Quote 

“ The Eternal Winter is here.”

FrostPunk 

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" " = talking and speaking

= author's pov

' ' = Thinking

(Meanwhile)= Spik, and pov change

Bold = The viewing/world

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Prologue 

What was the forever winter? What exactly was this event that destroyed the world? Simple it was how the world ended. Huh? What do I mean by that? Let me explain. The land as you see it now, a barren landscape of ice and snow we call the frost lands, didn’t always look like this. 

What do I mean by this? Two years ago one of, if not the most powerful man in the world, All For One, sought to conquer the world and he was foiled. No surprise there, the bad guy in most of these stories fails. However where most stories end with the hero riding off into the sunset this one ends more like, but the villain left a bomb in the kingdom and after he died it blew up killing everyone. Let me elerabate. With the defeat of All For One he saw the heroes destroy the very kingdom and its foundation he built over a century. They tore his world down and he in kind decided to return the favor.

Weather through pumping the air full of smoke and ash, by forcing volcanoes to erupt blocking the sun all over the world. Or he cooled down the earth’s core with any number of the many powers he collected over the years. Or moved it a tiny bit further away from the sun. It could be any number of these or neither we don’t know and frankly never will. For what they found of him was his charred smiling remains.

The world was going to end and when everyone found out they collectively lost their metaphorical shit. Wars were waged, religious faith tested, and the standards of human decency shattered. As the various countries prepared for the end ,or unsuccessfully I might add try to stop it.

 They called it the forever winter and the day it would hit the great freeze. For when it hit, it would create an Iceage to last forever. With no way to stop the stendy fall of the world’s temperature, the governments of the world sought to make cities that could withstand the coming cold. Each did so differently for example, the united states created great standing braziers powered alite oil and gas that runs in between the main brazier and smaller one through aqueducts or pipes. The russians or the elite tricked the people of russian in supplying and building massive underground bunkers that the elite plan to keep to themselves leaving most of their population to freeze to death above ground. While the British built massive coal furnaces in the north.

The Japanese made their own device to stay warm. A creation of the brightest minds of the UA High’s support gear lab and a scientist lended to them by I-Island. Together the head engineer Mei Hatsume, and Melissa Shield from I-island created the device to save Japan. Japan had little to no natural resources to build great devices like the other countries and was too worried about their neighboring countries to send to go find more. They did have something that could warm the entire city. Using a device they nicknamed Kojin’s Foundry, named after the deity of fire. The device is a mixture of a tunnel boring and magma pump. The device would burrow into the earth into magma tubes pumping out magma to the surface to heat up certain areas before being funneled back into the earth.

The stage set the means of which Japan would save itself was decided now they had to build it. They would build it near Mount Fuji with all of its volcanic tubes. Now who would be in charge of this new city? A politician? No none of the populace would trust them or willing follow them, same would go for anyone from the military and seeing as of now the populace was the stronger force in numbers alone. The HSPC? Anyone from them would be killed as soon as it was said after the public learned about the organization's skeletons in their closet. How about a hero? That seemed right, the public trusted the heroes now more than ever after the war. At least most did, but who among them was worthy? How about the one who ended the war, Izuku Midoriya. He was asked, and he accepted the position, then trained and instated to be the leader of New Mustafa the first of the new thermal cities. Afterall it was Mei and Meilissa’s idea, after the war with AFO gone the majority of his quirk was gone with him. Rather than fade into obscurity with the reamants of OFA they would give him a chance to continue being the hero they knew he was. At least until their secret project for him was finished.

When Izuku took office he set out to create a council. He realized he knew little and others he trusted who knew more and could do more would be vital to running the city smoothly. 

His council was made of head of engineers Melissa Shield. The creator and head Operator of Kojin’s furnace Mei Hatsume. They were in charge of everything mechanical related, when Powerloader wasn’t present. 

Koku Hanabata, or better known as trumpet, was head of the people’s union. He used to be a metal liberation member but during the war he was captured and later escaped. However due to his abilities to channel the raw powers of the common man towards something constructive he is tolerated.

 Then there was Yokumiru Mera, head of resource management and the former head of HPSC. Now he manages the logistics and resources of the government and the new city when Nezu can’t. These were the starting members of his council, not including all of his friends from UA. 

As the snow fell with massive evacuations to the new cities, while others stayed at home believing this farce, this hoax would soon be over. They believed that up until the snow piled outside their home covering the widows, and blocking them inside as the cold slowly crept into their homes, and bones. Many who fled could only look at their homes in horror as the snow seemed to swallow it all.

Those who fled went to the proclaimed new cities to hopefully find shelter to find mostly unfinished or barely dug out building sites. Three of the six planned cities were never finished; the only one to be finished on time was New Mustafa, and it had nowhere near the resources, and housing they had originally planned. As droves of people were forced to sleep in tents. Better a tent there then working through the night at one of the other unfinished installations. Nezu worked tirelessly to save one while the military worked on another. The snow eventually cut any contact between the two. 

The days became colder and colder as Izuku struggled to build up New Mustafa while snow and ice built up around them maintaining the foundry. For three months the world was ravaged by storms as winds desmated all of creation and everything man had built. The storm, and earth acting as a hammer and anvil with mankind in the middle fighting to survive just another hit of the hammer, in the great endurance test in humanity’s history. As all around the world struggled in the final torrent of blows that destroyed all lesser clivisations, for seven days and nights the temperature dropped as low as minus one-hundred celcius or minue one-hunred and forty-eight fahrenheit as phony and her family liked to put it.  

The city did what it could to hold out against the cold as even their new homes froze, and forced hundle .around the foundry trying to keep warm or freeze to death. They hundred together chuckling blankets covering every inch of skin or risk losing it to frostbite and for those tired of the cold, and without hope they dove into the foundry’s magma heart turning to ash, and charred bone. As they huddled together for warmth as flesh turned blue and loved ones froze to death in each other’s arms. 

Yet soon the howling wind, the cold began to disappear. While those who remained shook their loved ones hoping they would respond. As Izuku undid the blanket and opened his eyes to the world reborn in ice and snow. 

Izuku awoke with a start looking around the room breathing in the chilly air around him. He was shocked he was alive, he survived. As he shook Uraraka and his mother who handled around him in the foundry's room. 

“Ohhh,” and apparently he wasn’t the only one. As he heard others wake up or start to move. “Izuku?” He turned to see Uraraka pale, but awake and alive. As she began to turn around looking for someone, “ Where are my parents?” She asked looking for them having been separated from them when they rushed everyone inside the foundry or those they could get to.

“ Go, find them. I need to see who lives, and who needs help.” Izuku said as he stood up telling all to rise, seeing who needed as people began to cough and flutter from the cold. He could see many whose fingers and toes went blue from the cold and would need to be removed. The hospital would be filled with paneits as soon as he could find their doctors, and Recovery Girl. As he turned to hear a scream, a shriek as people awoke to find themselves embracing their dead, frozen partners having turned blue from the cold or passed on from various other methods. 

The dead were separated from the living laid down covered by tarps. As Izuku pulled out his book of the city where he kept count of everything. Then he went to the population section and began to tally the living, the dying, and the dead. Out of the over seven-hundred that came over time to this city, hundred and two died of the cold from before and after the great freeze. As he wrote several of their names jumped from the page to mind. He ignored them and continued writing. 

Izuku tried his best to remember all he could but that also meant remembering the dead. fifty-one died in infighting and riots when the stress was high and there was only so much he could do. People rioted and people died fighting one another like starving dogs fighting over stale bread. 

Then those who choose what Bakugo had called the easy way out. He hated the way he put it, and so did several others. His office was always almost full with complaints from their neighbors and his explosive outbursts. Those died by their own choice from stress, realizing they were the last reaments of their families, sixty-five were found dead in their homes. While twenty choose to leave either wanting to go to the other settlements or thinking this was some government ploy or not wanting to comfrome to his laws left the city.

He moved these thoughts from his mind as he moved to check the other parts of the New Mustafa. There were others he needed to find; he hoped they were still alive. The foundry was a multi-level building. Each level besides the basement was shaped like a ring with various offices, and cubicles for the workers there. He didn’t go down there, he knew no one would be down there. During the storm they had diverted all the heat to the building and opened the basement doors  letting more heat in. If anyone had gone down there they would be charred. 

Each of the levels was filled with people hundle together, those who couldn’t fit on the lower levels. As the living began to get up he could see Recovery Girl beginning to help. Izuku calls out to her, slightly startling her as she sees him.

“ Recovery Girl!”

“ Ahhh, don’t do that, Startling little old ladies like me… What is the matter? Do you have frostbite? Then please let me help. I am swamped up here.” She starts firsking him over for injuries as Izuku stops her, “ Well there is more downstairs.” He says as she silently curses and Izuku countunies on, “ Where is Mei? In fact, where is Shoto? I am going to need both their help to defrost the city. With the storm over we can start dieverting heat to the whole city.”

“ He went up stairs with her and the others who couldn’t fit on the other floors. He’s using his fire side to keep them warm… Now excuse me as I have to treat these people and get the worst to the medical bay. Everyone in there should be fine, I hope. It has its own direction pipeline to the foundry. Then I have to go treat the patient our former number one hero left for us.” 

Izuku sighed remembering the deal he made with Endeavor to let Shoto stay at new Mustafa. We would watch over a patient he would leave in our care and in exchange he would agree to let shoto stay instead of one of his other sidekicks. It was very troublesome to care for his Patient. However if it meant keeping Shoto around, it was worth it.  He tried to leave, but Recovery Girl grabbed her shoulder before he left. 

“ Hold it, before you go, how is one for all doing? Are the embers still there or?” He sighed, the one thing he didn’t want to talk about today. One for All was barely hanging on only leaving Embers of their quirks behind with him. He had to use it on multiple occasions to prevent further deaths and each time felt the quirks leave him more and more. Melissa has for the longest time been working on creating a treatment to bond the remnants to his DNA but all efforts have been very uneffective or flat out did not work. 

“ Still embers, it hasn’t grown or died down anymore… I’m going to leave and find Mei…” Before he turned to leave he remembered something very important they left on ice before they evacuated to the Foundry. He shouted,  “Also can you give me a warning before you unfreeze the Asui family. I want to make sure Tzuyu and her family wake up to a warm home.” He said as Recovery girl gave him a thumbs up as he walked away.

He walked up to the third floor where Mei made her office. 

“ MEI!” he called out to the upper parts of the foundry hoping to find her, the very reason anyone in Japan was alive today. As he came to the last part of the foundry, Mei’s office. He was hoping this was where they decided to hold up. As he called out her name. He heard shuffling inside that brought him great joy, they were still alive. As Mei  came to the door, opening it up for them.

“ Offph, I’m here Mr. Million.” She said without a worry as if they hadn’t just survived the coldest storm in the earth’s history. Leaving him shocked since some people even inside the building had died to the storm, even inside and yet they were fine and seemed unworried. That alone confused him but that nickname was the same nickname from when they were in highschool. He won the first part of the tournament all those years ago and became owth a million points before the end of the world and everything became covered in snow. Now he felt old and he just wanted to see if they were alright now.

“ Open up Mei. I came to see if you weren’t dead yet and now we have work to do.”  He heard her shrill with excitement as she responded quickly, “ OHHhhh does that mean we can fire this baby up like it was meant?”

She had never liked the idea of focusing the heat into the foundry like this. Since she hadn’t design it to do that, “ Yes Mei let me in please.”

“ Aye aye boss,” she said, opening the office for Izuku to see… All of the Engineer and Foundry staff huddled around an almost naked Shoto, as they used both sides of his body to make food. On the left side they cooked food like eggs and bacon and made shaved ice from ice that formed on his right side. They all saw him walk as they all stopped mid bite. He just stared at them and then, he saw Momo stare at him, as she slowly ate a piece of bacon she had been cooking on Shoto’s nipple. While continuing to stare at him, proceeded to put another bacon piece back with a loud zizzle with her chopsticks as she stared at him. He just had one thing to say to all of this.

“ Shoto, what the hell is going on here?” he asked as everyone in the room besides Mei looked down in shame. As Mei answered for them.

“ Oh, they thought they were maybe going to freeze to death and wanted to eat quote on quote their last meals. They had no way to cook them, and so used Shoto over there to cook it. When they realized they weren’t going to die, they thought, "Why waste the food.” Mei said as she reached for some bacon only to have her hand smacked away as her co-workers stared at her with one thing on their minds, ‘snitch.’

“ Wait, is that why some of the eggs seemed to be disappearing from food storage? Who has been poaching eggs?” Izuku asked, wanting answers because he had almost fired someone he suspected was hoarding food. As he gave a long sigh, “ You all had your fun, but it is time to stop.”

As the team gave a sad whine and sad came out to help the others. As Shoto got up to put his clothes back on he beckoned him to follow, nodding as Momo snatched the piece of bacon she had been cooking on his chest and popped it into her mouth. He just turned to stare at her with a dumbfounded look of ,’why?’ as she shrugged, enjoying her piece of bacon. In comparison, he and Uraraka had a normal relationship. Yeah former superheroes getting married after highschool before the end of the world and adopting a one horned child named Eri who can rewind time. Normal.

“ Mei. “

“ Yeah?”

“ Time to fire up the foundry and get this city unfrozen.” He said as she grew ecstatic at the thought and began to rush to the control flipping switches and knobs. As she began to bring this frozen city to life. As the foundry began to hum with energy pumping the fiery blood of the earth out. The magma turned lava once above ground would flow through pipes or through grates and trenches for it to flow heating the city. As the city began to reheat slowly as snow began to slowly melt as the citizens began to slowly make their ways home. The radio could be repaired now and possibly even used in time. 

As Izuku could only watch with glee from the roof of the foundry, as his frozen city began to unthaw. As the light of the foundry touched the sky.

While from above a tiny blimp on the globe shined as Japan began to get back on its feet. As the globe spun more lights began to appear and dot the frozen surface as humanity began to wake from the great freeze. Humanity was reborn. They were not ready for this world and yet here they were. 

A New Dawn, A New World, and A New Humanity.