My Hero Academia – Under Pressure – Season 3 – Episode 23 – A Day In The Life Part 2: Pro-Heroes
In Japan, within the headquarters of Mythical, the No.1 Pro-Hero eyeballed a set of computer screens that were right in front of him.
On the screens were a set of images from a familiar setting. Specifically, it was the highway that The Deck had battle security and other Pro-Heroes on. It had been one day since the attack, and Mythical was brought up to speed on things after they confirmed it was the group of villains who did the attack.
"Casualties?" Mythical asked, eyes glued to the screens.
Behind him, multiple government officials were typing on their phones or flipping through sheets of paper.
"Thankfully, no, sir," noted one.
"The crashes that the semi-trucks caused did have some critical injuries," revealed another, "but as far as the doctors can tell they'll be okay after some treatments and surgery."
The No.1 hero grunted in reply but didn't look at them or speak. That made the officials nervous, but they dared not say anything in his presence without being asked to.
Mythical just continued to look at the screens, one after another, as if looking at them intently would grant him the answer he was seeking. But the answer, and the question for that matter, was lost on everyone else in the room.
The hero had his sights on The Deck, and he'd been that way for a while, but everyone within his agency knew that there was something else going on in his mind. But what it was…no one could say. He wasn't aggressive in his pursuit of them, but others knew that wasn't his style. They also acknowledged that The Deck wasn't a group one could flesh out with simple power showings.
Plus, thanks to the district incident, everyone was put on notice about the powers and flexibility of the group, so they figured that Mythical was biding his time for a big move. But again, what that would be, what he planned to do, and when he planned to do it…were a mystery to all but him.
Eventually, the Pro-Hero spoke to the officials once more, "And the cargo was a total loss?"
"Yes, sir!" they answered in unison.
"Then more than likely their 'client' ordered the hit on the cargo specifically. They were weapons if I recall what you said earlier. So that would mean the most likely client…was the one who had much to gain. Get an investigation into them and see if we can make a connection between that company and The Deck. Maybe there's someone we can squeeze for information."
"On it, sir!" one of the officials said and then he walked off to make a call.
"Do you think that could be the key to this, Mythical?" asked one of the other officials.
"No, I don't. We've had leads on their potential clients in the past. However they do transactions, it's very secretive, insulated. We've even attempted to do fake contracts with them, but we never get past the initial stages. They must have someone who can do truly deep dives into people's profiles."
"No wonder they're so hard to catch," another official stated.
The statement got Mythical to turn his head, and his eyes burned holes in the official, who quickly tried to wave off his statement.
Mythical again grunted, "You're not wrong. This is possibly one of the greatest threats to not just Japan, but the world in a long time. This group is meticulous, devious, cunning, calculating, and only exposes themselves when THEY want to. We're always playing by their rules…and their game is rigged. But we'll get them…one day."
A pause brewed within the group, but it was broken up by an alarm sound. A woman approached from another roam, her arms and legs were covered in unique rings, "Sir! There's a massive robbery going down a mile away. Would you like to take this one?"
"…no, Ring. I have to focus on this. You can take some of the others and handle it yourself. Report back to me when it's done."
"Of course, sir!"
The woman ran out and called to other heroes to join her. Mythical didn't hear that though, his focus was back on the screens and their contents.
He wasn't a hero in that moment. He was a hunter, and he wanted nothing more than to get his prey.
On the other side of Japan, armed men were holding a group of people hostage in the streets near some stores. The criminals were taking the hostages valuables and putting their phones on the ground so they couldn't try anything clever.
The police where there, but they didn't dare approach because the group holding the hostages had guns pointed right at the innocent civilians.
The groups' leader took advantage of this and fired off a round or two into the air, "That's right, stay back! Don't even think about coming our way or they'll get it!"
One of the policemen was aggravated by this and attempted to move forward, but the group's leader put a gun to a civilian's head to stop them cold.
"Yeah, that's what I thought! You and your Pro-Hero pals think you're so great! But we all know the truth! They'll only go so far to defend us, and they won't risk people getting hurt. So you're going to get us what we want, or we'll stop dropping them!"
The innocent people screamed a little at the notion, but went quiet once the guns were pointed at them once again.
Unbeknownst to everyone, the nearby screens in the stores were flickering on and off. Eventually, a familiar face popped in one of the screens, then jumped to another, and another.
The face was of Interface, the No.2 Pro-Hero. He carefully watched the situation for a bit to see the best way forward, and then sprung into action.
He didn't go right for the criminals, as he knew that would cause problems.
Instead, he used his Quirk to warp through the "space" between electronics and found himself in one of the phones lying next to one of the hostages. He appeared on the screen, and when the person noticed, he messaged through the phone screen to not make a sound.
Thankfully, the person adhered to the request.
Interface watched from the phone's screen as a criminal walked past and stopped nearby. Seeing an opportunity, he reached his arms out, and carefully, ever so carefully, tied the man's shoelaces together before diving back into the screen and vanishing somewhere else.
"Interface. No.2 Pro-Hero. Quirk: Electronics Connection: He can travel anywhere he wants via an electronics device. Even if the device isn't on. Even he doesn't fully understand how it works, but trust me, it works. And once he's in the screen, he can see out of it, or completely come out of it himself to do various acts. Such as doing sneaky things to villains without their knowledge. There's a reason one of his catchphrases on his streams is 'Where will I go next?' Because no one knows due to how far his 'connections' can take him."
One by one, the Pro-Hero used the phones that were closest to the group to screw with them in one form or another.
Sometimes he messed with their guns, like putting the safety on when they weren't looking. Or other times he slipped stuff into their pockets without their realizing it.
He had to be careful to not alert them to his presence, but with all the options available via his screens, he knew could make it work. Eventually, when all the group members were "tagged," he appeared on a TV screen within one of the stores and started his "show."
"Good afternoon, everyone!" he said loudly from within the screen while holding up a phone with one of his robot arms. "Is everyone ready for a show? Because right now there's some criminals who look like they need a beatdown!"
The group's leader was shocked at first by the Pro-Heroes arrival, but he rebounded quickly by pointing his gun at the nearest hostage, "Interface? How did you get here? You know what? It doesn't matter! If you try anything, you'll be the reason they all die!"
Keeping up his "performance," Interface jumped to multiple new screens, ensuring that the criminals didn't know exactly where he was at any given moment.
"Man, you are such a bummer, do you realize that? And you can make all the threats you want, but you can't exactly fire a gun with the safety on."
The criminal gave a laugh at that, "Oh, please! Do you think we're dumb? You'll have us check our guns and then you'll strike. Well, no dice!"
The group leader put the gun's barrel against a hostages head and attempted to pull the trigger, but it wouldn't go.
"What the-?"
Before he could finish, Interface appeared behind him after jumping out of another phone and reared him around, "Yeah, you did guess my plan, but I really did trip your safety. Sorry, not sorry!"
He punched the criminal in the face, knocking him out cold. The other group members attempted to intervene, but various "unfortunate events" happened to them when they did.
Some of them got tripped up by their own shoes thanks to their laces being tied. Others went had to stop when they realized that there was smoke pouring out of their jackets and pants due to smoke pellets that Interface had put in them.
As they all got distracted, Interface popped in and out from phone to phone and took them out.
Eventually, they were all taken down and the hostages were safe, "And that's what you might call an…electric slide. Everyone okay?"
The people, now safe from the gunmen, were thrilled at the development and went to thank him. Interface streamed the entire thing and his personal phone blew up from comments with people who were in awe of their favorite Pro-Hero.
"Just another day in the life, people! Don't worry, we Pro-Heroes won't let you down! Let's get a nice big selfie right now, what do you say?"
They all posed for a picture and Interface happily took it.
In a district far from where Interface was, another group of criminals was active, albeit in a more secretive way.
They were within a warehouse, and many of them were common men and women. But there was one who watch them from on top of a truck that clearly had a Quirk due to the snout that poked out from under the hoodie he wore.
The others in the group were moving boxes and crated from various parts of the warehouse to the truck.
When one of the crates nearly dropped, the hooded man gave an animalistic roar at the one who almost dropped, "CAREFUL! Do you want us all to be blown up? Do your job right or you'll have to fear me and not the explosives in that crate."
The target of the man's rage gulped in fear and carefully went back to work.
The hooded man shook his head at the situation, then decided on a "pep talk" to keep the troops going.
"I'll make this very clear. I have a set of buyers for every single item in this boxes and crates. The payout will be momentous, and you'll all get a cut so long as you don't screw up! So take your time and do it right! We're in no hurry. We disabled the alarms and no one knows we're here…"
As if to challenge that, a thud resounded in the warehouse. It started out small, and then grew louder.
Eventually, the criminals realized that the sounds were emanating from the steel garage door that they aimed to leave the from. Some of them went closer to the door and quickly realized that there were growing indents in the steel. One that were clearly being made by someone on the other side.
That theory was proven correct when the door was knocked down, landing just a few feet away from them, and on the other side of that door was the No.3 Pro-Hero, Athena.
Her armor shined in the light, and she pulled out an item from behind her back and summoned a spear from it. It too shined in the light, especially at its pointed end.
As she gazed on the criminals, her expression was intense, "You will only get one warning. Surrender. Or I shall personally take each one of you out painfully."
Her words struck at the heart of the criminals, and at first they didn't know what to do. But another roar got their attention.
It was once again their leader, still on the truck. He pointed to the crates, "Don't just stand there! We have weapons right here, use them! She can't take us all on!"
Stirred on by his call to arms, the criminals quickly break open the crates and boxes and pulled out various weapons of impressive nature.
Athena let this happen, and after they're all armed and point their weapons at her, she smiled a little, "So be it. You were warned."
Quick as a flash, she rushed at the nearest criminals and used her spear to disarm them and knock them out in quick succession.
The others were shocked at first by how quickly she took them out, but regained their confidence and fired their weapons at her.
At first, Athena countered the shots merely by spinning her spear in front of her and letting it take and deflect the shots. But when some of the criminals tried to vie for a better position, she got more aggressive.
With incredible grace and precision she dodged blast after blast, and slowly made her way to each and every one of the criminals and beat them in succession. Whether it was with her fists, feet, or her spear, they were no match for the No.3 hero.
Eventually, only one of them remained, and after blocking more shots from a gun, she hurled her spear at them, caught onto a loose part of their upper clothing, and pinned them to the wall.
She slowly approached, dodging a last flurry of shots before grabbing the gun, breaking it in half, and headbutting the criminal for good measure to ensure they were done.
"Athena. No.3 Pro-Hero. Quirk: Battle Spirit. Athena is a warrior through and through, and her Quirk taps into her confidence to enhance her abilities. She's incredibly fast, strong, and durable…so long as she believes that she can win the fight."
The criminals were knocked out cold, but the job wasn't done.
A growl caught her ears, and she turned to see the leader was still upon the truck like before.
"Do I need to tell you to surrender, too?" wondered Athena as she looked at the hooded man. "Or will you skip to the part where we fight?"
This time, the man laughed and pulled his hands out of his pockets. Except they weren't hands, they were claws, very sharp ones.
"Lady, you're costing me a pretty penny, so I'm going to enjoy this…" he said as his claws dug into his outfit.
With a roar he ripped most of his attire off, and revealed that he wasn't merely a man, but a bear, a large one at that. In fact, not unlike a certain shark, he grew a bit before jumping off the truck to confront Athena.
"Any last words?"
Athena looked at the bear-man for a bit, freed her spear from the wall, and then readied for battle, "You're big. I've fought bigger."
The bear-man roared and slammed his hands down. Athena dodged just in time, as the action caused the cement floor to crack all over and shatter in certain places.
Seeing an opportunity, Athena lunged in and kicked the bear-man right in the head. But to her surprise, her opponent just absorbed the hit without so much as flinching.
"I thought you were strong, lady? Bears are tough, didn't you know that?"
Athena's eyes grew fearful for a brief moment, but she regained focus and began the attack new.
Though the bear-man was strong and durable, he couldn't easily match her speed and agility due to the bulk that he had.
Every attack he tried was either blocked, parried, or dodged, and that infuriated the villain to no end. But there was little he could do except attack more.
The irony was that while Athena had the advantage, she couldn't easily exploit it. The bear-man's bulk made it hard to land meaningful blows, and even she tried piercing him with his spear, it didn't do much damage thanks to the layers it had to go through.
As the battle grew long, both sides wondered who would come out on top. Athena fought both a battle in the physical plane, and in the mental one, and she was struggling on both ends.
However, her focus got restored when she remembered something very basic. Just because he was a bear, didn't mean he didn't have the same weaknesses as a person.
Confidence bolstered, she rushed in with the point of her spear and feigned an attack, which got the bear-man to go where she wanted. He focused on the upper half of his body, while she focused on her lower half.
With a roar of her own, she stabbed the villain on the side of the knee, and he screamed in pain. While the spear didn't go all the way through, it did penetrate, and thus did damage.
So much so that when the bear-man tried to step on that leg to strike back, he again screamed in pain.
Her opening now clear, she bounded around the villain and started to pierce him at his joints. She never did a full impalement, but did enough to ensure that he couldn't move without serious pain.
Sure enough, by the end of her flurry, as she landed back in front of him, he was barely moving.
"What…what did you do to me?" the villain asked, unsure of what happened.
Athena contracted her spear and put it behind her back once more and walked up to the bear-man and said, "Bears have joints, and those can be exploited. Didn't you know that?"
Not wanting to hear his answer, Athena punched him in the head with all her might, and due to his weakened position and state, he couldn't endure it, and thus was knocked out.
Battle over, Athena took a moment to collect herself. But as she did, she felt a vibration, it was from her hand. It was shaking. The Pro-Hero grabbed it with her other hand and took some deep breaths before exiting the area to call for an arrest.
Another long distance away, within the Brazen Defense Agency, Wire and Brazen were doing light work around their home base.
Wire was doing some light dusting when she paused and said, "It's been a little light around here the last few days, wouldn't you say?"
Brazen was doing some heavy lifting to clean under some of the future, he put the stuff down to address his partner in crime fighting, "I noticed that myself! Perhaps they finally got wise and decided not to do anything with us around."
He belted out a loud laugh that filled the room, which caused Wire to shake her head before she returned to sweeping.
"I highly doubt it's that simple."
"Oh, I know. But in truth, last week was rather heavy crime-wise. You, me, and some of the other heroes in the area were pretty much on full alert every day just in case something happened. Even Pro-Heroes need to rest."
"I'm not saying that's not true, I just hope that there isn't something brewing, especially with that…one group…out there."
The mention of The Deck, even in an unspoken way, got Brazen to get deadly serious as he looked at Wire, "Do you worry about them? And about Tonen?"
"Of course!" Wire exclaimed, trying to keep her emotions in check. "What mother wouldn't? They already kidnapped my son, and later fought him, and then they made that attack on an entire district! Plus, there was that odd traffic incident that made the news. They said it was a 'random villain attack,' but I'm not so sure…"
"It did seem a little too large-scale for random villains. And while we are 'in the know,' we're not…in the know…"
"And that bothers me, Higaza. I wish we were in the loop, I just want to know if something's going to happen to my son again."
Brazen went over to his friend and put his hands on her shoulders, "Breathe, Soyuki, all will be well."
She gave a rare look of disbelief and shrewdness, "You can't say that. You don't know what will happen with this, with them, with Tonen."
"That is true, but I can say that fretting about it constantly also won't do anything. As I said, we're not in the know. So unless something is brought to our doorstep, we can't worry about it. What we can do is help the people near us right now. Because if they call, we need to answer."
"You're right. Thanks."
"I'm not a parent, but I understand in part the weight you carry. That's why—"
Before he could finish a phone nearby went off. It was Brazen's cell. He picked it up and cheerfully said, "Brazen Defense Agency, how may we assist you?"
Wire watched as his expression immediately changed and he talked in a serious tone. He asked very simple questions until he was done.
"We'll be right there!"
"What's going on?" she asked, laying her duster aside.
"There's been a traffic accident a couple blocks from here. We're the closest Pro-Heroes in range that can easily assist."
"Let's go!"
"Away!" he said with a proud roar, his colorful aura growing as he did so.
The two quickly left and headed for where the crash was. Brazen used his enhanced strength to bound from spot to spot, while Wire used her Quirk to swing to the desired location.
It was not hard to miss, a small plume of smoke was visual at a distance, and thus they hurried their approach so they could further help those in need.
When they arrived, they paused for a brief moment to see the damage. There had been a head-on collision between two cars that led to a pile-up at a four way. One of the cars was on fire, and the people nearby were attempting to help get those within the cars to safety, but it was slow going due to the nature of the wreck.
Brazen took charge, "I'll get the car on fire under control first so we don't have to worry about an explosion. You get as many people to safety now and I'll help lift the vehicles once I'm done."
"On it!"
The two split off, and Brazen did exactly what he promised. He went to the fiery car, which was one of the vehicles hurt worst in the collision and quickly assessed the situation. There was one person inside, and the fire had miraculously not touched them yet.
The hero ripped off the door and quickly grabbed the person and bounded them to safety before returning to the fiery wreck. He lifted the car with ease and transported it to a nearby fire hydrant.
Once there, quickly pulled off the top and let a fountain flow above the car, slowly putting the fire out until there was nothing left to douse. After he reattached the lid on the fire hydrant, he went to join his partner at the pile-up sight.
Wire, doing as requested, used her wires to get into some of the more restricted vehicles and carefully get people out. Thankfully, some of the nearby civilians were willing to help carry people away so she could focus more on getting them out.
Once they were both on the crash site, the two worked perfectly in sync so that they could maximize efficiency and get the people to safety and ensure their care.
Sure enough, by the time they were done getting everyone away from the wreck, several ambulances showed up to take the people to the hospital.
Brazen and Wire helped get everyone onto the stretchers and into the ambulances. As they watched them go away, they both took a sigh of relief.
But no sooner had they gotten that relief than they heard a scream and a cry for help a few blocks away.
Wire looked at her partner in crime fighting and shook her head, "So much for a light day."
Brazen laughed and glowed, "Perhaps, but at least we'll have a good story to tell at the end of it. Let's go!"
With heroic flare, the two bound into the air again and went to where they were needed.
Over in the Toyama Prefecture, Sparky was at her desk in her main agency writing some stuff up for official business.
Despite doing some of the more "tedious" work for her agency, Sparky still had her hero garb on. Showing she was ready to go whenever someone needed her.
The sound of footsteps got her attention. They were coming from outside the room, which meant someone was about to make their presence known.
Sparky gave a sigh of annoyance as she could tell by the footsteps exactly who it was going to be. Sure enough, the door burst open and her sister, Mai, stepped in with dramatic flair.
"Hello, my sister!" Mai said as she posed as if there was a camera around.
"Hello, Mai," Sparky said back as she restrained a small laugh.
"Come on, sis! You love my big entrances!"
"Occasionally, but I also love when you're on time for work."
"Oh, I have an excuse this time!"
Mai rummaged around her hero garb to look for something. While her sisters' outfit was a mix of yellow, orange, and black while having symbols to show off her electrical powers, Mai's outfit was a bit simpler, yet stylized.
Her color scheme was a unique mix of red and silver, which made her appear quite striking even when she wasn't throwing punches or kicks. To that end, her outfit cutoff near her shoulders and thighs, fully exposing her rather powerful arms and legs. In contrast, she had very thick gloves on and boots that went almost to her knees.
She wore a light belt with many pockets, and it was that which she was searching for something in.
"Ah, here it is!" she exclaimed happily as she found the item in question.
It was a slip of paper. Mai handed it to Sparky who looked at it for a bit and smiled, "An officer's write-up sheet. You remembered."
"Yeah, I didn't want to keep getting yelled at by you."
"I didn't yell last time, I was stern. There's a difference, Mai."
"Yeah, yeah."
"So what was the offense?"
"Read the note!"
"I want to hear it from you."
Mai groaned and sat in the nearby chair, but did so while putting her feet upon the desk to give herself room to lean back and relax, "It was some purse snatcher. Grabbed two ladies' purses in a row before I heard the cry for help. It didn't take long to catch him and make him regret what he did."
Sparky laughed at the implications, "I bet. What did you do?"
"I broke his ribs in twelve places."
"Mai…"
"Risami… I kid, obviously. I gave him a nice big kick in the rump, which sent him flying into a wall. He wasn't much of a problem after that."
The two laughed in a very sisterly way as the story ended. Sparky put the officers note in a nearby desk drawer so she could file it away later.
"Good job, sis," she praised with an honest smile to Mai.
"Glad I can still make you proud," she said back with an equally honest smile.
"You make me proud every day you do good. Which is quite often."
"Speaking of 'doing good'…have you heard from Tonen recently?"
The question got Sparky to laugh so loudly that it filled up the room, even Mai was taken aback by the volume of it.
"Yeah…no, I didn't, and I likely won't until he returns here…IF he returns here…"
"You think he won't?"
The elder sister restrained a laugh as she looked at her younger sister, who clearly wasn't getting the hint or the joke, "When you told me how your 'date' went with Tonen, I could very easily picture how he reacted to everything you did. You gave some flowery imagery to his reactions, but I know you, and I know him. The only thing I'm amazed about is that he didn't leave me a threatening voice message about what will happen when he sees me again as 'payment' for setting you two up."
Mai took this in stride and shrugged, "Just means I need to work on him. Get him to air out his feelings."
"Pun intended?"
"Of course."
"Don't make me regret this, Mai. And don't ask for advice on how to win him over. That's on you."
"And why, dear, sweet, Risami, would I ask for advice from you when you haven't been on a date in…how long, exactly?"
"Watch it! I have my reasons, and you know that."
"I do, and I respect them…mostly. But don't worry about me and Tonen. I'll win him over…he really doesn't have a choice in the matter."
Sparky groaned at her sisters continued antics and rose from the desk, "Trust me, that boy is different. He will ensure he has a choice and put you in your place whenever possible. Now come on, I want to drop these off up front before we head out on patrol."
She left the room, but Mai stayed in place for a bit. She pondered something, and her wicked smile returned, "Put me in my place? I look forward to it."
With that, she used the desk to flip out of her chair and exit the room.
*credits*
AUTHOR's NOTE: Hey everyone! We're getting close to the end of "Under Pressure" Season 3 and I think you'll like where we leave things off!
BUT! If you want to support me in my other writing endeavors, please DM me and I'll give you the details on how you can help! See you next chapter!