Kyoto Pharaoh
Cammy leaned against the convenience store, camouflaged, waiting for someone to come and trigger the automatic doors for her. She was in the mood for a snack before a heist but didn't want to go back and grab her wallet like a boring person.
She could go inside, take what she wanted, and leave without getting caught. But if she was going to shoplift, she might as well make it a bit challenging and do it without getting spotted by any cameras.
She waited five more minutes until a middle-aged office worker entered the building. Cammy tailed him slowly, entering the store unseen by anyone. There weren't many people inside, maybe a few dozen spread across various sections. The thief stalked between the aisles without her camouflage and stopped in a dead spot for the store's radars, looking at the food options and reaching out to check the expiration date on some of them.
In the end, she picked jagarico crisps.
"Shoplifting... really, Karma?"
As she was about to leave with her prize, a blue-haired man entered her field of vision. He stood behind the product rack that was supposed to shield her from prying eyes, but his frame was tall enough to peer over it.
It took her one second to recognize him since he wore a mask and black costume in most of their encounters, but then her face lit up with a mischievous glint, and a cheeky grin came to her lips.
"Ryu-kun!"
Yuusei approached her, and Cammy did not move, careful of leaving the dead zone she'd found between the store's cameras. If she got caught on a video feed, it was only a matter of time until the place got surrounded by heroes. And while she was confident in her ability to escape the worst-case scenario, she also wanted to see where this would go.
"Put it back, thief," he ordered, reaching for her wrist, but Cammy easily avoided his grasp.
"Good afternoon to you too, grumpy dragon. How'd you even find me here?"
"A serious case of bad luck," he said, still trying to take her snack. Cammy dropped the crisps, and her tail picked them up before they could hit the ground, wrapping around the package and extending behind her, outside the young man's reach.
Yuusei stepped forward, frowning. Cammy tried to sidestep him, but he mimicked her move, blocking her path. They danced around each other like two pedestrians trying to cross a sidewalk in opposite directions before stopping and gazing at each other, their chests brushing.
"Hey, why are you acting like I stole this already?" Cammy teased, tail swaying side to side with her snack. "What if I was about to take it to the cashier and pay for it? You're being awfully bigoted there."
Yuusei's expression turned flat. "My apologies," He deadpanned, "I was merely accustomed to such behavior after all the times I caught you in the act." He tilted his head to the shopping basket he was carrying. "I was about to check out myself, but I'll let you go first in line."
Cammy blinked slowly, not expecting him to play along. "You're a bit more laidback out of costume, huh?" Her smug expression came back a moment after. "But I think I've changed my mind. I'm gonna browse a bit more; you can go ahead," She finished, poking his stomach with a finger.
His crimson eyes did not leave her scarlet ones. "Hmm. I just remembered I forgot to grab some things. I'll have to linger inside a store a bit longer."
Cammy stuck out her tongue at him. "Stalker."
"Name-calling. How novel."
"Is it really name-calling if you've been after me for almost a year? At this point, I could give you everything I stole, and you'd still keep coming."
Yuusei raised an eyebrow. "Of course. I couldn't guarantee the blade was still with you after all this time. After our first encounter, I was no longer looking for it."
He stepped forward, pushing her with his chest, but Cammy stood her ground. Yuusei glared down, his nose almost touching hers.
"I want you. The legacies you took can be recovered after you're behind bars."
"Sooo... stalker."
She tried to poke his eye with her lengthy tongue, but he leaned back in time, giving back her personal space.
"Call me whatever you—"
BZZT BZZT
Yuusei's ringtone cut off his words.
"One chance arya get it now. Kodawari-mochi do it now. Take 1, take 2 dekinainara, Yaru dake hundred takes..."
"..."
"Kekekekeke~" She laughed at his dead fish look. "Gonna take that?"
Yuusei struggled internally. As always, his phone was silent for all notifications... except messages from his family. But with Cammy's extraordinary agility, one moment to reach for his pocket and answer the call would give her an opening to escape or attack while his guard was down.
"... Yes."
A possible family emergency weighed more on his mental scale. Yuusei stepped back and brought the phone to his ear. Defying his expectations, the lizard girl moved forward to match him, a curious expression on her face.
Ah. Most likely, Cammy believed it was a call from the government or a hero. She wanted to snoop on classified information. He threw her a half-hearted glare, hoping to convey that whatever was about to happen wouldn't interest her. Predictably, she misread him, taking another step with a sleazy grin to place herself behind him.
Yuusei turned around to keep her in sight, eyes briefly roaming his surroundings to check for the cameras' positioning. No good. Even now, she was still in the radar dead zone. The shift in their stances occurred in a fraction of a second, after which the person who called him spoke.
"Good afternoon, Yuu-chan."
Cammy choked on a laugh, putting both hands over her mouth to restrain her humor and failing.
"Y-Y-Yuu-chan?"
Yuusei held back a sigh, not wanting to give his mother the impression that she was the one he was upset with.
"Good afternoon, mother. How are you doing?" he replied evenly, taking a few steps from the lizard girl. He knew it wouldn't stop her from following him, but that would change if he began to lead her into the cameras.
"I just got home from work. It was a slow day, so I'm taking the extra time to call you. Are you busy now?"
"No. I'm grocery shopping. My patrol ended a few hours ago."
"And yet, you're still trying your best to stop the great case of snack theft. Curious," The villain tailing him commented.
Yuusei looked at Cammy with a disturbed expression. 'Do you have no manners?' He mouthed at her, to which she proudly shook her head. She could leave right now, and he couldn't stop her. But she didn't want to. She was getting payback for all the times he inconvenienced her with his grudge, including what happened a few minutes ago.
"Ah... that's good. You didn't get hurt, did you?"
"... No, nor did I overuse my quirk."
"Did anything interesting happen? Orochi keeps pestering me for stories of your cases whenever she visits, you know? She thinks she's subtle, but it's cute how much she admires Seiryu."
The young man chuckled, catching Cammy off guard with the soft smile on his face. His little cousin would reject the label of 'cute' with great prejudice, but that only made her more adorable in his and his mother's eyes.
"Huh. so he's not a hardass 100% of the time. The more you know..."
He glanced at Cammy with a look that said, 'I heard that.'
She grinned, her gaze replying, 'You were supposed to.'
"I'll tell her all about the world of pros the next time I visit."
"Are you gonna tell her about all the times I escaped from you too?"
At that moment, Yuusei realized the best way to conserve his mental health would be to ignore the woman leaning on him and spying on his private conversation.
"That better be soon, young man. It's been weeks since any of us saw you in person. I didn't raise someone who focuses on his job to the point where he can't see his family."
"Don't worry. Setting up my agency took most of my time. I won't neglect any of you."
"Good. Also... Yuu-chan, is there someone with you? I keep hearing the same voice in the background..."
During a short moment of weakness, Yuusei closed his eyes. He could not lie to his mother, but in this case, the truth would be more unbelievable than any falsehood he could concoct.
"... Yes. A colleague." The words felt like venom on his tongue, but his tone didn't display that. His naturally powerful poker face was showing its worth.
"Oh? A friend! You never mention anyone from work, Yuu-chan. Who are they?"
"She's—"
It happened in less than a second. Yuusei, left complacent by Cammy's behavior so far, could not react as she stopped being an observer and snagged his phone with her tongue.
"You—!" he cut his indignation short, knowing he needed to keep the act for his own sake.
Cammy waved at him, wiggling her fingers with a mocking smile. "Hey there, Yuu-chan's mom! My name's Kemi!" the villain spoke cheerfully, giving a Japanese version of her name.
Yuusei's mother laughed. "You're a bold one, huh? My name is Aoi Atsushi; you don't have to refer to me as Yuu-chan's mom."
"Will do, Aoi-san. Anyway, I just wanted to introduce myself since Yuu-chan didn't do it before. Honestly, he's so rude sometimes."
Cammy dodged Yuusei's attempts to grab his cell phone. Leaving her snack back on its shelf, she freed her tail to stop Yuusei's transformed appendage, wrestling it with her own.
More laughter from Aoi. "Don't hold it against him. He probably wanted to introduce us on his own terms. He can be a bit domineering like that."
The villain nodded with a wistful expression before ducking under a claw swipe. "Hm-hm. He's always super-stern whenever we meet. I almost feel like he doesn't like me."
"Worry not, Kemi-san. Yuu-chan takes a while to warm up to people. The fact he was even willing to let you take this call speaks wonders. But now, could you give the phone back to him? I'm afraid I'll have to say goodbye now."
"Aww, but we barely got to talk—!"
He finally caught her by the front of her costume, his other hand pulling his phone.
"Goodbye, mother. I'll text you when I finish buying my groceries. Love you."
"Goodbye, Yuu-chan! Tell Kemi-san I wish her a good day."
The call ended. Seiryu held the villain off the ground, bringing her to eye level. While his face was set into a deep scowl, hers was at its smuggest.
"What's the matter, Yuu-chan?"
Seiryu kept heroic thoughts in his mind. He would not punch her. He would not throw her through the nearest window. No, he needed a way to capture her before she stopped humoring him and broke free from his hold while minding collateral damage to the store.
Humor... That was the key.
"I have a challenge for you, villain."
"Hoh?"
"I'll take your snack and pay for it with my things. We'll leave the store, and you'll try to steal it from me instead of the overworked employees," He offered an arrangement that played into her adrenaline-junkie tendencies.
"My, my. Looks like your mom was right. One chance meeting at a grocery shop, and we're already bonding! But I don't know... I just wanted a bite before my heist, and now you're asking me to get caught up in this..." She trailed off with a smile.
"Can't you buy me my snack, and we'll call a rain check on the fight?"
"No. The only reason why I'm not taking advantage of my hand this close to your throat is that I know it won't work on you."
"Wow, he can learn."
He shrugged off her snark. "What's it going to be, Karma? Fight inside a closed, monitored space, attracting more heroes? Or fight me across the streets yet again?"
"Well, when you put it like that..."
Her tongue lashed out in a sucker punch to his face. Seiryu tilted his head to the side and shoved Karma against a display shelf, avoiding her slimy muscle. The impact sent several products off the shelves and earned a small grunt from his opponent.
"You only caught me with that earlier because my guard was down. I'll ask one last time: What's it going to be, Karma?"
She put her hands up, pulling back her tongue and pouting. "Alright, alright. I'll help you get it out of your system."
"Hmph. Keep yourself camouflaged until we leave." With that, Seiryu let go of her and crouched down, returning the items that dropped after his attack. Karma watched him, feeling bewildered for one second before shaking her head.
"Do you also put your shopping carts back on their spot?" She mocked.
Seiryu looked at her with a raised eyebrow that felt too condescending for her liking.
He got up with the last item, the snack she had selected a few minutes ago. He walked toward the nearest checkout, expecting her to follow him, but not before looking at her and flicking out a forked tongue at the air. A warning that he would notice her sneaking off by her scent. Really, how could he do stuff like that and then get annoyed when she called him a stalker?
Karma followed him while crouching down. He was moving slowly to not break her camouflage, but they still reached the cashier in a few seconds.
The tired lady working for the grocery shop started scanning his items and... woah, that was a lot of money just for groceries. Seiryu paid for them with cash, leaving the store with a plastic bag in one hand and her snack in the other.
The first thing she did when they crossed the doors was whip him in the back with her tail, reaching for her chips with her tongue.
His tail surged to bat hers away, and she had to pull her tongue away or let it get slashed by a claw. He stopped her first assault almost casually.
"You're still not taking me seriously," He observed.
"Keke. You already do that enough for the both of us."
Seiryu ripped open the package of chips.
"Hey! What gives?" Karma asked with a slight scowl on her features.
His face was blank as he replied, "Hm? I paid for this snack. I'm going to eat it. Do your best to grab it before I finish."
Was he implying she couldn't get her snack without tryharding? As if she hadn't escaped with her bounty in most of their battles?
Seiryu chewed on a chip, judging its taste. It was adequate, if a bit salty. Karma gave him a strained smile. She knew he was playing her, but she didn't care. She'd give him a reason to never do it again. Maybe after this, he would stop chasing after her altogether.
The villain lunged again, starting a battle fueled by supreme pettiness from both sides.