"Pit-01 to Control."
The professional voice gruffly announced over the raven haired individual's ear piece, it cut through the steady rhythm within the interior of the modified white semi-truck. The logo of Team Idaten shone starkly against the pale backdrop of the moving truck.
"We have eyes on the villain, four individuals are currently engaged at dangerous speeds against the suspect. Meta-ability closely matches the description provided by the Public Hero Safety Commission, note that the adult male is now seen wearing a dress suit, although he is missing the police jacket and matching hat."
" —Control to Pit-01." The feminine voice over Tensei's ear piece responded, he sat quietly as he parsed the information.
"An unauthorized military grade bombardment was last seen approximately three minutes, and thirteen seconds ago. There are several civilians that are in need of swift transport across the perimeter, Pinpoint Hero: Vantablaze has located and cross referenced their current locations… sending data to your GPS." The resounding ping lit up the screen on the man's smartwatch, he looked down. And back up at the LED screen in front of him, memorizing the overall terrain on the holographic map that represented the destroyed Roponggi district of the Minato ward.
"This one's looking more like a mudslide catastrophe, huh?" He murmured under his breath.
"Reported severe casualties to the surrounding heroes, current goal is to link up with the next individual hero in question for a more accurate status report of the situation and then transport the rest of the injured back for evac. Those that cannot, will be highlighted for rescue with the provided GPS tracking units. Be notified that the main perpetrator is of critical level threat."
"Conflicting reports indicate a threat level scale theorized to be on par with the current number one hero, however earlier estimates show that the main perpetrator's threat scale ranged down to Endeavor's." Tensei Ida's fidgeting foot slowed to a stop from his seated position upon hearing those words from the liaison, his clasped hands held firm.
"Exercise extreme caution, nonetheless" they enunciated with care.
"I repeat; exercise extreme caution. Regardless of how short the man in question has been on the scene, the Individual in question is noted to have near limitless control over their energy manipulation quirk with no signs of stopping. —Expect the unexpected."
Tensei locked eyes with the other ground operative of his team seated next to him, Big Shot. The older man's white facemask hid the expressiveness in his eyes. But his frown was more than evident with Iida, he shook his head at him, silent and mellow. Tough Crab and Watchbird would be making their own entrance on the other side of ground-zero in Pit-02. He lightly placed a pointer finger on to his earpiece with a click and switched to a different channel to announce his orders.
"Watchbird, send out the rest of the drones and begin transmitting. Tough Crab, I'll meet up with you shortly."
"Roger." The polished voices responded on the other side of the line, the interior of Pit-01 got louder as the gears of the semi-truck worked overtime to release the drones. The panels on either side of the top of the vehicle fanned out. The whirling noise of the little things droned out as they ascended and scattered.
The truck rocked as it climbed over what once was a pristine road. Now they had to slow down for fear of numerous factors. Not even the recent replacement to the semi-truck's tires could fully compensate for the rough landscape.
Tensei stood up and nodded to his larger sidekick as he thumped the interior wall behind him twice with the back of his closed fist to signal his departure.
"Ingenium, heading out!" he called out.
He stepped over the threshold to the back of the truck to suit up, using the handrails on his way out.
"Commencing Ingenium hot-start sequence." Control announced from her sitting position at his agency. He stepped over the dimly lit glowing circular pad on the floor and widened his stance. The multi-arms held him in place as the rocky ride continued in earnest. The suspension of the vehicle softened the blow of the rough ride.
The robotic shiny arms, illuminated by the soft blue luminescence of the surrounding gadgetry, highlighting the process of the exoskeleton as it surrounded his skintight bodysuit, starting with his lower body. "Cowl suit functions, check." And ending with his torso, as the carapace carefully extended over his biceps and upper arms.
This step was crucial, but as usual took less than a few seconds.
His extended forearms were then encased by the alabaster material of his vambraces. "Comms, fully operational." Tensei's dispatcher reiterated as she tested the comm channel for the fourth time.
Lastly the open helm of his hero suit hovered over his head until it solidly merged and comfortably rested onto his skull, "no issues with alignment."
Iida stepped over to the back of his semi-truck after flexing and stretching as a pre-check, the hero got into position as he stepped forward. "The catapult is fully set." his liaison announced over his communication channel-01.
A steady hiss emanated as the hydraulics of the truck worked to split and open up the exit.
The crimson sky above showed a stark picture of the bleak reality around him. "Pit-01 decelerating, holding steady at twenty kilometers per hour." The platform he was standing on was lifted up, Iida pondered for a bit as the process finished.
Perhaps there was some credibility to mother's belief that there was an ill omen about. Her favorite pan had broken, and well it was often used so it was bound to happen, but perhaps there was truth to the idea.
"...Turbo Hero: Ingenium" He relaxed and closed his eyes as Control spoke in his ear.
But not for a moment longer.
" —Pitting out!"
His eyes snapped open.
Ingenium somersaulted, he felt weightless, physics took control as he maneuvered into a clean landing. The soles of his feet groaned against the dust filled pavement of his surroundings.
Pit-01 swerved and took a side-route away from the epicenter of the ongoing destruction away from him.
At the moment, this was a hotspot of activity, thousands of citizens were being evacuated. And all of Japan was reacting to the current tragedy that was unravelling. He wouldn't count this out of making its way out of the history books as a mere footnote.
It was oddly coincidental that two random sets of seemingly random terror attacks would hit in the same timeframe. But he wouldn't count out opportunistic villains coordinating in any way they could, if All Might was distracted. Then it was a prime opportunity for others to wreak havoc.
When it rained it poured, his father always said. He'd have to work overtime, because it was looking like it would be some time before things got back to normal.
Ingenium revved the engines on his elbows, the loud thrum relaxed his racing mind.
One… and then two, his engine went from zero to one-hundred, and his surroundings exploded into a blue blur. The feedback from his quirk sent his reflexes into overdrive. A solid trail of azure light blared out from behind his escaping figure, he compensated for the acceleration with his light steps.
Originally, rough terrain was one of his sorespots, but his UA instructor back at the high school, worked tirelessly to mitigate the hindrance. His quirk, unlike his father's and little Tenya's had no trouble with launches, and he made use of that mutation to set up short powerful bursts of speed to pivot from one direction to the other. It was aided by the fact that his engines instead were located on his arms for better isolated dexterous navigation.
His pupils closed in onto the burning building a kilometer away, he passed by several groups of people who were huddled up in the rain, making the trek away from the center of destruction. The firefighters on the scene were overworked, he'd need to change that.
From what he could see from the overhead drones, there were two families that were stuck on the roof. Yelling for the attention of anyone that could help them.
"Control to Ingenium, there's an elderly civilian on the third floor of the building next to it." The cool voice of his dispatcher added as she took in the live camera feedback on his visor.
"Not a problem." The turbo hero flew into the unlit alleyway to its left. Positioning himself between both precarious residential structures. Taking in the facet of either wall in a second, Tensei continued his sprint without stopping as he scaled the brick wall up diagonally. He killed his engines and vaulted over the rim of the destroyed fire-escape and into the window of the third floor with a lateral short burst of his engines to redirect his momentum. Shattering the glass with a crash and re-orienting himself with a roll to control his landing.
The new opening reintroduced air back into the room that had been consumed by the fire. It instantly reignited the flames. But he took that into consideration as his dispatcher highlighted the location of the civilian within the smoke filled apartment. One of the walls was eaten away at and he used that new opening to smash in between the studs, which had already deteriorated to near nothing.
The old gentleman whirled around to Iida in surprise from his position near the smoke filled window. However, before he could question the young hero, he instead introduced himself.
—Skidding to a stop.
"I'm a hero, I'll need to have you strapped to my suit so that we can escape, sir!" He'd need to be quick, the creaking of the building made the situation look more precarious than he initially thought. And the older man looked faint no doubt from smoke inhalation.
"Don't worry this won't take more than a few seconds. And take this respirator, it'll only work for a few minutes before it needs to be recharged" He said as he dropped the device in the eager man's grasping hands. It worked just well for Ingenium, because he was not interested in hauling out a limp civilian in these circumstances. in just that amount of time the upper torso of his suit extended out into a harness from the openings of his armored sides.
The clips were secured and as the old man looked at him in a fearful front face hold, weak arms and legs were guided to a looped hold of his lower torso and upper hips. Without time to spare, the turbo hero began his run.
Ingenium heard a crash behind him and didn't look back.
When he vaulted out of the window, midair, the back of his suit shot out two hooks that embedded themselves onto the facade of the building. They went taut but he accounted for that and instead arced into a curve, positioning the soles of his feet to take the solid impact against the brick as his knees bent to soften the landing. He righted himself and sprinted down the length of the wall, already used to the maneuver from the many nights he spent practicing the rescue drills.
Even if a bystander complained by the seemingly blasé or ambivalent manner in which he committed his rescues, above all other traits. A person always appreciated a timely rescue. And with that he unclipped the somewhat dazed gentleman as he steadied him slightly away from the smoldering structure.
"Apologies sir, but I have to rescue your neighbors up onto the roof. If you'd wait a moment a bit away from the fire for them then I can get your sorted out together."
"Oh, yes… t-thank you, young man." The man thanked him as he collected his wits, still slightly dazed.
Ingenium pivoted around the corner after receiving the state of the art respirator, placing the gadget back into the slot of his suit. Taking stock of the other property's bad condition, he throttled his engines as he readied himself in a runners sprint. Before his foot made contact with the cement wall, he shot out a series of frontal hooks from his angled shoulder pads near the top of the building, the tread of his shoes rippled against the warming material of the slightly smooth surface as he shot off against it.
"Control, give me a status report." he spoke into his receiver as he accelerated.
With a huff he flipped yet again this time to the roof, already he could see the six people that were edging away from the crumbling section of the building.
"Hello!" he said with a quick wave as his hooks retracted back to his armored cowl with an audible click.
"I'm here to rescue you." he finished.
He noted the four adults and the two children who clung to who he believed to be their mothers.
"We don't have much time, so I'll be quick. I'm going to carry each of you individually across to the other establishment near the fire escape behind us. Is that fine with you? Great!"
He spoke without giving them a chance to refute him, but that didn't seem to be much of a problem, when the women presented their children to him.
"Hey kid, don't worry this'll just be like a roller coaster!" Iida said as he turned the kid towards him, crouching to get a better angle.
"B-but I don't l-like roller… coasters, t-t-they scare me." The kid mumbled in fright, fat tears cascading down the boy's face..
That wasn't good but I can work with this.
Tensei felt himself give in to the motions audibly rehearsing the procedure as he strapped the heteromorph child to his chest. He learned in his hero university courses that speaking the steps in a rescue operation would give the civilian something familiar to cling to, especially when it came from an authority figure. When he was finished, he revved his engines and vaulted to the other side. Perhaps it would have been too far without his quirk, but then that was why he was here. Smoke from both buildings clouded most of his vision, and that didn't account for the other structures.
Quickly he unstrapped the kid, quirk enhanced his jump back to the burning residential building not even to comfort the lonely child. It'd be easier to just get the rest to safety, and then they could do that job in a better manner than he ever could.
The second child and then the two women were easily carried to the other side, although he was cutting short the time for each trip. When he noticed the state of the structure. With a roll he managed to get back to the building, however the structure was deteriorating faster than he had anticipated.
"Alright this calls for a bit of improvisation." Ingenium held his hand to the side of his head. "Control send in the drone, we're going for Maneuver-08!"
He saw the cement crumble away, already the two men were nearly huddled next to each other by then as there was not much space between them. He clicked the controls on his vambrace to the correct setting for what he was about to do. He estimated the time it would take and continued with his train of actions, he couldn't chance another round trip.
It'd be a bit dodgy, but what wasn't?
"Okay who has more experience with strapping on a parachute harness?" He looked at either of them, the wolf-life heteromorph gentleman stepped up. The straps that were longer trailed from the back of his chassis, he left the older man to strap himself up.
"Alright you come here!" Ingenium faced the younger man, plain faced features, fearful but not hysterical. More than he could hope for, as he worked his magic to strap him to his chest. The hero quickly grabbed his legs to loop them to his hips, regardless of his consent.
"Sorry but we gotta be quick about this!"
He closed in onto the heteromorph, a section of the building fell away, the heat was unbearable. And he grabbed at the man's forearm, pulling it up to his shoulders and hooking it over his neck from behind, joining the other set of arms that held onto him for dear life. The three of them were heavy but most certainly not above the weight limit for what he was about to do!
His elbows ignited and the residential building gave way, the whole thing fell apart, outward in. He angled the thrusters as they went into overdrive away from the man who hugged him from behind. As he used his quirk to keep them up in the sky. The whine of his engines deafened the two men holding onto him, and yet they were weightless as he forced his quirk to go against physics.
Definitely not enough time to come back for another trip. I'd have to chance a bridal carry but that wouldn't account for anything unseen, I'd probably lose my footing beforehand.
His hooks shot off from his vambraces, right onto the ports under the two heavy duty drones. magnetized for added efficiency, the two men yelped from the jerky-ness of the motion from freefall as his thrusters gave out and they fell. Thankfully the gears in his suit allowed for both a loosening and a tight retraction so that even when the heteromorph man unwillingly let go, he was pulled snug to the hero.
They ascended thanks to the efforts of his drone operator back at Idaten hero agency. The whirling drones steadily angled them up and away from the smoke stacks.
"Send us down to the roof of the cafe with the others, I'd rather not make two trips." He spoke in his helmet to Control, his speakers were off, but he turned them back on as they lightly landed onto the other roof.
Once they had unstrapped themselves, Ingenium held up a hand to stop the teary reunion. The women were huddled up with the children in fright. But they untangled themselves, to no doubt throw themselves at the men.
"Sorry, but I'll need you all to move along, there's an emergency shelter nearby. I'd prefer to have your safety, especially when there could be looters nearby."
The adults who understood the significance of his sentence, hardened their expressions or looked on with stunned astonishment at the idea he introduced, but he'd rather that than immobility or indecision.
Once they had made it back to steady ground and to the older man who had moved a bit away to safety.
Ingenium cheerily handed a GPS tracker to the civilians.
"This'll keep you all pinged to the authorities, just in case something goes wrong. Click on the device here for a reminder just in case you get lost. And long press it if there is something… that is really going wrong." The raven haired man said in a softer voice, as the device read out the address and nearest evacuation assembly area.
He'd like to send out a drone as an escort but he needed to keep them ready for an actual emergency. The children tearfully waved back to him as the two families left, but not without them all giving him their heartfelt thanks. Behind the visor, Ingenium's soft black eyes turned steely at the next words that came out of his dispatcher's voice.
"There's a violent mugging near the Hibiya Line, sending coordinates to you."
"Roger that." His hand fell away from the transmitter.
…It was quieter as he sprinted across ground zero, smoke and fire was raging against the downpour. But that was his job, he'd need to put things back in place, even if the situation seemed hopelessly grand.
It always started with little steps, and he took it.