TheGreatBubbaJ - Yup. Also ask Glassmaker how she feels about the great quirk of a Missile Launcher xD
Naruto30 - Does he, though?
Detrametal - Certainly not what people expected :v
Shahryar - Thank you :D
ImJustRai - You might have a point lol
(***)
Invincible loses his grip on the throat. Slice - now unconscious thanks to some detailed extremely short-range telekinesis application that temporarily restricted the flow of blood through her carotid artery - slips off and collapses on the ground in front of the former Paragon.
"Invincible to Nedzu." He then speaks through his own earpiece. Somehow it remained untouched during the fierce battle. "Nine, Chimera and Slice incapacitated."
Destroying Nine's means of communication was a great idea. Invincible is powerful, but he is also acutely aware that if he fought those three at once, he'd lose. Instead he took out Nine before facing the remaining two.
"Wonderful news." Nedzu's voice is perfectly neutral. There is still some bad blood between them over the whole 'Paragon' business, wasn't it? "Your state?"
Invincible glances down. His uniform is tattered. His cape is missing, but that was to be expected. It was mostly for aesthetics, really. He knew that it was easy to grab which is why he also made it so that any significant pull at it was going to make the whole cape just… stay in the hand of whoever grabbed it.
Chimera was extremely surprised when he rushed for the obvious weak spot only for the cape to remain in his hands, Invincible taking advantage of his shock to almost send him flying with a punch to the jaw..
The man under the uniform is battered, badly bruised, exhausted (both physically and when his quirk was involved) and should probably have a medical check-up because he still heard ringing in his ears after the Chimera's last attack.
Also his nose is probably broken. Doesn't matter a lot, though.
"I can carry those three back." Invincible says. "And probably defeat a noumu or two, but when fighting supervillains is involved, I'm spent." It's important to know your limits, and braving through and claiming you can beat someone only to get defeated might endanger others.
No need to bullshit his mission command here.
"Not bad for a debut." Nedzu decides to say. "Especially as it was your first real fight. Really living up to your hero name, hmm?"
Yeah. Sure, he was undefeated in the spars, but after that particular fight, he was also officially undefeated in the real fights. Of course, he had to make sure that he remained that way for as long as possible.
So many years of training. So many years of being perfected by the HPSC to be the replacement Symbol of Peace for after All Might was going to retire. Only to discover that all they did was feed him with lies.
Oh, well. He was going to be a pro-hero either way. And probably one very close to the Top seat (at least, unless the ranking was going to be remade). It was good enough for him.
"Carry them back, then head to the field hospital." Nedzu adds. "Get a check-up, then stay there. You're in reserve for the remainder of the operation."
That he can do.
(***)
Five minutes after the beginning of the assault, the main assault unit reached the morgue. By that time Necromancer was already incapacitated elsewhere by Gran Torino, whose rapid reaction and movement speed allowed him to avoid the zombie crowd and directly kick Romero in the chin.
Just as Nedzu ordered him to do.
This fact has managed to significantly clean the area from potential collateral victims. Some of the heroes focused on retrieving the former zombies and getting them to safety. A separate task force departed towards the location where Nedzu established Mummy was hiding.
The rest entered the morgue.
Complications began rather quickly.
(***)
"All Might, we might have a tiny problem." Yagi Toshinori hears Nedzu's voice. For some reason he is certain that it's not exactly tiny.
Tiny problems rarely occur in the middle of big battles.
"First of all, it's not All Might anymore." Yagi promptly replies. "I'm now the American Hero: Bulletstorm." And he is VERY proud of that.
Sure, the whole 'pretty much riot police officer uniform except for the helmet and the colors' dig is kinda.. basic. Even if the colors in question are pretty much toned down All Might colors. Unfortunately, Inko vetoed his idea to make himself look like Rambo. So, go around with naked torso to intimidate his enemies with his chiseled abs and concentrated manliness.
Because, apparently, abs do not intimidate attacks, only the people behind them. So he was supposed to be properly protected. Also, she apparently disliked the concept of other women being allowed a semi-unrestricted (even if view-only) access to his muscular chest.
Dang it.
"Second of all, what is it?" He then says. "We're kinda busy right now." He adds before pulling the trigger. The explosive munition is a bit of Geneva Convention violation, but… it doesn't count when the enemies are noumus. And he certainly needed some additional stopping power.
They don't have human rights anymore, as they aren't humans. And even Eri can't fix it. All thanks to a certain Doctor. That might or might not be about to explode if All… Bulletstorm gets to him first.
The noumu that was trying to flank the assault party is stopped dead in its tracks. Three series three bullets each practically destroy its torso. The fourth series hit it right in the face.
The noumu doesn't rise. All Might tried to be more… restrictive with his ammunition expenditure earlier. It didn't work, those things were sturdy. Besides, he had a backpack filled to the brim with spare mags so he was far from done.
"Your son's mysterious hacker friend just contacted me." Nedzu decides to surprise the heck out of A… Bulletstorm. "He or she appears adamant that you… and yes, they called you out by name… need to separate from the assault group and head to a certain set of coordinates. Asap."
What the actual…
"You know what, I was supposed to say something very… undiplomatic." Yagi announces. "But they DID save Eri from Overhaul so I guess I'm going to at least check it out. Lead me there. Lemillion, you're with me."
Mirio - who was there in case something scary got close to Yagi - nods furiously. He is looking forward to some actions.
Yagi Toshinori, in the meantime, is looking forward to some answers.
(***)
Eraserhead admits that the instructions that he received from Midoriya were extremely unclear. And very, very confusing. Also, frightening. Because, apparently, he somehow managed to use Momo Yaoyorozu to replicate Overhaul's quirk suppressing gas and stuff it into a grenade.
Aizawa Shouta was now officially terrified of Momo Yaoyorozu. Yes, the nature of the gas interferes with her own quirk, even if she is carrying a gasmask. So she could only create a small amount of it before her quirk went offline for a longer while. Yes, this severely impacts her ability to produce that particular substance.
Still. A quirk-suppression grenade. Hatsume's design, Yaoyorozu's gas, Midoriya's idea, Overhaul's research. Four things that never should have come together. Alas, they did.
He informed the others beforehand. Although he claimed it was Nedzu's idea, that the rat decided to not elaborate on. So when the target was spotted, Endeavor barked out a few orders in order to make sure that Eraserhead was in position.
Twelve seconds later a quirk suppression grenade detonates right next to Kurogiri, interrupting the villain's attempt to make a short range warpgate in order to throw something explosive in the middle of the heroes' attack party.
(***)
The Letter
"I'm not 100% sure about that, Aizawa-sensei, but I think that Kurogiri is a form of a noumu, but one that retains its mind. Which means that there is something to save. I'm basing it on what I heard from Tenko after his brief false defection.
He is most certainly brainwashed, and I think that his brainwashing is 'hanging' on his altered quirk, in a way. I theorize that if the quirk is suppressed, he should recover himself for a time being (I think that Aiko can fix that permanently, but we need to capture him first).
I think that considering the specifications of his quirk I know who he originally was, but I'm not telling you right now. Because if I was wrong, it would be… well I don't want to raise your hopes too high. Especially as the chances for me being correct are actually rather small in general. However, if I'm right, I truly think that this is the best gift I can get you.
Merry Christmas, Aizawa-sensei!"
(***)
The second the gas cloud disperses, Aizawa's mouth opens. No words come out. Because he has no idea what to say. What to think.
In front of him - half-raised from behind a cover - was a dead man. Shirakumo Oboro. With surgical scars on his face and an expression of total shock and confusion. One that probably matches what Aizawa has on his own face.
Any chances of it being a result of Aizawa getting hit in the head and somehow not noticing it are thrown out of the window when Present Mic lets out a choking sound. To the surprise of absolutely anyone, it's Yamada that reacts faster, immediately using his quirk to blast several defenders that happened to be too close to Kur… Shirakumo.
That wakes Aizawa up. He dashes forward, taking advantage of Present Mic going crazy with his quirk (damn, his ears hurt) and keeping the enemies suppressed, before grabbing Oboro with his capture scarf and dashing back into safety.
Shirakumo doesn't try to defend himself. Less than fifteen seconds since the grenade exploded, he is sitting behind the cover (the heroic push deeper into the facility temporarily on hold, the heroes digging in around them), looking around in clear confusion.
"W-what ha…" He then tries to speak. Aizawa has no idea how to reply. He still has no idea what to say. He tends to rely on Present Mic or Emi when speaking is involved, but she is busy carrying Mummy out of the building while he is absolutely and utterly useless right now.
Hearing that voice hurts.
"I think that I'd like to know that as well." Endeavor, surprisingly enough, comes to the rescue.
"It's… it's our old friend." Eraserhead manages to say. Speaking to Endeavor is less gut-wrenching that doing that towards Kur… Shirakumo. "He was killed by a villain years ago, during the second years' Hero-Work Studies."
"I… I remember that." Shirakumo's eyes are suddenly at Eraserhead. "D-Doctor G-garaki was at the hospital, I think he s-switched me for a decoy body and…" Alright, Garaki is officially and utterly fucking dead. Eraserhead is going to commit his first ever willing murder of a villain even if it costs him a lifetime in Tartarus.
Judging from the look on Mic's face, he's going to have a willing accomplice. Midnight and Ingenium would jump in as well, but she was together with Ms. Joke right now and he was fighting outside.
Before he can plan that, he is interrupted. Shirakumo suddenly grabs Aizawa (who was the closest to him). It's a tense moment, especially with Oboro being Kurogiri and them being surrounded by heroes. But before anyone has the time to react, Oboro speaks.
On his face, an expression of anguish.
"Sho, there are children here!" Oboro shouts. Eraserhead opens his mouth to say something, but isn't given the time to do that. "It's one of his experiments, I know where they are! I need to save them, please!"
That's… that's certainly the Shirakumo Oboro that they knew back then. The pain in Aizawa's chest grows stronger.
Endeavor doesn't waste a second. He has no idea how many children there are, but if Garaki has another AFO clone, he needs them out of the area to be able to go all out. Besides, he is a pro-hero dammit.
"Take Present Mic, Miruko and Bloodblade." He tells the still shocked Eraserhead. "Go and get them."
He doesn't want to separate Mic and Eraserhead from Oboro. He also thinks that Miruko and Bloodblade are strong enough to keep them all safe, besides they are clearly cooperating surprisingly well now (even if there are a LOT of expletives going both sides all the time). They have enough heavy-hitters to continue the assault.
He is also deeply - if silently - impressed by Midoriya Izuku's (he was told the true origin of the plan) ability to conjure defectors from the major villainous organizations at his own leisure. Seriously, wow. Really living up to his hero title. Second Chance hero alright.
In the meantime… Doctor Garaki, you're going down.
(***)
"Doctor Garaki." Re-Destro says into the phone. He is standing in front of the glass window on the command center, the landscape of Deika spread in front of him. "I heard that the heroes found you. How bad is the situation?"
He knows how bad it is. He is mostly checking the waters, just in case Garaki had some new surprising project to show to them. Revenant was a massive surprise to him, and he refuses to be caught off-guard again.
"It's hopeless, hopeless!" Garaki practically screams at him. "Heroes are everywhere, I need the MLA here right now! With the warp scramblers on I can't even start to evacuate things and some of them cannot be moved right now!"
The moustached potato has no idea that the people gathered in the MLA' command center can see him from the security camera in his laboratory. He is clearly panicking, trying to upload something from a computer onto an external hard drive.
Alright, Re-Destro thinks that he has the answer now. Doctor Garaki has nothing. But… let's make sure about that.
"And his clones?" He then asks.
"I'm deploying them right now, but they are unfinished!" Garaki replies. "They can at best stall them down. Endeavor is in the assault group, but he is staying behind and not using his quirk to be able to fight at full strength if they encounter another Revenant. In their current state, they can at best stall them. Worst of all, I can't reach Nine and…"
"I see." Re-Destro interrupts him, before gesturing at Skeptic. Tomoyasu Chikazoku smiles faintly before clicking on his keyboard a few times. Endgame starts now.
"W-what's going on?!" Doctor Garaki realized that something amiss. Then again, his eyes were on the computer screen when it suddenly announced that it was in the process of erasing its contents. He lunges forward, trying to stop that from happening, almost losing his phone in the process (that was close). "No, no no! Re-Destro, someone is erasing data from my computers, I can't stop that!"
"I know." Re-Destro replies calmly. "Because I'm doing that."
Doctor Garaki freezes on the screen for a few long seconds, probably processing the implications.
"You." He then says, his words coated with venom.
"You know, it was actually kind of hilarious." Re-Destro replies. Honestly. Because he had his own share of laughs over that (and he'll have even more now that he was certain that it worked). "Seeing you help me throw Magne and Moonfish into the woodchipper just to make Overhaul not suspect anything before we betrayed him… without knowing that I was, at least partially, throwing Overhaul into the woodchipper to make you not suspect that I was planning to betray you. You really walked yourself into this one, didn't you?"
"Why?" Doctor Garaki is visibly shaking. They don't see his face from the current position. "WHY?! We were so close, we could have…"
"You never realized that there are very few people out there that I loathe more than All for One." Re-Destro speaks the greatest heresy he could in front of Kyudai Garaki. The shocked gasp he hears is all that he needs for a confirmation that the hit connected. "Meta-abilities… are beautiful. The highest expression of one's individualism. Seeing how many people develop personalities oddly aligned with their meta-abilities, they might as well be one's souls. If the demon lord merely took the meta-abilities of the willing donors, I would respect him. But the second he stole one from someone, his very existence became an anathema to the core values of the Meta-Liberation Army. Honestly…" Re-Destro sighs. "... I'd take Beast over him, you know?"
Although barely. There was a reason why Re-Destro deeply enjoyed throwing Beast to the wolves.
Doctor Garaki doesn't reply. But it's clear that he's shaking in fury. While probably trying to figure out a way to get out of the predicament. Good luck with that, Mr. Garaki.
"The research of both you and our late friend Overhaul were equally dangerous." Re-Destro continues. "Noumus are abominations, good doctor. Useful for a time, I admit it. But I'll sleep better at night knowing that my daughter will live in a world where they do not exist. It's something that I can say about many, many members of the Paranormal Liberation Front, actually."
"You." Garaki utters. It's clear that words don't want to leave his mouth without a fight. "The PLF." Ah, he realized that.
"Yes, indeed, my good doctor." Re-Destro cuts in. Mostly because he really doesn't want to hear that man's voice. "I helped you establish the Paranormal Liberation Front so that the remnants of the AFO empire would round themselves up for the execution…. while seriously weakening the heroes in the process. I might be a villain, yes. And I'm proud of it. But I'm a villain whose goal is a better world. One that doesn't have a man play god like you and All for One did, Doctor Garaki. Besides…" Re-Destro lets his voice grow slightly more venomous for a moment. "... we both know why some of your noumus, like Mocha and Johnny, are so small."
"I'm going to tell everything to the heroes." Garaki's voice is even more venomous than Re-Destro's. The fact that he didn't even try to repel the last accusation makes Rikiya Yotsubashi shudder internally with barely suppressed desire for murder. "They'll…"
Oh dear. What a time to be alive. Doctor Garaki wants to work with the heroes. What has the world come to. All for One would be rolling in his grave if he knew about it.
"No, doctor Garaki." Re-Destro cuts in while signaling his orders to Skeptic. "You won't tell them anything."
It was a lot of hard work to transfer carefully altered equipment to the United States, legalize its presence there… and then arrange for Glassmaker's smugglers to obtain it and ship it back to Japan. It cost a lot of effort, money and time (and probably wouldn't work if Glassmaker was in the States' to oversee obtaining the items personally, she was way too careful and paranoid for it to work).
Bribing Mechanist to not tell Doctor Garaki anything about it was even costlier. Thankfully, he only knew about the computers and considered it to be an additional security measure on Re-Destro's side.
However, Re-Destro truly feels like the investments were worth it when he sees the termite charge inside Doctor Garaki's phone explode, killing him instantly. What's left of his body slumps off the chair.
"Brilliant." Re-Destro announces. Garaki was the only person in the PLF that knew about the MLA's Grand Commander's real identity… and on how many members the Meta-Liberation Army truly had. "Plan A worked for a change. I'm almost surprised."
"Yeah, we didn't have much luck thus far." Skeptic admits. "It's great, especially as Plan B is no longer viable. Nine and most of his crew seems to have been taken out."
"Oh?" Re-Destro tears his eyes from the landscape of Deika once more (he barely had the time to look at it once he no longer had to look at the monitor to the side to see Garaki's activities). "By whom?"
The biggest proof that Doctor Garaki really wasn't a villain mastermind material was the fact that he willingly surrounded himself with Nine and his crew. The same people that were rather open about their quirk-supremacist views, the ones perfectly agreeing with the extremist wing of the MLA.
It really didn't take Re-Destro a lot of time to covertly recruit them for the Meta-Liberation Army.
He just had to make it clear to Nine that the MLA will NOT permit stealing meta-abilities, even from its enemies. The ones he had he got from the Doctor, so Re-Destro was willing to ignore his personal dislike for the concept.
If the termite charge installed in his phone didn't kill Doctor Garaki, Nine was supposed to deal with the man on his own. That was plan B.
Plan C included a one-way warp to his lab's coordinates by several MLA warriors, devoted to the cause enough to kill Garaki before committing suicide to avoid interrogation or identification (they had a means of making their body impossible to be recognized). Naturally, right after Geten and Hypothermia (on standby at Jaku' outskirts) would deal with the warp scramblers.
Plan D included Geten and Hypothermia attacking the convoy carrying Garaki out of Jaku.
Plan E included certain high ranked MLA members in the Police Force, or among the pro-heroes, using their credentials to get close enough to Doctor Garaki to assassinate him, regardless of the costs to themselves, before he would tell the heroes too much. Taking advantage of the fact that despite being so betrayed, Garaki (being the coward he was) would try to negotiate a pardon for himself before saying anything substantial.
Needless to say, Re-Destro REALLY wanted Doctor Garaki dead.
Plan A actually working without a hitch was a surprising change of pace if he was to be honest. He was so used to his plans not surviving contact with the enemy that he might have overdone it with the contingencies. Then again, when the MLA's existence was at stake, better safe than sorry.
"Invincible." Skeptic replies. "The HPSC's All Might rip-off. Putting a reconnaissance drone anywhere close was too risky, so we only have satellite images of the fight. But… he's… dangerously powerful."
"I see." Re-Destro nods. HPSC, for all its corruption, wasn't stupid or incompetent. "Keep track of Nine and his crew members. Have Geten and Hypothermia attack their prisoner convoy if possible. They are powerful enough to be useful to us in the long-term."
"Even more tough quirk supremacists for our extremist wing, huh." Skeptic decides to complain. "They are a pain in the ass."
"Absolutely." Re-Destro replies. He still remembers that coup attempt. Unfortunately, he empathizes with All Might's reasoning for staying neutral. He has to be the Grand Commander for all three main branches of the MLA. "But they are a useful pain in the ass. What about the data?"
"Well, we've already copied everything from his hard drives. Including the Overhaul' research data." Skeptic replies. Yes, that particular data was crucial, on a much deeper level than anyone but Re-Destro knew. "We're just erasing everything before detonating the termite charges installed in the computers to make sure that there's nothing left for the heroes."
Noumus might be disgusting to Re-Destro, but a solid chunk of the research that Overhaul and Garaki conducted was downright revolutionary. Destroying it entirely would not only deny the world a greatest scientific leap since the Dawn of Quirks… but would also mean that the suffering and deaths of the victims of their experiments were, ultimately, meaningless.
… of course, Detnerat Company (and through it, the MLA) will benefit from that leap the most. What's more, Re-Destro will probably have to establish some quirk-focused biomedical company as another branch of the Meta-Liberation Army in order to properly introduce the findings to the world.
After having people he trusts sift through the mountainload of research data and make sure to filter out the things that the world wasn't ready for.
But that's for later.
"Wonderful." Re-Destro nods lightly. His personal assistant remains unreadable. "Monitor Dictator. I know for certain that Garaki didn't fully trust Kurogiri's programming and haven't told him anything seriously dangerous to anyone, but the Dictator might have realized who we are. He isn't leaving Jaku alive." He glances at Skeptic, who promptly nods. "Mechanist?"
"Playing the hacking equivalent of Xanatos Speed Chess against Nedzu and Power Loader." Skeptic replies. "He is holding ground thus far, but at this point I'm almost certain that it's just his remotely operated drone. I tracked the connection…" Their eyes meet. "... to somewhere in the eastern United States."
"So he decided to do a Glassmaker when no one was looking." Re-Destro decides. "He was always way too sane and logical for the Paranormal Liberation Front, if you were to ask me. Let's see what happens next."
In Jaku, the last remnants of the All for One's empire continue to die, awaiting reinforcements that were never going to come.
(***)
Those of you who read ETS know at least one of the 'they are children here', and you know exactly why is are the people sent to retrieve them a source of total hilarity. Please, no spoilers here XD It's going to be fabulous.
You didn't expect the Endgame to be not about MLA intervening and saving PLF or taking the occasion to march into the National Diet while heroes were busy elsewhere but about this, hmm? Well, don't worry, neither did Garaki lol.