Chapter 2 - Origin

It was that day. That day where everyone chooses to apply for a hero course, that day when everyone will laugh. The students of Izuku's class were getting their applications back and he already knew that he was going to be the odd one out. Why? Izuku didn't want to be a hero.

It was more than that. Izuku thoroughly disliked heroes in general, despite his younger self's admiration of them. Being called a villain for 10 years gets to you, after all, and quirk culture was as toxic as dioxin in his eyes. This meant that when the teacher shouted that everyone wanted to be a hero Izuku only rolled his eyes, and this sealed his fate.

"Ah yes," continued the teacher, "Izuku. You want to be... a musician? Is that right?"

Silence.

Not a single sound in the classroom until, all at once, laughter came out of everyone's throats. Even a disappointed sigh from the teacher could be heard, though it wasn't aimed at the students laughing. This is why Izuku hated everyone. Everyone but his mother.

Out the door, through the gates, onto the road: normal. Down more stairs, across the park, into the tunnel: normal. The sickly sound of sludge and mucus coming from behind: not normal.

A disgusting green tentacle wrapped around Izuku's body and another one forced itself down his throat eliciting a now useless gag reflex that only managed to make the whole experience worse. How it stuck out to him was anyone's guess but it happened, and it was definitely in the top 5 worst parts of this particular experience. Quite an achievement.

Not that said experience lasted very long anyway, as Izuku turned into a small cloud of dark mist that surrounded the villain and moved far enough down the tunnel to allow the 14-year-old to materialise a safe distance away while leaving a smoke screen.

You see, Izuku's quirk had come along quite substantially in 10 years, as one would expect, as Izuku could now generate more mist than the volume of his body, and could exist independently from it to create a smokescreen/teleporter, as Izuku could dematerialise one place and almost instantly appear several metres away is the mist covered this area (which it quite easily could). This improvement gave young Midoriya many more possibilities that could be achieved with his quirk - not that he would need it if he got his way.

It is a consequence of this ability that he was able to get out of the tunnel narrowly before All Might dropped out of the sky and blew the villain away with the loudest shout Izuku had ever heard, which he considered to be quite an achievement.

"HAHA. LUCKY YOU MADE IT OUT OF THERE, HEY KID?" and that's when Izuku realised this was his talking voice. Great. "HELLO?" came a very 'can't be bothered with this' kind of voice.

"Hi." was all Izuku could muster up before All Might let out another incredibly obnoxious laugh. "Why are you laughing so much?"

"KIDS YOUR AGE USUALLY HAVE MORE SPIRIT, BUT IT DOESN'T SURPRISE ME WITH HOW YOU YOUNGSTERS ARE TURNING OUT NOWADAYS! HAHAHA!" Holy harps, does he ever shut up? It took everything in Izuku's power to just walk away quietly without saying anything else, like 'shut up' or 'shut up please' or even 'oh my word would you please just shut up'. It was a great relief when All Might just quietly went to clean up his mess and left Izuku alone, which is why there was no one to notice All Might's mistake when he attached the bottles of goop to his trousers, allowing them to fall off within 10 seconds of jumping away with the speed of a military fighter plane.

It wasn't long after the tunnel incident that Izuku noticed something was wrong. Whether it was by the direction of the wind, his gut instincts, or the sound of explosions coming from the burning building 'round the corner is anyone's guess, but he definitely noticed it, as you could tell by the fact that he was at the scene faster than you can say "guacamole".

If he was expecting anything in particular, which he wasn't, it most certainly wouldn't have been his green slimy friend attaching his blond, equally slimy (though not in the same way) friend, who in turn seemed to be attacking the air around him with an endless stream of explosions.

While all of this was happening, the heroes on the scene - who Izuku couldn't name if he tried - were doing nothing but watch, and even that they were doing worse than Izuku since they didn't even notice when a piece of ceiling hit the sludge villain in the eye and caused it considerable pain. After this discovery it didn't take long for Izuku to formulate a plan: hit it in the eye, wiggle Bakugou to safety, get shouted at. Simple as 1, 2, 3.

Izuku turned into mist behind the crowd and snuck into the shadows until he couldn't get any nearer, before rushing out and surrounding the mucus-like creature while simultaneously reaching up to the crumbling ceiling. He then materialised with a hand around a solid block of stone and dropped down, throwing it into the villain's eye and disappearing before hitting the ground. It was quite apparent that this attack had the desired effect when the villain screamed out in pain and loosened its grip on Bakugou, enough for the mist to retrieve him and carry him a safe distance away.

It was at this point that All Might appeared and obliterated the slime, though not before Izuku saw the transformation. It was another ability of his quirk that he could 'sense' things inside the mist with impressive accuracy, and could 'see' things outside the body of mist (quite a confusing input until gotten used to). This makes Izuku hyper-observant when in mist form and gave him a clear view of All Might's sudden and quite bewildering transformation from a skeletal man who looked like he was a stiff breeze away from turning into dust.

Once the heroes had finished berating him over his actions, and once Bakugou had then insulted Izuku and told him that he "didn't need some worthless extra like you to help", the misty child headed over to the symbol of peace and, before All Might could say anything, whispered "I saw your transformation" in his ear.