16.12.2022
I'm the Absolute Madman and I didn't just finish writing your weekly dose of Stranded after my phone refused to update the Google Doc I do my writing in so I couldn't get anything done while on my break at work. Nope, didn't happen. But it'd be pretty fuckin' mad if it did, am I rite fellas and felletes?
One thing that happened for sure though are the comments!:
n1ght4ury20 - This cliffhanger was sponsored by [Redacted]. Your complaint has been forwarded to [Redacted]. [Redacted] values your opinion.
NovaKush - Yeah I don't really know what big-brained plan you thought I had planned out, but I can assure you I did no such thing. I'm basically chaos incarnate when it comes to writing but stuff just somehow ends up making sense in the end. Most of the time of course.
Drax152 - Good. Blinking is good for your eyes, and if you hurt your eyes you couldn't look forward to more Stranded!
JesterGlytch - Yeah, I can enjoy some girl on girl action like any guy, but I don't think that every woman has that lesbian side to her to the point where they'd all start banging each other.
the epicslime - I mean, if you wanted to call someone wouldn't it be better to use a phone or something?
Fanfic writer 117 - If you want Izuku x his teenage mother there's this one guy over on Ao3 called MayorHaggar who has a fic just like that. That's what I heard at least. Never read it myself. Nope. Not me.
SonicMax - He was the one being called 'dad', besides I wanted something funny to cliffhanger off of, so there it is. Rest assured the girls are getting their fair share soon enough.
Guest - I do indeed plan to add her at some point. At the big point called Act 2 which we are only a couple of chapters away from.
Ryuujin96 - Bro, couldn't you have said so when the poll was still up?! lol I also hope that I get to write it one day as that would not only expand but also tie together my Expanded Universe. Madman's Expanded Universe.
neowolf24 - Chillax dude, she's handling herself along with the other 1-B girls and they are chilling in the jungle somewhere. No need to rush. Also, that could've just been some tiger that decided to scratch its back on the branch or something.
Trinity seven - No I can't. I am a Madman, but I'm a professional one. And professionals have standards. And before I leave, catch - In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Search and you should find it by title alone.
And now that the chapter had a moment to cool down after being freshly taken out of the oven it's ready to be read. Enjoy!:
"Father, what's wrong?" The use of the word 'father' almost sent Izuku into another catatonic shock but a mean slap to the face and someone yelling 'stay with me dammit!' as if he was on the brink of death kept him firmly in the land of the living.
When he eventually found the strength to sit up he was greeted by a very bizarre sight. His supposed daughter was sitting next to him with a completely straight expression which strangely reminded him of that one girl from class B, Kodai Yui if his memory served him right, and on the other side of him was Kyouka, who had delivered the slap earlier and kept him conscious.
Meanwhile, Tooru and Momo were holding an impromptu interrogation of Mina and by the looks of it they've been grilling her like there was no tomorrow. They didn't even stick to the good cop bad cop routine! Blasphemy!
"Hey you, you're finally awake." Kyouka said once she noticed that Izuku had woken up from his catatonic nap and for a split second Izuku felt as if he would learn in the near future how to shout loud enough for his Voice to throw people around like ragdolls. A strange feeling for sure, but not the strangest one by a long shot.
"How long was I out for?"
"By my calculations you were out for exactly four minutes and twenty seven seconds, father." The girl he rescued answered.
"Why are you calling me 'father'? This is literally the first time we met." Izuku said, his confusion and interest apparent. He was used to being called 'dad' by Eri, but she wasn't doing it that frequently and this was most definitely not Eri.
"Technically you are right as this is the first time that we meet in this form. But this is hardly the first time we see each other. We've used to spend so much time together, we slept under the same roof and you even fed me every week." The girl reminiscent, a small smile gracing her lips.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Izuku stated, his confusion only increasing further at the explanation.
"Oh, I believe I may have a photo of what I looked like in the past." The girl said and then proceeded to pull a piece of paper out of her own skin in a manner that was basically identical to Momo's Creation and then handed it to the stunned duo of Izuku and Kyouka.
Izuku took the picture with his mouth slightly agape, dumbfounded by the display as thousands of questions swarmed his head all at once, and then went on to examine the photo. It turned out to be a bad idea.
"Wait, you mean- you were- how in the fuck?" He stammered out as he rapidly switched between looking at the girl and the photo.
Mina, Momo and Tooru had finally seemed to notice that he was awake and making a commotion as usual and approached the dumbfounded duo, clearly interested in what was going on behind their backs.
When questioned Izuku simply showed the photo to the girls and explained what he knew. It took them only one look to instantly recognize what the picture portrayed and they couldn't help but express their shock.
For you see, the picture looked to be taken in the common area of their previous base and had only one thing in it - their omnipotent and sentient pile of stuff.
"Wait a moment." Izuku suddenly perked up as his confusion cleared up for a moment. "If you consider me to be your dad, then who is your mom?" He asked and the girls awaited her answer with a bated breath.
"Well, seeing as you seem to frequently engage in sexual activities with each of them, I think it's safe to say that I should consider all four of them my mothers. I believe it is called a harem." The girl explained with the straightest expression to ever appear on someone's face as if what she said was completely normal, which to her it probably was.
Suffice to say, her explanation was met with some very… interesting reactions.
Mina, Momo, Tooru and Kyouka were clearly taken aback by the declaration as they looked at the girl in complete shock before turning to look at one another and then promptly fainting just like Izuku did a couple of minutes ago. Izuku meanwhile was busying himself with screaming 'It's not a harem!' to the world, but the world elected to ignore him and go back to try and set him up with even more girls.
While all of this was going down, the strange girl watched on with a small smile, feeling happy at finally being reunited with her family.
When the girls finally woke up from their respective catatonic naps it was time for some more in-depth explanation that Izuku and his daughter managed to cook up while the girls recovered.
As the two managed to piece together, their dumping point for miscellaneous things they brought from the supply drops had magically become conscious around the time that Momo arrived and was vaguely aware of what was going on from that point, but only to a certain degree. This changed some time later as her awareness had increased exponentially and granted her the ability to listen in on their conversations and such. That's how they could always pull anything they needed out of the pile, because as Izuku had already noticed earlier, his daughter had an ability, not really a Quirk but an ability to absorb and manipulate matter both in- and organic which sounded like an even more jacked up version of Momo's already borderline cheat code of a Quirk, but there was even more to it!
Apparently she could not only manipulate the shape and composition of the things she created but also control its various properties which she demonstrated by pouring a constant stream of water onto Izuku's hand and changing its temperature as she did so. It went from being ice-cold to almost scalding in a matter of moments. But wait, there's more!
As it turns out she could not only produce solid materials, liquids and gasses, but also soundwaves and light, which she demonstrated by knocking over a conveniently placed can that definitely wasn't there before with a soundblast which was strangely similar to what Present Mic could do and creating a soft glowing aura around herself respectively.
Needless to say her abilities sounded pretty fucking awesome to a nerd like Izuku, but even after all of those reveals, there was still something more.
This time it was Izuku who discovered it, as even his daughter had no idea about this.
It was hard not to draw similarities between what she could do and what Momo could do, but upon closer inspection Izuku realized that all of the girls had some connection with her.
Her ability to create things out of other things was like a carbon copy of Momo's Creation, the fact that she could change the properties of her creation like the temperature of water resembled Mina's Acid, whilst the ability to create light and sound had some vague parallels with Tooru's not-exactly-invisibility-but-some-kind-of-light-manipulation and Kyouka's Earphone Jack respectively.
Honestly, despite being addressed as 'dad' multiple times already, Izuku didn't feel like he had a lot in common with his daughter. She seemed to inherit something from all the girls and nothing from him. Well, maybe safe for the green-ish hue of her hair, but that was a bit of a stretch as the color was slightly different than his.
Well, this only meant that he'd have to try harder than others to be a good parent!
Speaking of, she also revealed that she viewed him as her father because he took care of her back when she was just a sentient pile of scrap that they were close to worshiping in the name of the Omnissiah and she read on the internet that taking care of their child was a parent's responsibility, so she decided to call him her dad despite there being at most four years of difference between the two. It was an added bonus in Izuku's mind as he didn't feel ready to take care of a small child, while he himself is still just a teenager.
The girls seemed to share his viewpoint and were quite glad that they wouldn't have to breastfeed a newborn anytime soon, although one of them was strangely enticed by the idea and was wondering how that'd feel exactly. They are called Mommy Milkies for a reason you know?!
The explanation was still quite confusing as they had no idea why exactly she had gained consciousness and free will all of a sudden, but at least they knew a few things about her. Except one very important thing.
"Do you have a name?" One of the girls asked and the others awaited the answer curiously.
"I have a vague recollection of being called ROB, but I don't think it suits me very much, so I don't think I have a name, no." The girl explained.
"Would you… like us to give you a name?" Izuku offered.
"Yes." Was her immediate answer.
Izuku chuckled softly before trying to figure out a good name for his daughter. The girls were throwing their ideas in, but none of them stuck with Izuku. Names like Kojima, Jeneshisu, Shōdo, Zetsumetsu and Sentā were a few that Izuku heard, but he didn't like them that much. Then, out of the blue, a stray thought crossed his mind and he immediately loved it.
"How about Shuusa? Or just Shu for short?" He proposed and the girls seemed to mull over the name for a moment. Then they started nodding, seemingly satisfied with how it sounded and gave their approval. "Well then, what do you think about Shuusa?" Izuku asked his daughter.
"I like it." She answered with a small smile.
"The daughter approves!" Izuku cheered and the girls joined in.
Their newest addition was very much unexpected, but Izuku and the girls believed she'd fit right in with no problem.
And fit right in she did. Right in between Izuku and Kyouka to be precise as she refused to sleep alone. Cuddling your daughter who was only four years younger than you and not really your daughter was weird, but only for the first few nights as the entire group had quickly grown fond of the girl.
Needless to say she became Momo's favorite right off the bat as she had the perfect ability to help her in her hellforge and was also completely unfazed by the heat. However, they had quickly learned that Shuusa's ability, whilst very similar to Momo's, worked in a fundamentally different way. Momo used the lipids stored in her body to create objects, so the amount of material she had to work with was limited. In Shuusa's case that was not the case. It explained why their pile of now-confirmed-to-have-been-sentient-stuff never changed its volume no matter how many things they put in or took out of it. Shuusa had the ability to absorb materials through her skin like a reversed version of Momo's Creation - although ingesting edibles the regular way also did the job - but her conversion ability was severely limited in comparison to Momo's.
Momo's Creation could basically make anything that Mendeleyev put on the board - and probably way fucking more but the canon didn't have time to explore that idea thoroughly - from body fat. We're talking food into fissile materials kind of conversion. If that's not bonkers I don't know what is.
In Shuusa's case things looked way different. For example, despite having the ability to create biological matter like wood or silk, she couldn't do that without ingesting biological matter first. Converting metals and whatnot also had its limitations. She could absorb coal and transform it into diamonds, but it wouldn't work with anything else. Ingesting hydrogen would allow her to make deuterium and inhaled oxygen could be transformed into ozone, but she couldn't make uranium out of water. One would think that all those limitations would render Shuusa's ability not that flexible, but with a good head on your shoulders it could still work miracles. Fortunately enough, Momo had a very good head that was also used to thinking 24/7 so working around those limitations was a breeze.
Besides, Shuusa had a very intrinsic understanding of metallurgy and craftsmanship in general, something she'd picked up from the internet that she somehow had access to inside of her head. Weird, but useful so no one questioned it just like they didn't question Momo's descent into madness.
Thanks to all those qualities that have just been mentioned, Shuusa had quickly become Momo's assistant in the hellforge, but just as it was the case with Momo proposing to share Izuku with other girls, she wasn't going to hog their daughter all day every day.
On some days Shuusa would go out with her father to form another batch of bricks and both would come back absolutely covered in clay but in high spirits and on other days she'd join the rest of the girls foraging in the forest. She'd quickly learned the do's and don'ts of berry gathering and reached the maximum level of expertise on the subject. Her ability to produce light was also super useful, with how early it got dark what with the black clouds still blocking out the twin suns most of the time, as it allowed them to work longer than they'd normally be able to. None of them were particularly fond of picking the wrong berries and ending up eating soap by mistake.
Yes, the infamous soap story had made its glorious return once again and Izuku was forced to once again relive the shame of his far-from-best moment. He really hoped it would be the last time. Spoiler alert - it wasn't.
Living peacefully was something that the gang had grown quite accustomed to over the past few months, but the sudden shift in weather two weeks ago was a very sobering reminder that they shouldn't take the peace and quiet for granted. Their stalker turned out to be just a girl with a super useful ability that didn't cause any trouble besides putting them on edge for a couple of days and sending them on mandatory catatonic naps with her words. All in all it could be way worse. They could've been stalked by a desperate animal for example, or a whole pack! The fact that they didn't see a single animal throughout their whole stay doesn't mean there aren't any around, just that they aren't interested in them, yet.
Backtracking to the weather. It followed the schedule of raining throughout the day and stopping in the evening just to pick right where it left off the next morning, but the amount of precipitation kept steadily increasing on a daily basis and it was soon too much for the ground to handle. Treacherous mud pits began forming all around their base as the river started slowly encroaching on the previously untouched ground of its banks. Momo was thankful that they discovered that lava cave when they did, because the spot where they began construction of her second forge had turned into a bog already and half of the unfinished structure had collapsed a few days ago before being dragged downstream to wherever the river had taken it. It was only a matter of time before the rest of it followed suit and succumbed to the currents.
The rainy season getting more and more intense wasn't very unusual, but it was most definitely worrying. Flooding was a concern before, but now it was a definite risk, one that they decided to do something about.
Thankfully Momo had only just finished one of her side projects - a pickaxe which shared a similar design as Izuku's axe as well as his Tek Spear and Momo's Tek Carbine. It also didn't deserve to be called a Tek Pick or anything like that in Momo's eyes, so she simply referred to it as a pickaxe.
With something way sturdier than a Salvaged Icepick which had already forgotten its glorious days Izuku was more than capable of carrying out the flood prevention efforts. First they'd decided to dig out a small ditch around the entrance to their cave which would hopefully prevent water from breaking inside their base right away and give them some time to counteract it if the need ever arose and it probably will. They lined the ditch with bricks and water-proof cement that Shuusa had engineered with her unique ability.
The ditch itself however wouldn't be worth anything if the water didn't have anywhere to go. Back to the river would be the logical way to redirect it in, but with the water level rising daily, it was tough to say how reliable that idea was. With that in mind they decided to go the extra mile and do something future-proof.
Izuku and his new tool had dug out a small channel alongside one of the walls which led from the entrance directly to the giant chasm far in the back of their base. Then he cut down a bunch of bamboo and made a pipeline so that the water wouldn't simply splash all over their cave, they were specifically trying to keep their humble abode as dry as possible after all. Shuusa once again proved to be immensely helpful as she managed to cook up a paste that acted like glue combined with water-sealant which they used to bind the individual bamboo pipes together.
It earned her a few proud pats on the head from her father who found that he really liked doing that and would definitely continue to do so in the future. Shuusa was not complaining.
The battle between man and nature remained at a vague stalemate for a couple of days until suddenly one morning Izuku woke up to something as unexpected as it was worrying.
His grogginess was impairing his senses as it usually did right after waking up before his body managed to get on with the program, but it cleared in an instant when he heard the sound of sloshing water. He got up as quickly as he could whilst making sure that he didn't disturb any of the girls at the same time and hastily approached the bamboo pipes that were meant to drain the water from their safety ditch. He didn't even have to kneel down to hear it by then, there was definitely water in there.
His body released a spike of adrenaline as he quietly rushed towards the doors to the outside, his morbid curiosity rising by the second.
He stepped out into the open only to confirm what he'd already suspected. It was raining. And the suns had yet to rise. It was raining. And it was dark outside. The sound of fresh rain drops hitting the water that was already trying to escape their ditch was impossible to miss. This could only mean one thing - they'd need a bigger ditch.
Try and figure out what Shuusa's name means. I'll wait.
So, seeing as Christmas is right around the corner I will be... not taking a time off or anything. Don't worry, your weekly dose of Stranded is safe. But on the topic of Christmas - you may want to check out my fic list starting on Monday as I may or may have not been busy with something that is not Stranded the past couple of days.
Let us part ways now. Have a great day and I'll catch y'all next time, whenever that may be!