Battle Vixens! - 61

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Episode 61: Assurance in Dreams

"Listen, I don't like to make a request like this..."

Rory (if that was really who she was) sat on the couch, trying not to listen in to the 'call'. She had briefly distracted herself with looking up what that was, but exhausted the subject fairly quickly: Just a way to use a device like the laptop to communicate with someone far away, but by voice instead of making text appear.

"...under usual circumstances. But I really need you to understand. I saw her die. Right in front of me. And right now she is in no condition to teach. I just need, one day. To get her where she can at least, baseline function on her own."

He was bargaining for something, that much was clear. There was a sort of quiet, desperate edge to his voice that was slightly scary to hear, and probably enhanced his persuasiveness much more than intended.

"..Yes, I have contact with the other ones. I'll make sure the school is protected in my absence. It probably would be even without any special arrangements, but sure. If it pleases the higher-ups, I'll make certain.
"...Thank you for your understanding. Yes, I'd appreciate that very much. Call me back if they give you any trouble, but..well, if I'm being honest I may be asleep for a long time once I lie down tonight. Yeah, thanks."

Clark's device beeped and he exhaled a sigh of relief before making his way into the living room, seeing her there, and coming to sit next to her on the couch—with a seat between them. Rory felt her ears fold down slightly in disappointment at about the same time as she realized she'd wanted him to sit close and maybe put his arm around her. But...at least he was here, and wanted to talk.

"Okay. I want to start with a few basics I don't know if we've covered yet," he said. "You and I are teachers. We teach, and do research, at the university. Which is...a place where people teach, learn, and study things," he said, waving his hand vaguely.

"I can look it up later," Rory offered, nodding.

"Alright. That call was to..let them know our situation. I bought a day off tomorrow, so I can be with you then and help you relearn some basic stuff. Obviously you're in no condition to teach when you..don't remember your subject at all, so they'll probably apply some of your sick days to this." He shrugged. "I don't think there's anything in our contracts about sudden-onset retrograde amnesia, but it's at least as debilitating as the flu."

"Okay." She nodded, making a mental note of the several words she didn't recognize to look up later.

"So..is there anything you want to ask me about right now?"

"Yes," she nodded. "Um..can you tell me about..me?"

"Absolutely. Anything specific?"
"Well, um..what am I..that is, my personality..supposed to be like? I have..some idea from the videos, but am I really like that all the time?"

"More or less," Clark shrugged. "You're confident, dominant and generally don't let anyone tell you what to do. You like being in control, or at least feeling like you're in control. I mean—you're not totally tactless..most of the time, and you can deal reasonably with legitimate authority figures and even put up with some orders you don't like, or you wouldn't have your job, but...as much as you can get away with, you do whatever you want."

Her head tilted a bit. "Is that...good?"

"Well, I admit I've always liked it," Clark said. "I'm sure there are some people who'd disagree, but..you've always used those 'powers' for good much more often than evil."

"Do you know...why?" Since he seemed confused by the question for a second, she clarified: "Why I'm, like that, I mean."
"Oh. Well, I'm no psychoanalyst or anything, but..what you've told me before is that it's because of your parents. I feel like you'd have something of a rebellious, dominant streak no matter what, but your dad was—in your words—very, overcontrolling. He ruled his household with an iron fist, and even when your mom didn't agree with him, she just...let him win every argument anyway." He put up a hand quickly. "I never—got the impression, that there was any kind of abuse there. Just, that's how their relationship worked. And you were the unstoppable force to his immovable object, so you two never really got along."
"Um.."

Noticing her expression (worried frown, ears down), Clark said, "What's wrong?"
"Just..I don't know. The way you described me before..am I 'overcontrolling', too?"
"Well, I've never thought so."
"But I'm...'dominant'. And I get mad if I don't get my way, don't I?"

"It's, different," he objected, and let out a small sigh. "I'm afraid I'm oversimplifying things, but..I'm sure once you remember it'll be a lot clearer."
"Well..I hope so."

---

Blake was supposed to be the tired one, but after the conversation with the new, "artificial" vixen, he got up and went straight to fixing something for both of them to eat. Amory got up listlessly and made himself help, made himself eat. His roommate seemed to sense he didn't really want to talk, and actually was exhausted enough to just eat and wander off to his room, briefly calling his own family before going to bed.

Amory sat in the living room and turned on the news. He wasn't sure why; some long-standing Pavlovian reaction to being stressed, maybe. Naturally they were still talking about the day's events: The battles, the death toll..that video the Giver had uploaded more or less taking credit for the kill and encouraging more death with the promise of a reward. He buried his head in his hands for a moment and quietly groaned, then turned the TV off again. More than anything, he just wanted today to finally be over. Hadn't everyone been through enough? So, even though he didn't feel tired, he went to his own room and lay down in the bed to stare up blankly at the ceiling for what felt like an hour. Staying still for so long made the bed feel uncomfortable behind him, so he turned to one side and saw his alarm clock.

It had been about ten minutes.

He sat up and half-growled, half-sighed. He wasn't in a good mental state to do homework; he didn't feel like playing or watching anything. He just felt trapped in his own head, and wanted desperately to stop thinking for a while. It was a shame he couldn't use his power to hack his own brain into artificially feeling better for a little while...but, the thought occurred to him, maybe that form could at least just will itself to sleep.

Even though he hated the idea, the way it had come to his mind had a certain familiarity to it that made it seem more than likely that it would work. Well—what could it hurt to try, anyway? Amory changed forms, and she lay down again, finding the bed strangely comfortable again. And indeed, no sooner did she close her eyes with the goal of sleep than she effortlessly drifted off.

The small fox-girl sat up, waking up in her "room" in the dream area, and frowned, folding her ears back and feeling like she had just been tricked. Again. Somehow she'd just mentally overlooked the fact that sleeping in this form wasn't "normal" sleep, even though that was more or less the exact reason why she thought it would be possible to do it at will. That logic being: It was a way to contact and maybe negotiate with other people who were also asleep, so being able to do it on command would presumably enhance its usefulness.

Of course, she could just force herself awake again and effectively turn this into normal sleep. But now that she was here...she swung around and sat up, and slowly walked to the door. She wanted to know...if Emma was okay. That was all, really. There were other people she could be talking to right now, a few theories to test, maybe, but she was very much not in the mood for that. Instead, she put her hand to the door handle and pulled, thinking of Emma.

It opened, and—somewhat to her surprise—Amory found Emma's two bodies already standing up looking at each other a short ways from the foot of her bed. They both turned their heads toward the door when it opened, clearly 'alerted' to the visitor in a way that grabbed attention even better than just hearing the door. "Oh—" "—hi!" Minus waved, smiling slightly; Plus was holding what looked like a plastic doll a bit bigger than a hand.

"Hey. Uh..?"
"Surprised?—" Their bodies turned the rest of the way toward the door as Amory came in and let it shut behind her. "—I wondered if, maybe, since you could 'bring' me to this place—" "—and it's supposed to be 'my room', maybe I could just..go to sleep in fox form—" "—and be here if I just wanted to.—" "—And I can!—" "—But I can't leave this room or anything, the door's just stuck for me."

"Oh. Neat." Amory put effort into smiling, but her ears weren't very cooperative.

"I guess, you're okay then?"
"Huh? Oh, uh, yeah.—" "—I mean, as much as ever," Plus added. "I guess having someone else yell at me—" "—figuratively speaking—" "—kinda skipped the part where I yell at myself.—" "—Or something. I just, need to do better tomorrow, right?"
"Hmm. What's that, there?" she said, pointing to the doll—to change the subject. "Puppet power?"

"Yeah. I can make two or three of these.—" "—Minus's sort of run around on their own, but Plus has to use a hand to directly control them.—" She dropped the one she was holding and lifted her left hand, twitching the fingers a bit to make it run in a small circle. "—Still, it's surprising how much control I have over two of these with just one hand. Oh, and—" "—I can 'give it' one of my other borrowed powers to use." The puppet briefly grew white hair, fox-ears and a tail, and waved a hand, making the light in front of it bend around slightly. "But it isn't really any better than using it myself.—" "—Mostly worse, since they're so small." She closed the hand controlling the little puppet, and it disappeared.

"Um...a-a—" "—Are you okay?" she said, Minus interrupting Plus's visible hesitation.

"Yeah, I...not really," Amory said, aborting the lie halfway through. "Sorry, I..shouldn't have come in here."
"Why not?—" "—What's wrong, then?"

"Uh, it's—" Her brain briefly locked up from trying to answer both questions at the same time, and then settled on just doing the first one. "I don't wanna bug you with my stupid problems."

Both of Emma frowned, Minus putting her hands on her hips. "Well, it's not stupid if it has you feeling like that.—" "—And I wanna help. So what's wrong?"

"I just, uh.." Amory looked around for an excuse to delay and think of a good way to put it, and settled for walking over to a chair to slump down into it. "I feel like, ever since I turned into this, I haven't really been in control. I've just let, 'being like her' take over. Or, thinking like her, or thinking what she wants me to think."

Plus followed her, while Minus went and grabbed a couple of other chairs to sit in. "That's just, like everyone else's 'price', right?—" "—Since you can't actively fight those things, yours is something like 'help us do it'."
"Sure, but..." She put up a hand for a second and dropped it on the armrest again. "Not help you the way I would think to, unless I fight against it. Just how she would. And, since it makes me think like that all the time, I just..feel like I haven't even been me lately. And it disgusts me. Today it really hit me hard. It got people killed. I...I hate what I've turned into."

---

As their conversation continued, Clark yawned with increasing frequency. It was clear a brief nap was never really going to do it; he needed to get a full night's sleep to fully recover. "Look, I need to go to sleep. I'll be a lot better in the morning," he said. "I'm guessing you're not too tired right now, so..maybe go use the desk in the bedroom, and I can sleep here on the couch?"

"Um.." Rory's head tilted slightly. "We're 'married', right? So aren't we supposed to sleep in the same bed?"

He gave a slightly exasperated sigh, realizing that he probably should've expected this. "Did you..happen to look up consent at any point?" he said. Then, since she appeared confused by that: "I just...no. We can't..until you get better and know enough to make an actually informed decision, we need to sleep separately. Okay?"
"O-okay," she said, seeming confused by his consternation. Maybe she really just thought it was literally sleeping in the same bed and nothing else, which..only solidified Clark's resolve.

"Uh, do you..I can sleep here though, tonight, if you wanna use the bed? And then we could swap tomorrow night?" she offered.

"That's..fine," he said, nodding, and got up. "Better, actually. Thank you." Rory nodded, looking very slightly pleased with herself.

"Good night!"
"Likewise..."

Well, now she was going to look up consent for sure, he thought, putting some minimal effort into getting properly ready for bed. That was equal parts worrying and relieving since his outburst would make more sense afterward, but he wasn't really sure how she'd react to information regarding...that. Still, that was a problem for the following day, not for tonight. All he had to do for now was lie down, shut his eyes and fall asleep...

...And, almost immediately, wake up somewhere else. Clark's mind woke up at the same time as he shifted to the smaller, fox-eared form, and as she sat up and looked around at the alien, lavish bedroom it became immediately clear what was going on. It was another thing she really should have expected at this point; being the one to...kill Tobias Mond was more than enough to have the Giver's eye on her in particular. And, like Light and Rowan Shepherd, she just loved to talk to people she had her eye on.

Well, at least she didn't feel tired here—if this was a physical space, anyway, and not some kind of shared mental space or something; all bets seemed to be off when it came to 'magic'. Clark dropped out of bed and went over to the door expectantly, wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible. She managed not to jump when a knock came, and then just gently opened the door and stepped back for the visitor to come in.

"Well, hello there," she grinned. "You seem eager."
"I'm not."
"Shall we..take a seat?" the tall woman suggested, floating over to a nearby chair and just sort of waving her hand to make another one scoot up to a few feet in front of that one.

"Fine."

Once they were both sitting down, the Giver held up one of her hands and moved her fingers a bit, in a distressingly familiar sort of irregular twitching motion. "Have you ever noticed, your hands are like the original puppets? Every little motion they make starts down here, in the forearm," she said, pointing with the other hand.

Clark's ears lowered. "You didn't 'call' me here to give me a science lesson, did you?"
"Heheh, no, I just thought you'd appreciate one anyway," she said, dropping both arms to her sides. "No, I'm really here to settle any issues with our deal. I can't guarantee I'll free you of all doubt, but I'd like you to at least only wonder whether you made the right decision for the right reasons. The way I was 'communicating' with you today isn't very stable, especially for me, so our 'time' there was much more limited than you might realize."
"..Why is that?"

"Hmm? I thought you didn't want a science lesson," she said, giving a smug grin. Clark wasn't really the punching sort, but it was easy to understand why Light would want to, seeing that. "Well, it's fairly simple: I was using a spell to speed up your brain's processing and force the majority of it to be used on a mental communication link for a second or two. Ordinarily that'd have a risk of overloading your brain and giving you a headache or worse, but since I can't hurt you, it would've cut off before that could happen."

"Anyway, I know you're wondering: 'Is that really her? Is it even possible for it to be?' That's what I'm interested in explaining," she continued without much pause. "Maybe you won't believe me, but remember that I'm not allowed to lie, so at least I believe what I'm saying to be true—and I'm the expert on this, after all."

Clark sighed slightly; she'd had plenty of professors like this, and tried pretty hard not to be one of them. "Go on, then."
The Giver nodded. "As I told you then, this is not so much undoing death as it is cheating it. The key to that is my gift to each one of you, my blessed ones. It's magic, and of course the power comes from me to begin with...But as I've explained to Light, it's designed to eventually become yours over time, with effort. Fundamentally, it's not very different from the magic most beings in other worlds naturally have on their own, aside from its connection to me which gives it an enormous initial boost. And that means..well. Do you believe in souls?"

Clark's ears folded down slightly. "I have a hard time believing in something for which there is no experimental evidence," she said.

"Well, that is what a lot of people call it. The people of most worlds, yours included, have something that persists after death, and has a sense of identity and individual personhood. If anything can be considered 'you' apart from your literal, physical body, that thing is it. And, all of a person's magic is tied intrinsically to it, in some sense powered by it. You do have evidence, at least, that your emotions can affect your powers. That' thing' is the intermediary for such an effect: it feels the emotion, and that emotion drives the power of your magic. Are you with me so far?"
"I comprehend your meaning," she said, without commenting on her level of belief.

The Giver nodded. "Of course, taking another's power by killing them involves transferring something which was tethered to their soul, and making it your own. That is, essentially, why a newly taken power tends to be very weak. Its tie to its previous owner has to be purged, and even then it tends to remain 'damaged' forever afterward without some kind of external help.

"Usually the connection to the old owner is destroyed fairly quickly, but the person you took those powers from chose to wield them in a way which kept the 'identity' tied to them still very much attached. This actually allowed her to use those powers much more effectively than most could, but at something of a price. As for the one exception to that—well, you might not be surprised to learn that Dawn never even thought of that power as 'hers'. Therefore, the link to its original owner was relatively weak by the time she died, but still strong enough to be dredged up and used in a puppet just like the others."

She paused again for a moment, seemingly to allow Clark to ask questions. Instead she drew her own conclusion: "So what you're saying is, the powers were still tied to their 'owners', and also to you."
"Right! I knew you were a bright one," she said, grinning what looked like proudly. At the same time, there was something condescending and sarcastic about the way she said it. Clark wasn't sure she'd ever had a professor like this, but if she had then she probably would've dropped the class and taken it under someone else later. "So all we had to do, really, was sever your connection to those powers, pump them into bodies that the souls they belonged to would feel matched them, and...pull." She accompanied this last word with a motion like yanking a rope upward. "I shouldn't understate the difficulty of that last step—pulling a soul up into a body like that takes a lot of power—but fortunately you had me to do the heavy lifting." She also flexed one of her (actually very scrawny-looking) arms with this; Clark declined from commenting on it. "Well, technically any body with a sufficiently powerful brain would've worked, but the cost of pulling the souls in was minimized by using bodies that were 'theirs', and which at the same time symbolized that connection to me we were pulling on."

---

"Amory!" She jumped, not having expected Emma to both raise their voice at once. "You can't—" "—You're—" "—You don't—!" she talked over herself with five or six sentence starts, before the two bodies looked at each other (like two different people silently agreeing on who got to talk first) and Plus properly continued: "You are the best person I know. And that hasn't changed. What you want, hasn't changed.—" "—Just, just because you were tricked into doing it wrong, what difference does that make? You still helped.—" "—And you still really, really wanna help, more than you already are! Or you wouldn't be mad at yourself right now.—" "—Right?"

In a lot of ways, this felt wildly out of character for Emma; at the same time, it felt like something that had been there all along. Amory just quietly nodded, the surprise she felt still enough to stun her momentarily.

"Do you know, today I—" "—I really, really didn't wanna fight her at all. I mean, deep down—" "—I didn't want to have a part in k-killing someone, even...someone like that. But I—" "—I mean, the reason I went, and did everything I could anyway, is because of you."

"Me?"
"Yeah! You, um—" "—even before all of, any of this happened. You're, my hero." Both of her blushed slightly in embarrassment from putting it quite this way. "—I mean, you're super smart, you're good at basically everything you try—" "—but you don't, I mean you never treat other people like they're stupid for not understanding things as fast as you do. You just want to help.—" "—And you do help! A lot!—" "—Way more than you know. So, so—" "—so don't talk like that!"

Amory was still in stunned silence for a moment, and during that time both of Emma looked increasingly embarrassed by the entire outburst. "Um—" "—Sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you or anything, I just—" "—don't like seeing you like that. I know you—" "—I mean I guess not that well but I, I know you're—" "—way better than that."
"Um..well, I guess I must be, if you say so," Amory said, feeling a little embarrassed herself. "Thanks." For the first time since Rory Quinn's death, she felt a genuine smile on her face. "You know, maybe I needed being yelled at."

"H-heheh.." They nervously giggled slightly out of phase with each other.

"Did you, uh, figure anything else out?" she asked after a moment of silence, wanting to keep talking but feeling that a change of subject was the only way to achieve that.

"Oh, yeah! Um, so—" "—I realized during the fight today, that when I'm in the uh, 'bigger' form I can make swords, right?—" "—But I can also still make daggers," Minus continued, producing one from the light in the room into her hand. "Because I did. But then: Duh, why wouldn't I?—" "—But then, if I can make them swords or daggers, why only those shapes? And, why doesn't making a weapon out of shadow make a little scythe since that's what the person with real shadow powers got? And it turns out, there's nothing special at all about it being a dagger!" The weapon in her hand glowed, shaping into a kunai, then a miniature scythe, a hand axe, a little club, a brass knuckle. "It's just 'make a weapon out of'—" "—in this case—" "—'light'. What the weapon is is totally up to me, but I was going for something sword-shaped until now 'cause that was what I saw the person I learned it from doing."
"That's...really impressive," Amory said. "I guess if you're 'bigger' then you can make all kinds of weapons."
"Yeah! And uh, also—" Plus made a shorter version of Fay's staff, then held onto the top, pressing the bottom into the floor, and pushed at the middle, causing it to curve forward. Then she pulled some multicolored glowing string out of her wrist (imitating Clark's 'weapon') and somehow made it attach itself to the top and bottom, then pull taut. Finally, she semi-proudly presented the combination weapon. "A bow! I dunno, how useful this really is since I seem to be pretty good at throwing things, but it might be useful for long-range, like, arcing things over stuff.—" "—Especially if I use it with Zeno's arrows."

"Cool. There must be all kinds of things you could do by combining together different weapons," Amory observed. "Actually—is there any reason you couldn't put, like, a fire dagger and a light dagger together and get a full-size sword, even like that?"
"Um..—" "—maybe not!"

---

"So, I'm not sure how to give you more compelling evidence than that," the Giver continued. "Each of the people we brought back is just about as much 'themselves' as it's possible for them to be, after the death of the original bodies. But I suppose if you don't believe anything persists after death, then that was already true, wasn't it?"
"Hmm. I suppose this explanation also covers the amnesia," Clark said.

"Oh, why yes, of course," she said, appearing (probably pretending) to remember that bit. "The soul in a new body is confused. Deep down, it remembers 'who' it is, but it's used to pulling memory from the mind—in the physical brain—and that information isn't there in the new bodies. Over time, things the soul 'knows about' will allow it to reshape that mind, and ultimately rebuild the memories it should have there. However...as I'm certain you can imagine, the experience of forgetting who you are and needing to rebuild it more or less from scratch is somewhat traumatic. Trauma, and new experiences in general, bring change, so..even after everything comes back, you shouldn't be surprised if the person's thinking and behavior is different from what it was before. I hope that won't be too disappionting." The Giver didn't look very distressed to share any of this information; if anything, she still appeared just as confidently smug giving it out as before. At the same time, her last statement felt unusually sincere; Clark supposed that she was for some reason genuinely concerned that her 'reward' be well-received.

"That only makes sense, anyway," she said aloud. It was obvious that Rory was questioning the way she'd acted before; if she woke up the following morning with all her memories returned, it was difficult to imagine someone as smart as her not reevaluating things in light of that new perspective. Clark had reason to hope the result would be a change for the better—if it was even possible—or not much visible change at all in the end. Whether the same could be said for the others was much more difficult to determine, but...at least they were alive. However, there was one concern with this: "...Does 'rebuilding the mind' cover knowledge, or just memories?"

"More or less," the Giver said with a slight shrug. "There isn't really a distinction, as far as your 'storage device' is concerned, between remembering learning something and remembering experiencing something. If someone was an expert at something before, they'll be an expert again after getting their memories back. But it's not completely perfect, by which I mean that person may not recall every single fact they knew before, just as they may not remember every single conversation they had. For..complicated reasons—you understand I'm giving a 'layperson's version' of a rather complex topic—memories especially close to the moment of death will be the most difficult to recover, and the experience of dying itself is close to impossible."

"Maybe that's a good thing."
"If that's what you think," the Giver said, her tone one of cheerful ambiguity.

"...Is that all, then?"

"Hm? Well, there is one other thing I'd like to tell you about," the Giver said, visibly pretending not to care if she got to say it. However, it was rather obvious she was going to tell her whether or not she wanted to hear it. "How familiar are you with the life of Tobias Mond?"

"...Not much." Oh, she was doing this. She did this for Rowan, too, and maybe it was something she considered a 'service' to people who'd taken powers, which she would do if she liked them enough. "Some rich kid, son of a big-shot CEO. I think I'm much more familiar with her death than her life," Clark remarked dryly.

"Heheh," the giver chuckled, seeming to actually find this statement both surprising and funny. "Well, of course there's more to it than that. Tobias was his father's only son, and like fathers do, he wanted the 'best' for him. That meant grooming him as a sucessor, which in his mind meant tightly controlling every little aspect of his life. The closest thing he had to a friend was a personal bodyguard he'd been assigned as a teenager, someone unusually young for such a profession and chosen for that reason—so he'd be inconspicuous when nearby, and look like a friend of Tobias when he was really busy guarding him and—maybe more importantly—acting as his father's eyes and ears on him at all times.

"When my gift came, Tobias wanted control more than anything. His friend, empathizing with his plight and feeling by then just as under the thumb of Mr. Mond as his son, wanted a way for them both to escape. Both received a blessing along those lines, but remained dormant, doing little more than playing around with them in private, until the enemy appeared. That was when Tobias's friend had an idea.
"'We can save the world,' he said." She lifted a hand slightly. "'The people those things put into a coma are as good as dead anyway. If we sneak in and kill them, then I teleport us out, no one will be the wiser. Then, we can take turns and each become powerful enough to take down a bunch of those things alone.' Tobias...decided that he didn't want to take turns."

"The teleporting puppet," Clark said. "With the knives." The Giver nodded.

"She pulled out her strings and used them to strangle her friend to death from behind. That was when she got my attention. And after one blunder—using a puppet to kill someone, as you've suspected, didn't count—her first successful venture was when I contacted her the first time. I expressed some support, helped her understand the nature of that girl's power to better control it, and left it at that. At the time, of course, I had no objection to her behavior. Taking powers that way was intended all along as a way to keep them in the fight after they were put to sleep by the enemy; she was just being efficient about it."

"And after that," Clark continued for her, "she got impatient. She decided that not enough, or not the right people, were becoming coma victims. Right?"
"Exactly," the Giver nodded—the previous condescension not present for the moment. "The following night, I made it as clear to her as I did to Light just what the enemy would do to your world, and why I want it exterminated. That was my way of warning her, my hint that I'd let her off the hook for that one time—but I was careful not to let my displeasure show, just in case she didn't take the hint and I needed to lead her into a trap."

"...Which you did."

"Yep! And I think you're about caught up after that. The VI provided some very convenient bait by starting to put all the coma victims in one place. Once they were gone, I gave her a 'gift' to convince her I was still on her side and told her about the other bait I'd set in place nearby. From the perspective of keeping her around, I doubt the former was even necessary, but I knew Dawn would be delighted to see her friend brought back to life."

"That's not going to make anyone more forgiving of you for getting her killed," Clark stated.
"Oh, I know," the Giver nodded, taking on an exaggerated faux-sad tone, "but that's a burden I'm willing to bear.

"Anyway," she continued, not missing a beat, "Your expression of her power should let you command two or three, maybe up to four puppets most of the time. They'll be able to produce string just like you can, and even use a weaker version of your healing through their hands. It's up to you to decide what else that power of control means to you, but I'm confident a creative mind like yours will be capable of some interesting feats."

---

"Are you uh,—" "—better?" Emma said. "I mean, we did just kinda suddenly change subjects, but..."
"I'm..okay," Amory nodded. "I still need to sort some stuff out, but, it doesn't feel as hopeless as it did before, I guess."

"Well, that—" "—that's good. Um.."

"Yes?" Emma seemed hesitant and embarrassed, but that only made her more curious what it was.

"W-well, uh, last night—" "—I said I wasn't sure I could imitate your 'making people stronger' power, right?—" "—But, there's, more to it than that, isn't there?"
"Sorta," Amory shrugged. "How do you mean?"
"Uh, it can—" "—I mean, you can just make people 'feel better' with it, too, right?—" "—So I wonder if—" "—um, c-could I do that, you think?" Both of her looked slightly upward and away, blushing.

"Heheh," she giggled slightly, feeling a faint blush on her own cheeks. "I dunno if it'd be imitating my power per se, but I know you can make me feel better regardless."
"Oh!—" "—S-so uh. You want me to..?—" "—P-pet you?"

"I'm...sure I wouldn't turn down the offer," she nodded.

"Well, then, so—" "—consider it offered!" Both of her gave a sort of nervous over-grin at saying this, maybe relieved to finally get it out.

"Sure." Amory stood up. "Uh, over at your bed..?"
"Yeah!" Emma (both at once) said, hopping out of her seats also.

She combined into a single body to hold Amory in the arms of, with an end result similar to the night before. Although they weren't doing it for the express purpose of "powering" Emma up, Amory could feel after a moment that she wanted to grow into the "larger" form, and did so—much as she had for Light, before.

And, maybe Emma did succeed in imitating her. Even if her problems were still there, the embrace and the gentle rubbing of fingers against fur—not to mention their tails running across each other—made them feel pretty far away for a while. It was easy to just lose herself in that pleasant, animal haze of a feeling for a while, and she eventually woke the next morning feeling especially refreshed.

---

"Now, is there anything else you'd like to ask me?" the Giver said.

This was unusual, Clark thought—no games, and apparently no sneaking over to pet her ears. But she also had the vague impression that she'd been 'rewarded' and powered up enough by gaining the puppeteer's power today, and also that maybe the Giver just preferred Light's ears anyway. Well, she still had one more question: "Will everyone be able to turn back to normal?"

"Take their original forms, you mean? Hmm, loaded question." The Giver put up an index finger briefly. "Mainly the 'everyone' part. Any of those we brought back can become capable of reshaping their form back to the human ones they had before, if enough of their memories have returned and their soul feels enough of a connection to their mind and body. At the very least they must remember their original appearance and feel it really is theirs. I can't guarantee that all of them will meet those conditions, of course."

Clark nodded; she might have guessed it'd be something like that. And she thought of just one last question: "Rowan could've hit her, at the start of the fight. Just when we were dropping from the helicopter."
"Mm-hm," she nodded.

"Did you make her miss?"

"Nope!" the Giver shook her head. "It would've been hilariously anticlimactic, and I might've needed a moment to roll around in laughter before offering her the same deal I did you. But it was a good idea, she's a really good shot, and I had nothing to do with that particular one missing. In the end that was just luck, plain and simple—and whether it's good or bad depends on one's perspective. Unless, of course, you believe in fate." But she knew the answer to that.

Cheat Night

It so happened that, not long after finishing the most recent caption, I discovered an image that looked absolutely perfect for a Halloween caption. And I had a great idea, and couldn't wait to write it, nor to publish it once written. But hey, Halloween generally goes on into the following week of enjoying the candy haul from the 31st, so I think it's within the spirit of the holiday to put something from it a few days later.

This one I decided to just make a story because, to be honest, "caption-ifying" tends to be higher effort than publishing something as a story. It's around the same length as the last couple of captions anyway.

 

---

In the early afternoon of Halloween, the only people in Renna's house were those involved in putting the party together. That was the fox-girl herself, Reiko—of course—and those two witches, along with their...familiars? It wasn't exactly clear how it worked, but each of them definitely had a catgirl tagalong. Not long after the magician and her nekomata friend wandered in, the host happened to overhear a greeting between the witches.

"Hey there, 'Nella." Cassilda had once said it was a shame nobody used the rest of Fren's name.

"Hi, miss magician." She waved, still busy arranging the refreshments. "Long time no see."

"Well, you know, I've been rather busy with my original job. That sort of work tends to pile up when you're gone a few months."

"I'm jealous you had something worth keeping. We~ell, a little bit, at least. I can't imagine that I could handle two jobs with one of them being the indie candy biz. Anyway, looks to me like you've got something on your mind."

"Why, yes. Something..surprising happened last week. Long story short, I think this season has some kind of effect on my powers; maybe yours, too. How would you like to help me with an...experiment of sorts?"

This was interesting, but Renna had something else to attend to for a bit. When she came back into the living room, it seemed the conversation was still ongoing.

"I dunno...I mean, I've never actually cast a spell before. Pretty much all of my magic is expressed through candy and those who consume them."

"Well, that doesn't necessarily preclude you from casting a spell," Cassilda said. "Maybe there's a way you could even make one to match those constraints, especially tonight."

"Hmm. If you're right, at least. Well, I'll keep it in mind. There's bound to be even more people than last year, so maybe there's a good test subject among them..."

"That's the spirit!" Cassilda gave her a thumbs-up, and proceeded to the backyard to help Thana with setting up the stage. Renna wondered a bit what that was all about, but..in the time she'd known the candy witch, she'd never used her magic for evil. So it probably wasn't anything to worry about.

---

Zander felt like such a loser.

He'd thought his werewolf costume, with some half-ripped clothes, an ear hairband, and something resembling a tail attached to the pants, was at least sort of impressive—until he realized that there was an actual werewolf at the party, apparently a close friend of the host. And, because of the diet he was on, all he could do was stand and stare at the overflowingly copious candy everyone else was happily enjoying. It was cool seeing so many costumes, and the off-and-on magic show was neat, but...it was hard for him to enjoy much of it when he felt like he hardly fit in at all.

"Hey, you don't like it?" A woman's voice yanked him out of his depressive reverie, and he turned to the source to find...what really looked to be a witch.

"Uh.." Come to think of it, he'd almost certainly seen her going around refilling the bowls of candy and drinks and other stuff that got empty. With what looked to be actual magic. Oh, no—had he managed to insult a real witch?

"I-I'm sure I'd love it," he said after a too-long hesitation. "But I'm uh..supposed to be on a diet..." Zander patted his flabby belly in an effort to legitimize his claim by demonstrating the very good reason he'd started on said diet.

"Aww, that's a shame. One should really be able to cheat a little on Halloween of all nights," she said, looking..sympathetically sad for him.

He exhaled slightly in relief; even if this was a real witch, she wasn't the "boil you in a cauldron if you insult me" kind...probably. Actually, now that he was actually looking, she was really cute.

"I wish. It's for my health, you know," he said, relaxing slightly more.

"Hmm." Her head tilted slightly, like she was remembering or thinking about something. "Say, I have an idea. Could I test out a spell on you? Harmless, I swear, or you can sue me if it's not."

"Uh...sure, I guess?" The witch-looking magician outside was supposed to be using real magic on people too, so...harmless magic was believable enough to him for the moment.

"Okay!" She rubbed her hands eagerly. "Just hold still, now." When he did, she drew herself up slightly and began to intone a spell with a brief poem:

"You, my new friend, with this blessing I greet:

I know you will find my candy sweet.

For every confection tonight you eat,

You will enjoy a second treat.

Imagine the body you wish you had,

If you really think that one is bad,

And every time you swallow more,

You'll change to match it, down to the core."

As she progressed through the words, a faint orange glow began to surround her body, and her eyes changed color to the same bright hue, also glowing themselves. Her hair and clothes even blew upward slightly in an invisible wind near the end, and when she finished speaking the spell the glow seemed to rush toward—and into—Zander's body. He shuddered and looked down, patting himself a few times, but it ultimately didn't feel like it had done anything. And yet...

"Phew," the witch said. "Well, that was a new experience for sure. Please, try something small so I can see if that actually did anything. A tiny little cheat?" she said, producing a small piece of wrapped chocolate that Zander was fairly sure she couldn't have been holding a minute ago.

"Well, uh...okay," he mumbled. The combination of wanting that chocolate in the first place, having it presented to him by such a pretty girl, and..wanting to believe that the spell had worked and was going to do what it said, was too much for him to resist. He took it and munched it down. It was as delicious as he'd expected, and...he wasn't sure, but Zander thought he felt a faint tingle rushing down from the nape of his neck to the base of his spine. It made him shudder again, just slightly.

This seemed to satisfy her, at least. She nodded. "Thanks. I think it did work! I'll keep an eye out for you tonight to see how well. Gotta go for now~," she added, winking.

Still feeling a little stunned from the overall experience, Zander stood there in silence for a moment before shaking himself free. Was that for real, or some kind of trick to make him eat her candy? Well...it wasn't hurting anyone else, and maybe she was right anyway. A little cheating, just for one night...

He picked up a sucker and unwrapped it, gently popping it into his mouth as he walked around. Imagine the body you wish you had... What kind of body did he want? Zander happened to run across that actual werewolf again, who was busy chatting with a big group of people. She was tall, strong, attractive..popular. It'd be cool to be like that, he thought, running his tongue over the sweet. If anything, being wolfy like her—with the real fuzzy ears and fluffy tail—had to be a bonus, too. He shuddered briefly again at another faint tingling spreading out along his back from where the first one had been.

As he continued eating the sucker, more tingling periodically hit him, spreading farther each time—making its way to his sides, then his front, and finally running its way up his head and down his arms and legs, causing him to shake once more and seek somewhere to sit down. Was something really happening...? He got his answer as he came close to finishing the treat in his mouth, which seemed to cause the tingling across his scalp to steadily intensify, and then found hair slowly cascading its way down the sides of his face and the back of his neck. He raised a hand to run through it in curiosity as it tickled his forehead and cheeks, and found it pleasantly soft, like it was freshly washed. It finished growing just as he swallowed the last of it, winding up a few inches past his shoulders.

Zander wasn't really sure what long hair had to do with the body he was thinking about having...but, after running his hand through it and looking at it for a moment, he felt like it suited him quite well. He went and grabbed a sour gummy candy on his way to a nearby bathroom to look in the mirror. The tingling, curiously enough, didn't resume; instead he began to feel his body tensing ever so slightly as he chewed on the candy.

"W-whoa," he mumbled, looking in the mirror. The hair from the top of his head wasn't the only thing that had changed; rather, his facial hair was completely gone. The holes in his costume along the arms and legs revealed smooth, soft skin too, and when he pulled up his shirt briefly out of curiosity, well—there was the same flabby belly he was used to seeing, except its skin was much the same as his face and limbs. "Hmmh." He pulled it back down again before stepping out, not wanting to embarrass himself, but it seemed..easier to cover his stomach with it than it had been a moment ago.

Done with the sour chew, he picked up another few and popped them into his mouth one by one. The sensation of his body tensing came back a little stronger with the second one, and stronger still with the third. It was perhaps slightly uncomfortable then, except that when he looked down he finally discovered the meaning of that sensation: His stomach was less than half its original girth! "Wha—n-no way," he mumbled to himself, and went over to an unoccupied part of the house with a chair to sit down in before putting the fourth treat from his hand to his mouth.

"Nnnn-nngh.." He shuddered again as his body tensed particularly hard, and he felt his clothes loosen around him as fat rapidly vanished away. The rest of what was in his hand went into his mouth almost involuntarily as he felt—and saw—his arms and lower legs slim down, his belly steadily flattening more and more, his..shoulders narrowing? And, curiously enough, his chest, hips and thighs didn't seem to benefit much at all from this magical fitness regimen, all remaining more or less the same size as before. It was weird..but he couldn't complain, seeing how very fit the rest of him was getting! By the time he had swallowed it all, he had a body shape he'd dreamed of having but never come close to his entire adult life: A fit, trim, flat, slim belly, and arms and legs without a hint of fat to them, either.

And he needed more...! Zander got up and fast-walked (restraining himself from being running to not be too conspicuous) to the nearest bowl of candy, just grabbing a handful of whatever was there. It turned out to be mostly chocolates. A peanut butter-chocolate treat went in his mouth next, and it seemed to cause a sharp tingling across his ears and the base of his spine, the latter seeming like a sort of progression of what he'd felt with that very first piece of chocolate the witch had given him. As he took in a second piece of chocolate, this one dark, on the way back to the chair he'd come from, Zander felt some odd sensations in his mouth, like his tongue and teeth were moving around unbidden. He sat down and took a brief break from candy-eating to run his tongue carefully along his teeth, and discovered actual fangs in place of his original, omnivorous canines. They were long, they were sharp, they were...wolfish. Some experimenting found his tongue a tiny bit longer than before, too! Which could only mean...his ears..and his lower back...!

Zander put a milk chocolate in his mouth next, and as he enjoyed its flavor he also enjoyed a curious sort of upward stretching sensation accompanying the tingling of his ears. They were pushing up, and up, some light fuzz on them making him feel every inch of his soft hair that ran across their surface as they grew past them. At the same time that fuzz grew longer and thicker, steadily turning into full, fluffy fur. And then—the milk chocolate gone, he found a piece of white chocolate and ate it right away, with the result of that tingling in his lower back finally progressing into the sensation of something pushing its way out there too. "Mm~mh.." He twisted around to watch, and was a little surprised at just how easy that was; his body seemed to be more flexible than before in addition to more fit. And...indeed, there was a little, fluffy black-furred tail coming from the base of his spine, rapidly filling itself out longer and thicker before his eyes. By the time he was done with the latest treat, it was a full-size, genuine, wolf tail! And...patting around, he found that, curiously, the costume pieces he'd been wearing before were simply gone. All the better, he thought; it'd look silly to have two tails and four ears when half of each were clearly fake.

"Yess...!" Zander half-whispered. This was amazing! The spell was working perfectly. He could feel his tail whipping back and forth behind him in a happy wag, his ears fully upright seemingly in response to the smile on his face...and then lowering slightly as he finally noticed something. "Huh? Hmm~mm." He hummed quietly to himself, standing up again as he half-absentmindedly put another sucker in his mouth. His voice sounded...kind of odd. Maybe something had happened with the inner workings of his mouth when the teeth and tongue changed. But then.."Mm, mm~mm, mm..." It was still changing, he noticed, as his trek took him back into the crowd to seek another handful of candy. "Mmm." The pitch wasn't shifting much, maybe going a little higher, but there was just something different about the tone coming out that he couldn't quite place yet.

"Hey, you having fun?" Zander's quest was interrupted by another encounter with the witch who'd cast the spell on him.

"Huh? O-oh, uh.." he mumbled nervously. Then: "Yeah! This stuff's, r~really good." His voice kind of cracked and shifted a little more mid-sentence.

"Glad to hear it!" she said. "I made it, after all."

"Wh—a~all of it?" More cracking, a bit of a squeak there; Zander ignored it.

"Yep! Fren and Ko.," she said, nodding. "I only give it out for free on Halloween, though."

"That's great! I'll have to uh, buy some later," he said.

"Heheh. Don't feel obligated. It's great to see the spell's working, though," she said.

"Y-yeah. I, uh, my v~oice keeps, changing though." He swallowed the last of the sucker and pulled the stick out, dropping his hand with that in it to his side.

"Hmm. Well, maybe that's just part of the ideal body you're imagining," she said. Then: "Here. These are some of my favorites." In her hand she offered him some candy wrapped in cute little packages resembling various fruits, which Zander supposed must taste like them, too.

"Oh. Thanks." He took the offer, and—on an impulse he wasn't completely sure of the reason for—wandered into the nearest unoccupied bathroom as he carefully unwrapped a strawberry one first.

"Hmm, hmmm." He flicked on the light, noticing his voice wasn't changing anymore. It sounded...odd, now. Not...bad at all, but...actually...He finally realized it just didn't sound like a man's voice. Instead it was a deep alto tone that he'd expect a very mature, sexy woman to have. A woman...?

In the mirror, he found his face looking different again. It was smaller, rounder, and framed by that long, lovely hair. His eyes were..unusual too, now, one of them a bright orange and the other a deep, mystical purple. "W-whoa.." He blinked once or twice at the face in the mirror. It looked...cute? Pretty? And he...liked it?

The strawberry treat went in his mouth. "MMMmmhh..!" Its flavor was unbelievable. Like biting into a juicy strawberry, yet also unbelievably sweet, all at the same time. This had to be some kind of specialty, he thought; no wonder it was one of the witch's favorites. Also..eating it was progressing his change another step. He could feel a faint tingling starting...down between his legs. It felt oddly..nice, and it made his ears lower a bit and his tail start to slowly wag; the face in the mirror was beginning to blush, too. "Mmh..?" The tingling slowly, steadily grew stronger, which made his blush brighten and his tail speed up. And..it seemed to be causing him to get smaller down there, too.

Just like that, the strawberry candy was gone. Zander immediately put the apple one in next, before the feelings this part of the change was giving him could fade away. He was rewarded with a sudden ramping up of intensity instead, causing him to vocalize involuntarily: "Mm~rrf!" A muted bark; he was part canine now, after all. It was slipping inward, ever so slowly at first, but now faster and faster...and he found himself wanting his manhood to do that—to go away, disappear, and..become something else entirely...

"Rrf..rr~aah..mm~mnh..!" Wanting it seemed to make it go faster, and feel even better. Zander could actually feel the intense heat on his face, and on down the rest of his body; he found his hips squirming back and forth as the magic worked on his manhood, steadily melting it away. And then, no sooner did he swallow the last of the treat in his mouth than Zander felt that final tug. "Mmnn~aa~Aaah..rrf!" Just like he wanted, Zander stopped being a man. "Rr~Rrf!" Her voice proved to have quite a range, those barks going awfully high in pitch as she felt womanhood form in, the necessary equipment settling into all the right places..and simultaneously experienced a fuzzy, wonderful feeling down there as a reward for jumping to the other side of the fence. "Aah, aa~aahaahnnn~.." she murmured slowly, in her deep, sexy voice, as the pleasure coursed through her and then began to fade.

More...! She needed..so, Zander tore open the packaging and stuck another treat in her mouth without even looking at it first. It was obviously watermelon—but the more candy-like, extreme sort of watermelon flavor rather than the relatively muted taste of the real thing. Either way, it prompted a rapid tingling across her chest, and a somewhat odd feeling like something flowing into it. "Mn~nh..!" Whatever it was, it felt good, and it came along with the feeling of her hips, bottom and thighs thickening out a bit, forming the lower third of what were sure to be some perfect hourglass curves. Indeed, her belly also caved in a bit more at the sides to complement this change. And...

"Rr~rrf! A~ahh..nn.." Zander's chest had just finished changing from male flab to a pair of relatively modest female breasts. But they were far from done, as now the flowing sensation was joined with a gentle outward push, suddenly sensitive skin brushing across her shirt's cloth and giving her more of those wonderful, fuzzy, girly feelings. Her tail was going a million miles an hour now, and she was practically paralyzed by the pleasure, her whole body seeming to have overheated itself with that blush. Yet, as the last of the candy in her mouth slid down her throat, she proved perfectly capable of pushing the last one in—a delicious cherry chew, by the taste of it on her tongue.

"Mm~MMmmnnh.." Zander could feel—and see—her breasts swelling out bigger and bigger. How big could they get..? She wanted them to be huge, to fit the rest of her tall, voluptuous shape. And so they grew faster, drawing even more pleasure from her newfound womanhood. "Aah, aah—rrRRff..! A~ahnnNNnn~..!" Her voice seemed to alternate between adorable, high, wolfish yips and deep, mature, very human and extremely womanly sounds of...appreciation. Somehow she kept herself from crying aloud—at least, enough that the noise from the party outside drowned her out for even the keenest of animal ears. "Mmngh..ye—...ye~es...!" she mumbled, encouraging her big, round bosom to give one final push. And then: "Aah—! Aa~aahnn~nn.." Zander's breasts indeed burst forward one last time, swelling to an enormous size, probably at least D-cups, just after she swallowed the last of the candy and freed her mouth up for crying out one last time in appreciation for the wonderful sensations her new sex was capable of.

For a long moment, the tall, curvy wolf-girl found herself panting—rapid breaths, just like a doggy, that would have been unhealthy for someone fully human—and as she did her body slowly cooled down and the strength returned to her legs made wobbly and weak by all of that recent..excitement...between them. When she finally—mentally speaking—came to again, she blinked a couple of times in the mirror to find herself wearing a completely different outfit.

Her top was little more than a piece of cloth just barely holding onto the lower two-thirds of her gigantic chest, possibly aided by a sort of belt holding tight to her waist just below them. Her flat, slender midriff was completely exposed—something she never would've been caught dead doing in her old form—and below that there was a skirt and a pair of leggings in orange and black, one of which had some decorative tearing in it not unlike that of the costume she'd had on before. Besides that, there was an unzipped hoodie that probably never would be zipped, given how little room it'd leave for her impressive breasts, and which wouldn't have covered the lower half of her belly even if it were closed up anyway. Overall, it looked pretty great on her.

"W-wolf girl, huh..?" she muttered to herself, taking a small step closer to admire herself in the mirror a little more. Some kind of lightning tattoo had shown up under her right eye, but she was fairly sure it was the temporary kind that would just wash off. Her hands were small with slim, delicate fingers ending in pretty nails painted a deep purple shade. "Wolf...woman~," she corrected after a moment, running one of those hands down her side to feel her curves. "Rr~row. Heheh." But it was true; she felt sexy, something she'd really never experienced before, or even imagined could be real for her. She looked fairly fit, sure, but she also felt strong, like her appearance belied the real strength her new form sported. Well, she could always test just how strong she really was later. For now...there was a party going on out there.

---

Azura was one of the coolest guests at the party. Her body and outfit were more than eye-catching, and she was friendly and energetic to boot. She participated in a few of Cassilda's tricks with an enthusiasm that put most of the other partygoers to shame, and a lot of people found she was pretty fun to talk to, too. The only—somewhat odd thing about the tall, gorgeous wolf-girl, was that she seemed to constantly be popping candy of one kind or another into her mouth. Some wondered to themselves how she kept a figure like that on such a diet, but ultimately convinced themselves she probably didn't eat like that every night. After all, it was Halloween—what better time to treat yourself and cheat on your usual eating habits a bit?

"You see that girl, sitting there eating a big purple sucker?" Frenella pointed her out to the other witch.

"...Her? Oh yeah, she was great!" Cassilda said. "One of my best volunteers tonight. I have no idea how I missed someone like that coming in; it's like she just appeared in the middle of the party outta nowhere."

"Heheh. Well, I suppose you could say the experiment was a success," Frenella said.

"Wh-really?" The candy witch nodded. "Great! I mean...it was just a theory, but I'm glad we got a chance to test it out before the magical night was over."

"Me too. I think I might have a knack for spell-weaving...at least, if it has to do with my treats, anyway."

"Hmm. In that case, I have a suggestion. Perhaps next year, we could work together on something really special," the magician said, her eyes practically sparkling with ideas.

"Oh? What ever do you have in mind?"

"Hmm. Too much to say all at once. I'm in that mentally loopy state from being tired after doing all those tricks tonight," she said, waving her hand around in a vaguely circular gesture. "But rest assured, I'll be in touch once I've properly collected my thoughts."

"A'right. Looking forward to it!"

Battle Vixens! - 60

First / Previous / Next / Latest

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Episode 60: Identity

Cynthia didn't seem happy. She was suspicious of everyone, maybe even disbelieving that the two of them had died. Yet her objections seemed generally limited to vocal complaint, as when Dawn asked someone to show her where her room was she simply followed them both, looking around the hallways of the strange building with a keen interest—as if expecting to need to find an escape route through them at some point.

Neither of them could remember much of anything, but in a strange sort of way, Dawn felt...anchored here. The location and the people, and especially Rowan, felt familiar; it was easy to believe that, for whatever reason, this was where she'd spent her final days in an unremembered past life. Even the route to "her room" began to seemingly started to come back to her once she was about halfway there. That familiarity was nothing compared to the rush of emotion she'd felt on seeing Cynthia alive, of course, but it was..oddly comfortable. Unfortunately, that made it difficult to fully understand what the red-headed vixen was going through, with no familiarity and Dawn herself as the only link to anything. Comprehending that made Dawn feel faintly pathetic, insufficient to hold herself up, much less an entire other person. But if there was one thing she knew—it was that she wouldn't abandon Cynthia. Not now, not ever.

"Well, here we are," said the woman who'd been leading them, waving at a door. Funny—Dawn thought it was another couple of hallways over, but at the same time that it...wasn't? "Uh, I think the room right across the hall is unoccupied if you want it," she continued toward Cynthia. "I'll go find someone who should have a key if you don't mind waiting here for a bit."
The redhead's ears folded back briefly, but then she looked at Dawn for just a second and seemed to loosen up again. "...Fine."

Only after she left did Dawn realize she hadn't said anything about unlocking her door. "Hmm." She went up to it and tried the doorknob,finding it unlocked. "..Oh. Guess it ain't locked."
"Really?" Cynthia tried the door across the hall. "Well, mine is."

"Uh, you can..check out my room with me, if you want?" It sounded like a lame offer, but the shorter girl jumped on it anyway, going ahead of Dawn to shove the door open.

"Tiny little room. I guess it has a bed at lea—hey, what's that?"
"What?" Leaning in over her, Dawn saw it too: Something like a picture of a sunrise, leaning against the pillow of her bed.
"Does it look familiar to you?" Cynthia moved aside enough for Dawn to enter the room and look closer for a minute.
"Uh, naw. I mean—it looks kinda like a sunrise I guess, but I don't think it's s'posed to be here.."

She picked it up. "Well, at least it looks good. I think. Do y—I guess you wouldn't know, if I liked things like this before, huh?"
Dawn shrugged. "Sorry. Ya think that really matters, though?"
"Of course it—"
"I just mean! If ya like it now, ain't that enough?" This was the first thing she'd said anything remotely positive about aside from Dawn herself, after all.
"Oh." Cynthia set the painting down. "Well—maybe." She leaned in to stare at it a bit closer. "Hmm, it looks kinda...I dunno. Fake?"
"It's just a picture," Dawn said.
"Not like that! Like, if this is supposed to be a picture of a sunrise, then—the lighting, the shadows. Not right. It's...look here," she pointed at a particular spot, which didn't look unusual at all to the taller vixen.

"Well, it's meant to be surreal," A man's voice said from outside the room, making both of them jump and turn. "Ah, sorry, didn't mean to startle you." This person looked vaguely familiar to Dawn—not nearly at the level of Rowan, but...

Anyway, Cynthia charged over toward him, stopping in the doorway. "What do you mean, 'meant to'?"
"Well, I painted it, after all," he shrugged. "Name's Simon." And offered her a hand, which she eyed suspiciously for a moment before gently taking in her own for a second or two, then letting go.

"Please excuse my husband," said a woman, also coming into view of the door. "He's a little loopy after fighting a fi—uuh..." She hesitated seemingly at the exact moment of really getting a good look at Cynthia.

"Whose foot's in the mouth now, dear?" Simon said. "Anyway: Cynthia, right? And—I suppose you don't remember, but we knew each other before, Dawn," he said, extending a hand to gesture vaguely toward the taller vixen.

"...'Kay?" It was believable. His manner was a little overwhelming, although he seemed nice enough.

"So why's it look 'surreal', then?" said the redhead, still stuck on that point.
"Oh, well, I used a bunch of computer-generated sunrises as references. I thought of just painting from a single photograph, but I rather wanted something more unique. It was a—well, not so much a gift as a 'thank-you' for a small favor."

"Which was?"
"Well, allowing me to take a few photos, mostly. I've got a long-running project of trying to get good pictures of all the vixens I can and eventually paint them all, for historical purposes if nothing else. Oh, speaking of which—"
"I think that can wait, Simon," the woman said, cutting him off and pushing him to one side slightly. "Like I said, loopy."

"Please, I don't have a filter no matter how well-rested I am," he said, letting himself continue to be pushed a few steps away. "Well, I suppose we'll see each other again sometime. Feel free to hang the painting wherever you like!"

After leaning out of the doorway to watch them leave, Cynthia turned back around. "Well, those two were...lively," she said. "You really know that guy?"
"I think so?" Anyway, it was hard to disagree with his energetic insistence that she did.

---

On the balance, Clark decided it was better to ask to be let off at their home. Sure, his car had driven them both to work that morning and was still at campus, but walking once to retrieve it was much better than potentially exposing his amnesiac wife to a large number of students who knew how she normally was. It just seemed likely to be an uncomfortable experience for all involved.

When she got out of the car, Rory stood still, staring at the front yard and face of their house for a long moment. "Is something...are you okay?" he asked, beginning to worry and thinking he might have seen some tears welling up in her eyes.
She sniffed. "Um, I-I think so. I guess, just...you know how I was saying I didn't know where I was...?"
"Yeah?"
"This...I feel like I do, here." She gestured toward the house. "This is...home. Right?"

"Of course. Let's...go inside," he said, taking the first few steps to lead the way there.

Once inside, Clark eyed the living room furniture briefly, physically wanting nothing more than to collapse onto something soft and go into a restful coma for a bit. But he led the way into the kitchen instead. "Are you hungry?"
"Um...?" Her stomach growled. "I guess so, now that you mention it. I don't really..think I remember how to put, um, how to uh..food....things."

"Well, you've never really been the cook anyway," Clark said, going to put something simple together for both of them. From prior data he knew exhausted vixens were better off eating than just sleeping, and he was hungry too. "Have a seat, I'll take care of this."

"A-are you sure? You seem pretty tired."
"All the more reason I should eat."

---

Light kept the three of them invisible on the way into the apartment complex. First they went to Emma's, and Light showed her some 'holograms' of the interior briefly to confirm her roommate wasn't there—since, of course, she still didn't know it wouldn't be a problem if she was. No sooner was she inside than Amp seemed to physically deflate.

The entire time since leaving that cabin in the woods, Light had seen it. She'd acted like her usual self for the most part, but there were flashes of thinking, frustration, pure sadness. It seemed like she'd been pushing whatever thoughts were behind those flashes back for the sake of everyone else—especially for Emma—but now there wasn't much point in hiding it. As they made the trip back to their apartment, Amory's step was as light and quick as ever—after all, she wasn't the least bit tired from the fight or anything else—but she was slumped over like she was carrying some massive weight on her shoulders.

Inside, she turned back almost right away. Amory exhaled, and went over to the couch to sit down. Blake shrugged to herself, deciding to do the same and take the chair instead. The weight of physical and mental exhaustion hit him hard for a moment, so he just stayed quiet, working to catch his breath again. Then: "What's—"
"I let her take over," Amory said, cutting him off.
"..What?"
"I didn't think for myself, or try to come up with a good plan. I just...went with the flow. Whatever 'felt right'." He lifted a hand, palm-up, briefly into the air, and dropped it again. "There were a million better ideas that I could've come up with, easy. But no. Just assume she's on our side and let her get more people killed. Right? Great idea. Cool."

It really wasn't like Amory to beat himself up over anything. Blake wasn't feeling very prepared for this conversation, but decided that he had to try anyway. Even if just as a sounding board echoing back what he had to be thinking himself. "You still helped. We couldn't have survived that fight without the power boost."
"That's not me, that's just more of her!" he said, halfway to a yell. Then, more quietly: "This asinine game of hers, with all the stupid, arbitrary rules. She's so powerful." The next bit come with some gestures: "You could be that strong all the time; that could be the default. Instead everyone gets a handicap and I'm just there to remove it temporarily."

"You woke everyone up. You saved people who were as good as dead without it."
"She could do that too! Instantly. She can just teleport anywhere she wants, be in a million different places all at the same time! But no, instead everything has to be a big, convoluted mess. Her grand plan was to get a bunch of people killed by that murderer and then graciously offer some stupid monkey's paw thing to bring them back but not really. Ohh, sure, she wanted her dead, but not the easy way. Not the way that saves the most lives. Just—maximize everyone's misery instead."

Blake waited until he was finished railing and went silent. "...We've been through this stuff before, you know. She's not on anyone's side but her own. Hey, she told everyone from day one what she's after, and even if she wants that—thing—to lose, it's an equal priority at best. It's just the monster that wants some of us alive, over the one that wants us all dead."

"Yeah. I just feel...stupid, and frustrated. Because I more or less let her take the wheel. I thought I'm supposed to be smarter than this, but I can't sort out my own thoughts from the..'instincts' from being her little princess sometimes. This time it was worse than usual. I just.." He shook his head. "I've gotta do better. I have to remember lives are on the line, right?"

A phone ringing interrupted the conversation at this point, and Amory bolted to his feet. "Aagh, that's gonna be my dad! He's probably been calling all day. I gotta take this." He ran off into his bedroom, leaving Blake alone.

At this point, his phone buzzed too, just briefly—a text in the VI app. Pulling it out of his pocket, he took a look. It was from Rowan, but when he unlocked his phone there were some messages from his own family, too—just checking in. Not feeling up to calling them, Blake just took a moment to reply that he was okay, claiming that he'd just put the phone on silent and buried himself in work. That was technically true, at least when using as vague a word as 'work'. Then back to the VI app to see Rowan's message.

VI research division managed to give a test subject powers. "Artificial" vixen, may not be as strong as us but has some useful capabilities and is eager to help. Vetted motivations and readiness to fight myself. Goes to your town's college. Give your contact to her?

It was that guy he'd met briefly in the hall; it had to be. Whether he'd really taken the warnings seriously or not, Rowan appeared to be satisfied that he was ready—or as ready as could be expected, at least. Even after what he'd seen, he was willing to accept the help of—effectively—another civilian who didn't know what he was getting into. Well, it wasn't any different from the rest of them, was it?

"I'm safe here!" Blake jumped; his roommate's raised voice was just audible through the closed door of his bedroom. "I won't be any safer at home, and what I'm doing here is important. Look, we're practically next-door neighbors to the VI. The national guard's on standby to defend this place. Those things didn't make it ten feet into town." His voice steadily softened again; at this point the door muffled his speech too much to make out the words.

What I'm doing here is important. He meant that in a way his father couldn't possibly understand right now. What we're doing is important. And...We need all the help we can get. That was what Blake had told that guy, too. Said help would be much more effective if it was better coordinated than all the first meetings with the other vixens in this town—if not outright fighting against them, then meeting them at the last possible second before getting killed by those monsters.

Yes. Ask her to send me a power rundown.

Shortly after a terse confirmation from Rowan, a few messages came from an account labeled "Hat". Then Amory opened the door and came back in, looking no less discouraged than before.

"Sorry about that. He's..worried," he said, returning to the same seat as before. "I really can't blame him. It's not like I can tell him...you know," he waved.

"It's fine. My family was worried too. You know, I hate to defend her, but I think you're wrong about something."
"What?"

"You said she could've made everyone as powerful as possible to begin with, but I don't think that'd be better, and I'm not really sure it'd work anyway. Imagine if the puppeteer started out with that level of power, and then got more. Or if the person Rowan got water powers from was as strong as she is at 'full power'. We already come with crazy superpowers that obviously drove some people insane, just think what starting with even more would do."
Amory sighed slightly. "Yeah, you're right. We've more or less established that the 'price' gets worse, too. And I agree—my power seems to...well, it pulls at the connection between a person and their power, and that probably is only so strong at first. Just, the people I've boosted so far have all built a strong connection before I was able to do that. I just got...mad, and frustrated."

"I'm pretty frustrated too, you know," Blake said. "But I'm over it. I'm done worrying about what we—what I could've done. It's time to move on to what we can do next."
"Yeah?"
"I got angry when someone called me a hero today. Not at them, but—I know it still showed." He sat up, spreading his hands out. "My entire life I have dreamed of being a hero, and now that I am one I let some, what, cosmic being ruin it for me? Ssscrew that. She can make fun of me all she wants, I'm gonna keep doing what's right. So if that makes me a hero, and other people wantna be better people because of that? Great."

Amory's head tilted slightly while Blake tiredly sank back into the chair again. "Well, I can't disagree with that."

"Anyway, I have something new for you to help make strategies for. Here," he tossed his phone underhand at the seat next to Amory, who then picked it up. "New vixen, long story, I'll explain in a minute. There's gonna be more monsters tomorrow, and she's gonna help us fight them. So let's figure out how."

---

While he waited for the microwave, Clark went and got a laptop, setting it on the table a short ways in front of his wife and opening it up. "It seems like..you 'remember' or 'know' some basic information. You know how to talk, and eat—I guess?" She nodded, still eyeing the brightly-lit screen with curiosity. "Do you..can you read this?" he said after entering a password, pulling up the browser and searching for the term 'physics'. Rory leaned in, studying the screen for a moment.

"I think I can. But I'm not sure if I know...all of these words."

"That's fine. Just—before I konk out, I wanted to provide you with something to help you remember or re-learn some information on your own. So: This is a computer, what I have open right now is the internet," he said, gesturing to each in turn. "With the keyboard here, you can enter a word and push enter, and it'll pull up information about that word." He demonstarted this by replacing the word with 'mass', typing it slowly and deliberately so she could see how the keypresses matched up to the letters. "That's...the basics. I'm optimistic you'll be able to figure it out on your own. Oh, and if it locks like this..." He put the computer's lock screen up, "just type this password in to unlock it again..I'll just, write it down for you." After scribbling the word down, he pushed the laptop back and went to pull everything out and set a plate in front of her in its place.

Clark ate ravenously; he hadn't felt like he was starving so much until some food hit his mouth. He did occasionally pause to check on the tall vixen, who seemed to be enjoying the food, but not eating all that vigorously. About the fifth time he looked up she said, "It's good, really."
He shrugged. "It's nothing too special. I wouldn't blame you if it's not your favorite."
"Well, it's the best food I can remember eating," she said.

The last thing Clark had expected to come out was a joke, which meant this awful, cliched line based on her utterly tragic situation put him in a fit of laughter so bad that he almost choked. Rory stood up (knocking the chair over behind her) and went around to lean over him in concern—evidently not knowing what to do—until he waved her off, managing to swallow and get his breath back enough to speak. "I'm fine, really, just—heheh..that was terrible, you know that?"
"Um..sorry?"
"No, I mean—that was amazing." This didn't help her confusion or concern. "Cracking a joke like that. Surprised me, is all. Pitch-perfect timing and everything. Please, go..sit back down, I'm perfectly alright."
"Okay."

After they finished eating, Clark put the dishes in the sink and pushed the laptop back in front of her. He took a moment to configure the search to "safe-for-work" results, then pulled back. "I'm taking a nap for two hours. Uh..there's a clock there," he said, pointing to the screen. "Two hours later's when that number is two bigger. If I'm still asleep, go wake me up."
"Sure," she nodded.

"Right. I'm going to go collapse now." Seeing her concerned look as he approached the kitchen door, he turned toward her again for a second. "I mean sleep."
"Oh."

---

Light had a number of good suggestions. Even after how tired she'd looked when Marcus met her before, her texts seemed to be bursting with great ideas. In addition to some suggestion of what she might try in order to 'unlock' or have ideas for new spells to cast, her hero also had a suggestion regarding names.

It's up to you if you want to have a 'secret identity', but I'd suggest if you do use a hero name it should be something that doesn't give away the source of your powers, so to speak.

That was a good point. She'd just gone with 'hat' because it was the first thing that came to her mind. Some suggestions followed:
Mage, maybe?

Spellweaver? Or just weaver?

"Well, you look busy."

"Wah!" Marcus jumped, having not at all noticed someone walking up to directly in front of where she was sitting. "Oh, uh. Hi." It turned out to be one of the city vixens—Zeno, in fact. "I was just uh." Already on her feet by now, she waved her phone nervously. "Talking with Light, about..stuff."

"Oh, and I suppose a low-tier vixen like me isn't even worth saying hello to?"
"Wha—no, no no. I was, um, just like really not paying attention, so I didn't even notice you walk up and—"
"Easy there, I was just messing with ya," Zeno said, putting her hands up. Then she offered one over to shake: "Anyway, I'm Zeno, if you don't know. Named after the father of paradox himself."

"Oh, y-yeah?" Marcus took the hand and shook. "I'm..." The name came to her just when she needed it, like another spell. "...Magus."
"Neat."

"So—paradoxes?" She wasn't really sure how to continue the conversation, but desperately wanted to anyway.

"Yep. Like an all-powerful being who wants to watch you die but gives you superpowers instead. Or a spellcaster named Magus who wields a sword instead of a scythe."
"Huh? Oh, uh..yeah." Part of her mind knew that wasn't exactly a paradox, but she didn't feel like pointing that out. "I, actually just now came up with it. You think it's bad?"
"No, it's fine. Zeno was greek and male, neither of which am I right now. Dawn's got powers that freeze stuff instead of thawing it out like the morning sun. Petra runs around and fights things instead of standing perfectly still. Light makes it darker when she's doing that laser thing. I think contradictions make our names more fun. Or, as I said before: Neat.

"So anyway, one of the interns took a video of your impromptu sparring with our boss out in the courtyard," Zeno continued. "Don't worry, it's not going up anywhere public—he knows better than that—but at least I got to see it."
"Um..oh. P-pretty embarrassing, right?"
"Oh, not at all. Do you have any idea what you were fighting?" Zeno said. "The last time Tora and Fay together took her on in a weapons-only match, they lasted about two and a half minutes. Her powerset includes being a magical genius at swordfighting, we're pretty sure, so not going down to her first couple of attacks is impressive enough from a newbie."

"Uh, if you say so. I think I really might just be bad at sword-fighting, though."

"Well, then that's something to work on, right? Pick up experience from some fights and level right on up."
"Yeah, heheh." Marcus—Magus?—nodded; Zeno was speaking her language now. "Or at least, maybe I can figure out buff spells to make myself temporarily faster or better."
"Buffs aren't unheard of, either," Zeno agreed. "You know Nico? Her powers are all buffs. Anyway, I just wanted to say hi to the new kid before I went home. I've had about as rough a day as anyone else. So:" Zeno clapped her on the shoulder. "Welcome to the team, so to speak. I'm sure you'll do great." After dropping her hand she added, "Or you're doomed. But I hope the first one."
"Oh. Uh. Yeah. Me too. Nice to meet you, though. You guys are all my heroes," she said.

"Well, maybe you'll get to be someone else's hero soon enough. Seeya!"

After watching her walk away, Magus sat back down and returned her attention to the phone, finally replying to the several suggestions with her own choice. After a brief pause for it to send and be read, what came back right away was not a question of why the response had taken her so long, not disappointment that she hadn't picked one of Light's suggestions. It was encouragement: It's perfect.

...That was a bit of why Light was her hero. Maybe—and hopefully Zeno wouldn't be mad to know it—a tiny bit more than everyone else, even.

---

Reasoning that he wouldn't get the bed tonight, Clark made use of it for his nap. Predictably, he went unconscious not long after his head hit the pillow, losing all sense of time until he felt someone gently prodding his side. During a short groan of automatic complaint he remembered the situation, then forced himself to sit up. Rory was standing by the side of the bed, looking extremely nervous and wringing her hands.

"Um..I'm sorry, it hasn't been..exactly two hours yet," she said.

"Hmn? Oh, whatever," he waved dismissively, swinging around to sitting on the side of the bed. "Close enough." It was around an hour and a half he'd slept, it seemed. "What's up?"

"Well I...not sure how to put this. Are you..sure I'm, me?"

After a brief pause, she elaborated: "After looking up some other stuff, I looked up..me. You know, my name? Since you, told me what it was earlier. I found a lot of stuff with my name on it full of words I don't understand...and I saw a—uh, a video of me talking. Looking just like this. But..." Rory looked away slightly to one side. "I don't act anything like that person, do I? So..how do you know we're the same?"

Clark thought for a moment, then shrugged. "I have a few logical reasons to believe it, and I desperately need to, personally. The person who helped bring you and the others back described what we were doing as 'cheating death'. I could..feel your body disappear and reform under the effects of..whatver it was we did. And it's natural that you'd act differently without most of your memories. On the other hand...I guess I don't know."

Rory looked not particularly comforted by that, so he went on: "I mean—even if you got all your memories back and acted exactly the same way as before, how could I know it's the same person, right? You could just be a person newly created, and implanted with all of my wife's memories. But then..so what? I can't prove that one way or the other, so if I'd rather believe you're the same person, I will. Anyway..." Clark stood up, and put a hand on her shoulder. "You and I are scientists. Questioning our observations and trying to make sense of the world is what we do. So, your wondering about that this soon, I can't help but take as good sign. We'll figure this out."

"Mmh." She nodded, looking..a little comforted, at least. So he took a deep breath.

"I need to make a call, now. We can talk for a while afterward, if you want."
"I'd...like that," she said, nodding, and then let him move past her.

---

It's not likely to be stated directly in-story, but Amory is from a single-parent household, and his father is (somewhat understandably) slightly overprotective of his only child.