fencer29 & Shahryar - Guys, you forget that Enji Todoroki is the head one of the four pillars of the Japanese economy. Sinking him could as well sink the country's economy right now. Messing him up is nice and all, but not when it can potentially end up leading (indirectly but still) to millions of deaths :P
The Cocoa Puffer - Ha, trust me, it's going to be much more one-sided that you assume :v
Jpx0999 - An added bonus, yeah.
(***)
"... the explosion should deal with Dabi." Izuku confirms. "Unlike Prominence Burn, it's also not going in a straight line, and the semi-circular evacuated area surrounding the Arch-Arsonist's position should make sure that the fallen debris won't injure any civilians. That, well, depends on how big of an explosion you can make."
"With Rabbit's quirk, quite powerful." Todoroki replies flatly. "I'm probably going to have to go all out, just in case Dabi figured out how to use his Prominence Burn faster. Flashfreeze Heatwave should be enough to dispel it if it's fired, but it will have to be powerful."
Midoriya stares at the map for a few seconds, his finger tapping on the table. He seems to be staring at Dabi's positioning.
"Are you going to be alright?" He then asks Amplitude. "Even with Rabbit's buff, if you go all out, your quirk just doesn't give you the resistance to explosions."
His ability to cause explosions was a side-effect of his dual nature. Not entirely intended by default.
"I have resistance to fire and high temperatures." Amplitude replies. "Rabbit's quirk covers pressure differences caused by explosions. And since I'll be at the very epicenter, there will be next to no shrapnel to injure me, due to almost all of them flying outwards from our position. We've tested it thoroughly on smaller explosions."
Yeah, their joint training. Quirk synergies. One more thing that Overhaul was clearly not putting a lot of thought into.
After a few seconds of thinking, Izuku sighs.
"I'll trust you. But keep your emergency button clasped in your other hand, to make sure it's not damaged or thrown away. If you are injured in the blast, use it." Amplitude nods. "We had a course in triage with Shuzenji, and I want you to be honest about it. One click if you are injured but able to fight, two if you are unable to fight, three if your life is in danger."
"Just tell me in my face some version of 'don't play the hero', we both know it's heading there." Amplitude replies dryly. This provokes some chuckles, but Midoriya simply keeps staring until Shoto sighs and nods. "Alright, I'll be honest. I promise."
(it ends up being two pings, Eclipse arriving a few moments later to warp him out of the battlefield)
"Alright." Izuku sighs. "Then things are going to be a bit tricky. Most of their villains are clearly on the eastern bank, because Overhaul expects us to appear from there. But taking out Dabi with the first strike opens up a possibility of some tactical misdirection."
"Ah, I think I know what you're planning." Hawks smiles wryly. Him still having some white strands in his hair (not to mention some few surviving wrinkles) makes him look a bit… weird, even now. "Flashy attack on Overhaul's rearguard on the west bank, to make him consider that we were going all out there, before attacking from the front after all."
"Yes, and no." Izuku scratches his head. "I think that direct attack on Carnage is going to be way too bloody, and if we make a flashy attack from the west, it'll cost us too many people to be able to beat the eastern group."
"So, less of a feint, and more a confusion op?" Hawks asks. Midoriya nods.
"If it's possible, I'd like to request the Quirk Suppression Unit to lead the attack on the western group, with… Blackwing and Eclipse." Izuku then says.
"Your reasoning?" Hawks asks. He might be much older and more experienced, but, as repeatedly stated, Midoriya is talented enough to be at least listened to. Besides, he put much more thought into Overhaul and his goons than Hawks at this point.
It shows.
"Thus far Overhaul always deployed his praetorians whenever the fighting was going to be the hardest." Midoriya replies. "Or to the places that were most important for him, like when he sent most of them with Purity into the Gunga Mountain complex. I think…"
Ah.
"You think that when he hears that we're on the west bank…" Hawks cuts in. "... he'll treat that attack much more seriously, despite the low number of superheroes spotted there. And if my years of training are anything to go back to, you're doing this…" He leans over the map and taps his finger into a small cluster of dots at the base of the bridge to the east, beyond the Shie Hassaikai's main defense line. "... with that group in mind."
Midoriya nods, confirming his suspicions. Chancellor seems to have realized it as well. The others, clearly, have only a varied degree of understanding.
"That's the reserve group for the eastern frontline." Midoriya explains. "Mostly the praetorians that Rabbit and his group didn't arrest, typically due to them kicking the bucket earlier and being already evacuated when it happened. If we attack seriously enough on the western side, there is a chance that they'll be redeployed there. Meaning that Carnage, Volcano and other villains on the eastern bank will be devoid of their support."
"That's the most optimistic variant." Hawks comments. "But I can see it happening, especially if the eastern side will stick to more guerilla attacks, instead of major push, for some time."
"We'll try to do that, then." Izuku nods. "We have several sidekicks that should excel in that. I think that we'll deploy Singularity, Witch, Thorn, Poltergeist and Deadshot from our core members, and…"
… yeah, and that's why it's considered a bad idea to allow organization members to date their underlings. Because sending Uraraka into a battle… urgh. Then again, even as a rescue hero, she still wanted to be there.
"... we'll quickly borrow several people with applicable skills from our other branches." Midoriya continues. "Mostly because Overhaul either doesn't suspect us of being able to mobilize out other branches in time, or made another big mistake with planning that operation."
That makes some smiles in front of him. Yeah.
"Blackwing?" He then asks, Tokoyami giving him a questioning look in return. "I hate it, but you're still theoretically a minor, even if your eighteenth birthday is almost upon you. We've also promised your parents that you won't take part in a lot of action, and, well, unlike Shizuoka, I don't think you can hide it from them."
"This is alright." Blackwing shrugs. "I'm confident in our strength, and even if they tell me to cut it with superheroism, I'll return to you after my legal age of adulthood."
Finding your place in life sometimes makes people rebellious.
"Alright then." Izuku sighs. "Your main target in this will be Junker, one of Overhaul's new villains, provisionally an A-Rank. He appears to be the lynchpin of the western defenses, if you exclude Dabi, and if you take him down sufficiently quickly, Chisaki will almost certainly panic enough to redeploy his reserves. As for Junker's quirk…
(***)
Later
"That's not what I expected from Midoriya's description, Fumi!" Shadow announces loudly in his mind. "This is going to be fuuuun!"
Yeah. Hearing that the enemy can 'manipulate metal' - either only the rusty one or it was just an aesthetical choice - didn't prepare him for a twelve meters scrap mecha with extraordinary amount of spikes so rusty that merely looking at them was almost enough to give Fumikage Tokoyami tetanus.
Some slightly different aesthetics and Tokoyami could imagine himself to be fighting a Warhammer 40k orc mecha. Honestly, it looked like an under-armed and more humanoid Deff Dread or Killa Kan if you squinted and…
"Fuuuumi, focus a little!" Shadow shouts.
Right.
That thing was already proving itself nigh-impervious to gunfire, Eclipse was a tiny bit too busy fighting some strength-enhancer that was moving too fast for the QSS to nail him with anything that was a dedicated anti-tank weapon (nothing less worked), and most of the QSS was busy applying suppressing fire to the few remaining villains that were clearly beginning to regret their life choices.
Junker was just being a pain in the ass, even if slow. Nagant already tried to snipe it with the Toothpick, but it somehow survived, the broken metal reforming itself back to its normal shape.
Pain in the ass, as stated. They would have to shoot the Junker himself instead of his armor, but that guy was a seventeen years old kid that made some poor life choices and was probably still thinking that Gunga Mountain complex was run by the government that just came to arrest them again, together with their metahuman lackeys.
It was also slow enough not to warrant immediate dispatch, because, yeah, it was intimidating but not that dangerous.
Wait, Tokoyami has an idea.
"Eclipse!" He shouts. He hears a grunt of acknowledgement, the villain punching through another of her shields, before dodging sideways behind the building before the QSS officers can shoot him. "I'm going to need a combo move one and three in a moment."
"Wait, wait, wait, are you s…" She glances at Junker, slowly making their way toward them. "Oh, oh, alrigh… FUCK OFF!" She yells when the villain throws a small car at her, Eclipse splitting it in half mid-flight with her surfaces, two halves of the car landing on both sides of her. "Tell me when."
"Right, right." Tokoyami has a Plan™. But he still needs some quick intel gathering. Thankfully, the nearest QSU trooper has a thermovision scope and can tell him where exactly Junker is located.
A moment later Tokoyami jumps onto Eclipse's surface, Eclipse launching him at the towering villain.
"YEEEEEEEEE!" Shadow yells excitedly, but Fumikage ignores him. He has other things to worry about.
He grabs the surface that he used for propulsion on both sides, with his quirk. Then, pulls it from under him, the initial velocity still making him fly towards the villain, before he uses the surface as a circular saw.
The Junker's mech is sliced in half a bit above the villain himself, the severed part sent flying backward (away from Junker's mecha) when Tokoyami impacts it, Shadow absorbing most of the impact in his stead.
"Wha…" Junker is looking upward, completely surprised, his mecha sliced almost in half and a menacing black figure towering over him.
"You'll thank us later." Tokoyami announces, Shadow enveloping the villain, pulling him out of his mecha while strangling him into unconsciousness a few seconds later. As the walking tetanus epidemic begins to collapse, Tokoyami jumps off it, landing on the ground and then reaching the QSS positions in a few quick jumps.
"Junker down." He announces, the unconscious villain dropping from his shadow. The nearest QSS trooper wheezes loudly. "Eclipse, I'll take it from here."
"Awesome, that guy is pissing me off!" Eclipse shouts, before taking off. A moment later Tokoyami punches the strength enhancer villain into a wall, but it's clear that the fight won't end so quickly.
(somewhere else, someone's parents are torn between pride and horror at what they just saw, Overhaul still airing the drone recording of the fight on the western bank)
(***)
"Junker down!" One of his staff members announces. "Valiant is holding ground, but one of the heroes disengaged, she seems to be heading this way!"
Why the fuck did Valiant pick a villain name so similar to Defiant (yes, it pisses Overhaul off) is beyond him.
"Looks like the only intimidating thing about Junker…" Overhaul says dryly. "... is his size." On the outside, he is calm. On the inside… it's not going very well for him, and this makes him incredibly angry.
Alright, Overhaul, think.
The attack on the eastern side doesn't seem to have a lot going off. Some of those infernal attack dogs (promptly dispatched), Singularity back with roof-jumping sharpshooting antics, some plants, what does that tell you?
No Defiant. Seeing him would have told Overhaul immediately where the enemy focus is, Midoriya always went for where the fiercest fighting was. West or East? Which one was a feint, which one wasn't?
What if neither of them were feints?
If he doesn't reinforce the west, the QSS will roll through what's left. He also doesn't know where the unidentified superhero was heading. She departed towards him, but then lost the drones, and… it could have as well been another feint.
Reinforcing the failing side comes first.
He doesn't say it openly. They are still going live. But he pulls his phone and types in the message. It displays on one of the laptops in his command center, and is immediately relayed to his reserve force.
Get ready to be warped westward. That's the message. Dictator gets the message a moment later, once again in a way that makes the cameras not pick it up. Kurogiri opens the warpgate a moment later, but…
… it's not like Defiant knows who is redeployed where, right?
(***)
Earlier
"If we confirm that the reserves were redeployed, that's when the eastern side is going to go all out." Defiant announces. "We'll go through 'what do we do if this doesn't happen' in a moment. For now, we're going with the main plan."
He puts his finger on the central one of the three groups that make up for the eastern defensive line.
"Here is Carnage." Midoriya announces. "He is supported by several minor villains and yakuza thugs, we believe." The fact that Overhaul technically broke his own agreement about 'only praetorians and villains on my side' surprises absolutely no one. "Paladin, I believe you're due for a rematch."
"Wonderful." Paladin nods. "But although I don't believe in the 'eye for an eye', religious reasons and all that, I get the feeling that someone deserves a shot at Imasuji more than I do."
Rabbit stares at Izuku with intensity that he isn't used to.
"And he'll have a shot at him." Midoriya isn't even trying to fight his younger brother on this. "We'll get into the details of the plan in a moment. For now, be aware that we're going to be ignoring the remaining two groups."
'Groups' sounded big. There were about four or five people in them, Imasuji's group bigger only thanks to the addition of some armed thugs. Which might or might not have been 'boosted' with Overhaul's quirk.
"Northern one is led by Volcano." Midoriya continues. "His quirk is powerful, but requires a long wind-up time for each blow. This leaves him vulnerable to harassment from a much more mobile enemy. When Paladin steps in, we'll redirect the skirmishers from Carnage's group to Volcano, to keep him occupied."
He isn't supposed to be fought openly. At least, not now.
"The southern group can be mostly ignored." Midoriya continues, pointing at another dot on the map. "Its S-Ranker, Necromancer, has a quirk that lets him produce a gas that changes those that inhaled it into something resembling a zombie…" Aizawa sighs painfully in the background, this isn't the first time he heard about it but even after Gunga Mountain it still comes out as bullshit. "Overhaul is probably hoping to catch some of us off-guard, due to him no longer supposed to have a gas quirk user among his lackeys, but tough luck. Just in case, everyone, keep gas masks on you and put them on when you hear a warning."
The staff at the hero agency - for now mostly borrowed from the police - was going to take care of that. Because Midoriya will certainly be way too busy. That's why they were going through the plan right now.
"The main group has Carnage assisted by Impaler, another new S-rank." Midoriya continues. "His quirk lets him manipulate and extend his teeth. Yes, it sounds weak as hell, but we didn't see it in action and Overhaul is clearly treating him like the equal of his other S-Ranks, so we're playing accordingly."
"Speaking off…" Hawks raises his hand. "What about Carmilla?"
"She'll do her best to disappear quietly before the praetorian unit engages us in combat." Midoriya replies. "You'll all be notified if she manages to do it. If not, she'll try to do that when the fight starts. I know that it's asking for a lot, but…"
"Yeah, not taking the first shot sounds like a pain when fighting against the professionals." Hawks sighs. "But if there is a friendly mixed in with them, there is no other choice here. We'll act accordingly."
Besides, they didn't have the vigilantes and underground heroes spend so much time and work on replacing one of Chisaki's bodyguards with Carmilla just for this to happen.
She even managed to fool Inquisitor's periodic loyalty checks. They tested it with Shinsou's mind-control - going into full immersion mode with the impersonated character DID allow her to answer even quirk-enforced questions like 'they' would.
(***)
Later
Hawks and the rest of the QSS (no, he refused to stay behind) are very relieved when the message comes that Carmilla managed to vanish from the enemy force. Especially as things weren't looking all that nice.
They missed some quiet exchange of signals. Blackwing punted Valiant sideways, before leaping directly into the middle of the praetorian squad.
That's what you get when one of you is a traitor and you told them to watch the flank.
He jumps back almost immediately, but the chaos he caused (he and, well, the detonations of flashbangs that were supposed to chase him off) changed the dynamic on the battlefield completely.
Hawks mentally adds Blackwing to the list of metahumans he loves working with (thus far it's Earworm, Hijack and Defiant, but to be honest they are all plenty cool), and pulls the trigger again.
(***)
Earlier
"The real problem on the bridge will be dealing with Foresight." Midoriya then announces. "For as long as he is there, all our attacks will be correctly predicted, with fifteen seconds to respond."
"Pain in the ass." Hawks admits. This might be one of the most bullshit powers he ever heard about and he would love to have it on his side. Unfortunately… "Any ideas on how to do it?" He asks their chief quirk expert.
"I had a hunch, one that Carmilla confirmed." Midoriya replies. "He sees what happens in the next fifteen seconds, yes, but not what he will see in the next fifteen seconds. His point of view remains the same. So, theoretically, if you knock him out while everyone is looking in the different direction so that he doesn't see people's surprised reactions to him being knocked-out, his quirk can be negated entirely. Especially as I do not think that he can see himself in his future vision, as with an anchored point of view merely moving your head a little to the front would make his own head limit his vision."
Defiant is scary.
"And I think that I know the best person for this." Izuku concludes. "The rest is just providing a good distraction."
(***)
Later
"Boss…" One of his staff members says.
"I can see." Overhaul cuts in. The hero riding the circular surface is there, floating menacingly at a distance. Her surface is bigger now. Beside her stands another figure.
Defiant.
He must have approached from the northwest or southwest and rendezvous with her en route.
Looks like the confrontation will happen sooner than Overhaul thought. Especially as Defiant takes off and flies towards the bridge, the other hero circling around.
"How nice of you to come, Defiant." Overhaul shouts. "So eager to join your mother?"
"How nice of you to not have escaped already." Defiant retorts dryly, floating above the bridge maybe thirty meters away from Overhaul. He knows that coming closer would start a fight. His suit has some voice amplifier to make himself audible. "So eager to join Hari Kurono?"
That bastard really wants to die.
"Good one, I'll give you that." Overhaul retorts. "Can't believe that you're smart enough to quip like this, so… who taught you all of that? Mera? Tornado?"
"Extraordinarily low blow." Defiant replies. Overhaul considers striking now, but… he will probably react in time for the trap. He has to wait until Midoriya attacks. "Still not quite as low as the average life expectancy of your goons. Anyone want to surrender? It'll make things easier for yourself."
"Ha, as if they…" Overhaul retorts loudly. That's when he hears a loud sound behind him, his eyes rushing to the…
All that he gets to see is a girl with odd facial features, wearing some greenish bodysuit, jumping off the bridge, unconscious Foresight pulled behind her with what looks like her tongue. It's the same woman that helped Defiant arrest Jetstream in the Marukane Ward.
Overhaul touches the ground. His attempt to impale the girl with his quirk is cut short. He barely has the time to redirect his quirk and impale the car that Midoriya threw at him. The girl lands at one of the other superheroes' floating surfaces and flies away.
If Overhaul saw it correctly, she flipped him the bird as she flew away.
He was angry earlier, now he is seething. Someone betrayed him, that was the only explanation of Midoriya identifying Foresight's quirk and knocking him out so quickly and completely.
"You keep being a problem to me, Defiant." Overhaul announces. "I think it's time to get rid of you." Midoriya doesn't seem to be awfully concerned with that. Then again, who knows what's happening under his mask. "Message to Carnage, I want him here, now."
"We can't find him!" One of his staff members shouts. "He was fighting Paladin and pushing him back, then he just vanished from the grid!"
What?
"I don't think…" Defiant says with something akin to delight in his voice. "... that Carnage's coming, Overhaul."
(***)
"You aren't doing all that well, Paladin!" Carnage yells, throwing another punch that sends Yoshihiro Maki at least twenty meters behind. "I must have gotten much better to be able to throw you around so much!"
He got better, yeah. Just not as much as he thinks he did.
Chancellor sends him a message that Deadshot took down the nearby drones and that they entered the JSDF signal jamming range. Of course, they made it so that only the villain comms were jammed.
The world wouldn't see what happened here. And, well, they are almost in the position. Actually, screw that, they are in position, there was a reason why Paladin was holding the ground instead of still being thrashed around.
Maki charges forward. It's a brief struggle, but a moment later he is holding both of Carnage's oversized arms under his own arms. He then headbutts the supervillain, strongly enough to break his nose.
"HAH!" Carnage yells. "It tickles!" His maniacal smile freezes when he realizes that he has problems freeing himself from the grip. Because Paladin was suddenly stronger than earlier.
He would break free in a few seconds, sure. But… It was going to be too late.
"That's for Kendou and Tetsutetsu." Paladin relays the message, as Rabbit asked him for. Carnage's eyes shot wide open, the villain attempting to pull back, realizing that he fell into a trap, but… it's not Paladin that was the trap here.
A second later a blade coming from the side decapitates Carnage, a fountain of blood spraying all around. Edge practically rams herself into a building on the opposite side of the road, her jump with Powerful buff from Rabbit being a bit too enthusiastic.
The prospect of fighting Paladin again made Carnage run too far away, his sidekicks unable to follow him fast enough. Shizuoka again, except this time there were no gunmen to make Edge fail in her attack.
"FUCK YEAH!" Edge stands up, raising her blade up. She seems to have broken her nose and probably lost at least a single tooth, but it doesn't deter her in the slightest. "TAKE THAT, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!"
Paladin sighs, letting the corpse fall to the ground. Defiant will probably end up crediting him with the kill, because Paladin got trashed around in front of the cameras while the kill happened off-screen. Popularity needs and so on, and Edge is leaning towards underground heroics.
Then again, if he arrests Impaler, he won't feel that bad about it, right?
(***)
"Warp us out." Overhaul announces dryly. Midoriya is still there, floating in the distance. The tongue girl's surface reaching the coast of the river, her disengage from combat successful.
"It doesn't work!" Dictator shouts back, sweat dripping from his forehead. Fear of further punishments was still there. "I don't know why, Kurogiri's quirk stopped working!"
Overhaul glances at Defiant. Oh, so that's why he wasn't attacking. Chisaki walked himself into an ambush. Dictator was also useless, because if the enemy knew about Foresight, they also knew about him. So no one would answer any of his questions. So, there was only one option left now.
He had to kill Defiant and escape on foot, before his defense lines in the west and east were going to collapse. Thankfully, he came prepared.
"Everyone, out of the bridge." Overhaul announces. "Take the computers. I want the world to see this fight." He has a feud to settle once and for all. The fact that he is cornered and with no other option left barely matters to him right now.
(***)
Overhaul is hemorhaging his pawns surprisingly quickly. But do not worry - practically speaking the entirety of the next chapter is about the clash between Defiant and Overhaul, because while the former took a few levels in badass ever since their first clash (can you believe that it was 85 chapters ago and that they had no face to face meeting ever since?), so did the latter.
In the meantime, the heroes are still very busy showing Overhaul that Shino Sosaki was right when she said that in the modern war, information is more important than firepower during her first meeting with the Network...