AN: I loved writing the first chapter so much that I decided to start on the second one ASAP! Prepare for headcanons, OCs, and Kirishima being really, really gay.
Chapter Two – Pinky and the Birdbrain
Quirks had first popped into existence in the year two thousand whatever, and everyone knew it. Only that wasn't exactly true. Quirks had been 'discovered', arguably, in the year 20XX, but they'd been around a bit longer than that. In fact, Quirks had been around for nearly as long as the human race (possibly longer, if Dr. Vinsvimer's Jellyfish Theory was in any way accurate, which was very questionable). The trouble was that human beings had, since the beginning of time, been cursed with a condition known as "chronic stupidity". Had it not been for this unending tide of idiocy over the centuries of human civilization, Quirks might've been discovered a tad sooner.
When exactly the first Quirk occurred is anyone's guess, but very few humans survived for long after turning bright orange and growing a third arm. Perhaps the public had something against it. Obviously, however, some had survived. Why and how they did so is also up for debate, although the most likely reason is that one parent decided 'maybe I shouldn't drown my four-year-old son in the bath just because he now has a tail and the ability to see eighty-seven more colors than I can'. There was also the possibility that some executioner's daughter had woken up one morning with a self-whetting ax for a head, thus ensuring that her father never had to waste money on that particular tool of the trade ever again. Or, perhaps, a careless mother had dropped her child into a swimming pool and promptly discovered that her son had grown gills, and that she now had a legitimate reason to leave her husband and run off to god-knows-where. Of course, it's also possible that the daughter of an unfortunate person during the Salem Witch Trials had learned that she could teleport, and had immediately thought 'well, I'd best get right the hell out of here if I want to live to see my age hit the double digits'. Any number of things was possible, really.
And then there was Rodney Flapfoot, who looked like the kind of person who would only find success in the gladiator ring because all of his opponents would be paralyzed with laughter at the sight of a skinny young man with a ridiculous name holding a sword far too big for him, and shaking like a leaf. Fortunately for Rodney, he had, at the age of twenty-six-and-a-half learned that he couldn't die. More accurately, he could die, but he damn well couldn't stop living. He had tripped on a bar of soap in 1778 and broken his neck, only to wake up in the middle of the funeral process, terrifying all three of the people who'd bothered to show up (that's three including the priest performing the ceremony), and startling a pigeon, who, like the attending humans, was really only there for the food.
Immortality had been nice, for a while, but then Rodney had discovered that it was extremely boring, and made the far more entertaining decision of going stark raving mad (okay, it wasn't exactly a decision, but he really didn't do much to try and keep his mental health intact). His career as a serial killer had lasted longer than some might have expected, if only because no one had really figured out how to stop him. Eventually, after the police realized that he wasn't going to die no matter how many times (or how uniquely) they tried to kill him, they'd simply thrown him in prison with several life sentences and had just decided to hope that he died of old age before his time behind bars was up sometime in the 5200s.
Rodney had not been particularly bothered by prison life – most of the other inmates were terrified of him. But then other people started having powers and soon the prison was filled with powered people, and suddenly Rodney's immortality wasn't all that frightening. Still, he quickly adapted by ignoring all other life and keeping to himself unless it was absolutely necessary to do otherwise.
But now, for the first time in more than two hundred years, Rodney was no longer in his cell. He was in a small room with green walls and no visible doors or windows. A slimy green-brown substance dripped from the cracked, moldy ceiling, making a slight hissing sound when it touched the floor. Also in the room was a teenage boy with the head of a bird, and a girl about the same age with pink skin, pink hair, yellow eyes with black sclera, and horns. They looked like they had guts. Rodney grinned.
He liked that in a victim.
Uraraka Ochako and Asui Tsuyu often found themselves paired up together, sometimes without any obvious reason. The awkward situations the two had gotten into together had formed between them a very strong, if inexplicable, bond. They worked well together, they were very good friends, and they were also polar opposites.
Ochako kept her hair short, loved warm colors, tried to be sensitive to other people's feelings, felt the need to prove her strength, was an only child, and was very close to her parents. Tsuyu, on the other hand, had long hair, preferred cooler colors, saw no need to hide her opinions, knew exactly where she stood in terms of strength (and was more or less fine with it), had two siblings she had practically raised by herself, and was just a teensy bit resentful towards her parents because of that last fact. Ochako had always had many friends, while Tsuyu had only ever had one. Tsuyu's family was fairly well off, while Ochako's was not. If Ochako had one trait, Tsuyu likely had the opposite.
The one thing the two girls did have in common (aside from being teenage heroines-in-training in the same homeroom at the same high school) was their feelings toward a certain Midoriya Izuku. It was not necessarily love, but neither one really had quite the word for it. For Ochako, it had started when Midoriya had saved her from the enormous robot during the entrance exam – a warm, fluttery feeling like butterflies in her stomach. She enjoyed spending time with her, and she certainly saw him as a very close friend, although she wasn't entirely sure if that was all that she saw him as. For Tsuyu, it had begun a little bit after the time when she, Midoriya, and Mineta had faced off against a large group of villains. She still had nightmares about Shigaraki's hand – his awful, murderous hand, still stained with Aizawa-sensei's blood – reaching for her face, but she never allowed herself to forget Midoriya's desperation to save her life.
It was safe to say that both of them had a small crush on him (not necessarily a romantic one, but a very strong friend-crush, to be sure), but neither one really liked to talk about it. They enjoyed their friendship, and certainly did not want to see it fall apart over a guy. There was also the fact that they may or may not have liked each other in "that way" alongside Midoriya. That was also a factor.
Currently, the two girls were not thinking about their love lives (or, indeed, even their friend-love lives), because they were in a fairly bad situation – and also lost. The lost part wasn't so much of a problem; they knew how to deal with that sort of thing. The problem was that they were alone in a forest, but it wasn't quite right.
The forest evidently did not know how to be a forest properly, because several of the trees growing there were doing so upside down. A horde of angry (and probably hungry) rabbits chased a large, terrified jaguar through the underbrush – or, as the case appeared to be, the over-brush – and seemed to be gaining on it. The trees also didn't seem to be entirely of where they were supposed to be, and every few minutes, one would get up and reorganize itself in an effort to be a bit more comfortable. Some trees seemed to be have had trouble deciding whether they wanted to be apple trees or orange trees and had settled for a bit of a mix, while other trees had forgone the whole fruit idea and had instead begun sprouting cacti, donuts, moldy sponges, and, in the case of some very peculiar trees, garish cellular devices.
One tree in particular seemed to have a nasty sense of humor and, upon seeing the jaguar's plight, had stopped growing plums and had begun growing more of the angry rabbits (all of the rabbits in the tree and on the ground, while very angry, were still the size of rabbits, so it was unclear what they intended to do once they caught up to the jaguar, but apparently the tree was eager to find out). The plums had a bit of a different view of things – they had been the only plums growing in this particular area of the forest, if only because their tree had felt like showing off to the other trees (who didn't really care, being trees), and they were feeling a tad left out. Their tree showed no concern of their plight and busied itself with laughing at the hapless jaguar. Tree laughter, as Ochako and Tsuyu learned that day, sounds exactly like any other sound a tree might make. Trees have limited vocabulary, but quite extensive actions ranging from laughing like a maniac to spewing out slightly tipsy sap after having had too much to drink at their cousin's birthday party last Wednesday (tree digestion is a strange thing, and even trees haven't quite figured it out yet).
The other problem the two girls were facing is that, while they were indeed alone in the forest, there was someone else alone in the forest with them – someone they knew, did not want to know, and were currently hiding from in the hopes that she wouldn't notice them and go away. Unfortunately, the tree the two were hiding behind decided that it wasn't really comfortable hiding the heroes-in-training from the bloodthirsty psychopath, and made the hasty decision to go somewhere else (maybe help that jaguar out with the rabbit problem – it was only fair), leaving Ochako and Tsuyu in plain sight of one Toga Himiko. She seemed very happy to see them.
"Ochako-chan! Tsuyu-chan!" the villain squealed happily. "I missed you guys so much!" Toga ran forward, arms outstretched for a hug (and/or possibly a good blood-draining). Ochako and Tsuyu looked at one another, backing away.
"Is this the part where we run?" Ochako asked quietly. Tsuyu shook her head. The two girls dodged at the last second, causing Toga to run into a tree. The villain stumbled around a bit, dazed.
"This is where we walk," Tsuyu corrected her friend. "Calmly, quietly, and, um–"
"Fast?" Ochako suggested.
"Yes, that seems about right," the frog-girl agreed. Toga straightened, turned, and grinned at them. "Okay, now we run." They ran.
Waking up in a room dripping goo was, in general, a rather unpleasant experience. Waking up in a room dripping goo that also happened to have a serial killer in it was a lot worse. Luckily for Ashido Mina, Tokoyami Fumikage was there as well, and his Dark Shadow was currently keeping the man with the knife on the opposite side of the room while the two teenagers desperately searched for a door.
"Who the heck is that guy?" Ashido shrieked. Tokoyami shrugged.
"I don't know why you're asking me," he replied, in a tone that might've made one think he wasn't completely terrified.
"I'm Rodney," said Rodney cheerfully. "I'd like to murder you, if you don't mind."
"WE MIND!" Ashido yelled. "We mind very much!"
"Ashido, do you see anything that might be helpful?" Tokoyami asked. Ashido glanced over the room again.
"Maybe there's something underneath – er, above – the ceiling goo!" she said thoughtfully. "You hold off Psycho McStabby, and I'll try and get rid of that stuff!"
"Got it," Tokoyami said grimly. Rodney grinned. They were putting up quite the fight. Still… it would be annoying if they found an escape before he did. Since the shadow didn't seem all that easy to get past, he threw his knife at the pink-haired girl. The bird-boy's shadow snatched out and clipped the knife, sending it spinning off course. It smashed hilt first into the only light in the room (a small oil lamp that had clearly seen better days), knocking it over. There was the sound of smashing glass and the room went dark. Tokoyami tensed.
"Uh-oh," he mumbled.
'Uh-oh' was indeed the correct response, though for more reasons than the boy had in mind. The goo was, as it turned out, flammable. As the room went up in flames black as night, Dark Shadow let out an ear-piercing screech.
AN: And that, my friends, is chapter two! I hope you liked it! The bit at the beginning is, of course, my own headcanon about Quirks, and Rodney was actually not a planned character. He just kinda… wrote himself into the story, I guess. I doubt he'll have too big a role, but who knows. Anyhow, the next chapter will have another one of my headcanons – this time about the spy at Yuuei. If you follow me on Tumblr, you might've seen me write a bit about who I think it is – well, actually, you probably haven't, since no one read that particular post. But I am very excited for it! Next chapter will have the spy, as well as a couple other characters. Ah, I don't think I'll be revealing the spy's identity just yet, though. You'll have to wait a bit for that! Thank for reading! Kitty out.