Being Quirkless, Midoriya Izuku has had to deal with abuse, both emotional and physical, from his classmates led by his one time friend Bakugou Katsuki as well as his teachers. His talents mocked, his analysis scorned he holds out but eventually it proves to be too much.
Uraraka Ochako has always wanted to become a hero to provide her parents with the comfortable life she feels they deserve. Being in the right place at the right time sees her not only saving a life but also being offered a chance. A chance to accomplish her dreams and so much more.
The Demon of the Underworld is 'dead' but the shadows are filled with monsters and a new old threat approaches.
Supporting a Hero is a My Hero Academia fan fic written by SolusVopus. It can be found here
Supporting a Hero provides examples of:
- Abled in the Adaptation: While he lost a leg during his fight against Stain, Tensei can still properly move and return to hero work eventually, and the author confirmed the older Iida will receive a cool robotic leg soon enough.
- Aborted Arc: Any major arc featuring the League of Villains has been completely denied before it even happens with Shigaraki's death in Chapter 19, as well as well as All for One and Garaki's in the following chapter.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
- Izuku and Ochako start dating early in the year.
- Tsuyu and Himiko are in a polyamorous relationship with Emily.
- Tensei Iida is in a relationship with Midnight.
- Adaptational Badass:
- Ochako becomes the Ninth Torchbearer here.
- Hisashi and Inko Midoriya, instead of an office worker and housewife, are experienced black-ops agents.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: Ochako appears in Chapter 1, being the one to save Izuku during his suicide attempt.
- Likewise, Melissa, David, Miruko and Ryukyu all appear during the Sports Festival, while Melissa and David appeared during the I-island arc, Miruko during the Pro Hero arc and Ryukyu during the Overhaul arc.
- Lady Nagant makes her appearance early in the story, as opposed to the Dark Hero Arc.
- Eri shows up during the Nomu attack in Tokyo.
- Adaptational Heroism:
- Danjuro Tobita/Gentle King is the leader of a vigilante network known as "Gentle Court", working to help heroes from the shadows.
- Himiko Toga is a hero student in this story.
- Despite still acting as a Manchurian Agent, Lady Nagant is firmly on the heroes' side.
- Adaptational Name Change: Several Hero names go through changes:
- Izuku goes by "Perceptive Hero: Analyst", instead of "Deku".
- Kashiko goes by "Tracking Hero: Recon" instead of "Sensor Girl".
- Since Tensei can still perform his duty as hero, even if not currently, Tenya chooses "Overdrive" instead of "Ingenium".
- Thanks to Tensei's intervention, Mina keeps her original choice for "Alien Queen".
- Instead of going by his first name, Todoroki chooses "Frostfire" as his hero name.
- Adaptational Superpower Change: Instead of Fa Jin, the Third User's Quirk is a Blood Magic Familiar called "Blood Dragon".
- Adaptational Villainy:
- Native is one of the several MLA agents acting as Pro Hero infiltrators.
- By the end of the Sports Festival arc, Bakugo is recruited by the MLA as one of their newest agents.
- Adaptational Wimp: Izuku remains Quirkless in this story.
- An Arm and a Leg: Stain cuts off one of Tensei's legs to act as a lure for medics to take him in and for him to give the note to Nezu.
- Anti-Hero: Stain becomes this after Mr. Compress gives him a list of heroes working for the MLA and finding out how severe the corruption goes.
- Ascended Extra: Several.
- The Meta Liberation Army went from being the villains of a single arc to the main threat of the story.
- Hisashi Midoriya returns to Japan after Izuku's incident and becomes a recurring cast member.
- Kashiko Sekigai was simply a side character from the OVA's, with little to none plot relevance. Here she is a Class 1-A student and one of Izuku's closest friends.
- Maina Furasu and most of the Support Course students from class 1-H are recurring cast members since Izuku is also at Support Course.
- Asshole Victim:
- All for One and Garaki once they are killed under the rug by the Meta Liberation Army. No one will shed tears over two dead monsters.
- Pretty much any MLA agent that gets killed by Stain, special mention goes to Native, who in very little screentime manage to stands out as a particular brand of Hate Sink.
- Betrayal Insurance: Mr. Compress kept a note of all heroes he knows betray the cause of being a true hero. Upon handing it to Stain, all he has to do is sit back as the man hunts down all the heroes and whoever they were recruiting or checking in on, and end them.
- Caught on Tape: The whole world watches Bakugou use his Quirk on Izuku after losing to him. Had he not been drained, Izuku would've been dead. This causes every single hero school except for Daika University (secretly a MLA front) to instantly reject his application and UA to expel him.
- Death by Adaptation: Slidin' Go is hunted down and killed by Stain.
- Shigaraki, All for One and Garaki all die in Chapters 19 and 20, respectively.
- The MLA utilizes Lady Nagant to discretely dispose of Dabi as well.
- Dies Differently In The Adaptation: Native in canon was killed in the PLF war arc. Here, Stain kills him for his ties to the MLA.
- Evil Versus Evil: The Meta Liberation Army find themselves fighting Stain as the Hero Killer starts to target their double agents.
- Eviler than Thou: The MLA pulls this against All for One by arranging his, Garaki's and Shigaraki's deaths by the end of the USJ arc.
- Fastball Special: Izuku and Ochako's Comet Fall, with Ochako throwing Izuku down while increasing his gravity, allowing him to bring down the elephant Nomu they were fighting.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Shigaraki accidentally uses his Decay Quirk on himself during the USJ incident.
- In Spite of a Nail: Izuku is unable to reach the tournament semifinals, but here it's because Bakugo attacks him after their bout ends and only survives because of pure luck.
- Interface Spoiler: Variation - Sekigai's Quirk, Chart, can show the Quirks of anyone within range and Ochako's shows a list of Quirks, most of which are replaced by question marks.
- Internal Reveal: Himiko finds out about One for All in Chapter 22. Ochako pleads for her to keep it silent.
- Izuku finds out in Chapter 36, and he wasn't happy about being Locked Out of the Loop.
- Izuku tells his friends about his backstory with Bakugo and his Attempted Suicide in Chapter 39.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Izuku doesn't know about One for All. He finds out in Chapter 36, and while he's unhappy about it, he can't really fault Ochako for keeping it hidden.
- Loophole Abuse: When Izuku requests a case to carry gummies as a support item for the Sports Festival, the teachers think he intends to carry some of Recovery Girl's energy gummies and approve it. He uses the case to carry the gummies Himiko uses to transform, because he knew she would forget to make her request on time.
- My God, What Have I Done?: When Hitoshi uses what happened to Izuku as a trigger to trap Ochako with his Quirk, he feels horrible.
- Aizawa likewise, ended up realizing during the Sports Festival that he was helping a bully who should've been denied entrance, as Hound Dog suggested, and nearly got Izuku killed as a result.
- Never My Fault: Bakugou. Upon being expelled and blacklisted from every school across the planet for what he did to Izuku, he refuses to accept the fact that it was his own damn fault to begin with. The idea that he was 'doing the world a favor' by killing Izuku was the equivalent of inadvertently telling the Ectoplasm clones throwing him out that he never deserved to become a hero to begin with.
- Noodle Incident: When meeting the Wild, Wild Pussycats, Ragdoll tells a story about Izuku to Kashiko that was hilariously funny.
- Off the Rails: As one of tags vaguely spoil, canon is thrown off the window after Chapter 19, with Shigaraki, All for One and Garaki's deaths by the end of the USJ arc.
- Out-of-Character Alert: Everyone who knows Stain's MO becomes concerned when he's hunting down civilians for no reason. If they had looked deeper, they would have found the civilians he was killing were actually MLA sympathizers or supporters.
- Oh, Crap!: Rikiya becomes alarmed when Chitose rushes in and hands him the report on Slidin' Go's death, as well as the fact that his recruitment list is missing.
- Point of Divergence:
- Unlike canon, Izuku never gets attacked by the Sludge Villain, meeting All Might and has his dreams crushed by the hero, instead he loses all will to live and promptly jumps off the building he's on of. Only Ochako's intervention prevents his life from ending so soon.
- In canon, it takes a long time for Bakugou's abuse to come to light. Here, however, when it became clear Izuku attempted suicide because of Bakugou's abuse (on top of many, many other things), Izuku is pulled out of Aldera and put with Hound Dog and Nezu for therapy and to complete his education.
- Ochako takes One for All instead of Izuku.
- In canon, Bakugou's all villain point score is considered not much of a red flag, with Yamada knowing that they've accepted students with only villain points before. Here, however, Hound Dog requests Bakugou be rejected for what he did to Izuku, only for Aizawa to step in and refuse it. Despite Hound Dog's arguments, Bakugou is still accepted into UA and put in 1A, but is on thin ice.
- The USJ ends with Shigaraki's death and Kurogiri's capture.
- The MLA pull off a massive Batman Gambit on All for One and Garaki, successfully killing them both off, meaning the League of Villains arc had completely gone down the shitter.
- Stain starts hunting down MLA agents masquerading as heroes as well as any MLA sympathizer and recruit, causing many to be concerned by it.
- Bakugou is expelled from UA after his blatant attempt to murder Izuku for losing to him in the Sports Festival. Furthermore, because it was caught on tape, no legitimate hero school across the planet would take him in, leaving him to join Daika University, which is a front for the Meta Liberation Army.
- Ochako wins the Sports Festival, with Todoroki and Shinsou getting second and third place respectively.
- Tensei takes over for Aizawa following the man's dismissal from 1A due to Bakugou's actions. He is still kept on as likely security.
- Polyamory: A throuple example between Himiko, Tsu and Emily starts after the Sports Festival arc.
- Related Differently in the Adaptation: Canon has revealed that Geten is a member of a branch of the Himura family, and related to Shoto and Dabi in some fashion, though it is implied to be a distant relationship. In this story, he is Rei’s brother, which makes him Shoto and Dabi’s maternal uncle.
- Retired Badass: Both Hisashi and Inko are retired members of the Special Forces Heroics Group, a heroics Black Ops team. They un-retire to help their friend Kaina rescue her daughter, and Hisashi
- Ship Tease: When Miruko meets Lady Nagant, she throws a few flirtatious comments.
- Sore Loser: After Izuku beats him in the Sports Festival tournament, Bakugo answers by using his Quirk on Izuku, aiming at the back of his head, point blank. If he hadn't been drained already by the fight, Bakugo could have easily killed Izuku.
- There Are No Therapists: Averted. After Izuku's failed suicide attempt, he is brought to UA to complete his education and meet with Hound Dog. Likewise, Himiko is also attending therapy due to her biological parents engaging in Quirk Suppression Therapy.
- Transplant: An inter-authors example. Emily Song is an original character from Aliandris' story Family Beyond Blood, and SolusVopus received permission from their fellow writer to use her.
- Villain Takes an Interest:
- Upon hearing Mr. Compress ask if he's heard of the Meta Liberation Army, Stain becomes interested in this. Once finding out the full details that aren't said in the story, Stain begins hunting down the MLA agents masquerading as heroes along with political parties affiliated with the MLA.
- The MLA decides to recruit Bakugo after he attempts to murder Izuku in plain sight of everyone at U.A. Stadium.
- Wham Episode:
- Chapter 19 - A Mercy Killing: The USJ ends not only with Kurogiri being captured, but with Shigaraki dying at hands of his own Quirk (likely an Involuntary Suicide Mechanism set up by Garaki), before being finished off by Nagant.
- Chapter 20 - A Changed World: The biggest Game Changer chapter so far. The brainwashed Garaki injects All for One with a solution of explosive nanomachines, killing the Demon Lord and himself in process, opening way for the Meta Liberation Army to move on with their plans.
- Wham Line: The final line of Chapter 36 from the note Stain left Tensei once Nezu decrypted it.The MLA have infiltrated the HPSC
