Future Shock

by Leanbow

Get an insider's view into Deku's future as Japan's number one pro hero. He's come a long way and has almost total control of One For All, but will it be enough against his latest enemy the Lynx? Maybe some of his old friends can help, but not in the way he intended.

Here I am again with a new My Hero story. Some things to know first, the main thing being even though I've tried to stay as current as I can I am only up to the early fourth season of the anime, so this story more or less takes place at around that time. That means other stuff will have happened in the manga that I am not personally privy to, but I've done research to try and avoid any glaring mistakes. The second thing is that this story is written in the style I used for my other My Hero story Ultra Bad, where everything is told from the perspective of the main character, in this case Deku. It may not seem as light and fluid here, but Ultra Bad was a comedy and this one largely isn't. And of course, none of the My Hero characters are owned by me. There are only a scant few OC's of mine that will be in this story. Thanks for reading, enjoy and feel free to review, and I'll try to continue it sooner rather than later.

One of the main lessons I tried to learn from All Might, the greatest pro superhero of all time (people say it's me, but it will always be him) is to smile and laugh in the face of danger. I don't always smile in battle, but facing danger has never been one of my issues.

My name is Izuku Midoriya, but when in uniform I go by Deku (a Japanese word that means useless person, or wooden puppet, depending on which online dictionary entry you read). You may find this hard to believe, but I was born quirkless. Yes, that's kind of like Seth Rogan saying he was born without a sense of humour or Elvis Presley (a musician from way before I was born) being born without musical talent, but it's true. I spent my entire early childhood being not special in any visible way. It wasn't until my mid teens that destiny called my name, when All Might saw something in me and chose me to be his successor. That was almost twenty years ago. I don't make it a habit to reminisce about the past, especially since in my line of work it isn't healthy to occupy your mind with distracting thoughts, but I had no idea when I woke up this morning that I would wind up smack in the middle of those days at UA high. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Yosh Tioh AKA the Lynx is a criminal that popped up a few years ago. His quirk allows him to absorb inanimate material - rock, metal, plastic, earth, liquids, anything- onto his own body to make armour. Basically he "links" it to himself, hence the name. He was a minor annoyance at best and nothing any pro couldn't handle, but then two days ago he showed up at Takoba Beach with a new trick: He had formed a small army of sentient beings made from his collected materials. He and his followers attacked bystanders in the surrounding area without any rhyme or reason. Over a dozen people were injured, thankfully with no casualties, and police reports said Lynx was deliberately trying to lure out pro heroes to confront him. In fact he mentioned the Justice Collective, a group I founded, by name. I am no longer an active member, but I had to bring this to their attention.

"Hey Midoriya, sorry I mean Deku, remember when we first met?"

Hitoshi Shinso, AKA Cortex, knows I prefer to address my contemporaries by codename at all times when on mission, but since I am not in charge of the Collective anymore and lack the authority to make the rules, he does not need to apologize. After all, we've been best friends for many years. He can usually be found here in the main control room of the Collective's tower headquarters in downtown Musutafu as his mental quirk makes him the perfect monitor for danger in the city.

"Of course I remember that day at the Sports Festival" I answered back. "You nearly beat me in our fight."

"I don't know" he replies with a grin. "I caught you off guard, but you still broke free. It's almost embarrassing to think back on those days before I was able to evolve my telepathy quirk beyond simple brainwashing."

"I know just how you feel. At that age I couldn't do 99% of the things I can now with One for All."

As I say the word, I briefly flash back to a time in my life when All Might had sworn me to secrecy about my connection to his powers and the stress that would put on my mind when people would ask questions or draw their own connections to my powers and his. Of course the feeling quickly passes, since I revealed that knowledge to the world myself during my campaign to have the Hero Public Safety Commision defunded. All Might was a little wary, but he had been long retired by that point and trusted my judgement.

"We were just two kids put on a big stage for the first time trying to get noticed" I assure him. "And we were. That gave us our first bit of exposure. But we grew as heroes and as individuals."

Cortex smiles. In his childhood, he was constantly told he could not be a hero with his quirk. I'd like to think that our match at the festival helped open up his eyes to proving those people wrong and seeking extra training to move up to the hero course at school. Years later when the League of Villains returned with it's largest gathering yet, he was among the first to answer my call to arms. That really got the wheels in motion as we were forming the Collective, we also came together as friends.

"We've both come a long way since then, even if I didn't actually become a greater hero than you."

"I think you did," I tell him. As a mind reader, he knows I didn't really mean that but he doesn't say anything.

"I'm sorry that you came all this way to prepare us for battle against Lynx only to find half the team away on another mission" Cortex says, steering the conversation back on track. "I've sent them a mental summons to regroup back here as quickly as possible."

"That's good. A villain like Lynx growing this much more dangerous in such a short time can't be an accident. We have to stop him before things get worse."

The main control room doors open, and some other members have arrived.

"DEKU!"

The excited exclamation is from a young man very special to me, and from his reaction I would wager he is happy to see me too.

"Hydro Bomb. It's good to see you." He comes in for a hug.

Hydro Bomb's real name is Kota Izumi, and he possesses the same water gun quirk as his parents, a crime-fighting duo known as Water Hose. After they died in battle when he was very young, he became angry with the world and especially with heroes and villains. Who could blame him? Well, I could blame him for punching me in a very sensitive spot when we first met, but in a way it was a good test of patience at that time for me too. He started to soften his stance after I saved him from a villain named Muscular. After I got out of high school, I started training him to begin his own hero journey.

"I see that my nomination of you to fill my spot on the team was well received."

"It's been great, Deku" Hydro Bomb tells me. "I can't believe I'm on the premiere hero team in the world."

"You deserve it. You've proven yourself an asset time and time again." Also arriving with Kota is Tenya Iida, codename Ingenium. If you know him then it should be no surprise that he is one of the few classmates I had back in UA that never changed their costume or codename. Ingenium has the same motivations he always did, doing what's right and honoring his family legacy. "Good to have you here, Deku." He moves in to initiate a handshake with me once Hydro Bomb steps back. "And how is our Ochaco?"

"She's doing very well, thanks. She took little Ren up to visit her parents for the weekend."

"Wonderful. Enjoy these times when they're this age" he tells me. "It's hard to believe my Tenru will be starting primary school soon."

I was enjoying these times, in fact I would never say this out loud but watching our son grow up has filled my wife and I with the satisfaction we used to get from fighting injustice as pro heroes, and even in my case being the number one hero pales in comparison to spending time with the two of them. And with the only family I had left before, my mother, no longer with us, Ren is even more important to me. You can imagine that I wouldn't be here if I didn't think that Lynx was a serious threat.

"Well, look who's here. Hey Dragonranger!"

It's Suprema, the current leader of the Collective and another old 1A classmate Momo Yaoyorozu. And that reminds me, I haven't told you about my suit yet. Since my goal as a pro hero was to become the new All Might, I wanted a costume like his: bold colours, a cape and no mask. Unfortunately All Might used a lot of red, yellow and blue in his suits, and I decided pretty early on that those colours were not complemented by my green hair. I was stumped trying to come up with the right look until I came across a character from the TV series Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, Burai the Dragonranger. I had to lose the helmet, but a suit of green with a golden shield design looked very sharp indeed, especially with my golden cape attached at the back. My North American fans really get a kick out of it, as apparently the American adaptation of the green ranger is even more popular there.

"Suprema, you're looking good." And I mean it. She suffered a great loss when her partner and husband Trevor aka Supremor was killed a year ago by Daruma Ujiko's Noronco virus. She changed her hero codename to Suprema in tribute, and to her credit, didn't need to step away from the team like I did. She just kept on pushing herself and creating extra strength seemingly from out of nowhere, like the objects and devices her quirk allows her to create from her body.

Just then, the control room alarms start blaring. As Ingenium activates the communication module, I can just make out a faint noise like a buzzing or a shushing.

"Team, can you read me?" Another Collective member Earphone Jack is speaking on the monitor, surrounded by some kind of projectile windstorm.

"Affirmative, Jiro" answers Ingenium. "What's happening?"

"Momo? Iida? Is anyone out there?" She didn't hear Ingenium respond. Comms must be down on her end. She goes on. "Lynx got to us, Lynx and…. Someone else. I couldn't identify." There is a weariness in her voice, like she's exhausted. The other half of the team must have been ambushed. "Law Arms has been taken out… and Family Jewels Man… and… Endeavor."

"Taken out?" Suprema says with concern and confusion. "How? Are they still alive?" she wonders aloud, knowing we won't get an answer.

"Dune is MIA. Possibly compromised" Earphone goes on to say.

Dune is a Collective member, a pro hero of Egyptian descent. Her quirk transforms her body into a sand cloud. That's it. The buzzing sound I hear. Sand.

Cortex senses it too. "Guys, I'm detecting a presence approaching us at a fast rate" he interrupts. On the monitor, Earphone Jack suddenly cries out in pain and disappears in front of us. The message stops. The sound of approaching sand grows louder.

"Hey, look out there," Hydro Bomb says, pointing to the window overlooking the sundeck. A big swarm of sand rushes towards us, seeping through the pane to enter the room. It gathers before us and transforms into the human form of Dune. She is struggling to make it to her feet.

"Dune, what happened out there?" I ask as we rush over to help her up. "Is the rest of the team hurt? Are you hurt?"

"Deku, my friend. It is good to see you again." She stumbles and falls to one knee, her legs and torso threatening to return to her non-corporeal sand form. "We were attacked by Lynx, but he was not alone. As I turned to face the accomplice, I was compelled to enter my sand form. I don't remember what happened afterwards, like I somehow blacked out. Sometime later I regained my mind, but the guys were lying unconscious and Jiro was trying to send a message to you. I still wasn't in full control of my sand quirk for some reason."

"That's why it seemed windy during her transmission" I theorize. "That was some of your sand in the background."

"Yes, but after not being able to make contact, Earphone just vanished into a pile of… something! I was so scared and confused, I flew back here as fast as I could. I failed the others, Deku."

"Don't blame yourself, Dune. Lynx' power has clearly been upgraded, and we now know he isn't acting alone. It was clearly an ambush. I wanted the entire team together before we confronted him, but it looks like that won't be possible now."

She starts to lower her body back to the floor. "I feel strange. Like my body is fighting my instincts to remain solid. Deku, I don't-". Her statement is cut off when she inexplicably turns back into her sand cloud form, obstructing the eyes and breathing of the rest of us. Caught by surprise we all start to cough. Suprema thinks quickly and from the uncovered back portion of her costume produces a large fan. It blows the sand back, giving us a chance to regain our composure.

Cortex diverts us towards the door. "It's him, it's Tioh. I feel his mind, he's coming in."

The metal door is ripped backwards from the outside of the frame off of it's hinges. Lynx emerges, the door now absorbed onto him as a form of armour that covers any trace of his human face or skin. Ingenium stands ready to strike when his body begins to gyrate. "It's my costume. I think it's fighting me." His costume does contain various pieces of armour. It isn't very dense or strong armour, but to Lynx that doesn't matter. The torso, boots, helmet and arms all rip themselves off of him and form on to Lynx. Without moving or nodding at me, Cortex knows what I'm thinking. He whips his capturing cloth weapon to the villain's right arm. I summon a blackwhip and hurl it around his left arm.

"What is the meaning of this? Why were you targeting us? Who are you working with?" Cortex is firing off questions to try and get Lynx to answer. No response or speech of any kind comes. He doesn't even have any eye or mouth holes through his cowl to suggest any empathy at all. "Not going to do this the easy way, huh? Oh well, I tried".

My blackwhips that I inherited from a past user of One for All are an extension of myself but Cortex's capturing weapon is inorganic. Lynx starts reeling it in towards himself like a fishing line. The sand is once again rising in the air and trying to add to Lynx' growing display. Poor Dune, how is he able to control her too? He must have discovered a loophole in controlling organic material when it's linked, as she is, to something inorganic. That linking quirk of his, it's becoming more dangerous all the time. I wonder what took him this long to learn to use it to be deadly?

The sand still soars towards him, even resisting Suprema's fan. "I got it!" Hydro Bomb states, and he starts shooting streams of water from his hands trying to pick the sand out of the air. Lynx raises his hand and suddenly is able to create a stream of fire. The water gets mostly turned into steam.

"Where did this come from?" Suprema asks with shock. "Shinso?"

"I'm trying but I can't learn anything from his mind. He's so focused on his goal of conquering us that there isn't anything else. No fears or memories at all to exploit. It's like trying to read the mind of a robot or a computer."

"Could the fire have come from Endeavor?" Ingenium wonders.

Before any of us can expand on that, Dune's sand lands from the air into a pile the shape of a humanoid drone right in front of Hydro Bomb. It uses its newly formed arms to shove him to the floor as Suprema and Ingenium try to intervene. Cortex and I have been trying to keep Lynx's arms restrained even while he is slowly absorbing the capture cloth into himself. Now he's turning the cloth on me. As it whips out of Cortex's hands forcing him to let go, it attempts to tie up my hands by the wrists. No way, bozo. I retract the blackwhip and force my hands apart with my strength. Lynx uses his quirk again to make the machinery in the room, the coffee maker, copy machine, Suprema's fan, etc. all fly from where they were towards him to join his body and form more soulless followers at his side. The widescreen monitor is next. It retains its shape without damage as it takes a place in front of Lynx's face. Suddenly the screen switches on.

"Greetings, you pathetic, do-gooding heroes" says a shadowy sinister face. The bushy mustache, the weird looking medical goggles. I know exactly who this is.

"Dr. Garaki, aka Daruma Ujiko" I say out loud "You've been off the grid for a long time". This man was a faithful servant to All For One before he died, building Nomu monsters and doing all kinds of research on quirks for his master to take.

"Ah Deku, I'm flattered that you remember a humble old doctor like myself. I see you and the Justice Collective have been getting acquainted with my newest experiment."

"So we have you to thank for these upgrades to his linking powers."

"You would dare show your face again after everything your virus put us through?" Suprema questions, anger seeping through her words. She isn't wrong. The Noronco virus he let loose not only killed her husband with it's quirk-nullifying after effects (among numerous others) but damaged the world's economy and overall well being in ways we are still trying to recover from. "Whatever your endgame is, we'll stop it, and you."

"I wouldn't make promises you can't guarantee, young lady. I didn't give Yosh Tioh upgrades, I am the upgrade. Thanks to my latest chemical composition, Lynx as you call him is completely under my control. He is my ultimate weapon that I will be using to… humanely cull the overpopulation of you heroes." He starts to laugh out of general amusement for being evil.

"That's why he won't talk," Cortex realizes. "Why his mind is all cloudy when I try to enter it."

"But why is he exhibiting new quirks like the fire and how did he make our friends disappear?" Suprema questions.

"I assume by now you have theorized that Tioh was not acting alone" the doctor sneers. "Rather than get my own hands dirty I did arrange to give him a partner in crime, someone who's own abilities suit my purposes perfectly. I suppose I should let him introduce himself."

Ingenium screams, and disappears. As we all draw our focus to where he was in the room, the same thing happens to Hydro Bomb, then Cortex too before any of us could even say a word. As Suprema and I assess the room, we realize that our friends are still in here with us.

"What has he done, Deku?" Suprema wonders as she steps in for a closer look. "It's some kind of lump of fleshy meat with a patch of Ingenium's hair and some of his other features."

Fleshy meat? Of course, it all fits now. Dune had said she encountered a strange substance after Earphone disappeared during the message. There's only one person I know with a fleshy meat quirk that can transform other people. "Suprema, don't touch that-!"

It's too late. She picked it up, and the effect spread to her.

"You have Seiji Shishikura under your control too?" I demand to know. Soon, Seiji steps in from the doorway.

"Indeed. Lynx's only flaw was that he could only absorb inorganic material, and not living people and their quirks" the doctor continues. "Did you know that when Seiji here transforms someone with his meatball quirk, it removes the organic nature of their DNA so that it can be absorbed by Lynx?"

Seiji, looking like a blank slate thanks to the doctor's influence, gestures for the lumps to rise from the ground. Once they do, they sail towards Lynx and become part of his body. He must have done this to our other teammates already and used Endeavor's fire, as we speculated.

"Don't worry Deku, we know that your mighty One For All quirk would likely leave you immune to the fate that befell your friends. But we don't mind. The "Number one hero" deserves a more personal send off. That's why I intend to have my weapons crush and defeat you before I take your quirk. So long!" The monitor switches off.

The TV monitor slides away from Lynx's face and reforms at his arm. It wasn't supposed to be this way. My team and I were supposed to take down a menace, instead an evil scientist played us all for fools and I'm the last one standing. I take out his soldiers first, blasting them back into harmless junk. Lynx tries to swat his big TV arm at me but I put up my arms and block it. Stepping off the ground I push the arm and him back. Seiji attempts to launch a meat projectile at me from behind, but I dodge it by jumping sideways and use a blackwhip to strike him. After landing back on my feet I hurl the whip at his ankle, tying around it. I pull back on it, making him stumble and then rush up to him with a quick punch to the jaw. Down for the count.

Lynx shoots a blast of water at me, using the quirk he stole from Hydro Bomb. It pushes me, but not enough to cause me harm. Some of Dune's sand is fired at me through his shoulders, but I float in the air spinning my whip around to disperse it. More water. I shrug it off. He gives me some of Endeavors' fire from his left arm. It is enough to get me to disengage the whip, but I won't be stopped. Next comes the ice from his right arm. It isn't enough. He doesn't have the practice using these quirks that my friends do. I step to the ground. Suddenly, wham. He rushes right up to me and punches me in the face. He has Ingenium's speed as well, and he suckered me into letting my guard down after his initial assault. I stagger, but my danger sense warns me he is about to try the same trick again. I catch the punch, and strike his upper body with one of my own. Loose parts from the TV and other equipment from the room he absorbed fall to the floor. He still shows no emotion. The metal pieces extend and form fingers that grab me by the arm. The other arm assembles the sand into a large pile that it prepares to pummel me with. Hard, dense sand is still just sand but I'm not waiting around to be hit by it. I discharge some of my One For All lightning energy around my body, going into what I dubbed my full cowl mode. I start punching and kicking, dispersing more of his accumulated mass. Finally Lynx falls to his knees. I grab him by the throat.

"I'm too powerful for you to defeat. This is your final chance. If there's a way to release my friends from the state Seiji captured them in, now is your chance to tell me how to do it. And if you give me the doctor's location you'll still go to jail, but you'll be saving yourself a lot of additional pain."

His only response is to point his head at mine. We would be looking each other in the eyes if his were visible. After no verbal response, he suddenly grabs me by the collar and attacks my mind with a psibolt, courtesy of Cortex's stolen quirk. It reminds me of when my danger sense used to really hurt me before I learned to stand it, but amplified. He's using my friends' pain against me as well. As I let go of him to hold my throbbing head with my hands, Lynx tears off a piece of costume from his shoulder, leaving it bare. Using Suprema's creating quirk, he pulls something out of it. I recognize it. A red cartridge with a hypodermic needle at the end. Could this be the quirk destroying drug that Overhaul and the Shie Hassaikai made all those years ago? I don't know if it's powerful enough to affect One For All, but I'm not going to sit around and let him use it on me. I increase my cowl energy. Lynx isn't stopping. Pieces of metal from his armour reformat themselves into makeshift manacles that hold my hands and arms in place. I have to turn it up. I summon more energy and create a miniature lightning storm. The energy surge spreads through the manacles and must be affecting Lynx's own body, yet he still doesn't show any pain or response of any kind. He's like a machine. Dr. Garaki's perfect super soldier. The needle gets damaged before he can stick me with it, but more metal pieces form to try and restrain me. I need to get him off me. I float off the floor, trying to carry us out of the building. Unfortunately the building is just another tool in the Lynx's arsenal. He mentally forces the walls, ceiling and floor to come to him and be absorbed, crushing me in the process. I'm trapped. My air will run out. I frantically release more lightning from my body. Once I realize that my panic will only make the oxygen run out faster, I try to calm down. I still can't move. I need to focus my energy into a teleport attempt, it's the only way I can get out. I've never attempted this before, I've never needed to. I tighten my closed eyes and envision the energy covering my entire body and then, carrying me somewhere else. Anywhere else. I open my eyes. Darkness. I don't feel anything holding me in place, Lynx is gone. The building must have been partially destroyed, but I don't feel anything around me. I just lie for a while until suddenly at a point my senses start to reactivate. Before the light returns to my eyes, my ears hear voices around me.

"What's wrong with the nerd?"

"He just got hit by lightning, Katsuke. He could be really hurt."

"Is it just me, or is Deku wearing a different costume than he was five seconds ago?"

"And he looks so big, ribbit."

"Is it Deku's dad?"

"Yes Mineta, it's Deku's dad. Idiot."

These voices, they sound so… young. Why would I be imagining my old classmates? Suddenly my vision is restored and I feel the environment again. Ururaka is on her knees in front of me with concern.

"Midoriya? Is that you?"

I start to freak out. I'm not imagining this! It's really happening! My wife is right here before my eyes, as a teenager, and I see a whole collection of my teammates, old friends and acquaintances, and even enemies standing up behind her, all as teenagers too! And the location- there's no mistaking it. I'm in the training kitchen land, Gym Gamma. This really is the school. When I activated my powers to teleport away from Lynx, I actually went back in time?

"I… Yes, it is me, Ochaka. All of you…" I look around at everybody. "Where's, um… me? The younger me, that is?"

"He was right where you are, just jumping off of the rocks and training just like the rest of us" she explains. "Suddenly a bolt of lightning hits him, and he's gone and you appear."

It's entirely possible that when I somehow activated my powers to transport myself through time, it used my younger self's One For All powers as a homing beacon and once it found him, it made him disappear into a limbo dimension of sorts because the space-time continuum can't handle two full fledged One For All wielders at one time. So as long as I'm here, the young Deku will remain gone.

"Are you okay?" adds Uraraka. "Our Deku would usually be mumbling to himself about how he feels or what's going through his mind. Would it help to talk about it?"

"I wish I could, but… I better not. You see, I'm from the future."

Some of the students laugh and sneer, but Ururaka smiles.

"I believe you, Midoriya. I just know it's you. You have that costume on because you made your dream come true and became a pro hero, didn't you? Am I with you in the future, Deku?" She places her hand on mine as I get up to my feet. What the heck do I say to that? She is certainly with me, as the mother of our wonderful son and my most valued partner in life. But I can't tell her that! Even though she would tell me years later that she had feelings for me all the way back in our first year of school, it would be wrong to take advantage. I'm still me, but she's… just a teenager.

"Why yes, you are" I respond, pulling my hand away and trying to hide my nervousness. "A lot of you are doing exceptional hero work in my time."

"What a fabulous Power Ranger costume future Deku has" says my classmate Yuga Aoyama, and not to me, but I hear him say it because he isn't exactly whispering. "I'm so jealous."

"What's going on here, Deku? You're late"

That voice belongs to our homeroom teacher Shota Aizawa, the pro hero EraserHead. I step up to tell him what's going on.

"Deku isn't late, sir. Rather the Deku you know wasn't. This is going to sound hard to believe, but I'm his future self."

"I can see that" he responds oddly, "but what I mean is you're too late to stop the Lynx from laying waste to your friends in this era as well as the one you came from."

With that, Mr. Aizawa's skin twists and shapes itself into rock and metal pieces. The Lynx and Seiji made it here with me, and now they've infected my teacher.

"If the real Eraser Head can still hear me in there, I'm sorry for what I'm about to do."

If All Might were here, he would likely start this battle by assuring the students they can all stay calm now, because he is here. That catchphrase never really suited me, but I sometimes prefer something else he said to me many moons ago.

"Eat this!"

I leap towards this imposter Aizawa and punch him.