Katsu stood under the shower, his amber eyes blinking away the lukewarm water that sprinkled over his face. His hand rated on the cool baby blue tile with a drop of water trailing down his middle finger.

Steam billowed around his body as the patter of the running shower hissed over him in the narrow stall. His brown hair drenched, it stuck down with suds of lavender shampoo burrowed in his luscious locks. His eyes half-lidded, he breathed out from his nose and focused on his dull heartbeat.

He had tried to make it business as usual that day. He paid some attention in class to Deku's insipid speech on multiverses and whatever. He practiced his quirk on Anton and made the poor boy fly through the gym and smash his face into the padded wall. He touched his moist lips at the memory of his shape canines flashing at the sight of Anton's thin frame flying off into the distance like a dandelion blustering away in the ocean breeze waving past the building outside. Shoto would have certainly been proud.

But that was the thing. Shoto.

Katsu rubbed his shoulder and stretched out the muscles in his back. With the water spraying over his tanned skin, he closed his eyes and thought back to the last few things he could remember. The day before the Sports Festival. He spoke to Shoto in his room. He gave him a key of some kind. But, somehow, he could not recall what happened next. How did Shoto leave the room? How did he even prepare for the Festival the next day.

And now, it was Christmastime?

Katsu turned the silver knob under the shower head. The water died into a thin steaming stream before sinking into a soft dribble that splattered on the marble floor. Katsu grabbed a towel and fluffed his hair. He glanced at his phone in his shower caddy and sighed at the black screen. Drying his hands on the beige towel, he unlocked the phone and scrolled through his contacts. He pressed the button for Shoto and held it up to his damp ear.

A harsh, piercing tone rang out. A tone that made Katsu want to scream into the high heavens.

"We are sorry, but this number is no longer in service. If you-."

Katsu hung up and threw his phone back into the caddy. He had as much luck interrogating the rest of his classmates. Even Moxie seemed to have no clue what was occurring, and she nervously pulled at her collar as she excused herself and sprinted away from Katsu. He did, however, notice the odd, almost pitying look flashed by James in the corner during an argument with Lloyd. He stopped and gave an expression not unlike an attendee at a friend's funeral. With no more luck, Katsu's spine tensed like a stiff rubber band with his brow furrowing in frustration. He felt like the world was keeping a deep secret from him, and nobody would budge.

Katsu draped the towel around his waist and unlocked the shower door. He opened it up, white steam flooding the boy's restroom area and rolling over the marble floor up to the linoleum tiles of the ceiling. With the chilled air conditioning driving out of the vents into his wake skin, Katsu shivered and stretched his neck out. Perhaps a long sleep would help this upsetting day. After all, they would be going on the class trip to Solvang just the next day. He had a plan for what he would do concerning Moxie, and a small smile grew on his face with his eyes still shut. He had finally grown the courage to express his feelings for the Cajun girl. It was going to be perfect. He would find a spot by the main road in Solvang by the windmill near the town square. It would be a perfect spot.

His plans were thrown into a grease fire once his eyes opened, and a slim and confident golden outline emanating from his frame peered at him with a serious heterochromic stare.

"Katsu," Shoto Todoroki said.

The boy screamed. His towel collapsed into a heap around his feet as the chilled air froze the droplets of water still clinging to his skin. His shoulder shook at the sudden appearance of Shoto who looked at Katsu like he was a crazed sea slug dancing in the sand. Katsu banged the back of his head onto the stall door and held his hands out in a protective stance.

"Shoto!" Katsu screamed. "How-what-how'd you get here? And where have you been? I've been calling you all day! And…what are you wearing?"

Shoto looked down at the clothes draping his figure. An ostentatious silk three-piece suit glowed with the ivory fabric stretched comfortably around his skin. His skin clear of any explode save for his scar, a weird gold halo hovered just a few inches above the crown of his head.

Shoto glanced up at the halo and shrugged. He grabbed it and balled it up into a tiny sphere before stuffing it in his breast pocket. "Sorry. They use the halo for identification purposes. It's like a name tag."

"But why a suit?" Katsu shrieked. "Are you getting married?"

Shoto frowned and pointed at Katsu. "Clothes aren't important right now, Katsu. We have been assigned an important mission to save your universe. So follow me if you want to do so."

Katsu looked down at his nude form. "Shoto," Katsu yelled. "I'm naked!"

"Clothes aren't important," Shoto said. "We have to save your universe before all is lost!"

As Shoto flipped around to head for the door, Katsu reached out and slashed at Shoto's shoulder. Expecting the touch of the white fabric, he gasped when his fingers flayed through Shoto like his palms cutting through the hot shower steam.

Shoto turned back around with an unamused pout. Katsu stammered and held his hand up like it had been burned by a stove.

"What? How? When? Why?" Katsu stammered. Shoto, I'm going to faint!"

"That's a little rude," Shoto said. "You could just ask before trying to grab me."

"Shoto," Katsu said. "What is happening to you? To me?"

Shoto sighed and took a step forward, his eyes locking onto Katsu's with a crestfallen look on his face.

"This won't be easy to explain," Shoto said. "But let me ask you this. What do you remember from yesterday?"

Katsu shrugged. "I mean, I went to school."

"Did you?"

Katsu stopped and glanced up at the ceiling. He strained his brain to scan through the film stock of different memories that clicked through his head. The ribbon ran through entering the school for the first time, fighting a bunch of baddies at Void Industries, nearly kissing Moxie in a closet. Then, he was at the Sports Festival where….

Katsu frowned and his voice died with a soft hum. He looked down at his feet and rethreaded the stock in his head. He ran through the film again and saw the past events of the semester. Up until the Sports Festival.

"Uh…yesterday?" Katsu ruffled the back of his damp hair. "I mean…I did go to school! I'm not playing hockey."

"Playing what?"

"Isn't that what it is? Hockey? When you skip?"

Shoto shook his head and facepalmed. "How did I train a kid so dense?"

"Huh?"

Shoto examined Katsu's face and plastered back on a serious glare. He took another step towards Katsu, the odd sun-soaked glow humming around the outline of his body covered by the white suit.

"Katsu, something has changed in the landscape of this world you live in," Shoto said. "It's too complicated for your dull skull to get, but someone has caused a massive rift in our space and time. A rift that threatens everyone here and on any other plane of reality."

Katsu stares at Shoto with his mouth agape like a dehydrated alpaca. "Huh?"

Shoto let out another terse sigh. "Look, Katsu. Christmas didn't just sneak up on you. Someone has sent you and the whole class into an alternate timeline. One with unnatural changes that could tear apart our reality and others."

Katsu spat out a nervous chuckle. "Gee, Shoto, Deku was right when he talked about how funny you could be."

"I'm not being funny," Shoto said. "In the correct timeline, I'm dead. That halo on my head was from heaven."

"No, you're acting crazy," Katsu screamed. "If you were dead, how could you be here? Unless your some zombie. And you look too normal to be a zombie."

"Why aren't you taking this seriously," Shoto shouted. "I'm dead. I'm not supposed to be here!"

Katsu blinked with the speed of a camera shutter and reached over to Shoto's forehead. "Are you sure you don't have a fever or something? Lemme check."

Just as he was about to touch Shoto's forehead, Shoto felt a strange electricity twist through the veins in his right arm. He raised up his hand and flashed his palm out at the approaching boy.

"Katsu, stop."

"But Shoto-."

"Listen to me!"

An invisible energy bursting from his hand, Katsu's body became a marionette with his limbs dangling in the air on a transparent string. He yelped when Shoto raised the arm up and then thrusted his hand forward. Katsu flew into the wall and then sailed through the shower door. His eyes wide in horror, his body gave control to Shoto when his back burst though the door and back into the shower. The invisible power pushed Katsu right into the stall and right at the shower knob where the back of his head was about to land with a crack.

Smash!

The glass vase cracked over Lloyd's head. The porcelain material cracked into thin shards that peppered his shoulders. He gasped for air from the hard impact his back took with the decrepit wooden nightstand that warped with the boy dazed on confused crashed into the side.

Bakugo stood across the room with the bed standing in the way. More annoyed than angry, he stretched the collar of his black tank top and cracked his knuckles.

Lloyd had spent the last minute trying to assault Bakugo, his mind relinquishing any tranquility and instead determined to unleash some form of recompense. However, he hasn't gotten more than five feet to the hero before being blasted away in the tiny quarters of the cheap motel room.

"Is that all you got," Bakugo sneered. "After all I've taught you so far? Pathetic."

Lloyd's eye twitched at the sight of his teacher smirking and standing while he sat in the crushed side door of the nightstand. He placed his hands on his shoulders and grunted at the dull bop of pain that came from activating his quirk. However, it morphed into blood-gushing adrenaline that made his fingers twitch as the porcelain pieces melted into shards of obsidian ash.

Lloyd heaved himself to his feet and flicked the shars forward. Controlling each thin ray like bullets from a shotgun, they spiraled through the air and whistled towards Bakugo.

The teacher wiped his hand with minuscule explosions battering the debris and turning it into useless dark fog that disappeared into the musty air. However, the fog was thick enough to obscure Lloyd for just a second as he charged over the bed. He placed his feet onto the hardwood bed and expected to bounce.

However, the frame cracked at his weight. He shouted out with his body becoming an anvil tumbling down a cliff. An eruptive crash rang out and reverberated over the thin sheetrock walls. He fell onto the destroyed bed, his face hidden in the yellow-stained sheets.

Lloyd squeezed his hand around the sheets. His breath huffed from his lips and warmed his eyes that watered from the exertion. Above him, Bakugo ticked his tongue.

"Are you done yet?" Bakugo said. "I'd prefer to go to sleep, need."

Just as Bakugo reached down to grab Lloyd's shoulder, the thin sheet erupted into a layer of dust. Lloyd rolled to the side and cast the dust right up into Bakugo's face.

He gasped in pain. The dust assaulted his eyes and stung them like a rattlesnake striking at his heart. He stumbled backwards and clawed at the mask of black that swam around his eyes. In that time, Lloyd shot back to his feet and grabbed the shoddy lamp from the nightstand. He twisted around and, just as he threw the lamp, turned it into dust as well. The black laser sifted through the air as fast as a rocket before slamming into Bakugo's mid-section. Like a punch from a heavyweight boxer, the dust lifted Bakugo up and made him gag from the impact. His back smashed into a mirror above a rust-coated sink and mold green vanity. When the dust evaporated, he fell onto the vanity. It collapsed under his weight with the pieces of plastic crumbling down onto the top of his head.

Lloyd stood up, his head hurting from having to change objects as quickly as he did. However, his adrenaline kept him upright gazing down at his teacher. The small twinge of pride elevating his head was extinguished by the shame of having acted out and attacked his teacher. His shoulders weighed down by the lead anvil of guilt, he gathered his breath and licked the bead of blood that touched his lips from the gash on his cheek.

"That…," Bakugo croaked a retort to Lloyd's attack. He shifted himself in the center of the split vanity and knocked a speck of glass off his eyebrow. "Was a cheap shot."

Lloyd smeared away the blood from his cheek and cringed at the sting from the cut. "If you wanted the television off, you could have just asked me."

Bakugo rolled his eyes. "It's not just the tv or your boring stories or how high and mighty you act. It's all of you."

Bakugo groaned as he gathered his balance to stand back up. A few chinks of glass landed on the ground as white dust from the chipped sheetrock behind him spilled from the Bakugo-sized imprint in the wall.

"Didn't you notice when I tried to fall asleep in the car while you tried blabbing to me about Christmas? You're just a boring extra I have to babysit. No, This entire class is," Bakugo said in an even tone. "That dumb Robyn girl that won't shut up, or that redneck that won't stop getting arrested. Or that future serial killer with his villain parents. All of you, and I had to leave my family for that? I have spend the day before Christmas Eve in some love motel with some wanna be youth pastor? But you know what? When I do get through this year, I get to go home and I get to deal with the nastiest and worst villains imaginable. People trying to destroy our homes, our families, or world. And when I come across one of them, I can smile at them. You know why? Cause I've met Lloyd Thomas. I taught Class 1-A. I can handle anything."

Lloyd took a step back and examined his angry teacher. His head lowered with his chest slumping at the harsh words. After all this time, his teacher really thought that of him? He thought his high grades and leadership would be impressive, but instead he was just another background actor.

"You wanna hurt me," Lloyd asked. "Go ahead. Keep making fun of me and how I feel about Christmas and the people around me? I'm an easy target. I talk too much, but I guess because I care too much. I thought that's what being a hero was about."

Lloyd grabbed the hotel key from the nightstand and jingled them in his balled fist to Bakugo. "Well, you think what you want about me. I'm not changing. People like me. And…I like me. Because I'm the real article. What you see is what you get."

Lloyd spun towards the door and headed for the exit. Behind him, Bakugo stewed in the boy's words, a softer and even regretful expression on his face when his student opened the door and disappeared into the cool night.

Katsu cowered in the stall. He placed his hands on the damp walls and gripped the handlebars to the side of the shower. He tried to rack his brains for any logical explanation, but one failed to materialize within the droplet-painted confines of the stall. He could only gawk at the sight before him.

At the entrance of the stall, Shoto levitated about a foot above the floor. His eyes glowed and accentuated the normal split colors he had. The strange golden glow around him brightened to the level of the lighting in the ceiling.

"Who are you?" Katsu shouted. "Get away!"

"Katsu, please stop being difficult."

"You're all glow-ey and weird looking," Katsu said. "And you used the Force on me!"

Shoto plummeted a foot back onto the ground. His shoes squeaked over the wet surface with Katsu gaining a little bravery and standing back up.

"The Force?" Shoto asked.

"You said if one of us got force powers one day, you'd never use them on me. You promised. Are you a Jedi? No, wait. You're a Sith! A Sith imposter of Shoto."

Shoto has enough of his mentee's drama. He held his hand out and grabbed Katsu with the invisible straight jacket that paralyzed him. Katsu rose up with his chest sticking out, a mild struggle against the clutches of Shoto's new power. He backed up towards the sink with Katsu in tow. Once Katsu was out of the shower stall into open area, he released Katsu.

The boy collapsed back on his knees and grabbed his neck. He gasped for air like a fish flopping on a deck.

"C'mon, Katsu," Shoto said. "I didn't choke you. You could still breathe through all that."

Katsu, his legs shaking like gelatin in a tsunami, stood back up and stared back at Shoto. "Shoto…what happened?"

Shoto shook his head. "I wish I could tell you everything, but someone has trapped you in this different world. And I have been tasked to help you all get out and back to our reality."

"But," Katsu asked. "Isn't this place real? Where we are?"

"It's not the correct universe. And we are the only ones that can save everyone," Shoto said.

Katsu looked down at his bare toes and took in the words. Was this some elaborate joke? True, he remembered nothing about the past few months, but he had a bad memory. Perhaps if he asked around, he could be reminded of what had eluded his mind.

Shoto saw the conflict in the boy's eyes and took a gentle step forward. "I know this is a lot to take in, and I know you still don't believe me. But a lot of people are counting on us."

Katsu glanced up to Shoto's serious expression. As strong as his resolve was, Shoto was not one to dance around a subject. Shoto would never joke about something like this, and if he needed help, then there was no question where his allegiance was for. And if the whole universe was involved, then Katsu would be able to save far more people than even All Might himself. He would be out of the shadow he had longed to run away from. It was icing on the cake.

Katsu gave a curt nod. "What to we have to do."

Shoto smirked. A rarity, but one that showed how proud he was of Katsu for being onboard.

"First, put some clothes on."

Katsu leaned over to look beyond Shoto. In the mirror, he saw himself as naked as the day he was born.

"Oh, right."

Knock. Knock.

Bakugo, who was trying to sleep, wrapped the pillow around his head tighter as if the sound would leave if he squeezed hard enough.

Knock. Knock.

Bakugo groaned out. He threw the pillow onto the ground and sat up on the she of the rock for a bed he tried to sleep on. His head still swam from the hard impact he took from Lloyd's dust punch. Just as he strayed to slip away from consciousness, the door had to jolt him back to reality.

He rubbed his eyes and scratched at the peach fuzz on his chin. He sighed through his nose and stretched a kink in his neck. He grunted at the strained muscle on his right and kneaded it with his knuckle. These kind of hits were starting to wear more on his body than he'd like.

Knock. Knock.

Bakugo stood and tightened the center belt knot on the periwinkle bathrobe he wore to bed most nights. A gift from Uraraka for his last birthday, he took it with him everywhere he travelled. Feeling the silk on the hem of the collar, he shook his head and cursed. He was way too harsh on Lloyd who was ultimately trying to do a good thing. His words, he could not believe, actually resonated with him. He was just a young kid who deserved someone who wanted to mold him into being a hero, not some bully that would just beat him down. After all, with a quirk that surprised him as quickly as it did and knocked him down, he supposed he had more potential than most of his other students. Too say the least, Shoto's dumb double A battery of a kid.

Knock. Knock.

Bakugo rolled his eyes and reached for the door handle. He yanked it open and looked down at the offender.

"What is it?" Bakugo asked.

Before him, two strangers wearing white dress shirts and black slacks with name tags latched onto the breast pocket area. Both of them held thick black books in their grasp. One of them, a blonde chick almost at his height, grinned like a maniac with a sparkle in her deep blue eyes.

"Greetings, mister," Isabel said. "We couldn't help but overhear some disturbance nearby.

Bakugo peered down at the name tag. "Look…uh…Elder Laguifiana, I'm not interested in what you're selling."

"But we heard a disturbance," Isabel said. She elbowed her shorter, black-haired companion next to her. "Right, Elder Jensen?"

Aslovee, with a deep scowl that asked the person viewing it to erase him from existence, stared up at Bakugo with his pitch-black eyes. Obsidian eyes that, while bored and sleepy, had a power to them that made even Bakugo slightly weary. "Right, Elder Laga…uh…I don't know how to say that."

Bakugo grabbed the edge of the door and backed a foot away to close it. "Look, I had an argument with someone, but everything's fine."

"But it's not fine," Isabel said in a panic. "We have a book that can change your life! If you let us in, we can help save your soul and send you to nirvana. We just a need a minute if your time."

She turned to Aslovee and leaned up to his ear. "Help me out here."

"Please let us in," Aslovee said in a monotone voice. "It smells like cat piss out here."

"No, leave me alone," Bakgo said. "And Nirvana is for Buddhists, asshat."

The door slammed shut in front of them. Isabel yelped and took a step back. Aslovee sighed. He knew this was a dumb plan, but he hoped it would be less annoying than it turned out to be.

"I could've sworn Nirvana was Mormon heaven," Isabel said. "Did you have Mormons in your universe."

"People that roam the streets promising a good time? Plenty," Aslovee said.

Realizing it was time for Plan B, the short teenager tapped on the door. As the sound of rumbling feet rocked towards the frame, Aslovee stepped to the side of the doorway out of Bakugo's line of sight. He squished himself onto the walls and hugged it leaving Isabel the only one in front.

Bakugo flung the door open, his angry eyes bulging as he leaned over the precipice of the room towards Isabel.

"Look, I've had a long day," Bakugo shouted, his early morning breath scorching Isabel's face with spit flying from his tongue. "I don't wanna join your stupid club so leave me the fu-."

Smack!

Bakugo collapsed to the ground. Isabel shifted her eyes over to Aslovee. Where Bakugo's head once was, now a Book Of Mormon sat clenched in Aslovee's hands. He had knocked Bakugo stone cold out with the spine of the book.

"Let's go." Aslovee said. He threw the book into the room and grabbed Bakugo's ankles before dragging his deflated corpse into the quarters.

Isabel pushed Bakugo's head in with her hands gripping tufts of his pointed straw hair. When they were all inside, Aslovee dropped Bakugo's ankles and headed for the phone. He grabbed it and tossed it to Isabel who turned on the screen. Seeing it was fingerprint protected, she reached for his hand.

"Whoah," Isabel let go of his hand for a brief moment. "Hot hands. There's steam coming from his palms. Is that normal around here?"

Aslovee said nothing. He craned his head at a dust-coated newspaper that lay abandoned in the corner by the unused bathtub. On the cover, a headline touting the success of another "Pro-Hero" swooping in to save the day. Underneath, an article that didn't seem to be an article at all. Something called an Op-ed written by some young looking kid with long brown hair and dumb glasses.

He snatched the newspaper and tried to read the words. Reading was never his strong suit, but the tiny words on the newspaper were even more of a challenge. He took the paper back over to Isabel who cheered when the phone was unlocked by Bakugo's thumb.

"Alright, I got it," Isabel said. She took out her own phone and snapped a picture of Bakugo's screen. "The address for the costume. We can probably beat them to it. By the way, I hope those missionaries you knocked out are okay. Neither Elder is gonna have their clothes when they wake up."

Aslovee nodded. Isabel got up and they both marched for the door.

Right where Lloyd stood in the doorway.

The three stared at each other for a few seconds. Neither of them moved as Isabel's eyes shifted from the two me towards Bakugo on the ground. With Bakugo's unconscious body on the floor, Isabel pointed at him.

"Oh, yes. Hello kind sir," Isabel said. "We were just baptizing your roommate here. It requires a few moments of meditation. Face down on the ground."

Lloyd was speechless. After roaming around in peace for an hour, he had mustered up the strength to finally confront Bakugo for his action. Who were these two strangers, and how did they knock out one fo the strongest heroes alive?

"Oh, forget it," Isabel said. She grabbed her copy of the Book Of Mormon and flung it at Lloyd's head.

The spine of the book cracked Lloyd's forehead and cause the man to crumple into a heap of bones onto the ground. Isabel hopped over Lloyd to close the door. She dragged Lloyd over towards Bakugo and threw his body next to his.

"Should we move them to the bed?" Isabel asked. "I feel it's a bit sus if we keep him like that."

"I don't care. Read this," Aslovee ignored her and shoved the paper at her.

"Huh?" Isabel took the paper. "This paper is kinda okd looking. Dated to like over a few years ago. Oh, hey! That was a few months before Yurio almost won the Grand Prix Final. At least in my universe. Anyway," Isabel examined the document. "Some guy saved people from a burning apartment building by in Santa Monica. Though it looks like one person died."

"Can you read the name," Aslovee said. "Reading…not my strongest suit." He turned and looked away.

"Aww," Isabel patted his shoulder. "It's alright. You had other things to do like slaughter a bunch of random teenage kids."

"Stop saying it like that," Aslovee snapped back. "Just read it."

Isabel scanned over the words on the front page. Her smile disappeared into a confounding frown. She read over the words again with her lips drawing out each sentence with an audible hiss.

"That makes no sense," Isabel said. "The author of this opinion column under the headline slot…it's the same as the recorded death in the fire."

"Unless it was published beforehand," Aslovee said.

"But even then," Isabel interjected. "This op-ed just says 'Someone please help me I'm scared and I don't know where I am.' It's just that over and over again. And the author…it's weird."

Isabel lowered the newspaper. For once, int he short time he knew her, Aslovee made eye contact with the girl and it betrayed no flirtation nor mischief. Instead, puzzled remorse and resolve.

"Who is that guy?" Aslovee asked. "And…is he important?"

"Yeah, and how could it be possible," Isabel closed the newspaper. "That Abel Chevelle died in an apartment fire and wrote an op-ed asking to be saved?"

more will be revealed soon. just review and let me know what you think!