Chapter Text
Chapter 2: Constant Fear
6 May 2018, 15:54
Limansk Hospital, Ukraine
Midoriya Izuku was familiar with pain. Burns and blasts, cuts and contusions; all a normal “consequence” of being born quirkless. Useless. A deku.
But when he had run into that alley, he hadn’t expected the explosion of light and wind. He hadn’t expected to be thrown into an antenna covered in scrap, surrounded by heavily armed men in urban camouflage and gas masks or screen helmets, kneeling on the ground, bowing or twisting their heads and upper bodies reverently. Nor did he expect to suddenly have a curved skeleton blade pierce his right forearm, pinning him to the structure.
The pain was more than anything he’d ever experienced.
“Oh Monolith, by your grace and blessings, we have succeeded in summoning forth the Conduit. In your holy light, your children celebrate the birth of a new era!”
Izuku cried in pain as the man speaking pushed the knife deeper, seemingly cutting into the flesh and metal as though they were butter. Looking up at his attacker’s face, Izuku whimpered, terror squeezing his heart. Through the cracked glass of the man’s gas mask, he only saw blank, sunken, clouded eyes staring back at him, devoid of humanity. Faintly, he registered a buzzing sensation behind his eyes.
“Brothers! We sought salvation, we sought guidance from the Monolith. We searched as dedicated children to restore the glory of the Monolith and we’ve been rewarded! We children are the acting body of our great Monolith. Through the Monolith, we find hope. Through the Monolith, we find life. Through the Monolith, we find purpose.” The preacher grabbed Izuku by his hair and abruptly ripped him away from the structure. The boy wailed in agony as the knife tore apart more sinew in the action, the wound widening and bleeding profusely as the knife and boy were wrenched from the hunk of metal. He choked on his sobs, weakly batting at the preacher's arm as he was lifted into the air by his hair.
Turning, the preacher presented the weakened boy to the dozens of kneeling and praying men, their heads fervently bobbing and spastically twisting. “My brothers, through the Monolith, we have been given our destiny!”
“ЗА МОНОЛИТ!”
Looking through the blurriness of tears, Izuku realized that these men, these fanatics, all shared the same eyes as the preacher. They all spoke the same halting way, moved the same unnatural way, and called for his blood in the same soulless way. He looked upon them and saw neither man nor villain, but in their place were monsters. In his weakened state, rationality was moot as baser instincts took over.
Through the haze of pain and blood loss, Izuku spotted a handgun tucked into a chest holster on the preacher’s armored vest. And in that moment, millennia of evolutionary development took hold as millions of neurons sparked and forced the adrenal medulla to start a hormonal cascade. His body flooded with all these hormones in mere nanoseconds, it was given the only action available to ensure survival. The one thing Izuku had never done before when threatened with danger.
Izuku fought.
With a mighty heave, he swung his legs back and, putting his abdominals to work, he put all his weight and strength into a dropkick directly to the preacher’s head. The man stumbled to the ground, letting the boy drop with a splash onto the surface of the flooded courtyard. With his body now in overdrive, not a second was wasted as Izuku scrambled over to the man and ripped the gun holster off the preacher’s rig, the snaps of the fasteners on the MOLLE strap coming undone echoed through the silence of the ruined hospital courtyard.
It was just as he turned around for a running start that it felt as though time itself had paused. Izuku could not move, he was stuck mid stride. He began to internally panic. Then that buzz he’d felt since he arrived at this strange place erupted into a piercing sensation in his skull. He choked out a gasp of pain before his vision went white.
Suddenly, Izuku was no longer in the courtyard of the flooded and sunken hospital. Looking around frantically, all he saw was a blinding white void. He looked at his hands and with some testing motions, realized he had full mobility and zero sensation despite the knife still stuck in his arm. Izuku avoided looking at it, its invasion with the lack of pain and all the gore made him sick to see and brought him to the edge of a mental breakdown.
“ИДИ КО МНЕ” The void shook as a deep voice thundered.
Izuku jumped in fright, his eyes shifting to every angle looking for the source of the voice. Turning, he froze as, approximately 50 meters away, there now stood a crystal, the center glowed brilliantly in such a way that it resembled a doorway.
“COME TO ME, YOU WILL GET WHAT YOU DESERVE.”
Izuku took a step forward.
“THE TIME HAS COME. I SEE YOUR WISH.”
Izuku took two more steps forward. An image of his mother flashed in his mind.
“YOUR OBJECTIVE IS HERE. COME TO ME.”
Memories of home, of hot katsudon, of a loving hug, of imaginative play. Memories of a big, warm, smile. Three steps forward.
“YOUR WISH WILL SOON BE GRANTED. COME TO ME.”
A large, empowering, reassuring smile. A smile that radiated safety, power, and encouragement. Izuku took half a step. The air was noticeably heavy, and a buzz weighed at the forefront of his brain. This did not feel right.
“YOUR PATH HAS COME TO AN END. YOUR SINS WILL BE ABSOLVED. TOGETHER WE WILL BE GREAT. COME TO ME.”
“No…” It came out as less a whisper, and more a silent breath of air.
Shaking his head, Izuku took a step back. Then another. Then three more.
“I want to be a hero. I want to help people. I want to go home.” Izuku looked into the crystal. There was no humanity to be found.
Raising his hand he declared, “I don’t want to be Deku anymore. I will not be handed anything on a silver platter. Much less so by a talking rock in a strange place. I want to get there on my own terms! I am here, but I will not come to you!”
With that declaration, the world shone a brilliant green. Then… nothing.
7 May 2018, 02:13
Limansk, Zone of Alienation
Izuku woke up, drenched, and very much aware of how cold he was laying on the tile floor.
Looking around he could see that he was in a short hallway, with three doorways that led into separate rooms, their doors missing. The windows were all boarded up and various bits of furniture and decorations lay on the floor, broken and decaying.
“How did I get here?” Izuku whispered in wonder. He sat up, arms supporting his weight in the action, and barely held back a cry of pain as the knife stuck in his right arm reminded him of its presence. Looking down, he noticed a small puddle of blood on the dusty tiles where he laid, and to his left, the handgun, still in its holster, sat haphazardly thrown.
Gritting his teeth, Izuku got up shakily. In the low light he could see that his school blazer was dripping blood from the cuff. Not good. That meant he was still bleeding. Using his left hand, he quickly began to take his belt off, fingers fumbling with the buckle for a moment before he managed to get it undone.
“Thank goodness I watched the Civilian Disaster Aid tutorial the Wild Wild Pussycats made last year.” Izuku whispered, as he made a loop with the belt and passed it down through the buckle making a double loop. He carefully slipped his injured arm through the double loop, making sure to avoid jostling the knife in his forearm. Once he managed to get the belt up to his armpit, he pulled it tight until he could feel his arm go numb. Now he just had to have faith that the stitching of the belt would hold as a makeshift tourniquet.
With the bleeding controlled for the moment, Izuku considered his options.
‘I don’t know where I am, and as much as I’d love to figure that out and how I even got here, I need to find help first. I need to call for help.’
Izuku reached into his pocket for his phone but only found his wallet. His heart dropped. “No!” He frantically checked all his pockets, and even dug through his book bag.
“No, no, no! I can’t find my phone!”
He ran his left hand through his hair. Izuku took a shaky breath.
“Ok, I’m injured, lost, and have no way of calling for help or figuring out who I can trust.” He looked at his right arm. “Alright, I have to elevate my arm, so I need to make a sling.” He fingered his neck tie before shaking his head. “No, it's too short. I have to find something to use for that around here. After that, I need to get out of here and find people who can help me.”
With that decided, Izuku walked over the debris in the doorway next to him. Glancing around the room, he noted that it was once a bedroom, the curtains torn and frayed, and the bed little more than a rusted metal frame with a dirty twin sized mattress and a thin cotton sheet that hung off the edge of the bed. He snagged the bedsheet and used his free hand to twist it into a rope, clenching one end in his teeth, and carefully tied the other end around the wrist of his injured arm. He then tied the end he held in his teeth around his elbow, and slipped his head through the makeshift sling. With caution, Izuku let his arm relax and was glad to note that the way he tied the sling prevented the knife from being jostled by contact with his chest. Satisfied, Izuku stepped out of the room and decided to check the room next door.
It was a bathroom, detritus littered the shower floor, the toilet stained and void of water, and the sink was tiny. The mirror above the sink was cracked but provided a very clear view of just how bad a shape Izuku was in. He looked like he’d crawled through mud and blood, various shallow scratches covered his face, his blazer torn in multiple spots. He fingered a hole in his collar when the sight of a white box with a green cross on it hanging from the wall behind him caught his attention.
He took a step toward it and quickly unlatched it, hoping for some medical supplies to help him with his wound. But all he found was a bulky olive green bag with two pockets. Izuku grabbed it and examined it in confusion. In the largest pocket was a very old looking white rubber gas mask and a green filter. “What’s a gas mask doing in a medical cabinet?” He decided to discard the question in favor of checking the two smaller pockets. Each one held a small orange case with the imprint of a cross on it. Taking one out, Izuku was struck with a sense of familiarity, and upon opening the case, Izuku’s eyes widened in surprise. Inside the case was a small syringe and 8 vials, as well as some accompanying documentation.
“No way!” Izuku breathed in astonishment. The last time he had seen one of these was in his history class, when the textbook covered the Cold War and Soviet means of preparing civilians. Russian made, and distributed en masse to the civilians of the Soviet Union. Soviet. That one word rang through Izuku’s mind.
“How did I end up in Eastern Europe?!” Did he run into someone with a warp quirk in that alley? But that makes no sense! Research has shown that teleportation type quirks aren’t yet able to extend beyond certain ranges, and the furthest recorded teleportation was 80 km!
That aside, Izuku recalled being able to understand the man that stabbed him. How was he able to understand them? This discovery only opened up a whole can of worms that Izuku would love to analyze further in any other circumstance, but given he still had a knife in his forearm, had been bleeding for likely hours now, and seemed to be in some abandoned and derelict part of a former Soviet country… Well he needed to prioritize survival over curiosity.
Izuku eyed the syringe in the case. If he remembered correctly, these things were made specifically to treat any wounds and afflictions bound to occur from a nuclear, chemical, or biological attack. He reached for the syringe, hesitating at the thought of its shelf life and considering whether or not it’s worth possibly screwing himself over, before plucking it out of the case. Turning it over, he noted that he would have to twist the vial on the end of the syringe until the seal on the contents broke. Twisting the vial, he heard a snap, used his teeth to take the cap off the needle and shoved the syringe into the soft flesh of his right arm, quietly grunting as he squeezed the contents into himself.
“I hope I didn’t just kill myself but if it has any chance of relieving the pain, than that’s better than nothing at all.” Izuku muttered, tossing the empty syringe aside. He closed the med kit and placed it back into its pocket in the bag.
Izuku then slipped the bag’s sling over his head and allowed it to hang at his waist, the strap lying diagonally across his chest in an almost reassuring way.
Walking out of the room, Izuku’s foot nudged the handgun he stole from the preacher earlier.
“I don’t want to… But I also have no clue who or what is out there…” His eyes lingered on the gun before he picked it up with trepidation, as though the weapon was in fact a pile of hot coals. Slipping the MOLLE straps of the gun holster through a belt loop on his left hip, he snapped the fasteners shut and regarded the handgun with a wary look. “If anything, I can just use it to scare anything off. As Snipe once said in an interview, ‘better to have a reliable deterrent than nothing at all.’ ”
Izuku decided to check out the last room before venturing outside. Peeking in, Izuku was greeted by the sight of a small dining table, a few overturned chairs, a counter with a stove and sink, and an ancient fridge. It was a kitchen. Pots and pans were strewn about the floor, a couple of plates sat on the table, almost as though someone had been setting the table for a meal, once upon a time ago. And there in the kitchen, opposite the fridge, Izuku could see a door, and beyond that door, were trees and houses. An exit.
He entered the kitchen and began searching the cabinets for anything else he could use. Under the sink, Izuku found three candlesticks and some long wax coated matches, which he promptly stuffed into the gas mask satchel. Checking the fridge, Izuku got a blast of rot and decay. Food long rotten filled the shelves, the smell was so bad Izuku gagged and closed his eyes to keep them from watering. But just as he was about to shut the fridge, he spotted two blue translucent bottles in the door compartments. Grabbing them, he was relieved to see that they were still sealed. Right then, Izuku was suddenly aware of just how thirsty he was, hours without anything to drink or eat becoming apparent in the empty pit in his stomach.
Izuku twisted the cap off the bottle with vigor and lifted the bottle to his lips. What a flavorful and invigorating sip it was, as mineral water flowed freely down his throat. Izuku gulped the water down with gusto, his parched tongue rehydrated and stomach momentarily filled. Dropping the empty bottle on the floor, he placed the other bottle into his book bag.
With one final cursory glance around the kitchen, Izuku was as ready as he could be to leave the condominium. Walking out the front door, Izuku was struck with awe as he took in the large metal structure that loomed over the town.
“Wha-“ Izuku gasped, his breath caught in his throat as the buzzing from earlier returned in full force. The air felt heavy and his vision swam.
Izuku grit his teeth and began to walk down the street, a hand on the wall of the joined houses for support.
Clack
He paused. Looking down, Izuku saw something white but did not dare to pick it up for a closer look. He moved his hand a little bit further down the wall as he stepped over whatever it was he hit. In doing so, he noticed that the wall's texture suddenly felt pocked and bubbled. Turning to look at the wall, he felt his heart skip in shock.
A silhouette. A human shadow burned into the wall.
Looking around, in the light of the full moon, Izuku could see many more human shadows burned into the street and walls of the surrounding houses.
“What’s happened here?” Izuku wondered as tears welled in his eyes. Blinking them away, he continued walking. He had no clue where he was going but he just knew he had to get away from that massive metal grid behind him.
Thirty agonizing minutes of slow unsteady walking, moving around rusted abandoned vehicles and potholes, down the street felt more like an eternity to Izuku. But with every step he took, the buzzing and pressure in his head lessened by a fraction. He eventually reached an intersection, and there in the middle of the road was a barricade. Izuku paid it little mind, determined to keep moving. However, when he sidestepped the metal barricade, he slipped sideways with a yelp. Fortunately, he caught himself by grabbing onto the barricade. With a sigh of relief, Izuku checked to see what it was he slipped on. There in the dark, the light of the moon glinted off multiple small cylinders on the ground. He picked one up and held it up to what little light there was. It was a bullet casing. They were all bullet casings. Dozens upon dozens of them littered the ground. Not only that, but they were unblemished and gunpowder residue was left on Izuku’s fingers as he examined the bronze casing. They were shot recently, given the lack of oxidation and the acrid scent of gunpowder that cut through the air heavy with moisture from recent rainfall.
Izuku could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand up as he filled with dread. This meant there were people nearby, heavily armed and fairly capable. More so, what could require so much ammunition to be expended? Izuku scanned the area nervously. There weren’t any bodies or blood to be seen. Why were there no corpses or evidence of wounded combatants?
He didn’t like this. Izuku strained his ears, hoping to hear something, anything at all. A second passed, yet all he heard were the sounds of crickets and an audible, yet nearly silent, buzz, which Izuku could only guess possibly came from the large metal structure behind him. Just as he sighed in relief, he heard something akin to static in the air around him. Confused, Izuku started twisting his head as he searched for the source of the sound. Then he looked up.
‘What in the name of all that is holy is that thing!’ There above his very head, was a crackling ball of electricity, floating about 30 meters in the air. What’s more, it was growing in size, and that static sound was getting louder. Izuku’s hair stood on end and his instincts were screaming at him to run. So run he did, scrambling to keep his feet under him, as the static began to pick up in intensity, turning into a grating whine. And just as he ran about 10 meters down the road, with a huge clap of thunder, the ball exploded in a flash of white, a wave of electricity discharging outwards, and a bolt of lightning struck the ground right where Izuku had been standing. The ground shook, knocking him ass backward to the floor, and electricity crackled and sparked where the bolt of lightning struck, the metal barricade and bronze casings glowing white and blue with the jumping current for a few seconds before the energy dispersed.
“What the… Holy crap! Holy-! What just freaking happened?!” Izuku hissed, absolutely dumbstruck. For a second, Izuku briefly considered if it was a quirk, but dismissed that idea. There is no one here. So what on God’s green Earth was that thing? Had he not trusted his gut, he’d have been toast, likely dust in the wind. Izuku swallowed, attempting to clear the lump of fear in his throat. Something was up with this place, and frankly, given his experiences so far, he didn’t like it one bit.
Izuku stood up, careful to not mess up his arm any further, though it seemed that the syringe he used earlier was helping to dull the sensation of having something unpleasant inside him now. He looked over his shoulder, peeking back down the road he’d been about to walk to when whatever that thing was appeared. The paved road was coming to an end about another 100 meters down the road to a gate that was ajar, beyond that, he could see a large building. While Izuku was still fairly unsure what he should be doing, where he should be going, his gut was telling him to keep walking, to keep going on through that gate, past all the buildings to come, and leave this wretched, dead place.
So he walked. He walked on through that gate, hugging the concrete walls that extended from the gate, ducking into the bushes when he heard various distant voices speaking in what sounded like French and German. His instincts nudged him to keep moving, that he could not trust them, to stay hidden. So he hid, crawling among the brush past the Sports Center where the voices all seemed to come from, past the collapsed apartment buildings. And when a gurgled roar cut through the air, Izuku’s instincts told him to duck into the storm drain on the side of the road. Izuku jumped right in, operating on autopilot. Now underground, he crawled through the damp tunnel down the street he’d been following, water pooling into his already drenched and filthy sneakers. He flinched upon hearing distant bursts of gunfire and more roars from what he assumed was the base of those foreigners. The gunfire ceased following a multitude of piercing howls and roars, the silence and crickets returning once more, yet he would not leave this drain pipe.
After several minutes Izuku had managed to crawl close enough to what appeared to be an opening. Just ahead, moonlight reflected off the water from openings on the left and right of the pipe he was in. Peeking around the corner, Izuku realized that the pipes opened up into a ditch where the water drained into. Crawling out, Izuku could see that the road he crawled under now led through another gate and into a dirt path that cut through some woods.
He climbed out of the ditch, heels and toes digging into the muddy slope as he slowly and cautiously progressed up to the road.
The walk up the road was quiet save for the abundance of crickets, the distant bursts of gunfire, and indistinguishable cries. Yeah, it really wasn’t all that quiet. The moon disappeared behind the thick canopy of the unruly woods. The mind numbing darkness that seemed to thicken as the road broke apart into a dirt path and the surrounding forest thickened only served to amplify the terrifying ambience.
The roaring silence also brought the one thing Izuku had been wanting to avoid – his thoughts.
‘Where the hell am I? What is this freaking place? What was all that? AND HOW AM I EVEN HER– ugh!’ Izuku stumbled mid stride, grasping his head with his left hand. ‘And why does it feel like my head is full of angry African bees throwing a steroid fueled rager?’ Izuku growled, swearing that this was worse than that one time Bakugou decided to use Izuku as a practice dummy for a purely concussive blast he was workshopping.
Izuku breathed heavily. Now was not the time to just stop and whimper like a pup, no matter how much he wanted to curl up into a fetal position and cry. Get up. Get up and walk. This is not where you’ll take the abyssal sleep. Not yet. His instincts urged him to move, to keep going. So Izuku took that step forward, his breath heavy and hitching, but he kept moving. He kept walking, even when his vision swam and yellowed. His steps were heavy, dragging, and unsteady, his body taking a completely nonuniform path as the dirt road seemed to disappear and reappear at random. But with every instinctually driven step, his confidence grew.
At least it did until the woods thinned out, and Izuku’s head flared in pain as he gazed upon the large complex that seemed to suddenly emerge from the woods to his left. The intensity of it was so strong, Izuku swore that he could feel the air literally buzzing on his tongue with every breath, tinged with the taste of metal and acidity.
Instinctually, Izuku turned away from the complex, fixing his eyes on the ground and began to briskly walk forward, paying little attention to the warped and utterly impossible jagged “mound” (if you can even call whatever it is that) of earth. He paid no mind to the various distortions or the heat that surrounded the unnatural structure, his mind blank and body driven by the instinctual need to keep moving. The consequence of this action however, was that Izuku never noticed the big fuck off boar napping beside the damn thing.
It was only when it released an unholy squeal as Izuku passed it that he finally noticed, which just so happened to be around the point that his head quit hurting and his vision looked a lot less like piss and more like glorious high definition cinema. And boy, what a time to be perceiving a freaking 500 pound boar standing at 1.5 meters tall in 8K magnificence!
Izuku broke into a sprint, hoping and praying that the gigantic boar would just leave him alone. But looking back, he could see that the boar was gaining ground. Ahead, Izuku could see that he was nearing the pond.
‘Crap, crap, crap!’ Izuku’s mind raced as he tried to figure a way out of this. ‘There is no way I’m going to outrun this thing!’ His legs were already burning from exertion, the lack of any physical training on top of walking for the last hour whilst injured and disoriented were already wearing on him, the first of which was really biting him in the ass as Izuku was cursing himself under his breath between panted breaths. But this exhaustion did make him far more aware of the weight at his hip, that rhythmic thumping against his thigh from iron and reinforced nylon as it flopped with each stride, held to his side by a single MOLLE strap. Izuku’s left hand grasped the grip of the handgun, the retention strap rubbing against the webbing of his thumb and forefinger uncomfortably as he ran for his life.
‘I really don’t want to use this thing, but I have to. If I can scare it off, then good, but I can’t… I don’t want to kill… I have to do this.’ The shore of the pond was clearly visible now, a mere handful of meters away, and Izuku could hear the huffing and pumping hooves of the boar. Izuku fumbled with the retention strap of the holster, the hook and loop strap eventually giving way with that characteristic ripping sound of velcro being pulled apart in a hurry. Handgun now in hand, Izuku spun on his heels, shoes carving a divot into the muddy grass. Vaguely, he registered the fact that he was only a stone’s throw away from the pond, and of a very quiet hissing sound nearby, but he paid it no mind. Instead, his mind focused on the boar charging right at him, about twenty meters from him. He brought the gun up to bear in the direction of the beast, steeling himself for what he was about to do, and squeezed the trigger.
But it didn’t budge. Izuku poured more strength into his finger but the trigger refused to move. He squeezed and squeezed but the iron would not yield to its new wielder. Why? Why would it not fire?
“Crap!” Izuku panicked, glancing at the gun. “Please! Oh God, please fire!” He looked back up at the boar, which had now covered half the distance it had between them previously. “Go away!” Izuku shouted at the animal, his voice cracking as he pleaded. “Leave me alone!” He took a step back as it prepared to lunge, tears streamed down his face. He ducked, closed his eyes, and screamed, “I don’t want to die!”
BOOM BOOM
Izuku flinched as something broke through the silence of the night with two loud booms behind him and heard a squeal followed by a heavy thud. The sound of water sloshing and dripping, as well as the clacking of metal on metal and heavy breathing made him aware that he was no longer alone. Slowly, Izuku opened his eyes. There in front of him, illuminated by a flood of light, the boar laid, huffing and whimpering in pain, blood pooling around its grotesque form.
“No point letting it suffer, much less when it's just acting on some baser instincts. But I guess there’s also no point in letting it try to gnaw on some scrawny tourist, heh.”
Another boom sounded and the poor beast stilled in death, whilst Izuku winced, his ears briefly deafened and ringing. With a swirl, he gasped, and got a good look at his apparent savior.
Standing at nearly six feet tall, the man was garbed in a blue rubber suit, an oxygen tank visible over his shoulder that had a hose leading to a respirator that hung from his neck, with an armored plate carrier over his chest, and in his hands was an over-under shotgun. Three large metal containers hung from the man’s belt alongside a small pistol holster. Izuku could not clearly see the man’s face, as the glare of the headlamp the man was wearing was obscuring any recognizable features.
“Holy shit, what’s a kid like you doing here? Don’t tell me some professor got the bright idea to take his class on a roadside picnic through the ass crack of the Zone!?” The man’s headlamp shifted, and the light shone onto the boy. “Shit! You got stabbed too? Wha- how in the… Is that a Monolith blade? Gavno, kid you look like shit! Hold on, let's see if I can fix you up a bit and I’ll take you back to base to get properly treated. No offense to the eggheads at the bunker here, but I don’t trust them with actually taking care of anyone without them somehow being treated like some experiment.”
The man stepped forward, rummaging through the pockets of his plate carrier, but Izuku stumbled backward, bringing the gun up with a trembling hand, unsure of the stranger in front of him. The stranger presented an open hand in a placating gesture. “Woah! Hey, easy there kid! I’m just getting some supplies out so I can clean you up and make sure you don’t get an infection from that knife.” The man paused for a moment, then turned his headlamp off. Now free of the glare, Izuku could see the man’s face. He was a man somewhere in his forties, with dark stubbly cheeks, a prominently crooked nose, thinly pressed mouth, crows feet which branched from deeply set hazel eyes, and combined with his furrowed brows framed by long and dripping dark shaggy hair, expressed his concern for the injured boy. Those hazel eyes, warm and while just barely visible in the low light, shone with light– with humanity.
“Wh-who are you?” Izuku asked, relaxing a bit as he slowly put the pistol on the ground.
The man knelt, pulling a large clear bottle, some packaged rolls of gauze, a small black case, and a blister pack of ten yellow tablets from a satchel that was fastened to the MOLLE webbing of the plate carrier’s lower back. “The name is Ilia, but everyone calls me Diver. You should too.” Diver unzipped the small black case to reveal a pair of trauma scissors, a surgical stapler, various hemostats, a scalpel, and a few packaged items Izuku could not identify. Diver slipped the trauma scissors out from their elastic sheathe and held a hand out to Izuku. “I’m going to have to cut your sleeve so I can see what I’m working with here. While I do that, why don’t you tell me a little bit about you. What’s your name kid? How’d you even get into this hellhole?”
Izuku sluggishly gave his injured arm to Diver, the combination of the numbing from the improvised tourniquet and the syringe he used an hour ago, alongside the blood loss and adrenal crash, were hitting him hard now that he was on the ground catching his breath. He licked his lips as he vaguely registered the large amount of fluid loss and stress he’s endured. Diver began cutting through the sleeve of Izuku’s blazer when he spoke. “Um, I’m Izuku. I… I don’t know how I got here. I don’t even know where here is! I was just running home from school one second and the next I was being pinned to a radio antenna with this knife by some guy in white and gray camo like I was just another butterfly on his pin board. And there were a bunch of guys dressed like him everywhere, on their knees just sitting still or bobbing their heads in a circular motion. It was- it was like they were praying to something… and I think it was talking back.”
Diver stopped cutting, the sleeve of the blazer opened to reveal the extent of the wound, and looked at Izuku in shock. “What?” Diver whispered. “Go back… did you say that they were wearing white and gray camo? And that they were praying?”
Izuku nodded and Diver cursed. “Pizdec nahui blyat ya ebal! Are you kidding me right now?” He gripped a handful of his soggy hair, growling. “God damn it! Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it!” Diver punched the ground with each damnation. “I thought we were finally done with those fucking zealots! As if the Renegades and Bandits weren't bad enough, after 7 years of fucking off to God knows where, those pridurki decide to poke their dicks out in the open again.” The man looked Izuku in the eyes and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Kid, I need you to tell me everything that happened. Did you see anything? Did they say anything that stuck out to you?”
“I- I think we were in a d- destroyed hospital. I can vaguely remember seeing gurneys and medical equipment on the ground. They kept talking about some Monolith, and referred to me as a Conduit, but I don’t know why. And… they brought me here, to this place somehow, at least that’s what it sounded like they were saying. I managed to get away from the guy who stabbed me, that preacher sounding guy, by kicking him. No one tried to stop me for some reason but then… then I don’t really know what happened. I found myself in some place that was completely white and there was this– this glowing rock thing that was– it freaking spoke to me. It spoke to me and-and… it wanted me. I don’t know for what, and I don’t know how I did it, but I yelled at it and next thing I know, I’m waking up in some apartment in a pool of my blood.” Izuku explained, his voice soft and quiet, only holding constrained malice when regarding that object he encountered.
“Hey, kid…did you pick that up off the preacher?” Diver asked quietly, pointing at the handgun Izuku still clutched in his left hand. “Ah yeah, I did. Kind of just grabbed it after I kicked him because I wanted to disarm him.” Izuku explained, wincing in pain as Diver poured vodka over the wound. Diver wiped away the blood and alcohol with a pad of gauze, making certain that the wound was cleaner than clean.
“You mind letting me take a look at it? I have to check something. I’ll explain in a second.” Diver asked, tossing the soiled gauze pad aside as he looked Izuku in the eyes. Izuku nodded, and handed the handgun over to Diver, barrel pointed to the ground just as he’s seen Snipe handle a firearm in an old video of the time he arrested a bank robber. Taking the gun, Diver examined it under the light of his headlamp for a second, turning it over before swearing softly.
“It just keeps getting better and better, huh?” Diver muttered. Izuku, puzzled by Diver’s words, examined the gun in the man’s hands but could not decipher what he was getting worked up by. Not that it was any surprise though, as Izuku was a hero nerd, and in no way an expert in firearms. “What is it, Mr. Ilia?” Diver snorted, “Call me Diver, kid. And what’s wrong is that this here is a H&K USP Compact Tactical chambered in .45 ACP. And the only people that carry this piece in the Zone are the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Monolith Guards. If one of them is not only wandering about that far from the center of the Zone, but is going about as a Preacher, then shit is way worse than I thought and they’ve been regrouping for far longer than I was initially thinking. Damn it.” Diver put a hand on Izuku’s shoulder, “Kid, I have to get you back to base as soon as possible. Right now, you are the most valuable source of intel we have on an old problem that could be coming back worse than ever.”
Diver flipped the gun around until he was holding it by the barrel, presenting the grip to Izuku. “Listen up. As much as I’d like to know more of your story of how you got here and where you’re from, we’ve got to get you someplace safe. The Zone is an awful and dangerous place and I can tell you don’t know fuck all about keeping yourself safe. From now on this pistol is going to be your best friend, lover, and protector.” Izuku gaped, unsure of what the man was saying. “Ah, I know that look. Kid, I’ve seen tourists and rookies bite the bullet just because they hesitate to pull the trigger. You’re the youngest face I’ve seen in this hellhole so far and I refuse to let you die like a damned fool. Look here-“ Diver pointed to a lever on the side of the gun, “that’s the safety and decocker. When the white line is inline with the white S, it is safe and can not be fired. Flip the lever down so the red F is inline with the white line and you’re good to fire the gun.” Diver then pulled the hammer back with his thumb and then flicked the safety lever all the way down. With an audible click that caused Izuku to flinch, the hammer returned to the disengaged position. Diver looked back at Izuku, placing the gun back on safe, “Push the lever all the way down until you hear a click and that means the hammer is no longer cocked and ready to fire. You can now put the gun on safe and be 100% sure it won’t fire by accident. Do keep in mind that if you need to fire the gun, having the hammer pre-cocked makes the trigger pull lighter and faster to fire. So I personally think you should keep it cocked when you’re not somewhere safe.”
Izuku gingerly took the gun from Diver and placed it back into the holster. Diver cleared his throat, “So here’s the plan: I’m going to bandage you up, then we’re going to have to do a light jog through Agroprom and skirt around the research institute there. Military have set up base there, and let's just say they don’t take kindly to any stalkers who aren’t Ecologists. Now here’s the thing, normally I take a route through an underwater pipe that leads into the swamp waters, allowing me to bypass the less… savory denizens along the northern path. But that won’t be an option with you. It’s heavily irradiated, and I don’t have an extra dive kit for you to use, so we’re going to have to take the northern path unfortunately. As soon as we get past the railroad, we have to fucking book it, do you understand? Run because your life depends on it.” Izuku nodded shakily. Diver sighed, “Good. It’s likely going to still be dark when we get to the path so I’ll attach a chemlight to my suit so you don’t lose me. Follow every step I take, don’t stray away. The Zone is a cruel and unfair mistress.”
“U-understood, Mr. Ilia.” Izuku stammered. Diver rubbed his forehead with an open palm. “Damn it, it's just Diver, Kid. We don’t do real names here. Stalker names replace that, primarily for security reasons. Anyone using their real name is either a tourist, rookie, Ecologist, an unaffiliated Merc, or Military. Stalkers don’t name themselves, they earn their name. I only gave you my first name to help you calm down. Now come on, let's get this arm wrapped up quick and hopefully we’ll get by the military base before the guards that are still half asleep get replaced by a fresh shift.”
With that said, Diver took a package of gauze and tore it open, taking the roll out and wrapping up Izuku’s arm starting from the wrist to an inch above the elbow, careful about how he wrapped the gauze around the knife in Izuku’s arm. “You did a great job with that belt. Most of the young fools that venture into the Zone don’t have a single fucking clue about first aid or trauma care. I do have a proper tourniquet on me but I don’t want to risk a red geyser with how much blood you’ve already lost while I try replacing it. We’ll keep it as is for now, it's doing a good enough job. But here, take these.” Diver grabbed the blister pack of yellow tablets and popped two out, handing them to Izuku.
Izuku rolled them in his palm, spotting the letter V indented into the surface of the tablets. “What are these?” Izuku asked, looking back up at Diver. “That right there is Vinca, Zone produced antihemorrhagic medication. Won’t replace bandages, but it will keep you from bleeding out over time and replenish some blood. Lots of rookies write the stuff off, but trust me, no veteran stalker leaves their hideout without some in their IFAK or trauma pack.” Diver explained, gathering up his supplies into the trauma satchel on his back.
Izuku let out a shaky breath and promptly popped the tablets into his mouth, swallowing them without a drop of water. Given the desire to get someplace safer to address the freaking knife in his arm, he was willing to deal with the discomfort of dry swallowing meds if it meant not being in the open a minute less. With a huff, he got up to his feet and adjusted his sling so as to keep the arm tightly secured to his chest.
”Alright, Kid, you good to go?” Diver asked, donning a dark blue overcoat over his equipment, the respirator now secured to his plate carrier rather than hanging from his neck as it was previously.
”Um, yeah. I think I’m ready.” Izuku replied, fidgeting with the straps of the gas mask bag. Diver nodded and turned away. “Good, stay behind me, maintaining combat spacing, 5 meter separation. If I stop, you stop. If I crouch, you crouch. If I squat for a shit, you squat for a shit. Got it? Cock that hammer and keep up. Heels to toes to keep it quiet, mind any branches.” Diver broke into a light jog, going right to bypass the pond.
Startled halfway into starting his jog, Izuku fumbled with the gun at his side, managing to clumsily pull the hammer back on the holstered pistol. The gun having been prepped for fire, Izuku continued to keep pace with Diver, falling in behind the man as he was instructed.
”Um, Mr. Ili- ah! Mr. Diver, why exactly are we supposed to keep 5 meters apart?” Izuku asked as they approached a fenced slope, with a narrow opening just barely concealed by the overgrown bushes and wild trees.
Ahead, Diver gave a barely audible chuckle. “Right, I forgot to treat you like a rookie. Well, combat spacing is usually kept at 5 meters for multiple reasons.” Diver paused as he ducked under a branch and swept aside the overgrowth blocking the opening, vaulting over a fallen log. “Hup. You see, 5 meters is the optimal distance for troops to maintain good visual of and communication with each other. It also ensures that any enemies firing on said troops from range can’t easily target more than one man. Maybe one or two guys get suppressed, but it allows for the rest to pop in and out of cover from somewhere else and engage the threat.” Izuku carefully climbed over the log as Diver trudged up the path. “Oh, and it will keep the possibility of mass-cas down. Grenades usually have a 5 meter lethal radius, so if one lands close, hit the deck and chances are only one person will get hurt. But if land mines are suspected to be in the area, we’ll take up a 20 meter column formation.” Diver looked back over his shoulder to Izuku, “Though the 5+ meter separation also helps with anomalies, and trust me, between an anomaly or a face full of lead, I’d take the lead any day.”
With a final sweep of overgrown foliage, Diver paused, swatting a fly away from his face while he waited for Izuku to catch up. Once Diver was able to see Izuku stumbling through the foliage like a drunk with his pants down, Diver turned back around and continued his pace down the clear dirt path.
“Um, Mr. Diver, sir…” Izuku huffed as he jumped back into a jogging pace to catch up with the older man. “Uff, you’ve mentioned something about a zone a few times, what did you mean by that?”
With an admittedly shameful squawk, Diver stumbled over his own feet at Izuku’s question, but was able to successfully recover and maintain his jogging pace. “What the–? Kid, are you serious? How the actual fuck do you not know what it is? You’re in the Zone!” Diver huffed in disbelief, “Damn, what the hell are they teaching kids these days.” He whispered. “Alright Kid, history lesson with Professor Diver, take notes because this shit is common knowledge ‘round the Clear Sky ranks and some of it can even save your life later.
Diver checked over his shoulder, making sure that the boy was still following behind him within listening distance. Satisfied that Izuku was still jogging close by like a drunk late for work, Diver turned his eyes back to the path ahead, keeping his ears open for any potential dangers ahead.
“Listen up. Back in '91, when the Soviet Union crumbled, some of the researchers working in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, well they didn't skip a beat. They kept doing their work without the oversight of the government, Soviet or Ukrainian. They had the freedom to do whatever they wanted in a place no one wanted to go near, not that anyone could in the collapse. With Ukraine left scrambling to get shit together, there was no one keeping tabs on the weirdness going on. Research didn't slow down either; if anything, it picked up pace. These Soviet brainiacs kept on with their bizarre experiments, forming what they call "the Group." They were dabbling in all sorts of strange stuff, like psychotropic weapons and meddling with something they called the Noosphere.”
Something rustled in the bushes several meters ahead, prompting Diver to stop talking and stop, his left arm raised in a fist to signal a stop to Izuku. The boy stuttered to a stop, his legs barely able to keep up with the action on such slick ground. Diver opened his hand, palm facing the ground as he crouched, the gesture clear to Izuku as an order to stay low. The blue suited soldier shouldered his shotgun as a dark figure emerged from the growth. Distant growls and grunts could be heard as the creature came into the light of the moon.
It was a horribly mangled and hairless dog, the size of Shiba Inu, its skin just barely covering its body as portions seemed to be missing and allowed for the musculature underneath to be exposed. It was a pale and vile looking thing, but the most striking characteristic of the beast was its lack of eyes. Where they should be was simply a mass of mottled and tumorous flesh. Even then, the creature seemed to notice the two, its teeth bared in a grim snarl as it guarded the object it had been dragging through the brush. Dimly, through the shadows of the wood and filtered moonlight, Izuku could make out the rough features of a hood and boots. It was the carcass of a man. The boy’s mouth, previously heavy and dry from his journey through the dilapidated and ruined city and near goring by the mutated boar, was now awash with the taste of barely contained bile.
Diver’s eyes narrowed as the dog sniffed the air a few times before resuming to drag the body to the other side of the road with a final huff. The soldier waited a minute after the dog disappeared back into the growth with its prize before rising to his feet. Izuku did the same, trembling slightly in horror and disgust.
“Wh-what was that?” Izuku breathed. “Blind Dog.” Diver rolled a shoulder, checking over his shotgun briefly as he answered. “The abandoned dogs of Chernobyl from the first disaster thrived here, and after the second disaster, they are fucking flourishing. The Zone, the actions of the Group, made monsters of them, the poor wretches. Excellent pack hunters they are, but even a lone dog is cunning enough to kill a man.” Giving the brush one last cursory glance, Diver held his shotgun in a low ready position. “Alright, let’s go, but keep your eyes and ears open.”
Izuku nodded shakily, a gesture unacknowledged by the man focused on the path ahead as they resumed their jog, albeit cautiously. As they neared the spot where the dog had passed through, Diver slowed his pace by a small amount as he took a purposefully large step. The confusion Izuku felt over the action was immediately dashed as he too got close to the area and saw why Diver had done what he had. A lengthy trail of dark viscous blood stained the path, but it was the long trailing and still dragging intestine that forced Izuku to vomit bile. Izuku gagged at the taste of acid staining his mouth and gruesome sight in front of him. What the hell was this place?
“Come on Kid! Keep moving or that dog might decide you’d be a fresher meal!” Diver hissed from the darkness.
Izuku’s head snapped up to peer back at the still jogging man before nodding numbly and jumping over the trailing gore, following after the man with a more harried pace and fervor. Hearing the boy resume moving, Diver chose to return to where they had left off in their history lesson in hopes of taking the encounter off the boy’s mind.
“So, where was I?” Diver thought for a second before remembering. “Oh yeah! Fast forward to '99, the government of Ukraine finally decides to poke its nose into the Zone's affairs. Found out there were all sorts of shady dealings happening, but did nothing about it. Around 2003, the Agroprom Research Institute, where we’re heading now actually, got roped into this mess too. They switched from farming to helping out this Group, getting them gear and cash under the radar while pretending to still be doing their agricultural research. See, the Group had big dreams. They wanted to fix humanity's flaws by tinkering with the Noosphere. So, they cooked up this plan for a "C-Consciousness." Seven folks volunteered for a wild experiment. Tried to make everyone all peaceful and nice by pulling out the bad in humanity from the Noosphere, but it backfired big time. First go-round on March 4, 2006, they got interrupted by a blackout. But they tried again on April 12, 2006, and this time, they messed up big time. Instead of fixing stuff, they tore a hole in the Noosphere, creating the Zone, where physics takes a holiday and strange shit happens.”
Diver paused, checking his watch. 03:30, they still had 30 minutes before the guard change at Agroprom. They should arrive a few minutes before then, he reckoned.
“See, instead of getting rid of all that’s bad about humanity, they just brought it on down to manifest both physically and metaphysically, as some of the docs say. That mess split up the Group. Some folks bailed, but others, like Lebedev, Suslov, and Kalancha, God rest their souls, they stuck around and formed Clear Sky, the faction I’m a member of. Our goal? Figure out how to fix what they broke or at least keep the Zone from getting worse. Meanwhile, the C-Consciousness was trying to keep a lid on things, using mind control and spooky psychic shit to protect themselves. They set up this Brain Scorcher thing to fry anyone nosing around too much and roped in some goons and a few leftover Group members called the Monolith, those nasty fuckwads you had the displeasure of meeting, to keep the Zone on lockdown. All to keep their messed-up experiment from falling apart.”
Izuku was quiet, carefully digesting all this, but a point stuck out to him. “Hold on… 2006? Chornobyl Exclusion Zone? That would not only imply that the Second Disaster was the responsibility of a private research group, but the forced evolution of humanity that came about from the meddling with this Noosphere… The Glowing Baby was born the Spring of 2007, and the Dawn of Quirks began… By 2018 the first generation of quirk users were recognized and… Wait, you mean to say that the Group is responsible for the creation of Quirks?!” Izuku cut his rapid fire murmur with the final exclamation, just barely keeping his balance as he jogged behind Diver in his excitement.
Diver slowed to a power walk as he turned his head to look back at Izuku. Unobscured by the trees, the moonlight shined bright enough for Izuku to see the disturbingly clear expression of confusion that Diver wore. A pit of discomfort formed in his stomach as the man opened his mouth and spoke.
”Kid, what the fuck is a Quirk?”
