Izuku sighed as he trudged home, today had been harder on him than usual. With Bakugo renewing his bullying to make sure Izuku didn't get the wrong idea with the news about the vigilante.
This had led to a small beat down, one he was fairly used to given his nightly endeavors.
He'd played the meek, submissive nerd who couldn't be bothered to stand up for himself. All the while realizing that he could easily destroy Bakugo's back up in a straight fight, and with his new found experience under his belt; he was almost certain he'd be able to take Bakugo down with the right arrow.
"Hiya!"
Once again Izuku let out a manly screech at being surprised by his new pain in the ass: Melissa Shield.
"Couldn't you just message me?" he asked wearily, "My heart can't take any more surprises."
"Wow, you're like…a lot more of a wimp then I'd thought you'd be." she hummed, barely containing the skip in her step, "have you thought about what I said? You're gonna need new gear if you wanna-" she stopped as suddenly she was being pushed into an alleyway, an Irate Izuku suddenly losing the meek, mild mannered boy routine he had been using.
"Are you fucking stupid talking about it out in the open like that?" he snapped, shoving her further down the alleyway as he peered about in paranoia, "i'm walking on a razors edge here, in case you haven't noticed, and there's a LOT of people on that street who wouldn't have a SINGLE doubt of turning my ass in for a fifty yen finders fee!"
"Well maybe if you'd actually answer my emails instead of just lurking and reading them over and over again I wouldn't have to!" she snapped back, any trace of good cheer gone, "i'm trying to help-"
"-I don't need help!" Izuku said, a tad bit hysterically, "I've been doing fine for the last few weeks on my own!"
"Oh really? Did you know there were some villain groups already trying to track your address through your Reddio account?" she demanded to know, "or that several of your posts were being tracked by Hero Commission Sleuths trying to find out who sent them?"
"I-wha?" he asked in confusion.
"Or the fact that your phone location was in the process of being ping'd by Government agencies?" she continued on, "How about the fact that I've had to disseminate false information to several online investigators who were about five posts away from figuring out who you were?"
"...no…I did not know any of that." he mumbled faintly, slowly leaning back against the wall, "what do you want?" he asked wearily.
"Wow you're depressing." Melissa sighed, leaning onto the wall beside him, "what makes you think I want anything?"
"When you're quirkless you learn that the only time people deal with you is because they want something," Izuku grumbled, "so what is it? Can't be homework, you're smart enough to not need my help for that, in fact i'm pretty sure you're in more advanced classes then me, which means you want me to do something as the Rabbit-god I hate that name-what is it? You want me to go after someone specifically? Go take out a family member you don't like-"
"-Holy hell you're worse than I thought." she deadpanned, making him stop, "the only thing I want, is to help." she plowed on, "when I first saw your posts, and those initial conversations we had, all I could think was, 'oh man, this guys gonna do it, he's gonna be the first quirkless superhero in about ten years!'I was excited, jealous…and hopeful. Hopeful that you were gonna pave the way for others…so I started working harder in my dreams to be a Support Hero…well imagine my surprise when five years later I get a notification that there's a new Vigilante in Mustafu? Coincidentally where my internet friend is from." she giggled when Izuku groaned in embarrassment, "so I started digging, it took me like…two hours to figure out who you were, and when I did, I immediately started damage control; blocking hackers and government agencies alike from picking up your scent, and making new arrows you'd need on the street. The three we brainstormed together would've been enough for the UA entrance exam, but not for every scenario on the street." She took a breath and continued, and I also convinced and begged my dad to let me start going to a private tech school here so I can go to UA when I turn Fifteen, and so I Could help you on the downlow, I already have a lot set up! So please, give me a chance?" she held out her hand, looking hopeful.
Izuku stared at her for a little bit, then sighed, "I guess I really do need help." he admitted, shaking her hand.
"Great!" she cheered, jumping up, and dragging him down the street, "lets go!"
"W-what? Where!?" Izuku Yelped.
"To our secret hideout!"
"We have a secret hideout?"
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7 pm- warehouse District
"Here we are!" Melissa proclaimed as she threw open the giant sliding metal door on a shabby warehouse, Izuku was surprised to find a fully functioning Support lab, the tables filled with half-finished arrow projects and prototypes for different bows and crossbows, there was also a full billboard with designs and sketches of a new hero uniform. All the windows had been blacked out and there was a slight humm of electricity.
"I have four fission generators I designed myself, to powering the lab." Melissa said conversationally as she led him through, pointing out several things, "a 3D printer with Metal filament to help make Arrows faster, automated prepping system to make the specialty arrows at a fraction of the time and a 4.3% more efficient blend of chemicals! Oh! And I also have a Fashion-assembly system and a few rolls of Kevlar and steel weave mesh that we can experiment with for a new uniform!"
"How…how did you set all of this up?" Izuku asked in awe, looking over the four monitors she had set up in an arc around a rolling chair that showed a GPS layout of the city. A blue dot glowing on their location, and green, yellow, and red dots all over the city.
"My dad set up the shop so I can have a place to practice my craft in peace." Melissa bragged, "with the promise that none of my inventions are sold off to any companies without his say so." she saw what he was looking at and grinned, "That's the main hub.' she said conversationally, taking a seat and making a keyboard slide out from under the table, "I've taken the liberty of cataloging all of your collars I've been able to track, green shows muggings, yellow is violent crimes, and red is active Villains, I can also dispatch law enforcement, fire and rescue from here."
"You're missing a few." he mumbled absentmindedly, a journal suddenly appearing in his hand, placing the journal in her hand, a show of trust, "you should find the other eight in there."
She eagerly started opening it up, "why would you carry this around with you?" she asked incredulously, only to hum in surprise as she looked through it, "Esperanto?" she wondered.
"Combination with Yiddish, Mandarin, Latin and a few other dead languages, as well as a certain way of combining them that's only known to me, " Izuku said, "i can give you the key-'
"-no, no, no, I want to try my hand at decoding your journal." she declared, setting it onto the table, "That can be what I do while you're out on patrol, so what do you think?" she asked, suddenly nervous as she looked back at him, "that is-unless you think you're better off solo?"
"...I think you've shown me the error of my ways." Izuku said begrudgingly, "I didn't think about anything you did, I'm lucky you were actually on my side and not some Hero Association Agent."
"Nah, those guys ain't got nothing on me." she said proudly, "Nezu was the only one I had to tread carefully around, but with him it's leaving things in plain site and keeping him busy with some complex puzzle far away from your base of operations."
"I don't know what's scarier, the fact that Nezu apparently has a cyber network, or the fact that you know how to get around him."
"I plead the fifth." she sassed, picking the journal up."So did you learn all these languages just to code?"
"I didn't learn them so much as used keywords from certain languages to help encode my work." he said, "i thought about it when I first had thoughts of being a vigilante.'
"And how did you decide to do that?" she asked eagerly, "was it after you saved me in that alley a few months ago?"
"I didn't save…you…" he trailed off, eyes widening as he remembered that first, impulsive take down, the blonde girl who'd knocked the mugger out after he'd pinned the guy. "Oh my god that WAS you!"
"You're barely realizing this now!?" she asked incredulously.
Izuku groaned and collapsed in a nearby chair, "I was terrified that I was going to be arrested for vigilantism,I didn't have time to memorize what you looked like!"
"That's why you took off so fast!" she exclaimed, "I thought you were a hero or something at the time and thought you couldn't be bothered with sticking around.'
"Yeah no, I had a panic attack. Thought I just threw everything I was working for down the drain." Izuku muttered.
"Well you still kind of did," she hummed, "I mean…how are you going to apply to UA with your bow without immediately getting found out?"
"I figured the Rabbit would 'die' and I could pretend like I was just inspired by him to become a hero." Izuku said with a shrug, "The cops already don't suspect me, they asked me about the other competitors in my bracket because they wouldn't believe a quirkless kid could be the Rabbit."
"Which is short-sighted no matter how you look at it." She grunted, running a hand through her hair, "it's a decent plan but you may want to pick up another weapon to learn so you can fly under the radar a bit more.'
Izuku hummed in agreement, checking his phone, "I gotta get out on the street before it's too late, mom gets off at 3 tonight so I have to make every hour count.'
"Oh! Before you go, here!' She handed him a small case, a pair of sleek earbuds in them, "so we can keep in contact, just call me Cyber when you do call me, I don't know how secure the channel is yet."
"Thank you," Izuku said sincerely, "I'll be out on the street in two hours, I'll check in when I do."
"Why not go out now?" She questioned as he started walking away.
"I still have homework, you know!" He called back, disappearing out the doors.
Melissa rolled her eyes, "great, what do I do for two…hours…" she trailed off as she looked at his journal, grinning a bit as she slid it over, "lets see just how good you are at coding."
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Izuku yawned as he put the earpieces in his ears, limbering up as he called Melissa, 'hey M-Cyber, its Rabbit, just started-"
"-HOW THE HELL DID YOU STRUCTURE THIS!?"
Izuku paused, blinking a bit, "wha?" he asked.
"Nothing, whatever." she snapped, "what's your usual route look like?"
"I usually go cross town to Mustafu Ward Shopping mall before deciding from there." he said, pulling an arrow out and shooting it off, grabbing the end of the zip line and swinging out into the night, front flipping onto the next building, running along the rooftops once more, "gotta say, Kinda weird to have someone talking to me while I'm working."
"Isn't it neat?" she gushed, "having a little angel on your shoulder!"
"More like a devil." he quipped back, grinning when she started berating him.
"Excuse me sir! But I am an absolute delight! Who just found you a robbery in progress two blocks to the southeast."
"How'd you know that?" Izuku asked, changing course and swinging down into the street, eyes darting about as he went.
"Your stupid journal got frustrating so I tapped into local PD and Hero channels, couldn't access the Hero Network-that'd get us flagged almost immediately-but there's some independent chatter that I can piggy back off of."
"What's so frustrating about my journal?" Izuku asked, sliding into a restaurant with it's front windows smashed open, he counted four men in masks looting the joint, he didn't give them much of a chance to react as he loosed taser arrows and sent them writhing to the ground before they could even call upon their quirks. Izuku was back out before the first cruiser could round the corner.
"Well first off I don't know how you even structured this stupid thing, and I can't seem to identify two of the languages you used."
"So it's a good code?" he asked in amusement.
"I wouldn't go that far, but it's giving me some problems to say the least…hey, we got a high speed chase going on between cops and a speed quirk user, think you could stop him?"
"Give me the location and I'll see what I can do." Izuku said, diving off the roof once more.
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Ingenium had to admit, this guy was quick.
He was close to over-heating his engines just trying to catch up with the wheel legged man, contraband support gear ramping the wheels to insane speeds.
"We need to cut him off!" Ingenium shouted into his radio, glancing back as two cruisers peeled off to try and get ahead as other units set up road blocks to divert him down other roads.
"You'll never catch the Cyclist!" the man boasted, laughing as he toted large bags of money over his shoulders, "i'm too fast for you Ingenium!"
"Bastard." he growled, preparing himself to over-clock his engines, at this point it'd probably crack his radiator, but he didn't have a choice, "get ready villain, Recipro-"
Ingenium was cut off as a thwip! Sounded out, barely skidding to a stop to avoid the Cyclist as Bolas wrapped around his legs and sent him crashing hard onto the asphalt.
"Have a nice trip there 'cyclist'?" a taunting voice called out.
Ingenium stared wide-eyed at the diminutive archer crouching out on a ledge, grinning as he saluted Ingenium, "one bank robber, on the run. Heh.'
"Y-you! Jade Rabbit!" Ingenium shouted.
"Still not crazy, about the name," Izukku muttered under his breath before jumping to his feet, striking a pose, "no need to thank me! Just doing my civic duty! Gotta run!"
"Stop! In the name of the law!" Ingenium ordered as he chased after the Rabbit, sadly the verdant archer had the advantage of not being constrained to the street. He was soon out of sight, 'damn it." he swore, turning his radio on again, "Ingenium to all heroes, the Jade Rabbit is within the vicinity! I repeat! He's in the area!"
"I think I pissed him off." Izuku mused as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop.
"Him and a few other heroes who are converging on you according to police scanners." Melissa mused, "I'm feeding misinformation to keep you clear, head south towards the Detrenat building; got reports of a couple of break ins."
Izuku swung through the air, landing in a role on top of an apartment complex, "where are the reports coming from?" He asked, jumping when the nearby roof door slammed open, two men in ski-masks skidding to a stop when they found a confused Archer staring right back atthem, "...nevermind, found them."
"Shit it's the Rabbit! Get him!" one shouted, pulling a gun and firing at the young vigilante, who easily rolled out of the way, coming up with two arrows ready and flying as soon as his foot was planted, they both exploded into boxing gloves that smashed brutally into their jaws, knocking both unconscious.
"A gun? Really? What is this 2005?" Izuku snorted as he tied the two up. "Hey Cyber, you got anything else?"
"Nothing in your immediate area, but listen to this; the police have been having to deal with some new drug traffickers in the area, pretty hard stuff too, including Trigger and some narcotics that would be a junkie's dream."
"And you know this…how?" Izuku asked, leaving the roof as police cruisers surrounded the building.
"Oh, I hacked the Police Files and database, peaked in on what a Detective Tsukauchi was looking into."
"...you're just, casually, hacking Police systems?" he asked incredulously, swinging up onto one of the taller buildings, using it as a spring board to land on a lower roof, tumbling and jumping back up onto the next roof
"Gotta find something for you to do, get your name up on the board you know?"
"And taking down drug dealers is the way to do it?"
"You wanna twiddle your thumbs for the rest of the night or do you want to get something accomplished?"
"...yeah, alright." he sighed, pausing on the next rooftop. "Maybe we can make a collar or two, add it to the book, how is that going by the way?" he asked smugly.
"Laugh it up bunny boy, it won't be a code for long."