Super Science
Ch 85: Dragon Hunters
"So. Am I gonna get my money back or what?", a male Karen demanded as he sat across the desk from Egon and Izuku.
The two men look at one another, bask at the man, then push the panic button where several high-tech weapons descend from every place and point fright at the man who froze up. Egon looked over at the man and told him in a deadly voice, "At the rate you're going you'll be lucky to keep your life if you don't sing."
"B-B-B-B-Baby shark do-do-do-do-do-do-do baby shark-.", the man began to babble out a song as he started to cry and wet himself.
Egon and Izuku watch this pathetic sight for a while until Egon slaps his face and yells, "No no no! Not that kind of singing! I meant the kind where you start talking!"
"About what?", the man cowers back his question.
"About what?! ABOUT WHAT! ABOUT THE FUCKING DRAGON YOU BOUGHT! WHERE DID YOU GET IT!", Egon screamed at the man while grabbing his shirt collar.
"I-I-I-I-I got it from you guys.", the man finally confirmed.
Egon rolled his eyes and stated, "Bullshit, you did! We don't sell the dragons on Pacifica, they're far too dangerous! So where and who and I want names!"
The man gulped and as he was for Ed into the chair by the man he explained I'm fear, "I-I-I never got their names, honest! I found a website that was selling dragons from your company. So I contacted them, set up a date and arranged to meet, handed off cash, and took home a dragon egg that was just hours from hatching. I swear that's all I know!"
"How much did you pay!? Where did you meet?! When did you make the purchase?! And what website!?", Egon demanded while slamming the table.
The man jumped at the slam and told him, "I paid 8k for it, and I met in some random alleyway in the city, I can't remember what part. I made the purchase three months ago, and it was a website on the dark web!"
Both men looked at one another before looking back at the cowering man, where Izuku inquired, "You saw a website, on the Dark Web of all things, claiming to be us, selling highly dangerous dragons, and you thought it would not only be a good idea to buy one but also to keep a creature that would try to eat you once it grew to the size of a large dog?", the man nods, Izuku slaps his face, and asks him rhetorically, "...Are you insane!?"
"I wanted something to attract girls. Nothing says chick magnet like dragons, right?", the man offers his argument.
Izuku groans and tells the man, "You could've just used that money on a gym membership and a personal trainer. Or a cute dog or plastic surgery if you were that desperate and lazy."
"And did you think you could just ride this thing through the sky and pretend like nothing bad would happen with what was essentially a wild animal?", Egon asks him after taking a swing from a hip flask.
"When you put it like that-.", the man began to say, upon realizing his mistakes.
Only for Izuku and Egon to slap their faces and yell, "Oh for the love of the gods!"
They both groan in unison, and Egon tells the man, "Okay, you're gonna show us that website and what kind of dragon came out of the egg when you got it. Yeah?", he says while putting a paper and pen in front of him with a giant book containing every species of dragon of Pacifica.
"Y-Y-Yeah. Sure.", the man agrees while writing the name of the website and skimming through the pages of the book. After a few minutes he stops at a pic of one and pointing to it he confirms, "Um…it was this one."
As Egon texted this information, Izuku looked at what he was pointing at and told him, "That's not a dragon.", the man shot him a confused look before he explained, "That's a Wyvern. Only a small handful can breathe fire and this one isn't. Can't say if I should count you lucky or not."
The man took back his irate stance and demanded, "Lucky?! I wanted a genuine fire-breathing dragon and they didn't give it to me?! So how is that lucky!?"
"You live in an apartment?", Izuku asked, appearing to go off topic. To which the man agreed and Izuku explained in a deadly tone, "A large creature in a small space that can breathe fire. How does that sound out loud?", the man looked away in shame as Izuku continued to tell him, "And besides, count yourself lucky that it didn't try to eat you. Wyverns are highly venomous. Its venom would have paralyzed you, and being a young creature with no idea how to properly kill something, it would have eaten you alive."
This made the man go pale and almost pass out right there if not for Egon interjecting and telling them, "Well don't freak out now, Cluck found the website and is hacking it as we speak. We'll have answers to this and people in jail before nightfall."
The two men nod, deactivate the panic mode, and begin to leave the room when the male Karen yells at them, "Wait! What about me?! My apartment is destroyed, the landlord is demanding repairs, and I'm 8k in the hole!"
"These guys will be brought up on their charges within the day. When that happens you can put your hat in the running to demand compensation.", Egon offers.
"You're not gonna pay me?!", he demanded.
Egon casually approached him and he said in a sticky sweet voice, "I mean, we could. But then we'd have to have you arrested for using and buying something off the dark web and housing an illegal animal."
"Since when are dragons illegal?", the man retreated into himself.
"Since the Prime Minister declared it yesterday alongside any other animal or plant from Pacifica.", Izuku chimed in as he pulled out the document fresh from the Japanese Parliament.
Later on, all the staff of NIP were brought into the main meeting room for an emergency meeting. Once everyone was accounted for and Izuku and Egon were seated at the front of the table in front of a projector, Egon began with a feverish tone in his voice.
"Okay, people. We've got a huge problem on our hands. And that's huge with a capital BIG!", he exclaimed while slamming his hand on the table.
"We're in the red?!", Chopper exclaimed.
"No.", he answered.
"Were under attack again?", Melissa exclaimed.
"Thank the gods no.", he answered with relief.
"Is it-?", Rappa began to ask.
"Can we please just stop this running gag? Someone got onto Pacifica and stole a bunch of dragon eggs and was selling them on the black market!", Izuku yelled with vigor making everyone stare in slack-jawed silence.
"Oh, that is a big problem.", Hatsume commented while taking off his goggles.
"But how? Pacifica is untouchable from the outside without the Warp Pads.", Hankoyō inquired.
"That's because our thieves got in when we hadn't gotten all those defense measures up.", Egon answered.
"Yeah, but how did they know Pacifica had dragons?", Cho prompted.
Egon sighed as he took off his glasses to clean them. Once he put them back on he told them, "Remember at the UA Sports Festival when the Vampyr attacked? Well, they saw that, did some digging on us, managed to track down Pacifica, and found way more than they bargained for."
"How do you know all this?", Honey Lemon inquired.
"I hacked their website and found out everything about them and where they were. Then it was all a matter of calling the police, and making them sing.", Cluck said with a boastfully proud tone that made Otto roll his eyes.
"Dang! You guys move fast.", Rouge said with an impressed tone.
"And now we gotta move even faster! Dozens of eggs were stolen from the island and sold off to the highest bidder or anyone gullible enough to buy one.", Izuku told them as he pushed his hair back. After he took a calming breath he continued saying, "We managed to account for many eggs but well over forty eggs were sold off, and probably even more we don't know about."
"I'll go to Pacifica and ask Ungoliant and Quelaag about that.", Hankoyō excuses himself while moving to the Main Hub Warp Pad.
Once he was gone, Pamela inquired, "So what are we gonna do?"
"That's the thing. I have no idea.", Izuku told them only for everyone to look at Egon as he also sadly shook his head.
But the ever-growing helplessness was quickly snuffed out when one voice stated, "You don't, but I do."
"Anima?", Everyone said in unison as the man stood up from his seat.
"Oh geez, what crazy concoction have you cooked up this time?", Egon prompted him while trying not to roll his eyes.
The ever-changing man got up from his seat. Went to the computer and typed something in as the projector behind the two facility owners turned on. Looking behind them they saw a PowerPoint presentation light up on the screen as the man took the front and began to explain, "I had a sneaking suspicion that something like this may happen. So I was planning and designing something to combat dragons if they ever did get onto the mainland."
"Let me guess. It's some kind of new predator that eats dragons.", Izuku guessed.
A few people chuckled at this, and Anima also giggled as he stated, "No! Well, I do have something like that and something for the giant spiders to feed on so they don't overeat the smaller creatures and dragons. Also, I'm gonna have to work with Pamela to create a plan for them.", he began to babble.
"Anima.", Egon said in a dangerous tone.
Anima put his hands up defensively and told him, "I haven't made it yet! Honest! It's just the planning stage. I do have the planning all laid out for the anti-dragon measures.", he then turned to the projector and announced proudly, "I give you…The Dragon Hunter."
"Dragon hunters?", everyone said back in confusion and intrigue.
"I wanted to do Monster Hunters, but that's already been taken. Anyway, I have everything planned out from the armor, weapons, mounts, fighting styles, fighting formations, traps, healing items, supports, buffs, and so much more!", he rattles on like an excited child.
"This sounds more like the concept for a JRPG.", Wily waters it down only to get weird looks from everyone. To which he exclaimed, " What!? I may be old but I can know things!"
"Well I did take a little bit of inspiration, but overall it's based on science!", Anima confirmed.
As he went through the slides and began to explain everything in detail Egon stopped him at one slide and said, "Hold on, these two right here. The King Hound and Lighting Beast. I accepted the creation of those two things. You mean to say-?"
Anima nodded and replied, "Yep. I was putting things together just in case. Nothing happened yet so I decided to take my time."
"So that's why you had me make all that weird armor.", said Hatsume.
"And had me make all those weird weapons.", said Cho.
"And had me make all those weird concoctions.", said Honey Lemon.
"And had us test them.", said Doctrine.
"You've sure been busy, Mr 'Taking my time'.", Egon said while shooting him a look.
"And here I thought Wily was sneaky.", Izuku jokes.
"I resent that point.", Wily glared at the teen.
"So after seeing all this, I can only guess you've found potential candidates for this team?", Izuku guessed.
Anima nods again as he flips to a new set of slides showing four different people as he explains, "Four of them. One's a despite, one's an ex-criminal, one's a dishonored soldier, and the last has nothing left to lose. All people without a purpose but in need of one. And if they fail at least they are expendable."
"That's pretty cold.", Josie pointed out.
Anima sighs as he takes off his glasses and tells her, "That's kinda where we're at right now. If we don't act soon those dragons will begin to reproduce exponentially and eat everything! They'll change the landscape and the natural order of every environment."
"Instead of killing them, why don't we just try to use the Good Boi Splinter on them? That seems more appropriate.", Melissa offered.
"It takes several days for that Splinter to take full effect. Time we don't have. Plus we can't have domesticated fire-breath-flying monsters on an island full of criminals.", Anima tells her.
"I thought we got that taken care of?", Cho asked.
Rolling his eyes while blowing a raspberry, Egon answered, "Yeah, but before that every country decided to go ham and dump huge quantities of criminals on the island just before we started the defense progress."
"The spiders are gonna have to buckle down for this one.", Pamela said as she thought about Hankoyō.
"But what about the one Izuku used on Camilla? She became tamed after only a few seconds.", Melissa pointed out.
"That was different. That was a specialized Splinter made for such an emergency. There was only one and it shattered after use. It took a whole month just to make one, and I don't think I have the fortitude to do it again and again.", Otto said as he looked at his coffee cup with a nearly crazed look in his eyes.
"Also they can't be copied and pasted like other Splinters since what goes into them is so specific and the Splinter would only copy one aspect of it.", Anima finished off for him.
"But it was a good idea, Melissa.", Egon assured her as he saw he was defeated at her idea being rejected. Egon then turned back to the man and told him, "Okay, Anima, I'm officially giving you full unrestricted reign on this project. Do whatever you have to do, use or get what or whoever you need. We need this off the ground and ready to go ASAP!"
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