[MHA Characters are test subjects in a secret, underground lab, because for some unknown reason they were born with strange and mysterious powers. They were all brought there against their will, nineteen because they had powers, and one to see if those powers could be given to, or awakened in a regular person (part one: In which they are born and promptly disappear).]

Fifteen years ago, something exceptionally unusual happened. In the same small room, in a small, strange hospital, in a small, strange town, twenty children were born. Room four of Rikabari Hospital's maternity ward, must have been cursed that year, because every child born in that room, in that year, was cursed as well.

It was January eleventh when the first child was born in that room and the midwife screamed when she saw him. He appeared to be split down the middle, like the left half of one child welded together with the right half of another, scarlet hair on the left, white on the right, aqua blue eye on the left, grey on the right, one side of his tiny body so warm it was almost feverish, the other side as cold as a corpse.

The child disappeared after a few days, and his birth, his strange appearance, his very existence, were all completely, mercifully, forgotten.

It was just over a month before the room was used again, and on February twelfth, a girl was born with dark green hair, abnormally large hands and feet, and a tongue like a frog. Three days later, on the fifteenth of February, a baby boy with white hair, a monstrous face, and grotesquely mutated arms caused his mother to faint at the sight of him. These two also vanished, with not even memories to suggest they even existed in the first place.

The next child to be born in room four, on the fourth of March, seemed normal enough, aside from the long, pointy ears, and a short time later, his parents took him home from the hospital. However, when his mother started to introduce actual foods into his diet and his fingers turned into carrots, he, too, disappeared completely.

On the twentieth of April, another seemingly normal child was born, or so they thought, until he first opened his eyes and revealed that they were blood red. Then sparks came from his hands, and before the day was out, the boy was gone.

The room was out of use for a while after that, until over a month later, when a surprising spike in births at the end of May forced the hospital to use the room, and a boy with a tail was born and vanished on the twenty-eighth. The room had to be used again two days later, but this time the child was a seemingly normal boy, who went home with his parents, then disappeared himself, when his umbilical cord fell off, and a peculiar, sparkling light emitted from his new belly button.

On the sixteenth of June, the room was used by mistake, and a girl was born entirely invisible. The strangest thing about the boy born on the twenty-ninth of June was a  jagged, black steak in his corn yellow hair, that is, until he sneezed and gave his father, who was holding him, a terrible electric shock.

In July, parts of the hospital underwent renovation, and room four became one of only a few rooms available in the maternity ward. July first, an otherwise normal boy was born with purple hair, and sent home with his family, it wasn't until he learned to speak, and brainwashed his parents, that the boy and all memory of him disappeared without a trace.

On the fifteenth of July, a boy was born who fell right through the arms of the doctor who delivered him, as if they weren't there at all. Another boy was born on July twenty-eighth who had bulky, unwieldy elbows which dispensed tape, or something like it. And on the thirtieth, a girl was born who was completely pink, with little horns in her fluffy pink hair, and eyes like negatives.

In August, the other half of the maternity ward had its renovations done, including room four. And thus no monstrous children were born that month.

On September ninth, a redheaded baby girl was born, whose hands grew to almost the size of the child's whole body when her mother played with her. On the twenty-third of the same month, another baby girl was born, completely normal, until she was five and her grandfather taught her all about matryoshka  dolls, and she made a set of Russian nesting dolls come out of her skin, mistakenly thinking it would please him.

In October, a set of twin boys were born on the sixteenth, one with crimson hair and eyes to match, one with silver hair and wild eyelashes, and much to the doctors' surprise, both were born with teeth, vicious, pointed teeth. When one started to cry, he became as hard as stone, when the other wailed as well, his skin became steel. When a boy with the head of a blackbird was born on the thirtieth of the same month, it almost wasn't a surprise, then a shadowy demon manifested from within the infant, and once more, screams were heard from room four.

The room was locked, after that. For all of November, and most of December, the room remained that way. When an emergency birth had to be done on December twenty-seventh however, the room was opened once more, to retrieve special equipment that the doctors had been keeping in there, as if it were storage space. The child born that day had strange pads on her finger tips, and when she touched her mother with them, the woman floated off the hospital bed. 

On the morning of the thirty-first of December, a woman came in, already having contractions, and demanded to be taken to room four. She was insistent, and said she would not give birth in any room but that one. She was in labor for hours and hours. At just past eleven PM, the baby started crowing, showing slimy green hair atop his tiny head. At 12:58 AM on January first the following year, a perfectly ordinary baby boy was born, with curly green hair which faded to black at the ends when the clock struck midnight.

Check the hospital records. Ask the doctors, or the nurses. You can ask anyone in town, as a matter of fact. It's quite the curiosity, you see, a fun fact to quote at parties or neighborhood potlucks, so they all know by now. That whole year, in Rikabari Hospital, not a single child was born in room four of the maternity ward. Not one.

[A few notes about this AU:

1) For the most part, they have the same birthdays that they have in canon, the only exception is Midoriya, whose birthday had to be changed for plot reasons (sidetone: Midoriya's hair is also slightly different for plot reasons, it's only green at the roots for a few inches, and as it grows out, it turns black).

2) Despite having the same birthdays, not all of them are the same ages as they are in canon. (For example, Togata and Amajiki are the same age as the rest of the kids, not two years older, and even though Bakugo is canonically the oldest in class 1-A, them all being born during the same year meant that I had to make the kids whose birthdays come earlier in the year the oldest, rather than the youngest.)

3) I chose to make Kirishima and Tetsutetsu twins because they have the same birthday and for literally no other reason. Because of this, however, I had to change Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu's name to Tetsutetsu Kirishima, because Tetsutestu Tetsutetsu and Eijirou Tetsutestu didn't make any sense. However, I'll be referring to both of these boys by their first names, so it shouldn't be too confusing.

4) Also regarding these boys, you may have noticed I made Kirishima's red hair his natural color, just because, although the spiky style is still done with gel, just like in canon.

5) Characters will be referred to by their family names in narration (except the twins) and their given names in dialogue. They all grew up together, and they've known each other all their lives, so there's no reason for them to use last names when speaking to each other. (Exceptions for nicknames: Yaoyorozu is always called Yaomomo; Midoriya is called Deku by everyone except Todoroki and Shoji who call him Izuku; Asui is called Tsu instead of Tsuyu; Bakugo is called Kacchan by everyone except for Kirishima, who calls him Katsuki; Bakugo refers to others using whatever nickname he pleases.)

6) As for why I chose the characters I chose instead of just using class 1-A, I felt like it. It's my story and I'll do what I want to. It started as not wanting to write Mineta, and replacing him with Shinso, and then I realized I didn't really want to write Iida, because I love him, but I hate writing him, and I kinda forgot that Koda and Rikido were even in the class tbh.

7) The hardest decision was leaving out Jiro. In the end, it came down to Jiro or Shoji, and I love them both but Shoji just fit into the AU better. Jiro and Iida both have inorganic quirks, like actual machine pieces built into their bodies, which just didn't seem to be the type of thing that was happening in this AU, so I ended up replacing them :-(

8) Personally, I always headcanon Aoyama as non-binary, so in future parts of this AU, I'll be using neopronouns (ze/zir) for Aoyama. Also, unlike in canon, Aoyama doesn't have the same troubles using his navel laser, or at least not to the same extent. It doesn't always leak out when he's not wearing the belt, is what I'm getting at.

9) Kirishima and Bakugo will be a couple at some point, because I really only have one ship in this show, and they're it. (I'm also pretty sure Aizawa and Mic are married, but that's not really a ship, that's just what I think, also it probably won't come up in this AU. However, I am considering including Ojiro/Hagakure, 'cause why not?)

10) In case you din't figure out who's who, here's a list of all the student characters in this fic, in order of appearance (and their age in this AU). Shoto Todoroki, Tsuyu Asui, Mezo Shoji, Tamaki Amajiki, Katsuki Bakugo, Masahiro Ojiro, Yuga Aoyama, Toru Hagakure, Denki Kaminari, Hitoshi Shinso, Mirio Togata, Hanta Sero, Mina Ashido, Itsuka Kendo, Momo Yaoyorozu, Eijirou Kirishima, Tetsutetsu Kirishima, Fumikage Tokoyami, Ochako Uraraka, Izuku Midoriya.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I'm going to post a new part of this AU when I don't have any requested content. If you want, you can request a new part of this AU focused on your choice of one of the characters in it. I don't know how many parts there will be for this AU, but they're gonna be mostly self-contained vignettes like this one, so no need to worry about cliffhangers or anything. I think the end note is officially longer than the fic now lol, so I'll sign off. Love y'all.

<3 Raaor!]