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Momo Yaoyorozu was in trouble.
Granted, one would think that the life of a vigilante would frot with danger, especially with the targets she usually hunted. But tonight had been particularly annoying. While she usually dealt with one or two of the creatures, for whatever reason, an entire pack had been sent after her.
She clenched her side where she had been slashed by one of the new monsters that had begun to creep around the streets of Tokyo, the familiar shine of her quirk activating as a roll of gauze popped out of her arm with practiced ease, whereas Momo quickly began to wrap it around her midsection where the wound currently was.
At the very least, it should be enough until she can escape back to base and then hopefully treat the wound properly.
As she was ducked behind a corner of an alleyway after losing her pursuers, Momo’s mind began to overthink her predicament, trying to find some sort of logical way for her to escape the hellish creatures that saw her as prey. However, this led to her thinking about just how she ended up in this situation and where it all started.
One would think that everything started when the supervillain known as All for One (a monster in his own right) had defeated the former number one hero, All Might, at the battle of Kamino Ward. All of Japan and possibly the world watched as the eyeless villain broke the emancipated form of All Might, then tore the man in half live on T.V. with so much gore, one would think it was a B-grade slasher film. Granted, given the current state of the city, it was more like living in a horror movie.
It was then that All for One released his vile Nomu army upon citizens and Pro Heroes alike. Many of them fell to the strength of the mindless creatures. But what was worse was that the bastard had more creatures at his beck and call, literal monsters that roamed the streets during the night to hunt down anything that moved.
The latest reports she could get from some of her contacts / former classmates was that the newest batch of monsters was particularly vicious, already killing a few pro heroes that underestimated them. One such person was ‘King Explosion Murder”, who often surprised everyone with how long he had actually lasted as a “seasoned” pro, given his surly attitude and rotten personality. But his luck finally ran out, it seemed, given the state in which they found his mangled body. It was practically a miracle they were able to identify his remains at all.
But no, that wasn’t the start of all this madness, at least to Momo. To many of her former classmates, the descent started during that ill-fated day of her class being attacked at the USJ, where several students had been critically injured or worse. The most memorable were the fates of Tsuyu Asui and Minoru Mineta, who were killed at the hands of Tomura Shigaraki and reduced to dust just before the arrival of All Might to put an end to that madness.
For most, the event had soured the view of becoming a pro hero, with some of her classmates either dropping the course entirely and admittedly with good reason, too. But not Momo, for she continued down the path of becoming a hero by any means necessary for one simple reason.
She had a promise to keep.
A flash of green appeared in her mind as the former heiress finished wrapping the gauze around her wound. The memories of a much more innocent time in her life made themselves known when she would play with the son of one of the maids. He was a curious and inquisitive boy for his age, a hero fanboy to most, but the way he could deconstruct quirks always fascinated Momo. They would often spend hours talking about quirks, even when they were playing, frequently giving her ideas for new ways to look at her quirk and all the ways she could become the best hero she could be.
They had made a promise to become heroes in the future; even if the boy didn’t have a quirk of his own, Momo knew he could be one of the best. However, like most things in this hopeless world, that boy’s dream could never be fulfilled.
One fateful night, Momo had learned that there had been a horrific accident involving the maid and her little boy; Inko had been killed in a hit and run from a car, getting away from one of the local heroes. It was presumed that her son had also perished, but what was strange was that his body was never found, and eventually, the search was dropped by the police.
Would her childhood friend be proud of her decisions? They had promised to be heroes together, but so much had changed that showed just how incompetent the HSPC and many of its heroes were. Even some of the top-ranked pros had ‘gone rogue’ to do what needed to be done, namely the former number five heroine, Miruko.
Ripping the gauze with her teeth and sealing it, Momo huffed in frustration. She knew full well that she needed to get back to base and come up with a new plan, especially if there were these new packs of the damnable beasts roaming around.
But just as she was about to leave her little hiding spot, a blood-curdling howl suddenly echoed throughout the alleyway. Momo swallowed her fear and slid back around to her hiding spot. Quickly pulling out a small mirror, she could at least see what had just made its entrance, and she nearly dropped the small object in her hand at the sight of the creature.
While Momo had never encountered this particular monster, the many reports she had seen on its various sightings and activities made it one of the more elusive ones, but still quite deadly. After all, it was the monster that had taken out Bakugo with relative ease, apparently dodging the hero’s right hook almost instinctively.
Honestly, it was like something out of a storybook: a large feral-looking wolf-like monster with a heavy black fur coat with hints of green when the moonlight hit it just right. It usually stood nearly seven to eight feet tall, had it not been slightly hunched over like the predator that it was, with huge claws and fangs that had reportedly sliced straight through body armor like it wasn’t even there. Its bushy tail swayed slowly, almost methodically, while its nose twitched, the creature clearly sniffing the air for something.
Its beast-like eyes also looked around as it bared its razor-sharp teeth and snarled, clearly picking up something. Seeing the monster now looking in her direction, Momo had no idea how she could survive this encounter.
After all, when “The Beast” arrived, no amount of fighting or hiding would save its prey from becoming a pile of meat and a river of blood.
He sniffed at the air again, following instincts that suddenly felt wrong.
The scent was still there. It was familiar, sweet and metallic, and it danced across his brain.
It was mixed with the scent of blood.
He was no stranger to the smell of blood. It was everywhere. Prey and carrion littered the streets he prowled in equal measure. Rivals and walking corpses always stank of it, and they always ruined the smells of his territory.
It always disgusted him, even when he wasn’t aware enough to realize it.
He hated the smell of blood.
He hated it when it smelled of death; he hated it when it smelled of despair and especially hated it when it smelled of sugar and smoke.
Yet his hatred paled in comparison to the rage that filled his limbs and pulled his muzzle back into a hateful snarl. The familiar sweet metallic scent should not smell of blood. It should never smell of anything but happiness.
He pounced out of the hideaway he had been sleeping in and leapt across the rooftops toward the sweet and familiar scent, using his front and back legs in perfect sync to race across the concrete jungle. Without pausing his gallop, he continued to sniff at the air to ensure he was headed in the right direction, and when the smell of blood and hunger began to mask the familiar sweetness, he shifted his direction only long enough to shoulder-checked a rival off the roof it had been hunting on.
The crunch of his rival slamming into the concrete below was ignored, as was the terrified cry of the prey that could have been its food. Neither of them mattered.
With the rooftop clear of the scent-covering rival, he stood up on his hind legs and sniffed at the air again to locate the direction of the sweet scent again.
There. The sweet, familiar scent made him remember things he had no words for. It was still mixed with blood. But also death. And hunger. It was nearly choked with the smell of blood and hunger and—
For the first time in a very long time, the haze that had flooded his mind was lifted. He blinked as emotions he had once thought lost began to return. So many words and feelings flashed across his mind.
Most importantly, a new scent caressed his sensitive nose, and a half-forgotten memory played out. Images of someone laughing, bright lights, and round dolls made no sense to him. Yet, even without context or warning, he knew he needed to feel it again.
More scents then started to invade his senses, the putrid stench of ‘the inferior’ enclosing the area he and the ‘prey’ were in. His gaze looked about to try and spot them within the shadows of the rooftops and night sky, but they were surprisingly cunning this time. Perhaps it was, of course, due to the fact this was his territory.
A new emotion raced through his body, and words were spoken inside of his mind once again. ‘She’s going to die.’
Fear wanted to paralyze him, but if he did not move now , she would die, and he could never allow that. So he jumped down to the ground beside the crumpled form of a rival and bounded off once more with a new sense of urgency, weaving through alleyways and leaping across black stone pathways, pushing his body as far as it could go and farther.
When the stench of blood and hunger became unbearable, he allowed himself to grind to a halt. He wasn’t going to make it if he just rushed forward. He needed to think. He needed to plan if he was going to save Her.
He needed his rivals to get the hell away from Her, no matter what.
Even at the cost of himself.
With that thought emboldening him, he stood up to his full height, threw his head back, and howled.
All of his rage, hatred and desperation echoed across long-forgotten buildings, shaking what remained of their glass windows in their frames. His sensitive ears twitched at the sound that assaulted them, yet he knew he could not let up. Every breath that he had within his lungs was filled with his burning desire and anger and cast into the night for any and all of the bastards that dared to hunt Her.
When he could howl no longer, he lowered his head and breathed heavily. His ears twitched in all directions, and he constantly sniffed at the air. If his plan had worked, the pack of rivals would be upon him in moments.
He had to be ready for them.
Then, a memory of a promise echoed in his mind, of a better time when there was no meat and death in his life, the pain of the long-forgotten promise aching at his heart.
As his consciousness began to slowly return to him, amidst the scent of blood and coming enemies, he would make a new silent promise to himself.
He would not hurt Momo ever again.
As if this night wasn’t going to utter shit already, Momo remained paralyzed where she hid and listened to the recognizable screeches and yelps of the pack that had ambushed her earlier in the night. Disgusting things that they were, a sort of amalgamation of Nomu and the monsters that she frequently hunted down.
Apparently, they were some sort of twisted experiment brought on by All for One to combine the strengths of both creatures, but had failed miserably. The best part? Instead of putting the miserable abominations out of their misery, the supervillain simply released every failure out into the public to cause as much mayhem and chaos as they possibly could. While usually, it had been only a singular creature or two, which were a little easier to take down, the fact that the latest batch apparently moved like a pack animal made them much more overwhelming and deadlier.
A few stray shadows passed over her, making Momo slowly lean out from where she had been hiding and watch as sheer carnage unfolded before her.
There were so many of the abominations, much more than had initially been chasing Momo, chittering and hanging onto nearby buildings as even more of them pounced on the Beast to tear it apart. The vigilante watched in pure horror and awe as the Beast skillfully and brutally ripped its way through the horde of abominations like some sort of sadistic, demented artist of corpses. It used its immense dexterity to slip around lethally quick claws to decapitate the monster attached to them, and it used its terrifying strength to throw smaller monsters into each other and any available surface, swiftly painting the entire street dark red.
Not even the creatures that were more Nomu than monster were safe from the Beast’s macabre dance. Those that hung back to use what remained of their quirks found themselves at the receiving end of the Beast’s claws and fangs, while the Nomu that attempted to lead the charge found themselves smashing only asphalt moments before they were carved to necrotic bits.
The reports Momo had read about the Beast didn’t even come close to accurately describing the horrifying power that she was transfixed upon. It was calculating in its massacre, carefully analyzing every attacker at once and choosing its openings carefully to cripple and slaughter the most dangerous threats without any retaliation. It moved not like the mindless creature that every other monster Momo had encountered; it was purposeful, tactical, and, worst of all, incredibly intelligent.
And it was losing.
As impressive as the Beast was, the seemingly unending number of abominations was taking its toll upon the intelligent monster. With so many attacks coming from everywhere, it simply wasn’t possible to dodge all of them. Claws and fangs bit into its body, fur was torn from its pelt in chunks, and its breathing got noticeably heavier as the fight dragged on. At one point, the Beast had attempted to escape to the rooftop just across from Momo, but countless monstrosities latched onto it and dragged it back down to the street.
‘The moment the Beast is dead, they’ll turn their attention to me,’ Momo thought with no small amount of fear. Mechanical components leapt to the forefront of her mind, and the item in question emerged from her side right into her waiting hand.
It was time for her to even the playing field.
Momo stepped out from her hiding place, levelling the custom-designed, twin-barrel shotgun at the pile of monsters on top of the Beast, and pulled the right trigger. The shotgun roared like a dragon, and a blinding white cone of burning magnesium shards slammed into the abominations, immediately setting several of them alight and causing one to burst in a shower of steam and gore. Every other monster jumped at the sudden addition, then whipped around to face Momo, giving her ample time to fire off two more dragon’s breath shells into the pile on top of the Beast.
The stench of charred flesh filled the air as several of the monsters were hit by the volley of fire, allowing The Beast to push off the remainder that was on top of it with its large claws. More rounds of Dragon Fire roared out of Momo’s firearm, taking a few more of the creatures out while the much larger monster began to fight back just as brutally, though more injured than it was letting on.
From the corner of its eye, The Beast could see how quickly the human woman had also dealt with any that had a chance to get in close range to her when, from a soft glow of her arm, she had pulled out a machete and cut down the would-be ambusher with ease. Something within The Beast's memory was triggered within its mind, the rainbow-like phenomena distracting it a few times before reality literally bit him out of his thoughts, and it had to strike down more of the creatures.
It was hard to tell just how long they had been fighting, the air heavy with the stench of phosphate and melting meat, as eventually there were only two beings left, Momo and The Beast. As the fire that was left by the shotgun blasts kept the area well-lit from the burning trash and dead creatures, Momo’s onyx eyes surveyed the area around her, making sure none of the smaller and nastier abominations remained before turning her sights towards the clearly struggling larger creature. With the light now illuminating around them, the former heiress could get a look at the mysterious ‘Beast’ for herself.
What reports had been given on the thing were clearly vague, as they hadn’t mentioned the forest green tinge to its fur, nor its equally vibrant emerald eyes. However, this was still a monster that had maimed and killed civilians and heroes alike, even if the way it was acting during the prior fight against the pack was far different to its usual habits, there was no telling when it could just snap back to its usual MO.
The heavy sounds of boots hitting asphalt echoed off of the alleyway walls as The Beast’s ears twitched from the sound, it's heavy panting with blood oozing out of the various wounds it had on its arms and legs but were slowly healing up as it craned it’s head upward to the sound, only to be staring into the barrel of Momo’s shotgun. Moving it’s gaze to catch Momo’s, the cold onyx eyes burrowing hard into what felt like its soul, the huntress could tell it was trying to do something then, struggling to… say something?
Whatever it said was lost to the outside world because of the various sounds of crackling fire surrounding them, but the guttural-sounding voice had only said one word that Momo could hear as clear as day.
And it made her blood run cold.
Momo cautiously began to flower her firearm down, her lips trembling as she could see The Beast still looking up at her with its emerald gaze, showing an intelligence there that she had not seen before. However, what perplexed her was how the creature knew that word, the word that was a nickname given to her by her dearest friend and that only she and her friend knew. Not even her parents, school friends or hero colleagues knew that name, yet somehow this… creature knew that damn name.
“I-Izuku?”
Something went off in his mind as soon as he heard that word- no, not a word, a name.
A name he had long forgotten.
In an instant, flashes of memories began to pour from his mind, visions of a life cut short as he curled in on himself, panting hard as he blinked and looked back towards the woman, but this time only saw a young girl. She wore her ebony hair in a tight ponytail, with bright and curious onyx eyes, while she wore a frilly and pink dress made for girls her age. She was smiling at him, and the happiness he felt within his body only bloomed before he was bombarded with more memories.
But these weren’t pleasant memories as he began to remember everything. The death of his mother in that car accident, being found by Him, and then all the experiments that robbed him of whatever life he once had and transformed the small child into the creature he was now. Everything he did, all the pain and death he caused in service to his former master, flooded his mind as he howled out in anguish! He didn’t want to remember these images! He was not a monster! He was not a killer! His name was Izuku Midoriya, and he wanted to be a hero with his friend, just like they had promised so many years ago.
But… he wasn’t just Izuku anymore.
Izuku couldn’t be a hero with his friend; he couldn’t keep that promise.
All he is - was a monster, a killer, an experiment, a failed one at that.
Still cradling his head with his enormous clawed hands, Izuku slowly looked up at Momo, seeing the tears beginning to fall down the sides of her cheeks as she kept staring at him in pure disbelief. Izuku’s mind continued to race. How long had he been in that haze? He needed time to think, to hide, to make sure he would not harm another person ever again.
He couldn’t trust himself not to hurt Momo, not until he could make sure that whatever this clarity of his mind wasn’t temporary. As much as he wished he could reach out and comfort his friend like he did when she would cry from scraping her knees while playing when they were young children, he couldn’t trust himself.
Izuku didn’t want to leave her, but he couldn’t trust himself.
“I’m sorry…” Izuku growled out, his voice completely foreign to Momo, but she could tell it was Izuku’s, even after all these years. But whatever she was going to say or try to stop him, Izuku failed to hear anything as he bolted down the alleyway, leaping back into the darkness of the rooftops with the sounds of emergency vehicles approaching the location of the fight.
Even if he didn’t know if he would ever see her again, what Izuku hadn’t realized was that his childhood friend made a promise to herself and to him that night.
Momo would hunt him down. But not to kill him.
She would save her first friend. She would save Izuku.