Operation M.A.S.K

Operation M.A.S.K (Murderer After Superhuman Kills) is the Super Hero Agency's twelfth Mission overall, following directly after the Robber Penguin Agency's Operation: Waddle On.
==Pre-Mission Briefing==
In the aftermath of Operation: Invasion, Shadow Mind and Ice Storm, the SHA's Leader and Second-In-Command, disappeared without a trace. While the leadership was passed on to Fire Spider, Shadow Mind and Ice Storm's disappearances could not be investigated due to the Freezer Army attacking in Operation: Omegaverse and the Superhuman World War in Operation A.R.C.T.I.C.
During the Superhuman World War, Shadow Mind and Ice Storm returned, claiming to have been abducted by a mysterious villain. Apparently, this villain wanted information on the SHA's secret identities and weaknesses. While they resisted for a while, they eventually gave in. As a result, this villain assasinated the retired SHA veteran Phoenix.
While his death was reported, no one in the SHA heard about it due to their time travelling in Operation: Waddle On. However, due to the events in this Operation, the SHA is now in disarray.
Will the SHA in its current state be able to find the villain in time, or are they destined to fall at the hands of the M.A.S.K?
== Mission Briefing ==
The mission begins with the Lonely One infiltrating and shutting down an underground fight club, freeing many involuntary participants, but killing some in the process. This causes a heated debate between him and Fire Spider, who is under lots of pressure due to the death of Darkwave, Super Brady and Phoenix. Fire Spider believes someone is hunting superheroes, and holds a conference after their funerals to alert the rest of the SHA of his suspicions. Fire Spider snaps at Cyberbat, who returns to the Batcave, promoting Electricbat to a member of the Bat Family.
Lightno-Strike and Fire Flame become tired of waiting around, teaming up to investigate the scene of their teammates deaths. While searching the collapsed ruins of Asgard, they find a portal that allowed Veymous to enter their world and kill Darkwave, as well as a coupon leading them to a bar in the underbelly of Flaming City. Meanwhile, Fire Spider decides to bargain with Eagle in order to solve the mystery. Meanwhile, at the bar, Lightno-Strike and Fire Flame find a knife stabbed into an intersection on a map, and conclude it will be the location of the next murder. However, Cyberbat eavesdrops and gets to the scene first, but is too late. He finds the dead body of the Spark, and takes his body back to the Batcave for analysis. This infuriates Lightno-Strike and Fire Flame, who follow him and begin to fight over the corpse. During the fight, Fire Spider and Eagle sneak past, stealing a copy of Cyberbat's autopsy, and head back to the location of the Spark's death.
Fire Spider and Eagle find a riddle leading them to a train station, while Twister and Glacier Girl decide to team up, as well as Inferno Guardian and Iron Sentinel. Fire Spider and Eagle track the MASK to an abandoned warehouse, and are trailed by Inferno Guardian and Iron Sentinel. However, Fire Spider and Eagle hide out and let Iron Sentinel and Inferno Guardian walk into a trap. After this, they only find Forest Fire's dead body, putting them at a dead end for clues. However, they notice a Batarang lodged in the wall. Glacier Girl and Twister eavesdrop their conversation, heading to Stripes Manor, but aren't unnoticed by Fire Spider and Eagle. Cyberbat runs away when confronted, leading Glacier Girl to contact Blaidor in an attempt to help capture Cyberbat. However, the fight is cut short when the MASK attempts to assassinate Glacier Girl, but only wounds her due to Fire Spider pushing the gun to the side with his webbing. The fight ends with Blaidor rushing Glacier Girl to the hospital.
Meanwhile, Blue Titan's brother Mind Man is killed by the MASK. Blue Titan's helicopter pilot turns out to have been payed by the MASK, who attempts to kill Blue Titan, crashing his helicopter into him. In order to escape, Blue Titan had to saw his leg off with his pocket knife, and once escaped, he passed out. After awaking, he had a new prosthetic leg, the MASK's villainy now a constant reminder to Blue Titan every waking moment.
Fire Spider visits an unconscious Glacier Girl in the hospital, only to have an explosive trap waiting for him. Fire Spider barely manages to save Glacier Girl a second time, before rushing off to help other civilians. However, due to a misinterpretation, Glacier Girl believes Fire Spider is the killer, lashing out at him before escaping. After fighting off a gang with Iron Sentinel and Inferno Guardian, the four (including Twister) decide to all team up against Fire Spider. After gathering Twister, the four decide to track Fire Spider to his place of work, the WGC HQ. After easedropping on his conversations with the WGC, they find the council is threatening to shut the SHA down until the MASK is found and infighting stops. Fire Spider, aware of their presence the entire time, calls them out from the darkness, ready for a fight. Fire Spider easily defeats them, capturing Glacier Girl and Twister and throwing them in metahuman prison. He then temporarily makes any vigilante activities by the SHA temporarily illegal until the MASK is found. News spreads much faster than expected, causing Fire Spider to believe he's being set up. He calls Eagle, offering to allow him to search for the MASK without him, unknowing that he's in the middle of a three way battle between him, Iron Sentinel and a MRCPU. Eagle and Iron Sentinel quickly knock out the MRCPU, and begin to fight one on one. Eagle easily outsmarts and overpowers Iron Sentinel, winning with ease. However, the MRCPU wakes up, taking them both in to the metahuman prison.
Meanwhile, Fire Spider explains to the jailed Glacier Girl, Twister and now Cyberbat of how he's innocent using multiple alibi. Soon, nearly the entire SHA is in jail. Soon Eagle wakes up, Fire Spider has to reveal to the SHA that he's been working with Eagle, reigniting the suspicions that Fire Spider is the killer. However, after a long awkward silence, Iron Sentinel begins turning into the Lonely One. Without any of Cyberbat's serum to prevent the change, Iron Sentinel tries to fight off the change, but after hours of trying, eventually breaks. Lonely One opens the door by punching a hole through the wall and ripping out electrical wires, and escapes into the night. While the rest of the SHA is escaping, Fire Spider trails Eagle and as punishment, warps him five years into the future of his own world. Back in Earth-5621, Fire Spider, Cyberbat, Glacier Girl and Twister escape back to the Batcave.
Once safe, the four decide the first choice of action should be to track down and stop the Lonely One, heading to the Steel Fortress in hopes of finding a lead on where he would go. They find he hopes to track down and kill his old friend Rock, also known as Alien Eye, who had started a new life and became the CEO of a company, also purposefully leaving his boat information for Fire Spider. Twister insists on going to capture him, while Cyberbat and Fire Spider stay back and work on a serum to permanently force the Lonely One from Iron Sentinel's body. After a difficult fight, Lonely One eventually wins, calling Fire Spider to mock him before killing Twister, telling Fire Spider to follow him. After Cyberbat finishes the serum, Fire Spider follows in a fit of rage. Meanwhile in Washington, the Lonely One breaks into Rock's company's headquarters, nearly killing him before Fire Spider catches up. After a close battle, Fire Spider manages to overpower Lonely One, driving a needle into LO's neck which releases the serum into his bloodstream, forcing Lonely One to separate, his goo form now trapped inside a small canister. In his last conscious moments, Lonely One tells Fire Spider that soon he will be just like him. Fire Spider takes both Rock and the liquid containing the Lonely One to the metahuman prison.
After things have temporarily calmed down, the SHA is visited by none other than Shadow Mind, the founder of the agency. Despite receiving a warm welcome from most of the heroes, Fire Spider remains skeptical about why he'd been missing all this time and interrogates him, much to the SHA's chagrin. However, instead of answering his questions, Shadow Mind promotes him to official SHA leader and leaves before being shot down by a sniper. In a fit of rage, Fire Spider swings off to where the bullet came from, only to find a VCR tape asking him and him alone to go to the laboratory from Operation H.U.N.T for a face-off against the MASK themself. Fire Spider agrees, but as soon as he arrives, he reveals that the tape helped him figure out who the MASK is... and it's none other than Shadow Mind himself.
Exposed by his successor, Shadow Mind reveals everything. He was indeed the MASK, and all this time, the Super Hero Agency had been nothing but a long con to take the WGC's political power for himself by earning the people's trust and becoming President of Earth. However, when Phoenix had an argument with Fire Spider years prior, he went to Shadow Mind's office to complain and instead found a weakness dossier on the desk; this dossier explained how to defeat none other than Fire Spider himself. However, Shadow Mind caught him with the dossier and tried to kill him in order to silence him, forcing Phoenix to run with it. Once he thought he was safe, he split the dossier's contents in several parts and gave them to multiple SHA members, all of which went into hiding after receiving them. However, Ice Storm was caught by Shadow Mind, who wanted to get the dossier back, and tortured in a lair in the Arctic (the same one the SVO later occupied in Operation A.R.C.T.I.C), although the former managed to escape. Both Ice Storm and Shadow Mind returned to the mainland in time for the Superhuman World War, although the latter killed the former before he could reveal anything. Then, using the information he got from Ice Storm, Shadow Mind started killing multiple SHA members. This turned Shadow Mind into the Murderer After Superhuman Kills, aka the MASK.
After this revelation, Shadow Mind taunts Fire Spider into a fight. The two brawl fiercely, but the match ends abruptly when Shadow Mind jumps towards one of Fire Spider's attacks on purpose. Being extremely weak to fire, Shadow Mind slowly burns to death - as per his plan; without a clear figure to pin the MASK deaths on, the superhero world would never recover from this unless someone led them on the path towards recovery, and his plan was for Fire Spider to be that person. Soon, Shadow Mind dies, and Fire Spider is greeted by his fellow SHA members. At the end, they all watch the laboratory burn as they question if anything they did as the Super Hero Agency was ever worth it since they were all part of Shadow Mind's grand evil scheme.
During the epilogue, in a press conference, the World Government Council expresses their doubts on the Super Hero Agency and remarks that, if they're watching over the general populace, they should have someone to watch over them as well.
== Literary Analysis ==
Operation M.A.S.K shows that when put under pressure, long-lasting friendships and trust will snap, and people will inevitably betray each other. The mission is filled with SHA members stabbing each other in the back in hopes of being the first ones to find the MASK, their minds now filled with paranoia and suspicion of their fellow teammates. Cyberbat eavesdrops on Lightno-Strike and Fire Flame, Fire Spider tricks Iron Sentinel and Inferno Guardian into a trap, people constantly fight one another and accuse them of murder, and Lonely One betrays and deserts the SHA for his own gain, going as far as killing Twister so that he can pursuit his own goals.
Operation M.A.S.K also experiments with the idea of that of the tarnished legacy: long coveted heroes die easily, and Shadow Mind's reveal as an evil mastermind undermines all his positive contributions and completely diminishes what he used to represent.
==Participants==
===Heroes===
====Super Hero Agency====
*Fire Spider
*Equilibrium
*Cyberbat
*Twister
*The Inferno Guardian
*Glacier Girl
*Blue Titan
*Blaidor
===Villains===
*M.A.S.K (Murderer After Superhuman Kills)
Category:Missions