Twilight Hero, Luzura

Blighted Competition

It felt weird to return to USJ. It had been a week since the attack and Thirteen was finally ready to give 'Rescue Class' another try. The whole class was visibly on edge as they walked in, but nothing happened. No villains appeared or attacked them, and as they were shown each environment they slowly started to relax slightly. Thirteen understood how they were feeling, and did her best to be warm and positive. In that she found an unexpected ally... Luzura. Sure the girl wasn't as versed in the nuisances of proper rescue protocol, but between her bright demeanor and willingness to help demonstrate, Thirteen was slowly starting to like her.

When they got to a large enclosed room, Luzura even surprised her when she asked, "I was actually involved in a hostage situation not too long ago. Maybe I could share how I handled it, and we can discuss what I did right and how it could have been done better. What do you think, sensei?"

Thirteen slowly nodded, "I think I'd like to hear about this as well. What do you all think?" A number of students chuckled as they saw Luzura nearly vibrating in excitement to share, and they all nodded in agreement.

It took a few minutes, but soon Thirteen was sitting on some rubble in the place of Bria, and the class was spread out acting as either hostages or 'mooks'. Since Tsui was the smallest she got a special job... being King in a cage made of shadows. As they got started, Thirteen saw Luzura melt into a shadow only for her voice to be heard around the room, "I'm sure most of you have heard the cliff notes, but this will be the play by play. I've warned those of you who will have active roles of what to expect, but... this is only a live demonstration. Nobody's actually going to get hurt. For authenticity only Sensei is completely in the dark, so please if you have a question please keep it to only what has already happened. Ready?"

Everyone nodded, and Lucia began recapping the events up to the gym in vivid detail, and she was surprisingly good at weaving a narrative... perhaps too good. Lucia left nothing out. How they felt, her fear, and even the devastation of finding one of her fellow students already beyond help. What started as a fun exercise soon became a serious somber experience, but through it all Lucia was shockingly clinical about most of it, with the exception of her own feelings about what she thought and saw.

"That's when I saw where the mooks were taking everyone, and I started to move in. I knew I had to evacuate who I could, but honestly I knew the only way to end this situation was to find and take out the leader. Most hired guns are dumb and skittish, so if the strongest guy gets taken out they usually scatter, but not always. While I looked, I had to minimize potential casualties just in case this ended up being one of those times where a mook gets smart. The first thing I did was get a layout for everything. I was familiar with the rough details since it was my school gym, but I wasn't going to take chances. After determining where all potential players were, and confirming statuses like injuries or blind spots I got to work."

Thirteen spoke up, "Were there any injured?"

"Thankfully not yet, and none of them were bound... just terrified. With that taken care of, I found a group of hostages that were currently unguarded, and evacuated them." Sato and Sero suddenly disappeared into their shadows and reappeared in the area they had designed as 'outside'. "With the proof of concept done I went around and started picking off isolated mooks and continuing to evacuate those l could." Lucia popped out of the shadows behind Momo, Jiro, and Ojiro one at a time and covered their mouths with shadows and carefully guided them into a sitting position. In between each 'takedown' Lucia moved Ida, Aoyama, and Kaminari to the safe zone. "I made sure to actually knock out the mooks in reality, but I figure this was close enough."

Ochaco raised her hand, "How did you take them out?"

Lucia giggled, "Well Choco, it was similar to what I just did. Shadows to muffle them, but with added braces to prevent movement. After that a combination of preventing them from breathing and a carefully placed hit to the base of the skull, and they were out. I'll teach it to you later, hermona. Anyway that's when things started going sideways. Bria finally noticed Boscha, and walked over to confront her." Thirteen walked over to Mina. "I won't go into specifics of what was said, but Bria hurt her. Bria's quirk 'Earth Binder' gave her a lot of control over dust, dirt, and the like, and she was a sadist. She cracked her jaw with a backhand and then shattered her knee with a stomp. I had to watch because I still had a half dozen other hostages, and as much as I care for Boscha... I couldn't risk everyone's lives yet."