XP4 Heroes Coalition (Fanfic) - TV Tropes (2024)

XP4 Heroes Coalition, formerly simply known as Heroes Coalition, is a series of Massive Multiplayer Crossover/Slice of Life fanfics released by XP4Universe.

Featuring an Ensemble Cast of heroes in Neo-Earth, the Heroes Coalition series stars the namesake heroic organisation as hero groups within Neo-City protect the multiverse from otherworldly threats by lending a helping hand to others in need.

Originally titled as just Heroes Coalition (note the importance of the title itself), the first and original iteration of the series was released back on 16 April 2017, with its run lasting until 11 May 2018, comprising of 28 stories in total. Originally, the story was based on the storyline of Dimensional Heroes, jexi the reader's work, but due to Creative Differences and personal issues from the author's end, the original iteration was cancelled before the author himself announced that the whole series would be rebooted from scratch.

What comes next is a reboot. Enter the second and current iteration of the series, XP4 Heroes Coalition. It was soon birthed on 19 May 2018, just eight days after the May 11 controversy. Considered as a semi-Continuity Reboot of the entire Heroes Coalition series, the Heroes Coalition series was entirely overhauled from the ground up, retaining some of the original elements by XP4Universe and fixing various issues within the original iteration, while setting in an entirely different universe completely independent of the Dimensional Heroes storyline. Unlike the original version, this version of the series would garner success.

Compare and contrast All Worlds Alliance (the Genre Popularizer), its Spiritual Antithesis.

The Works

Tropes

• 20 Minutes into the Future: The entire setting resembles a civilisation from the future with the existence of futuristic buildings and technologies, but the story itself takes place in the modern time.
• Accidental Child-Killer Backstory: Geraldo Axel, as revealed by a backstory that Vaas narrated in Neo-City Diaries' Chapter 52, killed a child by accident, which drove him to guilt. This incident eventually led him to throw his life of crime away for good, leading him to travel from place to place until ending up in Neo-City with Vaas and Needles.
• Adaptational Badass: Normal humans who didn't have powers in their source material like the Eds are superpowered heroes here in the story.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Unlike the completely cruel Jerkass that Eddy's brother was portrayed in the original who never redeemed himself, Eddy's brother, known as Terry, is much, much kinder in this fic than he is in the original, who regretted his actions of abusing his younger brother. While he seldom makes a physical appearance in the story, him seeing Eddy adopting the amnesic Marcus was what fully cemented his complete Heel–Face Turn.
  • Esdeath is this after her Redemption Equals Death moment, who was an Ax-Crazy General supporting Prime Minister Honest's vile actions in the Empire, where her talk with Mario during Neo-City Stories' Chapter 22 finally allowed her to reconcile with the rest of the Jaegers.
• And I Must Scream: The Emotionless are creatures made of tortured human souls, who were formerly humans before they were subjected to torture by The Summoner, whom in all of their forms they have no mouth.
• Big Bad Ensemble:
  • The Heroes Coalitions contend with multiple antagonistic factions working independently to one another, but the main antagonistic factions include: The Dark Forces, the de facto Big Bads of the story are a mysterious group of villains who have the ability to summon destructive creatures known as Emotionless, but they are a Generic Doomsday Villain whose only intention is to cause havoc across the multiverse. The Dolan Faction, on the other hand, involves Dr. Dolan Danger's gang stealing countless artifacts in his goal to Take Over the World. There's the secondary antagonistic factions include the Lantern Familia/Cult of Lady Adele and the Joker Family, albeit their influence is overshadowed by the big two factions.
  • On a more individual scale, there's three main antagonists: The Summoner and Shinsuke Miyamoto are the respective leaders of their sub-faction within the Dark Forces, respectively, but they have a separate agenda with each other; and Dr. Dolan Danger wants to steal and use artifacts in his endgame to conquer the multiverse for his own benefit. There's the secondary antagonists including Green Lantern (no, not this one), a renegade ex-student of Canterlot High turned cult leader of the Cult of Lady Adele, who is planning to awaken Lady Adele to destroy all worlds, dimensions and universe alike to ashes; and also the Joker, who like the usual wants to cause chaos and trouble for their own agenda.
• Big Good: Mario Martinez, the President of Heroes Coalition, is the overarching good guy of the series.
• Canon Immigrant: Xyrielle "XY Girl" Yona, one of the members of Bullet Kingdom, is an original character who was based off of the Fanfiction reviewer XYGirl2019 (erstwhile XY Kid).
• Child Soldiers: Errors are genetically modified, superpowered children who were raised in an an underground orphanage, which is a front for the facility, by a Mad Scientist, using them as means to defeat invaders from the multiverse; and they also get stronger as they age. But they are, on the other hand, revealed to be used as part of their Red Shirt Army by the scientist and attempted to dispose of them once they are done for. The second batch of Errors including Marcus eventually throw a bloody mutiny against the staff of the facility, killing everyone else including the staff and the scientist in a form of revenge.
• Composite Character: Akiharu Hino, the main protagonist of Ladies versus Butlers!, takes the Tenth Doctor's role from Doctor Who, down to even saying his very famous catchphrase "Allons-y".
• Culture Chop Suey: Two of the main cities mentioned in the story are inspired after real-life cultures (i.e. Mega-Tokyo is Tokyo in future Japan; New-New York is New York in future United States), but Neo-City takes the trope to a T, as it is a fusion of Tokyo (Japanese), Paris (French) and Las Vegas (American). Elemental City, on the other hand, is a fusion of modern age and steampunk.
• A Day in the Limelight: The Kick-Off!, Mission Chronicles, Tales in Mega-Tokyo and Heroes of the Multiverse stories focus on various heroes from Heroes Coalition, while the latter story focuses on multiversal heroes.
• Deconstructor Fleet: The story deconstructs the following tropes common to this story:
  • All-Loving Hero: Marcus, on paper, is what most expect of the trope: heroic, brave, risk-taker and is willing to sacrifice his well-being to protect others including Eddy and is shown to be demonstrably competent in a leadership role. But Marcus takes that trope apart and plays with it: he's an Anti-Hero with numerous flaws, a Jerkass who is a bad influence to others (ironically, his influence changed Eddy and his brother) and a Graying Morality hero who has demonstrated morally grey actions, down to even Lampshading that he cannot comprehend right or wrong and he is beyond good or evil, despite being on the side of the good. He also dislikes being in the public eye. He is also non-hesitant to kill someone, even if his victims are an Asshole Victim. Overall, Marcus is essentially an Anti-Role Model and is not the one to be looked up for as a role model, despite being a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
  • Child Soldiers: Errors, the In-Universe name of child soldiers, are far atypical from the usual flair that are presented from the trope itself. Like the usual, they are used as means to the end by a group of scientists in an underground orphanage, but what is different about them is that Errors' powers increase slowly as they age and its powers can be passed to its offspring as the case of Rainbow Dash, who is actually a second-generation Error because of his father Bow Hothoof who is an Error. While the powers they have make them practically impossible to be defeated, they are, however, still vulnerable to the attacks of other Errors including Skyroar Rampage, Shinsuke Miyamoto and Kamisato Jouzou.
  • Crapsack Only by Comparison: An Inversion in terms of New-New York. While it possibly shares the equal footing to the other Heroes Coalitions branches, New-New York is a deconstruction of it, where a draconian list of rules like not failing a mission once, getting injured, magical healing abilities are disallowed, as well as using standard medical procedures are strictly enforced, where even breaking these rules would mean immediate suspension, termination or something much worse than the two options, making New-New York Heroes Coalitions within that trope due to its draconian policies not seen from other branches. This is starkly contrasted to the Neo-City Heroes Coalitions' philosophy, where regardless of what resulted in their missions (failure or success), the heroes still have to report to the higher-ups.
  • The Federation: The eyes and the ears of the multiverse, the Multiversal Government, are the chief heads of state of the multiverse, with the Council of High Authorirty overseeing the operations from its groups. But unlike many examples, the Council doesn't treat Heroes Coalitions and Dimensional Defense Union as equals to other groups like the ALL-STAR JUSTICE, Royal Maiden Frontiers, the Secret Force and Honorary Darkness. In fact the Council often looks down at them, largely due to the fact that they are on the lowest rung of the influence ladder and are lesser-known to the general public, unlike the four groups who are already famous. Their own political alignment is also nebulous, as they are the classic example of To Be Lawful or Good, as not everyone approves of their political ideals at all.
  • Lady Land: Mega-Tokyo and its all-girls school Heartcross Academy rips this trope apart. While it functions similarly to other Heroes Coalitions branches, the biggest difference is that only females are allowed, hence the trope itself. The males, on the other hand, had to leave Mega-Tokyo to pursue their heroics on other Heroes Coalitions branches and train themselves. While it works on paper, in reality what results instead is that young males in Mega-Tokyo turned to life of crime due to being treated as inferior, thus driving them into villainy and using their abilities to commit crimes rather than it for the greater good. As a result, a part of the criminality that is happening in the city on a daily basis is because of Heartcross Academy's policy to only allow females as students and trainees for reasons unknown, while males themselves descended to a life of crime.
• Differently Powered Individual: Blessed, the In-Universe name of superheroes in this story, are humans who gained powers that originally belonged to Dolph and Floyd who accidentally killed themselves in their own Divine Conflict a long time ago before the story starts. The Blessed who obtain abilities are called as "Gifts", rather than superpowers, though it's a case of Irony as the Blessed are not actually gifted these powers by the Gods themselves.
• Fair Cop: What most of Mega-Tokyo Police Department's officers are comprised of, being that all of them are female.
• The Federation: The Multiversal Government, with its Commander-in-Chief serving as the head of state of the multiverse and the Council of High Authority having the highest power who are the overseers of its groups including Heroes Coalitions, being in charge of multiversal affairs. It is a Deconstruction (see Deconstructor Fleet for more info) as the Council of High Authority often looks down at the Heroes Coalitions and Dimensional Defense Union as they are actually lesser-known to the general public, unlike the ALL-STAR JUSTICE, the Royal Maidens Frontiers, the Secret Force and the Honorary Darkness who are leagues much higher in terms of influence and are well-known.
• Hated by All: Alden Cole, who is hated by literally everyone in Heroes Coalition due to his obnoxious personality. Even resident Jerkasses like Chicken have a low opinion of him. Brutally Lampshaded by Arinah in Chapter 26.

  Arinah: Alden is the worst! I can't believe he'd came up with that conclusion! Even the bullies in this school won't come up with a conclusion like his.

• Hate Sink: Same reasons as Hated by All, Alden Cole's obnoxious, rude behaviour makes him the most hated person in the story that absolutely no one likes him. On top of being a troublemaker, he's also insensitive and stubborn from others' suffering that even people like Vegeta have enough of him. That gets to his head when a Shounen Bat kills him during Neo-City Diaries's Chapter 27, making him a full-on Asshole Victim.
• Heel–Face Turn: Various villains who died in the past are given a second chance who eventually redeemed themselves in the long run including Vaas, Grimmjow, Needles Kane, etc. To hammer that point, some members of Team Redemption comprise of redeemed villains like Crona, Ban, Ira Gamagoori, Nonon Jakuzure, Satsuki Kiryuin and Seryu Ubiquitous.
• Heroes "R" Us: Of course, as Heroes Coalition is a hero organisation comprising of heroes from various parts of the multiverse.
• Jerkass Has a Point: The resident Jerkass Dan Mandel during Chapter 14 of Neo-City Stories goes into his usual wild, vitriolic rant about Wesley Bryan's distracted nature when he tied his shoelace in the middle of his training, criticising it as a bad habit as a trainee. Of course, Dan is not entirely wrong at all, as anyone agreed that it is a Fatal Flaw that could eventually kill him in a moment, of which he could die no differently from a Red Shirt.

  Dan: Bad habit? Sure bad habits are hard to get rid off but "that" is not a bad habit, that is flaw, a fatal flaw that more or else will become the reason of his demise! And why did I say that? Picture this. What if Wesley is in the middle of an intense battle to death by a powerful individual then all of a sudden he got distracted by his untied shoelaces, then boom! he got his head blown up, shing! He got his head slice off by a sword and another boom! his entire body got obliterated by a Kamehameha-like beam. Let's face it! Sooner or later, he'll be promoted as a hero without getting rid of his flaw, sure, we all our flaws but we know how to fix our flaws, but this guy, he's been here for so long that he can't even fix his pathetic flaw, I know that he works hard but for God's sake can he at least work hard fixing his flaw, if not, he'll be the first member in the Coalition to die in a mission because of getting distracted by his shoelaces!

• Lady Land: Mega-Tokyo is entirely populated by females, with Heartcross Academy being an all-girls school and the Mega-Tokyo Police Department comprising of, you guess it, female police officers. See Deconstructor Fleet as to how this trope is deconstructed.
• Named In The Adaptation: Several minor, unnamed characters from the original are named here, with examples including Belle Lavitz and Sayuri Momoka. Other characters like Ed, Edd, Eddy, Rolf, Duncan, etc. are named as Edwin Horace Williams, Eddward Marion Smith, Eddy Skipper McGee, Rolf Yrmi, Duncan Nelson, respectively. Eddy's brother is also named Terry Matthew McGee.
• No Indoor Voice: Major Richard Stronghold, being the Large Ham he is, is an extreme example of this trope as he is seldom seen speaking in a low tone, with most of the time speaking loudly that is equivalent to a horn loudspeaker.

  Major Stronghold: I JUST WANT YOU ALL TO KNOW THAT I'M NOT FORCING YOU TO DO THIS AND I'M ALLOWING YOU ONCE TO BACK OUT NOW AND NEVER RETURN IN THIS CAMP! I SEE THE WARRIORS INSIDE EACH AND EVERYONE OF YOU AND I WILL DO THE BEST I CAN TO MAKE SURE YOU DEVELOP INTO GREAT HEROES THAT THE PEOPLE FROM DIFFERENT UNIVERSE WILL LOOK UP TO!

• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: In spades, as many hero teams of Heroes Coalition comprise of various members with starkly different personalities and backgrounds.
• Shout-Out: Dr. Dolan Danger is named after the YouTuber Danger Dolan, later renamed as Planet Dolan.
• Spiritual Antithesis: XP4 Heroes Coalition is this to All Worlds Alliance. Both works are superficially similar in many areas, with both involving a heroic organisation where heroes are sent to the multiverse on a mission, as well as having them reporting to the higher-ups akin to a Mission Control. But both works execute very differently on the inside:
  • The All Worlds Alliance uses a class number system (Class One, Two, Three, etc.) when it comes to its hero groups, while Heroes Coalitions operate on a title system where instead of class numbers, hero groups are custom named (Bullet Kingdom, The Dream Express, DAN ARMY, etc.).
  • The primary contrast between All Worlds Alliance and Heroes Coalitions is that All Worlds Alliance is independently founded and run by The Author and AWA Academy's Grand Headmaster Lelouch Lamperogue, where government influence is absent, making it akin to a decentralised organisation. On the other hand, Heroes Coalition, while it was founded by the World God Louie, is far more centralised as they directly work under the Multiversal Government, with heroics being treated as a profession or a means of living. And unlike the All Worlds Alliance who are mostly a singular organisation, Heroes Coalition has multiple branches, but only the Big Four (Neo-City, Mega-Tokyo, New-New-York and Elemental City) are allowed to partake on multiversal missions.
  • Another contrast is how the two organisations operate when it comes to missions: whereas the All Worlds Alliance heroes complete their mission and nothing else, the Heroes Coalition heroes have to report their mission results to the higher-ups of the namesake organisation, irrespective of the results of their mission.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  • Neo-City Stories Chapter 14. In a case of Blatant Lies, Chris claims to Dan that Wesley's bad habit of getting distracted is hard to get rid of. Of course, Dan isn't having any of it, as he knows Wesley has been doing it for two years.
  • Ditto from the same chapter, Dan criticises Wesley's lack of focus where people actually listened for him, but at the end he actually decides to throw a ball at him, only this time with his usual jerk moment.
• Tomato in the Mirror:
  • Marcus McGee is revealed to be the long-lost adopted child of the Sakurada royal family and simply not just Eddy's adopted brother. Due to his amnesia, Marcus spends the majority of the story being Eddy's adopted brother while unbenknowst to himself that he is the long-lost prince until Arinah plans a family meeting in Neo-City Stories's Chapter 89, which causes Marcus to completely re-evaluate anything about his past as he goes to the Sakurada Kingdom.
  • Rainbow Dash is revealed to be an Error all along, with her being unaware of it, and not just a hero with superpowers.
• Transplant: Taro Yamada, a character originally from damnlastword's DAMNIverse stories (and other stories including All Worlds Alliance, The Icon of Kiyosumi, Girlfriends x Boyfriends BETA, Of Eds, Riders and MLP: Battle of Equestria), makes an appearance here in the Heroes Coalition series as a member of Bullet Kingdom.
• The Unpronounceable: Miki Sayaka's true name is Ayeyatsukhanka Filifittiouyeg, which is difficult to be pronounced by any normal human, hence her using a false name.