"Alright, I´ll talk, no need to punch me again!" whimpered the man who called himself "Elias Shreveport" after another kick on the ribs by agent Anderson´s boot. Anderson hummed approvingly, turning to Anna Dobinek and giving a nod. Anna asked, "I guess you have conditions?" "I´m gonna need to be hooked up to an IV that lets me sleep without dreaming. I don't know how the bosses do it, but they send orders in these very real dreams. So, knock me the fuck out, and I´ll tell you everything I know, deal?" "Deal, start talking."
"Boss, was that shitshow with the Brits necessary? We don't need nukes" asked Girolamo Nazzaro, seeing the headlines of the plan he had set in motion in London. "Those assets were expendable, and the result was just what we needed. With a little misdirection, the small squad our buddies sent is right where we want them. Those agents are getting a surprise on the way here." The old man was nothing if not smug.
Anna Dobinek felt the seed of doubt starting to form inside her mind. They knew where Pestilentia´s top lieutenant met with the supervillain. It felt like it was too easy. She would have been more at ease if she had her entire team on hand, but things were moving too fast, and the window of opportunity to catch the enemy was closing, and there was no time to wait for the others. It would have to be Anderson, Flight Plan and his two subordinates, Midoriya, Toga and herself. She was an elite soldier, a veteran agent…if anyone was capable of pulling this off, it was her.
The enemy operatives had been turned over to the Brits, an agent named Wallcroft had taken them in to an MI6 facility. They would keep the promise to the terrorist ringleader and keep him knocked out with sedatives. The jet was ready to depart as soon as they were done handing over the prisoners, and thus they were able to take off quickly, bound for Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Texas Red, when briefed, had arranged for reinforcements to meet them in the airport a few hours after their arrival. The old man had wished her good fortune on the mission "Bring that fucker dead or alive, Dobinek. I have faith in you and I know you can do it. Good luck!".
A while after take-off, as they crossed into Danish airspace, Anna felt a small turbulence as it hit the plane. Something was doing that, air waves tended to feel differently to her sensitive to vacuum ears. She rose from her seat, waking up Anderson with a gentle shove "Something´s off, wake up the kids." "Aye aye." Anna walked to the cabin, where Flight Plan and their pilot sat. "Did you feel that?" The CIA agent nodded, his sight unfocused as he concentrated on his Quirk, Air Control, the perception of inanimate flying objects. "A signature just moved, a thousand meters above. It is some sort of weather balloon, uncommonly high up. The air around it just shifted in eight directions. Smee, launch the drones!" At the push of a button, two dozen drones launched from canisters at either side of the cabin, forming a perimeter around the jet three hundred meters wide.
One of the CIA underlings, Karling, brought up the drone cameras; in conjunction with Flight Plan´s sonar, they could counteract whatever was happening. A second passed, then another. A camera picked up a glint. Five second passed with no contact. A camera made out a shape, seven more cameras caught similar shapes. Black, human sized projectiles. "Incoming! Evasive action, Smee!" ordered Flight Plan. The jet took a sharp turn left, nose diving to the ground. "Hang on!" yelled the pilot, as he slammed the stick to the side. The jet rolled into two barrel-rolls, throwing the occupants around.
As the plane straightened, Anna clambered up from the floor. She had fallen on her left hand, and now her middle finger was bent unnaturally, causing her a flare of pain. "Oh fuck, I fucked up my finger!" She looked at the screen with the camera feed; it had been broken in the barrel roll and some feeds were obscured. The silhouettes had shifted their direction and expanded; they were using wingsuits! The objects zoomed past the cameras in the outer perimeter, they were armoured in black, masked with red glowing eyes. "Masks! Get away from the windows!" yelled Flight Plan as he grabbed his own pressurized mask from the ceiling. Anna imitated him and readied her sidearm, a 9 mm pistol. There were a couple seconds before the enemy caught up to them, if they didn't want to die on impact, at least, and she could get in a more advantageous position in the time.
She took a step, then another. Midoriya was placing a mask on Toga´s face, who was bleeding from a cut on her forehead. "Mask on! It´s a fight!" Anna crouched by a metal container, ready for the attack to start.
Or that was what she thought. Eight impacts shook the plane, automatic gunfire erupted from the windows and a breaching charge blew away a hole on the side of the jet, sucking the pressurized atmosphere out in an instant, pulling with it one of Flight Plan´s subordinates, Chester. Two armoured men walked into the plane from the blast, rifles sweeping the cabin, firing in Anna´s direction. She took cover behind the metal crate, waited for an opening, and sprang up, firing at the enemy operator´s heads. The bullets bounced on their thick masked helmets, and the red eyes in their masks bore into her head. A hail of bullets fired just to the side, missing by an inch, as Anderson kicked the shooter´s rifle away, got in close, and blew up the man´s knee from behind with her shotgun. The back side of the knee was less armoured for movement, and thus vulnerable to overwhelming force! Using the imbalance to her advantage, Anderson dropkicked the enemy soldier out of the aircraft.
Anna heard two more breaching charges behind her, one coming from the cockpit, but she had no time to react, as the other enemy operator swivelled around to blow Anderson´s brain out. Shooting at the armoured mask´s eyes, she dove to the floor, sliding beside the man. The momentary confusion of being shot in the eyes, even if the helmet could take it, allowed Anna to reach out and disconnect the tubes that fed air into the helmet. The soldier collapsed, choking, an Anna pushed him off the plane, yelling on instinct "Yeet!"
Flight Plan flew through the cabin, falling beside Anna. An even larger soldier with bulkier armour emerged from the cockpit just before it separated and plunged to the ground. The plane was completely doomed, they had to fight off these fuckers before the fall killed them all.
Toga was nowhere near fighting shape. She was wearing casual jeans and a t-shirt, and she only had one of her knives on her. And worst of all, she had hit her head when the plane had rolled, and now her vision was blurry, her forehead was bleeding, and she felt nauseous, about ready to puke. The enemy operators had somehow gotten on the plane, blown up parts of it, and were trying very hard to kill them. Izu-Izu punched one, sending him almost flying, but the fucker anchored his boots, and stayed on the plane, advancing slowly while firing at them. One for All wasn't going to save him from being shot in the head! Toga dragged him away from the arc of fire, then vaulted over a seat to kick one of them in the head. The helmet was too hard, and it hurt to kick it! But now she was inside her deadly area, about a meter away from her target´s vitals.
She danced around the operator´s rifle as he tried to melee with it, getting close and cutting at the wrist, disabling the enemy´s hand, and weakening his hold on the rifle. Her free hand yanked it free and she threw the weapon in the direction of the agents. She moved away, avoiding a very fast series of punches, taking a nightstick from the operator´s belt before he had the opportunity to use it, and smacked his head with it. The operator lifted his right arm to catch the nightstick as it bounced from the helmet. Just as I thought! Toga flipped the knife into an ice-pick grip and stabbed through the armpit, a weak spot of any armour. Her knife wasn't long enough to strike the operator´s heart, but the armpit had the axillary artery, so it was deadly. She withdrew the knife and stabbed again, and again, and again. With the last of his strength, the man shoved her away, hitting a wall.
Beside her, Izuku had managed to get up close to the operator in front of him and had used One for All to kick through the armour. The operator was lying unconscious, slumped against a seat. Then one of the agents, Mr. CIA, was thrown across the cabin by a big guy. Mr CIA clearly wasn't in control right now, and it seemed extremely painful for him. Behind the big guy, the cockpit fell off the airplane. We are fucked, we need to jump! Another explosion tore apart the back end of the plane. Now it was a tube gliding on wings. Three more soldiers emerged from that side and were engaged by the two agents. Izuku attacked the big guy, kicking him away from the downed Mr. CIA. Sergeant Bitchface walked in to help Izu-Izu, allowing him to get to Toga. "I don't know how long we have, you have to jump!" He wrapped a parachute around her and drew her in for a hug. "I´ll be right behind you. I…I…oh, you know." He pulled her close and kissed her. It felt like forever, but then she was pushed out of the plane by Izuku, and she was opening the parachute. The plane was falling fast, at this point the atmosphere was breathable, though extremely cold. Below her, farmland extended s far as the eye could see. Toga saw the plane glide for another minute, before two figures leapt out of the plane, followed by two more. Izu-Izu has to be one of them! He has to be alright!
A few moments later, the plane crashed into a field, and Toga landed a few hundred meters away. She had to find the Izu-Izu, kill any enemies. She started running to the wreckage, to a spot where discarded parachutes were blowing in the wind. Her head was throbbing in pain, and the blood from her forehead was blocking her vision. Her eyes were tearing up from the smoke coming out of the wreckage. She had to find Izu-Izu, nothing else mattered.
Toga saw a silhouette moving, not dressed in black armour, and ran towards it, blinking furiously, trying to see clearly. She managed to open her left eye, after blinking several times, and saw Izuku running towards her. And then, a sharp pain in the back of the head, and she felt herself falling into darkness.
Izuku Midoriya awoke with a start as icy water was poured on him. Where am I? What happened? The last thing he remembered was the big soldier grabbing him on a headlock and jumping off the plane, managing to break free and running off to find Himiko. After that…maybe the sting of a dart? He´d been hit with a tranq dart, but was that all it had been? Izuku flexed his hand, moving the power of One for All around. Not a Quirk-killer, good. "If you are finished testing your Quirk and trying to find ways to escape, you might want to look around, Izuku Midoriya. Or is it Midoriya Izuku? I never seem to get it right." Izuku looked around, he was tied to a chair in the middle of a circular room, brightly lit from ceiling lights, the walls covered in white screens. The man who had spoken was a tall, slender man with white hair. A man wearing camouflage and a balaclava stood beside the speaker, holding an empty metal bucket, a rifle slung on his back.
"The boss wanted to see you personally, so I thought we would make you a bit more presentable. After that little incident with the plane you positively reeked of smoke and blood." The man was ridiculously smug. "Aren't you gonna thank us for that fresh shower? They say they are healthy for young people. Anyway, I´m glad to make your acquaintance. Girolamo Nazzaro, at your service. The golden child of the Sicilian Mafia, officially killed in an accident, now top agent of Pestilentia. I would allow you to shake my hand, but the micro bots on your ties might act up, realign, and sever your hands and feet."
Izuku didn't like that idea, he had trained very hard to master One for All and not blow out his limbs, he wasn't about to lose them to some temperamental handcuffs. I guess I have to play along for now, this man doesn't seem a threat for now. "A pleasure to meet you, then. You already knew my name; may I ask how?" "The boss knew, and he told me. I didn't think our humble organization would be noticed in Japan, young Izuku. Is your involvement related to your history with All for One? The boss will probably ask you more, they were quite well acquainted. I´m just a bit curious." This confirms what we thought about them having an alliance. Maybe I can get him to talk more and use it when I escape! "In a way. They did ask for me, but it was only partly for that, it was mostly related to personal reasons." "Speaking of, you´re about to ask about the Toga girl, yes? Worry not, Izuku, we have her safe and sound. Not a single one of her ugly, badly cared for hairs was harmed, but the tranquilizers were calibrated for you, so she will be sleeping for a few hours more, maybe the entire day. But the boss will talk your ear off about that, so I will just change subjects. How did you feel about the performance of the men who attacked the plane, objectively?"
"Those men killed people I lived with for a month and a half! How can you even ask that?" "Hmm, I guess I didn't consider that. They were a loan from the Mountain Brigade…you do keep up with the news, don't you, Izuku? Those eight men likely have the blood of some two thousand Quirked people on their hands. Neat, isn't it? I imagine that if I had been born Quirkless, I might have ended up a bit like that, I have a lot of anger and hatred in me, you see. And with a passional reason to kill, it would have been a sure thing."
The men being part of the Mountain Brigade made a lot of sense now. Izuku knew they used technology and ruthless tactics to augment themselves and be able to fight on equal ground with people with Quirks. He felt proud in retrospect that, even in his worst days as a Quirkless boy, he had never thought about harming others because they did have Quirks; the Mountain Brigade was anxious to torture and kill just for that difference. He looked again at this man; the Mafioso, perfectly well dressed, smug and arrogant, looking down at him as if he knew some sort of gossip about him, but beyond that, there was a dangerous edge in his gaze. The same kind that lingered in Toga´s eyes in a fight. A killer´s eyes.
Izuku thought about the Mountain Brigade soldier he had knocked out…the soldier had still been on the plane with his bigger companion had grabbed Izuku and jumped. Had he died? Because of Izuku? He felt his breath quicken, and tears threatened to flow. The man was probably a monster, a remorseless killer and torturer, and would have killed him without hesitation. But could Izuku still call himself a hero if he had caused a person to die? He needed time to think, a safe place to lay down and just think. He needed…
¨Hey, young Izuku, I asked you a question. I do not like to repeat myself, but you have been polite so far, so I can forgive your lack of attention. I said, "Are you feeling sleepy?" So, are you?" "No, why would you ask that?" "The boss is ready for you, and I mislike seeing people getting injected. On other circumstances, I might offer you to play some binaural beats on the speakers, or some soft music, but alas, I never keep the boss waiting. The syringe please, Genaro." The man with the bucket put on a pair of surgical gloves and cleaned Izuku´s bicep with a cotton ball infused with medicinal alcohol. The guard, apparently called Genaro, withdrew a small syringe, tapped twice on it with his index finger, squirted a millilitre of the liquid to get any air pockets out of the needle, and inserted it into Izuku´s arm. The Mafioso had walked over and leaned in close to say "After your meeting, the real fun begins. I won´t spoil our fun plans, but rest assured, Izuku, we will all enjoy your stay here with us." Every word felt slower and Izuku fought to keep his eyes open. He couldn't face a supervillain when drugged! He had to fight it, he had to stay awake. He had to…