The Clone Conspiracy
(Inspired by Star Wars: The Bad Batch, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, NieR, and Spider-Man: The Clone Saga)
Izuku Midoriya has been having dreams.
Dreams about seeing through glass and test tubes. Dreams about being torn from one into many. Dreams of being in some place where he is not and should not be.
In his confusion, he goes to All Might to ask of them, only to learn that he too has been having the same dreams as well. Whatever it is, it might be something relating to One for All.
But in the meantime, Class 1-A attend a hero expo known as Heroes International, and bare witness to the public unveiling of a new hero based corporation known as Tantiss Industries, a company that specialises in the pursuit of science and biological interests in environmentalism and the furthering of the quality of Human life.
However, in the background, somehow, no one notices the wounded, deformed figure running out into the middle of the open, bleeding and screaming before they are shot in the head by a pair of bulky men in white and grey armour (see the Imperial Royal Guard from The Bad Batch) and drop to the ground, dragged away in the middle of the open and leaving a stain of blood on the floor that somehow no one seems to notice or even care about.
Back in U.A., Izuku continues to have haunting dreams of a place that is not his own, as he is pulled open and torn apart. Unable to sleep, he decides to go on a walk to collect his thoughts, but is unable to notice the figure walking across the grounds next to him, fiddling with the device connected to the necklace around their neck.
A few days later, Izuku is plagued by insomnia, unable to sleep because of the vivid dreams that he has been suffering from, is barely able to concentrate as a pair of heroes, two recently debuted twin sisters known as Hansel and Gretel (think Devola and Popola from NieR), whom themselves had connections to Tantiss Industries, came in to give a lecture to both Classes 1-A and B about the idea of passing down quirks and the science behind it, and is forced to go to the infirmary because of his inability to sleep.
However, in his daze, he spots a figure wandering the grounds, but is unable to point them out before he drifts once more into a fitful sleep.
Meanwhile, across the school grounds, the rest of Class 1-A converse about the lecture that they had, completely oblivious to the men in white and grey armour marching the grounds on a manhunt, and even less so as they dragged a screaming, mutilated body out of the ground and into a van awaiting them.
That night, as Izuku tried to sleep in their dorms once more, he would once more be plagued by dreams, this time by a vision of his old home. Rocketing up in his sleep, Izuku leaves the dorms in the dead of night and races back to Inko's apartment, finding nothing out of place, apart for one single thing.
A figure in the darkness. One dressed in an hero costume similar, almost identical, to his, and with a blinking device connected to a necklace hung around their neck.
The figure tries to approach him, but Izuku throws them back. Suddenly, a spark between them as they touch, and One for All reacts.
The figure, his pretender, has One for All
Before the two of them could react at all, Inko walked out of her room, tired and asking what was going on, somehow completely oblivious to the two men in bulky silver and grey armour bursting through the door and aiming their equally bulky rifles at the two of them.
Izuku threw the confused and somehow oblivious Inko to the ground as the armoured men opened fire, only for the figure to pick up the sofa, green electricity running over them, and then threw it at the two, knocking them both to the ground. As another pair of armoured commandos broke through the window and began to spray rounds at them, the figure grabbed Izuku and kicked back the two men, before fleeing with him through the broken window and out into the open, only to be shot at by more commandos, the people on the street somehow unaware of the rapid gunfire.
Izuku and the figure fled out of sight, and Izuku demanded to go back and save his mother. The figure told him that the armoured men wouldn't hurt her, but he wasn't listening to them. He darted away back to his home, only to find that somehow, everything was normal. The armoured men were gone, the apartment was completely intact, and Inko was leaning out of the window, sighing, and then closing it behind her to go back to bed.
Izuku would fail to find the figure again, and in his confusion, he would simply go back to the dorms and back to bed, too tired to think of anything. The next day, Aizawa and Nezu would ask him as to why he had disappeared the previous night, and he would tell them of the incident last night, only for them to look at him in confusion. There was no report of a villain attack in the area where his mother lives last night, and the CCTV cameras show no activity from heroes and villains of any kind as well.
Left in confusion and unsure of what to think, Izuku is left to go about his day, only now under suspicion of his teachers as he is rendered even more tired than before, running behind because of his continued insomnia, yet catching bare glimpses of the white and grey commandos scattered around the school grounds. Believing his mind to be cracking under his insomnia, U.A.'s staff send him to Hound Dog for counselling, and they begin to unintentionally gaslight him into thinking that nothing is wrong, and that it is all in his head.
But then, as the slight sightings continue to build up, and the dreams that he is suffering from start to become more lucid and clear, Izuku begins to grow more and more weary of the world around him, catching slight glimpses of the hidden figures around him and coming to the conclusion that they are nothing more than walking hallucinations.
But then, as his sleep worsens, it is decided to send him off to a hospital, where the heroes Hansel and Gretel can look over him themselves.
However, on their way to the hospital, Hansel and Gretel redirect the vehicle that they are in to another, more secretive facility, one controlled by Tantiss Industries. Stranger still, the two sisters refer to Izuku as their brother...
But in the midst of this, the ambulance is breached by the figure that was dressed in Izuku's costume, and rescues Izuku from them. Now properly awake through the strangle link that he has with this mysterious pretender who somehow has One for All alongside him, Izuku demands to know what is going on and who this person was.
And they reveal their face, and Izuku comes face to face with himself.
Or rather, herself.
It's a clone. A clone of Izuku Midoriya. A female clone, at that.
A clone created by Tantiss Industries.
As the female version of Izuku - who calls herself Izumi - explains, Tantiss Industries is the public face of a secretive cabal of scientists that have long had a fascination with the idea of biotechnology and cloning. For decades, they have been dabbling with clones and the technology behind it, and have only just decided to use Tantiss as a pubic face for their operations.
Izuku asks why she exists, and Izumi reveals that, as far as she knew, she had been born from a sample of DNA taken from Izuku himself, as had many others that had created in the labs as well, some of whom had recently escaped from one of Tantiss' secret facilities in a mass riot.
Why are they cloning him? Izumi does not know, but she reckons that it has something to do with One for All.
Then, they are found by a pair of heroes. Hansel and Gretel, who Izumi recognise from the Tantiss facility, as they themselves are clones of Izuku Midoriya as well. The two of them call the female clone of Izuku as their sister, and tell her that she must be returned to their father and grandfather back in Tantiss. Izuku tries to call for help from the top of the building that they are on, but no one can hear them. No one even seems to look up at them to figure out what the noise is.
It is then that Izuku notices the devices around Hansel and Gretel's necks.
The two pairs battle, and Izuku realises that both Hansel and Gretel have access to One for All as well. Then, more heroes on the payroll of Tantiss Industries, as well as more of the silver and grey commandos from before, arrive to join the fray, and Izuku and Izumi flee from them and are forced to go on the run, Izumi taking Izuku to a hideout of hers in the deepest crevice of the city, where they meet another pair of escaped clones by the names of Yamikumo and Akatani Mikumo.
Back in U.A., Class 1-A begins to feel the absence of Izuku, but in his lack of presence, they begin to take notice of strange happenings around them. Objects moved out of place in their dorms, random sightings and sounds of unknown figures, and the slight sightings of a figure that looked like a disfigured Izuku even though he should not be there.
However, someone else is there as well, keeping an eye on things. Yui Kodai from Class B watches over the students of the hero course for her masters in Tantiss.
Yui Kodai is a clone, one made from the spliced DNA of both Ochako Uraraka and Mount Lady, and with the mixed quirk from both as well.
And she and the rest of the Tantiss commandos in U.A. comes into conflict with the disfigured Izuku Midoriya clone who prowls the school grounds with a misdirection device in his possession, the two of them referring to each other as cousins.
Meanwhile, Izuku, Izumi, Yamikumo, and Akatani stay in their shelter as far away from the eyes of Tantiss and their hero and commando PMCs, and discuss what they have to do next. Izuku is told of where the three clone came from, being a mountain far away from any of the major cities in one of the rural parts of Japan, known to them only as Mount Tantiss, but is told that Tantiss Industries has the mountain and its surrounding regions on lockdown, and will detain and kill anyone who gets too close to them.
What they need, first of all, is what the clones call misdirection devices, advanced pieces of technology that Tantiss' agents have been using to get around the city without being detected.
So, they decide to get one. Using one of the clones as bait, they are able to lure out one of Tantiss' commandos into trying to apprehend them, only for them all to rush and dogpile him, knocking him out and dragging him away, all out in the open thanks to the misdirection device that the commando is using.
In the depths of their hideout, Izuku and the clones find that they are unable to remove the armour around the commando without a blowtorch and welder, of which they do not have, and instead turn to the device that he was using to move around. They discover that the device is simply a small box with a slice of skin in it, as well as a vial of trigger in it and a small mechanism that has been keeping the cells in the sliver of skin alive. They realise that Tantiss has stolen away someone with a quirk that allows themselves to go unnoticed by everyone, and had taken him apart in order to harvest their quirk for their use.
Using their newly acquired misdirection device, Izuku and the clones decide to make their way back to Mount Tantiss themselves, and attempt a raid on a Tantiss Industries transport, only to be forced to retreat when the transport self-destructs, burning all evidence inside it. Realising that they will need more than just themselves to break into Mount Tantiss and figure out what is going on, and coming to the conclusion that since the breakout, Tantiss Industries would've ramped up their security as well, Izuku and the clones decide to return to U.A. to try and get as much help as they possibly could from the staff and students there, including All Might himself.
However, back in U.A., the disfigured Izuku, who has now begun to call himself Mastermind, begins to form plans of his own, intending on drawing out Tantiss' agents into a confrontation of his own, and begins to goad Yui and her men into a long running feud.
On their way to U.A., Izuku and his group of brothers and sister clones come across more aberrant copies of himself, sheltering away in a sewage system running under Musutafu, trying to hide from Tantiss' forces. There, they learn bits and pieces from these clones, such as the fact that they have been suffering from the same deluge of dreams as Izuku himself, and that they have been contacted by Mastermind through a sympathetic source, though who that is remains a mystery.
However, Izuku and his group come to blows with these clones, as they reveal that Mastermind wished to use them to lure Tantiss Industries' men into a confrontation and expose them to the world. Realising the damage that this could do, and the lives that could be caught up in the fighting, as well as the fact that Mastermind has no idea what he's up against and that Tantiss will kill him and all the other clones just to keep what they're doing a secret, Izuku and his group try to talk their fellow clones out of partaking in this madness, but they aren't having it. They are angry at being experimented on, and they want justice for what has been doing to them.
The two groups come to blows, and the aberrant clones are able to overwhelm Izuku and his group with sheer weight of numbers. They leave them bound and gagged as they make their way to U.A. under darkness, rendezvousing with Mastermind and his agent inside of U.A..
Mina Ashido, a clone who had been unaware of who she was before Mastermind had helped to unlock the memories that Tantiss Industries had tried to wipe from her mind, and overriding her original programming.
Now, the clone of Mina and Mastermind had kidnapped Kaminari and Jiro, and were now planning on combining their quirks together to create an EMP that could disable the misdirection devices that Tantiss' agents used, exposing them to the world, uncaring to the lives that would be caught in the middle of the fighting, or silenced for witnessing too much.
Soon enough, Yui and her fellow Tantiss agents and commandos would storm the derelict city-shaped training grounds of U.A., misdirection devices in hand, and chase down the renegade clones and their hostages. Once they were in the city, the two sides would clash, Izuku's One for All-charged clones going toe-to-toe with Yui and her commandos, all the while Ashido and Mastermind would bind Kaminari and Jiro together to a spliced-together device and antenna, feed them enough trigger to permanently mutate their quirks, and then, they activated their makeshift EMP.
It did nothing.
Now, Yui and her commandos would continue to duel with the Izuku clones, unimpeded by the attempted destruction of their misdirection devices as the two sides continued to wage a bloody war with each other, only made messier by the arrival of Izuku himself and his group of clones, with now three groups fighting against each other in a messy duel of One for All and copied quirks that went unnoticed by anyone.
Except for one person.
All Might, who, thanks to the dreams that he'd been having alongside Izuku thanks to One for All, was now seeing through the misdirection devices that Tantiss' agents were using, and was sent on his way by Nezu, who already had his suspicions about what was going on.
All Might would join the battle, and Izuku and his group would side with him in disarming and incapacitating both sides of the conflict, freeing Jiro and Kaminari from their restraints (though they would be forced to knock the two students unconscious thanks to the trigger running through them turning them rabid and feral), knocking out Mina, Mastermind, and the rogue clones, and overwhelming Yui and her commandos, ending the fight in the city.
However, Yui and the commandos would bite down on fake tooths inside their mouths, and whilst they would be able to stop Yui from biting down on her cyanide pill and killing herself, the same could not be said for the commandos, and they would all fall dead on the ground.
Back in U.A., Izuku and his group of clones would meet with Nezu and All Might in secret, and they would tell them of everything that they knew. Meanwhile, in another secretive part of the school, Power Loader and Mei Hatsume would apply the much-needed blowtorch and welder to the armour of one of Tantiss' commandos, prying the metal apart and seeing the dead man that hid underneath.
A clone of All Might himself.
Meanwhile, All Might and Nezu would begin their interrogation of the rogue clones, and while Yui would be uncooperative (even attempting to bite her tongue at one point in another attempt to deny them information), Ashido and Mastermind would be much more willing to speak, filling in the gaps in Izuku and his clones' knowledge on what is going on and what Tantiss seeks to accomplish:
Tantiss Industries and the cabal of scientists that rule it do not want to make an army of Izukus. That had just been a test, an experiment in figuring out how to copy and dissect One of All on top of their previous quirk experiments and cloning efforts, and had created several other clones, such as Mina and Yui, and many more in key positions across Japan to ensure a smooth transition of power when the time comes for it.
The real plan that Tantiss Industries wishes to enact is to create a clone army of All Might.
In Mount Tantiss, the head of the cabal's vast cloning operations, one Doctor Kurōn, guarded by the clones sisters Hansel and Gretel, is displeased by the fact that U.A. has captured several of his clones, both renegade and under his command, but is not concerned by this fact as he continues their operations. All he had to do was be patient, and wait, and soon enough, his army of All Might clones would be complete, and they would supersede the aging Number One hero when he eventually retired and bring true peace to hero society.
At least, that's what he said to the slumbering, dissected body of Izuku Midoriya, still alive and pulled open like a peeled fruit.
The Izuku Midoriya in U.A. is a clone, and has been for a very long time. It is through their shared connection in One for All that he has been sending the other Izuku his dreams and seeing through his eyes.
And now, he has seen the life that the other Izuku has lived in his place...
And he is angry.