A Quirkless teenage boy named Izuku Midoriya was running late for school. Not only had he spent the entire previous night studying for today's Foreign History exam, but he had also neglected to set his alarm clock before he went to sleep. Making matters worse, his single mother didn't have a car yet, so he was forced to run like hell if he wanted to even get on time to 1st Period (as Homeroom period had already passed by now).

Running to the absolute best of his ability, Midoriya took several shortcuts that he had mapped out in his head when running late in the past. After about 5 minutes of nonstop running, he finally saw his familiar school building in the distance, Aldera Junior High.

Unfortunately, his constant sprinting and usage of shortcuts didn't matter, as the 1st Period bell had already rung 10 minutes ago. An embarrassed Midoriya slowly trudged out to the main office as his teacher demanded, as the incessant snickering of his classmates shortly followed. Getting his late pass, he then went back to the classroom and took his seat, the giggling of his classmates continuing.

"Alright alright, settle down, we have an important exam for today." The teacher declared, cutting through the laughter like a chainsaw. He began handing out the worksheet to everyone, with a face that said "hope you studied, or you're dead". Midoriya breathed a refreshed sigh of relief. Sure, he had been late to school, but he had studied all night for this test he was surely about to crush.

Some time later, the teacher collected the test sheets, announcing that he would grade them tomorrow. Midoriya became slightly anxious but hopeful nonetheless, if he had to wait till tomorrow to get a test grade, what did it matter if he smashed through it anyway? The hopefulness of his most-likely passed exam was completely obliterated when the infamous bully (and Izuku's former childhood friend), Katsuki Bakugo greeted the Quirkless boy, using his Explosion Quirk to scare Izuku into falling onto the floor.

"What are you smiling for with that proud-ass grin Deku!? " Bakugo erupted, startling even some of his own accomplices. "N-Nothing Kacchan! I was just h-happy because I thought I-I did g-good on the test! That's all, I swear!" Midoriya spouted out defensively at his bully, not wanting to anger him further. This defense just irritated Bakugo even further, and he sure made it known. "What the hell did you just say, Deku!? You think you-re better than me!? You think you got a higher score than me? No way!" Bakugo blasted, pointing his finger at Midoriya, "you can't even become a hero, what makes you think you could score high on an exam you damn nerd?"

Midoriya opened his mouth in protest but gave up halfway through, realizing that continuing the volatile dialogue with Bakugo wouldn't be worth it. Bakugo just scoffed at Midoriya's silence, before stealing his backpack and spilling its contents all over the floor. As the class emptied, Midoriya refilled his backpack as he headed out for his next few periods.

After his 2nd, 3rd, and 4th period, Midoriya sat down in the cafeteria for lunch. He had worked pretty hard this week so he had a lot of allowance money to spend for Friday's lunch, so he purchased some good snacks and high-quality ramen that was actually flavored and wasn't just stringy dough in water like what was provided at the "free" lunch line.

However, just because he was enjoying this special half-hour break to eat didn't mean there wouldn't be trouble, Midoriya had learned to always keep a sharp eye out for any bullies in his vicinity, so he could quickly move to another table if needed. Bakugo was an obvious danger, so Midoriya was glad that the menacingly explosive blond was easy to make out in a crowd, especially in the cramped cafeteria.

But thankfully, besides the first period, today was an easy day. No bullies to worry about, no threat of his food getting taken away and thrown on the floor, (or shoved down his mouth to forcibly choke him, because let's face it, the bullies at this school were borderline sociopathic).

No, today was a calm day, and better yet, Friday! After just 2 more periods, Izuku would be home, no homework, and a nice weekend to top it all off. Midoriya slurped his ramen with a light smile, glad that nothing could spoil or complicate this day.

Until the news turned on…

The telltale jingle of the daily news station that played periodically on the monitors placed around the schools caught Midoriya's attention, he stopped shoving forkfuls of delicious ramen down his throat and started listening. Midoriya didn't care much to listen to the daily news, or many other news stations for that matter (well, besides stories related to Heroes of course.), The jingle of the station or the breaking of his gluttonous train of thought wasn;t what hooked Midoriya's attention, it was the story covered.

About 5 hours ago, a strange meteor struck ground only a few miles from Midoriya's neighborhood, said meteor was described as fleshy-looking and almost pulsing from eyewitnesses after it crashed. In the epicenter was the remains, a meteorite, which had cracked open and appeared to be oozing out a black and green viscous sludge, which harmed and ensnared anyone who touched it. Local authorities had set up a small quarantine zone around the crash site, which had, to Midoriya's notice, blocked the usual shortcut that he took back home to avoid encountering any bullies.

The news station quickly changed topics, as did Midoriya's attention, as he finished his lunch and deposited the trash into a nearby bin. But as he put on his backpack and headed to his second-to-last period, he couldn't help but let his mind be consumed by that story about the meteorite. Even during his final 2 classes, Midoria's brain couldn't shake the meteorite, much to the annoyance of his teachers and amusement of his classmates.

The last bell had finally rung, and Midoriya happily grabbed his backpack and bolted for the exit. Thankfully, he didn't run into Bakugo or any of his cronies, Midoriya memorized the usual routers they took, so he was able to avoid them effectively. As he blitzed down the sidewalk, he took care to remember all the shortcuts he had made up in his head.

After turning a couple corners and running a few straight lines, he made it to his usual final shortcut. He ran as fast as he could, his mom asked him to get home early so tha-

WHAM!

Midoriya tripped over some yellow obstruction tape, and landed right on his face. After adjusting to the surprise and standing back up, Midoriya suddenly remembered that the shortcut was blocked thanks to the quarantine around the crash zone of the meteorite. He grumbled, his mother had asked him to get home early, she apparently had a big surprise for him.

He quickly looked around himself, other than the yellow obstruction tape, this area was completely empty, no people in sight. Midoriya cringed slightly, it didn't feel good breaking the rules like this, but if he had to illegally get through a quarantine zone to get back home, he'd take that chance. Nervously, he lifted another set of tapes and headed down the shortcut route.

The smoke was getting thicker. Midoriya was surprised at how wide the area of impact was for a meteorite reported to have only been the size of a beach ball, smoke was still rising a short distance away to his left, most likely the epicenter. As he raced through his typical route, he encountered constructed barriers that forced him to make split-second decisions. Now, Midoriya was lost, still wandering through the smoke, until he heard a voice.

Following the noise, it led him to the epicenter of the crash, he could vaguely make out police and construction workers setting up a safe zone, putting up tape and building quick fences. Thinking quickly, he raced to another route a few meters away, but was spotted. "Hey! Kid! This area is quarantined! You're not supposed to be here!" A construction worker said, before sprinting towards Midoriya.

Going full-lizard brain, Midoriya bolted down a random route, he didn't give a damn which one it was, he just needed to get home. At this point, he didn't want to be caught. He had already broken the law by going into a restricted area, letting himself be caught on purpose wouldn't help things.

Blazing down random paths, hoping that he could outrun the construction worker, Midoriya tripped after stepping on something sticky. Attempting to get up, he found his hands, cheek, and knees stuck to a black and green sludge, the same sludge that was pouring out of the meteorite in the news story. In a panic, Midoriya managed to separate himself from the sludge, but not without damaging some skin in the process.

Ignoring the pain, Midoriya ran like hell as the construction worker started gaining on him. He turned back to see how close the construction worker was, and was too distracted to avoid the small cliff he then fell off of, which landed him in the epicenter of the crash site. He was now stuck to even more of the strange sludge, unable to move no matter how hard he tried.

After what felt like 2 hours, Midoriya painfully removed himself from the sticky sludge. His whole body was now covered in terrible blisters and small tears where tiny bits of skin were. He slowly trudged through the swamp of sticky mass, his shoes sticking to it, preventing him from moving quickly.

As he tried to walk through, the sludge began to manifest small tendrils, tendrils that ran up to Midoriya's head and into his brain. As he tried to get them off, he could hear strange, faint noises, almost like a voice. He turned to the middle of the area, the epicenter of the epicenter, the meteorite.

Fleshy, pulsing, black with green highlights, it looked just like the strange sludge that was pouring out of it, but in the shape of a rocky ball. As the tendrils seeped into Midoriya's brain, he felt almost… called to, by the meteorite. Slowly trudging towards the strange object, he was about to touch it until several police officers appeared.

"On the ground kid! On the ground!" One of the officers said, pulling their gun. Midoriya's trance completely ended as he went into fear mode, instinctively dropping to the ground, once again getting stuck to the sludge. A police car arrived, blaring its siren. As the cop car's siren went off, the sludge seemed to convulse violently and almost whimper, as even larger, longer tendrils manifested. Midoriya, who was still connected to the sludge via the tentacles in his brain, felt the awful, awful pain.

He screamed like never before, which only made the pain worse because of how loud it was. The large tendrils picked him up and carried him away, as the sludge covering the epicenter and the large mass of sludge inside the meteorite seemed to almost move, slithering like a slug while the massive tendrils carefully held Midoriya.

The giant pool of sludge which held Midoriya hostage manifested weapons, swords, axes, slimy constructs of lethal potential. "Wait, wait! I get it! Loud noises hurt it!" one of the officers said while turning on their radio, "All patrol vehicles in the nearby vicinity, turn your sirens on!"

As the collective blaring of the sirens went on, the massive pool of sludge dropped Midoriya, who's unconscious body was then taken by police. As they handcuffed him, the black and green sludge almost snarled, before using its substantial mass to knock the officers away, and crush the police cars. The sludge then seemed to decrease in mass, then slithered over to kidoriya like a snake, before tunneling through his mouth into his body.

Some unknown time later…

Midoriya groggily opened his eyes, the smoke seemed to have lifted. He got up and brushed himself off, looking around, he was shocked to see that the sludge had seemed to have completely disappeared. He went over to the meteorite and looked inside, yep, not even the main source of the sludge remained. As he went down the route back to his home, he couldn't help but be disturbed by all the smashed cop cars and unconscious bodies of officers. He brushed these feelings away, he needed to get home, now.

Opening the front door, Midoriya was immediately greeted by his mother Inko Midoriya, who appeared very tired. "Izuku… why are you home so late?" Inko yawned. Midoriya was confused, he left school at 2:30 after all. "Mom, I left school at 2:30 and took all my shortcuts, how am I late?" He responded. Inko just looked at him with a plain expression, she clearly just wanted to get to bed. "Izuku… 2:30 was 7 hours ago…"

TO BE CONTINUED…