"I thought managing chakra with split focus and ultra-fine control was the most exhausting thing imaginable—turns out dealing with reporters is even worse! Not everyone can be Tony Stark. The man banters with journalists as easily as breathing. That alone filters out ninety percent of would-be big shots!"
The President had no idea she was the subject of conversation elsewhere. Right now, she was simply exhausted.
Which was strange—a shadow clone was actually feeling tired.
Maya filed that away as another curious discovery about her technique. She didn't know whether Naruto's shadow clones could feel tired. She had plenty of chakra left, yet the fatigue was undeniable. Stranger still, the clone showed no signs of dispersing.
The President was a smart girl. She knew that when the clone eventually dissolved, every sensation and memory it had accumulated would flood back into her main body. The information load was already tipping toward critical. If she pushed any further, the sheer volume of experience dumping into her at once might knock her out cold.
On her way home, the President wasn't about to use the omni-directional mobility device—that thing was far too conspicuous. Someone would trace it back to her address. She'd never understood how Spider-Man managed to swing through the city on webs in an era where everyone had a camera phone, yet somehow nobody had ever tracked him down. She had zero confidence she could pull off the same trick.
She stuck to the old reliable method: shadow stealth, traveling on foot.
She was vaulting across a rooftop gap over a narrow alley when the sound of a woman's voice reached her—sharp and angry.
Another creep who can't keep it in his pants. Maya's blood ran hot at the sight of anything like this. She banked immediately and headed toward the noise.
"You said there was a cheap hotel around here!"
"Ha—come back to my place, sweetheart. Won't cost you a dime."
"That's right, the boys and I'll keep you company. Free room and entertainment—how great is that?"
"Oh, wonderful. So the hotel was a lie, and now you're after me? You're really not thinking straight, are you?"
Maya dropped down for a closer look—and almost laughed. The woman clutching a large shopping bag was the same one she'd spotted at the Star Wars screening that afternoon.
It was obvious she wasn't a New York local. She'd gone absolutely wild with merchandise earlier, and now she'd burned through her cash and had nothing left for a hotel room.
Recognizing a familiar face, Maya relaxed and decided to watch how the blonde handled herself first.
"Come on, Paul, stop wasting time talking," said one of them—a white guy with a rooster comb of hair, dark eyeliner smudged around his eyes. "This little blonde is smokin'. I'm done waiting."
He didn't bother checking with his friends. He just leered and reached for her.
The woman sidestepped without so much as blinking and drove her heel into the back of his knee.
"AUGH!" The rooster-head hit the pavement, clutching his leg and howling.
One of the other men—big, broad-shouldered, dark—pulled out a butterfly knife and started flicking it through his fingers. The remaining two closed in from either side.
Even then, the woman showed no sign of panic. She looked at her shopping bag. She hesitated between setting it on the ground and keeping hold of it, clearly trying to figure out which option was worse for the merchandise inside.
She's not worried about the three guys, Maya realized. She's worried about her figures getting damaged.
Having personally witnessed how protective this woman was of her collectibles, Maya stopped waiting and stepped out.
"Hey, guys. Three against one? Come on."
"Screw you, you freak—my hand, my hand, it's broken, it hurts, it hurts—"
Maya didn't give him time to finish. She crossed the distance in two strides and snapped his pointing arm at the elbow with a sharp kick—crack—then spun and drove her foot into the groins of the other two in rapid succession before they could react. Both dropped, eyes rolling back, and went still.
At this point, taking down a few street thugs didn't even require jutsu. Pure physical conditioning was enough to overpower most burly men—she was a mid-level shinobi, after all.
A mid-level shinobi with a permanent limp, but still.
From the moment Maya had stepped out, Carol had put her shopping bag carefully against the wall and fixed her eyes on this cross-dressing freak in a spider-emblazoned suit. The thugs had never worried her. The figures had. But this person radiated something that put her on high alert—and those precise, devastating kicks only confirmed it.
"Hey, relax," Maya said, noticing the wariness. "I'm one of the good guys."
"The last few 'good guys' said the same thing."
"I'm Spider-Man. I'm a pretty well-known superhero in New York City. If you don't believe me, turn on any TV—I'm in the news. Actually, that fire tonight? The Golden Crown Building? I pulled out dozens of people. I saw you were about to get victimized by those punks. So here I am." A mix of truth and convenient embellishment.
"...Really?"
Carol wavered. The fire was a little far away, but she'd noticed it. And if this person was saying it was on TV—
The thugs sprawled on the pavement chose that moment to provide the best possible endorsement.
"Holy—you're the Spider-Man from today? The one at the fire?"
"Oh my God, it really is him—look at that device on his belt. We are so unlucky."
"Spider-Man, please—we're sorry, we'll never do it again, just please—"
That settled it for Carol. The wariness faded and she began studying this strange, oddly dressed "Spider-Man" with open curiosity.
"Fine. You're off the hook," Maya told the thugs, "after you hand over everything in your wallets. Compensation—for her."
When they hesitated, she slapped the black device on her hip. A thin black wire shot out and coiled around the nearest thug before he could blink.
She ignored his yelp and bounced him off both alley walls a few times. His howls echoed satisfyingly between the brick.
"OKAY OKAY—I'll give her the money, all of it, just stop!"
Once she released him, the man dug out his wallet with trembling hands. His two able-bodied companions frantically turned out their own pockets, producing a few crumpled bills and some loose change. At Maya's quiet instruction, they even rifled through the unconscious men's pockets.
When they finally staggered away dragging their friends, Maya tallied the haul and handed it to the short-haired woman.
Just over a hundred dollars. Honestly more than expected—she'd figured ten or fifteen, tops.
The woman made no move to take it. Maya tilted her head. "What's wrong? Think the money's dirty? It's not—they earned this. Besides, technically I'm the one who took it."
Carol blinked, looking genuinely confused.
"What? I was just thinking about whether I should just make do somewhere tonight and save this for a Darth Vader mask tomorrow."
Maya—