Chapter Text
Volume 1: Origins
It happened when I was in class.
The kid sitting in front of me was a butthead, yet I had to deal with the little kiddies anyway. His quirk was gross, but I couldn’t do much about it. He had these nasty little tubes that stuck out of his neck and he would shove toilet paper in there to shoot spitballs at people and today, he decided that it was my turn to rat him out to the teacher. He had gotten quite good at getting away with it.
I wiped the nasty wad of wet paper off of my forehead and took a deep breath. I hadn’t cared much for kids before reincarnating, but now I detested the little fuckers, stuck with them day in and out. For some reason, today my usual adult-level emotional control wasn’t kicking in. I stared at the back of his neck, watching him fail to suppress his giggles. I felt a heat rise inside me, like lava in the back of my throat only it took me a moment to realize it wasn’t heat, it was anger.
I was angry, no, angry was an emotion that could be used casually, no I wasn’t angry. I was fucking apoplectic! I stood up suddenly, startling the class and knocking my desk onto the floor. I had felt very angry before, but nothing from even my past life came anywhere near to this level of anger. A hatred that was coming from absolutely nowhere and was directed at everything. The heat kept building up.
“Enmaou!” I barely heard my teacher call out in a panic as my uncontrollable rage was completely consumed by the roaring inferno in my chest. I spat out burning green fire, my clothes burned, the floor burned, suddenly, what had felt like the most overwhelming hatred I’d ever felt raged even higher. They weren’t emotions, it felt like I was being torn apart from the inside.
“WEAK FLESH!!!” A bone rattling voice screamed inside my skull as I felt a scream of agony tear from my throat. All I could see was fire. I looked down to see that the elementary schoolers were huddled in the corner of the classroom, hiding behind my teacher.
“PATHETIC TRASH!!! I WILL ENJOY GRINDING THEIR BONES IN MY TEETH!!!” The voice raged in my skull again. I took a deep breath of heat, hatred, anger, and more vile emotions I could only guess at. My gaze locked onto the children as I felt the monster begin to exhale. The sickly green flames spilled from the sides of my maw. I was too big for the room now. I watched, almost in slow motion as the torrent of flame started to focus through my front teeth, starting to compress into a jet of fire. The entire room was ablaze, the wallpaper, even the linoleum was curling in the face of the heat. The children’s clothes were on fire.
I snapped my head to the side and burst through a window and into the empty playground. The fire leapt from my mouth as I unhinged my jaw and tensed my diaphragm so that instead of a jet of green flames, it was more of a roiling wave of thick fire that spilled from my maw and flash boiled the asphalt. It almost seemed to crawl under its own twisted intelligence as it sought out anything it could destroy. The air smelled of sulfur and brimstone.
“FILTHY WRETCHED MEAT!!!” The voice in my head raged. My clawed fists slammed into the ground, shattering it and sending globs of burning asphalt alight with sickly green flames in all directions.
“I WILL KILL EVERYTHING!!!!” It screamed in my head as my neck twisted behind me and over my elongated body to face the classroom. Burning hatred filled my chest, yet before the fire spilled forth again, I turned my head to the sky and belched an enormous fireball. Unfortunately, unlike normal fire it didn’t burn itself out, but instead exploded like a green firework and sent burning flames everywhere. I had lost my sense of scale, unsure of how far the fire was spreading, my quirk having begun to enlarge my body to the size of a small bus, lengthening it and covering my skin with black scales. I could even see long, thick whiskers grow from my elongated snout.
“YOUR WEAK BODY BELONGS TO ME, MEAT, I WILL KILL EVERYTHING AND PLUNDER WHATEVER REMAINS!!!” I struggled, twitching this way and that, thrashing on the ground as we fought each other for control. This was either caused by a villain or I had awoken the worst quirk I had ever heard of. I lost track of time, finally managing to stop the creature when it tried filling our chest with burning hatred. Much of it still managed to spill out and now formed a frothing, bubbling mixture of thick green flames and white hot lava that we were rolling around in. It was only when I felt something push back against the flames that we stopped our fight to look around.
Everything that wasn’t on fire was covered in bubbles. I must have been struggling for several minutes because aside from the massive column of smoke rising around me, there was a wall of foam pushing up against the edge of the lava pool we had formed. I suddenly burst forwards, straight into the foam before I could course correct. Our massive body parted the foam easily to finally see the… washing machine thing. Even the monster was caught off guard, mouth half open in preparation to breathe fire, but instead of filling our mouth with burning hatred, the hero blasted a high pressure jet of foam directly down our throat.
Our reaction was instantaneous, the burning hatred entered our chest while I was still choking on foam and I didn’t have the focus to stop it. The sound was horrendous, like a high pressure, shrieking, projectile vomit, but less than a second later, boiling steam and green fire blasted out of our mouth and completely overpowered the foam jet the hero had been shooting us with. If ever there was a situation that needed a hero, it was this one. The only question that remained was if they could save me from the monster in control of my body.
Once again, just as I was adjusting to the situation, the monster lunged into the foam, intent on tracking down the foam blasting hero. Our senses were so highly tuned now that we could both hear exactly where the hero was inside the wall of foam. A jet of foam pushed our head to the side before it could clamp down on the metal box, but our tail followed up with a whipping motion and I could feel the metal bend around our tail for an instant before the scrap metal slammed into a house and nearly took the whole roof off with it. We instantly lunged at it and suddenly, the metal was between my jaws, caught in a way that sent the foam straight up, rather than inside our mouth.
“DIE FILTH!!!” The creature raged in my head while I felt the hatred start to build. I was barely able to hold it back, but the moment I stalled was enough. One second we were crawling over a house with a washing machine in our mouth, then the next second our neck was nearly snapped in half. The hit carried us away and I belatedly realized that we had let go of the metal box. Pain tore through us like a hot knife through butter.
“KILL, KILL, KILL, FILTH DARES RESIST MY DESTRUCTION!!!” The monster screeched with indignation as we finally came to a stop and pulled ourselves out of the furrow we’d dug through the street outside my elementary school. It was the monster more than me that lifted itself out of the ditch. Green flames were not only leaking out of our mouth now, they licked at our black, glossy scales. We had grown nearly twice our size, but the growth had stopped and we were now nearly as thick around as a small car and far longer than I could estimate.
“Woah, he got bigger!” A voice shouted. We looked down and I saw a singed and soapy high school girl, holding a battered and dented washing machine. The monster finished rising and wasted no time in lunging towards the girl only for her to leap away with the washing machine so fast our eyes could barely keep up. It took me a second to register the bunny ears and her dark skin, but there was no doubt in my mind that it was Mirko, the Rabbit Hero.
“I WILL KILL THIS MEAT AND IF IT SURVIVES, I WILL DEFILE IT UNTIL IT BREAKS!!!” The voice suddenly erupted from our mouth. Shaking the ground around us so harshly that the building that had withstood one hit from us finally collapsed. It leapt into the sky, flames carrying us as if we were swimming through water. It turned its highly tuned senses towards the faint trail of bubbles coming up from where Mirko had escaped with the box.
Burning hatred filled my chest, more deep and endless than before, then a moment later the monster spat an enormous torrent of burning green fire out, but it was met by a wall of giant bubbles which easily popped, however, they did manage to keep the fire from spreading past the elementary school. The monster roared in anger and dove down into the mass of bubbles. We almost reached the growing foamy mass, but the creature jerked its head to the side at the last moment as we both heard the rapid popping noises of Mirko leaping through the wall of bubbles. We were able to avoid a full on hit, but her outstretched arm caught us under the chin and knocked our head back, allowing her to spin and slide into the foam again.
Our chest filled with burning hatred, but the fire was too slow to release before the rabbit hero burst out of the foam wall again and drop kicked us with her full might. The attack sent us reeling back, but the fire burst from our maw in a shower of angry green. The monster wasted no time in smashing our head into the spot where we heard Mirko’s feet touch for a second, but we could see out of the corner of our eye that we just barely missed her. The shrapnel from our attack managed to knock away a lot of the bubbles and the falling fire helped as well. Once again, our body shot after her and this time I could tell we had caught her off guard as she leapt away a fraction of a second too late. We smacked our nose into her legs, causing her to spin and it was only luck that caused the follow up tail whip to miss her head.
Our momentum was enough to carry us past her, but we turned around in time to shoot forward again. We were barely a car’s length away from her as she was rolling over to regain her footing, but instead of snapping our jaws around her it was instead a huge spike of concrete that stabbed into our mouth and speared us into the air. An instant later, the bunny girl was nearly galloping on all fours up the spike even while we were being launched. Her face was alight with a bloody, but ferocious smile as she tore her way up the growing pillar. Then with a brief spinning front flip, she landed feet first on our nose and smashed us straight down through the pillar and the twenty or so meters of air before landing in a coiled heap.
“KILL, KILL, KILL ALL OF YOU!!!” The pain was too much. I couldn’t think at all or try to reason with the screaming being of hatred. Green fire exploded from all around us and through our mouth and nose holes as I could hear the shattered bones in our head snap back into place. It didn’t take long to fill our crater with green fire and shortly after that, the monster rose from the pool of roiling flames, regenerated and full of even more hatred. Upon exiting, we were able to now see the preparations the heroes had made around us.
A growing cylindrical wall was being built around us, most likely Cementoss, and I could see that foam still covered most of the area that wasn’t burning with green fire. Then there was another. A small blaze of fire alighted on the edge of one side of the wall. Endeavor. The monster stilled for a second before absolutely freaking out and spewing fire all over the place.
“THERE IS ONLY ONE KING OF HELL!!!” It screamed and moved so fast I could barely register the distance that passed between us and him. A green torrent of fire spat from our mouth as he held his hands out before him, swirling with orange light. Our two jets of flame met and exploded on contact while we continued to fly towards him. We followed him as he was blasted into the sky by our jet of fire. However, by the time we were hundreds of meters in the sky I finally realized that we hadn’t actually blasted him away. He had turned his flame into a cone and used it as a cup to catch our jet and use it to fly above us. Once again, the monster freaked out and blasted fire everywhere almost as if it were throwing a tantrum.
Endeavor used some of his fire to blast down towards us and shoot us with a bright flame jet, but our scales were as unburnt as his skin was, though it did seem like his outfit had a few burn spots on it. The monster then used its flight to shoot towards Endeavor, aiming to crush him with our powerful jaws, but he easily dodged to the side with his fire and kicked off of our head to gain more air time. This repeated several times before the creature stilled and watched as Endeavor struggled to remain in the air using his flames.
“WEAK FOOLISH TRICKERY SHALL NOT SAVE YOUR KIN FROM MY DEVASTATION AND VIOLATION!!!” The creature looked below to see that the surrounding area was completely wrecked with foam and concrete walls.
“If you’re in there boy, you’d better shut your quirk off!” Endeavor shouted.
“THE WEAK MEAT SHALL NEVER AGAIN CONTROL THIS POWER OF MINE!!!” The monster roared before darting off to the side, opposite Endeavor, but it clearly underestimated the number 2 hero because we soon collided with a wall of fire. Though it had no hope of burning us at all, it still somehow managed to knock us down enough for another concrete spike to shoot up and block our escape. The creature tried to slither around the spike with its snake-like body, but the spike exploded into a fractal that managed to trap our head long enough for Endeavor to slam into our body and knock us deeper into the bowl of concrete. Endeavor wasn’t nearly as strong as Mirko, but it was enough to send us back into the pit. The monster raged and began to spew a thick torrent of fire that seemed unending.
It must have decided to try burning everything since the heroes were turning out to be too quick for us. Endeavor flew straight into the pool of green fire, his own red flames clashing and exploding on contact. He bowled straight through and hit us in the body, but it wasn’t enough to stop the spewing flames. He tried a couple more times to use his flames to manipulate the green fire, but despite the splashes he was making, he wasn’t able to deal any damage to us. After a while he retreated, giving the monster time to swim around in the frothing green, fiery lava while it seethed in impotent rage. Its thoughts were an incoherent broiling tirade, though it only saw fit to growl and snarl, unsure of how to breach its prison.
I knew it was only a matter of time until All Might showed up and ended the monster utterly. In any other case, Endeavor would have likely been enough on his own, but our matching immunity to flames meant we could duke it out for hours without him doing any real damage to us. At the same time, so long as he was around, we weren’t going anywhere. Eventually, much to my surprise, it wasn’t All Might, but something entirely different that caused our downfall. An unholy, nails-on-chalkboard screech echoed through the bowl and the monster peered out of its boiling lava soup to spot an orca themed hero that seemed to be making the sound.
The noise increased and I barely registered the concrete bowl growing around us before the screech became so powerful and painful that I could no longer think. I knew we were writhing around in agony, but I could not have said for how long. At some point, the screech exploded to such an instantaneous crescendo that even the creature’s rage became silent and I finally lost consciousness.
— — —
“Good grief.” Sansa said as he tied the police tape around a tree on the other side of the street from where he started. He was pretty sure someone was going to have to swing by the station to pick up more tape cause he’d already had to track down other officers just to get more.
To think that all of this was caused by some twerp that was probably sitting in his class, picking his nose only a few hours ago. Sansa hadn’t seen it himself, but the kid supposedly transformed into a 20 meter long black serpent dragon, complete with horns, whiskers and mane. Quirks were scary a lot of the time and downright terrifying on occasions such as this. He thumbed his bell and thanked his lucky stars that he hadn’t gotten a freakish quirk like the one that did… all of this. He looked over and saw a group of heroes congregating on this side of the cordon. To be fair, the cordon was so large that even if a huge group came to see it, there were still several streets left without anyone to gawk. He looked to his right and saw the alleyway that needed to be taped off, then one of his ears twitched.
“Still waiting for the heat to dissipate. Laser thermometer says it's 950 degrees down there.” Sansa knew he should get moving, but… well, he’d been busy all day. He peered around a half burnt tree and spied the colorful group. With them was senior officer Tsukauchi who was likely going to become a detective soon, especially with how confident the guy was when talking to powerful heroes like this. Surrounding him was the new hero Cementoss, Gang Orca, and some high school girl with bunny ears who he’d never seen before.
“Is it safe to leave him in there?” The girl asked.
“Endeavor is watching over him as he shrinks. If he gets hurt by the temperature, he’ll be brought to safety.” Cementoss said in his usual calm demeanor.
“You, on the other hand, shouldn’t be here.” Gang Orca said.
“Like hell I shouldn’t, I saved Wash!”
“There’s no need to raise voices.” Cementoss said, raising his hands in supplication towards the girl which Sansa doubted would help much with an angry teen.
“If I didn’t help, even more people would have died!”
“There have been no reported fatalities so far.” Tsukauchi said, interjecting into the conversation in a way Sansa knew he never could.
“While we’re all grateful that you chose to help-” Cementoss was interrupted.
“Don’t you start with me on that bullshit, I may not be licensed yet, but I’ve been at this as long as you have!”
“Which is the problem, miss…” Tsukauchi said with a pen and pad in hand.
“Tiger Bunny!” The girl said harshly.
“And what were you doing here, Tiger Bunny?” Tsukauchi asked.
“Oh, so now I’m the one being interrogated after stopping some maniac villain?”
“Actually, the school reported that one of the teachers witnessed a boy transform in the middle of class.” Cementoss said, derailing the girl's angsty tirade before it could start. Sansa had heard more than his fair share of edgy teens chomping at the bit to fight crime as if it were some sort of deranged blood sport and he was only 23.
“Are you telling me we just beat up some kid?” Tiger Bunny said, incredulous.
“Some kid who set fire to several blocks and gave hundreds of innocent bystanders 3rd degree burns.” Gang Orca said calmly. The 4 were silent for a moment and he could see the girl scuff her foot against the ground, having obviously lost her shoes during the fight. In fact, the girl’s school uniform was pockmarked with burn holes and was otherwise wet.
“To be fair to him, Endeavor made an attempt at negotiation-” Cementoss paused when Gang Orca loudly scoffed.
“That would be a first.” He said.
“Hey, the place was completely wrecked by the time Endeavor got here.” Tiger Bunny said.
“Yes, he did make an attempt at negotiation,” Cementoss said again, pausing to see if anyone else wanted to interrupt, before continuing, “but from the sound of it, the boy wasn’t in control at all.”
“An uncontrollable quirk,” Gang Orca said, “and one so powerful too, very troubling.”
“Is that common?” Tiger Bunny asked.
“No,” Tsukauchi said, “It’s very rare, but extremely dangerous when it does happen. When I joined the force, about 6 months in there was another one of these.”
“Gasplosion.” Gang Orca said darkly.
“Yeah, when we got there everyone was already dead, including the kid whose quirk awakened.” Tsukauchi said, pausing to take a deep breath. “Which is why we should all consider it a miracle if no one actually dies.”
“I’ve just been informed that Recover Girl was flown in.” Cementoss said.
“Small mercies.” Gang Orca said.
“Alright,” Tsukauchi said, turning back to Tiger Bunny, “hey, don’t give me that look. We can overlook your quirk usage if- If!” He shouted, interrupting the girl before she could speak. “If you come down to the station and give a full report. No, this isn’t an interrogation, it’s police procedure and you’ll have to do it one way or another if you want to be a real hero.”
“Ugh, fine.” She said in a disgusted tone that only teenagers could get away with. Sansa also noticed that the girl had lost a lot of her spunk once she heard the kid wasn’t a normal villain.
“Do you go to UA?” Tsukauchi asked.
“Hell no!” She shouted.
“Wrong uniform.” Cementoss said.
“Then what are you doing here?” Tsukauchi asked.
“Looking for a figh-” She interrupted herself. “Family. Yeah, I was… visiting family?” She said with a fake smile.
“I’m sure you were and what about you?” Tsukauchi asked, turning to look directly at Sansa whose heart leapt into his throat. “Aren’t you supposed to be putting up the police tape?” Sansa lept out into the open and snapped a crisp salute.
“Yes, sir.” He shouted, before realizing that Tsukauchi was waiting for an explanation for why he was snooping. “I ran out of police tape. Again.” Tsukauchi rolled his eyes and reached into a large pocket on his tactical cargo pants, then pulled out another roll which he threw at Sansa. Sansa caught it after only fumbling once.
“Get back to it then.” He said and Sansa quickly turned to the alley way. While he didn’t have any outrageous talents like the heroes, he knew he was at least better at lying than a teenager. He got back to work taping off the rest of the street, finally running into a few bystanders who had converged on the giant crater in the middle of town. Heroes were flashy and cool, he’d be the first to admit that, but working with the police he had a first hand account of how scary it was. He thumbed his bell again and thanked his parents for the reasonable quirk they had given him.