Friendly Paws to the Rescue!

It begged to be believed, but the loud-mouth superstar of the Legendary 12 was here to enforce justice. The acute voice, the mask that only covered the top half of her face, the messy mane of hair, the glowing magical claws, even the tail that seemed to move on it’s own. Friendly Paws was here to kick some ass, and it was hard for me to fight the urge to stand up and cheer her on.

“Well, if it isn’t one of the legendary losers.” The villain turned his attention towards Paws, looking and sounding like he was attempting to hide his fear behind a mask of indifference. It was failing spectacularly, and I almost felt bad for him. Until I remembered that he was about to skewer Regina a moment ago, which made me want to see him get his butt kicked even more than I had before.

“Big talk for someone using the utensil drawer for ammo.” Paws laughed at him as she pointed one of her claws at herself. “Come on, why don’t you shoot me with them? I bet I can cut each of them in half. Twice. With my eyes closed.” She retracted the claws from one hand and used it to cover her eyes. “Come on, I’ll even do it one-handed. Surely, even someone as sad as you has to believe that they have a shot in that case?”

“Man, that catgirl is destroying you dude.” Regina commented, reminding everyone in the shop that she was, in fact, still standing and casually drinking as if she was watching live entertainment rather than a dangerous fight. Sadly, but luckily for us, that was common enough to happen during fights involving big name heroes that the people around us just assumed she was dumb.

“Do I need to remind you what I was about to do?” The guy asked, incredibly annoyed but sounding far less intimidating that he had done a moment ago. It was obvious that his confidence was getting shredded. Not much unlike his weapons, in fact. “What the hell?” He screamed, stepping back as he saw that Friendly Paws had taken advantage of his distraction to reduce his arsenal.

In just as few seconds, Paws had jumped around and ruined a solid fifth of the artillery. I wasn’t quite sure why she didn’t strike the guy directly, since he might be able to use the scrap as shrapnel if he was smart, but I supposed that this could simply be the case of a cat playing with her food.

Speaking of, she was laughing like a maniac one she landed. “Aw man, I really wanted you to accept my offer earlier, but I couldn’t resist the chance when you decided to ignore me.” She shot a glance at Regina. “Hey lady, mind offering another distraction? I think I could probably cut all of it if I gave it an honest shot?”

Regina nodded and finished her drink. “Sure, one second.” She walked towards a nearby table that conveniently had a jug of water on it, and I suddenly wished that I had fought harder to make her wear a bra. Sure enough, she spilled the whole thing on top of her blouse. The waterfall made her top transparent and ended up wetting the front of her slacks as well. Since there were surely people recording this from the moment Paws arrived, there was zero chance that this won’t be shared all across the internet within an hour. There went any chance I could ever reuse this look for her.

“Holy shit I need to copy that eventually.” Rose commented next to me, and I chastised myself for forgetting she was there. Honestly, how come this happened so often, involving her specifically? It seemed too fishy for her to not have some sort of passive power that made people forget about her. God, that would be such an awful thing to have. “But, argh, that’s too explicit for the things I want to upload for the first few months. What do you think Hera, should I try to chase the trend or stick to my plan?”

I swallowed audibly, not wanting to think about the even bustier lady to my right doing that. I definitely didn’t want to think about how hot it would be either. God, what’s wrong with me, thinking of that at a moment like this? “Let’s leave talking about that stuff for when none or us are in mortal danger.” I diplomatically tried to avoid the question.

“I doubt Regina can be in that much danger with the way she’s acting.” Rose rolled her eyes. “I mean, her boobs are bigger than I remember them being, so I’m assuming you also made her hard like a diamond or something like that. Like, that would explain how chill she’s about all of this.”

Honestly, I had no idea if something could hurt Regina, much less maim or kill her. On the other hand, Rose didn’t know that, and if I could get her to be too worried about our friend rather than to be making lewd comments at a time like this, then I would conveniently warp the truth a little bit. “Okay, so, that tracks if we were talking about a smart and rational person. When has Regina given you the slightest indication that she’s anything like that?”

It took a moment, but her eyes went wide. “Oh shit, Regina is just brave and stupid, isn’t she?”

I silently nodded, which made me reflect on how quiet the room was. One would imagine that the cutting of metal would be far less mute than what was being indicated. Paying attention to the heroine and the villain once more, I noticed that they were equally entranced with the display.

Regina laughed. “I’m flattered, but didn’t you ask me to do this so you could take advantage of it to get rid of the rest of the utensils?” Once she pointed this out, Friendly Paws stabbed the villain a dozen times across his arms and legs. The barrage only lasted a few seconds, but it succeeded in making him crumble to the ground in excruciating pain. Of course, the feline lady never stopped staring at my friend’s wet chest as she mindlessly took care of taking out the trash.

Seeing as the threat had been neutralized, people felt to stop hiding and erupt in cheer. This was enough to help Paws return back to earth, who covered her eyes in what I could only assume was embarrassment over her massive level of thirst. However, she was not ashamed enough to reject a hug from the person who helped her take down the bad guy.

“This is great, two days and Regina’s already a more successful hero than me thanks to sex appeal alone. This is a complete disaster.” I whined as I helped Rose get up. She might have been able to take cover on her own, but there was no way she could get out from under her table with that set of badonkers.

“How’s that a problem? Regina is not trying to steal the spotlight from you, is she? You’ll get to do some heroics eventually.” Rose reasoned, and she was right. But that didn’t necessarily help me feel better.

“I mean, I know that. But at the same time, it’s frustrating, you know? I’m the one who wants to be a hero. To help people, save civilians and work with other caped crusaders. Why aren’t I doing that?” I know how dumb and childish I sounded as I said those things. It was really mean for me to be annoyed that Regina was doing good stuff for others, didn’t mean that’s not how I felt.

“Come on Hera, you’re time will come.” Rose put a hand on your shoulder. “Can I tell you something, from one girl who wants a following to another?”

I tried to deny that I wanted a following, but she looked at me in a way that said ‘Don’t even try to lie to me like that when I’m trying to do something nice’. I supposed that it could be interpreted by others that I wanted a following and it was better to not discuss that. “Alright, say it.”

“You had a lucky break when getting those powers, a lucky break that’s big enough for others to come your way eventually. Does it really matter that your first two chances to make a splash as a hero didn’t pan out? You can literally have as many chances as you want, something will come up to make you look good. Worry less about what didn’t work out and more about not wasting whatever will eventually present itself.” Rose calmly explained, shooting me a smile when she stopped talking. For someone who I had such a poor first impression of, I was starting to like her quite a lot.

I didn’t realize that I had lost myself in Rose’s eyes until Regina snapped me out of it by throwing her arms over our shoulders. “Hey, so, if we want to hang somewhere else now that the coffee shop idea didn’t work out, I would like to hear ideas. Cause the Catgirl told me that she has a free couple of hours if we do.”

“Wait, what the fuck?” I blurted, barely comprehending the words I just heard.

“Yeah, I went and asked for her number, and when I told her that I would have to write it down on paper cause I didn’t have a phone yet, she told me that she wanted to hang out about nowish to compensate. Since, you know, we won't be talking for a while otherwise.” She then waved at Friendly Paws, who looked infatuated. “What do you think?” She whispered to us.

On the one hand, I dreaded the idea to personally meet one of the twelve as a civilian who hadn't even developed the basics of an heroic persona. On the other hand, it was a chance to hang out with my girls and Friendly fucking Paws.