86

Chapter 86: Parasite

A/N: And here we all go, the moment you've all been waiting for! Mind bending physics and nonsensical factors coming right up; I hope all of you are ready! (Also, massive Worm spoilers ahead! (But in that case, what the heck are you even doing here in the first place?)

He woke up.

It was different this time, however. Izuku could tell.

Something was off.

And then it hit him — he was flat on the ground, rather than his usual inclined, upwards position. His restraints were around his wrists, his ankles, or his forehead. He was free.

His eyes fluttered open to a vast, open blueness. Fractals of all kinds seemed to just… exist. Floating, twirling, swirling effortlessly through the endless expanse above him. Myriads of reds and greens and pinks and oranges and purples and apricot and gold and maroon and cyan and and on and on and on and on and—

Izuku shook his head, closing his eyes in one quick motion. He took in a slow and steady breath, taking time to breathe and clear his head.

In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. In.

And now, it was time to figure out what the heck he had gotten himself into this time.

He slowly lifted himself off the ground, taking care to keep his eyes away from the swathing stretch of space above him. He then took a moment to stretch, taking note of the absence of any of the aches or pains he had expected to feel after his long stay on Garaki's operating table.

But that was something to worry about later. He needed to figure out where he was. And so he closed his eyes, and reached out.

…

No bugs. Izuku sighed.

He had expected the response, of course. Though he was hopeful that his power still being lost wasn't the case, it was an unlikely hope to have, really.

He opened his eyes and looked around properly for the first time. His eyes scanned the environment, looking for anything that may have been of interest. But the land was barren, nearly featureless except for the artificial-looking struts jutting out from the ground at random angles.

Even the ground seemed unnatural, Izuku pressing his feet down on the oddly firm, yet squishy metallic-blue surface. He was suddenly wondering if there were even any bugs around him — let alone any sign of life.

Still, he thought, it's better than being restrained and experimented on by the crazed doctor who single-handedly designed and created nomus… Or it is for now, at least.

He supposed it was time to start walking.

He didn't know how long it had been since he had woken up. Time just seemed to… flow, in this place that he had found himself in. And from Izuku's observations so far, the idea wasn't all too far fetched.

Physics in general seemed to be nonexistent; at times he almost seemed to float off the ground, and the sensation would end just as abruptly. Sometimes with a gentle touch, other times with enough force that it seemed as if gravity had increased ten-fold.

He was just about ready to give up — that is, until he heard a familiar voice echoing in his ears.

"Sorry about the wait, Izuku. I know that it's been… what's it been? Two hours? It would have felt longer than that, but it was necessary."

"QA?" Izuku asked the air, looking around at the barren landscape for the origin of the voice. For once it wasn't being translated through a swarm of bugs, or echoing around as thoughts in his head. QA's voice was crisp and clear, and felt as if it was being whispered from right beside him.

"No use trying to find me the ways things are — look, I'll make it easier on you. Just follow the path I'm setting up, alright? Just take up any memory to enforce it for me, will you?"

"Memory?" Izuku called out. "What is that even supposed to me?"

Before a response could be given, the environment began to shift, the entire expanse changing right before Izuku's very eyes. Pieces of the ground raised themselves up, forming walls around Izuku's person and entrapping him into a large trench.

But the terrain continued to shift even further, the endless sky above disappearing as the material of the ground blocked it from view, the trench effectively becoming a cave and engulfing him in darkness.

But there was one final change — the walls turning stark white, tiled floors replacing the featureless blue floor. Flickering lights flooded the place to enable Izuku to see, revealing areas in the hallway that were damaged by scotch marks, and furniture and lab materials tossed around all over the place.

"Really?" QA's voice floated through the air, a blend of amusement and distaste highlighting the words. "Cauldron's base? Did you really have to feed off of that one?"

Izuku looked at the destruction of the peerless halls in confusion. "... I still don't understand what I did?"

"No matter... Though, you did name yourself Dragonfly though. It's almost fitting." QA let out a small sigh. "It doesn't matter for now, Izuku. Just keep walking forward; you'll reach me in a bit. We can talk like this until you get there; what do you say?"

"Not like I have a choice," Izuku muttered, dragging his feet forward.

"So what is this place, exactly?"Izuku asked. "And what was that thing about me choosing a memory?"

"In short?" QA asked. "What you see around you was what the base of Cauldron looked like when I myself visited it. As for who Cauldron is — was? Well… think of a secret organization that manipulated world events from the shadows. They did some rather… unkind things for what many could have argued was for the greater good. Let's just say that the people who suffered the worst from Cauldron's actions found their secret base and raided it."

"But that's probably what you wanted to hear, right?" QA asked. "You're not actually within Cauldron's base; you're in a memory of it. As to why? Well, it's a change from that blue wasteland, is it not?"

"But I've got the feeling that it's essentially the same thing," Izuku guessed.

"And you'd be correct," QA confirmed. "It's a necessary precaution. Even now your mind is still adjusting to this place; thing is, it won't properly sync up for years. And we don't have that kind of time, so I'm maintaining a few safeguards to make sure you don't go insane by merely seeing the alien nature of the Queen Administrator."

"The… Queen Administrator?"

QA hummed in agreement. "It's likely that it— she — Whatever. Likely you wouldn't have gone braindead, if not be subsumed completely. Or, your head might have simply blown up due to all the power coursing through it. I haven't been able to test that though, so…"

"I hope it stays that way," Izuku grumbled.

"It will. I'll make sure that it won't touch you."

"What's with all this 'she' and 'it' stuff?" Izuku questioned. "And 'Queen Administrator?' That's what 'QA' stands for? I thought it was just an alias for your actual name?"

QA — of the voice, Izuku wasn't sure what to call it anymore — chuckled. "Not even close. But, if you really must know… Well, I'm ready for you, Izuku. Walk right through."

The hallway shrunk, it's endless nature ceasing to be as a pair of doors appeared before Izuku with a thud. Izuku jumped back at the unexpected arrival, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process.

"Come on Izuku. We don't have all day — we're working on borrowed time as is. Hurry it up."

Izuku walked through the door, and he found himself in a room. It was an enormous room, though the room itself wasn't what caught Izuku's attention. Rather, it was the unfathomable crystalline structure above him. An interconnected web of crystalline structures folding and unfolding like a tesseract in motion, thinking and evolving and thinking all on its own.

"You recognize it, don't you?"

Izuku jumped, breaking out of his thoughts by the voice that had appeared right beside him. He turned towards it, and much to his surprise, the voice wasn't as disembodied as it was before.

Standing beside him was a young woman. She was a bit taller than him, her thin frame and black hair being some of her more predominant features. She had a pair of glasses on her face, behind which held two inquisitive eyes.

Izuku blinked, settling down as he took in the individual before him. It was only then that he noticed her right arm missing, a covered stump taking its place.

"Nice to finally meet you face to face, Izuku." The woman offered her left hand towards Izuku. "You can call me Taylor."

Izuku slowly took the offered hand, shaking it tentatively. Before long the greeting ended, Taylor turning and gesturing to follow.

"So, I'm sure that you have many questions. I'll try to get the more obvious ones out of the way. First things first, you've noticed the ease of which this place can change on a whim. It's because we're in your mind. Well, a part of your mind that's currently acting as a gateway, anyways."

"And I'm guessing this has to do with the… Corona Pollentia thing, right?"

Taylor nodded, pointing a finger upwards. "That little node on your brain is what connects you to the Administrator up there. She's the thing that provides the capacity and capability for your power to exist in the first place."

[Greetings].

Izuku's head began to ache, a plethora of thoughts pouring into his mind. But before it could hurt him any further, the pain receded.

"What did I tell you?!" Taylor shouted, facing the structure above them. "Relay everything through me!"

Taylor let out a grunt of irritation before facing Izuku once more. "Sorry about that. She can be a bit of… a bitch."

The crystalline structure above flashed a myriad of colors, and Taylor let out a sigh. "Yeah, yeah." Taylor shook her head, before once more planting her full attention onto Izuku.

"Right. So, to keep things short. You're here because that doctor up in the living world messed a bit with your connection. Though, to be honest, normally nothing would have happened with a normal human messing around with it. I'd know, considering Shaper was involved last time around..."

Izuku narrowed his eyes. "What happened to cause such a reaction then?"

Taylor shrugged. "I did."

"Of course," Izuku sighed, rolling his eyes.

"I've been telling you about it for quite some time, you know," Taylor argued. "It's not like this came out of nowhere."

"Oh? Really? Does it involve that big project that you're working on that you keep using as an excuse to not talk to me?"

"It does actually. And the Doctor actually helped speed up the process, so... I'm not necessarily complaining. You'll understand its importance later, of course. And before you ask, it'll be easier to show you than to explain it, so you'll have to wait until then."

"And how long will that be?"

"When it's ready," Taylor provided. "Until then…" she tapped a finger to her chin a couple times. "How about some advice?"

Izuku's expression fell flat. "But I hate your advice."

Taylor smirked. "Too bad, you don't have a choice in the matter. Now hold on tight; smooth conversions are only for when we have time, after all."

Before Izuku could argue back, his vision pulled away from him, the room shifting once more. Before long he was shot back into place, a distinct feeling of whiplash signifying the end of the traversal.

Once his vision came back, he found himself in a decently sized loft, once obviously well lived in if the disarray of pizza and papers meant anything.

"Welcome to the Undersiders' base of operations," Taylor announced, appearing beside Izuku.

Izuku gave her a sideway glance, only to then focus back on the room at large as several figures suddenly appeared, fading in from nothingness around a table.

"Feel free to walk around; this may be the memory of us planning a heist on one of the city's banks, but it's still just a memory in the end."

"You still haven't said why we're here, you know," Izuku said. He took up Taylor's advice though, and approached the table. He eyed the five individuals who were conversing, among them a much younger and less battered Taylor.

"I was still under a self-imposed undercover mission at this point," Taylor reminisced. "I was planning on ratting them out, you know? To turn them in to the authorities once I figured out who their boss was."

"But you grew attached."

"They helped me out during a rough time in my life," she admitted. "They became my friends — and eventually the only people I could put my trust in. When I wasn't defending the people in my territory, when I wasn't working to stop the end of the world, I had them."

She sighed. "I've had the time to think it over and reflect; I'm fairly certain I was a bit suicidal on my first night out." She cocked her head. "Not sure how much of it was QA, though."

The room shifted, this time without the previous discomfort from before. They came upon a similar scene, with more people this time, but with some noticeably missing.

"Not everybody survived up until the end of course. I hated that I couldn't do anything about it. Here I was, a girl with mere bug control who had done things nobody else had done before. I'd killed people who were virtually untouchable. Creative uses of my bugs made me above the rest in some situations, and that kind of power messed with the way I saw things sometimes. I was a mess more often than I wasn't, and alone I'm pretty sure I would have died long before Scion did his thing."

Taylor walked up to Izuku, looking down to look him in the eyes. "You're likely to fall victim to such a mindset as well. And while I might be here in your head, I'm not the answer to everything. So depend on your friends."

Izuku narrowed his eyes at Taylor. "You've told me this already, you know. What's the point?"

Taylor stepped back, her face taking on a resigned look. "Consider it a reminder. Because with what's coming… you'll need it."

Izuku felt himself being pulled forwards once more, colors and lines filling his vision before he settled down again. When he opened his eyes he found himself and Taylor floating above an oil rig, one filled with a whole bunch of costumed people looking off into the distance.

Taylor began to speak. "This was our first direct attempt at fighting Scion. A mismatched group of some of the world's most capable parahumans. Whether that consisted of the most virtuous heroes or the most despicable villains didn't matter. The threat we were facing was greater than simple degrees of good and evil."

A portal opened up in the sky, a glimpse into another world coming into view. A flying, golden man appeared off in the distance from the portal, shooting beams of light all around. On the oil rig an enormous weapon shot off a beam of energy through the portal, shot forth and collided with the golden man.

"That gun had the capability to launch our Earth's moon out of orbit. It hit Scion full on."

Seconds later, the golden man appeared in the sky above the oil rig.

"He appeared seconds later above us, despite him being on the other side of the planet, on another Earth than ours."

The figure formed a giant sphere of golden light and pushed it down onto the people below him.

"He decimated us. Most of us died then."

The scene pulled away again, and this time Izuku found himself back in the room that held the Queen Administrator.

Izuku shook his head, glaring at Taylor. "I've seen him before, in those weird flashbacks I've had. He's the same one who blew up the entirety of the UK with a single blast."

Taylor nodded. "The very one. He's not a man — he's an alien. One so massive and so powerful that what you're seeing is merely a projection that he's puppeting from several dimensions away. For the sake of your understanding, we'll call him an 'entity.'"

"But then why does it matter to me? He was your villain; and I'm guessing that you beat him, right? So there's no threat of him coming over to my Earth."

"We beat him, but not without enormous losses. That monster went around for days laying siege on however ten to the power of whatever Earths exist. And besides, even if Scion is dead, you've already seen what All For One is capable of, have you not?"

It took a second for the implications of the statement to fully integrate themselves in Izuku's mind. "Are you saying that…"

"That All For One is capable of what Scion can do? No. Well, not yet, at least."

Taylor pointed up to the entity up above. "Queen Administrator here as she is now wouldn't exist if Scion and his kind hadn't created her. None of the powers of my world would have existed if Scion and his counterpart hadn't come to my Earth."

"There aren't any entities like Scion on your Earth though; we've checked — thoroughly. But what's to say that your Earth isn't the start of a new cycle? That All For One is a budding entity? He was able to directly converse with QA here; it was what let me be able to converse with you in the first place. Combined with his ability to take and give powers, it isn't a stretch to call him a nascent entity."

Izuku gulped. "But he's locked up in Tartarus right now."

"Is he?" Taylor rebutted. "Or is he merely waiting? That lab that your in has something growing in it. I can feel it, and it felt oddly similar to what All For One felt like when we had a firsthand experience with him all the way back in Kamino."

"Then what do you expect me to do?!" Izuku exclaimed. "It's like you said, all we can do is control bugs! And maybe crabs and other crustaceans — but even that facet doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things! What good can I do against the villain who put All Might into retirement?! If anything that should be Togata's job, with me playing in support!"

"Togata alone won't be enough, even if he is unlocking the powers of the past users of One For All. All For One is simply too potent as is."

"But then how would you—"

"You're not thinking outside the box, Izuku," Taylor tapped the side of her head. "It may be hard to believe when I say this, but Scion? On a technicality, in the end it was me who dealt the final blow. We would have lost if it weren't for my power."

"Oh?" Izuku growled, exasperated. "Do tell, how the hell did bugs kill something like that?"

Taylor smirked. "The Queen Administrator," she enunciated. "Surely a name like that must mean something, don't you think?"

She opened her mouth to continue, but shut it after a second. narrowed her eyes, her head tilting in the slightest.

Izuku took note of her hesitation. "What? What is it?"

Taylor sighed. "Seems as if we'll have to continue this conversation later. The successor of the King of Cups' shard has arrived within range. And if I'm reading things right, she poses a problem that needs to be solved right at this very instant."

"But—"

"No time." She went to turn, but stopped herself at the last second. She faced Izuku, a soft smile taking over her features.

"You need to wake up. We need to get the fuck out of here now."

She tilted her head. "And I'm sorry, for what I'm about to do. But trust me, it's for your own good. Just try not to get too mad at me this time, okay?"

Taylor turned back around, her back fading off into the distance the last thing Izuku saw before he felt himself being pulled, and his vision and senses blurring into one big giant mess. Like Taylor had said, it was time to wake up.

A/N: And there we go! Mindscape chapter done and over — now, the question is,what did you all think of it?

Fair warning though, this won't be the last of Izuku entering his mind to talk to Taylor; he still has questions, after all.

As for next chapter, what exactly does QA — ahem, sorry — Taylor have in store for everyone's favorite green-haired bug boy? Well, I'm sure that some of you have a clue. For those who don't… prepare.