Fanfic / Horizon: Star Driven

After his favorite hero All Might tells him that he couldn't be a hero, Izuku gives up on his dream. Instead, he tries using his inventive ingenuity to accomplish something else: space travel.

Horizon: Star Driven is a My Hero Academia fanfic written by RogueDruid (Icarius51). It can be read on Archive of Our Own here.

For more fics by the same author, see Hero Class Civil Warfare and Locked In Digital.

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Tropes in this fic include:

• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: As Izuku never has that second encounter with All Might, a lot of relationships are changed.
  • Izuku now despises the hell out of All Might, for (a) crushing his dream to become a hero and (b) attempting to arrest him when he's testing his Hover Board. To a lesser degree, he now holds most heroes in contempt.
  • As Izuku never goes to U.A, he does not meet his would-be classmates, including Ochako - who instead begins to crush on Shinsou.
• Adaptational Intelligence: While Izuku was no Idiot Hero in canon, here he is a Gadgeteer Genius with a firm grasp on (literal) rocket science (and the wit and adaptive skills needed to achieve such things with his limited resources), law, and the various loopholes he can exploit.
  Power Loader: The kid, and it is a kid, is fucking insane. I saw the tech video too. The shit he's pulling off? The designs he's making? They should be College Thesis projects. For the top of the class at Tokyo Tech. He should be being scouted by goddamn everyone. God, I've been trying to work out the basics of what the fuck his tech is. Ion Engines? I've been cracking open textbooks that have been sitting on my shelf for almost a decade. No one, and I mean no one I've ever seen with the possible exception of Midoriya on I-Island has energy work like this.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: For their entire lives, Bakugo has been using Izuku's dream of being a hero as an excuse to push him around with the intent of beating it out of him. When Izuku finally does give up on his hero dream in favor of his plans to go into space, Bakugo is at a complete and utter loss on how to react.
  He's won. So why doesn't it feel like it?
• Bio-Augmentation: Izuku, with the help of Epsilon's research and quirk, finds a way to induce several secondary mutations that quirked people hold on himself to better prepare his body for space travel.
• Bothering by the Book:
  • One of the various ways Izuku gets away with the various arguably illegal things is that he registers for every license he thinks he would need.
    • Various restrictions have been placed in the advancement in technology that could fall under the definition of "Support Gear" since villains acquiring it can spell massive disaster... but sports gear doesn't count, so Izuku files his Hover Board as a form of sports gear, a fact that he can get away with after he applies for an Experimental Testing License.
    • Since "violation of airspace" is considered a crime, Izuku went and registered himself into the Musutafu Airspace Ministry so that he could test his hoverboard legally.
  • From what we see of Hisashi, he does the same thing – he sends incredibly powerful tech to Izuku by making it without lab resources or lab time, navigating every loophole to send things back to his family.
  • Thoroughly averted by the HPSC, who sends Hawks to arrest Horizon, telling him to use the SRA as an excuse for any questions and stating that they'll think of some way to charge him once they arrest him, rather than actually caring about any of the laws that they're enforcing.
• Broken Pedestal: The first thing Izuku does after All Might tells him he cannot be a Hero is to take down many of his hero posters and figurines from his room, leaving only the support and science-oriented ones up. When they meet again a year later (after Izuku has started to build up his dream to get humanity back into space), All Might claims Izuku has broken the law with his hoverboard (not believing him about building it himself) - and Izuku has quite a few choice words for his former idol. All Might is surprised at how venomous Izuku gets as he accuses him of trying to make him suicidal.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: The president of the Hero Public Safety Commission doesn't give a damn about legality – she wants Horizon arrested, solely for the threat his existence poses to the Support Restriction Act, and thus to the HPSC's power.
  • Played even more straight with Detnerat (a.k.a. the Meta Liberation Army), whom Hawks notes has been all-but openly abusing the SRA to take over other support companies through less-than-ethical means.
• Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Hisashi has been more or less imprisoned on I-Island for a decade. Security has routinely refused to send his care packages to his family and only recently has one gotten through. He also saw this coming and left messages for both Izuku and Inko at his now abandoned company.
• Dramatic Irony: Hisashi is finally able to send a gift to his son, an advanced hero costume that will enable the Quirkless Izuku to fight while attending U.A. Unfortunately, thanks to Hisashi's lack of contact with his family, he has no idea that Izuku has given up on his dream of being a hero nor realizes that his son was following in his footsteps. Izuku breaks down when he receives it - and he also notes the irony of getting it after the U.A. entrance exam.
• The Dreaded: Epsilon is not a woman you want to cross off. Even Tetsu knows to be wary of angering her.
• A Glass of Chianti: Izuku joins in a toast at dinner with the Bakugous at a fancy restaurant when he receives word from Hijack, his assistant VI, that Feel Good Inc., one of the biggest supporters of the Support Registration Act, just engaged in a series of terrible microtrading operations in his favor.
• Healing Hands: Epsilon's Quirk straddles the line between this and Harmful Healing, in that she can heal one injury while inflicting others. Izuku, in need to modify his body to better survive in space, develops a plan to get a very large tattoo and use the combination of the injuries and pain to allow Epsilon to develop his body in the direction he needs, giving himself the Required Secondary Powers to use his technology to the fullest.
• In Spite of a Nail: Izuku still ends up cleaning Dagobah Beach like in canon, though his motive is to use the scrap for his projects rather than to train his body - although it still helps him train his body.
• Like Father, Like Son: Izuku inherited his Gadgeteer Genius aptitude from his father Hisashi, a man so intelligent and renowned in the scientific community that he is practically a prisoner on I-Island because he is too important to risk endangering.
• Loophole Abuse: The moment Izuku began dabbling in rocket science, he has been looking into every single possible law associated with it and exploits every minute detail he can get away with.
  • Due to the kind of danger support gear possesses if it ever fell into villainy, building anything that would even fall under the broad category of support gear-related engineering would be thoroughly confiscated or shut down without a license and corporate contract... but sports gear is much easier to build and patent, so Izuku files his Hover Board as an experimental form of sports gear.
  • When Izuku begins to draw the attention of pro-heroes who try to arrest him when he is testing his hover tech, Izuku points out that pro-heroes can't legally arrest people. They can "detain" people (and even then it's sketchy to call it "legal" detainment) for police officers to arrest, but since pro-heroes go through a completely different form of training than the police and are less associated with the procedural side of law-enforcement, a compromise was reached. Izuku doesn't even have to let them catch him since they can't charge him with "resisting arrest".
    Byte: Oh my god. You can't be charged. At all.
    Izuku: Nope.
• Mama Bear: When Inko learns from Izuku about how All Might told him he couldn't be a hero, she makes the resolution to have words with All Might, Number One Hero status be damned.
• Magnetism Manipulation:
  • Tetsu's Quirk lets him feel magnetic fields, something he uses in his everyday swordsmithing.
  • Hisashi sends Izuku a pair of gloves that let him feel and manipulate electromagnetic fields.
• Mundane Utility: Sir Nighteye uses his Foresight Quirk to make sure Mirio takes a break - and also to catch a spoiler of the first minutes of the movie he's going to see.
• My God, What Have I Done?: All-Might has this moment when Izuku rips into him on Dagobah Beach before storming off.
• Nightmare Face: When Izuku tells Bakugo that he is dropping his hero dream (after the nth beating), he's smiling widely, shaking and his teeth are getting stained with the blood from a split lip. The narration notes that the face becomes burned in Bakugo's mind.
• Old Shame: Tetsu is really ashamed of how, in his youth, he was a vigilante nicknamed Masamune. He still cringes about what he considers his Chuunibyou phase.
• Point of Divergence:
  • When All Might saves Izuku from the Sludge Villain, he is able to ask All Might if he could be a hero without having to latch onto his leg to do it. Because of this, the Sludge Villain doesn't escape, Izuku never learns All Might's secret, he doesn't get the validation from All Might for trying to save Bakugo and therefore gives up on his dreams of being a pro-hero for good and he never receives One For All.
  • Since Izuku never gets One For All, All Might takes Sir Nighteye's recommendation and gives it to Mirio shortly before Izuku would have gotten it.
  • Because Mirio is All Might's successor, it's his class that's attacked by villains at the USJ instead of Class 1-A. Shigaraki specifically targets Mirio and comes very close to killing him.
• Required Secondary Powers: Studied and discussed by Izuku, who notes that most Quirks have built-in secondary mutations that make them easier to adapt to. For example, Bakugo has stronger muscles in his arms and shoulders to better tolerate the recoil from his explosions.
• Shoddy Shindig: To celebrate Mitsuki's new job, the Bakugous decide to have dinner at a fancy restaurant, and invite Inko and Izuku, who's deeply annoyed at being forced to have dinner with his abuser but goes along with it in consideration to his mother and godmother.
• Shout-Out:
  • When testing the electromagnetic field control gloves his father sent him, Izuku makes a "Use the force, Izuku" joke.
  • The Midoriyas' mailman is an old man who smokes a pipe named Sarutobi Hiruzen.
  • The company Izuku gets funds from is Feel Good Inc named after a song by Gorillaz.
• Stern Teacher: Tetsu uses a harsh kendo lesson to teach Izuku how to channel his rage with a world that has only put him and his dreams down through a more constructive path and targets.
• A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: Happens multiple times:
  • First, All Might tries to arrest Izuku while the latter is testing out his Hover Board, refusing to believe the boy made it himself. As All Might has already crushed one of Izuku's dreams, his actions cause the boy to accuse him of trying to make him suicidal.
  • Second, when Izuku is testing his new Hover Board, Kamui Woods and Mt. Lady are given the go-ahead to approach, but attack Izuku without giving him a chance to explain, which is made worse by the fact everything he was doing was perfectly legal. Nedzu notes the two will likely be hearing all about it from their lawyers, especially since Izuku has video evidence.
  • Shaping up for a third time, when the HPSC sends Hawks to arrest Horizon, without bothering to codify charges more specific than "He's a threat to the SRA, and thus to our power." Even Hawks himself can see clearly that this isn't going to end well.
• Wham Shot: Izuku's doing his apparently routine "fly through Musutafu while dodging heroes" when a portal made of black smoke appears in front of him at every turn he makes.

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