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Chapter Text

Setting up camp was slow and tedious as it always was, but that didn’t mean it had to be a bore!

Ah’shido Mina, resident Kàfsi and president of all things cool and hip, made sure to bring the energy wherever she went, spreading laughter and fashion sense to all her friends and peers. She spent the time setting up much the same as she spends her every day: by being the light in the lives of those who’d be utterly miserable without her!

In the midst of screwing the shelters anchorings in place (well, let’s just say in the midst of Bak’go and Tokk’ami screwing the anchoring in- Ah’shido wasn’t really participating in that! But heyy! She’s doing her duties in other, equally significant ways, so don’t look at her sideways for not doing the heavy lifting!!) Ah’shido was herding a sweet, unsuspecting victi- ahem J’ro into the brush behind the rest of the camp. She had to activate stealth mode so as to not appear suspicious as she herded her classmate away. She had a vision about how well this would look after she was done, she’d been thinking about this for mhiips and would be denied no longer! 

As she pushes J’ro forward with a gentle hand to her lower antennae, she discreetly glances behind them a couple times to make sure no one’s looking or following. And once they venture out far enough that the underbrush shrouds them from view and everyone else disappears, Ah’shido lets out a quiet trill, fluttering about with her iridescent wings. She promptly stills when J’ro turns around slowly, immediately suspicious of her (not so) silent mini-celebration.

”Mina,” is all she says, yet somehow it’s nearly enough to get the Kàfsi to spill the fairydust and spoil everything!  It’s those dead eyes, Ah’shido thinks, shuddering slightly. She keeps her cool as she subtly adjusts the pouch at her hip. 

“What?” She says innocently. (Much too innocently for J’ro’s taste, and if the slight wobbling of her nose is anything to go by, she’s definitely up to no good).

She squints at J’ro to be extra convincing, wiggling happily when the àrrpa seems convinced and doesn’t question further.

I’m such a good liar!

(she’s such an awful liar, J’ro thinks, and I can totally see that pouch! tsk)

Dragging a reluctant J’ro to a stump, Ah’shido sits her down and begins to let her know exactly what she’s been lured here for- in fact, she’s surprised she even got the aloof girl to go with her, and with such a cryptic explanation as ‘I just want to talk’ no less. She barely even asked any questions or expressed any wariness! Aww, J’ro, you trust this ole gal that much?? So sweet, she could wilt from horn to foot! She almost goes to pinch the glowing bulb of her grumpy friends face-antennae, before forcefully stopping herself. Eep, she would totally maul me! We’re close, but not THAT close!

She ejects all thoughts of slow, brutal death by cold, purple àrrpa hands from her mind and affixes her trembling suckers to the pouch she snuck along, careful to only use three appendages so that she doesn’t erode her hard-won treasure. 

“So..J’ro…as I’m sure you could probably tell by now, I didn’t actually bring you out here to have a girl to girl talk,” no, it’s something far more nefarious than that!

”No, it’s something far more nefarious than that, I’m sure,” she deadpans. 

Ah’shido nearly leaps with shock! Korpov’it! You’re totally reading my mind right now, aren’t you!! Creepy!

And J’ro, with a terrible, knowing glint in those soulless eyes says, “I’m not reading your mind.” 

“Oh, you’re terrible!” Ah’shido cries dramatically, “Don’t scare me like that.”

J’ro snorts gleefully, thoroughly amused. “What? I mean can you really blame me when you make it so easy?” 

Pouting, Ah’shido whines, “It’s mean, though.”

Raising a playful antennae, she rebuts with, “What’s that? So you can pull me around anywhere you like, play tricks on me, and doll me up like some plaything, but when I wanna get some payback it’s not fair?” J’ro may not be able to pout like Ah’shido, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t capable of finding other ways to tease the ever-dramatic girl. So she laces her tone with a kit-like whininess that doesn’t exactly get its intended reaction: red-winged embarrassment. Instead, while it was clearly meant to mock, Ah’shido almost combusts from the sheer ridiculousness of J’ro of all beings whining like a bratty kit! 

Krim! she titters, I wish I had my cam lenses right now!!

The inappropriate glee she’s feeling must show in her eyes because her friends coloring gets a shade darker and she clicks her tongue in displeasure.

“You’re such a ditz.”

“!!?”

Ah’shido flares in offense, squawking her own displeasure at J’ro’s muttered words, and fully throws herself onto J’ro as she gets up to try to leave. “Am not!! And hey- we’re not finished here, so don’t you dare try and leave yet, okay!?” 

The grumpy àrrpa sits back down with a flustered frustrated grumble- Ah’shido can tell it’s just a front because the bulbs of her antennae give off a faint pink hue in response to the up-close and personal attention. As Ah’shido finally reveals what her true intentions were- a makeover in the middle of the forest of all things- they both sober up and with the permission of J’ro, the first stroke of sparkles dusted over her skin. As her friend worked, she closed her eyes and sat in serenity, just letting herself feel the foreign, but not uncomfortable nor unwelcome feeling of the brush over the dips and valleys of her lightening face. 

As she worked, brush in hand steady over the plane of her friends face, she felt calmed and quietly happy at the sight of the face before her beginning to lighten gradually by several shades. It was another thing she had anticipated, and the colors she picked out would look so, so nice on the finished face. A true girls girl she would be, not to say she wasn’t one beforehand- though J’ro herself was less outwardly “feminine” than other girls in the class, she was still a girl, and if Ah’shido’s memory serves her right J’ro could get very adamant about that fact at times. Due to her nature, she sometimes received comments like “J’ro? She’s hardly a girl.” (K”am’narri!) “Yeesh, J’ro, you’re almost manlier than I am!” (Also K”am’narri!) and even during sparring, “Ha! There’s no reason I should go easy on you, do your worst so I can go all out with you- Man to Man!!” (K”am’narri AGAIN!) 

And while it’s all meant in good fun, it definitely rubs J’ro the wrong way at times that she has to constantly remind them she is, in fact, a girl. Luckily for her though, you don’t make it through hero schooling without a couple things; a strong skillset, a rigorous sense of self discipline, and thick skin! And she has the last one in spades. It makes Ah’shido a little proud that J’ro doesn’t let the comments get to her because it means that J’ro is confident in her own skin, doesn’t feel the need to change herself for others sake. Sometimes she wishes she herself could be so confident. It’s inspiring. So let it be clear she knows J’ro doesn’t need to wear makeup or bright pink outfits to be a girl, she just decided it couldn’t hurt to do something fun for her classmate! 

J’ro’s liking it even more than she anticipated. Her little round bulbs even glowing pale pink with happiness! 

As she wrapped the process with a-few finishing touches, she fluttered back to take in the full picture: soft pinks danced on the valleys of her sharp face, a deep midnight purple swirled through the dips, and delicate crystals spread across her skin imitating the starry night sky of J’ro’s home planet. 

When Ah’shido lets her peek at herself through the many reflective panes of her wings, she looks so pleased that Ah’shido thrums with self satisfaction. It was a tender moment, one that they would remember, one that would bring them closer.

Things shouldn’t have gone so awry.

The poor, unsuspecting Ah’shido doesn’t even feel the prick of the needle in her neck as her world is suddenly reduced to nothing but a sickening swirling sensation, an awful dizziness, then darkness.

J’ro nearly yelps as her friends limp body wilts over her like a severed flower petal, not a peep coming from her pallid and eerily still pink body. Beams of panic fire through J’ro’s synapses as she bundles up the dead weight of her friend onto her back as quick as her training taught her. Kreft! How could I have possibly missed the approach? The devastated girl knew she needed to get to A’zwaa before she herself suffered the same fate, but shock and self attack made her slow. Was all this training for nothing?? Did I learn nothing!?

And as the prick of a needle into her own neck sends poisons seeping into her body, world phasing out of focus and her heavy body crushing a petite Ah’shido underneath as she drops, J’ro wonders how she failed so horribly…

As she loses consciousness to the sound of enemies closing in on her at all sides, the faces of her classmates flash through her mind.

Although unknowingly, everyone was relying on her to detect a danger that should’ve been child’s play to notice, but instead she got caught unawares and failed everybody…now it won’t be just her who’ll suffer the consequences. J’ro knows that for whatever happens next, she’s to blame. 

Ah’shido and J’ro were taking a concerning amount of time to return to camp. 

Try as she might, Ah’shido’s rather obvious attempts at sneaking out undetected were for naught, in fact it was almost insulting that she thought a seasoned pro such as himself wouldn’t notice their every move. It didn’t help that she was almost painfully obvious about it too, seriously, turning on stealth mode in the middle of camp? How obvious could one be?

A’zwaa chuffed as he leapt down from a branch, startling a-few other students. “first years…” 

“You three,” he called, and K”am’narri, K”ir’shima, and ‘chako snapped to attention with a synchronized “Yes, sensei!”

“I’m going to gather your classmates from wherever they decided to wander off to, I’ll only be a-few clicks away so don’t do anything stupid,” he orders in a steely voice, not stopping despite their clear lack of knowledge regarding who he’s talking about. He ignores their clueless heads whipping, and orders, “Continue to obey the technology restrictions, but if I don’t return after 4 clicks, one of you may use the communications device to contact me, understood?” 

They all give vigorous confirmations, and he dips his head at them in dismissal. They scurry off to alert the rest of their companions around camp, and the teacher himself slinks off into the wilderness, hot on the trail of his misbehaving students. They will get significant points docked for this stunt, and so will the rest of their classmates for their disappointing lack of spacial awareness.

A’zwaa spends the clicks it takes to reach J’ro and Ah’shido by preparing to give the two the jumpscare of a lifetime. He decides that depending how remorseful they are, the lengthy detention sentence they’ve earned might be shortened by a solar rotation or two. Really, sneaking off like this without telling anyone, these two are in for it good. 

His musings are cut short when cloying scent of something floods his senses, drowning out the residual scents of J’ro and Ah’shido and stopping him in his tracks. That’s a toxin, an extremely powerful one at that. His eyes go red and narrow as suddenly the situation turns dire. As he realizes that it isn’t natural either, couldn’t be, because the scanning of this backwater planet showed no readings of any toxic substances- or at least none of this severity- he begins to pick up the pace significantly. 

A’zwaa has to wrap a thick portion of his scarf around his snout to ward off the awful stench, because just breathing it in nearly has him hacking up a lung. All too soon, he knew something had happened to his students, they were both likely in danger at the moment and he needed to retrieve them swiftly.

Right as he reached for his communication device, a glint of something metal shot through the darkness that he dodged with a scant few milliclicks to spare. A dart imbedded itself into the dark root of the bush beside him and he took off into the direction the thing had come from. In an instant he knew the exact substance that the poison was made of, Foggit Neurotoxin; the most infamous and potent poison of the galaxies. Whoever these culprits were, A’zwaa knew they were up to practices that were nothing short of nefarious. 

His footfalls pounded down on the dirt, racing against time. His speeds rivaled that of the Iida’s as he put his years and years of experience to good use, he would not fail his students- his great speeds would catch the attackers by surprise and they would not even have time to react before he razed them down. Time seemed to slow as he caught sight of the trafficker scum. A’zwaa was rapidly approaching, body elongating and claws reaching out to stop the being right in his tracks. He could feel his claws cutting through the wind as he became aerodynamic in his bloodlust, his eyes as sharp as rubies silenced the quirk of his prey. His jaw snapped open, capturing between his teeth the skin of the- 

His eyes widened. Realizing too late that it wasn’t skin he was feeling.

A’zwaa jolted as the gun shot out a dart. Flying like a missile from the cold, metallic barrel caught between his jaws, and straight into his mouth.  

As A’zwaa is forcefully put to sleep, his communicator gives a series of buzzes, calling him to pick up…but no one’s there to answer it’s call as it’s ripped off his body and he’s dragged away. 

One by one, each student at the camp meets the same fate. 

Chapter Text

When Bak’go awoke, he made it everyone’s problem.

Waking up in a drowsy, drugged state, to the cold shine of a cell, as you slowly realize you’ve been abducted is enough to send anyone into a manic state. So it would only make sense for Bak’go to be filled with the most indiscriminate and white-hot rage as the events that led him here catch up to his sluggish mind. 

His eyes bug and his scales swim with steam as the sight of his comrades strewn about the neighboring cells fill his vision. He identifies the forms of everyone who was at camp littered across the floor, his eyes flitting from face to face in mounting denial- it shouldn’t have been possible! What sort of crazy strong villains had it taken to wipe out everybody like simple flies?? Even dunces like Sparky weren’t exactly easy to overpower.

Even Half-baked and Rocks for Brains had gotten knocked out like it was nothing! (Bak’go refused to lower his gaze over the slumped furry black form in the cell with Halfie and K”irshima, the white scarf wrapped around its neck looked eerily similar to that of A’zwaa’s, but that absolutely could not be- Sensei of all beings getting captured like some average civilian was a possibility that Bak’go never wanted to consider, ever.)

And then there was Frog-face, Mooncheeks, Pinky, and Beakbrain to mention!

How had they all been flung around so easily??

And for a superior life form such as himself to be overpowered?!

There was absolutely no way in the Milky Way that his captor had a build anything short of monstrous. Bak’go needed to see that terrifying form up close (terrifying for his classmates of course, Bak’go showed fear to the face of no being), because it would inspire him to grow even larger in size so that when time came around to get revenge, there would be no question who’d come out on top.

His scales spiked as he let out a massive explosion- or tried to- krefft! It only made sense that his captors aren’t complete idiots and made sure to suppress his quirk! 

As a result, he was only able to release plumes of clear gas from under his scales that popped and crackled into pathetic sparks.

It was infuriating. 

The pads of his limbs leaked nitroglycerin in response to his heightened blood pressure, and he cursed as he tried to get it under control- who knew what the ventilation system of an illegal trafficking ship looked like. He wouldn’t take any risks and kill his classmates with the fumes by accident.

-because the media would get ahold of it and it would turn into a scandal that would make it harder for him to rise up in hero rankings as a Pro. Tch, obviously he didn’t care about them, he’s just looking out for himself in the long run.

But he had to bust himself outta the here and now before he could get to that part.

Right now, he needed to put his training to use and adapt to the situation so he could make a plan. And he’s already conceded defeat to the fact that this cell will be his new home for the next several rotations as he waits for his classmates to shake off the toxins (he deliberately ignores the slow breathing of the A’zwaa-imposter accompanying his rivals cell). So really all that’s left is to think of a plan…

It’s too easy: wait till the lightweights wake up, time when the quirk-blockers wear off enough, then bust outta here when they’ve got the strength to escape! 

See, this is why Bak’go is such a damn genius, he came up with an infallible plan in less than a click! Those slow slugs he calls his classmates wouldn’t even be able to dream of accomplishing such a feat.

He’s just the best. This is his first time being thrown into such a situation, but of course he’s a natural at it, as he is with everything else. It’s just the talent of a Draggit such as himself.

Heh, the only hope his classmates might have to reaching his level would be to inject their own puny brains with Drag’oxerone, but still the distance between him and them would be too great, even then.

And he means all of this with fullest offense possible. 

As Bak’go loses himself to the stroking of his own ego, the other Draggit of the class starts to shift awake quietly. 

Todo’r”ki wakes up slowly, and in lightly thrumming soreness. He tries to crack an eye open, shifting his legs as he does so, and suddenly the thin film of numbness spread over his body all but explodes as pain shoots through his entire body like a laserbeam.

Ack! 

His hot and swollen limbs twitch involuntary, and he’s wracked with shivers when he realizes all four are likely broken. He can only lie there pitifully gritting his canines as he rides out the waves of pain in silence. 

He’s suffered through many training sessions with his sperm donor which have left him drowning in sensations that made death seem appealing in comparison. He’s been left, sprawled across the sizzling floor like he’s some discarded toy and not at all like the ‘masterpiece’ Endeavor constantly tells him he’s supposed to be. He’s survived through rotations where he couldn’t eat because he was too drained to peel himself off the dojo flooring and no one (who cared enough to help) was home.  So he was almost always left there; bloodied, battered, and all alone.  

He’s had moments where he thought he’d die from the pain, so realistically whatever he’s feeling now should dull in comparison. 

But it doesn’t. 

Todo’r”ki thinks, despite the years of training he’s endured, this takes the cake as the most agonizing moment of his life.  And it’s silly that despite being known for keeping a level head, Todo’r”ki genuinely fears for a moment that if he lets himself black out, he’ll never wake up again- he’s not some child anymore, he knows it’s not possible to die from pain alone. It sure does feel like it though. 

He sucks in a breath as the rupturing sensation kicks back up a notch in his left front limb. 

Suddenly he realizes that, while he had broken limbs in the past, he’d at least been provided with medical attention to save them. Here, trapped in a metal cage as a kidnapping victim, who knows if he’ll be provided with any sort of treatment- and, if by some miracle he is, will it be sufficient enough to avoid chronic pangs?

So, really, he might not die from the pain specifically, but he’ll most definitely succumb to illness and die if he’s left untreated. And isn’t that a thought? He’s likely going to die here: pitifully kenneled like some scrawny pup. A shameful end that would no doubt leave Endeavor  beyond furious, maybe even so blindly angry that he might lose control and launch himself into a black hole with his hellflame. Then Todo’r”ki might be granted peace and quiet for once in his miserable life. 

Ahh, a soothing thought in the midst of the cacophony that makes up his own suffering. 

He carefully cracks open a bleary slate gray eye- the other one swollen shut- and the fuzzy sight that greets him is enough to turn the comforting thought sour. Of course, just his luck that it’d be Bak’go who his eyes would greet first thing in the morning. Ugh. 

His grumble of displeasure must’ve been louder than he thought, because the dung bucket whips around in surprise, teeth bared defensively. The sneer on his perpetually angry face only deepened when he took stock of Todo’r”ki’s appearance. 

“They really dinged you up, huh?” He spat rudely. Taking in the plethora of bumps, swells, and patches of loose scales (Krefft- even his scales!) he scoffs, “Stars, who’s eggs did you kick to earn such a thorough dragging?” 

Todo’r”ki’s blood pressure rises as he snaps out, “Some of us actually lasted long enough to trade a-few punches with the enemy, Bak’go,” and he can’t help the slight steaming of his mouth when he says, “can’t say the same for you though.”  

Bak’go’s eyes flash bright.

“Oh yeah?” He hisses. 

“Yes!” Todo’r”ki is distantly surprised by his own volume- he can’t remember the last time he yelled- but can’t find it within himself to stop.

He spits a vitriolic, “You’re so conceited and think so highly of yourself for no good reason. You’re much, much weaker than you realize,” his claws scrape the floor in agitation, “and my battle scars to your lack thereof are just proof of how much stronger I am than you.”

Bak’go stalks up as close as the electrified bars allow, the shadow of his raised spines looming over Todo’r”ki’s prone form. “Betcha feel real powerful now with that battered body, don’t ya! Lying defenselessly on your flank, weaker than a Sprite kit. Like you’d ever be able to fend someone off in this state when they’ve finally had enough of your disrespect- you’re lucky they didn’t throw me into that cell with you!”

He makes himself as large as possible, takes up as much space as he can to make himself dangerous as his palms leak. He doesn’t try to stop it this time, as he can barely focus enough to speak through his own rage.

“You’re lucky that these bars are the only thing keeping me from giving you another kreffting scar to match, Half-baked! I’ll melt your whole face off, don’t test me!” 

Todo’r”ki can’t help the growl he lets out at that, the vulnerability and stress start to swamp over him, turning him extremely volatile. His eyes thin into slits the longer those red eyes linger, mouth peeling back further and further to reveal elongated fangs, and growl beginning to turn into a loud rattling hiss at the perceived threat.

The other Draggit’s anger seems to deep out of him, steadily being replaced with something similar to unease. Why was Todo’r”ki responding this way to a normal display of his every-cycle aggression?

 
 “…calm down, beetle-brain, I wasn’t…I’m not actually gonna attack you,” Bak’go mutters, slightly disturbed by the display.

 Krefft, Bak’go thinks darkly, an injured Draggit getting defensive is one thing, but for his classmate to act like this? He’s never seen Todo’r”ki act out this severely before- and as far as he knows, nobody else has either, so he must be in severe pain…might even have broken something. 

At first Bak’go had just assumed heavy bruising but as Todo’r”ki grows increasingly defensive despite his own attempts at diffusing the situation, he begins to realize that things may be much more severe than he thought.

And something like a broken bone in an environment like this spells definitive death…and…Todo’r”ki may be the classmate he hates most but he doesn’t wanna see the guy die. 

Especially not locked away on some trafficking ship drifting in the middle of nowhere. That wouldn’t be an honorable death at all! 

“Hey, Todo’r”ki…” the sound of his voice seems to send him into a deeper state of agitation, if the rippling of his plates are anything to go by, but Bak’go has to ask. 

Gotta calm him down first. 

Slowly, Bak’go sinks down on his haunches, tucking all four limbs underneath himself. Then, lowering his eyes in a display of submission that has him cringing internally, he flips over belly-up and purrs, curling up into a little ball on his back. 

It’s like a switch has been flipped, and the idiots pupils go wide, entire body settling softly.

Bak’go continues to purr roughly, watching through the gaps of his claws in silence as Todo’r”ki’s clear lids droop, seemingly drained by the encounter. He’s only been awake for afew clicks but already looks like he’s gonna drop again. It doesn’t bode well. 

“Oi, Halfie,” Bak’go calls carefully, “just how badly are you injured?” 

Todo’r”ki, feeling overwhelming exhausted, managing to sober himself enough to be ashamed of his reaction, hesitantly mutters, “…they’re all broken from what I can tell.” 

He jolts lightly when Bak’go gives a shocked hiss, immediately wincing at the sharp pangs that stab at him. 

“Krefft, that’s…that’s a lot worse than I thought.”

Todo’r”ki doesn’t respond.

Damn.

Sucks. 

Well, this certainly puts a cork in his plans…

Bak’go fights the slight itch in his throat to say something as he watches his classmate’s pitiful form writhe in the corner. Instead, he affixes his eyes to the, uh, very interesting looking floor, awkwardly curled up in silence as light sounds of pain-filled choking echo around. 

Krift…

Chapter Text

The massive window at the end of the hall gave no indication of when or where exactly they were…the view beyond this silent ship remained a deep, dark blue- almost pitch black. Only on occasion would a dead planet or crumbling asteroid litter the black abyss that was deep space.

And despite the amount of time that drifted by on this seemingly aimless ship, the others still showed no signs of waking up.

The guards who came in for their meals were the only break in the stagnant rotations.

But still that eery silence persisted.

Slow…

Stagnant…

Cycles go by and it’s just him and Todo’r”ki.

Not a good combination to fill the silence, if you ask literally anyone. 

After the mid-lunar rotation that both himself and Todo’r”ki had woken up during, the two had suffered through exactly three full rotations worth of disgusting slop. Bak’go didn’t understand how anyone could call this pile of slug discharge food. It was a slimy, opaque pearlescent white mass that had a texture like mucus (with little sac-like surprises inside that popped like pus-filled pores onto your tongue! Oh GOODY!!!) with a potent, feces-adjacent smell.

Not to mention the stuff was somehow vaguely solid despite being very liquid-like. It was bouncy and wet yet it could hold structure, somehow?? 

He had screamed at the guard who slid it into their cage, demanding to know what the hell they thought they were doing presenting him with this…slop!? The guards flippant and arrogant response had set him into a fit of rage and he’d flung the tray against the walls, taking pleasure in the way the wimp had flinched.

Unfortunately, that had been the only meal he was served that day, so he didn’t try it again. 

It also didn’t help that every time half-baked was served and he himself wasn’t he could feel that cold, snobbish ding beetle’s gaze burning into his scales. 

So when he was finally allowed food again, he didn’t try anything rash. Didn’t mean he didn’t hate every click of eating it though… he just couldn’t get over the fact that he had never seen nor heard of anything like it.

The sickly young master over in the other corner there probably hadn’t either by the way his stomach audibly roiled when he’d first been presented with it. The pompous, almost offended look he wore on his body gave Bak’go a good cycle’s worth of gratification.

And what’s worse is that, despite the food being (unfortunately) edible to both, it seemed to have adverse effects such as weakening in the muscles and general fatigue. Honestly, if Bak’go was any less wise they would’ve assumed these newfound traits were simply side effects of the stress, lack of real nutrients, and blockage of their quirks…all very bad things that were surely taking a toll on their body, but…

As it stands, Bak’go is very intelligent- even if many would fail to realize that- and he suspects that something more sinister is at play here.

It’s (unfortunately) likely that half-a-brain does too.

They’re definitely getting Kreffting drugged by the food. 

The unheard of shape and texture of the slop? Suspicious.

The instinctual and immediate urge to purge the food that’d violated their throats on the way down? Incriminating.

The sudden waves of fatigue that hit after feeding? Damning. 

The fact that their quirks still remained sealed away for cycles despite the guards never once re-administering the drugs to them the entire time they’ve been trapped here? Irrefutable!

Bak’go gave a dirty look at the swollen glans at the end of his tail, the backed-up nitroglycerin beneath its skin begging for a release that wouldn’t come. 

Twice-damn it all!

He should’ve expected the villains to be smarter than the average two-bit criminal, they were traffickers after all.

Bak’go clicks his claws in displeasure, not understanding how it took him this long to figure it out- halfie was supposed to be the one with a half baked brain, not him! The one good thing that came out of discussing this with halfie was that it’d  led them to realize their classmates haven’t been re-administered the quirk-blockers because they haven’t been awake to receive them.

And it also seemed that their captors had overdosed the rest of his classmates, and, like idiots, had let this fact slip. The guards don’t even know when they’ll wake up, and because of this, they’ll be able to bust out of here with the classmates who possess their quirks!

So even though he’d underestimated their captors severely,  that wouldn’t mean anything when he inevitably busted outta here the second his classmates woke up! In fact, it might make the taste of victory even sweeter- everyone knows it’s more rewarding to fight and win against an enemy that matches your strength and wit in throes.

Himself and halfie might not be able to fight back but he still had his claws and thick tail and he’d be thrice-damned if he didn’t use them to whack his assailants around!! He spends afew cathartic clicks succumbing to his violent imagination

But stars, he was really starting to get sick of this. The others had better crack the stars up, and soon. 

And for once, the stars seem to listen. 

When all at once, the breaths of his classmates shift and deepen in a sure sign of them breaking the tide of unconsciousness, he locks eyes with Todo’r”ki who shares an equal expression of shock. 

All at once the bodies around him start to shift and and stretch, and his tail lashes through the air in a nervous frenzy. He’s already as close to the bars as possible in his palpable excitement, and if he wasn’t under the effects of the quirk-cancellation drugs he would be sparking up like a New Annual light show. 

K’ir’shim is the first to reach consciousness, as shown by the way his skin gains more and more saturation- finally turning from a dull reddish-brown to his natural fiery red. 

Bak’go wasn’t sentimental, but he’d always liked that bright red hue, and seeing it regain its natural colour filled him with such relief that he had to shut his eyes before the wave of it overwhelmed him. 

Suddenly the walls around them seemed a little clearer, the floors seemed a little less dull and their circumstances seemed a little less bleak. 

Chapter Text

You’re gonna have a bad trip today

The season is spring, so the air’s a bit stuffy, and the speed of the bullet train turns the trees into bright green blurs of color as it all flies by.

In the spring, so the weather’s nice, people are cheery and the world is fresh with rebirth and good omens.

Or… it’s supposed to feel that way. So,

Why do I have such a bad feeling about this?

Izuku takes a deep, shuddering breath as  he reaches his stop. Shouldering as gently as he can through the crowds of the station, then into the bustling street, it takes all his concentration to focus on putting one foot in front over the other.

Over the crosswalk and past all the foot traffic. Through a suspicious labyrinth of back alleyways and deep into a secluded park. Then, to the edge of a quiet forest.

He grips the strap of his worn, earth-green bag a little tighter. Nervously, his eyes dart about.

He’s supposed to be meeting someone in the area…a dealer, of some sort. He was given nothing but a location on a burner phone, and a time. No description of who he was supposed to be meeting, or even what was to be smuggled.

Not that it ultimately mattered. He was in it for the money, the risk had to be worth it 

As a frail, bullied, sickly quirkless kid, he didn’t have any options. Except for his sick mother, the one he was doing all this for, he had no one to trust and even less to have faith in. The one thing he could hope for is that the risk would be worth it. It had to be. Too much was on the like for him to fail here.

 So it should make sense that he’s sweaty, and it should make sense that he can’t seem to look away from the wrinkled flowers around his boots and the dark great oaks swallowing the sky. But he’s done this sort of thing before, so he should be used to it by now, shouldn’t he? He shouldn’t feel like he’s floating off the ground, like if he doesn’t find something to ground himself with in the next twenty seconds, he’ll float away like a balloon. 

His clothes are sticking to his skin, and dandelion seeds and gnats are beginning to cling to all his exposed parts just the same.

You’re gonna have a bad trip today

Worst comes to worst, he’s got a knife with a 5-inch blade tucked down in his waistline. He’s built up quick reflexes and a keen fight iq, so…he should be fine.

Truth is, anxiety isn’t anything new to Izuku, he feels some form of it pretty much daily- whether it stem from menial tasks or written tests or the stress from strategizing what the safest route to make it home safely without running into his bullies is.

But it’s all necessary. His mother needs her medication, can’t go without it at this stage.

Maybe one of these days the haul he gets from a mission will be good enough to get himself some meds too.

Izuku stiffens when he hears a muted footstep coming from about five yards ahead. There’s a nondescript man shrouded in black shifting towards him slowly, and the figure goes stock-still entirely when he notices Izuku’s startled, uneasy stare. 

They stand, in complete silence for a few very long seconds, one completely unreadable, the other pale and with a bone-dry tongue. 

“H-…hello..?” Izuku croaks out. 

For some reason, he can’t stand whatever’s happening right now. Something’s screaming at him to turn around, go back home right now while he still has the chance. 

The figure raises a gloved hand, Izuku watching the long fingers curl in a beckoning motion.

Suddenly, Izuku’s struck by the realization that there’s no birds chirping, no squirrels racing up and down trees, or stuffing their faces with acorns, as he assumes squirrels are wont to do. There isn’t a single grasshopper or even a beetle on a blade of grass to be found.

Only the stranger, and he, all by himself. Without a soul to lean on.

The dread that had slowly accumulated throughout the day reaches its boiling point as the figure beckons him again, and when his left foot stumbles a half-step backwards on its own, the figure slowly starts to shake its head, as if in disappointment. 

The figure tilts its head at him and just looks at him in what Izuku has a feeling is a look of warning, but when he doesnt come any closer, only shuffles a tense few inches farther away, the man moves.

Izuku, for all his quick reflexes and attention, doesn’t manage to make a single move before he feels the prick in his upper arm. His vision quickly starts to swim, and Izuku doesn’t think he’s ever felt this terrified for his life. It feels both like forever and no time at all before his body hits the ground roughly, but the adrenaline and blind, white-hot panic doesn’t let him feel it. Soon enough, even that fades and he can’t feel anything. 

No part of him is able to even twitch soon after that. 

At a certain point, he thinks he’s being moved, but the space between himself and consciousness feels too endless, much too heavy to cut through.

“…-irst one…keep him here-…quirkless-…all collected…”

The low buzz around him causes him to sink deeper and deeper. 

He fades away.

He cracks a slimy eye open, feeling as if he’s half submerged under water and stares into the abyss of nothingness around him. He’s awake, but doesn’t feel like it. His brain is slow and muddled like the goop that’s starting to spread from his swollen, pink-rimmed eyes.

The world seems to wait for him as he slowly, painfully slowly, regains his consciousness…

His first thought is concern for his classmates, for his mentor, A’zwaa, who was dragged down with them due to their incompetence.

He wonders how mad his mentor is— or, if he hasn’t woken yet, how mad he will be once he does— he has yet to see true anger on his face, but it was only a matter of time, he supposes.

He wonders if he’ll be left behind if UA forces eventually find and rescue them, he is a liability now. Useless. Or maybe they’ll throw him out of airlock for his utter failure and uselessness. Son of End’evver, trained practically since conception for that exact moment. And what good was he now? 

Failure to protect.

His classmates probably hate him. He hadn’t come to UA to make packmates, but he never intended to make anyone hate him.

His eyes rove around their upright figures, and he sees that everyone is awake, including their mentor. Judging by the violent lashing of his tail and growl that rumbles like the volcanoes from his and Bak’go’s home planet, his earlier question is answered.

He is almost afraid to speak with them, knowing the wrath he will surely face, and it would be easy to pretend he never woke at all, close close his eyes and go back to sleep. His mind still feels like it’s been filtered through a trench of scep and each time he wakes, he only feels a weariness that builds on itself every time.

Alas, father didn’t raise no xlitch.

He discovers several very confusing things that leave his brain throbbing even worse than it began, ie. a very adamant promise from M. A’zwaa and Ah’shido that no, they do not hate him, and he will not be left behind when reinforcements come; M. A’zwaa is not disappointed in him (doubtful), and instead feels deeply responsible and ashamed; Everyone was very concerned and scared for his well-being (again, doubtful, he knows what they say and think about him); and, most concerningly, they had attempted escape but failed miserably. Horrifying. 

His classmates may be mostly weak and mostly dumb (aka the dubbed ‘bak’usquad’)  but even he could admit they were nothing to turn tail at, not to mention their mentor, who was a professional hero himself.

To hear this news was…incredibly concerning. Especially considering there was nothing he could do in his state, and Bak’go, easily the second heaviest-hitting classmate— right after himself, of course— was drugged, also out of commission.

Impossibly more hopeless than before, Todo’r”ki’s thoughts begin to slip away from him like melting ice slipping through his claws. 

The others must see the abject despair written on his limp form because they try to cheer him up. Frankly, he doesn’t want to hear it. He just wants this to all go away like a bad motion picture, and once more shuts his bleary eyes. 

His classmates start to get loud, and even A’zwaa’s voice raises to a punishing pitch as they try in futility to prevent Todo’r”ki from falling back into unconsciousness. But Todo’r”ki has had a lot of practice blocking out loud, overwhelming sounds when he needed to. 

He’s tired of all the pain, emotion, and all the noise. He wishes he could shut down the same way the androids in all his favourite motion pictures do. It would be fitting for him, the ‘unfeeling robot’ of class 1-A to be able to do so, wouldn’t it?

He almost wishes he were really as stoic as his classmates and the tabloids say, at least that way there would be no worries in his life. And really, Is it so much to wish for an escape from it all?

He wills himself to shut down.

Chapter Text

Consciousness is like a buoy in a dead sea, caught in a never-ending bob in time with the soft sway of the sea.

Sway…Sink…Rise…

Repeat.

That slow dip just below the surface is a small journey in and of itself, those moments where you begin to rise in the water to regain yourself like an odyssey. There’s seconds, minutes, maybe hours of afterimages that keep the mind company, even though it cannot recognize them until it wakes up for real.

Izuku doesn’t know where he is when he does wake up. White lights bathe him in all directions, winking and squishing together as the world slides around him. All he can see is the lake of bright light and then, soundlessly, a floating black mass the size and shape of a planet comes to rest over him.

The white lights are still there, just muted now. This ball of anti-light drowns them out. He is calmed by it, though he doesn’t know what it is. He’s swathed inside of it, tucked inside the dark pocket.

It’s an eye, he thinks. Something from deep inside the void of it floats to the top. It’s small and fixed in the center of the great mass like a distant star. It isn’t stagnant like the big eye, though it finds his presence and fixates on it easily.

He thinks they’re cutting him open, he can’t see it, can’t really feel it, but he knows there’s something…several somethings there. Turning his insides out. Making him into a cavity. He doesn’t want to be a cavity. He doesn’t want to be just a hole to fill. Holes can’t speak or move or hear, if they make him into one his mother wont be able to recognize him anymore because a hole isn’t a person, you can’t love a hole. His mom can’t love him because she won’t recognize him, she wont want to hug him because he wont exist. Kids don’t become holes, so why would she know it was him? There was never a hole named Izuku because holes aren’t real people and you don’t give names to holes, so that would mean Izuku isn’t real, wouldn’t it? If he isn’t real, then why would his mom be sad about him going missing? How would she love him in the first place? Why would she give an Izuku-shaped hold a second thought? She’s not his mother. Can’t be, if he doesn’t exist.  

A landfill. He can feel them emptying him out and tries to push the invaders away    of it inside of another eye. He can see them sliding around in the darkness of that colossal round tank. 

It acts like an anchor. And, for a moment, he can see his whole world in it, as well as a version of his life in the future, galaxies away from anywhere he’d ever imagined he’d be. There is also fear there, and it cloaks the liminal space like a heavy wool blanket, stretching out from horizon to horizon, far as the eye can see. It’s painted on the faces of these pitiful creatures in his minds eye, each inhuman body flicking darkly by, as if captured on a coffee brown roll of space-film. 

All these things fade eventually, as those tired limbs sink further into themselves, and those all-seeing green eyes are struck by the vision of themselves blinking tiredly up into a glass ball. 

He blinks once, his right-side vision blurs white. 

He blinks twice, and the cataract migrates to his left side too. 

He’s already gone before he can blink again. 

It’s truly harrowing how so many things can turn from bad to worse in just a single rotation. 

It could be said that the actions of himself, and by proxy, his students, were brought upon themselves by their escape attempt, that it forced their captor’s  hand to respond in this way. To fully separate and essentially cripple the mental states of their prisoners, leaving them without a single stroke of a pillar to lean on. Severed into several tiny, bite-sized groups, and crowded into high-security cells in the most unconventional and hazardous combination of species imaginable. Predators with prey-species, herbivores with plant-types, hot-blooded carnivorous students with others of the same disposition— there’d be no avoiding the catastrophic clashes that would come about. 

His own group of students had awoken inside a caliber 06-worthy cell, lined from top to bottom with electro-motion sensitive nodules that blink a soft, glowy blue in time with his slow breaths. They prevent any sudden movements, maintaining an extended state of submission from the confined individuals within, and providing an prolonged period of tranquility for the captors to rely on.

It was simple: Act out of line; Receive a swift and brutal dose of electricity.  

Granted, it was contained to a certain radius of the offender so that if someone on a far corner of the room freaked out, the electronic pulses from the nodules nearest them would light up and strike the sentient, and only them— A’zwaa didn’t know what he would do if the entire cell lit up no matter the movement, and feels violently agitated by the thought.

Despite that iota of grace, It couldn’t be helped if there was a sudden panic from one person within a cluster of others, because then— the whole group would burn with them anyway.

There wouldn’t be a single thing that could be done about it. And, the same could be said for the entire circumstance, as a matter of fact. Compared to their previous enclosure, the old place could be considered a refuge, one that got swiped away as a result of his colossally illogical decision to try and escape. A second of rational thought could have saved his students, never mind himself, from this fate. Alas, his capacity for higher thinking had been severely compromised by the drugs running rampant through his system back at that point.

Now, he can only reflect on his own utter stupidity, and the visceral roiling it brings to his pelt as his long nails gouge fruitlessly at the aluminum-lined flooring, clouding it with nothing but pitifully shallow impressions. Ones that a mere kitten in its fetal state might leave in the dirt.   

This is truly the most disastrous consequence that he and his students could have been dealt, and A’zwaa regrets. 

He can do nothing but regret and dread for the events that will follow. 


He can hardly bring himself to respond when Ah’shido asks when, and if, UA was ever going to find them. He knows an honest answer would only break their mental, but doesn’t have it within him to lie to those imploring eyes.

He has to say, no, that he doesn’t know when exactly UA will find them, has to watch Ah’shido’s wings fold over and her light begin to eclipse. 

He has to listen to K’ir”shima, his D’ir”accōnian student in all his massive, scaled glory ask him hesitantly, like a feeble kit, what they’re supposed to do now. Now that they’ve been successfully thwarted in every sense of the word, and have nothing at all to lean on anymore. 

A’zwaa thinks— has been thinking for a while now, to no avail— he hasn’t been able to generate a single positive set of outcomes that could lead to their extended survival on this evil ship. None besides giving the captors everything they want, and even that is tumultuous at best. You can’t rely on a sadistic psychopath to keep your body wholly intact for long. 

So, he tells them as much in not so many words. Tells them all anyone can do now is hope, and wait. 

The lights overhead their cell begin to dim in preparation of the simulated lunar cycle.

He beckons Ah’shido and K’ir”shima to his cryogellin bedform with a lift of his foremost and middle arms, reminding them to shuffle slowly over lest they get a nasty shock they’ll have a hard time recovering from.

Being a Pāntere, A’zwaa is a solitary creature, and thus, resoundingly uncomfortable under the fur with this packbonding behavior. But being with Zaschi and having coworkers akin to Nemm’ur’ai, he’s been unfortunately smothered with their affections more times than not, which led to him building some tolerance for such actions. 

But as they settle down along his wide flank, he knows he would’ve done this for them irregardless of that fact. Because it isn’t about him— they need this, especially from a mentor such as himself, who also doubles as the only parental figure in their lives at the moment. Being packbonding species stuck in such a dark and demeaning circumstance, their instincts will become overwhelming and they’ll find it hard to resist reverting to their most feral states.

Ah’shido will find it hard to eat without a swarm of wings or bed of fairy dust layering the floor in dunes- he imagines it’s the same for ‘chako considering they might not be the same species, but both girls share the same genus.

And K’ir”shima will find it difficult not to latch on with teeth, despite neither of his cell mates having scales to prevent him from sinking under their skin.  

If A’zwaa were a kit like them then it’d be the same for him but in reverse, he would isolate himself to the highest degree possible. But as he’s fully mature, with plenty professional training and paternal instincts gained from his professional life, this part— the comforting, protecting, nurturing— comes a whole lot easier. And he’s grateful for it. 

Though still, he cannot do with all the sand in his fur or any biting of any sort, but he will try his hardest to make all the accommodations in his power.

He looks around at this sad state once more, takes in the hole in a corner of the floor—meant to be their toilet— covered with a pitifully thin sheet extension of the wall, a mere play at privacy. Takes in the three thin and uncomfortable beds sunken into the floor, and the heavily reinforced door that he’d have no hope escaping from one last time before the lights shut off. 

He doesn’t get much sleep that rotation,

and doubts his charges did either. 

Chapter Text

Izuku is stranded and reeling.

Distantly, he hears himself groan as he swims through the full-bodied, throbbing, discomfort. The pain isn’t an acute thing, not at first, more akin to the firm pressure of a wide fist pressing down, down, down beneath his skin— a thing which almost felt comforting in this submerged state, if not for the sheer amount of pressure it squeezed him with.   

Fuck.

He feels so heavy.

It only grows to the point of debilitating nausea, until it becomes impossible to tell what’s up or down, or even guess at where his surroundings end and his own body begins. He cracks open bleary eyes that stick together like wet clay and its like getting struck directly by a great ball of light. The paper thin skin of his eye lids offer pitiful protection against the bright spots sing-songing beneath the surface. 

He gasps thinly through his nose, and trembles silently through the wave of sharp needles that chase that small breath. So sterile. It stings so bad. Like he inhaled a cloud made of pure antiseptic alone.

He can even taste it in the back of his throat, its minty and sharp against the throat, the same as high grade mouthwash- a whole bottle of it. There is no way this is safe to breathe in?

As if spoken into existence, his lungs begin to produce a tingly burning sensation with every inhale. More similar to the itchiness of a cough held back too long rather than a truly painful thing,  but turning his heart into a sinking stone all the same.

 Eyes and head pounding by the world around him, swimming in an unintelligible pool of dim light and unshed tears, he flails sloppily for something grounding.

After a fearful moment of being met with nothingness, clumsy, unfeeling, relieved hands tangle themselves in the cool metal surrounding his prone form and he grips onto that firm pressure like a lifeline. Tries to drag his head up after what feels like a few minutes but gets nowhere as it merely wobbles on the noodle-thin neck its attached to.

The reverberations of the muted thunk of his head hitting the ground are tangible, but barely, still more so than any actual discomfort. Head feeling concerningly detached, he pauses at the sick sensation now swirling in his gut, licks at pitifully dry lips as he stills, and tries to catch a breath.

He tenses, tries again to scrape himself off the floor, but the body attached to him does not listen.

It feels acutely as if something that was properly aligned within him seems to shift. Support seemingly vanishing, he feels the beginnings of tremors in his neck, which are rapidly shooting across his system, travelling through the rest of him like an earthquake.

They rack through him in overwhelming waves, feeling like lighting shooting up and down a spine that was already set to crumble in no time at all.

He chokes with the shock of it.

After that, time seems to slip through his numbed fingers, and he can focus on nothing but leading breath back into his shuddering lungs so that his whimpers stop coming out in staccato and his eyes will stop rolling so dizzily.

He thinks he sinks for a while after that. Can’t tell. He can’t feel his face. 

He slowly opens his eyes again, only, he can’t actually tell if he did because he can no longer see anything. Not even the disorienting blurs of reflected light from earlier. Has he gone blind? He wastes precious minutes struggling to figure it out, but eventually finds that what had seemed like no difference in lighting from opening and closing his eyes was actually a very subtle, and indiscernible change, at first. So that means he’s not actually blind, and his eyes only needed to adjust for a little while.

The private realization lightens him, bringing a small rush of Adrenalin through his tingling heart.

He needs to get up.

He can tell something has happened to him but he doesn’t know what. His thoughts are strung out on a thin, spiderweb-like strand rippling about in the wind. After a moment or two, a single morsel catches on the flimsy width of it, but then slips away just as fast. Its not coming back to him as soon as he’d like and its starting to fill his throat and chest with acid. He starts to slip away a little at the feeling, but then his eyes snap open. He thinks again, 

He needs to get up.

His arms are made of jello and his spine is nothing but a strip of paper. Useless. He tenses, tries to focus, again. Stops when his brain starts feeling as if it’s palpitating through his ears.

A cough racks through his limp body. When trying to eye the way his arms twist together like tangled twin snakes trapped under him his vision lurches violently, and closing his eyes tight, he doesn’t think it’s a good idea to try again.

His throat contracts around an empty swallow, the bone dry muscle catching on itself internally in the most unpleasant sensation. His lips crackle open flake by flake and he breathes heavily, open-mouthed, with the softened thundering of his working blood vessels.

He cannot get up.  

He lays there in defeat, trembling minutely as it takes him much, much longer than he would like to return to himself. His half-consciousness sharpens into fuzzy alarm as he, like an awakening android, weakly raises his stiff fingers to the sky. He runs his fingers across the open space until he soon reaches resistance to the sides and front of his face, finding the same symmetrical ridges rolling against his knuckles again and again, encasing him in their box-like formation.

Metal…? In a… cage? 

He can’t feel the shock quite as acutely as he probably should, drifting alone in this darkened room, but maybe thats for the best. At least for now, while his muscles won’t listen and his face is still half-paralyzed. Nothing he could do will change this, and he’s half-convinced none of it- none of all of this- is even real.

He’s clumsy, so maybe he stumbled into someone on the street and in a freak incident, he got quirked to this hellish dream-state.

Yes, that’s. That could be…Maybe none of this is real, and in the morning he will wake up far away from here to the smell of breakfast cooking on the stove, and the warm embrace of his willowy mother.

Safe, in their house of sugary smiles and endless sunrises.

*~.

The passage of time is an almost  tangible thing in most cases, one would be able to feel when a minute or ten or a week has passed under the right circumstance. The ticking clock of time despite its invisible presence is still just that, a presence, so though a snap of time or two may slip through your fingers, on average an ample estimation can be made.  

However, the next time Izuku comes back down, it’s to an utter ellipsis of the time that’s passed by him. 

He can count on one hand the amount of times he’s felt this shit, and given how unkind life has been up to this point, that’s saying something. He feels so terribly, fundamentally, and profoundly wrong that he can hardly exist around it. He feels translucent, and in more than just the physical sense. 

Stuck here in what he now realizes is a tiny, dingy crate, his heart is thundering with the effort it takes not to slip into a blind panic. Thoughts that don’t entirely make sense shoot through his mind at a rapid-fire pace as he tries as fails to make sense of what he’s seeing in front of him, and how this could have possibly happened.

Desperation steadily mounts as his fingers and feet gradually unstick from each other and begin to claw and kick stiffly at his cramped enclosure. It’s no use. He’s forced into a fetal position by the lack of space and it’s like an arrow to the gut, all of a sudden there’s nothing he can do as the crushing weight of his new reality hits him. And it hits him hard. 

There’s a frenzied clanking that loudly ricochets through the otherwise empty room as he strikes and squirms about desperately for a way out. 

Incredulously, he sees no latches, and no divots for him to manipulate, which means he’s been squeezed in a metal dog cage with zero way of taking control. There’s genuinely no way he can pull himself out of this situation.

He tries to hold on, tries to remind himself how dangerous it is to lose control of himself with the still unknown threat lurking unseen. He can feel his chest crumpling. Every thought that would normally work to calm himself down is failing. He’s failing to get out, failing to calm down.

With barely any room for him to wind up to put any power in his punches, barely any room for him to breathe, any sounds he tries to make are reduced to thick and sob-like gasps as he ultimately begins to lose his grip. 

The cage shrinks down scene further around him in a way that can’t be real, but doesn’t feel so fake as it presses down hard and bruising as a steel straight jacket. He’s been kidnapped, possibly trafficked by some awful, sick individuals. And being forced to bear witness to his own debasement right before his very own eyes.

Such inhumane design…trapping someone in such a helpless state as they wait in anticipation of the unspeakable things waiting just a corner away. 

It goes on like that for a long time before his body begins to shut down, and his clawing for freedom begins to decrease. Eventually ceasing any movement altogether as the latent effects of hard drugs or whatever harmful thing that had been shot into his system betrays him once again. He simply remains limp, reduced to a shell after having only put mere dents into his very own two by four coffin. 

The metal is no longer cool when he rests his now bruised cheekbone on it, any small comfort that once might’ve been attached to it is gone. He doesn’t get long to wallow, though. 

His head shoots up as a piercing, slithery sound rings from an unseen doorway to his bottom-right that seemed to have spawned into existence at the will of these creatures. He swears, it wasn’t there before. 

His body thrums with an all-encompassing unease he feels at the sight of what walks through the open space.

They look like nothing he’s ever seen before, large hulking bodies, grotesque overfull eyes that hang a very uncomfortable distance out from their actual sockets, looking as if they would burst and bleed sluggishly like the stomach of an over full tick should they get too close and catch on a passing edge. They were built tall and oblong like those long oval magnets. Ridged, half see-through underbellies connected to many arms…? legs? that seem strangely meaty in contrast to the rest of the bug-like build— he gets the mental image of the skinny arms of a monkey—  covered with the hair-like leg strands of a common cockroach, which wobble forward then cave in on themselves with every inhale and exhale of the freakish things.

He tries to keep still under the gaze of those creatures that seem to suck the toxic air out of the room, an instinctual, thoughtless thing. Bells within him blare with each jump to and from those soulless, unblinking eyes. In a way he can’t even begin to explain, it’s the deepest, most genuinely terrifying thing he’s ever witnessed. 

Their mouths are tiny triangular things that look plastered on, a jawless and lipless hole hardly big enough to fit a finger into. And yet…

His skin crawls as they stare at him with those dead, wet eyes in total silence.  Nothing but the leathery sounds of their animatronical twitches break the quiet. A line of sweat drips down his suddenly cold back. He lay perfectly still, neck craned over shoulder, even as a crick in it screams at him.

A hot flash zings through his clammy body as one of its sets of teeth gnash up and down in a flurry of chatter. The mechanically smooth up and down motion the exact replica of the way automated doors slide open and closed. 

He shivers.

His jaw falls in horror as the huge, insect  creatures -and he knows, instinctively, that they’re creatures, not people with unfortunate mutant type quirks- send chills violently down his spine as they begin…speaking? To one another in such a dark, tinny way that he can’t even be sure it’s actual words and not some cursed form of communication.

This acutely feels like one of those cursed lost forms of media, the ones that come across your feed at two in the morning and shake you so bad you genuinely consider crawling into your parents bed for the week.

Nightmare fuel.

Those terribly haunting videos that  ‘humans were never meant to witness’. 

He isnt prepared when they actually begin moving toward him, though. With an incredulous start, he flips onto his back with clench hands raised and teeth baring unconsciously. The creatures only pause for a second or so, chatter picking up as they stare into the wide and wild eyes of the puzzling deathworld beast. Cautious, but steadily finding it hard to be intimidated by such a tiny, naked thing. Fearful and so defenseless. 

Without much more delay, they round him on all sides and they stand so tall he can no longer see much above their bare, waxy hips. Much of the brown bodies are blotted by the low roof of his cage, Izuku doesn’t trust it for one second, eyes flicking like lightning, searching and tracking each movement without rest. 

The cage jerks forward and he jerks with it, unable to help a guttural, startled sound from squeezing through his gritted teeth. He can’t. He doesnt know what these things are, what they want from him- fuck, how did he even. How did they get him- where is he! 

What are they about to do to him…

It’s as the wheels under Izuku become unstuck and he slides over and through the gleaming floors and vanishing door, quietly catastrophizing, that his world truly begins to break apart at the seams.

 Izuku is forced to witness the horrible sights and sounds of screaming entrapped creatures, in an identical position to him. Their sunken faces, many built in such odd amalgamations and confusing form that he could hardly even decipher they were faces at first. But thats exactly what they were, strange, downright alarming in the visage, but faces all the same.

With consciousness to boot, probably. Not humans, but likely not wild animals either. At least, he doesn’t think thats the case, considering the flash of colored garb that snag his eye, here and there.

So either they’re some sort of exotic, clothed pets, or the second, more likely option— the more he listens to their wails, the more bits and pieces seem to fall into place. They don’t appear to just be screaming out aborted, isolated sounds, but rather strings of noise. Not long, completely unintelligible, but with syllables. Which mindless screams typically lack; they’re some sort of ‘people’. They’ve got to be. 

Much the same way he’s beginning to realize his captors are as well. They may look like bugs but they’re… ‘people’- or. aliens.

Shit.

And they captured other alien people as well, in what he dreads to realize is likely some sort of trafficking ring. Oh. 

Izuku’s stream of consciousness for the next several seconds consists of a long string of the most colorful language he’s ever thought of in his entire life.

He’s been trafficked. By fucking aliens, no less. Of all the fucking things, truly. Even as he thinks it,  it’s too horrifying to really understand as his new reality. He is wholly lost. 

His eyes remain in quick motion but his body remains entirely stationary, stiffened to the point of aching. His kidnappers suddenly bark out sharp sounds, the piercing and reedy words sending his shoulders rising to the point of curling over his ears at the utter cacophony of wailing that picks up in response. The captives all seem to swoop away from the bars in waves as his metal cart advances.

He wonders what exactly the captors had said that made them react in such a visceral way. From what he could tell, body language aside, the quality of tone had changed as well. It was faster…his eyes catch on one particular alien who’s eyes are now incredibly wide and who’s voice is raw and loud enough to set his heart ablaze with a fresh wave of black panic. It’s fear, what they’re feeling now. He can feel it just by looking in their eyes. 

What did they say?

He almost relaxes as the cart rolls past that particular hallway and into a more futuristic chamber of sorts, the likes of which Izuku has never seen before in his life. Hell, on this day, he’s been introduced to entirely too many new things since the moment he opened his eyes. 

The door slides up slowly, textured semi-transparent surface glinting like a diamond as it catches on stray rays of light. It closes on them in no time, and the room dims to a deep magenta, he’s awed, caught off-guard by the look of it all. How is it so pretty? It looks like pink obsidian, he can see each individual carve in the walls and rounded edges where walls and ceiling meet.

He startles terribly when sharp sprays of some unidentifiable mist shoot in rhythmic spurts from openings the walls, throwing his arms over the unseeing ball he’s scrunched himself into. He quickly becomes drenched with the cedar-smelling stuff as it just doesn’t stop. And there’s so much of it. 

To his dismay, his hiding is futile and he quickly becomes drowsy with the heady scent of it. His muscles relax unwillingly and he turns into a puddle of unwound  nerves on the floor of his cramped cage. His arms spill off of his head and slap haphazardly against the bars, the rest of his rapidly loosening body following suit. 

He realizes, half-delirious, that they didn’t take his shoes when his feet vibrate with a muted thunk against the surface, but doesn’t feel the accompanying cool sensation of metal against his toes.

He’s glad, he thinks, that he still has his shoes and socks. He likes his red shoes, and they’re the only pair he has. At least he still has shoes, would suck to be barefoot inna place so mysterious and-…and alien. Y’know. Never know when he’d have to run…n’ escape an’ stuff. 

He’s still leaking all over the place when they dump him into a new, larger cage- a cell- Hadn’t realized it had slid open even as his body began to spill out onto the thin, cold floor.

Hadn’t the presence of mind to look around as he flopped the rest of himself out onto the shiny ground, effectively sealing his joining with the other occupants that he doesn’t notice just yet. 

Chapter Text

Sorry y’all, imma have to put this fic on hiatus until I can get it together. It pains me that I’m unable to transfer exactly what I see in my head into writing. And there’s just a general lack of inspiration lately for attempting to trudge through the process regardless. 

For now, I’ll put this on a hiatus and try to focus on building my writing—both in skill and imagination— through other short works from specific tropes that really get my motor running. 

I will come back, trust 🤞🏽