"Are they bringing us our toothbrushes?" Shigaraki asked. "And mint toothpaste?" he badgered when he didn't get a response automatically.
"Cotton candy toothpaste," Izuku answered under his breath as he tried to focus on what the approaching dolluns and scraks were conversing about. It was rare to see the two species getting along enough to walk next to each other, let alone conversing together.
"No!" Shigaraki objected, throwing himself to the ground in preparation to tantrum. "Tell them to send it back! I don't want it!" Then, after a thoughtful pause, "Do they even know what cotton candy is?" Then, indignant, "Midoriya!"
With a snicker, Izuku said, "Okay, you got me. I'm trying to listen in on their conversation," Izuku stressed, nodding his head in the direction of the aliens coming down the hall. "They haven't mentioned anything about toothbrushes, yet."
Shigaraki quietened then, looking down the hall to see the two species approaching. "Oh," he whispered-yelled, trying to be quiet but also still be heard by Izuku across the hall. "They don't normally get along, do they?"
"No, which is why I'm trying to listen in," Izuku explained with a sharp glare in Shigaraki's direction.
Shigaraki raised his hands in surrender and meandered back into his cell, busying himself with counting how many of each item he had gathered in his newly accumulated stash.
"They have that gun that shoots ammo-masks!" Izuku warned loudly as soon as he saw it clutched in the hands of a scrak following up at the back of the group of approaching aliens, unable to control his volume in his panic.
Shigaraki, without hesitation, used a bowl to shield the lower half of his face before turning around from his stash, quickly making his way to the bars that still buzzed with low-level electricity that had no effect on the humans the cells housed. He promptly threw another bowl over to Izuku who, adrenaline rushing, panic crawling up his throat, imagined himself fumbling the bowl and it rolling down the corridor toward the approaching dolluns and scraks, leaving him defenseless against their weapons, Shigaraki yelling in the background, probably something about wasting a valuable part of his stash, but Izuku wouldn't be able to make it out because of the blood rushing through his ears making everything sound muffled.
Luckily, that was just his panic-addled brain feeding him some intrusive thoughts of what-if, and he caught the bowl just fine, pulling it in through the bars and pressing it over the lower half of his face where the mask would attach if given the chance.
The scrak holding the weapon awkwardly, the weapon too small to sit correctly for it's long, armored limbs asked, "what is this?" with the weapon half raised toward Izuku when they stopped in front of his cell, turning toward Izuku's cell first.
Why does it always have to be me? He felt selfish immediately after the thought, knowing that it was better for them to focus on him than to drag Shigaraki off to get his own brain messed with for the UTD implant if that could be avoided at all.
Izuku provided direct translations for Shigaraki in real-time, nothing more and nothing less. "What is this?" he said, right after the scrak.
"What is this?!" Shigaraki mocked, in a high-pitched tone gesturing with one of his hands, feeling brave enough to not brace the bowl with both hands with the weapon not aimed at him, but not enough to remove the bowl from his face, his voice echoing off the metal contours of the inside of the bowl pressed cautiously against his face. "What are those?! What is anything?! Fuck, are these guys dumb. We should have figured out that they weren't top of the hierarchy the second we got here."
Despite himself, Izuku smiled under his own bowl. The faint scent of the crocknets that had been presented in the bowl had long dissipated and there was no dust left behind to waft up into his eyes, but Izuku could imagine it if he tried hard enough. Maybe that's what was making him tear up, and not the camaraderie that Shigaraki could show when Izuku needed it the most, when he felt the panic at the thought of 'what if this didn't work and he woke up with yet another body modification that he wasn't warned about, didn't consent to?'
Shigaraki was probably just responding with anything to feign a conversation to not make it obvious that Izuku could translate, so in a way he was benefiting himself by responding, but he could have responded with nonsense, or simple facts like "the sky is blue" or "two plus two equals four." He didn't have to try to relieve Izuku's nerves in the process, Izuku reasoned with himself.
"Take their bowls away," the scrak demanded when they didn't get an answer to their obvious question, looking between the two cells to see which prisoner would comply or succeed first.
"Take their bowls away," Izuku repeated.
"They want them to do what?!" Shigaraki guffawed. "As if! They've never gone against us before! They won't do it now, especially by trying to take something away from our mouths, you know, where we bite from?" More laughter. And tears? Yes, there were tears, Izuku saw. Shigaraki wiped them away with one hand, still supporting the bowl with the other. "These guys at least have a career in comedy when this guard thing doesn't work out."
Izuku found himself laughing, too, despite the tense circumstances.
"We wouldn't do that," A'zawa answered for both himself and H'zashi. "Even if we wanted to help you– which as your prisoners, mind you, we don't– we would still not risk ourselves unprotected against the Terrans for your benefit."
"I never gave Cat-Face enough credit," Shigaraki said as Izuku translated. "But don't tell him I said that. You're my translator. Not theirs!"
"Possessive of me, are you?" Izuku teased through his bowl, eyes narrowing in good fun.
"Who said that?" Shigaraki asked, looking around for the culprit to try to make sense of it, to put it in context.
"I did," Izuku declared.
Shigaraki looked back at Izuku, brain processing, before very obviously scowling, even behind his bowl.
"Even if I was, you'd have no say," Shigaraki said. "If I say you're my party member, you're my party member. Got it?"
"Yes, sir," Izuku drawled with an eye roll and a half-shrug, but was secretly pleased that Shigaraki was comfortable enough around him to allow some of that game-speak to leak into his words and not keep it tightly locked in the confines of his thoughts only.
"That's more like it!" Shigaraki declared, even despite Izuku's less-than-serious tone, probably deciding that he would take what he could get or maybe that pretending that Izuku's feigned compliance was total compliance would get on Izuku's nerves. It honestly just amused Izuku; it made him happy seeing Shigaraki act carefree in such a tense situation.
"Will they follow you? Can you get them to understand that?" the dollun asked, much to the scraks' surprise.
The dolluns were not known to be problem-solvers, much more of command-followers than thinkers. But these dolluns have been around the Terrans for cycles and cycles. A'zawa and H'zashi seemed more mildly, pleasantly surprised than completely taken aback like the scraks.
"They want us to follow them? As in follow Cat-Face and Bird-Face?" Shigaraki asked, having observed that the dollun asking the question was asking directly to H'zashi and the way the question was worded.
"That's the way it was worded," Izuku said. "Maybe this trip is for a different purpose than to try any implantation updates. I really wish I could ask." Izuku, frustrated, looked longingly at H'zashi and A'zawa, wishing that he could telepathically communicate with them. What is going on? Where do they want to take us? What are they going to do to us?
"They do know some simple Standard," H'zashi supplied. "I can try to communicate your desires to them and see if they will agree."
Izuku quickly translated for Shigaraki before H'zashi turned to Izuku and looked over at Shigaraki as well, loudly and slowly saying in Standard, "follow? You... follow?" while pointing at the Terrans, himself, and then pointing out toward the dolluns and scraks in the hall.
"Follow...?" Izuku repeated like he was testing the word out on his tongue, trying to remember where he had heard the word before. "Follow?" he repeated, turning to Shigaraki like he was asking him if he knew.
"H'zashi asked, "follow? You... follow?" in Standard," he supplied, but made it sound like a question and kept a confused expression on his face.
"Follow!" Shigaraki exclaimed like he finally understood, and then said, "it will look better if the one without the implant is the one who gets the answer, at least some of the time."
"Good thinking!" Izuku exclaimed with more energy necessary to seem like their conversation was about finally understanding that the aliens wanted them to follow and not the actual conversation they were having. Izuku turned back to H'zashi, and said in slow, slightly mispronounced Standard, "yes, follow... you. No–" then paused as if he was searching for the word, frustrated, and pointed at the bowl on his face and the weapon the scrak was still holding half-raised, as if ready to aim and fire at any given opportunity.
"Ammo-mask," H'zashi provided, repeating it a few times until Izuku feigned finally getting it right.
Surprisingly, the guards were all patient with waiting for the impromptu teaching moment to be over for H'zashi to take the time to respond back to them with an answer instead of demanding one immediately.
Izuku nodded determinedly. "Yes follow. No ammo-mask."
"They said they will follow, but they don't want the ammo-masks. Is that something you can agree to?" H'zashi asked.
Izuku was impressed with how he was able to keep his voice even and flat, keep the emotion out of it like he was negotiating for two parties unrelated to him instead of for Terrans who could aid in his escape against the guards keeping them all prisoner there under false pretenses.
"Yes, I believe so. The ammo-mask gun was not mandated to be used, just offered to us. Isn't that right?" the dollun asked the scrak.
"Yes," the scrak answered, though their voice was hesitant, like they had no idea what universe they were dropped in that a dollun was leading negotiations with prisoners to get them to do what they wanted.
"And there's enough of us here to lead them to the holding area by force, if required," the dollun continued, making a back-up plan, much to everyone's surprise if Izuku's read on their body language was correct, "so if they make a run for it or start to fight, we will subdue them and just lead them to their destination physically instead of by trying to get an aim on them with the ammo-mask gun and accidentally hitting someone else or injuring them by striking an area not in range of the targeted area for attachment. Is everyone in agreement and ready to move forward?"
Thanks to the surprise at a dollun's sudden take-control and problem-solving attitude that is rare for its species, no one paid any mind to Izuku's muttering that went right alongside the dollun's speech, giving Shigaraki his real-time translation of exactly what is being said.
"We should still keep the bowls, though," Izuku offered as an idea as soon as he finished with the translation. "If we discarded them so easily after all that, they might catch on that we can understand that the ammo-mask gun is no longer a consideration for us. We have to act wary about it as long as it's in sight."
"Well, that'll be easy," Shigaraki said, "because I am wary about it as long as it's in sight."
Izuku watched, keeping the bowl pressed tightly against his face, body tense and ready for action should any wrong move be made against him, as the dolluns, for the first time (since he's been awake and conscious to see it) opened his cell door. H'zashi walked out and looked back at him, giving him a wave with his wing and a simple, urging prompt in Standard, "follow... follow!"
Izuku's eyes flitted around the company in the corridor, looking for any reason why he should not step out into the hallway. But, he found that the scrak holding the ammo-mask gun had slung it over his body by its strap and was not even holding it with their limbs anymore, let alone holding it at the ready or aimed his way. No one had their hands out, ready to grab him or force him. It seemed like they were letting him walk of his own accord until he showed them that he was not cooperative. But, Izuku could be cooperative.
Unless they were going to implant something else inside of him.
Or try to implant something into Shigaraki.
The same process repeated with Shigaraki's cell, but Shigaraki showed less hesitation than Izuku did, rushing out to be by Izuku's side. There was some tenseness among the guards, then, but slowly they relaxed.
"For a second there, I thought they were going to attack each other," one dollun behind them voiced, relief clear in his tone as they started to walk down the hallway, the scraks leading the dolluns, leading H'zashi and A'zawa, leading Izuku and Shigaraki, followed by guards of both species as well.
"What?" one dollun asked, clearly giddy with relief that all was going according to plan as well. "The Terrans or the aldoi and the thretuil?"
A'zawa and H'zashi's upper bodies tensed ahead of them and they noticeably moved a little closer as they walked together, walking in solidarity against the voiced prejudice of the dolluns behind them, but unable or unwilling to directly speak out against their guards when they do not have the protection of the electrified bars between them and their captors.
"That's a good point," the dollun said, "but I was more worried about the Terrans, since they were known enemies back on Terra."
"Sure, but aldois and thertuils are natural enemies, are they not?"
"That's why this is sure to be a bloodbath."
"You don't think they'll help each other?"
"I think it'll be every individual for himself."
"What do you think the Terrans talking about anyway?"
"I don't know. They never seem to stop, though, do they? Especially that green one. He just goes on, and on, and on–"
"Like you don't?" the dollun teased, chittering out a laugh before being scolded by a scrak behind to take the job seriously.
"They have a point, Midoriya. All you do is talk," Shigaraki said, giving Izuku some relief from translating everything he was overhearing as they walked.
"They give me a lot to translate," Izuku said with a small shrug, but he knew Shigaraki wasn't really complaining, just giving a response for the sake of giving a response and not giving away the fact that Izuku is actually translating after all.
"How did they know we were enemies on Earth?" Shigaraki asked, thinking aloud. "I thought that our abduction was completely random, just whoever was next to walk through that door, whether that be a single person or five people, that's who they got, and they just so happened to get us. But, with the way they are talking..."
"They did say it as if they know– for sure– that we are enemies. Not just not friends, but true enemies," Izuku agreed. "Were we being watched beforehand?"
"You're going to get my paranoia going again," Shigaraki warned lightheartedly.
"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you aren't being watched," Izuku countered.
"It's actually– you know what? Nevermind. You're the correcting type. Not me."
"What?" Izuku asked. "What did I get wrong? What's the saying actually?"
"No!" Shigaraki objected from behind his bowl, turning to look straight ahead and refusing to look at Izuku. "I'm not doing this, Mr. Superluminal. I'm not like you!"
"Shigaraki!"
"No!"
"I need to know!" Izuku objected. "I strive for knowledge!"
"Look it up when we get home!"
"Shigaraki!" Izuku whined. "I won't remember!"
"I'll remind you!" Shigaraki said. "But that's as far as I'll go! That's it!"
"You won't remember to remind me!" Izuku objected.
"It's a good song! Of course I'll remember to remind you!" Shigaraki said, completely offended.
"It's a song?" Izuku asked, sounding even more interested and desperate, taking a few quick steps to get a little ahead so he could look back at Shigaraki over his bowl that he continued to hold to his face with both hands (taking no chances!) and meet his eyes even with Shigaraki refusing to look over at him.
Shigaraki rolled his eyes. "I'll remind you," he insisted. "When we get back to Earth. Not a second... or a fucking click I guess, sooner."
The dolluns and scraks all stuttered in their steps, hearing a word from their language leave Shigaraki's mouth in the middle of their foreign language, but continued on leading, taking a right down a hallway that led away from the cells, down a hall with nothing to look at, just white, metal walls with no windows or pathways off.
"Ah, Shigaraki, you used a Standard measure of time!" Izuku cooed. "I'm so proud of you!"
"If you ever react like that again, I'll never do it again," Shigaraki threatened, eyes narrowed, but it didn't look so threatening over his bowl he continued to hold there.
Izuku made a cross over his heart and hoped that Shigaraki couldn't see how he was still smiling like a dumbass under his bowl. From the way Shigaraki's eyebrows moved downward and a line appeared between them, Izuku figured he probably could.
Oops.
Before Shigaraki could say anything about the expression that Izuku was probably making under his bowl– Shigaraki didn't have x-ray vision, he couldn't know for sure– they were led to a door and all four of them, A'zawa, H'zashi, Shigaraki, and Izuku, were ushered through.
The door was shut behind them, and with a quick turn of the handle, they quickly discovered that they were locked in. A quick look around by the humans showed nothing that looked like a camera, but one of the walls was made up of only more electrified bars that led out into an area that looked like an arena that could be found on a movie set. It was large, covered in a flat area filled with a rusty orange dusty looking ground. There were big boulders and rocks provided on the landscape and a big seating area with an announcer's box with a large looking satellite, or what looked like it could possibly be a satellite if it didn't look so... alien... coming out of the top of it. Since they were on an alien planet, Izuku figured it probably was indeed a satellite.
"No cameras," H'zashi said.
"No recording devices," A'zawa added.
Izuku repeated this to Shigaraki as they finally removed their bowls from their faces and asked, "what is this?" his heart sinking as they provided him the answer.
Reluctantly, he provided the answer then to Shigaraki.
"H'zashi and A'zawa said that part of Kuphea's research is how different species react in stressful situations. This is an arena made for inducing stress and seeing how species will respond. H'zashi is an aldoi and A'zawa is a thretuil. They are natural enemies, but they have found love in each other. Apparently, the experiment is allegedly to see if they will once again become enemies if enough stress is applied.
"We are of the same species, but are known to be enemies on Earth. So, they're looping us in with the experiment, or maybe looping them in with ours since we're kind of the main attraction here on Kulphea at the moment. Since they had to open both cells anyway, they decided to just bring all four of us at the same time. They're going to see if we help each other or hinder each other."
"What's the stressor?" Shigaraki asked, cracking his knuckles and starting to jog in place to warm himself up, steely red eyes set on the arena beyond the bars to see if he could see what challenge might await him.
"A big deathworlder species that has been trained to attack on command. They won't let it kill us, apparently, but..."
"Yeah, got it," Shigaraki said and started stretching.
Izuku took a deep breath, and then another, trying to calm himself.
"We got this," Shigaraki said, looking at him. "You've done harder things."
"I've had my quirk," Izuku argued.
"Well, now you have me," Shigaraki snipped. "I'm better than any damn quirk."
Izuku laughed at that, some tension leaving his body. "The whole intention of this arena is to see if the stress of it all will split us apart."
"Well, they failed. I wonder if we told them that if they would just bypass the whole thing, but this is the most action we've seen in weeks," Shigaraki said.
"You can't know that we'll stick together through the whole trial," Izuku argued.
"I already said that if you're my party member, you're mine," Shigaraki said. "And I take care of what's mine."
"Wow," Izuku said, dumbfounded. "I have never felt like such an object, but also oddly protected."
"Good," Shigaraki said.
"Is it?" Izuku wondered, but laughed anyway.
He then caught H'zashi and A'zawa up on Shigaraki's intentions to stick together no matter what.
"That's everyone's intentions going in, though," A'zawa said.
"What I'm going to tell you now so you know, and what they will learn from their experiments eventually, is that Terrans, when they are faced with adversity, will band together and fight harder," Izuku informed. "Something that can even bring two enemies together is the joining of forces against a third enemy. We have a saying on Terra that goes: the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
"Too bad the rumors about Terrans weren't true," H'zashi said later as they sat there waiting.
A'zawa stated earlier that they might be waiting for some kiloclicks due to the fact that they had intended on drugging the Terrans, so they would have allotted time for the drugs to wear off before starting the stress test.
"What rumors?" Izuku asked.
"That about 80% of your population have meta abilities," H'zashi stated forlornly. "With that statistic, at least one of you, if not both of you should have some sort of ability, but we haven't seen any evidence of anything since you both arrived."
"We both do," Izuku said.
"What?!" H'zashi squawked.
"Then why haven't you used them to escape?" A'zawa questioned.
"These," Izuku said, gesturing to his quirk-canceling bracelets. "They have technology that cancels out our abilities."
H'zashi and A'zawa stared at the bracelets on Izuku's and Shigaraki's wrists for a long time.
"The reason we believed that you and Shigaraki were lovers until corrected was because of the matching jewelry, signifying that you carry eternal love for one another on each other's person for the world to see," A'zawa informed. "After you informed us that you were not lovers, I figured that you both wore bracelets to signify love, but to other individuals instead of each other. But, you're saying, this whole time, we were looking at the reason why our escape has been delayed?"
"Now, now," chided H'zashi. "We don't know what their abilities are! You've seen examples from when we were researching Terra! Some can enlarge their appendages, but that would not necessarily help us escape for instance!"
A'zawa nodded and seemed to be taking some deep breaths. "What are your meta abilities?"
Izuku smiled sheepishly. "Uh, I have more than one, kind of. But I have super strength, I can float off the ground, and I can sense danger. I can impede vision, and I have these black tentacle things that I can manipulate."
"Oh my stars."
"And Shigaraki's?"
Izuku got even more sheepish, if possible. "He can decay anything he touches as long as it's with all five of his fingers."
H'zashi and A'zawa stared at Izuku for a long moment, then at Shigaraki, then at each other.
Izuku caught Shigaraki up on what they were talking about.
"What's it matter anyway when we don't have fucking access to our quirks?!" Shigaraki protested.
Izuku perked up and repeated this sentiment to the aliens.
"Maybe there's a way to break them," H'zashi said, pulling out two of his feathers and offering one to each human.
They stayed sharp even when not attached to H'zashi's body.
"Yeah... we have really important veins in our wrists that if we slip and cut them, we could bleed out and die," Izuku explained.
H'zashi was quick to take the feathers back, putting them right back into their slots where he took them out from as Izuku watched incredulously. Izuku's eyes narrowed in skepticism as H'zashi pulled them out again and handed them back, but the ends of them were shaped like little hammers instead of acting as knives.
"What?" Izuku said, so confused at what he was looking at that he didn't ask in Standard.
"The fuck?" Shigaraki finished his sentiment as he looked between the feather in his hand and H'zashi's wing from which the feather was removed.
Shigaraki looked intently at the hammer end of the feather, and, perking up, said, "I don't think these will work. The bracelets are too strong for a small feather-hammer, but..."
"But?" Izuku asked, weary and confused, and ready for a nap after seeing what H'zashi can do that he didn't think to mention before.
"Can he make lock picks?"
Izuku's eyes widened and he suddenly found that he had new energy as he gave the feathers back and explained what he needed the ends of the feathers to look like. Soon, he had his very own feathery lock picking kit that he was handing off to Shigaraki.
"Don't you know how?"
"I do," Izuku admitted.
"Scandalous," Shigaraki snickered.
"But you should get mine off first so we don't risk you decaying the feathers over and over again as you're trying to get mine off," Izuku said.
Shigaraki's eyes widened. "Smart," he agreed. "I can barely imagine having my quirk back after so long without it. It didn't even occur to me..."
Shigaraki moved closer and got to work picking the lock on Izuku's quirk-canceling bracelets, and Izuku just sat in the feeling of his power flowing through his body once it was returned to him.
"You know, you could probably just break mine off, now," Shigaraki pondered as Izuku took over the lock-picking feathers and got started on Shigaraki's bracelets.
"I probably could, but I don't want to hurt you. Plus, what if it sets off an alarm if they're broken versus if they're just unlocked?"
"Plus, you want to feel badass by using your lock-picking skills when you never get to otherwise?" Shigaraki guessed.
"Yeah. That, too," Izuku admitted without an ounce of shame, sending a mischievous smile up at Shigaraki before looking down to continue his progress, ignoring Shigaraki's laughter, but unable to wipe the smile off his own face.
"What do we do with these?" Shigaraki asked, holding the bracelets in his hand, curling all five fingers around them.
They decayed to dust in his palm.
"Oh, shit," he said. "I guess we don't have to worry about hiding them. No one give me a high five! Unless..." he looked determinedly at the door that they came through that was locked behind them.
"A'zawa says to wait!" Izuku shouted before Shigaraki could put down his hand on the door and give it a good caress.
Shigaraki groaned. "Do they want out of here or not? It's escape time!"
"If we leave now, through that door, we won't know where to go or what to do next," A'zawa said.
"What's our alternative?" Izuku asked.
"We go through the arena, get to that announcer's box, and lock ourselves in. We can use that satellite to send a message to our crew to come pick us up," A'zawa said. "But the satellite doesn't actually turn on until the arena is filled and ready to announce and project what is happening to the researchers, so it would ruin our plans and strand us here to try now. If we do want to use the announcer's box, we would have to wait until it's time to go against the deathworlder."
Izuku went over to the electrified bars, pushing himself right up against them and looking out and up. He saw blue.
"Is that open air out there?" Izuku asked. "After we make the call, would they be able to drop down in the arena and pick us up right here?"
"Yes," A'zawa confirmed.
"Sounds good to me," Izuku agreed, then explained to Shigaraki.
Shigaraki groaned.
"Do you not agree?" Izuku asked, concerned.
"No," Shigaraki said. "It's a good plan. I just was ready to go. I feel like, for the first time since coming here, escape is finally in sight, and I'm just ready to do something about it!"
Izuku shrugged. "If the plan fails, we can come back through this way, and you can demolish that door. But in the meantime, I think it's best to bide our time for the most direct escape route possible."
Shigaraki nodded. "It's a plan. Let's hurry up and wait, then."