Battle Vixens! - 136

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Episode 136: No More Mr. Nice Guy

Blake didn't bother shifting to human form to go to bed. She had a feeling...and sure enough, once she'd near-immediately fallen asleep-slash-passed out from exhaustion, the sound of knocking on a less-familiar door woke her up again. Or..didn't. She sat up slowly, taking the time to stretch and try to mentally prepare herself.

The large, ornate room was as strange to wake up into as always. Her clothes were...as lacking as usual, an oversized t-shirt and underwear with no bra and no proper bottom. But she was just used enough to these things to not really regard them, swinging her legs around and falling off the side of the bed onto her feet.

If it was anyone else, they'd knock again. They'd get impatient from all of the delay, wonder if they'd been heard at all, perhaps even become insecure about whether the door would be opened. But the person who'd woken her up didn't have any of those thoughts. She knew full well that once was enough, and that the door would be answered eventually. Knowing this was frustrating; it brought on a temptation to drag the delay out as long as she could stand, just to see the reaction...but her 'opponent' in this regard had far more patience than Light could ever hope to, and both of them knew it. There just wasn't a point. And it wasn't like she could "run down the clock" either, since time in this dream-space didn't synchronize with real time. So, as soon as she felt more or less ready, she went up to the door and cracked it open.

"You want to talk."

"I would appreciate it," the Watcher said, in a pleasant, polite tone of voice.

"Come on, then." Light turned around and went to about where some chairs had appeared before, sitting down in one of them once they appeared again. She didn't bother opening the door wider or closing it again, and her guest seemingly obliged her impatience by simply appearing in the opposite seat, already sitting down. At the same time, she hesitated from speaking long enough for the silence to become slightly awkward.

Light didn't say anything. She didn't have any questions or requests. There was a lot of information the being in front of her probably knew that their world was ignorant of, but not much that felt like it mattered now—nothing they wouldn't figure out on their own. If she thought otherwise, the Watcher could talk to someone else. Light was done with being a go-between for obscure hints. If the woman with many tails wanted to say something to her, then she'd say it eventually; further prompting wasn't necessary. For someone who loved to talk so much, it never was.

And she began before too long: "I must say, I'm impressed. Really. There was more than one time today I thought you, or your allies, weren't going to make it. If the enemy were intelligent..it couldn't have better planned a way of stripping away your best fighters before its main assault. You were lucky, certainly, that its manifestation as an ambush predator was met with the perfect reinforcement on your side. But I think you could've figured the same trick out if you'd been lucky enough to dodge an attack or two anyway. No, but tonight..tonight was something special."

Was this all she wanted? To dispense praise, to give color commentary on the struggle for everyone's lives? Light's expression remained the same, but her breath came in through her nose and came out of it in a slightly louder and harsher hiss. The Watcher couldn't have missed this, subtle as it was, but continued anyway.

"Rory Quinn lost her entire sense of self less than a week ago, and only seems to have come back with stronger determination. She and her husband almost lasted long enough on that alone for their help to arrive. You were close to fainting, but only needed the slightest bit of support to get right back on your feet. Rowan and Ning could perhaps have achieved victory if that hadn't happened, but not without a price. Not to mention Magus...I don't know how I missed someone with so much potential. But it's probably better her power developed on its own anyway. Just from seeing her performance—"

Smack

Light knew that the Watcher could not be harmed, that "violence" of any kind didn't work on her. She also knew that certain actions, such as a slap to the face, didn't count as "violence". It wasn't that she had a new, original idea, or even really thought about it at all. It was just—she was sitting there listening one second, and the next she was standing over the Watcher with a slight sting in her right hand. The one still in the chair looked surprised, slowly raising a hand to rub her cheek slightly.

What she'd been feeling since coming to this place tonight—and probably much longer than that—spilled loudly out. "Do you ever shut up!? Can you even hear yourself!?"

"I—"
"Nobody—nobody is doing anything, specifically to entertain you! People fighting, and bleeding, and dying, is not so you can sit back and laugh at us!!"
"I d—"

"The world, the universe, the—whatever else, doesn't revolve around you! It does not care, what you like, or what you want to see!"

Light stood there panting air in and out for a second, long enough for the Watcher to get a word in edgewise. She still didn't stand up, and when she spoke, it was with a calm, rational tone that was even more infuriating than shouting back would've been. "I never thought otherwise."

"You sure don't act like it! 'Don't be boring'?! I'll be as boring as I want! Safe! Is boring! And, and for you to talk about Magus's 'performance' like she's on a game show—like a circus act put on for you personally—!"

"A poor choice of words—"

"Like you don't think about everyone else around you, exactly that way! You—you really think Emma's your friend? Someone you pushed, you manipulated into hurting people, getting herself hurt?! And today, risking her life?! What are you even doing, talking to me instead of her then?"

Light actually paused on purpose this time, her expression demanding an answer. "Frankly..you don't know Emma like I do. She was going to go help tonight all along—to help is what she wanted, and what she needed. I helped her come to the decision soon enough for that help to be truly effective. Besides, she's...busy tonight. And, still uncertain what to think of me."
"Big surprise!" she threw her arms up briefly. "The nice, kind person she knew, all along was just a mask you put on to screw with her! What's she supposed to think, if you won't even talk to her now that she took it off!?"

"I don't really know..." The Watcher spoke quietly, with a touch of sadness. "If it was a mask, it certainly left an impression on my real face when it came off. Or, maybe I still have a mask on that was under it. Maybe it's just masks all the way down."

Light stepped back, and flopped back onto her own chair, sitting hunched forward. "How many people have you killed. Had killed. Manipulated someone else into killing. Ignored their pleas for help, that would have been trivial for you to grant, and let them die. How many."

The Watcher sighed in a slightly tired way, like she'd been expecting this question. "I could recite a number for you, but would it really mean anything? I'm certain just one person is too many, as far as you're concerned."

"One person." This sounded like an echo of agreement at first, but Light continued immediately: "You've found one person you think you care about. Do you understand, that every single one of those people whose death you have caused, had someone who cared about them more than that? Who hurt, worse than anything that anyone does to Emma will ever hurt you? You can't just not know that, watching everyone's lives like you do, but do you understand?"

The Watcher paused for a moment, wearing a slight smile that looked worse than a frown. "When you put it that way...I don't know that I do.

"It sounds...awfully hard, to care about people. If it hurts so much to care about just a few, it must be so much more difficult for you. To care about everyone, and want to save all of them. It sounds like a terrible burden to live under. If it brings you some relief...if you need someone to hate? I'm not such bad target. You know how much harm I've caused. You know I won't retaliate."

There was a quiet, almost motherly kindness to her tone of voice. It just made Light even angrier. For the first time she could remember, she wanted to do or say something—anything, that would hurt the person in front of her. She'd wanted that for most of this conversation, actually, but only became fully conscious of it in those terms at this point. It was a terrifying feeling. Her whole body was shaking slightly from a tension that felt like it was getting ready to snap.

"Manipulation isn't friendship. Drafting someone into a war, isn't helping her. Deciding that you know better what someone needs and wants, and forcing her to try for it, is the kind of thing abusive parents do. You sat by and watched, when Emma was swallowed by that monster. Knowing, how much pain that would put her in. Knowing, that she was terrified, that none of us knew for certain if she would ever wake up again."

"I couldn't...I can't play favorites."
"Oh, no. You don't even help the people you say you care about the most. Not when it's 'against the rules'. Because your games, are more important to you than anyone or anything else."

The Watcher didn't reply. For once in the entire time Light had been aware of her, she didn't seem to have any idea what to say. She just sat there, looking sad and uncertain. It felt good to see that, but not in a way that quelled Light's anger at all.

"This is my room, right? You don't come in unless I open the door? Get out."

This seemed to snap her out of it. She sat up slightly. "Ah...but I wanted to ask—"
Light stood up violently enough to knock the chair over behind her; it landed with a loud clattering bang that cut the Watcher off. "I don't care, what you WANT!" She pointed at the door. "GET OUT!"

The Watcher stood up slowly, putting her hands out in a gesture of surrender. "All right, all right. I won't stay where I am not welcome. And I won't disturb you again. But you know, of course, that my dealings with your world aren't over yet. Some are still asking for my help."
"Then go talk to them," Light seethed.

She quietly went over to the door, which had been left ajar all along, and opened it fully to make her exit. On her way out she paused for just a second, turning her head to ask: "Are you still afraid, that you'll become like me?" After that she was gone, the door shutting behind her.

---

"Everything is going according to plan." The Watcher paused, taking a sip of tea from her cup. "I won't be missed, when I'm no longer needed."

"You know..." her host said. "You don't sound very happy about everything working as intended."

"One can be satisfied without being happy."

"Pfft. You're not usually one for riddles."

"The most efficient way to cut them off from my power is to ensure that they dislike me. Hatred is even better. Someone who thinks of me as a 'benevolent savior' could be a leech for centuries."
"You sound like you're trying to convince yourself," her host pointed out.

"...Do you, think I talk too much?" the Watcher asked, suddenly changing the subject.

"Hmm? Where'd this come from?"
"I've been told to shut up more times in the past couple of weeks than I think anyone on their world ever has before."

"Well, maybe not in this setting. But you do love explaining things—even more than I do—and you're very powerful, both magically and politically, plus literally invincible, so in most other settings, folks are strongly disincentivized to interrupt you. Maybe that's formed a bit of a bad habit? Actually, you're capable of giving a truly endless filibuster if you wanted to."

"That would be—"
"—Pretty boring, I know. I'm just saying, you could. Anyway, people's steady escalation of efforts to make it stop could eventually get pretty funny!"

"Mmn."

She leaned forward a bit. "...Gosh, I thought imagining that would at least get a chuckle out of you. Something's actually got you down, huh?"

Rather than agreeing or disagreeing—much less explaining the reason—the Watcher seemed to change the subject once again: "The first people to communicate with me, wanted something out of me. They would say or do anything, if it would just make me do what they wanted. Nobody powerful enough to be aware of my existence would ever contact me unless they wanted something. If that is who taught me how to relate to others, then the only way I know is manipulation."

"Well, when you finally wanted something yourself—I guess you put those lessons to good use."

"I suppose so.

"...I don't know of any way to be good or kind to someone, other than to give them what they want. Or to help them take it for themselves, for the greater satisfaction. Is that wrong?"

"Hmmn—it's not often you wanna hear my moral opinions." Perhaps the Watcher hadn't meant it as a moral question, but she chose to interpret it as one anyway. "I think I'm best off repurposing a cliché in this case: 'The ends don't justify the means'. If you stab a man's beloved wife so he can have a million dollars of insurance money, that won't even make him happy. Never mind whether it's right or wrong, or how everyone else feels about it."

"It seems obvious when you put it that way...although, none too comforting."

Her host nodded. "The truth can hurt. Sorry, but, you did ask."

A brief, distant expression came out in response to that first sentence. After a brief hesitation, she seemed to acknowledge the second only half-heartedly, just muttering, "I did..."

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This was tough to write; I had to be in just the right mood for it to (hopefully) land. Other potential song-based titles for this episode include Weird Al's "I'm So Sick of You" and George Thorogood's "You Talk Too Much".

I wonder if you can guess what the Watcher really wanted to ask about.