Let's just jump into it. (Updated*)
"Oh, dear," mused a high pitched voice.
"OH DEAR!? A kid gets squashed by a giant metal monstrosity, on our watch I might add, and all you have to say is 'Oh dear?'" came an aggravated response from a scraggly man half-in, half-out of a large yellow sleeping bag.
"I'm afraid the pause button was out of reach of my *ahem* paws. From what I'd ascertained from his file I assumed he'd be sturdier than this, howev-"
The monitoring room shook suddenly and violently, knocking papers and a half-filled coffee pot onto the floor.
"Hmm, perhaps we've spoken too soon?"
A certain bespectacled male, holding a rather queasy female, were struck with amazement and horror at the apparent sacrifice of the creaky transforming boy.
The dead silence following the impact was shattered shortly after by brief human-sounding shout of pain, the clattering of shifting debris and jarring, shuddering CRACK.
The titanic machine's fist shunted abruptly to the side, displaced by an equally large, shifting mass of off-white bone.
The Zero-pointer managed to retain its balance in spite of the dramatic change to it's limb placement, only to have the majority of said limb crushed and torn by a newly constituted clawed appendage the size of a draught horse, made entirely of bone.
With a lustre of polished ceramic, rattling and clacking as each segment shifted and settled, exposed sinew stretching between each joint, an arm the length and breadth of large oak tree had sprung from the rubble and torn a great rent in the robot's forearm.
The cracking had been certainly been loud but the roar that erupted from beneath shook the squishy internals of all nearby and sent deep shivers through the spines of all who heard it (those who had spines that is).
Coincidentally, what emerged next from the pit was a snaking form of vertebral segments, the largest dwarfing a human torso, diminishing in size but spanning an extraordinary distance, terminating in a whip-like formation at one end, the other still below.
Three limbs, identical in bulk and reach to the first, rose from the crumbling concrete, attached at growths along the column that could charitably be referred to as an artist's rendition of a pelvis and rib-cage if the artist was using their non-dominant hand and had spent an afternoon inhaling benzene fumes.
The roaring continued, undeterred by such trivialities as an apparent lack of lungs as it the sound seemed to be coming from the bones themselves.
With a hefty show of force and a shower of dislodged asphalt an enormous reptilian skull emerged, which onlookers would later describe as a cross between a T-rex and an angler fish, only to be corrected by the head of an irate, greenette and dinosaur aficionado, saying it shared more similarities with an Allosaurus skull.
Regardless of the what extinct creature it resembled its teeth were very large, very prominent, and very much about to clamp down on the face of the oversized gimmick robot.
With a resounding, and somewhat satisfying, CRUNCH the 'head' of the robot was met with both sides of a very strong pair of jaws which, as jaws do, crushed the main processing unit of the behemoth, effectively disabling any further function.
As swiftly and abruptly as the fracas had begun, it ceased.
All movement from the colossal skeleton ceased and it's towering form hung in the air above its defeated foe, swayed briefly to one side and collapsed, falling to one side, each joint coming apart, hundreds of bones raining down in a calcified, clattering, cacophony.
The shadowed internals of the fallen creature's rib cage lit up with brilliant, sulphurous, deep-blue flames before dispersing and revealing the battered, blood-covered, near-naked body of Midoriya Izuku.
"PROTECT THE GRAIL!" Izuku exclaimed as he awoke.
"You mean the girl?" asked an aged voice.
"No. I mean yes? I mean … where am I?"
Izuku stopped and took in his surroundings.
He was sitting on a hospital cot … again, but the arrangement was different to what he was used to and there was a little old lady sitt-
"THE YOUTHFUL HERO, RECOVERY GIRL!?"
"You don't have to yell dear, I may not be as youthful as I once was but I can still hear you just fine."
"S-sorry. Uhm, what happened?"
"What do you last remember?"
"Uhh. There were a lot of robots, I was hunti- err disabling them. Then there was a packmate injury shout? Erm, a cry of pain from a girl. Uhm. Sorry. I'm scrambled. Adjusting back to this me."
"Take your time dear."
"The girl was hurt and there was a big threat to all pa- all the people in the area, but she was the closest to it so I got her out of there."
"And then?"
"Then I got squashed again."
"Again!?"
"Then I had to protect … protect. Protect some kind of key to below from … No that's not right. Uhm. OH! Yes. I was bigger than usual and had to prevent the threat from hurting anyone else. I stopped it and then I ran out of energy."
"..."
"Was anyone else hurt?"
"Hmm. No, no one else was foolhardy enough take on a foe they wouldn't typically be able to best."
"Oh thank goodness." Izuku sagged back onto the thin mattress, looking as exhausted as he felt.
Recovery girl stared at him with a pensive expression, seeming to be mulling over whether to press further about the red flags he'd raised but Izuku's face crinkling up with obvious pain pushed those matters to the side.
"You're understandably sore, Midoriya-kun. Your lower back and pelvic area displayed signs of crush injuries, despite your bones being completely intact. As such I was able to heal most of the tissue damage, somewhat more than I was expecting, but you'll still be leaving here on crutches. The medical brief from your file suggests you are not unfamiliar with such injuries and that this is not an abnormality for you?"
"Yes. My bones revert back to a baseline of the shape they were in before breaking but any non-skeletal injuries incurred are retained in a kind of stasis until the transformation ends."
"You were also showing symptoms of acute starvation in spite of your organs and musculature appearing to be in excellent health."
"I ran out of energy."
"Oh you meant that literally. But that would mean-"
"Yeah … it's one of the only ways to deactivate my quirk once it's in use and the only one that's reliably consistent."
"Good heavens ..."
"It's fine."
"I'd like to run some tests-"
"It's fine." he repeated. 'There's already some pending bloodwork in my file that keeps coming up inconclusive but you're welcome to try your own."
"Indeed. Well here at UA we have greater access to fringe technologies and experts so we'll see if we can't find a solution to this."
"Wait. Don't I have to be accepted first? What if I didn't pass?"
"No need to worry dear. I'm sure you did fine."
"But-"
"Have some gummies, you need to build your energy back up."
Izuku realised that he did feel more fatigued than normal and, as such, complied.
A week after leaving Recovery Girl's office, with strict orders to go easy on his groin muscles which left him a stammering mess, Izuku returned home from a day of muddling through schoolwork, avoiding Bakugou and helping a scarred, blonde stranger on the train retrieve a very tight hat.
Finishing off his homework and a light jog (which may have been several laps of the beach he had begun to tidy up) his mother burst into the room clutching a fairly thick envelope.
"IT'S HERE!" she proclaimed loudly even though she was within arms reach of him.
With his eyebrows disappearing into his fringe he gently took the letter with the same level of care one would a live grenade.
Ironically it fell from his hands briefly before he caught it again.
Retreating to the darkened sanctuary of his room, faint light emitted by the glow in the dark teeth of a limited edition All Might poster letting him find his desk chair in the gloom.
Deciding the answer wouldn't change regardless of how long he sat there contemplating it (though he had been for several minutes already) he unsealed it with a novelty, Edgeshot, kunai-shaped letter opener and tipped the contents onto his desk.
*Clunk*
'Clunk?'
A puck-like holo-projector began its prerecorded message.
"I AM HERE TO ANNOUNCE YOUR UA ENTRANCE EXAM RESULTS, IN STYLE!" announced a yellow-suited hologram of the number one hero.
'What is All Might doing in a message from UA'
"YOU MIGHT BE WONDERING WHAT I'M DOING IN A MESSAGE FROM UA!"
'...'
"I HAVE DECIDED TO PASS ON MY KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE AS A PRO-HERO TO THE NEXT GENERATION, AS OTHERS HAVE BEFORE ME!"
'Oh.'
"I H- what? Get on with it? Thirty eight!? I see. *AHEM* MIDORIYA IZUKU! YOUR RESULTS ARE AS FOLLOWS. Gee that name sounds familiar. IN THE WRITTEN EXAM YOU PERFORMED EXEMPLARILY WI- what do you mean that isn't a word? Whatever. YOU SCORED 4TH OVERALL. CONGRATULATIONS!"
By this point Izuku realised he'd been biting onto his index finger rather strongly and that his eyebrows were aching. Relaxing both he refocused his attention.
"NOW FOR THE PRACTICAL EXAM YOU SCORED 34 VILLAIN POINTS, A DECENT SHOWING BUT THAT ISN'T ALL! DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION THUSLY!"
The footage cut to Present Mic in a classroom with a small cluster of teens assembled in front of him.
"Excusing me please Mr. Microphone, I am polite requesting if green hair boy is okay." asked a horned blonde in fragmented Japanese.
"Me too," came the voice of the girl he'd saved. "He might've ruined my workout jacket but he saved my life."
Izuku's Standard Level of GuiltTM rose from it's usual 6 to an 8.
"His quick and efficient actions, though crude, did indeed save her!"
"The boy of boucles vertes rendered mois a great assistance."
"I hate to admit it but he saved my ass out there"
The footage cut back to All Might after the exhausted looking, purple-haired boy's confirmation.
"AS YOU CAN SEE, YOUNG MIDORIYA, YOUR SELFLESS ACTS THROUGHOUT THE EXAM HAD POSITIVE EFFECTS ON YOUR FELLOW EXAMINEES!"
Izuku's SLoGtm decreased to 4 and something approaching feelings of self esteem grew buds in a barren wasteland.
"AN ACADEMY TRAINING HEROES WOULDN'T ALLOW THIS TO GO UNRECOGNISED! THEREFORE ..."
An extra column appeared on the scoreboard labelled-
"RESCUE POINTS ARE AWARDED!"
Searching the list for his name from the bottom up Izuku's jaw hit the desk when he reached the top spot in red.
[1] [Izuku Midoriya] [Villain Points 34] [Rescue Points 45]
The shocked elation abruptly turned to horror as he looked at the next entry in orange.
[2] [Bakugou Katsuki] [Villain Points 77] [Rescue Points 0]
He'd scored higher than Bakugou …
He was dead meat.
A bit shorter this time because writing is still not my forte.
No this is not a crossover with the Fate series, there are grails, goblets and other fancy drinkware in other media.
The bigass skelly-bones creature might be a huge clue for anyone searching for some connection between Izuku's forms.
Can't keep many more secrets after next chapter. After all, you can't escape the grasp of RATIONALITY … or logic depending on your translation.
SentinalSlice – Indubitably and well reasoned. Funnily enough there might be a special form in the brainstorm for that particular metatarsal phalanx.
Fredgie – Your name conjures many entertaining mental images and is fun to say. My apologies for the brevity of these chapters, something in me is just really averse to putting together large amounts of words that aren't shaggy dog stories or speculation of how fictional mumbo jumbo could be rationalised and where all the pros and cons lie.
Have about six or seven, multipage phone notes about quirk ideas to explore for Izuku that integrate folklore, biology, name puns/spellings/symbols, required secondary attributes and how they affect daily life.
Might post a few of those and see if they can become more.
*Y'all are excellent and noticed the score discrepancy. Would love to claim it as a late april fools joke but it's just author incompetence. The villain points were decided by RNG and an attempt to make interesting number combinations. Originally he was only going to have 18 villain points (his seat number) and the original 60 rescue points but that seemed iffy. Then it was going to be 42 and 35 (7s) but that would make a tie. Asked google RNG for a number between 18 and 42, got 34, forgot to change the rescues. While we're here might edit a booboo in chapter 5.
Hope to see you all next chapter.
