Super Science
Ch 31: A New Problem, a Different Solution
"Okay, people.", Egon said as he slapped a meeting table where he and the entire staff of NIP were sitting. Now, I'm sure you all know why I've called you all here today," he asked them rhetorically.
"Because…it's your birthday?", Izuku asked innocently.
"No."
"Is it my birthday?", asked Hankyō.
"No."
"Are we getting a raise?", Genus asked hopefully.
"No!"
"You're gonna give me full and unrestricted access to the Singularity Soul?", Hatsume exclaimed excitedly.
"NO!"
"You finally got a girlfriend at 30," Cho asked while slapping the table, and Orpington clucked a laugh.
"Are we gonna do this!?", Egon asked back, already done with this charade.
Then Honey Lemon spoke up and asked cautiously, "Does it have to do with the fact that we were attacked and well underprepared, only getting out of it by the skin of our teeth due to our adversaries not doing their homework on us? What massive damages accrued from the attack? Or the rapidly developing dragon we have stored away?"
Egon sighs as he runs his nose and answers back, "Yes on all fronts. Going in no order, although the damages we faced were rather extravagant, we can fix them thanks to our funds and the ones provided by UA as a sorry/donation. On the other hand, if this event has taught us anything, it's that we are sorely underprepared for what's to come. We're working with tech and knowledge, which I'm sure countries will go to war for! So, we have to outfit this facility with all the measures of a small country's worth of military protection. So that is why I want all of you to be firing on all cylinders to make this place as secure as possible! This is a top priority. I'm talking about new tech, security codes, defenses, force fields, anti-warp quirk generators, literally anything you can think or make to get this place as safe and secure as possible!", he exclaimed.
"Yes sir!", everyone around the table replied in unison.
"And…the dragon?", Otto inquired.
"Ah yes, him.", Egon said with a huff before stressing, "Little Torch Wick isn't so little anymore."
"I liked him better when he was the size of a parrot.", Orpington squawked in complaint.
"So you could bully him?", Otto chastised her.
"He tried to eat me!", she fought back.
"Once and only once.", Otto corrected her as she tried to peck at his newly grown tentacles.
"We still haven't fully determined how big he'll grow, and I don't think we can continue increasing his enclosure sizes. Heck, I don't think such a thing could exist! Especially alongside the fact that he can fly.", Izuku lamented.
"And we can't just let him go galavanting off wherever he wants.", Cho added.
"And no country in the world is going to let us keep a dragon on their soil without wanting to know details," Hollyhock says.
Genus admits somberly, "I hate to say it, but we may have to terminate him."
Izuku looked down at the table, tightening his fists. Tears welled up in his eyes as he said back, "I hate to say it, but you may be right."
"Not really.", Hollyhock interjects.
All eyes fall on the smiling woman as Egon asks her, "You have an idea, Hollyhock?"
She nods and tells the group, "More of a working theory. You remember when you gave me a piece of the Singularity Soul?"
"What?!", Hatsume suddenly exclaimed, making everyone look at him. "You gave her a piece of it but are foraying me!?", he complained.
Egon slaps his face and tells him, "Hollyhock has her head screwed on right and doesn't want to make a death ray with it!"
"AH! But why can't I make a death ray!?", he wined like a child.
"Because I say so!", Egon yells at him, causing the man to sit down with a sulk. After calming himself down and pushing back his hair, Egon turns back and says, "Continue, Pam."
She explained to them, "Well, I took a small sample from the piece and managed to make a little something I like to call the Reset Bomb."
"Reset Bomb? What's that?", Egon and Izuku say at the same time.
She then pulls out a folder and opens a picture of something strangely shaped. It appears like a small machine on the verge of breaking to pieces, but it is held up and enraptured by vibes, roots, leaves, and other plant life, with a glow at the center that illuminates like a flame.
"When this little device hits any soil, it will instantly shoot back up an entire forest of indigenous plant life. Almost like if humans never cultivated it.", she explained to the group, making Izukus and Egon drop their jaws. "If I can make one big enough, tweak it a bit, and send it to the bottom of the ocean, I could potentially make an island that the Dragon could live on alongside any other animals or plants that can't be brought into the public and we can bring ourselves to terminate or keep.", she explained her idea.
Egon shoots up from his seat and exclaims, "Hollyhock, you're beautiful!"
She then took a saddened and serious tone as she told him, "Don't thank me yet; there's just one problem with it.", Everyone looked at her, confused by this comment, until she told them, "I have no idea how or where to test it."
Egon slumps back in his seat, deep in thought, thinking aloud, "That is a good point. Where in all of Japan could we use the Reset Bomb?"
As everyone was pondering how to remedy this problem, a thought struck Izuku, and he said, "I think I have just the thing."
Later
"You know, Izuku. I'll be honest. I didn't think you meant here of all places.", Egon told Izuku through the built-in speaker in his high-concentration radiation suite.
"Seriously? Where were you expecting?", Izuku asked back through his suite as he and Hollyhock set up what looked like a giant mechanical slingshot.
Izuku set the machine into place as the woman punched in coordinates on a device connected to it.
Egon shrugged and then, irritated, said back rhetorically, "I don't know? It's one of the several illegal logging sights in Japan. Just not Hokkaido!", he stressed while motioning to the dead zone a few yards away from them.
Dead trees, poisonous soil, and cracked ground that looked dry and mucky were just a few of the wasteland sights starched out before the once prosperous northern part of Japan that was once a hub for new and improved nuclear energy.
"But that's why it's perfect! Suppose the Reset Bomb can restore an environment to before it was inhabited. In that case, testing to see if it can destroy radioactive isotopes is just what we need.", Izuku exclaimed excitedly.
"I have to agree with him. It's genius.", Hollyhock agreed.
"Pam! I'm trying to be the voice of reason here! This place is a second Chornobyl! The isotopes here are so powerful that, even with clean up, this place will be unsafe for the next 3,000 years.", he exclaimed in a half yell, getting two sets of vastly different reactions to his outburst. Making the man deflate as he told them, "You'd better hope this Reset Bomb is as powerful as you say it is."
After this, the coordinates were locked, and each Reset Bomb was primed and ready. Egon had the pleasure of launching them and ended up laughing like a child the whole time, much to the amusement of the other scientists.
Izuku looked at a screen he was holding and said, "Alright, all 12 have been deployed."
Egon lay on the ground of the large flatbed vehicle they were riding in. He was out of breath from laughing and said, with a red flush face, "Gotta say. Launching highly dangerous eco bombs from a high-tech slingshot is tons of fun!" Eventually, he got up, and after calming down, he asked, "How long till they take effect?"
"They should start as soon as they hit the soil.", Hollyhock answered.
"Uh, Professor?", Izuku called, making Egon walk up to him as the teen continued, "The isotopes have gone down."
"Already? How far down?", he asked as he looked over his shoulder at the isotope reader in his hand. His eyes went wide as it read virtually nothing, and he asked while snatching the device and poking at it, "Is this thing broken?!"
"No. This is it.", Izuku afrimed.
Soon, the three scientists were alerted to a very strange sound. They looked out into the distance and saw all the plant life begin to resurrect from this rotten, poisonous death! All around and far into the distance, they saw trees and flowers sprout and bloom up in huge groves and thick canopies.
With eyes wide and the isotope reader dropped, Egon could only whisper, "Oh. My. Gods.", before spreading his arms and proclaiming, "It worked….it worked! IT WORKED!"
The man began to jump around for joy as Izuku hugged Hollyhock and told her, "Your invention did it, Pamela!", Pamela couldn't help but smile and look on at her work. But before they could continue, Izuku suddenly exclaimed, "Wait!" The two scientists looked at the teen as he asked the woman, "Do you have more?"
Even More Later
"And that does it. The entirety of Hokkaido is now radioactive-free.", Izuku told the scientist as he looked at his screen map of the subsection of Japan and the isotope reader.
All around them is a sea of new plant life with no harmful radiation. With no fear of mutation from radiation poisoning, they take off their suits and toss them to the side as they breathe in the new air of a long-gone place.
"And a new forest is growing on top of all of it. At least that means there's plenty of building material.", Egon said in a chipper tone while picking some wild fruit off one of the trees.
"Hollyhock, I hope you're proud. You just reopened an entire region of Japan for those who lost their homes.", Izuku congratulated the woman.
"I'm happy to have done my part for the community.", Hollyhock says with a smile, feeling the plants around her sing her praises for giving them back life.
"That's all well and good, but I suggest we beat feet out of here before the Government catches wind of the fact their cesspool of catastrophe is now safe for human life.", Egon told them while packaging the fruit and jumping in the driver's seat.
Hollyhock took up the passenger side and Izuku in the back as the tall man kicked their flatbed into a four-wheeler drive to traverse the newly roughed-out terrain.
As they drive out of the forest, Hollyhock speaks to Egon and asks him, "That brings up something I didn't get a chance at the meeting. What are we gonna do when our body of government overlords catches wind of what we're doing, and you know they will?"
"Well, we'll set up a meeting, establish ground rules, and then go public. From there, we'll be able to do more stuff.", Izuku assured her.
"Like making a new island for one dragon.", she commented back while raising an eyebrow.
Izuku smiled with a thumbs up and answered, "That's the plan."