Lightning Serenade

Chapter 36: League of Villains VII

A/N: I passed my lifeguard certification! It feels good to be a certified lifeguard again! They actually put me in the new lifeguard course instead of recertification because my previous certification had expired, but since I knew everything and was instructing the other guards-in-training on how to do CPR, rescues, etc., the instructors kept kicking me out of scenarios! Ha! It was very rewarding, though I was sore for a few days afterwards and my knees are still bruised from all of the kneeling on the tiled floors to practice CPR. Any lifeguards or first responders among my readers? Let me know!

Denki didn't fall asleep until hours after his capture, even though his capture happened in the evening hours, after it had already gotten dark. Daylight was peeking through, over the horizon, before Denki actually crashed. He slept sprawled out on the floor in between Shigaraki and Dabi after they had all basically passed out after playing multiple games together. It was more fun than usual because he was actually in the same room as them. He could hear their banter in real time and see the facial expressions instead of only hearing the reactions through his headset with only his imagination to fill in the visual blanks.

"I'm going around the corner; follow my lead," Shigaraki commanded, full concentration on the screen.

They were all spread out, using pillows, cushions, and blankets arranged and then rearranged in various manners to get the most comfort whenever they decided to change from lying on their stomachs to sitting (and then back again, of course), the designated lookout's eyes never leaving the screen.

"Yes, boss," both Dabi and Denki had stated at the same time, Denki sending a smirk in Dabi's direction as he had accurately guessed what his response would be.

Dabi nudged him with his shoulder, but neither gamer's fingers faltered over the controls as they moved their characters to follow Shigaraki's character.

Everyone else had already trudged to bed, wondering how the trio could manage to stay up even longer after the stressful day they had all been through. Even if Denki felt safe now, he was definitely under a lot of stress at the beginning. It would have knocked the rest of them out. Hell, the failure of their mission had exhausted most of the villains, and they had each other to rely on. Denki was brought here alone (well, with a fake-Bakugou, but essentially alone, nonetheless), so everyone thought he'd ride high on adrenaline before crashing, but that didn't really seem to be his style.

When Denki's mind made a connection far past the time it should have, though, he dropped his controller and looked on either side of him to the villains who were still enmeshed in the game.

"Am I the traitor?" Denki asked hesitantly, repeating himself louder when the two villains didn't quite hear him.

Shigaraki paused the game, the menu options coming up in front of the divided screens, each showing the immediate area around P05itiv3R3v0lt, High5UrDead, and Fri3ndlyFir3. Shigaraki looked over at Denki with a blank expression on his face, not giving anything away before looking past him and meeting Dabi's eyes.

"Why do you think that?" Shigaraki asked vaguely.

Denki's head swiveled around, trying to catch a telling expression on one of the villain's faces on either side of him. He made a mental note to never play poker with them because they had absolutely no tells when they were concentrating on not giving anything away, like at that very moment.

Denki's heart dropped, but he answered, "because we play together online. Are you learning stuff from me?"

Dabi's face cracked first, and then both Dabi and Shigaraki were laughing, their laughing only getting louder as the seconds passed instead of calming down.

Trying to catch his breath and not break out laughing again, Shigaraki asked, "did you even know where the training camp would be before you got there? Did you talk to us about training at the USJ? Did you even ever tell us that you were a student at UA?"