71

Mei had picked the lock on one of the supply closets to give them some privacy while Izuku hacked his way into the camera systems. It had taken a little finangling to do it, but Nedzu had been teaching him a lot of cool tricks, so it didn't take him long to figure out how to connect to the camera system and get all the access he wanted. It was so much easier than hacking UA, "So, if I were a pair of hero students, where would I be?"

"Their class was coming here to buy stuff for their camp, right?" Mei asked. "So maybe the sporty things store?"

"I don't think that's what it's called, but I'll try it." Izuku said, flipping through the camera feeds. "Nope. There's Ojiro and Sato, but not who we're looking for...hmmm, where else would they be? Maybe we should just start from the main plaza and go from there?"

He started looking around the plaza, just scanning until he saw something promising, "Is that them? Right there by the fountain?"

"Yeah!" Mei leaned closer to the screen. "Aww, Ochako's blushing! How cute!"

Izuku caught sight of something behind them and narrowed his eyes. It was just some guy in a black hoodie, but for some reason it was setting off alarm bells in Izuku's head, "Hey Mei-chan. Does that guy look familiar to you?"

He zoomed in on hoodie guy and Mei frowned, "I mean, kinda? His posture is pretty unique, but it's hard to tell without being able to see his face. Can you get me another angle?"

"Sure." Izuku panned through different cameras until he found one with a good angle and zoomed in. Before he fully processed what he'd seen, he was already scrambling backwards, knocking over a broom in his attempt to get as far from what was on the screen as possible. After a long moment of staring at the screen, he shot a panicked look over to Mei, who looked just as terrified as he was, "It's the league. They're here."

Hitoshi panicked and dropped his control, "I am so sorry. I...I should have picked a different question. I didn't even think it would actually work. I am...I can…"

"It's...it's fine…" Ochako was bright red and looked like she was about to cry which made Hitoshi feel even worse. "I guess, uh, lesson learned! Create a list of questions beforehand, right?"

"Yeah." Hitoshi swallowed. "I...I am so sorry."

"It was an accident!" Ochako squeaked. "We can just drop it. I mean, I know you probably don't feel the same way…"

"Oh no, I do, it's just..." Hitoshi froze, eyes going wide. "Uh…I did not mean to...ok, that just happened. Pretty sure I just made this even more awkward. Don't you usually disappear by this point in a conversation?"

"When I teleport by accident, it's because I'm thinking of the person." Ochako buried her face in her hands. "That's kinda hard when the person you're thinking of is right in front of you."

"Oh." Hitoshi nodded numbly. "Yeah. So basically, we're just a mess."

Ochako gave him a pained smile, "Yep. Yeah. Pretty sure."

Izuku couldn't think. He wasn't even really seeing the screen, much less the supply closet around him. All he could see was Shigaraki disintegrating a guy to dust right in front of him, just because Izuku had been meddling in things he wasn't supposed to and messing up his plans. They couldn't let that happen again. 

"We…" Izuku's mouth was dry as he tried to think of what to do next. "We need to get everyone out."

"Right." Mei nodded in determination. "We don't know when the rest of their forces will show up and we can't risk them cutting off the exits and repeating the USJ attack."

"Ok...We need...can we contact the students?...What about the police?" Izuku muttered, his brain spinning with so many ideas and possibilities, but he still couldn't think. There was no way he'd be able to decide on a course of action. "How can we get everyone out safely…?"

Thankfully, while he was frozen, Mei jumped into action. She threw open the door, running out into the hall before he could yell at her to stop. Izuku didn't realize what she was planning until she made a beeline for the fire alarm outside and pulled it as hard as she could, "Done. Now let's inform Nedzu and get someplace safe."

She ran back to him and yanked him to his feet, and Izuku barely had time to hug his computer against his chest before he was being dragged down the hall, "Ok. Yeah, that works."

Ochako and Hitoshi both jumped when the fire alarm went off. Ochako looked around, but couldn't see any smoke, "What's going on?"

Hitoshi frowned, "I dunno, but Izuku and Mei probably do. If not, they can probably find out."

"Right." Ochako's face hardened in determination as she called up her quirk. "I'll be back."

The world tilted and she ran to catch up to Izuku and Mei, who were running down an alley just outside of the mall, "Do you guys know what's going on? Why are you out here instead of inside?"

Izuku shot her a glance, but he had a phone held up to his ear and stayed focused on his call as Mei filled her in, "We caught sight of Shigaraki on the security cams. Izu-kun's on the phone with Nedzu right now to get heroes on the way in case it turns into a full scale attack."

Ochako gulped, "So not just a fire drill?"

"No." Mei replied gravely. "Not just a fire drill."

Izuku hung up the phone and turned to Ochako, "You've got anchors on everyone in class 1A, right?"

"Yeah, I do." Ochako said. "You want me to let everyone know?"

Izuku took a deep breath, "Yes. Tell everyone that Nedzu's authorized us to help with evacuation but not combat. If you see Shigaraki or any other villains just run. Got it?"

"Got it." Ochako confirmed. 

Izuku's face was grim, "Good luck."

Shouto didn't really need to buy anything for the camping trip, since he'd basically been living a camping trip since his old man had kicked him out and his quirk took the place of a lot of camping essentials like sleeping bags, flashlights, and matches. Still, he didn't have anything better to do, so he figured he might as well tag along. It was nice having a little disposable income again, but now that he'd been living off practically nothing, it was a lot harder to justify spending any of it.

After everyone had split off, he'd found himself in a store that Shigaraki would either love or think was absolutely ridiculous, considering that it only sold merchandise for games and tv shows and nothing really useful. , but Shouto thought it was entertaining to see how much he recognized from the various games Shigaraki had introduced him to. When the fire alarm had gone off, he'd been looking at a section of nerdy pet collars that would have been great if Epurr was an inside cat or well, if Shouto actually hadn an inside to put her. 

He hadn't really been too concerned about the alarm at first. If it was a drill, then that was just fine, and if not then he was immune to the heat and could always use his ice to put out the fire if he needed to. He'd been content to follow along at the tail end of the evacuation crowd until Uraaraka had suddenly appeared right next to him and immediately started talking, "Shigaraki is here in the mall. The heroes are already on their way. We've been authorized to help with evacuation until they arrive, but not combat. Got it?"

Shouto kept his face carefully blank as he nodded, "Yes. I understand."

As soon as Uraraka disappeared, Shouto immediately jumped into action and started running toward the nearest video game store, "Dusty, you idiot, where the hell are you?"

Hitoshi wasn't too surprised to get a call from his kidnappers after ochako didn't come back, so he answered right away, "What do you need me to do?"

"Add Izu-kun to your class group chat thingy." Mei rushed out. "Put him under the name of cheat code so everybody knows to trust him, alright?"

"Right." Hitoshi wasn't even finished responding before Mei hung up. Hitoshi knew that Izuku was probably busy trying to coordinate with the heroes, but he still added Izuku to the group chat as quickly as possible, making sure to change his name to Cheat Code first so that that's what he would show up under. He sent a quick text to both Izuku and Mei letting them know that he was done and hurried to join the evacuation. 

So much for a relaxing class trip to the mall.