Chapter Text
Shouto always knew his father worked hard. Even when Enji was pushing him, he worked hard to maintain his position as the Number Two Hero. Now that he was Number One, it appeared as if Endeavor was going to work even harder.
Last night, they'd left the Billboard and flown immediately to Osaka before getting to bed. Then Enji was up at 6am to be ready for the day and while Endeavor had stopped in at the office for an hour or so, the morning patrol had been the first thing on his mind.
Ever since Shouto had gotten his quirk back, Endeavor had been far more hands on with his training. He'd been pleased that Shouto was taking part in the special training UA was offering but he had also insisted his son intern with him. It was… interesting to say the least.
Enji was almost like Aizawa and it had surprised Shouto when he thought that. Aizawa was brutally honest about the hero industry. Endeavor was as well, and his explanations were never sugar coated. Before they'd come on patrol, Enji had said they would be mobbed by people wanting to congratulate him. Shouto had been sceptical about that but… it had happened.
Endeavor had also said that it would be the worst time for a villain to attack them, because there would be so many civilians around who didn't know what to do.
And… a villain attacked them.
But while the civilians didn't know what to do, Enji's sidekicks did. Shouto had been near the back of the entourage and so moved with them. He was learning a lot from his father, but he was also learning a lot from Enji's sidekicks. They knew how to react in almost every situation and were very well trained. Shouto knew what to do. First year UA covered a lot of scenarios, but he didn't know how to do it. Enji's sidekicks moved with such fluidity that he almost couldn't imagine them ever not knowing how to do what they did.
They were very, very good. And most of them were completely loyal to his father.
That was an odd thought, but Endeavor was…
What had Convector said? Ah yes! Endeavor was absolutely demanding. But he never demanded anything he wasn't prepared to do himself. Convector was an older sidekick, and his quirk worked amazingly well with Endeavor's. Shouto could see why Convector wasn't going out on his own. He was just a support hero but saying that seemed insulting and Shouto would never say it to his face. He had a feeling Convector had the experience to take him down… with one arm behind his back. No one stupid survived as one of Endeavor's sidekicks.
So, when the villains attacked, it was Convector and Baptise who had grabbed him and got him out of the way, along with quite a few civilians.
"What are those things?" Baptise demanded.
Shouto hadn't missed the way his father had sent a blast of fire at one of them and it had just flown straight through it. Enji had dodged its charge but if it was immune to fire, then he knew his dad was in trouble. And he had seen these things before. So had his Dad, at Hosu. But he'd seen them at the USJ, Hosu and Kamino. He'd seen them… enough to know that they weren't all the same. The ones had Hosu… they were weak compared to the one at the USJ. He hoped his father worked that out.
"They are called Nomu," he told the sidekicks.
Baptise spun to face him; her eyes wide.
"I don't know much about them," Shouto told them, knowing that they'd want all the information he could give them. He tried to order it in his mind. It was not that easy. "They vary in strength," he emphasised. "The ones at Hosu were not as strong as the one at the USJ," he explained. "They are manufactured and can have several quirks."
"Fuck," Convector said.
"What type of quirks?" Baptise appealed for more information.
"The USJ one had some sort of regeneration quirk. You could injure it but it just reformed. Um… strength and some sort of shock absorption," Shouto told them, racking his memory. "The Hosu ones were different colours, but they were all strong and one could fly but… they didn't regenerate," he remembered. Compared to the fact it had taken All Might himself to take out the USJ Nomu, the ones at Hosu had been easy. He'd never thought of it like that.
And it was a bad time to think like that.
As they watched, Endeavor threw another blast of fire Nomu that it just ignored.
Shouto continued to watch as Endeavor backed away from several open-handed swipes from the Nomu. That particular Nomu definitely had claws or blades for fingers, and it knew how to use them. But his father was not stupid and had apparently realised how strong the Nomu was. He wasn't closing with him but was thinking about how he fought.
As Shouto stared at his father Baptise and Convector shared a look over his head. Baptise looked down at him significantly before looking at Convector. The man shook his head.
She raised one eyebrow, and he nodded. "We have to go," she announced.
"What?" Shouto asked.
"We have to go," Baptise repeated. "If that thing is immune to fire, then your dad is going to need help," she explained. "Hopefully, it's not immune to water," she muttered.
"Or steam," Convector added.
Shouto nodded as he understood what they were suggesting. Even if the Nomu was immune to fire, he had managed to freeze the USJ Nomu and that had slowed it down. And if he could do that now… Anything would be of assistance.
Plus, there were other Nomu to consider. He looked around for them. They were spreading out from where they had landed except for one of them. The biggest one was staying in place and was hunched over. For a moment Shouto thought it was just the way it stood but then he saw someone. They were standing literally under the Nomu.
"What about him?" Shouto asked, pointing towards the man. He recognised him. It was the villain who had spoken to him at Kamino and, while he hadn't seen their face when Izuku had given his quirk back, Shouto was willing to put money on the fact that it was this villain who'd paid the price.
Baptise looked over at the guy but a cry from Endeavor took her attention back to him. "If we don't go help your dad now, then it won't matter who he is," she told him.
Shouto wanted to object. He wanted to say it was more important to get rid of the ringleader, the one controlling the Nomu but a look over to Endeavor told him otherwise. His father was… struggling. It wasn't obvious but he could see it and…
Aizawa had lectured him on what it meant to be a hero.
Enji had lectured him on what it meant to be a hero.
The villain standing there, had, in a roundabout way lectured him on what it meant to be a hero.
Even Inasa had spoken to him about what it meant.
And he'd thought about it. In the last few months Shouto had thought about what it meant to him; to be a hero and he'd come to some surprising conclusions. Not the least of which was that he did, genuinely, want to help people and from there, he'd learned that helping people sometimes wasn't in taking on the obvious ringleader. Sometimes, it was in helping those who needed the most assistance right now, even if the ringleader got away.
Except this time, Shouto didn't think the ringleader was going to run, so they had time to help Endeavor.
He nodded to Baptise and watched as the woman took a deep breath.
And then they charged.
-ted-
Izuku didn't need to glance down at his phone when he heard the alerts. It meant that Dabi was creating a distraction.
"Time to go," Whisper announced.
He smiled at her. Technically, Izuku didn't need any of the League here today. He could assault Tartarus on his own with the Nomu quite effectively but… It was nice that they'd chosen to come.
Tartarus was described by most as being in the ass end of no-where. That was only sort of true. The workers didn't want to travel hundreds of kilometres to their job, but they did travel about 100 kilometres from the township where most of them lived. He'd become quite familiar with it while they were questioning the Tartarus Manager and others. There was a dedicated high speed train line to Tartarus, which you could only board if you had a Tartarus pass. It added to the security.
Most people knew Tartarus was an island, connected to the mainland by a bridge. The island of Tartarus had been built up so it rose, almost at right angles to the sea that surrounded it. There wasn't a beach or anything like that to enter from and the only entrance was via the bridge. This side of the bridge was similar. There were cliffs, topped with forest, though for the security of Tartarus at least some of that forest had been cleared from the cliff edges. There were cameras scanning the cliff edge for any sign of intruders but… those cameras couldn't see into the trees.
Well, not that far into the trees. Questioning those who knew about Tartarus had told him that they did use heat cameras but if you stayed out of their range then there was nothing to fear.
And thankfully for him, when Twice copied Kurogiri, while he couldn't make all the warp gates Kurogiri could, the copy was more than capable of making a warp gate that reached to Tartarus. That was one of the reasons Izuku wanted the originals to remain behind.
Kurogiri was a force multiplier and the heroes knew it. After today, Twice would also be in that category. It was best to ensure they both knew the risks early and got into the habit of avoiding the risks.
Izuku and those with him had been careful to remain far enough back in the forest that they weren't sensed. But they were close enough to Tartarus that he'd been able to reach out with the new quirk, Search and locate his Father.
He'd relayed the information to everyone, telling them what they already knew, that his Dad was somewhat below Tartarus. Using Search had also allowed him to feel how many other people were there, and where they were. Most of the inhabitants of Tartarus were above the surface, in the buildings that were there. But there was an area of the island where there were people below sea level. That had to be the prison itself.
Izuku had spent a little bit of time concentrating on that area, once he'd found his Dad. Since the quirk let him see the person, sort of anyway, he could get some idea of who was there. The vigilante Stain was there, as was Toxic Chainsaw. One of the people Tomura had employed was there. Izuku thought they were called Moonfish, and the moron who wouldn't listen to him was there as well.
There were also a whole lot of people Izuku had never seen before. They were prisoners, and it made him realise how many strong villains there were in the world. He wasn't naive enough to believe they were all misunderstood. Some of them would be there because they were just evil but some of them were probably looking for a place to be and the world hadn't been kind.
He really only wanted to rescue his father and kill Toxic Chainsaw, but Izuku knew he'd better have an idea about what to do with the other prisoners by the time they got there.
"Kurogiri, send the first wave through," Izuku said, trusting the radio he wore to pick it up.
The warp gate was going to send the first wave of attack. It was regular, everyday explosives, which Izuku would trigger with his phone. He couldn't talk to everyone with Radio Waves the way he could order the Nomu so for today, they were relying on earpieces. Izuku could reach them with Radio Waves, but they were all tuned to pick up everything they said.
Tartarus was ringed by walls, and there were turrets for defence. The explosives would be placed on each of the turrets. And then… they'd see what other defences the prison had.
"First wave incoming," Kurogiri said and then a moment later. "In position."
"Everyone ready?" Izuku asked over the radio. This was the last chance to withdraw.
"Ready," came Mr Compress' response. He was a little way down the coast at the head of another batch of Nomus.
"Ready," came Himiko's reply. She was similarly hidden in the way Mr Compress was.
"Ready," Whisper replied.
"Ready," Twice said. "Not ready."
"Ready," Kurogiri confirmed, though it was not really necessary.
The Nomu were all more than ready, especially the High Ends. They wanted to fight.
"Triggering," Izuku told them.
He looked down at his phone. Each of the explosives had a tiny GPS chip and he could see from the map that they were all slightly ahead of him, on Tartarus. Izuku grabbed the group on the map and tapped them. The options were fairly simple, and he really only wanted the fun one, as Himiko would say.
He clicked detonate.
There was silence for a few moments and then a boom!
Izuku grinned. "Go!"
The signal was for the flying Nomu to take off and assess the damage. Some of them wore cameras and it was a quick flick to move to the feed.
There was surprisingly little damage, but the explosives weren't meant to cause too much damage. They were meant to take out the gun entrenchments that offered Tartarus protection. There had also been explosives that cut the direct power lines and then more which cut the power lines to the generators. The generators themselves were protected but you didn't have to destroy them, just destroy the ability for power to get from them to the rest of the island. The buildings had batteries, and they would last for a while, probably longer than Izuku wanted to be on Tartarus, but there was no need for him to make it easy for the heroes. A camera on the flying Nomu showed him that one of the turrets was still firing but the Nomu were quick to swarm it. "Go! Everyone go!" Izuku ordered, just before a metallic groaning noise was heard.
It was a moment's work to get one of the flying Nomu to turn their camera towards the bridge and sure enough as Izuku watched for a moment, he could see that it was dropping.
Tartarus was quick to react to an attack.
But it was already too late for them and none of their plans had ever relied on the bridge. While Izuku couldn't see it via the camera, he knew that portals were opening all over Tartarus and Nomu were pouring into the facility.
That was his signal to go himself. He'd have loved to have gone over in his Dragon form… It would be a proper announcement of his intent and… Actually, why shouldn't he? He'd have to strip so that he had something to wear when he inevitably had to go into somewhere confined to see his father but…
Quickly, Izuku reached up and unzipped the shirt of his costume. He stripped it off and toed off the boots before stripping his pants off, leaving him in just his underwear. His solar vest was quickly removed, and he placed all of it in his quirk pocket before concentrating.
The change of shape came easily and Izuku felt himself go to all fours. He leapt into the air, clearing the tree line before he activated scales, to cover himself in glittering green scales. Then he activated gigantification and grew before he used hardening to increase his protection.
And then with a powerful flap of his wings, he drove himself towards the island.
If he destroyed the upper levels of the buildings, those that weren't the actual prison building, then the workers would be forced to take shelter, and they'd be out of the way. That would leave the Nomu free to assault the prison and…
Izuku didn't want to kill the people here, but if that was the only way to get his dad… then so be it.
That was on them.
-ted-