Chapter 35: Raid Event
Summary: The League of Villains makes its next move, to the horror of all...
Chapter 35: Raid Event
They were on Field Gamma, practicing Urban Traversal while under duress, when 2B's shock rushed through her link with Izumi. A moment later, the recon Pod that she'd been about to take upward instead maxed out it's volume and blared out a warning, Izumi only barely reacting fast enough to adjust her hearing.
"EMERGENCY! CANCEL EXERCISE! MASS VILLAIN ATTACK IMMENIENT!"
Even as that terse, high-volume warning went out, Izumi instinctively activated hyper cognition. The first alarming thing her equally instinctive status check turned up was that 2B had pulled in all of her processing power and was simultaneously sending dozens of HSN alerts to every single building and hero on the UA campus. With even 2B's processing power stretched to doing so, Izumi didn't bother asking what was going on, instead she tapped into the video feed 2B was broadcasting…which was coming from one of the discrete overwatch cameras they'd placed in the block around UA, after the USJ incident.
Heart sinking, Izumi watched as not one, but dozens of familiar portals appeared all around the eastern arc of the UA perimeter. A single Nomu stepped out of each, followed by a stream of more ordinary but far more numerous villains, every single one of which was wearing some sort of mass-produced jetpack. The Nomu, all of which were flight capable themselves, had only just started to move toward UA when Izumi caught up to the real-time broadcast…which was the same instant that UA's own security system blared to life with a sound that hadn't been heard since the Era of Chaos.
An Air Raid siren.
UA was one of the three oldest hero universities on the entire planet, Japan's pre-existing culture and the presence of a local supervillain having spurred the officialization of Heroes faster than most countries. Which also meant that UA's security was not for show, nor was it limited to the barrier that everyone thought of as its first line of defense. No. While it was not common knowledge, UA still had active defenses left over from the Era where heroes were fully on the defensive and the school had been assaulted somewhat regularly by ambitious villain groups. Those defenses were, in fact, why UA taught more than heroics. Even today, many of its non-heroics students were from prominent families or children of military and political figures. Which helped explain the anti-air turrets that were abruptly popping out from various places along the UA barrier.
Well maintained as those turrets had been, at Nedzu's assistance, they were also old. The Dean had needed to fight on a nearly yearly basis just to be allowed to keep them, even having to load them with non-lethal capture ordinance to comply with various post All Might, Era of Peace, legislation. Despite that, they were still effective, and it was only their presence which blunted the initial wave of attackers, temporarily knocking the Nomu out of the sky and doing the same with the first couple of dozen jetpack equipped villains. Unfortunately, even as Izumi began to move, physically lifting her two teammates for the exercise and returning all three of them to the central plaza, that brief halting of the enemy swarm began to change. These Nomu had clearly been picked for a reason, as every one of them was able to quickly escape the capture foam that had spread from the turret ammo. The instant they did, they launched themselves at one of the defense guns, which were distracted by the swarm of other flying villains. Even as those villains themselves began to rapidly dissolve into piles of what looked like mud, the Nomu reached the guns…and tore them apart.
All Might had been watching the exercise with the half of the class that had already had their turn. Even as Izumi landed with her two classmates, his own HSN HUD, a high-end holographic model that projected from a clip over his ear, was on display for the first time Izumi had ever seen. His eyes were wide in shock, face totally unsmiling…but he was still the number one hero for a reason. His decision was swift and directed toward the entire class.
"Group A. You have official clearance to use your Quirks in self-defense and defense of others! Stick to groups of three or more and deploy to the nearest non-heroics building. Defend it from any and all villains until relief arrives or another hero gives you different instructions. Relay that to everyone coming in from the exercise before you leave!"
Then, with no more warning than that, All Might was gone. Only Izumi and the newly arrived Momo could track him as he took off toward the eastern wall at speeds that left after images behind. Izumi, still in hyper cognition mode, quickly assessed the campus map and the villain's progress. She grimaced and began shutting down non-critical systems even as she started summoning the simplest of her Flight Units. She wouldn't be able to use it long, but it would get her there fast. Dropping her level of hyper cognition to the point that she could communicate properly, she jabbed a finger at Kaminari Denki.
"Chargebolt! You're with me and Momo, we're the only three that can reach Building E before the villains do!" Another finger stabbed out, even as the Flight Unit formed around her. "Iida, get everyone else into groups of three and send them after us. You'll be able to catch up to one of the other groups once you gather all the stragglers from the exercise and update them. Add yourself as a fourth to whichever group you can reach before they hit combat."
She shifted her attention to the group as a whole.
"Everyone! Make sure you have both the UA General emergency channel and Group A's channel up on your Scouters. This is a mass attack. Watch the security feeds to understand what you're getting into before you hit combat! Do not hold back. All villains spotted so far appear to be either Nomu or some sort of mud clones that dissolve when they take too much damage. Stick together and protect the regular students! Plus Ultra!"
There was a staggered, automatic response from some of the class to the phrase, even a Iida acknowledge his role, but Izumi wasn't listening any longer. Her Flight Unit was fully deployed, and Momo and Kaminari were already in the air beside her.
"Follow me! Keep up as best you can! We don't have time for anything complicated."
Both of them nodded, even as the brutally powerful thrusters of Izumi's stripped-down YorHa Flight Unit engaged. Her Flight Units were resource intensive, but this model had been carefully minimized over the last few weeks in case she ever needed to deploy one to keep up with Momo in the air. She could afford a few minutes of flight without worrying overmuch about her time limit…and it would take less than a minute and a half to reach Building E. Building E was the main Business Course facility, which meant it wouldn't have anything more than its own static defenses. Time was very much of the essence, even if it appeared All Might had bought them a bit of breathing room with his arrival at the campus barrier.
A few moments later, as they all got airborne, with Denki struggling to keep up even as Momo and Izumi kept accelerating, that breathing room vanished as two more portals opened. Izumi watched the feed as two much bulkier Nomu darted out of them, zeroing in on All Might…and one of them immediately tanked a Detroit Smash with only a few meters of blowback. Regeneration and shock absorption, it looked like. Thankfully no where near the same level of speed and strength as the USJ Nomu, though. Damage sponges then, not meant to match All Might, just to tie him up and run his time down. Damn. At least most of the other Nomu were diverting to him as well. The ones he hadn't already obliterated.
Kaminari had fully fallen behind as they came into sight of Building E, several villains within seconds of reaching the building. Said building had armor deployed over all the windows and doors…except one which still open, letting a few stranglers from the student population in. Grimacing, Izumi fell halfway into hyper cognition and prayed these villains were more mud clones. Letting 2B take control of their flight, Izumi locked the one remaining weapon she hadn't stripped from this Flight Unit onto the lead villain. The laser that lanced out a moment latter wasn't all that powerful for a Flight Unit, but it was still deadly to anything merely human, and the next best thing to impossible to dodge. The lead villain melted into mud, causing Izumi to breath a mental sigh of relief, even as she fired twice more to pick off the next two closest to the students. Then the students were all inside, the doors slammed shut…and Izumi used a brief moment of counterthrust before simply letting the Flight Unit dissolve into data.
She still slammed into the ground with slightly-painful three point landing, but she'd started shifting into Bruiser Mode even before the moment of counterthrust. She took the landing with no actual damage and dashed forward to ram a fist through the surprised face of the villain she'd landed in front of. There was a brief moment of confusion as a dozen more villains turned toward her in surprise…before a rocket launched by the arriving Momo wiped half of them out. Grim faced, the two of them began laying into the wave of incoming Villains. Despite the power difference between them and their opponents, the numbers nearly let a few past them…until Kaminari arrived and lashed out with his own support gear. The first wave dealt with, all three of them shared a determined look before they set themselves for the next. It was even larger than the first and, worse, it had a Nomu…
... ...
"Pincer from the right!"
Shoji 's warning rang out, almost too late. But only almost. Iida pivoted toward the new group of villains, turning into a whirling dervish that scattered them. Sato's power armor was slower to shift, but brought a lot more power to bear. More importantly, it was fireproof, and Sato took the flames of the most annoying of the cloned villains on his chest to shield everyone from the flanking attack. A battered looking and now-grounded Kaminari was there a moment later, fire flashing from the SMG's Momo had tossed him after his whips had been melted by a similar clone. They'd gotten the clone, but proven not to be up to the more powerful flames this asshole could make. The flame villain went down, again, and the rest of the pincer movement dissolved without his literal fire support. The trio cleared up the remainer, before turning their attention back to the latest wave.
By now, they'd realized that there were only actually around a dozen villains that had been 'copied.' Unfortunately, while that meant they quickly got a solid handle on the Quirks involved…it didn't stop the fact that the waves of them seemed endless. There had been brief pauses and the number of villains that leaked through the defense at the wall had reduced as other heroes began to arrive. But several of their own had been half-exhausted from their day's practicals before they even arrived. Worse, this sort of attritional fight was not supposed to be something that Heroes dealt with.
Thankfully, Momo was still going strong, not slowed in the slightest, and Izumi seemed to be keeping up despite her old 15-minute time limit having overrun ten minutes ago. Her training with Ryukyu clearly paying dividends. Even better, Jirou was proving to be a Godsend at area-denial, basically able to hold an entire flank by herself without much in the way of stamina drain. There was only a single Quirk among the attackers that could bull its way through her sonic waves, and Uraraka's horrifyingly effective club was dealing with that one, when enough of that villain's clones gathered to threaten Jirou's flank.
Just as Shoji was about to yell out another warning of one such grouping to her, he sagged in relief instead. Barely an instant later, dozens of UA's testing robots swarmed over that group and then pointed themselves toward the waves of villains, two teachers Shoji didn't know by sight directing them. With the fresh reinforcements, he was able to shift his attention to more distant issues…and nearly collapsed in additional relief as he realized there would be no more waves of attackers. While All Might was no longer in sight, all of the portals had vanished and other heroes were cleaning up the last waves that had come through before they did.
Exhausted, he checked his HUD…and only then realized that the entire attack, which had seemed to go on for hours, had actually only lasted half an hour from start to finish. Not even that long, he realized numbly. The security logs for the first HSN warning, issued by 2B, happened just 27 minutes ago. His disorientation lasted until, eventually, one of the unknown teachers gruffly directed him back to Group A's Heroics classroom. Still caught between shock and disbelief, he numbly forced himself to his feet and followed the others of the Group, helping a few of them by reflex as their own adrenaline crashes caused them to collapse…
... ...
A/N: Ah, unintended consequences, now vicious you can be. That's going to be a bit of an ongoing theme in this fic. That, just because the good guys did things that changed the bad guys reactions...doesn't always mean those changes are for the better. Lacking any idea who All Might's successor is, All for One has been more hands-on with the League, resulting in them being a much more credible threat, must earlier...