Aizawa Shouta just wanted to take a nap. It was two in the morning, he had to be up early to meet up with Hizashi, and he was only halfway through his shift. Pulling one of the granola bars from his belt pouch, he eats it as he watches the streets below. If tonight continued to be this slow, he might call it early and get five hours of sleep.
Static. "Eraserhead."
He sighs. He had spoken too soon. Tossing the wrapper in an open dumpster below him, he taps on his comms. "What?"
"We've got a noise complaint in the warehouse district. Some fight and illegal quirk usage. We're sending some officers to check it out, but they might need your help." The officer replies.
"On my way." The man stands up and stretches before taking off. He was close enough to get there by rooftops and not have to call a ride. He got there just as the first police car pulled into the lot. As Tsukauchi and Sansa stepped out of their car, he nodded.
"Eraserhead, thank you for coming as a backup." Sansa sighs. "Hopefully, it's just some kids fooling around and nothing too serious."
"Let's not jinx ourselves," Tsukauchi mutters, turning on his flashlight and handing the spare to Aizawa. As another cruiser pulls, they walk through the open gates, and the other officers climb out of their car, heading in the opposite direction. After the third warehouse comes up empty, the radio comes on.
"Hey, was it supposed to storm tonight?" The radio crackles.
The three men look at one another. Tsukauchi answers, "No, it's not."
"Then you all might want to head over to warehouse 12. It might be the reason someone called us out here. We're heading that way now."
"Copy. On our way." Tsukauchi leads the others out of the warehouse they were searching and down the path to the other officers.
The radio crackles to life again. "You guys need to get over here now! We're calling for backup and any Heroes in the area."
The three men take off running. Aizawa pulls ahead of the others, tapping his comms twice to call in backup for any other Heroes that might be patrolling. Rounding the corner, he skids to a stop next to the other officers and stares. The sky was clear until he turned the corner into a lightning storm. Black clouds swirled around a black portal a few feet above the edge of the warehouse roof, white lightning coming off it in waves and hitting any metal surface available. The men stay back to avoid getting hit. The slight breeze did nothing to quell the noise from the portal; the sounds of battle seemed to echo around them where there once was silence.
"What the hell is that?" Sansa gasps.
"No idea." The other officer says. "We've already gotten confirmation that backup is on its way, but we haven't seen or heard anyone that might be responsible for this."
"Sansa." Tsukauchi turns to the man whose quirk gave him a cat head. "Take them with you and go check out the surrounding warehouses. We need to make sure no one is around that could cause this. Eraserhead, can you do anything about this?"
Aizawa uses his quirk and looks at both the portal and the storm. The clouds almost seem to freeze, and the portal shrinks, just as the lightning and portal flares green and someone falls through it. They catch themselves on the roof, and Aizawa swears as he takes off towards the building. He slams through the door and takes off for the stairs, taking them two at a time. One officer updates their backup on what's happening. He tunes them out, focusing on getting to the roof before the person falls.
...
"Ground Zero! Red Riot needs backup where the building went down two blocks over! The Nomu isn't going down, and it's hindering the evacuation. The others are heading your way to provide support for Iridescent, but we have to get these people out of here!"
The call that came over their comms is one that Midoriya Izuku will later brand in his mind as the last time he sees his childhood friend, his brother. Bakugou grunts in reply, his red eyes locked on Izuku's green visor.
Midoriya grins at the blond. "I got this GZ. Your better half needs you."
"Huh?! What's that supposed to mean, shitty nerd?" The other growls.
"Ei is the better half of your relationship." Midoriya raises an eyebrow. "Or am I wrong?"
"Nah, he's fucking great." Bakugou grins. He looks at the Nomu, shaking off the building they had just dropped on it, and he frowns again. "You got this extra, right?"
"I got him." The green-haired man goes to stand, and the blond grabs him by the arm. Pressing their foreheads together, he forces the other man to look at him.
"Save to win, yeah? Japan needs their Symbol of Hope."
"Win to save, Ground Zero. They need their Symbol of Victory to get them through this too." The two men squeezed the other's arm and split up.
Midoriya grabs his manriki chain and turns to face the Nomu while Bakugou flies off to help his boyfriend. He runs at the Nomu and jumps on its back. It screeches and reaches back to grab him. He wraps the chain around its wrist and pulls down, using his legs to hold the Nomu in a chokehold. Wrenching the arm back, he hears the shoulder pop, and it screams as it backs into a wall, trying to slam Midoriya into it. He untangles the chain from the Nomu and drops under it just as it hits the wall. He rolls away from it, coming to his feet and diving away again as it slams its other arm where he was. One arm was still limp.
"You don't have regeneration, do you?" Midoriya grins. He charges at the Nomu again and skids to a stop when a purple portal opens under it, and it vanishes. Midoriya curses and runs to hide, tapping the comms.
"Kurogiri sighted! The League is here!" The comms explode into noise, and he lowers the volume to focus. They said he was getting back up. Someone touches his shoulder three times in rapid succession, and he turns, weapons in hand, to see Eri. Her eyes were wide, but she tried to grin at him.
"What's the plan, boss?" Kouta kneels next to her, already weaving water whips around his arms.
Midoriya smiles at the two Hero interns. "What's the first rule of Heroics?"
"Prioritize the rescue." They repeat.
Kouta scowls. "We already know there ain't anyone else over here. No one alive anyway."
"Hydrant and I will put out the fires and see if we can clear some of the rubble out of the way so the others can get through," Eri says.
"Thank you, Erinisce." Eri grabs Kouta and drags him away, both keeping low to avoid detection. He looks over the wall he was hiding behind and flinches. The Nomu stood next to Kurogiri and turned towards the two retreating children. Midoriya checks his weapons and leaps at them as something white shoots down the roof and yanks Kurogiri away.
There was only one active Hero with the binding cloth.
"Can't let you have all the fun, Iridescent!" A deep voice calls, "You'll make us Heroes look bad!"
Hitoshi. Midoriya smiles and tackles the Nomu through the wall into the still-standing building. He fights the Nomu, trusting the Underground Hero to deal with Kurogiri. He notices more Heroes showing up, taking care of other villains showing up to take advantage of the fighting.
"Iridescent! Get down!" He drops and rolls as a bullet hits the Nomu where his head had been. He sees the villain with a gun and comes to a stop, getting back to his feet. The man takes another shot at him, and white lightning hits the bullet, rewinding it into nonexistence. Kouta wraps the man in a water bubble from the neck down and holds him, Eri watching his back while watching everyone else too.
Todoroki Shouto slides in, freezes the Nomu where it was, and then freezes the water sphere with the villain inside. The other Heroes cuff the villains and drag them outside. Midoriya gets up and walks over to the others as the last villains go down.
"Did Mindjack get Kurogiri?" He asks Todoroki.
"Mindjack?" Todoroki looked surprised. "Were they outside?"
"You didn't see him?" Midoriya whispers. He turns and runs outside. Hitoshi.
Todoroki, Kouta, and Eri follow on his heel. There were more police and Heroes cuffing villains and escorting civilians to the buses that would get them to the next sanctuary. Some cops look nasty at Midoriya, an old prejudice against the vigilante circles. Still, they ignore him and continue what they're doing. There weren't enough Pro Heroes for the police to deal with the unlicensed ones, and they needed all the help they could get with the Nomus.
Midoriya turns in circles, trying to find the Underground Hero and Kurogiri. Hearing a screech, everyone looks up. A flying Nomu circled the streets on the other side of the buildings, and Midoriya took off in that direction. Flying Nomus meant one of the Task Force or Shigaraki. Kouta and Todoroki run on either side of him, with Eri behind them. They slow down once they get to the alley and see more Nomus. Midoriya ignores them until one tries to grab him, then he kicks it through the building to his left and leaves the others to fight it once it pulls itself from the rubble.
He sees Hitoshi before he sees the others and skids to a stop. Dabi stood there with one hand wrapped around the Hero's throat and the other covering his mouth while he talked to Kurogiri, smoke coming from the lower hand. Hitoshi's head was bleeding, and his eyes were unfocused. A concussion. Head injuries were always dangerous since his quirk was a mental one; he always reacted badly to them. The two villains turn to Midoriya as he enters their space, and Dabi smiles.
"Well, well. If it isn't one of our little Symbol Duo." The villain sneers. "Did you finally realize something was missing?"
"Give him back." Midoriya steps closer, and Kurogiri makes a portal, ready to escape with their captive. Midoriya would not let them leave with Hitoshi. He knew what would happen; he had seen it. He'd fought the Nomus of friends, Pros and Vigilantes alike, that had been taken by the League and had come out differently. He fought those Nomu and killed them before, and he had seen those left behind grieve for their family, friends, teachers, and idols. He would not let the League take Hitoshi. Not him.
Hitoshi was fighting the head injury. When Dabi started dragging him towards the portal, he reached up and grabbed the hand around his mouth. A twist of his wrist and a shout had him on the ground, rolling away from the villain with two broken fingers. Dabi yells for Kurogiri to grab one of them, clutching at his hand.
Eri runs to Hitoshi, checking him over and wrapping his head. Midoriya knows Kurogiri has a body hidden by the mist and decides using both long and short-range weapons would be best. He dodges the smaller portals and goes after Kurogiri. Hoping Todoroki and Kouta will take out the Nomu and come to help, he tries to keep the villains' attention on him, not the other two. Engrossed with fighting one League member, he forgot about the other until Eri screams and white lightning bounces off the fire escapes and dumpsters around them.
"Eri!" Midoriya roars, seeing Dabi grab her with a hand covered in blue flames and throw her into the building. Her horn was growing larger, eight rings long and still growing. If the lightning hit anyone, they didn't know what would happen.
"Eri!"
"Fuck!"
Dabi stumbles forward, blood dripping down his chin. He clutches at the serrated dagger in his chest. Hitoshi's dagger that he used for cutting his capture weapon. The dark-haired villain met the other man's eyes as Hitoshi snarled at him, "Don't touch her."
He drops the dying villain and goes to the younger girl slumped against the wall. She was alive but unconscious, and the lightning from her horn was growing brighter. He pulls the emergency suppressant shot from one of her pouches and shoots it in her arm. He turns back to watch the Vigilante fight. Kurogiri had pulled some extra people out of nowhere via his portal, most of them on the ground.
The Vigilante was still dealing with the last man when one of Eri's lightning strikes hit Kurogiri's metal neck plating. He screams and tries to make a portal, ready to run, and another lightning bolt hits him. A second one hits the portal, darkening the mist into a purple so dark it was almost black with lightning flashing inside it ominously. The purple mist flashed again as the villain screamed, the wind picking up and throwing papers and garbage everywhere. Kurogiri was kneeling on the ground, screaming and clawing at his face and neck as the mist thickened and lightened until it was navy.
Midoriya made the fatal mistake of looking at the mouth of the alley where Todoroki and Kouta were charging in, slightly battered and covered in the black blood of the Nomu. Kouta sent a water sphere to encase Kurogiri while Todoroki iced down villains to keep them from getting back up. The thug Midoriya has been fighting got his lucky shot in while it distracted him and punched him in the nose, closely followed by an uppercut. The Vigilante hit the ground.
"Iridescent!" The scream of his name seemed muffled as the man picked him up by his throat. He saw the man's gaze flicker behind them towards the portal and could guess his next move. He locks eyes with Todoroki.
"Don't let them follow!" He couldn't hear his voice, but from how the Heroes' eyes widened, he guessed Todoroki had received the message.
"Izuku-nii!" He looks at Kouta's fearful eyes, Hitoshi's fierce lilac eyes, and Eri's teary red ones.
"I love you!" He tries to smile. Then he flew to the sound of four terrified screams of his name.
The portal burned when he passed through it. It burned more than Midoriya remembered Katsuki's quirk did in middle school. More than any explosion from helping Mei with support items. More than any fight he had been in since starting as a vigilante. It seemed to sap the energy from his body. His muscles ached, his bones ground together, and his joints popped.
He fell through the portal, looking at the clear midday sky, and came out into a stormy night. It was an abrupt drop to hitting the roof and knocking the breath out of himself. He held on with the bit of strength he had left and looked up. Seeing daylight on the other side was trippy, especially when the angles were different. He was staring up, watching the thug walking towards him, walking down while laughing. Then he notices the portal on this side shrinking, and his heart drops. He did not know where he was and did not want to get stuck on this side.
Trying to drag himself up was a struggle. Iridescent noticed the villain leaning down, bent at his waist while looking at him with a confused and curious expression. The man makes the mistake of putting his upper body through the portal, and the shift in gravity pulls him through it. He screams and grabs Iridescent's foot, dragging him down again. He clutches the roof's edge with his fingers and kicks at the other man, trying to get him off.
The villain pulls out a knife, stabbing it into the bricks of the warehouse and using it as another hand-hold. He uses his quirk to lower himself, his arms stretching out halfway down the wall. He grabs onto the fire escape with one hand just before Midoriya loses his grip.
He screams as he falls several stories. He feels something wrap around his waist and comes to a quick but gradual stop. Gripping the cloth, he gaps at the man on the fire escape. The floating hair, yellow goggles, and grey binding cloth point to Eraserhead. This man had to be the Underground Hero that trained Hitoshi, but it couldn't be him. This man had long black hair, not the short greying undercut of his former teacher. He had him in his capture cloth and pulled him up towards him.
"Eraserhead!" Iridescent calls up to the man. The other man grunts and keeps pulling him up. "That man is a villain!"
The man had reached the ground and tried to push past the cops. There were ten of them on the ground now, surrounding the man. The man scowls but kneels to allow the cops to cuff him. He looks up at the two men on the side of the building. "Bullshit! We killed Eraserhead years ago! Our Master made him into a masterpiece, a Supreme Nomu!"
Eraserhead pulls Iridescent up over the railing, both of them panting. The younger man leans over, looking up at the sky.
"No." He croaks; that sick feeling in his chest intensifies. The portal was gone. The sky was full of black clouds, but there was no lightning. No black vortex looking into the alley where he had left his family. "No!"
Eraserhead let his hand hover over the other's shoulder, unsure if comfort was what he should be offering. The cops and villain looked up at the shout, then followed their eyes to the sky that was clearing up.
"Are you shitting me?" The villain laughs. "We're stuck here now! Hear that Iridescent?! We're stuck here! Hahaha!"
Midoriya jumps to the ground and rolls, striding towards the bound criminal. He pulls him up to growl in his face. "What did he do? Where are we?"
"When are we is more like it." The man whispers. Louder, he laughs again. "The Master is still strong here. We will kill Pros again and send this country into mayhem once more! And this time, you're all alone! Hahaha!"
The man kept laughing. He grins at the Vigilante, and Midoriya hears one of his teeth crack. He drops him, backing away as the criminal's body shifts. His skin fades to a pasty white, doubles in size, and his skull visibly pulsates and splits.
His laughter had shifted into screaming, the same thing repeatedly. "All alone, little Hero! Iridescent is all alone here! All alone!"
Midoriya pulls the officer back when he gets too close and grabs his knife. Stepping forward, he plunges it into the Nomu's exposed brain, and the warehouse lot is silent. Midoriya stares at the sky, ignoring the Nomu as it falls and disintegrates.
He ignores the police officers that circle him, watching him warily.
He ignores Eraserhead as the man gets close enough to grab him.
He simply stares at the empty sky and trembles.
"It's gone."
A pause. Not even the dying wind seemed to breathe.
"My only way home… it's gone."
Eraserhead takes a step forward.
Midoriya screams.
The pain and loss in that hysterical scream chilled everyone to a halt. It was the sound of a man who had just lost everything. The agony was even more vocal in the second scream, as were the tears. Aizawa didn't need to see his face to know he was crying.
No one saw him reach into his pouch and produce a gas bomb until it filled the area with smoke. The men back away, coughing. Aizawa kept his eyes on the figure that seemed to glow green in the black smoke and remembered what the criminal had called him.
Iridescent; it fits. The man wore a military vest, padded cargo pants, a tactical belt with full pouches, combat boots, and a gas mask covering the bottom of his face and neck. All of it was a matching dark navy grey that would blend into the night if not for the deep green detailing in the more reinforced areas, the bright green visor attached to the mask, the green hair, and the red boot laces. The dark outfit in the black smoke with only small pops of color made him look iridescent.
Once the smoke cleared, the man was gone. All that was left was the ash of the criminal. Watching him as he had disappeared into the smoke, still staring longingly at the sky, Aizawa couldn't help but think he looked small and lonely.
"Eraser." Tsukauchi looked troubled. "Everything they said… it was registering as true. Including your death."
Aizawa sighed. He wanted a nap.