Freeze Frame

Chapter 25

Third person pov

Something in Lillian snapped, her fear for her classmates and teacher overwhelming. She'd never felt so endangered before. So... so threatened. She clenched her eyes shut as she screamed out in defiance, something within her exploding out before she could stop it. It seemed to spread out like some sort of shock wave, rippling and covering the area like a blanket of sorts. Everything went silent. Everything went still.

It all froze.

She cracked her eyes open to see the man's hand an inch from her face. Her heart thudded dangerously in her ears as she backed up, her body shaking. Everything had stilled. Tsuyu, Izuku, and even the Nomu. They'd all just stopped. She hadn't been looking at all of them, but they had all fallen under the control of her quirk somehow. Whether it was from sheer panic or survival instinct, she wasn't sure.

She had to act fast.

She yanked Tsuyu away from the frozen man in an instant. She moved a lot like a cardboard cutout would. As in she didn't. At all. Lillian dragged her away, leaning over the edge of the shoreline to grab Izuku's pant leg. She didn't know how long this would last. She didn't feel like she was the one controlling it. Like it was a bomb she'd set out, but she wasn't the one holding the detonator.

She yanked on his pant leg, causing his leg to scoot towards her, and he wrapped her hand around his pant leg. The Nomu had a good grip on him, but Lillian was on lower ground, and the angle made things better. She had to let go of Tsu to pull on the green-haired boy, bracing her feet against the edge of the rocky shore as she pulled for all she was worth. It took a second, but once she got him to slide out a little, the rest was fairly easy. She fell back into the water with the frozen teen.

The effects were the same. She felt herself get undeniably tired, but she still dragged her friends away. Her arms ached due to the little strength she had, but she didn't care. She pulled them through the water and then up onto the shore several feet away, breathing heavily. Between the fact that she had basically no upper body strength, added onto the fact that she was dead tired from using her quirk, she knew she wasn't doing so well. 

She kept going anyway. She dragged her friends through the dirt, towards the center of the plaza where their teacher sat. She though she saw Tsuyu beginning to close her eyes. It was very slow and sluggish, but there. It had been less than a minute, Lillian's mind registered. Her eyes darted back to where she'd left the Nomu and villain. They looked like they were moving in extremely slow motion. She sped up.

She pulled Tsu and Izuku closer to Aizawa. She knew that wasn't the safest or best place, but at this rate, hiding was futile. She was too tired to drag them any farther, and she felt far too scared to go anywhere but by their dear teacher. Their dear teacher who was sitting in a puddle of blood bigger than Lillian's entire body. She felt her breath hitch. Was he dead? She couldn't tell.

A little voice in the back of her head told her to go back to the villain. To find a way to knock him out, or even kill him. She didn't get the chance to dart back and try. The blue-haired man stumbled forward and fell into the water, the Nomu's fist closed completely around nothing at all, and the front gates that led out of the USJ blasted open with incredible force. She heard Tsuyu and Izuku take gasping breaths of air.

Lillian's chest heaved dangerously, rising and falling as another wave of exhaustion hit her. All Might had arrived, as had the other teachers, and she wanted to cry. Well, she already was crying, but she wanted to do it more. This time out of relief.

"L-Lillian, you-" Izuku cut himself off, eyes wide. Tsuyu blinked rapidly, disoriented from the sudden change. For them, it was like nothing had changed at all. Lillian tried to calm her heart, and forced herself to stay awake as a very pissed All Might threw his jacket to the side. Lillian blinked blearily, her vision blurring, before something wet hit her hand. She heard a choking noise.