Chapter Text
The first time it happened, he was eight years old; eight years, three months and five days. Burns blistered along his shoulders, heat coiled around his heart like a snake wrapped around prey, and tears steamed off of his cheeks. Only one of those things felt like pure agony.
Izuku was thankful for the warmth of the unknown place he was in, he no doubt would have been shivering up a storm otherwise with the fact that he had no shoes or socks, and his scarf discarded somewhere. It was late summer but he tended to find it hard to keep his boy temperature warm and would find himself shivering most days.
Izuku looked around the field, the hills and deep emerald grass making for the sight of a calm sea. There were wild flowers everywhere and the air had a faint tinge of honeysuckle and something earthy and woody. Izuku wasn’t enraptured by that, however. No, what he was so caught up in was the thousands of creatures in the sky, some ranging from the size of small cats to the size of Aldera. Dragons.
He had no understanding of this world. For one thing, he hadn’t just wandered into an impossible environment, instead he’d been getting the living hell beat out of him by Bakugou and his sycophants. He literally still had the blistering burns and bruises to show for it, or he did, however it all seemed to be healing rather impossibly fast with scales of deep black scales forming where the injury had been, the scales shimmering a deep green in the sweltering heat.
He yelped when he heard a deep roaring right behind him, and he whirled around to see a dragon impossibly large, larger than his school! She (he didn’t know how he knew, but he knew this was a female) stood tall, but her long neck (or maybe it only appeared long due to the sheer size of her) bowed to be face to face. Steam flowered out of her flexed nostrils, her mouth firmly closed.
“You do not belong here, little boy,” her voice boomed inside his head, her mouth slightly parted to show sharp rows of teeth. “You are too young, creature, to ever be safe here.”
“I-I-I,” was all that Izuku could squeak out as he fell backwards in his hasten to get away from the dragon. She had a large head, no smaller than a transit van, a narrow muzzle with a horn upon her snout and two horns growing just to the side and behind her large green eyes, along her spine and fading smaller and smaller as it reached her neck were large spiked, a small two feet gap between each spike that reached at least four feet in height, and trailed to a stop before reaching the tail. Her legs were well built, muscles slightly bulging with talons just lighter than her head, claws as long as he was tall. Her tail was double the length of her entire body, and was swishing in a controlled way behind her. Her scales were a gorgeous gold colour, slightly leant towards a bronze colouration with larger scales far deeper in colour, more bronze again along the front of her neck, all the way to her underside of her body and abdomen and the underside of her tail. It was clear the bronzer scales were stronger.
“You may stay with me, little one, until you are deemed healed enough to leave this realm.”
He didn’t want to stay. He wanted to go home where he knew his mother would be worried sick, wanted to never return to the impossible place and claim this all a concussed induced dream. He continued to look around the place, noticing the dragons flying high in the sky, some searching the ground for prey, others seemingly playing and racing each other. There were even other dragons on the ground, only they seemed to be the size of cats, the only one not was the golden dragon staring deep into his own green eyes.
“W-w-why am I here?” He stuttered out and the dragon righter herself, her head reaching back to what he supposed would be the normal position and she gestured for him to follow, only to freeze when she noticed the fact that Izuku was lagging behind. She brought her tail to coil around to her side and made a gesturing motion for him to sit atop the tail just before the end of it. He wasn’t all that comfortable to sit on something so large, however he’d rather risk falling from that than being eaten by any other dragon, and so he gently hopped onto it like one would a bus shelter’s bench and clung on for dear life as she started moving again.
“This place was formed so few years ago, formed to the sound of a child’s wail, but it was discovered many years ago by the great Dragon hero Pyre. That man was strong enough to form flames of another realm, and those flames were passed onto his child who made it stronger. That child, without knowing it, formed fields of pure content and vast seas of a raging sorrow and harsh mountains of ice and snow to a child’s deepest fears and roaring lakes of the raging molten rocks and trees. For every emotion this child has felt has breathed new lives and habitats. His first breath created life, and his emotions gave them a place to live, but it has taken eight years of this place to become a safe haven for us. That child, despite being the creator of this world, is yet to have his own true power, and thus shall not be safe nor accepted here.” What she was saying was impossible, Izuku knew that. No human had the power to create universes, that was the power of a god, and yet there was no reason for her to lie.
“Who?” He asked. At the sudden sway of the tip of the tail, not enough to make him fall, but enough to wobble him, he felt as if he greatly offended her, or disappointed her more likely.
“You asked what this place is, perhaps I was not clear. This place is not you, but without you, it cannot exist, this place borne of emotion and the wails of Midoriya Izuku. This place will end the second you take your last breath and the fabrication of this world shall crumble every time your heart may stop beating for prolonged periods of time.”
“B-but th-that-that’s impossible!” He yelped out. He had never been diagnosed quirkless, he’d had the check-up when he was four and showing no signs of a quirk, however was claimed quirkless when his quirk failed to make an appearance after the age of six years, seven months and three weeks, the latest many people manifested their quirks. Eight was practically unheard of.
“And yet you are here, little one,” the dragon boomed, continuing her quick paced walk through the field, her tail’s tip tucked under her abdomen the further they entered into the into the area of dragons. “When you feel truly unsafe you shall always come to the one place meant to keep you safe, but you are far too young for this place. You have not even developed your wings or scales as of this moment, no dragon shall deem you worthy of this place.”
Instinctively he looked down at his still blistering skin, only it wasn’t so muck blistered anymore as dark delicate scales continued to fade into the injury, the pretty black scales shining like obsidian. He wondered what the tall dragon meant by wings and scales. He’d imagine the scales would leave once he woke up from whatever nightmarish dream he’d stumbled upon.
He didn’t ask any more questions after that, instead watching as she walked towards a large forest area and clung tighter as he heard thunderous roars. In reply to his fear, the dragon brought her tail higher until his head was practically brushing her underbelly. He peeked to the ground and saw a shire horse sized dragon munching on what looked like some poor smaller dragon. He couldn’t see anything that let him know what the other former dragon looked like and he didn’t know if he was thankful for that or not.
The large horse-sized dragon was copper in colour with a large row of scales from throat to neck to belly to the underside of the tail, much like the golden dragon he was hitching a ride with, however he was not two toned, but instead a solid copper colour all the way. His large tail was twitching back and forth as it raised its neck to look at the golden dragon. He had beady blue eyes, and a large rounded snout that housed huge canines and a large forked blue tongue. It squawked indignantly at the one Izuku rode on before trotting off and spreading huge wings wide open. They were scarred and leathery and did not look all that cared for, but they did the job of carrying the male away as quickly as possible to search for more prey.
He wondered if she’d bother with eating something as small as that when the golden was mahusive. The ride after that was pretty uneventful, he saw more dragons pass them by, some roaring, some chirping, others squawking, but all in all not bothering with the golden. Eventually they arrived at a large patch of ground empty of trees with a large lake sitting in the middle of the clearing with worn and burnt ground near the edge of the deepest section of the lake. The lake shimmered impossibly blue and had faint steam curling around it. She carried him to the ground worn from being under something large and weighty and it was at that point he figured this was her territory. She curled her body into a position not much different from a cat when they’d curl on a bed, tail wrapped once around her body before the tip brushed against her nose, her talons (paws?), bent and tucked in with her head held high so that she could continue to be fully aware of her surroundings.
“As this is your first time remaining in this place you shall leave shortly after quirk exhaustion takes its place. It is not my place to teach you how to leave on your own, but if you would like, you may use this space to attempt your leave.”
“Right!” He said, and sat with his legs dangling into the lake, his toes instantly warming up more than they’d already been in the perfectly warmed water.
“Do be careful, little one. This place is safe, but never enter any other body of water until you have claimed your full power. There are more than just the flying beasts to be wary of.” He nodded towards the huge beast and peered into the water.
“Do you- do you have a name?” He asked, and she hummed, lowering her head to rest atop the ground.
“I do not, it is your job to name the beasts of this place,” she stated, looking at him and he cocked his head to the side. What name befitted a beast as giant as she, and seemed to terrify all other beasts away, unless they were the same kind of dragons as the one he’d seen eating another dragon. He’d seen about five more of those and they all seemed to be ballsy creatures that didn’t care for her being in their space, only getting truly aggrieved if they were fed up with the sight of her. Kind of like Bakugou.
“Artemis,” he said suddenly, and like that a gold band wove around her left wrist and slowly trailed to his own right wrist, and he gasped as searing pain wove itself into his very skin. It left like Bakugou’s quirk was concentrated to that specific area and it hurt. Artemis didn’t seem all that bothered even as her own gold band seemed to meld into her wrist, soon turning into a scar that turned the scales a deep black-emerald colour. The golden trail slowly faded from sight and left Izuku’s own skin turning scaly gold around his wrist, only a lighter near invisible sheen, as if trying to hide the fact that his skin was a whole new texture right at that place.
“What?!” He yelped out, waving his arm around, but the pain was gone and his skin felt normal.
“We are now bound, little one. For every name you give is another dragon bound to your calling. If ever you deem yourself in need, truly in need, you may call upon me and I shall be of aid to you.”
“What does that even mean?!” He exclaimed, voice shrill. He absentmindedly traced the golden-bronze scales around and waited for the dragon to answer his question.
“If you ever happen upon a time you feel is hopeless I shall appear. If ever you come upon a situation that I am needed I shall appear. I am bound to your every call.” His eyes widened comically as he gazed at the great beast. Artemis didn’t seem all that bothered that she was essentially his guard, didn’t even care that the way she explained it made it sound like she had no choice but to do as he wished. Instead she settled down and let her green eyes sliver shut.
The perfectly warm sun seemed to be in the perfect spot, the golden light hitting every inch of the curled form of Artemis. She seemed perfectly content to bask in the light whilst Izuku was having his weekly crisis, sitting at the edge of the lake with his shoeless feet dangling into it.
The dragon’s breathing was rhythmic and easy to relax to as he slumped backwards, his arms keeping his body from completely falling to the ground as he raised his head for the sun to perfectly hit his face. He wondered if the place was this warm because all that lived in that place were cold blooded creatures. It would make sense. He wondered if he could get burnt in a place like this, though he didn’t think so. This whole place seemed filled with something that helped heal injuries faster so it would make sense if the sun couldn’t burn him.
Was his body even with him, or was it his mind that had been transported to this realm and his real body was still on Aldera’s school grounds bleeding? He certainly felt the pain in his shoulder but that could all be psychological. Whatever was going on, he couldn't wait to get back to his home and write all he had discovered and ask his mother if she could send him to a quirk specialist.
Kami…
He had a quirk!
He turned to look back at Artemis and saw the huge creature happily dozing. She really was big, even when she was curled into such a tight form, her hind talons tucked under her chin with one forepaw hooked to cover her snout and the other one no doubt under her with her huge tail curling her form and ending to coil on her front shoulder, her ginormous left wing somewhat covering her side and the other wind no doubt tucked tight to her side and hidden under her laying form. Even in that position she was longer than aldera and as tall as a small cottage. She was terrifying, and yet he felt instantly safe with her, he knew she’d protect him above all else. With that knowledge it allowed for him to fall backwards, legs still dangling from the knee down into the water and closed his own eyes as the dull pain in his shoulder began to fade.