After considerable thought, I decided to revise Mad Scientists Can Be Heroes Too! (I've also added an exclamation mark to the title) I needed All Might to have a better reason for giving Izuku One for All, and I wanted Izuku to have already gained the Spark, and so have it a little more under his control. So, here's what will hopefully be the start of a better version of the story.
MAD SCIENTISTS CAN BE HEROES TOO! (REVISED)
CHAPTER 1:
A SPARK OF MADNESS
In a darkened room, a teenaged boy with messy green hair hunched over some delicate machinery, muttering to himself as he fiddled with it with some tool or other. All around him were various pieces of junk, in various states of repair and/or assembly, looming out of the darkness in semi-monstrous shapes. The darkness was only broken by a single desk lamp.
Izuku Midoriya was already considered somewhat strange by his peers, if they didn't look at him with contempt. After all, in a world where 80% of all people had a 'Quirk' or special ability, he was one of the unlucky 20% to be born Quirkless. And yet, in spite of his lack of a Quirk, he still wanted to be a hero.
This attitude got him more than a little teasing, especially from a boy who used to be his friend. Katsuki Bakugo, a boy with a Quirk that made him sweat nitroglycerin, was, frankly, an obnoxious bully. In a perverse way, though, Izuku had Katsuki to thank for giving him his true power, something beyond Quirks.
While seemingly similar to Quirks, what he had was not actually a Quirk, or at least not triggered by the same genes. It was something he only learned recently ran in his mother's side of the family, but had been dormant, at least in her. She had been both frightened, and yet, perversely relieved, when he gained the Spark.
It had been triggered when Katsuki had knocked Izuku to the ground, causing him to hit his head pretty hard, and followed it up with a couple of kicks to the head. That was about a year ago, and Katsuki had, inadvertently and perversely literally, kickstarted Izuku's breakthrough, the emergence of his Spark.
Imagine a dam bursting. Imagine all that water bursting forth and sweeping away everything in its path. Imagine the sheer force and power of all that water, held back by the designs of man, only to be suddenly unleashed. And imagine that, sweeping through the mind of a teenaged boy, the fury and the wrath.
Except, even with it being a raging flood, there was something being shaped in its wake that was more orderly than what a flood did. Things became sharper, clearer. Izuku was always a smart boy, with his highest grades being in the sciences and mathematics (yet another thing for Katsuki to bully him about), but it felt like his thoughts were going to the next level, fire burning along his neural pathways. The fire of Prometheus.
What was even more unsettling was that, as the floodwaters began to sink, even if the turmoil they left still boiled and raged, he had looked at Katsuki, and could see, very readily, the weak points of the human body. It was like he was the Terminator, and saw little arrows pointing here and there, telling him how to take down the foolish bastard who had cruelly taken his notebook away from him. A few blows here and there, and Katsuki would be sprawled on the playground, broken. If not dead.
He had recoiled from that. Dead? Katsuki was an arsehole, but dead?
Then again, why settle for dead, when he could show Katsuki he COULD be a hero without a Quirk? Hence what he was doing now.
Izuku's mutterings began to raise in volume, until they reached a decibel level achieved usually by very expensive speakers used for concerts. "They say I can't get into UA without a Quirk, did they? A Quirkless person has no business being a hero, did they? They called me mad, laughed at me? Well, I'LL SHOW THEM ALL! HE WHO LAUGHS LAST LAUGHS HARDEST! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
A knock on his workshop's door. "Izuku, dear, I know you're working, and it's good to hear you enjoying yourself, but can you keep it down? I don't want the neighbours complaining about the laughter again," came the muffled voice of his mother, Inko.
"I'll try, Mum." He then returned his attention to the mechanism, humming quietly as he did so. Now, if I can just reverse the polarity of the neutron flow(1)…
The Spark. Many names have been given to it, with the Spark being the most popular. Malign Hypercognitive Dementia, Aperture Syndrome, the Super-Cognitive Interpretation Zone(2), the Madness Place…or, in some people who valued blunt and cruel simplicity over euphemistic labelling…Mad Scientist Disease.
It is a little-known fact that, about a couple of centuries before these events took place, a mysterious group of people turned up all of a sudden in Eastern Europe. They claimed to be refugees from another dimension (where mad scientists ruled the world, badly), fleeing an attack on a city called Mechanicsburg by an entity known only as the Other. Most of them integrated quietly, well, relatively so into society. Some people in the know think that it was a Spark's experiment gone awry that led to the creation of Quirks. That certainly made a lot of sense to Izuku: meddling with things man was supposedly not meant to know often had unexpected results.
While Quirks tend to appear either from birth, or during early childhood, most Sparks (the term applied to both the ability and the person possessing it) emerge during adolescence. This was called a 'breakthrough'.
Those with the Spark can enter a heightened state of consciousness for a period of time, where they are able to actually perceive more information than most people could normally. They can make intuitive leaps to create gadgets, machines, even bioengineered creatures that it'd be impossible or almost impossible to do otherwise. However, in the process…well, they act like a villain, all hammy and loud, and they lose touch with their morality. That's why it's called the Madness Place. It doesn't necessarily make one with the Spark evil, just less moral or more amoral.
How did he know all this? Well, his mother had learned from her own father, who was descended from one of those Spark refugees, Klaus Barry Heterodyne(3). And through her, Izuku had inherited the Spark, dormant in his mother, but now burning within him…
"YOU FOOLS! I'LL DESTROY YOU ALL!"
This was an unexpected utterance, to say the least, not least because of who was saying it. Okay, in hindsight, it was a fair assumption to say what triggered this outburst, but it was still a shock. It was like hearing a mouse suddenly emit a roar like a lion(4).
After all, it was Izuku Midoriya who emitted said roar. And his meekness often made a mouse look strong by comparison.
Katsuki had gone too far, using his explosive powers to destroy his notebook. And then, he had taunted him, suggesting that Izuku commit suicide, and then maybe he might get reborn with a Quirk. And that had been the final straw.
Katsuki and his posse were staring at him in bemusement. "Uhh, Katsuki? What's with Deku?"
Katsuki, for the first time in a while, didn't have an angry glare or a contemptuous sneer or smirk on his face. Instead, he had a look of surprise and shock that looked alien to his face. "…I dunno. Maybe Deku's finally gone round the bend at the thought he's a Quirkless loser," he said, regaining his usual contempt, before swaggering out the door.
Round the bend? He'd never felt more sane in his entire life. He didn't care what the others staring at him thought, either. No…all he cared about was that he knew, no matter what Katsuki or the others thought, mocking him, he WOULD be a hero…
He was tempted to use what he had hidden in his backpack on Katsuki in revenge for the notebook, but resolved not to. He wanted to be a hero, and heroes didn't take revenge like that. Then again, heroes didn't bully others, and Katsuki most definitely did so, despite his own oft-repeated desire to be a hero.
He was trudging dejectedly through a tunnel when he heard a noise from behind him. He heard a faint slurping noise, and then, a distorted voice murmuring, "A medium-sized body to hide in…"
Izuku dodged just in time to avoid a dark green thing lunging at him. He yelped in surprise, dodging attack after attack. "Hey, stop dodging, kid! Calm down! I just wanna borrow your body for a bit! I mean, it'll only hurt for…45 seconds? And then, it'll all be over…"
"Go away! Bad touch!" Izuku yelled, even as his mind went into overdrive, trying to figure out weak points. The creature in front of him was an amorphous mass of dark green sludge with eyes and jagged teeth.
"Pfft, ain't gonna happen kid. Come on, I need your help. You'll be a real hero, saving me from him. Never thought he'd be in this town…"
As Izuku dodged another attack, he wondered who he was talking about. He then punched at the sludge man's eye, and caused him to screech. But then, the manhole cover the villain had oozed from burst open. "Never fear, kid!" roared the figure who leapt from it. "I have arrived!"
Izuku gaped, and the sludge villain whirled to face the newcomer, and swore vehemently. "All Might?" Izuku whispered.
For it was, indeed, All Might. A big burly bear of a man with huge muscles, blonde hair swept up into two antennae-like points, his face almost always in a wide grin, his eyes always in shadow. "TEXAS SMASH!" All Might roared, hitting the sludge being with a powerful blow that stunned him.
All Might then turned to Izuku. "My apologies for getting caught up in that, kid. This is a pretty unfamiliar part of the world to me, and letting him get away is not a mistake I would have made, normally. Still, thanks for distracting him." With that, the burly man began gathering the stunned sludge man and putting him into a large soft drink bottle.
Izuku tried his best not to fanboy out at his idol, the top hero in the world, being right there in front of him. All Might, the best known and mightiest hero. Instead, he gathered his thoughts, and asked, "Umm…sir?"
"Call me All Might, sir makes me feel old," the large man said with his habitual grin. "And if it's an autograph you want, I'll be too happy to oblige once I'm done."
"Oh, that'd be great…but that's not what I wanted to ask you. I wanted to ask you some serious questions." Izuku went over and helped him gather the stunned slime man.
"About what?"
"Well…I want to ask you…is it possible to be a hero without a Quirk? I mean, I have something that isn't actually a Quirk, but…I have to ask…can someone born without a Quirk…can they become a hero like you? Only, I've always been picked on, and yet, maybe I think that saving people is the coolest, best thing I can do. You save all those people with that fearless smile of yours, and that's why I want to be the strongest, just like you." Izuku shook his head, and took his bag off as All Might finished putting the slime man away, fishing around in it, before pulling out what looked like an oversized golf ball. He clicked a hidden switch on it, and gently threw it into the air, whereupon it hovered.
All Might frowned as he put the bottle into his pocket. "A drone of some sort?"
"One of the first things I created. There's probably better stuff at UA and other places. It's meant mostly to train people to dodge: it fires a weak electrolaser(5), enough to sting someone like a static shock. I have other things."
All Might looked over to Izuku. "…You have the Spark, don't you, boy?" he asked, thoughtful. "I recognise the style of a Spark's work. Brilliant, intuitive, and utterly uncopiable. I'd like to see this thing in action. Highest safe setting for a couple of minutes. I haven't got longer than that."
"Okay. Kalaylee(6)," Izuku said to the drone, which beeped, and began firing small bolts of electricity. All Might dodged them, grinning. But then, he grimaced, a speck of blood spurting from his mouth.
"No! Not now! I…"
And then, he changed.
To Izuku's amazement, standing in front of him, in place of the burly, grinning All Might, was a skeletal figure, a grotesque lanky scarecrow with deep-set eyes and a painful grimace on his face. The man was promptly hit by a bolt of electricity, and snarled quietly. Izuku promptly shouted the deactivation phrase. "Umm…are you okay?" Izuku asked, not sure whether this man was an impostor or something.
The man gave a pained chuckle. "No, I'm not. Before you ask, I'm All Might. And don't yell or anything. I'm lucky my transformation reverted here, and not on some crowded…gurk." This last syllable was accompanied by a stream of blood from the man's mouth, who wiped it away. "It's a bit like how some people hold in their beer belly at a pool. A fearless smile, huh? Kid, you're seeing the real me, though I don't want you posting about it on social media." He sat down on a nearby bench, before lifting up part of his now-baggy shirt.
Izuku stared in genuine horror. It looked like a massive crater, surrounded by lines of surgical stitching, a grotesque shatterpoint of scar tissue. "What happened?" he asked in understandable horror.
"A villain happened, five years ago. My lungs nearly gave up on me, and I had to have my stomach removed. As you can guess, it didn't really have the best effect on my health. I can really only do my hero work for maybe three hours a day. I reached my limit."
"Five years ago? Was it Toxic Chainsaw who did that to you?" Izuku asked, recalling the fight.
All Might, if that was who he was, shook his head. "A lowlife like him couldn't have done this. I asked for it to be kept under wraps. I think you can understand why. A symbol of peace who saves the day with a smile can never be seen to fall to evil. I smile to stave off the pressure and fear I feel as it creeps up on me, threatens to become overwhelming. A professional hero must be willing to risk life and limb. It's not for the faint-hearted, or for those without the power to fight on the level of villains." He then looked up at Izuku. "And you've got the Spark. I've fought against plenty of Madboys in my time. Can a Spark truly be a hero?"
"Why not?"
"Kid, when you go into the Madness Place, things like morality tend to go bye-bye. It's not wrong to dream, but you need to be realistic. You can do great things in the world without having a Quirk…" A thought seemed to occur to All Might, before he checked his pockets. "Oh, no no no!" he snarled, before he looked around. The bottle with the slime man in it was rolling around some distance away, now empty. "He's gotten away!"
"I'm sorry!" Izuku wailed, gathering up his backpack.
"I'll need to find him!" There was an explosion in the distance. "That must be him!" All Might roared, despite his emaciated frame. He dashed off, and Izuku followed.
The slime man had wasted no time finding a new victim. And Izuku was astonished to find that it was Katsuki. A small crowd had gathered, held back by the other heroes. And the other heroes weren't doing anything, though it seemed that they lacked the powers to deal with him.
"That slime guy absorbs people, takes them over, and uses their powers," All Might muttered grimly from where they were at the back of the crowd. "Maybe a shockwave might blast him off."
"What about sound?" Izuku asked, taking off his backpack again.
"That could work. It'd have to be sustained sound, though. Why do you…what is that?" All Might demanded.
Izuku pulled out what looked like the incestuous mutant offspring of a sawn-off shotgun and a trumpet. "I'm going to save Katsuki."
"You know him? He's a friend?"
"No. He bullies me. But…nobody else can save him. If I don't do this…" And with that, Izuku dashed forward through the crowd, his refined sound gun prototype in his arms, ignoring All Might's admonishing yelp. All Might had reached his limit, so he claimed. That was why Izuku did this.
Plus, the sound gun tended to work best against crowds. Against a single target, the sound tended to spread unless he was up close. Dangerous, yes, but hey, it was his first Death Ray built as a Spark. Plus, it was at least able to be at non-lethal levels.
The slime man noticed his approach. "Deku?" Katsuki rasped from within the embrace of his puppeteer.
"You? You're dead, boy!" snarled the slime man.
"You're making a lot of noise," Izuku snapped. "Try this." He fired the sound gun. A pulse of sound waves spat out, and hit the slime man, causing his body to ripple and distort like a reflection on the water.
The slime man fell partially off Katsuki, before it tried to lunge at Izuku. But someone got in the way. "True heroes are those that are willing to put their lives on the line to help others," All Might said with a pained grin, once more in his muscular form. "Thanks for reminding me, kid. DETROIT SMASH!" With that roar, he smashed his fist into the ground, the shockwave blasting the slime man off Katsuki completely.
Izuku tumbled along the ground in the wake of the shockwave, Katsuki skidding to a halt nearby. And he looked over at his idol standing there, afterwards. And Izuku knew that, whatever happened after this day, he had made at least some difference.
It was some time afterwards. Izuku could tell that the heroes who had intended to fight the slime man were torn between berating Izuku for his recklessness, and praising him for having a weapon able to free Katsuki from the villain. Katsuki had no apparent qualms about the matter. He angrily berated Izuku for stooping to rescue him, before storming off.
And then, in a street nearby, All Might met up with him again. He shifted back to his emaciated form, coughing up a gout of blood, before wiping it from his lips. "Kid, I've come to thank you. You were reckless, but…you did good. In fact, if you didn't have the Spark, and did this anyway, I would have come to you with the same proposal." He looked pensive. "If you hadn't told me about what you wanted to be, how you looked up to me, being willing to charge into danger to save someone some people would leave behind…well, I'd be little more than fake muscles and insincerity."
"Thanks, but…if it weren't for me, the villain might not have gotten away, and…"
"Kid…it's fine. You worked to correct that mistake. You were afraid, I could see that, and that kid you saved was someone you said was a bully. And you helped him anyway. You acted as a spur for me, bringing me to action again. You had an inborn instinct to leap into the fray to help, even without a power. Kid…you can be a hero, even with…no, ESPECIALLY with the Spark. And what's more…I believe you're worthy of inheriting my true power…"
CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:
Well, that happened.
This version, while a lot is copied and pasted from the original version, does have significant differences. I needed to give All Might a reason to pass on One for All to Izuku, hence the drone fight distracting All Might and Izuku long enough for the slime villain to escape. I also think that Izuku having the Spark before the initial events of the story works out better.
The sonic gun, in terms of effect (rather than appearance), was inspired by the Ice Warrior's weapons from Doctor Who, particularly the classic series. For most of the classic series, they used a very simple, but very effective special effects technique to show the sound waves affecting their victims: using a flexible mirrored plastic called 'Mirrorlon', which they filmed a reflection of the action in, while pressing or tapping the Mirrorlon from behind.
The use of a sound gun to blast off the slime villain was also partially inspired by a standard technique for defeating Venom and other Symbiotes from the Marvel comics.
1. A famous line from Doctor Who, reportedly used multiple times by Jon Pertwee, but in fact, only used twice by him, though 'reverse the polarity' was used more often. It's also nonsense.
2. The SCI-Zone was used in my Borderlands fanfic Hooked on a Feeling, afflicting the OC who was the main character. His version of the Spark was far more Jekyll-and-Hyde, though.
3. In Girl Genius canon, Klaus Barry Heterodyne is, supposedly, Agatha Heterodyne's long-dead older brother, though what his actual fate is remains to be seen. Here, Klaus actually survived, with a clone decoy killed, but he was forced to flee to the world of My Hero Academia. He is also Izuku's ancestor through his mother. More on him later. We won't be seeing many Girl Genius characters, but we will be feeling the influence here…
4. This is a very oblique reference to a comedy film starring Peter Sellers, The Mouse that Roared. Which also starred a certain William Hartnell, aka the First Doctor from Doctor Who.
5. An electrolaser is actually a real life weapon, even if it's currently only in development, AFAIK. It uses a laser to ionise the air, before discharging a bolt of electricity down the laser-ionised air.
6. 'Kalaylee' is a command given to K9 by his creator Professor Marius in his debut story Doctor Who: The Invisible Enemy. It presumably is a code for an attack strategy of some kind.