“Therefore, Annette here, also known as Medusa, will be released from captivity and join the heroes under probation,” the hero dude guy, I couldn’t recall the name of, announced.

“I-I will do my best!” she shakily said.

There were some cheers and claps as if she’d just won the Nobel prize, but she didn’t seem too comfortable being the center of attention.

Ahh, it reminded me of our own team switch. Everyone had called me a (former) cartoon villain back then for some reason.

“Your temporary team will be with Fractal, Iron Pack, and Princess Fox for the time being. If you have any questions you can ask your new teammates.”

“U-understood!”

Another round of applause.

Hmm, a team. How come we didn’t even have a team name yet? I pushed Troy and the girls for hero names so hard and completely forgot to come up with a cool team name. Dang, that was unacceptable! As soon as this thing ended, we needed to have an important meeting regarding our team name!

That aside, Annette was finally released from the clutches of the hero dude guy’s spotlight and came to join us at our side of the round heroic table. Her steps were unsteady as if she was about to keel over at any moment. The anxiety was that bad…?

“Hey, sis! You did it! You’re one of the good guys now!” I greeted her.

“H-Hey…”

I abruptly stood up and hugged her, despite all these nasty childhood memories telling me not to.

“U-uh?!”

“Welcome to the side of light! We have cookies and warm hugs over here!” I jokingly said whilst letting her go.

“Um… thank you…?”

“This calls for a big party! Let’s all go to Aster’s place after this is over and party till the morning!” Troy nonsensically spouted.

“Hey, screw off! I bet you just wanna listen to the toilet radio all day again!”

“What? Who cares about the toilet radio! I want that big screen TV! It’s like half the size of your living room!”

“I’m not letting you into our place after last time! ”I growled like a mother fox protecting her young. That’s what mother foxes did, right?

“Now, now, Troy.” Kelly put a hand on his shoulder. “It would be rude to intrude on someone’s love nest, wouldn’t it?”

“Lo–!” I gasped out, already feeling blood rushing to my face.

“That’s right, Buckler,” Fern said as she half-hugged me. “We had some grand plans today so get that TV-hogging buckler ass out of here!”

“Wha-?! G-grand plans?!”

“Of course… we were planning on having Annette live with us for now, and wanted to make space for her, right?”

“O-oh… right.”

“Hmm? Were you perhaps thinking about something else?” Fern grinned at me from up close.

“I, er, uh…” Once again, she managed to knock out the words away from me.

…

“Pft… ahahaha…”

Everyone’s attention was brought back to Annette who let out uncharacteristic laughter.

“Oh, uh… sorry.” She immediately clammed up and looked away.

“Hey, it’s fine! Keep laughing at Aster as you please! It’s good for your health! I do it all the time!” the miserable existence known as Troy quipped up whilst giving Annette a thumbs up.

Miranda bonked him on the head with her fist and said, “He’s right! You’re one of us now! Don’t be a stranger!”

“If I’m right then why did you punch me?!”

“Sorry, habit.” Miranda poked out her tongue at the ranting Troy.

“Ahem,” the hero dude guy at the podium made himself known again.

Oh… we’d made a little bit of noise in the middle of a meeting, hadn’t we?

“““Sorry!””” we all apologized as one.

Once the room returned to silence, the hero dude guy continued with the next topic. As proper heroes, we all seemed to have collectively decided to ignore it though.

“So, yeah, once this is over, we’ll show you around our place,” I whispered to Annette.

“I… Thanks.”

I smiled in response.

Despite everything, it felt nice reconnecting with her like this. Without the two jerkfaces floating around, making sure we followed in their jerkfaced footsteps. We were just two sisters being sisters.

“By the way, I wanted to ask… Why Medusa?” Kelly chirped up.

“Oh, uh. It’s because of my power. I can freeze people and objects in place, preventing them from moving. Even canceling gravity sometimes,” Annette answered.

“Wait what? Didn’t you say your power is useless? This sounds so powerful!” I whisper-shouted at her.

“It’s… unreliable. Sometimes it can freeze crowds of people… sometimes I can’t even… freeze a fly,” she said, her voice getting lower and lower as she hung her head.

I decided to save the situation by half-hugging her.

“Hey, it’s fine! That just means there’s more to it than you thought. Some kind of hidden secret or technique! We’ll help you to uncover the mysteries of your own power! Just like I had to discover the mysteries of mine!”

“You didn’t even realize you had a power until they told you,” Troy interrupted with a deadpan comment.

“E–xactly! The mystery was whether I even had a power! Now shut up, minion number B!” I shot him down before turning back to my sister. “Imagine how powerful your power could be if your power could be at full power at all times!” I grinned at her, before frowning. “I said the word power a lot of time there, didn’t I?”

“Ah yes, Aster, the master wordsmith,” Troy said with his loud mouth again.

A middle finger sufficed as a response this time. I didn’t even turn to look at him.

“Umm… alright then.”

“Great!” I grinned. “Now we just have to wait till the class ends.”

A round of whispered agreement ran through our group.

Only Fractal sighed at our antics. “I can’t believe you are the people I trust the most.”

Rude.

BottledChaos

Hey everyone! The next chapter will be the last for the time being while I work on another project. Don't worry, I'll come back and finish Princess Fox eventually, but for now, keep an eye out for the new story! You can also take a sneak peek at the first few chapters at my patreon.