Yay. Overhaul action. Oh, boy. This will totally end well…

I said this would be out last week but, well… trip to see the fall leaves :D

-SpiritOfErebus

It was just the three of them. Two interns and one pro hero.

And they needed to save a small child… from the giant, raging, red flesh monster.

Just great.

"You're here!" the small child shouted, her white hair bobbing up and down as she desperately sprinted over. "You're actually here! Please, save me! I want to get out of here!"

Ingenium's quirk activated as he flew forwards to meet the child halfway in the hallway. Windows shattered and walls were leveled as an unseen force swept through the bottom level of the basement. White curtains, stone spikes of unknown origins, and lab glassware filled with what seemed like blood rolled towards them like a tidal wave. Hans hid his head behind Iida's metal armor and the Elder Tree Mother produced a shield in front of them to protect them from the incoming glass shards, which glinted ominously in the white fluorescent lights.

A small cloud of dust appeared as the debris finally impacted. Hans closed his eyes, but he could feel the particles rubbing against his skin uncomfortably. One piece of cloth wrapped around Hans's leg, and a shard of glass trapped within it stabbed Hans in the leg.

Slowly, holding back screams of pain, Hans reached down to remove the glass shard and a quick application of his healing was able to fix the problem.

When the shattering finally ceased, Hans looked out again, saw that none of the facilities were left. Only destruction remained.

The walls were completely leveled, and the area near the entrance had been completely covered in the industrial garbage.

Ingenium landed before Hans and Iida, his armor battered and slightly scratched up by the small storm. Eri was still safe in his arms, and a quick look at Ingenium's armor indicated that only the paint was scratched. He would still be fine.

"Try to get us out of here." he whispered, "This isn't looking good. This leader's quirk is way too powerful for the Hero Association not to give him at least a B-rank villain rating."

Hans turned around and summoned Thumbelina, the gigantic hand ready to brush away the clutter that had blocked the doorway from this completely erased room to the hallway… but a stone wall immediately shot up in front of the entrance, sealing all possibilities of escape.

Again, Hans turned to look at the red meat monster slowly coalescing into a slightly skinny man. He was wearing a weird, purple-furred jacket and a green jacket, along with the same out-of-place plague doctor face mask worn by most of the high command.

"Heroes…" the voice muttered. "Why must you interfere? None of this concerned you."

"Villain, you are under arrest." Ingenium said, putting on a brave front. " Please surrender. We don't want this to be any harder than it needs to be."

"And Eri…" the gangster muttered, completely ignoring Ingenium's empty statements. "Why must I have to tell you this every time? Anything you do by yourself can only cause more death."

The child in Ingenium's arms shivered for a moment, but only for a moment, before shouting back.

"What do you know? You're the person doing… doing… bad experiments on me! You're not a good person!" Eri shouted, fear and determination in her eyes. "Why should I listen to you?"

"What a silly thing to say to me, Eri." the gangster laughed, placing one hand on his forehead. A white surgical glove appeared on his other hand, which he pointed at Hans's companions almost as if he was afraid of soiling his index finger just by gesturing towards them.

"Are you going to cause their deaths, just like you caused the death of your parents?"

Hans raised an eyebrow.

"That conversation took a very different turn." he thought, looking between a child that was obviously feeling guilty and the supervillain trying to manipulate said child.

But now wasn't exactly the time to be a psychologist. Behind him, the Elder Tree Mother frantically tried to break through the stone wall where the door to the stairway extending upwards once was.

It was probably a good idea to have an escape plan. But for now, the villain needed to be distracted for them not to notice Hans producing a hole in solid rock.

Also, it would distract the small child from whatever guilt she had.

"So you're trying to paint yourself as the morally righteous one while you've kidnapped a child to experiment on with what used to be a laboratory setup?" Hans said, spreading out his hands and walking in front of Iida and Tensei.

Given the fact that they were not deaf, they could also hear the Elder Tree Mother slowly working through the rocks and let Hans continue to walk forward.

"And you are…?" the villain said.

"Doesn't matter much, though you must be even more stupid than I thought." Hans said, grinning. "What have you achieved now? Your equipment and products are gone."

Hans gestured towards the destroyed lab.

"Your cronies are unconscious, and about to be arrested. Your operation is coming to a close. Anything you want to achieve is nothing but an empty dream." Hans said, pointing towards the crumpled bodies of the two thugs he had just beaten up that were just lying on the floor.

"Both points are irrelevant. I can get more any time I want. They are but mere disposable assets."

"Sure sure, then let's talk about all the progress that you've made." Hans smirked. "Really? Do you call sticking yourself in a lab underground and abusing a child as something that is moral? As something that will bring about greater change and magically fix society?"

"You don't really understand her worth, do you?" the villain sighed. "Foolish heroes… always missing the point."

"Then enlighten us." Hans said, sneaking a peek back at the door. Some of the stones were finally cracking as the roots of the Elder Tree Mother seeped through the unnaturally stable rocks. "Tell us what your so-called greater plan is. Or are you just another two-bit villain whining about how society isn't fair?"

Obviously, most villain motivations were more complicated than just "society isn't fair", but the point here was just to infuriate Overhaul.

Within Ingenium's arms, the small child didn't have as many thoughts as the adults in the room. She just pumped her fists as her red eyes glistened, looking almost starstruck.

"Firstly, I… am not one of your so-called villains." The man said, turning his back on Hans and Ingenium in a rather edgy fashion, though one eye still remained fixed on them with a slight hint of caution.

"I am the yakuza."

There was silence for a moment. Hans really didn't know how to respond to this, but then remembered that he really had to keep making conversation.

"...Okay, and?" Hans said, raising an eyebrow. "What does this prove?"

Behind Hans, a chunk of stone fell out of the wall. A group of branches quickly grew out to snag the chunk of stone before it could clatter to the ground and expose Hans's escape plan.

"We alone remember and hold the values of a long-gone society. The values and worths of a world without quirks."

"...So this is what it's all about? Quirks?" Hans asked, somewhat incredulous.

"As it always has been. The cause of all great inequalities in this world. And with her blood, I can erase it!" the villain said fanatically, turning back to face them. "I will overhaul this society, restoring it to what it once was! A society of fairness! Quirks are a disease that has cursed humanity, and with my work, I will be able to finally find a way to eliminate them!"

"You're insane!" Iida shouted.

"No… no…" Hans said, waving his hands a bit before looking the villain in the eye. "You've got a point."

The room fell silent. Ingenium almost dropped the child in his arms. Said child looked at Hans in disbelief.

"You… agree?" the villain staggered backwards. Hans always thought staggering backwards was an exaggeration, but the villain actually did stagger backwards, like he was punched in the chest. "You, a hero who is benefited by the system. You, whose group is allowed to use your powers for profit… agree with me?"

"There's no shame in agreeing with something that's objectively true." Hans shrugged. "Quirks do cause most of the problems we have today. It's one of the core causes of discrimination due to quirk status, villainy, and is one of the driving factors of inequality in nearly any country, therefore necessitating a whole new profession, heroes, to deal with them."

"So… return her." the villain said, extending an open hand towards them. "And on my name as Overhaul, leader of the Shie Hassaikai, I will let you leave unharmed. As another person that understands. Your compatriots, however, will have to remain here… and perish."

"But you're still wrong." Hans smirked, ignoring the obvious jokes he could make when he heard the villain name. It was honestly pretty worthy of wordplay, but infuriating the villain too early would put them at a disadvantage. For now, confusion would be the ideal emotion to instill.

"What? But you just agreed with-"

"Of course. Quirks are the leading factor of problems in modern society. This is an objectively true statement." Hans said rapidly as yet another chunk of stone fell from the walls.

"But did you think that society would be fine without it? Did you think that it would be all sunshine and rainbows without quirks? That things would miraculously solve themselves, and that everybody would accept each other and be happy?"

"Would it not?"

"Society was always flawed, even before the introduction of quirks." Hans said. "Didn't you study history at all? World War Two? The Cold War? Do those things mean nothing to you?"

Overhaul said nothing. Hans assumed that since this guy was probably actually raised by what remained of the Yakuza, he studied biology and nothing else to try and create things that would erase quirks.

"Now, stop me if I'm wrong. So, you went with your own idea of making the world a paradise." Hans said, having now a much better read on him. "You took over this organization, which probably used to be an actual yakuza organization, through a method that was probably related to your molecular rearrangement quirk… And now that you're here, you don't actually understand anything that you're doing. You probably never received an actual education, and just brooded over your theories in this concrete bunker like a forum admin in their parent's basement."

"...And what do you know of the downtrodden?" Overhaul muttered, pure rage filling his gaze.

"Does it matter?" Hans said, raising an eyebrow. "Ultimately, you're only doing this out of an urge for control. Somebody gave you the opportunity to rise to this position, and you took it by force. Now you want to expand that power because you feel guilty about it and really want to feel like you deserve the position. And with the fact that you emphasized you were a yakuza instead of just a villain… You're really just doing this to return the yakuza to power, aren't you? Don't give me that bullshit about fixing society."

Hans's tablet appeared behind his back. Some words reading 'Kick the wall when I step backwards' appeared on it as yet another chunk of rock loosened.

"And what do you get out of strengthening the Yakuza? You eventually rise to the top in this shady underground organization, benefiting only yourself. Don't even try to paint child abuse as something you can put yourself in a moral high ground in, no matter the circumstance. Even in the old days, the Yakuza had standards and honor, it was part of their core principles in fact, what made them the de-facto rulers of underground Japan."

"The disease of quirks really has deluded you." Overhaul sighed. "I thought that you understood. I thought that you could see past the folds of history-"

"Says the one that doesn't even know what World War 2 was. You seem like the mentally diseased one here." Hans said, carefully choosing the exact wording to infuriate Overhaul given the fact that he was probably a germaphobe.

Looking at Overhaul slowly boil over his rage point, Hans raised a foot and prepared to step backwards. Iida's engines began to rev and churn out black smoke as the villain roared and placed his arms onto the ground.

Hans immediately turned, flailing his arms to try and turn faster, and sprinted at the doorway like his life depended on it.

And it did.

He could feel spikes barely stabbing at the back of his ankles as he turned and ran. Iida ran full sprint at the wall, spun on his heels, and performed a picture perfect spin kick at the walls.

His armored (and probably specially designed) footwear cut through the stone like a hot knife through butter. It caused some of the wall to crumble faster, but the wall still held fast.

When Ingenium's own aerial spin kick arrived, however, the wall shattered. For a moment, Hans could see the group of heroes trying to keep the walls up as some distorted shouting echoed from across the various rooms above them. The sense of panic was ripe.

"Captain!" a sidekick shouted from near the mouth of the hallway. "There's too many of them! We need reinforcements! Pl-"

Their view was abruptly cut off by a barrage of spikes. Hans quickly produced an ice shield preemptively, and his prediction was not in vain. Spikes shot up at his face but were sufficiently stalled by his barrier.

All three of them knew that they couldn't depend on reinforcements coming from above.

They would have to take on this villain… in a confined space.

"Did you really think that I would be that foolish as to not see through your taunts?" a deep, echoing voice boomed.

The rock formation twisted as a giant squeezed itself through the stone crevices, the red flesh of what was probably Overhaul's fallen colleagues. Eri quivered in Ingenium's arms as she saw what had to be a monster from a child's view wear her captor's face ,wielding unfathomable amounts of power. The very ceiling bubbled with more spikes, which were produced and aimed at Iida, Hans, and Ingenium.

"Yes. Yes I did." Hans sighed. "Oh, how I played the fool in this situation."

With a twist of effort, he aligned his territory creation to an area approximately encompassing the ceiling and floor where his allies were gathered. Instantly, the production of spikes was slowed.

There may have been an implication about how quirks interacted with mana, but at this point, Hans was way too worried about survival to care.

…

The police were in chaos.

It turns out that trying to restrain a gigantic villain with rope wouldn't turn out very well, considering the fact that the villain could crush the police officers crowding around them just by rolling.

Tasers were ineffective. The police didn't actually want to kill the gigantic supervillain either, and the heroes on the surface that specialized in restraining were insufficient to stop the… attempts of struggling from the villain.

Additionally, one of the villains tied up on the ground could actually control leaves, and had come back to their senses.

So as green leaves flew across the skies in a formation not unlike a tornado and the police ineffectively tried to smack the giant, muscled man back into unconsciousness with police batons that looked like toothpicks compared to the man's fingers… a third party entered the battlefield, adding to the confusion.

"For the SDC!" a construction worker yelled, brandishing a sledgehammer.

"Chaarge!"

"Down with the yakuza!"

Running into the fray, they began to hit the giant on the head with construction tools to much greater effect.

"What the fuck is going on here?" the police chief on site said, wiping sweat from his brow. Nursing a bruise on his right arm, he looked at the pack of vagrants that had entered the situation haphazardly. "I thought we kept civilians away from this place?"

"The hero that the Ingenium agency left behind is unconscious, sir." another policeman said, pointing at said hero in their colorful costume, currently face down on the ground.

"Damn it!" the police chief cursed. "More civilians on the scene. I swear I'm going to get a stroke one of these days. Call in reinforcements!"

"...Ingenium was temporarily moved here because there were no other heroes in the area."

"Well." the chief sighed. "Let's hope that they can last twenty minutes."

A shiny, red button was pressed on a transceiver. Help would arrive… eventually.

…

The situation was kind of wild inside the gigantic cave-like structure. For one, there was literally no light to see by. Since the lights within the lab had also been destroyed, Hans was forced to try and light up the place with the blue glow of his mana and the scattered matches of the Little Match Girl.

Honestly, the end result looked pretty much like a haunted house attraction.

Currently, he was the most obvious target due to his glowing, blue tablet and his summons, which actually emitted their own, subtle glow and looked vaguely humanoid.

Therefore, Hans's summons were suffering in a purgatory of endless attacks. However, given the fact that they were mostly immaterial, it didn't really matter.

Additionally, Hans had his own tricks. Using his noble phantasm to grant himself, Iida, and Ingenium night vision wasn't that difficult. It did drain some of his mana, but it was essential for their survival as the cavern roiled to try and impale them.

"You still do have a weakness, huh?" Hans shouted, his voice echoing in the cave like a coin rattling in a tin can. "You can't kill your test subject. This is why you haven't crushed all of us, right?"

"I can bring her back to life with just a touch." Overhaul scoffed, "Your threats are meaningless."

"So, instead of using your abilities to progress science and potentially save millions, you chose… this life?" Hans shouted back. "How shortsighted. Besides, how will you even distribute your miracle quirk erasing drug everywhere? Do you just expect everybody to gladly give up their quirks? It seems rather unrealistic for your little organization to attack the entire world with whatever plan you've got."

"Quirks are a disease that must be eradicated!" Overhaul roared, accompanying his statements with flourishes of his quirk. The cave quaked as its structural integrity was tested over and over again.

It seems as if Overhaul had really just given up responding to Hans's statements, which bummed him out slightly. After all, an angry Overhaul was one that couldn't think rationally, and that lack of rationality was probably what was keeping the spikes from strategically targeting them.

Hans and company continued to dodge around within an area of the room that still vaguely glowed blue, since the territory creation interfered with the rate at which the spikes appeared. Eri, presumably still trapped in Ingenium's arms, was probably a bit motion sick given the rate at which he was spinning. Occasionally, Hans could see the blue flares of the Iida family's exhaust pipes light up the dark.

This couldn't last forever. Eventually, Hans and Iida would tire out. Ingenium would probably be fine for a while, but even he probably couldn't survive Overhaul without Hans and Iida as fellow distractions.

Hans had to infuriate Overhaul again.

"Isn't your quirk your greatest tool though?" Hans shouted back. "You're using it in literally everything you're doing. In your experiments and in your combat… You probably even hired your henchmen simply because of their useful quirks! How are you… different from everyone else in this society?"

"I'm actually trying to do something about it!" Overhaul shouted back. "Unlike you heroes, who are just upholding the status quo, I'm going to break it! And overhaul it into something better."

Ignoring the wordplay potential, Hans continued to respond.

"Well, you haven't really achieved anything, have you? You're just another villain claiming that doing this crime will benefit society, or it's all about sending a message, or something! It's utterly foolish and hypocritical, just like your end goals!"

Taking a deep breath, Hans continued his statement, trying to really draw out the rage.

"Essentially, you're just another villain with a very large basement."

This time, however, Overhaul didn't fall for the taunts, and Hans felt his arm get cut by a sudden spike. His breathing got heavier as he slowly ran out of stamina, and his mana reserves finally tanked below sixty percent. It may still seem like he had a good amount of mana in the tank, but only about ten minutes had passed since the beginning of the entire raid began.

He wasn't going to last much longer.

Now, standing extremely still in a dark cave to try and minimize the chances of a spike materializing underneath him, Hans couldn't… really do anything against Overhaul from this distance. After all, Overhaul was still in the middle of his gigantic flesh monster. But if he could disconnect Overhaul from said flesh monster, then maybe Iida and Ingenium could actually attack them.

But to defeat him, Hans needed to approach him, an idea he really didn't like. But, he slowly shifted the blue box until it began to approach the flesh monster, slowing down the production of spikes. Hans then slowly began to creep towards the flesh monster, dimming his magic tablet to the lowest light level it could possibly go to… before stuffing it into his bullet proof vest uncomfortably. He clambered past several spikes almost like he was a cave diver, and as Iida and Ingenium continued to suffer, Hans placed a hand on the blob and pulsed his mana through the-

Oh fuck those were other people.

The flesh blob was actually still alive. What was left of the brain matter of those people silently screamed in constant agony as Hans's mana ran through the fleshy blob simply because they had no skin and they were constantly touching stone, writhing against other smaller, distinct blobs, and were completely deprived of sensory information.

It was horrifying. But as Hans looked at Overhaul, comfortably nested within a throne of his subordinates, he had an idea. A very stupid idea.

His quirk was molecular rearrangement, right? That meant that he couldn't destroy any matter. And since this fleshy mess was still alive, and probably not missing any of its component parts, Hans could attempt to heal it to disrupt its structure. Quickly, he healed the blobs as much as he could, and abruptly, the flesh blob writhed and twisted, slowly morphing back into distinct human shapes. Overhaul was forcefully ejected from his perch as he desperately tried to use his quirk to coral the blobs back into the shape of his mount, but Hans reached up with Thumbelina's hand and grabbed Overhaul midair.

"You idiot!" Overhaul mocked. "I'll simply just dissolve this hand!"

"Go ahead." Hans said, smirking slightly. "Try."

The hands touched Thumbelina… and nothing happened.

"What?" Overhaul muttered. "My quirk doesn't work on this?"

Obviously not wanting to tell the villain critical information, Hans laughed.

"Getting held in that hand temporarily disables your quirk! Now you'll just have to wait here until the police arrive to take you away."

Overhaul tested his quirk on his jacket.

It still worked.

"Oh, fuck." Hans muttered. Fighting a villain with a brain was more difficult than he had anticipated.

Overhaul reached up and touched a spike, causing the room to writhe in motion once more. A spike shot out from the ceiling to impale Thumbelina, causing the summon to weaken and drop the supervillain. Ingenium was smacked in the face by a moving spike midair and dropped Eri, causing the Elder Tree Mother to surge out of the ground to grab the small, falling child.

Hans, meanwhile, caught a glimpse of the exit. It occasionally flashed in and out of view as the wall tossed and turned like it was water swirling in a bottle, the doorway that meant safety and temporary reprieve flashing in and out of view of Hans's night vision.

Commanding the Elder Tree Mother with his mind to transport Eri along with him, he sprinted as fast as he could at the exit. The light flashed, but empowering his legs with his noble phantasm, he leapt through the exit just as the walls shut behind him.

He was just about to run up the stairway when he realized that… this room wasn't actually the stairway leading up. It was just a side room, though it was actually pretty large for a side room.

Hans looked back at the cavern that they were previously shut in, but the stone abruptly stopped moving.

"So… he can only control one continuous object, huh…" Hans muttered. "So that's why this room wasn't affected."

"But are we free yet?" the small child asked, tugging on Hans's sleeve.

"Okay. Don't worry, kid." Hans said, looking at what seemed to be a large room filled with hospital beds. The bloodstains were concerning, but at least there were lights in this rather spacious infirmary. Slightly dusty beds lined the walls as old medical equipment was stacked against a wall, with poorly rolled bandages spilling out of the shoddy storage.

"We'll get you out of here. Now, let's hope that this room actually is linked up to the surface. Do you know the way ou-"

The door rattled and both Hans and Eri froze.

"Quick!" Hans hissed. "We need to hide!"

But it was too late. The door was opened gently by a surprisingly large fist as a muscle bound man wearing a black mask stepped through.

Hans quickly began to prepare an elemental attack. Perhaps he could take this guy, if it was just one lieutenant.

Then, another man wearing a plague mask and black, traditional Japanese robes stepped through. Of course there had to be a second one.

"Well, Tengai." the villain smirked. "It looks like we found the boss's kid after all. And a little hero along with it."

"...Just get it over with, Rappa."

Hans thought about the last time he tried to fight three of what looked like Overhaul's lieutenants and sighed.

This wasn't going to end well.

And Thursday is only halfway through! Oh, however will Hans make it to the next day? Where potentially even worse things will happen…

I wonder what the SDC (if you all still remember what it is) are doing. I wonder if they'll influence the next arc.

Discord link: discord . gg / 9t9MK3jHmV

-SpiritOfErebus