Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia
Chapter 203:
Zach sat down in his seat in Class 1 at Shiketsu High, and Kotsumura slammed his hands down on the side of his desk as Zach had just came in, ignored the silence of the classroom, and took his seat. "Dude! You… you look beat," Kotsumura Keiji stopped talking so emphatically and lowered his voice a bit. He said that in a more normal tone and rose his eyebrows up high as he noticed how tired Zach actually looked.
It's not about not sleeping last night. Just the exhaustion of having to sit in a school right now and deal with this. Zach thought it while looking up at Kotsumura and giving him a single tired nod that falsely confirmed what Kotsumura already knew was what had made him so fatigued right now. I saw what I could do as a hero last night. I can do that, right now. For a hundred different cases. I don't have those kind of resources though. Not on my own. Not without everyone thinking it's an emergency, to be able to get away with that. I know I'm not actually going to get away with it anyway. I'll have a few more minutes though.
"What were you doing last night?" Dendo questioned.
Zach turned his head and looked back at the dark-green haired teen who stepped forward and stared at his classmate he needed an explanation from.
"Yeah, I heard you were in Korea," Imino started from his seat. "And Egypt?" he added, raising his eyebrows to see if that was true too.
"I heard about that plane malfunctioning mid-flight," Zach started. He let out a yawn and stretched his hands up over his head, returning his expression more to normal and trying to wipe whatever exhausted look he had off his face. "And I went to help out. It wasn't as much as the news made it out to be-" Zach got interrupted by the blonde girl two rows to his right who snapped over at him midway through that sentence.
"Don't humble brag. It's gross," Reika retorted at how he was trying to play this.
"It really wasn't though. I just brought back the two I was able to, while I failed at saving nearly a dozen others," Zach said. He frowned more at Reika who heard in that tone that he thought of those failures more than he was thinking about the two he saved, in which she understood why he would not want to be getting praised here. She still humphed and looked away though. Don't get pissed your Quirk's good enough you can just fly off and help out wherever. People'd kill for that kind of power.
"Was the villain really strong?" Satoshi wondered. Others looked towards him, and he continued to Zach while leaning out of his seat and looking over interestedly, "I watched this clip from an Egyptian news station that channel 6 put on, where these witnesses close-by say they heard this like, demonic roar from the motel room where the villain was caught!" Zach started slowly nodding his head, and Satoshi said with wide eyes and his thin vertical irises thinning even more in shock at the sight of that nod. "Well you were the one who got him right? They didn't show him on the news I was watching, but was he like-"
"I bet the one who roared like that was you, wasn't it?" Reika asked, looking over and then calling Zach out on the way he was looking back at Satoshi.
"Got me," Zach replied, and Satoshi's smile wiped with his jaw dropping hard at the sound of that. "Didn't want him reacting at all. No fight or flight, since his flight mechanism could've teleported him across the world. When people are that scared sometimes they just forget how to react. Even their instincts are thrown off," Zach explained like it was reasonable for him to do what he did. I just did what, came naturally. Scaring villains. It's second nature at this point. "Death works out well for that. Made him shit himself," the right corner of Zach's lips rose up and the room fell completely silent. Even Himazuri who had heard a crazy thought like that before in his head stared towards him frozen at that statement. No one? Oh that sucks. Wish I hadn't said that.
"He'd just murdered a little kid," Zach muttered, his lips flattening out and his shoulders slouching. And me, twice. And Ayumi. I deserve it. They were innocents. What? I can't feel good about stopping villains anymore? It's the only fucking thing I still feel good about doing. Whatever. None of them know. Bringing back the dead. Being in a situation where the world could've been fucked but I stopped it! And yet it just comes out that I helped catch a villain who killed a couple of people and grounded some planes. No one knows how high the stakes were. No one ever knows! How far I see things happening in the future. I saw what Doorway Boy could've done to this world with his Quirk. Had he been a little smarter. Planned a bit better. He had plans to carry out more attacks too, I'm sure. Now he'll be in jail forever, and they'll never let him near a door again. Stupid fucking villain.
"Y-Yeah," Kotsumura agreed after a couple seconds. "Damn, you made him crap his pants though? That's uh," Kotsumura scratched the back of his head. He grimaced as he glanced around for some help on how to finish this, only to see uneasy expressions across most of his classmates or just ones pitying Zach for his exhaustion and darkness here. "It's cool you caught him though."
"Kotsumura, you should sit down," Muoko said over to the blond boy standing next to Zach's desk.
"What?" Kotsumura started, getting defensive as he looked towards the class rep. "It was. He just-"
Hazano Worrod walked into the classroom and he frowned towards a standing and talking Kotsumura who did not notice that class was about to start. Muoko sweatdropped at her classmate's stunned expression when she had just tried to warn him, and Kotsumura quickly took his seat with a bow of his head to avoid their homeroom teacher's gaze.
Satoshi held back a snicker he would not usually be able to keep back, still thinking too much on the clip he had seen earlier. The witness statements he heard in Egypt that morning after he woke up had made him all the more amazed by Zach who had managed to go there and beat his enemies. Zach's the one who scared all those people. Sure the villain was there, but those people were saying they were so glad Lifebringer had shown up because whatever they heard up in that motel was so horrifying. Wait- Did he roar like that, in order to scare people away from the crime scene in case it became dangerous?! If he doesn't speak their language, he'd have to find a different way to communicate that to them! And he just feels bad for it, which is why he's not trying to come up with excuses for us. Satoshi bowed his head and then shook it in amazement, What a guy.
I've got no home. Everyone in Japan's seen me in some dark state looking like my old self again. I came back here to try and show them I was over that! Most of Class A won't even talk to me, and the others know I'm an even bigger mass murderer than before. Zach stared towards Hazano and was just waiting on what he knew was about to come. Eziano's killing people around me. Norita got murdered because of me! Midoriya's against everything I do, which means everything I do must be wrong. Momo knows I lied to her. Straight to her face. And now we don't even talk- we haven't for a while now.
And who appreciates what I did last night? Zach thought it with his expression getting darker for a moment and then returning back to normal as he did not want Hazano thinking the glare was meant for him. I got angry texts all morning from people telling me not to overstep, warnings, and people saying how what I did was "cool." No one thanked me. Zach grimaced hard and he turned his head and looked out the windows with his expression getting darker. It wasn't about being thanked though. That's never been what it's about. I-I don't care about that, because none of them did and I'm still, fighting for what they believed. Our shared beliefs…
"Sazaki."
Zach nodded at Hazano and put his hands down on his desk. He got up before Hazano even started telling him what he needed to say, making the teacher frown though he just finished anyway as Zach started forward on his own…
"What were you thinking? You had no legal right to be out there. Did you even question for a second if what you were doing was justified by your provisional hero license?" Memuria scolded the eighteen year old standing before her who had his hands down together behind his back so his elbows were pointed out at his sides. "Did you?" She asked again, as this was not just a scolding but she was actually asking if he thought about it.
"I thought it was an emergency. And that I was close enough-"
"That excuse does not work for everything," Memuria snapped at her student she felt was getting snarky with her to bring up that camera-ready excuse. "You broke the rules, plain and simple. Or you stretched them at the least," she continued with a harsher look at the boy whose expression did not waver when she told him how he broke them. "Doing whatever you want. It's unacceptable."
"I was re-allowed to leave the country for emergencies," Zach said of the permission the Prime Minister's office made public the day before. "I felt it was acceptable to go help, and because I was allowed to, I should."
Memuria shook her head at her student but took in a deep breath to calm herself too before speaking. "Reviving those few you were able to from the plane crash constituted an emergency," she snapped. "Joining the Korean heroes on a manhunt, traveling to Egypt, and taking down a villain there does not!"
"No one's complained," Zach argued back, keeping respectful and staring straight into her eyes as he said it from the other side of her desk. "Have they?" He wondered. "Has the Egyptian government complained about me ignoring their border and stopping that villain?"
"It doesn't matter if they do or don't," Memuria retorted right back in a harsher tone, standing up from her seat and glaring at the insubordinate student before her. "Or if our own government doesn't, because I have my own rules and hero code. I understand the laws surrounding provisional licenses well, as I need to as the principal of such an institution as Shiketsu High. I have argued on the sides of my students for decades when they have overstepped during internships and been confronted by the law and heroes afterwards. Not one of them has ever overstepped like you have though, and with such arrogance that you do not even consider you may face consequences."
"I understand that I could face consequences," Zach replied. He said it firmly and then added while staring straight into his principal's eyes, "But with his Quirk he could have opened another plane door at any time and killed a lot more people. I was able to get there first, so I got there first. Had it been anyone else, had anyone else shown up a second later than I did, he could have escaped and killed more people." Zach paused and then continued to the older hero, "I considered the entire course of events from my arrival on the scene of the crash to when Jason Lee was put in custody as all part of the emergency situation. Reviving the dead, working with heroes on the scene, and capturing the villain who caused the crash were not different incidents in my mind. They were one incident that I responded to due to my understanding that it was an emergency, and that I remained at until I was certain that it had been resolved and that everyone was safe."
Memuria frowned darkly at her student who stared back at the older woman with light purple hair nearly turning gray and looking whiter after this frustrating argument. She sighed and leaned back behind her desk where she was standing, then she shook her head and continued to the student, "You say that you 'remained' there until it was settled, but you flew to Egypt in order to finish it. You could have left that to anyone else. Someone closer."
"No one was closer, based on the definition that I have given and has been accepted previous," Zach countered without flinching and still in his same posture as when he stopped in front of Memuria's desk. It was just the two of them in the office, and Zach finally loosened his expression from the serious and defensive one he was giving. He just shook his head back at Memuria in the same softer and even condescending way she had just shaken it at him. "I was able to get there first, and I was able to stop that villain before he teleported away. I was twenty minutes from his location, and had anyone else arrived in thirty minutes he may have taken down another plane in that ten minute span." Zach shook his head at the principal and finished to her in a semi-frustrated way of his own, "It's not that I don't understand there may be consequences to these choices I make." Her eyes widened as Zach finished at her, "I just understand that there were worse consequences to not making those choices."
Memuria stared back at the boy in front of her who sounded like he was frustrated himself, and even angry that he had to make that choice. You don't have to make the choice though. No one expects you to. We don't even, want you to. She sat back down in her chair behind her desk. But to you, even if no one else expected you to, you'd still know that you could have been there first if anyone else got there late and people died. Not one person would blame you for not making that choice to go after him yourself, because none of us see it as a choice at all. I saw you as an immature student who overstepped because he wanted to. You just did, what you knew would haunt you the least though. Every hero's made hard choices in their lives. Those choices are where the gray lies. Yet, you've made more of those choices than anyone else. If I look back on all you've done and consider what you did as you making the same choice you made last night…
The principal looks to respect me now. That's a plus. I know everyone in my class is scared of me though. Losing the faith they had gained in me after months together. Why can't I just be the person I was after I came back? The longer I'm here, the harder it's getting to pull off Zach Sazaki- That's not even a thing anymore. I'm not acting like anyone. I was just a version of Zach who pretended to be more cheerful and upbeat and a helpful teacher to my fellow heroes, and because I had to convince myself of my act I had actually become him. And now I'm a version who knows the true reality again, yet I have to pretend without believing- I don't even know what I'm trying to hold onto here. Fuck. Eziano. Raijin. Shigaraki. Fuck these villains. Fuck All For One. I'm so fucking tired of this. And as much Death as I expelled this morning I feel like I was feeling before Broom Man.
I feel like I need to expel Death and yet just that isn't enough. Filling my whole body with it worked for a while at keeping back these tendencies, because I was using so much all the time. I'm losing it though. There's just so much in there. Bubbling inside. And it's turning me darker. I already knew when Midoriya forced all that out of me. When I changed my mind on fighting him. But, I really think it's my own damn fault. I'm not even trying anymore. Not hard enough, at least. It was a full time job keeping it up all day every day. Not sleeping is just making it worse too. But where the hell am I supposed to sleep that'll be safe? Where couldn't I be tracked? Forests. Under a bridge maybe. I'll find a nice spot before I finally sleep tonight, for the first time in days.
"Underguard."
"Bikergang," Rubbergirl greeted the other hero back with a nod of her head. Her voice came out as her own, and Bikergang's eyes widened for a moment before he nodded at the girl before him and just continued on as if speaking to Underguard himself. "How are preparations going?" Bikergang wondered while in the lobby of a different hero's agency. There were no cameras in the lobby, just as neither of their own agencies had cameras anymore in certain rooms too, as of the day before. The meeting place they were in had some traffic in it, as they were at one of the largest hero agencies in the country in its Kyoto headquarters. Local Kyoto sidekicks working for Ryukyu or on their own but in close coordination with her had offices on other floors in the building, and support staff, sidekicks, and police officers were busy enough that the lobby stayed crowded.
It was crowded enough even, that two heroes just meeting up on the first floor and talking did not draw all that much attention. Only those who recognized the two heroes normally operating up in Hokkaido thought twice about it, but they were all poised enough to ignore them and move on with their own assignments. They knew better than to ask what they were doing there, as it was none of their business, and it would make them look as suspicious as could be in a time like this. Bikergang continued to act as if he was speaking to Underguard who replied in a voice quiet enough and intentionally deeper after she informed him with her statement of his name that it was her and not her pro.
The girl in a green coat had her shoulders spread broad and her back straightened out, and her face was covered in the black mask and goggles that Underguard wore normally anyway so she did not have to use her Quirk much there. The girl had her hood up and spoke to the man in front of her from under it, "Didn't see anyone suspicious following me. Notice anything?"
"Did some detours on my motorcycle as if patrolling randomly. Would have shaken any followers," Bikergang replied. After hearing Rubbergirl's voice he had continued to look at Underguard in a casual but serious way, while he kept from letting it show that he was simultaneously scanning the room and keeping an eye on the fifteen people in the lobby at the moment. It may turn out over and over to be nothing there. Nothing we'll spend so much time avoiding. And yet the precautions are necessary, Bikergang thought while Underguard gave him a single nod showing he thought Bikergang was right in probably shaking anyone who could have been following him.
Raijin knew of Operation Atem beforehand. He led the heroes into a trap. It was common knowledge to heroes like Rubbergirl, even if it had been kept off the news as the authorities kept it amongst themselves and stayed quiet about it. People think Raijin's just that good. That he saw them coming or hacked computers on his own, and he let the rest of his people fall into a trap because he wanted to videotape himself. They think he's just insane and crazy powerful too… Which are both true. But it's not "just" those things. Someone leaked. Someone had to.
As terrible an idea it was that someone on their side had betrayed them, it was a more reassuring reason for their failure than the other option. If Raijin really had just beaten them completely with his own power, just outmaneuvering some of their best heroes and slaughtering them on his own, it would be hard for even some battle-hardened heroes with years of experience to feel any kind of confidence about going up against him and the League. Bikergang and Rubbergirl both rather thought that it was one of their own, even though the news seemed to be in consensus otherwise and that it was Raijin alone who managed that win.
He couldn't have killed them all without any help. I refuse to believe it… Yet I know it's better to let the news keep reporting it this way. Probably why so many of us are installing all these new security measures without giving clear reasons for why it's happening. Keeping it quiet. People need to trust us right now. Rubbergirl frowned darkly behind the black metal mask covering the bottom half of her face. Raijin was the best spy though, and he knows the value of a well-placed spy better than anyone because of the value he had. Yet it could have been anyone. One of those 38 heroes' staff or family who knew about the raid. We keep things close to the chest as heroes, but unless one of those 38 is still alive and disappeared with the villains as the actual spy, we've got a rat hiding high up in the ranks. Other top heroes. A higher up official privy to the innermost dealings of our government. How many of the top hero officials knew? They must have worked with Best Jeanist on coordinating the mission and figuring out who to bring along. Police officers nearby who worked with the heroes too or just people in that town who may have given the tip… in the first place… And there's the problem.
We assume it's a spy when it could have been any of the people of that village, Rubbergirl thought. Someone there who called the heroes and let them know where the villains were hiding, because Raijin wanted that to happen. They may have even been an unknowing spy. Whether they assisted in his plans voluntarily or not though, if it's just some random civilian who lived in that village then he's hit us even harder now because of all these precautions we're taking. Extra time we waste being safe, just in case. And it could all just be paranoia based on a spy we don't know even exists!
Rubbergirl's pocket buzzed, and she looked to her side at Bikergang who had checked his phone quietly for a few seconds there. "Let's head up," she said in a deep voice trying to mimic Underguard's. She tried to focus inwards on her vocal cords that she stretched longer to male lengths to deepen her voice, "Each team leader's here now."
Last one to arrive then, Bikergang thought, though he just nodded with Underguard as they headed onto the elevator without anyone stopping them. The two of them were in hero costume, after all, so everyone on the first floor just assumed they knew where they were going.
The elevator doors closed on the first floor and an officer walking with two others towards the front of the lobby turned his head partially to look back. The officer had red skin and small tan spikes sticking out every few inches in every direction all over his body. His blue uniform covered up most of him but his face, neck, and hands all had equal distribution of his odd spikes. The man walked behind the other two officers out the exit of the building, but he mentioned to the two heading towards their patrol car, "One second. I have a call."
He lifted his phone as if he had just picked up, walking the other way on the sidewalk a few steps while the other officers got into the car to wait. He had actually just called out though when he put his phone in his pocket, doing so with the press of one button. The man in perfect disguise of Runudo Inezzi, a run-of-the-mill police officer of Kyoto, spoke into his phone while keeping his usual expression that Edward Murray had seen would work with his colleagues after he tracked Runodo's every move for a week straight. "Underguard and Bikergang are meeting with Ryukyu and other heroes for a large joint operation. The fact that they're doing so much to hide their activities suggests big action."
Murray nodded his head, "Uh huh. Yeah. I got it. I'll see if I can't figure that out. Alright." Runodo tapped the End Call option with his left index finger, then he turned and held up his phone once with an apologetic wave of it before he put it down in his pocket. He showed he was hurrying up towards the back of the cop car he had to ride in as three of them had been required to transport a villain from a local station's holding cell to the agency. The officer sped-walked back and slid into the car, rubbing his hands together for a second and then groaning and mentioning his wife being on his case. "…It's been all week with her. 'You're not as romantic as you used to be.' 'Why don't you do the dishes?'"
"Hate when my old lady gets on my case like that," the driver joked back, getting an annoyed roll of the eyes from the female cop on his side.
Though her complaints are just her natural reactions. She says those things and gets frustrated on the surface for small things that she let her husband get away with, Murray thought while leaning back in the back seat and raising his eyebrows at his partners' argument that just started up. Because deep inside she knows something is seriously wrong with him. Like he's an entirely different person. A stranger in her house, and in her bed, and she's terrified without even knowing why.
Human instincts are quite interesting. Any more suspicious and I'll have to have her go on a vacation. Shouldn't be hard finding her prize tickets for a getaway solely for women. She'll take her sister. What a romantic gesture that would be. Murray felt like smirking, but Runodo Inezzi rarely smiled on the job as it so happened, so his expression stayed stoic.
On the elevator inside Ryukyu's Kyoto agency, Rubbergirl removed the mask she did not need like her pro and she shook her hair out from under the green hood she had up. She took off the wig of short blond men's hair and let her longer blonde hair fall out over her shoulders though most stayed behind her head falling down into her coat. Rubbergirl kept her hood up and her goggles on while her body thinned up and her face vibrated with a shake of her head that got it looking more feminine again. Her jaw structure changed back to normal and she let out a heavy breath as the insides of her neck stopped stretching too.
The elevator opened with a ding and the two heroes stepped out into an office no busier than the one on any other floor. Ryukyu did not operate often out of Kyoto, so even though the building was known under her name, that was more as a deterrent for villains than anything. Her own staff had fewer people at the Kyoto HQ than many of the other heroes who spent full-time at this Kyoto agency, (which for most of them was their only agency).
Ryukyu was looking towards some empty space in her top floor though with a frown as the two who got off the elevator headed across the building towards her office. She stood at the door to her private office and looked around the much wider area of her floor at open spaces that desks could be put in. I was hoping I'd be bumped off the top ten, Ryukyu thought. She had on her costume which consisted of a traditional Chinese qipao dress, dragon wings sticking off her temples, white sleeves, black boots, and a set of fake dragon claws over the right side of her face and sticking up over the top of her head. But instead it's looking like I'll need to pick up my slack. I'll start recruiting more staff for each agency over the next week. I'll pick up a lot of new sidekicks soon as graduation hits too. Get as many out of this graduating class no matter where they are in the country, whatever hero school it is. This year's promising across the board. All the other recruits have been trying to keep up with Class A for three years. I'm looking forward to getting some of them.
It's not a chore. It's a responsibility, Ryukyu shook her head at some of her reluctant ways of arguing her need for more people with herself. I'll blame it on Hawks. Done too many operations with him lately. He won't even go for getting the new arm that Virtucorp offered him. Too much of a "hassle" he said last time we talked. I told him how Roady was doing with his too, but he wouldn't go for it. Hope it doesn't affect his reliability… It hasn't for years now. He'll be fine tomorrow.
"Ryukyu."
"Ryukyu," Rubbergirl said after Bikergang who she let walk first into the office.
Ryukyu nodded at the girl behind Bikergang to show she could come in too. Then she looked over towards a desk that Popfire was leaning on the side of, and Popfire turned her way then back at the man behind it who frowned but motioned her away with his head for her to go to the office. Roady had made eye contact with Bikergang as his former pro walked across the room too, but he could tell from the mood in the office that it was not the time to get up and exchange greetings with his friend.
Popfire entered the room last and closed the office behind her. The blinds were dropped over her office's windows, then they were tilted to block off the inside of the office from view of those outside it. Roady rolled his eyes as that happened, and he just looked back at his computer, We all saw everyone who went in there. Might as well let us in on it now, instead of right before whatever we're doing. Bet I'm only on the "need to know" list right now. If I show what I can do with this new leg though… Ryukyu'll still prefer Popfire. Prefers her to everyone, though it's hard not to. Roady smirked at the thought that pushed aside his own annoyance as he remembered how lucky he was instead.
In the office, the sidekicks gathered were Popfire, Rubbergirl, Olympia, and FlyGuy. FlyGuy had attempted to work on his own for a while after SkyLord died, but his recent work had been through another's agency though publicly he was not a sidekick of Hawks. Olympia had been Endeavor's go-to for foreign missions and ADTF work for over a year now too, which meant her activity inside of Japan had been lacking for a long time, long enough that without much disguise she had been able to arrive under the guise of a reporter with an appointment with Ryukyu. That was still only just for show, as the receptionist in the lobby who sent her up knew who she was as Ryukyu informed her beforehand.
Neither Olympia nor FlyGuy's pros were there. Too much was going on lately for the number 1 and number 2 hero to meet up like this. Underguard, Bikergang, and Ryukyu were all there though, taking the time out before the raid began as sub-leaders of the mission and not just as precautions as Endeavor and Hawks would be. The two who would draw the most attention were going to be on standby, just as Best Jeanist had personally put Miruko on standby for a different operation a few days before. The goal was not to have to bring them into the raid though, as Endeavor and Hawks had already been showing up strongly over the last two days with ridiculously high response rates to meet the surge of small crime that happened since Operation Atem.
The organizer of the raid and the pro in the room with the second most sidekicks of the group after Ryukyu greeted all the others who had come. Presto Change-o stood just over six feet tall so he was two inches taller than Bikergang and taller than Underguard as well. He wore a black vest with two buttons done over a white long-sleeved shirt that the sleeves were rolled up on. He wore white gloves that went halfway up his forearms, black boots that shone at the bottom of his bright red pants, and he had a white top hat over his head with a red lining on the rim. On his white belt there was a black wand with a white tip at the end, as well as a radio on the other side next to where he kept cuffs and zip-ties. Inside his black vest were some pouches with additional hero tools such as a container with smoke pellets, and a handkerchief tied to two dozen others but condensed in a tiny black tube.
"We have acquired a warrant," Presto Change-o informed everyone. "The leader of the Jazz's various gangs in the Yamagata prefecture, Miss Management, is confirmed to be on premises and to our understanding she will be there to personally receive a large shipment of domestically-made support weapons tomorrow at noon."
"And we're sure about moving in on her?" Underguard wondered. His voice came out deep through the black mask over his face that had tubes sticking out of the sides going around his head under his green hood. He had gone up in disguise earlier himself as it would seem strange to people to see Underguard enter the building twice, and Rubbergirl had been impersonating him for an hour while he was already here with Ryukyu and Presto Change-o. He had arrived earlier than Bikergang despite both of them operating mainly in Hokkaido, and he wondered to the man who made this plan that he had examined closely for himself over the past two days, "She will meet with Duke Dread after this. The shipment will most likely get to him."
"We can't take the risk of losing it," Ryukyu denied with a shake of her head at Underguard. Now one of the top six heroes in the nation, by default, even if the new rankings had not been released, her word was law in these sort of situations. She explained anyway to her fellow hero, "The Jazz are too large to assume Duke Dread will meet with her any time soon. We know where the weapons will be, that there will be a large number of villains there for us to capture-"
"And it will be shortly after the failed Operation Atem," Presto Change-o finished. Others all looked to him and gained more intense looks with some appearing darker as they frowned at him. He continued though, "The people need a big win right now. Something to look towards and see that the rest of us are capable. We'll show the villains and our citizens all their heroes' efforts, but we cannot forego safety either and will have Hawks and Endeavor on standby to show up if needed." He looked to FlyGuy and Olympia and said sternly, "But only if necessary. We have already seen what the top two heroes can do in these past days, but our people still fear as they know two men cannot stop the villains alone. They need to see the rest of us do our part. Remind them that their heroes are stronger than villains."
Ryukyu nodded her head in agreement. Popfire glanced at her pro and frowned, even if she agreed on the overarching issue Presto Change-o mentioned. They believe in you too, Ryukyu.
"It has to be a perfect victory," Underguard said in a low voice, nodding in agreement with Presto Change-o at what importance they were putting on this mission. He would rather get the bigger fish of Duke Dread, but there were other ways to make this into a bigger victory, ways that he knew other heroes were better at seeing than him.
"It will be," Bikergang said, his voice positive and optimistic as he nodded at his colleagues. "A big win."
"A perfect win," Presto Change-o continued with a nod in agreement at Bikergang and a smile of his own. His look got a bit more serious too, and he added, "You're bringing Jelloman, correct?"
Bikergang nodded his head, a more intense look forming on his face too. "And Herobro," he added to the taller hero who nodded as Bikergang knew what he was asking.
"Good. That's important," Presto Change-o said. "Fantasma was not the only one in her graduating class. Those two, and my own intern, are keys to this being as much a victory for stopping these villains as it is reassuring the public."
"And after it's over," Underguard continued. "We find that weapons' production lab. Offer deals to the villains who transport the weapons, as soon as the raid is over. Before they can pack up and leave."
"Do the same with the Jazz we won't be tracking back. Hopefully one turns on Duke Dread," Bikergang added, as their main goals were not necessarily blocking their ability to do other things.
"They may have moved the Jazz off the most wanted," Ryukyu continued. "But people still consider them some of the most dangerous in the country. With them out of the way, Japanese civilians will believe that we can focus our full efforts on the League of Villains and the Radians."
"And that's as important as anything else," Presto Change-o finished. "Now, let us begin preparations for the assault…"
A/N Short chapter this time! Wanted to get it out yesterday, but my sleep schedule got messed up and was a bit scattered through the day. I had this one finished though, finished the one after it, and have started the one after that. So hopefully the next chapter's out tomorrow (today since it's 1 A.M. now). Feeling tired so no responses, but I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and leave me a review below telling me what you think. Thanks for reading! ...And, I got to admit this now because apparently I suck at math, but I have no idea how many chapters are left in this story. I don't know why I kept giving you guys countdowns like I knew... seems a bit foolish in hindsight, as I kept coming up with moreee! XD Anyway, yeah don't think I'm rushing to finish or that I'll drag it out. The story's got a good bit to go though, so hope y'all are looking forward to it!