Requiem of the Broken

Chapter 26: Eri

"So. I lost my research facility, lost my top researcher, lost the child, lost half a dozen Hounds, lost an entire platoon, and to top it all off, Hound Zero also died." Said Zeus, his eyes boring holes into his aide whose eyes were downcast.

He took several deep breaths, then reached into a drawer of his desk and pulled out his stress ball. He sat there for a full minute, just squeezing it, trying to relax.

It wasn't working.

With a growl, lighting burst from his hand and incinerated the ball. He tossed the ashes aside and got up from his desk. He went to the door and started down the hallway. After about ten minutes of navigating the corridors and elevators of the base, talking to one of his lieutenants, he finally got to the research wing. He made his way through the area to the Hound Development Department and without checking to see if it was safe to enter, opened the door.

He had a moment to take in the fact that there was some kind of spider-based Hound bearing down on him before lighting arced out from his body and promptly blew it apart into smoking chunks of flesh. Ignoring the carnage, startled researchers, and Hound handlers, he made his way to the end of the room where a skinny woman missing an arm was sitting in a chair holding a pen with a clipboard in her lap. As he approached, he forestalled anything she might have to say by holding up a hand.

"Congratulations Jackie, your now head researcher. Dr. Maeko is dead, and Research Facility Eta is lost as are most of its resources. Your first three assignments are to reorganize what resources and personnel were salvaged before the facility was lost, figure out a way to continue the production of Hounds without Hound Zero, and figure out a way to continue Chisaki's research without the child." He told her with an empty smile.

Then he turned on his heel and promptly left the room.

When he got back to his office, he sat down and pressed the intercom to summon his aide. While he waited, he leaned back into his chair and started thinking about what his next move should be. He would not let the loss of his research facility go unpunished. Another minute or two later, his aide appeared.

"Yes sir?" he asked.

"Get me a line to Fenrir, tell him I know what the job I need doing is," he said.

"Yes sir." the aide said before ducking back into the hallway.

Zeus sighed and pulled out another stress ball from his drawer of stress balls. As he thought and brooded his thoughts went to Shigaraki and he scowled. Shigaraki had left him a mess of an organization to try and put together into an actual functional force. The psychopath had been completely insane, and despite what he said, he had been nothing more than an anarchist with the strength to actually pursue his goals. The irony was that while he was completely deranged and unhinged, that somehow translated to a level of charisma that turned his "criminal" organization into what was essentially a cult by the end of the war. He'd roped in the remnants of the Meta Liberation Army after their own short-lived revolt, and had gone on a warpath absorbing other criminal groups and villains. His only smart decision had been to hire Zeus's private mercenary army. Between himself and Re-Destro, they had been the ones to turn a mad rabble of villains, criminals, and "revolutionaries" into an actual fighting army and make it possible for Shigaraki to wage his war across Japan. The aftermath of their defeat might not have been so terrible if it weren't for the fact that most of the surviving forces were a bunch of crazies that had thought Shigaraki to be some kind of supernatural being. "Demon Lord" he had come to be called by his fanatical followers. Which had made any attempt to get them in line after his death borderline impossible. He had been forced to rely on his own mercenary forces, and what few sensible people remained.