Battle Vixens! - 138

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Episode 138: The Name of the Game

Simon and Rowan were occupying seats facing each other in one of the VI's lounges. The former gestured emphatically: "No no—that part is supposed to be more of a 'swoop' sound."

Rowan sighed. "I don't know what a 'swoop' sound is. Just repeat the second half again, slowly."

Overall, this was going better than Rowan's attempt to teach Light his phrase. He understood from some communication with the Quinns that the process could be quite slow, but had perhaps underestimated how frustrating it would be. Simon wasn't the most patient of people, and would probably be fed up with this already if he weren't so eager for the end result.

---

There was a gentle, polite knock on the front door of Amory and Blake's apartment. Amory stood up. "I'll get it—pretty sure I know who it is anyway." Blake vaguely grunted in acknowledgement, remaining seated on the couch with his computer in his lap, continuing to work on some kind of programming project or homework.

When he opened the door, he found Emma standing a bit behind the person who'd knocked—who was almost undoubtedly her sister. She was tall, dark-haired, with a fit but quite filled-out figure, and stylishly dressed—managing to even make a cat-ear band look good. While Emma's new look made it easier to see the family resemblance between the two of them, Amory felt sure he could've discerned it with her original form, too. Either way...

"Hey! You must be April, right? I'm Amory," he said, offering her a hand, which she gently took and gingerly shook.

"Indeed. Pleased to meet you~," she said. "Emma's told me so much about you!"
"Oh? Nothing bad, I hope?"

Emma stammered, "Um—"

"Actually, precious little so far," she said, leaning forward slightly with a teasing sort of grin. "But that she's fond of you tells me quite a bit!"

"Ah, okay. Well—that's my roommate back there, Blake." He sat up a bit and turned half-around to wave.

"Hi."
"Hello there~. Well, shall the three of us get going, then?" It was previously agreed that they'd go somewhere of April's choosing to actually sit down and talk—a restaurant of some sort, Amory assumed.

"Yeah, sure. Right?" he directed this question at Emma, making her jump slightly.

"Uh, right."

"Heheh~," April lightly giggled, seeming to find this exchange entertaining.

Once they were out the door, she said, "So—why don't you tell me about yourself?"

"Alright. I'm a chem student, thinking about going into biochem. So—huge nerd, I guess. I'm an only child, my dad's a surgeon, and my mom...passed away when I was little."
"And how did you and Emma come to meet?"

"I do some tutoring, we first met during that sometime uh, last year?" he asked Emma to confirm.

"R-right..."

"And she asked me out a little while after getting powers."

"She asked you out?" April repeated, halfway directing the question Emma's way.
"Uh-huh," she answered ahead of him. "I-I was super nervous, and it took me forever to work up the courage to try. I-I had some help, too..."

Amory said, "'Gemma' actually saved my life a couple of times before that, you know."
"Ooh. So you were aware of her identity?"
"At some point, yeah. Because of all that, I'm sorta involved with the vixens around here—you know, mostly giving moral support."
"A-and thinking up plans, and stuff," Emma added.

They came to the doors leading out of the apartment building at this point, and Amory hurried ahead to open the door for both of them. "My, what a gentleman~," April commented a bit teasingly, brushing past.
"Uh—thanks," Emma added rather shyly.

"So—where are we headed anyway?" he asked while catching up to them.

"I spotted a wonderful little casual cafe in easy walking distance. They won't mind people sitting around to chat for a while. And if we get hungry after some conversation, we can do lunch there as well."
"Sounds good."

"So—what has Emma told you about us so far? That is, her family?"

"Let's see..that it's pretty big—six older siblings, and all your names. I don't think she said what order, although I have a guess."
"Oh?"
"Well, it seems like your parents went for an alphabetical sort of theme? And I know you're the oldest. I don't know exactly where Atlas fits, but since Ben and Carrie are twins, he must be second or third, and Beverly the other one. And then Doris, and finally Emma. Right?"
She nodded, "You've got it—and Beverly is the second oldest. But names and ages are far from everything. Let's see, ah..."

Their conversation was interrupted by someone running up with his phone in one hand..Amory was pretty sure he was in their school news club or something. "Emma, hey! Can I—"

"Ahem," April interrupted, subtly placing herself between him and Emma with her fists on her hips. For as friendly and cheerful as she'd been up to this point, she had a surprisingly imposing presence when she wanted it. "Buzz off, Gemma's enjoying some personal time with her family. You can quote that—right, m'dear?" she asked Emma.
"Um—I-I can do an interview later," she said nervously.
"Oh, cool. Sorry about that," he said, waving once with his free hand and heading off.

"Hmph. At least that was a polite one," she said. "I deal with the media occasionally in my profession—if you need any tips."
"Uh, th-that's okay...people have usually been pretty respectful so far," Emma said. "And uh—I can kinda, just disappear if I wanna?"
"True—oh, that the rest of us had such powers," she said.

"Anyway—where was I..." Shaking her head slightly, April started leading the way toward the cafe again. "Right. So: Beverly is an actress—stage, not screen. Not on Broadway, mind you, but the troupe she works with does quite good work. Atlas works at a high-end gym, even training some sports players you may have heard of. He's always been into bodybuilding, and he has a fondness for superhero comics and the like as well, so recent events have had him pretty excited."
"Oh, yeah? My roommate's pretty into comics too," Amory said.
April nodded. "Perhaps we could arrange a meeting sometime. Anyway—Benjamin works at a university, teaching philosophy—or, more likely, arguing with his students day in and day out. He's our sweet oddball, constantly asking questions ever since he was young. Carrie's an artist, does graphic design work at an ad firm, and Doris is still working her way through grad school. Ah, she'd hate being mentioned last, though—always been out to prove she's the most talented and important of all of us."

"And, what about you?" he asked.
"Me? Ah, yes. I work in fashion. Largely in coming up with new designs," she said. "Sometimes costume design for shows, as well. But I'm not really cut out for the runway myself."
"Really? You look like you could be a model."
"Eheh, you charmer," she said. "But really, I enjoy wearing whatever's in, but I could hardly walk the walk. I think it's a much harder life than my own. And, since you're both 'in on things', perhaps I should mention...I'm actually doing some consulting work for the Vixen Initiative lately."

"For the—wait," Emma said. "You mean—are you involved in designing the uh.." After this stream of words came out all at once, and a bit loud, she quickly lowered her voice to a near-whisper despite the lack of anyone near enough to overhear them, "the masks and stuff?"
"That's right," she nodded. "They had a rather bizarre series of requests for me, but I rather enjoyed the challenge. It was really something to see my haute couture on the news last Friday—you know, Magus's debut? It seems like she's customized it a little to her own tastes since then, and especially for practicality, which is just fine by me. I mean, it was only as ostentatious as it was in the first place because apparently nothing subtler was working.

"Ah—here we are," she said, gesturing toward the front door of their destination. She hurried to the door to open it ahead of Amory, saying "Allow me this time," and gesturing for them both to head inside.

"Alright—thanks," Amory said. After that, they wandered around briefly before finding a table in a more distant, deserted corner of the cafe to sit around. A waiter immediately showed up, and April ordered herself some coffee, offering to take care of whatever the two of them wanted as well. So Amory asked for a hot chocolate, and (after some fidgeting) Emma just got a soda.

After a brief period of more casual conversation, their drinks arrived. April took a sip of hers, then put her elbows on the table and made a little bridge above her cup with her fingers, leaning her chin gently onto it. "So, tell me Amory..." she started during this maneuver. "Does does the prospect of a ménage à trois excite you?"

"Uh.." He briefly had difficulty believing that he had the meaning of that phrase quite right, because it didn't seem possible for her to have suddenly asked that out of the blue.

Emma had been in the middle of taking a sip of her drink, and nearly choked on it, barely managing to swallow before saying, "A what!?" in a mortified sort of half-whisper, her face instantly going quite red. So she'd understood her question the same way he had.

"Oh, don't get me wrong," April said calmly. "My meaning is—since Emma can be in two places at once...this is the first time in human history when just two consenting adults could enjoy such a thing~."

Still blushing furiously, Emma quietly sputtered out some incomprehensible, high-pitched stammering. Amory decided to try and help her out. "We...really haven't even thought about anything that, uh, intense."

"Oh?" April said. "How far have you gone, then?"

"Just, you know—hugs, some kissing, and um.." he felt a little heat on his cheeks from this, but it was best to be honest: "...petting."
"Petting?!" April sat up a bit, seeming surprised by this word—but maintaining quite a wide grin for that.

"That is, uh—literally," Amory corrected quickly. "Like, since she's capable of having, fur? I-I can't say I ever thought about that kind of thing before but..we, enjoy that."

"Ah, I see," she said, lowering her chin onto her fingers again. "But you do realize that word has some more intimate meanings, hmn?"

Emma finally found her voice in time to loudly, squeakily whisper, "Apriiiiilll!"

Her elder sister, who'd been looking Amory's direction this entire time to the point of seemingly ignoring her, lifted her chin to free up a hand to sort of dismissively wave it downward just once. "Oh, please. I've teased the potential lovers of all my other little siblings before, and roughly half have sworn to have their vengeance whenever I find the right man. It's only fair~."

---

"That's it—that's it. You only stumbled on that very last part."
Rowan nodded, and tried that part again slowly.

"Aaah—no, it's—" Simon repeated it for him yet again.

After exhaling briefly he said, "So, then..." and tried the entire second half again.

"Yes! Yesyesyes!" He stood up excitedly. "Now do the whole thing!"

"Okay..."

The effect of finally getting it right was not too different from when he'd accidentally 'won the right to command' Cynthia. Simon's power manifested as a fuzzy, dark-brown, quickly-moving haze that rushed on him very suddenly and quickly. He paused for just a moment in the wake of the strange rush of feeling from gaining that, and then said the phrase a second time to pass his power back to him.

"Odd—Cynth made that look a lot more unpleasant. It just felt sort of weird," he said.
"She was using her powers at the time."
"True, yes," he nodded, and then quickly moved on: "So we should be able to do the thing now, right?!"

"Yes?"
"What, you don't want to try it out at least once? You know, find out how it works so we won't be surprised if at some point we really need it?"

Rowan shrugged, standing up himself. He wasn't convinced it was necessary—'Wave' had had no difficulty exercising her powers with no prior practice, after all—but he'd suspected from the start that he wasn't getting out of this encounter without them trying it at least once.

"A test shouldn't hurt, at least," he said, and then his own phrase to shift into blue-haired, fox-girl form.

"Ah, right...!" Seeming to just now realize he needed to be in vixen form himself, Simon quickly blurted the phrase Rowan had just learned to become Petra, maintaining a giant, excited grin the entire time. "So, so—we need to hug or something, right?"
"..A handshake was sufficient for Light and myself," Rowan said. "I suspect it just needs to be a show of mutual trust—" She was cut off by the two-tailed vixen excitedly glomping her.
"Let's gooo!"

Rowan sighed, patting her head gently a couple of times and speaking the newly-learned phrase.

She shifted into water and flowed 'into' the other vixen's more solid form, merging them together. The resulting body grew slightly taller and curvier, Rowan's tail appearing alongside Petra's two along the way. She had one ear in Petra's color and the other in Rowan's, and mostly the former's hair color with the light blue appearing at the tips of her locks.

The fused vixen spread her arms out, looking down briefly at herself and around. "Whoa—okay okay, pretty dissimilar from last night." She felt immeasurably strong, solid, and agile, with command of both vixens' swords and a myriad of ways to use them in a fight popping into her mind unbidden. The excited energy Simon nearly always had was tempered by Rowan's calmer nature, making her feel sort of..balanced.

Still, she couldn't help chattering to herself a little bit. "Anything peculiar to this combination I can't do on my own? Well, an earth dragon's a given, but I've got no desire to demolish this building doing that now. Fancy swordplay feels like second nature, sure sure, and maybe a modicum more precision for sculpting rocks. Additional power behind the water too, as though I don't have enough already!"

"...Shouldn't waste too much more time or energy staying together, really...but I at least need a name!" She tapped a finger on her chin a couple of times, trying to think of something good—and halfway wishing Karis was around to help out. "Water plus dirt makes..mud? Gross, no good," she said, shaking her head. "Hang on—" an image of the grand canyon popped into her head, and she brought the hand away from her chin into an 'I have an idea' kind of upward-pointing gesture. "Water cutting through the earth, carrying pieces with it everywhere...Erosion. That's a little more evocative!" Between Petra's steadiness and stamina, and Rowan's agility and strategy—well, up against an opponent she couldn't shred right away, there was a good chance she could still outlast it, and eventually wear it down to nothing. "Eh—sufficient for now, at least? No need to announce it unless I—we—whatever—do this in public, huh? Hup—"

Splitting apart was reasonably effortless. Rowan didn't feel nearly as winded afterward as from being Wave, but then 'Erosion' hadn't really done much more than stand around and talk. Still, compared to the constant, noticeable effort needed to maintain Wave's fused state, being in the merged form with Petra had come with only the sense of a slight, perhaps even negligible drain. It probably came down to the other vixen's absurdly high stamina, plus the fact that simply standing on solid ground 'recharged' her. Definitely an advantage to keep in mind.

"Aww, we didn't even test anything out," Petra complained..although Rowan had the distinct feeling it was insincere. The split had been as 'mutual' of a decision as anything conceivably could be.

"I'm certain we'll have plenty of time to 'play' tomorrow, if it really is worse than yesterday," she remarked.
"Yeah, yeah—you're right. Gotta be responsible and all. I do have work of my own to get to!"

---

I know, it's been a while. This isn't all I've been working on; I have a couple of other things hopefully near completion. When it comes to this story in particular, though, I've been having a little trouble just because, after "Rainbow in the Dark" and the fallout from that, we're kind of back in a part of the story where I don't already have a good outline for exactly what should happen. There is another known "landmark destination" things are headed toward, but it's on the next in-story day because back when I had ideas for that, this "break day" in between hadn't even been planned to happen at all.

Office Prankster

So, this is slightly different from usual. This caption again uses a generated image, but I actually produced this image while trying to come up with images for something else. I decided on a different one for that, but once I had, I thought it'd be a shame not to use this one for something, and tried to come up with a caption for it (which was, obviously enough, a successful attempt).

Battle Vixens! - 137

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Episode 137: Morning After Rain

Amory gently knocked on the bedroom door. He wasn't entirely sure, but it seemed fairly likely that Blake planned to skip classes today. Really, after the stresses of the day before, who could blame him? And the lack of an alarm going off for the past hour or so all but confirmed it, since Blake wasn't the type to accidentally forget to turn one on. Still, he wanted to be as certain as possible, so he knocked again, slightly louder. "Blake?"
A grumbling sound, in a girl's voice, carried through the door this time.
"You okay?"
She actually growled this time—like an actual, upset canine.

"Uh..just wanted to let you know, they cancelled classes for today and tomorrow. This came down from the governor, actually. I think they're hoping, you know, that tomorrow will be the last attack. With the stuff the Giver's been saying and all..."

Blake finally mumbled something else, and the light of a brief flash of light carried through the cracks between the door and its frame. Then he said: "I'm up."

"Oh..good! I'll, make you some breakfast?" Amory offered.
"...Yeah, I'd appreciate that."

He sat across from Blake in the kitchen a while later, watching him eat. The TV was halfway in Amory's view past him, its volume turned low. Blake looked...not tired, but not happy, either. "So uh...you sleep well?" Amory asked, hoping to probe the reason why. He—or maybe she—had gone to bed in pretty good spirits, he thought.

"Yeah. I had a..visit last night."
"Oh." Since Amory had been busy helping introduce Emma to Braille and the rest of No Evil (except for a member Lift said 'can't come here yet', which probably meant someone gifted a mask), there was only one other plausible visitor. "So...what'd she say?"
"She—" A flash of terrifying rage ran across Blake's face for just a split second. He exhaled, deliberately calming himself down. "I got angry. Really angry. Most of it was just, me screaming at her."

"Oh. Well, I can't say she didn't deserve it...right?"
"That doesn't—" Blake stopped short, shook his head. "I just. She was talking about how yesterday went and it was like, how someone talks about a big plot in their favorite show. Reducing all of our, hard work and effort, all of the stress and pain and...even the good parts, when we rescued each other...the realization I had...to just, a 'performance', for her. I couldn't take it anymore."

"You know that's just how she sees things," Amory said gently. "As wrong as it is, it's what I'd expect. So maybe she needs someone to blow up at her and show her it's wrong."

"That's not really...

"I wasn't trying to teach her anything. I can't, even remember exactly what all I said. I just went for whatever I thought would make her feel worse, hurt her the most. Because...because I knew I couldn't strangle her."

Amory suddenly sat up straight. "Blake..."

"When I was done, I kicked her out of my room, told her never to come back. I think she'll respect that. After that, I wanted to think that, I've never felt that angry before, like I absolutely hated another person and wanted them to just, die. But then I realized I have, at least twice. I wanted to put a sword through Tobias's throat. And, if I could've kicked Espadas's teeth in, I might've tried..."

"So you hate people who are unrepentant jerks, especially murderers. I mean—the expression you get when you're thinking like that is kinda scary, but is there really anything wrong with it?"

Blake didn't respond for a moment, instead deciding to eat a few bites of food before continuing.

"When she was gone, I was able to calm down and start thinking about what had just happened. And the first thing, when I was trying to process it all, I remembered her looking—just sad and hurt, all out of ideas for how to defend herself in my eyes, in her own—and felt...happy. And felt proud. And..." He sucked in a sharp breath. "That feeling, I know that was wrong. I should never be happy, that someone is hurt. That I've hurt someone. No matter who."

"Blake, come on. You can't hold your own emotions to a high moral standard. You feel what you feel, whether you want to or not."

He shook his head. "I just, can't let myself start thinking, that it's okay. Anyone can change. I was never mad at Ning, or Rowan, or Emma for attacking me with...basically intent to kill. But someone who's knowingly hurt innocent people, who isn't sorry, who doesn't want to change, just makes me feel...disgusted, and frustrated, and angry. But if I take it out on them—if I start thinking about people like that as no more than monsters, and so it's okay to hurt them any way I can, or kill them—then how am I any better?

"...I never used to feel that way, before."

"Well, you haven't exactly been around murderers before, either?" Amory said. "I mean, we're in pretty extreme circumstances overall compared to any of our lives before all this stuff started."

Blake shook his head. "Maybe. It's just—when that monster ate Emma, and I..." he waved one hand vaguely for a second. "I felt like something, broke. I never knew what it was exactly, but, I thought it healed. That's the first time, I remember feeling that kind of anger. Real hatred. I took it out on that monster, but it was more directed at the person—the people responsible for that happening in the first place."

"Eh, maybe," Amory shrugged gently. "It could be some weird magic stuff, sure, but I think Occam's razor says it's just, how you really feel about things. That anger caused it, and 'it' was just your 'limiters' breaking, and clearly they did come back, 'cause you haven't gone into that kind of 'rage state' since then. Look, it's okay to think and feel and want awful things. It's what you decide to actually do that matters, right?"
"...Right." Blake nodded, looking like he genuinely felt slightly better.

Amory noticed something behind him. "..Hey, can I turn up the TV for a sec?"
"Sure?" Blake turned around in his chair, curious what had suddenly caught his roommate's interest.

"...is announcing the opening of an 'outdoor training area'."
"That's right, Harris. Now that the underground utilities are back in working order—thanks in no small part to the VI's own Petra—they're planning to leave some of the land damaged by the attack of the giant worm last Saturday untouched, to function as 'rough, damaged terrain' for sparring and training. This is part of a larger effort to make a proper satellite base in the surrounding land for Light's team, and possibly other neighboring groups of vixens, to make use of."
"We reached out to Rowan for comment, but evidently he was unaware of this plan before today. To quote, 'this came from higher up.' Further investigation has found that owners of buildings and local businesses in the area slated to become this 'satellite base' were anonymously but generously bought out after the fight with the worm had all but destroyed their livelihoods. Including none other than Ms. Ning Nelson."

"Uh, that's 'Mrs. Nelson', Harris. She was married."
"Right, sorry..."

Amory turned the volume back down while they were cutting to an interview with Ning at her store. "I guess not everyone thinks this'll be over all that soon."

"It's not like we were promised this would ever really end," Blake said, a certain weariness in his tone of voice.

"Still, though, a local sparring ground doesn't sound too bad? The city vixens get a lot of use of the main VI's courtyards. They've got all these practiced, coordinated attacks, and generally know how each other fight really well to help work alongside each other. Maybe you could show Magus some moves in case she's stuck in a melee later on? Or even teach Rory some more advanced uses for a sword than just poking and chopping."
Blake nodded slowly. "Yeah, that'd be good...oh, wait." He sat up slightly. "This was Magus's idea in the first place, remember?"

"Oh yeah...well, I hope it works out better than the armor did. And, I guess Rowan was totally lying to the news?"

"Maybe just by omission, going by that quote. Someone 'higher up' had to be involved in buying up property, and apparently taking over part of what used to be a public road. Anyway, he already has enough to deal with..."

---

"Dude! That was totally my idea! And they actually did it!"

Marcus was back in human form, eating breakfast on the couch in front of the TV. Actually, Thad had resumed human form too for a morning run, but was already back to being a catgirl now. "Guess you're...happy?" she said from a separate chair.

"I got a pretty vague reply to my texts. Didn't know if they were taking it seriously at all."

"So..did you call them or anything yet?" He'd been in the shower when Thad got back from the run.

"Huh?"
"About..?" she gestured at her current appearance.
"Oh, right! Um..I was gonna do that first thing after breakfast!"

"'Kay."

---

"Whoa, whoa, slow down please. I can—Mr. Rowe, I can tell you've—if could just—ah."

Dr. Brand gave him a questioning look, and Ezekiel waved to give him a moment. Someone had put a hand over Marcus's mouth, and a female voice presumably belonging to that same someone was—well, it was too muffled to be absolutely certain, but she was probably telling him to calm down. He winced slightly when he heard her using the word 'spaz' for this, loudly enough to make out over the phone. But at least it worked.

"Sorry, sorry. It's just—uh. Someone I know. The Giver gave a mask to? And it..and sh—that person got a power, to like enchant things. Like, make not magic things, into magic things?"
Ezekiel's expression didn't change, but his free hand adjusted his glasses slightly. Dr. Brand would know this to be a nervous tic of his, and so would infer the news was meaningful. "What kind of magic things?"
"Well, uh, she made a butter knife so it could work for me as a wand, like my sword. It even works for me in human form! And, made it so it could glow if you tap your thumb on the handle!"

"I see..." None of that sounded immediately impressive, but Ezekiel wasn't about to underestimate the potential. "Is there, any way you could persuade this person to visit us for some more, controlled testing? I believe Hephaestus may be able to discern more of what's going on, based on your description."

"Uh—yeah, totally! When are—when's a good time for us to come in?" Marcus sounded like he was suddenly inviting himself along, but Ezekiel guessed he'd pictured 'both of them' as who would be coming in the first place. Having Magus's input too wouldn't hurt anyway, he decided.
"Hold on." Dr. Bridges put a hand over the mic.

"Any room in our schedule?"
"Never," his colleague said. "We'll have to shove something aside. Not the meeting with the consultant this afternoon."
"No, certainly not. Later this morning? After the time delay of a drive from there to here..."
Dr. Brand nodded. "We can get half an hour, maybe."

"It'll have to do." He pulled the phone back to his face. "As soon as you can come, this morning ideally. Will that work?"

"Uh—yeah defintely! Right?" (he probably asked the other person after answering for her). Then: "Yeah!"

---

"Emma, darling!" As usual, April 'introduced' herself the instant the door opened by pulling her younger sister into a close squeeze of a hug for a few seconds, before gently spinning her forward out of it. Emma had been expecting and hoping for this, so she returned the hug just as vigorously for its brief duration. "..Goodness, it's a little strange not being able to pick you up," she remarked afterward. She was still the taller one, probably even when not in heels, but the height difference was markedly smaller now.
"Um, I-I guess my 'vixen' form is still..." Emma paused mid-speech, noticing something now that she was standing across from April instead of up against her.

April was always extremely fashionably dressed, and today was no exception: A gorgeous, bright-blue-colored dress with a skirt that stopped slightly past the knees, showing off some darker-blue leggings the rest of the way down to some sparkling high-heeled shoes. However, one part of her ensemble was...unexpected, and that was what Emma was looking up at. She had one of those..cat-ear?...headbands on. The band was well-hidden in her dark hair, and the 'fur' color matched the rest of the outfit well, but...

"Oh, dear." Seeing what she was looking at right away, April took them off. "This isn't, offensive, is it?"

"Um, no—just, uh. Unexpected?"
"Well," she idly tapped the headband against her free hand a couple of times, "accessories resembling fox ears and tails are extremely in right now. As I understand it, these sorts of things have been in development for quite a while thanks to the furries, and can get quite sophisticated if price is no object..some even being motorized to give the appearance of life. But they really picked up in general popularity over the past couple of weeks, starting with people wanting to show a certain solidarity with those fighting to save everyone's lives. I haven't sprung for anything more expensive than this piece just yet, but I hardly even thought about whether I should wear one at all today."

"Uh—that's okay. I just, don't really keep up with that stuff, so—it was a surprise, is all."

"Mmh." April gently set the band back on her head.

"But, speaking of accessories, did you...forget your glasses?"

"Um, no I—" Emma's voice caught in her throat. "I mean um.." She'd basically shut down the part of her brain dedicated to keeping secrets from people since yesterday's entire mess, completely forgetting that there were other secrets to keep. "It—uh..."

The real problem here was that her ready-made excuse of 'wearing contacts' would not work with a member of her family, who would know full well whether or not she'd been to an eye doctor to get a prescription. Realizing that had made her stop short of even making that claim. And April knew her well enough to make any excuse following this much stammering come off as a paper-thin lie. So she didn't really have a choice! But on the other hand...having someone else to talk to about this would be nice.

"Could you um..come inside, for a few minutes?" she asked, moving out of the way of the door.
April nodded, visibly sensing her sister's seriousness. "All right."

On their way in, Emma had to think about the best way to introduce the situation. She paused before going over to the now-empty bedroom's door, opening and gesturing to look inside. "So um..."

"Beryl's room is all cleared out, I see. Did she..leave?"
"S-sort of...it's...complicated. It—the..."

Emma took a deep breath and let it out. "All along the, the person we knew as 'Beryl' was actually..'the Giver', the person who, gave everyone their powers. A...human disguise of hers, I think one of many. She gave out some, uh, hints..and eventually I figured it out. There's um..there's a way to be sure, if a person is her or isn't. And once I'd tested that, and told her that I knew, and she admitted to it...she left.

"The whole thing was like, some kind of game for her? And by figuring out who she was, I 'won', and earned a 'reward'. So what she offered me was, the..temporary ability to just, decide how I wanted to look, and look that way."

"Hence the 'growth spurt'?" April prompted her after a brief pause, clearly wanting her to finish her story before commenting or questioning.

"Mm-hm. A-and that also turned out to include, um..." Emma gestured at her eyes. "So..long story short, I'm, not actually nearsighted anymore. But I, i-it's kinda hard to tell most people how that happened. I-I've mostly just been making the excuse that I'm wearing contacts..."

"Well. That's easy enough to fix, at least. We can just buy you some stylish false glasses to wear back home," April said with a slight nod. "I do think you ought to tell the rest of our family about this at some point, but I see no reason to rush it. But..Beryl was really that awful woman all along? It's a little difficult to believe."

"It's...yeah. I'm not, I still don't really know how to feel about it either," Emma said, going and slumping into a chair. "I was, so angry, when I realized, at first. Everything nice she did for me, or said to me..I don't know how much of it was just her playing a game. Pretending. After...after I confronted her, and she admitted to it...then she said she really thought of me as a friend. She said she was, sorry for hurting me, but seemed...surprised about that. Like it was wrong, for her to be sorry."

April went and took a seat on the couch close enough to lean over and place a hand on her sister's shoulder. Still hunched over, Emma slowly turned her head upward until their eyes met. "Back when we were first moving you in, I had a similar impression of Beryl, you know—just a kind, ordinary young woman with big plans on how to make the world a better place. She did ask me about you at the time, and maybe I'd have spoken to her differently if I'd known she was some kind of...extradimensional alien? But I told her: 'You'd better watch our Emma. She's tougher than she looks, and smarter than she thinks.' It seems she didn't quite take that warning to heart."

"H..heheh.."

Both of them sat up straight again. April said, "You know. It could be that she enjoyed her game, liked pretending..not so much because deceiving you was so much fun, but rather because the idea of having a friend, and being actually kind to someone, really did appeal to her.

"Now, is that settled enough for the moment?"
"I-I guess."
"Then we'll buy you those glasses later. But first—I believe you promised me a meeting with your new boyfriend~?" April said with a gentle, teasing grin.

Emma's face flushed red immediately. "Uh—r-right!"

---

You should imagine April saying "the furries" as if she were talking about the citizens of an unfamiliar foreign country. At least, I find it funny to imagine it that way.

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..."

---

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.

Battle Vixens! - 135

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Episode 135: The Cat Came Back

"Bro."

Once he had the car going down the road, Thad couldn't help asking.

"What even was that total choke earlier? I thought I set you up pretty well."

"I was surprised, and got flustered!" Magus said. "I've always been terrible at keeping secrets. Like, dude, back in high school people couldn't even tell me about a surprise party for someone else 'cause I'd take one look at that person and just get super awkward, just like that."

"That's kinda a problem if you're gonna keep maintaining a secret identity and all. You ever think about taking some acting classes or somethin'?"
"Uh..not before. It might be too late at this point, since we're kinda fighting things nearly every day.."

"Pssh, whatever. Anywho, check this out." One hand still on the wheel and his eyes still on the road, Thad dug the note he'd received inside a mask out of his pocket and thrust it over vaguely in the fox-girl's direction. "I was just chillin' on the couch, waiting to see how things were gonna go, and someone popped a mask on our doorknob. With that note in it."

"A mask?"

"Yeah, like one of those uh, Japanese festival mask things. That's how I really wound up giving Emma a ride, too."

He waited a moment for Magus to actually read the note in question. Then: "So, you think it's legit? Is it from who I think it is?"

"Well uh...so, 'Beryl' kinda is or was 'the Giver', Emma told us. Plus the capital-letter word 'Gift', and talking about like the exact probability of someone's survival like they computed it...it'd have to be a pretty elaborate prank from someone with super intimate knowledge of a lot of things to not be her," Magus said. "Did you..try that mask on?"
"Nah, I had a message to deliver. It's sittin' in our apartment now. You think I oughta?"

"Well...it probably can't hurt? I mean, uh...

"Okay, this is kinda, confidential. You won't say anything, right?"
"Sure. I mean nah, I won't."
"Okay, well, the guys who made this hat, were also working on a bunch of masks like that, that I think are supposed to do pretty much the same thing? Like, give people powers. I dunno if she maybe, stole one of theirs or made one of her own? But it might..do that. Besides, just making you look different."

"So I could end up with powers like you?"
"Well—maybe? I think it's different for every person, what kind of like, 'potential' they have, and it might depend a little bit on what you're, expecting?"

"So if I do expect it to make me look like your spell did last night, it oughta do that?"
"Y-yeah..? Probably. You really want that?"
"Sure."
"Wwwhhhyyy...?" She dragged out the word to try to express some severe confusion at the concept.

"Man, I dunno if I can explain it. Like—I like how I look now, but...I really liked that, too. There's just somethin'...nice about it. I barely understand it myself. But, just this morning, I was thinkin' about how I didn't wanna make you cast a spell over and over just 'cause of that."

"I guess it isn't really my business, if that makes you happy, dude. I can't help being a little weirded out by it, though."
"Yeah, it's weird to me, too. Still, though..."

They came into the apartment, and Thad picked up the mask, showing it to her. "So, here it is. Looks like a cat, right?"
"Huh..yeah, kinda," she nodded. "So..you're gonna try it on?"
"Sure, why not?"
"Let's, at least lock the door first."
"Oh, yeah—alright."

Soon they stood across from each other in the living room, and Thad carefully lifted the mask up to his face, pressing it on. He immediately felt a kind of rush, a pushing and pulling all across his body. It felt pretty different from how Magus's polymorph spell had, and it went much faster, but..he could definitely feel himself shrinking and softening, his hair growing out, his clothes shuffling around. In no time at all the thing between Thad's legs disappeared, a pair of panties pulled flat down there, and a skirt fluttered around some wider hips; her bust puffed out last of all, right after her ears grew big and fluffy and a tail spread its way out from her back.

She carefully pulled the mask down off her face and tossed it gently, underhand, at the couch, putting her hands together a bit nervously. Her clothes were slightly different from before too: No leggings, and a bowtied ribbon around her neck instead of an actual tie. "So uh..looks like it worked, huh?"

"Guess so," Magus said, nodding. "Do you..feel like you got any powers?"
"Hmmn..." As far as Thad could tell, her body was exactly the same as the night before: Same height and proportions, hair length, fur, and so on. She felt just as soft and fuzzy as back then, too. "I dunno? Nothing sticks out right away. I feel like I'd be better in a fight as a dude, still."
"But, it must've done something, right? Hmm..."

The fox-girl put out her hand and a shower of blue sparks had her sword appear in it. Thad couldn't help but stare at the weapon for a second, feeling her head tilt slightly. It was like it was...lit up with something, even after the sparks were gone.

Not really noticing her expression, Magus went for trying to cast some kind of spell in her general direction. "Scan?" The tip of the blade glowed slightly, then faded off after a second. Magus dismissed the weapon again. "Hmnnh..I thought I might be able to do He—uh, a thing I saw someone else doing," she said, quickly correcting herself mid-naming-someone. "But I don't really know the meaning of what I saw without something to compare it to?"

"Hey. Could you, pull that sword out again a sec? Lemme look at it?"
"Uh, sure."

Magus carefully handed the catgirl her sword, and she held it up in front of her for only a moment before flipping it around so the tip could sit on the ground and carry the weight instead of her hand. It wasn't as heavy as it looked, but holding it up like that for too long still felt like kind of a chore. Thad nodded. "Yeah, it's..there's somethin' to it. I dunno if I can really even explain. But I can, feel something, I think? Huh, hang on..."

After gently pushing the weapon back toward the fox-girl, Thad hurried into the kitchen, soon finding a butter knife. That felt 'right' somehow—another cutting implement. Magus followed her with the curiousity of someone who had very little idea of what, but knew something was going on. "Hmm~mnnh..." Holding it up right in front of her eyes with one hand, the catgirl brought the other hand up next to it and did...something that involved moving that hand's fingers carefully around. It felt like she was pulling at some strings, maybe, or tapping on a wall...after a moment, she was able to make the knife 'light up' in her eyes the same way as the sword had, only much more dimly.

"..I got a hunch. Here," she offered the knife over Magus's way. "This sounds dumb to me even sayin' it, but, try to cast a spell with it like it was your sword?"
"Um, okay?" Magus took the knife. "Uh, look away a sec." Thad shrugged and complied. "...Flash!" This word (and presumably some motions with the silverware) had an effect similar to a phone's camera in the dark. "It works. But.."

The catgirl turned around again, watching Magus put down the knife she'd worked on and pull out a different one. "...Flash?" Despite some theatric motion accompanying it, this didn't accomplish anything. She picked up the other one, and Thad had to think quickly to shut and cover her eyes. "Flash!

"So..that one doesn't work, but this one does. What'd you do?"
"I kinda..tried to do, somethin' like what was in your sword, I guess? Like, magic stuff?"

"Wait...are you saying..you enchanted this knife?!" The fox-girl's eyes lit up adorably with excitement. "Can you do something else!? Like make it glow? Or on fire?"

"Uh, whoa—heheh..I'm not totally sure I understand this stuff, but I can't do anything if you keep waving it around like that!"
"Yeah, sorry, here." She half-shoved it at Thad, who took it carefully and held it up in front of her again.

Fire sounded kind of dangerous, but a glow probably wouldn't burn the apartment down. When she'd done that thing earlier, she was just imitating what was already in Magus's sword, but this felt a little different. Her other hand 'pulled' and 'tapped' for a good thirty seconds or more, finding one configuration after another didn't work...but somehow, it still felt like she was making progress. After converging slowly on the idea of 'making light', she finally felt like she'd found it! She dropped the other hand with a grin.

"Um...did it work? It's not glowing," Magus poined out.
"Just a sec.." Thad pulled her thumb back, then tapped against the knife's handle, like she was hitting an invisible button. Immediately its blade began emitting a faint glow of light—not much compared to the kitchen's overhead bulb, but enough to find one's phone by in the pitch dark. With a similar motion, it turned 'off' again and quit glowing. She handed it to the fox-girl. "Here, you try."
"Okay.." With a similar motion, Magus achieved the same result. "..Dude!"

She turned the knife off and on in again in rapid succession, looking even more excited (and cute) than before. "You can really enchant things! Like, make non-magic things, into magic things!!!"

"So...you think this is a big deal?" Thad said uncertainly. There were plenty of people who could do magic, and apparently a pretty reliable way to make anyone able to do magic, already.
"It's huge! It's like, exactly what those magic research guys are looking for! I think! We should—I mean, you—like—" Magus had started waving the knife around frantically halfway through this, and at this point finally seemed to notice the catgirl flinching away from her in reply. So she took a deep breath, set the knife down, and visibly tried to contain her excitement.

"It's...I mean like...it's your, it's up to you if you wanna tell someone—anyone, about this or not. But if, I mean if I could do something like that, I'd be calling those guys right now to tell them about it."

"What, this late into the night?" Thad said, crossing her arms. "Those dudes must be in bed by now. We don't even have an attack to worry about tomorrow. Anyhow, you're gonna fall asleep on your feet at this rate, right?"

"I, might," she admitted, folding her ears down slightly. "If the adrenaline rushes ever stop coming, at least."

"Yeah. So, we can tell 'em in the morning. Schedule a meeting and stuff. But, for tonight...you gotta sleep.

"So—you could go back to your room, change back or whatever, or we could y'know...do things like last night?"
Magus's face flushed red. "Um..."
"Sorry—I guess that's making things weird again."
"No, that's..m-maybe just for a little bit? I, probably should actually sleep in a bed after though...lying on a couch isn't all that comfortable."
"Alright." Thad grinned. "I'll wake you up so we can both go to bed normally, then? Deal?"

"..S-sure..."

Thad spent the next couple of hours or so lying on her back on the couch with the fox-girl sleeping softly on top of her, her head over her shoulder so one of her ears occasionally flicked the catgirl's own. This was weird, sure, but...it was very nice. Curiously relaxing, even though she never fell fully asleep herself. It had taken a little bit of self-control at the beginning to not push Magus's head into her chest instead, or curl her tail up to touch the fox-girl's...but once she was asleep, Thad felt instead like this was more than good enough for now.

Mortal's Test

I've made a sequel to Art Appreciation:

The source image for this caption was, again, found using an image generator.

Omega Zeta Kappa Epilogue

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It was a late Thursday night in the OZK dorm. "Hwaa~aah.."

Jen banged her fist on the side of her chair, making the catgirl who'd just yawned yelp and jump upright. "York, will you just go to bed already!? Finals are next week, and I can not study with you doing that."

"Auugh, I don't wanna yet."
"Why not."
"I don't have the energy!" she protested, dramatically falling back onto the couch.
"You don't have the energy. To go to bed," the wolf-girl repeated, deadpan.
"You don't geet iiiit. Odin's in our room."

"And..?"
"Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep a succubus happy, by myself?!" she said, flailing her arms up in the air. "I mean...I always wake up feeling good and well rested, but uuugh..."

"Why don't you just say you don't want to tonight?"

"Are you kidding?! I just...need to build up my strength first."
"Then nap! Are you part cat or not?!"

"Uhhm.." She blushed furiously. "That uh, can vary from one night to anotherrr.."
Jen shook her head. "Yeesh.

"Look, just be glad she's not a dragon. I don't think Rich owns any bedclothes that aren't singed somewhere. She smells like smoke in the morning if she hasn't showered."

"At least she seems happy, though?"
"True...honestly, I think she's a little more relaxed lately. Weird."

"Of course she's relaxed!" The beast in question burst into the room just as she did the conversation, making both of its occupants jump. "I take nothing but the best care of my treasure~," Gerar declared with a big grin. "Yoorrrk! Odin's looking for ya."
"Oh noooo." York flopped herself up onto her feet, then acted like an invisible force was dragging her out of the room.
Jen cleared her throat, deliberately ignoring that. "No offense, by the way."
"Pfft, none taken~! You've never seen a scratch or burn on her, though, riiight?"
"Guess not."

---

"Who's that guy?"

Wesley drifted over to the window to take a look. There was a tall, skinny guy, kind of average-looking, with dark hair and glasses, standing at the front door to OZK. He would almost resemble a student, except he was wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. "I think that's...some business contact of Rich's? I've seen him around before a couple of times."
"Really? I guess he just sticks out a lot more now," Zale shrugged. "But—is it just me, or do you..feel something kinda impressive from him?"
"Hmmnh...a little bit? Can't exactly put my finger on it."

Flynn paused her music, paused her work for the year-end project, and set her headphones down. She shoved her chair back and stood up before heading to the door, verifying that she really had heard a brief, polite knock by way of Rich's voice now coming through on the other side: "I assure you she's in. Just wait another moment."

She opened the door to find the sorority's illustrious leader had been talking to—well, a total stranger to Flynn, some tall businessguy. "Hello?"
"Ah, see?" Rich said.
"I didn't doubt you or anything," he shrugged. "You're Flynn, right?" Now that he was looking right at her, she noticed something very strange through those glasses: His eyes were bright yellow, with tall slits for pupils, like a snake's eyes or something. It made her jump slightly when she noticed it.
"Uh, yeah..?"
He cleared his throat. "And you're the one who prayed to Zotha a few weeks back?"

"That's...also right, I guess. Why? Am I uh..in trouble?"

"Far from it. Ms. Tanner here said you figured out the ritual language within only one day, at least enough to make a functional prayer. That's pretty rare talent."

"I was..feeling really motivated, is all."
He nodded, pausing to crack his briefcase slightly open and shuffle through its contents with one hand. "Listen, I know you're still a junior now, but in a year or so, after you graduate—there's a job opportunity for you with Rejuvenation services. We're a little short on programmers and competent pray-ers right now." Finding what he wanted, he handed over a piece of paper. "A lot of the celestials originally working with us have other business to attend to, but demand's only been going up lately. We'll run out of old people eventually, I guess, but it'll be some years..."

"Uh..?" Flynn was going to ask what in the world he was even talking about, but she paused to skim the paper first. 'Rejuvenation services' was...a joint effort by Azoth and some other, longer-named organization whose main line of work was, apparently, using magic (especially that of the goddess of change herself) to make older people young and healthy again. There was some contact information on the paper, too. "I guess it'd be nice to have a job instead of having to look around," she said.
The businessman nodded. "Take some time to think about it. You have a year, or more if you want."

He turned toward Rich. "Now...I also heard there was a dragon hatchling somewhere around here?"
"Yes, of course. I'll show you to her," she said, grinning, and giving Flynn a little wave before leaving with him.

---

After the summer, the OZK sorority had a new batch of applicants. Tielo sat at the council table to evaluate them as they were sent in one-by-one. Mars was next to her for "moral support", playing on her phone and not really participating in the interviews for the most part. The first five were male but willing to take the potion, but the sixth was different: an incoming freshman with no history of ever being male. "Greetings. Name, please?" A rather petite and overall ordinary-looking girl at first glance, with short brown hair and dark eyes, but...
"You don't have that on your paper? Well I'll tell you anyway—Ursa Major!" She lunged forward, banging her hands on the table. "You better remember too, 'cause I'm gonna be famous!"

Such energy! This person had potential. Tielo just nodded impassively. "Got it. And why do you want to join OZK?"

"Superior food and lodging. Camraderie with other musicians. Potential for magic shenanigans to write songs about! Why would I not?"

"Sure, sure. Alright, I'll set you a worthy trial, then. Explore our living space freely, and identify the dragon's treasure. Don't try to steal it, though—this dragon can bench press a house, and literally breathes fire. Come back to me with the right answer within a week's time, and you pass."

"A week?! You'll see, I'll figure it out today!" she declared, whirling and charging back out the door.

"You, dragon!"
The blond dragon-girl paused, headtilting at the short girl pointing dramatically at her. "Uh, me Gerar. You?"
"Ursa Major. I demand you tell me what your treasure is!"
"'What'?" she repeated—thinking not 'who' or 'where'? "Oooh, this is one of Teilo's tests, isn't it?" she realized aloud. "It'd be no fun to just give you the answer then—no challenge, right? Sooo, I'll give you a hint: I go to the top floor every night."

"What, like, to check on it?"
"Mmmaaayyybe. Heheheh~!"

It was just another normal day when I first met her. Our usual group was getting ready for an afternoon of board games, and I'd been sent upstairs to retrieve our first choice...

Braxton's ears twitched as he exited the stairwell into the third floor. There was some noise coming from the storage room, which was..probably not good. He was headed there anyway, so he opened the door to find some strange girl hunched over an open box, rifling through its contents. "No, no.."
"Hey! What're you doing?"
She stood up and turned to face him. "Aagh, another fox?! Will nobody in this crazy place give me a straight answer?"
Braxton sighed, crossing his arms. This was..someone who'd recently encountered Tielo or Mars, he guessed. "Look—I'm not a Kitsune, just a furry. So, what are you doing here?"
"I am Ursa Major, and I seek to pass my trial! Does the dragon really keep her treasure here?" she asked. "Everything valuable-looking is much too dusty!"

"Uh, no..look, if you really wanna know about Gerar, you should talk to Odin. Huge redheaded succubus, can't miss her."

"Very well!" She swept past the fox-boy with the power of a locomotive.
Braxton sighed, going and cleaning up the slight mess that weird girl had made. So this was one of their new applicants? Well, whatever—Nina and the others were waiting on him to come back with the game. So he went over to the shelf and pulled a box out from midway down the stack.

"Mngh~!" One touch from Odin's hand suddenly shifted York into a wolf-boy the same height as her, and before he really even knew what was happening she'd grabbed him into a long, passionate kiss. He started returning it properly once he figured out what was going on, and she released him after...maybe a full minute, leaving him to pant heavily.

"Sorry, thanks. Needed that."
"Uh..rrfh..a-anytime?" It wasn't easy for her to stay loyal to just one person, but she'd made it very clear she didn't want anyone else "cluttering up" her life. That made York the luckiest man or woman alive...depending on her mood.

"A second red-haired demon!" another girl's voice suddenly declared, making both of them turn to face her as she ran up. "Are you the succubus, then?"

"Uh, yeah, why?"
"What is Gerar's treasure!?"

"'What' is?" she repeated. "Look, around this time..just watch out the front door. You'll see."

Ursa was getting very irritated. What was with these people? Why were nearly half of them apparently male? Well, she'd witnessed a couple of people shifting their sex as easily as breathing, so maybe that was just a perk of membership that nobody talked about. Perhaps she could get herself a male form with a deep bass voice and record a duet with herself!

But one thing at a time—she needed to pass the test today, and now the sun was threatening to set. One frustratingly vague answer after another had led her finally back to where she'd first entered the building, the front door. She opened it, leaning against it and looking around—not really sure what she was looking for. The dragon's treasure was on the top floor, not here, right? And why did everyone she asked about it seem so confused at first?

"Ah—'scuze me!" She'd been looking outward, and nearly fell over in surprise when Gerar went past her. "Thanks~!" she continued, seemingly thinking Ursa had been holding the door open for her. Then, paying no further attention to the short freshman, the dragon-girl ran up to a guy on the sidewalk with weirdly long hair, nearly tackling him into a hug and kiss. At least it looked consensual; he kept up the hug afterward, gently rubbing the top of her head.

"Ma chère," he said. "How were your classes today?"
"No trouble at all~. And you?" There was something awfully...possessive about the way she was holding on to him.

"Just fine. Shall we?" He gestured, and she finally let go of him so they could both walk off in the same direction.

Well, now it made sense! Everyone was confused when Ursa asked 'what' the dragon's treasure was because it wasn't a 'what', it was a 'who'! And furthermore, someone who lived on the top floor? Ursa was pretty sure OZK's bosses were all animal-people, except for Erwin—that super-busty girl who'd waved her and the other applicants in—and one other person, their bankroller. She was also pretty sure that person was supposed to be a black-haired, red-eyed girl, but there was no reason she couldn't just turn into a boy too. And so, she had her answer.

As soon as she'd chased down the fox-girl, she announced: "The dragon's treasure is..Richard Tanner!"

---

Tielo raised his hand and gently knocked on the door. "Mars, you in?"
"Yes." The lock clicked and the door opened, seemingly all on its own; the blue-haired Kitsune was way over on the opposite side of the room, sitting on her bed. "Please, come in." She was wearing a t-shirt and probably some underwear it hid, and maybe it was Tielo's imagination, but her bust looked..even bigger than before.

"Come take a seat?" she offered, patting the spot next to her.

"Alright." He came and sat down (the door 'shutting itself' behind him), and she curled her one visible tail around his, leaning over to hug and kiss him for a moment before letting go.

"Hffh...s-so uh..you earn another tail over the winter break? Ahead of me now?"

"Mm-hm," she nodded, grinning, as three more tails appeared behind her briefly before hiding themselves again. "But since you didn't know that before, I assume there was something else you wanted to talk about?"
"Well, yeah.." She was hugging him with one arm, and using the other hand to rub one of his ears this entire time, which made it slightly harder to concentrate on the conversation—but Tielo managed it. Mars had been steadily training him to deal with distractions, after all. "I guess with how fast you've been taking classes, you're gonna graduate this year? Same time as me?"
"That is true. But—let me guess.

"You were hoping I could succeed your position on the council?"

"Guilty."

"I can still do that. The OZK charter only says that council members must be 'students', with no restriction on graduate or not."
"What, you're going to grad school? Here?"
She nodded. "A couple of my professors want to work with me on some research projects. I'll need to do postdocs somewhere else, but I'll be around here for a couple more years, at least."

"Aah, that's perfect! And, I guess—congratulations? But I would've assumed you could get into grad school anywhere."

"Thanks all the same. Now—I guess you have a meeting to get to. When is it?"
"Uh, about an hour from now."
"Okay." She pulled him into another kiss after that, and proceeded to hold him..then her...up, for precisely fifty minutes.

Tielo left Mars's room pretty happy, but with enough time to recover from her giddiness and have some actual composure for the meeting. Being with a genius had all kinds of perks like that. She'd probably already calculated when he'd ask her to marry him...or maybe even had it planned out the other way around.

---

"Alright, ladies..." Rich paused to clear her throat pointedly. "Ladies?"

Erwin said, "It really wouldn't be appropriate for our sorority's council to have men at such an important meeting, would it?"

Jeff sighed and shifted into "Jen". "There. Happy?"
"I am~," Myla said, flicking the tip of her tail against the base of the wolf-girl's, making her let out a soft bark.

"Anyway," Rich continued, "this is our meeting to coordinate our successors, since most of us will be graduating at the end of this semester."

"I'm thinking of stepping down myself, actually," Myla said. "Next year's gonna be pretty tough for me as it is, and it'll be way more fun to watch a whole council of new blood figure things out for themselves than to be the sole member with 'seniority' and 'experience'," she said, derisively air-quoting her hands alongside both words.

"I agree and approve," Rich nodded, grinning. "Now, of course—your choice of successor is entirely up to you, and as is our council's secret tradition, 'favoritism is encouraged'. But it's still a good idea in this game to know how everyone else will be playing."

"I'm sure you all know my choice," Tielo said. "Mars will be continuing on to grad school here, so she can take over admissions. She's been 'studying' under me for a bit, and is, of course, already an expert."

"I'd like Nina to succeed me," Jen said. "She should be able to keep representing our more athletic members, besides being a generally positive and energetic person, and friends with basically everyone."

"Really? You don't just wanna make sure it's a fellow wolf-girl?" Myla said, teasing.

"You know that's not what I care about," she protested, folding her arms.

Rich waved to interrupt this banter before it could continue. "Both excellent choices. As for me—I'm nominating Xavie."
"Xavie?!" everyone except for Tielo said, nearly at once.

"Come now, I know my reputation. People think I know everything; they say my eyes are enchanted to read minds; many who don't know me are terribly intimidated on up to the fourth meeting. I'd gladly have our resident dragon succeed me, were we not in the same class. So laying her aside, who better to succeed me than a dark witch with a dramatic, threatening persona? And I assure you, she's mellowed out quite a bit over the past year, especially with Vade's help. I would have Vade succeed me, to be honest, if the rules didn't forbid it—and this is the second-best thing."

"You don't want one of your 'pet wolves' to succeed you, then?" Jen said.

"I implied the possibility, and they don't want the position. Not that that prevents me from forcing it on one of them, but it does make me happier with my choice."

"Well, it sounds like a super high-energy group you're all assembling so far," Myla said. "It'll be fun to watch, but they do need to get things done sometimes, and frankly I don't trust Vade to calm things down all by herself. So I'm gonna nominate Corbin. Let the dynsaty of catgirl gamers continue, and—more importantly—bring in some much-needed chill."

"Hear, hear—on both counts, I say," Rich said. "That just leaves..Erwin?"

"Well.." She fidgeted, rocking back and forth in her chair a bit. "I admit, I'm torn between two options. I was thinking Layton might be a good successor—knowing, at the same time, what it's like to be small and unsure of yourself, but also how to build up that confidence? She may be best able to empathize with most members, and especially can help out anyone Nina's a little too..extra for. But, well, since we've become a sorority, there's also come to be a new 'class' of member in our ranks, with no representation on the council so far. Nor does anyone we've named so far belong to it."

"Ah, I see," Rich nodded. "It's quite a different life to come into our fold having grown up female, I imagine. As naturalized as most of us are to the girl life by now~."

Erwin nodded, "Right. Although all of them are currently freshmen, so not very many are necessarily prepared to lead. But I thought, perhaps...Ursa Major, might have the confidence?"
"Not to mention the energy," Tielo agreed.

"I understand your dilemma now," Rich said. "In that case, why don't we just take both?"

"Um..?" Erwin titled her head pretty hard at that.
"Not that both can simultaneously succeed you," Rich clarified, "but—the council has always been chartered as 'four to seven' students. Two of the rooms we're presently using for storage on this floor are really meant to be bedrooms. Clear one out and furnish it, and we need only vote someone into the new position before officially naming our successors. I believe the situation warrants it—in terms of our increased population since last year, and ensuring that that 'new group' gets fair representation."

"Oh. That does seem like a sensible solution."

"Shall we put it to a vote, then? All in favor...'aye'," she and the other four said this, raising their hands. "All opposed..." After a brief pause, she nodded in response to the silence. "Then it's done. We can make the room ready within a month or so, and then inform her of the decision. Perhaps, move her up here to 'observe' so someone on the new council will have an idea of how the old one operated?"

---

Nina was running a little late, so she more or less sprinted up the first two flights of stairs, nearly running into the blond cutie standing just at the foot of the third flight: Layton. "Whoop—sorry! You goin' up too?"
"Uh, y-yeah..but um.."
"What's the matter? Nervous?" she gently rubbed the top of Layton's head a bit—Kaden was usually the one doing that, but Layton usually seemed to like it.

"I uh—yeah. I dunno if I'm ready, to be 'at the top' with those people..."

"Hey, c'mon, Erwin picked ya for a reason, right? That means you're more than worthy. C'mon, we can go up together!" she said, gently prodding the shorter girl toward the step. "Race ya up?"
"Uh, th-there's not, it's kinda not wide enough for two."
"Yeah, true. You go on ahead of me, then."

Xavie was about as happy to see the two of them bursting into the meeting room as could be expected. "Hmph, good of you two to finally make it!" Which was: Not at all.

"Yo, sorry, I held Lay-lay up a minute. Totally on me," Nina said, hurrying to her own seat.

"'Lay-lay'?!" Ursa repeated, loudly and obviously stifling a laugh.
"Eh, not every nickname's a hit," the wolf-girl shrugged. "Anyway, we're all here now, right?"

"Indeed. I'll have order!" Xavie shouted. "Corbin, wake up!"

"Mrow? I am awake. Just leaning on my hand, see?"
"With your eyes closed! Gods, you're worse than Vade. And Mars, can you not take this seriously?!"
"I'm taking it quite seriously," the Kitsune stated impassively.

"Then how about taking your eyes off your phone for five minutes!"

"Okay." She immediately set her phone on the table face-down.
"That goes double for you, Ursa."
"Huh? Oh, are we actually starting now? Sure." She pocketed hers.

Mars said, "Four minutes and forty-five seconds..."

Xavie glowered, and the entire room darkened. "I did not mean that length of time literally!!!"

"Whoakay, okay," Ursa said, briefly putting out her hands in a 'hold up' kind of gesture. "Don't start cursing the rest of the council, witch girl. Lemme just—pass out the agenda to you all." She pulled out some printed pages and started shuffling them out to everyone else.
The witch still wasn't pleased. "Who put you in charge!?"
"Oh, I'm not in charge, most excellent leader. I just thought you'd appreciate some structure and organization, is all. Of course this is tentative, subject to change..?"
"Oh." Xavie visibly untensed, taking the paper and looking over it. "Yes, that is a good thing. Otherwise we shall be here all afternoon." The room's light gradually went back to normal.

"I'll take some minutes, too," Ursa continued. "And we can chat about future agendas ahead of their respective meetings if you'd like."

Xavie had picked up the piece of paper handed her way to briefly peruse its contents, and mumbled "Yes, good," in a way that made it unclear whether she'd really been listening to that last part. Then she set the paper down again.

"So, our first issue is to do with admissions. The stock of potion Rich bought over a year ago is nearly empty. And apparently it was 'a special one-time production batch', so we can't just—order more of the same, either. Obviously we could just insist that male applicants find their own ways to change if they truly wish to join us."

"Is it really a problem?" Corbin asked. "I mean, two of us at this table can transform people easily enough, not to mention Nikki and Vade."

"But within a few years none of us will be here. We require a more sustainable plan."
"Mrow...you mean we can't just leave it for the next council to deal with?"

"We can, but that's at least me and 'Lay-lay' you'd be pushing it off on!" Ursa declared. "And we won't stand for it! Right?!"

"Uh—um..." Layton immediately sat up straight and stammered, not having expected to suddenly be yanked into the conversation.

"W-well..even if we can't get that potion...the Tanners are still um, donating enough where we could just, buy other things that'll transform people...right? Like, enchanted accessories, or other potions?"

"That's at least acceptable as a tentative solution," Xavie said, nodding. "Thank you, Layton."

"Hey, what about clothes and stuff for all those 'new girls'?" Nina asked.
"Rich was specifically covering that herself," Mars answered. "Even our male applicants this last year had to sign a waiver of understanding that they'd need to pay for those themselves. With one or two under-the-table agreements to help if they really couldn't afford it, of course, no different from the support we've provided other students in similar situations. It's certainly cheaper than covering their entire living expenses, which we've done for a few of our members..."

---

"Flynn! You in there?" Myla knocked on the bedroom door again, a little more loudly. "I can hear your music, you know." She could also hear a slight sigh, and then some light footsteps coming up to the door.

"Is this important?" she demanded right away. "I'm trying to put the finishing touches on my senior project."

"Well, I think it's pretty important. You know what my senior project was?"
"'Was'? Like you already turned it in?"

"Yep, a couple weeks ago! So," she continued even though she hadn't guessed anything yet, "it was a little game. More like a, vertical-slice demo kinda thing. Honestly, held together with the coding equivalent of duct tape and glue."
Flynn crossed her arms. "Yeah, I've seen how you code..."

"So anyway! I also put it up on the internet for people to try, and it's faaaiiirly popular? Some people said they'd absolutely help fund a full version if I put it up on kickstarter. Including you-know-who! But I might need a little help with, you know, not winding up with a collapsing pile of glitches and crashing instead of a functional video game. And I thought of you!"

"Of course you did."
"I mean, there's plenty of potential testers I know, but maaaybe you could help out with the whole, actual codebase situation? I'm not talking about working for free, by the way. I'm sure you've already got a job lined up, but maybe, in your spare time outside of that?

She sighed. "Alright, I can take a look. After I finish my schoolwork, and we sign some kind of contract about pay."

"Absolutely!"

---

"Odiiinnn~!" It was a good thing the succubus was fairly strong and resilient, since Gene very nearly tackled her to the ground with an extremely enthusiastic hug. A weaker woman's spine might have cracked, she thought.

"Hi..this is a bit much, isn't it?"

"No way! I haven't seen you in two whole years!" She did let go and hop back. "Not since the wedding...oh, hey York!" she waved at the catboy about half a foot shorter than Odin, standing next to her. "Still enjoying the 'endless honeymoon'?"
He looked away, blushing deeply. "Uh...y-yeah, let's call it that..."

Rich leaned in slightly to interject: "Shall we head inside?"

They came to their table, the girl and boy of each couple sitting across from the other's. "Now, given the length of the trip, I don't imagine you just wanted a double-date to catch up," Rich said. "Not that there's any problem if so..."
"No, I do have a motive or two," Odin admitted. "You're just about to finish grad school, right?"
"Mm-hm," Gene nodded. "Rich has been the breadwinner this whole time, no big surprise there. Or—more like the meat-winner, heheh. I guess the big bad business world is treating you pretty well if you can foot the bill here, though!"
"I'm making it work," she said, nodding with a slightly proud expression. "York's helping, for sure."

"I'm just an extra-friendly IT guy by day," York explained. "Working on the 'low end' lets me feed her some useful info on how us grunt workers are doing."

Odin continued: "So—to put it simply, we need a mathematician, and I thought of you."

"Oh, really? What for? I mean, my work is pretty abstract."
"It's in higher-dimensional geometry and topology or whatever, right? That's extremely relevant. Maybe, I should explain what we're doing first.

"So, airplanes. Loud, expensive, and highly pollutive. They're relatively fast compared to boats, which take forever, if you want to get from one continent to another. Or trains for overland travel, not to mention cars and everything they put out."
"All true. But people gotta get to work, right? Or their families, or whatever else," the dragon-girl said.
"Right. But we have magic now. It's time to look into some better alternatives. So what if, you could just step through a door in L.A. and be in Japan? Or drive out only a few miles to get to London? For less than a tenth the price of a plane ticket. All the baggage you want, no extra cost."
"That..sounds pretty amazing. I mean, I know there's some private teleportation services around, but most of them are kinda sketchy, right? I've heard the targetting can be a little, off."
"Yeah, that's the main problem. Aiming a one-time teleportation is one thing—I think someone's gonna figure out how to do that reliably pretty soon, and instantly outcompete anyone who can't. But we're working with the airline companies on making sustained portals, in their terminals. A near-replacement for commercial flight except where it's really needed, and they won't be trying to shut us down if they're in on the massive profits.

"The problem is, linking those up is way more complicated. We've got plenty of magic power behind the operation, but the geometry you need to make sure they stay targetted properly for a long period of time is an absolute nightmare. I had a look at it myself, and only got a massive headache for all my efforts."

"And it's..multi-dimensional? As in, more than three or four?"
Odin sighed. "Kinda? It turns out the math is easier if you use extra dimensions instead of trying to account for the rotation of the Earth, the solar system, and the galaxy directly. Just not 'easier' enough for me or anyone else on the team we've got right now."

"Well, sweet! In that case, I'd love to at least give it a try. Here I thought I'd just wind up freeloading once I graduated. I'm sure my parents-in-law will be proud, huh Rich?" she said, gently elbowing him.

"Certainly."

---

"So—let me get this straight," Quaid said. The phone was on the table between him and Sid, on speakerphone, with Rich on the other end of the line. "We get to test brand new, full-immersion VR tech. And basically do some improv-slash-larping, playing some overleveled boss characters in a humongous MMORPG. And we get paid for it?"
"That's about the size of it. What do you think?"
The werewolves exchanged only a brief glance, and then said simultaneously: "We're in!"

---

"Well, my dear...you've got nine tails, three doctorates, and plenty of wealth to play around with. Never mind that you're not even a century old and weren't even born a fox—anyone would be jealous of the rest of that."

Mars gently rubbed Tielo's ears. "Are you jealous?"
"How could I be? I get to share in the fun," he said, grinning back at her. "I'm just wondering if you're gonna be bored now."
"Mrr~rrh.." the blue-haired fox-girl gently nuzzled her husband a little before responding. "Finding a new challenge is a challenge in itself. But last night, I received one from on high—so to speak."
"Oh?"
"The Ruler said I have real potential. But set me one more test.

"She said: I've been thinking of stepping down in a century or two. Show me your happy and successful grandchildren, and I will seriously consider giving you my support to take over for me."
"Ah." Tielo nodded, grinning slightly. "I guess you'll need some...children first, then."
"Mm-hmm~..." She leaned in for a kiss.

---

That's it, the proper ending! An epilogue consisting of a bunch of brief scenes presented in chronological order, with some references to other stories here and there throughout. Even managed to find a place for one more image. I'm really happy to have written this whole story through. Again, some of its characters may very well show up, or at least be referenced, in other stories and captions. If I think of another scene to insert into this, I just might; I guess I'll "repost" this update so it shows up as new if that happens.