Fox(girl)ificated 2 - Ch.10 - Stress & Flaws & Dinner (With Friends) (Patreon)

It probably took me half an hour just to get my head around all the revelations the gorgeous catgirl dropped on me. Finding out the girl I was crushing on used to be the city's number-one cape was a shock, but at least it made a sort of sense.

Everyone knew the Masked Man retired back in February, but nobody knew what happened to him or where he'd gone. There were theories, like the ridiculous ones my coworker and that conspiracy podcaster kept repeating, but no-one could really say for sure. And honestly it wasn't hard to believe the city's top hero really did retire, considering they'd spent four decades protecting the city.

What threw me for a loop was the rest of Luna's confession. Finding out she was actually SSS rank, or maybe even Mythic level was a lot harder to believe. Then again she flattened Mr. Unstoppable this afternoon with a single blow. The petite catgirl KO'ed the country's premier superhero and ended his unbeaten streak right before my eyes.

Eventually Luna grabbed us some bottles of spring water, then joined me on the sofa. She was at the far end though, so there were two empty cushions between us. I quietly sipped my drink while I continued processing all the crazy stuff that happened this afternoon. Or today. Or this whole entire week in fact. It seemed like things had been going non-stop since Monday, when I first met Luna at that cafe by the park.

Thinking about that, trying to reconcile that first chance meeting with everything I'd learned today left me with a question. Or several, really. But there was one that stood out, and I figured the answer probably wouldn't be anything too big or overwhelming. Not compared to all the other stuff anyways.

"Why a barista?" I asked, breaking the silence between us. "I mean, with powers like yours you could do anything. So why take a minimum-wage job slinging coffee for strangers?"

Luna shrugged slightly, "There's no stress, no responsibilities. And it lets me interact with the public, in a way I never really could before."

That left me frowning, "No stress? Having unappreciative demanding idiots yell at you all day long because they asked for a shot of vanilla but really wanted hazelnut sounds pretty stressful to me."

The catgirl's ears drooped down and she gave me another sad smile, "Ok maybe there's a little stress. But it's still a whole lot better than my old job."

"Remember I spent forty years as the city's top hero," she sighed. "For four decades I literally had millions of people counting on me every day. In that time I faced more than thirteen hundred situations where thousands of lives depended on me not making a single mistake. On a hundred and forty seven occasions a million lives could have been lost if I'd got it wrong. And those are just the ones that made the news."

She let out a longer sigh and shook her head, "There were a dozen more that were kept under wraps, where nearly everyone in the country was at risk. When a single mistake could have cost hundreds of millions of lives."

Finally her voice dropped to a whisper as she looked down at her bottle of spring water and admitted, "The entire planet's been in danger three times. Three moments where everyone on Earth depended on me being one hundred percent perfect. Not even MaR-AID knows about two of those."

"Compared to that?" she said as she finally looked up at me again, "Working in a cafe is a breeze. The biggest mistake I can possibly make is messing up someone's coffee order."

By that point my own ears were drooping down and I was hugging my big floofy tail to my chest. I nodded slowly as I mumbled an apology, "I'm sorry Luna. I had no idea. I guess I never really thought about that, like how much pressure capes are under."

"My job has some pressure," I added softly, "But nothing at that level. If I screw up at work then maybe a neighbourhood loses power for a couple hours. The worst mistake I could make might cost a coworker's life. But I always volunteer for the dangerous jobs. Electricity can't hurt me, so I make sure I'm the one working on the lines. If something goes wrong nobody else gets hurt."

Luna gave me another sad smile, "Like I said earlier Kit, you're one of the city's unsung heroes."

Her smile fell as she continued, "And don't worry about me. People don't think about that side of being a superhero because of how we're portrayed on the news and other media. That's not an accident either, they do it like that on purpose. They don't want the public to see us as regular people, because regular people are flawed. Regular people deal with stress and anxiety and depression. And sometimes regular people make mistakes."

"That's not what folks want to see in their superheroes," she added sadly. "So the public only see the victories, the brave wins, the strong stoic hero in a mask and cape who just saved a hundred people from certain death. They might show a hero getting temporarily beaten during a fight, but they'll never broadcast that same hero curled up sobbing in a back alley over the lives they failed to save. The ones they lost because they screwed up. Or because the villain outsmarted them. Or they simply got there too late to help."

Her words left me feeling even worse, for her and others like her. She was right though, and I knew it. That's exactly how the news portrayed heroes, and a lot of the public bought it. There were times when the media was critical of capes, but like Luna said they never actually showed defeated capes. Even jerks like that misogynistic podcaster guy seemed to follow that unwritten rule.

I had another gulp of water then finally looked at the gorgeous catgirl again and asked, "Is that why you never let on how strong you really are?"

Luna nodded, "Yeah. If MaR-AID or the public knew the truth then I'd have had no peace at all. Even if they let me train new heroes they'd have just shipped them off to other cities. Maybe they'd have done that for me too. They might have sent me somewhere they think's more important, like New York or DC."

"Hell maybe they'd expect me to single-handedly protect more than one city?" she added with a scowl. "Anyways that's why I kept it to myself. I knew my only hope of getting out was to train enough replacements that someday they'd understand that they didn't need me anymore."

That left me frowning, "It's not like they could stop you though. I mean, what could MaR-AID possibly do? They couldn't force you to work for them."

The catgirl's ears folded back and she shook her head, "I don't mean them. I needed the public to feel safe without me. I needed them to know they could rely on a whole team of heroes, so they wouldn't think they'd been abandoned when the Masked Man hung up his mask."

"Ah," I nodded slowly.

That conversation probably could have continued into the evening, but it ended abruptly with the sound of someone knocking at the front door. Whoever it was didn't bother to wait for an answer, they simply let themself in a moment later. My ears folded back and my tail flicked in agitation until the intruder called out and I recognized their voice.

"Hello?" Athene's voice came from the front hallway. "Are you two lovebirds decent? We brought dinner!"

Luna rolled her eyes and responded, "We're in the living-room."

"How did it go?" the catgirl added as Athene and Hannah came into view.

The cute enby was carrying a large take-out bag, and the scent of food got my mouth watering while my tail started thumping against the back of the sofa. Meanwhile the tall strong redhead had a cooler bag that I assumed contained drinks. The bags ended up on the coffee table while the two new arrivals sat down together on the love seat off to my right.

"We handed them both over to MaR-AID," Hannah replied as she and her enbyfriend got comfortable. "Hopefully that's the last we'll see of Peck, considering how many rules and regulations he broke today. And the fact that he was just reprimanded a few days ago for basically the same thing."

Athene added, "They shipped Barry back to Washington. I doubt he'll face any sort of discipline, but at least he has to live with the knowledge that his undefeated streak came to an ignominious end."

I tilted my head to one side and asked, "Barry?"

"Mr. Unstoppable," Hannah clarified. Then the redhead gave her friend a look, "I don't like him either, but you shouldn't stoop to his level."

The enby shrugged, "It's not like I shared his full name and home address. And Luna proved he's not 'unstoppable', so it feels inappropriate to call him that."

Hannah just rolled her eyes before turning her attention back to the catgirl and myself. She gestured to the bags in front of us and said, "I hope you both like Thai? We got a big order of chicken pad Thai, an order of coconut shrimp, some red curry, an eggplant stir fry, and spring rolls. We also brought some wine and a half dozen coolers."

"Thank you both," Luna said as she got to her feet. "I'll get some plates and cutlery."

"Can I help?" I offered as I stood up as well.

The catgirl flashed me another heart-melting smile, "Thanks Kit. You can get the glasses and napkins."

She led me to her large kitchen, which was off to the right and up a half dozen steps. Like the living-room it seemed almost spotless. The appliances all looked brand-new, as did the breakfast table and chairs off to one side of the clean bright room. Luna opened a cupboard to reveal a dozen identical drinking glasses, then moved to another cupboard where she took four clean white dinner plates from a stack. Her cutlery was all perfectly organized in a drawer, and even the napkins were in a nice neat stack in the pantry.

By that point I couldn't help asking, "Is this your place? It feels almost brand-new, like you've just moved in or something."

"That's pretty much the case," she replied. "The building isn't new, these townhouses have been around since the eighties. I had the unit completely gutted and renovated when I bought it though. That was back in February, after my retirement. So I only just moved in last month, once all the work was finished."

I knew there was no way she could afford all that working as a barista, but I didn't know what sort of work she did before. Then again, I had no idea whether or not capes got paid for their hero work. It felt rude to ask about that though, so I kept those questions to myself and tried to focus on dinner instead.

By the time Luna and I returned to the living-room Athene and Hannah had all the insulated food containers lined up on the coffee table. We all got our plates loaded up with an assortment of delicious-smelling offerings, and sorted out our drink options as well.

I didn't actually have much experience with alcohol, but I gave one of the coolers a try. It was supposed to be a 'spiked iced tea' and it tasted alright. Then before we all started on our meals Luna and I both thanked Athene and Hannah for bringing dinner.

We were all fairly quiet for the next couple minutes, and as I ate I found myself wondering about the petite enby. I was positive they had to be another cape, just based on the fact that they were dating Hannah and apparently knew Mr. Unstoppable's civilian identity. Although if they were one of the city's heroes they had to be someone obscure, since I'd never heard of a non-binary cape before.

I also couldn't help wondering about their relationship with Luna, considering the catgirl all but said Athene was the only other person who knew her true strength. Not to mention the way the enby was obviously comfortable enough to just walk right into the catgirl's home practically unannounced.

That line of thought was still on my mind as I happened to glance over to my right, then I froze as I found the enby looking back at me. Our eyes met, and for a moment I panicked that maybe their meta abilities included mind-reading or something like that. My ears folded back and my cheeks started to heat up, but luckily it turned out they had something entirely different on their mind.

"If you haven't considered new ID yet perhaps you should put some thought into that now?" Athene suggested. "More specifically, if you'd like to have your existing ID updated to reflect your new name and appearance, or if you'd prefer to start fresh with a brand new identity."

They continued, "I can help either way. We can take a photo of you after dinner, then I should be able to get you your new documentation by this time tomorrow."

I blinked in surprise, then after swallowing a mouthful of coconut shrimp I asked, "Is that some sort of special power? Like modifying ID or something?"

Hannah almost choked on a forkful of red curry as she stifled some laughter. Then the redhead explained, "Athene's day job is at the government records office. That give them access to all sorts of things they probably shouldn't be allowed to touch."

"They've helped most of us with our ID," Luna added. "It's not exactly legal, but it's less illegal than just hacking the databases. Or straight-up creating forged documents."

"Oh," I grimaced as my blush got a little brighter. Then I looked back to Athene and nodded, "Yes please! I don't want my old identity to disappear or vanish, so if we could just update it with my new name and stuff that'd be great!"

They nodded, "Very well."

"Interesting name though," the enby added a moment later.

I frowned slightly as I tilted my head to one side, "What do you mean?"

Athene looked like they were trying not to smirk as they continued, "Kit Vaughn? A kit fox is the smallest fox species native to America. In addition, baby foxes are known as kits. And the name Vaughn is an anglicized version of Bychan, which is the Welsh word for small."

I found myself staring at them in surprise. I hadn't known or thought about any of that, and I didn't pick my last name, it's just what I was born with.

"So your name could be interpreted as 'little baby fox'," the enby announced. They were definitely smiling when they concluded, "Granted you're not quite as small as either Rachel or Talia, but as names go it's certainly appropriate."

By that point all three of them were looking at me, while my ears were folded back and my cheeks felt like they were on fire. Athene and Hannah were both smiling in amusement, while the look on Luna's face was more compassionate.

"Absolutely adorable," the catgirl stated firmly as she leaned closer and pulled me into a side hug.

** This chapter is brought to you courtesy of Camille, who commissioned it! **