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CHAPTER START---
"You know you don't have to be so nervous," Lizardy -Setsuna Tokage- says.
She was in full Hero Costume in a police building waiting room, sitting around a desk opposite Rule -Yui Kodai-.
Rule's red and blue Hero Costume was now sporting some small extra satchels on her utility belt and arms, along with a matching mask.
"Mmm," Yui hums before taking another sip from her can of orange juice.
"Trust me it'll be fun," Lizardy says. "Your last work studies mentor was super lame...uh, no offense to Death Arms. Working with Majestic is way better, that's why I recommended you."
"Mmm, mm."
Lizardy sighs, "Yeah being part of a big joint operation in your first week does seem a bit stressful, but we're the long range team so our job is a lot easier to coordinate.""Is something wrong?" Creati -Momo Yaoyorozu- asks, wearing her new and improved Hero Costume with a few pouches on her utility belt.
She hands Lizardy a can of coffee before sitting beside her.
"Thanks," Lizardy opens her drink and nods to Rule, "she's nervous about her first big team up."
"Oh, that makes sense," Creati says. "On our first one with Majestic we honestly didn't do much, Pro Heroes usually don't want new and untested students directly confronting villains, which makes sense. But now Majestic trusts us more to handle ourselves so he's much more confident in us, and that includes you."
"And it helps that we're not exactly melee fighters," Lizardy says.
"Mmm?" Rule hums.
Creati looks at her, then at Lizardy for an explanation.
"I think she said she'll follow our lead, right?"
"Mhm," Rule nods.
The ladies talk amongst themselves for a few more minutes before their mentor, Majestic, joins them.
"Alright ladies I've got some good news and some bad news," he takes the seat beside Rule.
"How about the bad news first," Lizardy says.
"Right, well... Since we had to call this raid on super short notice and with limited intel before these guys move to a different city, again," he sighs. "Most of the local Pro Heroes were already committed or just didn't have the manpower to both patrol and help us out, so the team is gonna be very small, and that includes the police officers we'll have accompanying us."
"But this is a dangerous gang," Creati says. "Shouldn't stopping them be their top priority?"
"That's not really how it works all the time," Majestic says. "Because the Gold Chains gang hops from city to city so often, the local Pro Heroes don't really care since they aren't around long enough to raise the actual crime stats for an area. Plus the gang is pretty big, we're honestly lucky we were able to find out what area they'd be in and put together this many people."
"Especially since we only gave them 36 hours notice, if so much," Creati says. "But it still doesn't sit right with me how much of this statistics and politics nonsense affects some people's Pro Hero work."
"It's unavoidable," Majestic says. "With how the system is set up Pro Heroes have to compete with each other just as much as with villains, dropping down one spot in the popularity or other rankings could mean a big pay cut, and a lot of our families solely depend on our Hero Work to eat."
"Sadly I can see the logic in that," Lizardy says. "But with the horrific things this gang does, it's not very Heroic to not intervene."
"Agreed," Creati adds. "Is there any good news?"
"Well, we have a better idea of the area we need to search, the cops found some of the people we took pictures of last week and tailed them all to one district, we think it has to be where a big safehouse is."
"That saves us time, hopefully this time we can strike before they move again," Lizardy says. "What about other Pro Heroes, do we have any help? Because I don't feel confident with just the four of us and a squad of police taking on such a heinous gang."
Majestic chuckles, "well, lets just say we'll have more than enough firepower, but that's a surprise for you girls."
"Is it Wash?!" Lizardy asks.
"He said firepower and the first thing you thought was a washing machine?" Creati asks.
"Well, when you say it like that..." Lizardy frowns.
"Mmm," Rule nods a few times.
"Uhh, what does that mean?" Majestic asks Lizardy.
"She's just nervous about meeting more people."
"That's understandable, especially since you're representing me of all people, the magnificent and magical, Majestic," Majestic laughs softly, "but I wouldn't bring you here if I didn't think you could handle it."
"Mhm," Yui gives him a thumbs up.
After a few more minutes of talking a team of three police officers, already armed and armored, approaches the table.
"Majestic," one of the men says, "we'll be controlling the badges on the ground, everyone is ready for you to brief us on what we're getting into."
"Alright, let's go," Majestic says as they all begin walking with the men.
"The other team is already in the meeting room, and just so you know, putting this together on such short notice wasn't easy, I hope you appreciate it."
"I always do," Majestic says. "This is why when I've got something to do in Chiba you're the one I call."
"Lucky me," the man sighs. "But this gang is a bit...volatile, you know what kinds of things they do, sure you want to send these girls in there? They look nervous enough as it is and we're not even in a fight yet," the man glances back to see the three girls clearly on edge, confident but still showing how new they are to big raids.
"Who wouldn't be nervous about this?" Majestic asks as they approach the meeting room. "It's impossible not to be when the stakes are this high, but being a Pro Hero means you need to get the job done anyway, same goes for you guys."
"When any call can be your last, you learn to work despite it," the man says as he opens the door.
"Ahahahahha!" laughter echoes through the hallways the instant he opens the door.
They all enter the room at the head of a massive 'U' shaped table with a projector on the far wall showing some information about the Gold Chain gang.
At the far end of the table is Horizon, who was leaning back in his chair busy doing something on his phone, not even acknowledging them.
Beside him is Simon, who was busy fiddling with his mask.
And after Simon was Mudman and Cellophane who were the source of all the laughter.
"Well I guess not everyone is nervous," Majestic says as they all enter the room.
He notices all the girls freeze in place looking over at Team Horizon who are now trying to be more professional, aside from Horizon of course, as everyone greets each other.
"Surprise!" Majestic says. "Horizon said since Minato Tokyo is just across the bay his team would lend us some muscle, and I figured you girls would like to team up with your classmates."
Rule smiles at Mudman who already has his full visor on as they all take their seats, with Creati moving stiff as a board.
"Alright, is everyone ready?" Majestic asks, standing at the head of the table with officers sitting to either side of him.
His students already moved to the far end mirroring their classmates.
"You can start," Horizon says, still on his phone. "This is important, I'll be done soon, but I'm listening."
All the officers and Majestic resist the urge to groan as he seemingly ignores the meeting.
Majestic takes a deep breath and begins, "right, well let's get started, it's currently 6 AM, by this time tomorrow the Gold Chain gang will be gone from Chiba, and since my source is now most likely dead, I won't be able to know where.
They move around a lot after pulling off certain jobs or getting too much attention, the crimes are hard to piece together because they never get caught and take advantage of how our law enforcement and Pro Hero system is.
Finding a pattern is hard when you have to put together the individual crimes of almost 50 people all across an entire country. And just when we get their scent they move and the process starts all over again.
The leader is a villain that goes by 'Gold Chain', he's a real monster," Majestic takes the control for the projector and goes to the next slide, showing a man with a mouth of gold plated teeth and surprisingly no gold chains on his person.
"No gold chains, shouldn't he be 'Gold Grill' or something?" Cellophane asks.
"We believe it has something to do with his Quirk, and considering the fact that some of his victims look like they were beaten to death by chains, it's likely the case. But we weren't able to find any kind of material in the wounds so his Quirk is still a mystery to us."
"What does this gang do exactly, any pattern in their crimes?" Mudman asks.
"That's the point, no pattern so it's harder to track," Majestic says. "Think of it like just a group of villains that help each other avoid us, they all do their own thing then put a cut of their money into a pile for the group. This isn't really uncommon since All Might started his war on villains."
"But one this sophisticated is concerning," Cellophane adds. "How long did it take you to get this info?"
"Weeks," Majestic grimaces. "They've got people that do everything from pickpocketing and car theft, to robbery, burglary, breakings, murder, rape, organ harvesting, blackmail, kidnapping, extortion, if it makes money or gets them a thrill, they can do it, so long as they contribute to the pile."
"So no need to be gentle with them," Cellophane says. "That makes things easier for us."
"Yes, but the problem is we have less than 24 hours to find and raid their base," Majestic goes to the next slide which shows a map of the nearby districts. "My source confirmed its within this area, but I lost contact with him before I got an exact location.
With the help of the police officers and some other leads I have, we can find this base within a few hours. The next step would be having some scouting done before entering since we don't know what we'll be facing.
After that, simple takedowns and arrests, we move quickly and crush them, but unfortunately we're going in blind regarding Quirks.
Now remember, these guys spook easily so if you see one of the marked members don't engage, report back and await further instructions, is everyone clear?"
"Yes sir," the girls -aside from Rule- both say, while Team Horizon just glanced over at their leader, who was still on his phone.
"Uh, Horizon?" Majestic asks.
"Yeah one second I'm just connecting to the projector," Horizon says, confusing everyone.
A few seconds later a simple map appears on the screen.
"This is a map of the hideout, at least from what I can tell, they've got 37 people in there including Gold Chain himself. The building has a basement that looks like they dug it out using Quirks since it's not reinforced in the same way as the rest of the building."
"How did you get this, and where is this?" Majestic asks.
"Oh, when we got here I looked at the slides and started looking around for Gold Chain, that stupid jewelry in his mouth made it super easy to find him, then I just mapped out the building and made a sketch on my phone."
"You can do that? From here?" One of the officers asks.
"Oh yeah, it's only like 13km away. They don't seem to have any hostages in there, just their own members, so we can stick to the original plan."
"Wait," One of the officers got up. "Can't you just warp them into cells from here?"
"I could, but I don't want people, especially my team, being entirely dependent on me. I especially want my team to get tested against Power Types if that gang has any, obviously I won't let anyone die or get seriously hurt, but for this I'll just be acting as over watch in the control van.
Oh, but you don't have to send any police officers inside, just form a perimeter in case things go badly. That might actually also be why we didn't get much assistance from other Pro Heroes on this, whenever I join a team up like this on the Hero Network is doesnt' let it show up as much.
Something about everyone flooding the system to team up with me and it ripping manpower away from other places that need it, and simply because it's overkill to add a dozen more Pro Heroes when I'm here. At Least that's how she explained it."
"She?" Creati asks.
"Our boss."
"Thank you," One of the officers said. "My men will be happy to hear that they don't have to get involved in the action much"
Majestic was entirely blown away, "huh, and here I almost thought you were just being a cocky, disrespectful kid."
"Only to the villains," Horizon jokes.
"Right, well I guess that leaves the planning to do," Majestic says. "Normally I'd want to send as much firepower as possible in there, especially since my students will be involved, but you're sure you'll be able to warp anyone out before they get seriously hurt."
"I promise you, if anyone is about to get hurt I'll either warp them out, or join the fight myself."
"Well, I guess since I'll be going in too it should be fine, now we just need to plan our attack," Majestic sits to take a look at the map.
"Mudman?" Horizon asks.
"Right, guess I'm up," Mudman gets out of his seat and walks closer to the screen, getting a better look at the map. "Well, this building is huge, and has multiple floors. That looks like an armory in the basement levels, right?"
"Yeah," Horizon says.
"And a vault lower down, and these tunnels...that means either the building above ground or wherever these tunnels lead to are the entrances. Two pronged attack, our team rushes from the front through the doors, drawing as much attention and making as much noise as possible.
Team Majestic uses the tunnels to get behind them, meeting us at the vault where they should have their strongest forces, and likely Gold Chain himself."
"Best possible route?" Simon asks, speaking for the first time since the meeting began, and everyone else just sat back and listened to the two students.
"I think we enter on the roof and go down from there, force them to fight in the building if they want to get to us rather than taking the fight to the streets where innocent people or public property can get damaged."
"37 people, that's a lot for a cramped space, want to just pour some wet cement on a group of them to start it off?" Cellophane asks.
"That's risky without knowing their Quirks first."
"I can deal with the stupid ones while Cellophane tries to bait out their Quirks," Simon says. "And you stay a floor above and get your Quirk ready."
"Think bigger," Horizon chimes in, silencing his team as they try to figure out what he saw that they didn't. "You've got new assets at your disposal, use them," he gestures to the girls and Majestic.
"Hmm, is there anything on the upper floors we need?" Mudman asks Horizon.
"It's mostly empty space aside from some furniture, everything is underground in the massive vault."
"What does the armory have?"
"Some small arms, but each of these guys only has a Tanto, it's weird," Horizon says.
"It's their signature, they chop up their victims," Majestic adds.
"Well the guns are mostly in the armory, above ground there isn't anything useful."
"I see," Mudman ponders this for a moment, then looks over at Creati, "how many thin steel sheets can you make, like floodgates?"
Creati tilts her head slightly, "how many square meters do you need?"
END CHAPTER---