Prologue

Izuku buzzed as he made his way down to Dagobah Municipal Beach for the last time. He’d meet up with Mom and the Bakugo’s for dinner later. Right now, he wanted one last look at where his progress all really started before they had to leave on the shuttles the next morning for the Nexus.

It was really hard to believe that it’s been over a year since All Might chose Izuku as his successor for One For All, Biotics be damned. He’s just glad he had some muscle built up from training and preparing to go into the Alliance military after high school when he got chosen, since it meant he had One For All for two whole weeks before the Entrance Exams. And two weeks to learn that combining his Biotics with One For All was a mistake, if only because of the calorie requirements he now had.

Lunch Rush was a godsend as far as Izuku was concerned, and he hoped that the Pro was joining them in Andromeda.

Andromeda… Izuku wondered what they would find once they got there. Everything he’s read from the Initiative said that things were, quite literally, golden there, but it’ll be 600 years in the future once they actually get there. A lot of things could change - but surely that was his anxiety talking.

His entire class signed the agreement to join the Andromeda Initiative, which made it easy on UA for giving them the extra training they would need as members of the Initiative. Zero-G, piloting, colonization efforts… they would be more than just the first generation of Heroes once they got out there. Everyone needed to do their part with making a new home for those who came along on the one-way voyage.

Izuku couldn’t wait. He’d been having trouble sleeping for months now, and not just because of the stress of the school year and all the villain attacks - he was so excited to go to a new frontier and become one of the first Heroes there. So much so, he’d been reading almost everything the school provided for them three times over. He couldn’t practice in the simulations without a teacher present, but he could read and make himself able to recite theory at the drop of a hat. And his efforts hadn’t gone to waste - he was the only one of his class chosen to join a Pathfinder team once one of the Arks makes it to the Nexus! He had to arrive early the next morning to get his SAM Implant before going into cryo.

Yagi-sensei was still worried about leaving the League of Villains behind on Earth, but honestly, Izuku felt it was for the best for One For All to be removed from the situation. Yagi-sensei had wanted OFA to have a new meaning behind it, and as far as Izuku saw it, Andromeda was their best chance at that still happening. Besides, there were still plenty of Pros being left behind that could deal with the League, instead of a sixteen year old half-trained student needing to deal with the situation for them. Some might consider it too optimistic, but Izuku just called it reality: if the Pros really needed a student to fight their battles for them, then they shouldn’t be Pros. Besides, the League has always been after All Might; for all they knew, it would sputter out into a common gang for the police to deal with, for all that they would have some powerful Quirks on their side.

Now that, Izuku admitted, was optimistic.

He was curious about which Heroes were coming along, though. According to Tokoyami, Hawks was going to be one, and Sir Nighteye was already in cryo recovering from the injuries he took during the Shie Hassakai raid. Gran Torino had turned down the offer, as had Recovery Girl, due to concerns about their age not agreeing with the cryostasis process. And unfortunately, Mr. Principal couldn’t come along with them due to physiological differences, though Aizawa-sensei implied that Nedzu was leaving them something to remember him by on the Nexus. As all of 1A had signed up to leave - the single biggest group from any of the schools that were sending students to Andromeda - Aisawa-sensei was joining them, as was Eri-chan as his newly adopted daughter and a few other teachers, including Yagi-sensei, who now finally had a synthetic stomach and was already in cryo.

Ah, well. Guess he’d find out once they’re there.

Izuku took one last look at the beachside he’d spent months cleaning, and smiled. Yeah, he’d miss some things about Earth, but a new start was a good idea for a lot of reasons. Though… maybe one last picture, just as a memento.

*

Hawks had no idea what the League of Villains was up to.

The Nexus had already left, with the students and several Pro Heroes among the number heading to the Andromeda galaxy. Chief among them was Yagi Toshinori, also known as All Might, and the entirety of 1A. Activity from the League had dropped like a stone the second the news broke, leading to some rather nasty sensationalist news about how All Might was to blame for the League.

But just because they weren't acting as the League of Villains didn't mean they weren't still active.

Dabi had been keeping Hawks even further at arms reach than he had before, but the Hero still heard the news. Robberies now became the League's MO, always high-value targets, both in terms of money and scientific value. Whatever they had planned, they were playing the waiting game and gathering their strength behind the scenes, instead of anything so open and upfront like they used to.

Not that the League was going to be Hawks' concern anymore, according to the Galactic Heroes Association.

The Human Pathfinder, Alec Ryder, had requested a Pro Hero on the team to act as an additional Recon and Rescue Specialist for the Pathfinder Mission Team. And who else would the Association send but the Commission's best: Hawks. It made the most sense, even if it pissed off Madame President: he'd be able to give the Team a completely different perspective with Recon, and was as skilled in Rescue work as he was in combat.

He just hated leaving a job incomplete. Especially one like the League of Villains infiltration mission. Madame President had assured him that there were contingencies in place in the event news of his mission spread in the Milky Way after he left for Andromeda, but if he was reading the signs right...

Well. Let's just say he really hoped he was reading them wrong, for once.

They did not need the League of Villains in Andromeda.

*

Scott stared out the shuttle window pensively as they breached Earth's atmosphere. Just last week, he'd been congratulating his sister on her work with Prothean ruins getting her a chance to work alongside Liara T'Soni and other experts at the Mars ruins, before leaving to Rio de Janerio for his N4 training. Now, he was about to leave the galaxy because dear old Dad got caught working on an AI and the repercussions trickled down to his kids.

Though clearly, Alec Ryder had planned to bring his children along with him regardless of if he was caught or not. They already had positions in his team as Recon Specialists, custom armor for each of them, and perfectly understandable reasons why they hadn't been in training with the rest of the Pathfinder Team. All neatly wrapped up just the way Alec liked doing things.

He hated the man, some days.

They'd never been especially close, that had always been Sara - he'd been Mom's favorite, and no one argued about that fact. Sara was Daddy's girl... until they both overheard him talking with someone about selling Scott in exchange for funds for SAM, with Sara as a bonus if Scott wasn't enough. That was the day that Alec stopped being Dad - when Scott stopped trusting him.

A hand fell on his shoulder, jostling him out of his thoughts. "Hey," Sara whispered over comms, that one words saying a thousand. We're okay, we'll make it work. As long as we have each other, we're okay.

Scott glanced at her and nodded. "I'm good," he replied. We're good, we'll be good, someday if not today.

Andromeda wasn't in either of their plans, but that didn't mean they couldn't work with what they had.

And may God have mercy on the souls of those who get in their way.