Note:
Yes, I am aware that I should be writing my other fics. And they are being written, albeit slowly. I'm running low on inspiration for them at the moment, and I've had this idea in my head since re-reading the fic that inspired it. And besides, I'd rather give you guys something small and new to chew on for now while I chip away at the bigger chapters for other fics than have you wait another three months to upwards of a year for a 5k chapter or three.

⚠️⚠️⚠️Chapter Warnings:

Attempted Suicide
Graphic descriptions of results of said attempt
Coarse Language
(Brief) Depressive Thoughts

He should've known. He should've fucking- he kicked the curb and hopped backwards, swearing, as his toes crunched painfully against the concrete through his scuffed red hitops. He sighed, his sudden rage at the world cooling to an echoing emptiness that threatened to drag him from reality and leave him drowning in his own self-pity. Of course he couldn't be a Hero. Why hadn't he just believed his classmates? Why did it take All Might telling him he was worthless for it to sink in? Maybe it was because he held the man to such a high standard, that apparently even the hero himself couldn't live up to. Maybe he'd just been in denial this whole time, and All Might's words and Kacchan's 'advice' had been his much-needed wake-up call.

Izuku's eyes drifted to the nearest rooftop. Kacchan's advice, huh? Maybe . . . maybe he should take it. Save the world some suffering, then. He chuckled, his eyes dull and empty as he veered away from his usual path home. This part of his route took him along the dockside, where there were several old, abandoned warehouses right up against the deep blackish-blue water of the shipping trenches where, maybe twenty years ago, cargo ships had been docking to unload their goods. He weaved listlessly between the towering, empty husks of metal that used to be so bustling. They were like him, he thought. Hollowed out and tossed aside, unwanted and unneeded now that they'd served their purpose.

Soon, he came upon the largest of the buildings, an enormous, hollowed-out shell of what used to be a container storage. All of the enormous metal crates were gone now, but the behemoth of steel remained as a memoir to what once was. Izuku walked around it, his footsteps echoing on the cracked concrete of the quay as his thoughts echoed similarly inside him. Useless. Weak. Worthless. His classmates had been telling him for years. Why hadn't he listened? He found the maintenance stairs and climbed the metal grille that was supposed to stop 'unauthorised persons' from climbing the stairs. He slogged up the side of the building, his mind fogged with self-loathing.

The lapping of waves broke through his thoughts, and he blinked down at the water slapping gently against the concrete below him. He didn't remember taking off his shoes, nor folding his socks and tucking them gently into one of them. He didn't remember taking off his backpack, but there it sat, as garishly yellow as the day he'd bought it, on the flat of the catwalk behind him. His shoes were in a neat pair beside the bag. He curled his bare toes over the edge of the metal roof, looking back down at the deep, dark water so far below him.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Maybe he should just . . . go. He didn't realise he'd tipped forward until the wind rushing past his face pulled his eyes open. He'd barely had the time to register he was falling towards the water before he hit the surface face-first with a loud smack. Every part of his body went numb, and for a few seconds his whole world was blissfully quiet. But then, the shock was replaced with blinding pain. His skin felt as though it'd been stripped from his body, his organs felt ruptured, and every bone in his torso felt shattered. He choked back a scream as blood started to cloud the water around him pink. It was faint at first, but he was sinking quickly, and as a current rolled him onto his back, he saw the bloom of it stretching up to the dwindling light of the surface. Already, air and light seemed so far away.

His lungs were screaming at him, and his chest was tight and stabbing at every movement he made. He'd fallen from pretty high, he figured, and he'd been at least twenty meters up. Not enough to reach terminal velocity, but if bellyflopping into the pool from the edge about thirty centimetres from the surface was enough to leave his body tingling and stinging, then a twenty-meter drop was enough to split skin and break bone . . . and maybe rupture organs. His back hit soft sand and a cloud of it flew up around him, drifting over his vision. The impact jolted his chest, and he gasped, sucking in a lungful of water as a flurry of red bubbles streamed from his mouth.

His vision was growing dark, and he began to regret his . . . well, it wasn't really a decision. Not a conscious one, really. If only he'd been stronger. He could've saved himself. Could've protected himself better. Could've saved his classmates the trouble of having to remind him, day after day, that he wasn't suited for his chosen career. Could've saved his mother so much pain. If he'd been offered power of his own, a chance to save himself, he would've taken it in a heartbeat, if only to ease his mother's suffering. His delirious, oxygen-starved mind latched onto that thought, and the desire for power of his own grew.

If only he had the strength to protect himself and his mother. He could've done so much more. He could've-

Ding!

He was interrupted by a loud chime in his ear and a flurry of notifications filling his vision. Time seemed frozen. His lungs stopped burning, and his pain dulled to a barely-there ache that he could only register if he focused.

Quirk Activation Achieved!

Hidden Quest: 'Overcome a Life-Or-Death Situation' has been completed!

Your drive to propagate your own strength has triggered a Quirk Awakening!

You have unlocked the Monster Gacha!

You have unlocked the Personal Window!

You have unlocked the Monster List!

You have unlocked the Skill Window!

You have received Mid-Tier Monster Gacha x1!

Monster Tiers available for Gacha:

    Low

    Mid

    High

    !@*$# [Restricted]

You have received Unstable Element x50!

Skill Unlocked: Monster Extraction

Skill Unlocked: Skill Extraction

Skill Unlocked: Elemental Skin

Skill Unlocked: Monster's Will

Skill Unlocked: Monster's Shape

You are in severe danger. Will you use Mid-Tier Monster Gacha x1?

[Y]/[N]

Izuku stared at the last notification in dull shock, his mind blank.

Warning: Your bodily functions will cease shortly. Use of Monster Gacha will prevent this.

Oh. Izuku's mind was numb, number than his body, but he could process things well enough to understand that much. He was as good as dead, but this . . . his Quirk . . . He could live? His mother came to mind, and regret and shame flooded through him. How could he be so selfish as to leave his mother on her own? His death – or any grievous harm to him, really – would destroy her. He couldn't put her through that. Not again. His gaze drifted over the message again. Yes.

Consuming Mid-Tier Monster Gacha x1

Generating Monster

. . .

. . .

. . .

Congratulations!

You have received Mid-Tier Monster: Cruel Claw Wyvern, Odogaron!

Time sped up again. His lungs screamed at him, and his body burst into sharp pain. But this time, the pain was different. Instead of being centralised to the front of his body – the impact zone – it spread to every part of him. Things were stretching, his bones changing shape and his joints dislocating and relocating in different positions. He could feel things pushing out of his skin, and his vision was dimming and changing. His body convulsed as muscle and bone changed and stretched. The change seemed to last hours, but couldn't have been more than a few seconds. Finally, though, the pain died down.

His lungs weren't demanding air anymore. He didn't feel like he'd inhaled water, either; the choking weight of liquid in his lungs had vanished with the pain of the transformation. He pushed off from the bottom with powerful hind legs, rocketing towards the surface. He burst from the water and rolled on the concrete quay, just lying there for a moment to stare dazedly at the blue sky. He groaned and rolled to his feet, noting absently that his voice was low and rumbling, with an odd clicking undertone. It sounded similar to the T-Rex from that old, Pre-Quirk movie, he thought. He took a moment to look himself over, noting the thick, plate-like red scales, the double-row of sharp yellowish claws and the thick, club-like ridged tail.

He ambled over to the side of the quay, staring down into the water at his face. It was quite canine, he thought, or maybe more crocodilian. A long, flat snout with forward-facing eyes mounted on the sides of his head, teeth like tusks, and his eyes themselves were a piercing blue, but quite small and beady. They stood out quite strikingly against the deep, blood-red plate of his face. Glancing over at a nearby street lamp, he jolted in shock as he realised how big he was. His shoulders were almost level with the top of the structure, and he estimated he was around four meters tall. He looked back down at his feet, wiggling his double set of toes, then recoiled a little in shock and disgust as the top set folded up against his ankles.

Oh, that's so weird . . . He shivered, tearing his gaze away from the offending digits. He cocked his head, listening quietly. He could hear so much. Cars, people walking, screams, explosions . . . Explosions!? His head snapped up and he turned in the direction of the noise, crouching and springing towards it without thought. His new height was a godsend, and his longer stride meant he was keeping up with the cars on the road, even passing them, and he didn't feel like he was anywhere near his top speed. People were screaming and diving for cover in his wake, but he didn't have time to stop and apologise – if he could even talk like this.

Soon, the explosions were only a few hundred meters away, and he skidded to a stop at the back of a large crowd. He could see easily over the heads of the people crowding the road, and his small eyes grew wide as he took in the scene. The sludge villain from earlier had somehow escaped from All Might, and had taken another hostage. There were four heroes on the scene, but none of them were doing anything. Backdraught was putting out fires, yes, and that was helping, but what about Death Arms? Mount Lady? Kamui Woods? Death Arms was complaining about property damage, Kamui Woods was whinging about not having the right Quirk, and Mount Lady was complaining about not having enough room to use her Quirk.

Explosions crackled to life again, flaring from the hostage's palms, and Izuku homed in on the figure obscured by sludge. They pushed forward, and for a second his eyes met the captive's and he knew. He leapt forward, bounding over the crowd, and folding his second pair of claws down from around his ankles. He slid to a stop and plunged a clawed paw into the sludge, trying to scoop Kacchan out, but the viscous fluid held tight. He wrenched his paw out of the sludge and whirled around, looking for something to help, when he caught sight of his tail at the edge of his vision. He scanned the sludge villain again, and he locked eyes with the thing, his mind whirling at a mile a minute.

The realisation hit him like a brick to the face as the sludge lashed out at him, Kacchan screaming obscenities between breaths and the Heroes behind him shouting at each other and him. The thing had eyes. Solid, actual eyes. And he knew from experience that having your eyes touched at all hurt like a bitch. So he swung his tail like a club, and swiped at the eyes floating in the sludge. The villain screamed as the hard, bony limb raked across the eyes it couldn't close, and it recoiled in pain, pulling away from Kacchan as it did.

Working fast, Izuku folded back one of the sets of claws on his right paw and dragged his childhood friend away, using his teeth to sling the boy up onto his back. He snarled deeply at the sludge villain, who flinched back even more, and padded over to the heroes who were supposed to have done this, rumbling quietly in contempt as he drew closer. He turned to look back at Kacchan, who was slumped over on his back and heaving in air, coughing like he had the plague. He whined worriedly, trying to twist around to nose at the boy without tipping him from his back, and in the end settled for huffing a breath of hot air across his head.

The blond looked up at him then, shaky and sick, but he spared enough energy to pat softly at the scales he was laying on. Izuku huffed another breath of air over his face, making Kacchan grimace, and padded over to the ambulance that had pulled up at some point. The paramedics froze as he drew closer, and he huffed a chuckle, laying down near the back of the open van. Kacchan stayed where he was for a few long moments, and he turned to look at him with worried eyes, but the blond just patted his scales again and slid slowly off his back, shaking as his exhausted muscles were forced to move again. Izuku huffed out one last breath over Kacchan's head, then stood, staying near the boy so that he could offer support as he climbed onto the back of the van.

He stepped back as the paramedics seemed to snap out of whatever daze had held them and rushed forward, quickly enveloping the blond boy in a bustling frenzy of health checks. Kacchan met his eyes and nodded, still shaken and maybe a little grateful. Izuku nodded back, then turned tail and bounded away before the Pro Heroes could break out of their own dazes. He wasn't sure whether they were frozen out of shock or fear, but he found he didn't particularly care. They'd stood by while his friend was dying, and they had rough personalities anyway, only appearing to be in it for the money and fame. He didn't like those kinds of heroes.

End Notes:
Izuku's spent his whole life around Bakugo. You can't look me dead in the eyes and tell me that he hasn't picked up a few curses, some more creative than others. So, I say let Izuku say Fuck!
Note that this fic has been posted on AO3 with better formatting. If future chapters look like they've been dragged out of the coding itself that is because I'm using the HTML format on AO3 to write it.