Immediately, Tommy wakes up in his room feeling that the Festival won't be right. He (ignores the fear that cuts into him like a sword and) groans, almost rolling off his bed.

...It's not as intense as the day of the USJ attack, maybe. Tommy gets up anyway, flicking his wrist and checking his inventory.

Ehh... He still has a lot of his shit he had from the first day. Blocks, weapons, medical shit... he doesn't really need to refill that much. U.A. had provided a lot for the class, anyway.

Wouldn't hurt to refill, either. And he could fill more room in his chests with materials to craft with.

Tommy checks his communicator; he has time. It's only five in the morning, after all. Three hours to go before he has to go to U.A.

Ah, shit—he hasn't made a mineshaft here yet, hasn't he? Maybe he could make one in the basement and somehow connect it to the one in the forest.

Tommy equips a pickaxe from his inventory with ease, already heading down to the basement. It'd serve as a good stretch before whatever the Sports Festival will cause, and a way to get his mind off of it.

===

Mining a few blocks of diamond ore and deep into his new mineshaft, Tommy comes to a sudden realization: he hasn't made a Nether portal yet.

He almost smacks himself in how fucking dumb he is; why hadn't he made one? That was like... one of the first fucking things he should've done when he made the mineshaft in the forest, Prime-damn-it. He could've made so many golden apples now with the gold he could find, since this server's Overworld gold is weird.*

...Then again, he had just been... dropped in this server, and everything was just so—different. Then Izuku and Toshinori came, and with that followed U.A...

Focus, Tommy.

The gold in this server didn't work here to make golden apples like most servers, but maybe the Nether here was the same as the SMP's?

With new fervor, Tommy rushes to find lava—not before crafting buckets with a nearby crafting table he'd placed, of course. Five's enough for this.

"Swear some of this shit was around," he mumbles, dashing through the long tunnels he's dug in. His eye scans each hole in the tunnels. "C'mon, c'mon..."

There!

Tommy skids to a halt, balancing himself by placing his hands on the walls. He turns towards the relatively-large lava pool—wait, he needs water.

...Water bottles could do, right?

So, Tommy mentally marks the place in a map in his head, before darting back to the entrance of this new mineshaft with long strides. He climbs up the stairs to the basement, digs through his plethora of chests, and finally finds the one with the stacks of water bottles in it. (Listen, he just likes to store shit in case of emergency, alright?)

Uncapping and pouring two at a time into two of the buckets he'd crafted, Tommy fills them to the brink, shoves the plastic in his inventory along with the buckets of water, and heads back down to the pool of lava. There, he makes a room in one of the walls, setting up a two-by-two, one block deep hole with space to walk around it. He pours the two buckets in two of the corners, prays to fucking Prime this works, and attempts to fill up three buckets.

The pool refills itself.

"Alright!" He cheers, giddily taking the three buckets back to the lava pool. He builds a platform in the middle—three-by-six, just enough to have a block of cobble surround where the portal would stand—as well as a path equally wide from the platform to the entrance of the room. The sudden temperature change by being near the lava is intense, but Tommy's long been immune to this heat, so it doesn't deter him. Instead, it only pushes him to move faster, his mind supplying him with the quickest way to build a Nether portal with ease.

Lava, water. Lava, water. Three blocks up, two across; corners aren't necessary.

Within moments, Tommy stands before an unlit Nether portal with cobblestone corners. He just stands before it for a moment, because Prime... he hasn't done this in months, hasn't he? Hasn't done this in a year. Hasn't done what others would consider a basic standard for anyone in a year.

(...It reminds him of how out-of-place he is. How out-of-place he's become, to both this server and the ones he knows.)

Tommy huffs, moving on from his mistake. After all, he needs a flint 'n' steel to light this bitch up, and he'd found gravel while digging around some coal.

Quickly, the blond makes the tool. It pops in his hands once he sets it in his hotbar and selects it, the cool metal so familiar against his calloused hands Tommy's surprised at the nostalgia it inflicts. Yet without pause, he moves to the Nether portal and strikes the flint over the obsidian

once,

twice,

thrice.

And to Tommy's utter delight, the portal's center ignites in purple swirls and sparks.

===

Tommy forces himself to stop staring after the fifth minute. But—Prime, he can't help it! Finally, something familiar about this server! Something that doesn't leave him confused and curious, something that doesn't make him completely out of his depth! Something that he knows can help him!

Before the flint 'n' steel can slip out of his hands from pure shock and excitement, Tommy stashes it away for later. Unceremoniously, he steps forward and immerses himself into the portal, waiting for the familiar nausea, the feeling of being transported through realms, the burst of heat from the new yet familiar surrounding environment—

—it doesn't come.

Tommy waits one minute; two. Three.

...Four.

"What the fuck," he whispers, a feeling of despair washing over him. Except—no, that can't be it, because it's something deeper than despair, something worse. It threatens to take over his mind, this mix of terror and hopelessness and rage the longer the portal remains unresponsive. With panic, Tommy steps out, then steps back in, but—fuck, there's still nothing, why is there still nothing?!

He backs off, staring at the purple swirls in—in—Prime, he doesn't know, he doesn't know. Why is the portal not working? He's done everything right. Three blocks high, two blocks across, make with obsidian. He's done everything right.

He's done everything right, he has to have done everything right; otherwise, there wouldn't be anything in the fucking portal. So why isn't he—

No. No—no, no, no. It—it can't be that, can it?

Has—has this server blocked off the connection to the fucking Nether? The one place Tommy could maybe get gold to make golden apples that fucking works, and it's fucking BLOCKED?! The End he can understand because there's a fucking dragon there, but—but—the NETHER?!

Tommy's staggered away from the platform, down the path, and dug his pickaxe into the stone entrance before he can even process he's done it, ripping chunks of cobblestone out with ferocity. The blocks clatter on the ground, tumbling into the lava pool behind him. He doesn't feel an inch of regret staring at the gouge that mars the stone, however, because fuck, his anger is absolutely justified! He's running out of golden apple slices, too—there's only what, ninety left? Eighty? Compared to the hundreds he'd had before, that's a steep decline. He'll run out if something like the USJ keeps happening.

Fuck. Fuck.

Something like hysteria claws in his throat, and he lets it rip him apart, collapsing on the ground with his knees scraping on rough, heated stone.

Because the shortage of golden apples just add to another, more distressing problem, one that he might not be able to handle both physically and mentally: if this server has blocked off the Nether, then that means that there's a fucking Admin, isn't there?

===

As much as he wants to scream and break shit, Tommy has to leave the mineshaft since he'd been down there for two and a half hours and he has to go to U.A. But, the questions that fill his head certainly don't.

Why block off the Nether? Why hasn't this Admin communicated to Tommy at all? Why has this Admin decided to give everyone Quirks instead of the standard inventory and all of the Players usual abilities, like crafting with a holographic grid? Is there more than one Admin here? How powerful are they, to hide their name on Tommy's communicator, one that Sam had made himself? Sam had been friends with Dream before it all went to shit, and the latter's an Admin; the engineer certainly knows how to make his communicators detect anyone at this point.

(If the Nether's blocked off, could they have a hoard of gold that can make golden apples? Do they hold a monopoly over golden apples now?

...Shit. Shit, shit, shit.)

Why make this server so radically different? There's no mobs, which could make it a server on Peaceful mode, but—but then, there'd be animals spawning on the streets, no? And this server's fucking limited in the amount of space its inhabitants can reside on; almost no server is like that. Servers can span forever, yet why make this one so overcrowded? So—limited?

It doesn't make sense. None of this makes sense.

He can't think about it any longer—doesn't want to, really—when he hears the sounds of multiple voices up on the hill near U.A.'s gates.

Immediately, the shouting voices of a mob grate on his ears. Tommy scowls, feeling it dampen his already-shitty mood. Peeking over the rest of the path, he can see extended microphones and flashing or recording cameras, and that sets him off even more. Does he have to go through this shit?

...Tommy switches his communicator from the player list to his contacts.

<> Hey how do I get aorund the press?

<> Were you not given a spare key to the door at the back?

Tommy moves aside as more people who don't have journalist or news-reporter equipment—tourists, maybe? Or for the Re—... Sports Festival—trek up the mountain and towards U.A. He checks his multiple pockets once he's off the main path.

<> No

<> Forgor the keypad code too

<> Ah.

<> Sorry. I'll get a spare for you and tell you the code again later.

<> Regardless, I'll open the door for you. Avoid the press and do not let them see you; you haven't been openly revealed to the world for a reason.

<> Wait, why havent I been revealed yet?

There's a pause—a really, really long one. The man must be banging his head on the table or something.

<> Because you're a "secret teacher," of sorts. Everyone already knows about the pro-heroes that teach here, but they don't know that you're an assisting countermeasure against future villain attacks, both as a teacher assistant and a skilled, unknown Quirkless fighter yourself. If news were to show that someone like you is here helping the classes out, especially Class 1-A, there's almost no doubt that any villains listening in will notice and therefore try to check out who you are. What Nedzu's done for you may not be enough, by then.

...Oh.

<> The only reason I'm telling you this here and not in-person is that Nedzu's programmed the custom messaging app I'm using to automatically erase all messages if it were to be hacked. I assume that your device does the same?

<> Prolly. Sam put a lot of

Tommy stops that text as he types it. He erases it entirely, holding backspace for a little longer than necessary, and replaces it with:

<> Only I can see the screen so yeah

<> Good. Head over to the back entrance now.

<> Yeah yeah

Tommy sets his communicator in his inventory, glancing at the still-steady stream of people that flow into U.A., some crowding around the mob of reporters as others get to slip in. He waits for a perfect time, before darting into the forest behind him, only a flash of gold in the eyes of others.

===

Tommy tears a piece off the takoyaki on a stick Aizawa brought him, holding another stick with dango on it. He chews on it for a bit before swallowing, eye scanning the walls of the seemingly never-ending hall. Well, really, they're almost at the end, but Tommy's a busy man, alright?

"We there yet?"

"No," Aizawa grunts, a lot more annoyance than the first few times. Maybe it's because Tommy's been asking that every since they've started going through the fucking maze of paths that is this stadium. "Once we're out of this hall, I have to go up to the announcer's booth. You have to go where the other teachers are; if you act like everything's normal when you get there, then people will believe that you're a part of the staff. You have your things, right?"

Tommy groans, slumping and temporarily slowing his pace. "I do, I do. But why do I gotta be out here? Can't I just—watch with the class or something?"

"No. Once again, as the 'secret weapon' of U.A., you're a part of the upgraded security protocol Nedzu's maintaining."

Tommy huffs, taking a step into the stadium. Right, right, stupid villain bullshi—

Oh.

"Holy shit..." Tommy trails off, gaping at the sheer size of the open-roofed stadium set up for the Sports Festival. The sweltering air and bright sunlight does nothing to deter him from looking around. He'd seen it from the outside and it'd already looked gargantuan and menacing like that, sure, but this...

"You get used to it," Aizawa says, as if he hasn't been here for who knows how long, the old man. Tommy would say it to his face, but the sheer size of the stadium still just—baffles him.

Tommy glances at the red square in the middle that looks so fucking minuscule compared to everything. "And the students are fighting on that?"

"Not really. That's where the students gather."

"Then where are they—"

"Cementoss will make a platform when the time comes, but it'll be about that size regardless."

"...Okay, but still, a platform that size barely—"

"This is for show, Tommy."

...Right. For show. This is for show. No one will get grievously injured, and even if they do, Recovery Girl's here, and Tommy's brought golden apple slices.

This is not the Red Festival. This is no violent massacre.

Tommy takes a breath, his hand briefly carding through his hair. "...I know." A thought briefly pops into his mind. "How much time 'til this shitshow begins?"

Aizawa huffs when Tommy calls the event a "shitshow," but still replies with, "About ten minutes or so."

Right. Tommy's memorized the layout of what Aizawa's shown him, and the underground hero had pointed out where Class 1-A was. "Gonna go visit the class, then," he says. "Give 'em a little support, eh? 'S also fucking burning out here."

"You do that. Just hurry up, and make sure to get into a spot on time."

Tommy grins boyishly at the man that definitely says "no promises," before going on his way.

===

"Tommy!" Ashido exclaims, having spotted him the moment he'd entered Class 1-A's waiting room. Everyone else is here besides Iida, quiet, nervous chatter filling the room. Though, seeing as how none of them seem to be worried about Iida, he relaxes. "You're not with our Teacher or the other heroes?"

"Nah, not yet," he replies, stealing an empty chair and kicking back on it. Tommy sighs, already feeling the air-conditioning in the air and how it cools his skin. "Five minutes or so 'til I gotta go back. Just wanted to chill, y'know? Plus, it's so fucking hot outside."

Ashido makes a drawn-out "oh" sound. "Makes sense."

"You're a part of the security, kero?" Tsuyu asks not unkindly, more curiously. She's so calm still compared to most of the others; Tommy respects that.

"Mhm. Course I am. You've seen me fight."

The frog girl only hums before going back into her own thoughts, maybe making plans or figuring out how to utilize her Quirk as efficiently as possible.

Tommy feels the urge to glance to his left. He does, only to see Izuku trembling like a newborn. Quietly, he stands up, alerting Izuku of his presence by getting in front of him. "Hey, bitch," Tommy whispers. Izuku looks up, but he doesn't verbally respond, still shaking.

"You're gonna do fine." The blond says. "Listen to me. You're gonna do fine. Just focus on the ene—I mean, opponent, alright? Ignore the people, ignore the crowd. Hyper-focus on the fight, on how to win, or how to lose in the best way possible that it gets the heroes' attention. Think of it like a spar with me, okay? They may not use batons or underhanded tricks or whatever, but imagine it as me trying a new fighting style. And remember what you've learnt from the hero videos, this school, All Might, and me—Big Man Tommy Innit. You hear me?"

Izuku's trembling has lessened, and there's a tiny smile that appears at the pompous self-proclaimed title Tommy's given himself. "...O-Okay," he mumbles, barely audible even in the room only filled with quiet conversation. "Yeah. I—I hear you."

Tommy smiles softly, before it goes back to his mischievous grin and he pulls back. "Even if you don't get first, at least you're here. So, make sure you kick some ass for me!"

Izuku's smile grows. "R-Right!"

Feeling like a job accomplished, Tommy moves back to the seat he'd occupied, about to lean back, when—

"Everyone, are you ready?" Iida shouts, bursting the door to the room open. "We will be entering soon!"

Tommy startles, almost falling on his way over to the chair. He almost slams his hand on the table to keep himself from falling, but manages to make the impact of his hand a lot lighter to where it sounds more like a clap instead. He takes a breath, slowly raising his palm before continuing to the doorway.

"Ah—sorry, Tommy!" The ever-studious student says, bowing at a ninety-degree angle at him. The blond waves it off as he approaches, letting the other go inside first.

Once Iida's in the room, Tommy looks back and grins. "You'll all fuckin' rock this shit!" He exclaims. "Remember your own training, as well as what you've done in class! Even if you don't do well, be glad you've made it here, eh? And if you know you aren't gonna do well, lose in the best possible way that shines a light of potential on you, alright?"

"Right!" Most of the class proclaims back. Tommy's grin turns into a smile, and he waves at them before closing the door and moving to the stadium.

...He sighs, preparing for the practical heatwave that is this day, as well as the roaring crowds and everything else he has to watch out for. His gut's still saying shit's a bit off, but... hopefully it's less dangerous than usual.

===

As Kayama announces the first game, Tommy ruminates on what he's learnt about the other classes.

1-B. That's the next one he's gonna help teach when he eventually has to switch classes. Some of their Quirks he can maybe guess, like the girl with vines for hair or the familiar Kirishima doppelganger from before, but others, like the blond guy with the arrogant smirk and blue eyes, he can barely tell.