Chapter Text
Sweat drips from overheated skin onto the ground. Tenya is a fairly optimistic person yet he can tell that they’re currently in deep trouble.
These weird creatures are tough, a lot tougher than Pixie-Bob’s earth golems. Not to mention, possessing a measure of combat-related intelligence. His Recipro Burst barely made a dent on their armor-like bodies, only one particularly well-aimed kick at an exposed neck that sent its head flying succeeded in taking one down so far. The other beasts took notice of the fatal fate befalling their comrade and now it’s significantly harder for Tenya to land a surprise attack to their vulnerable spots.
“Hohoho are you all enjoying this chaotic playground?” Koyagi’s voice washes over the worn-out group. He’s standing atop a creature resembling a griffin up in the air, looking down on them like how a haughty ruler regards his lowly subjects.
Humongous creatures are roaming the wrecked streets below him, some loom even taller than two-story houses.
Koyagi spreads his arms wide, yellow eyes glinting. ”What an exceptional map I’ve chosen, right?”
Katsuki is a relentless meteor, flying from one creature to the next with fiery fists.
“These fuckers are such a pest!” the alpha growls, crouched over a smoking corpse of a bear monster with spikes protruding out its back. It takes a lot of what would be fatal hits to a human to bring the fucker down. Katsuki is currently the level of pissed off of a nuclear bomb about to detonate on the spot.
Mina is busy trying to stay alive, exerting her agility and acid use to the max just to avoid being crushed like a tomato by these monsters’ behemoth-sized paws.
“What are all these creatures?!” Mina exclaims as she spurts her acid on a creature’s chest just when it’s about to lunge at her. It shrieks, wildly shakes its body left and right yet it’s not enough to stop it from trying to bite her head off. Mina yelps. Seriously, what are they?! They’re waaay scarier and more disturbing-looking than the aliens in those alien movies she likes to binge on!
“Meet my war chimeras, adorable aren’t they? They are the prized products of countless years of experiments, my pride and joy. Please kindly excuse their savageness. Despite my best efforts to feed them a nutritionally balanced diet, they still developed a particular taste for human flesh,” Koyagi says with the air of a proud parent listing their child’s achievements.
“What, because you fed humans to them?” Mina looks a bit green.
The griffin flaps its wings to dodge a surging burst of explosion. Koyagi appears undisturbed by the attempted attack, a finger calmly twirling the tip of his goatee. “Hohoho not intentionally. As you know, every facility has its fair share of both useful and useless members. And there’s a limit to committing silly mistakes that even my patient self could not afford to tolerate anymore, it’s a matter of efficiency, really. So there they go, all of my clinically idiotic staff, off to my cute pets’ cages. It makes for a quite magnificent show, a shower of pretty red and echoing screams.”
All while speaking Koyagi maintains a serene expression as if he’s merely explaining his gardening hobby and not actually confessing to routinely committing a massacre.
Yuuga shivers, inching closer to Mezou’s reassuring frame.
The place is riddled with signs of destruction, from the initial earthquake and made worse by the fierce battle breaking between the chimeras and the pack. Mina’s skin is stinging from continuously discharging acid out of her skin. Mezou appears fairly beaten down from physically going toe to toe with the tough chimeras. Katsuki looks at the edge of going feral, smoke fizzing out of his palms and uniform torn out at several places. Yuuga is holding his stomach, a bit nauseous from quirk overuse. And Tenya has a large gash over his right ribs, which the alpha resolutely ignores despite Mina’s attempt to get him to rest.
“A mad scientist and a killer.” Tenya narrows his eyes in contempt. “What’s your purpose for kidnapping us here? Why Sarokujima?” He picked up the information on their location through the earpiece from Momo, who had questioned the locals. Although they’ve found the ‘villain’, the safety of civilians takes precedence over apprehending him, so Tenya instructed her to continue the search and rescue mission while he attempts to subdue Koyagi here with his other packmates.
Koyagi responds with a smile, not denying Tenya’s accusatory words. “U.A.’s security is simply laughable. Just insert the title ‘pack expert’ to my credentials and voila I could comfortably walk in through the front door. I thought it would take a lot more to infiltrate the so-called safest place in Japan.”
“And now here we are. A pack of such healthy alphas, betas, and omega you are. You’ll all make wonderful additions to my lab collection.” A cruel visage snares his features, a far cry from the professional persona he has previously graced them with. His smirk is tinged with pitless black, so dark it rivals a blackhole itself. “Especially Midoriya Izuku, what a perfect specimen of a male omega. I’ll certainly make good use of him in my lab.”
At the mention of their omega Katsuki’s face instantly breaks into a vicious snarl, pupils sharpening into pinpricks. “Shut the fuck up!” he screams, fury coursing through his veins as he launches himself up like a missile, reaching heights far above Koyagi and his flying mount.
The chimeras react in an instant, swarming below Koyagi and snapping their teeth viciously at a target that’s out of their reach. Not wasting the opportunity when they are gathered in a tight space, Mina splashes her acid in a wide arc and covers the whole ground with it. Despite the fact that the acid fails to penetrate the thick skin of their paws, it makes the ground slippery, causing them to flail and bump into each other uncoordinatedly. Multiple laser beams slam onto the bulk of their bodies, extracting pained shrieks out of the beasts.
Light pops off Katsuki’s palms. The alpha exerts his powerful core to spin his body in a tight controlled circle, a drill shrouded in meteor-hot explosions plunging down the earth towards a wide-eyed Koyagi.
“Howitzer Impact!”
A loud resounding boom tears through the air.
Mina shields her ears, taking refuge behind a half crumbled wall of a house. Judging by the impact vibration alone, it’s obvious Katsuki didn’t even try to hold back. There’s no way Koyagi is still in one piece after receiving an attack that scale! In Mina’s humble opinion, the creepy goat-man gets what he deserves. You don’t just threaten Izuku in Katsuki’s vicinity and expect to come out unharmed afterwards.
Katsuki rises up ominously like a messenger of death amidst the haze of dust, chunks of meat, blood, and metal are pelting down the arena in the charged, stilted air of silence. A beastly smirk creeps its way to his fanged mouth, coupled by heady winner’s adrenaline coursing through the thrilled alpha’s veins.
“That was an outstanding technique, Alpha.”
Katsuki whips around, wide-eyed.
Through the curtain of dust that’s starting to settle down, there was Koyagi. Perched on top of another griffin and wearing a gloating smirk.
He starts clapping, not a single tuft of white fur out of place. “Congratulations! You’ve destroyed one. Now just how many times can you execute that particular move before a body part or two fails you, hm?”
Wisps of smoke skate out from Katsuki’s tightly clenched fists. His pupils are thinning into slits and huge alphan fangs start to slip down their protective sheaths. Upon seeing the state his packmate is in, Tenya quickly leaps to Katsuki’s side.
“Katsuki, calm down,” Tenya says, hand rubbing his alpha’s tense back soothingly. “He’s not an ordinary villain. We’ll have to work out our options with a cool head to successfully take him down.”
This isn’t good. Katsuki’s Howitzer Impact has definitely struck the griffin chimera. Yet it appears that Koyagi has emerged unharmed from Katsuki’s strongest attack, whether because he had managed to dodge or defend against it. Tenya has no clue what exactly has happened. Except for the fact that they could be dealing with a more troublesome opponent than they had anticipated.
He shifts his attention back to Katsuki. This is also another problem.
Even though Katsuki doesn’t shrug off his touch, he’s still steadfast on his way to go full-blown feral. Something Tenya would like to avoid at all costs. Glancing furtively at Koyagi who’s still antagonising Katsuki with his mocking demeanour, he takes the risk to lean in towards Katsuki’s neck, sniffing deeply to let his packmate know of his intention. Tenya starts with a tentative kiss on a scent gland, senses stretched to pick up Katsuki’s subtle reactions to his ministration. Detecting nothing that could be interpreted as rejection, he continues to scent the other alpha gently, peppering kisses down a smooth line of throat, his own throat rumbling out a comforting purr and releasing a steady stream of sedative pheromones.
His effort appears to be working. Katsuki’s brunt of aggressive scent milds down rapidly and he’s no longer all tensed up like a predator about to pounce. Elated, Tenya lets his tongue glide a long strip across the entirety of Katsuki’s scent gland, eliciting a pleased purr out of the other alpha.
After an attentive round of scenting, still mindful of Koyagi and the creatures, Tenya plants a final kiss on the soft skin over a thrumming vein and withdraws from Katsuki’s neck.
“Better?”
“Tch.” Katsuki’s pupils have returned back to normal and the pheromones emanating from him is no longer as prickly. “I don’t need your help, Four Eyes.”
Tenya sighs, smiling. “You’re welcome.”
The moment is shattered when out of the corner of their eyes they notice numerous round-shaped objects flying straight towards them at tremendous speed. Both alphas snap into action to deal with the incoming projectiles.
However before they can do anything decisive, someone’s broad back slides into sight in front of them.
“Octoblow!”
A blur of flying fists later and the objects are reduced to harmless pieces of rock.
“Taste my magnifique sparkles!” Another round of rocks are dealt with by brilliant streams of laser with deadly precision. Yuuga is striking a pose, winking at both stunned alphas.
“Telekinesis on top of teleportation?” Mina grits her teeth, chucking blob after blob of acid into endless pairs of wide-open jaws. If they’re that eager to snack on her, Mina will gladly let them get a small taste of this feisty little pink-skinned alien. “Does this guy have two quirks?”
Tenya is dashing down the road, dodging rocks and other flying debris while looking for an opening to close in on Koyagi.
Krrk. “Hello? Tenya?”
Eijirou’s voice crackles through the radio.
“Yes.” Is Tenya"s clipped answer.
“We’re close.”
Tenya’s eyes flit over towards Mezou. Overhead, Katsuki vaults over the snout of a tiger chimera and expels a barrage of fire-hot explosions towards its vulnerable bits. Upside-down, and through a tangle of limbs, piercing red briefly connects with Tenya’s own dark blue.
After inhaling deeply, Katsuki extends his arms with open palms and screams, “Eat this!”
A massive ball of superheated energy surges towards Koyagi, yet its path gets prematurely obstructed by a huge floating chunk of fragmented pavement. There it is again, that gleeful smirk pasted on his goat-like face is visible through the crevices created between broken bits of concrete and asphalt in the air.
“Here!” A voice suddenly cries out.
All five instantly squeeze their eyes shut just in time before bright kaleidoscopic light floods the area.
“Ah!” Koyagi bleats in pain, palms shooting upwards to shield his eyes from the sharp intrusive light.
“Oops. Did I get your goat?” Tooru giggles, landing somewhere. The scent-nulling oil stashed in her pocket that she has slathered all over her body prior keeps her safely out of the detection of chimeras with a more acute sense of smell.
“You—” Koyagi begins, before he’s cut off by a bone-rattling force hammering into his ride and the side of his torso. The griffin lets out an ear-piercing screech, paws jerking uncontrollably as its massive body topples over. Plunging down from its aerial perch 20 feet above the ground along with its flightless rider.
Even though Koyagi is an enemy, they are also heroes in training and any respectable hero won’t let someone fall to their death if they can help it, enemy or not. Yet as Hanta releases a line of tape meant to save Koyagi, an elephant chimera blocks its course with its trunk, trumpeting madly. Koyagi lands on its back with a grimace.
“That worked out better than expected,” Rikidou comments. That right there is the first time they have attempted this combo attack. Which was basically him, fully bulked up by sugar, hurling Eijirou like a spear with all his strength.
Eijirou leaps back to his feet, traces of his hardening vanishing from his skin. “Yeah man! How do you like our combined attack, Boulder Bullet?”
His toothy grin fades as soon as his gaze lands on Koyagi.
Koyagi is standing stiffly on the elephant’s back with a portion of his arm missing. Blood drizzles from the stump in endless rivulets. A line of red trickles out Koyagi’s mouth as he coughs.
Eijirou pales and stutters out, “I-I didn’t mean to hurt him that much.”
Tension rises in the area, the pack is torn between rejoicing from finally landing a hit on their previously untouchable foe and panicking since, uh, their packmate apparently just blew someone’s arm off??
Koyagi’s face is flushed with pain, but then his lips curl up into a sympathetic smile.
“You all look as if someone’s just killed your cat. Trust me, concern is the last emotion you should extend towards me.” He raises his bloodied stump of an arm. Their breaths seize in their throats when thin strands of flesh and sinews emerge from the stump, twining and growing like a time lapse of seed germination in hyper-fast motion.
Then as a final touch, skin sprouts and wraps around the exposed red muscles to form a complete, brand-new arm. The only evidence remaining that the arm has been wounded (aka severed) previously is the bloodstain flecking the shredded shirt sleeve around the elbow area.
“Yikes, just what the hell is he?” Tooru whispers, feeling a little bit queasy as she finishes tying a makeshift bandage around Tenya’s wounded side. They don’t have the luxury to sit around and work out the mystery though as the beasts launch back their attacks with renewed vigor at the increased amount of prey available.
“Damn, these ones are much bigger than what we fought before,” Mashirao grits his teeth as he resumes ducking, jumping, and smashing his tail into a fresh round of chimeras.
Like the overcast sky above them, Koyagi’s malicious grin hangs in the air. “Hohoho, hero students are indeed very spirited. Let’s see how well you can take me on.”
As if responding to the cue, the temperature drops abruptly. Large icebergs with dull menacing protrusions surge through the spaces between houses, an elemental juggernaut that engulfs a huge number of creatures with its unstoppable might. Within seconds, the vast icy hills have entrapped them totally within their mass. The beasts stand no chance when the next attack comes.
“Amplifier Jack: Heartbeat Distortion!”
The ice fractures in deafening volume, its irregularity coupled with the intensity of the vibration cause blood to spurt out the chimeras ensnared in the icy grip. They let loose horrific shrieks, a harrowing symphony of death assaulting everyone’s ears. Kyouka would’ve preferred not to use such a brutal combined attack, but needs must, the chimeras are exceptionally tough that simply immobilising them with Shouto’s ice would only serve to enrage them further. She would spare no effort to ensure the safety of her packmates.
“Guys!” Hanta calls out, eyes shining in relief at the arrival of back-up.
One of the most integral aspects to successfully operate as a hero pack is to learn how to seamlessly work together, developing powerful combo attacks that incorporate unique usage of everyone’s quirk. It manifests differently depending on the circumstances. That’s why Tenya is now sprinting while carrying Ochako on his back, hands securely clasped under her thighs. As he is agilely swerving under and beside the chimeras, Ochako’s hands dart out to briefly make contact with them. Deprived of gravity, the chimeras start to float up, rendering any panicking struggles useless.
Once nausea is starting to brew in her guts, she yells out, “Release!”
The creatures are plummeting down like colossal-sized, solid rain droplets, their own significant weights breaking their own bones and blood vessels upon contact with the unforgiving grounf.
Shouto is exhaling a misty breath when Katsuki slams down in front of him, causing his latest icy path to crack audibly. “That was mine! Are you trying to pick a fight with me, Half Half?” Katsuki growls out with bared teeth.
“You’re welcome,” Shouto answers in a deadpan tone.
Incensed at the lukewarm response, Katsuki leans in further until their noses almost touch. “Who’s thanking you?!”
What Katsuki certainly doesn’t expect is for Shouto to swoop in a lightning-quick peck squarely on his mouth. His brain is busy short-circuiting when the side of Shouto’s lips quirks up in amusement. “Heh, that’s one way to shut you up next time.”
Katsuki is gaping like a beached fish, unable to coherently formulate a single syllable before erupting in a furious scream, palms popping off threateningly. “Shameless bastard! Who says there’s gonna be a next time?!”
Any sane person will wisely stay silent after that, but Shouto won’t exactly call himself sane. Give all credits to his stellar flaming-garbage of a father, please. Plus, keeping Katsuki on his toes is Shouto’s self-appointed life mission.
Doing his best ‘flirty’ wink as instructed by the lifestyle magazine Alpha Watchdog ‘How To Up Your Seduction Game’ segment, Shouto seductively (or at least he thinks that’s what he’s doing) says, “Oh if it’s up to me there’ll be countless next times and more. And I assure you you’ll be begging for every second of it, Alpha.” The last word is laced with something sinfully sexy (or at least that’s what Shouto is hoping to achieve).
Nonplussed and honestly a bit disturbed, Katsuki inches away from his suddenly sparkling packmate.
The chaos unfolding is not exactly playing in the pack’s favour, but with the arrival of Denki’s and Shouto’s groups, they’re not as outnumbered as they were before. It’s practically a stalemate until Koyagi speaks again, his tone tinged with a subtle sort of rage. “I changed my mind. You brats are too much of a handful if I hold back. I’ll make my cute lab rats out of those who survive the next 15 minutes, doesn’t that sound splendid?”
“Lab rats?” Denki squeaks out, face paling. “What do you mean?”
Kyouka wipes off the perspiration beading on her forehead and holds her chin high as she speaks, “Why are you doing this? Just what is your purpose?”
There’s a pregnant pause, of the sort inundated with the air of a beast rearing against its shackles and not knowing when they’ll snap.
“I am a scientist not by name, but more for the desire of wanting to understand things. All my life, I’ve been fascinated by the concept of pack. A pack can be established simply by regarding each other as such, a mere verbal promise, yet it cannot be broken as easily. Why? What exactly is a pack bond? Why is it so strong? Or is it?” The last question is full of dark wonder, a bone-chilling what-if.
“Or is it more of a matter of environment, if something compromises the sense of safety and belonging you feel in your pack, you would then instinctively reject your pack bond? Just what does it take to break the bond to the point of wanting to hurt each other, or even wanting each other dead? Aaaaah~ I’m so curious! I have faith in my superior ability to solve this mystery. This is my duty to the world. In my exceptional care you’ll be itching to tear your own packmates’ jugulars out in no time.” Koyagi’s gaze is far-off, and lips twisted in a feverish smile.
“So what we’re dealing with here is basically a fucking nutcase.” Katsuki scoffs.
“You’re insane,” Shouto growls, “What use would that perceived ‘duty’ serve to the world?”
“All the heroes and geniuses of the world had been called as such, when no one had yet understood and appreciated the fruits of their life-long labour,” Koyagi says, spoken like a true crazy person. His hand swings in a sharp upward arc as if he’s holding a conductor’s stick.
For a while nothing seems amiss, but then a rumble is drawing near and the earth is shaking. A cement-mixer truck tipped on its side appears out of nowhere, being dragged by an unseen force at breakneck speed towards their direction.
“Watch out!” Mina screams as she acid rollerblades out of the incoming behemoth of a force.
However, not everyone possesses her level of reflex. Yuuga and Denki are left smackdab in the middle of the truck’s path, eyes wide like saucers and feet frozen to the ground. Before its mass can hit them, Mezou darts in and scoops both of his packmates in his arms and braces for the inevitable impact.
“Mezou!” Tooru yells out. There’s no time to dodge and the truck sweeps them away alongside other rubble pieces like a giant tornado. It careens wildly out of the road and only comes to a halt when it crashes against the legs of a small concrete bridge, its excess length preventing it from going under. The visible vertical crack running through the middle of the concrete bridge worsens upon impact, dark spiderwebs spreading like poison. As the dust clears, it reveals the trio laying unmoving beneath the bridge, half-buried beneath rubble with Mezou curled protectively around the two betas.
If the bridge collapses... Tenya’s blood runs cold when Koyagi extends a languid arm towards the already compromised structure. “No!!” he screams, dust flying with how hard his feet dig into the ground, praying to any deity willing to listen that he gets there in time.
Koyagi only chuckles darkly. “Did anyone see the weather forecast? Apparently we’ll have raining cars right about... this time!”
Instead of the bridge collapsing, cars of all kinds on top of the bridge are levitating and then lurch towards them like bullets.
Hanta is swinging his way towards his injured packmates. Worry lowers his sense of surroundings and his eyes widen when he belatedly notices a car coming right at him. ‘It’ll hit!’ his mind screams, but with the way his tapes are currently coordinated there’s virtually no time to dodge.
A heart-stopping split of a second later, a shape shrouded in sparkling green snatches him off mid-air, the car skating past them both just barely.
“Hi!” Izuku flashes a charming grin down at Hanta.
Cradled in strong arms, Hanta’s dumbfounded expression is replaced with awe. Oh wow, never in his wildest dreams have he ever envisioned himself being rescued by a white knight in shining armor like this. All those metaphors in romance novels portraying the heroine’s heart pounding and stomach fluttering like it’s housing millions of butterflies are actually not mere exaggerations.
“Marry me,” he breathes out dazedly.
“Hm? Did you say something?” Izuku asks as he makes a landing near a little gas station. At the moment the place seems relatively safe from the chimeras.
Izuku is glad that he arrives in the nick of time to get his packmate out of danger. He certainly would’ve loved to arrive earlier, but then on the way here he and Tsuyu stumbled upon an overwhelmed mother and her baby. They didn"t have a choice but to take a detour and lead the pair safely to Momo’s care.
A quick visual inspection indicates that the lava is fast encroaching the area, sheets of radiant orange-yellow engulfing every structure that stands in its path. They need to quickly put an end to this. Izuku meets Koyagi’s gaze, which is already latched onto his the very second of his arrival.
“Ah Midoriya Izuku. What a pleasure that you deign to grace our playground with your presence, my cute male omega,” Koyagi remarks with that loathsome lilting voice of his.
It’s like something has snapped, resulting in the pack’s aggressiveness rocketing sky-high.
“Get that goat!”
“I’m gonna slice that mangy furball into fucking yagisashi.” Katsuki swears darkly.
They pounce like a pack of hungry wolves. A massive four-eyed snake that’s curled around Koyagi’s elephant mount uncoils its scaled body and aims to blast away all its oncoming adversaries like a raging cyclone. Yet not even an attack that scale can hope to keep down an enraged pack out too long.
“Tenya,” Izuku says in a low tone, halting the alpha from advancing alongside his other irate packmates. Tenya shoots him a puzzled look. “I need to talk to you.”
“Being unbreakable is no use when your footing is this sloppy!” Koyagi laughs maniacally, wrist snapping to the side.
As if there are invisible strings attached to Eijirou’s body, currently constructed of hard ridged slates, he gets torn from the earth and flung towards the already wide-open crocodile jaws.
“Aaaah!!” With no firm ground under him and the fact that he’s about to become a chimera’s snack, Eijirou can do nothing else but maintain his impenetrable armor-like body and pray that the crocodile won’t crush him like a watermelon.
His savior comes in the form of swooping darkness and then he’s airborne, freed from the clutch of Koyagi’s telekinetic grip. Still in his unbreakable form, his bewildered cracked eyes slant upwards.
“Yo,” Fumikage says as a greeting.
The beta’s mouth, basically made up of uneven slates of hardened teeth, bends into something that resembles a grin. “Thanks man! Talk about perfect timing!”
Momo and Kouji also pad into the area, slightly panting from all the non-stop running they’ve done. They sport some bruises yet their eyes are bright with resolve, already zeroed in on the pack’s common enemy.
Then all hell breaks loose. It’s like a scene taken straight out of a movie when two warring forces clash into each other, the chimeras flaunting their teeth and claws and the pack brandishing their vast array of quirks geared for combat.
Landing a spinning axe kick to a chimera’s flank, Izuku quickly regains his balance and leaps away out of another’s attempt to chomp his head off. The omega growls seeing yet another one of his packmates struck by the chimera’s relentless power packed in those peculiar-shaped extremities.
Lips thinned into a grim line, Izuku projects his voice as loud as he can. “Nakamura-san, let’s have a temporary truce. I want to talk to you.”
With a single tap of his master"s foot, the elephant mount halts its rampage. Koyagi casts his gaze towards Izuku, wearing a blithe, little smile. “A talk? Are you sure you have the leisure to talk while all of this is happening?”
This obviously referring to the vicious battle between humans and beasts that is still underway while thick viscous lava is threatening the area’s periphery. Some of the luminous orange liquid has even filled in the cracked road courtesy of the earthquake, reaching their fiery hands towards the cornered pack.
“Fuck if I care. You better start with telling us who you are. Which hole did you crawl out of, huh shitty villain?” Katsuki is seething, why wouldn’t he be after seeing the flea-bitten bastard toy with his packmates like they were goddamned rag dolls, as he stalks forward with the promise of death-fire roaring in the pits of ruby-red irises.
“Wait, Kacchan,” Izuku tries to halt his vindictive march to no avail.
A warning growl rumbles out of Tenya’s throat. Katsuki instantly freezes on his track. If it’s any other alpha that dares direct such a strong dominating intent towards him, Katsuki will make sure that alpha regrets every damn day of their sad existence. Tenya, on the other hand, belongs to that special category of alpha that doesn’t immediately spark that inclination to rebel in his hindbrain. With visibly great effort, Katsuki suppresses the aggression coiling his muscles and returns quietly back to the pack.
Koyagi smiles coyly. “Sure, I will grant the wish of my favourite omega.”
Katsuki is gritting his teeth so hard that his gums nearly bleed. My? My?!? This goat sure has a death wish. What right does he have to stake claim on his omega? Izuku is his! He is their pack’s omega! Tsuyu, who notices the brunt of displeased alpha pheromones wafting off Katsuki’s body, wraps her arms around Katsuki’s tense frame from behind and releases calming purrs.
The alpha’s current train of thought is mirrored in every single one of his packmates’ minds. The pack is growling like one united entity, a synchrony of possessiveness over their pack omega. The air is impregnated with warning pheromones thick enough to suffocate. The need to immerse their omega with their scents until there’s no mistake of who he belongs is ringing loudly in their minds.
But now Izuku is standing in front of them, ready to make a statement, and they’ll be quicker to bite their tongues off than to obstruct whatever his objective is. If there’s one thing they can count on to the point of risking their lives is their unconditional trust in their omega.
Izuku begins with a calm voice. “I can’t help but notice something inconsistent between your stated goal and your actions, Nakamura-san. For example, that right over there.”
In the direction he’s pointing at, Momo is retrieving Yuuga, Denki and Mezou with the help of Ochako and Rikidou. Although they might need to look out for signs of concussions, the trio seem fine visually except for a couple of minor bleeding wounds. The three are even standing now, wearily staring at the goat-headed beta.
“If you wanted to, back then you could’ve incapacitated three of us in one go. And I’m sure through your little spying device you’ve seen what Denki is capable of, wiping out an army of your chimeras with just a single move. He is clearly a threat that would be in your best interest to subdue if you truly wanted to successfully wrangle all of us in as lab rats. But you didn’t. It was because you didn’t want any of us decommissioned, wasn’t it? You wanted to observe us as much as possible to make a thorough analysis of our pack dynamics, especially during combat.”
Koyagi is silent, his expression giving away nothing.
“I first had my suspicions due to the lava. That mountain, although tall, does not have a very steep slope. Add to the fact that lava typically moves in a slow sheet during the beginning stage of an eruption. As more lava flows, it might create channels along which allow the lava to flow faster. However, I noticed it flowed unnaturally fast right from the start to the point that we had to run full-speed to escape it.”
“What that concludes—” Izuku bends down, and scoops glowing lava out the crack of the earth nearest to his feet, pulling gasps out of everyone at his bold action. Yet to everyone’s astonishment, not a single hint of a burn can be seen on his skin as the lava slides harmlessly off his hand. “—is that this world isn’t even real, is it?”
Izuku extends his hand that was previously dipped in lava towards some nearby chimeras, cotton-soft grace twined in his fingertips. Six of the beasts cease their growling and acquire blank stares as if something has usurped their state of perpetual aggression. And then, green vines materialise into existence on their bodies, melding together with fur, mane, and clawed limbs, and their eyes glow acid green.
They simultaneously turn on their heels and bare their teeth viciously at their shocked creator.
“So? Is the test over, Nakamura-san?” The omega’s voice is sweet-ice, cherry popsicles in summer. “Or should I let loose these cute beasts of yours? They look hungry.”
Koyagi’s shocked expression then melts into a smile. “Very perceptive, Midoriya-kun.”
Like a dream, the background of destruction, ashy air and luminous sheets of lava slowly dissolve into strokes of liquid paint, the sensation of heat on their skin and dry eyes due to being exposed to copious amounts of volcanic ash vanishing without a trace.
Within the next couple of blinks, the pack finds themselves sitting at their classroom seats, wearing various degrees of shock on their faces.
Koyagi is slumped over the teacher’s table, ears flicking minutely like an exhausted goat on a sun-baked field. Aizawa is next to him, sleepy eyes trained on his students.
“You owe me some apples for that, Shouta. Sekai Ichi apples,” Koyagi wheezes the words out, looking like he’ll topple down any second.
Aizawa’s head tips in an indulgent nod. “All the apples you want.”
Momo is the first one to snap out of her stupor. “So are you telling us that all of that is an illusion?”
Aizawa shifts his gaze towards Koyagi. “The floor is yours, Koyagi-san.”
Koyagi shoots him a side-eye glare that clearly conveys ‘after putting me through the wringer won’t you at least give me a few seconds of a breather, you damn scruffy hobo.’
Okay, probably not the last part.
Koyagi takes a deep breath and stands a bit straighter. He gives the class a wan smile, still looking utterly exhausted. “Exactly. My quirk is called VR. I can activate it on people whose eyes are on me located within 900 square feet. Upon activation, my quirk injects the idea of the general geographical arena I intend to recreate in your heads while your brains fill in the finer details and correct any visual inconsistencies, including all living beings and objects. I planted a seed of fear towards the chimeras in your mind, that’s why they appeared indestructible and utterly terrifying in your eyes. In addition, the virtual reality world operates on a separate time scale. It might have felt like hours but in reality it was just approximately 5 minutes.”
Sure enough, the clock in their class reads 01:07, just a couple of minutes have passed since the start of the period after the lunch break.
“To sum up, how the virtual world generates is highly dependent on what your brains believe in, or made to believe in. The more you despair over your situation the more hopeless it’ll feel like.” Koyagi directs his eyes meaningfully at a certain omega who’s feverishly scribbling in his notebook, “Consequently, if an individual believes strongly in an alternate reality, it’ll come true in the VR world and may force me to cancel my quirk to avoid backlash.”
The pack stares at their omega in awe. On top of realising that the world was just their heads’ imagination and a product of an outsider’s quirk, Izuku also managed to figure out the base nature of Koyagi’s quirk itself which enabled him to ‘alter’ reality.
Meanwhile, Izuku:
“—manipulation of all your five senses. Essentially the quirk suggests an external stimulus and your brain creates a logical response to it. Everything hinges on the imagination of the individual’s brain and what they hold as true, similar to that ice cube and burn experiment, often a story to illustrate the power of the mind, where the researchers repeatedly told the subjects how and where they will burn them, blindfolded the subjects but unbeknownst to them actually put ice cubes—”
He’s mumbling under his breath while writing down in his notes with record speed. A look of obsessive concentration consisting of, but not limited to eerie, unblinking google eyes, seizes his facial features.
Everyone sweatdrops and decides to leave the omega alone for the time being. It’ll take a lot to snap him out of this intense, quirk-analysis state of his and they would hate to unnecessarily ruin his fun.
Denki turns his attention back to Koyagi, sporting an uneasy smile.
“Nakamura-san, you sounded like a legit villain back there. I was genuinely creeped out hearing all your making-us-your-cute-lab-rats-in-your-evil-experiments evil monologue. Imagining it was just too scary!” He frantically gestures towards the hairs standing on his arm. “See? Even they are creeped out!”
“Did I?” Koyagi laughs sheepishly, and is that a blush on his cheeks? “I might have watched too many hero-villain dramas that the villain"s speech is rubbing off on me.”
“How about the people we rescued? They acted like real people with distinct personalities. We even held normal conversations with them and I didn’t sense anything was off,” Momo asks.
“Yeah definitely not like NPCs,” Kyouka adds.
“They are all people I’ve met in real life. I copied their appearances and base personalities using my quirk, with their permission of course, and constructed their avatars specifically to act in a natural disaster in my hometown, Sarokujima. If you sit them down and interrogate them thoroughly on their background, family, and specific points of their lives, you’ll quickly notice there are glaring gaps and inconsistencies in their memories. And—”
A violent cough rattles Koyagi’s entire body, interrupting his speech. He fumbles for his thermos and then downs big, controlled gulps. The loud noise jolts Izuku out of his focused concentration.
“Are you okay, Nakamura-san?” Izuku asks concernedly, ready to take the expert to Recovery Girl if needed.
After a few bouts of coughing with a handkerchief clamped to his mouth, Koyagi answers with an audible strain in his voice, “Yes, don"t worry. Even with a support item, I find that using my quirk for an extended period of time is rather taxing. I actually wanted to be a hero. However, as you can see it’s not possible with my weak physique.”
Something sad, close to regret, crosses his features for a short second before a cheery smile erases any trace of it. Izuku hardly thinks Koyagi is weak, an emitter type quirk that affects the minds of others necessitates a high level of focus maintained over an extensive period of time. And to keep it activated on 19 people at once is undeniably no easy feat.
Koyagi continues with a rhythm of cheerfulness despite his exhaustion. “But what I can do is to help guide packs like yours with my expertise alongside all your teachers so the fact that you are a pack wouldn’t hinder your path to become heroes but rather reinforce it. I’d say that I’m pretty impressed, you all work quite well as a team and know when to take initiative and when to rely on your other packmates instead. You’re a well-functioning pack and should have no huge problem debuting as a hero pack. With all that said, I can’t wait to see the birth of such a magnificent hero pack!”
“Yosh!” Koyagi claps once, “Now you can continue with everyone’s favourite subject... Math!”
Everyone groans. After that impromptu grueling ‘test’ that’s apparently only in their heads, their only desire is to go back and take a long hot shower to wash off the nonexistent sweat and grime.
Koyagi bows deeply, still with a smile. “Please don’t take what I said back in the virtual world to heart. It was all under the intention of heightening your fear and anger in order to impair your judgment.”
Before Koyagi can leave, he’s cut off by a voice. “Wait, Nakamura-san.”
“Yes?” he says.
“Please kindly take back everything you’ve said that insinuates Izuku is yours.” Momo looks angelic while saying that, but you can practically glimpse the devil hiding in the shadows on her face.
“My ears honestly went hot when I heard that.” Mashirao sounds pained.
“Yeah, Izuku is our omega!”
“He is our pack"s prime omega.” Shouto says, something surprisingly dark clouds his expression. “No one outside of our pack has the right to stake a claim on him, even if it’s merely acting.”
“Guys, uh, I think you’re overreacting, Nakamura-san obviously didn’t mean any of it.” Izuku attempts to dismiss the growing tension but it’s like blowing air into a roaring fire.
Koyagi gulps and is left sweating profusely under the deluge of oppressive aura of a riled-up pack, especially of this nature of possessiveness over a pack omega.
“O-Of course! Midoriya Izuku is rightfully your pack’s omega! I deeply apologise for my disrespectful words that dared to imply otherwise! Please excuse me!” He blurts out, a frightened bleat slipping out at the end as he makes a hasty retreat out of the classroom.
Those children are thirsty for blood. Koyagi can just feel it in his faint herbivore heart.
Never mess with U.A.’s 1A pack omega, duly noted.