The Synthetic Nightmare

Many things clouded Izuku's mind as he made his way to the dark underpass. His slip up at breakfast, his friend bakugo, if they could even be called that anymore, and the upcoming entrance exam for U.A. It is perhaps because of this he failed to notice something lifting the manhole cover in front of him. It wasn't until the thing fully emerged from the manhole that Izuku noticed it.

The underpass was a bit dark even though it was a perfectly sunny day, which made it hard for izuku to fully see what had just come out of the sewer. He could however still make out the form of the figure. It was tall, about 7ft with two glowing yellow eyes. It looked like a man but its arms and legs were far too skinny to have lifted the manhole cover. A strength quirk perhaps?

"Tch, to think that muscle-brained skin suit would chase me all the way to Japan. How annoying?" The figure mused to itself in the dark, seemingly unaware of Izuku's presence.

Izuku wanted to keep it that way because judging from the scary yellow eyes and deep menacing robotic voice the figure has, they're most likely a villain. And while he trained both his powers and body hard, he didn't think he was ready to fight an actual villain. So while the villain was distracted, Izuku slowly backed up while keeping his eyes trained on the villain, hoping to not get noticed. He had made it about five steps back when the villain spoke again but this time to him.

"Stop right there skin bag," the shadow man growled at izuku. His voice was full of hostility and annoyance.

Izuku froze, sweat began to pour out from nearly every part of his body as the figure who had been preoccupied with his musing suddenly directed his attention to him. Fear began to well up in him as the figure who had been hidden in the shadow took a step closer to him and into the light revealing not a man but a machine.

The machine was 7 ft of pure metal with a face resembling a human skull. Its head was covered by a red cloth bandana and its shoulders were covered by a similarly red cloth almost like a scarf.

"I-I'm not looking for trouble, I won't say anything about you being here if you let me go," Izuku said in an attempt to negotiate with the villain.

This however was a lie. Izuku was going to call the police while running to find help, preferably a hero, once he was clear of this mechanical menace's sight. And on the slim chance, it turned out that this machine wasn't a villain but just a person with a very intimidating quirk then he would simply apologize and have learned a lesson in quirkism.

"Really," the machine responded. Its deep and grating voice sounded surprised and excited at the deal despite its earlier aggression.

"Y-yeah" Izuku stutuerd out in reply. His fear blinding him from seeing the suspicious nature of the villain's apparent trust in him.

"Hmm," the machine hums while cupping its chin with its hand, seemingly contemplating whether or not to accept Izuku's deal. After a few seconds of holding its pose, it drops seemingly having come to a decision. "Ahh, why not. It's not like I wanna hurt a kid anyways so run on home. Wouldn't want your parents to worry now would we~?"

The way it said that last part unnerved Izuku but he decided not to focus on it and instead direct his attention to escaping.

"T-thank you," Izuku managed to utter, feeling a small bit of relief while doing a short and small bow to the villain before turning on his heels and running in the opposite direction of it.

Due to leveling up, Izuku's top speed was nearly approaching superhuman levels, and while not impressive compared to someone with a speed quirk, was impressive for someone who was only fourteen and didnt have one. So his initial sprint had got him quite far away from the villain.

This was why when the villain who was supposed to be behind Iuzku lunged at him from the front he became flustered and was left open an attack.

The clawed hand of the machine shot toward Izuku's chest and would have pierced through it and his heart if he didn't trip and fall backward onto his back avoiding the stab. The hand of the machine became logged wrist deep into the concrete ground right beside him.

Fear and shock graced Izuku's features as he looked between the hand near his chest and the soulless eyes of the very machine that nearly killed him. The realization of how close he was to death caused past trauma to resurface.

Suppressed memories and phantom pain of the time he was lobotomized by muscular came back harder than they ever had in years. Izuku started hyperventilating and his heart started racing, he was beginning to have a panic attack.

As Izuku's panic attack became progressively worse, the machine freed its hand.

| Revenant P.O.V |

All it took was a glance for the notorious assassin to know exactly what was going on with the kid in front of him. During his many, many years of killing, he had witnessed quite a few of his victims have panic attacks.

Some at realizing they were going to die and others at just seeing him. He was the underworld equivalent of the Boogeyman, if he appeared before someone it was either to kill them or take on a job.

He enjoyed his victim's fear, hearing them scream, seeing the light in their eyes fade as they died. It was absolutely euphoric. So euphoric that he didnt even care if the euphoria was just a bunch of ones and zeroes programmed to make him like his job.

On a normal day, the simulacrum would normally relish in the boy's fear as much as possible since it is at times like these that human fear reached an all-time high. But today was not a normal day.

Today he had received a job, an important one at that. This job could grant him what he's always wanted since that day.

The machine looked down at the still fear-stricken boy, his eyes didnt seem to even register that the murder bot was right in front of him anymore. The boy's mouth moved but no sound came out. His eyes wandered but did not register his assailant in front of him.

"Nothing personal kid, but I can't have you leaving alive on the off chance you have a tracking quirk."

Revenant readied his hand to plunge into the boy's heart and was halfway through the stabbing motion when a blue window appeared right in front of his fingers blocking the attack.

"A hard light quirk?" Revenant questioned. Hoping it was so he didnt have to waste time trying to kill this kid.

"Shinra Tensei!" Was his reply.

"Gah!"

An invisible force comparable to a punch from All-Might himself sent Revenant hurling through the air into the nearby underpass.

"That's what you get for trying to kill my bro- HOST, simulacrum" a feminine voice shouted out from where Izuku was supposed to be. Anger was evident in her voice.

The simulacrum had thought that a hero had arrived on the scene until he looked for the voice only to see a seventeen-year-old girl in a red and black sailor uniform with medium height and mid-length dark-blue tinted hair with a single left-swept red highlight on her bangs.

While it was rare to have dual-colored hair even in this day and age, her eyes were her most exotic feature, they had light purple irides with a ripple pattern that spreads over her eyeball.

What was truly important to Revenant however was that the girl was standing where the boy once was.

This confused him since his sensors hadn't picked up anyone in the area beside him and the boy and it still didnt. Which meant that if his sensor were to be trusted the boy and the girl are the same.

Was the boy a dual quirk user? Unlikely. The boy had used a light quirk earlier and the machine doubted something as unrelated as gender-switching or shapeshifting would come as a secondary quirk to light one. Which meant this girl was probably a manifestation of the boy's quirk and was manipulating light to appear as it is. A schoolgirl.

To the simulacrum programming, this roughly translated into killing the girl to kill the boy. Revant was going to get ready to do such a thing when he realized two important details. One, he was going to be late for the randevu with his clients, and two, the boy's quirk recognized him as a simulacrum.

The only people that know what he was classified as were his creators and his current client. The boy couldn't possibly be either which meant his parents or guardians probably were connected to the Simulacrum project or the boy was somehow connected to his client.

Either way, killing the boy now was out of the question, and since he was going to be late and possibly exposed to others if they kept fighting it was time to call it quits. He knew the boy's face and that was enough to find him again. So without further ado, Revenant pulled himself from the wall and began his retreat.

"Tch, don't think this is over skin suit," the simulacrum said as its body became completely enveloped in what looked like black smoke before disappearing in an orange blur.

"Yeah, I don't think so. Bansho Tenin!" Stella was not about to let what she knew to be a very deadly and immortal murder bot run loose especially after it had just promised to come back for her brother.

She was going to capture and trap it so that if it's like the original couldn't transfer to a new body unless the current one was destroyed.

"Gah," the groan of the simulacrum could be heard from the opened manhole as the concrete beneath Stella's feet bulged and cracked but did not give way.

"Looks like I need to put more power into these bad boys." Stella began to defy gravity, rising high into the air. Facing her palm towards the bulge in the ground she put more power into Bansho Tenin.

The effects were nearly instant, the ground exploded into rock and metal debris, and the simulacrum shot toward Stella while doing random twists and turns in the air. As the simulacrum got close to arm's reach she produced a black rod and skewed it through the chest inciting a pained scream from the simulacrum.

"Did you really think I was going to let you pull off your little disappearance act right after threatening my br- host?" Stella questioned with a hint of amusement in her voice.

"Hehehaha, no but I certainly didnt expect you to be able to stop me," the simulacrum replied also sounding very amused despite the situation. "Names Revenant, but I'm sure you already knew that didnt you?"

"Stella..." She responded curtly. "Gotta say, I expected you to be a little more, I don't know moody, after getting caught. The Kaleb Cross I heard about was a bit of a sour loser."

Revenant's robotic pupils dialed rapidly at the sound of his real name being used before setting down and addressing the quirk holding him captive.

"Normally I would be, but today has been a very good day. You see. First, I find out a client of mine has something that I've been looking for for a very long time. Then I find out my new job is basically protection duty with my favorite pass time on the side. After that I find the missing link to a trail gone cold, and lastly..." His voice gets deeper as he stares straight into Stella's purple-ringed eyes. "You let me buy time." Revenant once again disappeared in a puff of black smoke but this time with no blur. He was just gone.

Stella thought it was just another short-range teleportation trick like what he used before. But when she stretched out her senses she didnt feels him. Since her sensing capabilities in Izuku's boy were around five kilometers it would seem that he was long gone.

"Dammit, I thought he was going to monologue about his evil plan or something not buy time. I should have just dropped him off in a hammerspace when I got my hands on him." Stella briefly considered using more power to find and go after him but decided against it since that would mean putting Izuku's body in danger.

Stella descends to the ground and drops the bounded field around the area that stopped people from wandering close to the fight. She taps into another one of her powers and began repairing the surrounding damage from the attack she lunched.

"But seriously, Revenant huh? This timeline is getting weirder by the day." When she finished her musing she also finished her repairs. She teleports home and stops her possession of her brother to make preparations to double his dream training and rid him of his trauma. It wouldn't do for him to freeze again in a battle.

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Authors note: Next chapter is the entrance exams! Yaay, finally right? I know the way I brought Revenant into the story is ass but I was pressed for time and the story needed to move on already. Hope it wasn't too bad.