DeadlyDepression - Look, I'm all for Star Wars references in BNHA-related stories, but I don't want Disney to send its supernatural deathsquad after Izuku for copyrights violation . Overhaul is bad enough :V
Trixuny - Long live the king, I guess :v And about Nedzu being rescued, well... time will tell how this plays out. All I can say for now is that he isn't the UA Principal (instead, someone else is) and that he will show up. And will have a lot of influence on the plot. But we talk about like him showing in 30 chapters from now on or so.
(***)
Superintendent Aizawa begins to think that this is all just a very odd dream. First of all, superpowers apparently exist. There are superheroes and supervillains out there, on top of things generally being very, very messy. And then, this.
What sort of superhero picks one of Takoba's McDonalds for the meeting location? Seriously, Aizawa has no idea.
(He doesn't realize that there is a deeper reasoning behind it. It's late morning, the least active period in that particular fast food joint's daily schedule. And he certainly missed a number of young people that entered it alone or in pairs during the fifteen minutes before the meeting.
They don't do anything. But Aizawa remains blissfully unaware of how many metahumans there are in that particular fast food. And how hard it would be to arrest the people he is having a meeting with.
Or about the recon drone over the building, ensuring that no group of police officers is entering the mall.
Besides, that's a great occasion to stock up on Happy Meal toys for Eri, at least in Izuku's opinion.)
Aizawa is accompanied by Tsukauchi. Both wearing civilian clothes (though they aren't stupid, they are armed). Tamakawa and Kaniyashiki, the only two police officers who know at least something about the issue behind the meeting, are sitting outside the fast food. Ready to storm in if something odd happened.
The person that Aizawa suspects to be the infamous Defiant is sitting at the corner of the fast food restaurant. Together with an unfamiliar girl with long, black hair. They are both wearing hoodies (is that their idea of identity concealment?). With theater masks that hide everything above their mouths.
It's a miracle that the McDonald's workers didn't kick them out, thinking that they were suspicious.
(The miracle is, of course, staged).
He is eating some hamburger, while she is doing something on a laptop. Defiant freezes when they appear at the horizon. After a few seconds he waves at the two policemen and points towards the seats on the opposite side of the table.
"Well, it's nice of you to join us." The kid announces when they sit down. "I'm Defiant, and this is Alchemist, my pretty much second-in-command." Aizawa is about to ask what her meta-ability is, but then he sees her eyes. Crosshairs.
Either this is some really good contact lense and this is a deception, or THAT's her meta-ability. He can only wonder how it works in practice. Can her eyes zoom in on things, improving her eyesight?
"I'm superintendent Aizawa Shouta of the Takoba City Police Department." Aizawa replies. "And this is detective Tsukauchi Naomasa, although I believe that the two of you know each other."
"We do." Defiant agrees.
"I didn't exactly have the time to do that back then…" Tsukauchi decides to add. "But I wish to thank you for saving the lives of me and officer Tamakawa. Regardless of what will happen during this meeting and after it, we ARE grateful for that."
"No need to thank me for that." Defiant smiles. "But it IS nice to have your efforts recognized. Now, superintendent. I assume that you aren't here to arrest us, right?"
"No, I am not." He admits. "I'd be hard-pressed to find something to arrest you for. The closest thing to that is the fact that you did threaten two police officers with a rifle, but it was so dark that it could as well be a broomstick AND you just saved both police officers from certain death. Considering your claims that you possess superpowers, I'm not exactly surprised that you preferred to meet the authorities at your own conditions. Naturally…" His eyes narrow. "... my supply of good will is entirely dependent on your behaviour from now on."
"Do not worry, superintendent." Defiant quickly replies. "I do not wish to antagonise the police any further. In fact, becoming a police officer used to be my dream. I really respect your work and I'd prefer to help you rather than make things harder for you. This is why we've agreed to this meeting."
Now, that was interesting. If the kid in front of him really had superpowers, trying to figure out who said kid was sounded like an important first step. At least in Aizawa's opinion. Honestly, it was of the same importance as figuring out how to counter his abilities (if they were real).
"Used to be?" Tsukauchi asks. "What changed? You got your meta-ability and you decided that becoming a superhero is a better idea?" He doesn't sound confrontative, more like curious.
"No." Defiant replies. "I have a… disability, of sorts. My body doesn't work as it should. I would have never passed the police fitness tests. I won't go into details, as you'd probably manage to find me by my medical records. And as much as I'd like to work with you, I'd prefer to do it without making my identity known."
That does sound like a potential lead. Where would it lead though? That's a good question. For now, Aizawa has other things to focus on.
"I see." He acknowledges Defiant's story and moves over. "Before we proceed, I'd like to witness your meta-ability. I do suspect that your companion's eyes are a form of meta-ability as well…" Alchemist nods. "... but I'd prefer to see something that can't be faked with a designer contact-lense."
"And here is where the problems begin." Defiant admits. Alchemist looks at him, probably… surprised? "I can't."
Things start making sense. In the 'it's all one big prank' way. But Aizawa decides to give the kid a chance, and doesn't storm out of the restaurant.
"What do you mean, you can't?" Alchemist asks. "That's literally part of the plan." She appears genuine enough in her surprise that Aizawa recoils from his 'it's all one big prank' theory a bit.
"Your eyes work normally?" Defiant replies with a question. She nods. "Huh. Well, Mr. Aizawa. I'll ask you a quick question. Did you notice anything… abnormal, with your eyes?"
"Except for constant dry eyes that have been a plague upon my life for a few years now, a worsening eyesight and occasional bleedings that the oculist found no explanations for, I didn't." Aizawa deadpans. He is acutely aware that his deteriorating eyesight WILL be the end of his career, just not within the next few years.
"Well, I think I found an explanation for them." Defiant replies after a few seconds of thinking. "Superintendent Aizawa, you're a metahuman."
"What?" Aizawa stares at the kid in shock. "What do you mean?" Tsukauchi doesn't say anything, but he is clearly confused and surprised.
"I can't use my meta-ability while you are looking at me." Defiant promptly replies. "I believe that passive changes to biology, like Alchemist's eyes, work normally. But whatever requires conscious activation, simply refuses to work. I can feel my quirk coming back to me for a split second when you blink, and it came back for a few seconds when you looked around the room earlier. But I literally can't show you my meta-ability, because…" He freezes for a second. "Wait, I have an idea. Could you take out your phone, and look at it in a way that doesn't make you see me at the same time?"
That was easy. Three seconds later he felt his phone take off from his hand. It didn't fly anywhere high, merely a few centimetres. But it was clearly floating. And since he brought this phone with himself, it was (almost) certainly not a set-up.
"Now get ready to catch it and look towards me." Defiant instructs him. Aizawa follows the instructions. The second the superhero enters his line of sight, he can feel the phone land on his stretched hand again. "Ah, so it only interrupts the meta-abilities when you can see the user. It doesn't influence meta-abilities themselves if they are witnessed. So seeing Mustard's gas will not stop it, but seeing Mustard will interrupt his ability to produce and control it. Fascinating."
(It's a bit of a risk on Izuku's side. He could try to hide it until the end of the meeting, making his potential arrest much harder. But instead, he hopes to make the superintendent into a genuine ally. So, he decided to share that discovery.
Besides, let's be real. The second he started talking about it, he simply couldn't end. So he kept talking until there was nothing more to say about it.)
"Meta-ability capable of influencing other meta-abilities." Alchemist says before letting out a loud wheeze. "That's a new one, and it opens completely new prospects. Why is it causing medical issues, though? That wasn't a thing with other meta-abilities?"
"Maybe it's age?" Defiant suggests. "Thus far, if you exclude Rewind and Overhaul, all meta-ability users are of more or less the same age. Overhaul can probably heal himself from whatever medical issues his quirk gives him, but the superintendent isn't so lucky. Maybe when your meta-ability kicks-in later, it can cause problems like that? That's certainly a better option that quirks as a whole causing medical problems down the line. But he did say that his eyes are a problem for a few years, this suggests a quirk manifestation at an age several years later than the average."
"Well, maybe." Alchemist doesn't seem fully persuaded. "But what about…"
Detective Tsukauchi interrupts her with a cough. When they look at him, he points towards superintendent Aizawa.
That's some rather intense glare.
"Uhm, did something happen?" Defiant asks quickly. He is clearly startled by that.
"Problem child." Aizawa states flatly. "You just gave me some life-changing revelation and then began to theorize with your girlfriend as if you were alone in the room. That's just not polite."
"S...sorry?" Defiant somehow manages to sound genuinely apologetic. "We're just… every new meta-ability we discover teaches us something new about them as a whole. That's an incredibly fascinating field of study."
"Aye!" Alchemist pipes in. "It's hard to find a quirk that doesn't violate laws of physics or the very foundation of our knowledge about biology and genetics. It's existentially dreadful and fascinating at the same time."
"Let's ignore that for a moment." Aizawa says and sighs painfully. "You DID prove to me that you possess some form of telekinesis. And, by extension, that there are superpowers out there. Although I'm still going to have some skepticism left until I see more of it or some scientists confirm it for me. So, now that we have that out of the way… any idea where all these powers came from? Because I sure as hell don't remember how mine, if it truly exists, started."
"We have absolutely no idea." Defiant replies immediately. "We have one case of someone manifesting a meta-ability in a stressful, high adrenaline situation. Namely the golem guy that detective Tsukauchi and I met at that apartment block." Tsukauchi looks at him questioningly." He didn't know that he could harden his body to the point of being virtually bulletproof until that thug shot him. The rest was just him taking advantage of it. But for the other metahumans we know of, it simply happened."
"So we have no way of predicting where and when a new metahuman will pop up." Aizawa concludes. "I secretly hoped that there is a secret organization adding something to the water, because that we can dismantle and call it a day." It would certainly make things easier for him.
"It'd have to be a worldwide organization." Alchemist pipes in. "I made an extensive analysis of the rate of the increase in urban legends, sightings of inhuman creatures and odd crimes per country. There is a clear raise in those pretty much everywhere, starting around eighteen years ago. Some countries have it higher, some lower. Eastern Asia has the highest number of those, followed by the rest of Asia and both Americas. Europe and Africa have the least number of those, but it's not a large decrease if you count that per population numbers."
"Why did no one notice that?" It's Tsukauchi. "This sounds like something that certainly should have been noticed. Governments? Scientists?"
"Who figures out the truth a day before the others, will be seen as crazy for twenty four hours." Alchemist replies. "There are certainly groups out there that are aware of the existence of meta-abilities. It's just that the public is yet to realize. I can list you at least two dozen scientific papers indicating that whoever was behind them got their hand on someone with a meta-ability, but they are all looked down upon as 'parascientific'. I can also point you to a similar number of cases of someone trying to come forward as having a supernatural power, only to be attacked for it, or ridiculed. Despite having some results."
"And considering the war happening, people's attention was mostly occupied." Defiant pitches in. "I wouldn't be surprised if at least several militaries out there already had supernatural warfare programmes running. But, once again, the public remains blissfully unaware. We kept ridiculing people believing in the paranormal, so those that actually developed such powers are now afraid of coming forward. But it's not like this can hold for long. Someone might do something large enough to bulldoze through that barrier. Some larger scientific studies will amass enough evidence for it to be irrefutable. Tomorrow, or in a year or two. Especially as there seems to be a spike in new meta-ability manifestations during the last two or three years."
"Makes sense." Aizawa admitted. "Most of the people important enough to speak about it and be believed are those who have the most to lose if they weren't believed." He himself doesn't feel like establishing a press conference and announcing to the world that there are supervillains out there. He is willing to let someone else take those laurels.
Is that the whole reason, though? Somehow, Aizawa doubts that.
Time to go onwards to another subject.
"And you decided to become a superhero?" He really feels awkward to say words like that. He is a serious, proper police officer. Superheroes are from fictional worlds, dammit.
"I mean, I always wanted to help others." Defiant replies. "But my disability eliminated most of the options from the list. I grew to love superheroes, perhaps due to how… different from me they were. Powerful, confident and so on. Then I got a superpower, and suddenly it made sense to become a superhero.." He sighs. "I'm not going to lie, recently I'm mostly helping others like me. I relate to them, and I know that the world will not be kind to us once the truth is revealed. I still want to help people, and I believe that using superpowers to save people is a decent way of achieving that AND getting accepted once meta-abilities become a common knowledge."
Aizawa likes that kid. He isn't going to admit that aloud, but that's the truth. Defiant is, deep inside, an idealist - and those are both rare and valuable. Especially in times like those. But he is also rational enough to temper said idealism in practice.
Aizawa is fairly certain that he mostly just wants to help people. The rest is him justifying and finding additional reasons to do that with his rational side.
Superintendent likes idealism - for as long as it's not the stupid kind of idealism. And he likes rational people - for as long as they don't give up on their ideals. Then you never know when taking bribes to look the other way becomes a 'rational' choice.
"And how would you see a potential cooperation between the Network and the police?" Aizawa decides to probe Defiant a bit further.
"I'm well aware that for as much as our meta-abilities are giving us an edge, sooner or later we are going to do something stupid." Defiant replies after a second or two or thinking. "It won't have to be something that's entirely our fault. We might hit a criminal, without knowing that he is an undercover cop, raid a group of criminals right before a police bust and make the police officers run into enemies on high alert, and so on. So we're willing to stop operating independently."
Oh. Aizawa REALLY starts to like Defiant. His worst nightmare - the kids going on a vigilante spree and inevitably messing something up, forcing Aizawa to try to arrest them all and probably pushing them into outright villainy in the process - might not get realized. And he likes that.
"You want to work for the police." Aizawa states. And gets a confirming nod from Defiant. "That's… unexpected. But not exactly a bad idea. Details?"
"We've divided ourselves internally between superheroes and sidekicks." Defiant replies. "Superheroes are combat-oriented, while sidekicks aren't supposed to fight… but still have some potential uses. Some, for example, will excel at information gathering. I'm willing to open a communication channel with you and deliver you the summary of meta-abilities of all Network members. Not their pictures or real names, for the record. We'd prefer those to remain secret even to the police."
"Not trusting us?" Aizawa asks. Defiant shrugs.
"I don't trust anyone aside from Network members." Defiant adds. "Especially someone with the means to arrest or kill us. Nothing personal, superintendent, but we don't know how the government will react to discovering this deal and our existence. If you don't know who we are, you can't tell them where to find us, so the chances of us getting chained and dragged into some research lab gets significantly smaller. For the same reason we're not telling you where our headquarters are."
Aizawa nods. It's rational.
"So, you require the sidekick's abilities?" Defiant returns to the main subject. "You ask for it, and we deliver. You are launching a larger operation and are afraid of encountering villains, you contact me, and you get a superhero on a standby. A patrol is under attack by someone who appears to be a villain, you call and we're rushing there. Though since we can't exactly arrest someone and it's clear that we don't know about all the intricacies of the law, I'd prefer to have a police officer in the know accompanying us for arrests and guidance."
"I believe that those terms are reasonable." Aizawa admits. Tsukauchi looks at him strangely. "But I'm going to demand some changes."
"Oh?" Defiant asks.
"Listen." Aizawa sighs. "For as much as I'm seeing it, I have some serious suspicions about at least some of you not being legally adults. And please tell me if I missed the truth - most of you do not attend schools AND you probably have problems with access to healthcare, especially in current circumstances. And especially when it comes to things connected to your abilities. Am I right?"
After three or four seconds of silence, Defiant finally nods.
"I believe that we are all adults, just… not for long. The rest is very correct, though.." And thus Aizawa's worries are confirmed.
"Do you at least have some... appropriate housing?" He decides to dig deeper.
"Actually, we have that covered." Defiant replies. "We have running water, electricity, a decent standard of life and so on. But I'd lie if I said that we couldn't use some additional funds."
At least that much.
"So." Aizawa leans forward and gives Defiant one of his trademark Focused Stares. "I'm willing to work with you. Mostly against myself, but I do recognize that if what you are telling me is true, Takoba's police force is almost hilariously outgunned. And you are our only potential way of fixing that on a timespan not counted in years. But I am going to find a way to provide you with both education and healthcare. And sooner or later I WILL inspect your lodgings in some way, in order to make sure that you aren't bullshitting me about your standard of life."
He already has an idea about education and healthcare. It might be… both potentially problematic and extremely problem-solving.
"If you manage to do that in a way that will make us feel safe about our secret identities, I have no problems with that." Defiant replies after a few seconds of internal deliberations. "But I'm not going to force Network members to participate in that if they don't want to."
Fair enough. Aizawa probably can't hope for more.
"Very well, then." Superintendent announces. "It is entirely unofficial, but for now we do have a deal." Defiant seems relieved. "Can we now talk about the villains that we already know about? Namely, Mustard and Overhaul?"
"Sure." Defiant nods. "I can't tell you a lot about the former. I only saw him for a few seconds, but I did compile whatever theories I have about his quirk. You'll get that alongside the Network' members summaries. If anything, the most problematic part of him is the fact that his existence means that Overhaul is gathering up villains from the prefecture."
"Who is he?" Aizawa asks. "Because I have never heard about him or her before."
Oh, you did." Defiant replies. "It's just that he didn't pick up that nickname until our brief fight. You know him as Kai Chisaki."
Oh. Well, that's a bomb. Atomic, considering the fact that Mustard gassed an apartment block at his orders, apparently.
"Kai Chisaki?" Tsukauchi asks in shock before Aizawa manages to do the same. "Head of the Shie Hasseikai?" Defiant nods.
"That's some serious accusations." Aizawa adds. "We do suspect him of a lot of crimes, but we failed to find evidence for that."
"And you'll never find them." Defiant shoots back. Aizawa is approaching the dreadful realization that seems to have evaded Tsukauchi.
"His meta-ability?" Superintendent asks, seeking confirmation. Defiant nods.
"He can instantly disassemble any solid matter he touches, and reassemble it in whatever configuration he wants it to be in." Defiant replies. "He can liquify a body completely, and erase or alter any physical evidence pointing towards him or his lackeys being responsible for murder. I wouldn't be surprised if he could change fingerprints and DNA leftovers to that of someone else, just to frame said someone else. You will never find any physical evidence of Kai Chisaki's crimes, unless you literally catch him red handed. And even then he will probably murder whoever caught him AND erase the evidence of that."
Oh.
"You're kidding." It's Tsukauchi who says that. Aizawa is too busy running everything he knows about the police attempts to find evidence against Chisaki through these (potentially true) revelations.
His enemies disappearing without a trace. People claiming that they have seen Chisaki committing crimes, but police failing to find any material evidence on the scene (and Chisaki always having ten witnesses of him being completely elsewhere - and often having physical evidence for that).
Shit. Aizawa saw him (on the CCTV camera) hold a crowbar that might have been a murder weapon with his bare hands and they still only fingerprints of someone else entirely. If he truly had a power like that, everything would suddenly make sense.
"I'd like to, but no, I'm not." Defiant replies to Tsukauchi. "I know how much people trust camera recordings nowadays, but I'd like you to watch this." He gestures to Alchemist, who promptly turns her laptop towards them.
It's a recording, looks like it was taken from a drone or something similar. Chisaki and two yakuza thugs are cornering a person who looks like Defiant and a small child in some alleyway.
Chisaki touches the ground. Defiant takes off a second before spikes emerge from the ground. Chisaki uses one of his goons as a living shield (the dumpster simply vanishes after impact), says something, and a moment later he gets slammed into a wall.
Instead of dying, his corpse suddenly rearranges itself back into a living Chisaki.
"For the record…" Defiant adds. "I didn't try to kill him. I only tried to restrain him, but I panicked and Ignited for the first time. It makes my power much stronger, but I didn't have control over it back then. Though this recording does give you an example of how his meta-ability works in practice."
"And the kid?" Aizawa soaks in the data from the recordings and notes it down in his mind for future reference. Then he moves over to the most important part of it.
"Six years old girl with a very powerful meta-ability." Defiant replies. "We're calling her Rewind, at least in public. We suspect that Overhaul killed her mother and kidnapped her. She was a cornerstone of his future plans, and as far as we know, he is currently looking for her everywhere. Considering what she told me, Overhaul killed her several times for misbehavior, only to resurrect her with his meta-ability."
"This is fucked up." Tsukauchi comments. Aizawa briefly wonders if it still classifies as murder. The legal definitions are going to have to be seriously altered to fit the new world.
"Her quirk de-ages living organisms on contact." Defiant continues. Aizawa immediately realizes what sort of plan Chisaki had with her. "The amount of money and influence he could earn from renting her to people wanting to live forever is rather astounding. Then again, I personally find his scheme idiotic."
"Why?" Aizawa asks. He, personally, finds the scheme brilliant. If horrifying.
"Overhaul could easily become the world's best, downright miracle doctor." Defiant replies. "Perfect gender transitions. Unmatched plastic surgeries. Healing cancer and similar diseases where normal doctors can't do a thing. All with a touch. No need for assistants, no need for equipment. He would be swimming in cash and favours, but instead he decided to torture a little girl in his basement."
Aizawa can hear him click his tongue in irritation. Now that Defiant described the situation in detail, the superintendent realizes that the superhero is right. If Overhaul's quirk/meta-ability work as Defiant claims, the entire 'torture little girl in a basement' bit is entirely, entirely redundant.
"Maybe he simply liked doing that." Aizawa comments bitterly. "I wouldn't be surprised."
"Yeah, neither would I." Defiant sighs. "And now he is trying to gather villains under his thumb. We only know of Mustard, but we know because of a coincidence. He was deployed to capture a meta-human, and it got messy because I came to recruit her at the same time. There might be more of them in Shie Hasseikai, and we have no idea what sort of meta-abilities they possess. And that's not the biggest problem we're facing." Alchemist nods at that.
"I'm afraid of asking, but… what's that problem?" Tsukauchi asks. Aizawa is thankful for that. He really needs a second to get over the fact there is something that's worse than that.
"Let's imagine that Overhaul leaves his base tomorrow." Defiant replies. "I beat him unconscious, you manage to get some actual evidence for his crimes. Everyone is happy. The question is… how do you keep him imprisoned until the court date? And how do you imprison him after it?"
Oh. Oh shit.
"What do you mean?" Tsukauchi fails to realize the horror of what Defiant just said. Aizawa turns towards the detective.
"Tsukauchi." The detective turns his head towards the superintendent. "How do you imprison someone who can undo any restraints with a touch AND can probably dig a kilometer long tunnel to freedom as quickly as normal people open doors?"
Aizawa can see a realization dawning on the detective's face.
"Welcome to the world of one of the superhero genre's most common tropes." Defiant says. "Cardboard Prisons. Honestly, unless you chop off his hands or kill him, you simply cannot keep him imprisoned for long. Unless you keep him constantly drugged, but that's an execution just with delayed timing. So, you should probably focus on finding a way of dealing with that issue." He sighs. "Because I have no idea how to do that. And that scares me the most."