Hello, and let me proudly welcome you all to what is without a doubt going to be my most ambitious undertaking as a fanfiction writer to date. For the last several years I have heard so much buzz about My Hero Academia, and after a while I finally ended up getting the inspiration to finally pick it up and reading it after having learned so much about the world, the characters and everything else, and I found myself falling in love with it through osmosis. I love anime, I love superheroes, and I found myself falling in love with characters I hadn't even officially started reading yet. Well, that has changed, and I ended up feeling a spark of inspiration like I had not felt in a good number of years.
So essentially, what I am aiming to do is to tell my own original story, while tying it into the canon events of the original manga as well. This is not a process I have done before, and I know it is going to prove very challenging and require a lot of work on my part, but I want to make this the best kind of story it can be, where I can respect and honor the canon events and all the canon characters and what happens to them as best I can (until I reach the point where I can insert some original story arcs of my own, in which case canon characters we didn't get to see for certain parts will be able to participate).
So to start off here is a prologue I put together with what information I gained from the background of the manga, in order to establish some of the sociopolitical context this story is going to be coming from. I hope you all enjoy what I come up with, because this is one of the biggest passion projects I've been working on to this day.
Prologue
Пролог
In the 2030's, an event, the likes of which had never been witnessed before by man, occurred in the city of Qing Qing, China. A child had been born bearing an inexplicable glow that seemed to radiate from within its body. Modern science could not find an explanation for this unnatural phenomenon, and spiritual experts were quick to credit this as a miracle of God's creation.
However, shortly after this incredible event, more children began being born across the globe, all bearing likewise unnatural properties both in appearance and in ability. These changes manifested in the children at no later than the age of four years old. Regardless, the increasing regularity of these births sparked numerous reactions, primarily those of confusion, and fear. Many were quick to blame the follies of science for these strange 'mutations', while others believed it was the course of natural evolution in full swing.
As these children grew, the governments of the world tried to find ways to help them manifest and control their abilities, which came to be known as 'Quirks'. However, while some nations genuinely wished to extend a helping hand to these isolated and confused youths; others were quick to exploit them, either as tools of nationalist propaganda, or as labeled super-soldiers to help aid them in fortifying their nation's strength, and in conquest of their neighbors.
It was not long until disorder swept across the world, and mankind found itself threatened by the flames of a war unlike any other.
Out of fear that these warring nations and their Quirk-possessing soldiers would eventually turn their eyes upon them, the nations that comprised the former Soviet Bloc unanimously came to an agreement that unity and an undisputed central leadership would be the one thing to save them from annihilation; and so, in the early years of the 2050's, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was resurrected from the ashes of economic stagnation, and stood unified against all outside threats.
When the USSR began to birth and train Quirk-users of their own, much of the world feared that the once-thought dead threat of mutually assured destruction would indeed come to pass, but by Quirk-endowed hands, rather than any nuclear arsenal.
However, by some miraculous turn of events, humanity's better nature ultimately came through. After years of fighting and civil unrest, the world seemed to come to a pause, and it was realized that if the nations of the world did not learn from the past and use the gifts they had been given wisely, then humanity would not survive.
In a wave of social advancement, the nations of the world began to better utilize their infrastructures in order to provide organizations and institutions dedicated to helping better understand, train, and integrate their citizens with Quirks. By the dawn of the 2100's, these individuals that had made the decision to dedicate using their Quirks for the greater good were officially recognized and designated as 'Heroes'. However, human nature can be just as fickle as it can be benevolent, and those that sought to use their Quirks for selfish or destructive purposes came to be labeled as 'Villains'.
Soon, every nation had their own Hero educational systems and organizations dedicated to ranking their respective Heroes on ability, success and popularity, in order to assign them to respective locations, all with the aim that no place be left unprotected if Villains were to strike. Among the nations of the world, the three that had the most prestigious and successful of these institutions were Japan, the United States of America, and the USSR.
After the global wars had ceased, many people still felt afraid that with the reintroduction of a once-dead superpower, the USA and the USSR would ignite old hostilities, and the Cold War would start anew. However, the Heroes of each respective nation agreed they did not wish for petty conflict that had the potential to destroy the world and kill the people they wished to protect. Thus, the threat of nuclear war was rendered moot, and for the first time in memory, America and Russia kept to themselves.
Without the need for constant war, and with the benefit of Heroes to help inspire the people all across their land, the Soviet Union proceeded to thrive like it never had before in its previous life. While its Villains were numerous, their Heroes were even more so, and they inspired hope, unity and cooperation in the population as could not be believed.
Even without the threat of international war, the nations of the Soviet Bloc all benefited equally, and thus their system managed to remain and flourish for over two hundred years. The percentage of the world's population born with Quirks only continued to grow everywhere, and national unity within the USSR was as strong as it ever could be, with generations growing up under the protection of their idolized Heroes. By the 2280's, no Hero in Russia was as beloved as Tunguska, The Sun of Justice, the descendant of Russia's first Hero, and the leader of an international team of the best Soviet Heroes known as The New Bogatyrs.
However, the flow of history can be cruel, and strike without any warning. Shortly after the dawn of the 2300's, a disaster of incalculable proportions occurred in the plains of Siberia. What had initially started as a standard battle between The New Bogatyrs and the Soviet Union's collective of Villains, quickly spiraled into a cataclysmic disaster that essentially wiped out The New Bogatyrs, the Villains, and the lives of countless innocent bystanders, as well as flattening nearly 60% of Russia's Asian landmass. This event came to be known as The Siberian Flash.
As the dust settled and the horrendous damage and loss of life was taken into account, the collective efforts of the Soviet Union to try and repair what was destroyed, ultimately proved too much, and the Soviet economy plummeted, leaving countless people across all the collected nations in dire straits.
Within the following year, the Soviet Union's second life was extinguished. The government dissolved, and was quickly replaced with another; one that blamed all of the Slavic people's recent hardships and losses on Heroes and Villains alike, condemning all those born with Quirks as reckless abominations against the natural order, toying with the lives of the people as they play God with no restraint.
With The New Bogatyrs and all of the former USSR's major Villains dead, and Tunguska nowhere to be found amid the wreckage, the hostility and grief of the Russian people was turned onto their friends and neighbors known to possess even the most minor of Quirks. Many were driven from their homes and locked up, while others systematically disappeared with no trace or explanation. The very few that were lucky enough to avoid detection, ultimately faded into the shadows, and out of public memory as the years of struggle and reparation proceeded.
And thus, the old adage tragically rang true once more: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Now, in 2320, the Russian people still struggle from the effects of the abyssal economic slump their once great Union has suffered. The Anti-Quirk government has kept tabs on all future births possessing Quirks, and has begun taking measures to equip their military and law-enforcement with the means to formidably combat Heroes and Villains at will. But there are whispers in the streets of what has become of the Villains unlucky enough to already be kept in captivity at the time of the disaster and subsequent governmental collapse.
While the rest of the world moves forward, with an estimated 80% of the world's current population believed to possess Quirks, Russia remains rooted in the pain of the past, with many people left wondering what will become of them, as the rest of the world continues to praise Heroes. What became of Tunguska, their once greatest Hero, in the aftermath of The Siberian Flash? Will their lives ever return to a place of normality, and will Heroes ever show their faces if a great danger ever were to rear it's ugly head in the Motherland again?
These questions are continuously asked among the people every day and every night, as the sun continually sets upon this shadow of a once great and unified land, now forever abandoned by those who had sworn to one day protect it.
Or, perhaps, so it would seem…
