Chapter 99: Ready or Not

Summary:This time, for sure!

Warning! Chapter 98-100 were all posted back-to-back! Make sure you don't miss any!

Chapter 99: Ready or Not

The Jaku Hospital Raid might have been short a few critical bits of intelligence, but they'd had plenty of firepower and weeks of training to figure out the best solution, along with at least some idea of what their target would be like. As Gang Orca and Momo both towed metal shells quickly modified into life support pods under the storm wall around Nabu island, they had none of that. They were going in nearly blind, with effectively no JSDF support unless or until they could shut down who or whatever was powering the storm around the island. It was also an uncomfortably small team that would be part of the initial raid. Though if they could bring down the storm, they would have additional support available.

Honestly, the only good point was that there would be no teleporting out of this one. The downside, for the villains that is, of holing up on Nabu island was that it wasn't a very large island. It was completely possible to surround it with teleport jammers, and water was far less effective at blocking those than ground. While they hadn't been able to penetrate the ground deeply enough in Jaku City to completely cut off teleportation, they could pull that trick off here by staging jammers in the waters outside the storm wall. Thankfully, submarines had so far been among the least useful naval craft against the whole extra dimensional alien-invasion thing, leaving the handful available to Japan free for use by Clean Slate.

Assuming the League was here, they weren't going to be running.

Of course, that didn't mean they wouldn't be fighting, and it was uncomfortably possible that the raid team could be overcome this time. While every single person they were bringing was a heavy hitter or veteran Hero, they just couldn't bring that many people. Both because of their method of entry and because a simultaneous raid was being aimed at the staging area meant for the attack on Tartarus. It was absolutely critical that attack be stopped dead, and it was always possible at least some of the League would be present at that location. Particularly if they were as-yet unaware that Dabi had been thrown straight into the hands of an ungentle WHA telepath.

Between the dead and injured from Jaku and the need to split targets, they'd needed to pull reinforcements from elsewhere just to attempt these raids. And those reinforcements weren't as integrated into the teams as those they'd lost had been. There had been a brief day of crash-training to familiarize them with basic tactics the raid teams had worked out. But that was about it. They were leaning heavily on raw experience to cover the compatibility gaps, this time.

Of the original Clean Slate teams, only Eraserhead was joining them from the UA professors, and only Momo and Izumi from the students. Miruko was also with them, as were Ghost Ember, Selkie and, obviously, Gang Orca. But that was it from the original list of Pros, with Ryukyu, Snipe, Majestic, Manual, and others broken off to the Tartarus projection team, aiming to hit the second target. Their own reinforcements were, at least, high quality. Crust was the most prominent hero to join them, pulled from the front lines for this quick strike. Fourth Kind, X-Less, and Mount Lady made up the other reinforcements. Competent, experienced, and at least in Mount Lady's case a powerhouse in her own right with how she'd grown since the invasion started.

Eleven heroes and heroines. That was all that could be spared for a potentially catastrophic raid. At least for the initial strike. If, and it was a bit of a scary if, they could get the storm down, then they would get another 11 Heroes of lesser experience and power. Many of them support-oriented, such as a healer that had been spared from the entirely-too-many places that still needed such Quirks badly. Just as importantly, those heroes would bring with them significant JSDF forces. But they had to bring the storm down for that to even be an option. Which mean disabling or killing whoever was maintaining it. Nine was the primary suspect, but they didn't even have proof of that much, technically. This raid had so much chance to go wrong. But, well, sometimes there was no choice but to throw the dice and hope they came up your way.

"Storm wall breached, ten minutes to ascension, do any final checks you need to."

It was Momo's voice that back through the speakers of their crude vessel. Tension ratcheted higher, even as the various heroes in Izumi's own survival pod began double checking loadouts that had already been double and triple checked. Izumi was both luckier and less lucky in that there wasn't anything she could check, since her intended loadout for this mission was entirely within her digital inventory to save space in the pod. She did triple-check that everyone's HSN comms were online. But that was honestly redundant as 2B would have highlighted it as an issue if anyone had fallen out of the tactical net. Forced to do nothing but run through the motions she would take as they surfaced, she had a horrible time not thinking of all the ways this plan could go wrong. Starting with the possibility of them being detected while still in the water. Thankfully, ten tense minutes passed without that coming to pass.

"Breaching!"

There was a crackling tension in the air…but nothing dramatic happened and everyone tried to relax. They failed, of course, but they certainly tried. Nabu island might be small, but it wasn't that small, and the pods they'd been traveling in had been using the best stealth methods they could lay hands on. They'd also approached at night, fully intending to try getting out of the pods and onto land before they acted.

It would improve their odds immensely if they could take out some or all of their targets from stealth. Which was the thought process that had Izumi's pod breaching on a small beach with no proper path up onto the island's central level. It was all cliffs here, and Izumi was the first to spring out of concealing pod at their base. She immediately deployed a Pod that had been optimized for stealth. It's red-and-black camo pattern virtually vanished into the night as it zipped off, 2B guiding it as it passively assessed the island.

The 2B managed Pod didn't go alone. It, being powered by Izumi's Quirk and having a stupidly low energy return to hide in the first place as a result, would be heading to the south side of the island, where most of the population was. Nine and his crew had been mostly staying in that area, and 2B's goal was to find them. The rest of the island, however, was also going to be subjected to scrutiny as Momo used her Quirk to produced several dozen small drones. Each was made to be as stealthy as possible, but the needs for their power supply and propulsion meant a good enough sensor net might spot them. Still, again, risks needed to be taken. If they could finish the main villain base without even engaging Nine, it might allow a cleaner victory.

All of it, unfortunately, meant that the already tense heroes and heroines were stuck with another round of 'hurry up and wait.' Hiding the aquatic pods had taken them a bit of time and kept them busy. But after that, they were stuck watching the various feeds from the drones available on the HSN channels for the op. The more eyes on those the better, but it still wasn't exactly keeping the more rash members of the team from going stir crazy. Miruko, in particular, was looking very disgruntled as her foot rapidly thumped into the sand. Wisely, no one attempted to speak with her.

"Found something! There's a cave system under that northern island offshoot, and I just caught glimpse of a Nomu at an underground entrance."

It was Miruko, of all people, who tersely spat the information out. A flick of her ears somehow acted as a signal for her HSN device, something that had to be custom programming, Izumi reflected. She pushed the thought aside as she reviewed the seconds of video Miruko had literally 'flicked' to all of the other HSN devices in the group. It played on loop and, sure enough, there was just a brief instant where a Nomu was visible. Izumi marveled that the woman had been able to spot it at all, when the Drone's algorithms had missed it for being so brief. Gang Orca, the most senior hero present and thus leader of the team, clapped her on one shoulder with a giant hand and a grim smile.

"Well spotted. That confirms at least some degree of League presence. The only question remains if we hit them first, or Nine and his crew first. I don't think we want to try for a double header with our already diminished numbers."

There were nods all around at that, but before anyone could venture an opinion, another message came over the HSN. This time, it was from 2B.

"New information. The Stealth Pod has eyes on Nine and Chimera. Nine looks…vacant. And there's some sort of collar in Chimera's fur. Detecting an active wireless link, heavily encrypted enough I don't want to try messing with it."

Izumi frowned, activating hypercongition for just a few seconds to run through all the possibilities. She dropped it to posit the most likely scenario.

"A double cross. If Nine got his ability to wield multiple-quirks from All for One, it stands to reason the league also embedded a failsafe. If they activated that to take control of Nine after All for One died and the invasion started, they could have ordered him to take over Nabu as a backup, particularly if they already had a facility here. Then they use Nine and Nomu to put control or explosive collars of some sort on the rest of Nine's team. Effectively giving them a subordinate group of heavy hitters as a proxy."

There was a low whistle at that, Ghost Ember speaking a moment after the whistle.

"Damn, that's cold even for a villain group. It matches what I understand of All for One's MO to a T, though. Which, if it was a standing backup, and the League merely activated it…"

There were nods and murmurs of agreement all around, though Gang Orca quickly brought up a relevant addition.

"Be that as it may, at least Chimera and Slice are wanted for other crimes. I'm officially recommending attempting to take Chimera, Slice, and Mummy alive if possible. Nine, however, is too dangerous if he's directly under League control in some fashion. He's also, I remind everyone, already got an immense body count. 2B, Momo, Izumi. Chances for surgical elimination?"

Momo and Izumi looked at each other, communicating without the need for actual comms. They could do it. They'd done it before, after all. But doing so now would be…telling…if anyone cared to compare notes and connect it back to their previous actions against All for One. Then again, given the current climate, the chances anyone was going to give a damn about that were low, and it wouldn't be definitive 'proof' anyway. Slowly, Momo nodded and Izumi answered.

"A surgical application of the Kill Order on Nine is possible. It will be very lethal, though. And not at all subtle. Chimera will be alerted instantly and will undoubtable rouse the others."

Several of the heroes looked uncomfortable with the suggestion. Gang Orca did not.

"If I order you to, will you comply?"

Izumi sighed but nodded.

"Yes. Under other circumstances I would flat out refuse. Given the high risk of this mission specifically…yes."

Gang Orca looked into her eyes for long moments. Whatever he found there seemed to satisfy him. He nodded.

"We'll try for the double header after all, then. Mount Lady will be nearly useless in the caves, anyway. So we split. Izumi, Momo, Mount Lady, Selkie. Eliminate Nine, disable Chimera, Slice, and Mummy. Everyone else, we move to the cave entrance and engage at the same time the elimination happens. We go in hard and fast. Hopefully, with Nine down the storm wall will fall and our backup will follow right on our heels."

That was…a big split, but the logic fit. Sending Izumi, Momo, and Mount Lady should result in a hard and fast take down of Nine's team. Selkie, meanwhile, could both hit from the water to help with that rapid takedown and guide in reinforcements through the rough waters after the storm came down. Izumi still didn't like it at all, but with Miruko and Crust added to Gang Orca, the other team wasn't exactly lacking heavy hitters of their own. Eraserhead would also be with them to shut down any particularly nasty surprises.

There were a few token protests, but ultimately the logic was too fundamentally sound and everyone agreed with grimaces. Most were shooting uncertain looks at Momo and Izumi, clearly still uncomfortable with giving what amounted to an assassination mission to their youngest pair. Not that Izumi was exactly happy with it either, but they were putting a bit too much stock in it, in her opinion. After all, all of them, herself included, had been slaughtering sentient enemies in job lots for months. Some of whom they'd recently discovered were effectively slave soldiers.

She didn't look forward to this, the idea of killing a fellow human in cold blood still leaving a pit in her stomach. But she'd already accepted that they were at war, and she'd been present in spirit when they'd done the same thing to All for One, even if 2B had technically been the one to pull the trigger. It was a little different, since Nine might technically not be in control of himself. She clamped down hard on that thought, however, and forced herself to get moving. They would need to sneak carefully into position for this…

... ...

Momo laid out on the grass and Izumi looked at her in confused horror.

"Momo, what are you doing?!"

The question was a hiss, despite them still being a solid kilometer out from their target. Momo looked at her with a grim expression that shut down Izumi's protests before she could properly voice them.

"If you think I'm letting you take a shot like this again, after you had to do the last one, you're crazy. Particularly when you just broke down mere days ago."

Izumi started to rally, but Momo shut down her next protest even more firmly.

"And 2B doing it is just as bad. She had to actively pull the trigger last time, and you know she's not really okay with killing humans. All for One was enough of an outright monster that her original programming didn't cause her serious trauma over eliminating him. But Nine might not even been willing in all this. Probably isn't, in fact. So no way in hell I'm letting her do it either."

Izumi grimaced. That was a low blow. But not an inaccurate one. 2B was no longer beholden to her original programming, and she'd been with Izumi long enough to come to see humanity as the flawed race they were. But she'd still been 'raised,' for lack of a better word for it, in a society that revered humans. Nomu and Monsters were easy for her to kill without remorse. Humans were…dicier. She could and would do it to spare Izumi and Momo. But it would likely haunt her even more than it would them, without exceptional circumstances like All for One who was legitimately more monster than man.

"…Can you even make the shot?"

That was her last, feeble argument, and it got the dismissive snort it deserved. Momo might not a living super computer the way 2B and Izumi were, but her own Quirk's mental enhancements combined with her suit's technology meant the shot was trivial. Nine wasn't even moving. Just staring out toward the storm, right out in the open in the town square. Izumi closed her eyes, knowing she was defeated.

"I'll be prepared to follow up on Chimera then."

Quietly, hating every second of the shuffling crawl, Izumi moved down the hill they'd positioned themselves on. Once in the shadow of a building, she summoned up her Combat Flight Suit and linked up with it. Once ready, she took a deep breath and signaled the tac net. Quick confirming double clicks came in from Mount Lady, Selkie, and Gang Orca. Everyone was ready. Momo was free to take the shot. Long seconds passed as she made sure it was perfect…

And then a nearly identical hypervelocity railgun round to those that had killed All for One lanced out.

Nine never had a chance.

All for One had needed to be thoroughly distracted by All Might before they even dared attempt the shot. The ancient supervillain had been in possession of dozens of sensory and reflex enhancing Quirks, some of them continuously active due to his own physical sense of sight having been crippled in his penultimate battle with All Might. It was entirely possible Nine had some sort of enhancements. But if he did, they clearly weren't enough, as he went from having a head to very much not between eyeblinks. Bare instants later, even as the sounds of the railgun thunderously echoed over the island, Selkie lept out of the water to attack Chimera, who had been patrolling the docks.

There, at least, Chimera was more than fast enough to react, sending the Hero backward, back into the water, with a brutal punch. He was forced to dodge capture-foam rockets fired from a newly summoned Pod a moment later, even as Izumi roared in to engage him at close range, the villain going through some sort of transformation as he jumped backward to avoid her initial hit. To the north of the city, Mount Lady abruptly grew in size, armor developed with Mellissa's miniaturization technology expanding to cover her even as the villainess Slice appeared, launching razor sharp spikes of hair at the now-giant woman. All the while, elsewhere, Gang Orca and Miruko led the charge into an underground base.

The battle for Nabu Island had begun.

... ... ... ... ... ...

A/N:So, I actually went to the effort of watching the entirety of MHA: Heroes Rising before I wrote this. Honestly? 3/5 at best. There was a lot of weird shit, like Chimera for some reason being able to pretend to be a Pokemon by hyper beaming everything. Which doesn't even remotely fit his Quirk. Then Nine was just...kinda bleh? Which is part of why I repurposed them the way I did here. I'd originally thought of them maybe having a serious conflict with Nine, since he'd already have Cell Activation and thus be quite dangerous. I was so 'meh' on him, though, that I ultimately decided to go with one of my alternate plans. Which was basically born of the idea that there's no way in hell All for One would let even a partial version of his Quirk run around without some sort of control mechanism in place. As a result, Nine is basically just a 'secure the island with a storm' puppet here. He would have been dangerous to actually fight, yes. But that's why they decided not to, you know, do that. Given Nine's previous MO as shown in the movie, he's got to have a mile high body count already anyway. So it wasn't exactly a stretch to give him the All for One treatment.