Battle Vixens! - 83

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Episode 83: Tilted/Trapped

Gerald Nelson woke up slowly at first, perceiving several odd things: The texture and firmness of the bed beneath her, the weight of the covers on top...nothing was quite right. Her hand reached out in the direction of the nightstand and only found more bed. Her foxlike ears, well used to all the droning and creaking sounds of an old but still very much intact house, heard nothing.

Not all of these facts processed consciously at first. No, the first thing she really noticed was that complete and total silence, because there was one specific sound that helped her sleep securely, and it was missing. She bolted upright, eyes snapping open, because she couldn't hear Nadia's breathing. There was a second or two of panic before she started to understand the nature of her extremely unfamiliar surroundings—a strange, ornate bedroom around half the size of her entire house—and took some deep breaths to calm down.

Nadia was okay. Her real body would've woken up if that breathing had stopped or changed substantially. This was...that place Light always spoke of going to. Her presence here, then, could really only mean one thing.

She pulled herself down onto her feet, finding herself clothed in a robe that trailed down to her knees and had some kind of hole for her tail to come out through in the back, pulled together by a sort of belt about the waist in a way that kept the split down the middle from showing off more than a bit of cleavage. She had time to lift her arms, twist around and examine this state of dress before a soft few knocks came on the front door of the room.

It was generally Ning's understanding that these dreams didn't end until the "owner" of the place had said her fill, so there wasn't much use in being stubborn. Besides, she could just appear inside the room whenever she wanted; knocking on the door was some sort of empty display of courtesy. She sighed, resolving to get this over with, and walked over, opening the door and taking a few steps back.

"Hello there." The tall, ornately dressed fox-woman smiled, taking this as an invitation to stride on in and have the door shut itself behind her—or maybe one of her numerous tails pushed it closed, it was kind of hard to tell.

"Howdy. So you're—"
"Yes," she cut Ning off, nodding. "That's, me all right." She said it like someone reluctantly accepting a less-than-pleasant nickname. Weird.

"Soo, to what do I owe the pleasure, then? You never bugged me in my dreams before."

"Ah, well. Frankly, you weren't all that interesting to me before," she said, seeming to almost.. deliberately recover her usual, smug confidence as reported by Light. "Today you did three things that would've each gotten my attention on their own. How could I not stop by?""

"I suspect I'd be better off stayin' boring," Ning commented, crossing her arms.

"Hmmh."

---

Amory went to bed in fox form once again, and knocked on the bedroom door, thinking of Emma. There was a short pause before her combined form's voice called, "Um, come in."

As soon as the blond vixen opened the door, she knew something wasn't right. Emma was sitting upright in the big bed, staring straight ahead with a kind of shellshocked look, and maintained that for a second before turning toward her guest. "Uhh..hi."
Amory's ears folded down a bit. "What's wrong?"

"Noth..I mean. Um, it's not that anything's wrong exactly but um." She put her hands together, nervously fidgeting her fingers around for a couple of seconds before settling on wringing them. "Can you. Can we get Light? I feel like, I'm gonna have to explain twice otherwise."

"Um..sure? I'll, be right back."

Amory ducked out, going to a second door that had appeared in her own room, and knocked on it. Blake...might not be too happy to be summoned here, but it seemed to be important. Since Emma hadn't called, texted, or come to their room, it also seemed to be private enough to want to use this space in particular to speak about. After a moment, Light's voice sighed, and then she opened the door wearing an expression of severe annoyance.

It abated as she slowly turned her head from looking up to looking down, finally ending up pointed in the direction of Amory's face. "..Oh. What's going on?"

"Uh, I'm not exactly sure? Emma's kinda freaking out, and wanted me to get you before she'd explain.."
"She knows," Light said, without elaboration. It took Amp a moment to catch up to her meaning, during which she gently brushed past into the blond vixen's bigger room, glanced around briefly, and then continued toward Emma's door. Amory followed.

By this point, Emma had gotten up and split into two, setting a chair in front of the foot of her bed and now using each body to move another chair, placing them at the two other points of a triangle facing it. "Um, hi Light—" "—sorry to, um..I mean I know you don't like—" "—but it's kinda, really super—"
"It's fine," Light cut her off.

"Oh, okay. Umm—" "—chairs?" Plus waved, implying an offer to sit down. "This might, take some time."

---

"...Take a seat?" She waved to one side, indicating a chair was that Ning was fairly certain hadn't been there before. The white-haired vixen shrugged and went over to sit down, while the chair summoner sat down opposite her, into another newly-formed seat. "Thanks. It's terribly awkward standing around to speak at length."
A part of Ning, maybe some "rebellious youthfulness" combined with the knowledge of how she'd generally treated everyone, just really wanted to get a rise out of this woman. Not much, just some reaction other than constant, smug confidence. She tried: "You really do love the sound of your own voice, don't ya?"

"...Fair," she shrugged with her head tilted sideways a bit, taking this disturbingly well. "I like to think that I have very important things to say. And somehow, I always find myself a captive audience to say it to."

As if to emphasize the latter point, the tall woman just sat silently, staring into space with a faint smile, until Ning finally, somewhat impatiently, prompted her: "Go on, then."
"Heheh. Well, first of all, you fought back from the inside. You have no idea how rare, how impressive that really is. Ancient wizards, dragons and demigods have been swallowed by that thing and failed to wrest control back for even an instant, and here you had the enemy wrestling with you the entire time. I never would have guessed you had so much willpower. I'm still trying to discern just how it happened, but, like many of the feats I've seen from your world, perhaps you were able to do it because you had no idea of how difficult it was 'supposed' to be.

"Second, of course, you've chosen to remain that way—as a vixen—for good. You're among the first to seriously consider it, and the very first to actually make a full commitment. I'm glad you like my gift enough to keep it that way, even if you don't like me much."

"I don't dislike you, either. I don't know you," Ning said. "You haven't got the most stellar reputation, is all. I dunno if you're gonna disappear from that chair any second and start molesting my ears or something."
"As much fun as that might be, I'm not really in the mood for it right now," she seemed to admit, shrugging. "Maybe that doesn't help my case with you much, but that's just fine with me. I don't need mortals to like me." This last sentence seemed kind of strange to add; her tone didn't sound at all defensive, but... "Anyway...I wanted to confirm something for you which many others have suspected. That body doesn't age—not in the sense of growing old—so you won't have to put up with that ever again. By remaining in it for good, you completely escape the evolutionary shadow, and live for as long as something doesn't kill you. And—many of the things that could kill a baseline human your age, obviously, won't anymore."

"Well, that's good to know, I suppose," Ning said.

"Is it good?" she said, and then mumbled: "I wonder..."

---

"So, um.." Emma recombined and sat at the foot of the bed, with Light to her left and Amp to her right. "You ever just...suddenly realize something, about someone, that just completely changes everything you thought you knew, and felt about them?"
"..Not particularly," Light said.

Amory took a little longer to think about it. "Once, with my dad. Long story. So, you...?"
"Yeah. I-I mean, it happened twice to me in the span of like, five minutes, and I'm still trying to actually process it all. It was, so weird, I just—aagh, I shouldn't keep beating around the bush."

She looked back and forth between them. "Y-yeah, I know," she confirmed—echoing Light's guess which she couldn't help but hear. "I mean, I kinda—it was like, Beryl just said. Something totally innocuous, but then it all sorta hit me at once, and I just knew. And I, confronted her with it and she admitted to, being who she is. The—Giver, or whatever. That wasn't even the start of how, weird it got, though. She um, admitted later that she basically told you two the truth, which is why I..wanted to talk to you."

Both of them waited patiently for her to gather her thoughts and go into detail. "So at first, once I realized—I felt like I'd been betrayed, and basically lied to ever since I met her. I got, really, really mad. I mean, I've never been so mad at anyone before. I started throwing things..."

---

Ning gave the taller woman a questioning look.

"Oh, excuse me. What I mean to say is: You may have to watch the rest of the world grow older around you, or at least a decent majority of them. Including your granddaughter. I know that you relish the opportunity to see her grow up, and hopefully become a successful, mature adult, but what about what happens after that? Can you bear watching her grow old while you stay the same? Will you take care of her, if she contracts the same forgetfulness disease as her grandmother?"

Gerald leaned forward and upward, her body tensed to leap at the person in front of her and start pounding her face in. While that last step wasn't going to happen, her withering glare did more than enough to communicate the same emotion. "Don't. You. Dare."

She frowned and folded her ears down, appearing contrite. "I didn't mean to make light of it," she said quietly, almost sincerely. "But it is sometimes hereditary..oh, I should've just picked on something else. Sorry. My point is that, if you could offer her the same thing, would you?"
The level of rage had surprised Ning, too—she'd thought the pain of watching her wife's mind slowly wither and die across an entire decade and a half long since buried—and she made an effort to relax and sit up straight again. "Offer, yes. Force, no, for basically the same reasons you just gave."
"Well, good. In that case, I can help you. There's something your powers come packaged with that I haven't told anyone about quite yet, you see.

"More specifically, there's a spell I can give you. If a blood descendant of yours is willing, and you cast this spell, then it will grant them immortality like yours. It..comes with the growth of vulpine traits similar to your own, but no power boost. The effect is also..semi-hereditary, in the sense that a child with another immortal will be the same, or one with a 'normal' human will retain fox traits and live longer than average, down to the second generation—but the blessing can also be instated fully on those people. Any such immortal can also use the spell, and, anyone who knows the spell can also grant it to others."
"Why bring this up now, then?" Ning said. "While she's still much too young to make a decision like that?"

"I'm feeling particularly charitable, I suppose," she replied with a slight shrug. "Originally, I was going to grant this spell to someone with no children, and then watch to see whether they gave it to anyone it'd actually be relevant to or kept it to themselves. This way, I suspect there's a fair chance it'll spread to everyone who might want it very much in time, and I can't take it back if I change my mind. Oh, and the requirement of blood descendants wasn't my idea. Immortality of this kind didn't exist in your world before, and remains extremely difficult and costly to grant. You, and other blessed ones, can use this spell because you are presently borrowing power from me, and will still be able to cast it once you're not because of how powerful you will be on your own by then. Those made immortal by the spell can pass it on to their descendants because it is then a 'part of them'. It should go without saying that it'll take a lot out of the caster either way."

After a pause just long enough for Ning to process all of that, she abruptly changed the subject. "...Anyway, did Light ever mention that your 'name' can change your clothing? If you just say the first word—oh, the first couple of syllables or so—while holding or wearing something, your power can change it to fit you. You can change it back the same way, although for most articles I don't know that you'll find much use for that. I just thought that might save you a few shopping trips."

"....I'm sure it will," Ning said. "Thanks, I suppose."
"Oh, it's no biggie," she said, giving a single dismissive wave with a hand. "She likely would've told you about it herself if it occurred to her, but I'm certain it slipped her mind today with everything else that happened."

---

"...and she said she was sorry, and she was surprised about it." Gemma gesticulated wildly as she spoke. "Like, she didn't expect to be able to be sorry. She didn't think she should be. And then she just started crying and laughing, and it was—from then on it was like talking to an alien or something. A—sad, lonely alien who like, doesn't understand human emotions but starts feeling them anyway? Or, or something like that. I kinda, I got the impression that she doesn't really see the bad things that happen on the way to achieving her goals as, almost as even real. Like, she's so sure things will go according to her plan that, as long as the end result is good, it doesn't matter how much people have to go through on the way to get there."

"Ends justify the means for her," Light concluded. "I'm not really surprised to hear that."
"Well, yeah, but it's not. I mean—it's not in the normal way that usually goes?" Emma tried to explain. "Like, usually, people who think that way can never be totally sure that things will go according to plan. The means matter 'cause—well I mean, like, part of the reason why at least is that they have an effect on the consequences, right? But it's like she already calculated that cost to fifteen thousand decimal places and decided the net result was positive enough that it's fine. I mean..I think I know what it is, sorta...

"Everything's a game. Or, a plan, or a..formula. A recipe. Something with clear-cut rules and boundaries and steps, with results so certain that they can be thought of as having already happened. Not that there's, no room for unpredictability, I guess, but even that's kinda calculated into oblivion and planned for somehow. It's at the point of being a, belief system or a practical philosophy or something."

"...But she said she was sorry anyway," Amory said. "After explaining why she couldn't say that if she didn't mean it."
"Yeah. That's the, second time I was talking about," Emma said. "It's—like, obviously everything I just said is kinda her identity. It has been, at least as long as any of us have 'known' her, right? So, but...mnnngh." She brought her hands up and waved them in circles, struggling to articulate something specific.

"Take your time," Amp said calmly. "I think we have however long we need here."
"Yeah....yeah. Uuhhmm..."

---

Ning concluded that this was an..excessively confusing experience. Not only was this woman acting against her reputed personality, over and over again, she was acting just plain..bizarre overall. It seemed like she really was in some kind of strange mood, which was unfamiliar even to herself. There was something profoundly uncomfortable about watching this, which made her want this meeting over with almost as much as she would've if everything had been 'normal' and the tall, many-tailed woman was all smug self-aggrandizement, teasing and provoking.

"..Soo, what's the third thing?" she pressed.
"Ah, yes. Adjacent to deciding to remain in that form, you've also decided to let the world know who you are. That isn't necessarily impressive in and of itself, since many chose not to keep that a secret in the first place, but you are among a select few who've decided to properly 'unmask' after successfully maintaining two separate identities for a while. And you're the first with something of a 'criminal record', although you've got plenty of help in smoothing that over. I don't think you'll have any real difficulty with that. I'm certain your experience will be a great help to the others someday, when they either decide or are compelled to do the same."

"I don't suppose you've got any sage advice regarding that," Ning said.
"Be prepared to be famous, I suppose," she replied, shrugging. "The phenomenon has died down only a little since I first gave my blessing, and some 'new meat' in your sense is certain to stir up plenty of attention. I'd say you should be able to leverage it into some real profit, depending on how much you're willing to sell your image. At least you could sell a bundle of your groceries without compromising any morals at all, purely from the attention your shop will get by being yours. And if you want to be fabulously wealthy, there's all kinds of things the VI could be selling with your likeness on it, and their cut is almost too generous for their own good."

"Well, I'll take it into consideration, anyhow. I'm sure Simon would be more than happy to 'help' with that."
"Mm-hm! Either way, who knows? Perhaps you will even enjoy all the attention and admiration you'll get. I know you're worried about what it might do to your granddaughter, but..surely you're a good enough guardian to raise her right either way, aren't you?"

This borderline encouragement wasn't doing much for her sense of confusion, but a vote of confidence from something like what this person was supposed to be wasn't nothing. "...I'd better be."

---

"It's...like she's...stuck. Like, there's this idea of who she is that's existed for a really, really long time, and it's how she sees herself, and how everyone else sees her, and she's gonna keep being that person no matter what, even if she doesn't want to anymore, 'cause she doesn't know how to be anything else. And it complicates things more that, her circumstances and past decisions box her into wanting to act that way still, to achieve the goals she has that haven't changed, too."

"She sure seems happy with 'being who she is'," Light commented.

"Yeah. I mean—I'm not exactly sure she doesn't want that, but it's like...she realized, right in front of me, that she can't be anything else, and suddenly felt trapped. And, that's right when there was..something she realized she wanted that that identity will never let her have."

Amp volunteered the question: "What's that?"

"Um. It's gonna sound, super dumb if I say it. I mean—really, really cliché and..stupid. But. She wanted...she wants a friend, I think. Someone who'll treat her like an equal, and she can do the same back, even if..they're not."

Neither of them responded for a moment. Then Light said, "She can hear us right now, right? I mean, not that she couldn't if we talked about this somewhere else, but—weird she hasn't interrupted to correct you or anything."
"I don't think it's that odd," Amp said. "Even if that's all totally off-base, it's not out of character for her to just let people misinterpret things she's said."
"Oh..yeah."

"I think she might just need some space after, um, all that," Emma said, proposing an alternative explanation. "It was...a lot. After she'd finished crying, she just started gushing out a ton of different things. Like, she said a bunch of nice stuff about me and insisted it was all true, and it was kinda hard to disagree..and, she told me my power actually um, gets stronger by a little bit every time I learn something new, instead of just recovering some energy from that."

"...You do seem more powerful than you were at first," Amory said after moment's thought. "Though, I kinda thought it was just that you knew more people's powers and were getting more creative with them."

"When I started worrying about talking about all of this—I mean, to you—she said right away that I could tell whoever as much as I wanted, and then was like, 'tell Light I like her too!'"
The white-haired vixen's ears folded down. "The feeling's not mutual."
"I know but. It was soo weird just blabbing that out of the blue! A-and it wasn't like, 'I think she's cool' or 'a good person' or something, it was, 'tell Light I like her'. Like...y'know....Liiike." Emma tried to clarify further with a gesture of spreading her hands forward, which wasn't very helpful—but they got the point anyway.

Light made a face. "Really not mutual, then."

"Yeah, um, she knows that too. Right away she started talking about how cute it was that you hated her, and...it really didn't make much sense to me. But in a weird, kinda sideways way, I think it's maybe part of being seen as someone's equal, like I said before. She's used to being, like...so far 'above' everyone, so..stuff like making fun of her or wanting to rip her throat out even though you can't is this bizarre, upside-down version of respect? I-I don't know...

"Uh, a-anyway, she also wanted to give me a 'prize' for 'winning', for working out who she was on my own," she continued. "I, suggested she might be able to tell everyone where the monsters would show up, and what kind they would be, and she kinda...sounded like she was gonna start doing that. So that's good, maybe?"
"If she goes through with it, I guess," Light said.

"Yeah, but um, that wasn't the 'prize' strictly speaking," she said, tapping her fingers together nervously, before launching into an explanation of the spell Beryl had cast before leaving.

---

"Well, I know you're already tired of me," she said.
"You can read minds," Ning replied flatly.
"Mmh. I'll give you the spell and let you go, then." She stood up. "Permit me to place my hand on your head for a moment..."

Gerald willed herself to hold still while she came just within reach and gently put her hand on the top of her head, not even moving it in the direction of her ears. She felt the method of casting the spell enter her mind as though it were an idea she'd just had on her own, appearing fully-formed in her memory all at once. The same gesture could apparently be used to grant the spell to someone else—touch some part of their head and 'want' to teach it to them.

When it was done, she took a couple of steps backwards and gestured for Ning to stand up, so she did. "...Handshake?" She said, offering out a hand, which Ning regarded suspiciously for only a second or two before taking it, engaging in a fairly gentle shake.
"Best of luck to you in the coming battles," she said, appearing to actually, fully smile for the first time this dream. "People always seem to fight harder when it isn't just their own survival at stake. Hope you all make it through this."

"Goes without saying, we agree there."

"Mm-hm," she nodded.

Ning woke up abruptly after that, and found sunlight coming in through the bedroom window. It was morning.

---

Emma bit her lip. "I um..really needed to distract myself, so I could process all of that and even begin to talk about it, soo..yeah. I made some..'improvements'," she said, blushing with a very slight grin. "I'm aaa...li'l bit taller now, for example. Think I want a bit more, maybe, but I held off for tonight since there, wasn't an easy way to get clothes that'd fit me if I changed too much."
"Not to, put a damper on anything," Amory said. "But did you uh..think about how people will react to you suddenly looking different? Especially, growing?"
"Oh. Um. Not at first," she admitted, "but I looked some stuff up, and found out that people can have growth spurts as late as their mid-twenties, and I'm not nearly there yet! I guess some of my changes so far might look weird for how sudden they are, but I really doubt anyone's been watching me all that closely who isn't already 'in the know' anyway. I haven't been around my family, or sent them any pictures, in long enough that I think they'd definitely buy that I've been excercising more and eating better and uuuh, like I said, a bit of a growth spurt."
"What about your friends, though?" Light said. "Wouldn't they notice if you're suddenly different after only like, half a week?" Emma just gave her a long, blank stare, blinking a few times. "...Oh. Uh, never mind, then."

The two-tailed girl's head tilted just a bit. "..Hey, Light, um...is it my imagination, or are you a little bit taller?"