AN: This chapter is brought to you by the letter E for exposition. Seriously Mask is so wordy this chapter.
After the events of last night things had gotten rather busy and in a whirlwind of meetings and people Mask had ended up sitting in one of UA's meeting rooms. At present he was sitting across from Nezu with a chess table between them, at current count Mask had 3 wins, Nezu had 3 wins, and 13 draws.
Most of UA's teaching staff was also present, minus All Might who was fetching a detective for the police statement, and Power Loader who had muttered something about keeping an eye on Mei. Aizawa was laying in one corner inside of his yellow sleeping bag, adding the new song Alana had sent to him as his ringtone.
The remainder of staff present were either watching the chess match in fascination or keeping themselves otherwise occupied. UA shouldn't have been the ones dealing with Mask at the moment but Nezu had pulled quite a few strings citing the summer camp incident as to the reason they got to question Mask first.
The door to the room swung open to allow a skeletal All Might and a man who was unusual in how ordinary he appeared to be. "Sorry we're late the commission was trying to get one of their own to be here." The detective said for that could only be what he was since they had been waiting for a detective.
"I'm detective Tsukauchi with the Mustafa police department. " the man said as he walked over to Mask and held out a hand. All Might sinking into a chair near Aizawa, he had changed out of his hero costume and was now wearing more casual clothes.
"A pleasure to meet you detective. You can call me Iron Mask or Mask either works." Mask replied taking the offered hand and giving it a quick shake before they all turned to Nezu as he cleared his throat.
"I'm glad that we get to finally talk to you Mask, your appearance has raised several questions that we believe only you can answer. The first one being where exactly you come from? We've gone through just about every file of registered quirks and found nothing." Leaning forward with his hands clasped before him, Nezu gazed seriously at Mask. The teachers around the room shifting slightly as if preparing for an outburst or attack of some kind.
"That would be because I don't have a quirk, hell I barely have enough organics left to be considered human. I suppose the other reason your not turning up anything is because I'm not from your dimension." The room fell into complete silence at Mask's statement all eyes flicking towards detective Tsukauchi. The detective staring at Mask with wide eyes before realizing that the group was staring at him. "Ah he's telling the truth, as impossible as that seems."
Mask's head snapped around towards Tsukauchi, the red visor seeming to study him with sudden intensity. "You've got some kind of lie detector quirk, one that isn't based off of body reactions, eye movements, or voice. Activated by touch then?"
Tsukauchi's eyebrows rose in surprise, most people wouldn't have been able to figure out his quirk so quickly. "Ah, yes actually. It's why I offered my hand before the questions started." Mask nodded at the detectives words radiating a sense of satisfaction.
"So if you are from another dimension then how do you end up getting here?" Nezu asked, looking quite interested in the answer.
"Sometime ago I invented a device that allows me to bridge the gap between dimensions one that requires a significant amount of energy to travel through the first time. Once the connection has been made further trips require less energy and depending on the inhabitants of the dimension I've traveled to eventually a permanent bridge can be created. One that would allow transit back and forth between the dimensions."
While the rest of the teachers were looking on in stunned silence Nezu raised an eyebrow. Even then he was practically vibrating with excitement in his chair. "Fascinating perhaps you can give us a brief history of your world and the state it is in right now?"
"I'll start with what was likely a parallel with your quirk explosion. The age of heroes and villains, which began about 332 years ago when I was only 18. Before I get started I'll warn you that this story is long and I'll be leaving quite a bit out still. I'd suggest taking notes and delay asking questions till the end whenever possible."
"You've aged well then, you don't look a day over 30." Midnight purred from over where she had been sitting. In the background there was the sound of people shuffling to take notes, some with pencils and some on computers. Even Aizawa sat up, looking more alert then he had since he had entered the room.
Chuckling Mask inclined his head in her direction before continuing. "At the time I was a high school student named Thomas Maze, the only living member of the Maze family and tech conglomerate, my parents having died in a plane crash when I was 15, my best friend at the time was a young man named Roy Harper. I was an inventor even that early in my life and combined with the recklessness of youth I did stupid things.
One of those stupid things was using a completely untested formula in a car that I was using to race with other kids." Mask's hand shook for a moment as if he was recalling something unpleasant. Clasping his hands before him before he was able to continue.
"The car exploded and I suffered from 2nd and 3rd degree burns across much of my body. Frankly I should not have survived long enough to be pulled from the crash let alone reach the hospital. It was sheer chance that in the car with me at the time was a canister of prototype medical nanites, in the crash the canister ruptured and the nanites instantly went to work on me.
I woke up in the hospital a week later to indescribable pain. I was alive technically but as little more then a bleeding corpse." Mask's voice hitched at that moment and he fell silent. The people around the room looking a little green, while they had seen horrors in their line of work the description was still horrible. When Mask started to speak again it was at a slightly higher pitch, the voice sounding more feminine.
"I'll take over while Mask regains himself. You can call me Alana though my name when I had a body of flesh and blood was Raven Kovaleski. I was a doctor and an inventor that developed the medical nanites that saved Mask's life that day. As far as we ever measured I was also the world's strongest psychic.
The formula that Mask had used in his car as it turned out was incredibly dangerous to the human body, acting somewhat as a necrotizing agent. The nanites were essentially able to regenerate the damage as fast as it occurred but not improve the situation. He was alive but in unending agony as his nerves were eaten away and regenerated constantly."
"The willpower it must have taken to remain sane during all that." Vlad King muttered, his hands clenching the back of a chair so tightly that his knuckles were white.
"I didn't manage it completely sane though at the time I didn't know how deep the damage ran." Mask responded having managed to push away the memories. Still it was a moment before he continued the story.
"With Raven's help I was able to construct what would become the prototype form of this suit. Essentially a life support unit that would let me do all the things that I could have before that preserved my body from further damage, it didn't stop the degradation from the necrotizing process but it did stop the pain. There's more to it then that but that was the principle purpose of the suit. As an aside at this point I basically have no true organic components left, I'm basically a robot or cyborg.
After the accident I was left alone, deemed a cripple, a freakshow, any number of insults by those I had thought were my peers. My friend Roy was suddenly distant as well. I would later learn he had his own problems and the reasons why but at the time it ended up being the final nail in the coffin.
I lashed out at the world around me, developing weapons and armor for my suit to hurt those that I believed had wronged me. I became my worlds first super villain. The cops couldn't stop me and for nearly a week I went unchecked, free to destroy as I wanted. Until he arrived on the scene when I was robbing a bank, I didn't need the money but one of my peers parents owned the place so it became a target.
He called himself Archer using a bow and arrows as his weapons. The first super hero standing above and beyond the common person but still fighting for them. He defeated me at the bank and for the next half a year we would clash repeatedly, sometimes I would win sometimes he would.
Things would have continued that way except for the rise of other superpowered heroes and villains. Society was driven to the brink of collapse as both sides ran rampant across the globe. Archer would end up gathering many like minded heroes to form a league that would act to oppose the chaos and try to bring order back to the world. While I would end up fighting those villains that thought to gain prestige by defeating me."
Mask paused for a moment as the door slid open to admit Lunch Rush pushing a cart of food and drinks followed by Recovery Girl. Once everyone had eaten and were somewhat refreshed did Mask continue his story. "I won't go over all of what happened during that time but move to the closing act. A super villain calling himself Death's Head declared war on the entire world backed up by his army called Death's Legion. He struck out from an impregnable fortress on the American east coast that left the world reeling. The battle against him soon evolved into all out war with various nations flocking to his side or to oppose him.
I with the assistance of Archer and a group of heroes and villains allied to our cause invaded his fortress, forced our way through the guards, and confronted Death's Head inside his very throne room. It wasn't an easy fight but we emerged victorious in the end. Except Death's Head had one final card to play, a self destruct switch that would turn his fortress into a massive nuclear bomb."
There was a sharp intake of breath at Mask's words from those that had been listening. The whole group understanding the dangers of a nuclear weapon. What they didn't understand was the true scope of the power behind that bomb.
"Those of us that had entered the fortress only escaped with our lives because of a teleporter that was working with Archer. She was known as Athena and in one use of her powers brought everyone still alive that we had traveled with to safety. In doing so she sacrificed her life for us, the most powerful psychic in the world and my friend Raven gave her life to save thousands.
She didn't just save us after all she saved as many people as possible before the bomb exploded. 9788 people, that was the exact number she saved at the cost of her own life, saved from a fiery death that wiped all life on the American east coast. It left a crater 5 miles long and a mile and a half deep where the fortress once sat.
I went truly mad after that discovery and resolved to undo all the suffering and loss that had occurred. Alana tried to prevent me but I pressed on heedless of her words and constructed what I believed was a machine that would transport me back in time. Alana rightly concerned at what I had built leaked my location to Archer.
We ended up having our final battle in the depths of the machine I had created even as it charged up. In that battle everything was laid bare and one of Archer's arrows ended up hitting a vital component. The machine overloaded and malfunctioned instead of sending me back in time it froze us in time for 300 years.
I awoke to a world that was wildly different then anything I could have expected. The machine I had built broke space time and multiple not dimensions but potential possibilities became overlayed. Fiction became fact and fantasy became reality if the world had been in chaos before it was nothing compared to what life was like now.
I was at a complete loss as to what to do when Raven's last gift fully activated. The imprint of her mind built into Alana essentially waking up. She took me to task over everything that I had done wrong since her passing. I spent the next 32 years cleaning up the mess I had helped create while under going frequent therapy sessions.
During those years I helped the world improve with the help of friends that I had made along the way until at last it could function on it's own. I started traveling to nearby dimensions after that since the world no longer needed me. I return occasionally to check in and help create bridges between dimensions and share the wonders I've discovered in my travels. Yours is the 12th dimension that I've visited."
If Mask had needed to breath he probably would have taken a breath here and drank water to refresh himself. Since he didn't need to do either of those things he leaned back in his chair. The staff sitting in silence as they digested the information. Finally All Might spoke up.
"I have many questions but the one that bothers me most is Archer. You said in your final battle that everything was laid bare but didn't explain further."
"Ah I believe I have figured out the answer to that question. Putting it all together it becomes obvious that Archers real identity was that of Roy Harper. A young man that was undergoing his own trials at the time." Nezu responded with a wild smile in Mask's direction.
"Ironic isn't it that my best friend was also my greatest foe. Of course I've learned since then that things like that often happen in the dimensions I've visited." Mask shakes his head seeming to find a sort of humor in whatever he was thinking of.
It took the remainder of the day and deep into the night before everyone's questions were answered. A tentative agreement was reached to contact various governments to pitch the idea of connecting to another dimension. Mask's perspective of the events in the forest was gone over and partially analyzed, Aizawa and Vlad King seeming to be the most interested in how their students had performed.
Finally as it was approaching 2 in the morning the group broke up to get some precious sleep. Leaving only Mask, Nezu, All Might, and Aizawa behind. Mask turning towards the injured former number 1 hero.
"All Might."
"Please call me Yagi."
"Very well then, Yagi. When I was showing all of you the events of what happened in the forest I left out a small bit of information." Gesturing with his hand an image of the quick scan Mask had run on Izuku appeared on screen. Aizawa sat up and leaned closer to get a better look at the screen before frowning and glancing towards Yagi.
"This was a scan I took from young Izuku and this is a scan from you Yagi during your fight with last nights villain." Another gesture brought up a scan of All Might as he looked during his prime. After a moment both screens zoomed in on the rotating image of a DNA helix in the bottom corner before further magnifying a certain section from both and overlaying them.
"As you can see this section of DNA matches exactly between young Izuku and yourself Yagi."
"And what does that mean?" Aizawa asked turning away from the screen to fix his eyes on Mask, his hair starting to rise up.
"What it means is that Izuku has the exact same quirk as Yagi, likely one that is able to be passed on directly between people." Before Mask could continue Aizawa let out a howl of rage before leaping from his seat and dragging Yagi up by his lapels, his eyes glowing red as he snarled out.
"How long?"
"I...I'm not sure what you mean Shota-San."
"How long ago did you give him that quirk?!"
"It was just before the UA entrance exams."
Letting go of Yagi, Aizawa slumped back in his seat all of the rage drained out of him as he covered his face with one hand. "Your telling me that Midoriya has only had his quirk for a few months and you didn't think it was important enough to tell his teacher?"
"There was a very good reason for that."
Moving one finger Aizawa peered between them before growling. "Explain."
So Yagi launched into a brief tale of the dawn of quirks and two brothers. Explaining about the villain All for One and the first holder of Yagi's quirk, One for All. He went on to explain what he knew of the past wielders of the quirk and what he had discovered about them.
When he was finished Aizawa was slouched forward in his seat, head practically between his knees as his fingers drummed against his skull. He only stopped to glare at Mask when the song I've got no more fucks to give started playing. Finally he turned to Nezu who had been calmly sitting behind his desk.
"You knew about this as well."
"Of course."
"No wonder he keeps breaking his bones when he uses his power, he's got basically no training with it. I thought he had just been lazy but now, it's amazing how well he's taken to it at all." Aizawa sighed tiredly.
"I think Midoriya-San would benefit from a little bit of extra training time throughout the week to get a better handle on his powers." Nezu chirped in from behind his desk.
"About that, I'd like to take an active roll in the teaching of your young heroes. Give them a new perspective on how their powers work." The three other people in the room all turned to Mask before Nezu asked the question on everyone's mind. "You want to be a teacher then?"
"More of an assistant to the first year classes. I need to prep a few things but in let's say a week I should have everything ready for a lesson that should help improve them by quite a bit. If you'll provided me access to a few things of course."
"What do you need Mask-San?" Nezu asked as he leaned across his desk. The manic glint in his eye sending shivers down Aizawa's and Yagi's spines. If they could have seen the answering glint in Mask's own eyes they probably would have run screaming from the building.