Chapter 97 - My Villain Perfected
Some Time Ago...
My name is Kovik, High-Splicer Priest of the House of Devils. Since the day I lost to those wretched Guardians in the midst of my experimentations, I have been forced to exile myself to this distant Realm alongside SIVA.
For years I have searched for the one that stole it from me, but... the Thief proved to be adapt in using the technology, proclaiming themself a 'Hero' using my Archon's name as their own. I have lost many battles but that will never dissuade me from my path. I may have lost, but this battle is far from over.
The Doctor, a man that worked as All For One's right-hand man tasked my ally Shigaraki with dominating the distraught will of a living mountain. Gigantomachia. A living weapon that could surpass even my Archon. Without him under our control, we will remain in a stagnant state, our plans halted as our enemies grow stronger.
I refuse to let that or this 'Doctor' stand in my way.
"Who the hell are you!?" Beyond the boulder Kovik sat on, Twice barked down the phone at a strange caller, as this occurred, an odd interference buzzed in the Splicer's ear, forcing him to encrypt his own frequency against the intruding malware.
"Someone's already trying to hack me? Either they're brave or much more foolish than I'm giving them credit for," He grimaced, leaning forward to listen to Twice's call. "And it seems they've planted evidence in areas we've made splashes too, how peculiar,"
~I'm Re-Destro, the supreme leader of the Meta Liberation Army~ The squeaky voice answered.
"First yakuza, and now a liberation army?" Shigaraiki mused, snorting dryly. "Is there some kind of retro boom? I hear you've been selling lots of books lately? Don't get too caught up in the fad,"
~Think again, we're the ones who started the fad~ Re-Destro countered.
Twice was growing impatient, "What happened to Grain!? What are you after!? He's a really good guy!"
"I believe we have the answer, courtesy of the news reports, rather, a piece of him," Kovik remained cryptic, claw on the edge of his pyramid helmet.
~Do not sound so morbid, he's right here, alive, of course~ Re-Destro assured them. ~Our objective is to liberate meta powers, to demolish the existing framework, and rebuild a world where people can be people, and use their abilities 100%~
"That's not really at odds with us, is it?" Compress asked his allies as Kovik shook his head.
"Fanatics that believe in a world free of some form of stabilization are doomed to fall farther than most, ask the remnants of old Houses in Exile, they'll paint a story of red for you," Kovik dismissed Re-Destro's ideology, it had merit but it couldn't last. Shigaraki's idea is to wipe the slate clean but it has a better foundation than this madman. Besides, Kovik was more bothered by the interference.
"Is this like the yakuza wanting to use our name all over again?" Toga sounded exasperated by that notion.
"Release the broker, call back later, we're busy right now," Shigaraki replied, disinterested in their talks. "I'll listen to you once our task is done, revolution club."
~Then take a break and listen to this~ Re-Destro suggested. ~First of all, we won't release him. For now, he's a hostage. I've heard you guys are big on solidarity. He's admirable, he has a strong work ethic, I imagine he kept himself hidden in the dark ever mindful of the watchful eyes of heroes and the police~
~Which is why he was susceptible to pursuit from within that same darkness. Let us praise him! For doing away with his client list, for not giving up information or letting out a single moan even when his fingers were cut off~ Re-Destro listed off almost joyously. ~But then, we did restore the deleted data. Let us praise his meaningless resistance!~
"'Meaningless'..." Kovik's head buzzed with flashes of memories.
"Who are you?" Kovik brandished his blades toward the opposite end of the abandoned factory, he was away from his standard post by Mt. Fuji, Dren worked tirelessly to build the foundations with what they had to begin replicating basic proxies of their Splicers, a dishonest approach but necessary.
A man stood before him, hands up in a casual defense as he smoked a cigarette. He wore a pair of dress pants and a matching blazer, along with plain black shoes and a shirt which he left partially unbuttoned at the top. He has a thick, golden tube-like necklace around his neck that appears to be made up of multiple segments, and a fluffy scarf that resembles intestines in shape and color, also sporting a pair of circular glasses on his face.
"No need to be all up in... well, four arms, it seems," He noticed Kovik's extra appendages behind his back. The Splicer didn't lower his guard. With a slit gaze, the man flicked his right hand off his forehead in greeting. "You really aren't from around here if you ain't heard of me, hurts ya know? Name's Grain but that's all you need to know."
"I don't care, leave," Kovik hadn't the time for another distraction, he needed to track SIVA's signal, it was stronger now, the images he's seen through the thief's eyes, it appears UA is his next destination.
"What if I were to offer so intel in what you need, for a price, of course?" Grain grinned, blowing away the smoke. "Some interesting faces are thinkin' of making a big splash,"
"Where?" Kovik turned his head to the man, the eyes of his skull mask lighting up as the man rubbed his thumb and index fingers together.
"Ya know how this plays, how 'bout it?" Grain was a businessman, Kovik could tell he never intended to be so generous, even going as far as to come unarmed.
"You're a fool to come here," Kovik tapped his cutlasses together, sharpening them against one another.
"But who'll walk away the bigger fool if you tried something funny?" He tested, for once, the Splicer lowered his guard before a human.
"...name your price, broker."
When Kovik tuned back in, Re-Destro prattled on, ~-Revolution Club!? I don't appreciate jokes like that! 116,516 hidden liberation warriors! We're already prepared to take action~ He proclaimed as even Kovik lifted his head in startlement over the drastic numbers against them.
"You must be bluffing!" Spinner scoffed.
~Oh? Niigata, huh? You sure are deep in the mountains~ Twice reacted sharply, tossing his phone away. ~It's too late, we have a satellite camera locked onto you, wherever you go, we'll know. The notorious League of Villains~
~Endeavor, Hawks, Edge Shot, Mirko, and Crust. If we notify them they'll surely drop everything and surround you~ Re-Destro had them tagged. ~I'm certain the girl you're after will come for you especially, High Splicer Priest Kovik~
"You expect me to feel threatened by the Thief?" Kovik growled, digging his claws into the rock.
"Nice of you to warn us, what are you going to do?" Shigaraki asked, remaining calm or the fatigue made him that way.
~The leader of the liberation must be a 'Destro'. You guys have gotten to well-known, we'll crush you personally, thus signaling the revival of the Liberation Army~ Re-Destro stated matter-of-factly. ~The fingers are an oath to that effect. There is no need for any sluggish bargaining, we'll fight to liberate the meta powers, and soon!~
~Come to Delka City, in Alchi, within the hour. If you do, I'll release Grain! And then, choose!~ Now, Shigaraki was smiling, the idea of being backed into a corner but some big-shot made the fatigue melt away. ~Will you fight us and go under, or get caught by the heroes and go under!? Tomura Shigaraki~
The call was cut off, yet the interference remained.
"Alchi within the hour?" Compress huffed, staring up at the sky. "This guy's got his own satellite to use? If it's true, it's checkmate for us."
"Do we even have to think about this!? No, we don't!?" Twice snapped, switching personalities. "A scarf that looks like large intestines and round sunglasses! Nobody else has bad taste like that!" Twice was pacing. "Grain gave me a place where I belong! Let's go save him right now!"
"He might have already been killed," Toga crossed to fingers into an 'X', warning of the possibility. "Everything that guy said might be a lie, all he did was talk."
"She's right, it's all hearsay, unfortunately," Kovik grimaced, the man was the one that truly set Kovik's plans into motion where he remained stagnant. The idea of the greedy human dying so unfairly bothered the Splicer, but why?
"If there's even a small chance he's alive, we should go!" Twice threw his fists down determinedly.
"Charge in without a plan? Calm down!" Compress dismissed with a snappish tone. "Why have you become so hung up over friends?"
"Because I'm an outcast!" He yelled before Shigaraki peeled his mask off, leaving the blonde to suddenly freak out, falling to his knees.
"I have an idea," Shigaraki tapped his earpiece. "Doctor, you were listening, right?"
Nothing but static came through. "Hold on, I can help," Kovik approached Shigaraki, plucking the earpiece as his blue nanites buzzed around the device. "Someone is attempting to disable my core functions, since I'm not really flesh and blood anymore past an exterior hide, but I can still perform basic repairs but it won't last."
Handing it back, Shigaraki tapped the button. "Doctor?"
~Ah, yes, well done, Kovik! But yes, I'm very surprised the Meta Liberation Army is still around. You guys really do provoke the darkness~ The Doctor mused.
"How much time until the big guy wakes up?" Shigaraki inquired.
"I'm splitting...!" Toga attempted to ease Twice's mentality.
"Provided nothing interferes, we'll wake up in two hours and thirty-five minutes." Compress had kept a record of the times between rests that it became second nature within weeks.
"Doctor, where is Dabi?" Shigaraki asked.
~Right now, the prefectural border between Mie and Shiga~
"What a good place to be," He smiled, glancing off to the side. "Okay, I'll need you to handle 'transmission', let's go," His eyes met with Kovik. "The interference is still here, isn't it?"
"I can't remove it, they caught me off guard, perhaps the Doctor is compromised as well," Kovik stated. "Shall I intervene?"
"Send some of your Fallen our way, we could use the distraction," Shigaraki requested as the Splicer nodded.
"You're gonna charge in there without Kovik's help!?" Spinner gawked, seeing the large guy walk back to his rock. "What'll you do if they really have 110,000 people!?"
Their leader pointed to the ridge. "He's not invincible, I know that after fighting him for over a month. He just has too much HP, and no matter where I am, he'll find me and come after me," Then it struck them all on the head, Shigaraki's ludicrous plan to pull the rug out from under their enemy.
Grin wide, Shigaraki punched his palm, "I'll toss Gigantomachia at those 110,000 and let them fight it out. Even the big guy'll be a little tired after that," The confidence in his voice was thick and heavy.
~How sneaky-!~ The Doctor's yell made Shigaraki recoil sharply, rubbing his ear. ~-and what'll you do if it turns out to be a bluff!?~
"Then there'll be just a dead idiot." He hissed, head spinning from the white noise.
"You're going then?" Spinner confirmed as Shigaraki helped place Twice's mask back on.
"I just said so, Kovik will go after the Doctor, if we lose him we'll lose a valuable player," Shigaraki stated as more static filled his ear, the effect of the enemy's hacking capabilities was even beyond Kovik's to repair completely.
"Once I'm wrapped up... I become one," Twice repeated under his breath, calming down from his initial mental breakdown.
Facing the sunlight, Shigaraki grinned through his body's fatigue. "I'm gonna crush them."
Once he was a safe distance away, Kovik met with a large figure standing a mere two meters from himself, had he not known of his ally's whereabouts he may have missed him. The vigilante, Red Dragon, stood completely motionless, a few birds nesting atop his large pauldron and crown, the silent figure's shield moving an inch, yet the birds didn't stir as he craned his neck to gaze at the Splicer standing only a head shorter than himself.
"Sounded serious, are you not concerned? Shigaraki is brazen, confronting an army headfirst," Red Dragon had heard everything through his helmet, the idea that such a grand army of over one-hundred-thousand could be amassed across the country was concerning for their own motives.
"I'm more preoccupied with the intrusion on my nanotech," Kovik grunted, shaking his pyramid helmet. "Something is attempting to bypass my security, they will fail, but the interference is bothersome," However, his location remained elusive, so the threat sent by Re-Destro held no weight to the Splicer. "In fact, I'm glad they decided to threaten us, now we have a golden opportunity to act."
Red Dragon turned his head, and the birds flew in fright as the branches snapped and gave way for an invisible body to land on the grass, their blue cloak shimmering into view. Drevis looked as worn as the rest, her armor burnt and split in various places from lack of repairs, her mask broken around the left side, leaving her blue eyes exposed beneath a tarnished hood.
"No patrols, they have not sent followers," Drevis reported. "Is it time?"
"Yes, you can come out now, Infernal," From within Kovik's shadow, the scorched Nightmare materialized again, the flesh binding his jaws stretched with his smile as he clapped happily.
"Is it!? Yes, yes, yes! Ooh, I have been waiting for this!" He tugged on Kovik's right arm. "Can I have my new Host!? They're exactly the kinda Host I've been looking for!" That twinkle in tiger-orange eyes enlarged.
"Not yet, unfortunately-" Infernal deflated, slipping off Kovik's arm. "-he is out on business for the League, but I assure you I have conversed with him about this offer, he will consider it later,"
"Hrm, hm... fine," Infernal pouted, crossing his arms as he sat on the ground. "So what now? That Re-what's-his-face forced us to scatter and all of you guys look about as stable as a bridge made of toothpicks - only uglier."
Kovik didn't say a word, it was the truth, while he could easily use his nanomachines to mend their armor, their fatigue was not so easily cured. For weeks they attempted to crack the mountain that was Gigantomachia, even Red Dragon couldn't force the beast to sway from its despair. Unfortunately, Shigaraki was the only one capable of swindling such a force to their side. Kovik had inadvertently killed the only being capable of controlling the monster months ago.
Running his hand down his helmet, pinching the tip of the pyramid he hummed, lost in thought. "We mustn't lose this chance, I have already told them of my intentions, if we fail, then all hopes of completing Projects Dreadnaught and Red Glare are through, our sacrifices will have been for nothing," He refused to let that happen, not when they were so close.
"Then we strike the heart, remove the last, AFO's final right-hand," Red Dragon tapped his halberd off the ground sharply, the spearheads chiming through the leaves. "We follow your lead."
"We have one left from Harrow," Drevis fished around in her barding, procuring a single silver coin with a blue gemstone. A relic the Nightmare gifted them for their 'new alliance', how little that meant to Kovik, that creature was beyond reasoning with his obsession with Viral and Velk. "There is no way back, are you certain of this, Kovik?"
Lifting his head, he looked amongst his allies slowly. "You have followed me since we brought you back, a Silent Fang working with a Devil, your Kell would be displeased, and yet, here you stand, obediently," There was a pang of suspicion in his tone, but the Fallen held out his hand for her.
"You promised me vengeance on the Guardians," Her claws dug against the coin in bitterness. "I will offer myself to even the most fallen of Eliksni at that opportunity, my Kell will see his revenge satisfied,"
"Then I will grant you such,"
Their hands met, and the coin, a precious move, passed itself into Kovik's black claws. Turning around, he flicked the coin into Infernal's palm, the Nightmare dancing around frantically to catch the coin. "Ahem, lovely speech aside - next stop, the Doctor's lair!" He whistled, crushing the coin in his palm before casting the silvery-blue dust into the forest. "Um, that means open please!"
With a burst of light, reality pinched and shredded itself open for a rift the size of Red Dragon. He was the first to move, stomping toward the rift without complaint. "I will be the vanguard, move cautiously," Slowly, he disappeared through the portal.
"Bonzai~!" Infernal dove headfirst through the gate as Drevis and Kovik glanced at one another.
"Why did you accept coming with us, with me?" Kovik had never gotten a straight answer from the reserved assassin, her cloak brushing against his contrasting fabric due to the vacuum from the rift's circumference.
"'The days of Kell and House end now. The calendar of slavery and abasement goes to the fire. We are a new calendar. We are an age of beginnings. Each of us is a day'," Drevis' tone clicked in her unique tongue, even by human standards. "Skolaskel sought a real purpose of unity, I feel... you wish the same,"
She stepped through the rift as it began to shrink, Kovik had little time to mull over her words that left him anchored to the earth. What did she mean by that? He never said it, but that would-be 'Kell of Kells' was a madman, and yet, was Kovik any different as Drevis said?
Without much time left, he stepped through the rift, and the forest heard only the snap and pop of magic left in the rift's wake.
When Kovik arrived last, the rift snapped shut behind his cloak, and the environment changed slightly. For one, they were surrounded on both sides by highlands, the forests covering the edges say for an old, barely visible road under their feet, a few broken segments of tarmac through the dirt.
Ahead of them was a peculiar sight. The face of the mountain had been carved out into what appeared to be an underground shelter, a large half-circle concrete outline with a rusted shutter locking the building up tight. Old walkways led up either side, nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary, just a bland, abandoned facility.
"Where are we?" Kovik inquired, inspecting the area as Infernal hopped out of a shadow.
"We near Jaku City - I know since I checked a map about... ten kilometers away?" He scratched his head, muttering if that was right before nodding. "Yep! I can see the city from up above, really barren place. Dunno why we're here, I said the Doctor... I think?"
"He is here, hiding," Drevis snarled, cocking her wire rifle. "Plain sight, clever." She'd admit that much.
"Stand behind me," Red Dragon warned, his feet inching forward at the disturbance in the world's natural energy, something was moving fast in their direction. All but Infernal quickly made themselves defensive, Kovik drawing his modified scorch cannon into both arms with Drevis turning invisible. "Disturbances, he knows we came, what now?"
"Let the good Doctor think he's winning," Kovik smirked behind his helmet as the shutters to the old facility groaned, grime and dirt shifting from the lips of the frame as the rusted metal revealed a dark loading bay within. "Infernal, light the way."
"Got it, boss!" Clicking his fingers, he tossed a small ball of fire into the dark, the sunlight behind the doorway casting shadows over what lay beyond the veil. Once the orb hovered by the doorway, something black and serpent-like slashed the embers away, hissing at the light. Infernal deadpanned. "Now that's just rude, hehe - A!?"
A long, black needle pierced his forehead, knocking the Nightmare down onto the ground as the splinter exploded, blowing the shade's head clean off his shoulders. He raised a hand as if to say 'what was that?' as several more needles threshed from the darkness.
A dark-skinned creature shambled forward as the sunlight was blocked by a large cloud, bathing them in a darkened sky. Its head was wrapped in an iron cylinder with thorns. The black skin was covered in gashes for splinters to pierce forward. A long-tail whipped close to its feet, the fur obscuring the thorns. The eyes were surrounded by red skin, and the white eyes left a contrail as they moved.
"Found you... Nightmare... you pretender...!" It snarled in a gasping voice. "Dead thing... murderer... come... we return... the favor...!"
"'We'?" Infernal snorted as several more Nomu approached, hiding within the facility, all were various greys but only the thorn-covered Nomu appeared to be a High-End. Even without a mouth, its eyes widened enormously.
"Rise... my scourge!" As is with Nomu, it had a secondary quirk. With ripples of deep blue vapor, several clouds emerged around it, from seemingly nowhere, copies of itself without the thorns appeared. Screaming like feral animals as they swung their claws in the direction of the enemy. "Die... rot in the ground...!"
Slowly, Kovik pushed past his allies now seemingly outnumbered, he didn't laugh, nor make any attempt to return the insults. Instead, he raised his finger toward the hoard of Nomu and thrall. "Good Doctor, I hope you're watching, because I will shoulder my strength, and tear your dreams apart."
After all, why else would he transfer the interference onto the Doctor's coms to keep him from squealing to Shigaraki? "I HAVE A NEW FLESHBAG, YOU WILL NOT TAKE THIS FROM ME!" Infernal's whole body suddenly ignited as he charged headlong into battle.
To Be Continued...
The next story arc begins with the Villain Arc but from Kovik's perspective. A battle to defeat the very man aiding them and Shigaraki in their efforts but for what? And how will they prevail? I hope you enjoyed, I appreciate the support as always; seeya in the next chapter, Villains!
Next Chapter Intermission: Against Fate's Perfection
Red Dragon stood silently at the camera, he didn't move, instead, someone poked their head out from behind him. A young girl with silvery hair, a faint red pigment to her locks, and dazzling blue eyes. "Heya, Big Red, I'm ready to train!"
"Your stealth requires work," He commented.
"Hello to you too, grumpy," She deadpanned, waving at the camera. "Woah, I'm young again!" She winked at the camera as she leapt out in front of Red Dragon. "Lookin' good..."
"We mustn't waste the day, every second is important," He commented in his deep, aged voice. "Coming soon, Against Fate's Perfection."
The dragon girl rolled her eyes, "Yeah, yeah, Big Red - ahem, Go Beyond, Pluuuus Ultra!
