Hero Psycho 100

I: Introductions

Izuku Midoriya was a boy of a rather singular nature. There was little debate between his peers as to just what sort of child he was, and what sort of man he would be. He was small and frail, his body thin and without much muscle or fat, his deep green eyes perpetually cast in the half-lidded state of one perpetually fatigued. His fingers would twitch at random but the rest of his body would remain still in his hunched, weary posture, and his pale skin spoke of a long history of illness and an attachment to the great indoors.

Swaddled as he was in a uniform that seemed too small for him, hanging baggy and loose in spite of it being the smallest size available, he looked downright pathetic. Something to be pitied, to be protected, and in the eyes of several of the classes female students, something to be cuddled and cherished.

To Katsuki Bakugou, however, Izuku Midoriya was more than the sum of his (admittedly unimpressive) parts. Izuku Midoriya was labelled as three things in the blonde's head; 'Sidekick'. 'Confidante', and, most importantly, above all the others even though Katsuki would never himself admit it; 'Friend'. 'Responsibility' was a fourth label usually applied when Izuku, or 'Deku', as Katsuki called him was doing something stupid. Usually being himself.

Katsuki Bakugou was, at first glance, not the sort to be friends with the much smaller Izuku. Side by side, they were like two opposites cast together in a comedy film; Izuku's shy, fearful hunch forwards replaced by a confident slouch of the shoulders on Katsuki. Tangled and limp green hair contrasted by violent spikes of sandy-blonde. Trembling and unsteady hands set beside clenched fists held firm and still. And most of all, green eyes that were afraid to meet you right beside bright red orbs all too happy to look you in the eye as their owner pummeled you into dust.

Their first introduction to Class 1-A was a perfect example of this duality, this yin-yang nature that defined their lives up until that fateful day when they both took that first step across the threshold and out of the world of civilians and fans, and into the world of heroes. Izuku nearly tripped over his own feet and was caught by Katsuki's steady hand on his shoulder, before the much bigger boy picked Deku up right off the ground and held him up.

"Alright, fuckers, listen up!" Katsuki's voice was a sudden splitting shout, cutting through the murmuring and softer conversation of their new classmates and drawing all eyes straight to them. "I'm Katsuki Bakugou, and this here is Deku! His real name's Midoriya, for anyone who cares! He's really quiet and a bit of a wimp, but he's MY goddamn partner and anyone who fucks with him answers to me! Got that? If you don't, then step the fuck up and we'll settle this right here!"

Izuku, having been startled into a sort of advanced state of awakening in which outside stimuli was absorbed much easier, winced at Katsuki's introduction. Izuku's beloved Kaachan, for that was his nickname for the much stronger boy, was always loud and brash. But this was a cut above even for him, and it made Izuku just a touch nervous. But Katsuki soon set him down and Izuku was left bowing and quietly apologizing for the disturbance, leading to Katsuki slapping a hand down on his shoulder.

"Deku, stop apologizing when you didn't do anything!" Katsuki proclaimed, rolling his eyes and groaning with all the built-up exasperation he could muster. "How many times I gotta tell you I can apologize for myself if I ever actually feel like it?"

"S-sorry, Kaachan…" Izuku said, voice much softer; he was so quiet, in fact, that only Katsuki could really hear him.

The taller boy just rolled his eyes again before giving Izuku's shoulder a firmer slap and half-guiding, half-shoving him towards a pair of open desks near the middle of the room. Their path was intercepted, however, by a tall and broadly built boy in glasses with dark hair, who had his hands by his sides and was frowning disapprovingly at the both of them.

"I must insist you refrain from using such foul language in a setting such as this!" the boy declared, pointing a single accusatory finger at Katsuki. "And to speak of one of your own classmates with such vulgarity; have you no shame?"

"Fuck off." Katsuki blew the boy off with a snarl, before reaching forward and shoving him square in the chest. "Go blow it up your ass, four-eyes. You got a problem with how I talk, take it up with my private 'fucks to give' department. Gotta warn you though; whole place's been empty for years."

The boy with glasses audibly choked, before Deku looked up at him through a fallen tangle of green hair and smiled weakly, blinking.

"Sorry… Kaachan can be… loud…" the boy said, voice little more than an apologetic murmur. "He's… protective."

Katsuki scowled at the larger boy before pushing past him, shielding Deku in the crook of his arm as he shoved. Deku just followed along, still smiling weakly at the larger boy, who merely looked on with a strange expression on his face before making a 'hmph!' sound in his throat and turning away, walking back to his own desk.

"Kaachan…" Izuku said, head drooping again and his sentence breaking due to a long yawn. "Please… be nicer… to them? They… wanna be heroes… too…"

"Oughta figure out who's gonna be number one now, then," Katsuki declared, scowling at the whole class. "Or they're gonna have a bad fu… a bad time. Remember, Deku, it doesn't matter if they wanna be heroes; they've gotta prove their worth our time."

"Oh…" Izuku sounded sad at that, and that made Katsuki's chest ache just a little. A sad Izuku was a truly traumatic thing to see; he was like some unholy fusion of a kicked puppy, crying baby and lonely koala bear. "Okay…"

"Is everyone finished?"

The new voice came from the classroom door, the frame of which was currently occupied by some strange orange caterpillar-creature with a face. One of Katsuki and Izuku's new classmates shouted out in surprise, before the caterpillar's stomach was opened from inside and it fell away, revealing itself to actually be a tall, haggard looking man with long black hair ensconced within an orange sleeping bag. Katsuki rolled his eyes, realizing that the man had the same tired look as Izuku, though perhaps replacing Izuku's drowsy innocence with something more sullen.

"It took you almost thirty seconds to calm down after I showed up." the man said in a dry deadpan. "Irrational. I'm Professor Aizawa, your homeroom teacher. Get your gym uniforms on and head to the main field."

"Sir?" the tall boy with the glasses spoke up suddenly, raising a single hand. "What about the school ceremony, and the first day tour?"

"Unnecessary." Aizawa declared, turning away. "Get moving. You're in the hero course now; we don't waste time on ceremonies."

The whole class obeyed the order to get moving, rushing toward the door. Katsuki grabbed Izuku by the shoulder, pulling the drowsy boy along before he could doze off again. Izuku followed with a quiet of whine of indignation, getting his feet under him with record speed (for him).

II: Power

"DIE!"

Katsuki's shout was punctuated by the sound of an explosion, even as his softball was sent hurtling off into the middle distance by a his fusion throw/blast. The rest of the class watched as the little white sphere sailed away, disappearing in the horizon, even as Aizawa raised his little stopwatch-looking measurement device and hummed softly.

"Seven-hundred-fifty-seven metres." he said, before looking at the assembled class. "For years you've been made to take these tests without your Quirks, thanks to outdated rules. Now, however, you will be expected to use your Quirks as much as the rest of your body, unless otherwise specified. A hero's Quirk is not always the most important thing about them, but it is an extremely valuable tool for anybody looking to become a hero. You will take multiple physical aptitude tests, using your Quirks to get the best possible score."

Nobody replied, but everybody looked excited. Students were muttering about the new rules, some proclaiming outright how exciting it would be. One in particular, a pink-skinned girl with horns, punched a fist in the air and declared that the exercises were going to be lots of fun. At that particular line, Professor Aizawa changed.

His hair rose, his eyes glowing red, and a sinister and dangerous aura suddenly surrounded him. His head tilted slightly to one side, and he directed this ominous new look straight toward the pink girl in particular.

"Fun?" Though it was phrased as a question, it came out more as a challenge. "So heroism is just fun and games to you? I see. Games have consequences, right? The student with the lowest total score…"

He scanned his eyes across all of them, and even Katsuki shuddered. The only one to not respond was Midoriya, who seemed to have dozed off.

"Will be expelled." Aizawa finished, before his hair fell and his eyes went back to normal. "So get ready to earn your right to become heroes."

Initial testing passed surprisingly quickly. Most of the students displayed particular aptitude for one or more of the exams thanks to their Quirks; a boy with six arms combined his six hands to increase his grip strength by an equal multiplier and the result was a frankly ridiculous amount of force. A boy with brown hair and unusually large lips pounded back what seemed to be a small satchel of sugar and scored an impressive score himself.

Of course, there were standouts; a boy whose hair was divided half-white, half-red utilized his ability to produce frankly ludicrous amounts of ice from nothing to skate along, scoring immensely high in every test that involved speed. The tall boy with glasses proved himself quite nimble, his Quirk giving him literal engines in his legs that allowed him to run at inhuman speeds. There was a dark-haired girl who could produce seemingly anything she wanted from her skin, and a boy with purple balls growing from his head who could bounce off them to speed himself up; particularly in the side-jump competition.

But it was Izuku Midoriya who surprised everybody. The tired boy, small and frail, whose gym uniform was baggy and loose and whom everybody seemed to think was perhaps a lost child; when presented with the grip tester, he didn't grab it. He looked at the teacher, then at Katsuki Bakugou, the explosive blonde boy. When he received a blank stare from the first and a nod from the second, he stared at the grip tester. His eyes glowed a faint white, his whole body was surrounded by a luminescent green ball of energy, and the grip tester depressed itself.

Then it crumpled with the sound snapping metal and plastic, and the boy cough and wiped his mouth and the class could see a little red mixed in with the white of his spittle. Everybody stared, wide eyed. Aizawa just jotted something down on his notebook and moved on to the next test, giving the boy a nod.

He was slow on his feet, but the green bubble allowed him to do something that could only be described as flying, sailing through the air much faster just a few inches off the ground, though he never seemed to stop by himself, always hitting the ground hard. The side jump he failed at; he couldn't use his power there, apparently it couldn't handle small, precise motions like that. His ball floated around him in a circle at an ever-increasing speed before hurtling off and scoring an identical distance to Katsuki's, which made the blonde grimace.

"Deku!" he suddenly shouted, approaching the boy with angry eyes and grabbing his shoulder, turning him around. "Stop trying to stay behind me!"

"Sorry… Kaachan…" came the meek reply, and a bowed head. Katsuki just groaned.

In the end, the lowest score belonged to the purple haired boy, named Mineta, who was given a stern glare before the teacher declared his previous statement on expulsion was actually a 'logical ruse' and that Mineta would not be going anywhere much to the audience's dismay.

AN: Disregard that last bit.

The class filed back inside to get changed again, all but Izuku, who stayed outside, head bowed. Katsuki rolled his eyes as he walked past, before another blonde with spiky hair put a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Hey dude!" he said, voice loud and clearly curious. "You alright? You look a little…"

The boy trailed off when he realized Izuku had fallen asleep standing up. Katsuki suddenly set off an explosion a few feet away and Izuku yawned, rubbing his eyes before following his friend/keeper quietly, stumbling a little. The second blonde, a young man by the name of Denki Kaminari, watched him go with raised eyebrows.

"Weird." he declared to an empty field, before realizing he was now the last one left on the field. "Hey, wait up!"

III: Looming Threats

A screen showed a spinning circle of dots; a buffering symbol, loading something. The symbol turned into a play button, and a cursor clicked it once.

The video came to life instantly, displaying a rather hectic looking battle between young people in a variety of outfits and a series of green robots, of which there appeared to be three different types. The cursor slid along the screen and grabbed the play symbol, dragging it along the bar until a certain time stamp was displayed.

Click.

The video shot to life again, as several buildings in the middle of the mock city exploded with a hail of dust and rubble. From the ruins a massive green machine, some fifty metres high stomped into the light, eight eyes on a rectangular face scanning the city. Screams were audibleC the sight of people fleeing, children running from the great monster. The camera zoomed and focused again, revealing several students trapped by debris.

The robot stomped forward, either malicious or oblivious, raising a massive metal fist and smashing another building into so many chunks of concrete. The street buckled and cracked beneath its tread; it was a true monster. The trapped students screamed in fear, one of their number pinned beneath a fallen slab of concrete and several others equally stuck. There were three in total.

The giant robot pressed on forwards, the rising haze of dust obscuring it ever so slightly. There was a brilliant green light emanating from somewhere off screen, some emerald glow casting deep dark shadows across the streets. The robot stomped onto the street again, a step or two from the students.

Something intercepted it's next step, it's foot hovering above the students but unable to move. Metal creaked under pressure, and the robots eight red eyes tracked something rising from ground level into the air. The camera turned and zoomed in on that. A figure in a bubble of green light, small and frail, in a loose posture with hands limp by its side. A head lolled on a limp neck and two eyes of pure white were visible in the moment before the camera burst into static.

The video continued in static for less than a minute, leaving the viewer with only audio. The sound of metal screaming in agony under monstrous duress, a sound unlike sound that was all at once an electronic wail, a violin's screech and strangely enough, the sound of a kazoo. The sound of silence, the audio feed too cutting out.

Then, the camera cut back in suddenly, revealing the enormous machine to still be standing, but utterly changed. The upper half twisted and bent and warped by some unknown force, like it had been pushed and pulled by a hundred monstrously strong hands all at once. All eight metal eyes had exploded, leaving behind black holes in its great brick of a head. It shuddered and slowly collapsed backwards, toppling to the ground with steady fall of something seized by gravity's cruel clutch.

The video ended. The cursor grabbed the little dot on the bar and dragged it backwards again, to the moment where the camera was watching the floating figure. Paused, just before the static. Rewound a little more. Slowed the video, to a single frame per second. Watching. Glowing eyes of white. An aura of green light. Monstrous power.

A man leaned away from a computer screen, gnarled old hands folded together in front of him. A loose smile graced a face that had many reasons now to smile.

"How old is this?" he asked, in a rasping voice.

"Several weeks, sir." the man behind him said, his English roughly accented by Russian origins. "This is the first time this Quirk has been recorded."

"He is, perhaps, the one..." a woman's voice said, it's owner cocking her hips slightly as she grinned. "This could be good news, sir."

"It is." the man before the screen said, nodding once. "Volk, alert Khan and Gremlin. You will go to Japan at once, and find the boy. Seeker, inform Ptolemy he will be busy soon."

"At once." the Russian said, turning away. "May I bring Alleycat as well?"

"No." the old man shook his head. "We need her elsewhere."

The Russian saluted, before leaving the room. The woman, Seeker, bowed her head and disappeared herself, through the same door. The man turned his attention back to the still image on the screen, to those white eyes and that glow, and that green hair...

"Izuku Midoriya..." he said the name softly, like a secret. "Yes... Curious. Curious indeed..."

CALIBAN'S CORNER

(Author's Note, Actually)

Mob Psycho 100 II is out and is freaking great and I thought to myself after this season "Hey, Mob and Deku are almost nothing alike but for some reason feel similar" before I realized Deku's the final form of the Shounen protagonist and Mob is sort of the ultimate anti-Shounen-protagonist and opposites are the same and basically I said 'so what if Deku was that murderously OP?' and then rewrote most of My Hero Academia's backstory to better suit this new reality.

So yes, Bakugou and Deku are friends. Because of reasons you'll discover later but for now I'm only going to hint at because it's fun not infodumping in chapter one and letting your audience guess.

If the formatting is weird, I apologize; I'm experimenting with a style that's easier for me to manage since I suck at timeskips and scene jumps and want to be able to bend time and space at my leisure. Hence the scene labels. Also this way I can dodge writing things I suck at (long descriptions of surroundings and travel scenes) and get right into what I like to think I'm good at (dialogue, character interaction and all that sweet snazzy action). I can also skip parts of the anime/manga literally everybody knows and stuff that bores me so I can stay on track and not lose interest like I usually do.

Mineta redemption side-arc, nerds! I don't want to discard characters out of hand because people don't like them; I want to try and make you like them. And while that's a bit of a Herculean task with Mineta… well, that's half the fun!

OC villains? What? Yeah, that's… I like OCs. Even if they're all actually mostly expies besides a few, but that's fine. This whole story's basis is giving Deku a Quirk that is an expy from Mob Psycho 100.

So, I hope you all enjoyed, and tune in next time when we handle PROBLEMS.