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“Why the fuck,” Ace says, his voice uniquely horrified in the way that only Twisted can conjure from him, “are there mutant crocodiles in the sewers?!”
“Unimportant,” Bolt huffs from his side, standing up and brushing himself off. He crosses his arms and fixes Ace with a sharp glare. “This is your fault, Wild Card.”
“Bolt,” Ace says, “there are mutant crocodiles.”
Bolt casts a wary look into the murky waters of the sewer, his eyes passively roaming over the appearance of the crocodiles. There are three of them, all glowing a toxic green color, and their scales are sharp like a porcupine’s. Their eyes are bloodshot and glowing red, and their teeth are dripping a strange green liquid.
Bolt then turns back to Ace and says, “Those crocodiles are the least of our worries. They are safe.” He takes his own mask off, taking a deep breath. He then grimaces, likely because they’re literally in the sewers of Twisted.
Ace splutters, “Safe?!”
“Wild Card. Why did you get in the way of my attack?”
Ace pauses at that, and now it’s his turn to fix Sebek with a glare. “Your attack was going to cause property damage.”
“And?”
Ace throws his hands up in the air. “And we can’t cause property damage! Our reputation is already bad enough!”
That is to say, the Ravens’ reputation isn’t bad in any way, and definitely not compared to the many criminals that plague Twisted. However, the last time White Rabbit had taken someone in for arrest, he had accidentally damaged a car in the process, and the owner of the car attempted to sue him. This obviously didn’t work, because no one knows any of the Ravens’ identities, and it was done out of self defense, but it did tank their reputation in the professional world.
And as much as Ace knows that being a vigilante is already illegal enough, he doesn’t want to further weaken the Ravens’ ties with law enforcement! As it is now, the police have reluctantly agreed to work with the Ravens; as long as the vigilantes keep continuing to bring in criminals and not commit too many crimes themselves, the Twisted Police Department would agree to not try and arrest them for vigilantism.
“That…may have happened,” Bolt admits through gritted teeth, and by his tone of voice, one would think that he had just been forced to walk barefoot on a pile of legos. “But! You were the one who proceeded to launch an attack in my direction!”
It’s Ace’s turn to flush, embarrassed, as he remembers the sequence of events. “...I miscalculated.” In his defense, the perp had been right next to Bolt!
Kinda.
Ace considers 5 meters away to be ‘close’, and the perp had been 2 meters away from Bolt—so in Ace’s eyes, they may as well have been stepping on each other’s toes!
“Okay, then how come we’re in the sewers right now?!” Ace gestures all around the two. “You were the one who pushed me into the hole!”
“And you were the one who left the cover open in hopes to prank me,” Bolt replies bluntly. “And, for your information, I had pushed you out of the way of the criminal’s attack!”
Ace rolls his eyes, “Fine. Whatever. I guess I’m the one in the wrong here.”
“You quite literally are. Stop acting like you’ve been treated wrongfully by me pointing out the objective truth.”
God, this is why Ace prefers to patrol with White Rabbit. At least they have a set routine for fights like the one that he and Bolt had gone through; with Bolt, it’s like pulling teeth! For one, Ace needs to get up close and personal to the criminals to effectively use his Unima, and this isn’t a problem when he’s fighting alongside literally any of the other Ravens. Deuce and Jack also fight up close, Ortho is literally a robot that can calculate everything perfectly, and Epel is proficient enough with his Unima that he’s able to precisely aim in a way to where Ace never gets hurt.
Sebek, who has only had his Unima for a year, is the sole exception. Every time Ace and Sebek fight an enemy together, they always have trouble because Sebek ends up getting Ace in the crossfire with his Unima! This then takes Ace out of commission, because Sebek’s Unima hurts like a motherfucker.
Ace looks up at the hole that he and Sebek had fallen down. If this were any other city, they probably would have been able to climb out in some way or another.
But no, they were unfortunate enough to live in Twisted, meaning that even the walls are covered in some suspiciously glowing substance.
Huh. I wonder if that’s where the crocodiles got their mutation from.
Ace eyes Sebek’s mask, which he’s still holding. “Uhh, dude, I know we’re fighting right now and everything, but. You should probably put your mask back on.”
Sebek fixes Ace with a confused frown. “Why would I do that?”
“Because I’m 90% sure that the air in here is toxic,” Ace replies. “Maybe even radioactive. Whatever it is, it caused the crocodiles to turn into…that.” He waves at the mutant crocodiles, grimacing as his eyes flicker to look at them.
Sebek considers this, nodding when his eyes roam over the suspiciously sword-shaped tail of the far-left crocodile. He messes with the straps of his mask for a second before putting it back over his face, pulling them to tighten it completely.
Ace is a little jealous. His own mask works well for him - amazingly, in fact, and it also comes with the plus of matching the jester theme that he wants to convey with his outfit - but Sebek’s makes him look like a full medieval knight.
Suddenly, Ace’s comm beeps. He quickly brings his hand up to it, switching it on; from the corner of his eye, he sees Bolt do the same.
“-ld Card! Bolt! Can you hear me?!”
Ace brightens. “Poison Apple!” He then pauses. “Wait, why are you on the comms? Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?”
“Reaper called for all hands on deck,” Wolf’s voice says. “We’ve been trying to reach you two for ten minutes now.”
“Wild Card, Bolt,” Reaper says, his voice sounding relieved, “status report?”
“Wild Card and I have found ourselves…trapped,” Bolt says into the comm. “Both of our grappling hooks have been lost,” they did not, in fact, lose them, but rather they dropped them while they were still up on the surface, “and we are also surrounded by a corrosive substance. Wild Card believes it to be radioactive.”
“Okay—if it was radioactive, you two would have already burned to death,” Reaper says bluntly. “Where are you two trapped? Are you kidnapped?”
“No, we’re fine,” Ace butts in. “We’re…stuck in the sewer, under Aurora Lane.” He feels his ears warm as he admits this.
There’s a silence over comms. A long one. And then–
Laughter. Wolf’s, specifically.
Ace and Bolt share a look, and for once, Ace is able to tell exactly what Bolt is thinking right now, because Ace is thinking the exact same thing.
I’m going to kill him.
Reaper sighs, and Ace recognizes it as the ‘I-should-have-moved-out-of-this-damn-place’ sigh. “…Alright. I’m sending Poison Apple and White Rabbit to pick you two up.”
“Why not Cerberus?” Bolt demands. “He is the only one out of all of us that can actually fly.”
“Technically, probably you could too, Bolt,” Poison Apple points out.
Bolt flushes at that and doesn’t reply. Ace wonders why he’s embarrassed, but then it clicks in his head: even if he can fly with his Unima, he isn’t proficient enough with it to know.
At once, Ace feels a little better. After all, he’s very experienced with his Unima, and any excuse to hold something over Bolt’s head is a mood-brightener.
“Cerberus is dealing with a group of serial arsonists right now,” Reaper replies. “Wolf, I’m sending you to help him.”
“What kind of arson?” Wolf demands.
“Explosives.”
Ace winces in sympathy, but he doesn’t feel too bad. Reaper would never send any of them into a situation that would fatally harm them, so Wolf being sent to deal with these arsonists probably means that they’re more annoying than dangerous.
Still. As Ace explained earlier, he and Jack are close-combat fighters, so any type of explosives are pretty dangerous for them.
“Bolt, Wild Card, sit tight,” Reaper says, and then the comms cut off.
Ace sighs. “Well, I guess this is better than nothing.”
Bolt nods. He opens his mouth, hesitating, before saying, “...Wild Card. I have been thinking about our argument.”
“The argument that happened just two minutes ago,” Ace clarifies.
“And after mentally reviewing the circumstances, I have come to the conclusion that our getting stuck is both of our faults. Let us reconcile.”
Ace really, really wants to punch Bolt because of that. He refrains though, because punching someone dressed in full armor probably hurts.
And plus, this is technically Bolt apologizing to Ace, so he’s going to take what he can get.
“Sure,” Ace replies. “Just…watch out for property damage.”
“As long as you keep a closer eye on your teammates’ locations,” Bolt sniffs.
…Realistically speaking, how hurt would Ace be if he punched Bolt? Maybe a few broken fingers at most. That’s not not worth the satisfaction of punching Bolt.
Alas, Wolf said earlier that they’re ‘all hands on deck’ right now, which means Ace will need to save his fists for fighting the actual criminals. A shame, really.