Last Day
“-Chinese progressive and political activist Zhong Tian was discovered missing this morning from his home in the countryside. At the scene was a gruesome sight, with the security detail that was hired to protect the man having been brutally gunned down by still unknown attackers. At this time no group has claimed responsibility for the attack or the disappearance of Zhong Tian, but the Chinese government has blamed the attack on extremists in western China. In response several divisions of PLA soldiers were deployed to the west in order to quell any further attempts at terror attacks or separatism. But not everyone around the world is convinced by this story and once more believe that there was foul play on the part of the Chinese government. It is no coincidence that this took place mere weeks after the beginning of peaceful protests organized by Zhong Tian done in hopes of opening up the country to liberalization, hoping to gain further freedoms such as freedom of speech and the right to assembly. But with no clear evidence to pin blame on the Chinese government there is very little that the international community can do for the Chinese people besides standard in solidarity with their movements. In other news, a hostage crisis was just resolved by the young Wing Hero: Hawks, aiming to earn his place as Japan’s new number one Hero. Nearly fifty people were being held hostage by a group of masked Villains, locking down the mall and looting the various stores that were inside. But by swooping in from a skylight and quickly taking down their leader, Hawks was able to force them to stand down and surrender to police. However, even with this success, some people across Japan have begun questioning whether or not more crimes of this magnitude are occurring because of All Might’s retirement. And on the topic of Heroes, the recently arrived man from the future, now known by the Hero name ‘Spartan,’ made his true debut just last night in a raid on a gang controlled drug warehouse. Police had suspected that the location was being used to store large quantities of illegal substances and acquired a warrant to act, but the Hero seemed to be two steps ahead and charged in to fight the criminals by himself. Nearly one hundred and fourteen million Yen worth of opiates and cocaine was seized by law enforcement following their arrival to the scene, alongside the arrest of two dozen low level criminals subdued by the Hero. It is unsure whether or not this was actually the first crime stopped by Spartan, as there were a number of incidents involving Villains and criminals being stopped by a Hero who left just as quickly as they came. Whatever the case, this reporter hopes they keep up the good work.”
“Knew I should have left that place sooner…”
Aurdel was about to shut off the TV and leave his room when the reporter began to speak again, after looking off camera for a moment. “Ahh… Hmm… It’s just coming in that a robbery was halted in the downtown part of Hoshu. A gang of small-time Villains known by as the 'Reservoir Dogs’ attacked a grocery store, stealing a cash register and even injuring a Hero that was pursuing them. However under odd circumstances it seems that they were stopped in their tracks as they tried to get away, with their escape vehicle being destroyed. When Police arrived on the scene to arrest the group, they found no evidence of injuries, stolen money or any physical evidence that they were the ones who attacked the store. In addition, no recordings of the event seem to have been found and very few witnesses willing to come forward. Though the group was arrested, it is suspected that they will be released-“ Aurdel shut it off, pondering what he’d just heard. How could a group of criminals get away from a robbery and a fight with a Hero with absolutely no injuries? Even more strange was there was apparently no physical evidence, somehow having disappeared despite the fact that there should have certainly been, at the very least, fingerprints. It just didn’t make any sense to him.
Something even more unbelievable given the fact that it was a group that had robbed the store, and not a single person. From what he’d seen, statistically, the majority of the crimes committed were done by people acting alone, often doing so on a whim rather than planning it out. But now here there were four people with a premeditated plan to rob a groccery store, incapacitate a Hero and get away in a previously planted escape vehicle. To him that was evidence enough that there was something greater at play here. Why put all that effort into robbing a grocery store? Could they have been hired by someone to do it in order to intimidate the owners? Or had they just done it in order to try to show off to other gangs? With not enough information he had no solid answers. It made him want to go down to the crime scene himself to investigate and interrogate the criminals, but he simply didn’t have the time. Right now he had other things that needed to be done, and by leaving now he would be jeopardizing his ability to teach his class. Ultimately he decided that this would just have to be left up to law enforcement as he focused on training his students.
Speaking of which, training was going extremely well. It was the seventh and last day in the period of remedial classes, and each student saw remarkable progress even in such a short time. One of the signs of his success in their training was a general decrease in body fat and increase in muscle mass for almost all of the students, meaning they had literally become physically stronger. For the ones that would have trouble going toe to toe with an opponent in close combat before it was a real boon, as now they had more real weight to put behind any attacks. They’d also seen an increase in their lung capacity from the repeated long stretches of running, meaning that if they were in a fight it would be a while longer before any of them had to stop and catch their breath. All in all the training was a success, and there was really only one way to test how much they’d really improved. But that would have to wait until later. He had something else he needed to do.
Aurdel slid on his helmet and stepped out of his dorm room, locking the door behind him as he walked out. Only a few of the more lively students were up this early in the day, meaning that there really was no one awake to bother him. At a walking pace, It took him only about five minutes to get from the dorms to the main building. “Hatsume, shouldn’t you be still getting some sleep like everyone else?”
The pink haired girl turned around, covered in dirt, grime and grease, “I was pulling an all nighter, but I’m still going strong!”
“How’d you even get into the workshop? Powerloader locks the door before he leaves after he’s done with classes for the day. And how weren’t you caught working?”
“Well to answer that first question, I built this baby to break in!” She raised a device from a table that sat off to the side.
“It looks like if I stare at it the wrong way it'll explode, are you sure that thing is safe?”
“Probably not, but it works!” She carelessly tossed it off to the side and he half expected to hear a loud bang the moment it landed. “And as for your second question, I set up sound proofing on the inside and outside of the room. That way the sounds of my tools can't be heard across the building.”
“And the explosions?”
“There weren’t any last night, so nothing to really worry about. But speaking of, I made some improvements to my baby!” She slapped the back of the powered suit that she’d designed. “While I couldn’t do exactly what you said, I decided to take some of your advice and reduced some of the armor to decrease the overall weight. Now, most of the armor is in places it is most likely to hit with or be hit against. I also adjusted the frame so it could properly handle to the new weight of the suit, that now means the suit has a better range of motion, and is even able to move at higher speeds.”
“Have you made any changes to the equipment or tools?” Aurdel observed as Hatsume picked up a remote, signaling for the suit of armor to demonstrate its new movement capabilities.
“Sure did. I stopped working on making the omni tool for now and put together a few things to make combat a little bit easier. First, the power fist!” She dragged a slab of concrete out in front of the armor, “By overcharging the servos and motors with the built in battery, this suit can punch up to three times its normal strength!” She pushed a button and the suit went into a combat stance. Then, after having a moment to wind up, it let loose a powerful punch. The hole it left in the concrete slab was roughly a foot wide, punching through just about the same thickness in the slab.
“Not bad, sometimes you need that extra bit of force to put someone down.”
“That’s not all though, I also designed and added a built-in taser to the suit. That way when you get close, you can just zap them!”
He took a closer look at the suit and it’s mechanisms, “You didn’t put in a way to adjust the power of the taser…”
“I’m sure that if you need to bring out a suit like this, the big bad Villains can take it. “
“Being able to take a punch is one thing, but pulling your punches is another matter entirely. Especially since this looks like it’s discharging a full car battery in a matter of seconds.” He pulled the taser gauntlet off of the armor and set it off to the side, not wanting misfire that results in everyone in a several meter radius being shocked to death. “Anything else?”
“Well, I also built a pneumatic cannon into one of the arms, that way it can non lethally take down targets from a distance.” She pressed a button and one of the suit’s arms raised, then loaded in a beanbag round. After stepping back she had it turn and face the opposite wall, before slamming one of the buttons. “Fire!” The cannon fired with such force that the entire room shook, launching the beanbag at what looked like mach speed. He then watched as it slammed into the wall, went through it, through another wall and another wall until it eventually was out of sight. He was in shock, walking over to the hole and peering through to see just how far it’d gone. “Though, there might be a few minor bugs that I need to work out.”
“A few minor bugs?” He pointed at the wall, “Something tells me that there’s more than just ‘a few minor bugs.’ If anyone was hit by that beanbag, they’d be dead,” he pointed back towards the suit, “That’s not even mentioning the fact that you’ve most likely killed anyone that was in that suit if it’s building up that much pressure, and if that didn’t kill them then the sudden release will. Look, it even destroyed the barrel and turned it into a shrapnel bomb.”
“Just a minor setback, I’ll have to find a way to make it stronger so it won’t blow-“
“The hell you are. You’re making sure that your non-lethal weapon is actually non-lethal, and not one that’s guaranteed to kill whoever it hits.” The door to the room flung open, Powerloader came through.
“Hatsume! What the hell are you doing?!” He left the girl to explain the mess she’d made, and began to clean the room.
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“Today is going to be a special day for your training,” Aurdel announced, “Since it’s your last day I want to see the collective accomplishments you’ve made with your personal strength and your quirks.”
“Mr. Aurdel, what will this special test be exactly?” Ida asked, being the first to raise any questions.
“I’m glad that you asked. Instead of the normal classes that you've been taking part in, you will be test your skills in a battle against one person. Me,” he gestured towards himself to emphasize that fact.
“As class representative I must object. You’re a pro-Hero that’s much more experienced and powerful than any of us. Such a battle would present too large of a risk of injury to the class.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll hold back on you guys. And I won’t be wearing my armor either.”
“Does that mean we’re going to see your face?” Ashido asked, “We already have a bet going around about what you look like, and I’d like to win that bet.”
He narrowed his brows behind his helmet, “Gambling is against school rules, but I’ll let that slide. And no, you won’t be seeing my face. For now that will have to stay a secret. And to make sure that you can’t see my face I’ll be wearing a full face mask.” Most of the girls groaned.
“It’s only reasonable for him to want to keep his physical identity a secret,” Yaoyorozu said, “Heroes essentially have to live double lives, and that doesn’t get any easier if you’re recognized wherever you go.”
“That’s right, I’d like to go to the store to buy something without having to knock the lights out of another reporter.”
“Another?!”
“They’re persistent at their job, I’ll give them that. Regardless, I expect you to put your all into this last training session and beyond. Plus Ultra.”
“What makes you think that you need to hold back against us?” Kirishima said, hardening his arms as if he was giving off an effective display of force.
“A number of reasons, chief among them being that I can quite literally break the bones and kill opponents without too much effort put forward. That goes even without my armor. The last thing I need is either killing or maiming any of you by accident, so I’ll be holding back. Besides, it takes more effort on my part to hold back than it does to let loose so it’s some practice for me too.”
“Are you implying that you might mess up on holding back?!” Kaminari said, “You can’t say that after mentioning how easy it would be for you to kill someone!”
“That’s not what I said, I won’t mess up and let you get horribly hurt. If I thought that I was going too far then I would end the battle there, then let you all go back to your dorms.” He folded his arms, “Any other questions?”
“Where will the battle be taking place?”
“Remember the training grounds you used for your first combat exercise? There. We’ve been cleared to use the whole area as necessary. Obviously they would prefer it if we kept damage down to a minimum, but some things can’t be helped.” He relaxed his arms, “You can bring any equipment you want too, just be ready to fight hard.”
“When we fought teachers for the midterms we had to either subdue them or escape the area. Will there be a certain win condition for either side of the battle?”
“Another good question. Essentially, your only option is to subdue me and stop me from fighting. That might mean rendering me unconscious, trapping me or finding some other way that leaves me unable to go on the attack. My objective on the other hand will be to fight you all and take each of you down to a level that I find too beat up to continue. I won’t tell you who’s hurt enough, so you’ll just have to find that out on your own as I’ll be pulling my punches even more so against those people.”
“Hey hold on a minute, isn’t this really unfair for us?” Sero protested, “It’ll be really easy for you to beat us since you know exactly what are super moves and how we use them, how are we supposed to beat you?”
“With planning and tactics. It’s always possible to beat a foe stronger than you by acting in spite of what they have, using their weaknesses. You have a few hours to work together and come up with a plan to beat me, use that time wisely.” He then left the students to wonder to themselves how they were going to beat him, walking away with a few questions in his mind. They’d probably think of something. Probably. At the same time Aurdel pulled his phone out from one of his armor’s hardcases, syncing it up to his helmet to listen to the several unanswered voicemails.
----------------------------------------
“What are we going to do?” Hagakure asked, “We all know he’s really strong, so how can we beat him?”
“Teacher or not, we’ll just have to blast him to bits!” Bakugo shouted.
“Is that even possible?” Kirishima asked. “We all know how quick he can move, so he’ll most likely be able to avoid our attacks. Even if we can land a hit, I don’t think it will be enough to even scratch him.”
“We could try and overwhelm him,” Midoriya suggested, “We attack at the same time with as much strength as we can muster.”
“Clearly the best solution would be to evade him at the beginning of the fight, then lead him into a trap,” Ida pushed up his glasses.
“We could immobilize him, I can easily do that with my ice,” Todoroki looked down at his arm.
“We can do that, but with my quirk we can stop him by floating him up into the air,” Uraraka suggested.
“What if we put him to sleep?” Yaoyaorozu asked.
“I could use my balls to make sure he can’t move,” Mineta said, rather crudely.
“These are all good ideas…” Midoriya said, “But we need to come up with something that is guaranteed to work. I think we can do that if we put all those ideas together.”
“How do we do that?” Jiro asked.
“Well,” he scratched his chin, “He won't have his armor, that means won’t be able to move around in the air. That means we won’t have to worry about restraining him if he’s in the air, just on the ground. He also won’t be able to take as many hits.”
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“Actually, I think I might have an idea,” Ojiro spoke up, “Todoroki, how fast can you melt the ice that you make?”
“Relatively fast, it depends on the size, thickness and the area that it’s in. Why?”
“I was thinking of a way to combine some of our ideas. We could take Ida's idea of running away and leading him into a trap, then use your ice and Mineta’s quirk to actually trap him. Mineta can cover every surface of a room with the balls from his quirk, then you’ll cover it up with the ice. After that we lead him there, melt the ice and corner him into becoming stuck.”
“That’s not a bad idea Ojiro, good work!” Midoriya gave him props.
“Ah, it’s nothing. Just something I thought might work.”
“But what if that idea doesn’t work?” Kirishima began to point out, “Mineta can’t cover every inch of a room with his quirk, there will be gaps and surfaces for him to stand on and escape. We need to come up with another way to stop him.”
“What if I shock him?” Kaminari suggested, “I’m sure that a shock should at least stun him a bit, I'll just need a way to guide my electricity.”
“I can produce some high voltage wires for you to use,” Yaoyaorozu said. “We can bury it in the ice as well, that way when the ice melts the wires will swing down and surround him like a net.”
“We also need to make sure that if he somehow avoids all that, that we can still approach him in a straight fight.”
“Leave that to us!” Kirishima said. “Me, Shoji, Tokoyami, Sato, Ojiro and Bakugo can hold him back.”
“We’ll still need a plan after that, if he somehow manages to get through all six of you.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?!” Bakugo shouted, threatening him. “Are you calling me weak?!”
“N-nono! That’s not what I was saying! We just need a backup plan.”
“I and Hagakure can ambush him outside if he manages to make it out that far, we’ll be able to hide in plain sight. Ribbit.”
“That could work. Then Uraraka, you’ll have to make him float up. Then when he’s in the air Sero and Yaoyaorozu will have to restrain him. Yaoyaorozu, do you think you can make that same catapult that you made during the midterms?”
“I can, I practiced making it for quite a while.”
“What about moi?” Aoyama said, “You can’t have a plan without me.”
“Aoyama. You, Koda and Ashido can be the ones to lead him into the trap. Just make sure that you move fast so you won’t get caught.”
“What about me?” Jirou said, twirling her earphone jack.
“Jirou, you’ll hit him with your quirk until he’s knocked out in the air. I think that’s the best way to beat him.”
“And with that, it seems we have a solid set of plans behind us,” Ida said, “Mr. Aizawa, what do you think?”
They looked to their teacher, “I can’t say whether or not it will work, that has to be your own judgement. And I can’t give you advice on how to beat him either. This fight is supposed to be the product of your training. However, I will say it was good for you to think through the various scenarios that might happen. Whether or not you’ll be able to properly respond in the moment is something I don’t have the answer to.”
“So is that a yes or a no that our plan is good?” Mineta asked, an eyebrow raised.
“You’ll figure that out soon enough. Now if you’re done chit chatting, you should get back to your training. You won’t do well if you haven’t prepared yourself for a fight.”
“You’re right,” Midoriya said, “Let’s get to it then!”
“Plus Ultra!”
Starting Line
Aurdel looked around the training grounds, it was five minutes past the time that the class and the battle was supposed to begin. But nowhere in his sight was any of the class. It was quiet, so quiet he could even hear the rhythmic beat of his heart. It was very unlikely that they’d collectively forgotten about the battle, or that they’d made the very simple decision that a fight against him wasn’t winnable and just weren’t going to show. Rather, they had likely spent their time working to set up an ambush inside the city and had come early. There was no rule against doing that, but it was still a cheeky move to rely on. It was also one he didn’t want them to learn to rely on in the future. He turned his head and jumped the moment he heard the faint sound of something rapidly approaching. Mere moments later a laser shot through the position he’d previously been holding. Aoyama. “Mr. Aurdel, we’re over here!” Ashido shouted, “We decided to show up a little early!”
“There's no problem with that, but you just gave your position away.” With that he jumped into action. Literally, as he had to avoid a flock of bird that has been sent to dive bomb him. Less than a second later he was charging after them, not wasting a single movement as he proceeded in large strides down the streets and in their direction.
“You've got to be kidding! I knew he was fast, but this is just crazy!.” He chased after them, weaving through streets and alleyways between buildings. Ashido sprayed her acid against the walls the group passed, timing it so that the moment he came through the building would fall apart and rubble would landed on top of it. But he managed to avoid the debris, not taking a single hit. “One of us is going to have to slow him down, he’s gaining on us too fast!”
“Worry not madam-“
“Thanks Aoyama!” The boy was cut off as Ashido spun him around to face Aurdel, his laser pointing right at him. Aurdel jumped to the side as he fired, grabbing a piece of near rubble and ripping the rebar out of it. The boys eyes shot up as Aurdel leapt up the wall before coming back down, using the momentum to his advantage. Without a second thought Aurdel smashed the focusing glass of the boys belt with the rebar, causing him to curl up from the pain of being struck and losing his belt simultaneously. One down, nineteen left. He sprung back up and left Aoyama to clutch his stomach, continuing the chase. And the pace that he ran at it was more than easy to make up for lost ground. “Why can’t you run a little slower?!” Aurdel picked up a number of chunks of rubble from the ground, chucking them at high speeds towards the two students. “Acid Veil!” Ashido sprayed her acid to form a protective barrier, stopping and melting the projectiles before they could hit her or Koda. Being in his way, he quickly scaled around it.
“You can’t outrun me.”
“Luckily for us that is not the plan Mr. Aurdel! Recipro Boost!” Ida came charging out of nowhere, a sudden ramp of ice forming in front of him. Skating through the air he came at Aurdel at high speeds. Not fast enough to be unable to avoid, but still fast. “Recipro Extend!” Then just as Ida had his back turned, he quickly brought himself back to face Aurdel. The boy kicked him hard in the back, throwing him off of the wall and onto the concrete below. It looks like they'd finally learned to tactically, so he would too. Aurdel landed on the ground, tumbling face first before coming to a stop. Rather than getting back up to pursue his students immediately he chose to lay there.
“Huh?” Midoriya sounded confused, “Ida, how hard did you kick him?”
“I kicked him hard, but it shouldn’t have been enough to take him down with one blow to the back.” The other students slowly came out from their assigned positions, wearily surrounding him from a distance.
“Hey, what’s going on? Are we still doing this plan or what?” Kaminari complained.
“I don’t know, I think we might have already won?”
“There’s no way that guy could only take one hit, you saw how he fought those Villains!”
“Maybe he was under the influence of something at the time? It could be that he’s a glass cannon who can’t take a hit without his armor on. It’d make sense, since he wears it all the time.”
“I’m not so sure,” Asui said, putting a finger to her lips. “Remember that training session we had with the other teachers? The one where All Might was pretending to be a Villain? We thought that he was supposed to be actually dead for the purpose of the exercise, but he was really just pretending to be dead and escaped.”
“In that case, we should restrain him,” Todoroki said, “I’ll use my ice to-“
“Not on my watch half and half!” Bakugo shouted, “I’ll just make sure that if he’s down, he stays down!”
Midoriya protested, “Don’t! If he’s actually down then we don’t need to do anything!”
“Don’t stop me!” Bakugo shouted, Aurdel counted the seconds. “AP Shot: Auto Cannon!” Just as Bakugo put his other hand in front of his palm to concentrate his bursts Aurdel sprung up and threw the piece of rebar he was still clutching, hitting the gauntlet and throwing off his aim dramatically. Instead of hitting him with the explosions, he ended up spraying the other students and the surrounding area. He avoided few projectiles that came his way as he quickly began to exfiltrate the immediate area, leaping from wall to wall of the nearby buildings. By doing this he easily put himself out of range of a number of the students, as well simultaneously destroying whatever plans they had set up for a trap. Midoriya, Bakugo, Sero, Ida, Uraraka, Todoroki, Asui and Tokoyami began to pursue, scaling the walls in order to push him from all sides.
“Everyone!” Midoriya shouted, “We need to-“
“Out of my way!” Bakugo shouted, blasting past Midoriya and being the first one to engage him. The first attack that Bakugo tried to make was easy to avoid, since it was a feint. Then, as Bakugo tried to redirect himself in the air, Aurdel spun around and grabbed his legs, dragged him forward and slamming him back-first into the building's roof with a solid and loud thud. Then, with mere moments to react, Aurdel pulled the grenadier bracers off of Bakugo's arms. Pulling the pins for the charged shot before throwing them at the group of pursuing students.
“Watch out!” Todoroki shouted, raising a large barrier of ice as the two gauntlets let out a wild and directionless explosion. As Bakugo tried to stand back up Aurdel grabbed him up by the collar, giving him a painful punch the stomach before throwing him at his classmates. Ida quickly ran forward to catch him, making him the next target
Aurdel sprinted across the roof towards him, Sero fired his tape to try and restrain. But he was able to react too quickly. He spun around grabbing the tape by the strand and yanked it towards himself, allowing him to pull Sero in and then throw him at Todoroki as the ice disappeared. The two went stumbling towards the edge of the roof. Midoriya then launched up from behind and tried to land an attack, but Aurdel was able to predict the move and sidestepped it He grabbed him by the arm and swung him like a baseball bat into the two already dazed students, knocking all three clean off the roof. Uraraka and Asui jumped down to make sure they were alright.
“This is supposed to be you pulling your punches?!” Kaminari shouted, showing up nearby on the ground. Tokoyami, who’d been off to the side waiting, had chosen now as the time to strike. With Dark Shadow attacking, Aurdel found himself suddenly ensnared from behind. This then allowed Sero, who'd quickly scaled his way back up, to try and surround him with his tape. The combined effect proved more effective than perhaps they realized, nearly being enough to contain him. But Aurdel struggled, moving around the rooftop and dragging both Tokoyami and Dark Shadow with him as the tape began to pile on. Prying one arm loose he grabbed a flashlight at his waist and turned it on, suddenly decreasing Dark Shadow's hold on him. With that he was able to break physically break out of Dark Shadow's grasp, physically dragging it with him at he ran towards Tokoyami and used the chance to throw the both of them towards Bakugo, Ida and MIdoriya, who were on their way back up. Ida broke off to chance him, leaving only Midoriya and Bakugo keep going. The moment they reached the rooftop the two of them began their attack, the two trying to attack from opposite sides.
“Shoot Style!” Midoriya shouted, coming in with a strong right kick. Aurdel ducked out at practically the last second, forcing the two rapidly try and avoid each other at the last second. But as the two narrowly avoided each other he took the opportunity to grab both of them, taking them by the collars and slam their head together. Then, after giving them a moment to let the blows set in, he performed a pair of brachial stuns. The two of them collapsed like a bag of bricks onto the roof. Bruised, beat up and unconscious
Seventeen left. He dropped from the edge of the roof and scaled his way down, Todoroki and Sero continuously attacking him at range with their quirks. Right, he’d mix things up. Grabbing hold of one of the railings he swung into one of the mid-level floors, going in and hiding just around the corner
“Follow him!” Todoroki said, the two boys quickly scaling their way in and running in the direction they thought he'd gone. The very moment they walked by hard tackled both of them, painfully driving them into a wall. He then used the opportunity to quickly use the same stun as before, following up by using a bit of Sero's tape to restrain them. Fifteen left. He threw his shoulder through the relatively thin walls, emerging back outside the building.
The others were all there and attempting to reorganize, their plans having quite literally fallen apart in front of their very eyes. “We must retrieve the others, we cannot leave them where they are now!” Ida said firmly.
“Are you kidding?!” Mineta wailed, “You saw how he took them down, how are we supposed to beat him?!”
“I don’t know, but I have to agree with Ida!” Kirishima said, hardening his arms. “We wouldn’t be doing our jobs as Heroes or acting very manly if we didn’t try to save them!”
“That’s easy for you to say, you can probably take a hit from him!” Kaminari complained, “The rest of us will most likely go down in just one punch. I say we ru-UUUUUUUUUUUN!” Kaminari’s suggestion turned into a cry as Aurdel threw out a looped piece of tape like a lasso, tying around him and JIrou. He then dragged rapidly the two of them up, facing only a little resistance as he used restrained them, knocked them out and left them hanging from a wall. Thirteen left. Aurdel jumped back down to the ground, ready for whatever came next. Kirishima charged him head on, striking with his hardened fists and creating tearing a number of holes in his clothes. He was strong, stronger than he'd expected. But not stronger than he could handle. Aurdel allowed him to get a few hits in before striking back himself. First with his knee he broke Kirishima’s attempt at a constant advance, then by constantly throwing his elbow against his hardened arms he was able to eventually cause his defense to crack. Some of the skin on Kirishima’s arm broke from the repeated attacks.
“Kirishima, duck!” He ducked as Ashido shouted, spraying acid and covering Aurdel’s mask with it. Quickly he pulled it off. “Huh?! You have more than one mask on?!” Aurdel roundhouse kicked Kirishima to the curb and charged the other students.
“Uraraka, now!” Yaoyaorozu shouted.
“Release!” Only then did he realize what there new plan had been. He tried to dive to the side, but the sheet of foil was far too large to be avoided. As it wrapped around him he could tell that it was covered in a strong adhesive, that he wouldn't have an easy time getting out of
“Unless you can sweat enough to loosen the glue, you won’t be able to get out of that foil,” Yaoyaorozu announced, “Give up now and hand victory over to us or else you’ll have to fight until you’ve run out of air and fall unconscious.” Good, they'd managed to come up with a new plan in the face of their failure. But he wasn't ready to hand them such an easy victory. He held his breath and kept fighting. With Ida and Tokoyami moving out of sight, alongside Ashido and Kirishima being unable to attack him without destroying the foil, that left him to fight Yaoyaorozu, Koda, Uraraka, Mineta, Sato, Hagakure, Asui, Ojiro and Shoji. Of those students, Ojiro, Shoji and Sato were the strongest brawlers and thus were the primary targets.
Ojiro bounced up and whipped around his tail, Aurdel threw it back with his arm. Sato attacked with a flurry of punches, something easily bobbed and weaved. Shoji tried to use his arms to grab him and hold him in place, something Aurdel easily broke out of it. He punched forward and hit Sato’s midsection, striking his liver. With all pain synapses firing off, causing a near instant loss of balance and focus, it was effectively a knockout. Twelve. He grabbed Ojiro by the tail and swung him around, violently throwing him and Shoji together and sending him crashing into a nearby lamp post. Hard enough to knock them out cold, but not doing anything too severe. Ten.
“Grape Rush!” Mineta suddenly jumped up, popping the balls off his head and throwing them onto the foil that covered Aurdel. Dozens of them were thrown at him, mostly covering the front side of the foil. Kirishima took the chjance to push him forward, throwing him onto the ground. “Just try breaking out now!” He must have thought that this would be a debilitating blow, but unfortunately for them this would work in his favor. Pushing up from the ground he found that the balls of Mineta's quirk held onto the foil stronger than the adhesive, causing the foil to tear off in pieces across his body and giving him the chance to breath. Then he ran.
“Stop moving so much!” Ashido tried to spray acid at him and Mineta tried to throw more of the balls as he sprinted away, maneuvering into an alleyway and jumping from side to side to get her to spray the side of the buildings. Upon reaching the other side he effectively led them in a circle, having them perform the same move. Upon reaching the end this time he punched through the side of the closest wall. "Ah, I think we messed up..." The wall collapsing caused a daisy chain of collapsed down the line, and soon the entire alleyway was filled with rubble as buildings on both sides collapsed. It poured down like an avalanche, burying Yaoyaorozu, Koda, Mineta and Asui underneath it. That just left four-
“Now!” Uraraka shouted, the four students beginning their attack. Aurdel found himself temporarily blinded as Hagakure refracted the scattered light, shining it away from Dark Shadow and towards him. At the same Uraraka touched him with her quirk to and pushed him off the ground. She then moved out of the way as Ida and Tokoyami using Dark Shadow rapidly began to throw blows against him.
It took a second for his vision to recover from the bright light, but after that he fought back. One might think that being weightless would make the fight harder, but he'd fought his share of zero-g battles. Aurdel spun and grabbed Ida on one of his passes, using the chance to turn him in the air and launch both of them into the ground. Then, as Dark Shadow was about to attack him, he pushed off the ground and launched himself at Tokoyami without any pushback from gravity. Uraraka quickly undid her to try and him to stumble, but instead he went into a forward roll and preserved his momentum. He struck Tokoyami in the crotch, then launched up, grabbing him by the collar and throwing him straight into the ground. Three. Fighting at this point with so many of them done for the count was bad odds, and they knew it. They gave each other a look of concern, realizing what had to be done. “As class representative, and with no other choice… We must concede this battle,” Ida said, defeated.
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“Just what do you think you were doing fighting them like that?!” Recovery Girl shouted at Aurdel, smacking him with her cane. “If you’d done anything more, you would have almost assuredly given them all serious and permanent injuries!”
“They knew the risk going in. I told them that I would be pulling my punches, but not going soft on them. However, I suppose I may have misjudged how much they could actually take.” He looked at the students of Class 1-A, almost all of which were lounging in the common room of the dorm that had been turned into an ad-hoc nursing station. Almost everyone was covered in bandages in one place or another, ice packs resting on bruised body parts and casts on limbs that were injured. “Will they still be able to take part in the license exam tomorrow?”
Recovery Girl sighed, “Yes, they’ll be fine for their exam. Their injuries will heal overnight, but that doesn’t excuse what you did. Please try to be more careful in the future, the less that I have to use my quirk on students the better.” As she left the room there was an awkward silence.
He scratched the back of his head, “I suppose all I can say is that I’m sorry for taking things too far, I wanted to give you a fair chance to prove yourselves.”
“How did we do?” Midoriya asked, surprising him. No one seemed to protest that question or made any other comment.
“Given the circumstances, you all performed incredibly well. You surprised me with your coordination and the use of your quirks. You did much better than I expected.” There was silence again.
“Are you saying that just because you feel bad?” Mineta asked.
“No,” he shook his head, “Genuinely, you all did very well. I have high hopes for your licensing exams tomorrow.” That seemed to clear up the air a little, removing some of the tension. With that he left them to get their rest, going to his own room. There he pulled off his mask, sat down in his chair and decided to take one look at his phone before he went out for the night. There he noticed that there was another voice message, one from someone by the name of Sir Nighteye.