The observation room was humming now—more than just electronics. It was Izuku.

He sat hunched in the chair like a villain on a throne, fingers poised over the command interface, emerald eyes gleaming beneath the dim light of a secondary monitor. His foot tapped like a metronome counting down to judgment day.

I watched him work—calculating, analyzing. Plotting.

He'd gone completely still except for the movement of his hands.

And then—

Click. Tap. Slide.

"...Midoriya," I said, slowly, "what are you doing?"

He didn't even turn. "You remember those old support bots they used for emergency response tests?"

"Unfortunately."

"Well, turns out they never deleted the protocols. Just... buried them under the sand."

He tapped a few keys. The screen flashed red, then gold.

"Mode: Adaptive Combat. Difficulty: Maximum."

My eyes narrowed.

"You activated the training bots."

"I did."

"You put them on hard mode."

"I did."

"Midoriya."

He finally turned toward me.

With the smile of someone who had just eaten the last cookie and set fire to the bakery.

"I told you," he whispered, voice giddy with restrained laughter, "we're not lifting a finger. If we're villains... we're the ones who press buttons and drink tea while the world burns."

A beat.

Then came the laugh.

Not a snort. Not a chuckle.

A full, evil cackle.

It started small—a breathless, conspiratorial giggle—and then it built up like a wave crashing down on the console as he watched the chaos begin through the live cams.

"Power Loader," he said without even looking back, "may want to brace."

"What did you—"

CRASH.

Through one of the cams, we saw Iida nearly tackled by a training droid.

From another: Kaminari and Jirou ducking into a fake café while rubble rained behind them.

Then: Yaoyorozu dragging a very confused Mineta out from under a half-destroyed taxi.

Power Loader blinked.

His eyes slowly turned to Izuku.

"You turned on the bots?"

"Hard mode," Izuku repeated, not even hiding the grin now. "With reactive AI. They adapt to quirks."

"That's not allowed—"

"No rule said students couldn't access old command lines," Izuku replied smoothly. "Nezu said we could stay under your supervision. You're watching. I'm acting. Legally... ambiguous."

Power Loader looked physically pained. "You're a menace."

Izuku beamed. "Thanks!"

On the monitors, Bakugo exploded a droid into molten pieces and screamed "DIE!" while dragging Kirishima through a collapsing alley.

The rest of the class was scattering, yelling, disoriented.

Perfect.

"I could split them up," Izuku muttered, fingers flying across controls. "I know their habits. Uraraka always drifts toward elevation. Sero moves to central zones to web through choke points. Kaminari will try to buy time with distractions, and Jirou will follow the sound anomalies—"

I cut in. "You said we weren't going to lift a finger."

Izuku clicked the screen off.

"Exactly. I'm not touching them. I'm just giving the city a nudge."

He tapped the mic console—just once—then turned it off.

"I don't even need to speak."

He leaned back in the chair, smug as ever, while Power Loader stood stiffly at the side of the room like a man trapped in a very slow-burning fire.

Izuku glanced toward him, then back at me, and whispered, "Want popcorn?"

I sighed, resting my chin on my hand.

"Are you going to cackle every time someone screams?"

"...Maybe."

On screen, Bakugo blasted another bot, snarling in rage.

Izuku leaned forward and muttered, "Round one: Villains, zero casualties, infinite ego."

Then he laughed again.

This time, Power Loader visibly shuddered.

The observation room had evolved into a miniature war room.

Three chairs. Eight screens. One activated coffee machine (thanks to Power Loader, who had given up on preventing disaster and was now just fueling it). The bots roamed Ground Beta like wild dogs. Controlled. Precise. Unrelenting.

And then there was Midoriya.

"Okay," he said, eyes gleaming, fingers steepled in front of his mouth. "We are officially watching Darwinism in action."

I tilted my head. "A little dramatic."

He pointed to one monitor. "Mineta is trying to flirt with a training droid."

Power Loader choked on his coffee.

I sighed. "Of course he is."

"Why is he asking it if it 'likes grapes'?" Midoriya muttered, zooming in on the scene. "It doesn't even have ears."

Power Loader groaned. "I built these bots with suppression tasers, and you're telling me he's flirting with them?!"

"I'd argue this is a worse fate than getting zapped," I added calmly.

Midoriya clicked over to a new feed.

"Bakugo and Kirishima are... oh." He paused. "Bakugo just punched a wall to create an escape tunnel."

"There was a door five feet away," I pointed out, watching Kirishima's increasingly distressed expression as dust filled the space.

Midoriya nodded. "Yes, but then it wouldn't be manly destruction."

Power Loader facepalmed.

On another feed, Yaoyorozu was trying to construct a battering ram from a traffic pole and a bench. A good idea—if not for Kaminari standing right in the way and waving his arms like a flagpole in a hurricane.

"I—" Power Loader squinted. "He thinks he's directing traffic."

Midoriya blinked. "He's going to get bludgeoned by creative genius."

WHAM.

"Oof. There it is."

I took a long sip of coffee. "I give them fifteen minutes."

"Generous," Midoriya whispered, his smile widening. "Should we place bets?"

Power Loader snorted. "The only bet I'm making is on who breaks a building first."

Izuku scanned the cams. "That'd be Bakugo again. He's currently yelling 'DEATH TO THE SKY' while launching himself at a drone."

We watched in silence as Bakugo blasted through a fake window, clinging to a bot mid-air like a furious wasp.

Power Loader twitched. "I built that drone. It took three weeks."

Midoriya leaned back, fingers tapping the table thoughtfully.

"They don't realize the bots are responding to their aggression. Not yet. They're acting like it's just target practice."

"Which means they're already losing," I muttered.

"No coordination. No strategy. No leadership," Midoriya listed, eyes flicking across the cams like a chessmaster surveying a burning board. "They're falling apart."

"Too many egos," I added.

Midoriya smirked. "Too many heroes."

Power Loader looked between the two of us, then back at the screens, where now Uraraka and Sero were arguing over which direction was 'north.'

"...You two scare me."

"We're not even doing anything," Izuku grinned.

"Exactly," Power Loader muttered. "That's what's terrifying."

A moment passed.

Midoriya pressed a button and said, "Camera three, zoom on Jirou's face."

Jirou was staring at a corner wall, frozen in confusion.

"She just realized there's no comms line. They're completely cut off from outside instructions."

Power Loader blinked. "Wait... did you—?"

"I didn't cut it," Midoriya said innocently. "The bots did. They adapt to isolate. It's in the old programming. I just... let them loose."

He leaned forward like a narrator watching his favorite soap opera.

"Watch now. This is where it gets interesting."

The team of Tokoyami and Shoji were now trying to regroup, only to be intercepted by three droids who used cover fire. Shoji tossed up a barrier of debris, but it shattered on impact.

Sato screamed something unintelligible.

"Did he just yell 'I blame capitalism'?" Izuku blinked.

"Sounds like him," I said with a shrug.

"Someone needs to stop this," Power Loader groaned.

Izuku looked over his shoulder with a glowing grin. "We are."

And for the first time, I realized something:

He wasn't just observing the war game.

He was winning it.

Without ever setting foot inside the field.

And the best part?

They'd never see it coming.