It's a Plan(et)

Chapter 13

To say that Kurogiri was surprised to hear from him was an understatement if Shigaraki's reassurances were anything to go by.

"Yes, yes. I have the coordinates here," he mumbled into the payphone, gripping the paper tightly.

"Yes, I'm fine. You'll be able to see that when you make the fucking warp gate," he said, his voice raising slightly, sounding stressed.

"I'll explain it all later," he insisted, voice lowered, eyes flitting around to see if anyone was suspicious of him.

Then, indignant, "I will not explain now. It'll take too long, and you won't believe me anyway."

A sigh.

"I was abducted by aliens."

"Wait, really? Toga saw it happen? Anyway! Yes! That's what happened!"

"No! She's not covering for me! I could very well tell you it's none of your damn business and leave it at that! Are you coming to get me or not?!"

Shigaraki lit up with a sudden idea, eyes locking on Izuku. "I have someone who can corroborate my story!"

He deflated, frustrated again. "Well, you'll see who it is when you send the warp gate, won't you?"

"No, it's not Toga! You already know about Toga! It's someone else!" He rubbed at his forehead in resignation at how the conversation was going in circles, and Izuku empathized.

Izuku also noticed how he was now holding the phone with one hand and rubbing his forehead with the other, no note with written coordinates in sight.

"Okay the coordinates are–"

And Shigaraki seemed to realize that, too.

Izuku silently handed him the extra note that he had hurriedly written down. Shigaraki looked at the note with the written coordinates, looked at Izuku, and gave him a genuine smile.

"Yeah, yeah. Give me a fucking second," he said into the phone. Izuku wondered if Kurogiri could hear the smile in his voice.

"Shigaraki Tomura," Kurogiri's voice announced once he and Shigaraki made it through the warp gate. Izuku found himself standing in the middle of the League's base, surrounded by the members of the League of Villains and found himself wondering if he just leapt out of the pan and into the fire. "What is the meaning of this?"

"I'm not repeating myself again!" Shigaraki immediately objected, sinking down into a chair that looked incredibly comfortable.

"Hi," Izuku said with a wave. "Uh, everything he said is true. We were abducted by aliens. They gave me this implant," Izuku said, pointing to the disc, "called a Universal Translation Device, and I used it to understand their languages and plan our escape."

"How universal is it, I wonder," Kurogiri pondered.

"I'm not sure. Until now, I didn't even know it worked on languages other than alien ones. What language is this?" Izuku asked.

Kurogiri said nothing for a long while. "Coptic," he answered finally. "A dead language."

Izuku's heart dropped into his stomach. "Oh."

"What?" Shigaraki asked.

"Uh, my UTD–"

"STD," Shigaraki corrected under his breath.

"--works on human languages as well, including apparently dead languages..."

Everyone was dead silent at that.

Izuku turned to face Shigaraki fully.

"So it is Universal, not just S-languages, so it's not an STD, so take that, Shigaraki!" Izuku yelled, pointing in Shigaraki's face.