quirkless people are far more emotional than their quirked counterparts, and often violent towards heroes and figures of authority. both of these situations require special handling. But that training will happen in a few weeks. For today, I want you to discuss your opinions of the quirkless population. Iida, why don’t you start.”

Iida nodded, and Aizawa melted into his sleeping bag, zipping it all the way up.

“Very well then, I shall start.” Iida’s chopping hands almost whacked Tsu in the back of the head, but she leant to the side with little fanfare. “The quirkless population is ultimately just a drain on government resources. Sure, they can get jobs, but there are sure to be many quirks that could increase efficiency. And the percentage of unemployed quirkless people is much lower than the percentage for those with quirks. This suggests that people without quirks are prioritised over people with quirks because they have a much more limited spectrum of jobs they can complete. I think this is very unfair, and they shouldn’t be prioritised. I also think that the government should get rid of all those anti-quirkism campaigns and such, they are unnecessary and wasteful of resources”

Everyone made noises of agreement, and Izuku’s heart dropped. Was this what they truly felt? Were all his classmates and so-called ‘friends’, actually quirkist and discriminatory? Shinsou scoffed, and Izuku’s heart soared, someone was going to disagree!

“The anti-quirkism campaigns are important. The public needs to know that the government will get them in trouble for discrimination against mutations and ‘villainous’ quirks. But I do agree with you, the quirkless are just a waste of space.” One by one, everyone in the class went around, agreeing with Iida and Shinsou, and some going even further.

Izuku sat there, letting the words wash over him.

“Worthless”
“Useless”
“Waste of space”
“Entitled”
“Weak”
“Helpless”
“Failure” He had put on an appropriately serious face, but you could still see the emotion in his eyes.

“I wonder if we could find a way to tell if someone is quirkless before their born, so then the mum can get an abortion?” Izuku’s face went perfectly blank, posture relaxed, staring straight at the board. He stopped doodling, stopped fidgeting, just closed his notebook and stowed it in his bag.

“You need to agree with them! You can’t risk them getting angry!”

“You don’t need to deal with this shit! Show them how wrong they are!”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Emerald-sama”

“Deku, seriously, this is UA. No one is going to attack us for speaking our mind. And drop the -sama”

“But you’re suggesting we be confr- confun-”

“Confrontational?”

“Yes, that! And we won’t have any supporters and everyone will hate us and-

“I’d co-front. I don’t think either of you two are up for it” Deku and Emerald whirled around to face Loki.

“You’d do that for us Loki-sama?” Loki’s hair swished as he nodded. The other two acquiesced, and the god floated up, disappearing into the clouds.

“Would you all shut up?” The classroom went dead silent, everyone turning to face Midoriya. His voice was quiet, but the complete lack of emotion cut through the noise like butter.

“You all talk about the privileges that the quirkless get, but have you ever seen someone prioritise the quirkless over the quirked? Have you ever seen someone with a quirk be genuinely nice to someone they know is quirkless? Have you ever stopped to think about how hard it is to be part of the 10% of the population that is ‘weak’?” The silence was cloying, but Midoriya’s empty voice continued
“Have you ever wanted to kill yourself because of your quirk? Has anyone ever told you that you should? Have you ever been hurt because of your quirk?” Everyone looked down.

“Yes.” Midoriya didn’t even turn to look at Shinsou.

“Then why are you doing that to someone else? You know what it’s like, why would you want someone else to experience that?” Shinsou scoffed.

“No one here is quirkless, so it doesn’t matter” Suddenly, Midoriya was facing him with eyes alight with hate.

“I was quirkless for the first fifteen years of my life! People regularly told me to kill myself because of that! Hell, teachers said things like that! When you are quirkless, everyone and everything is against you. The quirkless unemployment rates are based on how many quirkless are born, and how many are registered as unemployed. The unemployment rate is so low because 90% of quirkless people commit suicide before they turn 25. I knew people that committed suicide because they were quirkless. Do not sit there and tell me that we have it nice, that we are lucky. My best friend told me to take a swan dive off the school roof when I was 12. I wanted too as well, still do really.”

“Problem Child, what are you implying?” At the font of the room, Aizawa was sitting up, half out of his sleeping bag.

“What do you want me to say, Sensei? That I’m depressed and suicidal? That I have generalized anxiety and social anxiety? That I was abused by my entire school for eleven years? Would you like to see the scars from that? Would you like to see the scars I made?”

“I want names.” Midoriya smiled, almost soft.

“Aldera Junior Highschool. Katashi Tada - he was a teacher. Masahiko Kiyabu – he was a student. Tsubasa Naoki – also a student. And, of course, for the grand finale-” Bakugo’s face paled “- one Bakugo Katsuki. Happy hunting Aizawa-sensei”
Aizawa turned to face Bakugo with storm clouds boiling over his face.

“Don’t expel Bakugo, please. He’d most likely turn to villainy and I’d like to avoid that if I can. Thank you” Aizawa raised an eyebrow before nodding once, moving towards the door.

“Oh, and Aizawa-sensei?” he turned back to look at his student.

“The quirkless are often more emotional and violent because they learn very early on that the authorities don’t care about them, and that they are often very quirkist. So, they’re either scared, or they get angry to make themselves look stronger, which lessens the chances that someone will attack.”

“And that kind of knowledge is why we’re going to see Nedzu and then Hound Dog, Problem Child.” Midoriya nodded once, grabbing his bag and making his way out of the classroom.

Internally, Aizawa was panicking. Problem Child got his quirk at fifteen and didn’t think he needed to know? The training needed to be so different! This explains why he shattered his bones so often, though. Also, all of that stuff about being quirkless was scary. As someone with a ‘villainous’ power, he was hated and bullied, but they didn’t take it too far for fear of what he could do. With a quirkless person there was no such worry. He really needed to talk to Nedzu about this. And Problem Child needed to talk to Hound Dog. Who knows what had been missed?

Chapter Text

Shouta was nearly silent as he slipped through the window. The folder in his hand had made the climb a bit tricky, but the challenge was worth it. He padded across the room to the desk, placing the documents onto it. Shinsou shifted and he froze.

Shinsou was one of the lightest sleepers in the class. If they woke up, their trust in Aizawa would fly out the window. Plus, the kid needed to sleep. He placed a feather light kiss on his pseudo child’s forehead and slipped noiselessly out the window. Now for Midoriya. Shouta relaxed minutely, then tensed up again. On one hand, Midoriya should be exhausted from the day’s training. But on the other, from his explosion the other week, he was most definitely traumatised and probably hyperaware of everything. He’d have to be careful.

Aizawa stopped right next to Midoriya’s window. He was on a drainpipe and could stay there for hours.

“I know mum, but we need to tell them!”

“Well we don’t have to tell everyone, but at least Aizawa-sensei.” Midoriya was awake and on the phone to his mother at 2:30 AM. And he needed to get in and out without the boy noticing. Shit.

“No. I know you don’t think we should, but we need to. He knows something is going on. No, from the incident with Shigaraki. And possibly the whole quirkless thing.” So there was something going on with that fight! It definitely wasn’t the kind of thing Midoriya would normally do.

“He won’t! He’s much smarter than that. If we explain it to him, he’ll accept it… no he won’t think we’re lying… yes, even though Mikumo-san is a ghost.” Ghost? Was Midoriya high? Shouta made his decision and vaulted himself off the pipe and into the dorm.

Midoriya wasn’t on the phone, so who was he talking to? The kid was sitting on his bed, facing the window. His gaze locked on his teacher. Aizawa raised a hand and the folder in explanation, but it was clear the boy didn’t register. Izuku’s eyes flashed green, same colour as the lightning his quirk produced, and then Shouta was in the dining room of his apartment.

Wait, his apartment? When did he get here? How did he get here? He was just in Midoriya’s- Midoriya. Of fucking course it had something to do with his problem child. Fuck. Oh well. Aizawa went to grab his sleeping bag and noticed a note on it.

‘Midoriya did get his folder and accepts his position’

It was his handwriting, but he didn’t write it. But that is a problem that Nedzu can handle. Aizawa was going to sleep, dammit!

Izuku was sitting on his bed, talking to his alters. He needed to have this conversation with them, he needed to tell someone about them.

“Umm, hey everyone. So, I’m sure all of you are aware that Emerald had a run in with Shigaraki.” There was a chorus of yes’

“And that Loki-sama pretty much fronted during the lesson on the quirkless to yell at 2-A?”

“I did not! You could've stopped me at any time!”

“No, but- anyway. I want to tell 2-A about Nebulae.” The system erupted.

“Absolutely not!”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“We’ll only get hurt!”

“They won’t understand, darling. Your own mother didn’t, so why would they?”

“I know mum, but we need to tell them!”

“We are not telling 2-A and that is final. This is my decision as protector.” Emerald said, effectively stopping the conversation.

“Well we don’t have to tell everyone, but at least Aizawa-sensei.” Emerald knew rationally that they had to tell someone, but that didn’t make it any easier.

“I still don’t think we should” Loki was sitting against the wall, positioned to look relaxed.

“No, I know you don’t think we should, but we need to. He knows something is going on.”

“What from? One of the times Deku fronted?” Lily was worried about Mikumo. He was awfully spacey, but there wasn’t really anything she could do about it.

“No, from the incident with Shigaraki. And possibly the whole quirkless thing.”

“Hmm.” The sound was noncommittal, and very distracted.

“Mikumo?” The ghost didn’t respond, merely floated off through the wall.

“Umm? Anyway. He’s not going to understand, and he’s going to call you crazy. Then we’ll be even more traumatized and probably get a new alter”

Izuku shivered involuntarily, the last split had integrated fairly quickly, but the screams were horrible. That didn’t matter right now, though. He had to focus.

“He won’t! He’s much smarter than that. If we explain it to him, he’ll accept it”

“He’ll think you’re lying to him!”

“No, he won’t think we’re lying” It was at this point that Izuku felt Deku join the conversation

“Even though Mikumo-sama is a ghost?”

Izuku smiled.

“Yes, even though Mikumo-san is a ghost.” He heard a thump near his window, and he looked up. There was a shadowy figure next to the window. It raised its hands, pointing something at Izuku.

Loki blinked and activated a small percentage of OFA, just enough to get the lightning. He sent it out and into the figure’s brain. The figure relaxed, and Loki pulled it forward into the light.

“Loki-sama, that’s Aizawa-sensei!”

Loki grinned, ignoring the horrified teen.

“Why are you here?” Aizawa looked blank as he answered.

Nedzu observed Aizawa, who was tense and anxious. His hands were folded in his lap, a sure sign he’s forcing himself not to fidget. He saved the file he was editing and looked at the dark-haired hero.

“What can I do for you today, Aizawa-kun?” Aizawa startled, hair raising slightly on instinct. He bowed his head in a silent apology.

“I wanted to talk to you about one of my students.” Nedzu perked up at that, just enough for it to be noticeable.

“Which student?” The knowing look told Aizawa that Nedzu already knew which kid it was.

Aizawa sighed. “Midoriya Izuku.”

Nedzu’s polite smile widened into a grin. “Oh? What exactly seems to be the problem?”

Aizawa started ticking things off on his fingers. “Well, there was the fight with Shigaraki, which he didn’t explain properly. You were already aware of that, though.” Nedzu nodded. “Then, I opened the discussion about the quirkless, which resulted in him yelling at the class. This revealed that he firstly, got his quirk at 15, secondly he has severe mental health issues stemming from bullying and abuse. Bakugo Katsuki was one of his bullies, but he specifically requested we don’t expel him, and put him in therapy and anger management.”

Nedzu’s smile dropped, and he opened Midoriya’s student file. Under the ‘health concerns’ there were professional diagnoses for depression, anxiety, PTSD, severe trauma and anorexia. There were also notes that he was at high risk of self-harm and suicide, and a list of triggers, including loud noises, shouting and a whole list of people.

It was to no-one’s surprise that Bakugo was on that list.

There was also a note that he had a mental disorder that may affect his behaviour and personality, but that he wished for it to remain unnamed.

The two teachers agreed to put Bakugo in mandatory anger management and therapy, as well as to ask Midoriya if he wanted Bakugo moved out of 1-A. Aizawa hoped that Problem Child would want him moved; Bakugo needed to learn that his actions have consequences.

Izuku stared at the two adults in shock.

“You- what?” Nedzu smiled, just slightly too wide.

“We are giving Bakugo Katsuki mandatory anger management and therapy, as well as asking you if you’d like him to move out of 1-A. we can move him to 1-B or even gen ed if you’d like.”

Izuku froze, mind overwhelmed with noise.

“Put him in Gen Ed!”

“Kacchan? He’s our friend!”

“Destroy him. Push for the harshest punishment.”

“I think removing him from proximity would be a good idea.”

Izuku’s breathing sped up. This was such a big decision! On one end, he could demote Kacchan. It would be much easier for him to learn without the other boy. On the other, he didn’t want to hurt Kacchan’s chance of becoming a hero.

Lily sensed his distress and quieted the others, coming closer to the front. He started to breathe easier as she slid into co-fronting, running breathing exercises no-one else could hear.

“I think that at the moment, it would be best to let him stay in 1-A. I think if we push him into another class immediately, on top of therapy and anger management, he is likely to lash out. Given that he knows why this is all happening, we-I would likely be his target.”

Nedzu’s nose twitched, and Aizawa’s eyes narrowed. When he had said that, his voice had taken on a more honeyed tone, and was much smoother and put together than usual. Looking at him, his posture was excellent as always, but he wasn’t tense in the slightest. It was as if someone had taken over his body. The two adults shared a look.

“Very well then, I’ll let him know." Nedzu clapped his paws together and wrote something on a sticky note. “Well, you two hurry along to homeroom now. That exam needs explaining and only one of you can do it!”

Aizawa strolls into class the second the bell rings, only a few minutes after Izuku did.

“Listen up brats. I need to tell you about the finals.” Everyone was already paying attention, but some perk up at finals, and some droop.

“The Hero Course Practicals, more specifically.” Everyone perks up at that.

“This year’s practical, you will be split in half, with ten of you playing the hero team, ten the villains.” Whispers dart around the room. “Each team will have a leader, who will be able to organise their team however they wish. Each of you received a folder last night. These folders contain the rules of the exam, and your team assignments. Looking at someone else’s folder is an automatic fail and you will be removed from the exam entirely. You can share what’s in your folder if you like, but you are not required to.” The room falls quieter at the prospect of an automatic fail. “The leader of each team will also have a list of team objectives in their folder, and how many points each one awards. There are two soundproof rooms set up on the top floor of your dorms, one each for the hero and villain teams.”

Aizawa sat on the floor in his sleeping bag and drank his coffee, watching the kids all pull the folders out of their bags and flick through them. He knew all of the assignments, and he had to say it was an interesting combination. He was almost excited to see how it would pan out.

Chapter Text

Ochako looked down at the manila folder, taking a deep breath before peeking in the cover. She squealed and grabbed Tenya’s shoulder.

“Tenya I’m the hero leader! I’m the Paragon!” Tenya blinked at her, then smiled stiffly.

“That’s wonderful Ochako, I’m sure you’ll be a great leader.” Ochako bounced in her seat.

“Yeah, it’s gonna be so great! You can be my second, and Tsu can be my third! Deku and Shouto will be moral support, obviously.” Tenya looked at the ground.

“Ochako, that’s not going to happen. I can’t be your second.” Ochako pouted.

“Why not? I understand that you don’t like favouritism and all that, but you’re the best choi-”

“I’m on the villain team.” Ochako ground to a halt.

“What?”

Tenya sighed, looking to Shouto and Izuku talking with Momo in the corner.

“Ochako I’m on the villain team. As are Shouto and Izuku.” Ochako’s good mood crashed.

“They split us up?” Tenya nodded.

“I’m sorry, Ochako. Truly.” He gathered his things and stood, walking over the three teens in tight conversation. Ochako watched him leave, then shook her head, leaning over Iida’s desk to talk with Tsu.

Having been awake when the folder first arrived, Izuku has spent the entire night planning and planning, backup upon backup, and now he had to hold his first meeting. He had added everyone in the villain team to a secure groupchat on the app they used for hero work, and named it ‘Destruction(tm)’

Destruction(tm)

Deku: Hey everyone, made this chat for secure communication amongst the team! I know who the villain leader is, and they’d like everyone to know there’s a meeting at 5pm in our meeting room. They’ll reveal themselves there.

Chargebolt: But why can’t they just reveal themselves over chat?

Shouto: are you telling me you could receive that information without reacting outwardly?

Chargebolt: Totally!!

Shouto: fun fact. I am in fact, a homosexual.

“What?!?!” All eyes turned to Denki, but his were focused on Shouto. “Are you serious?!”

Shouto turned to them and inclined his head.

“I am completely serious, but given the way you reacted, I think my point is also proven quite well.”

Denki looked at him, and then at his phone. “Oh. I guess you’re right.”

While it wasn’t his intention, this interaction sent the hero team buzzing with the information that Shouto was the leader of the villain team. Loki chuckled from his place as co-conscious, enjoying the misdirection, lies and chaos already.

Izuku walked into the room on his phone. He knew he was the last person to enter, so he nudged the door closed with his foot, slipping his phone into his pocket so he could lock the door.

He felt his phone buzz twice and he smiled.

“Hello everyone, I’m the villain leader.” Noise erupted, people were crying out in surprise, in excitement, in disbelief, and even crying out because everyone else was.

He dropped into the head chair with a thunk, staring at the back wall and reciting his script.

“We don’t have a lot of time to prepare, so let’s get things going. I’m running things with three teams of three. They all have names, and everyone will come up with a code name. that’s really all we can do today, I have a meeting tomorrow with Nedzu during math, and I’ll ask a bunch of questions then. For now-” he pulled a marker out of his bag. “I’m going to draw a flow chart on the board of the teams, and as you figure out your codenames you can come and erase your name and replace it with the codename you want. Put your initials in brackets and if I think there might be an issue, I’ll come talk to you. Now Go! Socialise!”

He walked up to the board and started drawing, not using a reference at all.

About an hour later, the board had been cleared and re written with the new codenames. Izuku approved. All of them subtly hinted at either a quirk, motivation, position or personality. He was particularly a fan of Bishop.

”That’s because you're dating him.”

Nope! His name was just really cool.

He stood, and attention pretty quickly returned to him.

Next script, go!
"Everyone, I'm about to send a link to the group chat. Please read it and feel free to discuss. It's about quirkism and how to become aware of it and stop it." Some people shuffled uncomfortably. "I was disappointed and hurt that many of you have certain...sentiments towards the quirkless, and I hope that they shifted after learning about what we go through. I will be calling out quirkism if and when see it, and I would love for you all to join me." He bowed, and a couple people clapped.

A few hours later, every single member of his group have privately messaged him, expressing their apologies for how they acted. There had been some very interesting discussions about the article, and Shinsou, Tokoyami and Kaminari had all shared how they were bullied because of their quirks. It was excellent team building, and Izuku was proud of all of them. (No, he was not crying, Emerald. He was just happy!)

Izuku knocked on the door to Nedzu’s office. The door opened, and he walked in, waving to the camera hidden in the door frame as he passed through.

“Midoriya-kun, I hope you don’t mind that Aizawa’s joining the meeting? This exam is his brain child, so he may have answers I do not.”

Izuku smiled. “Oh of course not, Nedzu-Sensei!” He glanced at his teacher. “I would appreciate it if you stopped though, I’d hate for my enemies to get a recording of the meeting from a <em>mysterious benefactor</em>”

Aizawa looked at him, surprise hidden by a careful façade. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and cancelled the recording, setting the device on Nedzu’s desk.

Midoriya smiled in thanks and sat, pulling a notebook, pencil and his folder out of… somewhere. He opened the folder to a handwritten sheet of questions, and flicked through the notebook to the next blank page.

Aizawa and Nedzu got flashes of cramped blocks of text. The penmanship seemed hurried, but it was still clearly readably. Midoriya caught them looking and smiled.

“This notebook is dedicated to the exercise. Specifically brainstorming and stream of conscious.” He picked up his pen and glanced at the sheet of questions. “I doubt either of you are truly prepared for this, so if you don’t have an answer say that. You can pull me aside to give the missing ones once you have them.”

Nedzu and Aizawa both bristled internally. Midoriya was only a student! There wasn’t anything he could ask that would surprise them!

“First question. How is it proved that an objective was completed?”

“There are security cameras all over the testing ground, and multiple within the areas specific to objectives.”

“Are there at least areas in the bases that aren’t monitored?” Nedzu nodded. Izuku smiled in relief. “Well that’s good. I’m assuming that they are all connected to UA’s systems, and some of them are also connected to a separate server that the Hero team can access?” Aizawa raised an eyebrow as Nedzu nodded again, something akin to excitement bubbling up in the Principal.

“Great.” Izuku wrote a couple lines in his notebook, and made a couple check marks on a separate, filled, page. “What is the extent of damage permitted to someone. I’m aware that the heroes aren’t meant to kill civilian bots, but what damage can they do to us, or we them?”

Nedzu sipped his tea. “Obviously nothing fatal, and nothing that will leave a scar.” He paused for dramatics. “The Paragon and hero team have all been informed that breaking bones will dock them points.” Izuku gave Aizawa a measured glance and wrote one more line in his book.

“Can we prep our base before the exercise starts?” Aizawa looked sceptical and opened his mouth. “-In the name of realism, of course.” The teacher paused, inviting an explanation. “Well the villains often have more time to prepare for an altercation that the heroes do. And their resources are often unknown to the heroes.” Aizawa nodded slowly, accepting the reason. Nedzu just watched, delighted at the appeal to the man’s logic.

“Alright, problem Child. You can take your team in next Sunday afternoon. Exam’s the day after, so I’d expect you to be prepared by then.”

Izuku smiles brightly in thanks and writes some more in his notebook. He checks his page of questions, and then pulls a different sheet from the folder. Aizawa recognises it as the rules sheet.

“The rules state that only ‘official members’ of the teams can engage in combat or complete the objectives. Can we bring unofficial members on board?”

Aizawa grins. “Glad someone picked up on that. Yes, you can get assistance from other students, but they cannot come into the testing grounds with you. Once the exam starts, you’re on your own.”

Izuku meets his stare, eyes glittering with challenge. He could feel someone in the front room, but couldn't tell who.

“What about non-student persons within UA? What about persons outside of UA?”

Aizawa blinks in shock, and Nedzu sets his tea down, clamping on the urge to laugh in excitement. He decides to take pity on his employee and answer.

“Staff are not allowed to knowingly aid either team, but tricking them or hiding it is possible. For a person outside of UA, I will make an assessment based on research and contact with them.”

Izuku raises an eyebrow. “I believe you’ve already met them. Oculus.” Nedzu cocks his head. Izuku smacks himself in the forehead. “Ugh, sorry. 204’s system.”

Nedzu’s ears flattened against his head and he physically recoils.

Aizawa’s eyes widened. Who the hell was 204? How did they get such an immediate reaction out of Nedzu, of all people?! What was Oculus?

Izuku smiles victoriously. “Yep! 204 won’t be fronting, obviously. And they’ll keep to advisory and remote only.”

Nedzu looks out the window.

“As I thought. I’ll call them later. What classifies as poison? Like, does a sleeping agent count? Does it have to be something actually toxic to some degree? Does it have to taint specifically the heroes’ water? Does an antidote have to be available?”

Aizawa was starting to realise that there was a very real chance the villains would win. He felt a little sorry for Uraraka, but not a lot. This was going to be entertaining.

Izuku walked out of that meeting with many answers, and many plans that were now able to be put in place.

He shot off a text to Mei, asking for her to swing by his dorm to talk about making some special babies, and switched to his contacts, scrolling through and then pressing call.

“Nebulae, Izuku” He waited for a response. “No, take as long as you need.”

By the time he got another response, he was at the door to the dorms. Perfect. He pushed the door open as he responded.

“Hey Quest!” Most of the hero team was sitting in the lounge, which was even better.

“It’s been ages, I know!” He laughed, drawing his audience in. “Hey, remember about how I texted you about the practical this morning? Well Shouto said Blank wanted me to go talk to Nedzu, and he gave the all clear on the plan! I’m so excited!!” He pretended he hadn’t noticed Uraraka and the others, lowering his voice a little. “It’s not so great, you know? All of us feel really bad being the villains, but Shouto's being kinda harsh about it. He’s really insistent that everything goes right. And we haven’t had a full team meeting yet, so I don’t even know who Blank is!”

He walks quickly up the stairs to his dorm, after managing to take his shoes off and talk at the same time. He notices Shouto and Hitoshi lingering on the stairs, bewildered. He gestures for them not to follow him, and beelines for the meeting room.

“Well now I’m out of the enemy-infested commons, Imma put you on speaker.” Izkuu lays his phone on the table.

“Coolio! What’s going on?”

Izuku let chaos seep into his voice, more of Loki's personality coming through along with his confidence. “I scared the shit outta Nedzu and you get to be unofficially on the team! Hacking and advice only, strictly off campus.”

Quest laughed, free and bubbly. “Oh This is gonna be good!”

this is the two versions of the diagram on the whiteboard

Villain Subteams Flow Chart (With Real Names)

Villain Subteams Flow Chart (With Codenames)

Chapter Text

Izuku was on his laptop as everyone came in in twos or threes. Quest had lent him a projector a while back, and it was about to be very useful.

He stood, silencing the chatter in the room. Everyone was present and settled, so he could start now. He plugged his laptop in, and the projector showed his powerpoint splayed across one wall of whiteboards.

His fingers twisted unconsciously.

“O-okay everyone! The, the notebooks in front of you are, are empty, please take note of the things you think are important.” Everyone opened their notebooks expectantly.

“Cool.” Izuku clicked onto the title slide. “This is going to be a brief overview of the strengths and weaknesses of everyone in class 1-A. Any relevant information around them regarding their p-position within the exam will also be there.”

He clicked onto the first slide. “So-so the hero team as a whole isn’t, very compatible. They won’t talk to each, each other, and I suspect Uravity will k-keep most plans to her, Froppy and T-Tail Man. This will create distrust and tension between the l-leaders and the other members, particularly Earphone Jack and Dynamight.” A couple of people reeled at the conspicuous lack of 'Kacchan', but Izuku continued on, Loki’s easy confidence boosting him. “They have relatively few objectives, which will make them overconfident. Additionally, they will underestimate us. I’ve planted the seeds that none of us l-like being villains, amongst other things. If you all could keep in line with that, that’d be excellent.”

Iida looked somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of lying to his friends, but nodded along with everyone else.

“Great! I’ll talk more about it after. For now, Let’s start with Uravity.” He clicked onto the next slide.

“Uraraka Ochako, hero name Uravity, has been selected as the hero leader or ‘P-Paragon’ for this exercise. She is a close range fighter with some hand-to-hand training. Most of the class likes her, so majority of her team will listen to her. She’s not a very skilled strategist, and she’s also not a very flexible fighter.” His voice smoothed out as he got into the swing of his analysis. “If you end up in combat with her, try to keep your distance. Aim for her hands, try to dislocate or break her wrists and fingers. Also question her ability to lead or her morals, she will doubt herself. Force her to choose whether to catch you or save a civilian if you can, she will choose the civilian. Blank, Liberty, Enigma and Bishop would be the best match up against her, while Fox, Hurricane and myself would be the worst.”

Kirishima and Kaminari both gaped. “I knew you took notes on heroes but damn that was a smackdown!”

Loki smiled a bit from his position as co-conscious, glad that Izuku was actually taking his advice.

“You’re doing so well, my darling. I’m so proud of you.” Lily had started off co-fronting, but once Izuku had gained confidence, she had dropped back to co-conscious.

Izuku continued to run through the main strengths and weaknesses of each hero member; pointing out that both Tsu and Ojirou were there to support Uraraka as tacticians; and Aoyama was needed for future plans, but to damage his support belt if needed. Shinsou would be the absolute best match up for Mina, and Bakugou wasn’t going to listen to Uraraka and would definitely attack Izuku at some point. They should try and steal Satou’s sugar packets, and just steal sugar in general. Shouji has low stamina, and the webbing between his arms is really sensitive. Breaking Jirou’s speakers would remove two of her three supermoves and Sero had a massive crush on Kirishima, so flirting would fluster him badly.

Izuku felt bad about revealing the last one, but nobody seemed to think it was mean of him, and Kirishima smirked a little, so he figured it was worth it.

By the end of it, the entire team was flabbergasted with how detailed his analyses were, and somewhat terrified at how easily he noticed weaknesses.

Izuku clicked onto the next slide, and his team shivered.

“Now it’s time for me to analyse all of you. It’s important for all of you to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses so you can know when someone needs help. Also who each member of the team needs to avoid due to bad quirk matchups and such.”

He clicked onto a picture of himself. “First is me. I’m the Leader of the villain team, obviously. I’ve been training in martial arts for almost three years and teaching myself blade work for longer than that.” Momo and Tokoyami looked up sharply, both having tried blade work so knew how hard it was. “I’ve also been learning marksmanship from Snipe-Sensei for almost 9 months, so I’m definitely getting some paintball guns for the exam.” Izuku blissfully ignored the shock permeating the room. The cinnamon roll of their class could wield blades and guns?!

Shouto just smirked. He already knew all of this, but the reactions were very amusing.

“Combine all of that with my quirk, well quirks I suppose, And I’m a formidable fighter, at whatever range is needed. Obviously, my bones break if I overuse my quirk, and I’m not used to Blackwhip or Float yet. My worst matchup is definitely Dynamight, because it’s almost impossible for me to keep a level head.”

A picture of Shouto appeared.

“Bishop’s skilled at hand-to-hand, but his ice quirk is incredibly effective long range. He’s not used to his fire, and he’s susceptible to hypothermia and overheating if he doesn’t balance his quirk properly. Also, he gets pissed off when people mention Endeavour. Worst matchup is also Dynamight. I’ve shared some of our history, so Shouchan-Bishop gets irrationally angry when fighting him.”

“Shouchan?!” Kaminari spluttered.

Shouto nodded. “Yes. I suppose you will all find out anyway. Me and Izuku are dating.”

There was five minutes of pandemonium before everyone settled back down.

“Right.” Izuku cleared his throat. “Well, next is Chariot. He’s a tank, and close range only. He has a time limit on how long he can use his quirk, and he’s quite slow when his quirk is active. Worst matchup is Froppy or Cellophane, due to their increased mobility and ability for long ranged attacks.” He barely paused. “Dancer. Obviously very fast. He’s not very good at turns though, and gets irrational when people he cares about are in danger. Worst matchup is Uravity.”

Iida nodded seriously and made studious notes, though he did wince when Izuku pointed out his irrationality.

“Angel is leader of Ivy League, trained in martial arts and use of various weapons. She’s a good strategist, though she doubts herself and often doesn’t voice her opinions for fear of being ridiculed. If she overuses her quirk, malnutrition is a very real danger. Worst matchup is Earphone jack or Tentacole.”

“I thought she’d be great against Jirou, though?”

Momo winces and Izuku glances at her.

“In terms of quirks and physical abilities yes, she is a good match. But once you bring emotions and interpersonal connections into the mix, she becomes at a great disadvantage. Specifically, Angel and Earphone Jack are quite close, and Angel is likely to feel rather guilty if she hurts them.”

Momo was glad her crush hadn’t been exposed, and was even more glad that Midoriya managed to answer in a way that was mostly truthful. She was somewhat confused as to how he knew about it, though…

Izuku was immensely grateful that Lily, Mikumo and Loki were in the front room to help him answer questions. He for sure would have screwed that one up if they weren’t.

“Next is Hurricane. Incredibly strong supermove, but it can only be used once. Already working with him to create alternate attacks by using support equipment so he can fight longer. Obviously they are incredibly vulnerable if they overuse their quirk.”

Hagakure sniggers. “You mean whey-mode?”

Izuku stares at her, letting Loki come up into co-fronting. “No, and I’m calling quirkism on that name. You read the article, and you were there when he said he got teased for his quirk’s side effects. Do you think you using that name brings him any positive memories?”

Hagakure stuttered for a bit, turning to Denki and apologising.

The electric teen seemed surprised that Izuku had actually called it out, but accepted the apology.

“Right, well, if they overuse their quirk it becomes priority to get them out of there safely. Every event will be monitored, and things can be done if you’re all engaged. But worst matchup for him would be Cellophane.”

A photo of Kouda with its bunny produced coos from all over the room.

“Fox has incredible recon abilities, and actually rather high strength. It struggles with anxiety and is selectively mute, but it’s also very thoughtful and quite smart. Given use of animals, it’s a fierce fighter. Worst matchup is Dynamight.”

Kouda smiled at him, and he smiled back. Tokoyami shielded their eyes, muttering about needing sunglasses for the brightness.

“Then is Blank. Leader of the Shadow Band. He is also pretty good all round. Obviously their quirk is incredibly useful, but they’re fairly competent in hand to hand, have rudimentary knife skills and somewhat competent use of the capture weapon. They obviously work best in darkness or ambushes, and is at a disadvantage as everyone knows their quirk. His worst matchup is Tentacole of Froppy.” Shinsou nodded, making lazy notes.

“Liberty obviously is best for stealth, though her flash attacks are very effective when needed. She has high flexibility, and good resourcefulness. She has good combat abilities, but is really only close range. Worst opponent is Dynamight or Earphone Jack. Possibly also Tentacole, depending on if he makes ears or not.”

Izuku clicks to a cutesy picture of Tokoyami and dark shadow.

“Finally, there is Enigma. Strong quirk, but light is a large weakness. Also keeping control of their quirk may be challenging depending on light levels. Long range fighter, but can do closer if needed. Worst matchup is Dynamight, simply due to the light issue.”

There was almost twenty minutes of further discussion over strengths and weaknesses before Izuku saw a notification pop up on his laptop. He smiled, raising a hand. Silence fell quickly.

“Right. I’m sure some of you noticed that on the rules, it specifically discussed ‘official’ members.” Momo and Tokoyami nod. “Well as it turns out, we can have unofficial members.” Whispers broke out, but Izuku called for silence once again.

“After discussion with Nedzu and Aizawa-Sensei, I have brought Hatsume Mei on to help with preparations and weapons.”

Iida shivered against his will, and Shinsou cringed as he remembered the ordeal with his voice changer.

“I have also brought on someone from outside of UA.”

More than one person recoiled. Izuku pulled Skype onto the projector, where he was calling someone named ‘Oculus’. The call was answered, and an androgynous but young voice burst from the speakers.

“Hello. I am Oculus, and I will be acting as technological and tactical support through prep week and the exam itself. For those that may be wondering, my pronouns are they and them.”

Iida stood up. “This is very unheroic behaviour, we should not do this if Uraraka is not also doing it!”

“For one thing, Stain. Also, you’re on the villain team, so unheroic is your whole thing. Thirdly, the heroes got the same rules you did, Nebula can’t control whether or not Uravity and her lot pick up on it like he did.” Oculus’ voice was deadpan and somewhat sarcastic, and Iida blinked and awkwardly sat down.

Oculus sighed. “Well, uhh, hi? To be honest, you probably won’t interact with me very much. I mostly do backstage stuff.” An alert sounded from their end of the call. "What the- fucking rat!" Rapid typing was heard. "Sorry, I have to go. Something's come up." The call ended before anyone could respond.

“So, uuhh, yeah? That’s Oculus? That’s all I really had for today’s meeting, tomorrow we start training. So, prepare for that. Have a good evening, I guess?” Izuku busied himself disconnecting the projector and closing his laptop as everyone left in twos and threes.

“Well, that wasn’t a total failure?”

“It went wonderfully. I’m proud of you, Izuku. You faced you anxiety so well.”

Izuku let Lily’s praise and warmth roll over him like a wave, engulfing him in a feeling of safety.

Chapter Text

The next week was a whirl of training, planning and explosions (Blame Mei!). Izuku was thriving with all the organising and planning, even if the public speaking bit was hard. Besides, he had Loki-sama and Emerald-san and Ma to help him.

Izuku and Denki coughed as acrid smoke filled the workshop, Mei cackling as she extinguished the flaming invention.

“I thought you said it wouldn’t explode?!” Denki had covered his face with his shirt and was pushing all the windows wide open.

Mei cackled louder. “But it didn’t explode! It just flamed a little bit. And I need to replace some of the parts, and tweak a bit, and then it should work perfectly!”

Izuku and Denki shared a commiserating glance. They were not getting out of this unscathed.

“NO! Vixen you cannot turn all of All Might’s text pink.”

Vixen pouted from the video chat. “Not even a little bit?”

Izuku shook his head.

Vixen pouted for a bit longer, then brightened. “What about Vlad Ki-” They gasped in delight. “Monoma.”

On Wednesday, Emerald had organised for a little training game. At Ground Beta, they stood in front of a crate of paintball guns and grenades, all with blue paint. Their team looked excited.

“For some reason, Mei made the first batches of paintballs in blue instead of red. So, we’re going to play a little game. Since some of you seem to be doubting my abilities since I haven’t been training with you all. All of you against me.” They pulled their own paintball gun out and shot it at the wall, splashing it with purple paint.
“60-minute time limit. If you get hit in the torso or neck up, you’re out, and can join Mei in the control room to watch on the cameras. Time starts now!”

They sprinted away, catching a fire escape coming around a corner and swinging themselves onto it. The climbed fast and quiet, smirking once they reached the roof. They aimed their gun from the roof and pulled the trigger, watching as purple bloomed across Tooru’s neck and shoulder. She threw her hands in the air and laid the gun back in the crate.

Kirishima was equally easy to take out, he wasn’t made for stealth in the slightest. He had hardened his full body to bust a wall, so a quick shot to the back of the skull was all it took. He looked somewhat annoyed that there was paint in his hair, but he smiled cheerfully at Emerald when he spotted them.

Denki, Fumikage and Kouji were all sniped as well, meaning over half the team had been hit within the first 15 minutes.

Emerald felt something creep up behind them in the alley and rolled sideways, blue paint splattering onto a dumpster. They dropped the gun, lashing a foot at the barrel of the other gun. When Momo’s second shot was sent flying sideways, she dropped the gun and pulled a staff out of her stomach. She twirled it and lunged.

Emerald bought their arms up in an x, wrist guards vibrating with the hit. They rotated a hand and gripped the other end of the pole and yanked, twisting.

Momo was forced to retreat as she started to produce another staff. Emerald pulled a grenade off their belt and pulled the pin, lobbing it at the girl. It hissed, spewing sticky purple mist into the alley. Momo sighed, aborting the half-made staff on the ground.

Emerald picked up their gun and nodded to their opponent. “Thanks for the staff.”

Momo felt like Izuku’s voice was deeper than usual, and there wasn’t really any of the normal cheer, but it was fine! He was probably just really focused or something.

Tenya paced along the road, searching for his target. He was fairly confident that he would be able to capture his friend, but he was still trying to be aware of his surroundings.

A figure strolled out of an alley directly in front of him, and he revved his engines to leave. The figure turned to face him, and he realised it was Midoriya. He revved his engines and sprinted straight at him. The other teen didn’t even flinch, and Tenya felt something smash into his chest, liquid dripping down his gym uniform.

He skidded to a halt, preparing to see blood. What he actually saw was a circle of bright purple. He looked up to where Midoriya was, but he had disappeared.

Emerald sighed as they came across the veritable glacier protecting Todoroki. Knowing there were no cameras in this area, they blew a stream of deep orange flame at a weak point. Five minutes later, they came out on the other side of the glacier. Their throat was tickling, but it was fine.

Todoroki was standing on a pillar, facing away. Emerald smirked, shooting at his back.

The shot was low, so it hit the backs of his knees instead. He crumpled, falling forward off the tower. Emerald sent Blackwhip out to catch him, knowing Izuku would cry if they didn’t. Not that they particularly cared, but Lily would probably punch them.

They brought the boy to the ground and pulled out a paint bomb, colouring his red and white hair a uniform purple. They released him and showed him a picture of his new hair colour. He looked…excited?

“I should dye my hair!” Emerald smirked and nodded. They crouched, and leaped, crashing loudly into the concrete sidewalk 6 blocks away. Vaulting up to sit on the side of a building, they swung their legs as they waited for Shinsou to appear.

Emerald caught a glimpse of purple from around a corner and smiled. They fell off the building, rolling forward as they hit the asphalt. They had run out of ammunition for their gun, so it had stayed on the roof. All they had left was the staff and two paint grenades.

“Come on out Shinsou. I know you’re there.”

Hitoshi cursed, but crept out, gun aimed at his friend. He was eternally thankful that Midoriya had taught them the basics of gun handling, so he could actually use the paintball gun to some extent.

They never got the chance. As soon as he was out in the open, there was a live paint grenade at his feet.

As purple spewed over his uniform, all he could think was “Fuck.”

Emerald swung their staff like a croquet mallet, batting the grenade into an alley.

“If it makes things any better, you lasted the longest.” Emerald let Izuku up into co-fronting, so their voice had heightened into its more usual range. “Now come on, we have to go find everyone else.”

Izuku stood over his teammates, who were all sprawled on the floor in varying states of tired.

“Come on guys! Only one more set and you’re done for the day!!”

Shouto was the least affected, but even he was leaning against a wall, breathing heavily. “Izu I don’t think they can. I could get maybe half-way through before we reach home levels of exhaustion.”

Izuku frowned at him for a moment, before nodding. “Ok. You all can be done. Shouchan can run you through warmdowns while I finish up my routine.” He walked over to one of the machines and started prepping it, smiling to himself as his boyfriend corralled the others into doing some gentle stretches.

Lily stood in the boy’s bathroom with the rest of Izuku’s team. Hitoshi and Denki were walking everyone through how to change their face shape and emphasise various features. They were only going to be using codenames, so disguising their identifying features was the next logical step.

Once everyone had the basics done, Lily stepped up to show everyone how to conceal bruises and marks, making sure to act like Izuku as best as possible. After training with Izuku, they all had plenty to practise on. Everyone took to that surprisingly well as well.

Denki and Eijirou stayed behind with Momo to learn about the more ‘fashion’ styles of makeup.

Shouto stayed back and worked with Lily to figure out if they could cover his scar. The test was successful and made him look significantly different.

Kirishima blinked at his classmate. “You want to dye your hair… purple?”

Todoroki nodded, and after a moment, Kirishima sighed heavily. He grabbed his phone and pulled up the website he bought his dye off.

“Okay. I already have bleach and stuff, but what type of purple?”

When he saw Todoroki’s paint covered hair, he burst into laughter, but smiled.

“Yeah, we can manage that.”

If Kirishima and Todoroki bonded over hair dye and cooking fails? Well, no one else was there to question how Shouto lodged a saucepan lid in his ceiling.

When Aizawa and Nedzu arrived at 12:00 on Sunday afternoon to oversee the villain team’s prep time, the entire team was standing in a close-knit group. If you looked further, you could see it was three groups of three, with Midoriya slightly forward.

Midoriya stepped up to meet them, bowing ninety degrees. “Thank you for allowing this, Aizawa-Sensei, Nedzu-Sensei. We are immensely grateful for the advantage.”

Aizawa sipped his coffee and waved him off, Nedzu scurrying over to the gate with a large key.

“Well then. Let’s see what you have, Villain Team!” Nedzu’s squeaky voice rang out as the gates swung inwards, smooth as silk.

Midoriya smiled. “Hurricane!”

Kaminari pulled away from his quiet conversation with Yaomomo and Kouda, walking over quickly. He threw up a peace sign when he got to the trio by the gate. “What can I do for ya, Nebula?”

“Can you lead the conga? Single file to Single Ladies?”

Kaminari grinned, tapped his phone a couple times and then jogged into the fake city. Everyone else ran or sprinted to fall into line behind him.

Nedzu noted that everyone seemed to slow down or speed up as different people fell into line, suggesting that there was a specified order that they ran in. He half wondered if it was based on rank of some kind, but having someone ranked as the ‘lowest’, would be bad for morale.

Perhaps if it was a competition of some kind it would motivate them, though…

Whooosh

Tearing across the wide, concrete pathways was a car.

It was a bland grey and looked to be rather unremarkable.

Apart from the fact that it was tearing towards them at about 150km per hour, and totally and completely silent.

It pulled to an abrupt halt barely 20 meters away from them, and a grinning Hatsume Mei jumped out of the driver’s seat.

“Zu it’s so great!! A real dream!! You’ll love it!!”

Midoriya smiled and hauled open the trunk, easily lifting the modified bicycle out of it.

Mei nodded in thanks, hopped on the… could it still even be called a bike?... and cruised away, a mechanism pedalling for her.

The car pulled up at one of the shorter skyscrapers.

Midoriya jumped out of the driver’s seat and his teachers emerged from the back, only now noticing that Todoroki now sported a full head of vibrant purple hair.

“Temporarily changing hair colours is a good disguise tactic, good job Problem Child.”

“Thank you, Aizawa-Sensei, but I didn’t have any part in his decision to dye his hair purple. He organised everything himself. And it’s not temporary. The bleach and redye took so long that he’s now very good friends with Kirishima.”

Nedzu looked intrigued, and Aizawa just looked tired.

“Right, well, we need to set up. Excuse me.” Midoriya walked towards his group, car making a beeping noise once he got far enough away. Aizawa tested it, and sure enough, it was locked tight.

Emerald lazily raised a hand, gradually acquiring the attention of their team as they listened to Izuku. “Right, everyone!” They made sure their perfect act of Izuku was in place, all the way down to his rolled in feet.

“You all know your assignments, we went over it last night. Fox and Shiozaki got everything in yesterday, now we just need to go get it. Dismiss!”

Their subordinates fell into a three by three grid, each column one of the smaller teams. They all started jogging as one, eventually each team splitting off to get to their different locations.

Emerald pulled a laptop from the car and rested it on the hood of said car as it turned on. Izuku came into co-fronting, taking control of the hands and typing furiously.

“Checks… Pass. Let’s get this online.”

Nedzu walked toward his student, interested.

Emerald pushed the body’s hair back, pushing a button on a matte black earpiece.

“Testing. Troupe, do you copy?” Three voices rang out affirmative. “Shadow Band, do you copy?” Another three voices. “Ivy League, do you copy?” The final three voices came clear through the comms system, and Emerald smiled. “All clear, good job everyone. Leaders to Alpha, please.”

They tapped the earpiece four times, not paying attention to their teachers’ somewhat hidden shock. “Mission reports. Go!”

If Aizawa and Nedzu weren’t shocked before, they certainly were now. Four cars of varying makes sat in the building’s underground carpark, and half the villain team were in the middle of unloading them, sending them off to be refilled, and then returned to be unpacked again. And then the van came down. It was a bright orange, with a plumber’s logo emblazoned on sides and back. Its doors swung open to reveal a costume rack, and stacked cases labelled ‘accessories’.

Hagakure squealed in excitement when it was opened and immediately grabbed one of the cases labelled Liberty. She snapped it open to reveal a case of what looked to be makeup products, and some jewellery. She grabbed another one, and opened it to show a coiled whip and a pair of nun-chucks. Beneath the safety of her quirk, she grinned.

“Aww fuck yes! They are going to hate us!!”

Chapter Text

Emerald laid on their bed. They were sitting in their dorm, in full hero costume, waiting for the message.

They got a ping from the villain chat and opened their door, clearing the stairs with a single jump. Once they were out of the dorms, they activated One For All up to 46% and sprinted to the testing ground.

They skidded to a halt, drawing the attention of everyone there.

Izuku took over, curling in at everyone’s eyes on him.

“I-I’m so sorry! I’m la-late! Mmy alarm didn’t tuurn on an-and t-then I had to geet one of the su-supp-port kiids to ge-et my cos~costume out o-of the la-abs f-for me-e a-and then! The-there w-were pi-iece-es mi-missing-g tha-at I-I haad t-to trac-ack dow-own-!”

A couple of the heroes laughed, but his team played their part perfectly; looking annoyed, and standing in ones or twos. Iida had even wormed his way to stand by Ochako, which was perfect.

Aizawa waved him away, so he went to stand awkwardly on his own.

“Once you are let in here, you will not be yourselves, but either a pro-hero or a career villain. Play your parts accurately and do your best. There is a 60 minute grace period where you cannot attack each other. Good luck.” The teacher stepped away to allow everyone into the gates.

The heroes had all crowded around Ochako, but the villains all milled around - not really doing anything. After about five minutes, Shouto clapped his hands, drawing attention from both teams.

“Everyone be at base in 15 minutes!” He hadn’t bothered with the comms, voice loud enough to carry across the entire class. It cemented the idea that they were disorganised and inexperienced, which would give them the advantage.

Hagakure stayed back, unseen, trailing the heroes to find their base.

It was one of the biggest buildings in the city and was helpfully labelled ‘Hero Agency’.

She smiled, retreating back to base for their meeting, and calling in the appearance and location of the building over comms.

Once everyone was back at base, Izuku requested everyone switch suits.

They all split off into their designated rooms and pulled on their new costumes.

Tenya unbuckled his pristine white armour and slipped on a black button down and custom metal boots.

Momo pulled on her jumpsuit, a complex lattice of zips across the front, allowing her to use her quirk easily. She contemplated making it her official hero costume, it was much more comfortable.

Izuku pulled on his three-piece suit, tie pristinely knotted.

Shouto pulled the beanie off his head, tousling his purple hair. He wore a white blouse and a short, pleated skirt in a lavender plaid. Cutesy sneakers specially made for his quirk completed the look, along with makeup and accessories.

Hagakure slid the custom fabric suit over her head and body and put in her contacts. Pulling on the tea-length black dress and deep-hooded cloak, she felt a sense of peace, of knowing what came next.

Looking over everyone, Nebulae felt a great sense of pride. They had organised all of this. They had helped them all become their characters. They had helped them all find a reason. They had made them into proper villains.

Izuku started a skype call with Oculus, who was once again projected onto a clean wall. Seeing them gave him a sense of confidence in his actions, they had vetted all of his ideas and vetoed ones that went overboard, so he trusted his plans.

“Well, everyone looks amazing! This is the first time we’re in costume all together, and I think we look pretty awesome.”

Everyone took a moment to look at their teammates, with Todoroki and Hagakure easily drawing the most attention. None of it was negative, but they’re appearances certainly made a splash.

“Now, let’s run over today’s plan. There are five objectives on the list today. First, just to get it out of the way, Oculus I need you to get into the Heroes’ computers; surveillance, comms, files, everything. Also make sure the Heroes don’t get into anything they shouldn’t. Alert me if anything happens.”

“I’ll notify you when I’m in, as well.”

Izuku nodded in thanks and looked at his notebook. “Ivy League, you’re up first. At 12pm sharp, a truck filled with food is going to swing past our ‘base’ on its way to the Heroes. I need you to pull it off course. Bust the tires, take out the driver. I don’t really care how, but prevent the delivery.”

Momo nodded sharply, and Denki smiled excitedly.

“After that, Shadow Band can spend a couple of hours chasing hero bots. 2-4pm ish? If you’re up for it, that is. You have a bigger job tonight.”

Hitoshi looked at his teammates, who both nodded.

“We’ll do that Nebula. Anything special?”

Izuku grinned. “Keep to the alleys, lure bots in if you can, or drag them. Oculus or myself will be on comms to help you avoid Hero Team patrols. Do not engage any more that is required for your safety. Blank and Liberty, avoid quirk use as much as possible.”

The three all smiled, and Dark Shadow let out a cackle from… somewhere.

“At 5:30 there will be a train full of civilian bots running on the other side of the city. Troupe, I want you three to crash it.”

Tenya looked like he wanted to protest, but Shouto put a hand on his shoulder.

“We’re villains Dancer. This is our job.”

Tenya nodded, relaxing back into his chair.

“I assume you’ll brief us closer to the mission?”

Izuku nodded. “Indeed I will Dancer.” He clapped his hands, turning towards Shadow Band and smiling. “The main event of today happens with you three, at about 10pm.”

Everyone perked up, excited to learn the big mission.

His smile turned into something more sinister. “We’re going to poison the heroes.” The room froze for a minute, before Izuku perked back up into his normal self. “Well, not really. We’re going to lace the Heroes’ water supply with laxatives.”

Shouto drops his head on the table with a thunk.

Momo just stares.

Hitoshi rubs his temple tiredly.

On the other end of the voice call, Quest mutes themself so they can laugh at the reactions on the screen. It’s very clear who is and isn’t used to Izuku’s antics.

Momo sat on a roof, flicking through camera feeds on her tablet. Spotting the truck, she followed it using CCTV until it passed a particular fruit shop. She put a hand up to her earpiece and clicked unmute.

“Target has passed point one. Fox, status report.”

Kouji’s voice was quiet, but unwavering. “Allies are cleared for boarding and takedown.”

Momo felt some of her anxiety ease. “Hurricane, report.”

Denki started to respond, but fell silent. Almost a full three minutes passed before spark responded.

“Sorry for the delay, I heard a hero patrol heading away from target. Passed right by my current location. ETA of two minutes to final location, attack prep is complete.”

More of the anxiety melted, leaving a pulsing excitement, anticipation. She clicked through a couple more camera views before catching up to their target once again.

“I am in position.” Denki fidgeted as they waited, eyes darting to every noise.

After what seemed like an eon, the target came into view. It was a plain white truck, unassuming.

“I have eyes on the target.” Denki listened as Momo gave the all clear to Kouji, and saw almost twenty squirrels and twice as many rats scamper and jump onto the truck, somehow unlatching the door and descending on the food inside, quickly joined by a swarm of insects.

Almost immediately after, his team leader called stage two into action.

Spark saw a couple of squirrels crawl under the truck, and a few moments later pop out again. It seemed something had been done though, because barely a hundred metres down the road, the truck pulled to a stop and put its emergency lights on.

The bot ‘driver’ got out and went to ‘inspect’ the truck. Denki slunk out from an alleyway and sent a few thousand volts through it, smiling as the bot was fried. Kouji recalled its allies and the two walked away from the scene calmly, following Momo’s directions to get them back to base.

Izuku laughed as he tracked Shadow Band in their fight against the hero bots. The bots were (knowing Nedzu, probably purposely) shitty caricatures of U.A alumni and other pros. Hitoshi took great glee in decapitating an Endeavour bot and carrying the head back for Shouto as a trophy.

Shouto thought it was hilarious.

Fumikage used the bots as pseudo sacrifices in some eldritch ritual.

Tooru added little bows and stickers to the robots she downed.

All of them somehow added a sticker to Satou, who was patrolling some of the alleys. Blank got four on him.

None of them got noticed.

Ochako straightened as someone came barrelling into her office.

“What is it, Pinky?”

“Villains have been spotted by the trainline, sector 6, camera #97!” She panted.

Ochako pulled up that camera on her laptop, staring at the three villains. Kirishima and Iida were very obvious, but the girl… it didn’t make sense. She wasn’t the right figure for Momo, and Tooru was invisible. Perhaps they had snuck someone in somehow? But her hair was purple, so perhaps it was Shinsou and he was crossdressing? Or maybe trans? But it was the wrong purple…

She noticed a train coming on a different camera and everything clicked.

She quickly pressed the mic button on her headset, talking to her whole team.

“Everyone, there is a train coming through sector six, will pass between the abandoned warehouse on 46th and the wall. There are villains at that location, and they may crash the train. All heroes in sector six approach with caution. Villains are identified as Kirishima Eijirou, Iida Tenya and one unknown. Unknown appears female, with purple hair and a pastel schoolgirl aesthetic.”

She got affirmatives from Earphone Jack, Cellophane and Froppy. That was good, Cellophane could distract or lead the villains away while EJ and Froppy worked rescue. She would probably be needed as well. It was good that they didn’t have particularly suited quirks, though.

The screen went dark, camera obviously broken or destroyed.

Froppy’s voice crackled a bit over the comms as she noted the glacier in front of the crash, and gave immediate insights. Ochako quickly put out the call for everyone bar Twinkle and Pinky to get to the crash for rescue relief immediately. Dynamight was called to pursue the villains and lead them away from the crash.

She grabbed her visor and her nausea supressing bracelets and float-jumped towards the crash.

It was horrible. Not only had the villains got away, but there had been 23 civilian casualties, and 40 injuries. No matter that they were robots, Ochako had failed.

Tooru crept through the sewers, thick boots protecting her from whatever shit was gathered in the bottom of the giant pipes. She followed the route Fumikage laid out for her, stopping when she got to a manhole cover.

“Blank, I’m at point 1.”

Shinsou smiled behind their mask. Right on time. They used the voice modulator to make it sound like Aoyama was fighting a crime bot, which drew Satou in easily.

He gave the all clear to his team mate who darted up, fully invisible now, and fiddled with the heroes’ water pipes. She detached the filter and pulled a container of white powder out of her mouth.

She sprinkled the entire container across three different filters, reassembled the unit and was back into the sewers before Satou realised he had been tricked.

“Mission success, returning to base.”

In the teachers' observation room, all the screens flickered, showing a message in acid green text.

Next scheduled incident begins at 9am, please get some sleep.

And in smaller text,

We’re looking at you, Eraserhead.

Aizawa just sighed. “Damn Problem Children.”

Chapter Text

True to the message, at 9am the next morning, the villain team were all in their costumes, and had eaten breakfast and were generally alert. They were once again seated at the big oval conference table where they held meetings.

Izuku was fiddling with the projector again and, soon enough, Oculus’ simple question mark logo was projected onto a clean whiteboard.

“Morning everyone! Excellent work yesterday, everything went super smooth!” Oculus sounded chipper and excited, where they had seemed more reserved in previous meetings.

“Seconded!” Izuku chirped, “You all did amazingly well. I was honestly expecting more stumbles and mistakes.”

There was a brief moment of everyone congratulating each other, before Izuku regained focus.

“Right. Well, let’s look over today’s objectives. At 11am, Ivy League is going to release the animal bots from the zoo. I’d like Fox to be the focus on that one, for poetic reasons. Also, backstory.”

Kouji nodded. Its backstory and villain MO was mostly around animal cruelty, so attacking a zoo would be perfect. And maybe it could spray paint something about animal cruelty…

“At 12pm, Shadow Band is going to infiltrate the city hall and kidnap the Mayor. All of us are registered as villains in the database, but they used our school photos. This means that Liberty, you can walk right in if you wear your skinsuit.” Tenya, Eijirou, and Momo looked vaguely unsettled at the prospect of a ‘skinsuit’, even though they all knew what it was. “Blank, the guards have a smoke break at 12:30pm, and you need to ‘brainwash’ them to escort the Mayor and Liberty out of the building. What is actually going to happen is that Oculus will hack them to receive your commands. But it will appear as brainwashing, for realism purposes. Enigma is there in case things go wrong and you need to brute force in or out.”

Tooru bounced up and down in her seat, excited that she was going to be the main infiltrator.

Fumikage bowed their head in assent, content to be backup for their more excitable squadmate.

Hitoshi was somewhat impressed with the level of detail Izuku was putting into this, but found it amusing that he was going to ‘brainwash’ robots. They half wondered if the hero team would get scared that their quirk worked on robots now.

Oculus nodded at the idea, wrote some bullet points on a sticky note and stuck it to their computer.

“Well then! Last thing is at 4pm. Troupe, y'all choose a skyscraper and blow it up.”

The team was divided between shock, and an unholy excitement.

“Is that why you got Mei to make all those explosives?” Shouto asked, smiling gleefully.

“Well, partly. There are a couple of missions that might need them. But you are welcome to use some if you want them.” Izuku said, stifling a laugh.

Shouto murmured with Eijirou and Tenya for a moment, before nodding.

“Yes, explosives would be good. Perhaps Chariot can engage Dynamight in a fight around the building so we can pin it on him.”

Izuku’s eyes widened. “If you manage to pull that off, I will be very happy. Putting aside personal issues, not many people like him, so it would split the heroes even further.”

Shouto and Eijirou exchanged nods, and Izuku smirked.

“Well then, final note. I haven’t given anyone the specific job of going after hero bots, but if you see one, time permits, and it’s safe to do so, you are welcome to take them out at leisure.”

Everyone nodded, and he smiled, looking to the security camera in the corner of the ceiling.

“Now, I’d suggest go watch the hero team meeting, it starts in-” he checked his watch, “15 minutes officially, but the little bit of time before can be really amusing to watch. Shoo!”

“Brat.” Shouta appeared annoyed, but he still switched the cameras.

“Such a dad, Shouta.” Nemuri purred. “It’s delicious~”

Shouta glared at her.

“Well there’s-”Hizashi stifled a giggle, “There’s a reason his kids call him Dadzawa.”

Majority of the staff burst out laughing. All Might coughed blood into a handkerchief in surprise, Nedzu just sipped his tea, and Aizawa activated his quirk, glaring at his husband. Nemuri was on the floor, dying of laughter.

Ochako waved her hand in the air, trying to get everyone’s attention. When that didn’t work, she floated a thick book over the table with her quirk and then released it, creating a loud thump. Everyone looked at the book, and then at her.

She cleared her throat. “Well, now that I have everyone’s attention, we can start the meeting.”

Nemuri and Hizashi cackled at that, and Shouta hid a smile in his scarf.

“Yesterday, we underestimated the villains. We will not do that again! We will stand against them, and We. Will. Win.” Despite her insecurities, Uraraka was excellent at pep talks. The hero team all agreed and proclaimed how good they were, and how the villains were going down.

Oh, how wrong they were.

Kouda pet the bird on its shoulder as it walked into the zoo. Oculus had scrambled the scanners for a minute, so the bots didn’t register it, Denki, and Momo as villains.

The bird flew off to call its friends, and soon enough there was a large flock of small brown birds with crows dispersed throughout. They all landed in front of Kouda, who turned to smile at his team-mates.

“You two should get to your opening positions.” It signed, thankful that both of the others knew sign.

“Of course, Fox. Best of luck to you and your allies.” Momo gave a shallow bow, and towed Denki away quickly, leaving Kouji to work.

Kouji reached out to the birds, whispering quietly to them and explaining what they needed to do. In pairs and threes, the birds all flew off to find the different enclosures.

On the other side of the park, Momo and Denki were spray painting the reptile house.

“Do you think we should do a fox? Like as a calling card?”

Momo thought about it, then nodded. She grabbed a can of black and shook it a few times. Using quick strokes, she created a simple stylistic fox. Pausing, she brightened. With steady hands, she wrote ‘HILA’ in blocky letters under the image.

“Huh?”

“So eloquent, Denki.” She teased. “But H is for hurricane, IL is for Ivy League and A is for Angel. I thought it would be a confusing way to credit all of us.”

“Heh, look at you, confusing assholes all on your own~” Denki grinned.

An elephant trumpeting noise blasted from one of the animal bots, which was the trigger sound Kouji had set up with all of its bird allies.

The birds all pulled on special strings, which unlatched the doors to each caged animal bot. The bots all stormed out, crushing plants and fences alike in the stampede for freedom.

Kouji itself was airlifted above the chaos by a number of crows and a custom harness…thing… listen, blame Mei!

It was dropped off next to the other two of its team by the reptile house. It smiled at all of the environmental messages, and smiled wider when they showed it the signatures.

Tooru strode into the city hall, low-heeled boots clicking on the marble floor.

Shit that was a hero! She tried to duck into an alcove, but Sero spotted her first. Xe frowned, hurrying over to her.

“I’m sorry Ma’am, I don’t think you’re meant to be here. There’s currently a practical exam happening.”

Remember the character practise, Tooru! You got this!!

She rose to her full height, voice cool and composed. “I can assure you I am meant to be here.” Sero looked sceptical, so she pushed further. “I am meant to be escorting the Mayor to a publicity event. I assume you are here to stop villains getting a hand on her.”

The boy rushed to agree. “Oh I’m so sorry Ma’am, I wasn’t told what you looked like. Let me get some guards with us.” While Sero was organising the bots, Tooru tapped into the comms a touch hysterically.

“This is Liberty. Change of plans. I now have pro hero Cellophane escorting myself and the mayor along with the guard bots. Blank can you pretend to attack the corner on main and 12th and get Cellophane to freeze?” Shinsou called his affirmative. “ Good. Enigma, I need you there as well to fake capture me. No use giving the game away, right?”

The plan worked well, with everything going as it should, and leaving one very confused teen handcuffed to a streetlamp.

In his office, Izuku traced a photo of the villain team. They were learning to adapt plans on the fly, he hadn’t even needed to prompt them.

He was so proud of them.

Shouto grinned, looking rather like Toga with his whole school-girl aesthetic.

Eijirou’s heavy breathing, and the faintest of explosions, could be heard through his open comms. “Damn, this bitch is fast,” he panted.

Shouto snorted, and watched as ‘Dynamight’ came barrelling around the corner, straight towards the rigged buildings. He was shouting something about coming after Deku, and Shouto idly noted that Izuku's prediction was right and Bakugou did come after him.

As it turned out, Mei had made wayyyy to many bombs, and Shouto was extra as fuck when allowed. Given that Izuku was a massive enabler, there were going to be at least three buildings dropping today.

But back to the chaos. Bakugou was literally flying towards the building in front of him, and by the time he realised there was something wrong, there was no way to stop. Thankfully, Tenya wrapped him in a quirk proof net right on time, and neither hero nor building was damaged.

Yet.

Eijirou picked up his blonde friend and walked him around to the back of the building. He paused long enough for Shouto to unstrap one of the heavy gauntlets the hero wore.

“The fuck are you doing bitch? Those things are really fucking explosive!”

Shouto threw the gauntlet at its magnetic holder, turning to face Bakugou with insanity glinting in his eyes. “Oh I know!”

They had all ducked into the blast cover that had been assembled around the corner.

Shouto lit his pinky on fire and held up a string. He lit the string and dropped it, twitching and fidgeting in excitement. Some of it was faked, to sell the character further, but a good portion of the excitement and jitters were real. How often was he going to be able to blow this much up with no worry for civilians? Almost never. He had to enjoy it while it lasted.

He turned to their captive, counting down in his head. “Three, Two, One, Fun!”

The world was suddenly full of noise and light and heat.

The three villains walked away from the scene casually, as if they hadn’t just framed one of their classmates for collapsing three buildings.

“I regret everything.” Powerloader was drinking heavily from a conspicuous silver flask.

Cementoss was banging his head against the wall.

Snipe had taken his mask off so he could massage his temples.

Vlad King was frozen, suddenly very glad that he was teacher of 1-B.

Aizawa was staring, impassive as usual.

Nedzu was cackling manically, “Oh, this group is fascinating!!! The strategies and team hierarchies are delightful to compare!”

Mic paled, “oh those poor Listeners.”

Yuuga stood in front of the four villains. They weren’t dressed like villains, though.

The girl, Angel, was leaning on the boss guy, Nebula. He didn’t seem to care though. It almost looked like they…trusted one another?

“Twinkling, we understand. I know it’s hard to believe, but we do,” Nebula said, “Hurricane and Angel were singled out for their quirks, and no one really looked past that. Fox was forced into the background because it wasn’t loud like other kids. I understand what it’s like for people to see the smile and never look past it. But I see you. We all see you.”

Yuuga sucked in a breath. Someone… noticed him? Not the sparkly extravagant boy he pretended to be, but the boy that learned to use concealer to hide the eyebags, the stress lines. The boy that spent hours lying in bed just staring at the ceiling, unable to move.

The voice took on a more sinister tone. “We are villains for many different reasons. But we all have one thing in common. We all want to be seen.” Nebula smiled, deceptively sweet. “We can help you be seen, instead of living in the shadow of people like Dynamight.”

“But, you have Midoriya and Todoroki on your team. Yaoyorozu and Iida, too. How am I meant to compete with that?”

Hurricane jumped in for that one. “But that’s the beauty of it. It’s not a competition.”

What?

“We all get given missions that suit us. Fox was the main player in our last mission, because that mission was important to him. And train crashes and exploding buildings make cover for the sneakier jobs to happen. Make it easier.”

“We help each other,” Angel said softly, “we use our strengths to cover someone else’s weaknesses. We fight smart and dirty, and we win, Twinkling. The heroes are disjointed, unprepared and scrambling. They are arrogant and ignorant.”

Yuuga thought about it for a moment, but really it was obvious. He nodded determinedly. “I’m in.”

Angel smiled, bright and clear. “Wonderful. We’ll send you some information and instructions later today during your break. Keep your windows open for it.”

Yuuga nodded, and the four villains melted into the shadows, vanishing as easily as they appeared.

Shouto glanced at Tenya, who nodded, and at Eijirou, who also nodded.

Thrusting a hand out, a burst of flame soared to the small pile of explosive charges carefully placed at the base of a wall. They lit up with matching orange explosions. The wall crumbled like paper, and a few of the bots were already out.

The three teens rushed in, brute forcing their way into all of the cells, freeing the bots. They had all been caught and put there by the hero team over the past few days, but they were free to roam once again.

“Good job, boys. Now get out of there!”

“Gotcha!”

“On it.”

“Of course, Oculus.”

Their speedy exit was just in time too, because Pinky, Earphone Jack and Cellophane arrived at the now empty prison not five minutes later, cursing their opponents.

Tooru fidgeted anxiously. She was told that one of the heroes would be coming outside for some fresh air any minute now, and that was her chance to get in and out.

And… Bingo! Aoyama had just stepped outside, door hanging wide open.

She snuck in, careful not to nudge anything. She followed the memorised directions to Uravity’s office, and spat a plastic bag out of her mouth.

She was in the blind spot of the camera’s, and even if she wasn’t, Oculus was clear to scrub the footage needed.

Carefully, she pulled a USB out of the plastic, padding over to place it on the heroine’s desk.

Ochako walked into her office to retrieve a pen, but froze. There was a USB on her desk. Why was there a USB on her desk?

Against what was probably common sense, she booted up her laptop and plugged it in; there was only a single file on it, a video.

“Hello Paragon: Hero Leader Uravity. I am Nebula, leader of the villains.” The person was in shadow, so she couldn’t quite see their face.

“I am here with an ultimatum. I want $1,000,000 cash delivered to abandoned warehouse 12, in district 6. If it isn’t there at midnight tonight, I’m going to take one of your colleagues hostage. And who knows?” They leant back, further drenching themself in shadow. “They might even make it out alive!”

Ochako’s heart dropped. The villain laughed. It was familiar, but she couldn’t place it…

“Well, that’s all from me. Toodles~”

The video ended, and Ochako’s screen stayed black for a long time.

Chapter Text

The heroes did not send the money. Izuku smiled, at the same time a post it note was slipped through Aoyama Yuuga’s window by a small brown bird.

“I wonder if the villains will manage to get the traitor checkbox?” Midnight asked, lazing back on a couch.

Nedzu cackled quietly, changing to the camera on the villain hideout entrance.

Aoyama Yuuga was standing there, having just knocked. A minute later, Denki opened the door and grinned.

They waved the other blonde inside, slinging an arm across his shoulders.

Midnight gaped, and Ectoplasm chuckled, patting her on the shoulder.

“I think that answers your question Kayama.”

“When did that happen?” The 18+ heroine spluttered.

“You were getting snacks. Midoriya, Yaoyorozu, Kaminari, and Kouda had this big heart to heart with him. The audio was out on those cameras for some reason, but whatever they said seems to have worked.” Aizawa responded, not shifting a bit as the woman flopped on top of his cocooned form.

“Well, I can always watch the tapes after.” She sighed. “But let’s see what’s happening inside!”

Denki knocked on the meeting room door.

“Ah, perfect timing Hurricane.” Izuku gestured for spark to come in, Yuuga trailing behind them. “Everyone, Twinkling has decided to join us. I expect you all to give him a warm welcome.”

Kirishima made a noise of understanding. “So that’s why you wouldn’t let us hurt him!”

Yuuga’s head was already spinning, “You-what?”

Izuku smiled at him, spinning on his chair a bit. “Well, I thought you would be the best fit, and also you deserved the opportunity. But you weren’t going to listen to us if we’d hurt you, would you?”

Yuuga blushed a little. “I-I suppose no, I wouldn’t.”

Lily grinned at him, blindingly bright and full of warmth and care.

Yuuga found himself craving physical contact, which his new boss seemed to pre-empt by placing a casual arm around his shoulders and squeezing gently.

Against his will, the French teen melted into the other, who was just so warm and safe.

“Wow, you seem tired, huh? Lets get you into your room, yeah? we got one all set up for you.”

Yuuga blinked drowsily, barely registering when he was transferred to Tenya’s grip.

Once the eccentric blonde was out of the room, the kind, cheery aura shrivelled and died. Loki sat at the head of the table, idly twirling a pen in his crooked fingers.

“I’m going to kill him.”

By now they should be used to ‘Izuku’ pulling stunts like this, but it still left most of the team reeling.

“You’re… going to kill our spy?”

Loki laughed, smooth and rich like chocolate. “Oh, he isn’t a spy. He’s an objective. He does come with the added bonus of demoralising the heroes, but he’s still just an objective.”

It was blatantly obvious why Tenya had been chosen to escort the ex-hero to his room. He would’ve been horrified at such casual manipulation. Everyone else was actually pretty okay with it, though some did look a tad bit uncomfortable.

“Well, onto other things. That was the first objective complete for today, we currently have a hero ‘hostage’.” A couple of people laughed, and Loki looked straight into the security camera. “Second objective of the day is robbing the bank. Liberty got our ultimatum to Uravity, and Oculus confirmed that she did watch it. She did not, however, give us our money.” There was some grumbling, and one very overdramatic Denki.

“Oh, how dare she! ‘Tis our curse to be ignored by our enemies!”

“Notice me. Senpai.” Shouto said, in his typical deadpan. Everyone but Loki burst into laughter. Shouto turned to Denki. “Did I do that right?”

Denki was laughing too hard to respond.

“So, we took our hostage and on top of that, we're going to take the money ourselves. Troupe and Ivy League, you will both be on that. You’ll need to take the van, and I’d recommend Fox being getaway driver, as it can fight remotely.”

Shouto and Momo looked at each other and nodded.

“Excellent, one of you needs to catch Dancer up on that as well. Optimal time to attack the bank is at about 2pm. Beware the heroes though, it’s barely a 15-minute walk to their base, so you have under ten minutes before the heroes could arrive. You’ll need to be very quick.”

Loki felt anticipation crawling up their spine.

“The last thing, is that the final showdown is starting at midnight tonight. You need to have your dress costumes on and be ready to leave by 11:30PM. Oculus and I will be informing the heroes of this later today. That’s all.”

”Thank you Loki-san! I would’ve panicked so badly doing that.” Izuku said, as he reappeared.

Lily walked back to Izuku’s room in the base, intent on changing into their dress costume. She knew they didn’t have to, but it was easier for her to do it now, rather than later.

Loki would have a great deal of fun taunting the heroes when the time came, and she knew he wanted the outfit to be perfect.

Four hours later, Emerald was sitting in front of a camera, going over plans with Vixen, when Tooru bursts into their office, frazzled.

“Liberty. I’m busy.” That wasn’t too out of character for Izuku, was it? He was playing a villain, anyway.

“The bank’s gone wrong!” She panted.

Shit. They switched from notetaking to checking the cameras around the bank, flicking through them to try and find what was-

Fucking hell.

There were heroes there. Four of them.

There were only two villains.

Shit.

Fuck! It was Dancer and Fox against Uravity, Dynamight, Froppy and Cellophane.

Bad matchups.

Thankfully, Angel came sprinting out of the bank, already producing a shield. “I’ll take Kacchan!”

The nickname made the boy freeze and blink, allowing Angel to taze him in the thigh with a cattle prod.

A harsh, painful zap hit his thigh and Katsuki winced. He needed to get this fight over, and fast. As much as he was hot-headed, he wasn’t stupid. He knew Ponytail could counter his quirk and beat him. But he wouldn’t make it easy for her.

Tenya was overwhelmed. There were two high mobility fighters that he was trying to keep track of and avoid, and it was Not Going Well.

Kouji saw this, and tried to send a couple of birds to help, but he had to dodge a spinning kick from Uravity before he could finish the order.

Momo saw her struggling team member and hurried herself along mentally, increasing the speed of her attacks. She had managed to keep Baku- Dynamight on the back foot, and she was definitely gaining ground as he got steadily sloppier as anger clouded him.

And…. There!

She lashed a kick out at the blonde’s knee, simultaneously swinging a staff at the pressure point on his neck.

It… worked???

The ‘hero’ crumpled, not unconscious, but he wouldn’t be moving any time soon.

Momo looked at him for a moment, produced some zip ties and bound his wrists so he couldn’t use his quirk to get out without burning himself.

Emerald entered the comms line ‘bank heist bois’. “Momo I love you platonically.”

“Why?” Momo was panting a little bit but bent to grab a rock. Aiming, she threw the chunk of concrete at Sero, who looked over at her and grinned.

“You wanna fucking go?”

She threw another chunk of building rubble.

“Because Ba-Kacch-Dynamight. Dammit! Is now going to have to wait for someone to help him, and he hates that.”

Momo smiled, even as she dodged a strip of tape from her new opponent.

“Damn Izuku, that’s the first time you’ve slipped up. He is forever Ba-Kacchan in my soul.” Denki said.

On another camera, Shouto froze. “Izu, did you almost call him Bakugou?!?!”

“What? No!” Emerald threw a middle finger half-heartedly as Vixen laughed at them through the voice call.

Momo ducked under more tape, racking her brain for a way to win this fight and help her team win. Though, she knew that both her team-mates were up against people they couldn’t beat. Kouji would have trouble getting enough time to get its friends to attack Uraraka, and she was mostly a short-range fighter. It was decently strong but didn’t have high combat practise. Tenya couldn’t speed up to catch Tsu if she was always darting everywhere. He’d always struggled with turning.

Emerald saw their chance, and they took it. “ANGEL DUCK!!”

Momo ducked on reflex, trusting Izuku instinctively. The giant chunk of cement Uravity had thrown at her sailed over her head and crashed full force into Cellophane’s chest.

The boy crumpled back, unconscious and now pinned by the boulder.

Momo sighed, pulling a crowbar from her arm. She shoved it under the rubble and yanked up, Izuku’s hell training paying off. The rock shifted, rolling off her injured classmate.

There was at least one snap, probably a rib. She ignored it, and went to help Kouji.

Tenya panted as he skidded to a stop, hands stretched out to brace as he hit the wall. Nothing snapped, but a jolt of pain lanced up his arms.

It was fine though. He was fine.

Tsu was crouching on a piece of rubble, stretching her tongue out.

While their team was so thoughtfully distracting the enemy, Eijirou, Shouto and Kaminari were loading the money into the truck and Getting The Fuck Out Of There.

“Alert! Money has been acquired, y'all get outta there!” Denki said, laughing as spark sat amongst fake gold bars and duffle bags full of fake money.

Momo sighed in relief and sprinted away from Uraraka, falling in with Kouji.

Tenya sped ahead to get their get away car prepped and once they caught up to it, the engine was revving and ready to go.

As the car sped away, the grey one Izuku had used to get the teachers to the base on Sunday, the three of them blared loud, explicit music as the adrenalin rush faded.

Emerald relaxed in their seat as all of their team got out safe. “Fuck that was almost bad.”

Vixen nodded, “Mhmm. If you’d lost any of them, you’d have to take out a hero before the final showdown, which would ruin the whole drama you all had planned.”

Emerald nodded. “Exactly! And also Izuku would be sad. And sad Izuku is problematic.”

“You just don’t want to admit you care about him, asshole!” Vixen cackled.

“Shut the fuck up.” Emerald’s voice was flat, but the tips of their ears were red, betraying their embarrassment.

At 8pm, Loki was sitting relaxedly in a deep black leather armchair, cracked mask artfully masking their identity, along with the shadows.

Oculus was looking through the cameras and getting the broadcast all set up.

Tooru was off to the side with the mayor-bot from earlier.

Yuuga was sitting in fake chains for if they needed him to be threatened for intimidation purposes. They’d even put a fake cut and some bruising on his face!

“Nebula, line is live in three,” Loki relaxed further into her role as villain mastermind. “two, one, live!”

The hero team blinked and furrowed their brows in annoyance and confusion when their call with the teachers glitched and cut off, then sat up in shock when a dark lit room appeared on the massive screen.

A shadowy figure was sitting in a plush, leather chair in the centre.

“Hello, heroes.” They spat.

Tsu was the one to respond. “Hello, kero. Who are you?”

Loki chuckled, leaning forward so his mask glinted in the light. “Why I am your enemy. Your greatest enemy, in fact.”

Ochako sucked in a breath. This was the villain leader. This was her arch-nemesis.

“Aww, look at the baby heroes suddenly all focused~” Loki purred, mask not muffling it even a little.

Yuuga and Tooru both choked a little, and from where the rest of the team was watching, Shouto set fire to a couch accidentally.

“How dare you! We will defeat you, foul villain!”

Loki massaged his temple with one gloved hand. “Gods, you sound like Stark’s impression of Rogers.” She sighed deeply, coming fully out of the shadows. “We are going to take pity on you.”

Some of the heroes looked disgusted and offended. Loki found it hilarious.

“You clearly haven’t realised this, but when you ignored our ultimatum, we took the money anyway, along with a hero.”

“None of us are missing though?” Ojirou said, looking around the room as if to confirm.

Loki gestured to Tooru, and she dragged Yuuga out, chained and ‘injured’

Loki rested a hand on the blonde’s shoulder. “I knew you faded into the background, but they didn’t even realise you were gone. It’s such a shame~”

Yuuga didn’t have to fake his conspicuous lack of sparkle, and Ojirou covered his mouth in shock.

The rest of the heroes were in similar states. Bakugou was unusually silent.

“You- you’re the lady from the Hall!” Sero shouted, eyes widening.

Tooru laughed. “Oh well done! You’ll have to wait to find out who I am, unfortunately.”

Loki clicked, regaining focus. The gloves were make specifically so that it could click in them. “So, we decided to take pity on you, since you clearly aren’t very good at being heroes. The entire villain team, along with our two hostages, will be in district two, at the nightclub on 17th, at midnight tonight. We want all of you there or we’ll leave before you even see us.”

In the teachers’ viewing area, Shouta smirked.

“Why did they choose a nightclub? Seems pretty random.” Thirteen said.

“It’s not,” Shouta responded offhandedly. “it’s actually really smart.” The rest of the faculty looked at him and he sighed. “The nightclub has security bots that require you to show ID in order to get in. We know the villains have a hacker, so they can get in no issues. The heroes, however, will have to use their hero licenses to get in since they’re underage. And the space will have actual civilian bots doing nightclub things, and from what I remember there are projectors playing videos of pole dancers in there. So, the hero team will have to challenge their morals and then be in a space that is likely uncomfortable for them. Also the villains will easily blend in, but the heroes will stand out a lot in their costumes.”

Chapter Text

Nemuri sat on one of the many couches with Hizashi, a table full of movie snacks in front of them. Everyone else was on the various couches, chairs, and beanbags, with various quantities of snacks.

They weren’t watching a movie, but rather a dramatic meeting between the two halves of class 1-A.

The clocks kept ticking; time passing like a lazy river, twisting easily across flat land.

Nedzu smiled to himself as the hero team streamed into the nominated space, twisting uncomfortably to avoid the many ‘drunk’ robots dancing, singing, and ‘making out’ throughout the club. Shouji, in particular, was having a lot of trouble avoiding all the bots and appeared violently uncomfortable with the whole setting.

Satou noticed and whispered something to the other teen.

The music was too loud for the security cameras to pick up on it, but whatever he said worked. Shouji straightened up and seemed to steel himself.

At midnight exactly, everything shut off. The music stopped, everything went dark, projectors turned off, and all of the bots powered down.

Suddenly, all of the lights came on at once, bright and harsh.

The heroes all winced, covering their now sensitive eyes with hands and costumes. They were still in a tight group in the middle of the club, which was exactly where the villains wanted them.

Denki and Hitoshi stopped dancing and threaded through the mass of frozen bots.

Fumikage and Kouji stepped out of the shadowed spaces they held by the doors.

Momo and Tenya vacated their respective tables and skirted around to meet up by the stages.

Shouto and Eijirou stood from their opposite ends of the bar and fenced in the heroes further.

Tooru dragged Aoyama and the mayor bot onto one of the stages from the backstage area.

Loki vaulted over the fake DJ table, landing soundlessly on the floor by the stage.

Uraraka zeroed in on her and glared, “Well, we’re here now, release them!”

Loki adjusted the cuff of his dress shirt, keeping eye-contact with Uraraka.

“Release them? Why would I do that?”

“Because you said you would! You said that if we all came here, you’d let them go!” The girl huffed.

“I never said that.” Loki smirked, “What I said was-”

One of the projectors lit up, a section of the broadcast playing full volume.

'So, we decided to take pity on you, since you clearly aren’t very good at being heroes. The entire villain team, along with our two hostages, will be in district two, at the nightclub on 17th, at midnight tonight. We want all of you there or we’ll leave before you even see us.'

Loki smirked as it shut off. “So, as you can tell, in no way did I say we would give you the hostages.” It stepped up onto the stage, right next to the ‘Mayor’. “In fact, I’m going to do the opposite.”

They bowed shallowly to Hagakure, “Would you do the honours, Liberty?”

Hagakure bounced excitedly, dress flouncing. She pulled a taser from the folds of her cloak and jabbed the bot with zero hesitation. It sparked violently and then dropped to the floor, all tension draining from the manufactured steel body. She tucked the taser away again, realising after a moment that the heroes were all staring at her in horror.

“What?” Her voice had a steely edge under all the sugar, but none of the heroes properly picked up on it.

“You just killed the Mayor! You just committed murder!”

“Yeah, and? I’m a villain, is murder that surprising?”

“Bu-but you just; you just ki-killed him!” Mina was having a hard time believing this person was so blasé about this.

“Yes, I did.” Tooru sighed.

“Wait! Who even are you?” Ojirou asked.

Loki smiled. “Actually, let’s all go around with code names. Heroes go first. We’ll all copy you.”

Powerloader tapped his chin. “That is an interesting choice. Midoriya’s now put the ball in the heroes’ court. If they want to know who is who, they’re going to have to give their civilian identities as well. In this case it isn’t dangerous, but in real life, that’s a hard decision to make. Also, that taser was really well made!”

Aizawa hid a small, proud smile in his capture weapon. His kids were amazing.

…And Midoriya was slightly terrifying, if he was being honest.

Tsu frowned, pulling Uraraka and Ojirou aside for a few moments to discuss.

Eventually, they split apart, and Tsu came to the front of the group. “I am the Rainy Season Hero: Froppy, or Asui Tsuyu. Kero.”

“I am the Martial Arts hero: Tailman, or Ojirou Mashirao.” Ojirou was standing strong, but his hand was shaking faintly.

“Ooh! I’m Pinky, or Ashido Mina!”

Satou looked apprehensive for a moment, “I-I am the Sweets hero: Sugarman, or Satou Rikidou.”

“Tentacle Hero: Tentacole, Shouji Mezou.”

“Do you think he could actually make tentacles?” Denki wiggled his eyebrows, and Shouji looked incredibly uncomfortable.

“I’m a sex-repulsed ace, please don’t.”

Denki covered his mouth. “Shit, I’m sorry. Won’t happen again!”

Shouji nodded in thanks. The rest of the heroes looked vaguely surprised.

“Actually-” Denki said, “-can we add pronouns to the intro’s too? I’d hate to misgender anyone.”

The other villains all nodded, and Uraraka nodded too. “Yes, of course. Froppy and Pinky use she/her, Tailman and Sugarman use he/him, and Tentacole uses he/it. I’m Uravity, or Uraraka Ochako. She/her as well.”

Sero raised a hand in greeting. “I’m the Taping Hero: Cellophane, or Sero Hanta. He/they/xe/hir pronouns please.”

He elbowed Bakugou, who elbowed him back a good deal harder. “Fuck off tape-face!” Uraraka sent him a pointed look. “Fucking whatever. Dynamight, Bakugou Katsuki, he/him.”

Jirou sighed. “I’m the Hearing hero: Earphone Jack. Jirou Kyouka, she/they.”

Loki nodded and smiled, surprisingly accurate to Izuku. “Well, I suppose it’s our turn now.” They turned to their team, who had moved from surrounding the heroes to stand by the stages. “Restaurant is chef’s choice. VIP’s last.”

Eijirou waved a hand. “well then I’m Chariot, or Kirishima Eijirou. He/him.”

Denki saluted lazily. “Hurricane, or Kaminari Denki. He/they/spark pronouns.”

“I am Dancer, or Iida Tenya. I use he/him pronouns.” Tenya said, robotic speech patterns returning full force.

“We are Enigma.” Fumikage said, gesturing to Dark Shadow, who was curled around their shoulders. “I am Tokoyami Fumikage, and this is Dark Shadow. We both use they/them pronouns.” Dark shadow nodded, and then migrated from Fumikage to Loki, who didn’t bat an eye.

“I-I’m Fox.” Kouji said in a small voice, signing along as it spoke. “My na-a-ame is Kouda Kou-ouji, and my p-prono-ouns are i-it/its.”

Before any of the heroes could put pressure on it, Hitoshi commanded their attention with his cat-like grace. “Shinsou Hitoshi, Blank, they/he.”

There was silence for a moment.

“Wait where’s Todoroki?”

Shouto sent a chill through the air, raking a hand through his brightly coloured hair. “That would be me~. Bishop, Todoroki Shouto, and he/him. Pleasure to confuse you all.”

Several jaws dropped.

Not one to be outdone, Tooru clicked her fingers. “I am Liberty, she/her pronouns, or as you all know me,” she paused for dramatics, “Hagakure Tooru!” Jaws dropped further and she winked at Sero. “Thanks for the help, Cellophane. You made my job so much easier!”

After the hubbub had settled a bit, Loki walked over to Yuuga, untying the chains easily, and releasing him. He pulled a compact mirror and makeup wipes from somewhere in his costume, and methodically wiped off the fake bruises and cuts.

“Merci~” He spun to face his supposed team-mates, smiling broadly. “I am Aoyama Yuuga, he/him. I am ze Shining Hero: I Can’t Stop Twinkling. And I am a traitor and ze villain Diamond~”

Pandemonium erupted. The villains were laughing and welcoming Yuuga, the heroes were angry and sad and betrayed and it was all very loud.

Eventually, Loki held up a hand.

The villains became silent almost immediately, though it took longer for the heroes.

“I find it fascinating that none of you have questioned who I am yet, but it’s too late now. I am the villain leader, Nebula. I use he/him pronouns. And,” she smiled, menacing and dangerous. “I am Midoriya Izuku.”

Loki and Emerald switched, far too smooth to notice.

Emerald withdrew a gun from the depths of their costume coat and clicked the safety off. “Now,” their voice was deeper and rougher than Loki’s, but no one noticed. “One of my objectives was to kill a hero. However, I like to go Plus Ultra.” They aimed their gun at the roof and fired.

Several things happened at once.

Mina, Ojirou, Satou, Shouji, Jirou, and Sero found themselves with paint covering their heads or torso’s, via paint bombs and guns.

Tsu had Todoroki behind her, with an empty syringe pressed to her neck.

“This is simulated poison, Tsu. You’re dead now.” It was out of character, but he wasn’t too worried about it.

Momo held a dull blade to Bakugou’s throat. “Bakugou, by the game rules you’re dead now.” She was gone before he could process the words.

Uraraka was frozen in shock. Yuuga was living his best life. Until he wasn’t.

“Well, Diamond, we appreciate the help. But you aren’t useful anymore.” The French teen looked at Emerald in shock, and then looked down at the blooming circle of red seeping through his armour, perfectly aimed at the space between breastplate and support belt.

Emerald turned silently to face Momo, slipping off the reinforced coat and vest. Their gun dropped on top of the pile of fabric, and they spread their arms wide.

The girl took aim with her own weapon, and fired twice.

Twin circles of red hit their sternum, and the villain leader collapsed artfully across the discarded costume.

“You see, Uravity. This was always the plan.” Momo’s voice was soft, but it had a sinister bite that sent shivers up the ‘living’ hero’s back. “We needed both a hero and a villain casualty to win the game, and Nebula wanted to win.” She looked at the shell-shocked villains. “But he refused to lose to single member of his team. So, he asked me to take him out. I said yes.”

She turned to Hitoshi and smiled at him. “Blank, you were chosen to take her out. You deserve to.”

Hitoshi looked at her for a moment, then sent a dull knife spinning out of his grip, and hitting solidly, handle-first into his class-mate’s chest.

There were a few moments of silence, before a speaker crackled to life. “That brings this exam to a close. Please return to the gate, there are change rooms near them that have been stocked with sports uniforms for you to change into if you need. Recovery Girl is there to heal anyone that needs healing. Good job, everyone. This exam was most interesting to watch.”

The hero team slowly gets up, still processing. The villains disperse, assisting their friends and exchanging stories. There a good few apologies as well. Tenya in particular makes a point to apologise to every hero for his actions.

Momo tries to apologise to Emerald, but they wave it off. “I asked you to do that, Angel. I’m not mad at you.” They pause, thinking. “Well, I suppose not Angel anymore.”

Momo shakes her head. “Angel is fine. I like it. You’re welcome to call me Momo as well, if you’d like.”

Emerald nods. “Izuku then. Though Nebula might be nice every once in a while.”

They strip off their paint-soaked button up, noting the bruise forming on their chest already. They pull a towel and a black turtleneck from their coat and wipe off as much paint as they can before putting on the clean shirt.

Momo blushes and tries to avoid staring at Izuku’s very attractive figure. Why was he doing that here? Was he trying to make her embarrassed? He probably didn’t realise how attractive he was.

Shouto eyed his boyfriend, staring unabashedly, until Ochako waved a hand in front of his face, smirking.

“Wait until you’re in private, Shouto.”

He muttered a retort, which just made the girl laugh, dragging him out of the fake nightclub and most of the way to the gates.

Chapter Text

”Hey, umm… Emerald?”

”Yes?”

Emerald, Lily and Deku were all lounging in the front room, Deku happily playing with a fidget cube.

“Do you think that you could help me…to maybe um, talktotheteachersaboutputtingHitoshionthevillainteam?”

Lily smiled softly. “Can you slow down for us, Love? Emerald can’t understand you when you talk that fast.”

Izuku blushed but nodded. He then felt a bit stupid because nodding was redundant. “Uhh, yeah. Do-do you think you could help me talk to the teachers about- about putting Hitoshi on the villain team?” He took a breath. “You know I talked to them at the start about not going further than they were comfortable with, and I know that he came to me a couple of times, which was good. But me and Oculus both noticed that they seemed really tense, and a lot quieter than normal, even when there were only a couple of people around. When I asked him about it, he said that he felt like the teachers saw him as a villain too. It really hurt them to be put on the villain team. They said we helped a bit though, treating it like a game, and using codenames and disguises, so that none of the heroes could call them a villain by name.”

Emerald clenched their jaw. “Yes. I would be happy to assist you in confronting the teachers about that. Give me a moment to access those memories, and then we need to go to that meeting with our team and the staff. Pretty sure it’s going to be exam feedback, anyway.”

It was in a classroom. The teachers would stand up the front and give feedback one by one, and then the students could ask questions after.

Most of the feedback was par for the course, talking about how they worked well as a team, and that this person did such and such really well, or this person needed to work on a specific thing some more.

Aizawa and Nedzu both went into more detail around the planning and analysis found in the team, and how ‘Midoriya did very well, and he should be proud of his work.’

“Midoriya, you did very well. I will say though, that you did go overboard. Did you really need to blow up a building? Let alone three? And lacing the water supply could’ve been really harmful.” Cementoss made good points, which the rest of the staff agreed with.

Izuku twisted lightly to stare at Aizawa and Nedzu, who were sitting in the same row as him. “Did you not-” neither seemed inclined to answer. “-guess I’m explaining then.” He turned back to Cementoss. “I got a list of objectives along with my folder, and one of the objectives was to ‘blow up a skyscraper’, if I remember correctly. Poisoning the water supply was also on the list.”

Cementoss glared in Aizawa and Nedzu’s direction, but sighed after a moment and continued on with his feedback.

After all feedback was given, there was an opportunity for the students to ask questions of the teachers, which Nebulae planned on using to its fullest potential.

When Emerald was called on, they smiled, and walked to the front of the room.

“I have a few questions. Who chose the teams?”

“That was me, though Nedzu had to approve them.” Aizawa said.

“Cool, cool, cool. Why did you put Hitoshi and Fumikage on the villain team?”

“Because I thought the villain team would allow them to thrive?”

Hitoshi and Fumikage both tensed, and Dark Shadow emerged to wrap protectively around their host.

Emerald smiled, also noticeably tense. “So, you think they do better as villains than heroes, thereby showing that you hold the same beliefs as their abusers?”

Aizawa froze.

They continued on, needing the teacher to understand how bad this mistake was. “Both of them had panic attacks, Aizawa. Both of them had flashbacks. I had to be the one there to help them through it, and support them, and remind them that they are heroes, since no one else seems to believe that. I had to help them, even though I was going through just as much.”

“What do you mean, Midoriya-kun?” Nedzu asked.

Emerald laughed sharply. “You read my file, Nedzu. You know that…” They paused, blinking furiously.

“You know that I have social anxiety. You know that loud noises and explosions trigger my PTSD. You know that I have anorexia. All of these things are in my student file.” His team recoiled in shock, as did many of the teachers. “So why did you think it was a good idea to put me in a situation where I had to talk to a room full of people, all focusing on me? Why did you force me to lead? Why did you put me in a situation where I had to create a food shortage? Why did you make me blow up a building?”

Aizawa noticed something off about his student. “Problem Child, what’s going on with you?”

“Oh how interesting,” Loki murmured. “I’ll explain it to you later, despite how badly you fucked up the exam.”

“You will not swear at your sensei’s, Midoriya!” Vlad King snapped.

“I will say whatever the fuck I want to the man that caused me over 24 hours of panic attacks within less than two weeks, along with me spending almost the entire exam period dissociating. I got maybe 20 hours of sleep in 12 days because of this exam.”

Vlad sat back, horrified. “Kid are you okay?”

Loki looked at him, deadpan. “I have insomnia, panic attacks, general and social anxiety, anorexia, PTSD, depression, and a shit ton of trauma. I don’t think it’s possible for me to ever be okay.”

Midnight looked horrified. “Why didn’t you tell me you had social anxiety? I never would’ve forced you to present if I’d know!”

“Midnight, there’s a section for health concerns and illnesses in every student file. That includes mental illnesses. And Hound Dog does a consultation with every new student and puts his notes and worries in there as well. My question is why didn’t you check my file?” The goddess paused. “Actually-” She turned to its team. “Guys are you okay with me talking about certain things you’ve shared with me in regard to the teachers not caring about your mental health? I’m absolutely not forcing you, and if you aren’t comfortable, just use the signals.”

Tooru and Kouji both tapped their desks in specific patterns, and Shouto traced his scar for a moment.

Loki nodded. “Of course. I won’t mention your stuff.” It straightened to face the teachers. “None of you read the student files, and it shows.”

“My boy I-”

“Sit down and be quiet.” Loki bit out sharply. “All Might, I truly admire you, but you need to listen to me on this one.”

The retired hero sat down heavily.

“I understand that you have a lot on your plate at the moment, and I understand that you weren’t exactly taught to prioritize your mental health, but this is ridiculous! As a class, we have been in multiple near-death situations, and we’re expected to be okay after that. We are children!” Against his will, Loki’s hands start to shake. “But ignoring that. Denki and Tenya have both undergone psychological evaluations, due to situations in which they almost killed someone. Both of them have homicidal tendencies. Yet you put them on the villain team anyway. And I was the one to reel them in. I had to stop Denki from going out to shock the heroes into unconsciousness because they might’ve gotten brain damage. And on the topic of Denki, he has ADHD, dyslexia and dyscalculia. At the start of the year, spark tried to talk to you and tell you about this, but you all brushed him off. It’s why his grades are so bad. All of us have some form of anxiety, depression or both. All of us have PTSD, flashbacks and/or nightmares. Yet we aren’t allowed to take a day off unless we are physically ill.”

Midnight, Mic and Aizawa were all silent and pale. All Might was uncharacteristically sombre. Thirteen was crying.

“I have lost count of the number of times that I’ve been forced to spar while I was actively suicidal. So has Denki. So has Hitoshi. So has Eijirou. I was consistently forced to spar with my abuser.” She glanced at Momo, who nodded once. “Momo was forced to spar with someone that raped her and sexually assaulted her multiple times. She still sees him around school.”

Midnight was crying too, now.

“And you know the worst part? He raped her in a classroom. You said there wasn’t proof, but there was. You just didn’t listen to her. And he got away with it and kept going. The security footage is still there, too.”

Dead silence.

Absolute dead fucking silence.

“Exactly. So if you could get Mineta expelled, and get our class some damned therapy, that’d be great. A couple of us already have therapists, though. Our files will tell you. If you actually bother to read them this time, that is.”

It cracked the knuckles on their left hand, signalling to her team that it was time to leave.

“Also, Aizawa I promise to explain the thing, but I need Oculus there to assist. But, since Nedzu refuses to let them on campus, we’ll have to have the meeting elsewhere. Is Dagobah Beach okay? There’ll be shade, I promise.”

Aizawa nodded mutely.

“Excellent! Well, since tomorrow’s a Sunday, we can go then. About 10:30 AM should be best.”

Loki walked easily out of the classroom, team following behind him.

Chapter Text

As Loki had requested, Aizawa appeared in the 1-A dorms at 10:30AM on the dot.

“Aizawa-Sensei, right on time! Are you ready to go?” Izuku said, cheerfully.

The tired man nodded, following his student as they easily traced a snaking path to one of the smaller side gates the staff used to get off-campus. He was prepared to unlock it, but Izuku swiped his pass with little thought, and the gate clicked open easily.

“Problem Child your pass shouldn’t be able to do that.”

Izuku smiled, slowing down to walk next to his sensei. “I have special permissions from Nedzu, since Dagobah Beach is a safe place for me.”

Aizawa made an inquiring noise, and Izuku nodded. “Yeah, only for that gate, though! I had a panic attack and used my quirk to rip the gate off its hinges so I could get down to the beach a couple of months ago, which Nedzu classed as extenuating circumstances.”

“You had a panic attack that resulted in you leaving campus? Why wasn’t I informed?”

Izuku looked at him, expression smoother than usual. “I don’t know, sorry.” He was waved off, and the rest of the trip was spent in a semi-comfortable silence.

When they arrived at the beach, Izuku pulled his teacher away from the clear sand, following a thin, almost unnoticeable path.

“Sensei, do you have gloves on you?”

Aizawa pulled a pair of thick black gloves from his belt, and Izuku held his red ones up in return. They were an odd shade of red, about as close to the colour of dried blood as you can get.

He said as much, to which Midoriya smiled.

“Yeah, the white didn’t last very long.”

Aizawa was half shocked, and very impressed. His Problem Child had navigated the giant trash towers so easily and had directed him through them with an air of practise and confidence.

The pair settled in a clearing, suspiciously clear of trash. The kid noticed him looking around and made an ’oh’ sound.

“I cleared the trash out of this area, Sensei. It was part of my… no, actually, our. It was part of our training”

“Our?” Aizawa raised an eyebrow.

“He’s going to hate us, isn’t he?” Deku felt particularly vulnerable without Lily to soothe him, but Izuku took his hand and traced soft circles on it.

“He’s not gonna hates us, Deku. Aizawa-Sensei is nice, we can trust him.”

“Yes. Our.” Lily paused, searching for the best way to phrase it. “Do you remember how your file on Midoriya Izuku says that I have a mental disorder that affects my behaviour and personality?”

The teacher nodded.

“Well, that disorder is called OSDD. Specifically, OSDD-1B.”

“Okay. Can you explain it to me? I don’t know of it.”

“Of course.” Lily nodded. “OSDD stands for Otherwise Specified Dissociative Disorder. I’m assuming you’re aware of what dissociation is?”

“Yeah. I dissociate sometimes.” Aizawa stated, bland as always.

“Mmm. Well, essentially we experienced some horrible things as a child. Things that really traumatised us. Our brain was already predisposed to dissociating, so that intense trauma pushed it to the next level.” She paused as Emerald came up into co-conscious, ready to take over if the tired man responded badly. “Due to all of that trauma, our brain split into different states of consciousness, personalities if you will, in order to cope and function, resulting in multiple beings existing in the same body. Those beings are known as alters, and the group of alters in a body is called a system.”

The man was silent for a minute, before looking up to make eye contact with Lily. “You aren’t Problem Child, are you?”

Emerald shot to the front, body language closing off as they supressed a snarl. “Is that a problem?”

Aizawa fought the urge to snap back, taking a deep breath. “No, it isn’t an issue. I’m sorry I made it seem that way.”

Emerald could see the man fighting his curiosity. “Just ask the question. I’m not made of glass, don’t worry.”

Aizawa struggled to think of phrasing, but eventually gave up. “I apologise if I say something insensitive or offensive, and from the look of it, you won’t be afraid to call me out if I do.”

Emerald laughed shortly. “Damn right I will. But just ask.”

“Who are you?” It was blunt, which Emerald could appreciate. “You aren’t Problem Child, but I don’t think you’re the… alter? That explained OSDD to me.”

“You would be right, I’m not. I’m Emerald, they/them. I’m a protector.” Aizawa looked clueless. “Fuck, I’m not explaining if I don’t have to.”

They fell back into co-con, Lily slowly blinking as she came back into the body.

“Well, that was Emerald. I’m Evans Lily, but please call me Lily. She/her.” She checked her watch, noting that it was just past 11:00. “We have a sibling system, who are coming here to help us explain all of this. They’ll be here any moment.”

As if on cue, someone vaulted over one of the towering piles of trash and tucked into a roll on the landing.

“Nebulae, Lily.”

The other person finger combed their hair, grimacing at the sand that fell out.

“Fuck I’m going to be washing this out for weeks.” They muttered. “Oh! Uhh, fuckin…” they clicked their fingers a few times. “Oculus, Vixen.”

“[Hey Vix, thanks for coming. Would Athena be able to split some of us off?]”

Shouta reeled. He could deal with a slightly more feminine sounding version of the same voice, that was fine. Lily used she/her, so the subtle shift made sense. This was not a subtle shift. She was speaking another language altogether? And she had an English accent?!?

‘Vixen’ was clearly used to this, and didn’t bat an eye at the language change, swapping over with ease. “[Yeah, let me go check. Astra’s probably gonna end up front. Either her or Quest, but probably her. Who do you want sleeved?]”

“[Oh! Well Izuku will stay in the body, so me, Mikumo, Emerald, Loki, and Deku?]”

…Deku? But that was his hero name? Oh, maybe there was a hero personality. That would make sense, Shouta supposed.

Nothing appeared to happen, so Shouta sat in the clearing uncomfortably for a few minutes.

Vixen started to fidget, blinking furiously and shaking their head as if to clear it. “Oculus, Astra.”

Lily lit up. She grinned and immediately enveloped Vixen in a hug.

Or maybe… not Vixen?

Oh! Vixen had said something about an ‘Astra’ fronting, so this was probably another alter. That made more sense.

Vixen took their headset off, handing it to Astra. Weaving around the couches, tables, and children’s toys that littered the floor, they left the front room and walked down the hall to the control room.

They keyed their entry code into the digital lock on the metal door, stepping through and shutting it quickly.

“Athena.” They bowed, aware that Athena appreciated the respectful gestures. She was a goddess, after all.

Athena gestured to a chair, not looking up from her work at the desk.

Vixen took the seat, knowing by now that this was a silent command to talk. “Nebulae would like some assistance explaining OSDD to their homeroom teacher, Aizawa. Lily explained the basic concepts, but they want to do intros. Would you be able to put some of them into sleeves?”

Athena sighed, setting her pen down.

“Very well.”

A VR headset, similar to the one Vixen had been wearing a few minutes ago, appeared in the goddess’ hand, and she slipped it on with little fanfare.

“Who am I putting into a sleeve?”

Vixen relaxed; thankful Athena had agreed. “Emerald, Lily, Loki, Mikumo, and Deku.”

Athena took over front, and a gold glow enveloped her, pooling in her hands. She threw her hands towards the other system, and five ropes of golden light shot out and latched onto the body.

She pulled, ropes detaching and splaying into an arc.

The light coalesced into five… people?

The first was a young, masculine person with black hair and a number of slashed scars across their face.

Next to them was a small child that looked a lot like his Problem Child.

Holding the kid’s hand was a lady with flowing red hair that Aizawa recognised from a pre-quirk era film series that Hizashi made him watch. He thought her name was Lily?

Next to her was another person he recognised from a different film series by this company called Marvel. The guy from the film was called Loki, and he was based on this really old Norse deity.

In the last place, was a ghost.

Wait, a ghost? Didn’t problem child mention a ghost that night with the mysterious conversation?

“Thanks Athena!” Izuku stuttered “Umm, Aizawa-Sensei, these are some of my-”

“[Why don’t you sign? We all know it, and I know it’s easier for you.]” The red-haired woman cut in softly.

Izuku smiled shakily and nodded, bringing up his hands, “{These are some of my alters.}” He gestured to the other person, the one that had created the gold haze. “{This is Oculus, they have a quirk that allows them to pull alters into separate bodies, or ‘sleeves’ that mimic their appearance and abilities in the inner world. For example, Lily only speaks English, but learned Japanese Sign Language so we could communicate better.}”

Aizawa looked at him blankly, almost hesitantly signing, “{Which- which one is Lily?}”

Izuku’s eyes widened. “{Oh yeah, I need to introduce them. Or rather, they can introduce themselves. Lily, want to go first?}”

The red-haired woman nods. “[Of course, Izuku.]” She looked questioningly at Aizawa. “[Do you speak English?]”

“[Yes. My husband’s half American, so I’m fluent.]”

The woman smiles. “[Wonderful. Well, I introduced myself somewhat before, but I’m Lily, she/her. I’m 28 years old and a caretaker.]”

“[Caretaker?]”

“[Yes].” Lily smiled, “[It’s my role within the system. I help with emotional stuff, both for alters and people outside the system, and I make sure the body’s base needs are acquired. So, I remind whoever’s fronting to eat, drink, sleep and do hygiene stuff, or I front and do it myself. I also help with things like high anxiety situations, flashbacks, panic attacks, and nightmares.]”

Aizawa nodded in understanding. It made sense to have someone doing that.

The kid next to Lily waved, bubbly and excited. “[Hi Mr. Eraserhead, Sir! I’m a huge fan!!]”

Aizawa glanced sidelong at his student, who was smiling; small, but genuine.

“[I’m Deku! I use he/him pronouns and I’m eight years old!]”

Wait this was Deku? Well, Problem Child did say it was a childhood nickname…

“[I’m a little, which is the fancy term for a kid alter.]” He brushed his hair out of his face to show a large starburst scar over his left eye, that eye milky and unseeing. “[I’m blind in my left eye due to a quirk accident one of my friends had when we were really little. It okay though, I don’t blame him at all!]”

Something that sounded suspiciously like ‘you don’t, but I do’ came from the Loki looking one, but it was too quiet for Aizawa to be sure.

The young, black haired person went next. “[I’m Emerald, they/them. My age fluctuates between 20 to about 24 years old. I’m an emotional part or trauma holder, and the system’s physical protector.]” They pre-empted Aizawa’s question by explaining. “[My job is to keep the system physically safe. This means dealing with threats to the body and breaking up fights between alters. I do most of the fighting.]”

“[Was it you that fought Shigaraki up on that roof a few weeks ago?]”

The question caught Emerald off-guard, but they half-smiled approvingly and nodded. “[Yeah, that was me.]”

“[Right. Also, your age fluctuates?]”

“[Yes.]” Emerald sighed, “[Short version is that age is really fucking complicated with alters. Some age one year for every one year in the outer world, like Izuku; some age faster or slower than that, but still age; some are stuck at a certain age, like Deku and Lily; some fluctuate between certain ages like I do; some have no age at all; and some run on different ageing rules like a phoenix might, for example. And all of these are subject to change at any time.]”

Aizawa blinked, processing the information. “[Okay… I’m going to need to do a lot of research after this.]”

Izuku grinned, having relaxed at his teachers seeming acceptance. “{I can send you links to reliable and helpful articles if you’d like! There’s a lot of stigma and outdated or harmful research and stereotypes floating around, so it can be hard to find the correct information.}”

The dark-haired man nodded in thanks. “[That would be helpful, thank you.]”

“[Well I’ll go next. I’m Loki, any pronouns, ageless. I’m an Avenger and a fictive of the character Loki from the MCU, if you know of it.]”

Aizawa furrowed his brow. “[Yeah, my husband loves those films, so I’ve seen all of them at least twice. I don’t recall Loki ever becoming part of the Avengers, though.]”

Deku giggled, and Loki sighed. “[No, ‘Avenger’ is one of my roles. It means I hold most of the system’s anger. Fictives are essentially alters that are based on fictional characters from the outer world, and I’m based on Loki. I’m not the same as him, but we hold a lot of similarities.]”

“[Oh!]” Lily chimed in, “[I’m also a fictive, which I forgot to mention. My source is Lily Evans from the Harry Potter films.]”

Everyone looked to the ghost, who sighed.

“{Very well. My name is Atakani Mikumo, he/they pronouns. As you can see, I am a ghost. I am an emotional protector.}” Their translucent hands were somewhat hard to make out in the bright sun, but the movements were crisp and clear enough to understand. “{I take certain emotions and memories that other alters can’t or shouldn’t handle.}”

That seemed to be about as much as they were going to get from the ghost, and Izuku waved a hand, tensing back up a little as everyone looked to him.

“{Well I figured I should do one too. I’m Midoriya Izuku, he/him and 16 years old. I’m the host of the nebulae system.}”

Aizawa scrunched his face. “[Is that why your villain name was Nebula?]”

Loki smirked and nodded.

“[Of course. Now, is there anything I need to change about how I do things in order to accommodate you all?]”

Emerald half-shrugged, and Lily raised a hand. “[If we tap our desk three times it means we’re dissociating or switching, so please don’t call on us. If we have an All Might wristband on, Deku is near the front or fronting. Keep us away from Bakugou at all costs in that situation. Also if we tell you we need to go to the neurologist, please let us go. It's a code word and means something is going on in the system, or we're about to have a panic attack or something similar.]”

Shouta wanted to ask questions on that, but an alarm went off and distracted him.

Oculus looked up from their phone. “That’s time. Lady Athena’s going to come back and put you all back into the body.”

The five alters readied themselves, and the golden ropes appeared again, drawing them all back into the one body.

Nedzu’s expression soured as he watched Aizawa and Midoriya come back through the gate.

There was something going on with Midoriya and he wanted to know what it was.

He had opened up to one of his staff, but that staff member just had to be Aizawa.

This kid managed to choose the one teacher that wouldn’t tell him anything.

All of the others would crack the moment he asked them in the right voice.

Aizawa would challenge him on it.
Aizawa didn’t have a reputation that could be destroyed by the press.
Aizawa fought as dirty as he did, when it came down to it.

Normally he found all that refreshing, but now it was just in his way.

It did pose an exciting puzzle though…

Chapter Text

In the break between classes, Kaminari and Sero were both called over by Mineta.

“Oh my god you guys. I was looking through pre-quirk hentai shit last night. I found this really hot red-head bitch.”

Lily froze. She focused on keeping her breath even, trying vainly to block out the boys behind her.

“Damn dude! What’s her name?”

Please, no. Merlin, please no.

“Uhhh, Lily I think?” He stumbled around the English a bit, and Lily’s heart settled into the bottom of her throat. “There’s so much art of her being fucked hard by this guy James though. Seems they were popular or some shit.”

Lily’s mind filled with static. She could faintly hear her head-mates panicking and trying to help her, but given that it was her job, they weren’t really sure what to do.

Forcing her hands to stop shaking, she raised her hand. Aizawa gestured for her to speak, and she took a breath. She was too far gone to get one of the others to help her with Japanese, and her hands were going to start shaking any minute. So English it was.

“[I have a neurologist appointment.]”

Aizawa paused, and then nodded, giving her the all clear to leave. She all but sprinted out the door, sending Oculus her location and an SOS text.

Her breathing sped up, and she managed to get out of the side gate to where Oculus was somehow already there.

“[Oculus, Astra.]”

Lily couldn’t respond, just flung herself into Astra in a way that was special to her. Astra recognised it immediately.

“[Oh sweetpea, I’m here for you, it’s all going to be okay. We won’t let anyone hurt you, you’re safe. Can you take a deep breath for me love?]” Astra breathed deeply along with the panicky woman. “[It’s okay. Lily. You’re safe and I have all the time in the world.]”

Lily’s breathe stuttered and caught, but Astra kept whispering soothing words, holding her partner close.

It took almost half an hour, but eventually Lily’s breath calmed, and her heart slowed.

“[Hey sweetpea, you back with me?]”

Lily, who was curled into Astra’s side, nodded. “[I don’t- I don’t want to go back to class.]”

Astra could tell that the other woman was exhausted. “[Of course not, sweetpea. I’m not going to make you do anything. Do you want to talk about it?]”

Lily shook her head immediately. “[No! well, not here, at least. Can we go back to the dorm?]”

“[Of course we can. Are you okay to walk?]”

Lily nodded, and the two stood up slowly, Astra supporting her partner easily.

When Lily tried to swipe Izuku’s student card to open the side gate, it was denied, and a hidden speaker crackled to life.

“Midoriya, who is this? I can’t let them on school grounds without a good reason.”

Saga came surging up to the front unexpectedly. Its eyes deadened and it managed to stare directly into the camera.

“You’re going to let me in.” Their voice was unsettlingly blank, and it radiated danger.

Nedzu laughed a little, fake and perfected after many years. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that unless I can confirm your identity. But if you could show me something of that sort, I can check your file and let you right through.”

Saga didn’t even blink. “That wasn’t a request 117.”

The chimera sucked in a ragged breath, eyes cataloguing exits reflexively. It keyed in the override code, and the gate swung open.

1-A were all sitting together on the vast UA lawns, eating their lunches and soaking up the sun.

The ‘villain team’ from the exam were in a big group, fawning over Oculus. This was the first time anyone in the group had ever seen them, so there was a lot of oohing and ahhing.

There was even a rather special moment where Dark Shadow came out, small as they were in the sunlight, to thank Oculus for being so confidently non-binary. That prompted the others to thank them for the various things they did, and a lovely accepting environment was formed.

Denki started the two groups’ merge by dragging Sero over to meet Oculus, introducing them as “the reason I didn’t die by day two. Also an enby icon!” with a grin.

“You what?!” Mina screeched.

Denki was laughing so hard they couldn’t breathe.

Tooru smiled, slinging an arm around her best friend. “Yeah, we laced your water supply with laxatives. I’m honestly disappointed that it didn’t get more of a reaction.”

“Don’t worry Liberty.” Oculus threw a USB to the invisible girl. “This has a compilation of the best complaints.”

Tooru gasped excitedly and stuffed it into her pocket, while insisting they call her Tooru. Shouto failed to stifle a laugh and Ochako jokingly threw a toothpick at his head.

All of this was very soundly ruined by the swirly black portal signalling the League’s imminent arrival.

Vixen was fronting in a heartbeat, not willing to risk anything happening to the others. A quick glance and a hand gesture confirmed Emerald was now fronting, too.

Shigaraki emerged from the portal, crusty as always. Dabi, Toga and Twice seemed to be his only accompaniment.

“Well, well, well, look at all of the tiny heroes.” Dabi’s voice was scratchy, as if it had been destroyed by smoke.

Vixen gasped in fake outrage. “Do I look like a hero to you?”

Dabi, Toga and Twice looked at them in puzzlement, but Shigaraki froze.

“Wha- Himari?!?” All eyes shot to the young man. “Sensei said he killed you!”

“Well he certainly fucking tried.” Vixen snorted, pushing away the discomfort of a name that fit none of them.

At some point, Loki had snuck his way to front and grabbed a plastic knife from her bento.

“As if you could stop him from doing shit, Himari. You had to go to like, four different kinds of therapy to fix you.”

Vixen winced as Jay fought to front. They won out, but only because Astra pulled the kid away to visit the gardens.

Loki crept further from Izuku’s class, and closer to the villains.

Saga stared at the screen and sighed. It pressed a red button, and a door swung open, one that had seamlessly blended into the wall before.

“Hey Athena. Can you put me into a sleeve? Loki’s about to do something stupid, and I need to stop Tomura.”

A bright golden flash blinded everyone momentarily, and when they had all blinked away the spots in their vision, there was another person on the lawn with them.

“Izuku stop. I’ll deal with it.” Saga didn’t like that it had to use the wrong name, but they also didn’t have the energy to care.

Loki paused, looked at Saga, and then nodded. As much as xe wanted to actually do something, Saga was good. It would get the four villains out with no issues.

“Who the fuck are you? Where did you come from?” Shigaraki snarled.

Saga glared, aura becoming almost tangible.

Their presence was so intense that only Tomura, Loki and Shouto remained standing. Everyone else was forced to their knees due to the crushing pressure.

“Tomura.”

The villain gasped, recognising the tone as one All For One used often.

The pressure increased, and Shigaraki too, fell to one knee.

“Who are you?” He gasped out.

Saga stared, eyes dark. “You don’t need to know. But you do need to leave.”

Shigaraki nodded, eyes wide.

The pressure eased.

Shigaraki didn’t even need to tell his subordinates to retreat; they tumbled through Kurogiri’s warp gate almost as fast as he did.

As soon as the portal closed completely, the crushing presence vanished, and there was another gold flash as Saga disappeared.

Quest sighed, holding up a hand. While Saga had gotten the villains to leave, it had also left before it explained who it was. So, they were stuck answering questions.

“Oi! I can’t hear shit if you guys are always talking over one another! Sort yourselves out! And don’t expect me to answer everything.”

The class figured out an order, and Hurricane- wait no… Denki? Was the first to go.

“Who was the person that scared off the League?”

They should really get that out of the way now. But how much should they say? “Ha, yeah okay. So that was Saga. They use it/they pronouns for reference. Saga is… part of a quirk, I guess.”

“A quirk?” Shouji cut in, immediately being reprimanded by Iida for not waiting his turn.

“Yes, A quirk. Next question?” Yeah, Split was the body’s quirk, but Quest couldn’t use it. They were most definitely quirkless. Though at the same time, it wasn’t really anyone else’s quirk, so best answer was to not give one.

"Why did Shigaraki call you Himari?"

Quest flinched. "Please don't call me that. I don't use that name anymore."

“How are you allowed into UA? Like, what justified you getting a visit pass?”

“You wanted to check on Izuku because of all the shit that happened.”

“I wanted to check on Izuku. The exam really fucked with his mental health, so I wanted to make sure he was getting support.”

The villain team all looked down, remembering the disaster of a meeting from a few days ago. The hero team looked bewildered.

“What do you mean? Kero.” Tsu asked.

Quest fidgeted for a moment. “I think it would be better to let him answer that, honestly. He should be able to choose what he tells you.”

The focus immediately shifted to Nebulae.

They closed their eyes and dragged a hand down their face. “I have a bunch of mental health issues and the exam made all of them a lot worse. I was dissociating for 95% of the exam.”

“But how did they know that? It’s not like they were there during the exam!” Jirou burst out.

Kirishima sprayed water everywhere, shocked. “They didn’t tell you?!”

“Tell us what?” Jirou cocked her head, confused.

“Oh my god they didn’t tell you.”

Izuku took pity on his confused classmates. “The rules only mentioned official members of the teams. I checked with Nedzu and Aizawa and you could acquire unofficial members to help. They weren’t allowed into the exam ground itself, but we got around that with voice calls and stuff.”

Ojirou raised his hand awkwardly. “Uhh, what is the dissertation thing you mentioned?”

Quest stifled a snort.

Izuku elbowed them. “Oculus don’t be mean. It’s dissociation, not dissertation, Ojirou. And it’s… well it’s a different experience for everyone. The clinical definition is that it’s a ‘mental process of disconnecting from one’s thoughts, feelings, memories or sense of identity’. For me, I disconnect from my emotions, and my body feels wrong in ways I can’t explain.” He lifted a hand and stared at it. “I don’t recognise myself when I look in the mirror, and I don’t remember things. I also don’t really feel pain or physical sensations. Sometimes it feels like the world isn’t real, too. Like it’s a movie set. Everything is there, and it looks real, but something feels off. Like it’s not quite right.”

Denki’s eyes widened, and spark paled.

Izuku understood.

Izuku understood

Everyone thought that yay-mode was just a stupid thing he did. But it was terrifying.

He could process everything that was happening, but they couldn’t control sparks body. It was like watching a video game cut scene. Spark had never met someone that understood how it felt.

It was nice to know they weren’t alone.

“Wait, you disconnect from your emotions? Is that why you acted so different in the exam? Kero.”

Chapter Text

Deku blinked, finding himself in a body much older than his.

Okay, so he was fronting. He had to act like Izuku now. But Izuku was just big-him, so it was easy! He just had to deepen his voice a bit, and use big words.

It was scary, being with all these people that had expectations, but he could do it! He had to be brave if he was gonna be the first quirkless pro-hero!

“Wait, you disconnect from your emotions? Is that why you acted so different in the exam? Kero.”

Oh, he could answer that! They had all had a big meeting about the system, and how it worked and everything. Oculus had helped them all introduce themselves with their amazing quirk!! He just had to get all the big words right.

“Yeah! Well, kind of? It was actually because we-” The body tensed as Emerald pushed for control.

A headache rolled in as Deku found himself stuck co-fronting in a body that he could no longer control. It was rather overwhelming for the 8-year-old, and a tear rolled down the body’s cheek.

Emerald wiped it away, smiling. “Sorry I think there was something in my eye. But yeah, the majority of my ‘villain persona’ was caused by a disconnect from my emotions.”

Deku’s breathing sped up as his thoughts raced. He couldn’t control anything, he was a puppet and everyone hated him, Emerald thought he was useless and stupid and a Deku.

Useless

Stupid

Worthless

Deku

Deku

DEKU

DEKU

DE-

Emerald disappeared from front.

Where were th-

Oh.

Some of his panic must have shown on the body’s face, because Athena has pulled Emerald into a sleeve.

Lily’s voice flooded back in, and Deku calmed easily once he could hear his pseudo-mother running through simple breathing exercises with him.

Emerald’s face clouded over, and it was clear they were getting very angry, or about to. The smell of smoke permeated the air, and Deku flinched.

He knew he shouldn’t be scared of Emerald, but he couldn’t help it! When they got that expression, they looked just like…

Well, like Kacchan…

“Would you care to explain yourselves?” Emerald growled.

“You were scaring Deku.” Quest said, protective older sibling mode fully activated.

“Sometimes that is unavoidable. Secrets need to be kept, Oculus.” A tendril of smoke curled from their nose.

“Emerald your job is to protect them. Hurting Deku is counter-productive.”

“No, my job is to protect the system!” Emerald’s voice rose. “And it’s pretty fucking hard to do that when you seem hellbent on FUCKING WITH MY DECISIONS!”

The eight-year-old felt time slow down, and the world seemed to take on a foggy look. Everything was washed out, but he vaguely heard someone calling for ‘Deku’ and saying that whoever that was, was ‘dissociating’. He laid on the ground slowly, and stared up at the sky. The sky was so pretty…

Quest flinched back, and Vixen scowled as they switched in.

“Emerald you need to back the fuck off.” Their tone was dangerous, and Emerald easily registered the switch, smoke curling thicker as they got angrier.

“Vixen this doesn’t involve you.”

“The fuck it doesn’t. You fuck with Quest, you fuck with me. So back the fuck down before you do something stupid.” Vixen hissed.

Astra slammed her hand on the red button, closing her eyes to help calm her breathing.

A few minutes later, an invisible door swung open, Athena emerging soundlessly.

“Yes Astra? What went wrong this time?”

Astra’s eyes shot open, and she dipped into a curtsey reflexively.

“Thank you, Lady Athena. Vixen is fronting, and they’re getting rather heated with Emerald. I’m worried that Emerald may lose control of their quirk.”

She glanced at Vixen, who was shifting agitatedly as Emerald shouted and cursed at them. The wall where they kept the fronting headsets was now untouchable, locked behind a crystal barrier.

Athena nodded once, and reached over to Vixen, pulling the headset off them.

Oculus froze. They didn’t appear scared or anything, but it was like…

Well, it was like they were empty.

“Oh, for fucks sake! Of all the fucking- gods damn it.” Emerald cursed. They looked around irritably, abruptly noticing that A) Deku was lying on the grass, heavily dissociating, and B) Class 1-A (and Aizawa) were all staring at them.

Fuck.

“No!” Emerald scowled. “I’m not explaining shit. Ask Oculus or Nebula or something.”

“But-”

“NO!”

Nebulae walked into class on Wednesday and all eyes turned to face them.

”Told you so.”

They sat in their seat, ignoring everyone and doodling in their notebook.

When Aizawa walked in, he glanced at Nebulae and nodded, setting his coffee on the lectern. “Problem Child, Emerald said that you would explain.”

Nebulae groaned, dropping their head onto their desk with a thunk. “Gods, this is going to be an interesting conversation without Oculus to help differentiate us.”

Aizawa’s face softened. “Can you tell me who’s fronting?”

Nebulae groaned even louder, completely exhausted. “We don’t fucking know! It was mostly Izuku and Lily when we were getting dressed, but we’re switching and blending like there’s no tomorrow, and if Mikumo ends up fronting it’s going to be a nightmare.”

“Right. So, what pronouns and such should we use?”

“That is a good question, Aizawa. Name-wise, it’s Nebula or Nebulae. Pronoun-wise it’s they/them/themselves.”

Shouji frowned. “Don’t you mean they/them/themself?”

Nebulae shook their head. “No, we don’t. But explanation time, woo!”

The rest of the class was staring at them, confused as a squid in a forest.

“To be entirely blunt, we had a traumatic childhood. A lot of shit happened that we couldn’t deal with. Our brain coped by creating people or ‘alters’ that could cope with that. For people that like technical terms, or want to research or whatever, we have OSDD-1b”

Fumikage’s eyes widened, and Dark Shadow popped out. “Oh! Oh, do you! so you’re like Fumi and me kinda!! Fumi knows lots about systems too!!!!”

Nebula smiled. “Yeah, we’re kind of like you and Fumi.”

Uraraka’s lip curled in disgust. “Uggh, seriously? You have friends, and you’re already famous. You just do this so you can be special or whatever. It’s so cringey.”

Iida nodded, frowning. “It is very unheroic of you to lie like that, Midoriya! Such an outlandish claim is impossible! As class president I demand you apologise!”

Majority of the class agreed. Momo, Denki, Fumikage, and Hitoshi, however, were all frowning visibly.

Shouta was frozen. He knew that mental health was stigmatised, but he didn’t expect this

“I have to agree, this is ridiculous. Like what, you hate yourself so much that you need to be someone else? Fucking stupid.” Sero spat.

Loki glared at Aizawa. “And you wonder why we don’t tell people.” The change in personality was obvious, as now that they had been discovered, the god didn’t see much point in masking.

Bakugou stood up, fists crackling. “Deku, stop lying. I’ve known you your entire life and this is bullshit. If you were ‘multiple people’ or whatever I would’ve fucking noticed.”

“Bakugou, our system was designed to be unobtrusive. People not noticing was the whole point.” Loki said, entirely unimpressed.

The angry blonde raised his hand, prepping for a blast. “I’m gonna beat this shit out of your stupid head, Deku!”

Loki’s stance shifted, and he moved like a snake, trapping Bakugou’s palm face up on the desk before the boy could even blink.

“Now, Bakugou. I don’t like you. My role is to hold the anger of the system and take revenge on the people that abused us.” Katsuki paled slightly. “One way I do that, a favourite of mine actually, is to do to them what they did to us.” Bakugou paled further, and Loki’s mouth curled into a sadistic smirk. “And luckily, we have the perfect quirk for that.”

The goddess took a deep breath and blew a steady stream of orange flame at their abuser’s shoulder.

Katsuki gave a choked cry, shoulder already blistering and breaking.

“What? Are you going to cry? That’s pathetic, just like you.” Through the haze of pain, Katsuki recognised those words as his. He had said that. He had said that.

Shouto couldn’t do this. Izuku was acting like Endeavour. He was being cruel and hurting Bakugou for revenge. And where did that fire quirk come from? Izuku… he didn’t feel safe anymore.

Loki looked over to Izuku’s boyfriend, analysed his body language and sighed. “Let me guess. You want to break up with Izuku because you don’t believe in the system and the fire quirk scares you.”

Shouto nodded mutely.

A tear rolled down Izuku’s cheek. “I knew this would happen. I knew he would leave me because of you guys.”

Lily wrapped her arms around the teen, rubbing soft circles into his back.

“Oh my darling, I’m so sorry. You can let everything out, let yourself feel, love.”

Izuku buried himself into Lily’s neck and sobbed, overwhelmed with grief and heartbreak. He truly loved Shouto and his friends, and losing them over the system he saw as family was more painful than he could ever have imagined.

Deku frowned at the screen, turning to Mikumo. “Mikumo why is everyone being so mean?”

Mikumo sighed. “People fear what they don’t understand. And they don’t understand us. So they push away and belittle us, so we don’t seem like much of a threat.”

“But-” Deku’s lip wobbled. “But we’re their friend. We won’t hurt them! We like them!”

“I know, Deku. I know.”

Loki nodded. “Very well.”

Eijirou’s brow furrowed. “Wait, shouldn’t you be sadder? You’ve been dating for like, a year, right?”

“No, Izuku was dating him. No one else in the system feels any romantic attraction to him. But Izuku is definitely sad right now. I can hear him crying.”

“But you’re Izuku, bro.”

“No. I’m not.” Loki scowled. “I am Loki, I use all pronouns. Please do not call me ‘bro’, it is too informal for my tastes.”

“But bro, I call everyone bro!”

“And I am telling you that I am uncomfortable with that term of address. Please refer to me by name only.”

Momo nodded. “Of course, Loki.”

Dark Shadow flapped excitedly. “Are you a fictive? We read about those!!!”

Loki smiled almost imperceptibly. “Yes. I am a fictive of the character Loki from the MCU. They’re a pre-quirk era American film series.”

“No way! I love them!” Denki gasped. “That one scene where Hulk threw you around Stark tower looked pretty painful though.”

Loki winced. “Oh, it was. I was picking stone out of my hair for weeks.”

Hitoshi stifled a snicker. “I know I shouldn’t be laughing, but all I can think of is when Thor introduced you with ‘this is my brother’ ‘he killed 80 people in two days’ ‘…he’s adopted’. That was such a beautiful moment.”

Loki smiled. “Yes, my brother is quite amusing.”

Momo debated for a moment. “I only live once, I guess. Hey Loki!”

“Yes Angel?”

“Next time the League attacks we should… we should do-”

“Don’t. don’t you dare.”

“We should do get help!”

Momo, Denki and Hitoshi burst into laughter, and even Aizawa let out a surprised snort of amusement.

Loki scowled, in the same way Aizawa did when his class beat up the League for the 6000^th time. It was exasperated, but fond. “We are not doing get help.”

Loki sat by one of the ponds in UA’s giant grounds, eating and talking with those of 1-A that actually accepted the system (Momo, Denki, Fumikage and Dark Shadow, Hitoshi, and Kyouka).

They had all been very accepting and understanding, and tried their best to understand and ask intelligent questions. Fumikage had assisted with explaining the concepts and terminology since Loki hadn’t really bothered to learn it all.

“10 million!!!!” Mei bounded towards their group, skidding to a halt next to Loki. “Your brain did funny things again. Who is it now?”

“Loki. Most of 1-A are dicks, Todoroki broke up with Izuku so he’s not particularly likely to front for at least a week. It’ll be mostly me and Emerald while things die down.”

Mei nodded, plopping down and pulling a bento out of her bag. “Everyone here is okay?”

The god nodded, and Mei inserted itself easily into the conversation.

“Hey, uhh, Midoriya?” Monoma stood awkwardly away from the group, but close enough to be heard.

Loki slammed her Izuku mask into place, smiling at the other student. “Hi Monoma-kun! Is everything okay?”

“Well, no. Not really.” He tensed. “Is- is it true you’re a system?”

“Huh?”

The blonde rushed to explain, “Well Kendo heard from Mina that you were a system, and one of my cousins has DID and they were outed against their will and it went really badly.”

Loki dropped his mask slowly, relaxing back. “Yes. We are a system. I’m Loki, any pronouns, Avenger.”

“Yeah… that makes a lot of sense. Are you the one that sent Bakubitch to Recovery Girl?”

Loki winked, smirking. She gestured for Monoma to take a seat, and Momo shuffled sideways to make room. In doing so, she ended up pressed close to Kyouka, who blushed and said nothing. Hitoshi smirked and waggled their eyebrows, which only made her blush harder.