CHAPTER 4
Alex ran the flannel shirt through his fingers, scowling as he felt the material. It was a nice shirt, good quality, and would probably last him a few years. But he wasn't sure if he was willing to pay out almost double what he normally paid for his clothes. After a moment of reflection, he sighed and put the shirt back. It wasn't worth it.
Blaziken Man probably never had to look at price tags.
He poked around the clearance section of the department store for a few minutes longer but found nothing that really caught his eye. Alex gave up and left, heading back out into the shopping district towards the next stop. He needed some new clothes, but it was hard to find things in his price range. Before he had become Hawlucha Man, money had been tight enough, but now that most of his extra cash went to tweaks and improvements on the suit, he had even less money to spread around. He turned the corner onto the main boulevard just in time to see four black SUVs careen after an armored truck. The truck skidded to a halt in front of First Clarus Bank, screeching up onto the curb. Guards spilled out from the bank doors to form a perimeter around the truck.
The SUVs slowed down as they cruised closer, and the doors all flung open at once. From each vehicle, three men dropped and rolled across the pavement as the SUVs quickly reversed and drove off. The twelve men all wore black facemasks and advanced on the bank guards. The guards drew their tasers, but before they could use them, a man in black and white motley stepped from the crowd and stood in front of the robbers. The charged wires from the tasers shot out and struck the air in front of him, colliding with the invisible wall the mime conjured there.
Alex swore under his breath. "This was supposed to be my day off!"
He ducked into a nearby coffee shop and ran into the bathroom, digging the Hawlucha Man costume from his backpack as soon as the door swung shut behind him. Alex could faintly hear the employee behind the counter shouting that the bathrooms were for paying customers only, but he paid it no mind. He quickly zipped himself into the wingsuit and called out Hierro from his pokeball. "No rest for the weary, partner. We've got a heist to stop."
The two of them charged out of the bathroom and into the now considerably more crowded coffee shop. People from the streets had fled to the shelter of the nearby stores to get out of the crossfire of the bank robbers and the recently arrived police. As Alex shoved his way through the press to the door, a man grabbed his arm. "What are you doing, kid?"
"My job."
"Who the hell do you think you are?"
"I'm Hawlucha Man. And I'm going to put an end to this."
"Why not just leave it to the cops?"
"Blaziken Man wouldn't stand on the sidelines, and I'm not going to either." Alex shook free of the man's grasp and stepped out into the street. The police had arrived and had surrounded the armored transport. Several Koffing drifted above the transport, and an Ursaring stood warily by the bank's doors. One of the police cars was a mangled wreck after having a civilian car thrown at its hood. The police had their guns drawn and stood behind riot shields, but no one made a move. The man dressed in black and white motley stood in front of the armored truck, and the air before him seemed to ripple and shimmer.
When Alex ran up, the captain turned and shook his head. "Oh no. I'm not dealing with any costumed freaks today. I got enough on my plate."
Alex glowered at him. "If Blaziken Man dropped out of the sky right now, would you tell him to piss off?"
"Kid, you sure as hell aren't Blaziken Man."
"Maybe not, but Hawlucha Man is all you've got right now. Radio Captain Anderson at the Eleventh, all right? He'll attest to my record. I'm here to help."
"I don't have time to play dress up. It's bad enough Greed and her boys took hostages, but I've got that motormouth over there to deal with too. Hasn't anyone ever told him mimes aren't supposed to talk?"
"I know. I've dealt with him before. For Arceus's sake, radio Captain Anderson."
The captain scowled but had one of his men comply. The man came back a moment later and nodded. "Hawlucha Man checks out. Might be best to let him help, captain."
The captain folded his arms. "All right. You say you know how to handle the esper. Take care of the psychic freak and let us handle the hostages. Just make sure he doesn't drop anything on us."
"Walls are all he can do," Hawlucha Man said as he stepped through the police line. He approached the man in black and white. "Pierre? Pierre, it's me. I need to know what you're doing here. You're supposed to be in St. Ambrosius's."
The man's face lit up. "Hawlucha Man! Ms. Petrovna and her friends got me out! And look, they found Mimsy too!" He pointed at the other side of the truck where a Mr. Mime wove together a similar shining barrier to the one in front of Pierre.
"I see that. Pierre, can you drop the wall?"
The mime shook his head. "I'm not supposed to. Ms. Petrovna said."
"I just want to talk with you. You can put it up again as soon as I come through. You know I don't like talking to you this way."
Pierre sighed and waved his hands, and the air in front of him returned to normal. Alex took three paces forward and the wall reappeared behind him. Alex took a deep breath. "Listen, Pierre. These people are not your friends. They're just using you to get what they want."
The smile disappeared from the mime's face. "I know."
Alex nearly took a step back. He hadn't expected that. In the past, Pierre had gleefully gone along with any of the Sins when they reached out to him, thinking that they would be his friends and if he helped them. It had been a simple matter of convincing him that the Sins were only using him for his powers to get him to stand down and come quietly. Now he would need a different approach.
"If you know they're using you, why are you doing this?"
"Even if they aren't my friends, they helped me. They got Mimsy back. If I don't help them, I have to go back to the hospital."
"The hospital is only trying to help you."
"They took Mimsy away from me!"
"It wasn't safe for you to be around Mimsy." Alex spread his hands, showing that he meant no harm. "But maybe things can be different this time. If you agree to come with me and go back to St. Ambrosius, I'll see if I can get them to let Mimsy stay with you. Arceus as my witness, I'll do everything I can."
"You promise?"
"I promise. Cross my heart. But you've got to bring the wall down and let the police in, or they won't listen to me. Okay?" Alex signaled to the police to lower their weapons and prepare to move in.
Before Pierre could respond, a black shape passed overhead. "Have no fear, citizens!" someone boomed. "Captain Unova is here!"
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Alex muttered. "It just had to be this guy."
A man dressed in blue and white dropped out of the sky just inside of Pierre's invisible wall. As he did so, a Braviary swooped down to claw at Mimsy. Pierre whirled on Hawlucha Man. "You tricked me! I thought you were my friend, but you tricked me!" He threw up another wall, knocking Alex back. Mimsy fired a psychic pulse at the Braviary, making it climb back up into the sky. The commotion drew the attention of the robbers in the bank, and a rattle of gunfire came from two of the windows. The police fired back, and Alex ducked for cover behind the armored truck.
Captain Unova turned the corner of the transport and tapped two fingers to his helmet. "Didn't see you there, friend. What say the two of us handle this together? I'm sure we can wrap it up in no time!"
"You absolute moron," Alex snapped. "I had everything under control. Pierre was about to stand down. And then you show up and ruin everything!"
Beneath his helmet, Captain Unova cocked an eyebrow. "Well then, I suppose we'll just have to improvise a bit." He glanced around the side of the transport. "You flank left, and I'll go right. Our partners can come in high, and that should be enough to distract the clown. I'll have my Braviary take down the Ursaring. Then I'll storm the bank doors."
Alex gritted his teeth. Captain Unova's plan made a fair amount of sense, but he didn't have to like it. It was just his luck that out of all the heroes in Clarus City, he had to team up with this guy. Of course, forcing his way into already-escalated situations was the only way Captain Unova ever teamed up with other heroes. "All right," Alex finally said. "But leave the Ursaring to Hawlucha. Braviary would be better off rounding up those Koffing." He jerked his chin at an Ariados scuttling across a web slung between two of the ornamental columns on the bank's façade. "And I don't like the look of that spider. Best to take that out before it becomes a problem."
"If you say so, partner. On my mark." Captain Unova held up his hand, counted down from three, and nodded. He and Alex darted out from behind the transport and tore off in two separate directions. Alex stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled to Hierro. When he had his partner's attention, he gestured towards the large Ursaring before launching himself off a pile of debris and spreading the wings of his suit. Pierre had not managed to get a secondary barrier up before Alex slammed into his chest feet-first, knocking the mime to the ground.
When Pierre had struggled halfway to his feet, Alex shook his head. "I'm really sorry about this." He grabbed the mime in a lock and spun him around. He applied pressure to Pierre's neck and felt him go limp as the esper slipped into unconsciousness. Before he blacked out, Pierre managed to gasp out, "Don't let them take Mimsy. You promised."
Alex lowered Pierre's body, and almost immediately the invisible barrier the mime had conjured flickered and vanished. Hawlucha Man turned and waved the police force forward. The riot squad moved in to surround Greed's men guarding the outside of the bank.
Hierro clashed with Ursaring, claws and talons flashing as the two struggled to gain the upper hand. Captain Unova's Braviary screamed as it flew circles around the Koffing, finally selecting a target and using its talons to knock the poison type into the Ariados's web, knocking the spider to the ground. The police force's Growlithe soon had the insect surrounded, keeping it pinned down. Captain Unova wove through the chaos with his signature kickboxing moves. When one of Greed's grunts charged at him with a baseball bat, the man casually dodged to the right, brought his knee up into the man's chest and then caught him with an uppercut, knocking him flat.
For all that Captain Unova got on his nerves, Alex had to admit he knew how to get the job done.
As he ran to back up Hierro, the doors blew off the bank. Alex ducked behind an overturned car as the heavy metal slabs flew across the street and crashed into the storefronts on the opposite side. Smoke billowed from the gaping hole in the wall, and slowly several figures resolved themselves from the murk.
"What did I say, Yevgeny?" a booming, accented voice said. "Wrath may be a crazy bastard, but his explosives are top of the line. In that, at least, I trust him as far as I can throw him!" Alex peeked over the top of the car and saw a giant of a woman with half of her hair shorn off, and the bare part of her scalp heavily tattooed.
Anya Petrovna, known to many as Greed, flexed one heavily muscled bicep. From what Alex had heard, trusting someone as far as she could throw them was high praise from Greed, especially if the rumor she had once hurled Gluttony out of a wrestling ring was to be believed. Greed looked at the riot squad dispassionately snapped her fingers. "Blow them away, yeah?" Her men raised their guns, but before they could fire, a brilliant flash of light filled the air. There was a great rush of wind, and when the light cleared, a woman cloaked in bright orange and white stood atop the armored truck, a large Volcarona hovering behind her on iridescent wings.
"All right!" she shouted. "Amateur hour is over!" She extended a telescoping metal staff and spun it over her head. "Volcarona Mask is here to kick! Your! Ass!"
Greed snapped her fingers at her Ursaring. "Oy, Stepa, on your feet. We've got a real fight now." She raised her gun and laughed. "Bring it on, bitch! I will swat you like the tiny insect you are!"
Volcarona Mask leapt from the top of the truck as her pokemon partner began to superheat the air. Greed's men fired into the crowd, and Alex was forced to run for cover. His suit was reinforced to prevent blunt trauma from crippling him, but there was no way it could stop a machine gun salvo. He was way out of his depth here. Pierre was neutralized, and now that Volcarona Mask had shown up, it was clear that the situation had escalated beyond what an upstart from Avenbrooke could handle.
Though if he was honest with himself, the police in riot gear should have been his first clue that he was going to be punching above his weight class.
Bullets pinged against the overturned car Alex was hiding behind, and he tried to make himself as small as possible. He cursed under his breath. Alex told himself that Blaziken Man didn't cower when the situation got too hot. Then again, Blaziken Man didn't have to worry about trivial things like bullets. Alex waited for the shooting to move away from him and peered around the car.
Volcarona Mask pirouetted through the chaos, hurling flashbangs and sonic grenades to stun her foes before moving in to dispatch them with her metal quarterstaff, all the while working her way to Greed. Her Volcarona spiraled through the air above, deftly dodging bullets and launching streams of fire at the bank robbers below. The police had rallied around Volcarona Mask, providing cover and support. Captain Unova traded blows with one of Greed's lieutenants, shouting encouragement to his allies while the police shouted back at him to stay out of the way.
Out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw a slim figure slinking out from behind one of the bank columns, carrying a large metal briefcase. The figure moved from cover to cover, obviously not keen to get caught up in the firefight.
Alex tracked the woman (he was pretty sure it was a woman) as she ran and decided that he was better suited to bringing her in than facing down Greed's guns. He whistled to Hierro and sprinted off after the woman in black. Once he and his partner were clear of the firefight, he hung back just enough to make it difficult for the woman to see him tailing her. He chased her down several blind alleyways, and was surprised at how little noise her footfalls made. After several minutes of running, he heard a clang and the noise of feet on a fire escape. He and Hierro immediately found a fire escape of their own and ascended to the roof.
The woman in black vaulted across the low rooftops of the lofts outside the shopping district, and Hawlucha Man glided after her, soaring from rooftop to rooftop with his wingsuit. He could no longer hide his pursuit, and when the woman spotted him, she dropped back down into the maze of back alleys and blind corners between the buildings. Alex cursed under his breath and followed after her.
Her footfalls were not nearly so silent now, and he tracked her with ease. "Leave me alone!" she shouted over her shoulder. "Take a hint, why don't you? No one likes a man who doesn't know when to quit!"
"What were you doing at the bank?" Alex shouted back. "What's in the case?"
"None of your damn business!" He heard her muttering increasingly frantic curses as she turned down a blind corner. "Oh damn it!" Alex turned and found the woman in black standing in a dead end with sheer walls on three sides. She whirled on him and took a deep breath. "I don't like getting my hands dirty like this, but you've left me no other choice."
Alex held up his hands. "Easy now. If you come quietly, maybe you can work out some kind of deal. Give us information on your friends back there and maybe the police can help you out."
"Turn on the Sins? Yeah right. I'll take my chances with you."
A purple blur darted out of the shadows on Alex's right and instinct kicked in. He lashed out with a chop and knocked the Purrloin out of the air as Hierro pounced, pinning the feline beneath one talon. Alex unclipped his batons from his belt and spun them. He glanced down at the Purrloin and then back at the woman, who now seemed a little less enthusiastic about the prospect of a fight. "Not a bad trick, but it's a pretty basic one." He sighed. "Look, I just want a few answers. What's in the case? What were you doing at the bank?"
The woman backed up against the wall and took a shaky breath. "I don't know much. I'm just a freelancer, okay? Like the mime guy."
"A freelance criminal?"
"You're a freelance superhero, buddy. You don't get to give me that look." She tossed her head back. "Besides, I'm a damn good freelance criminal. There's no vault in the world the Shadow can't crack."
"The Shadow? Never heard of you."
"Well yeah, you wouldn't. That's kind of the point." At Alex's look, the woman sighed again. "Listen, all I know is Greed wanted me to open a vault. Straightforward job, good payoff, whatever. I've cracked First Clarus before, it's a piece of cake. I was thinking I'd just go in solo, take what she wanted, skim my cut off the top and call it a day. But no, Greed wants to make it a whole damn thing, because apparently it's bring the whole fucking family to work day. So that goes all tits up, and here we are."
"And in the case?"
"My cut." The Shadow shrugged. "Listen buddy, you know how banks work? This money is insured, all right? The rich assholes I'm taking it from are going to get it all back. Closest damn thing I can think of to a victimless crime. Hey, I'll tell you what." She slowly knelt down next to the case and popped the clasps. She reached in and held up a large stack of bills. "This right here is yours if you want it. All you gotta do is step aside and have your bird give me back my cat."
Alex wasn't sure exactly how much money the Shadow was offering him, but it seemed like a lot. Definitely enough to cover his expenses for several months. Several months of decent food and actually turning on the heat. Blaziken Man never had to make a call like this.
"Sorry. Can't let you do that," Alex said. It was times like this that he hated having to be one of the good guys.
"Well aren't you a fucking paragon of virtue," the Shadow muttered before snapping the case shut again. "Guess we're doing this the hard way, huh?" She balled her fists and darted forward.
"Lady, you're going to regret the day you crossed the amazing Hawlucha Man."
"Hawlucha Man? Never heard of you."
Hierro danced nimbly back from the Shadow as she approached, keeping the Purrloin pinned in his claw. Alex moved in to attack, but the Shadow jumped out of his reach. She tried to strike, but Alex dodged her punches. She might have been as skilled a cat burglar as she claimed, but she hadn't trained to fight like Alex and Hierro had. Alex prepared to bring the fight to a swift conclusion when he was overcome with a sudden chill.
"About damn time you showed up," the Shadow snapped.
Alex felt an icy hand on his shoulder and heard something breathing in his ear. Something wet tracked up the side of his face, and Alex quickly felt himself becoming numb. He fell to his knees and collapsed on the ground, and Hierro shrieked at his unseen assailant. A cloud of purple mist resolved itself next to the flying type, and the Shadow's Haunter licked the Hawlucha too. Hierro's grip on the Purrloin slackened as he collapsed, and the Purrloin scampered back to its trainer.
The Shadow collected her case and stepped over Alex's prone form. "Well, that was fun. See you around… Hawlucha Man." She laughed and strode off into the lengthening evening shadows with her pokemon.
Alex and Hierro were left to lie in the alley until their paralysis wore off. When Alex was once again able to move his lips, he managed to growl just one sentence.
"Blaziken Man doesn't have to put up with this shit."