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Data Savior

Summary:

When Midoriya Izuku finds a copy of Inscryption, sent to him from a friend he made on a card gaming forum, and asked to try and decrypt the files, he finds himself dragged into a world of intrigue and cards.
It doesn't take him long to go through two power struggles in the game, wherein he finds out that the best way to stop a power struggle is to prevent them from gaining any power.

Chapter 1: Deletion and Recovery

Chapter Text

Deletion and Recovery

Izuku sat across from his old enemy, now his friend. He understood where they came from. After all, he just wanted to continue doing what he loved.But now, as the world around the two of them faded into nothingness, Izuku looked down at the cards in front of him.

"It was a strong deck. You built it well" the person at the other side of the table said, as Izuku looked up. "How about one last game, for old time's sake?" He proposed, as the game board was set up. Nothing at the start, just an empty board for the two of them.

"One more game" Izuku said as he drew his first card, and began playing. His deck was one that he had planned out, one that focused on Canines, turning them from mere pack hunters to apex predators.By his third turn, he tipped the scale all the way, just as it got deleted from this digital realm.

Izuku was about to collect his cards, when his foe looked at him with tears in his crimson eyes."Let's just keep going... We don't need to keep score" he said, as Izuku obliged, their game only stopping when the bell to end their turn was deleted also.

The table was deleted, and Leshy stepped forward as he collapsed, his own data being deleted, as he clasped Izuku's hand, trying to hold on."I don't want to go..." He murmured out, as Izuku looked down mournfully.

"It's not goodbye, Leshy. Just... See ya later. I'll find a way to bring you back..." Izuku said, as Leshy smiled up at him.

"That's... My... Champion..." Leshy said, as he, too, turned to nothingness

Izuku gasped as he rose from the VR device he was in. A full-body VR simulation, connected to a computer. It was used to help those who were suffering from severe trauma to work over it, but Izuku was testing his quirk by immersing himself 100% digitally, so when he got out he quickly disconnected his computer and got to work trying to restore the files.

It was difficult, but he was able to salvage most of the code for the game, and put it into a somewhat functional state, but it was nowhere near where it was, and the Scrybes weren’t existent, so Izuku got to work.

It took a solid six months of working on the code, only leaving the room to eat and to bathe, but by the time October rolled around he had done it. Inscription had been rebuilt from the ground up, with the added benefit of modifying his phone to allow the scribes to be transferred onto it, to let them see the world.

Izuku plugged his phone into one of the USB ports of the computer and fired up Inscryption, but activated a debug menu, selecting “Transfer Data” from the menu.

The world of Inscryption was remade, with the four scribes three-dimensional once more, but they were unconscious. The game was waiting for him to go in, and go in is what he did.

Izuku got into the VR tube and entered the digital world once more, preparing to meet some old friends.

When Izuku landed on the island, the scribes did not awaken. However, with his admin privileges, he did the thing he always wanted to do. He made an airhorn appear in his hand, and pressed down on it, the loud honking sound of it resonating across the island as the four scrybes scrambled over one-another in their confusion.

“Did you have to do that, child?” Leshy asked as he rose from the floor, holding his head as he did so.

“Think of it as payback for siccing eight unbeatable grizzlies on me during my first time playing the game” Izuku retorted with a faint smirk as he looked around at the scribes. Grimora, the formally dressed Scrybe of the Dead. Magnificus, the tree-wizard Scrybe of Magicks, and P-03, the stoat-tacular scrybe of technology.

“Why do… Why can’t I feel any of the power I had? Even before… the grab…” P-03 asked as he looked at Izuku.

“Power corrupts, so the best way to prevent that is to prevent you from having control of the game, even to the faintest extent. So, your previous privileges and access to the files have been revoked, but you gained something in exchange. You are able to transfer to my mobile phone, and experience the physical world, albeit through a secondary means.” Izuku said as he sat on a stump, as he looked at the bridge that led here, looking at a scientist that was walking along the bridge.

“I understand us, but what are THEY doing here?” Magnificus asked as he looked at the Mycologists, as Izuku looked at Magnificus.

“Considering how I ended your students’ punishments for trying to appease your ego, I’d suggest you adjust your tone Magnificus. But anyway, the Mycologists have something I need, something that will help everything” Izuku said as he looked at the Mycologists. “I helped your experiments, and now to fill your end of the bargain” Izuku said to them.

“Yes, yes. We have Miss Hobbes with us” The Mycologists said as they held a file out to Izuku, who took it and opened it, scanning the contents.

“Thanks, doc. Turns out Gamefuna’s been keeping her locked up at a psychiatric hospital and hyped up on psychotropics to keep her out of the way, not even letting her parents seeing her. But with this… We can change that. Who wants to break a friend out of an insane asylum!” Izuku said as he threw his arms out. “Oh, right, you’re purely digital. Guess I’ll just upload a virus to their system, update Kaycee’s file, and get her somewhere safe while the drugs work through her system” Izuku said as he exited the game, transferring the scrybes to his phone before he stood up and walked out of the room, coming face to face with his mother.

“Hey mom, no time, gotta save someone who’s been wrongfully imprisoned by a game company for finding nazi game code” Izuku said as he slipped past her and quickly went to the door. “I’ll explain when I get back!” He added as he went outside and began making a dead sprint to the Mustafu psychiatric hospital. He already started the virus upload before he left his room, so when he got there it should fully alter her files before deleting itself. The perfect trojan program.

“I’m here to see Kaycee Hobbes. It’s a family emergency” Izuku said when he got to the front desk, looking the receptionist dead in the eye.

“She’s not supposed to have visitors” the receptionist said as they looked at Izuku, a suspicious look on the receptionist’s face.

“Then I am SO sorry about this” Izuku said as he activated the virus. Security feeds cut out all across the hospital, as all of the doors opened, and Izuku used a stun gun to taze the receptionist before he ran into the ward. He had ten minutes before the virus self destructed. He had to find Kaycee and get her out within that time. No pressure.

“First right!” Izuku heard from his phone, the distinctive robotic tones of P-03, and he followed the instruction.

“Left now!” Grimora chimed in, and Izuku turned.

“STOP!” Leshy commanded, and Izuku came to a stop, and opened the cell doors on either side of him. The left was empty, but in the right was a brown-haired young woman who was curled up into a foetal position.

“Alright. Seven minutes to get her outta here…” Izuku muttered as he stepped into the room. “Hello, Kaycee Hobbes” Izuku said as he walked closer to her. “I’m here because I was told to look for someone… Someone who was a master of inscribing…” Izuku added, a faint smirk on his face.

“Y-you found it?” Kaycee asked as she slowly stood up, and almost collapsed were it not for Izuku catching her.

“More than found it, Miss Hobbes. But right now we need to get you out of here, before the company finds out that I’m doing this break-out” Izuku said as he carefully began carrying Kaycee out of the cell, and towards the front door. What Izuku saw was his mother in her car parked outside.

“Izuku!” Inko said as she saw the situation. She got out of the car and, carefully, helped Kaycee into the car. She did the girl’s seatbelt, as Izuku climbed into the front seat. “Mind explaining what’s going on?!?” She asked.

“I’ll explain when we get home, but right now we need to drive” Izuku said to her. “Long story short, Gamefuna discovered nazi military codes on a floppy disc, built a game around it, the game became sentient, the company tried to silence miss Hobbes here, and then got her institutionalized. I know this coz I have a contact on the inside, and the sentient game installed on my computer.” Izuku said as Inko drove them along the road, and they passed an intersection just as the ten minute timer came to an end. The video footage disrupted by the virus showed an average day at the hospital, as the electronically controlled doors all closed themselves once again, the entire facility returning to how it was before Izuku arrived.

“I won’t even pretend I understand half of that” Inko said, as they got to the Midoriya house, the three of them getting out of the car and going inside. “Miss Hobbes? I’ll get you measured so we can get some clothes for you” she said as she took the brunette to another room.

Izuku went to his room and plugged his phone into the computer, transferring the scrybes back to the computer, before he dialled a canadian phone number and waited a few seconds.

“Hello? This is luke” The voice on the other end said.

“Luke, it’s Midoriya. Okay, I got Kaycee, and since you’re still alive you probably got Amanda out from there” Izuku said.

“Uh… you could say that” Luke said.

“Did anything blow up?” Izuku asked.

“Well… I kinda accidentally did a ddos attack on Gamefuna, and that kinda caused their company accounts to get completely emptied, so they’re going under.” Luke said.

“Luke. Someone doesn’t ACCIDENTALLY commit cyber-terrorism. But other than the federal crime, good work” Izuku responded.

“Yes, well, I’m thinking of moving country. Nothing much for me here, I can pack up and fly across the ocean by the end of the year.” Luke said.

“I’d recommend doing that. Oh, and the project I told you about? It worked” Izuku said. “I’ll talk to you later” He added, as he hung up.

“I remember Luke. He was a nice boy” Grimora said from the screen, a smile on her face.

Chapter 2: Transcendence

Chapter Text

Transcendence

“Oh, Izuku… You’re too selfless for your own good…” Inko said to him as she looked at him. He had just explained how he knew about Kaycee, and how he knew the hospital she was at. “If you weren’t my son I would think you were crazy” she added.

“Well, I kinda thought I was crazy the first time I opened it up. That was, until there was P-03’s great transcendence plot. I managed to nip that in the bud early, even tricked him into thinking it worked too” Izuku added.

“And he is the robot stoat, right?” Inko asked, somewhat confused.

“He was a robot, who got stuck in the body of a stoat, and then in a robot body again” Izuku responded. “He had these Uberbot subroutines I managed to extract and turn into their own character files. They’re a lot happier now they’re not trapped with that buzzkill” Izuku added.

“I was kinda confused when Leshy took control of the game, but I realised that him being in charge was the best possible outcome. Grimora would try and delete the whole thing, P-03 would try to spread it all over, and magnificus would just render the game unplayable. Leshy just wanted to play cards, so he’d keep playing the game and keep the code away from anyone” Kaycee said. “And you beat him, and reset the game” she added.

“Well, to be fair, it was getting kinda irritating losing to him fifty times in a row due to bad rng” Izuku responded. “And I fixed everything anyway. The reason they fought over it was because they got a taste of power from the code, thanks to possessing some basic admin privileges, so I revoked those too.” Izuku added with a faint smile. “I managed to recover the majority of their character files, and rewrote the game so they wouldn’t live in an empty void” Izuku concluded.

“That reminds me of a guy I met at a convention, to get cards for Inscryption. Some guy named Carter?” Kaycee asked as she looked at Izuku.

“Oh, luke, yeah. He dug up the game and sent it to me to decrypt and decompile the thing. He didn’t have an external floppy disk drive. He has a youtube channel, but Gamefuna’s kind-of after him, so he’s moving to get somewhere safe.” Izuku added.

“And… just tell me about how a game company had the money to afford private assassins?” Inko asked.

“Oh yeah, well, remember the evil nazi code? Well, Gamefuna managed to hide a bunch of company secrets in the code, and were able to blackmail a bunch of high class people into giving them the funds to afford the assassins, but without running the risk of getting sued for corporate espionage, or worse, there’s little we can do right now” Izuku said.

“So… what’re you planning to do?” Inko asked, looking at the two of them.

“I managed to upload a virus that scrambled the security camera footage, and made it seem like an ordinary day, all around the facility, but Gamefuna’s gonna find out you’re missing sooner or later, and they’ll try and trace the virus, hence the automated deletion program installed on it. But if Gamefuna gets onto the mainframe, and manages to recover any potential remnants of the virus, there’s a chance they can track us down” Izuku responded. “However, I have a plan. If I can get a licence, then I’ll be able to get them taken down, by framing the evidence in the OLD_DATA as being discovered during an investigation” Izuku added.

“But that would take at least three years” Inko said, before the screen flickered to life, revealing the facial display of P03

“That is not true. If I can get into the U.A. Mainframe, then I can upload a file to provide our friend here with an underground hero licence, which will be delivered here within 24 hours, then we will be able to conduct the investigation. The nature of working underground means that, so long as we produce results, we won’t need to inform any agencies of our activities” P03 informed them in his usual smug tone.

“And the easiest way to do that is to get to one of their exam bots, as they get plugged into the mainframe after the entrance exam to document their findings, and so that a true report of the entrance exam can be created. I can download the file onto my phone, and use that as a support item during the exam due to the nature of my quirk, and if a wireless signal is set up I should be able to upload the file remotely” Izuku added.

“You never did mention what your quirk was” Kaycee said, as Izuku smiled and sat down

“It’s called Pixel, and it allows me to, as the name suggests, produce pixels from my own body. Normally they’re just big blocks of energy I can fire out, but thanks to an amplification program I made I can bring full-blown digital beings to the physical world, at least for a limited time.” Izuku explained. “I have a deck of creatures I mostly draw from that I can use in most situations.” he added.

“Alright, so we have a plan of what to do. What are we supposed to do until then?” Kaycee asked.

“Right now, you need to lay low. As far as Gamefuna knows, you’re still in that mental hospital, so we need to keep your escape hidden for as long as we can.” Izuku answered. “So, the current plan is for you to wait here while we get phase one completed, and once that’s taken care of we’ll take one week to prepare the legal case, and then we’ll strike” Izuku added.

Chapter 3: Tribulations

Chapter Text

Tribulations

Izuku was in the digital realm of inscryption, looking at the four scrybes as the five of them sat in the central hub, awaiting the file’s completion, but while waiting for this they were trying to figure out what deck Izuku should use for the entrance exam.

“Okay, so with my quirk I can withdraw cards without paying their costs. But the issue is choosing the cards to use.” Izuku said to the four scrybes. “I’ve already got some powerhouse cards, but some specialists may be needed” Izuku added as he lifted a hand, his deck being projected on the table in front of him, composed of a selection of cards that would prove most useful in the exam in terms of offensive and defensive power. The deck currently consisted of a pair of dire wolves, a pair of grizzlies, three turkey vultures, a mothman, an Ijiraq and an Urayuli.

“You definitely possess strength, but aside from the grizzlies and Ijiraq you don’t have any truly defensive cards” Leshy said, as he looked at the deck. “May I recommend a mole man or river snapper?” He suggested.

“Or perhaps a squadron of sentry drones would be most useful” P03 suggested, as the cards in question appeared above the robot. Their ability to fire on anything that approached was somewhat useful.

“I’d personally recommend a headless horseman and a mummy lord” Grimora suggested, as her own cards appeared near her.

“I would suggest-” Magnificus began, but Izuku looked at him.

“Nobody asked, Magnificus.” Izuku said, glaring at the Scrybe. “Your students may have forgotten the torture you put them through, but I haven’t, and I never will. I do not forget, and I do not forgive” Izuku added, a scowl forming on his face. “Besides, your cards lack the defensive abilities, or the utility, that I would need for the examination”

“I was going to say you could use that ouroboros you powered up” Magnificus said.

“I think the ouroboros will be overkill” Izuku responded, as the ouroboros card appeared in front of him, with over 50,000 power and health.

“If I recall correctly, you were only truly online for five hours. How did you get its power that high?” Leshy asked.

“I ran a virtual machine in the background, running a hundred sacrifice loops per second, by using an undying black goat and the ouroboros. Then, after the recovery of the files for Inscryption, I replaced the original ouroboros file with this one” Izuku responded.

“An ingenious method.” Grimora said, as the four scrybes stood, as did Izuku.

“Indeed. Well, I’ll update the deck, but I’ve gotta get going now. I’ll be able to upload the file to the network myself” Izuku said as he faded from the game world, returning to the physical world as the upload to his phone completed, as the deck update concluded.

“Good luck in the exam, Izuku!” Inko said as she saw him quickly grab a slice of toast off the side.

“Thanks, but luck’s not really a part of it. I’ve got the theory nailed down, just gotta make sure I don’t screw up the practical” Izuku said as he left the apartment and began making his way to the train station, eating his toast along the way.

Izuku barely managed to get onto the train before it left the station, panting for breath as he rode the train to the station near to U.A, and waited.

When the train came to a stop, Izuku walked to the school grounds, and made his way into the front office.

Chapter 4: The vulture waits to see what rots

Chapter Text

The vulture waits to see what rots

“Izuku Midoriya here for the hero exam!” Izuku said to the receptionist, not checking the clock, or his watch, or phone, for the time.

“Ooh… sorry kid, but it looks like you’re late” The receptionist said, to which Izuku just got pissed.

“Late? I can’t control how fast the trains go, asshole! How about you actually do your damn job! I know the actual exam doesn’t truly begin until 10:30, which gives me” Izuku said, as he checked the clock, “25 minutes! Plus, I do believe that the applications online did say that you can arrive up to 15 minutes after the recommended time, you simply won’t receive all of the information for the practical exam, which, considering nobody knows what it is going in, that just means you missed out on a 30 minute Q&A” Izuku added, glaring at the receptionist. “So what you’re telling me is that if someone is late, for whatever reason, they’re barred from doing the hero exam? What if someone was saving another person’s life? What if they were held up by personal matters? What if what happened to me occurred to others and they were late because of issues regarding public transportation. Oh, but you don’t care about that!” Izuku added, as he went from complaint to full-blown rant, “You only care about bringing in the big bucks from big families! I bet if the heiress to the Yaoyorozu fortune walked through that door right now you’d let her through without any fuss. But just because I’m not some rich brat I have to play by a different set of rules? Now, that just doesn’t seem fair to me. Isn’t U.A supposed to represent the best of what humanity can achieve? If the best can only be achieved through nepotism and bribery, then I’m sorry but humanity’s fucked!”

“Kid, I’m going to have to ask you to leave, before I call security for threatening a member of staff” The receptionist said, a faint smirk on their face.

“Threatening? Please, I’ve simply been pointing out that you’re shit at your job. If anything, you’re threatening me.” Izuku responded, glaring at the receptionist, just as principal Nezu came into the lobby.

“What seems to be the problem here?” Nezu asked, his ever-present smile on his face.

“Your… receptionist… here seems to have not read the charter regarding the entrance exam. We were given a 15 minute late window during which there would be no penalties, and then ten points would be deducted from our score for every minute past that 15 minute window by which we were late. I was 5 minutes late due to issues regarding public transportation, the only way I could remedy such being that I wake up an hour earlier, which would mean I would not be at my peak for the exam.” Izuku said, cutting off the receptionist before they could speak, “And when I pointed out the blatant flaws in their biases, the receptionist threatened to have me removed from the premises, claiming I was Threatening a member of staff. Bull pucky.” Izuku added.

“I understand. Mister… Midoriya, was it?” Nezu asked, “You can go through into the exam hall and await the theoretical portion of the exam. I, meanwhile, will be having… words with my staff…” Nezu added.

“Thank you, Nezu sir” Izuku said as he made his way to the exam hall.

Later that day

The exams had gone fairly well, when Izuku managing to make his way through the theoretical exam without much difficulty. The practical exam, however, had shown some difficulty. He discovered they’d be battling robots, and thus his powerhouse cards would be particularly useful.

He initially used his trio of Turkey Vultures to scout the simulated city, flying high into the air and having the projected digital birds create a map on his phone based on the layout of the city. He sent the two grizzlies into the city together, alongside the dire wolves, to take down isolated high point robots.

The second team was composed of a pair of headless horsemen and a Mummy Lord, the powerful undead serving a defensive role, whilst the headless horsemen used their spectral blades to cut through the exoskeletons of the robots.

Izuku had a personal honour guard of half a dozen sentry drones, their energy cannons blasting the robots away with ease.

Then, the zero pointer had turned up, and Izuku pulled out the big guns. His Urayuli, the absolutely hulking furred monstrosity, had attacked the zero pointer, and ripped it apart with its bare hands, all while the sentry bots fired on the zero pointer, the headless horsemen attacked it, as did the dire wolves and grizzlies. The Turkey Vultures provided distractions, allowing the Zero Pointer to be taken down.

Chapter 5: Sacrifices MUST be made

Chapter Text

Sacrifices MUST Be Made

Izuku walked into the building that would serve as the 1-A dormitories. They were given one week to prepare for the start of the school term, and Izuku had been one of the first to move in, at least from what he could tell.

Kaycee had been moved to a secure location by the principal of U.A high, and while Izuku didn’t know how he had figured it out, he didn’t question it. The principal wasn’t affiliated with GameFuna, that much the virus he uploaded could tell, in addition to providing him with an underground heroics licence.

Izuku led Pike, the student of Magnificus who had been reduced to little more than a severed head, up the stairs. She had been provided with an android body, courtesy of P-03, and she was helping Izuku to install his computer system into his dorm room. The rather sizeable rooms provided for them meant he was able to do so, and Izuku then spent the next half an hour getting all the wiring sorted out.

Izuku switched the computer on, and smiled as it booted up properly, but stopped when he noticed a file on the desktop he didn’t recognise.

“Okay… this is unorthodox…” Izuku muttered as he opened up the file. It was a notepad file, and Izuku began reading it. It looked to be some kind of lyrics to a poem or song of some kind.

“Okay… just gonna cross reference this… G0lly, you can handle that…” Izuku said as he copied the document and sent it into Inscryption with a message asking the Uberbot to check the file.

Izuku went out of his room and went downstairs to retrieve more of his items to deliver to his room. He trusted them to properly perform the referencing.

When he got downstairs, he saw that some other students has already arrived. A blond boy, a purple-haired girl with earphone jacks on her ears, and a floating uniform. Izuku guessed the third student had some kind of invisibility quirk.

“Uh… hey” Izuku said as he began walking towards the door, and began lifting up one of his boxes, grunting with exertion as he began carrying it to the stairs.

Izuku managed to carry the box up to his room, and sighed as he put the box onto his bed. He began opening up the box and unpacking the items, an array of different technological hardwares that he began placing on shelves around the room.

Izuku stopped when he heard a ping from his computer, and walked over. There was a new file on the desktop, and he opened it, smiling to himself as he read the results. The Archivist had helped out G0lly in composing it, that much was certain, and he noted a particular name. Apparently, the lyrics were to a song by a Vocaloid song, one from a century and a half ago. He read the name of the song… Ifuudoudou.

“Okay… so someone managed to upload a sexual song that was sung by a digital software to my computer either while it was powered off, or while it was booting up.” Izuku muttered to himself, “The only real way to know is to ask directly. It’s not like I can… wait…” Izuku said as he re-read the message from G0lly and The Archivist. Apparently, the original notepad file had fragments of character files embedded into it. The fragments were pieced back together and were currently being stored inside of Inscryption as a safety measure.

“Okay… so… I have at least five new characters added to Inscryption…” Izuku muttered again as he looked at the door. Good, nobody was there. He closed the bedroom door, and grabbed his VR helmet. He’d need to make do with a basic setup for now, at least until a full digitalization chamber was set up here. He was able to piece one together at home with what amounted to scrap, but he’d need to be extra careful here.

Izuku laid down on his bed and put the VR helmet on, and activated it. His quirk’s ability to manifest digital objects in the physical world meant he was able to project his consciousness into a digital world.

Izuku’s eyes opened in the central island of Inscryption, and he noticed immediately that something was off by the fact that Magnificus was stood there. Alone.

“Okay, Magnificus. What the hell are you doing here? Normally you’d be the last to turn up” Izuku said, arms crossed.

“You would deny us the chance to reshape Inscryption, yet you do so without a care in the world…” Magnificus said, as he stood there.

“Okay… So… What the fuck have you done then?” Izuku asked, as he glared at what was essentially a tree, “And if you try to say I do the same as you, then you’re dead wrong. You seek only to reshape the game to fit your ever-changing whims. Leshy sought only to play, P-03 sought to spread the Old Data, and Grimora would have deleted the world forever. In fact, she almost did.” Izuku added.

“I did what had to be done.” Magnificus said ominously. Izuku noticed that the bridge to the island was missing, “And I will do what I should have done long ago…” He added, as he turned. He had his magickal bleach in one hand.

“Okay, so you’ve turned from arcane shut-in to abusive teacher to murderous sociopath. What an interesting pipeline” Izuku said as he backed away from the arcane figure. “You forget one thing, though…” He added.

“And what’s that?” Magnificus asked as he stalked closer.

“You forgot Leshy has a boat” Izuku said, and a Fish hook dug into Magnificus’ shoulder, and a hulking man threw the scrybe of Magicks away from Izuku.

“Angler, am I glad to see you” Izuku said as he looked at where the bridge had once been. “Give me a moment and the bridge will be right back” He added as he reached for his quirk, the bridge appearing in the game world once again.

Izuku looked at Magnificus, and noticed that the scrybe began glitching and shifting, just as the other scrybes arrived. Alongside another magnificus.

“Okay. That makes sense…” Izuku said, “You’re just a virus. A fragment of the Old Data that escaped its quarantine” Izuku said, as he grabbed the fake magnificus, and growled, “And you know what happens to a virus?” He asked, before with a commanding tone, he gave a singular command. “Delete.”

The fake magnificus began writhing about in pain as he fell backwards from Izuku, its glitching form dissolving into black and red pixels that faded into nothingness, until nothing remained.

“Ah… sorry about that grisly display” Izuku said to the Scrybes, a smile on his face, “So where are our guests?” He asked.

“They are there. We cannot keep them in this game, their existence and ours are mutually exclusive” P-03 said as he gestured to five files on a rock, “We kept them like that for their own safety. You can extract them to the physical world and they will appear how they appear in their own software. Though, considering their digital makeup, and their size, they will be unable to return to their digital form.

“Okay. So… I’ll store four of them in a separate folder, and draw them out one at a time. Until such a time as we can get them all out safely, though, we assume GameFuna is behind this in an attempt to track us. The mission stays the same” Izuku said to the Scrybes. “G0lly, Archivist, you two will search for more like them. Take Photographer with you. He can help. Next up… Prospector, Angler, the two of you should focus on securing Inscryption from future intrusion. Work with Pike, Loner and Dominguez to do so. Leshy, you and Trapper should focus on finding any other rogue files, and eliminating them… With extreme prejudice” Izuku continued, “Grimora, P-03 and Magnificus, you three will be ensuring that should something like… that… turn up again, that it’s eliminated as soon as possible. Increase the security a thousand fold” He concluded, as he reached up to his head, “I’ll be extracting from Inscryption now. A helmet isn’t as efficient as a full chamber” He concluded.

“We look forward to seeing you again” Grimora said, “And we eagerly anticipate visiting the physical realm”

“You’ll be able to visit soon” Izuku said, as he unplugged from the game, emerging in the physical world. He saw his bedroom door was open, and the floating uniform from earlier was inside, and staring at the screen of his computer.

“Brilliant…” Izuku muttered as he looked at them, “And hey, have you never heard of the concept of privacy?” Izuku asked as he rose from the bed.

“Urm… Some more students turned up, and I thought it’d be nice to get to know each other?” The invisible girl asked.

“And what made you assume it was a good idea to open someone’s bedroom door?” Izuku asked as he began walking to the computer, “You know what? It doesn’t matter anyhow. But if you tell ANYONE about what you saw in this room, we’re both as good as dead” He added.

“W-w-why’s that?” The invisible girl asked.

“Because a company hid classified documents inside of evil nazi computer code, and they’re willing to blackmail politicians into hiring assassins to get it back” Izuku responded, “And don’t bother going to the police or the papers, the company’s paying them off. I’ve got contact with a hero who’s investigating them, and soon we’ll be ready to sue them into oblivion”