Chapter 24

Chapter 24

[Jeeta's POV]

"You want me to what?" Rizky asked, confusion in his voice.

"I want you to send an offer to Yanagi Reiko to intern with your agency." Giran repeated himself, his voice a touch flatter than his normal jovial tone. Gita knew the fixer disliked repeating himself. Giran had worked with Rizky many times. She suspected their boss knew that Rizky didn't always pay attention during conversations. Her man was a thinker and his mind often wandered to one of his many plans.

"Who's she?" Rizky sat up and pushed his tablet to the side. Gita, standing behind him in full armor as a bodyguard, could see he had been sketching something, but not what.

"She's a first-year hero student at UA." Giran spun his tablet around showing a video of a white-haired girl dressing in blue jeans and a flannel shirt in a fight with an older man. It looked like they were in some sort of industrial sight. Mountains were plain in the background. The man was attacking the girl, using some sort of earth control quirk. The girl was flying and using some sort of telekinesis to combat him.

"That's the girl from the bus!" Rizky said accusingly. "You hired us to attack her. Now you want us to hire her? I don't get it."

"Then let me explain it," the villain said. He took a moment to light a cigarette and take a deep drag. "First thing – I never hired you to attack her. I hired you to back up the Ravagers. I hired them to attack the bus. I had little idea who the girl was, and no idea that she'd be on the bus. We'll ignore the appalling job you did protecting my enforcers for now and get back to why I'm here."

Gita winced. That had been a bad job all around. Two of the Ravagers had gotten injured in the planned confusion at the end of the fight. Gita had heard that Croaker had to be called in to fix them or Moonfish might have lost his jaw and Mr. Compress half his face.

It was supposed to be an easy distraction to keep the local heroes busy while the League of Villains attacked the USJ. Not that they knew that when they took the job. When she found out it had been part of a larger plan to kill All Might, she had almost had a coronary. If the plan had succeeded, nothing would have saved them from the wrath of every hero in the world coming down on everyone even tangentially involved. When Nightwing, Native, and Uwabami defeated them, they had almost lost everything. It cost them three suits of Fett armor. Not that Rizky couldn't manifest more as soon as he got to the screening room, but it didn't make them look good.

"Suffice to say Yanagi-chan has become a person of interest to my organization. Monday you will log onto the UA site and fill out the form to make her an internship offer. Make sure you do it Monday morning. The offer process is only open three days and I want you to get in there early. She didn't compete in the Sports Festival so she may not get many offers. On the other hand, given her recent positive publicity, I doubt that will be the case. She helped break a case that included both the Yakuza and the Nine Head Dragon – as well as beating a geomancer and a small army. She'll get offers."

"So, if she's getting other offers, why would she choose mine?" Rizky's tone showed a fair bit of contempt for what they'd built here since immigrating from Jakarta. Giran had not only helped them change countries, but had pulled the necessary strings for their Hero licenses to transfer and to help them set up the agency. He'd made a lot of demands of them in repayment, and they still owed him. Still, Gita thought they were doing well enough. They had food, a roof, and a few luxuries.

Unfortunately, well enough was never good enough for Rizky. He had big ideas and big plans and wouldn't be satisfied until he achieved them. She laughed to herself. She loved that man, but despaired for him sometimes.

Giran shrugged. "She may not. It doesn't cost anything to try. Once you've sent the offer, I want you to keep an eye on this man for me," A blond man with a strange scar on his forehead appeared on the tablet screen. "His name's Jin Bubaigawara." The image changed to show a two-toned full-face mask. "When in costume, he's known as Twice. He lives in Mosuaizuri, although he hasn't been seen in a few days. I want you to find him and track his movements. That's all. Don't attack or impede him. Just let me know his movements and meetings. Understood? Also, if possible, don't let him know you're following him."

"Yah, sure. We can do that." Rizky said, standing as Giran rose. The fixer nodded to Gita and let himself out, a cloud of fragrant smoke trailing behind him.

"Wonderful!" Rizky moaned once the boss was out of earshot. "What are we supposed to do with an intern? Whatever it is, you're taking care of it. Ok, darling?"

Gita stood behind him as he slumped back into his seat. "I'll take care of everything," she said, rubbing his neck just how he liked it. Her long flexible fingers tapped the broad flat fingertip pads on his green rubbery skin. His head funnels lay flat against his pebbled scalp in pleasure.

Their common family mutation meant Gita shared an alien appearance with her cousin. It was this resemblance to a race called the Rodians in the classic Star Wars media franchise that prompted them to assume the hero names of Greedo and Jeeta. Giran had insisted that they play up the Star Wars theme in their work in Japan, especially the less legal parts. However, he forbade them from using any Jedi or Sith technology or iconography.

It seemed that in the Pre-Quirk era some people had formed the Jedi Order, a church based on the classic movies. These Jedi had been some of the earliest quirk users in Japan and had fought to maintain stability and peace during the Interregnum. They had eventually died out – more likely been killed off. Early in the Restoration, an academic rediscovered the Jedi Order's contributions. These warrior monks quickly became a source of pride in Japan. Several towns and other places adopted names from the mostly lost Jedi 'sacred texts' to honor their achievements. Gita had always found it hilarious that the Japanese so venerated what had been a series of children's stories. Rizky's family in Jakarta had an admittedly rare copy of the videos they had watched as kids.

The next week, Giran stopped by after they got word that the Yanagi girl had accepted the internship offer. "Listen carefully. Your goal here is to compromise her. Trick her into committing a crime, and then we can bring her over to our side. At the least, we want her as a mole at UA. Even better if you can get her to agree to join the League of Villains. Recruit her willingly and you'll be well rewarded. Got it?"

"She's been hanging around with that guy you have us following," Rizky informed the fixer.

"All the better," Giran smiled as he blew a cloud of smoke. "We want them both on our side if possible."

Two weeks later, Gita was showing the agency's newest, albeit temporary, employee around the office. The building had once been a multiplex cinema. Rizky kept the smallest of the theaters in working order. They had converted the other three auditoria and the lobby into office, storage, training, and living spaces.

"Why a theater?" Yanagi asked. She was looking around, but her pale face offered no clue to her thoughts. She was a spooky girl, with her white hair and eye patch with the Lakshmi Star on it. She looked at you as if she was trying to figure out the best way to kill you and hide the body. Her costume was a strange cross between an assassin and a temple maiden. The way her scarf writhed on its own like a snake hanging from a branch was the most unnatural part.

The girl was still staring at her guide. Gita realized she had asked a question.

"What?" the older woman replied.

"I asked why you chose a movie theater for your headquarters." She spoke with an odd, halting cadence. The early media reports on her said she had suffered a brain injury that affected her speech. It was just one more unnatural thing.

"It suited Greedo's quirk." Gita wondered why she had blurted that out. Her partner's quirk – Realization – allowed him to pull items, but not people, out of movies to use in the real world. The gear worked exactly as depicted in the movie, as long as it was not based on magic. He once tried to realize Aladdin's Lamp to no effect. He couldn't realize items larger than the screen on which he was watching – thus the need for the movie theater. Size limitations keep him from realizing vehicles for the most part, but the ability gave him access to all sorts of other technology.

"What's that?" Yanagi asked.

"Something we try to keep a secret for tactical reasons." Gita replied. "We have a lot of secrets. Some we may share with you – those you'll be expected to keep. Others we won't share. If we don't, you shouldn't try to sneak around to find out."

"Sounds reasonable."

"Let's keep going," Gita said and continued the tour. "Our business has two primary types of work – patrols and special contracts. We have a lot of clients that pay us to protect their business on a day to day basis. We regularly patrol the areas in and around those businesses. We also take on special contracts – mostly from the police, but from other clients on occasion. These usually amount to either personal or event security work or capturing specific villains."

"We have three full time agency members – Greedo is our primary – along with myself and one other sidekick, Bosuku. We both use gear provided by Greedo to augment our quirks." Gita gestured to the battle harness hanging on the wall. "This includes our special protective costumes." She was wearing her yellow and tan padded jacket over her orange padded jumpsuit. She kept her blast pistol at her side, just in case.

"During your time here, you'll accompany us on patrols and if any special contracts come in – we'll have to decide based on the danger involved. Part of agreeing to take you on as an intern was ensuring your safety. You're our first UA intern and we don't want to burn any bridges by losing you." Gita decided she wouldn't mind if the girl got a bit damaged, but both the heroes and Giran would be down on them if they managed to get her killed.

"When we're in the office you can take that desk," Gita pointed to a place in the bullpen along with hers and Bosku's. There were four unoccupied desks. They hoped to expand in the future. At least she did. Rizky had other ideas. "You are welcome to use the training room. The droids are set to offer a challenge, but not cause any real damage. If the drones are gone, Greedo should refresh them in a day or two."

"Any questions?" Gita hoped the girl would just go sit quietly. She wasn't sure what about Yanagi affected her so badly. She reminded Gita of the wise woman on her grandmother's island. She had hated that old witch.

"Not at the moment," the girl said.

"Then I'll leave you to settle in. We have a patrol at 1400. You'll be with me." Gita almost ran to the stairs. They had a sand bath on the roof. She needed to wallow in some sand.

At 1407, when Gita made it to the bullpen. Tatari was waiting for her. The pro hero sighed and nodded towards the door. She stopped to activate a combat drone, setting it to follow her. Agency policy was that no one went out alone. Gita did not count the intern as backup. The droids were not true AI, despite what C3PO looked like in some of the movies. They could take verbal or electronic commands and had multiple armament packages. She made sure this one was set to stun, but had lethal munitions ready if needed.

"When we patrol, we follow one of several routes designed to go by at least half of our protection clients," Gita explained. She liked the feeling of mentoring someone, talking about things she knew well. "We try to stop in and talk to each client at least once a week, just in case there's a problem between patrols. When we go in, I'll do the talking and I won't introduce you. You'll only be with the agency for the week and I don't want the clients getting confused. It would be bad if they were to approach you for services after the week was done. If that does happen, just send them our way. Right?"

"Right." Nothing. The girl's response gave nothing of her thoughts or feelings. Maybe she was an AI.

A little more than an hour later, they were coming out of Hitachi's Electronics Store. Hitachi-san had been as grudging as ever. Gita didn't know if he disliked her because she was female, because she had access to better electronic toys than he ever would, or because Giran was 'requiring' him to maintain the patrol contract with the agency. Of course, Giran took a commission on everything they collected from 'his' clients – a rather large percentage at that. Giran's clients paid two or three times as much as the clients they had found on their own, so it all worked out about even. As they exited the store, Tatari paused and looked south, her face showing a reaction for the first time – though Gita couldn't tell what she was reacting to.

"You see something?" the pro hero asked.

"A group of three people I've been told are villains are chasing a person towards us. About a block away. A fourth villain is flying to intercept them from there." She pointed up and to the west.

Gita pressed the button that put the droid into defensive mode. It would slave its guns to hers and fire at her target – creating a crossfire. "Let's go see if it's one of ours." She stalked forward. No need to run into trouble.

Just as the witch predicted, a winged figure swooped over the building and dove towards the approaching runner. The winged man was Blowback of the Face Border Clan. She recognized the runner as soon as he got within range of her scent funnels. It was Spinner, a young reptilian she'd had her eye on as a possible recruit. He matched the green theme of the agency. He did not have a hero license, but might be able to work more on the dark side of their force. The Fett's didn't worry about such niceties.

Spinner jumped off the hood of a passing car and used the momentum to try to make it to the side of the nearest building. Chains shot from behind him and wrapped around his ankle. Gita knew Manacle's signature weapon. It seemed the Clan had decided to make an example out of the boy with the non-human face. She despised the Clan, but their five named fighters were not worth messing with. All three of the people in her agency were already on their hate list because of their looks. She wondered what they'd think of Tatari's missing eye. Would that count as sufficient impurity for them to go after her?

Blowback knocked Spinner to the ground where Manacle, Touchstone, and Frostbite were waiting. They were too far away for Gita to hear what they were saying as they laid into the prone figure. She was familiar enough with their rants that she could easily imagine. With a snort of disgust, she turned away. "No. Not one of ours," she said.

"Because he's not a client, you're going to leave him to be beaten, maybe killed, on the street in broad daylight?" Tatari complained.

"We run a business. If we gave away our services for free, no one would bother to hire us. We offer low cost protection to everyone in the neighborhood. He chose to ignore the offer, so this is on him." Gita snapped back. "If you're so worried about him, you're free to try to save him yourself."

"I will." The girl smirked, and then started moving towards the one-sided fight. Gita was kicking herself mentally. This would have been the perfect opportunity to compromise the girl. If she had gone into the fight without the permission Gita had so stupidly offered, she would have been breaking quirk laws. Now the girl could argue she had cover. It also meant Gita might have to get involved, just to keep the stupid little shit from getting killed on her first day.

The pro hero started eyeing the area for the best place to make a stand. Her quirk – Kinetic Sink – allowed her to draw a circle or line on the ground that marked a flat field that drained kinetic energy. The field extended upwards three meters from the ground and didn't have a top. Once the field had drained a certain amount of energy, or thirty seconds had elapsed, it dissipated. This meant she was better at fighting defensively, drawing people to her field or shooting out from within. Combined with the extra firepower of the drone, she felt she could probably take the Clan fighters. She thought it was too bad Hotspur wasn't around. She could usually keep some control over her male teammates. Without her, they were more likely to get crazy – crazier that is.

She found a place at the corner of the street and a pedestrian alley fifty meters from where the Clan were kicking Spinner's ass. She saw Tatari approaching the fight, yelling something about surrendering. "Stupid girl," Gita muttered, "Giving up surprise, her only advantage."

The pro looked into the alley to make sure no one could flank her. Suddenly she heard a high-pitched scream.

She whirled around to find Tatari already moving between the Clan fighters. Blowback was pinned to the side of a truck, his wings spread wide. Frostbite was tangled in Manacle's chain and Manacle's flaming-skull mask was actually on fire. All that was left was Touchstone, the massive super-strong brawler.

He roared and charged. The girl leapt ten meters into the air, shooting out her scarf to wrap around Touchstone like a five-point harness. She swung over the top of a streetlamp's horizontal arm, kicking off it and letting her weight pull the scarf up, somehow lifting Touchstone off the ground. As soon as his feet were in the air, he started to shrink. By the time she was on the ground, his strength was gone. Gita had heard from Giran that the Clan strongman had that weakness, but had no idea how Tatari knew.

A few seconds later, all four were unconscious and the intern was wrapping capture tape around their limbs. Gita was floored. The whole fight had taken twenty seconds or less. A visceral fear swept through her, causing her stomach to knot. The girl was a witch.

Gita phoned the police and reported the take down; making sure the agency would get the credit – and more importantly, the bounty. The girl was talking to Spinner as Gita walked up.

"The police have been alerted," she informed Tatari. "They'll get here eventually, but it could be a while. We'll have some paperwork to fill out. Spinner, isn't it?"

"Yeah," the youth said, barely glancing at Gita. His eyes were locked on Tatari as she checked his wounds. Her seemingly sentient scarf reached into one of her pouches and pulled out a first aid kit.

"You've got a few cuts and bruises," the girl said, her voice pretending to be soothing. "I'm going to clean and bandage the worst of them. You may also have a wrenched knee it looks like. Or would you rather we call an ambulance?"

"I'm …" the lizard man swallowed a few times. "You please."

Tatari nodded and started bandaging. Sometimes it looked like the wrappings were moving on their own. She kept on questioning the young man. "Any idea why they were after you?"

"They're the Face Border Clan." He was staring intently into the girl's eye. She ignored his gaze and kept working on his wounds. "They persecute anyone whose face they deem unworthy. They have pursued me a few times, but I've always managed to escape their evil clutches. Until now. If you had not rescued me, I do not know if I would have survived the day. I owe you my life." His eyes dropped to her hands on the last sentence.

Fucking teenagers, Gita thought disgusted. "Yeah, yeah. They're not too fond of a lot of us," the alien looking woman interrupted. "The little girl here is the only one they'd probably like."

"And yet, she risked her life to smite them in defense of me." Spinner said. He was wearing a Knight's Bridge virtual world t-shirt, which might have explained his chuunibyou dialog.

"Do you want to stick around for the police?" Gita asked the annoying reptile.

He looked to Tatari. She nodded. "Your words can help put them away for a long time." She was actually feeding this kid's delusions.

"I'll do it!" He almost leapt to his feet, when his injured knee stopped him. "Ow. Good thing I have regeneration," he bragged.

"Right," Gita interrupted. "You stay here and guard them. We'll finish our patrol. If the police get here before we get back tell them we'll come to the station to make our report. And here's my card, if they ask who did this."

He took it and looked to the girl. She just shrugged and waved as they walked on. Gita made sure the drone stayed with the bounties. She figured they could make the rest of the patrol in safety. The experienced pro knew many people had seen Tatari take the Clan fighters down. They were a big deal in the neighborhood – some of the more dangerous fighters. Word would spread about the witch.