Shahryar - He really is, isn't he? xD
fencer29 - More like The Boy Who Lives after something like this lmao xD
(***)
In the opinion of everyone involved, it was a matter of time. They feared that day right from the start of their little war against Overhaul. They made preparations for it for weeks, from hero patrols to evacuation drills.
But in the end, it still happened.
The attack was sudden and overwhelming. Dictator - together with some of Overhaul's brain surgeries - managed to put Kurogiri in a more or less working order for the day. The rest, well, the rest was just using him properly.
Prefectural police headquarters were turned into a pile of molten slag in the first attack, Overhaul deciding that it gave him the best shot of killing Senior Commissioner Aizawa, not to mention crippling the prefectural police.
More attacks followed suit.
Governor's office was devoured by a miniature volcano eruption, magma incinerating most of the complex, Overhaul's new S-Rank villain Volcano (also known as Maguma Iwata) announcing his existence in a rather destructive way.
Headquarters of the local firefighters were destroyed by Dabi's Prominence Burn a moments later, Chisaki restoring him from beyond the point of death with his quirk.
Then, Overhaul had Kurogiri warp him - and a group of his thugs (not to mention several new villains) into the local TV station.
(***)
"I'm sure…" Overhaul says towards the camera. He is sitting in the news anchor's; seat, the person who used to occupy it reduced to a blood smear on the floor with a single touch. "... that you have a lot of questions now."
It's going live. He made sure of that. The members of the filming crew got extremely obedient when they saw Chisaki murder someone, his thugs blocking all ways out of the building, some of them… looking slightly not like a human should.
He is wearing his best outfit. Black dress pants, black shirt, olive bomber jacket with a violet fur collar, a gas mask. Something that's going to become his 'official' villain uniform. He has to stand out, right?
Kurogiri is standing to his left, covered in his black clouds, looking as unnatural as possible and further highlighting the uniqueness of the people gathered in the studio, Dictator operating him like a puppet (and keeping him quiet) from where cameras couldn't reach..
The person to the right was much more known to the public. After all, who doesn't know Goto Imasuji nowadays?
"Like, 'who is he?'" Overhaul says. His voice is… calm, collected, almost bored. "'What is happening?', or maybe 'what happened to Musutafu police?' The answer to all of that is… actually pretty simple."
He spreads his hands around, leaning forward a little.
"I'm sure you've all heard about the recent announcement of the Prime Minister." Overhaul continues. "Superpowers are real! Isn't that great? Oh, I'm sure that a lot of you are plenty scared, though. And you should be. Why? Because you didn't all think that you can have superpowers without supervillains, now did you?"
In some twisted way, he is enjoying it. Defiant & Co were waiting for the Reveal Day, but so was he, just for a completely different reason. He could finally step into the light… and he was enjoying it.
"My name is Kai Chisaki." Overhaul announces. "Although to keep with the times, you should refer to me with my villain name of Overhaul. I'm the head of the Shie Hassaikai yakuza clan and the undisputed leader of organized crime and villainy within Musutafu Prefecture."
It's a big declaration. An official confession that he's going to elaborate upon soon. Enough to make the police be able to pursue him openly and legally. Because thus far, yeah, thus far they still didn't have an awful lot of evidence against him.
They just temporarily stopped caring about it, fully ready to simply have him murdered if they could.
"I officially claim responsibility for the Marukane Ward fire." Overhaul announces loudly. "For the Shizuoka Massacre. For the utter destruction of a certain village up in the Nabu Mountains, with no recorded survivors. For the assassination of Assistant Commissioner Mera, and the complete destruction of his precinct. For a significant part of the police casualties during the Gunga Mountain raid. And for a current wave of attacks, which, as my lovely predecessor…" He says, while pointing to the blood smear next to him. '... already reported, includes destruction of Musutafu prefectural police headquarters, governor's office and the headquarters of the local firefighters."
A moment of silence. Let the viewers digest the news.
"All those acts of terror and more, were commited at my orders, with the hands of the villains and criminals in my employ." Overhaul continues. "By now, I'm practically an uncrowned ruler of Hosu, where my word is law. And well, I want more. Musutafu as a whole, maybe even more than that. Does anyone here want to guess what exactly is stopping me from taking what's mine?"
Silence. The crew is too terrified to speak, and he really can't hear the reactions of people watching him in their homes.
"Well, it's something that I genuinely expected to hear about in the Prime Minister's announcement, but I guess that Nana Shimura decided to buy the government some more time to establish the legal and organizational framework before making it official." Overhaul continues. "So I guess I'll have to make the announcement in her stead, because I'm most certainly tired of waiting."
Thankfully, while Musutafu was painfully unfriendly towards him as of now, there were… gossip reaching him from outside of the prefecture. The local branch of the heroes was an informational blackhole, but the Network as a whole wasn't.
He knows how far Defiant has managed to get. He'll enjoy dragging him back into the mud.
"What better way to fight against supervillains…" Overhaul, once again spreads his arms around. "... than to send superheroes against them? Musutafu ended up being a testing ground for the whole initiative, and I have managed to establish myself quite a feud with the leader of the prefectural superhero unit. It's an extraordinarily serious feud, which you can probably guess from what I've done today alone in order to settle it finally."
Fingertips of both hands come together in front of him, Overhaul smiling to the cameras, something visible in his eyes even through the gas mask.
"This is a message to you, Defiant." Overhaul says. "My official declaration of war against you and your organization. Musutafu is mine, and I want your costumed clowns out of it. This can play out in three different ways."
A finger raises.
"One, you free my villains that you and Aizawa managed to jail during the last few months." Overhaul announces. "You give me back what you stole from me. Then you and the rest of your merry band of misfits will all leave Musutafu. Play out your childish dreams of saving people with your meta-ability in Tokyo, in Shizuoka, even in the United States, I don't care. I won't pursue you, I won't go after your families. I can be merciful, you know?"
Second finger joins the first one.
"Continue trying to fight against me, just as you did for the last few months." Overhaul continues. "Struggle all you want, especially now that most of your allies are out of the picture. I will win. And when I finally corner you, I'm going to fulfill the promise I made in that alleyway. I'm going to slowly and painfully murder you, your family, your friends, your pets, and anyone who ever smiled at you."
Overhaul can only imagine how the next part is going to make Defiant suffer. That's honestly the very reason why he is doing that.
"Oh, my bad, Defiant!" Overhaul announces after a loud (and very fake) gasp. "I can't slowly and brutally murder your mother for your continued resistance… because I already had her murdered! Well, consider this a teaser of what's to come. Because trust me, it'll get worse from now on."
Is Midoriya angry? Is he suffering? Oh, Overhaul sincerely hopes so. Maybe he should transmit what he does when he captures someone from his organization through the TV or the internet too?
Giving them the Dictator treatment and making Defiant watch while being unable to do anything about it is probably a good idea. If only he knew whom he was really close with among his heroic band to make sure whom to focus on… did he have a girlfriend or a boyfriend to go through that treatment?
Something to remember for the future. In the meantime, he has more important things to do.
And thus, the third finger joins the first two.
"Finally, option number three." Overhaul announces. "How about we solve our disagreements… like men of our stature should? Because, believe it or not, I respect you as an opponent. You're probably the only person in this prefecture, aside from me of course, with a vision and a will to fight for it. If not for you, I'd have ruled this place already. You're my nemesis, and what better way of crowning yourself as a king than to have your nemesis bloodily murdered in front of cameras?"
He isn't even lying. Defiant is an… interesting novelty in his life of crime. He rarely encountered people that were dangerous and irritating enough for it to escalate into a regular feud. And no one has ever given him more problems than Defiant.
He's going to remember killing him very fondly.
Kuroiro is next on the list.
"So, the deal is as follows." Overhaul leans forward, raising a finger in front of him. "For the next six hours, I'm going to be waiting for you at the Hosu outskirts, on the Esuha bridge. Together with all the villains that are working for me and the remnants of my personal guard. If you want to, then please. Come by, and let's end our feud with a proper clash of supervillains and superheroes."
He leans back in the seat. They are almost done with this. They are still not quite sure if Defiant has a warper, and while the amount of civilians around them makes using Amplitude to tear the building to shreds unlikely (and organizing a 'proper' attack takes time), he still feels rather exposed outside of Hosu.
"The rules are as follows." Overhaul continues. "You can bring your heroes AND, to keep things fair since I'm keeping my praetorians, the members of the Quirk Suppression Squad of the local police… oh, my bad, we're still calling them the 'Special Operations Unit', don't we?"
Another little reveal. It's not about fairness, of course. He just wants those jackasses out of the picture, because if seeing them slap Goto Imasuji with an anti-materiel rifle in Aldera taught him something, it's that they were dangerous.
Of course, it was entirely possible that they were in the prefectural police headquarters when they went up in smoke. Oh, well, then it's bad news for you, Defiant. You'll be at a disadvantage. As if he cares.
"Rule two is actually more of a promise from me." Overhaul says. "The district right next to the Esuha bridge is almost abandoned. For the past three hours, my villains and yakuza members worked hard to make sure that it's empty. You and the others can come all out. And no, this isn't some 'oh my, I lied, you just killed a bunch of civilians with your attack' psychological warfare."
He actually considered it, just to make Defiant suffer some more, but…
"As I strongly implied in this announcement…" Overhaul continues. "I want a proper crowning moment. I want to have you broken and dead in front of the cameras. I want to beat you at your strongest, to make the government that seems to be putting so much hope in you realize that they bet on the wrong horse. How will the Prime Minister react to seeing her precious Number One Hero killed in front of the public, I wonder?"
He wants, no, he needs the government to collapse finally. Breaking the soon-to-be Hero Association before it starts off properly is going to be the killing blow to Japan. He knows that much.
He already heard the gossip about the Meta-Liberation Army. Defiant's announcement on the HeroNET might have helped prevent defections of Network's members, but it also made people realize that MLA existed and was an existential threat to the country.
You just couldn't limit the knowledge to just the Network members. Yes, it spread slowly, but… it didn't stop Overhaul from learning at least something about it. Such as the fact that it was Serious Business™.
Won't the result of the battle of Esuha bridge be the perfect incentive for it to make a move? Won't it force the government to focus on the MLA instead of avenging Defiant's death and retaking Musutafu?
It's all a calculated risk.
And Overhaul, in his own opinion, was very good at math.
"Naturally, if you break the rules…" Overhaul says. "... well, let's just say that there are a lot of people in Hosu. I have all the hostages I need, so consider your options carefully and stick to the game plan, or things are going to get nasty."
And, now…
"Of course, we all know that you'll pick option three, Defiant." Overhaul says. "Since it's the most idiotically heroic. And, coincidentally, your only shot at taking me down now that your whole support infrastructure is in ruins. And on that accent… we're leaving. Kurogiri, warp us back. The chair too, actually. It's surprisingly comfortable and I think I'd like to have a memento to remember this day by."
He is going to rule this prefecture how he sees fit soon enough. Taking a chair in front of the cameras, with no one able to stop him from that, is petty, but… why the fuck not?
He's going to take much more soon, either way.
(***)
"So…" Governor Yagi says when Overhaul vacates the studio, the transmission ends. "... that's the person you were fighting against for the past few months? With governmental support and funds that can only be summed up with a word 'insufficient', and I'm trying to be polite here."
"Yes." Senior Commissioner Aizawa replies, looking even more dead tired than usual. "Yes, that's our nemesis and the biggest source of problems in your prefecture for the last few months at the very least, Governor Yagi."
He is theoretically not working for him anymore, though with his work currently being very Musutafu-centered, he is still being very polite. No need to antagonize the person that was a massive net benefit for their operation during these trying times.
"Well, looks like not firing you after Gunga was a good idea, then." Yagi comments dryly. "Even all the extrajudicial imprisonments suddenly feel much less criminal after I saw Overhaul pull this shit on us."
The chief prosecutor, sitting on the couch next to him, seems to be in reluctant agreement.
They are all in the UA. Yagi is sitting on the couch, flanked by the prefectural chief prosecutor and Death Arms, head of the local JSDF garrison. Yagi is generally trying to ignore the fact that Mirai Sasaki was sitting on the chair next to the couch, drinking tea and observing the… meeting?, in silence.
Aizawa is sitting on another chair. Defiant is standing right next to him, his back leaning on the wall, his face exposed. They already went through the 'holy shit how old are you?' phase.
Izuku hated that (both having his adulthood questioned AND his face becoming known), but it was all part of the plan. They needed to make sure that All for One knew whom to target. And with Yagi technically working for him…
Hawks, currently about fifty-something in terms of age, was sitting on another chair on the other side of Aizawa. Practically ready to fight (in his own opinion) even if he wasn't quite on the danger level he used to be on.
"If not for the advance warning from the underground heroes in Hosu, he would have ended the war with the first blow." Aizawa comments. "So, yeah."
"What are the estimated casualties?" Yagi asks back.
"Everyone was evacuated before the attack, through Eclipse's warpgate to make sure that the evacuation was invisible from the outside." Aizawa replies. "No one died, at least in the attacked facilities. We, unfortunately, couldn't do anything to prevent collateral damage caused by Prominence Burn burning through the local firefighters headquarters and hitting buildings behind it."
"Even with the advance warning?" Yagi asks, his brow raising. "I understand trying to make Overhaul not realize that we were warned ahead of the attack, but the civilian casualties are a bit of a high price for that."
Aizawa knows that.
"Unfortunately, even with Inquisitor onboard, Overhaul is extremely stringent about information security." Aizawa replies. "We didn't know what facilities Dabi and Volcano were going to target and in what sequence. We had all potential targets in Takoba evacuated, including UA and the Metahuman Network headquarters, and, to be honest, without knowing the actual targets and even the angle of the Prominence Burn we simply couldn't evacuate even a fraction of civilians involved."
The 3am warning from Rabbit could be summed up as 'they are going to an attack today'. it wasn't until 7am that they knew that it was going to be an assault through a warpgate into some major facilities on Takoba. Because that's when Overhaul spilled the beans and the underground hero/vigilante task force found that out.
The attack started at 7:30am.
It simply wasn't enough time.
They barely left the UA basement, as the attack was clearly over and the secrecy of UA as a vital part of the local superhero support network clearly remained as strong as ever.
"Regretful but understandable." Yagi sighs. Even Death Arms seems to be in an agreement on that. "Resources?"
"We've evacuated the contents of the police armories and the evidence storage successfully." Aizawa replies. "Most of the electronic data survived as back-ups on the internet cloud. The firefighters got most of their equipment out, including their vehicles. The loss of infrastructure and the data that existed there in physical form will hurt us severely, but the police remain capable of fighting back."
"And what…" Yagi looks at him very intensely. "... is your plan for fighting back?"
"Defiant?" Aizawa asks, glancing at the superhero right next to him, instead of answering the governor.
"We were issued a challenge." Izuku replies dryly. "I think that it would be bad manners on our side to not show up at the Esuha Bridge."
He isn't sure if it's good, but… he is really, really looking forward to it. Overhaul was his nemesis, hell, he still was. It was that rivalry that gave birth to the Network, that helped Izuku become the superhero he was now.
But, at this point, he was both a nemesis and a distraction. Destro and All for One were problems of a completely different magnitude. Securing Musutafu would be a most important stepping stone to being able to challenge them.
Besides, he has people to avenge - like his mother. The Shizuoka Heroes Alliance, so Itsuka Kendou, Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu, Yosetsu Awase and Nagamasa Mora. Inasa Yoarashi. Yokumiru Mera. Shuichi Iguchi. The list grew uncomfortably long.
And, to keep the motivations a bit more heroic, he wants Eri to be able to live freely. Or, at least, as freely as a metahuman can nowadays.
Overhaul was right. It was time to end this.
"Are you insane?!" Yagi clearly doesn't get it. He also immediately realizes that he went a bit too far, so he backtracks a little. "Look, don't get me wrong, I'm aware of your track record. You've done some absolutely outstanding things, and I totally support the Prime Minister's decision to treat you as the Number One Hero. But this? This is going to be a war?"
If Izuku was a character of some really badly written story (he read a lot of superhero fanfics), he would have probably ended up lashing back. After all, how dare someone treat him like this?
He is so goddamn tired of reading people's badly concealed power fantasies in search of random bouts of inspiration about some interesting superpowers and so on.
Yagi is clearly looking down on him. But he is a war veteran. He knows what he talks about. He knows how bad it is, he sees a young man in front of him (a young man like he used to be a long time ago) and he wants to spare him from experiencing the same things first hand.
To be honest, the governor supporting Midoriya right now would be the option that would make him into a very bad person.
"This is going to be a war…" Izuku agrees. "... but also our best chance of taking him down. We might not have another one like it ever again."
"No, now you are most certainly being insane." Death Arms snarls back. "This is an obvious trap."
"An obvious trap, yes." Izuku nods. He took part in enough high profile meetings to not cower anymore. When meta-abilities are involved, he has more practical experience than everyone in the room combined. "But it's Overhaul that fell into it"
"What do you me…" Death Arms says aggressively, but stops when Yagi raises his hand.
"Elaborate, please." Governor says calmly. Yeah, despite the whole mind-control thing, Izuku is really starting to respect that man. He is at least willing to listen to his arguments before making a decision.
"Overhaul assumes that he has an information advantage over us, thanks to his new recruits." Izuku replies. "He isn't aware that the underground heroes provided us with a list and a brief dissection of most of their meta-abilities. There is also a large chance that we'll know at least a brief outline of their deployment before the attack thanks to them."
Vigilantes, naturally, remain unmentioned. Even if in all honesty it's mostly thanks to them. Politics.
"Overhaul also doesn't know about the fact that we have a warpgate user." Midoriya continues. He might suspect it, but he certainly knows nothing for certain, nor how good Eclipse was. "He also doesn't know about the warp interference phenomenon. We can put Kurogiri under lockdown, negating Overhaul's supposed advantage in mobility completely while cutting off his main escape route."
Overhaul's plan B is Kurogiri, or so Izuku thinks. His plan C is probably to disappear into the backstreets of the abandoned district. But if they manage to pummel his sidekicks badly enough right from the start, he might not get the smokescreen he needs to escape.
"He also has outdated information about our combat strength." Izuku continues. "We got to observe his clashes with the League of Villains in Shizuoka, but he only saw a number of our members during the Gunga Mountain battle. He has no idea how much stronger I got, Carnage only briefly saw Eclipse in combat, Blackwing got much better too."
They all did. He could continue the list much further. Gargoyle. Pinky. Hell, Dabi didn't even see what Amplitude was potentially capable of.
"We can win this, especially with a powerful strike right from the start." Izuku continues his lecture. "There is no way that his new villains are as trained with fighting alongside his older members as the praetorians he lost to Rabbit. There is a high chance they will crumble at the first sight of trouble."
Silence. Yagi is clearly digesting the lecture. Eventually, he decided to speak.
"Death Arms, I want your helicopters on the standby." He announces. Izuku, for a moment, falters. "Keep them outside of the combat area, and keep them ready to provide medevac if the heroes get injured and Eclipse won't be able to evacuate them immediately."
"What?" Death Arms blinks at him. "You can't be serious about this! You're letting a terrorist of this magnitude be handled by a bunch of superpowered teenagers?!"
"One of those superpowered teenagers just offered me a perfectly logical discourse as to why it should be left to them." Yagi replies dryly. "Keep some police officers near you to perform arrests once the battle ends, while at it, your attack helicopters should keep the enemy riff-raff at bay and deter attack attempts on them. Midoriya?"
"Y-yes?" Midoriya says, immediately cursing himself for making his voice crumble for a second.
"I'm only allowing this because I see no better option." Yagi states. "I absolutely loathe endangering people like you, who in a better world would be busy making sure that they did their homework correctly rather than have to be sent out to battle megalomaniacs like Overhaul. If you have to choose between letting him escape and dying in the line of duty, I want you to pick the first option. Am I making myself clear?"
"Yes." Midoriya nods. He acknowledges the clarity of his words, not exactly their contents. In his opinion, Overhaul is going to go down. No other options allowed.
Of course, they'll try to do that in the least dangerous way possible. Because Izuku has a family to return to.
What Yagi doesn't add, mostly because he thinks that the kid has enough pressure as is, is that this battle will probably form the image of heroics in the eyes of a significant chunk of the population. Especially if even a part of it is transmitted.
Overhaul issued a challenge to the government and the heroes. If a supervillain as terrifying as him is defeated in front of the cameras, proving the superheroes to be a power to be reckoned with…
He can only hope that he's making the right decision.
"I'm almost completely sure that Nana Shimura is trying to contact me in order to make sure that you don't show up to Esuha bridge." Yagi then adds dryly. She was a good politician, but Yagi was, deep inside, a good soldier AND politician. That changed his approach to things severely. "Thankfully, for now my survival remains uncertain and I can pretend afterwards that I lost my phone in the blast and didn't realize she was trying to contact me."
Plausible deniability was a useful thing to have.
"So, I want him dead or jailed by the time she manages to reach me or Aizawa and relays her order for you to stand down." Yagi continues. "Consider this to be your first official order from the Japanese government."