Melissa took a calming breath as she walked into the police precinct. "Just stick to the truth, don't deviate." she mumbled as she walked the familiar route to Naomasa's office. Knocking lightly on the door when she reached it, "hello?" she called as she opened the door, surprised to find a few heroes in the office.
"Ah Melissa, sorry, my meeting ran over." Naomasa said with a smile, turning to the heroes, "keep me posted, let me know if you move early."
The heroes nodded and walked out, one in the back glanced at Melissa for a moment before following the others out, pulling his scarf up over his mouth as he went.
"What was that about?" Melissa asked.
"They're working on the Rabbit taskforce," Naomasa said offhandedly as he put up documents, "they've been canvassing the area for any signs of the rabbit, they think there might be a hideout in an old apartment complex south of the city."
Melissa ran her mind through the hidey holes Izuku had set up just in case their actual hideout was ever compromised; she was fairly certain the apartment complex in question was one that was across the street from his own. Maybe she'd ask him about it once she was done here, "you'd think they would go chase something else with the rabbit being gone for so long." she mused, sitting down across from him.
"Eraserhead is thorough." Naomasa said with a shrug, "he's sure the kids not done yet." he shook his head, "anyways, on to what i called you in for; i know the last time we talked about it, you said there was nothing special that stood out about the boy who saved you from a mugging all those months ago, but we have a few leads and I wanted to see if any of these faces look familiar." he put down a few photos and Melissa peered at them in interest.
None of them were Izuku, and the closest match was a full two years too old and far too barrel chested to be the lithe rabbit, "no, they're all too stocky." she said, "from what i saw he was pretty skinny."
"Do you remember anything else?" he urged, "hair length? Clothes?"
"Sorry," she sighed, leaning back, "he might have been wearing a uniform? But I only got a quick glimpse of him before I was swinging my backpack at the creep who'd tried to rob me."
Naomasa nodded, "thanks anyways, i figured it was a long shot but-so far-you're the only person who's been saved by him who's seen more than a green blur."
"Is he really that hard to find?" Melissa asked.
"You'd be surprised how easy it is to keep out of the eye of the law." Naomasa groaned, "and with his mysterious benefactor, he's got the tech to outrun us even when we do track him down."
"It sounds annoying." Melissa commiserated, keeping the smugness out of her voice.
"Just a bit…anyways, thanks for coming in, Melissa, sorry for bugging you for something so small."
"That's okay," Melissa beamed at him as she stood and began walking out, "good luck Naomasa, hope you find the rabbit."
"See ya Melissa…hmm?" he hummed as his quirk dinged, he glanced at the girl as she left, "guess she's a fan too." he muttered, returning to his work.a bit dejected.
WVWVW
Izuku grimaced as he fastened his uniform, "it's a bit snug," he said in surprise as he twisted to and fro, frowning.
"That's what happens when you laze about for two weeks." Melissa chuckled, "you gained some pudge."
"E-excuse me?" Izuku spluttered, blushing furiously.
"You heard me." she grinned, "anyways, meetings about to start, you should get going."
"Yeah, yeah." He griped as he climbed onto the bike and kicked it into gear. Soon he was off through the floodways.
"By the way, do you have any hidey-holes in that abandoned apartment building to the south of yours?" Melissa asked as she monitored his progress on the gps tracker in his bike.
"Uh…one i think, but it's an old one, like…before i met you old. So a cheap kevlar sweater and some stock arrows. Not even any specialties save for a few tow arrows."
"Still, maybe you should be careful when you're around the neighborhood, no saving cats out of trees."
Please, he scoffed, what makes you think Bakugo hasn't scared off every animal in the city at this point?"
"What does he attack them?" she asked, disgusted.
"Funnily enough no, he's just so loud and insistent that the majority are terrified of him;Which is sad, he really likes animals, only one that doesn't run at the sight of him is this old mangy cat that he convinced his mom to let him keep back when we were five. Thing has some kind of longevity quirk, because it was old when he found it, and it's still around."
"Now that's impressive, and it actually likes him?"
"Only other human it tolerates is his mom, both are…loud."
Melissa chuckled, at that, "at least he comes by it honestly-oh, hold on Rabbit, sensors have picked up some interference, silent run fifteen mikes."
"Copy cyber."
Melissa pulled up the terminal for their communication system, her eyes narrowing at the slight alteration in the code, as well as the quiet whine of the warning systems she'd put in place to alert her of a breach, "so, found our group chat huh?" she mumbled as she got to work, rerouting the channel through a different encryption and key and running that through three or four other failsafes and warning systems before she switched it back on, smiling when the whine suddenly shut off.
And with a minute to spare she flipped the system back on, "I'm back rabbit, we should cut the personal talk though, someone tried to hang a line on our comms."
"Did they hear anything?" rabbit asked worriedly.
"No, the warning system has a 5 second reaction time to detect breaches. They only heard me call for a silent run."
"That's a relief." he sighed, "it seems like they're really cracking down on us these days."
"They've been waiting for you to pop up for the last three weeks. It's no surprise they finally stumbled on our frequency."
"You think they'll keep trying?"
"They'll have to find our frequency and crack the encryption again." she said smugly. "Anyways, you better step on it, still have a ways to Tokyo."
WVWVW
The high rise Ghost spider had chosen for their meet up was an on pause construction job for a company that had wanted to open an overseas office. With winter approaching and hard times affecting the company the work had been paused until later in the year. The work had been halted for over a month now and only had a patrolling guard that checked the ground floor.
A perfect spot for a meet up. At least Rabbit thought so as he climbed onto the unfinished ceiling, glancing about as he crept forward, "what do we know about this Ghost Spider?" he asked.
"Nothing much, just like you, a vigilante that hasn't hit the six month mark yet." Cyber answered, "she's a priority almost as high as you are, possible identity: Gwen Stacy, fifteen year old Ketsubutsu student who's been missing for three months now.
"So she went full in." he mused, "wonder what made her give up a hero school." he paused as he heard light foot falls ahead of him, he prepped his bow, not wanting to be caught off guard just in case this whole thing had been a set up.
"You're looking the wrong way."
Rabbit whirled around, arrow drawn back and aimed at the chest of the costumed vigilante behind him.
Her costume was black with white shoulders, a hood and full mask covering her identity. Though the large almond shaped eye lenses seemed to be expressive to a degree. The only other notable thing about her costume were the ballet slippers she seemed to be wearing.
"They said you were fast." She said idly, "guess they weren't lying."
"Ghost spider?" Rabbit asked, easing up on the tension.
"Maybe they were." She snorted, leaning against the wall, "yeah, it's ghost spider. You got any other obvious questions?"
"Uh, no, that should be my only one." Izuku muttered, looking about to try and hide how flustered he was, "anyways, you're the one who called this meeting, wanna get started? Or are we waiting on anyone else?"
"Just us," she said, motioning for him to follow her as she walked through the semi-finished floor, "what do you know about Fisk Industries?"
"I know Wilson Fisk has a finger in just about every pie you can think of," Izuku said, "typically based in New York but relocated to his Tokyo headquarters after some trouble with local heroes; he's come up every now and again when we look into Detrenat."
"You're looking into Detrenat?" she asked, surprised.
"They've been getting hit by a lot of break ins lately, figured there's something else about the company."
"Well, this may relate." she said. Leaning against the wall, "Fisk is trying to muscle in on several enterprises through the city-he's already bought out the Oscorp lab downtown and he's been working on outbidding the Yaoyorozu for a few small construction businesses, and that's just on the barely legal side; I haven't been able to connect it beyond rumor and what I could get from his goons is he's moving a lot of product, drugs, weapons, even support items."
"Sounds like he's trying to make his move here permanent." He muttered.
"I agree, there's also been an uptick in Triad activity in town, I've seen a couple of his enforcers among the grunts, they've even gone in on intimidation for a couple of companies."
"So you think Fisk is behind the Detrenat break ins?" Izuku asked.
"As well as a few other things, yeah." she confirmed, "the only thing i'm lacking, is hard proof."
"That does put a damper on things." He quipped, "So let me guess; you need my help breaking in and finding your proof that connects Fisk to all of this, right?"
"Got it in one," she confirmed, kicking off the wall, "i got a guy on the inside who's narrowed down three terminals that should get us what we want. The only problem is two of them are double encrypted, and as soon as you start the process of hacking into them, alarms trigger."
A crackling in Rabbit's ear made him flinch as Cyber's voice echoed from his earpiece, "what's the response time?"
"Damn it Cyber, warn me before you do that!" Rabbit griped.
"Cry about it later."
Ghost blinked and chuckled a bit, "heard a lot about you Cyber…my guy says eight minutes, five if they don't think it's a glitch."
"I can do that in my sleep." she scoffed, 'and on the off chance you and 'your guy' can't handle it, i can whip something up that'll help no problem."
"That leaves the delivery to us and your friend." Rabbit took over, "once we get the data we can get it to Cyber to find-"
"-i just need help getting it," Ghost said abruptly, "we can process it ourselves."
""You can't just ask for my help and then not loop me into the conversation." Cyber sassed, "Especially since you said the Triad's connected; either we process the data together, or you can find another vigilante duo to help you break into a corporate building with Security comparable to Detrenat."
Ghost was silent for a long moment, then groaned, "Fine." she muttered, "we can meet up after we get the data and go over it together, but don't think that means I want to make this team up a permanent thing."
"With your winning personality, I can't imagine why." Rabbit said dryly, "Cyber, how long until you can make a-uh-goober."
"...congratulations on a new word Rabbit, really proud," she snorted, "it shouldn't take me more than a couple of days,i'd say the best time to go in is this weekend; there shouldn't be very many people working on a saturday night."
"Should be doable, i'll contact my guy and let him-" her head snapped to the right, staring at the empty room adjacent to them.
"What is it?" Rabbit asked, immediately on edge, hand going up to his quiver.
"We have to go," she said, her voice a bit distant, her muscle's tensing, 'Now!"
Rabbit rolled out of the hallway as Ghost shot up the unfinished stairs. The wall shattered as a bat-like man flew through, barely missing Izuku's hood as he burst out of the building through an adjacent window.
"That was Man Bat." he muttered, as he took off up the stairs, freezing when he ran directly into the spotlight of a police chopper.
"Jade rabbit! Ghost Spider! We have you surrounded!" The call came. "Come quietly!"
"I think he's bluffing." Ghost said.
"Only one way to find out really, split up? Meet in a few days?"
"Sounds like a plan." with that Ghost Spider took off and dove off the side of teh building, a thwip! Sounding as a rope-like substance shot out of her wrist, soon she was expertly swinging between the buildings.
"Show off." he said, taking off towards the other side of the building, swan diving as Man Bat swooped in again, this time Izuku had to kick off the hero as he fell, firing off a cable arrow and swinging onto a lower roof, running as fast as he could as he heard the harsh beating of wings.
He barely had time to slide under the clawed swipe of yet another hero, this one with the body of a coyote, his harsh yellow eyes tracking the young vigilante as he squared off, "been looking for you for a long time Rabbit," he growled, as Man Bat landed on his right, "you made a mistake coming to Tokyo."
'Well what can i say," he sighed, "really love to see the sights," quick as a flash he fired an arrow at Coyote, ducking under Man Bat as the hero charged, a sonic screech rattling his head until Cyber was able to filter it out through his earpiece, he backflipped a few times and fired his own sonic arrow into the center of the roof, both Man Bat and Coyote collapsed as they clutched their ears in agony.
With another backflip Rabbit fell into open air once more, the asphalt rapidly approaching, he he grinned as the cycle appeared right under him, letting him tear off down the street as he heard the return beating of wings, "guy's not giving up." he muttered.
"You did just technically assault them." Melissa said mildly, "get to the flood lanes, if they're here there's bound to be more."
"That's an understatement." he grumbled as he heard the familiar sound of engines.
"Jade Rabbit! Turn yourself in!" Ingenium ordered as he raced to catch up with the speeding vigilante, "you're only making it harder on yourself!"
"You guys are really wasting a lot of resources on little old me." he said conversationally as he hit the turbo, he could see a few others jumping from rooftop to rooftop, more undergrounds?
He swerved as a booted foot missed his head by a centimeter. Forcing him to over correct and go screeching down a side street, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye and quickly climbed onto the seat of the bike and jumped, barely avoiding the long quills as he vaulted off the roof of a car and landed in a roll on the sidewalk, the bike continued on, controlled remotely by Melissa as he took off down an alley.
"Freeze Rabbit!" Man Bat ordered as he landed in front of the young vigilante, who fired off a smoke arrow as he climbed the wall, dodging thrown projectiles from a porcupine looking hero on the street before pushing off the wall and into a backflip over another blitz from Man Bat, landing on his returned cycle that had rounded the block for him.
"That was wild!" he shouted in exhilaration, pushing the bike faster as he weaved between cars, Ingenium was on him once more, more than likely keeping everyone updated on his location, a flip of the switch and Bolas fired out of the back of his bike.
But Ingenium was well known for a reason and he easily jumped over the attack, his exhaust pipes flaring to propel him over the oil slick that Rabbit deployed almost immediately after.
"You won't get away this time kid!" Ingenium declared.
Rabbit growled a bit, "I hate to say it Cyber, but he's right!" he turned harshly onto an adjacent street as Man Bat swooped once more. "If i can't shake em they're gonna corner me eventually!"
"Keep going! Another two rights and a left and immediately go into silent running!"
Rabbit didn't respond, just took the next corner harshly, ducking under a few more thrown quills and narrowly escaping the harsh kick that Ingenium had aimed for his back tire. He kept his profile low as he went, eyes narrowed against the whipping wind and thrown attacks until;finally, he hit a hard left and went into silent running, eyes widening as he realized the buildings around him went dark a few moments later with a loud BOOM!
"Goggles going night vision, get to the tunnel quickly!" Cyber shouted into his ear and Izuku immediately peeled off as his vision tinged green and he immediately went for the tunnel.
"Where did he go!?" Tensei asked as he came skidding to a halt, looking about blindly as Man Bat flew overhead, screeching into the night.
"I'm not sensing him." he griped as he landed beside Tensei, "he's gone."
"Damn it." Tensei swore as a few other heroes appeared, Coyote looking a bit bleary. "What happened?"
"Spider girl blew a transformer a block over," Snipe gruffed, "baited my shots into it too. Backups should be kicking on-" he stopped as the lights on the block came back up, "-well, now; take it Rabbit capitalized."
"Like they planned it." Tensei sighed, looking about, "he may have gone to ground in the area, let's split up and see if we can't smoke him out!"
Meanwhile Izuku had let his heart rate slow as he cruised through the tunnels, "thanks for the save Cyber, how'd you knock the power?""I didn't, i was monitoring the chase on local cctv and saw Ghost baiting Snipe around a couple of transformers; figured she was trying to cause a black out and I timed it as best i could to get you a chance to get out of there, was off by a few seconds though."
"Like a few seconds matters," he scoffed, "you capitalized and got me out of there, I really thought I was about to be caught."
"Please, continue lavishing me with praise until you get here," she preened, "then you can continue in person."
Izuku rolled his eyes with a smile, "so what do you think happened? How did they find us?" he questioned.
"Odds are they saw Ghost and followed her, that or that attempted hack alerted them to our directions and they made a guess; either way, it's probably a good idea to pack it in tonight, i know you wanted to try and patrol in Mustafu tonight-"
"-no, you're right; that was way too close a call." he sighed, "we can keep a low profile until it's time for the operation."
"Agreed, stay alert Rabbit, this might have revealed our way of getting around."
Izuku groaned, "way to ruin it ghost," he muttered jokingly as he revved the engine, picking up the pace as he went."
WVWVW
"So you lost him?" Aizawa asked Tensei over the phone, he was perched on the roof of the abandoned apartment; looking down on the streets as Tensei explained their run in with the rabbit."
"Yeah, lights went out because ghost spider blew some transformers, and Rabbit capitalized, we were close before that." Tensei almost whined, "I'm starting to think Mirko will be the one to bring him in."
"Like hell I'll let her have one over on us." Aizawa muttered, "search the nearby area, we may be able to track down how he gets around so fast."
"Man Bat's on it, he said he'd give a report if he found anything; what about your end? Find anything?"
"Old bow, couple of stock arrows you can get from the sports store. Looks like an old hidey-hole from before he met his partner in crime." he glanced at his watch, "we're packing it up, reconvene tomorrow with the others?"
Sure thing, night Erasure." the line went silent and Aizawa sighed as he looked about for a bit, his eyes catching site of a green haired teen casually walking home in the twilight, backpack slung over his shoulder and talking animatedly on the phone with someone.
Aizawa missed those days, young enough to where his responsibilities didn't weigh him down, the biggest concern being the test at the end of the week and seeing his friends on the weekend.
Once again he wondered about the rabbit's motives and just what could get such a young child to strike out as a vigilante? What drove someone to put their lives in danger long before they got the knowledge and know how to-
-the kid was staring at him.
It wasn't obvious at first, but the longer Aizawa watched, the more he realized the boy kept glancing up towards where he sat perched in the shadows of the building.
How had he seen him? He always made sure to hide himself when he was posted like this;easier for his quarry to miss him and practically invisible to the average citizen.
But as he watched the boy quicken his pace, still glancing every now and again towards him; he got the feeling that the boy wasn't average.
He shook his head; one underage vigilante and he was suspecting every preteen on the street. Mic was right; he needed a break, maybe call Emi like Nem had been pestering him to do.
But even as he swung away, he just couldn't seem to shake the feeling that the boy was important.