Battle Vixens! - 119

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Episode 119: Scattered Showers

"Drat! I was just getting to the details."

Simon set down his brush with visible frustration, then picked up his phone, flipping quickly through the information related to the alert.

Karis hopped to her feet. "Oh, relax...you can continue after, if everyone does their jobs right. So what's the news?" Remedy was already moving out of her pose to go behind him and see.

"Hmmnh..lots of individual weaklings. I mean—compared to me, at least."
"'Class 1', huh?"
"But predicted to be...everywhere. All over town. Dozens of them."

"Sounds like the swarm all over again."
He nodded. "Only more dangerous, less numerous. And she added that 'they won't all show up simultaneously,' so that's good at least.

He headed for the stairs. "Well, I'll bet I already know Rowan's plan for trying to deal with this."
Karis unsummoned Remedy and followed. "What, split into small teams and respond to them as they show up?" He turned his head back to give her a look that said she'd stolen his thunder. "I mean, it's the only logical thing to do."

About halfway down the steps, Simon sighed. "Are you, planning on fighting?"
"I appreciate that not coming out as a demand that I don't," she said. "Anyway—I'm definitely not a fan of sitting around doing nothing. Hey, I've got good defense apparently, and I can just send Remedy out to do stuff anyway, right?"
"Sure, but you shouldn't keep working without pay. And...stick with me, please."
"I can do that," she said, her last half-word or so cut off by Simon's phone ringing.

"Listen up, everyone..." Rowan, already in fox form, had most of the city's vixens on the line. "While our targets should be manageable individually, we'll be in trouble if too many are around at once. We will need to be quick and efficient; go for fast takedowns whenever it's safe to do so. If you have difficulty, do not hesitate to ask for help. I have someone marking locations for each team to gather on your maps. I'm with Dawn and Cynthia; Zeno, you've got Warp and Hugo headed your way; Sam, Tora, and Fay are together; Nico, Petra, you'll need to meet in the middle."

"I'm with Petra!" Karis chimed in. "Lemme know if anyone gets hurt."

"Please do. Maintain awareness of who's nearest to you, keep your comms open, check your map whenever you have a free moment. Let's keep our city safe."

Rowan stood a short walk out from the VI's front entrance, Cynthia and Dawn on either side of her. There were some stray droplets of water coming down from the overcast sky—not enough to be called actual rain, but it could easily grow into the role at any point. This was where some of the first of today's monsters were predicted to appear, so all they needed to do was wait.

As they waited, Dawn occasionally turned her head Cynthia's way, wearing a slightly worried look. Rowan could sense slightly more tension from the redhead with each glance, and it boiled over by about the sixth time. "Will you quit looking at me like that?!"

"Like what?"
"Like I'm about to collapse or somethin'?"
The droplets grew slightly thicker. "It's..rainin'," Dawn commented, holding out hand to catch a few.

"What, you don't think I can handle a little water? Just do your job, and trust me to do mine!"

Warp had been right about these two. "Please," Rowan said quietly but firmly. "Calm down, and focus. Both of you."
Dawn looked contrite. "O-okay."
"I am focused!" Cynthia said, half talking over her, taking out her sword.
"Them calm down," Rowan repeated.

"I am calm!" she snapped, not sounding like it.

Rowan was about to tell Cynthia to put her weapon away, but she spotted the formation of black mist in front of them, gathering into a tiger scorpion and a gryphon. So she drew her own weapon insead. "They're here."

As if on cue, the dripping from the sky picked up into a light rain. Rowan took advantage of it, quickly gathering droplets from above and around into a limb of water held out slightly in front of her left hand and having it wrap around the flying monster, forming blades and spikes into its body to cut into it as it struggled to move and running in to swiftly stab and slash it with her sword for good measure. The other monster she chose to trust to her allies—but not so much that she wasn't ready to move if anything went wrong.

Dawn also found a use for the rain, easily freezing some of it into a number of small blades and throwing them at the tiger scorpion. Cynthia went around this barrage, which the beast was starting to move into in an effort to sting its source, and exploded her weapon into a stream of near-point-blank fire in the monster's side. Its stinger came down at her and she leapt away, having anticipated this attack; now that its attention wasn't on her, Dawn ran in with a large sword of ice in both hands and slashed through it. She reformed the ice that didn't break off in the slash into a shield, blocking its claw and its muzzle when it tried to retaliate that way. Cynthia closed in again, leaping to stab her sword into the top of its hind leg before exploding it this time, ensuring that most of the resulting fire was inside its body.

Rowan continued working on the gryphon, taking more of the rain to keep it bound up. Combat-wise, the two of them were doing just fine, at least for now.

Zeno put up a shield, blocking the giant bear-monster's claw, backflipped and fired three arrows in the general vicinity of its eyes. It roared, charging forward, and she moved aside, firing more arrows into it. Wash, rinse, repeat. A single class-1 monster alone, especially one whose patterns she'd studied, didn't stand a chance of hurting her—at least, not until she wore herself out. But it wasn't long before a wave of noise came crashing through it from behind, making it stagger forward, and Warp appeared a couple of yards above its head, falling down onto it knife-first and burying the blade to the hilt before vanishing away again.

"Sorry we're late," the shield maiden said as the monster tried to roar, swiping the empty air above it futilely. She muted its voice, and sent another wave of sound at it.
"I'd say you're just in time!" Zeno said, giving it a full volley of arrows in the side. Warp reclaimed her weapon to throw into its other side. "Stay aggressive, you two—we've got bashers scheduled to show up in a minute."

"Which one's that again?" Hugo said, holding up her weapon to block a frenzied swipe from the monster's claws.

"Spindly-legged deer things," Warp answered.

"Oh, right. Always get 'em confused with the boars. Hey, 'port me out in a sec." She leapt forward, slamming her shield into the monster's center mass hard enough to bowl it over, erupting it into sound waves and sending them echoing through the center of its body. It tried to grab for her as a stream of mist poured out of it from this assault, but she was already gone.

Tora and Fay were fighting a pair of twins when Sam arrived. "Yeah, c'mon!" Tora leapt back, tilted her personal gravity mid-flip, and landed feet-first into her opponent's chest, the force knocking it to the ground. Fay blocked a blade with her staff, turned it to point its tip in the other twin's center mass, and set off an explosion there before moving aside of it to plant the staff into the one that had just been knocked over, giving it the same treatment.

"Well, you two seem to have them two handled," Sam commented.
"Set your traps," Fay said, blocking some retaliatory strikes from both twins. "We've got this."
"Sure do!" Tora took advantage of their attention being elsewhere to slash both of them in the back, diving away when they whirled to try to counter.

"Will do, then." Sam got to work forming metal thorns, weaving them into a network of surprises for their upcoming visitors. Meanwhile, the other two vixens continued blocking, dodging, and countering, seeming more in-sync than the pair of monsters were. In short order, the two linked monsters' forms had grown blurry and indistinct. Fay levered her opponent over on its back, Tora kicked the other one on top of it, and then a staff stabbed down into them, placing an explosion large enough to finish both off.

"Bleh, rain." Petra slammed a pile of rock down into a charging snakewolf, pinning it to the ground.

"Oh, c'mon—it's like sprinkling at worst," Karis said, having Remedy go up and slash the trapped beast in in the side several times.
"Just wait 'till you experience the wonder of wet fur." She turned to the side, raising up a fist of stone and punching away a second one as it arrived, sending it tumbling along the ground. Where it skidded to a halt, she picked up more concrete into a spiked arch around it, holding it in place too. Then she moved in to stab her own sword through the monster's neck.

"Hey, at least it's good for the trees!" The first monster shook itself free of the rocks, biting for Remedy and catching only air as Karis un-summoned her. It took an uncannily short amount of time for it to give up on the missing target and run after the next-nearest one: Karis herself.

If she'd thought about what she was doing, Karis would've brought Remedy up to either hit it, distract it, or at least block it to slow it down, but—with a giant qudripedal beast rushing up at her—a near-instinctive reflex is what she acted on instead, before any thinking could even take place. She leapt aside when it was too close and moving too fast to turn and follow her, landed gracefully on her feet, and then punched it square in the side of its muzzle. In the middle of that punch's momentum—happening so fast that her perception shouldn't logically have been able to pick it up—a flash of red light appeared around her arm, and by the time her fist connected with its target, that light had formed into a familiar red-and-black gauntlet. Furthermore, the strike conveyed more force than it logically should have, sending the snakewolf rolling sideways-forward away from her with a distinct stream of mist pouring up off the point of impact.

"Whoa! Uh—I can do that apparently!?" Further reflection found that, in the same way she could 'feel' Remedy lending her power someone else, Karis could sense her Stand inside herself at this moment. Visually, this state manifested as a slight reddish glow flickering like a fire around her body.

The snakewolf recovered its feet, and again with an uncomfortable alacrity, turned to charge at her again. "Well you should probably do it again! Or send Remedy out!" Petra lifted a bit of the ground in front of it just as it started moving, tripping it into an awkward stumble.

"Oh, right." It seemed like a poor strategy to go for the very dangerous mouth again, so instead Karis jumped for the thing's back, grabbing it with her bare hand and punching down into it with the gauntlet, landing three or four good punches in a row before it could recover from the fall. "Ora ora ora!!!" Then it stood up abruptly and shook violently to try to shake her off, so she took the momentum into a backflip, 'throwing' Remedy back out in front of her. The Stand went up in a flying leap, drawing her sword as she fell and stabbing it into the beast's back.

Six chargers should've been at least a somewhat tough fight, but with the right preparation, it was almost trivial. Tora played the bait, running right in front of each one as it appeared, taking whatever opportunity there was to slash her claws through their sides to really get their attention, and running away. She was faster and more agile than Ning had been, which allowed her to go around Sam's traps and leave relatively large windows to spring them around the monsters. No sooner was a monster or two caught in a net of metallic wire than Fay would sweep in, repeatedly tap them with her staff, and set off one explosion after another until the beasts struggled free.

The main advantage chargers had was speed and—frequently—numbers. They were not especially resilient on an individual basis. Not a single one of this group ever got up to full running speed before being caught in a trap, and Tora's claws, Sam's stabbing wires, and especially Fay's explosions made short work of them. Few of them survived their third time being caught in a trap, and none of them the fourth.

After placing her last explosion, Fay staggered back, catching herself from falling backwards by using her weapon as a crutch. If there was one disadvantage to their party composition, it was her being the main source of damage. Tora ran up to support her, offering a shoulder. "You gonna make it?"
Fay took her up on the offer, dismissing her staff. In between huffs for air, she replied: "Need..a break..."

"Yeeeah, you're not built to blow things up nonstop like that. More of a 'sometimes food,' I guess."

Sam faced a different issue: She'd actually been a little too proactive in placing traps, and now still had a significant surplus of them left. It wasn't that there was a risk of them hurting civilians—she could dismiss all of the wire immediately if she wanted—but it seemed like a waste of effort. She got out her phone, pushing the button to speak to everyone on the team. "Got a lot of extra traps here. Bring 'em to me if you wind up in the area."

While she had the phone out, she checked the map. "Fay, take a seat. Tora—up that street's our next target," she said, pointing. "Lead it here—I can just keep it tied up for a bit."
"On it!"

Hugo jumped and smashed her shield against the head of the approaching basher, the impact forcing it backwards and stopping it in its tracks. "Hey—can you put me under it?"

"Can I?" Warp scoffed. So she raised the shield above her head, got teleported to directly beneath the monster's underside, and fired off a wave of sound through its body, destroying it.

"Two down!" Zeno fired more arrows into her target, keeping its attention on her. It ran, leaning its head down to try to hit her, and smashed through a pre-placed light shield. This didn't stop it, but slowed it enough for her to dive out of the way. "Keep moving toward our next target. You 'fraid of heights, Hugo?"
"Uh—usually at least a little, but—"
"Then don't let it get airborne!"

"Or I'm 'porting her to it, eh?" Warp said, busy harrassing Zeno's target with some teleport-knife-throws, confusing it into looking for a target where there was none.
"That's one idea, at least!"

Hugo yelled, crashing the noise into the basher's side to knock it over, then ran up, jumping into the air and using the assist from gravity to slam her shield into it. It thrashed around, but with a few more arrows and knife-throws, it fell apart. "You think we're maybe spread a little too thin?"

"No choice, too many enemies," Zeno said. "C'mon, keep up!"

They arrived just as a freshly-formed gryphon took off into the air. "No good," Hugo said. "Well—I'm less scared of most things like this. Just don't let me hit terminal velocity."
"I'll keep you safe, don't worry," said Warp, tossing her weapon into the air and catching it. She then threw it forward, teleporting it to just an inch or so in front of the monster's left eye. "Ready?"

Hugo nodded, raising her weapon again.

Petra struck her sword into the side of their second snakewolf, finishing it off. That was her only direct hit on this one; Karis had really done a number on it. "Okay, now where..?" As she got out her phone to check their next target, she felt a familiar, relieving feeling, some of the tiredness from the fight easing off. Looking up, there was Nico already at work growing another tree. "Aah, there you are!"

"Yeah, sorry, lots of blocked streets to get around. Plus I stopped back there since I figured you'd already be done with these two," she said, pointing a thumb behind her. "Put down some fruit-throwers and stuff."
"Great! Let's go." Petra started running that way, and Karis followed, stopping briefly to shrug Nico's way. The green-haired vixen followed.

Rowan hadn't seen one of this type of monster in person before, but had read the wiki's basic description: "A rat the height of a human, with tentacles coming out of its back." That was about right, aside from the omitted-as-obvious fact that it sported giant, razor-sharp teeth rather than the kind one would expect on a rodent. They were up against three of them, and she had two tied down; the number of tentacles the monsters had varied from one to another, but regardless, all those extra limbs meant it took most of her focus just to do that much.

The rain was steadily getting heavier. It wasn't a downpour yet, but there was a lot flowing along the sides of the street for her to work with.

Cynthia and Dawn were working on the other one, the former keeping her distance to blast it perioidically with fire while the other one used dual-ice-swords to harass it. Whenever its tentacle or mouth closed around one of the swords, she just let it go and got out another one. And whenever it moved in the redhead's direction to try to retaliate, Dawn got in the way, gathering the rain into a rough club and smashing it across the head.

The big rat-monster was getting indistinct, but this was too slow a pace. Even with the help of Rowan's sword, the other two were going to take too long. Just then, Sam announced that she had traps ready. If her group was still near to their starting point, then...

"Finish that one, then we switch to bait-and-run," Rowan said. "We'll rendezvous with Sam."

"Got it!" Cynthia said, moving forward to stab their target in the side and send a stream of fire into it. It only took a couple more strikes from Dawn to end it, and then Rowan led the way to the street they needed to go down, loosening her grip on the other two monsters slightly. They struggled free just as the three vixens met up, and Rowan started running, the other two following.

After ten seconds or so of running, Cynthia called from behind: "Holy—fast!" Rowan wouldn't know until later—by way of some research—that these things liked to use their tentacles kind of pole-vault up then down-forward sometimes. They typically used it as an especially dangerous pouncing maneuver, coming down onto a target giant-muzzle-first, but evidently they were also happy to use it to speed up pursuit.

"Dawn—delay tactics!"

Dawn tossed back rough, half-made bits of spiky ice for the monsters to trip over. Rowan did her part too, assembling the water on the street into some thrashing, grasping tentacles. She didn't bother to aim, knowing that looking back would only slow her down, so they tended to swipe the ice-spikes into the air and land the occasional hit on a monster with them. Between their efforts, the rats were slowed just enough for a breakneck dash to keep the vixens ahead of them.

It was a good thing that Hugo's powers made sound useful, because she was making a lot of it right now.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"

Being suddenly very high up in the air was disorienting, and she'd probably overestimated how much "being a vixen" enhanced her courage. But she wasn't going to waste the opportunity either. Warp had placed her a short distance above the spot that the gryphon was about to be, so she thrust her shield out below/in front of her and focused her screaming into a downward torent of pressure. Both slammed into the gryphon at the same time, the latter making black mist erupt off of it while the former threw off its flight trajectory into a decidedly downward direction. It screeched and raised its claws to try to swipe at her, but then, maybe only two or three seconds after the impact—she was suddenly standing on solid ground once again.

This "landing" was also fairly disorienting, having her stumble around briefly before her body seemed to comprehend the direction of gravity. By now, the gryphon was spiraling downward, its best efforts at remaining airborne after that impact failing. Zeno was already on her way to where it was about to land to intercept it, raising her bow and nocking a light-arrow in the string.

"Have fun?" Warp asked from a couple of feet to her left, then teleported over next to Zeno.

"Hffh...I'd say 'never again', but..." Hugo realized Warp was gone at this point and terminated her sentence with a sigh, then got her weapon out again, taking two slow steps forward to make sure her legs were working properly before continuing the momentum into a run.

"Incoming!!!"

Rowan's voice in the distance was the first sign Sam had of someone taking her up on her offer, followed quickly by some rapid footsteps. One of the rats behind the three vixens did something her mind said made no physical sense and then it was in the air and coming down practically on top of them. Thankfully, all three seemed to sense this, and scattered, diving away to both sides—and the monster's momentum carried it straight forward into range of one of the traps. The metal closed up around its main body, and Sam took care to twist more wire up around its..back-tentacles to try and tie them into place somewhere about halfway up from their base.

Another one was right behind that one, and this one wasn't so committed to its prior movements that it couldn't turn and follow Cynthia—who'd dove to the right while the other two went left. "Tora!" Sam yelled.

"On it!" And, thankfully, she was. By now she was halfway into a leap, which she turned into a sideways dive, and wound up kicking the thing in the side just as it was getting close enough to grab the redheaded vixen with one of its extra limbs. It swiped out at her after that, but she dodged around and aside of the assault, slashing into it a few times for good measure.

"RrrraaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" Cynthia was not happy about almost being grabbed. No sooner did she recover her feet than she thrust out both her hands in front of her and screamed angrily, sending a stream of fire hot and thick enough to erupt the raindrops it went through into a burst of steam. Tora barely got out of the way, while the rat took the full brunt of it. A torrent of black mist streamed up off of its body, but it advanced toward her anyway. Some water twisted up around its feet.

Just now on her way from kneeling to standing, Rowan yelled: "Cynthia, stop!"

She dropped her hands, stopping the stream of fire—which allowed Rowan to twist water up around more of the beast's body and restrain it. Then she staggered a couple of steps backwards, looking winded.

"Give me a split second to get away, would ya!?" Tora said as she stood up again and dusted herself off.

The redhead folded her ears down. "Ugh..sorry, wasn't thinkin' again."

"Just sayin'—even I've got my limits on near-death experiences."

"Lead it to another trap," Sam advised Tora—or whoever. She had their bear-monster pinned, and Fay had been periodically poking it, but there was room for one more.

Now also back on her feet, Dawn formed an unreasoanbly large blade out of frozen rain. After taking a couple of steps in the monster's direction, she jumped, striking the weapon deep into its back as she landed, then whirled and ran in the direction of one of Sam's traps. Rowan partially released her grip, watching for it to actually chase Dawn rather than someone else before fully letting it go. In short order, Sam had it caught too.

Tora had gone over to start slashing the first rat, mostly keeping her distance in case it broke free. "Boss, we haven't quite got the DPS we need here. Dunno how many Sam can hold at once, and Fay got close to her limit with those chargers. Maybe a little firepower would help?"

"If you want my help, you could just ask," Cynthia said, having her breath back by now.

"Cynthia..." Rowan drew out her weapon and gestured at their most-recently-caught target with it, starting toward the bear herself.

"I'm on it," she sighed.

"Dawn, help Tora with that one. Take these down so we can go get more."

Being the slowest of the three (or four) of them at a full run, Petra caught up with Karis just as three humanoid figures formed out of the mist, each one sporting arms ending in weaponry rather than hands. Nico hung back, growing some of her plants, while Karis sent her Stand ahead to start attacking them right away. "So—three on three, huh?"
"Triplets," Petra said, moving ahead of her. "Like the twins, you have to kill all three at once. I'll keep 'em grouped up, you hurt them." One of the monsters blocked Remedy's sword, trying to counter; she blocked it with her metallic arm and landed a solid stab through its body with her sword. Seeing the other two trying to spread out—one of them moving Nico's way—Petra tilted the ground under both of them, pulling up a quick wall in the way of the far one while forming her own weapons and gauntlet-punching the near one back toward Remedy's position.

By now, Nico had plenty of trees lobbing fruits in at the three mist monsters. Not every shot hit, but those that did consistently sent brief jets of black mist up off of their bodies. Nonetheless, the one Petra had walled off from reaching her changed its mind and went Remedy's way instead, working together with the one already fighting her to put her on the defensive. The one Petra had punched began to recover its feet too, so she moved in, raising her weapon and making a couple of feinting slices to get their attention.

Seeing Remedy in an awkward position with no room to dodge the next strike, Karis dismissed her and ran up, briefly "possessing" herself with the Stand to uppercut the monster that had nearly landed a hit in the side, sending it careening away in an upward arc. The other one came swinging a flail-like appendage at her, and she instinctively pulled Remedy's sword out of seemingly nowhere with her un-gauntleted hand to block it. Then she stepped backwards, Remedy appearing in the exact position she'd just been in as she did so and then yanking the end of the flail with her sword to make her opponent stumble, dismissing and re-summoning the sword to stab it through the torso again.

The one Karis had punched away came flying through the air in roughly Petra's direction, so—not one to waste an opportunity—she grabbed her sword in both hands and hopped sideways, planting her feet just in time to swing it like a bat and slice it clean through the triplet's torso on its way across. Then she threw the sword at the one she'd been fighting, the heavy blade hitting it with enough momentum to bowl it over onto the ground.

Hugo did what she could to keep the gryphon from taking flight again, sending waves of sound in an upward arc to slam down on it from above again and again. Warp and Zeno kept wailing on it from the sidelines, and every time it tried to run after one of them along the ground she intercepted it and blocked it with her shield. It didn't take very long for it to start looking indistinct.

She was taking a deep breath to yell another sound-blast at it when Zeno said, "Hugo, ge'back!" As rushed and malformed as the words were, the tone of urgency was enough for her to drop her shield and immediately jump backwards as far as she could, landing awkwardly enough that she stumbled back a couple o steps before recovering her balance.

There was no need to ask the reason for that warning, as no sooner was she out of the way than a blur of solid-black-mist rushed in front of her: Four legs, big snake-like tail complete with the mouth, gigantic canine muzzle gaping open more than wide enough to have swallowed her whole. Its momentum kept it going straight into the side of the gryphon, and it had gone halfway through the other monster's body before it stopped. They briefly looked like they were stuck like that, but then the mist forming them became slightly less distinct, beginning to pulsate and reshape into a new, larger form.

Hugo re-formed her shield in her hands. "Aww, sshhoot."

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Whew, this has been a tough one to write. Lots of action, and still more to come. I had some difficulty figuring out where to put the cut between this episode and the next one. But I guess in a visual medium all this fighting would've taken even longer to put together!

The "Best" RPG Ever-125

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"So? Going to call me a coward for that?"
Ezra paused just a second before responding. "No, I agree with you. Their capabilities are unknown in that state—apart from possibly high resilience and some amount of control over normal monsters—and in absence of someone who could quickly bring them out of it, stopping her quickly was absolutely the right call. It's just a shame it didn't work. I'll have to ask you to forgive Rose—I don't think any of them are used to taking another person's life."
"Not like us, eh?"

She shrugged. "At least you weren't in any real danger from her, if she's that unwilling to kill anyone."
"Small comfort. My shirt's ruined!"
"You can afford to buy a new shirt," Ezra replied immediately, fully deadpan.
"Well—I've done my bit. Now I'll be hiding out in whatever tavern I find closest to the center of town 'till that thing, and anything else like it, is gone." He turned, raising his hand behind him in a brief wave. "Try to need someone other than me in the meantime."

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Aria came through the door to the forest and looked around before calling out: "Hellooo? Rose?"

"Over here!" Some plants waved themselves helpfully, and the shifter followed their directions to somewhere closer to the forest's edge. The dragon-girl was sitting cross-legged on the ground with some roots coming up from the ground to curl partway around her legs and tail.

"Uh, hey. Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah, just kinda shaken up," she said. "Um—staying 'connected' like this helps me sense things a little bit better."
"Sure..." Aria sat down across from her. "I just heard what happened after I got home. Since I already had supper, Mira asked me to come out here while she whips something up for everyone else—including you, of course. Then she'll take yours out here, and stick with you in case Mia shows up. Maybe between two fliers, you guys can cut her off if she bolts again."

"Uh-huh," Rose nodded.

"After that, I'll go back to the house. Nora, Lupa, and I can take turns looking out while the others sleep in case Mia comes by that area. The Captain's got the guard on high alert, with a pretty detailed description of what they're after and a warning not to look in the target's eyes or confront it—just report the location for us to go deal with it. Some of their Avian scouts are gonna be pulling all-nighters, no doubt."

The dragon-girl was shaking slightly. Not sure what else to do, Aria leaned up enough to put a hand around her wrist, looking in her face for a second. "Hey, it'll be okay. We're gonna catch her."

Rose nodded. "Mmh."

After Aria had pulled back to her original position, Rose said slowly, "I..r-really...freaked out there, for a second. Like—Randall tried to squash her between two big slabs of dirt, a-and he did, but it didn't...work. But for a second there, I thought he'd killed her for real. M-my first impulse was to—to punch him in the face, really hard, but I knew I couldn't do that without really hurting him, so I just..picked him up and screamed at him. But I was, still that angry. Over someone I don't even know. Or—just the idea of watching someone die that way in front of me. I-I don't know."

The shifter nodded. "I can't imagine it'd be pleasant to see." She brought her demonic sword out, still sheathed, letting it sit across her lap.

"You know how I first started to get my memories in this world? Get them 'back', or whatever? I took a real bad hit on the noggin," she said, knocking on her heat with a fist a couple of times. "A huge goblin slapped me over onto a wall and stole my sword—well, it was more like a spear at the time. And while I was unconscious, the first little bit of memory, like...leaked through, I guess? But—I actually didn't pass out right away, because I was still hopped up on demon-sword-power. But my senses weren't working exactly right...I could mostly just feel this thing's 'blood sense', you know, telling me where blood was...

"The goblin stabbed Clera with it, because she got in the way of 'im throwing it at me. That's how I got it back, I pulled it out of her. And then I came..really close to..hurting her with it myself. It was terrifying, when I realized just what I'd come so close to doing. I stopped worrying about my..originally intended build after that, and starting putting a lot of work into keeping myself sane when this sword is out. I never wanna come close to hurting another person with it again. Even if it's someone who probably should die, I just feel like—if I start thinking it's okay to feed it people's blood, for any reason at all, then...that's it. Someone else better put me down, quick."

"Uh...sorry. I dunno if I really had a point with all that," Aria said after a long pause.
"No, it's okay. I um..I do feel better, knowing I'm not the only one scared by the idea. I mean, like, obviously it's not the same for me, but I know—dragons in this world are well-known for just killing and kidnapping people indsicriminately if they wanna, to make their hoards bigger. Giving regular tribute to keep a dragon happy so it won't do that is common, 'cause it usually takes the sacrifice of a lot of people to put down just one dragon. The...the last thing I'd want is to be like that. Maybe I was angry because I was scared, a-and I was even more scared after realizing I'd been thinking about punching his stupid head in."

"Yeah. I guess—I kinda realized after that, that I'd felt some real pain, and real fear. That must've been the point when this whole experience quit being a game for me. I mean, I'm still gonna have fun, but within some...important parameters. Like 'don't risk fighting stupid and hurting my own friends'."

"Yeah, that—that's a pretty good rule."

After they were quiet for a minute or two, Mira's voice called out from the direction of the door: "Roo~oose, dinner~!"

"Uh, I'm over this way!" the dragon-girl yelled back, having some of her plants point the witch in the right direction.

"Welp, that's my cue," Aria said, hopping up. "See you soon."
"Mm-hm."

Mira arrived holding a couple of plates full of food, and came around to Rose's side to offer her one. "Here you go~!"
"Thanks. Um, I could get up, but then I'd have to set all this up again," she said with a vague gesture at the roots.
"No problem. Mind if I eat with you?" She went around to pretty much the same spot Aria had vacated a moment go.
"Not at all!"

"I guess it must be pretty good, huh?" Mira said with a teasing grin, watching her eat.
"Mmngh...y-yeah, sorry," Rose answered after swallowing, blushing a bit. "I, s-still don't have back my uh, social graces from being human back on Earth."
"I don't mind a bit," the witch said. "I guess we could take some time out a little later to re-teach you that stuff."

"Mmh."

"...What're we gonna do if Mia doesn't show up? If no one sees her tonight, or at all?"

"Maybe Lupa could track her down by scent? Although, I guess we'd need something that smells like her first. Oh, yeah, you guys found her eating a deer, right?"
"Uh-huh. Uhhm...even though I've done plenty of hunting and eating animals in, uh, this life," the dragon-girl said, gesturing to herself, "there was something...gross about it. Wh-what she'd done with, uh, the body. It was like...tearing it apart was more important than getting to the good stuff."

"Well, we could look for other dead prey animals messed up the same way. Or maybe have Lupa try to sniff out some deer blood, or something? But, I kinda suspect we won't have to do any of that."

"Mmgh?" Rose swallowed down some more food. "How come?"

"I think if there's any purpose at all behind their behavior, it's to attack 'normal' people, destroy civilization—like our town—and maybe spread the madness or whatever? I mean, Donovan gathered up an army of wolves to at least...stare threateningly at the town."
"Sure, but it's, like..chaos magic, right? Maybe what they do while, um, infected by it or whatever, doesn't actually make sense? I mean—why'd she run instead of attacking us in the first place, when getting squished didn't even seem to faze her?"

"I bet it did hurt her, a lot. But it just wasn't visually obvious at the time. And she left to heal her wounds—maybe deeper into the Frontier to absorb more chaos magic or something? Once she's recovered, maybe she'll come back all on her own."

The witch didn't say any more until Rose finished her food. Then she held out a hand, and after a moment the dragon-girl realized it was for the plate. She sheepishly handed it over after that, and Mira stacked it neatly on top of her own plate, which was also empty by now. "Uh, thanks again. It was delicious."
"Glad to hear it~," Mira smiled brightly.

"I admit I have...one slight worry, if Mia does absorb a lot of choas energy to heal, or..really just in general."
"That she might get even bigger and stronger?"
"Well, yeah, there's that. But also—we pretty much yanked the chaos magic out of Donovan right after he got horrifically transformed, and since he seems to still be unconscious, we don't even know if there were side effects of some sort from that happening. So, what if staying that way for a long time, or absorbing too much chaos magic, makes it...permanent? Like if there's a point of no return, and she's just a super-monster forever?"
"I...r-really hope that can't happen."
"Yeah, me too. But...we have to be ready, if it does. I'm still gonna be drawing all the chaos magic I can out of her and, if possible, into Lupa, since I'm pretty sure that'd weaken her no matter what. But if...either she seems to have an inexhaustible amount somehow, or if getting it all out ends up straight up killing her instead of changing her back...

"Well...I guess, we just need to be ready for that."
Rose nodded, slowly. "At least...at least we'll have tried."
"Right. We'll do everything in our power to save her, and only if it's really impossible will we worry about the alternative. 'Cause that's what heroes are supposed to do."

The dragon-girl tilted her head slightly. "Heroes, huh..?"

"What? Did I say something weird?"

"It's just...I hadn't really thought of us that way before. Especially myself."

"Well, you should!"

---

"Donovan! Stop this!"

Bang. Hyacinth could feel the blunt, brutal force of a greathammer's weight and momentum against her hastily-placed shield, visibly cracking it. He said something back, but it got lost somewhere in the noise...

"She's wrong! She must be! I'm not—and you're not—"

Bang.

When a dream is interrupted by noise in the real world, depending on the context of that moment in the dream, it's easy to feel a brief shock, perceiving a great threat where there is none. For this reason, Hyacinth sat bolt upright, raising a shield with magic in one hand and readying fire in the other, all before realizing that she was lying in a barracks in the early morning, and someone had just knocked on her door. She took a deep breath, dismissing both readied magics, and went to quickly make herself presentable, calling "Yes?" in a voice almost calm enough to hide that momentary shock.

One of the town guardswomen replied from outside the door: "Er, sorry to bug ya so early, but—Donovan woke up. Cap's headed to explain things already, but figures he might trust the situation more once he sees you."
She took a deep breath. "Right. I'm on my way."

Hyacinth came through the open door to the jail—they'd put him behind bars just to be on the safe side, and she was inclined to agree. The big, burly Canis turned her way immediately, giving a friendly wave. "Heey, flower girl! What's goin' on around here? These folks say I attacked you?"
"That seems to be true," she said. "Something—we don't know what—bewitched you and the others. It probably tried to do the same to me, but failed. Chaotic magic was involved somehow."

"Ah...gee. Hearin' that from you, I guess it must be the truth," he said, scratching the back of his head with a hand. "I don't remember a thing since we were just moving along on normal patrol. Total blank since then..not even seein' anything unusual."

Seeing that Captain Ezra was standing aside, Hyacinth moved to just in front of him, with the bars between them. "That isn't all that's happened. Do you..feel alright?"

"Huh? Sure. I mean...I'm kinda sore, in weird places, and..my stomach hurts something fierce. I think I'd be starving if I felt less sick. Uh, what happened to Mia? And Thrace?"

She crossed her arms. "As far as we know, the same thing that happened to you—but we haven't found them yet."

"Actually—Mia was sighted yesterday afternoon," Ezra cut in. "She underwent an unusual transformation not unlike his, but gained the ability to fly in the process—and used it to escape."

The Vulpin turned on her. "When were you planning to tell me this?"

"Here and now, away from prying eyes and eavesdropping ears. A panic won't do anyone any good." While she wasn't happy about it, Hyacinth couldn't argue with this reason. She had been busy exchanging coded messages to her superiors to help them understand the situation for the better part of the previous afternoon. "Our scouts are looking for her, and the same party that handled Donovan is prepared to intercept her once she is found. You're free to join them if you wish."

"Uh—'scuze me," Donovan waved for attention. "What's this about a, 'transformation', now?"

"...Captain Ezra will explain the situation to you in full," Hyacinth said after a brief moment of consideration. "She can be fully trusted. You'll get him a healer, I hope?"
"Of course," she nodded.

"Then I'm going." She pointed at the Canis commandingly. "Behave yourself."

"Understood, ma'am!" Donovan gave his usual kind of slightly informal salute.

In all respects, he seemed to be back to normal. His eyes weren't...wrong, and he wasn't saying or doing anything out of the ordinary. Still, Hyacinth wouldn't fault the Captain for caution if she kept him in that cell for observation a little bit longer...

---

Aria sat up in bed, taking a second to register what had woken her: a particularly loud knock on her bedroom door. Lupa's voice came through after this: "Chaaangeeer! Turn to stay up and look."
"Oh, thanks. I was getting kinda bored anyway," she said, turning to sit on the side of the bed. "You can go on and nap 'till breakfast, then."
"'Kay~!"

After a quick change of clothes, the shifter headed downstairs and took a step out into their house's front yard, looking around. It didn't seem necessary to patrol or anything; their threat was likely to come from the sky if it came at all, and she had her ears in a tall, fluffy fox-like form to pick up as much sound as possible. After standing leaning against a wall for a couple of minutes, she reached a decision, and turned to go back inside and get a chair to sit in.

Someone knocked on the door to town as she was carrying the chair through the hallway, so she put it down and went to open it, finding Hyacinth on the other side. "Hi—you're up pretty early, huh?"
"Captain Ezra advised me that your party would be handling Mia once her location is confirmed. I would like to join your efforts."
"Hmm..you've got Jacob's spells down pat, right? I don't think anyone would object—Nora still hasn't figured out an equivalent yet, and Mira could be more useful restraining her or beating off any tagalongs. Soo...c'mon in!" She moved aside, gesturing into the house. "Oh, yeah—keep your voice down though—everyone else is sleeping. I'm on watch."
"..Right." The Vulpin finally came inside, looking around while Aria shut the door.

"I was just on my way outside. You want a chair?" Aria offered, picking up the one she was getting for herself.
"..I'd prefer to stand."

"Suit yourself~!"

In short order, the shifter sat down outside, crossing her legs and leaning back. She stared off into the distance, watching the sky start to change colors as the sun rose. Hyacinth stood upright with her arms crossed for a couple of minutes, then took a couple of steps backwards to lean against the wall.

This was...a lot less unpleasant than staring out at a demon, or in at static, but still kind of boring. But then—there was someone she could talk to. And, now that she thought of it, maybe the soldier lady needed to know this anyway.

"Uh, you know.." She planted both feet on the ground and sat up, turning her head the Vulpin's way. "I'm not the expert on this stuff, but Mira mentioned that..well, we might've just been lucky with Donovan. I mean—we were there right when he went all super-mutant on us. Mia will have been a big monster thing for, like, half a day at this point, sooo..yanking the chaos magic stuff out might either, not work for some reason, or might just, like, kill her?"

Hyacinth nodded solemnly. "That had occurred to me. All soldiers accept the risk of death, especially those of us who volunteer to man Nir's frontier outpost. It will still be a relief if she is no longer a danger to others, and no longer suffering—and the same for Thrace."

"That's fair..."

Aria kicked her feet forward and back for a moment. "You know, I took a pretty big risk myself, grabbing the demon sword. For a while, I didn't remember anything from before I landed out here in the frontier—not even my name, much less why I'd bound myself to a blood-hungry demon."

The Vulpin didn't reply for several seconds—Aria had the distinct sense that she'd be happier not talking. But, perhaps sensing the shifter's need for conversation, she eventually said: "Do you know now?"
"Yeah," she nodded. "My memories aren't all back, but I do know why I took the sword. It—magic stuff is weird. The demon wants 'blood', but it will accept a lot of things that you could metaphorically refer to as blood, including...the life of plants. With that sword stuck in the ground, what should've been our town's most fertile fields kept dying. The effect was expanding, and getting worse—within maybe a decade, it wouldn't be possible to grow anything in the whole area. We'd all have to move away—far away, if we didn't want to ever deal with that cursed sword again. But—some of the folks living there were the descendants of whoever was originally supposed to be guarding the sword, you know, to keep someone evil from picking it up to gain its power? So, besides the fact that it would suck, everyone moving out would be irresponsible."

"...I must admit that's more noble than my first impression of you."

"Hahah, well—I knew taking it wouldn't immediately kill me. I had my friend Loren teleport me far away, too. And I think I went out of my way not to think about the decision too hard before acting on it.

"I wonder, though—and maybe this is just 'cause I'm still missing some memories, but..why would you seal such a dangerous demon inside a weapon and jam it in the ground in the first place? Why not just, you know, kill it?"

"If a demon is exceptionally powerful, enough to cross over from the demon realm on its own, then killing it does practically no good," Hyacinth answered, almost immediately. Aria had the sense of a math professor immediately spitting out a long-memorized equation. "Its soul returns to the demon realm, and it reincarnates almost as powerful as it was before—meaning that it can simply return to our world to wreak havoc again. Killing such a demon repeatedly would weaken it to the point where it would eventually be unable to return, but that would be unacceptably costly in terms of lives and resources. It helps that the emergence of a demon that powerful is extremely rare."

"Oh—I guess they teach you that stuff at mage college?"
Hyacinth nodded. "The sealing ritual for such a situation is kept on public record in numerous places. It is said that Sophol himself first developed it, providing it to mortals to aid in our self-protection. The intent is that a demon's power will fade if it is sealed away long enough, to the point that it can eventually be destroyed and sent to the demon realm too weak to ever return. But...if yours had found a 'loophole' to regain power from its surroundings, even while sealed, then it may never have become safe to dispose of."

"If that's the idea, why make it a weapon? Surely there'd be less people who want to pick up a demonic, like, chair or spoon for power."

"That...I don't know. The instructions for the ritual specifically mention the vessel being a weapon, so perhaps it's simply necessary, or at least makes the spell efficient enough to be practical to cast."

Aria nodded, "Magic stuff is weird that way."

Feeling that the conversation had reached a logical end, and not wanting to pester a relative stranger too much, the shifter kept quiet for a little while after that, trying her best to just enjoy the view. Fortunately, it wasn't more than a few minutes from then that both of them turned their heads at the sound of some wings approaching: an avian swooping in toward them from above.

A Summoning, Part XXXVIII

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---

Part XXXVIII
~High Priestess~

Would you like to go flying this afternoon?

Thomas woke up half-buried in gold to the sound of a text message on her phone. It wasn't hard to get up or anything, but she still wasn't used to the feeling of cold metal sliding down off of her while she stood up from being asleep. The physical sensation was surreal enough on its own, but the fact that a part of her enjoyed it was even stranger. After that it was hurrying to get her phone and read the two messages on it, the second of which was:

My apologies for not reaching out for a little while. I do need to do quite a bit of studying to be properly prepared for all those exams!

So...would she like to go flying? This afternoon, or any other time whatsoever? Yes, definitely, always. With Stella...? The immediate answer was also yes, but that was bitten back by some hesitation and worry. Curling her tail around to get a few stray fragments of gold to fall off it and back into the pile, she replied in reverse order:

thats ok

sure, what time

---

Dai sat with a goddess and a dragon for lunch on Friday. Well—they were two of his friends, after all. Unfortunately, both of them were too distracted to be much fun to hang out with. Now, with Thomas he knew what she was dealing with, and her flustered fidgeting was honestly kind of cute. But seeing Zotha close her eyes and rub her forehead just below the base of her horns like that was kind of worrying. Did it mean the whole world was in danger and she'd been drafted to help deal with or something?

"Yooo." He reached out and snapped his finger a couple of times. "Earth to Zeke? Or whatever? You awake in there?"

"Ah, sorry." She shook her head. "What were you saying?"
"Next week's game, dude! Am I the only one thinkin' about it?"
"Oh, is..it's that time already, huh? Yeah, looking forward to it," she said, putting on a smile and nodding.

"Seriously, what's up with you, huh?"
"You know..deity business...stuff." Seeing that that didn't satisfy him (or Thomas, who was now distracting herself from her own worries by paying more attention to this), she elaborated: "Any time someone 'asks' to use my power for something, I have to approve or deny it. Nngh...some twenty requests came through at the same time a minute ago. And I was up pretty late last night, too..for a, meeting."

"You still need sleep?" the dragon-girl asked. "Can't you just will yourself well or something?"
"I don't know about need, but I think I'm still human enough for it to make me feel better anyway," she said. "I guess I don't actually feel all that tired from just that; it's more the increasingly frequent requests..because of an agreement I made."

"Hmn..why don't you just 'configure' certain things to be auto-approved, if you're getting so many requests?" she suggested further.

"You gonna run low on steam, sendin' out that much power?" Dai pitched in.

"Nope. Aah, if anything I'm getting an excessive inflow. It's...hard to describe, but that's mentally overwhelming in its own way too. And—that's not a bad suggestion, but I've never tried to 'configure' my own power to do something automatic like that before..."

"Well, no better time than when you need it, right? Just, I dunno, set up a rule that 'this and this is okay as long as whatever', 'if it's like this then ask me for approval'...stuff like that?" Thomas said vaguely, waving a hand in a circle through the air. "Maybe have it 'record a log' you can refer back to to make sure it's working right?"
"Leave it to you to think about magic like a programmer, hmn? Well, I'll give it a shot, I guess—thanks."

"Sure."

Dai decided the next course of action was to poke the bear. Well—the dragon, actually, which most would consider an even worse idea. "Sooo, you gone out with Stella again yet?"

"..No."

"You gonna? Ask her out or somethin'?"
"I...she asked if I wanted to go flying this afternoon."

He tilted his head. "Is that a euphem—"
"No!" This word was emphasized further by her slamming the table with a hand hard enough to make a loud banging sound and rattle all the dishes sitting on it.

Dai couldn't help but laugh at this reaction. "Pffhaha! I was just joking, dude! I know you like literally flying, 'kay?"
"..Right." She looked away, blushing and crossing her arms. "Sorry."

"Yeah, and don't hit the table like that when I'm not around," Zotha said. "That was enough force to rip it off the leg and send it flipping up through the ceiling. Those 'veil keeper' people would have a fit."

"Sorry again."

"Hey, I don't mind—and you shouldn't be the one apologizing anyway. Daaaii?"

"Yeah, sorry. I know it's a touchy subject, I'm just tryin'a help you loosen up about it."

"I know. Just...give me some time."

"All the time you want. Buut, sounds like you've got 'till this afternoon. Unless you said no?"
"I..said yes," she admitted. "Now I don't know what to say when I see her..."

"You don't have to say anything, you know," Zotha said. "If you're happy with the way things are for now, and she seems happy too—then there's no need to push it. Or you can at least procrastinate on talking about how you feel until after you've had some fun together, right?"
"Mmnh. Maybe. I'm not sure that's a great idea..."
"Worst case, she isn't interested, right?"
"I don't know. Maybe it's worse if she is." Thomas shook her head. "I don't..like...how possessive my instincts make me feel. About something that isn't even...well, that isn't, yet. You know?"

"I can't say I quite know what that's like," she said. "I wonder...if there's any 'adult' dragons around who could..help you out? Maybe give you pointers on dealing with 'being a dragon'? I could look into it if you want?"
"...Sure. Thanks."

---

While Prama was busy making some low-difficulty, medium-high-demand potions on her own (with Boreas occasionally looking in to make sure things were going smoothly, which of course they were), she was periodically distracted by some distant yelling. Her analysis after some sampling was: happy in tone, two distinct voices (both female), usually too far off to make out words but with the occasional clear cheering coming through, like a distant "Whooooo!" The strangest thing was that they seemed to be coming from above, and none of her continued careful directional listening seemed to quite dispute this theory.

After the twelfth time, she waited for Boreas to check in on her again. Some more excited yelling came about the time the werewolf alchemist showed up, conveniently enough, but she didn't seem to react to it at all. After listening to her teacher's comments, she said, "You do hear that, right? That yelling?"
"Mmh," Boreas nodded.

"It's not bugging you? Some kids running around your property or something?"
"Flying, more like," the werewolf said. "The area 'round here is protected, so no one under the veil can get to it. Including planes and drones and such, so—convenient place for folks who need to practice flying, or..who just want ta play around in the air."

"Ah. So—you're not about to yell at them to get out of your sky?"

Boreas shook her head. "Nobody owns the sky. Let 'em have their fun, anyhow."

---

Stella came in for a landing, gliding gracefully toward the ground and hitting it with her feet, flapping her wings to lift briefly in a hop and bleed off some forward momentum, then repeated this process a couple of times before finally sticking her landing. After this, Thomas came down a few yards in front of her, landing in a rough, awkward dive that left her briefly rolling forward along the ground before finally coming to a stop. She slowly sat up afterward, and found Stella walking up to extend an arm her way.

"May I...hfffh...help you up?" The celestial was panting slightly from the workout of flying at increasingly high speeds; the dragon didn't feel tired at all.

"Uh, n-no, that's..I'll get myself up, thanks," Thomas said awkwardly, hopping up to her feet and dusting herself off/using magic to cast the dirt out of her clothes and hair. "Guess I don't come anywhere near winning when it comes to landing, huh?"
"Heheh..it is a difficult skill to master, I believe. Hfffh...Nonetheless, you must be quite talented to fly so well with only a few days' experience."

"You seem winded...want to call it a day for now? Um...go somewhere to eat?"
"Certainly!" she smiled cutely, and Thomas had to look slightly away and try to make her cheeks stop heating up.

They started back toward the car, Stella watching her a few times with a slight, uncharacteristic hesitancy to her expression. "Something wrong?" Thomas finally asked.
"I was just wondering...do I make you, uncomfortable in some way?"
"Uh..."
"I only ask because...even though it seems as if you enjoy my company most of the time, you occasionally seem at least, unhappy, or frustrated perhaps? If I have a habit of saying or doing something you find unpleasant, I would like to know."
"It's.." Thomas sighed, stopping her walk and turning to face the short, white-winged girl. "Look, it's not—you. Not really. I just...feel like I haven't been entirely honest, I guess."

"Honest?" Stella tilted her head slightly. "About what?"

"Well. You know how I haven't been a dragon for very long. This...happened because of Zotha. Yeah?"
"Yes?"
"I also..was a guy before this happened. Look, my name's Thomas, I just—did a really bad job introducing myself before, a-and haven't corrected you."

"I see..." Stella nodded, looking down to think for a moment, then turned her head up again to look the dragon-girl in the face. "I don't want to trivialize your concern, but is that all it is? I don't particularly mind if you were male before—after all, I'm in a similar situation. If anything, it's something else we have in common."
"It's..yeah, there's more to it than that," Thomas said. "I, just—I've always been really awkward around girls, and that hasn't really gotten better. Especially if it's someone I...like? And it's worse because I have weird new instincts—being a dragon and all—screwing with my emotions even more. I dunno how to deal with it all."

Stella put a finger just beneath her lips, tapping her upper chin in an adorable sort of 'thinking' expression. "Yet you seem amicable enough most of the time. You need not put up a front for me if I make you feel awkward, you know? Oh, wait—" her eyes widened slightly. "D-do you mean to say that you like me?"

"Uh..y-yeah." Thomas looked away, feeling a mixture of fear and anticipation. "Kinda. You're just..really cute, you know..?"
She wasn't expecting Stella's response to this: a bright blush spreading across her cheeks followed by a slight, soft giggle. "Heheh...! My goodness..."

"Um...?" There were some good signs, but Thomas still wasn't sure about the meaning of that reaction.

"Sorry, sorry! It's just that I found myself at a loss for words, for a moment there." Stella held her hands together behind her back, picking up one foot to lightly kick the ground a couple of times. "To be..perfectly honest, I was beginning to feel some concern that I was taking advantage of you. That is—as new to the world as I am, I want to have all sorts of experiences for myself, but much of what I want to do..can't be done alone, or is at least much better with company. I told myself I was showing my gratitude to you, as you did save my life, but I was also worried about monopolizing your time. I am trying to make other friends, of course, but still found myself wanting specifically to do something with you. There really aren't very many people who can fly, statistically speaking, so making that what we did together made sense—although I think it was only an excuse..." While she spoke, Stella's words seemed to alternate between coming out slowly word by word and flowing out practically an entire sentence at once.

"Y-yeah?" The dragon-girl was even less sure of what to make of this barrage of words, but it seemed like this kind of overexplanation was just how Stella responded to feeling nervous. She was still blushing this entire time, after all.

"Erm. My apologies if all of that didn't make much sense. All I mean is, when you called me cute, I realized that perhaps...I might just like you, too? Because it made me feel...awfully happy, all of a sudden, to hear that from you."

"...Oh."

"...Pffheheheh~!" After a pause, Stella burst into a brief but uncontrollable giggle again. "You know as little what to do with yourself as I do, don't you?"
"Uh—I think so? If I followed that right..."

"Here," she said, holding up her arms, "Perhaps we can just see how a hug feels, and work out the rest later."
"S-sure."

Thomas picked the small girl up in her arms, and found a pair of slim arms pulling tightly around her upper body, Stella leaning her head over her shoulder so their cheeks touched. The celestial's body was unbelievably light—even factoring in dragon strength—and it was soft and warm. She could feel Stella's heart racing in her chest, which was slightly comforting in a weird way, and after a moment the small girl lifted a hand to lightly brush through her hair.

"This is..not so bad, is it?"
"Uh, yeah, no—it's great," Thomas stumbled awkwardly.
"Heheh..all right." Stella let go, so the dragon-girl did the same, watching her hop down gracefully to the ground a foot or so away. Her face wore a joyful grin with an even brighter blush than before...and Thomas was smiling too, she noticed, and her tail was waving back and forth a little bit.

"Shall we...go on to dinner, then?" Stella said. "N-now that we've cleared the air a bit, I'd love to talk with you some more."
"Uh, y-yeah, sure."