Chapter 75: Longest Day
Summary: The invasion continues...
Warning! Chapters 74 & 75 were posted back-to-back! Make sure you catch them both!
Chapter 75: Longest Day
"Phantom, stop fucking around and get that siphon in place! You're the last one again!"
Izumi watched as one of the more annoying Group B students actually did his job, leaving the Brute that had come through the portal to Real Steel as he used a copy of someone's telekinesis Quirk to get the QE siphon in place. The moment it activated, Izumi breathed a sigh of relief as the edges of the portal began to flicker and shrink.
"That's it! Protect the siphons! The Gate is closing!"
She did her best to put action to her words, picking her shots with the railgun Momo had left for her. Despite all the QE in the air for Izumi to absorb, she'd absorbed and depleted her reserves so many times in the past eleven hours that she could no longer accept more than a trickle of the energy without extreme pain. It had gotten so bad that she'd retreated to their thankfully-still-intact workshop to work on the siphon idea at hour six, even as Momo continued to help Main Containment around the remaining portals. Or Gates as everyone had taken to calling them.
Over three dozen 'Gates' had opened in Shizuoka. Numbers beat only in Yokohama, Osaka, and a location outside Deika City. Three-to-five-kilometer zones around those 'Major Gates' were, at this point, essentially lost as numerous smaller Gates opened around them. Combined Hero and JSDF cordons were managing to keep the Osaka and Yokohama Major Gates contained, though both were under constant pressure from the forces continuing to pour through the larger 5-story-tall Gates. Even All Might had been pressed back when he attempted to reach the Yokohama Gate. It was guarded by Elite Units of their still poorly-understood enemy and, while none of them had been a match for him one-on-one, combined they'd been able to push him back despite losses. Worse, unlike all the little Gates popping up all over the place, those Gates were stabilized somehow from the other side. They showed no flickering and were no longer reliant on ambient QE to power themselves. Izumi had no idea, as yet, how to shut them down.
Nor was their struggle contained to the cities where the chaos had started. Smaller number of lesser Gates, in two different sizes, had appeared in other towns across Japan. Likewise, a few more in the wilderness…and thousands more had appeared Worldwide. No other country had quite as many in as small area as Japan, even if some larger counties had just as many or more Major Gates. It seemed, in this, that Japan's higher population of Quirked individuals and extreme population density had bit them firmly in the ass. No gates, not even the smallest of the temporary ones that were very temporary, were appearing in places without populations. Horrifyingly, the reason for that had become quickly evident as the enemy opened as many Gates as they could in response to some being shut down.
Those second version of the smaller gates, the ones they needed to seal themselves instead of naturally running out, were opened by sacrificing people as QE boosters. Emitter types with a natural QE generator seemed to be the preferred enemy target, even if that meant trying to pull down a Hero to get at a more powerful Quirk. The resulting QE flare as some sort of robed Shamans did a ritual over the poor captured bastards caused the victim's entire body to go critical, triggering something very like White Clornation Syndrome as far as Izumi and 2B could tell. Only, in this case, the WCS was artificially triggered by the generated QE overwhelming a Quirked human's ability to naturally handle it. The victim turned to salt…and a massive surge of QE was filtered into the smallest type of Gate. Those temporary Gates, aside from being invasion points, were really more rips in space which turned into Gates when enough of those rituals were performed to stabilize them. One, in Nara, had actually started forming into another Main Gate after a grisly death toll, before a brutal airstrike from the JSDF had pounded twenty entire city blocks to rubble to stop it. All of which unfortunately told them all they needed to know about why so many Missing Persons cases had been turning up in the first place.
Of course, the same sort of attempt had been made on fully formed Main Gates, only to discover that they put out some sort of shield once they were fully realized. The Americans had apparently managed to destroy one of their Main Gates by outright nuking a small town in Wyoming with a suspiciously large military presence for the middle-of-nowhere. Understandably, that was considered a less than ideal solution by everyone. But, technically, it had proven that 'conventional' force could breach those shields.
"It's coming down! Just a few more seconds!"
True to Izumi's words, the defenders were throwing everything they could at the siphon locations, trying to stop them from collapsing the Gate stability. But this wasn't the first rodeo and formations of Heroes and Hero students were defending each siphon. Depleting and collapsing the first Portal this way had taken five tries, as Siphons were lost to counter charges by enemies that seemed to recognize the tactic. Something that was worrying in and of itself, as it spoke to their opponents having done something like this before. The Heroes and JDSF APCs, light tanks, and mechanized infantry, had all gotten better at establishing hard points for the siphons since that first attempt, though. This time, the hard points held, and the Gate began to implode.
Unlike Izumi's first success, implosions weren't violent. The Gate simply winked out, cutting anything trying to cross over in half, and leaving the remaining invasion forces cut off from support. Izumi grimly kept firing, helping with the mop up of those forces at this Gate site, even as she checked the status of the remaining handful elsewhere. Only five left, one of which was about to fall to Momo and her 'Heavy Touch' team.
They'd found only two ways, short of nukes, to close the Gates so far. One, which Izumi's 'Light Touch' team had just finished, was to use the newly developed siphons to 'drain' the QE from the Gate until it couldn't sustain itself. But they currently only had enough siphons for two teams, after losing many in various attempts. The UA support crews were building more of the things to Izumi's crude design as fast as they could. But, for now, they were custom, hand-assembled items. They were doing good to keep two Light Touch teams supplied, honestly. Particularly as their very nature meant they couldn't be created using a Quirk. The siphons would disrupt the very QE attempting to make them, meaning even Momo had only been able to provide parts, rather than completed siphons.
The other method, the 'Heavy Touch' method Momo's team was using, spiked a Gate with too much QE via judicious application of emitter Quirks. That method caused the Gates to expand too fast, popping them like a soap bubble. But that method was violent, producing a similar result to Izumi first effort. Not quite as spectacular, as Izumi had unintentionally combined the two methods to create a truly, fantastically, unstable result. But the Heavy Touch method still created a 100-meter diameter sphere of utter annihilation. Which made it a bad idea to use in a lot of locations.
In fact, the last location it was safe to use the Heavy Touch method was the one Momo was dealing with now. From now on it would be up to the siphon teams. Which meant it was time to get hers moving again. She keyed the subchannel dedicated to the Heroes and Heroines Nedzu had assigned her.
"Pack it up, team. The mop up is down to the point the JSDF and a relief crew can handle it. Pull the siphons back to your APCs and move to Rally Point Epsilon. There's food and medical teams there, along with some of our people who are ready to rotate back in. Let me know by the time we reach the Rally Point if you're injured or need to rotate out to recover. Half an hour at Epsilon and we move out to one of the remaining Gates."
There were groans across the line, but Izumi didn't let it get to her. They were all exhausted, but the end was in sight…at least the end of this one part. She watched as the Heavy Touch team closed their gate down and nodded. Time to build some morale, if she could.
"Chin up, everyone. Only four Gates left in Shizuoka. Only two of them will be ours, and the Heavy teams have shut all of the Gates they can. The members of those teams that have any juice left will likely join us as reinforcements."
That got a staggered cheer from a few people on the channel, along with a few whispered prayers, and other such things. Good enough, considering the hell they'd all been through today. Settling into her own ride, a lightly armored Mobile Command Vehicle on loan from the JSDF, she got the attention of the JSDF Corporal running the thing and directed him to the Rally Point. As they got moving, Izumi closed her eyes and tried to work through the bigger picture. She was too mentally exhausted to do more than skim the surface of the reports, but she got the gist.
They were making progress, for now. But it was better in Shizuoka than anywhere but Deika and Hamamatsu. In those two cities, the MLA had come out into the open and hammered the smaller portals with massive numbers, numbers far beyond previous worst case estimates of what that group's size. They'd also killed or driven off every Hero and JSDF unit, though. Effectively putting both cities in open rebellion to the Japanese Government. Who, quite frankly, were a bit too busy to do anything about that fact.
Worse, those bastards were moving North, despite their own Main Portal still needing containment. If, as seemed to be the thought, they moved to capture Toyama, they would have effectively succeeded in cutting Japan in half. At least on land. Japan being an island nation meant that sort of tactic was limited, but it was still a potentially major disruption in the middle of a catastrophe of epic proportions. At least the MLA had been cut off at the knees when they probed toward Nagoya, with Ryukyu leading a dozen agencies first to shut down a handful of Portals in Okazaki and more in Toyohashi. Her groups had confronted the MLA probes between Hamamatsu and Toyohashi and turned them back brutally. But the conflict had also kept those agencies from moving to support Shizuoka to the East or Osaka to the Southwest. Fucking opportunistic terrorist nazis!
Sighing, Izumi pulled back from the big picture and focused on getting her group ready for another Gate. Just two more and she could at least rest for a bit, before trying to take on the bigger disasters going on elsewhere…
... ...
Four hours later, Izumi cursed her four-hour-younger self for a fool for believing she'd be able to rest just yet. She'd been allowed just an hour powernap between the shutting of the last Lesser Gate and being summoned to what amounted to a War Council. She should have expected it. She and 2B were literally the closest thing to experts on this subject Worldwide, and the two of them had continued to push updates to the General Information HSN Hub as they'd figured more out. Most of it was labeled in terms of 'we suspect' or 'indications show,' of course. But her well-regarded background in QE fields and the fact she'd figured out how to shut down the Gates without them exploding had jumped her theories straight to the top of the international circles. Apparently, Nedzu had pushed the siphon schematics out to everyone via the World Heroes Association. Which was a good thing, but also meant that all the very important people on this conference call knew who she was.
Fuck was she in over her head. A lot of World Leaders had been targeted by infiltration units in the opening attacks, showing just how organized this invasion actually was. But Izumi's connection to various databases via 2B made sure she was painfully aware who everyone was. The Deputy Prime Minster of Japan, now Interim Prime Minster since the death of his boss in those assassination attempts. One of the top two Generals of the JSDF. The President of the United States who had survived the attempt on himself, and a Five-Star General of the US Military. A ranking NATO Rep, with an EU Rep alongside him. Reps of a half dozen other world powers, and several of the Theater Directors for the World Heroes Association. Virtually all of them had a top scientist with them, and all of them were looking right at her and Momo as Nedzu called for them to speak.
This time, Momo couldn't bail her out. Everyone knew Izumi had designed the siphons, and had been the one updating the files with the most accurate data anyone had gotten. So Izumi took a deep breath and did her best to embrace the crude facsimile of a Heroic Persona she'd started crafting oh-so-recently.
"Time is critical, so I'm going to cut the bullshit. Everything I have is theoretical, and we all know it. That said, the best I can give you right now is the following. Note, that I'm going to be dropping a couple of bombs here that I've held tight to my chest about where Quirks actually come from. That part isn't theoretical, but I've previously been unsure how to handle the information."
There were stirrings from everyone at that, but Izumi cut them off by taking over the data feed and displaying the best footage anyone yet had of a Major Gate going up. This one in Paris, as seen by the Eiffel Tower in the background.
"These are Interdimensional Gates. As in, they don't come from our Dimension. This is the little revelation I've held onto for years because I didn't know what to do with it. Quirk Energy isn't native to our reality. Back in the year 2003, there was a massive splash of extra-dimensional energy that crashed through Earth, centered on the South Pacific. What caused this energy, I don't know."
She totally did. It was in 2B's database. It was nothing more than backsplash from the fight that had ripped reality a new asshole in 2B's original dimensional. A fight between two monstrous entities whose mere death had shed massive spikes of Maso through every dimension even remotely near theirs. In 2B's world, it had caused White Chlorination Syndrome, an extinction-level event for humanity. In theirs, shielded by several dimensions stacked between 2B's home and their own, humanity had been able to adapt…barely.
"Humans are extremely adaptable. Which is the only reason we survived. Our bodies, and occasionally the bodies of particularly adaptable animals, absorbed the exotic energy and changed to be able to use it. If we hadn't change, it would have killed us. Humanity came perilously close to an extinction event. Indeed, some of the crackpots at the time who didn't have the full picture actually didn't think we'd dodged the bullet. The Quirk Singularity Theory said we'd only passed the buck down, and that Quirks would keep getting stronger until we couldn't handle them. That much, at least, is bullshit."
Numerous diagrams flowed into the data feed, simplified so that at least the scientists present would be able to understand what they were looking at with a quick glance. It showed the growth curve of both QE fields and average Quirk power worldwide. There was a reason that one research institute Momo had gotten in touch with had been specifically studying Kamio. There was already a known correlation between QE density and the Quirks that came out of the region in question. It's just that no one knew exactly what point in development everything happened. While in the womb? The 1-4 age growth period before a Quirk manifested? The field strength right when the Quirk actually manifested for the first time? No one knew, not yet at least.
"More powerful Quirks are nothing more than a result of a rise in Ambient QE fields. Which are, in turn, caused by more people having and using Quirks. It's a cycle, one that humanity has already fully adapted to. Unfortunately, as of today it seems to have made us a target."
Removing the graphs, she replaced them with the map of Japan's QE fields Momo had stitched together.
"After connecting a series of Mass Missing Persons cases to QE field strength, the Orca Agency, Endeavor Agency, UA, and several others began a search of the largest QE hotspots in the affected areas. At 07:23 am this morning, the Orca Agency sent out a yellow alert to all of Yokohama as they began to inspect one of the sites. As Gang Orca and both of the sidekicks with him are currently MIA and presumed dead, we don't know exactly what caused them to send the alert. What we do know is that twenty-three minutes later, the first Major Gate anywhere in the world opened in the Kamino District of Yokohama."
Izumi paused for a moment to let that all process, before shifting to a time-lapse that showed other Major Gates, then Lesser Gates, beginning to open around the globe. It was an incomplete mapping, of course. Not everywhere was fairing as well as they had, nor was everyone properly communicating.
"Our enemy, for whom we currently have no name, clearly planned for this. Within seconds of the first Gate opening, a cascade of additional Gates began opening worldwide. Within just seconds of that, numerous assassination attempts were made on important military and political figures. Showing that this was a pre-planned, coordinated strike by an intelligent enemy."
Someone finally interrupted her, an angry voice from the NATO Rep.
"Are you telling me Japan triggered this invasion, without warning anyone?"
Izumi blinked, then actually glared at the man as if he were a complete moron. Mostly because he was.
"No sir, I am not. This plan was months in the making and was still ongoing. Our enemy was spreading out quietly to as many cities as they could, following the path of greatest QE field strength. We had no more warning than any of you who had Major Portals in your territory. We had no indication this was something this big. We were literally just investigating a series of Missing Persons Cases."
Another man, the 5-Star General from the United States, cut across her…but he was glaring at his NATO counterpart, not her.
"And a damn fucking good thing they did, too. If this had spread farther before we caught it, it might not have been containable at all. It's still a fucking catastrophe. But so far, we're managing to contain our opposition to the beachheads they've established. If they'd had double the number of Major Gates to work with, we might have been overrun entirely. If they'd had triple the number we would have been overrun entirely. They haven't exactly shown any sign of lacking numbers to throw at us, after all."
The NATO Man glowered, but nodded jerkily. The General gave a gruff nod Izumi's way and waved her to continue. He, at least, seemed to approve of her no-nonsense breakdown. She nodded back and picked up where she'd left off.
"Thanks to the fact the original analysis was made by my fellow Aegis Inc co-owner," Izumi gestured at Momo, "I already knew about the link to the QE fields. Given my own Quirk and the cybernetic hardware it grants me is the basis for many of Aegis Inc's developments, I was immediately deployed toward the nearest Gate. There, I was able to use my own sensors to do a rapid analysis of the Gate's QE field signature and theorize both what they were and how they could be disabled. Initial attempts were rather violent, but worked. Once the worst of the situation was contained, I was pulled back to work on a less volatile solution."
Everyone nodded, and a scientist from the African League leaned forward to ask a question.
"The siphons, of course. But we've all gotten that far along, at least. It was a good recap, but your later reports, after you deployed again, are more interesting. They provide some possible motive, yes?"
Izumi grimaced.
"Possibly, yes. But that's very theoretical and may only reflect means, not motive. First, just to make sure we're all on the same page here, all Gates have been opened in high-density QE locations. Even with the…sacrifices…the enemy has been seen to make out of Quirked individuals, there seems to be a minimum required QE field strength in order to open even the smallest Gates. In this sense, it's likely we've never been invaded before, because Earth only recently hit the threshold where they could establish the Gates at all. Previously, it's likely any attempt on their part to stabilize a Gate failed."
Quite a few people nodded at that, though there was realization in enough eyes that it had needed to be said, apparently. To be fair, at least a third of these people were politicians, not scientists or military people. So she supposed that wasn't unreasonable. Regardless, she continued the train of thought and added something new.
"The most important party of the additional observations I made is the absence of Quirks in our enemies."
That got a lot of startled looks out of the non-scientists, but Izumi cut them all off with a raised hand.
"The abilities you saw many of our enemies use, particularly the more intelligent groups, were not Quirks. They were manipulating QE fields, yes. But they were doing so mostly with either specialized artificial organs, non-natural mutations that appear to have been crudely grafted on and often appear diseased, or via external devices. The staffs, ritual daggers, and so on. They are manipulating QE fields, but it appears to be something that they can't do natively. They are, in fact, treating it more like Magic than Science."
Yeah, because even fucking YoRHa had considered Maso basically magic. Meaning these invaders actually likely understood the stuff better than all the scientists here. But she wasn't about to try and convince the world Magic was essentially real and Quirks are magic. All while also explaining 'we're being invaded by aliens,' at the same time. One ridiculous thing at a time, thanks.
"This, at the least, explains the timing and means. They needed our QE fields to be strong enough to open their Invasion Gates. They are using QE to open and sustain those Gates. This also means we can somewhat predict where their groups that break the various cordons will attempt to go, as they'll head for QE hotspots above anything else."
Lots of nods, but the same scientist from before was quick to press her about her…less substantiated theories. In her defense, they both made sense and she'd been exhausted when she'd uploaded them, not thinking about the ramifications.
"You theorized that they might be trying to harvest our QE, though. That it is what they are after in the first place."
Izumi sighed but nodded.
"I strongly warn you that it's only a theory. However, scans of all the various monsters, plus analysis and cross-analysis of the attacks they use show an attempt to husband QE. This is most noticeable in the elemental barrages that their…for lack of a better term here…wizards or shamans fling. They initialize the attack with QE. But the actual attacks themselves are extremely QE efficient. Usually, by the time they hit, any QE has already faded. It's a type of efficiency you normally only see in relative weak emitters who train rigorously to squeeze every drop out of their Quirk."
Izumi stopped for a moment to upload scans of various monster types, with parts of their bodies highlighted.
"This holds true of the monsters, too. In the vast majority of cases, their physical power and durability is all natural, not related to QE at all. Instead, their QE is highly focused on specific organs of the body. If a Monster can breathe fire, then ALL the QE in its body is focused on its lungs and throat. They don't seem to generate it like we do, either. All their QE has to be absorbed from the environment."
She let that process for the non-scientific among her audience, before bringing the point home.
"To me, this says that their world has a lower natural QE level than ours. Given how refined their tactics are, I put forth the theory that they might be world jumpers. A group or empire using their mastery of QE Gates to invade worlds with higher ambient QE levels than theirs. Ambient QE which they then harvest to fuel their empire, economy, or whatever. Why else would they have a clearly refined method for forcing QE activation to peak while they are sacrificing a person, after all?"
There was a horrified silence for a few minutes as the implications set in. Then the barrage of questions, few of which Izumi had any concrete answers for, began…
... ... ... ... ...
AN 1: Yep! It's a worldwide invasion, not just Japan. Japan isn't the center of the universe in this story, the way it is in a lot of Anime. Even if they'll get it heaveir than some places, since the bleed over of Maso into the world happened through the Nier dimensional counterpart of Tokyo. So, if anything, this story now features I crisis that dwarfs the MLA/PLF wars...and the MLA are being opportunistic bastards, too. Nor are groups like Humarise going to react well to the idea that 'Quirked people brought this down on us' once that detail spreads. As for the LoV...well, Shiggy is unhinged and unguided at this point. So that's going to be its own form of ugly...
AN 2:This is the one-per-release that I mention this and my other works have a Page. Currently, chapters 76-80 (roughly 16,000 additional words) are already up in Early Access! Not to mention there are early access chapters of my other stories amounting to roughly another 40-60k words at any given time. If you're enjoying this story, please consider tossing a bit of support my way?