Battle Vixens! - 27

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Episode 27: Accursed Persistence

Though she was offered a ride, Light insisted on running back to the apartment herself. The less times Gerald was seen driving near there the better, for both of their anonymity's sake. Anyway, she was still feeling reasonably good even after the fight, and guessed that the power boost probably had somewhat of an effect on how much strain she could take—besides Amory's likely-correct theory about food. At any rate, she made it back inside by the early afternoon.

Amory was watching the news again. "Hey, you have fun?" he said, hearing her come in.

She sighed and changed back to Blake before answering. "For certain definitions, maybe."
"I swear, somehow our news anchors didn't get the pun at all until today," he said.
"What pun?"
"Light-Ning. That one."
"Yyeah...that was, Ning's idea." He came around. "So I guess the date went okay?"
"Pretty good. She managed to talk like I was a normal person before too long.

"Look, she wants to keep fighting." Blake sat down. "Be a part of the loose 'team' we have around here. I won't go into too much detail, but she's seriously thought about it and made the decision for some pretty good reasons."

"I see..." He was a little worried. She hadn't seemed too well after the hospital, after actually getting injured. But he couldn't very well tell her no—both because it was her decision and because strategically, every person on their side and willing to fight was a significant increase in advantage. "I guess we'll invite her to the next meeting of everyone if there is one, huh."
"Hmm."

"..So you know, your power wearing off feels pretty terrible," said Blake. "And I think I literally deflated and expelled some kind of white mist, which is hopefully not unhealthy."

"I think that's just visible special effects..."
"Anyway, along with everything else it 'enhances', as far as I can tell, the price gets worse too. You saw how I was acting this morning, right? I couldn't wait to get out of here and chase something."

"Definitely a risk to consider. But actually I can sorta..." He closed his eyes for a second or two, trying to get the thought together. "After doing, let's say, 'full power' like this morning for someone, I can give smaller buffs instead because I kind of 'understand' enough about the power to do that now. It takes less time—and probably has less adverse side effects too."

"That's good to know. Someone really has to be comfortable with you to get the first one, though..."

"Or at least they have to trust me enough to let it happen."

"Rrright."

Blake felt compelled to change the subject as quickly as possible. "..So, did you give my response to Rowan yet?"
"Hmn? Yeah. I did that just before heading out for the date. And sh—and he immediately wanted to know what would be good neutral ground to meet on. I, was pretending you were holding the phone at the time so I had to answer right away, and I just...I went with the quad. It's fairly public, but not too many people around there today."
Blake sighed. "I'm really starting to get bad associations with that spot, you know."

"I know, but...it was just the first thing I could think of that made any sense."

"I admit I don't know of anywhere much better."

Amory's phone buzzed, and he took a look at the message. "Hmm. Should I tell Emma you're here?"

"Go ahead," Blake shrugged.

"...Wants to ask you to test the power control thing again. See if you can...summon her body but let her control it."

"I guess I can do that." He stood up. "Ask her to reply when she's ready."

A few second or so later, the go-ahead went through and he said her phrase again, trying to make it to do as she'd asked.

This time, Plus appeared and Blake didn't have a sense of invisible 'strings' being present, which suggested things had gone as intended. "Ah! I was right," she said, looking around briefly. "I changed back with Minus last time, so..oh, uh, hi again." She waved a little awkwardly at Amory, who waved back just once. "Either way, this means you could summon me if you were in trouble. Both of me if there's time for me to change back and forth."
"Um...you might be in the middle of something, though," said Blake. "And it'd be a problem if you changed or disappeared from somewhere public..."
"But at least one of me could help you right away. Right?"

Blake crossed his arms. "I'm honestly not that comfortable throwing other people's powers around, much less the people themselves..."

"I just mean for emergencies anyway," said Emma. "If you really needed help and there wasn't anyone nearby. I could even have the 'main' body call for more help."

"Don't your powers not work right like this? If I make you appear instead of you appearing yourself..?"
"I think I know what that was about," she said, and waved some of the light in the room around slightly. "See? The powers didn't work right when one of me was 'normal'. Both Plus and Minus need to be around somewhere."

"...Which is one more reason it'd be a bad idea to just summon you into danger." Emma's ears drooped slightly in what looked like severe disappointment.

"Look, I'm really glad you want to help. And, it's not a horrible idea—especially getting you to call for reinforcements. I'm just worried about you getting hurt," said Blake. "I don't want to make a habit of using other people like tools, especially if it involves putting them in danger."

"What if you just summoned one of my bodies long enough to tell me where you are and then put me back so I can get help on its way there?" she suggested. "You could keep me invisible the whole time. That wouldn't be nearly as risky..."

"There's also the fact that the last several monster fights this week didn't take long enough for any reinforcements to really reach them. But—fine. If I'm up against something alone then I'm probably way better at delay tactics than directly killing it by myself," he said, remembering the near-disaster with the twins—the monster twins—up until Rory showed up and began launching them into the atmosphere.

"If I can interject for a moment," said Amory.
"Eep!" Plus hopped back slightly, evidently just now remembering he was there.

"Yeah?"
"How exactly do you learn new powers?"
"Oh. Um, I just, sort of, watch someone using their power. And then, it's like I can," she wiggled her fingers as if that would help explain. "I see, the trick behind what they're doing. And once I 'get' it I can imitate it. But I don't know how to put any of it into words..."

"In other words, though, if you see someone else using their power then you learn a new one. Which means you get more powerful the more people you see using powers."
"Um, right..."

"Well, what do you think?" he asked Blake. "Good idea, bad idea?"
"I guess it's okay," he said, managing to catch on. Then explained for Emma: "I'm meeting with Rowan—um, the policeman I sort of fought with the other day, with the water powers. He's bringing someone else, so maybe he won't mind if I take you with me, too. Then you could see how his powers work and learn a new one."
"Umm...he's from the city, right? There's lots of people with different powers there," she said. "Soo, what if I...volunteered to go help them tomorrow? I could learn a few more that way."

"They're dealing with three to five attacks daily, compared to our usual one," said Amory. "I'm sure they'd appreciate the help, but that also makes it a lot more dangerous for you personally."

"I know, but..."

"If you really want to," said Blake, "then we can ask them. I don't actually know how much authority Rowan has but it couldn't hurt to ask."

"Ohh, thank you!" Suddenly Plus jumped at Blake with a hug, which only lasted a couple of seconds before she realized what she was doing and dropped off, backing up several steps again.

"Um, I-I dunno how but, I forgot you were a boy right now," she said, blushing. "Sorry!"
"That's, okay." Blake turned to Amory, trying to let the awkwardness from that simmer off. "Ask Rowan if it's okay for me to bring someone along to meet him, say I'll explain in more detail why when we get there?"
"Okay..."

And then back to her. "We'll walk there together so they don't suspect I'm pulling anything weird. I guess we'll find out exactly when after all the attacks over in the city are clear. So I guess Amory will text you."

"Mm-hm!" She nodded and then disappeared immediately, probably her other body speaking the phrase to change back.

---

Maybe an hour and a half after Simon left the Initiative's facilities, he was calling and announcing he wanted to join them. Rowan went to bring him some papers to sign about that, primarily waivers that the Initiative was neither responsible for monster attacks nor for injury or anything else that occurred as a result of them. That was not his only reason for coming to handle this personally, although it was a perfectly good reason to give anyone else.

He wasn't sure about this one. Simon wasn't some desperate person who'd done terrible things or lost someone like Don, and he didn't seem to have a particularly strong sense of duty either. He was a not famous but very successful artist living in the upscale part of town almost entirely on the sale of his work, supplemented a little by the meager earnings of a high school teacher (his wife). There was a lot for him, or at least his wife, to lose if he got killed or put into a coma, and Rowan wasn't sure he was taking that possibility very seriously. While uncertain as to the method, Rowan really wanted to test whether or not Simon would hold up under pressure or crack the first time something really serious happened. If he was dependable then his reasons really didn't matter, but...

He got out of his car on arrival, briefly admiring the view of the big house, a fair sight up from his own apartment. There was an upstairs room—a studio most likely—most of whose out-facing walls were windows; the man was lucky his first attack hadn't been while he was there. Humanity was supposed to be past the point of worrying about the defensibility of a person's house, but then monsters started appearing all over the place. Simon opened up almost as soon as he rang the doorbell. "Hello again. Feels like we keep bumping into each other," he joked.
Rowan had the papers in his hand, and wore a serious look before pulling them closer to offer them. "Are you sure about this?"
"But of course! I wouldn't have called you if I didn't mean it. Had a talk with the wife first and everything."

Although he technically wasn't with the police now, there was a kind of understanding that Rowan was allowed to use his sirens in case of the kind of emergency that he was now one of the few equipped to deal with. Likewise, there was a police radio installed in his otherwise-civilian car. While Simon began to move his hands into position to take the paper, Rowan picked up a code from that radio—a code newly invented within the past week. And the location was...

His head involuntarily jerked to one side, to look back. "This will have to wait." He started to turn and go. "One of them just appeared nearby." It was honest, he needed to go deal with that as soon as possible, but at the same time Rowan thought telling him might...

"Well, may I join you then? I haven't really had a chance to let loose yet." There it was.

"If you're sure," he said, continuing to the car without stopping. "Just hurry."

Rowan heard some incomprehensible syllables and Simon came running up already in the other form.

"You know, the tail really isn't comfortable on car seats," he pointed out, heading around to the driver's side.
"Oh, well, I could ride on top of the car!" she said.

"No. Get in." Part of his brain automatically began listing off the laws that would be breaking and the amount of harm to self and others it would severely risk.

"Okay okay."

The siren wailed and the car tore off. Simon struggled briefly with the seatbelt but at least she was putting it on. Then, since Rowan had just roughly dropped the papers on the armrest between them, she took a look. "Hmm. Well at least someone consulted a lawyer," she commented.
"You should be ready to jump out in a minute. It's not far."

"Yep!" Setting it down again, she tensed and moved her hands toward the seatbelt.

"After we come to a stop," Rowan clarified.

The brakes screeched loudly, which could only sound worse to Simon's curren pair of ears, and then they got out, Rowan speaking the phrase to change in the middle of standing up and pulling a sword from the water vapor in the air. There was gunfire and then someone was thrown in the direction of the car, a blur of blue which Rowan dove toward and kept from landing directly in the concrete, setting the person down afterward. It was a patrolwoman from this precinct, probably either the one who called it in or their partner.

Hoping she was at least stable enough to not die lying there, Rowan turned to what had thrown her: One of those fat, feathered hooved quadrupeds with snouts seemingly composed entirely of spiky tusks and horns and the singular, unchanging tactic of "always charge". There were two more nearby, one of which had already noticed her and was getting ready to do just that.

"Ohh, it's my lucky day!" Simon said, raising her own weapons up out of the concrete. She took the sword with her left hand and closed the gauntlet into a fist. "Revenge! Catharsis!"

"Don't—!"

Not particularly hearing that half-warning, the two-tailed girl played chicken with the one that was charging them, stabbed her sword into the ground and vaulted over it just in time for the thing to charge right into it blade-first, tearing itself across the side and spewing black mist everywhere. Rowan sighed inwardly but ran up to follow with a quick stab to its side and then jumped away as another of them charged past. Simon had moved on to punching the third one right in its snout with the gauntlet, which sent it tumbling backwards in a ball and barely moved her an inch.

The one that had first charged them had already turned to face Rowan, and she had to dodge out of the way of that, and then another charge from the second one. Simon ran closer, jumped and stomped both feet into the concrete with far more weight than she seemed capable of having, driving a hole into it and raising some ground up into a big spike right through the center of the second one. Rowan recovered her footing and sliced at that one, then vaulted over it, landing the sword square through the top of its head, in the process of dodging the first one again.

The spike crumbled, freeing its prisoner, and the third charger that had rolled away was on its way back. Simon remade her sword and sidestepped with some time to spare, making a horizontal slash through it as it went by. Rowan saw both of the others coming after her, waited until it was too late for them to turn, and jumped as high as she could and slightly forward, letting them crash into each other. Simon stomped again and raised the ground under her, letting her land immediately and then hop back down, landing her blade into one's head before making it to the ground. The third one came back around after Simon during this, and she punched it in the face again, sending it rolling into the other two and knocking them over just as they had begun to recover.

"These things really aren't too bright, huh?"
"They're highly persistent," Rowan warned, taking advantage of the short break in action to draw together some more of the nearby vapor into her sword again and a few water-blades surrounding her.

All three turned and charged at them from the same direction, making a wide wall of mist monster. Rowan ran to one side, the one on that side following her, and moved around it, giving it constant slashes while luring it into increasingly small circles. Simon stomped, gathered most of the nearby broken concrete into one huge ball held over her head by the gauntleted hand and threw it forward, shattering it against the two of them and sending them flying off in different directions. Then, just as Rowan killed the momentum of hers Simon came up behind it and stuck her sword into it, then pulled her sheath off and bashed it over the head several times with that for good measure.

Rowan followed one of the ones scattered by the boulder, stabbing and slashing it while it was busy trying to stand back up and then getting out of the way when it charged her, directing the charge toward Simon. The other one charged her and she dove aside, rolling on the ground, dropping her sword and losing focus to keep the water-blades going so they dropped away. Then she stood up, made the sword again, watched for another charge.

Simon stomped again and threw the one sent her way by tilting the ground under it to nearly ninety degrees. Then she jumped after it and sliced its underside when it landed on its side. The one she'd just been busy with ran after her, and Rowan moved to intercept it, giving it another slash through the side. Simon just punched it in the face when it got to her, and then Rowan had to dive out of the way of the third one again.

"How do you even tell you're hurting these things?"

"They bleed the black mist. And look blurry when close to death," said Rowan, pointing out the one she'd just cut as it turned itself around.
"Ohoh, let's make this easier then!" Simon stomped another spike up through it, and it made a shrieking, squealing noise, writhing in place briefly before bursting out of existence.

Rowan was paying attention to the other two, and dove through Simon just in time to get both of them out of the way of another side-by-side charge. The same motion continued into rolling off of her and hopping to own her feet again, then offering a hand to help Simon back up.

"Ah, thanks!" Simon pulled the hand, stood up, and then threw her sword tip-first at the remaining two, which were turning around for another pass, then stomped the ground to tilt concrete under them and bowl them over. The sword pierced through one and pinned it briefly to the raised ground, and when the other rolled closer she punched it back in the direction of the other. Rowan ran after it, her water-blades reformed, and after they crashed together and began to stand back up she let loose on both with stabs and slices for as long as she could before taking a couple of steps back, panting and slightly sore from the effort.

Simon ran up and reformed her sword from all of the debris, stabbing it through one of them and destroying it, leaving just the last one. Rowan stepped forward, piercing it through the side with her own weapon, and then stumbled back, bending over in exhaustion. Simon picked this one up by a tusk with her bare hand and then punched it repeatedly with the spikes on her gauntlet until it too exploded out of existence and blew away.

"Alriiight! Hey, are you gonna be okay there?"
"Hhhf...find some..water.." Rowan breathed, starting to pick herself up again.

"Uuhhm..." Simon looked around and noticed someone coming partway out of the door of a nearby restaurant holding out a glass full of water toward them. She ran up, took it with a quick "Hi, thanks!", and then came back, offering it to Rowan. She chugged the entire thing, feeling it briefly unnecessary to breathe and impossible to choke on it, and then offered it back.

Looking a mixture of mildly confused and impressed, Simon took the glass. "...More!?"
"This is sufficient," she shook her head, and turned to the man who'd brought it out, and was still watching. "Thank you."
"No problem!" he said. Simon took the glass back, and they walked back to the car, some people coming out of the buildings nearby to cheer. The two-tailed girl seemed more reluctant to leave, waving to some of the crowd, but Rowan's body language was enough to get her inside and them driving away. There were already regular first responders coming in to help anyone injured, including the policewoman who'd been thrown back at the start, so there wasn't any reason to stick around.

Rowan turned back after sitting down for two reasons: The tail, and so that the chair and mirrors wouldn't have to be adjusted repeatedly. This was becoming a regular habit, really. He started driving back toward Simon's house. "Well, how was that for a try-out?" said Simon, sounding deeply impressed with herself.

"You fight well enough, but you're very reckless," Rowan said.

"I don't feel like there's a lot that could really hurt me like this, honestly," she said. "Well, getting tackled into the concrete hurt a tiny bit but didn't even leave me with a scratch."

"Feeling like you're invincible is dangerous. If one of those things eats someone, defenses don't matter. So stay away from their mouths."

"I see I see."

She turned half around to look back through the side window. "Did we really need to go off in such a rush? I bet some of those people would've loved to chat for a minute or two."
"There would have been a crowd. Crowds are bad for badly injured people and first responders trying to help them."

"Mmm..okay, fair enough. But you've got a habit of doing this, right? Running off as soon as the monsters are dead?"

"You got a point?"

"Well, it makes for a bit of a standoffish image, you know."

"So?"

Simon replied with a silence long enough to suggest she was stunned. Rowan was paying attention to traffic rather than her expression, so he couldn't precisely tell. "...Rowan, I don't know if it's occurred to you yet, but you're famous? Everyone knows about the policeman who got fox-girl powers and then started the whole Initiative thing."
"...I didn't start it."
"Well nobody knows that. Your PR guys really dropped the ball if we're supposed to know who did start it, so the rumor is that you did. Have you just not been paying attention to the news at all?"

"...My focus has been farther out lately." Japan, Mexico. Calls to people all over the country, Canada, Europe; Light.

"Well, to put it bluntly, you are the news. You and every other 'empowered'—which I think is a terrible word for it, something pithier will stick much better. Including me, pretty soon! Why not 'vixens'? I mean, you already named your organization that and then called the people in it something else?"

"It's out of consideration for people who don't like being referred to as animals. Or female." This drive had felt a lot shorter on the way there...but then Rowan remembered that that had been with the sirens on and a lead foot.

"Hmph. I don't mind the word; do you? We should take a poll or something."

There was silence for a good few seconds, and then..."Oh! But I got off track. Look, I don't understand how you and the other vixens are acting, at all. Do none of you realize you're celebrities? In the public eye more every day? Especially the ones like you who, everyone knows your 'real' identity so it's super easy to follow you around or see what you're doing all the time. Why does everyone refuse to take interviews? Why was a normal guy up there explaining what the Initiative is and what it's trying to accomplish instead of you? I mean, you've already been on the news once, right?"

"I wouldn't have been able to answer all of their questions," he explained patiently. "I had barely started working with them myself at the time. And I don't really enjoy being asked a lot of questions with a mike in my face. Comes with being a cop."

"People want to know about us, though. You could show off some of your water powers on the air, probably millions of people would like to get a closer view of that!"
"What, like do a magic show on TV?" he said sarcastically.
"Yeah, but the magic is real! I dunno how to emphasize how important a difference that is!"

"Is this why you want to join us? To be famous?" Rowan tried to channel his other form and keep his voice calm, but that was not entirely doable.

"I'd be lying if I said it wasn't an attraction, but it's certainly not the only reason. It's increasingly clear you need my help! Plural you."

"And why is that."

"Rowan. Rowan. The world at large, is a mob with a mob's mentality. You've been with the police and you know what happens: The public gets angry at all police because of a few bad cops. That mob, right now, is feeling extremely charitable. They're curious and grateful, they like the Initiative and its allies for what it's done and what it's doing—but you know, everyone also knows what kind of power we have. I don't know about you, but I want to take all the advantage I can of that before the novelty wears off. I'd rather work now to become known and loved than wait around to be hated and feared. If the world turns against us then we can't even defend them. But if we ride this wave of positivity hard enough then we'll be America's personal friends before they can even start thinking of us as potential enemies."

They pulled up to Simon's house just then, and after pulling the parking brakes Rowan took a moment to put a hand to his face, shaking it slightly. She was...right. Well, at the least he couldn't think of any argument against what she'd just said. He hated the idea of being yet another troupe member of the public circus more than almost anything else, but among those more hated things was the possibility of the country or the world destroying itself by turning against all of them.

She didn't let up: "You can help your old coworkers out a lot too, you know. A famous person with the perspective of a police officer—a really good cop? I bet you could do a lot to fix the damage that's been done to the reputation of law enforcement as a whole."

He sighed. "I'm...not really the person to decide this," he said, and picked his elbow up off of the forms on the armrest. "Sign those, I'm going to make a call. You have plans for lunch?"

"Nope nope." She shook her head. "I should tell my lovely wife if I make some, though."
"I think you will be."

Rowan got out of the car, taking out his phone. Almost as soon as he did, it went off with a text. Light was responding, finally. Rowan took a moment to deal with that before making the call, figuring Simon would probably take the time to actually read those forms before signing, so there was no real hurry.