She'd only had to avoid the Terrible Trio twice more.

Also deal with people who wanted her to join the Gymnastics Team for some reason.

As for the Trio - compared to the stuff that Iruka had her dodge, the occasional wadded up piece of paper was simple and easy. At one point Sophia grabbed her arm and she reflexively broke the hold but then Sophia stared at her arm. Weirdo. Oh. Wait. Was Emma gay and Sophia was her lover? Then what about that third wheel? But then why come after her?

Yeah, she could have beaten the crap out of them without significant difficulty. That would be giving away her identity and she was going to be a hero after all.

Getting a ninja outfit was surprisingly easy. There was her headband with the little swirl-leaf symbol she'd gotten from Iruka, and other than that she just needed something easy to move in. A quick web search had given her some ideas and then a quick henge and then relax the little mental switch she'd figured out.

Taylor checked herself in the mirror. With her chakra not restricted she was taller, looked a lot more fit, had an actual figure, two fluffy-as-could-be fox tails and a pair of fox ears, and red hair that Emma would be jealous of in a heartbeat.

No, she wasn't being petty - she just had a good appreciation of what she looked like now.

That she sort-of looked like that Ahri from that game "League of Legendaries" (or whatever it was called, it wasn't like she knew more than a few online images) just meant she'd have a few chances to lean into a role.

Not that ninja foxgirl superhero wasn't a role already.

The outfit she'd chosen was about as basic and cheap a combination that she thought looked good on her. Plus the Konoha headband of course. Getting kunai or other weapons would have to wait until she could find/buy such things.

The red hair would help distance her from plain old Taylor Hebert. Tonight she was a Ninja Girl!

She had done a little research and registering as an independent hero was definitely something to do. She didn't trust anyone at that PRT but that didn't mean she wasn't going to be smart and at least avoid the cliche of fighting with the heroes because nobody knew anyone else. She DID do some research and that DID happen.

Meh. Going to have to come up with a better name too. Something foxy. Something ninja-ey. Ninja-ish? Whatever. Ninja Girl was already taken by some gal in Austin. Maybe the night air and her first foray would give her some inspiration.

Iruka had had her training in the basics. The foundation of any building determined what you could build there. So she had drilled and practiced and used those basics while doing everything else.

Bursts of chakra to increase leaps, running up the side of a building using the Tree Climbing training, and the strength and acrobatic training she'd gone through with the enhanced learning techniques was part of her daily exercise routine as she went from rooftop to rooftop while landing "gentle as a leaf" - which was one of the harder parts of it actually.

She had no tools, which required money or taking them from opponents. So she had to find and deal with them.

First things first though. Register, let them know an independent hero was here. Hell, maybe she could get some name suggestions out of them - that had to be one of the questions they got asked a lot with so many names taken.

* Detective Phil Fish *

Front desk duty. At least there was a bathroom nearby.

Nine months, five days, seven hours till mandatory retirement. Not that he was counting.

He understood they were short-staffed. That they were trying to put him somewhere that was low-risk. He appreciated that.

Hell, he'd admit as soon as anyone else that the shaking in his hands meant not being anywhere near the frontline in a combat position. Here all he had to do was raise his hands and barriers would automatically snap into place.

Still, you kept your eyes on the monitors. Kept track of where everyone was. One woman and her five-year-old checking out the gift shop. Vista had a new sticker out, so that was expected even on a school day and this late at night. This one was actually kind of cute, with a little chibi cartoon Vista on a skateboard going through one of her distortions. It came as a pair so you could stick one up far away from the other or something.

As far as he knew, Vista didn't actually have a skateboard.

Image was really missing something there. Having her skateboard around the Boardwalk would probably be a lot more fun than the walk-and-wave stuff. Do that Scooby Doo thing where she was going in one door and coming out another maybe.

He hadn't talked much with the Wards, what he mainly did prior to getting "fill in at the front desk" duty was investigating leads on supervillains and going over reams of internet crap trying to pull actual facts out of that garbage.

He checked the monitors and raised a wrinkled eyebrow. Obvious cape was obvious, despite not wearing a cape. Maybe it was the fox ears. Maybe it was the two fox tails trailing behind her. Maybe it was the sweatpants or the t-shirt with what looked like an old Army surplus jacket over it.

Not that those sorts of jackets had anything wrong with them in this weather. They were pretty durable and at least water resistant.

"Got a cape approaching," said Detective Fish into a microphone. "Query?"

"No match in database," was the immediate answer. "Closest is a deceased anti-hero from Kyushu - Inari."

"Got it," said Detective Fish. New cape, likely hadn't locked down her costume or much other details. Just in case question #4 came up - he pulled up the cape name database on one screen.

Two more Troopers went to standby, one near the elevator, the other standing just outside the gift shop.

"Fish, overwatch notes presence of two E88 plainclothes and one ABB plainclothes at observation points. ABB ganger dropped phone on spotting approaching cape."

"Oh?" asked Fish.

"Probable panic reaction, and yelled something about his liver loud enough audio pickups got some of it."

"Right-eo, then," muttered Detective Fish as the new cape entered. Ears flicked all over the place on entering and nose twitched. Possibly enhanced senses - hearing and scent. Smile shows slightly lengthened incisors on both lower and upper sets of teeth.

Looked like she was trying to project confidence while her tails flicking behind her seemed to indicate nervousness. Not unusual for a new cape on the scene. Give her points for showing up here this early in her cape career, not like some of them who went out and their debut ended up with them face down in an alley and his people trying to figure out who to call with the news their kid was deceased.

Yeah, he'd had to do that a few times over the years.

"Hi there," said Detective Phil Fish, trying to project the whole helpful attitude thing. "How can I help you?"

"I'm here to pick up whatever forms I need for independent hero status," said the cape.

"Groovy," said Fish. Watching her wince was one of his old guy pleasures in life. Got to take 'em where you find 'em. He handed her the proper forms. "You want to fill them out here, we've got a conference room on this floor."

"Thanks, but I'll have to go over them later," said the new cape.

"Just so I've got a record of it, you have a cape name yet?" asked Fish, not expecting one if she was THAT new. "Also some basics on your power so I can pencil it in?"

"Oh, I'm going with Kitsune or Kunoichi unless they've been taken," said the new cape. "Or Kitsune Kunoichi if both are taken. I can change later if I come up with a better one, right?"

"It happens all the time," reassured Detective Fish. Yep, common question #4 about whether a name was taken. "So many of the good names are taken. I can check now... Yes. Kunoichi is taken but she died in the Leviathan attack on Kyushu. Kitsune... Japanese refugee hero now in Korea. Has a native nemesis villain named Gumiho where they've clashed several times. Huh. Did not know that. Shouldn't use the two names together because it'll cause confusion in the press and trust me - from what I'm seeing you don't want a connection to this Gumiho person."

"Ninja Girl? Because my powers are ninja techniques?" asked the new cape.

"Stranger/Mover huh?" asked Fish. "Hmmm. Taken. Rogue or minor villain associated with Bondage Girl in Austin."

"There's really a cape named 'Bondage Girl'?" asked the new cape.

"Tinker. Specializes in restraint devices. Occasionally ends up as the target of her own devices," said Fish. "On the other hand, her merchandise and videos apparently sell really well. You're going with Japanese themes in a city that has the ABB, so you're aware that Lung might object kind of violently?"

"I'm not planning on crossing paths with Lung if I can at all avoid it," said the new cape. "How about Shuriken?"

"Cape in San Francisco, power is very accurate throwing skills," said Fish. "That one I know. Ninja theme... fox. Inari is taken. How about Zenko - good foxes that serve the goddess of harvests?"

"Zenko? Zenko. I could use a rapier and scratch a 'Z' in the clothes of my opponents maybe?" asked New Cape.

"I think anything Zorro-like would eventually get the Disney lawyers on you," cautioned Fish.

"Eh, it'll work for now I suppose," said the new cape. "Can I drop the papers off this afternoon?"

"No problem. Take your time," said Detective Fish as she left. "Stay safe out there."

"Odds?" came a question from the intercom.

"That she'll play it safe?" Fish considered. "Maybe 50/50. She DID have enough sense to get the paperwork and introduce herself before going out to do the cape things. Be really nice if I didn't have to figure out next of kin."

"Amen," responded the console operator.

* Taylor *

After choosing the name, something had popped up in her vision again. From what she saw, nobody else noticed.

[Milestone achieved. +100 points.]
[Roll is deferred for active sit-]
[uation. Points roll over to pool]

This wasn't flying, the whole running at high speeds and leaping from building to building. It was fast, she figured her chakra enhanced running speed was at least 25mph or so. So fast, but not nearly what some of those out there could do.

Apparently nobody available in Konoha had an actual flight technique, which was terribly disappointing.

Apparently one of the rival villages had a technique but Iruka had only known it existed, not how to do it.

Well, she needed to try out her various techniques in the real world instead of halfway between the Pure World and the Impure World anyway.

Standing on a rooftop well away from the PRT building or home, she went through several of the stances and set manuevers of Konoha Academy Martial Arts in quick order. Followed by the few extras she'd learned those few days with Maito Gai from his style. Followed by going through each of the various techniques she'd learned as part of the "basics" of Konohagakure's Ninja Corps. Well, not the medical techniques. Those required someone injured and she wasn't going to cut herself to practice fixing that.

Disguise, Substitution, Clone or in her case - Shadow Clone. She'd already done Tree Climbing and Water Walking in her dash across Brockton Bay now. Water Gun, a Water Release technique that had her shoot high velocity bullets of water, was one of her other "fill out the basics" of the Academy. As was the basic storage scroll and explosive tags - though she'd need to get an ink-making kit so she could feed chakra into the ink to use those particular skills.

The chakra chain thing was harder, and something she really needed to practice more.

Then there was her father, maybe seeing his daughter was a full-on hero would break him out of that cloud of depression.

[100 points acquired.]
[Rolling... Failure. ]
[Points stored + 100.]

Huh. Well, couldn't be a winner every time.

* * *

He'd been up getting a drink of water at the time.

Danny Hebert had heard the window open and had investigated, the thought of an intruder being enough to penetrate both depression and his usual tiredness. Taylor hadn't answered, so he'd cracked the door open and found her missing and the window partly open.

So his early to-bed night had been cut short and he was waiting as someone came in Taylor's window and stopped dead on seeing him sitting in a chair in the open door.

The coppery red hair, the ears and fluffy tails (two of them), and the outfit all dropped away after a very uncomfortable moment and then Taylor was looking as if she'd been caught. Appropriately enough.

"Well, I can explain this," said Taylor.

"I think that I'm ready to listen," admitted Danny Hebert.