MHA: Dragon's Pride

"God, I need a nap."

It is with these universally understood words that the new head of the HPSC, Yokumiru Mera, starts the mandatory assembly of the top fifty heroes. By his side are Hawks, who has a lazy smile on his face, and the recently released Lady Nagant, who has grudgingly agreed to return to hero work after seeing first hand how the organization has been being cleansed of all the previous corruption.

Being allowed to view said corruption suffer the nearly outlawed death penalty certainly scored more than a few points with the woman and was a major influence on her decision.

A few of the heroes assembled can't help but whisper at the sight of her, mainly those who have not actually looked into why the HPSC has been undergoing a restructuring. Those who have, give her nods of respect, which she returns stoically.

Mera gives a large yawn, half covering it with his hand as a tear beads at the corner of his eye. After blinking his vision clear, he sighs before speaking into the microphone. "Ok, I've already done at least ten of these, so I'll just skip to the important parts. All Might, you're getting your license partially suspended for two years."

The out of nowhere declaration immediately causes a stunned silence to engulf the room, not even the smallest sound able to be heard. This lasts for a full ten minutes. Ten minutes in which Mera lets himself doze with his eyes open. It's not really sleep -which he desperately needs- but it's better than nothing. Bonus points, he's not immediately jerked awake by the sudden explosion of fifty heroes all screaming simultaneously!

He sighs under his breath, unable to understand a single thing in the jumble of noise the heroes are making. Not that he has to, given that he is fully aware of what he just said. It's obvious what everyone is complaining about. He was also fully aware that this is what would happen. Which is why he has the two HPSC trained operatives -because the Legacy Program did not train them to be heroes- next to him as bodyguards.

He gives Lady Nagant a pleading look, to which she rolls her eyes. She does still acquiesce though, allowing her arm to fold back and her gun to pop out. The sight silences most of those assembled, while the remainder are now panicking at the sight of a large gun pointing at them. Hawks snorts at those people before flashing them a smirk.

"Relax, it's not like it's loaded~."

His words do absolutely nothing to calm them down. All Might raising his hand in a calming gesture does. "THE EVIDENCE GATHERED FOR LADY NAGANT'S RELEASE ATTESTS TO HER STRENGTH OF CHARACTER. I HAVE FULL FAITH THAT SHE WOULD NOT FIRE UPON HER FELLOW HEROES." Normally he would say 'raise her gun', but, well. That's literally what she's doing at the moment. But with the crowd quiet now she's quick to put it away.

Mera nods his thanks to the man. "Thank you, All Might. Your license is still suspended though." The number one hero frowns.

"WHY WOULD MY LICENSE BE SUSPENDED? I AM AFRAID THAT I'M UNSURE WHAT COULD HAVE PROMPTED THIS."

Mera sighs. "And that is part of the problem." He addresses the rest of the assembled heroes. "Can anyone tell me why they think this is happening? Unless you pay zero attention to social media, you should know."

A snort echoes through the room. "Guess Endeavor is out of the running." The number two hero glares around the room in an effort to identify the speaker, but they blend into the crowd, easily escaping his seething glare. He lets out a grunt of annoyance before turning his attention back to this potential opportunity to finally gain the number one spot.

Best Jeanist is the one to raise his hand, patiently waiting for Mera to point him out and only then answering. "I believe it has to do with the email we were all sent many months ago regarding not challenging a certain individual. Followed by All Might not only challenging them, but escalating the situation, fighting them, and then being -as my most recent sidekicks say- 'yeet'?"

Mera nods, ignoring Hawks' quiet chuckles. "That's correct, though him literally being thrown out of the city is much less of a factor than you'd think."

All Might blinks, utterly confused. At least until Mera mentions the only instance of him having been thrown out of a city. "WAIT, YOU MEAN THE CHILD?"

Mera lets out another long suffering sigh, pressing a button on the podium he stands at and causing an image of said 'child' -a girl who's clearly in her teenage years' to appear on the wall behind him, dressed in an oversized pink hoodie with the word 'Hoodie' printed on it going down to her knees. "Yes, the child. This child. If you bothered to look at your email, you would have found a document informing you to leave her alone. Honestly, the only reason you haven't been arrested is because you're too much of a symbol to society."

The Symbol of Peace opens and closes his mouth a few times as he tries to get some words out at the blase disregard of his years of effort dedicated to saving people. Many of the other heroes are surprised as well. Really, the only ones not surprised are Hawks and Lady Nagant, given they're privy to more of the details than others. Not all of them, obviously, but more.

"Hold on! Don't you think that's more than a bit of an overreaction!?" Fat Gum is the first one to find his voice, showing his own incredulity at the proclamation. This time it's not Mera who answers him, but Hawks.

The red winged hero looks at the Magic Hero: Majestic. "You remember when we were flying together and saw that girl flying with a safe in her arms?"

The lanky man nods slowly with a frown on his face. "I do… I believe you also told me a rather unbelievable story to stop me from asking about her flying permit."

"Yeeep." Hawks says, popping the p. "Wasn't a story. It's a fact. I should know, I was there. Nearly became my favorite food."

There are a few chuckles from those who don't know what he's talking about, though the Water Hose heroes shiver at the memory, knowing full well what he's referring to. They're just happy that Izumi never found out that they were the ones who dropped that water on her, or else they're sure they would have died.

Mera pushes another button and the image behind him changes, instead showing an overhead view of a desolate landscape coated in ash surrounding a large pit in the ground bubbling with lava. Though the coloring is… strange. "You are all aware of the sudden emergence of Musutafu's latest geological feature?"

Seeing a number of nods mixed with a number of head shakes, he sighs wearily. "On a random day last year, there was a sudden explosion of green flames outside the city of Musutafu. An investigative force was assembled and dispatched, where they discovered a pool of lava and the surrounding area nothing but ash. Does this sound right to you?"

The yes nods outweigh the nos this time. "Congratulations, that is about thirty to forty percent a fabrication to obscure the truth." Shocked silence yet again passes over the heroes, though this time the HPSC head doesn't let it linger, forging on ahead with his explanation. "This is an artificially constructed area created by the girl you are all to avoid. In fact, she did it in the two hours it took for the flames to first be reported and the time it took to dispatch a team to try and quell the fire. Would you all like to know why she did this?"

The collection of heroes nod their heads, curiosity eating away at them for what larger plan could be at play for the area. Many of them believe it to be quirk related, perhaps allowing her to gain an increase in power from being in the area. Perhaps she is a villain and trying to show her dominance over the heroes by making a grand show of power. Though if that was the case, they would question why they hadn't heard of any demands she made.

None of them are prepared for the answer Hawks gives them.

"She made it on a whim, because she wanted to know if she could." He watches their reactions, smirking at the ones who clearly don't believe him, like Endeavor. "Yes, this is a fact. No, she did not have any sort of larger goal when she made it. According to her, she was simply flying, got curious, then tried to make lava. Nothing more, nothing less."

They process that for a few minutes before Endeavor gives voice to a question. "You say she told you this? What makes you believe she wasn't lying?"

The winged hero can't help the disbelieving snort of laughter that bursts out. "Yeah, no. There's no chance in hell she was lying." He raises a finger to forestall the immediate objections he can see on their lips. "Not because I think she's incapable of lying, but purely because she believes lying is beneath her. She was genuinely offended when I brought that possibility up. No, there's absolutely no chance that she was lying. And I know for a fact that she never bothered to return to the site."

Endeavor frowns, a low growl in his throat at his conjecture being completely shot down. All Might takes the opportunity to ask his own burning question. "WHAT OF THE DAMAGE DONE TO THE AREA? OR POSSIBLE CASUALTIES? DID SHE CONSIDER WHAT DOING SUCH A THING COULD DO?"

"Nope~." Seeing All Might's eyebrow twitch, Hawks expands upon his answer. "Like I said, she did it on a whim. For example; imagine you go to the store to grab something for dinner. Then, when you're heading to the checkout line, you notice a dessert you love. You didn't plan to get that dessert, but on a whim you grab it anyway. That's the level of thought she put into her action."

All Might frowns deeply. "IT SOUNDS INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS TO HAVE SOMEONE SO POWERFUL YET IMPULSIVE WALKING AROUND WITHOUT SUPERVISION."

Hawks shrugs, glancing at Mera to take the reins since he himself isn't aware of her circumstances. Neither is Mera, but there's no way he'd admit that. "She is under the supervision of DAB, and before I started this meeting they informed me that she won't be causing any trouble for at least a few years. Something about her needing to deal with an 'important matter'. Whatever that means." He puts up air quotes to show that he himself has no idea what she's doing, but he's honestly just glad that she won't be causing trouble for the foreseeable future. Hopefully by the time she's active again he can foist his position off on someone else.

Obviously none of the heroes present are willing to accept such an easy and mysterious answer, causing Mera to desperately wish he could have slept instead of dealing with them. "Look, it doesn't matter what you think, or what you want. The fact of the matter is that she's stronger than all of you, is a child, and isn't to be bothered. Honestly, you all should be happy that you have this time of peace. Use it to get stronger and become better heroes."

He pauses as he remembers another reason he called the meeting. "Oh yeah. Also, we're going to be conducting investigations into every hero to look for abuses of power, shady dealings, stuff like that. With how corrupt the upper brass of the HPSC was, there's concern that it leaked down into how heroes act. It would have been done earlier, but there were arguments for allowing everyone the opportunity for a lessened punishment if they come forward themselves. So if any of you have done something, say something."

He stops talking and furrows his eyebrows as he tries to think of anything else he might be missing. Failing to find anything, he ends the meeting and takes his leave, determined to get at least eight hours of sleep. He doubts it will happen, but it's nice to have dreams.

Speaking of dreams…

"Stronger than All Might…"

One hero in particular is making plans to take advantage of the opportunity given to him on a silver platter, determined to finally obtain his own dream.