Spy Kids

The final bell rings at Shiketsu High, signaling the end of classes and the start of the weekend for the students in the Hero Course. Because of their extra classes and the continued cancellation of afterschool clubs, the students from the other courses have already left the school and gone home. People were finally getting used to the new safety precautions set up by the school, as exemplified by the cheerful conversations going on in the classroom of 3-D.

Mio is happily chatting away with a few of the other senior girls when her phone goes off. It's not a very uncommon thing, but the unique tone coming from it tells her that it's from one of the people she can't really put off responding to.


ReapRIP: Meet up with me

MeowKay: 🖕

ReapRIP: See you soon


She holds in a frustrated sigh, keeping up her poker face, and turns towards one of her classmates: the VP in their class.

"Johanna, can I ask a big favor?"

Mio puts her palms together in front of her face. Her voice is sweet and apologetic, but the other girl knows that what's about to come out of Mio's mouth is not a request. It's just a step below a demand.

"Can you please cover my class rep duties for today? Something's come up. Pleeease?"

Some of the other blissfully ignorant girls in class giggle to themselves, gossiping and badgering her with questions about this mystery person she's been frequently meeting up with as of late. The class rep in question manages to deflect from their attempts at prodding into her personal life, playing coy long enough for Johanna to give her answer.

"Fine, I'll handle it."

Intentionally terse, but not enough so to come off as rude; this is the typical attitude the Gauntlet Hero takes when having to deal with Mio.

"Thank you! I'll treat you to a parfait later!"

She hops off her seat and starts to leave the classroom, giving the other girls a quick wave goodbye. As soon as she's out of sight, they continue to gossip among themselves. The new safety rules say that everyone has to travel in pairs at least if they want to leave the school, so whoever she's meeting with has to be a student or maybe even a teacher. Typical gossiping girl conversation topics that will not reach a satisfying conclusion.




In contrast, as soon as Mio is out of sight of anyone in the school, her facade drops, replaced by a scowl. Behind the school once again, in front of her, is the person who's been her bane of existence for the last few weeks: Sandatsu Owari. The freshman student is crouched down in front of the weathered tent he calls home.

"What the fuck do you want, roadkill?"

"We have another assignment to do, an urgent one."

He flings a manilla envelope straight towards her face, with the other girl only barely avoiding it and shooting him daggers in return. He doesn't react to it. She snatches the envelope from the ground and pulls the papers out to read them over. As she does, her expression shifts from anger to confusion to anger again.

"What the fuck is this? We've never done something like this before. Can you even do this?"

"Do what?"

Mio levels a glare at Sandatsu and growls out her response.

"Did you even read this?"

In return, he just shrugs.

"I figure I'd make it easy on myself and let you handle the explanation."

"You're fucking kidding me. What am I, your babysitter?"

The papers in her hands crumple a little as she tries not to let her anger get to her.

"Whatever, you illiterate pigdog. I better be getting paid extra for this job."

"Is me not killing you not enough? I could get you some drugs. Maybe you'll get taller."

The ridiculousness of Sandatsu's statement makes Mio look up at him with a confused and disgusted expression painted onto her face. The fact that she couldn't tell if he was kidding or not despite being able to look through his memories makes her skin crawl. He was friends with the drug generating failure in his class, and was fucked up in the head enough that he really could be offering that seriously.

"I'm not some drug addict, you fucking oaf! I want more money after this! God, it's like talking to a brick wall with you."

She slides the papers into her bag with a huff before starting to walk away from Sandatsu and the school. She can't stand being around him any longer and has already learned the route home that nobody will see her on by now.

"I'm going to have to get some of my stuff for this. These papers say there's a black van parked three blocks south of Thanks A Latte Cafe. Meet me there in an hour, or I'm going to make people think you shit yourself in class. And get a better line! Your "I'll kill you" schtick is getting old!"

Sandatsu just watched her go without trying to stop her, his face blank. Once Mio was out of sight, he started walking towards the meeting spot. He wasn't going to be able to afford the train ride, so he might as well leave now to be sure he can make it on time.




"The Enforcers are taking background actions against some wacko terrorist revolutionary group. This is time-sensitive, and they're getting stretched thin with all their ongoing operations, so we have to help a little. Our mission is to infiltrate the Hashimiya Water Treatment Plant, a front that the revolutionaries have been using for something we're not sure of. It's a low priority target, so it should be a fast and easy operation."

Mio and Sandatsu sit in the back of an unmarked van parked a couple kilometers away from their target. Mio had driven them here as she is the one out of the two who actually knows how to, even if she needs pedal extenders to operate the vehicle properly. The hours have passed quickly, and night has already settled in. Sandatsu has changed into a black outfit and mask suited for stealth that were planted inside the van. Different than his usual cloak, but one he quickly got used to.

"To make it simple for the putrid slush you call a brain, you have to sneak in, get into the basement floor, and access their server rooms. Then you plug this into the machine I tell you to, wait for me to do my job, and then get out. Got it?"

Mio holds out a small device that Sandatsu pockets right away. He looks down at his pint-sized senpai rifling through papers and floor maps of the plant. As opposed to her usual brightly colored outfits she wears outside of school, she's dressed in a very casual and low-effort set of clothes. She's not even trying to put up any appearances right now with her looks or attitude.

"And what are you going to be doing? Sleeping?"

His question earns him a kick to the shin, which he doesn't even react to. She scoffs, pulling out her laptop from her bag and placing it on a prepared stand.

"I'm going to be staying right here and making sure you don't screw things over by setting off every alarm in the building! They have cameras and security systems that I'm going to take care of while you're out on your little field trip. This is a stealth mission, remember? If they find out you're in there early, they could just wipe the data we're looking for as a precaution, and then we'd be shit out of luck."

"I guess."

The nonresponse makes Mio's eye twitch in anger, but she holds it down and moves on with the conversation, eager to get this whole thing over with and go home.

"I'll be keeping track of you through a camera I put on your mask as well as the facility's camera systems once I get into them. We'll be keeping in touch with this. Speak only when you're certain nobody is around to hear you."

She puts another piece of technology into his hand, one that he has to look at for a few seconds in confusion. He takes a moment to try to figure out how to use it, to no avail. Seeing this, Mio lets out an annoyed growl.

"Oh my God, you're such a fucking caveman!"

She snatches it out of his hand and huffs. She gestures for him to get closer.

"Lean down!"

Sandatsu blinks, not sure where Mio was going with this.

"For a good luck kiss?"

"...I'm going to strangle you."

"Then I'm not getting closer."

"AAUUGH!"

She throws it at him in a fit of rage, but he catches it easily.

"It's an earpiece! It's a phone that goes on your ear! Do you know what a phone is, or do I need to explain it with monkey noises in your native language, you stupid piece of shit!?"

Unfazed by her screeching, Sandatsu looks at the device again and tries to figure out how it goes on his ear. Just as she's had to do many times now, Mio takes the next few moments to seethe and calm herself down after losing her temper like that.

"This next part is important. When we're talking through the earpiece, we can't use our real names or our hero names. On the off chance someone taps into our conversations, we don't want to be able to be identified so easily. Just avoid names entirely."

"So we use codenames?"

Mio looks away and opens her laptop, starting her preparations for the mission. After a few short moments, a window pops up on her screen, showing the live feed coming from Sandatsu's POV. Immediately, she starts working on getting into the plant's systems.

"Unnecessary. It's just the two of us. If you're talking, I know it's to me."

Sandatsu finally gets the earpiece into place and adjusts his mask to get it in a comfortable enough position.

"Call me Skull."

"I just..."

She takes a breath and sighs, looking over at her kouhai with utter contempt.

"I just said we don't need codenames. Can you stop being an edgy teenager for one day?"

"I'll call you Big Cat."

"Okay, I see. Now I'm sure you're just messing with me. This is all just a big game for the funny man. Those imbeciles you're always hanging out with are rubbing off on you. Get the fuck out of here and get going. When you're a block away, stop and wait for my signal."

Seeing that Mio had no intention of speaking any further, Sandatsu opens the back of the van. The heat of the sun was fading, but the humidity of the area stuck around like a bad cough. He's plenty used to the heat, but the black bodysuit and mask are making it worse than usual. Hopefully, the water treatment plant has air con. He hops out of the van onto the concrete and stretches his limbs. Just as he is about to start making his way to his objective, Mio speaks up.

"...Hey."

He looks behind him, a bit surprised that Mio was calling out to him. Mio looks up from her computer and towards Sandatsu, getting in one final message before he leaves.

"If you get caught, I'm taking this van and leaving you to die."

She follows up with a middle finger aimed at him. He returns it, not sure what he was expecting from her. Without another word, he heads off into the night to start the mission.

Edit Report
Pub: 12 Jun 2023 21:46 UTC
Views: 877