Trixuny - Vlad is already a character. The Special Course self-defense teacher and a former GSDF ranger :P

Guest - Oh, absolutely :3

Dr. Gale - Not quite.

Skyartsflammingavion - You all love me that way and we both know it :v

RandomReader867 - In-co-rrect :v

(***)

On Wednesday, Aizawa got a call from Hawks. Mera's police department located Beast's hideout. A ruined storehouse in a rather seedy district of Aldera. That it was Hawks who called Aizawa about it rather than Yokumiru Mera himself was telling.

The fact that the Metahuman Network had access to someone with a teleportation quirk was one of the greatest secrets. One probably crucial to the ongoing war effort. That information leaking to the Shie Hasseikai would be a disaster, considering how valuable Eclipse was. They would eliminating her a priority.

As a result, Tsukauchi was tasked with driving Defiant, Gargoyle, Amplitude and Tornado to Aldera. While acting as an official handler. Aizawa would have done it himself, but there was a risk of accidental uncovering of his own meta-ability. And that was another trump card to be used at the direst of moments.

Todoroki and Yoarashi were both wearing identity-concealing hoodies. They've also both left the car a bit earlier. Mei was going to instruct them on how to follow the main assault party in safe distance, to intervene if necessary.

The remaining two superheroes - naturally in their hero uniforms - continued their journey alongside Inspector Tsukauchi. All the way into the local headquarters of the police, where - in the briefing room - lieutenant Hawks and his team were busy strategizing. Together with Assistant Commissioner Mera.

Considering the rather… specific nature of that meeting, they invited no one else. In fact, the strategizing was all done with a clause 'it will all fly out of the window if Aizawa isn't insane'.

(***)

"So…" Yu Takeyama was clearly impatient about the whole thing. Something that none of the remaining Musutafu SAT members shared. "Do you think that this is bullshit or not?"

It was, in all honesty, hard to say how much the local SAT was still qualified to be called SAT. It was the newest SAT unit country-wide before the war, treated by the NPA as some sort of reserve force for Central Japan. That or, perhaps, it was because of the Nabu Mountains in the eastern Musutafu having lots of space for outdoor training. Even if the main local training center was bombed during the war and never rebuilt.

The war decimated the unit. New transfers were increasingly scarce as the police throughout the country dissolved. Also, many members simply stood up and left at some point, as pay cuts grew worse and the operations were increasingly common… and dangerous.

Today the Musutafu SAT was a shadow of its former self. In all honesty, it wasn't officially dismantled yet mostly because the Musutafu police figured out that it would make most of the members leave the prefecture hoping to join the few remaining operational SAT units. And no one wanted that. It was a good deterrent.

So the illusion of a working SAT unit in Musutafu was maintained, despite, for example, its sniper section shrinking to a single (if damn good) member. And its technical support section vanished entirely. The whole thing should have about thirty members. Today it had nine.

It was, by all intents and purposes, operating as a vanguard unit for the Special Investigation Teams and Riot Police Unit. Elite, yes. But less and less capable of achieving anything on its own.

Not to mention that it was no longer operating as a purely anti-terrorist unit. Today it was more like an anti-everything-that-has-a-gun unit. No one was going to pay them for looking glamorous and being scary as hell. They had to do things in the field.

"I thought we all made the bets already." Shinji Nishiya replies. His voice, tired. They had that talk already, but for some reason, Takeyama was on the edge of her seat. The two of them were friends, but patience goes only as far.

Hawks, of course, told them the whole truth. About Beast supposedly being a real world supervillain, superpowers being a thing nowadays, and Assistant Commissioner Aizawa having his own personal superhero brigade. They naturally made bets.

Takeyama, Takami and Toyomitsu (or, to go by their unofficial in-unit nicknames, Mountain Lady, Hawks and Fat Gum) made a bet that Aizawa is sane. Kamihara, Nishiya, Mizushima, Tsutsumi, Yuichi and Susumu (so, Edgeshot, Woods, Manual, Nagant, Snipe and Gunhead) were against.

The nicknames were both a tradition and inside joke. When asked about it by someone from the outside, Hawks always said (with a smile on his face) that it all started when during the training he freaked out over an accidental grenade throw (not knowing that it was a training one) and jumped out through the open window.

On the third floor. And almost right into the Commissioner General, who was just inspecting their training facility.

This together with his desperate flailing of hands mid-flight (and the fact that somehow he managed not to break anything and has calmly wished the highest ranked police officer in the country a good day, only to walk away in hurry) earned him the nickname.

After the incident, his teammates have written his false request for the transfer to the Japanese Air Force. As a dive bomber. His response was to use every occasion to conjure nicknames for them, referring to their greatest and most hilarious fuck-ups.

Keigo Takami was this type of man.

He also had an extraordinarily good hearing.

"Well, I guess it's time to find out the truth, finally." He gives Takeyama and Nishiya one of his patent wry smiles. "Because I think we're about to get visited."

Two or three seconds later, there is a loud knocking on the door. Takami nods to Gunhead, who is standing right next to them. The man opens them up.

It's one of Aizawa's police officers. Inspector Tsukauchi, if they remember it correctly. They met a few times when Takoba city needed their help. He is accompanied by two more people.

One big in some rather casual looking outfit, with a closed helmet that really stood out. And one small, in a hoodie. Or, not.

It looked like a hoodie, but it wasn't. The fabric didn't move like it should when the person in question walked. It felt more like an armor, except modeled to look like a hoodie. A fact that most of the people present in the room noticed immediately.

"Inspector Tsukauchi of the Takoba City police department." The detective introduces him just in case someone didn't recognize him. "And those two are Gargoyle and Defiant. The superheroes we promised to deliver."

Tsukauchi looks tired. And probably on some deeper level sickened by using the term 'superheroes' within a police briefing room in a completely unironic way. Old habits die hard, even if you do your best to get adapted to the changing times.

"As for their powers and the proof that you were also promised…" Tsukauchi continues. "... do your magic."

The big kid pulls his T-shirt up. If they expected it was the beginning of a striptease, then they are sadly(?) mistaken. Instead, the exposed part of the abdomen turns sharp, its texture changing to that of rock.

"Gargoyle." Tsukauchi says dryly. "He can harden his body to the point where he is practically made of stone, making him capable of withstanding gunfire even without a bulletproof vest."

There is a sound resembling a human suddenly choking on… oh, that's just the Assistant Commissioner Mera going through all stages of grief in a heartbeat. No one pays him any attention.

"Defiant." Tsukauchi then says. Everywhere through the room, things float. Pens, paper stacks, unused chairs. "Telekinesis. Powerful enough to kill a human being instantly when they are within a twenty meters range from him."

"Hypothetically speaking, at least thus far." The superhero in question says, while the items return to their prior locations. "The villain in question walked it off."

Takeyama looks actually overjoyed at the prospect of winning the bet. Mera looks like he was questioning his own sanity. Hawks merely glances towards the two superheroes before sighing loudly.

"Good news everyone! We've just finished our three hours long strategic meeting… only for the new intel forcing us to throw everything we've talked about into the trash. We're starting the whole thing again." He says. The groans that result from this are probably audible in Takoba. "Edgeshot, stop trying to sneak out of the room. I can see you from here."

Shinya Kamihara curses quietly and returns to his seat.

"I assume…" Hawks says, this time clearly towards Tsukauchi. "... that part of your presence here will be giving us all a brief rundown of the general field of…. uhm, what's the official term, again?"

"Meta-abilities." Tsukauchi replies. "Although we also call them quirks."

"Well, nice." Hawks says in an uncharacteristically dry way. "Give us a rundown, then we'll have a serious talk about the operation."

(***)

What follows that is a rollercoaster of existential dread and a variety of other emotions playing the supportive roles to it. It's also not just a rundown, but much more. In all honesty, it's almost everything that's currently known about meta-abilities.

From the meta-abilities taxonomy, through their generational differences, to known examples of them. The list includes members of the Network that are already known to Overhaul (caution, caution at every step) and known members of the Overhaul crew. .

They get to see recordings of Defiant's brief fight with Overhaul, of Gargoyle's brawl with Glassmaker and of the events preceding the Marukane Ward fire.

The SAT and Assistant Commissioner Mera are also treated to a rather detailed description of the system currently established in Takoba. Superheroes, sidekicks, the hero agency (not like they had a lot of occasions to test the remote oversight system in combat - and even that was mostly about sidekicks' work), and the villain classification system.

They mention having a temporary holding area for the villains, but also do not mention where it is. For security.

It's not that much of a surprise when Assistant Commissioner Mera at this point speaks to Tsukauchi about the possibility of exporting the system to Aldera. Seeing Dabi really is a good way of introducing figures of authority to the importance of the meta-abilities. It's easy to imagine your house (or yourself) being on fire.

Tsukauchi is kind enough to point out that this is something to ask Defiant - the current leader of the Metahuman Network - about. When asked, Defiant replies that this is something to talk about after Beast is subdued, but Network is generally speaking glad to work with the local police departments.

For as long as, well, it's within the established system. So without mandatory unmasking but with being paid (Defiant doesn't say 'if possible', hopefully Mera will find some money to pay them) and being allowed to recruit members in Aldera. If, naturally, they find some hidden metahumans in the city.

In short, the answer was yes.

Izuku Midoriya (although only on the inside) was absolutely horrified by the idea of branching out. It was scary to have so many people living in one building with him and, for some reason, looking up to him. Having multiple buildings like that…

They had to do that. Taking down Overhaul required matching up to the scale of his operations. They needed Aldera, at the very least. Perhaps Hosu as well, although that was a city where Izuku really didn't want to send anyone.

There was also Sekoto, although that city was… well, not much happened there. Even more than in Aldera. Takoba had over one million inhabitants. Aldera and Hosu had half of that each (the latter shrinking a lot since before the war), while Sekoto had about one hundred fifty thousand. It was small enough to not really matter, although eventually they'd have to branch out there as well.

Of course, they had to deal with the Beast first.

When the talk gravitated to that field, Defiant unleashed a bomb.

"We believe we know how his quirk works." He says. "Mostly by the virtue of one of our members being very good with computers and spending days sifting through the internet."

That was Mei. When exactly was she sleeping was anyone's guess at this point. Izuku half-expected her to only sleep on the weekdays, really. She also has a small budget for her 'work' expenses from her parents now.

Hatsumes apparently decided that financing their daughter's endeavors is both a reasonable long-term investment into support item development but also has a chance of prolonging the life of their daughter's boyfriend. Which also had a chance of prolonging the period of relative mental stability of their daughter.

It wasn't much, but at least they didn't have to decide whether they want to buy toilet paper this week or whether the money is better spent on some information gathering.

Jirou, who at this point was the Network's unofficial treasurer, was absolutely overjoyed at that development. Especially as together with Todoroki's income, they could finally stop rationing pretty much everything. Thus graduating from 'poverty' to 'general austerity'.

Joy.

It's not a video-recording. Instead, it's a rather shaky photo, probably made from a phone. It was posted on some 'spooky urban legends' forum by someone claiming to have seen a 'monster' skulking around his home, around the time when some brutal murder was committed in his area.

Whoever the poster was, they were lucky to not have been noticed by Imasuji. Still, a picture was made. And Mei got to it three days ago. And has successfully linked it to the Beast (as the brutal murder apparently fit his MO and timing, enough for the Tokyo police to link it to him, although they didn't find the picture).

Goto is much bigger in the picture. Bigger and almost fully covered in something. His hands are massive but their shape is completely lost to said something. Some dark liquid seems to drip off them. Most likely blood. The head isn't visible, which probably was the reason the police didn't find it (and the poster didn't go to the police with it).

There were some exclamations of surprise from the people in front of him at the picture. Izuku decides to show his expertise on quirks to the world. Besides, he had three days to think this through.

"We believe that those are muscles." He says. By 'we," he means himself, Momo, Mei and Mieko. "Imasuji's quirk seems to allow him to rapidly expand and control his own musculature, to the point where his muscles are no longer contained under his skin. This grants him a superhuman level of strength and speed. Considering the fact that he went against guns numerous times and is still walking around, we can surmise that he can layer his muscles densely enough to withstand gunfire." He sighs a bit. "Basically speaking, we're going against the Hulk."

"Well…" Hawks says, while the room is silent. "... that's really not what I expected to be doing today when I left my bed in the morning."

Some scarce chuckles. Hawks has dismantled the tension (and slight intimidation) that Defiant spread with his rather… problematic news. He is good at things like that, it seems.

"Weaknesses?" He then asks. "Head?"

Defiant nods. Hawks' assumption is correct.

"It's rather logical to suspect that the stronger the muscles already present somewhere in his body, the more he can amplify them." He adds. "Head lacks strong muscles, so this is most likely a weakspot. Except, by magnifying the muscles in his legs, he can probably move around extremely fast. We can't tell how fast, but I wouldn't be surprised if he could outrun police cars on foot. And he can simply cover his head with his arms. Hitting him in the head might be hard."

"Anything else?" Hawks ask. He seems to already have an idea, although he has clearly decided to check for alternatives first.

"The only alternative we can think of right now is the fact that it's clearly a transformative quirk." Defiant replies. "If we take Gargoyle as an example, we can safely assume that continuous usage of Beast's meta-ability will tire him out. But without fighting him, we simply don't know how long it'll take for him to hit his limit."

The alternatives that he didn't mention were Hijack and Assistant Commissioner Aizawa. But the latter was top-secret, and the former… well, merely secret. Deploying either was an option - one that Aizawa agreed to. Although Izuku could only play this card if there was really no good plan on Hawks' side.

Getting the local SAT slaughtered (however diminished it was as of recent) was too much of a price to pay for secrecy.

"Do you think you can hold him in place for several seconds?" Hawks then asks. "I mean absolutely still. Or at least his head."

"With my meta-ability?" Defiant tilts his head a bit, looking at hawks quizzically from under his helmet while trying to figure out what it is about. "Probably? Unless he is twice or thrice as strong as my estimations, the answer is yes."

"Wonderful." Hawks says with a wry smile on his face, while clapping and then rubbing his hands together. "Because honestly, after hearing all of that and remembering that one 'US Army versus Hulk' scene from the 2008 movie, I just decided that I'm not paid enough to get anywhere close to that thing. Kaina, darling, we're pulling out the Toothpick for this one."

Izuku does not know what this is about, but he isn't sure if he enjoys seeing the excited (and slightly bloodthirsty) look on the face of one of the SAT troopers in the room.

(***)

For all the Beast's inhuman strength and speed, the operation went perfectly according to the plan. Meta-abilities were, in the end, a weapon. Some of them were more powerful, some of them less. But none of the meta-abilities known to the Network made you invincible.

Once the local elite counter-terrorist unit realized what it was facing and had the time to prepare accordingly… Well, Izuku was almost certain that they would kill Imasuji even without Defiant and Gargoyle there. Their presence merely lowered down the risk of something going disastrously wrong. While also making things easier for everyone involved.

The SAT pretended they didn't get the meta-ability memo. They marched out of their heavily armored SWAT vehicle in front of the warehouse where Imasuji was holed up in. Hawks actually called him to surrender through a megaphone.

Imasuji naturally ignored it and rushed out of the warehouse into the small square in front of it. Yelling expletives, looking pumped up and… well, fully armored in his muscles, thus confirming Midoriya's theory about his quirk.

What he didn't expect was that instead of getting showered with bullets, he would get engaged by two superheroes. That alone, together with the suspicious lack of activity from the SAT unit in front of him, should have clued him that something was amiss.

But he was too busy enjoying himself. He sent Gargoyle flying back at the SWAT car with a single punch strong enough for Kirishima to actually dent the armored wall with his body.

Imasuji's eyes flared with murderous madness when he saw his opponent actually standing up after his punch. His attempt to leap after Kirishima again was interrupted when Defiant grabbed his leg with his telekinesis and almost made him trip.

Kirishima charged at him again. This time, he was a bit more prepared and had Midoriya to dampen Beast's blows with his barriers. Which still didn't stop Goto from turning this fight into a one-sided slugfest, Gargoyle being relentlessly beaten up.

Beast was a monster in more ways than one.

At this point, the SAT has finally responded with gunfire. This forced Goto back for a while (he had to cover his head to avoid getting accidentally killed) and gave Kirishima time to refortify himself after the beating.

It was worse than what Glassmaker did to him. By several orders of magnitude. Yet, he was still holding ground.

"IS THAT ALL YOU HAVE?!" Goto yelled. "I THOUGHT YOU'D BE A CHALLENGE!" Despite that, he is clearly enjoying himself.

He jumps back a bit, tears a chunk of asphalt and tosses it at one of the SAT soldiers. Izuku doesn't have the time to notice who was the target. Instead, he grabs the projectile mid-flight and slams it into the pavement.

The Beast looks vaguely irritated at this. This time he clearly leaps at Defiant, crossing the twenty meters between them in a heartbeat.

His punch goes through the telekinetic barrier and actually connects. However, Izuku made some progress in the field of creative application of his quirk. He didn't just erect a shield. He also pulled himself in the opposite direction of the enemy. With enough strength to further dampen the attack once the fist touched him.

He didn't really have a name for that technique. But technically it was one. Impact Compensation, maybe? Something to think about later.

It was practically this. A touch. It didn't even hurt. But Goto sure as hell got even angrier at that. So he followed Defiant, wanting to squash him like a bug.

This time, Izuku dodged. And then dodged again. It was at this point where he heard a message that Goto was finally in the correct position. So he ignited and focused his entire power on holding him restrained.

(***)

The criminals, terrorists and villains weren't the only groups out there that used abandoned wartime equipment to arm themselves. Some police units did the same. Musutafu SAT was among them. Although thus far, they had no occasion to use the Toothpick.

Toothpick was known officially as QBU-342. It was a Chinese anti-materiel rifle developed during the war, when the improvement on the field of anti-tank missile interdiction forced some changes to the combat doctrine.

QBU-342 looked like an oversized sniper rifle. It was almost two meters long, requiring a bipod to not accidentally damage the user while firing. In the field, it normally required a two to three-man team to operate. Here, Kaina Tsutsumi had time to deploy it on her own.

When Midoriya halted Goto for several seconds, she aimed the Toothpick and pulled the trigger. One second (and almost seven hundred meters - they didn't know how fast Goto could move, and if she missed, he would probably go for her so they gave her some space) later, 20mm depleted-uranium bullet designed to pierce front armor of APCs entered Goto's skull right above his right ear.

Beast's head practically evaporates, and his lifeless corpse fails to the ground. The bullet continues its journey before carving a two meters long crack in the pavement on the other side of the square.

"Holy fucking shit." Defiant can hear the slightly winded voice of Kirishima through his commpiece. "I'm super-relieved that those guys are on our side." Izuku expected him to say that the Toothpick and its handler were manly, but… well, he agreed with that opinion even more.

Hawks comes out from his cover and approaches them on foot. In his arm, an assault rifle.

"Everything's alright?" He asks. Defiant nods. Gargoyle (shit he is in for a really painful morning tomorrow, he can barely stand upward) gives him a thumbs-up. "Awesome."

He pulls his gun (Izuku actually freaks out for a millisecond, but it's not a 'you have outlived your usefulness, now die' moment) and fires it at the Beast's corpse. Right at the muscle armor covering his torso.

"Uhm, what are you doing?" Izuku asks.

"Low cost ballistic tests." Hawks replies before kneeling next to the corpse. He puts the gun down and draws a knife. After maybe three seconds of sticking it into the wound, he actually pulls the bullet out. Or what's left of it. "Hot damn, it didn't go through."

"Don't you have armor-piercing rounds?" Izuku asks. His knowledge about how SAT operates is close to none. Even firearms aren't exactly his forte. He can recognize a type of gun (like, a submachine gun or an assault rifle), but that's all.

"That was an armor-piercing round." Hawks replies before standing up. "This is probably where his armor was the toughest, but… looks like we'd all die today without your warning. Thanks." They certainly wouldn't bring the Toothpick with them without it.

Happy end. Even if Defiant assisted in someone's death. Then again, said someone was a mass murderer. And Izuku was merely assisting the legal authorities in dealing with said mass murderer.

(***)

"Well…" Overhaul sighs while taking the binoculars off. "... after all the hype, I expected more blood and guts. They really swatted him away like a fly."

Kurono doesn't think that you normally use a sniper cannon (he struggles to call it a sniper rifle) to swat a fly. But whatever floats his boss' boat.

They were sitting side by side on a rooftop with a comfortable overwatch over the battlefield. They actually located the SAT sniper beforehand - the Metahuman Network wasn't the only group in Musutafu with access to recon drones. He (or she) couldn't see them from their position.

Overhaul even brought some popcorn with him. All for naught.

And for safety, they took a rooftop a bit too far away from the battlefield. If he was closer… if he knew that Defiant was going to be here… all he needed was to have one of his bodyguards snipe him. Alas, water under the bridge now. He had none of those next to him. They were needed elsewhere.

"Oh, well." Chisaki says. "Going back empty-handed would be boring. And we have a new recruit to show them." He turns his head to Kurono. "One million dollars for whoever kills Defiant. One hundred thousand per head of the SAT members and the other superhero." He needs to motivate people a bit. Death threats establish loyalty only to some degree. And don't inspire initiative.

Kurono relays the news.

(***)

Defiant is still talking with Hawks when something suddenly changes.

"Wait, what the fuck is this?" He thinks it's Edgeshot. Naturally, they combined their communication networks for the duration of the operation. Defiant and Hawks look around and…

Black cloud erupted from nowhere in the middle of the square, twenty meters away from Beast's dead body. It's a quirk, no doubt about it - something that Takami and Midoriya realized instantly. Defiant actually freezes for a second in shock, only for Hawks to grab his arm and pull him back while shouting to Gargoyle to fortify himself and run for cover.

That's when two bright stars blink at them from the fog. Then comes the voice.

"My name is Kurogiri." The distorted voice bellows. "And I'm afraid that Overhaul refuses to let you end Beast's rampage so early. Please die."

Figures step out from the cloud. Ballistic shields, full helmets, bulletproof vests and guns. Lots of guns. Chisaki elites. And behind them, Mustard, unleashing his poison gas.

(***)

... you didn't think that it would end so easily and quickly, right?