I'm testing out a new line break so when you see 'x-x' just know it doesn't mean anything. Why? Because I've learned that line breaks don't appear on mobile and want to make sure it translates. If it doesn't work, I'll see what else works.
"Alright so what is the lesson here, fellas?"
Don't do crime if you can't do the time." The chorus of thugs speaking in unison reverberated through the small building.
"Good! Now you guys behave until the cops come…" Sirens blared outside, the sound of doors opening and guns clicking surrounded the store.
"Spider-Man, we have you surrounded come out with your hands up!" Miles sighed.
"Well at least they'll pick you guys up, I got what I need."
Outside, the police aimed down at the small store. Anonymous tips called in an hour ago with sounds of gun fire. George had called a third of the police force to arrest Spider-Man, he wasn't going to get away this time.
"Hey guys!" George looked up to the nearby building to see Spider-Man perched on the ledge.
"Freeze!" Every gun turned to point at him.
"Y'know, cops usually arrest the bad guys. Not the good guy, feel free to get the thugs inside, see ya!" Miles dived from the building and swung away.
"Kowalski! Stay behind and get arrest the men in the building, everyone else after Spider-Man!" George rushed back into his cruiser and drove after Spider-Man.
Miles lead the police around for a few minutes before he had gotten a call, it was from the Detective.
"Spider-Man here!" Miles said swinging from building to building.
"I know you have the ability to cloak, lose the police and meet me at the docks." The call ended abruptly; did he hang up on him?
"Jeez, rude much?" Miles muttered before looking at his predicament.
He had a ton of police following him, and he could distinctly hear a helicopter in the distance.
"Well it's been fun, but I gotta run!" He shouted as her jerked his body towards an alley.
Every cop car skidded to a stop, George himself was rear-ended by another cruiser before jumping out of the car and running into the alley after Spider-Man.
He scanned the small alley, looking up and down with his issued pistol. The reality was, Spider-Man had gotten the slip on him again. "Damn it!" George punted a small can of soda before walking back to his cops. This wasn't over by a long shot.
x-x
The warehouse the Detective had so lovingly called their meet up was dank and smelled of rotten fish. It made Miles gag a bit when he opened the skylight and jumped in.
"What did you learn?" The Detective appeared from the shadows; had he been standing there all this time?
"Well your guess was right, that small store was just a front for refrain distribution. Not only that, I got the name of their supervisor. It's not the Black King, but it's a lead. Guy's name is William Derrickson." The Detective nodded his head, pleased.
"Good, I'll dig up what I can on this person. Be ready to spring to action, if we're do this right, we might just learn the location of the Black King."
x-x
"They call themselves the Knights of Zero, a group dedicated to fighting back against Britannia. I'm sorry I didn't relay this earlier; I didn't know they would do something like that. Forgive me." Ohgi bowed.
Lelouch pondered on this, copycats weren't an unexpected development. But this soon? Perhaps they were from the JLF to sabotage his name? Or were they already prepared, only needing a leader (icon?) to fight in the name of?
"The Black Knights are a force of justice, if we allow this to continue, we will lose our credibility. We will lose what we have fought for. Ohgi, I want you to find me a name, anything to get us a lead on where this group is coming from." Ohgi shook his head.
"Aren't we going too far? These guys only want to help, and it's not like we aren't fighting the same enemy." Tamaki argued.
"Wrong!" Zero stood up from his seat. "Their targets are the innocent, they do not care about justice, only revenge. I made the Black Knights to combat those with power who prey on the weak! If we turn a blind eye to the Japanese than we aren't evoking change, we are simply trading one master for another!" The ramifications of his actions as Zero are far reaching. Not just to the rest of the world…but to his friends…to Nunnally.
"They've already shown that they are not above their pettiness, we will dismantle this organization and show the world we stand by our convictions." The room fell silent, they didn't say it, but they all had some resignation.
"We understand, Zero." Not surprisingly it was Kallen who spoke up first, followed by the rest.
"Good, we will deal with this later. For now, we must discuss our next operation, the Narita Mountains…"
x-x
"This is pretty far away, are you sure we won't get into any trouble?" Shirley asked.
When she agreed to walk with Miles, she didn't expect to walk into the ghettos.
"Trust me, I went here a few weeks back. The Japanese won't give us trouble." Miles said.
Shirley was starting to regret her plan to make Lelouch jealous. Firstly, it had been weeks before Miles took her up on her offer, secondly Lelouch hardly paid attention when the two of them left together! Ugh that bone-headed lazy…MORON! Sometimes she wondered if Lelouch looked at her at all.
"So, what's the process here?" Shirley asked as the two dipped into an alley.
"Process? I guess just spray. Here, try it." Miles reached from his bag and tossed her a spray bottle.
"Just spray?" Shirley asked, inspecting the bottle. It rattled when she shook it – was that a good thing? – and noticed the label. It was a bright yellow.
"Yeah, don't worry these are easy to wash down with water so if you mess up it's not like it's ruined." Miles himself pulled out two bottles – each in both hands – and starting spraying. To her it looked like a couple of blotches of colors, but she was no expert.
"What should I make?" She asked, Miles looked down from his blotches.
"I don't know, what do you want to make?" Miles set down his spray cans and stood beside her.
Shirley shrugged, "I don't know either, I'm not really good at drawing. I tried to make something like what I saw you making but it all came out as paper in my trash."
"Well, let's not start complex. We want to start small. How about…" Miles looked at the color and thought of the first thing that correlated with yellow, "…a sunflower?" Miles dug through his bag and found a black and brown can.
"A sunflower? I guess that's simple." She raised her hand and started spraying left and right.
"Woah slow down there, you wanna take it slow. Make sure the paint sticks, here lemme show you." Miles grabbed her hand and slowly guided it.
Slowly the petals of a sunflower started to form, it was small, but it was a start. "Good, now let's get some black around the edges to make it stand out." For the next hour Shirley made a flower, it was a nice sunflower.
x-x
"The Black Knights?"
"Yes, m'lord, they are headed by a masked-man by the name of Zero. We are currently investigating possible identities, but it will take time. After the Second Pacific War, however, the Japanese database of its citizens have been lost. We have no clear way of identifying Zero, however are agents in Japan are diligent. We'll find out the man behind the mask." The grunt messenger relayed the information.
"Good, see that it's done." The Mandarin shut his phone.
"Mr. Khan?"
Eugene looked up from his chair, a dark-skinned man in military attire approached him with intent. "James Rhodes, I presume?" Eugene stood up and stuck his hand out to shake.
"Thank you for coming, Mr. Khan, I know it was on short notice. Tony would be here but…" James drifted off.
"I've read the news. Iron Man, that's the name he's been gifted by the people? Tell me, is he a military asset now? I distinctly remember he made weapons for the Britannian military." Eugene was curious what Britannia thought of their new resident hero, but if precedent was to be called than it wouldn't end well.
"Tony is…complicated. But I've said enough. Follow me, I'll bring you to your hotel." Rhodes picked up his luggage and walked towards the exit.
"What about Stark? I'd like to meet with him as soon as possible. I'd like to discuss the terms of our agreement. More importantly, how he breached it." Just like the Britannian military, he too had been left to dry without the technology and materials Starks company had provided them.
It was now a logistics problem, until they could figure a way to find a new wealth of resources the Tong were limiting expenditures as much as possible. Eugene could only do so much outside his role as the Mandarin.
But then Tony Stark had to reveal his newest creation, the Iron Man. It was a stunning piece of ingenuity. A compact Knightmare, the size of a man that flies, not lack in firepower. Whether Stark realized it or not he had just created the next arms race to recreate the Iron Man. And Eugene was eager to see it.
x-x
"Now that, is a sunflower." Miles and Shirley stepped back admiring their work.
It was a simple sunflower, but maybe it was its simplicity that made it work well. Surrounded by the almost derelict concrete jungle was this lone bright sunflower…Maybe it meant something, maybe Miles is bad at analogy.
"This is some Banksy stuff." Miles said.
"It does look pretty." In Miles' pocket, his phone rang. As he picked it up, he saw it was a text from an unknown number.
"The Detective." Miles muttered, he pushed the phone back in his pocket, "Alright Shirley, I gotta go. You want me to walk you home?" Shirley appreciated her work one more time before agreeing.
As they packed up their things Miles could hear footsteps from the front of the alley.
"Oi, what do we have here?!" Three men walked toward them.
"Oh, don't mind us. We're just leaving." Miles said.
"Britannians, just leaving? Now I know this isn't right, does that sound right to you?" He asked his friends, neither agreed.
"Look, I know what you're thinking. But I'm a regular, just ask Nagata down at the ramen shop, he can vouch for me." Miles didn't feel like getting into a fight with Shirley with him. There was no need to cause a scene.
"Do we look like Nagata to you?" The three men inched forward. If he was getting into a fight, he didn't want to get Shirley caught in it.
"Shirley…" Behind him she moved back a few paces holding onto his bag.
"I wouldn't do that if I was you." The voice of another man resonated from the end of the alley.
He stood tall, easily another head taller than Miles and Shirley. With his shoulders broad, and his arms finely tuned, he looked like a Britannian soldier. Maybe a soldier who spent a few more hours in the gym to get his physique that way.
"Oi, another Britannian?" The Japanese men turned to face the third party.
"I'm not…look, leave the kids alone. They haven't hurt you," The man looked at the sunflower on the wall, "In fact I'd say they didn't mean to cause you trouble."
"Always like Britannians to tell us how to feel. How about we teach you a few…" It was over faster than even Miles could perceive (and he could see things pretty fast). All three men were on the ground with the wind knocked out of them.
"You kids should get out of here, and probably shouldn't come back again." The man said. As Miles got closer, he could make out his face. His jaw line was strong, his eyes had that steely look to them, a friendly face but one that could turn serious in the drop of a second.
"Uh, thanks…" Picking up on the question the man answered.
"My name is Steve."
"Thanks, Steve. Man, Nagata isn't gonna appreciate some random guy knocking out a bunch of Japanese." Miles and Shirley walked out to the edge of the alley.
"Nagata?" He asked.
"Yeah, he owns the Ramen shop a ways down. I get food from him sometimes, don't know how I'm gonna explain this. But thanks, I didn't really feel like getting into a fight over a sunflower." Miles looked back at it, it was staying up nicely.
"Thank you, sir. We won't come back again." Shirley said profusely.
"You got nice art kid; next time put it somewhere someone won't find it. A little tip from one artist to another." Steve game a small smirk.
"Yeah, not my usual place. We should get going Shirley, let's go." Shirley gave thanks one last time before the two went off.
Which left Steve to the three men on the ground.
x-x
"I've decided to hear you out, Mr. Rogers." Zero opened the door to the room, behind him C.C. lurked.
"That's not a yes." Steve read in between the lines.
"My partner believes you're a great asset, but I have doubt." C.C. moved from behind him, giving Steve a good look at her.
"Miss C.C.?" Steve looked shocked; he didn't believe his eyes.
"Rogers, I didn't expect to see you here."
"How? It's been…I don't even…" He tried to form a cohesive sentence but seeing C.C. had him fumbling at the mouth.
"As you can see, I've moved on, Washington did what he could but unfortunately it wasn't enough. I'm vouching for you, listen to Zero and you could join the Black Knights." Lelouch noted the potential history between them. And Washington? He'd have to ask later.
"I ask only for results, if you can give me that you can call yourself a Black Knight. For now, I have a mission for you. If you are willing to accept." Steve stood straight, like the soldier he was.
"If Miss C.C. has put her faith into you, I have no doubt. What is the mission?"
"The Black Knights stand for justice, no one shall prey upon the weak. But lately, we've had a string of copycats, those who only work for themselves and use the Black Knights name in vain. We plan to denounce these acts, but we need to act ahead of this. I want to know where the orders are coming from. Who set up the Knights of Zero, and where are they located? Find these frauds and bring them to me. You will have access to our information networks to do so. Do you accept?" Zero asked, placing his hand out.
"I do." Steve said without hesitation, moving to meet it.
x-x
Todoroki woke up to a splitting headache and a soar face. He tried to move but his arms and legs were tied. Where was he?
"Todoroki Hideo, I've been looking for you." In front of him was that Britannian who knocked him out.
"Where, where am I?!" He demanded.
"Somewhere safe, your friends won't save you. The Knights of Zero won't find you here." How did he know!?
"Some one would like to have a word with you." The door behind the Britannian opened up, the mask was indisputable, it was Zero.
"Zero, help me, help me like you help Japan!" He pleaded.
"You are wrong, I do not help Japan. I help the weak, you have voided that claim after your group attacked a room full of helpless Britannians and stole from them claiming it was for the cause. In actuality it was for your own selfish goals. Leave us, Rogers, I have some questions to ask." Rogers nodded and left the room, leaving Zero alone.
"Now, tell me about the Knights of Zero." A fold in his mask opened, and Zero's violet eyes gazed into his soul for the last time.
A bit shorter than usual but I was having a hard time finishing this. Hoped you enjoyed.