Battle Vixens! - 60

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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.