The mistake that so many who wish to change the world make is trying to force their movement. To demand people follow.

Now, there was something to be said about getting attention. No revolution can exist if it is a secret. The revolution will not be televised? It wasn't because it never came to be. But one had to be smart about how they gained attention. Block off a freeway so no one could drive on it? You got noticed but more often than not turned all that might have listened to you against your cause. No, you wanted to entice people to come to you, to notice you. The sirens didn't go grabbing sailors, they sang to them.

A movement couldn't be forced. Couldn't be created like a marketing plan. It had to develop naturally. And the best ones weren't actually created but rather grew like grass, slowly spreading until it covered everything.

Midoriya Izuku had heard the whispers for a while now. People speaking in hushed voiced. Knowledge that wasn't shouted but rather murmured. Allowed to spread. To creep. To find the right ears.

Change was coming.

He had always been an observant child, noting everything about the world around him. People thought he was merely obsessed with quirks but in reality Izuku noticed everything around him, to the point that sometimes it overwhelmed his senses. It was why he was always muttered, as he had to try and process all he was experiencing. And he was seeing and hearing that something was coming.

The clerk at the store being a touch nicer to him when he shopped with his mom, even though only months earlier he had scowled at him for being a 'worthless little boy' because he didn't have a quirk. A businessman on the street one day hushing his daughter when she mentioned seeing a particular hero fight. The news brushing over the fact that Black Frames, the Number 7 Hero in Japan, hadn't been seen patrolling for nearly half a year. Flyers popping up with a simple word printed on them: Konton. A mother at the park firmly telling her son not to pick on Izuku while twisting a ring that was mostly gold save for a small section that was blue; only later, after he'd seen the ring several more times and taken to drawing it, had he realized that with the blue there the gold part formed the English letter C.

And as he sat in his ome room on the first day at Aldera Middle School, his teacher telling the rest of the students in a mocking tone how they would have to be 'careful' around Izuku since he was so much more 'weaker' than the rest of them, he found himself unable to focus on the hurt the words were bringing. Because… something was coming.

When it did it came not as a murmur or a whisper… but the shrill screech of the PA.

"Attention staff of Aldera Middle School," a voice called out, the accent clearly American. "You have been chosen for a demonstration. Do not attempt to contact the authorities… all signals in and out of a 2 mile radius have been jammed. I control all and yet… what happens next is on you and you alone."

The students began to murmur and Izuku saw his teacher pale considerably. And based on the noise out in the hall it wasn't just their class hearing the message.

But before their teacher could say a word, be it to calm them or to panic, there was a flash of light and all the students turned to stare in horror as a beam of energy shot down from the sky like a thunderbolt from a wrathful god. It lasted only a moment but when it was done a charred circle roughly 30 feet wide had been blasted into the parking lot.

"There is an orbital satellite currently aimed at your school. On my command it will fire again and it will reduce Aldera and all inside to ashes."

Several students began to scream and far more cried. Kaachan gotto his feet, explosions popping from his hands, but Izuku could tell he had no idea what to do.

"However… not all need to die this day." They all waited silently, the pause seeming to stretch on forever. "Send the students out and my satellite will not strike YOU down, teachers of Aldera."

"…what?" a girl, Izuku didn't know her name, whispered in horror.

"Send them to the crater. Send them into the blast zone. And I promise my satellite will not fire upon your school."

Izuku turned towards his teacher… and saw the gears turning in his head.

"Fuck that!" Kaachan shouted. "If I'm going out there its to fight that fucker! Stupid dipshit will-"

It happened so quick that Izuku would later swear his teacher must have had a speed quirk. In seconds he was on Kaachan, lashing out and striking him with his syllabus so hard that the edge slashed Kaachan's cheek. Izuku watched his friend slowly reach up, his anger gone as he looked at the blood oozing from his wound, unable to understand what was happening.

"Get out," the teacher said, trembling.

The students didn't move.

"GET OUT!" their homeroom teacher screamed, moving to strike another student.

The next few minutes were a blur. Izuku was out in the hallway, a mass of sobbing frightened students pushing him towards an exit. He heard pleading and screaming and saw other teachers using their quirks to force the students towards the doors and stairways. How he got down to the first floor he had no idea and by the time he was outside he was missing a shoe and his hair was covered in a glue-like substance a panicked teacher had shot at him. He ended up next to Kaachan who was still looking about with dull glassy eyes, fingers pressed to the cut on his cheek, a bruise beginning to form.

But everything went still as Izuku looked past the mob as they entered the crater… and saw HIM.

The gold and blue armor.

The glowing eyes.

The weapons trained and at the ready.

Chaosbringer.

Someone beside him let out a high pitch whine and Izuku began to tear up. Others were looking fearfully up at the clouds, wondering when the satellite would fire. Others frantically tried to call their parents, getting nothing but static.

The Symbol of Change spoke.

"I want you to remember that they didn't care about your quirk. Strong. Weak. Heroic. Villainous. No quirk at all. It didn't matter to them. Mutation or none. Trained or unable to master. They looked at each and every one of you… and decided you were nothing."

And then Chaosbringer lifted his arms…

…and rained death upon Aldera.

He hadn't lied. He didn't have his satellite fire.

No, he destroyed the school himself.

His shoulder cannon tore a great line through half the building. His gauntlets fired all manner of explosives that detonated in the school. Fires raged at once and then Chaosbringer rose in the air and fired upon the few staff members to tried to flee, reducing them to smears.

For five minutes he smote Aldera until nothing was left.

"A true hero does not sacrifice the innocent," Chaosbringer informed them before rocketing away.

Five minutes later the first parents arrived. They all told the same story: they received a phone call saying they needed to come and pick up their children. And that as they had hurried to get there they had heard recordings of Chaosbringer's demands… and the teachers letting out sighs of relief and congratulating themselves for sending children out to die.

Kaachan's parents got there before Izuku's mom but he didn't mind because Kaachan's dad hugged him tight while Kaachan's mom alternating between cursing out their 'fucking coward teachers!' and cuddling Kaachan close; his friend told her to knock it off but didn't actually try pushing her away. And when his mother did arrive there she and him sobbed so hard that izuku didn't think they'd ever stop crying.

The news covered the tragedy. They of course blamed Chaosbringer for all the death, labeling him Japan's most wanted villain. But there was just as much hatred directed towards the dead teachers, especially when the students gave their interviews about what had happened. Of how not a single teacher had tried to save them; how all had been willing to let them die.

Izuku remembered what Chaosbringer had said. Remembered how he had shown that it didn't matter the quirk… on that day they had all been equal. And as the Symbol of Change began to appear at other locations in the following weeks, attacking places that were revealed to discriminate against the quirkless and those with mutation quirks… he found himself listening again.

And when one of his mother's co-workers quietly asked him one day when he came over to go over some paperwork from her if Izuku liked his gold and blue ring…

…Izuku asked, softly, where he might get one of his own.