Fanfic / The Scorpion Jar

The Scorpion Jar by Mad_Nimrod is a My Hero Academia Fan Fic wherein his encounter with All Might causes Izuku to have a revelation. Maybe it's true that somebody like him doesn't have what it takes to become a Pro Hero... after all, he doesn't have a Quirk.

But... that doesn't mean that those who do have Quirks automatically qualify. Maybe it takes more than being born with some random power to be heroic. And if that's the case, then he can think of several people who certainly don't deserve the chance to pursue the dream he's been denied...

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This fanfic contains examples of:

• A Day in the Limelight: Chapter 1 focuses on Izuku after his encounter with All Might and after the Sludge Villain incident... as well as his plan to bring down those who tormented him.
• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • Nedzu laughs maniacally after seeing Izuku's testimony in his interview of what he did to ensure Aldera's closure.
  • In parallel, Stain also howls with mad laughter as he watches the interview.
• Adaptational Karma: Canonically, Katsuki is treated like Izuku's rival who never faces any serious consequences for his Barbaric Bullying. Here, he gets arrested and shipped off to be tried as a Juvenile Villain.
• Adaptational Villainy: It turns out that the Principal and most of the staff of the Aldera School District are secretly villainous, leading to their arrest after Izuku exposes them.
• Batman Gambit: Izuku's plan for dealing with Katsuki is simply to let his bully come to him. He knows that Katsuki will eventually learn about how he's been acting as an information broker and will confront him to ensure he's not "getting any ideas" about actually having value. All he needs to do is be ready to catch his threats on tape.
• Blackmail: Izuku develops notoriety and power over his classmates by convincing them to hand over incriminating evidence of each other.
• Breaking Speech: While forcing Izuku half out of a window, Katsuki combines this with a death threat:
  Katsuki: Shut up, Deku! I don't know where you got the idea, but a Quirkless pile of shit like you will always be worthless! Nothing you do in life will ever amount to anything more than the dirt under my shoe! I know you're too stupid to take my advice, but either smarten up or I'll throw you off the roof myself, got it shithead!?
  • Too Bad for him, Izuku recorded everything.
• Broken Pedestal: For years, Izuku looked up to All Might, idolizing him and convincing himself that his hero would encourage him to follow his dreams. Then he actually met the man in person, only for All Might to bluntly declare that being Quirkless meant he could never become a Pro Hero. Upon returning home, Izuku packs away all of his All Might merchandise, not wanting to be surrounded by reminders of the false hope he'd offered.
  • Downplayed in the second chapter. He's given the opportunity to name the hero that crushed his dream on live television, but he refuses to name him acknowledging all the good he's done for the world.
• Caught on Tape: Izuku records Katsuki threatening to murder him, ensuring he gets punished severely once the proper authorities find out.
• The Chessmaster: Much of Izuku's plan to bring down Aldera came from using the arrogance and greed of his abusers and Katsuki to turn them into Unwitting Pawns to achieve that goal.
• Commonality Connection:
  • All of the allies Izuku gathers while executing his plan to take down Aldera from the inside were also being bullied, tormented, and picked upon. By the time the school is shut down, he considers them all to be real friends.
  • Kagami Atsuko, the reporter who winds up interviewing Izuku, quickly connects with him due to the fact that her own daughter is Quirkless.
• Create Your Own Villain: All Might fears that in telling Izuku he can't be a hero due to his Quirklessness, he might have created a potential villain that could be just as frightening as All for One despite his Quirklessness.
• Cry into Chest: Mitsutki is shown crying on Inko's shoulder after seeing her baby boy being carted away as a Juvenile Villain.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Having his idol declare that his Quirklessness meant he could never become a hero, followed by being berated for the part he played in saving Katsuki, left Izuku understandably embittered... and determined to ensure that Katsuki and other bullies wouldn't continue getting away with all their crimes.
• Didn't Think This Through: During their fateful encounter, All Might tells Izuku that he can still help others by becoming a doctor or a police officer. He does so unaware that many of those careers now require a Quirk — at least in Japan — meaning that the Quirkless boy would only run into more dead-ends if he attempted to pursue those paths.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Discussed. After Izuku manipulates Aldera's downfall, gathering up evidence of all the abuse there and submitting it to the Board of Education, a reporter asks him whether it's possible that he went too far. After all, many of the students there have now been publically exposed as bullies and shipped off to juvenile detention centers. In response, Izuku reveals a pair of scars on his face that he'd been hiding with concealer, and explains how he got them:
  Izuku: Garo gave me these scars because I got two points higher on a math test than him, one scar for each point. Two points on a middle-school math test, and he decided a suitable punishment was disfiguring me. What would he do to a girl who refused his advances? What would he do to a villain who's only guilty of filching bread because they haven't eaten in a week?
• The Dog Bites Back: Part of Izuku's master plan involves rallying the other bullied and mistreated students at Aldera to help him in obtaining sufficient evidence against their bullies and staff to take them down.
• Dramatic Irony: Stain decides that whichever Pro Hero told Izuku that he could never become a hero must be "a faker of the highest caliber, taking one of All Might's greatest promises and twisting it to suit their prejudices." He vows to himself that if he ever discovers their identity, he'll murder them in Izuku's honor... unaware that the culprit is none other than All Might himself, somebody Stain idolizes, and whose teachings he has twisted to suit his own biases.
• Everyone Has Standards: Exploited by Izuku. As he explains to Taba, the teachers may be perfectly fine with him being bullied, but they don't condone things like drug use.
• Evil Teacher: Izuku discovers that many of Aldera's faculty, including its principal, are remnants from a defunct villain group that were forced into hiding a decade ago. This explains why many of them have allowed bullying and Quirk supremacy to fester at the school for so long.
• Every Man Has His Price: Exploited by Izuku to turn his bullies into Unwitting Pawns.
• Fantastic Ableism: Along with Izuku dealing with bullies because of his Quirkless nature, Chapter 2 reveals that many non-hero jobs actually require a person to have a Quirk in order to apply for their programs. It's also stated that many Quirkless Graduates have to move out of Japan to find work in other countries where Quirkless Protection laws are actually enforced. All Might's thoughts on the latter are Lampshaded in the narrative.
  And people wondered why Japan had a declining population.
• History Repeats: All Might notices that Izuku's cold and disillusioned image is the same one he saw from a formidable villain in his past and dreads what he'll turn into overtime.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Aldera was a Sucky School that cheerfully turned a blind eye towards bullying and abuse, hoping that the kids they coddled and enabled would grow up and become famous Pro Heroes and alumni who'd bring more fame to their district. Izuku makes a record of all their transgressions and reveals it to the world, making Aldera infamous and ensuring they get shut down.
  • Izuku sets several of his bullies against each other, using their petty grudges and selfish natures to encourage them to gather Blackmail material on their rivals and pass it to him in exchange for test answers.
  • Katsuki seals his own fate by threatening Izuku while his favorite punching bag is secretly recording the whole exchange, providing proof of his Barbaric Bullying. Lampshaded by Izuku's thoughts on the matter:
    His allies were always asking why he didn't want them getting evidence on Bakugou. Some were legitimately worried about this decision. But Izuku saw no point in risking their safety to gather information when Bakugou was more than willing to give it himself.
• Homeschooled Kids: After Aldera's shutdown, Izuku continues his education through online learning to finish the school year before taking the UA entrance exam.
• I'll Kill You!: Bakugou promises to throw Izuku out the school window himself if he keeps trying to prove that he's more than just a "worthless waste of space".
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Izuku remarks to Katsuki that he should consider seeing a therapist, given how he's somehow managed to develop both an inferiority and a superiority complex at the same time. Katsuki doesn't appreciate the observation.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: Katsuki's expires, alongside those of all his fellow bullies, when Izuku presents the Board of Education with evidence of all their crimes and how the staff at Aldera let them get away with it all. And based on the amount of evidence stacked against him, it'll be impossible for him to apply to any hero course if/when he gets out.
• Knowledge Broker: Izuku begins his revenge plot by trading data of Aldera's misdeeds (pictures and such) for homework and test answers to other students. Once he gathers enough, he releases it to the media.
• My God, What Have I Done?: All Might is guilt-stricken when he sees how his advice led Izuku to become more deadly and cutthroat on his quest to be a true hero.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Played With interestingly when Toshinori's well-intentioned advice causes Izuku to have an epiphany: If somebody like him can't become a hero just because he doesn't have a Quirk, what about all the people who aren't qualified due to their horrible characters? This spurs him to engineer the downfall of Aldera and the worst of its bullies (including Katsuki) by exposing all their misdeeds to the world. After seeing the results, Toshinori is horrified and wants to make amends with Izuku, convinced that he's set him down the road to ruin. Nedzu, by contrast, is delighted to see a new chessmaster in the making, and wishes to secure Izuku as an apprentice once he enters UA.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Despite how Katsuki had told him to take a swan dive off the roof earlier that day, Izuku still stepped in to save him from the Sludge Villain. His reward for this was getting berated by all the Pro Heroes who had been standing by watching Katsuki suffocate. And at school, Katsuki goes out of his way to slam his head on his desk as retribution.
• Open Secret: In Chapter 2, Izuku confesses to having been the organizer for Aldera's downfall along with the arrests of its bullies.
• Opportunistic Bastard: Upon seeing how Katsuki has seemingly broken Izuku's will and convinced him to give up on his Tragic Dream, many of the other bullies in Aldera decide to take advantage of this and force Izuku to start doing their homework for them. Unfortunately for them, Izuku has his own plans in mind...
• Plot Parallel: The story of Aldera's downfall is intercut with excerpts from an interview wherein All Might recounts a tale from his time in the US, where a Navajo baker filled a jar with scorpions and left it out overnight. When the morning came, Toshinori was horrified to see that most of the scorpions had killed each other, comparing it to how those who prioritize their place in the Hero Rankings over saving people could drag their peers down and destroy their society. This reflects how Izuku turned many of the bullies at Aldera against each other, ensuring their mutual destruction alongside the whole school.
• Point of Divergence: After telling Izuku that he couldn't be a hero, Toshinori failed to catch up with him and correct himself after Izuku helped save Katsuki from the Sludge Villain. As a result, rather than becoming his idol's successor, Izuku decides to focus on ensuring none of his peers become Nominal Heroes.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: "Hero Hopeful" Bakugou isn't against calling Izuku retarded just to mock him.
• Refuse to Rescue the Disliked: Discussed; Izuku describes Katsuki as somebody who only cares about fighting villains, not giving a damn about saving others. And given how relentlessly he bullied him for being Quirkless, it wouldn't surprise him if Katsuki would simply leave any Quirkless civilians he encountered to die.
• Sequel Hook: The last line in Chapter 1 mentions Izuku taking a closer look at Endeavor's career.
• Shout-Out: One of the bullies is named Garo. He's described as having gray hair and razor-sharp nails as his Quirk.
• Skewed Priorities:
  • The titular scorpion jar is presented as a metaphor for Pro Heroes who care more about their standing in the Hero Rankings than they do about doing their jobs and protecting the peace, with deadly results for all involved.
  • Izuku notes that Katsuki never showed any interest in the prospect of saving civilians; all he cared about was showing off how strong he was by beating the bad guys. Furthermore, he suggests that Katsuki might have deliberately refused to help any civilians who happened to be Quirkless, leaving them to potentially die due to his belief that they were "useless wastes of space".
• Start of Darkness: Toshinori fears that Izuku may become an actual villain based on his brutal takedown of Aldera.
• Take a Third Option: Rather than continuing his fruitless pursuit of becoming an official hero or giving up to take on any average job, Izuku makes the decision to be involved in the hero industry as an observer who keeps tabs on the heroes and takes down any of them that he feels aren't worthy of the title.
• Tall Poppy Syndrome: In the interview where he discusses the titular scorpion jar, All Might expresses his concern that those who care too much about their standings in the Hero Rankings might sabotage and drag down their fellow heroes in hopes of elevating themselves at their expense. This reflects what happens at Aldera, as Izuku tricks the bullies into selling each other out in exchange for test answers and the prospect of seeing their "rivals" ruined.
• Villain Respect: Akaguro Chizome, aka the Hero Killer Stain, roars with laughter as he watches Izuku's interview, admiring his work and musing that he has what it takes to become a true hero. He even wants to meet him in person.
• What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Shirou Fujimaru's Quirk involves changing his eye and hair colors. For the bullies at Aldera, this makes him an acceptable target like the Quirkless.

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