December 27 - Day 15
'Everyone Deserves A Second Chance – Lady Nagant's Inspiring Speech Awed Thousands.' Tomoyasu read the headlines of today's newspaper, his left eyebrow instantly twitching in annoyance upon noticing that it's once again a 'repeat' of yesterday's. Almost immediately his eyes went towards the date, thinking he might have just picked a wrong newspaper by mistake. But no, the one he's holding has December 27 as its date – it's today's newspaper. It just so happens that something Nagant said days ago is still worth it as a headline. "What the hell is this crap?" he asked himself, shaking his head, wondering if whatever garbage Lady Nagant said could even be considered as a 'speech'.
"Pathetic…" he muttered, instantly crumpling the entire newspaper and tossing it on a nearby trash bin. He then reached over to a nearby cup of coffee (placed dangerously close to a computer keyboard), grabbed it, and took a little sip, before setting his gaze towards the numerous screens in front of him – each one representing each of his installed cameras all over the Gunga Mountain Villa.
Finding it a bit too difficult to see the contents of the topmost screens as he's too close to the entire bunch, he raised his right foot, planted it on a nearby wall in front of him, and gave himself a good push away, sending him a few meters backwards in his wheeled office chair. Upon stopping, he immediately turned his attention back to the top screens to check on them, but as he did so, he couldn't help but find himself admiring the serene surroundings he's in.
There were computers and electronics everywhere, with the sounds of systems running error-free and clacking of keyboards being nothing but music to his ears. And just up front is a gallery of screens, giving him an oddly-fulfilling feeling of being an overlord in charge of his lesser subjects. He's in his Command Center, the technology central of the Villa – or so what he calls this particular section as. And unlike Garaki's dark dusty cavern he calls as his lair, the Command Center is well-lit, well-scented, and well-ventilated. And perhaps the best part? There are absolutely no pesky humans walking about, every single worker here is an Anthropomorph golem, and very good workers they are too - silent, obedient, and above all, reliable.
Everything is perfect here.
"Okay let's see what's on the real news-" Tomoyasu abruptly stopped after happening to glance over a particular bunch of screens to his left. What he saw in them, despite his satellite's horrendous zoom function, is an unusual amount of heroes walking about in the streets, with costumed schoolchildren (obviously kids enrolled in a hero course) walking along with them. He thought about just simply dismissing them as random internships, but there just seem a bit too many of them – far more than regular internships.
"A, B, C, D, E," he called out a group of golems working nearby. "Set Site-295 to Site B-304," he ordered. Immediately, the screens nearby the bunch of screens he first looked at went into static for a brief while before going online again, their displays now changed. What he saw were more of the same thing. In this one particular city, there's just an unusual amount of Pro-Heroes and young heroes mingling about…
"Hmmm… something's not right here…" Tomoyasu knew he couldn't simply afford to ignore such an odd occurrence. Setting his cup of coffee on a nearby flat surface, he moved his wheeled office chair on a nearby vacant computer and immediately proceeded to initiate contact with a hero in his regiment. "Hero G-52," he said upon grabbing a nearby microphone placed nearby. "What's going on at Site B-304?"
There was static for a brief while before the answer. "Oh haven't you heard?"
"No," came Tomoyasu's quick response.
"Some hero agencies nationwide decided to launch 'field training' sessions with chosen Hero Schools in response to the Deika City Terror Attack."
Tomoyasu raised an eyebrow. "Hey how come I never heard of that?!"
"Not a clue, sir."
Gritting his teeth on his own failure to be up to date, Tomoyasu immediately asked back. "How's the crew? Are they already at Deika, Site D-134?"
"Already there since yesterday, sir. Based on their reports they seem to be doing very well."
"Good… just report back to me if ever the 'field training sessions' escalate into something." Tomoyasu immediately ended the call. While he certainly did some sort of mistake there for not knowing some crucial events, but the good thing is that it's quickly counter-acted by something good. All is well. It didn't count as failure. 'But as for the field training sessions…?' he immediately thought to himself as he went back to observe a particular bunch of screens. 'What to do?' he mentally asked himself again.
He continued staring at the screens, watching the heroes walk around. 'Hmmm…' He eventually just decided to brush it off for now. As long as they don't seem to be planning any direct attack on the Gunga Mountain Villa (if they're ever detected that is), all is well.
Tomoyasu nodded to himself and brought up his left arm to check the time on his wristwatch. 'Good. Right on time,' he thought to himself upon seeing the time being 8 in the morning. Suddenly feeling like an absolute accomplishment, he quickly stood up, launching his wheeled office chair so far back that it collided with a table, toppling over multiple stacks of papers off of it.
"F, G, clean that mess up! Also don't forget the coffee mug," he ordered the golems nearest to him as he hurriedly adjusted his clothes. "It's showtime…" he whispered afterwards, letting a few menacing chuckles escape from his lips as he tapped the pockets of his pants, making sure all the necessary items are already there, and they are. But as he's about to exit his Command Center, he did one last order. "W, X, Y, Z," he called out to the golems working on the far right of the room, which immediately stopped whatever they're doing and just froze, "make sure to keep the fake camera footage looping. Strengthen the jammer system if you find any 'stray signals escaping'. By all means we cannot afford to let anyone here know what's going on in the outside world. We need everyone trapped in the dark."
The golems ordered that aren't sitting in computers yet immediately went to find a vacant one to sit on. And with that, the four began working.
"Good." Tomoyasu nodded as he exited his Command Center, feeling proud of his Quirk. If there's any description he could give out to his golems, and that's reliable. They haven't failed him once. Anthropomorph may be the farthest thing from being the flashiest and the most powerful, but it's certainly infinitely more useful on other areas.
Walking about, he's immediately greeted by nearby Liberation members, whom he just responded with a scowl. He's very much a highly-respected lieutenant, and while he revels every second of it, he couldn't help but be extremely annoyed by how people greet him, especially people not under his regiment.
After a few minutes of walking, he reached a section of the Gunga Mountain Villa where it's relatively quiet, open, spacious, well-lit, and devoid of any people.
Well except one.
A frown slowly etched itself on Tomoyasu's face, recognizing the one person. It was a woman, wearing an ushanka, and her right arm and left leg encased in a cast. Almost immediately, said woman perked up upon seeing him. "Miss Skywalker, I didn't expect to see you here so early in the morning," Tomoyasu spoke up, annoyance audibly dripping through his voice, before the woman could even say something. "You're going to ask me again on my opinion on worthless people?" he added as he walked past her. "Well I already told you my opinion."
"Uh… Er no. Not actually but- Hey wait up!" The woman raised her voice and tried to keep up despite her injuries. "I just uh – since you're not around too much here and I have a-"
"Look, woman. That question you're seemingly about to ask me, is it worth my time?"
"Uh, yes?"
"Do you have any idea how much you're being an annoyance to me right now-?" Tomoyasu abruptly cut himself off and sighed. Now is not the time to be hyper-annoyed with a random person. He's going to need a cool head for a very important activity later on into the day. "Okay, nevermind I'm actually in the mood for entertaining people today, so what would it be you're going to ask me?"
"Do we really just have to stay here and look at satellite footage all day? Wouldn't it be better if we send some actual scouts out? You know? To see where the satellite cannot? Because right now my-"
"Satellite footage is more than enough. No more scouts. The less of a signature we have, the less chance the Paranormal Liberation Front gets caught. Do I make myself clear?"
The woman just stared at him for a moment, her expression utterly confused. "Is that really what Grand Commander Shigaraki told you?"
"Grand Commaner Shigaraki had one order to us so far: Wait until he gets done being pumped full of enhancements by his personal mad doctor. That's it. And if that's what the Grand Commander wills, then it shall be done." Tomoyasu pulled up his right hand to his forehead and did the Liberation salute in a bored manner. "For the Liberation."
"But-"
Tomyasu just walked off. The woman, and whatever nonsensical garbage she's spouting out, is no more of his concern. Soon enough, he completely left her. 'Okay where was I?' he thought to himself as he continued. 'Oh right." Immediately, he pulled out one of the phones he has in his pockets and checked on it, but upon seeing there are still no new messages in it, he just put it back. He's been trying some discreet methods to at least discreetly make contact with this Humarise terrorist group, but so far all his efforts have been fruitless.
'Soon…'
Eventually, after a quick elevator ride down, he reached his intended destination, a relatively quiet hall. There is no other person there except Re-Destro, located beside a dark hallway just upfront from where he came from, and once more wearing his usual grey pinstripe suit as he sat on his spherical wheelchair. "Re-Destro," Tomoyasu spoke up with a nod. "Is everything ready? Do you need assistance on something?" he asked upon getting close enough, trying to sound as calm as possible despite suddenly feeling a swirling vortex of accomplishment, excitement, and power. After all, within a few minutes, he'll be the unofficial Grand Commander of the Paranormal Liberation Front.
"Have a look at this," Re-Destro replied, snapping Tomoyasu out of his daydreams, as he quickly raised his right hand that's holding onto a phone. "Somehow I received a message in my GlobalConnect business account from Curious back in December 22. Should I be worried on a possible phantom playing tricks on me?" he said in a joking tone as he adjusted his pinstripe suit.
Raising one eyebrow, Tomoyasu took the phone and immediately went on to have a look at what the 'problem' could be. And indeed there's a message coming from Curious, sent five days ago. Said message is a rather short one, only at three sentences, and then after that it's just lines upon lines of Liberation principles as if Curious added them in to hopefully convince Re-Destro that it's really her. 'A pathetic attempt. Remarkable, but utterly pathetic…' he could only think to himself. 'She really tried to contact him, huh?'
"Hmm… interesting indeed," Tomoyasu spoke, pretending to be confused on the message. "I'll have a look at this phone and run it through my systems. You could have someone trying to breach in. When do you need this back?"
"I'd be glad if you could get it done by noon." Re-Destro nodded, his typical calm smile etched on his face. "By the way, where's Geten? He should be here by now."
"Your kid missing again? Obviously just further harnessing his incredible Meta Ability, don't mind him," came the reply, once again pretending to not know the answer. "He'll just show up soon."
"Okay, with that settled. Let's move."
"I'll just do some quick tinkering with your mobile device, I'll go keep up in a moment."
Re-Destro just nodded in response and off he drove his wheelchair into the dark hallway nearest to him. And within a few moments, he's gone.
Tomoyasu, on the other hand, then hurriedly began tampering with the phone on his hand, wasting no time in checking if ever Curious somehow managed to send in even more messages. He scoured everything but couldn't find anything anymore. The one message is all there is. And with a press of a 'delete' button, the message is gone.
'Curious is gone, and it should just stay that way…' Tomoyasu thought, a menacing grin slowly creeping up his face as he couldn't help but remember the special liquid concoction Garaki specially designed against her - a unique toxin made to react towards her Quirk Genes, among may other things, to make her rapidly dissolve into nothing upon contact with water. But as he recalled the events, a light tinge of annoyance crept up to him – he forgot to make sure the webcam is on so at least he could see Curious dissolving on-camera.
Just like back then when he saw her outright splatter on asphalt.
Good times.
…
But still, the main point is that Curious is gone. And that's it. Good riddance.
Turning his attention down to his wristwatch, he then quickly took it off and quickly replaced it with another identical-looking watch he took from one of his pockets. Immediately, he pressed a series of hidden buttons, making the screen light up and, after a brief static, display a dark empty hallway. 'All systems green…' Tomoyasu thought to himself as he eyed a certain wall-mounted security camera just up ahead, in the general direction Re-Destro went to.
His attention went back to the watch and pressed another button, causing the watch to display another area - a dark room filled with at least 20 Anthropomorph golems standing motionless. "Good…" Tomoyasu began walking ahead, eventually reaching past the camera his watch first connected to. He then walked a little further more and opened a certain unlabeled door. The golems are there, ready and waiting. "Good," he repeated as he turned his head towards one particular area – the hallway that leads directly towards the underground stage. From its direction he could already hear Re-Destro giving out his usual speeches.
And on he went, doing one last adjustments on his clothing.
Upon reaching the exit, the stark contrast between the dark hallway and the amount of light present outside on the actual stage blinded Tomoyasu for a while despite his hair covering his eyes, and took a good time before fully adjusting. After his vision finally cleared up, he could see the League (obviously minus Shigaraki) just standing on their usual spot on the left side of the stage, still looking all smug as ever as if they really thought they managed to defeat an entire army by just the six of them.
'Pathetic fools…' he thought as he took one quick glance over at a projector hanging over at the ceiling.
Turning his attention back to the League, Tomoyasu couldn't help but just discreetly roll his eyes on them before walking over to stand at his own usual spot on the right side of the stage as Re-Destro continued to speak, interrupting him a bit as he handed the CEO's phone back to its owner. As for the speech itself, it's the usual Liberation speech: About the glorious world the PLF would soon create, a world without restrictions, a world where the natural order will prevail, a world how God intended it to be lived…
…
Tomoyasu didn't even bother to understand over 95% of it. His brain automatically shut off upon hearing Re-Destro speak about his 'wonderful world of Liberation'. But as much as he's currently on the verge of falling asleep, he just had to admit, Re-Destro (as much as he's an enormous selfish coward) is still very good at captivating his general audience even after years of saying the same things over and over again.
After a few more minutes of mind-numbing speech (for him at least), Tomoyasu subtly looked down on his wristwatch – its screen still displaying the rows of Anthropomorph golems on standby. "Initiate Dragon Dance," he whispered. In response, the golems began shuffling about and slowly exited the room they're placed in. Switching over the display after some time, Tomoyasu could see that they've now assembled themselves in formation in front of the only other camera the wristwatch is connected to.
After a few seconds, a black goo portal began materializing behind them. And from within, a Nomu slowly crawled out. It's an unusual one, drastically different from the standard design. While the top half of it is still humanoid in appearance, but instead of the hulking muscle masses of a typical Nomu, it's tall and slender, and with tentacles in place of arms, and on its back are even longer tentacles that seemingly move about in such a hypnotic manner as if they're submerged underwater. Its lower half, on the other hand, instead of legs, is a massive jellyfish bell-like skirt, with more dark tentacles extending out of it, spasming violently every few seconds as if they're being electrocuted.
The Anthropomorph golems moved out of its way after a while and began helping pull the docile Nomu out, and then immediately lifting up its jellyfish bell membrane to hide underneath until they're all fully concealed. And before the goo portal could fully dematerialize, out from it came a loud inhuman roar, which echoed throughout the dark hallways it came from and ultimately expelled through the backstage entrance/exit, instantly stopping Re-Destro from his speech and causing everyone (except Machia and the League) to freeze and turn their attention towards it.
…
There was silence for a bit before the next round of inhuman roars came in, but not as loud as the first one. At this point, Re-Destro is starting to back off his mechanized wheelchair, with Trumpet following closely beside him. For authenticity, Tomoyasu began backing off as well, but making sure he's the more exposed out of the three of them. As for the League, while they also backed off, there's not a hint of fear on their faces.
Soon enough, the giant silhouette of the Nomu soon appeared from the darkness of the unlit backstage. Propelled by careful crawling movements of the Anthropomorph golems hidden underneath its jellyfish-bell-like lower half, the towering creature slowly 'slithered' forward. And only then upon reaching the light of the stage, when Tomoyasu finally got a good look at it. 'Damn… that's impressive…' he could only think to himself upon seeing the overall design of the flesh abomination and its seemingly exposed musculature, making it look like a skinned human instead of the usual purple coloration of an average Nomu. 'Very impressive indeed…'
Now with its full form directly on the stage. It once again let out a loud howl. "Grand Commander Shigaraki…" it blurted out soon after, in a deep garbled barely-understandable outlandish tone, despite its mouth not even moving. "Grand Commander Shigaraki…" it repeated. "Lord of Liberation… Lord of Liberation…" it continued, its sticky saliva dripping through gaps in its crooked sharp teeth as it periodically stuck its long tongue out like a snake on the hunt.
Tomoyasu continued to eye the creature. Trying to look as scared as possible despite his amazement to its design. While Nomus may be absolutely worthless in his grand scheme of things, but he would be lying if he didn't say that Garaki certainly has talent on making things as horrifying as possible.
"Demon King Shigaraki… Demon King Shigaraki…" The towering slender Nomu continued as the movement on the tentacles on its back went erratic for a brief while, before returning to their almost-hypnotic slow undulations. "The master requires… master requires… a… medium… of communication…" It suddenly let out another inhuman roar, making both Re-Destro and Trumpet back off even more. "Need a person… knowledgeable on… on…" The Nomu's back tentacles suddenly arced their tips and pointed menacingly towards Tomoyasu. "The future Demon King lie in slumber… suspended in stasis… yet his mind stay awake… must retain contact with his lackeys, he needs…"
The Nomu paused, but still continuing to drool over the stage and emit inhuman noises, its bulging eyeballs now spinning within their sockets. After a while, it slowly swiveled its long neck to directly face Tomoyasu. "You will deliver his words for him! You're coming with me!"
"WHAT?!" Tomoyasu yelled out, bringing in his best performance as a tentacle whipped around both of his legs, sending him falling to the floor. "WAIT!"
"Deliver Shigaraki's word, you will!" came the garbled response as the Nomu slowly began retreating into the darkness of the backstage, pulling him along with it. As it reached halfway through the darkness of the unlit backstage, black goop began manifesting off of the Nomu's mouth, which eventually engulfed itself entirely.
And just with that, both Nomu and Tomoyasu disappeared off the stage.
"I expected Nomus would speak in a very unrefined tone. Less coherence, and more broken sentences. The way you made the Nomu talk sounded a little too off," Doctor Garaki commented as he walked over and helped untangle Tomoyasu off of the Nomu's tentacles, carrying his loudspeaker with him. "Also do I just get to keep the loudspeaker on this fella's throat or you'll take it back? I could really use two-"
"My voice-acting is fine! My edits are fine! The audio only played whenever it's not roaring! All are fine! Everything is fine! Just leave them be!" Tomoyasu shouted in response upon successfully freeing himself from the seemingly non-slimy grasp. He then wasted no time in finding his way out of the now-barely-lit concrete room and running straight through the dark hallways towards the full entirety of Garaki's Nomu production facility, pausing a bit to catch his breath, before continuing to sprint towards a particular control panel. He tripped once on one of the many numerous metal cables scattered throughout the lab, but that doesn't matter.
He's on the verge of being the unofficial leader of the PLF, and that's the only thing that matters.
Hurriedly, he pulled out two phones from his pockets, one to ready a certain audio file, and the other to be plugged into the control panel in front of him via USB cable he also brought with him. Immediately afterwards, he fished out a phone holder (also from his pocket) and used it prop up the second phone so its forward camera would be facing him - with a background full of Nomu vats as well as the control panel in partial view.
"THIS IS IT!" he yelled out, unable to contain his excitement, as he mashed his fingers onto the keys and buttons of the control panel, all while keeping his gaze onto the small screen built into the middle of – now displaying the contents of the phone plugged into it. He navigated through the installed programs, and eventually opened up a particular one. Using that, he tapped into his own security system and connected to a program he set up yesterday to manually control the projector and speakers on the Gunga Mountain Villa's underground stage.
He also tapped into his vast camera arrays and have their feed displayed onto the multitude of small screens attached to the control panel he's working on so that he could see everyone's reaction to the upcoming continuation of his performance.
'This is it…'
Fingers trembling over at his left hand holding the phone with an audio file at the ready, he mentally counted down. '5… 4… 3… 2… 1…'
The projector in the villa suddenly lit up, displaying static on the wall on top of the backstage entrance. After a brief while, it quickly switched over to Tomoyasu, looking scared half-to-death as he rapidly mashed his right hand's fingers onto a control panel in front of him in a panicked manner. "I'm okay! I'm okay! I'm okay! I'm totally fine!" he said, doing his best performance. "I'm still alive!" he added with a nervous laugh. "Still ALIVE!"
He paused a bit, immediately pressing a thumb onto the phone held by his other hand (that's not visible on-camera), and from it came a loud inhuman roar – the same roar of the Nomu that abducted him. It had an immediate effect on the Gunga Mountain Villa crowd, and almost all of them (except the League and Machia of course) considerably backed off.
"Okay okay okay! Hey I'm uh… so this Nomu said that I'm going to be Liberation Lord's, Grand Commander's, Demon King Shigaraki's mouthpiece and uh…" Tomoyasu trailed off, making sure he sounds as informal as possible as to genuinely look fearful. "I'm the chosen one who'll broadcast his commands to everyone there and uh-"
A quick press of a button, and in came yet another inhuman roar.
"Wait wait wait! I'm trying to explain here!" Tomoyasu yelled at the empty space to his left before turning back towards the camera. "Anyways uh… Mr. Nomu says that I'll uh… I'll just be here, making sure Grand Commander Shigaraki's words get relayed towards you all!" Tomoyasu took a deep breath, still retaining his nervous look. "I may be held here against my will, but if this is what the Liberation requires, THEN SO BE IT!" he yelled as he nervously did the Liberation salute with a shaking hand, making the entire crowd salute as well. "It's all for the Liberation! I'll gladly give my life for the LIBERATION!"
There's another inhuman roar. The Gunga Mountain Villa crowd visibly moved back further.
"Okay okay okay!" Tomoyasu whimpered loudly against the same empty space he yelled at earlier. "So Mr. Nomu here wants me to tell you all that Shigaraki w-wants everyone to j-just lay low and uuh… stay under radar! Wait for his arrival and HEY WAIT-!"
Tomoyasu quickly pressed a particular button on the phone he's holding onto, causing the feed to instantly disconnect from the projector, and making it turn itself off automatically.
…
'It's done…'
"Piece of cake…" Tomoyasu commented to himself, wiping off the sweat that formed on his forehead from playing as the abduction victim, as he disconnected his phone off of the control panel and returned them back to his pockets, alongside the rest of his things.
"Done?" came the casual question of Dr. Garaki as he walked into the scene, hands clasped on his back. "Quite the performance you did there."
"Worthy of praise is it not, Doc?" Tomoyasu replied with a smug grin. "I'm part of an acting club back in my youth and, needless to say, I'm the star actor," he added, fully remembering all the praises and awards he received back then. "I'm undefeated. So many people tried to topple me down, yet no one managed to. Pathetic attempts, although commendable."
Garaki nodded before gesturing over to his teleporter Nomu to come near him. "Question. Why didn't you just 'crown' yourself? Why bother with just becoming the mouthpiece when you can literally just say that Shigaraki promoted you to be the temporary boss?"
"Doc, I'm gonna be honest with you, I do not want any more additional responsibilities as a pseudo-leader. I just want to bark orders and make people follow said orders. Plus if there are any spies within the army, which obviously there are considering one can not really scan that amount of people, then I wouldn't be a high-priority target." Tomoyasu nodded. "You may not share my sentiments here but in my opinion, the best protection a villain can have is to be as pathetic as possible. If you're at the bottom of the totem pole, people would never suspect you of anything significant."
"Didn't work for All for One though."
"All for One, as pathetic as he is, clearly didn't play his cards right. There's a certain degree of intelligent planning that has to be involved, and he - being the absolute colossal dumbass that he was, of course failed." Tomoyasu shook his head, eventually setting his gaze onto the small Nomu that hopped onto Garaki's arms. "Teleport coordinates ready?"
The Doctor, instead of replying, just turned his Nomu towards the taller man, revealing a small piece of paper taped on the glass case covering its brain, with numbers written on it.
Tomoyasu nodded in response. "Good."
Before long, black goo began pouring out of the little Nomu's mouth, which then materialized into a portal. But before Tomoyasu could step into it, Garaki suddenly spoke out, "what should I do with your Anthropomorph golems back there?"
"Just have a Nomu play with them until they dematerialize back to the objects they're made of. Don't worry about breaking anything important, they're just stacks of the now-useless MLW books." Tomoyasu slowly turned his gaze towards the portal. "Now if you may excuse me, I've got a movie to shoot."
"Hey uh… so about Humarise-"
"Humarise can wait. We'll talk about that later," Tomoyasu quickly replied and immediately stepped into the portal.
On the other side of the portal is bright and sunny. And once again just like earlier, stepping from a dark and humid laboratory into something in the complete opposite blinded him again for a good while.
'Dammit… next time-'
"Grand Commander Chikazoku," came a sudden echo of voices even before the tall lanky man's eyes could adjust themselves to the newfound brightness.
"People, just Skeptic would suffice. I want none of this stupid Grand Commander crap," Tomoyasu said in response with an annoyed tone, only now regaining his vision. He's now at Deika City, specifically at Site D-134 - the exact same location where everything started. And right in front of him – a group numbering about over several hundred people, are his most trusted people within the Liberation Army, the best of the best within his regiment.
Basing off of them bowing before him and calling him 'Grand Commander', they seem to be already aware of how things went down (even though he didn't tell them anything about watching the event itself). On the other hand, he felt a great deal of pride that his people seemingly trusted him he'll get the job done – and he definitely did. But still, "I don't want anyone calling me Grand Commander anymore, understood?" he ordered out loud, causing the rest of his people to stand back up normally. "We're just laying low," he added, shaking his head. "By the way, how's the 'Deika City Re-Terror Attack' going?"
One of the people at the front of the group, a well-suited man with a strange black triangular head, spoke up. "Re-Terror attack is a success. We've got everything perfected as you preferred," he said despite not even having an actual mouth.
"Good." Tomoyasu did one nod back at him. "Where's the Command Truck-" he stopped himself as he turned around, happening to land his gaze on a large semi-truck with an attached trailer, just parked some distance behind his teleport point. "Crew, get back to your stations, you there, follow me," he gestured over to the person who spoke out to follow him as he began walking to his Command Truck.
The semi-truck, as a whole, is nothing to speak of. Its paint is worn down, a dull red, and it has patches of rust all over. The trailer itself is the same story as well. The entire thing is very much no different than the average fruit-delivering semi-truck regularly found across the country.
Just the way Tomoyasu liked it.
He eventually stopped at the back side of the trailer, before gesturing towards the person following him to open it. Said person then pulled out a remote (that looks no more different than a standard TV remote) and pressed a button, causing the back of the trailer to open, exposing its contents. The interior of the trailer looked nothing like the outside. There are rows upon rows of shake-proof servers, computers, and other high-tech gadgets and widgets placed upon racks on the walls. Meanwhile, a ramp slowly deployed from underneath the trailer to assist Tomoyasu into entering it. And in he went, only to place the things he used to fool the PLF on a small plastic basket, and come out with his trusty laptop (the same one he used to bash Tomura over and over just two days ago).
"Fruit delivery is yesterday's news, go with some junk shipment," he said upon exiting, prompting the other person to press a button on his remote, causing the entire external appearance of the truck to phase uncontrollably, its form seemingly glitching in and out like the display of a computer with a dying graphics card, before eventually turning into a sort of look that would make it seem that the entire thing is just a semi-truck for garbage collection.
'It looks absolutely pathetic…' Tomoyasu couldn't help but grin in amazement at his Command Truck looking like it would fit right in at a local junkyard and no one would suspect a thing, all the more better for attracting as less attention as possible. He then turned to the person beside him. "Frost" he called out, getting the person's attention. The person in question, nor his Quirk, had nothing to do with either ice nor cold, 'Frost' is just his callsign. "Get Scolopendra here," he ordered as he went to a specific spot on the trailer's left side, and then gently smacked the wall in a rhythmic pattern for five seconds, which ultimately caused a rectangular plate to project forward and then turn inside-out, revealing a series of computer screens and keyboards.
He wasn't even done observing it when a small spider-like person landed beside him, as if from a high-jump. "Scolopendra, ready up," Tomoyasu said as he took a step back and gestured towards the computer screens deployed from the trailer. He immediately received a serious nod in response, and off the small person went to work on the keypads.
"Good." Tomoyasu then turned to Frost. "Get Relevant to me. We're re-shooting Curious's area first. I do suppose you're not lying when you said everyone's already perfected their roles?"
"Right you are, Mr. Skeptic."
"Very well. We'll see about that…" Tomoyasu's voice trailed off as he walked on, his laptop on one hand and with Frost following behind him, towards a particular area of Deika City where Curious stood against Toga, with the former eventually dying of supposedly 'Being stabbed to death'. Tomoyasu couldn't help but grin to himself, the memory of Curious splattering on the ground briefly appearing in his mind. Her being an absolutely pathetic excuse of a human from the start all the way to the end will never get old in his book.
Eventually, he reached his destination, immediately causing the group of people there to bow to him before walking towards the middle of the street to stand there in formation. Tomoyasu nodded to them in response, before turning his attention towards the camera crew already positioned on the rooftops of the nearby structures, near utility poles. In the meantime, a man sporting a dark-colored combat vest and wearing a skull-themed gas mask arrived to his side.
"People! All attention to me, please!" Tomoyasu raised his right hand, causing the crowd to disband their positions and come in closer. The crew on top of buildings came closer as well, with some jumping down to ground level. "Okay…" he spoke out, his voice trailing off before clearing his throat afterwards. "So today we're re-staging the Deika City Terror Attack! Our main goal is to make the League look powerful enough that saying they managed to 'beat the entirety of Sector Zero' sounds believable!" Tomoyasu said out loud, a few short laughs escaping his lips afterwards. The vast majority of the crowd in front of him did so to. All of them fully knew what 'Sector Zero' really meant. "It won't be long now until people start raising eyebrows and asking questions as to how we really lost. After all, there's literally no way some six morons managed to beat an ENTIRE army."
"That's unbelievable no matter what angle you look at it," the masked person beside Tomoyasu – Relevant as he called him as, spoke, his voice sounding deeply muffled. "They may believe Re-Destro for now, but that won't be for long."
"Exactly, Relevant." Tomoyasu nodded. "We're here to provide an explanation to that phenomenon, so that the League could continue to be the 'leaders' of the PLF, and I get to be 'Grand Commander' Shigaraki's mouthpiece. After this, we'll just secretly continue our underground work, completing the necessary pre-requisites one by one. And then when the perfect time comes, I'll conveniently stop looking at my satellites and then let the Villa get sieged: Re-Destro gets caught. Trumpet gets caught. The League gets caught, Shigaraki included. We? We get to leave and move on towards the next big part of the plan. And as for the remaining hundred thousands Liberators outside the Gunga Mountain Villa? They'll have me as the last remaining high-ranking MLA/PLF member. They'll ally to me. And then… there will be complete and total take-over." Tomoyasu paused for a short while before continuing. "Complicated? Yes. But when you're planning to take over an ENTIRE villain organization, having the heroes conveniently take everyone out – and leave me alone, is the only way I could accomplish it."
The people instantly cheered on, making Tomoyasu grin at them in response. "We have waited for so long! We have waited for decades! WE'VE WASTED DECADES! We should have accomplished greatness a long time ago if it weren't for that massive coward Re-Destro delaying everything again and AGAIN!" Tomoyasu cleared his throat for short while. "But that doesn't matter at this point. I'm technically in charge now. And I say, in a few months' time, TRUE Liberation will begin!"
Almost immediately he's met with agreeing comments, and once again simply grinned to them in response. Raising a hand, he then ordered his crew to ready up the re-enactment of his version of the Curious versus Toga battle, causing the people to once more go back to their original positions before he called them in. "This is going to be interesting…" he commented to himself as he walked all the way to a particular area, behind the range of the cameras, with Frost and Relevant (and the rest of his people wanting to see the choreographed fight) standing behind him.
Doing one last inspection of the field and seeing all the actors already in place and in full disguise, with the actresses for both Curious and Toga the only ones wearing motion-capture suits, Tomoyasu raised his right hand up high and did a series of hand gestures. Afterwards, a holographic screen appeared in front of him – just wide enough so he could get a good view, but not too wide as to obstruct his vision of the 'theatre'.
And within the screen is a view from one of the rooftop cameras, heavily-filtered and the quality distinctly low. This will be the 'end product'. After all, the entire plan is to just show to the army a string of security camera footage on how supposedly powerful the League is. And as for the actresses wearing motion-capture suits, they're currently displayed onscreen as Curious and Toga respectively.
All is well. The 3D models are working properly. Not a hint of clipping to be seen.
Raising another hand, Tomoyasu gave them the 'Go' signal before quickly turning his attention back to his screen.
Almost immediately there's a whole ton of laughing, both from his people behind him and from those part of the 'stage' as Toga's actress started running around and 'slashing' Curious's troops with a fake plastic knife, throwing 'invisible knives', and making various knife tricks. Meanwhile, Curious is trying to 'shoot' her back with her model of the Curious Flattener, with some of her 'troops' being blown back as if they're the ones getting shot at while Toga just runs around effortlessly dodging everything. Overall the entire scene is incredibly silly, with the laughter reaching its peak as Toga jumped onto and pinned down Curious, repeatedly 'stabbing her everywhere' with a fake plastic knife.
Despite the ongoing utter informality all around him, Tomoyasu paid them no mind, the video would just be played without audio anyways, plus the grins on the actors' and actresses' faces, as well as other things like the fake plastic knife and Curious's lack of real explosions (and blood after being 'stabbed'), could just be easily fixed through editing. As long as things are getting properly done from a camera standpoint (and they are), all is well.
The most important thing in this 'movie' they're making, is to just absurdly ramp up Toga's speed and lethality, at the same time show how utterly incompetent Curious is by shooting her own troops in her pursuit of her enemy, not to mention occasionally blowing them up herself.
…
But as Tomoyasu continued to observe, he couldn't help but shake his head, remembering how drastically different the original fight went: Toga never stood a chance. Her Quirk is far too weak and non-direct-combat oriented, as compared to her enemy's and her unnaturally-fast reaction time. He remembered assigning Curious her troops for this battle so that it's just entirely composed of Anthropomorph golems and some of his people (if they're actual Liberators they would have killed Toga within seconds), as well as convincing her that making an article about some delusional serial killer would be good for the cause, not only just so she would go down to ground-level away from Re-Destro's tower where she could be easily killed off, but also so that she won't kill Toga in a single hit with her weak Backforce-untriggering explosions.
But perhaps the most memorable thing he could remember from that event is Curious being utterly confused as to why no one is helping her once she, and some others, got floated by Toga's Very Convenient Quirk Evolution, and just let her plummet down and splatter on the ground – completely bypassing Backforce (obviously with some help from Dr. Garaki of course)-
Tomoyasu suddenly paused amidst the loud laughter of his comrades around him, remembering something else. 'Isn't there one teenage girl with Curious back then? The only one who just won't leave her side no matter what? What happened to her anyway? I don't recall seeing her at Gunga Mountain Villa… Maybe she just ran off?' the thoughts continued, but he eventually just brushed it off. Wherever she is, that's not important now.
…
"Very good," he suddenly spoke up as he straightened his posture, instantly raising a hand and silencing the cheering people – most of whom are congratulating the two main actresses. He then turned to Frost beside him. "Wrap it up, send it to Scolopendra for editing," he ordered before gesturing over to Relevant to move him towards the next phase of the 'fight'.
As ordered, Relevant began generating black mist from his gloved hands, which then solidified into a gaseous-looking levitating solid platform, in which Tomoyasu stepped on. "Ladies and gentlemen, on to phase 2!" he called out as he gestured once more to Relevant (who's also floating beside him on his own platform) to move him in towards a particular area of Deika City.
…
'Okay, here comes the hardest part…' Tomoyasu thought to himself as he's transported over, doing one quick glance towards his Command Truck along the way (and the particular small spider-person working on it). The small trip took a rather short time, and in the end he found himself back at the Revival Party's original starting position. Still standing on his floating platform, he observed the surroundings, instantly noticing a car deliberately parked nearby as to simulate Trumpet's campaign van. "Relevant, tell them to be ready in 15 minutes…" he ordered, his voice trailing off as he noticed a very familiar person nearby, standing on a floating ice block instead of solid black mist. "Oh hey Geten," Tomoyasu greeted the person in his usual tone. "Didn't see you there."
"I just uh… I just want to watch," came the reply.
"Good. You're doing good. You're starting to distance yourself away from that massive pathetic coward. I advise you to do that from now on." Tomoyasu said, his expression serious. Geten simply replied back with a small awkward nod, yet Tomoyasu could tell the Elementalist is discreetly agreeing with him – especially on the massive pathetic coward part. He wondered if Geten even has any respect left to ol' Re-Destro at this point.
…
He eventually turned his attention back to the 'staging area', and then towards his crew preparing to act once more, and then all the way to the ones arranging themselves to act as Trumpet and his regiment, who are all wearing motion-capture suits.
As he was observing, he suddenly felt a light headache, accompanied by a short surge of dizziness. It is not of serious concern, he just remembered how the actual battle happened, and that one brief memory of Tomura's extreme stupidity is enough to give him physical pain. He remembered fully relying on Shigaraki to move out of the way when outnumbered, specifically towards a suspiciously less-defended area of road upon start of the Revival Party, yet instead just ran forward. He remembered Tomura literally being within inches of being gored by one of Trumpet's crew with a Phantom Drill Quirk, and had to be conveniently blown away with a Sandstorm Quirk by one of his own stationed people just to save him – followed closely by being flung across several buildings and streets away just to fully get him away from Hanabata's people or else he'll literally just kill himself by blindly running straight into a lava pit, or being blasted by a super-heated laser through the head (both of which almost happened).
And after being successfully transported away and surrounded by Tomoyasu's crew, only then Tomura is finally safe – far away from the actual Liberators that actually want to kill him, and finally into those that want him to succeed.
But still, it was absolutely messy and panic-inducing - for Tomoyasu at least, seeing his crew (as competent as they were) completely failing at trying to pretend-attack Tomura, specifically because the moronic villain won't even dodge over 90% of the attacks thrown at him, not to mention he's not even looking where he's stepping on, and even literally fell into an open manhole at one point. The good thing is that the crew swiftly shrouded the entire area away in thick smoke, to hide the utter embarrassment that is Tomura falling into an open manhole to Re-Destro (although it indirectly shrouded the crew as well, causing one Corn Missile Quirk to accidentally hit Tomura and launch him back to the same open manhole he fell down earlier).
"Dammit…" Tomoyasu shook his head, clearing off the thoughts. "Okay okay okay." He turned to the person beside him. "Hey Relevant, 15 minutes are up, tell them to start…" he ordered. "Let's get this over with."
Relevant nodded in response. "Shigaraki, ready? League of Villains, ready? Everyone ready?"
"Ready when you are, boss!" came a voice from down below. It was Frost, all dressed up as Tomura – complete with a wig, the hand covering his face, and bright red shoes. There were some laughing again, but soon died down into dead silence as everyone awaited the next signal.
After one quick inspection of the rooftop cameras already in position (once more nearby utility poles to simulate security cameras), Tomoyasu gave everyone the 'Go' signal. "Begin!"
Almost immediately there is chaos and smoke – centered on the general location of the League actors. After a few moments, Tomoyasu eventually saw the same Sandstorm Quirk that was originally used to fling Tomura onto another area in the first place, and it did the exact same thing here – flinging Frost over several streets away (and obviously given a safe landing afterwards).
He couldn't help but nod upon seeing the flawless execution. But as much as how he would like to fake EVERYTHING of the League's performance in preparation of showing the entire footage to the PLF (obviously at a time without any League members about), but Trumpet and his crew are NOT aligned to him, as well as some other people participating, and therefore anything near them should be as close to the original as much as possible so they wouldn't notice anything strange. But once Tomura got flung off to several streets away, changes to the 'overall plot' can now be made.
…
Tomoyasu continued to observe as he stood on top of his floating platform, being moved about to keep him within decent range of the main actor. Frost, playing as Tomura, is doing an absolutely terrific job of dodging around invisible attacks by other actors being thrown at him. 'This is going to look very interesting once the effects are added in…' he thought to himself as he watched the actor run around several other streets more, keeping his head focused on a particular bright light on the horizon just up ahead – a guide to the former location of Re-Destro's tower, so that he knows where to go.
After a few more moments, upon Frost passing a certain area on the street, a rectangular patch of road lit up, and from it came a relatively bright flash of green light, marking the time when Geten conjured up enormous pillars of ice from beneath the streets – its role disguised as fighting against the Twice swarm (something that Tomoyasu predicted that actually happened, much to his delight), when in reality its real purpose is to completely separate Trumpet and his crew from the League, preventing them from fighting anyone any longer, among other things.
All that remained afterwards that are still 'fighting' the League are Tomoyasu's people – which comprised the overwhelming majority of the Revival Party participants back then, a feat made extremely easy by the fact that he's technically the MLA's second-in-command.
"Wonderful…" Tomoyasu nodded to himself as his platform continued to move along to keep him on a good view of Frost (who's now 'doing attacks' not even the real Shigaraki could do – exactly how Tomoyasu wants). In the meantime, he opened up his laptop, balancing it on his left hand. "Deika City Illusory field team KH-109-662, status report," he asked into it upon opening a particular program.
"All good. Re-staging event's not visible from here," came a deep voice, followed closely by other similar replies. Good. The last thing Tomoyasu needs today is to have someone stumbling in and discovering what he and his team are doing. He then turned his attention towards the original area of Re-Destro's tower. 'Around this time I should be already down on the ground and calling in Garaki to send in Machia…' he thought to himself as he turned his attention on a particular street in which he went through back then to go directly to Curious's area to do some needed clean-up, plowing through thousands of Twice clones along the way.
"So far so good, boss?" Relevant spoke up. "Any additional orders?"
"No. Everything's fine." Tomoyasu paused a bit "By the way, there's a dedicated crew on filming the other fights, yes?"
"Right you are, boss."
"Good," Tomoyasu replied, before turning his attention towards Geten, who apparently is just floating alongside them all this time, on his own personal block of ice. "Spectacular job you did back there, Dabi and you," he said as he closed his laptop. He only received a silent nod in response and Geten eventually left somewhere else.
Tomoyasu heard Relevant say something, but he just brushed it off and instead just went back to observing Frost all the way until he reached the now non-existent tower. And since the original footage of Re-Destro going up against Shigaraki is 'okay' enough to be used, his mission stops there, and as expected he began celebrating alongside the other crew members waiting for him there. But as much as they're already popping champagnes and throwing confetti there, the rest still aren't done from 'fighting' the hordes of Twice clone props.
Tomoyasu focused his attention to them instead, immediately noticing how authentic and realistic his crew is acting while 'fighting' the props. After some time, he saw an incoming squadron of flying MLA troops slowly heading his way, and upon them getting closer, the people down immediately started screaming and scampering ahead like they're seeing a giant monster about to step onto them. And indeed, the 'squadron' is representative of Machia arriving into the city. "Top tier work," Tomoyasu couldn't help but comment, hearing how authentic the panicked screams of his people are, even the ones that pretended to get crushed (even though in the original battle not a single person got crushed at all as he made sure to pre-plan Machia's path with Garaki beforehand. He cannot afford to lose any of his reliable people).
Before long, the entire 'Deika City Re-Terror Event' is done. From atop his floating platform, everywhere Tomoyasu looked is just nothing but his people - still wearing either their motion-capture suits and disguises, cheering around and generally just celebrating the success of the entire re-staging. As for Tomoyasu himself, indeed all is well. As he expected of his crew, they managed to execute everything in one clean swoop. While everything might not be as perfect as for him, but the main point is that the hard part is done, he can now finally move on to the next stage of his plan.
"Any words, boss?" Relevant spoke up, handing over a small device to him. Tomoyasu gladly took it, and after a brief clearing of his throat, he spoke into it.
"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Sector Zero got wiped out," he said into it, immediately causing his hundreds of people to erupt into further cheer.
Tomoyasu just grinned to them, a true genuine smile. For once, he's not stressed of anything, and seeing not a failure in sight. Re-opening his laptop once more, he began contacting Dr. Garaki. It was a rather long process, considering that the device he's connecting to is also protected by his systems and he needs to, once again, tweak some setting first before he can truly connect.
"Mr. Skeptic! Everything done I presume?" came the voice of Garaki from the other side.
"Tomorrow morning we're leaving for I-Island."
Notes:
I remember being excited for the MLA arc back then. I mean how would Tomura ever win against such a large army? He's weak against ranged Quirks, flying enemies, insta-hit powers, and those that completely negate touch-based Quirks. So how would he ever win?
…
And then the MLA arc happened…
Tomura, aside from from backflipping over a wall one time, just simply ran forward. The MLA just somehow barely had any ranged Quirks, and even then they just kept on missing. Meanwhile, flying troops mysteriously disappear the moment he nears an area they're in, even though they're always present in big panel shots. And then he's somehow resistant to Stress Bombs for some reason...
On Toga's side, Curious is conveniently weak (despite being part of a Quirk Supremacy group), and her troops are laughably unresponsive. They literally all floated up and yet no one moved, not even firing their long-ranged Quirks that they have earlier, nor even requesting for some flying troops to save them, or calling Geten for aid (who's literally just flying around with his ice block at the time). And then all of them fell down with no one even screaming.
And speaking of Geten, he summoned in huge ice pillars, yet somehow missed anyone important.
…
For short… the League just won because of their absurd Plot Armor, on top of the MLA being ridiculously dumbed down and weakened… And then Shiggy at the end is taunting Re-Destro because he's apparently so good… Yeah right…