“You’re making her nervous. Keep that up!”

I look at the positively feline grin on Felicia’s face as she tells me that. Her joy is contagious, and I can feel my face mold to imitate hers as the happiness radiates past the boundaries of the separating glass.

“The her being the mastermind, or Faux?” I try to get things clarified, mainly because I want to be in the other boot for once and hear someone talk excitedly about something to me. But also because Felicia has a very pretty voice that the fangirl within me will never grow tired of.

“Oh, Faux is a mess at the moment, I wouldn't be surprised if I actually got a full day or two in control before her boss realizes that she’s hidden herself in a corner and forces her out again. But she’s a small fry, I wouldn’t be feeling so pumped up if it was just her.” Felicia couldn’t keep herself still, she was now walking and stretching her body all across the room. She made a noticeable effort to not let her activities prevent her from looking at my eyes for more than just a couple of seconds, and I knew in my gut that I would be taking very dumb decisions for someone who knows about the artificial evil half inside her mind if it was possible for me to enter that room without making an alarm blast across the whole complex (Mark and Shayna where very insistent in not letting me pull the same stunt again).

“So you’re telling me that I got the baddie head honcho worried? Nice!” I raise a closed fist to the air in victory, and Felicia and I gladly share a second ‘this totally counts as a kiss on the lips’. “But, like, why? I’m pretty sure that she couldn’t have seen what I did in the training field yet. And even then, I’m not sure if I would be afraid of myself after that.”

“Now let’s not get crazy. I never said that she was scared, and you should stop putting words in my mouth like that. I much prefer fish. Or pussy.” She winks at me, and I tried my best to not laugh at such a low-effort joke. Sadly, my best was ways away from being good enough and I giggled like an idiot. “But seriously now. I’m not gonna use the s-word yet, but you’ve absolutely got her worried and panicking. I don’t think she ever considered that she would have to face someone like you. She might have had a plan on what to do if there was a hero that could notice that the members of Legendary were acting suspiciously and was able to take one of us down. But someone that was able to start reversing her work? From her point of view, that was a sucker punch.”

“How tragic. If I had known, I would have gotten some brass knuckles to ensure she would be knocked out by it.”

“Love to see that kind of energy in you Hera.” Felicia offered me a smile that said ‘You’re so invited to kick the crap out of her once we’ve won’. “But anyways, it’s not just that. Say, did you have a nightmare tonight? One that was maybe fed directly into your brain by our dear friend?”

I frowned. Maybe I was being too quick in assuming that this was Felicia. Faux had been a perfectly good actor until she was suddenly attacking us. But, then again, all I had to do was to be careful with what I said. From the way Friendly Paws (likely Felicia but I wasn’t sure anymore) talked, it didn’t really sound like I could tell her anything she didn’t know already on the subject. Which lead to one obvious question. “How did you know?”

“Without saying any words that will trigger a signal to let her know about this and get her to forcefully overdrive me? I was simply made aware of the matter. And of how much you kicked her ass.” She gave me her approval with the way she was looking at me. That was more than enough to feed my ego into shutting down any rational doubts and just assume that this really was Felicia.

“Heh, I’m not entirely sure how good you info was, but I don't remember kicking her ass in that dream. I don’t remember much of it, in fact, just that it ended for me with a future in which I failed everyone.” Recanting those events got me back down to earth before I started flying to high above the metaphorical mountains. Which was fine, since I could always just fly over some real mountains if I needed a thrill like that.

“Well, I don’t want to hear more from what it was like for you before I’m absolutely sure that it’s not going to be heard by, you know. But from what I’ve heard: it took an unfathomable amount of effort for what should have been a simple task that would later lead to something bigger but will now most likley become a fully canceled plan.”

“She’s cancelling… Giving me nightmares?” I wasn’t exactly sure at this point if I had been able to correctly follow the thread as she unwove it or if I had missed a crucial word in her explanations.

“I don’t know what kind of barriers you had there for the occasion, Hera, but whatever they were, I feel like they are going to give you a big advantage in your fight against our villain.”

If I myself learn what they are and how to use them? Sure, I can imagine ways to apply the same principles into an ever more productive tool for the struggle. Right now, when I hadn’t even know about the existence of any of that? Not so much. I’ll have to ask Regina if it’s possible that the ring somehow lend me extra protection that was faulty enough to let the enemy in but still useful in getting her to run past the horizon.

Better to not let Felicia know of my own personal ignorance about what I might or might not have done. “So, on a scale of one to ten, how bad was the blow-up when she realized all of that? Was Faux overdramatic with how she decided to cope with it, or-”

“If I was as fiercely loyal for a terrible employer like she was, I think I would have tried to find a way to end it all already. Because after the way she got dragged through the mud back and forth shows how little our main enemy cares for her underlings of their mental wellbeing, and that she can get away with it because none of them are really more that subservient loyalists she’s planted forcefully on the mind of others.” She shook her head. “I can’t have Faux cease to exist a minute to soon, and I really consider that she might be secretly wishing for the same exact thing.”

“That’s a lot of heavy stuff, Felicia. Thank you so much for sharing it with me. It’s nothing short of a miracle that you could give me all this info.” A perverted idea comes to my mind. The tiny Regina on my shoulder tells me to go with it. “I think you deserve some sort of reward.”

“I thought they wouldn’t let you in again for having sex with me unless it was absolutely necessary or otherwise warranted.” She raised an eyebrow.

“You’re right about that.”