Battle Vixens! - 47

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Episode 47: Becoming Prepared

In a break between classes, Clark went to Rory's office to find her grading more lab reports. He quietly entered, shut the door behind him, and sat in the seat opposite her desk usually reserved for visiting students. After a short while she looked up from her work to seemingly notice him sitting there for the first time. "Yes dear?"
"Have you had a look at the news lately? Or just heard the kids talking in the halls?"
"Hmmn. Something to the effect of all those sleeping people waking up?" she guessed. He nodded. "Good news, for sure."

"Certainly."

He crossed his arms. "It does make me feel a bit less safe, however. As a publicly known vixen with close ties to the V.I. ..."

"Hey, your plan worked like a charm," she said. "If more puppets come for us, borrowing back and forth is absolutely the way to go. The 'communication' part was a stroke of genius."

"Sure. But even our powers combined won't do much if all ten or—if there's more of them, come after one or both of us at once."
"Well, that's what we have friends for," she shrugged. "It's not worth worrying about; either it'll happen or it won't."
"I suppose you're right."

Rory turned back to her work briefly, and then turned her head back up. "You know what she said to me, while trying to kill me? She said my power is a 'crown jewel'. I think she wants mine, especially."

"That's..not really enhancing my confidence," Clark said nervously. He sighed. "I guess it makes sense, though. All her puppets keep getting killed by bullets. You can survive that. If she can actually augment her puppets with each others' abilities, or—even if she can just make herself that resistant, then it would be worth trying to take."
Rory nodded. "She also said it would be a shame to waste it. That's the part that's bugging me, really. I'm not wasting it. Nobody else seems to be, either. So..."

"Hmm."

"We know now that, more than likely, the puppets hitting everyone was intended as a big distraction to get somebody eaten wherever there did turn out to be a monster," Clark said. "With the number of powers and—especially puppets at her disposal, why does the puppeteer insist on this exact strategy? Why pull her punches, and not just kill one of us outright? There's something we're missing."

Rory had returned to the paper while he was speaking—more thinking aloud to be honest. But at this point she slowly looked up, and pointed at him. "...She can't inherit a power if a puppet does the killing."

Clark squinted his eyes, thinking about it.
"That's why it would be a waste. I'm in her way, and today she showed she knows or has at least guessed what my big weakness is, but she'd rather I survive than die to her puppets, because she wants my power more than most."
"Is there any solid evidence to confirm this?" He got out his phone, and began typing something in to search. "Has she ever tried..?"

"Maybe not, but her behavior says she believes it," Rory said. "So she either tried it out once, or a certain somebody told her it worked that way. It sort of makes sense; claiming someone's powers is very 'beat them in combat', and in some sense it 'shouldn't count' if somebody else is fighting the battle for you."

"We should inform the others of this hypothesis. Perhaps Rowan first," Clark said, changing gears with what he was doing on the phone.
"Sure."

"If it is true she wants my power worse than most..." Rory began.

"Hmm?"
"Well—it gives me a few ideas, is all." She shrugged. "Some strategy we could prepare in advance. If you want to hear it?"
"Of course," he nodded.

---

Light didn't exactly feel amazing, but she didn't feel tired anymore; sleeping any more was out of the question. She wasn't sure how much of the VI headquarters she'd be allowed to wander around through, but she couldn't just pace around in the little guest room either, so she opened the door and ventured out into the hallway, looking around cautiously. It was empty, but her ears picked up bits and pieces of conversations in nearby rooms, and one particular set of footsteps approaching. Well—this was somewhere she was allowed to be, for sure, so there was no reason to hide or duck back into the room. She shut the door behind her and leaned against it, thinking that whoever was approaching might be able to tell her somewhere more comfortable to sit down, at least.

"Ah, hello again, Light." It was Simon; he gave a friendly wave and fast-walked over as soon as he saw her. "Shouldn't you still be in bed?"
"Can't sleep anymore," she said, shaking her head.

"Hm. Well, your voice sounds better at least." He searched her face for a second or two, which made her uncomfortable enough to stop leaning on the door and take a step away from him. "Say, when's the last time you ate?"
She hadn't expected that searching look to lead to this question, and hesitated briefly. "Uh...breakfast, I guess."
"Well, if you're hungry we've got a cafeteria here. Not quite up to my usual standards, but at least the workers are sworn to secrecy!" He gave a goofy grin that seemed to indicate this was a joke, but Light didn't find it very funny. "I'm starving myself, so I could show you the way?"

"..Sure, I guess."

"Alright! Follow me."

When they got closer, Light could smell the food cooking, and a wave of hunger hit her all at once, as if her body just suddenly remembered that it needed—or at least preferred—food rather than just absorbing light. Her mind finally consciously registered the actual time the clock had shown her—it was a while past noon—and she realized something else.

"I'm gonna miss all my classes today..." she said under her breath—not entirely conscious someone might be listening.

"So you are a student, then," Simon said.

"Uugh." She pulled at her ears with her hands. "You weren't supposed to hear that!"

"It's nothing to worry about; I know how to keep a secret or three. Here we are." He gestured at a pair of open double doors leading to a cafeteria, and led the way in.

He waved her on to precede him in line (there wasn't anyone else in line), and continued glibly talking the entire way through: "It is the prevailing theory already, you know. You showed up to two different attacks on campus before the vixens who are professors did, and now you were among the first on the scene at an apartment complex that mostly students live in? Either you have a better early warning system than the VI and a method of rapid transport, or you must be a student or some very similar occupation. Everyone thinks Gemma's a student too, you know, especially after the latest attack. Ning they're not so sure about, which I imagine is for the best." Light elected not to respond to this, instead just picking out an empty table to sit down at. Simon followed, and sat across from her.

Now that there was food in front of her, it was difficult to focus on anything else besides it for a minute or two. Simon only picked at his food—apparently what he'd said before about it not being up to his standards was more or less true. "Well, I admit I've wished I could speak with you for a long time now," he said eventually. "You know—other than in the middle of a combat situation. The press, you know, sees you as a big mystery. You always disappear right away, taking whoever you can with you. The prevailing theory is that you're the head honcho over in your town, and now that you've shown the ability to use Rowan's powers there are a few rumors that you're the mysterious benefactor behind the whole Initiative. Of course, that clashes rather badly with the theory that you must be a student, but.."

"I'm not in charge of anyone," Light said as soon as her mouth wasn't full. "We just..work together."

"Well, maybe I know that, and anytime they're asked the other vixens in your town deny it too, but it's hard to quell that kind of theory second-hand. Nobody knows what your angle is, so they assume it's a secret for a reason. "

"Mngh." Light reminded herself to swallow her food first, and then said: "I don't..have an angle! I just.." She shook her head. "I don't want to see anyone get hurt."
"It'd do a great deal of good if you'd let some cameras record you saying that," he said. "Appearances are everything, you know. From meeting you, I get the impression you're more just afraid of being interviewed, and I admit I don't really know why."

Light sighed. This wasn't a conversation she wanted to have now, or ever really, especially with a practical stranger. But he was right, after all. "I just..I'm scared I'll say something that'll give away who I really am—or who someone else is. And, once somebody knows that everyone does, and anyone related to me, or to them, could be in danger."

"I think that's the wrong way of looking at it," Simon said. "If you use it right, fame is armor. Celebrities and their loved ones are instinctively protected by the public. Just today I was attacked by two of those puppets and, instead of running away, the men I was working with held one of them down and took away their advantage of numbers. Made it easy for me. Imagine how differently your fight might've gone if instead of the lot being deserted you had some fans there cheering you on. When those puppets showed up they might've been tackled to the ground, or—I bet at least a few of the kids in those apartments are packing, whether it's legal or not. The problem might've been solved for you."
"One of them could teleport," Light said. "Someone with a gun would be a perfect weapon for her to get somebody killed. And the other one was super strong! I'm glad there was nobody there because they would've gotten hurt."
"Oh? And you like the way it really went instead, with your friend getting eaten and making a lot more trouble for everyone?" Simon put forward a hand, palm-up. "If somebody's gonna get hurt either way I'd rather it be in a way that doesn't create a new disaster."

"I don't like what happened either, but—that was my fault," Light said. "I could've—I made mistakes. If I'd paid more attention to what she was doing, and reacted correctly, then nobody would've needed to get hurt."

"Ah, so all you need to do is be perfect, then," he said, in a completely matter-of-fact tone which conveyed more sarcasm than any other could.

"Look, a secret like yours gets tougher to keep the longer it's kept. Whether you're a leader or not, you are a hero," (Light winced slightly at this word, but he didn't seem to notice) "with a well-documented streak of big, dramatic maneuvers and jumps in power that nobody else with powers seems capable of achieving. If you keep going the way you are, Light, somebody will find out your 'secret identity' and then you'll be famous whether you want to be or not. If you really want to avoid fame, then you still have some outs right now. Like, just—you know, use your illusions to fake your own heroic death, move to another college if you're afraid of facing anyone who knows who you really are here—it might even be possible to tell them you don't feel safe here and want to transfer, with the amount of attacks you've had on campus compared to elsewhere, after all. Then you never have to be famous."

"I can't—do that!" Light said, incredulous.

He shrugged. "I'm just telling you, there is another option, at least in theory. To me, you seem like someone who never wanted fame. Is that right?"

She sighed again. "I, no. I don't. I just—you know, I wanted a normal life. Comfortable, secure. But I can't just walk away now..not when so many people's lives are at stake."

"So, where you're going doesn't match where you want to be," Simon continued. "In your position I would take any out I could find. People will always be in danger, especially with what's happening to the world now, and in my opinion there will always be those willing to attempt to rescue them. If I don't want to be, then none of those people have to be me."

Light fixed him with a long look halfway between confusion and outrage, not entirely sure how to process what he was saying.

"..You'd get along great with my wife, I bet," he said.
"What?" The statement, seemingly from nowhere, snapped her out of her previous state and straight into full confusion.

"Karis, my wife. She's a wonderful woman. She teaches math at a public school," he said. "She's like my supplementary conscience. Whenever I'm thinking of doing something, or not doing something, I'll tell her and she'll tell me whether it's wrong, and explain very patiently why. But I just can't understand her sometimes, the same way I can't you right now. Let me tell you, the job of being a public teacher is grueling, time- and energy-sapping work, and the pay suuuucks." He made a thumbs-down motion with his right hand to emphasize this point. "If I had the success rate of your average independent artist when it comes to making money off of my works, the two of us would be dirt poor. And between you and me, Karis has almost as expensive of tastes as I do, so the two of us being anything less than upper-middle-class is a recipe for disaster. But thankfully, I make so much money she doesn't really even need to work at all—even before having superpowers started edging me out into being actually famous.

"And when she comes home from a long day at work, and rants to me in private—not really meaning half of it—about how the kids don't respect her, the principals won't support her, some of the other teachers seem to have it out for her—and I say, 'Karis dear, if you hate your job so much, why don't you just quit? You could get a job at a university with your education, or at least a private school somewhere'—you know what she says back? She says, 'I can't just quit'. And it's exactly the same thing—the same way you just said you can't just walk away."

Simon shrugged. "I do respect it, believe me, but deep down I don't get why you can't. In my mind, it's like, of course you can! If you can't stand what you're doing, or you don't like where it's going, you've gotta do what's best for yourself first. Maybe it makes me selfish and shallow, but I just can't see myself doing something I hate for my entire life merely 'for the benefit of others'."

"Why do you choose to fight, then?" Light said. "You..you know you're risking your life, every time you use your powers to fight one of those things, don't you?"
"Of course I know that!" he said, putting up his hands. "But I like it anyway. It's thrilling; having and using those powers feels good, and using them that way earns me fame and admiration from people who never would've heard me otherwise; and I'm not entirely heartless, I do like helping other people out. But you see, I've decided for myself that the risks are worth the rewards.

"Now, I would never question that you've weighed the risk to your own life if something goes wrong, but it seems to me like you've never thought very hard before about the long-term consequences of doing things bound to make you famous: Namely, becoming famous," he said, making a finger-gun gesture toward her. "If you plan on keeping on doing what you're doing, then I suggest you learn how to cope with it. And I'm willing to offer any advice you want toward that. I haven't been famous long, but as someone who's dreamed of it my entire life, I have done plenty of research on the dos and don'ts."

At this point, Light realized that the purpose of this entire conversation from Simon's point of view was, and had always been, to try and help her out. For his talk of being shallow and selfish, he did seem to have a charitable impulse of some sort. He was forcing her to face a reality she'd been ignoring for a while now, and was even offering to help deal with that reality. She slowly, reluctantly nodded, accepting the offer of help. "Okay."

"Okay?" He didn't completely understand the response.

"You're right, I probably do need help," she clarified.

"Ah. Well, that's good to hear. They say the first step to fixing any problem is admitting you have one; I don't think that's always true, but it's a good cliché to start with, right? Anyway," Simon began rattling off right away: "My suggestion for the first thing you should do is to actually let a news crew come and interview you. Tell them the kinds of things you told me—that you just want to help people out, and never even imagined yourself as some kind of celebrity before all this happened. And you don't want to talk about who you are because you're afraid it would put people other than yourself in danger; they'll respect that, I guarantee you—they did it for those of us here at the V.I., like Zeno, who wanted to keep their secret identities intact.You can be honest without giving away anything about your identity, and it'll make the situation far clearer to everyone. If you're not sure what you'll want to say, or even if you're just nervous, you should practice in front of a mirror first, or with one of your in-the-know friends. I bet Amory could guess what kind of questions an interviewer will go for and help you prep for the worst of them."

"Um..okay..." Once he got started, Simon was like a never-ending torrent of words; Light was having difficulty keeping up with it all.

"Remember that you can cut off the interview at any time by literally disappearing—and that whoever's interviewing you knows that, too. If you don't like a question you can just refuse to answer it—you're not trapped there, and if your interviewer's worth his salt he will not push the issue."

"Right..."

"That's about all I've got right now. But if you have any questions I think we've already got each other registered in the app, so just text me whenever you like. Are you finished eating?" Simon asked.
Light looked down; her plate was, in fact, empty. "Uh, sure."

"Great. There is one personal favor I thought I might ask of you, but you shouldn't feel obliged to fulfill it no matter how helpful I've been."

---

Amory led Emma back out to the facility's front, where Rowan and a few of the remaining awakened vixens were waiting. Among them, just next to the former policeman, was a short girl with bright green hair, eyes, and fur, who waved to Amory as they approached.

"Hey there," she said, "so this one's Gemma?" She looked to the gray-haired girl. "I thought you were always two girls?"

"Well, uh. I found out I can 'combine' like this," she shrugged. In an effortless motion which she couldn't possibly explain in words, Emma "stepped out" of herself, Plus going to the right and Minus to the left, and was two again. "I just—" "—never thought of 'walking into myself'," she said, and then stepped back together again to keep the conversation slightly more normal.
"Well, I'm Nico. Guess I owe you a power-showing, then," she said.

"Um. N-not if you don't want to. Or, don't feel up to it right now."
"Nonsense! I feel great. The docs say I should at least be hungry, but I guess it hasn't caught up to me yet. Anyway, the sooner you get more powerful the better, eh? We need all the help we can get. But uh," Nico looked around, particularly at the flooring of the room, and back up again. "It's a little difficult to show in here. Can we go outside?" She asked Rowan, who nodded.

On the way out, she closed and opened her right hand, making a small pile of seeds appear in the palm. "So, it's all about these seeds," she explained. "But I can't do a thing with them unless there's 'viable' ground, and..well, concrete and tile won't cut it." Emma watched that motion of her hand with intense interest, and nodded to the explanation as well, already feeling like it was beginning to make sense. She couldn't help herself—what Amory had said about learning new things, new powers especially, making her feel better did seem to be true, but maybe not in the best of ways. It was a little like an addiction, she thought.

Outside, Nico turned to the earth to one side of the concrete pathway leading up to the door, and tossed one of the seeds at it. In a matter of seconds, a sapling grew—not a physical one, but one seemingly made of a bluish light. In it, Emma could see aspects of the same kind of 'spirit' magic Clark used, but mixed with something else that felt less familiar—plant magic, maybe?

"So, y'see, I can grow these saplings from the seeds in good earth," Nico was explaining. "They can have different effects. This one's set to 'recharge magic'." Emma nodded—she was feeling something similar to what Minus could do as an 'opposite' to Clark's healing—a milder effect but spread over an area instead of restricted to touch. It did seem to have a certain kind of selectiveness to it, too—it wouldn't just indiscriminately help everyone in range. "I can also do 'healing' but it's pretty weak, 'protection' which makes getting hit hurt less, and there's also this one that shoots its fruit at whatever I tell it I don't like. Do I, need to do all those for you to learn them?"
"No, this should be enough," she said. "Um.." First she tried imitating the making of some seeds, and was able to get one to appear in her right hand. Doing the same thing on the opposite side—willing herself to use Minus's "version" of the power—produced a dark, powdery substance which she perceived to be spores. "Hmn." Trying the seed first, she tossed it underhand at some 'viable' ground a short distance away from Nico's sapling. A slightly smaller, blue-glowing sapling appeared with the described 'physical protection' effects.

"Heey, not bad. Looks just the same as mine," Nico said. "Although—I can actually make mine grow into full-size trees. I guess that's where you might be weaker. What've you got there?" she added, noticing the other hand.

"Um, the 'opposite'." Holding that hand up to her face, she blew on her palm and the spores spread forward, scattering across some unoccupied ground and forming a small patch of red-light mushrooms. "..These will 'weaken' anyone standing in them," she said, and then quickly dismissed both of her creations; they faded away from view and were gone as quickly as they had appeared.

"You have a weapon besides seeds?" Amory asked.

"Huh? Oh, well, I gotta grow it, too." Moving closer to where her sapling still was, Nico tossed down another seed, and an actual plant seemed to grow up as rapidly as the sapling had before—with a very unusual shape. It was more or less a trunk in exactly the shape of a shovel struck into the dirt, with some vines spiraling up it to keep it stable as it grew. She grabbed the handle and the vines dissipated into sparks of blue light, then she swung the shovel up into her hands. "There we go. It's way sturdier than something made of wood oughta be, and fire don't seem to affect it, either." When she let go of it, it disappeared in the same way. Emma was able to imitate this also, resulting in a wooden trowel, but dismissed it rather than picking it up.

"Are you feeling any better?" Rowan said, after watching this. Amory, who had also been watching, looked on with an expression that read to her as part-concern, part-relief.
"Um, a little, I guess."
He nodded. "We should get going. They'll have some cleanup to do here." He turned and started to lead the way toward the exit, but paused at the interruption of two voices almost at once from the direction of the facility's doorway.

One of them spoke in a language Emma didn't understand—Japenese? The other, with the timing of an echo but in English, said, "Excuse us." Turning that way, they could see that the first speaker was a fox-girl with dark purple hair and seemingly irisless eyes; the second a man standing next to her who seemed to be interpreting. Now that they had the group's attention, the girl continued, the interpreter translating for her as she went: "Mr. Shepherd. She has spoken with her partner back in Japan, who wishes to express her deepest gratitude. Although, the nature of the cure, she did not reveal."

Rowan nodded. "Of course." His speech the interpreter seemed to translate back into the girl's native language in the same way as he had hers to English. "The V.I. needs as many allies as it can get."

After looking between the members of their group briefly in silence, the fox-girl's eyes focused on Emma, making her back away a step or so nervously. She spoke again, and the interpreter said: "Are you the one who imitates powers?"
"Yes, um..."
"Her partner suggested 'teaching' you hers, in hopes it would give you an edge over your present enemy. Although, she doesn't know what enemy is meant. What would you need to see?"

"Uh. J-just uh, using it a little bit. But, what um..?"
"You have, time powers, right?" Amory spoke up. Once the question was translated, the girl nodded, and Amory shot Emma a concerned look.

"..I-it's fine." She must have thought this one had gone already, Emma decided. But—well, maybe she couldn't actually do much with the power anyway. Back to the girl and her interpreter, "You s-shouldn't feel like you have to, though..."
"This is nothing," the interpreter replied; alongside this the girl gave a somewhat unsettling grin. "Just watch." She put a hand out to one side and upward, fingers outstretched, and there was a small globe of visible distortion slightly past her palm: Time was flowing more slowly within the affected area. After a moment she closed her hand, and the distorted area folded into the shape of a long katana, its hilt held in her hand. And then she let go, and the weapon disappeared again.

"..Is that enough?" she asked through the interpreter.

"Um..yes, it should be." Emma tried doing the same thing, placing her hand palm-up and 'taking' some of the time there. The effect wasn't visible, but when she closed her hand on it there was a dagger produced in the same way—from the flow of time 'stolen' over a few seconds. From her look of keen interest, the fox-girl with time powers at least seemed able to perceive what she was doing, and gave what seemed to be an approving nod. "We'll take our leave, then," The interpreter said after her, and then followed her out toward the vehicles.

"I, uh..I thought she'd already left," Amory said after they seemed to be out of earshot.
"It's okay. Um, I don't seem to be able to do much with it," Emma rationalized—mostly for her own benefit. Without a further word, Rowan resumed his previous course.

In the car, he finally spoke again: "I had some time to review footage of the fight. It was able to use all of the abilities you had learned?"
"Mn..yeah..."

"It didn't appear to use light at all," he pointed out. "Nor water."
"Um, it tried. But Light using her powers, and yours, was too strong and just denied it control over them," she said. "And, I don't feel like the concept of defending itself with illusions ever occurred to it at all."
"You were aware of what it was thinking?" he asked, with obvious interest.
"No. But um..I was, sort of..I don't know. I feel like after, I woke up, I started remembering everything it did with my powers."
"Yeah, same way with me," Nico said. "I didn't exactly see it..or hear it...I guess it's something you 'feel'?"

"It didn't learn any new powers. But then, every power it encountered during that battle was one you'd seen before," Rowan said. "Do you think it could have learned new powers?"
"I...I don't know. Light took a small piece of my power out before it could get a hold of it. Maybe it would've needed the whole thing to do that, or..maybe not? It, didn't seem very good at learning in general."
"They never do," Nico said.

"Soo, time girl seemed a little freaky," she continued. Although she wasn't showing it, Emma suspected Nico was just as uncomfortable with thinking about being inside the monsters as she was. "They are on our side, yeah?"
"Of course. Her partner has been our foremost ally in helping establish ties with the group of vixens present in Japan," Rowan said. "The more of us I meet, the more I am convinced that our powers cause changes in personality, or at least in how we feel like presenting ourselves. It's definitely true for me, at least."

"Oh yeeah, and Fay's 'three words' thing," Nico said. "But she doesn't always do that."

"It's not a compulsion," Rowan agreed.
"But it is an inclination," Amory said.

"..Oh wow, I haven't eaten in like days right?" Nico said, unprompted. "I am starving."
"You can get something from the cafeteria," Rowan said. "After someone makes sure you can even handle solid food. But I wouldn't be surprised if you can; I'm told the state you were in is medically different from an ordinary coma."

"Yeah, cool. Uh, hey...my husband knows I'm okay by now, right?"
He nodded. "He's on his way there."

As they came near the headquarters, Rowan received a call from Zeno, and picked it up. "Hello?"
"Hey, uh. Are you on your way back?"

"Almost there, actually. Why?"
"Well uh. So when we got the news that everyone was okay, Dawn just stood up and went into her room and shut the door. I can't get her to open it or respond...I, don't really know what to say, to be honest."
It wasn't hard to imagine why. "...I'll see whether she'll speak to me," he said. "Is Light awake?"
"Yep. I dunno how, but Simon got her to let him take some pictures, so they're..doing that."

"Well, I'll see you soon," he said.
"Bye!"

Once Zeno hung up, he called Simon. "Yello?"

"Something's come up and I need to deal with it quickly. Any chance you could give everyone a ride back?"
"Hmmh. Well, I'm not exactly busy now. You planning to reimburse the gas?"
"Surely you can afford it," Rowan said, annoyed.
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I want to. Since I'm taking the trip for you and all..."
He sighed. "I'll pay you back myself. Just this once, though; there's nothing in your contract about paying for gas."
"I know that! Okay, you got a deal."

It seemed as if both sides of the conversation were about to hang up when Simon interrupted: "Wha—oh. Light says she has something important to tell you! More than one, even." Then, more quietly as he no doubt held it out toward her: "—You wanna use my phone? No? What, you don't trust the app to keep secrets? Do you know how many layers of encryption this thing goes through? 'Cause I don't, but it's a lot! Okay, okay." Holding the phone back to his ear, he said, "In person only, I guess."
"It's fine, we're almost there anyway," Rowan said.

After hanging up, he received a text from Dr. Clark Quinn.

---

Well, even though she is sort of a secondary or tertiary character, Nico gets an image because I found one that matches what I think she should look like really well.