Boku no Hero Academia:Tales of Heroism

Disclaimer: This is a fanfiction story of Boku no Hero Academia. I own nothing of the series other than the fanfiction stories that I make.

Tale12.1: The Quirkless Soldier, Sharpshooter

"Men are not created equal. That is the tragic truth of the world, especially in a world where superhuman abilities known as quirks exist."

It was nightfall and Midoriya Izuku, a five-year-old boy with fluffy dark-green hair, freckles on his youthful-looking face and bright green eyes, was crying as he was lost in a forest. As for why he was lost, the boy was trying to prove his worth to a boy with spiky blond hair and sharp red eyes named Bakugou Katsuki in spite of being quirkless by being brave enough to enter the forest by himself and catch a legendary golden beetle. Being five years old and still convinced that Katsuki was his friend in spite of the blond boy's obvious attempt to get rid of him, Izuku went into the forest with all the courage he could muster. However, he soon got lost and was unable to do anything other than cry for help.

"In a world where quirks exists, there are two types of people. Heroes who use their quirks to uphold justice and protect the innocent and villains who abuse their quirks for selfish gain or to hurt others instead."

As Izuku wept in fear and loneliness, he suddenly heard something move. Terrified, Izuku turned his attention towards a clump of bushes which moved and shifted ever so slightly. Trying his best to be brave his favourite hero, the current No.1 professional hero (pro-hero) and Symbol of Peace, All Might, Izuku timidly asked, "I-is anyone there?"

Izuku's heart skipped a beat as he saw a pair of golden serpentine eyes peek at him from the bushes. Under the light of the full moon, it looked as though the eyes were glowing. Fearing for the worst, Izuku quickly grabbed a stone and said, "P-please d-don't hurt me!"

A moment of tense silence passed, which felt more like an eternity for Izuku, before the creature with golden serpentine eyes slowly crawled out of hiding to reveal itself. Izuku's eyes widened as he took in the sight before him. The creature was basically a white serpent with the hood of a cobra, humanoid arms and torso and a long muscular tail not unlike that of a python. Izuku also noted the dark-purple diamond patterns with black outlines running along its back, the timidly frightened look on its surprisingly expressive face and, most importantly, the painful-looking gashes on its tail.

As soon as Izuku saw its frightened eyes and injury, he immediately lowered his improvised weapon and worriedly asked, "A-are you okay? What happened to you?" Whatever wariness he had was immediately replaced by concern for the snake-person.

"I could asssk you the sssame thing," replied the snake-person who sounded feminine.

"Y-you can talk? And you're a girl?" asked Izuku. The snake-person, who turned out to be a snake-girl, nodded shyly in response. An awkward moment of silence passed until Izuku realised that the gashes were still bleeding. He quickly took off his shirt and said, "Let me help you."

Sensing Izuku's sincerity, the snake-girl accepted his help as he tore the shirt so that he could bandage the wound by tying the shirt around the tail. He then worriedly asked, "Do you hurt anywhere else?"

The snake-girl shed tears as she pointed her chest and replied, "Yesss, essspecially here."

"Do you… want to talk about it?" asked Izuku.

The snake girl shook her head and then shyly asked, "C-can I hug you?"

"However, this begs the question on who has the right or authority to decide that a person is a hero to be admired or a villain to be reviled. While personal opinions can be biased even in the best of times, society as a whole is anything but free of bias or prejudice."

--One week later…--

The snake-girl, who turned out to be a five-year-old human girl with a rather extreme mutation due to her quirk named Hebimaru Kiyomi, was contentedly snuggling against Izuku's chest while snoring softly. Her snores sounded like a soft rattling hiss and her forked tongue flicked out every time she exhaled before retreating back into her mouth. Izuku, who was already used to Kiyomi's tendency to coil around him while hugging him or snuggling against his chest, was sleeping with a smile on his face while his arms were wrapped around her serpentine head.

Inko, who readily agreed to take in Kiyomi after realising how attached Izuku and her had become, smiled as she gazed upon their sleeping forms. As a loving parent, she hoped that Kiyomi's tragically deceased parents would be able to rest easy.

Less than a year ago, Kiyomi's parents, who both had reptilian features such as scales and forked tongues, were killed in a villain attack. Unlike her parents who loved her in spite of her extreme physical mutations, her other relatives despised her for her "monstrous" appearance and often neglected her if not outright abused her. The abuse got so bad that Kiyomi fled even though she had suffered a painful gash from her uncle who found her appearance disgusting. As for how she managed to escape from her abusers, it involved spitting corrosive venom at his face out of self defence before fleeing from him while her equally cruel aunt and cousins tended to his injury. Her serpentine body allowed her to quickly flee into a forest to hide where she and Izuku met each another by sheer chance.

Due to her serpentine physiology, Kiyomi was cold-blooded and could have died from both exposure and blood loss had Izuku not helped her to stay warm by hugging her. It could therefore be said that Izuku, the only quirkless boy in his entire pre-school, had saved her life just by being kind and caring towards her in spite of her undeniably inhuman appearance. Inko was truly happy and glad that she was able to confidently say that Izuku was, even if only for that one incident, a true hero.

However, Inko's smile turned into a worried frown as she recalled how Katsuki had tricked Izuku into going into the forest to find something that did not exist. Although she already had a word with both the preschool and Katsuki's parents, especially his mother who was also her friend, Bakugou Mitsuki, Inko was still worried about the discrimination that both Izuku and Kiyomi would face. She could only hope that the two, a quirkless boy and a girl with extreme quirk-related mutations, would be able to help one another.

Little did she know that Izuku and Kiyomi would not only remain inseparable but also become obsessed over a certain pre-quirk era game series which Kiyomi's late parents loved to play known as 'X-Com'.

"Men are not created equal, but that does not mean that no one can challenge the status quo, for better or for worse."

--Eight years later…--

"Diamondback, do you have a visual?" asked Izuku who had grown up into a fine young man with a lean and muscular build and a keen eye for both quirk analysis and shooting with a pistol. He was currently dressed in padded armour meant for paint-ball fights and was speaking to Kiyomi with the help of a communication device which was attached onto his ear beneath his protective helmet.

"Yesss, I have a visssual," confirmed Kiyomi whose code-name was Diamondback. She then asked, "Are you in posssition, Dreadlocksss?"

"In position and loaded!" replied Dreadlocks.

"Mastermind, be ready to step in. This is a pro-hero we're facing after all," said Izuku.

"Copy that, Emerald," replied Mastermind.

Izuku, whose code-name was Emerald, nodded and said, "I'm moving in. Diamondback, Mastermind, Dreadlocks cover me!"

Suddenly, Izuku charged forward from cover to confront his opponent, a pro-hero who had the appearance of a stereotypical western cowboy with an old-school gas mask that was shaped like a horse's muzzle and has purplish dreadlocks known as Snipe. Armed with a paint-ball pistol, Snipe confidently took aim to shoot Izuku when he suddenly sensed incoming danger and dodged a paint-ball pellet which was shot from a paint-ball gun which had been modified into a sniper rifle.

Cursing beneath her breath, a girl who had a mature build, salmon-pink dreadlocks and wide yellow eyes which resemble scope lenses named Hatsume Mei said, "I missed the shot!" Armed with a modified paint-ball gun which was modified so that it could be used as a sniper rifle, Mei, whose codename was Dreadlocks, yelled, "Maintaining over-watch!"

Suddenly, Kiyomi appeared from a manhole behind Snipe and yelled, "Izuku, get down!" Just as Izuku had grown into a fine young man, Kiyomi had grown into an undeniably beautiful individual in spite of her serpentine appearance with a slender yet toned body with noticeable abs on her slim humanoid torso and surprisingly strong arms.

Izuku immediately ducked low while Kiyomi shot Snipe with her paint-ball sub-machine gun. However, Snipe was a pro-hero for a reason as he quickly dodged the attack and quickly took aim at Kiyomi. Barely able to dodge the shots due to her superb reflexes and agility, she was forced to duck for cover while Snipe's paint-ball bullets continued to graze her. Snipe was also very agile as he avoided another shot from Mei's gun.

Taking his chance, Izuku took aim and was about to shoot Snipe when long pieces of cloth which were actually reinforced with special alloys wrapped themselves round him. His eyes widened as he realised who had captured him while a tall and slender pale-skinned man with messy shoulder-length black hair and tired-looking eyesnamed Aizawa Shouta came out of hiding. Also known as the underground pro-hero, Eraser Head, Shouta was dragging a captured boy who had messy indigo hair, straight teeth, triangular dark-purple eyes with white pupils and dark eye bags named Shinsou Hitoshi. The pro-hero smirked at Izuku as he spoke, "Not bad. However, you and your team paid so much attention to Snipe that you failed to notice my attack until it was too late to stop me. That kind of mistake can cost you in the field even if you're not aiming to be pro-heroes."

"Sorry for not paying attention to my surroundings, Izuku," said Hitoshi whose codename was Mastermind.

Izuku shook his head and argued, "No, that one is on me. I rushed us too quickly to take down Snipe-san so that he can't sharp-shoot us from a far distance."

"While taking note of the potential danger posed by an enemy is essential, it is useful to assume that all enemies are dangerous when facing them," said Shouta who then added, "Otherwise, you will end up getting blind-sided by a seemingly harmless enemy."

"Yes, sir!" said Izuku.

"If only my baby was fixed in time we would have been able to take down at least one of you!" groused Mei who was disappointed that her semi-autonomous unmanned drone, codenamed Gremlin, was out of commission due to a last-minute malfunction.

"You should get yourself some spare drones in case your first one malfunctions or gets destroyed," said Shouta.

Mei pouted and said, "I get that, but I want to perfect my baby before I start making more of it!"

"Still, I'm surprised that the infamous X-Squad is actually a bunch of middle school students," said Snipe who then asked, "I mean, how in the word did you all manage to learn how to cooperate so well?"

It should be noted that Izuku, Kiyomi, Mei and Hitoshi recently formed a four-man paint-ball gun team known as X-Squad and were infamously effective as a team in spite of the fact that Izuku was quirkless. The fact that Katsuki and his "friends" were soundly beaten by X-Squad during a recent paint-ball gun match infuriated the blond boy who had an explosive quirk to no end.

"Well, let'sss jussst sssay that my late parentsss loved playing a certain pre-quirk era game ssseriesss called the 'X-Com' and leave it at that," replied Kiyomi.

"X-Com? Those games are pretty hard to play!" said Snipe.

"Wait, you play them too?" asked Izuku.

"I usually play shooters like 'Doom: Eternal' but I got interested in the 'X-Com' games after I've seen some recent play-through videos of them. Currently, I'm playing 'Chimera Squad'," explained Snipe.

Both Izuku and Kiyomi's eyes shone with excitement as they spoke in unison, "Tell us about your play-through!"

As Snipe took a look at Izuku and Kiyomi, he almost slapped his hand onto his face as he mentally groaned at his own obliviousness, "No wonder Hebimaru looked so familiar even though I've never met her before. She looks like an alien viper just like how Godzillo looks just like Godzilla!"

Hitoshi sighed as he mentally groaned, "Here they go again."

Mei snickered as she replied, "Well, you can't blame them for loving the games, especially 'X-Com 2' and 'Chimera Squad'. I mean, one game is about humanity overcoming seemingly impossible odds and the other is about two opposing forces coming together as a unified force of good. Of course those two will love them."

"And you actually bother to learn a few things about the two games because they have given you new ideas for your inventions," said Hitoshi.

"Yup!" admitted Mei who was not the least bit ashamed to admit it.

Shouta smiled as he watched the four children and thought, "I should send a word to Nedzu about these four."

--A short while later…--

A man with long blond hair that was spiked upwards, a small moustache and rectangular greenish-yellow eyes named Yamada Hizashi, who opted to watch the paint-ball match instead of joining in, grinned at Shouta and Snipe as he spoke to them, "I take it that you're impressed by those kids?"

Shouta nodded and replied, "They're surprisingly rational for their age and they make full use of what they have."

"Not only that, they're pretty skilled too," said Snipe who recalled how close he was to getting his hero-suit dirtied by the paint-balls. One of the reasons why he wanted to have a friendly match with X-Squad on his off day was because he had watched a recording of their previous match in which they soundly defeated an opposing team which included a boy who could create explosions and a boy who could extend his fingers. Unlike the blond explosive boy who acted brashly and headed straight into the fight, X-Squad used an effective combination of individual abilities, strategy and teamwork to overwhelm him until he was disqualified before picking off the rest of the opposing team with downright military efficiency. Shouta, who overhead Snipe's desire to challenge X-Squad, decided join him while Hizashi simply wanted to tag along with Shouta.

"So you're planning to recommend them for the entrance exams next year?" asked Hizashi who was also known as the pro-hero, Present Mic.

"It's a tempting notion but I doubt that many people will like the idea of a quirkless boy being given a recommendation regardless of his talents in analysing quirks and shooting people with a gun," replied Shouta. Shouta took one look at one of Izuku's 'Hero Journals' and felt a chill run down his spine as he could tell that Izuku would have been a terrifying information broker for villains if he had ever decided to be a villain instead.

"I highly doubt that Nedzu will particularly care about that," argued Hizashi.

"True, but the same cannot be said for a lot of people," argued Shouta who bitterly knew that some people would sooner swallow bleach than admit that quirkless people were deserving of respect.

"Then how about a tweak in the support items rule in case they decide to take the normal exam instead?" suggested Snipe.

Shouta blinked once before he wore a devious grin and said, "That could work."

--Back to Izuku and his friends…--

"Man, talk about a lucky day! We actually met two pro-heroes and even got their autographs!" said Izuku who was a hopeless fan of pro-heroes.

"It's a good thing that they're the open-minded sort," said Hitoshi. Due to having a brainwashing quirk, Katsuki and his followers believed that Hitoshi was destined to be a villain just like Kiyomi whose quirk was "villainously monstrous".

As kind and forgiving as Izuku was, he quickly stopped seeing Katsuki as a friend after he started insulting Kiyomi. In fact, both Izuku and Kiyomi were fiercely protective of one another and would readily face just about anyone who dared to antagonise the other. For example, Kiyomi once broke Katsuki's jaw by slapping him hard with her tail because he had attacked Izuku with his explosive quirk. Another example was when Izuku almost dislocated a boy's shoulder for trying to spill ice-cold water onto Kiyomi. Needless to say, Izuku and Kiyomi were both rather infamous in their middle school as the "freakish duo".

"Speaking of lucky day, want to drop by at my place for some co-op gaming?" asked Mei.

"Only if your 'upgraded computers' are actually safe to use," said Hitoshi who had a deadpan expression on his face. He did not want to have another exploding CPU causing his hair to catch on fire, again.

Unlike Izuku and Kiyomi, Hitoshi and Mei attended different middle schools but they had their own issues as Hitoshi's quirk was often described as villainous by his peers while many people were put off by Mei's eccentric obsession with inventing things. As for how the four friends came together, one incident involved Hitoshi, who loved cats, assuming that Kiyomi was trying to eat a kitten when she was actually trying to save it as it was trapped onto a tree branch. As for the other incident, it involved Izuku browsing through a hardware shop to buy a drone which he could then modify into something similar to a Gremlin from X-Com for practical uses and Mei quite literally demanding him to tell her more about it. As unusual as the four were, they were close friends and were determined to form a team that would prove to the world that making good use of what one had was what truly matters in not only heroics but also in life as a whole.

--Later that evening…--

After coming back from Mei's place, which honestly resembled a messy workshop given the Hatsume family's shared love for making and inventing things, Izuku and Kiyomi were relaxing in the living room. Due to Kiyomi's physiology, many adjustments had to be made as she grew up including having large bean bags and plenty of blankets so that she could comfortably relax and stay warm even during the colder months of the year. However, to Inko's amusement, Kiyomi had a strong preference to one particular source of warmth named Midoriya Izuku.

Used to Kiyomi's tendency to hug him, Izuku leaned comfortably into her coils as she coiled her tail around him while stroking his fluffy hair as though he was a rabbit. Kiyomi could not help but wonder how rabbit tasted as she and Izuku watched a news report of a pro heroine with an athletic muscular build, dark skin, red eyes, long white hair, a pair of rabbit ears and even a round fluffy rabbit tail named Miruko. She then looked downward at Izuku and could not help but compare him to a fluffy puppy or bunny. She then lay her chin onto Izuku's hair and thought, "It must be the hair and eyes."

--One year later…--

Izuku, Kiyomi, Hitoshi and Mei stood before the gates of U.A. High School. For Izuku, Kiyomi and Hitoshi, it was a chance to get into the hero course to achieve their shared dream of forming a pro-hero team. As for Mei, it was a chance to enter the support course so that she could improve her technical skills even further and become the team's chief provider of support equipment.

Both Izuku and Hitoshi were armed with shotguns that shot rubber slugs while Kiyomi was expected to be able to fight without a weapon due to her quirk which granted her the ability to spit corrosive venom and extend her forked serpentine tongue.

"Best of luck to you three. I look forward to making all kinds of babies for you!" said Mei.

"Best of luck to you too, Mei," said Izuku. Both Hitoshi and Kiyomi nodded as they also wanted her to pass her exam.

One way or another, Izuku and his friends were going to form their own version of Chimera Squad, the X-Squad.

"This is a story of how I, along with my classmatesand adopted sister, became some of the greatest heroes of our time. This is a story of heroism and being the best we can be to save and inspire others."

--End Chapter--

Author's Notes:

Yes, this story is inspired by X-Com. I never played the game myself but I've seen my elder brother play X-Com 2 so I am fairly familiar with the difficulty of the game and, with Chimera Squad out for a while now, I have decided to have some fun making a story of Izuku having an OC friend who resembles an X-Com viper. Speaking of the OC:

Name: Hebimaru Kiyomi

Hero Codename: Viper Hero,Torque [Other Codename: Diamondback]

Quirk: Chimeric Viper

- Extreme physical mutations which make her resemble a snake with the hood of a cobra, the humanoid arms and torso of a woman and a long muscular tail similar to that of a python. She has golden serpentine eyes, white scales with diamond patterns running along her back. The diamond patterns are dark purple with black outlines. Due to her mutations, she prefers eating meat in spite of being omnivorous, is cold-blooded and has venom sacs in her upper jaw which can be delivered by hollow fangs. She can also dislocate her joints so that she can squeeze through surprisingly tight spaces and swallow food whole. Due to her serpentine physiology, she is a skilled climber, extremely agile with superb reflexes and can disable most people by wrapping her tail around them.

- Other abilities include a transformation quirk which allows her forked tongue to extend and capture people and an emitter quirk which allows her to not only produce even more venom but also make the venom corrosive.

- Due to her cold-blooded physiology, she cannot operate if her body temperature is too low. She also sheds her skin once a year which makes her lethargic and moody. Embarrassingly enough, she has an instinctive desire to hunt birds, frogs and rodents especially when hungry. (Yes, Nedzu is in danger. LOL)

- Yes, she is still human in spite of her appearance and she does have actual breasts.

Until next time, go beyond, plus ultra!