Naruto30 - It refers to US' Fifth Ammendment which allows you to refuse to testify if testifying would incriminate yourself.
TheGreatBubbaJ - Peace was never the option.
AdrianVnz - It's more of a summary of the situation, US was certainly chaotic for decades like the rest of the world, it just avoided total or near-total societal collapse. It also probably changed a lot. Also, what did the two did, hmm, check baseball metaphore for sex and what 'second base' is, I think it might have been that :P
TigerCat - All thanks to Izuku knocking some sense into him. On the other hand, thanks to contacts with the Vigilante Alliance and the Levellers he actually had some proper evidence rather than attacking based on his own vision of their behaviour, so...
Detrametal - Problems with canon, yeah, big mood. This is basically in a solid 70% a 'fix it' fic for the entire canon.
Darkpaladin89 - He's like the canon Aizawa, but actually constructive about it. The shock.
TigerCat - Heh, I wonder about that myself, they feel like a perfect fit (except for, well, personality).
InfinityMask - Hard to say if they were cool on the mutants. I'd say that it has the same issues as Japan, just less aggravated due to going through the Dawn of Quirks in a less bumpy manner. Nothing aggravates discrimination issues as poverty and lack of hope.
Greatazuredragon - Thank you ;)
IJustDon'tKnowWhatToPut - Planning to :D
(***)
The first thing that Sir Nighteye did once he communicated his new discovery to his new assistant was to begin his more 'direct' investigation into the issue. He started by phoning his old acquaintance, former Pro-Hero Sense.
Sense technically retired from active service and moved into politics, being tangentially connected to a local branch of the Hearts and Minds Party (Sir Nighteye disagreed, but not enough to debate him about that). He still had his hero license, allowing him to use his quirk if he wanted.
It was a form of distant viewing quirk. Or, more like, distant 'sensing'. Sense could catch a rough outline of any area within a kilometer distance from his current position, the closer he got the less 'rough' the outline being.
It made him an invaluable asset in situations like this one. The hardest part was getting him anywhere within a kilometer distance from the compound without getting noticed by anyone. But it wasn't their first joint operation like that.
Sense's readings confirmed the existence of a massive labyrinth of underground corridors and halls under the compound. There were not one but THREE escape tunnels. Overhaul's handiwork - he could easily create tunnels when needed, his power basically making him a Minecraft protagonist with different aesthetics and lack of reliance on tools.
Also, caution on the verge of paranoia was very much like him.
What continued was almost a week of spying on the compound through satellites, some high altitude reconnaissance drones and whatever else Sir Nighteye could use without warning the enemy forces present in the compound that they were being watched.
There were… developments.
"... if that isn't Beast, I'm going to miss out on the next All Might merchandise sale." Sir Nighteye announces while pointing towards a small blurry dot on the print out of one of the photos from the recon drone.
Midoriya takes a look over his shoulder, realizes that he has absolutely zero skills in analyzing photographs like that and decides to trust Mirai Sasaki on this.
"It makes sense." He says instead. "It's a forested area, the Inhuman Supremacy Party' bases are often located in areas surrounded by nature. They feel at home, or s-something." He falters slightly when Sir Nighteye glances at him. Of course that man knows it. "You think it's their base and Overhaul moved in or they are just tasked with protecting his laboratory?"
"I can scarcely imagine Beast agreeing to being used as a guard dog." Sir Nighteye replies. "Overhaul is much more… amenable to following orders, for as long as he agrees with their logic. It's probably a major base of the Inhuman Supremacy Party, if not their headquarters, that he was told to move in with his mad science."
Yes, that sounds about correct.
"So we've noticed Beast, Chronostasis and PROBABLY Glassmaker." Midoriya summarizes. The House of Glass' leader was as elusive as ever. Izuku wouldn't be surprised if she asked someone looking slightly like her to wear her villain uniform just to bamboozle potential heroes observing the base from a distance. "Plus we know thanks to Lifescan that there are at least two hundred active lifesigns in the area. That's… not good?"
Sir Nighteye nods. Valiant's interpersonal skills have been improving steadily since the start of the internships. To begin with, Sasaki believes that a proper way of describing the situation is 'a fucking mess', and when compared to that, what Midoriya said was much more… heroic.
"There is a high risk…" Sir Nighteye announces. "... that the villains are trying to pull us into another Kamino. But this time, we have no one on the inside."
Midoriya nods. He is good and has a lot of contacts, but this is real life. He can't just randomly conjure high-ranked traitors in the villain organization that the entire country is trying to find. If anything, Kamino Ward was an outlier on that.
"So, let's move back to your internship for a moment." Sir Nighteye adds. "What would you do if you were a commanding officer on that operation?"
Midoriya doesn't reply immediately. Yes, he has some observations and ideas. He amassed them steadily over the past few days. A snippet of info here, a quirk analysis of an identified villain there. But he just received a rather big morsel (the one about Beast being there) and he needs to add that to the list. And then assemble something resembling a cohesive plan.
"Well, I have an… idea." He eventually announces. Sir Nighteye briefly glances at his clock - almost five minutes have past. Remarkably quick. "But… it might be a bit… weird?"
"There is no such thing as 'stupid' or 'weird' idea when operational planning is involved." Sir Nighteye decides to correct his student. "There are impractical ideas, there are impossible ideas, there are ideas that only truly make sense as something to provoke a discussion, and there are ideas that work best as a form of comic relief to diffuse tension during the operation planning stage. But before we decide if it's one of those, you're going to have to describe it to me."
"R-right." Izuku inhales. "So I'd begin by dividing the whole operation plan between two stages. First one would be the assault on the surface compound, the second one the attack on the underground section."
Sir Nighteye nods. They can't exactly attack the underground labyrinth without securing their rear either way. Especially as if there was a trap waiting for them, it was probably there. Thus far it's been mostly obvious things.
"In fact, skipping the second stage entirely feels like an option." Midoriya continues. Now it's Sir Nighteye's time to raise a brow.
"Elaborate?" It's been a rather unexpected take.
"We're mostly afraid of Overhaul sneaking out through the underground tunnels while we're dealing with the Inhuman Supremacy Party on the surface, yeah?" Midoriya asks. Sasaki nods. Warping out isn't an option, because if they're planning to launch an attack like that, they'll certainly bring a mobile warp coordinate scrambler. GSDF has one or two of those.
"That's true." Sir Nighteye nods. "The problem is that they go in entirely different directions. We can't hope to have one mobile group to cover them all, meaning that we need to place a substantial blocking group at the exit of each and every one of them. Worst of all, we can't be sure that there are no further branches off the tunnels. There can as well be twenty exits, and we can't have Sense track them all down because eventually someone will spot him."
Besides, the exits are probably guarded. Most likely not with soldiers, but with cameras and so on. And Sense can't spot them. So if he accidentally gets too close, they'll be outed.
"Yes, but why would we bother blocking the exits?" Izuku asks, looking at Sir Nighteye as if he wasn't sure if someone wasn't pulling his leg. Whatever ideas he has, he feels like it's something obvious. "Uhm, we can requisition anyone that has at the very least a provisional hero license, right?"
"That's true." Sir Nighteye nods. "Although unless they have a full hero license, they'll only be allowed to participate if their quirks are particularly suitable for some part of the operation. And only with an active pro-hero as a handler." He is increasingly interested in where it's going.
Sir Nighteye outclasses Midoriya by far, even if that's mostly due to experience. But his expertise is focused on investigative work and what can be considered a more 'strategic' approach to warfare. What they are planning right now are tactics, which (at least partially due to his expertise in quirks) is Midoriya's forte.
Nedzu is a tactician as well. Tactician slash data analyst. Izuku is FAR beneath the rat's level of experience and skills, but he is already good enough to have interesting, often novel ideas. Ones that he simply needs some help from someone more experienced (like Mirai Sasaki) to perfect and properly implement.
Sir Nighteye is far from discounting his ideas due to young age.
"Uhm, there is this guy from Ketsubutsu that I've met during the Provisional License Exam." Midoriya continues. "Yo Shindo, hero name Grand. His quirk is called Vibrate, and it allows him to create and propagate vibrations. At the highest output he can cause what's practically speaking a localized earthquake."
Oh. OH.
"You want to use his quirk to collapse the escape tunnels." Sir Nighteye realizes. Midoriya nods furiously.
"This will not only stop Overhaul from escaping immediately, but will also, if we place Sense and Lifescan close to the compound, warn us where he is." Midoriya quickly adds. "If Sense detects the 'rough outline' of one of the tunnels changing rapidly, we'll know that Overhaul is using his quirk to dismantle the collapse. With Lifescan we'll be able to estimate the number of people fleeing with him, thus allowing us to deploy a dedicated subjugation force to follow them on the surface."
"... we'll also be allowed to move the warp coordinate scrambler after them, to make sure that Kurogiri doesn't warp him out of the tunnel simply because he managed to leave the warp scrambling range on foot." Sir Nighteye adds.' Midoriya, once again, nods fiercely.
Not to self, Sasaki says in his mind. Kindly ask Yagi Toshinori to - if another quirkless kid asks him if they can be a hero - give them an intelligence test before replying 'no'. Because the more time he spends with Midoriya, the more he realizes that if that kid decided to go villain… the results would probably best be summed as 'apocalyptically disastrous', even if it would probably take a few years to happen.
Mirai Sasaki fully believes that All Might's initial reply was correct, only worded badly and sounding very bad when context was taken into account (like the whole part 'potentially crushing dreams of someone from a discriminated group on a goddamn rooftop', even if Yagi was freaking out over running out of One for All strength it's no explanation for that).
It isn't out of malice or quirk discrimination - he has helped prosecute cases against quirkless discrimination pro publico bono (unless you counted personal satisfaction as payment) enough times to be sure about it.
Pro-Heroes were supposed to save people. They needed to be as powerful and versatile as possible, because any deficiency in their activities meant potential deaths of civilians. Yes, training hard and using a weapon could allow a quirkless individual to engage a pro-hero 1on1 (the Quirkless Liberation Front proved it the hard way).
But unranked heroes. Training hard and using a weapon while ALSO having a quirk meant leaving a quirkless person invariably outmatched. And you couldn't really get into the ranking without putting in a lot of effort.
There was a reason why people with particularly weak quirks weren't allowed an entry into heroics either. The Police Force was literally right there, saving people without using quirks, meaning that they offered both training and weapons.
In Sir Nighteye's opinion his position was no more discriminatory than the fact that in the past professional basketball players tended to be tall. Or, a bit earlier, than most tank crews in the armed forces throughout the world tended to be short. Or that you had to pass certain physical capabilities tests before joining a Police Force.
"That would also mean a big chance of Overhaul realizing that he is trapped and instead coming out to meet us on the surface!" Midoriya continues cheerfully. "Especially because for as long as they are under warp coordinate scramblers and have a large enemy force locking them down, this will simply change into a siege. With them underground, us having someone with a quirk to cause earthquakes and enough combatants to repel any relief force, they'll have to try to fight their way out of the compound. Thus probably neutralizing any traps they prepared for us underground."
Another note to self - Midoriya can be vicious. Is it about Overhaul or more like in general? What he just described was certainly very, very nasty for Kai Chisaki.
"Let's keep the underground attack as a possible course of action." Sir Nighteye decides. "But I'll look into involving Grand. Locking the escape routes sounds like a very good idea. What would you do with the surface compound?"
"Well, to begin with, locking it from all four directions will force us to bring way too many pro-heroes." Midoriya replies. "Otherwise we risk the PLF mounting an offensive in one of the directions and overwhelming the pro-heroes there before the remaining heroes manage to eliminate their rear-guard."
"Your proposal?" Sir Nighteye asks.
"... how problematic will it be if we have Endeavor start a forest fire?" Midoriya asks, looking almost ashamed.
Smart.
"Not much, for as long as we have enough pro-heroes and firefighting units on standby to make sure that it doesn't spread too far." Sir Nighteye replies. Having Endeavor start a fire shouldn't be hard. Thankfully, there was enough rain nowadays so that the forest wasn't particularly prone to going up in flames uncontrollably. "That's all?"
"Well, the alternative is… uhm, there is this guy in 1-B that can generate poison gas." Midoriya says. "Amaya Uyemura, also known as the Knockout Hero: Vapour. We could employ him to generate a poison cloud to block another direction. In fact, if we place Endeavor in the northwest and make him generate flame walls to cover north and west, and deploy Vapour to create a gas cloud to the east, we can easily force the PLF into a direct face-off against the entirety of our forces to the south."
Sir Nighteye gives it a thought. He dislikes the concept of involving 16 year old people in an active battlefield immensely. It's one thing when the target are criminals - those tend to avoid killing, because killing heroes is treated like killing police officers was during the pre-quirk era (and, honestly, still is), except probably more.
It brings attention. The BAD type of attention. You can expect ten times more heroes to go after you with an intent to bring you to Tartarus. But this? This is the Paranormal Liberation Front. An anti-heroes terrorist organization. They won't be pulling any punches.
"We'll consider that." Sir Nighteye replies. The 'We' includes Nedzu, and probably some people from the police. Normally he'd also need a green light from the Hero Commission (which would be a pain in the ass about 'villain student threatening them with information leaks') but… it's kind of not a problem anymore.
HPSC no longer exists.
And he agrees with All Might on that one thing. Those words really hit the spot.
"What about the main assault group?" He decides to move over to another subject. "We can requisition practically everyone we want, for as long as we don't go crazy with numbers. Considering the fact that we know about at least one SSS-Rank and two SS-Rank villains dwelling in that base, we can go pretty far without being accused of going crazy."
Midoriya spends exactly three minutes thinking it over. Eventually, he comes to a conclusion.
"I'd involve the following Top Heroes." He eventually announces. "Endeavor, for restricting enemy movement with walls of flames as stated, but also as a reserve force to call in if things go hairy. Ryukyu, for her ability to fly - we need someone powerful AND airborne, as the ISP forces most likely have flight-capable mutants. The Dragon Hero will allow us to quickly establish aerial supremacy and… errr, what's the status on Invincible?"
"The government is still debating whether we should allow some of the 'underground' Paragons to work as the heroes." Sir Nighteye replies. Not all of the Paragons were officially allowed to become regular Heroes, there were about thirty of them (typically strongest among them) that were kept thus far hidden. The other (not for long) Valiant and Foresight were among them. Why? Well, the former president was yet to elaborate on that, but Sir Nighteye had his suspicions. "They were brought up as the HPSC' president's personal army, but most of them were to various degree tricked to see the Hero Commission' actions as fully legal and themselves as a secret reserve force in case of a large national crisis."
"How do you think it'll end?" Midoriya asks curiously.
"It seems that it's leaning towards conditional yes." Sir Nighteye replies. "Mostly because we need as many powerful heroes as possible, due to how much past events weakened the Hero Society. Although they'd all have to go through proper retraining and have their past properly reviewed to make sure that they didn't willingly commit any crimes. Invincible, seeing as he told off the Hero Commission when he was ordered to help silence Hawks, is at the top of the list. But for now, he's unavailable."
"Shame, honestly." Midoriya sighs. "If what I heard about his quirk is true… He and Hawks could have carried the aerial battle individually, and they would do it much better than Ryukyu. Not like R-Ryukyu is a bad hero, just…" Sir Nighteye gives him the stare. Midoriya stops panicking. "Mostly a matter of quirk specifics."
"True." Sir Nighteye nods. "What next?"
"Well, we need a strong force of Top Heroes to bulldoze through the enemy defenses." Midoriya replies. "I'd say that Miruko is a must, since she has a score to settle with the Beast. I'd pair her up with Shishido and Gang Orca, actually."
"The three Top Heroes that are complex mutants?" Sir Nighteye asks. Midoriya nods. "May I know why?"
"I just think that having the top ISP members be apprehended by complex mutants would leave a … message, I guess." Midoriya replies. Sir Nighteye finds himself nodding slightly. "However, I'd have also added Bloodblade to that group."
That was an unexpected one. Almost as much as Nedzu deciding to smooth things out so that Hero Killer Stain transitioned into Grimdark Hero: Bloodblade extremely quickly. In a span of what, two weeks?
Sir Nighteye is about 75% sure that he just pointed out to the Prime Minister that they have a no-longer-double-S villain with a large following out there that should probably be grabbed for their side before he gets any funny ideas. While promising to make sure that Akaguro Chizome will behave.
It was still a more or less unofficial thing. The HPSC was out and there was still no decision on who was going to take over its hero license issuing prerogatives. However, there was an official statement from the Prime Minister about letting at least some of the Vigilantes attend hero license exams.
For Stain, they just had him go through a theoretical exam (he passed) and had him fight a mock battle with a Ranked Hero. Which he won. So the government representative decided to call it a day. Improvisation, but if he knows the law, promises to follow it, and can fight high ranked heroes like an equal, it's probably a 'good enough' moment.
"I see." Sir Nighteye nods again. "The ISP mostly relies on close-quarter fighting. Stai… Bloodblade's quirk makes him a natural counter to most of them. If they end up fighting a group battle against Beast and his closest lieutenants, there is a fair chance of Akaguro knocking at least one of them out practically before the fight starts."
Midoriya nods again a few times. You need to know what Bloodblade's quirk is to avoid getting knocked out quickly. Worst of all, most of the ISP leaders are brawlers, for whom tanking attacks is a source of pride. And with Bloodblade's quirk being an instant-knockout that only requires someone to be SLIGHTLY injured to work…
"That's the initial assault group, for when dealing with the surface installations is involved." Midoriya then continues. "Of course, supported by a lot of lower ranked Heroes that we'll… that you'll have to pick up. I'd also make a second group, to act as both a reserve force and to push underground if we manage to confirm that we've managed to surprise the PLF and that there is no major trap prepared for us there."
"And how would we do it?" Sir Nighteye asks. To quote the rat: Oh, dear. Because suddenly Midoriya starts looking very fidgety.
"I, uhm, kind of have an idea." Midoriya replies. "But, it'd require us to involve someone that's very… uhm… not-adult. He'd have to be there, in person."
"Elaborate, please." Sir Nighteye isn't sure if he wants to know, but he probably should know. So he decides to take one for the metaphorical team.
Three minutes later Mirai Sasaki realizes once again that the person in front of him is truly, to quote Eraserhead, a chaos gremlin and a demon child. Yes, it makes perfect sense now. But it's also, deep inside, blindingly revolting.
It's an incredibly crazy idea. One that should have no place in a 'serious' operation plan against a major terrorist organization like the Paranormal Liberation Front. However, if it DID work as intended, it offered their side an extremely major boon.
Decisions, decisions.
"Conditionally approved." Sir Nighteye decides eventually. "We aren't going to bank on it, so it'll be a … secondary objective, I'd say. What would be the reserve force slash secondary assault group composed of?"
He honestly wants to change the subject. He needs a moment to recover from self-disgust caused by himself actually agreeing to the idea.
"I'd suggest Best Jeanist, Edgeshot, Crust and Slidin'Go." Midoriya replies. "They all have powerful quirks oriented towards close-quarters engagements. Edgeshot offers us a fair chance of instantly knocking out Overhaul if they run into him, Best Jeanist is a master of crowd control to keep the regular PLF members at bay. Crust excels in defense, meaning that he can be extremely useful if the attack party runs into an unexpected trap or a line of QLF gunmen underground. Slidin'Go is a master of CQC, whose quirk is especially dangerous when he is fighting on a level ground. With all the tunnels having smooth surfaces, he'd certainly excel. He also has much more pure physical strength than the other two combined, and it'll be useful if they run into someone tough from the ISP underground. Or a close combat-oriented Noumu."
"That's… almost the entire Top Hero roster." Sir Nighteye decides to point out. "For a single operation."
"That's Overhaul, Beast and probably Glassmaker." Midoriya replies. "For a single operation."
That's suspiciously cheeky of him, but Midoriya isn't wrong with that. If they manage to arrest everyone from that list alone, the PLF will suffer a possibly crippling blow. No Overhaul means no more quirk suppressing gas. Without Beast to lead them, the Inhuman Supremacy Party had a high chance of collapsing into a bunch of squabbling warbands, a solid part of which would have probably left the Front.
Glassmaker was the least important of the three big names they located thus far. She was still a legendarily slippery leader of organized crime. With Glassmaker out, the House of Glass would have entered a downward spiral, severely limiting its ability to smuggle things in for the Paranormal Liberation Front.
There is a large chance that they won't get everyone from the list. Midoriya is offering him something of a maximum option here. On the other hand, there is also a chance that they WILL get everyone from the list, simply because.
"Any additional suggestions?" Sir Nighteye asks. "Yes, we're going to go through the details for the next few days at least, I'm just asking if there is something that you consider to be critically important right now?" They'll probably add more things to the list, but in the meantime…
"Rock Lock." Midoriya replies. "In the underground assault group. He's practically Overhaul's natural predator - Chisaki's ability to reshape surfaces makes him extremely dangerous while faced underground. However Rock Lock can lock him out of being able to do that, limiting him to having to touch the heroes to do any damage. And for as much as he is powerful, he will be knocked out instantly or almost instantly by any of the Top Heroes from the list if he can't influence the environment with his quirk."
Sir Nighteye opens his mouth. Then he closes his mouth. He didn't see that coming, and it shows.
"That's… an extremely good idea." He decides. "We'll have to tell him to stick to the assault party, but other than that, it makes perfect sense. And it's something that I'd probably not think about." Rock Lock is a rather minor regional hero that Sir Nighteye only heard of in passing. But if he remembers the details of his quirk correctly, it makes perfect sense.
Midoriya beams at him. Yes, it's not praise from his girlfriend (he considers that praise to be the most important praise ever, Sir Nighteye knows him enough at this point), but it's still from someone he respects. That makes it count.
Sir Nighteye is looking forward to Midoriya Izuku living up to his hero name fully when interactions with other humans are involved. One day, though. One day.
"Any other ideas to mention?" Sir Nighteye asks. Midoriya, once again, goes significantly… fidgety. "What is it?"
"Am I going to be there?" Midoriya asks. Valid question, especially in light of what Sir Nighteye told him about involving sixteen years olds in this.
"Yes." Sir Nighteye surprises him. "We aren't going to enter the facility in question before we get the 'all clear' message, but I see no reason to not let you accompany me to the field command post that we'll probably establish close to the facility outskirts." It's just more experience with commanding when Valiant is involved.
Also, his handling of his quirk is steadily improving. He's not yet a Top Ten Hero equivalent when direct combat is involved, but Sir Nighteye is rather certain that he can fight most of the Top 11-30 Heroes (it typically depends on their quirks being a good or bad match-up with his) like an equal.
Having him there… well, if things hit the fan, it might be beneficial. They don't expect anything worse than an overlooked group of ISP warriors stumbling upon them, and if so then dealing with them should be easy enough to leave it for the pro-heroes at the site. But… additional firepower is additional firepower.
"Oh, that's… cool!" Midoriya perks up a bit. "I wanted to ask about my classmates though."
"The answer is no." Sir Nighteye quickly shoots it down. "I understand that you have a lot of experience when commanding them is involved, meaning that with you around they are probably the combat equivalent of established pro-heroes. Some of them even measure up to Ranked Heroes, yes. However, I see no reason for sending children to fight a war when we have quite enough adults to wage it."
"No, I mean, I get it, I get it!" Izuku quickly replies, clearly startled. "I just… wanted to ask for your permission to have them gathered up and uniformed on the UA grounds while the attack is underway. With Mieko Eto next to them."
Oh. That's an interesting idea. Sir Nighteye is still not fully used to having a long-range warper with this degree of precision and speed. Kurogiri was still as much of an enigma as ever. Mieko Eto (also, Dawn), was an asset he still wasn't used to having.
"Additional reserve, in case of things going seriously off the plan?" Sir Nighteye replies with a question. Midoriya quickly nods. "Fair enough. But you won't deploy them without my explicit permission. Especially as the command post will have to be within the mobile warp coordinate scrambler range."
Kurogiri could probably force his way through, but it would be… very bumpy. Potentially lethally bumpy. Keeping the command post within the warp scramblers range was the basic requirement for survival when facing a terrorist group with a warper this powerful.
Dawn's quirk was weaker than that, regretfully. She would need the scramblers off to move there.
"That's alright!" Midoriya replies. "I don't expect to have to summon them, either way."
Sir Nighteye can only hope that Midoriya didn't set up any flags with that. He still has a few more days to prepare the whole thing… and probably use his quirk. Hopefully nothing bad will happen, but he's going to make preparations.
(***)
Well, that ain't ominous at all, amiright? I've decided to slightly 'fix' several things when heroes operational protocols are involved. Because I find them extremely dumb in canon. Shie Hassaikai raid for example included completely wrong heroes. Especially Ryukyu fit the environment like tracked suspension fits a horse-drawn carriage. YES, I know that the raid involved heroes already involved in the case to a degree, but I question the wisdom of assault a heavily fortified compound (with large underground section) garrisoned by multiple dangerous villains and a lot of thugs with whoever was at hand, without even considering what sorts of quirks they had.
This isn't a police operation. When police is involved, people are more or less interchangable. Anti-firearms squad of one prefecture can be mostly exchanged with the one from the prefecture next door, with only minor changes (for example prefecture A might be in a big part forested, meaning that locals are quite skilled in operating in that type of environment). Heroes? Every hero has a completely unique skillset. Grabbing whoever is available at the area before assaulting a thug lair whose defenders probably at least considered how to use their quirks in that particular environment in case of a raid? No wonder it ended rather badly in canon, even if it was a victorious type of badly.
The Paranormal Liberation War Arc had it played out slightly smarter (except for the complete lack of military presence in what was de facto a pre-emptive attack against an organization that was about to start a civil war), so I worldbuilded around it by making it that the ability to requisition heroes for anti-villain raids is typically based on how dangerous the villain organization in question was assessed by the government. In case of something like this fic's PLF, it's 'you get everyone you want' situation.
Imo, if you replaced Ryukyu with Crust or Best Jeanist, the operation would have ended with zero casualties. Although I'm willing to risk a thesis that the heroes simply underestimated the defenders, because it's better option than anyone involved holding an idiot ball for the day. Hell, Miruko alone would have bulldozed through 90% of the defenders aside from Rappa, and she excels in such raids as shown with her butchering her way through the noumus in Jaku during the Paranormal Liberation War Arc.
I also made the pro-heroes significantly less happy about involving 15-16 years old kids in active operations, while establishing certain ground rules involving participating of such people when clearly needed (vide Kaminari during the PLW arc). Worldbuilding is kind of my forte, so my 'fix-it' fic is mostly about fixing worldbuilding mess that the canon BNHA is -_-'
Also, this fic is officially finished. 70 chapters, so only 14 more to be published here :P