Battle Vixens! - 34

 First / Previous / Next / Latest

---

Episode 34: Bracing for Impact

It couldn't possibly wait any more, especially with her being the one who brought it up. Come on, Emma thought to herself, You fought monsters and a weird zombie puppet already today. You can do this. That kind of thought was going to be a strange motivator for confidence in the foreseeable future. Still. "Beryl, did you...did you break into my phone the other day?"
"Huh?" She looked confused.
"W-when you made breakfast and a message with it saying 'Don't be late', and—and now you're asking me how it went! How did you know I had a date?"

"Oh, that? Hahah, I just guessed, silly!" She patted Emma's head a couple of times and whirled around, dashing off toward the kitchen. "It seemed to me like you were finally ready to ask him the last time I saw you, so I figured you'd have that date by then. Guess I was right though~!"

"Um, y-yeah." Emma followed, recognizing the scent of food and realizing she also hadn't eaten since...breakfast? To be fair, there had been a lot of excitement at the Initiative headquarters; probably there had been some intention of feeding her at some point but they'd forgotten, or she'd disappeared too soon for them to offer. Tired as she was, she could at least stay awake for one of Beryl's meals...and her roommate was guaranteed to talk loud enough to keep her awake the whole time anyway.

"S-so, it went pretty well," she said. "We were, talking about going somewhere again tomorrow, maybe."
"Glad to hear it!" Indeed, Beryl had somehow managed to time her cooking to have everything very nearly ready right when Emma came in. "I'm a little sad to think I won't have you all to myself soon, but it's great to see you finally going after what you want."

"Heehee, yeah.."

A few minutes later, she sad, "Maan, the drive home and back musta been brutal for you. You just look exhausted!"
"Mhm." Emma took a moment to swallow what was in her mouth. "I was just gonna crash into bed as soon as I walked in..."
"Well that's no good! You've gotta eat to keep your strength up. Can't get those straight A's without the energy from food, right?" Beryl winked at her. Emma chuckled slightly, feeling embarrassed at the gross overestimation of her academic abilities. Or at least..her usual ability, ignoring the newfound power to study literally twice as hard whenever she wanted. Sort of.

"You meet anyone new?"

"Mmn? No, just my family..." What a weird question.
"How're they all doing?"
"Fine.." Emma was grateful that Beryl had already noticed she was tired, or she would probably start pressing for details she didn't exactly have right now. As it was, she seemed content with the lazy non-answer.

---

Simon returned home to find his wife hard at work grading some papers. "Hey there, how's it going?" he said, coming up behind her and rubbing her shoulders a bit.
"I just don't comprehend sometimes." Karis turned half around in her chair as soon as he let go. "Did you ever think two plus five was six when you were in high school?"
"I'm pleading the fifth on that one. I don't think so, however." He grinned. "You could always quit."
"Noo, not for the likes of this." She turned forward again. "When I quit it'll be for something big and meaningful. Like reaching retirement age."

He went over to the counter to set a few things down. "Say, how do you feel about going out tonight?"

"We just did that last night. I'd love to."

After a pause, she said, "Dear. I'm happy to have you home, and I'm glad you can protect yourself now, and it's great that you've found a reason to do something good for the world."
"But? I detect a but."
"So do I, it's in the chair. Anyway..." She sighed. "You guys have an actual enemy now. Someone with a mind and at least some mental concept of strategy. They're gonna put out a message telling her to turn herself in soon, aren't they?"
"I'm not privy to that part of the Initiative quite yet, but more than likely yes."

"Just—how long do you think it'll be before I get kidnapped to take you out of the fight or something? Since we've decided on being so public about your powers and everything."

"Hmm. Maybe a few days to a week. But that would be a grave mistake."

Simon went around to sit in front of her so she could see that his Serious Face was on. He reached out and took one of her hands. "My dear, if the enemy takes you then I will upend this planet itself to find you; I'm sure I'll end up finding her in the process, and I won't be very happy then. Hurting you will only lend fuel to my rage, and killing you would destroy the very advantage that one might hope taking you to confer."

"That's sweet, but..."
He let go, and leaned back in his chair. "Also Rowan contacted his old police friends and they've got a detail watching wherever you are for any puppets with a shoot-on-sight order. We may have to put up with a tad more noise than usual, but you're going to prove awfully difficult to successfully kidnap."

"Oh, yeah. Silly me forgot for a second that he's actually halfway intelligent. I don't doubt there will be some attempts, but that puts my mind at least a little bit more at ease," she said.

"Mine too," he nodded. "Now then, I want to finish up my first few monster paintings upstairs." He stood up again. "Think on where you'd like to go, and try to remember which places are still under repair so our quest won't prove futile."

"Yeah, yeah. I'll double check on my phone."

---

Don returned to the headquarters already in fox-girl form. She looked...not especially happy walking in, but as if a weight had been taken off of her shoulders. Rowan was there to welcome her. "They really kept you a long time," he said. "What's the news?"
She fixed him with a long look, which seemed to be a silent attempt to prepare him for the news. Verbally, it was as blunt as it probably could be: "...Cancer. Not just a little spot here or there, just—all over the place." A silence hung between them for a moment, Rowan giving her a sympathetic look but not reaching because it seemed like she had more "I...I knew, already, okay? I mean—I coulda guessed, I already did, it was either that, or some other killin' disease that nobody could never get rid of. I've been feelin'...horrible for, 'bout a year now."

"You didn't..."
"I couldn't afford nothin'!" she said, in a brief flash of anger. Then took a deep breath, calmed down again. "I mean..they said, I coulda gotten help sooner too, even without... It's just, I'm just an idiot, alright? For the longest time, I just—I didn't wanna know, 'cause if I knew then I, then I had ta tell her, and we, and she already had enough problems as it was. She ain't stupid, she knew, but...but if I didn't have ta say it..."

Don looked down, and there were tears coming down her face, some of them freezing into ice and falling off, quietly shattering on the floor. Rowan finally moved, putting out a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up again but didn't move to take it off. "I dunno, somewhere in my stupid head I thought if nobody looked too hard then maybe I could keep it from bein' real. I..I figured I'd croak some other way first anyhow, and then it wouldn't matter. An' then, after all this happened I thought maybe I'd end up feedin' myself to one a' those monsters instead, an' so then it really wouldn't matter. But instead..." She could quite say it, and instead gasped away a sob.

Rowan didn't say anything, just stepped a little bit closer and kept his hand where it was, an expression of sympathy on his face where she could see it.
She took another deep breath, this one audibly shaky. "They said a lot a' things I didn't really understand, but there's a...there's a report bein' sent to the Initiative an'..where you can read it all. Mostly I just got that they was impressed I even lived this long, an' maybe a couple a' months at best with a lot of t-treatment.
"But I..I asked 'em to take a look at this body, after that. That's what, took so long. They looked ten times, two or three different ways. The cancer's gone, when I'm—like this. Just—not there. They just said I had malnutrition and didn't understand how I was doin' any a' that running around and fighting I do..." Her voice trailed off, and she stayed quiet for a minute or so.

Rowan gently lifted his hand from her shoulder and brought it back to his side. "What are you going to do now?" he asked quietly.

"What kinda' question is that?" Don yelled, and then took a second to calm back down again. "I..this is who I am now. I ain't gonna, change back an' wither away for nothin'. They gave me a, they said what I need ta do to fix the malnutrition, so this body'll be healthy. That's in the report too. So, I'll be fightin'. For her, for everyone..."

He nodded solemnly.

She looked away for a few more seconds, and then back at him. "...I heard, some bits and pieces on the news," she said. "Someone's..taken out one of ours? Tryin' to get people fed to those monsters?"

"That's right. Nico's stable, but unconscious just like the others."

Some of the usual rage showed in her eyes, but it was obviously not directed at Rowan. "You better watch me," she said quietly, shakily, but with more intensity than a yell was capable of having. "'f I'm there, when we track that piece of human filth down, I'm liable to tear her head clean offa her body."

"Just be careful," Rowan advised, "in case of any tricks." But he didn't seem opposed the general idea.

---

Clark insisted on making a bunch of contingency plans once they were back at the house. They brainstormed them all the way through making and eating lunch, and after that they even got out some paper and wrote down several of the good ones for the purpose of committing them to memory. After that, they ended up sitting side by side on the couch.

Rory poked her husband's nearest ear a few times. "...Are you trying to tell me something, dear?"

"Noooo." Poke. "Whatever do you mean?"

He sighed and then changed forms. "You know, you know my key phrase too. So, you could've done this if you really wanted."

She mock-gasped. "Without your permission? I'd much rather you do it willingly than me force you into anything."

"Then what was this about?" she said, poking Rory's ear.
"Just hints...I mean, we're not doing anything else right now, right?" She smiled, and also changed to her fox form before pulling Clark into a hug and rubbing her fuzzy ears a bit, curling their tails together.

Clark quietly churred, returning the hug gently. "...I wonder if Amory can give me any tips," said Rory.

"Hmn?"
"Her petting is way more effective than this. Or you wouldn't be able to still talk, right?"
"I thought you weren't jealous." Clark began to return the gesture, running a finger across the back of one of Rory's ears.

"I'm not—I mean, I know you're mine so there's nothing to be jealous of. I'd just...like you to react to my touch that way, without even having to think about it."

"I don't think she knows, either. It's just part of her powers..."

"Mrrr," Rory churred softly, enjoying her husband's fingers rubbing her ears back. "I guess you're right. Wouldn't hurt to ask, though, would it?"

Clark gave a neutral "Hmn."

A minute or two later, she said, "Hey, what ever happened to studying these bodies? Is it on the backburner, or.."

"Oh, I've been looking at the data we got off and on. Trouble is, there isn't all that much to see. Anatomy looks mostly human, as expected, all the same organs and stuff. There's no 'magic organ', no unusual radiation coming out...At this point I suppose I could tell a physician what to do for a messed up ear or tail."

"Which is?"
"Ask the nearest vet. Physically they just look like fox parts, but bigger and reshaped a little. I guess closer to the domestic ones, but still..."

"And your horn thingies?" Clark poked at one of them for emphasis.
"Pretty standard as horns go. I mean..weird to see on a hominid, but not evidently special. Our bodies don't look any different from humans, and if anything all your data says you should be less physically capable like that, not more."

"And yet.."
"You are. I know. Treadmill test doesn't lie." She ruffled Clark's hair briefly. "I hate to do it, but to explain that and everything else I gotta throw up my hands and say 'magic'. The only interesting thing I haven't looked all that hard at is where the fox parts hook up to human nerves and brains. That's getting into neurologist territory though, and I'm not so great at that."

---

"Not so loud! I mean.." Light paused to listen. "Probably nobody's close enough to hear that right now, but.."

"Are you sure?" Amory continued. "Why do you think that?"
She went over the evidence in brief.
"Hmm. She told me Beryl likes giving vague, unhelpful answers to anything she asks about her home or family, or even what she's studying," Amory added. "It fits, I think. She also kept calling Beryl 'nice' while more or less describing her as having a really dominating personality, and mentioned she's almost never in..."

"Which all more or less matches up. Right? Am I crazy?"
"I don't think so, but..I mean, just her voice and personality are the same?"
"She looked right at me. It wasn't just..! It was, her face, I wish you could see it. Wait, wait."

Light pointed in front of them and made an image of Beryl's face appear there, complete with a piercing, smug expression. "That. She looked right at me with that. Just long enough for me to notice she was doing it, and then away again. Isn't that just like her?!"
He scratched his head. "I..guess so, yeah. Feels like you've got more experience in this than I do. But if you're right—and I'm not saying that you're not—then, what do we do with that information?"

"We should—! Should we tell her? Would she even believe us?"
"I dunno..anyway, it seems like she must be...happy with Emma not knowing about her being a magic fox alien? She's been cooking food for her off and on for over a year now, and no ill effects. It's like some kind of game she's playing, and she'll probably get upset and leave if we just tell her."

"More importantly, what is she doing on Earth? Since when could she even get here?!" Light was clearly much more stressed about this than Amory was.
"I mean, nothing about what I saw of her suggested she was trapped in that...dream realm or whatever," he said. "Feels a lot more like she can basically do whatever she wants, and just chooses to talk to us through dreams for some reason."

"But if she can just be here, and she really hates those 'awful, disgusting creatures' so much, why isn't she fighting them herself? If she's been here for over a year why didn't she do anything to stop them from coming in the first place?"

"Well..maybe she can't." Amory paused; hadn't he just mentioned she could do whatever she wanted? Where did that thought come from, then? "Orrrr, just doesn't want to. She went to a lot of trouble to set up this 'game' with giving out powers and making us fight each other, and clearly values seeing that play out way over actually helping us survive, so it doesn't seem like that big of a surprise to me."

"Okay...you're right, you're right." Light held her head in her hands, leaning back on the couch and making what seemed to be a physical effort to calm down.

"You're just not thinking enough like a trickster goddess."

"I'm just freaking out that some super-powerful magical being has been living in the same apartment building as me for months and I'm only just now finding out about it."

"Okay, that's understandable."

"So what do we do with this information?" she repeated back to him. "I have no idea."

"Hmn. Well, I'm gonna talk with Emma some more tomorrow. We technically don't know for sure that Beryl is her; I could slip in a few questions to try and get more evidence for or against. And the more sure we are that it is her, the more useful anything we find out about Beryl is."
"Useful how? Even if I'm right, it's still just a disguise she puts on."

"Remember, she prides herself on decieving people without ever actually lying. I'll bet it's even more satisfying to her to do that while also disguised as a totally different identity. So anything Beryl openly admits about herself is something actually true about the Giver."

"Ohh, I get it." Light looked annoyed. "More of that playing games with information she loves so much."

"Right. I mean, I don't think that's the only reason she would decide to be Emma's roommate...maybe she really just thinks she's cute and wanted to tease her. I seriously doubt it's a coincidence that Emma also wound up with such insanely good powers. But at any rate, playing the game with her this way can only help us get more information. As long as we're careful about how we take whatever we get through this kinda secondhand half-truth filter..."

"Who else should we tell?" said Light. "Anyone? I know I said I wanted less secrets, but.."
"This is something to be careful with, yeah. Rowan or the Initiative would probably try to confront her directly, and she'd likely decide to just disappear for good if that happened. Clark could keep a secret, but I don't know if I trust Rory to not get it out of him and then do something reckless with that knowledge..."
"I don't want to burden Ning with knowing too much, either," said Light. "She doesn't even know about the price, still..."
"So, just between us then. At least for now."

"I guess so," Light sighed. She leaned back, closing her eyes for a bit. Watching her, Amory had the curious feeling that she wanted to have her ears rubbed. How could he possibly know that, even if it were true..? Which, it couldn't be, right?

Light opened her eyes again. "Soo...Amp, huh?"

"Yeah. I thought like, because I 'amplify' other people's powers. And it's nice and quick to say, too."
"It's good. I like it." Her head turned toward the ceiling. "Aaauughh, I still have a whole program to code, but I'll just keep thinking about all this the whole time instead." Was she really...?

Amory decided to test the waters slightly, speaking his own phrase to change forms. Light looked over at him changing, and Amory saw her expression brighten slightly as he became a girl again. Her ears unfolded themselves from the side of her head, and her tail was swishing back and forth slightly.

"U-um..I don't know how to say this, but I.....th-this is so weird," she said a moment later, starting to visibly blush.
"You want me to help you take your mind off things for a little bit?" Amory offered, leaning a little closer.
"...Yes..?" While she seemed surprised by her own answer, Light also slowly nodded a couple of seconds later to reaffirm it. There wasn't any helping if it was really the way she felt, after all. So her roommate crawled over on the couch and gently wrapped her arms around her, curling her tail forward to brush against Light's, and smiled calmly from a face just few inches away. Light returned the hug and willingly entwined their tails, leaning her head over Amory's shoulder and inviting her to bring her hands up through her hair and up to her fluffy white ears.

They nuzzled each other, Light churring softly while Amp did her magic. There wasn't a need to boost Light's powers just now, but she could feel all of the stress and weight and paranoia the past week had generated, and worked on some level to release her from it, at least temporarily. This seemed to be an aspect of her power she hadn't really been aware of, but one she was more than happy to use to help her friend out. Light's body, surprisingly, did change as it continued, softly glowing into the half-light state from before and growing slightly taller, mostly just regaining the more womanly figure she had in her "full powered" form. She felt softer and squishier than that big, strong form, though, a bit like a big warm pillow in Amory's arms that moved and churred back at her.

A while later, they pulled apart enough to look in each other's faces. Amory was aware of a deep blush on her own face, and Light's was equally as red, but she had a contented smile to match her roommate's usual calm one. "..I dunno what to say," she said.
"Heehee," Amory batted her hair playfully a couple of times. "You can just thank me if you want. I know this is all kinds of bizarre, but it's just something else I can do to help if you need it..."
"Well..thanks, then." Light gave her another close hug, and then slowly got up. Her shirt had grown just enough to accommodate the larger breasts and cover her stomach this time, but it was still pretty tight, and her shorts did nothing to hide her hips either. Amory felt as if somehow the beauty she had right now was reflective of her, or something about her. She took a deep breath and audibly released it. "I'll get the rest of my work done, now. We have a tough week ahead, I bet."
"Yep." Gently brushing her tail against Amory's as she left, Light headed off to her room, seeming much happier and calmer than before.