My Iron Giant
-Stand Proud-
"This is preposterous!" The lab coat around the short plump man's frame flapped as he rushed to another tank of fluids. "It was already a tight schedule to make adjustments to the first one, but you want me to make one from scratch in only a few days?! It's impossible!"
Kurogiri watched as that bushy mustache flapped with excuses, but the good doctor has been too casual with his projects. "I'm not asking for another Diablo, I just want it to have the basics done to it. No enlargement."
"Really?" The creator of the nomu's glanced over to the body of the bum, floating in carefully dissected pieces within one of the vats. "Still, it will be a rushed job. Even with focusing on enhancing his original quirk, I can't guarantee long term stability."
"Then don't." Kurogiri created a new portal, moving through it to check on his next goal. "It only takes one act to start an avalanche."
The good doctor watched him leave, huffing to himself over the attitude Kurogiri had developed. He was just supposed to be a servant, used for transport, one of his earliest works. While others had their minds destroyed by the process, Kurogiri was starting to show too much cognitive prowess.
Perhaps he should consult All for One about resetting him before he starts regaining previous memories.
"This is going to be amazing!" A trio of costumed individuals stood alongside the shore, Mt Lady standing in the center as she bounced from one foot to the other. "We're going to be the BIGGEST team ever with just us four!"
"Hm." Yui Kodai nodded along, nothing else to say as she adjusted the red brim of her visor.
"Isn't that girl with him too?" The taller boy next to Mt Lady questioned in a german accent, wearing a small tan jacket with a metallic contraption around his waist.
"Supposedly she's got a night owl schedule, so she's going to be sleeping during the day." The heroine explained, in her own lack of understanding and effort to do so.
A hole opened up in the sky above, something shimmering in the early sunrise.
"That must be them!" Mt Lady pointed up at the sight, then scowled at the young man. "Be nice ok Eren? I don't need a reason to be blacklisted from working with the future number one hero just because my cousin decided to bring up all sorts of weird ideas-"
"Hey!" Eren yelled up at the woman. "I'm not the weird one compared to you! Maybe I should tell him that you like to use your quirk and-"
"AHH!" Strangling the teenager, Mt Lady hoped to silence him before their guest arrived.
*FWOOOM*
The rockets on Izuku's feet roared as the boy was coming to a halt. Splashing into the shallow part of the ocean, the waves created managed to reach the feet of the awaiting heroes.
"Hello, thank you for having me. Oh, I didn't realize you would be here Kodai."
The girl gave a small wave towards the mech, acknowledging his presence briefly.
"Midoriya! It's great to finally meet you!" Mt Lady grew to be nearly seventy feet tall, her horns just coming up to his shoulders. "It's a shame we only have today to have you with us, but we plan on making every minute count!"
"Like the rest of our internship?" Eren voiced from below.
"Hush you." Mt Lady pouted at the boy, before joyously talking face to 'face' with Izuku. "So, is your friend joining us?"
"Ochaco? She's sleeping in my head."
"...huh?" Trying to take a peek through his eye proved useless to the woman. "Are you sound proof or something?"
"Yeah, and I can move around just fine. I have my own gravity inside so she won't be knocked around."
"Well alrighty then!" With her enthusiasm filled to the brim, Mt Lady looked ahead towards the beach. "I was planning on some practice in the junkyard here, but the place is all cleaned up now. So instead we're gonna drive over to another spot I found online."
"Sorry."
"Hm? For what?"
"I cleaned this beach earlier this year, I had no idea people were still using it."
The woman reflected on her memory, it wasn't often someone had a gigantification quirk so she kept tabs on those in case they threatened her spot in the rankings. It was clear Midoriya surpassed her in size and function, so the only hope there was being able to team up with him and maybe convince him to be her sidekick instead of just making his own way.
There were hardly any moments Midoriya left UA, so when he did there were always cameras. Yet there was nothing about him cleaning this beach, so that must mean it was before UA.
Before he knew he had a quirk.
"Wow, talk about a boy scout." She whispered to herself. "It's fine, it was a good thing to do anyway. Why don't you turn into a car and we can hop in and head over to our first spot. Kay?"
"Um, I'm still working on getting my license."
"But it's your quirk, yeah?"
"Principal Nezu said even if I can skip the age requirements and get permission to use my quirk, an inexperienced driver could still jam up traffic."
"Ah fine." Mt Lady kicked some of the sand, hoping to ride in a luxury car that they haven't made in centuries.
"PLeh!" Eren recoiled, who was standing right in Mt Lady's path. "Hey! Watch where you're kicking you big-"
He shut up, seeing Mt Lady rearing her foot back again and glaring at him from above. As if nothing happened, she turned back to Midoriya. "Ok, well it will be good practice walking over there. You'll have to learn how to run with traffic anyways. Same goes for you two! Size up!"
Kodai nodded, tapping herself with her hand and growing to be fifty feet tall. Eren, to Izuku's horror, bit deeply into his hand.
"Ah! Are you ok?!"
*BOOM*
The result was a crack of thunder splitting the air, Eren's body being covered in muscle and bone until a new humanoid stood just a fraction shorter than Kodai. His pointed ears stood out from his hair, his gleaming eyes peering through the dark bangs, and his lipless jaw stretched longer than the normal mouth.
What stood out most to Izuku though, was how he was naked.
He immediately looked away, Eren's new form huffing in annoyance over it.
"It's alright" Mt Lady assured Izuku. "He doesn't have privates on this new form, or a real digestive track."
Trusting the heroine's words, Izuku glanced over and let his scanners run over the boy. His real body was in the nape of the neck, tissue holding him in place and connecting him to the larger body. He had a throat, and a stomach, but it stopped there.
"Woah, can you eat in this form?"
Eren did a so so motion with his hand, glancing over to Mt Lady to expound for him.
"Sort of, he can partially digest things but he just throws it up in the end."
"Where does the mass come from?"
"It's a mystery for all of us." Kodai spoke, a rare occurrence.
Izuku found that true, his machine parts come from nowhere, and Mt Lady gains mass proportional to her size. A quick scan on Kodai showed it was the same for her.
Quirks made no sense, that's why he found them so fascinating to study.
"How about you shrink a little." Mt Lady suggested. "We know you can get bigger, but when we start sparring it will be good to get a handle for opponents your own size. It won't happen often, but I don't need to tell you how dangerous it is for two giant quirk users to duke it out."
She was absolutely right, Izuku glanced to his hand, recalling the threats he had to face so far. Each time, it was an uncontrolled fight, he didn't know what he was doing, all he thought about was defeating his opponent.
Others paid the price, and it was his fault.
Mt Lady tapped his arm, sheepishly bringing him out of his self absorption.
"Also, if you wouldn't mind, could you use a new form I picked out? You can keep your colors but after watching this old show I've been dying to see it in person."
"Sure, what is it?"
"Patlabor, mobile police. Do you know it?"
Kodai's eyes lit up in recognition, eagerly awaiting to see it in person.
"A little, do you mean the main one?"
"Yes! I was so excited learning about how we had a one to one scale model of it years ago until it was wrecked in the early quirk rising. Ugh, it pisses me off how people just ruin cool things."
"I can do that."
[Command Recognized and Confirmed]
[Searching for optimal designs….Design found]
[Upgrading..]
Shifting his body to meet the heroine's height eye to eye, Izuku looked remarkably similar to the show counterpart. The only real difference was his two glowing eyes could still be made out in the visor, and there were mint green trims running along the white metal panels.
"Yess!" Mt Lady couldn't resist bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Come on! There's bound to be some paparazzi nearby to take good photos of us! Just look at us! A team of giant badasses ready to take on villains!"
Izuku followed the woman, identifying a few of her 'loyal' fans already snapping photos from a distance. Allowing himself to be dragged along, Izuku was…almost relieved to feel normal with them. He was starting to really look forward to this day.
Hopefully taking a few photos won't take up too much time.
Ochaco held the phone to her ear while fitting her feet into her boots. She stopped caring about changing in front of Izuku in the headspace, after all, she was aware that he had seen everything before….everything….
"Are you still there?" Momo's voice came from her phone.
"Y-yes!" Ochaco refocused on the call. "So, you guys are arriving by plane in an hour?"
"Yes, Commander is healed up now after a night with I-island's best healing quirk doctors. But, she may still be upset about your bionic upgrades."
"Forgive me for asking but, isn't she always…"
"A bitch?"
"Um, yeah." Ochaco was a little taken back by the language, but it was accurate.
"Snipe is much kinder than what Ms. Tsutsumi describes."
"Huh?"
"Believe it or not, Ms. Tsutsumi isn't actually that cruel normally."
"I don't believe it."
"First impressions are truly powerful. I'm probably going to be in trouble for this, but don't you remember her purpose for having you two with her?"
"To make sure we're 'compliant' with the government?" No matter how stupid they were.
"That's part of it, but more importantly that you do have control of yourselves."
"Izuku is fine." Ochaco argued on behalf of the boy standing right behind her. "He may still have some parts of his quirk that make him obey me, but he doesn't go on rampages! Those villains would have killed him and so many more people if he didn't-"
"It's you as well."
Pulling her phone away from her face, Ochaco stared at it like it just tried to convince her that quirks came from aliens.
"Excuse me?"
"Never tell anyone I said this, but between you and Midoriya….You're seen as a larger threat. Midoriya is predictable, they know his priorities and his goals. You are not as much, and with how Midoriya follows your orders you could say the word and Japan would be plunged into war."
That didn't make sense to her. She may have a gun, but it's hardly comparable to someone who can swat away tanks like they were flies….could he? Probably, unless tanks had been upgraded a lot since the last time a war happened.
But to see her as a larger threat because she's unpredictable? It would only make sense if she was bullet proof, or could use lasers to zap a city to dust.
"How does that explain why she's so mean to me?"
"She's making sure you are in control of yourself, pushing you to your limits physically and mentally. If you can remain calm and collected with everything she throws at you, you'll pass."
"What if I don't pass her test?"
"Then…I'm truly sorry."
For what?
"Anyways, we're just going to be doing a few drills to test your basics. Reaction time, strength, speed, and your basic techniques on using your quirk and bionics."
"I don't even know what my bionics are capable of."
"Then we'll find out. While it may be taxing, it's not going to be as stressful as our last test. See you soon."
*click*
Tossing her phone towards the bean bag, she was hoping it would break so that she had an excuse to buy a smart phone. Nope, it landed right in the center.
Curse her good aim.
"I assume you heard everything?" Ochaco casually asked as she slipped her arms into the sleeves of her hero outfit.
Izuku, standing in the center of the headspace shook his head. "I thought something private could be brought up, so I tuned it out."
"You're so thoughtful." She smirked at him, grabbing her helmet from the floor. "But nothing is private between us, next time we synch up we'll be caught up with each other."
"I guess." He shrugged. "Though, if you wanted to keep any memories private, I think I finished a version of that neural interface from our friends. It would allow us to drift and share thoughts, but not deep enough to dump our memories on one another."
"Sounds boring, besides, it's not like there's any secrets left to hide. It's great being so open with someone, I would hate to start now."
"Yeah, it does feel…good knowing that you are aware of everything about me, and still want to be my friend."
Ochaco gave a bright toothy smile to the boy, her happiness washing away all the dreaded thoughts about the military representative situation. Acting on a quick impulse, she skipped over to Izuku and squeezed him in her arms. "I really do love you."
"Yeah…huh?"
"Hm?" Ochaco felt Izuku lock in her arms, the boy absolutely frozen. What happened? His cables seemed fine, there were no flashing lights of any kind. So what made him act like this? "You ok? You look red, like really red."
"I-I-I-I-I'm fine!" He snapped to attention, realizing that she was just being casual about it. They were really close friends! Friends love each other, like he loves his Mom! It's a nice kind of love, not a LOVE love kind of love that people love each other over.
"So, what about your day?" Ochaco questioned as she tapped herself to become weightless, starting some stretches and warmups while she bobbed in the air. "You were with Mt Lady right?"
"Ah, yes! It was really fun! I was with Kodai and her cousin from germany Yeager! We started with a run through the city avoiding cars, which was really scary but it was great practice! Then we went to a dump to practice not crushing stuff while learning some hand to hand combat. I never really got to practice with anyone my size, and it was really cool how Kodai used her quirk to shrink herself to get around and then become big to try and throw me down. Yeager had a really aggressive fighting style, and harden parts of his gigantic form. When I had him pinned once, he left his titan body and used these cool ziplines like yours to hit my weak points with these twin swords. He was angry when they broke, but I promised to help make him new ones that could-"
As he went on, Ochaco happily listened to him, watching all the nervousness, the anxiety, and all the worries of the world wash away as he geeked out over his first real hero experience.
No brutal fights.
No real villains.
No death.
They could just stay in there all day, focusing on one another and tuning out the rest of the world. Nothing could ruin this for them.
Oh? What's this? I have time in my schedule? Well then, maybe I can punch out a few more chapters of this and that and get some stories done!
I hope
This chapter is a little shorter than I normally do, but that's mostly because in the next one I'm going to put a bunch of stuff in.
If there are any perspectives you want to see from other characters and how they're living their life, let me know.
Now with a tv tropes thanks to Arakiisjogenius
Spotify Playlist I listen to while writing this: Cyberfunk by BLACKOUT
Any questions, comments, or jokes are welcomed. As long as they're funny.
Harleking31: Yep, but then again she did just have her arms pretty much broken so some pent up rage could be released.