I whistle a jaunty tune while looking down on the terribly chosen trio of hero students that have been assembled for the current iteration of today's hero exercise. Said exercise consists of Mineta, Ashido, and Kachan trying to track down and capture the villain of the exercise (me) in one of UA's fake cities before time runs out. What makes it especially fun for me is the fact that, as the villain, I'm essentially allowed to do whatever I like to keep myself from being caught!
Well, major injuries/maiming/deaths are disallowed, but that still leaves a whole lot of grey area for me to work with! A shame that I can't work with Himi for this, but she's the villain for the second trio of students in another part of the city. Gran Torino did originally plan for the two of us to be in the hero parties, but decided against it after he did a quick game of combat tag with us to figure out how developed our skills are.
Safe to say he was rather surprised with how fast we managed to catch up and force him into a confrontation. Also safe to say I got a foot to the face and he got a knife to the arm, which is actually impressive since Himi was aiming to stab him in the foot to disable his quirk advantage, but he managed to twist himself out of the way before wrapping his cape around her head and getting her with an air-enhanced kick to the ribs.
Anyways, he decided that with how far ahead of the others our skills are, we would play the hunted to get us 'out of our comfort zones', which isn't really a bad idea. Sure, we've escaped heroes chasing us before, and we've hidden ourselves while waiting to ambush heroes, but we haven't had a team of heroes assembled specifically for the purpose of looking for us yet. So, in addition to us getting to bully the hero students, it's actually a good learning opportunity for everyone around. Which is honestly kind of suspicious considering Himi and I both told Gran Torino during our little 'getting to know you' meeting in the forest that we have no intentions of abandoning villainy. Then again, he just laughed when we said that so maybe he's just crazy. In which case it makes sense that he gets along with us!
He also laughed when he asked Eri what her hobbies are and she said games and violence. I blame Shigaraki and his introducing her to Halo for that.
I rise to my feet when I see the trio arguing in the mouth of an alley, Kachan's palms sparking as he yells at his partners loud enough that the other team can undoubtedly hear him, and stretch my arms above my head and across my chest. "Well then," I say, flicking my wrists to draw my knives before folding my arms in a cross over my chest. "Maximum effort." I take a step off the ledge, carefully aimed so that I can ensure I get a soft landing.
Which I do, bending my legs to partially absorb some of the impact while the rest gets transferred to Kachan from where I land on his back, slamming him into the ground with a shout of pain and surprise without any sort of warning. I stomp his head into the concrete to knock him out before he can make even more of a nuisance of himself and feel a line of tension I didn't realize was there loosening from between my shoulder blades. Figuratively and literally, since I do have a pair of knives strapped there.
I give the duo of wide-eyed hero students a cheeky wave and a lopsided smile, which is perfectly visible since - even though I'm in the role of a villain - I'm still not allowed to use my villain outfit and so remain stuck with the boring green jumpsuit. Mei really is a gem, even if Power Loader was too much of a boring hero to let her put in some surprises while it was being repaired.
Ignoring the shortsightedness of the heroes: "Greetings heroes," I say in a deep and rumbly voice, "this one understands that he is meant to be prey, and the heroes the hunters, yes?" I continue without waiting for an answer, and am mildly disappointed that they're just standing there and letting me monologue considering we're all aware that the exercise has already started. Mineta is sort of understandable since he's been suitably traumatized into improving his behavior, but I had bigger hopes for Ashido. She's not very book smart, but typically she makes up for it through good instincts and great reaction time.
Meh, whatever. Might as well throw in some actual advice while I'm at it.
"One should be cautious, however, that the hunter does not mistake a hunter for prey, or risk becoming prey themselves." I let loose with a sudden cackle, startling them into action, Ashido's hand whipping forward to let her acid fly and Mineta's hands reaching for the balls on his head. I continue to cackle even as I backflip into a series of cartwheels to dodge Ashido's attack, but like I mentioned, she has great reaction time, and some of it lands on me and rapidly eats through one of my shoes. I pause in the alley to kick it off before it can reach skin and am forced to sidestep a handful of purple balls that fly past and scatter across my escape route down the alley.
That's actually a good move, if it was intentional, but even if it wasn't it still gives them a leg up on the situation. Sometimes all it takes to win a fight is a moment of luck, so it's important to keep an eye on the environment as much as your opponents. Something to keep in mind as it's what allows me to parry the punch she throws faster than someone should be able to without a speed quirk; her acid really is versatile!
I try to hook my foot around her ankle to make her fall on the balls behind me but she gives a small hop over it to land safely on the other side where she spins on her heel to bring a roundhouse into my ribs. Thankfully I catch it, but the impact is strong enough to make me grunt and take a step back. I duck another ball that Mineta throws at the back of my head, and I take a brief moment to wonder why he aimed there specifically when it would be more effective to aim for my legs and arms before jumping to the side to avoid a lunge from Ashido.
"This one believes the situation to be untenable," I muse aloud in the same rumbly voice from earlier, "so perhaps a retreat would be the course of action best taken."
Ashido tries to glare, but she fails to wipe the look of confusion from her face. "Ok, I know you like to make a character for the exercises, but what's up with the way you're talking?"
I shrug before hopping up to kick off the wall of the building and over another acid-coated fist towards the opposite wall. Good change, make each hit more dangerous. Also a reasonable increase in the use of force as the opponent proves themselves more dangerous. "Shigaraki has a lot of video games, and a certain studio finally decided to get off their butts and give the fans the next installment in the series. Jup!" I let out a grunt as I run along the side of the wall, a trail of sticky balls following me in a decent capture attempt. "Sure, it's been eighty-four years, but they've finally moved on from releasing remasters of the previous games!"
I leap from the wall and aim a kick at the short boy who hasn't said a word, watching as his eyes widen while holding up his hands to protect himself from the impact to the face. Hands that are still holding a pair of balls that he was preparing to throw.
Whoops.
He's still hit hard enough to stumble backwards, but his quirk absorbed a surprisingly large amount of force from my kick, not to mention the fact that they are now stuck to my leg. Which means that I'll need to be even more careful of my surroundings to make sure they don't bump into anything and get me stuck. Not that it would be too much of a problem since I can just cut that part of my costume off if I need to. But I'm honestly curious to see how well they do without me doing something the majority of people wouldn't think of.
Anyways, "This one expresses his regrets, but it is time to depart." I turn around and run across the street to the building opposite the alley, one that resembles an office building. I ignore the orange barricades warning that it isn't structurally sound since all of these have been made by Cementoss to not put the students at unnecessary risk. Thankfully the front door is unlocked, an oversight that I make sure to rectify before looking around and grabbing a conveniently placed coat rack that I wedge across the front door. With the way reasonably blocked I dash up the stairs two at a time, putting as much distance between me and them as I can before they decide to break down the door. Well, melt in Ashido's case. Or maybe they'll try to go through one of the windows on ground level to reduce the risk of the building 'falling'.
One of the things I find most interesting about these exercises is seeing how the hero aspirants react to stunts like these and listening to their reasoning during the after action report afterward. It helps me get a glimpse into what kind of hero they'll end up being if they manage to make it to graduation and they get their official hero licenses. I can already point to a few that probably won't make it, even with how lax the regulations are for the official license, but who knows, maybe they'll surprise me.
Not Kachan though, I can't help but think to myself after moving to a room on the third floor with a window facing the street I left the heroes on. Even with how lax things are, there is no possible way that he would be permitted to obtain a hero license. He's much too unhinged and uncaring of collateral damage, whether it's human or environmental.
A point that's only proven further when I peek outside of the window to see the blonde awake and screaming at Ashido, who's waving her arms wildly at him and screaming right back. He looks particularly unstable today, what with the blood pouring from his nose to cover his face and chest. It even gets in his mouth, staining his teeth so his snarl is a bloody rictus that he directs at the building I'm hiding in, a grenade gauntlet aimed at the bottom floor.
…A grenade gauntlet that Mei said is much too dangerous for a hero student to use. Mei. Mei said those things are too dangerous for someone to use without dedicated training. And Kachan is aiming it right at the building, uncaring for what sort of damage it might cause.
"Uh-oh," I say just as he pulls the pin. Then there's a roar of flame that slams into the building. It rumbles, and I get an intensely unsettling feeling of deja vu as part of the roof caves in.