The Trophy Hunters Part Two

A competing thief has compromised the Black Cat’s secret identity and now her mother is in danger. As she races through the city in her car, Felicia calls her informant, the Poet, to go to ground and also warn her tech crew in Brooklyn as well.

Felicia arrives at the retirement home where her mother lives and learns that someone has already come by to visit her mother. She rushes back to her car to change into her costume and goes into her mother’s room. There she finds a phone with instructions to hit redial.

Her mother’s kidnapper proves that her mother is all right and then orders her to steal the Makarova Tiara that is being kept in Muzeul Bucuresti in the next seven days in order to get her mother back. The Black Cat then scrambles across the city getting the things she needs to travel overseas and carry out this heist. Along the way, Spider-Man approaches her to ask what’s going on. She won’t talk to him and tells him to leave her to handle this situation, saying it doesn’t involve him. When this gets through to the web-slinger he leaves her alone. However, the Cat has a feeling this does involve Spider-Man and doesn’t want him to get anywhere near it.

She soon arrives at her safe house where the Poet, Tami, and Kyoko are already working on the heist in Bucurest. The Poet has also determined what is in common with all of the items their mystery thief has been stealing: They all have ties to the Kravinoff family. The Black Cat already had suspicions and is not happy to have them confirmed.

Little do they know is that the thief is a long time Kravinoff family friend Vasili Sidorov. He is stealing all of the items back as they used to belong to the Kravinoff family before the Russian revolution. Even now, he is showing his latest successes to Ana Kraivinoff who is impressed with the work that Vasili is doing. That’s when her mother, Sasha Kravinoff, enters the room and tells her to join her brother in the salle d’armes.

Back in America, the Poet and Kyoko argue over what Vasili’s motivations could be. Meanwhile, the Black Cat and Tami are researching what other items are still out there since the tiara is not the last item on Sidorov’s list. She wants the team to enact the same plan they did on their Amsterdam heist. The Black Cat then travels to Romania under the alias Sadie Hopkirk. Over the next few days, Felicia cases the museum to figure out the security systems. Her team is confident they can infiltrate the museum except when it comes to the guard dogs that protect the place.

That night, the Black Cat breaks into the museum and intentionally sets off the alarm and hides in the tiara’s display case. When the guards and their dogs check they think the thief is somewhere else in the museum and leave. This allows the Black Cat to get out of her hiding place and steal the tiara and escape undetected. She then smuggles the tiara into America inside an acrylic sculpture. She then calls her mother’s captor and makes an arrangement to exchange the loot for her mother. After some bickering on how they can trust to each other, Vasili and Felicia make an agreement on pick-up locations. The Cat only agrees if she is allowed to talk to her mother on speakerphone the whole time.

As Vasili goes to pick up the tiara, the Black Cat goes to the location he has given her. However, along the way she asks her mother for clues to determine her location. The address he was given is out near the airport, but her mother hasn’t heard airplanes and figures she is in an apartment building or similar building. Although she expects that he gave her a bogus address, this is why she had her team plant a tracking device on the loot.[1] Sure enough, Vasili doesn’t find it and is unaware that the Black Cat is now following him. After dropping the tiara off at a storage depot, he heads back to where he is keeping Felicia’s mother. As she arrives on the scene, Felicia asks her mother to trust her and do exactly as she says.

When Vasili enters the room, Lydia tells Vasili that her daughter is waiting outside his storage unit and she knows that he wants her to also steal a sword as well.

Recurring Characters

Black Cat, Spider-Man, Ana Kravinoff, Sasha Kravinoff, Vasili Sidorov, Lydia Hardy, Kyoko, Tami, Poet

Continuity Notes

1. Lydia Hardy mentions how her daughter kissed Spider-Man on live television. See Amazing Spider-Man #606-607.