Fighting back hyperventilation, Izuku took stock of his situation. He was alone, aboard a whole ship full of hostile Batarians, with the few people who knew of his fate presumably blown to smithereens and scattered about the hard vacuum of space. Izuku had no guns. He had no omnitool to call for help. He had no bandages for his wounds, no pain killers, no clothes, and worst of all, no tea.
However, he did have a knife. Carbon fiber, nonconductive and shatterproof, with a monomolecular edge. The only thing sharper was the drill sergeant's tongue. In the Batarians' defense, Citadel customs hadn't caught it either.
Izuku picked at his lower leg until the corner of concealment tape peeled back. He tugged, then yelped as the tape peeled away his epidermis and plucked out every hair stuck underneath. Blinking away tears, Izuku ripped and tore until the tape fell away, leaving the thinnest sliver of razor edge stuck to it.
Izuku didn't know the exact model of ship he was on, but no Turian boot camp was complete without a crash course on different vessels the Batarians favored and how to break out of them. This particular vessel was a repurposed freighter, loaded with empty cargo rooms for holding human captives, with faded patches where the door controls once sat, winches missing their belts meant for fastening cargo, and most importantly, power cables running through the ceiling to the doors. The doors were designed to be unlocked upon power failure, so cargo could still be taken out, assuming the hard vacuum of space didn't hold the sliding door shut.
Izuku stood on his tiptoes and felt around the ceiling. Once he found the access panel, which was welded shut, Izuku ran the edge around the outside, then carefully pried it open. The tape kept his fingers insulated while he sawed through the wires. He stopped once he heard a faint click from the door. Sitting next to the wall, he kept an ear to the door, listening for any sign anyone noticed something amiss. Satisfied that no one was about to barge in, Izuku slowly slid the door aside, stopping once the tiniest crack let him see outside. No one stood guard. Wriggling his fingers into the crack, Izuku flung the door open, then pressed it all the way shut once he was out.
A drop of blood fell from his nose to the floor. Izuku smeared it, hoping no one would notice, then peeled the tape off the blade and stuck it over his nostrils.
As he crept through the ship, Captain Desonis' barked orders rang through Izuku's head. Head on a swivel. Ears sharp. Feet padding silently. That one had the Turians frustrated to no end until Aizawa stepped in and showed them how humans walked stealthily. Izuku could practically feel the Captain hounding his steps, which kept his heart from pounding hard enough to reverberate across the ship.
Secure a weapon. Acquire enemy intel. Identify the escape route. Find clothes. Turian order of priorities. Izuku had a knife, weapon acquired, but one was not properly armed without a firearm. That meant finding a storage locker or slitting a throat. Izuku gulped. He had practiced, and the Turians even got a live pig to 'blood' him with. The memory still made him want to hurl.
A room stood ajar. A Batarian sat in a chair, head tilted forward and hands away from their holstered weapon. Izuku steeled his resolve, clutched the blade tighter, and rounded the corner. He swiped once, blade making a neat slice across the Batarian's neck.
Vomit rose in Izuku's throat. He curled up, fighting to keep his lunch down and breathing through his hand so he wouldn't smell the stench of the alien he had just killed.
The Batarian hadn't twitched, and only a sluggish trickle of blood seeped from the cut. Confused, Izuku checked their front. Bullet holes riddled their chest. Izuku took the pistol and was halfway through stripping their armor when he considered how messy the bloody armor would be.
Resigning himself to continued nudity, Izuku examined the area. A pool of blood sat around the chair. It had already started coagulating. Izuku pressed a hand to the Batarian's neck. They were still warm. It took some time for Izuku to dredge up memories of the ship's medical officer running through every major species' death tables, but ambient ship temperature and standard galactic pressure, with all the other details, meant about an hour. Just after they locked Izuku up.
They left the body where it sat. Either the mutineers were in a hurry or another escapee got sloppy. Gunshots would've been heard, and the Batarian would've reacted to an escapee in front of them. Mutiny. Reason unknown, lack of ambient gunshots meant that the fight was over. The survivors would most likely be at the bridge.
That left Izuku with a choice. He could either head for the bridge himself, take out whoever held the ship, and either try to fly it back himself or send out a message. Besides having no idea how to fly despite the Turian pilot's best attempt to cobble together a flight simulator out of some old joysticks and a pirated copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator, the Batarian vessel was hardly alone. Turning the ship around ran the risk that the other vessels would shoot the engines, and any outbound messages he might try to send would be intercepted. Then there was also the likely chance that anyone receiving the message would think it was a trap.
On the other hand, he could try to find the door. The mutiny survivors would be unlikely to have a watch on it if they weren't watching his own prison, and he wouldn't have to fight for control of the ship, but the only exit options were the door aboard the Turian frigate, if it survived, which would almost certainly lead out into hard vacuum, the door at the Citadel, if it was still within range after whatever jump the Batarians made, and any other doors the Batarians had potentially set up on the other ships to ensure he opened into a trap.
In the end, one simple fact decided Izuku's next course. He knew where the bridge was, but he had no idea where, or even if, the Batarians kept the door.
Taking a deep breath, Izuku pulled the pistol from the dead Batarian's holster. The grip felt awkward in his hands, designed for Batarians' narrower hands, but Izuku had handled worse. Turians believed in making the most of whatever weapon they might find, and they had made sure Izuku could hit a torso with a bent barrel.
Properly armed, Izuku made his way towards the front of the ship. He darted around corners, gun raised to take the first shot, but the ship remained eerily silent. For a moment, Izuku wondered if the Batarians had somehow all killed each other, as even the bridge was devoid of sound. He had almost walked right in when a flicker of movement from one of the officers' chairs made him reel himself back in.
Heart pounding, Izuku carefully leaned around. A few chairs had limp bodies and blood spatters, while others had bodies shoved aside so Batarians could work the consoles. Even as they worked, they didn't make a sound. Their movements were jerky, almost robotic, and their heads didn't move a millimeter.
One head snapped towards him. Izuku shot them between the eyes. As the other Batarians turned towards the sound, Izuku shot each of them in turn. Once the last Batarian fell, Izuku slumped to the floor, still holding the pistol because Desonis would've had him run laps until his feet bled if he ever let go of his weapon, and let out a shaky breath.
The thought of another survivor coming to check the bridge spurned Izuku on. He went to the pilot's seat, shoving the freshly shot Batarian aside to catch a glimpse of the star map. Izuku frowned. He wasn't exactly an expert on astronavigation, but he was pretty sure they were on the completely wrong side of the Terminus systems to be heading towards the Hegemony. If anything, they were closer to Geth territory.
Izuku heard a scuffle of foot on metal behind him and reflexively leapt out of the chair. As he fell, he brought up his pistol, took aim, and fired. The bullet went cleanly through the Batarian's chest, and they fell to the ground. Izuku stood over them, pistol aimed in case the first shot wasn't enough, and examined the body. The first thing he noticed was that hardly any blood left the bullet hole in their chest.
The second thing he noticed was the bullet hole in their forehead.
Glowing blue eyes swiveled up. The Batarian lunged for his ankle, and Izuku shot twice. Backing away, Izuku put bullet after bullet into the Batarian until it stopped twitching.
Izuku gasped for air, trying to calm down his racing heart. Thoughts darted through his head, dragging up Quirk theory and alien technology until he had a whole laundry list of barely plausible explanations. He hovered over the body, debating between getting a closer look and sprinting out of the room.
Rustling fabric and creaking chairs sounded across the room. Gulping quietly, Izuku turned and saw the cadavers rising. They all had the same glowing, blue, mechanical eyes.
Run like hell it was.
Izuku put a bullet through each of their legs as he raced across the room. Once he left the bridge, he locked the door and shot the control panel. Gasping for air, Izuku leaned against the wall and let his shoulders sag. Thoughts churned in a confusing maelstrom, wondering what the heck happened, what would he do now, what were those robot corpse things doing and was there any risk that would happen to Izuku was there a robot infection nanobots in their blood what if he breathed it in would it take control of his arms and make him kill himself what if he was already being controlled and he didn't even realize it-
A heavy slam rattled the door. Izuku yelped and raised his gun, but after more pounding, Izuku lowered it and chuckled. "Hah! Guess you robot zombies are too stupid to open a door. Speaking of, I think I'll go find where you kept that trap door."
Izuku headed for the elevator and wondered which direction he should go. He remembered a wide, open room, suspiciously big for a space-faring vessel, so that would have to be…
"The loading dock!"
The elevator was omnitool restricted. Luckily for Izuku, there were a lot of dead bodies in the living quarters and break room. Staying close to the exit, he gave one a quick nudge, checked for glowing eyes, and stripped its omnitool. He gave the security pad a quick swipe and waited for the elevator.
"You'd think a space-faring civilization would have faster elevators," Izuku grumbled as he heard the elevator music slowly grow louder through the door. Tapping his foot impatiently, Izuku almost missed the sound of footsteps just out of sync with his tapping. Izuku powered the omnitool's blade, sliced through the cadaver's throat, and shot at its robotic eyes for good measure. The corpse glared at him with its one remaining eye as it dimmed out.
The elevator dinged open. Izuku heaved a sigh of relief, only to freeze when he stared into robotic eyes. Firing at the corpse, Izuku turned and ran, only to see a whole horde of zombies streaming out of the break rooms. Izuku backpedaled in the opposite direction, firing blindly behind him as he racked his brain for an exit. He saw a sign for a maintenance hatch, slashed it open, and threw himself down the hole. His foot slipped on a rung, and he tumbled clumsily to the ground. With a yelp, he rolled aside as the zombies flung themselves after him.
The cargo room was dim, the lights on standby mode gave the barest trace of light to the empty room. Yet, it was enough illumination to reveal the door. Standing firmly in the center and bolted to the floor, the door stood under an angelic halo of light. Izuku sprinted for it, with zombies hot on his heels. He ripped the door open, stumbled inside, and flung it shut behind him. A single Batarian hand darted through at the last second, reaching for him as Izuku squeezed the door shut. Screaming and raising his pistol, Izuku shot at the wrist until the hand fell off and shoved the door shut.
Citadel Security stared incredulously at him, hands wandering towards their guns. Nervously, Izuku asked, "Do I need to go through customs again?"
The hand twitched. It lunged for Izuku, and in a panic, Izuku emptied the pistol's clip until the disembodied hand's fingers fell off.
Dropping the pistol, Izuku said, "Nope, that's it. I'm done for today."
Nobody caught him as he fell over.
A/N: Merry Christmas everyone! In case you missed it, two other stories have just dropped. You can find both through my profile. Sadly, I hit a bad bout of writer's block, and the next chapter of Totally Bogus Journey will be delayed. Might still get a Deku Ex Christmas special belted out though.
In any case, I'm planning a finale for this story to drop on the new year, so stay tuned for that.