AUTHOR'S NOTE:
To those who have read the original iteration of this fic, I have went back and removed the original chapter as I realized it would be too ambitious for me to make such an arc like War of the Dogs this early on in the story.
In hindsight, it was probably a shitty idea. I apologize for the inconvenience.
I wish to be a lot better in my writing, and will continue to do so even if I still fuck up at times.
The War of the Dogs Arc, I feel like I won't be going back to, my heart wasn't in it anymore. It's honestly just a drag writing it. Needless to say I feel a lot happier knowing, that I threw that trash into the bin.
Sorry for the lack of explanation.
"Hmmm, tonight seems to be quieter than before. Must be because of AntiSkill and Judgement going around nowadays," Touma Kamijou mused to himself, sitting down on his kotatsu. In his hand was a handheld radio, and he was fiddling around with it.
Figuring he might as well continue his daily excursions Kamijou bought this at a thrift store for only 30 yen. For some reason it came with a manual that allowed the user to tune the radio frequency with enough precision. The function was most likely done so that the person using the radio can turn on its AM/FM function.
Ever since the incident a couple weeks back Kamijou thought more about what he could do for the district. Vigilantism was definitely outlawed, sure, but a couple acts of good service didn't hurt anyone, much as they cry about it.
He had had a couple close calls regarding several people in the past.
The most recent one was that busty beauty in glasses.
Before her was Yomikawa's partner (he had seen her a couple times whenever the older woman would stop by).
Before her, was this poor girl who passed out in her arms, in despair.
And before her...
'I'm becoming too sentimental for my own good. I'm only doing this because I got nothing better to do anyway.
Right?'
Kamijou doubted it.
He rarely went out of his way to do stuff like this, because the last time he did someone had died despite his solving the problem. Hence his own reservation with going beyond what he can do in any moment.
He didn't want to make the same mistake as he did back then, with Mitsuari, but if he didn't do something the moment with that certain chill down his neck, and the blaring in his head, he'd never go and forgive himself.
He knew it was a slippery slope. He knew that if he went through with this, he would go and fall down the same rabbit hole as a certain henshin rider in TV and perhaps suffer the same misery as he had.
Kamijou didn't want that, and it wasn't something he'd go and try to fix. His life was too messy to fix properly, anyway.
Kamijou stopped, suddenly. The radio in his hand was in his hands, about to be tuned.
"...What the fuck am I doing?"
Kamijou didn't even know how to tune this even with the manual, so why was he doing this?
Then he realized it. "...You idiot. You couldn't do anything at that point. You did the best you could."
But was that enough? At what point, will "the best he can do" be enough? Until he can save a million people? That was completely unrealistic for Kamijou. Until someone got hurt? Well, it always seems that he'd go and step in whenever that happens thanks to his Instinct, which currently was still silent.
But still.
He should have done a lot better.
There he was. Climbing back from the pit, only to fall back down into it all the same. Like those heroes in the comics, and cartoons.
No matter how many people they try to save, the guilt never goes away.
"...Rotten luck," Kamijou rubbed his eyes.
He took his phone by the table. Opening it, the time read as 10:45pm.
"Off to bed then. No trouble around, so let's go call it a night then," Kamijou said to no one. The radio can wait until tomorrow. Besides, it was a weekend tomorrow. Plenty of time to fix the radio up.
"...But the homework... fuck it I'll complete it all in time." Kamijou said confidently, as if he was sure his misfortune wouldn't go and mess up his schoolwork even at home.
As he laid his head down on his pillow as he prepared for slumber the familiar blaring in his head aired out.
"About time."
XxX
The sound of cut glass can be heard within a certain building in District 7. As the gadget used in the process finished, its user, a masked figure with a feminine shape, pulled the glass panel off the hatch before dropping it down to the ground next to her.
The burglar placed the gadget back into a secret compartment within her form-fitting suit, and took out a gun-like device with a hook at the other end. She pointed the gun at a wall opposite to her, and pulled the trigger. With a loud hiss the hook ejected out of the barrel at high speeds before it embedded itself in the wall.
Attached to the rope was carbon fiber rope. More than enough to take the weight of a full-grown man without snapping. She dropped it down to the ground, seeing as no one in there was around.
She grabbed ahold of the rope and pulled it taut.
The office was large, even larger than most other offices she's been to. The desk was at the far end of the large room, with a big chair behind it.
The burglar took out a small ball from her many pockets, and lightly tossed it down. The ball shattered into numerous, tiny pieces as a silvery mist quickly spread across the room.
In an instant, in front of the burglar's eyes revealed several dozens upon dozens of laser beams across the seemingly empty space.
"Hmm. Tacky," the burglar said.
These lasers were nothing than security systems, designed to activate whenever anyone walked through them. If activated, a silent alarm will go off, notifying Judgement and AntiSkill of a break-in, and activate the emergency shutters within the room to trap any would-be thrives in the room.
At this point, like in many stories the burglar would perform outstanding feats of acrobatics and athleticism evading and weaving through each single laser beam to prevent the alarms from going off.
However, this was Academy City.
The burglars took out a small remote from another pocket in her suit. It resembled a dog clicker.
With a click the lasers disappeared.
"One minute," she suddenly said as she jumped down to the ground, the suit cushioning her fall, and ran towards the desk, digging into its cabinets. After a few seconds of searching she found what she was searching for.
A folder made out of manila paper was taken out from the main cabinet and placed into the desk. She produced a camera from her hands and started taking pictures of the files within said folder, flashes of light briefly illuminating the dim room.
After she was done she stashed the camera into herself and grabbed the folder. She made sure to remove any traces of possible unwanted access, removing any creases and putting the files back into the correct order before she placed it back into the cabinet.
She stopped.
She could just take this folder and disappear, go off the grid. Sure, they might go and create a manhunt, or "cathunt" in her case, to search for the missing files.
Whoever this Mr. Fisk was, he must be reallt important by the Board of Directors to be designated as a surveillance subject.
Something this classified could be worth millions within the black market.
Illegal weapons, mass production of experimental drugs, and...
'DARK_LEGACY?'
The temptation was too much, so she decided to put it back to its original place.
25 seconds passed. At any moment the security systems will come back online.
The mist produced a weak electric charge which, by itself wouldn't do anything even as the mist quickly spread throughout the room. The clicker, however, issued a "request" sent across the billions of nano-machines contained in the "ball" to create an electromagnetic pulse which deactivated the laser security system. The electric charge, as weak as it was, would provide extra juice to the nanobots, as these were rudimentary, not unlike Under_Line.
'Assuming such a system exists,' the burglar mused as she ran up to the rope. She started to climb up.
10 seconds have passed.
She had to get up quickly.
9.
Fear was settling in her mind. She used it to power her ascent up to the roof.
8.
7.
6.
Dark Legacy. A project supposedly created by the doctor who would be known as Heaven Canceller.
Nothing much was known about it, apart from its creator. Its functions, methods, materials, history, and status were left unknown.
4.
At any second ths system would reactivate by now. And she was at a significant height. But she didn't wish to push her luck.
3.
Almost there.
2.
Right-
A mistake in grabbing the rope caused her to slip, and she descended down quickly.
One.
In a split-second she grabbed the rope in the nick of time, preventing her from crashing on the floor.
Adrenaline coursed through her veins, her heartbeat quickly drumming through her chest.
Yet, her poker face hadn't broken an inch.
"Well, that was lucky."
Despite the pain in her arms she slowly but surely climbed her way back up, climbing out of the hatch before sitting on the edge.
She breathed a sigh of relief, before she got up and went over to pull the hook off the wall, placing the rest of the rope onto the ground.
"Ain't it a bit late to go partying with clothing like that?"
She jumped. Turning around, she came face-to-face with a pair of white, buglike eyes.
XxX
SynCorp. The place where everything changed for Touma Kamijou's life.
It was only a month ago the spider bit him, but it felt like a lot had passed at that time. He could barely remember the stuff he did at that tour, only what had happened which brought him to this moment.
He porched on a nearby roof door cabin, watching as a... interesting person had climbed out of the hatch. She was out of breath, and possibly afraid, but she looked fine.
She stood up, allowing Kamijou to get a better look of her outfit.
It was jet-black, with a slight gloss out of the edges which emphasized their curves quite well, as the jumpsuit clung closely to the skin. Patches of white fur adorned the calves; Kamijou figured the fur might be fake. Her long hair was tied up in a ponytail.
The outfit really clung to their body, showing off their legs, chest, and the rear-
"Okay Kamijou. Stay focused." He whispered. "Cat burglar then. Easy to deal with, I guess."
Kamijou stopped despite himself. "Then again that purple caped ninja dude nearly killed me so, can't be too careless."
He flexed his hands, shook them, and twisted his neck before lightly clearing his throat.
"Ain't it a bit late to go partying with an outfit like that?"
The woman turned to him instantly. Both were locked in a bit of a stareoff.
Then without warning, the burglar ran towards the edge of the building.
Kamijou leaped after her, sending a couple web blasts towards her to restrain the criminal. But to his surprise, he twisted her body, avoiding the web globs before she delivered a side kick to his stomach, knocking the wind out of him.
"Uughhhh, not again," Kamijou groaned.
He watched as she turned back to him, and after a moment of silence, smirked as she leapt off the building.
"Shi-" Kamijou got up, looking on where she was.
Luckily, she was safe, apparently. She looked up and, noticing Kamijou, snidely took a bow before running away.
"Okay," Kamijou only said as he fired another webline, swung after her.
XxX
So the urban legend about the Spider-Man were true, after all, mused the burglar.
She didn't know what to make of him at first; a vigilante going around beating up street punks and helping students out wasn't the most unique rumor within the urban legend community, in fact theu were a dime a dozen. Every so often they proved to be nothing more than the result of a bored teen's overactive imagination.
But the stories surrounding the Spider-Man, they were different. Not more so with their content, and more so with the frequency of these stories. Add to near-frequent sightings of the mysterious figure, and a picture was painted of the Spider-Man.
She would've laughed them off, consider them meaningless drivel like the rest of the rumors, but there was something about these stories that bothered the young woman.
There was something... uncomfortably familiar with how these stories went.
People in danger (more specifically women), hero swoops in, saves the day, and runs off without a word.
Sounds like someone she knows. Unless...
"Look lady, just stop running. Whatever you stole from that company, I promise I will put it back in piece. So just hand over the stolen goods and all will be well."
There was that voice. It was closer than before.
The thief peered over the corner, looking out to see the Spider-Man looking around for her.
With his body language and nasal pitch, she figured him to be an amateur in being a vigilante.
She had a chance to leave at that point. He would be looking for air around here by the time she's gone.
"If you're on the chase with someone, better make sure you don't look like an easy target."
"Huh? Is... is that you, Miss Burglar Lady?"
But his naivety was too precious not to exploit for her amusement. "I've heard about you. You're a very popular topic to talk about in the forums," she said, still hiding behind the roof door where this Spider-Man was. She made sure not to show her hiding place away to him.
"I'm popular? Huh, I didn't know that," he said. "But it doesn't really matter because I have to take you in now."
"Take me in? That's funny, coming from a vigilante like you. I doubt you got permission from both of them to continue your vigilantism, because let's be honest I doubt they'd go and accept you," the burglar said, slowly moving to the opposite side where the edge was. "I mean, what is it that drives a man like you, with your strength, your power, your talent? There must be something, deeper as to why you do the things you do."
"Lady I don't need a psycho-analysis session tonight, let's just get this over with." He sound agitated.
"'Right, as you wish. But do answer me."
She's near at the edge.
"You got some lingering doubts in your mind? Some guilt eating you up?"
"I am so over this," the boy, as she realized by his tone, finally said. And in a move which shocked her, he landed in front of her, behind the roof door.
"I don't know what kind of tech or power you have, but it wasn't hard to find you once I get a single decibel out from here."
"Shit!" She cursed, and she began to pivot her foot to side kick.
He only stepped back before firing what looked to be a white glob of slime which stuck her foot on the roof door cabin, keeping her in a weird karate pose.
"It's over maam. Stand down quietly."
"OK, but could you cut my foot down? It'd be rude to keep a lady up like this, you know."
"Really now? You go with a cliched line like that?"
"I got a few," the burglar smiled despite her predicament.
The sound of small glass shattered later, and a bright flash of light erupted.
XxX
"Shit-!" Kamijou saw white, firthermore his ears ringed. His Instinct should've been able to account for that.
Actually his Instinct did go off, but he wasn't careful enough apparently.
He felt an impact on the left temple, then to his solar plexus. He was airborne for a couple seconds before he struck the ground with a thud.
Bad news, concussion and wind knocked out of him.
Good news, the pain actually helped him out with regaining his senses.
Within his obscured vision, he barely ducked under a roundhouse kick, then parried another one before jumping over a sliding kick.
Vision now returning he moved his head to avoid a straight kick before ducking over a following kick, blocked another attack towards his torso, and so on.
A hurricane of kicks peppered Kamijou, and despite her lithe figure were incredibly powerful, similar to the purple ninja from a week back.
Maybe a sort of strength-enhancing tech under her outfit perhaps? But it doesn't look as if it's anything that would look technological in that skintight suit.
Instinct blared once more, and he threw his head back, stretching his head backwards. The momentum kept him towards to the ground, forcing him to place his hands back and flip backwards.
In the process however, he managed to strike the thief by the head as he completed his flip.
As he landed on his feet, he saw the female thief, clutching her face.
"How could you? I'm a woman!"
"Don't play that card lady, this isn't the first time I fought women like you."
"So I'm not the first? Shame, this usually works for other people," she casually said before running away from Kamijou. "But a few seconds is all I need from you so toodaloos!"
With her last words she leapt off the building. Kamijou heard the sound of something ejected out of something.
"Fuck!" Kamijou leapt after her, and swung away. As he pursued her he saw how she was able to traverse along the city skyline; a grappling hook within her hands.
Kamijou took no second to waste as he fired a couple web blasts towards her, which she responded with by twisting in the air, avoiding all of them. She fired her grapple gun again, and flew away as she waved goodbye.
Kamijou couldn't stop now. Much as he wanted to go home, he could not stop the chase.
Kamijou fired another webline, swinging after the woman. He saw her land on the side of a skyscraper. He decided to land above her.
"Can't you give a girl a break? It's not as if I'm hurting anyone."
"I would appreciate if you took them back though. It'd really help your case instead of hearing your excuses."
The woman sighed. She took out something from her cleav-...
Kamijou turned his head quickly.
"You want it? You can have it!" Kamijou turned back, and saw... something thrown off the building.
"ROTTEN LUCK!" Kamijou cursed as he leapt off the building, leaving the woman alone.
He was slower than the stolen item, so he brought his arms and legs in, reducing the drag of his descent.
If he fucks this up, he'd be a bloody spot on the ground.
The thing was near him. He twisted his body, fired a line, and swung towards the falling object. He caught it in the nick of time.
"Yes! Got it! Shit, I hope I didn't break it when I had caught it but..." Kamijou said as he opened his hand.
It was a gold Gekota finger puppet.
Kamijou stuck there, stunned in silence. He looked up to where the woman was sticking on.
She was gone, as well.
"...Rotten fucking luck."
He decided to call it a night, but not before throwing the fucking toy away in anger.
XxX
A single window was opened in a high-rise penthouse within District 3. It would normally take her a couple hours to go from District 7 to 3, but with her gadgets it took only 40 minutes.
She opened the window, and the room immediately brightened, the lights within illuminating in response to her entering.
The motion sensors of the light system made it that anyone who lived wouldn't need to use light switches to turn the lights on. She was thankful for the ease.
She felt incredibly sticky underneath her outfit. She wanted to take the whole thing off, and take a shower immediately, but she had a job to do.
She sat down on the dining table, opening the laptop left here, and connected the camera to it through a wireless function. Within a few seconds she sent the pictures she took from SynCorp's main office into the laptop, where an app in the computer automatically scanned the files before encrypting the files.
A prompt popped up asking for permission to send the files, to which she pressed "Yes" to, and after a few seconds the files she sent from the camera were erased.
Within the app, a message popped in.
(And here I thought something had happened to you. What took you?)
She sighed. And typed back, (I was preoccupied with someone.)
(That is odd. I've known you for a while, and I know you never let yourself get preoccupied.)
(This is different. He was involved.)
A beat passed, and later, (I assume our new friend went and nearly blew this whole operation apart, yes?)
(Exactly.)
(Oh dear. Well, knowing his modus operandi he wouldn't know much about our operations. I suggest you lay low for a month, apart from that you did good.)
"..."
(Is something the matter? You don't usually take more than 3 seconds to reply.)
(Nothing, just thinking about the past.)
(I see. Get some rest. I don't wish for my brain to fatigue herself.)
She only smiled at this, and typed a quick good night.
The woman took her mask off, and untied her ponytail, letting her white hair go. Then, in an instant her hair went from a silver-white to a dark brown.
'It can't be...'
"What the hell happened to my dear junior?"
With her mask on the floor, still wearing her stealth suit Seria Kumokawa leaned on her chair, left with many answers about tonight.
XxX
"Hmm. It seems the Board has taken an interest in your secret dealings Mr. Fisk. What should we do?"
"Absolutely nothing. It'll take them a while to realize the true content in that folder I left in that office was incomplete."
"All of it?"
"Yes."
"Even this... Dark Legacy?"
"...How is she?"
"Still sound asleep, as you say. A month, they said, but we don't really know how long she'll... wake up."
"Hmm."
"We could've just bring her to that doctor on District 7."
"I am well-aware of it."
"So-"
"My decision is final, Mr. Murdock. I will not hear about this a second time."
"...Very well. So, back on track, what should we do now?"
"For now, we continue as planned."
XxX
The red man clung to the building, his fingers straining to hold his whole weight.
His Instinct had led him to a high-rise building, with 'SynCorp' shown boldly at the top.
The company didn't ring any bells for him, but his thoughts were put aside by the woman atop of the high rise building. He kept looking at her with intent.
It definitely had nothing to do with the skin-tight suit clinging on their body, showing their bountiful curves to the world.
It was a simple thing; show up, stop a crime, and blow off. Simple as that.
Then it turned out this girl was also trouble.
It was only a week ago, but the fight he had against the purple ninja in the building still shook him up; never before had he fought against someone as strong as him, even if it looked like they used tech to fight him.
And with his moves, he definitely is incredibly deadly outside the Powered Suit (at least he hoped what he wore was, it looked too streamlined to be one).
The cat burglar was almost the same thing; her attacks actually hurt him, for all her slender and lithe figure could manage. And she was good, good at fighting, not unlike Purple Ninja Asshole.
An amateur like him couldn't stand a chance against someone with fighting experience, powers or no. And his Instinct wasn't working as he expected to, somehow.
He yawned, feeling the late-night fatigue settle in. He didn't take a can of coffee earlier, as he didn't want to be too reliant on the bitter yet satisfying beverage. Caffeine addiction isn't something he wanted to deal with, so he went off without it.
"Maybe one can should've been enough," Kamijoi mused. He peered over the streets below, the countless barbs in his fingers sticking him to the building behind.
He was hoping for some action to cool off from the massive failure that was 13 minutes ago.
The Instinct blaring in his head meant his wish was granted.
Kamijou swung as fast as went, feeling the adrenaline rush from these sorts of incredibly dangerous stunts performed mid-air.
He experimented a bit, while waiting for anything to do at night, doing some somersaults while swinging. It was a work in progress; even with Instinct guiding his aim and swinging he almost missed the timing a couple times, which had him collide into walls, garbage bins, billboards, and so on.
Maybe with some practice he'll get the hang of it, so for now he somersaulted sparingly in his swinging.
He heard Instinct blare in head again, this time louder than before; he must be close.
He landed on a three-story building, near an X-intersection between 1st Street and 3rd Avenue.
He watched as three figures ran away from the, he just now realized, jewelry store, with duffel bags slung across their shoulders. They then stopped and went across the street before getting into an alleyway at the other side.
Kamijou leapt from the building he perched from and swung towards one of the buildings the three hid into. He looked for an edge to peer on, and after finding one quickly looked over, and saw the three burglars quickly running through the alley.
'This is almost too easy,' Kamijou thought. He saw some old superhero comics where the main hero would go and stop things like this, the occasional battles against supervillains and world-ending events aside.
Kamijou had a soft spot for those sorts of stories, the kind of story where the hero would go on and help their community out with burglars, gangsters and whatnot. He found himself not liking the recent formula of "escalation" where the threats the hero/es face increase as the story goes on a different direction/the hero gets stronger than is needed for the story.
He preferred his stories to be stripped down tales, like the old Batman and Superman tales where the heroes fight gangsters and normal criminals, help out random people with their problems, and overall doing good things out of a general sense of decency.
Kamijou partially was inspired by how these old heroes conducted themselves, and based his own sense of ethics upon them. Maybe things didn't work out the way he intended it to do but he wasn't going to let it stop him, and with these newfound abilities he might as well go and do some good before getting arrested for vigilantism and those burglars are moving once more which made Kamijou get up from his introspection, stalking the trio as silently as possible.
The plan was to follow them to where their getaway vehicle was, and deal with them there, where there's less chances of any uninvolved bystander coming in at the most inopportune moment.
Moments pass of the Red Man's continued stalking of his prey, the three burglars beneath him. They were very cautious, making sure their actions weren't about to alert any of Anti-Skill or Judgement upon them. And there were no CCTV's around, lest they'd be dealt with by the Teleporter.
Kamijou figured there was someone who went and used the cameras to help out Kuroko with stuff like this. But with the lack of cameras here it was up to the Red Man here to stop them.
After a painstakingly slow 30 minutes, Kamijou finally followed them into their getaway car, a white-grey minivan with little features to its name. It looked like the type of car small businesses would use whenever to go around and transfer goods across blocks and districts. It helped that the van's size made it easy to shove it in an alleyway as wide as this.
They have been planning this heist for a while now, Kamijou assumed. It may not be correct he surmised, but the general feeling was there based on their methodical movements.
"Hey Komaba can we just take these masks off? They're making my stubble itch." One of the robbers said.
Kamijou drew closer, listening.
XxX
"No, we keep it on until we get back to base. We don't know how many cameras we've passed over the way here, and we definitely don't know if there are any on the way home, so no mask-offs."
"But it's gettin' itchy boss. Maybe a half-open? I promise to wear it back when I'm done."
"...Fine. Hanzou might take a while to start the car anyway."
Inside the van, Hattori Hanzou twisted the ignition, attempting several times to start it. Hanzou punched the steering wheel in anger, wincing in pain afterwards.
"What's going on over there? You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just, this car won't fucking start for anything."
"Did you charge up the battery?"
"Yes, I did."
"Do we have any fuel in there?"
"Last time I checked," he looked at the fuel gauge, "more than enough for the journey home."
"Maybe I'll go and give it a try, maybe-"
"Komaba I got this under control. You and Hamazura just sit back and relax. Nothing a couple tries can't handle."
From Komaba's side Hamazura, the guy complaining about his mask, popped from the car window's side. "I can give it a try if you want. We're in a hurry man, I might be able to fix it."
Hanzou looked to Komaba for confirmation. The bigger man just shrugged in response. So with a heavy sigh, he exited the car, letting Hamazura fix the problem in the car.
Leaving him and Komaba outside the van.
"Man, it's so cold tonight. I feel like I'm gonna freeze my toes in here."
"It did rain a couple hours ago today, so that might be the cause," Komaba said, looking at a random puddle in the ground.
"Maybe," Hanzou sniffed. He could hear Hamazura inside, twisting the key over and over again, to no avail. "Hey Komaba?"
"Hmm?"
"You ever wonder why we're here?"
"Hell if I know. But then again, hell if anyone knows. That's the truth, ain't it? No one knows why they're here.
Think about it, we're born, we live, and then we die. Beginning, middle and end.
Sometimes it keeps me up at night, all these thoughts going around in my head. From time to time, I wake up at midnight and find myself staring at the wall for several hours.
Just, I don't know. It bothers me a bit."
"...Uh, I meant about, being here stuck in the cold night, waiting for the van to start. That's what I..."
"Oh. Uh, well... I thought it'd be better to put it here in case any Antsky or Judge would come over and check the van out."
"At this time of hour?"
"You recall the last time before Hamazura came in?"
"...Good point. Wonder what happened to Shuya?"
"Beats me," Komaba finished.
As the masked thieves continued their conversation, they fail to notice a certain red-clad vigilante land gently on top of the van.
"So anyway, what was all that? The, philosopical shit?"
"Oh uh, nothing. It was a miscommunication, is all. Nothing to talk about there."
"...You wanna talk more about it on the way home?"
"No. Not really. Actually... maybe some talking would be nice."
As the two robbers outside the van continued their conversation, a funny thing happened inside the van as Shiage Hamazura fiddled with the circuit board.
Cursing and mumbling under his breath, Hamazura took a yellow and blue wire to start the car. All that resulted was a spark which shocked his hand, causing him to jump up the seat and hit his head under the wheel.
"Motherfucker!" He slammed his fist into the piece of shit van, pissed off that he hasn't been able to make it run over 10 minutes.
"You okay in there? Need any help?"
"No no, I'm good," Hamazura assured them, reaching for his phone's flashlight. He turned off the car's light before going down again to wire the car.
As he fiddled the car's wiring again, he failed to notice the presence next to him.
"Rough night?"
Hamazura scoffed. "Like you wouldn't believe. I thought the light here in the van'd be enough but apparently I had to use the phone again for this."
"Man I know the feeling. Hey, I can hold that for you if you want."
Hamazura paused, glancing to his companion. Hamazura gave the phone to them, not noticing the man's red mask due to his head turned to the circuit breaker.
"Over here. Just make it steady. Okay that's good." Hamazura smiled as he went to work down town.
It took him a while, but with the good Samaritan's help he later heard the distinctive sound of the minivan ignition coming to life.
"Woohoo! We're in boys," he yelled outside. "We'll be outta here in no time!"
"Yes!"
"Fucking finally!"
"Hey man, thanks for the help there. We'd be toast if it weren't for you."
"Don't mention it," the red mask guy offered his hand. Hamazura accepted.
Hamazura was about to prepare the minivan, and perform the escape phase of their plan, when all of a sudden, reality struck the dyed blonde's mind with the force of a million exploding suns.
He quickly turned back to his side, and saw the red masked guy offer his phone back. Hamazura took the phone absent-mindedly.
He glanced back, to see them wave at him awkwardly.
"Yahallo."
Hamazura got out of the car as quickly as he could; stopping the others from getting inside.
He was propelled onto the nearby wall for his efforts.
XxX
Kamijou sighed as he stepped out the van, glancing over the frozen robbers, looking over their fallen companion in shock.
Currently covered in webbing, and attached to the wall, he looked to be struggling to get out.
"Don't bother. Spiders use that stuff to capture their prey, like flies and mosquitoes. The bigger ones, they take in mice, birds, lizards, other spiders.
If they can't break out of it what makes you think you can?"
The webbed burglar on the wall then stopped squirming, looking at him in terror. "Please don't eat me man."
"I'm more of a normal meal guy so no human meat for me. Count your blessings I haven't a craving for your ass yet," Kamijou replied as he turned away from the restrained burglar.
He ducked under a powerful straight hook aimed directly at his head, and replied with a kick at the bigger man's torso, sending them flying a few feet away from him.
He stood upright, looking at the big guy rub his arms, with his partner aiming what looked to be a gun at him.
"Really? You're gonna need a lot more than a peashooter like that to-" he was interrupted by a bullet whizzing past his head, rolling away to the side before somersaulting and firing a web ball to the gunman.
To his credit the gunman leaped to the side while responding by firing back at Kamijou. Instinct blared in his head as he leaped over the van evading and dodging each bullet.
He heard the gunman ask their partner if they're OK. Kamijou looked over at the other side of the van, seeing if the other guy was about to pop out from there.
Seeing that there wasn't anyone there he looked over, to see if the gunman was gonna shoot. Instinct wasn't blaring like crazy so he decided to take his chances. He strode over to the van's back, hoping to catch the two off-guard.
But Instinct warned Kamijou of an attack from above as the gorilla-like man from before descended upon Kamijou. He rolled out of the way, covering his face out of instinct as dust was kicked up from the impact.
Kamijou took a good look at his opponent; he had fought some big guys, but they were rather easy to deal with.
This one, however, made his Instincts blare like crazy; he was big. Bigger than all the other chumps back then.
2 meters tall. His face was covered by a black mask, giving off the impression of a medieval executioner than a burglar.
"Rotten luck." Kamijou craned his neck up, facing off against the silverback.
The gorilla struck first, rushing towards Kamijou. He pointed his hands towards the charging bull, ready to web them up in a cocoon.
His wrists only cried out in pain, his hands shaky.
Kamijou jumped out of the way as the large man swung his arms towards him. Hitting empty air the gorilla placed a leg forward to stop his charge, and turned to where Kamijou was, who struck them with a powerful punch to the side.
The large man only moved slightly from the punch, like one would when moving out of the way to let someone pass by you. "Your hits are powerful, but lacking intent. If you had fully struck me I'd no longer get up from the ground afterwards."
"There's more where that came from," Kamijou retorted. But the large man rose a hand.
"Think carefully for even a second. What good will someone like you do after defeating and restraining us? It'd be pointless to take this money back to the bank, considering they're insured for situations like this. And even if you took this back there will be no way for you to receive any monetary compensation from this, considering your status as a vigilante," the man said, with a voice at odds with their appearance.
"Do you think I do this stuff to get rich or get famous?
You gotta be as dumb as a 50-year old goldfish."
"What?"
"Enough talk, let's fight."
Kamijou made the first move, charging at the large man. His opponent responds with a straight to his face, that he evaded. The man's long limbs were a problem, and as tough as he was he didn't want to take a chance tanking one of the gorilla's blows.
Kamijou fired 2 jabs at the man's face, followed by a flurry of strikes and kicks from every angle.
Despite this the man held on, wanting to end this quickly. He felt a pause from the red vigilante, and threw another straight at him. Kamijou moved to the side, the punch passing by, and ducked several hooks and straights from his larger opponent.
Strength seemingly matching his own, terribly agile for a man his size, the gorilla-like man pushed Kamijou back, aggressively leading offense against the enhanced misfortunate vigilante.
Yet Kamijou wasn't about to retreat here.
Kamijou without thinking, parried one of the large man's blows. Kamijou jumped back, watching the man shake his right arm.
He had waited for this, evaded all of his blows for him to wear down. Bigger bodies exhaust faster than small bodies, due to their size and weight requiring more calories to be consumed. Kamijou had his chance, he can stop them now.
Kamijou ducked out of the way, seeing to his side as one of the man's accomplices shoot at him with a gun. Kamijou had experience with guns before the bite, and Instinct worked perfectly in this situation.
"You okay boss? You don't look so hot there!"
"I'm fine, just get him outta that thing! I'll handle this! I don't want your attention be divided thanks to me."
"Alright, but just to warn you I'll go and jump in if you're having a hard time there OK?"
"Noted."
'Gotta account for his other friend behind him. And looking by the other guy I captured he's around half-done freeing him.' Kamijou thought.
His first attempt at stopping a robbery, and Kamijou found himself in trouble.
But a plan formed in his mind.
He pressed his palm to see if anything fired out, but the same throbbing pain from before was the only result. He figured he might have to do this the old-fashioned way.
Kamijou briefly looked around, not taking his eyes off the large man. They both were in a stand-off, the sounds of the knife cutting off the webbing the only noise within the alley.
Kamijou acted first, jumping to the side. He reached for an unopened can at the ground beside him.
The large man charged at Kamijou, head dropped and pointed towards the scrawny teen.
Kamijou evaded to the side, but winced in pain as the silverback struck him with a backhand to the left. But he held on to the can, and the force of the blow sent him away from the silverback, which was perfect for the vigilante as he used the momentum of his short flight and threw the can towards the silverback's accomplice quickly.
The bandanna-wearing boy glanced beside towards his direction and saw the can fly towards him, which made him duck under it, and fire to Kamijou's general direction.
Kamijou landed to the other side, and looked back seeing his opponent jump back from the sparks to the wall.
Kamijou thought, now was his chance, and leaped at the silverback.
A strike to the jaw.
Another to the solar plexus.
He ducked under a left hook, and replied with a right uppercut to the torso.
A right hook, and Kamijou blocked it, sending a three-straight combo to his stomach, then an elbow to his temple, before finishing up with a push kick.
Kamijou sighed, then leaned back as the wall beside him exploded, debris hitting his mask. He backflipped and evaded several more shots.
He continued evading as he drew closer to the bandana gunman, and ended as he kicked the guy's gun away from his hand.
He landed in front of the burglar, and swept his legs. The shock in the burglar's eyes didn't help him on helping his fall, and he struck his head on the hard concrete as he crashed to the ground, knocking him out instantly.
Kamijou pressed his palms again, this time capturing the last robber with webbing.
"Just in the nick of time," Kamijou said, webbing the nearly free burglar on the wall beside him.
After stringing the silverback up he called emergency services. Leaving the three unconscious burglars in the alley.
XxX
Aiho Yomikawa stared at the three hoodlums gathered in front of her tonight.
A year ago they had hijacked a forklift, uprooted and stole an ATM machine.
"Hey there Miss. We really got to stop meeting like this," she looked up to see the bandana wearing burglar smiling rather sincerely at her, and to her peripheral the other two shaking their heads at his display.
She needed a drink.
XxX
Leave a comment down below.
Vote and share this story, if you wish to.
Constructive criticism is very much appreciated, I am working very hard to improve.
And if you enjoyed yourself, it means all the world to me!
Sincerely,
Komigakuo.