My Iron Giant
-Tiny Happy People-
Ochaco stood tall on Midroiya's shoulder wearing her bright hero costume that was similar to an astronaut's suit. The robotic boy holding a captured villain in one hand, and gently lifting a group of civilians in the other palm. A crowd of people below were cheering, some cameras flashing, and her parent's down below looking at their daughter with pride.
She smiled confidently, raising a fist to sky it stood in contrast with the stars. This was it, this was what she was chasing, what she was after. Her goal of becoming a hero combined with letting Midoriya have his dream as well.
An alarm awoke her from that dream, making her growl in anger and slapping it away. She pulled the covers back over herself to try and escape back to her mind's wonderland.
She was awake, so he's awake. What woke them up?
Ah, the sound did. It was a familiar sound, it happened every time they woke up. Wait, she slapped the noise maker. Was it going to harm her?
He would protect her.
No, it wouldn't hurt her. Otherwise he would have destroyed it by now. The noise maker means it's time to wake up, maybe she needs help waking up?
But, he didn't want to be rude, maybe she had a reason for stopping the noise. He should check on her, make sure she was ok.
[Scanning Subject -Ochaco Uraraka- for Fault]
[No Faults detected]
She seemed fine. Nothing was hurt, or wrong, but why did she not wake up like normal? He should see if there's anything he can do to help.
*Tap tap*
"Hrmm."
….*tap tap tap*
Ochaco groaned again, putting a pillow over her ears to ignore the noise. Probably some stupid bird doing stupid things.
….*taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap*
The rapid clinking on the glass annoyed her so fast she never knew she could get this angry. She threw her pillow up at her glass roof hoping it would silence it. Luckily for her it worked, unlucky for her the pillow fell down and hit her face.
"Uuuugh" She wordlessly complained. With her fingers she dragged the pillow off her face and opened one of her eyes. Peering through the window was Midoriya's eyes much closer than she ever saw them to her room. One of his large metal fingers was hovering over the roof. Was he responsible for all that noise?!
"Why did you have to keep me from my slumber?" She yawned out the words. Lazily she stretched her arm to grab her phone to report the unusual behavior before she forgot to. When she clicked the lock button a notification was front and center on it.
First Day of Hero School! :D
"Crap!" She kicked the sheets off with a sudden rush of shock. Ochaco had almost slept in on the first day! Luckily she only spent a few minutes lazing about but the fact that it happened made her feel guilty.
Midroiya, for some unknown reason despite not really knowing what's happening in the real world when she's awake, still knew how to help her. He was her hero for the day.
Grabbing her clothes and toiletries she went to the washroom. RIght before closing the door she looked back to Midoriya. "Remember, no looking when I'm naked."
He obeyed by using the metal panels that helped express emotion to completely close his eyes. Yet he was still facing her direction..
"And no using x-ray vision!" She finished and closed the door. Unknowing of the chuckling ghost inside the head using thermal vision anyways.
Later she descended down the stairs, forgetting the elevator in favor of the little exercise to wake her up. As she arrived in the common area plenty of other students that had moved in were eating or already prepped.
"Morning sleepy head." Setsuna waved from her spot eating a good portion of eggs.
"Wait, did you put me in my room last night?" Ochaco asked.
"Guilty!" Setsuna smirked, taking another bite of her meal. Ida noticing the girl's presence marched over swiftly dressed in his UA attire.
"Uraraka! It's important for students of UA to wake up early enough to prepare a full breakfast to-"
Manga patted Ida's shoulder as he passed by. "Dude, I think she gets it."
"Yeah, but I'll keep what you say in mind Ida. I'm just lucky that Midoriya helped wake me up." Ochaco said making her way to the fridge. She noticed the leftovers that Ida had made the night before and decided that would be good.
One very fake and exaggerated laugh bounced around the room. "It seems you can hardly do anything on your own without a personal slave to- GAH!"
Monoma fell into his meal ungraciously, courtesy of Kendo. "I'll make sure he gets to class." She said dragging the boy off his food so he can breathe.
"...well that happened. You think this is going to be a common thing?" Tetsutetsu asked double checking his hair in the window.
"I pray not." Shiozaki's worry in sync with everyone else's.
*stomp stomp*
Mirio and his classmates watched the giant move across the campus following a small group of first years. He smiled when he saw Ochaco flourishing in the group, already making more friends. Vlad was her teacher, so while things were still interesting due to circumstance he was hoping it would be a little spicier if they were in Eraserhead's class.
"Whatcha looking at? Oooh is that the little beans?" Hado asked excitedly.
"Beans?" A different girl asked, white skin with no texture and two metal cyan pigtails aimed behind her.
"Yeah! Little beans ready to grow big and fast! Like that one fairy tale." Hado nodded, confirming the other girl's question.
"Oh yeah! Jack and the beanstalk, it's been forever since I heard that story." Mirio added in.
Jenny looked over to Mirio in slight surprise. "I didn't think it was popular enough to make it over to Japan."
"All Might kind of solidified our interest in American culture." He said back, looking again to the first years. The three of them, and Tamaki who remained the shy boy he is, watched as some of the other students stopped to take selfies in front of Midoriya as he marched on. He briefly recalled Midoriya's body, all the scars that covered his skin behind all the wires. It was infuriating that somehow that explosive kid was able to get away with it, but if he received lawful punishment it would be worse for Midoriya.
While Ochaco knew that Bakugo was Midoriya's bully, he didn't think she was informed on how bad it was. He was glad that Midoriya had her, others would have taken advantage of the giant robot so easily. He shivered thinking about what would have happened if she ordered him to nuke a city. Could he even do that? If he was ordered to do something that the boy didn't like would he do it?
"Hey Mirio?" Jenny asked.
He shook his head to rid the horrible ideas out of his mind. "Yeah Jenny?"
She had the look, oh no not the look. "You're not asking him out on a date." He said before she could ask.
Jenny smacked his arm. "I was going to ask if I could just meet him!"
"Jenny, we know that's a lie. Just about every guy that has said hi to you you've tried dating them." Mirio said with slight humor in his voice.
"But we both have robot quirks! It would work out great!" She justified.
Hado joined in cutting her off before she could build an argument. "Didn't you try dating Salazar and Tennyson? They both have techy quirks." She finished putting a finger on her cheek recalling the facts.
Jenny gave up, sighing and letting her arms dangle to the sides. "My love life is a wreck."
"Hope you had insurance for it." Tamaki quietly said, stunning the rest of them. Mirio gave his friend a proud look while Jenny felt targeted for the big three's humor.
"Tamaki holy crap you're ruthless." Hado finally said earning a loud laugh from Mirio.
Vlad King slapped his clipboard against his hand. In front of him sat all nineteen of his students, the last one standing outside next to the window. Midoriya was sitting next to the school building so he could watch what was happening at eye level. Wasn't necessary but it felt like the boy was participating best he can.
Even if he was watching Ochaco solely.
"Right, welcome everyone to class 1-B of the heroics course. I'm Vlad King, but just call me Vlad, or teacher, or a combination of the two. Today is just meant to serve as a way to know what to expect for the year so there aren't any formal classes. First thing first we'll be going to the introduction ceremony where our Principal will have a couple things to say."
One of the students raised their hand immediately. He wasn't even done explaining things, maybe he's just nervous or has a good question. Pointing at the raised hand a boy wearing a headband spoke. "Will All Might be there?"
Murmurs quickly rose up, gosh kids these days sure are focused on All Might.
"Maybe, but from what I understand it will only be Principal Nezu speaking."
One of the kids scoffed, smiling at Uraraka. Monoma, if his memory served right.
"I'm surprised, I thought you were supposed to be the new face of the students? Well, maybe I expected too much. After all you handled the press worse than-"
"Enough." Vlad King cut the boy off. Ego higher than a mountain, and pride weaker than a cracker, he's going to be a piece of work. It was easy to see that Uraraka was more confused than angry, plenty of others around her though looked pissed on her behalf. That Ida boy looked ready to explode. He glanced over to Midoriya, who showed no signs of reaction. The last thing he needed was for another student to get lasered by him. Vlad resumed now that there were no other students wishing to interrupt.
"We will be there for at most an hour, right after come here and pick up a gym uniform. We'll do a quick assessment of where you're at physically and change back. Once that's done pick up a syllabus with your schedules and read over it. That's about it, so let's get going. Understood?"
"Yes sensei!" They said in unison.
Ochaco sat with her class in the rows of seats in the auditorium. A spotlight was beaming to the center of the stage with someone talking above the podium. Principal Nezu's frame looking like an animated stuffed animal from how far he was speaking to the whole school. Well, most the school, for some reason class 1-A was missing and an occasional whisper about it was heard.
She fought back a yawn again. It wasn't that long ago she ate breakfast and now sitting in a dark warm room was getting to her. Midoriya was standing outside, probably watching her through the walls. She didn't want to risk falling asleep just in case that made him want to barge in and tap the living daylights out of her.
Ida sat to her right, his larger frame producing more subtle body heat. She tried not to instinctively lean on him and soak it up as she drifted...off...and..
"Pst!"
She was awake! Definitely not sleeping!
On her left was a girl she didn't recognize, american looking but with a noticeable snout and large horns sprouting from her blond hair.
"You robot friend yes?"
What
"Excuse me?" Ochaco asked.
The girl didn't seem offended at all at Ochaco's inability to understand her. She then explained herself.
"I know small Japanese. Me come from America weeks ago to learn heroes!"
Ida shushed them loudly, and with a little more spit than he probably intended.
"We'll talk later, nice to meet you though." Ochaco said, bracing herself in case Ida was to shush her again.
Listening back to the rat/bear/mouse, he talked about the same things one would expect from him. Standards of behavior, expectations for events, don't try anything funny unless you want to be stomped into the ground.
Ok that last one was spoken with too much sincerity.
"-and now I'd like to ask Ochaco Uraraka to come up and say some words."
….well at least she didn't feel tired anymore.
"You sure you're healthy enough to participate?" Kendo asked as she began a few stretches. The class was dressed in their gym uniforms outside and awaiting Vlad King to arrive. Ochaco though, was already looking a little green despite not doing anything physically demanding.
"Yeah..I just get really nervous when put on the scene like that." Ochaco said now standing up a little straighter. Looking around she saw the approach of that girl she met earlier.
"Hi! I Pony Tsunotori. Nice greet you! Please call I Pony" The blond waved. Ochaco giggled and put a hand on her chest.
"I'm Ochaco Uraraka. Nice to meet you Pony." Pony nodded her head with excitement then pointed to Midoriya.
"Robot friend, yes?"
Kendo looked between the two. "You mean Midoriya?"
"Yes!"
Ochaco hummed, separating what she knew versus what she could tell. "Yeah, well, we barely met but now he hangs around me and does what I ask. Watch, hey Midoriya!"
The giant focused his eyes a little more on Ochaco, everyone now watching to see what will happen. Ochaco then spread her arms to her side. "Pick me up please."
Midoriya then lowered himself to crouch in front of the girl, ever so careful he picked the girl up by the back of her shirt like a dog. Ochaco was embarrassed about her stomach suddenly being shown off and squirmed around to try and fix it. Midoriya seeing her distraught changed tactics and placed her in her other palm. He remained crouched so Ochaco could look over his fingers and talk to those below.
"See?"
"Wow! He Optimus Prime!" Pony said clapping.
Manga snapped his head at the reference and darted over to join the conversation. "I see you're a woman of culture."
"I American." Pony smiled sweetly.
Manga was silent for a little bit, his facial expressions nonexistent so none could see what he was thinking. Randomly he placed a hand on her shoulder. "I see you're a woman of true culture, unlike someone."
"Hey! You talking shit about me?" Setsuna yelled.
"Language!" Ida and Shiozaki both chastised.
"Shit?" Pony looked to Manga for an answer. Before anyone could explain Shiozaki ran up and covered the innocent girl's ears.
"No one shall corrupt this clean soul in sin!"
Setsuna grinned sinisterly. "Is that a challenge?"
"Alright everyone, look alive." Vald King's voice cut through the commotion commanding attention. He walked up with a small tablet and a bag of miscellaneous equipment. Setting it down he grabbed a ball from it.
"I'm sure all of you have done physical assessments in junior high, but here it's going to be different. Itsuka Kendo."
"Yes!" The girl stood straight and took a couple of steps forward.
"What's your record for the ball toss?"
"82 meters sir."
"Not bad, but did you get to use your quirk?"
"No sir."
He tossed the ball over to her, then pointed to a white circle in the dirt. "Try it, just be sure to stay in the circle."
Kendo nodded, stepping up to the task. Everyone watched as Kendo wound up her entire body, bringing one leg high into the air with one arm stretched far back. Swinging her leg down she used the momentum to swing her entire body to throw the arm. Mid swing her hand enlarged twenty times the original size and let the ball soar through the field.
"Here at UA we encourage creative use of quirks on campus that allow us to grow much farther than any normal school." Vlad said holding up his tablet. On screen it showed three hundred and seventy meters.
"To push your limits you must first know them, then we can truly find out when we go 'Plus Ultra.'" The teacher finished.
Up first was the fifty meter dash. Ochaco for better or worse was paired with Ida. He gave her a small smile. "Good luck to you."
She smiled back at his compassion. "You too."
"Ready, set, go!"
Ida burst forth with a massive gust of speed, literally leaving Ochaco in his dust. Even if she made her clothes weightless, and the additional training from Snipe, she couldn't compare her speed to the blue haired boy's.
"Six point Two seconds."
Better than her middle school score though, at least she's getting better.
"Uraraka." Vlad interrupted her internal victory.
"Yes!" She snapped her legs together, maybe a little more than needed but the message was clear she was listening. Snipe really put her mind into a military view when it came to simple orders.
"Could you ask Midoriya to participate in this?"
"Yes sensei!" Ochaco said with equal enthusiasm, but quickly turned to curiosity. She never asked him to do anything like that before. Well, his own foot was larger than a bus so he could easily do the test.
"Midoriya, when that machine says go, I need you to go from here." She pointed just behind the starting line. "To here." She ended pointing at the finish line.
The giant blinked, and moved to his position. Others that were decently close scrambled to get out of the way of the giant, everyone watching from far away enough to be comfortable. Midoriya crouched down, tucking his fist near his chest and lowering his frame with one leg far behind him. Internally machinery started to hum as his eyes narrowed on his objective.
"Ready!"
The hum turned into high pitched whining as it grew louder and louder.
"Set!"
The back foot started to send out waves of heat as a port opened. A glow being noticed by all from it.
"Go-"
*BOOM*
The giant blasted forth with the force of a meteor shooting across the field. A clear sonic boom knocked several students on their feet as the windows shook from the wind. The foot had sent a large floom of condensed flames that propelled him faster with his other leg pushing him forward.
Right after pulling the maneuver he cut the power to his thrust and dug his heel into the earth to stop his momentum. His body slid a good seventy feet before coming to a stop. With his task completed, he resumed his previous functions and walked gently to stand next to the students. The internal noises winding down until they couldn't hear them anymore.
For the next three minutes as everyone regained the ability to hear Vlad inspected the grounds. Thank Nezu he was smart enough to make this building as durable as it is. The field on the other hand, was a mess. The robot that was supposed to monitor Midoriya's speed was blown apart before he even got to it. Dang, maybe he can get an estimate of how fast he was moving from the security cameras.
Luckily, the track itself was left unharmed since Midoriya practically flew over the thing. He had a few more students he needed to test. He Ida to grab a replacement robot for the dash and called up the next students.
"Yui Kodai, Juzo Honenuki, you're up."
Both the students got to the starting line, avoiding the molten slag that was left behind by the previous runner. Juzo seemed to take a diver's position, made sense with his quirk. Yui though, grew herself to be about fifty feet tall. He didn't see her do that at the entrance exam, just shrink the robots.
"Ready, set, go!"
Both took off to race for the line. Yui bounding her way easily with no expression on her face while Juzo popped his head out of the ground occasionally to take a breath of air. As soon as they finished Ochaco was left staring at the girl.
Her quirk, does it just affect herself or is there more to it?
"Excuse me?" She asked Kodai, who merely turned to Ochaco.
"Can you use your quirk on things besides yourself?"
"Mhm." She nodded in reply.
"Can you, shrink stuff?"
She nodded again.
"Could you try shrinking Midoriya? We've been trying to get him smaller for a really long time."
Kodai shrugged, before looking over to Vlad. The teacher himself was curious as well and nodded. "Go ahead it would be a big help if it works."
Kodai nodded again, and walked up to Midoriya, and placed a hand on his foot. For a moment nothing happened, then nothing happened again, and again. Kodai stepped back and shook her head to the others.
Vlad nodded to the girl. "Thanks for trying, it was just a random idea anyways."
Ochaco felt much more sorrowful, that was probably the best hope they could have had in recent days. A literal shrinking quirk couldn't help.
"I wish you could shrink down so we could help you more." She whispered and walked back to the class with heavy shoulders.
"Hell yeah! That was the closest to flying I've done in decades!"
Nana cheered inside the headspace. Her smiling face landed back on Izuku, dropping only slightly. While she did her best to keep herself entertained in here, mostly changing up the interior to however she liked. Right now it looked like a movie theatre with Izuku in the middle of the audience with cables and all disrupting the aesthetic. Nana had fake popcorn that she munched on.
While she was super glad she could help so much, it got lonely, the mutterings and strange words that came from the zombie-like gaze of Izuku reminding her that she wasn't fully alone. But she couldn't talk to him when he was like this.
Throwing the bucket of holographic popcorn at the boy's head it dispersed into sparkles upon contact. Even when she was just part of a quirk at least she could talk to the other dead people. Wait, could she talk to them now? Using what she could of the quirk and weird robot abilities, she tried to conjure a way to do so.
They were there, she felt it, it was a part of her, but she wasn't in absolute command.
"Damn, looks like only the admin can do that." She turned back to Izuku. "No offense kid, but you don't really know how to use a quirk properly yet."
Were the others locked away somewhere? Maybe they could pop up as well and all of them could chill in her chill room. Izuku's room technically, but he wasn't even awake half the time to use it or cared about how it looked.
[Alert, new particles interfering with Main Unit]
[No Damage Detected]
[Initiate Subatomic scan]
[Scanning….Particles identified]
"I wish you could shrink down so we could help you more."
[Upload particles and render potential designs for adaption]
[Simulating...Rendering...Design compatible for upload.]
[Begin Upgrade….Upgrade Complete]
Nana looked around confused, the room was changing without her input. Everything started to shift, the theater taking on the previous technological appearance. Then, the walls moved closer in, everything was clicking into place and compacting faster than she could keep track of.
"Wait wait, we really didn't think the whole shrinking thing soon. Where will I go?! What about Izuku?!"
Izuku's body remained still, unchanging as everything became claustrophobic. With a split decision Nana used her connection to try and stop the madness. Everything stopped, then changed to better fit the smaller space. Izuku was still in the center, but only a three foot gap kept him from touching the edges.
"Well...that happened."
Ochaco's mouth hung open with several others as Midoriya's body started to shift and change before everyone. He grew shorter and shorter until stopping at around fifty feet. The massive body now stood in one of the footprints left behind. It wasn't just his size that changed, the very look of Izuku changed as well matching another mech she barely recognized.
The main body was a bright green with red and blue highlights, the center had a large glowing piece that was the same glow he always had in his eyes. The arms bulky, white with blue trims, and cannons built on them. The waist was red and black fitting more components in it. The thighs were the same green and the legs were black. Around the foot besides the heel was red and stopped just above the ankle. His head, while mostly green, had silver over his mouth and red trims looping around his forehead. The eyes were sharper, but still carried the same emotional expression as before.
Manga and Pony though, were vibrating in place as they both shouted. "Leopardon!"
Setsuna looked at Manga and Ochaco with betrayal. "You watched a mech show without me?!"
Oh, that's where Ochaco recognized it from. Manga coughed into his hand. "Technically, it was a super hero showed that featured a mech on occasion."
"From Japanese Spider-Man!" Pony added.
Setsuna's eyes widened, realizing two things. One, she fell asleep when they started that show, and the second. "Oh Hadrosaurus there's two super nerds."
"I think the term, geek, is more accurate." Manga corrected.
"We geeks?" Pony asked.
Manga nodded. "Yes, we geeks."
Pony raised her hands in joy for being included in something. "Yay! We geeks!"
"I don't think she knows what that means." Ida said, worried for the girl.
Monoma grinned at the possibilities though. "We should leave her in her ignorance, it's more amusing that way."
I'm glad you guys really liked the last chapter. With the positive reviews you sent me for after many days rewriting it unsure of the quality you helped give me another boost to keep going. Thanks, I feel like I'm out of the funk now.
Design was drawn by saramus01 on Deviant art. The art is titled "Dekuzord Version 2" Go check it out! He does tons of awesome Mech drawings!
Some have reached out to potentially draw covers for this fic, if you thought about it or unsure please feel free to PM me still!
Any suggestions, ideas, comments are extremely appreciated. Thanks for the support.
Zabkiel:
So far Ochaco hasn't really expressed her feelings for anyone romance wise. While Ida may be developing feelings for Ochaco he has yet to actually compete with Izuku in person so to speak. I'm glad you liked the chapter on Komori, she's just a sweet little bean that should be protected. I might touch on Todoroki's situation, but not as much as canon did for sure. After all, how is Izuku supposed to help if he can't react to anyone other than Ochaco at the moment?
Hurtturnip:
Bakugo is twisted, but smart in his own way. We see in the battle trial in canon that once he sees a mistake in himself he's quick to correct it. Now we just have to hope Bakugo sees himself the same way as the others.
Random65:
I'm glad you like that chapter, it means a lot to know that when I feel like I'm not at my best the effort I put into this story is still being recognized.
Saramus92:
First off, hope you like this chapter. Because of the drawings you've done I wanted to say 'thanks' in my own way through it. League of Villains with robots of their own...hmm.I'll see what I can come up with. I like the idea of it being more Nomu focused though, so we get Pacific Rim vibes. Also, I am working on a love triangle involving those three to cause drama. We just have to get that girl in the mech fast before Ida makes a move!
Sweet Kagamine Kiss:
He will get his chance to talk to Ochaco, just not yet, he's making progress though!
Guest:
Again, I am so happy you guys liked the last chapter. It was a personal favorite scene of mine to write even if I wasn't fully there mentally to write it.
Nickiel:
I'm glad you liked it, thank you all for your support, it really helps in my life.