Vipers Nest (2)

30 minutes ago ...

Yuliya Vetochkina knew the fight well. It started when she was thirteen and after that it has never stopped since. The former Russian spy was taking a long time, certainly, but she would like to think that she had not lost her footprint. She realized that Luphinus fell to the ground a mere five seconds after the gas hit, even while she and Yuuko were unaffected. This, combined with the stranger's gas mask, told her that the gas was somehow specific to the male gender. In that case, all she really needs to do is take off her mask and go after Yuuko-chan!

She went over the possibilities in her head as she fought this idiot in front of her. Dreyar Ovich would have come up with a silent murder or a big explosion that would take the whole block to hell, or he would be totally silent and he would be totally flashy. Kravinov Kruzer would have come personally after her and would not involve any schemes or conspiracies. Anyone else who could find out would have made a lot of noise about it and her contacts at the High Summit would have warned her. Therefore, it excluded any of her enemies who were still alive.

The next probable was one of Valkyrie's enemies. But she injected the importance of stealth and misdirection into the girl's head many times enough that she learned her lesson very well. She blocked a punch and then countered, keeping the farce on tiptoe.

Yuliya pretended, finally letting the guy get a little closer. She punched to try to break her ribs. However, at that moment, the idiot somehow managed to teleport the armor to himself. Plate armor, the type used by medieval knights. Yuliya cried out in pain and pulled her hand away, stepping back even more. Damn, she could say that she broke something.

"Damn it, you really won me over. I'm lucky to have a look at the history museum or I can say that I really would be in trouble." Yuliya broke his head - the Tokyo Museum was exhibiting a major exhibition on the European war during the Crusades. She was planning on taking Yuuko there soon.

"So, you can teleport items from specific locations, you probably need to touch the items to make the exchange work." Yuliya thought aloud, murmuring to herself in Russian.

"What I did not understand." He asked, tilting his head. The likelihood of this being a coordinated attack was less and less, as the real professionals never talked about amenities with the victims. It helped to keep everything separate. You couldn't think of your targets as people.

"I'm cursing you because it hurts like hell." She bit back. Momoko has always been good at games and teasing. Yuliya's idea of ​​a witty return was to electrocute someone and call it 'shocking development'. It was almost disappointing when all of her team members were dead to hear her be funny now.

"Oh, totally understandable." He then stretched out his left arm. Before Yuliya could really recognize what was going on, some kind of gauntlet / shield / sword appeared on the outstretched limb.

"The hell?"

"A flashlight shield, also from the museum's exhibition. Technically it counts as a glove, so my Call can call it to me, but the big metal and the sharp parts will be very useful." He flexed his arm, obviously getting used to the weight. Vetochkina saw some weaknesses in the armor, but not in places that she could immediately explore.

"Sorry about this lady, but work is work." Getting close, the villain tried to stab her face, she dodged at the last minute, but felt a scratch on her hairline. As she steadied herself, he attacked again, this time striking her arm with the shield. Yuliya heard and felt the sinister crackle of bones in his right arm. The pain was intense, but it also brought opportunity.

She grabbed the back of her head, pulling her head through the hair. The armor is useful, but it leaves you heavy and unstable, and where the head goes, the body follows it. Throwing out the gas mask, Yuliya hit the guy's head on the bar counter. Hospital yes. Not the morgue.

After breathing to calm down and try to control the pain, Yuliya went out into the alley, coughing and breathing heavily. The black gas that flooded her restaurant was starting to dissipate and she could start to control herself. Then Yuliya saw ... a little green shoe near the door. They were lucky to buy second-hand pieces, a pair of gray and green children's sneakers the size of Yuuko.

No, no, no, you don't have to panic, maybe he just escaped when she was running. Yuliya went back to her office and triggered the security cameras, backing up to about five minutes ago. Yes, ok, it's time for the attack, she told Yuuko to run, Yuuko ran out the door and then ...

Oh.

Oh, fuck, no.

~ XxX ~

Yuuko was scared.

She didn't like to be scared.

Veto-san told her to run, and she ran! She ran out the back door in the alley with the intention of reaching Mura-san's nest. But then-

"Wow, girl!" Did she see a white blot and ... rabbit ears? "No need to worry ..." Yuuko felt a sharp sting in the neck. "Because everything will be fine."

She tried to kick as hard as she could, and she even felt one of her sneakers start to come off, but it was no use. She felt her peripheral vision weaken before her entire world was just darkness.

~ XxX ~

Now…

YOSHIO! YOU BIG AND USELESS IDIOT !!

There was a voice in his head that looked terribly like Makron, but the hero didn't have the heart to really disagree with her. He could never forgive himself for being so careless. While Vetochkina-sama was fighting for her life and Yuuko-chan was being kidnapped, he was knocked out and became completely useless.

Vetochkina-sama called emergency services, and Yoshio cowardly escaped from the back so that Luphinus could reach the scene. Well, he literally could never come back here as Kakinomoto Yoshio again, but he was sure he could live with that if he brought the girl back safely.

"Vetochkina-sama, your arm is clearly broken, you need to go to the hospital."

"The hell I do." The old woman spat, although Luphinus could say that the anger was not really directed at him. The first ambulance that arrived was to take the criminal into custody, where he would be treated under heavy surveillance. Vetochkina-sama waived the need for another ambulance to come and pick her up, declaring that she would wait until she actually spoke to someone who "could do something [Russian] useful". Since she was allowing paramedics to dress and treat her broken arm, Luphinus was almost sure that she would wait to speak to the police.

"Vetochkina-sama, I know you are worried about Yu ... her goddaughter, but can you think of anyone who would like to hurt her or her family?"

The old woman then took a deep breath. "She is an adopted daughter, Mokochan and I are the only family she really has. Sorry, Kaguya Momoko. Mokochan is something of a nickname." She ran a hand through her gray hair. "Holiday is fine, right in the country, but I'm not a rich woman. And the only ones who might want to hurt Yuuko-chan for being Yuuko-chan are some of her former foster parents, the-" She blurted out a sequence of Russian that Luphinus failed to understand, but recognized the ire and the poison in the way they were spoken.

"Please-" The woman grabbed her wrist. "She's just a little girl."

"I swear to you, I will do everything in my power to get your godson back." And yes, Luphinus thought to himself. 'I will ensure that those who took it out will live only long enough to regret it.'

~ XxX ~

Momoko was on time twenty-one listening to the Russians' distress over love and marital infidelity when she got the call.

The Purple Hawk gang was in its last feathers. Starting by taking the drugs out of Hamura Park, Valkyrie was destroying the Purple Hawk's influence in the neighborhood. At the moment, the gang that once arrested Hamura in an almost unbreakable stranglehold was barely gripped by the nails. This causes stress, and people tend to return to bad habits when they are stressed.

It is like spending considerable time on a race track. Momoko was pretending to play while carefully watching one of the Purple Hawks' top lieutenants.

"Vetochkina, what is it?"

"Yuuko was kidnapped."

Momoko almost dropped the phone. "… What?"

"There was a fake delivery, a smoke bomb that knocked out Kakinomoto-san-"

"Wait, was he there?" She asked in Russian.

"Long story. It happened just thirty-five minutes ago, I called the police first." It continued in Japanese, which meant that there were people around, people who could hear. "Mokochan, I'm sorry for letting this happen while you are on your business trip, but you needed to know ..."

Business trip. This meant that Momoko now had a reasonable alibi for not being there. 'Being out would give me more time, it would be harder to prove. The train journey from Hokkaido Prefecture to Tokyo takes about 8 hours… '

"I'll be back from Hokkaido as soon as I can, but it could take a few hours."

This meant that now Valkyrie could start work.

Fuck those idiots! I'm looking for my son.

It didn't even occur to Momoko to question why she thought of Yuuko as 'her son'.

~ XxX ~

Hamura police station

"Okay, everyone, listen! With kidnapping cases, the first twenty-four hours are vital if we want this child to be found alive. Luphinus was on the scene when the kidnapping took place and will therefore be helping with the investigation. He is currently with one of your informants is to track down a clue about one of the suspects. "

~ XxX ~

Valkyrie effortlessly displaced the man's little finger.

"Where is she?" The watchman demanded, low and intense. She wasn't screaming, no, screaming meant they were hitting her. They had tried to do this politely, but when no one gave up on anything, she resorted to banging heads while Luphinus just stood there looking menacing.

Once upon a time, in fact, just a few years ago, Luphinus tried to establish some rules for when they would come together. Number one: no one dies. Calm down, Valkyrie never killed anyone. Number two: he took the lead, difficult, the hero's heart was in the right place, but it was obvious that he didn't know how to navigate the criminal underworld, not like her. Now here they were, she taking the lead in an investigation to find her damn son, and with Luphinus standing behind her like a damn Colossus, in silent support. It would almost make the watcher's heart stutter if she wasn't so determined to find Yuuko.

The reason they are talking to this particular guy is because he was one of the biggest money launderers in the city. Whether you're a heroin dealer, a thief or a hired thug, you need someone to clean your money. Which makes a good money launderer the closest thing you can get to yellow pages for criminals.

"Nothing! I don't know anything!"

"Yes, I am the sole heir to Satan's throne." Valkyrie took the photo of the rabbit woman, taken from the Holiday surveillance cameras. "Because even if you don't know her name, a look like, say, a bunny girl, makes a person stand out in your private social circle. So you're going to tell me who she is, or direct me to someone who does."

They had a name: Shino Temari. She basically had the skills of a rabbit in a humanoid body. She had a few jobs here and there, but she was currently becoming freelance.

It took a broken arm before the money launderer admitted that he really went out with her at a party, and Shino recommended this little restaurant downtown for one of the best carrot pies in town. "But that's it, that's all I know!"

"Don't worry, I believe you."

"Thanks." Luphinus submitted, just as Valkyrie knocked out the money launderer with a stick. He was educated like that.

"Center?"

"Downtown. A career criminal like Shino is going to see a uniform a mile away. The cops come, she closes up and tries to take advantage of anything she knows like a court settlement, and what are you doing ?!"

Luphinus was crouched. "The fastest way would be like a crow fly, and I can jump much better than you do." He patted her on the shoulder. "Climb."

As much fun as it was to hear Luphinus asking her to climb it, Valkyrie just raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

"Unless you prefer me to catch you like a princess?"

The watchman scoffed, but obeyed. When they took off, she may have strangled Luphinus in half and screamed in his ear for a few seconds, but that was the adrenaline rush.

~ XxX ~

Hamura police station

"I spoke with some shadows from the street to see if anyone else may have seen something.

"Here are our two current suspects: the first, Nonaka Ieyasu. He has a clothing teleportation ability, allows him to teleport different types of clothing to his own body. He has a long criminal record, most are petty thefts and some fines driving drunk. He's currently in the ICU at Tokyo General after his godmother hit his head at the bar, so we won't be able to talk to him for a while. The second suspect is- "

~ XxX ~

Yuliya waited patiently by Nonaka's bed. She had been sloppy and knew it. In her recklessness to end the fight, she temporarily cut off a source of answers about what happened to Yuuko.

How she did it would depend mainly on how ... cooperative Nonaka was. He would play shy, at first, certainly. Then she bent a few fingers in the opposite direction to prove that she meant it. Maybe he would wait a little, that would tell her how much he feared the one who gave the orders. But she would break it.

She was not nicknamed 'Sledgehammer' for nothing. And in this moment? This guy's whole body was starting to look like a fragile brick wall.

~ XxX ~

Valkyrie was a woman of many talents. Instead of entering the restaurant with guns on fire and demanding where Shino Temari was, she took a deep breath and calmed down. Luphinus watched her take off the domino mask and he… saw her violet eyes sparkling with a frightening soul-freezing glow. She zipped up her leather jacket, put a medical mask over her mouth and suddenly looked indistinguishable from other civilians. Social camouflage, he remembered her calling it that.

Through the windows of the cafeteria, he saw her smile at the waitress and start a conversation that seemed friendly. Her entire body language has completely changed from 'stressed and angry watchman' to 'overworked and just left the night shift'. The waitress served the watchman a cup of coffee and seemed to point to his watch. Valkyrie lowered her mask to take a sip, and Luphinus instinctively looked away. Politeness, he justified, professional politeness.

Half an hour later, Shino Temari finally appeared, his rabbit ears forming a distinct silhouette. The door to the cafeteria opened with a bell, and Valkyrie did not react immediately. Instead, she took another sip of coffee, looked at the menu, and looked at the rabbit woman with an expression almost bored. She then stretched out publicly and went to the bathroom, that was the sign.

Kakinomoto Yoshio entered the cafeteria, his jacket just half closed over his hero's uniform and a baseball cap folded in the right way so that his "incredible mohawk" wouldn't show up. He seemed to be trying not to attract attention, although he knew it would be immediately recognizable to anyone who took a second look. And given the fact that Shino Temari had just helped kidnap a child, she would be paranoid enough to take a look at him and get out of there, straight to where Valkyrie would be waiting.

He smiled and opened the door. The waitress visibly stepped back when she saw him, and soon he had her, the cook and other staff at attention, asking for autographs and saying what big fans they were. They didn't notice Shino Temari, running out of the back entrance, but Luphinus noticed it out of the corner of his eye.

When he managed to politely finish a cup of coffee and a free slice of raspberry tart that the waitress had practically tucked in his throat, he found the rabbit woman tied with Valkyrie pressing the rabbit's face against the brick wall, the domino mask it was back, but the metaphorical gloves were out.

He could hear her as he silently approached her.

"Do you see? It's just me doing my due diligence as a neighborhood watchman. You don't want to see me when I'm teased."

"Cut it out!" The rabbit woman spat.

"I would like to, but unfortunately the only way to be fucked is by people like you, who apparently think ..." She pulled the woman's head back. "... What to kidnap a child ..." She slammed the woman's forehead against the brick wall. "... It's all right."

Luphinus did not allow himself to shudder when he heard a crack sound.

"Okay! Okay! Okay! I don't have a name, everything was done over the phone. I should just help set up the gas canisters, wait outside and pick up the child. The van let me out a few blocks away, and took her to another place. "

"And then?"

The rabbit woman spit blood and spittle on the floor and smiled arrogantly. "It depends, how much is it worth to you?"

"It depends, how attached are you with your ears?" It was in a cold and completely expressionless tone, but Luphinus knew she was serious as soon as he grabbed the rabbit ears and squeezed it tightly.

"Okay! I took a look at the GPS, they were going to some big commercial building in Roppongi."

"What building?"

"I do not know-"

"You were terribly liberal with 'I don't know', I doubt your bones will like 'I don't know' what I'm going to break."

"I already said I don't know! I really don't know! I just took a look at the address." The criminal insisted, and Luphinus was beginning to believe her. Still, Valkyrie held the rabbit's head, pressing it firmly back against the wall.

"I think it is enough, I think you got everything you could from her." He put his hand on the watchman's shoulder. He felt the metal tips of a taser against his neck and took a long look at Valkyrie. The lenses of his domino mask covered her eyes, but he could tell now that she was on edge and would fall to the floor if she didn't stop to breathe. Speechless, she put the tazer back on her utility belt and pulled out a small black can.

"I doubt pepper spray will-" The watchman sprayed Tabata's face, and the woman fell like a puppet with all the strings cut. "—Oh, it doesn't matter." Valkyrie then tied the rabbit criminal wordlessly to the fire escape, and began to walk away without even looking in her direction.

"And where do you think you're going?"

"Roppongi, obviously. Now, if we finish with the stupid questions, we should put thermal sensors in there and ..."

Having just learned his lesson about touching Valkyrie, Luphinus instead turned up and over the watcher's head, falling in front of her. The watchman made a lovely 'oop' noise as she walked face down on his chest. Then she took a few steps back and looked at him. "I know you're angry-" He started.

"It doesn't begin to describe what I am."

"- but you need to keep a cool head. You can't rescue Morakawa-chan if you let your anger blind you to other potential leads."

She slapped his hand. "Oh, how did you? You were so busy with your 'cool head' that you let this girl get yanked right under your nose you stupid idiot-"

"Do you think I'm not mad?" He interrupted. "Of course I'm crazy. But now it won't help us find Morakawa-chan. We have suspects, lines of communication to investigate, and now a possible place to start looking. I grab it instead, because that's what it can help us now. "

The watcher snorted, almost pouting, before wiping off some of the blood on her leather jacket. "It's just ... thinking about her, out there, alone, I-" She took a deep breath "... I don't like that."

Neither did he, but Luphinus didn't want to interrupt the moment by saying that.

~ XxX ~

Yuuko found himself floating in a sea of ​​darkness.

The pain came in waves. Sometimes big, sometimes small. Sometimes, she could almost feel the source of the pain. But always, the girl was powerless to do anything to stop that pain and, instead, she was forced to just ... get over it.

Then she started to hear things, even though she was completely unable to open her eyes. So ... honking. A cardiac monitor, she thinks it was called that.

"Oh, shit is the child-"

"She is starting to become conscious, increasing the dosage of the anesthetic."

"Sir, for a child this size I would not recommend-"

"Her genetic factor just burned things that could knock out a horse. Increase the dosage!"

Yuuko felt a cup pass by her face and things started to get dark again.

~ XxX ~

Reykjavik had been in disguise for less than twelve hours when he first saw Morakawa Yuuko.

He had been put back in his 'observation cell' at MICAH just a few hours earlier, trying to recover from the last round of 'experiments'. The shock collar and ankle strap that held him to the floor were coolly familiar, but he was prepared for that. Even now, the animal hero was convinced that this was the only way to bring them down once and for all.

Reykjavik had just added five new escape plans to his growing mental catalog when he saw the observation cell next to him being prepared. Each cell was made of a special translucent material that allowed scientists to observe matters at all times with security cameras. It also allowed Reykjavik an unobstructed view of what was going on around him.

He watched in silence as a cot was brought to one of the largest holding cells and bolted to the floor.

He watched, curious, as they brought children's toys and coloring books, arranged like surgical tools on a small plastic table.

He realized, horrified, when he began to vaguely hear the screams and struggles of a small child in the next room, his hearing was much more sensitive than that of a normal human.

The animal hero did not have the luxury of moving a muscle when he saw a little girl being carried into that cell, wearing little more than a hospital gown. The small black band around his ankle was the same shock collar wrapped around Reykjavik's neck. She woke up, confused and alone, in a place that would only bring her pain.

And for a moment, despite all his genius, Reykjavik had no idea what to do in this situation

Luphinus could know. Luphinus would leave there in an instant with a smile and some cheesy phrase, would take the girl in his arms and take them away. He was going to take this to the police, because who wouldn't believe Luphinus? No one has ever accused him of lying, exaggerating, or 'not being objective enough around human beings'. Luphinus would make everything okay, or at least much better, just by his presence.

Reykjavik couldn't do that. He couldn't get them out of there for now, even his most convenient escape plan would keep them here for another five hours, and he couldn't try to reassure the girl with an imposing presence and untamed spirit. But could he perhaps ... make her feel less alone? Perhaps that would be enough, for now.

Accelerated Research Division MICAH

Subject: Morakawa Yuuko

Age: 8

Mutation: Triage, a combination of a classification of mental information and healing ability. Exact method of cure currently unknown, but requires contact with the skin and the release of some kind of yellow-gold energy.

Hypothesis:

That the genetic factor of the subject creates and releases a substance still unknown that repairs the damage to organic matter.

That the substance or energy that makes up this healing factor can be studied and replicated artificially.

Background. The subject's father, Morakawa Kyouya, had already donated cells generously for research in the past. However, with his death, the subject entered the adoption system and, therefore, has been difficult to achieve. Healing skills are rare and should be studied as much as possible, as within them there can be solutions for everything from autoimmune diseases to cancer.

Methods: The subject was removed from foster parents' custody. Accelerated scheduling of the result of the proposed budget cuts for the department. The proposed methods collected tissue, blood, plasma and bone marrow samples. The individual will be kept under sedation during such procedures. The subject will then be kept under observation for an indefinite period to assess the accelerated cure rate.

For now, the subject's ability has only been used in himself and in other humans, whether or not he can cross the species barrier, this will give more evidence of the exact nature of the healing factor. For this purpose, the subject T-0864-y was brought in for evaluation, but also the healing properties between species.

-XxX-