Battle Vixens! - 69

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Episode 69: Role for Diplomacy

Once again, Amory went to bed in vixen form.

This time, when she went to the door, she paused with her hand hovering just in front of the knob, thinking. The Giver probably could just yank anyone's door open, but she had a habit of knocking instead. Well, as long as they were testing the extent of this "aspect" of her powers...she tried giving the door a knock, thinking of the policeman-turned-superhero. After a short pause, the door opened, and the small, blue-haired vixen was waiting on the other side, wearing a dress-like nightgown.

Her ears were folded just slightly back, but she let out the smallest breath of relief to see Amp. "It's..difficult not to associate this place with 'her'," she stated in her usual monotone. "I suppose I should ask you to come in?"

Amp shrugged. "You could come in here instead, if you want." Rowan nodded, taking her up on the offer, and leaned against a wall near the door while Amp went and got a chair to sit opposite her. "Hey, you ever get a glimpse of wherever she's coming from when she knocks and walks in?"
"Nnno," Rowan said slowly. "Now that I think of it, it feels as if my focus was drawn away from the doorway until it was already shut."
"Yeah, same thing for Light."

Rowan said, "I wasn't able to 'appear' here until you knocked. There must be some sort of trick to it."

"Well, I think I go here by default, just by sleeping in this form? So I don't really have any tips. Gemma's the one who managed it, so maybe she could tell you something. Hey, speaking of which: Light told me Petr—I mean Simon told her that you want Gemma to visit and learn powers from all the people who got brought back to life."

Rowan nodded. "It would be…advantageous." Even without knowing, and even through her monotone, Amp could've told that that wasn't the whole story.

But rather than pry, she said, "I guess you could make the offer yourself, here."

She fidgeted slightly. "I could, but I am... uncertain whether I would be able to convince her."

"Well, let's give it a try anyway?" she said, putting hand up toward Rowan. "I'll back you up."

After some brief hesitation, she slowly nodded. "But..later. First, I was able to convince our allies in Japan to help us test the capabilities of this 'space'. Although, the mere fact that we can do this at all gives us a method of communication which cannot even be detected, much less eavesdropped on. Apart from.." She put up a hand vaguely.
"Yeah, but she's watching pretty much everything anyway, and I'm pretty sure she can read people's thoughts too, soooo..."
Rowan's ears folded down again. "I almost wish I didn't know that.

"..Let's move on. You remember Tenpo? The one with the time powers."
"Sure," Amp nodded, getting up. "You wanna visit her?"

"That's the idea. You don't even make it sound difficult to make a connection from halfway across the...?" Rowan paused, looking in the direction Amp was walking toward. "Was that there before?" Another door had appeared in Amp's room, so that Rowan was halfway between the two, once she started thinking of 'connecting' to someone else. "Furthermore, shouldn't that just lead to the room I came from?"

"No, and yes, but...you know. Dream logic," Amp shrugged, making it to the door at this point and knocking. Rowan went around next to her, crossing her arms while they waited for a response.

Before long, the Japanese vixen opened the door. Her 'dream clothes' looked like a yukata or something, in a purple shade that more or less matched her hair/fur color. Her expression was about the same as Amp remembered—a grin that was mildly unsettling, enhanced further by her eyes being voids of white without visible irises or pupils, so it was impossible to tell where she was actually looking. "Hello again. Hello," she said—the first one sounding natural, and the second one carefully practiced, through a thick accent.

"Hi there," Amp said. "You, uh, doing okay over in Japan?" This form made it easier than usual to be relaxed and friendly, even around near-complete strangers, but even then she wasn't entirely sure what to say here.

"As well as can be expected, considering. Stabler than when I left it." Tenpo's head was tilted slightly, one of her ears down. "Did you know Japanese before?"

"Um..I don't know it now." But Amp had a pretty good idea of what was going on after thinking about it for half a second.

"It appears my guess was correct." Rowan didn't seem surprised at all—although her stonefaced expression would make it hard to tell. "This 'place' translates for us. Or, perhaps we only think we speak in our native lanuages in the first place, and thought is transmitted some other way."

"Oh. Well...that is convenient," Tenpo said. "Allow me to thank you again for waking me, then," she added toward Amp, "since you can understand this time."
"I got the message the first time, but—you're welcome," Amp said. "Anyway, I guess it makes sense, if the whole purpose of this is communicating with other vixens, for it to remove the language barrier from the equation."

"Excuse me," Tenpo said, half-turning around toward her own room. "Would you mind coming in here? I have heard of this 'place', but never visited it before, myself."

Rowan looked at Amp, who shrugged, and they followed her inside—the latter taking her chair with her.

While taking in all the sights of the lavishly decorated bedroom, the purple-haired vixen said, "I am going to assume this doesn't allow us to violate causality. We could attempt to test that if you like, but not even my powers are capable of it. Believe me, I have tried."

"Nnyeah, I doubt it," Amp said. "It's easy to think of an exploit like that, so I'd guess that either there's a safeguard against it, or..well, I actually get the 'feeling' that it's just impossible in the first place, and not something that needs to be prevented."

"Feeling, in the same sense that you usually understand the nature of your powers," Rowan said—to which she nodded.

"Too bad," Tenpo replied, seeming disappointed.

"Oh, how is your friend doing? The one-in-two?"
"She's..doing pretty well overall. We were thinking of visiting her if you wanna talk yourself."
"First, there is another test to perform," Rowan said.
"Oh?"
"You said you were able to use this to meet with people you have already met in person," Rowan said. "But not people you have only heard of."
"Yyeah. Or, I think, meeting 'not in person' isn't good enough, even."

Rowan nodded. "Right. However, what if you were visiting someone who knew someone you didn't? I know you haven't met Tenpo's partner yet."

"Huh. I dunno, actually," Amp said, putting a finger to her lower lip absently. "It's sensible that I should be able to help anyone visit anyone they know...aha." She turned toward the wall of Tenpo's room and pointed—at another door besides the one they'd come in through.

"Where did that come from?" the Japanese vixen said. Of course, she'd actually been inspecting the room just a moment ago, so she would've noticed it if it had been present before.

"Dream logic," Amp shrugged. "I needed another door to help link you to her, so there one is. I think now, you need to do the rest. Just...knock or something, thinking of visiting her."

"I shall give it a try, then." She rapped on the door gently for a moment, and then the three of them waited.

Amp only knew the person who opened the door from some news coverage. Seemingly leading the vixens near Tokyo was a tall, slim vixen with pitch black hair and fur—apart from bright red at the tips. Her eyes were at least as striking as Tenpo's, colored red with black sclera. Here she was wearing something similar to Tenpo's outfit, too, in a pattern of mostly black with some red accents. There had been a fairly long pause before she answered, and she looked between the people assembled in Tenpo's room for a long moment before speaking. "Mr. Shepherd. You did not mention before that you had free access to this space." She spoke with enough of an accent for Amp to suspect she was actually speaking English, but appeared to be perfectly fluent.

"I was unaware I did before today," Rowan said. "It is part of what I wanted to test out."

"Well, I am relieved; I thought I would have to speak to Kitsune-no-Kami again." Her eyes settled finally on the curvy blonde vixen again. "...Cute." She then paused, clearing her throat and appearing uncertain why she'd said that, before continuing: "I suppose you have something to do with this, miss...?"

"Uh, Amp. And yes," she nodded, looking to Rowan to give an explanation that would make the most sense to this person.

"I believe you already suspected that our 'asset' capable of awakening those who had been put into comas was a person," Rowan said. "Amp's power is unique; she lacks the ability to fight, but is impervious to harm herself and capable of temporarily enhancing the powers of others. Her power also allowed her to awaken Tenpo and the others, and she recently discovered this aspect to it, as well."

"It also 'translates' for us," Tenpo added. "Although that may be a property of 'this space' rather than her power doing it, exactly."

"Hm." She strode over in front of the blonde vixen, extending a hand. "Allow me to formally introduce myself to you, then, if only in disguise. 'Shuriken'," she said.

"Nice to meet you," Amp said, shaking the offered hand gently.

"I'm sure you already heard it from her, but thank you for bringing Tenpo back. We tend to work best as a pair."

"Besides us being family," the purple-haired vixen added. Shuriken gave her a surprised look in responce. "Come now, they have trusted us with much sensitive knowledge. I believe we can trust them more than we have been."

"..Very well then. Yes, Tenpo is my grandfather," Shuriken said.

"By the way, do our powers work in this place?" Tenpo went to test this for herself, forming her sword, before anyone even answered.

"Yes, but nobody can attack anyone else," Amp said.

"Ah! Well," she said, unsummoning the weapon, "in that case, we should pay a visit to the one-in-two. Shuriken's power could be of use to her."

The black-haired vixen looked at Rowan, who had her arms crossed. "Gemma was..hesitant about learning more powers before," she said. "However, we were planning to visit her for something else anyway. If you want to offer to show her your power, I have no particular objection."

Rowan and the two vixens from Japan talked shop for a few minutes first: Mostly discussing recent monster attacks, future plans for coordination, "rogue" vixens in some of the less stable countries, and so on. Not feeling like she had much input for them, Amp just took a seat and watched the conversation. It seemed she was also intent on getting the vixen with shadow powers over to them as soon as possible, within the next couple of days, in hopes that at least being in her native country would help some. The one thing slightly of note was that Rowan shared a theory that the monsters could 'sense' how many vixens were in a location and would send stronger or more numerous monsters where there were more of them...which went some of the way toward explaining her eagerness to ship the amnesiacs off away from the VI's headquarters. Given the relative severity of the previous day's attacks, Amp felt this theory held water, although she had the vague feeling that it wasn't quite complete.

"..Sorry, Amp. This is nothing we couldn't have discussed over the phone later," Rowan said after a while.

"Hmn? Oh, I don't mind at all. Just glad I can help out," she said, getting up.

"Still. Perhaps it is time we paid Gemma a visit."
"Sure, but uh.." Amp looked around at the three of them. "She might be a little overwhelmed with so many visitors at once. Lemme go tell her what's going on first?"
"Of course. We can wait here."

Amp went back to 'her own' room and found another door to the right of Rowan's. Then she knocked on it, thinking of Emma, and waited a moment before the door opened. Minus was in the doorway, with Plus standing over next to the bed. "Um...—" "—hi!" Both looked happy to see her, at least. "I thought you were, uh, testing stuff with Rowan tonight?" Minus said.
"Oh, we are. We were able to 'connect' to Tenpo, and then Shuriken through her." Sice Emma appeared cofused, she clarified: "Um, the one with the time powers you met the other day? I guess you didn't actually exchange names. And, Shuriken's another of us from Japan."
"Oh! Okay."
"Anyway, they wanted to talk to you, if that's alright?"
"Sure," she nodded.

Everyone converged into Amp's room—sensible, as it was the biggest—but Plus stayed behind in her own room, probably so the single body could speak normally instead of doing the twin-speak thing. "Ah, one-in-two," Tenpo said, grinning. "..Gemma, yes?" she added, pronouncing the name carefully.

"Uh, yeah. You can..? Wait."

"I was pleased to see you using my power well today," she continued while Emma worked out the language thing on her own. "Using time to catapult some shots through the air."

"Oh, you could tell? I think I only did it once..."
Tenpo nodded. "It's something we do all the time, so it was easy to spot." The tall, dark-haired vixen gave her an impatient nudge. " Ah, yes—this is my partner, Shuriken."

She nodded. "Pleased to meet you."
"Oh, uh, same?" Emma was slightly intimidated by dealing with two near-complete strangers at once, but still tried to put on a smile.

"Gemma, since your fighting style employs many throwing weapons, I thought you might benefit from 'learning' my power as well," Shuriken continued, unperturbed by the awkward response. "If you wouldn't mind."

"Yeah? I mean uh." She looked back and forth between Amp and Rowan, the former wearing a slightly concerned look and the latter's expression as unreadable as ever. "I was, for a little bit, kinda scared of learning too much, and getting too powerful, i-in case I got eaten by one of the black, misty things again. But. I, it's. I decided that was stupid," she said finally. "It's, much better if I'm as strong as I can be, to keep that from happening again."

"That is a good way to think of it, in my opinion," Shuriken said with a slight nod.
"Yes, and—" Tenpo interrupted, "—I found that even being eaten doesn't have to be the end. When I saw that beast's jaws coming close, I felt the same thing I did the day before these powers were given to us. 'I just need more time', is how I would describe that feeling. I suppose it is like the angry, desperate state which makes us temporarily stronger. I was able to channel that 'need' into stopping the enemy from taking my powers over completely, by...literally stopping it."

"The end result was less than ideal," Shuriken said, "but at least we did not have to contend with one of those being able to slow or stop time itself.

"..At any rate, you might have guessed my namesake is involved." She raised a hand and seemed to produce some shurikens from her sleeve, like a (conventional) magic trick. Minus watched this carefully. "For the most part, my powers appear to be physical in nature: I can move quickly and throw these very accurately. However, I can also.." Shuriken paused, looking around the room, while dismissing the weapons out of her hand. "There aren't very many shadows in here, are there?"

"Behind the doors may work," Rowan said, seeming to know what she was after. Shuriken went around to behind the door leading to Tenpo's room, ducking into the shadow behind the door where she was mostly hidden—and seemed to sink into the shadow itself. Then she stepped out from behind the door to Emma's room. "..This," she said, standing up straight again. "Movement between shadows, more or less."

"Hmmn.." Minus visibly thought for a moment about what she'd seen. "It's kinda like a mix of 'shadow' and 'space', I guess?" She held up her hand and produced a kunai with a glow to it that made it seem obvious it was made out of light. "This is, uh, the 'opposite' of your weapon. Can you send other people through, or just yourself?"
Shuriken tilted her head just slightly. "I haven't tried sending anyone else, but...come to think of it, I know of no reason why I couldn't. So, what would be the 'opposite' of moving myself through shadow?"

"Um.." She raised her hand and tossed the kunai toward a wall, then made a motion like pulling a string back with that hand. The blade vanished, seeming to explode into small sparks of light which quickly disappeared. "Delaying..things...through light?" She released her hand, and the sparks of light reappeared and pulled themselves together, the reverse of the motion before, and then the kunai reappeared with the same momentum it had before, striking the wall.

"Impressive. I can see uses for that right away," Shuriken said.
"Oh, um..m-me too," Minus blushed, starting to feel anxious about being the center of everyone's attention for so long.

"Amp told me that you were able to be 'here' when you sleep at will, without the need for anyone to 'call' you here," Rowan said, getting her attention. "I..attempted this, but failed. Even though it seems impossible to 'visit' anyone else without her help, this could be useful for other purposes. Could you describe how you achieved it in more detail?"
"Um...I just.." She trailed off, now completely flustered, but Rowan waited calmly for her to form an answer, which seemed to reassure her enough to gather her thoughts. "It's, this place 'feels' a certain way. Like it's...safe, and no one can hurt you here," she said finally. "I concentrated on that..'feeling', when I was trying to fall asleep. I dunno how to explain it better; it might be kinda hard for someone who's never been here to get a grasp on."

Rowan seemed to think about this for a moment, and then slowly nodded. "I believe I understand your meaning."

"Oh!" Minus's ears popped upright. "There's uh, some other stuff I figured out recently that might be useful too. Like, uh, there's...not really any reason why anyone's weapon has to look like just one thing?"

"How do you mean?"
"Like...what you do, when you make a sword out of water," she said, producing a small spark of fire and a dagger made out of it instead. "It's not...what you're doing is really 'making a weapon out of water'. Like..there's no actual reason that weapon has to be a sword, if it...if you need it to be something else." In her hand, it broke apart into a small pile of shurikens, then disappeared.

"Hmm."

Rowan called her sword, then visibly concentrated, trying to change its form. It seemed to waver between being a solid sword and water briefly, before falling apart into the vapor it had started as.

"Maybe I can do it?" Tenpo said, seeing Minus's disappointed look that this hadn't worked. She produced her own katana again, and then (with some visible effort) was able to pull it apart into a pair of shorter blades. "...Aha! Some success. Not certain whether I can achieve any other forms."

"It seems that, in general, each of us has an upper limit to how 'flexible' our powers are," Rowan said. "This could also be the case for reshaping weapons. I would hardly be surprised to learn that yours is among the most adaptable, however."

"Um, I-I guess that makes sense," she said, blushing again.

"Oh, but everyone can definitely do channeling! Which is..a thing, Magus showed me first. Instead of trying really hard to get a strong effect, you just..sorta concentrate on what you want to do for longer before actually doing it," she said. "And that powers it up without being as, um, 'expensive'."

Rowan nodded approvingly. "That sounds like it should be extremely effective; I'll be certain to share it around. Thank you."

"Uh. Y-you're welcome."

"But, back to the subject of learning more powers..would you be willing to visit the headquarters some time tomorrow afternoon?" Rowan said. "The puppeteer's victims will..need to be relocated soon, for their own safety as well as to hopefully help them remember who they are. But while they are all in one place, it would be advantageous for you to learn the powers of those who are willing to show you theirs."

"Oh, yeah, sure," she nodded, with an expression Amp could read as 'trying not to look too eager'. "Um..after the monster attack? If there is one, I guess."

"Right. Whenever you have time. We can send someone to get you again, if you like."
"Mm-hm. We can uh, work out details later, right?"

"Certainly."

"Amp," Shuriken said, getting her attention. "It appears our business for tonight is concluded. Since you brought us 'here', are you able to send us 'back' as well?"
"Well, let's see..I guess if you go back to 'your own rooms', and the doors are all shut..then you should just be able to wake up by wanting to wake up?" she said. "I don't even think you need to do anything complicated like going 'back to bed' here. Just being in your room alone and wanting to wake up is good enough."
"Very well." She looked to Tenpo, who nodded. "The two of us will take our leave, then."

"Thank you both for your help with this," Rowan said. "I will remain in touch."

Once they were gone, Rowan looked between Amp and Minus just once, then said, "I should go, as well. We have another day to face, like it or not."
"Heh, yeah," Amp said, nodding. "Hope everything goes alright, though."
"We always hope that," she replied dryly, stopping in the doorway and turning toward both of them. "Good night, I suppose."

"See you later," Amp said cheerfully, while Minus just gave a silent wave.

"Um.." Emma fidgeted nervously once Rowan was gone. "So, I believe what I said, but..I'd be lying if I said I wasn't still a little scared. I still...wanting to learn new powers is like some weird addiction, and I feel kinda, like I'm not acting like myself when I give in to it...just a little bit."

"That's understandable. I think, as long as you're aware of it and can pull yourself back when you need to, it should be fine," Amp said.

"Mm-hm...hey uh, if, you know, nobody else minds...you think you could go with me?" she said.
"Sure," she nodded.

---

Had some trouble getting this one together; it felt like pulling teeth at one point, and I was worried it was going to be too repetitive, due to some reiterating the same points as each person in turn needed to learn some of the same information that the reader already knew by then. I'm still happy with how it turned out, though, and this was very much needed to set up what's going to happen next.

 

Anyway, something about Tenpo that may never come up is that she's a quantum physicist, and the thing he wanted "more time" for was his own attempts to unify quantum theory with general relativity. Shuriken and Tenpo basically work together as a unit, with Tenpo being close range/magic and Shuriken long range/physical (with her 'magic weapon', which can still hurt monsters of course). They have lots of combo moves that don't work without the other one's help.