Howls the Wolfwalker (A Wolfwalker! Deku Story)

Chapter 3: Changes

Two days had passed since Izuku clawed one of his tormentor's ear, and so far, Izuku still had no idea how he did what he did. Every chance he got, he would look down at his hands and try to remember how he made his nails grow, but he couldn't.

The only thing he could remember was just plain, instinctal rage.

Izuku sighed to himself and returned to his notebook, updating one of his hero note pages. As he wrote, his mind wandered back to what happened that day. He remembered the fear in his tormentor's eyes and the feeling of confusion at what he did.

He just... didn't understand.

He turned to his clock, seeing that the time was nearly midnight. He closed his journal, turned off the lamp, and walked over to his bed, tucking himself in for the night and let exhaustion take over.
—————————————————————————
Sleeping in his comfortable bed, Izuku began to toss and turn from beneath his covers. His face was drenched in cold sweat and his eyes screwed shut as soft whimpers and grunts escaped his lips. But unbeknownst to the boy, a golden glow swirled over his arm as his other hand subconsciously grabbed hold of it.

All of that could only mean one thing: Izuku was having a dream. But not just any dream, a bad dream. A nightmare!
—————————————————————————
He wasn't sure what kind of dream he was having, but it was strange. He was in a seemingly-endless thicket of dark woods, following a long, thin trail of emerald green smoke-like mist.

He followed the trail through the woods until he spotted the origin of the trail, a brightly glowing wolf. Izuku approached the creature carefully, and the wolf approached in the same fashion. The moment they came face to face, their gazes closely locked on each other until Izuku had the urge to blink. But once he folded his eyes back open, the wolf was gone.

Instead, Izuku couldn't believe his eyes when he saw himself, standing where the wolf once stood. It was like looking in a mirror, but there was no reflective surface. And what made this version of him different from himself was that, just like the wolf, he was glowing an emerald green.

But before Izuku could figure out how or why this was happening, everything went black.
—————————————————————————
"Huh?"

Slowly opening his eyes, the first thing Izuku saw was how dark his room was. Sure, it was night, but even the moonlight that peeked through his curtains would light up his room. He hoisted himself up from his bed and began to look around, and the first thing he sees leaves him shocked and bewildered.

He sees himself, fast asleep.

"Is that...me?" Izuku asked aloud, his thoughts forming into speech. "Why am I able to see myself?"

He brings his hands up to his face, except that his hands weren't hands. They were paws.

"Are those paws? WHY do I have PAWS?!" Izuku looks down towards his legs, where he was met with a lot of dark fur, a second pair of paws, and sharp nails. "AND FUR? CLAWS?"

Izuku remained silent as he put together all the things he just listed; all the attributes he currently had at the moment. "That's... impossible?" Izuku asked aloud, his mind trying to come up with something to explain what was happening. "Am I dreaming? Is this all some dream?"

Izuku smiled to himself as he took his hind legs out from underneath him, crossed his front legs near his hind ones and slumped down. "Heh heh, yeah," Izuku chuckled. "It's just a weird drea-"

Izuku fell backwards off the bed, his head hitting the wooden floor with a giant 'BANG!'

"Owwwwwww..." Izuku groaned as he laid on his back, his head hurting like hell. "Ok. Not a dream. This is not a dream!"

Izuku rolled over and positioned himself upright, then he stood up on all fours and paced around, muttering aloud to himself. "Ok so if this isn't a dream of any sort thenhowamIabletoseemyselffastasleepthatshouldnotbepossibleifthatwerethecasethenIwouldhavetobedreamingbutIbumpedmyheadprettyhardwhenIfelloffthebedohgodIhopeIdidn'twakemomupwiththatsoundbut-"

Izuku stopped short when he saw himself in the mirror. He looked at himself up and down, examining every aspect he could.

"...Whaa?" he asked himself as he continued to examine himself. "By All Might, why do I look like that? Is this really me? What happened?!!"

He sat down in front of the mirror and tilted his head to the side. "Uh... is this some kind of quirk? A transformation? Mutation, maybe?" Izuku listed all the possibilities he could to explain what he was seeing in the mirror. "But my body is still here, and... am I supposed to be a dog? Or... a wolf?"

"Wait, no!" Izuku told himself as he shook his head furiously, forcing himself to focus. "Nonononono. Focus, Izuku, focus! You need to figure out how to become human again, not look at yourself in a mirror!"

Izuku trotted back over to his bed and hopped up on it, looming over his sleeping body once more. "Ok, how do I do this?" he asked himself. He started by doing what dogs would do to wake their owners up.

To sum it up, nothing worked.

Izuku layed down at the foot of his bed, frustrated and slightly annoyed. 'Nothing's working!' Izuku thought to himself, oblivious to the small growls he was making. 'This is so dumb! How am I even supposed to-'

His thoughts and growling stopped short when he felt something blow against his face. He sat up and looked to his left, only to see that his window wasn't closed properly. It was open by only a little bit and was letting in the cold night air.

Izuku stared at the window for a moment, then at his sleeping body, then back at the window.

'Well... I guess another night out wouldn't hurt,' Izuku thought to himself as he looked towards his clock. It showed the time as 12:53 AM, meaning that Izuku had plenty of time before the alarm went off at 7 AM. He approached the window and used his snout to push it up a bit, then squeezed his head through, soon followed by his body and ending with his tail.

Izuku made his way down the fire escape railing as best he could without falling. To say it was difficult was a bit of an understatement, but he managed to get down to the sidewalk without falling, so there was that.

Izuku took off in a small jog, trying to get used to the whole 'four legs' thing. He could hear the clicking of nails against hard cement as he ran, and saw all sorts of scents that originated from all sorts of alleyways and stray animals.

The only thing that bothered him was the sounds. Cars that passed by were much louder now, not to mention smells were a lot stonger too. Had the city always smelt this bad?

Izuku's thoughts were interrupted when he saw the bright lights of a car heading straight towards him. His eyes widened as his ears flattened against his head, managing to duck into an alley as the car swerved out of the way.

Izuku's heart was beating out of his chest as he tried to catch his breath. Now he knew how the strays felt.

He looked around in the alleyway until he was met with a familiar face. It was the wolf that had bit him and it was running off into the dark.

"Hey! Wait!" Izuku yelled as he ran after the reddish-brown wolf. He ran after it all throughout the city and into the forest, wondering where the wolf was going and who it was.