Chapter Text
A parry to the left. One dodge to the right. Kick a vaso de leche straight at the sad excuse for a bounty hunter's face. A smirk con confianza! Just to rile up his pursuer. Rinse and repeat. A dance he knows like the fur on the back of his paw. It is laughably easy, a taste of the old, a small reliving of his days as the legend—Puss in Boots!
"You'll have to try harder than that if you want to catch Puss in Boots, amigo." Puss side steps another swing and launches himself from the bar table to the bar stool, skilled and swift paws cleverly swiping his rapier on the hunter's belt. The other's pants fall and Puss laughs, having fun despite himself.
"Puss," a fond exasperated feline voice groans with some exertion from a table a little further than where he is. He spares a glance, glad to see Kitty handling her share of the bandits with relative ease. She spares him a glance at nearly the exact same time, her beautiful blue eyes rolling with some annoyance.
"A little more help and a lot less boasting if you'd please," she emphasizes with a skillful parry, showing that she has so graciously taken on two out of the three hunters who interrupted them this evening.
To be fair, Puss is taking on their leader, who is more skilled than those two but still a far cry from rivaling him. He chuckles under his breath. She is right, it is time to put an end to this little game of nostalgia. He turns his attention back to the hunter who has just finished pulling up his pants. Too bad the hunter won't get to keep his dignity after this.
Puss launches himself back to the bar table, twisting and turning, the blade of his rapier singing with each purposefully placed swipe. He is too fast, too swift, muy suave for the hunter to keep up with as Puss finds himself facing the hunter's back. He swipes up and then two times quickly in a connected arch, shredding the shirt and lightly grazing the skin of the other's back. The hunter arches with the sting and Puss grabs onto the conventiently placed curtain of the window behind him to climb his way up the window's ledge.
The hunter howls with rage and turns around only to find his vision blanket black as Puss jumps and connects his boots to their face. There's a small, satisfying sound of a bone breaking beneath his boots and they both careen straight to the ground, Puss landing with grace and elegance befitting himself. The hunter less so.
Two thuds follow in his example and he is pleased to see that Kitty has wrapped it up as well. He points his rapier at the hunter who stills while holding onto their bleeding nose.
"Get you and your sorry companions out and away from me and my friends or I promise this won't be the last you hear of—"
"Team Friendship!" Interrupts a higher pitched voice, and everyone turns to look at the brown little dog coming out from his hiding spot behind the bar counter. Both he and Kitty simultaneously groan. He has not agreed to that ridiculous name.
"Perrito, what did we say about putting the team name on a raincheck?" Kitty says as much and Perrito's enthusiasm at having contributed turns into a sad little pout for which both he and Kitty are weak to. Puss coughs, they are getting off topic. He gives the hunter and his lackeys a stern stare.
"Get out before I change my mind." At that, the three scramble to pick themselves up, the leader busy holding his pants with one hand and his bleeding nose with the other. The other two try to support him despite their share of bruises and ripped clothes. Puss raises a brow at this, surprised to see that Kitty has taken a page out of his routine. She purposefully does not meet his gloating stare.
As the hunters scurry away, Puss takes a moment to appreciate the way his brand stands out from behind the hunter's back. Perhaps he can get Kitty to start putting a 'K' on her targets next.
"Don't even think about it." Is her stern reply, and Puss chuckles not the least bit surprised that she could read what he was thinking.
"Wow! You two were super cool," Perrito rushes out to meet them as they come together in the middle of the now empty bar. Perrito starts to recount their battles from his perspective to them and they listen fondly as Puss puts a few coins on the bar table to pay for the food and drinks they had earlier. Kitty engages Perrito's enthusiasm with her own hums as she walks them out of the bar. He can tell that hearing Perrito think highly of her genuinely pleases her and he's following suit when Kitty spares a glance to him.
Her eyes are serious and worried for the whole of three seconds before she's giving Perrito another fond look as she listens to him talk. Puss only pauses slightly in his steps. He sighs for the whole of two seconds to himself before he follows along with the two of them, engaging Perrito with his own hums, less sweet than Kitty but no less genuine.
In the back of his mind he knows that they'll have to talk about this eventually. Because this isn't the first nor will it be the last time, he suspects, that this situation will be happening. Because it has been occurring far more frequently, in between every rest stop, at every bar they go to, a new hunter or guard waiting in every new town for them. Well, for him.
"Heard that the famous Puss in Boots is down to his last life," the hunter had said back then at the bar. Just like every hunter, guard, and thug had said back during every other fight they have had. An unpleasant shiver travels down his back, a slight dread that has been slowly building up surfacing.
Who told?