Chapter 1: Stand Proud! Izuku Midoriya!

My name is Izuku Midoriya, and when I was four years old, I was taken to a doctor to see just what my Quirk was, and found out that…

That I had a Quirk, but it wasn't one that was obvious to anyone, not even the doctors.

"Well, young man. We can tell that you do in fact have a Quirk, both due to you not having the extra joint in your pinky toe, and the existence of your Quirk Factor… but we honestly can't figure out what it is" The doctor said apologetically, "But I'm sure that you'll find out what it is in time"

"Do you have any possible idea what it is, Dr. Tsubasa?" Mom asked worriedly, as she looked at me with a sense of sadness in her eyes.

"No, I'm sorry Mrs. Midoriya… but if you do learn what young Izuku's Quirk is, please come back to the clinic, and ask for me. I'll be sure to check up on him" Doctor Tsubasa said with a friendly smile, crouching down and patting me on the head, ruffling my hair before giving me a lollipop, "Now. You two should be heading off now, I have another patient coming in a few minutes"

"Alright, thank you Doctor Tsubasa" Mom said with a smile as she held my hand and walked out of the clinic while I sucked on the lollipop. It was cherry flavor.

That doctor was nice, none of the other stuffy doctors at the clinic gave me candy, after all.

Unfortunately, despite having a Quirk. I never really learned how to unlock it, meaning that for the first fourteen years of my life? I was essentially Quirkless.

Dad left not long after my Quirk Diagnosis, having to go away for work, and mom slowly but surely broke down as I failed to figure out how to use or even activate my Quirk.

Then one day, the boy who I thought was my best friend in the world, Kacchan decided to give me a cruel and mocking nickname… Deku, because according to him I was useless and so was my Quirk.

Kacchan, or well Katsuki Bakugo had already unlocked his own Quirk. Explosion, it allowed him to sweat a substance similar to nitroglycerin which allowed him to create small explosions through his hands.

It was honestly a really impressive Quirk, and one that would allow him to become a great Pro-Hero in the future. If it wasn't for his… brash attitude.

But of course, because Bakugo decided that he didn't like me all of a sudden for not knowing what my Quirk was… everyone else decided to suck up to him and start bullying me as well.

By the time I turned thirteen, I was officially known as Deku the Quirkless Loser of Aldera Junior High. Even some of the teachers would slip up and nearly call me Deku before quickly correcting themselves.

Despite not having access to my Quirk though, I've always wanted to be a Hero… like All Might. Someone who would be able to save the day and assuage all fears with a smile on his face.

The Number 1 Pro-Hero was the main reason why I wanted to be a Hero, after all.

I was Izuku Midoriya, and no matter what, no matter how many people didn't believe in my dream… I was going to be a Hero.

Even if I don't have access to my Quirk, I will become a Pro-Hero.

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In order to become a proper Pro-Hero, I had begun to do something at the age of fourteen that I never thought that I was going to have to do…

I had decided that I was going to train my body, as much as I trained my mind.

After all, I had everything planned out for when I became a Pro-Hero, with my notebooks upon notebooks filled with sketches, analysis, and ideas of the other Pro-Heroes and even some of the more… interesting villains.

I needed to know absolutely everything before becoming a hero after all, since I didn't have access to my Quirk… I needed every advantage that I could possibly get my hands on.

And if that meant going on various shady forums that detailed quite a bit about the various Pro-Heroes, from their Quirks and general fighting styles to even their three sizes in the female heroes' cases… then that's what it would take. I needed to be accurate in my assessments after all.

But I was getting ahead of myself, trying to distract myself from the idea of actually training my body. To be honest, I didn't even really know where to start with this.

So, I decided to just look up various gyms and dojos, along with simple workout routines, in order to hopefully get a better body.

Eventually, I found three options that looked pretty decent… oh, who am I kidding? All of them sucked in their own ways!

The first, was a rundown old gym that still had equipment there… but it seemed that there was a problem with villains constantly finding their way there. So that likely wouldn't work for a place to work out in peace.

Secondly, there was a pretty normal gym only a couple of streets away from me. It costs a bit to get a membership… but I would be able to train my body in peace for the most part. Even if there was a higher chance of people from my school also going to the gym.

And finally, there was a small dump a couple of hours away from my house, it was known for driving away any trespassers. But it did have the potential for training my body… and if I could possibly convince the owner to let me in, I'd be able to do it in peace and quiet.

Eventually I decided that I was going to go to the dump, as it seemed to be a good location to get a good workout, without getting accosted by my bullies.

From what I could tell? It was quiet and out of the way, and there was enough heavy machinery and things that I’d likely be able to get a good workout.

And that's without even mentioning the two hour walk that I’d need, which would also be amazing for my cardio. That is, if I managed to actually get there…

So, I looked up just what the place was called, and memorized the address to Rust Rangers Scrapyard.

With that, I said goodbye to my mom, before starting my journey to the junkyard.

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I took a deep breath for a moment, before beginning the walk to the junkyard. This would be two hours of walking, and I inherently knew that my body just… wasn't built for that.

At least, not for now.

So, I made sure to pace myself, having stocked up on a bit of water just in case, and continued on my walk.

Surprisingly, though. Even after an hour of constant walking, I didn't feel even a bit of strain on my legs, perhaps all those years running from Katsuki and his friends had given me some sort of decent sense of endurance?

It was honestly a lot easier than I had initially thought, as I had stopped simply walking and started doing a leisurely jog to the junkyard.

A bit of sweat ran down my brow, but instead of feeling like crap from the other times that I had run (mostly for my life against Katsuki and his friends), I actually felt pretty good.

By the end of my jog, I managed to make it to the junkyard… and looking at my phone, I saw that I was actually around twenty minutes earlier than my original estimates.

"Huh," I muttered, as I made sure to look at the phone again, before seeing that the results were correct. Honestly, I was pretty surprised that I had managed to get there so early.

So, I looked up at the junkyard ahead of me, and saw the sights of… Rust Rangers Scrapyard…

Well, it definitely looked like a scrapyard, that's for sure.

But as I was about to knock on the gate, I heard a loud crash from within.

"Aaaah!" The crash was quickly followed by a girlish scream, as I looked inside and saw a pool of pink hair under a fallen car.

I didn't even have time to think, as right after hearing the girl's scream, I was already running as fast as I possibly could into the junkyard, not even thinking about how I could get charged with trespassing.

After all, there was a person in trouble right there, and what sort of prospective hero would I be if I wasn’t willing to help someone in need?

So, I quickly ran past the gateway to the junkyard, barely even registering the blaring alarms as I hurriedly got to the car that had fallen on the girl, and looked underneath it, trying to see if the person under it was alright or not.

"Are you okay?" I quickly asked, getting a quiet murmur from the girl, who I could barely see due to the literal car that had fallen atop of her, "Alright… I'm going to try and lift this, so when the weight is gone I want you to get out as quickly as you can. Can you do that?"

There was another quiet murmur, which I decided to take as a 'yes', so I quickly placed my hands under the car and started to lift with all of the strength that I could muster.

But it wasn't enough, as the car barely even moved… and the weight of the vehicle was enough to cause my arms to start shaking under the strain.

I couldn't just leave her there though, who knows how long it'd take for the heroes to get here? Or- or anyone else for that matter!

So I decided to press on, putting both of my forearms underneath the vehicle, before lifting with my legs as hard as I possibly could.

I wasn’t just going to let this girl just die here, not if I had anything to say about it… this was my chance to be a hero and I’m not just going to BLOW IT!

With that thought, I continued to lift as much as I possibly could, and slowly but surely… the car began to get lifted off of the ground.

The weight was immense, far greater than anything I had lifted before, and I was forced to grit my teeth as I continued lifting, lest I scream out in pain.

But eventually, thankfully… the girl was able to shimmy her way out from under the vehicle, surprisingly not looking all that worse for wear.

When she finally got out, I stood back and quickly dropped the vehicle back on the ground, with a loud thud as I fell backward, gasping for breath.

Getting a better look at her, I saw that she was around my age, a bit shorter than me, with a rather… mature build, she had shoulder-length salmon pink hair styled into thick dreadlocks, wide eyes with her irises a greenish yellow with crosses in the center… making them look kind of like a scope.

She was wearing a pair of goggles on her forehead, along with a black tank top and a green skirt with a sweater tied around her waist, and she had a wide grin on her face.

"Hi there! Thanks for saving me!" The girl said with a grin, as I panted on the ground, absolutely exhausted.

I barely even noticed as she quickly stood in front of me, as if examining me with her cross-like eyes.

"You're pretty strong… a lot stronger than your build would suggest. Is that your Quirk?" The girl asked, as she grabbed one of my arms and started looking over it.

"Ah no," I said tiredly, honestly not having expected lifting the car to take it out of me so much, "I don't… have my Quirk"

"Don't have your- oh this is fascinating!" The girl said excitedly, as she seemed to look at me in an entirely new light, "Are you Quirkless? Or has it just not been unlocked yet? I don't think there's anyone our age that's Quirkless anymore. I looked it up, there's only ten Quirkless people our age, and the majority of the 20% of Quirkless people is made up of the elderly, isn't that interesting?"

"It hasn't been unlocked… and yeah, that is kind of interesting," I said, honestly not having known that. I hadn't even thought to look up the statistics of Quirkless people throughout the world, the thought of accidentally confirming that I was in fact Quirkless like everyone said I was, was too much for me to even bear searching it up, "Anyway, um… I'm Izuku Midoriya, and are you okay?"

"Hm? Oh yeah, I'm fine! This isn't the first time a car's fallen on me, haha!" The girl said with a slightly embarrassed laugh, "Well it's been nice to meet you, Izuku! But I have to get back to working on my babies!"

"Your… babies?" I asked quietly, as she quickly ran back into the junkyard. Which was when I noticed that I… didn't even get her name.

I just sat there and watched as she ran around the entire junkyard, like a squirrel on caffeine, darting to and from various different pieces of machinery and taking them apart to take various parts from them.

But, after taking a few minutes to catch my breath, I finally got up and decided to look around for a moment.

After a few seconds, I looked at the girl, who was tinkering with something, and decided after a few moments to actually call out to her…

"Hey, what's your name!?" I asked with a smile, as she looked up to me from whatever she was tinkering with.

"Oh, right! I'm Mei Hatsume, it's nice to meet you!" The girl, Mei said with a massive grin as she waved with a wrench in her hand, small splotches of grease on her face.

With that, I had exchanged pleasantries with the girl, before going to do my own thing.

Namely, working on my body. After all, I came here to train, and train I will.

So I quickly went to a small area and made a makeshift gym, with sets of weights made out of various pieces of scrap metal, and a small track to run around in. It wasn't much, but it was enough for me.

I then spent the rest of the day just lifting various differently sized weights, moving pieces of machinery to help Mei a bit with her experimentation, and running around the junkyard… and by the end of it I was absolutely exhausted, my muscles felt like they were on fire, but I also felt strangely… good.

Eventually though, I saw the sun was coming down… so I decided that it was the perfect time to make my way back home, even with my muscles burning as they were.

So I said goodbye to Mei, who was still working on some sort of device in a fugue-like state, leaving a bottle of water for her, and a small container of rice that I brought with me just in case she got hungry before leaving the junkyard.

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While I was walking home, I decided that I would cut through a simple alley. From what my phone was telling me, I’d be able to save ten minutes just going through it.

So, I walked into the alley, and saw that it was… surprisingly dark, with the only source of light being some sort of purple… goo that surrounded the alleyway.

But as I was in the middle of it all, I felt something sharp poking into my back.

"DoN't MoVe" A strangely soothing and melodic voice warbled, as I turned around and saw a practically naked woman with jellyfish-like features behind me with a knife in hand.

"I-I uh," I stuttered, honestly kind of scared by the woman behind me. Not because of her appearance, but because she had a knife at my back.

"Do NoT WorRy… if yoU lisTen to What I SAY, you Will be finE" The woman warbled behind me, leaning forward to whisper in my ear, as she stroked my chin with her finger. I instinctively moved forward trying to get away from the knife at my back.

Turning around, I saw the full body of the woman in front of me, her skin was a mixture of purples and blues, with a jellyfish-like head and what seemed to be… skin-like threads coming down from her shoulders, creating a sort of biological clothing.

She tilted her head for a moment, before laughing at me.

"HahaHahAha… dOn't thinK You can Run litTle boy~" The woman practically purred as she stalked up to me, “We’ll HaVe sO mUch FuuUunn~”

So, I was essentially backed up against the wall, with this woman having a knife to me. And the fact that it was dripping with the same glowing purple goo told me that practically everything around here must have been poisonous of some sort of variety.

With that knowledge in mind, I practically had no choice but to fight back. Hopefully, nothing would go too badly, as I’d never had a reason to actually fight in my life before. And even when I had play fights… well, thanks to Kacchan and his friends? I never won.

"Alright lady, if you don't back off right now. I'll f-fight back!" I stuttered somewhat, as I raised my fists in a threatening manner.

"AaaaW you'Re aDorabLe… likE a PuppY!" The woman cooed as she tilted her head, before she suddenly rushed at me.

I quickly dodged out of the way of her slash, and kicked her in the leg, sending her sprawling to the floor.

Of course, with her now on the ground, I took my moment of opportunity, and started kicking her while she was down, hitting her everywhere I could, from her legs, to her torso and even head at a few points.

"Y-your next line is 'Stop I'm sorry!'" I instinctively shouted with another kick, as the woman opened her mouth, likely to repeat my words before suddenly stopping in shock.

When I eventually stopped, I turned to walk away… only to swiftly dodge the woman yet again, as she had gotten up and rushed at me, knife in hand.

"Really?" I asked with a slightly quirked eyebrow, as I took a deep breath and got ready for round two.

She looked slightly different now, as in she was literally glowing red, and she was constantly dripping goo which was falling all around her, melting the floor when it touched it.

It seemed that the poison she was excreting was capable of melting through most inorganic material around her.

So, I quickly looked around and saw an empty bin, seeing that, I made my way to it and pulled out the empty rubbish bag, wrapping it around my hands. It would at least provide some manner of defense against the poison.

The woman was just standing there menacingly, seething in sheer rage, as the ground around her melted.

So, I made sure the trash bags around my hands were tightened as much as I could, and rushed towards her.

The first blow met her neck, melting the trash bag on my hand but still causing damage as she gasped in shock.

But the second fist hit her rather close to her… genitalia, and from the way she groaned in sheer unadulterated pain, I was sure that it had hurt quite a bit.

She doubled over, clutching both her neck and her genitalia, as she fell to her knees before looking at me for a moment… and collapsing.

I quickly ran over to her, and saw that she was still breathing… she must have fallen unconscious from the pain.

But as I looked at her, I saw a strange green light appearing beside me… and felt a type of connection to it.

This was so utterly… fascinating, so as it was forming into existence, I quickly pulled a pen and notebook out of my hair, and started to write about what it seemed to be doing.

Eventually, it finished forming, and as it turned out it was… a humanoid figure with pale blue skin, a strange jellyfish-like head with antennae, purple kelp-like hair on its chin, and elbows, and was covering its lower body which turned into a ghostly wisp.

It was wielding a rather simplistic trident within its webbed hands, and upon seeing me… it bowed, as if I were its king.

Looking at it, I felt a strange connection to the strange being… was this my Quirk?

No, despite my thoughts, I instinctively knew that this wasn't my Quirk… and was merely an aspect of it, in some strange way it reminded me of the woman that I had just defeated.

Especially as I gained an innate sense of its abilities… it was capable of secreting a glowing pink goo that was capable of sapping the stamina of anyone it came in contact with, along with being able to skillfully wield its trident in combat.

It seemed that it would be immensely useful in combat, with its ability allowing it to easily take out most villains, and even fight alongside me… now I just had to give it a name.

"[Ocean Man]" I muttered under my breath, as I looked at the thing standing beside me… Stand, huh? I kind of liked that name for it. A being that stood by my side.

The Stand simply tilted its head, until I pointed at the unconscious woman… before it floated over and picked her up.

Now that I noticed it, the Stand was around two inches taller than me… meaning it was 5'5. But I probably shouldn't be focusing on little details like that.

Instead, I had to figure out what I was going to do with the unconscious woman. She may have attempted to… uh assault me, but I couldn’t just leave her here, right? What if she died from exposure or something?

Eventually, after looking down at the heavily beaten woman for a bit… I decided that it would be for the best to call the police.

So, with that, I pulled out my phone, and quickly dialed 110.

"This is the police, do you have a crime to report?" A voice asked from the phone, as I sighed in relief.

"Ah yes, I'm sorry but… this woman attacked me in an- an alley and… w-well she tried to do things to me" I stuttered, as it was pretty hard to actually say what nearly happened to me out loud.

With that, I then described where I was, and was swiftly told that a pair of policemen would be coming by soon in order to investigate.

After that, I eventually hung up and decided to call my mom. At least to give her some prior warning.

"Ah! Izu-kun, where have you been all day?" Mom asked over the phone, sounding worried… like usual.

"Oh right, sorry mom I forgot to tell you that I was going out for most of the day, but uh… that's not important," I said, having honestly forgotten to tell my mom just where I was going. Only that I was going out…

"What's wrong, sweetie? Are you alright?" Mom asked, a slight tinge of fear in her voice.

"I'm- I'm alright mom… someone tried to uh, assault me… and I unlocked my Quirk," I said with a slight smile, despite everything that happened… I finally figured out what my Quirk was!

"Oh, you did? Yay! Well, I'll make some Katsudon to celebra- wait what do you mean you were assaulted!?" Mom practically screamed, sounding surprisingly threatening for a moment there.

"It's, it's alright mom. The police are on their way, just… don't be surprised when they call later, alright?" I said, and after a few moments she agreed, so with that? I said my goodbyes and hung up.

I had to wait ten minutes, just sitting around in the alley, waiting for the police to arrive. During this time, I pulled the half-melted trash bags off of my hands, it peeled a bit of skin… but well, I’d rather that than melted flesh.

But, eventually (thankfully) they came, with a pair of flashlights shining into the alley.

"Hello, officers!" I said cheerfully, as I noticed the pair of policemen walking up to me, "Uh don't touch the glowing stuff. I think it's poisonous?"

"Kid, are you alright?" One of the officers asked, as the light was shone on me, likely showing my exhaustion to both of the policemen.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. Should see the other girl, she's uh… yeah, you should definitely see to her. She kept getting back up and attacking, so I had to keep hitting?" I said with a slight shrug, not really feeling all that guilty about beating someone who was attempting to rape me.

The two officers quickly walked over to the woman, and after a few moments looked back at me.

One of the officers quickly walked over to me with a smile on his face, he was a pretty plain man wearing a simple bulletproof vest with a pistol and a flashlight, which was currently shining on me.

"Ah hello there, I'm Detective Naomasa Tsukauchi, and I'm going to need to ask you a few questions," The man asked with a smile, "Ah right. Just so you know beforehand, my Quirk is Lie Detection, I am unable to turn it off but if you're uncomfortable answering my questions, my partner could ask you"

"That's fine, detective," I said with a similar smile, as he led me to a corner of the alley, before taking a notepad and pen out.

"Alright. Firstly, what is your name?" The detective asked, it was a pretty simple question

"Izuku Midoriya," I said, getting a nod from the man, as he wrote that down in his notepad.

"And what is your Quirk?" The detective asked, curiously.

"Well, I don't know what it's called," I said, as the detective's eyes widened slightly, a look of horror in them for a moment.

"Could you elaborate on that?" The detective asked, no… practically demanded, as his fear started to spike..

"Oh, of course. I only unlocked my Quirk after she attacked me… I don't really have a name for it yet" I said with a shrug, not really sure why he was so scared.

"Ah, alright then. Could you tell me what your Quirk does?" The detective asked, as he wrote more down on the notepad, sighing slightly in relief.

"Uh yeah, as far as I can tell? If I beat someone in combat, I copy an aspect of their Quirk, into the form of a… projection?" I said, trying to formulate what I had discovered about my Quirk into actual words.

"Oh? Well, that's definitely interesting. Could you show me? Just to confirm that what you're saying is true, of course," The detective asked, as I nodded.

With that, I then summoned [Ocean Man] to my side, causing the detective to jolt backward slightly in surprise, before he calmed down.

He looked at my Stand for a few moments before nodding.

"Alright, you can place it away now, I've seen what I needed," The detective said, as I did so, "Now. I need to ask you about just what happened here"

"Of course, sir," I said, as I then described to him what had happened when I got into the alley, with the woman sticking a knife to my back and whispering in my ear to obey her orders, before I jumped back and warned her to leave before deciding to defend myself… and everything that happened afterward.

Including the fact that even after I called the police, she kept getting up to run away or attack me, causing me to have to keep putting her back in the ground until she eventually learned to stop.

"Well alright, we'll have to cross reference this with her, of course. But I can tell that you're telling what you believe is the truth… so just wait a few more minutes, and you'll be free to go" The detective said with a smile, before going off to question the jellyfish woman.

"Oh thank goodness, at this rate the Katsudon's going to go cold" I muttered, honestly horrified at such a prospect.

Eventually, they finished questioning her and I was let go, returning back home at 10:00 PM on the dot, surprisingly enough.

Walking into the house, I noticed that mom was sitting on the couch, having fallen asleep waiting for me… so I quickly put a blanket over her, and kissed her on the forehead.

"I'm home, Mom" I said with a smile, as she visibly relaxed even in her sleep, and went into the kitchen to find that my Katsudon was in the microwave. It had gone cold.

So… with tears in my eyes, I heated it up, and ate the reheated katsudon. It wasn’t anywhere near as good as it should have been…

But with that, I went straight to bed, falling asleep nearly instantly. Today was such a long day, after all.

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And that’s Chapter 1 of Standing For Heroism, a bit of a beefy chapter, that’s for sure… but don’t worry. They’re all like this.

I hope you all enjoyed it, and doubly hope that you check out the Quest over on fiction.live! We’re around Chapter 5 there, at the moment at 36000+ words, and I’m hoping to get to over 100k, at minimum for the quest!

Also, to those who have read the quest. Please don’t spoil it for everyone else over here on QQ, thanks. If you do want to talk spoilers… well, there’s the spoilers option for a reason.

With that said, I hope you all have a wonderful day or night, and I wholeheartedly thank you for reading this first chapter.

I've also posted this story to Questionable Questing, and if you want to know if I 'own the rights' to this fanfic, then you can message me there about it.