Operation A.R.C.T.I.C

Operation A.R.C.T.I.C (Alternate Realities Cause Terror In Continents) is the Super Hero Agency's tenth Mission, following directly after Operation: Omegaverse. It started on August 30th, 2016 and ended in March 7th, 2017.
==Pre-Mission Briefing==
After the death of the Flaming Heroes (see Operation: Omegaverse), one of Earth's elite superhuman teams, at the hands of a single Freezer, the world is in disarray. Superheroes are becoming more and more scared of going out to stop criminals, which has led to a worldwide crime wave, mostly consisting of superhuman crimes.
Seeing this, the World Government Council (WGC, previously seen in Operation F.L.A.W) has established the Superhuman Elimination Act, or S.E.A., to illegalize superpowers, authorize lethal force on those who use them and grant the authorities special equipment built on Cyberbat's and his father's blueprints based on Cybertronian armor and weaponry taken from a raid in the Batcave.
The S.E.A. is soon approved worldwide and becomes a partial success: while many former heroes and villains retire and lead normal lives (some in the cities, some in prison), many other metahumans decide that the S.E.A. is a hidden form of oppression and decide to rebel against it, forming the Heroic Advance against Legal Oppression (HALO). This unleashes the Superhuman World War (SWW), which happens at the same time as Operation: Omegaverse. The SWW goes on until a dimensional rift opens in the middle of nowhere, revealing an evil version of the SHA, the Super Villain Organization (SVO, do not confuse with Super Villain Agency).
The SWW is now a three-side war between the WGC, the HALO and the SVO. It stays like that until the SHA returns from Operation: Omegaverse, at which point the SWW becomes a free-for-all war between the SHA, the SVO, the WGC and the HALO, for various reasons. The WGC sees that they must all be eliminated due to their breaking the S.E.A.; the SVO wants to conquer the world, and sees that it must destroy the competition; the HALO not only believes the WGC is oppressing them, but also sees the SVO as villains to erradicate in order to become public heroes and the SHA as the responsible of the war; meanwhile, the SHA is fighting to have the S.E.A. abolished, return the SVO to their world and stop HALO's rebellion, therefore hopefully restoring everything to how it was.
Will the SHA manage to survive the Superhuman World War, or is this the end of the line for them?
==Mission Briefing==
For the full, detailed Mission, see Operation A.R.C.T.I.C.
NOTE: Due to the great length of the Mission, only the important parts of the Mission will be mentioned here.
Four days after returning, all the heroes except Darkwave and Iron Sentinel go to rest. Cyberbat is ambushed at the Stripes Manor by "Cyberowl", his counterpart from another universe. Meanwhile, the Flaming Heroes of Earth-83780, accompanied by the ghost of the SHA's Fire Spider, track Darkwave and Iron Sentinel, who are attacked by the police and (willingly) seal themselves in the Extreme Tower. Cyberbat is rescued by the SHA and Flaming Heroes of Earth-83780 and they go over to Extreme Tower to stop the raid.
Iron Sentinel discovers his old self's remains. As he does this, a black substance covers his face; this black substance materializes his old self inside his consciousness. Iron Sentinel's old self decides to go by the name of the Lonely One. Eventually, the SHA discover the HALO's base location and send Fire Spider (Earth-83780) and Iron Sentinel to go there and subdue their leader. Fire Spider's ghost eventually reveals himself to Iron Sentinel. The two heroes and the ghost make their way to the HALO base and take out one of the guards as Fire Spider's ghost possesses it. However, for some reason, Fire Spider can't leave the unconscious guard's mind, and Fire Spider (Earth-83780) plants a Ghost Bomb there without Iron Sentinel's knowledge to blow Fire Spider's ghost away. Fire Spider (Earth-83780) and Iron Sentinel manage to defeat HALO, and the SHA members take the HALO ones away, including the guard inside of whom Fire Spider was trapped.
Angry at his Earth-83780 counterpart, Fire Spider reveals himself to his former partners and blows the whistle on Fire Spider's (Earth-83780) plan to kill him. However, Fire Spider (Earth-83780) turns it all around and makes Fire Spider's ghost look like a copy created by the SHA's enemies. The SHA falls for this and Fire Spider's ghost angrily leaves. However, he's intercepted by Eagle, who has acquired new gear, including ghost-killing weapons.
The SHA attack Eagle as they hear him, but he escapes. Fire Spider's ghost also runs away and Fire Spider (Earth-83780) chases after him. After a long chase, Fire Spider's ghost goes back into Fire Spider (Earth-83780), and the two of them escape Eagle together. Just then, Fire Spider remembers the robot body that he built in Operation H.U.N.T and the two heroes go get it. Soon enough, Fire Spider's ghost enters the robot body and becomes Fire Spider 3.0 (Fire Spider 2.0 was seen in Operation: Invasion).
Fire Spider and Fire Spider (Earth-83780) fly over a convoy of metahumans who were being taken to a peace treaty. However, an assassin attacks them. Fire Spider (83780) is knocked into the wilderness, and severely damaged Fire Spider. He reveals he's looking for one of the SHA members, which turns out to be SHADOWMIND, who had been following the team around invisibly since who knows when. Shadowmind rescues the SHA from the grasps of the assassin, teleporting them to the abandoned SHA space ship, but finds that his team no longer trusts him. They soon realize that they're trapped on the spaceship with the assassin, who destroys the ship, capturing Lightno-Strike while the others barely manage to escape the falling ship.
Meanwhile, Fire Spider debates with the WGC to put a stop to the SEA, only to find that the President of Earth is no one other than Darktime. It also turns out that the assassin was hired by Darktime, and Lightno-Strike manages to defeat the assassin. Darktime and Fire Spider fight, ending in Darktime trying to shoot himself in the head. Fire Spider pushes the bullet from killing him, but results in Darktime being put in a coma. Fire Spider is arrested for high treason. However, thanks to some quick thinking, he turns the situation around and becomes elected as the new President of Earth due to being the highest ranked officer apart from the council.
Someone also kidnaps Darkwave, creating a clone of him and hacking various suits he had made in case the SHA turned on him. The others believe Extreme/Darkwave has turned evil, and destroy the robots. Darkwave escapes from the grasps of his kidnapper, fleeing to a life of solitude. However, he decides against it, running back to the SHA in their time of need.
Asgard is attacked, and Blaidor finds that Eagle had been the person to cause this destruction and sabotaged Extreme's tech. Asgard begins to fall, but Fire Spider manages to rally the SHA and other metahumans towards victory, stopping it from crushing France. He then announces the repeal of the SEA, but Eagle attacks. Agent, from Operation: Omegaverse, intervenes, forcing Eagle to tell the SHA of their otherworldly counterpart, the SVO, and their location, a fake iceberg in the middle of the arctic. The group learns of something called Dimensium Dementia, which causes victims to go insane if they're outside of their own universe for too long. While Fire Spider (83780) was able to avoid this by making changes that would cause this universe similar to his, the Flaming Heroes of that universe weren't so lucky.
Equilibrium finds out that in some way, he caused the SVO's invasion, as many of the worlds were destroyed or enslaved in his conquest known only as "pure havoc," where him and only one other person took down hundreds of parallel universes.
The SHA and other metahumans rally together, adding a new member into their team known as The Inferno Guardian. They attack the SVO's base, and fight off their otherworldly counterparts. Fire Spider helps his break free of its symbiotic organism, Cyberbat defeats a crazed mirror of himself, and Iron Sentinel loses control and accidentally murders his. The team, after fighting off their counterparts, finally gives "The Grand Mission" the good old fashioned "Mission Complete" cheer, concluding Operation ARCTIC.
After the Mission, Fire Spider builds a memorial statue for his world's Flaming Heroes, who were K.I.A by Eagle. Many superheroes attend the ceremony, including Fire Spider (Earth-83780), who excuses himself for being unable to assist in the SVO assault. After he leaves, he's ambushed and kidnapped by the Flaming Heroes of Earth-83780, fully infected with Dimensium Dementia. Meanwhile, Eagle, now in a Maximum Security Prison for Superhumans (despite him not being a superhuman), is playing with a bouncing ball while biding his time, showing symptoms of Dimensium Dementia. At the same time, a mysterious figure in a trench coat heads over to the apartment of retired SHA member Phoenix and uses water powers to kill him.
==Literary Analysis==
Written by ベン1993.
The major theme of Operation ARCTIC is that of clashing ideals in which no one is truly right or wrong, where everyone is in a morally gray area. Fire Spider, President Darktime, and L all believe they are doing what's right, yet even when Darktime and L are defeated their ideals are unwavering.
This conflict of ideals is also shown through recurring instances. of being opposite yet the same. The SHA and SVO, Equilibrium, and Fire Spider and his 83780 counterpart all illustrate this. In all examples the two individuals are technically the same person, yet they think and act drastically different from each other, almost like two sides of the same coin. Cyberbat and Cyberowl start almost identical, but by their final encounter, Cyberowl has pulled a complete 180, being more like the Joker than the Caped Crusader. Fire Spider and Fire Spider (83780) share a body, but separate as they become too different. Iron Sentinel seems to be a sharp contrast from his alter-ego the Lonely One, yet brutally murders Copper Soldier, possibly indicating that the two aren't as different as they seem, and that one day Iron Sentinel could even revert to his old ways.
Another reoccurring idea is forgiveness. Fire Spider and Fire Spider (83780) must forgive each other of their faults in order to succeed. L must forgive the police for killing his husband. The SHA must forgive Shadowmind and Ice Storm for their mysterious disappearance, and Iron Sentinel must forgive himself about his past actions.
(Note from ベン1993: I thought this would be a fun little extra thing to do post-mission. What do you all think? Let me know!)
==Participants==
===Heroes===
====Super Hero Agency====
*Iron Sentinel
*Tachyon Shadow
*Darkwave
*Lightno-Strike
*Super Brady
*Blue Titan
*Fire Flame
*Shadow Mind
*The Inferno Guardian (first appearance)
====Flaming Heroes (Earth-83780)====
*Fire Spider (Earth-83780)
**Fire Spider (ghost) (resurrects) (re-joins Super Hero Agency)
*Trigger (Earth-83780)
*Flamethrower (Earth-83780)
*Camouflage (Earth-83780)
===Villains===
====Freezer Army====
*Freezer/Eagle (Earth-92356)
====Super Villain Organization====
*Dark Spider (first appearance)
*Evil Shadow (first appearance)
*Eternal Blizzard (first appearance)
*Thunderbolt (first appearance)
*Brute Force (first appearance)
*Twisted Mind (first appearance)
*Cyberowl (first appearance)
*Copper Soldier (only appearance; dies)
===Others===
*Phoenix (death)
Category:Missions