A bit early, yes, it's not Friday everywhere, but I'm currently riding an emotional high following the medical examination that confirmed the fact that I DO NOT have cancer. So yeah. Grab the chapter and celebrate with me :D
(***)
Leo23 - Gentle Criminal will not play a large role, but will be mentioned. Stain is going to show up very soon. And thank you for your support :D
Guest 1 - :D
Guest 2 - I suspect that this will be used more and more the better Momo gets with her item printing abilities.
Dorkofauser111 - Aizawa's quirk is powerful, but it's being held in reserve for two reasons. 1 - because it's 'instant defeat' card in most circumstances, but if the enemy finds out about it, it'll lose A LOT of its capabilities (this is among other things why canon Eraserhead doesn't enjoy being known). 2 - because the Network prefers friendly police leader who is a metahuman (so understands their situation and shares their worries about the popular reaction) but no ones about that, so there is no risk that the people will react weirdly to him for protecting other metahumans.
(***)
Overhaul's battle plan was simple. He sent twenty of his praetorians, a formidable force in any circumstances. Especially with an element of surprise on their side. But that wasn't enough.
The enemy was formidable as well. And while Chisaki expected them to get massacred by Goto Imasuji beforehand, he naturally prepared for the worst eventuality. It was only natural to prepare for the worst when you wanted to live long and prosper, after all.
The worst eventuality was the SAT triumphing easily and actually having the support of Defiant and his irritating group of sidekicks. Which actually happened, to his absolute dismay.
He only expected Defiant (who seemed to always take point). Maybe the gravity girl if Eri healed her. The golem (Kirishima, was it?) was slightly unexpected. Then again, he was a perfect punching bag to occupy Imasuji's attention. And Defiant seemed to be surprisingly start when meta-abilities were involved.
Still, he crafted the plan with superheroes in mind. Hence, Mustard.
The gas user immediately unleashed his poison cloud (his armor and the elites carrying ballistic shields in front of him, mostly protecting him from retaliation). Chisaki's praetorians had helmets with thermovision, capable of seeing within the cloud. Plus, of course, closed helmets with air filtration.
Use the gas cloud to potentially (if the SAT soldiers didn't have gas masks - they weren't wearing them, but this changed immediately after Mustard unleashed his quirk) subdue the enemy. If it fails, at least it will work as a nice smokescreen. Have his forces approach the enemy under it, and mow them down. Easy peasy.
Defiant prepared for that. Unfortunately, Overhaul prepared for that as well. The battle between their contingency plans occupied the first twenty seconds of the battle and has most likely decided its result.
(***)
"Hold onto something!" Defiant yells through his commlink. He is hiding behind the car with Kirishima and Hawks, the latter busy firing his assault rifle into the cloud. "Tornado, NOW!"
Three seconds later, the wind blows with fury that startles everyone. Inasa Yoarashi unleashes his quirk from his hideout fifty meters behind the SAT lines. His control over it is detailed. He does that without sticking his head out.
The wind is slightly curved upward. Mustard's gas cloud is pushed from the streets into the air above, where it dissipates. Kurogiri's cloud is much more concentrated and appears to be holding its position in the middle of the plaza.
Hawks is a man who thinks fast. Within two seconds he realizes that Defiant brought another superhero to the field in secret… and all the tactical prospects it just opened. And since Defiant yelled the orders on their communication network, the additional hero was clearly listening in on that.
"Tornado, kill the wind for five seconds." He says, hoping that Tornado was the hero's name, not a technique name. That would be kind of dumb on his end. "Nagant…"
"On it." He hears.
(***)
The wind dies for exactly five seconds. That's all that Kaina Tsutsumi needs to aim Toothpick and pull the trigger again. Right before the wind resumes, a 20mm round punches through the line of ballistic shields, one of the praetorians behind it and then Mustard's abdomen. The scrawny teenager is almost severed in half by it.
(***)
"Aaand Mustard is down." Overhaul comments from his spot. In his right hand, binoculars. In his left hand, popcorn. "This is going to get ugly for us, I think."
He also notes that Aizawa obtained another superhero. One who appears to be a perfect counter to Mustard. Oh, well. His enemies can't be everywhere. And Mustard can always be deployed against his other enemies. Who, unlike the SAT and the local police, are much less likely to be carrying gas masks.
Thankfully, losing Jetstream taught them something about maintaining their assets. Shie Hasseikai came prepared today.
Whiteline wasn't much in terms of combat strength, but he had other uses.
(***)
Hawks curses in his mind when three white tendrils/tentacles/whatnot burst from Kurogiri's mist and grab the downed elite and two halves of Mustard and pull them back. Where Overhaul can heal them.
The remaining praetorians push towards the dead Beast (who was too heavy or too far away from whoever was controlling the tendrils), hiding behind a line of ballistic shields and keeping his men and women pinned down.
They are good. But the attack completely surprised them, while the attackers came fully prepared for it. Which included bringing two light machine guns to keep applying suppressive fire on the police officers.
They need to shatter the wall of shields and silence the machine guns. And fast.
(***)
Normally, merely witnessing someone getting shot wouldn't tell him much. However, with the sheer firepower of the anti-materiel rifle, calculating the trajectory was child's play. The round practically carved a straight line in the pavement! All he had to do was to follow up on it.
Kurogiri now had two such straight lines. And figuring out what the sniper was going to fire against was easy enough. Those two light machine guns were such tasty morsels for the enemy.
The rest was just opening some warp gates and waiting for the fish to catch the bait.
(***)
Kaina Tsutsumi aims again and pulls the trigger, taking advantage of another brief interruption of the wind.
Two seconds later, something punches through the edge of the rooftop she was decked at. She realizes immediately that it was her own bullet, somehow redirected at her.
The enemy missed for less than two meters at a distance of seven hundred meters. She is in no mood to check if that was a fluke or skill.
(***)
The only positive side of the situation, Hawks realizes once he hears Nagant's report, is that the wind means that the enemies can't throw grenades at them. And have to approach against the wind, which slows them down.
Of course, his unit retaliates with grenades of their own. Only to discover that Dabi is right behind the line of shields, wearing the standard outfit of Overhaul's praetorians. Ready to immediately melt any sufficiently slow projectile mid-flight.
Hawks can't hear it through the sounds of raging wind, but he is almost certain that Dabi is ecstatic.
The remaining grenades mostly explode before the line of shields. In a few cases, they reach it. Dabi melts the grenades rolling under the shields as well.
This is not good. Not good at all. The enemy clearly beats them up in combined metahuman/soldier operations. Neither Defiant nor Gargoyle had any training in that field, and both are clearly weakened by their fight against Imasuji. Sending them out is just asking for troubles, and Hawks, as a police officer, doesn't enjoy risking the lives of kids. At least not more than absolutely necessary.
The enemy vanguard reaches Beast's corpse. At that moment, Defiant ignites, still behind the now shredded car together with Hawks.
The nearest shields are thrown sideways, their bearers finally getting close enough to the superhero. One of the machine guns is silenced, thrown out of the praetorian's hands. This is the moment that Hawks and his team was waiting for.
Chisaki's praetorians start dying.
(***)
Dabi is a simple man. He came here today to burn new things. But how many things can he burn for more than a million dollars? He is still partially hidden behind the still operational shields when he sees one of SAT soldiers firing an assault rifle from behind one of the cars.
The whole 'throwing people around' smells of Defiant. And considering the fact that this is the only suitable cover near Beast's corpse, Defiant simply has to be behind that car as well.
This time he doesn't yell the name of his super move. No one would hear it either way. The wind is raging too much.
Hawks notices what's happening two seconds too late to shoot Dabi in time to stop him from unleashing Prominence Burn. Amplitude, with his position on one of the adjacent rooftops, saw it coming a bit earlier.
Dabi's legs are impaled by two ice spears that arrived out of nowhere. The shock makes his attack misfire and his flames dissipate. A second later, Keigo Takami puts three bullets into his chest. He is still using armor-piercing rounds. The bulletproof vest only slows down the bullets, not stops them. Especially at this distance.
He knows how dangerous Dabi is. So it's only the first of several bursts of bullets, with the chief inspector taking full advantage of the nearby praetorians being unable to respond in time.
Arch-Arsonist is practically riddled with bullet holes before he slumps to the ground.
(***)
"Another new hero, great." Overhaul comments. He didn't see what hit Dabi well from this distance, but spear-launchers certainly weren't part of the standard SAT equipment. Well, he'll have to ask the man himself once he gets resurrected.
Now that they have dealt with the enemy sniper, the officer in charge of the assault party moved Whiteline into the battlefield to extend his range, hiding him between two more ballistic shields. He has Dabi (and the praetorians from the area where Defiant shattered the wall of shields) evacuated into Kurogiri warpgate.
Unfortunately, his tendrils aren't strong enough to pull such a monster of a man as Beast. Like with Gargoyle, Goto's quirk affects his weight when activated. The surplus muscles aren't weightless. And he died in his maximum strength mode.
Also unfortunately, Kurogiri is too busy fending off the enemy sniper (and has a handful of rather irritating limits to his quirk) to do the precise evacuation stunt himself. Instead, they have to do it… manually.
Some of his remaining praetorians reach Beast. One of them attaches the hook to his body. The wire (metal and heavy, they had to counter Defiant somehow) is connected to a machine behind Kurogiri's warpgate.
It immediately begins to pull Beast into the warpgate.
Defiant, of course, tries to counteract it. Unfortunately, the machine is tireless. He isn't.
Overhaul's theory that Defiant's quirk is limited by fatigue seems to have found its confirmation. There is probably a reason he didn't return to save the victims of Mustard's gas attack. And why he fled from Dabi after Prominence Burn. He doesn't last long against the machine.
How odd. Aren't transformative quirk the ones with strict limits to their usage? Is Defiant's quirk somehow unique?
As Goto Imasuji's body vanishes in Kurogiri's warpgate, Whiteline retreats into it as well. He also pulls back the remaining downed praetorians (eight dead or wounded, unless Overhaul miscalculated something), while the living ones retreat orderly. Then Kurogiri closes the warpgate.
They didn't kill anyone. Shame. But at least they obtained some valuable intel and Goto Imasuji. It's a victory, although smaller than he hoped.
"Well, time to go." Overhaul announces at this point. "Going through all of that only for the Beast to run out of time for me to heal him would be pretty dumb, now wouldn't it?" Kurono agrees with him with a nod.
He stands up from his seat and hands the empty popcorn bucket into one of his underlings.
"Dispose of it." Chisaki says. "Just properly. I hate loitering." The underling nods quickly and leaves.
It was an eventful day. They got a lot of interesting data about Defiant, learned of two more superheroes and recruited another S-Rank into his little collection. Taking him down again won't be even nearly as easy. Overhaul will make sure of that.
(***)
Aizawa gets a phone call.
Well, it's on the Metahuman Network's tablet. Through a line that's secured better than the phone in his office. The list of potential callers is rather short.
This time, it's Defiant. And that's… potentially important. The attack on Imasuji's hideout should have ended by now. Unless Imasuji is on the other end of the call, at the very least Defiant is still alive.
Aizawa Shouta is at home. Still, his wife understands the needs of his job enough to have no problem with him picking it up. Besides, they weren't doing anything THAT interesting.
"How did it go?" Aizawa says after picking it up.
"Bad." Defiant replies. He sounds winded, probably from overusing his quirk.
Absolutely the last answer that Aizawa wanted to get, really. His day was so-so, he really didn't want to turn so-so into really bad.
"Everyone is alive and unharmed." Defiant says before Aizawa asks the question. "Well, Gargoyle is seriously beaten up, but thus far, nothing seems to suggest that he requires anything more than a few days of rest. That, unfortunately, concludes the list of positives."
"Imasuji escaped." Aizawa states. It's rather obvious at this point.
"Worse." Defiant defies expectations in the worst possible way. "SAT sniper killed him with a 20mm round to the head. Unfortunately, that's when twenty of Overhaul's praetorians rolled in, together with Mustard, Dabi and two new villains. This time, we have no captives. They all got away. With Imasuji."
Shit. This is literally the (almost) worst-case scenario. Overhaul just recruited Beast (well, there was a slight chance that Imasuji would refuse to work with him, but…). The entire operation was supposed to deny him a chance to do that. So, a general failure. The only thing worse was Overhaul doing it after SAT and the heroes were slaughtered.
Well, if they needed a final confirmation that there is a mole in the prefectural police headquarters, they had it now.
"Well, damn." Aizawa eventually says. "At least you all got away as well. Any more bad news that I need to face today?"
"Overhaul pulled it off because one of his new villains is a teleporter." Defiant says. His opinion on that fact seems to not diverge greatly from Aizawa's, at least judging from the tone of voice. "I know nothing about range and precision, but he warped all of them at once. And almost killed SAT sniper by redirecting her round through his warpgates back at her." Which, on its own, suggests that he was stronger than Eclipse. Or at least much faster.
Fuck. Looks like the day can get even worse. Oh, how utterly wonderful. Worst of all, they have absolutely no idea how to imprison said teleporting villain. Even Izu island won't slow him down. Worst of all, if there'll be more captives there than just him, he'll warp them all out.
"l'll contact the others." Aizawa says. They should probably figure out a name for their little council.
They'll have to spend some time looking through the recordings. They decided against watching live relation from the operation this one time. It was in another city. Worst of all, seeing a Network's drone in the air (a necessity for secure transmission) would alert Overhaul about the superhero presence in the area.
"What about Mera and Hawks?" Aizawa asks. That's all that he has to know as soon as possible.
"Mera did a hundred eighty and is extremely interested in having a Metahuman Network branch in Aldera." Defiant replies. "Considering the presence of Eclipse, we can send some of our members to live there while still operating together against Overhaul. And having them visit our headquarters regularly. At least until we get some local recruits."
Makes sense. Defiant will probably inquire about volunteers among the Network members and then tell them the results during the next general council.
Mera will probably have to get included in it as well. Maybe together with Hawks. Of course, Sasaki and Aizawa still had to be 100% sure that they were clear.
The mole might have been elsewhere than in the prefectural headquarters. Unlikely, but… they don't have the Inquisitor to simply ask them the right question.
"Hawks in the meantime…" Defiant sighs. "I think you should have a long and serious talk with him. I think he has some ideas about incorporating the local SAT into the meta-abilities business. And the war against Overhaul."
Aizawa doesn't tell that to the superhero, but this isn't war. Not yet. Oh, he himself sometimes refers to it that way, but this is merely a mental shortcut.
Both sides are gathering forces, testing each other and waging a proxy war against each other. The police are operating against the Shie Hasseikai and vice versa pretty much normally. The villains and heroes in the meantime…
Once the government collapses, that's when the real war starts. And thus far, their attempts to seriously weaken Overhaul are for naught. Two villains arrested, some businesses closed, almost nothing in the greater scheme of things.
Sure. They lost much less. But the situation still hung in balance.
"Fine." Aizawa replies. "Go back home and rest, kid. You earned it." He doesn't even have to see the recordings to know that much.
"I'm not a kid." Defiant sighs. "But I'm going to take you on that offer. I don't think that I'm going to be in shape for any serious thinking during the next two days at least, so have a council meeting without me. Just tell me the results once I wake up."
(***)
The rest of the council gets to watch the full recording of the battle the day after. Defiant, according to Alchemist, has slept for sixteen hours straight and was still mostly out of it, so they let him recuperate on his own.
Gargoyle, in the meantime, was still rather sore after the entire battle. Or, to describe the situation better, he was 'one big walking bruise'.
In all honesty, not much came from that one meeting. Except for the general agreement to incorporate Mera and Hawks into the general war effort. Not as full members with full knowledge of everything, at least not yet.
Hawks at this point was clear with 99% certainty, while Mera was clear with something like 95% certainty. Aizawa wouldn't feel comfortable with anything less than 100%. Not with how much they would lose if someone leaked intel into the Shie Hasseikai.
There was another informal meeting the day after (Defiant felt much better, but Shuzenji told him to not overdo himself yet and preferably rest). Mera and Hawks were surprised when Aizawa showed up with Mirai Sasaki.
"Oh, damn." Hawks says when the two of them sit by the table. "I should have known that you were a part of it, old man."
"Hawks." Mirai replies calmly. "Are you still doodling yourself but with wings and either guns or swords in your notebooks instead of paying attention?"
Aizawa decides that if Mirai Sasaki remembers details like that, despite Takami graduating years ago, then his brain is something else. Then again, he might have simply refreshed his memories, knowing who he was going to meet with.
"Nah, I've grown up from that. It's just guns nowadays." Hawks replies. Mera isn't a former UA student, but he knows of Sasaki's reputation. Him being in Aizawa's corner is a powerful argument. For… well, anything.
(***)
The talk is mostly about technicalities. Exchanging information about meta-abilities, making some long-term plans, trying to figure out what Overhaul might plot to do next. Some potential expansion plans (Hosu and Sekoto, plus perhaps the governor Yagi at last).
Aizawa also inquired Mera about some of his organizational expertise. That man had some really good ideas about how to scrounge a bit more money. He had to agree. Having this talk would be useful for that reason alone.
At some point, Hawks takes the field.
"Considering the mess that this operation was…" He says. "I think that it's time to tell the Senior Commissioner that the local SAT unit will no longer inform his office about our deployments. At least beforehand. We'll still be giving him reports in the aftermath."
Mera froze, with some sushi almost at his mouth. Aizawa was only narrowly less surprised.
"You can do that?" Sasaki decides to be the one to ask the key question.
"Nah." Hawks replies. "He's going to be an ass about it. He is either oblivious enough to not notice that someone is leaking intel from his office to Chisaki or ignores it for some reason. Either way, the only reason my unit wasn't murdered was because literal superheroes showed up. That says everything there is to be said about the Senior Commissioner Koji's leadership."
"This will end badly." Mera points out. "For you." Hawks actually chuckles at that.
"I don't give a flying fuck about that. Pardon my French." He says, the second part of it clearly directed at Sasaki, who frowns a little. "I had the talk with what's left of my unit. If he says no, we'll all resign. And then we'll join the Takoba City' Riot Police Unit."
Technically, the Riot Police Unit (together with Special Investigation Teams) were a part of the Prefectural Police Headquarters. Practically speaking, this was no longer a thing, at least in Musutafu. Aizawa had his own small RPU, most of its members fired from the Musutafu RPU when budget cuts came.
Officially, they were simply normal police officers. Even the name was unofficial. But equipment, training and tactics were identical to the regular Anti-Firearms Squads of the RPU.
It cost a lot to maintain, even if the unit wasn't large. But with the mess in the country nowadays, having a special forces team on the ready really helped. Especially when your Senior Commissioner was increasingly a pain in the ass to work with and had someone in his office leak intel to the criminals.
Mera had his own special forces team, albeit a smaller one. His love for legalities was going only so far. SAT, thus far, was officially operating on the prefecture level.
Aizawa realizes what it is about almost immediately. Keigo Takami has some good ideas right now.
"So we'll get the SAT unit to deploy against Overhaul." Aizawa says. "Just without it being called a SAT Unit." Hawks nods.
"Look, the way I see it…" Hawks doesn't give them a straight answer and instead continues talking. "... you are mostly pushing for the whole superhero dig because it's a good way of giving people something to believe in once the Reveal Day comes and everything goes to hell in a handbasket. It's a good idea, both because of the whole 'maybe this will save what's left of Japan' and because of maybe making the potential attempts on ethnic cleansing of metahumans lose an edge."
Not something any of them want to think about, really. But it might happen. Aizawa, in the meantime, is actually a bit surprised by how well Takami deciphered their motivations. He might pretend to be a fool, but he is much smarter than most people think.
"And that's all good and jolly." Hawks continues. "But do you know what would work well alongside that? Something that makes people realize that no, metahumans aren't untouchable godlings and some superior form of beings. Something like a dedicated police anti-quirk counterterrorist unit, which proves that even quirkless folks can kill a supervillain or two with plain old guns. While also teaching some metahumans a thing or two about humility in the face of the muggles."
"Not to mention being able to test dedicated equipment and tactics ahead of the curve." Principal takes over. "And with a handful of friendly metahumans to help in those tests." Hawks nods.
"Yeah, that too." He adds. "I only heard about a few metahumans but I already figured out that when it comes to the question of 'what to expect from future villains' the answer is 'about fucking everything'. Getting some experience in engaging diverse meta-abilities before running into another villain in the field sounds like a pretty good idea. I'm ready to lead that particular charge, because honestly, if we get more people like the Beast running around… things are looking pretty damn grim. Even with superheroes."
"This makes sense." Aizawa nods. "I assume that you'd also test deploying alongside metahumans."
"Aye." Hawks replies. "Two birds with one rock and all that. I read the summaries you gave me and I'll be frank. If Hijack wasn't an adult, I'd adopt him, no questions asked. Earworm and Gargoyle can be massively useful in counter-terrorist actions as well. The former for almost ideal reconnaissance, the latter as a ballistic shield that can probably tank explosives and doesn't require one of your hands to operate."
He didn't get all the descriptions. Eclipse was still a secret to them. And the summaries that they got had some crucial mistakes. Security means. But if some villain acted in a way suggesting that he read those slightly falsified information in combat… that would tell them everything they needed.
"We also need some combined arms training." Hawks continues. "Because Overhaul beats us in this. By a lot. They did not massacre us this time because Defiant pulled two superheroes out of his ass, and we can't expect that to happen next time. So we can't get caught like that again. So…" He gives them a wry smile. "Just in case the Senior Commissioner was an idiot, and we had to transfer into a brand new branch of the local Riot Police Unit… how does the 'Quirk Suppression Squad' sounds?"
Dedicated counter-terrorist unit for dealing with quirk users is one more thing that should be done on the national level. Alas, the local departments had to improvise.
(***)
Overhaul, unfortunately, is rather cautious about his assets. And, as Aizawa said, it's still not a regular war, just... prepations for one.
Also the Aldera Branch is going to find three local recruits. Feel free to guess their names :P