2 The Strategist

Alright is everybody ready?" Izuku asked with great enthusiasm. The group of criminals looked at him like he was crazy. They were about to rob a bank not go to an amusement park. This kid was not at all what they expected.

Word had been spreading through the underground of an individual with a certain skill set. Villains have been hiring him to analyze the weaknesses of certain heroes and provide strategic planning for various crimes they wanted commit. He was apparently some kind of genius that worked for the highest bidder. No one knew his real name, but he went by an alias called Apotheosis. A green eyed, green haired boy, dressed in a white hoodie, dark gray pants, boots, black leather gloves, and wearing a black scarf around the lower half of his face to hide his more distinguishable features. The kid always seemed to have a sunny disposition with a bit of an awkward stutter. The criminals weren't one to complain though, he did good work.

"Alright…um…I don't know what else to say" Izuku chuckled rubbing his head awkwardly. "G-Good luck everyone."

"Whatever kid" one of the masked thugs rolled his eyes. "This plan of yours better work"

"It will" Izuku said with complete confidence. He already helped three criminal groups knock over six different banks, this next one will be child's play. The men exited the black van while the green haired boy stayed behind. He sat on a small office chair and on his lap was a portable computer, which he paid for from one of his previous gigs.

From the screen he received live footage of the inside of the bank. Izuku had hacked into the security systems and ran a virus that he created called the Phantom Program. Basically it took over the footage in all the cameras, looped whatever recording he wanted and blocked the current feed. So in other words the thugs that hired him were completely invisible as they broke into the closed bank. The silent alarm was also deactivated.

"This is going very well" He mumbled into his head set while he watched them break open the vault. One of them had a magnetic quirk that allowed them to manipulate the tumblers and locks in the doors to open anything. Very handy for a bank robbery. Thirty minutes later they had all the money bagged and ready to be taken to the van. Izuku took a sip of his coffee, he timed everything perfectly, down to the last detail. Even this next part.

"Stop right there!" The thugs froze when they heard a voice shout from the open entrance of the bank.

"Dammit! A hero!" One of them growled. Standing out in the darkness was a relatively new hero, by at least two years, called Flare. A hero with a quirk that covered his hands in fire and allowed him to throw balls of flame that were small but fast.

"As I planned" Izuku said through the head set.

"You knew he would show up!?" The third criminal yelled into the mic.

"Of course" Izuku had planned exactly for this. He knew that this area was a sort of nexus point where heroes frequently patrol. He analyzed their patrol patterns and picked this night specifically, so that this particular hero would be here rather than any of the others.

"You little brat!" Another thug shouted through the mic. They pointed their guns at Flare just as the hero was about to launch some fire balls at them.

"Fire detected in the vicinity of the bank" Izuku said smoothly while pushing a button on his keyboard. The fire sprinklers suddenly activated dousing the entire building in water and causing the hero's fire to fizzle out. With his abilities completely neutralized, one of the accomplices used his low level speed quirk to run up and knock Flare upside the head with his gun, rendering him unconscious. "I thought you guys would have a bit more faith in me. You can trust that I wouldn't set you up" Izuku chuckled. Of all the heroes that could have been patrolling the area Flare would have been the easiest to neutralize, by simply setting off the sprinkler system. Like he said, he planned this perfectly. "Can you lock Flare in the vault please and gather up the bags, we have less than..." Izuku examined his watch. "Ten minutes before the fire fighters arrive."

"Damn. I really underestimated this kid" the man with the magnetic quirk said sounding impressed. The others too were equally impressed. Apotheosis really was a genius to plan a heist like this.

"A job well done everyone" Izuku smiled. "A job well done" he was happy, with his cut he would have enough to start getting his many projects going.

THE NEXT MORNING

Izuku yawned as he finished counting his money. With his cut from the recent robbery, he now had a sizable fortune hidden under his bed. Izuku had been moving through the underground assisting criminals and villains. Using his strategic mind and intellect to plan out their crimes and find weaknesses to heroes they battled. It was the only way he could get large amounts of money. After all he couldn't go into to hero agencies and say that 'Hey I'm a quirkless boy and I'd like to help'. At best he'd be told politely to leave, at worst he'd be laughed out of the building. It's sad, but society didn't take quirkless people seriously.

He wore a scarf over his face and went by an alias, to hide his identity. He also covered his tracks well, so nothing could ever be traced back to him. Izuku spent all day sitting in class coming up with an alias, writing them down on a piece of paper until he finally picked the name Apotheosis. It meant the highest point of development, or someone's ascent into divine status, he liked those meanings so that became his name. That and it had a nice ring to it.

Ever since his dream to be a hero died and his new dream to create a better hero society that didn't look down on the weak was born, he had begun working on blueprints for the key to accomplishing this. The Infinity Gauntlet, a device capable of granting Izuku, not just a quirk, but multiple quirks, all the greatest quirks anyone had ever seen. The stones he needed to make would give him the powers he needed to create his new world.

Firstly Izuku needed to see if his theory and math was correct. He planned to build the machine he designed called the 'Forge'. It was basically a big manufacturing engine that would extract the quirk genes from DNA and process it into a solid form. These stones would power the gauntlet and give Izuku the same abilities of those quirks.

However there was another problem he was dealing with right now. A machine as big as the Forge needed a lot of space. Where would he build it? He required a proper laboratory to work and build his devices. Deciding to think about this later, Izuku put on his school uniform.

Today he was going to take a step towards his goals. Nothing could ruin his day. Unless Kacchan decided to be a hothead jerk again today. Ever since he got taken hostage by that sludge villain, the ashy blonde boy became even more insufferable than he already was. Maybe the whole incident made him realize that he wasn't as untouchable as he believed.

'How sad, the poor explosion boy wasn't strong enough to save himself from a weak sludge villain', Izuku thought sarcastically. That was nothing, Katsuki Bakugou didn't know what it truly felt like to be weak. Unfortunately for Izuku, and due to typical bully psychology, the incident made him seek to re-inflate his ego and feel superior again. The best way to do that, continue picking on quirkless Deku, and Izuku had no choice, but to sit there and take it.

Heading to school he yawned again, last night's robbery lasted a little longer than he thought. The thugs Izuku was working with wanted to count every cent of the money they stole so they could make sure everyone got an equal share, which took a good three hours to complete. By the end Izuku was exhausted both physically and mentally. Still he was well enough to accomplish what he needed to accomplish today at the school.

Bypassing his classroom, he walked down the hall to the principal's office. There he was told to report to room 305. At the request of his mother, he was given exclusive permission to take a test that would allow him to graduate middle school early. That was last week and after getting a perfect score on the test he was required to take an IQ test along with a placement test today in room 305 that would determine which schools he could get into. Izuku was aiming for a certain boarding school across Tokyo that would require him to move away from home, but it would give him the fresh setting he desired, plus living alone would allow him to continue his 'projects' in complete secrecy.

A school day later and he was finished. Izuku wasn't surprised that he was the only student taking the test. Not to insult the school, but it didn't possess the most intellectual individuals. Plus not many knew that you could graduate early. Deciding not to dwell on it, since it was the last time he would ever set foot in this building, Izuku headed towards his former classroom to pick a few of his belongings.

Class was over by the time he reached the room and only a few of the students remained, but just his luck one of the last people he needed to see was just getting ready to leave.

"What are you doing here so late Deku?" Bakugou asked with a sneer. Izuku pursed his lips and choose to ignore him. Opening his desk he grabbed his spare notebooks and a jump drive that he used to store ideas. "Hey I asked you a question!" Stuffing his personal belongings in his back pack Izuku made his way to the door only to be stopped by a smoldering hand on his shoulder. "Don't ignore me you piece of shit!" Izuku had to wipe a drop of spit that landed on his face from the blonde boy's barking.

"I just came to get my things" Izuku said in the meekest voice possible. Best to continue being pathetic, that way they'll never see him coming.

"Where were you?" Bakugou demanded.

"Taking a test" Izuku responded with a timid expression.

"What test?"

"A t-test to see if I should graduate early"

"You! What's so special about your quirkless ass that they would let you graduate earlier than me?" Finally having enough of this mock interrogation and pretending to be helpless Izuku freed his shoulder and shuffled out the door.

"I don't answer to you," The freckled boy glared at the other. Katsuki was actually taken aback by the glare. As far as he knew Deku, the nerd never gave him such a dark look before. In effort to reassert his dominance he followed after the green haired boy.

"U.A doesn't take early graduates Deku, so if your trying to get in before me-"

"I'm not going to U.A," Izuku cut him off making the other boy's eyes widen. "I rescinded my application. I decided to go to a boarding school on the other side of the city. We won't be meeting ever again. You got what you wanted Kacchan. Goodbye!" He waved him off and walked out of the school in attempt to end whatever relationship they had once and for all.

"Wait! Hold up Deku!" Katsuki chased after him down the street. "What do you mean you're not going to U.A?" Izuku sighed to himself and stopped to turn around.

"Just what I said, I've decided to stop trying to be a hero and to be more realistic" He remembered that's what Allmight said to him. Izuku couldn't wait to see the look on the number one hero's face when he showed him how realistic he planned on becoming.

"So you finally realized you can never compete with me", Katsuki said smugly.

'Compete with you? You're attitude coupled with the collateral damage you can cause would make you the worst hero ever', Izuku thought to himself. "Yup. I'm going to try my hand at technology and maybe I can build devices to help the police"

"It doesn't matter what you build. Anything you create a hero could do a hundred times better!" The explosion boy barked at him.

'Oh you just wait', He smirked internally. "Well…have a nice life Kacchan" and with that Izuku walked away and out of the other boy's life for good. Bakugou stood there, the shock that he'd never see Deku again, that he was gone forever just like that, finally setting in. He honestly didn't know how to feel about it. After years of pushing the quirkless boy around, he didn't think the other would just up and leave like that.

"Deku" He growled in frustration, choosing his default emotion anger as he stomped away.

THAT NIGHT

"There we go", Izuku smiled as he finished soldering the wires and circuit boards together for his first device. One of his jobs that involved smuggling illegal equipment allowed him to get ahold of a piece of technology that was used in prisons to keep villains contained. A device normally attached to turrets that detected the activation of a quirk.

With a few modifications he made a smaller version that he could wear on the side of his head, with a single lens, that Izuku took from a pair of red aviator sunglasses, covering his eye, almost like a monocle. The device's main purpose was to detect a nearby quirk user, project a number on the lens that represented the level of power, one through one hundred, and record it. He named it the Scouter, after the same fictional gadget that inspired it from a manga that Izuku read called Dragon Ball.

"Time to test it" Izuku smiled as he hooked the scouter around his ear. The red transparent lens covered his left eye, leaving him with complete visibility. Pushing one of the small buttons on the clip behind his ear he activated. The freckled boy stared at the lens as it booted up, pushing the second button he finally got the numbers he was looking for. "Let's see who's around. The nearest person has a quirk level seven. That must be mom", Izuku widened the range by pressing a few more buttons, making a mental note to upgrade the scouter to a hands free version, recording all the quirk users in the apartment building.

"Looks like I'm not so useless after all", Izuku chuckled, proud of his first invention.

ELSEWHERE

"So who is this guy again?" Shigaraki Tomura demanded.

"He goes by the name Apotheosis. He's a young up and coming villain, kind of like you", Kurogiri explained looking over the folder of information that 'Sensei' acquired. "He assists villains and criminals by planning out their crimes. He's very strategic"

"He can't be very good if I haven't heard of him", the light blue haired teen argued sitting hunched over at the bar.

"He recently began, since then he has been involved with over twenty acts of villainy and every one of them was a complete success", the black misty man said.

"Not a single failure?" Shigaraki questioned mildly surprised.

"Ten robberies, six assaults on heroes, transportation of illegal weapons and technology, and various other crimes that have not been made public yet" Kurogiri sounded impressed.

"He's just what this League needs" A voice on the monitor screen behind them said gaining their immediate attention. "A true strategist will help us achieve our goals. Find him Kurogiri" The mystery man ordered.

"Alright then, let's send him an invitation", Kurogiri warped away to meet a few contacts that could put him in touch with Apotheosis.