—Cole POV—
Relaying our findings to the local Police precinct, they arranged to have police backup on standby for us. Their signal to move in would come from me in the form of a lightning bolt which would be hard to miss on a clear day like today. Hurriedly transferring the contraband to the escort vehicles, Mandalay and Ragdoll got dressed up to play their part so we could head out.
“Alright, I am taking Pixie-Bob to the facility.”, I told the team placing my hand on her shoulder.
Teleporting us directly there, we arrived on the roof of the facility behind the unsuspecting villains. Pointing out the areas that needed blocking off, six in total, I told her to do it as quietly as possible to not alert the villains. Confirming that they didn’t have any scouts around the building, I wondered why they would jam the radio signals yet not have scouts around the area watching for enemies.
‘Maybe it’s just my military sense talking here.’, I considered before shaking the thought away, “Alright, the truck should be pulling in the front gate in about ten minutes.”
“Don’t worry, I got this!”, she assured with me a smile, “Besides, we have a big strong guy around to protect us.”
“I am sure Tiger appreciates the compliment.”, I snickered feinting ignorance.
“I was talking about you!”, she giggled playfully hitting me on the shoulder.
Teleporting back to the team, we started making out way toward the facility. Passing the second group of scouts, I heard them confirm our location to their main team over their radio. Leaving the scouts to the officers waiting close by, we focus on the task at hand.
“Can’t you drive this thing any better?”, Tiger inquired starting to get a bit car sick, “You are all over the place, it feels like I am on a boat.”
“It doesn’t drive like my little Honda, I am sorry alright!”, Mandalay huffed, “I have to really lay on the gas to move this tank, and the steering is just a recommendation.”
“I am surprised you got a license if you drive this bad.”, Ragdoll choked up, “I think my grandma drives better than you, and she is blind.”
Hitting her comrade on the shoulder, Mandalay told her to be quiet so she could focus. Laughing at how well they got along, it reminded me of the many close friends I had made over the years. This sort of banter was common between my friends and me, especially when beer and stupid ideas were involved.
“Everyone look sharp, and remember to play along till they get to the back doors of the truck.”, I said as the entrance to the facility neared.
Nervously waving us through the gate, the guard at the gatehouse was clearly being held hostage. Hearing the escort cars pull away as we entered the facility, Mandalay followed my directions to the Loading Dock. As soon as we pulled into the area, the truck started violently shaking. Hearing the tires explode violently, several men quickly surrounded the truck. Grabbing the front doors, two men quickly removed them from the vehicle before threatening the two women.
“Get out both of you, or we will gut you like stuck pigs!”, one of the villains said.
Doing as they said, the two women played along perfectly pretending to be petrified with fear. Surveying the area through the tiny slot window between the back and front of the truck, I looked for anyone that stood out as the leader. Seeing a well-dressed man in a tuxedo surveying the area a ways behind the villains, it seemed like he was a Person of Interest.
“Leave it to the police to show up late.”, he grumbled looking at his watch, “Ten minutes late…had you been any later, the hostages might have started dropping like flies.”
“Hey, these two drivers are women!”, one of the larger villains pointed out, “Can we take them with us?”
“No, the client specifically said no witnesses.”, the tuxedo man replied.
“Ah come on…it’s just two bimbos, we can kill them after I am done.”, the villain argued with them.
Twitching with anger, the man in the tuxedo rubbed his forehead.
“No, a deal is a deal. If we want to get paid, do as the client demands. You can do what you want with them while we organize our exit plan, but then you better kill them before we leave.”, the tuxedo man compromised.
Grabbing the two of them, both went to fight back but almost collapsed. Looking mortified, it appeared the man holding them could put people in a weakened state with physical contact. Recognizing that the plan had to change now, I told Tiger we were moving early. Placing my hand on the left side of the truck, I took a breath, and a split second later the side of the vehicle violently exploded outwards. The unfortunate villains next to the truck were blasted away with the side panel. Slamming into the wall, blood slowly started running down the wall.
Turning to back to see what happened, I was already on the man restraining Ragdoll and Mandalay. Letting them go, he went to reach for me but he was far too slow. Using the Amp, I stuck his head between the posts and spun around him twice. Taking that momentum, I lifted him off the ground and flung him into several of his colleagues. Since he was substantially larger than them, they were all taken to the ground in a heap.
“Men like you need to rot in the pits of Tartaros!”, I said in a cold tone.
With a wave of my hand, a massive bolt of lightning came down striking the pile of men. Screaming at the top of their lungs, I stopped just short of killing them. When I stopped the lightning, the men were covered in third-degree burns and were probably never going to walk again as their nerves were fried. Turning my attention to the tuxedo man, I watched Pixie-Bob leap over his head to assist her team. Seeing the man try to run, I shot a beam of light millimeters from his face.
“Where do you think you are going?” I asked, walking towards him.
Glancing over at the petrified hostages, it was quite visible that they had been beaten into submission by the villains. Looking back at the tuxedo man, I cracked my knuckles.
“I give the cops five minutes to have this place surrounded…why don’t we have a chat?”, I suggested.
“I don’t think so!”, he shouted as his eyes turned red.
Knowing that he was activating his Quirk, I used Erasure on him. Feeling his Quirk stop working all of a sudden, he immediately panicked. Before he could say anything, my right hand was already digging into his skull. Crushing his skull like I was crumpling a piece of paper, I ordered him to tell me who his client was.
“I can’t tell you that!!”, he yelled gripping my arm as he tried to free himself, “Let go damn it!!”
Seeing the faces of people I didn’t recognize flash across his mind, I was curious about who they were. Making a mental note to investigate them tonight, the man demanded I release him as he swore he had rights. Laughing at him for saying that, my expression went stone cold as I looked him dead in the eyes.
“Your victims have rights to…did that stop you from deciding they should die?”, I questioned in a mocking tone, “What makes you think your rights are more important than theirs? From where I am standing, you don’t have the right to make demands of me…”
Feeling my overwhelming Killing Intent and Bloodlust, the man started violently shaking as he started to foam at the mouth. Destroying his Quirk, I tossed him on the unconscious heap of bodies. Looking back at Mandalay and Ragdoll, the two of them looked like they had partially recovered from losing their strength.
“You both okay?”, I asked them with concern.
“Yeah, thank you for the save there. All the strength in our bodies suddenly left us.”, Mandalay said with a shiver, “It felt like I could hardly breathe…”
Hearing the police start to pour into the facility, they were quick to arrest the villains that were still able to walk. Putting the severely injured villains in ambulances, we gave our statements along with the facility workers. When they told the police that two of their colleagues were dead inside…one of the furnace operators said the facility manager and site supervisor were thrown into the furnace when they tried to alert the police.
“Did they have some sort of box with them?”, I asked, “The radios are being jammed around here.”
“Yes, the jammer is in the Plant Manager’s office.”, one of the workers said.
Retrieving it from the office, I disabled it and handed it over to the police as evidence. Looking at the villains that I hadn’t touched, I pointed my finger at them.
“I suggest you pray for a long prison sentence. That is the only place I won’t go looking for you…”, I growled with annoyance.
Squealing like scared animals, they bolted for the prisoner transport vehicle. Climbing over one another to get in, they pleaded with the officers to leave immediately before something happened to them. Closing the door on them, the driver could only chuckle and say it was the first time he’d seen villains eager to get in his truck.
“That wraps up this job.”, I stated with a smile, “Whose up for lunch?”
“Seriously…lunch is the first thing you think of?”, Mandalay sighed with a smile.
“Of course, a man’s got to eat.”, I said trying to get their minds off of their ordeal.
Visually confirming that the Yakuza contraband was destroyed before leaving, the five of us headed to lunch.
—That Evening—
Putting Eri to bed, after introducing her to the concept of bubble baths, I sat down at my desk to look up the faces I had seen on the tuxedo man’s mind. Flipping through the Hero Association and Police databases, I found no matches for what I saw. Using facial recognition software, I searched for any matches and still came up with nothing that matched them specifically.
After removing some of the specific details, suddenly I had sixteen matches. Looking at each photo, it appeared that they were different people, at first, but as I focused on them I could tell that all sixteen images were really of two people.
‘The facial recognition software used by police today needs to match eight identifiable features to trigger a result. I adjusted it to only need four which all sixteen share…’, I thought, ‘Whoever these people are, they know how the software works. The faces the tuxedo man saw must be new identities they made so they must be planning something here in Japan.’
Reviewing each match, the duo seemed to use specific identities whenever they were in a specific region and they never once crossed over. Using their sixteen photos, I cross-referenced them with Driver's License databases around the globe. It took about fifteen minutes to complete, but when it did all sixteen photos tied back to two people here in Japan. They were well-known humanitarians that traveled around raising money for orphanages, starving families, and war-torn nations.
“So they are using fake identities to commit crimes that won’t tie back to them all while using their public personas to travel around undetected.”, I mumbled going over the list of crimes tied to the villains.
In addition to arms and drug dealing, they ran illegal fight clubs, supported extremist organizations around the globe, and were thought to be responsible for the disappearance of well over 10,000 people over the past twenty years. As I was digging into how they managed to avoid detection all this time, I found several instances where investigators found out the truth but were quickly forced into silence by superiors. The few that tried to speak out were quickly killed in ‘unfortunate accidents’ which pretty much stopped all attempts to arrest them.
Printing out several classified reports on paper and the eighteen photos on clear plastic film, I went downstairs to show my grandfather. Finding him trying to bowl with Gran Torino and All Might on one of the new gaming systems…he clearly didn’t understand how to do it and he was getting teased for it by the two men. Clearing my throat, I told them I had something important to show them.
“Something wrong Cole?”, grandpa asked.
“Yeah…I started looking into the faces I got out of the criminals the Pussycats and I caught today.”, I said laying the clear sheets on the table, “At first I couldn’t find any matches for it, so I modified the facial recognition software I was using. I found sixteen hits from around the globe…and it shows we have a really big problem with the system.”
Slowly overlaying the photos in front of them, I pointed out the four features to watch closely. Watching each photo overlay with the next, they all saw the same pattern I did.
“You have got to be kidding me…”, grandpa said falling back into his seat, “You mean to tell me all sixteen criminals are just two people?”
“Yes, and that isn’t the worst part.”, I remarked overlaying their public images, “The two criminals have major sway in media outlets around the globe. They literally can cover their tracks by having their crimes not reported on or covered up by the media. I am not the first to discover this either, other people have and they were forced into silence or killed.”
Showing them classified documents I printed off, all three of them became enraged by this discovery. Slamming his fist onto the table, All Might was furious that he had shaken their hands only a short time ago for a fundraiser for local orphanages. The thought he was helping inadvertently fund their criminal activity enraged him.
“I take it you have a plan for this Cole?”, grandpa inquired.
“Yes, we will need evidence proving it was them, given how favorable the public views them. I will take care of getting that information, what I need you to do is start preparing to nab them. As soon as their cover is blown, they are going to run for it. Given the funding they have at their disposal, we need all potential means for escape blocked off.”, I advised, “I don’t mean to beat this dead horse but…these people have killed over ten thousand innocent people. Don’t think for a moment they won’t kill many more just to avoid being caught.”
Understanding the severity of the situation, the three agreed to reach out to their most trusted friends to start arranging their capture.
—Cole POV—
Relaying our findings to the local Police precinct, they arranged to have police backup on standby for us. Their signal to move in would come from me in the form of a lightning bolt which would be hard to miss on a clear day like today. Hurriedly transferring the contraband to the escort vehicles, Mandalay and Ragdoll got dressed up to play their part so we could head out.
“Alright, I am taking Pixie-Bob to the facility.”, I told the team placing my hand on her shoulder.
Teleporting us directly there, we arrived on the roof of the facility behind the unsuspecting villains. Pointing out the areas that needed blocking off, six in total, I told her to do it as quietly as possible to not alert the villains. Confirming that they didn’t have any scouts around the building, I wondered why they would jam the radio signals yet not have scouts around the area watching for enemies.
‘Maybe it’s just my military sense talking here.’, I considered before shaking the thought away, “Alright, the truck should be pulling in the front gate in about ten minutes.”
“Don’t worry, I got this!”, she assured with me a smile, “Besides, we have a big strong guy around to protect us.”
“I am sure Tiger appreciates the compliment.”, I snickered feinting ignorance.
“I was talking about you!”, she giggled playfully hitting me on the shoulder.
Teleporting back to the team, we started making out way toward the facility. Passing the second group of scouts, I heard them confirm our location to their main team over their radio. Leaving the scouts to the officers waiting close by, we focus on the task at hand.
“Can’t you drive this thing any better?”, Tiger inquired starting to get a bit car sick, “You are all over the place, it feels like I am on a boat.”
“It doesn’t drive like my little Honda, I am sorry alright!”, Mandalay huffed, “I have to really lay on the gas to move this tank, and the steering is just a recommendation.”
“I am surprised you got a license if you drive this bad.”, Ragdoll choked up, “I think my grandma drives better than you, and she is blind.”
Hitting her comrade on the shoulder, Mandalay told her to be quiet so she could focus. Laughing at how well they got along, it reminded me of the many close friends I had made over the years. This sort of banter was common between my friends and me, especially when beer and stupid ideas were involved.
“Everyone look sharp, and remember to play along till they get to the back doors of the truck.”, I said as the entrance to the facility neared.
Nervously waving us through the gate, the guard at the gatehouse was clearly being held hostage. Hearing the escort cars pull away as we entered the facility, Mandalay followed my directions to the Loading Dock. As soon as we pulled into the area, the truck started violently shaking. Hearing the tires explode violently, several men quickly surrounded the truck. Grabbing the front doors, two men quickly removed them from the vehicle before threatening the two women.
“Get out both of you, or we will gut you like stuck pigs!”, one of the villains said.
Doing as they said, the two women played along perfectly pretending to be petrified with fear. Surveying the area through the tiny slot window between the back and front of the truck, I looked for anyone that stood out as the leader. Seeing a well-dressed man in a tuxedo surveying the area a ways behind the villains, it seemed like he was a Person of Interest.
“Leave it to the police to show up late.”, he grumbled looking at his watch, “Ten minutes late…had you been any later, the hostages might have started dropping like flies.”
“Hey, these two drivers are women!”, one of the larger villains pointed out, “Can we take them with us?”
“No, the client specifically said no witnesses.”, the tuxedo man replied.
“Ah come on…it’s just two bimbos, we can kill them after I am done.”, the villain argued with them.
Twitching with anger, the man in the tuxedo rubbed his forehead.
“No, a deal is a deal. If we want to get paid, do as the client demands. You can do what you want with them while we organize our exit plan, but then you better kill them before we leave.”, the tuxedo man compromised.
Grabbing the two of them, both went to fight back but almost collapsed. Looking mortified, it appeared the man holding them could put people in a weakened state with physical contact. Recognizing that the plan had to change now, I told Tiger we were moving early. Placing my hand on the left side of the truck, I took a breath, and a split second later the side of the vehicle violently exploded outwards. The unfortunate villains next to the truck were blasted away with the side panel. Slamming into the wall, blood slowly started running down the wall.
Turning to back to see what happened, I was already on the man restraining Ragdoll and Mandalay. Letting them go, he went to reach for me but he was far too slow. Using the Amp, I stuck his head between the posts and spun around him twice. Taking that momentum, I lifted him off the ground and flung him into several of his colleagues. Since he was substantially larger than them, they were all taken to the ground in a heap.
“Men like you need to rot in the pits of Tartaros!”, I said in a cold tone.
With a wave of my hand, a massive bolt of lightning came down striking the pile of men. Screaming at the top of their lungs, I stopped just short of killing them. When I stopped the lightning, the men were covered in third-degree burns and were probably never going to walk again as their nerves were fried. Turning my attention to the tuxedo man, I watched Pixie-Bob leap over his head to assist her team. Seeing the man try to run, I shot a beam of light millimeters from his face.
“Where do you think you are going?” I asked, walking towards him.
Glancing over at the petrified hostages, it was quite visible that they had been beaten into submission by the villains. Looking back at the tuxedo man, I cracked my knuckles.
“I give the cops five minutes to have this place surrounded…why don’t we have a chat?”, I suggested.
“I don’t think so!”, he shouted as his eyes turned red.
Knowing that he was activating his Quirk, I used Erasure on him. Feeling his Quirk stop working all of a sudden, he immediately panicked. Before he could say anything, my right hand was already digging into his skull. Crushing his skull like I was crumpling a piece of paper, I ordered him to tell me who his client was.
“I can’t tell you that!!”, he yelled gripping my arm as he tried to free himself, “Let go damn it!!”
Seeing the faces of people I didn’t recognize flash across his mind, I was curious about who they were. Making a mental note to investigate them tonight, the man demanded I release him as he swore he had rights. Laughing at him for saying that, my expression went stone cold as I looked him dead in the eyes.
“Your victims have rights to…did that stop you from deciding they should die?”, I questioned in a mocking tone, “What makes you think your rights are more important than theirs? From where I am standing, you don’t have the right to make demands of me…”
Feeling my overwhelming Killing Intent and Bloodlust, the man started violently shaking as he started to foam at the mouth. Destroying his Quirk, I tossed him on the unconscious heap of bodies. Looking back at Mandalay and Ragdoll, the two of them looked like they had partially recovered from losing their strength.
“You both okay?”, I asked them with concern.
“Yeah, thank you for the save there. All the strength in our bodies suddenly left us.”, Mandalay said with a shiver, “It felt like I could hardly breathe…”
Hearing the police start to pour into the facility, they were quick to arrest the villains that were still able to walk. Putting the severely injured villains in ambulances, we gave our statements along with the facility workers. When they told the police that two of their colleagues were dead inside…one of the furnace operators said the facility manager and site supervisor were thrown into the furnace when they tried to alert the police.
“Did they have some sort of box with them?”, I asked, “The radios are being jammed around here.”
“Yes, the jammer is in the Plant Manager’s office.”, one of the workers said.
Retrieving it from the office, I disabled it and handed it over to the police as evidence. Looking at the villains that I hadn’t touched, I pointed my finger at them.
“I suggest you pray for a long prison sentence. That is the only place I won’t go looking for you…”, I growled with annoyance.
Squealing like scared animals, they bolted for the prisoner transport vehicle. Climbing over one another to get in, they pleaded with the officers to leave immediately before something happened to them. Closing the door on them, the driver could only chuckle and say it was the first time he’d seen villains eager to get in his truck.
“That wraps up this job.”, I stated with a smile, “Whose up for lunch?”
“Seriously…lunch is the first thing you think of?”, Mandalay sighed with a smile.
“Of course, a man’s got to eat.”, I said trying to get their minds off of their ordeal.
Visually confirming that the Yakuza contraband was destroyed before leaving, the five of us headed to lunch.
—That Evening—
Putting Eri to bed, after introducing her to the concept of bubble baths, I sat down at my desk to look up the faces I had seen on the tuxedo man’s mind. Flipping through the Hero Association and Police databases, I found no matches for what I saw. Using facial recognition software, I searched for any matches and still came up with nothing that matched them specifically.
After removing some of the specific details, suddenly I had sixteen matches. Looking at each photo, it appeared that they were different people, at first, but as I focused on them I could tell that all sixteen images were really of two people.
‘The facial recognition software used by police today needs to match eight identifiable features to trigger a result. I adjusted it to only need four which all sixteen share…’, I thought, ‘Whoever these people are, they know how the software works. The faces the tuxedo man saw must be new identities they made so they must be planning something here in Japan.’
Reviewing each match, the duo seemed to use specific identities whenever they were in a specific region and they never once crossed over. Using their sixteen photos, I cross-referenced them with Driver's License databases around the globe. It took about fifteen minutes to complete, but when it did all sixteen photos tied back to two people here in Japan. They were well-known humanitarians that traveled around raising money for orphanages, starving families, and war-torn nations.
“So they are using fake identities to commit crimes that won’t tie back to them all while using their public personas to travel around undetected.”, I mumbled going over the list of crimes tied to the villains.
In addition to arms and drug dealing, they ran illegal fight clubs, supported extremist organizations around the globe, and were thought to be responsible for the disappearance of well over 10,000 people over the past twenty years. As I was digging into how they managed to avoid detection all this time, I found several instances where investigators found out the truth but were quickly forced into silence by superiors. The few that tried to speak out were quickly killed in ‘unfortunate accidents’ which pretty much stopped all attempts to arrest them.
Printing out several classified reports on paper and the eighteen photos on clear plastic film, I went downstairs to show my grandfather. Finding him trying to bowl with Gran Torino and All Might on one of the new gaming systems…he clearly didn’t understand how to do it and he was getting teased for it by the two men. Clearing my throat, I told them I had something important to show them.
“Something wrong Cole?”, grandpa asked.
“Yeah…I started looking into the faces I got out of the criminals the Pussycats and I caught today.”, I said laying the clear sheets on the table, “At first I couldn’t find any matches for it, so I modified the facial recognition software I was using. I found sixteen hits from around the globe…and it shows we have a really big problem with the system.”
Slowly overlaying the photos in front of them, I pointed out the four features to watch closely. Watching each photo overlay with the next, they all saw the same pattern I did.
“You have got to be kidding me…”, grandpa said falling back into his seat, “You mean to tell me all sixteen criminals are just two people?”
“Yes, and that isn’t the worst part.”, I remarked overlaying their public images, “The two criminals have major sway in media outlets around the globe. They literally can cover their tracks by having their crimes not reported on or covered up by the media. I am not the first to discover this either, other people have and they were forced into silence or killed.”
Showing them classified documents I printed off, all three of them became enraged by this discovery. Slamming his fist onto the table, All Might was furious that he had shaken their hands only a short time ago for a fundraiser for local orphanages. The thought he was helping inadvertently fund their criminal activity enraged him.
“I take it you have a plan for this Cole?”, grandpa inquired.
“Yes, we will need evidence proving it was them, given how favorable the public views them. I will take care of getting that information, what I need you to do is start preparing to nab them. As soon as their cover is blown, they are going to run for it. Given the funding they have at their disposal, we need all potential means for escape blocked off.”, I advised, “I don’t mean to beat this dead horse but…these people have killed over ten thousand innocent people. Don’t think for a moment they won’t kill many more just to avoid being caught.”
Understanding the severity of the situation, the three agreed to reach out to their most trusted friends to start arranging their capture.
