Maritza Esposito, also known as The Brave, is one of the main characters of the Hello Neighbor books and is one of the Secret Neighbor kids' classes. She is Enzo Esposito‘s younger sister.
"Though she's the most childest of the rescue squad, Maritza has the deepest personal connection to the Peterson story. As the third member of the original Golden Apple Young Inventors Club, she watched as first her pal Lucy Yi and then presumably her bestie Mya Peterson were destroyed by the insanity of the Neighbor. Despite her tragic part as the last survivor of this friend circle, Maritza remains an optimist in the face of Mr. Peterson's strange evil.
She knows that there are terrible things in this world, but she chooses to fight back with the hope that justice can be served."
Appearance
Maritza has blue hair and green-blue eyes. Her pink baseball cap is backwards on her head, and she has war paint drawn under her eyes. Maritza has a pink shirt under her blue overalls. On her back is a place to store her bat. Maritza also has black gloves, black elbow and knee pads, white shin-high socks and red and white sneakers. Her nose is small and she is short.
Her appearance can be changed thanks to the daily shop, or rather the things that are sold there. Some are complete outfit changes or palette changes.
Storyline
Hello Neighbor: Reset Day
Many years have passed since Nicky was in Raven Brooks, and Maritza's brother, Enzo, went missing on November 1st. Maritza is looking after Enzo's kids, Jess and Jordy. She is their Aunt. Raven Brooks has been caught in a time loop that randomly rewinds the date to November 2nd, a day after Enzo went missing. Maritza and Piper's father's cousin, Marcia Tillman all have special rings that stop them from being affected by the loop. Everyone but them acts as if Enzo just went missing, and every time the same events happen, but slightly changed. She is trying to find a way to get her brother back.
Strategy
As a Child
Keep in mind that you do not start out with the counter strike ability at the start of the match and that it must be charged up by throwing objects at Theodore. Make sure to have objects available in your inventory. If you see the Neighbor, immediately start throwing objects at him to power up the counter strike ability.
As a Neighbor
Maritza can be tough to catch due to her counter strike ability so make sure you catch her before she can throw enough objects at you to power it up.
Secret Neighbor Abilities
Counter-Strike
In a desperate attempt for escape, Maritza can use her Baseball Bat to escape from the Neighbor's grasp if she's caught. When Maritza destroys traps, disarms Smoke Traps, rescues teammates from the Neighbor's grasp, and rescues her fellow teammates if they've stepped in a trap, she will slowly charge her Counter-Strike ability, earn one charge per the action that is listed above. She needs 4 charges to use Counter-Strike. When Counter-Strike is fully charged, the next time she is caught by the Neighbor, a prompt will be displayed that tells the player they need to press the required button in order to use the ability and escape. When used, Brave will escape from the Neighbor's grasp, and will stun them for a short time.
Baseball (Passive)
You can fend off any objects coming right at you.
Trivia
- Her Halloween costume is a reference to one of the characters in SpeedRunners. This is the second reference to this game, the other one being the chocolate bar.
- Her cap existed way back to the Alphas. There used to be a cap that instead was green, instead of pink. The green cap was exclusive to the Alphas.
- Prior to the release of Secret Neighbor, she had only one ability - her Counter-Strike ability. In the Easter Alpha, the ability had a cool down, and in Beta, in order to use the ability, it was necessary to throw objects at The Neighbor 4 times.
- She is the 2nd youngest member of The Rescue Squad first one is Delroy
- Her passive ability, Baseball did not exist until the full release.
- Her surname, Esposito, is of Spanish origin.
- Her baseball bat is unusually small when using it for the Baseball ability.
- Brave is voiced by Alexander Dorokhin in Secret Neighbor and Hello Engineer.
- Her alias that she calls herself is “Cheetah” as said in the TV Pilot Episode of the Hello Neighbor Animated Series.
- This is considered ironic, as in Secret Neighbor, she is the second slowest kid class. With the slowest being Bagger.
- Her and her brother Live on the street new town, as stated in the Bad blood book.
- With the recent rework to Brave's Counter-Strike, Summer 2023, Brave no longer loses her Counter-Strike ability or it's progress if she gets caught and dropped by the Neighbor without using it.
- Brave cannot dropped her items if the Guest uses the ability "Scare Croak", on her, as her ability Counter Strike grants immunity towards it. This only works if the ability is fully charged.
- Many new players will attempt to damage the Neighbor with the Baseball ability, as they believe it does damage directly towards the Neighbor. (it doesn't.)
- Brave's model in Secret Neighbor used to have two black stripes on her face, but this was removed due to the release of the animated series: Hello Neighbor: Welcome To Raven Brooks.
- Brave has the most cosmetics out of all the classes, including both kid classes and Neighbor classes, in Secret Neighbor.
- Brave was considered a very powerful and imbalanced class before her much-requested-nerf in the Halloween 2020 Update.
Gallery
Secret Neighbor
Hello Engineer
Animated Series
Welcome to Raven Brooks
Appearances (Media)
Hello Neighbor: Missing Pieces - August 30, 2018
Hello Neighbor: Waking Nightmare - December 26, 2018
Hello Neighbor: Buried Secrets - July 30, 2019
Secret Neighbor - October 24, 2019
Hello Neighbor: Bad Blood - December 26, 2019
Hello Neighbor: Grave Mistakes - August 8, 2020
Hello Neighbor: Puzzle Master - December 29, 2020
Hello Neighbor: Reset Day - May 4, 2021
Hello Engineer - October 26, 2021
Hello Neighbor: Welcome to Raven Brooks - December 8, 2022
Hello Neighbor VR: Search and Rescue - February 22, 2023