Chapter 81: New Equilibrium
Summary: Gaining a little bit of footing to fight back...
Chapter 81: New Equilibrium
The days immediately after their sabotage attempt were agonizing, for more than one reason. The uncertainty of not knowing would have been bad enough all on its own. But they were near-instantly aware that they'd achieved something. The trouble was, that they became aware of that on account of the enemy's reactions. Mere hours after their first use in anger of a Distortion Bomb, the assaults via active Gates all across Japan intensified radically. While far fewer Rifts and new Lesser Gates were opening, a sign that they might have achieved something, every Rift and Gate that opened was now seeing a bull-rush of enemy elites. Not at the back of the pack, there to handle turning a Rift into a Gate, but as the first enemies through a new Rift or Lesser Gate.
Multiple Reaction Teams were completely wiped out, and containment was shattered on several new Gates over roughly a twelve-hour period. Worse, a simultaneous major push on all three of Japan's Greater Gates had seen the bloodiest, most vicious fighting since the first day. Dozens of Heroes were lost, and several temporary breaches of containment meant various groups of monsters had slipped the net to cause chaos and destruction elsewhere. It had gotten so bad at one point that they'd canceled the Quarantine for Izumi specifically, deploying her to bolster the Reaction Teams despite the unknowns they were risking by doing so.
For three days and nights, they'd fought the fury of the invaders…only to finally catch a serious breath on the fourth day. By blood, sweat, and copious use of high explosives, they'd shut down enough of the Lesser Gates to get things back under control. Something only made possible, they'd slowly realized, because the enemy was pouring on the pressure for a reason. Whatever the Distortion Bomb had done, Rifts were no longer forming from the invader's world over nearly 35 percent of Japan. Gates in that zone could still be opened by those monsters that escaped containment and started sacrificing people to open one. But that was far easier to predict and counter than the far more random Rift appearances caused by breaches from the other side.
Moreover, after the first two days of elites rushing the gates, the numbers of them that the enemy could or would expend had dropped off. Either they'd finally found a resource the enemy didn't have enough of, a logical option that elites couldn't be as easy to produce as foot soldiers or they'd be drowning in them, or the enemy had just decided it wasn't working. Pressure on the Greater Gates had held out longer, the Osaka Gate in particular having outright lost its initial containment circle and been forced to a secondary fallback position. A wider ring that was harder to hold but had thankfully been reinforced in time. From what they could tell, the MLA had faired even worse with their Gate, losing a lot of people to keep it contained. But they didn't exactly have eyes on it to tell how bad that situation was. And, honestly, so long as the MLA didn't fully lose containment, no one was complaining all that much about their forces having trouble.
By the end of Day 4, the exhausted defenders finally managed to achieve enough of an equilibrium to call things somewhat stable again…and on the morning of Day 5 an utterly exhausted and aching Izumi found herself once again in a familiar briefing room. Familiar faces, such as Nedzu and General Utsumi, were joined by another group of international reps. Gone were most of the politicos, however. Instead, it was mostly Heroic leadership and military top brass from a dozen different major powers. Extremely brief introductions had taken place, and the bureaucratic head of the WHA had started the meeting off instead of Nedzu.
"Everyone knows why we're here. As of 8 am this morning, the various Think-Tanks have compiled reports on the effects of Japan's experimental QE Distortion Bomb on enemy activity. The majority of the reports are based off analysis of enemy activity, but three reports from inserted operatives have gotten back through various Gates as well. One from Japan's own efforts, two from agents other powers have managed to insert behind enemy lines."
Izumi straightened. She already had access to Azusahawa's single report that had managed to get through a Lesser Gate the night before, currently filed under the codenamed Remember Me. But she hadn't been made aware that anyone else had succeeded in getting agents through the Gates and reports back. Let alone that any such reports reflected on their current situation.
"The most detailed report was provided by the Japanese agent codenamed Remember Me, who had as close to a front row seat of the effects as possible without risking himself. However, a Chinese agent named Phantom Line and the WHA hero Silent Step were each also able to make secondary reports on effects they observed among enemy force dispositions. What we know can be summarized as the following."
The WHA head tapped a control and the holo-display at the conference table center displayed an image of a chaotically ripped-apart landscape, with a great many monster bodies strew around it. Thousands, at least. And those only the ones that were still recognizable as a single monster.
"Point the first. The immediate effect of the Distortion Bomb was catastrophic to the area around the Gate it was deployed through. Comparing the damage to the test site on Gajajima island shows that the effect was considerably more violent than liner projections based on the bomb size increase would have shown. It is currently assumed, but not confirmed, that the difference has to do with either the presence of an active Gate, or else dramatic differences in the saturation of Quirk Energy at each site."
Another tap of a holo control and a zoomed-in photo of a living monster near the edge of the blast radius replaced the first. While the monster was technically still alive, it likely wished it wasn't, as it appeared to be in great pain, with mutations having run wild across its body. Parts of it had turned to salt in a way reminiscent to Izumi and 2B as White Chlorination Syndrome, while other parts had warped and twisted, pulsing with veins of sickening greens, blues, purples, and yellows.
"Point the second. Even creatures caught outside the immediate blast appeared to suffer major detrimental effects. Wild mutations or, more oddly, being converted to salt in some fashion we don't understand. This one was affected too badly to get away, while others fled. Secondary reports from agent Phantom Line report several such mutations being put down by enemy forces and taken away. To where and for what reason is currently unknown."
Another tap, another image replacing the last. This time it wasn't an image from the enemy world, but a chart of Rift and Gate activity across Japan.
"Points third and fourth together, as both points cover the enemy reaction. Point three is a noticeable drop in new Rifts appearing in roughly a 300-kilometer sphere around where the Distortion Bomb Gate was located. The greatest effect was within 100-kilometers, with a lessening degree of influence out to roughly the 300km range. Point four, all Gates and Rifts within an 800-kilometer area of the Distortion Bomb saw a major uptick in pressure against them as an enemy reaction. Which has only died off several days after the bomb was deployed."
One last tap, and the image shifted again, this time showing an enemy gathering point Izumi hadn't seen yet. It was in a mountain valley…and the focus of the image was on a group of elites leaving the site via a road. A type she recognized as a Formian. Ant-centaurs, for lack of a better description. Roughly the size of ponies and intelligent enough to fight in formation and with weapons, they had been a new type of elite for Japan. Though parts of the rest of the word had seen them previously. Their ability to use proper tactics effectively, instead of just swarming, had been part of the reason a few Reaction Teams were completely wiped out.
"This is where the information attained by Silent Step is potentially valuable. For the first time, we've seen elites being pulled away from one front, specifically the Laos-Cambodia front, to reinforce elsewhere. Silent Step was able to outright follow this group all the way to a Gate that we're virtually certain led to Northern Japan. This is the first sign of the enemy being forced to prioritize with their numbers, even if only the elite units. The WHA actually managed to finally secure the Laos-Cambodia Greater Gate when fewer of the Formian elites began coming through Lesser Gates in the area, allowing many of them to be shut for the first time."
The holodisplay exploded out to its largest possible size as, with more shots from the same sites beginning to rotate through one half, while the charts and graphs of Gate activity filled the other. The WHA head leaned back, opening the floor to discussion with a final few sentences.
"This has been a simple overview, and all of you should now be getting related data packets. Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is now open for comments, observations, and suggestions. Try to keep things constructive or I will silence you…"
The debate about what it all meant, and what to do next, was immediate and hardly calm. It would go on for hours, with Izumi growing ever more exhausted as she was badgered by hundreds of questions about the Distortion Bombs, QE fields, and her observations on the enemies she'd fought…
... ...
It was another two days later when Izumi finally got to faceplant in her Emotional Recharge Station. Momo instinctively wrapped her arms around her girlfriend as said girlfriend faceplanted into her boobs shortly after realizing Momo was actually 'home' and sprawled out on their couch. So far, their workshop/apartment had been spared any damage, though only due to some automated defenses kicking in. Something that had outed it as not exactly a normal building. Still, even if their 'secret base' was no longer very secret, they'd been here little enough that few people had yet to connect it to them. Nedzu had quietly marked it as 'Hero Support Workshop' to keep too many questions from being asked, though greater scrutiny was likely inevitable at this point.
Still, for the moment, it remained a largely private retreat. Still safe, and still theirs. It was just about the only place left that either of them could catch a quiet moment to breathe, and they'd hold onto that as long as physically possible. Something they both did now as they simply cuddled, both of them drawing warmth and strength from each other as they lay in silence for long minutes. They hadn't really had a chance to talk properly, let alone see each other, since the Distortion Bomb.
Izumi had been pulled every which way first on the front lines, then for her expert opinions for conferences and planning, and then by demands for more of the Distortion Bombs to be made. Momo, meanwhile, had been both blessing and cursing the stamina provided by One for All. The crisis had pushed her up to the point that she could use and maintain roughly 75% of its power, and unlocked an invaluable additional Quirk called Danger Sense. Yet her raw power and the stamina One for All gave her had caused her to be near constantly deployed for the last week.
She hadn't, in fact, slept for more than an hour at a time in the five days previous, before finally being released a few hours ago. A brief nap had recharged her somewhat before Izumi came home, but she could feel the pull of her eyelids as Izumi's warmth radiated into her. So mentally exhausted were they that neither of them really noticed when they drifted off into sleep…
... ...
Food. Glorious food. Wonderful food. Sure, it was canned food, stored long before the crisis started as a routine bit of paranoia in what was effectively their safehouse. But it was food. Proper food. Hot food. Not energy bars or military e-rats. Momo, in particular, was delighting in it as she shoveled down something that didn't taste like sawdust and the tears of some fancy chef's bitter nightmares. Given how calorie intensive her original Quirk was, even with One for All supplementing it quite a bit, Momo had been forced to choke down entirely too much disgusting slop in emergency forward 'mess halls' that were little more than tents. Even the relatively simple canned goods were a delight in comparison. Most of them were even name brands!
Izumi's own Quirk required similar amounts of fuel. But she'd been luckier than Momo in getting at least half decent food while at meetings. As well as in her initial, abortive, quarantine on the JMSDF Koga. Which left her reveling in the food herself, but to a much lesser extent than her girlfriend. Watching Momo's simple happiness was both delightful…and sad. Relatively cheap food shouldn't be something that made her love so happy, and it was a haunting reminder of the greater situation and the royally fucked global logistics that no one was even trying to fix yet. Still, it was a happy moment of sorts, which Izumi was reluctant to break. It was thus Momo, finally slowing down after her third can of some sort of Thai curry, who broke their mutual silence.
"So, they're actually going to do it then? Use more of the Distortion Bombs? Despite…all the downsides and unknowns? All the potential risks?"
Izumi grimaced. That had been the crux of the debate for the last two days. It was to the third person at the table she turned with the question, though.
"2B? I know what they were planning when I crashed, but I haven't updated myself since I woke. Do you have a copy of the current deployment plan?"
2B, in her teenager form, nodded stiffly. A bit worryingly stiffly, in fact, but Izumi didn't know what to do about that. Not now, of all times. Resolving to make time to find out what was wrong with her partner, she listened with Momo as 2B went over the current plan.
... ...
2B had been feeling a horrible combination of guilt and relief as she watched her partner and Momo wolf down some of the numerous rations 2B had insisted they store in the safehouse. She had never quite forgotten what scavenging was like in her previous world. Nor had she forgotten the warning she'd been given so long ago. Izumi had called her paranoid, but 2B had insisted on a certain level of apocalypse prepping. Some, Izumi knew about, such as the excessive stock of non-perishables in the safehouse. Others, such as the seedbank that 2B had quietly worked on for years, covered by an interest in 'gardening,' even Izumi was unaware of.
It wasn't hard to pinpoint the reasons for either her feelings of guilt or her relief. The relief was the simplest. Her people were still alive. The ones that 2B had claimed as family and friends had yet to suffer serious casualties. Izumi and Momo, Inko, Dr. Tsumaki, Himiko, Kaina, and the members of Group A to a lesser extent. A few online friends here and there, though she was worried about DizzyGecko, who had ended up in a refugee center and had little access to the net for the moment. The people that Dr. Tsumaki had encouraged her to build actual emotional connections to were okay. Which was…a massive relief.
The guilt was far more comprehensive.
2B had been sent here, given a second chance, in order to prepare these people for this very disaster. Now, she felt as if she hadn't done nearly enough. She knew it was wrong. At least on some level. Unlike Izumi and Momo, 2B could be in two places at once if she diverted a bit of processing power. She'd met, digitally at least, with their therapist since the disaster started. Dr. Tsumaki knew everything, even about 2B's bizarre past. She had feared the woman would blame her, for not doing more…only to be firmly shut down on that point. Dr. Tsumaki had bluntly hammered home just how much 2B and Izumi had done. Their research into Quirk Energy was literally the only thing stemming the tide of the disaster. Without it, both the prediction algorithms for Rift formation and the siphons Izumi had made would have been impossible.
Moreover, that was only the beginning. It was their friendship with the Yaoyorozu family that had made the HSN a thing, with the hardened communication systems of the HSN being one of the few things holding the entire world together at the moment. Likewise, the Yaoyorozu Group hadn't been involved with the Heroic Support industry much at all, prior to the HSN and similar developments. Now, their factories were turning out support gear at a frenetic pace that was allowing Heroes to actually keep up. Particularly now that Deterant had proven to be traitorous. Many Heroes and Heroines had needed to frantically and quickly source a new provider when Deterant had proven treasonous, and the Yaoyorozu Group was stepping into that gap without greedily trying to milk it for all it was worth. The Yaoyorozu Group along with Aegis Inc, were outright dipping into their own internal reserves in supplying Heroes. Without bothering to ask for payment unless the gear in question was excessive.
No. Logically, 2B had done a lot to prepare this world for a disaster she hadn't even known the type or timing of. She'd focused on strengthening fundamental industry and advancing fields of science, and it was paying off enormously now. Sadly, even having that hammered into her head by someone she trusted to tell her the truth didn't rid 2B of the feeling that she should have done more. Nor did it rid her of the visceral fear that she was going to have to watch as another version of humanity fell victim to an alien invasion. Potentially even White Chlorination Syndrome if something went wrong enough with the Distortion Bombs.
She was fighting to not let those fears win. But it was so hard, and she was grateful as a result, when Izumi turned to her for an update, asking if the plan had been finalized overnight. It had been, though 2B was still just as uneasy about it as she had been before. Still, she recognized the balancing act the world powers were being forced to perform, and could recognize her own paranoia about WCS as being the source of her fear they were pushing too hard, too fast, with too little data. As such, she kept her voice as level and unbiased as possible as she briefed her partner and Momo.
"Yes, the plan was finalized a few hours after you crashed. Phase I will kick off in just over an hour. They needed the time between to shuffle assets around."
Referring to her mental copy of the finalized plan, 2B continued, trying not to grimace at the details.
"Eleven more Distortion Bombs are going to be sent through various Gates in a staggered set of waves. The first three will be in an hour, in North Dakota, Laos-Cambodia, and the Grand Est region of France. North Dakota and Grand Est were picked as places under sufficient control to take the heat of the enemy's reaction if it's like it was for Japan, while also being areas which it would help immensely if Gate activity were to die down somewhat. The Laos-Cambodia attempt, meanwhile, is a somewhat riskier proposition."
Izumi scowled at that, showing she wasn't any happier than 2B was that the powers that be were going through with that one. Though Momo looked confused. 2B, still trying to keep her own disapproval out of her voice, explained their concerns.
"As Izumi already knows, that one was controversial for the same reason it's being tried at all. Evidence strongly suggests that distances are not the same here as they are on the enemy homeworld. A WHA Hero that has successfully infiltrated the enemy side with a stealth Quirk was able to follow a group of Formians from one Gate staging site to another, only an estimated 400km apart on the enemy world. Those two Gates on our world exited in Laos-Cambodia and Japan respectively. Over 4,000km apart from one another. This suggests that space is not one-for-one. Or else that they have control of where their Gates open, instead of opening them in direct correlation to the geographical physical counterparts on each world."
Momo frowned, then grimaced as she obviously reached the same conclusion that everyone else had.
"They want to see what happens if two Distortion Bombs hit the enemy world within relatively close proximity. The Laos-Cambodia and Japan Gates in question are the only ones they know the distance between."
Izumi nodded, speaking up before 2B could confirm it.
"That's it exactly. Unfortunately, we have no idea what that will do to either world. For that matter, if they are staging all of their attacks from within, say, the same country on their world…what happens when we send eleven Distortion Bombs through to that relatively compressed space? Whose to say it won't rip open a much larger connection between worlds? I argued that we should only use the bombs one at a time and observe the effect…but was overruled because of the escalating damage worldwide. I get it, I do. But what if we make it worse?"
Momo nodded, sighing, and voiced an all to common view of the situation. One that was made all the worse by the fact that it wasn't incorrect.
"Damned if you do, damned if you don't. But one way you know the costs, and the other you can still hope for the best…"
An uncomfortable silence passed between all of them at the rather grim statement. Somehow, the simple joy of the food was no longer quite as bright as it had been.