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Denki always considered himself to be average. He had an average personality. He had average looks. Average strength. Average agility. Average, average, average.
The were only two ways in which he was not average. His quirk, and his smarts, both of which he considered to be below average. After all, what use is a quirk that fries your brain every time you use it? A quirk that couldn’t even be aimed? And how smart could he really be if he could barely stay at C-level?
This opinion only worsened when he came to UA. He was constantly surrounded by people who were smarter, faster, stronger, and generally better than he was. It kind of made it hard to not be disheartened.
But, the point was that he was surrounded by people far more skilled than he.
So why, oh why, was it him that they took?
Kaminari sighed, poking at the glass-like wall of his prison, a small marble. He gave it a few expieremental shocks earlier, but nothing really happened except it made his head hurt. So for the time being, he was stuck.
He hadn’t been able to see much through the blurry walls of the sphere, but he did know a few things. He had gotten captured because of his own stupidity. That was the first.
When Aizawa had dragged all of the students who had failed their exams off, he had eventually released their bindings so that they could walk more freely. Unfortunately, this meant there was a lot more chances for Kaminari to get distracted. His attention managed to get caught when he began to smell smoke, and stopped to try to figure out which direction it was coming from. No one had noticed his stop since he was in the back of the group, and he had been too caught up in figuring out where the smell was coming from to realize that everyone had left without him. Soon, he had found himself lost in the forest.
At some point, he ended up finding a hill he thought he recognized, so he started to climb it. It was then that he got distracted again by the blue flames tearing throughout the woods. Denki was just about to run for help, if he could find any, when he felt someone touch his back. Instantly, he shrank down and popped into a marble.
Through the cloudy walls of the marble, he was able to see that he was getting placed into a mustard yellow pocket. After that, nothing much happened except his marble was jostled around a lot, but whoever had imprisoned him had also stuffed the small sphere pretty deep into his pocket, and Kaminari wasn’t able to see much. Eventually, another cloudy blue marble got dropped into the pocket.
He couldn’t see the other person in the marble very well, but judging by the mini explosions that were coming from over there, it was probably Katsuki. His attacks did nothing to weaken the orb, but Denki couldn’t really tell him to stop. If the fact that he couldn’t hear the explosions from where he stood was anything to go by, the marbles were sound-proof. Bakugou probably wouldn’t listen to him if he could hear him anyway.
Once or twice, the creepy magician guy in the overcoat, whom Kaminari assumed was the one who put them in the marbles in the first place, transferred them to a seperate pocket, or, at one point, his mouth (at that point, Denki was even more terrified. Not only was he getting kidnapped by villains, but he also had to worry about getting swallowed.). When he threw Kaminari back into his pocket, though, Katsuki didn’t follow.
Denki had then spent the next few hours of his life staring at the inside of a coat pocket, feeling a strange mix of fear, boredom, and downright uselessness.
Even as he sat, knees drawn into his chest and head leaning on his knees, his gut sank with anticipation. He half hoped that the villains would just get whatever they wanted to do with him done with so that he could relax, but, then again, if the villains got done what they wanted to get done to him, he might not have any more time left to relax. Quite the fun train of thoughts.
Strangely enough, he actually felt a tad disappointed. If he was going to die, which, he really hoped he wasn’t going to, but if he did, this was all he got done with his life? He made some friends, got accepted into his dream school, survived the better part of his first year, and this was where it ended? Without him even getting to become a pro hero? Without finishing highschool? Without a first kiss, or a girlfriend (or boyfriend for that matter), or prom night?
...Without even being able to say goodbye?
No! He couldn’t think like that! He could still get out of the situation! Probably... Hopefully?
No matter what he had to at least try to stay alert.
But, dang, was he tired.
Denki suppressed a yawn, as he rubbed his eyes drowsily. He had been training his quirk all day, and it was pretty late at night when he had been kidnapped. And, of course, he didn’t sleep very well the night before because he could never sleep like a normal human being on his first night in a new place (or in general, really).
Kaminari had tried to stay awake, but his eyelids were tugging themselves shut, and, before he knew it, he was snoring.
When he woke up, he was greeted by some dimly lit surroundings. Denki peeked out of the bubble, squinting at the blurry counter be was sat on. A dark figure stood next to him. He was talking to some guy with a hand on his face. If he had to guess, it was the villains from the USJ attack, but, then agin, he hadn’t been able to see much of them since had gotten teleported away from the action.
But sitting at the chairs at the counter sat some new people. A guy with black hair and some serious scars, a lizard looking dude, some creepy girl holding a knife, a really big person standing in the corner with a pillar of concrete, someone in a black and white costume, and the guy in the mustard yellow trenchcoat. A few of them seemed to be nursing burns.
He couldn’t hear any part of their conversation through the marble’s walls though, so he decided to turn away to see if there was anything else of interest. Blinking at his surroundings, he found that the villains were not alone in the room. Pressed up against a wall and bound in a strange device, probably meant to restrain his explosions, was Bakugou Katsuki.
He didn’t appear to have suffered much damage, but there was a large lump on the side of his head, which explained why he was unconsious instead of struggling to scream curses at the top of his lungs. It was probably recent, since Denki hadn’t seen anything like it when they were in the pocket.
His thoghts were disrupted by a large hand descending towards him and grabbing the marble. Denki jolted upward, shooting off a few sparks in his haste. Just in time, to. A strange sensation tingled over his body as the bubble dissolved completely. At the same time, he began to grow, expanding back to his regular size.
Kaminari gulped. “Uh- er, don’t attack me! I’ll zap you!” He yelped, trying, and failing, to look threatening.
“If you want to live, you better not.” A voice rasped behind him. A hand shot out and latched onto his neck, leaving one finger slightly raised so that it hung just above his adam’s apple.
”Bold of you to a- assume I want to live.” Denki stammered, speaking in short bursts to avoid his neck fluctuating too much and touching the fifth finger. “Didn’t you already do thi- this with Midoriya anyway?” He asked, raising his hands into the air, attempting to give the villain less reasons to murder him.
”You’re quite the talker, aren’t you?” The villain drawled. “It’s kind of annoying. How about telling something useful instead of yammering like that?”
“Something useful? You’re askin’ the wrong g- guy buddy. I don’t know anyhing use- useful, but I can t- totally berade you with useless facts!” Denki rambled, He wasn’t quite sure where his sudden audacity was coming from, but he was sure of one thing. If he was going to go out, he was going to do it the way he lived, making sarcastic remarks and pissing people off. “Did you know th- that mantis shrimp have the best color vision of any animal ever? Electric eels aren’t actually eels! Whales-“
A hand closed around his arm, and pain erupted from the spot. “Shut up.” The raspy dude growled.
”Why though? I mean, you’re p- probably gonna kill me anyway. Might as well piss you off while I can.” Kaminari continued, voice straining from the pain jolting up his arm. But he was used to pain. Very used to it.
The guy with jet black hair snorted. He turned his scar covered face towards the man standing behind Denki. “And you said I was sarcastic?” He grumbled, quirking an eyebrow.
The girl with the knife piped up now. “That’s because you are.”
Scarface just rolled his eyes and went back to fixing up the burn on his shoulder. Without taking his eyes away from the gauze in his hands, he asked, “So, you’re in class 1-A. That means you know explodo mc-fuckface, correct?”
Despite the dire situation, Denki had to literally hold his breath to keep from laughing. The only one he had ever seen make up nicknames like that was explodo mc-fuckface himself. “I’m sorry, I don’t know any exlodo mc-fuckfaces. Can you be more specific?” He quipped, trying his best to keep his tone serious. He succeeded marginally, but an amused smort did break through the facade.
Dabi nodded, as if this confirmed his suspicions (which it probably did). His face stayed grim. “Kaminari Denki, right? Electricity quirk that fries you aling with everyone around you?”
”Wait, how did you-“
”We have our sources.” Raspy interupted.
“Oh. So, uh- judging by the fact that you haven’t killed me yet, even though I’ve done every trick in the book to piss you off, I’m assuming you want me for something?” Denki prodded, hoping desperately that he wasn’t wrong.
“Yes, that...” Raspy drawled. “Unfortunately, we can’t quite kill you yet. You could be quite the useful asset.” He hissed.
”By all means, keep monologuing, Shigaraki. I’m sure the kid knowing all of our plans will be oh so great.” Scars groaned. “Can’t you just put him back in the marble already? We’ve gotten the infirmation we needed from him, and he’s annoying.”
Scarface received no answer, but Denki was pretty sure that Shigaraki gestured for the marble dude to do something, because two seconds later he was stuck in a bubble.
”Well, shit.”
He didn’t get much done, being stuck in a marble, but he did manage to patch up his arm. He ripped up his shirt and wrapped the cloth didn’t his forearm, which made for an okay temporary solution. It wasn’t great, but Denki couldn’t really expect to get great medical care when he was a hostage.
Eventually he got thrown back out of the marble. This time, the villain’s wasted no time restraining him. Kaminari was thrown onto a chair, and his hands were bound behind him. Raspy, or Shigaraki, or whoever he was, grabbed him by the neck, preventing him from attempting to just electrocute his was out of the situation.
In front of him, Bakugou was still restrained in the strange device. He was shouting garbled curses through the metal thing on his mouth, but Denki couldn’t mistake the glint in his eyes for only fury. There was definitely anger. Lots of it, but they also held fear.
Fear, Denki reakized, that was for him.
”Now, are you willing to reconsider our deal?” Shigarki hissed.
There was bo response from Katsuki, except the muffled curses grew a lot louder.
Shigaraki snorted. “Poor, poor lightning boy. Hurt by his own quirk. Wouldn’t it just be a shame if someone had to... activate it?”
At these words, a dark portal opened up next to Denki. His eyes widened as tentacles of some sort began to rise from it. He barely registered the fact that Shigaraki’s hand had left his neck, because fear was roaring in his veins.
The minute the tentacles plunged into his flesh, pain like he had never felt before erupted. Lightning shot through him, addling his brain and causing him to writhe in agony. He didn’t understand. There was pure electricity jolting through him, how was no one else getting hurt? It was the tentacles! There were doing something to his quirk. Aiming it inwards towards himself. He didn’t understand how, or why, but he knew that it did.
But why was it getting so hard to think? His brain was getting fuzzy. His head hurt. His everything hurt. He just wanted it to stop. He needed it to stop. And why was there someone screaming? Was he screaming?
And, suddenly as the sensation began, it halted. A low groan escaped from his lips as his head rolled to the side. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt, ithurt ithurt ithurtithurt. There was too much pain. It was too much. Too much electricity. Too much everything.
There were words being said, but he couldn’t understand a word that was being said. And then, there it was again. The pain. Agony. Pure electricity coarsing through his veins and destroying every rational thought he could try to find.
Again, it stopped.
Again, it started.
On again. Off again. On again.
He didn’t know how many times it happened, only that when it did it was only because there was a loud smashig sound. Words. Heroes. Horror.
There were arms. Arms untying him and taking him away from the pain.
He could finally stop.
His eyes closed on their own accord, and, aching from the agony, he drifted off once again.