Hawks is having a long day. One where he's found out that the incredibly amoral girl he met over a year ago can apparently turn into a dragon. Not only that, but apparently she sleep eats and sleep flies. Adding even more to the point of making this a long day for him is the fact that when she's fully transformed, his feathers can't even exert enough pressure through her scales to get her attention!
At least he can take solace in the fact that none of the guards got caught up in her 'meal' back at the prison. He's pretty sure she didn't eat all the prisoners before she took off again though, and since she knocked a hole in one of the walls, he called in some heroes to deal with the inevitable escape attempts.
He wouldn't be nearly so stressed if he could at least figure out where she's going.
After today, Hawks decides that he needs a vacation. Not a short one either, the month Mera promised is not nearly enough to make him feel better. Probably something closer to half a year? And that was before whatever bullshit the current situation is. So if he has to suffer through whatever the hell this new development is, so does Mera.
"...Can you repeat that?"
Hawks doesn't even have the energy to poke fun at the perpetually exhausted man, and oh, does he see the irony in that thought. "What looks like two girls are piloting a flying bathtub dragging a net filled with gold through the sky. A large net, the kind fishermen use."
"...Hawks," his boss says over the earpiece in a dead serious voice, "I understand that this is an incredibly stressful situation, but that does not mean that you should be taking hallucinogens to deal with it."
Hawks sputters at the unwarranted accusation. "Wha- You- Ho-" Eventually he just throws his hands up in the air. "You know what? Fuck you." And with those two words he turns off his earpiece, determined to not turn it on again until the end of the day. Actually, maybe he'll leave it off for a week. He deserves a break before his vacation. Still, for now he has to deal with… the flying… bathtub girls…
He sighs heavily as he swoops down towards them, still keeping one eye on Izumi. Oh, and would you look at that, Hawks thinks to himself sardonically. Now that I'm going towards people now she wants to follow me! He's not too young to retire, right? Plenty of people retire and become hermits at his age! He lets out a heavy sigh that's taken by the wind rushing past his descent.
Now that he's closer, he can actually make out more details. Turns out that he was right about both of them being girls! A blonde and a pink-haired one, respectively, and it looks like the pink one is the one piloting the bathtub. Meanwhile the blonde is standing and… waving something at him?
He slows down once he's within earshot, which is much farther than most people would think due to some quirk mutations in his ear canals. Which is why he can hear the blonde screaming profanities at him.
"-carrion piece of shit! I'll slow roast you in a honey glaze over a fire! I'll cut enough pieces out of you that I could use you as a Izumi-damned strainer!"
Well then. Looks like these two know about the girl. At least enough to swear by her name? Does Izumi have a cult? He feels like he wouldn't be surprised if she does. It seems like the kind of thing that she'd find funny. Especially if they go out committing arson in her name. He should probably let someone know about that later. Maybe after his year-long vacation.
Unfortunately he isn't close enough yet to hear what pink says to her, but it's enough to divert the blonde's attention. Though she continues to shout, thus allowing Hawks to keep up with at least part of the conversation. Not that he's particularly interested in the girl's interest in either eating him or using his body in meal preparation. Should he be concerned that young girls seem to keep wanting to eat him?
By the time he's gotten close enough to hear Pink's voice, he's fully assured that the two girls have more than a passing acquaintance with Izumi. At least enough that they feel protective of her and came all the way up here to make sure Hawks isn't bullying her??? He can't help but feel offended at that; there's no way he'd go around bullying a child!
`~`
A crow headed boy abruptly sneezes, drawing a chorus of bless you from his friends, which he waves off with silent thanks before looking off into the distance dramatically. "Space-time has had its veil pulled away, but for just a moment, or sometime more?"
His attempts at sounding ominous and wise are brought to a crashing train wreck when his constant companion that - at their friends' insistence -has claimed the name of Maleficent Nightingale comes out of his chest, grabs the cup of frozen yogurt in front of him, and shoves a spoonful of the frozen treat into his mouth.
"Shut up and enjoy your food."
`~`
If anything, he's the one being bullied! Not that he'd ever say anything like that out loud, of course. He may have been raised by an entire organization of corrupt individuals as a weapon, but he still has some sense of pride!
"I'll have you know that Izumi and I are actually pretty good friends," he says once he's close enough, interrupting their argument on the merits of attacking him. They look at him in surprise before turning to each other, seeming to communicate silently for a moment before sharing nods.
"Prove it," Pink says, and he gets the feeling that she's glaring at him through her goggles. "What's Boss' favorite food?"
Given how much she ate when he took her out for chicken wings, he really, really wishes he could give that as his answer. But given the reason he took her there in the first place… "People." Hawks says with all the casual confidence he can muster. And to showcase how unworried he is about his answer, he glances over his shoulder to check on the sleepy dragon girl.
Keeping a steady distance behind us, even though we turned away from where she was going originally. Can she sense that these two are nearby? If so, why is she interested in following them? Returning his attention to the girls, he sees Pink frowning and Blonde tapping her chin with a…knife?
He's just going to stop questioning things at this point. A dragon quirk? Sure, why not. Said girl with a dragon quirk hating people saying it's a quirk? Reasonable. Two girls flying a bathtub with enough gold to buy a town? No problem. One of said girls being overly familiar with knives? Perfectly natural!
Said blonde points the knife at him with narrowed eyes. "That was too easy; if you're really Izumi's friend; tell us her last name!"
Hawks can't help but let out an internal sigh of relief. Thanks to the investigation he conducted into that elementary school they passed over back when he first met he can actually answer this. In fact, he's opening his mouth to do so when his instincts start screaming at him, forcing his voice to stall in his throat.
He whips his body around to look at Izumi, fully prepared to let himself drop and use his feathers to drag the girls with him. But he finds that's unnecessary, as she's still sleep flying behind him. But if that's the case, then what set his instincts off?
Turning back to the girls once again with a frown on his face, he tries to figure out what his instincts were trying to warn him about. Because whatever it was, they're silent now. He hums to give the impression that he's thinking as his eyes scan over the bathtub and the girls. Nothing too alarming, apart from the knife the blonde is rolling across her knuckles like a coin. One of Pink's hands is out of sight as well, so it's safe to say that if he answers wrong that they're going to attack him. So he opens his mouth to answer once again before his instincts scream, once again.
But why!? All he's doing is telling them Izumi's last name! Why is that enough to-
"My name is Hawks."
The girl smirks as she holds out her own hand. "Izumi. Something tells me this is the start of a beautiful friendship."
She never told me her last name, Hawks realizes. And while that's unusual, why would she give her real first name but not even a fake last name? He didn't think too much of it at the time, but could there be something more to it? Does she simply not use her last name? And why are the girls not reacting? If they're giving him the chance to answer and prove he's friends with Izumi, then shouldn't they be getting suspicious that it's taking so long for him to answer? Or are they waiting because it's not suspicious?
What if Izumi never gives out her last name?
Silently praying that he's not about to get engaged in an air fight with a couple of teenagers, he gives his answer. "She doesn't use one. Or at least, she didn't back when we first met. As far as I'm concerned, she's just Izumi."
The girls stare at him for several tense moments, saying nothing. Then the blonde breathes out a sigh of disappointment as she twists her wrist, vanishing the knife in her hand down her sleeve with a flourish. "Boo. I was hoping for some mid-flight chicken."
Hawks lets loose a startled laugh, inconspicuously wiping the sweat off his forehead. Too close. For his instincts to have been that loud, these girls have to be dangerous. "You know, Izumi said basically the same thing when we met. Just about cleaned out my bank account when I offered to buy her all the chicken she wanted instead."
Pink looks at him in shock. "Seriously? How did you not go into debt!?"
Hawks shrugs. "The HPSC reimbursed me for half of it, and she didn't eat too much." That's a lie. She ate enough chicken to buy a brand new car. A nice one. Still, he waves the question aside in the hopes of getting what information he can about what they're doing here.
"So, care to explain how you managed to catch such a good haul while sky fishing?" He tilts his head in the direction of the net and is rewarded with a snort of laughter from Knifey before she answers.
"Ha! Well, someone kind of woke up Izumi when she's supposed to be asleep, and since she won't just wake up, wake up, we decided to bring her back home."
The hero raises an eyebrow as he digests the new information, making note that his question remained unanswered. For one, that they knew that the girl was woken up. That alone is interesting since, despite flying far, far slower than the time the two raced, she's still faster than any news copter can go. Which means that either they heard something about a 'dragon' and automatically assumed it would be her, or they have some way of monitoring her.
The second is that they're extremely confident in being able to lead her home, even without being able to wake her. Which would be extremely useful if something like this happens again. Maybe I should get Mera back on the line and ask him to look into these two… Then he remembers that he fucking hates Mondays and renews his resolve to take a week and a day off before talking to his boss again.
"Mind if I join you?" Ask the red winged hero. Knowing where the girl lives could be helpful for a variety of reasons. Not least of all the HPSC can try and make sure something like this doesn't happen again.
Pink shrugs. "I don't mind. And if you're really friends with Boss, I don't think she would either. She doesn't have a lot of them, I think."
Hawks raises a doubtful eyebrow at that claim. "Well, considering the two of you came all the way out here just to make sure she gets home, I'd say she prefers quality over quantity."
For some reason that gets raucous laughter from both girls. When one of them manages to calm down enough to answer, she bares a mouth full of sharpened teeth in a wide smile. "Oh, we are much more than friends~."
The pink one smirks at him, and he honestly can't tell which of the two he finds more intimidating. "We're part of her Hoard. And that's much better than friendship."
`~`
The DAB representatives and head of the HPSC all breathe sighs of relief together, tension leaving their shoulders at Hawks' report.
According to him; the girl returned to her Lair without causing any further trouble and made herself comfortable before laying down to sleep again. He was also able to confirm that Endeavor is in fact the one who disturbed her in the first place, though he needed to scrape what was left of him off the floor so the man's family could hold a funeral with the actual remains.
When asked about how he could be sure it was Endeavor's body he found if it was left in that state, he gave credit to an invention made by one of the 'bathtub girls' that were flying around. He also claimed that they were the ones to get the dragon-quirked girl back to her 'lair'. He didn't do anything to try and bring them to HPSC headquarters because, in his words; "I enjoy being alive. Get someone suicidal to do suicidal things."
Thankfully he at least got their names before he separated from them. Mera will just have to look into Mei Hatsume and Himiko Toga at a later date. But for now…
He turns to the DAB representatives with a headache pounding away at him. "Since it's obvious we're going to be seeing a lot more of each other, how about you give it to me straight: What's the deal with this Izumi girl?"