A/N: Just a heads up! Channel six is badass, guys! Some people get prickly about the questions they ask, but the heroes have a strong bond with channel six. The questions are formed ahead of time and they are what the interviews and reporters should be asking when it's an exclusive type of thing like this is, when they have time to prepare before the cameras roll. That's why there's such a difference in the level of respect when it comes to exclusive interviews, like with Neito and Hitoshi in front of Tartarus, versus impromptu stuff where everyone is just trying to get a story, like with Denki after that building collapse after a quirk accident. Channel six and the heroes are on the same side; they wouldn't ask some of these rude sounding questions if they weren't scripted by the heroes to get the information out there as quickly and efficiently as possible in a way that the public can most easily and directly understand. Hope this clears some things up and eases some of your blood pressure when reading this chapter!
Neito continued to glare at Isozan all morning as everyone else hurried throughout the League's base, preparing for Denki's interview.
"Fuck," Isozan muttered when he noticed. "What'd I do now?"
Isozan had been catching up with Uretori all night, so he knew it couldn't have been anything recent. It had to have been something that Neito remembered from the day prior unless he breathed on him wrong or something.
"Why were you singing to my soulmate?" Neito accused, crossing his arms over his chest and standing up straighter as he confronted the villain.
Denki stopped in his tracks, momentarily distracted from running back and forth, about to go ask Kurogiri to warp him home to quickly grab his hero costume for the interview—the last thing needed before he'd be ready to go.
"Wha—? I wasn't just going to leave him with no echo during Rudolph! I'm a villain, not a monster!" Isozan retorted, mirroring Neito by also crossing his arms but slumping over in exasperation instead of standing straight in agitation.
"No." Neito scowled. "Before that. With the 'oh I keep it a secret' shit," Neito clarified.
Denki laughed, stepping forward to intervene as the lyric echoed in his mind. "That wasn't Isozan!" Denki said, much to Isozan's relief. "That was the rats! Well, I hallucinated the rats singling to me, which actually gave me the idea to get you guys to use the animals to find me."
Neito's glare softened, disappearing when he turned to regard his soulmate. "I talked to a rat, you know? In an alleyway. They knew you. They called you staticky, and they like that you drop crumbs from your breakfast, and they—they knew you by name, Denks. The rat said you saved one of them from a trap, loudly announcing that there was no need to fear because Kaminari Denki was here."
Denki's face warmed as he looked down and rubbed a socked toe against the floor, blowing out a breath through puffed cheeks. "That was at the very beginning, okay? I was trying out different catch phrases and kept messing up and using my name instead of Chargebolt."
Neito stepped forward to grab Denki's face and Isozan quickly retreated, accurately predicting that it was about to be a personal moment between the two. Lifting his head so that their eyes met, Neito smiled at him, wide and just a touch of Neito-brand manic.
"Rats?" Neito questioned simply.
Denki shrugged. "Koda said before that they're super smart, and isn't Principal Nezu at least part rat? So, I figured that checks out."
"I don't doubt it," Neito conceded. "You being you is the whole reason we found you. You know that, right? You stood out to rats in an alleyway, Denki. I know you can do anything you put your mind to."
"Can I get you to stop picking fights with Isozan?" Denki ventured, eyes looking up at the ceiling in faux innocence.
Neito snorted. "Maybe with the right bribe, you could." Denki beamed then, but his smile softened when Neito continued, "I love you."
"I know," Denki said. "I appreciate that you show me every day. I love you, too, soulmate."
"I'll never get tired of that," Neito said, sighing and leaning forward to rest his forehead against Denki's.
"That makes two of us."
"Three of us!" Hitoshi corrected, sliding up beside his enamored soulmates. "I could seriously watch you two all day, but we have an interview to get Denki to, so—"
"Oh, right!" Denki jolted, the reminder making him jump into action. "Kurogiri!" he yelled, running off.
-.-.-
Nato sat in the octagonal conference room at the head of the table. His eyes were straight ahead, fixed on the projection on the wall of the live Channel Six news broadcast of an exclusive interview with Pro Hero Chargebolt. His elbows were on the table with his hands clasped so tightly in front of him that there was paling discoloration where his fingers pressed into his hands, pressed tightly against his lips so he wouldn't say something he would regret. Not that he would regret it at this point, he thought. Even without looking directly at any of the agents in the room, he could see them fidgeting in their seats, looking at the screen, wincing when something new was revealed, and glancing at him to see if he had any reaction, but he wasn't about to give anything away. He wanted them to suffer as much as possible.
"So, Chargebolt, can you tell us what happened that landed you in Tartarus in the first place?" the interviewer asked.
And didn't Denki look like Japan's sweetheart there, with a soft smile, tired eyes with visible bruising still healing around one eye, dressed in his hero costume with a small microphone clipped to the collar by the news station's crew before the filming began.
"In the middle of an altercation, additional heroes joined in, causing some collateral damage as they did so, separating myself and villain Toga Himiko from view."
"That's me! That's me! Oh, I'm so famous!" Toga cheered, practically bouncing off the walls as the League gathered around the television to watch Denki's interview.
"You've been on television plenty of times," Spinner corrected. "The last time was with me. Literally just a few days ago."
"This is different," Toga insisted with a whine. "Denki is talking about me!"
"He called you a villain," Dabi deadpanned.
"I am a villain," Toga said, with a vicious head tilt and sharp smile in Dabi's direction.
Dabi laughed. "Yeah, you are!" he whooped, throwing a fist up before high fiving the girl, deciding to just join in her joy rather than continue to argue.
Shigaraki passive aggressively turned the television up, eyebrows furrowed in quiet, intense concentration, and the others got the hint to shut the fuck up and pay attention. Uretori sent a nervous glance in his direction, but hesitantly returned her gaze to the screen when Isozan tapped the top of her head reassuringly.
"She took quick advantage of the situation. The collateral damage caused some injuries, so it was easy for her to get some of my blood, and then there were two of us. They chose the wrong one. It was my fault, really, but I was just so unprepared for that situation to happen that I was slow with my responses, and the probable concussion didn't help."
"Probable? Did they not do a complete physical on you when you entered Tartarus?"
Denki laughed, and damn, it wasn't even cruel or sarcastic. "No. Actually it would have been worse if I would have been a little more unsteady on my feet. They weren't exactly gentle with me, as you might be able to see here," he said, gesturing toward his face.
The agent with the nails who tried hard to recruit Denki scoffed but was wisely keeping her arms crossed over her chest instead of tapping her nails incessantly against the tabletop. "Look at that shit-eating grin. He's doing that on purpose, making us look as bad as possible and him as good as possible."
"Well, he's doing a fucking fantastic job at it, and we made it super fucking easy for him, didn't we? Shut the fuck up," the abrasive agent that Nato was actually kind of fond of sneered.
He didn't think he would like him as much as he did with him always being on his phone, but he was helpful and found information quickly and efficiently. He would definitely be giving that agent a raise. Maybe a giant one if he fires all of the other ones. There would be lots of room in the budget if that were to happen.
"But you made history and were the first person to ever escape Tartarus! Can you tell me how you managed to do that when protocol dictates that they use quirk-cancelling injectable drugs on their prisoners every day?"
"They broke protocol. Not on me. They gave it to me, hoping that once I turned back into Toga, I wouldn't be able to turn into anyone else. Once they figured out that I was actually me, though, then I think they continued because they were afraid of my electricity. But, for Full Throttle, they didn't once give him the injection. They paired him up with people who his quirk would not work well on, if at all, instead. Until they put him and me in a locked room together."
The interviewer's brows furrowed in concentration and confusion as they flipped through a file folder on their lap. "Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I don't believe that it's protocol to lock patients together without guard supervision."
"This sounds a little out there, but I swear I know what I'm talking about. Just hear me out, okay?" Denki asked, and the interview nodded. "They wanted plausible deniability when he killed me, or when I killed him, or preferably, when we killed each other. Unfortunately for them, it didn't work out that way."
"What did happen? He tried to kill you but you two escaped instead?"
"No! He thought I was Toga, but I was able to quickly convince him that I was actually me. He told me how his quirk can cut through quirk-cancelling technology and drugs, and since they were obviously trying to kill us for no good reason, and illegally may I add, I made the executive decision to be a hero and get us the hell out of there. He used his quirk on me, and I got both of us out."
"Why did you take Full Throttle with you after all of the trouble he has cause not only you, but everyone else?"
"They were trying to kill us in there. If I left him behind when he was the one who granted me a second chance, they wouldn't have made the same mistake again. Besides, I'm a hero who believes in rehabilitation. I think Full Throttle would actually make a great hero someday himself."
Isozan and Uretori leaned in closer to watch Denki's face on the screen, unconsciously looking for any signs of lying. When she didn't see any, Uretori nudged Isozan's shoulder with her own and he looked over to her, unable to wipe the smile off of his face.
"That's all very fascinating. Let's back up a little. You said, 'after they figured out that I was actually me.' Why didn't they let you go once they knew they had the wrong person?"
It was at that moment that Hero Public Safety Commission officers burst into the recording studio, despite the subtle, faraway calls of 'you can't be in here' and 'hey' being picked up from the wearable microphones on Denki and his interviewer.
"Why don't we ask them?" Denki asked, encouraging an officer onto the stage with an unending, circular wave of his hand, a vigorous nod of his head, and a wide, beaming smile.
When the agent got close, probably intending to arrest Denki, another staff member was there, shoving a microphone into the officer's hand. The officer looked down at the microphone confused, then at the camera. Confused eyes of the officer met the mortified eyes of Nato through the screen.
"Fuck." Some of the agents closest to him jumped at the first word to leave his mouth since the show started. He's good.
"Can you tell us why Chargebolt here wasn't release from Tartarus when you discovered that you had made a big mistake and that he was not, in fact, villain Toga Himiko disguised as Chargebolt?" the interviewer asked, voice increasing in pace and volume when the officer's eyes tried to stray back to Denki, back to his assigned task.
He looked terrified, completely out of his element. The villains cackled and howled, falling over each other in their elated hysterics. Instead of Shigaraki yelling at them to be quiet, or even passively aggressively turning the volume up even more, he got up from his spot on the floor, moving back and away from the group, toward Kurogiri, but continued to give his full attention to the show Denki and the interviewer were giving on the screen.
When the officer finally seemed to get his bearings and muttered a final "no comment" gruffly, leaving no room for argument, while reaching out for Denki, everyone seemed to tense.
The interviewer tensed, recoiling before changing directions to move forward as if to intervene before hesitating again, smartly stopping herself before doing something as illegal as interfering with an arrest of the Hero Public Safety Commission during a live broadcast.
Neito and Hitoshi, sitting in the living room of their own apartment, already feeling the effects of Denki not being in the space with them, leaned forward, holding their breaths as they clutched each other's hands.
The villains got eerily quiet, all banter halting. The ones closest to the television crawled forward to be closer, to hear and see better, and the ones behind seemed to gravitate closer now that there was space made.
Denki's former classmates who weren't currently on patrol were watching with bated breath, wondering how long Denki would survive after he left the view of the cameras, hearts aching. The ones who were on patrol received updates from their agencies and friends and mobile devices, eyes wandering the skies in hopes of seeing any flashes of lightning that would indicate that Denki would get to live another day, free from the hands of the Hero Public Safety Commission who would much rather get rid of the mess and then do major damage control once he was out of the way permanently.
Endeavor sat in his office with Shouto and Midoriya, all three of them huddled at his desk, paperwork and personal space forgotten as Midoriya watched with horrified tears dripping down his face, muttering uselessly about what could be done and coming up with absolutely nothing that was viable, nothing that would tempt the Commission to keep Denki alive long enough to figure anything out, let alone hand him over alive and unharmed. Eventually his muttered ideas just turned into a repeated get out of there, get out of there, get out of there, get out of there, get out of there…
Nato sat at the head of the table of agents, all of them tense, some with anticipation of their problem finally going away, some with anxiety of cleaning up the mess afterwards, and some both dreading and excited to see how Denki was going to make it out of it this time, because they were almost sure he would somehow. He was larger than life—too charismatic to fizzle out so anticlimactically.
Everyone was tense, but Denki relaxed, his eyes falling half closed as he felt the familiar, swirling static lift the hairs on the back of his neck, breathing deeply as his friends came through for him once again, as Shigaraki fulfilled his promise to pull him out years after the sentiment was thrown out haphazardly.
Denki saw the officer recoil as he realized what was happening, recognition and horror flashing across his features as he saw the notorious Shigaraki Tomura coming through the warp gate from right behind Denki, just a few meters from himself. He stopped in his tracks and backpedaled, not daring to get any closer and trying to scramble away as fast as he could, but Shigaraki paid the lowly peon no mind.
Shigaraki's arm wrapped around Denki's shoulders, pulling him back against his chest. Denki felt the static cover his back like a warm, tingling blanket as he stared to be pulled through the warp gate.
Chairs slammed against the floor loudly as a few of the agents stood up in surprise, gaping at the television screen, watching as Denki disappeared out of their reach once again when they were so close.
Denki's classmates who he had just graduated with not a year earlier felt a nauseating sense of déjà vu wash over them, imagining the first time they saw Denki pulled through the same warp gate, but by different, scarred hands. But this time he was alone instead of next to a clone of Bakugou. And this time he was a Pro Hero. Would the League be so easy on him now that he wasn't just a student anymore? Which was worse: Being captured by the Hero Public Safety Commission or the League of Villains? Many of them didn't know, and changed their mind from minute to minute, from second to second as their thoughts and anxieties whirled.
The villains whooped and hollered as they turned from the screen to continue watch the show from their end, live and no longer through a screen as they crowded Denki, pulling him this way and that, grabbing at his shoulders in encouragement, knowing that while it was ultimately a win, there was sacrifice that had been made, too. Denki smiled and celebrated with them, just as high energy as always. The television was left on in the background, forgotten or ignored, the stunned faces of the staff and Commission officers unable to process what just happened, looking around the set and at each other dumbly, unable to discern direction from each other.
Neito and Hitoshi sagged in relief against each other, half-laughing, and half-sobbing as they both celebrated that Denki was successful and mourned their upcoming battles. The Commission officers who had been huddled in the hallway of the apartment for the last twenty minutes had no idea what had just occurred. They had no idea that Hitoshi and Neito were fully aware that they were there since the moment they arrived and could have easily evaded them if they wanted to. When they broke down the door of their apartment and roughly pulled them apart and brought them in separately to make sure they couldn't get their stories straight, the agents were in high spirits.
Neito and Hitoshi were quiet as they watched and observed their own sets of guards and officers who drove them and then guarded them once they were placed in separate interrogation rooms. They watched the arrogance drain from their posture until they slumped with unease as they warily eyed the Pro Heroes they had chained to the table without Chargebolt to torture a false confession out of to make them guilty, whether they really were or not. They paled when they saw the Pro Heroes' small smirks as they tore their eyes from their guards to turn their steely gaze straight ahead, ready for whatever tricks the Hero Public Safety Commission might try. Maybe it was then that they realized who exactly they were dealing with, because no one volunteered to do the interrogations once they realized that Mindjack was an underground hero who definitely used more interrogation tricks than they even knew about, and Phantom Thief was a manic monster who could turn anyone inside out just from his observational skills alone.
Suddenly, all of the officers were trying to use their sick hours, and the Hero Commission had to launch an investigation to see if there was a poison or some kind of quirk attack in any of the areas that would have affected the whole team.