"So you're saying the exercise is a just the first part?" Todoroki said strangely, "Now we have a rescue mission part two... to rescue our friends?"

"That's right," Midnight announced way too cheerfully, "All the students who failed the first exercise are now hostages. They get a chance to redeem themselves if they figure out how to escape before you get there, and you win if you can free at least one of them and get them to safety. But it won't be easy-- you'll be taking on multiple pros at once, now."

"Flip. What kind of fake rescue mission is this?" Camie complained, "You guys are intense."

"I can't believe so many of us are captured," Kirishima said.

Out of 1-A, only Deku, Uraraka, Tsuyu, Hagakure, Todoroki, Momo, Bakugo, and Kirishima were still free. Everyone else was captured. It seemed the Pros had tried extra hard for real this time.

Out of Shiketsu, only Camie, Shishikura, Yoarshi, and two others were left. A girl and boy.

"Your class are wimps," Bakugo said to Camie.

"Yo, I don't think they were expecting actual Pros to attack them. Like, it's more weird there's so many of you guys left," Camie said.

Shine rejoined them. "It's part of the obvious bias of these exercises," she said.

"Don't start, Likstar," Midnight said, "For this exercise, you're out for forfeiting information."

"It wasn't against the rules of the Sim," Shine said.

"But it renders you useless as an antagonist, so I'm doing in," Midnight said. She gave the students a rather unsettling smile. "Watch out, students. I may not be so nice next time we meet." She ran off.

"Uh... if Midnight is participating, how are we going to...you know... fight?" Kirishima said.

Shine sat down in a chair. "Well, I'm not really supposed to help you. I already told you what I know."

"This feels a little... too real," Momo said, "I mean, I know that's the point, but... our classmates don't even get to participate as heroes. They have to be victims."

"Clever, isn't it?" Shine said, "This could happen to any of you at any time." She leaned back. "Already has, hasn't it? It's important to learn how to handle these situations as a pro. Sometimes people you like may be in trouble. You can't let that make you panic. However, as I actually care about your mental state... if any of you start feeling too overwhelmed by this, you can sit this one out. Not everyone is ready for the same thing. It's okay if you aren't. This isn't a real thing. It's better not to push yourself into a state of panic if you don't need to."

"I think I'll be fine," Todoroki said coolly.

"Yeah, we can't let this stop us, Miss Likstar," Kirishima said.

Shine looked a little disappointed that no one was going to protest this further.

"Well, in that case, you have 3 more minutes to recuperate and plan before going back in. Think of it as a mock reconnaissance meet up. Normally you'd have police reports to work with... but in this case, we don't have the time for that, so you must assess the situation from what you already saw."

Everyone looked at Momo, even the Shiketsu students.

Momo swallowed and put a hand to her chin. "Well... we know it's our teachers, so we know their quirks... We just barely got away from them... Snipe is a problem because of his range, and theoretically, his weapons are more dangerous. Midnight could also lie in wait... but... the only way to safe guard against her is to have a breathing mask. For so many of us that could be difficult."

"Can we call in for police back up?" one of the Shiketsu students asked Shine.

Shine thought about it. "Sure. But I wouldn't plan on them getting here in time to really help."

"This is hard," Kirishima said.

Deku was muttering to himself. "I guess we'd just have to surround the villains and take them from the outside, use brute force. Maybe create a distraction."

"Like, Broccoli boy," Camie said, "isn't that totes flashy? Like they'll expect that, right? Maybe we should just go ninja on them before you try the gangsta method."

"Huh?" Uraraka said.

"Maybe there is something to be said for that," Yoarshi said, "Sneaking in might be more effective."

He was the last person who could do that.

"Why not both?" Tsuyu said.

"1 Minute," Shine warned.

"You regretting asking for this yet?" Camie said to Bakugo.

"Don't be stupid. This is nothing," Bakugo said, though he didn't actually feel that way, if he were honest with himself, "We just need to draw those pros out so we can kill 'em, then whoever can sneak in and get all those useless extras and win this thing!"

"That's outrageous!" Shishikura said. 

"That's probably the only plan that would work..." Momo said, "but I don't think we could handle so many pros."

Shine and Eri looked at them.

"You can do it, Momo-San," Eri said. She didn't understand what they were talking about, but Momo looked kind of stressed, so she wanted to help.

"Aww..." Camie and Uraraka said.

Shine took a sip of iced coffee. "Maybe you should just defer to Bakugo, since he clearly has the confidence to think this will work. No time for second guessing, is there?"

"I agree with that! We must just go for it!" Yoarshi boomed.

"But that's not a plan," Shishikura said, "It's just reckless attacking because we're overconfident. I for one do not support it, and are we considering the source? Bakugo is famous for being an arrogant ass."

"Dude," Kirishima said, "Just work with us, we don't have time to argue."

Eri blinked nervously.

"Ahem," Shine said, holding out her drink in a businesslike way, "Shishikura, was it? Control your language. We have a child present. And also, if you prefer not to work with Bakugo, I'll let you sit this one out. Just tell us what you want."

Silence.

"Well, it's still not a good plan," Shishikura grumbled, "but I suppose if I have no choice... But I refuse to work with Bakugo or his friends. We should split into groups. Work with people we know more."

"That would make sense," one of the other Shiketsu students said, "It's easier that way." She was the girl.

"Ah, come on, Moto. Where's the fun in that?" Camie said.

"I think we can't afford that," Momo said carefully, "There's more of us, so we need to distribute more evenly... Who is good at stealth other than Hagakure?"

"Me," Tsuyu said, "Plus, I'll be good at sneaking out our friends when I can use my tongue and stick to walls. It's just logical."

"I'm more suited to attacking," Todoroki said.

"I can do stealth," Moto said casually, "If you need us on that."

"Then... the rest of us could be on offense," Momo said, "I am not sure how to draw the Pros out though. I think they will expect us to attack them. We'll need an opening for the others to slip by."

"What do you think the pros would do, based on your knowledge of them?" Shine asked calmly.

"I..." Momo considered. "I think... Mr. Aizawa always wants to test us by doing unexpected things... He's probably prepared for anything we would try. Also they are so much more experienced than us, that they could stop us no matter what we do."

"You think?" Camie said wide-eyed. "Dang, fahm, and I was thinking we could totally beat them too."

"How are you so vapid?" Shishikura said.

"Like, I know. It's real, am I right?" Camie ran a hand through her hair proudly.

"Vapid means dumb, Camie," Moto said casually.

"Oh, does it?" Camie said carelessly.

Shishikura looked ready to die.

Shine stifled a laugh.

"Even if they are more experienced," Todoroki spoke, "they leave a way for us to win. We're each supposed to rescue at least one person, but there's twice as many captured students, so some of us need to be able to get more than that. That's not going to be easy if we have to carry them."

"I could make them lighter and float them out of the building," Uraraka said.

"That's reckless," Shishikura accused, "They could be in harm's way."

"Then we can just drag them out," Tsuyu said.

"Wouldn't it be better if they could defend themselves though?" Kirishima said.

"But we don't know that they'll be conscious. Midnight could knock them all out before we get there," Momo mused.

"Your time is up," Shine said, "Sorry... but you're on the right track. Here's a little word of advice, don't be afraid to do things a little differently from normal. Don't try to make it flashy or pretty and don't engage anyone you don't have to in a fight. Good luck and may the force be with you." She winked.

"The force?" Todoroki said blankly.

"We have to go," Tsuyu said. They all began moving back into the playing field.

Momo wished now that she'd eaten a snack before they left. She'd used up a lot of energy already.

"Do you think Likstar gave us a hint back there?" Hagakure asked.

"I don't think your teacher would do that," the boy Shiksetsu student, who had yet to introduce himself, said.

"No, she would, definitely," Kirishima said, "What she'd say again...?"

"Do things differently. Don't try to be flashy or pretty and don't fight if we don't have to," Momo said.

Camie snapped her fingers. "Yo, what if we didn't fight at all?"

"Excuse me?" Uraraka said.

Camie grinned. "I have the BEST idea, fahm."

"If it's your idea, it's not going to work," Shishikura said, "We can't trick or glamour our way out of this one, Utsushimi. Why don't you take this seriously for once?"

"What was your idea?" Momo asked, before Camie could either reply or choose to take no notice of that remark.

Camie shrugged. "I just thought, why do we need to fight, what if they just think we want to, you know? Then you sneak them out and boom! We win."

"I doubt we could avoid fighting altogether," Todoroki mused.

"Maybe, but we could fight way less," Tsuyu admitted, "If I am understanding you, Utsushimi, you mean that we should use a distraction? But how would we do that?"

"It'd be a lot for just moi, though," Camie said, "Gee, can any of you pull off tricks like that?"

After a lot of discussions, while they slowly picked their way to the center of the city where the tall tower buiding was, they had tweaked the plan several times until they had something decidedly original. But they still had some rough edges to smooth out.

Pretty much everyone favored the plan except Shishikura, who still thought Camie couldn't possibly have a good idea-- and Deku, who was just not sure about avoiding a fight being the right answer. Kirishima wasn't sure too, but he was more for rescuing their friends.

Momo had come up with the idea that tied the plan together, taking inspiration from when she'd passed the license exam. Tsuyu had added to it.

Once they got fairly close enough to stake out the building, Hagakure looked around for any sign of the pros watching them.

The only Pros good at detection they could think of were... none of the teachers who were present, except perhaps Ectoplasm, who might be able to use clones to scout for them.

Midnight was the biggest problem, if she saw them and took them out... but she'd also have to risk putting the other Pros to sleep, so it was likely she'd try to corner them before using her power. 

This in mind, they enacted their plan.

Using a sniper device, Momo took out all the windows she could see on this side of the building, with perfect aim. 

Todoroki froze the bottom half of it, making a barricade... but only after Tsuyu, Hagakure, Kirishima, Uraraka, and Shishikura, had already slipped in one of the doors. Camie covered them with an illusion.

Now that the Pros knew they were out there, they enacted the second part of the plan.

Came made a vast illusion of  Todoroki, Bakugo, and Yoarshi attacking the front of the building where the windows were now broken.

They weren't sure this was going to work. They had Yoarhsi blow out the windows before she did it to make it more convincing, While Todoroki froze more lower down, but it was pretty far to reach, so they couldn't do any huge displays.

But it did the trick when 13 appeared to suck up all the debris they had just made and try to draw in their quirks. Of course, she destroyed the illusion.

But Momo instructed Camie to make another set of them much farther down the street, running away.

Now the moment of truth-- Would 13 give chase? Or would she stay back and guard the building?

She chose to give chase, yelling something about, "I've got you now, heroes!"

"Don't you think she knows it's a trick?" Yoarshi said.

"Not necessarily. We could actually be running away," Todoroki said.

"And this is where you'll have to make our ruse convincing," Momo told Yoarshi, "Try to hold her off as long as possible."

Yoarshi nodded and took off. He popped out of a side street just in time to draw 13's attention. With his wind power, he could keep feeding her black hole without getting sucked in himself, but it would take a lot of his own power to resist that pull. Basically he couldn't do anything else.

Momo got out some special binoculars to take a look into the building. "I see more Pros watching, but no one is going to help 13. We need more of them to leave for our plan to work."

"Bakugo should just blow up that floor," Camie said.

"Like that's going to work," the Shiketsu boy said, "Come on, Camie, we need a serious suggestion."

"I think I have this," Moto spoke up, "but you should probably stay here."

She walked off calmly. 

"What is she doing? She wasn't even contributing to the plan...!" Momo said.

"I thought she might do this," the boy said, "but trust me, you don't want to be close to it if she does."

They watched. 13 and Yoarshi were still at it.

"Yoarshi, darling, you might want to move," Moto tilted her head saucily.

"Eh, she's copying my thing," Camie muttered.

"Does she have a power type quirk?" Bakugo asked.

"No..." Camie actually looked a little nervous.

Moto blew a cloud of what looked like dark haze. Yoarshi pulled back.

13 seemed confused. "What is this? You think this is going to stop me?"

She sucked it in.

"Of course, I'm not sure, with 13's helmet, that's going to do much..." the Shiketsu boy mused, "but then again, she generally doesn't need much of an opening. Just being around it..."

Yoarshi had pulled back and was using air to keep the haze away from himself.

"Is this like your quirk?" Todoroki asked Camie.

"Nah, fahm, it's so much worse," Camie said.

Nothing happened right off, but when 13 turned back to Yoarshi to attack again, she suddenly seemed to flinch as if she was in pain, and her quirk began to start spiraling out. She stopped using it and went down on her knees, panting.

Moto sauntered back to the rest of them. "Done and done. I'm sure they'll be coming out any minute to see what happened to her."

Of course this was under the assumption that the Pros would treat the matter honorably, even while playing villains, but that tended to be more of a thing for villains in gangs.

And perhaps the Pros were actually legitimately concerned, because it only took a minute for Present Mic and Snipe to climb out of the building, with help from Ectoplasm's large clone, and come to aid 13.

"What's your quirk??" Deku asked Moto in awe.

Moto shrugged. "It's called Corrupt. I can make other people's quirks malfunction or backfire on them by infecting them with my special haze. The more they touch, the more off they get."

They looked at her in horror.

"Oh, don't worry, it's temporary," she said, "and it's mild, as long as the exposure is minimal like just then, 13 will be back to normal in just an hour or so."

"An hour!?" Deku squeaked.

"You could defeat all the Pros with that..." Todoroki said.

Moto shook her head. "I can only make a minimal amount per day, so I can't use it like crazy, and it can start affecting me if I inhale too much. Really makes me feel like s---. I prefer to use it as little as possible."

"How much more can you use it?" Deku asked.

"Maybe once or twice more before I get a migraine," Moto said.

"But any of us could inhale or touch it and be out of commission for the rest of the fight too," the other boy said, "so she shouldn't use it while we're around."

[Moto is a completely original character. Not canon. I don't know when we will find out anything about Shiketsu, so I had to invent a few, but I think the idea of her will catch on. Her origin story is not till much later in the plot, however.]

"Then we'll have to deal with the rest of the pros ourselves," Todoroki said.

But it wasn't as hard as they expected. They had to use earplugs to defend them from Present Mic, but Yoarshi used his wind to distort some of the sound waves, while Momo used a weighted net to pin him down. Todoroki froze Snipe in place while he was distracted by all this.

The Pros either were not trying too hard, or the terrain made it easier for the students to hide, with the  help of Camie creating illusions of them not being there, and thus sneak attack.

But there were complications after that.

Camie started to breathe hard and get a sore throat after making her most recent illusion and almost passed out.

And Eraserhead and Ectoplasm were still at large. The students were fighting off the clones, but Eraserhead was no where to be seen. He might still be inside, or he might be prowling around the city ready to ambush them.

Momo began to feel a little limp after taking out several clones with difficulty. Todoroki was fine, Bakugo was fine, but Moto was useless against clones, and the boy student was not doing much damage with his quirk. Camie was sitting against a wall trying to recover from nearly hyperventilating...

[This weakness is made up, but seems like the most likely side effect of overuse of her quirk. I doubt we'll ever find out, but if we do I will probably come back and change it. It works for now.]

While this was going on, the recon squad was sneaking through the building trying to find their classmates. It took a while, even with Momo giving them a special pair of goggles to help them search.

Finally they found the right floor.

"Tohru, you should sneak in," Tsuyu said, "Midnight won't see you, so she might not use her quirk, and Mr. Aizawa can't either."

"We still haven't seen Mr. West again, though," Kirishima muttered, "I wonder if he's still participating."

(He actually wasn't currently participating. He'd run back to talk to Shine and make fun of the Pros while they weren't around to hear it.)

Hagakure snuck in just like they said, and looked around until she found Midnight and Aizawa both guarding a whole room full of restrained and unconscious students.

"They're doing better than I expected," Midnight was saying to Aizawa, "It was clever luring some of us away."

"But that means they're going to be too few of them to rescue all these people before the time's up," Aizawa said. "It's still sloppy."

"How exactly did we want them to resolve this scenario?" Midnight asked, "I never really got that part."

"There's a way," Aizawa said vaguely.

Hagakure wondered to herself if the teachers actually knew what that way was.

She did a head count to make sure all the students were there. Jiro and Kaminari had both passed out right next to each other. How cute. (Tohru was a closet shipper almost as much as Mina was.)

Tohru snuck back to the others.

"So, they are all there, but how can we take out Aizawa and Midnight without getting put to sleep?"

"I'll turn them into flesh balls," Shishikura said.

"What if Eraser stops your quirk first? He's scary like that," Tsu said, "Then our cover is blown and we're done. We need to ensure that Midnight is out of our way."

"Do you think if I could make her float, she'd be too distracted to stop us?" Ochaco said.

"It seems to be that if we got her outside, it'd be much harder for us to inhale all her fragrance," Tsu said, "but as long as we don't breathe, we have a few seconds or minutes until she can do much. I can hold my breath for a long time."

"But then she's got a whip too," Hagakure said.

"Then, Tohru, you have to sneak her whip away, and while she's distracted by that, Tsu can take her outside. Eraser can't erase your quirks," Ochaco said, "And Shishikura, Kirishima, and I will distract Eraser."

"That's only going to work if we move faster than Midnight can release her scent," Shishikura said.

"We don't have time for anything else," Ochaco said, "and it's the best we can do without any other quirks to work with."'

Torhu didn't like that this plan relied so heavily on her, but she couldn't say no, so she screwed up her nerve and snuck back into the room. One thing she noticed was that some of the students were starting to come around, but they didn't move a whole lot.

Hagakure slowly came up behind Midnight, who was too much engaged in trying to watch the fight outside from a broken window to even think about an invisible girl sneaking up on her. 

Tohru realized a little too late that Aizawa could still see her do this, but she slowly started trying to lift Midnight's whip off her belt.

Midnight felt it and started to whirl around. Tohru just barely ducked and yanked the whip the rest of the way off, sprawling.

"It's Hagakure!" Midnight cried.

Aizawa took his scarf in hand.

Hagakure could think of nothing else to do other than toss the whip out the broken window. That actually made Midnight kind of angry.

"Did she just jump out the window with my whip!?"

"That didn't look like a jump, it looked like a throw. She's still here," Aizawa said.

"My whip!" Midnight looked out the window. "That's just not fair!"

The other students decided to just proceed with their plan. Kirishima charged in at Aizawa, who had to jump out of the way and capture him in the scarf. Uraraka ran in also. 

Midnight was going to just put them to sleep, though that would also put Earaserhead to sleep, but Tsu bounded in in camouflage mode and grabbed her with her tongue and jumped out the window with her, sticking to the wall.

The students didn't really think Midnight was faking being pretty scared by this new position.

But of course, only Shishikura was left to start freeing the students.

His solution? To turn them into flesh balls and start carrying them out that way.

Dealing with the pros was the hard part for the other students. Tsu didn't know what to do now that she had Midnight, and Midnight was already trying to struggle back into the building. "Eraser! A little help!" she called, "Toss me a line!"

"A little busy..." Eraser dodged and blocked Kirishima's quirk.

Suddenly hair extended out and knocked Eraser into the wall. "Apologies," Monasa said, "but I wish also to escape."

"Woah, cool man," Kirishima said, going to unite him, "You were awake?"

"I believe my quirk kept me from inhaling as much, so yes," Monasa said, "I will help you evacuate the others." He gathered several people and began carrying them out of the room with hair.

"That's so weird but so useful," Uraraka said.

That summed up most of Shiketsu's class quirks.

Aizawa got back up. And Erased their quirks. It looked bad, but Jiro zapped him while he wasn't looking. She'd woken up first out of the girls.

"Thanks," Uraraka said, "Though I feel kind of bad for Aizawa..."

Aizawa felt bad for himself. Since he wasn't willing to beat up his own students too severely, and he was outnumbered, he only stood to suffer if he kept trying to stop them. He decided to just stay down. It was the most logical course of action.

And the time maxed out not long after that.

The end of the exercise garnered mixed results.

When the teachers gave the students their feedback, they said that while the plan was good, too much relied on the teachers not trying their hardest. But they acknowledged that if a villain was involved, it might still have been the best plan.

They had not gotten all the hostages out of the city or to safety before the timer went off, but had gotten more than half, so they passed, and those ones who'd helped them also did.

Midnight was mad about her whip still and yelled at Tohru about it. Shine made it worse by saying she probably had spares.

Aizawa dropped the final bomb on them though.

"You all forgot one crucial detail that Likstar told you."

"What?" they said.

"You didn't capture the boss villain," Aizawa said, "They got away, and that meant that the problem is still at large."

"But... who was the boss?" some students asked.

"I was," the Shiketsu teacher said. They all gaped.

"He was hiding in a different room. None of you even looked for him," Midnight said.

"Ah, gotta catch the boss," Wally said unhelpfully, "Or he'll just get away and do the whole thing over again."

"But..." the student just about broke, "we didn't even know we were supposed to do that..."

"What was the point of Likstar letting it slip if you weren't going to follow through on it?" Aizawa countered.

They all looked pretty defeated.

"It wasn't a lot of info to go on," Shine spoke up, "Don't you think it was wiser not pick a fight they couldn't be sure of winning? I would give them credit for focusing on the important thing,  rescuing their friends. It was a rescue mission after all, not a capture mission."

"This is like that time they faked us out with that love story..." Bakugo muttered, annoyed.

"They what?" Camie was intrigued.

"Considering how few students were left, I think they did outstandingly," Shine added, "and they took you by surprise. I think that warrants some praise, don't you, Eraser?"

Aizawa gave her a death glare. "I am not saying they did badly, but there was room for improvement."

"So we did well?" Kaminari said.

"You got captured, so no." Aizawa was kind of crushing.

Kaminari hung his head.

"Perhaps, we were careless..." Shishikura said.

"I'm more mad that you made us into flesh balls to 'rescue us'." Sero made a face.

In the end, the lecture stopped so they could all rest and let some of the students go to the Nurse. Good thing Recovery Girl had tagged along just in case this happened.