Liberty

Experiment

It had been a few weeks since the incident, but that hadn't stopped the white-coats. Oh no. They had continued with their constant tests and experiments, no mercy present in their eyes.

The white-coats seemed to have increased the number of tests the three were given since the incident. Before, they only had about one test a day with the occasional break. Now, they had about three every day and barely any breaks between them.

Some tests were physical, where the white-coats would set up an area to check their physical fitness. Running, climbing, pull ups, sit ups. Exercise in general, except for the fact that they were hooked up to various machines.

Some tests were medical. These tests were mostly just injections, painful ones that made their whole arm (or body part they were injected into) feel like it was burning and left them unconscious for hours.

Some tests were intelligence based, like the quizzes Izuku used to do at school but if you got an answer wrong you'd be punished. Mild electric shocks were the white-coats preferred form of punishment.

Some tests were...strange, to say the least. Sometimes, they were put in specialized cylindrical chambers designed to measure chemical signals in the brain. One time, Izuku remembered, he was locked in a freezer room. He was on the verge of death when he finally got out.

Flashback

It wasn't Payton who picked him up for his appointment that morning, but a white-coat. One of the more...ruthless, merciless ones. A sick bitch with a penchant for violence and all things cold.

Her breath hung in the air, a silvery pale mist. A side-effect of her quirk perhaps. Her grip on his arm was unnaturally cold, almost like ice, and vice-like as she dragged him out of the cell room. Her grin was predatory, nothing like Gin's or Hoshi's, but like that of (what he later learned would be) a shark. Hungry and malicious. Her eyes were no different, they held the same predatory glean. Full of malice and hate.

He was taken down a hallway he'd never been down before, which was odd because he was sure he'd walked down them all. The further they walked, the colder the hallway became.

Finally, they came to a door at the end of the hall. The metal was covered in a light frost, there was a window next to the door looking into the small room. The room itself was somewhat larger than the cell he shared with Hoshi and Gin, the difference being this room was darker and empty.

The white-coat opened the heavy metal door and a wave of cold air hit him like a truck, leaving him shivering. The white-coat's grin widened as she shoved Izuku into the room and pushed the door closed, locking it before Izuku even had a chance to comprehend what had just happened.

Izuku hit the cold floor hands and knees first, crying out in shock and pain. The floor was freezing cold and seemingly...jagged? Looking down Izuku saw the floor, and the majority of the room, was covered in small ice crystals. The ones beneath his palms and knees however, were stained red. Lifting his palms up, he saw why. As he fell, his hands and knees must've scraped across the ice crystals. There were small cuts along his palms, thin trails of blood slowly oozed from the open wounds. It...stung, but not as much as it usually would. Probably because of the cold.

Izuku shivered and began pacing the room, wiping his palms on his hospital gown as he did so. 

Why was he locked in here? 

The room was empty, save for a drain on the floor and some kind of vent on the ceiling. He looked at the window beside the door, but found that he could only see his reflection. A one way viewing window? Now that was just weird, what use was a one way viewing window into a freezer? Unless...unless...

...Unless they were going to kill him by freezing him to death...

As if his internal panic wasn't enough, there was a loud alarm from outside the room and a voice sounding over the intercom. The sound, albeit muffled, carried through the freezer room. 

"DECONTAMINATION IN PROCESS!"

The ceiling 'vents' slid open and a torrent of water gushed through. The ceiling was too high for Izuku to reach even if he tried, and even then there were bars that would prevent him from escaping and the water.

The water gathered at the bottom of the room, the cold liquid made even colder by the room's temperature. The water was already just above ankle deep, there must've been more water-vents in the room.

Izuku began to panic, fear rising in his chest as he banged on the door with his fists. The ice covering the door scratched his hands but he didn't care. He didn't want to drown. He didn't want to die. Not now. The water rose quickly, quicker than he thought it would.

"Someone! Help, please!"

The water was chest height now and even colder than before. Izuku shivered, his breaths hung in front of him as pale silver mist. He could barely feel his legs now and his fingers were going numb, he was too cold. His hospital gown, his only source of warmth, was soaked and cold against his skin. Almost as cold as the water itself, yet still retaining some warmth.

"I don't want to die!"

Izuku could barely keep his head above the water now, his voice hoarse and filled with fear. The water rose above his head, submerging him completely. Izuku's chest felt tight, he couldn't breathe. He tried to swim, to drag himself up, something. 

Izuku didn't want to die.

He felt warmth trickle through his veins, though he could barely feel it due to the bitter cold of the water. This feeling, Izuku didn't know what it was but it felt...peaceful. If he could wasn't as numb and could still feel, Izuku would've felt his body relax and go limp.

Was this what death felt like?

He wasn't sure if he was imagining things or not, but Izuku swore he heard an unfamiliar voice shout his name as he slipped into unconsciousness. His limp body floated there for a few seconds, before falling with the water as it was drained out of the room.

The shadow black mass entering the room was the last thing he saw as he fell unconscious.

Flashback end

Izuku had heard one of the white-coats mumble something about them being tests to bring out a person's quirk, but that was impossible. He was quirkless, he would never get a quirk. He was pretty sure the same thing applied to Gin as well, since she never showed signs of having a quirk.

This was...different. Gin and Hoshi were still at their appointments, doing tests for the white-coats. It was different because the white-coats never took two of them at a time. 

It unnerved Izuku.

It unnerved him even more when a white-coat opened the door and motioned for him to follow.

It unnerved him when the white-coat lead him down a hall to a door he'd never seen before. An elevator door, he'd later discover.

It unnerved him when, after riding the elevator, the white-coat lead him into a room.

The room he was now in was a large, almost empty warehouse room. A few crates scattered around the room, some stacked up in corners others lay broken on the floor. There was a large group of people in the room, some people he even recognised. As he and the white-coat drew closer, Izuku noticed Gin and Hoshi were also there accompanied by a pair of white-coats. Nearer the front, Payton stood next to a familiar mass of shadows shaped like a man.

A presence in the room unnerved Izuku.

It was familiar.

It was close.

It was dangerous.

Izuku grit his teeth and followed the white-coat, despite the fear coursing through him. Yes, he remembered that presence. All too well, in fact. It was the person who ordered Payton to kidnap him. It was the person who made his life a living hell.

The man they called...Sensei.