Out of Place & Out of Sorts

Ch.36 - Strife of Tarisu part 1

"Are all of them ready?"

"Yeah, but gettin' real antsy with all the waiting."

The wind blew harshly in the crisp dew of the early morning.

A figure stood near a radio tower on top of some unknown building, an elaborate radio setup surrounding them: Monitors, walkie-talkies, and various gadgets.

With a roll of their eyes, the figure thumbed the walkie-talkie. "Relax. Today is the day, after all. We've gathered enough people. Neither the heroes nor the cops will have the manpower to stop all of us at once."

The walkie-talkie crackled back with a snicker. "Best of all, it's Ryukyu's off day today. I swear the timing couldn't have been better for us when she adopted a kid!"

The figure grinned to himself. "I'll say... It's like the stars are aligning for us. But we'll still have most of Tarisu on our ass, so we shouldn't get too complacent. There are still plenty of other heroes we need to watch out for."

"Yeah, but we got some real tough boys on our side... I still can't believe we got almost every major villain in the area to agree to this. Sure, we planned a lot, but a good chunk a'them are probably gonna get nabbed during all this."

There was a dismissive huff. "All-Might's off the scene, and new villains are popping up everywhere. All the villain vets now have fresh blood working under them with little reason to not let them cut loose. So, of course, they agreed. They all think they'll be the ones to cut ahead while the rest suffer the consequences. I made sure they all thought that.-"

They then made a cocky grin.

"-Besides, part of this operation's success hinges on most of these guys acting as fodder for the rest of us to get away. That's why there's so many of us, remember?"

"I remember, man, I remember. I'm just nervous, ok!? I think that's normal! ...We're not going to be one of the chumps to get caught, right?"

The figure sighed playfully. "As I said before, we're supervising this whole operation, so we're not even going to be on the scene. We'll get our pay while letting the rest do the heavy lifting and risk getting caught by the cops and heroes. Easy money."

"I know, I know... but I'm gonna be kinda on the scene with the vans and shit. I just hope them goody-two-shoes haven't been tipped off. You made sure about that, right?"

Another eye roll. "You're so damn nervous, they won't find you. I'll make sure of it... And why do you think this took so long to set up?-"

The figure waved his hand as if gesturing to the whole city.

"-I was meticulous. I planned carefully and only contacted villains I was absolutely certain about. Besides, if the cops did know something, we'd have seen movement at the TPD stations or one of the hero agencies, but they haven't done anything. The cops and the heroes clearly don't know shit."