BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
Every phone and tablet in the boardroom buzzed at the exact same time.
All fifteen sidekicks in the agency were crammed into the room.
Some stood leaning against the back walls. Others shared chairs. They all pulled out their devices and looked at their screens.
Kaito just sent a massive, encrypted data package to their personal accounts.
"Open the files," Kaito told them, leaning back against the edge of the wooden conference table. "I spent the last two weeks mapping out the physics and biology of every single quirk in this room."
Low murmurs filled the room. The sidekicks scrolled through 3D models of their own bodies.
They pointed at the complex equations glowing on their screens, talking quietly to each other.
"Look at this breakdown."
"He even mapped out my sweat glands."
"This is crazy."
"Wow. I didn't know I could do this."
"Is this even possible for me?!"
"Let's start with the veteran here," Kaito said, looking at the tall sidekick sitting next to Crust. "Phalanx. You make hard-light shields. Why do you always push out a single flat wall?"
Phalanx looked up from his tablet. "Uhmm... It stops the punches. It covers the most area."
"It also shatters under concentrated fire," Kaito pointed out casually. "Try stacking five paper-thin light shields right on top of each other. Leave a microscopic vacuum gap between every single layer."
Phalanx frowned, trying to visualize it.
"If an armor-piercing attacks hits the front layer," Kaito explained, "the vacuum gap strips the momentum away before the bullet even touches the second layer."
Phalanx's eyes went wide. He quickly typed some notes into his device.
"You also need to change the refraction angle of your light from ninety degrees to fifteen degrees," Kaito added. "The photons will fold over themselves. The edge of your shield becomes a razor blade. You can slice through concrete with it."
"...." Phalanx.
"Ricochet," Kaito turned his head to the young woman. "You rubberize falling debris. We are going to expand your control over the entire street."
"Okay.." Ricochet sat up straight, holding her phone tightly.
"You need to rubberize specific patches of the asphalt," Kaito told her. "If a villain steps on your trap, the kinetic rebound rips their footing away. They will bounce straight into the brick walls. You turn the street into a pinball machine."
Ricochet grinned. "I like the sound of that."
"I want you rubberizing light poles and structural beams too," Kaito looked past her, addressing the crowd of sidekicks near the back wall. "I read your files. We have three speed-quirk users and four strength-types in the back. You are going to use Ricochet's rubber traps to slingshot yourselves across the battlefield. You launch in, secure the target, and pull back behind Phalanx's vacuum shields."
The sidekicks standing against the wall looked at each other.
They suddenly realized that Manager Kaito linked all fifteen of their quirks into a massive, synchronized combination.
The room is filled with genuine excitement.
CLAP. CLAP. CLAP.
Crust clapped his thick hands together.
"That is incredible!" Crust cheered loudly. "Me! Me! What do you have for me, Manager?"
Kaito tapped his tablet again.
A large 3D model of Crust's biological stone cells appeared on the main digital whiteboard.
"We are completely altering your cellular structure," Kaito said, walking closer to the screen. "Think about how a satellite dish works, Crust. You always block energy blasts with a flat wall. You need to curve your shields into a parabolic bowl shape. The curve funnels the incoming energy and reflects it straight back at the attacker with double the intensity."
Crust stroked his chin, staring intently at the whiteboard.
"I always just tried to brace against the heat," Crust muttered. "I never thought about bouncing it back."
"Next, we change the density of the stone," Kaito kept going. "Right now, your shields are totally rigid. You are going to train your stone cells to become porous, like a very dense sponge. When a villain punches you, the porous cells compress. You trap all that kinetic energy inside your armor."
Crust leaned forward in his chair. "And then?"
"You aggressively expand your body mass in a fraction of a second," Kaito answered. "All that trapped pressure releases at once. You generate a massive, blinding kinetic shockwave that wipes out the enemy's stance entirely."
"A shockwave..." Crust whispered, his eyes wide.
The sidekicks standing against the back wall started talking over each other.
"Did you hear that?" a young sidekick whispered loudly. "The boss is going to be a walking bomb."
"I actually feel bad for whoever punches him next," another sidekick laughed.
"We also need a way for you to capture targets without destroying the street," Kaito swiped the screen, showing a complex geometric shape. "You will fire a high-speed succession of detached hexagonal plates into the air around a villain. Then, you release a wave of rapid cellular calcification. The floating plates instantly lock together, forming a multi-tiered geometric prison around them."
"I trap them inside a stone box," Crust nodded slowly, visualizing the move.
"It crushes their footing and blocks their escape routes without a single civilian getting hurt," Kaito confirmed. "But what happens if an entire city block is coming down? You can't just catch the debris. You need to create an immovable fortress."
Kaito pointed at the floor.
"You will slam all four limbs into the ground," Kaito explained. "You force millions of micro-hexagonal cells to plunge deep into the tectonic bedrock. You form a massive, semi-spherical dome of interlocked stone over the disaster zone. The entire impact of a catastrophic villain attack gets absorbed and driven straight down into the earth. Everyone inside the dome stays completely untouched."
"Holy crap," Phalanx muttered, looking at Ricochet.
"We are getting completely insulated from damage," Ricochet replied, a huge grin on her face.
"For mobility, you need to stop running on foot," Kaito brought up the fifth diagram. "You will fuse your skin into a thick, layered armored drill shape over your front side. Like an ancient phalanx wall rolled into a wedge. You charge forward at maximum velocity. The razor-sharp leading edges of your hexagon scales slice through falling debris and villain barricades. You act like a human snowplow, scooping up civilians safely."
"What's next??" Crust grabbed the edges of the wooden table. He was practically vibrating with excitement.
"Finally, a network," Kaito pointed at a specific biological diagram showing dozens of small shields connected by thin lines. "You will shatter your outer shell of your quirk into dozens of independent hexagonal slabs. You scatter them across your sidekicks. You link every single floating plate together using invisible biological fiber-tendons connected to your own Quirk factor."
"...."
The room went completely silent.
"For a brief window, every single barrier shares the total structural load of the battlefield," Kaito looked directly at the sidekicks in the back. "If one of you is targeted by a lethal blow, the damage is instantly split across all ten shields in the area. Crust makes the entire team temporarily invincible."
Crust sat in silence for a few seconds. He stared at the biological mapping of his own body on the screen.
He realized Kaito didn't just give him new fighting moves.
The Manager just handed him the blueprint to become an unbreakable hero of defense.
"HAHAHA."
THUD. THUD.
Crust threw his head back and burst into a booming laugh. He slapped the wooden table hard.
"You understand my body better than I do!" Crust yelled, tears forming in his eyes from laughing so hard. "This is absolute genius! We need to test this right now!"
"We start tomorrow at dawn," Kaito corrected him. He looked down the table at the logistics head. "Aoto. Clear out the ground-floor gym."
Aoto pulled out a pen. "Clearing it now. Do we need standard sparring mats?"
"No," Kaito shook his head. "We cannot force these cellular mutations with simple sparring. I already ordered custom industrial equipment. Hydraulic presses, commercial flamethrowers, seismic vibrators, and laser emitters are arriving in the morning. Don't forget these goes to your agency."
"Haha.. No problem. Hear that Aoto?!" Crust laughed.
Aoto blinked, quickly writing down the heavy machinery list.
"I also emailed the new dietary requirements to the agency kitchen staff," Kaito added, checking his phone. "Crust and the rest of the guys needs to consume massive amounts of calcium-silicate supplements and a high-mineral diet starting tonight. His body will burn a massive amount of calories trying to rapidly calcify those detached plates."
"I will make sure the kitchen preps the shakes immediately," Aoto nodded.
The sidekicks in the back were basically jumping out of their shoes, hyped out of their minds.
"We can actually survive a city-level attack now!"
"I'm hitting the track tonight, I need to get my stamina up for those slingshots!"
"I think the boss will be able to tank All Might Detroit Smash and the United States of Smash."
"Hope so, haha.."
Kaito grabbed his dark suit jacket from the back of his chair.
"Get a lot of sleep tonight," Kaito told the room, pulling his coat on. "The physical pain starts tomorrow."
...
Location: Unknown Subterranean Laboratory
BZZZT.
Six identical clones sat at their metal desks in the back of the room. They typed quickly on their keyboards and wiped down large whiteboards, checking their math.
Dr. Garaki stood on a raised metal platform next to a massive, circular machine.
He looked down at a heavy tungsten block locked into a mechanical drop-claw above the machine.
Then, he looked down at the metal floor plate below it.
"I am still wrapping my head around this," Garaki muttered, rubbing his bald head. "Three days ago, I walked in here and tripped over a tungsten block fused into the floor plate."
All For One stepped up to the main console. He rolled his sleeves up.
"And now we send this block back to complete the loop," All For One said calmly. "Lock the coordinates for negative seventy-two hours."
Garaki tapped his digital tablet. "Locked."
VWOOM.
He forced the energy straight into the central coils. The air inside the machine distorted completely.
FLASH.
A blinding white light erupted in the center of the room.
All For One lowered his hand. He leaned against the metal console.
CLICK.
The mechanical claw opened.
The tungsten simply vanished the second it left the claw, thrown exactly three days into the past.
"It worked," Garaki cheered, looking at his tablet. "The timeline accepted the jump!"
Garaki knelt and looked at the original block still fused into the floor plate from three days ago. He stopped cheering.
"But it fused into the steel," Garaki pointed out. "We missed the landing spot."
All For One walked over and looked at the floor.
"The Earth didn't stay still for three days," All For One said. "We were off by two millimeters."
He turned his head and looked at the six clones sitting at the desks.
"Fix the math," All For One told them casually. "Account for the planet's movement properly this time."
The clones immediately grabbed their markers and started rewriting the numbers on the whiteboards.
HIIISS.
Garaki pulled a heavy lever on the wall. Steam vented from the machine's side panels.
"I need an hour to cool the coils down," Garaki said, grabbing a rag from the workbench to wipe his hands.
"Take your time," All For One said, sitting down in a leather chair to rest.
Garaki tossed the rag onto the table.
"Flect Turn checked in with his usual report a few weeks ago," Garaki mentioned.
"Did he?" All For One asked, resting his chin on his hand.
"He passed along a message from Wolfram," Garaki explained. "That mercenary running around America. He managed to steal some quirk amplification blueprints, but he is getting greedy. He asked Flect for a dose of the God Serum. He wants to force a quirk awakening."
All For One considered it quietly.
Building a massive, underground mercenary organization in America was not easy for someguy.
Surviving over there with top heroes like Star and Stripe and Captain Celebrity flying around meant Wolfram was resourceful.
An awakened metal manipulator was a very good piece to have on the board.
"Give it to him," All For One decided.
Garaki looked over. "Just ship it to him?"
"Bring the vial to me first," All For One said casually. "I will imprint an Abyssal Mark on the serum before you send it out."
"Hehe.."Garaki laughed, showing his crooked teeth.
"If he is going to drink my serum to get stronger," All For One leaned back in his chair, "then he officially works for us now."
"I will go prep the vial," Garaki chuckled, walking toward the medical storage room.
...
Time: Next Day
CLANG.
A massive hydraulic press slammed down in the center of the ground-floor gym.
Crust stood directly under it. He held his thick hexagonal shields up, squeezing his eyes shut.
He tried to force the stone cells to become porous for the Kinetic Absorption Battery.
CRACK.
The stone splintered.
"Oh shi-" Crust's knees buckled under the heavy weight. He dropped heavily to the blue mats, gasping for air.
HUFF-PUFF.
HUFF-PUFF.
Kaito stood a few feet away.
"You still tend to locked your joints instead of mutating the cells," Kaito pointed out, watching Crust slowly stand back up. "Take a breath. Loosen your shoulders and try it again."
Across the gym, a heavy pitching machine whirred loudly.
THWACK.
A solid rubber baseball flew straight at Phalanx. He threw his hand up, desperately trying to stack the vacuum layers into his hard-light shield.
The baseball shattered the light construct instantly. It hit Phalanx right in the chest.
COUGH. COUGH.
Phalanx coughed loudly, falling to one knee and grabbing his ribs.
Aoto walked into the gym. He held his usual clipboard and completely ignored the chaos happening around him.
"Mr. Arisaka," Aoto said, walking up to Kaito. "The three new sidekicks just arrived in the lobby. Where do you want them?"
"Put them in Pod Bravo for now," Kaito replied, keeping his eyes on Phalanx. "Have them shadow Ricochet on the afternoon patrol."
...
Time: Day 5
Crust stared into a large plastic blender cup. He took a long sip and gagged loudly.
"This tastes like wet cement," Crust groaned. He slammed the cup down on the breakroom table.
"It is basically wet cement," Kaito replied. He sat across the table, sorting through a stack of physical patrol reports. "Calcium-silicate. You need it. Drink up."
Later that afternoon, the sun beat down on a busy commercial street.
SWIISH.
A purse snatcher sprinted down the sidewalk, looking over his shoulder.
Ricochet jumped out from a narrow alleyway. She slapped her hands against the asphalt, rubberizing a square patch right in front of the running thief.
The villain stepped right onto the trap.
BOING.
Instead of bouncing horizontally into the brick wall, the guy launched straight up into the air. He screamed, flailing his arms wildly.
Phalanx sighed. He jumped off a nearby fire escape and tackled the guy mid-air, bringing them both down safely.
Ten minutes later, they sat in the back of the agency van.
"I completely missed the angle," Ricochet laughed, covering her face with her hands. "He looked like a human rocket."
Phalanx rubbed his bruised shoulder, chuckling. "Just angle the rubber to the left next time."
...
Time: Day 10 of Training Montage
A villain with a shoulder-mounted kinetic cannon fired wildly at the police barricades. Cars swerved out of the way.
Crust landed heavily right in front of the police cruisers. He raised his arms and shifted his stone shields. He curved them inward, forming a wide parabolic bowl.
FWOOOM.
The kinetic energy blast hit the curve. The shield funneled the energy perfectly and reflected it right back.
Crust forgot to angle his arms downward. The reflected blast shot high over the villain's head.
KA-BOOM.
An empty billboard across the street exploded into hundreds of pieces, raining debris down on the empty sidewalk.
Crust winced, slowly lowering his arms.
The villain dropped his cannon and surrendered immediately, absolutely terrified by the explosion.
BZZT.
[Crust,] Kaito's voice came over the earpiece from the dispatch center. [The cellular curve was perfect. The property damage bill for that billboard comes directly out of your agency.]
Crust laughed nervously into his radio. "Haha, I'm not used to it. Don't worry, I'll get the hang of it."
...
Time: Day 20
Location: Shield Agency Gym
A hired support technician aimed an industrial flamethrower at Crust.
FWOOSH.
A massive pillar of bright orange fire engulfed the hero.
Crust gritted his teeth.
He focused entirely on the atomic property of his quirk, forcing his stone cells to rapidly multiply and adapt. He shifted the compound into a pure heat-sink.
HIIISS.
The stone shield turned pitch black. It absorbed the flames completely, pulling the heat away from his body.
TWHIP.
The personnel killed the fire.
HUFF-PUFF.
Crust dropped the shield, panting heavily. The skin on his forearms was bright red, covered in mild blisters from the ambient heat.
Two of the new sidekicks rushed over with tubes of burn gel.
Kaito walked up and handed Crust a cold water bottle.
"It worked," Crust laughed through the pain, squeezing the plastic bottle. "The heat-sink actually works."
"It does," Kaito agreed, checking the burns on Crust's arms. "Take a ten-minute break, then we go again."
...
Time: Day 28
Location: Downtown Construction Site
A villain with destroyed the base of a massive yellow crane.
SCREECH.
The heavy steel arm snapped. It fell straight toward a crowded city bus trapped in traffic. Civilians screamed.
Ricochet slapped her hands against two metal light poles. She stretched a thick band of bouncy rubber between them, testing the tension.
"Go!" Ricochet yelled.
Phalanx threw his back against the rubber band. Ricochet released the tension instantly.
BOOM.
Phalanx launched into the air at extreme speed. He raised his right hand and formed his light shield. He focused entirely on the photon refraction, changing the angle to exactly fifteen degrees.
The edge of the light compressed into a razor-thin blade.
SWIISH.
Phalanx sliced the massive chunk of falling steel right in half mid-air. The two pieces crashed onto the empty street right beside the bus.
He hit the asphalt, rolled twice, and immediately threw up on the curb. His entire body shook from the massive stamina drain of the new technique.
BZZT.
[Dispatch to medical,] Kaito spoke calmly over the radio. [Get an IV drip ready for Phalanx down in the lobby.]
...
Time: Day 36 of Training Montage
The evening wind blew across the roof.
Crust stood near the edge, sweating heavily. He detached five hexagonal plates from his arms.
SWIISH. SWOOSH.
The plates floated in the air around him. He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing biological fiber-tendons to connect them all through his spatial awareness.
"Hit the left one," Crust grunted.
Phalanx walked up holding a heavy steel pipe. He swung hard.
CLANG.
The pipe hit the leftmost plate. The other four floating plates vibrated at the exact same time, sharing the kinetic impact perfectly.
THUD.
He sat down heavily against a metal air conditioning unit, rubbing his temples.
Kaito walked over and crouched next to him. He handed Crust two painkillers and a fresh bottle of water.
Crust threw the pills into his mouth and drank deeply.
"This is the hardest I have ever worked in my entire life, Kaito," Crust said, leaning his head back against the metal unit. He completely dropped the formalities.
Kaito sat down on the roof next to him.
"The Resonance Grid techniques is the most demanding technique," Kaito said. "You are doing well."
...
Time: 1.5.Month (45 Days in Training Montage)
Location: Shield Agency Breakroom
BZZT.
The lights buzzed quietly in the breakroom.
Kaito, Crust, Phalanx, Ricochet, and the rest sat around the table.
They were eating takeout.
All the pro heroes were covered in white athletic tape and fresh bandages. Dark bags hung under their eyes. They looked completely exhausted, but the atmosphere was relaxed.
Aoto dropped a thick stack of papers on the table right next to the soy sauce packets.
"Five new applications," Aoto said, grabbing his wooden chopsticks.
Phalanx ate his burgers loudly. "Are we hiring all of them?"
"We will filter them," Kaito said, pointing his hands of the chicken bucket. "We need more dispatchers to help Aoto first."
Crust wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. He looked across the table at Kaito.
"Forty five days of training was worth it." Crust said casually. "My shields still crack under the press. But I'm getting stronger. Fifty percent stronger than the past."
Kaito took a bite of his food. "You are."
"We still have one full month left on the contract," Crust grinned, picking his chopsticks back up. "I am ready to bleed for the next thirty days to actually master this stuff."
Kaito smiled.
"When will your Golden Bites branch be done in Chiyoda, Kaito?
"We're already building it. It will be opened next month."
"That's a really good news." Crust laughed.
"Boss, we must be aware of high cholesterol and heart attack." some sidekick joked.
"We can just drink medicine and maintenance." another chimed.
"Boss Crust can just use his quirk to shield his heart and kidneys."
"Hahaha!"
The rest of the sidekicks and even Kaito laughed.
"..." Crust.
...
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(9 Advanced Chapters)
...
[Author's Note]
I'll be taking a two-day break from posting. It's my grandpa's 80th birthday (on my dad's side), so I'll be busy with family for a bit and won't have time to write. I'll be back with the next chapter after that. See you guys then.