Summary: Another threat rears its head...

  Warning! Chapters 101 and 102 were released back-to-back! Makes sure you don't miss the previous chapter!

  Chapter 102: A Circus of Fools

  This conference room was considerably less stressful for Izumi than many she'd been sat in since the invasion. Part of that was the presence of Momo at her side, of course. But more of it was the fact that she was familiar with everyone in the room on a personal level. She wasn't agoraphobic, just an introvert, and she'd gotten familiar enough with most of the Clean Ste Heroes and JSDF support leaders that she wasn't the same sort of uncomfortable as she was facing foreign leaders and other movers and shakers. It didn't hurt that morale had bounced back somewhat with their success in demolishing the League of Vilins. Though the holes in the unit that had formed as a result of deaths and long-term injuries were painful still.

  Present at the moment, for this meeting, were Midnight, Ryukyu, Gang Orca and Dean Nedzu. They, along with Momo and Izumi who had earned a pce at this particur table, were representing the various heroes of Clean Ste. With them from the JSDF was Captain Mikto, and Lieutenants Muria and Tusuka. Captain Mikto was in charge of the Company of soldiers who directly supported Clean Ste, with the two lieutenants being in charge of the two ptoons that saw direct combat alongside the heroes. A third ptoon, rgely mechanized, technically worked with them as well. But that unit rarely interacted directly with the heroes in combat, instead offering containment and indirect fire support. Other JSDF units might also be called on for support, but didn't actually 'belong' to Clean Ste. Like the navy submarines that had pyed a critical role against Nabu isnd.

  Since this was, effectively, a briefing on their next target, Nedzu started off the meeting.

  "Once again, congratutions to everyone for the successes at Nabu Isnd and Tartarus. We've been able to confirm that all major pyers of the League of Vilins are now out of the picture. That does, however, mean it's time to move onto our next target."

  Nods came from all around, both pleased and serious ones in turn. Nedzu activated the holoprojector between them all. The projection showed a book called Quirk Doomsday Theory, and the images of a few notable individuals. Above them was the bel of the target Humarise.

  "Originally, we were going to turn our attention to a series of smaller domestic groups. Events have overtaken us, however, and we are in need of turning our attention to a global group that was initially thrown into disarray by the invasion. Unfortunately, this particur group of batshit crazy fanatics has tched onto the invasion as additional proof of their nonsensical theory. For the st century and a half, they've existed as a quasi-religious cult that fully believes in the Quirk Doomsday Theory."

  Izumi blinked.

  "Wait, what? My own work has thoroughly disproven the possibility of that. If it was going to happen at all, it would have happened in the first few decades of Quirks. Not now. Quirks might be getting more powerful, but they are actually quite a bit more stable in general than first and second generation Quirks were."

  Nedzu looked…pained. Izumi and the others understood as he was forced to expin insanity.

  "Sadly, facts have little bearing on their beliefs. Much like some fools with fewer brain cells than teeth still believe the Earth is ft, these idiots won't give up their pet doomsday scenario regardless of how impossible it is. Worse, in the st few decades, they've turned distinctly militant under a series of new leaders. Demagogues, really."

  There were groans from several people around the table, which seemed to illicit actual sympathy from Nedzu. A very rare occurrence, that. But apparently dealing with idiots was something that could bring it out. Who knew?

  "Unfortunately, the scientific expnation that Quirk Energy is drawing the invasion to Earth has provided them with fuel. They are, of course, ignoring the fact that humanity would have died off entirely if it didn't adapt to the energy, and that it created Quirked humans, rather than being created by them. They are focusing entirely on the fact that powerful Quirks are creating more QE, and thus drawing attention to Earth. In that way, they can appeal to their own people by bming Quirked individuals for the invasion."

  It was Izumi who groaned this time, actually letting her head fall to smack on the table as the sheer stupidity of that. Nedzu chuckle-cackled at the response.

  "Yes. I feel much the same. Though I imagine it's worse for you, Miss Midoriya, given your high level of scientific expertise in the field of QE and QE fields. Regardless, after a period of chaos and some internal conflicts in their organization right after the invasion, Humarise, as they are called, has apparently gotten their act together. Thankfully, those same internal conflicts provided various organization with a number of defectors, which has given the World Heroes Association a good picture of what the group is pnning."

  Nedzu tone went from affable to cold as he tapped a few keys and the main holodispy repced the original images with a map. The map showed angry red dots in a double dozen pces around the world, all of them near major popution centers. Including, as it happened, Tokyo.

  "What these idiots are pnning has escated their threat level to the absolute top of the heap. So far, in fact, that we've been authorized to pull in additional hero and military assets if we deem they are needed. Even away from the Greater Gates, though that should be a st extreme for obvious reasons."

  Everyone paused as they processed that, Ryukyu being the one to voice their collective incredulity.

  "What? What could they possibly have pnned that would be a greater threat than losing containment on one of those Gates?!"

  Nedzu's expression was grim as he shifted the map to take up only half the dispy, the other half now showing a chemical formu and a makeshift bomb. It took only seconds for Izumi to work out the formu and choke out an excmation.

  "Is that aerosolized TRIGGER?"

  The rest of the table looked at her in surprise, slowly morphing to horror as they started computing what that could mean. Nedzu's voice was, if anything, even more grim than before as he confirmed it.

  "It is. Apparently a left over from a colboration with Overhaul, as it happens. They funded much of his research, in exchange for him providing them with an unstable and aerosolized form of Trigger. Their pn, even before the invasion apparently, was to set off bombs to spread it through major popution centers. Doing so would induce tens of thousands of people to have runaway Quirk malfunctions. Ones which would be likely to kill them…as well as devastating the area. Proving to the masses, or so Humarise believes, that Quirks are a threat."

  Momo was the next to speak, her own mind obviously having been running through the scenario at high speed.

  "That would have been a catastrophe even before. But now? It would attract a mass number of Rifts openings right in the middle of the popution centers we've been trying to keep clear of them. All while crippling any response. It could completely shatter our resistance against the Empire! What the fuck are they thinking!"

  Surprisingly, it was Gang Orca that answered, rather than Nedzu.

  "I imagine they are operating on the belief that lowering the number of Quirked people, who they bme for everything wrong with the world, would reduce the QE field of the pnet. Making it less attractive to the invaders. I read entirely too many radical headlines when trying to get a handle on what was happening while I recovered. More than a few initially insisted that stopping or severely restricting the use of Quirks was the obvious solution."

  Nedzu nodded, keying in another change to the holodispy. This time, a complicated set of mathematical formu, complete with notations, appeared.

  "That's more or less exactly correct. They've even gone so far as to publish their supposed findings. Ciming reducing the Quirked popution by at least fifty percent would solve all the issues with Rifts."

  Izumi crunched the numbers dispyed quickly, slowly shaking her head as she did.

  "Idiots. They are technically right, if they waited decades for the pnet's QE field to weaken, and if their analysts weren't working with human-only data. They've failed to account for Quirked Animals entirely. Japan might not have that many, but Australia is only the most infamous example of pces where they dominate. Madagascar, Germany's Bck Forest, and Yellowstone over in the United States. All three are containment zones for high poputions of Quirked animals. There's also plenty of evidence of them in what used to be Russia, their Quirks having developed to protect them from the contamination there. And, well, in another dozen pces besides. At minimum."

  Momo was nodding along, having crunched the numbers only slightly slower than Izumi. She spoke next to back her girlfriend's statement up.

  "Even here in Japan, the mountain range the Wild Wild Pussycats look after has an unusually high number of Quirked animals. It's a huge part of the reason they were granted dominion over the 'Beast Forest' as they like to call it."

  Nedzu chuckled, an ironic gesture at himself only bringing the point home. While no one knew where he'd originated, possibly not even Nedzu himself, he stood as a pointed reminder that humans weren't the only species on the pnet that had adapted to using QE.

  "Quite so. Obviously, their solution is as idiotic and unworkable as it is utterly barbaric. Which only sharpens the point that we can't fail. Thankfully, we have a solid working idea of their timeline, and that timeline gives us a week to prepare. More, if they hold to the original schedule, but we can't count on that if they are aware of their own defectors. Now, I'm opening the table for suggestions on who exactly everyone here believes we should grab up for our own piece of this operation…"

  ... ...

  Izumi and Momo had been asked to remain behind after the meeting, even as the others headed off to start fast-tracking their requests for additional personnel. Nedzu had led them from the conference room to his office, riding a little robot as he updated them on a few of their cssmates and one or two efforts by various research teams. Mostly, Izumi was already plugged into those. But some of the foreign think-tank efforts were a bit too stupid, being quick to dismiss her initial efforts because of her age.

  Most of those amounted to little, as that sort of idiocy generally didn't lead to great results. But a few had produced at least some productive ideas and data which Nedzu saw fit to fill them in on. Most of it could have easily been simply forwarded to them, however, making it clear that the Dean was only deying as they headed to the greater security of his personal office. It was only as they were both finally seated with their favorite tea blends and an activated high-security screen in pce that Nedzu got to the topic he'd actually asked them to stay for.

  "Now then, while some of those projects aren't without merit, it's this one that I want your opinions on."

  At some point, Nedzu had apparently upgraded his personal desk, as a holoprojector sprang to life with a key press and a 3-dimesional blueprint of a missile appeared. Blinking a couple of times at the unexpected item, Izumi and Momo both nevertheless began analyzing it at a gesture from Nedzu. Both of them were at least passingly familiar with such weapons, as each of them made use of some variant or another. Perhaps unsurprisingly, however, Momo was more used to the conventional options instead of the higher-tech YoRHa equivalents Izumi used. It was therefore Momo that realized what she was looking at first.

  "Wait. This…it's some sort of prototype shield penetrator, isn't it? Meant to get through those god-awful shields that protect the Greater Gates from bombardment?"

  Nedzu looked extremely pleased, even as Izumi made an ah-ha sound and started studying it with the new context avaible.

  "Excellent. The fact that you were able to divine its purpose is a good sign, I think. What do you think of the likelihood of it working?"

  Izumi, with 2B now fully paying attention as well, had an answer for him quickly.

  "Promising but not quite there yet. This is using a lot of the principles we discovered about the Rifts, making the assumption that the shields use a simir methodology. They aren't entirely wrong, but I can see some faulty assumptions. More accurately, 2B can. I admit I hadn't thought to look into ways to bypass those shields, but she apparently did at one point. Still…with a few tweaks, this might be viable. Once at least. There's no way to be certain they won't correct for the penetration aid if they manage to analyze what happened."

  Nedzu nodded, not seeming disheartened by the comment at all.

  "Yes, I spotted at least one fw myself and reported it back to the team that created this. But, with the higher general tech level you have access to, I thought the pair of you might well be able to spot some additional issues. There's also another problem, beyond the possibility of it only working once."

  Momo, who had been going through the design slower than Izumi but still plugging away at it quickly for all of that, interjected with something obvious to her.

  "Cost. There's a lot of exotic elements involved. Including some we don't know how to make, but would be taking from stockpiles we've acquired from the enemy. Which would both lower the number of Rift artifacts we have to study for other purposes and mean that every one of these things would need to be hand assembled using the captured relics."

  Nedzu lifted his teacup in acknowledgement to her.

  "Quite. However, if we can make it work, we're envisioning a limited usage for them. Specifically, to target strategically problematic Greater Gates. In Japan, for example, we would be targeting just one of our two currently-controlled Gates. We can't make the payload of the missiles too great, or we'd endanger the defenders. Which means they would only serve to sweep away the riffraff, not the enemy elites. Combined with a major push on that Gate, however…"

  Izumi was starting to see where Nedzu was going with this.

  "We might close at least one, if we concentrate fully on it. Which would solve our problem with the MLA, wouldn't it?"

  Nedzu's smile was all teeth.

  "Correct. So far, we've been unable to properly go after them, for fear they would lose control of their Greater Gate if we weaken them too much. We need to be in a position that we can simultaneously go after their regur forces and secure their Gate. To free up enough forces to do so, however, means we'd need to relieve the heavies that are guarding the other two Gates. If we could free up All Might, for example, he would be able to help us secure their Greater Gate while other Heroes deal with the rank and file of the MLA."

  Both girls nodded. They'd known, at least in a vague sense, that there was a reason no one was executing more than containment efforts on the MLA. For all that they were hurting the country, they were also holding a Greater Gate. Disrupting their ability to do so without enough forces on hand to contain it themselves would be disastrous. Part of the reason for Clean Ste was to free up enough forces to start dealing with such issues. But, if this missile worked, it could speed things up a lot. Momo leaned back, leaving Izumi to continue maniputing the holo.

  "You want us to spot what issues with the design we can find and send them on? Or were you wanting to take us off Clean Ste entirely."

  Nedzu waved that thought away.

  "No. You two are two of the most versatile heavy hitters we have for Clean Ste. So just the former, when you can spare the time. Find any issues you can, send them back to the design team, and let them rework the design. We won't field this until at least after the Humarise issue, probably longer. So there's plenty of time to iterate the design a few times."

  Both girls nodded, accepting a high-security drive with the details on it from Nedzu a moment ter. After promising to give it a once over, they took their leave. It was a good idea…if it could be made to work.

  ... ... ... ...

  A/N: I only put this out there once per update...but this fic (and my others) does have Early Access chapters over on my Patreon Page. ALL fanfiction content is eventually released here and elsewhere as well, just at a dey. Currently, chapters 103-108 are avaible over on Patreon, adding another 15,000ish words to the fic! Right alongside those chapters are 45,000+ words of other Early Access content for my other fics!