Ruby's fight with Incandesce makes the local news over the next few days. Despite the egg on the Protectorate's face, no one actually died or was lastingly injured, and even the property damage was relatively minor, which limits the mass-market news appeal. The online cape fandom is more enthusiastic, with a few shippy pieces of fanart making the rounds. Some of the more plugged-in types start to put the dots together with the various bounties Ruby's been claiming across the world, but this doesn't yet get mainstream traction due to the implausible geographic spread and the disconnect to the image Ruby's presented so far. Ellie didn't show her face much, so the coverage of her has more of an undertone of nervous anxiety.

She loves the coverage, actually, and she may or may not (read: definitely does) start contributing her own fanart. She's a damn good artist, not to be immodest or anything, so hopefully she can nudge the fandom in some spicy directions. (And make sure everyone is getting her tiger form and human costume actually correct.)

(For her next tigery appearance, she pounces on Incandesce in the middle of a patrol, spends most of the fight in full view of phone cameras in her very sexy human costume, then vanishes in a swirl of flame right as backup tries to hit the scene.)

She is gaining a small but dedicated cadre of posters sworn to the cause of her hotness, at least.

Ellie uses a throwaway account to post her video of that fight to the PHO forum thread, along with a link to a thousand-word Incandesce/Ruby oneshot. Incandesce reacts to the post with an eyes emoji and a heart.

Oh no, Ruby's gay.

She spends a little while giggling and hugging her phone, both over Ellie's delicious oneshot, and over Incandesce's reaction. 

"I think you've got a shot."

Heee!

"Isn't she wonderful?"

"A plus nemesis material."

Dreamy sigh. 

"You'll have to do something special for your next date. Let me know if you need any ideas," she teases.

"Could use some!"

Ellie can share the quick rundown of her top five hooks for the next piece of shipfic. Some of them are even plausibly connectable to reality, even. She's particularly fond of the one where Incandesce is trapped like a princess in a tower and must fight-slash-seduce Ruby, playing the part of the dragon, into allowing her her freedom.

Oh, nice. 

Maybe Ruby can do a few more skirmishes, really build up her cred as a nemesis, and secretly get to work on that tower... While Ellie polishes up and publishes the fic, so Ruby can quote from it. 

Guess she'd better make it a multi-chapter deal.

Add more fuel to the flames. 

It's gonna be a scorcher.

Mm-hmm! (Tiny anticipatory wiggle.)

Cute. Kiss!

Kisses!

Then back to work?

If Ellie insists. 

Unless she'd rather delay getting evil makeouts with Incandesce further?

Okay, okay, she'll get to work...

There's a kitty who knows how to get what she wants.