Izuku looked around and saw a few other animals in cages, and he could hear even more beyond what he could see.
There was a deer that seemed to be reflective like a mirror and a large cage that looked empty but had a bright yellow sign on the front. 'CAGE IS NOT EMPTY, DO NOT OPEN'.
That was a bit spooky, but it wasn't like he could open it even if he wanted to, since he was in a cage.
There was a medium sized aquarium with some fish and coral in it, which looked pretty normal until the fan-like coral reached up and grabbed one of the fish and started eating it.
Also pretty spooky, but that should be fine too if he stayed out of the water.
Directly across from him was a semi-translucent dog, sort of like a wispy shadow. It had a thick collar on, one of the ones designed to suppress quirks. There were lots of scratches on the metal bars, and it seemed like it was the same kind of cage as Izuku's.
That probably meant the dog was super strong and had been there a while. There were scratching and tapping sounds coming from the big dog's cage, and at first he thought the dog was just angry and hitting things, then he realized there was a pattern.
After a few seconds of listening he figured out what it was.
It was morse code!
He listened some more to hear the entire message he was repeating.
"My name is Jay, do you know morse code?"
Izuku tapped back to him. He had learned morse code with his Kachan, since when they first met Izuku didn't have his own phone yet and it would be years before he had his talking collar.
"Hi! I'm Izuku! I do know morse code!"
The dog cocked his head in slight concern and confusion before tapping back. "Why do you look and smell happy? You should be scared. Awful things happen here."
"Well, I already made a new friend since I got here. So far I've made a new non-human friend every time I've gotten kidnapped, so that makes it less bad. "
Jay looked around as if he would see this 'friend' Izuku spoke of before realizing Izuku was talking about him. "We met less than a minute ago."
"Yes, and we are friends now. Don't worry, my other friends will come and rescue us."
Jay let out a deep and rumbling bark that would frighten most people and animals, but after a few seconds Izuku realized he was being laughed at.
"I have been here a very long time. No one is coming for us."
"I believe in my friends, and if they don't show up I'll kick my way out."
"You do realize you are in a cage made of the strongest metals known to man?"
"Yes."
"And that only one being has ever escaped here?"
"Yes."
"And you're still confident you'll be rescued or escape on your own?"
"Also yes."
Jay sighed, not sure if his new neighbor was insanely optimistic or just insane.
"Since they put you in a cage like mine, you must be pretty strong for a rabbit, right?"
Izuku nodded excitedly. "I've only met one person better at kicking than me."
"Hm, I have an idea, but only if your aim is very good."
Izuku tried to binky, but being chained down prevented that. "I'm super good at aiming, I've been practicing to kick things at people! Does this mean we can escape?"
The dog laughed at him again. "Not even close, if it were that easy I would have broken out years ago. But we'll still cause these bastards trouble and make their lives harder, which always makes my day."
Izuku cocked his head in confusion. "What do I need to do?"
Jay held a small chunk of gravel in his teeth. "The next time they come to feed us, I'm going to throw this stone at you, and you'll kick it into the lock on a cage to break it. Our cages have locks that are way too tough to break with a rock, but that one isn't nearly as tough." He raised a paw to point at the large cage just a few feet away.
Izuku nodded, not sure why they were doing this, but he was willing to help out his new friend, who seemed excited about this.
They kept talking in morse for a bit until he heard the big metal door slide up to let someone in.
"Alright, I've got a bail of hay for all the plant eaters." The man in the lab coat looked at the clipboard in his hand. "Oh, looks like we got a new resident down here. Huh, never had someone famous before. That's not really my business I guess."
Jay clicked the word. "Now" to him and tossed the smallish rock to him from between his teeth.
Izuku turned and kicked it super hard right where he was told. The standard looking padlock shattered under the force, causing the door to slowly swing open. The animal handler spun around and gasped in terror at the seemingly empty cage being opened.
He started to run when there was a loud growl and the lab coat flowing behind him was suddenly ripped apart with three long gashes appearing on it out of nowhere. The scientist sprinted to the door and frantically typed in the code to open the door once more, trying to escape whatever Izuku had helped to let out.
Large wounds appeared on his arms as invisible claws seemed to tear into him. Within a second of the door starting to open, the terrified scientist dropped to the ground and slid under the door, bringing him to safety.
However, he didn't reach the panel quick enough to tell the door to close again, allowing the door to open a bit further so when the door closed the creature had already crossed the threshold.
Now that they were alone again Izuku turned back to Jay who loudly tapped out 'Get fucked' in morse code.
"What was that? It didn't seem very friendly."
The dog gave a laughing bark. "No it is not. You should not try to make friends with it. Because that was an invisible bear, and quite a temperamental one at that. Normally they have her in a more secure set up, since she has a tendency to eat scientists, but they were getting ready to move her to another facility so that was a temporary set up."
"Oh, why'd we let her out?"
"Isn't that obvious, so she can run around and eat the assholes that trapped us here even if we're still stuck. They took me from the people I care about and ruined my life, so I'm more than happy to return the favor by feeding them to bears and anything else I can do to destroy them."
Izuku rarely felt that way, but he understood it. He would, and had, defended his kits by any means necessary, so Jay's anger made sense to him. Izuku was upset too, but he trusted his tired teacher to keep the kit safe while he was stuck here.
After a few minutes of silence he tapped back.
"What do we do now, just wait to be rescued?"
"We're captives in a secret government lab, very little happens, and just about everything that does happen is bad. That was the most interesting thing that happened all month. You really need to lower your hopes and expectations for everything, we're going to sit locked in these cages for years as we try not to go insane because no one is coming and no one will help us."
Just after Jay finished angrily tapping, a loud explosion shook the building and alarms started blaring.
Izuku perked up, those were Kachan explosions! His friends were here! There were about three more loud blasting sounds before the wall started to crack and buckled under the force applied.
There was a small group of his friends standing in the opening that Kachan made in the far side of the room, which was exciting, even if some of the friends were surprises.
The first to enter was Kachan of course, who yelled loudly. "Yo, shitty Deku, we're here to rescue you from the government."
Directly afterwards came Todoroki riding on the back of Apple Kick. "Technically, we can't really rescue you from the government since we toppled the government to reach you."
Izuku squeaked in surprise. They toppled the government?! He hadn't even been gone a full day?!
Apple Kick neighed loudly, still wearing her tiara from the beauty contest, responding to his words that only she understood. "If they didn't want it toppled, they should have made it so topple-able. Plus, we only destroyed some of the government, the rest can stay for now."
AIzawa stepped over the rubble, looking very tired (even more than usual). "Alright problem children, we can talk about this when we get back. Someone get these cages open."
"You got it, boss." Shigaraki stepped past him, with Spinner, Dabi, Toshinori, Nezu, and Koda following behind him into the room.
A quick tap from the villain caused his cage and collar to turn to dust. Koda walked over to him and gave him his spare talking collar with a smile.
"HI FRIENDS!"
Shigaraki scowled and looked away. "We're not friends. I just saw this as an opportunity to destroy the hero commission."
"Nope, we're friends now." Izuku turned around to lead them to his other new friend. "Now, come help me free my new friends."
Dabi spoke up with a nervous tone. "Not to be a party pooper or anything, but there's a huge cage right there that says 'do not open' in very big letters. And it looks pretty damn open to me. That feels important to take note of."
Izuku looked back for a second before continuing on. "Oh, that's just our invisible bear friend. She's probably still running around the building eating people."
Everyone stopped walking and started looking around nervously.
"Don't worry, she isn't in this part of the building."
Dabi sighed in resignation, "That feels like something to worry about, but what do I know about the protocols for invisible bear attacks?"
After Jay's restraints were turned to dust as well, he walked through the room slowly, as if in disbelief. He stopped in front of Nezu before rubbing his head against the principal who laughed with tears in his eyes.
"I missed you too, old friend. I'm sorry it took me so long to come back for you."
Toshinori came over to him and started rubbing him between the ears. Yagi always knew how to find the best spots to scratch, that made him the number one hero in Izuku's books.
"Glad to have you back with us, Young Midoriya. I don't think I realized just how many friends you had until you were taken. Quite a few people, myself included, were thrown into quite the tizzy without you around."
Speaking of people in a tizzy, Spinner was standing in the middle of the room with his head tilted and his eyes darting around. He let out a sound that was a mix between squeaking and clicking, but was much lower than a normal gecko because of his size.
Everyone had slowly stopped what they were doing to watch his strange behavior. There was a similar sound that could be faintly heard further into the building, and the moment it was made Spinner took off sprinting towards it.
Nearly everyone followed, mostly out of curiosity, but also in case he needed help with whatever was going on. Spinner reached a locked door that stood between sections of the lab and he hit it a few times in a panicked way. The human part of Spinner seemed long gone as he started running on all fours down the hallway the moment Shigaraki decayed the door for him.
Izuku was the only one who could keep up with him the entire way there as they ran past other animals they would be freeing as soon as possible. Only when they got there did things start to make sense. Izuku kicked the lock off of the cage so that Spinner could get inside.
The rest of his friends caught up and looked in confusion at Spinner lying next to another large lizard-like creature that was about his size, with a few main differences. Instead of only hair on his head, this gecko had patches of orange hair all over his body and disproportionately long arms.
Todoroki looked over at Izuku, "Should I know who that is? I don't recognize them."
"That's Spinner's brother. He has an orangutan mutation instead of a human one like Spinner does. Spinner thought all his family died to poachers, but apparently at least one of them survived here. Spinner is happy because he is alive and he found him, but also sad because he knows that he spent a lot of time being hurt here."
Izuku tried to explain it as much as possible since his confused friend sometimes got confused pretty easily.
It took a long time to convince Spinner and his brother to leave, but they still needed to free the rest of the animals and get them to a new home, which Nezu apparently had prepared already since he's very good at planning ahead.
As they stepped outside they were hit by a wave of sound from countless people cheering. There were people filling the street and standing everywhere he looked. Had all these people come to help him? As he looked around he realized he recognized everyone there.
There was Saki from the UA security gate! There was Yo, the first person he ever rescued with Mirko! Mirko and the rest of her agency were there too! Hatsu, his Store Friend from the convenience store! Native was there, he was the friend that he saved from the scary knife man. Gran Torino showed up even though he's grumpy all the time! There were new friends too! Like the Gentle criminals he met the day before and Hina who he'd only met a few weeks ago (don't worry, it only takes him a few seconds to become your best friend ever).
The list of people went on and on. People he saved, most of UA, and just the people he met going about his day.
While Nezu helped get all the animals to a safe place, Izuku spent the rest of the day going from person to person, making sure he said hi to everyone who showed up. The day started pretty bad, but this was his favorite thing ever, being surrounded by so many friends was the best thing ever!
I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, I found it lots of fun to write. All that's left of the story is basically the same events as this chapter but from different points of view, explaining the unexpected alliances and the partial government toppling. It still feels crazy that all I have left to write is one chapter and a handful of one-shots. I started this story over a year ago and it has been so much fun, I never expected the silly story about replacing the main character with a rabbit to be my most popular.