Jpx0999 - Yes, it's certainly not a world that's familiar for him lol xD
Fencer29 - Midoriya is doing his best, but... he lacks experience. Thankfully, he's steadily growing up.
Miqila - Yeah, Nedzu really draws attention to himself here xd
MrMateusz - :V
Guest - Yeah, a wild ride ngl.
(***)
"The forces of that governmental conspiracy." Yagi asks. "How much did they manage to deploy?"
"We estimate their unit deployed to the Gunga Mountain to be composed of approximately one hundred special ops operatives." Aizawa replies. "With heavy weapons, but no vehicles. It also seems that they arrived and retreated with another warp quirk that we presently know nothing about."
Yagi groans after hearing that.
"Is there someone in this country that doesn't have access to a warping quirk?" Governor Yagi asks. "Aside from, until now, the Government, the JGSDF and the majority of our police force?"
That's an extremely good question to ask.
"The warp quirks are rare, number-wise." Aizawa replies. "It's that they are strategic assets, so any warp quirk user is guaranteed to become a part of some established organization sooner or later. Shie Hassaikai bought Kurogiri's loyalty with a massive amount of money, paying that man practically for every opened warpgate. The local police department is ready to make Eclipse a golden statue in the liking of her girlfriend if she asks, because she's just that valuable, our budget issues aside. We also know of another warp quirk user, coincidentally Kurogiri's daughter, currently working for the League of Villains in Shizuoka, with a similar situation."
"Makes perfect sense." Yagi admits. When the chief prosecutor and lieutenant general glance at him, he decides to elaborate. "I can think of at least several types of meta-abilities that are simply too valuable to be left alone. Teleporters. People capable of healing injuries and diseases. That Arsenal hero too, does she need anything to fuel her production ability?"
"Calories, pretty much." Aizawa replies. "She's powered by energy. Big eater, apparently."
Yagi looks back at his two companions.
"If she was a villain, she could outfit an entire terrorist organization with state-of-the-art explosives or even chemical weapon at a cost of some McBurgers." He announces. Oh, now they realized what it was about. "How would we even realize before the attack that they were preparing something? We normally find out because someone realizes that someone else is gathering bomb components. How are we supposed to realize that her bomb components were burgers?"
Lieutenant General's face is mostly unmoved. But the chief prosecutor appears to rapidly go through several stages of grief in a few heartbeats.
"I think…" She finally settles on saying. "... that I'm beginning to understand the wisdom of the villain rehabilitation program. Even more than I did after hearing of that Carmilla person."
"Precisely." Aizawa decides to strike the iron while it's hot. "There are many metahumans with, let's say, behavioral problems that do not warrant getting them executed. If their quirk makes them impractical to imprison, getting them to work for us is an arguably better alternative. Especially as every meta-ability, especially those more powerful ones, are absolutely unique assets, opening completely new opportunities."
They, and that's not just Aizawa's opinion, need the Underground Heroes. Sure, a lot of them are going to snap back to villainy, they have a relatively good track record if only thanks to being extremely cautious with recruitment, but… eventually, someone will make the wrong choice.
"There is a sidekick in Aldera Branch going by the hero name of Quicksand." Aizawa decides to add an example, even if not about the underground heroes per se. "His quirk allows him to render solid materials into liquids, temporarily or not. To speak in practical terms, he can swim through the ground. If there is a landslide or an avalanche or buildings collapse after an earthquake, he can rescue people from the ground practically instantly, by simply swimming through it, puting breathing masks on the buried people and then pulling them to the surface. However, he is unique. This isn't a skill that can be taught in a school to others. If we lose him, we have our options in case of disaster irreversibly limited."
"One more reason to urge the Prime Minister to support the heroics initiative." Yagi agrees with him. "Expansion of options is one thing, but I can also imagine several unique applications of Quicksand's quirk in crime. Like, say, swimming through the ground into a bank's vault. It's like digging a tunnel there, except instant and basically impossible to stop."
Oh. Well, that particular application didn't come to Aizawa's mind, but it's actually a terrifyingly possible thing. If Quicksand decided to become a villain, that is.
"Can we even keep them in line?" Lieutenant General asks. When the eyes center on him, he keeps speaking. "That one ability alone offers that Quicksand person a way to earn several times more money in a much shorter timescale if they go villain. And if he plays it out correctly, he could keep doing that while staying almost perfectly undetected. It sounds like quite a temptation."
"Quicksand has thus far an exemplary service record and sees no indication of succumbing to such temptations…" Aizawa quickly replies. "... but I assume that you meant it as an example for the heroes in general."
Death Arms nods.
"This is an extremely valid worry." Aizawa admits. "We can't exactly expect to pay the heroes more than at least some of them could earn from criminal applications of their quirks, especially in the current situation. And while most of the active heroes thus far seem to be motivated by their desire to make the country a bit more livable, we can't exactly rule the presented option out in the long-term. We do have something of a solution, but, err…"
"You don't exactly like it, I take it." Yagi cuts in. "What is it?"
"Showbusiness." Aizawa replies. Yagi blinks at him. "Those are superheroes, in real life. Unique powers. Unique aesthetics, at least those that had proper uniforms manufactured for them already. Unique feats, impossible for normal humans. Attempting to merge them with the police force and make them police officers with unique skillset will eventually backfire on us. But if…":
"... they are allowed to operate independently, there is a fair chance of the market realizing the golden opportunity." Yagi cuts in. "Heroes advertising clotheslines, films based on their exploits, engineering companies mentioning the superheroes they equipped in their adverts, much more money than the police or the government could reasonably pay them. So if you have a powerful quirk, you don't need to rob banks with it when assisting the police and some movie deals could make you a celebrity and a millionaire."
"Precisely." Aizawa sighs. "I don't enjoy the concept of marrying showbusiness with emergency services and law enforcement, but what other options do we have? You all saw the amount of firepower that Amplitude has at his disposal. Do you exactly picture someone that could destroy a small town with a snap of their finger forced to patrol the streets in a police car and do mountain loads of paperwork without eventually growing frustrated? We would naturally have to maintain strict oversight over the heroics, but not to the point of trying to put muzzles on the heroes in question."
"That's a perfectly valid argument." Yagi nods. "I don't enjoy the conclusion either, but I'll certainly present it to the Prime Minister. Back to the main subject. Close to one hundred special force operatives. How would you describe their level of training?"
"Beneath the level of the SAT." Aizawa replies, taking Hawks' words for it. "I'd say that they were approximately similar to the level of our Anti-Firearms Squads. Unfortunately, they also had something to tip the scales in their favor."
"Elaborate?" Yagi asks.
Aizawa switches on the recording from the Council's assault on the evacuation point outside of the Gunga Mountain Compound.
"Oh, fuck me." Yagi is the first to comment on it.
Quirks.
Every single of the twenty special force operatives that emerged from the forest and began to rain death upon the police officers and rescuers had meta-abilities.
Some of them are offensive ones (raining death not just with their guns but also with their quirks). Some of them are used creatively - like that one slight gigantification quirk users that used his superior physique to wield a heavy machine gun and counter recoil efficiently.
Some of them were defensive ones - like those generating overlapping (and mobile) energy shields in front of the advancing wall of death. Some of them had no visible quirks, theirs were probably somewhat more subtle.
"During the four minute long firefight, twelve police officers, five sidekicks, four paramedics and five firefighters died." Aizawa states calmly. "This number includes Tensei Iida, the head of the Musutafu Anti-Firearms Squad, killed by what we believe to be a homing bullet quirk, and Ba… fire chief Aoi Miyake, the head of the prefectural firefighting department, killed by an offensive quirk of unknown nature.. Most of the remaining personnel was injured, including Arsenal who is currently in the UA Hospital, although her life isn't endangered anymore."
Thankfully - if you can speak of it like that - none of the sidekicks were from their prefecture. However it still weakened the Network presence and endangered it with the collapse of some less entrenched prefectural branches.
"So, a total massacre." Yagi sighs. "Did the evacuation point fall?"
"The attackers failed to cross the open space and reach the evacuation point proper." Aizawa replies. "Mostly thanks to the deployment of the Witch's remaining attack dogs, Repulse activating an anti-firearms shield of his own that managed to prevent death of the remaining police officer on site and allowed them to return fire and, finally, Paladin returning and using what was left of his strength after his battle against Carnage to… do that."
On the screen the attacking line is temporarily disorganized after someone throws a police car at it. With enough strength to break through the energy shield. It was restored almost instantly, but the operatives behind it had to jump to the side to avoid living through a rather unorthodox car crash.
Aizawa isn't even angry about the destruction of police property. That probably saved quite a lot of lives.
Charging at the line was seen as suicidal, even for Paladin. Amplitude was too far to arrive in time, but the Knights' head was closer. The remaining heroes in the area lacked firepower to succeed on their own.
"Despite the best efforts of the officers and heroes present on-site, we failed to incur any casualties on the attackers during that stage of the attack." Aizawa announces dryly, trying NOT to think about the number of subordinates he lost during that few minutes. "Thankfully, me and Chancellor expected that things were going to go downhill. As a result, we've deployed reinforcements to the evacuation point after the first message from Defiant. They included a person with a rather unique quirk."
He opens another recording. The wall of death was almost at the messy and bullettorn vehicle park that acted as an evacuation point, when several JGSDF armored personnel carriers arrived, immediately taking off the road, and flanking the attackers before starting to unload the soldiers inside.
The attackers calmly reorganized their line into an L letter to repel the counterattack. Except, that's when their quirks stopped working in an instant.
The attackers might have been professionals, but they just lost their shields and solid half of their firepower - while being in the middle of an open field with no cover whatsoever. In front of several machine guns, low caliber cannons and about forty JGSDF soldiers, out for blood.
To say that what followed was a massacre would be a gross understatement. It was akin to the result of a farmer waving his scythe through a wheat field, everything in range falling to the ground almost in an instant.
They barely had the time to realize that something was wrong and their quirks were out of the game before the fight was over. Only a few of them had the time to start running away, but… not fast enough.
"Looks like…" Yagi says slowly. "... someone's overconfidence in their superpowers turned out to be deadly."
Aizawa nods. It was… honestly, he never paid a lot of attention to his own meta-ability, seeing it as a liability. Something that damaged his health (and probably was responsible for his emotional issues), but wasn't exactly useful.
Because honestly, if Aizawa had to use his quirk, it meant that he was on the battlefield. And as a Commissioner in charge of the prefectural police, he wasn't supposed to be on the battlefield.
But after seeing twenty metahumans (even if probably artificial) wiped out in about three seconds thanks to a single usage of his quirk? Yeah, that gave him perspective.
His quirk was another strategic asset, just like Eclipse's warpgates. To be used at just the right opportunity, and kept hidden otherwise.
"The fighting within the facility was even more fierce." Aizawa replies. "We believe that the attackers deployed twice as many operatives for that attack. Thankfully for us, the remaining MLA corpse puppets and noumus decided to prioritize the new arrivals, serving as a very good distraction until they were dealt with. As a result, superintendent Takami decided to temporarily dig in to wait for Defiant to rejoin them before retreating outside, intending to use Eclipse for a warp out of the facility once he arrives."
"How did that play out?" Yagi asks.
"It… might have played out better." Aizawa admits. "The intel obtained by Defiant and Defiant himself were considered to be of strategic importance, something that I stand by even now. However, superintendent Takami made the decision before he found out that the enemy force was composed entirely of metahumans. This, among other things, resulted in the MLA forces in the facility being cut down faster than he expected. The result was a fierce close quarters combat that lasted until Defiant's arrival."
He would describe it in detail, but… it was simply too chaotic. Too many points of view, too much shouting, too much sudden changes. Aizawa himself would have never managed to keep track of all that mess, especially while being in the middle of it.
Hawks, somehow, did. He was… goofy and odd, but surprisingly hypercompetent when it mattered. What's more, he had Earworm, the ultimate early warning system about enemy movements.
There were many scenes that he could show the people in front of them. Even without the context they wouldn't mean a lot.
Hawks drawing an enemy quirk shieldbearer through the corridor, only for the man to discover that Quicksand just threw a remote explosive package through the wall right behind him, cutting down not only him but also several operatives behind him and collapsing the corridor.
Another Council henchmen that was about to shoot one of QSU members suddenly being hit by a clump of high potency acid, and then - while he was trying to get it off him - being cut down by Edge who jumped past him under Bulletproof status.
Two QSU troopers mowing down three more Council henchmen while they were freaking out over the police officers somehow appearing impervious to bullets (thank you, Rabbit, for another practical lesson in why it's absolutely great that you were on our side).
Frankly speaking, it was a surprisingly one-sided battle, especially when Eclipse began to close the corridors with her shields, forcing the Council goons to push through the remaining ones.
Blackwing going on a rampage was another highlight of the battle, even if he ended up separated from the main group for the time being (although it turned out to be for the best in the end).
Frankly, it was fairly obvious that most of the 'mass-produced' quirks that the Council armed hand received were inferior to 'naturally' developed ones. When faced with people of superior combat skills supported by people with superior quirks - both sides having some experience in fighting together - the result was a disaster.
Although, to be honest, without Earworm there, things could go much worse. She was an absolutely broken character in engagements of this type, and Hawks made it rather clear that if something ever happens to her parents, he is adopting her (and probably Shinsou while at it) instantly.
(Aizawa was at best 50% sure that Hawks was joking)
Unfortunately, the engagement wasn't without casualties. But they weren't quite there yet.
"When Defiant arrived, the two units deployed by the conspiracy found themselves at a complete disadvantage." Aizawa continues. His arrival was rather impressive, too. He waltzed through a corridor full of Council goons, slamming them all into walls or nailing them by their hands to those with his remaining blades before rejoining the hero/police strike force. "What was left of them has promptly disengaged. Unfortunately, that's when it was discovered that something was suppressing Eclipse's warp quirk."
"That's a possibility?" Yagi appears vaguely happy about it.
"We believe that warp quirks interfere with each other, mutually preventing activation while in close proximity." Aizawa replies. "The enemy warp quirk user must have been close enough to prevent Eclipse from evacuating our strike team. As a result, Superintendent Takami ordered a conventional retreat. That's when the enemy forces returned, bolstered with their reserve force."
"I assume…" Yagi asks. "That this is when things went wrong."
"Unfortunately, yes." Aizawa admits. "Enemy forces arrived en masse. What's worse, Earworm's capability for reconnaissance is weakened while on the move. As a result, the retreating strike force was successfully ambushed. This led to the death of two QSU troopers and the critical injury of superintendent Hawks in what we believe to be an Area of Effect rapid aging quirk."
(***)
Day Earlier
When Izuku saw what was happening, he reacted instantly. It was an instinct, really. He powered up his Ignition, threw everyone he could from the afflicted area (Thorn contributed, reacting almost as fast although her method of pulling people out of it was significantly less gentle), and then located the attacker.
A younger looking Council henchman, a woman with black hair hiding behind a shieldbearer and touching the wall with all five fingers of her right hand.
The look of triumph on her face is cut short when Izuku uses the Force + One for All combo to instantly break every single finger on both of her hands… and tear off both of her pinkies.
He might be a superhero, but he is past being soft about it. Especially when it's a situation as pitched as this one. And when it's Hisashi Shigaraki's goons that they are facing.
The woman screams, the attack is stopped instantly. The gunfire - and offensive quirks - going toward them from the woman's compatriots - meet Defiant's telekinetic wall and two large ballistic shields carried by Kirishima, who reacted to the attack the fastest.
The subsequent flanking attack is stopped by Eclipse's circular shields. Mieko is clearly running out of steam… and patience.
"FUCK…" She shouts while generating another surface. "... YOU!"
The next surface is horizontal… and fired as a projectile through her own shields. Izuku's Ignition sense can feel two henchmen armed with ballistic shields being decapitated behind Eclipse's shield.
Someone woke up and chose violence. Kyoka being shot in the arm a bit earlier probably contributed.
"Edgeshot and Manual down!" He hears a shout from one of the QSU soldiers. "Hawks, what's your status!"
"Alive." Hawks managed to raise up. Izuku glances at him, and… his equipment is tattered, and he has a long white beard. Not to mention white hair and so many wrinkles. "But if I try to shoot a gun, the recoil will probably break my arm. If that's what it means to be old, it fucking sucks. Eclipse, Defiant, keep your shields up, we're pulling out before more of those assholes show up."
"What about…"
"We're leaving them." Hawks replies. The two QSU troopers were reduced to skeletons, with nothing left to save. They'll grieve for them later. "We'll return to them once we aren't in danger of joining them."
(they didn't return for them, but for a different reason altogether)
(***)
Today
"We have access to the quirk that could counter it." Aizawa replies. "As a result, superintendent Takami should be able to return to active service in a few weeks. For now he is under observation due to being, technically, about ninety years old. We want to make sure that no health complications caused by old age would kill him before that happens."
Several other members of the assault groups were aged as well, but no one even remotely as much as Hawks. Rewind was going to patch them soon.
Rewind, well, unofficially it was 'Recovery Girl' now. Chiyo even got her a small hero uniform, to the girl's absolute delight. She, naturally, wasn't allowed to show anywhere to active combat zones, and even in a hospital she was always accompanied by Chiyo Shuzenji.
She wasn't officially recruited, of course. Defiant had standards, it was more of a way to make a certain hero-loving little girl happy.
Chiyo Shuzenji's attempts of guiding the girl into becoming a rescue hero/medical professionalist were tolerated if only because the recording from the Shizuoka hospital fight made it clear that Chiyo's first reaction to the word 'grenade' being thrown around was that of shielding Rewind with her own body.
That earned her some respect. And Defiant's readiness to let handling Eri to her when the girl was needed anywhere.
"Then…" Aizawa sighs. "... the enemy deployed the magical girl."
"Excuse me?" Yagi blinks at him.
Looks like another 'nothing can surprise me anymore' being painfully overturned by the dreadful reality of the era of quirks.
Aizawa, without a word, switches off another recording from a drone.
A young woman wearing an outfit oddly resembling what one would expect from a magical girl is standing at the open field next to the Gunga Mountain Compound. In a large distance from where the evacuation point was, so there was in range to engage her.
Then she raises her hand.
And in an instant solid half of the compound in front of her is crushed by invisible force, eliciting shocked gasps in the audience.
A few seconds later the magical girl stares directly at the drone observing her from a distance. A moment later the feed disappears, replaced with a large NO SIGNAL inscription, the drone in question destroyed.
"That individual…" Aizawa replies. "... that we know next to nothing about, has instantly obliterated the now abandoned half of the facility, probably in order to cover up the evidence pointing towards the conspiracy in question. With the enemy forces finally disengaging from the strike force, we've immediately realized that another attack is incoming. The result of that was a rush towards exit."
"Did they make it?" Yagi asks.
"They did, narrowly." Aizawa admits. "And only because Blackwing ran into the villain in question, apparently going by 'Apocrypha', and managed to engage her in combat before escaping, though one that wasn't recorded. Long enough to delay the destruction of the rest of the compound enough for our remaining forces to leave it without further casualties. After destroying it, together with what was left of potential evidence, the conspiracy forces retreated through their warp quirks. After probably having decided that they suffered enough casualties for the day."
"I see." Yagi taps the desk with his finger a few times. "I assume that 's all?"
If you excluded the… Defiant situation. But that happened later. But… it's not important for Governor Yagi right now.
"Yes." Aizawa nods.
Yagi sighs.
"What am I supposed to do with you right now, Commissioner Aizawa?" He then asks. "I invited you here with the intention of discovering what sort of fuck-ups happened for the local police to lose more than thirty officers during a single operation, and that's without other casualties. With a full intention of having you fired if you didn't manage to conjure a believable explanation."
Okay, that's going in a bit of a bad direction, Aizawa decides. But Yagi clearly isn't done with it yet.
"Now I discovered that the right question isn't 'why were the casualties so high' but 'why were the casualties so low'." Yagi continues. "You and your men fought back the forces of a massive governmental conspiracy, a previously unknown superpowered insurgency group AND a local superpowered criminal syndicate that arrived with chemical weapons and literal genetically engineered supersoldiers. At the same time, practically speaking. You have managed to liberate most of the captives, and avoided a total wipe-out of the involved forces, despite having to face, among other things, an army of gun-toting zombies, said chemical weapons, a dragon and a magical girl that should be basically treated as a weapon of mass destruction. Did I miss something in that list?"
"Uhm, nothing that I know of." Aizawa replies.
"I also have to point out that while I told you to do everything you can to retain order in the prefecture…" Yagi adds dryly. "... I didn't exactly expect you to amass a small army of superheroes, establish unconstitutional detention facilities for supervillains and issue what feels like an open kill order for some of them. Without telling me, your governor, that superpowers exist."
… well, Yagi has a point.
"At this point I'm torn between having you fired and having you promoted." Yagi says. "So I'm going to act smart about it and have the Prime Minister sort it out. For now, you're dismissed."
(***)
Yesterday
It was a few hours after the end of that mess and honestly, Izuku felt numb. He heard of the casualties, he heard that Yoarashi died, and it was… he didn't want that. He didn't want any of that.
He was sitting in the UA hospital, on a corridor next to the operating room where Chiyo Shuzenji was trying to save Yaomomo's life. She said that they were almost certain that it was going to be ok, they just needed to take the bullets out before letting Eri rewind her back of her injuries (her quirk didn't work on foreign objects inside the body), but…
That's when he gets a text message. It's his mother. She wants him to go home. Right now.
Finally, some answers.
(***)
The Council arrived, gunblazing, thinking that they were Prussians entering France in 1870, turned out that they missed their destination and landed in Vietnam. Trust me, they won't like it in the slightest. Big oof, Wolfram. If not for the magical girl, you'd be screwed, and that's really disappointing. Pride comes before fall and all that (also, the Council still has a shitload of assets, but it's declining, and REALLY didn't expect the degree of training and equipment that the Network had).
What's happening with Inko's call? Who knows. On a sidenote, Eclipse woke up and choose violence. High time.