The night air still carried the smoky scent of the campfire when Pixie-Bob's grin turned feral.
"Alright, kittens!" she yipped, paws flexing. "Time for your very first taste of hell! We call it the Beast's Forest!"
Before anyone could process the words, the ground beneath the entire Class 1-A erupted.
Pixie-Bob's earth beasts-massive, clay-brown monsters sculpted from the mountain itself-burst up in a perfect circle around the clearing.
Their roars shook needles from the pines. One swipe of a paw the size of a car sent dirt exploding upward like a geyser.
Mandalay's telepathic voice rang in everyone's heads:
"This is your trial! Reach the lodge by 18:00 tomorrow using only your quirks and your wits! The forest is full of my cute little babies"
(A/N: I wonder if she means it metaphorically or literally.)
Cute was not the word.
The earth beasts charged. Pixie-Bob cackled and slammed both palms to the ground. The entire clearing tilted ninety degrees.
Twenty students, plus Aizawa and the Pussycats, went sliding down a newly-formed earthen chute straight into the black heart of the forest.
Izuku's stomach flipped as he tumbled. Pine branches whipped his face. He twisted mid-air, using the last dregs of his old Saiyan-trained reflexes (now purely human, but still sharper than anyone else's) to grab Ochaco's wrist before she slammed into a trunk.
"Got you!"
They hit the ground rolling, pine needles cushioning the impact. All around them, shouts and explosions echoed as Class 1-A scattered into the darkness.
Bakugou's laughter rang out somewhere to the east: "Come on, you oversized mud pies!"
Todoroki's ice crackled to the west, carving glowing blue paths through the trees.
Izuku helped Ochaco to her feet. "Everyone okay?"
Denki's voice crackled from the shadows. "Define okay! I just got yeeted fifty meters!"
Aoyama struck a pose on a fallen log, navel laser illuminating the gloom like a spotlight. "Fear not, mes amis! The sparkling knight has arrived!"
Mina and Momo landed nearby, graceful even in chaos. Mina's acid hissed where it touched the soil; Momo was already creating a shield from a tree branch. Their eyes flicked to Izuku (calculating, cautious), then away.
Midnight's voice drifted from above, calm and sultry. "Children, do try not to die. It's only the first night."
Izuku's fingers brushed the velvet pouch inside his jacket. Twenty-four Master Balls. One hundred thirty-one senzu beans. Midnight was his. The traitors were not. Yet.
Pixie-Bob's final taunt echoed from the ridge: "Oh, and one more thing! There's a special beast waiting deeper in. Bigger. Meaner. My masterpiece. Beat it before sunset tomorrow and I'll give you all a prize~!"
The earth beasts dissolved back into soil, leaving only the dark forest and the distant howls of whatever lived inside.
Izuku exhaled. No quest window. No cosmic countdown. Just him, his classmates, and a very angry mountain.
He smiled despite himself. "Let's move."
___________________
They traveled for hours.
The forest was alive in the worst way. Trees shifted when no one was looking. Vines tried to strangle ankles. Lesser earth beasts-dog-sized, eyeless-lunged from the underbrush only to be blasted apart by Bakugou, frozen by Todoroki, or floated into the stratosphere by Ochaco.
Izuku took point, senses stretched to their human limit. Ocean thrummed at eighty percent, mapping every heartbeat within two city blocks.
He could feel the class like glowing dots on a radar: Iida chopping through foliage at mach speed, Tokoyami and Dark Shadow carving a bloody swath, Kirishima tanking hits for Tsuyu.
And deeper-much deeper-a single heartbeat the size of a house. Slow. Ancient. Furious.
The special beast.
By 3:00 AM they reached a ravine lit by moonlight. A river roared below, white water over sharp rocks. The only way across was a fallen log barely wider than a balance beam.
Momo created metal clamps to secure it. Mina melted footholds with acid. They crossed single file, wind howling.
On the far side, the forest changed.
The trees grew twisted, roots like claws. The air tasted metallic. Ocean screamed a warning: one heartbeat ahead, now only a kilometer away. Massive. Predatory.
Izuku raised a fist. The class halted.
Bakugou snarled. "What now, Deku?"
Izuku pointed. Through the trees, something enormous moved. Moonlight glinted off scales of living stone. The ground trembled with every step.
Pixie-Bob's masterpiece.
It stepped into the clearing and the world went still.
The beast was fifty meters tall if it was an inch. Shaped like a dinosaur fused with a mountain. Granite plates armored its body.
Vents along its spine glowed magma-orange. Its eyes were twin furnaces. When it roared, the ravine cracked wider.
Students froze.
Even Bakugou's explosions died in his palms.
Then the beast charged.
____________________
The fight was chaos incarnate.
Todoroki unleashed a glacier the size of a skyscraper. The beast shattered it with one swing of its tail. Bakugou flew in on explosion propulsion, unloading AP Shot into its eye. The blast barely scorched the stone.
Kirishima hardened and punched its ankle; the impact shattered every bone in his arms (he laughed through the pain).
Ochaco floated entire boulders and dropped them from orbit. They bounced off like pebbles.
Momo created a railgun on the fly. The projectile punched a hole straight through the beast's shoulder-then the wound sealed with molten rock.
Iida ran circles, trying to find weak points. Sero taped its legs. Tokoyami's Dark Shadow grew monstrous under the moonless canopy and still got swatted into the trees.
The beast roared again and the earth split. A fissure raced toward the class.
Izuku saw it coming. Saw Mina and Momo hanging back, eyes too calm. Saw Midnight watching from a ridge, waiting for orders.
He made a decision.
"Everyone! Fall back to the river! Regroup!"
They obeyed (even Bakugou, grudgingly). The class retreated in a fighting withdrawal, leaving Izuku alone in the clearing.
The beast loomed over him, furnace eyes glowing.
Izuku's hand slipped into his jacket.
He waited until the last classmate vanished into the trees. Waited until the beast reared for a killing blow.
Then he moved.
Not with Saiyan speed (those days were gone), but with perfect human precision. He rolled under the descending claw, came up inside the beast's guard, and pressed one Master Ball against the living stone of its chest.
The sphere didn't need to be thrown. It simply knew.
Red light exploded outward. The beast's roar cut off mid-note. Its massive body dissolved into energy, sucked into the ball in less than two seconds. The Master Ball snapped shut, fell into Izuku's palm, and went perfectly still.
Silence.
The forest held its breath.
Izuku looked at the ball. Inside, the creature knelt (stone scales dimmed, furnace eyes lowered in submission). One down. Twenty-three left.
He pocketed it and sprinted after his class.
___________________
They found him ten minutes later at the riverbank, clothes torn, face scratched, smiling like nothing had happened.
"Where's the monster?!" Kirishima demanded, arms in slings made of Momo's bandages.
Izuku shrugged. "It... left. Chased it off."
Todoroki stared at the empty clearing across the ravine. "That thing was made of bedrock. How did you-"
"Teamwork," Izuku lied smoothly.
"You guys softened it up. I just got lucky with the finishing blow."
Bakugou scoffed but didn't argue. He was too busy glaring at his bruised knuckles.
(A/N: Bakugo seems to be a bit mad about that, but who cares)
Mina tilted her head, eyes narrowed. "You're full of surprises tonight, Deku."
Momo said nothing, but her fingers twitched like she wanted to create something (a tracker, maybe).
Midnight appeared beside Izuku, voice low enough only he could hear. "Well done, Master. Shall I eliminate the traitors now?"
"Not yet," he murmured.
She smiled, all teeth and jasmine. "As you wish."
Dawn was still hours away, but the sky had begun to pale in the east. The lodge was close now; Izuku could smell breakfast smoke on the wind.
Pixie-Bob was waiting at the finish line, paws on hips, utterly baffled.
"Where's my baby?!" she wailed when Class 1-A staggered in at 11:47 AM (well ahead of schedule). "You were supposed to fight it, not scare it into hibernation!"
Izuku held up both hands, innocent. "We tried! It just... ran away?"
The lie was so absurd that even Aizawa raised an eyebrow. But no one could prove otherwise. The forest was silent. The beast was gone.
Pixie-Bob gave them the prize anyway: a mountain of curry and an afternoon off.
As the class collapsed around tables, exhausted and triumphant, Izuku slipped away to the lodge roof. He sat on the shingles, legs dangling over the edge, and turned the newest Master Ball in his fingers.
Twenty-three left.
The real monsters were still coming at 04:00 AM tomorrow.
And now he had a fifty-meter earth titan on a leash.
He smiled at the rising sun.