Midas Journal 27

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Entry: May 24

I switched back to being male again on Saturday because Brie wanted kisses.

Anyway, today at lunch Adena seemed really out of it. She sort of floated up to the table with her food, sat down, and stared into space in silence for a few minutes. It didn't seem like she was upset or anything, more like she was in some kind of happy daze, so for an awkward few minutes I didn't really want to say anything to bother her. Eventually, though, I had to ask.

“Are..you okay there?” No answer. “Hello?” I waved. “Earth to Adena?”
“Hmm?” She snapped out of it, seemingly noticing I was there for the first time. “Oh, hi. Sorry. Uh..”

“What's going on?” I've never really known her (or Aden before) to be much of a daydreamer.

“Uhm..sooo. Rhia figured me out Friday night. Or...well, actually she figured me out way before that and confronted me about it then.”
“You seem happier to say that than I expected..”
“Well. The thing is, she's not. I mean. Uhh..we're still, you know.” She made a vague gesture with her hands.
“You are?” I gave her a confused look. “So she was okay with you lying about...basically everything for weeks?”
“I know, right? She wasn't angry or anything! She just..uh..”

Adena closed her eyes and blushed. “Sh-she made me tell her the truth. Aaalll the truths. And then, her words were, 'I've had lots of boyfriends you know, but never one who was actually a pretty girl before!' I did apologize but she cut me off from explaining why, she just found the whole thing exciting. Um..I do too, really.”

“You found the whole deception 'game' fun,” I pointed out. “So...this is more exciting somehow?”

“Yes! You have no idea. It's—I lost that game and it's amazing. And she's amazing. She wanted me to show off a bunch of magic I could do, and so I did, and eventually I realized that I was basically doing anything she told me to, and answering all her questions totally honestly, all without even thinking about it!”

“I...feel like I'm missing some kind of social context,” I said, really not getting what was so great about what she was describing.

“Look, it's...maybe you'll get it if I put it this way. Since you became a werewolf and all...most werewolves like being in a pack and having an alpha, right?”
“I...guess?”

“I mean unless you're the kind of person who wants to be an alpha yourself, it's nice to have someone dominant around who'll make you say how you really feel even if you don't want to. Or..help you figure out what to do when you're not sure. Right?” she said excitedly.
“I dunno if I'd put it that way. Lue's just...I mean, I 'joined her pack' because I'm her friend and I don't really care that much about being in a pack or not. I get the sense we're not really a normal pack anyway, just some friends who get together on the full moon...”
“Uuhh, what about your girlfriend? Or boyfriend, whichever applies at the time.”
“What about her?”

“You do what she wants sometimes, right? Because, not because she's holding something over you or anything but because you just want to. It's...urrrgh, I don't know how else to describe it.” She leaned forward a bit, and said quietly, “Maybe it's just me, but it feels so good to have someone to submit to!” she said.

“Okay, maybe I understand that a little bit?” I said, feeling some heat in my cheeks on thinking about it. “I'm pretty sure our relationship is different from whatever you're thinking of, but as long as you're happy with it...”

“Oh, I am,” she said, leaning back again. “I'll bet you know exactly what I'm talking about though when I say we spent the night at her place, most of it petting each other~. Right?”
“Okay, that—yeah,” I said, my face feeling even warmer.

“Hahah, you do know!” she said, smiling. “Your girl-fur is way too floofy to be a coincidence. I bet your girlfriend's tail is like a huge pillow, too.”

I couldn't exactly deny that, but this was getting into embarrassing territory. Adena just laughed at my expression again and then changed the subject to something less extreme.

That isn't really the reason I started writing this, but since I've put a few conversations about their dates and relationship in here in the past I figure it makes sense to mention it. The real reason I started writing this goes back to yesterday, when Giri sent me a text. It said, “K, got someone who could use your special talent <3! Free tomorrow?”

There was some homework and spell-studying I was otherwise going to put off until today, but there was still plenty of time to get that done. I answered, “Sure. I always talk before touching though.”

Her response was “Good rule!” and then in a different text gave me a location to drive to..out in the woods. I thought that was a little weird, but remembered that things went okay the last time I agreed to meet with her, I could use my powers and/or new magic to avoid being in any actual danger, and that Brie trusted me. So I gave one more reply to confirm the time I expected to get there.

I drove out there, and pulled off onto a parking lot for a campsite nearby. Giri was already waiting in the lot, and waved me over.

“So..what's going on?” I said.

“Well..back when I was an old rage demon, I made lots of friends,” she said, starting to lead the way into some trees and distinctly not the clearly marked trail. “I decided to check on one of them recently, you know, see if he was still alive and all, and accidentally sorta woke up a dragon.”

“You woke up..wait.” I put two and two together while carefully navigating around some roots and quietly casting some spells to make myself temporarily immune to poison ivy and its worse cousins, just in case. “Your 'friend' is the dragon, right?”

“Yep!”

“I told him that I heard about him from, you know, my old self? He's been asleep in his treasure cave for over two hundred years. I tried explaining everything that's changed in that time, with where humanity is as far as society and technology goes...he got overwhelmed really fast.”

“That's...how does anything sleep that long? Shouldn't you starve to death after just a few months?” She started to answer, and I interrupted, “Wait, let me guess: Magic.”
“Yeah. Dragons just live on a different time-scale from the rest of us, even immortals like demons and stuff. That's also why they're so rare, especially these days. I've heard of a lot of them lately waking up from their slumber, not 'getting' the way the world is now, and then either going back to sleep or flying off to even more deserted places and living like hermits. I estimate it would take a few decades for him to learn English and understand enough of what's happened and what's going on right now to react even halfway normally just walking around our town. So that's what I told him, and he looked about ready to go back to sleep to be honest. He's never been the patient type, ironically. Sooo, I suggested that I had a friend, who might have a shortcut. He said 'like a knowledge spell?' and I said 'suuure'. Knowledge transfer spells aren't exactly a real thing, but mages have been trying to create them for years—for obvious reasons.”

“And I'm your shortcut,” I said. I looked around, and it occurred to me that the forest was clearing up a bit, and also that I had no idea just how we'd gotten to where we now were.

“Right. Getting turned into a girl is at most a minor inconvenience with the magic capabilities that a dragon has. Sooo, we're on our way to his hoard-slash-home to meet him. In case that wasn't clear.”

“No, I guessed as much.” The trees cleared even more to reveal a mountain. There are no mountains that close to my town, which meant that some kind of magic travel had happened. Either we went through a portal and I didn't notice, or maybe this was some kind of magically hidden pocket dimension including a mountain with a huge cave opening now in front of us. I guess it's interesting to know that this kind of thing exists, either way.

We stopped a short ways in front of the cave. “So...what's his name?” I said, realizing she hadn't shared that detail yet.

“Frelbayrentirth.” (I had her text me this later, or else I would have no clue how to spell it)

“What?”
“Frell. Bayy. Renn. Tee. Erth,” she repeated more slowly, one syllable at a time. “Dragon names tend to be long and hard to say, and they usually don't like to hear them mispronounced. Another thing that'd make modern society more than a little tough to deal with. But dragons have a lot to offer the world, not just money but a perspective I think we may be sorely lacking. That's why, Kael, even if he would be equally happy just going back to sleep I'd like to make a modern person out of my old friend. That, and it'd be nice to talk with him—or her I guess—about things nobody else remembers.”
“If he doesn't like the idea of his memories being shuffled around, I still won't do it,” I said, crossing my arms.
“I know. Really, I'm happy to hear that you have strict rules for this stuff. You ready to head in?”

Before that, I decided to try and say the dragon's name, and got something like “Frel-bearintenth.”

“Frelbayrentirth,” she repeated again, emphasizing the parts I got wrong.

“Ferrenbayrithel—uugh. It's just getting worse,” I said.

“Don't stress, I'll introduce you and you shouldn't need to say his name anyway.” She started to take a step forward.
“Wait, wait!” She stopped again, and turned back toward me. “You said he doesn't know English?”

“I'll use a translation spell, duh.”

“So magic has a universal translator but not information transfer?” I said.
“It's not universal. It's more like, I'm acting as your translator but without the part where I have to actually repeat what you say to each other. You'll know I'm speaking Draconic to him when my mouth doesn't match my words. And the grammar will be a little off because the languages are soo different from each other.” She put her hands on her hips. “Anything else?”
“No, I guess not.” To be honest I was just getting nervous about meeting a dragon at this point, from a general self-preservation perspective, even though she hadn't made him sound violent and even though I knew I had lots of options for self-defense if things did get violent. Just the idea of it was kind of imposing.

But we went anyway, walking up to the cave. Giri stopped just in front of it and put her hand up, moving it as if knocking on a door. It actually did touch something solid, sending white ripples out across some kind of magic-force-field spread out over the cave opening. After a few seconds, I could see the field opening up in a doorway shape in front of her, and she waved me through first before following.

We went down for a short while, enough for the sunlight to start getting dim, and then there were some kind of stones in the wall and ceiling giving off a pale blue glow to see by. Eventually the cave took a sharp left turn and suddenly we ended up in a gigantic chamber filled probably two stories high with a pile of treasure. I could see gold, silver, all kinds of gems, and the odd piece of armor or weaponry (enchanted, I guessed) sticking out of it too. It all glittered, even in the pale blue glow of the light-stone-things, and I was briefly stunned by just the size of it, craning my head up to try and comprehend what I was seeing.

I was snapped out of it by a strange, deep guttural growling sound, and immediately snapped my head in the direction it came from. About midway through I suddenly heard “—is it not?” instead of the rest of the growling. The dragon himself, in kind of a humanoid form, was the one talking, and he stepped a little closer to us. He was tall, like probably eight feet or more, and covered in scales with a lizard-like, horned head, gigantic wings and a long, thick tail coming out of his back, and his hands and feet were big and clawed, more animal than human. His scales were mostly red, with some white on the underside of the tail and his front; he was wearing some kind of gold-mail-cloth as a loose shirt and pants.

“Frelbayrentirth, hello once again,” said Giri in a friendly tone of voice, sounding perfectly calm. “This Kael, the one having the shortcut I mentioned.” I was still as nervous as before, and rattled from him coming out of the shadows talking like that.

“Uh—hello,” I said.

“Hmm.” He crossed his arms, looking down at me with what I was confident must be a very skeptical expression. His eyes actually glowed (or I might say it looked more like they burned) with a bright orange color. “You are just a werewolf knowing some magic. I see no knowledge spell nor anything else helpful to this one.”

“I get that a lot,” I said, drawing myself up slightly and taking a quick breath through my nose to calm down. “My power, isn't directly visible to 'magic vision' or things like that. I can at least show you that I am capable of more than I appear to be.”

“Very well.” He gestured vaguely.

So I reached up and tapped my ear a couple of times, thinking: Elf, Neko, Kitsune, back to usual werewolf self. The first change came along with me shrinking into female form; my tail also disappeared and my ears tingled slightly as they retreated halfway inward. Then a cat tail pushed its way out and my ears grew back, and then the tail puffed out into a fox tail and the ears grew much taller, before finally I changed back to normal—well, normal ever since I became a werewolf at least.

Frelbayrentirth watched the sequence of changes with a confused expression, his eyes still glowing brightly (I guessed at this point that it must be the same kind of thing as Ren did the other day, but probably more powerful). “I will admit to at least being fooled,” he said. “Your shapeshifting somehow the minds of watchers affects?”
“It's—well, I guess it is shapeshifting but it's kind of more than that,” I said. “My power shifts around reality—does that idea translate?” I checked with Giri. She nodded. “If I touch someone who wants something badly enough, then it transforms them not just physically, but gives them a new history that they and everyone else remember. Usually only the people who see the transformation remember both versions of events, with the 'new' version being the one everyone else remembers.” Well, the “seeing the transformation” part isn't why people remember or don't both versions of events but I didn't want to overcomplicate my explanation, and I thought it would best explain why Giri would know he'd changed afterward. “The power is activated by touching,” I added.

“This is a strong claim,” he said, looking between the two of us with his eyes narrowed. “If you wanted to take from my hoard I would not trust you from such evidence. But a touch has no chance of harming me.”

“Good. Listen, it does mess with your memories too, though,” I said. “And my power tends to change people it affects into girls, like you saw happen to me for a minute there. If it gets you what you want, are you okay with that?”
“Yes,” he said. “It remains to see if it will do anything at all, but if this is the effect it would acceptable.”

Really “looking” at him, I could see that there was something the dragon wanted badly enough for my power to emphatically indicate that it was going to work. Of course my power can't tell me what, but the context clues in this situation suggested that he really did want to learn about modern society and technology, enough to explore the world beyond his cave at least. So I stepped a little closer, reached out, and gently touched his hand, before taking a few steps back again.

For a few seconds, nothing seemed to happen. “Hrrm.” Frelbayrentirth put his hand up in front of his face as if he was feeling something in it, and then dropped it. “Is this all? If your claims true, it does not seem this power—” He was interrupted by some feeling, and shivered slightly. “Wait...it is...” Then he started to visibly change, beginning with the more beastly parts of his appearance. His muzzle started to shrink back, the claws on his hands and feet also shrinking and turning the appendages rapidly into more human ones. “What is...?” His eyes widened as this first change approached completion, and a second one started: Scales began to flake off of his body, a few falling first from his face as it flattened into the shape of a human one.

“This...I am...truly...?” More and more scales fell from his body, pooling onto the cave floor near his feet and beginning to reveal soft, pale skin underneath. Ears grew out from the sides of his head (where I guess there must have just been “ear holes” before), becoming long and pointy, and as the scales disappeared from the rest of his head, soft, dark hair sprang out across it, immediately giving him long bangs and falling down across the sides of his face.

I glanced over a Giri for a second; her arms were crossed and she had a bright smile on, clearly enjoying the show. “Rrghrrmm...” It seemed like she'd stopped “translating” at this point. I looked back to the dragon and saw his face lose its last few scales, leaving it soft and smooth; his hands and feet were the same way. Then he opened his mouth and let out a low, startled “Aah!” as he started to actually shrink. His height sank down, his frame visibly thinning, and his face became smaller, rounder, and prettier. The horns still coming out past his hair shrank too, rapidly losing length and uncurling themselves until they were just slightly curved out toward the middle with their points aimed straight upward. Even his wings shrank, mostly upward toward where they were attached to his back.

“Aah...!” His voice sounded less deep, a little younger. All of this shrinking caused his pants to fall down, and his shirt to hang awkwardly over his rapidly-narrowing shoulders, showing off a smooth, pale neckline and increasingly feminine legs. The scales were totally gone from his skin by this point, except for the tail and wings.

“I...I am...” he said, his lips moving with the words in a way that confirmed he was actually speaking English now instead of being translated. His height loss slowed down, but he continued to get slimmer, his hands and feet shrinking into small, delicate shape and his shirt threatening to fall right past his shoulders and off of him. He tugged awkwardly at it, beginning to blush. “This..is..” The masculinity was steadily draining out of his voice, too; I knew it wouldn't be long now. Finally, his height stabilized right as his eye level sank slightly below mine, and I saw his cheeks brightening even more, his wide eyes looking over at me. This was...really tall for a girl still, I thought, but then considered just how much he'd shrunk to get here. It had to be at least as drastic of a difference as Brie is from Brian.

“Aah..” A high, boyish voice, came from his throat, his tail whipping back and forth and his wings (now quite short, but also finished shrinking) flapped themselves in a way I somehow saw as nervous. “Th-this is really..” His voice sounded like a girl's. “I c-can't believe...” Then its pitch dipped down again, maturing, but only sounding more feminine. The dragon's eyes closed, his blush deepening yet again. “Rrrrraaaaaa~aaaAAAH!” It was kind of a startled roar, accompanied by a gout of flame from his mouth, and I perceived that there was now a girl standing in front of me; the change of sex was complete.

“O-oh!” She looked down at herself, still blushing, and tugged awkwardly at the shirt again. Both it and the pants below began to gain a soft golden glow. Her hips began to visibly push apart beneath the shirt, and she let out a slightly longer “OoOooh~!” as two little bumps appeared on her chest as well. The glow on the clothes brightened steadily; by this point they seemed to be more made of light than of material, and they began to shift and move around all on their own. The pants crawled up her legs, pulling tight and splitting apart as they made their way up to her thighs; the shirt abruptly shrank close against her slim, narrow form, the hem fluttered out into a skirt-shape, and some of the glow detached out into a jacket while the inner part grew frills around the collar and down the middle.

She panted, huffing out more small puffs of fire and smoke, as her chest continued to visibly grow. “Oh, aah..aaAAaah..Rraaarrr...!” The glow faded from her clothes as she squirmed slightly in place, her legs wiggling against each other. It left behind a black pair of stockings with a decorative pattern at the top, a short red plaid skirt and a dressy top complete with a red part around her slim stomach with some yellow buttons, a frilly white undershirt, a blue jacket and a red ribbon tied around the collar. Then she let out another small “Aaah~!” as her breasts gave one last push forward, and the transformation completed.

The dragon-girl panted, still exhaling fire or hot dark smoke, while her blush slowly faded and her eyes opened up. I began to remember coming here to visit the house of one of Giri's...friends, a female dragon by the name of Frelye—only to be surprised, of course, when the 'house' was a cave under a mountain that didn't fit geographically into the area near those woods at all (so at least that part was still the same).

She bent forward slightly, nervously adjusting the ribbons. “Th-this really...I hardly know what to say, and that is a new one for me,” she said. Then she stood up fully again, and looked to Giri with a smile. “I..thank you immensely. I haven't felt...anything like that in centuries. Or, I suppose I have, but I haven't?”
“I know what you mean,” said Giri.
“I presume...Giriah? What brought you to...turn to this sort of thing?”
“I was gravely wounded defending the world,” she said, crossing her arms. “We really could've used a dragon's help at the time, but someone was busy hibernating.”

“Oh, well, it worked out in the end, didn't it? And you,” she added, turning to me. “This truly is an amazing power! I don't just feel young again, I really am! Look at me, I'm only seventy-two years old!” she said excitedly, with a small twirl.

“Uh..” I was going to ask something about that number.
“Different time-scale, remember,” Giri reminded me quietly.

Frelye nodded. “The first few centuries after adulthood are a dragon's prime egg-laying days, if you know what I mean. After that we start running out of energy and needing to recharge our batteries more and more often, until eventually someone stumbles into the hoard and gets a lucky stab in...or, that's how it usually goes anyway. Oh wait, batteries!” she said excitedly. “I understand that now! And—so many other things, too! This is great! I can't wait to go out into the sun and actually speak with people again! Even though, I feel as if I just did that yesterday.”
“I know that feeling too,” said Giri. “I'll join you if you want.”

“Hmmnn, oh but wait! I should actually get something to thank you for this!” she turned over toward the giant pile of treasure (which I'm pretty sure was still the same size after the 'reality shift', and had to guess from that was partially some kind of inheritance from her former self) and dove toward it without warning, practically going swimming through it.
“Uh..” I looked at Giri and she made a gesture like putting a ring on her finger and pointed vaguely toward the treasure pile. “Th-that's okay, I don't really...um...”

Her head popped up out of somewhere midway up the pile. “What, are you worried about it being an engagement ritual or somethin'? You're cute and all but you're not even twenty, it'd be like kissing a hatchling to me, eww!” And then sank back inside. “I'll get something nice for Giri too while I'm at it!”

Looking back at the demon, she shrugged to me. I have to guess this was something that used to be true but isn't for younger dragons, or at least for this younger dragon. Anyway, I really hope so. Anyone could lie about their intentions and then claim to have meant something else all along, and with as long as I'll probably live and the 'dragon time-scale' thing there is some room to worry. But in the moment, I decided it was better not to offend her by refusing a gift even though I could probably just 'create' any object I wanted with my powers anyway.

While she was still busy digging around, I looked back at the spot Frelye had been standing on when she changed. The scales I'd seen falling off of him onto the ground were gone. “Hm.”
“What?” Giri followed my eyes.
“It seems like my power's been getting flashier lately, is all. Lots of 'special effects' like the scales coming off earlier, or what happened with you...”
“Maybe. I'd have to know how the other changes looked to make any meaningful comparison.”

The only other “unusual special effects” I could think of was when Annabel changed and got...sort of lifted out of the chair at first. That seems like it had to do with “healing” the paralyzed legs, and Giri had some effects that I would guess were like healing magic too, before the change actually started. Thinking about it more, Giri and now Frelye probably had the most ridiculous amount of magic power before changing out of anyone. So maybe that somehow plays into it? If I wanted to test that, I would have to change someone with no magic and then someone with a lot of magic, and it'd have to be now, after I've seen the special effects, in case it actually is just some kind of progression with my power actually becoming fancier-looking over time...

I was interrupted from thinking about that by the dragon-girl popping back out of the gigantic pile and onto her feet again, even her clothes seemingly untouched from the journey through tons of solid metal. “Here we are~!” She presented me with a ring with a small, spherical rock set on it that glowed faintly silver, and I eyed it suspiciously for a second or two.

“Now listen, I get it already.” Frelye put her free hand on her hip. “You must have someone else in your life, considering you came here with a succubus and haven't so much as flirted with her,” she said. “Furthermore, my guess is that your girlfriend is a fellow werewolf 'cause that's pretty common, always has been. Right?”
“Uh...yeah.” Although either of us could make that not true whenever we wanted, the werewolf selves had sort of become (or always had been in her case) the default ones.
“Mm-hm! So, this is a Moonstone ring. They say that the stone fixed on it carries the light of a thousand full moons.” She leaned in slightly. “But actually it just takes in whatever light hits it and converts it to moonlight, storing it up and glowing like this when it's full.” And stood up straight again. “If you wear it then you can project the moonlight out of it at will. A long time ago, they used to use stuff like this to sniff out werewolves and chase 'em out of town, but I imagine you—or her—can find a better use for it.” Then she offered it to me again.

“Okay then...thank you,” I said, taking it.

“Aaand,” she turned toward Giri. “How much of your old magic do you remember?”
“Literally all of it,” she smirked. “I have a way easier mana source too, now.”
“I'll bet. Well, then this should be helpful.” Her hand opened to reveal a small black gem, shaped like a diamond and glowing faintly purple.
Giri picked it up gently and examined it against the light of one of the glowing stones above for a moment. “How do you even have one of these? I thought they were all destroyed!”
“Well, you know, collectors do have this awful habit of wanting the forbidden things all the more. At any rate, I'm sure I can trust you with that.”

“Uh..”

“Oh, this is a demonic focus,” Frelye said, noticing my confusion. “It's good for reducing the cost of any spell using dark magic, and/or making them way more powerful. Since all demon magic starts off as dark magic, it's especially useful to demons. All the big ones were shattered several centuries ago to prevent a certain disaster from being repeated, and there are some trying to track down all the small ones to destroy them even to this day.”

Giri pocketed the focus thing for now, and I did the same with the ring. “Good things in small packages, eh?”
“Yep,” Frelye nodded. “Most of my real collection is items smaller than a golfball. All the gold and silver and stuff is good for looking at and sleeping on, but there's nothing particularly special about it.”
“You could destroy the precious metals market by selling a tenth of that,” I pointed out.

“We dragons are always doing our part to keep the economy from collapsing,” she joked. “Anyway, let's get out of this place!”

I followed them out and ended up spending the rest of the afternoon with them. Frelye went excitedly from one place to another, treated us to dinner as an extra thanks, and eventually we went back to the parking lot and I drove home, leaving them both walking back to her hoard. The entire time they were talking like old friends, discussing things that happened and people who lived centuries ago. I asked questions once or twice but mostly just let them hang out and made some mental notes to look a few of those things up if possible. With whatever Giriah did half a century ago, this makes at least two different major crises the world has faced that I never had any idea about, and neither did anyone else with no magic. Even my “new” memories as a werewolf had never heard about this stuff, which means it's probably not even well-known in the “magical world”, either. It opened my eyes to an entire history of world-shaking events happening behind “normal” humanity's back, and I feel like I should be studying up on it all. I mean, if someone with a lot of power did something wrong before, then I should avoid doing that, right? Maybe it would give me a better idea of what I should do.

The knowledge of that history might be not so widespread for a reason; maybe it's something like horcruxes where public knowledge would risk causing a lot more murders or worse. I don't want to risk using my power to “learn about” those events because I might accidentally change something about those important moments of the past that led to things being relatively peaceful now. I have at least Threa, Giri and now Frelye that I can ask for more details of what events they know about, and maybe they have connections to a few more people, or Threa specifically might have some books I could read on the subject. I just need to make it clear that I want to know specifically so I can eventually do the right thing, and not so I can cause another disaster like whatever happened ages ago.

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Of all things, I finally had an idea for another of these entries! First I just had a vague idea for "how about a dragon next?", then I managed to find a picture I liked, and then I finally came up with a good reason for Kael to even meet a dragon in the first place.

Battle Vixens! - 36

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Episode 36: Garde

As part of getting things running again, the college had offered Dr. Quinn (both of them) an extra TA to be in some of their classes, able to fill in and continue the class if something should force them to leave in a hurry. Whoever volunteered for that work would receive extra pay, which aside from free food was the best possible motivator for a grad student. Besides having the freedom to run off immediately in case of monster attack, the extra help itself was nice. Today Rory was having to catch up on dissections scheduled all throughout the previous week, and the current one was right after lunch. She made a point of letting them know that she had just eaten lunch at a normal time as an example to the more squeamish of what kind of fortitude one needed to build up to be a biologist—or any other kind of scientist that dealt with some kind of dead bodies on a regular basis.

She occasionally glanced out the window, although that was clearly unnecessary with the app installed on her and probably half the class's phones. They had supposedly worked on the alert noise after the initial testers complained about how loud and jarring it was, and now it was supposed to only be just loud enough to get everyone's attention. There were kids handling sharp and/or pointy instruments in here, so hopefully the second pass had done a bit better of a job.

And so, about halfway through the lab...there it was. Their strategy seemed to be to start the sound much quieter and gradually raise the volume until either the noise finished or you tapped the button to make it shut up. After doing the latter (and mentally noting the location of the monster) Rory nodded to the TA and went for the door, giving a brief wave to the class. "Back in a few! Stay safe, kids. I'll still be expecting your lab reports by tomorrow!"

Already in fox form, Rory opened the back door to the building with just under the force that probably would've broken it and found a blond-haired puppet with a naginata just standing there a few feet away from the entrance, the weapon at her side. Her mouth seemed to twist itself open to speak in a halting, stilted manner: "Doctor, Quinn."

Rory knew that the weapon was likely magic, and didn't know what other magic she had available to attack with. But whoever was in control probably expected her to say or ask something, so she took advantage of that, instead pumping up her speed as much as possible, taking a big step toward her, feinting a right hook before forward-sidestepping around an instinctive counter from the naginata, grabbing the weapon and wrenching it out of the puppet's hands and bashing her over the head with the nearest end. "Thanks for the donation, bye!" And she punched its head the rest of the way off for good measure before continuing on her way.

It did occur to her that this strategy probably wouldn't work a second time.

---

"Doctor, Quinn."

"You know, whenever someone says that I have to double take to figure out whether they're talking to me or to my wife." Clark removed the needle from her ear, suspecting that the brown-haired puppet with a longsword in her hand was not standing just outside the doorway to wish her a good afternoon.

"Don't, attempt, to leave. I have, business, with Light."

"Ohh, you're here to change the lightbulb? It's right in there," she pointed behind herself with a thumb.
"Ha ha." She raised her free hand and some of the grass next to the sidewalk suddenly turned into big, thorny vines, lashing out at Clark. She got away from one but the other wrapped around her right arm. "Stay."

"I don't know if you get the news wherever you really are," said Clark, "but if you did, you'd know my lovely wife is not the sort of person you want to provoke." She struggled slightly, letting go of the needle and allowing the puppet to watch it fall to the ground. The thorns cut into her skin a bit, nd the girl came a little bit closer with that sword—but her eyes were off the needle now. Clark concentrated on moving it without moving her hands in any obvious way.

"Do I, hear, fear?"

"Who's afraid? You haven't announced an intent to kill me yet, just acted really hostile and threatening with your every move!" She just needed another second or two. "I'll tell you a li'l secret, though."

"What."

"Neither am I," Clark grinned pleasantly.

"Neither—?"

The needle had made its way into her left hand, and she pulled it. Sharp string pulled taut around the vine, cutting it off from the ground. More string pulled taut around the puppet's ankle, tripping her in the middle of a small step and sending her stumbling forward toward Clark. She moved aside as the vine rapidly withered and crumbled out of existence, and shoved the girl to one side as hard as she could, knocking her the rest of the way over onto the ground. Then she got moving, making some distance between herself and the puppet while turning the needle over to the bulb side to quickly heal the minor but bleeding cuts on her arm.

More vines jumped up out of the ground, aiming to whip at or grab her; these she was a bit more prepared for, dodging some and throwing her needle just right to catch the others on string. She turned back toward the puppet as it came charging, sword raised, and twirled the needle on a few loops around the weapon before jerking it to one side, throwing the entire body off balance and making her stumble several steps to one side while Clark ran the opposite way.

This was not a good long-term plan. Literally every other person she'd met with powers—well, except for Amory that is—had some huge advantages when it came to one-on-one combat with another person. Clark, on the other hand, had no strength, decent speed but little endurance, and a lot of fancy tricks that didn't work well without either distance, the element of surprise, or a convenient distraction. Having spent up the second one, the first was proving difficult to maintain, so hopefully the third would show up soon. She couldn't even try to close the gap by borrowing Rory's power because of that ominous line about Light, which meant another puppet was waiting for her wife, and/or (more likely) that Rory was already much farther along on the way to helping Light with that "business".

The puppet righted herself and threw her sword at Clark; she ducked aside of it and then responded to some vines grabbing her ankles with a quick twirl of string to cut herself free. Another vine jumped out of the grass into her opponent's hands, re-forming the longsword, and she took advantage of that moment of immobility to charge close and give a hard slash which Clark just barely dove out of the way of, rolling along the ground briefly before successfully popping back onto her feet. More whipping, thorny vines appeared and she hopped awkwardly back four or five times, watching the puppet run up and prepare another strike...any time now, distraction!

A small fireball hit one of the nearby vines and spread from that point all throughout the vine and several of the others near it, turning them to ash in under a second. It failed to spread to the grass below at all. Fire...wasn't supposed to work that way, but apparently this was a magic-magic interaction. Either way, it freed Clark up to run from the puppet while Gemma's bodies made the rest of the distance to them, and she dove out of the way of one last sword slash, rolling through the grass again and stopping on her back, sitting up just as Plus's blades clashed against the weapon.
"Are you hurt?" Minus was next to her, offering a hand, which she took to stand up again.
"No, but I think Light's in danger. Let's take her out quick." The longer reach and superior strength of the puppet let her throw Plus's knives right out of her hands, but she responded with a sudden jab of lightning, making her convulse for a second instead of getting a chance to follow up.

Minus moved between Clark and the puppet, throwing some shadow-blades and more fire at her. A wall of vines rose up to catch the attacks, and turned to ash as soon as the fire connected. Plus raised both of her hands and tilted the concrete beneath the puppet's feet, throwing her into another off-balance stumble sideways. Clark tossed her needle up over Minus's head and forward, wrapping it around the puppet's neck while she was still trying to regain her footing. The needle returned along the same path and then was pulled taut, causing the puppet to drop her weapon and grasp at the cutting string with both hands, staggering backwards.

Plus ran closer and jabbed blades into the puppet's chest before letting loose with more electricity channeled through them, making the body convulse even more. Then Minus run up next to her other body and threw a larger ball of fire from her hands at the puppet's center, scorching through her clothes and producing a stench of burned plastic. It finally broke Clark's string and lashed out with the sword, making both bodies scatter, but it didn't seem like it was going to last much longer.

More vines rose up, trying to whip at both of Gemma's bodies; Plus dodged around them while Minus destroyed them with fire. Seeing that she was busy with that, Clark sent her needle back at the puppet, striking its pointy end right into the burned part of the stomach, and then..pulling. This was a new thing to do, not exactly a physical pull, but something like the opposite of what she did to heal people with the bulb-end. The puppet's arms and tail went limp, its head falling forward and its legs seeming to struggle momentarily at holding its own weight. Gemma saw the opportunity this provided and threw a couple of arrows right into the puppet's neck, which finally destroyed it.

Clark inhaled deeply and let it out in a quick puff, drawing the needle back to herself and instinctively stowing it back in the usual spot in her ear. "No time to rest. You know where, right?"
"Yes!" both of Gemma answered, and took off at a run. Clark followed as quickly as she could, which after tiring herself out with that previous fight was hardly enough to keep up. She noticed Plus pulling way ahead of Minus, and the part of her mind that always overanalyzed everything wondered if there were actual slight differences in the bodies' physical capabilities. It wouldn't be surprising...nor should it be too difficult to test if they got a chance to speak after this business was over with.

---

Almost as soon as class was out, Blake heard the alarm going on his phone. He had wanted to get the "secret" version of the app from Amory but basically forgot about it until it was morning and he was already gone. This one was good enough, though, reporting an attack incoming at...
"Aww, seriously?" he growled under his breath. There wasn't anyone close enough to hear it, and anyway there were lots of reasons someone might say that about a reported monster attack. After a moment's indecision, he dropped his backpack in some bushes (remembering the "pink backpack" incident last Monday) and went into a gap between two of the buildings, quickly looking around to make sure there were no cameras or people to see before changing forms.

After that...it was back to the quad again. There were people running away from there already, and the crowd parted to let her through as soon as they saw her, a few of them yelling words of encouragement or cheering her on. That was..new. Not necessarily a bad thing, but definitely felt a little weird.

There was a distinct multitonal, unnatural roar from the direction of the quad as she approached. Its source came into view not long afterward: Another huge bear-thing just like her first introduction to the trouble a week ago. However, it wasn't alone; it made that noise as it swiped at a dark-haired puppet and its claws met a wall of shadow, the caster dancing backwards out of its range before dropping the wall.

"Well, if it, isn't, Light," she said in a distinctly stilted manner with constant, unnatural pauses.

The monster seemed to notice her and charged, aiming a swipe. Light jumped away, giving it an image to chase. "So you can talk through them." She raised her sword. "Too bad there's nothing to say."

Light ran at the puppet, going around two or three raised walls of shadow before just slashing through another, spreading the light out from her sword to destroy it the same as she had some of Minus's crescent blades before. Her next strike met the top of a scythe and then a quick swipe from the puppet's other hand forced her back again.

The noise attracted the monster, and then they both jumped backwards while it slammed its entire body into the ground they'd just been standing on. Light directed it toward shadow-girl with some flashy illusions.

She fell into the ground—the monster's shadow, rather—and popped back out next to Light. She saw this happen just in time to raise her sword in a defensive posture, but the puppet didn't attack. "You must, understand, what I'm, after."

"Look, if we're gonna do this could we at least change venues? I'm just really getting sick of having duel-slash-conversations in this spot, you know?" Light talked loudly, at the same time leading the monster back around with an image of herself, and then jumped back away while its arm went arm straight into the puppet's side, sending her flying.

Light's hand moved reflexively, swinging the sword to catch a bolt in midair and knock it away. It would've gone by a few inches in front of her face otherwise; just a warning shot to get her attention. Another puppet, green-haired—the one that had attacked Ning before—stood there with a crossbow drawn, then lowered it to her side. "You jump, in front, of attacks, to save others, even those who, wrong you." Light kept track of what was happening with the monster: It was still chasing the shadow-girl puppet as she got up and began running away—circling around, making more walls behind her to slow it down. "But you, never, even stop, to talk, on the news. You, don't want, power, or fame, or fortune. Many, don't, understand, just what, you do want." She kept her own sword at the ready, and listened carefully in case of a third puppet.

It was clear enough where this was going. "Just get on with attacking me already, you're not gonna like my answer." She raised her free hand in a 'come-on' gesture.

A shadow spike started to rise up from under Light, and rather than moving she concentrated nearby light into a birght aura around herself, destroying it before it could turn solid. Then the puppet in front of her dropped the weapon and chopped with her hand, forcing a dodge with a horizontal wind-wave. Light jumped over it and forward, slashing at her and moving into a small series of strikes and dodges. The monster followed the shadow-girl into position then and barreled through, swiping at them both and missing while Light went invisible again and used her power to highlight the wind puppet as much as possible to the monster so it would keep chasing her. A pair of scythes came straight at her right away, and she started blocking and dodging the shadow-girl's attacks after that.

"What use, is a person, sleeping forever? What are, a few lives, already lost? Already, previously, given? To save, many?"
Light waited until she tried slicing with both at once, and moved around the attack, catching the underside of both in her sword. They struggled against each other for a moment. "Listen very carefully: The ends don't justify the means. If your plan to save the world involves murdering innocent people then you're doing it wrong!!!" This she punctuated by grabbing the hilt with a second hand and giving a sudden, hard shove, jerking both weapons out of the puppet's hands and following it with a swift stab to her chest.
"You will, regret, making an, enemy—"
Light twisted the sword, pushing it the rest of the way through. "That's my line." Then kicked the puppet off, letting it fall apart into dust.

The monster swung back around and charged at Light, along with a number of bolts shot to either side of it in an effort to keep her in its path. She squatted, preparing to give her jump height a real test, and then saw a blur long and thin enough a spear go sailing over her head straight into the beast's chest with enough force to pierce the whole way through it and knock it over on its back.

"What took you so long?" Light stood up and turned her sword around, offering the hilt to Rory as she came up next to her.

"Some people can't read the 'no solicitors' sign."

"Do you actually have one of those or are you just—"

They scattered to either side from a barrage of bolts, Light going around to deal with the source directly and trusting Rory to probably take care of the monster issue, or at least distract it long enough.

Light spoke the phrase to borrow Ning's sword if she wasn't using it, and it appeared in her hand. When more wind-waves came at her she was able to cancel them out with some slashes of that, the electricity clashing right through them. Coming up on the puppet, her first slice was shielded by the crossbow, breaking it, and the next few were dodged. Getting tired of this, Light fired as high-powered a laser as she could at the puppet's back and then followed along with her sidestep out of it, slashing across the torso and tearing a visible gash through her plastic-like skin.

In a brief flash of apparent self-control, she looked down at the wound and back up again. "It still hurts, you know," she said—the actual person, going on the theory that their consciousnesses were still there and not just being faked by the puppeteer. "Every time. Wish you'd just end it quick."

"Okay—" Light was interrupted by the crossbow being swung at her like a club, and only just dodged it. The puppet's arm was raised for a downward follow up, but she jerked slightly from something hitting her in the back—several somethings in rapid succession.
"...Oh." The puppet collapsed into dust, and three knives, a piece of ice, an arrow, and a sharp bit of shadow all fell out of her back. Both of Gemma were standing there behind her.

"Are you—" "—okay?"

Light looked over to see what was happening; the monster connected a hit and sent Rory flying, but she kept the sword in her hand and drove it into the ground to help her land quicker and more stably before popping back to her feet and charging back at it again. "Little winded at this point. Help Rory out?" Light pointed to that whole situation with Ning's sword.

"Right!" both bodies said simultaneously, running that way.

Light's instincts were still on high enough alert that she whirled around weapon-first on hearing someone walking up behind her. But it was just Clark, and still a few yards off. "Hey, you take any hits?"

"No."
"Good to hear," she indicated a shredded sleeve. "I had some trouble myself. Gemma helped." Then she turned toward the monster, and Light did the same. It was trying to grab Rory when Minus ran up and threw more shadow crescents through the offending arm. Then Rory threw Light's sword into its stomach.

"Throwing borrowed weapons is really not a good habit."

"I'll...mention that."

Feeling she'd had enough of a break by now, Light retrieved her own weapon in her left hand and ran at the monster, jumping at its back, stabbing both blades into it, and pulling them out again with a backflip. The monster whirled around and swiped at an illusion going the opposite direction for Light while Rory ran up from behind and caught it by the ankle, using both hands to throw it over onto its back. A big ball of string from Clark fell straight down onto its stomach, making it spout black mist; Gemma threw in some lightning and Light slashed at it a few times for good measure. It made the usual multi-roar of pain and swiped at the air above it, trying to right itself. Rory took a couple of knives from Gemma, jumped on top of the injured stomach and stuck the weapons in as far as they would go, then did the same thing with the two swords offered by Light. Then she rolled off when the monster tried to grab at her again, and Light spoke Ning's phrase to hit her sword with a bolt of lightning from the sky, which finally destroyed it.

The four of them (five bodies) stood around where the monster was for a moment, everyone except for Rory catching their breath. "Welp, I got a lab to get back to," said Rory. "Someone else handle the news crews?"

After seeing a bit of a helpless look on Gemma's faces, Clark sighed. "I'll do it. But first—" she turned to Light, who had already gone invisible to anyone but the fox-girls nearby. "It sounded like the puppeteer really wanted to talk to you, like in private. She...say anything interesting?"

"...Everyone is the hero of their own story," Light said. "She wanted to convince me to not help Rowan, or probably just to kill me if I didn't agree with her reasoning."

"She tried to stop me with one puppet, but didn't really succeed," said Rory. "You?"
"Yeah," said Clark.

"That makes four bodies, almost half, spent here," said Light. "So at least some of the pressure was off the city today from that move. I'll..get a call through to Rowan detailing what happened, and tell you exactly what she's about later. You want to duck out?" she asked Gemma.

"Um—" "—one of me, at least. Am—" "—uh, you know who is waiting to see if we're okay."

"Alright, just have whichever follow me."

Light headed off, Plus following. "I thought you entirely wanted to flee the scene," Clark said behind them.
"Um, I'm just really nervous about, talking to people and answering so many questions by myself," she said. "I wanna try and get used to it, though, if I can."

"Are you..?" said Plus. "Um, nervous about talking?" she clarified, in case the conversation with her other body hadn't made it clear.
"Not really...there's a lot I could probably say." Light shrugged. "I just...I started running away like this because, well, I could, and the less I directly answer people's questions the less details I accidentally let out that give away who I really am. Oh, and the first time it really happened was right after Rowan was still threatening to shoot me?"

"Hmn. So, eventually, you'll.."
"Yeah, most likely. Right now, I just think getting through to Rowan is more important. Orr, that's just an excuse I'm making to put it off. I guess maybe I am a little nervous? I just don't know how to deal with the idea of being famous, of a lot of people wanting to talk to me or hear from me or thinking they 'know me'."

"I feel that, too," she said. "When I was in the city, Simon—Petra, had some things to say about fame..."

---

If the title of Episode 32 still doesn't make sense to you, then I suspect this one will be even more obscure. But the title of 35 is a big hint to both.

Battle Vixens! - 35

 First / Previous / Next / Latest

---

Episode 35: The Promoted Pawns

For a second time, Rowan awoke in the strange room and immediately began changing to the smaller, female form, signalling another talk with the one responsible for everyone's powers. She sat up and looked around, feeling vaguely impatient. That woman had a sense of whimsy and theatrics that Rowan simply did not share, especially when lives were at stake; if she wanted to talk then there wasn't really a good reason to not just already be in the room before waking her up here.

Seeing that that was not happening, she sighed to herself and swung around and dropped off onto her feet, instinctively stretching for a couple of seconds after landing. Her clothes were the same small, blue nightgown as before, which evidently had a hole for the tail to come through in the back. Then Rowan glanced around the empty room again. "You are already here, aren't you?" she said impatiently.

"I would say I've always been here, but my real meaning would be obscured by the language," her voice responded from a couple of inches behind Rowan, making her jump, whirl around, and then immediately take several steps back. "Hahah! Got you," she smirked down at her. "The serious types are always the funniest to startle. Aww, you're even pouting a little bit~."

"I am not." Rowan realized her expression probably did strongly resemble a pout, but the word didn't accurately describe her emotion at the moment. She crossed her arms and looked aside while the woman giggled at her again.

"I suppose you're disappointed, however. I didn't kill anyone."

"On the contrary, I'm proud of you and the Hero for putting together my other clues." She knew that Rowan knew her nickname for Light, obviously. "There is one person I thought you might be willing to kill, but you're just too fatherly for that," she added, reaching over and ruffling the top of her hair. She growled under her breath but let it happen, imagining dozens of ways the woman could do this anyway if she tried to step away or resist. "Anyway, since you have the full extent of those powers, I thought I'd tell you a little bit about the person I gave them to first."

"Go ahead, then."
"Hmmmn.." She gave a 'thinking' expression, and then suddenly collapsed backwards as if into a chair. In fact, there was a chair there which Rowan knew for a fact hadn't been before. "Take a seat?" she offered, waving toward somewhere behind Rowan. Rather than trust that a chair would just be there, she turned and looked and then carefully sat down, instinctively crossing her legs not long afterward.

"Just a couple of weeks before, he found out someone close wasn't quite as good of a person as he always thought they were, in the form of a police raid turning up all sorts of awful substances in their house. He refused to believe it, even though it was perfectly obvious, and turned his anger at your people. In his little head, the only explanation was some kind of corrupt set-up. Do you remember who she killed first?"
"Yes," Rowan nodded. The whole thing had started with her appearing before an officer and just picking him up with one of the water-tentacle-things before slamming him repeatedly into the ground, well past the point of killing him. That one...had been a closed-casket funeral.
"That was the one she fixated on. Dreamed of killing."

"...And you gave her the means to do it."

She closed her eyes in a perfectly serene smile. "Don't imagine that I have a sense of guilt."

"I was merely stating a fact."

"Heheh. I suppose you were."

"Anyway, that wasn't all there was to that person. People are almost never just one thing, at least not until the moment of their death. He wasn't right in the head, obviously, but a part of him knew that. Somewhere in there, that mind remembered what it was like to be sane and rational and wanted that back, worse than anything. But that rage wasn't to be denied either, and you know very well which side showed at the end."
"I suppose you'll inform me that that is the reason I talk like this," Rowan said.
"At first, to some extent. The new power wasn't very well meshed with your mind." She brought her hands up next to each other with the fingers spread, placing them tip-to-tip. "You even had a few outbursts, but eventually you latched on to that calm and rational part because it was useful." Her hands moved together so the fingers of each hand fit in the gaps between those of the other. "By the time you gained the full extent of that power, it had an expression that made sense to you. But the acceptance of one side drags the other along behind it." Her eyes seemed to glint for a moment, and her hands jerked close together. "You still have the capacity to go into a frenzy when you really want to, don't you?"

"I am well aware of that already," she said.

She dropped her hands back into her lap. "Of course you are. I just wouldn't want you to hesitate out of worry that anything you're feeling isn't 'you'. You may have taken this power from someone else, but by now it's well and truly yours."

"...Frankly, you don't stike me as one typically concerned for the well-being of others."

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not," the woman gave a smile that bared sharp teeth. "But you do have a new enemy, don't you? And it wouldn't be sporting if you got uneven footing against her just because you doubted your own thoughts. She certainly doesn't hesitate to go for the kill. But I don't suppose I had anything much to worry about in the first place, did I? You know what to do with a mad dog."

While Rowan was trying to mentally process that and come up with an answer, she abruptly leaned forward and grabbed her ears, running her hands all over them. Rowan involuntarily leaned forward into it for a few seconds, and then back again, violently enough to knock the chair over behind her and land on her back.

"AaAhahaha! That reaction was priceless!" Rowan pushed herself to her feet and backed away several steps, growling audibly this time, and the woman stood up as gracefully and calmly as ever.

"I suppose now isn't a good time to ask if you can get them to change my nickname? 'The Giver' makes me sound like one of your machines, you know, like an automated teller? It doesn't convey much beyond a singular function. But I do a lot more than give out powers."

Rowan made an effort to calm down. "You already know that I did not come up with or publicize that name."
"Oh, of course. But what would you call me, I wonder?"

"Chaos, maybe." Her ears were still folded back, and she still had a tinge of embarrassment in her cheeks from knocking the chair over..and what had preceded it.

"Aah, that's a good one," she pointed at Rowan. "I do love my upheavals. At least try and mention it to the other blessed ones you know? Maybe it'll catch on." With a wink, the woman disappeared, and she began to wake from the dream.

Sitting up in her bed at the VI headquarters, Rowan tried to imagine what, from the Giver's perspective, the purpose of that entire conversation could be. Obviously there was some extent to which she just liked to tease people and found Rowan's reactions entertaining. It was clear enough she was also eager for some bloodshed wherever it could be had, and took the opportunity to further encourage the eventual killing of the puppeteer, although she probably knew from the start that things were likely to head down that road. But there was something else...

She had described the taken power like a separate personality, or some kind of "personality attachment" even, which tried to merge with her own usual one. According to—"Chaos"—her powers "truly belonged" to her not because she had full control of them now, but because they had successfully "latched on" to her own mentality.

And the person she thought Rowan would be willing to kill was obviously Dawn, given her history. (The night before, she had asked the others to start calling her by that name, feeling it fit the look she was stuck with better than the real one.) Dawn was also the only person nearby with a taken power, and her behavior lately had seemed slightly...inconsistent with what Rowan was able to get of Donald Keller. It seemed like a positive change, beginning to move past the death of a loved one, but...

Just in case, maybe it was time to try and find out what Cynthia had wanted.

---

Truth be told, Simon wasn't terrible at math. He could work out in his head how much the paint and other materials that went into a work had cost and multiply that by a decently large number to come up with an appropriate price. He could do finances; he did the family taxes every other year and came out just as well with the IRS as his wife did. Calculations were fine, but statistics? Not his strong suit.

The Initiative was trying very hard to come up with some sort of predictive algorithm to figure out where and when a monster was likely to show up next. It was going to be a new feature for the app, so as an artistic consultant for how said app should visually look, of course he was hastily ushered into a meeting about this completely technical matter. He sat in the back of the room, drummed the eraser of a pencil against the desk and scribbled feverishly on a notepad, trying not to go mad from all the talk of confidence intervals and percentage thresholds and so on and so forth. The sad thing was that his wife probably would've loved to rub shoulders with a few of these people, and would maybe even have a relevant opinion about all of this, but she had gremlins to teach right now and wouldn't have taken a day off even if they had known about this ahead enough of time to tell her about it.

They didn't attack at night. They always attacked outside. They seemed to prefer the afternoon in the mid-week, and the morning on the weekend. Those were the salient facts, all that Simon felt it was reasonable to have any confidence in, and those last two didn't guarantee anything. The first two didn't really guarantee anything either; it seemed just as possible to him that the monsters had some intelligence behind them aiming to lull everyone into a sense of security before taking out a bunch of major installations with a night raid that placed monsters directly inside of them. Maybe once it understood what nukes were it would go after some of those!

These were such dark thoughts, not really for him. It had soured Simon's mood a little bit to hear of Nico going into a coma before he even got any photos to make a commemorative painting of her with. Okay, that was a little insensitive. He was upset she was down for the count! He liked her. Her family must be in a terrible spot right now, or rather they would be without the Initiative's help in certain matters. But that part of him which wanted to make that visual record for progeny experienced a deep pang of frustration at losing a subject before even getting a chance to ask. If he was the one who encountered the puppeteer (as everyone seemed to already be calling her) in person first, they were going to have words, and those words were probably going to be punctuated by some rocks to the face.

He couldn't stand being here anymore, and got up and left, leaving behind a glass of water as if he was just going to get something or use the restroom and certainly intended to return. One of the actual experts was having a slightly loud argument with another just now, drawing the rapt attention of everyone else, so he was pretty sure they didn't even hear him leave. He burst out into the hallway and went ten or twelve steps before very nearly running into Dawn. Not to give himself too much credit; she was the one to avert disaster, possessing the reflexes to duck out of the way before he saw what was going on and came to a stop.

"GaAah! Terribly sorry about that," he apologized right away, offering a hand since she was a little hunched over from the maneuver.

"'S all right." She looked at his hand for a couple of seconds before slowly taking it to pick herself up. Simon remembered in those seconds that her hands were usually colder than ice and braced himself, but either because she was wearing gloves or because he was mentally prepared for it, it didn't end up being too horrible. "You, runnin' away from somethin'?"
"Boredom more than anything," he said. "I shouldn't agree to attend meetings with titles I don't even understand."

"..I, really am sorry to hear about the, you know," he said. This wasn't a topic he was very good at; Karis was the one with all the tact.
"It's my own stupid fault anyway. I'm tryin' ta move past it an' get the body I got left healthy." Really looking at her for a moment, Simon realized that Dawn's eyes actually, really had a pale blue fiery glow to them, and tried to think about how he could accurately show that in a drawing. "..What? Somethin' on my face?"
"Oh, sorry," he shook his head. "Look, are you busy right now?"

"Naw."
"How would you—no, no." He paused, attempting to come up with the magic phrasing that would work. Dawn was naturally just confused by the self-interruption.

"Ah!" He held up an index finger for a second. "I never really properly thanked you for saving my life and Karis's. I've had several opportunities to talk with Rowan, of course, but you had just as much of a part."

"Well, it wasn't...nothin'." She looked away, blushing slightly.
"So the most valuable thing I can do is make a work of art for you. I know we're not supposed to take too much free stuff for being heroes and all, but this is just between fellow vixens so they shouldn't bat an eye. Is there anything you'd really like?"

"Um..I don't really..I mean..." She fumbled for a moment; he smiled patiently and gave her the time to speak. He did subtly move them both to one side, seeing they were at an intersection that others might like to walk through. "There, uh, there used ta be this art gallery near our neighborhood, would let us in for free. Cynth would take me out there, try ta get me to appreciate art an' all, but, I don't really, get it."

"That's alright," he said, "as long as I've been at this game, I still can't claim to really 'get it' all myself. The most important thing to me is beauty. Just, if there's something you think you would like to hang up in your room and be able to look at whenever you want."
"Uh, there were some nice, landscapes I guess?" Dawn seemed unsure. "Livin' where we were, you know, it's the closest we got to seein' much real nature."
"That I can do," he said. "There are some gardens in the town, or some spots out in the country, I might could show you photos of to pick from—or when there's no immediate danger to fight maybe to go and look at yourself sometime?"

"That's, cool I guess," she said. "Um, it's a lot a' work to draw one a' those, though, in't it?" There it was. Offering something for free, even if it was supposedly in gratitude, usually made the other person feel like they needed to return the favor somehow.
"The big issue with a piece like you see out in the museum is size," said Simon, making a sweeping gesture to indicate a huge canvas. "I can make something that looks good without it needing an entire wall clear to see the whole thing. And more importantly, it doesn't take me a year to paint that way. At its most complicated the kind of thing I have in mind would only take me about a week to finish—not a week of nonstop work, mind you, just in terms of fitting it in with everything else I'm always busy with."

"Just, uh..it's not too big of a deal," she said. "If somethin' more important comes up, I don't really care if you put it off."

Simon realized that at this point she still didn't care much for having a painting done, but had been trying not to offend him by saying so this whole time. It reeked of total apathy toward the topic, which he really wasn't offended by at all—after all, everyone had their own preferences for things—but it also meant that she probably wouldn't have rejected the request he'd started to make in the first place. While he was sure she'd like it when it was done, this further meant he hadn't even needed to go the route of offering to do extra work at all. Oh well, he was grateful to her, really, and he was a man of his word. "Listen, there is one project I really want to get done, or at least started on," he said. "I've been hoping to make paintings of us—you know, people who got powers. So after we save the world, people in the distant future can still know what we really looked like. Clearly none of us really has time to sit down for a portrait, but a few photos to work off of is good enough for me."

"You jus' wanna take my picture?" she said, looking perplexed more at the idea of someone wanting to do that than anything else. "I don' care, I'm not busy now anyway."

"Oh, wonderful! I've got some of my stuff set up in a room over that way," Simon pointed. "It'll only take a minute or two, and I've been told it's entirely painless," he joked. "Really though, thank you for indulging me in this." He started off, and Dawn followed slowly.
"Sure, whatever."

---

Blake came back out in human form and announced that his homework was finished. In response to a questioning look from Amory, still a fox-girl, he said, "Boobs got in the way of typing" and left it at that. She giggled teasingly and then offered to treat him to a congratulatory supper slash last hurrah before school came back into session. The rest of the night was uneventful other than going to bed much earlier than he had the past several days and his body refusing to sleep for a couple of hours as a result. His head spent those hours spinning its wheels, trying to come up with some foolproof strategy against the puppeteer or figure out exactly what her next move was going to be, but ultimately coming up empty. To be honest, Amory was better at spotting the flaws in others' tactics than he was at coming up with his own. Light—er, Blake was the one who seemed good at making plans and getting them to work, at least with a little bit of help here and there.

The next morning, he came out of his apartment and waited at the door only a few minutes bofore Emma came running up, looking positively panicked. "Hi there," he said.
"Am I late?! I slept ten minutes later than usual, and I—"

"You're not late," he interrupted. "Calm down a little? I just got out here a minute or two ago, and my class isn't for thirty minutes. Unless yours is earlier..."
"No..." she looked embarrassed. "It's not for an hour. B-but, I didn't wanna make you late!"

"Well, let's get to the car then." He started off, taking it at a slow walk, and she followed, alternating between slower-than-usual walking and brief, nervous dashes to catch up.

The car was a better place for private conversation. "So, how are you feeling?" he said once they were inside.
"Um, b-better. Beryl showed up again, a-and she didn't actually break into my phone even! Sh-she made some supper and then I went to bed..."
"What's got you so nervous, anyway?"
"Um..uhhh..." She looked around, blushing a little bit. "I-it's just that I'm in a car, alone, with you," she half-whispered. "Th-that's all."
"I'm just drivin' you to campus, though," he shrugged. "And we're not really totally alone, I mean, the other drivers can see through our windows."

"Oh! Uh..I, guess you're right," she said, looking around at the world outside as if for the first time. "I, might've been misinformed a little about what getting in a car with someone you're dating means..."

"In my book, it just means we both want to go to the same place."

"Yeah, that's..that's a lot more sensible."

Now, how best to bring up the topic...? Well, Emma had described her as a little nosy, so... "Hey, did Beryl grill you about yesterday?"

"Hmn? Um, a little bit. I-I told her I went home for a while, since school was out? But she could tell I was tired, so she didn't try to make me talk too much. Kinda lucky, in that way. She really, uh..I mean, I'm a really bad liar in the first place and sometimes she'll just keep asking more and more specific questions until I can't answer anything anymore. I-I like her, but ever since...this stuff, happened, I'm kinda glad she hasn't been there too often. She must be getting ready to graduate at this point.."

"So, she's a senior?"

"Mm-hm," Emma nodded. "I've been dreading next year, what kind of person I might get as a roommate after she moves out."

"Probably someone you have seniority over at that point. How'd you like to have someone to boss around instead?"
"Errr....I can't really even imagine that." To be honest, neither could Amory, but it had been intended as a joke anyway.

"I really uh..." Emma squirmed a bit in her seat. "I guess I have her to thank that I actually asked you out eventually, sorta. Or, in any normal situation I would..."
"How do you mean?"
"Sh-she um..when I was first, thinking about it, she kept asking me what was on my mind u-u-until I finally admitted I had um, a crush on you, and then started giving me all kinds of a-advice on how to be bolder, and teasing me every time I almost came up to you but ran away. Sh-she suggested I try talking to a mirror first, and a bunch of other things...without even knowing who you were, she kept pushing me to a-at least talk to you."

"Oh." He tried to interpret this through the filter of "Beryl=Giver" and came up mostly empty. "Well, ah, I guess if we ever meet I should thank her."

"R-really?" Emma blushed again. "Errm...s-she, the day I um. When you were at the hospital and we fought those gryphon things, she said something like 'take what you want, and don't let anyone stop you.' It...I thought it was kind of a super weird thing to say, because...but, part of me was thinking along those exact lines, when I..attacked Light." She barely squeaked out the last few words. Okay, that seemed to fit her personality quite a bit, as Amory understood it.

"I see what you mean. So in a way, she is responsible even in the weirder reality, right?" he said.
"Y-yeah. Although, I don't know if I should thank someone for helping drive me crazy enough to a-a-attack someone. That just...it really isn't me," she said quietly. "I think about what I was doing and I really, just feel like I went totally insane for two or three days."

"I don't think you'd be the first person briefly driven mad by power," he said. "It doesn't even have to be crazy magic power to do that. At least you turned out okay, right?"

"Y-yeah. I dunno if Light—if he understands how grateful I am she stopped me. Um." She paused, probably confused by her own use of pronouns. Then: "She said something, just after that, like...trying to resolve things peacefully and forgive someone who tried to kill her, is her own way of being a little crazy."

"Right..."
"Um. Before that, at the hospital...she said...she knows what it feels like when the monsters show up, and to think about if the risk is really worth it. It's..I um. I decided to fight, and I told you why, but..." Something was clearly bothering her.

"What's wrong?"
"I don't know..i-it just feels like Light knows something I don't. When she talked about our powers making us insane, it wasn't just like, having power itself, but these powers. Does that make any sense?"

"Yeah." Amory thought through what he was going to say over a long, quiet pause. Emma was smart enough to pick up on that, she might very well figure it out on her own. So it was a good idea to just tell her the truth now. "We have..kind of a theory, but it's horrible in some ways to know about it."
"'We'? So, I guess um.."
"Right. It's based on some of what the Giver said, and partially on Light's experiences, and the way everyone seems to behave once they have powers. We call it 'the price'."

"That, uh..that sounds ominous."

"It's just this: We're pretty confident that the Giver hates those monsters. Like on a personal level. For some reason she can't or won't fight them herself, but she does really want them dead. From the very beginning, she talked about giving everyone power in terms of fighting them, right?"
"Y-yeah," she said, trying to think back to that dream from over a week ago.

"Our understanding is that her 'gift' doesn't come for free. It comes with the promise that you can take what you want, but it also sort of twists your idea of what you want around just slightly, enough to align it with what she wants—to get those monsters killed."
"Hmn..." She was thinking about it.

"So, like, what Light wants is to be a hero. The monsters attack people, so she wants to fight them. On top of that there's like this, instinctive response you have to seeing them, a fight or flight reflex that jumps up right away. Right?"
"Y-yeah. Like seeing a huge cockroach two feet from your foot," she said.

"I'm sorry...I know it's a little bit terrifying to know about, but I thought you'd rather I tell you than dance around it forever."
"It's fine, you're right," she said. "Thank you for trusting me." It occurred to him that they should be saying the same things after he told her about his own powers, but he couldn't make himself bring it up right now...he just couldn't.

After thinking for a moment she said, "But..."
"Hm?"
"..What about the puppets?"

"What do you mean?"
"The person controlling them, I mean. She—they've done nothing but attack people fighting the monsters, which helps them. So, why...?"
"Well, we've always been pretty sure the price doesn't totally override a person's own wants. It's more...subtle than that? It is kind of a relief, really, if a person can still be free enough to choose to help the monsters...as terrible of a thing as that is for someone to actually decide do."

"I guess so."

School after that was pretty normal. Amory had less trouble than he thought he would getting back into the mentality of classes, learning science that several people now defied on a regular basis. To be fair, all of the old science worked in all of the places it used to, there were just "new places" with all of this magic flying around. Surely somebody out there must be looking for a way to do magic without being a fox-girl gifted powers by a trickster goddess. Maybe it was only a couple of decades out from your average American college offering a major in golem summoning or fireball throwing...well, it wasn't like he'd lost his ability to daydream off and on. They'd agreed to meet for lunch before leaving the car, and they did, although the atmosphere was a little tense since the day's monster attack hadn't come yet, and the puppeteer hadn't made any visible moves yet either. If ever Amory were inclined to use the cliche of things being too quiet and mean it, this was it.