My Hero Automata

Chapter 61: Underworld

Summary: Action ahoy! At least a little bit! As the Shie Hassaki arc begins...

Warning! Chapters 59-61 were all published back-to-back! Make sure you don't miss any!

Chapter 61: Underworld

"Resolution, what's your ETA on the security system?"

Izumi hummed and forwarded the security camera footage from inside the warehouse to Nejire and Ryukyu.

"I'm already in, I'm just cross-referencing all the cameras. There are five blind spots where more could be out of sight, but there are thirteen total goons visible, plus Crackerjack and Nox. I've marked the map with the blind spots, if Hydra can take a look?"

There was a quick acknowledgement from both her Nejire and Setsuna, so Izumi set that aside and went on with what she'd discovered so far.

"Most of the goons don't have anything more than a few small-time crimes on their rap sheets, but three of them have Quirks that could make them dangerous. Here, I'm highlighting them on the security feeds. Taser hands, Dazzle, and Spectral Armor. High output electrical current from Taser Hands, enough to be a problem if he touches anyone but me. Dazzle essentially makes heatless fireworks. Not a physical threat, but can act like the flash part of a flashbang. Spectral Armor is the most combat-oriented of the problem Quirks, as it summons a set of ethereal armor around the user with extremely high physical resistance. That goon is the only one with some more serious offenses on his sheet, and he's hanging out near Carackerjack and Nox. Possibly a previously unknown lieutenant."

A pleased hum came across the comm as Nejire looked over the information. It was the older student that had asked for the ETA, having been put in charge of running this bust by Ryukyu. The Dragon Heroine was present, but would only step in if they ran into a major problem or made a serious mistake. So far, she hadn't said a word, which Izumi took as a good sign.

This was the first operation more involved than simple patrols that she and Setsuna had been allowed to participate in, though it was also only their second week. The first of their 4-day weeks had consisted mostly training and said patrols, getting into the groove of working at an agency. Both she and Setsuna had been assigned the same schedule, at least for now, working a part day on Wednesday, then full shifts on Thursday through Saturday.

It would have been a lot for most people, and Izumi could see the stress it was putting on her fellow Work Studies student already, but for Izumi it felt like getting to properly stretch for the first time in a while. While the chaotic events of the year had kept the issue mostly at bay, the truth was that Izumi had felt more than a little stifled by being back in a classroom again. The issue with a brain that, even without hyper-cognition activated, worked at a speed several times faster than a baseline human was...well...that it was easy to get bored.

The fact that Izumi already knew the vast majority of the material her courses were covering didn't help, and neither did the fact that she didn't need as much sleep as most people. Prior to UA, she and Momo had left the traditional academic system behind years ago, mostly working through correspondence style courses...while simultaneously running Aegis Inc, inventing support gear, helping with disaster relief, and training.

What might have been worrying amounts of overwork for normal people was simply their normal operating tempo because of the changes their respective Quirks had made to their minds and bodies. Izumi's case was more drastic for obvious reasons. But Momo's Quirk had induced some similar changes on her, at least in terms of mental capacity. Her girlfriend's brain couldn't have handled real-time construction of massively complex items at the atomic level if it hadn't been majorly rewired by her Quirk, after all. Those changes, enhanced by more natural genius, had been the entire reason Momo was in the same advancement schooling system that Izumi had earned her way into. One that had been designed to work with people whose Quirks caused them to outstrip any sort of normal educational environment.