Chapter Text
'You can't be a hero, young man. I really am sorry, but a quirkless hero would more often be a liability than not and the dangers towards you are very much real. Death is not uncommon among heroes in the worst of cases..."
Those words felt like tungsten weights on his lungs as he breathed coarsely through the silent air. Soft heaves, pathetic pants, an accentuation to his disbelief of the situation. He didn't want to accept it. He never could accept such a shattering reality, so for the past ten years of his life he'd spent them lying to himself.
But now, the final domino dropped...
…
….
……No. I am going to be a hero.
'You should try to aim for something obtainable. Take the police for example. They protect the world and enforce the law without relying on their quirks. Maybe try becoming a detective with all those analysing skills I saw in your notebooks from earlier!' The buff man bent down, ruffling Izuku's hair, however he recoiled at the growl he received.
No! I want to be a hero!
~FLASHBACK~
"-As much as I respect the police for their efforts and contributions, they're a joke for their 'No-Quirk usage' rule! Not only is it inefficient and illogical, but it's pretty unjustified too. But no, I just have to give up on my dream. When every single person I know wastes their talent that was gifted to them as a simple birthright, I'm forced to be the one to give up! Look at Endeavor! He's just a glory-fighter who only does it because he wants the title of No.1! Look at Hawks who is so pretentious and cocky, full of himself, thinking he's undefeatable! Then look at Miruko who refuses to rely on anyone other than herself!"
"Yes, but they're very high ranking heroes for a re-"
"They're all gonna get themselves KILLED!"
"…"
"Even if it's not today, even if it's not tomorrow! When the time comes for them to buckle up and face the music, they're going to die because of their egotistical flaws! You're the only hero that's nothing like the rest! The only hero I want to be like for a reason!" he sniffled angrily, tears prickling at his eyes.
"I-"
"I can't be mad at you All Might… I can't bring myself to hate you for telling me what everyone else has always told me… It's not your fault I was born 'useless'... but even if you tell me I can't do it, I know I can’t listen… that I'm still going to try anyway! I've had enough of being told I can't! Even if I get myself killed, at this point, I just want to prove you all wrong and say 'I CAN make it if I try', and even if I only save ONE PERSON, then... then that'll be enough for me to feel like I made a difference!" Izuku turned and ran. He barged through the door leading to the building's stairwell and didn't look back to see the taken-aback, pained expression glossed over All Might's face. The boy's breath was ragged and uneven, choked by wretches and sobs as his body shuddered in sprint.
His dream, his aspiration… why was it so 'wrong' for him to just want to save lives? Why did it always have to come down to a stupid quirk!?
He consistently wiped away the bleary tears as he ran, only to wipe them again a few moments later. His eyes felt like dams under pressure, and for every leak he tried to seal, another crack formed, only sprouting more.
It was only upon reaching the filthy beach of Dagobah, did Izuku truly look up and take in his surroundings.
"Why… am I here." he questioned himself hoarsely, a can rattling away from his heavy punt. He tried to find reason in being here, but came up blank. "I guess… I really did just run without thinking, huh…?" he muttered lightly, eyelids heavy like leaden weights on his face.
His face felt bloodless, his senses slow, his body weary and his mind thoughtless.
'Perhaps… Perhaps I can just lay here… It'll be alright if I'm late for dinner just once…' he told himself emptily as he dropped down in the sand and shut out the outside world, staring into the blood-hued sky.
~PRESENT~
It had been a few hours, and there were now stars in the sky. Over time, the tears on his cheeks gradually dried, leaving him to stare up at the sky with a melancholic, peaceful look on his face.
At some point, his vision caught on something sparkling above, his blank eyes rested on a dazzling red light standing out.
‘Huh… Shooting star, maybe?’ he wondered to himself, before as though sensing his presence, the light began to plummet sharply downwards, far faster than he could have expected and heading straight towards him at terrifying speeds. A shrill shriek drilled in his head, and the only conclusion he could deduce was that it had locked onto him.
Izuku startled in a frenzy, his ears screaming in pain as he rolled hard to his left. He panicked, curling up and instinctually covering his head as the crash of shifting sand beside him echoed inside of his skull. "Wh- what the fuck was that?!" his breathing skyrocketed from the thought of having his head crushed by that thing. Of course he usually wasn't one to swear, but it seemed like he was about to die right then and there as an explosion sounded from only a meter to his right; but not the kind of explosive noise he was accustomed to from Kacchan.
Slowly, he stumbled from the rush of blood to his head at moving too quickly, before his eyes focused eventually on what seemed like a small capsule of some sort in front of him in the sand. It was small, only about the size of his head and it had buried itself in a skidding crater.
He squinted, not knowing what on earth to think as he observed it. It was metallic, with an oily sheen that reflected the sunset magnificently. Segments aligned in a clear-cut fashion that looked like each layer should slide over the next and open. He leant just a little further forward, however due to this shift in weight, the sand gave way beneath his feet and he skidded down the crater edge towards the middle. His face skidded down first, followed by the rest of him until his nose almost brushed with still red, hot glass, eyes crossed staring at it and realising that it must have formed from the intense impact between the high-speed cannonball and the sand.
Shaking dust and specks of yellow from him as he stood, he held his breath, staring in expectation of the object reacting in some way. It didn't budge, however what he did next was of course no big surprise. Bending down, now mere inches from the pod, he rapped his knuckles sheepishly on the shell, inciting a startling sound he didn't expect to come from any metal, and just as he had suspected, the pod slide open in segments as though activating from the contact, shifting downwards from the top and leaving a hemisphere that permitted view of the contents inside.
"What the…" His shallow voice trailed off as he stared incredulously at the object before him. It… it looked like some kind of bracelet…? Or maybe a watch. He wasn't sure, but one thing was certain, it didn't look like any technology that should exist in this era- no, this world. Its primary colour was black, with dark grey secondary highlights. Chrome tubes wrapped around it like tree stretching its roots, forming a sort of pipe cage that connected to the centre-piece of the device. Not only that, but there were also the luminescent green buttons that looked like bubbles, one large one at the bottom of the device, as well as three more on the top and each side. Perhaps most prominently of all, in the centre there lay a large ring jutting out by half an inch from the rest of the centre-piece, and inside of that circle, was a large, green, glowing hourglass that radiated against a dim, grey background.
To say that Izuku had suspicions that this thing really did come from space was not an exaggeration. If anything, he was past belief. This was certainty.
Like a viper, a trembling hand slowly uncurled towards it. Moments turned into centuries as he reached out in terror, spurred on only by what was now unquenchable -and potentially morbid- curiosity depending on the outcome preceding him.
It was only once his fingertips passed the surrounding shell encasement did his life flash before his eyes- or rather, the green light now brightly emitting from the thing.
"Gah!" he straightened, recoiling as the watch suddenly latched open like a beast widening its maw, already clamping down over his left wrist before he could even twitch let alone pull away.
"Get it off, get it off get it off- WhaaaaGH!" he twisted to the floor, tearing his right hand at the thing like a claw to scratch it off, but it wouldn't budge. It was almost like it was suctioned to his wrist like a vacuum, yet somehow not quite uncomfortably tight. The only silver-lining was that it didn't seem to be eating into his skin like a bear-trap at least. "What the hell is this thing!?" he yelled.
Scanning the surrounding trash, he eyed a small stick. Walking over and grabbing it, he attempted to pry the thing off, but to no avail. All he managed to do was snap that twig, as well as several others before he eventually gave up.
"Why won't it come off?!" He checked once more for some kind of latch he could release to loosen it and get it off, but knew he was only getting his hopes up.
… "Maybe… I'm looking at this the wrong way?" He glanced at the centre ring, before pressing the big button beneath it. *BLEEP* The sound of it seemingly activating startled him, and the ring had extended outwards.
Before where there used to be a glowing hourglass, the two sides crossed and overlapped into a diamond shape, and inside there was now a dark, unrecognisable figure of some form, displayed in the centre on a small screen.
"Wh-" He was speechless, only able to blink at the device in a strange sense of intrigue.
If it was going to kill him, wouldn't it have done so already by now…?
Balling his fist -as well as his eyes- he lifted a shaking finger towards the raised pad. A second passed. Than an eternity. Sweat trickled through his brow and down the arch of his nose, and as it dropped, his resolve had doubled. Slamming it down back into the watch. *BLEEP* A blinding green light covered him, before he felt something so utterly bizarre, he couldn't have prepared for it.
He screamed suddenly, his entire body felt a strange wave of ticklish sensation traveling down his back like a permanent shiver. His eyes bulged as he watched in horror as electric yellow fur began to appear, first exploding from the device and quickly spreading, enveloping his left hand, and then his arm. Within seconds that felt like drawn out hours, it continued to spread like a disease, until finally his entire body was covered from head to tip in fur. The primary parts were electric yellow, but the parts between -like his torso and upper arms- were black. Of course, he wanted to start screaming, but before he could his body began to physically warp as well. His forearms and upper legs (where there was yellow fur) thickened in an exponential rush. They became broader and looked cumbersome, with the electric yellow fluff enlarging his forearms and hands in a way that was incommodious but not exactly unwieldy... Just BIG. Around his neck and shoulders, the fur that was there followed the same theme, thickening into poofy fluff, with a long tail-like appendage growing out from between his shoulder-blades and looking kind of like a thin, lightning bolt. His cheeks tingled as a thin layer of black fur erupted on his face, followed by his ears experiencing the strangest feeling of all as they shifted ever-so-slightly upwards on his head before elongating into very large, fluffy, pointed tips much like you'd find on a feline. His nose wet and mouth shrunk, elongating into a short, pointy tip. Teeth sharpened like blades with two top-canines gently peeking from his lips in a less threatening, more cute kind of way.
His torso and gut thinned as all the undefined flesh formed taught and toned muscle, and claws shot from the four thick digits on his hands paws(?) and three on his feet, as sharp as blades and as white as his pristine teeth. Finally, as smaller details he noticed last, small black lightning-bolt patterns scattered around his body, one on each thigh and the back of his hands, and small blue accents became noticeable. A small tuft of blue on his chest and upper belly, neon blue pads on all of his paws, as well as blue lightning bolts shooting out from each cheek and a large shard-like shape on his head -but those last ones he couldn't quite see himself, only feel. His eyes felt like they sharpened, and the sound of the sea lapping at the shore amplified by a previously unbelievable amount, also displaying finer detail in each noise than he'd ever heard before. His nose had sharpened exponentially, too, and he could smell the previously noticeable scent of the sea over a dozen times clearer. The smell of fresh sea salt, that sprayed in the air from the water, smelt stronger than any scent he'd ever registered before, and yet somehow it didn't seem be overpowering to him.
That was also when he noticed his own smell. Ozone, mixed with thunderclouds and rainfall -the dewy kind you'd get in a forest, fresh after the rain of an electric storm.
By the end of everything, there was only word he could really pick his brain to describe himself as feeling...
Plushy?
Immediately, his legs began pumping as he tore towards the sea edge, however what would have normally taken a couple seconds to achieve, took only a single blink as he appeared at the water's edge, confused at how he got there so quick and followed by a stumblingly strong inertia from the speed that almost had him flying face-first into the water. Lightning sparked around the edges of his body, with a small *zap* being heard in the air, however he could look more into that later, as honestly, it wasn't what he cared most about right now.
His eyes stared at the rippling reflection and he saw what he had become. He looked like an electrified, bipedal cat in a vague sense. No matter how much length of rope he tried to give himself, he still didn't even remotely resemble any type of mutation quirk, bar-none in the world, however it wasn't like he looked bad at all- if anything, he actually thought he looked confusingly cool!
The sight merely solidified his worst fear and greatest excitement.
-Why was he excited in this situation, you may ask?
Well, until now, Izuku Midoriya had never been special in any way. He had no power, no friends, no 'sure-fire way to the top' like Kacchan had... So when something as strange and mythical and unbelievable as this happened to him, the first thing he felt beyond the worry, was a small sense of hope rekindling his lifelong dream...
'I don't know what I am... I may look strange, but maybe... Possibly... I really could become a hero with this power?'
Using the thick, non-opposable digits, he went to pull open his mouth to peer inside at the pearly white teeth. It was awkward, but afterwards his padded paws then roamed around the rest of this strange new body, touching almost everything and revelling in the strangest sensations. The only sense that seemed to have weakened, was his sense of touch, which was slightly muted in comparison to when he was human. The pads on his paws were thicker, somewhat like a grainy mix between skin and leather, and with very thin tufts of fur between them, it made it quite difficult to make out feelings against them, however regardless when he rubbed his cheek and ears, it sent a pleasurable feeling though him as though scratching at an itch.
'Oh god, don't tell me I'm becoming some sort of wild space cat entirely...' "Zera-Zeraora..." he muttered to himself, but afterwards his entire body went rigid as he processed the sounds that had excited his mouth when speaking.
'What the hell-?!' "Zer...?" 'I can't talk!' "Zera!"
.....Problem for later.
Deciding he had played enough with his ears and fluffy neck, a sudden idea sparked in his head. 'Hmm, I wonder...' "Zera-Zera..."
He looked behind him, over towards a large, rusty refrigerator that had been illegally dumped by someone onto the beach. It was far from being the only piece of scrap junk left here shamefully, but it made for the best and largest target around to test his theory on.
Thinking about how this would work, he raised both hands and aimed at the junk before channeling the feeling of electricity dancing through his fur towards his hands. Instantaneously, he felt a strong current arc throughout him like an electrical storm building up beneath his skin, before blue lightning exploded around him in a large dome, arcing outwards to lick at the sand and other broken appliances around in a wild, untamed storm. The electricity hit the metal objects and caused them to screech in what sounded like mimicked agony as they charred and floated under the extreme electrical current passing through them, and each whip-crack of electricity seared the sand upon contact. He felt so alive.
Within less than five seconds, the metal had singed black and warped, and all the bits that had raised with their own synthesised electromagnetic fields, dropped to the ground in a clutter as Earth gravity's own electromagnetic field re-stabilised.
Of course, initially he had been aiming to fire more of a bolt directly towards the fridge, but instead had created an area-of-effect kind of attack -likely due to his lack of control... (not that he was complaining that this had actually WORKED in the first place!).
He whooped joyously at the revelation, unable to find anything in his verbal repertoire that managed to portray just how elated he was. After all these years... After all this time being told he'd get nowhere without power of his own... Well, initially, he was going to try and make it without anyway. Just to prove them all wrong about his worth...
But now?
Well now, he truly did have the power to become one of the greatest heroes in the world. If he didn't use that, it would be like wasting a miraculous gift unobtained by anyone else in all of known history, and besides, if it meant he could achieve his dream then he didn't care what he looked like.
…
*BLEEP-BLEEP-BLEEP-VR-Vr-vr* his eyes widened, arms dropping to his sides as the glowing sparks still surrounding his paws died down. He barely even recognised the sound of the watch still attached to his large, left wrist, nor the shift in his weight as everything felt… normal again; but in such a strange and alien way. He had changed back, but it didn't feel like he was returning to 'normal' like he'd have thought he would...
His hands and head were no longer fluffy, and though his height hadn't changed from 5'6", he knew he no longer felt as light as the wind, but what had been 'normal' in appearance to the boy for the last fifteen years of his existence, now felt so… alien. Like his own body wasn't what he was used to anymore, regardless of how short a time he'd been something different.
"It's not permanent..." he stated thinking about the transformation. His voice was level, as he wasn't quite sure if he was glad he could at least speak normally again or if it really mattered enough.
Well, he just felt weird. Like a vital part of him was suddenly missing, despite never having had it nor noticed before now.
His eyes trailed down towards the device still clasped around his wrist, cocking his head thoughtfully. The hourglass now glowed red, a distinct contrast to the radioactive green from before, but at the very least it seemed to be recharging by itself as a sliver at the bottom of the hourglass turned green. The bad side of this was that it seemed slow to recharge, as at this rate, he could be waiting minutes to hours, he wasn't sure yet.
"I guess I should go tell mom about all... this...?"