Battle Vixens! - 28

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Episode 28: Five (Four)

Light arrived slightly before the agreed-upon time with both of Gemma's bodies following, all three invisible for the moment. Coming closer, it became clear that Rowan's plus-one was Dawn, who she'd last seen on a hospital TV using ice powers. It occurred to Light that Gemma had been throwing around ice spikes for a while...so they must have already met. Both were sitting cross-legged in the grass, but when they came a little closer, Dawn tensed slightly.

"Didn't you say Light was bringin' one more person? I can feel three."

"Every time!" She dropped the invisibility on herself. "I swear, it's like if every time Superman met a new supervillain he was like 'hey, did you know I get power from the red sun? If you were to block that out I'd be in looots of trouble!'"

The sitting fox-girls exchanged a look of mutual confusion.

"Announcing your advantage. Letting me know you can sense past my illusions or whatever. It's just as bad as telling me your weakness out of nowhere. What if instead you let me believe I'm still invisible until you can actually take advantage of knowing I'm there?"

"I was just sayin', in case you didn't know someone else was followin' you...?" said Dawn.

She took a deep breath. "Sorry, I'm getting worked up for stupid reasons. Everything's fine." She let go of the rest of the invisibility, and waved toward the newly-visible pair. "This is Gemma. And I say it that way because her power involves having control over two bodies at once."
Plus started, "Um—" "—hi," both of them waving with opposite hands. "..Again."

"You look a little better," said Dawn. Then, to Rowan: "I met the dark-haired one last time."

"Yes. I did the uh, um, but—" "—your advice really helped, thank you," Minus finished.

"What advice was that?" said Rowan.

"Um..!"

"I told her what I did. And not to kill anyone," Dawn said bluntly.

"Which was...kill someone?" Light felt increasingly out of the loop with all this.

Dawn just nodded. "Someone who shoulda already died, if there was any justice. But I should'nt'a done it." Rowan didn't look surprised by this information, so they must have already cleared it up or something. "Oh yeah. I'm Dawn. Guess you're Light."
"Yyyeah. Nice to meet you, I guess."

"Could I ask why you brought her?" said Rowan, attempting to bring the conversation back to somewhere useful.

"Right. Uh, Gemma can sort of learn to imitate other people's powers by watching them use them. Since she's on our side, it's better if she can learn more powers. So I thought we could see if she can learn your power, and..."
"And I had the idea that I could help out in your city tomorrow—" "—and learn from the people there."

"I see. We could always use more if you can spare her. " Rowan nodded. "I will need to make some calls when we're through here to get it officially arranged. For now, I suppose you want to see me using my power."

Without waiting for a response, she moved her hands carefully, bringing some vapor together into a small bit of water and waving it around through the air. Gemma—both of her—watched intently, bending over toward Rowan slightly with a concentrated, increasingly confused look.

"..Something wrong?" said Light after a moment.

"I don't...—" "—it doesn't look right.—" "I feel like I'm watching—" "—someone else imitate a power instead—" "—of seeing the real thing." Then they went upright again, coming to a realization. "Oh! I couldn't make fire like Dawn makes fire either,—" "—which was power taken from someone else.—" "—so probably I can only imitate someone's power if it's the 'full power' thing people usually start with."

"Hmm." Rowan dropped her hands and the water splashed into the ground. "In that case you should still be able to learn it if we achieve the original purpose of this meeting. Please, take a seat."

Light sat down in front of Rowan, finding it somehow more natural to lay her legs out to either side of her. The other two sat closer to Dawn. "I am a little curious what brought this on. Originally it didn't seem like you'd want to do this so soon."

"...There are a few reasons. First of all, many new people have been given powers. The one in my city is cooperative, but overall they are essentially yet another unknown variable to account for. The longer I wait, the more opportunity the others of them may have to cause chaos.

"Secondly...are you aware of what occurred in Japan?"

"One of their islands went incommunicado for a whole day, and now they still think it's yesterday," said Light. Amory had filled her in on this much.

"Clearly an unusual occurrence, especially to be that widespread. You may even be able to guess what would have caused it."

"Um—" "—sounds like someone with really strong time powers?" Gemma suggested.

"Correct. This part is confidential; do not spread it widely, understand?" She waited for them to nod their understanding. "In an act of desperation, she tried to stop a monster from eating her by completely stopping it. Her powers were just in the process of being taken, so the effect was somehow made far stronger than normal and spread well beyond the intended target. As a result, the next approximately twenty-four seconds on that island were experienced over what the rest of us saw as twenty-four hours."

"...That doesn't make any sense," said Light. "The world's rotating. And going around the sun. If the island was stopped then it should've gone flying off into space, from our perspective. Or...on the border of that effect there should at least be some kind of.."
"These things have been considered. Our best guess is that the time-stop has a relative kind of effect and allows certain kinds of momentum to persist regardless. At the same time, there have been some notable changes in wind and water currents surrounding the island. The only thing not affected as strongly was another with powers, fighting the same mist monster. She killed it not long after it was frozen—a few minutes to her, a couple of hours to us—but her ally, and the rest of the island, remained suspended for the entire time. Anything she could have used to contact the outside world about the situation was also frozen and unable to carry the message. Then, even after time returned to normal, the one who had stopped it fell into a coma just like the others."

"I guess you know all of this because she called you? Or, the Initiative in general at least?" said Light.

"Also correct. She wanted to keep her ally safe, and had the resources to get her to the US. We are the only organization at the moment with any kind of safe place to keep those who have fallen into comas, so she asked for our help. We agreed, mostly to keep the kind of person who would murder someone in a coma for power from gaining any amount of power over time, but also in the interest of gaining her and anyone she may know as allies."

Light said, "I've been wondering...how do you keep that place secure? I mean sure, it's a secret, but..."
"The facility is underground and heavily secured. The outside has armed guards, but weapons are not allowed into the part of the building they are in, and anyone with powers is forbidden from even knowing the exact location. Only someone who's been vetted to work there, or who can prove they personally know one of those in a coma is allowed inside in the first place. So if someone wanted to take one of their powers, they would have to kill that person with their bare hands before security noticed them and threw them out or worse." She sighed slightly. "We've tried everything that anyone can think of to get them back. Even less logical means such as having someone who knows them speak with them at length. There seemed to be some response to that in certain cases, but nobody ever wakes up."

"...At any rate, those are only a few of the things weighing on my mind. If I went to list them all we would be here past midnight. So, shall we?"

"Yeah. It's my understanding this can take some time to get right," Light said, "based on what—uh, Dr. Quinn said it's best to go one syllable at a time until things start to make sense."

Rowan nodded, and spoke a single syllable. Light was able to repeat it, no problem. The next few were the same way. But then Light tried to say them all in a row, and found herself tongue-tied, tripping over it and getting the consonants and vowels all wrong and all in the wrong place. She shook her head, and tried it again: One at a time, then all together. The results were essentially the same. Rowan frowned, her ears dipping slightly, and she tried saying the just first two a couple of times. Light was only able to get the first or second right, never both at once through about ten different tries.

This continued for a several minutes with basically zero progress being made. Light could always manage the single syllables but not stringing any pair of them together. Dawn and Gemma were carrying on their own conversation quietly, but it didn't qualify as a distraction sufficient to create this much failure. Eventually she started to get a nagging sense that something was wrong in a way that persistent practice wouldn't fix—like her 'teacher' was actually pronouncing the word wrong in the first place. She gave an exasperated sigh.

"I think you have the same suspicion I do," said Rowan, looking just as annoyed as Light felt.

"You don't 'own' your powers enough to willingly give them to someone else. Becasue of course she would make it as obnoxious as physically possible."

"Which means we will have to fight in order for this to work."

"I really don't like the idea of fighting you, though," said Light. "I don't want to accidentally hurt you...you're way more important than I am in all this, anyway. And I risk my life enough without doing it intentionally. I mean, the last time we did fight really didn't go so well for me until the bear-thing showed up."

"I didn't bring a gun this time," Rowan said. Was that a...joke? It was hard to tell through her deadpan calm.

"Well, you only need to defeat me in some kind of legitimate battle, correct?"

"I think so. I'm guessing just faking it won't count because again, obnoxious as possible."

"Perhaps we should duel only with our swords, then, to lower the risk of injury and the amount of energy we must put into it." Rowan placed her hand on the ground and some water flowed up out of it, forming into her weapon.

"Uhh...I dunno if you've noticed but, these things are still pretty deadly," said Light, making her own appear partially to point at its sharp edge as a demonstration.

"They have flat sides." She stood up. Obviously Light was not going to win this argument, and stood herself.

They held their weapons out toward each other briefly, as if it were a practiced maneuver. Gemma seemed to notice what they were doing for the first time and stood to get out of the way, muttering "Ugh, boys..."
Dawn followed. "You, know I'm a guy too, right?"

"..Are you prepared?"
Light sighed. "As much as I'll ever be, I guess."

"Then let's begin."

Rowan made the first move, stepping forward, feinting one way and coming from the other. Light ducked under it and tried to counter, but Rowan just danced around the attack and struck out with a jab, forcing her back. They stood apart again, each waiting for the the other. After a bit, Light tried a straight attack from the side, let Rowan try to block, and disappeared the sword just before it could make contact, re-forming it in her other hand to come in from the other side. This at least took her opponent by enough surprise that she had to backstep, but then she countered with a slash aimed at Light's arm, forcing her to turn aside. They split apart, facing each other yet again.

"...This is going to take a while, isn't it."

"So it would appear," said Rowan.

---

"Yes, but—" "—I can still make the complaint to you 'cause you're not involved. Boys, even when they're girls." They stepped well out of the way of the impending swordfight, and turned to watch.

"You know. My name ain't Dawn really. It's Don," the tall girl said. "Donny. Donald. Don. I know I got an accent, but..."
"Really? I'm sorry,—" "—I just thought you were using another name like Light does...—" "—and that Dawn was it."
She sighed. "I guess I am. Not on purpose, though." She looked between Plus and Minus. "That twin-talk thing is kinda creepy, y'know."
"Oh, sorry. I can um, not do it if it's bugging you," said Plus. "It just feels more natural whenever both of me are talking to the same person." said Minus.

"You're still doing it."

"Err, whoops. I'll, try walking one of me a little farther away..." Minus walked around where the two were dueling to the opposite side of the makeshift arena. "There. Maybe that'll fix it for now..."

"So I guess, whatever was botherin' ya, was about her?" Dawn said, pointing to Light.

"Sssssort of. We actually fought right here for a little bit. Um, there was someone I liked and I was, I convinced myself she was...in the way. It was really stupid and, selfish."

"Someone you like? You get to meet 'im?" she said.

"Yeah..." Thinking on what Dawn had said at the first meeting, Gemma wasn't really sure it was a good idea to go into detail about getting to go on a date.

"Well, listen. You do whatever you can for 'im now. No tellin' when the rug's gonna get pulled out from under," she said with sad, distant look.

Plus nodded quietly, understanding.

Minus, now on the other side, paid more attention to the fight. "Are you...taking this seriously?" Rowan was saying.

"Yes! Really serious. You just keep reading my moves way ahead of time."

"That's because you are broadcasting them."
"It doesn't feel like I am!"

Light charged, trying a hammering series of probing strikes, all of which Rowan just casually deflected or stepped aside of. "Please calm down, your frustration is making it worse. You're leaving yourself wide open frequently, but there is no purpose to this if I win."

"How can I not get frustrated when you're something like that?"

"Come on, I know you are better than this."

"How are you..doing?" said Plus. "I mean..."
"I'm as okay as I'm ever gonna be," said Dawn. "You know. Long as those things keep showin' up I got somethin' to do. Workin' with her an' the rest makes it easier to do it." (Clearly meaning Rowan)

"Something to..you're not doing anything else?"

"Nah. You?"
"W-well, I'm a student for one thing. The first thing I found out is that I can basically study twice as fast like this. But...weren't you doing anything before, this?"
"Not really. Y'know, some people really are useless wastes of space. That's me. Or it was, anyway."

"That's..just not true. You could always do, something," she said.

Dawn just shrugged. "So I'm doin' somethin' now. Eat, sleep an' fight demons or whatever. Well, I don't always sleep too well, and I ain't hungry much, so..."

Light took some deep breaths and visibly attempted to calm herself. With what looked like a lot more focus, she tried several more strikes from different directions, repeatedly moving her sword back and forth from one hand to the other by summoning-unsummoning. Rowan at least seemed to need to put in some effort, but still dodged around everything. They stepped apart again. "This is very curious...I don't feel as if I've improved over the last week, and I highly doubt you've become worse."

"I sure hope not!"

"Hmm. I have a theory. We should change the rules of this contest."

"To what exactly?"
"Limited use of our powers. You may use illusions as much as you want, and I can sense past your illusions—though I confess I don't really know how to turn that off aside from not being in this form."
"How could that possibly help. You can literally always tell where I am."

"Just trust me. Give it another shot."

"Y—wait, you're not hungry?" Gemma was no nutritionist or whatever but she was pretty sure that people needed to eat to keep using their fox-powers or whatever effectively. She was practically starving last night, after fighting with Light. "And you're not sleeping? Did you see a doctor about this?"
"No point to that. I'm fine as long as I'm like this."

Plus squinted skeptically, and moved slightly closer. Clark could 'see' injuries and other unhealthy things too, right? He wasn't here right now, but she'd seen him do it. "Hold still a second."
"Uh.." Dawn didn't step away, but seemed confused why she was putting her hand up toward her. A faint bluish glow appeared briefly near the palm, and then Plus drew back in moderate shock. "What?"
"Dawn, you're...you look okay on the outside, and maybe you feel okay, but inside you're—!"

Light did not seem to try hiding herself or making false versions, just sighing and resuming the attack as before. Only this time, Rowan was clearly having far more trouble keeping up. They seemed almost evenly matched, with an advantage to Light almost entirely from her considerably speed. And then separated again, Rowan huffing slightly.
"Hey, what gives? Are you—?"
"It is..hf..as I thought." She stood up straighter. "You are using numerous smaller, more subtle illusions—extremely difficult to sense around in any way—to mask your movements. It is not even conscious action, but you are able to cease it by willing specifically not to use your powers."

"Really?" Light looked down at herself briefly, and then readied her sword. "One more time, then?"

"As many as it takes."

Gemma felt Plus's ears fold across the back of her head, and the same emotion displaying in Minus, while the realization hit her. She leaned in slightly closer to Dawn with the former, whispering intently right while the other two were busy talking. "You told me something that maybe saved my life—maybe someone else's—maybe a lot of people. Good advice that I probably didn't want to hear or accept at the time. So I'm going to do the same for you. You need help, like from an actual professional. You should be getting s-some kind of scans or something, because I'm not even close to being a doctor and I can tell something's horribly wrong, and you should be seeing a psychiatrist or—or someone that can help you deal with what you've been through. If you want to keep fighting then you need to stop tearing yourself apart!"

Dawn looked slightly shocked, maybe at Gemma suddenly acting assertive at all. She stared for a good long moment, and then turned around. Although she hid whatever was going on from the body right in front of her, which stepped back slightly in an attempt to give some space, Minus could see her wiping her face with a sleeve before starting to walk a few steps away.

This last match was all that was needed. It was close, with Rowan stepping things up and fighting back, but Light managed to push her advantage just enough to get around the assault, eventually placing the flat side of her blade (which of course had been facing forward the entire time) against Rowan's neck. Recognizing the win, Rowan dropped her sword and held her hands up.

"There. Is that good enough?" Apparently it was, some water appearing to flow from Rowan's body into Light's. "Okay then." She dropped her own sword, took a couple of steps back, and spoke a new phrase—Rowan's. The water flowed back.

She closed her eyes briefly, appeared to take a deep breath. With a small upward wave of her hands, water drew up out of some of the grass nearby, drying it out to yellow, and formed a small dome around her, some tentacle-like protrusions forming out of it. She opened her eyes again and viewed what she saw with a pained expression that was hard for Gemma to fully make sense of, eventually dropping her hands and releasing it, the water falling back to the ground. "...I will save more than she killed," she said quietly, a tinge of determination hiding in the usually calm tone. Dawn had turned to face Rowan on hearing Light say her phrase, and watched this as well. She appeared to be fighting a difficult battle to keep her face expressionless, and wouldn't look in Plus's direction or make eye contact with Gemma's other body.

Then Rowan said, "Is that sufficient for you to learn?" After taking a second to realize who she was asking, Gemma thought on what she'd just seen and how to do something like it...and she nodded.

"Good. Thank you, Light." Rowan extended a hand, which she shook. The sun was beginning to set. "We are luck this took no longer, correct?"
"I can't answer that without being a hypocrite."

"Well, we should return home at this point. If you are in need of aid, call me. Make another beacon in the sky if you must."

"Oh, yeah..." She put a hand behind her head briefly.

Rowan turned to where Dawn was. "Are you—" she started quickly, and then seemed to notice something, and said more slowly, "...Are you alright?"

"Great. Never been better." She looked away and sounded sarcastic. "Let's get outta here."
"I suppose we should hurry. I will contact you soon about Gemma's visit." They walked off.

"...Do you know what that was about?" Light made both of her jump with this question, and Gemma realized she'd been staring intently at them walking away.

"Um—" "—I might have said some things."

---

I had so much trouble writing this because I had a general idea of what should happen here, but describing an actual sword duel with any degree of useful precision is outside of the scope of my knowledge. Eventually I settled on this slightly odd perspective shift because I needed to show some things from each perspective anyway in order to get what happened across the way I wanted.