Totally not a Squirrel Girl

School was such a boring thing. Girls and boys were surrounded by authority figures who, more often than not, did not care about you. They had their checklist and were off to complete their duties. What made things worse was the lack of students who noticed this. Everyone of them wanted to please the teachers or try and game the system for those small pointless benefits. They were all a bunch of sheep and it only pissed Emerl off. Sure a good 70% of that was because her feet burned all the time, but the other 30 was surely due to those sheep. So whenever the hopes of an aware student came around, the girl had to see it for herself.

One day, Emerl heard about this older girl who also disliked the SAFE classes, The girl knew she had to do some digging. While this was not the first person to actively protest SAFE, it was one of those few times that the person meant what they said. She was not a popular type, but she did not let people push her around. Rumor has it that before she had her powers, she would beat up supers. What made this better was that she did this in a secret underground cage fight.

Emerl could only fantasize watching unregistered supers beat the crap out of each other. Everyone there would probably hate authority and she would be free to do whatever she wanted. The lack of rules might even start some fights in the stands. It would be a perfect place to relax. Maybe she could even bring her new minion there and make some trouble of her own. Vex would totally like that, even if she didn't.

Emerl’s first objective was to get something that belonged to Aella. Lucky for her, she had the perfect little thief for the job.
“What do you mean you can’t come? Argh! We will talk about this later.”
Emerl groaned and stuffed her phone into a small black backpack. Her secret weapon couldn’t make it but hope was not lost. She just had to work a little harder and get other people a little dirty.

“I don’t have the key Emerl. I swear!” A thin girl cowered against a wall. Emerl slammed her hands behind the girl.
“Boring. You are boring me. Wouldn’t it be fun if your pretty dress was covered in mud?”
“Emerl, I swear! I don’t have it. The teachers took the keys.”
Emerl sighed before turning around to squeeze her fist as the itching spiked up her leg. The halls were empty with no teachers around but Emerl needed to be out of her shoes.
“Then how will I entertain myself. Oh… maybe I can do my art homework.”
“Fine… I will uh. I can get you into the locker room.”
“Thank you. Are we still on for next week's group project?”
“O-O-Of course Emerl.”
“Awesome. I might bring a friend. Oh and you might wanna leave before I change my mind.”
Emerl entered the room and was assaulted by the smell of sweaty clothes. No matter how many times she smelled rooms like this, she always wanted to vomit. This time was no different, until the girl found herself over a toilet. Emerl walked out with teary eyes and wobbled her way to the locker. It was locked, but it had a distinct smell, just like the other used lockers. It was the scent of a human, a girl who Emerl hoped was Aella.

After making another trip to the bathroom, Emerl started looking for the scent. Her antennas twitched but Emerl held down her headband. To hide her identity, she wore sunglasses, a white surgical mask, a black vest with a hood, a black grey short sleeve shirt, and black tight jean shorts. She was not wearing shoes but did not notice because she was focus on not forgetting the smell. After several minutes, she found a trail. Emerl was amazed at how sensitive her new sense was. Even though it was a curse, it was actually fun to follow a trail. Finally Emerl turned down an alley only to smell the source. Immediately Emerl ducked behind the wall. Her heart thumped. Sweat rolled down her face. Did the girl see her? Was she found out already?

Somebody was definitely following her. Aella noted as she glanced back down the alleyway, though she hadn’t seen any confirmation. The catgirl didn’t really need to, already being able to hear the stranger, a single heartbeat that seemed to have been left frantic when she’d turned. Aella wasn’t particularly keen on being followed by some mysterious person, though she had some suspicions on who it COULD be. After all it wouldn’t be impossible for some would-be mugger to target her in this part of town, or a former opponent wanting to repay her for a loss.

The cat girl thought for a moment about what exactly she should do, knowing they were following her, and expecting a confrontation. She had an idea about what to do, altering her course while trying to make it seem she didn’t suspect anything. Stepping down a secondary path, rather than staying to her original course, this one she knew would take her to a fenced off area often used for street brawls. The owner of the building having more or less given up on chaining the door, she’d go through it acting as though it was simply a normal part of her route. If nothing else, a former...or future opponent from one of the clubs would realize the area was hardly the correct ones, being from similar circles as herself. If not well, it still made for a good place to force a confrontation, and she’d move to the side of the fencing to wait. Noting that the area was exactly as she’d recalled it being the last time she’d been here. The cat girl would wait a minute or two, listening to her prey’s footsteps to judge when the stalker was close enough.

Then she moved into action, using a trash can almost like a springboard to launch herself upwards, catching the edge of the fence and pulling herself up it in one smooth, swift motion. Leaving the cat girl standing on top of the fencing with a cat-like balance, staring down at whoever had been following her. Knowing she easily had enough training to get down and ready for a fight in a swift moment depending on who it was. Trusting not only in her new agility, which while helpful was no substitute for lessons learned from experience and practice. The powers simply made things easier and less of a risk. Though it still irked the martial artist that she didn’t feel she’d earned the inhuman agility. “Why are you following me?” whether she actually saw the stalker or not. Aella would jump down, using what acrobatic training she’d gotten in combination with her new found agility to land easily behind where she assumed her stalker would be.

Emerl waited against the wall. She could not smell the girl moving closer or farther. Her heart raced, every beat sounding off like a war drum. She could not imagine being scared. Her powers were well hidden and there were no known risk of exposure. Feeling a smile on her face, the girl quickly labeled her emotion, excitement.

Trailing an unknown girl was more fun than she expected. The scent was intoxicating and addictive as she continued to focus on it. Her head itched, but Emerl pushed down on her hood while inching closer to the edge of the wall. She was still in control, not her powers, not the curse. She was not going to breakdown in this invisible standoff. No matter what the girl did, she could not get away from Emerl.

Eventually the girl moved on, or so Emerl assumed, as the girl's smell grew weaker. Emerl peeked out, confirming her suspicions. While the girl was still within range of her antenna, Emerl preferred to follow the scent trail more. It was relaxing and much easier than trying to interpret what her antenna wanted to tell her. This led her to a weird alleyway with a chain fence. Poster like paper hid the other side but Emerl could still smell the girl. She was close. As she moved closer to the fence, she wondered what the girl was doing. Her answer would come as she heard the fence rattle.

An older girl stood on top of the fence. Emerl was caught. Sucking her teeth, Emerl prepared to flee but the older girl was running on walls and dashing in the air like a flea, no... SQUIRREL. Emerl froze as her eyes followed the agile girl. If she was not at risk of being beaten up, she would be in awe or yelling parkour. After a flip, the girl stood behind Emerl and her exit. Finally, the older girl entered a fighting stance.

“Damn it!” Emerl exclaimed as she took a step back. She was not a fighter, not a real one anyway. Ashley detested the idea of a proper girl getting into a fistfight and the few fights she did get into in school were with prissy girls who did not know how to punch. Emerl did have her powers but this girl was supposed to be able to fight supers without powers. Also, losing would put her at risk of revealing her identity. This meant the only option was to flee.

Emerl ran to the gate and pushed it open. Lucky for her, it was not locked. Slamming it behind her she looked forward and saw nothing but brick and wall. It was a dead end and unlucky for her, there was no way to lock the fence. So her only hope now was to hold out and pray the older girl just went away. It would not be too bad since Emerl could always trail her down later.
“You win… just go away!” she yelled from the other side of the fence.

The girl did not leave. Instead, she just walked to the gate with a face of disapproval. Emerl could imagine Ashley giving her that look and it pissed her off. She gritted her teeth while holding the gate shut. Then the girl smiled after looking Emerl in the eye. Now Emerl just wanted to punch her in her smug face. Just because the girl knew some fighting style didn't mean she could look down on her. Also, she had stupid squirrel ears. Emerl was not going to fall for it. She was going to stand her ground and not move from behind this fence.

“Yeah, that's why you went into your stupid stance. I seen the Movies,” then Emerl took a deep breath, “and, I’m not a KID!”
Being a kid was another restriction, a sign that she could not be independent, or drink stuff. It was like being a lesser human or something.
“You can’t tell me what to do. So take your fancy dance moves and go away.”

Didn’t look like she was going to open the door. Aella noted, frowning down at the younger girl, as she thought about the situation for a moment. She couldn’t just leave, at least not until she knew why this girl was following her in the first place. Though it was clear the nice approach wasn’t working,and Aella didn’t want this to take any longer than it needed to. “Alright, if you’re not gonna open it, guess I don’t have a choice.” The cat girl stated, her tail swaying behind her as she seemed to start walking away. Mentally counting out the paces before she’d stop, turning back around to face the fenced off area once again.

Aella’s face took on a determined look, and she couldn’t help the slight grin at the prospect of the potential challenge before her despite the circumstances. Grinning as she broke into a run, mentally measuring the distance between herself and the fence before finally jumping, catching the edge of the fence and flipping over it. The catgirl’s heel slamming into the gate to stop any attempt to open it before she dropped to the other side. “Didn’t think that’d work….” She mused, making a mental note to try to test her new agility later, since even if she wasn’t particularly happy about getting power she hadn’t earned she should at least have a better understanding of it. Or rather, of the limits of the power.

“You ready to talk now? Why were you following me?” The catgirl asked, keeping her tone casual. “And I’m much better than most of those people in the movies, kid..” She added on as an afterthought. Most of the martial artists you saw on TV were at best subpar, though good at flashy displays, or the fighting skills were faked altogether with clever editing. Despite the situation, she didn’t try to take a stance again, already having mentally dismissed the girl as a non-combatant. Jeez, she could have at least gotten a stalker that could fight.

Emerl watched as the girl started walking away. Victory was finally hers, even if it was a coward's victory. Escaping without a broken face was better than standing your ground and enforcing your right to stalk people. Emerl lighten her grip on the fence and prepared to start tracking her scent again but the girl suddenly turned around. Emerl gripped the fence even harder, If she was going to try and push on the fence, then Emerl would be force to activate her powers. It would be a short term loss but her face would be safe from the other girls foot.

With a smile now on the other girl’s face, Emerl’s eyes widen. This was not about to be a test of strength. The girl had another plan in mind. Was she going to punch down the fence? Was she going to rip it open? Was she going to unleash some blast utilizing the energy from everyone in the city? Okay, maybe that last one was a little ridiculous but Emerl was trembling now.

The girl went into a sprint. A few steps before hitting the gate, she leaped and flipped over the fence. The girl could wall run, had the balance of a squirrel, the agility of a flying squirrel. Emerl wanted to facepalm for thinking a measly fence would protect her. Sadly she couldn’t because the girl had her against the fence with her spiritual pressure. Worst, she wanted to… talk. At least a beaten would go by quickly if she curled up into a ball. Talking could potentially reveal her identity. She could use her powers but she was not getting away from the girl. Plus, she was called kid again. Well, maybe it was okay now that there wasn’t a chain fence to block the punches.

“If your going to give me a choice… than give me one Squirrel Girl.” Emerl found the courage to be a little snarky but the slightest hint of an attack would send Emerl diving to the ground, balling up apologizing. She did not want to show that side of herself so she decided to be honest, sort of.
“I was looking for the Girl who could fight supers without powers. You obviously can't be her since you used your squirrel powers to capture a powerless stalker. So I guess there is no reason to follow you.”
Emerl gave an uneasy laugh, “So now that that’s over with, I will just be getting on with my life.”
Then she turned around and started climbing the fence, hoping the girl would let her go.

Aella blinked when the girl started actually mouthing off to her, having not expected it given her behavior before, though it did prompt a grin from the catgirl. It was obvious she was amused by the younger girls antics more than anything, now that she knew it wasn’t someone looking who’d been following her for malicious purposes. THere was one thing that did stick though, about what the girl had said in regards to who she was. It had hardly occurred to her that the rumors about her would get so close to accurate, as the last time she’d been paying attention to them at all people were saying she’d been selling her body or involved with some kind of mafia group.

For Aella, it had always been a mark of pride that she had been able to win those fights in particular, and while a flash of annoyance passed over her face briefly at the reminder that wouldn’t be able to make that claim any longer, though she’d realized that it would at least allow her to take on stronger power users, since most fight clubs even underground ones usually were hesitant to put a fighter, even one like her against power users. “Squirrel powers?” Aella questioned, somewhat bemused but figured it wasn’t really important enough to correct her, “eh, close enough to what I got stuck with I guess.” The catgirl dismissed with a shrug, She moved out of the way of the gate, with an almost casual shrug.

“Maybe I’m not her anymore...these things kinda got in the way of that.” She stated in a mix of bitterness and bemusement as she gestured to her ears, tail flick out as though trying to also get the younger girl's attention.

Emerl Climbed to the top of the fence. Once she was at the top, she noticed the girl waving around her tail and twitching her ears. Emerl could relate to having your life changed because of your powers. Still, she was not here to do therapy. In fact, this was a good time to get away. Given her statement last statement, she was clearly the right girl. Emerl was more dedicated than ever to find that secret underground fighting spot. However, there was one more thing she was going to add to the list. Once she saw the squirrel girl fighting, she was going to take a picture and use that to blackmail the girl into being her minion. Emerl smiled under her masked. Since the girl did not want to stop Emerl, the young rebel had her opening for escape.

“Well… I’m not a therapist so yeah. Bye!”
Emerl jumped down from the gate, rolling as she hit the ground. She took a deep breath and reminded herself of the girl’s scent. Then she started to run away out of the alley to go hide.

Aella blinked as the girl ran off, not sure exactly what that was about. She still didn't know why the girl had been looking for her after all, and while she could probably catch her, Aella decided to just shrug it off instead. If the girl had wanted something, she'd have to come back for it after all and if not then Aella probably wouldn't need to worry about it anyway. Really the best thing to do was to let her go.

Besides, Aella had somewhere to be, and the girl wasn’t really her responsibility. It was probably one of those girls that needed her help with a bully or something, a scenario Aella had encountered a couple other times due to whatever rumors about her they’d heard. It wasn’t surprising, given that despite being on numerous sports times in her time at the high school she’d never really given much time to socializing with people, after all she could hardly train and participate in all the extra curricular activities she was involved in if she was busy gossiping about nonsense.nse. She didn’t care who was dating who or what celebrities had done what. Let alone any of the other nonsense those crowds seemed to inevitably talk about..

Aella continued on to the location the current fight was supposed to be at listening much more clearly now for any sign of being followed again as she closed in on her destination.

Emerl quickly hid after leaving Aella’s line of sight. She waited there behind some stairs focusing on Aella’s sent. Somehow, Aella figured out she was being followed so Emerl had to think up another game plan. Then she had an idea. If she just wait even longer before following the girl, then she would not get caught. So after waiting 10 minutes, she started trailing the scent again. It was not an innovative idea, but she had no clue were the girls destination. Also, she was not about to give up this chase. Emerl was no quitter. She was a winner, a winner who took victory at any cost.

Aella didn’t really think much about the incident after the girl had left. She hardly gave the weird girl much thought, slowly working her way towards the location. She could still hear the footfalls behind her, and wasn’t under any illusions of who was following her, but it hardly really mattered right now she supposed. If the kid really wanted to follow her there wasn’t much she could really do about it, and she wasn’t planning to go beating some kid up when they would probably just get scared off by the others at her destination anyways.

A couple of thugs stood at the door, part of the group that ran these events she knew, and Aella gave both a nod as she passed by the two. Walking into a room to the side of the door she’d be able to warm up in. The building itself was an old nightclub that had been shutdown, with the land seemingly in a sort of purgatory state as there seemed to have been some kind of issue with the city. As a result the place had been abandoned and the fight club had moved in six months later.

“Hey! Kid!” A voice called out as she entered, one she recognized as one of the other, older fighters. “You hear about what happened to Dres? He says some crazy bitch went and killed his cousin last week, smashed a fuckin’ car into the place he was workin’ at.” The guy said, shaking his head. “Looks like he’s ducked outta your fight today.”

Aella shook her head moving towards some of the equipment regardless, if nothing else, maybe she’d be able to get into a different fight? “Jeez, they catch who did it?” She asked, the older fighter shaking his head. The catgirl frowned as she heard it. Some kind of commotion outside...it couldn’t be...

It seemed that the girl did not notice Emerl, so the ant girl continue following her. It wouldn’t be long before a weird scent made her skin jump. There was only one thing gave off such a metallic smell, and Emerl could not ignore it. It was a warning. The rumors were true and she could back out now. However, she wasn’t that type of person. Also, she was not afraid of some underground fight club, not even the two bouncers standing there.

“Hey kid. Beat it,” boomed one of the guards with his hand out. Emerl clenched her fist while lowering her head. She hated how adults just threw around that word. She was 14, a teenager. “You let that other girl in here. Why can’t I walk in?”
The bouncers turned to each other chuckling. Then one of them stooped down to Emerl’s level, “You know who that ‘girl’ is?” He shoved his large finger into the girl’s chest. Emerl braced herself, fighting her body’s urge to move.
“Yeah. Some squirrel girl. Oh I get it. You big men are afraid of some squirrel and try to take it out on me. Real scary.”