Battle Vixens! - 13

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Episode 13: Messages

Gerald was already starting to regret coming back from that "early lunch break". Sure, he hadn't missed an attack this time, what with it happening just a few steps outside of his store, but for as easily as Ning seemed able to throw lightning around, doing it seriously apparently took more of a toll than initially advertised. Sitting in front of the counter with no customers just now was too tempting for his body to not try and doze off continually.

He ran a small grocery, sort of a farmer's-market outlet selling some things normal stores wouldn't have. It had some regular customers around town, and sometimes college students would come in out of curiosity and find some things they wanted, then turn into kind of "temporary regulars". His father had owned the store before him, in a slightly older building, and he'd meant to pass it on to one of his children eventually. That hadn't worked out so well, and as for Nadia, well, he might not live to see her get old enough to do it; even if he did, he wanted her to pursue whatever dreams she had rather than be bound to what the old man wanted. Maybe there would be someone else to take over before it was too late.

It was usually a little busier than this, but many people were probably scared to leave their homes by this point. Maybe they'd get over it soon; really, they would have to, if these attacks were to be the new normal. Gerald wasn't too worried; he had enough to pay lease on the space for the next few months saved up anyway. Being a small store that bought things cheap in small quantities and didn't really have any hires helped.

The bell on the door rang, warning of a customer coming in. That was enough to snap Gerald fully awake again, and he saw the couple coming in: A short, slight woman with fiery red hair and very tomboyish clothes in the lead and about an average-height man, dark haired, following. "Oh wow, this place has been here the whole time?" said the woman excitedly, looking around.

Gerald waved to them, and the man waved back while responding, "Yep." The woman appeared to miss the non-verbal exchange.
"I swear, we bought a house three years ago and still keep finding new things in this town! Have a look around, dear."

"Alright then."

With that, the redhead walked with purpose up to the counter and leaned half-onto it. "Hi."
"Welcome, miss." He wasn't completely sure what this was about, but Gerald kept a gun in a drawer of the counter, just in reach. Nobody seemed to think this store had enough money to be worth robbing, even stupid criminals like the ones who'd taken Nadia; he'd never had to lay a hand on it before. So far their behavior registered to him as 'suspicious' but not quite 'dangerous'. "Can I..help you with anything?"
"I think you might be able to help with something," she said. "My name's Rory Quinn, that's my husband Clark. Say hi Clark."
"Hi Clark," he joked, waving back again. Gerald immediately dropped his hand away from the drawer, understanding who they were now.

She continued talking without a pause: "Anyway, we're here because I think we might have a mutual friend or two, Mr. Nelson. Now, you don't have to say anything if we do or if we don't, but if I'm right about that then I want some help passing a message along to them."

Gerald paused for a moment, and then nodded. "What is it?"
"We want to meet up. Share some new discoveries. I think it'd be smart if we formed a little club and coordinated a little more rather than just randomly bumping into each other all the time."

Clark interrupted: "Hey, how's the muscadine jam? I haven't had this stuff in forever..."
"It's good. One of my favorites," Gerald answered. "Where and when would this meeting be?"

"Well, my husband and I work at the university—you know the one. It's closed right now but we have keys to the science building, and there's a nice graduate lounge there that's bound to be empty this afternoon. If our mutual friends are worried about being identified then going on foot should be safest for them, right?"

He nodded. "I'll pass it along. No guarantees that you'll see them."
"I understand. These things need some discussion with the other party," Rory said. She stood fully up again, though that wasn't much of a change in head height from leaning over the counter. "Okay, let's—" Turning her head, she found her husband with a cart piled high with groceries in front of him. "—really? I left you alone for less than thirty seconds!"

"I'm hungry," he said, poking his head around the pile to one side.

"I told you, we can eat when we get back." He just kept looking at her for another few seconds, and she crossed her arms."Fiiine. You decide which half of that you really want, and you're carrying it all back to the car, in your arms. However many trips it takes."

---

Waking up to Amory not present was a little worrying. The first thing Light did was turn back to normal, finally feeling rested enough to not need the whole light-fuel power and a little concerned about staying in the super-powered form for such a long time anyway. The second was try and catch up on the news.

It did not take long to find out what happened. He was being interviewed live just after getting some stitches. "No, I have no idea. It just showed up, it was there...it came right after me. Two of those girls I didn't recognize showed up first. Then another one, said her name was Ning, came to help. The other two ran away without introducing themselves." ... "Yeah, I'm not really sure about the first two but Ning had some kinda lightning powers. It died pretty quick." ... "I mean yeah, that's—that's terrifying. They've never done this before, right? I haven't exactly had a chance to see the news in the past few hours, is this happening anywhere else?" He was looking right at the camera, in a way that looked deliberate.

He was trying to say that specifically to Blake, and maybe also certain other people who he thought might be watching. Of course, the interview cut off about there because he was supposed to be answering questions for the public, not asking them. Blake's phone buzzed with a message before he could try and look up an answer.

From Gerald: "The drs we met yesterday want to meet this afternoon. science building"

It took Blake longer than he would like to admit to understand what the text was talking about. "I'll go. If you're ok with it, come too. Might bring one more if he's not too injured, so come to me first if you do." The reference to an injury would hopefully clarify who he meant to bring. It was time that everyone in confidence knew who everyone else was, at least to an equal degree; that would mean far less mental juggling for Blake. It was almost noon now, so there was time to check on what their mutual enemies had been up to and eat lunch before heading out. Hopefully Amory would be cleared to leave, come back, and then maybe Ning could carry him to the science building or something.

The monster attacking him specifically was indeed part of a larger pattern, as he seemed to already suspect. Black mist monsters seemingly less powerful than the usual ones, often patterned on some combination of bird, lizard, and predatory mammal, were showing up everywhere at irregular intervals. This was nothing like the simultaneous attacks all over the world they'd faced the last couple of days; these things seemed to be appearing right next to specific people, chasing that person down and killing them if caught. There was video of one vaguely gryphon-shaped thing slamming diving with claws outstretched to take down its quarry, tearing the person pinned under it up a bit, and then just standing there on top of the corpse, looking around as if confused about what to do next. Then one of the fox-girls showed up and it attacked her. They weren't causing general chaos; they weren't after the fox-girls either, because Amory wasn't one; they had normal human targets and once those targets were dead they apparently had nothing but a basic instinct of attacking the fox-girls to go on. In view of that, Amory was lucky to have been rescued, to be alive.

The other girls he'd mentioned were not on video. The attack and subsequent fight had gone so fast that not even the usual news helicopter had caught any of it, so Amory's word (and that of other eyewitnesses, but they fled as soon as the thing appeared) was all there was to go on. Maybe some nearby shops had security cameras, but of course the news crew didn't have access to that—the police probably would. He'd said to the newscasters that everything had been too much of a blur of panic to make out what any of his rescuers looked like in detail, besides that they were, of course, fox-girls, but Blake knew him better than that by now. He was clearly planning to vet any information that wasn't already public before announcing it to the news, but must have decided that the boost to her reputation for saving his live would be helpful to Ning. Blake agreed with that conclusion.

Two more...that made, what, six for this town? And a seventh that Blake and Amory had met between the two of them, the police officer. It seemed like a lot, but he had to remember that there were at least thousands of people in this town, counting all the students. It should be surprising they didn't already know of ten or twenty, really. Blake's phone started ringing, and he was immediately glad he'd turned back to normal because his parents were calling. He hadn't told them, and didn't really intend to tell them, at least not for a while. But they'd met his roommate and had probably just heard of him being seen on the news. So it would be interesting trying to navigate this conversation...but better to have it now than later.

---

Emma walked, deliberately and calmly, all the way through the complex and into her apartment. She closed and locked the door behind her, she had a quick look around to see whether her roommate was around, and then she sat on the couch and began hyperventilating. As part of what seemed to be some kind of newfound bit of survival instinct, one of her out-breaths came with the usual phrase for splitting into two, and then there were two girls on the couch with fox tails both physically panicking and trying to calm themselves. Well—one in two hyperventilating bodies, which was twice as stressful and not helpful.

Deep breaths, get it together. By some kind of instinctive habit, Plus tended to breathe in when Minus breathed out; it was much more obvious with these slow, loud, heaving breaths. She tried to process what had happened. She'd really fought one of those monster things? It wasn't like she'd planned to! She'd just been about to go to that store the old guy ran and get some things, and had seen Amory walking out of the garage and...followed him. She hadn't meant to be stalking him, honest, she'd thought—maybe this was it! Maybe the universe was giving her another chance after taking away the one on Tuesday and seemingly guaranteeing there wouldn't be any more this whole week. But just when she was about to walk up to him and say hello, that...thing had appeared, and her first thought was, he was in danger, she had to save him. He couldn't die, he just couldn't, she wouldn't let it happen, and then she was in front of him/on the other side of the monster. If that other girl with the zappy lightning powers hadn't shown up she might not have managed it, and then there would be two...three dead bodies instead of one. But even if things had happened that way she would've stayed. Something in her, something even stronger than the desire to protect him, hated that thing, saw it the way a person sees a cockroach crawling out from under the carpet, where if they're barefoot they don't want it anywhere near them but if they're wearing shoes they'll do everything in their power to chase it down and stomp it out! And just then, she was wearing two pairs of shoes.

Amory had been confused by her, twice. First he had said "light"...light? Of course there was light; she'd also sort of amplified it into a flash for a second to get the monster's attention. No, no, he'd said, what was it, "Did you attack light in her sleep?" Whose sleep? And then the other girl: "What did they do to light?" They being her, being one person in two bodies referred to, naturally, as two people by someone who didn't know that...

Gemma's mind finally sputtered to life and informed her that the context clues were fairly clear here: Light was a name here, not the word. Amory had confused her, very briefly, for Light—specifically, Gemma Plus. Looking at that body with the other one, she thought, the silvery-white tail only matched one tail she'd seen or encountered over the last few days. It was the girl who she'd "learned" to move light around from, and of course, that person had light powers, so seeing Gemma's light powers had confused him briefly. It meant...he already knew that girl.

He...knew her. He probably knew exactly who she really was, too. Were they..? He'd seemed so angry when he thought she'd attacked this Light person! What if they were..? It was unthinkable! But it made so much sense!

He hadn't had a girlfriend before; not even last week. She'd checked, wanting to crush her heart immediately if it was going to happen. But Light was going around, being a big hero and saving lots of people...he must have met whoever she really was, in the last couple of days, and just...! "rrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrghh!!" Minus grabbed Plus by the shoulders, growling and shaking her back and forth in frustration. If she hadn't gotten distracted the other day, if she had just gone for it—her brain (brains?) felt like a scratched, skipping CD: He would be dead. She had been there, right there behind him, and the monster had still nearly caught him before she could stop it. That lightning girl would've been too late to get anything but revenge.

The shaking stopped, and Plus returned the gesture of putting her hands on the other body's shoulder. That was it! She, Gemma, had saved his life! He'd said it himself. She might have been too shy to say who she was right then, and needed to get away before the police came and she was paraded around on the news, but...she was the one who'd saved his life! He'd been nowhere near the monster fights Light had been involved with, so that girl hadn't done that for him. So, so...she was better than Light. Right?

Both bodies gave each other a determined look. Maybe..she would just have to prove she was better, to him. It was a crazy thought, but the first, maybe the only thing she wanted to do now was go out there and track down that Light girl and, and...give her a piece of her mind! Or...actually fight her? Would she stand a chance, trying that? Gemma wasn't a fighter, and Light obviously was one. But...thinking back, she was a fighter now, wasn't she? She'd actually helped a lot taking down the big monster, and now she had four knives to work with instead of two. Seeing more abilities at work she could get more knives, and more powers to copy, and eventually...she would be able to be a match for that other girl. And if anyone came after Amory in the meantime, she would be there to protect him! After all...! After all, she could do that. She could be in two places at once. She was Gemma, after all. Not just Emma anymore.

---

Blake opened the door. "Heyy. Back to normal, I see?" Amory grinned. "You feelin' any better?"
"Um, yeah, a lot, thanks. What about you?" He'd looked pretty bad on the news; some of the scrapes were obviously still there, and the bandages still on the more major wounds.

"'m feeling, pretty good I guess? They gave me some of the really good stuff at the hospital." He half-stumbled inside, and Blake caught him, helping him over toward the couch. "You see the news? I was on the news."
"Yeah." Once Amory was down, Blake sat next to him.

"Well? Find anything out?"

"..I think you're right. Those things showed up all over the place, random times, attacking specific people."
"Any idea why?"

"No, but..it looks like a deliberate tactical move to me. There's something about you, and...all the other people that were targeted, that whoever's sending those mist things doesn't like." He hesitated for a moment. "I wonder if they attacked you to get to me..."
"We can't throw that out as a possibility...but I really doubt it. Threatening me, by some way of communicating with you and saying 'cut it out or else he gets it', that would make sense. Killing me, or other friends like that, just makes you and them want revenge. Like you said, deliberate tactical move, so why would the tactics be stupid?"

"We might be dealing with a powerful but very stupid enemy," he shrugged. "I mean, the first couple of attacks didn't kill anyone but fox-girls, right? Besides which, we were kind of destroying each other before they started showing up—not counting me, but in general."
"If they're too stupid to figure out threaten, not kill, then they'd also be too stupid to identify me as your friend," Amory countered. Blake didn't have a good argument against that.

"Hmm. In the dream Friday night...that woman said Trouble was coming," said Blake. "She seemed confident, certain of it. Like it's, y'know, already in pen on the calendar." He thought about it for a few more seconds. "Maybe, there's some kind of rules to it. It decided to attack well ahead of time, she figured it out or whatever and decided to help us be ready for whatever reason...but even if it knew that was happening, it was too late to take back the plan. Some kind of...requirements for whatever's creating the mist things in the first place makes it impossible to reschedule."

"Something like that seems logical, I guess." He sighed. "Just hope it also means they won't attack me again for a while. I called my dad and he wasn't happy to hear I got hurt. Wanted me to come back home, but I said there wasn't any point. Y'know, if I'm being targeted then I can be tracked, for sure. So I might as well hope it was a fluke, or that I'll keep being protected, and try to keep going with my life. He wouldn't relent until I agreed to at least make sure the cops are on it, like they can do much of anything."

"Yeah..." Blake's parents had more just wanted to know for sure his roommate was okay (and he was okay) and then just check in in general. The conversation had turned to mundane topics pretty quickly once they were assured of that.

"So um...what were you doing out, anyway?"

"Oh, I wanted to get groceries. We're running out, you know, thought I'd help. Our Big Bad decided we couldn't have more groceries today."

"Are you hungry?"

He shook his head. "The good stuff, like I said. Zero appetite."
"Hmn. You feel okay to go somewhere?"

"If I don't have to walk too much. Where?"

"Dr. Quinn talked to Ning's secret identity, asking to meet with the two of us. I thought it'd be good for you to come too. But she'll have to carry you, so we can go on foot."

"Oh." Amory sighed. "You sure you wanna do that? It's not that hard to find out whose roommate I am, probably."

"I think we can trust those two. They already know who Ning is, and I bet you already know, too, right?" He looked like he was going to deny it for a second, but just nodded after that. "Yeah. So it's time we just all establish that we all know what we know, and that's that. And I'm sure there's some other reason they wanted to meet, anyway."

"Alright. I'm on board, then. Just ask her to carry me gently. Or help out, or something. I'm already damaged goods, y'know?"
"Yeah. Sorry."
"No, no, it's fine. This'll be my first opportunity to actually help you out, maybe. Just wish I could've been attacked after instead of gettin' a free sample first."

---

I had the idea to do something a little different and give these actual titles. Having just numbered parts is kind of TBRE's thing, and in some way I sort of think of this story as progressing in "episodes", so I went back and gave all the previous ones titles in addition to this and the upcoming ones. Let me know what you think.