Shahryar - Not really Apocalypse level bad, they just planned a coup but it didn't work out. Naturally, not saying anything about the end or the future of the plot :P
TheOldIronKing - Another commenter, yay :D Gotta cherish whom I have. And it's great to see that you're enjoying something from a normally unliked genre, seems like I did well writing it then :P
(***)
Paranormal Liberation Front's Villain Rankings
State for the aftermath of the Revival Celebration attack.
SSS-Rank
Izuku Midoriya [Revenant]
Aiko Shigaraki [Apocrypha]
SS-Rank
Momo Yaoyorozu [Counterfeit]
Shoto Todoroki [Frostfire]
Mieko Eto [Eclipse]
Rai Yoshihiro [Mastermind]
Koku Hanabata [Trumpet]
Mei Hatsume [Clockmaker]
S-Rank
Soma Michiko [Hypothermia]
Ochaco Uraraka [Singularity]
Mika Toyoda [Quicksilver]
Fumikage Tokoyami [Blackwing]
Rini Usagiyama [Lady Murder]
Sunako Oboro [Cloud]
A-Rank
Kyoka Jirou [Songbird]
Miyuki Tagawa [Biohazard]
Tsuyu Asui [Chameleon]
Seiji Shishikura [Fleshwarp]
Kouta Izumi [Jetstream]
Tomoko Shiretoko [Ragdoll]
Additional promotions to an A-Rank among the PLF member organizations:
Creature Rejection Clan: 6
Inhuman Supremacy Party: 4
Quirkless Liberation Front: 1
Meta-Liberation Army: 14
Ascending Path: 7
Hatsume Industries: 2
Status of the liberated Tartarus inmates: unknown.
(***)
Hero Ranking
The list is sorted according to the number of incarcerated villains, from A-Rankers up, with a single S-Rank worth ten points, every SS-Rank worth a hundred etc.
Heroes noted down in bold letters were killed by the Paranormal Liberation Front during the Revival Celebration.
SS-Rank
The Undefeated Hero: Invincible [Sugita Kenta]
The Probability Hero: Mindscape [Intelli Saiko]
The Strongarm Hero: Valiant [Shimomura Tsuneo]
The Victorious Hero: Lemillion [Toogata Mirio]
The Zealous Hero: Crusader [Kanai Maki]
The Versatile Hero: Molecular [Kuwahara Aya]
The Untouchable Hero: Redirect [Tada Keiko]
The Far-Seeing Hero: Foresight [Hattori Haruka]
The Burning Hero: Old Flame [Iseri Masaaki]
The Starlight Hero: Wild Star [Okamura Hoshi]
The Giant Hero: Behemoth [Miyahira Juro]
The Swirling Hero: Nejire-Chan [Hadou Nejire]
The Slow Hero: Interdict [Hamada Shiro]
The Dragon Hero: Flamebreath [Desuwa Fukahi]
The Snake Hero: Medusa [Sumiko Kazuki]
The Moodswing Hero: Emoji [Kuno Shizuoka]
The Unbroken Hero: Martyr [Kawamura Isao]
The Unseen Hero: Blindside [Otsuka Akiko]
(***)
"Rini is going to screech about it." Midoriya says once he stopped checking the new updates on the hero ranking on his phone. His eyes are still on it, he has a few more things to check. "She is 'merely' an S-Rank while Mastermind got an SS-Rank."
"Ribbit." Tsuyu replies non-commitantly. They are living their little family fantasy right now, she is making dinner in the background, while he is helping herself to the tea that she made for him.
It's… nice.
Eri was right. He really needed someone like Tsuyu in his life. He had no idea how much before he got here.
There was an old - and quite applicable - saying about a frog escaping from boiling water but letting themselves get boiled to death if you slowly heated the water. While it clearly described the intricate connection between Midoriya and the concept of loneliness, the presence of Tsuyu Asui there made the comparison a bit… wrong.
"I think it's about the commanding skills, but… she won't take that face down." He continues, checking a few discussion boards about the exact degree of impact they made. "Also I'm surprised that they slapped Usagiyama's surname over her, she didn't exactly introduce herself as a daughter of Miruko." .
Then again, how many murderous rabbit-women could be out there? Did they decide to pretend that she was Miruko's younger sister that somehow stayed hidden from the system? Sometimes, you couldn't tell if the government was just this stupid of it there were some deeper plans in all of that.
"Ribbit." Tsuyu comments. It sounds… oddly blank, really. She's probably very busy with her cooking, but Midoriya is the sort that sometimes enjoys just… unwinding by speaking to someone.
Normally it was Uraraka, but she seemed happy to give that spot to Tsuyu for the time being, probably refusing to intrude on his 'family life' because she realized that he needed that (always acting for his own good, damn it). She went to hang out with Quicksilver and Hypothermia in the meantime.
Speaking of those two…
"They are also still utterly unaware of just how powerful Hypothermia is." He replies. "They'd make her an SS-Rank, at least, if they knew what she can do. I'm also somewhat conflicted about Quicksilver being an S-Rank, she is powerful but I just don't think that she caused enough damage to be so high."
"Ribbit." Tsuyu says.
"Also, Fleshwarp just an A-Rank?" Midoriya continues his narration. "I thought they'd make him at least an S-Rank, if only out of spite for what he had done. Shishikura probably doesn't care about his place in the ranking, even if he still claims that he wasn't influenced by Stain at all, but…"
"Ribbit." Tsuyu lets out. This time, there is a hint of anger in her voice. That wakes him up.
"Tsu, what hap…" He looks at her. And he immediately shuts up.
Tsuyu is wearing her favorite, frog-themed apron. It's green, it's cute, and Midoriya can't help but faintly smile to himself whenever he sees it. But he doesn't do that right now, due to certain very important… factor.
Tsuyu isn't wearing anything else but the apron. While standing there, staring at him, her arms crossed in front of her.
"How long…" He tries to ask, but she doesn't let him.
"Five minutes, ribbit." She replies, her eyes narrowing down a bit. "And I'm not sure if I'm still in the mood."
… oh, crap.
He got WAY too invested in his job. Worst of all, it wasn't anything time-sensitive. There are ninety-nine days left until the Liberation Festival, and he has most major operations planned. What's left is pretty much making sure that certain things happen at more or less the right time and responding to enemy actions.
But it all can wait. So, he decides to focus on appeasing his girlfriend. He can leave his next move - dealing with Thunderbolt - for later. That man isn't going anywhere, either way.
(***)
"Is that a knife…" Midoriya says after running his fingers down her apron. She is now lying on her back on the couch, him looming over her. Judging from the growing blush on her face, she's starting to enjoy the attention. "... or is there something that I don't know about you and are you this happy to see me?"
Tsuyu, in general, seems to have no issues with some lighthearted jokes during the act. At least while they are still on the foreplay thing, in fact, she seemed to enjoy that. And, well, that apron felt surprisingly stiff under his fingers, there was even something akin to a bulge there and it was almost…
She says nothing. Instead she puts her hand under the apron… and pulls out a combat knife that she then drops onto the floor right next to the couch. She must have had it attached to the inner side of her cooking apron.
Oh. He really didn't see that coming.
Note to self, Midoriya. Take proper care of your temporary girlfriend, because honestly, the greatest threat to the Paranormal Liberation Front might come from the people that you recruited for it.
(***)
An hour later, he is wearing his official villain uniform (including the large fur collar, thank God they have air conditioning in the Overlook), and is out doing business.
When he enters the command center, Yaoyorozu hands him the tablet with updates on the freed Tatarus inmates. Most of them were treated significantly better than Shoto Todoroki (must have been the anger at him 'ending' Endeavor, the irony of the fact that Endeavor would have burned them all to death if he saw what they were doing in his name wasn't lost on Midoriya), but still needed some health checks.
The bigger problem was the number of PLF members needed to guard them. If not for the fact that the Overlook was… well, the Overlook, someone would have already dashed away, probably betraying its location to the heroes in the process.
Some would do that intentionally. Many former members of the Table of Rejects, the Underground Hero Network and the Vigilante Alliance were veterans of the war against the first Paranormal Liberation Front.
They might have taken the occasion to escape Tartarus, but they saw the PLF as a group just as responsible for the current mess of the country. Because if not for the first Paranormal Liberation War, the HPSC would have never done what it did.
Sometimes Midoriya has problems sleeping precisely because of that fact. Because, in all honesty, they might be right.
One thing is certain - he isn't meeting with Ms. Joke, because she'd probably try to kill him.
They have all of those confined in a section of Overlook, placated with the promises of the PLF needing to negotiate with the NVA for their 'proper' release. If only things were so simple…
"You look quite… refreshed." Yayorozu comments, while he's skimming through the data. "Family life is serving you well, I take it?"
Oh, so that's her game. Momo Yaoyorozu is currently the most likely inside threat to the Paranormal Liberation Front. And she is clearly proving it to him right now, even if she probably didn't realize that fact.
He makes a mental note to deal with the problem, at least temporarily, as soon as possible. In the meantime, he forms a reply.
"It's not half bad." He says, his eyes still on the tablet. "I see that we have a few hundred willing recruits, most of them from the former Paranormal Liberation Front." Then some names catch his attention. "Bearhead and Curator, seriously?"
The two chief lieutenants of Beast, the former High Warlord of the Inhuman Supremacy Party. The former, a bear mutant. The latter, a whale mutant. Both of them… unpleasant. To a similar degree as the Beast himself. And seeing as Beast seemed to strive for the position of Japan's most 'prolific' rapist his whole life…
Curator at least mostly murdered people. His anatomy made the other deed significantly more complicated.
"You want me to arrange their deaths?" Yaoyorozu asks without batting an eye. "Should be easy enough, I'll have Hatsume cook up some poison gas and pump it into their current quarters."
She's probably testing how far he's going to go. And how many nasty things he's willing to permit in their pursuit of eventual victory. Yaoyorozu still doesn't have a proper read on him, and as a mastermind of her stature, this must be infuriating to her.
She might be a woman herself, but Midoriya isn't buying the worried look on her face for a millisecond. Love might be the greatest power known to man, but the human ability to explain the worst atrocities imaginable with 'it's just business, man' is in a solid second place. Right before spite.
She probably supplied people just as nasty as those two, and without batting an eye.
"If we kill them before they get the occasion to challenge Lady Murder for the seat of the High Warlord… and we both know they will… it'll make the remaining ISP lieutenants think that we're babying her." He instead replies. "Or, even worse, that she feared the confrontation and asked us to end them. Let them join. I'll tell Rini that considering the possible societal impact of the… activities of those two, and the resulting decline of our public image, they are completely expendable."
They are good, but Lady Murder is better. They'll, inevitably, lose. It's best done that way. It'll make the former ISP members they freed much more loyal to Rini.
Yaoyorozu nods. Midoriya keeps scrolling. Two seconds later he groans.
"Liberator? Seriously?" She gives him a questioning look. "I sincerely hoped that one of the wardens would shoot him dead during the Tartarus assault. I always hated him. I even considered anonymously sending a large bag of top quality tea to Mindscape when she finally arrested him."
That makes her blink at him a few times.
"That bad?" She asks. Yeah, she never met him.
"He's just a psychopath blowing up civilians because his meta-ability wasn't cool enough and he has a worse inferiority complex than Bakugou had." Midoriya replies. "So he changed his inferiority complex into an ideology. Worst of all, if he spent all that time training himself, he'd probably reach the same planning league as you or Mastermind, he was just too busy venting his complexes on people instead of putting in some actual effort."
In some twisted way, Izuku realized that long ago, Liberator was quite like him. It was as if he was looking at himself from the past (especially as Liberator's quirk was Neoteny, making him look perpetually like a kid), except one that focused on complaining and developing a grudge against the world instead of… well, trying.
Midoriya failed, but he failed after years of struggles. The fruits of which carried him all the way into a triple S-Rank villainy. Liberator never even considered any options, aside from villainy. And even there, he only reached a double S-Rank because he managed to play his 'I'm just an innocent kid' card well enough.
Until Saiko Intelli saw through it. Then, his career ended in an instant.
"So…?" Yaoyorozu asks.
"Have Cloud warp him to Tokyo, together with every member of his terrorist organization we freed." Midoriya replies. He dislikes his own words, but… "Offer him modest monetary support of the Paranormal Liberation Front and access to our resources for as long as he focuses his attention on valid targets, like hero agencies or governmental offices. We need all the smokescreen we can get. Mindscape will probably round them all up in a month or two, now that she knows whom to look for, but every second she spends investigating a secret organization that isn't PLF is a second more for us to wage war."
This way, Tsuyu MIGHT not try to kill him if Liberator blows up a mall full of civilians. Including a whole lot of children. Again. While at the very least being somewhat useful to the Paranormal Liberation Front.
"Sure thing." She nods. He feels like he passed a test. He has too good of a self-control to just sigh loudly at that. Who does she think she's talking with? "Anyone else requiring special attention?"
Yeah. He noticed two important names. Two SS-Rankers hailing from the top of the top of organized crime. Mechanist, a cyborg and the former head of the Clockwork Tower, Japan's one and only entirely online crime syndicate. Glassmaker, leader of the House of Glass, the biggest organized crime syndicate in the post-All Might era.
"Mechanist really wants to join Hatsume Industries?" He asks Yaoyorozu, who promptly nods. "That's… unexpected. Did he state why? He was always just a crime boss, keeping out of politics."
That surprises her.
"Didn't he pretty much join the first PLF after Deika?" She asks while looking at him questioningly.
"Not really, no." Midoriya replies. "He was more of an independent subcontractor. We needed his services after we lost Skeptic and his hacking team. Speaking of…"
"Skeptic's having a long and heartfelt meeting with Trumpet right now." She quickly replies. "While being updated about all the things that happened in the meantime."
He officially died soon before Deika was destroyed. Unofficially, as Midoriya discovered much later, he was arrested. Not an accident, if the villains had a monopoly on moments of triumph, the war would have ended differently. Sir Nighteye managed to locate and apprehend him while he was visiting one of the MLA bases.
Back then, the government was much more… scarce with their interrogations. And, besides, MLA had all of its members sign quirk-enforced secrecy contracts. He simply couldn't say anything, even if he wanted.
He just stayed in Tartarus, mostly forgotten AND on the Shinigami Record until Tartarus ceased to be.
"I see." Midoriya will come say hello to Skeptic… probably after this meeting. "So, did Mechanist say why?"
"I had Hatsume talk with him about that." She replies. A personal initiative. Both a correct action AND something strengthening her own faction within the PLF leadership. Does she really think that her games are going to work? "I think that he's just a computer nerd that was interested in her inventions. He isn't even hiding the fact that he wants to stay in the background and restart the Clockwork Tower once the war is over."
Ah. An opportunist. They can have those, except…
"Conditional agreement… if she wants him." He replies. "But I want him NOT stationed in the Overlook. He's good enough to hack our comms and contact whoever he wants on the outside, without us noticing, if only we let him plug in to the main network. Even with all the software and hardware blocks that I had Mei install. I thought Hatsume wanted to establish a satellite factory somewhere out there?"
"Yeah, because the logistics of doing everything in Overlook are a mess." Yaoyorozu replies. "I'll probably end up helping her set it up. You want Mechanist in charge of it?"
Midoriya considers the options. Eventually, he arrives at the conclusion.
"It doesn't matter to me what position she gives him, for as long as we don't have an opportunist in a position where his betrayal might hurt us a lot." He replies. If Yaoyorozu correctly reads him as speaking to her in more than one way, she doesn't make it known. "Hatsume's free to geek with him about her newest programming wonders for as long as it's done through a secured connection that he can't trace."
"That makes sense." She nods. "Besides, we'll have Hatsume and Skeptic here, that's more than enough. What about Glassmaker?" Of course she figured out that he was interested in her as well.
"She wants out." Midoriya replies. She knows that, of course, she read the data. "The thing is, I'm not sure if she's planning to re-establish the House of Glass or if her goal is to dart overseas before someone realizes she's free. Invincible arrested her, so she's probably absolutely terrified of running into him again."
"That's a bit short-sighted." She replies. When he gives her a questioning look, she decides to elaborate. "I mean, we're fighting against him and the other heroes, he probably won't have the time to go after her. Or, well, we'll take him down at some point."
"Take down Invincible?" He asks, his brow raising at that statement. "You're an optimistic one, aren't you?" She looks confused by that. Oh, well. She was mostly hidden in the background, so all that she heard were the second-hand tales. "He's titled the Symbol of Hope for a reason."
"I don't buy it." She replies. "The government is propping him up as a propaganda tool, some sort of 'new All Might'. It's all bullshit."
Yeah. In a better world, it would be. She's perfectly sane and logical about it, except… they don't live in a sane and logical world.
"More than half of the former PLF members that do not want to have anything to do with us were arrested by Invincible." He informs her. It wasn't in the database, so she probably missed it, but… he was prepared. "They saw him up close, and even after seeing what we did during the Revival Celebration, they think that we'll lose, Yaomomo. So they are planning to flee overseas before it happens."
"Wait, so… you mean that he actually IS as powerful as the propaganda makes him?" She asks, clearly shocked by the concept. It's time to unfuck her misconception as soon as possible.
"The NVA has many sympathizers among the pro-heroes." He replies. "But they never tried to rise up in force, they never tried to start an open civil war. Do you know why?" He doesn't give the time to answer it. "Because Ayako Nakahara could figure out a counter to the Fast Response Unit, especially as they have Gang Orca, a survivor of one of its deployments, in their midst. The Sword of Damocles' can be restricted by choosing a correct battlefield. But Invincible?" He shakes his head. "When the government says that no villain that ever faced him has managed to escape, they aren't lying for once."
"Aren't you going a bit too far?" She asks. "Did you see what sort of an assortment of talents we have in the League and…"
"40 to 80%, Yaomomo." Midoriya cuts in. "That's the amount of casualties we would have suffered if we tried to jump Invincible with all members of the League of Villains and the heads of our subsidiary organizations. Depending on circumstances, of course. We would have taken him out… most likely, and if other heroes weren't there to keep the heat off him. And yes, I count Apocrypha." He sighs when she stares at him in shock. "The HPSC made something truly… troublesome."
"Oh." She blinks at him a few times, clearly recovering from shock. "That's… not good." A good summary, if slightly… underperforming.
"I have some plans on how to take him out of the picture with… tolerable amount of casualties on our side.." Midoriya replies. It was going to be the biggest obstacle of them all, that's for sure. "But for now, we're going to do what the NVA does. We're going to make sure that he isn't present during our deployments… or they'll end in disaster." He sighs. "Anything more to report?"
He wants to… change the subject. Pushing her too far now, might have… negative side-effects.
"More like… a question to you." She says. "What are you going to do with Thunderbolt?" Ah yes, the big question.
"I need him to answer a few of my questions." He replies. Mostly about Eri's location. He won't know her by name, too many kids, but maybe he'll help narrow it down with his knowledge about the Paragon Program. "So I considered asking around our new and old members for some… specialists in interrogation." He was probably going to let Quicksilver see the results.
She had … a major murderboner towards her father. So did Midoriya, to be honest, but hers was bigger and much more personal.
"Can I suggest someone?" Yaoyorozu asks. Midoriya understands immediately what sort of game she was playing. Once again, he hides his (slightly) disappointed sigh from the world.
"Go on."
"Jirou has more… talents than just murdering people." Yaoyorozu replies. "She was actually something akin to my personal interrogator. She had… results. And I'm really curious to see how long the former Number Two Hero will last under the Musical Hell."
"I don't even know what it is…" Midoriya smiles. "... but the name alone makes me interested in seeing it. Tell her to break him before I'll come to ask my questions."
(***)
Things are going increasingly interesting, won't you say? Yep, Invincible's the third 'superweapon' of the government, after the FRU (now sadly absent) and the Sword of Damocles that I'm still yet to describe in full (it will happen, and probably during this arc).