Going after some nefarious chemists

"So," the veteran vigilante behind the wheel of the nondescript armored car you're riding shotgun in asks casually, "You're pretty new to street level stuff, right Bunny? I mean, let's get real - even if you have a few pulls of the trigger behind you, you were having your hand held the whole way. A whole staff of officers and technicians micromanaging your schedule, seeing to every last detail of your supplies... transport, reconnaissance, training, conditioning, all taken care of for you."

He points at you with his half-smoked cigar, barely even bothering to watch the road and chuckling darkly. "Here's where... lemme guess what you're thinking: here's where you think I'm about to say that I'm gonna show you the ropes, put you through my own little carefully choreographed series of challenges and object lessons, and mentor you like capes do."

You stare. "Um," is the best you can manage.

"Nope." He says offhandedly, placing his focus back on the road. "That ain't me. I'm not out here to teach you anything. I'm not out here to do... anything... for you." He jabs the glowing ember of tobacco at you for emphasis on particular words. "This isn't Crimefighting 101. This is the mid-term exam. Because... to be quite honest, the mentor thing just isn't worth it. Half the time, the kid who's shown so much promise just goes to pieces the first time the other shoe drops or things get a little rough. A lot of people aren't cut out for it. Not to put too fine a point on it, but a lot of women aren't, especially. The reason I brought you out here is because I can use you. You're going to have to figure out how to survive off the grid, source your gear, and all that on your own time. Are we on the same page? Can you handle that?"

Although you feel a bit shaken by his bluntness, you bite your lip and look away towards the darkened streets speeding by outside. "Yeah, it's no problem. If I get a chance to kick some ass right away where you can see it, maybe I can... maybe I can nip this high-handed attitude you're taking in the bud!" you retort. It comes out sounding a little ****, but Jokester seems satisfied.

"Stranger things have happened." he says. "So, getting down to brass tacks - you're fresh out of the service and have no enemies. Even better, you've got no friends who are too nosy for their own good. So it makes good sense for me to use you to help feel out the room, you know? If a waif like you goes flouncing in first, you're less likely to get an ambush sprung on you or an alarm raised through the underworld grapevine. The reason I'm not telling you very much is because sometimes, the less you know going in, the safer you are, just on account of not doing anything suspicious. Besides, I have a... funny feeling," he waggles his thick black eyebrow at you, "that covert infiltration isn't really your strong suite. Those titanium clogs on your feet probably make more noise than that five-five-sixer on your back."

"Makes sense." you say with a quick nod. "Need to know basis, sir yes sir! Hey, can I break in for a second here? Are we working with anyone else? I mean, you're most famous for having been on so many great teams... both before and after you split with the League. Anyone I'd know from the papers going to be there?"

"Funny you should mention that." Jokester says. "So, assuming you've been eating your carrots and aren't blind - you did notice that I've been driving in circles on the highway, here?"

"Oh, uhh..." you jerk your head back towards the window. "Yeah, of course... what's that about?"

"We're waiting for a, mmm.... partner-slash-protege of mine, you might say, to finish borrowing a few files from the offices of said League, so we can compare notes and make sure that you and I are headed to the right place. I never was any good at third party introductions so I'll let her show herself off to you, when we meet and debrief some time around dawn. I dunno if you'll have heard of her, but one thing you've got to learn is that a lot of the most important, and most dangerous characters out there see the wisdom of staying out of the media spotlight."

Jokester presses a button on the console and a wireless telephone built into it makes a call. It rings quite a lot before finally being picked up. A throaty female voice comes across: "Keep it in your pants, will you? I'm not done up here. I haven't even finished getting all of the files collected, nevermind having had a chance to look at them."

Shaking his head theatrically and giving you an exasperated gesture, Jokester sighs over the radio. "You're killing me here, Bones. We're in the middle of the prime-time comedy hour. In an hour, any deal that we might have a chance of busting in on is going to be done with, nobody does anything interesting within two hours of first light. Just flip through the file on the new dealer in town and give us the first address you find.

There's a pause. "...There's someone else out there with you? Hmph... fine. Don't blame me if it turns out to be a dead end or worse. I'm looking at... 1797 Red Cap Court, a grocery mega-mart closed for renovations out at the edge of the suburbs, looks like there have been sales of the new stuff pouring through there. But listen - I still want to talk about what I had to go through on that last mission. I'm not just complaining for the sake of complaining, this is important-"

"Yeah, yeah." the vigilante next to you grumbles, his eyes already focusing on a map as he pulls over to the roadside. "You did great, and I really appreciated it. We can talk when you get back to the bolt hole and meet Gun Bunny here." Before his mystery partner has a chance to respond, Jokester punches a button and cuts her off.

"Alright Bunny, we're off to the races. The loading bay is gonna be watched, so you'll be going in through the skylight. Try not to stomp around TOO hard up there, 'kay? And I don't care what your nickname is - you don't put your finger any where near a trigger until somebody else fires the first shot."

Your momentary curiosity and trepidation based on what this other heroine had been trying to say is washed away in a flood of excitement. "Yeah, I'm raring to go - but come on, big guy, you have to tell me a little something about what we're after! I mean, it'll be even more suspicious if I bounce in not knowing what I'm even looking for!"

He shrugs and stubs out the cigar, at last. "Well, alright, but I warn you, it's not as colorful or high stakes as you might've been hoping for on your first op. A well-known **** lord, who got **** into retirement after narrowly beating a rap sheet the Feds threw at him, just kicked the bucket a couple months ago. What the Feds don't want anybody to know is that the whole reason this guy got off with a slap on the wrist is because some of the 'candy' he'd cooked up turned out to be really useful for intelligence operations... so, they contracted some laboratory to discretely produce it for them. Problem is, not 3 days after Frankie Greene - that's the pusher pushin' up daisies - is declared dead in the papers, word comes down through the underworld that his organization is being called back together. Coming out of its cocoon, you might say. The stuff Mr. Greene got notorious for selling has already overflowed the usual crime dens and started showing up in schools, youth camps, all those kinds of reporter-bait places. And sure enough - the staff of that lab, with all the formulas in their hands, is nowhere to be found."

Pausing a moment, he swerves down a blind alley with such suddenness that you lurch forward, before coming to a total stop. Nonchalantly, he reaches one arm out for your benefit (you hadn't buckled your seatbelt - what kind of anti-hero wears a seatbelt, you'd thought?!) and gets a good press against your chest for a second. Squish. You make an insulted sound, but Jokester just doesn't acknowledge it at all and goes on talking, though you think you see the hint of a smirk. "Those showboating assholes at the League of Propriety are sitting on it until it gets to be a bigger problem. They always want to let things get as bad as possible before they do anything about it. Too bad for them, the reawakened Greene organization is getting stepped on tonight." he makes a stiff-jawed pose, and then chuckles and shakes his head a little. "That, or we go poking through a bunch of boring, dusty buildings until we give up a few hours later feeling exhausted and useless."

He slides the door open and takes a look at the darkened, boarded up building up ahead of where you're parked using some kind of binocular-like gadget. "I've got a good feeling about this place, though. Looking pretty hot in there, upwards of 90 degrees. And see?" he motions to a small, beat-up old Japanese car. "Somebody parked out in the fuckin' open there. Well, you're up. I'll be going in through the side and observing while you go in through the roof and test the waters. Knock 'em dead, Buns."

A leap, a bound, and there you are on the roof. This time you try to land softly. It doesn't work - you still make an almighty clunk. "Oh well." you sigh. "Damned if I'm gonna tuck and roll on filthy roofing tarpaper covered in bird droppings. "Alright. No time for stage fright now. I've been given a huge opportunity - no, a huge responsibility. There's real evil in there, and I need to search and destroy! RRRRR! War face!" Unfortunately, because of your sound-amplifying "rabbit ear" headband, you can hear just how squeaky and un-threatening your voice sounds. "Well..." you say, puffing out your chest and dusting yourself off, eyeing the skylight window, "...anyway, if anyone makes fun of me, or my stupid playboy bunny stripper outfit, or my name... let alone tries to draw on me... it will be the last mistake they'll ever make! HEEYAAH!"

It's only when you're in midair that you realize two things.

One: If this is a red herring, you might be about to commit vandalism and trigger a silent alarm.

Two: All of the superheroines you've watched crashing through windows on the news over the years have always had armored costumes or durable superhuman skin. You don't.

And so, as you come crashing down through the glass, you do so in a curled up, face-buried in your hands crouch... looking, as luck would have it, quite like a frightened rabbit. At least your show of cringing protects you from any lacerations.

The air is... surprisingly fresh and pleasant in here. Much nicer than outside, actually. As you bound upright once more and look around, you see that you are surrounded by a huge assortment of potted plants of every size and shape - so many that you can't even see the exits or the walls. It seems like every single derelict aisle has been filled with them. Your first thought is that you've jumped in on a ****-growing operation... but then, why are the plants all different kinds? None of them look like ****-producing plants either.

A flash of movement and color overhead makes you gasp and you backpedal, reaching for your gun with shaking hands... but when you focus on it, the amorphous shape turns out to be a cluster of pretty little butterflies, agitated by your sudden entrance and making for the new hole.

A male voice starts to speak from on the other side of a row of bushes. "Wha-mfff!" It sounds very much like someone started to loudly ask a (probably stupid) question only to immediately catch themselves, or be muffled roughly by a third party's hand (probably the latter).

It doesn't worry you at all if they have guns. Your capabilities were tested extensively in the weapon program - the lynchpin of your design is that, because of your rabbit-derived reaction time, you can re-position faster than any non-super-powered gunman can aim at you. Hell, they'd come up with a whole training curriculum for using it, a new proto-martial-art that your trainers had dubbed "Bunny Hopping".

So, you walk out into the main annex of the plant-and-butterfly-choked store with your hands up. "Hellooooo~ I'm coming out, I've got my hands up, I juuuust want to talk!" You say in your best singsong voice.