All For Them Ch. 16 (MHA/Dispatch)

(Every character depicted in the story below is a consenting legal adult over the age of 18)

A/N: First Dispatch Shift!

-x-X-x-

With all eyes turning towards him, Izuku offers up a polite smile. It’s funny… just a couple days ago he was meeting most of these women for the first time as Shroud. He was fairly confident that as Shroud, he’d left quite the impression on each of them after those conversations. Especially someone like Invisigal, who was only able to leave her inhaler behind at her apartment today because of the Quirk he’d given her that helped strengthen her lungs.

Now though… well, he could imagine what they saw when they looked at him. Just some guy in PDN work clothes, standing there and expecting them to listen when he said ‘jump’. He can already see in some of their eyes that it won’t be as easy as all of that. They don’t know him as he is now and they certainly don’t respect him.

It’s tempting to be the hardass here. To be the other side of the coin to Blonde Blazer’s ‘good cop’ routine. But no… he’s not here to be a dick. He’s here to help rehabilitate these former villains… even if half of them are only going to be giving this their all because their new boss Shroud told them to.

With that in mind…

“Well met, all of you. As Blonde Blazer already said, I’m your Dispatcher, Izuku Midoriya. She’s said most of the important stuff, so I’ll just go ahead and back her up. The people out there… they think that this project is doomed to fail from the start.”

There’s a brief pause as those words hang in the air, the beginnings of scowls forming on a few faces. Izuku continues on before anyone can respond.

“I don’t. Same as Blazer. Same as Ms. Hatsume. All of us are here for the same reasons you are… to make this thing work and to show what the Phoenix Program can do.”

Silence reigns for a moment before Invisigal crosses her arms over her chest.

“And how do we know you aren’t going to drag us down, huh? You’re just some guy… maybe we’d do better having Blazer direct us.”

Izuku arches a brow, even as Blonde Blazer immediately waves her hands.

“That’s not how we do things here, Invisigal. Midoriya is a member of the team, same as me, same as all of you!”

Invisigal shrugs in response.

“Just saying… he looks like the weakest link of the team, at least from where I’m standing.”

Blazer bites her lower lip, shooting him a glance. No doubt this feels a little bit out of left field for her… but Izuku sees exactly what Courtney is doing. She’s hedging her bets, setting herself and the others up for failure… and giving them all the perfect scapegoat at the same time. By questioning him now, she leaves an opening to blame any failure on him later.

After all, as far as she’s concerned, she’s right. He’s just ‘some guy’. Hm… in the end, Izuku just smiles and doesn’t rise to the provocation. Shaking his head, he chuckles.

“All I ask is that you give me a chance. The same as Blonde Blazer and PDN are giving all of you.”

That seems to land, even with the likes of Invisigal. Some of them even shift from foot to foot, clearly a little uncomfortable. Izuku though, simply looks over to Blazer, who proceeds to clap her hands together.

“Right! That was a good peptalk I’d say… so let’s go ahead and break, why don’t we? You all can take a moment to get some water or what have you while I get Mister Midoriya here set up at his desk. I’ll be back around to give you all your communicators after that, and then we’ll start dispatching the team all over the city from there. Shouldn’t be longer than half an hour before we can begin our first shift!”

Blonde Blazer’s attempt at exuberance is not exactly as infectious as she might hope it is. Malevola at least lets out a ‘woohoo’ and fist pumps… but that’s it. Everyone else just sort of stares for a moment until Mandy finally leads Izuku away into the back of the building, causing the rest of them to start to break apart as well.

After a moment, he and the blonde heroine are alone as she leads him to his desk in the back of the bullpen. One day this building might have more people in it, but for now it was just him and Mei and the members of the Phoenix Program.

“I’m sorry about Invisigal… I’ll have a talk with her later, I promise.”

Blazer’s fretting is understandable. While Izuku had recruited Courtney himself as Shroud, Invisigal had technically been Blonde Blazer’s one suggestion… a request really, even if she’d tried not to frame it too much as such. Ultimately, she probably felt terrible over how Courtney had just tried to throw him under the bus.

“It’s alright, you don’t need to do that. She’s just testing boundaries. Let’s at least see how she and the others perform before we start worrying overly much about having any one-on-one talks, alright?”

Blonde Blazer blinks and slowly nods. Izuku, meanwhile, very deliberately doesn’t look to where he knows Invisigal is currently hiding and spying on them.

He didn’t even need All For One’s numerous sense-enhancing Quirks to know that the invisible woman was going to follow them back here like the sneaky bitch she was, to be fair. Even if she wasn’t under orders from Shroud to spy and report back on everything she saw in the Phoenix Program, Izuku was confident that Invisigal would have still done it. She was nosy like that, a side effect of having a Quirk that allowed her to be as nosy as she wanted.

Regardless, he just smiles at Blazer, wondering if she was going to say anything more… incriminating. Out of everyone on the team, Courtney was likely to figure out that he was the one who was really in charge here the soonest, especially if she kept sneaking around like this. But so far, Mandy hasn’t said anything that would point in that direction yet.

“Well… alright, if you say so. Here’s your station. You remember what to do, right?”

Izuku sits down in his cubicle with a hum and a nod, turning on the computer in front of him with a press of the button and putting on his headset. He’s practiced with the whole system several times now, but truth be told he had it down pat after the first ‘tutorial’. It’s quite intuitive, really.

“Yep, all set here. Feel free to go give the others their communicators. Once they’re all connected to the system, I’ll open us up to calls.”

“Right… okay then.”

It looks for a second like she wants to stick around, potentially to ask him for advice or something else… but in the end, Blazer thinks better of it and gives him one final nod before walking away. Izuku doesn’t bother watching her go, instead focusing on getting things ready on the monitor in front of him.

At the same time, he’s still very aware of Invisigal off to his left, using her new and improved lung capacity to really hold her breath for longer than she ever could have before. Of course, her invisibility means nothing to Izuku, who knows precisely where she is. For a moment, he is tempted to call her out and let her know that he knows… but nah, he’d keep that in his back pocket for later.

In the end, she sneaks away after another half a minute, no doubt realizing that Blonde Blazer would be looking for her soon enough in order to give her a communicator the same as everyone else. Indeed, over the next few minutes Izuku watches as each member of the Phoenix Program comes ‘online’ and checks in, starting with Blazer and then continuing on down the line.

Everyone except for Mei is soon connected and ready for duty, and so once Izuku sees all of them lit up on his monitor, he goes ahead and opens them up to calls. At which point, it’s simply a matter of waiting for the first to come in.

… And waiting. And waiting…

“Soooo… anyone see any good movies, recently?”

“Nah, but like… what’s your deal anyways? The whole demon thing is kind of crazy cool, don’t get me wrong, just curious what the story behind that is.”

“Oh well, I mean… the story is pretty simple. I’m half-demon. So, ya know… it is what it is.”

“… Seriously? That’s what you’re going with? You’re proof that Hell is real?”

“Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, I don’t think it’s really as bad as everyone makes it out to be, but it’s definitely real.”

“… You’re absolutely bonkers.”

Fortunately, before the conversation can go any further or Malevola can take offense to being labeled ‘crazy’ by her teammates, Izuku gets his first call. Unfortunately, it’s not much of a call… it’s quite literally a cat stuck up a tree. Admittedly, a fifty foot tall tree, so…

“Blazer, you’re up. Cat in a tree, here are the coordinates.”

“Right! On it!”

There’s a pregnant pause as Izuku watches Blonde Blazer’s marker leave the building and head towards the reported ‘emergency’ at a swift pace thanks to her ability to fly. And then, of course, everyone has something to say all at once.

“A cat stuck in a tree? Seriously?!”

“Why’d you send Blonde Blazer, seems like a waste of her time.”

“Yeah, I mean any of us could have handled that…”

Izuku rolls his eyes, not at all surprised to be receiving criticism from the peanut gallery. As soon as they quiet down, he gives a level and measured response.

“The tree was fifty feet tall. Blazer is the only one of you who has a license to fly at this point. Anyone else who has the power to fly or might want Ms. Hatsume to make you something that gives you the capacity of flight so you can take on similar missions, should talk to her and I about getting you set up with a license to fly as well.”

Another silence follows his pronouncement, but this one is definitely contemplative. He has their interest, Izuku can tell. After all, with Mei making her ‘babies’ for them, the sky really is the limit as far as all of them are concerned. Especially someone like Uravity, who could definitely turn her Quirk into proper flight with the right pieces of Support Equipment from Mei.

Regardless, before anyone can weigh in on his response, more calls start to come in. The next is an actual fire and he immediately dispatches Lady Frost to deal with it. The icy woman doesn’t comment on the assignment, but she does depart to deal with it without complaint.

This is followed by a robbery that Izuku sends Malevola and Invisigal to tag team and a bar brawl that he has Prism and Uravity team up for. At which point Blazer has returned from her first mission successful and after a short break is ready for her next assignment as well.

Things go rather smoothly as the shift continues on, however… Izuku realizes he’s not exactly finding a place for La Brava to slot herself in. The half-pint isn’t much of a combatant to say the least, nor is she very mobile. Her Quirk is also extremely situational and limited to once per day.

That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have applicable skills, however. And when something finally does come up, Izuku sees an opportunity to utilize her.

“La Brava.”

She’s been quiet all this time, but when she finally hears her name, she quickly speaks up.

“A-Ah… yes?”

“Can you join me in the bullpen please? I have need of your computer skills at the moment.”

“Alright… I’ll be right there.”

To her credit, she appears in moments, looking a little confused but also intrigued. Izuku points to the desk next to his, where he’s already turned on the computer.

“Here, have a seat. Some of the others are currently in a situation where we need eyes on them, but the cameras are too secure. Get me in please.”

La Brava blinks, settling into her chair and resting her hands on the keyboard as she tilts her head to the side.

“Ah… but isn’t that illegal?”

Izuku shakes his head.

“It's an emergency situation… I’m sure they’ll be happier that we saved their merchandise, rather than upset about how we did it. Besides, at the end of the day… it was my call, right?”

Slowly, La Brava nods and leans forward. Then, like a switch being flicked, she’s suddenly in the zone. Izuku smiles as she quickly hacks into the building’s cameras, giving him eyes on the ground and allowing him to more closely direct the members of the team that are currently onsite.

Admittedly, it was something he could have done himself. Over a decade of hunting All For One had left Izuku with a certain set of… skills as well. Some of which weren’t exactly considered respectable. However, he’s not sure he could have done the job as quickly as La Brava did, and he certainly couldn’t have done it as swiftly as her while maintaining the same level of readiness for the rest of the team.

All in all, thanks to La Brava’s help, they’re able to accomplish a number of missions over the course of the shift that wouldn’t have otherwise been possible, until finally it’s half past twelve and Izuku sits back in his chair, Phoenix Program’s first shift together coming to a close.

“… That’s all for now everyone. Well done. Feel free to break for lunch or return to base to eat here. We’ll resume in about an hour from now.”

There’s some shouts of joy over the call at that, mostly from the likes of Malevola who happily announces that she’s starving at this point. Meanwhile, Izuku pulls his headset off and looks over to La Brava, giving her a broad smile.

“Hey… you did good, just so you know. Wouldn’t have gone half as smooth without your help.”

She blinks those big eyes of hers at him before flushing a bit and looking off to the side.

“… Thanks.”

A bit less than he was hoping for, but Izuku wasn’t going to push. Baby steps and all that…

-x-X-x-

A/N: Hm, just gonna throw this question out there: What do you guys want to see the most in this fic? Who are you most excited about, what parts of the story’s central conceit is most interesting to you?

Remember to Vote, leave a Like, and let me know what you think!

-x-X-x-

Google Doc Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Xrxw3ch07SMUzoYUFqN_BrpqHhd2x9nUmdUmQkXpzsA/edit?tab=t.0