I do not own the Tiger and Bunny Characters, or any of the DC and Marvel comic references in this story; everyone else is made up for the plot of the story line.
The * refer to the foot notes at the footnote of the page
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"You have no idea how much this means to me, Mr. Kaburagi" Dain said, as he showed Kotetsu the training rooms for the trial team, "the politicians nearly scrapped my idea almost as soon as I brought it up, if it were not for the fact that there had been a huge bank robbery by a group of NEXT the next day they would not have considered it."
"Good to know, so what kind of equipment were you thinking of the group having to help catch NEXT?" Kotetsu asked nervously, "I mean, normal humans don't have any particular advantage over NEXT…"
"Well what do you have in mind? You are the experienced fighter here, which is why we hired you"
"I don't think we would get very far by trying to simply overpowering each NEXT," Kotetsu said wisely, "we need to outsmart our opponents, not just win a fist fight. So we need to be able to adapt to any situation, and be able to gather information on them before we fight them. Not just charge in blindly."
"The way you acted as a hero, I'm surprised you even think about tactics" Dain chuckled.
"I did form some plans," Kotetsu defended, "but instincts are very important to, you need to be able to react without thinking about it. Sometimes you can't wait to form a plan as a Hero, because people will get hurt if you wait to long,"
"That wire contraption seemed very useful for getting around," Dain commented, "maybe we could use that?"
"Definitely," Kotetsu sat down on a bench with Dain, "I have some spares of when I still had my old suit, they aren't very good, but they fit around your arm very conveniently, you could adapt them. We need headsets to keep in touch, and no full body power suits. You would not believe the noise they make. If we need to gather information before an arrest, we need to be stealthy, they are very expensive and the politicians love inexpensive programs."
"That makes sense" Dain asked, "hold on let me write this down… pen, paper, okay, no power… suits. Head… Sets… grapple… "
"We also need a way to see in the dark, inferred or something." Kotetsu elaborated, "Maybe the head set could be in a helmet along with the infrared. In my power suit there was also a way to zoom in on things in the visor, it was pretty convenient. What do we have as far as protection?"
"I've already made the fabric for the uniform," Dain said, "It's fire proof and can has reflectors built into the fabric so people can't detect your body. It also will hold your body temperature in, keep you warm in cold weather."
"That's very useful, where did you get it?"
"I made it, for a college final" Dain bragged, "Kid Dragon's uniform is made out of it."
"Really?" Kotetsu said honestly amazed, "I always thought it was just normal cloth… wait is it very conductive?"
"Yes," Dain said after a second.
"It needs some sort of plastic underlying then," Kotetsu said serious, "not everyone can live with electricity conducting all along their body, maybe an insulator underneath the cloth, the side facing body in case we do get shocked. Maybe an electric weapon as well, like a tazer"
"Right noted" Dain said, writing down some notes and drawing a quick sketch,"
"So we're going to capture NEXT with some fancy ropes and some convenient outfits?" Major Reed said from behind them; making both men jump slightly.
"Oh, good morning Major," joked Kotetsu, smiling happily.
"What are you doing, trying to scare us?" Dain said indignantly as he bent down to pick up the pen he had dropped.
"no, just wondering why you two are sitting over here talking like a bunch of school girls planning a dress design for Prom," Major ray said calmly, "I was expecting you two in my office, after you had given Kotetsu a tour of the facility"
"Ah, well we got a little distracted," Kotetsu scratched his head, "sorry"
"It's fine, just don't do it again," The Major said and sat down opposite from the two men, "if you really want to know; the general design of the outfit is already decided upon. Your team will be wearing outfits made with Mr. Dain's cloth that will basically look like our army uniforms. Regulation Pants and shirt, possible body armor."
"umm," Kotetsu placed his hand on his chin in thought, "the clothes need to be tight fitting, and not hinder movement at all, I'm not saying it should be something like my old hero suit, but body armor is simply too constricting, and obvious."
"We can do with a ¾ sleeve over shirt made out of my material," Dain said sketching a design crudely out on his paper, "with the wire shooter on their forearm like this, military pants would be useful, Blue Rose's outfit was made by a college of mine, it's light weight and very easy to move in, but is bullet proof. We could make an undershirt made of that material that would protect the chest area."
"That sounds like a good idea," the Major said examining the sketch, "it would be close fitting and easy to move in,"
"Her outfit is bullet proof?" Kotetsu said amazed, "okay, now that is covered we need more equipment to fight with… a knife about a foot long would be good."
"A dagger?" Dain said, "in this day and age?"
"Knifes can be useful for several things, like if you need to cut something or other. They don't need ammo to run, just have it for a last resort." Kotetsu shrugged, "I know how to use a knife in a fight, I could teach the recruits easily; along with hand to hand combat."
"Sure why not," Major Ray said, "a gun of coarse…"
"A small, concealed one," Kotetsu nodded, "that can be carried around easily, I'd rather not depend too much on a gun, criminals plan for guns and they usually end up as dead weight"
"Well we don't exactly have Batman's utility belt" Major Ray said sarcastically.
"No," Dain's eyes sparkled and he started writing stuff down, "but I can make a pretty damn good replica, I can make small smoke canisters that could have knockout gas in them, flash grenades, small bombs you could stick into walls then remote detonate, compressed trip wire traps, maybe those bombs could also have motion detection on them, if I have all the right materials of course,"
"A way to demobilize people would be amazing, without hurting them I mean," Kotetsu said, "is there some kind of foam that expands really fast? We could set traps for the criminals to fall into,"
"you two are a bunch of nerds," Major Ray shook her head, "but I guess so long as it is low cost and works you can do whatever you want, I have a meeting to get to. Recruits are coming in tomorrow, be ready to start training,"
"Okay, have them meet me in the big gym at 7:30" Kotetsu said over Dain's babbling, "I'll set the training course up right after I finish here"
"Maybe some throwing knives," Dain said lost in his own world, "that do stuff…"
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Kotetsu breathed in and out deeply, looking around at the coarse he had spent most of yesterday setting up. It would have to do; Major Ray would be bringing in the recruits any second now. He was still amazed that he was going to teach and command a whole group. He scratched his chin nervously, praying that what he had planned would work.
"And this is the big gym," Major Rose said entering with 15 or so people, "most of your training will be done in here,"
All of them lined up, and examined the room in what Kotetsu assumed was intrest, "Good morning all of you, I am to be your teacher, my name is Kotetsu Kaburagi" he said bowing slightly out of habit, "I can take it from here major,"
Kotetsu walked up to the edge of the platform he was standing on, in the middle of a huge maze he had made out knee-high, rode blocks, "As you can see I've built a very big maze here, your goal, is to reach me. Begin."
Each person stood still for a moment, and then they all started moving forward, they randomly walked through the maze none of them finding their way through.
"okay, this is not getting us anywhere," one of them said after a while, there were several murmurs of agreement, "but are we allowed to work together, I thought we had to work alone," another one said, all of them burst into confusion.
"Hey!," a short man with red hair shouted, getting everyon's attention, "he never said we couldn't work together, it is a test obviously, everyone to the start. We have to work togeather"
All of them looked up to Kotetsu, who was standing with his arms crossed on the podium; he smiled down at them, but said nothing. They all met up at the beginning of the maze, and walked along the edge, they then discovered that there were three separate entrances to the maze, but they could only see one finish. So split into three groups, sending a person off at each turn to see if it was a dead end. Soon after they started they learned that it was not going to work that way either, because the groups were running into each other. They regrouped, and sent only three people into the maze, each hugging the right wall of a certain entrance, the group watched for half an hour as the three marched along. However at the end they all ended up back at the entrances somehow.
"If only we could see it from above"
"Yeah, that way we could follow it from the end to beginning"
Each of them were silent for a while, "He never said we couldn't, one shrugged" the red head shrugged and climbed up onto the bleachers, and started to solve to the maze with his finger, he frowned. "What the hell? They're all dead ends"
"Your eyes are just bad," one of them joked, he joined the other one and looked down at the maze, "the Hell?" he said after a while.
"See what I mean?"
"They all end in dead ends?" one asked then looked at Kotetsu, who was still standing with his arms crossed. The man hesitated slightly, then stepped over the knee high wall, and kept doing so till he reached the end of the maze, and stepped onto the platform.
Kotetsu smiled, "congrats on making it first," he held out his hand, "nice to meet you, what is your name?"
"Weston," he said nervously shaking the outstretched hand.
"But isn't the whole point to get through the maze?" a brunet lady said from the other side of the maze, very annoyed.
"No," Kotetsu said smiling, "I only said you had to reach me, I never said anything of the sort, now come over here, all of you. I don't much like shouting across rooms at people"
The group stumbled over the walls to the plat form, "Listen to me," he said sitting down on the edge of the platform when they were all there, "you have been told what we are trying to make here right?" everyone nodded, "well when we are out there trying to capture NEXT you need to not immediately assume things. I simply told you there was a maze, and to come to me, you automatically assumed that you had to get through the maze to reach me. Rule number five: never assume that there are set rules, if someone dose not tell you to do something, then it is okay. " He smiled.
All 15 of the men and woman frowned and looked at each other in uncertain, Kotetsu stood up and dusted his pants off, "alright, now that you have all made it here, everyone circle up," the recruits did so, "now, let us hear your names, starting with this young lady on my right."
"Lidia Storm", "Gregory Matts" "Jim Stevenson" "Lisa Harris" "Frank Key" "Andrew Roy" "Harper Kip" "Stan Lee" "Jess Cooper" "Oliver Wreck" "Weston Churchill" "Greta Grendel" "Tony Smithsburger" "Neil Watts" "Sherry Locket" "Kotetsu Kaburagi, but you already know that, now let's clean this maze up, the rode blocks go against that wall there, Harris and Churchill drag this platform into the storage room please"
After they had put of the maze away he gathered them all together again, "so this is how things are going to work out, there are a total of 16 people on this team, that makes four teams of four, at the end of the training I will officially divide you up, there will be a leader per team. Now, we will start off each morning with a basic warm up, then we will practice Aikido* I know most of you already some MCMAP** but I would like you to know several ways of defending yourself. Our group isn't aiming to learn to overpower NEXT, we aiming to capture them, so the less injuries inflicted on either party the better. Remember this: we plan to capture them, by being smarter than them. In the afternoon we will run drills to practice our team work, we will rotate each day till we know each other well enough to know who our teams will be, I will tell you now" Kotetsu stopped his pacing to give each of them a look, "i won't put up with anything, understand?"
"Yes, sir" all of them chimed.
"Good, now who here knows any Aikido*?" Kotetsu asked, and then went straight into drilling them in the basic forms and breaking them up into groups to practice.
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It was a long, exhausting month of training for all of them, learning how to use the new equipment Dain had built for them as well as working with each other. By the end of the month Kotetsu was certain he had prepared the recruits the best he could, but he could not shake the ominous feeling that was pulling on his gut. Their first mission, a drug bust; the man was a NEXT with super strength. He stored his drugs in a warehouse here before he shipped it into Sternbild, they had already done their reconnaissance there, and everything had gone smoothly. None of the recon team had given out their positions as they had learned the buildings layout, and taken note of how many people were in the building, and how they were armed. The team was as prepared as they could be, but he was still racked with nerves.
He looked around at the 15 other people in the car as they drove to the location; most of them were looking down at the ground in grim silence, as nervous as he was. He coughed and stood up, getting everyone's attention immediately, "well, this is it." He said, "we'll be at the droop point soon, you all know what to do. Stay in contact, report if anything unplanned happens," he reminded tapping on the issued Plexiglas visors strapped around their heads. They looked more like bulky sunglasses than helmets, but they still had thermal, zoom, and schematic capabilities, he stared looked over each of them with pride, them looking back at him as if most of them were going to be sick. The truck they were in stopped, and all of them filed out.
They split up into their groups without a word, crouched down, and started walking to their positions in silence, they had parked two buildings away from the ware house, in retrospect they didn't have far to go, it felt like they had to transverse miles. Kotetsu's team raised their arms and shot a wire grapple into the building in front of him, they then activated the crank on their arm piece to rise up to the roof tops. The people on Kotetsu's team were the best at sneaking around, which was why he had assigned them to the roof tops. They were nearly inaudible as they crossed from one roof top to another. Kotetsu haulted his team in the shadows, where they were invisible thanks to their camoflauge; he reached up and activated his COM "RED team, in position on the roof, count off." He barely whispered,
"BLUE, in position"
"GREEN still on its way, give us a second"
"YELLOW, is ago"
"Blue, scan from your position, how many people are in there?" Kotetsu whispered
"Ten, plus the target; wait something bearing a heat signature is showing up outside the building, near GREEN"
"I see it," Stevenson, the green team leader said, "in position now, it looks like… it's Lunatic! What is he doing here, he should be in Sternbild!"
"Calm down" Kotetsu hissed, "stay quiet, and keep your position" he paused, his mind working to what to do, "where is he?"
"On the edge of our building, above us," Stevenson hissed, then there was a crash that broke the silence of the night "shit he just flew into the building"
"Plan B! BLUE, do not let Lunatic escape!" Kotetsu said quickly, not bothering to stay quiet as his team moved across the building. Each of them knocked out a glass section on the overhead window, and dropped in sleeping gas bombs, filling the bottom of the warehouse with sleeping gas. His team then propelled down to the catwalk above the warehouse floor. The entire bottom floor was bathed in gas, several workers were lying down on the floor, "GREEN, YELLOW get the workers," he commanded, as the other teams blocked the exits, "Kip, set the trap, the rest of you with me!"
He turned towards the far side of the warehouse, where Lunatic was fighting with the NEXT drug lord. One of the drug lord's minions opened fire on the man in white. Lunatic jumped out of the way, but not in time, a lucky shot just barely grazed his arm. He gritted his teeth, and threw fire at the group. The Drug Lord barreled through the flames, and Lunatic barely managed to block several of the man's massive punches before he took a kick to his side. Lunatic was knocked off the cat walk and down onto some boxes.
One of his team mates started firing at the NEXT, drawing the group's attention away from Lunatic, Kotetsu shot a hook, and flew towards one of the minions, knocking him out with a kick as he landed. Kotetsu pulled out a long rod attacked to his back, and slapped the back of a second minion, sending volts of electricity through the man's body till he collapsed on to the ground. He looked up and saw Sherry Locket smartly dogging each punch, the NEXT man tried to throw at her, maybe with a lot more flare than needed. She shuffled backwards, out of his reach, and did gymnastics flip backwards, on the catwalk. As the man tried to get to her he tripped a wire trap Kip had set between the catwalk's rails, which activated a foam bomb, tying the man up with steel wires. As an extra precaution Kip knocked the man out with gas.
Seeing that the NEXT and most of the workers were already apprehended by his teams, Kotetsu leaped off of the catwalk, and onto the box Lunatic had landed on. The Villain tried to stand up when he landed, but he could barely get up onto his knees. Before the villain decided to torch him, Kotetsu pulled of his helmet, "did that kick reopen the wound?" he asked, "don't worry loony, it's me."
"Kaburagi?" Lunatic hissed, holding his side, the flames around the man's eyes diminished, "what the fuck are you doing here?"
"I'll explain later, just lay still, before you puncture a lung. You rib looks broken" Kotetsu stood up and looked down at his team members, who were al watching curiously, "Storm, Cooper get a med—kit and stretcher from the truck, he has a broken rib and will probably be going into shock soon, everyone else line up the criminals outside and wait for the police, we're to keep Lunatic's capture a secret."
He turned his back, knowing that they would follow his orders, and helped Lunatic lay down, "so you got some minions now?" Lunatic asked
"Team mates" Kotetsu corrected starting to perform first aid, "not minions. We capture NEXT that the Heroes can't because they are out of city limits"
"Never… heard of this group" Lunatic mumbled, starting to lose consciousness, ""
"This is actually our first mission" Kotetsu laughed, then turned to his team members who had brought the medical supplies "put him on gently and then take him to the military hospital, perform as much first ad that you can, I've got to stay here and take care of this" he said gesturing to the criminals lined up, "don't take his helmet off, when he wakes up make sure he is alone in the room, and… keep a fire extinguisher on hand."
The two nodded, and then carried the unconscious villain off. Kotetsu replaced his helmet, and joined the rest of the group.
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*Aikido is a form of martial arts that turns an opponent against himself: wiki/Aikido
**MCMAP is the Marine Corps style of fighting: wiki/Marine_Corps_Martial_Arts
I would just like to note that this entire story was inspired by Young Justice, but is not based off it. Thus the reference to Batman.