Battle Vixens! - 22

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Episode 22: Unstable Peace

"Hey." Rory interrupted Amory in the middle of another of her own problems.

"Yeah?"

"Sooo, Emma ran off about as soon as Clark fixed her up. Mumbled something about resting and getting her head on straight. She gave me this to give to you though." She came a little closer to the table and placed on it a torn-off bit of paper with a number scribbled hastily onto it. He was pretty sure he knew what numbers they were, but not entirely.

"I guess this is her number." He picked it up and carefully pocketed it for now.
"Uh-huh, looks like it. So you really agreed to go on a date with her? You're total strangers."
"Well, yeah. I think that's an advantage, if anything. I mean, you don't have an awkward phase where you're not sure if you're supposed to act like friends or lovers, y'know?"
"Aww, that was my favorite part," she said with a smirk. "Well, I know I'm not the average person, but I really enjoyed the thrill of the hunt for a while. I guess not everyone can handle it, though. She managed to literally drive herself slightly crazy from being too shy. So do you really mean it?"

"..Mean what?"

"Do you really think she's cute? More specifically is she someone who, in normal circumstances, you would've dated? Or are you just humoring her?" Rory leaned against the wall, crossing her arms and giving a kind of stern look.

"I meant what I said. I don't really know anything about her so I don't know if I want to be 'serious' or not," he said, feeling like he was being put on trial. "Yes, if she'd walked up to me this week and this week wasn't—this week, and asked me, then I would totally agree to some kind of casual date to get to know each other. I don't have any problem with the girl making the first move, and I am not just humoring her. But it doesn't mean I'm head over heels either, even if she is. And yes, she is cute."

"Well, as long as you have a good view of the situation.

"Remember that she's even more capable than most people of hurting you, orrr Blake, us even, and already has a history of being a lit-tle unstable. I just want some assurance that you'll handle this carefully. Honsetly, I don't care so much about her and her poor little feelings," she waved dismissively at the air, "except that if they get hurt badly enough it could have some serious consequences for people I do care about."

"...Are you saying I should lead her on? Even if it turns out I'm not interested? I can't..do that," he said. "It'd hurt us both so much worse than just being honest."

"I'm not saying to be dishonest, especially if you 'can't'," she drenched the last word in sarcasm. "Just, y'know, choose how you word your honesty very carefully," she shrugged. "Don't lose sight of the delicate situation."

"I know it's complicated. I can figure stuff out on my own," he said.

"Really? How much of that work have you finished, hmm?" She straightened back up and walked over to look.

A couple of hours later, Rory declared that it was time for everyone to go because she was not feeding them. Clark could stay, because she was feeling generous. Amory gathered his papers and found Blake and Clark standing in front of a rolling whiteboard with several diagrams drawn all over it, the latter saying something about getting Ning in on this if Blake's idea worked. Then they went out for lunch. Since Blake had made an appointment to do whatever his idea was, they stopped by the apartment to switch cars and he dropped Amory off back at the Quinns' house.

It was starting to wear on him, having to be dragged around and handed off like this. He wanted to help everyone and had just managed to turn himself into a burden, or at best forces outside of his control had done that to him. Well, he was done trying to do chemistry for the day, and instead sent a small text to Emma to let her know what his number was before starting some more research on recent events, to at least have an idea of what was going on.

The US was stable, with very few known fights happening; the Vixen Initiative's warning seemed to have been taken to heart. Things were almost as stable over in Europe and Canada, with some notable large-scale fights taking place here and there but not the kind of absolute, utter chaos that had come the weekend before. Obviously the knowlege that there would probably be another attack coming as soon as tomorrow was a deterrent against going all out, and maybe some of the more murderous ones had gotten themselves killed already anyway.

Things were far less stable to the south. The Mexican government was under direct attack; there was something resembling a war going on all over South America. Some patches of the middle east and Asia weren't faring much better. Most worrying of all, one of Japan's islands had gone dark. There were satellite images that suggested nothing major was going on, but communication by phone, internet, even radio were not getting through. People seemed split between sending some people in by boat or plane to find out what was going on and hoping that leaving it alone would satiate whoever was responsible, and keep them from starting to try and knock out communications country- or worldwide.

It only made his frustration worse to see the disasters going on worldwide. People had died and were dying, or were stuck in apparently permanent comas, and here he couldn't really do anything to help. He was thankful for the distraction when a text came through.

Emma had finally responded, and not with just one message but five or six sent in rapid succession. The third one looked half-finished and the fourth like she had just mashed the keys on her phone out of embarrassment at that. Autocorrect had not been kind to even her most coherent texts. What he could gather from it all was that she was very tired from the fight today and everything else, wanted to just take a nap that might turn out to be sleeping all the way until tomorrow morning, and so would lunch after that be okay?

He waited a few seconds to be sure she was through so he wouldn't be interrupting. Then he sent back: "Lunch is fine" and a suggestion of where to go: Somewhere relatively cheap and very casual, but at least a sit-down restaurant. He'd also taken another moment to be sure the place was definitely open even with what had been going on lately, and it was. He gave around noon as the time to meet there, "barring any interruptions. If I get attacked again we'll do it after that."

After a minute's pause, Emma sent back four different affirmative messages and then a series of emojis that probably indicated her intent to go to sleep now.

He sent back: "Rest well. See you tomorrow."

His own doubts had been drowned out by Rory's louder ones for a while, but now that it was on his mind they resurfaced. Had he agreed just because he wanted to be helpful and that seemed like the most help he could give her and everyone else at the time? Was he just thinking of using her for more protection? It would inevitably happen if they were together when he got attacked, and maybe even if they weren't. No, if he was even worried about it then it couldn't be why. She was cute, and if he could get her past the nerves and shyness there was probably someone worth getting to know in there. Spending time with him was the only way for her to get less apprehensive of speaking to him.

He couldn't let this turn into a transactional relationship; he could never thank her enough for saving his life, but he had to somehow disentangle that from her emotions toward him. If there was anything that would make him feel worse than being a burden, it was the thought of using someone else's own feelings against them like that. It was just...how would he ever communicate that without it coming out like rejection? It didn't have to be a conversation they had right away; maybe after they understood each other a little better he would figure out the right words to say...

More phone noises interrupted his thoughts. This time, Blake was calling him. "Hey, Amory. Do you still have the grocery list from the other day?"
"Um, yeah."

"You wanna take care of that? I'm on my way to pick you up."
"Are you talking while driving?"
"Nooo, I'm walking to the car. Sheesh."

"You know if we were gonna do that we could've just both gone to town in the first place," he said.
"Yeah well I just now thought of it. Sorry."

---

After a honk, Amory came out to get in the car. Blake hadn't become a master of reading his roommate's emotions quite yet, but he looked a little down. He got in and said, "So, uh, what were you trying with Ning?"

"You know how she talked about her powers being out of control?" Blake pulled out of the driveway, pausing to wave briefly at Rory sticking her head out the door. "I sorta instinctively used some of them myself during the fight this morning, and I didn't have trouble controlling them. So I thought I could just 'order' them to be easy for her to control too. I was right."
"But? I hear a but here," said Amory.
"Well, for one thing she said she felt like her control over lightning was less powerful, somewhat. I guess it's a balance thing?"
"If you could just order a person's powers to be optimal in every way that'd kind of break things, looking at it like a multiplayer game," he agreed.
"Yeah. And also she's acting..different. She was a little hyper, and jumped me with a hug and started talking sorta like a teenager or something. Ning had some moments where she acted sort of 'childish' before, I guess, but this seems like another level of that. And she said she 'felt' younger."

"Hmm...so changing her powers changed their effect on her. How they make her feel."

He thought about it for a second. Getting him really thinking seemed like the right way to take his mind off of whatever was bothering him. "It ties in with the whole price thing, I think," he said. "What she wanted when she first changed isn't necessarily what she wants now. Maybe 'reconfiguring' her powers sort of resets that part too. Or maybe there's something inherent about a certain configuration that makes it 'feel' a certain way to the person. We'd have to test it more to figure out which one it is."

"I don't really want to do that," said Blake. "She seemed...really happy. What if we went in to test and the effects were just, random, and she never felt that good again?"
"Well, we know two other people who'll probably be willing to test it out," he said. Right, the house they'd just left.

"Oh! Shoot, I forgot. I wanted to tell one or both of them, I figured out a way to change clothes."
"Uhh...you take them off and put them on again," he said.
"No, no, like—to fit the other form."

"Don't they do that on their own?"
"Yes, whatever you're wearing right then, but. I found out that if I kind of say the 'first' part of my phrase while holding, like, a T-shirt, then it changes size to fit how I look right then. The one I'm wearing now did that, and it went back when I changed back."
"Sounds convenient if someone wanted to live in that form forever," he said. "No need to worry about finding something that fits you, since you can just make it fit. I'm a little suspicious of things being convenient for that, though...like, if there's some way to get stuck or she expects people to start doing that. I wouldn't be surprised to hear there's an addictive quality..."

"Maybe..."

Blake pulled into the parking garage, thinking about Ning again. "...the fox-forms are universally young," he realized aloud. "Young adult at the oldest, some teenage looks. They might even be eternally young."
"Magic and all, huh," said Amory. "So, if a person's normal body is old or dying...they might eventually have no choice but to stay that way, personality changes and all."

"...Or die," Blake finished quietly. If this whole ordeal ended and people like him were left with their powers, it might be a fate he had to look forward to. It would probably happen to people he knew first: Gerald; the Quinns were at least a decade older than he was. Then he would need to make the choice to stay in a dying body or permanently become someone else.

They got out of the car and started walking. "So...what's eating you?" said Blake finally, after letting the previous thought settle away to the back of his mind for dealing with later and definitely not right now.

"Well, not the mist monsters. Thankfully," he said, trying to make a joke. Then: "I feel like I'm being more trouble than I'm worth. I want to help and I'm trying my best, but I have to keep being the escort mission baggage for everyone else, you know? It even complicates things with Emma even worse."

"Worse?" Blake looked at him for a second. "I thought you liked her okay. What's complicated?"

"It's—I," he waved his hands as if trying to get a visual illustration of it going. "Look: She protected me. She'll keep protecting me if we end up dating, maybe even if we don't. This is someone who probably wouldn't have fought any of those things if not for me. I'm worried I'm using her."

"Well, then you're not. That's the kind of thing you're not doing if you're worried about it."

"And Rory reminded me that she can hurt us if I hurt her. Like—emotionally hurt her. If I'm not really careful with what I say, whether or not I end up wanting to, you know, be with her."

"I have control over her powers, she can't hurt us that much no matter how angry."

"Blake, she knows—!"

"Anyway!" He interrupted loudly, trying to remind Amory they were walking on a public street right now, "I don't think I have anything to worry about when it comes to you hurting her feelings."
"..Why not? I'm pretty stupid about girls, you know, I haven't been on a lot of dates, I don't really even know everything about how it's supposed to work," he said. "I mean...just remember how I acted night before last."

"You mean when you were totally open about your feelings as a fair warning in case they would make things awkward?"
"I, I stumbled over my words and it was awkward," he said.

Blake turned the corner into their usual store, and after taking a second to realize that's where they were, Amory followed. "..Look. Did I ever tell you that you tend to wake me up with the news?"
He blinked. "...No. I, I wish you did, I'd turn it down until it couldn't ever—orrr, figure out some way to use headphones for—"

"See? It was such a minor complaint I didn't want to bring it up. You like watching the news, I don't really want to mess up your morning just so mine's a tiny bit better, aaaand, it just forced me to make better use of that time instead of sleeping till noon, if I'm really being honest. But as soon as you think you're making someone else the least bit uncomfortable you start bending over backwards to try to fix it. That's why I think you'll do just fine."

"Well, I'm glad you think so," he said, sounding unconvinced.

"For that first part: You know you're not baggage to me. You're the one who keeps having all the really good ideas, you keep up with what's happening in the rest of the world. And if our 'enemy' wants you dead that means even they think you're valuable for some reason, right?"
"I guess, maybe..."

He looked around, making sure nobody was too close; the place was pretty sparse to begin with, though. Then, quietly: "If you really want the worst possible description of how you're helpful, you know, you count as 'bait'. They come after you, so if one of us is near you we're guaranteed to catch those things right away instead of after they tear down the orphanage."

"Hahah...that's true. I'm just not so sure even all of that gets up there with risking your lives fighting those things, is all. I want to really help.."

"You should be careful with wanting something that bad," said Blake. "There's someone out there who just loves giving people what they want."

"..I'm starting to think I'd take that offer," said Amory. Blake stopped in his tracks. "Seriously. I know what I'm getting myself into ahead of time by now, and...to my mind, it sure beats being baggage."
"Well...that's your decision to make if it happens, I guess," he said. "I admit I don't like the idea of you in even more danger, though."

"Wouldn't I be in less with a way to fight back?"
"Maybe from the monsters, but...everyone else," he said. "I'm astonished we haven't had someone truly murderous and power-hungry after us yet." He thought about how Emma's confused, stressed state had had her two bodies saying completely contradictory things. "That Initiative thing won't hold people off very long, I bet, not with the way these powers make people crazy.

"...This is getting too heavy. Can we pull up the list and argue about food for awhile?"

"Sure, buddy." He started poking around on his phone. "Oh yeah, I agreed to meet Emma for lunch tomorrow. She texts like a machine gun."

"By...shooting her phone?"

"You know what I mean: Rapid-fire, lots of mistakes. Or maybe she doesn't usually and it's just the nerves, I dunno."

---

If they could be assured of peace, then Rowan would've called Light that morning and asked for today to be the day. They couldn't even be sure that that woman was telling the truth, and not just teasing or testing them to see how they would behave if they believed there was no attack. But it was worse—things were quiet everywhere as far as the monsters went, with the empowered of other nations pulling all kinds of power plays.

Whoever was responsible for putting the Vixen Initiative together clearly had an abundance of money for the supplies, equipment, and space they freely provided. It seemed they were genuinely a philanthropist of sorts, a very private one interested in keeping the world from tearing itself apart now that some had so much more power than others. Emphasis on the world—America was just a convenient starting point as far as they were concerned, that much was clear.

Today, Rowan was put to work negotiating with more groups to bring them into the pact now that it was publicly known, and even trying to establish contact with some known fox-girls in Canada. In fox-form herself, Rowan's ears could pick up scattered bits of news outside without getting up from her own office desk. Their southern neighbors weren't doing quite as well as the north ones; there were pockets of chaos all over; and something especially strange was going on in Japan. How ambitious was their illustrious, unknown leader? Perhaps he or she intended to send task forces out to deal with those situations eventually, but for now they were to stay put until there was some assurance that the woman's promise of no attacks was solid, perhaps even until those groups in the US were as united as possible and it was easy to organize things to "cover for" whoever left on a farther-off trip.

Donald Keller was a serious concern. He had done as asked the day before, and seemed as eager as she'd guessed to fight the mist monsters, but even after confessing to that other murder something was eating at him. He was emotionally unstable and as long as there was something to take it out on that seemed fine, but today...well, she decided to pay his room a visit around noon.

He didn't have entirely free reign, instead a kind of psuedo-house-arrest in some quarters they'd furnished for him after finding out he was more or less homeless. Rowan returned to human form as soon as it was no longer necessary to be on the phone, still not entirely comfortable with the way he spoke in that form. It wasn't just that surface level of speaking; it felt like a moderate difference to his thoughts. Somehow it seemed effective for the negotiations, perhaps making Rowan sound (more) like an authority figure or someone in charge, with power in the organization (which was pretty far from true), but it was always a relief to be back to himself afterward.

Rowan knocked on the door, a few solid raps. There wasn't any obvious response for a moment. "Don? You in there?"

"Yeah yeah, just a minute." After a time long enough to suggest he'd still been in bed, Don opened the door. He had bags under his eyes, as if he had hardly slept at all. Or...

"How are you? Alright?"
"I'm fine." He rolled his eyes. "You come 'cause I did somethin' wrong yesterday?"
"No..I got a call not long after you got back. You did just fine. I, wanted to check on you."
"Pssh. Don't worry about me. Nothin' to fight, so I'm just sleepin'." It didn't look like he'd really been sleeping, at least not very well.
"You could do something else if you wanted to," said Rowan. "It can't be good for you if that's all you're doing."

"Who cares what's good?" he said, starting to look angry. "You need me for killin' those things. I'll die doin' that pretty soon anyway, so what's it matter?"
Rowan crossed his arms."..When's the last time you ate?"

"I dunno, yesterday sometime? I ain't hungry."
"Come on, I'll buy you some lunch."
"Ain't hungry," he repeated.
"Well, you won't fight as well if you're not eating," he tried.
"..Fine. Whatever." It seemed more like he was resigned to doing what Rowan wanted than actually convinced that eating was a good idea.

They started walking out. "I don't know if you've heard, but there's a misunderstanding about your name," said Rowan, trying to draw some conversation out.

"Yeah?"
"Seems like your accent made someone think you said 'Dawn'."

"Hmph. Stupid."

"If you said your whole name instead of just the first syllable, you might not have this problem."
"I don't care. Call me what they want, I'll be dead pretty soon anyway."

"Not necessarily. You could survive this whole ordeal—if it even has an ending," said Rowan. "I mean, someone has to, right?"

"Shouldn't be me."

They both paused for Rowan to indicate his car and both of them to get inside. With an approved escort from the Initiative, Don could go basically anywhere. There was a good burger place Rowan hadn't been to since all this started, and it seemed like it was still open despite the place next door getting smashed into by a wolf-lizard-monster that had its eyes on one of the customers. Might as well go there now, before it could get destroyed too.

"You know what I did. What do you care if I die?"

"You killed someone you thought deserved it—maybe even did. Then you did what someone else convinced you was right, what you might even call merciful. The law's clear on both counts, but I think your heart was in the right place the whole time. Just not your head."

"So what if I just go psycho tomorrow and start killin' more people? Huh?"

"I guess someone's gonna have to stop you then. Maybe me. But I don't think you will. You fight harder to protect people from those things than anyone I've seen. You burn yourself out and then collapse, and as soon as you get up again you start looking for your next target. It's not healthy or sane, but it's not what I think of as criminal behavior either."

Don mumbled something.

"I really can't hear you like this," Rowan said.

"I said it's ALL I GOT LEFT!" he yelled, punching the dash in front of him. "The only person I ever really cared about, the only one who really thought I was worth anything, is dead. I'm just doin' what she wanted or I'd make sure I was dead by now, too!"

He panted heavily from the effort of the punch. Rowan just let the silence settle for a minute or two before speaking again. "You don't think anyone cares about you now?" he said quietly.
"Yeah, sure. Tell ya what I'm good for: Powers that make me look like someone ain't even me, powers someone else gave me just 'cause they thought it'd be fun ta watch? If there was some way ta take that and give it all to someone else, I wouldn't be here."

"You know...there's more to power than just, having it."

"What's thrat supposed to mean?"
"A gun and a badge—that's power. Has been for years. It has limits by design, but people abuse even that much power every day."

"Yeah, I've seen dirty cops. Ain't nothin' else where I'm from."

"So...think about it. You've had much more power than that for almost a week now, with none of the kind of oversight police deal with." Rowan parked, and got out. Don sulked in the passenger seat for a moment before following suit, and then they started to head inside.

"So what's your point, anyway?"

"Just think about it. People you've saved this past week, even if they have no idea who you are, where you came from, what you've done? They care about you not because you have power, but because of what you chose to do with it."

He stopped in front of the door. "What I've done, ever since that day...I did because I have to. No choice, I ain't my own, you understand? They're thankin' the wrong person."

"You don't give yourself enough credit. Come on..." Rowan opened the door for him, and waved him inside. Don was quiet the whole time they were there except for half-mumbling his order, seemingly in thought or possibly just sulking some more.

Even though he should've been starving, he didn't eat much of it. It occurred to Rowan to take a closer look at the young man. He was thin and just didn't really look healthy in general. Maybe it was malnutrition—people who were starving tended to be unable to handle much food right away. But it really seemed like something bigger could be wrong, something serious. He slept for hours and still looked exhausted; he'd been out of breath from yelling and punching just the once earlier. The way he moved and talked, like he was used to having so much more energy than he did...something might be seriously wrong. Rowan was going to have to get someone to take a closer look at him, but with the way he was talking right now Don would probably resist any kind of treatment. Bringing it up was a bad idea; he was going to have to betray him just a little bit for his own good, ambush him with a visit from a doctor. Maybe that demonstration of concern for his life would get through to him, but...it didn't seem likely. This wasn't the kind of thing that could be fixed quickly, or alone. But where to get the help for this from...?