The Grand Army
(Inspired by Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars: The Bad Batch, Star Wars and related media, and Metal Gear: Green by TheDarkKnight2707)
In the darkness of Earth's shadows, Captain Rex of the 501st Legion wakes up.
He's had a long life for a clone, from the battlefields of Christophsis back in the Clone Wars all the way to the destruction of the second Death Star on the forest moon of Endor. Now, suddenly, he finds himself here, on this new world filled with people who have never even seen the stars, people who have given up on trying to explore the cosmos, and people who each have an unnatural power to call their own, a quirk to their beings.
And yet, as he explores this strange new world, he finds other clones. His brothers, both dead and alive, who have found themselves on Earth with no explanation at all. From Cody to Wolffe to Echo to Fives and the Bad Batch and so on, he finds more of his brothers scattered across the globe, confused and unsure as to why they are there.
So, over the years, Rex and his brothers begin to build a network over the Earth, gathering as much information on hero society and all the people that live in it, both heroes and villains alike, all the while saving as many people as they can whilst they go, eventually setting themselves up as a private military company known as the Grand Army, acting as mercenaries and taking contracts for third-world governments and private organisations in all sorts of shadow wars and hidden conflicts across the planet, from destroying criminal syndicates in South America to wide combat operations in Africa and the Middle East to covert ops in Europe, and utilising their skills as soldiers to try and make sense of this planet and understand why they have been summoned there.
Through their contracts, the Grand Army begin to net themselves multiple allies and associates. From private manufacturing companies to help them upkeep their food supplies and landowners to build their outposts and headquarters to even places like I-Island with David Shield and his daughter in helping them research and develop their technology and equipment.
However, their actions in the world begin to attract all sorts of unwanted attention, not just from the various villainous factions across the world, who begin their campaign of terrors against the Grand Army in hopes of trying to take them down, but also the heroes themselves, or rather the larger pro heroic organisations who are aware and in control of the politics of the Earth.
In particular, the World Hero Association and their various Hero Public Safety Commission branches in the various countries that they govern over, find umbrage with the existence of the Grand Army, as they have been interfering in local politics pertaining to pro hero operations and destroying villainous organisations before the heroes can do it themselves.
As it turns out, during the chaotic period of time after quirks had been introduced into the world and before hero society was properly established, World War Three and a dozen other conflicts known as the Quirk Wars had broken out and resulted in millions of deaths and the destruction of entire cities due to each side utilising armies of people wielding quirks against each other, not to mention the countless deaths brought about by regular purges of quirkist extremists, race riots, and regular rebellions and revolts in this dark time of chaos. Because of this, when hero society was set in stone and pro heroes were introduced into the world to combat the rising surge of villains, the WHA, supported by the United Nations, instituted a major ban on major armed military forces across the globe, reducing individual countries' militaries and their capacities down to mere national guard units in order to prevent another major war from breaking out.
The WHA have been doing their best to cover up the existence of the Grand Army and their operations in hot zones across the planet, but fears abound that the very existence of this PMC force and their role in the decapitation of various criminal elements across the planet will begin to erode the faith that many people have in hero society, but also topple it entirely. As such, the Grand Army find themselves constantly hounded by not just pro heroes, but also WHA agents and contractors, believing the Grand Army to be villains, or the by-product of a villainous quirk when their existence as clones is revealed, thinking that they were trying to slide the world back into the devastating wars that had come before.
However, there is something else moving in the shadows of the WHA, making their own moves and plotting their own schemes, using the chaos of the Grand Army's operations and what they leave behind to their own end and taking advantage of the cracks that are beginning to form.
Much later, as the years go by, Captain Rex ends up having to sneak into Japan under assignment, taking a job in U.A. as a combat instructor in order to investigate the criminal activities of a supposed syndicate boss going by the moniker of All for One. Meeting up with the head of the school, Rex ends up establishing a connection to Nezu, and assigns the Bad Batch to take up training the hero students as he continues his investigation.
So, the Bad Batch busy themselves with training the students, and the other teachers immediately take note of how unorthodox these trainers are in how they run their lessons, especially in how much of what they teach runs in opposition to what a regular hero course teaches its students. Crosshair shows the students how to fight from long range, Hunter shows them how to track down opponents and use stealth tactics, Tech assists them in designing their costumes and support gear to eschew typical hero flashiness to better protect themselves, Wrecker teaches them how to brawl quirkless, disable explosive devices and juryrig nearby tech to assist them in battle, and Echo shows them how to fight dirty and grab every advantage on a battlefield.
It's like they're teaching the kids how to be soldiers rather than heroes. Suspicions begin to mound.
Meanwhile, Rex continues his investigation into this All for One figure, but is accompanied by Aizawa, who already suspects him of being connected to the Grand Army. Rex doesn't say anything about it, but Aizawa figures it out on his own and stays by the captain's side, intent on watching him in case he tries to pull some villainous move. Rex is confused by this, as he's lived his life in the army and trusts his brothers not to do anything morally wrong, especially considering that a lot of their recent contracts has revolved around protecting relief aid workers and stopping animal poachers, all the way to running security for I-Island scientists working on projects to combat climate change, but when Aizawa tells him about the previous Quirk Wars that have been fought by armies of quirk-users, and when Rex does some additional research of his own, he recognises the bad history that this world has had with militaries, and how many of the Grand Army's contracts have also involved military actions that have left people, mostly civilians, caught in the crossfire, including contracts to perform covert ops in third-world countries on behalf of more powerful organisations and governments trying to nation-build, projects of which always end in failure.
(A lot of the inspiration for this fic is a result of Metal Gear: Green, by TheDarkKnight2707, but a recent worry I've had with it is that it might be unintentionally glorifying the military industrial complex through the MSF, as the conflict within its narrative is very clearly MSF good, HPSC bad. And while I do like the story and its narrative, including how it deconstructs MHA's hero society, I don't want this story to make it seem like the armed forces and militaries in general are a better solution to pro heroism, or that the military industrial complex is something entirely positive at all.
So, the sides of this story, in that the army vs pro heroes, will be treated not as a black and white conflict of morals, but one with a lot of greys on both sides, where we highlight both the positives and negatives of both arguments and showcase how they contrast against each other. Not only that, but this story will serve both as a deconstruction of MHA's setting and the logistics and workings of hero society, but also deconstruct the role of the clones in Star Wars and further explore the topic of what someone who has spent all their life training to be a soldier and fighting in a war is to do when that war is over, as well as the subject of the clones being genetically engineered child soldiers in a world where people like them are looked down on as warmongers.)
Soon enough, a new school year begins, and the members of Class 1-A are put through their paces by the Bad Batch, whilst Rex and Aizawa continue to investigate this All for One figure and what their connections to the criminal underworld are. Eventually, they pass their information along to All Might, hoping for him to give them something to work on, only for All Might to reveal that All for One is an old enemy of his, one that he long thought dead.
Later, Class 1-A is taken to the USJ, alongside the Bad Batch as their protectors. Meanwhile, Rex and Aizawa explore Tokyo, chasing up leads that they found on what they assume to be a link to All for One's criminal syndicate.
Suddenly, several unknown creatures known as Nomu emerge from the shadows, attacking not just Rex and Aizawa, but the civilians, and every other pro hero around them, sparking chaos within the centre of Tokyo.
Meanwhile, in the USJ, Shigaraki and the League of Villains attack the USJ, thankful for their master, All for One, giving them the distraction they need to keep All Might away and letting them kill the children before he arrives, just to make clear his failure to protect them.
Class 1-A are scattered across the USJ, and the Bad Batch begin to get to work, rescuing the students and eliminating every villain that they come across, working their way through the League's forces as they link up with the people under their protection. At first, the students are thankful for being saved, but are then horrified with how their teachers are dispatching the villains, shooting them down and killing them.
Meanwhile, Rex and Aizawa continue to brave the Nomu assault, Aizawa incapacitating as many of them as he can whilst Rex finishes them off. They are only saved by the timely intervention of All Might, who himself realises that this attack is all just a distraction, and rushes off to the USJ to protect his students...
...Only to arrive at the USJ to find the students safe, the Bad Batch having taken care of the villains, destroyed the Nomu with high explosives, and sent Shigaraki and Kurogiri on the retreat. All Might is disturbed by the number of bodies that the Bad Batch have left behind, but unlike the students, who do not have a complete understanding of the world of pro heroism thanks to only just beginning the year, accepts that they didn't have much choice in the matter.
But then, the students and teachers are forced to deal with the most startling and horrifying thing to have happened in the USJ:
One of the students was killed by the villains.
Who this casualty is, I haven't decided. It could be one of the lesser-known characters like Hagakure or Ojiro, or someone like Mineta, or one of the bigger characters like Todoroki, Ochako, Bakugo, or even Izuku himself if you really want to go that far.
(I didn't want to have Izuku as a member of the Grand Army. This idea already has a lot of inspiration from Metal Gear: Green, and I don't want to just copy and paste it. Plus, I've not got much of an idea for what Class 1-A are supposed to do in this fic, so... yeah.)
In the end, who the casualty is doesn't really matter. What does matter is what happens next is the aftermath, in which Aizawa and Rex are pulled in by the police alongside All Might to explain what happened during the attack, but Rex is thankfully able to get as much information as he can out of the police's questions as they cart away the Nomu, relaying it back to the rest of the Grand Army for their own investigation.
However, elsewhere, All for One is silently furious at not being able to kill Rex and the other Grand Army representatives for their poking around where they don't belong and trying to bring them down but decides to be content with the fact that one of All Might's own students had been killed whilst he was away.
And as he calms down an irate Skigaraki and encourages him to lick his wounds, he continues to make plans on how to deal with the Grand Army, which has grown to become an annoyance to his operations as of late, as well as his plans on how to take One for All and destroy All Might.
Elsewhere, a woman working in the WHA/Japanese branch of the HPSC by the name of Miyuki Kera calls her contacts, telling them that they have the start of their flashpoint, and that it is time to get to work.
Meanwhile, Nezu is contacted by the HPSC, who demands that he allow them to assign extra heroes as guards for the upcoming Sports Festival, which Nezu does not like but is forced to accept. However, he then calls Rex and the Bad Batch to his office, revealing that he knows that they're part of the Grand Army. But instead of reporting them to the authorities, he instead decides to hire several of their number as plain clothed security for the Sports Festival, as he does not trust the HPSC or any of the heroes that they send over. Rex and the Bad Batch are suspicious themselves but decide that the lives of the children of U.A. outweigh their concerns and agree.
But in the meantime, Class 1-A are brought back into U.A. after the events of the USJ but are now disturbed by the deaths of both their classmate and the villains and distrustful of their teachers in the Bad Batch for how they dispatched said villains. The Bad Batch in question are unsure of how to go forward now, seeing as their students no longer trust them for actions that they've been undertaking for years now, and must themselves learn how to adjust in a world where killing is considered a last resort in combat.
A month later, the Sports Festival begins, and Rex brings in Cody and his squad, dressed in plain clothes and armed with DL-17 pistols, and spreads them all out across the stadium as extra security.
The tournament begins, and Izuku (assuming that he's the one who doesn't die in the USJ) ends up approaching one of the Bad Batch members, or even Rex, and asks them why they had killed villains. Here, Rex and/or the Batch talk to Izuku, and express how one day, as a pro hero, he will be faced with the possibility of having to kill a villain to prevent a worse outcome, whatever that might be. Izuku, and Class 1-A in general, rejects this notion of course, because they believe that heroes save everyone and should never kill, but instead of lambasting them or calling them out like happens in most stories, the Bad Batch instead decide to leave them be and let the kids retain some of their innocence. They're still hurting after the USJ and the loss of one of their classmates, and it'd be better for them to learn this truth later, when they're not hurting so much and have matured, rather than pulling the rug out from under them now.
Meanwhile, several of the students from 1-A begin to experience panic attacks and horrific flashbacks to the USJ whilst performing in the Sports Festival. One of the story's biggest themes, besides deconstructing both hero society and the clone army, is exploring the different kinds of trauma, how they affect us, and how we react to them. Throughout the story so far, there have been instances of clones reliving the trauma of their own deaths and experience nightmares from them, on top of the generational and societal traumas from MHA's Quirk Wars and how they have affected generations, and now we begin to explore the more personal trauma of the students of Class 1-A and how they react to it, with some of them bottling it up, some lashing out at others in misplaced anger, some keeping to themselves and trying to find ways of coping with what they have been through, and others communicating their experiences with others and trying to find ways to process what they have been through, and a dozen other ways on top of that. Many of the students experience crippling flashbacks to the USJ throughout the tournament, both in the combat rounds and elsewhere, and though most of them choose to power through it and soldier on (some of them manage, others do not), a select few of them choose to bow out of the competition.
During this time, the clones watching the fights down below express their discomfort at the event and end up engaging in several conversations with different heroes and civilians, prompting multiple perspectives of the Sports Festival and hero society in general, as well as comparisons to the clones' service in the Grand Army of the Republic and their role as soldiers. Also, it's a great way of getting the clones to interact with civilians, something that they have never truly done before due to the Republic and later Empire keeping them separated from the people that they are supposed to protect, providing them with a perspective that they have never truly experienced before.
In the end, it is not a member of Class 1-A who wins the Sports Festival, but Monoma of Class 1-B, who happily brags about his victory over the hated Class 1-A and celebrates with a laugh and a cheer on the first-place podium, as he is handed his golden medal by Midnight (All Might has been called away to assist in the All for One/League of Villains investigation)-
And then is shot dead by a sniper.
Various sections of the stadium suddenly explode, the bombs in each of them lighting up the massive building like candles, and members of the audience begin to don black armoured uniforms and whip out blaster rifles and pistols, firing into the panicking crowds and killing heroes, civilians, and clones alike.
The Sports Festival has been invaded by villains.
Immediately, the clones and heroes begin to fire back at the villains, only for the villains in question to display tactical moves and strategies akin to armed soldiers, continuously outwitting the allied forces and killing scores of them. Class 1-A and B are evacuated into the lower depths of the stadium, but even those are breached by the villains, forcing the students and the clones guarding them to try and break out of the stadium to save their lives.
In the end, the clones are forced to break cover and call in a shuttle, summoning a Rho-class attack craft to evacuate the students, the shuttle arriving and blasting apart several of the villains, allowing the students and their clone protectors to scramble onboard and evacuate, leaving the burning stadium behind.
Eventually, All Might finally arrives to defeat the remaining villains, but it's too late. Dozens of heroes and civilians are dead, the army of villains has fled the scenes, and another student of U.A. has been murdered in cold blood.
U.A. is promptly raked over the coals. The supposedly best hero school in the world has been invaded by villains twice in barely a month's time, and each time has resulted in the death of a student. The public lash out at the staff and heroes for allowing this massacre to happen, especially All Might who hadn't been there to prevent this horror from being carried out. Criticism is also laid out on the heroes at the stadium for not stopping the violent attack, as it had been carried out in a way to make the heroes seem incompetent.
However, public notice is soon placed on the hidden security team that U.A. had used to fight back against the villains, as well as the armoured men that had fought back as well, with many recognising them as clones, and the few in the know connecting them to the Grand Army. Criticism is thrown out once more, as the generational trauma of the Quirk Wars still lingers in the minds of many, and representatives of both the HPSC and WHA begin to attack U.A. for even thinking about hiring them on. However, others would offer praise to the clones and their actions, as it was through their efforts that the students had been saved from the army of villains.
And elsewhere, Miyuki addresses the Operatives, her private squad of CX Clone Troopers, and congratulates them on a job well done, especially with their army of recruits, who have been augmented and turned into X Troopers as well.
Meanwhile, Classes 1-A and B are taken to one of the Grand Army's outposts, blowing their cover but giving the students a safe place to rest and recover whilst the clones try to figure out who is targeting them. The students are shaky and panicky, scared and confused over what has happened, and are horrified at how a day that was supposed to be friendly and fun could turn into a nightmare, before becoming suspicious and hostile of the people with identical faces and guns around them.
But the clones try not to let it get to them. As they explain to the students, the attack on the stadium was most likely carried out by the same League of Villains who attacked the USJ as well, though the methods are definitely different, possibly as revenge, and possibly as part of a targeted attack against the students, making the USJ a targeted attack as well. Whoever the League of Villains are, they are targeting the students, meaning that said students need to be kept somewhere safe for the time being until the threat was dealt with or the students could be confirmed safe and without any further risk of possible assassination.
This caused a lot of tension between the clones and U.A., who began secret discussions on where to shelter the students away from any more murder attempts. The staff of U.A. would be extremely distrusting of the Grand Army, and the clones would question the staff's ability to keep their students safe, particularly after two attacks on their own school grounds. However, when public pressure begins to fall on U.A. to release the students and at least confirm that they are alive, both sides are forced to come to a compromise, and the staff are given custody of the students in their care, placed into dormitories and put into protective custody, though on the condition that the Grand Army are allowed to augment U.A.'s security with several of their own squads.
During all this, there is word of the League of Villains attacking Hosu and targeting the Hero Killer Stain, only for the attack to be prevented and the hero killer to be arrested, not by heroes, but by men in bulky white armour...
...And later in a public demonstration, Miyuki Kera speaks to a crowd, using the attacks on the USJ and Sports Festival to make a point about modern day hero society is beginning to fail them, and how All Might can no longer be counted on to always be there for anyone who is in need.
Now, there needs to be change. Hero society is simply becoming outdated, as are the heroes that govern it, and for the future, the world needs new heroes, new faces, and new ideals to keep its people safe.
And this is where she reveals her new project, of which she is now the head of. A collaborative effort between private corporations and interested government agencies, this new project shall serve as the replacement for All Might, and for all heroes, when their time eventually comes.
She presents to the world the heroes of Hosu, the ones who gave the hated League of Villains their first real defeat and brought the hero killer Stain low.
She presents to them the Commando Project, and joining her on stage are a dozen Clone Commandos led by Delta Squad members Boss, Fixer, and Scorch.
In public, the Clone Commandos are the next generation of heroes and soldiers, ready to begin the process of slowly phasing out the heroes and replacing them with what they call the TK Trooper, the first generation of a new breed of soldier.
But in private, the Clone Commandos, and Delta Squad specifically, are Miyuki's personal enforcers, working alongside the CX Troopers and their own small militia of X Trooper conscripts to enact their will.
In this story, the Grand Army are representative of Star Wars canon's interpretation of the Clone Troopers, that being individualistic people with their own personalities and differences from each other, and with a strong sense of right and wrong for each of them.
However, the Clone Commandos and CX Troopers under Miyuki's command are representative of the Legends interpretation of the clones, that being a collective group of blindly obedient soldiers that have no issue with killing anyone and everyone if they are ordered to, regardless of if it is right or wrong.
And if Miyuki has her way, they will be the ones in control of hero society, finally able to do away with the chaos that heroes and villains bring and to finally bring peace, safety, and order to their world... and beyond.