Chapter Text
//Caliban Files//
//Special Case 048 - Low Priority
//Submitting Agent - O001 “Caliban”
//Preliminary notes: I’ve been observing something odd on certain underground hero forums recently. Some notice of my activities has always been the norm, but they’ve always been written off as unconnected incidents. Now, someone is putting them together. I’m putting this on Skjald’s docket until the situation changes. -Caliban
//Operational instructions: Operative S02 “Skjald” is to semi-actively monitor hero forums for submissions by “greenhead” or variations on the same.
//Status: Active.
//End File.//
+++
“Dammit, Kacchan,” Izuku sighed as he flipped through his now-scarred notebook. Some of the ink had run, especially towards the edges, but it was still mostly legible. He flipped through a few Hero analyses, tracing the kanji at the edges, making sure he could at least fill in what the damaged ones said. He pulled out a pen, going back over the worst ones. “‘Incorporate,’ that one’s obvious… ‘vulnerable to’, yeah… ‘ad-’... hm, ad- vantageous or ad- verse?” The scribbling of the pen started to echo a bit, and a shadow fell across the pages. Izuku looked around - it was just the underpass he went under every day on his way home from school. But something was… off…
“I guess you’ll do for a skinsuit, kid,” a horrible, burbling voice said, echoing around the semi-enclosed space. Green slime erupted from a manhole, two crescent shaped eyes and a wide, half-solid set of teeth floating in it. Izuku took a step back in stunned terror, his own eyes widening and mouth opening to shout “Villain!” at the top of his lungs - but he couldn’t move, couldn’t make a sound, not before the Villain’s slime was on him, flooding into his mouth and his lungs… He scratched ineffectually at it, trying impotently to tear the fluid out of his throat, but there was no point. He was going to die here. He hadn’t even gotten to try to be a hero! It wasn’t fair! His mind went to his mother as his vision faded from the lack of air. Sorry, mom, he thought. I wouldn’t have made it anyway.
Through the muffling of the sludge Villain’s body, he heard a clang. There was the sound of thunder, and then he could grasp consciousness no longer.
+++
Caliban was quite literally having a shit day. The assassin he had thwarted turned out to have a powerful mutation Quirk that made its body a malleable, viscous liquid. His usual strategy of an overwhelming first strike had only given the criminal an escape route as the hollowed-out body it was wearing had crumpled like a candy wrapper and the creature within had slipped into the sewer. The waste system beneath Musutafu was a sprawling labyrinth, and the challenge of navigating it had not been enough to take his mind off of either his failure or the fact he was wading through sewage.
The assassin had tried to fade into the various… liquids… down here, but Caliban could sense and track the heat its body produced. At one point Caliban had frozen an entire section of the sewer in an attempt to neutralize the sludge creature. That would be a head-scratcher for Waste Management. The fleeing criminal had also tried to assault its pursuer, but the hunter had sent it scattering with a Mach Punch and that was the end of the assassin’s attempts to be clever. The thing was running scared now: terrified, desperate, and dangerous.
He reached out, sending some harmless voltage into the air. The assassin’s body had a rather unique electrochemical signature, and by charging the air, the hunter picked up his quarry’s trail. It led up a slope and out of a maintenance access. Caliban didn’t bother with the ladder - he blasted himself straight up, knocking aside the displaced manhole cover with barely a second thought. The instant he was in fresh air again, he was breaking down the scenario with a practiced eye.
Civilian hostage. No effective self-defense. Gotta scatter instead of freeze. Caliban’s eyes flashed, and he thrust out a fist, sending waves of pure force into the assassin’s body, tearing it free of the boy. The criminal was stunned for a second, reeling from the shock of the attack, and Caliban took the opportunity to corral the individual pieces of its body into a few discarded plastic bottles scattered around the underpass. With the threat mostly contained for now, the aging man allowed himself a moment to breathe. The familiar numbing cold of exhaustion was setting into his extremities, now - he only had a bit left in him before he passed out. He coughed, and a spatter of blood covered his hand. His eyes widened in realization. The boy!
+++
Izuku woke to a pressure on his neck. For a moment his mind spun in fear, but it faded when the pressure vanished, and he drew in a ragged breath, his throat clear of sludge. His eyes were caked with some dried muck, though, and he started to rub at them.
“I guess that means you’re stable,” came a deep, gruff voice. “Good. I’ve been checking your pulse for the past few minutes, but, well, I’m no medic. I didn’t know if you were going to wake up anytime soon.”
The middle-schooler opened his eyes to a strange sight. There was a man in something resembling a Hero costume, but with substantially more tactical rigging than Izuku had seen in fashion since the Vigilante craze a few years back. He was also wearing a hooded cape that looked to be made of some sort of heavy, durable, cloth, which again was an outdated style of Hero wear that had fallen by the wayside for more “practical” costumes. His eyes, an unnatural color of silver probably born of his Quirk, whatever it was, glowed gently from the shadows his hood cast on his face. His hair was short-cropped, certainly once a deep black but now with growing flecks of grey from age. He was eyeing a 2 liter soda bottle that now contained a pair of eyes and a set of teeth - the Villain that had very nearly killed Izuku. The Hero was studying the bottle in one armored hand, and in the other…
“Interesting analyses, kid,” the Hero said evenly. “You’ve thought of ten separate ways to kick Kamui Woods right in the berries.” Izuku sputtered a little, babbling a few disconnected words that, even together, wouldn’t have meant anything. “Are you trying to be an analyst?”
“No! I wanna be a He- I mean, it’s just a hobby, I - I, uh, only keep the journal because I wanna be a Hero but it’s really just something I’ve always done, it’s just a hobby oh gosh I said that already -”
The Hero let out a contrabasso chuckle that stopped Izuku’s rambling in its tracks. “You’re something, that’s for sure. You said you wanted to be a Hero?” His glowing eyes flashed as he focused on Izuku. There was a spine-tingling sensation that felt like a storm was staring him down - the electrical force standing his hair on end. He reached out, and Izuku squeaked as a large hand landed on his head. There was a small sensation of energy jolting down his back - not painful, just present.
“You don’t have a Quirk,” the man said, but it wasn’t judging, or accusatory, or the prelude to an admonishment. Just a statement of fact. “But you still want to be a Hero.” The tall man looked him in the eye for a long moment. Izuku braced himself for the inevitable - advice that he should become a police officer, or a doctor, or find some other, better, safer job for a helpless, Quirkless, useless Deku.
“It’ll be tough,” the Hero mused, “but I reckon you can do it.”
At first, the words slipped through the net of Izuku’s mind. They had been so far outside what he had been expecting to hear that, for a moment, he simply didn’t hear them. As they sunk in, his vision blurred with tears. Someone believed in him. A Hero believed in him.
“I’m not going to tell you what you already know, boy,” he continued. “That it’ll be an uphill battle. I’m going to ask you a question instead: ‘What is a Hero?’” He lifted his hand from Izuku’s head and straightened to his full height. “You already know the answer.” With that, he turned to the west, the now-setting sun framing his cloaked figure in a golden nimbus. He looked to the sky, and there was a sensation of building pressure, like a thunderstorm about to break.
Before Izuku could think, he reached out and grabbed onto the Hero’s cloak - right as he blasted off from the ground with astonishing speed. Torn from the Earth, Izuku held on for dear life, lips and eyelids flapping in the wind as he shouted “Wait! What do you mean?!” The hooded man made a strangled noise of surprise, and stopped dead - in midair. Izuku, unaffected by whatever Quirk the man had, continued on his trajectory, pulling the end of the cloak over the Hero’s head and making inverted eye contact with the man as he flipped over. Both of their eyes widened, Izuku’s mouth opened in a wordless “O”. There was a thunderclap, the gut sensation of movement, and Izuku fell…
...about half a foot onto a concrete roof.
+++
“Are you crazy, boy?! I’ve got places to be, people to- urk.” Caliban spat up a bit of blood, sinking to one knee as the kid righted himself, babbling an apology he didn’t pay any attention to. His hands and feet were numb with cold, and darkness ringed his vision. Not long now. I have to power down a bit. Drawing in a breath, he found that the middle-schooler had stopped speaking and was looking at him curiously.
“Your eyes aren’t glowing,” he said, with concern. “Are you alright?” His eyes widened as he noticed the blood on the back of Caliban’s gauntleted hand. “Oh no! You’re hurt! Can… can I…” he swallowed. “Can I help?”
“No.” Caliban snapped, immediately regretting it when the kid’s face fell. “Sorry. This is a… personal issue.” He fished in his pouches for an emergency battery, swearing when he came up empty. He looked up and scanned the rooftop for a moment, settling on a fuse box. Caliban trickled a bit of power into his arm, ripping off the cover. He was just about to plunge his hand into the wiring when he heard the sound of a pen scribbling against paper and turned his head, raising an eyebrow.
The middle-schooler had produced a pen and the battered notebook and was writing so fast, Caliban worried the paper was going to ignite. His pen flew across the pages as if his life depended on it. He muttered as he wrote:
“Energy based Quirk, emitter type, extremely powerful, very versatile. Requires an external energy source to recharge? How much can be stored at once? What sources can it draw from? What types of energy can it-”
Caliban’s eyes flared bright and the book was ripped out of the boy’s hands by an unseen force. The page he had been writing on tore itself out of the journal and was swiftly incinerated.
“Your analysis is very impressive, but I can’t let you record my Quirk.” Pushing the journal back into the boy’s chest, Caliban took a steadying breath and grasped the wiring in the fuse box, opening his senses to the flow of energy, directing it through his arm and compressing it into that strange, cavernous space his Quirk provided. The channels that had once flowed so free, like thunderous rivers, now felt obstructed and narrow. He hissed at the pain of forcing them open, and grimaced at the thought of the power bill he was condemning this building’s inhabitants to. When he could feel his extremities again, he bent the cover back into place and turned around, to find the boy watching him with wide, searching green eyes. He sighed. “What do you need?”
That gave the child pause for a moment. He seemed torn, and the older man could see confusion, anxiety, and hope all jostling for position in the boy’s eyes.
“Back there, I… you know I’m Quirkless. That I don’t have a power. Right?”
“Yes,” Caliban responded simply.
The boy flushed, looking like he wanted to quit, but kept speaking. “And you still said… that I could be a hero.” He looked up into Caliban’s relit eyes. “Why?”
The cloaked man was silent for a long moment.
“Because... everybody deserves a chance. Not everybody gets one.” His eyes flashed. “And a Quirk isn’t a chance. A Quirk is a tool. A powerful tool, yes. But a Quirk - or a lack of one - should never define the person it is attached to.” His hand tightened into a fist, and then he let go of the tension, letting his eyes fade to a low background glow. “Never let anyone tell you otherwise.”
For a moment, in the dying light of the day, the boy’s hair was tinged gold, framing his growing smile.
+++
For the first time in a long time, Izuku’s smile was effortless. There had been a spark of hope he’d clung to for a long time, but it had been threatening to go out. That affirmation, that utterly unconditional belief the Hero had offered, it had flared the spark back into a true, roaring flame. That flame banished the cold mist of despair that had been settling on his heart in an instant. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed the feeling of warmth. Somebody believed in him. He could do it. He could be a Hero.
Reality, however, is a flea-ridden bitch with a terrible sense of humor, and it chose that moment for a deafening blast to ring out through the cooling evening air. On instinct, Izuku ducked, already looking around for the source of the sound. A plume of smoke wafted into the sky a few streets down, and Izuku started running, already bringing out his notebook. He skidded around the corner, and his eyes went wide with shock at the nightmare down the alley.
It was the sludge Villain, the selfsame one that had nearly murdered him barely half an hour ago. And… those blasts… those fires… it couldn’t be..!
“GET THE FUCK OFF ME, YOU SHITTY PILE OF-!” The unmistakable roar of Katsuki Bakugou’s voice rose over the low growling of the fires his explosive Quirk had catalyzed, cut off by a gurgling choke as the sludge of the Villain’s body enveloped his face. Izuku looked around in a panic - Backdraft was busy managing the fires, Mount Lady couldn’t fit into the narrow alley, Death Arms and Kamui Woods were just… standing there? Paralyzed by the threat of a hostage, uncertain how to proceed. They were acting like it was a stable situation, but it wasn’t, Kacchan was about to die and nobody was helping-
Izuku was past the makeshift barricade before he registered that he was moving. Slinging his bag off of his shoulder, he tossed it vaguely in the direction of the Villain’s eyes, blinding him for a moment by hitting the only vulnerable point he could think of. In the seconds that bought him, Izuku dove for where he’d seen Kacchan enveloped by the ooze, tearing clumps of it away rather ineffectually. He managed to free Kacchan’s face with one armful of sludge, and the red-eyed boy took a gulping breath.
“What’re you doing, Deku?!” he snarled, coughing slightly as he did.
“I-I’m trying to save you, Kacchan,” Izuku cried, eyes watering in desperation and mouth taught in a determined smile.
“Get out of here, you damn ner - !”
Kacchan’s voice was cut off by the BOOM of thunder. Then, the world went silent, black, and very, very cold. Izuku gasped for breath as the strings of sludge that had adhered to him trembled. Through the impenetrable darkness, two points of silver flashed. Izuku blinked.
And he was standing next to Bakugou. The Villain’s body had been frozen solid, its formless mass solidified into a crystal pillar that rose a full three stories above the street. Frost spread out from its base, coating the asphalt and the facades of the buildings. The fires were out, and Backdraft was shivering, partially frozen himself. Above, a raincloud had formed, still swirling together even as it disintegrated into a heavier and heavier rain.
Izuku only caught the edge of a black cloak as it disappeared over a rooftop.
+++
Caliban drew a ragged, rattling gasp as he slumped against a wall. The ice had raced back up his limbs and onto his torso. He coughed up a bit more blood, and tried to stagger to the fusebox, but his legs gave out under him, utterly numb. A steadying breath took him into meditation.
The pressure of the wind. The heat of my breath. The sound of the rain.
The world slowed, and the reservoir of his Quirk opened. Warmth spread from his heart outwards, laying his chilled shiver to rest, returning feeling to his limbs as they heated back up and the frost dripped away, soaking his clothing. It felt like the worst kind of cold sweat.
No more work for me today, at all. My heart nearly stopped changing the weather.
As he channeled his power, he thought on that strange encounter he’d had with the little green-haired middle-schooler. Caliban had saved people before, of course, but that encounter was different. The determined light in the boy’s eyes… it was familiar, and not from the mirror.
Flashes of blue eyes beneath blond hair, and an unwavering smile marred by blood.
He shook his head and stood - perhaps too rapidly, considering the way his vision dimmed - clearing the unbidden memory from his mind. It had been years since he’d last had a flashback, and he didn’t want to break that streak on some random rooftop in Musutafu.
His thoughts returned to the boy. Caliban hadn’t been lying when he commented on his analysis; it was thorough, considered, and showed a real creative talent. He had an admirable air of hope about him, and he had leapt into action without even thinking. He had said he wanted to be a hero.
He said he was Quirkless.
“The world needs a Symbol, Tenma. A Symbol of Hope. A Symbol of Peace.”
Inazuma Tenma, eighth bearer of One For All, made a decision.