"A pro should always be ready to risk his life. Without power, can one become a hero? No, I should think not."

As those words came from the blonde man in front of him, Izuku Midoriya felt his heart clench.

Sure, he had heard it all before, 'give up' and 'get real' and 'grow up', but as long as he could look up to that great symbol, the one who stood before him, despite his usually imposing figure being reduced to such a feeble state, he turned a deaf ear towards it all.

He was his inspiration and aspirations all rolled up into one.

And yet.

And yet, All Might, the number one hero, the man he wanted to become, had just told him the exact same thing everyone else had been telling him since he was four years old.

"If you desire to help people, becoming a police officer is always an option. Those Villain Custody Officers are often mocked but… That too is admiral work!"

'No!' Izuku thought, as his eyes burned and tears pricked their corners, 'this wasn't what you were meant to say, why does no one ever know what to say?'

"It's not wrong to dream…" The symbol of justice said as he began leaving the roof, "However… You need to be realistic, kid."

'Please!' The boy screamed in his mind as he heard the receding footsteps. 'You can do it! It's all I need!' But before he could even finish that thought, All Might was gone.

It took Izuku thirty minutes to move his feet from that same spot, his eyes puffy from tears, he wiped the snot from his nose with the back of his hand, sniffled and began to trek home.

He shut out the world around him, and shuffled his feet through the familiar route to his house.

His mind ran a mile a minute, thoughts of all those who had looked down on him, all the looks, all the jeers, all that NOISE.

The green haired boy clenched his fist.

He knew.

He had always known.

This was the reality.

Even so he had tried so hard, he had tried hard because he had known;
But maybe it was time to give up.

He didn't have to be a hero to save people, he was smart and good at analysis, he could be an administrator for a hero company, or, like All Might had said, a police officer.

But he didn't want to.

That wasn't his dream, that wasn't what he had worked so hard for.

Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do, he was just weak, quirkless Deku.
The boy released a long sigh.

He was exhausted, not only because of today's events, but because of the slowly culminating stress of giving what he considered his all despite no one believing in him collapsing down on him after the fragile supports he had set up crumbling.

There was nothing more in the world he wanted now than to get home and just collapse on his bed.

The boy suddenly realised how problematic his wish would be, as he found himself standing in the deserted version of the park he used to frequent with his 'friends' when he was younger.

"Friends huh?" The boy gave an ironic chuckle, his memory flitting back to what Katsuki Bakugou, arguably his oldest friend, had said to him earlier.

"Jumping off a roof? I wonder if that really would solve my problem?" He muttered bitterly, "it's weird my legs would bring me here of all places though." The boy could vividly remember all the abuse and bullying he had been put through at this very place, considering all of that, this place was like a monument of others voicing their displeasure with his dream.

The boy made his way to a rickety swing set, one he was extremely familiar with, as it had always been his favourite toy, and yet only now did he noticed the large patches of rust and imperfections that dressed the frame, small imperfections in his small beacon of hope that he had never seen before, or maybe he just refused to notice it.

The boy sat down on the somewhat too small seat and swung himself back and forth, staring languidly at the quickly darkening sky.

He'd always enjoyed swings.

The air rushing past him.

That feeling of freedom.

Almost like he could fly.

It emulated the closest experience he would ever have to a quirk.
The closest he'd be to his dream.

The boy left his musing for enough time to briefly notice the streak of fiery light cascading down the blackened backdrop, a small, mirthful smile came to his face as he evaluated it.

"A shooting star? Would it be childish of me to wish for the chance to be a hero?" Izuku asked himself, as he watched the celestial body rocket across the sky. "A dumb dream begets a dumb wish after all..."

The boys eyes widened after continuous observation, as he came to realise that the once tiny spec became larger and larger, quickly bathing the small park and surrounding woods in a warm orange glow. A rather pretty experience, if Izuku hadn't been swinging in the potential crash site.

The boy leapt off the swing, causing himself to land painfully on his hands and knees, before he half crawled half leapt to what he considered a safe distance, scrambling behind a tree for safe measure.

The shooting star entered a visible range, revealing a round metal object that was set alight. It careened towards the park faster than Izuku could follow, landing a few hundred feet away with a startlingly loud bang, it continued forward afterwards, leaving a large furrow across the ground as its momentum carried it forward, it only stopped a few steps away from the boy, after bulldozing the swing set the young boy had just been sat at.

It took a few seconds for sheer curiosity to give Izuku the courage that he needed to gingerly edge his way towards the scene and peer over at the football sized, metal sphere.

Izuku eyed the ball suspiciously.

He decided that messing with it, whatever it was, was not a good idea, a pro hero would likely be on the scene shortly, and he had frankly had enough of the whole hero scene for a good long while.

As he went to turn on his heel and leave, the ground beneath him crumbled, causing the boy to slide down the edge of the crater on his behind, before he finally stopped about three feet away from the ball.

The overlapped plates opened up at that moment, revealing what Izuku assumed was a watch. It was primarily black and grey in colour with a dial in the middle that looked like a watch face which sported an hourglass shape that glowed a vivid green.

The light drew Izuku towards it, it seemed oddly peaceful and reassuring.

Before he knew it he reached out his left hand, trying to pick up the item, but as his hand hovered just above the foreign object, the watch jumped up on its own, the clasp at the back opening up and wrapping itself around his wrist.
Izuku yelled in shock, as he fell back down, shaking the afflicted arm violently in a vain attempt to remove the device, this only lead to him realising that it wouldn't come off so easily.

He tried his best to pry it off desperately for a few seconds, but his fingers couldn't even get in between the watch and his skin.

The boy finally breathed in exasperation, realising the futility of his actions, he took an analytical look at his newest accessory and current situation.

It was late, much later than he usually got home, which was especially bad on a day where a villain had been reported so close to his school. His mother was definitely worried about him, which would lead to her crying up a storm.
It was in his best interest to get home sooner rather than later.

Izuku slightly poked the watch, it didn't seem all that dangerous, hadn't absorbed his blood until he was dry or even taken over his mind yet, so surely he could just leave it alone for now and deal with it later in his room.

No sooner had the boy come to his conclusion did his wandering finger find one of the small buttons on the device, this caused the dial on the watch to pop up with a rather unique noise, the hourglass shape changing to a diamond.

Different silhouettes were rapidly displayed on the diamond before one of a four armed, well built figure displayed itself.

Izuku looked down with curiosity, the green glow of the watch reflecting in his eyes, calling to him once more. He placed a cursory hand on the extended dial, held his breathed and pushed down.

The glow intensified, bathing the area, and causing the young boy to feel a strange sensation course across his entire body, his frame bulked up considerably, and two extra appendages sprouted below his armpits.

In a flash the once small, wimpy boy, got replaced by a four-armed red humanoid with four yellow eyes, red spikes on his four muscled arms, three fingers and a thumb on each hand, two toes on each foot, and a black stripe splitting his face down the middle.

Izuku stood up in surprise, quickly realising he was much taller than before, and that his body was brimming with power. He felt it hard to balance at first, mainly due to the change in stature, but he adjusted after a few seconds and managed to take a few tentative steps.

The boy clenched his large red fist, he looked at it for a second, equally confident in his sudden gain in power and morbidly curious of the capabilities of his new form.

"I've got this!" He muttered, bending his legs and bracing himself.
In one swift motion he sprung forth, shooting through the tree line, and rapidly reaching a height where he could see the roofs of houses and apartment buildings stretch out before him.

Izuku unintentionally whooped in excitement.

Even still, his analytical mind was hard at work, he could tell that his lower arms were fluttering uselessly in the wind, likely due to the fact that he had never had to worry about controlling the extra appendages before. There was also the fact he didn't seem to be breathing properly, whether this was due to this form needing more oxygen or that he was simply not used to breathing enough air for such a huge stature he wasn't sure, but these were two problems the boy knew he would have to fix if he ever wanted to feel comfortable in this skin.

After soaring for around one hundred meters, the now bulky form of the boy soared through the tree line once again, crushing branches and trunks before landing with a boom, causing a web of cracks across the ground.

The boy looked over to his left shoulder, the flashing red glow coming from the shoulder plate with a component reminiscent of the watch's dial catching his attention.

After three flashes, and being surrounded by a red light, Izuku found himself shrinking back down into his human form.

He looked curiously at his new accessory, noting how the previous green was now replaced with red.

"So there's some form of limit to how long I can maintain the transformation, and by assumption some form of cool down. The actual time I was capable of keeping the transformation was a few seconds at best, whilst the cool down has gone on for much longer than that. There must be a way of increasing the time I can stay in that form and the gap between transformation…" He muttered to himself in a rapid fire way.

Although he couldn't contain his old habit of over analysing, inside him there was a newly reborn spark, a spark that told him he could do it.

One he was very familiar with, yet at the same time felt alien to him, as if before it had been full of the impurities of doubt but now burnt with a pure, confident light.

This was the spark that helped relight the fire of heroics inside the boy, and marked the beginning of the story about the man who would usher forth a new era of peace.

The man who would prove that hero's weren't born, they were made.
This is the story of how he, despite being quirkless, became the strongest hero.