6 An Escape?

"Haaaa… haaaaa… haaaaa…" Kia stops for a while catching her breath. "This body isn't built for running… haaaaa…"

The addition of a mask and wearing layers of clothes added to the difficulty in running. Kia pushed through, hearing the frantic run of Gouger a few aisles to her left.

"What the hell do I do? C'mon me, you can weasel your way out of this… wait a minute, we're in a warehouse!" Kia smacks herself on the side of her head. "If I could somehow tell Gouger to distract her away from the back entrance, I could try taking some useful stuff I saw. Then again, screaming what I intend to do will definitely make Midnight aware. Not to mention that she probably already called the police. It's surprising that she didn't storm in here with the cops, though that's probably because it'll alert us unintentionally—"

"Argh! Why won't you just sit still?! This stupid mist is too unfair!" Gouger's voice shrieked. "Fuck this, I'm out of this place!"

Midnight's voice replied back with a dominating tone. "You won't hit me with that technique, get too close and you'll be mine! Keep running if you can!"

"—Or she just wants all the fun to herself. It's not like she expected someone strong since I heard her say that Eraserhead provided the information." Kia focused on her hearing, noticing that Gouger was moving away. "For once, luck has instead smiled upon me."

Taking advantage of the situation, Kia circles back, making sure to pay attention to the constant exclamations by Gouger. Following the light being shone by the flashlights they left around the darkened facility, about four in total.

Kia comes across all the boxes they opened, they were all moved near the back entrance they infiltrated. Thinking quickly, she went inside the nearest one gauging each item's usefulness as she did so. "Jetpack, I don't even know how to use this. A grappling hook? Could be useful."

Then for the next box, she freezes, seeing a short rubber-wrapped handle with a sheen of metal right on the tip. "An expandable baton? Weird… I get the feeling I can use these really well… I don't even remember touching these kinds of weapons, ever."

An urge to pick them up comes, manifesting in her wielding two of the batons and twirling them around. Kia does a few stabs, stepping right foot first for a multitude of short motions — a mirror image of doing fencing but with batons.

"Huh… when did I learn to use these?"

Kia suddenly notices the eerie quietness, looking up from her stupor, she scolds herself for being distracted. "Shit, I don't hear Gouger anymore."

"Hmm, that's probably because he is fast asleep in my arms." Midnight steps away from the shadows, cradling an unconscious Gouger before letting him gently down. "Queen Crimson, is that who you are?"

"W- What of it?" Kia assumes a stance like she'd been training for years. "I'd appreciate it if you just let me go."

Midnight licked her lips seductively. "No can do, I've already made three of you go down without a fight. Be a good girl and kneel for me? I promise I won't be rough."

"Eugh, sorry, I don't like sadistic women!" Kia charges, taking advantage of her safety from the mist Midnight produced. Not only that, whips are generally bad at close quarters. 

"Charging in? I like it!"

"Hyah!" Kia thrusts a baton, reaching out with her left, extending the range nearly hitting Midnight in the throat. Only for her to miss as Midnight flipped back, dodging the attack. 

Not stopping, each step forward, Kia slashes and repeats stabbing. The nimbleness of Midnight made them useless though. If Midnight were any less reactive, Kia would've hit her already.

"Hmm… you're pretty good but I can hear you panting inside that mask. Why don't you take it off? I want to see your sweat dripping down your face… and from the sound of it, you're hard at work~"

"Can you take this seriously?" Kia retorts, swinging another attack at Midnight who jumps over her in an arch. "Oh come on! You're like 30 years old or something! How are you not dying from arthritis already!?"

Midnight frowns. "You don't talk about a lady's age like that."

"The hell I care!"

"You need to be disciplined." Midnight takes out another smaller whip, a bullwhip-styled one. "You're tiring, you have the technique and training to do all those attacks but your body is not fit for it."

"Taunting? Really?" The dryness in Kia's mouth was hard to ignore. "Guh… shit…" Kia stares at the grappling hook she took, getting an idea but soon frowning. 'No, that won't work unless I put pressure on her.'

Midnight dashes forward, catching Kia off-guard as the exhaustion starts to hinder her ability to fight. 

"Hgnh!" Kia's wrist gets wrapped by the smaller whip, she tries wrestling out of it but Midnight starts putting more strength into it. Resulting in Kia dropping one of her batons.

"Why don't you go to sleep? Here, I'll take off your mask… just relax and take a deep, deep breath." Kia's arms were tired and on one side being pinned by Midnight's surprisingly strong grasp, not being able to stop Midnight from reaching behind her mask to unclasp it. 

"No!" Kia stares at the unconscious body of Gouger and yells in frustration. "WAKE THE FUCK UP, IDIOT!"

"So loud~ Your friend is not going to wake up for a long time—"

"MY QUEEN!" 

Turning around just in time, Midnight avoids the sharp extrusions from Gouger. "...How?"

Kia quickly moves away, picking up one of her dropped batons before siding with Gouger, whom she questions. "Gouger! Did you resist her sleep?"

Gouger looked just as confused as everyone else. "I- I don't know. I just got up and knew what to do… you want to fight her, right?"

"Yeah, I don't think we can keep running. She's pretty confident she can take on two thugs. If you were awake, we could've gotten a surprise attack on her."

Shaking his head, Gouger winces at the mist still spreading around. "I- I didn't know I was awake."

"That doesn't make any sense! Here's the plan—"

He cuts Kia off. "Attack from multiple directions, correct? She can't defend well enough from both the front and the back."

"How did you know what I was going to say?"

"I just… knew."

Flinching from the click of heels, both of them stare daggers at Midnight, who was watching the entire time — busy processing how Gouger can suddenly break from the effects of her quirk. "Well then… I can take the two of you at the same time."

Enacting their plan, almost in perfect coordination, Gouger and Kia separated and eventually fought their way to being at opposite ends from Midnight. Despite their number advantage, Gouger was slowing down, showing that Kia had a limited amount of time before the effects of the mist worsened.

"It's now or never," Kia whispers to herself. "Gouger—"

"I know." He simply responds.

Midnight saw them circle her with Kia now away from the entrance and Gouger. With a determined eye staring, Kia made her final hurrah. They both charge in, Midnight turns to face Gouger and plans to deflect Kia's attack with a kick.

"Take this you old hag!" Kia yells, taking out her grappling hook and aiming.

…she misses.

Midnight stifles a chuckle. "Pft… nice try darling, you have to work on your aim."

"Took enough time for me to distract you." Kia smiles. "Yippee ki-yay, hero!"

Midnight hears a sound, only catching a glimpse of Gouger activating the jetpack and releasing it straight into her direction.

"FOR THE QUEEN!" Gouger proclaims, watching fuel burn into propulsion, giving the area a blinding flash of light. 

The jetpack slams right into Midnight, acting like a projectile that sends it to the opposite end of the warehouse. After Kia heard a big grunt and a few moments of respite and silence, she ran.

"C'mon, let's run!"

Gouger follows with loosening eyelids. "I- I'm too… sleepy…"

"Sleep and I'll kick your balls!"

"Yes! I'd like that…" Gouger dropped to the floor face first, an audible thump was heard. 

"Oh come on! After I tried so hard to not leave you behind… then there's him too." Kia stares next at Buster's incredibly bulky body, increasing the agony she feels. "How the hell am I going to carry both of you in such a short time?!"

A voice, panting hard, burst into the warehouse. "Queen! Holy shit!"

"Prophet!" She then stops to consider why he was there at such a perfect time. "Wait a second …Were you watching?!" Kia angrily questioned, assuming that Matsuura was only observing and not helping.

"Dumbass, have you not figured it out yet? I can get predictions within a day, it's a limited number and the amount depends on how consequential it is. I gambled and tried to make a prediction and found out if you're going to get arrested."

"Well, if you're here can you help me before the sadistic wench gets up?"

"...How'd you do it?"

"Ask questions later! And for the record, I'm never gonna do this again!" Kia swears.

A few minutes go by, taking a lot of effort from the two to pack up and leave before any random bystander notices the commotion. They had to leave in a hurry, leaving part of their stolen items still in the warehouse.

However, due to the sheer amount inside the packaging facility, they could still call it a profitable day despite being almost caught.

"Hot Hands, Gouger, and Buster were all heavy… ugh…" Heavily breathing and feeling safe to remove her mask inside the van, Kia asks, "How about on your end, what happened, Prophet?"

Matsuura recounted each moment in detail. "I came back after dropping off more support gear. Hot Hands was loading the next box before I saw the pink mist come down from above. Our gas masks came with luck, I didn't realize buying them as replacements to my old face mask would be helpful."

"I thought you could predict the future?"

"Only within the day, it was lucky that we had a counter to her, it's probably how we won. So anyway fortunately for me, Midnight didn't realize her quirk didn't have any effect so I drove away."

Kia nodded. "And that's where you made a prediction and came back?"

"Yes. On that note, I should probably ask a different question than 'Will we get hurt?'. That's the thing about my quirk, the answers to my questions can be misleading. The last time this happened was when I asked 'Will heroes catch us' a year ago. Time flies…"

Kia quietly leans on the window of the van, exhausted and ready to fall asleep. "How much will I get?"

"We'll figure out the payout in two days, I've got buyers lined up ready to purchase what we stole. All of it is safely stored somewhere, don't worry."

"Two days huh… I think I can live with that for a while."

"I'm curious, what happens after you pay off everything?"

Kia shrugged. "Dunno, pay everything off and become homeless again. Free from the obligations of having a job. I'll live off unemployment benefits!"

"...You do realise that those don't exist anymore, right? A few politicians argued that the quirkless were taking up the majority of those benefits and less than 2% of individuals with quirks enjoyed unemployment benefits. So a few years of debate they decided to cut it completely. It's to fund the increasing damages that the country receives in large-scale villain attacks and such, which is seen as more worth it than spending taxpayer money on the quirkless."

A shared silence spreads before Kia breaks down.

"...Aha …haha …aahhahhahhahahhhAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Kia wept a single tear. "I can't take it anymore… why have you forsaken me…?"

Matsuura sighs. "Why can't you just keep working with me?"

"I don't want to be a villain again." Kia strongly answered. "That was way too close! After this, I won't get myself into any kind of monetary promises. I'll probably sleep the entire day tomorrow."

"Suit yourself, just don't be depressed. I'm still expecting you to help me make my videos tomorrow though so don't laze around." 

Inside Kia's mind, a fire lit. Connecting the disconnected pieces of a plan together as she shouted in joy. "...THAT'S IT! I'll make videos and post them on the internet for people to give me money for!"

"...You mean like video making or streaming?"

"That's even better! Streaming means no editing and complicated stuff like that! I can do it, I'm hot!"

"Wow, you're so humble," Matsuura says with clear sarcasm.

"Yeah but admit it, if I make money by just filming what I do, then that's an easy life!"

"Sure… whatever you say." Matsuura mutters, "I'd bet a million you won't even make it past a week without complaining. I don't need my quirk to know that."

"Hmm? What'd you say?"

Matsuura shook his head, "Nothing..."