Well, here we go again. This arc is wrapping up now. Overhaul confrontation will be next chapter, which will hopefully be written and published this weekend.
Soon, we'll return to our regularly scheduled programming of more canon character-based casts and shenanigans.
-SpiritOfErebus
…(Thurdsay, 8am)...
Hans took the train to the Ingenium agency this morning.
Like the ride on Monday, it was average and uninspired. The squeeze of the passengers, the perpetual, eternal sigh of the common office worker, and the brief flashes of light as the above-ground train system's windows reflected either the sunlit gaps between buildings or the windows filled with people already at work.
Hans felt like he was probably going to mess up today somehow.
Looking down at his thin, spindly fingers and sticklike forelimbs from the chair that another salaryman had generously vacated for him, since they thought he was a small child, he truly wondered about his competency.
Hans wasn't built for this kind of stuff. He never was. He never should have been. He was a third rate servant, and a third rate hero in training. His powers were weak, unspecific, and couldn't do much in actual combat.
"Don't be so down on yourself." The ice queen muttered within his mind. "You've faced worse back in Chaldea. You were literally part of the supporting cast during the London singularity, fighting off those weird mechanical doll things."
"That's because I literally had no choice. Besides, there were literal knights in shiny armor that did most of the fighting for me."
The train continued to rumble on while Hans looked out at the city. People were walking around. Heroes stood in the middle of streets, waving and smiling, while the homeless were roused from their uncomfortable nights of rest as morning dew coalesced on their clothes.
"Just another ordinary thursday." Hans sighed. "For literally everyone else."
…
"Should interns really be involved in all of this?" Hans asked Iida from within the waiting rooms as team Idaten gathered inside a conference room in order to plan out the gang raid.
"Asui-san participated in taking down a smuggling ring." Iida said, pulling out his phone. "With the assistance of only one sidekick, Asui-san managed to locate the smuggler's base, before working with the pro hero she was interning with to defeat the smugglers."
"Really?" Hans said, raising an eyebrow. "That seems… almost too easy."
"Well, that is indeed what happened, vice president!" Iida said, nodding. "However, our job will not be so tenuous. We will assist with rescuing any potential civilians while my brother goes to confront the main threat. We have received no notifications from the Hero Public Safety Commission that indicates a significant presence of villains with difficult quirks."
"What about the guys that I fought on Tuesday?" Hans asked. "For me, those guys were no pushovers, and they did have surprising synergy. They can force somebody to be unarmed and unarmored, have somebody to defend and deal damage, and get out of any method of binding by simply eating whatever is trapping them."
"Not to be offensive, Andersen-san…" Iida said hesitantly, a small grimace on his face. "But while your quirk is great in a support capacity, and I have seen the capabilities that it has had with training… it is not the best with direct combat."
"That's fair." Hans said, shrugging. "I'm not particularly good at doing anything."
"Nonsense!" Iida exclaimed. "I believe that you were also selected to go with me in order to retrieve any compromised personnel because you have the capacity to heal, which is an invaluable skill to possess for any hero team."
That was right. His supposed healing powers. Basically, his only redeeming feature in actual combat. The thing that had gotten him into the mess of heroism in the first place.
"Okay." Hans sighed, shrugging his shoulders. "I guess I'll go along with it. What if the gangsters possess guns?"
"Then I believe we will be properly equipped to deal with it." Iida said, taking on a teacher's stance with a finger raised in the air. "After all, most illegal firearms found in Japan these days are more similar to nail guns, which are relatively low-powered and have much slower projectiles, though they can still definitely do a lot of damage if one is hit. Real firearms with gunpowder-based bullets are rather rare and expensive in the underground, and despite a rise of smuggling due to the existence of smuggling quirks, patrols and border customs have grown increasingly stricter to deal with it."
"...There is still the chance, you know?" Hans said.
"And that is why the Iida family has metal armor." Iida said, grinning. "You can find a bulletproof vest from our supplemental support equipment stash, however."
"Noted." Hans sighed again. "Now, when are we going to get actually filled in with the plan?"
Iida shrugged.
…(Thursday, 12:01 PM)
It was noon, calculated to be the best time for a police raid to take place. While the lack of food in stomachs was an issue, most people ate lunch at twelve, and gangsters were surprisingly competent at regulating their own schedules. After all, being a gangster came with a lot of responsibility. Not being late for meetings, following your boss's orders in a timely manner, and most importantly, going to occupy the new territories that they had just acquired.
A lot of heroes were crammed inside vans. Hans was hugging his legs inside a particularly spacious van next to the various sidekicks and other heroes in the Ingenium agency. Iida was crouched next to him, sweating inside his armor. The reinforced bo-staff that he had requested from the supplemental support equipment stash was placed between his legs in a collapsed form.
It was greatly uncomfortable. But the police were slowly gathering around the area as well, controlling roads and choke points by pretending to be construction workers and beginning to draw lines in the asphalt in order to discourage civilians from entering the area.
Yakuza cars were let through, though, so as not to raise suspicion, but as the trucks containing supplies moved back and forth from the base and (presumably) to where they were supposed to be setting up near Hans's neighborhood, the situation got tenser and tenser.
Eventually, the yakuza were bound to notice something.
"There's a crowd of civilians that have gathered in a nearby playground, over." the radio in the van said. It was the third van filled with people mostly aimed at suppression and control, along with Hans and Iida, who were there because they weren't important enough to be anywhere else.
"We'll dispatch one or two of squad three in order to make sure that none of them interfere when the violence begins, over." the leader of squad three said. Sitting in the driver's seat, the woman wearing robes and safety goggles flexed her quirk subtly within the car. An ephemeral appendate lashed out from her palm and quivered before disappearing.
"Good." the radio replied. "Get ready to move. The police are going to be at the premises in two minutes."
Hans looked out of the small crevice of a window that he could actually access. The house was surprisingly decent, with a well-maintained shrubbery and lawn. Upon further inspection, however, the house was actually quite large, perhaps having two floors and an attic. It would probably have a basement, though, so things wouldn't be quite as simple as they seemed.
Scratching the part of the bullet proof vest that met his skin, Hans sighed.
This really just needed to be over with.
…
"And you're sure that they have no idea they're attacking Overhaul?"
"Yeah." the hero commissions officer said, overlooking the vans
"Doesn't this feel… kinda wrong?"
"Hey, two high value targets with one stone. We get rid of one of the most infamous hero lines and Hans Christian Andersen. And that upstart Overhaul may just get the message that we're watching."
…
"Operation starts in three." the squad leader said, about to open the car door on the driver's side. Her robes, blown dramatically by the car's air conditioning, looked more and more like a tripping hazard.
Hans was already ready to slowly crawl out of the car with his nearly asleep limbs. Iida, meanwhile, seemed much more energetic. Perhaps there was a reason he was so rigid all the time: so that he could get out of confined spaces and into action rapidly.
"Two."
The car doors began to slide open.
"One."
The group of support heroes ran out of the van, onto the empty streets and surrounding the house. Ingenium quickly managed a formation and then ran straight at the door, preparing to kick it down while the rest of the third squadron grouped up. Hans gritted his teeth and continued to sprint on his tingling limbs, but with his diminutive height, there wasn't much he could do.
Iida picked up Hans, and without breaking stride, tucked him under his arm, before continuing to follow the heroes with control-type quirks after Ingenium had kicked in the door. Hans would have protested, but his legs were honestly too asleep for him to complain.
Immediately, two goons were subdued and slammed to the ground as they entered the building. Radios were kicked out of the goons of the yakuza's hands and then crushed into a mess of wires and broken parts. The police ran in after the first and third squads as the second squad, cuffing and gagging the men and dragging them away.
After that brief interaction, fifteen people in the doorway were standing in what looked like a regular civilian house. There wasn't much anywhere. Just furniture, white walls, and wooden flooring. At the end of a long hallway seemingly going nowhere, a vase with a flowerpot sat on an elevated counter with no other decoration.
"So… where are we supposed to go now?" Hans muttered.
"Squad three, search!" Ingenium ordered.
Around him, Hans watched as various quirks went into action. People closed their eyes and began to use their vaguely psychic powers, either crouching on the ground to feel for empty spaces on the floors or using whatever sensory powers to analyze the architecture.
Hans decided to contribute on his own. The elder tree mother appeared behind him and sank her roots into the floorboards, causing many people to react to sudden movement underneath the floor. After realizing that it was produced by an ally, the heroes settled down and continued their search.
Suddenly, the vase moved. A gigantic, masked man slowly crawled out of a very large hole, muscles bulging.
"Hey, are you all ready to swap guards? It's time for your lunch br- what the hell? There are enemies here!"
"Attack!" Ingenium shouted.
The fifteen heroes in the room started blasting.
…
"How the hell did he fit through the door frame to get into the building in the first place?" Hans said, tying the gigantic man up with roots from the tree mother. Reinforcing the bindings with ice and some sort of psychic rope produced by another hero, they now faced a bigger problem.
Actually getting the person they had just subdued out of the house.
"We'll handle this!" the police said. "Just… you know… get down there before they notice!"
"Our team will be depending on you, then." Tensei said, saluting the officer and smiling. "Team Idaten, let's go!"
Hans was brought into Iida's arms once more as the team went down the hole.
There was one very straight corridor that led from the room where the vase dropped to a series of tunnels that vaguely sloped down.
"This is much deeper than what an average gang would be able to do." Ingenium muttered. "Perhaps this could be the product of a quirk…"
"Or air raid tunnels." somebody else muttered. "We used to have those, from before the troubled century."
"Maybe, maybe." Ingenium was silent for a second, thinking about the next move.
"But the fact is that this base was much larger than anticipated." Ingenium ordered, making his decision. "Therefore, we should endeavor to capture its leader as fast as possible. Once the leader is gone, the rest of the gang may attempt to escape, but we have the police at the front door, who should be able to stop the average gang member from escaping. We will be rid of this gang once and for all."
"Yes, sir!"
Hans looked at the team of professional heroes working in an actually coordinated fashion. Ingenium and the strikers at the front, either with muscular bodies or particularly offense-oriented quirks, would subdue a foe as they sprinted full speed down the length of the hallway, and the support-control heroes in squad three would shoot their binding quirks in order to restrain the goons.
Meanwhile, the sidekicks in squadron two slowly trickled in from the secret passage in the vase after their perimeter sweep had concluded, before beginning to sweep the various rooms adjourning the long hallway one by one while others held chokepoints in the little branches that occasionally appeared.
As the Ice Queen and Elder Tree Mother floated with squadron three in order to add their ice and wooden bindings to the knocked out prisoners, their first major obstacle appeared.
A masked midget that was even shorter than Hans stepped out of a room dramatically. Apparently, the character designing department ran out of ideas, because the figure was literally just dressed in all black with what looked like a white bird mask on his face. They slowly took out a syringe filled with red liquid as a finger emerged from the costume, too disproportionally large for the midget.
While Hans was slightly taken aback by the situation, however, the heroes had no hesitation in going in to beat up what looked like a small child in a costume. As Ingenium's flying spin kick arrived at the figure's masked face… the costume simply fell to the ground, completely empty, and a syringe fell to the ground, the glass shattering on impact.
"What?" Ingenium blurted out as he spun past his target.
Then, the corridor began to shake. The very stone began to bubble and shift as the corridor roiled. A foreign roar echoed throughout the enclosed space as the bricks around them creaked and groaned from the motion.
"Structural support!" Ingenium shouted.
Instantly, holographic support beams appeared, somehow solid enough to attempt to stabilize the structure. One hero created lots of psychic rope between his hands and tossed both ends to opposing sides of the ceiling, before holding his hands there and straining. Hans directed the Ice Queen and the Elder Tree Mother to encase the corridor in ice and roots. The roots shifted and groaned and the ice shattered bit by bit, but the motion had been contained.
And then, pillars began to protrude from the side of the wall. One muscled hero took a swing at the protruding rocks with a metal-gauntleted fist while Iida sprinted forwards with Hans… still in his arms… to the side of his brother.
"Nii-san! This whole place can be compromised!" he shouted. "We should evacuate!"
Hans was too distracted to try and add his own points in. As the Ice Queen and Elder Tree Mother burned through his mana supply to try and restrain the pillars, he was working on his version of territory creation. A brief description of the area they were in, and the journeys they had been through to get to this point was being typed on his blue, floating tablet. The blue pulsed throughout the corridor, slowing the disturbances.
Hans was no world-class mage. Even as a servant, he was still basically just a third rate mage, but the territory creation of a caster servant was able to let him exert some level of control over the region.
As the attacks from the wall grew slower and slower, whoever was controlling the wall realized that as well, because instead of trying to immediately squash the people within, the walls themselves began slowly pressing into each other.
"I can't hold this for much longer!" Hans shouted. "We either make a decision now, or we all run."
"My astral beams are being overcome!" another hero yelled. "Whatever's crunching down on this, it's too much!"
"The limits of my psyche are being reached."
Enigma stepped out of the crowd, and sighed. Her plain, white t-shirt stood out amongst the heroes as exceptionally plain, but her action made everybody pause to look at her.
"This is going to be really weird." she sighed, before she expanded.
Black sludge filled the corridor instantly, and for a moment, Hans felt it wash over him exactly how you would imagine black slime to wash over somebody. Though it didn't leave any traces on his body, it did feel distinctly uncomfortable.
But the end result was undeniable. She was holding the corridor up with the pressure of her ever-expanding slime body. Having left a narrow path for the heroes to continue, the path downwards was clear now, albeit covered in a pile of non-biological slime.
"Somebody is going to have to stay to help me." her booming voice echoed from all around. "Preferably you, Constructo."
"Okay." the hero with the hologrpahic power said, gritting his teeth. "The rest of you should go on!"
"Iron fist and the rest of squad three, stay to support and hold the corridor open." Ingenium ordered. "Tenya and Hans, with me!"
"Why me?" Hans protested.
"You're our only healer." Ingenium sighed. "And Iida, we're the most well armored in the group. If anybody here can survive a surprise gunshot, it's you and me. I don't want to risk you both, but you're interns now. And this is our best shot at taking this gang down."
"Yes, sir!" Iida saluted with the arm not holding Hans. Hans sighed and agreed.
After all, the person controlling the corridor couldn't possibly crush his boss, right?
"Squad one, advance!" Ingenium shouted. "Tenya, with me in the front."
Adjusting Hans to a piggyback carry, Iida sprinted forwards. Hiding his head behind Iida's probably bulletproof alloy armor, Hans prayed that there wouldn't be any more trouble. The exhaust of Ingenium's arm-based boosters made it hard for Hans to actually see anything, but he could make out the uneven, black, slimy surface fly past his vision.
They were going to make it. They were going to reach the boss.
And just as Ingenium and Iida ran past the exit of the long hallway and into what looked like… many, many holding cells… the door closed behind them.
A wave of drunkenness assaulted Hans's senses while Iida and Ingenium stumbled. Ingenium lowered his stance as Iida staggered to lean against a wall while he clumsily used one hand to press the switch in order to bring his bo staff into action.
"Well well.. w-ugh… well… Izzn't this funny." A drunk man hanging from the ceiling said, chugging two bottles of alcohol at once. Or was it one? Hans couldn't really tell anymore.
"Lookit these four heroes tryna attac us!" he slurred.
"It's three, you idiot." another masked figure said, clicking and reloading a gun.
"Where'd thut ane go, 'en? I swear I done seen four armored people."
"Nevermind, you're drunk." the gun-wielding man said. "You're always drunk. Anyways, heroes… how did you learn of our location?"
Hans peeked over Iida's shoulder and snickered.
That was the person he had attached the tracker to.
"Is your only threat getting us drunk with quirk effects and diminishing our dodging capabilities?" Hans laughed. "Because guess what? Nothing matters to our skillsets."
With a quiet click of his fingers, during which Hans failed a snap because of dizziness, various summons appeared. The Elder Tree Mother and the Ice Queen re-emerged roots and ice swirling at their feet. The Little Match Girl appeared behind the duo, her basket already aflame. The tin soldier loomed menacingly in front of Iida, while the little mermaid appeared, gawking at the environment strangely. It was almost like she recognized the place and was looking for something in the cells.
"Guess what? My summons aren't biological beings." Hans said.
One shot was fired at the tree. The tree did not die.
The two men were burned, frozen, whacked with a heavy, metal object, and sprayed with water. Then, Thumbelina appeared and slapped them all onto the ground while six more rounds were emptied at the summons, each one doing basically nothing to the constructs that couldn't feel pain.
As a dozen small ducks asserted their dominance by quacking on top of their unconscious heads, the drunkenness cleared up.
"Well, that was… surprisingly easy." Hans said. "Now, where's that gang leader?"
Then, a white-haired, red eyed small child turned the corner.
"Help!" she shouted, a horn on her forehead glowing.
Behind her, a lab facility exploded as a giant, red, fleshy arm tore through it.
"Get back here… Eri."
… (Thursday, 1am)...
Eri knew that it was today.
The little mermaid that visited her every night had shown her. The mermaid's summoner, Hans Christian Andersen, had placed a tracker on Chronostasis. The heroes knew where she was now. They would come save her now, right?
This meant that she had to make things easier for them. She finally would have a chance to break free. To live the life that the mermaid had shown her through the mirages.
Looking down at her softly glowing hands, Eri knew that it was time.
Even Hans had said in the illusion that quirks were but merely a tool. A tool that nobody had a choice in.
She did feel guilt. She did feel so very sad about her father.
Her mother, however, had left her in the grasps of… Overhaul.
Did her circumstances make her imprisonment in this white, concrete basement deserved? Did this justify the endless needles and the endless reconstructions?
There was no equivalency in this. She was guilty of rewinding her father, of killing him, but did she really have control? Was her power truly monstrous?
Ever since the mermaid had entered her life, she had been watching Hans's life. Almost living her life through him, as the protagonist of a story that she couldn't reach. As the protagonist of a story that she could only watch from an illusion.
And she had realized something. That nobody had control over what hand they were dealt in life.
Maybe this was overly philosophical for a seven year old child, but Eri had nothing to do but think about what Hans did during her days of imprisonment. After all, the little mermaid was her only source of intellectual stimulation.
Either way, Eri had made up her mind. She would be getting out of this place.
The raid would happen at noon tomorrow. And Eri would stay silent.
And be prepared.
…(Thursday, 11:50 am)...
With one, swift usage of her quirk, the man before her was asleep.
Eri prodded the man that had collapsed with her foot. They began to snore.
Good. She didn't kill him. She didn't want to do that again. But now wasn't the time. For her own future, for freedom, she had to escape.
Slowly, she snuck out of the door. It turns out that watching somebody write a light novel really gave seven year olds that receive almost no other intellectual stimulation ideas about what stealth was.
Her clothes and hair were white. She blended in well. Very slowly, she reached up to close her own door and closed it.
The first steps of her journey were taken.
…
Kiara sat in her office, a dark and slightly musty room. There were posters of her accomplishments in this life, clothes worthy of her riches and file after file with names of her loyal supporters on shelves.
But that wasn't important to her now.
Currently, she was looking at a screen-like illusion in front of her. On the screen was Hans, who she always kept her eyes on, though she had to be subtle with her magical spying so he wouldn't notice. But that wasn't all on the screen. It also showed a child with long white hair, a white dress and a single horn.
Kiara smiled. And the shadows writhed with her emotions.
"The power to rewind time…" she muttered. "How convenient."
But that was merely something to keep in mind. After all, her plans began on Friday.
…
AN
Preemptive quirk explanation
How did Eri make somebody fall asleep? Since her quirk can rewind physical states of biological things, if she doesn't kill somebody when rewinding, there's at least a one third chance that she rewinds their body into a state where they're asleep, because we spent about that much time asleep on average.
Seriously, if Eri could control her quirk well, she could literally make the people she knows not age. Until, well, she herself dies of old age. If she even ages… quirks are weird.
Anyways, thanks for the discord server for editing and keeping my motivation alive.
Discord link: discord . gg / 9t9MK3jHmV
Please follow, favorite, or review if you want. It may be just clicks on the button for you, but it's dopamine for me.
I'm definitely not addicted. I can stop whenever I want.
-SpiritOfErebus