My old BFF

“Hey Pepper, it’s me. Hera.”

I had known Pepper since kindergarten, and we had become best friends within a month of talking to each other for the first time. Lots of kids were into superheroes at that age, but they mostly just knew about Galaxy Geoff, Shawn of the Waves or Lady Hades. Pepper? She was the only other person who could list all the members of ‘The Protectors’ by heart. We went to the same schools for the entirety of our K-12 education, and for the majority of that timespan, we spent each and every recess talking about superheroes in some way or another. Who was the strongest, who was the coolest, who would be the most fun to hang out with. And once puberty hit, it became quite obvious that she had a few crushes on different heroines.

I wasn’t gay at the time (what a wild sentence to think about), so I didn’t really have much to contribute to discussions like ‘Do you think Lady Hades is a better kisser than Serenity?’. I was glad that, even in middle school, she found other friends who would be a lot more interested in talking about that with her, but I also sadly felt like that was the start of us drifting apart. Then, the Battle of Newark happened, and like a lot of former enthusiasts, Pepper lost interest in suspers after almost all of those who she had admired for years were slain in a single day.

“Oh, hi Hera! Gosh, it’s been months since we last had a phone call, hasn’t it?” I felt a relief flow through my body once I detected her enthusiasm. I don’t know who I would have recurred to if this had been a bad time to talk for her. “Guess who is one (barely passed) exam closer to becoming a real big girl journalist?”

“I’m gonna assume it’s you, since you would have told me already if you were dating a cute girl that you shared classes with.” I heard her laugh on the other end of the line. “Great to hear that, P. I’m happy for you, big girl.”

“Hey, remember the rule. Big girl is reserved for when we finish our education. I said that I accepted temporarily rescinding my big girl status years ago, and you’re not going to catch me going back on that now!” Her commitment to one of our dumbest in-jokes was nothing short of admirable. “How’s your blog been doing? I hear that some stuff happened near your home in these last two days.”

“My blog?” I questioned, as the shenanigans of the ring had somehow made me forget that I was still an adult who needed to make a living and that I had been lucky enough so far to be able to do it by writing a blog on superheroes. “Ah, well, the thing with the tiger dude of yesterday was curious, but I’m not sure that the proximity to where I live merits it being an entry when he’s just a civilian from the looks of it. Maybe if I got an interview, but my minimal efforts haven’t gotten me one for now. As for the cafe of today, you’ll be surprised to learn that I was at the scene when it happened.” This was, in fact, surprising enough to get an audible gasp out of her. Better keep the details to how involved I was and other hijinks to myself, or her reaction might blow out my eardrums.

“Really? Are you alright? I think I heard that there were no civilians harmed, but maybe I misheard. Or they could have meant no civilians seriously harmed” Did I technically still count as a civilian? I mean, I had powers, yes, but I didn’t actually get involved. Food for thought, I suppose.

“Relax, I’m fine. I wouldn’t be calling someone I care for the very same day if something had happened to me. And if I did, then something would have gone seriously wrong, and I wouldn’t be talking so casually.” I pointed out.

“When you’re right, you’re right.” She conceded. “So… I know you don’t lean that way, but I also know you have eyes. On a scale of ten, Friendly Paws in person?”

The very mention of her name sent shivers down my spine, which didn’t bode well for the prospect of trying to go to sleep later into the night while she would still be here. But I had to give Pepper an answer, so I tried to think only of how she appeared 6 hours ago, rather than 4. “I’d say an 8. She has a nice body and a pretty smile, but truth be told, the jokes are a lot less funny when you’re in there and you start worrying if she’s going to make a fatal goof that will put you in danger too. I mean, maybe they’re relaxing to other people. But they just made everything a lot more stressful for me. It soured me on her. Then again, she has a cute pair of boobs, so I guess that balances things out.” Okay, maybe I didn’t do the best job in the world at putting the latter hours aside, but I wasn’t too bad at lying. Hopefully, Pepper will not look too far into what I said.

“Cute pair of boobs, you say?” Well, crap. “Where was this Hera all these years ago? How big was the closet you were hiding in?”

“I didn’t mean it like that, P” I tried to save face. “I was just stating a fact. She has a pair of boobs that look really nice, and I thought that was something you’d be interested to hear due to your sexuality and the question you asked me. Because, let me help your memory here, you asked me to put her on a scale based on how hot she was.”

“Kinda weird how you worded it, tough. Going from ‘that joker is going to get herself killed and I’m going to be screwed’ to ‘but damn, her tits fat’?” She laughed at my expense. “Okay, I’m going to stop the bullying now.”

“Thank you.”

“Can I share a fucked up thought with you?” I told her that she could. “I think I have a crush on FP, but only because I used to have a crush on T-Punchline when I was a teen and they have very similar personalities.”

“A crush on one of ‘The Masters’? Okay, yeah, that’s fucked up.”

“Oh, shut it! I was a thirsty girl and T-Punchline was the whole flipping Atlantic Ocean. You have to admit that she was a hot bitch.”

Reluctantly, I had to agree. Punchline and Bulldozer had their sex-tape leaked around the time we were first curious about that sort of stuff and even when I wasn’t interested in girls I would have admited that she looked stupid hot without her dumb costume on. “Okay, sure, but they have very different looks. Like, one has an hourglass figure and the other is just in really good shape.”

“Like I said, I’m talking about personalities. I was one of those people who used to try and find the links where she had supposedly put a video blog on. She was funny, and confident, and hot and… Argh, why did she have to die? It fucking crushed me. She hadn’t ever murdered any civilians, she had two cases for manslaughter that never went to court!” I didn’t expect this conversation to turn into this, but I didn’t want to stop her rant either. “I’ll be honest, Lady Hades was the **** that hit me the hardest, but she was second. And I honestly felt… not happy, but strangely positive when they reported that Cut-Charles got put down. Like, I know that’s taboo to say because it’s supposed to be tragic that he got mind controlled and his own friends had to put him down, but there’s a part of me that still feels that he deserved that after aiming for her over Suggestive Samuel.”

Millions of images came to my brain at the mention of that last name, and almost all of them involved black text on a white computer screen. “Not the 9:50 report again” I sighed.

“The what?” Pepper asked, my comment breaking her concentration.

I wasn’t exactly excited to explain, but I felt like I had to. “Near everytime that the Battle of Newark gets talked about on forums, people bring up the 9:50 report. That’s the one where the idea that Cut-Charles had an opening to kill Suggestive Samuel early into the battle and ignored it comes from. The consensus is that, for obvious reasons, the battle was way too messy to properly determine if CC really had such an obvious chance which he squandered. Serenity was the only person who was there to see it and report on it, and she already had problems with Charles before he killed her husband while he was under Samuel’s control. She can’t really be called unbiased, but at the same time, she’s known for being the best person at putting personal feelings to the side on this kind of stuff.”

“Oh, I had no idea that this was a whole thing.” Pepper told me with an amused tone. “Sorry for any flame wars flashbacks.”

“Chill, there’s no real need to apologize. I’m the one that should be sorry for reminding you of a dead crush.” I responded in kind.

“Relax, I’m over it. For the most part, at least.” She giggled. “Anyways, I have to cook dinner, mind if I hang up now?”

“Not at all, take care!” And with that, I was left once again with just my thoughts to keep me company. But, the funny thing was, now I felt like I had a clue on how to explain the events with Friendly Paws.

Sure, Suggestive Samuel was reported dead at 17:30 on the day of the battle. That didn’t mean that there couldn’t be a new mind controller messing with heroes in town. And something tells me that with half a mind and the Reality Ring, I could determine if Paws was innocent in account of hypnosis.