Chapter Text
‘’C’mon Paju! Just this once!’’ they pleaded, pulling at the sleeve of the Pro Hero. The hero swiftly pulled his arm away from his sidekick, giving them a stern gaze.
‘’I’ve told you to call me Pajunkissa, not Paju.’’ he said.
‘’Well gee, sorry.’’ they muttered. ‘’But can we please swing by the new cafe later?’’ they added, giving puppy eyes to their mentor.
Pajunkissa sighed deep. He rubs his forehead, his tail swinging from side to side in annoyance. His lil’ feline ears twitch a bit. He takes another stern glance at his sidekick.
‘’Oh for All Might’s sake, Caracala Claw, you know we need to keep a keen eye on the streets.’’ he said. Said sidekick rolled their eyes in an over exaggerated motion where their whole head rolled on their shoulders in sync with their eyes.
‘’You’re being un-fun. Guess I’ll just stop by there by myself after the shift.’’ Caracala said.
‘’By all means, do as you please. But right now, we must continue patrolling.’’ Pajunkissa noted, turning around to continue his way down the street. The two heroes made their way down the streets, taking a turn after each block was patrolled and noted safe. Caracala sighed in defeat as they turned a corner for the umpteenth time with no action whatsoever.
‘’Where are all the villains and vigilantes? This is getting ridiculously easy.’’ they muttered.
‘’Boring even.’’ they added. Pajunkissa turned his head toward their direction, a judging look on his face.
‘’You know, sometimes I wonder how you got your hero license with an attitude like that.’’ he noted. Caracala looked up at him, raising an eyebrow.
‘’Beats me.’’ they replied. ‘’Guess it’s just naturally in me to be a hero or something. I passed the tests with ease.’’ they said, a shit eating grin on their face. Pajunkissa turns around and sighs. As he is about to once more open his mouth to educate Caracala, they hear ear piercing screaming down the street.
‘’Shit!’’ Caracala yells as they dart after Pajunkissa who had put one foot another and dashed over to the sound.
Upon arriving to the scene, there is a villain trio causing havoc. Caracala keeps their distance until they’ve scanned the situation properly. They don’t get a lot of time before the villains notice the heroes.
‘’Shit, Skenso, Nensho! Heroes!’’ yells one with a wild yellow mohawk and a slithery scaly tail. The other two villains turn around to see the heroes.
‘’Leave this to me!’’ yells one with fiery blue wings, as he takes flight. He flies to the heroes, leaving trails of fire behind him. He stops mid-flight as his wings abruptly burst into flames, surrounding Pajunkissa and Caracala Claw with his flames. These flames are circling closer and closer to the two, until they are back to back and about to get burned alive. Caracala closes their eyes as the flames lick at their long orange hair on the ground. But just as suddenly as the flames surrounded them, the heat is gone and the villains are yelling incomprehensibly about more heroes arriving to the scene. Caracala opens their eyes, and scans the surroundings, seeing one, no, two heroes. One tall and lanky, short green hair with a few yellow stripes and one shorter, with short blonde hair. They can see the taller hero throwing something at the villains, and causing them to go down in an instant. Caracala looked in awe at the new arrivals doing their work. As the villains now lay down on the ground, immobile, Caracala pulls out their phone and dials the police.
After the phone call is done, they go with Pajunkissa to greet the two heroes who are detaining the villains. Caracala smiles at the two, with their brightest smile. They stick out their hand, to shake hands with the two, and the blonde hero takes their hand after a while, shaking it firmly.
‘’Thanks for the assistance!’’ Caracala piped, as they pulled their hand back.
‘’No worries! We got here just in the nick of time.’’ the blonde hero said. Caracala placed their hands on their hips, looking around before their eyes set on the blonde man again.
‘’I don’t think we’ve met before. You new around here?’’ they asked.
‘’Just started my internship with Sir Nighteye, actually. So, quite frankly, yes. I am a new face around here.’’ the blonde laughed.
‘’Oh sweet!’’ Caracala piped. ‘’I’m Pajunkissa’s sidekick, Caracala Claw. It’s nice to meet’cha!’’ they noted.
Just as the blonde man was about to open his mouth, a loud explosion was heard nearby along with blue to green flames bursting behind the buildings. The ground trembled, as the four heroes rushed to the scene. Upon arriving, the whole street is on fire and there is a giant snake on fire roaming down the streets, destroying buildings and vehicles.
The four heroes look at the devastation, before hitting their heads together and forming a plan to defeat this villain. SIr Nighteye and the blonde hero took to approaching from one side, while Pajunkissa and Caracala came from the other side, causing the villain to be left in a pinched situation. Upon realizing this, the villain reverted from his snake form to his human form, and tried to flee. But he was stopped dead on tracks by a fist colliding with his face, and he was sent flying down the street to the very flames he had set up. He takes this as a chance to flee, disappearing into the flames. Caracala is rushing after him, but gets stopped by the blonde hero.
‘’What are you doing? He’s getting away!’’ Caracala yelled.
‘’Let him. Right now we need to focus on the civilians and helping them out from the wreckage.’’ the blonde hero said. Caracala took a glance around and saw multiple civilians hurt or stuck within wreckage. They look at the hero, nodding firmly and following his lead to the people in need of help. They managed to help multiple people out the wreckage by the time ambulances showed up.
Caracala watched the blonde man hoist an injured man from a smashed up car, and they couldn’t help but admire his attitude and strength. As their eyes met, Caracala quickly looked away, feeling the small heat on their face. They opted out to going to the next victim, easing them from under a pile of cement. They didn’t spare another glance at the blonde man, until they had to part ways.
‘’You young one’’s don’t go getting into another tight situation, not everyone can get there in time to help you.’’ Sir Nighteye said.
‘’We won’t. I’ll make sure of that.’’ Pajunkissa said. Caracala and the blonde man were looking at each other, before shaking hands once more. Both of them nodded, and then it came time to part ways.
After the two heroes were out of hearing range, Pajunkissa nudged Caracala to the side with his elbow. Caracala scoffed.
‘’What?’’ they asked.
‘’I saw the way you looked at the blonde man.’’ Pajunkissa said.
‘’Yeah, so what? I’ll probably never see him again so it doesn’t matter.’’ Caracala replied.
Pajunkissa laughed a little. Well, not even little, a lot. A hearty laugh filled with warmth.
‘’Oh if he is Sir Nighteye’s current student, then you bet your ass we’ll run into them a lot. These streets are partially in his patrolling area, you know.’’ he said. ‘’We might be new to this area, but you know me, I always check before which heroes work where.’’ he added. Caracala’s expression morphed from excitement to fear and shock, realizing they’d have to meet this blonde man again. Shit, they didn’t even catch his hero name.
Pajunkissa walked Caracala home, before embarking on his way home as well. Caracala slouched up the stairs to their apartment, silently opening the door. They slid inside, picking up the mail from the day on the floor and stashing them on the counter in the hallway. They pull off their boots, discarding them in the hallway as well as they made their way to the bedroom where they discarded their hero uniform on the bed. Now in their leggings and tank top, they waddle to the kitchen to find a late night snack. Upon finding yesterday's leftover pizza, they make their way to the small living room and turn on the TV. Scrolling through the channels they find an old, but classic movie playing and they decide to enjoy the rest of it with their snack. After the movie is done, they get up, stretch and make their way back to the bedroom to grab their towels. Heading to the bathroom next, they strip down the remainder of their clothes and dip under the shower. Turning on the hot water, they let it soak into their long hair. They take on the massive mission of washing their floor length hair, running out of shampoo at one point and cursing lively at it. Days like these they wish they had the guts to just cut their hair shoulder length. But they’ve been growing it with care for years and years, and they wouldn’t want to waste all that right now. Finally, when they’re done washing themselves, they just let the hot water relax their aching shoulders. They rest their forehead on the tiled wall, closing their eyes and thinking about the happenings of the day. Initially their mind wanders back to the blonde man, their heart stuttering at the thought of him. And now that their brain thought about him, it latched onto the thought, only letting them think about this nameless hero. They let out a sigh, as they turn the water off and wince at the coldness of the bathroom. Wrapping a towel around their chest and bundling up all their hair into a towel as well, they dip out of the bathroom and into the bedroom.
They sit at the edge of their bed, before flopping down on to their back and sighing in defeat.
‘’For fuck’s sake, Alyx, just… forget about him.’’ they muttered to themselves. Alyx tossed around to see the time from the clock on the wall, and as it read 10PM, they sighed again. They’d have to go to bed soon, even if they had a day off tomorrow. You see, Alyx really wanted to visit the new coffee shop not too far away from their apartment, and tomorrow would be the day as today they were out late. It was a rather popular cafe, so Alyx wanted to be there the instant it opened up or they wouldn’t find a free table to sit at. So they get up, going to their clothes cabinet and rummaging through for their pajamas. Eventually they flop down on their bed and pull the covers over themselves, not forgetting to set an alarm early the next morning.