Battle Vixens! - 53

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Episode 53: Setting Blockades

Out by the base's helipad, an old man stood leaning his right hand on a cane. "Chopper's prepped, sir."

"Right." He handed the other soldier his cane. "Won't need this for a while." Then he spoke an incomprehensible phrase, kick-starting a drastic change. His body glinted briefly, taking on the appearance of steel as he shrank down a bit, his body shortening and narrowing. His hair grew out, trailing down across his forehead and cheeks, with one lock falling all the way out to his hips where a ribbon tied itself to the end. His pants split apart near the thighs, the top spreading into a skirt while the rest merged with his legs into long boots. The sleeves detached from his uniform coat, which kept most of its length but pulled tight against a slender frame while a pair of moderate breasts puffed out into view under it.

Her body felt solid, tempered; the metal had flowed down into the prosthetic leg, reforming it back into an actual part of her and giving back the full command of the limb. As the metallic sheen dissipated, it left her hair soft, its previous mixture of pitch black and light gray averaged out to a mid-dark gray, and her skin looking smooth and youthful. Finally, a pair of tall ears in the same tint of gray pushed their way up through the hair and a long, slim tail poured out from her back.

At the end of this swift change, she sighed slightly in something like relief and held out her hands; in her right a short knife appeared, while a pair of soldiers handed over a pair of custom-built guns to the left. They locked together, the knife attaching to one of them as a bayonet, in a swift, practiced motion, and then she threw a long-sleeved coat over her back and strapped the firearms on a few small belts fixed around the jacket.

All of this done, she started toward the chopper, a faint grin starting out on her face before darkening into a more serious expression as she sat down, pulling her arms through the jacket sleeves. "You set to go, sir?" the pilot asked.
"Ready when you are."

The helicopter landed on top of a hospital in the city—the nearest helipad to the VI headquarters, with that organization having not expected to need a place to land a helicopter and unable to build one on such short notice. Rowan, Tora, and Fay, all in vixen form already, were waiting, and got on right away while a few soldiers who'd hitched a ride to the city in the unoccupied space got off. Then it took off again, headed toward Light's town.

"I suppose you must be the 'trump card'," Rowan said, extending a hand toward the gray-haired girl. "Rowan."

"Corporal Langdon. Pleased to finally meet ya," she said, returning the shake. "For the purposes of this operation, I'm under your command. This body's been through testing and training drills, but not much else, so don't hesitate to give any orders or advice you got."

"What are your powers, if you can divulge that?" As the chopper took off again, the noise necessitated yelling to be heard; Rowan's voice remained monotone, just higher in volume.

"I can make and throw steel wire around at will. Sharp, spiky stuff; cut through tank armor once. Body's like steel too, or somethin' harder. Didn't even bruise from a shot by a handgun, but they weren't willing to try anything with a higher caliber."

She nodded. "You should still be careful not to take hits. 'Magic' damage such as that from our weapons and powers seem to pierce through our defenses even when conventional weapons cannot."

"Duly noted."

From above, the scope of the problem was much easier to see. Tora stared out the windows at the multitude of puppets gathering for a moment, before yelling over the noise: "There must be thousands of them! How can one person coordinate so many bodies at once?"

Rowan replied: "The available data suggests one's original power grows exponentially as a function of the number of taken powers, and such coordination is clearly a part of her native capabilities. The good news is she'll be spending much of that power doing this instead of defending herself."

"Good for you, maybe. We gotta fight those!"

"Don't fret so much. We're only the distraction anyhow," the Corporal said.

The helicopter's next target for landing was, natually, the campus quad. Nobody was using it; there was some nice, stable ground there; and it was easy for that town's group to get there. The six of them were waiting nearby, all but Amp looking rather different from the appearances those in the chopper were familiar with—and Amp herself, of course, was entirely unfamiliar to most of them. Gemma was in her combined form, being well aware of the limited space on the helicopter, and regarded the flying machine with a worried expression, uncertain about the lack of doors in something meant to go miles up in the air.

The Corporal shuffled in behind the other three, giving them a moment to meet and greet before introducing herself. "Samuel Langdon, atchur service," she said. Then, toward the light-gray-haired girl with the lightning powers: "Seems like we'll be workin' together."

"Um, sure," Ning nodded. "How are your powers related to mine, exactly?"
"I can explain in more detail on the way, but—" She held up a hand and some metal thorns sprouted from the palm, twisting around themselves as they grew up by a few inches; then she closed her hand and it disappeared again.
"Oohhh." Her own powers saw that it was real metal—real enough, at least, for lightning to easily travel through, which included her own ability to travel quickly through metal. The possibilities jumped to her head right away.

Meanwhile, Tora volunteered as the first of the group from the city for Amp to 'improve'. "Um.." The short, adorable girl held her hand out slowly. "What's the problem? Juice me up."

"Okaay," she said with a tone of clear uncertainty.

No sooner did her fingers touch a bit of her fur than Tora jerked back. "Yeegh!"
Amp sighed. "Thaat's, what I thought."
"What, it doesn't work on me?" Tora's ears folded down in visible disappointment. "Laame."

"Well—no, it's not that it can't work on you, but uh, I think the person has to know me and like me enough that they'd let me pet them even if it didn't give them more power," she said. "Hate to say it, but we don't really know each other from Adam—or uh, Eve rather."

"Yeeah, we don't exactly have time for a date right now, either."

"You should still be able to manage without it," Rowan stated. "..I think it could work on me, however."

"Yeah? I'll, uh, give it a try then." There was an audience, and they both knew this needed to be quick—nothing at all like the much more relaxed 'first tries' Amp had had before. She walked up, raised her hands, and tried rubbing Rowan's ears gently near the base. The blue-haired vixen reached her arms forward and pulled in closer, into a hug with her chin landing on Amp's shoulder and her tail curling forward to brush across the other girl's.
She could almost immediately reach "into" Rowan's potential and pull at it. Her body melted partially, like ice into cool, clear water, before starting to reform, pushing up steadily taller, her chest and hips puffing their way outward. Her clothes reshaped, combining into a flowing, light blue gown reaching down to her knees; her arms tightened around Amp slightly, growing stronger as her increasing height pulled the short, adorable vixen up off the ground entirely. By the end of it, Rowan's height matched Light's present form; however her curves were a bit lighter than that, and her softly churring voice was only a bit deeper than before.

The blue-haired woman gently set Amp down in front of her after this, taking in a deep breath and letting it out. Her usual appearance was short and small, not much of a commanding presence, but in this form everyone watching saw someone who looked like a leader, the quiet, serious calm on her face matching well with a certain elegance her new outfit possessed. "Thank you," she said softly; the usual near-monotone of her voice was replaced with a quiet, sincere tone that seemed to convey kindness and understanding. "This should tip the scales a little more in our favor."

"Heheh, sure." Amp felt a little flustered herself at this expression, like she hadn't done enough to warrant so much thanks. Something about the way Rowan spoke in this form made every word seem to carry some real weight behind it. "Uh, you should get going as soon as you can. The only problem with using my power on someone is it does wear off after enough use, and then it can leave one feeling a bit burnt out afterward."
"Right," she nodded.

"Let's go, everyone!" Rowan cried out. "The sooner we can take her out, the more lives will be saved."

---

Petra encountered Karis on her way out of the headquarters. "Heey, what're you doing here?"

"Evidently I'm a 'high-priority target'," she said, "But we can't close the high school, so they got a sub in a hurry, uugh. Anyway, this place is supposed to be able to lock down and be pretty secure afterward. Really, though, if those puppet things make it this far into the city then someone's not doing their job."

"Yeah." The vixen nodded. "Yeah, I won't let 'em past the border."

"Hahah. You nervous, dear?" she said, running a hand through Petra's hair.
"Nope, nope. I'm a superhero. Hard as rock, and...some other thing that has to do with earth powers."
"Sharp as diamond?" Karis suggested.
"Yeah! That'll do. You just watch any news feeds you can get a hold of if you wanna see me."

From there it was a quick ride out to that border to look upon their enemies. Some careful reconaissance by the police force and arriving military had spotted three of the "powerful" puppets among them, and the city's remaining vixens were being routed to intercept them—Petra for one, Hugo another, Zeno and Nico working together on the third. She wasn't too happy with her target—Dawn's poor girlfriend, as earth was reckoned the best available counter to fire—but letting the puppeteer burn down her hometown was out of the question.

On arrival, she was ushered to the front of the lines. There weren't just soldiers in the group; many of the police, despite being offered leave in the wake of the constant protection detail of the past few days, had volunteered to join the fight. It was hard not to grin when a few cheers came her way from even the disciplined army guys, but Petra worked hard to maintain a serious expression, remembering the gravity and risks of this whole situation. Priority one was keeping the strong puppet busy and eventually taking it out; priority two was knocking down as many of the normal ones as possible. Come to think of it—priority zero, up above one and two, was keeping as many of these people alive as possible in the process.

She stayed a bit behind, where the multitude of creepy faceless puppets couldn't quite "see" her behind the soldiers (at least, not if their "sight" was comparable to what humans in the same positions would have). When they did move to attack, she would come out from behind them to hit the fire puppet hard, and the soldiers would give her a wide berth. A vixen getting shot by mistake was something everyone wanted to avoid.

Once she was in position, she waited patiently for something to happen. It was a little eerily quiet; there was the feeling that two opposing armies facing each other just before a battle should at least be trash talking each other or something, but the faceless puppets weren't much for conversation. Petra was sure she would have been bored if there weren't so much tension in the air keeping her ears standing up straight and her tails twitching. As it was, the calm was overbearing and stressful, the anticipation of oncoming violence seeming—in the moment at least—worse than the battle itself was going to be. She wondered why she hadn't brought along a watch or something to at least know how many minutes were left until the puppeteer's arbitrary time limit—which she may or may not honor in the first place—was up. Then again, it wouldn't be a good look for her to be staring down at a watch in this situation, and it'd be a worse one still if she were so distracted with the time that she missed the start of the fight itself...so maybe it was for the best. It just didn't feel so much like it right now.

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In the thick of the forest, in front of a fairly simple cabin, stood a woman with long, blond hair and the ears and tail of a fox—all covered in fluffy fur, the same yellow shade as her hair up to the tips, which were black. She was unusually tall, beautiful, dressed in a long, flowing kimonoish dress. Her hands were held up in the air a bit in front of and to either side of her face, a line of thin red string running along her fingers, wrapping around each one a different number of times and trailing away to either side of her, seeming to turn invisible not far from the hands and continue to run far off into the sky Her hands, from those fingers down, twitched and bent carefully, a constant sequence of rapid, chaotic, and yet deliberate motions.

Her eyes saw from thousands of perspectives at once; her ears perceived the noise of many times their natural range; yet it didn't overwhelm her a bit. Rather, the ability to know the contents of so many places was reassuring; it was not merely the sense of bodies in so many places she possessed, but rather the finest of control over it all. That control extended far and wide, but also to the area just next to her. Among the small group of powerful puppets around her was a dark-haired one—the one that could teleport—on guard just a bit in front of her, watching her back—but also, at the same time, fixing her with its best look of seething hatred.

Tobias smiled. "Hey, don't give me that look." She continued to receive the look in question, its ears folded back as far as they would go. Sure, this one could be made to smile, but it was extra effort not worth the trouble of spending just now. "We're so close now. A little more, and we'll be strong enough to protect everyone." Keeping its mouth shut, on the other hand, was well worth it. Anytime it wasn't made to be quiet, it wouldn't quit screaming at her.

"This was all your idea in the first place." But it should have been as obvious to him as it was to Tobias that this was the best way for them to work together—as one, with a single will—her will—directing everything. Even the slight loss of power at first would soon be more than made up for by the boost from taking so many others. Now it was just a matter of waiting for them to find her and attack, and scoring a few good kills before getting away. If that special one gave in to her demands to try and protect the others like the Charitable One had said she might, all the better.

Her smile wouldn't go away, even in the face of all this opposition. Even with her best friend still glaring at her. (Maybe it wouldn't yell at her now; it had been so long since it'd been allowed to talk, it probably knew that would be pointless...but why risk it?) Even with so many arrayed against her and her army—they just didn't understand yet. Soon she would be able to spread this power over the entire world, and take care of everything. No one but her would need to lift a finger against those beasts—and then she needed do little but lift her fingers. In gratitude, everyone would bow down; they would all see this was the right way for things to go.

Tobias was going to be a hero.

She had tested the enhanced scale of her own power a few times before, but not at such length. It was a relief to know that her arms didn't get stiff from being in the puppeteering position for so long. Even her fingers still felt as limber as when she'd first started, with not a single misfire of the muscles. Her sense of control was complete; everything was going exactly according to plan.

...Well, it looked like they were ready now. It wasn't like she had her eye on a clock to know when an hour had passed, but with so many arrayed against her little army, it would be a shame to disappoint them. Everyone was waiting for the battle to start; maybe some of them were even getting impatient. Judging by the evidence, to be a vixen was to love a good fight; that was why there shouldn't be so many of them with differing wants and desires, with so much potential for disagreement and strife, and so much collateral damage to the people around them as a result. Anyway, with everyone so very ready there was no reason to keep them waiting any longer, hour or not.

With a simple twitch of her will—and numerous much more complex twitches of her fingers—the puppeteer began her approach. The stage was set, and now, at her direction, the show would begin.

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HOO boy. It's been over half a year. About 8 months, in fact. And there's no getting around it: The next episode is going to have a lot of action for me to write. I'm a bit nervous; it's actually been a while since I've written action scenes, and I can only hope to match the intensity that I've seen on re-reading this series to try and get myself in the right mindset to write more. Here's hoping it won't take another half-year x_X

Also, this has been somewhat in the background of the last few posts here, but after clearly stating that the old interface would be available permanently, google went back on their word and started declaring that the terrible new interface would become the only option sometime "in the coming months". Now, every time I log in to blogger, I have to click an extra link to get to the old, better interface. I also make sure to leave feedback telling them to let me keep the old interface every time I have to do that, but I know they probably won't listen to me. I mean, I know I don't matter to a corporation like google. Oh well.