Chapter 7: Houston—we have a problem...

The doors of the elevator shifted apart, revealing a plain corridor made entirely of windows; the only thing there was a wooden door at the other end of the hall. With great hesitation, Jonathan stepped into the hallway, standing frozen until the closing of the elevator doors startled him into moving forward.

The glass walls displayed the city of Tokyo in all of it's glory, fueled by a economy based from "heroism" and all the money-grubbers that came with it. Despite his prejudice though, he could admit that the city was quite nice—he could only imagine it at night, especially from where he was standing. As he kept walking, his thoughts were interrupted by a sharp knock on the window. Jonathan whirled around to see that Sawyer has popped by to say hello, waving cheerfully as she held a grin on her face. He waved back a bit meekly as his hand groped at the doorknob, his fingers gripping the metal so hard that his knuckles turned white.

"Colonel!" Sawyer hollered, though he did not face her. "Go get 'em!"

Jonathan twisted the knob, pushing the door aside to reveal a rather large elliptical table that was nearly filled except for one seat—likely his. Jonathan stalked towards the empty chair at the end closest to the door, trying his hardest not to flop into it as it would be bad manners. He scooted forward, clearing his throat as he set down the documents that President Staedtler had ordered him to use during negotiations.

"Good morning Mr. Ainsworth," a man at the other end of the table greeted, his thick accent amiable.

"Good morning Prime Minister," he responded, flashing a rare smile that didn't seem to suit his face at all. Jonathan shuffled his papers into a neat stack in front of him, clearing his throat to stifle a yawn as he nodded thanks to a server that had slipped into the room and given each person at the table a glass of champagne. Not the greatest thing to drink in the morning, but he'd take it.

The entire room was dead quiet as the woman left..

"Well, shall we begin?" The minister asked, shuffling his own stack of papers, though it was much smaller than Jonathan's.

"Y-yes, of course," he stammered, straightening his bored posture. "We are aiming for a cessation of hostilities. The arms race situation is honestly getting out of control, and it's going to take a toll on our economies if we don't do something. The conflict could also get civilians caught up in this mess—and we don't want a repeat of Palomares."

"With all due respect Mr. Ainsworth, that collision resulted in your bombs falling—and that was in the sixties," the minister retorted, causing a light chuckle to flow throughout the room. "But you are correct that it is getting out of control."

'Great,' Jonathan mused. This meeting was already going horribly.

"I have some terms and conditions from President Staedtler, who unfortunately couldn't be here. He stated that we cease the arms race completely, since it isn't wartime and that it should only continue during wartime. He also stated that spies would be pulled out on both ends; in the air and on the ground. He wanted a ceasing of supernatural ability experimentation due to the massive amounts of human suffering have come from it; And he wanted to have a mutual alliance if wartime does come, since our military arsenals working together would greatly benefit us both. Lastly, he wants us to pull out of all occupied territory, since imperialistic ideology caused this entire mess—and the war. "

'Hopefully the agree with this,' he thought, drumming his fingers irritably on his glass.

"Hmm, those are all very similar to ours," the minister said. "However we do have some other conditions."

"Go on.."

"We will prohibit the testing of nuclear weapons on both sides, a heightened trade line between our nations, and that we split Bhutan's territory between the two of us."

"But Bhutan is an unoccupied country—we have no business in there. Besides, they're recovering from a crisis from the war that ravaged their people," the colonel scoffed, though his clients didn't seem to want to listen to him.

"We would like to give them some aid," the prime minister clarified, but Jonathan wasn't convinced. Not at all.

"Then you could just donate them money."

"We would like to introduce them to the industrial economy, as their raw materials could benefit their economies quite greatly."

"They kicked China's best ground troops out of the south twice with noting but six foot canon balls; I'm pretty sure they'd be okay on their own."

"You never know."

'God I fucking hate this man.'

"Look, the whole reason the President wanted us to pull out of occupied and unoccupied territory is so that we wouldn't fight over it—which is exactly what's going on right now. Arguments over territory was literally the reason World War Three started," Jonathan affirmed, trying to cohort the argument into his favor.

"You're right, I suppose," the minister conceded, though his gesticulations didn't make it seem believable. The room was silent for a moment as the Japanese exchanged glances with one another. Jonathan took this as his queue to leave and let them decide.

"Welp, I'll be outside as y'all decide," he said, rising from his seat. "Just let me know when you need me."

He stepped out into the glass hall, leaning against the surface as he looked out at the city— but there was this nagging feeling that tugged at him.

He didn't quite know what it was, but it wasn't anything good.

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Charlie blew a whistle to the wind as she admired Tokyo from her view. Despite the lack of foliage, the city still looked beautiful with its flashing lights and bustling people. Charlie set her rifle by her as she pulled out a small box of ammo, which she also set next to her. She found the best position she could muster—lying flat on her stomach dangerously close to the edge of the building to where the barrel of the gun nearly edged over—and peered into her scope at the glass building the colonel would be in.

Everything was mostly fine, nothing could be seen going in or out of the tower—not even the colonel. Charlie pulled her phone out her pocket (with a great struggle) and un-muted herself on a Discord sever that the class decided to share for communications, since they weren't permitted to have an official one. She fitted an earpiece, courtesy of Thatcher, in her ear and turning it on.

C: "How's stuff on your end Khalid?"

K: He was quiet for a moment before responding, "its all good over here."

C: "How 'bout you Joo?"

No response.

C: "Joo?"

Still no response.

C: "Julia!"

J: This time Julia spoke. "Uhhhhh...," she faltered into silence before quipping up meekly. "It's not good."

K: "What the hell's goin' on?" Khalid asked, his scrambling over the wall audible.

J: "There's smoke—and f-fire. L-lots of fire," she stammered, her voice breaking a bit.

K: "Fire?"

J: "Y-yeah. B-blue fire."

A sharp and sudden shake of the ground below jerked the tower, tugging it violently from side to side and causing Charlie to slide a bit. Immediately, her head shot up to see the devastation before her. It wasn't the fire Julia had described, but it was equally as bad. Buildings were ravaged and were nothing but rubble. In the distance, purple gas began creeping through the streets and seemed to swallow everything in its path. Charlie then saw the smoke Julia mentioned rising into the air, along with the blue flames she'd seen.

Charlie lowered her eye to her scope and looked around the area.

She aimed down at the rubble before her and saw the swarms of frightened civilians pushing and shoving their way through the streets, but the traffic slowed them to a halt and they didn't budge. It wasn't exactly clear what they were running from due to a dust cloud that accumulated, but it slowly subsided to reveal a large beefy man with his muscles, strangely, on the exterior of his body. They crawled against the surface like snakes as he brought a hand to a lamppost and tore it from the ground.

Charlie's aim gradually pointed to his head, locking the target in place as she waited patiently for the moment to strike.

The man stood still amongst the crowd, and she fired. The bullet traveled to its target, hitting exactly as intended, but oddly, the man didn't fall. The bullet had penetrated, as seen by his movements of trying to pull it out, but it didn't do any damage that would kill him.

"It's cause of that muscle," she mumbled to herself as she lowered the rifle and picked up her bow, arrows, and pistol along with its ammo.

She stepped to the edge of the tower, pausing a moment to take in the destruction once more before she let herself fall over the edge. The soles of her boots unfolded and the fusion cores carried her body even faster to her enemy below.

Little did she know, they were all being watched.

By millions.

—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—

"Pardon this interruption: U.A is currently going under an emergency lockdown; Students and teachers stay where you are as we assess the situation and act accordingly. We will update you in further notice."

"What's going on?"

"Are we all gonna die?"

"Let me out of here!"

They were all in the cafeteria, unable to go in or out. The panicked cries of students filled the room as they all wondered what would happen to them. Some pulled out their phones and began to watch the news, Deku did the same. Thankfully, none of the cell towers were out, so the page still loaded.

He immediately pressed the play button, despite his shaking fingers.

"Breaking news: destruction comes in waves over Tokyo as a terrorist attack on districts 2,3, and 4 respectively. We have confirmed that it is an attack orchestrated by the League of Villains, as evident by the blue fire in district 4."

Deku's heart hammered against his chest as he paused the video. He needed to find everyone, and fast. He saw Kacchan with his friends at one table and ran towards them, tapping a silent Iida on the shoulder and gesturing him to follow.

"Kacchan!" He yelled, looking for anyone else in the room. "We need to get everyone together to figure out what's going on!"

He looked up from his phone, presumably watching the news, as he nodded. He stood up and raised a palm into the air for an explosion to silence the cafeteria, but they'd already began to quiet down as someone else began to yell.

"WILL YOU ALL SHUT UP?! DO YOU HAVE ANY SENSE OF PROPRIETY TO THINK THAT YELLING AND SCREAMING WILL MAKE IT WORSE?!"

Carson's face had flushed red from anger as he kept yelling, stunning most of the other students there while his own class tried to calm him down to no avail.

"CARSON. ENOUGH." Emilia growled, her eyes staring so sharply that they could kill a man. As per order, he conceded, sitting down and gesturing at someone. Deku didn't know who it was until Uraraka rose from her seat, waving Roy goodbye and thanking him as she trotted over.

His heart plummeted.

She was branching out—if anyone were to call it that—but it still made him feel, as Kacchan simply put it: "Like shit"

Maybe she just didn't want to be friends anymore...

Deku was pulled away from his thoughts by a tap on the shoulder from Todoroki, who motioned him to sit down with the rest of the class. He plopped down on the floor in front of them, taking the tablet from Todoroki as he fired up the news stationary placed on the floor. The destruction was on display for everyone. They all exchanged fearful glances as the video continued, though it mostly was just reporting on how many heroes couldn't take care of district 3 due to a poison gas, but how someone still went inside and was alive.

The camera then cut to district two with a woman in a jet black suit, a pistol in hand aiming directly into the eye of Muscular. Before Deku could even process that, the woman pulled the trigger with no hesitation.

His only other eye rolled back as his large stature collapsed onto the street.

The cafeteria was silent as the woman fired the gun.

It was a shot heard around the world.

—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—

*flashback

Charlie boosted down to the ground, the soles of her shoes folding inward as she landed behind the terrorist before her. Up close he was quite large, almost like a titan.

"Hey," she greeted casually, causing the man to turn around to face her. Charlie's face contorted with disgust as she saw the man's empty eye socket when his muscles slithered away to reveal his blonde hair. A sadistic grin enveloped his face as he lunged towards her feet, taking a high stance as he slammed his fists to the ground that cracked under them.

Charlie had dodged the obvious attack with ease by coating her figure in electrical energy. She kept her posture seemingly uninterested and casual as she the light flashed with her dodges.

"Damn dude, not even a hello?" She mocked with fake hurt. "I'm wounded."

"You won't get a hello cause I'll kill you," he sneered, charging toward her but she sped behind him and patted him on the back, which he whirled around to face only for her to blink in front of him. This cycle continued for some time before his body grew in mass to the point where he didn't even seem human. Still, she continued to toy with him. She dashed left, then right, up, then in front, then behind. He awkwardly groped at her, trying to catch up with her speed, only ending in failure.

Left, Right, Up, In front, Behind. Charlie followed that pattern, whilst holding a leisurely conversation, with the mindset that he was too stupid to catch on, but unfortunately, she was mistaken.

The man had stopped trying to catch her, his eye darting at her movements, tracking her.

Left, Right, Up, In front, Behind. Still he did nothing.

Left, Right—

He whirled a punch at her as she trailed to his right side. Charlie was sent flying into a nearby building, the impact cracking the wall behind her. The electrical current running through her body allowed for a quick reaction to block the punch, but it didn't mitigate the damage.

Her arm was bent and broken. She couldn't afford to mess around.

Charlie rose from her seat on the sidewalk, pressing a button on her suit that reverted its swollen appearance (it had a mechanism built in to swell if she was going at a certain speed without her board on) back to its usual skintight look.

At this point the man had towered over her, looming to intimidate her. But she wasn't afraid; In this job, you can't be afraid.

She dropped her bow and rifle on the ground, since they would serve no use with her broken arm, and she clasped the pistol to her leg.

She disappeared, and the man stayed still, perhaps waiting for her, but instead of going after him, she darted from building to building, hopping on windowsills to get to the power lines. She clung to the wood, sticking her hand in the metal portion at the top and began letting electricity flow into her body.

"Sorry 'bout that, I was getting kinda low. Guess I forgot to charge up before I got here," she chided, only making him more angry. He squatted down deeply, then jumped at her, only for her to blink behind him and send electrical shock throughout his body. He dropped to the ground, writhing in pain as his muscles contracted and palpitated. She couldn't lie, it was quite funny.

It was no surprise when the man stood back up after a few minutes; that large body could keep him alive after that big of a shock.

She needed to get metal—or at least, get him near metal. The disarray or the streets had put all of the light poles under rubble that she couldn't lift. Had she been with Leo, she could pull this off, but she wasn't.

She needed to end the fight and kill him quickly, or else the area would be subject to more destruction, so she needed to think fast. Her eyes darted around as she blinked away from various punched and large masses of rubble, until she spotted her silver arrows. And it gave her an idea.

She dashed over to them, picking up all twenty of them, and fitting them inside of small pieces of rubble that were still in her general vicinity.

One in building she'd collided into,

the second by the light pole that had fallen,

the third and fourth in power lines that were directly across from each other,

the fifth, sixth, and seventh all at the end of the street that had been blocked by rubble,

the eighth, ninth, and tenth at the other end in a large crack in the street,

the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth were balance on broken shop windows near the power lines,

the fourteenth fifteenth and sixteenth were directly across from them,

The seventeenth between the power line and the pole to fill in the gap, and the eighteenth directly across,

the nineteenth was fitted in a cracked building directly across from the first arrow,

And finally, the twentieth was fitted in a crack directly in the center of a circle that she had made with her arrows. She stepped over it, making sure she was directly above it.

The man snapped his gaze to her, staring at her for a moment before sprinting over, readying a punch. Charlie resisted the temptation to inch away from the arrow. She stood firmly as the man approached her, his lust for blood and his desire to kill filled the void in his eyes. Just as he stepped up to her, Charlie's hands flew away from her sides and were outstretched toward each end of the street.

(A/N: this is an eloquent way of saying that she's pretty much T-posing)

Then she released a shock throughout her whole body, an electrical current starting from the middle and going to the arrows at either end of the street, then continuing through the rest of them before she amplified the voltage causing more bolts of lightning to peak towards the center and direct themselves onto the man.

The large dosage of electricity made him collapse to the ground. His muscles squeeze and throbbed in pain as he let out a blood curdling scream.

But he was smiling.

Charlie was completely perplexed. The last thing anyone would be doing in a situation like that is...well, smiling.

Smiling then turned into laughter, though it sounded pained. The man sat there for a few minutes, laughing his ass off until he fell quiet. Then still.

Charlie pulled out the arrow from the center of the circle, cutting off the current. She then walked up to him, her pistol in hand. She stopped, squatted down at eye level, and shoved the barrel into his empty eye socket, but did not shoot.

"You're... strong," He said weakly. "You... remind... me... of... a guy I fought...a few years back."

"Oh?" Charlie snorted, though she was genuinely curious.

"He...had green lightning," the man said, his voice breaking. "He's...the guy who...got me arrested."

There was a silence between the two. Charlie wondered wether or not to shoot now, because she could perhaps get some information out of him, but killing him would also be a benefit.

"You tied to an organization?" She asked as casually as possible, her eyes darting to the smoke in the sky. She hoped Julia and Khalid weren't in any sort of danger, but she knew they could hold their own.

"League...of Villains."

"Leader?"

The man paused for a moment, giving her question some thought, "not...tellin'..."

He fell quiet, and perhaps knowing that Charlie would pull the trigger, he said, "I'm glad...I got to...go down... fightn' someone...strong."

His body slumped over, and his eye oozed blood from where the bullet had penetrated. Charlie fitted her pistol on the clasp at her side, then picked up her arrows, bow and rifle.

She took one glance at the corpse as a crow perched itself upon its shoulder and began picking at the bleeding eye. Then, spinning on her heel, she slipped her arrows into her pocket, leaving the corpse to rot amongst the rubble.

—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—

"Charlie just killed someone."

Everyone's gaze snapped to Ghala as she spoke. All the blood drained from Carson's face until it went as white as a ghost.

"What..?"

"Did you not just here me?" She pressed, a bit annoyed. "Charlie just killed someone. On national television."

The group had fallen silent, save for the faint 'what?' That escaped Carson's lips. He then snatched the phone from Ghala's hands, restarting the video.

"Breaking news! The villain Muscular has just been found dead in district 2 of Tokyo! His body can be seen right in front of us: slumped over with a wound in his eye!"

"Oh my god. Oh-my god," he breathed, now pacing back and forth as his breathing became panicky. It sped up, causing him to wheeze slightly as he kept watching the video; still pacing.

"In district 3, the a mysterious poisonous gas is spreading throughout the city. It appears to be poisonous—'' the reporter was cut off by a blurred figure darting into the gas— "However! A brave young soul just plunged into the gas to save civilians!"

Khalid.

Carson stopped in his tracks as he saw the fire in the next frame (just as he'd paused the video.) he looked at his classmates like a shell-shocked soldier.

"This is bad, this is bad, this is bad, this is really, REALLY bad—"

"Carson. CALM DOWN," Emilia snapped, her hands gripping his shoulders, then muttered, "damn where's Thatcher when you need him.."

Leo flicked his piercing gaze at Emilia, brows furred together in thought. "We can go and back them—"

"NO," Carson roared. "you'll only cause more destruction—since that seems to be the only thing you're good at."

"What?" Leo hissed, distain stinging his words. Before Carson could speak any further, Leo bolted from his seat and lunged at Carson, only to recoil back. Emilia, who was just about to punch Leo, saw the Ghala had a dog whistle between her lips. She blew the almost soundless noise until Leo toppled back into his chair, still covering his ears.

"You," she began, pointing at Roy, "Go get your computer so Carson can tap into their communications."

She pivoted to have a god view of Carson and Leo, "AND YOU TWO: quit your senseless bickering. You're both a hinderance to this entire thing already. You fighting only makes this mess bigger."

The two conceded, though Emilia dragged Leo to the other end of the table (away from Carson) and forcing his body into the seat she was previously in. He looked at her incredulously, but she payed no mind.

Roy sprinted down with his computer, a gift from their witch of a mother for his birthday; Emilia, being somewhat of an afterthought, got nothing from either of her parents.

He flipped it open, hammering in the password as fast as he could and clicking the search engine. He looked as Ghala for further instructions.

"Do you know what they're using?"

"They're using a discord server," Carson blurted, his prolonged pacing and fearful expression replaced with one that was rich with knowledge. "It's not too hard to get in, we just have to find the code. I'm pretty sure we can find it if we log into Charlie's email."

Ghala shooed Roy away, dragging Carson in his place and sitting him in front of the computer.

"Go on, do what you need to go."

Carson pressed his fingers to his temples, exhaled deeply, then rested his fingers lightly on the keyboard. He clicked the upper-right-hand-corner of the browser and signed out of Roy's email, typing in Charlie's email, but then paused. His fingers hovered, wriggling, over the keyboard. He chewed his bottom lip nervously before he typed in a password, letter by letter, and shut his eyes he hoped—all of them hoped— that he would find some sort of information.

He got in.

Carson immediately sighed with relief and typed "discord" into the search bar, likely to narrow down the emails. (A/N: ok so as a person who actually uses discord, wherever someone invites me to a server, they always send me an e-mail of the code. Not sure if it happens to anyone else, but eh whatever.)

"Hmm there are fewer than I thought," Ghala commented, "here I thought that inbox would be overflowing."

"Oh no it is," Carson reassured her with a smile. He'd finally calmed down. "She never clears out that thing."

He clicked on an email that had a series of numbers as the subject, reading through the contents before copying the sequence and firing up discord. He logged in, clicked to add a sever, and pasted in the numbers. He inhaled deeply as he clicked enter, plugging in earbuds as he did.

The next few moments felt like an eternity as they all waited for some sort of response from Carson's sharp greeting.

"They're on."

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I am so, so sorry for the absence I've had lately. Honestly I've just been super caught up with a bunch of projects, since my school thinks is a great idea to hammer us with them towards the end of the year. Chapters are gonna be coming out pretty rarely for the time being since standardized testing is also coming up (yaaaaaaaay...)

Anyway, next chapter is mostly going to be about Ghala, Julia, Carson, Khalid and the Colonel.

Although Emilia has been kinda on the back burner (ironic since she's the mc lmao) I do have some SPICY tea with her and Roy coming up—There is a hint in there. Sorry it was so short..

Anyway, hope you enjoyed!