"Switch to camera six," Izuku said with a little too much enthusiasm.

I complied.

Power Loader leaned forward, squinting. "Oh. Oh no. Not him."

Aoyama stood proudly in the middle of a destroyed plaza. His cape flapped dramatically in the simulated wind. The bots were already swarming the zone, crawling from alleys, rooftops, and underground trapdoors—predatory, calculated, and deadly.

But Aoyama?

He struck a pose.

One hand to the sky. One leg elegantly extended. Chest puffed out, belt already glowing.

"I AM THE DAZZLING HERO—!"

He fired his naval laser.

Straight into a reflective window.

PING–ZING–BOOM.

The laser bounced back and exploded a streetlight above his head. It shattered, raining glass and debris onto his perfect hair.

I blinked slowly. "He just flashbanged himself."

Midoriya wheezed. "Oh my god, he dazzled himself into oblivion."

Power Loader buried his face in his hands. "Why is he like this?"

Aoyama staggered, disoriented, hand dramatically flailing in front of him.

"Mon dieu! My vision! My fabulous vision!"

Two training bots dropped from the roof behind him. One lunged. Aoyama turned just in time to shriek, "UNHAND ME, YOU MECHANICAL PEASANT—!"

And was promptly slammed into the pavement.

He fired his laser again while being tackled, but it misfired sideways and obliterated a fake hotdog stand.

"...That was Kaminari's lunch," I noted.

"RIP," Midoriya muttered. "He'll avenge it with brain cells he doesn't have."

Aoyama tried to crawl away dramatically, dragging himself with flair and sparkles, groaning, "Tell my fans... I died... glamorous..."

The bots had no time for flair. One pinned his leg, the other clamped his arms.

"Can't he deactivate himself?!" Power Loader groaned.

"Nope," Midoriya chirped, eyes glued to the screen. "He thinks surrender is for ugly people."

Another bot launched a net over him. Aoyama shrieked like a Victorian damsel, arms flailing like a flattened swan.

"I AM TOO SHINY TO BE CAPTURED—!"

"Do you think we should help him?" I asked.

Midoriya leaned back, thoughtful. "I think we should not."

Power Loader took a long sip of coffee and muttered, "I'm disabling his camera feed. For everyone's sanity."

Aoyama's final, muffled words before the screen cut to black?

"MY LASER WAS TOO BEAUTIFUL FOR THIS WORLD—!"

Static.

We all sat in silence for a beat.

Then Izuku turned to me, solemn.

"That was the most tragic opera I've ever seen."

I nodded. "The bots showed mercy. I wouldn't have."

Power Loader exhaled slowly. "Remind me to reprogram the bots to detect glitter next time."

"Or just teach Aoyama basic geometry," Midoriya suggested.

We all laughed.

And somewhere in Ground Beta, a single glittering soul was carried away by two robots... still sparkling in defeat.

"Camera eight," Midoriya said, spinning in Power Loader's chair like a gremlin. "Let's check in on the stealth squad."

I tapped the controls.

Up came Tsuyu and Shoji, crouched low behind a ruined cafe. Tsuyu was doing hand signals like a professional spy. Shoji mirrored them with his many arms. They looked serious. Focused. Precise.

"She's one of the few competent ones," Power Loader said, a little hopeful.

Midoriya hummed ominously. "For now."

Tsuyu whispered something into her comm, eyes narrowed like a trained assassin. She slinked down the alley with perfect grace.

Then her tongue shot out—quick, sharp, controlled—and pulled a crate in front of the entrance. It was quiet. Smooth.

"Okay, smooth start," I said. "What's the catch?"

Midoriya smiled like he was about to announce a plot twist in a horror movie. "That crate's full of smoke bombs. And the bots are heat-sensitive."

I stared.

Onscreen, Shoji gave a thumbs-up. Tsuyu gave a thumbs-up back.

Then she jumped on top of the crate.

Power Loader sucked in a breath through his teeth. "Don't—"

KER-SNAP–POOF–FWWWWOOOSH.

Smoke bomb detonation. All of them. A mushroom cloud of gray chaos exploded around her. The bots immediately changed direction. Red lights flickered on their foreheads. Target locked.

"Stealth. Gone," I muttered.

Through the smoke, we could hear Tsuyu coughing. "Kero—what the heck was in that—kero—!"

She leapt up into the air to escape—and mid-jump, collided face-first into a powerline.

ZZZZAP.

The camera feed jittered as sparks flew.

"Shoji—kero—I'm compromised!" she croaked over comms.

Shoji was already retreating, but a bot from above dropkicked him back into the alley.

The next scene looked like a nature documentary gone wrong: bots descending on a confused amphibian.

Tsuyu jumped wall to wall, trying to escape, her tongue flailing out to swing from a pole—only for it to stick to one of the bots.

"Oh no," Midoriya whispered, leaning forward.

It yeeted her into a trash can.

The metal clang echoed like a bell of defeat. The bots circled the overturned can like sharks.

"I never thought I'd see the day she became aluminum-wrapped frog sushi," I muttered.

From inside the can came her muffled voice:

"I'd like to go home now, kero..."

One of the bots poked the lid off, another scanned her. Status: Out of Commission.

Power Loader just muttered, "Why does no one understand smoke bombs aren't party favors?!"

Midoriya was full-on snorting at this point. "She was doing so well. And then she vibrated herself into a power grid."

"I was rooting for her," I admitted. "For five seconds."

"Next time," Midoriya said, "we're labeling the crates."

"Or just putting her in a room full of foam padding," Power Loader added. "With a label that says 'do not ninja.'"

We all nodded in grim agreement.

A nearby monitor beeped.

"Who's next?" I asked, already feeling a little sorry for them.

Midoriya grinned, clicking the next feed. "Oh... look who just walked into a construction zone without looking up."

Power Loader paled. "Is that Iida?"

Midoriya: "Yup."

Shoto: "Oh boy."

"Feed five," Midoriya said. "Construction sector."

I clicked it, and there he was—Tenya Iida, walking with perfectly upright posture like he was doing a corporate motivational video for future interns.

He strode between hollowed-out buildings, neon signs flickering above him, completely unaware of the fact that he had just entered Ground Beta's most unstable zone.

"Please tell me he read the hazard markers," Power Loader groaned.

"He did," Midoriya said, "but then he quoted All Might and sprinted past them."

We all leaned closer.

Iida stood at the base of a building skeleton. A huge metal beam was being slowly lifted by a crane arm-bot overhead, guided by red sensors.

Midoriya hit a button. Zoom in.

Iida tapped his earpiece and said, "Team! I have spotted the enemy's potential path of retreat! I shall intercept and cut them off before they can regroup! INITIATING ENGINE TURBO MODE!"

"Oh no," I whispered.

He launched forward.

The moment his engines roared, the crane bot flinched. Its arm jiggled. The beam swung like a pendulum of pure karma.

"Iida, look up," Midoriya muttered like a curse.

The beam missed him by one inch—and instead shattered the sidewalk behind him, setting off a pressure plate that opened a maintenance hatch right under his feet.

THUNK.

Iida dropped like a rock into the pit with a sharp "OOF!" before we saw his legs sticking out, engines still sputtering like confused lawn mowers.

Power Loader winced. "I told Cementoss not to leave that trap door active."

"He didn't," Midoriya said.

Pause.

"You turned it back on," Power Loader muttered flatly.

"I turned it back on," Midoriya admitted.

Iida, still upside down, kicked his legs and somehow flung himself out of the hatch like a catapult. He did a mid-air somersault and landed in a heroic crouch.

"Oh wow," I said. "He recovered."

Then a training bot stepped out from behind a beam and just decked him in the face.

Iida hit the ground so hard it echoed.

Midoriya whispered, "That was personal."

Another bot stepped forward. This one carried a clipboard. No joke—it had a literal clipboard and glasses on its faceplate.

"It's the mock-referee bot," Power Loader said, rubbing his forehead.

The bot leaned over Iida, who was groaning in pain.

On screen, it raised the clipboard and stamped a bright red "✘ – DISQUALIFIED" on it.

"That bot just told him to retire with paperwork," I muttered.

"I'm gonna need that stamp," Midoriya said. "For morale."

Power Loader sighed. "Why does this class cause more damage in training than villains do in real life?"

"Oh don't worry," Midoriya said. "We're just getting started."

He clicked the next camera. "Oooohhh. Kaminari just tried to flirt with a sentry drone."

I blinked. "You're joking."

"Nope," Midoriya grinned. "Let's watch him get electrocuted while flirting with a glorified microwave."

Power Loader held up a hand. "Wait, wait. I need popcorn for this."