Chaos. That was the only apt word Amanda Hatfield would use to describe the state of the research lab when she stepped into it. Almost a dozen different doctors, scientists, and mathematicians gathered together and still not one of them could explain the development that had forced Amanda, the project director, out of her bed at three in the morning. Multiple conversations were happening all at once in the large room filled with dozens of computers, but every single spoken word was about the phenomenon on the other side of the viewing glass.

"I haven't had my coffee yet, Simmons, so this better be good. What's going on?" Amanda's voice cut through the throng of noise like a knife. Simmons had sounded the alert, so he was damn well going to answer for it.

The addressed individual, a middle-aged man with graying hair and thick, square glasses, looked up from the monitor in front of him, his face a twisted mix of fear and anticipation. "There was a surge in brain activity, ma'am!"

"Bullshit," Amanda immediately bit out. "Subject X-00024 has been dormant for almost 300 years!"

"Then explain this!" Simmons practically yelled, waving his arms towards the monitors, all sense of decorum forgotten in the face of the impossible. "Brain activity! Heart rate! Every single diagnostic we have on the Subject is skyrocketing to unprecedented levels!"

Amanda scanned all of the monitors in the room, her Quirk instantly allowing her to process all of the visible information. Even with the data clearly laid about before her, it didn't make sense. Well, it did, but it shouldn't have been possible. "Have you double-checked all of the equipment?"

"Director," from the other side of the room Amanda's informal second in command, Jasper, caught her eye. "We triple-checked our equipment, we ran multiple additional scans, we reset all of our metrics and started from scratch. It's undeniable, he's waking up."

"My god…" Amanda's hands rose to the back of her head as she sunk into an empty chair. "Has he started reacting to outside stimuli?"

"Not yet," Fen replied, the young woman not bothering to look up from her monitor. "But it's only a matter of time at this rate."

"Do we have anyone looking for a cause already?"

Jasper nodded at Amanda in reply, smoke trailing off one of his damned cigarettes as he held it betwixt his lips. "I had May start pouring over everything from the last 72 hours working backwards ever since Simmons detected the surge," he said around an exhalation of the foul toxins. Protocol said he wasn't allowed to have a lit flame in the room, but Amanda wasn't about to call him out on it even though she hated the smell, especially not when they had other shit to worry about. A colleague smoking cigarette where they weren't supposed to was roughly at the bottom of her very, very long list of concerns in life, and that was on a good day.

"I haven't found anything yet, ma'am," May answered Amanda's next question before she had a chance to ask it. The exceedingly tall woman sounded nervous, hell, all of them did. It was honestly a completely natural response given the events unfolding; it wasn't every day that a comatose young man encased in impossibly hard crystal for almost three centuries suddenly began to wake up.

Amanda couldn't help the pride that welled within her though. Her team was undeniably nervous, but for every fearful glance there was an accompanying grin; anticipation for what was to come. This team had spent almost 18 months together, every single day devoted to studying Subject X-00024. Their research had yielded dozens of interesting findings, but every single minute discovery paled in comparison to the subject actually coming to consciousness. It was simultaneously a dream come true combined with a waking nightmare.

The door to the lab opened, pulling Amanda from her train of thought as her least favorite person in the facility entered the room. "Hatfield!" A deep, rough voice resounded out, and of course he was calling her name.

Amanda failed to hold back a scowl even as she refused to turn to look at the newcomer who addressed her. "Whatever you want, Lindberg, make it quick, we're doing something that is actually important here." On any other day Amanda might have at least been polite to the chief of security, but on that day, at that time, she had less than zero desire to deal with his strict ass while history was unfolding before her.

Dennis Lindberg seemingly bit back a string of curse words as he approached her, a sight she only witnessed out of the peripheral of her eyes. The tall, balding man was physically imposing but he refrained from trying to tower over her. A brute in appearance, not personality; a small mark in his favor. "Listen, Hatfield," he began, toning down his voice as his eyes scanned over the monitors, "I'm sorry, I know this is a huge breakthrough for you, but protocol dictates that if Subject X-00024 should ever exhibit dangerous behavior, then the lab is to be evacuated immediately. No exceptions."

Amanda snorted, not even bothering to adjust her weight as she continued to stare at her crystal-encased subject. "There is literally nothing you could say or do that would make me leave this lab right now, Lindberg, so don't waste your breath."

"Hatfield!" The imposing man's voice grew stern once more. "You may be the director of the project, but that does not mean you own the lab! You will obey the protocols put into place!"

The Head of Security had at least a solid foot of height over Amanda, but she didn't hesitate to turn on him with a snarl, one of her poorly manicured nails poking him in the chest. "You and I both know they only included those damn safety protocols to satisfy international law on the off-chance that the United Confederation would send an envoy to check up on us!"

It wasn't a secret among those who worked in such labs that what they were doing barely qualified as legal. Technically, it was all above board, but that was only because the right palms were greased to prevent anyone with ethical sensibilities from looking too closely. The team of scientists and their financial backers weren't evil by any means, but they were more willing to push the boundaries of scientific ethics than what was commonly considered acceptable. X-00024 was considered a living human being despite his comatose state, but if anyone at the UC ever asked, they were simply conducting tests on bizarre mineral formations and fossilized tissue. That was all the UC needed to know.

Despite her arguments, Lindberg wasn't impressed. "Regardless of the reason such protocols are in place, we will follow them. I am not asking." Lindberg glared down at Amanda, but she couldn't even bring herself to be truly upset with him when the primary emotion she saw within his eyes was concern. It was a genuine wonder why he gave a damn, but it was clear that he did.

"Chief," Jasper murmured, meeting Lindberg's eyes, smoke trailing from his lips, "I respect that you're just trying to do your job, but this is the opportunity of a lifetime for us. If you would like to document your attempts to get us to leave before exiting the facility, that's fine, I will even provide a statement confirming as much… but I don't think any of us are going to join you."

Amanda promised herself to buy Jasper a pack of his favorite smokes later. The man's ability to relay his thoughts calmly was a welcome reprieve. She knew her skill-sets, and calmly explaining to a man obsessed with safety why she didn't give a rat's ass about such conventions was not among them.

Lindberg sighed deeply, his eyes closing as he ran his hand over his thinning hair. "That's not good enough, Dr. Lee, I wish it was, but it's not. I can't leave all of you in here, undefended, with a potentially dangerous individual returning to consciousness for the first time since the Troubled Century!"

Jasper shrugged lightly, seemingly unmoved by Lindberg's plea. "Some of us are former heroes, you know. We're not exactly defenseless."

"That's not the-"

Lindberg's words died in his throat as a pulse of energy suddenly swept outward from the 300-year-old subject. Everyone in the room was silent. Despite the wave of blue energy that was clearly visible to the naked eye, there did not appear to be any sort of immediate impact. In a way, that was even more terrifying.

"Hatfield… We need to leave. Now." Lindberg's voice bordered on pleading.

Amanda did not pay the man any mind as she scanned the monitors. The only change was that the subject's body temperature continued to rise. Previously, X-00024 had maintained a 12.22222 degrees Celsius temperature at all times. It never fluctuated even a single tenth of a degree in either direction. But now, it was rising to levels that would be considered downright normal for any healthy human.

"That energy… it wasn't electrical, thermal, chemical, or gravitational," Simmons muttered, furiously typing away.

"Not nuclear either…" Jasper added, leaning forward against the extraordinarily thick, ballistic glass. "Forgive me for breaking protocol, Chief, you too, Director, but I can't resist trying."

Jasper Lee's quirk wasn't a secret among the staff. Even with the dubious ethics of their project, quirk registration was still an aspect of international law that they followed, and Jasper's ability was no exception. Hell, if anything, its potency merited even more attention and awareness. The ability to see and interact with the consciousness of others as if was a dream may, at a glance, appear to be harmless, but it had frightening implications in the hands of Jasper. The moment he'd signed onto the project, Jasper had been expressly forbidden from using his quirk on X-00024. The effects it could have on either of them was utterly unknown; even with Amanda's loose sensibilities, it had been deemed too dangerous. Jasper had apparently decided he no longer cared.

"Doctor Lee, don't!" Lindberg's plea for caution fell upon deaf ears as the tell-tale signs of Jasper's quirk took effect. It was a tad unnerving to see his bright, blue eyes roll into the back of his skull, leaving naught but veiny white orbs in their wake, but they had at least been forewarned. "Fool!" Lindberg accused, running forward but refraining from putting his hands upon Jasper, they'd all been warned against doing that as well.

Not one to rest in times of crisis, the brief lull in activity was nothing more than an opportunity for Amanda to issue orders. "Simmons, get medical prepped for both Jasper and the subject, just in case. We don't know what condition either of them might wake up in."

"On it, Ma'am."

"May," Amanda continued, "I want you to stay on top of analyzing that data, I want to know what triggered all of this. Fen, I still want to know what that energy pulse was." Both women offered quick and to the point replies before diligently returning to their tasks. "Ryuji," Amanda turned her gaze to the youngest member of their team, the young blonde man who was a genius in chemical biology, "I'm putting you in charge of monitoring the subject. Every single change in his condition needs to be documented, no matter how small. Understood?"

"Already on it!" He declared confidently; his black-painted fingers awhirl as he inputted data faster than most people would be able to read it.

Amanda nodded in satisfaction before continuing on to issue orders to her assembled team. Working with a qualified and competent team of experts was a dream come true for anyone in her line of work. She couldn't help but feel a sliver of pride as no one even considered exiting the facility. Scientific curiosity was driving them forward now, and none of them were going to let potential dangers sway them from their path.

"HATFIELD!" Lindberg's shout pulled Amanda away from her analysis. Lindberg may have had a stick up his ass, but he'd never yelled at her before. Hell, she wasn't sure she'd heard him yell at anyone.

"I don't appreciate people talking to me in that tone, Lindberg, so this better be good." Her voice was like ice. Disagreements she could tolerate, but disrespect crossed the line.

The Head of Security took a deep breath, seemingly in an effort to calm himself. "For the safety of everyone in this room, we need to evacuate the building."

"I told you, it's not happening, if you-"

"I know what you said, damn it! But we don't know the first thing about that man or his abilities! Your curiosity is not worth everyone's lives!"

Dennis Lindberg was a good man. He truly believed that the men and women in that room weren't worth risking. Amanda simply disagreed. Just as she knew her team would. No one joined projects like this unless they were married to their work, and it was downright normal to risk your life for your spouse. Amanda did not think of herself as a monster, but she had to know more. X-00024 was worth it.

"Save yourself, Lindberg, and take anyone who wants to go with you, but I'm not leaving."

The balding man looked at her, utterly aghast. "Does the survival of everyone in this room mean so little to you in the face of answers?"

Yes, Amanda thought. Aloud, she spoke different words."Everyone here has made their choice; you should respect that."

At that moment, almost as if on cue from a director in a stage-play given its timing, Jasper's eyes rolled back forward, signaling the end to his foray into the subject's consciousness. The normally calm and downright unshakable man looked… scared.

"Jasper…?" Amanda knew her voice sounded nervous, but she couldn't help it. Jasper was a former professional hero who had worked in both the United States and Korea. While also a brilliant doctor in his chosen field of Neurobiology, the reason he was her informal second was because he was so dependable in other areas. To see him in such a state was concerning.

The dark-haired man said something, but it was unintelligible.

"Jasper, say that again, we couldn't hear you," Amanda said, walking towards him before she was stopped in her tracks.

With wide, terrified eyes, Jasper met Amanda's gaze and said a single word. "Run."

Amanda didn't have time to even process Lindberg's desperate shouts or the scared scream of May before a second wave of blue energy pulsated outward, and the entire building collapsed around them.

OoooOoooO

"Yuu…"

Who's… talking?

"Yuu… Yuu!"

What… do they want?

"Yuu, it's time to wake up…"

Why… won't they let me sleep?

"Open your eye, Yuu."

Yuu Otosaka visibly recoiled as he exposed his lone good eye to the world before rapidly closing it once more. There wasn't a lot of light, but what was there was brightly flickering like a television in a dark room. It was annoying, and painful. Even more annoying was his placement on a floor covered in shards of broken crystal that dug into his exposed skin.

"Damn it…" Yuu grunted, hoisting himself to his feet even as he squinted against the strobing blue light. This wasn't the first time he'd woken up in strange places with no clue of how he got there, and unfortunately, it wouldn't be the last. The life he'd chosen was a difficult one, to say the least.

A forlorn sigh escaped his lips as he brushed the jagged shards off his body, slowly allowing his eye to grow accustomed to the inconsistent piercing of whatever light was on in the room. The sight that greeted him was one he'd become all too familiar with in recent years.

All around him was broken rubble and the mangled, broken bodies of humans. The lone light was the arcing electricity sparking from the obliterated technology. Once upon a time the scene would've made him react in abject terror. The boy he was when he first began his journey was hopelessly naïve and idealistic, but now, he knew better. In a perfect world, life was something to be protected and preserved, but their world was not perfect. The horrors he had encountered in his journey across the world had squashed any and all thoughts of idealist notions. Yuu still did not like the sight, sound, nor smell of death and destruction, but humans did not always have the luxury of only engaging with that which they liked.

Yuu did not know the exact circumstances that led him to being in this location, but he knew for a fact that the state of the building and bodies was his fault. Even through the destruction, Yuu could see the tell-tale signs that he was in a research facility, and that the men and women bleeding on the ground were garbed in once pristine lab-coats. Given such an environment, it was only natural that he would use Collapse and lay judgement upon those who thought of ability users as nothing but weapons or animals to be experimented upon.

"So, I was captured, huh?"

His memory was fragile on the best of days. An unfortunate byproduct of the task set upon him. The human brain was not equipped to handle that which he placed upon himself. A spotty memory was one of the side effects. That was the price he paid for vowing to make the world one in which abilities did not exist. He would steal them all, no matter the cost. He'd made a promise to get back to her when he was done, and he planned on keeping that promise.

Channeling one of the innumerable abilities he'd plundered during his journey, all of the dust, debris, and grime that coated him and his clothes fell from his body to the ground below. His dark blue jeans, simple red t-shirt, and black, knee length coat with the sleeves rolled to his elbows were once again in a clean, if not pristine, condition. They'd likely be disgusting once more by the time he was done, but even after his time spent in the deserts of the world, he hated the feeling of filth covering his body.

"Now then," he mused quietly, "where the hell am I?"

A small fire materialized in his palm, providing a warm, ambient glow around the room. At a glance, the nationalities of the research scientists were varied and therefore a useless indicator of location. Skin tone, facial features, height, weight, there wasn't a single consistent factor among them.

"Multinational team, huh?" Yuu said aloud. It wasn't the first time he'd encountered groups such as this. Corporations were just as likely to finance research into abilities as governments and black-ops groups were. Though, even then, this could still be a government facility for all he knew. The number of research labs he'd encountered in the Middle East and South America that belonged to the imperialist powers of the world could not be understated. Hell, they were all over the globe, but those regions especially felt the influence of foreign powers. In the end, this lab could belong to anybody, and unless he found a working computer system or a living member of the staff, his guesses were pointless.

"You… fucking… monster!"

The unexpected voice pulled Yuu from his soliloquy. It belonged to a rather tall balding man dressed in what appeared to be a once fine suit, thought it was now covered in blood stains and had burnt sections. The man himself had a gash above his brow, and blood dripped from his pulverized hand. The man spoke English, but fortunately for Yuu, he had an ability to comprehend any language. It had certainly come in handy during his travels around the globe.

"What did you expect from the Reaper? A pacifist?" Yuu taunted, his lone eye narrowing as a wicked, malicious smirk overtook his features. "You brought this upon yourself the moment you brought me here!"

The man didn't appear to give a damn about what Yuu said. "Damn it, Hatfield… I told you we couldn't trust a being from the Troubled Century…"

Yuu didn't know who Hatfield was, nor what the 'Troubled Century' referred to, but he intended to find out. Telepathy was a rather useful ability when it came to interrogations. "Where are we?" Yuu asked.

The man didn't respond, but he didn't need to. Unbidden, the man's mind supplied the knowledge of a lab located in the middle of the Thar Desert. Yuu's memories may not have been the best, but that was the last region he could recall being in prior to his capture. He'd had to circle back to India after some time spent in Europe. It was rather fortunate that he wasn't relocated.

"For the sake of humanity… I will put an end to you, here and now." The man declared, his hands closing into fists as strange, murky shadows enveloped his limbs.

An ability user? Yuu was surprised to see someone so old have one. It wasn't impossible, but it was downright rare. Just as surprising was that the staff of this lab would have an ability user try and go up against him of all people. Yuu's reputation as the One-Eyed Shinigami was very well established around the globe. Their arrogance was unmatched if they thought he wouldn't simply plunder every ability he saw at first opportunity.

The man was opportunistic if nothing else. Mistaking Yuu's lack of action as apprehension, the man attacked. Inky tendrils shot forth from his fingers as different tendrils pushed off the balls of his feet to propel him forwards. It was all for naught.

Yuu's eye glowed green as he looked upon the man's angry visage. Plundering an ability was a quick process. One second the man was preparing to strike down his foe with powerful black shadows that dwarfed human strength. The next, he was a bloodied old man, tripping to the ground with an outstretched fist.

"You would've been better off drawing the side-arm in your jacket," Yuu said plainly, his hand rising to his head, the prerequisite for identifying the ability he plundered.

The man did not move from his place on the ground as he stared at his shadow-less fist. "W-what did you do? W-why won't my quirk activate?"

Quirk must have been a different name for abilities. "It's gone, never to return." Yuu felt nothing as he watched the man come to grips with what he'd lost. "Now then, time for you to tell me everything about who you people are, and how you captured me."

Yuu most frequently used a non-invasive form of telepathy that only allowed him to read surface thoughts. For most questions he needed answers for, it sufficed perfectly. But there were other times when he needed to know more than what he was willing to simply ask. Answers too complicated to be discerned from the ever-changing, mercurial minds of humans. But after three years of plundering abilities, Yuu had one for damn near every occasion. Delving deep into the psyches of others in search for answers was no exception.

"G-get away from m-me!" The man's feeble protest fell upon deaf ears as Yuu knelt beside him and placed his hand upon the man's head.

"This will hurt less if you don't resist," Yuu murmured before activating the ability he'd affectionately named Mind Delve.

Yuu had expected to find information on whichever government or corporate conglomerate had arranged his capture, the details of said capture, and what specifically the lab was hoping to accomplish by studying him… Instead, what he learned almost broke his already fragile sanity.

"No… No… No. No. No. Nonononono! THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!" Yuu screamed, releasing the man from his grasp, and surging backwards, but no answer was offered in reply. The pain from Mind Delve knocking the man unconscious the moment he was released.

Yuu didn't know how, but the man's memories had to be false! Or he was crazy! Or he knew how to feed false information! There had to be some explanation. There was no way almost 300 years had passed! In an almost manic fervor, Yuu began searching among the bodies for any survivors. He didn't care that they were his captors, he needed someone else to interrogate then and there. He'd heal them if he had to, Mind Delve only worked on people if they were conscious. If he wanted them dead after the fact, it would be trivial to arrange.

"Dead… dead… dead!" Yuu snarled as he rolled over another corpse. All of the researchers he kept finding had already passed from the world, but all he needed was one… and he found her.

A middle-aged woman with long blonde hair worn in a braid, and a piece of rebar impaling her abdomen. It was a startingly similar image to Kumagami and his last moments on this mortal coil. Yuu forcefully squashed the rush of emotions he felt and bent down to the dying woman. He could sort through his tangled emotions later, at that moment, he needed answers before anything else.

It was but the work of a moment to use telekinesis to extract the rebar and then begin healing the woman. The three healing abilities he'd plundered were all extraordinarily potent, in combination they could heal someone no matter how close to death they were. To anyone else, it would be a miraculous sight watching the woman's wounds knit themselves back together without so much as a scar, but to Yuu, it was utterly forgettable; all he felt was agitation at the amount of time it was taking, and the effort it required from him to maintain.

By the time the woman's eyes began to flicker open, only minutes had passed, but to Yuu it felt like hours. Every second he spent without definitive answers was pushing him that much closer to snapping. It was paradoxical, but Yuu had become rather familiar with his own frayed mental state over the years. He knew how close he was to losing it, the same way he had on many occasions before. Instability had been with him since the moment he awakened to his powers, and his emotional state exacerbated it in conjunction with the abilities he stole. Only answers could settle his rapidly deteriorating mind, and god help the people he encountered if he lost control.

"Are you awake?" Yuu asked the woman, her head rotating slightly in response to his voice.

"W-what… what happened?" Her voice was hoarse and uncertain, but she was cognizant.

"Good enough," Yuu said before repeating the same process he did on the man with an ability. He ignored the woman's screams of pain as he pushed deeper into her memories in search of answers. Mind Delve hurt, but it wouldn't kill or leave any lasting damage.

What he found corroborated his fears.

"How…?" Yuu whispered as he fell backwards, his hands rising to his head as he stared at the crumbled remains of the ceiling.

Over 270 years had passed. Yuu hadn't been captured at all; he'd been found sealed in an impenetrable crystalline structure and studied as a relic of the past. Abilities hadn't faded from the world. They'd propagated and spread, mutating and growing stronger to the point where almost everyone in the world had one. Technology stagnated, society was ripped to its foundations and built up once more. The world was nothing like it was before. His friends would have all grown old and died. His family too.

A howl of anguish resounded from the 19-year old's throat as tears streamed out of his lone, functioning eye. He'd not only failed his self-appointed task, but he'd also lost everything in the process. Yuu Otosaka was alone in the world… he'd broken his promise to her... and for that, he blamed himself.

XXXXXXXXXX

Author's Note:

This is just a little plot-scenario I conceptualized last November and forgot to post. It's probably more rough than anything else I've posted, but I like to share the things I write even if they are in states that don't match the standards I should have for myself. Anyway, Charlotte was a fun but dumb little anime that was always better in premise than execution (par for the course with anime, to be honest), but I thought it could fit a MHA crossover pretty damn well. And so, here we are. I'll probably write more of this since I'm on a MHA kick, but no promises. As always, thanks for reading. Cheers.