Foxfire, Esq. Chapter Two

Proper procedure for handling the aftermath of a supervillain attack had been woefully inadequate back when I was stuck being a superhero. Unfortunately for and everybody else at the court that morning, the Federal Moonshot Bureau apparently hadn’t updated their protocol handbook at all in the last fifteen years, which ant we were all in for a good three plus hours of wasted ti.

DCPD was useless. Court security was useless, too. Judge Albrecht refused to grant a mistrial so far into jury deliberations, bastard. Worst of all? The one ti I decided against taking a company car and just used the tro to get to and from court, it rained.

And the only umbrella I had was this teensy little folding number that fit in my purse.

The rain was coming down in sheets by the ti I made it back to the office building. The lobby was covered in puddles, a good sign that I wasn’t the only one who’d been caught by surprise. I crossed the floor very carefully on my way to the elevator, stepped on with the other person waiting, tapped my ID badge on the scanner, and hit the button for the eighth floor, while the other person quickly hit the fourteenth.

I could tell when he finally got a good look at from the sound of his surprised inhale.

“U-um… miss?”

Oh, goodie. He was talking to . Coin toss ti: normal or weird?

I turned to look at the guy – a young man in too-tight businesswear, maybe mid-twenties at most. He was very gingerly holding a sodden suit jacket over one arm, and clutching a set of mostly-dry papers to his chest with the other. A good call, but he might not think that once he got the dry-cleaning bill.

“Hmm?” I asked, putting my badge back in my purse as the elevator doors closed and we started going up.

“Your, uh.” He gestured behind . “You’re, um. Dripping.”

I just sort of stared, and gave him a slow blink, hoping an uncomfortable silence would prevent him from saying anything else. He t my eyes for only a mont or two before looking away. Phew. Coin toss ca up ‘mostly normal’. Thank goodness.

The elevator dinged, and I exited, barely registering the young man’s murmured “S-sorry!” as the doors closed behind . I hung a quick left, and headed towards my office.

“Wow. Looks like soone’s having a bad fur day!”

Unfortunately for , the office asshole was andering near the secretary bank at exactly the worst ti. I sighed, loud and exasperated.

Robby Schwartz, a junior attorney whose grandfather co-founded the firm, and whose mom both renad it and was technically one of my bosses, gave a look that was sowhere between snide and lustful. It was a painfully familiar expression, one that followed almost everywhere I went. I was accustod to ignoring it, and could usually tune it out without issue.

But after how the day had gone already, I did not have the patience for this shit right now.

I reached down into the core of my being, tugged ever so slightly on the power nestled there, and shifted. I caught a brief glimpse of the jackass’s shocked expression as my existence faded into purple fla, and a mont later, I reerged a good fifteen feet behind him, the embers fading as quickly as they appeared. Then ca a yelp and a muffled curse, both of which I ignored and just kept on walking.

“Wha — you can’t do that here!”

“Shut it, nepo baby!” I called over my shoulder, and just walked the rest of the way to my office. At that point, peace and quiet was a simple matter of locking my office door behind . Heavy, angry footsteps followed , and the asshole banged on my office door once or twice, but left alone a mont later.

Note to self: add ‘email HR again’ to the to-do list. The idiot’s mommy was hopefully out of favors now.

I hung my purse from a hook by the door and retrieved my phone from it, then sat down at my desk and pulled four things from the lower drawer: a towel, a brush, a comb, and a blow dryer. Much as I disliked Bob the Nepo Baby, he was right on one thing: I was having a bad fur day. And thankfully, fixing it was downright therapeutic.

I set the towel over my lap, reached around to my lower back, pulled all three and a half feet of my wet-furred fox tail around to my front, and started in with the comb.

Most Moonshots’ powers didn’t co with permanent extras like this, and of the few who did also have them, most weren’t anywhere near as visible or obvious, and tended to look like any other human. They could pass. They could take off whatever stupid, flashy outfit the NMR or their state’s Moonshot Corps decided to stuff them into and just live.

I couldn’t.

Anybody who looked at would know that I had superpowers. And that did have advantages, yes! I wasn’t going to deny that! But most of the ti, I was seen as either a ticking ti bomb or as walking fetish bait. All because my superpowers ca with fox ears and a tail.

Even after seventeen years, I still wasn’t sure which of those two was worse.

But don’t get wrong, it wasn’t bad. So people found positively adorable in all the best ways! Also, have you ever tried scratching a cat or dog at the base of the ear, only for them to get this almost cross-eyed expression of pure pleasure and lean back into your hand? Yeah, well, let tell you, the receiving end of that? Oh my God, so much better.

Plus, as much as I loved to gripe about how much I hated grooming my fur, the warm air from the blow dryer was heavenly.

Tiny pleasures. We get our creature comforts where we can.

Once I’d finished up my impromptu grooming session, I checked my work emails. Most of them were unimportant — deadline extensions granted, responses from clients and witnesses, follow-ups from a couple junior attorneys — but one of them caught my eye.

Oh, yes, did this one catch my eye.

Sent 01:48pm

From: Alice Tanaka-Schotz

To: Naomi Ziegler

Subject: New case — conference room 3

Naomi;

I know you’re stuck in that ss down at the courthouse right now, but once you’re in, take a look at this intake questionnaire. The new client is due to arrive around 3pm. You’re lead on this one. Feel free to offload so of your busywork onto a junior or two, they could use the billables or free ti to get their CLE’s done.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Thank you;

Alice Tanaka-Schotz, Esq.

Nad Partner

Bierman Viskie & Schotz, LLC

Proudly Woman-Owned & Operated Since 1998

A new case?

A new case! A quick look at the clock showed that it was almost 3pm. If the client was supposed to be arriving now, it was safe to assu that getting them to the conference room would take at least fifteen minutes. Which ant I had ti to review the new client questionnaire and get as familiar with the client as our intake specialists could let us.

I printed off the attachnt, then went and shot off a couple of emails: one to Alice to let her know I’d seen hers, and one to Bob the Nepo Baby, relegating him to verdict watch that he couldn’t get out of this ti. I also sent out a eting invite to the rest of the litigation group for a round table at 10am tomorrow. I’d have to pick up so pastries for that tomorrow, thank goodness for the company card, but for now?

“Alright, let’s see what you’re on about,” I said to myself as I grabbed the printouts, set a fifteen-minute tir on my phone, and set to work.

All of five seconds later, my ears had gone ramrod straight atop my head, and my fingers hurt from gripping the pen.

“Oh, shit,” I murmured.

This… this was spicy. This was really, really spicy. Okay, Naomi, fifteen minutes, let’s see what we could do. Lots of data points to cover, not a lot of ti to process it, but I’d be damned if I didn’t spot so issues before going into that eting.

Incident date, okay, needed to check for news reports. Any other similar incidents? Worth checking out. Lord only knows what I’d have to do if this wasn’t an isolated event. Ergency services response tis, right, there should be studies comparing them by neighborhood, just needed to actually look on Lexis. What about incident reports and investigations? Did we have a number for — yes we did, who was the investigating officer… three investigations? Huh, that was odd, did we have the dates for — that was odd. Wait, client’s na is… oh for the love of God, why was it always — ugh. Okay, fine, needed to make a note of that, pushback was always tricky. Other interested parties, let’s see, ah, that would be why I got this case, then. Okay, so that was five LEOs to run down tomorrow and Friday, I’d need to divvy up the assignnts, make sure to tailor who got sent where based on demographic, which always sucked to have to explain. Probably needed to handle that phone call myself, if only to—

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

“Oh holy—!”

I jumped clear out of my chair at the sound of the tir, putting a hand over my heart as I tried to calm my breathing and slow my racing pulse back down, stupid overactive startle reflex, God. I normally wasn’t quite so bad about getting wrapped up in what I was reading, but this?

Holy shit. I could tell already, this case was going to be an absolute ss. I gave my emails one last look before deciding to just head on over. If my estimate was off and I was earlier than expected, oh well.

The marked-up questionnaire went into my favorite notebook, and after making sure that I didn’t need to touch up my makeup at all, I left my office and headed towards the elevator. The four public conference rooms were two floors down, in a part of the firm’s space where we didn’t keep any sensitive or protected docunts. That hadn’t always been the case, but all it took was catching one “new client” snooping around in a filing cabinet to completely redo the office layout and fix the security hole.

It took another couple minutes to reach the conference room, and my boss was outside waiting for .

“Good timing. I assu you’ve gone over the questionnaire?”

Alice Tanaka-Schotz was a tall woman, with gray-streaked brown hair pulled back into a severe bun with just a bit left to fra the right side of her face. The ‘Tanaka’ ca from her husband, as many a new associate learned when they walked into her office expecting a small Asian, only to co face-to-face with a statuesque woman of Germanic descent.

Despite how approachable she tried to be, Alice was a naturally intimidating boss, not least of which due to the fact that, even in flats, she towered a whole head above in height.

And that was when I was in heels.

“All set. Anything else I should know going in?” I asked.

“Just be gentle with her,” Alice said in her usual soft-yet-firm tone, handing over a manila folder she’d been holding under one arm. I flipped it open to see a contract of retainer and a contingency fee agreent, both signed, then handed it back to her. “You’ll have plenty of ti to play hardball later, but the client will need your softest touch.”

Oh.

So this wasn’t my case just because of Moonshot involvent. It was also a bit of a test, then.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

At that, Alice gave the briefest glimpse of a smile. Then she was off, headed back up to her office on the tenth floor, and I was left alone in front of the conference room.

I closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. Then, on the count of three, I opened the door and went in.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Banks,” I greeted even before the door to the conference room closed, and made my way towards a seat near the new client. I gave myself a brief mont to take her in: black female, oversized t-shirt and worn jeans, body language despondent and dejected. If the intake questionnaire hadn’t been clear enough, this solidified it: all the way to trial, no brakes on the train. “My apologies for the delay; there was so ssiness at the courthouse that pushed my whole day back.”

There was no reply forthcoming, which was about what I’d anticipated. People who saw for the first ti generally had one of three reactions: confused utterances, muted disgust, or shocked silence. The latter two were more common, and from the lack of movent, I was guessing we had a case of shocked silence here.

“My na is Naomi Ziegler,” I continued, taking a seat just one past the corner of the table so that we could face each other and still talk. “I’m a senior associate here at Bierman Viskie & Schotz, and when there’s a chance of Moonshot involvent in a case, I’m usually tapped as the lead attorney for, well, obvious reasons.” I finished by wiggling my ears for the client’s viewing pleasure.

“… am I dreaming?” Her eyes were locked on my ears, and her voice sounded sowhat faint. “I’m dreaming. That’s gotta be it.”

I made a show of frowning, and humd lightly. I pinched the back of my hand, lightly tugged on the tip of an ear, and then poked the client on the back of her hand.

She flinched away slightly, eyes wide and blinking rapidly.

“Sweet mother of Jesus, you are real.”

“Mhmm,” I nodded. “My apologies if I surprised you, ma’am.”

“No, I, uh…” The client trailed off, and I offered a soft, understanding smile to let her know I wasn’t offended. She was clearly at a loss for words, and rather than trying to reply, she reached into her bag to retrieve a big bottle of sweet tea.

I took the lull to properly inspect my client. It wasn’t hard to figure out that Destiny Banks was not doing well. Her clothing hung on her the way it tended to with rapid weight loss — too much gone before the wardrobe could catch up. When combined with the sunken cheeks and massive bags under bloodshot eyes, it painted a stark picture of sobody who was well and truly suffering.

I needed to get pictures of her before she left, and see if she could provide photos from before everything happened. As far as evidence of pain and suffering went, I would be hard pressed to get sothing better than this.

“As I was saying,” I continued once Destiny finished drinking her sweet tea and put the bottle away. “My na is Naomi Ziegler, and I’ll be the lead attorney handling your case. Before I go any further, has sobody already sat down and gone over with you what all that would entail?”

“That nice young man did,” Destiny said, her voice strained and lifeless. She tried to et my gaze, but her eyes kept drifting up to where my ears sat atop my head. I didn’t bla her. “And I signed so papers with the lady who was in here before, and she said those made it all official-like?”

“They did. If you’d give a mont…”

I already knew this, but it was always best to make sure they understood what they’d signed. Now that I had confirmation, I could properly begin. My notebook went on the desk, my favorite fine-tip pen at the ready, and a dictaphone recording.

“Okay. I’m sorry to ask this of you after the phone eting, but I will need you to walk through everything. Start at the beginning. Tell everything you know. Leave nothing out. And take as much ti as you need.”

She didn’t speak imdiately. But when she did, she sounded exactly like she looked. Hollow. Empty.

Running on fus.

“I… there ain’t even been a funeral, ya know? Barely enough to bury. Don’t even got anything else to rember ‘em by either, just ash and smoke.

“All ‘cause a superhero left my boys to die in a fire.”