2. Quirkless

"BRRRRRING! BRRRRRING!" A yellow and red alarm clock began to buzz, systematically opening a panel on the top where a plastic figure of an extremely muscular man equipt in the same color scheme popped up.

"TIME TO WAKE UP! TIME TO WAKE UP! BECAUSE I AM HER—" it's prerecorded robotic voice began to say before a hand slammed the figurine back into the alarm clock's base.

The hand was the first part that emerged from the covers, in turn grabbing the sheet above it and throwing it off. A green colored mass of hair followed. It was attached to a scrawny looking boy who looked like he had yet another rough night. His hair was sticking up in every direction and its curly nature didn't help either. Pushing his All Might themed bed sheets off of him he went to his bathroom mirror to find his All Might pajamas covered in sweat. He pulled at the black bags under his eyes, sticking out his tongue in disgust.

Sleeping had always been difficult for the boy. He could fall asleep just fine but the dreaming part was his problem. Every night was the same. Every dream would start differently, sometimes occurring at school, other times in bizarre places or long lost locations only now accessible through memory. However, almost like it was on a timer, there would always be something out of place in the dream. There was a figure always covered in darkness. At first it always seemed like he sort of recognized the figure, it was like an old friend that you had forgotten the name of. However he could never seem to recall the name or any real noticeable features about the figure despite the hundreds of dreams he would show up in. The boy liked to experiment in dreams, sometimes trying to walk away from it and other times coming closer to the shadow, but it always resulted in waking up when he encountered it. After that he would receive chills in an almost sleep paralysis state that lasted just long enough to keep him up the rest of the night. The image would always just sit on the edge of his thoughts as he would attempt to fake sleep until the alarm came on alerting him that it was time to start the day.

"Good morning, Izuku!" His mother said cheerfully, placing down some breakfast in front of the boy. Izuku nodded to her, always grateful for her shining mood in the morning. The coffee he drank brought a couple streams of life flowing back into the boy, but was followed by the other unfortunate gift he received everyday from his mother.

"Here's your medication," she said, placing down a case of pills in front of her son. He looked at it with a frown. "Well, don't get too excited," she said gently rubbing his back before picking up her own belongings for work.

"Alright I'm heading out, see you later Izuku!" She exclaimed as she walked to the door, hoping for an enthusiastic response back. However he just stared at the pills sadly, preparing to take them, like he did everyday. She turned her back with a sigh.

"Love you, mom," his young voice said as she placed her hand on the door.

"Love you, too," she replied with a sad smile. Ever since that day, Izuku had been forced to take pills every morning that helped exhaust or reduce the power of his quirk. They were originally designed for imprisoned villains and now they were being used on her own son. On top of that his quirk was linked to emotions and blood pressure so he took pills to numb down his own emotions. It was rare to see him genuinely smile. Most times he just seemed to wear a mask. Not many knew how unhappy he really was, but pills weren't the only reason for that.

The day he found out that he had a quirk was the worst and best moment of Izuku's life. He had been thrilled to find out he had a quirk and didn't fully understand what the doctors meant by "unusable" until a couple hours later. He was not able to use his quirk under any circumstances they had said. It wasn't simply told but drilled into his head until it became reality. They said he had to take around a pack of EpiPen-looking syringes filled with a type of sedative with him at all times, which must be used if his watch altered him that his blood pressure and heart rate were getting too high. It was cautious, with the watch, syringes, and pills, but the doctors said it was the only way for Izuku to attempt to live anything near to a normal life without becoming a threat. When he was first released from the hospital they didn't allow the poor boy into public areas for at least a month. Luckily no events occurred for the following ten years, so Izuku's slate remained clean.

But that didn't mean life was good for Izuku Midoriya. Far from it in fact. The boy never could sleep because his dreams haunted him and after several therapists, the only solution was having to live with it because many doctors figured it might simply be a side effect of his medication. Yet Izuku didn't look unhappy most of the time. Because Izuku was a dreamer. He dreamed of a better life and most notably a life of heroics. Even after being told his quirk was essentially useless to him it didn't matter to him. He continued to smile like the Number One Hero All Might did.

Although his real dreams turned out to be nightmares, his daydreams kept him alive. Izuku was currently experiencing a day dream at school when he realized his teacher was calling on him. Izuku was smart but not a great student by any means. His teachers looked at him strangely and other students kept their distance. Most of them knew there was something really strange that happened when Izuku was young, but none really quite knew what it was. It just seemed best to keep their distance (including teachers).

Well everyone except a kid named Katsuki Bakugou. Better known to Izuku as Kacchan. The boys had grew up together, but that didn't mean they were friends. To Katsuki, Izuku was simply someone to play around with and then throw away when he was done with it. This wasn't always the case, however, but when Katsuki got his flashy new quirk, his ego exploded along with his hands. For the following year he would treat Izuku like trash because 5 year olds don't understand the concept of taking other people's feelings into consideration.

Then everything changed when Izuku tried to protect some kid from Kacchan's abuse and teasing. His quirk activated. The explosion had knocked Katsuki, his two friends, and the kid he was bullying unconscious. Katsuki had limited memory of the explosion, but afterwards he knew things were different. Izuku was out of school for a month and when he showed up again he seemed distant. Usually Izuku would go talk to Katsuki and idolize over his cool quirk, but there was nothing. Bakugou would try to approach him many different ways, even resorting to bullying to try and get a reaction. But it was always the same.

"Sorry Kacchan, can't talk right now I got to go!"

It didn't matter what he did, Izuku just didn't want to be around him. When he asked his mother about it, she just said Izuku was going through a hard time and needed space. However the explosive blond was not one to take no for an answer. It became a habit for him to bother the green haired boy whenever possible. It's not like he was trying to be mean, he would only push him around, rough him up a little. Mostly it was verbal, besides Izuku would leave before he could even touch him most of the time. Words and rumors, however, are faster than runners. Quirkless, useless, pathetic.

"Deku! How's my favorite quirkless runt!" He said smacking the smaller boy on the back with a slightly explosive impact.

"H-hey K-kacchan…" he began slowly, looking up towards the door. Class was over but that didn't mean Izuku's suffering was. After being constantly questioned by the teachers, Izuku would have to face the worst thing of all, his classmates. Despite their whispers Izuku knew how to tell when people were talking about him. Hell, it happened every time he walked down the hall. People would part between him like the Red Sea, not wanting to get close to the person Katsuki Bakugou had told everyone was quirkless.

It wasn't like being quirkless was THAT rare. Around 20% of people are quirkless, but that mostly includes adults and much older people. Plus Japan has one of the highest populations of people with quirks per population and heroes too for that matter.

Yet Izuku wasn't quirkless and he was the only one his age who knew it. The other people in the explosion had no memory of the incident, the only thing that existed were rumors and uncertainty. However Izuku never went to debunk any of them. He thought it simply was too much work for something that didn't matter much to him. He couldn't use his quirk anyway and it would be more embarrassing he thought to let people know the truth.

As the blond went to hit him on the back again, Izuku used his nimbler body to slip out of his desk and hurry out of the classroom door leaving Katsuki with only a smile and a wave. That was Izuku's philosophy. Just keep smiling and pushing through. No one can break you if you are smiling. That's what All Might believed, so he did too. But hope was on an hourglass and it was running low. Izuku wanted to think he wouldn't shatter, but he wasn't quick to make promises either.

After escaping another encounter with his old friend, Izuku was brought to the underneath of a bridge. He loved the way the sound echoed even with a whisper. Every footstep made him feel bigger. His laughs seemed louder and more powerful. These illusions are what helped refuel his tanks. Listening to his own voice he found a new sound enter the tunnel.

A green creature made of sludge had emerged from the sewers. Izuku had practiced lots of types of breathing to keep his heart rate low and keep him from panicking, but a lot of that is lost when faced with a threat in real life. Izuku let out a yelp when the glob came crashing down into his body, attempting to suffocate him with its mass. Izuku clawed at his own throat trying to push the being out, but to no avail. He found his lungs beginning to falter and the blood rushing to his head like a tide.

"BEEP BEEP" the sound of Izuku's watch alerted him of how quickly his heart rate was rising. Something changed in Izuku's head. He stopped panicking for his safety and instead panicked because of the thing that had been ingrained into his head for nearly a decade. He tried to stay calm, but it is hard to do that when your insides are being filled with something that feels like wet cement. Izuku began to move in desperation towards his pocket where his two syringes resided. Any normal person would be wondering why he would be worrying about anything like that during this situation, but Izuku never was given anything remotely normal in his life.

His eyes began to get slightly clouded, at first from the lack of oxygen, but then from something else. Dark shadows appeared in front of his eyes, but Izuku wasn't the only one seeing them. The villain began to feel strange as the already dark tunnel began to get dimmer, almost like dark fog had appeared around him. At the same time he felt different, weaker somehow. That's when he saw the tips of his sludge begin to turn black. Confused by what was happening, the villain decided to try and speed up the process and leave before anything else could happen. It fully covered the boy in its ooze now and forced as much as it could into his throat. Seeing the darkness disappear eased him for a second, especially since the boy seemed to have stopped struggling. He felt himself ease up on him, but then realized something horrifying. He could no longer feel the boy. He looked down to see darkness spread like ink across his dull green form. Like an infection it reached other parts of his body, losing feeling and strength with every inch. The villain then felt something it hadn't in a long time. Fear. It tried to throw the black stain off its body but it was attached like a parasite, only crawling closer to his eyes and mouth. Not even a scream could vibrate from his body at this point. Looking back on life he felt regrets, not that it mattered. His life had been a wreck since day one and the path only grew rougher along the way.

"But I guess that's just life," the glob thought with a tear forming in his eyes as the darkness reached his own monstrous teeth. He closed his eyes ready for whatever fate awaited him. What he did not expect however was a punch from the world's strongest man and Number One Hero All Might. The punch sent him into thousands of pieces, ripping the darkness away in the process and sending him relatively back to normal (however still in many different segments). A boy was also ripped out of the splotch of black glue and out of the other side of the tunnel.

All Might's eyebrows went up, not even realizing someone was, what he assumed, trapped in the sludge. Faster than most men alive, he darted to the other side and caught the green haired kid. Upon catching him he noticed first of all he was alive (would not look good for his career if he had accidentally killed the boy) and second of all he seemed to have just fallen unconscious. The boy's finger was the last part of him to move, injecting his own arm with some sort of plastic syringe. All Might was perplexed at this, especially when the beeping from the boy's wrist went down and it suddenly got a little brighter around him. The black clouds that seeped into the boy's skin reminded him of something he saw a long time ago, but it was hard to put his finger on it.