The "Best" RPG Ever-54

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---

After confirming there weren't any other mysteriously preserved tomes lying around, it was time to check out the rest of the place. The door in the room with the "beds" was still closed, so they went back through the one on the right instead to avoid alerting the armor unnecessarily. This led to a hallway running left and right from the door they'd come from, also connected to the room on the left. The hallway was as stark as the chamber they had entered the building through, without even any glyphs on the walls, but there were three open doors evenly spaced along the opposite side of it from the one they came in through.

Rayna peeked through each door, and drew back from the center one, returning to the door they'd come in through, where the others still were. "Another hallway in there," she said quietly. "Armor guy is patrolling it."

"I have an idea," said the witch, putting up an index finger for a second. "Let's not split up here. And try the other rooms first."

"Yeah..." Nora also nodded agreement.

There were even more shelves carved into the walls than the room they had just come from; these were not entirely empty. Some glass jars and pottery were placed here and there, and pieces of the same scattered along the floor. Rayna sniffed the air and winced, her ears drawing behind her head briefly. "Blueeh. Somethin' way past its expiration date in here. It's pretty faint, so probably not much of it."

"I guess this is where they kept the food." Mira carefully placed her steps around the broken bits of glass and pottery to reach a shelf with a few intact pieces. She picked out a sealed jar of honey and displayed it to the others. "Hey, you think we should take this back and sell it as a luxury good?"

"Maybe they'd prefer we didn't. Anyway, there might be an Egyptian curse on it," Rayna joked, drawing a small chuckle. Mira put it back after that, and returned.

There was a door on the wall left of the way they had come in, still closed, and glyphs on the wall next to it. "This prolly just leads into that other hallway, so...no need to open it now," said the fox-girl.

After taking some quiet steps through the east-west hallway (as Mira was starting to internalize it, just to keep a sense of everything's relative position), they entered the open door on the left (west) side. "Aha, weapons and armor," said Rayna, stepping inside first. "Hey, is any of this stuff enchanted?"

"I uh, c-can't actually tell that kind of thing," said Nora, following. It was all rusted anyway, and much of it broken to pieces on top of that. This room also featured a door to the "north-south" hallway, also closed, and a pair of glyphs to control its doors.

"Ugh, and I'd have to stare at them one at a time to identify any. Not likely worth it."

"Well, we need to know what else is past here," said Mira. "Want me to open the door here?"
"I think it's less risky to just lure the guard dog the other way and use the doors that're already open," said Rayna. "You guys don't need me just to see what's in the other rooms, so I'll go maintain an illusion to keep him busy."

"What did I just say about not splitting up?" said the witch. "If we need to open a door up there, then you won't be there to keep us invisible!"

"Oh yeah..you're right."

"Um.." Nora half-interjected. Mira waved at her to continue: "I've been watching the connections, and I-I think, the other glyphs b-back in the first room are connected to the r-rest of the doors here. S-so, we could rearrange the d-doors from there to control its available routes."

"Do you know which one is which?" said Rayna.
"I-it wouldn't take me long to figure it out."
"Okay, hang on." She got out a piece of paper and quickly scribbed a rough map of what they'd seen so far, indicating the doors and writing a letter associated with each, and then added to the bottom a labeling from 1 to 14—the number of glyphs they'd seen in the first room. The first one she labeled as "Lights", and then handed Nora the paper and pen.

The elf nodded, and then slowly led them back through the food storage room, then the one across from it, and back to where they had found the journal, carefully tracing connections invisible to the others to label each glyph with its respective door's letter. Then she handed the 'map' to Mira, who was glad to see it aligned the way she'd been thinking of things already.

"Sooo...we could just open the door between one of these rooms and the middle hallway it's in now, and then close both of the doors once the armor runs in to check," she said, pointing along the map to indicate her meaning. "It might smash what's still in there even worse trying to get back out, though, and it may be able to force the doors open anyway—I mean, I could, and I think it's stronger than me."

"We're better off trying to persuade it to patrol a different route," the fox-girl agreed. "How about we close that door" (indicating the on the left of the Glyph room), "open the one to the hallway above it so he runs in there, then close the door to the hallway he's in right now?"

"Th-then open the one here," said Nora, pointing to the closed door in the room with a lot of shelves.
"Right, yeah. If he switches patrolling that hall then we'll just need to run past him from where we have open to get where we're trying to go," said Rayna. "Let's just hope the AI is as simple as we think it is..."

The armor came to investigate the glyph room when they closed the first door, of course, forcing them back into the big chamber at the entrance. After that, the plan went off without any apparent hitch: The armor ran into the journal room from the hallway when the door opened, they closed the next door, and then Rayna confirmed he was walking back and forth in the hallway just "north" of them, as they'd hoped.

After dashing past the armor's present patrol route, they finally made to the other hallway. Looking "north", Rayna stopped in her tracks, which drew the others' gaze as well. "Well...I think something bad definitely happened," Mira understated. It looked like the wall had shattered and dropped its pieces all over the ground there, especially toward the right. There was a clear wall on the left for the most part, but the hallway ended with a room full of dirt spilled in from outside.

Coming closer, it looked like there were supposed to be rooms to the right and at the end of the hall, but both were totally collapsed; Nora quickly identified a closed door on the clear wall to the left.

"So, how strong do you think this ultra-stone is?" said Rayna. "Like, what kinda strength rating would something need to do that to it?" she pointed at some of the shattered wall.
"I-I don't know...th-that feeling of dread is back after seeing it, though."

"It sure feels pretty solid. You can't 'identify' it with veil pierce or whatever?" said the witch.

"If I could do that, I would've—when we first got here. Anyway, I guess we should run back and open this door since there's no glyphs in the hallways," she said.

"Wouldn't it be easier for me to push it open? Wait, you're absolutely sure there's nothing in there, right?"

Rayna sniffed the air again. "No signs of life whatsoever. I mean, if there is something we're supposed to get rid of it anyway, and the armor might even help us out if it thinks it's an intruder."

"Well, here goes then." Mira pushed at the door, trying her best to grunt quietly. It opened soon enough, and after a tense moment of waiting they concluded that the armor hadn't heard it and went inside.

"Uh...huh..." The room was empty and bare, but had claw marks everywhere: The floor, the wall, even the ceiling in some places. "Well, they had to keep captured monsters somewhere, right?" said Mira. "Some of those would probably be strong enough to do this, I guess. If desperate enough."

"Mm-hm." Rayna pulled her map back out and drew the new part of the building into it. Then she really looked at what she had. "Hmm...you know..."

Mira said, "I don't, what."

"Well, just look," she said, pointing just "north" of the glyph room. There was an empty space big enough to fit another room about the same size there. "If I were just guesstimating the distances then this wouldn't be a big deal, but my powers give me enough spatial awareness to be sure that empty area really is there. Nora, did you get a good look at the wall between the hall and there?"

"Uh, no...I-I wasn't really paying attention to that, sorry," she said.

"It's okay. We just need to lure the armor back the other way and get a closer look."

This time, they opened the door to the middle hallway, and then closed all three "north" facing doors once the armor was through. It ran back and forth briefly before seeming to resume its pacing back where it had started. Then Nora got a good look at the space, and found a door connected to glyph "14" on Rayna's map. They tried just opening that door; the armor ran up to each of the doors adjacent to the "east-west" hall in turn, but seemed to give up after a while.

Still in the glyph room, Rayna breathed a small sigh of relief when it finally stopped running around. "I guess it just doesn't want to force the doors open."
"Against its programming, I bet. It makes sense if you think about it," said Mira. "I mean, guards don't open doors for the enemy, right?"

"Yep."

---

When the rain finally died down, Zack stood up, and the others followed suit. They went out enough to be sure it was over, and then started on the way back to town.

You know...I can hear your mind playing back 'Dude Looks Like a Lady'.

Well, that's your fault, Lynn countered, looking away from Zack again. I can't help what song's stuck in my head. So unless you can 'mute' it for me or something...

Not with my skill level, and probably not safely at any level. I'm just saying, he'd probably be annoyed if—

That's why it's not coming out aloud. That's the whole point of everyone having mouths instead of brain scanning powers.

She took a slightly quicker stride for a moment to come up next to the wolf-girl in the lead. "Hey, Zack."

"Yeah?"
"The other night, it sounded like you knew a lot of pretty obscure RPGs. Right?"
"I dunno if I'd say 'obscure' or not..I've just, played a lot of them. What about it?"

"Well, don't you get tired of them sometimes? All the same characters and stupid tropes showing up? Orrr, the grinding and easy battles?"

"Hmm."

There was a long silence, but before Lynn could ask him to clarify what 'hmm' meant he actually answered: "They're not all like that, you know. And even the ones that are, always have something unique. Like a different setting, or one character I really like. Anyway, if the battles aren't challenging it can help me just zone out and take my mind off of stuff. And sometimes, they're not so easy, and can be a lot of fun to figure out." He shrugged. "There are bad ones I don't bother with, but...maybe I'm just so used to it that I don't really see the stuff everyone else complains about anymore.

"You really like asking questions, huh."
"Uh..?" Lynn wasn't sure how to take that. "Well, I mean, I like to hear other people's opinions..."
"I guess that's why you and Rayna get along so well."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He shrugged. "She likes answering questions. Even if nobody's asking."

After thinking about it for a moment, she understood what he meant. "That's...one way of looking at it, yeah." Lynn really did have a habit of challenging people's opinions and tastes as a way of getting to know them better. Rayna always seemed to have some answer or counterargument, even past the point where most people would've gotten annoyed or given up the fight. It led to the kind of in-depth, intelligent discussion (or argument, sometimes) that fans of their show seemed to really like.

He's way more perceptive than I think I was giving him credit for...

No kidding, Katherine responded.

I was just thinking that! Not talking to you!

Sorry.

---

The witch led the way to the mystery room, and the three of them walked inside. "Ooh boy.." There were five suits of armor just like the one outside, but intact, lined up along the left and right walls of the small room, in an arrangement that suggested a sixth ought to fit on the near left side. In the middle was a metal object, a box-shaped thing with a slanted part at the top; numerous glyphs were carved into this sloped part's surface, some of which were very faintly glowing.

"Since this thingy isn't built into the stone, it's probably the same kind of magi-tech the armors are...maybe a control panel?" Rayna suggested.

"Yes, it's logical th-that one should be on-site somewhere," said Nora. "W-which means there is probably a similar panel in the castle."

"Yeah, but that's prolly buried under six feet of rubble by now," the witch countered, taking a closer look at the panel.

"At any rate, I would say this is some solid evidence that the people working here either died quickly or fled in a hurry," the fox-girl added.

"That's a pleasant thought.

"...Hmn. I get the distinct impression this thing is 'almost out of power', like some of these glyphs probably won't respond. I could activate the ones that're still glowing, but no telling what they'd do without testing. And that would use up the power it has."

"I-is there any way to give it more power?" the elf suggested, walking around the device and trying to 'feel' for anything in it.

"I don't know...it's just a solid hunk of metal. Maybe there's a 'recharge spell', but I wouldn't know it."

"Well, we don't want to accidentally activate the rest of these armor guys," said Rayna, crossing her arms. "Especially if it runs out of power to turn them back on again. Then again, if the armors get power from this thing then using up its supply would be a quick way to take out the active one."

Nora shook her head. "I-I'm quite certain this isn't linked to the active armor in any way. D-definitely not enough to be feeding it any kind of energy."

The fox-girl sighed. "I'm sure this'll be an interesting find for whoever studies this place, but there's no advantage here for our job."

"I don't know..." The elf had a 'thinking' look, and moved closer to the nearest inactive armor.

"What?" Mira leaned over, trying to see what she was looking at. Nora picked up the faceplate and stuck her hand inside, closing her eyes while she held onto what she found. Eventually, she nodded to herself, pulling the hand back out and reopening her eyes to face the others.

"Th-the power source. It obviously h-has to be inside, so I...w-well, anyway. It's the 'eyes'," she announced.
"So all we have to do is smash that thing's eyes to turn it off for good?" said Rayna.

"Yeah. 'All'," Mira repeated sarcastically. "Zack couldn't even dent the one at the castle, and my strength is still below his even in his 'defense over strength' form. So how do we get past this guy's faceplate? For that matter, would hitting the power source even do any good?"

"Hmm." Nora reached her hand back into the armor nearby, then the other one. After a bit of struggling, she pulled out a golfball-sized, dark red crystal and held it out to the others. "Th-this is some kind of...'clear' but very solid material, I d-don't know how else to describe it."

"Like, it's clear to magic the way glass is clear to light?" Rayna suggested. "Now that I'm looking at it, my 'identify powers' tell me it's some kind of magic storage crystal, but not much else."

Nora nodded. "It contains a dense concentration of electricity and fire combined," she said. "B-but I can't seem to reach those elements directly, even holding it in my hands."

"Well, what happens if you put in more?" said Mira. "Say, out in the hallway and at a distance in case it literally makes it explode?" Nora nodded, agreeing with this plan, and they headed out to test.

From halfway across the hall, Nora drew some of the electricity out of her nerves and sent a spark at the crystal. It glowed slightly, and in the instant that there was a connection she felt connected to the elements inside. Her eyes narrowed slightly, and she tried maintaining a longer arc from one of her hands, into the crystal, back through the other one; with this she was able to draw some of the stored electricity out, producing a shower of sparks around the crystal for a couple of seconds. Then she drew herself up, panting slightly from the effort.

"Wha'd you find out?" said Rayna.

"I-I think, hff, I can drain it," she said. "O-or possibly overload, if it has some kind of c-capacity, but which is easier depends on how much is left."

"It's a pretty safe bet an armorbot that's been running around on autopatrol for centuries is low on batteries by now," Mira said. "Seems like it took a lot out of you, though?"
"M-my skill level with this element is relatively low," she said. "I, haven't been b-buying many skills lately."

"So buy some levels, then," said Rayna. "I don't think even Aria will have a problem with you getting more 'force lightning' to work with."

The elf nodded, finally catching her breath. "I d-doubt I can do it in one shot, even still," she said.

"Right. But we know how to manipulate this guy's movement to some extent now," said Rayna. Then, turning to the witch: "I hate to say it, but our best bet at this point is probably to split the party...just a li'l bit?"

"Yeah, yeah."

---

I feel a little bad about taking so long to write this, when in the end it's mostly just "nerds being nerds". Still, I made up this whole "ancient laboratory ruins" situation and they've got to get out of it somehow.

A Cold Awakening

Definitely not inspired by personal experience with weather.

 

Full Moon Juice

Finally, a new caption!

Battle Vixens! - 39

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---

I had this written a little while ago, but I wasn't entirely sure about it since it came out a little shorter than the usual BV because of a bit of an unusual organization scheme for this part. Just a warning that these scenes are not being presented in strict chronological order, but it shouldn't be too hard to figure out what comes after what where it's important. 

Also, some links on/to this site have been misbehaving for me and at least one other person. If you get sent to an endless loop of the "this is an adult site, are you sure you want to view it" page, try replacing the "http" in your address with an "https". I would fix them myself, but there are WAY too many across all these posts to catch them all. At least I'll try and make sure the links in any new posts are all functional.

---

Episode 39: Another Day

There was no visit from the Giver that night. There hadn't been one the night before, either; Rowan had had another visit then, apparently, and been prompted to give her another name, "Chaos". Might as well go with Pandora too, although she was really more like the box—or maybe a factory that made such boxes. Blake had expected maybe something after that tip-off from "Beryl", but Emma's roommate had mysteriously disappeared again the following morning and not come back yet.

During the commute to campus, he spoke about it with Amory. "It just seems weird. She obviously knows we know, so why isn't she rubbing it in our faces?"
"Hmm. Well, if you saw her you'd want to play the game again, right? You'd even know what to ask right away, this time."
"Sure, I'd ask where we can catch—"
"Exactly. But maybe she doesn't want to take sides in fights between people she's given powers to. And she could just decide not to play the game—not to tell you in general, or maybe to say something misleading, except that would be for the puppeteer's advantage instead...and it's less complicated to just not contact you at all until you finish this fight yourself."
"Amory...she doesn't shy away from 'complicated'," he pointed out.

"Yeah, you're right. It must be something else, then."

They sat in the car in silence for a minute or two, neither one successfully coming up with a good explanation. Eventually Blake decided to change the subject. "Well...any plans for today?"
"Emma wanted to go out for supper tonight. Just the usual otherwise. What about you?"
"Oh, you know. Another day, another monster. If I hear they found that car then I might skip class to help out."

"How exactly do you plan to get over there in time?"
"Uh...well, there are a few possibilities," he said. "Especially if you happen to be somewhere I can grab you to help real quick."

"Yeah, yeah...well, you know my schedule."

---

High school demands an exceptionally early rise, and Simon was the kind of person who was delighted to work for himself largely because of the opportunity to sleep in as much as he wanted. This made it a little surprising for Karis to wake up and find the bed empty. After a quick shower, she located him soon enough, up in the painting room working. He waved at her when she came in.

"Hey, what're you doing up so early?"

"Hm? Can't a man be passionate about his work?" he said. His current project seemed to feature both "parts" of Gemma facing each other, a kind of double profile. "They're really putting my nose to the grindstone with all the advertising and product design—which was my idea, after all. Plus, I've got an interview this morning unless the monsters attack then, and then one of them is sure to show up this afternoon unless it already did in the morning."
Karis came up to put her arms around him from behind briefly. "Dear, I appreciate your drive, but you could get yourself killed if you fight one of those things while you're exhausted. Promise me you'll take a nap sometime soon."
"Oh, well, I'm sure there's a meeting I can skip sometime today," he said cheerfully.

"Have you even had breakfast yet?" She let go and took a small step back; he didn't respond but the answer was obviously no. "C'mon, a glutton like you can't start skipping meals. Take a break and eat with me."

"Oh, very well. This layer needs to dry anyway..."

---

The instructions were: If that plate number was found, do not act on it. Don't pull over the car, don't even act like you noticed it. Just report that it was seen, and follow if it was safe to do so. Then the message would get to Rowan, and he would handle things from there. Of course, they didn't expect the car to show up that night, and it didn't. He kept his phone very close the entire time anyway, and in his hand now, sitting in a folding chair he'd brought up in front of Dawn's bedroom door.

It had taken a while to convince her to eat something resembling supper and then get some sleep. Still, she'd been asleep for about ten hours now. This was apparently normal for an overexhausted vixen, but he couldn't help but worry about that a little bit. And when she did wake up, he wanted to invite her to breakfast. There was a lot he wanted to talk about once she was rested and relatively calm.

Thinking back on it, the records from the time just before she was apprehended, and from yesterday, showed something very unusual. Dawn usually didn't throw more than a couple of mid-sized fireballs or maybe a short-lived plume of flame during a fight, and tended to rely on her own powers mostly just to make weapons to hit with. But after the monster ate Cynthia, temperatures in the city block they were fighting on had abruptly dropped ten degrees. It had probably affected the weather for the next few days. And then yesterday, she had suddenly used the "borrowed" powers just as effectively as their original owner had, making a brief but towering inferno to destroy the puppet and mist monster both. In each case it had left her completely exhausted, but...

The girl who had "time" powers, from Japan, had had something like that, too. In that moment of desperation she had displayed a level of ability far above any imaginable threshold; it was seemingly more than she was able to even control. The Giver had granted everyone some impressive powers, but that was...quite a bit more. Something happened to a vixen's powers when she was put into an especially desperate or emotionally compromised state of mind. His thoughts were drawn to the idea of a cornered lion—one that could also play havoc with the forces of nature and/or physics at will.

The puppeteer's powers were already absurd, bordering on unimaginable, from the many people she had killed. They would need to be exceptionally cautious if they did track down that car, or found her some other way. A sniper rifle from a long distance seemed like the safest bet, provided she didn't dodge, block, or otherwise survive it. Everyone would have to be in position and ready for a long, hard fight if it did come to that.

A click came from the inside of Dawn's room, the adjoining bathroom door shutting. It sounded like she was up, and for a second or two Rowan contemplated taking the chair back to where it came from and then returning to the bedroom door in an effort to appear spontaneous. It was better, he decided, to remain there and be perfectly honest with his intentions—as much as possible, anyway. He didn't feel able to easily explain to her why he wanted to understand what kind of person Cynthia had been from Dawn's perspective, given that it was based on little more than some vague hints and ideas.

---

After dropping Nadia off at school, Gerald returned once again to his shop and opened up for the day. With a new normal for the world as a whole beginning to be established, the usual customers were finally starting to come back, and the odd curious person as well. None of them looked at him strangely or suspiciously; they just saw a friendly old man behind the counter. That was good. He thought his next-door neighbor had given him a knowing look the day before, but he couldn't be sure. He couldn't very well ask her; even if she did know, it was far better that neither of them talk about it at all. And Nadia was smart enough to keep the secret as well, judging by the fact that none of the other kids looked at him strangely, and the teachers weren't responding to him any differently from usual.

As long as he had his own health, this mask was important to maintain. It protected her; it protected Light and the others from what he might be willing to do to get her back. Especially with a specific, intelligent enemy on the loose, their side just couldn't afford to have another person vulnerable to kidnapping.

Gerald looked at his phone during a lapse in customers. He had the version of the VI app with contact to other vixens now, too. Rowan, or maybe his position at the Initiative, had enough sway with the police in his own town to get them to protect those close to the people he worked with. Maybe the same could be done for Nadia, if it came down to it. But ironically, any special protection given now would just call attention to her and break the mask sooner. The safest guard was no guard, but it still made him nervous. He'd been mistaken for someone rich once before, after all...

The door rang, and he put the phone down, closing out of the contacts list and looking up to see who it was. A short girl with huge glasses came in, looking around the store a bit but clearly headed to talk to him. "Welcome," he said. "What can I do for you?"

"Um...Rory said I should introduce myself," she said, reaching the counter. After a brief, furtive glance backward at the door (there was still nobody else coming in), she hesitantly offered a hand. "I'm Emma. We've uh, ssssort of met before."

He took the hand and gave a good shake. "Gerald Nelson. How do you know Dr. Quinn?"

"Uh..well, she teaches at my school, but not actually any of my classes," she said. "Weee, actually really met in front of the hospital a few days ago."

It took him a moment, but imagining her with white hair and no glasses, there really was a striking resemblance. "Are you...?"
"Um, yeah," she said nervously. "I uh..Rory kinda told me who you were, or at least that you'd be here, and I thought that wasn't really fair if um.."
"It doesn't matter too much to me," he said. "I suppose we would've talked eventually anyhow."

"It's just uh. Since then, I kind of attacked Light, and uh, I am really sorry about that," she stumbled about awkwardy with her words.

"Welcome to the club," he said wryly. "She's a little too forgiving for her own good, if you ask me, but I'm grateful for it. You've been doing good since then, right? Helpin' people out?" Emma nodded. "That's about the best I think anyone could ask for."

After a short pause to think whether there was anything else to say, she said, "So...you have a granddaughter?"
Gerald nodded, and couldn't help but beam a little bit. "My pride and joy. She's very smart for her age, and the sweetest kid you'll ever meet."

"Mmh." She looked around nervously for a second. "Um, please f-forgive me for asking, if it's, offensive or anything..doesn't risking your life, put her in some danger? Especially with, uh..."
He nodded seriously, and leaned forward a bit, toward the counter. "Listen. Before this happened, I wasn't sure I would live to see my little girl grow up. Now I have a chance at it. But I won't forgive myself if the world she grows up into isn't as safe as I can help make it." He sighed, leaning back again. "Not just her, either. Young folk like you and Light shouldn't have to worry about this for the rest of your lives. My life is worth that. If anything, I'm not any worse off than if none of this had happened and I just got too old."

"I-I see.." She seemed to be absorbing that for a moment, and then nodded. "If you, um, ever need any help..I used to do some babysitting. I mean, I guess I'll end up fighting at the same time as you are usually, but if there's ever any other reason.."
Gerald nodded. "Thank you. I'll be sure to introduce you some time. Call me on the, uh...this thing," he said, holding his phone up enough to show the app running on it.

"Sure."

---

"She was...look, ain't nobody perfect." Breakfast.

Rowan had suggested that talking about Cynthia might help the healing some. Dawn wasn't so sure, but it felt like he wanted to know about her, and it was the least she could do at this point to tell him. "She was a punk like me. Her mom died forever ago, her dad was a..." A few different sets of words ran into each other in her head and caught in her throat. Rowan nodded; he understood, of course, which saved them both some trouble. "She wanted outta the slums. Away from the gangs. Both of us, an' anyone else who wasn't already part of the problem. She thought..if we ever did get out, she talked about comin' back someday to pull more people out. Maybe try an' fix things."

Dawn looked away for a moment, and then forward again. "I didn't know what I'd do if I got out. Still no idea what I'm doin' now, just tryin' to get by every day like I always did. Cynth, she knew. It was like she was already outta there an' thinkin' ahead to the next move. But she wasn't—we were still stuck there, you know."

They didn't speak for a long moment, just the sound of forks doing their work. "Just a few days before the...all this," she said vaguely, gesturing to her own appearance, "she was, talkin' about goin' home one more time, to get her things. And get outta this place, go to some job that said they'd hire her. She came back, the next morning, covered in bruises, some cuts. Nothin'..too bad, not life-threatenin' at least, but...

"She wouldn't say nothin' about what happened. Didn't have to. I knew what happened." Dawn could feel herself shaking. "It wasn't the first time. It was...I didn't count, but I think I woulda lost count if I tried."

Rowan allowed silence to reign for a good few minutes, letting her calm down. She said quietly, "The night before, that dream, we were just talkin'. An' all of a sudden she looked at me and she said, 'Donny. Sometimes I just wanna burn it all down.' She asked if it made her evil or somethin' like that. I said no, that was just natural. Not havin' a way out, I thought, that'd be the next best thing. I...didn't really think it was literal, y'know."

"It probably wasn't," said Rowan. "The person who gave us these powers just has a sick sense of humor sometimes."

---

Clark made breakfast again, and sat down once it was ready. "So, what have you got today?"
"More labs to catch up on...I expect a flood of reports by the end of the week," said Rory. Then, after a few bites: "Say. Do you think I'm pretty?"
He looked up from his breakfast at her, trying to gauge her expression and figure out where this was coming from. "You remember what I said when I proposed to you, right?"

"Yep."

"Well, my opinion hasn't changed a bit. And I can't work up the nerve to word things that dramatically this early in the morning." She nodded, agreeing it'd be a little much.

"...Being able to just suddenly look different—like, closer to how I always used to want to look—on a whim kinda changes things, though. You like how my fox form looks too, don't you?"
"Yeah. But dear, you know the most important thing is that it's you, not how you look."

"Still. I wonder if there's any preference? Like, if I split into two different bodies all of a sudden and both of them were still me—"

"Then whatever decisions I needed to make wouldn't depend on your physical appearance," he said.

"Hmph. You're no fun."

"Love you too."

"I just wonder if that Emma girl is going through anything like what I did at that age. Maybe she wouldn't have been desperate enough to get violent if she was a little more, 'conventionally attractive', you know?" Rory made a point to cup her own chest slightly to emphasize her meaning.

"Guys are attracted to a lot of different things," he said. "Anyway, a good body can't compete with a good mind in the end."

"That's just your fetish," she said, sticking out her tongue. "And even if you're right it never really feels that way. Maybe I could give her some advice, or encouragement—you know, in case it doesn't work out with Amory. If only to prevent another psychotic implosion."

"You do whatever you want to, dear." He waited through a bite of food before adding: "You always do, anyway."
"You know you love it," she countered, hardly missing a beat.

---

Amory managed to catch Blake in between classes. He pulled up the news on his phone, while gently leading him to a less-crowded part of the hallway.. "Hey, look."

The headline was eye-catching enough: "Black Mist Steps Up Attack". The monsters that had already appeared that day had been, on the whole, bigger and nastier than usual. That was not an easy mark to achieve at this point; they were less numerous, but this had led to several more vixens being eaten, resulting in their monsters becoming even worse to deal with.
It did not take him long to get the gist of things. "That means more people going to that facility," he said.

"More importantly, we have something to worry about here," he half-whispered. "With the puppeteer around too, you guys really need to be on your toes today."

"Yeah..." Amory had a brief flash of imagination, as if he was seeing Light's ears droop from that thought.

"I'm sending messages to everyone to be ready for a tough fight today. If it shows up in the middle of town then Ning has to hold it off until everyone else gets there..."

"Well, if it doesn't happen until after our classes then we could drive out there and leave Emma and the Quinns here," he said. "Then, whoever needs to can go the other way. Until then, though.."

"I've been texting with Emma. She's planning to head out to meet him close to noon, and she doesn't have classes till later, after ours. So she offered to stay out there."

"I guess that'll work...thanks for keeping an eye on things."

"Of course. I checked on Rowan too, but they're already on high alert out there, patrolling and everything. Being all public and official like that has its advantages."