I turned to face the person talking to me but the second I saw them, the planned retort I had died before I could make a sound.
I wasn't exactly expecting someone from the superpowered community to show up for what was supposedly some minor alien tech, but I hadn't counted it out either.
What I hadn't expected at all was to come face to face with a naked catgirl the minute I'd gotten my hands on that alien tech.
…
My life got weird sometimes.
…
"Sorry, I wasn't expecting to get flashed by a nudist today." I said to get myself to stop gawking at her. "Do you just… really walk around not wearing clothes?"
"Not much point when I look like this." She scowled and waved a hand over herself.
Which was hilarious considering she looked like a humanoid mix of a supermodel and a cheetah, and definitely had full sections of the internet that were very 'interested' in her. But she clearly had body image issues, so I wouldn't poke at that.
Partly cause that would be a dick move, but also because I was being stared down by Cheetah, the same villain that regularly threw down with Wonder Woman with claws sharp enough to tear through steel. If this turned into a fight I didn't want to give her a reason to be mean about it.
"I mean pockets are always neat." I said instead, demonstratively showing her some of the ones lining my bodysuit.
"Useful, but not worth the hair pulling or how hot it gets when my fur is covered up." Cheetah dismissed. "But I'm not here for fashion advice from a teenager. The artifact. Hand it over."
"What are you offering for it?" I shot back.
"Huh?"
"I got it as loot from an official mercenary job, if you want me to hand it over – make me an offer."
Cheetah stared at me incredulously. "An off– do you have any idea what that thing is?!"
"Yeah, mine." I said stubbornly.
It's not like I was actually going to hand it over either. I was just hoping Cheetah would let some information slip about it since she seemed to be after the sphere specifically.
Unfortunately it didn't seem like Cheetah was in a talking mood, because once she got over the shock of me talking back to her, she snarled and started stalking forward. "I'll just have to take it then."
Well, I wouldn't say no to a fight.
I settled into a stance and started raising my ki while carefully watching my opponent.
She was going to be fast. And I couldn't afford to give her an opening.
I was immediately proven right when in the space of a heartbeat Cheetah went from the other side of the street to up in my face ready to backhand me through a wall that I hastily ducked away from.
Cheetah must not have expected that, because the miss left her wide open to a kick across the jaw and a Ki blast to the chest that sent her skidding down the dirt road. As expected for someone that fought Wonder Woman, she rolled with both hits pretty easily and was running back for more the moment she was back on her feet.
This time she was treating me a little more seriously than just overpowering me with one big, telegraphed attack. Instead she was using several tight sweeping attacks with both her claws and feet that had me seriously focusing on dodging because unlike Wonder Woman, I didn't have magical bracelets that let me block anything without worrying about getting cut up.
…but maybe I could make something that imitated them?
I had to shove that thought aside as Cheetah went to sweep my legs with a kick only to pounce on me when I jumped over it. I managed to catch both her hands with my own before my back slammed into the ground, but then I was focused on not being totally overpowered by the naked, magical catgirl on top of me.
"Just… give… me… the… artifact!" Cheetah growled, sounding more annoyed than anything.
"No way, mine now." I growled back, tucking my knees to my chest before giving Cheetah a good kick to the stomach that sent her over my head.
I followed up by rolling back onto my feet and sending a barrage of Ki blasts her way before she could recover this time.
Eventually I had to stop because the cloud of dust the blasts kicked up got thick enough I couldn't even see if I was still hitting her. Which was important because I didn't want to risk dropping a cliff on top of the town due to a missed blast.
Even ones I knew were too weak to do more than bruise Cheetah.
So I was unsurprised when the roaring catgirl burst out of the dust cloud, looking pretty battered but still plenty willing to fight.
And boy was she pissed.
I ducked under one claw swipe, slapped another aside, blocked a kick with my shin, and about twenty other things in order to not be overwhelmed by her offensive rush. It wasn't perfect though. More often than not, a slightly mistimed dodge or block resulted in small cuts or bruises. If I didn't break her momentum it was literally going to be death by a thousand cuts.
So I took a risk using the idea I had earlier.
I flared my Ki and focused it, the energy flowing faster and easier than any time during my training as a white aura covered my arm.
This time when Cheetah swiped at me, I didn't dodge or deflect, I straight up blocked her claws with my forearm.
It… kinda worked.
Cheetah's claws still cut through my unrefined defensive technique and cut four deep lines in my arm. But they weren't as deep as they should have been. More importantly, it slowed her down enough that I was able to get several quick jabs into her face that turned the fight in my favor.
Now she was the one on the defensive as I rained down punches and kicks on her, using my Ki defense to power through the counterattacks that would have forced me to back off and give her the initiative again.
"That's it!"
… at least until she got fed up with being punched in the face and caught both my arms by the wrists.
I suddenly had a real close look at Cheetah's teeth as she got in my face and growled, "I've been trying to be nice, you brat. But I'm done. Give me–" She cut off with a yowl of pain as I poked her in the eye with my tail.
Honestly, I was starting to think that was my most effective move.
Cheetah's hands went to her face and I took the opportunity to slip away. But what I really needed was an opportunity to take her out without too much collateral damage. A Kamehameha would probably work, but I'd level half the town if I just shot one off randomly.
"You little brat! That's it, I'm going to use you as a scratching post and bleed you dry!" Cheetah screamed as she tracked me with a bloodshot eye, the one I poked hidden under a hand.
I think I made her mad.
"Yeah? Come try it!"
Cheetah immediately lunged for me, claws extended and faster than she moved for the entire fight, but before she could get close a glowing length of rope wrapped around both her hands and yanked her up into the air.
… uh oh.
I looked up past the struggling supervillain and came face to face with a very unimpressed looking Wonder Woman and just to make things worse – a smirking Donna, who looked far too smug at my current circumstances.
"Califa, why am I unsurprised to find you brawling in the middle of a town when the League got an alert about a fight between a monkey tailed girl and Cheetah?"
It was rhetorical, both of us knew that. But I had to defend my honor here. "She started it!" I exclaimed, pointing at the still struggling catgirl.
"The artifact is MINE!" Cheetah howled. "You hear me, Diana?! MINE! The Sphere of Atlas is the key to me finally ditching this curse, and you and your brats won't keep it from me!"
Wonder Woman's eyes widened, "The Sphere of Atlas? Here? Where–" Her eyes immediately snapped back to me, and more specifically, the little pouch that contained my sphere.
Busted.
Did that mean the sphere wasn't alien tech, but magic instead? And it sounded like it was a little more valuable than everyone else assumed too…
Time to scram with the loot and deal with the consequences of my actions later.
Cheetah gave me the opening by attacking Wonder Woman despite being tied up by her lasso, and while those two were distracted I took off and started flying out towards the desert only to hear Wonder Woman curse and yell for Donna to stop me.
Not exactly the clean escape I'd hoped for, but I could deal with one Amazon.
"Califa, stop! Do you have any idea how dangerous that artifact is?!"
I looked over my shoulder and shouted back, "Do you?"
"Enough that Princess Diana told me to stop you, you idiot!"
That was an unfortunately valid point. But it also meant giving up my new training tool, so I was going to ignore it. "Just try it!"
"You–! Fine I will!"
Donna suddenly flew faster and collided with me midair. The two of us immediately started grappling for control, but it became pretty clear that we were going to crash into the ground.
Good thing we were well out in the desert now, very little chance of someone else showing up until Wonder Woman was finished with Cheetah.
When we did hit the ground, Donna moved to put me in a submission hold that I quickly countered and used the resulting leverage to separate us. The two of us scrambled back to our feet but Donna didn't move to keep fighting.
"What's wrong? Getting cold feet now?" I prodded.
She just glared at me. "Not a chance. I'm just trying to think if that artifact somehow possessed you, or if that even mattered because of how empty your skull is. What made you think running off with a magical artifact was a good idea?"
"To be fair, I was told it was some kind of minor alien tech. Not anything magical" I shrugged. "And it wasn't like I was just going to play around with it anyway. Not with what I have planned for this."
I didn't have senzu beans or any other recovery items like that, so I couldn't just abuse gravity training by pushing my body to the limit over and over again. And I still clearly remembered that one scene where Yamcha barged in on Vegeta's own gravity training and almost got himself squished for it.
So no, I wasn't going to just play with the sphere until it worked.
I was going to be really careful for once and actually learn how it worked before I started using it for the training plan I had started thinking up. Though I couldn't blame Donna for thinking I would. It did sound like the kinda thing I would normally do.
"Idiot." Donna cursed. "You should know better than to rely on anything magical unless you know what it is and what it does."
"I know what it does." I replied, shifting my feet and getting ready to attack. "And that's why I need to keep it!"
We didn't need to say anything else. The fight was on.
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