This world had broken him, given him a jab in guts right after having taken everything from him. Saying that he was angry at the world wouldn't just be an understatement, it would be completely wrong. What he felt was far beyond any rational emotion. The feelings and ideals he had been left with were severely twisted.

He would have to be the one to create a better world, one with real heroes and he would have to do it all by himself. But before he could shape a new generation of heroes, he had to break the old one.

Izuku didn't have a quirk, but he had been blessed with a genius level intellect. So, firstly, he needed the power to execute his plans.

He walked over to his desk and started going through his drawers, this was where he kept his years' worth of reports and news articles on all quirk related matters. If he remembered correctly, this may contain exactly what he needed.

There it was, 'Project Artifice'. A failed German experiment, that had had purpose of creating artificial quirks. They had attempted this by using a highly concentrated, crystalized form of people's dna.

If it worked, it would have easily been one of man kind's greatest achievements.

All of science was founded in the manipulation of our surroundings, using the laws of physics. But even the world's most unimpressive quirks, straight up contradicted those.

Energy and matter, can neither be created nor destroyed. These were the absolute fundamentals, but just from Izuku's direct surroundings he knew people that violated both of those.

Even if they could only figure out the inner dynamics of the most basic strength enhancer, it would completely change the world like they knew it.

There had of course been many attempts at unraveling quirks, not all equally legal. But in time scientists had given up on it, and had just credited quirks to some unknown force far beyond their understanding.

This one though, Izuku found particularly interesting. They may not have succeeded in their goal, but their biological information carriers were a work of genius. He didn't need to understand how quirks worked, he needed to be able to recreate the circumstances that would lead to their creation.

The right combination of genes, should have led to quirks. But genetic manipulation had made the same mistakes, they had tried to locate supernatural part of the genes and exploit it. Naturally, they never even came close.

Izuku wouldn't make the same mistake as those close-minded fools.

By taking the best of both worlds, his creation would actually work.

He was already piecing everything together in his head. By Using those 'quirk stones' to copy other's dna into his own, he could 'theoretically' obtain their quirks.

So, all he had to do was recreate something that had taken a Million-dollar research team decades to develop, and somehow create a completely new technology that can rewrite dna on the fly. This would be even harder than he thought.

Surgery and mutation were obviously out of the question, he wouldn't even touch on that. Not only would he need a whole team, he couldn't risk his own health, he had too much left to do. No, He'd need transform his dna without completely reconfiguring it.

A more advanced form of Electrolysis might do the trick, it'd be fast and wouldn't require too much knowledge of quirks themselves. He could force his dna to resemble the stone's, and if it went wrong, it would fall back into its original form instead of crippling him.

It would need to have constant skin contact, always be within his reach and preferably be as nonchalant looking as possible. Something like... a watch.

He pulled out some blank papers and got to work, drawing up equation after equation. Never before had he been as productive as he was now. It was like a fog had lifted from his mind, no. he was more like a completely different person.

{Dawn}

as the sun shone into his room, Izuku sat at his desk with a satisfied smile on his face. On his desktop a formula, a formula for rewriting human dna.

There were really only a few missing pieces, he needed a few more equations to complete his sketch blueprint, some classified info from project 'Artifice'. But most importantly, money, lots of it.

" Izuku ? breakfast is ready" his mother hesitantly called.

"yes, mother" Izuku said back calmly, creeping his mother out.

That wasn't very good, he'd need to work on his acting skills.

"excellent" Izuku said to himself while staring at his monitor.

For these past few months, he had been selling his genius to the highest bidder. Most often these were villains, funny how they were much more accepting of him than heroes had ever been. They didn't care who he was, what mattered was that he got the job done.

He didn't always agree with what he helped them with, but as long as he got paid those were trivial matters.

Work came in all sorts of forms, providing strategies, smuggling, hacking, you name it, he did it. Although he preferred to work from home, he did have to go out sometimes. But only for a short bit, he refused to be physically present at the scene of the crime, which at the beginning made people suspicious of him. But as time went on he had made a reputation for himself.

Of course, finding the first job had been hard, He had almost died on his very first night. He had a whole list of demands, and the crooks weren't having it. They had demanded he'd remove his mask, and tell them who he was.

If it hadn't been for some random underworld bigshot taking pity on him, that would have been it.

"leave the boy alone, we don't harass our own"

He did use a device to alter his voice, but he was still quite obviously a teenage boy.

The man had then invited him into his car, and given him his first job. It was a completely unfair first deal, but he wasn't exactly in a position to bargain so he took it.

Luckily, protecting himself wasn't something he needed to worry about anymore, nowadays he had associated himself with several high up crime bosses who guaranteed him his safety.

Still, he avoided working with one gang too much. They might become possessive and force him to join their group, several had offered already.

Instead, he preferred to do his business in more 'public locations'. Gatherings for all kinds of criminals, right in the sight of all the big gangs, these were mostly bars.

No individual or group would attack him there. While Izuku wasn't technically part of any gang, none of them would stand for another messing with such a valuable asset.

But right now, he was at home. Sitting in his dark room all by himself, working on his computer. Tonight, he was helping a group of villains rob a small bank.

He had drawn out the plan, and was giving them instructions via earpieces. So far everything had gone as planned, he had already gotten the villains into the vault, and by the time police got there they would already be gone.

But police weren't the first to get there.

"Hold it right there criminal scum"

A hero was blocking their exit, he stood in a classic hero position, his arms in his sides. Obviously quite sure of himself, he'd take care of this.

It was the hero Hyperion, with the ability to enhance his body using the power of the sun. this gave him both active invulnerability and super strength, but didn't mean he was completely helpless outside of the sunlight. Also wore a cape, though he couldn't fly or super jump.

It was true that this would be quite troublesome…

"shit, what do we do now?"

had Izuku not anticipated this exact scenario.

With swift drop, Hyperion collapsed to the ground, a tranquilizer dart now clearly visible in his back.

'Active invulnerability', meaning his back was completely vulnerable. Izuku had made him focus his attention on the villains inside of the bank, so that a shooter in the opposite building could take him out from behind.

The sniper himself didn't have any particular reason not to go for the kill, but Izuku had instructed him not to. He didn't need any more attention than he had already incurred.

Everything had gone precisely how he had predicted it, though in all fairness, he didn't find the guy particularity hard to anticipate. In all honesty, it had been child's play.

"you doubted me?" Izuku said

"you planned for that?" another thug asked in astonishment

"Of course, I don't do failure."

"Now hurry up or you'll get off schedule, your time frame is rapidly closing"

from then on, the heist had been 'uneventful', they had had more than enough time to snatch every last item of value. And following the planned-out escape route, they all got away without leaving a trace.

It was time for Izuku to go pick up his reward, he crawled under his bed and lifted a loose plank. Here, he had been hiding all the stuff he couldn't have his mom finding, this included his notes, blue prints etc., a whole pile of cash and his costume.

His 'costume' consisted out of: a pair of grey pants, a white 'hoodie', black gloves, sneakers, his futuristic looking white mask (impressive looking, but only hid his identity) and a set of light armor underneath. He also wore a utility belt, but in a fight, that wouldn't be of much help.

After putting all that on, he was ready to go out. it was the middle of the night and his mother was already sleeping, so that wasn't a problem. He had discussed a meet-up location already and was heading there now.

For obvious reasons, he couldn't take public transport, so he had to walk. But he didn't mind, being able to go out on the street dressed like that was already a blessing. The meeting-up part was what wasn't to his liking.

Usually he would have arranged for them to just drop his cut off in a bush or something, but they had insisted on meeting him in person and he didn't quite yet have the status to refuse them. Plus, If he didn't show up it would complicate matters, he wouldn't get his money but they wouldn't technically have crossed him.

It would be a lot simpler if he just showed up, there wasn't too high of risk for him and he couldn't afford to blow off every deal at even the slightest hint of danger.

When he got there though, the villains were nowhere to be found.

Now Izuku was getting nervous, he frantically looked around. Could he have been set up?

Then a voice spoke up from behind him

"for a master tactician, you are remarkably easy to trick"

Izuku quickly turned around and saw a man so deeply shrouded in darkness, it was like he himself was part of the it.

"much too eager"

Izuku had started breathing heavily now, his heart beating completely out of control"

"there's no need to worry boy, we merely wished to meet with you. My name is Kurogi, I represent the league of villains"

So, I decided to continue this.

the first chapter ( this one as well ) was relatively short, so I hope you like the direction this is taking, and will be taking.

all forms of feedback would be extremely appreciated.