For a second, I was paralyzed by fear, but if I was going to be killed, I'd have been already. But I couldn't let them know I knew that yet.
"Let me guess, you want me to play for your daughters birthday?" I joked as I took a seat at the bar.
"Give me a Shirley Temple mate, and maybe a snack. Being an icon means starving all the time." I told the person working the bar, his body a cloudy, almost mist like blackness.
"Hey! Who do you think you are, ignoring master?!" The hooded man asked, and now that I could see his face, his skin was dry and irritated.
"Uh, Midoriya Izuku? Who are you?" I replied, keeping up my act as I spun around on my barstool.
"Why you little!" He growled before lunging at me, his fingers an inch from my face before the man on the screen spoke up.
"Tomura! Enough, he is our honored guest, and it would be such a shame to lose such an important tool in taking down All Might."
At his words, I turned my head. Forget the act. He had my attention fully.
"Taking down that false god of a hero, tell me more." I begged, and a chuckle came from the screen, but I heard no mirth.
"Taking him down. Killing the number one hero." The man told me, and I hesitated a bit. Killing, not humiliating? Then I remembered the moments he'd intervened in my life, ruining me.
"What makes you think I'm willing to help you do something like that?" I questioned, the bartender delivering my drink.
"Because you are trending across the world, as the boy who All Might hurt. It's a scandal that he's never faced." He told me, and I smiled.
"Hurt? ALL MIGHT BROKE MY SPIRIT!" I yelled, clenching my fist and slamming them on the counter, jumping up and making my stool fall.
"ALL MIGHT DESTROYED MY DREAMS OF BEING A HERO! HE RUINED MY CHANCE AT PUTTING MY MUSICAL SKILLS TO THE TEST AND HAVE A CHANCE TO BUILD THE LIFE I WANTED!" I screamed, grabbing my drink and downing it before throwing the empty cup at the wall behind the bartender, hitting a bottle of alcohol and breaking both.
"If you know how to kill him, I want in. I want to watch." I told them, more calm now as I stood there, breathing heavily and adjusting my tie.
"Excellent. Then you must do everything i command. Can you pledge yourself, your soul, to the League of Villains?" The man on the screen asked, and I didn't need to think now.
"I'm quirkless, I have no power. My money is locked up until I'm an adult, and I'm in high school. What could you want from me?" I asked, looking at the screen and wondering what kind of man had the power to kill All Might?
"I want your anger. Your voice. Your charisma. I want you to spy on the heroes of the next generation and inform me of any potential threats or recruits. In return, I will give you what you seek. A quirk. Or perhaps multiple." He offered, and I scoffed now. I should have known he was pulling my leg.
"Where's the camera, huh? I get it. You've got me in a corner, and now my career is over. Well, at least show me the camera so I can smile at it." I told them, and the man on the screen went silent for a moment.
"Kurogiri, bring our guest to me." He spoke before a portal opened under my feet, dropping me into what could only be described as cyber hell
There were monitors everywhere, wires leading from one end to the other, making the entire place clustered and claustrophobic, but worse than that was a man sitting there disfigured and hooked up to multiple machines and for the first time in my life, I knew true fear. He had no nose, no eyes, just a mouth twisted into a wicked smile, with scars covering his bald head, a medical mask over his mouth, although how it was staying on his face, since he had no ears, I didn't know.
Getting off the floor, I backed away. God, this wasn't a game. This wasn't funny. I was going to die here, I knew it.
"Do not be afraid. I know my appearance is a bit off-putting, but I mean you no harm." The man spoke, and I realized he was the man from the screens, his tone not negative, but like someone trying to mimic human warmth.
"I don't believe that. I can't. But... I've got no other choice but to believe you." I replied, my voice cracking as I shook against my will.
"No, I suppose you don't. Come closer, boy." He told me as his tone shifted, becoming demanding.
My feet moved before I could even think about saying no, moving next to him.
"You seek to destroy heroes, false gods, don't you? With this power, you will be their absolution. You will be my Doom." He told me, putting a hand on my arm.
"Can you do one more thing? If you're so powerful, can you make me fearless?" I questioned, and for a moment, he looked at me, confused, before he smiled at me.
"Why would you want that?" He asked, and I swallowed back my fear.
"So I won't hesitate to do what's needed of me." I answered, and he laughed before a pain greater than anything I'd ever felt before started across my body, a silent scream all I could muster as it ended as abruptly as it had started, and I fell to the ground, breathing heavily.
"Still awake? That's very impressive for someone who has been gifted two quirks." He told me, as my eyes shut as I lay there, too weak to keep them open.
"If you survive the process, I look forward to working with you, Midoriya Izuku." He told me before I blacked out, his laugh the last thing I heard.
When I woke up, I was in a bed that wasn't mine, the room dimly lit as I sat up, feeling an IV pulling in my arm. A hospital? Had the whole thing been a dream? Was I dreaming now?
Whatever it was, I made a list of things I did know. I'm Midoriya Izuku, fifteen. Today was April eighth, and the last thing that happened was...
"Could it be true? Am I powerful now?" I asked myself, holding out my hands and hoping something would happen, but nothing did.
"Must have been part of my dream." I decided when nothing happened, pulling the IV from my arm and pulling the curtain around my bed down.
"Oh my! You shouldn't be out of bed. Come now, dear, rest." Recovery Girl, U.A.s very own nurse, told me, and I wondered what she was doing here. Didn't she have a whole school to fix?
"What happened?" I asked, and she smacked my leg with her cane.
"Bed." She told me, and I opened my mouth to argue, but she threw candy in it.
"Fine. But what happened?" I questioned again as she looked at the IV I'd pulled out and sighing.
"That's what we're trying to understand as well. You fell from the sky over U.A. and broke your arm. That was yesterday. Once you had enough stamina, i fixed your arm, but you passed out again. We thought it would be days before you woke up."
Falling from the sky? Over U.A.? Yesterday? Then today was the ninth, which meant...
"It wasn't a dream? Those villains, they really kidnapped me? But how? I thought U.A. had protocols for things like this." I asked as I went run my hands through my hair, finding a bandage there instead.
"Villains? It sounds like you'd better speak to the police about this. Lucky for you, there's a detective already here on campus." She told me, disposing of the needle and wiping down the cannula of the IV before making me lean back and putting the IV back in.
"Alright, I'm going to get the detective. Be a good boy and wait here, okay?" She told me before disappearing for a few minutes and coming back with a man in a long tan trench coat.
"Would you mind giving me privacy with your patient, Recovery Girl?" He asked her, the old woman doing as he asked, shutting the door on her way out.
"I'm Detective Tsukauchi. Recovery Girl mentioned villains when she came to me. Do you think you could go through what happened?" He asked, pulling a notepad out.
I sat up straighter because of my willing involvement, thinking of excused. I'm sure they recorded my rant about All Might in the bar and probably had a way to monitor me now. But where I should have been afraid, I wasn't even nervous, just looking at the detective with a tired yawn.
"Excuse me, I'm still a bit tired, but I'll tell you about what I remember?" I told him, thinking of how to phrase this.
"A man with blue hair and irritated, dry skin asked for a photo, threatened to kill me, and dragged me into the alley nearby. The alley seemed to connect with a bar, connected at purplish-black seams, which I'll explain in a moment, before the alley disappeared entirely." I told him, pausing to take a breath, and let him catch up on his notepad.
"A screen came on, and a man was hidden in the shadows, mentioning a video of me that was trending, angry with All Might. He assumed that because of that video, I'd want to join their group. They called themselves the League of Villains, offering me a quirk before the bartender, a man whose body was made of mist, like the night sky made up his being, purples and whites and blacks, all moving a bit like flames. He opened a portal under me, and I fell into like, a lab area, where the man from the screen, he was hooked up to machines, horribly disfigured beyond what a normal person looked like. I don't think it was a mutant type quirk either. His eyes and mouth were scarred over. He had no hair or ears and wore a medical mask. Then, he said something about Doom, and then I felt pain, like nothing I've ever felt before, excruciating, and then I passed out." I told him, making sure I kept only to facts, without giving away anything that could incriminate me.
"Do you know where you were taken? Was anything familiar?" The detective asked, making sure to write everything I said down.
"I'm afraid not. I don't drink, and I don't associate with anyone who's considered a villain." I answered before laying back with a large yawn.
"Is there anything else you can tell me about where you were taken? Anything of note?"
"Uh, the area I was taken to, the lab looking place, there was a ton of wires and monitors. I didn't see what was on them because i remember just being near him was terrifying, and I couldn't help but shake. I thought I was going to die." I answered, trying my hardest to look scared or traumatized, but I just couldn't.
"Well, there's not much else it looks like I can gleam from you, so I'll be on my way and let you rest. Thank you for your time, Midoriya." He told me, and I forced a smile, looking at him.
"No problem at all, I'm happy to help." I told him, the first lie of our conversation, watching his eyebrow raise a bit, but he said nothing, walking out without a word.
"Prick." I mumbled, sitting up and pulling out the IV again. Right now, I just wanted to return home. My lack of fear suggested that maybe the disfigured man had been honest. He'd said two quirks. I could feel no fear, but what else was there? Doom? What did Doom have to do with anything?
Once Recovery Girl said I could leave, I called my mom, explaining what had happened, keeping some of the details secret. She didn't need to know I'd chosen to work with villains. I should have felt joy or something, but I didn't even feel that, just... existing. What was wrong with me? Even my acknowledgment of the fact didn't have curiosity or worry attached.
Walking into my apartment, I knew that I should have felt relief, but I didn't.
"Mom? I'm home." I called, stopping to put my bag in my room before turning and getting pulled into a hug.
"It's okay, mom. I'm fine now." I told her, but she held on and sobbed, so I let her cry until she couldn't anymore, feeling a spark of something growing in my chest. It should have been familiar, and when I recognized it for what it was, I wondered once again what happened to me, for me to not even recognize when I felt joy.