Well hey guys, weclome to my story! I honestly had been suffering from severe writers block.

But recently I remembered this old idea I had with combining The Thing and MHA, and I actually really liked it!

So I just NEEDED to write it down. So here's a fic combining John Carpenter's The Thing and My Hero Academia!

For those who have never watched or consumed The Thing movies/games, don't worry! This is an experimental fic where I'll try to make it enjoyable to both people who know of the Thing and to people who don't! Although some stuff will def make more sense, but if you want to go in blind, I respect that!

It might be a bit weird for newcomers, as the premise is odd and is slow at the start, but this is a fic I don't want to rush.

So, I hope you enjoy this! By the way, the ao3 version will have images, while this one will not for obvious reasons. So if you're wanting to see the images, have a glance at the other site version of this fic!

Flickering stars against a black empty space passed by at incomprehensible speeds in an nausea inducing blur. The cycle was beginning once more, just like last time. He crashed. Or landed. Sometimes a combination of both. He would stumble out of his craft, and be greeted by new bizarre creatures that he did not know or recognize. They spoke with warped voices soaked with incomprehensible sounds in tongues that he could not even begin to hope to understand.

But what he did not know of them was swiftly made known when he slipped under their skins. Like two puzzle pieces clicking together, everything just made sense when he walked as them, talked as them, ate as them, lived as them, he knew everything about them and their kind. And the more flesh and skin he stole, the more knowledge became his.

"Stay human."

That voice again. It recognized it… this isn't where it belongs.

Cities, continents, whole planets worth of different species were in his DNA now, he could feel them wriggling in his blood. No longer was he a normal hunter, a predator. No, he was beyond that. He was beyond creation itself. Millions of years worth of plundered knowledge from billions of species and their minds were part of his mind now.

"Don't give in. Stay human."

It's still here? Begone. We are beyond human.

His mercy would spread through the stars and bring every life form in existence together in a utopia of singing skin. He was utter and complete perfection designed to bring forth an everlasting peace to the known universe. Even if all of creation rejected his divine will, it mattered not, for he would force it into their warm, delicious, wriggling bodies. And no matter how much they cried or begged to be left alone, to be spared of salvation from themselves, he'd make sure the work would be done.

"You're human now. That's all that matters. The past doesn't matter. You're a new person now. What matters is what you do now."

GET. OUT.

Then he crashed into a new world, a strange big blue planet to repeat the holy process once more, share his glory with the species of this planet, to be united under one body and mind.

But he had a bad landing, and he stumbled out to be welcomed by endless freezing white mounds of tiny frozen crystals, and they fell from the sky in endless droves, more and more as they buried him alive, and he found himself sinking into the ice…

"Jayluf."

Sinking…

"Jayluf?"

Sinking…..

"Jayluf!"

He thawed. He woke up. Lifeforms. He was hungr-

"JAYLUF!"

Grey eyes flew open, and a teenager with pale skin, jet black hair, and grey eyes sat up in alarm in a white bed, his human lungs filling up with oxygen. "W-What…?" He gasped, "What is…?"

"Jayluf?" The voice that had been speaking his name to him was decidedly feminine, with a slightly cheerful and upbeat tone. "Welcome to the land of the living!"

The boy blinked. Jayluf… He searched his memory banks. That's right… I'm Jayluf. Jayluf the human. "Hello." He remembered now, he was Jayluf Viller, a human being roughly fourteen years old in human years. Combined with the fact he was a very unimpressive one hundred and thirty seven centimeters tall and was sporting a very thin build, he was not very intimidating to the average person. His skin was creamy pale, not unpleasantly to the point of being gray or seemingly undead like a vampire, but bleached enough to look like he didn't get much sun, which he didn't. The only plus to the lack of sunlight exposure was that his skin was very smooth, soft, and quite squishy to the touch.

His hair was a solid black, and while it wasn't too impressive length wise, it was long enough that it would obscure his eyes from sight if he refused to don a headband. The hair in the back had been allowed more leniency to grow, almost reaching his shoulders. His dull grey eyes were the most peculiar, lacking a certain light that normal human eyes usually held, to the point where some of the people around him in the past had said his eyes sometimes looked like the eyes of a corpse.

Although the people around him having a similar mindset was because the people he lived with were not family, friends, or neighbors, they were instead scientists, researchers, people who worked here at his home.

But while he knew the voice that woke him belonged to a scientist, he recognized it was no ordinary scientist. The feminine, angelic tone told Jayluf exactly who was by his bed. He looked to his left. "Good morning, Doctor Hunee."

Beside his completely white bed stood Doctor Jill Hunee, a thirty year old adult woman with long blonde hair and slightly orangish skin. Even with her flowing locks, they were unable to hide the two antennae that were proudly sprouting out of her head. The fluffy antennae were very soft and flexible, starting thin at the bottom but eventually swelling at the top with a rounded end, not unlike a cartoonist depiction of a bee's antennae. Her white lab coat covered an orange and brown striped sweater that clung to her form. Her eyes, while solid black with no white, had a sparkle in them that helped to make them appear actually somewhat natural.

"Well good morning Jayluf! And please, you're making me feel like an old crone! I told you to call me Miss Hunee."

Jayluf blinked as he used his arms to propel his upper body upwards to observe his surroundings. It was his quarters, or his "bedroom", as Miss Hunee liked to call it. His previously mentioned bed was white from top to bottom, including the blankets, mattress, and wooden framing. The room in itself wasn't overly luxurious, a ten by ten foot room with just enough space to fit a single person bed, drawer, work desk, and lamp table, which the latter was by his bed. His bed was in the right corner of the room, the end of it facing the wall which had the door, and the drawer was on the left wall of the room, whilst the work desk was on his right. It didn't leave much room to walk around at all. Everything in his living quarters was a lifeless white, devoid of any color or saturation. But it never bothered him.

Nothing really bothered him, really. Ever since he could remember, a strange fog was always present in his head, making excessive thinking extremely tedious and difficult. It didn't make him stupid, just that on certain occasions grasping certain concepts or things would be sometimes more challenging than others. Emotions were something he still struggled with because of the fog, despite the scientists and researchers attempts at helping him adjust. Even though he lacked "normal feelings", a small plus is that it was quite difficult to get mad or upset about things that would probably irritate normal people.

Is that something that would upset normal people? Jayluf didn't know. All he knew is that despite his flaws, he was definitely human. More importantly, he was also going to be a hero. The reason for this was because as far back as he could remember, he'd always been on this base to train and become a hero for the company, according to the same people here who told him that he'd lost some of his memory.

Parents were something he was unfamiliar with as well. His memories held no records or mentions of any biological mothers or fathers. When he would inquire on the topic, it was usually dismissed by the other scientists as "irrelevant to the current situation". But that didn't matter, not to him at least. After all, it wasn't like it bothered him or anything. This was his home now, the base.

In the past, he hadn't known much about it, as he wasn't allowed outside. At first he simply knew that it was merely a giant square piece of land with metal walls surrounding every side to presumably prevent things from getting inside. It wasn't until Miss Hunee had brought him a blueprint map of the complex did he get a better idea of his surroundings. Inside the walls were multiple buildings and complexes, one was where the military section operated.

The military section was made of six medium sized three story buildings, and had a hangar for aircraft, complete with a lane for landing and taking off planes. Behind the landing strip was a large two story building, the barracks. every soldier not on duty would be located there.

Near the front was the product factory line, where most products of Nohken Industries were produced, packaged, and shipped out to stores all over the country. Nohken Industries was the company that had built and now currently owned the facility they all lived in. The logo was an English spelling of the word Nohken, except that the "o" was replaced by a strange symbol that merely resembled an "o". It was an odd shape, almost looking like it was covered in freezing snow. If Jayluf squinted, he could say it also looked like an arctic explorer's hood from a snowsuit. Considering the fact that Nohken Industries was a wealthy enough figure to have its own private military base, so Jayluf had deduced that they must have had some sort of authority or influence in Japan, even if it was a privately owned company.

To the right of the previously mentioned factory was a large square building, the laboratory facilities, where most of the training and experiments took place. It wasn't much on the outside, a simple gray cement wall with the indents to give the illusion that it was built brick by brick. It had an impressive six levels, three above and three underground. Including the ground floor, the building had an impressive seven whole floors to choose from. The ground floor was the main entrance area, cafeteria, and the bar. The three floors above were all dedicated living quarters for any non militant Nohken Industries employee. The three below were the laboratory, work office, and the training floor.

He had no knowledge if it was an official military base of Japan, as the scientists, soldiers, and every employee's uniform had the same Nohken Industries logo pasted onto their uniform, Miss Hunee's included. Although the shoulder parts of uniforms sported a miniaturized version of logo, with the company name squeezed into the strange "o" symbol.

"Jayluf?"

Ah , He realized, It appears my mind was wandering again. "Yes Miss Hunee? Sorry, my mind was somewhere else."

The woman's face had a gentle smile. "It's nine A.M, so I'm gonna have to take a daily sample from you, hun. Is that okay?"

"Of course Miss Hunee." Jayluf raised his left arm, allowing the female scientist to take a syringe from a metal tray she had on the desk to the side of him and plunging it into his vein. Normally, getting a needle inserted into one's skin abruptly would sting a rather fair amount, but Jayluf was different than the average person.

It was part of his "quirk", as Miss Hunee had dubbed it. Quirks were a very common thing in this world, where people could have a certain power, ability, or mutation. Some were almost unnoticeable or insignificant, such as eyes changing color every so often, others being completely bizarre, such as being able to turn any type of corn into popcorn upon touching it.

But then there were the strong ones. One shining example was whatever quirk the famous Hero All Might used, being able to end fights in a single mighty punch, or clapping away clouds to change the weather. Jayluf was mostly unfamiliar with all of hero society, save All Might, who he quite liked.

Speaking of quirks, Jayluf's quirk was an oddity the researchers had appropriately labeled; "Cell Command". Cell Command was a quirk that allowed him to manipulate his own cells in any way he wanted. It was difficult for him to explain to the scientists how connected he was to his own cellular structure. He was aware of them all, he could feel them, and when he focused, he knew what they were doing. When he used his quirk, he could physically feel his cells working together as a team.

If his physical form took damage, he could also feel his cells moving, bumping and shoving their way to clot the wound. But when his blood was separated from his body when he was directly controlling them, their efficiency was dependent on two key factors. One being his health, the other being the mood of the cells. On good days, they reacted to instructions quickly, and his blood will attempt to slither back into the open wound with little issue.

As powerful as it sounded, attempting to control the blood when outside his body was a difficult task, doubly so on the bad days where his cells decided it would be funny if they misbehaved or were lazy. Some days it almost seemed like any individual cell had a mind of its own, doubly so if it left his body. His cells were also not invincible, either. If exposed too long to the elements, clusters of blood were vulnerable to either suffering from dehydration and shriveling up in warm climates, or his cells would crystallize and shatter down to the molecular level from colder environments.

Having firm control over his cells required massive amounts of concentration, so if he wasn't in complete command, his cells would behave not unlike a normal human would, such as blood staying completely still after being spilled from his flesh, so if his cells were left alone on the ground, it was likely they wouldn't survive long. But perhaps if he had more practice, he could be better with controlling his flesh.

His organs that usually functioned automatically with no manual input from the brain, such as the kidneys or small intestine, were the parts of him that he didn't have any command over, at least not yet. So he did not have control over things like his normal bodily functions such as digestion and the heart pumping blood out.

Although at first glance his quirk had a handful of issues to iron out, it still had several advantages. One of the most useful parts of Cell Command is that if he focused, he could instruct his pain receptors to dull on command, making things like blood extractions completely painless. Sure, his quirk was an odd one, but Miss Hunee would remind him time and time again that it made him special.

"A very special human" She always says to me. Because I'm human.

"Aaand, done!" Miss Hunee said as she extracted the needle out of his arm as the punctured area let out a miniscule glob of blood. Wounds were something he could deal with as well, normally he could survive things that no normal human should, but that didn't mean he could heal any wound instantly. While a few stabs to his gut wouldn't kill him, it could still be a risk if his heart did not pump enough blood to replace what was lost. And if his heart could not keep up, his brain would shut off. He didn't know what would happen if he lost control of his brain, only that the scientists had reminded him time and time again to never let that happen. Would he die like a normal human? Or would his cells live on in his body? He didn't know.

In a situation where it required him to make an attempt to mend his wounds, he would still need to access the blood and flesh that had been removed from whatever wound he'd suffered from. If biomass was destroyed completely down to cellular destruction, it would be gone forever. The only counter to that type of injury was to eat organic meat in order to replace the lost biomass. He didn't really "absorb" the meat, more like the heavy protein content was the energy needed for rapid celluar duplication. Perhaps he could absorb raw meat for faster biomass restoration, but he had never tried it. It merely sat in his head as an insignificant hypothetical.

While blunt and piercing damage was less of a worry to him, things like fire and acid however were an especially big risk to his body, for elements and compounds like those were extremely efficient at cell destruction.

But for things like needle puncture wounds, they mattered little, as they were barely wounds, let alone cuts. And now that the needle had been removed, having it clot and seal in seconds was the obvious choice. Yet Jayluf did not do it, refusing to command his body to repair itself for one very specific cause. Why? It was a good reason, in his opinion. But before he had the chance to speak up...

"Thank you Jayluf." Miss Hunee said, interrupting Jayluf's train of thought.

"You're very welcome, Miss Hunee," Jayluf idly replied on cue. He had this exchange ever since the first day since he woke up here, so it was less of an exchange, and more of a memorized interaction to the point of it barely even being a proper conversation. Even on rare occasions when Jayluf was feeling a negative emotion such as irritation from something that had happened the day prior, he would still respond politely, for when he would say "you're welcome", he was rewarded with Miss Hunee giving a cheerful smile. Jayluf could safely say he enjoyed her presence a great amount.

"I guess I'll go and take this sample back to the lab," said Miss Hunee with a rather dramatic sigh, ignoring the way Jayluf noticeably tensed his muscles. "Goodbye for now, Jayluf."

To Jayluf's increasing alarm, she was seemingly forgetting the most important part of this exchange. Unable to stop himself, he spoke. "Wait, Miss Hunee… aren't you forgetting something?"

The woman paused. "Am I?"

"Yes…" Jayluf said, holding up his arm. "My wound…I am still bleeding."

Miss Hunee palmed her forehead in a very dramatic fashion. "Oh, of course! You still need your hero aid, huh?"

He nodded. Even if his emotions were dulled and buried underneath… that whatever was wrong with him, he had a gut feeling that the weird feeling in his heart was a positive emotion. Whilst it was barely a flicker, he still clung to it like a lifeline. "Yes please."

"So polite! Alright, let me get it out…" Reaching into her pocket, Miss Hunee produced a colorful small box that featured art of the famous hero, All Might.

All Might was the only exposure Jayluf had to heroes, as they were usually discouraged as a topic here (which Jayluf found somewhat odd, since they were saying his destiny was to be a hero and were training him to be one, but then they avoided all discussion of it when possible?). But when he had started to behave, he'd been rewarded with being granted access to a video featuring the mentioned hero. Ever since that day, Jayluf had been completely fascinated with All Might, which is why he was looking forward to this part of the sample process. He and his cells vibrated with anticipation.

Fishing into the small box, Miss Hunee pulled out a small blue paper rectangle, and began to peel it open. Inside was a small deep blue colored adhesive bandage with a picture of All Might giving a wide smile, complete with a thumbs up. "Here it is!" sang Miss Hunee as she gently turned it over, peeling back the two paper pieces that prevented it from sticking to itself. Positioning it over Jayluf's wound that still had a little bit of blood around the opening, she gently pressed it down, and firmly flatted it from middle to both ends in one go to prevent any folds or wrinkles from happening "There! Now it's all better!" Miss Hunee glanced behind her, noticing that the door had slid open. "Is... that better, Jayluf?"

Jayluf nodded, satisfied that the latest All Might branded bandage was now firmly clamped to his arm.

"Now," hummed Miss Hunee as she turned to give the blood filled syringe to a man wearing a hazmat suit (presumably a scientist) that had come in from behind to collect the sample. "Would you like to tell me what that was earlier?"

The boy blankly stared. "What do you mean?"

"When you woke up! You were tossing and turning, did you have a nightmare again?" She hiked an eyebrow up inquisitively. "Did you hear that voice again?"

"Not exactly a nightmare. Yes there was indeed the voice again just like last time, telling me to be human." Jayluf's brows were furrowed in slight concentration. "But it was less of a nightmare and more like a strange dream, I was flying through the stars on a spaceship, and I landed on earth, crashing into snow, and I was buried alive…"

His caretaker pressed her lips in a tight line, as if the description displeased her. "Well, it's just a dream. It's probably best to forget such unimportant things." She proceeded to pocket the small cardboard box of bandages. "Dreams are just our imagination acting up when we're asleep. Dreams are silly, Jayluf. Remember that."

Not knowing what to make of her offbeat response, the boy simply found himself half-heartedly nodding, hoping that it would appeal to Miss Hunee's stance on the dream subject. "Yes, you are probably right. Dreams are silly." He parroted. This was new information, and new information needed to be stored inside his brain. Like the rest of his body, he could command cells inside his brain, although in a slightly different way.

His main area of storage was merely a temporary slot for newly learned information, which he could keep for things happening around that time frame of when he had learned it. It made things like tests and quizzes given to him a complete breeze. Although to the average person it might give the illusion that Jayluf was some sort of teenage prodigy, in reality he was more so doing the cellular equivalent of pulling out a cheat sheet from his pocket and reading it.

After the information had been used and became less and less relevant to him, or his environment, the information was carted off by his cells to the deeper parts of his brain. Namely, the parts submerged in the deep fog. Once they'd been ferried off into there, retrieving the knowledge later down the road proved to be somewhat difficult. If he had aced a quiz in the past, but was surprised by a retake months later, it was likely he wouldn't be able to complete it in time.

The only way for him to recall deep storage information without great difficulty was if it was something he was constantly exposed to over and over again, such as details about things like the base he lived on, or Miss Hunee.

As "dreams are silly" was being escorted into his mind by his still somewhat groggy brain cells, Jayluf stretched his limbs as he swung out his legs in order to continue waking up for the day.

The information has been stored, his brain cells idly informed him. He had no idea if he would use it anytime soon or not.

"Well, I'll follow the geek that took your sample to the the biology division where the lab boys are," Miss Hunee said, forcing her legs to propel herself up from her chair and to turn to leave the room. "You better prepare, especially for tomorrow!"

Tomorrow? "What is tomorrow?"

Miss Hunee angled her head back to face Jayluf as she reached the doorway. "The Entrance Exam of course! Remember, for the U.A.? You're going to be a hero! The company is finally ready to let you out into the world of heroes!"

Jayluf's eyelids were pulled into a squint as he mentally dug into the reservoir of his mind, although thankfully it did not take long for him to retrieve the previous memory, as it had been brought up several times in the past, meaning it was decently fresh. "Yes… yes I remember. The written exam. I will study and store the learned information for usage tomorrow."

"And there's the second part of the test. Well, a little birdie may have told me that it's a physical test. A test of quirks, per say. You'll probably have to use your quirk against robots to score points. Smash enough bots and you should be able to get accepted no problem!"

"Who told you this?"

"About the second part of the test? Weeeelll, I'm not allowed to say. Sorry!" Miss Hunee replied with an innocent grin.

Her hesitant reply gave Jayluf pause. Odd. She usually does not hesitate to share information with me. Oh well. And to pass this I am going to have to… "Use my quirk…?"

"Yup. Remember, the bio form? I know you're struggling with that, but it's best if you get some practice in today before the big day."

Bio-Form. The secondary ability of my Cell Command. Bio-Form was a thing that Jayluf struggled with greatly. In itself, it allowed him to manipulate cells into mutations and forms that he'd never heard of. Said ability had been discovered when he'd been going through an experiment, or "training exercise" as the scientists liked to call it. Training was rare nowadays, but back when he had first awoke in this facility, they had been performed on him plenty. It was how he'd discovered the abilities of his cells in general, like his tolerance for injury and pain.

His discovery of Bio-Form came into play in a training exercise when he had been placed in an empty, white, square room that had absolutely nothing in it. Before he was able to ask what type of test this was, all the lights were suddenly switched off, plunging him into complete silence. When he'd asked for the lights to be switched back on and for him to be let out of the room only to be met with silence.

It was one of the rare times he felt a sliver of panic, and when he'd started to feel unease that he couldn't see in the dark and that he needed to see, his cells began to work a small miracle to help him, and suddenly he could see just fine, as if some lights had been flipped back on. At first, he'd incorrectly deducted that emergency lights had been turned on from a supposed power outage.

His hypothesis had been proven incorrect when he'd felt a strange sensation on his forehead, and had moved his hand up to feel a third eye embedded in his skull. After being released, he had been rushed to the nearest mirror to see that it was no normal eye, it was black with a red slit in the middle. Almost otherworldly , in a way. The scientists had told him his body just "knew" how to grow parts that didn't belong. Something about "environment adaptability".

But Bio-Form was something he disliked. The voice in almost every dream had given constantly hammered in the fact in his brain that he was a human being, so he should try to keep the form of one. So he tried to avoid mutating or growing any more parts if he could, especially non-human ones. If he was to use this in the entrance exam, he'd do it sparingly. But he still knew he would probably have to use it anyway. "Right. Bio-Form. Understood. There will be no problems."

"Thank you hun!" Miss Hunee sang as she turned to leave with Jayluf's blood Sample. "Remember, no weird ideas!"

"Weird ideas" was what they called when Jayluf would wake up from slumber in a cold sweat, with a sudden bizarre revelation or strange idea to solve a problem that didn't really exist. He'd stumble out of bed and out of his room to act on said idea. His most recent genius moment was when he'd stumbled out of his room at three A.M in the morning and made a beeline for the cafeteria, and had lumbered into the meat locker and cooler. The only person who worked back there was the base butcher, who usually left his bloody apron hanging alongside the dangling meat.

Jayluf's idea of a problem was apparently the blood on the clothing was a problem that needed to be solved, and his solution was to grab the blood painted rags and throw them into the nearest trash can before stumbling back into his bed. He didn't know why it was a problem, only that bloody clothes being seen by other humans was a BIG no no. However after getting an earful from the base security, scientists, and the cafeteria staff including the butcher himself, he was banned from going anywhere near behind the serving desk, and had several pairs of eyes watching him when he got near to check out with his food tray during lunch.

In his defense, the ideas always seemed like good ones, when he was half awake.

"Okay. No weird ideas for the test." He glanced up. "But… Miss Hunee?"

"Yes?"

He blinked. "I'm… I'm hungry."

"You can get an early lunch after you study today. The corporation wants you to be performing at your very best tomorrow, both physically, and mentally."

I was assuming she would reply with that. "Yes Miss Hunee."

A cheerful nod of acknowledgement from Miss Hunee as she walked out of the room showed that the message got through. The metallic automatic door to his room sealing shut with a gentle hiss as Miss Hunee vanished from sight.

The U.A. test… If he was accepted he'd get into the hero career, and if he became a "Pro-Hero", he'd go to the outside world. Of course, he knew what the outdoors were, there was a fenced off area made exclusively for him dubbed "the playset", which had a large patch of dirt, a tree, grass, and a small pond for him to interact with. While it was enjoyable to roll around in the grass and dirt and have a disgruntled Miss Hunee scold him while ushering him to the showers, he'd never been truly outside, as he hadn't even been to the rest of the facility. The most he had were pictures and the map. To be allowed into society and to meet new people? Sure, he'd seen videos of the outside world, sneak peeks of the way humanity operated outside of the walls.

He didn't feel "excited" per say, but he definitely would not mind the concept of going out there to see the world. Outside of his home.

Maybe… if he tried hard enough… he could become a normal human being instead of a weird one. And if he did… he could be a true hero.

Honestly when this idea popped up in my head like years ago I barely gave it thought, because I truly couldn't think of any way to properly implement it, until recently. It was the most fun I had writing in a long time, and the logo was a blast to make, gotta add a little worldbuilding when I can, right? I really like this idea, so I'm hoping it gets a decent amount of views/comments and such, because I'd really like to continue this concept!

So if you liked it, PLEASE consider dropping a comment about anything, example like what you liked about the story or characters so far, those literally are my lifeblood for writing. (I literally check my inbox like three times a day, yall have no idea how much a person taking their time to say what they liked means to someone like me)

Thank you for reading, and I'll hopefully see you next time. Ciao!