83

Chapter 83: Lab Rat

A/N: And here we are with the next chapter! Don't have much to talk about this time (well, at least not anything directly related to the story, at least). I would like to mention something else though: Fanart! It's from last week, but nonetheless here it is! Thanks again to my fellow reader who created it! I love it! (Might as well link the first piece of fanart I got as well now that I know how to properly do it. Thanks again Sives!)

twitter i_see_sharks/status/1325626905853353990?s=19

sivesart . tumblr post/186509400103/original-art-for-flight-of-the-dragonfly-by

He couldn't sense his bugs.

It wasn't that there weren't any bugs within his range — nevermind the sheer statistical improbability of such a thing becoming true. No, just by using common sense Izuku could assume that there would be at least thousands of bugs within a three block radius of him.

This was different. It wasn't that there weren't any bugs near him. Rather, he couldn't even reach out to see if there were any bugs in the first place. For the first time in years, the only stimuli he could perceive was coming from his own body.

He was completely cut off, his senses effectively dulled. He hadn't felt this vulnerable since the very first day that he had gotten his powers, and he was only now realizing the net of security that his power had given him.

It was a strange thing to admit, even if it was just in the safety of his private thoughts. His mental state was fundamentally different compared to the other times he found himself in a similar situation.

During his capture and eventual captivity under the League of Villains and All For One, he was worried for all but a minute. At the time, he became aware of the incoming rescue attempt that was literally just a street over.

Even when Reverb lay bleeding out by his side and Kentaro had him by the throat, Izuku still had the sense of safety that came with his bugs. Even with them unmoving due to Kentaro's threats, with them he had a general sense of possible escape routes, locations of potential things to use as weapons if things got out of hand, and the positions of his enemies as they surrounded him.

But right here, and right now? He couldn't sense his bugs, and he was powerless. And, dare he think it, he was scared. In his mind, he was reeling at the realization.

And then he felt it — or rather, he paid more attention this time in order to fully process it. A slight tingling sensation was prodding at his head — had been since the very moment he had woken up.

The sensation was the only thing keeping him from acting out on an impulsive desire to move about. He didn't know the specifications of whatever situation he had gotten himself into, and for all he knew he was being kept in a room full of Nomus.

So he didn't move, and didn't even attempt opening his eyes, for fear of his faith. It left him unable to properly perceive just what he had gotten himself into, sure. However, without opening his eyes he could at least discern for certain that he was strapped down upwards at a slight angle, and that his wrists, ankles, and forehead were being held down by thick metal restraints.

Again, it reminded him of his short time spent with the League looming over his defenseless body. Though, considering Toga's part in his kidnapping, he supposed that the connection made some sort of sense. He supposed that—

He flinched. He couldn't help it. The tingling sensation had taken a sudden turn from light prodding to aching pain. It was gone just as fast as it was sudden, but the damage had been done. He heard a slight shuffle of feet in front of him; whatever or whoever was near him knew he was awake.

"Hey, Doctor." A slight creak of metal had overlaid just as the words were being said, but it wasn't enough to completely muffle it. And it was because of that that Izuku could recognize the voice. And, if anything, he was dreading opening his eyes even more.

"I think the bastard's awake," the voice continued. "I saw him flinch for a moment there."

"Oh, he's awake," a different voice said. The voice was much raspier, tinged with amusement, and seemingly belonged to a much older male.

"The kid's breath had hitched for a second when he woke up from drugs. He even smoothed out his breathing right afterwards in an effort to keep up the illusion of his slumber," the 'Doctor' continued.

"Normally, that may have kept me from figuring out, depending on how good the subject was at keeping still despite my pokes and jabs. In fact, did you know that Midoriya here hasn't moved anywhere near as much as any normal person would in his position? It seems as if some of the perks of his… 'quirk' have bled over to his natural instincts and reflexes. The implications of such are just… gah! I'm rambling again."

The Doctor sniffled. "Fact is, the monitors don't lie, and his brain activity spiked the moment he came into consciousness. There was no hiding the fact that he had awoken."

Izuku felt the man's hand lightly knocking at the side of his head. "You hear that, boy? No sense keeping that charade up. Though, if you do go right on ahead. Not as if I care all too much."

The Doctor was right about that, at least. And at the very least he'd get some bearing of where he was. And so, Izuku opened his eyes.

His eyes immediately took notice of Ruka. If anything she was much more rugged than usual, though if that was by design Izuku was unsure. Her hair was running just past her shoulders — much longer than before — and she was covered in oil stains.

She was sitting in a foldable metal chair, just a few feet away from him. She was playing with a knife in her hands, aimlessly twirling it in her hand. She glared at him when his eyes met hers.

"You are aware that I don't care for any of that, right Doctor?" Ruka asked, her gaze never leaving Izuku's.

"And yet you listen!" The Doctor called out. "It's what makes you a much better guard than the others. The only others who show even a slight interest in my work are Compress and Bombastic, you know?"

Ruka grunted in response. She played around with her knife more, her eyes looking over the gleaming metal in her hands before looking back at Izuku.

"And you're sure that he's completely neutralized?"

"Completely," the Doctor reaffirmed. "You know, he's tried calling out to his bugs seven times already in the past five minutes since he's awoken. The data he's provided so far has been astounding."

Ruka smirked. One of ethereal limbs sprouted out from the floor and took hold of the knife. Ruka herself leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms as the limb tossed the knife a couple times in the air.

And then suddenly, the limb moved. And before he knew it the knife was but mere inches from his face, only stopped in time by another limb that had sprouted out from the platform he was laying on.

He hadn't even seen it coming. With his bugs, tracking the knife's trajectory in the air would have been enough to allow him to dodge. But now… He took a breath. In. Out. In. Out. In—

"Oi, kid," the Doctor barked. "Stop it with the deep breathing, will you? Otherwise you might just find yourself braindead with all the movement it's generating."

Ruka let out a fit of laughter. The limb holding the knife in front of his face moved away and gave the knife back to Ruka, who took the weapon without a second glance.

"Now now, Ruka," the Doctor chastised. "Please try not to harm our guest before he's capable of withstanding such damage, if you will."

"You should've seen the look on his face!" Ruka laughed. "You don't know how long I've wanted him like this. Helpless, and completely under our control with no escape in sight. All the things that I can do with him…"

"And you'll get your turn with him when I'm done," the Doctor said. "Until then, he's stuck with me. Stuck between the horrors of my hand and the uncertainty of the mind."

Ruka rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah." She stood up, her ethereal limbs taking hold of her chair, folding it up, and dragging it off somewhere out of his vision. "I'll be taking my leave then, now that we know for sure that you've got the brat handled."

"Of course!" The Doctor chuckled. "I won't take any more of your time. You go ahead and take Johnny back to the villa. He should be rested enough from last time."

Ruka visibly shivered as she left. "Sure, whatever. See you, Doctor."

An acrid smell filled the air not a moment later, followed by the telltale sound of liquid sludge. It was that warping quirk again; Izuku assumed that whoever Johnny was was the one who held that specific quirk.

"And with Ruka's absence, I'm free to listen to my music!" the Doctor exclaimed. "You wouldn't mind now, would you?"

The tingling sensation on his head disappeared, and Izuku could hear the Doctor's footsteps move further away. It didn't take long before soothing classical notes filled the air. And neither did it take long for the Doctor to come back and continue with his previous machinations, the tingling returning to Izuku's head.

"Ah, the readings here say that you don't mind the music! You like it, even! Glad to know that I can find some company who can appreciate my tastes, at least."

The Doctor continued his work, humming all the while. Izuku took the time to properly look around the best he could. The walls were dull grey and metallic in nature, wires of all sorts running up and down their faces. The overhead lights were dimmed enough to the point that Izuku almost felt like he was in a movie theater. In his peripheral, he could just barely make out some rather tall tubes filled with liquid that bubbled in set intervals.

Putting it all together, Izuku had a vague idea of where he was. And it wasn't looking at all good for his immediate future,

"Why?" Izuku asked, speaking for the first time.

"Why indeed?" The Doctor chuckled. "That's a rather open ended question, Mr. Midoriya. Why don't you narrow it down for me, hmm? Let's start off simple though, and we can work our way up from there."

Izuku took a breath. "Why me?"

"Honest answer? I have some free time on my hands; around a month and a half of downtime while I wait for Shigaraki to be finished. I wanted a side project until then. And I've been itching to get my hands on one of you 'Triggered' individuals, as I've begun to call them. The advent of a quirk in the aftermath of a traumatic event is something never before seen, you know? I'm still debating on whether or not it points towards a new strain of whatever caused quirks in the first place, or if it foretells the onset of my Singularity theory finally coming to fruition."

Izuku furrowed his brows in response. "Your Singularity theory? You mean you came up with the Quirk Singularity Theory?"

"The one and only," the Doctor said, taking no effort to hide the mirth in his voice.

"But that doesn't explain why specifically me," Izuku countered. "There's got to be hundreds of others like me that you could have taken, right?"

"Oh, absolutely! If anything, you were at the bottom of the list just for the fact that you're still a student. After all, as previously seen, abducting kids is a fast way to get the authorities raining down on us."

"But then—

"It wasn't my call," the Doctor interrupted. "Well, that's a lie. It is my call — I am the one in charge of all the stuff down in my lab. That includes all of my experiments. The reason that you're the one that got taken? Well, I was just playing nice with the others. Thought they deserved it after Shigaraki let me work on him."

"What do you mean?" Izuku asked.

"Oh, it's rather simple, really," the Doctor said. "Shigaraki wanted some payback for his hand. Ruka wanted the same for your part in getting All For One stuck in Tartarus. And Toga… well, she wanted you for her crazy fantasies and what not. Caustic was just plain pissed off at you."

"So you're telling me I'm here because the League has a grudge against me."

"Pretty much."

"Of course," Izuku sighed. "Because why the hell not?"

"Hey, cheer up kid! Think of the positives! Don't you know what you're going to get out of this?"

"What?" Izuku scowled. " Like the fact that you're playing around with my brain? That I get to become a Nomu if you continue with your work?"

"Exactly! You get to be the first of many! A true prototype; a progenitor of a new class of Nomu! It'll be splendid!"

"But what makes me so special?" Izuku questioned. "Is it just because I got my quirk differently?"

"Oh, it's much more than that!" The Doctor all but cheered. "I'm sure that you've noticed it yourself, but conventional quirks don't interact all too well with you. I'm certain that Eraserhead's had some trouble neutralizing your quirk in class, hmm? And what about Nighteye? Has he had some troubling reading you?"

Izuku didn't respond.

"Heh, though so," the Doctor chuckled. "Heck, even All For One himself couldn't quite understand what he experienced from you on that night in Kamino. He and I shared a few words before his capture, you know? And when I heard he had some trouble taking your quirk? Well, you can say that's where my interest peaked. I would have gone after one of you sooner if I wasn't so busy perfecting my High Ends."

"You mean like the one that attacked Endeavor? I noticed that it had at least five quirks on it, if I wasn't mistaken."

"Astute observations, Midoriya. One off, though. Hood had Storage, Power, Transforming Arms, Shoulder Mounted Jets, Hyper Regen, and Muscle Augmentation. Quite a mix that I find myself proud of. I'm still mad at Dabi for not retrieving his Hood's body, though."

"And you have more of these… High Ends?"

"Oh, plenty of them. They're… hmm." The Doctor paused. "Say, would you oppose me jumping straight to High End capabilities with you? Usually, I'd just give you one other quirk aside from your own since you're still a prototype, but… I can't stop thinking of the possibilities."

Izuku sighed. "It's not like me saying 'no' matters now, does it?"

"Hah! Very true, child!" the Doctor cheered. "But just imagine it! Your punitive three blocks of control is a real limit to your power. Imagine me equipping you with a range enhancer — one strong enough to allow you to cover a whole city at once! The chaos of it all would be unlike anything we've seen!"

"Or how about some hyper-regeneration coupled with a durable body to rid you of any worries of being knocked out? And how about pores that you could send bugs out of, so you don't have to worry about carrying swarms with you everywhere you go? You'd be able to spawn millions without having to worry about a stray shot taking you down."

"Or maybe even some biokinesis so you can create some unnatural monstrosities of nature, hmm? Flying swarms of army ants, car-sized spiders, or even giant burrowing bugs capable of gnawing through concrete! The possibilities are endless!" The Doctor cackled.

"And the best part? It wouldn't even be all too hard," the Doctor admitted. "I've already run some tests for some of my theories, and as it turns out you're essentially a blank slate. You won't have compatibility problems because your own quirk follows a different set of rules. I could jam you full of several normal quirks and — just like the other High Ends — you'd still be able to retain a higher level of thinking with only half the required effort on my part. I might even be able to double down on you, make you into a supreme breed of Nomu. What do you think?"

Izuku gulped. "That's… nice."

"I'm glad you think so. The more a subject struggles, the more it hurts for them in the end, you know?"

Izuku flinched again; whatever the Doctor was doing suddenly picked up in pace, and the aches of his head grew in intensity.

"Hmm… I thought so. I'm going to have to do more research on this thing before I go any further. Until then… Henry! Cone over here, will you?"

Off to the side, Izuku could barely perceive an excessively stout figure lurch towards the Doctor. It gave out squee, and before Izuku knew it he felt a familiar pressure back over his head. His brain was tucked back into the safety of his skull.

"Thank you, Henry," the doctor said. "That's all for now."

"Squawk!" The figure scampered off right after, still out of Izuku's sight. If he were to guess, it was likely some sort of Nomu with a healing quirk.

"You don't have to have to worry about any infections sprouting up, just so you know." The Doctor stepped around, and for the first time Izuku was able to take a glimpse at the man. Old, short, and with a big, bushy mustache planted right on his face. Izuku frowned, his eyes trailing every bit of the man's features.

"You… I recognize you from somewhere," Izuku said. "I can't place your face, but…"

The Doctor took off his gloves and stood right in front of Izuku. He took a remote out and pressed a few buttons. The first released the clap around Izuku's head, giving him the ability to freely move his gaze around. The second had her operating table moving straight up, giving him a full view of the Doctor's smiling face.

"A lot of my subjects say the same thing," he said. It makes perfect sense, given my position and given occupation. I'll give you the satisfaction of me not saying anything, though. It can get a bit boring down here when I'm not around, so I'll leave you with the conundrum of where you've seen me before in the meantime."

Izuku tilted his head, trying to place the man's face. But he was coming off empty, and he likely wasn't going to get anywhere anytime soon. So instead, he asked another question.

"You mentioned Shigaraki awhile ago. What do you mean you're waiting for him to be finished?"

The Doctor smirked. "Ah, Tomura Shigaraki! My finest creation; my magnum opus! The pinnacle of all my research!" The Doctor gestured his head over to the right. "He's in the next room over, actually. He's undergoing a rather… transformative procedure at the moment. He's going to need a strong body if he wants to be able to contain All For One, after all."

That wasn't good. Shigaraki with One For All? And with All Might out of the picture...

"You can copy quirks?" Izuku asked, rewinding back the exact words of the Doctor. After all, if Shigaraki was getting All For One despite the original being locked away...

The Doctor nodded. "Have been for a couple years. I have a whole library of everything I've been able to lay my hands on over the years. Well, except for yours, at the moment. I've still got to figure out how to copy yours, considering… Well, nothing to pester you about."

The Doctor wrapped his arms around his back and then nodded to Izuku. "I'll be back to feed you later, so don't fret if you're feeling hungry, alright?"

"You're just going to leave me?" Izuku asked.

"Oh, don't be acting all surprised!" The Doctor waved him off. "You've been grilling me for information; think I didn't notice? I told you all of that because there's no way you're getting out of here. Many have tried in the past, and none have succeeded."

Izuku furrowed his eyebrows in disbelief. "Really?"

"One hundred percent certain!" The Doctor cheered. "Besides, it's not like I'm the only one around here." He took out his remote again and pressed a button. A light chime ran through the complex.

"Did you know that individuals who already have quirks can also become 'Triggered' as well?" the Doctor asked. "The phenomenon completely baffles me, of course. Not enough data on the subject."

A shadow fell off the doorway, just off to the side of Izuku's periphery. Izuku turned his head to look, and found a familiar figure entering the room.

Oddly enough, Shigaraki himself has come subject to this occurrence. It happened just after All For One was captured — I only regret not being there to witness it myself!"

The shadowy figure stood behind the Doctor. It was a strange thing to look at, being entirely featureless aside from the general shape of its body. In fact, if Izuku squinted hard enough, he could almost swear that it had the same body shape as All For One himself.

The Doctor gestured to the shadowy figure. "Kaijin-chan here — as I've taken to calling him — is actually a projection made from Shigaraki's subconscious. It's entirely made of the flakes of dust that ensue from usage of Decay. It even shares the same properties of Shigaraki's quirk, projected on every surface of its form, and able to be turned on and off at will. Pretty interesting, don't you think?"

The Doctor turned and began to make his way out of the room. "Of course, I don't actually control him. He formed the moment I placed Shigaraki under and has been wandering around ever since, almost like he's protecting his master."

The Doctor reached the doorway, but took the time to look back at Izuku. "Nonetheless, he'll wander off on his own eventually. But trust me when I say that I'll be quite the challenge to escape with him around. So be a good boy for me, okay Midoriya?"

The Doctor left, and Izuku was left to stare at the giant ashen construct standing completely motionless before him.

Izuku breathed. In. And out. In. Out.

He rested his head against the metal table he was strapped down to, and closed his eyes. He needed to think. There had to be a way out of here. He wasn't going to become a Nomu.

Or so he hoped, at least.

A/N: And there we have it! The first of three(?) chapters I have planned with Izuku being stuck as a lab experiment. Get ready for a rough ride everyone, we're going to be here for a while.