Trixuny - No spoilers about the role I have in mind for Nedzu :P

Jowen2713 - Neither am I, but I do realize that it was quite grim so I decided to be better safe than sorry. And yes, Shoto has his quirk, but his debut in the story is quite a few chapters ahead of us (in fact, it's chapter 29, so we're pretty much halfway there).

Evan The-Asian - I'm writing a story about the times of the legendary First Holder and the All for One, why would I miss such an opportunity? Of course, the stories sometimes change a bit when passed down, and while there is a grain of truth to it, not all things are as the people in the Future imagine them to be...

(***)

Metahuman Network File [Excerpt]

Hero Name: Hijack

Hero Class: Sidekick

Meta-Ability: Hypnosis.

His quirk allows him to issue a single order to anyone who responds to his words vocally, which will be obeyed in a trance-like state. This includes both responses including actual words and wordless reactions such as a groan.

He doesn't have to vocalize his order for the trance to take hold. The victim will freeze instantly when he wants to, but if the order isn't issued within the next thirty seconds, the trance will be broken. It will also break the mental link, forcing Hijack to elicit a response from the target again.

He can maintain up to twenty latent mental links for up to twenty-four hours. The trance also cannot be longer than approximately fifteen minutes, and any order that takes more time to fulfill will be left unfinished. Orders can be complex, with more than a single element, but it has to be something that can be summarized in a single sentence. Being wounded while in the trance will also shatter it.

His orders cannot be actively self-destructive, as otherwise the self-preservation instinct will force the victim out of the trance (whether it will work on someone with suicidal thoughts remains to be seen). Other than that, he can issue any order he wants to, but there are several clear limits to his power.

The biggest one is that orders such as 'speak the truth' or 'tell me what X did then and there' will weaken the trance, making resisting orders a possibility. The working theory is that those orders force the target's brain activity to go up (due to forcing him or her to sift through their memory and, for example, differentiate truth from falsehoods), and thus heightens the victim's ability to resist.

The same thing happens with attempts to alter memories, The only exception to that are orders to 'not remember what was happening during the trance', as in that case the victim doesn't perceive the fact that it's in trance, and thus cannot resist it.

Recommendations: Dealing with hostage situations and people about to commit suicide. Disarming bombs if the criminal responsible for them is caught. Confirming the truth of someone, but this requires explaining what's happening to the victim in order for them to not resist the order to speak the truth - doing that to someone who doesn't know about the meta-abilities might be troublesome. Consensual memory alteration (for example as a part of a therapy).

(***)

Aizawa Shouta's first move during his war against Overhaul is finding more people. Because honestly, they can't hope to organize anything even resembling a war effort with only him, Tsukauchi and Sansa.

Their partners are the first to go. Detective Eizo Tanuma for Tsukauchi, and officer Monika Kaniyashiki for Sansa. The reactions are understandable - first it's shock, then it's suspicion that they are making fun of them, and then, finally, acceptance.

Tanuma's first job is to sift through the people at other police stations in the city, and single out people that are trustworthy and open-minded enough to accept the truth and some additional duties.

Aizawa doesn't envy him. It's going to be a pain in the ass. It's quite easy for this to go awkward and ruin his reputation (at least temporarily, until the Reveal Day). But someone has to do it.

There is no point in having a superhero's phone number if there is no policeman in the station to call it. What if someone attacked the precinct? Someone with a superpower? Contacting Aizawa and then Aizawa contacting the Network would be problematic, and time-consuming. Perhaps too time-consuming.

The second thing he does is to do what the Japanese Police should have done at least a year ago. Although on a regional scale.

He issues an order to all policemen under his command to report anything out of ordinary to him, while explaining this as the criminals responsible for the gas attack having access to chemicals that might cause hallucinations. Both auditory and visual.

So if you see something weird, back off and call Aizawa. You see someone weird, you don't try to apprehend it or shoot it, unless it's clearly attempting to attack you. But even then, you fire a warning shot first, because it might be a standard civilian, and you are simply hallucinating.

It's mostly about Aizawa needing to explain the odd order somehow. Hopefully, this will work. Hopefully, they won't lose anyone because they wasted too much time on not-shooting due to thinking that the attacking metahuman was a hallucination.

Then… then he has to start working on providing the Network with some actual healthcare. While I also figuring out how to start working on some means of metahuman containment. He has an idea on how to deal with that, but organizing that meeting will take him at least a week.

(***)

Oddly enough the first Metahuman Network' member to have been called to assist the police operation was Kappa. Then again, it made perfect sense for that to happen, considering the circumstances.

There was a large river passing through Takoba. The one where Tsuyu fished in, and the one right next to the Network headquarters. Deep enough for some ships to go up and down. Occasionally, since the war.

The police were going to raid a ship. They suspected drug smuggling. They also suspected that whoever was aboard, they would probably throw it into the river. They weren't smuggling a lot, and in a waterproof package.

But it was very pure stuff. Something to then mix with various additives to produce twenty times as much drugs for sale, volume-wise.

If police came rolling, they were planning to throw it off the ship. It had a location transmitter on it, so they would simply have a diver pick it up later on. Easy peasy.

Besides, knowing who was truly behind the drugs in the city, they probably didn't have to do that. There had to be at least a single qualified diver among the Overhaul's goons. He would simply pick it up.

The raid ended differently than the smugglers expected. By the time the police finished asking them questions (and boy if they weren't smug about their answers), Tsuyu finished recovering what they threw off-board.

Then officer Sansa has mysteriously found said package. The policemen present on-site elected to ignore the fact that the package exterior was thoroughly wet. It really didn't matter to them what the smugglers did with it, for as long as they had it on-board.

Smugglers were absolutely shocked at the development, since they expected to be able to at the very least get out of the local police jurisdiction by the time the package was discovered by its divers. And with how chaotic things were nowadays, getting the arrest warrant out would be even more time consuming.

Tsuyu looked vaguely smug about her participation in that operation for days.

Two days later the police asked Earworm to help reconnaissance a building they were about to raid in order to confirm the presence and number of the criminals inside. She promptly did just that.

The local police officer who was her handler for the operation promptly informed the RPU' counter-terrorist squad that was supposed to launch the raid that there are twice as many criminals inside as they expected. And that according to the on-going talk, they had a lot of grenades. And even a Chinese light machine gun.

The raid went off without a hitch.

Aizawa Shouta's war against Overhaul was going to be lengthy and brutal, but at least it was off to a good start.

(***)

Mei departs back to Kyoto. Eventually, she had to do that. Last night was rather… memorable.

Izuku will probably stop blushing furiously when thinking about anything even remotely connected to this. Eventually. So most likely not during the next few years of his life.

Mei is an awesome girlfriend, he isn't going to lie. But Sosaki-san should really confiscate those romance manga. Also Izuku is 95% sure that there was also some much more adult manga mixed into those. And Mei was getting influenced by them as well.

Also he is quite curious as to why she spend a while whispering something into Uraraka's ear right before departing. And why Uraraka was blushing so furiously while this was happening.

Ugh. He has a bad feeling about this.

(***)

"How peculiar." Overhaul says to Kurono. "I believe that our friend Defiant went to bed with superintendent Aizawa."

That was unexpected. But considering how the last week was a string of small-time disasters for the Shie Hasseikai - at least within the Takoba city, the other two were doing pretty fine - Kurono could easily figure out why Chisaki thought so.

"You think that people with superpowers are responsible for these setbacks?" Kurono asks back. Chisaki is eating a meal in his hideout. Kurono is there, but this meal is a lonely one. He is only there to participate in a strategic council.

He is the only save for Overhaul. Chisaki is the Shie Hasseikai's undisputed head, but it's Kurono who is his deputy. Hari Kurono is ruthless, loyal, intelligent… and the closest thing that Overhaul has to a friend.

"It's just Takoba, and that's where the heroes are holed up in, as far as we know." Overhaul replies. "And suddenly the local police developed some actual fangs. And if I remember the report from our informants in the local police, Aizawa told them to report odd happenings to him. It sounds like someone's finally aware of the existence of superpowers, but isn't keen on making it a public knowledge."

"Makes an awful lot of sense." Kurono admits. "What are we going to do about it?"

Overhaul spends almost half a minute eating in silence. He is clearly thinking about the response. Kurono says nothing. If his boss wants to hear his input, he'll ask for it.

"For now, nothing." Overhaul replies eventually. "The problem is that making an open move against the police will be an escalation that we aren't ready for. My little praetorian guard together with Dabi and Mustard could utterly slaughter any local police precinct, yes. It could probably wipe them all out. But the government didn't decline enough for me to simply take over the city. We can't win against the JSDF."

Dabi can probably melt a tank or two, but getting close and not getting shredded by machine gun fire (or simply getting a tank cannon's round in the face) is a problem. Superpowers were an asset, not an answer to all problems.

"Assassination of superintendent Aizawa sounds like something more reasonable." Overhaul continues. "Look into it, just purely hypothetically for now. We do not want him to go to the governor and point at us as perpetrators if it fails."

Logical. Their attempts to get the governor at their side failed completely in the past. For as much as it was hard to imagine nowadays, governor Yagi was incorruptible. Oh, he wasn't above striking a deal or two that went pretty close to being… problematic, but mostly for the greater good. And not with organized crime. That option was right out.

"What about deploying some of our special assets to protect more valuable businesses in Takoba?" Kurono decides to ask. This time the silence is one that was inviting him to probe for things. He can tell things like that.

Chisaki spends a while considering this.

"It's… dangerous." He eventually replies. "We do not know the numbers of Defiant's organization. There is certainly the man himself, Ashido Mina and her monster of a boyfriend. If we send our villains out one by one, we risk the enemy ganging up on them."

"I don't think that the police can keep Dabi imprisoned." Kurono points out. "He will simply melt everything between himself and freedom." Mustard probably can't escape, but he can gas everyone within the building. They would simply have to keep someone posted outside of the precinct to pick him up when that would happen.

"I'm not afraid of imprisonment." Overhaul replies. "I'm afraid of Defiant slamming them into a wall without me around to heal them. Or superintendent Aizawa putting a bullet in their head and having Ashido Mina dispose of their corpses once he realizes that he can't keep them imprisoned."

That was an option. Was Aizawa Shouta ruthless enough for this? Probably not. Were they ready to risk finding out that they were wrong in that assessment? When you had only a single user of certain power, they were essentially irreplaceable in the long-term.

But there was a problem with that logic. Kurono decided to point it out.

"What's the point of having supervillains in our ranks…" He says. "... if we are too afraid of losing them to use them?"

Overhaul freezes for a second. Then, he spends a while thinking it over. His meal is finished in the meantime.

"You have a point." Overhaul eventually admits. "Besides, if we keep avoiding engagements, we won't be able to measure how much firepower Defiant has. There is a fair chance that we're actually outgunning him massively. And unless he decides to use Eri's power, we have an upper hand when it comes to healing injuries."

Looks like they are going to get busy, after all. Thankfully, Dabi is merely the strongest of the ability-users that they recently recruited. In times like this, when you suddenly developed an advantage - like, say, a superpower - then you used it.

Potential villains certainly outclassed potential heroes in numbers.

"Send Duststorm, Glassmaker, Whiteline and Jetstream." Overhaul decides. Was using two words in your villain name a sign of mediocrity? Probably not, Dabi's girlfriend had a single-word name and was rather mediocre as well. But it didn't really matter to him right now. They were much more expendable than Dabi or Mustard. Maybe except for Glassmaker. She had potential. "How's your search for the three priority targets going along?"

Kurono has some progress to report. But nothing particularly substantial.

(***)

Izuku Midoriya is really looking forward to getting some actual action. However - and this is truly the sign of the duality that his life embodies - he would also prefer to not have to get into action.

Almost ten days have passed since the meeting with the superintendent. They were called to action exactly four times. None of the calls went badly, in fact for as much as Izuku thought, the police were finding the deal to be highly beneficial.

Of course, they weren't exactly getting paid for it, yet. The policemen they got to work with admitted that they should have, but the local police was critically underfunded and figuring out a money source that wouldn't make anyone suspect that Aizawa was siphoning what's left of the police budget for his own benefit was going to be a pain.

Izuku was alright with this. To a degree. Sure, the best case scenario would be them getting paid for what they were doing. Sure, most of the sidekicks (only sidekicks were called for assistance thus far) were actually working only for a short moment. But they were offering services that no one else could.

They deserved life insurance, and money to pay for other things. That much was a given.

But for now, the Hatsume Industries were (unawarely) financing them to a degree that allowed them to live without having to count every yen. Sure, they couldn't go for a spending spree, but they had food, energy, running water and the remaining basics. Like cleaning agents and toilet paper.

And with this in mind, the biggest priority that the Network had right now, was to make the police actually consider it useful. Thus far it was working, and Izuku was willing to ignore minor things such as not getting paid (he would honestly work for free if he could, he was just that kind of a person) due to that.

They needed a good rep, especially among the local law enforcement. They never knew what was going to be the local reaction to the Reveal Day. And it could technically be tomorrow. Getting people with actual power to realize the Network's willingness to help and their usefulness was a good way of dampening potentially negative reactions to the reveal.

So yes, good citizens. There are murderous fiends out there, but all we ever did was assist the police. We even worked under the police oversight in order to not mess anything up. And the police will gladly confirm that we saved a lot of people. So please differentiate us from Overhaul's band, ok?

Simple.

Then superintendent Aizawa decides to phone him.

"Defiant, do you remember the part where I said that I'm going to look into a way to get you all some educational prospects and healthcare?" Superintendent goes right for the throat.

Izuku was busy training his ability on Takoba' beach when it happened. Thankfully, it means that he is alone.

"Yes?" He replies. His muscles hurt like hell. He overused them only a bit, but he'll probably end up crying in pain tomorrow morning. Again.

It's not that he is weak. It's just that due to some odd medical condition, his muscle soreness is way, way more painful than for normal people. It's what crippled his body in the long-term. How can you exactly develop a healthy body if any overexertion of your muscles makes you feel like your body is being dissolved in acid or something similarly painful? For hours. And over-the-counter painkillers refuse to alleviate the problem even slightly.

He doesn't even have to reach the actual muscle soreness level. It's just that at this point the resulting pain becomes unbearable. Reasonably light workout makes him get the equivalent of a really bad version of 'normal' muscle soreness. Anything beyond that, ouch.

At least cardio training was an option. If you were cautious and smart about it. His stamina was alright. Good, in fact.

Ugh.

He gets to reminisce about stuff like that at the worst moments, doesn't he?

"I think it's time to talk about it in detail." Aizawa replies. "In fact, I'll need you to accompany me somewhere so that we can persuade someone to agree to help us. You'll probably have to unmask before him, at the very least before the classes start, but you'll find his information security rather… unmatched."

Huh?

(***)

Three days and another intervention later - this time it was Hijack, some robber was cornered in the convenience store and tried to take a hostage to tell the police to back-off, it didn't work - Izuku Midoriya found himself wearing his hero uniform again.

During the day. It was slightly, slightly unnatural. And he wasn't sure how to feel about it, really.

He met with the superintendent and detective Tsukauchi (who seemed to be the designated driver for the day) right in front of the entrance gate of the UA. Japan's most famous educational facility, that just happened to be conveniently located at the outskirts of Takoba.

It makes perfect sense, in a way. UA is famous for being a combination of senior high school and university - large one, with its own hospital and factory on the verge of the UA grounds, so that medical and engineering students have places to work in. And it's a very special place, dedicated to perfecting whatever student (and their admission criteria are incredibly high) ended up joining it.

It only takes the ones that are already above the common riffraff. And they either fail to catch-up or end up being something even more special. And considering the fact that having superpowers makes you special… Izuku can realize why they might be interested in the Metahuman Network. It already has future sports stars, future top scientists, engineers, doctors, politicians and philosophers in its midst. Nurturing superheroes sounds like a logical next step.

It also has large, mostly forested grounds. It's legendarily wealthy and quite very secretive. Not the 'it's all a secret cult' level of secret, but they have enough sons and daughters of the wealthy (and no, it's not possible to get inside simply by being wealthy, it's simply the wealthy and influential that push their children into doing their best so that the UA might grace their resumes with its stamp) to be very interested in security. Including the one concerning the information.

What was left was them meeting its principal. Without things going pear-shaped. Especially as he was widely connected to the most influential people in Japan. It was going to be a complicated talk. Especially as they had to first figure out what he knows about the superpowers. What if there was an actual gag-order slash kill-on-sight stuff, just above the level of police superintendent?

(***)

The secretary gives Izuku some odd stares while they are waiting for their time to enter the principal's office. He isn't surprised. His outfit is concealing his face. But he is accompanied by a police officer, so she probably decides that he is hiding his identity for some serious police reasons.

Working with the police has its perks, Izuku discovers.

Eventually they are ushered inside. The room is rather… hard to say, really. The best adjective is probably 'orderly'. Not even a speck of dust, documents neatly stacked on the desk.

One wall is taken entirely by several shelves filled with pictures. Most successful students of the UA. Symbol of the principal's accomplishments. If what Izuku read online is to be trusted, there are three prime ministers and several olympic medallists among them. The requirements to get a display in the UA principal's office are ridiculous.

(there is a long-standing joke on the internet that the principal will not retire before getting the pictureso f US president, dalai lama and the pope onto his wall of fame)

Izuku is also slightly intimidated. Despite Mei whispering into his ear that it's alright. It makes him feel a bit better, though.

"Superintendent Aizawa." Principal asks from behind his desk. His glare is rather… intensely focused. Izuku once again finds himself rather intimidated by it. "How can I help the Takoba police?"

Is he suspecting that some of his students misbehaved? Probably so. There is most likely an expulsion paper or two prepared. They won't find any use today, though. And is the 'Takoba police' a reminder that for as much as he represents the local law enforcement, Aizawa has way too short of a stick to try anything crazy with their host?

"Principal Sasaki." Aizawa replies in kind. "I do not believe that there is a simple way of asking the question that I have in mind. In fact, I fully expect you to think that I'm crazy after hearing it. But if so, I'd like to ask you in advance to let me and my… companion, explain ourselves, before throwing us out."

Mirai Sasaki gives him a prolonged and hard to read stare. Izuku feels more uncomfortable than intimidated now.

"Very well. I can promise you that much." Principal replies. "What is the question?"

Well. Time to jump off the building. Headfirst. And without a protective gear or quirk. Because what they are going to do is an equivalent of that. The guy in front of them can probably phone the current prime minister if he needs something from him.

"Do you have any knowledge whatsoever about the existence of superpowers?" Aizawa asks and principal Sasaki continues staring at him. Izuku's presence in the room appears to have been forgotten. "By which I mean things straight from superhero comics."

"You were right to ask me first to not throw you out before letting you explain yourself." Sasaki replies. "Because I would throw you out right now for wasting my time."

Oh my God. Mirai Sasaki doesn't know about meta-abilities. That or they are now on the government's hit list for knowing too much. Both options are equally terrifying but for different reasons altogether.

Wait, Izuku thinks it through quickly. Sasaki has a reputation for being strict and about as conservative as you can get. He really isn't someone you confront about stuff like that without powerful arguments. He might have been kept out of the loop due to that. Besides, at least technically, he isn't part of the government.

There is a fair chance that he wasn't informed simply because some government agency was irritated about him knowing too much about governmental affairs. Obstructive bureaucrats were, are and will be a thing. And if someone did try to inform him, he probably treated them as loonies.

Besides, the government probably knew that if he knew about the superpowers, he would dig into it hard. Especially as most users were within the appropriate age to attend UA.

"Do your magic, problem child." Aizawa says. Yes. No amount of arguments can hope to change anything… except for that one, special argument.

Izuku focuses his meta-ability, while quietly thanking God that it's Aizawa that has an anti-quirk quirk or this meeting would have been a lost cause right from the start.

Sasaki doesn't move. But his eyes dart through his office when almost everything inside of it (save for the three people present and the chairs that they were sitting on) begins to move upward. Slowly and on a perfectly vertical vector. Izuku doesn't want to leave a mess.

Only after close to ten seconds of this (Izuku weakens his pull to the level when it only counters gravity, effectively making things float in the same spot) principal Sasaki examines his floating pen. He actually ends up dismantling it to check if they didn't (somehow) tamper with its insides.

Mirai Sasaki is a paranoid man. Or, perhaps, only a very thorough one. Good to know.

"That's… a very convincing argument." Sasaki finally admits. "Could you please put everything down now?"

Izuku does just that. Principal seems to have finally noticed him, judging from the rather analytical stare. Huh.

"The answer is no." He finally says. "I have no such knowledge. But I'm extremely interested in changing that. Preferably right now."

(***)

No, the Metahuman Network Files won't be a permanent thing. The next few chapters describe the quirks of Defiant, Eclipse and Singularity I think, mostly because those were the most altered from canon (or, in case of Eclipse, are OCs). Then it's a two digit number of chapters without such excerpts. I'll only be doing them in case of OCs or more significantly altered quirks.

Yes. Mirai Sasaki enters the scene. He is practically speaking doing what he did to Mirio in canon (change them into powerhouses for fun and profit), except on a larger scale. And let's just say that the existence (or not) of a governmental cover-up will be brought up during this talk. Next chapter in fact.

Also, the new villains. One is an OC with someone's canon quirk. The rest are canon villains. Ideas as to who they are? :P