"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!" Rikugun-Chūjō Musashi roared out, his fury palpable.
"We don't know sir, so far as we are aware there is no one among their forces who has a lightning quirk that strong." Replied the aide.
"WELL APPARENTLY THEY DO AND WE JUST LOST 3 HELICOPTERS BECAUSE OF IT! I WANT ANSWERS AND I WANTED THEM YESTERDAY! SO GET TO IT!" He roared again, sending the aide scurrying.
With the berating out of the way, he sat down on a chair and massaged his temples. As he did he overlooked the map of Deika City that had been laid out on the table.
"What about the rest of the drop points?" He asked the room at large, already recalculating strategies and battle statistics in his head now that an unknown player had shown their hand.
"They report similar problems, but we were expecting some ground to air attacks and they landed safely. They don't have any advanced weaponry, just people with quirks launching attacks into the sky and some RPG rounds. So far we've secured half the drop sites, but none of them have reported any civilians in need of aid." Said Rikugun-Shōsa Yamamoto, looking down at a list of reports.
"Not even at the hospital?" Asked Musashi.
"Not even there, if they are keeping civilians somewhere, it must be deeper in the city," Replied Yamamoto.
There was silence as Musashi just sat and stared at the map, his brow furrowed in thought.
"Tell the teams to continue keeping an eye out, but let me know if they report finding no more civilians by the time the next check-in point rolls around. Then I want another airstrike prepared to launch on my order." Musashi finally said, standing and starting to leave the room.
"Another airstrike? Sir, it was difficult and expensive enough to get approval for even one. I don't think the higher-ups would approve of a second." Asked Yamamoto.
"I just want it on stand-by for now. Odds are we won't need it, but I like having insurance; don't worry about the bureaucrats, Daigensui-Rikugun-Taishō Shonroku told me he'd ensure I have access to any resources I need to put these terrorists down. We can't let such dangerous elements be left alone, they will only grow stronger and attract more people to their cause." Said Musashi as he left the command room.
The condensed ball of concrete smashed through the window and embedded itself into the opposite wall. Izuku responded by sending a small spray of bullets towards the assailant. The Meta-Liberation Army terrorist tried to duck back behind the wall he had been using as cover but took two bullets to the arm. Izuku waited, rifle trained on the area using the window sill to steady his aim, but the villain didn't reappear. He released his breath, taking several deep breaths. As he tried to catch his breath he felt as if something was terribly wrong, he didn't think, just acted and he dove to the side as a second later the entire wall was blown apart. He waited for a second, then crawled to the edge scanning the area. He saw a target reloading an RPG, and gunned him down. Not giving it a second thought, he crawled backward and then exited the now ruined room.
He went down the hallway, ignoring the sound of gunfire coming from other nearby rooms, as he was relocating he heard new orders come over the radio and changed direction. He ducked into another room slid next to the two others crouched under the window. He just hoped this room wouldn't be shelled by RPG rounds. RPGs were relatively easy to obtain and required minimal training, so the MLA had been using them frequently, shelling the hospital several times now. That wasn't the main problem though, the main issue was that damned villain Geten that kept chucking massive slabs of ice into the hospital. Their backup had been delayed by an ambush and at this rate, the entire hospital was going to be ripped apart by the bastard.
"AHMYA!" he yelled over the gunfire and explosions. "COMMAND WANTS US TO PULL BACK DEEPER INTO THE HOSPITAL, THE ICE AND RPGs ARE BECOMING TOO DANGEROUS!"
Ahmya glanced over at him, nodded, and started to move away from the window with him. The third person was one of Ahmya's squadmates and he gave them some covering fire as he backed away from the window. Izuku and Ahmya got into the hallway when there was an explosion and they were thrown to the ground. They got up, coughing, and looked back to see that several rooms and walls had been crushed by a giant boulder of ice. The only part of Ahmya's squadmate that they could see was a bloody arm sticking out from under a massive pile of rubble.
Izuku grabbed Ahmya by the arm and pulled her along, it was clear that he was dead and that the villains would be taking the initiative in their siege. They got to the rendevous point and finally allowed themselves some breathing room. They collapsed on the floor, taking sips of water as they tried to recover. After another few minutes, one of the senior QSU squad leaders stepped forward.
"The enemy has breached our outer defenses, they haven't managed to get inside since the entrance was collapsed on our retreat but once that Ice guy gets working on it, it won't last long. Using that time, everyone is going to split up into groups and start laying whatever traps they can. Claymores, grenade tripwires, anything, and everything. We just have to buy enough time for reinforcement to get here, which should be in about thirty minutes. Do not engage the enemy until you receive orders or if your retreat is cut off, just survive and make them work for every inch they take." He said looking over them all.
Izuku glanced around as well, out of the sixty that had arrived, they had been whittled down to just twenty-five. Most of them had died to the surprise attack launched by the ice villain Geten. He must have been preparing it for a while since he had collapsed and an entire half of the hospital in his initial attack, and he hadn't unleashed an attack of such caliber since. Izuku was the last member of his squad, and Ahmya had just lost her third member reducing her total count to just three.
Izuku opted to stick with Ahmya's group as they went along corridors, trying to do what they could. They made hastily erected barricades, laid a couple of claymores, set up near-invisible trip wires linked to grenades, made fake traps, and even more barricades. They had just finished making the last barricade when they heard the sound of the hospital entrance being blown apart. They looked at each other and started rearranging the barricade to let them shoot from it. No sooner had they finished their task when they heard one of their claymores go off.
Screams echoed towards them, followed by silence. The group took up a position at the barricade, weapons trained at the end of the corridor. Izukui chose a gap along the floor as his spot and settled in. As the minutes ticked by, they heard both their own traps and the traps of other groups go off in the distance. Then the gunfire broke out and they knew contact had been made.
Izuku felt himself break out in a cold sweat, the lack of anything happening on their end was getting to him. He felt fidgety, he started breathing out of his mouth, and his rifle swayed a little bit. He could feel the steadily mounting tension and the fear as well. They hadn't gone so long without something happening, they hadn't had the time to really process everything. But the prolonged period of inactivity had allowed their thoughts to wander.
They were all snapped out of their thoughts when they heard footsteps down the hallway. The tension ratcheted up another notch, but the fear vanished as a steady sense of focus and purpose stole over them. Their weapons steadied, their breathing evened out, and then finally they saw the group round the corner.
"Let them get down the corridor some first, open on my mark" whispered Ahmya.
No one responded verbally, they just waited as they all silently counted, waiting for the signal.
Right as Izuku got to eight in his mental count he realized with a rush of adrenaline who was in the middle of the pack ahead of them. Wearing a thick winter coat and only the goggles visible beneath the fur-lined hood, Geten rose a single arm toward the barricade.
There wasn't time to think. Izuku reacted automatically, he reached over and pulled Ahmya to the ground who was standing above him. She let out a shriek as she was caught off guard and pulled to the ground. Then a giant spear of ice smashed into the barricade, annihilating it and the others who had been standing. The giant shard of ice went flying down the corridor, obliterating everything from the waist up. Blood and viscera went everywhere, spattering the corridor. Izuku felt blood and debris spatter along his back and saw it spatter the front of Ahmya.
Izuku reached to his waist and withdrew a smoke grenade and pulled the pin, rolling down the corridor. There was a brief explosion and smoke started to fill the corridor, and then Izuku was getting up from his prone position. He grabbed Ahmya by the arm and pulled her to her feet, then they ran as fast as they could up the corridor and around the nearby corridor, moments after they turned the corner, another slab of ice smashed through the wall at the end of the corridor. Fortunately, the second ice shard caused a blockage at the corner, which would buy them time to retreat.
As they ran, Izuku sent a message to their immediate superior to inform him of Geten's appearance.
"Understood, don't attempt to engage Geten if at all possible. Just pull back and try to leave as many blockages behind you as possible, try to slow them down as best you can, hero reinforcements are only a block or two away." said their superior.
Izuku didn't bother to respond, the two of them just sprinted down the corridor. On the way, Izuku spotted a bench in the corridor. He stopped next to it and pulled a wad of semtex out of his pocket. He un-wrapped it, attached the remote detonator, and then stuck it underneath the bench. The only reason they hadn't used it earlier was that the original plan had been to use it at the barricade they had been at moments earlier. With the semtex placed they resumed their run down the corridor. They got to the far end where it split off into a T-intersection and once there, he and Ahmya took up positions at opposite corners with their rifles trained at the end of the hallway. They didn't have to wait long.
Moments after they had leveled their rifles, the group came round the corner. They opened fire immediately and killed two of them, the rest diving back behind the corridor. They exchanged fire for a few moments, neither side hitting the other. Then Geten came round the corner, a massive ice barrier in front of him. The bullets bounced harmlessly off of the barrier as Geten casually walked down the corridor. As he walked he would fire massive shards of ice from the barrier towards them. They had to duck back behind the corners when he did this, the massive shards tearing ever-larger chunks out of the wall. Suddenly they heard a popping noise and they saw the walls along the corridor explode and ice poured out like water. The water veins in the walls gave him more ice to manipulate and he sent a massive torrent of ice down the corridor. They had dived away from the corners as it surged around the corners trying to freeze them in place. Since Geten couldn't see around the corners it was a clumsy attack but the sheer scale made up for it. Izuku got up and jumped atop the icy floor and pulled himself to the corner, pulling out the detonator as he did so.
He checked the corridor and saw that Geten had already passed the now broken bench, but not by much. Before Geten could send a shard of ice towards him he hit the button. The middle of the corridor exploded, sending Geten, ice, and debris flying. The resulting smoke made it difficult to see anything, but after a few seconds, they heard a groan and a figure stir on the floor. Izuku looked over to Ahmya, and saw she was pulling the pin on a grenade, their last one more than likely. Ahmya tossed the grenade down the corridor next to Geten and then they both ducked back behind the corners as the grenade exploded and shrapnel went flying down the corridor. They waited a few more seconds, then poked their heads around the corners again. They saw a thoroughly mangled corpse splayed against the wall, the front of the body had been blown to pieces and it was impossible to tell if it was Geten or not.
They didn't have time to marvel at their success for long however as they almost got blasted by some kind of beam of grey energy from the other end of the corridor. They returned fire but they didn't hit anyone. Another squad of enemy units had come to reinforce Geten, and they were severely outnumbered. Low on ammo, and basically everything else, Izuku dropped the last smoke grenade they had. They started to retreat up the corridor, blindly spraying back down the corridor to keep the enemy pinned down until they were safely away.
They retreated up the building toward the helipad, having heard a report saying that reinforcements had finally arrived and that a few heroes had dropped in from the helipad area. As they burst into the open air, they nearly collided with several people who were approaching the door. Izuku and Ahmya took a step back and saw Endeavour, Hawks, and Majestic in front of them.
"Where's the enemy commander Geten, the ice user?" commanded Endeavor, staring them down.
"We... uh...bl-blew him up..." Said Izuku, stuttering a little under the mans withering glare.
"Explain," he commanded.
"We lured him into a trap, and when he was disabled we threw grenades at him..." Said Ahmya her voice pittering out as Endeavor moved his glare towards her.
Endeavor didn't say anything else, just gave a grunt and continued into the building.
"Did you really kill Geten?" Asked Hawks, who had stopped and was looking at them curiously along with Majestic.
"Ye-yes we did, we were told to slow the enemy down as much as possible and I figured he might be overconfident after punching through our defense so easily." Said Izuku, regaining some of his composure now that he wasn't being glared at as if he were the villain.
Hawks smiled and nodded in approval, "Good work. What are your names? he asked.
"I'm Ahmya and this is Izuku, we're with the QSU," said Ahmya standing a bit straighter.
"I see, well in the meantime, you two should rest up here. Even if I can't see your faces I can tell your both dead tired." Said Hawks as he headed inside himself.
Majestic followed after him, giving them both a smile and nod as he also vanished into the building.
The two of them watched as they left and then turned to each other.
"I dunno about you, but I'm taking this damn thing off. I feel like I might suffocate to death at this rate," said Ahmya, reaching up and removing her helmet. Then proceeded to ruffle her short black hair.
"Damn that feels good," she said, sighing as she ruffled her hair.
Izuku removed his as well and similarly ruffled his own hair. He had to admit she was right. After wearing that helmet for hours it felt good to ruffle his hair. They simply enjoyed feeling the breeze on their face for a few moments before they noticed the smoke smell in the air. They turned and went to a nearby railing where they just gazed out at the city.
Fires raged across the city, ashes and cinders floated through the air and they saw gouts of flame and explosions flash across the city occasionally as people fought to the death in the streets.
Neither of them said anything, merely stared into the face of hell, the image of the burning city being seared into their memory for all time.
