Digital Dreamworld

Chapter 1 - Entering the Experiment

"Didn't know you could be in a good mood but okay," Uraraka snorted, earning an eye roll from the blonde. He had calmed down since their first year, to the point where he wouldn't start a fight inside the dorms for some stupid comment like that. "Anyway, don't you have to say something about this, Bakugou? You're normally the first to complain about stuff like this."

"Yeah, well," Kacchan grumbled, fumbling with his water bottle. Izuku could tell he didn't want to talk about it, but he was still going to try. Something he'd gotten better at, recently. "It's not like we can do shit to stop it, so there's no fucking point in being a whiny bitch about it."

With that he took his chance to escape the conversation, even if he'd never admit to running away from anything or anyone.

"Ugh, even Bakugou is just accepting it! Really, I can't be the only one who thinks this is a bad idea, right?" Uraraka asked, desperate for confirmation at this point.

"I'm sure things will be fine, like Midoriya said," Todoroki told her. "Nezu may not care about his students as much as he should, but he cares about UA's reputation and the possible personal consequences he'll face if something were to go wrong."

"Todoroki is correct, I'm sure Nezu has already calculated the risk and deemed this project safe!" Iida said, clearing his throat. "Safe enough, at least."

"You guys really know how to make a girl feel better, don't you?" Uraraka huffed, getting up from the couch again. "I'm gonna go hang out with Tsu, maybe she can see a bright side to all of this."

"I'm sure it won't be that bad!" Izuku called after her in a last ditch effort to comfort his friend. He wasn't so sure whether she believed him, though...

———

He tried not to worry too much about it all, but Izuku would lie if he said his nerves weren't playing up when he saw the beds lined up against the wall, the men in white coats still readying up the equipment and machines as they entered. The VR headsets didn't look anything like the headsets Izuku had seen before, back when Kaminari had gotten it for his birthday and they played some dumb games down in the common room before Iida requested him to take it upstairs.

No, this was something else entirely. The scientists had gotten one of the training halls to their disposal and filled every inch of it. The beds were lined up against the wall, the headsets positioned at the head with thick wires running across the ground to a much larger machine. Something to read out their thoughts, their brain activity. Izuku had read something about that in the information sheet. And then there were the screens, the papers, the chaotic way everyone was running around as they were setting it all up-

It was a lot to take in.

So yeah, Izuku would lie if he said he wasn't nervous, maybe even a bit anxious. He didn't have good memories of hospitals and tests and brain scans. No, because society doesn't just deem someone quirkless. No. No, they rub it in. They test you in every way they possibly could, but scans were the most frequent thing Izuku had to go through. Or maybe it was the thing he remembered the most. Remembered being scared as he lay still in the big noisy machines, remembered crying, shaking, having nightmares about it all.

"Welcome! I'm so glad you could all make it!" some bubbly woman exclaimed, running up to their class with an excited smile on her face. Or, well, Izuku liked to think she was smiling. Her skin was dark, almost black, and her pupils were pure white, but despite that she tried her best to look approachable. Her clipboard was a mess though, from what Izuku could see at least, and that didn't comfort him in the slightest. "I'm doctor Mills! I run this experiment! Oh, I was just so happy to hear Nezu tell me you guys wanted to volunteer! With the collective trauma in your undeveloped brains it's sure to produce some promising results!"