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CHAPTER START---
"Final sweep complete sir, we're heading back up now," a police officer says.
The man appeared to be in his mid forties, just like his partner who was standing beside him.
His partner was looking around this underground submarine bay of the Black Market Hideouts with a bored expression.
Both men were armed and armored in specialized assault gear for this raid, yet the police didn't have to fire a single bullet.
All around them were cracks and deformed sections of ground and walls, with the occasional odd strip of tape draped about. All signs of Team Horizon clearing out the gunmen that were bunkered down in this area.
Bloodstains included...
"I don't see why we even have to sweep," the other man says as they begin walking back to the surface. "Horizon double checked the base, its not like we'll find anything he missed anyway."
"That's not the point," the first man says. "Its protocol, he isn't a Fully Licensed Pro Hero yet, so we have to double check his work instead of just taking his word for it."
"He's already better than the pro heroes, might as well just give him a license already."
"A break out own regulations just to make an exception for one person?" his partner questions the idea. "And how many more concessions will we make just because people are 'special' in the future? Its better for our society if nobody gets special treatment."
"You're just saying that because you're jealous," the other man teases as they continue walking up the corridors to the surface. "If you had a Quirk like his you'd want special treatment too, I'm sure he does."
"If I had his Quirk I probably wouldn't be a Hero," the man quietly admits, surprising his partner. "I can barely deal with taking stupid orders now, and my Quirk sucks. Imagine if I had the power to do whatever I wanted and literally nobody could stop me, recipe for disaster."
"Star and Stripe could stop you," he argues.
"Yeah but she's in America, this is Japan."
"Fair enough."
"But my point is, it takes a lot of will and a very strong sense of good and justice to sit around taking orders from people you're a million times stronger than. His parents must have been damn good heroes to raise him like that."
The other man chuckles, "yeah, my daughter is just a year older than him and I have trouble keeping her away from beer and boys, imagine having to discipline a kid that can level a city by swinging a sword or warp you away whenever he wants."
"We got lucky. He had good parents and was born with a good heart."
"Yeah, real lucky," the other man mutters as they arrive back at the surface, seeing the destroyed entryway where the fight began.
Walking out they're once again united with all the police officers packing up the captured criminals into special boats.
And glancing off to the side they see Team Horizon speaking to their captain, away from all the rubble and destruction.
With Horizon holding a small metal case in his hand.
"Looks like an argument," the man mutters to his partner as they begin approaching.
"I hope not," the other man says. "His team were joking around on the way here, but they're kind of scary when they fight."
"Yeah, we didn't even need to fire a single bullet, kids these days are getting ridiculous..."
"Lieutenants," the captain turns to them. "Did you see anything else on the way up?"
"All clear sir, nothing but rubble from the fighting, everything else is right here and the control room is still secured," the man gestures to the dozens of crates being loaded into the shipping containers.
"All aside from that," the captain looks down at the case Horizon was carrying, then glances over to Team Horizon who were nearby chatting amongst themselves.
"This one comes with me, if you've got a problem, take it up with President Pantu," Horizon says.
The captain immediately backs off, "alright, just making sure. We're about ready to head out. We did manage to intercept and stop all their attempts at communication, but just incase I'd rather you hover around nearby rather than leaving us and flying off to Tokyo."
"Believe me, I'm not leaving until I see all of this stuff locked up and secured, when we get back to shore I'll warp into into the facility we have ready nearby, can't have any eyes on the location after all."
"I see," the captain says, realizing Horizon and/or Pantu believe their are spies in the police force.
Which also explains why they weren't given any details about this raid.
The man just rubs the back of his head and shrugs, "well, dealing with problems like that is above my paygrade anyway, I'll just give the Commission a call to make sure everything get where it needs to go later."
"I appreciate you not making this more annoying than it has to be," Horizon extends his hand which the man shakes, "it was a pleasure working with you and your men, sir."
The man chuckles, "well we got to sit back and just put the cuffs on after the fact, so the pleasure was really all ours."
---3 Hours Later...
Horizon is on the couch in Pantu's office with his feet up on the coffee table, leaning back while playing a game on his phone.
The metal case he brought with him was resting on the table as well.
A few more moments pass before he takes his feet off the table and look toward the door, putting his phone away.
"Sorry to keep you waiting," President Pantu says as she enters the room.
And Horizon stands as President Pantu and her guest, the ambassador of Germany, enters behinds her.
A woman in her mid thirties with dark black hair and pale white skin, almost looking as if she were a black and white painting, with gorgeous features and all.
'Must be some Quirk,' Horizon thinks.
"Its a pleasure to meet you, Horizon," the woman says as she shakes his hand, and looking up at him she can't help but say, "you're much taller than I expected."
She stood at 5fft2 -157cm- while he was now 6ft4-195cm-, leaving a noticeable gap between them.
"I get that a lot," Horizon says. "And its a pleasure to meet you as well, now, can we get to why we're all here."
"Yes, lets take a seat and discuss what happened tonight," Pantu says, gesturing to the seats around the coffee table.
"Is this really it?" the ambassador asks, gesturing to the case.
"Only you can confirm that, since I don't have the code," Horizon says.
"Right," the woman takes the case and enters the 20 digit code, and it immediately pops open.
It releases its air tight seal with a hiss as a cold draft is let out. She then fully opens it for them to see the computer chip carefully held inside.
She places the entire thing on the table and carefully looks at it before closing the case, sealing it once again in a cold vacuum.
"Now I have one less worry in the world," she says. "Thank you, truly, for returning this to us."
"No problem," Horizon says. "But now can you please explain what that thing is? Must be very important if you're here in person for it. Not to mention President Pantu wouldn't let me warp it to the secret storage facility with everything else we seized tonight."
"Its a computer chip," Pantu says. "Germany is working on more accessible Quantum Supercomputer, like the one Nezu has."
"It won't be as powerful as his," the ambassador says. "But this will allow all the medical research facilities in Europe to put more of their funds into research and development rather than buying time slots on expensive corporate owned computers for simulations."
"And let you steal all the data," Horizon says.
"We'd do no such thing," she says, and Pantu detects no lies.
"Really?"
"This is a purely humanitarian project, overseen by the United Nations Medical Council directly. And while I understand your skepticism, you of all people can surely understand giving to others and expecting no reward. That is what your Miracle Ward is all about is it not?"
"Fair enough," Horizon says. "But why was it in Japan, in a Black Market facility about to be shipped out."
"There were a string of break-ins at government facilities all across Europe this past year," she says, surprising both Horizon and Pantu. "The public hasn't been made aware, but someone has been collecting technology all across the world for a while now, and they're getting more and more bold."
"I-Island," Pantu says.
The woman nods, "we believe they were behind that as well, but luckily this was already sent to Germany before that tragedy took place."
"Then we'll put all our facilities on alert, just incase," Pantu says. "Thank you for visiting, and do keep me informed if any such incidents happen in the future."
"Thank you for so generously helping us, and of course for keeping this off the record," the woman nods as she stands up, ready to leave.
"It was a pleasure meeting you," Horizon says, causing her to turn to him.
"Likewise, now before I go," she reaches into her jacket and takes out a small envelope and hands it to Pantu. "A list of criminal organizations that we suspect are sending operatives from Europe into Japan to recruit known villains. Now that Horizon is scaring people away they're swarming like vultures."
Pantu takes it, "and you want us to work together and trap them, alright, I'll look into it."
"And for you," she turns to Horizon. "As a special thanks, from my people to you," she gives him a similar envelope.
"Always happy to help..."
As the woman leaves Pantu walks over to her office trashcan and tosses the envelope inside, then casually walks back to her seat, all while maintaining the icy façade.
"So I'm guessing you don't plan to help her..."
"Obviously not. If our villains want to go to other countries, and their villains want to recruit them, that's a positive for us."
"Until it gives Japan the reputation of breeding villains and infecting the world with them."
"No, we have Horizon," Pantu says. "We can't be blamed for our Pro Heroes being so great that villains simply run away. The public will turn on their own governments, blaming them for not being able to stop villains, after all, why would villains go to places that make their lives harder..."
"Ahh," Horizon quickly understands. "That'll lead to more militarization and governments being tougher on Pro heroes, so the same thing I did for Japan...I'm slowly doing to the rest of the world. I guess I'm more influential than I thought."
"All while Japan is peaceful and happy," Pantu says as she raises a finger to her earpiece.
Horizon opens his envelope and reads the letter within, then looks back up as Pantu is done with the call.
"All the raid teams are accounted for, and the seized items are all being sent to local armories and military facilities."
"All but mine, because of course the special items I seized can't be put on the books," Horizon says.
"That's why you had to be the one to go to that base, you're one of the few people I know can handle themselves if they turned those weapons on you. But you assigned yourself that because it would give you the most credit as its the most dangerous, correct?"
"Mostly for my team," Horizon says. "You could have just let me blow it all up with the island, they had enough C4 there to sink the whole thing."
"The controlled destruction of everything we seized tonight will be done after everything is accounted for, don't you want to have a big shiny number attached to your first major operation as leader?"
"Well, when you put it like that, yeah that makes sense," Horizon chuckles. "Tomorrow night this should be all over the news, but as for this night that's already over, I still have work to do."
As he gets up and puts the letter and envelope away Pantu looks up at him, "what was her offer?"
"All the money in the world," Horizon says. "Or as much of it as they could manage, but no amount is enough to break our deal, so you don't have to worry about that."
She detecting no lies.
"Horizon," she says before he warps away, making him stop for a moment. Standing up and looking at his visor, she decides to be direct with him. "I don't doubt that you will be our greatest hero, and that you will easily graduate UA.
But we both know that when I release them to you, when your family is whole again. I will make you another offer, to stay in Japan as our #1 Pro Hero."
"Anyone in your position would, but why are you telling me this obvious play now?"
"Because we both appreciate people being direct, so I'm simply going to ask you," Pantu says. "What will it take?"
Horizon looks at her and sighs, "you know. I don't have any hard feeling for what happened to me, to us, to get here...well, maybe a little bit for Hawks. But I accept what happened as a risk of the life we chose to live, it is what it is. But I have no idea what it would take to get me to stay here, instead of going somewhere else and starting over..."
With that Horizon warps away, and once more Pantu detects no lies in his words...
END CHAPTER---