Battle Vixens! - 43

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Episode 43: En Passant

It was humanoid, but huge—as tall as three people stacked on top of each other, with muscular-esque proportions. It had six arms, three on each side, each one terminating in something weapon-ish rather than hands: Longsword-like blades on top, maces in the middle, pikes at the bottom. Its head sported a short muzzle-like mouth, which had the usual lipless with rows of razor-sharp teeth look to it, and it had big, glowing red eyes—naturally. Its surroundings had been successfully evacuated, already devoid of people by the time it fully formed, and it seemed to be looking around as if deciding where to go looking for somebody to kill.

Light could barely hear the usually-loud door opening and closing, and was grateful for Minus's ability to mute that sort of thing. It was good to get a real look at what they were up against before needing to actually start fighting it. She used some glowing words on the ground to suggest a general strategy: Not a good idea to get too close. I'll keep it distracted, and we hit it with ranged attacks?

Plus looked down, reading the message, and then up again toward the monster while Minus nodded. Light looked to another exit of the building they had come from and played an illusion of herself, alone, running out of that one and charging straight at the mist monster. It didn't take it long to notice that, and it ran up swinging. The illusory Light made some unrealistically perfect dodges around the whirling blades while Gemma split off to get to either side of the thing, readying various weaponry to throw at it.

It hadn't escaped her that neither of them were exactly offensive powerhouses by themselves, especially without Amory's boost. But this would wear it down if nobody else showed up, and keep it busy in case help was needed. With all three bodies invisible, any puppets showing up would have to figure out exactly where they were before striking, and that should provide enough time to notice them and react appropriately before that happened.

Of course, the monster reacted to the lightning, ice, arrows and so on by charging the real, invisible threat—it went Plus's direction first, and she dropped her attack and ran away while Light gave it a false image to chase and Minus continued pelting its back. That made it turn around and charge at that body instead, so she ran away too, another false image leading the thing in the wrong direction again.

"Enjoying, the show?" Light jolted, very slightly, at an unexpected voice just a yard or so to her right. Where there had been nothing a moment ago there was now a puppet with a pair of butterfly knives in her hands standing there, looking in the direction of Gemma and the monster. This one Rowan had spoken of facing the day before; her powers involved teleportation. That was why Light hadn't noticed her coming up. She tried to keep her breathing quiet, reminding herself that they couldn't see her right now but might be able to hear.

Keeping invisibility and making two more targets for the monster to chase around, Light formed her blade silently in one hand, readying to make her move. There could be more on the way, so she needed to press the advantage she had right now and get rid of this first one before it could fully locate her.

The teleporting puppet watched an illusory Light running a wide circle around the mist monster. "I can't, see you, of course, but I know, you're there," she said slowly, in the usual, stilted puppetmaster-speech.

Still aware of Gemma's actual locations, Light made a small message in front of Plus—visible to her, and nobody else: Puppets are here. Then she moved as quickly as she could manage, slashing her blade straight for the teleporter's neck. The sword chopped through empty air, and she was left relieved she hadn't overcommitted, continuing her momentum into a spin slow enough to take in the surroundings and figure out where her target had just blinked to. This let her see a different puppet—much taller, muscular—and catch sight of it swinging something down at her just in time to backflip out of the way. Standing straight again afterward, she got a slightly better look at the tall puppet and realized that it was wearing a blindfold. The fact that its aim had been so good only made sense if its power let it sense things without seeing them. For once, nobody was announcing their advantage ahead of time.

It was just long enough to think that before the other puppet reappeared, uncomfortably close to Light with one blade halfway into a stab; she ducked out of it, sliced at a leg with her sword and (predictably) hit air before jumping up and landing roughly a couple of steps back, avoiding a slash from the opposite direction. The big one was moving toward her too—much more slowly, but its weapon was a giant battle-axe with massive reach. Light feinted her sword at the teleporter, then swung it in the opposite direction hard, the blunt side smacking the puppet in the stomach. Then she awkwardly backed several steps away to avoid a wide swing from the big axe.

They were pushing her in the direction of the mist monster and Gemma, who was holding up reasonably well. Light wasn't fighting as well as she could be, splitting her concentration to keep the three of them invisible and a few false targets for it to attack, but even blind swinging from that thing was going to be difficult to avoid being directed right into. Maybe she could draw it away from herself, and in a big circle or something, but she didn't actually know exactly where it was or which of her illusions it was targeting just now, and it was impossible to coordinate anything to correct that problem while constantly under attack.

The teleporter reappeared next to the big puppet, and they both disappeared before showing up half a foot in front of Light, the latter slicing horizontally to force her to duck and the former leaning down and in with a stab that she could only dodge by rolling awkwardly backwards, landing flat on her back and dropping her weapon in the process. Light retaliated with a focused flash to at least briefly blind the puppet with eyes and some scattered lasers from either side; the teleporter simply blinked back out of the lasers' range while the other one charged, ignoring the damage from them entirely. Light rolled to one side to avoid a chop aimed at her center, and pushed her hands down, springing into a front flip, twisting in midair to face her assailant again. She made her sword and threw it at the puppet, but a swing of its axe sent the weapon flying away to one side. Light heard movement to her side just in time to dodge a slice from the other one's knife, and entered into a long series of backwards, sideways, twisting acrobatic movements to evade stabs and chops from nearly every direction imaginable—and of course the one with the axe was closing in the whole time.

Finally she made a wide swing with her sword, clearing the air of the teleporter just before an axe came down at her yet again. Light danced aside, moved up next to the sightless puppet and stabbed for her stomach only to whiff again as she was blinked back out of range by the teleporter. Then there was another slice coming, and the teleporter was behind her ready to follow up.

The axe made a hollow thunk and stopped dead in its tracks, the blade contacting a small black ball of anti-energy which disappeared on impact. Minus moved inside the big puppet's range and stabbed it in the side with her knives before jumping away again; Light kicked backwards, making the teleporter stumble, and swung her blade and self fully around, only narrowly missing the window to hit her before she blinked away again. The gigantic, six-armed creature was distressingly close, but facing away to one side, where Plus was. Light dropped all of the illusory targets except for one breaking away to turn the thing's attention away from the real Plus as she ran to catch her breath.

The big puppet swung at Minus and met another black ball while she ducked away from it. The teleporter appeared behind her, and Light ran to slash at her, making her blink away before she could take a shot. Plus arrived at their position, throwing several ice spikes at the big puppet which it deflected by spinning its axe like a fan blade.

The blindfolded puppet moved forward, swinging at Minus and forcing her to back away; Light turned and came at her back, plunging a sword into her stomach before she could turn around and leaving it there. Then she jumped back, out of the way of a wild circular swing, and Minus fired more lightning into her.

Where's the teleporter? Light thought, looking around quickly. A wider look caught sight of her running toward the mist monster; she threw her knives at it, then teleported them back to her hands after they made contact. It roared, turning her way, and gave chase, swinging wildly at her. Why was she attacking the monsters now, of all times? Well, it was keeping her busy at least. On a snap decision, Light moved forward, ducking around another swing of the big one's axe, and stabbed her again; Plus, behind her, threw knives and ice spikes into her back. Minus moved in just enough to block an axe swing with a black orb and give everyone room to get out of the puppet's range. It had high endurance, but surely it had to be close to death by now, right? This time Light waited for Plus to get in range, prompting a downward slice which she jumped out of, and then went straight for the neck, stabbing into it as hard as she could. The puppet stumbled forward, convulsing briefly, and finally turned to dust.

Light stood still, panting heavily. The fight wasn't over yet, but the nonstop flurry of movement had left her exhausted, and her body simply didn't want to move. But it had to when she heard the monster roar from entirely too close; she turned and jumped away from a flurry of sword swings, and realized that burst of exhaustion had cost her the concentration necessary to keep herself and Gemma invisible. She quickly reinstated that, but not quickly enough for the remaining puppet not to blink right next to her and strike, making her duck away awkwardly and lose her balance from it, landing her on her back again with the idea of getting back up feeling pretty unrealistic. A shadow bullet hit the puppet square in the eye just before it blinked away, and then some thrown daggers hit the monster in the side, drawing its attention away from Light before it could decide whether to kill or eat her. Minus knelt and put a hand on her forehead.

"Are you okay?"
"Forget about me, get the puppet!" All the same, Light could feel some of her energy being restored by Gemma's power, enough for her to feel like her breath was at least momentarily caught, and to sit up. She pushed herself the rest of the way to her feet in time to avoid a blind slice—they were invisible now, after all, even if the puppet hadn't lost the use of its now-shattered eye. Minus made some point-blank fire and threw one of her knives at the puppet's center, landing it solidly in her stomach before she could get away again. The puppet blinked only a couple of feet away, and Light moved closer, ready to press the advantage, but was interrupted by a sudden gasp and yell from Minus.

Light looked briefly in her direction. "What—?" Then she noticed the puppet laughing, and resumed her momentum, landing her blade straight through where a heart should probably be. Still laughing, the teleporting puppet finally turned to dust, leaving them alone with the monster. Light turned again toward Minus, who was wearing an expression somewhere between pain and shock. Looking beyond her, the reason became clear: The monster was facing their direction again; one of its lower arms had caught Plus through the stomach with its pike. She was struggling, trying to pull herself off of it, and Minus was momentarily paralyzed from the pain. This sight lasted an instant or so before the appendage, and the body stuck to it, was jabbed deep into the thing's mouth, which snapped shut, the long pike coming back out from between the teeth empty.

Minus shuddered. "Aah..it..!"

"Combine!" Light moved to her, putting her hands on her shoulders and fixing her eyes on Emma's. "Turn back!"
"Wha—oh. R-right!" Minus winced; whatever was happening clearly hurt. She tried to say her phrase to turn back, and pull Plus out of the monster's belly before it could do whatever it was they did.

The operative word was tried. She seemed to become suddenly tongue-tied, faltering on the last syllable. Her eyes showed confusion for a second—both of them knew right away this wasn't supposed to happene—and she tried again, this time failing halfway through. "Wh-what..I can't.."

"Gemma!" Light let go of her, and tried saying it for her; she had no trouble. The order was for her to turn back, recombine into Minus, and send all of her power to Light to force that to happen for sure. A gray blob similar to the one that had exited her head when first defeated, but much smaller, floated from her to Light. She did not turn back.

She gave one more try to say her own phrase, slowly trying to imitate what she'd just heard Light say. It didn't get anywhere, just a jumbled mess of stuttering, and Minus shuddered again. Then she...flickered. Like the teleporting puppet had, she disappeared from view for just an instant, but then reappeared in exactly the same place. Her eyes were wide with shock. "What? I—" The flicker happened again, and then a third time; it seemed to have a slow, steady rhythm to it. "No, no no no.." Minus shook her head, her ears folded back and her expression pained; the flickering grew more frequent. She couldn't be heard when she wasn't there, and kept repeating 'no' faster and more urgently until the last thing Light heard from her was a long, screaming "NOOOOOO!" intercut with silence every other hundreth of a second when she wasn't there. After that, she wasn't there at all, and Light's focus was drawn back to the mist monster as another copy of itself stepped out of it to one side, the only obvious difference a green glow to its eyes rather than red, and both roared in chorus. Unlike the usual pained or enraged sounds that Light knew these things by, the sound they made now was distinctly—happy. Victorious. It was absolutely sickening.

Suddenly, a wide pillar of light engulfed the area around the apartment complex, stretching out into the sky—into space. It could be seen for miles around: A pure white, sustained flash that nearly rivaled the sun, a beacon of urgent distress that demanded response as immediate as was possible. It lasted for thirty full seconds, and when it was over the person responsible for it no longer felt exhausted, or even the least bit tired. She felt instead a raw, painful rage that simultaneously empowered and compelled her to fight, to attain revenge by any means necessary. Her body had a fiery white blaze around it, her eyes obscured by a white glow just ahead of each which enhanced rather than detracting from her own vision.

This fight was far from over.

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"Thanks a bunch!" Petra said, giving a thumbs-up. "That could've gone way worse without your—um.." Since they were all facing the vixen, they had to turn around to see what had caught her attention. There were some choice words in response to the blazing display, largely words of confusion and concern. "Yeah, that—that looks like something I oughta check out," she concluded, starting toward her car. "I'll be back as soon as I can, you guys, but maybe don't wait up for me. It looks pretty serious."

While getting in, and quickly adjusting the seat and mirrors for her shorter form and the fact that she had to sit forward a bit to make room for the tails, Petra heard her phone make the jingle she'd assigned to 'texts from Rowan'. A couple more button presses on the car's control panel let the text-to-speech read it out for her while she got ready to go. "All clear here. On my way to you. Inform Light my powers at her disposal. Reply?"

"Yes. O K. Send."
"Reply sent."

She peeled out with far less caution than Karis would probably have approved of, and started in the direction of where the pillar of light had been. Only a moment later she caught sight of another vixen chasing her car in the rear-view mirror: Light-gray hair and fur, with some visible purple sparks trailing across the ground behind her feet. Petra braked to a halt and rolled down the right window as she came up. "Can I join you? You're going to Light, right?"

It hadn't really occurred to her the probable origin of that pillar until now. Petra hadn't properly met Light yet, but everything she'd heard had suggested she wasn't..well..that powerful. Her first guess had been some fresh new horror summoning itself in to try and kill everyone. Well, either way it had to be what this girl meant, so she nodded right away. "Yep, yep! Get in already."

"Right! Um." She opened the door, swung inside, shut it again. Petra hit the gas before she could even start getting a seatbelt on. "I could usually run faster but she's borrowing my power right now," she said, as if having a less-than-superhuman running speed was somehow shameful or disappointing. Well—based on what Petra understood, this person had to be Ning since it was neither Rowan nor Gemma.

"Guess that's not as good as you being there?"

"Probably! I-I don't know what yet but, something went really wrong. I can feel it."

"That much is obvious before any feelings get involved."

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"I mean, I probably could've done it on my own but it'd take way longer," Rory said. Her husband, still in fox-form, ran up.
"You alright?" she said, moving close enough to hit her with the 'heal bulb' and check for herself.

"Not a scratch on me. Puppets are surprisingly weak to guns, you know; I'm really regretting not taking those classes."

"I don't know whether I can imagine something more terrifying than you with a gun," Clark joked.

"Me with superpowers?" she retorted with a smirk down at her. Looking back up again, she saw something which the campus police had mostly already noticed. "Uh...hey, am I seeing things or is that a..."
"Giant pillar of light piercing the heavens," Clark finished for her, looking herself. "I'd say that's probably not good news." Her phone—in a small purse she'd picked out to carry around in fox-form—buzzed, and she quickly pulled it out. "Hmm. Won't be faster to drive, right?"
"Probably not," Rory said, understanding her meaning. "Follow you?"
"Yeah." Clark led the way.

The graduate lounge wasn't the most clandestine of places to meet, so after the last time Amory had elected to 'boost' both of the Quinns to get them to the fight a bit faster, the three of them had agreed upon a certain ill-used alley between two of the school's buildings with few to zero cameras watching the ways in or out. Waving goodbye to the helpful campus policemen, Rory followed Clark to that location and, thankfully, found it deserted apart from Amory. He changed, and only needed to give each of them a brief, close hug with a little bit of petting and tail-brushing to 'amplify' them and particularly gift Clark the power of flight—or, 'ignoring gravity' as the physicist preferred to think of it. That accomplished in less than a minute, Amp changed back and the two of them headed up and away to lend their aid toward helping deal with whatever new disaster had been unleashed.