A few moments earlier…

Izuku woke up to a jolt. A literal one.

He gritted his teeth as electricity went through his body yet again. It didn’t matter how paralysed his muscles already were. It didn’t matter how many times he had passed out. There was more pain. There was always more pain.

Girlish screams of delight barely registered in his ears as his eyes swam with sweat. Her face pressed up against the glass container, as though the boy was some sort of exotic zoo animal. She had extracted a huge amount of his blood, which was probably one of the reasons his senses were even more numbed.

“He looks so beaten up! I love it!” Toga squealed.

“That’s what you get for meddling with the League Of Villains!” Twice taunted him.

“Hey Dabi, dial back the voltage.” Spinner folded his arms coolly. “The boy looks like he can’t take much more. Don’t kill him.”

“How about you do it then?” Dabi stepped away from the computer panels. “His stubborn quirks are still refusing to show up, and I’m getting tired of standing here.”

Izuku panted heavily as the pain paused momentarily. He braced himself for the huge spike of pain which would follow when the torture inevitably resumed.

A phone was pressed against the glass.

“No one’s coming to save you, boy.” Twice was barely holding in his gleeful laugh. “Your All Might has been defeated. He was defeated by my buddy, Felix! Isn’t that amazing?”

No…

The boy’s lips trembled. His mind swirled with despair, but he could not tear his eyes away from the video playing on the phone. His idol—his mentor—brutally knocked out like a low rank villain. The Symbol Of Peace; the greatest hero in the world, utterly humiliated by his own student.

Tears stung Izuku’s eyes as darkness began to cover his surroundings. It was a nightmare. It was a hell worse than any torture the living world could provide. His body tensed again as another shock went through it, but he barely registered the physical pain this time. It was nothing compared to the pain ravaging in his heart.

The time has come.

A familiar voice rang in his head as green lightning began to crackle around his body.

Wake up, Izuku Midoriya.

“AAARGH!”

Tendrils exploded from Izuku’s hands, shattering his restraints with ease. The room shuddered with the sheer power of flailing appendages as the boy continued screaming. His tormentors yelled and ran for cover as the whips raked into the control panels, smashing the torture device.

“That one’s mine, boy,” the muscular man’s voice rang in his head. “Blackwhip, Daigoro Banjo. Go wild, kid!”

Light pink gas expelled out of his pores as he began floating in the air as though he was weightless. Izuku focused on the tendrils, using it to pull down the locked door.

“Smokescreen, En. Float, Nana Shimura.” There were more voices in his head, but he had other things to worry about now.

The boy made a mad dash for the doorway, leaping over the villains coughing on the floor. A tingle went down his spine as his body clenched up, almost as if a primal urge called out to it. Izuku sidestepped instinctively, narrowly avoiding a stray knife. It embedded itself in the wall behind him.

“Danger Sense, Hikage Shinomori. Use it carefully.”

Alarm bells nearly deafened him just as he found himself stopped by a looming steel door that looked at least five metres thick. Izuku panted, feeling the adrenaline begin to wear off. If he wasn’t injured, he might have been able to break down the door. But his body was far from healed, and his strength was nowhere near its full capacity. He clenched his fists anyway.

“One For All: Full Cowling…”

“Stop, kid.”

Izuku was back at the stone platform. Two men approached him.

“Fa Jin, Bruce,” the silver haired one with a spiky ponytail said. “With my quirk, you can build up and store kinetic energy by performing repetitive movement. This energy can then be released as an explosive burst of speed and power.”

“Gearshift, Kudo.” The other man strongly resembled Bakugo, except that his hair was ginger salmon, and he had a large scar across his face. “With mine, you can alter the speed of anything you touch. You can accelerate the force of a target, either by enhancing the impact force of your own strikes or by causing the target to lose control of their own velocity.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Izuku nodded impatiently. He wasn’t sure how time flowed in this realm, but he desperately needed to grasp whatever little time he had left.

“Don’t worry, Izuku. We won’t be taking much of your time,” Shimura said as though she read his mind. “Having so many quirks manifest at the same time is sure to take a toll on your body. Can you manage?”

“More importantly, do you have a plan to get out of this place?” Banjo tapped a hand on his shoulder. “We’re counting on you, kid!”

The real world flashed back into his vision as steel resolved in his heart. He immediately bent down and started to do squats frantically. Power charged in his legs as he prepared to focus One For All into them as well. Footsteps pattered behind him as he increased his pace. He had one shot, and he had to time this right.

“Guys, I found him!” Twice’s voice called out.

One For All: Full Cowling twenty percent…

Izuku charged towards the steel door as One For All flooded into his legs.

Plus Fa Jin…

He furrowed his eyebrows in focus, feeling the almost numbing sensation ripple in his legs as he extended both of them.

Plus Gearshift…

His hand met his thigh just as his feet touched the metal.

“Smash!”

The resulting shockwave not only broke through the wall, but also tore half of the building down in the process. Izuku got back to his feet after rolling on the floor for a few seconds, casting his gaze at the abandoned urban jungle in front of him. He turned back at the villains still sprawled along the ground.

I have to get out of here. I have to survive!

Izuku threw his hand forward, aiming Blackwhip at a nearby steel beam. Weightlessness seized him as he swung himself over the metal playground. Hope blossomed in his heart; he could see civilization in the distance. All he needed to do was get through this maze-

Air burst from his mouth as something hard slammed his body back to the ground.

He recovered quickly from the hard landing and retreated into the darkness. A primal scream tore at his ears.

Izuku covered his mouth. Felix Pagonis was clutching his head as pink energy flared wildly around him. Whatever that had just happened to him, it had clearly messed up his power somehow.

“Where… are you?” the psychic roared, stretching his hand out before putting it down again. He turned slowly, and began trudging in his direction.

Izuku’s body shook with fear. He had never seen his friend behave so ferally before. Hell, he had never seen anyone behave like that before. The frenzy in his glowing eyes was more akin to a nomu, or some sort of demon beast.

The boy slunk away just as the glowing eyes swept beside him like tiny flashlights. He held his breath, creeping as carefully as he could to the side-

A glowing hand crashed through the wood beside him.

Izuku squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the slight breeze from its jerky movements. It withdrew from the hole after a few moments of clawing. He heaved a silent sigh of relief as the footsteps lumbered away.

Light was peeking through the tangled web of metal ahead of him. The boy turned back; his friend was getting further away from him. It was now or never. Izuku lay flat on the ground and began crawling.

He didn’t know how long he had been crawling for, but the path seemed like it was never going to end. Fortunately, there was a hole in front of him large enough to house a small human. The boy increased his pace, eager to get out of this claustrophobic maze.

And then he bumped into something hard.

The following crash was resounding. Izuku covered his mouth in horror, avoiding the loose items raining onto the ground. A shadow stepped out, and the boy froze.

“Since when did he get so close?” Izuku trembled in fear, turning his head slowly at the pink monster. Their eyes met.

He ran for his life.

The sound of metal crashed all around him as he pumped his legs forward. Felix was probably attempting to fly, but was unable to do so for some reason. Izuku did not dare to turn back and confirm his suspicions.

Blackwhip burst from his hands, and the boy took to the air instead. Wind rippled through him as Shimura’s Float bolstered his mobility. His mind felt like it was going to split from the stress of keeping three quirks activated at the same time, but this was no time to falter.

The growls behind him were getting closer.

Izuku kept swinging like a hyperactive monkey, feeling the rhythm carry his weightless body across the industrial jungle. He was a leaf on the wind. He was a plane in the clouds. He was a bird in its element, and by God, he was soaring his way to freedom-

The tendrils fizzled out abruptly.

Weight returned to his body as well, and the screaming boy plummeted to the ground. He rolled on the floor, attempting to use the momentum to get back to his feet. A horrifying sight greeted him.

Felix was ‘running’ towards him on all fours. Ropes of pink had entangled his body like some kind of net, and the only thing visible on his face was a bloodthirsty grin.

“C’mon, c’mon…” More tendrils fizzled out weakly from his hand as Izuku tried to shoot them out again. His vision blurred under the physical strain.

Cold hands yanked his legs.

The boy yelped, kicking desperately back at his assailant. Blackwhip activated itself yet again, hooking onto two metal beams behind him. But Felix’s hold was absolute. The psychic villain panted gutturally, dragging his prey’s body back.

“Let go! Let go of me!”

One For All and Fa Jin flared without warning, propelling the boy away from his foe. The tendrils snapped back and launched him in the opposite direction like a slingshot. Wind rippled in Izuku’s mouth as Gearshift kicked in as well, accelerating his body through the air at several times the normal speed.

Oh my god, I’m dead. I’m so dead.

Izuku crashed onto the top of the building, before sliding off and landing onto a shorter one. The process repeated itself a few more times, until twigs cracked against his face. He hung on a branch for a comically long moment, before tasting the painful, but sweet flavour of warm concrete.

“M-mister, are you… okay?”

The boy struggled to keep his eyes open, catching a glimpse of a young girl who somehow looked more frightened than him. She looked no older than twelve, and a small horn was protruding from the side of her head.

“Ya think…?” Izuku cracked a pained smile. “Get… a hero… please.”

His head drooped back onto the ground.