He felt… everything, an energy permeated his body letting him feel each and every one of his cells. Every fibre of his being, his thread weaving and waving in a wind that did not exist. His mind felt, clear. Empty. He looked over his new mind, probing it, looking for the slightest sign that something was wrong. A false connection, a missing stem. A dormant thought. No matter how hard he looked however he didn't see anything wrong. It shouldn't be wrong…
Letting out a shaky breath, each moment he felt his lungs rattle with worry. He knew the anxiety was building up but he pushed it aside. Taking a deep breath he connected the brain to his body properly.
And time stopped.
It was like at that moment his eyes opened before he could just feel his body, each cell. Now he felt more than that, what made them up, what they were. There purpose. He felt his entire body light up like a beacon. The energy that had been so slow and sluggish flowed into the floor as he felt the best way to push his will into the material of the bed sheets beneath him.
Gasping he couldn't help his eyes from flying open, everything was going so… slow? No that wasn't the right word. He was just processing the signals from his senses much much faster. Each wave of air as the breeze brushed through the open window. The way that the legs of his bed moved when he did, bending such minor amounts he would have never noticed before, but now he could.
He felt alive.
Like he could see everything, but he knew that he could see more. Closing his eyes he felt through his new brain using the new power that he had. And it was much much quicker, and he did notice things he didn't notice before. Sluggish connections of incorrect cells, things that his previous brain would have never been able to notice. So he fixed them.
Soon he was done, his new brain was perfect, his memories integrated. What made him, he had been perfectly copied to the new brain. So he got rid of his old one, and he didn't even notice it was gone. Smiling to himself he got comfortable once more and started to create two more identical brains. One in his head and the other on the left side of his spine mirroring the one on his right. And he did so at the same time and much quicker than the last time he made the brain.
Creating three was solely for backup, if all three were not annihilated at the same time then he could still live. And at the speed that he could now heal himself? He was practically immortal.
With his three brains linked combined together to work independently yet simultaneously, he could do different things at once. Such as using his quirk in two ways instead of only being able to have one process happen at the same time.
Now he just needed to achieve a stronger body. Laying back on his bed he found his mind moving much much faster now. It was so easy to think. It wasn't as if he was smarter just yet, he just could think a lot faster and therefore study faster. He still needed to get used to his new mind.
---
The workplace experience was starting on Monday, and he wanted to find Gigantomachia before then, the only problem was all that he knew was that he was in the woods. He would have one day to find him, that was Sunday. If he didn't find him Sunday he would have to wait until after workplace. Sighing he thought through what he knew about the giant, during this arc, the hero killer one Gigantomachia had listened to a radio of Stain's defeat…
Shaking his head that wasn't nearly enough to go on. He was hiding in mountains, what mountains! He knew that Kurogiri had started to search for him during the Shie Hassaikai Arc, and that later Gran Torino and the detective find him as well. But where did they go? There were not many mountains nearby actually, but he didn't want to just aimlessly run around them. He knew that Gigantomachia had in fact left the mountains since he encountered Mina just months before the entrance exams…
Maybe he could ask Kurogiri somehow, the mist man was not unreasonable… Giran could get Andrew in contact with him but the problem with that was he didn't have the time nor the resources to make sure that it would be safe.
Shaking his head he would just go and listen to see if he could find any rumours about a ruffian. He was sure there was a voice recording of All for One out there somewhere, if he could mimic that voice and call for Gigantomachia then it wouldn't be impossible to find him.
He just really wanted to be able to see Endurance before he encountered the Nomu, it was the reason behind Gigantomachia being able to have multiple quirks, and it was most likely the secret for the Nomu too. At least some function of it stops their bodies from overloading. With both High Spec and Endurance he was sure that his new body would be able to hand the remnants of the quirks he was going to use to make it stronger.
Mountains near the Springer's Hero office… there was one near there. He would start there. Why did Gigantomachia leave the mountains through that time? He was ordered into hiding? Wait was he being used to kidnap Heroes that Kyudai wanted to experiment on? Or get people for samples? It made sense…
He would try to find Gigantomachia on Sunday. Then on Monday, he would be heading to Hosu for his workplace experience. He was honestly surprised by the offer that he received, but there was a reason, at least he assumed it was for that reason. Smiling to himself he found himself looking forward to the workplace.
---
The last day passed quickly, a normal school day with training at the end. He had helped Kirishima try to improve his hardening but apart from that he wasn't that involved. He had taken a sample from Sato since maybe the sugar rush might be useful but it was mostly if he could find a way to convert something else to energy and how involved the quirk factor was.
He also bumped into Aoyama, knocking the kid over but before he could fall he grabbed his arm as he said, "Sorry about that, you alright Aoyama?"
Wanting to see how a transferred quirk factor was different, and two his surprise it was, by quite a bit. The 'quirk factor' was clearly melded in places where DNA was missing in Yuga's case, but there were places where it hadn't been combined correctly. He was so thankful for his new brain because, without it, it would be impossible to see it clearly.
The quirk factor was comprised of both a physical and a genetic component. Every quirk had something physical, no matter how minor. For example, Todoroki had extra 'pores' that he expelled his elements from. A type of gas for both that both froze the air or ignited once it left his body. He was able to somewhat control the gases with his mind, therefore, controlling the flames and ice.
If Nick wanted to copy said quirk he would both need the physical pores and the genetic code for it.
As well as the mental pathways to control it.
That was the main problem with copying quirks. The more powerful a quirk, normally the more complex the neural pathways were. Everyone with a quirk just naturally knew how to use it, they already had those neural pathways which could cause either more explosive behaviour like Bakugo or an obsession with blood like Toga.
In Yuga's case, he didn't have the mental pathways to properly control his laser causing it to leak out as well as incompatibility from the poorly melded genetic component.
If one knew what they were doing, it wasn't hard to copy a quirk factor. One just needed to isolate the Plus Alpha Elements and not drag along any of the original DNA that isn't part of a quirk factor, also be able to have the space for that DNA to go and a strong enough body that the rejection of foreign DNA won't cause problems such as body failure or madness, and make sure it is properly combined in a compatible way. So all in all… not that hard… maybe.
It was actually a lot harder than it sounded… the only way that All for One was able to do it was because his quirk naturally took care of the complicated parts. However, he couldn't use more modern quirks because of the more complicated mental aspect, at least it would be too hard to learn to use them.
Sighing Nick cracked his neck as he got an odd look from Mezo, "What?" Nick said as he looked at his multi-armed friend.
"You're staring into space… it is unlike you." Mezo replied.
Staring at each other for a moment Nick said, "Let's get to training…"
With a mutual nod of their heads, they both got to work. Ignoring the fact that Nick had stood there holding Yuga's arm for about 5 minutes while staring into space.
---
When the weekend came Nick informed his parents that he would be out for the day. Catching the train to a location closer to the Springer's Hero Office. It wasn't hard to get to the nearby mountain after that. A heavily wooded area, as he wandered around the edge of the suburbs he transformed himself into Andrew, occasionally asking a few people about the rumoured ruffian.
And results were mixed. He got records of small-time criminals that sometimes happened upon the area but occasionally he did hear about a large man that would cause trouble and was… mentally lacking according to reports. He had apparently robbed a food store somewhere twice now before fleeing into the woods.
Nick brightened at that news, that was absolutely fantastic! As far as he knew Gigantomachia did have a quirk called energy save that allowed him to run with less food and water. And the energy from Endurance further increased that. However, without All for One giving him morale and the lack of missions from Kyudai for kidnapping heroes. Of course, he would still need to eat, if not a bit.
While the man probably survived mostly off eating plants or animals or something, he was still human no matter how… mentally lacking as others had put it.
Really happy with this news he started to make his way into the woods. Of course, he didn't know the exact location and it was probably pretty deep but it was a start, surely if he made enough of a ruckus the mole quirk would pick it up.
Jumping into the air he soared high above the tree tops as he looked around, trying to find out where a large clearing was.
He knew that a clearing surrounded on one side by cliffs was where he was originally met, he just needed to find an area of the forest that was torn up and had a similar clearing and he would be golden!
Crashing into the ground he leapt once again into the air jump after jump searching deeper into the woods as the sun began to set, he would search all night if he needed to. And even into the morning. He would make an excuse for why he was late. They were leaving for the workplace after lunch anyway.
---
The night started to drag on and honestly, Nick was getting tired, he was deeper into the forest than he thought he would have to go. It was getting harder and harder to keep himself on the high of finding out the general location but had he been wrong? He had been searching for hours now…
Crashing into the ground once more he stopped. Sitting down as he leaned against a tree, staring up at the starry sky as he let out a sigh. He would rest for a few minutes and then get back to it. He honestly hadn't expected this to take so long.
Standing back up he leaped into the air once more, getting back to searching. And soon after that, he saw a clearing. Crashing into it he saw the ground had been torn up quite badly, cliffs to either side as he looked around at the flat dirt area. Grinning to himself he charges up his arm as much as he can before punching the ground.
The earth quaked as the power of the strike as hundreds of birds took from trees and the animals scattered deeper into the woods. Now, Nick assumed that Gigantomachia had some type of monitoring device on him or in the radio somehow. That meant he was just going to act like he was training if the giant man did show up. Pure coincidence nothing else.
Deciding that it was the best move, he kept on punching the floor.
Over.
And over.
And over.
And BAM!
Looking up Nick saw the hulking figure of Gigantomachia, smiling Nick as Andrew said, "Oh hello? Who are you, what are you doing so deep into the woods at this time of night?" Andrew asked and looked up at the man as he smiled, yeah, real casual.
"What is gnat doing. I am trying to sleep!" The giant man yelled as he pointed a finger at Andrew growling as he spoke.
"Well, I am trying to train! So fuck off and sleep somewhere else forest man." Andrew responded as he looked at the large man with a smirk on his face. The goal of aggravating him is something that would be easily done.
"Leave or I will get MAD!" Gigantomachia said as his size started to increase.
"Real scary big guy, want to help me train?" Andrew responded as he tilted his head to the side.
With nothing but a roar for an answer, he charged at Andrew and swung a massive fist towards the small figure.
Bulking himself up as much as he could he honestly knew that he could not take Gigantomachia head-on right now, he would have to paralyze him.
Dodging the blow by a hair's breadth Nick almost had to sink his feet into the crumbling earth to stop himself from being thrown back. Putting both his hands on Gigantomachia he felt his quirk flood into the hulking figure. Taking a deep breath he felt something odd. There was A LOT of resistance. His quirk wasn't acting as freely as normal…
Dodging the swipe of the other hand with a flip through the air he watched Gigantomachia start to approach him with sluggish movements.
Was Endurance making him harder to affect with quirks? That was the most likely answer…
Dashing back forward he clashed with the giant man a few more times before he was finally able to paralyze the big guy but even with both his hands firmly on the head of Gigantomachia and his increased brain power the man was starting to twitch.
Cursing he simply grabbed a sample of DNA from the large man and then bolted, the sole purpose of getting out of there all that was on his mind.
It didn't take him long before he was back in the suburbs. The crashing of trees behind him faded sometime after he had started running. Panting he leaned against a tree and looked at his arm. In his hand was a solid ball of what looked like flesh and stone… a part of Gigantomachia. Giving it a quick scan he saw all quirk factors were intact inside of the lump of flesh.
Nodding his head he was satisfied, he didn't want to have to go back in there.
He had given it some thought. He had fled the big man and it wasn't hard to assume that All for One would probably hear about this but pass it off as something mundane, after all, someone was training in the forest and ran away from his bodyguard, so what?
Making his way to the train slowly he merged the flesh into his body, storing it inside his body in a small 'container' to keep it separate from him. He would have to look at it later, school was about to start. Looking at the rising sun he smiled, one step closer to making a new body. Finding a safe space to transform back he made his way to the train.
Getting onboard he ignored the general clutter as he focused on the sample inside him, trying to figure out its secrets.
=======
Thanks for all the support so far! And thanks for the suggestions for quirks that could help build a better body. I didn't expect most of them, I didn't even think of how the gigantification one could be used but it makes a lot of sense, after all if Nick can find out how it works he can increase his own matter. Would be a huge benefit.
Reviews and comments are always welcome! Let me know what you think!