My Iron Giant
-Sympathy For the Devil-
"This is different." Nana examined her new body in the empty headspace room. She wasn't just present like before, this time, she was solid. She grabbed her arm, actually grabbed it! It didn't feel like flesh but she was still solid! There was still that ever present blue hue over her but she had much more color.
"Well imagine how we feel." The voice spoke in her head, sounding just like the first holder of One for All.
"Yeah, we don't even have bodies!" Complained the fifth holder.
"But we can see what's happening in the real world, an improvement if you ask me." Said the fourth.
"We can only see the room Nana is in, but we can't see Midoriya's perspective anymore." One noted.
Nana was tired of all the voices being in her head, so she changed the format. A screen appeared in front of her, nine squares dotted it with someone's face on it except for the last. Much better, now she can mute them as she pleases like a conference call.
"Hold your horses everyone, this is new for all of us. Luckily I have prior experience using this robot thingy majig."
She saw some of their squares highlight when they talked. Others remained silent and listened to all the random questions that they asked. Nana on the other hand, noticed one very black square labeled "offline."
Turning around, she looked at the empty spot in the room. In the middle was some kind of arm that stretched down from the ceiling and ended with several familiar cables. Izuku wasn't here, so where was he?
Trying to seek out those answers she activated the robot once again. The large screen front and center ran several lines of code, some containing those strange symbols she never saw outside the robot.
[Accessing nearby visual optics..]
[Displaying feed]
Thousands of smaller screens popped up for her on the big one. Each had their own perspective, whether it be heroes walking down a hallway, some bored teenager staring at it, or the fabric of someone's pocket. Only one stood out to her though. With a swipe of her hand the image enlarged to encompass the others.
Izuku Midoriya was laying on a nurse's bed with a couple others in the room with him. A little old lady was carting off some medical machines and a girl with brown hair was sitting next to Izuku. The boy himself seemed fine, but something was off about him. For now she would keep an eye on him, and try and think for herself instead of for a machine.
Ochaco walked back to the dorms. When Midoriya's mother showed up to the school she didn't try to get in the way. Her last encounter with the woman wasn't….pleasant. Snipe or Thirteen would inform her about Inko's communications with the school as far as Ochaco was allowed to know, so she knew that the woman didn't hold anything against her.
But, everytime she thought of Inko Midoriya a feeling of guilt swirled within her. She wished, she tried many times to let Izuku out of the robot, to end his servitude. Now, he was asleep for who knows how long. Granted it did relieve her so much to see that the machines inside the boy heeded her command and adapted to their new circumstances. It was also strangely satisfying to see All Might's side kick leave in simmering silence after he tried to take Izuku's quirk.
"Hey."
On her left was Mirio, walking with her on her way back. "You gonna be ok?"
Well that was a question she didn't know the answer to. "I'm...not sure...I think I'll be better once Midoriya wakes up."
He laughed at that, what was so funny? "I think you've gotten close enough to Izuku to call him by his first name. After all you're on his mind a lot."
"Haha" She laughed sarcastically. "we both know it's just because-"
"No, really, he asked a lot of questions about you when I visited him."
Heat took over her cheeks, words stammered around in her mouth but managed to escape. "R-really?! Like, not robot him but..actually him?"
Mirio nodded. "Yep, I bet if he had better control of his robot form he'd still be following you around. I don't think I've expressed it enough how thankful he was when you were doing so much with him."
It touched her, everything that she had been doing with him he liked. But then that soft touching feeling squeezed at her remembering his current condition. Mirio spotted her change and instantly gave her a quick side hug. "Hey, don't worry, I'm sure he'll be up and about soon enough."
She nodded not looking at him. Once they arrived at the front of her dorm building he waved goodbye to head to his own building. Ochaco took in a deep breath of the evening air, looking out to where the colors of the sky started to change into night. It didn't seem as bright to her, then again she wasn't being held in the air three hundred feet up by Midoriya to get a better view.
Off to the side she could still make out his soft imprints in the earth, the only current evidence of his existence around her. The sound of her classmates inside though, let her be reminded why she was here. This was UA, a top tier hero school, and this was her chance to become one. It wouldn't be the same without Midoriya right next to her, but she was planning on doing that alone anyways. Until he gets better, she should be doing her best to catch up to her heroic titan of a robot.
Entering not many noticed her, scratch that nobody noticed her, not even Ida waiting next to the kitchen reading in his text book. She thought about eating, but she wanted to do something else first. Going up the elevators, she went straight to her room. Once there she grabbed a training rifle next to her desk that Snipe had given her. On top of the simple desk was a helmet designed to go over her eyes. It was similar to her hero costume, but had no clear visibility.
Slipping it on her head, she was greeted with darkness. Pressing a button on the side, a virtual world was built around her. Looking at where her hand held the rifle, a virtual one was overlaid over the physical one. This was designed for the military to do home training, or avid airsoft players. Using her gun to point and select options, she put herself in the hardest mode imaginable.
She had a lot to catch up on.
Ida checked his watch, three hours had passed, just how long was Uraraka being held up for? It was nearly nine thirty, much later than he predicted. Luckily he had already put the food he made away in the fridge, but it would have been better fresh. No matter, she was simply busy is all, her time taken up to aid Midoriya in another mess.
He almost snapped his third pencil, but quickly controlled himself. What Tokage said to him rang in his head again. It's true, Midoriya from the reports would always obey her and follow her twenty four seven. Yet, he didn't believe the fact that he went his whole life believing he was quirkless. How did one not know they had a quirk their entire life?!
And how he was praised for jumping in to save Uraraka in the exam, no, he clearly knew he could stop the zero pointer at any given moment. To look better to the judges and the public for him acting as if he had no power yet threw himself into danger.
His brother spoke of these heroes in the industry, how they wait until the last second to "save the day" in order to get more attention. Midoriya clearly used a similar strategy, and got himself more pity points by remaining in his robotic form instead of relieving it. It was smart, he had the attention of Japan and other parts of the world, but not being honest to them was unheroic.
But how did the others not see this? And why was Tokage so furious with him despite him explaining the situation to her?
He reached for his phone to ask his brother about what could possibly be happening, but stopped himself. He had relied on his brother a lot to understand his feelings for Uraraka, he shouldn't have to bug her about another….woman…
Of course!
It made sense, the articles he read online spoke of characters like this.
Setsuna Tokage was the jealous type that never made the first romantic move! How did he miss this? She clearly was interested by all the times she had stolen his food and called him rude names. It was teasing! Now he knew why she was acting like this, and why she would say those things. She wants to keep him all to herself even though he has been trying to pursue Uraraka.
Ida you are a genius!
Setsuna glanced at Ida who was sitting there with a victorious look to him. Either two things were happening, he got a difficult problem done, or made another wrong assumption. She hoped it was the first, but knew deep down it was the second.
"I'm gonna go get something to eat." She got up from the couch, leaving Tetsutetsu and Manga to continue watching some show on the tv.
"Oh hey, would you grab us a snack while you're at it please?" Manga asked looking over to her, was he looking at her? It was so hard to tell because the guy didn't have a face.
"Sure, anything particular?"
"Just some chips would be fine."
Tetsutetsu called out before she went too far. "Oh! And Bean dip if there's any left!"
"Sure thing." She casually replied. Going into the kitchen she opened the fridge to find herself something. Behold, the God that wiped the dinosaurs off the earth had blessed her with a fancy looking dish with shrimp. It just so happened to have a sticky note on it, but she couldn't get in trouble if she didn't read it. Grabbing it, along with a smaller thing of bean dip.
She heated up the food in the microwave, one of man's best inventions besides whoever made Paleontology a thing, and grabbed a half eaten bag of scoop shaped chips on her way back.
"Thank you."
"You're the best."
Both boys said grabbing the snacks. She put a classic american utensil in the tupperware and enjoyed the well made meal. Probably would have tasted better fresh, but part of making good food was making it so you could have it later. Zoning out to the random hero program they had on the tv, she heard the unmistakable noise of someone sniffing the air.
"That smells good, what is it?" Ochaco said, all sweaty looking over Togake.
"Ah, just some shrimpy food. Want some?" She offered, but a particular stick up the ass came charging over.
"Tokage! Did you not read the sticky note placed on that dish?!"
She grinned evilly back at him, pissing him off even more. "Nope!"
Before he could go on some stupid rant she chatted to Ochaco. "By the way, when did you get back? Midoriya find a way to be even more sneaky?"
Tetsutetsu spun around, joining in. "Yeah! Also, we know it was super freaky but everyone is wondering how the fight went down. Did the teachers tell you who won? Some of the class thinks Monoma did since he came back first unharmed but we know how big Midoriya can get."
As the steel boy went on Setsuna noticed something else behind Ochaco's eyes. She was closing herself off more and more, something went down and it didn't end so nice.
"Izuku is in Recovery Girl's room.. They got him out of the robot but…"
Ah shit, he's not doing too well is he? Ida was having a different reaction, he seemed a little shocked but hurt? Maybe the guy finally was getting out of his hole and naturally feeling bad for someone who got hurt. Good for him.
He recovered soon enough, and instead of saying something comforting like a normal person he switched the heavy topic. "Would you like something to eat? You seem abnormally exhausted over these events."
Hells bells Ida take a step back and look at the facts.
Ochaco just shook her head. "No thanks, I think I'll just make a protein shake or something and head to bed."
Before Ida could offer his assistance, another lad got the jump. That lad was Tetsutetsu. "Ah yeah! You going to go with whey? Or are you an orgain kind of gal? I got some strawberries and bananas you can throw in and get those good acids in."
He went on and on as he went through all kinds of options with her, pulling out all sorts of tubs of different workout proteins. It was almost hilarious, seeing him snatch Ochaco away from Ida like that. But then Ida's gaze lingered on her for a few more seconds than she was comfortable with.
Just what was he thinking this time?
Ochaco rubbed her eyes, the alarm next to her had been going off for the last five minutes. She stared into the empty sky above her, no clouds, no birds, no Izuku looking down watching over her. It was much harder to sleep without him there, but she shouldn't have gotten used to it. Taking off one of her sleeping gloves she patted her arm, letting her body start to float in the air.
Some would call it cheating to nullify the effects of gravity so you don't have to exert yourself moving around, but she just labeled it as training. That was because her gut would reflexively hate her for using it on herself. Out of all the weaknesses to have, a weak stomach along with motion sickness wasn't horrible, but unavoidable.
Kicking off with just a toe she floated to her closet to grab her morning goods. When she first started doing this, she would distract herself by pretending she was in space getting ready to exit a starship. It was still fun, but this time she didn't feel like it. Mornings normally sucked in her right opinion, but this one had a good excuse.
It didn't take too long to get ready, yet normally she would be done faster. Still floating, starting to really push herself she made it to the common area next to the kitchen. Ida was already there with some breakfast ready. She felt kinda bad, he kept doing all of this for her and she just accepted it. Today would be different.
"Uraraka! I made a-"
"Ida." She tried not to gag from spinning around in the air. "I really appreciate all this, but you don't have to do this. Besides, I want to cook for myself every now and then. Next time you want to do something like this, how about asking me to help out? K?"
He was frozen in place, unsure of how to react to this, but finally he nodded in acceptance. "Very well, I will keep that in mind for the future."
"Than-"
"But! You mustn't waste good food. This meal already has the perfect balance and is light enough to start your day with-"
The food was snatched away by a floating head, holding the plate in her mouth. "Thams!"
Ida snapped at the girl who just snatched away the food. "Tokage! That food was not prepared for you! I understand if you cannot express your hidden feelings for me and use teasing as a way around them, but you should not be stealing!"
Ochaco accidentally flung herself at the ceiling and bumped her head at that. Everyone else present were frozen, even Tokage was stumped by what Ida just said, enough that she relaxed her mouth enough to drop the food on the ground.
Monoma was doing his best to suppress his laughter, hugging his sides tightly. He then whispered to Kendo beside him. "Is it rude that I find this hilarious?"
"BWAHAHAHAH!" Manga answered his question by laughing hysterically, almost falling off his chair.
Tetsutetsu and Shiozaki looked between the lizard lover and the speedster flabbergasted. "IS THAT TRUE?!" They both shouted in unison.
Tokage's blood pressure rose to the point her head looked like an angry red balloon. "How the hell did-"
"Language!" Ida tried to chastise, but Tokage quickly snapped with the fury of a volcano.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU SELF CENTERED ASSWIPE!" In one fluid motion she rammed his forehead with her frontal lobe. As he recoiled in pain her body came from behind, picked him up by the stomach, and suplexed the shit out of him. Before he could recover her body separated into thirty different pieces and collected themselves together with her head.
Standing as a whole person she glared down at him. As he sat up she pushed her index finger against his bruising forehead and pushed him down further. "You keep thinking it's all about you huh?! That the excuse for my behavior with you must be because I LIKE you?! That I want to get what's in your pants?! Stop jerking yourself and staining the facts with your unborn kids!"
"That's enough!" Kendo stood, drawing attention to the onlookers and the center of attention. "We barely started school, we're living together, if you want to hash out your issues with one another fine, but maybe wait till you're in a private environment. No one wants to start their day with a tense atmosphere."
She pointed at Tokage. "I get why you're mad, but please address your issues in a constructive manner instead of kicking him when he's literally down."
Tokage grumbled, but Kendo wasn't finished and pointed at Ida. "And you! Even if her crush was real do you think exposing it like that was going to do any good? For a smart guy you seem to forget about how you should THINK before you speak."
Kendo took a deep breath before looking around. "Now, we have twenty minutes till class starts and almost all of us barely started breakfast. Pick up the pace, eat, brush your teeth, and get to homeroom before the three minute mark. I want to start highschool strong, and I'm willing to bet everyone else does too."
Hearing no else counter her, she then took a seat, and resumed eating. Monoma looked like he was about to say something but Kendo shoved her food into his mouth to shut him up before he starts a fight.
Now that Ochaco wasn't so hyper focused on the tense situation she felt her stomach's protests of her still floating in the air. With a quick kick to the ceiling she launched herself to the kitchen sink, and released all the tension she felt into the drain.
"Gross." Tetsutetsu watched the girl vomit away before looking to Shiozaki, who had been covering her ears for a while. He tapped her shoulder and gave her a thumbs up.
Shiozaki sighed. "Thank you for that."
He shrugged taking a bite of his meal. "No problem, but you might have to start developing a tolerance to that kind of thing. You're probably going to face villains who would say a lot worse things, or crackheads."
She paled at that, just now realizing the horrible sins she would have to be a direct witness of.
Tomura couldn't believe how easy this was. Find some random wall, turn it to dust and let the press flood through. Of course, he was worried at first about the big mecha the school got, but he didn't see him anywhere around. Now that he thought about it, where was the kid? Wasn't he supposed to be following that one chick around? They even had to put his pet on hold to make sure it would take on the hunk of metal.
Of course, it did look pretty cool, but it was just another weaponized child for the hero school. Wasn't that much different than any other kid there really, he just had bigger guns. Did he have guns? Maybe if he took him out and captured him it would be a good present to Sensei. Imagine an army of mech Nomu's. His first person fighter game would turn into a strategy sci-fi.
Now all he had to do was search for wherever the teachers kept their schedule. Oh looky here, this one is right in the open. Looks like they changed it recently. Let's see, instead of 1-A going with All Might to USJ, 1-B is going with him. Huh, he wondered which class the boy was in.
His phone buzzed, grabbing it, careful not to have all five fingers on it, he held it to his ear.
"Shigaraki, have you gotten the information?"
"Yeah, they have a class later today with All Might."
"Good, I've been having a hard time managing so many people anxious to do something."
"Well lucky them, they got a special event coming up. Do we have enough for the Nomu?"
"Plenty."
"Perfect. You can get me out of here now. These alarms are so damn annoying."
As he pulled his phone away from his face he faltered for a second. Something felt off, no one was in the room with him, but it felt like someone was here….watching him. Luckily the sounds of swirling wind pulled him away from his phone. Behind a black vortex materialized just large enough for him to step through. Get ready All Might, this is your last day being a symbol of peace.
Nana watched through the available cameras for whatever triggered the proximity alarm. Someone that was deemed a big enough threat had entered UA grounds. She wouldn't act yet, she refused to incase the machine was mislabeling something again.
"You think it could actually be a villain?" Four asked.
"We won't know until we confirm it." Nana replied, firm in her voice.
"Yet if we don't act someone could get hurt." Five mentioned.
"And if we act prematurely we could end up being ripped apart by Toshi again. Now that you guys are more connected to whatever this is I doubt you'd enjoy it."
Her words got the others to finally shut up, besides the wispy form of eight of course, that guy never said anything. Finally she found a camera looking at some crusty teen looking at his phone. "Geez, someone needs some chapstick."
The longer she lingered on it though, the more she started to notice some things. He looked, familiar, but she didn't know why. His hair reminded her of her own child in the small amount of time she had him. There was a small mark near his lip just like hers. His eyes though, that's what she kept gazing into. They were so many wrinkles and cracks around them, and they were filled with rage, too much for someone his age.
As the video turned to darkness she changed which camera took over the main screen. Stepping back she couldn't get that face out of her head. It kept nibbling at her mind, pulling at memories she dared not think about.
Ochaco sat back in her desk. The alarms had freaked everyone out but luckily Kendo had calmed everyone down. This day was getting more and more stressful, only being less so than yesterday and that was because of how close Izuku was to dying. All Might had done something stupid yes, but he wasn't exactly put in an easy position. Ochaco knew he cared about Midoriya, how could he not? He gave him his very own quirk.
But how much did others care about Midoriya? His mother, yes, her, obviously, Mirio, he literally went to talk to him every night beyond reporting and getting info, and plenty of the teachers had gone out of their way to help. Her own classmates had spent time getting to know him, Manga was one of the first, even if he seemed more focused on the stuff they watched. Pony soon joined in, Tetsutetsu, that random chick from the support class had an odd way of showing it.
And Ida was a great friend! But he can be oblivious to some things like earlier this morning. He would go out of his way all the time for Midoriya….wait, did he? He cooked for her, talked to her, but had he ever joined them on the roof?
Thinking about it now did he ever hang around when Midoriya was there?
"-representative."
"Huh?" Ochaco looked up to see Kendo bashfully bow in the front of the class. Shoot! She hoped she didn't miss anything important!
"Pst!"
Ochaco turned around to see Komori trying to get her attention. "Yeah?"
"Is Midoriya going to be ok?"
"I...I hope so."
That's all that Ochaco could give the girl, each one not looking cheerful about that answer. Somewhere in her she felt dependent on Midoriya, not of his acting as a bodyguard or stopping threats, but just being there to listen, to comfort when she really needed it. It was a small thing that floated around, nothing she believed to be fact. Then he got hurt, then she spent time without him, and she realized how much she missed him.
And the other thought the same thing. When the time came, when they needed him more than ever, would he be able to help?
Vlad King ushered Kendo back to sit down. "Now that we got that out of the way, we're going to be having a class away from the main campus. Two other heroes and myself will be there to help you utilize your quirks to save people instead of punching one another to death."
Some gave looks to Monoma, who tensed under their gaze, but a quick glare from Kendo got them to face their teacher again who pulled out a card.
"We'll be doing, rescue training."
Next time on My Iron Giant
The Attack of USJ
Predictions, ideas, and suggestions on what should go down will be considered up until the chapter is released. I am aware there was more heavier swearing in this chapter than most and if you feel it was too much let me know.
Zabkiel:
It may not necessarily be stronger than One for All, it just takes higher priority in Izuku's body and is fueled by One for All to be strong. Keep in mind Izuku never was able to use his robot powers until he had One for All.
I don't think we have enough Monoma redemption arcs, most paint him out to be an asshole or a near villainous person. Unless it's a gender bent version and the writer completely rewrote their personality to the point it was no longer Monoma.
I was wondering if anyone would predict that, and it looks like no one really did, or mention it in the reviews at least. Yes, while I am doing a lot of different things with Izuku it is in the end an Iron Giant focused story.
Team5dsforever:
I was never a fan of Nighteye, even his color scheme tugged me the wrong way. In this story he never had time to come to terms with All Might passing his quirk onto someone besides Mirio, and was presented with logical moments to argue for One for All to be handed to Mirio.
Joyeuse X:
I have had a solution to size issue for a while, but in story we haven't gotten to that point yet for them to figure it out. Thanks for the suggestion though!
Oberon1211:
Yes, he is alive. I always loved Iron Giant and want to focus more around that.
adislt:
More features for Izuku, if he ever wakes up. Nana has already come to see some of them but without the main unit (Izuku) she won't get full access.
Tribun:
Yes! You are right on! I try not to just tell everyone why everything is the way it is and leave some things in mystery but you are closer to the truth than most.
Izuku is also a shy boy, so while he has a general desire for wanting to have human interactions it's not a burning desire of "I have to do this." Like when he leaps into danger, his desire came to the point of clear action that would take a lot to dissuade him. So if he has no true fire in his desire, it will burn out and not manifest. While he will eventually get to the point of Iron Man suit it will be a while.
wolves567:
He's just out of the main robot body, no size change so far.
Hurtturnip:
Good to hear.
JotSomethingDown:
I am so glad you like the work I put into the characters. I try to understand each one and put myself in their position starting from day one of them being alive. As for friendship and romance, there is an eventual romance or two and Izuku will have the chance to make friends in person. As for Ben and Jenny, I'm not too sure. While I had fun writing them in it was for more "I need to write it so it's not just an empty class." Maybe down the line they will reappear, but it's not a priority.
ZeroExia:
Ah, that's what you mean. No, he won't turn into anything like that in this story.
Apex Redeemer:
Thanks! I'll be sure to be keeping it up.
Creator of the multiverse:
Thank you?
Ezylryb:
No problem!
RocKHord:
:)
CorvidsAreNice:
Go for it!
Saramus92:
Thanks! I'll be sure to look into those. I might not be able to fit in all of the drawings you designed into the story, there aren't too many transformation moments I have in mind.
Notasavior:
Technically he's outside it right now. But to quote Iron Man 2 "The suit and I are one." It's a part of Izuku's body, and we are seeing what it's like for it not to be connected to him. Maybe in the far, far future when he's an adult will he be able to leave the mech and do stuff on his own, but not for what I have planned to write.
Xyrothor:
He will get smaller transformations that are agile, but not super soon. I'm glad you enjoy the efforts I have been taking to make this story feel like it's original.
