Clean House

“Read ‘em and weep boys!” Robert dropped his cards onto the table, “Four of a Kind!”

“Oh god damnit!” The five other people around the table slammed down the cards, moaning and complaining about having lost another round of poker.

“This is a load of BS, this is the fifth round in a row that you’ve won,” Kyle said, pointing across the table. “This has to be a marked deck, otherwise I don’t see how the hell you’re doing this.”

“Haha, it’s like I told you. I’m just naturally lucky.” Robert pulled the stack of cash towards him, dumping it into a bucket. “Besides, these aren’t my cards. Even if they were marked, how am I supposed to use them?”

“Yeah, yeah. An intel analyst totally doesn’t remember which cards are which and know how to use them,” Henry pulled out a cigarette, lighting it. “I think I’d be more likely to believe that Jack’s ‘Dear John’ was a prank by his wife.”

“Oh you piece of shit!” Jack dove over the table, grabbing Henry by the collar and beginning to throttle to him. “We’ve been married six years and make jokes of this kind all the time, so you take that back!”

“The only joke here is that you didn’t realize that she would start cheating on you after so long

“You-!” Jack started slamming Henry against the floor of the warehouse, “I’ll kick your ass!”

“Woah woah, cool it!” The others who were playing poker with them soon intervened, pulling the two men apart.

“Let me go, he needs to be taught a-!”

“A lesson? I’m about to give you all morons a piece of my mind too.”

“Sir!” They all suddenly snapped to attention as their commanding officer walked into the room down a set of stairs.

“Does one of you mind telling me what you were all doing?”

“Just engaging in recreation sir, a little game of poker,” Kyle said.

“Are you serious?” He looked with disbelief, “Half of you are supposed to be on watch, and you’re playing poker?!”

“Come on, there’s been nothing for the past two days. We’re wasting our time looking at rows of condemned warehouses and five story buildings 24/7. What harm can a little poker do?”

“We are on red alert! Langley was bombed, a chunk of the Pentagon is rubble, our electronic services were stolen and fried, five other separate federal offices were rendered useless and two of our Asia branch safehouses literally vanished into thin air! On top of that, we still have agents missing while we’re also getting intel that equivalent agencies from Russia and China are getting hit by the same hammers of shit that we are!” Their CO stepped up into Kyle’s face, “Anything you have to say to that?”

“No sir.”

“Then get the hell back to your posts and keep watch!” The CO turned towards Robert, “Robert, come with me. You’re briefing the contractors on what the plan is.”

“We’re still going ahead with that plan to frame Spartan?”

“They’re our standing orders, and they haven’t changed. Come on,” he signaled for Robert to follow him. As he left the room the other guys went back to their posts, leaving for different parts of the warehouse to keep watch.

“Sir, I’m not so sure we should keep going on with this plan. I don’t think it’s prudent. For us, or anyone else.”

His CO sighed, “I know, but we don’t have much of a choice. We tried to ask him to come over and he didn’t comply.”

“I don’t want to speak out of line, but I don’t think we should have ever tried to coerce him. He’s from the future-“

“Officially he says he is.”

“Officially, yes. But if that’s true, then it’s possible that he knows things about our agencies and programs that no one else does. It’s probably how he has an edge against us.”

“You’re an analyst, think with your head. All this is predicated on the idea that everything he has said is true, and takes a great deal of leaps in logic to reach the same conclusions.”

“They’re not massive leaps…”

“They’re leaps regardless, and there always needs to be proof before something can be done. Now, I don’t want to hear about any of this knowing the agency from the future bullcrap. Especially not in front of the others. The last thing we need is people getting antsy because they think some big shot from the future who hasn’t ever shown his face knows everything about them and might kill them. Am I clear?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good, now fix your face and remember to speak in Japanese. We don’t want to spook these guys off.”

“Of course sir.” He pushed open the door, walking into the next room.

“Gentlemen! Since you’ve signed all the paperwork and agreed to work with us, it’s about time that we brief you on just exactly what it is you’re going to be doing,” his CO flawlessly switched over to fluent Japanese, “This is analyst Robert Haywood, he will tell you exactly what you’re going to do.”

He extended a hand to the two Heroes. “Coldfront, Nighthound, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I hear that the two of you do good.” Neither Hero accepted his hand, he awkwardly stowed it away with a cough. “Now, the primary aim of your work will be to try and discredit the pro-Hero Spartan in the eyes of the public. To do that, we have arranged for a number of Villain encounters where you must outperform him in front of a number of cameras and individuals. You will also speak out against him at the upcoming Hero Billboard Charts event, and drum up support from the crowd.”

Coldfront folded his arms, “We knew from the beginning that this would involve publicly going against Spartan, however we need guarantees that we will have support for any retaliatory behavior from him or any supporters.” Coldfront was a thirty six year old Hero, one with a wife and two children. After obtaining his Hero license he joined up with an agency at the age of nineteen, one that was then natural rivals to Endeavor’s agency due to being themed around ice related quirks. A year into his career he was involved in an altercation with a sidekick from the Endeavor agency, resulting in the death of the sidekick. The incident was quickly swept under the rug by the Hero Public Safety Commission and Coldfront was forced to strike it out on his own, eventually owning a decently sized agency. However that fight still looms as a threat to his career and loved ones, which was exactly how they convinced him to sign on. “I’ve heard of the sorts of things his supporters have done. Destroyed cars, arson attempts, public assaults and brandings. I don’t want those sorts of things done to my friends or family.”

Robert looked at his CO for a moment, then looked back. “...Of course, we’ll be able to provide them with both financial and personal protection so long as you perform your duties as we will outline.”

Nighthound butted into the conversation, “How exactly are we supposed to outperform Spartan? If you haven’t been able to tell, he has an incredibly strong quirk to work with. Some even say he has multiple quirks. We can perform our best, but I would be an egotist if I said that we were guaranteed to beat him in a contest.” Nighthound was a younger Hero, twenty three years old and with no spouse or children. Due to the wealth of his parents and relatively high grades throughout his schooling he was able to graduate and become a Hero a year earlier than others, striking out and essentially working as a freelance Hero that traveled across the country doing year long contracts. During this time he had an encounter with a woman, one that was… less than willing on the part of the victim. This was another case that was swept under the rug by the HPSC, with the woman being killed in a staged mugging before she was able to publicly accuse Nighthound. In order to keep his case under wraps he was forced to move into the city, where he has worked ever since. An easy way to persuade another Hero to cooperate.

“You won’t have to worry about that. The Villains you’re going to fight will be under our employ, and they will be ordered to perform as needed to make you look as good as possible in front of the cameras. We already have a number of connections to publicize the fights as needed.”

Nighthound growled, “I’d rather see who I’m up against first, than take your word for it.”

Robert looked back to his CO again, “Sir?”

HIs CO hesitated for a moment, before relenting and handing him a manila folder. He then handed the folder Nighthound. He flipped the folder open. “Huh? All these Villains are under your employ? I recognize quite a few of these names, some are even ones I put away.”

“We expanded our roster over the past month, and they’ll do as we say. It’s how they keep getting out with reduced sentences, a slap on the wrist and any amount of cash.” Nighthound began to sniff the air, “Is something wrong?”

The Hero with the head of a wolf had a thousand yard stare, “I smell blood.”

“We had an altercation between a few of our members, there’s nothing to worry about,”

“Even though I’ve signed on, I still have some doubts about this,” Coldfront said, “I can see the good in trying to take Spartan out of the public light, but what we’re doing is still effectively treason. We’re plotting to ruin another Hero, working with the agency of another country against our own and participating in organized criminal activity. If word of any of this were to get out, it would do more damage to us than if we were just to speak out against Spartan.”

“You won’t have to worry about that,” his CO said, “Each man under my command is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that nothing about our work leaks to the public. Once it’s done it’ll all be filed away in some far off database in the middle of nowhere where no one will find it. Effectively, your involvement will all be completely buried.” Then, as if something was triggered by his words, the lights in the warehouse suddenly went off.

“What’s going on?!” Robert, his CO and a few other agents in that room pulled out their guns and flashlights. They began to scan the room.

“Power failure, not sure what-” Mid-sentence he and everyone else was thrown up into the air, as the entire warehouse seemed to fall into the ground. After a few seconds it came to a stop and they slammed into the ground, taking a few moments to recover.

His CO pulled out his radio, pushing the button. “Kyle, Jack, report!” After that, there was nothing but dead static. Nobody was picking up. Robert quickly ran over to one of the windows, peering out with his flashlight. “Robert, get the hell back over here!”

All the previous sights of other buildings, alleyways and streets were gone. “Sir, we’ve been moved underground!

“Underground?! We’re out of sight…” He trailed off, “Shit, that must have been how those other sites vanished!” The thought went through his mind, then finally processed. A pang of fear went through his chest as he backed away from the windows and back towards the center of the room. “We won’t be able to contact anyone like this, we need to try and fight off whoever this is.”

“Would you care to explain what’s going on?!” Coldfront shouted.

“You’ll get your explanation once we come out of this alive!” Everyone in the room began to gather in the center, but not everyone made it.

“Alex!” Robert shouted as one of the agents who’d been positioned up on a catwalk were pulled straight through the wall and to the ‘outside’ of the warehouse.

“Forget him, we’re going to be picked off!”

“But what about the guys in the other room?!”

“They’ll just have to stick it out!” Robert, his CO, three agents and the two Heroes gathered in the center of the room. They listened intensely as they heard footsteps travel along the top of the warehouse, moving to the other side. They then heard something rip through the roof and drop down, followed by the sound of the three men in the other room discharging their weapons and screaming before going completely silent. “Shit!”

“Screw this, I’m getting out of here!” Nighthound quickly sprinted out of the center room, charging towards one of the windows to presumably break out and try to escape.

“No, don’t!” An arm ripped through the window, dragging Nighthound through the shattered glass and outside. They only heard a loud crack before his body was tossed back in with his neck snapped, a golden glint briefly being shined upon with their flashlights. “S-Shit, it’s him!”

“Get your act together!” His CO shouted, “We still outnumber him, and-” A weapon discharged, his CO fell to the ground dead. Everyone then scattered, flashlights falling to the floor and shattering. Robert quickly dived through a fence and behind some pipes, hiding from the man that was ripping his comrades apart. He clutched the pistol in his hand, trying to peer through the dark and see if he was next.

“Get away from me!” One of the agents shouted, discharging his gun and illuminating the room for brief flashes at a time. In those brief flashes he could see Spartan charge the man, disemboweling him with his fist. The two other agents on opposite sides of the room then tried to follow up, opening fire. But within a matter of flashes he’d charged across the room, decapitating one and pulpifying the skull of another. He tried to hold his breath, knowing that it was only him, Coldfront and Spartan left in the building.

“Spartan, face me! I’ll show you what a real Hero looks like.” There was a brief pause, he assumed Spartan appeared in front of the man. “Frozen- Ack!” The name of his supermove was cut off as he was grabbed by the throat and had his neck snapped, dropping to the floor with a thump. He was alone in here, with him.

Robert hyperventilated as he heard the thump of armored footsteps coming ever closer to him, “Stay away from me!” He tried to judge where the footsteps were, then he opened fire with his gun. Flashes of light illuminated him as he approached, not even changing his pace in response to the gunfire. Every bullet that connected plinked off of a shield that appeared in front of him, not a scratch of damage even being done. His heart dropped the moment he heard the distinct click of the gun trying to fire while empty, he was done. “Please, it was never personal! We only went after you because it was our orders, we were told it was to defend our country.” There was a moment of silence, as Spartan didn’t immediately respond. It got to him, breaking his nerves. “SAY SOMETHING!”

Two bright headlamps soon turned on, illuminating the room and showing the carnage that had taken place. Spartan stood tall above him. He raised a fist, “This isn’t personal either.”

Robert raised his hands in an attempt to defend himself. “No, wait!”

Aurdel pulled out a rag from one of his hardcases as he walked back to the property, wiping the spatters of blood and bits of flesh off his armor and visor before stuffing the rag away. He then looked out one of the IDs that he’s collected from the warehouse. Robert Haywood, twenty four years old, CIA intelligence analyst. Hmph. A shame to kill someone so young, but he really didn’t have a choice. All of those agencies were gunning for him in one way or another, and he needed to make an example of them. Wiping out their capabilities and agents on the ground would be more than enough to dissuade them. If not… Well, then it would take him more than a few days to remove them as a problem entirely. He put the ID away as he walked up to the gate, scanning his own access card and then walking through.

By now he had completely renovated the mansion that was seized from the Creature Rejection Clan, turning it from a decadent property associated with a group that performed pseudo-satanic rituals on people to one that was associated with a brutally effective Hero that had shown no tolerance for the previous owners and would show no tolerance for any other Villains. Of course that image wasn’t entirely true but it was the one that he wanted portrayed through his presence. Because as cold and calculated as it sounded, the truth was that people wanted a strongman to protect them. He was here to at least provide the idea of that. Because an idea alone was powerful, and he had first hand seen the effects of an idea. He walked up to the double doors, taking notice of the fact that the lights inside the home were off. “Did they…?” He muttered under his breath, running all the possibilities through his head. With one hand hovering over the holstered beretta on his hip he pushed open the door, then flipped on the light switch.

“Surprise!” Out of the darkness appeared Gentle, La Brava and Mirko.

“Oh, good. It’s just you three.” He let out a sigh of relief, moving his hand away from the gun and closing the door behind him. “Wait, what’s this for?” Mirko gestured to ask the question towards Gentle.

“Well, since we had quite some time to ourselves, La Brava and I decided that we wanted to show our appreciation for your taking us in and giving us a chance to become Heroes.”

“Appreciation?” He was caught a little off guard.”

“Indeed, as such, we baked you this cake, some biscuits and prepared you some tea!” Gentle and La Brava quickly produced the aforementioned items, presenting them to him in a rather straightforward manner.

Aurdel was practically dumbfounded by the gesture, and didn’t really know how to respond. There was an awkward moment of silence. “Ha, I knew he would freeze up!” Mirko suddenly laughed.

“Look I’ll be honest with you, I don’t exactly get personal appreciation from people like this that often. So, forgive me if I come off a little shocked.”

“That sounds like a quite sad life,” La Brava said.

“Let’s just say that it’d be the case of a psychiatrist’s wet dream.”

“Do you not accept my appreciation…?” Gentle asked awkwardly.

“N-No, of course I do. I was just a little surprised. Why don’t we take this to the kitchen?” He gestured forward, they began to walk.

“You’re not allergic to anything by any chance, are you?”

“Nothing you’d know of, no.” The four of them walked into the kitchen, then sat down as Gentle and La Brava placed the trays onto the table. “You can all dig in, I can’t actually eat right now.”

“What, are you on a diet now?” Mirko asked.

“No, I just try to keep myself on a schedule for myself. You can take as much as you want though,” a thought ran through his head, “Or not, you have been feeling a little heavier recently. And I don’t think that’s all muscle.”

“Ohoho, you watch yourself,” he had a small smirk under his helmet as she gave him a playful punch on the shoulder for his comment, “You’re not exactly light yourself.

He shrugged, “It’s the armor.”

“You know,” Gentle said while pulling a biscuit off of the tray, “I heard that you two have only been working together for a relatively short time, but you seem quite close.”

“Of course we are, we’re partners,” Mirko said, slicing off a piece of cake and putting it onto a plate, “Besides, it’s fun to stick close and tease him. A lot of buttons to push and I plan to try and find each one of them.”

“I don’t think I could get away from her even if I wanted to, she’d hunt me down.”

“Yeah, I would,” Mirko spoke with food in her mouth.

“In fact my observations seem to actually be quite accepted by the internet, in fact some people actually think there is more going on between you two.”

“Oh?” Mirko raised an eyebrow.

Aurdel rubbed the side of his helmet, “Look, I’m as willing to debate the effect of access to the internet on the public perception of Heroes as anyone else. But I would much rather that the conversation doesn’t actually include myself.”

“Why not? Isn’t it good to see the way the public views a Hero?” Gentle asked, “Certainly since social media is-“

“Social media is a cesspit. Even with all of the good that it can bring, I would say that it does more harm.”

“Would I be right to assume that you don’t have any accounts…?”

“No, I do. I just made them recently since I was banned from social media up until a few days ago.”

“Really? How did you get them to unban you?”

Uh. “...Choice words.”

Gentle laughed, “Perhaps I should ask you to speak to them on behalf of me.”

“You won’t have to worry about that, I actually had them reinstate your most recent account. Though I did have them scrub your videos.”

“That’s great!” La Brava shouted, heaving up a camera, “Gentle, why don’t we-”

He raised a hand, “Let's hold off on recording videos for now. You have to remember that your last public impression was you uploading videos of yourself committing crimes, you should at least wait until I find a way to publicly introduce you.”

“Oh, I suppose that is true,” she lowered the camera.

“Besides, you also need some basic training first.”

“Training?”

“So this is what the inside of UA looks like…” Gentle said with amazement, looking around the inside of the campus.

“You should be honored,” Mirko said, poking him, “He never gave me the personal tour.”

“You can give yourself a personal tour, since you broke onto the campus to wake me up in the middle of the night,” he retorted, all she gave him was a shrug. “Anyways I shouldn’t really be doing this since I’m supposed to run any guests by the other school staff. But, I feel that it’s fine to make an exception in this case.” Eventually, Aurdel led the group over to the urban environment training ground known as Ground Beta.

“So exactly what kind of training is this?”

He began to explain, “Well, I know that you can take on an opponent one on one to some degree in close quarters and mid-ranged combat. Frankly it’s impressive how long you lasted against Midoriya.”

“Ah yes, I remember young Midoriya. Is he one of your students?”

“He is. Now, this exercise is going to use a few of the practice drones that I designed for my students to fight against. Your goal in this exercise will be to rescue a single civilian from a group of Villains, with the completion threshold for the exercise being that all four Villains have been subdued.” He tapped a button on his wristpad, making five of the drones step out into the street with one tied up. The holograms then appeared around them, changing them into forms, appropriate for the exercise. “You can start at any time, they’re programmed to begin responding once you make the first move.”

“In that-“

“One more thing,” he raised a hand, “Please try to not use your quirk to make the drones elastic. They’re meant to be stand-ins for humans, and I would also prefer not to recalibrate the carefully set gyroscopics after every minor encounter.”

“Of course, I will complete this exercise to your specifications.” Aurdel watched as Gentle took a deep breath, then charged forward. The four drones were quick to respond, moving towards him and ready to attack. “Gently Sandwich!” Gentle created a number of elastic layers of air, slamming them into the first drone that had beelined it towards him and driving it into the ground. A second one created holographic hoses from their hands, using hoses built into the actual hands of the robot to spray high pressure bursts of water. “Gently Shield!”

“Gentle, watch out!” La Brava shouted, Gentle turned around.

The third drone had gone for an indirect route, climbing up the side of one of the buildings before leaping at Gentle. He avoided the drone, dodging to the side. “Thank you La Brava! I would not have-” The fourth drone attacked from behind, punching Gentle in the back. “Why you!” Gentle quickly turned back around, dealing a blow to the drone’s face and causing it to stumble a little. He then produced another layer of elastic air, using it to launch the drone back much further into one of the building walls.

“Gentle!” The drone that was sandwiched on the ground grabbed Gentle by his right leg, then began to strike the other with its other arm. Then the drone that Gentle has dodged tackled him towards the ground, beginning to pound against his back. Clearly overwhelmed, Gentle elasticized the ground and launched himself and the drones into the air. While in the air he created several layers of air, using them to repeatedly throw himself and the drones into. This was eventually enough to throw the two harassing drones off of him and back towards the street level. From above he then launched down, striking the one that was firing bursts of water and slamming it hard enough into the pavement to disable the hologram. He then struck one of the two drones that had fallen from above, following up by completely surrounding and trapping it in a box of elastic layers. A third attacked him, Gentle swiftly created a layer in front of himself and caused the fist meant for his face to go straight back into his opponent. He then attacked from the side, launching the robot into a building.

“Worry not, La Brava! For I, Gentle-”

Aurdel cringed a little as the fourth drone chopped Gentle across the back of the neck, causing him to drop to the ground like a bag of bricks. “Oh no, Gentle!” La Brava quickly set down the camera she was holding, running over to Gentle. Aurdel quickly deactivated the drone so she was swatted aside. “Are you alright?”

“I… am alright. Just taken a little aback by the strength of my opponent.” Gentle quickly looked up, “Is the exercise finished?”

“Just this round,” Aurdel said, “Had that drone struck at full force, it would have knocked you unconscious or killed you.”

“Perhaps my skills in combat are not as up to snuff as I thought…” Gentle muttered.

“Though, had you beaten the fourth drone you would have still failed this round.”

“Why is that?”

“Look at the drone that was playing the civilian.”

Gentle looked around, “I’m afraid I don’t see it.”

“Exactly, you launched it when you elasticized the ground. It’s about fifty feet down the road.”

“Oh.” The realization seemed somewhat forlorn, as if remembering a previous failure.

Aurdel offered Gentle a hand, pulling him up from the ground. “No reason to beat yourself up over it too much though. This is a training exercise, and it's better that you make those mistakes here rather than out in the field since here it won’t get anyone else hurt.”

His mood seemed to improve a little with the encouragement, “Of course, I could hardly call myself Gentle if I brought harm to the innocent.”

“That’s the spirit, now get back into your starting position. We have this place for the next two hours and I’d rather we get the most we can out of it. And right now, that means drilling this exercise.” He looked back, “Mirko, anything to add?”

“Doing great,” she gave a thumbs up as she idly scrolled on her phone.

He sighed, “Are you even paying attention to what we’re doing?”

“Sorry, too busy looking at stuff people are saying about us.”

…

“Why?”

“Because it’s funny. Wanna hear one?”

“Not really.”

“Too bad, I’ll read one anyway.” She cleared her throat, “‘When I-’”

He ran over, “Don’t you dare finish reading that!"