Aetuornos Beta 2-2

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2-2: Rough Landing, Reaper

"Soo, uhh.." The party of two had picked a direction more or less at random and started walking, nearly side-by-side but with the more fragile catgirl slightly behind. "You're married to, what, a Neko?" Thora said.

"Ehh, not exactly," Noire said, tilting an open hand back and forth. "It's..complicated."
"That's not really, I mean—just..how'd you guys meet?"

"Oh, that? We went to the same college. So, one day after classes and most of the way through sunset, I was on my way to supper and went to pass between these two buildings. That's when I saw her being chased by this freaky-lookin' monkey thing. So, I did what anyone would do, and went full werewolf form to tackle it down and punch its face until it disappeared," she said, emphasizing this last point with a fist-to-palm gesture. "Turns out a lesser demon got loose somehow," she shrugged.

"You're, serious. Really..?" Thora felt strong enough to take on anything now, but she could hardly imagine doing something like that in the real world.

"Sure. I, uh, had a bit of a 'traditionalist' upbringing," Noire said—with some air quotes. "So I was taught to train my body regularly, hunt prey animals, and...fight and stuff. My fight-or-flight setting is pretty much permanently stuck on 'fight'.

Oh, but—don't get me wrong," the little rogue added after a moment, guessing at the original reason for the question. "If you're looking for love, that's definitely the wrong way to meet someone. There's this whole 'you saved my life' vibe for while, that makes it feel kinda uneven and...weird. We're both lucky she was level-headed enough to get past that before too long. And for the record I don't think I really did save her life—she would've definitely outrun that thing long enough for someone more competent than me to take it out."

"Y-yeah, that makes sense," the demon-girl said, feeling a bit relieved. Maybe this wasn't the best person for dating advice, then, if he just got lucky...

"Hey, Thora. D'you hear that?" Noire said, interrupting her thoughts.

"Hear wha-"
"HEEEELLLLP!"

"Oh."

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"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—"

Someone probably should've warned Chris about the falling.

"—AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"

He screamed at the top of his lungs, flailing around in the air, until he ran entirely out of breath and, while huffing in more, finally looked around and realized that he still hadn't landed. This generated just enough confusion to snap him out of the blind panic and return control back to the thinking part of his mind. "G-game," he gasped out to himself after a moment. "J-just in game, not really falling, just in game, not really.."

Chris's voice trailed off, needing to resume the hard work of catching his poorly-spent breath. Accomplishing that took him long enough to realize that what he was experiencing was less like freefall and more like gently floating in a vaguely downward direction. This didn't particularly ease Chris's anxiety, and yet he found it much easier now to keep himself from going back to screaming and panicking. He also noticed the edges of bangs appearing near the top of his vision, and bright red locks crawling down the sides of his face which the "wind" blew back and forth, in and out of his view.

"Hhhhuh?" Given that his real hair was a deep brown, leaning toward pitch black, that could only mean one thing. "Oh, it already, hahah, s-started," he mumbled, reaching a hand up and batting it through the growing hair as it brightened further, the red continuing to fade toward an increasingly pink shade. At the same time he felt a gentle, almost soothing pressure running across his body and beginning to shrink it toward his chosen player character's shape. His frame melted downward and inward before his eyes, his arms and legs slimming and shoulders narrowing—all of which made his t-shirt and shorts billow out looser, caught up by the wind. That motion of air reminded him again that he was floating in midair, but something about these physical sensations seemed peculiarly calming, like someone had found a bunch of magic pressure points that drove his usual fear of heights almost entirely away.

"O-oh..!" Chris mumbled as he felt a sort of slight outward tug from his ears; he moved his still-raised hand over to feel them as this sensation quickly faded off, and found them a bit bigger and longer, with some fairly sharp points facing horizontally outward from his head. "Aa~ah!" His voice squeaked a bit, beginning to change, as a more pronounced sort of outward-pushing sensation came from a few inches above and slightly behind those ears; crawling his hand up through his soft, now very pink hair, he was able to touch and then wrap his fingers around a steadily-growing horn. The feeling on the opposite side of his head had to be much the same thing, he thought.

By now Chris's hair had already finished growing and recoloring, stopping just shy of his shoulders with longer bangs and locks that trailed their way down his cheeks. His ever curious hand moved to run its way down the back of his head and feel of it, finding the silky locks somehow refreshing to touch. "Mm~mh," he hummed in enjoyment, and heard something like a young boy's voice come out, cracking slightly again midway through. "W-wa~ah, my voice," he said in response to this as its pitch rose even higher, and looked down to find a body quite finished shrinking now, leaving behind a much shorter form which his clothes barely stayed on—those shorts probably would fall off if he were standing upright without all the wind below lifting them.

Seemingly in response to his attention, Chris's clothes then began to rapidly change. The shorts suddenly shrank much tighter around his hips and seemingly pushed the extra material down into their leggings, causing them to slink all the way down his legs. They pulled tight, softening and thinning as they squeezed tight onto his already-thin legs, seemingly pushing them into an even more slender, girlish shape, and went so far down as to wrap themselves around his feet like socks. "Aa~h, stockings~!" he said happily, feeling a bubbly grin come to his face as the very top of his underwear split off and started to pull especially sung between the legs. His shirt then began to pull tighter on his upper body and shortened a bit, the billowing hem gaining frills as everything recolored and split and rearranged into..!

"A dress!" Chris's small, delicate hands went to his cheeks in an expression of delight—and found them soft and smooth, like all the rest of his skin now was. His sleeves grew out as far as his wrists while the outfit pulled tight about his waist—a little strangely loose on the chest—and the lower bit formed itself into a proper thigh-length skirt. Then, finally, he felt a gentle tingly sensation down between his legs. "O-oh, o~oohh..!" An adorably high, squeaky voice came from his throat as he felt his manhood tugging inward, shrinking away, and at the same time his hips, butt and thighs all gently puffed out, his waist curving in slightly as if in response to the tightness of the top..and his cheeks grow warm with a blush.

"Waa~aah...!" As his manhood melted away, Chris's voice underwent a subtle but meaningful change, remaining quite high in pitch but gaining a bit of audible maturity—changing, perhaps, from a little girl's voice to a woman's. And, indeed, the panties which were now barely hidden by the dress's short skirt pulled nice and snug against an unfamiliar flatness between Chris's legs as some more strange, fuzzy feelings and movements down there completed her swift journey to womanhood. She let out a high "Eeee~ee!" and shuddered in response, thoroughly enjoying the new sensations.

No sooner did this part of Chris's transformation complete than she felt a sort of stretching, pulling sensation from a bit below her shoulder blades. "Ah—! Oo~oh~!" She twisted around briefly to look, and saw four tiny little wings, webbed with short, pitch-black fur, beginning to appear back there. Then she found herself raising her arms up and rotating them, stretching them out, as the wings grew swiftly to full size. It felt great, as if they'd been somehow bound before and now were being allowed to stretch and relax—so she let out a relieved "MmmMMmmm~mh!" This was followed immediately by a cute little "Wah!" as the new girl's chest finally began its change, puffing out instantly into two little sensitive bumps that went far from filling her dress and the newly-formed bra hiding beneath it.

"Oo~Oh, boobs!" she said excitedly, and then giggled cutely at her own sudden sense of brazenness to put it quite that way, even in what seemed to be private. This slight giggle bubbled into more as her small breasts became especially tingly and started to steadily push their way out. "H-heheheh—hAaa~haha..!" It was at the same time a pleasant sensation that reawakened her newfound sense of girlish pleasure, and also an extremely tickly one that provoked her continued giggles to burst into full-fledged laughter, her eyes closing with some happy tears streaming down out of them. "HA~ahaahaahah~!"

In no time at all, Chris's breasts expanded out enough to fill the cups of the bra, and then as she laughed they bubbled out just a bit more, pushing her clothes out to a bigger size to accommodate them. By the time it was over, she was left an adorably cute and giggly demon-girl, but still very much an adult with the curves and especially the bust size to prove it.

When the giggling finally died down, Chris was left panting for an entirely different reason from before, and also still blushing fairly brightly, judging by the warmth in her cheeks. But when she opened her eyes up again she let out a startled little "Eep!" as she realized two things: The ground was now visible down below her, and she was approaching it at a much greater, more normal speed than before. "Waah!" She spread out her four batlike wings and flailed her arms, all in an attempt to glide it out; this managed to slow her fall somewhat, directing it forward. None of this reassured her quite enough, and although the demon-girl's fear of heights had been substantially repressed somehow or other, it came back in fairly full force when facing the reality of crashing directly onto the ground with so much velocity.

"AAAAAAH—mmpfh!" Her wide-eyed scream of panic, however, was interrupted when she instead crashed directly into a tree. Somehow or other the crash didn't hurt at all, but now the little demon-girl found her wings and limbs all tangled up in the branches.

"Mmnh? Wha?" Chris looked around, taking a moment to untangle and right herself, as well as process what had happened and where she was. After this, she quickly flew into a milder but still very unhelpful panic on realizing that she was still more than high enough off of the ground for a fall to hurt her. This involved clinging her arms around the branch she was on and yelling again, but a bit more coherently: "HEEEELLLLP!"

Shortly after she paused for a breath, a slightly lower voice than her own called from below. "Excuse me, miss!"
Chris gasped, leaning her head slightly to one side of the branc so she could look down below. Down there was a very tall girl with horns coming from her forehead, and a little catgirl down, both looking up at her. "Um. Hi!" she said, taking a hand off the branch to wave for a fraction of a second before feeling like she was going to fall and quickly latching it on tight again.

"It would appear you've gotten yourself into a predicament of some sort," the catgirl—the source of the earlier voice—observed. "Might I inquire as to its nature?"
"Oh. Um, sure you can!" she said brightly after a second.

There was an awkward moment of silence after this, during which Chris stared down at the two other girls smiling and they exchanged a brief glance. "Soo, uh..what's wrong?" the tall girl then asked, her head tilting slightly.
"Weeelll, I'm kinda afraid of heights," she said. "But I guess I tried to fly for some reason? Like, definitely part of it was 'cause I was falling already...but I don't think I'm really very good at flying! H-heheh," she giggled nervously.

"Well, I'm certain you don't wish to remain up there all day," the catgirl said. "Why don't you drop the rest of the way down?"
"'Cause I'm afraid of heights!" Chris said. "Weren't you listening?"
"That...really isn't a terribly great height," the catgirl argued. "I could leap down it uninjured quite easily, and I've no wings."

"Nnnngh.." This didn't reassure her much.

"Look," the taller one said, "How about I catch you? Will ya come down then?"
"Umm...you prooomise?" she said, leaning her head past the branch a tiny bit farther.
"Sure. I'm super strong and stuff," the tall girl said, flexing an arm. "Should be no problem."
"Uh, okaayy.."

Chris let go of one hand, then the other, and slowly tilted herself around off the branch. Despite all this windup, she found the timing of the fall to be completely unexpected and yelled—"AAAH~!"—for about half a second before realizing that the fall was already over and there were two solid-feeling arms under her—and her eyes were shut again. She opened them to find herself looking up in the face of the tall girl, her big, oni-ish horns not far from Chris's own face—and she was blushing just slightly for some reason. This, in turn, made Chris's cheeks burn a bit too—up close like this, the tall girl was pretty cute!

"Umm...hup!" Chris slid down onto her feet, standing upright for the first time in this virtual world and getting her bearings. Well—she'd gotten much shorter, but was still taller than the catgirl. And the tall one who'd caught her seemed super tall, maybe taller than she was as a guy in the real world. "Thank you~!"

"Uh, y-you're welcome," the tall woman said. "Soo, um.." she mumbled, rubbing a hand against the back of her neck.

"Might we ask who you are?" the catgirl interjected.
"Sure!"

"...Who, are you, then?" The catgirl caught on quicker this time, so the pause in between was much shorter.

"I am the great and powerful necromancer Fiori," she announced dramatically, summoning a long scythe into her hands in a burst of dark-purple flame. After this, a small, pale blue flame-looking thing with a face which wore a fairly irritated expression floated out from her torso to just next to her. "Aaand this is my familiar, Roth," she added a bit more casually.

"Wait, so—you're a mage?" the tall girl said.
"We~ell, sorta. This scythe isn't just for show, y'know!" she said, giving it a short mock-swing. Roth floated back into her, looking like someone who'd been forced out of bed and just wanted to go back to sleep.
"But—"

"Please, let's not be rude now," the catgirl said. "My name is Noire. I'm a—treasure seeker," she said, offering a hand up to shake. While Fiori did just that, she added: "My companion is Thora, a valiant warrior."

"Ooh~, pleased to meet you both!" she said happily.

"Now, if I'm not mistaken, you're a charismatic necro, aren't you?" Noire said once the handshake was over.

"Yep!"
"Um.." Thora looked back and forth between the two of them, looking lost. She probably hadn't read very much of the manual. Fiori was okay with this; it took all kinds, after all.

"Most mage classes can choose to take on a sub-class which casts from a different stat instead of intelligence," Noire said. Her diction and tone changed completely, making Fiori realize that she'd been speaking very much in-character until now and was dropping 'out' to talk game mechanics. That was impressive! "Like: Strong Summoner casts from strength, Agile Chronomancer casts from agility, and such. It lends some variety, since there are so many mage-type classes. Which ones are available depends on the class, and the few mage classes that naturally cast from something else also have a 'Clever' variant. Basically, you get a bonus to the stat you cast from, a penalty to int—or whatever you would've cast from instead—and there are some advantages and disadvantages for each."
"Yep!" the necromancer said. "So like, I get to be cute and friendly and stuff, but low smarts means I'm weaker to magic and easier to charm and hypnotize and such."

"Huh. Almost makes me wish I'd picked some sorta mage."
"Maybe for your second character then, eh?" Noire said. "Anyway, Necromancers specialize in dark magic and—obviously—summoning undead."

"Mostly ghosties for me," Fiori said. "But that's not nearly the coolest part. Roth can actually suck up the souls of monsters we kill, and then I can use them as one-time charges to do a special spell. I can only hold three at a time right now, but that'll go up pretty quickly. And, boss monster souls give me a permanent upgrade instead!"

"Makes up for how Necromancers can't actually upgrade their weapons. They're supposed to be an aspect of your magic or whatever," Noire said.

"M-hm! But also, it can't get lost or stolen~," Fiori said, letting go of her scythe to unsummon it; it changed back into some purple flames which dissipated into the air.

"Mmh, you might've wanted to keep that out," the catgirl said, turning off to one side slightly.
"Eh?" Thora looked as confused at the delcaration as the necromancer was. But Noire smoothly took out a dagger and tossed it where she was facing just as a big lion-looking thing came roaring out from behind a nearby tree. "Aah!"

Fiori hopped farther away from the monster's path as the weapon landed square in its forehead, Noire dodged smoothly aside of its tackle, and Thora pulled out a gigantic club, readying it like a baseball bat. Now that it was out in the open, the creature's features were a little easier to see: It had some huge feathery wings folded up behind its back, and its tail was unusually long and thick, sporting a gradient from the golden fur of its back to some green scales which ended with a snake's head that seemed to move of its own accord. No sooner had the monster landed than that head reared back to snap at Thora, who swung her club straight into it, making it flop back like a sock puppet and hiss in pain.

"Ro~oth," the necromancer sang, willing the wisp out of her again and having him fly up and over to the opposite side of the monster while she re-drew her scythe. Thora was between her and the monster, but she could see through her familiar's eyes, and—after a brief chant—shoot a small, dark-purple fireball out at the beast with him as the origin. It hit the creature in its left wing, and didn't act so much like fire as it did some dread, rapid-acting necrotic disease, rotting the flesh it hit for just a second before fizzling out.

The rogue darted back in to slash the monster's left side with her remaining dagger. Then she jumped over the beast well ahead of its retaliatory bite, snatching the other dagger out of its forehead on the way to leave behind a wide gash, and landed next to Thora.

"Rrrrah!" The tall girl seemed to be busy psyching herself up a bit, her body and eyes gaining a faint reddish, firelike glow about them. When the beast turned to roar at her, its tail swinging forward to go in for another bite, she swung her spiky club upward, catching its underside and sending it flying into the air. It spread its wings seemingly on instinct then, gliding around to dive toward Noire, claws bared. The catgirl tucked and rolled out of the way, giving Fiori ample room to send a stream of dark-purple flame out from a small crystal attached to the end of her scythe's handle, catching the monster full in the side.

"Oof!" The necromancer couldn't quite move quickly enough to get out of the beast's way when it turned to tackle her, but Thora managed to shove her over and take the hit instead, the beast failing to knock her down but raking its claws across her arms all the same. Its lion-face roared, snapping at her as the snake came forward to do the same; she roared back angrily, pushing the monster off then hitting it with her club hard enough to send it flying until it hit a tree—and that with enough impact to badly crack the trunk.

The monster growled and hissed weakly as it slid to the ground and the tree began to fall, and it made a weak aggressive motion toward the party—Thora still standing with her club in hand, Fiori in the process of pushing herself up off the ground, and Noire trying to offer the necromancer a hand to aid in this endeavor. Then it collapsed, falling silent and very clearly dead.

"Phhoooff." Fiori sat up to a cross-legged position, unsummoning the scythe which had landed unceremoniously to the ground next to her and sending her wisp over to collect the monster's soul.

"Sheesh," the berserker said, her rage-aura dying down again now that the fight was over.

"Thora, are you okay? Those scratches look kinda bad," the smaller demon-girl observed.

"Ehh..I'll be fine," she said, rubbing her arms a bit. "They don't even 'hurt' that much, if that makes sense. I'm sure we can find a healer or inn or whatever before too long."

"It would be wise not to make too loud a ruckus until then," Noire said, running a hand across her hair and an ear in a way that struck Fiori as 'preening'. "Surely even more ferocious beasts than that walk this forest."

"Eheh, sorry for all the yelling," the necromancer said.
"Yeah, what was that thing?" Thora said, accidentally cutting her off. "Some kinda..gryphon-manticore-chimera..?"

"I'm calling it a winged lion-snake," the catgirl replied. "And—it's quite alright. I know entry into this world can be rather..jarring." She offered Fiori a hand again, which she took this time.

"Heheh, you could say that."

"Now, the spoils." Noire marched over to where the monster's body had been a moment ago—Roth passing her by going the opposite direction—and knelt down, swiftly and neatly dividing the little pile of droppoed items into three equal-looking ones. "Even split, all good?" she asked, turning her head back toward the pair.
"Uh..looks fine to me," Thora said.

"Yep!"

"Right then." The catgirl scooped up one pile into her own inventory, took another to offer up to the berserker as she walked close, and then stood up with the third pile to go present it to Fiori.

"I believe it would be advantageous for the three of us to stick together, at least until we can vacate this forest. Would you two agree?"
"Uh—yeah, sure," Thora said.
"I'd love to work with you two, even after," Fiori said brightly, putting her arms behind her and rocking back and forth cutely. "All the way through this adventure, even!"

"Heheh, all right then. That settled..I believe we were headed in this direction," the rogue said, pointing. "If we keep moving in the same direction, we must surely reach the edge of these woods eventually. Unless you noticed a quicker way while you were above?" she added, turning toward the shorter demon-girl.

"Uh—nope, sorry. I was kinda too busy panicking," she said. "Couldn't you, like, climb a tree if you wanted to double-check though?"
"Hmm. A capital idea," Noire nodded.

The catgirl looked around briefly, evidently picking the easiest tree, and then nimbly leapt and swung up its branches to the top. After surveying their surroundings for only a moment, she made good on her earlier claim and leapt the entire distance down, landing on her feet without so much as a roll and incurred no injury from the fall. "We're within sight of the edge," she said and then pointed, "This way!"

Thora took point, Noire falling in next to but slightly behind her. Fiori shrugged and followed behind the two of them, trying not to be mesmerized too much by the catgirl's tail flicking back and forth.

"Um, you know what—I'm usually nowhere near this loud," she said after a bit. "Or, happy to talk at all. Liiike...acting like this is pretty new to me."
"Well—a high charisma score grants you a 'mental boost' of sorts," the rogue said, turning her head partway back, "to help you act however you want to act. That's why I put some extra points in it, for a roleplaying aid."

"Hmm. I wonder if there's any real-world magic that could give me that kinda 'boost'," Fiori said. "Although I guess that might be a bit of a risky thing to ask someone for..."

"Real problem would be finding someone even willing to try it," Thora said. "Mental magic is super heavily regulated."

It seemed to Chris that she'd lucked out quite a bit, to run into a party she slotted well into. They seemed to be complete save for a healer, so—about as well-balanced a party as possible until they found a "worship site" to pick up one of those from. Plus, these two seemed cool, fun to hang out with..and Thora was pretty cute, too.

Battle Vixens! - 65

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Episode 65: The Swarm

The meteorologists were confused at first, until it became increasingly clear that those things weren't clouds. Steadily, the black vapor high above the city began forming distinct shapes—at least twelve large ones, the size of cars or buses, and numerous smaller ones. The city's citizens were advised by all available outlets to take shelter as the shapes grew more solid, and orders went out to the VI's active members.

Rowan directed Tora and Fay to join him, Zeno to go with Hugo to a spot near the VI's office space (where the former already was), and Corporal Langdon and Petra to make their way to a point under the highest concentration of forming monsters. Each group was chosen to have at least one member who could hit things in the sky to provoke them, and at least one heavy hitter who could tackle things that landed or got brought to the ground. Their rendezvous points were placed more or less equidistant from each other, intended to cover the city's area about as well as a mere three points could. He knew the monsters would probably target the vixens first anyway—and hoped that most everyone else would have the good sense to stay inside.

Around an hour after noon, they finally finished appearing and began to descend. The larger ones were like gryphons or long, snakelike dragons with wings every few feet; the smaller were like human-sized bats or just big mouths with wings, and buzzed around the bigger ones like hornets around a nest.

Tora craned her head up to the sky, shading her eyes from the afternoon sun with a hand. "Well, uh, I guess you got a good way to bring 'em down? 'Cuz Fay and I can't do jack at that distance."
Rowan nodded. "This will momentarily exhaust me; you will need to cover me when they come." She had also chosen their position to be right next to a sewer main. It was disgusting, but probably the best, least utility-destroying source for a lot of water, fast. If necessary, there was a fire hydrant on the corner here, too.

She grabbed the lid, flipped it over, and then pulled the water from below into a pillar reaching up into the sky, near the altitude of the beasts above—all with a motion like she was slowly lifting heavy weights in her hands. Then she threw her hands apart to either side, and the higher portion of the pillar broke apart into dozens of blades or thin, barbed tentacles of water, the former flying at and cutting through the mist monsters they found while the latter grabbed for wings or body mass as best they could. This assault was short-lived, the lower half of the pillar collapsing when she split the top and the rest soon melting to nothing as she bent over, panting heavily from exerting control on so much water, so far away. But it did its job, provoking two gryphons and a dragon; they screeched and roared and came diving down, along with quite a few surviving smaller monsters.

Zeno pointed her bow skyward, drawing an arrow into the string. "Setup." She fired a volley up with as much drawback force as she could manage; usually her targets weren't quite so far away, but she managed to score a few hits all the same. A dragon dove straight toward her in retaliation with its mouth agape. She placed a shield for it to crash against and dove aside.

"Spike!" Hugo replied, amplifying the word into a pressure wave of sound at the dragon that threw it into a hopeless spin and crash to the ground. This she followed up by coming in and bashing it with the shield while Zeno quickly picked off its attending bat-things with more arrows. It got up and started biting at the nearer vixen, but Hugo stuck her shield in its mouth and hopped back, clapping her hands to turn the big hunk of solidified sound back into actual sound, a sharp wave of pressure going straight through the monster's insides.

"I..ain't sure I got a way to hit somethin' that high up," Corporal Langdon admitted in the car on the way to their position. "My wire don't exactly have unlimited range."
"No no, I know just what the boss was thinkin'," Petra said. "You just focus on making a big spiderweb to catch 'em. Then I throw some rocks at 'em, and they stab themselves, you tangle 'em up so they can't get back in the sky."
The silver-haired girl fixed Petra with a slightly confused sort of look, one of her ears off to one side.

"What?" she said.

"Sorry, it's just that you ain't the sorta person I'd think would pick up on strategy all that quick," she admitted.

"Oh, are you kidding? I sell art for a living," she said. "Sales and advertising is all about strategy."
"Still...that really ain't the same thing."

"Look, it's more just that I know Rowan. And, you get to know a guy, you get a feel for how he thinks."

By the time the monsters were fully formed, Samuel was holding up her hands, maintaining a network of wire with irregular gaps throughout, the ends attached to buildings, telephone poles and streetlamps, her fist closed around a thick bundle consisting of one end of every strand. Petra raised a hunk of concrete, joyfully throwing it sky-high through one of the bigger gaps, then quickly clasped her hands together to make it explode into rocky shrapnel in the midst of the big crowd of beasts. When they descended toward the earth, they charged straight into the trap, and Corporal Langdon stretched her concentration as far as it would go to twist the wire up and around each big beast as a net, tying its wings and limbs and bringing it crashing to the ground.

Petra leapt and swung her sword through some of the bats and winged mouths flying around, lifting chunks of earth in a chaotic rain to catch still more of them; Samuel kept one hand closed in a tight fist, focusing most of her strength and concentration on keeping the big ones bound, growing more wire when some of a net broke, but used her other hand to form and toss her knife, occasionally scoring a kill or two with that.

Tora leapt, pushing herself high into the air with the gravity trick that Gemma had more or less taught her she had, and landed on the back of a gryphon, tearing into its wings with her claws. She jumped off, sweeping through the air and slicing some smaller mist monsters on the way to land on a dragon and run down its length, swiping at its back and wings and anything swooping down toward her all in equal measure.

Fay kept close to Rowan, swinging her staff and placing as large an explosion as she could manage in the way of diving monsters to deter or hurt them. When one gryphon came too close for comfort, its tooth-filled beak open wide, she tossed her staff at it and picked up the blue-haired vixen in her arms, jumping out of the way of the dive before setting her somewhat roughly down again.

The rapid chain of leaping, slashing, landing and running ended with Tora hitting the ground on the opposite side of Rowan from Fay, her claws raised and a shaky growl erupting from her throat as the exertion started to show. Finally, Rowan got up and raised the water that had splashed on the ground from the earlier assault into a solid dome around the three, pushing thick tentacles out from it that whipped at the remaining smaller monsters and grabbed the gryphons and dragons, throwing them to the ground.

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By all accounts, the plan was working, the matchups effective at drawing fire and taking their targets down. But there was one thing that Rowan had failed to account for.

Most of the amnesiac vixens had come to the cafeteria for a somewhat late lunch. They were more or less in the middle of it when the assault of the monsters from the sky began, and of course the employees had the TVs tuned to the news by then. Many of the vixens, driven by a mixture of curiosity and unaccountable familiarity, were drawn closer to the screens to watch.

"Are those the monsters that lady yesterday was talking about?" Cynthia said.
"Well, that's some of them," someone said. "They come in a lot of different forms."

"They attack every day?"
"On average?" someone else replied. "I mean, it kinda varies..sometimes they'll do nothing for a day and then a really big one will—"

He was interrupted by a loud boom as something hit the roof, hard. This was followed by more worrying sounds: A mixture of thunks as smaller masses landed, and then scraping or hard bashing sounds. Everyone looked up with a brief mutual sensation of panic, but there was nothing coming from the ceiling yet.

"Uh, we should be fine," someone spoke up over the din. "They heavily reinforced the roof, for pretty much this reason." An especially loud crash—something crumpling above them—seemed to contradict him somewhat.

The redheaded vixen stood upright when she realized she'd been crouching. She looked around at everyone else to find them still cowering in fear, and especially at Dawn, who looked back up with an uncertain expression. "Well—screw this! Let's go kill 'em!" she said. "Dawn?"
"Uh..y-yeah." Something felt familiar about this, in a way she really didn't like—but the tall, dark-haired vixen stood up slowly. She knew—or felt she knew, anyway—that there was no stopping Cynthia or changing her mind, and wanted to be there rather than make her fight alone. A few murmurs of protest came from the employees and translators present, but Cynthia went around everyone and ran out of the cafeteria, Dawn right behind her, before anyone could muster a fully-formed objection.

After a moment, and another loud crash, Serra slowly stood up, gave a meaningful look to miss 'shadow play', and went to follow them. Then the shadow-wielding girl followed her. A proper chain reaction had started.

The four of them—the first two to follow catching up with Cynthia and Dawn—met their first opposition near the door, a couple armed guards who were at least standing upright, but whose expressions betrayed their uncertainty about the situation. They went to block the group. "You should stay inside," one of them said. "It's safer here."
"We can't have you all getting hurt, right?" the other one said, a bit less certainty in her voice.

"Rrrgh," Cynthia growled, coming as close as her shorter stature allowed to being right in the more confident one's face. "Look, do you want us to stay here, or you want those things offa the roof?!"

The guards exchanged a look, and then, more or less in sync, stepped aside. "Please be careful," the second one said.
"Mr. Shepherd'll kill us if this gets any of you hurt," the first one added.
"Yeah yeah, whatever—come on!" she said, waving back to the group of—now five vixens behind her to hurry up as she broke into a sprint out the doors.

A number of the smaller, batlike monsters were flocking around the sides of the buildings, and no sooner did the doors open than a massive wave of fire shot out, destroying the majority of them on contact. The remainder screeched and cawed in a panic as a crossbow bolts and daggers of ice cut through them and their shadows cast by the afternoon sun turned into spikes shooting up into the air to impale them. These cries of distress brought the rest of the crowd flying, lifting off the roof of the building to swoop at the small crowd of recently-revived warriors.

They spread out to take the monsters on: Kagee-Shibai kept in front of Serra while Dawn stayed close to Cynthia; the girl with the rod who didn't speak English and the one besides Cynthia who had a sword paired up similarly. The grass of the VI headquarters' front lawn erupted into long vines, whipping and grabbing at a dragon and its attending monsters and making them easy targets for some flying orbs of light that shattered into them like glass.

"TRY ME!" Cynthia yelled back at a gryphon that landed right in front of her, throwing a stream of fire from her wrists like a hadouken (not that she knew what that was). When it snapped its sharp-toothed beak forward to try and grab her, Dawn tackled her out of its way, and its shadow solidified into thorny ropes that twisted up around its body, particularly its wings. While it cried out and flailed, trying to free itself, Dawn came to its side and formed one sharp spearhead of ice after another, driving each one hard into its body.

The redhead moved closer to Serra's position, noticing she had another gryphon bearing down on her despite several bolts and waves of cutting wind trying to deter it—the shadow-girl was pinned down maintaining the ropes around that other gryphon while dodging away from a dragon—and they exchanged only the briefest of glances before Cynthia threw a giant wall of fire in front of her and a massive gust of wind turned it into a wave of conflagration that tore through every small monster it touched and brought the attacker crashing to the ground in front of them. Then she formed her sword, wreathing it and her body in flame before jumping at the gryphon and slicing clean through its wing, its side and its legs in several swift swipes.

---

The last gryphon facing Rowan's group dissipated as another of Fay's explosion tore through its form, and the blue-haired vixen panted softly as she reached for her phone, pulling up the comms more or less automatically. "Sitrep," she said as loudly as she could, not entirely succeeding at keeping the breath out of her voice.
"Slow going, boss!" Zeno said, and a spike of incoherent noise came through the speakerphone. "We'll survive," she yelled afterward, "but a little support could end things here way quicker."
"Still busy-busy here!" Petra said. "Be done pretty soon though."
"Uh, the—a bunch of them came down on HQ," another voice cut in. "But they're...gone now."
"Details," Rowan barked. "We're on your way, Zeno." She began walking and made a gesture like she might have to toss a wave of water in front of herself—which instead directed Tora and Fay to follow her back to the car.

"Aye-aye!" Zeno replied, then cut out of the call in the middle of another loud burst of noise.

---

Most of the smaller beasts were gone by now, and the big ones were either downed with torn-up wings or being bound by plants or shadow. Almost all of the vixens who'd been taking shelter in the headquarters had made it outside, including some more melee-focused ones: A girl who could teleport with her little knives, one who kept her eyes closed and wielded a giant axe, another with a naginata. They—and Cynthia, Kagee-Shibai, the plant-girl and Dawn—bore down on the still-mobile monsters, distributing themselves evenly more or less by instinct, and tore them apart in short order. The bound ones were next, each one executed cleanly as Serra and the one with the staff picked off the last few "bats" when they tried to swoop down on the others.

Seemingly as suddenly as it had started, it was over—the loud, chaotic fight turned to silence as all the vixens stood still for a moment, most of them panting from a mixture of exhaustion and exhilaration. They glanced around at each other for a moment, feeling a strange mixture of satisfaction, nostalgia, and...confusion. There had been very little talking—incoherent yelling at most—and many of them didn't even speak the same language in the first place, and yet they had coordinated almost perfectly: Cynthia's flames coming nowhere near the plants, Dawn's cold not dampening the flames, no one hitting anyone else..it had all just, worked out. As if they had functioned as a team before, all directed by the same intelligence—or as if working together like this was what they, or at least their powers, were made to do.

The silence was broken by some applause and cheering from nearby windows, and from the open doors of the VI headquarters. Whatever the meaning of that sense of synchronicity they had all felt was, for the moment it was clear they had done some real good here. And many couldn't help but turn their heads Cynthia's way—knowing that without her speaking up and acting first, they might have remained cowering inside until the roof came crashing down on them.

She turned back around, toward the door they had gone out through; one of those two guards from earlier was trying to wave everyone back inside. Looking around slightly more, a few brave souls were hesitantly cracking open the doors of the other buildings, and...the group of vixens were mostly still looking at her for what to do next. "Uh.." Cynthia waved back toward the VI headquarters and started that way; they all more or less fell in behind her.

---

When Rowan's car arrived, there was little left of the multitude of smaller mist-monsters, and the three big ones were already looking very worn-down, all fairly indistinct and skittering around the ground rather than flying. Zeno and Hugo were positioned back-to-back, mostly occupied with taking quick potshots and each using her own variety of shield to block their assaults. Despite the former's earlier assurance, the two of them were looking badly worn out themselves.

The monsters hadn't noticed the new arrivals yet, all of their focus clearly on the pair who'd held their attention nearly since they had formed. Rowan signaled for Tora and Fay to each take one of them, and strode toward the third herself. There were no sewer mains nearby, but she spotted a fire hydrant and used her sword to quickly flip off the cap, turning the pressurized flow from inside into a huge tentacle ending in a blade which rose up and stabbed deep into the center of her target, pinning the struggling gryphon into the ground for the brief period it survived before turning back into indistinct mist. Tora shredded into the dragon before her at more or less the same time, and Fay pummeled the other gryphon with her staff before finishing it off with a small explosion.

Rowan's phone rang almost as soon as this was done. "Y'all still need help?" Corporal Langdon's voice came through. "We're all done here."
"Likewise. It appears we are through for today," she replied.

"Meet back at HQ, then?" Petra asked.
"Desirable. But it would also be acceptable to leave, if there is anything urgent you need to attend to."

"Weeelll, I'm giving metal-head here a ride anyway." Rowan could easily imagine the gray-haired vixen's confused look. "So I'll see ya there!"

Blessing in Self-Defense

 Here's another part to the series that began with Shore's Emissary!

It's been a while since I wrote the first few, but as I was writing Shore's Emissary, I had several candidate images for a series, and this was one of them. A few days ago I just suddenly had what felt like a good idea for this one and ran with it. Anyway, since there's now four of these I went ahead and gave them their own tag ("Kai") so it's easier to find them all.

Battle Vixens! - 64

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Episode 64: Building Bridges

Zeno wove through the cafeteria, listening in on all the conversation: The amnesiacs and translators, the late-rising staff and others going for a snack. Breakfast was a while ago for her, but they still had decent coffee here. She went and made two cups, each one a different way, and sipped from just one as she made her way through the VI facility and eventually arrived at a certain half-ajar door. After carefully taking both cups in one hand to knock, she nudged the door open with a foot and walked in.

Rowan hung up the phone and picked up a pen, scribbling something down on a piece of paper. "Morning, boss. Still burning the candle at both ends?" The vixen came around to set the full cup on a small empty space on the desk in front of him.
"I get more sleep here than I did in my old job, thanks. Still no good with politics. Still trying to find who most of the puppeteer's victims were."
She went around to lean against a wall, raising one leg to place the sole of that foot on it, and sipped her coffee while he did the same. "Ah, well, I can tell ya that Italian one remembers her diet well enough. Lucky our staff was already making vegan stuff."

He looked up from the paper for a moment. "Not that I don't appreciate your visits, but don't you have a real job somewhere?"

She shrugged. "Flexible hours, especially with the present crisis and all. I usually show up in the afternoon and work late into the night."

"Hmmh." He wasn't really that interested in her answer, just happy to hear that this 'hobby' wasn't going to get her fired. Nice guy that way.

After staying quiet long enough to nearly finish her cup, the vixen pushed herself back to her feet. "Well, good chat."
"Oh," Rowan raised a hand. "Corporal Langdon might still be using your yard. Tell her to take a break if she is, please."
"Will do," she nodded, and continued out to the hall, approaching the first intersection of her route before her ears picked up footsteps from the left and she backed up enough to be out of the way. Simon nearly rounded the corner quickly enough to run into her, but managed to stop himself short.

"Sorry," he said. "Good morning."
"Hey, no harm no foul. But you're sure up early."

"I'm up on time, thanks. Some of just can't afford to hang around the VI all day and night."

"I'm not sure Karis would agree," she teased. "So what's valuable enough to bring you in today, hmmn?"
"A vital opportunity I intend to argue vehemently for!" he said. "Or at least until it's clear I won't get anywhere with it. As long as we have so many visitors about, there's no good reason I shouldn't take a few shots of each, for posterity's sake if nothing else. I'm sure I can get at least a few of them to grant me permission."
"I mean..not to steal boss-man's lines, but this is one situation where consent's a bit fuzzy, innit?" she said. "What if you forgot who you were for a couple of days and then found out someone took your pics because you 'said it was okay'?"
"I'm not publishing them anywhere," he protested. "You make some simple pictures sound like such a big deal."
"And you don't?" she countered instantly.

Simon shrugged helplessly to this. "I can't help what I'm passionate about. Oh, but—speaking of whiiich.." He got out his phone, slid through some menus quickly, and turned the screen where she could see the photo on it. "I've about finished yours, aside from a few minor touches. What do you think?"

In the painting pictured, a dark-haired, fairly petite girl stood confidently holding a bow and arrow, wearing a short purple kimono. A thick, fluffy tail came from her back, and a pair of spiky fox ears with white fluff on their inside rose past the hair to well above her head.

"Hmm.." She leaned in a bit to get a closer look. "It's a pretty good likeness. I don't like how short that robe is, though I guess it's harmless enough in still-frame form."
"It's the outfit you started out in," he defended, "aside from the quiver you don't actually need. I have news footage to prove it."
"Mm-hm. Why d'you think I started buying my own clothes for this form?" She waved to her present outfit of just a T-shirt, some shorts, and a small, lightweight purse slung over her shoulder. "Anyway, I can't exactly hang that up in my home just yet. Keep it on layaway for me?"

"Sure," he said, "I've got the storage space for now. It might get a bit buried after a couple of months, so you'd better find a place for it sometime soon."
"Hmm. On second thought," she said, standing up straight again, "just bring it to HQ when it's done. I'm sure there's somewhere I can hang it here for now, without giving away too much."
"Very well, then. Now excuse me, I've got a rock to convince to move," he said, moving to go around her.

Zeno let him by. "You mean a pond? You're the rocky one, remember?"

"Good one," Simon said, continuing on toward Rowan's office.

After some walking, she came out to a courtyard, where indeed their latest, military-type recruit was still at it. She pushed the button to fire a clay pigeon out and tried throwing her knife up at it—missing the mark by an inch or five. "...Darn."
"Hey, didn't you used to shoot guns for a living?" Zeno interjected, walking out to her. "You're s'posed to lead your shots on a moving target."

"I know that, but the timing for throwin' something like this ain't the same at all," she said, reforming the knife in her hands. "Maybe I'm better off flailin' it at the end of a string."

"It never hurts to practice something new. Also, morning. I'm Zeno; don't know if we've been formally introduced before," she said, offering a hand.

"Samuel Langdon." The gray-haired girl's handshake was firm; the hand itself seemed soft and warm, yet had a curious sort of firm, metallic quality to it. "Be workin' with ya'll for the time being."

"Mm-hm. Now, Rowan advised me to tell you to take a break, besides which it's time for my morning warm-up," she said. "I'm guessing 'cause we don't know yet how much 'energy' you have to spend, nor what 'recharges' it. It helps everyone to at least eat something, so if you've been up as early as the boss I'd say it's time for a lunch or coffee break, whatever takes your fancy."
"Hm. Think I could watch you for a bit, first? Might pick up some tricks."
"Sure, I guess," she shrugged. "Though I wasn't any kind of marksman before all this, so you should know any talent you see is just the powers talking."

Samuel went over to a wall, leaning against it to watch. "If you don't get better with practice, why warm up?" she countered.

"Why indeed. It's actually kinda fun, for one thing."

Zeno pulled out her phone and a USB cord, kneeling down to plug it into the control device for the clay pigeon thrower. "Check this out. I managed to convince the techs to rig this thing up for me in their spare time for a little wager." She pressed play and stood up, retrieving her bow and the first few arrows. After a brief pause, the phone started blasting "Ana Ng" and the shooter fired pigeons more or less to the beat of the song—slightly behind, actually, so the vixen could time her shots with the music instead. On some parts she instead danced around or placed light-shields up to block the debris raining from pigeons that were hit nearly directly above her head.

When the last note played, she lowered the bow and let go of it, making it disappear back into light. "..Phew. The bet was, I couldn't hit them all," she explained further, kneeling to unplug the phone and put it away again. "..And I did. Actually, they picked a pretty slow song to start out. You have to program each one in manually, but hey—it's like my own personal Beat Saber."

"I won't insult ya by pretendin' to know what that is," Samuel said, standing up. "Still, that was a pretty impressive performance. Ya can't convince me that much precision is purely from your powers, though."
"Maybe not?" she shrugged. "I have always had a good sense of rhythm, at least."

After an early lunch (both because she was hungry and to beat the likely crowd of amnesiacs and employees that would come soon), Zeno's foxy ears picked up Simon still at it with Rowan. Well—maybe he'd blown him off for an hour or so to take some calls.
"I really don't think I'm asking for much here—just, permission to ask permission. Technically I don't think there's any reason I need to ask, but I respect you and the VI as a whole, so—"
"So you should respect my judgement in this," Rowan interrupted, fed up. After a brief pause, however, he gave in the slightest bit: "Look. If you can manage to talk to their next of kin before they leave with them, then you can ask them."

"Hmm—okay. Challenge—" He was interrupted by a ping on his phone, as she turned a corner to find them both standing in the hallway, and pulled it out. "Oh! Hey hey! Light'sgivinganinterview!" he spat out excitedly all at once, and ran for the nearest place with a TV.

"Who told you that?" Rowan said, following anyway. Zeno decided that this was interesting enough to join in on, and did the same.

"My wife, of course. Need I remind you she teaches high school?"

It looked like they had her sitting in one of the school's buildings with an anchor. She looked like she was trying very hard to relax—nervous, but also very determined not to be. "..It's just that I've never thought of myself as someone special. Or, especially not someone who'd ever be famous in any way. I'm, uh..here because I got the impression that rumors about me are getting out of hand."

"...I just want to help. I want to, protect whoever's in front of me, I guess," she shrugged. "And, these powers gave me an opportunity to do more good than I could without them."

"...Well, she said her name was Magus. I don't really know much about her, but she wanted to help out. So, we worked together today..."

"...Our..relationship? Well, again, I don't speak for everyone, but I consider the VI our allies. As far as I know, they want the same things I do: To keep those things from hurting people, and hopefully find a way to stop them for good so things can go back to normal. Or, as much normal as they can, anyway."

"Look at her!" Simon said. "She's perfect! I have never been more proud of anyone, much less someone I hardly even know!"

"I'd like to know what you mean by that," Rowan said dryly, with a light seasoning of suspicion.

"She's what our PR needs, is what I'm saying. All just—totally without even trying!"
"I don't think that comforts him much," Zeno said.

"Well—look, you're the professional," he explained (to Rowan). "When you talk to the press, you think carefully about every word, because you're as conscious as everyone else is that you're acting as a mouthpiece for the VI as a whole. She comes across as an individual. An inspiring volunteer. In short, she reads one hundred percent, pure-blooded hero, and as far as our public relations go I don't think we could do much better than having her clear approval. On top of that, she's also pretty sly at keeping people's secrets, too."

Light was saying: "..don't really know what is or isn't harmful to say about it, and the VI knows more than I do anyway. So, you're better off asking them, or going off of whatever they've already said..."

"Look at it this way: You're Batman. That's our Superman right there," he said, waving at the screen.

"So what's that make you?" Zeno said. "Booster Gold, minus the time travel?" Simon laughed, but the reference more or less went over Rowan's head.

Whenever a small amount of sensitive material needed to be carried to or from the VI's office space, Zeno volunteered to play messenger. She took a company car out to the lot, got out with the folder in her hand, and headed into the door; nobody batted an eye as she shuffled on through several security layers into the deep offices and labs, and finally to one office in particular. Dr. Brand was sitting in front of a desk covered in papers full of complicated equations, ansat up from a terribly hunched-over position when she arrived to deliver the folder.
"I suppose you aren't free yet," he remarked in a characteristic annoyed tone as he took it, opened it and shuffled through some printouts.
"Sorry," she shrugged. "The college had their attack less than an hour ago, so Rowan wants us on high alert. You looked outside lately?"

"Hmm." He glanced briefly toward a window; the answer was probably no.

"Sky doesn't look quite right to me," Zeno said. "Storm clouds don't form like that."

"That really doesn't concern us," he said, lifting a USB drive from between some pages and sticking it into a computer to his right. Zeno leaned halfway over his shoulder to watch with him.

The old theoretical physicist gave a voiced sigh that bordered on a growl. "This shaky mess is really their best footage?"
"Just some unwitting volunteers out the classroom windows, I'd guess," the vixen replied. "Hey, that looks kinda like Rowan's attack she saw yesterday."
"Hm." A little later: "I think Light tried 'teaching' her that one. Any new theories on the feathers?"

"Nothing new. I don't think it's super complicated," Zeno said, straightening up. "If you like, I can ask him to report if he notices a change in the hat's decorations. That oughta seem innocent enough."

"I wish you could maintain a more professional tone," Dr. Brand said once the video was over, leaning and turning his chair back toward her while she stood up and stepped away.

"Yeah, well, that's method acting for ya," Zeno shrugged. "Anyway, it's getting kinda dark out there," she said, pointing to the office window. "Think I better go get prepped to leap into action at a word."

"Try to remain intact," the old professor said—about his closest approximate to expressing concern.

"Yep! Still need my noggin, after all."

She took the rest of the folder with her out into the hall, moving to the next door on the right, which had a very temporary-looking placard on it reading "Dr. Ezekiel Delano Bridges". The vixen pulled a key out of her purse, unlocking the door and sweeping inside briefly—not even bothering to turn on the light—to deposit the folder on a desk. Then she shut and locked the door again, hurrying back out toward the front door.

---

In any story as big (in terms of scope and number of characters) as this one, there are going to be major characters, and minor characters. Zeno is pretty squarely in the latter category, but I'm happy that the narration style of this story still allows me to shine a spotlight on someone like that briefly and reveal a few things about them while still advancing the plot. I also like my title puns.
 

Anyway, this one wound up a little shorter than average, but it still feels complete to me.

Battle Vixens! - 63

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Episode 63: Trouble (Reprise)

 

Was it wrong to be excited about an impending disaster?

Marcus woke up in the morning thinking about it, and it occupied a decent portion of his thoughts as he got ready to go to class. Well—a small part of an ongoing disaster. And not so much the calamity itself, but the opportunity to do something about it. Light had suggested that, since he had control over the hat's size and shape while in vixen form, the same should always be true; indeed, some experimentation proved that he could manipulate its shape quite a bit so long as it remained a conical "witch hat" and kept its decorations, especially the miniature tail. So now he had it around the size of his hand, small enough to collapse and fold and stuff into a pocket.

He picked it up off of his nightstand after his shower and momentarily felt a kind of mad doubt that the entirety of yesterday had even happened. But he tried it on, and sure enough it grew, he shrank, and then "Magus" was standing there in a mirror—the red-eyed, blue-haired girl from yesterday, pulsing with mystical power, and..wearing only an open blouse and a pair of panties. "Uh.." She blushed briefly at herself, one arm going up to cover her nearly-flat chest, before slowly dropping again.

"H-heheh." This whole...being a girl thing hadn't exactly clicked the day before. Sure, she knew it had happened—that the vixens were all girls, and she was one too. But her own being, well, actually female, hadn't fully processed before now. Seeing herself barely dressed in her own bedroom really forced her to realize that this cute, feminine, and actually fit body really belonged to her. But of course...Marcus took a deep breath and let it out in a quick puff...it had a purpose. She took the hat off again and went to get properly dressed.

Some texts came along asking "Magus" about her schedule. Nothing specific, just if she had classes this morning so she could watch the campus with Light. Of course, he did have class, and couldn't suppress a whispered "Yesss" at the prospect of working with his hero this morning. And..therein came the dilemma. He wanted to fight alongside his hero, but that meant the shadow-monster things had to come to the campus this morning. Or, at least it was most likely to happen if that happened. So he was hoping for a disaster—or, more accurately, that it would time itself conveniently for him.

Maybe that was a little bad? Except that he wanted it to happen that way so he could help protect people, which was...good, right? This kind of unhelpful, excited back-and-forth ran through Marcus's mind as he got in the car to drive to campus. He patted his pocket with the hat in it a couple of times, just to make sure it was still there. It'd be really embarrassing to need superpowers and find he left them at home. Maybe there was some way he could turn it into a necklace or bracelet or something...

Naturally, this had him a little distracted during class. He was impatiently anticipating something that he was also terribly nervous about. There was something like stage fright coming on as he felt like the time was getting closer—even though that "feeling" was nothing more than his own imagination. It was always getting closer, sure, but just because he sort of, conflictedly, hoped that it would happen this morning didn't mean it would. He might spend all morning hyped up and anticipating a fight with some monsters only to tire himself out and choke that afternoon. But he remembered how it felt when Rowan had come at him with a sword, and some new instincts sort of kicked in. That body didn't seem capable of choking, even if it wasn't so good with a sword. At least, he had to hope so.

---

The bell attached to the front door rang, and Emma came into Mr. Nelson's store no less hesitantly than her first visit. There were no customers at the moment, and the owner was sitting behind the counter with a pencil in his hand and some papers spread out in front of him. He looked up briefly in response to the sound and nodded to her. "Morning."

"Uh, good morning. I, didn't really have anything else to do, so I thought I could maybe just wait in here?"

"That's fine with me." He waved vaguely at a door in the back of the store. "A few folding chairs in the back if you wanta take a load off."

"Thanks."

After pulling one out and sitting down over to one side of the counter, facing the window, she sat patiently for a few minutes...but just couldn't help it. "So uh..what're you looking at there?"
"Budget. Tryin' to figure out how to afford a new hire, if I can find someone we can trust. Or if there's some clever way to sell the shop and retire."

"Oh. Do you...wanna retire?"
"No. I like it here. But.." He sighed. "I'm gettin' tired of this, I guess."

She looked at him for a moment, trying to discern his meaning. "'This'..?"

"This ah..body, I guess you could say," he clarified, gesturing at himself. "I've..already made the decision to just stay 'Ning' forever at some point, and these days I only look like this, well..here. Or on the rare occasion I need to be out in public for something else. You know, I've never felt so old as I do now that I get to be young most of the time. I just feel, heavy and sore all the time, and get impatient for when I'm done with this and I can just turn back."

Stay a fox-girl forever...? Emma hadn't even considered something like that before, but it made some sense that he'd want to be young again. What if she could just keep two bodies forever? She'd probably be able to get a lot more done that way. But..."Um, you..don't mind that you'd be stuck as a girl, then?"
Gerald shrugged. "Don't make a difference to me. I get to see my girl grow up, and I get to..feel young. You just don't know how good you have it there until you age out of it, trust me. Anyway, I think I'm a fair sight more attractive as Ning, too."

"So...you're just using your original self as a 'disguise', I guess?"
"Right," he nodded. "To keep Nadia safe. Hey, I still don't think you've met her yet, have you?"
"Uh, no. I guess we've both been pretty busy lately."

"Yeah. Maybe you could visit tomorrow sometime."

It was a terrible paradox, she thought: He wanted to be 'Ning' for his granddaughter, but he also needed to be 'Gerald' to keep them both safe. Or..did he, really? There were plenty of vixens with publicly-known identities, and the people close to them who had thus far gone very much unkidnapped. And with the puppeteer...gone...there were no immediate nearby threats, were there?

"Um..you think, you could ask the VI to help protect her? I mean, if you..'unmasked', I guess, and just stayed 'Ning'?"

"I'm sure I could. They've had a lot on their plate lately, though."

"Well..how many people know you have a granddaughter?"
"Just about anyone who comes to my store regularly, or lives near me," he said. "I guess that ain't too many, though."
"So..could you do that and just..not tell people you have relatives? Or, what if you 'sold the store to Ning' and retired quietly or something?"
"Come on, folks ain't stupid," he said. "A scam like that'd come apart pretty quick."
"Oh, uh, I guess so..sorry."

"Hey, it's all right. I know you're just tryin' to think of ways to help," he said. "And, really, thank you. But, I think..I just want to give it another couple of days. If things stay calm—well, as calm as they can be at the moment—then I can see about the VI or whoever finding some sorta discreet protection for my girl, and if they do, then...Maybe it'll all work out." He shrugged. "Guess I'd get a lot of visitors to the shop after that, eh?"
"Yeah, but..not all to buy groceries," Emma said.

"Some would. I guess then I'd be able to look for someone to hire without needing to worry about them keepin' my secrets, and maybe I'd even be able to afford it, then."

There was a sizable break in conversation. The girl sitting in the folding chair didn't pull her phone out or appear to find anything interesting to stare at during that time, but instead just...stared straight forward. Once he finally realized this, Gerald said: "You, thinkin' about something?"
"Yeah. Uh. You know the um, person who gave everyone their powers, how..she's supposedly made some kind of rule for herself to not lie to anyone?"
"Sure," he nodded, thinking he'd heard something like that at some point but not precisely sure from who.

"When we were..fighting yesterday, Dawn tried to tell me something. Which—she wanted Light to know. I, I didn't even remember it until just now, because I was...well, there was a lot of other stuff on my mind right after that. She was yelling at me to tell Light that 'she lied', and..I couldn't get her to say what that lie actually was."

"And now you can't ask her," he said, "'cause she won't remember."
"Mmh," Emma nodded. "I wonder, if I should even say anything? To Light, about it? Maybe it's important, but maybe it was.." She shook her head, having difficulty fabricating a plausible alternative. "Could she have just been...wrong?"

"I'd say tell her," he suggested. "Even if she was wrong, there's surely some reason she came to think she was right, to think it was important enough to tell you then."
"Mhm," Emma nodded, seeming to agree.

---

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

Finally! Marcus stood up, hurrying toward the bathroom in the shuffle of students heading for shelter away from where the monster was appearing. I mean, uh..oh no. I need to do something about that.

Once the hat was on, Magus waited just a moment for the sound of people going past the door to stop, then tossed it open and hurried for the front door of the building. It occurred to her about five steps outside that she didn't actually know exactly where the attack was, but there were still people running past, so she just went with the direction they were coming from. Then her ears heard some gunshots, and she bolted toward the source to find a few campus police backing away from a pair of humanoid black, misty things in the quad—evidently having elected to stay there as a distraction so the students could get away easier. She knew these two as the "twin" monster type, the unusually small ones who always seemed to appear in pairs and had weapons for arms. And Light wasn't here yet.

The most important thing—to Marcus's later memory of the event—was that she didn't choke. Instead her sword came out just as easily as the first time, and she had a perfect opportunity to test out one of a number of suggestions on the use of her spells from the night before. A mist monster was advancing hard toward one of the police, raising an unnaturally long arm that terminated in a spike like some kind of giant praying mantis, and..

Block! Magus made a motion like the one that had summoned the shield before, followed quickly by pointing to her target—and a dome-shaped translucent shield appeared in front of him, the spike-arm glancing off its curved surface awkwardly, making the attacker pause and buying its target plenty of time to turn and run.

"Yesss—ack!" Her celebration was cut somewhat short when the other monster came at her with unanticipated speed, swiping some shorter blade-arms at her and making her duck and hop out of the way awkwardly. It was much clearer now that it was close just how freaky-looking these things were, with their eyeless heads and huge gaping mouths full of giant spikes of teeth. Eventually Magus—less noticed and more felt an opening, and used it to throw a quick fireball into the thing's chest, making it back off for just a second. Unfortunately, the spiky-armed guy was nearly on her by then.

---

Emma got up right away, ripping her phone out to get a quick look. Two signals in the city, one not far from Mr. Nelson's shop and the other on campus. It was like they knew where the vixens were and were targeting them, except that, fortunately, there was nothing near the Quinns' house. She looked up. "Uh—"
"The back," Gerald said, getting up himself and hurrying toward the front door as much as he could to close the shop for 'lunch'. "I'll follow right after."
"Okay!" She nodded and ran for the opposite door, dropping off her purse and phone inside once she was satisfied she had the location of the monster appearing near them memorized. There was another door beyond, an emergency exit that led out the back of the building but either didn't have an alarm attached or had had its alarm disabled at some point since everyone got powers, so Emma changed, splitting into two before pulling Minus back into herself so she wouldn't have to slow down to get through the single-person-width door.

She ran a short way through the alley so it would hopefully be not so obvious which building she came from the back of, then around the next wall and toward the black beast just in time to hear it start roaring. There were still some people running away when Gemma got there, but it hadn't grabbed any of them just yet. And—it was the big, bearlike thing that Light and Rowan had fought right when they all first appeared. Gemma quickly thought through what she knew of this sort—it was very strong and somewhat fast; its hooklike claws were very good at stealing weapons; it loved to grab and eat people when it could. She tossed a couple of ice spikes at its side to get its attention, then began working on some of the ideas from the night before.

Gemma took fire from her left hand and lightning from her right, then pulled them together, melding their 'weapon material' into a single, long-bladed sword whose hilt both her hands now held. Somehow it felt much more natural to hold something like this in both hands, even though it was no heavier than the blades she could make with Amp's help. When the beast ran close she moved aside and slashed hard through its side, pouring heat and fire into the blade to give it a burning sheath that did far more damage than the sharp metal alone could. It rattle-screamed, swiping down at her, and she let it take the sword, jumping and front-flipping off her hands before making a gesture toward the weapon to make it explode back into the flames and electricity that had made it, like a bomb in the monster's hand.

She used Plus's power to slow time just in front of her left hand, which shot out a number of shadow-bullets. The rate of time snapped back like a rubber band, briefly going faster catch up, which sent them all rocketing out at her target at the same time with greater speed than usual. This..probably didn't make any sense physics-wise, but Emma wasn't a physicist anyway. She used wind magic to spread spores into the air behind her while she moved aside of the thing's wild, quadrupedal charge, and then pushed both her hands toward them, focusing hard on using each one as the center of one of Fay's point-explosions as the mist-beast ran through it—which worked because the spores were among her many "weapons".

Gemma stopped for a moment after this, panting. This was exciting, but a little exhausting; she was repeatedly forcing more power into her attacks than they naturally had, and that seemed to take a bit of a toll. Many-small was better than few-big in her case, she thought—at least, again, without Amp's help. It turned toward her during this, roared and raised a foreleg to swipe down at her—and then a bolt of lightning from the sky hit the the top of its head.

---

A kind of gleam came into Magus's peripheral vision, and then a tall, white-haired vixen was just suddenly there in between her and the monster, swinging a sword into its arm with enough force to throw it away. Actually, she had—two identical-looking swords, and when the other guy came at her she clashed using both of them, pushing his arms apart before kicking his midsection to put him on his back.

"Rrrgh, these guys," she growled. Well...the voice was deeper, she seemed visibly stronger and—let's say—much more mature, but with the white hair, that sword (swords?), and..the rest of the context clues..this had to be Light.

"Uh, what?"

"Bad memories," she said, shaking her head (and misinterpreting the question). "Anyway, they revive each other if you don't take 'em out at the same time."
"Really!? That's, uh, not in the wiki." Both of them were starting to get up. Magus backed away some.

"Well, it probably should be. I can keep them busy easy, just hang back and throw some magic for now."

"Uh, sure!" Already on that.

Light danced around their efforts at attacks easily, knocking away their weapon-arms and throwing them off balance with ease. Magus focused for a high-power lightning spell, and tried making it jump through one of them into the other—with great success. They both screeched, steaming out black mist from the blow. Unfortunately, this also got their attention on her, and the sword-handed one came toward her while the other stabbed at Light, trying to pin her down. This proved ineffective when Light just disappeared into a trail of light which landed in front of the one advancing on Magus, then reappeared from the trail to stab it in the stomach and kick it away, leaving the sword in. She just made a third sword appear in her hand when the stabby guy ran up after her..or, no, the sword in the other one's chest vanished right after that.

So that was what the gleam earlier was. She was doing some kind of..teleport thing? Magus wondered if she could come up with a similar spell. Or—what about...?

In a swift motion, Magus pointed her blade up toward the sky, turned it to right side of her facing forward then swept it over to the left. "Shuriken!" A few spinning blades made of water formed, arcing around to catch the standing monster in the side of the head. "Oh wow, that worked? Uh—fire!" she shot a small fireball at the sword-handed one as it got up again, then backed away, giving Light plenty of space to come in under his swords, grab him by the ankle and toss him at the other twin.

"Hey—I'm a blue mage!" she said excitedly.

"I'd really hope you can learn things without getting hit by them," Light said, raising a hand and pushing it downward. The light around them dimmed as a laser appeared from just over the two monsters, searing into their bodies. "What about this?" They stood up and charged at her, and she went back to knocking away their arms/weapons and easily dodging their assault.

"Uhh.." Magus would've found it difficult to put the thoughts running through her head into words. She was trying to come up with a 'laser spell', especially the correct motions and 'word' for it, but exactly how those things related to the desired end result was ineffable. Nonetheless, she came up with something after a moment, sweeping her blade so the tip drew a small circle in front of her then stabbing at its 'center'. "Beam!" The resulting laser was dimmer and smaller than Light's, but it still burned the monster it hit, and she was able to sustain it for a few seconds before it faded out.

Her target's attention was drawn by this attack, but when it started to turn her direction and even think of retaliating, Light took advantage of this distraction to grab it by the upper leg and pull it to the ground, then caught the other one's swings with her blades, kicking it to the ground too. "Pretty good, but—think you should do the chain lightning again next. They're getting close to going down."
"Uh—okay!" Magus focused again, taking a few steps away while the monsters both stood up. Now that she thought of it, they did both look sort of indistinct compared to how they'd started out. That was probably how Light knew...

"Booolt—Chain!" Even though she knew she didn't have to, sometimes saying the 'spell' aloud just seemed to give it more oomph. In this case a particularly big bolt came from Magus's blade, arcing through the near one, around Light (thankfully) and right into the other. Both of them screeched unpleasantly at this—making Magus start to wonder why someone interested in protecting this world would ever give its 'protectors' such sensitive ears—but Light cut them off by driving one of the 'copies' of her sword straight through the chest of each, finishing them and making the dark clouds forming them dissipate harmlessly into the air.

---

"Heya!" Ning ran up next to Gemma while the monster swiped its forelegs blindly at the sky in rage. "Didn't take too long, did I?"
"No, uh, you're good. Just taking a, small break," she said between breaths.
"No problem," she said, already in the process of placing the hilt of her sword into the open end of the sheath and pointing its blade up at the monster's mouth as it finally looked down, opening its mouth wide to roar again. "Oh, you hungry?" she yelled back while Gemma began stepping around to one side. "Here's somethin' to chew on!" Electricity arced around the blade and sheath, repelling the former violently out to go straight through the mouth and out the back of the mist monster's head, drawing a plume of dark mist and another loud scream.

Feeling rested enough for now, Gemma drew together cold and water into a long ice-spear and chucked it at the creature, landing a hit square in its side. This she followed up with a few weaker bolts of lightning which Ning caught and amplified into massive bolts along the way, each one traveling right through the frozen water into the beast, making it erupt with more black mist.

It charged down at her, swinging both forelegs wildly, and Gemma split to run away to either side, each body tossing whatever came to her hands first to throw at it in parting shots. Ning hopped in just in front of it, catching her sword and sheath each on its hooklike claws and sending more electricity out through them both into its arms. Gemma quit running, turning to throw some fire, arrows and shadow-bullets the monster's way, and it started to fall forward, sinking onto its "knees" as it struggled to stay solid.

As it fell forward, Emma perceived a certain intent, a hint of strategy in the motion: Its mouth was still widely, unnaturally open. "Ning!—" "—Leggo! Jump away!" She both waved in the direction behind the other vixen to try to emphasize the urgency of this advice.

"Hup!" Doing just that—a long backwards jump complete with a somersault—the bright-haired girl somewhat narrowly avoided the oncoming maw, and she reformed her blade to slash at the top of its head for good measure as the mist monster finally dissipated, its last-ditch effort having failed.

"..Sorry about that," Ning said as the two of Gemma walked closer. "I wasn't paying enough attention there."
"It's fine—" "—I'm just glad you're okay," she replied, coming close. "Uh, you are okay, right?—" "—Nothing hurt?"
"Yep! I feel fine," Ning said, grinning and giving a quick thumbs-up. Emma stared at this for a second, feeling like she understood even better than before why Mr. Nelson would rather be Ning all the time if he could. She just looked so happy like this—at least until she noticed the staring and tilted her head slightly. "Um..what?"
She realized that she (at least one of her) had been staring. "Oh, uh, nothing.—" "—We should, get going, unless you wanna give an interview or something," Plus suggested.
"Ri-ight. Yeah, let's go," Ning nodded.

---

Light turned toward Magus. "Hey, you did pretty good for a first fight with those things."
"Uhh, thanks." The blue-haired girl blushed, her ears lowering a bit as she seemed to take the praise particularly to heart. "Um, so not to change the subject too quick, but.." she waved her arms emphatically at Light's present appearance. "What's with the two swords and the teleporting and your voice and..?"
"..Oh. Yeah," she nodded. "This is, kind of a long story; promise I'll explain it later. For now, though..you should decide if you wanna introduce yourself to the press. They're probably on their way."

"Uhhhh." Magus looked more terrified by this prospect than she had of the monsters.

"That's fine. I can hide your 'escape' if you want," Light said, gesturing toward a nearby building.

"Thanks. What about you?" she said after starting to take her first step that way and hesitating.
"..I think it's time I at least try to talk to them. Can't just, have stage fright forever, right?" It was hard to keep the ambivalence she still felt out of her own voice.

"Yeah," the other vixen nodded, getting a brief thoughtful look. "Um, good luck, I'll be watching!" she said, giving a short wave before starting to run off.

Once Magus was through the door and out of sight, Light took a deep breath and let it out slowly. There were plenty of questions they could ask that she wouldn't be able to answer without an extra one about her voice sounding deeper than usual, and by now she'd been 'boosted' and had it wear off more than enough times to know what it felt like. While the extra power could be released by deliberately spending it all up or going to human form and back, neither of those was really ideal right now. Instead Light simply replicated the feeling of 'letting go', no longer keeping a tight grip on the enhanced powers—even though it didn't feel like she was holding on at all just now. This worked as well as she had hoped, her body shrinking down again as some white steam leaked out of it. It actually felt better than the boost wearing off "naturally", more like relaxing a tensed muscle than having something unwillingly squeezed out of her.

When it was over, she took another deep breath and let it out again, for good measure. People were starting to notice that she hadn't disappeared, and..someone was going to come ask why pretty soon.