Rising to the Top - A My Hero Academia Alternate Universe

Chapter 1 - More Than Humble Beginnings

17 year old Izuku Midoriya was a rather ordinary kid, but he was special in one and only one aspect as far as his life was concerned. And the reason he was special was that he learnt one important lesson. A lesson he learnt when he was very young, one that he has been carrying with him since he was 4.

You see, Izuku lived in a world where people had meta-abilities or as they will be referred to in this story, Quirks.

The first Meta Ability was manifested by a new-born baby in Qing Qing City, China with the ability to radiate light from its body. After this phenomenon, many people around the world began to manifest different kinds of superpowers, which became known as Meta Abilities.

While the cause of this phenomenon is unknown, it has been theorized that it was caused by the spread of a previously unknown virus carried by mice, although this theory had no hard evidence.

The dawn of this extraordinary era was marred by a breakdown of society caused by the sudden onslaught of criminals empowered by their newfound "superpowers" and ordinary people being prejudiced against the new minority.

As chaos and unrest ensued due to the outbreak of Meta Abilities, ordinary civilians decided to take matters into their own hands to bring order to society, and thus the first "heroes" appeared in the form of Vigilantes, beginning the Vigilantes Era.

At some point, a woman gave birth to a son named Chikara Yotsubashi. As Chikara grew up, he faced a lot of discrimination and abuse for having a Meta Ability. His mother supported him, stating that her son's Meta Ability is just a quirk, an aspect of his personality.

Although at the time, her message was scorned and even led to her murder, decades later, "Quirk" became the most common term for such Meta Abilities, and she retroactively became known as the Mother of Quirks.

As society adapted to the new status quo, the Police Force moved to prioritize leadership and to maintain the status quo, and as such, decided not to use Quirks as weapons. To fill that void, the profession of crime-fighting Quirk users, Pro Heroes, began to exist, starting in Rhode Island, USA, which caused the Vigilantes to slowly disappear.

Authorizing the use of powers that could so easily kill, however, was a greatly criticized decision at first, but eventually became accepted as a legitimate occupation. This became known as the "Advent of the Extraordinary".

There were certain markers both for those that had quirks and those that didn't have any. The easiest to identify of these was the presence of an extra joint in the toes. The extra joint was only present on those that didn't have any quirks or meta-abilities. As time passed, the percentage of people with quirks grew, reaching its current status with almost 80 percent of the world having quirks while the other 20 percent were part of the minority being labelled as Quirkless.

Born with an extra joint on his toes, Izuku Midoriya was a part of this minority. He was a regular humans with no powers of any sort in a world that was straight out of the Utopia that Syndrome from Incredibles had in mind. And being in the 20 percent that had no powers, taught Izuku a lot of things, but the one that stuck through was that 'Not All Men Were Born Equal'.

His life up to this point has been, if you were to believe his words, absolute, utter hell. All because of one diagnosis. A diagnosis that had made his life what it was today. Well, the diagnosis was just the beginning. After that, it was a matter of being socially outcasted.

Age 8

Izuku was at the park with his friends. They were playing 'Heroes and Villains', with Bakugou Katsuki, who was a family friend that the boy that Izuku lovingly called Kacchan and a few of his friends.