The Way of the Bat

Chapter I

In one world, in the early days of metahumans, one of their number gave a power (later called a quirk,) to his younger brother and it merged with his own innate power, creating a power known as One For All. On the opposite side of the world, one family's life came close to being utterly destroyed but was saved by the timely intervention of a young police officer. One For All would eventually be passed down to two quirkless teens. First would be Yagi Toshinori who would become the world's greatest hero: All Might. The second would be his chosen successor, Midoriya Izuku, who would also become one of the greats.

This is not that world.

In this world, Shigaraki Yoichi pushed his brother too far and he was killed. Yagi Toshinori was born with a quirk, one that granted him enormous super-strength and speed, allowing him to still become All Might, the Symbol of Peace. In America, the young family was destroyed because the police officer was delayed. The parents were killed, leaving behind a traumatized, twelve-year-old boy who vowed to clean up his city so that none would have to suffer as he did. Young Bruce Wayne was quirkless, as most in his day were, but his training to take on the criminals plaguing Gotham granted him the power to challenge even those with powers and be invited into the Justice League, an alliance of heroes that gathered to deal with threats beyond the power of any one hero.

As Batman, Bruce Wayne was forced to take on greater challenges than he had ever imagined. He was the first vigilante to work closely with the police, and the first to take on sidekicks, though at first only one at a time. Within ten years of starting though, his allies were so numerous that they became known as the Bat-Family. Time continued to pass, and Bruce Wayne knew that he would eventually be forced to retire. In order to ensure that his legacy continued, he used his wealth to create Batman Incorporated; a worldwide enterprise that would train new young heroes in martial arts, stealth, detective work; in short, everything one would need to become another Batman. As one final way to ensure that the legacy of Batman would become cemented in stone, it was decreed that only those without quirks would be trained by Batman Inc.

Two months after Midoriya Izuku was declared quirkless, a black-haired young man with blue eyes knocked on their door. "Hello, my name is Timothy Drake-Wayne, I'd like to speak to you and your son about an opportunity." Inko was utterly confused as to why an American would be at her door and welcomed him inside. She was far too curious to simply tell him no. Once inside, the youth asked a simple question. "Izuku, do you want to become a hero?"

"I don't have a quirk. Can I still be a hero?"

"My great-grandfather didn't have a quirk and he was one of the greatest back home, and his step-father was even greater. It will take hard work, and I can be a difficult taskmaster. I accept nothing less than excellence from all who join the program. Yes, Midoriya Izuku, you can be a hero. What do you say?" Naturally, the five-year-old jumped at the chance. "Good, and what about you, ma'am? Are you willing to support him?"

"How can he be a hero, though?"

"My namesake great-grandfather was the hero known as Red Robin, one of the second generation of the World's Finest heroes. All the training that he and his brothers experienced has been passed down through Batman Incorporated, and if you're willing, Izuku would be our next student. By the time he's a teen, he'll be ready to take on even UA's entrance exam." Inko agreed when she heard that, and Timothy smiled and offered his hand. "Very good then, Mr. Midoriya. Welcome to my world."

Nine Years Later

In the years since the offer was made, Midoriya Izuku had grown in every way, and his briefly broken relationship with Bakugou Katsuki had been reforged into something far stronger than it had ever been before. While the explosive boy had at first been angry at the greenette's growth in physical strength and martial arts skill, he quickly changed tune and recognized that his companion could become his best rival. For the past five years, the two boys had pushed each other to become stronger, tougher, more agile and smarter. Now they were in their final year of middle school and they had no plans to separate, each desired nothing less than to go to UA.

While everyone else in the class, including the teacher laughed at the idea of Midoriya becoming a quirkless hero, Bakugou stood up for him. "You guys have no idea how tough Deku is! If anyone can get into UA while quirkless, it's him. And you had better get in, Deku. All that training would be a waste otherwise!"

"As if I'd ever let you down, Kacchan!" Midoriya responded with a smile as bright as All Might's.

That afternoon, Izuku was going over the designs for his professional costume when he was attacked by a villain made of sludge who intended to use him as a skin suit. Well, that wasn't going to happen, and fortunately he had everything he needed to stop the villain. He reached into the utility belt he kept hidden under his uniform and pulled out a particular batarang, then stabbed it into the sludge. (Rule #1 in Batman Inc: Never leave home without your utility belt.) The good news was that the weapon worked, and the villain froze solid. The bad news was that since the villain was trying to consume him, Izuku was frozen as well. The Foxes really need to work on a better way to neutralize villains like this.

Fortunately, that was when the manhole cover flew off, revealing All Might. "Don't worry, you're … safe now? Well, I wasn't expecting this. Don't worry, I'll have you out of there soon." All Might then started tapping on the ice at seemingly random locations until he found what he was looking for and gave it a harder tap than before, instantly shattering the ice.

"Thanks for that," Izuku said with a smile. "Now, how about we gather up the villain so you can take him to the police." All Might was taken aback. That … wasn't how people usually reacted to his presence. "Oh, don't worry, once we take care of him, I'll definitely act more like how you expect," Izuku said, noticing how concerned the hero was. By this point, he'd pulled a large temperature-controlled bag out of his belt and was putting pieces of the villain inside.

"Why aren't you acting like that now?" the blond asked as he helped pick up the chunks of ice.

"Part of my training to be a hero included controlling my emotions while work needs to be done, otherwise I'd be muttering up a storm every time," Izuku explained.

"Well, with a quirk like that, you'll have no problems becoming a hero," the older man said with a reassuring smile.

"Quirk?" Izuku asked, confused. Then he realized how things looked and laughed. "Oh, that wasn't my quirk, that was a piece of equipment. I'm actually quirkless." That was when he found the batarang, still lodged into a piece of the ice, and the villain. A quick check revealed "Yep, drained. Not surprising, considering how big that guy was. What'd he do, anyway?" Izuku asked, turning back to his hero. What he saw made him scream in shock; Bat-training was not enough to hide his reaction to the truth about All Might.

All Might had collapsed on the ground, spitting blood out of his mouth in shock, and he had shrunk down to the size of a normal person. "You're seriously quirkless?!" he asked.

Izuku studied the man before him, just to be certain it was All Might, and there were enough similarities to confirm in his mind that it was him. Those tufts of hair hanging off the sides certainly couldn't belong to anyone else! "Yeah, I am," he said, answering the hero's question. "Took every test possible to confirm it. So, what happened? I don't remember hearing anything about you getting hurt badly in any fight."

"Well, the shrinking part was normal even before the fight," All Might confessed. Then he lifted his shirt, revealing a massive scar on his side. "Pretty gross, right? I got this in a big fight with the villain who killed my sensei five years ago. My respiratory system's shot, and I had to have my stomach removed. It's why I took up teaching back then, well that and the fact that I can only do hero work for three hours now."

"Five years ago?" Izuku asked, and his brilliant mind, something that training had only enhanced, quickly put the pieces together. "The media blackout of Hiroshima, you were behind it, and that's when you were fighting the villain, wasn't it?"

"You know your stuff, including stuff that should be secret. Yeah, that's what happened. He nearly killed me, and I'm almost certain that I killed him. I'm the guy who's always smiling, right? I'm the Symbol of Peace, but so many times that smile is a trick, a mask to hide the fear inside. This is one of the hardest jobs in the entire world, one where you need to be ready to sacrifice yourself to save others. Can you do that?"

"All Might, knowing that you're afraid just makes you an even bigger hero in my eyes!" Izuku said. "How many people can go out there knowing how dangerous it is and still smile to keep others feeling safe? Sign my notebook!" The hero laughed, finally seeing a reaction that he was expecting and did as he was asked. "Umm, this is kind of a big thing to ask, but I have a training session in a couple of hours, and I was kind of hoping you'd come watch and tell me what you think?"

All Might decided to think about that, as the idea was quite intriguing. How did one train a quirkless teen to be a hero? Maybe this could be useful in his own teaching career. "I would love to see your training. But first we need to deal with this guy, remember?"

Izuku blushed, having forgotten about the villain in the aftermath of learning All Might's secret, but it did allow him to ask a question he'd thought of. "How did you break the ice? I don't think you just used your strength to do so, not from what I could see anyways."

"Oh, that's easy. Did you know that if you hit ice or gems at just the right spot, you can destroy them? It's called a shatterpoint, and I just tapped on the ice until I found it, then hit that point a little harder." Izuku kept asking questions as they walked to the police station, All Might answering as many as he could.

"What is this?" Yagi Toshinori asked as he stared in shock from the control room.

Timothy Drake-Wayne smiled as he answered the pro hero. "This is a holographic simulation room. We use this for training our applicants in real life scenarios based on actual cases that my family has dealt with. Right now you're looking at Gotham during the Golden Age of the Batfamily, and Izuku is about to start a training scenario based on one of the cases from the time."

"Young Midoriya mentioned that your company takes on quirkless kids and trains them to be heroes. Are all of these kids quirkless?" Toshinori asked, having seen about two dozen kids training in various parts of the holographic city.

"Oh, no. No, Izuku is our only quirkless student right now. About twenty years ago, the heads of The Company noticed that it was getting harder to find actual quirkless kids who want to be heroes, so they changed the rules. Now all you need is a non-combative quirk to qualify. For example, Muto Akira there has a quirk that allows her to see how things connect. Most people saw it as only being useful for solving puzzles, but-"

"But it could easily help solve detective cases, or even develop new support equipment," Toshinori realized. "That's a powerful quirk. Are any of them planning to go to UA?"

"Outside of Izuku, you mean? Well, none of them have quite decided yet, but Akira is looking for a school where she can use her quirk to its' ultimate potential, which to her means she takes part in both support and hero classes. Unfortunately UA doesn't offer that, so she's shopping around." The girl in question was currently dressed in a purple costume with a large yellow bat over her breasts, and a black cape, with the cape and mask giving her a clear bat-inspired look. Bright silver hair flowed out from the back of her mask, and yellow eyes shined from the other side. "Ah, there he is now. Now, the basis of the case is this: Joker, a villain of the time has launched an attack, and Batman received a coded message at about the same time. Izuku is to deal with the Jokers' gang members until the message is decoded."

"Do you use robots for the villains?"

"Oh no, everything here is holographic, with an AI that decides the difficulty of the test. Izuku is currently at level five of ten, which makes him about average for a Robin. Ah, he's just found the first clue." The message rang out for everyone in the control room to hear. Why hello, Batman. As you've no doubt guessed, this is the Riddler. Wondering what Joker's up to? Maybe this riddle will shed light on things. Riddle me this: when is an attack not an attack?

"An attack is not an attack when it's a feint. The Riddler is saying that this attack is a diversion. Is there another set of coordinates?" Tim smiled and sent the coordinates as requested.

"Has he done this scenario before?" Toshinori asked.

"Oh, no, never. We have enough scenarios just from the Golden Age alone that it's impossible to go through them all in less than fifty years. No, he's just that smart, easily one of the smartest to come through Batman Inc. He has some problem with technological questions, but no one's perfect."

"And how's he flying across the city?"

"Our capes serve several functions, one of which is that thanks to the material they're made of, they're perfect for gliding. It's called memory cloth, and we've been using it since Batman first started."

How about some poetry, Batman? The Joker is king, but slave to a tool. He thinks he's master, but he is a fool. When his toxin is in play, you'll know tomorrow what you should know today.

Izuku took a moment before answering the question. "Riddler is saying that Joker is being used by someone else. Wasn't there a robotics master called T O Morrow back then?"

"And this AI you use, how advanced is it?"

"Only smart enough to replicate human personalities, we learned the hard way not to make it too smart. However, that isn't to say that we haven't made advancements. Somehow our tech guys made them so advanced in power recognition that everything from our fear gas to telepathy works on them!"

"Telepathy? How did they …? You know, I don't think I want to know," Toshinori decided. However, he saw an opportunity to help UA out, and shut down one of his most vocal colleagues. "Any chance that you'd be willing to sell the technology and set it up at UA?" What could he say? He'd fallen in love with the technology.

Izuku interrupted them by finding the next clue right then. Alright, I give! I know the Joker knows I know what I know! He's going to kill me, Batman! I need your help! I-I'm at-at-Arrgh! Riddle me this: When you've been dealt a bum hand, where is the deck stacked against you?

"Jeez, poor Riddler, that obsession of his really has a hold on him, doesn't it? The Monarch Trading Card Company, probably made it easy on purpose." With that, he set off for the factory.

"We'd certainly be willing to discuss such a deal," Timothy responded. "I just didn't know any hero schools would be interested. I thought they all used government funding to cover their costs."

"Most do, but UA also welcomes donations from alumni, and I can think of several that would be willing to cover the cost to help future generations of heroes."

"Well then, arrange a meeting with Nezu and I'll certainly show up."

By that point, Izuku had arrived at the factory. Hello Batman. When is a door not a door? When it's ajar! The door to what I know is definitely ajar, if you can find your way to me. Riddle me this: What never speaks, yet shows the way? Get to the point, it's clear as day! That puzzle was solved easily enough, and the second practically spelled out the answer. Three sons seeking fortune made their way, along a road one bright day. They came at last to a tri-forked road, and each a different route now strode. The middle son the left path tread, with dreams of riches in his head. The youngest took the middle pass, a wife he hoped to find at last. The eldest the right road did claim, a fine estate was his good aim. The roads did wind and twist and bend, but each path seemed a strange dead end. To dodge this fate, so say the sages, order not their paths, but instead their ages. One mistake was made, as Izuku assumed he wanted oldest to youngest, but the riddle was solved easily. "What was that fear gas you mentioned earlier?" Toshinori asked.

"Back in the days of Batman, there was a psychiatrist who became obsessed with fear and developed a toxin that directly affected the part of the mind that dealt with fear, causing you to see your worst nightmares. The Scarecrow used this toxin whenever he committed a crime, so Batman and his allies developed antidotes. Eventually we started using it for ourselves. There, you can see Izuku using it to buy time against Deathstroke," Tim pointed out. Sure enough, a yellow mist was spraying from Izuku's gloves, one that forced the armored mercenary to retreat out of pure fear. "We've been working on it for ages, and we think we've finally perfected it to the point where we can use it and it will simply wear off."

When Izuku came back from the training room, he excitedly ran up to Toshinori to ask what he thought. "Young man, that was some impressive work. I can't wait to see how you do at UA!"