The members of the gang who were confronting the heroes outside were the very unpleasant Setsuno (the one who steals),

 Tabe (The one who eats everything), 

and Hojo (uses crystals to fight).

Suneater had taken them all down singlehandedly before, so to two top Pros, one Miss Joke, and one Bakugo, it should have been nothing at all.

But all of them attacked with a fury that suggested they'd used drugs beforehand. And it made them crazy.

Tabe was already kind of crazy, actually. Setsuno wasn't much better. Hojo seemed the calmest, but he went wild too.

Bakugo dodged, but his actual attack had no effect on Hojo's crystal, and Hojo pushed him away-- and Miss Joke.

Miss Joke attempted to use her quirk on him--and it worked, but didn't work well enough to stop him. The drug probably made the effects less potent or gave him less control to begin with, so he attacked even while laughing.

Miss Joke was beginning to feel like she was a small fish in a big pond on missions with these people. Maybe small time criminals were really all she was suited to. Frankly, she had very little attack power and no super strength to back up her punches. She could kick butt against smaller threats, but these guys were S-class level hopped up on steroids.

Mirko shoved her aside. "Stay out of this one, Joke." She jumped and kicked the Crystal user back--which hurt her feet to do. "Dang it, this guy is hard to nullify!" She kicked again. The crystal cracked...but didn't shatter.

"One more hit ought to do it."

But before she really got the chance to do so, Hojo retreated with his friend's help.

Meanwhile Hawks was single-handedly taking on Tabe, who was...eating his feathers. Yeah, it wasn't the best match up. Hawks spread them out so he couldn't reach them, but anytime he got closer, the guy would literally try to swallow them whole. 

He was faster than he should have been, too.

Hawks picked him up with the feathers to try to incapacitate him, but he just tried to eat those too.

"Uh, how do I stop this guy?" Hawks said.

"Pathetic." Shigaraki was just watching.

The thief guy was acting more as backup. He stole Bakugo's gauntlet when Bakugo wasn't looking and then threw it at Hawks.

Hawks went spiraling through the air. He shielded himself with his own feathers to avoid injury but landed painfully to the roof of one of the far buildings.

"The number 2 hero is taking a hard time from these pathetic losers," Mirko shook her head, "Please."

"Uh, I don't see you taking them down." Miss Joke was a little tired of Mirko's attitude.

"Oh, I'm just getting warmed up." Mirko tossed her hair. "I think we're matched up wrong, is what it is. These guys are too hopped up for us to take them down like we normally would. But they'll run out of juice. We just need to wear them down."

"If Hands-Face would help, we might have taken down this creep already." Bakugo blasted Hojo back, but it only bought a little time.

Then he popped out a grenade to do more damage, and that one disappeared too.

"One thing with my quirk," Miss Joke said, "it can affect people I'm not fighting too, so I don't want to use it while you're so close. If we could spread out more."

"Duck." Mirko slammed them out of the way as a huge ton of crystal shot towards them and pinned them to the wall.

"How did that not kill us?" Bakugo was amazed that somehow none of the shards had pierced their bodies.

"Luck?" Miss Joke smiled wryly.

Mirko started shoving at the crystal. "I'll have this off us in a second."

Setsuko leered down at them from above. He held up the grenade. "I do love irony."

Bakugo's eyes widened. "Cover!" he said. He pushed both female heroes down as the grenade was tossed at them.

It did nothing to the crystal-- the hardness of it seemed boosted by the drug too-- but it did have an impact on them.

Bakugo was immune to some level of his own quirk, and it didn't hurt him as much as it would have anyone else, but the force of it knocked him out and burned Miss Joke's arm.

Mirko was small enough to actually be mostly shielded by the crystal, which she frantically kept trying to kick off of them. How did they end up like this?

"This is why I don't freaking work with a team. It slows you down with all this watching out for each other's backs. S---!" she muttered loud enough for Miss Joke to hear her.

Miss Joke had never wanted to b---- slap someone so much in her life while on the job.

"Bakugo?" She tried to shake him awake. "Please be alive or Eraser will kill me."

Bakugo didn't answer, but he was breathing, to her relief.

"What? They're still alive?" they heard Setsuno say in disappointment, "Kid's more indestructible than he looks. Drop another ton of crystal on 'em."

"No fricking way am I dying to a bunch of rock..." Mirko shoved harder. She finally succeeded in breaking some of it... It wasn't going to be fast enough though.

"Hawks!" Miss Joke started yelling, "Help!"

Hawks was picking himself up, and Tabe was racing after him, still trying to eat him. [I know how bad it sounds, but it's the guy's literal quirk. What am I supposed to say?]

Hawks could have survived it easily by running away, to be sure, but actually fighting him was the hard part. He needed a way to attack the guy he couldn't make physical contact with... Dang it, he envied Endeavor at times like this.

The problem was only Bakugo and Miss Joke had a non contactual quirk, and they were both pinned or out of commission.

Mirko was right-- they should have chosen different opponents.

It didn't help that the villains were all working in unison, and the heroes had not done so yet.

Hawks then heard Miss Joke yelling for help and saw Hojo shooting a mountain of crystal out from himself again. It would kill him to keep using his quirk like that...

Hawks shot feathers at it to catch it and slow its fall. 

Tabe jumped at him while he was distracted, and he jerked trying to keep the guy at bay with his other feathers...and started plummeting. He didn't have enough now to fly.

The chunk of rock began to sink.

But then the chunk on the others just vanished... No, it turned to dust.

Shigaraki was standing there looking really annoyed. "I can't believe I have to save you idiots just to get Dabi back. This cannot be worth the humiliation."

"You...helped us?" Miss Joke was amazed.

"Duck, moron!" Mirko kicked Shigaraki out of the way and dragged the other two after her just before the second chunk fell completely. She rolled them all out of the way at the last second.

Miss Joke barely made it out of danger. Dust shot up as the mountain of crystals hit the ground.

Shigaraki spat dirt out of his mouth. "B----!"

"Ungrateful ass." Mirko saw no irony in that comment. "Now where's that b-----d?" She saw the Tabe guy trying to devour Hawks' wings. "Oh, that does it. Joke, take care of crystal brain there." She ran and jumped, kicking Tabe off Hawks just in the nick of time.

Hawks' feathers began to reassemble luckily, so he'd be back in the game in a second.

Miss Joke set Bakugo aside and looked at Hojo, who seemed to be in pain. Too much quirk usage.

She hated to aggravate it, even if he was a brute, but she used her quirk and he started writhing. This time it was more effective. He must be coming off his high...or he was just more tired period.

But she couldn't knock him out-- he was too well defended.

Luckily Mirko came back at that time and kicked him into the ground with evident enjoyment.

"Ha! Suck on that, you overgrown piece of rock candy!"

Hojo was at least stunned.

Shigaraki disintegrated his other crystal, just because it annoyed him to look at it.

Bakugo blinked and sat up. "What the h--- did I miss?"

"Oh, nothing much..." Miss Joke looked around. Wasn't there one more?

Suddenly Setsuno jumped on her from somewhere else.

"You b----! Think we'll go down that easy!" Something metal flashed in his hands.

 But it wasn't a knife, it was...a shot?

"Miss Joke!" Mirko jumped forward and tried to yank his arm back, but it was too fast. Miss Joke even punched him off, but she felt something scratch her anyway...a needle?

Mirko kicked Setsuno and he fell over.

"Scum..." she muttered.

"Smile Lady, are you okay?" Bakugo asked.

Miss Joke rubbed her shoulder. "Something pricked me..."

Shigaraki picked something out of the dirt. "I recognize this... It's the quirk blocking drug."

"What?!" Miss Joke had some reason to be alarmed.

Hawks landed next to them, rubbing his new scratches. "Well, that was harder than I'd have thought... What's wrong?"

Everyone looked grim, even Shigaraki, though for a different reason. The implications for the LOV weren't great here either.

"But come on." Mirko looked scared, and that was a bad sign. "In one day he couldn't have."

"It's been nearly two full days," Bakugo said.

"Still, doesn't it take time to make stuff like that?"

"But he already knew how..." Miss Joke tried to use her quirk. "I can't..." She looked panicked. "I can't use it!"

"You mean that's..." Hawks stared at it. "But...why would they just be carrying that? Isn't that dangerous?"

"Well, we're fricked." Shigaraki was not one to look on the bright side. "It's going to be too late to save anyone if they have this."

Hawks looked at Hojo, who was twitching and then moaning in pain.

"Hey." He grabbed him and yanked him up. "What's in those little darts? Is it that quirk removal drug?"

Hojo just smiled despite the pain. "How should I know, hero? I just follow orders."

Hawks tossed him aside.

"All right, calm down, Miss Joke," he said, "Let's not assume the worst."

"Why not?" Bakugo asked.

"Maybe it's just a temporary quirk blocking drug. Rumi's right-- it's really soon to have made any more. I mean, you think they have a perfect lab here? He just busted out, right?"

"Actually he busted out a while ago, according to rumor," Shigaraki didn't help by saying, "so he could have prepared for this."

Mirko started searching Setsuno. She pulled out a small case of pellets. "There's only three here. That's not a lot."

"You'd think they'd have more..." Hawks said.

"If it was a prototype..." Miss Joke said.

"But he perfected it, used it on Phase Guy," Bakugo said.

"But we don't know how many of those he had..." Hawks said.

"Not that many," Shigaraki said.

They all looked at him.

"As I recall, didn't Likstar say you stole those?" Miss Joke said.

"What?" Mirko and Hawks glared at him.

"I didn't shoot anyone, so don't turn this around on me." Shigaraki backed up a little. "It was better than letting him keep those things."

"Who says it's better?" Mirko said.

"All right, all right," Hawks said, "Let's try to stay calm. The LOV hasn't used those drugs on anyone that we know of. I mean, I still have my quirk and...uh, so do you, Rumi. They had the perfect chance to take it."

Rumi frowned at that reminder. "And your point is?"

"The point is maybe we should focus on the schmucks who are actually using it," Hawks said, "We just need to know if it's permanent or not."

Miss Joke hugged her sides.

"Well, the only way to know is to find Overhaul," Bakugo said, "So let's go kick his a--."

"Now we're talking," Mirko said.

"Uh, does it occur to either of you that if there's more of these, that's a very dangerous thing to do," Hawks said.

"But Likstar is in there," Miss Joke pointed out, "and Eri. We can't just not go...and we knew this was a risk from the start."

"Yeah...but some of us can't afford to lose our quirks either." Hawks could only imagine what would happen to him or thousands of other people if he became useless.

He felt terrible about it, but..

"I'm sorry guys. I can't risk it," he said shamefacedly.

No one expected that from Hawks.

"What kind of a hero are you!?" Bakugo was mad, partly because he was scared. They needed Hawks at such a time.

Mirko was a little angry too. "It's our job to help. Are you just going to let yourself regret not going in there?"

"Think about it, Rumi. Your whole career could be over in 5 seconds." Hawks felt like a jerk, but he had to make it sound convincing. "That's just... Without backup, these odds aren't good. I didn't sign up for this much risk."

Mirko looked upset by that, for once. She frowned like she was realizing the risk here too.

No one spoke.

Miss Joke then shrugged. "It's too late for me anyway. I'm going to look for Shine, Eri, and the others. I should at least warn them... Our wires don't seem to be working now, for whatever reason, but maybe I'll get lucky... I can't tell the rest of you what to risk, though. So no hard feelings."

She walked toward the door of the compound.

Bakugo hesitated, then swore. "I'm not a freaking coward!" He looked at the others. "Do whatever you want, but saving your own skin isn't acting like a goshdang hero!"

He stormed after Miss Joke.

Hawks still couldn't go, despite the very weird look Mirko was giving him about not doing it.

Then she tossed her hair. "Fine, coward." She turned and followed Bakugo. "I guess we all gotta die sometime..."

"They're all idiots!" Shigaraki said. But as he didn't like the idea of just leaving Overhaul with the drug...and had a better chance of evading it based on his warping, he decided to go after them anyway... Better to have people around to be extra targets than to stand alone.

Hawks watched them go and felt like a complete failure... He sent his feathers back into the compound to try to search for others again.

* * * 

Aizawa and the two newbies had still not run into anyone... They finally realized they had just been going in circles and that was why. The building had rearranged itself that way.

It was in circling back yet again and deciding to stop and survey their surroundings again that Jiro heard the others. They rushed toward the sound of their voices and found them fast enough because they were at the edge of the compound, and it was less of a maze to get there than deeper inside.

But what a sight met them.

First of all, Shigaraki was there, which scared the crap out of Jiro and Kaminari both.

Then Bakugo looked beat up and was down some of his grenades.

Hawks was nowhere in sight.

Mirko was a bit scratched up but other than that looked the most normal.

Miss Joke was walking slowly and looking pretty scared. She wouldn't meet their eyes.

But the others explained what happened.

Jiro and Kaminari were rightfully scared by that prospect. They knew it could happen, but confirmation that Overhaul indeed had the drugs ready was even worse than just the possibility of it.

But Mirko had been thinking, and she spoke up. "Here's one thing though. If they had a bunch of those, why bother waiting to shoot us? I'm thinking, they don't have a lot ready yet. Not enough for all of us. Maybe they just want to take out the biggest threat. That idiot probably wasn't supposed to use it on Miss Joke. He just went crazy and attacked the nearest person."

"Setsuno was unstable, if I remember right," Aizawa said.

Miss Joke looked up. "So you're saying I wasn't the biggest threat, huh? Gosh, Mirko, tell me how you really feel."

"Let's face it-- we have two top heroes and one that can erase quirks." Mirko was blunt to a fault. "It's not really stretching it to say there're bigger targets. I mean, you can what? Laugh them to death?"

"That's enough. No need to be harsh," Aizawa said.

Miss Joke looked ready to cry. And that wasn't normal at all.

"But does that mean Miss Joke can't be a Pro anymore?" Kaminari said.

"No," Aizawa said, "It's like Mirio. There's probably a way to undo it...maybe even Eri herself. So we should focus on finding her... I hate to put it that way, but her safety is our safety also."

That sounded bad.

"But if they de-power us all before that, what can we do to help her?" Kaminari whimpered.

"There's a little hope," Miss Joke said, "Shine doesn't have a quirk. So at least she's not de-powered...assuming she's okay since she got captured..."

"What?" Aizawa said.

So then they had to explain that.

"Could this get any worse?" Jiro asked.

"Probably," Mimic's voice spoke from the wall.

Shigaraki swore. "Not this again..."

"This is very interesting." Mimic's eyes appeared, watching them. Kaminari almost had a heart attack. Jiro backed up behind him.

Aizawa glared at Mimic but couldn't use his quirk without seeing his actual body.

"Is it a bad time to also tell you fools that I've captured another of your little party... Shigaraki?" Mimic eyed him. "You should have known better than to interfere with us again. But at least you saved us the trouble of hunting you down. You'll pay for the boss's arms."

"Cry me a river." Shigaraki wasn't impressed. "Where's Dabi?"

"Oh, I'm sure he'll be taken good care of," Mimic taunted them, "I could take all of you right now, but it's more fun to let you suffer. But let's at least make it a little more interesting..."

The doors and windows closed themselves off right then. The lights in the room went out.

Jiro screamed.

Kaminari lit up his hand with electricity, and they saw Mimic still staring at them.

"You think you can hold us?" Mirko refused to be intimidated.

"Maybe not from leaving, but from getting anywhere near your target, I assure you, I'm more than capable," Mimic said.

Shigaraki put a hand on the wall and it started to disintegrate.

There was some sound, like Mimic actually felt that on some level. Part of the wall stopped warping.

"I'm not interested in your games." Shigaraki was cuttingly indifferent. "But you can't just take one of my members and expect me to forget about it. Tell me where Dabi is, or we can see how you like this whole compound coming apart."

"That'll kill us," Miss Joke said.

"Do I look like I care?" Shigaraki asked, "I can get out of here easily enough."

"It wouldn't crush us anyway," Mirko ruined it by saying, "It'd just be dust. It'd probably just kill this guy in the ceiling there."

"You stupid rabbit, I am not in the ceiling!" Mimic took offense to that for some reason. "I'm the entire building."

"Good, so we'll destroy the entire building and you'll be dead." Mirko saw no problem with this plan. "In fact, that sounds like the perfect way to solve this to begin with. No buildings, no maze."

Everyone stared at her.

"Are you crazy?" Aizawa said.

"Is there a downside to it?" Mirko asked.

"You wouldn't!" Mimic said.

Bakugo smirked. "I like this plan." He patted his remaining grenade. "I can even help by blowing part of this dump up."

"I'll tell the boss!" Mimic cried, enraged, "and he'll come and rearrange your molecules if you do that!"

"Somebody's just scared of not having something to possess," Mirko jeered at him, "I guess you're all talk, huh, Mimic, was it? Why don't you come out of that building so I can kick your a-- personally? Or else, beat it."

The decay was spreading the longer Shigaraki touched the wall.

Mimic swore at them.

"You won't stop me just by destroying the compound! I'll be back!" Then he vanished.

"You're not actually going to do that, are you?" Aizawa said.

Most of the ceiling turning into dust and fell into itself. They coughed, but other than that nothing really hurt.

"I hope there wasn't asbestos in those walls..." Miss Joke said.

"I actually am not sure I can disintegrate an entire compound all at once," Shigaraki admitted reluctantly, "I've never used my quirk for that long before. But, as long as he believes that, no more of this stupid twisting stuff."

"Bet he'll go running to Overhaul whining about it," Mirko snorted, "That was a good idea, threatening him like that, I have to admit."

"It wasn't a threat. I was going to kill him," Shigaraki said.

Mirko didn't react. "Well, anyway, let's go find the bad guys. I'm tired of standing here."

"Too bad we can't track Mimic..." Bakugo said.

Jiro looked up. "Maybe we can... I can hear him breathing... If we hurry maybe we could follow him back to Overhaul."

"What are we waiting for?" Mirko took off down the hall.

"Wait, there's no lights," Kaminari said. 

They heard a crash.

"Tell me she didn't just run into a wall..." Aizawa said.

"I think it was more of a corner..." Miss Joke said.

A moment later Mirko came back. "So he put this big chunk of crap in our path out of spite. Someone want to come get rid of it?"

Bakugo nodded. "I got this."

"I actually feel like the decaying method is safer than just blowing a hole in a wall..." Aizawa said.

"Nah, I'll leave more support," Bakugo dismissed it, heading for it.

"Bakugo just wants to blow stuff up," Kaminari said, "Uh, Jiro, you okay?"

Jiro realized she'd been hanging on to his arm this whole time. "Oh...yeah...it's just I can't see, and you have the light..."

"Oh, yeah, I'm, like, really important right now," Kaminari said.

"Dunce Face get over here so I can see what the frick I'm doing!" Bakugo yelled from down the hall.

"Right." Kaminari and Jiro followed him.

"Ah, kids," Miss Joke said.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Aizawa asked her, "You don't have to do this."

"I have nothing more to lose, Eraser, so I might as well do what I can," Miss Joke sighed, "And at least I have my teaching job, right? If this is permanent, I can call myself luckier than most Pros."

"I don't know if you're the most optimistic or the most unrealistic person I've ever met," Mirko said.

"Do you mind? I'm trying to stay hopeful here," Miss Joke said.

Mirko shrugged. "Whatever floats your boat."

"Not like the world needs another Pro," Shigaraki said.

Aizawa shot him a death glare. "I don't know why you're here, and I still don't trust you. Remember that I can block your quirk, and I have no issue doing so. Likstar is not here to stand up for you, and I will not be as tolerant as her of any shady behavior. So I'd watch both your words and your hands, got it?"

Shigaraki still found Eraserhead rather intimidating without a Nomu to back him up. He very resentfully shrugged.

[Am I the only one who thinks Eraserhead reacted with a weird bias here? I mean, Mirko said basically something just as insensitive, but he says nothing to her?]

"Good. Let's go," Aizawa said, "And stay where I can see you."

In this light that wasn't going to be a very comfortable position to be in.

"Wow," Mirko commented, "I hate to say it, but Eraserhead is scarier than I thought. I always thought he was kind of pathetic, the whole shadows thing."

"Do you try to make people not like you, Mirko?" Miss Joke was in no mood to listen to her commentary.

Mirko looked at her oddly. "How is what I said not a compliment?"

"I'm ignoring you." Aizawa walked by her, making Shigaraki walk in front of him.

Shigaraki didn't like that at all, but he figured if he tried to run, he'd only end up with his quirk erased and then beat up. This was just the position he'd been trying to avoid, and now he was in it.

After they removed the blockage, Jiro was able to tail Mimic petty far into the compound.

For a good measure, Shigaraki dissolved a lot of the walls along the way just in case he tried to posses the place again.

But the effort tired him. He never used his Decay longer than few seconds at most. 

And that had never been a problem until now. He regretted not bringing more members... On the other hand, that would mean no one to bail them (him and Dabi) out if this didn't work.

He wasn't sure why he'd come alone at all. It had almost been a hunch more than anything, and he didn't get those. But he'd felt like he had to come see for himself what went on here. Or maybe it was Dabi getting captured. After all, Overhaul getting a hold of him would be bad.

"So why did Hawks stay outside?" Aizawa could be heard whispering to Miss Joke.

"He said he can't risk being de-powered." Miss Joke sounded a little miffed. "I understand that...but it seems unlike him. I don't know him that well, but hesitancy is not something I ever got from him."

"I agree, it's weird. He's feather brained enough to rush into danger," Aizawa said.

"That pun was on purpose, wasn't it?" Mirko said.

"Not really." Aizawa denied it--but it totally was.

"I dunno. You two are right, it is weird," Mirko said, "I've never thought Hawks was suffering from a lack of guts...brains, maybe...and taste. I mean, all he eats is chicken nuggets."

"I always thought that was a joke on his fan page. That's actually true?" Miss Joke said.

"Oh, yeah, never get fast food with him. It's all KFC," Mirko said, "I'm not much for it myself... I guess it powers his quirk, maybe? He's probably a chicken hawk."

"Oh, that make sense, now," Miss Joke said. [It totally does. And this is my new head canon. Also if Mirko is Bugs Bunny then Hawks is that one chicken hawk baby from the looney toon with the big Rooster. Everything makes sense now.]

"Guys, can you be quiet?" Jiro hissed.

The Pros shut up.

Shigaraki privately thought the conversation was stupid. He knew why Hawks wasn't joining them. The Metas basically owned him.

The LOV didn't trust them for a reason, and they certainly didn't trust Hawks.

But he was an idiot. A pawn. The funny thing was he actually thought he could do something about it.

Shigaraki doubted those weirdos would ever let anyone go once they had their hooks in them.

[Given that they have literal hooks in Hawks, he's probably right. Hawks is the victim here, change my mind.

FYI, if anyone's wondering, I write this even while new episodes of the show are out, so when I need to worry about canon, I purposely make it vague in the story. I'm not willing to just look up all the spoilers so I don't make mistakes.

But so far most of my guesses ended up being right, so I'd say I understand the show pretty well.

Also, who thinks Shigaraki is right about Hawks? That would be so sad.

Do you think Miss Joke is de-powered?]