Battle Vixens! - 50

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Episode 50: The Missing Morning

Around 7 AM, Rowan found Simon standing at an intersection of hallways in the VI headquarters, holding a canvas wrapped up in paper under his left arm and looking uncertain. "You're here early," he commented, moving closer.

"I am! My dear wife told me to sleep in, and believe me, I agreed, but my body revolted and decided to wake up anyway. Have you seen Dawn around?"

"She moved rooms recently," Rowan started.
"Oh, I know about that. But—well, her door was ajar and she wasn't in there. Or the dining area, or the gym. I was just wondering where else she could be here. Especially if not with you..."

Crossing his arms, Rowan said, "I thought she was still asleep. She isn't normally up this early, either. Come with me."

"Oo-kay."

There was, perhaps, no objective reason to worry—the headquarters were fairly big, and Rowan could himself think of a few different reasons for Dawn to get up early and go somewhere she usually didn't. But from the intsant Simon had said her name, Rowan's instincts as a police officer kicked off with a fluttering edge of panic in the back of his mind—something is wrong, something is very wrong. He took off at a brisk walk to the security room, not bothering to check whether Simon was keeping up with the load he was carrying. Nonetheless, the artist did catch up to him at a run once he'd stopped to open the door, and, panting, followed him inside.

A few swift orders had one of the monitors set to show the view of the camera pointed in the direction of Dawn's door, and Rowan leaned over so his face was level with it and began tracking back the view hour by hour. "Did you have a camera on me while I was here?" Simon asked, leaning over his shoulder to watch.

"You had the cameras pointed out to you on your way in," Rowan said, sparing only a shred of his concentration on answering. "There are no cameras in the bedrooms or bathrooms."
"Oh. Right. I suppose I wasn't paying that much attention...hey! Door's shut now."
"..Five AM." Rowan moved a half-hour forward; it was open again. Then he went back minute-by- minute, and forward slowly after crossing back to the door being open. "..There."

The door was carefully cracked open, and Dawn leaned her head out, looking in either direction. She stepped out into the hallway, and paused, appearing to notice the camera. They were clearly visible, no effort having been made to hide them, and she was probably more aware they existed than Simon had until a moment ago been. Facing it as head-on as she could, her ears folded back and she said something, before turning and starting to walk quickly down the hall, away from it.
"Are you any good at lip reading?" Rowan asked.
"Little bit. I think that was...'I'm sorry. I have to.'"
"'Have to' what?"

Tracing through a few more cameras, Rowan watched her route with a sinking feeling of what he was inevitably going to see. When a person was crossing a hall in front of her she took care to back up and press against a wall, waiting patiently until they were completely gone to continue. Once or twice she stopped, her ears turning a certain way, and made a more circuitous path than would normally be necessary—to avoid whoever she'd heard. And, eventually, she came to one of the building's exits. It was locked, but only from the inside—people went out that way all the time. Outside, she moved along the wall until she was out of view of the camera, and could be seen on another raising a small pillar of ice and using it to help jump over the fence.

"..Leaving?" Simon said, confused. "Where'd she go?"
"I need to report this," Rowan said, standing up abruptly and going around Simon somewhat roughly on his way out.

"Whooaa, hey! Is—is something wrong here?"

---

Emma woke up to the thoroughly unfamiliar sensation of her legs hanging out past the foot of her bed. She had a brief moment of disorientation toward this, quickly sitting up in the process, before remembering what had just happened in the dream. Looking down to examine herself, she found she was still in the tall, voluptuous, strong two-tailed form, with the very same clothes. It had felt..normal, somehow, in the midst of the dream, but her face turned entirely red as she realized Amory had seen her in—well, like this and in this little clothing. Still—a small smile played across her face at the same time. It had been very...nice.

She stood up, looking around the room. It was one thing to find herself taller in a relatively unfamiliar dream-bedroom, and another entirely to see the place she woke up to every morning from the new perspective. Her ears twitched, listening for her roommate, and didn't hear anything to indicate her presence. That ruled out Beryl being awake and doing stuff in the apartment—and she was a pretty early riser, usually—but maybe she was still asleep? Thinking about some of the things Light had been able to pull off, Emma made an illusion of her usual self and quietly leaned her head out of her bedroom door, moving over to her roommate's and pressing one of her ears right against it. No breathing inside—which meant Beryl had left before she awoke. Good! Well—only in that she could stay like this a little longer and test a few things out, Emma told herself.

Running back to her room to look in a mirror, Emma realized two things: First, she still had the illusion of her 'human self' running—and second, she'd never been capable of something quite this convincing before, much less without constant, conscious effort. She dispelled the illusion, wondering just how close to the 'real' powers of people her imitations could get like this. Well, there was no all-encompassing sense of control over all the light—or sound, water, electricity, rocks, etcetera—around her the way they had. But, in addition to making relatively small, yet quite convincing, illusions with light, she was able to make a very close approximation of one of Zeno's shields, not quite as tough as hers really were yet just as tall as Emma was right now, which was quite a lot bigger than before. And a dark ball of energy-absorption could be made in sizes ranging from her usual limit to maybe two and a half feet in diameter. Overall, her use of imitated powers was greatly expanded.

What about weapons, she thought. Anything different there? She made her usual sort of knives out of light, shadow, and electricity first, then dismissed them and decided to try really imitating Light's usual way of making her weapon appear instead of just what she was used to doing by now. In this way, Emma was able to produce a short sword out of light, maybe three-quarters the length of Light's actual weapon. The other elements she was able to make weapons with had similar extensions, and as it turned out she could even 'customize' the weapon's size anywhere between her original knives and this larger one. Beyond that...

Clark wasn't just able to heal; he had those string things, right? Emma had never really tried imitating those, since it seemed like they 'came from' the needle and she couldn't make a needle either. But actually—it seemed like it really came from Clark's wrists sometimes, or at least it was tied closely to them. She tried using that instead, holding one hand palm-up and then carefully grasping near the spot it came from for Clark with the other, and was able to produce some of the same kind of glowing string—only hers wasn't blue, it was—white...green...red...then blue...? As she pulled more out, she found a continual striped pattern of one color after another, each one possibly representing one of the powers she'd imitated. Well, at least she could do this if it was ever somehow useful, she thought, dropping the effort of keeping the string around to dissipate it.

Rory's power, predictably, was able to reinforce her physical strength, toughness, agility at a whim—and on the opposite side, she felt able to enhance not only her resilience against others' "magical" attacks but her own use of imitation powers to be either stronger, or under finer control. It seemed like if she tried to push a power past what she was currently 'normally' capable of then this 'magic boosting' would kick in instinctively, too. So...

Pulling herself apart again, Emma took stock of how each body felt in its enhanced state, now that her powers were 'working'. Plus didn't feel any stronger than before, but could use Rory's power to make herself much moreso than usual. Minus was indeed super-strong, able to pick up the other body, and then Emma's bed, both relatively effortlessly. On the other hand, she discovered Plus could move almost faster than Minus's eyes could track, while Minus was no faster than before. Maybe they'd always had this as a slight difference, and the increase had just emphasized it a bit more? Both of them were, of course, able to 'customize' weapons as much as she could while combined.

Another idea hit her after this. When she'd shown her imitation of Zeno's light-shields, Light had proven able to move them around. Which meant...Plus made a shield, and was also able to freely move it around, of course. She could also make water and then use Dawn's trick to freeze it, or Minus's version of the same to rapidly heat it into steam. Shadow bullets could be propelled faster, or slightly redirected mid-flight, using Minus's shadow-control. If she threw something—a weapon, a big rock, whatever—Minus could adjust its 'gravity' using Tora's trick to speed it up and make it hit a little harder. If there was enough metal in the ground—and there usually was—she could use 'earth' powers to throw bits of it into the air between herself and an enemy to make it easier to conduct electricity to them; maybe bits of water could be similarly useful. Fay's explosions produced light that could be turned into lasers, and heat that fire could be drawn out of. And so on...somehow it had just never exactly occurred to her before the degree to which she use different powers to enhance the effects of each other, but it seemed really obvious now. Some of those ideas could even work at her original level of power, although many required her to be 'boosted' as she was now to either work at all or be meaningfully effective.

She excitedly tried out and thought of things, one after another, for an entire hour before happening to glance at a clock, and realizing it was getting late into the morning and she hadn't had anything for breakfast. Her two bodies looked at each other with a slightly sad expression and a mutual sigh, before realizing that she could eat just one meal in one body without changing back, now. Duh! Stepping back together, Emma hurried to the kitchen to make herself something, being thankful once again for taking afternoon classes. Even though this was temporary, and would wear off one way or another...she wanted to savor this confident feeling, this sense of actually being strong, and powerful, and clever for once, as long as she could. And anyway...knowing more about it was good; it would help for anytime Amory gave her a 'boost' again and her powers were needed to fight something.

---

Half an hour went by entirely too quickly. Rowan had a meeting scheduled which he could not put off, and anyway it wouldn't do any good to. He had already contacted every relevant person that he could, and of course not one of them had any idea of Dawn's whereabouts. She had wanted to disappear, and so she had disappeared; he got the sense that her "previous" life had trained her well for evading the exact kind of people he had available to look for her. And she had nearly a two-hour head start. It was almost pointless to keep trying.

It took him a moment after cranking the car to realize that he was physically shaking. He took a deep breath, and let it out; this wasn't a good state to be trying to drive in. Somewhat reluctantly, he spoke his phrase, shrinking and shifting like water, and then scooted forward slightly to make room for the tail, readjusted the seat and mirrors, and finally set out, relying on the fox-form's natural calm to keep herself focused on the most immediate task. After arriving and stepping out, she changed back, and some approximation of the calm remained. Good—he was going to need it.

Very few people involved directly in the VI's operations had any idea who their main benefactor really was. Rowan had, despite some protest, been treated as effectively the leader of the vixens working directly with them, which came with the responsibility of not only knowing his name but meeting on a regular basis, participating in any discussion that could lead to major or important decisions set to affect the organization as a whole. As he was more or less the creator of the organization, and had some experience in such matters, that benefactor was also closely involved with the higher-level tactical and research portions of the VI. Today's meeting was primarily to discuss the identity of the puppeteer.

So Rowan walked into an average-looking office building, went up an elevator and entered the door to the secretary's office. A nameplate on the bespectacled, tall, blond-haired woman's desk said "Opal Smith". She turned her head up from the computer at the sound of the door opening and nodded. "Mr. Shepherd. Right on time, as usual. Frank is ready for you now." It was the name he generally insisted on everyone using, despite a number of more "honorary" titles being applicable. Rowan nodded, and made his way inside.

Already seated in the office were a couple of the research leads for the program of "making magic work", as well as the woman—a private eye, and FBI agent before that—who was more or less the head of the VI's "intelligence division" (which was more like a coordination team that worked with actual law enforcement and intelligence agencies). Behind the large desk in front, of course, was Frank himself. He was in his forties, with bifocals and some gray hairs showing, but he had a build that might have belonged to a star football player in another life. He had a tic of frequently readjusting those glasses, or taking them off to wipe the lens with a cleaning cloth, tissue, or whatever else was available.

"Rowan," Frank nodded, subtly indicating the remaining empty seat in the room. "I've just been informed of the situation with Dawn. Sorry to hear about that."
"Everyone is already doing what they can," Rowan said, sitting down. "I take full responsibility for this. Nobody was guarding her."

"Well, she wasn't a flight risk before today," Frank pointed out. "She was very stressed, but seemed entirely cooperative."

"I would have done the same," the former-FBI woman said. "Having a guard posted outside her door might have spooked or upset her. Looking at the footage, it's like she just woke up this morning and suddenly decided she wanted out."

"...She might have made that decision before this morning," Rowan realized aloud. "We know someone who can speak to us in our dreams."

"The Giver?" one of the research leads said (stating the obvious).

"What could she have said to cause Dawn to leave?" Frank wondered aloud.

"..I can only think of one thing," Rowan said. "But there is no way she could have promised that."
"Excuse me for saying, but Dawn wasn't exactly very stable," the private eye said. "Even if you buy into the Giver's claim to never lie, she wouldn't exactly need to promise anything to make it sound like Dawn could have whatever it was she wanted."

Rowan nodded slowly, agreeing.

"The next thing to question," she continued, "is the Giver's motive for provoking her to leave. Especially in light of what you relayed from Light yesterday, it's hard to say how this could line up with her overall goals. Then again, I wouldn't put it past her to simply torment someone on a whim."

"Well, either way, I hope they find her," Frank said. "Now—the main reason for this meeting. Chandra?"
The "intelligence" lead nodded. "Right. We have finally pinned down the puppeteer's identity." She withdrew some printed photos from a folder in her hand, placing them on Frank's desk where everyone could see them—though upside-down to the desk's owner. It was a smiling headshot—maybe from a college yearbook—of a young man. "Tobias Mond. Son and, more or less, heir to an oil tycoon. The only candidate who was in all of the right places at the right times, and hasn't been seen anywhere else. In fact, he was last seen in an airport several miles west of here, not long before she made her first move."

She produced another photo. "This also gives us a good guess as to who his first victim was—the vixen we couldn't identify before now." That was—Rowan knew—the teleporting one with the knives. The photo was a considerably less-high-definition shot from a street camera outside of a nightclub, with a pair of figures circled on their way out the door. "Wesley Brand. Disappeared not long before Tobias started his 'tour'. Not a known vixen, but then, neither was Tobias until now. Our friends in the UK found slight traces of blood near his place of residence, but no evidence of a struggle."

"Needless to say, Tobias's assets have been seized, and his appearance and ID's are on all the watch lists," Frank continued. "Even if he gets out of the US, he's now wanted for murder in most countries that are still stable enough to have law enforcement. None of the powers he's taken through those murders include convincing illusions, either, so he won't be able to slip out with those."

Rowan shook his head. "He can teleport through any fence or wall. If he wants to leave, I'm not sure of a way to stop him."

Chandra said, "Tobias has been described as having an extremely vindictive personality. In my opinion, he's likely to look for some way to get revenge before trying to leave. Not that I think that's good news, but..."

"Everyone's on high alert again today," Frank said. "But no news yet. Rest assured, whatever retaliation she has planned, we still have a trump card or two up our sleeves."

"Speaking of.." Frank waved to the researchers. "You said you've been making significant progress?"
"Indeed," one of them replied. "We have a prototype nearly built, and have been screening volunteers for a compatible test subject."

"Naturally, we're looking for someone with a good psych profile," said the other one, "who will willingly cooperate with the aims of the VI as a whole."

"What does a 'compatible' person look like?" Rowan asked.

"Well—there seem to be certain personality traits, or at least a small set of them, common to nearly every vixen our evaluators have had a chance to interview. And, even the ones they haven't show signs of the same."
"Since our work is based on what the Giver gave you all, it seems more likely to actually, work, with someone who she could've given powers to, but didn't. If we can make this prototype functional, then since we understand what actually went into it, we can begin to work out adjustments to remove those kinds of requirements—at least in theory."

"A prototype what, exactly?" Chandra asked, her tone largely one of curiosity.
One of them hesitated. "It's, well..ah.."
"A hat," the other researcher. "Wizard hat."

The first cleared his throat, forestalling any verbal reaction to that. "While the ideal—from certain perspectives—would be to produce something which anyone can put on or wield in order to be capable of atypical—"
"—magical—"
"—offense against our common enemy, it simply does not work that way. As the Giver strongly suggested to Light, this sort of power is closely tied to an individual's personality and psychology. What we are hoping to develop is a 'key', similar to the phrases vixens invoke, which amplifies one's inherent potential. The only sort of 'key' that seems feasible for us is a physical one—something you can put on to 'activate' and take off to 'deactivate'. We believe that the abilites activated by our prototype will be significantly weaker than even the 'stolen' powers vixens display, at least at first."

"From what we can tell," the second one continued, "each 'key' made will become intrinsically linked on its first use, and only work for that person afterward. But, we're more prototyping the creation and linking process. Fortunately none of the physical materials needed are expensive or difficult to make, but because we are dealing with magic here, the actual process of creation has many arbitrary, nonsensical-looking steps. Which is why it hasn't been discovered by accident before now—we assume—and why it's taken so long to even make one."
"But again—once we have a process that works, we can begin to understand how to tweak it. And hopefully make it work for personality traits which the Giver was not interested in."

---

"So you can just visit any of us in your dreams?" Blake said. "And, just like for her, it makes us change, too?"
"Well—anyone I've actually met before," Amory (back in human form) clarified. "Which does include everyone I woke up yesterday."
"What if they don't speak English? Does the dream translate for us?"
"I..don't know. Maybe. It would make sense, but I haven't tested it yet," he shrugged.

"Who'd you visit, then?"

"Uh..just Emma."

Blake gave him a bit of a look. "I just, wanted to know if she was okay! After all what happened yesterday, you know? And..I was testing this thing out for the first time. I didn't want to go to a relative stranger, or make you change, and..."
"So you had a dream date with her?"

"No, we just..talked. And um," Amory looked away, blushing, "She wanted me to pet her," he muttered quietly.
"What was that? I don't have fox ears right now," Blake said, tapping a finger on one of his human ears with a slight hint of teasing to his voice.

"W-well, it was a good time to pet her for the 'first' time so that if I need to 'power her up', you know like everyone else, then I can do it quick. And she wanted me to, and I thought it could make her feel even better. Y-you know how that feels," Amory said.
"I guess I do, huh." He looked straight down at his breakfast for a moment.

After contemplating that with some visible discomfort, he looked back up again. "Still though—all night?"

"W-well, it was just. We...and.." Amory stammered incoherently, gesturing just as unhelpfully. "So..I, I wanted, too. And just..gave in to it. You—you know?"

Blake gave a small sigh. "I guess I do, more than I'd really like to. But you felt that way? You always seem really in control, when I'm...not."
"I..I guess I gave in to it on purpose. Must have. Or...I dunno. Maybe she 'learned' enough of my power to put me in that state and neither of us even realized it." Amory thought for a second before shaking his head. "No, no. I just..I wanted to...it's really weird to think about now that I'm awake, and not..you know, foxy. It feels almost normal when I'm, a girl."

"Are you telling me you wouldn't want to pet her as you are now?" Blake teased again.
"Well—no? Maybe. Um, I think it would have different connotations, then. But—well, I mean.." he waved vaguely. "We—you and I—already...before I even, so..."

"Yeah, exactly," he nodded. "She even said she picked you basically because of that, right?"
"I guess so."

Amory crossed his arms. "I guess I just never realized I was that much of a pervert. Or..whatever it is..."
"I really don't care. I doubt Emma minds, either," Blake said. "If you help save the world by being a big enough pervert for her to see you as some kinda 'kindred spirit' then—fine. At least you're a good person otherwise."

"Heheh. Okay, this conversation got too weird, seriously." Amory shook his head, still blushing. All the same, looking back he didn't feel quite the same way about petting the other vixens, Light included, that he had about Gem—Emma, rather. Maybe it was just his imagination, or he'd enjoyed having two bodies holding onto him more than he was willing to admit, but...with each person there was a kind of 'flavor' of the relationship he shared with them. And...hers was...maybe his favorite already, knocking Light out of the lead in a single go.

Well, one more thing to forcefully bury in the back of his mind so he could focus on lab today, he thought, shuddering his head slightly to try and clear the 'bad thoughts' out as soon as his mind moved on to remembering her 'improved' appearances' figures, and how they'd felt pressed close against his (at the time, hers, but that made little difference to the 'dumb boy' part of his brain).

---

After watching Rowan run off in the closest thing he seemed to have to a panic, Simon wandered back outside and hefted the wrapped painting face-up, flat over his arms. "Hmn. Well, what shall I do with you, then?" he mused. "...Surely she plans on coming back, whatever's happening." He'd watched conversations between Dawn and Rowan a few times, and certainly seen them work together. It was obvious to anyone that he cared about her, to an almost fatherly (or motherly) degree, but it was no less clear to Simon, at least, that she had a sense of security and sanity from him that was otherwise missing from her life, and perhaps had been for quite some time. And, well—not that he had a lot of experience being unstable himself, but generally he got the impression that one does not simply abandon one's rock suddenly and forever.

After a moment more of thought, he pulled it back under his arm and started back toward the bedroom he'd begun from, and then—since the door was still ajar—let himself in. He carefully unwrapped the painting of a sunrise that didn't exist and placed it on the bed's pillow, leaning against the wall just behind it to be at a forward-facing angle toward the door. Then Simon left the room, carefully shut the door, and dusted off his hands, expressing mostly to himself that his job here as an artist was well done. If—when she returned, at least one thing of beauty would be there waiting for her.

---

I imagine Frank being played by Tom Selleck. He's used to being called "Frank", right?