Jpx0999 - Overhaul shows up, and Izuku throws things at people (or people at things) certainly :P
Guest - All I can is that whoever got splated, they deserved that lol
Miqila - ... I guess, there is a lot of names in this fic so I probably should do it sooner or later, ugh.
(***)
"Seriously wrong?" Yagi asks.
"Up to that moment we've managed to avoid casualties," Aizawa replies. "Both due to the QSU and Defiant leading the main assault group, and Amplitude managing to deflect the Prominence Burn. Unfortunately, things were going to change on that field soon enough."
"I see." Yagi nods. Yeah, Aizawa was called in here to talk about casualties, so some of them happening weren't going to be that much of a surprise. "What exactly happened?"
"Repulse soon confirmed that the two signatures detected by the drones were Dabi and Overhaul." Aizawa replies. "Repulse is Defiant's second in command, and a head of Network in Tokyo. So, basically the heroic Superintendent General. With skills to match. So, despite fighting an SS-Rank villain, he was at the very least holding ground."
Aizawa personally enjoyed the part when Haimawari leaps at Overhaul at the beginning, Chisaki attempting to touch him only for his fingers to meet an invisible wall of his repulsor field armor, the supervillain promptly sent backward with a punch to the face that shattered his gasmask and broke his nose.
There was something deeply cathartic and enjoyable in seeing Overhaul getting punched in the face.
Especially when he then clearly had a meltdown mid-fight over running into a second Defiant for him to face.
"Amplitude has also continued to fight Dabi, taking full advantage of his much greater endurance to change the fight into a battle of attrition that he, eventually, won." Aizawa continues. "This also meant that the Arch-Arsonist couldn't power up another Prominence Burn, due to it requiring a few seconds of build-up that Amplitude would take advantage of to take him down."
"Was he eliminated?" Yagi asks. Yeah, having the Arch-Arsonist out of the picture sounded like a great thing, however…
"Unfortunately, when Overhaul realized that Dabi's about to be taken down, he called for reinforcements." Aizawa replies. He absolutely hates the man, but damn if he isn't good at his job. "Kurogiri warped in Duststorm, several of Overhaul's hired special forces operatives and three new minor villains he must have recruited recently in secret. Together they managed to rescue Dabi and push Repulse and Amplitude back, but were then overwhelmed by the relief force."
"Results of the engagement?" Yagi decides to have it summarized.
"Kurogiri eventually evacuated them." Aizawa replies. "Two of the special force operatives he brought were killed by the Anti-Firearms Squad officers present at the scene, while two more were incapacitated by them and arrested. I was, however, told that the Shie Hassaikai's resistance was actually broken mostly by Witch, sidekick from the Metahuman Network's Aldera branch."
Credit where credit was due, plus further establishing just how important the meta-abilities were and so on.
"What's their quirk?" Yagi quickly asks. Does he want to figure out what to expect from sidekick-level quirks?
"She can disperse and control fungal spores, which includes forcing their rapid growth." Aizawa replies. "One of the incapacitated operatives was rendered practically immobile by approximately ninety kilograms of shiitake mushrooms that grew off his equipment in less than three seconds. The other had a clump of mushrooms spawn in his throat, making him almost suffocate."
They stare at him in maybe SLIGHT horror. Yeah, Aizawa can relate. And it's not even the worst part.
"If that wasn't enough, someone…" Defiant, you slightly terrifying quirk maniac. "... had the idea of testing if she can spawn and control the parasitic cordyceps fungi. Turned out that she can, and she can make them perform some slightly terrifying things. What eventually broke the Shie Hassaikai and made Overhaul run was a swarm of twenty attack dogs controlled by her through the fungal infection. Said dogs were, before someone asks, recovered by the police from a dog fighting 'establishment' connected to the Shie Hassaikai, and were scheduled to be put down due to being too aggressive to rehabilitate."
There was something of a beautiful irony in Overhaul being chased into Kurogiri's warpgate by a swarm of dogs that his underlings trained (and abused). If you, well, excluded the fact that Aizawa was now mortally afraid over the risk of someone from the local Network (other than Carmilla) going villain.
Those kids were going to be the death of him.
"Witch had the dogs target Overhaul's hands." Aizawa continues, ignoring the shocked looks in front of him. "His quirk works through it. He killed several, but then he realized that he was in serious risk of losing his quirk permanently, so he fled. Without him around, the Shie Hassaikai forces in that area were broken. What's more, the villains didn't expect his rapid exit, and with Amplitude's large scale ice blast, they were scattered throughout the forest, resulting in several arre…"
"A second, please?" The chief prosecutor cuts in, while raising her hand. "I'm going to ignore the potential screeching of animal rights advocates over the situation being extreme enough to warrant radical measures, but… this 'Witch' can rapidly spawn mushrooms? Edible mushrooms? Whatever mushrooms she wants?"
"That's correct." Aizawa nods. "She was actually running a mushroom farm, using her quirk, before she was recruited into the Network."
"Are there many people with quirks like hers?" Yuki Hamada asks. "I don't mean the green thumb thing, I mean the ability to produce things practically out of nowhere."
What was it about?
"Not particularly common, but there are cases of such quirks, yes." Aizawa replies. "The most severe case is Arsenal, one of Defiant's executives whose quirks lets her create any non-living material object that she fully understands the structure of."
"Oh, God." Chief prosecutor practically shrinks in her seat. "I don't even want to imagine the chaos of having to establish laws in that field. Witch can practically put the entire local mushroom farm industry out of commission on her own, by producing things at a fraction of the time and cost. That Arsenal sounds at least a few times worse. This entire field of meta-abilities sounds like an economic disaster waiting to happen."
Oh. Well, that's one thing that no one in the know thought about thus far. They were already in a state of economic disaster, despite Shimura's government doing their best, imagining something even worse than their present state required quite a lot of imagination.
"And if we just ban the commercial applications of quirks, we're just going to give the Meta-Liberation Army propaganda ammunition." Yagi adds. "Worst of all, we WILL have to put a ban on that at least for some time, because economic issues aside, every company put out of business by metahuman competition will mean more torches and pitchforks, especially in the current economic climate. But good luck explaining to a superpowered social group that we're clipping their wings for their own good." He groans loudly. "God, I wish I didn't leave my bed this morning. Commissioner Aizawa, please continue narrating the events, unless the lieutenant general wants to add something?"
He didn't. So, Aizawa continued.
"The unexpected benefit of that particular engagement was that the chaotic and disorganised retreat of the Shie Hassaikai resulted in a certain… unforeseen confrontation." Aizawa then says, earning some questioning looks.
Which very nearly ended in a disaster. A serious side-effect of involving youngsters without proper police training in the field was that sometimes they did something incredibly stupid. The fact that this one time the outcome was surprising to anyone involved didn't mean a lot.
"Elaborate?" Yagi asks.
"One of recent Network recruits recognized one of the Shie Hassaikai villains during the briefing she received during the recruitment process, as her old internet acquaintance." Aizawa replies. "She said nothing, and then decided to confront the villain in question during the battle."
"That sounds like a serious discipline issue." Death Arms comments. "Not to mention a simple stupidity." Aizawa can't disagree with him on that.
"Most of the Network members are adults by law but teenagers by chronology." Aizawa replies. "They are receiving proper training, and the overwhelming majority of them follow orders to the letter, knowing full well that their lives are at stake. However certain… hiccups, are unfortunately to be expected."
"How did it end up this time?" Yagi asks.
"Very well, although mostly by luck." Aizawa replies. "Howl, the sidekick in question, DID attempt to convince Duststorm to surrender, by leveraging their past internet relationship. The attempt wasn't successful, we believe that mostly due to the supervillain in question suffering from a bad case of a 1st generation quirk manifestation that amplified his pre-existing nihilistic tendencies. However, rather than simply murder her, he conversely attempted to persuade her to join the Shie Hassaikai, also leveraging their past relationship."
"Love drama on a battlefield." Yagi groans. Aizawa doesn't like it either. "What happened afterwards?"
"When she realized that she can't convince him, then she defaulted to making sure that her old friend can't hurt anyone more." Aizawa replies dryly. "She faked being convinced by him before attacking him and damaging both of his hands. With some of his fingers being bitten off, his quirk - requiring him to touch objects or people with all five fingers of either hand - was effectively destroyed. As a result of that AND the Shie Hassaikai's system of evacuating their incapacitated members being neutralized by events further down the line, Duststorm became the first S-Rank villain to enjoy the police hospitality in the Tartarus prison."
He is going to ignore the whole Kuroiro thing. It didn't happen.
"I see." Yagi replies scarcely, his fingers tapping the table again. "Their quirk?"
"Howl is a complex mutant of… well, basically an anime style wolfgirl." Aizawa decides to use the atrocious words. "Duststorm's quirk allowed him to turn any object or person he touched with five finger points at once into grayish dust, to some unspecified degree capable of self-propagation. He used this quirk to destroy most of the Aldera police headquarters and assassinate Assistant Commissioner Mera. We've managed to identify him as Tenko Shimura, and believe him to be responsible for the death of his entire family following his quirk manifes… what?"
Aizawa realized at this point that Yagi was staring at him like he had seen a ghost. What was it ab…
"Nevermind." Yagi shakes his head. "You said that he's incarcerated?"
"That's right." Aizawa nods. "I also regret to inform you that this particular engagement ended with the death of one police officer, shot dead by Overhaul's bodyguards, with three more police officers being injured, and both Repulse and Amplitude having their quirks badly exhausted."
"So, a fairly bloody tie." Yagi comments. "Unless you count in the fact that Dabi could no longer fire those 'Prominence Burn' attacks, in which case it was your tactical and strategic victory, over the enemy's equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction being effectively sealed for the duration of the engagement."
Yeah, certainly a war veteran.
"That's our assessment of that particular combat, yes." Aizawa nods. "The fact that Overhaul himself was forced to flee was another major success, as his quirk allows him to resurrect his recently deceased allies, not to mention healing their injuries. He exhausted his quirk to a large degree while fighting Repulse and was forced to retreat from the battlefield, which… well, let's just say that the Shie Hassaikai regretted that fact badly a moment later."
"I assume that we'll hear of the reasons once we get there." Yagi comments. "Very well, what happened next?"
"When Dabi's initial salvo failed to wipe out the police force in front of the compound, Overhaul ordered a ground assault against them." Aizawa continues. "There were basically two battles between the police force and the Shie Hassaikai happening concurrently, with the other… going slightly worse for us, unfortunately."
"Elaborate." Yagi states dryly.
"Time for another recording." Aizawa announces. "It… contains some graphic scenes, just a small advance warning." The only person he is even remotely worried about in this room is Yuki Hamada, but… yeah, she was probably going to be alright.
A few seconds they get to see the same scene as they saw in the recording with Amplitude stopping the Prominence Burn. Except, this time there is less people and more chaos, the 'relief force' having already departed to engage Overhaul.
A few seconds later, a massacre starts.
There is no warning before a giant beast jumps out of the woods. Its initial charge has it practically run through some surprised police officers, slamming them into a car with enough strength to crush their bodies to pulp, the police car sent flying.
Before anyone has the time to react, more people die. Some sidekick with a lizard head, two more police officers, a firefighter and some paramedic. It's brutal. Bloody, Terrifying. The monster is being shot at, but it doesn't exactly stop anyone, the response to the attack uncoordinated at best.
Aizawa pauses the recording for a moment, before turning his head to face the audience. Yagi and Death Arms have a rather worried look on their face, while the chief prosecutor is significantly paler than Aizawa remembered her as.
"That's…" Aizawa says. "Goto Imasuji, known throughout the country as Beast, and among the local police as Carnage, and S-Rank villain and Overhaul's personal humanoid tank. His quirk allows him to control his muscles, to the point where he is capable of layering his muscle fibres thickly enough to withstand gunfire, up to and including anti-armor rifle munitions. The QSU managed to kill him in Aldera with an anti-materiel rifle, but Overhaul recovered his body and patched him up afterwards."
"And you didn't detect his approach because…" Yagi asks the right question. Yeah, drones and so on.
"I had Chancellor review the footage afterwards." Aizawa replies. "We're almost certain that Kurogiri warped him close by, probably a few seconds before his attack started. By bad luck, no drone was looking at that particular area, meaning that Imasuji's assault on the group in question came out of nowhere. We are already considering changes to the operational protocols in the future, but seeing as it all happened yesterday, we're still at…"
"Please, continue." Yagi cuts in. Yeah, wasting time and all that.
Imasuji's rampage is halted when a punch that was about to pulverise some terrified police officer is stopped mid-flight by a man in a tactical vest. Who then promptly delivers a right hook to Imasuji's jaw, pushing him back, before grabbing his hand and…
Yeah, Aizawa could scarcely believe it himself when he saw it for the first time. Paladin performed a genuine hammer throw against Imasuji, holding him by his arm, tearing him off the ground, swinging him around a few times and then letting him go right in time to see him fly back into the forest, crushing a tree in the process.
Paladin lept after him, shouting at people around to take care of the wounded.
"That's Paladin, superhero from the Nabu Mountains branch of the Metahuman Network." Aizawa replies as the recording ends. "His quirk is called Zealotry. It provides him with a boost of strength, endurance, speed and resistance to hits proportional to how morally justified and 'good' he sees himself in his current activity. His performance is subpar when fielded against thieves or minor villains, but…"
"... against Imasuji, he's basically a perfect opponent." Yagi finishes for him. He probably figured out what the Nabu Mountains branch means, but Aizawa has no idea if Death Arms and the chief prosecutor are in on the secret, so he prefers to not ask about it openly. "Did he…"
"Unfortunately, no." Aizawa sighs. "The combat between them lasted for about twenty minutes, being pretty much a superpowered boxing match with elements of wrestling. It ended when Overhaul called for a general retreat of his forces, and Goto Imasuji limped back through Kurogiri's warpgate. Which is technically a tie, but on a greater scheme of things it was our victory, as Paladin managed to neutralise one of our most dangerous enemies for the duration of the battle, while preventing further casualties on our side."
"Absolutely understandable and correct assessment." Yagi nods. "I can't say that I particularly enjoy the fact that our prefecture has The Psychopathic Hulk on the loose, but I assume that we share that particular opinion." Aizawa nods. "I see. What happened next?"
"Drones detected a gas cloud dispersed over the forest to the opposite side of the evacuation area than the one that Imasuji attacked from." Aizawa replies. "It happened at the same time as Carnage's attack, implying an enemy attempt of a pincer attack, and a deployment of another supervillain member of the Shie Hassaikai, namely Mustard. Arsenal, present at the scene, began to produce gas masks in order to prevent the rescuees emerging from the facility from succumbing to the gas if it managed to reach them, while superhero Tornado was deployed to engage Mustard together with a group of police officers. The clash resulted in…"
"Okay, please calm your horses, Commissioner." Yagi raises his hand. "Elaborate on the supervillain AND the superhero."
Right.
"Mustard is the person responsible for gassing the school in Shizuoka, the recent gas attack at an apartment block in Takoba and numerous deaths among the Overhaul's competition here in Musutafu." Aizawa replies. "He was a student at that school that snapped after a particularly nasty case of bullying. His quirk allows him to generate poisonous gas that he can then to a degree control. After being warped in by Kurogiri he started to push his quirk to the maximum, the resulting lethal poison cloud soon being hundred of metres wide and still growing."
"Oh, wonderful." Yagi states dryly. "A walking violation of the Geneva Convention in the hands of the criminals in my prefecture. This is just getting better and better, doesn't it? What about Tornado?"
"Control of winds." Aizawa replies. "Gusts of wind precise enough to de facto levitate others, ability to fly, when going all out capable of generating an actual, if small, tornado. A perfect counter to Mustard, a fact that he proved in Aldera when he dispersed his poison cloud allowing the QSU' sniper to eliminate him." Aizawa sighs. It's about to get bad. "Unfortunately, Mustard learned his lesson."
"Meaning?" Yagi asks.
"It was a trap." Aizawa replies. "Mustard expected us to deploy Tornado to engage him in combat, seeing the superheroes' quirk as a perfect counter to his own. He even showed up alone, precisely to offer us what looked like an easy victory. In a way weaponizing the fact that he was taken down so easily last time against us."
"What did he do?" Yagi asks, his eyes narrowing down on Aizawa.
"He stood his ground, and deployed several claymore mines around him." Aizawa replies. "Custom-built, with an option of attaching them to surfaces like trees with small drills in order to avoid Tornado's winds from moving them from their positions, also painted to resemble tree bark in colour. Then he waited for Tornado to dispel his poison cloud, and then approach him with the police officers in tow in order to arrest him. When they got close enough, he detonated the mines, to a devastating effect."
It was HIS screw up. Aizawa should have expected a trap. He was almost certain that if Defiant was in the command centre next to him, he'd realise something was wrong. The kid was much more attuned to the world of meta-abilities, and his reaction to Overhaul deploying Mustard in a way that basically begged to be countered by Tornado would be that of suspicion.
Instead, Aizawa focused on dealing with the evacuation of the captives and the ongoing clash between Repulse's group and Overhaul and Paladin's brawl with Carnage. He assumed that Overhaul made a mistake where, in fact, he didn't.
The fact that the Chancellor fell for it too was no excuse. The superhero had worse grasp on meta-abilities and with the raid organised in a hurry, they failed to properly introduce him to all their data about past engagements, focusing on more important elements like Prominence Burn.
Aizawa had no such excuses.
"Tornado spotted the mines at the last second." Aizawa replies. "He moved fast enough to send the police officers back with his wind, resulting in merely two fatalities and several injuries among them instead of a total wipe out. He also grabbed Mustard and slammed him into a nearby tree with enough strength to break his spine, rendering him paralyzed from the waist down. However, he had no time to escape the blast zone himself, and his attempt to shield himself from the shrapnels proved… not effective enough."
Silence in the room. Honestly, Aizawa would prefer them to have any reaction whatsoever, it would probably make things better.
"Tornado bled out on the way to the field hospital." He finally says the words. "Mustard was subsequently arrested and became the second S-Rank villain apprehended by us during the duration of the Gunga Compound raid."
"I see." Yagi's expression is unreadable, but… yeah, Aizawa can figure out what he thinks about from the context. "Who was he?"
"Real name Inasa Yoarashi." Aizawa replies. No need for secrecy anymore. "Came from an old family with rather patriotic tradition, most of his distant family members serving in JGSDF or the police. Both of his parents died as soldiers during the war. He was studying on UA's sports course, apparently being a gifted football player scheduled to join our U-20 representation before it basically stopped existing." Aizawa sighs. "Tried to join the JGSDF, but it's too busy shrinking to recruit a lot of people. When offered an option to become a superhero and support the local police, he agreed immediately."
Whether Network was going to survive his death remained to be seen. He was… popular. And the kids that the local social order relayed on were at the age when death was a foreign concept. And now they were reminded that it existed and was waiting for them in this line of work.
Aizawa could only hope that not too many of them would walk out on them.
"So, another good kid that this country lost." Yagi sighs. "At least that Mustard won't hurt anyone else. Unless they had more supervillains to pull out of nowhere, I assume that this covers the entire surface clash with the Shie Hassaikai. What happened to the underground group?"
"One of the superheroes from the surface group decided to go AWOL on me with several sidekicks after Yoarashi's death." Aizawa admits. "And, honestly, I'd be incredibly angry at him, if not for the fact that the results of his insubordination could be summed up as an absolute disaster for the Shie Hassaikai. Instead I'm just angry and a bit disappointed."
They're going to have a serious talk about operational discipline. Or, at least, sharing their plans with the police beforehand. One thing is certain - if they ever ask Aizawa for permissions to do something stupid, then considering the result of that one incident, he is certainly going to give them his blessing.
"What?" Yagi asks the right question, while staring at him incredulously.
(***)
Day Earlier
Kurogiri is back in the compound, trying to ignore the degree of absolute fury that Overhaul was now overtaken by. Mustard and Duststorm went off the grid, probably arrested, Carnage was evacuated after being severely beaten up by one of Purity's children, and…
Yeah, it was bad.
Thankfully, they are almost done with the mission. They managed to get themselves a lot of new members. More than fifty metahumans evacuated through Kurogiri's warpgates, none of them seeing the police that were here to save them. Instead thinking that it was all Shie Hassaikai's job in their eyes. Which should make the recruitment easier.
"We're pulling back." Purity announces to the remnants of her squad. Kurogiri pulled several injured and killed back, so it's just ten of them left, including Purity's two pets.
Yeah, it was enough for them, it's time to pack the bags, and go back to celebrate. And count their casualties. Then Kurogiri has to find Mustard and, perhaps, Duststorm. The former at least had a localizator on his armor, so it should be fairly easy to achieve.
Kurogiri walks back towards the warpgate he opened earlier in the earlier part of the corridor, the others walking behind him, some of the preatorians chatting about the battle they waged earlier.
He walks past an interjection with another corridor, when he suddenly feels someone grabbing him by his hand from behind the corner. He looks to the side right in time for his eyes to meet Rabbit's, Edge right behind him with her sword drawn and an expression of triumph on her face.
Sh…
"POWER…" Rabbit yells, Kurogiri generates an emergency warpgate back to the SH headquarters in Hosu, leaping into it while he still has the time…" ..LESS!"
The warpgate closes, severing Kurogiri in half, his legs falling onto the floor deep into the Gunga Mountain Compound. His last thought is that of a terrified realisation that he missed the destination a bit in panic, and if Overhaul doesn't find him in time it'll mean…
"KUROGI…" Purity shouts, the praetorians raising their guns… but that's when someone speaks. Someone behind them.
"Don't move." They turn their heads. Some of them recognize the woman standing there, a woman practically covered in explosives, her thumbs floating menacingly above detonators. Immortal. "I'm going to walk it off. You won't."
The silence lasts for a few seconds before Purity yells a particular nasty curse. Then she orders her men to put their guns down.
(***)
Someone had to die, sorry. Yoarashi was... well, someone had to, the Network could go without casualties only for so long. Also, Spinner died as well [it's a bit of a blink and you miss it moment with Carnage].
Also, wow, Dabi's fuck-up and failing to kill Rabbit really came to bit Shie Hassaikai in the ass, didn't it?
No, this isn't the end of Tenko x Awoo content in this fic. Let's just say that the aftermath of the Raid might be more gutwrenching and emotional than the raid itself.