Latibule

54 - ɴᴏ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴡᴀꜱᴛᴇ

Previously on Latibule:

"Tired, believe it or not," I joked.

The green-haired boy chuckled. "I know what you feel."

With a sigh, I sat with my legs criss-crossed onto the ground, waiting for our turn. This is gonna be a long night.

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Latibule — Chapter 54///No Time To Waste

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I breathed in the crisp night air with closed eyes, the coldness slowly seeping into my body but not disturbing me too much because the energy I took in kept my blood pumping and I couldn't, therefore, feel the cold too much.

Suddenly something shifted. Half a second later, there was a thump.

My eyes shot open, quickly looking over to where everyone else was looking — at Pixie Bob, one of the ones left to supervise us for the time being. She was lying on the ground, unconscious, her visor broken, the glass having cut into her temples.

"First, let's get rid of these feral cats," a voice spoke.

I scrambled up from the ground, looking at those who could only be villains. Can we have one normal class event around here?

"I thought they made sure no one could find us!" Mineta exclaimed, backing up as he was on the front lines of our bunch.

Midoriya, of course, ran forward only to be stopped by Mandalay and Tiger, another one of the Wild, Wild Pussycats. Mandalay, being a pro hero, took the logical course of action and used her quirk to warn everyone on the perimeter of the camp, telling us to return to the dorms as quickly as possible.

I bit the inside of my cheek, looking at the villains in front of us and then at the forest behind them. Mandalay had said there could be more villains out there. I could also see smoke rising.

But, of course, our first concern were the villains towering right above Pixie Bob. They, as all villains do, introduced themselves as part of the League of Villains, as if that hadn't been the one logical assumption to make.

"I could crush this kitty's head so easily... How about a deal?" the taller and more human-like villain of the two spoke.

Tiger was instantly triggered. "You get away from her!"

"Now, now, hold on," the reptile-like villain stepped in. "You, too, Tiger, calm down. When deciding if someone should live or die, we must be careful we're abiding by Stain's principles."

"Stain?" Midoriya muttered.

"So you're the ones he ended up inspiring?" Iida added.

All the while I was just wondering how this was the time or the place for speeches.

"At your service, that's us!" the lizard confirmed Iida's assumption. "And you, four-eyes, I believe I recognise you! You're one of the self-righteous brats who attacked Stain in Hosu city. Let me introduce myself."

That was, in fact, quite enough for me, for I hadn't come to the training camp to hear another villain's sob story.

Thus I did something that, in hindsight, was probably pretty risky and stupid, but, at the time, seemed quite smart and reasonable. I fired one of my firework shots at the pole. As expected, it exploded upon impact and made the man holding Pixie Bob hostage stumble, missing her head by a hair. Despite his obvious surprise, Tiger moved forth and Pixie Bob was on our side in a flash.

"I told you not to engage in combat!" Mandalay exclaimed, referring to the message she'd sent out earlier via her quirk.

I pulled a face. I just saved your teammate's life, I guess I should be sorry.

The woman sighed. "Thank you. But now, all of you, get back to camp and take Pixie Bob with you! Class rep, you're in charge. And don't engage anyone," she commanded, her eyes still glued to the villains ahead of us, who Tiger was keeping busy.

"Leave it to me," Iida nodded. "Let's go!"

We started to run but Midoriya hung back.

"Midoriya?" I questioned.

Iida skidded to a stop. "Come on, no time to waste!"

"Go on ahead without me," he said before turning to talk to Mandalay.

Without waiting any longer, the rest of us turned to go.

Our feet pounded against the ground as we ran, dodging branches that hang too low to comfortably pass under. The air was thick, a tinge of smoke ever-present in the black fog of fear. Despite being a hero-in-training myself, my heart was racing, in perfect sync with the waves of emotions that rolled off of the others.

I bit my lip as I skidded to a stop, watching the fog around us that wasn't from my quirk. This is even worse than the USJ...!

With that, I made a decision.