Battle Vixens! - 36

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Episode 36: Garde

As part of getting things running again, the college had offered Dr. Quinn (both of them) an extra TA to be in some of their classes, able to fill in and continue the class if something should force them to leave in a hurry. Whoever volunteered for that work would receive extra pay, which aside from free food was the best possible motivator for a grad student. Besides having the freedom to run off immediately in case of monster attack, the extra help itself was nice. Today Rory was having to catch up on dissections scheduled all throughout the previous week, and the current one was right after lunch. She made a point of letting them know that she had just eaten lunch at a normal time as an example to the more squeamish of what kind of fortitude one needed to build up to be a biologist—or any other kind of scientist that dealt with some kind of dead bodies on a regular basis.

She occasionally glanced out the window, although that was clearly unnecessary with the app installed on her and probably half the class's phones. They had supposedly worked on the alert noise after the initial testers complained about how loud and jarring it was, and now it was supposed to only be just loud enough to get everyone's attention. There were kids handling sharp and/or pointy instruments in here, so hopefully the second pass had done a bit better of a job.

And so, about halfway through the lab...there it was. Their strategy seemed to be to start the sound much quieter and gradually raise the volume until either the noise finished or you tapped the button to make it shut up. After doing the latter (and mentally noting the location of the monster) Rory nodded to the TA and went for the door, giving a brief wave to the class. "Back in a few! Stay safe, kids. I'll still be expecting your lab reports by tomorrow!"

Already in fox form, Rory opened the back door to the building with just under the force that probably would've broken it and found a blond-haired puppet with a naginata just standing there a few feet away from the entrance, the weapon at her side. Her mouth seemed to twist itself open to speak in a halting, stilted manner: "Doctor, Quinn."

Rory knew that the weapon was likely magic, and didn't know what other magic she had available to attack with. But whoever was in control probably expected her to say or ask something, so she took advantage of that, instead pumping up her speed as much as possible, taking a big step toward her, feinting a right hook before forward-sidestepping around an instinctive counter from the naginata, grabbing the weapon and wrenching it out of the puppet's hands and bashing her over the head with the nearest end. "Thanks for the donation, bye!" And she punched its head the rest of the way off for good measure before continuing on her way.

It did occur to her that this strategy probably wouldn't work a second time.

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"Doctor, Quinn."

"You know, whenever someone says that I have to double take to figure out whether they're talking to me or to my wife." Clark removed the needle from her ear, suspecting that the brown-haired puppet with a longsword in her hand was not standing just outside the doorway to wish her a good afternoon.

"Don't, attempt, to leave. I have, business, with Light."

"Ohh, you're here to change the lightbulb? It's right in there," she pointed behind herself with a thumb.
"Ha ha." She raised her free hand and some of the grass next to the sidewalk suddenly turned into big, thorny vines, lashing out at Clark. She got away from one but the other wrapped around her right arm. "Stay."

"I don't know if you get the news wherever you really are," said Clark, "but if you did, you'd know my lovely wife is not the sort of person you want to provoke." She struggled slightly, letting go of the needle and allowing the puppet to watch it fall to the ground. The thorns cut into her skin a bit, nd the girl came a little bit closer with that sword—but her eyes were off the needle now. Clark concentrated on moving it without moving her hands in any obvious way.

"Do I, hear, fear?"

"Who's afraid? You haven't announced an intent to kill me yet, just acted really hostile and threatening with your every move!" She just needed another second or two. "I'll tell you a li'l secret, though."

"What."

"Neither am I," Clark grinned pleasantly.

"Neither—?"

The needle had made its way into her left hand, and she pulled it. Sharp string pulled taut around the vine, cutting it off from the ground. More string pulled taut around the puppet's ankle, tripping her in the middle of a small step and sending her stumbling forward toward Clark. She moved aside as the vine rapidly withered and crumbled out of existence, and shoved the girl to one side as hard as she could, knocking her the rest of the way over onto the ground. Then she got moving, making some distance between herself and the puppet while turning the needle over to the bulb side to quickly heal the minor but bleeding cuts on her arm.

More vines jumped up out of the ground, aiming to whip at or grab her; these she was a bit more prepared for, dodging some and throwing her needle just right to catch the others on string. She turned back toward the puppet as it came charging, sword raised, and twirled the needle on a few loops around the weapon before jerking it to one side, throwing the entire body off balance and making her stumble several steps to one side while Clark ran the opposite way.

This was not a good long-term plan. Literally every other person she'd met with powers—well, except for Amory that is—had some huge advantages when it came to one-on-one combat with another person. Clark, on the other hand, had no strength, decent speed but little endurance, and a lot of fancy tricks that didn't work well without either distance, the element of surprise, or a convenient distraction. Having spent up the second one, the first was proving difficult to maintain, so hopefully the third would show up soon. She couldn't even try to close the gap by borrowing Rory's power because of that ominous line about Light, which meant another puppet was waiting for her wife, and/or (more likely) that Rory was already much farther along on the way to helping Light with that "business".

The puppet righted herself and threw her sword at Clark; she ducked aside of it and then responded to some vines grabbing her ankles with a quick twirl of string to cut herself free. Another vine jumped out of the grass into her opponent's hands, re-forming the longsword, and she took advantage of that moment of immobility to charge close and give a hard slash which Clark just barely dove out of the way of, rolling along the ground briefly before successfully popping back onto her feet. More whipping, thorny vines appeared and she hopped awkwardly back four or five times, watching the puppet run up and prepare another strike...any time now, distraction!

A small fireball hit one of the nearby vines and spread from that point all throughout the vine and several of the others near it, turning them to ash in under a second. It failed to spread to the grass below at all. Fire...wasn't supposed to work that way, but apparently this was a magic-magic interaction. Either way, it freed Clark up to run from the puppet while Gemma's bodies made the rest of the distance to them, and she dove out of the way of one last sword slash, rolling through the grass again and stopping on her back, sitting up just as Plus's blades clashed against the weapon.
"Are you hurt?" Minus was next to her, offering a hand, which she took to stand up again.
"No, but I think Light's in danger. Let's take her out quick." The longer reach and superior strength of the puppet let her throw Plus's knives right out of her hands, but she responded with a sudden jab of lightning, making her convulse for a second instead of getting a chance to follow up.

Minus moved between Clark and the puppet, throwing some shadow-blades and more fire at her. A wall of vines rose up to catch the attacks, and turned to ash as soon as the fire connected. Plus raised both of her hands and tilted the concrete beneath the puppet's feet, throwing her into another off-balance stumble sideways. Clark tossed her needle up over Minus's head and forward, wrapping it around the puppet's neck while she was still trying to regain her footing. The needle returned along the same path and then was pulled taut, causing the puppet to drop her weapon and grasp at the cutting string with both hands, staggering backwards.

Plus ran closer and jabbed blades into the puppet's chest before letting loose with more electricity channeled through them, making the body convulse even more. Then Minus run up next to her other body and threw a larger ball of fire from her hands at the puppet's center, scorching through her clothes and producing a stench of burned plastic. It finally broke Clark's string and lashed out with the sword, making both bodies scatter, but it didn't seem like it was going to last much longer.

More vines rose up, trying to whip at both of Gemma's bodies; Plus dodged around them while Minus destroyed them with fire. Seeing that she was busy with that, Clark sent her needle back at the puppet, striking its pointy end right into the burned part of the stomach, and then..pulling. This was a new thing to do, not exactly a physical pull, but something like the opposite of what she did to heal people with the bulb-end. The puppet's arms and tail went limp, its head falling forward and its legs seeming to struggle momentarily at holding its own weight. Gemma saw the opportunity this provided and threw a couple of arrows right into the puppet's neck, which finally destroyed it.

Clark inhaled deeply and let it out in a quick puff, drawing the needle back to herself and instinctively stowing it back in the usual spot in her ear. "No time to rest. You know where, right?"
"Yes!" both of Gemma answered, and took off at a run. Clark followed as quickly as she could, which after tiring herself out with that previous fight was hardly enough to keep up. She noticed Plus pulling way ahead of Minus, and the part of her mind that always overanalyzed everything wondered if there were actual slight differences in the bodies' physical capabilities. It wouldn't be surprising...nor should it be too difficult to test if they got a chance to speak after this business was over with.

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Almost as soon as class was out, Blake heard the alarm going on his phone. He had wanted to get the "secret" version of the app from Amory but basically forgot about it until it was morning and he was already gone. This one was good enough, though, reporting an attack incoming at...
"Aww, seriously?" he growled under his breath. There wasn't anyone close enough to hear it, and anyway there were lots of reasons someone might say that about a reported monster attack. After a moment's indecision, he dropped his backpack in some bushes (remembering the "pink backpack" incident last Monday) and went into a gap between two of the buildings, quickly looking around to make sure there were no cameras or people to see before changing forms.

After that...it was back to the quad again. There were people running away from there already, and the crowd parted to let her through as soon as they saw her, a few of them yelling words of encouragement or cheering her on. That was..new. Not necessarily a bad thing, but definitely felt a little weird.

There was a distinct multitonal, unnatural roar from the direction of the quad as she approached. Its source came into view not long afterward: Another huge bear-thing just like her first introduction to the trouble a week ago. However, it wasn't alone; it made that noise as it swiped at a dark-haired puppet and its claws met a wall of shadow, the caster dancing backwards out of its range before dropping the wall.

"Well, if it, isn't, Light," she said in a distinctly stilted manner with constant, unnatural pauses.

The monster seemed to notice her and charged, aiming a swipe. Light jumped away, giving it an image to chase. "So you can talk through them." She raised her sword. "Too bad there's nothing to say."

Light ran at the puppet, going around two or three raised walls of shadow before just slashing through another, spreading the light out from her sword to destroy it the same as she had some of Minus's crescent blades before. Her next strike met the top of a scythe and then a quick swipe from the puppet's other hand forced her back again.

The noise attracted the monster, and then they both jumped backwards while it slammed its entire body into the ground they'd just been standing on. Light directed it toward shadow-girl with some flashy illusions.

She fell into the ground—the monster's shadow, rather—and popped back out next to Light. She saw this happen just in time to raise her sword in a defensive posture, but the puppet didn't attack. "You must, understand, what I'm, after."

"Look, if we're gonna do this could we at least change venues? I'm just really getting sick of having duel-slash-conversations in this spot, you know?" Light talked loudly, at the same time leading the monster back around with an image of herself, and then jumped back away while its arm went arm straight into the puppet's side, sending her flying.

Light's hand moved reflexively, swinging the sword to catch a bolt in midair and knock it away. It would've gone by a few inches in front of her face otherwise; just a warning shot to get her attention. Another puppet, green-haired—the one that had attacked Ning before—stood there with a crossbow drawn, then lowered it to her side. "You jump, in front, of attacks, to save others, even those who, wrong you." Light kept track of what was happening with the monster: It was still chasing the shadow-girl puppet as she got up and began running away—circling around, making more walls behind her to slow it down. "But you, never, even stop, to talk, on the news. You, don't want, power, or fame, or fortune. Many, don't, understand, just what, you do want." She kept her own sword at the ready, and listened carefully in case of a third puppet.

It was clear enough where this was going. "Just get on with attacking me already, you're not gonna like my answer." She raised her free hand in a 'come-on' gesture.

A shadow spike started to rise up from under Light, and rather than moving she concentrated nearby light into a birght aura around herself, destroying it before it could turn solid. Then the puppet in front of her dropped the weapon and chopped with her hand, forcing a dodge with a horizontal wind-wave. Light jumped over it and forward, slashing at her and moving into a small series of strikes and dodges. The monster followed the shadow-girl into position then and barreled through, swiping at them both and missing while Light went invisible again and used her power to highlight the wind puppet as much as possible to the monster so it would keep chasing her. A pair of scythes came straight at her right away, and she started blocking and dodging the shadow-girl's attacks after that.

"What use, is a person, sleeping forever? What are, a few lives, already lost? Already, previously, given? To save, many?"
Light waited until she tried slicing with both at once, and moved around the attack, catching the underside of both in her sword. They struggled against each other for a moment. "Listen very carefully: The ends don't justify the means. If your plan to save the world involves murdering innocent people then you're doing it wrong!!!" This she punctuated by grabbing the hilt with a second hand and giving a sudden, hard shove, jerking both weapons out of the puppet's hands and following it with a swift stab to her chest.
"You will, regret, making an, enemy—"
Light twisted the sword, pushing it the rest of the way through. "That's my line." Then kicked the puppet off, letting it fall apart into dust.

The monster swung back around and charged at Light, along with a number of bolts shot to either side of it in an effort to keep her in its path. She squatted, preparing to give her jump height a real test, and then saw a blur long and thin enough a spear go sailing over her head straight into the beast's chest with enough force to pierce the whole way through it and knock it over on its back.

"What took you so long?" Light stood up and turned her sword around, offering the hilt to Rory as she came up next to her.

"Some people can't read the 'no solicitors' sign."

"Do you actually have one of those or are you just—"

They scattered to either side from a barrage of bolts, Light going around to deal with the source directly and trusting Rory to probably take care of the monster issue, or at least distract it long enough.

Light spoke the phrase to borrow Ning's sword if she wasn't using it, and it appeared in her hand. When more wind-waves came at her she was able to cancel them out with some slashes of that, the electricity clashing right through them. Coming up on the puppet, her first slice was shielded by the crossbow, breaking it, and the next few were dodged. Getting tired of this, Light fired as high-powered a laser as she could at the puppet's back and then followed along with her sidestep out of it, slashing across the torso and tearing a visible gash through her plastic-like skin.

In a brief flash of apparent self-control, she looked down at the wound and back up again. "It still hurts, you know," she said—the actual person, going on the theory that their consciousnesses were still there and not just being faked by the puppeteer. "Every time. Wish you'd just end it quick."

"Okay—" Light was interrupted by the crossbow being swung at her like a club, and only just dodged it. The puppet's arm was raised for a downward follow up, but she jerked slightly from something hitting her in the back—several somethings in rapid succession.
"...Oh." The puppet collapsed into dust, and three knives, a piece of ice, an arrow, and a sharp bit of shadow all fell out of her back. Both of Gemma were standing there behind her.

"Are you—" "—okay?"

Light looked over to see what was happening; the monster connected a hit and sent Rory flying, but she kept the sword in her hand and drove it into the ground to help her land quicker and more stably before popping back to her feet and charging back at it again. "Little winded at this point. Help Rory out?" Light pointed to that whole situation with Ning's sword.

"Right!" both bodies said simultaneously, running that way.

Light's instincts were still on high enough alert that she whirled around weapon-first on hearing someone walking up behind her. But it was just Clark, and still a few yards off. "Hey, you take any hits?"

"No."
"Good to hear," she indicated a shredded sleeve. "I had some trouble myself. Gemma helped." Then she turned toward the monster, and Light did the same. It was trying to grab Rory when Minus ran up and threw more shadow crescents through the offending arm. Then Rory threw Light's sword into its stomach.

"Throwing borrowed weapons is really not a good habit."

"I'll...mention that."

Feeling she'd had enough of a break by now, Light retrieved her own weapon in her left hand and ran at the monster, jumping at its back, stabbing both blades into it, and pulling them out again with a backflip. The monster whirled around and swiped at an illusion going the opposite direction for Light while Rory ran up from behind and caught it by the ankle, using both hands to throw it over onto its back. A big ball of string from Clark fell straight down onto its stomach, making it spout black mist; Gemma threw in some lightning and Light slashed at it a few times for good measure. It made the usual multi-roar of pain and swiped at the air above it, trying to right itself. Rory took a couple of knives from Gemma, jumped on top of the injured stomach and stuck the weapons in as far as they would go, then did the same thing with the two swords offered by Light. Then she rolled off when the monster tried to grab at her again, and Light spoke Ning's phrase to hit her sword with a bolt of lightning from the sky, which finally destroyed it.

The four of them (five bodies) stood around where the monster was for a moment, everyone except for Rory catching their breath. "Welp, I got a lab to get back to," said Rory. "Someone else handle the news crews?"

After seeing a bit of a helpless look on Gemma's faces, Clark sighed. "I'll do it. But first—" she turned to Light, who had already gone invisible to anyone but the fox-girls nearby. "It sounded like the puppeteer really wanted to talk to you, like in private. She...say anything interesting?"

"...Everyone is the hero of their own story," Light said. "She wanted to convince me to not help Rowan, or probably just to kill me if I didn't agree with her reasoning."

"She tried to stop me with one puppet, but didn't really succeed," said Rory. "You?"
"Yeah," said Clark.

"That makes four bodies, almost half, spent here," said Light. "So at least some of the pressure was off the city today from that move. I'll..get a call through to Rowan detailing what happened, and tell you exactly what she's about later. You want to duck out?" she asked Gemma.

"Um—" "—one of me, at least. Am—" "—uh, you know who is waiting to see if we're okay."

"Alright, just have whichever follow me."

Light headed off, Plus following. "I thought you entirely wanted to flee the scene," Clark said behind them.
"Um, I'm just really nervous about, talking to people and answering so many questions by myself," she said. "I wanna try and get used to it, though, if I can."

"Are you..?" said Plus. "Um, nervous about talking?" she clarified, in case the conversation with her other body hadn't made it clear.
"Not really...there's a lot I could probably say." Light shrugged. "I just...I started running away like this because, well, I could, and the less I directly answer people's questions the less details I accidentally let out that give away who I really am. Oh, and the first time it really happened was right after Rowan was still threatening to shoot me?"

"Hmn. So, eventually, you'll.."
"Yeah, most likely. Right now, I just think getting through to Rowan is more important. Orr, that's just an excuse I'm making to put it off. I guess maybe I am a little nervous? I just don't know how to deal with the idea of being famous, of a lot of people wanting to talk to me or hear from me or thinking they 'know me'."

"I feel that, too," she said. "When I was in the city, Simon—Petra, had some things to say about fame..."

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If the title of Episode 32 still doesn't make sense to you, then I suspect this one will be even more obscure. But the title of 35 is a big hint to both.