Battle Vixens! - 11

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Episode 11: Learning

A little while after getting a response back, Amory heard a quiet tapping on the door. He got up and turned to face it, and immediately noticed a message glowing on the inside: "It's me; I'm invisible right now. Let me in please." He went and opened the door, and even though there didn't seem to be anyone there he stood aside, and heard someone moving past. Once he was pretty sure she was through, he closed and locked it again.

Light appeared and collapsed onto the couch, giving an exhausted sigh. "Thanks..."
"Yeah, no problem. Um, are you okay there?"
"Just...really tired. Please tell me they cancelled classes tomorrow."
"Um, yeah, I think so." He went over to sit next to her for a moment. "Even if they didn't I think a lot of people would be calling in sick at this point, after having an attack right on campus. And with what Dr. Quinn said on the news..."
"Wha'd they say?" she said, interested.

"Weren't you there? Oh wait—passed out—nevermind. She got really mad when they asked if any students got hurt; I mean, first she said no, but they were lucky, especially the ones that hung around after those things showed up. And then it was this really fast rant I couldn't even follow—um, some stuff about it being irresponsible to put the students in danger, and if they could attack there before then they could show up again...stuff like that. 'We can't keep pretending everything's okay when we don't even know what we're dealing with at the most basic level'."

"...Did anyone raise the point that as far as we know, they could attack literally anywhere? Like, sitting in a dorm room or apartment isn't really any safer. Maybe they can show up in someone's bedroom in the middle of the night if they want..."

"You know, I..don't think anyone wanted to say that aloud. But.." He thought through all the news he'd seen recently. "Hm...none of them have done that yet, it's always some public place they show up in, or at least somewhere there's a lot of people."

"If everyone starts hiding out, then the places with a lot of people are gonna be apartment complex and neighborhoods, though. That doesn't really fix the problem..." Light yawned, and closed her eyes for a moment. She leaned back on the couch, not sleeping but resting. Amory caught himself staring again, especially with the peaceful look that gave her. He forced himself to look away, forward at the TV that was still on, but the volume low.

"Um...Blake. Look."
"Mhm?" She didn't open her eyes, but seemed to still be listening.

"In the interest of being totally honest with you. And as one guy, speaking to another guy, even if..but, anyway. I'm sure you've noticed that you're a girl when you're, like that, right?"

She did open her eyes at this point, actually looking at him. "Yeah, so?"

"Do you have any idea how cute of a girl, though?"

She smiled and blushed slightly, letting out a small giggle. "Heheh...I guess, a little bit yeah. It's weird, I feel kinda girly too, if that makes any sense. Like, I can feel my mannerisms are a little different, and I know I kinda...think sligthtly differently. So you're saying you think I look cute?"

"W-well, yes. I just, don't want to pretend I'm not...and then, it be worse when you figured it out later. I'm really trying not to act like a pervert."

"This body's as foreign to me as it is to you," she said. "I don't really know where it came from or how, but I can't help but take being called cute and blushed at by a guy while in it as a compliment. Anything else you want to be honest about?" This came in a bit of a teasing voice, but, well, there was one other thing.

"Um...a little more in weird territory, and not really something I ever thought I'd say, but your tail looks really soft. I, uh.."

"What, you want to know what it feels like?" she said, and shrugged. "Go ahead. Just don't pull on it or anything."

"S-seriously?"
"Sure. I haven't really had a chance to do anything but run around and fight stuff like this, so I'm a little curious myself."

He reached out cautiously and tried running his hand across it. It was warm and soft, just like any thick-furred dog might be. Light responded by closing her eyes again and making a small "Mmh" sound.

"Um, wh-what's it like?"
"Feels pretty good, I guess. Relaxing. I dunno how to describe it besides that." Her eyes opened slightly, just enough to give Amory a look he was totally helpless against. "Could you...do it a little more?"
"I-I guess, yeah..." He continued gently petting her tail for a little longer, conflicted between a simple sense of enjoyment and the continuing mental realization of how absolutely strange of a thing this was to do to (or was it with, or on?) another person. She closed her eyes gain, smiling peacefully.

After a while, Light slumped over to one side, clearly falling asleep. Well, that made it a question of whether to wake her so she could go to sleep in her own bed or just leave her there. Amory decided to just let her nap, at least for a little while. She would probably be hungry for supper at some point, right? While he continued to watch the news, his hand occasionally crept over and ran over her tail again; he drew it back when he noticed he was doing that, but it didn't seem like she minded too much.

---

Ning opened her eyes. "Ready or not, here I come!"

Nadia audibly giggled from the hall closet; the fuzzy ears had the kind of directional hearing to tell her exactly that location. The fox-girl pointedly walked over toward the bathroom. "Where are you, little girl~? Are you in the....bathroom?" She dramatically opened the door. "Are you in the...tub?" She loudly ruffled the shower curtains, and heard her granddaughter laughing out loud. It was wonderful to have a body with the energy to keep up with that girl, and just play around with her sometimes. Ning knew she was terrifyingly strong, and capable of making literal lightning...but with Light's help getting the constant electricity around her, she was able to make herself completely non-dangerous. The lack of control she seemed to have over the electrical power didn't seem to extend to her physical capabilities; she was perfectly capable of ripping a door off its hinges if she wanted to, but not wanting to let her jerk one open loudly without doing so.

The game went on like this for a little while, a few more wrong places, before she finally came to the real hiding spot. "Are you in the...closet!?" The door was opened, and a little girl laughing out loud was inside. "Aha, gotcha!" She grabbed her little girl and started tickling her, making the laughing fit even worse and longer. It was wonderful to know she wasn't traumatized by the kidnapping incident—well, not beyond hating applesauce now at least. She'd been interviewed by a pediatrician and a child psychologist, and given the OK all around. Gerald had his reasonably good insurance to thank for all this not totally bankrupting him, but he would've spent it all up anyway, just to know she was okay.

"Hahaha—stop, grampa, stop!!"

"Okay, okay." Ning let go, and her girl took a couple of breaths before running off away from her. She knew better than to leave the house in a game like this, but the fox-girl gave chase anyway. "Hug demon's coming to get ya! What're you gonna do, little girl?" Nadia turned around, putting her hands on her hips, and then just let Ning hug her for a little bit, her little hands moving to feel her transformed grandfather's strange, soft ears. It was an interesting feeling, being "pet" by her own granddaughter, and had given her an opportunity to teach the girl the right way to treat animals: Not to pull or yank or grab at the soft hairs, just to gently rub it so it didn't hurt the living creature it all belonged to. Hopefully that lesson would stick if she ever decided she wanted a puppy or kitty, because there was no way Gerald wouldn't eventually give in to such a request.

Light tried so hard because she wanted to save everyone. That much was obvious by now. She'd even wanted to save Gerald—save Ning, even after being attacked by her. She'd seen the desperation, and understood somehow, or tried to at least. She'd just wanted to talk the entire time. That was why she took so much on herself, and jumped in the way of monsters, taking on every fight. Ning couldn't really understand that motivation, not completely.

Sure, there had been a time when Gerald was young and thought he could save the whole world—but the world was a cold, harsh place in the end, full of people who didn't want saving. People who didn't want to let others be saved. She would have to come to terms with that eventually. But...all the same, Ning knew she needed to keep the girl in her arms safe. She was all that was left. And the world wouldn't be safe for her as long as those monsters were out there. Light was too kind and nice of a person for the world to lose, just yet. Everyone needed hope at a time like this, and if she ever got over that pesky fear of real public appearances (which was Ning's fault, unfortunately), she could be the one to give that hope.

That was why she had promised to take care of any monsters that showed up while she was taking a break. For Nadia; for Light. For anyone like them, innocent and naive to the darkness of the world, to keep them that way for as long as she could. Maybe not everyone could be saved, but keeping the Lights of the world alive—that was something worth fighting for. And she wouldn't be just missing the opportunity to help this time. No, Gerald would keep an ear to the news all night and all day if he had to, and Ning would do her best to be the first to the next attack in their town.

---

A couple of days off was just an opportunity to study things more. Clark lay across her wife's lap, both of them in "fox-form" as they'd taken to calling it, trying for what she counted to be the fifty-third time to pronounced her wife's phrase. Breaking it down into words, then phonemes, hadn't been enough; she just seemed to get tongue-tied in the middle of any of it. Now it was one syllable at a time, like teaching a child to say a word for the first time. "...Na."
"Na."
"Ko."
"Ko."

Rory sighed. She was not the kind of person to give up, but if they didn't make progress soon it would be time for a break. "That's it. That's all of the syllables. Put the first two together." Clark succeeded at this. "Second two." So far, so good. "Third two." Each pair of syllables worked; this was farther than they had managed to get before now.

"Well, do you want to try three at a time now, or jump to four?"
Clark closed her eyes, running through the whole string of sounds and mouth movements in her head. "Let me try...hm..." She went through the whole thing slowly.

"No no...you were close, you were close! The last two are nahko. Not nayko. Again...you can do this."
She took a deep breath. This time it felt different somehow. She hadn't tripped over any of the sounds just before, and with the correction and encouragement Clark felt somehow sure she understood how to say it. The understanding and certainty felt strangely...deeper than just saying some words, as if she had come to understand something of their meaning just by getting a grasp on the pronunciation. She spoke the entire phrase, not in the slow, careful manner she'd been trying before, but quickly and fluently, like a native speaker of the bizarre language.

Something like an orange fire flared around Rory and rushed into Clark, briefly surrounding her body before pulling in, as if being absorbed. Rory had a look of surprise, then something like fear. "Wha..hmm." She calmed down almost immediately. "That..did something, for sure." Her eyes closed for a second. "I feel..weak. H-hang on, get offa me." Clark obeyed, sitting up and looking at her with concern. She did some poking around at her arm, pulled up her shirt for a second to look at her stomach, which was noticeably missing the abs it usually had in this form. "Yeah. As far as I can tell, whatever you just did stole my 'power'. Actually..." She squinted slightly, as if trying to remember. "Now I can't remember the phrase! Can you?"
"Yeah." It was as stuck in Clark's mind as her own had always been. "Um, let me try and.." She tried saying it again, wanting to fix this. Immediately the fiery glow reappeared around her and went back into her wife.

Rory blinked a couple of times, and flexed a bit. "I'm back to normal. Or...abnormal. The phrase showed up in my head again as soon as you said it. What did you do exactly?"

"I just..said it. I wanted you to go back to normal."
"Hmm. I think we've stumbled into something new about how all this works," Rory said. "Try to say it wanting to take the power back to you again."
"Um, are you sure?"
"Yes! We need to understand what's going on."

She went back to being weak; even to Clark there was something distinctly powerless about the woman in front of her. "Okay. Now, do you feel any stronger? Tougher? Anything?" But as expected for Clark's wife, she was already over it and moving on to figuring things out.

"Um, no..not any different at all."

"Hmm. What if you say it and try to make yourself stronger."

"Okay.." When she said the phrase this time, Clark felt a warmth spreading over her body. She grew several inches taller, her chest pushing out slightly, and her muscles tensed briefly. "Um..that," she briefly hesitated on hearing a slightly deeper voice coming out. "That did something. I feel stronger now, but not, like..ridiculously so. I wouldn't think of jumping out of a third-story window or anything."

"Are you still on me about that? Look, I was completely and totally correct. Light might not have survived if we'd taken the stairs."

"Yeah, yeah." Clark examined a hand, and could almost see the firelike glow pulsing around it. "Um, I also feel like I can sort of..pull something around and make certain parts stronger or tougher. I guess I understand what you were talking about before."

"Well, it's weaker, but you definitely have a version of my power. As far as I can tell, this means understanding how to pronounce one of these key phrases— "

"Are we calling it that now?"
"Yes. Please don't interrupt me, dear."
"Sorry, I just want to make sure I'm up on the latest terminology~."
"Ahem. Pronouncing the key phrase means gaining the ability to control the power, and use it yourself, at least to some extent. In a way—at least from a utility standpoint—it explains why it's so difficult to do."

"Are you..worried about me being able to do this?" said Clark, concerned.

"Pfft, no. I'd trust you with anything of mine, dear," she smiled.

"Well, I'd like to get it back to you anyway. Don't feel too comfortable with you that vulnerable.." Speaking the key phrase again, she returned Rory to her usual super-strong state, shrinking back to her own usual appearance at the same time. "But something else happened there, too. At first you couldn't remember the phrase, right after I said it."
"Right...what do you think that means?"

"Could you remember it while I was using your power?"
"Yeah. It felt like it would just turn me back and forth still, like usual."
"Hmm. But whatever I wanted saying the phrase to do, it did. Go back to you, come back to me, empower me. So somehow, learning someone else's phrase gives you more power over their power than they have themselves..."

"It's like a demon's true name thing, I guess. It reflects a high level of control over the other person, or at least their power."

"Well, in that case I need to teach you mine too!" said Clark with a sudden bit of excitement. "Then we'd be properly equal again. Anyway, I wonder what a 'weaker' version of my power even looks like."

Rory nodded. "I appreciate it, dear. But this is a little exhausting. We should take a break first. Maybe check the news for any more of those things showing up."

"Alright. Then I'll start teaching you."

---

Amory cracked the door to his roommate's bedroom open. Classes were finally cancelled for the week, pending some "reevaluation", so he'd slept in until ten. Well, Light was still asleep in her room...with the lights on, and sunlight pouring in through the cracked shades. She'd set them so that as much light as possible would come in while still making it hard to see inside. Well, if she could sleep with the light on and it helped her re-energize and relax, who was he to question it? He closed the door agian, as quietly as he could manage.

Looking through the fridge and pantry, their groceries were running low. It was Blake's turn, per their normal agreement, but obviously she wouldn't be going anywhere just now. Anyway, this was one way Amory could definitely help. He got his car keys and headed out to take care of the problem.

The city proper was very difficult to park in. Amory could only put his car in the top floor of a three-story garage, walk all the way down the stairs, and then it was still a few blocks over to the grocery place. He'd have to walk all those blocks back with the groceries in his arms; an elevator or a first-floor spot would've let him "borrow" a cart but that just wasn't an option in this case. Oh well, nobody ever said living on your own was easy. Or, with one other person. Whatever—away from your parents, that was the idea.

The streets were not exactly deserted, but not very crowded, either. It seemed like a lot of people had decided to stay in today after the recent attacks. But, Amory thought, they'd all been in the afternoon so far—the afternoon this particular local time, at least. So going out in the morning was probably safer than the afternoon, right?

He'd barely started to wonder if he was tempting fate by thinking that way before he saw it: Right in front of him on the road, a sudden flood of black mist that formed almost instantly to a huge, quadrupedal shape. It had what looked like scales and feathers covering it, giant glowing red eyes, and huge teeth, like a wolf muzzle but without the fur. It was looking right at him, and Amory's mind processed all of this at light speed for the first two seconds before they both began to run.

It was after him. It was still right behind him as he ran and ran; despite being a reasonably good sprinter, he was pretty sure it had the speed advantage and was going to catch him pretty soon. It didn't help when Amory completely missed an impending change of elevation, a curb going down from sidewalk to street, and fell straight over, rolling on the concrete before scrabbling forward a few more steps on his hands in a desperate attempt to not get chewed in half. He turned around, or more like rolled over and sat up; it was standing over him...and then there was a bright flash. There was something like a snake hissing mixed with a lion's roar. Amory was just as blinded as the beast was, and when his vision came back he thought he saw a white tail right in front of him, and some legs too.

"...Light?"
She turned half-around, and the rest of the way with her head, to give him a confused look. "Um, what?" His vision cleared further; this was not Light.