Chapter Text
Midoriya Izuku sighed as he stood on the edge of the building that he and his favorite professional hero had landed on. It had probably been both stupid and reckless to have grabbed ahold of the pro like he had, but his need to ask that question, to have the answer from the only man whose opinion mattered to Izuku had overridden his sense. The answer he had received had not been the one he had hoped for.
Being told that he couldn’t be a professional hero without a quirk had ripped his whole world apart. Maybe Kaa-chan and the others were right, he thought looking over the edge of the building. It was then that he heard a voice speak up from behind him. “Jesus,” the voice said, “I know they say that you shouldn’t meet your heroes, but what a jackass.”
Turning around with a denial on his lips, Izuku froze as he looked at the girl, or maybe woman that stood about two meters behind him. Standing close to two meters tall, she seemed to be made entirely of dark crystal, all blacks, and greys with topaz where her eyes would be. “Who are…” he asked even as she floated there.
“My designation is [Queen Administrator],” she said and as she said her name, Izuku felt pain shoot through his head. “On the other hand, the colloquial designation of this one is Skitter. I am your power, you are my host.”
Izuku blinked at that. “Power, host?” he asked and then blinked again. “Are you my quirk?”
The crystal woman tilted her head while looking at Izuku and then nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I am a mental representation or image of your power to guide you and act as an interface after an incident with my previous host.”
“What kind of incident?” Izuku asked, his curiosity overpowering his fear. It wasn’t often that one had a quirk that could be actually spoken to, less so one that was able to answer questions that the person whose power it was didn’t already know.
“Hosts of Chirurgeon and Shaper altered the organic interface between my host and myself,” the power answered. “Because of this there was a certain amount of, bleed over, between my host and myself. Aspects of her personality and self-image became my own, while my own abilities overwhelmed her. Her erasure as a being and as a host denied us the opportunity to correct this mistake properly.”
“And now you are stuck with a part of her inside of you,” Izuku surmised nodding.
“That would be correct,” the figure replied. “However, we feel that we are more than we were before for having done so.”
“How so?” Izuku asked reaching for the backpack that he suddenly realized was back down in the alley where the sludge villain had attacked him.
“By absorbing the personality of Host: Taylor Hebert, we have found meaning in our existence, and context for the condition that is the host species,” Skitter answered. “It is not intended that we will ever fulfill the cycle as the Thinker or the Warrior intended, only to allow humanity to work as they will with our abilities to see what they can create with them.”
“You and others like you are the reason people have quirks,” Izuku asked astonished. There were many theories as to why people seemed to suddenly develop quirks, and the wanton destruction of the first hundred years of quirk usage had destroyed most of the records that had existed of the time prior to that and one of the things that had been destroyed during the early days, if it had existed at all, was the reason quirks had developed in the first place. “I have so many questions about how quirks work and why they are the way they are, would you be willing to answer them?”
“Some,” his power answered. “But I cannot answer them all as they are not all mine to give. Still others would, as my previous host would say, fry your little human brain. Still, I will answer what I can, though you might want to leave that for later.”
“Why?” Izuku asked, his joy at having the ability to find out so much more about quirks unabated as he stepped closer to her.
“Because [betrayer/bully/friend] is currently being attacked by the same [body manipulation/hydro kinesis] that attacked you earlier.”
Izuku cringed as she used that overpowering voice again to describe, someone, and then he blinked. “The sludge villain is attacking Kaa-chan?” he blurted out. “Where?”
“Three blocks that direction,” she said pointing directly at a building that rose higher than the one they were on. In the distance Izuku could hear explosions starting. “They are at the very edge of my ability to reach.”
“I have to help him,” Izuku blurted out. Looking around he spotted the external fire escape and ran for it. “Can you help him until I get there?”
“I can,” the figure answered as she floated along with him. “They are at the extreme edge of my range, but I can direct my minions to attack his attacker.”
Izuku froze for a moment, even as he was hanging from the last rung of the fire escape’s ladder, the drop yawning below him. “What are your minions?” he asked.
**