Capítulo 4: Save the Cheerleader, Save the World (1)
Dialogue clarifications :
"(What the hell is a Kett?/ An Angara is a cat or a humanoid goat?/ I don't know if she is an alien or a mutant anymore)" = When dialogue phrases appear in a dialogue context enclosed in parentheses, it means that a certain character is thinking that.
"_Waaaaaaaaa_" = Voice with a tone that doesn't sound human at all or that resembles the tone of voice that a talking humanoid beast/demon/weird alien, etc. would have....
Unfortunately this platform doesn't allow me to put thoughts in italics or underline the dialogues of characters with distorted voices, so I had to do this.... :/
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Little Summary:
Well, it's about time I put the fights on the back for a time. These next two or three chapters will focus on character development, their interaction and the context provided by their pasts. I've kept saying that Izuku lived on the streets in his early days as a 'Shepard' but it's one thing to say it and another to capture it so that we really feels like he suffered. Incidentally, I took some creative liberties with the Shepard past I chose for Izuku in this story.
Anyway, I hope you like this chapter :) Don't forget to leave a message to support the story or if you have something to comment, let me know.
And Don't forget to check the autor messages and chapter clarifications at the end of the chapter.
Best regards
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Act I: Origins
Mission 01: Save the Cheerleader, Save the World (1)
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Note: The Spanish dialogues that you will find in one of the chapter's conversations were written that way (untranslated) so that you as a reader can put yourself in the MC's shoes and also be perplexed by the foreign language. Anyway, the translations of those dialogues can be found in the clarifications at the end of the chapter if you were interested in knowing what those characters were saying.
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Finally reaching the sea in the middle of the night, a boy of about 4 years old lay on the rocks that served as a breakwater on a certain beach. He had certainly managed to escape but he had nowhere to go as he no longer had a home to go to. Or at least that's what he began to think after analyzing his situation.
He had no idea what had happened to him. He had no idea why his body was now so small. He had no idea why he was so close to the coast. He had no idea why he had woken up in that laboratory. He had no idea why that woman with the tentacles on her head had freed him from that cage, and of course, he had no idea why those people he had escaped from seemed to speak in a language he barely understood.
In short, the boy was lost in more ways than one.
A sea wave rose and then again, the sea engulfed the green haired boy, who desperately tried to swim to the front without wanting to stop. He didn't want to stay close to that raw, cold and desolate beach because he knew that if he didn't move away soon, they would find him.
But the effort was useless. The sea rejected him again. His hand stretched above the surface of the water, trying to reach the sky with his fingers desperately, looking for something that it seemed they would never find; a place to be completely safe, his home, his mother.
To top it all off, around his neck hung a metallic necklace which carried a small silver plaque that had the following data engraved in its center: 'Shepard/Type Blood O negative'
...What was the meaning of all that? Why were the words 'Shepard' next to his blood type? He hated not knowing what was going on just as much as he hated lacking in strength. He hated his lack of power. He hated being so weak that he couldn't fight for his life.
After the sea wave gained height and threw him into those rocks for the umpteenth time, his lungs immediately became empty as his head rebounded against a rock in a very violent way. He rolled over the rocks a number of times until he reached the shore, lying face up on the wet sand.
He lay there for some time. Unconscious. A thin line of blood trickled down from his forehead to one of his eyes as the cold night wind blew his hair from side to side.
A short time later, a strange monkey with wide black eyes passed through the area and advanced towards the inert figure of the unconscious boy on the beach. The monkey with blue green fur tried to tear off with his hands a piece of seaweed that had been left on the boy's body. The monkey pulled hard, tearing off the piece of seaweed the next moment and exposing the tattered clothes that made up the child's clothing.
When the animal with the tip of his tail in the shape of a fish fin finally finished consuming the seaweed, for some reason, he screeched and ran away as fast as possible from the place. Something had frightened him deeply.
A moment later some bushes that could be seen deep in the forest near the beach were shaken violently and apparently the night wind wasn't the cause of this.
At that moment, the boy coughed and vomited the water lodged in his lungs. He remained still for a few seconds until he became aware of the movement of the bushes, it was too late to retreat back to the sea. He tried to get back to his feet as fast as he could, but his legs wouldn't allow him to do so. His legs shook endlessly over and over again as he tried to stand up. His deep, staccato breathing denoted how tired and full of fear he was.
"Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof!"
{Esto es a lo que llamo un buen perro! Bien hecho Fido!}*1
"Woof! Woof!"
{Ven para acá pequeña rata!}
{Atrápalo Sahid! Usa la cuerda! Que no se te escape!}
{Un animal especial como tú no tiene permitido escaparse del corral!}
{Eso! Eso! Amárralo como si fuese ganado! Hahaha!}
{Pues eso es lo que siempre ha sido ¿O no Assim? Es un ganado muy valioso!}
"Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof!"
The green haired boy groaned immensely as the sliding loop of a long rope painfully held his body as if he were a calf or a bull at a rodeo.
The rope had been thrown by one of the men who had appeared a few moments ago from those thickets in the forest with that German shepherd dog.
"Let me go! Let me go, please! You're hurting me!" The boy begged to be let go. Inwardly cursing his lack of strength and the situation he was in.
(All he remembered so far after trying to save that girl who was about to be run over on the avenue [Ameyoko] was that he had awakened from one moment to the next in the cage of some sort of secret laboratory of some villain or something like that.
A laboratory that soon turned into chaos when the lights all over the place started to flicker shortly before the arrival of a blue skinned woman dressed in a hospital gown. The woman with tentacles on her head burst into the caged area and released him and other children just before getting into a fight with some sort of telekinetic power with what appeared to be the jailers.
Probably that woman was a prisoner that somehow had been released or maybe she was the biological product of some kind of experiment but Izuku Midoriya hadn't had much time to think about this matter because by the time he realized it, he was already running after the other children, trying with all his strength to escape from that unknown place. On his way through the corridors of the laboratory he would see more women and adult men wearing hospital gowns, fighting with those telekinetic powers with the armed subjects that kept arriving at the place.
And after having spent the most terrifying minutes he had ever had to suffer in his entire life, Izuku would finally reach one of the exits of that hideout and then he would run and keep running through the dense forest, trying to understand what had happened in the process of his escape.
A sense of relief spread through his body when he thought he was far enough away from those men.
With his little legs trembling he would fall to the ground near a tree due to the tiredness that afflicted him but soon he would realize that having rested on the trunk of that tree had been a mistake because it wouldn't be long before he would hear the barking of a dog and the voices of some people approaching his location.)
"Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof!"
{Que está diciendo esta rata?}
{No lo sé, no lo entiendo. Tal vez está pidiendo misericordia?}
{Pidiendo misericordia? Sería tan hipócrita de pedir tal cosa luego de haber intentado escapar?!}
{Escucha mocoso! Que ni se te ocurra quejarte! Sabes cuantos problemas nos traerá el que tú y los otros estén corriendo por allí intentado escapar? Sabes el castigo que le pondrá el jefe a toda la banda si alguno de ustedes escapa?!}
{Que te quede bien claro que lo único que mereces a partir de ahora es dolor!}
"Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof!"
{No has sido una buena rata. No has sido una rata obediente!}
{Hey! Hey! No se te olvide que tenemos que entregarlo entero}
{Si ya lo se! Tan solo voy a darle una pequeña lección!}
"Heeelp..." A whisper escaped Midoriya's mouth after he realized that those men had no intention of letting him go or treating him well since one of them had started kicking him with moderate force while the other seemed to be supporting him.
He understood almost nothing of what they were saying as they were apparently speaking in some language similar to Arabic, Kurdish or Persian but the context of the situation was enough for Midoriya to understand that he had no salvation.
"H-Help...H-Help please... P-Please Heeeelp me! Someone H-Heeeeelp me, pleaaaaseeee!" However, despite the fact that he was almost certain that there was no one in the vicinity besides them, he still refused to give up hope.
With barely enough strength in his body to gather air into his lungs, he screamed as loud as he could until his throat became hoarse. At the same time, his feet began to be dragged in the sand as that man with the lasso began to pull him along.
Out of the corner of his eye, Izuku saw the almost endless ocean behind him. He had an escape route but he was still a helpless little boy...Now or in the past, it always seemed that the only thing he could accomplish was to be a victim.
{Parece que la rata comenzó a llorar. Cállalo de alguna forma porque no quiero escuchar sus gritos todo el camino!}
{Sí, si, como digas. Que molesto conejillo de indias nos tocó recuperar}
"Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof!"
To the unison of the barking and laughter of the people who held him captive, Izuku's lungs soon became short of breath again as the loop of rope squeezing his chest increased the strength of its grip.
The little green haired boy's consciousness gradually faded as he was dragged along the sand. The image of the beach slowly began to recede.
Unable to utter a word, a few last thoughts flooded the boy's mind as his slender fingers stretched out towards the direction of the sea while a thin line of tears trickled from his eyes:
"(Heeeeeeelp! heeeeeeeeelp! Heroes please help me! ...Why won't anyone listen to me?!...Will it end like this?!...Will I never know what has happened to me?! Why am I here?! Why am I a kid again?!...I don't want to go back to that place! I don't want to be a prisoner!...Heroes, where are you?!)"
However, when all seemed lost, as Izuku´s violent heartbeat became more and more frequent, as his body shuddered of fear…
*Grrrr!*
…The green haired boy finally heard something different from the laughter of those men or the barking of that dog. When he opened his eyes, Izuku could see a kind of huge four legged lizard howling or hissing nonstop, next to what seemed to be a ugly woman and girl.
The woman was dressed like some sort of mercenary, and the girl was dressed in tattered clothes. The woman had green skin and the one that appeared to be a girl of approximately six years old had light yellow skin. They also had long ears, spikes on the tops of their heads and prominent teeth; a set of features that gave them the appearance of goblins or something similar.
{Qué diablos hace esa Vorcha hembra aquí?!}
{No lo se. Hey! Si no te largas te vas a morir! Entendiste maldito monstruo?!}
{Tiene un rifle de asalto? Vendrá por el niño?... Nos esta apuntando, saca tus armas aho...!}
{Maldita sea! ese Varren ya está muy cerca!}
"¡Groaaaaaaaaaaaar!"
"Auuuuu!"
{No huyas maldito perro!}
"¡Groaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar!"
The strange sounds emitted by the adult 'goblin' seemed to be some kind of complex orders that the four legged lizard followed very well. In just a few seconds, the lizard had charged forward and lept at the group of armed men. The dog accompanying the men let out a pitiful squeal before running away, after watching the huge lizard-like animal approach.
{Sahid NOOOU...!}
*Bang!**Bang!**Bang!*
The adult 'goblin' didn't give them time to counterattack because before the humans took their weapons, she released multiple shots from her assault rifle that soon filled the skulls and chests of those people with holes.
"(I don't know who you are, but thank you. Thank you very much…)" Then the conscience of the little green haired boy couldn't take it any longer. The last thing he would see that day before falling asleep was that adult 'goblin' carrying him in her arms as she went into the darkness of the forest. He didn't even realize it at the time but that would be the first time he would thank someone for killing a villain.
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"{Kreeta}...{Kraate}"
When Izuku awoke, he wasn't in a very good mood. This wasn't only due to the fact that he had woken up in what seemed to be a dusty old bed in a dark and dilapidated room, but also due to the fact that he had dreamed of the first people who had treated him well in that other world. People whom he hadn't been able to save.
"I can hardly believe it's already been more than 20 years since I met them..." As he walked towards that worn bathroom, echoes of the past came to our hero's memory.
He never knew for sure why the Vorcha called Kreeta had saved him that day, because except for her name, he could never understand her strange language. Besides, only three months after meeting her, she would end up dying along with the Varren "Rexy" in the middle of a conflict between the local gangs of Tangier, a metropolis located in Morocco in the 22nd century. She could have rescued him to collect a reward later on, or maybe she was planning to sell him as a slave, or maybe she really could have rescued him out of good will.
But whatever the case may be, the only thing Izuku knows is that while he was under her care, food, water, and a place to hide were not lacking. And that It's something he is truly grateful for.
"I'm sorry {Kraate}, I failed your mother," Izuku sighed. "Even having powers, I couldn't save you. I couldn't give you a decent life."
While washing his face with the water from the rusty faucet, he observed his appearance in the reflection of a partially broken mirror. A bitter expression was imprinted on the face of the green haired boy. Just then, in that mirror appeared the image of a fourteen year old female Vorcha, soaked in blood and held between the arms of a twelve year old boy with green hair.
The boy, still shedding tears, placed the Vorcha's body on the floor and then a blue aura enveloped his hands just before he was approached by two armed people, who shortly after would fly away thanks to a biotic shockwave.
In that other world, it was not very common for someone to worry about a Vorcha because for many different reasons that alien species was generally seen as a plague that always brought chaos wherever it went. Due to their physical appearance, those specimens that wanted to live in peace suffered from severe cases of xenophobia and/or provoked a terrible fear in the general population by their mere presence.
But for Izuku Midoriya, physical appearance was and still is a trivial matter when it comes to knowing or protecting an individual. After all, Izuku was born into a world where people have appearances of all kinds and since he always wanted to be a hero who could protect them all, racial discrimination was a concept that never even slightly loomed in his mind.
"I was overconfident. I thought we would be safe as long as I had this power. I thought I was special because I was some kind of biotic experiment. I thought it was enough the understanding I had of my powers. I believed that having 'mastered' that talent I could free the neighborhood from the oppression of those hitmen. I thought I could stop them all without killing them. I delusionally believed that they could come to reason. I thought I would be the hero the neighborhood needed. But I was wrong. How wrong I was." He sighed sadly and then continued talking to himself. "I was so far from being able to save you or the other people on the {Merkala} beach."
The images in the mirror became too stark in an instant. As if it was the making of a movie, a series of images passed one after the other, showing first of all a very poor little neighborhood by the sea full of people of all kinds, trading or just hanging out in their own way in their humble neighborhood.
In the scenes, a group of thirty armed criminals dressed like middle eastern mercenaries bursted into the neighborhood and opened fire left and right. They advanced through the streets, through the small shopping plaza and even forced their way into the crumbling houses, annihilating almost every person they came across.
"...I was weak, deluded and lacking in will for a long time {Kraate}..."
The images progressed and soon showed a green haired boy severely beaten and lying on his side on the ground of that square. He was crying inconsolably as he observed the bloodied corpses in his surroundings. At the same time, five criminals didn't stop pointing their high caliber rifles at him.
"...But the weak parts of that child died years ago..."
When the criminals' companions finished with the last life on the scene, the villains who pointed their rifles at him in that mirror, put away their weapons and left that square, walking calmly while they laughed. They had intentionally let him live to bear the pain and guilt of that massacre, telling him at the same time with those terrible actions that any kind of heroic act he tried, would be useless and would only bring devastating consequences.
A few 'hours' later, when that beaten and bloodied child stood up in that square, his eyes observing the corpses on the scene went from a look full of deep sadness to a look full of anger and determination.
*Crash!*
The ex-commander broke that bathroom mirror with a punch just when he placed the same expression as that child in his memories.
"The man that child became will never be that weak again. He will continue to save everyone he can save and continue to destroy everyone who deserves to be destroyed."
He took several deep breaths in an attempt to calm his emotions. The bitter events of the past such as the mistakes he had made on more than one occasion were always difficult to digest when they came to his mind. He tried to avoid thinking about the painful events and focus on the happy ones, for the sake of his mental health. But it seemed that the recent actions he had had to perform in the last six hours had evoked painful memories of his past.
Hunger, theft, poverty, dilapidated buildings and, surprisingly, alien appearances, were all things he had come into contact with again in the last few hours and brought back memories of the past from the depths of his psyche.
Arriving at the old and moldy ceramic bathtub at the back of the bathroom, he looked at the plastic bags submerged in the crystal clear water filled with ice cubes that partially filled the bathtub. After taking out one of those plastic bags, he meditated about the situation he was in after giving a doubtful look to the red liquid contained inside the plastic bag.
That thing in his hands plus the dilapidated building he was in along with the poverty of the surroundings, soon reminded him of the job he had self imposed to do in a big abandoned hospital in Kamagasaki.
The uncontrollable hunger of a woman whose appearance and behavior had unexpectedly become very strange had led him to steal from the blood bank of a small clinic in Naruhata city, 10 globular packets. Each used to transfuse some 500 ml of fresh blood to sick people in need.
After lying to his mother, telling her that he would be staying at Bakugou's house for the weekend via text message. And after having found a place that seemed appropriate, Izuku transported the unconscious golden haired woman to the interiors of a big third level hospital complex that had stopped receiving patients long ago. Its location outside the city center of Kamagasaki and the fact that it had been a hospital, were things that the former commander considered ideal for taking the girl there.
The location, far enough away from the busiest avenues, would allow him to deal with the woman without the risk of anyone observing him, and also any noise he made inside the hospital would most likely not be noticed.
Make no mistake, he didn't take her to that hospital because he thought there would be medicines that could be useful or syringes and surgical scissors that were still sterile after so many years out of operation. But he took her there after thinking of two things: First, that the facilities of a place like that could be useful despite the years that had already passed because at least he would have an operating room where he could comfortably cauterize and suture the girl's wounds. Secondly, there was the fact that ordinary people, vagrants and a portion of criminals usually stay away from abandoned hospitals because of irrational fears such as the supposed appearance of horrible 'ghosts' in places like these.
Generally, the only individuals who would think of entering an abandoned hospital were criminals with few places to hide or drug addicts looking for free syringes or some other controlled medication. Fortunately, all those things had already been looted years ago, so when the ex-commander entered the site, he didn't encounter a single soul.
Shortly after his arrival at this site, he searched for an operating room. And after placing Toga on a dusty hospital gurney, he removed her blouse and used his omnitool to sterilize tools with the high temperature produced by his gauntlet. The flattened blade of a surgical paddle found at the scene; a tool used to separate tissues and not cut them. He then inserted the surgical paddle into the woman's injured abdominal area and then cauterized her injured vessels using the metal paddle as a makeshift surgical electrocautery.
At that moment, Midoriya wished to have the opportunity to use a packet of [Medigel] not only because of the facilities that substance provided when it came to healing wounds but also because after cauterizing the lady's last injured vessel, the pain of the tissues being burned finally caused Toga to wake up on the spot just about two seconds before her body changed shape, going from the appearance of a schoolgirl to an appearance that was characteristic of a mutant quirk.
An appearance that almost made her look like a woman 'out of this world', for although Toga was still dressed as a schoolgirl, she now had a humanoid figure possessing a chitinous yellowish green body, slightly semitransparent and with portions of her skeleton protruding at certain points of her thorax, abdomen and shoulders and surrounding a pair of humanoid, well shaped breasts that lay within a bra. The 'creature's' body still resembled the young girl named Himiko Toga, and her mouth still had human characteristics but also possessed quite prominent upper and lower fangs like those of a vampire.
Finally, on top of her head, some yellow-black tentacles, which looked like dreadlocks, seemed to move at will in a threatening manner which from a certain perspective gave the impression of being in the presence of a mythological Medusa or Gorgon...*2*3
But Midoriya didn't have much time to be confused by that 'alien' change of Toga´s appearance, since the green haired young man once again had to neutralize the blonde woman, who no longer seemed to be capable of reason.
So, you see, all the previous situations had converged in the head of the ex-commander and had dragged with it, memories of a very difficult time in his life. Memories evoked from past experiences somewhat similar in some respects to the situations he was currently experiencing.
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As Izuku walked through the dusty and dingy corridors of the hospital, he sighed pitifully on several occasions as if he wished not to go through the same thing again, at least for today when he looked at the injuries on his body. The bite on his neck and some of the cuts he had received had already been stitched and disinfected properly while other injuries were covered with bandages. Bandages that had small sterile gauze pads inside moistened with topical antibiotics, disinfectants and coagulant substances.
The gauze was making contact with wounds that he considered too small to be sutured but still bothersome enough to require bandaging. Obviously, all of the above he had learned to do in his basic military training in that other life. He was not capable of performing a basic medical operation let alone a complex one, but proper field treatment of trauma or basic wounds was something that the systems alliance military and especially a [Spectre] and [N7] soldier should be able to perform and know.
And by the way, he had also stolen all those medical items from that clinic in Naruhata city….
"(Sorry random homeless person and sorry Okami clinic…)" When he focused his eyes on the two globular packages he was carrying in one hand, he thought with a bit of irony as he tried to justify his wrongdoings. "(...I tried to take only the indispensable and the least used blood, but…)"
Izuku knew that by stealing the globular packets he was preventing other people from receiving that blood and therefore maybe he was going to cause some indirect deaths or unnecessary complications of some disease. However, he had already justified his action by thinking that what he planned to do would save even more lives. In turn, he planned to pay for his crimes by trying to save as many people as possible as a payment for this act, so his feelings of guilt were quickly diluted. After all, he had been a war hero who had had to weigh the good of the majority over the good of the minority on multiple occasions.
"(...but these things that I stole, will prevent more lives from being lost… I guess… I hope… I'm kind of sure… Truth be told, I don't know for sure what will happen or if it will work…. Damn! I'll take this as the donation of civilian forces to a military defense experiment~)"
Thinking the above, brief memories flooded his mind as he focused his eyes on the hospital patient shirt and pants he was wearing. He immediately thought of how he had made the heist at that clinic. Shortly after leaving the unconscious Himiko Toga in a certain special room of the abandoned hospital, he had run to the nearest clinic pointed out to him by a GPS on his cell phone, not without first stealing a hat and a long dirty trench coat from a homeless man he encountered along the way. A piece of his school uniform shirt was also transformed into a bandana that covered his face as he approached the place.
Upon arriving at the clinic, he closed his trench coat to hide his wounds and made use of the skills he learned living on the streets. He said he used the bandana as a cover-up while pretending to be sick with a severe respiratory infection. After asking for the location of the blood bank and having taken the backpack of a guard when he pretended to be suffering from a confusional state due to a supposed fever, he ran towards the blood bank at full speed, ignoring the screams of the nurses, doctors, patients and guards he had encountered on his way.
Despite his tiredness and despite the fact that one of his hands was barely working, with the strength and speed he still had left it wasn't too difficult to avoid the guards or open the closed doors of the nosocomial. So, in no time he filled his backpack with a change of patient clothes plus items he deemed necessary, and then fled from there just as a hero dressed as a Native American arrived in pursuit.
"(Is it my imagination or was that guy throwing boomerangs at me? ...But he was supposed to be dressed as a Native American… Wait a minute, what's he doing dressed as a Native American when he's Japanese?)" Other ironic thoughts crossed the green haired man's mind as he remembered the local hero who had been chasing him for a short while. Izuku would easily manage to lose him before reaching Kamagasaki thanks to the fact that speed didn't seem to be a strong attribute in that professional hero, let alone an accurate timing with boomerangs, which strangely had electric auras enveloping them. "(...And what do boomerangs have to do with Native Americans? What kind of cultural appropriation is that?!)"
Once that ironic thought left his head, an amused smile was imprinted for a moment on his face after he recalled the most successful robberies he accomplished as a gang member in his other life.
However, this smile would soon disappear and turn into a bitter expression when he saw a very young version of himself running in the corridors of the old hospital he was in. In that illusion manifested from his memories, a six year old Izuku was desperately running through a series of intertwined alleys escaping from what appeared to be enraged merchants with Persian swords in their hands. In that illusion, in the hands of the green haired boy were a pair of apples.
Soon after, that boy arrived at the outskirts of a certain dilapidated house where he would meet across the street a goblin-like girl, who was pulling some sort of rotting meat from the garbage of a dumpster. The meat had stereotypical swarming flies and a bubbling toxic liquid.
When she saw the green haired boy appear on the scene, the girl would offer Midoriya the half of her piece of rotten meat with some joy, but the green haired boy would shake his head and then reveal the apples he had hidden in his pockets. Almost immediately after the girl took her apple. They would both eat both apples in a desperate manner as tears welled up in their eyes.
The rumbling of their stomachs hadn't ceased to cause them suffering every second. A mixture of hopelessness and jubilation would spread through the souls of those two children at that moment in time; a moment that began to fade from the corridors of that hospital just as the children's stomachs growled pitifully even after they had consumed those apples. Tears soon drained again from their eye sockets after the passing happiness was over.
"(...I hope this works to alleviate your hunger, girl...)"
The echoes of the former commander's past faded away as his attention returned to the present. He finally reached the front of one of the special rooms in the nosocomial. Seeing the door he had sealed a few hours ago by bending a thick metal pipe between the door handles, he couldn't help but think those words with complex emotions imprinted on his soul.
"(...Or else I'll have to… take you to the authorities...)"
Before opening the door, doubts accompanied with a hint of sorrow invaded the green haired boy's mind. He couldn't help but feel some pity and even sadness for the young woman inside that room. Her strangely dangerous alien appearance and her intense hunger in a way reminded him of Kraate.
Perhaps 90% of the brief occasions he had tried to approach Toga, she behaved like a wild animal that only emitted growls. And her violent behavior indicated that if she let go of those chains, she would undoubtedly try to eat him and/or suck his blood.
However, on the 10% of the occasions he had visited her, there were semi-comprehensible whimpers and cries that seemed to be uttering the words: "Help!" "Blood!" "Please!" "Give me your blood!" "Hunger is killing me!" Tears from those red eyes were also released on a few occasions in those moments of apparent lucidity that the 'creature' seemed to have had.
In short, the sense of pain and desperation Izuku perceived from her despite her overall dangerous behavior, in his long experience as a soldier who had met all kinds of dangerous species, it reminded him of a predator that was suffering from starvation or was very sick. So that side of Izuku that always wanted to help others when they were suffering or when they asked for help had taken hold. That part was advocating trying to help her in some way despite the fact that in the eyes of practically everyone else, she was nothing more than a threat.
Midoriya would never admit it openly, but he knows that after all these years he still suffers from a severe case of "Savior Syndrome." He is a person who will go and save everyone he can save in one way or another almost pathologically. He will go to the front and try to save someone even if it may cost him his life; even if the victim is a synthetic being, an aggressive reptile species or a giant insect queen, as long as they show him reasons to save them, he will do his best to save them even if it means facing a giant Reaper head on.
Yes, he may be able to save a million people and let a thousand die in the process if the situation warrants it. But whenever there is a situation that requires his help and doesn't need extreme measures, Izuku will still act as the hero he always wanted to be: someone who not only saves lives or saves people from themselves but also helps in other ways, like supporting someone with a business by lending his image in an advertisement or helping someone to take his last poem to her beloved on another planet.
"(...I don't want to take you to prison if I don't have to. Rich and influential people almost always win death penalty cases in this country. But if you don't come to your senses; or if you're a psychopath with no chance of redemption...)" His face took on a bitter expression. "(...I guess I won't have a choice)"
On the other hand, that part of Izuku known as "Shepard" was also poking ideas into his psyche. That part knew he should be cautious and avoid being delusional. That part of himself was advocating that he should do whatever had to be done in order to stop a threat that would endanger the lives of innocents.
"Heck girl…" He sighed ruefully. "...I still don't know what to do with you."
Before opening that door, he hesitated to touch the bent pipe for an instant.
Should he continue with this? Would giving blood to her to drink bring back her reasoning? If so, should he try to engage her in civilized conversation? Should he gain her trust and find out what was happening to her on a deeper level? If she proved to be a threat to the population, should he take her to the authorities without further delay? Should he eliminate her once and for all to prevent an unexpected situation? Or should he eliminate her at once to prevent a possible escape?
All these thoughts and analyses flooded his head like a tsunami. However, that last thought was the one that was still strongly placed as the last option. His past experiences told him that even if 'something' looked like a monster or even if it initially behaved like a monster, it wouldn't mean it was a monster. Kreeta, Wrex, The Rachni Queen, Grunt, Jack, Legion, Thane, among others, they had been dangerous individuals with 'Monster' appearances that he had interacted with. He listened to them and after thoroughly understanding them and giving them a chance, they had not failed him. So, he had learned that in some cases, he had to listen or understand the other party deeply before thinking about whether they were truly a monster or just a difficult person to deal with.
Jack's case in particular had shown him that when a person truly felt guilt and had the will to change, they could redeem themselves. Of course, if someone threatened his life and tried to kill him, Izuku would almost always respond in kind, but there were rare cases in which he could deduce that situations could be resolved by methods other than plasma blasts, crushing Biotic powers or anti-armor bullets.
At least, at this moment, he believed that there was at least a chance to try to understand what was happening to that cheerful girl who seemed to have a real dread of that horrifying criminal called Moonfish the other day…
With that last thought in mind, our hero made use of his strong hands and unbent the metal tube embedded between the two metal handles of the big steel door in front of him. Once he removed the seal he had placed on that door, Izuku entered a musty, dusty room that appeared to have been used for psychiatric patients in the past. This was most likely where the patients were given electro shock therapy since there was an old machine connected to a plug which in turn was connected to a kind of helmet. The thick concrete walls were padded and in turn, there were no windows or other doors in this room besides the door that the green haired young man had just opened and the door of the bathroom.
Almost immediately after the green haired man opened that thick door, a piercing shriek resembling the sound of a spectral bat reverberated in the room.
The origin of that sound was the alien figure that had a resemblance to Himiko Toga, who was lying fastened to a hospital bed in the middle of that room, thanks to the belts that had the bed itself and thanks to some metal chains that most likely Midoriya placed improvised just in case the belts were not enough to contain her.
The reason Izuku didn't seem impressed or frightened by the scream perhaps was because he had heard the screams of the Asari's Banshees in the past and most likely from his perspective, Himiko Toga's scream was closer to that of a wild animal than that of a hell born creature.
"This has to work." Saying that more to himself than to the mutant restrained on that bed, Izuku took one of the globular packet bags and opened it. Taking care that the blood didn't spill out, he carried the packet towards a crystalline beaker-like container that he had cleaned before, and then poured the crimson substance into it. "A little blood and you finally quiet, huh? Come on, go on and drink at once."
That said, after the umpteenth scream from the mutant began to give him a small headache, the ex-commander finally got some peace as the blood spilled out of the plastic bag into the glass cup. Toga quieted almost immediately at that moment as her eyes focused on the vessel as the blood was poured into it. Her eyes followed the path of the crimson liquid almost as if she had gone into a trance, at the same time her nose kept sniffing in the direction Izuku moved the container.
When the container was placed a centimeter away from her mouth, the mutant's tongue elongated a little and tasted the fluid just before she began to drink it with desperation. Izuku tilted the glass enough so that the blood poured into the depths of her mouth little by little.
Seconds later, multiple grunts reverberated in the psychiatric ward. The origin being the stomach of the mutant. Toga had already begun to shed tears from her left eye and seemed to be calming down as she was no longer struggling with the restraints that kept her imprisoned in the hospital bed.
Seeing that scene, Izuku smiled very slightly for a moment as he seemed to be helping her in some way.
However, soon after, his expression turned bitter for two reasons. The first, because he couldn't help but feel a little bit identified with her as he knew very well what it was like to have a feeling of hunger gnawing at your insides. Second, he still didn't know what to expect from her if she regained her lucidity.
Could he have a conversation with her? Would she answer his questions? Would she be able to tell the truth to someone holding her prisoner? Was she a hopeless psychopath or could she be saved like Jack?
So many unanswered questions flooded the mind of an ex-commander with the Savior syndrome taking its toll in the depths of his mind. His desires to save a young girl who had a promising future and the questions in his head about what had brought her to such unfortunate circumstances were key to not leaving her to her fate.
But whatever the case, only time could tell him whether or not he had made the right decision.
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Dreams were something Toga treasured above almost all things.
In them she could feel free and truly alive, as strange as it was. There wasn't that feeling of repression, anguish and hunger that accompanied her day after day. Dreams were like a blanket that helped her endure the difficulty of life. In them, her goals were fulfilled. Her family and the rest of the people who knew her accepted her for who she was.
In her dreams, she could calmly eat the meat of an animal that had recently given its last breath. She could run through the fields and forests, barefoot and naked, feeling the mud on her feet as she chased the creature that luckily had been chosen to be hunted.
In her dreams, that dark monster that her parents told her she had acquired when she turned four years old, was not a monster but a 'companion' that seemed to guide her. In her fantasies, the first time she took the life of a small bird to watch it die with fascination, it was an event that didn't grieve her and didn't turn her into a monster.
In Morpheus' world, her family supported her. Her parents felt the same bliss she felt when she ended the life of an inferior species. They didn't call her a Monster but instead felt complete and happy that she was what she is. A beast that should be free, a hunter at the top of the food chain; the leader of the pack; the one in charge of protecting the other hunters; the one in charge of sharing the flesh and blood she had managed to obtain with her own hands; the one in charge of keeping her 'species' subsisting; the one in charge of keeping them above the others.
In her fantasies, that dark monster was an invaluable companion that little by little tried to explain to her what she was.
(Although she could never fully understand it, for all these desires and thoughts were mostly manifested on a subconscious level, so she only conjectured that she was going crazy)
In the reverie, there were also moments where she saw herself as the best of heroines. Those fantasies were not the most common but from time to time they created worlds where she saw herself as a heroine soaked in the blood of her enemies, exterminating the lives of the evildoers that endangered her pack.
She couldn't help but dream herself that way after having seen so many heroes with cool powers making use of their superior strength to 'dominate' over the weak and unworthy creatures that endangered the pack.
That to her was only natural, the strong hunting the weak, that's the way things should be.
In reverie, the people who claimed to love her, would also get the precious blood of unworthy beings with the intention of gifting her some. She would dream of her parents or her friends placing some of the blood they had obtained from preys on the plates and glasses used for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They did that to keep her from suffering from the terrible hunger that could affect her. They did that to share a bond, to protect her, because they loved her.
They got blood because they loved her. Love.
Blood could become love.
She still didn't know if that last thought was quite right but as her days of starvation continued to stretch on, reality and dreams slowly began to mix in her head. That 'dark monster', that 'companion' that had guided her in her dreamlike travels, little by little began to 'filter' through to the outside world, asking her to get the 'love' that they had refused to give her. Asking her to allow herself to be free, asking her to stop that starvation that was hurting him too.
'He' kept on demanding and demanding until finally this day came. A day in which her 'dark companion' took control of her. She could no longer reason properly. Instead of looking for 'prey' that no one would cry for, her conscience clouded almost entirely after her dark companion's last plea for food became so intense that she couldn't help but attack the one person who had risked her life to try to save the monster that was her.
The part of Himiko Toga that was still human couldn't help but feel sad that she was trying to take his life. Although the other part seemed to feel satisfied to have the opportunity to get 'love' from that handsome hero.
If he was someone who wanted to save her, he should also give her the 'love' that takes her away from the suffering that afflicts her, shouldn't he?
That's how she reasoned that part of herself that took control until unexpectedly that handsome gentleman soaked in blood sent her to sleep in a way she never expected.
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For the next few hours, Himiko Toga stopped having comforting dreams and for the first time in her life all her eyes could perceive was absolute darkness. The famine that seemed to have come from a circle of hell now permeated every fiber of her being.
Nevertheless…
"I'd better examine you. I hope I haven't left you with a head trauma that will leave you in a coma." The man's words were cut off in the middle of his sentences. He seemed to have difficulty breathing. "I'll see if I can find information about you on the web as well. I don't want to have any surprises at the hospital."
It seemed that she had not been abandoned or killed. Was the boy who she attacked still trying to protect her after she had tried to hurt him?
"This is...something strange...What happened to you girl?"
The green haired young man's voice sounded distant but the human part of Himiko Toga could still sense him enough to know that he was worried about her. She didn't know why he was still trying to help her.
"But if I take you to the hospital, you're going straight to jail… And from there most likely to the gallows… Geeez, why do these things always have to be so complicated?"
-o-o-o
"Good! I managed to isolate and cauterize the last severed vessel! With this, I should be able to stabilize this girl if I can get intravenous fluids..."
The remnant of Toga's Human consciousness could feel the bliss in that voice after he healed the wounds that had caused her hunger to become terrible and uncontrollable. She still didn't understand why he was still helping her but surely this wouldn't last. No hero or person in this world could see the form she had hidden so much and still wanted to be by her side. Much less after being attacked twice by her 'dark companion'.
"_Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!_"
"What the he...Can you transform...?!...Oh, come on! Stop trying to eat me! The behavior of a {Banshee} doesn't suit you with the clothes you're wearing!"
To the immense surprise of the remnant of Himiko Toga that still lingered in that body that had just changed form, the young man still refused to leave her side. Even when he was attacked again by that 'Slayer' form that she always hid from everyone, because it would provoke expressions of horror on the faces of the people she now knew were never part of her 'Pack'.
"You're going to damage another artery if you keep doing that!"
Again, the green haired young man had surprised her. Despite the fact that he sometimes seemed to be joking, he still sounded genuinely worried about what would happen to her.
-o-o-o
"_Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!_"
"I've already told you a million times. You're not going to be able to escape from there, so stop trying to break free and better start talking..."
-o-o-o
"_Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!_"
"Damn, it's been 4 hours already and I'm not moving forward...Come on girl, there's nothing left of you in there?"
"_Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!_"
"..Come on Toga, Tell me how can I help you?"
"_Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!_"
"Come on girl! Tell me something! Anything!"
"_Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!_"
"Himiko! I'm trying to help you! Tell me why you seem to be suffering?!"
"_Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!…Aggggshh…Hunger… It hurts… Aggggh!_"
"..Hurts? Hunger? That's right, you tried to drink my blood a while ago...blood… Do you need blood to regain your composure?!"
"_Waaa!...Help...Your blood...Give me…Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!_"
"Okay. If that's what you need… Hmmmmm, I think I have an idea how to give you some blood without anyone getting hurt..."
Himiko's human remnant managed to gain strength to come out after that man didn't give up his attempts to engage her in conversation despite continuously facing what she considered in part a monster. She didn't know if he was a madman, or an angel fallen from heaven who paradoxically came to help a demon; Toga's remnant only knew at that moment, the green haired boy was someone for whom she should make an effort to ask him for help.
A help she had never asked anyone for because of a fear of being rejected, and because of a repression that society itself had placed on her true self and her love for blood and the hunt.
__________________________
The dreams were strange and blurry. There was too much missing information and, at times, random images of the events that had occurred in the last few hours would pop into her head as if it were the tape of a recording that was damaged.
But from the information she was able to extract when her consciousness returned to its daily normality was that at all times she had been accompanied by that young man with green hair.
A young man who had willingly fed her with that delicious crimson fluid by handing it directly into her mouth through a glass as if she were a kind of baby?
After having that last thought, Himiko Toga thought that she had been hallucinating and that everything before had surely been a dream. She violently opened her eyes as a slight blush full of sorrow appeared on her cheeks. At the same time her violent spasms and struggles soon attracted the attention of one person:
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down, calm down. There you are. All right," a male voice said, over the sound of a lot of beeping and electronic noises.
Himiko's head turned and then a strange orange light came into her eyes as she saw a moldy white room with some worn out couches here and there, which seemed to have a design that belonged in a hospital.
Next to her, that unknown hero was examining her with what appeared to be some sort of scanner born from a holographic looking orange gauntlet, which was placed on his left arm.
"Hello again. I'm Commander Shepard. It's great to have you back in the waking world."
He was dressed in blue hospital patient clothes. His green hair was a bit disheveled and he looked as if he had not slept well. Also, his hands, legs, and neck had some medical gauze or bandages on them.
The blonde haired girl blinked, confused. Her eyes then narrowed when she noticed that she was on a kind of psychiatric bed with some fasteners and chains that prevented her from moving her arms, legs, and her body in general.
Noticing her displeasure, the young man moved, walking to another side of the room while examining the images displayed on a kind of holographic screen that was somehow manifesting that gauntlet. At the same time, he was using the keys of a holographic keyboard that had likewise made the gauntlet appear.
"I don't know if you remember everything that happened. But before you ask what you are doing here or tell me that I'm holding you hostage, you should know that I put you there to prevent you from harming others or yourself. However, I do not intend to do you any harm, you can be sure of that…"
The green haired man observed one of the images on the holographic screen, specifically one that showed the figure of a half naked woman whose abdominal area showed 3D images of the blood vessels that ran through her skin and adjacent tissues.
"I managed to successfully cauterize the damaged blood vessels that the psychopath of yesterday ruptured. You're no longer bleeding and you're no longer in danger of suffering another hemorrhage," saying that, the man returned and stood again in front of the lady. "In only 12 hours, the wound in your abdomen has also healed completely. There was no need for antibiotics or antiseptics, as you seem to possess an enhanced physiology and recovery capabilities superior to the common man thanks to your mutant quirk. You also seem to be able to take on another human appearance in addition to the one you already showed me. I must say, your quirk seems to be pretty cool to realize infiltration missions! Kasumi would have loved to have such power!"
He put on a somewhat apologetic expression and continued as he scratched the back of his neck with one hand. "Ah, sorry, I seem to digress again about a superpower. It's a habit, don't mind me too much. You're probably scared or you're starting to think I'm a mad scientist researching what you're capable of. So, I'd better focus on your health. Are you experiencing migraines, nausea, or a strong sense of hunger?"
The following words would provoke a great bewilderment in the blonde haired woman for a substantial time as she had only a vague notion of what had happened a few hours ago. The image of this person feeding her seemed more like a dream or hallucination in her mind than something real.
"You want me to feed you? I think I have enough blood to make your stomach stop making that noise, hehe." The young man smiled sincerely while he grabbed a crystal glass full of a red liquid that was on a table.
Then Himiko Toga's eyes widened, hardly believing what she was hearing and seeing.
"Whaaat?!" Seconds later, she observed the image of an unfamiliar red haired woman reflecting in the crystal glass that Shepard was carrying. An image that was making the same movements and expressions as her at that moment. "Wait…Is that person me?!"
"Ara? This is curious. I thought you were already aware of that change."
It seemed that Himiko Toga's life would take a direction that she could never have expected.
__________________________
To be continued...
Note 08/29/2023: This chapter has been reviewed and edited by a beta reader. Please let me know your thinks about the grammar and wording.
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Chapter Clarifications:
*2: First of all, I'm going to say that Toga is going to be very relevant in this fic. So I'm going to change her quirk a bit to better suit the 'Alien' theme of this story due to the plans I have in mind. However, the abilities of her quirk will not vary much from the original, but some of her abilities will have some different effects or other benefits. However, these new benefits will have limitations that will balance her powers so as not to make her a OP character or excessively convenient for the main character.
*3: The appearance of this mutant form of Toga is inspired by the alien [Sil] from the science fiction movie [Species], a movie with many flaws and very old, but it is a cult movie for anyone who likes the themes of aliens and horror-drama stories in science fiction in general. Incidentally, it was very convenient that said alien race has the characteristics of a shapeshifter like Toga.
However, that form I have described, is the "ugly" version that Toga uses to look more menacing, so to speak/ or when she loses control of her quirk....
In the next chapter, I will put a design of a female alien inspired by the aliens of [Species] that has a cool (and attractive) design, with which I hope you can better imagine this mutant version of Toga. And at the same time, in the chapter after that, I will go deeper into the characteristics of this mutant quirk
*1 If you want to know what those dialogues said, take a look below at the section I left for it. By the way, the dialogues there isn't very relevants and are in spanish, I don't know arabic but I do know spanish, so I just put some dialogues in a different language than english to give the impression that Midoriya wasn't understanding what those generic characters were saying.
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Dialogue Translation:
First series of dialogues in spanish:
"Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof!""
{That's what I call a good dog! Well done Fido!}
"Woof! Woof!"
{Come over here you little rat!}
{Catch him Sahid! Use the rope! Don't let him escape!}
{A special animal like you isn't allowed to escape from the pen!}
{Yes! Yes! Tie him up like cattle! Hahaha!}
{Well, that's what he's always been, isn't he Assim? He's a very valuable cattle!}
"Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof!""
Second series of dialogues:
"Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof!"
{What is this rat saying?}
{I don't know, I don't get it. Maybe he's asking for mercy?}
{Asking for mercy? Would it be so hypocritical to ask for such a thing after he tried to escape?!}
{Listen you brat! Don't even think about complaining! Do you know how much trouble we'll be in if you and the others are running around trying to escape? Do you know the punishment the boss will give the whole gang if any of you escape?!}
{Let it be clear to you, that the only thing you deserve from now on is pain!}.
"Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof!"
{You have not been a good rat. You have not been an obedient rat!}
{Hey! Hey! Don't forget that we have to turn him in entirety}
{Yeah, I know! I'm just going to teach him a little lesson!}
Third series of dialogues:
{Looks like the rat started crying. Shut him up somehow because I don't want to hear his screams in all the way!}
{Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. What an annoying little guinea pig we got to retrieve}
"Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof!"
Fourth series of dialogues:
{What the heck is that Vorcha female doing here?!}
{I don't know. Hey! If you don't get out of here you're gonna die! Do you understand, you fucking monster?!}
{She's got an assault rifle? Is she coming for the kid? She's aiming at us, take out your weapons now...! Damn it! That Varren is already too close!}
"Groaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar!"
{Don't run away you damn dog!}
PENSAMENTOS DOS CRIADORES 
Fitoxi
Fitoxi I suppose you may wonder why I chose [Morocco] as the country where our 'Zuku-Shepard' lived his early years but as the story progresses, I don't think you will have a hard time guessing why I chose that region of planet Earth...
...However, I want to make one thing clear, the romance in this story isn't going to be a story where there is an absurdly huge harem and I'm not even sure it can be called a harem. In fact, for most of the story you will only see one or two romances develop. Why is that? Because even though I don't think it's impossible for an OOC Izuku with an extremely difficult past to have two official partners (something that is becoming normal nowadays even in non-Islamic populations, both in men and women : V), I've tried to keep some of the most important 'parts' or 'essences' of the original Izuku in this Izuku OOC, so I consider that if he were to accept more partners, it would be taking him too far away from the character, turning him 100% into something he isn't, both as a 'Shepard' and as an 'Izuku'. And Besides, I hate stories with meaningless harems where the prota barely has time to pay attention to a few, leaving aside others and making with that, the romance doesn't feel relevant.
Best regards
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