Battle Vixens! - 84

First / Previous / Next / Latest

---

Episode 84: Escape

"Now. Unlike most, we actually do know some things about you. Your name is—or was—Warren Pratt."
"..Got it." The dark-haired vixen stared into a knife she had just summoned, instead of looking at the man telling her who she was supposed to be—or to have been, at least.
"You worked as Tobias Mond's bodyguard. And, in turn, you were..her first victim." She nodded slowly, tracing a line along her own throat with a finger. There was a faint..memory of a sensation there, a..rope, maybe, along that line.

"Unfortunately, that is as far back as the information we were able to find goes," he continued unabated. "There are people we can find with your name, or with similar appearances but different names...none of which appear to actually be you. It seems almost as if that information was deliberately scrubbed, or at least very well hidden."

"Maybe I'd be happier not knowing," she half-mumbled. Then, louder: "Well, thanks for telling me, anyway."

For the rest of that day, and into the next one, she more or less drifted around the enormous building, trying to make sense of anything. It was equal parts boring and confusing, with the most interesting part being sneaking around by way of silent teleportation and taking advantage of her humongous black, furry ears to listen in on conversations she probably wasn't supposed to hear. Not much of it really made any sense without some context which she might never have, but...there sure seemed to be a lot of strange things these people thought were important.

Fighting the birds and dragons and things, alongside the other victims of Tobias, was the first really exciting thing that happened. Running around, throwing her knives at those weird beasts, felt...good, in a strange sort of way. Familiar, in a deeper way than just that curious coordination that the others all picked up on. It was vaugely like something she thought she should remember, but at the same time utterly and entirely unlike it. The sensation was difficult to put into words, so she didn't try too hard to.

From listening to the news, and watching the vixens who hadn't lost their memories, it seemed acceptable if not common to take on another name. If she really had wanted to cut ties to the past before, this was the perfect way. She just amalgamated her old name with a word vaguely close to what her power did, and told the others to start calling her Warp. It was neat, simple, a little generic. Kind of like "Light", admittedly.

There was a creeping sense of familiarity after the battle. She wasn't sure she wanted to remember, but it felt like an inevitability. It was unbelievably frustrating, feeling herself try to pull something up again and again. Eventually she appeared next to one of the armed guards they had near the building's exits. "Hey."
"Whoa!" He had the usual reaction of turning suddenly and then backing toward a wall once he perceived her proximity, which never stopped being just funny enough to put a big grin on her face. "...Oh. Miss, uh..?"
"Warp. Got a weird question. Can I hold your gun for a sec?"
The expression he returned was predictable too, confusion fighting with a need to say no as quickly as he could.

"Unloaded," she clarified. "Just..want to see what the weight feels like."
"Uh.." He looked to his partner, who just shrugged. Then he unloaded the rifle and handed it to her.

"Hmm." It was strangely nostalgic, just as she might have feared. Not exactly this kind, of course, but her fingers felt intimately familiar with the weapon's mechanisms and use. Her body obeyed some training she didn't remember, refusing to point the barrel at anything that anyone might regret losing despite it being unloaded—which mostly meant pointing it at the floor. Satisfied, she carefully offered it back to its owner. "Thanks."
"Sure, I guess." She teleported away, and down a corner, before he could think about asking her anything.

A lot of the pieces came to her that night, in her dreams. they were unhelpfully vague and general for the most part, as dreams tend to be, but when she thought through it all the following morning, it was easy enough to put together. There was darkness, running, hiding. Gunshots too close to be from anything other than what was in his hand. A lot of cash being handed over and then swiftly spent. And then...

"...with your qualifications...to watch my son." Pieces of a conversation.

"And no killing."

"Shouldn't be, I think. Not unless someone..." Many of the words seemed too muffled to make out, which they probably hadn't been at the time.

She couldn't exactly remember the setting of this conversation. The other man's voice said first, "..Warren Pratt."
And he repeated back: "Warren."

"...a fine name...agree?"

Warp woke up in the middle of the night, coughing and desperately grabbing for something to get it off of her neck. It took a minute of gasping in air to realize that she wasn't actually being choked to death, and it was much easier to return her breathing to normal after that. She took a moment to look at a clock the room had been provided with and see that it wasn't time to wake up yet, and then carefully picked the covers back up off of the floor and climbed under them to go back to sleep.

Sitting together in a hotel, drinking. A familiar voice belonging to someone else: "What's killing someone like, anyway?"

"What's it like? Hmm..you ever stepped on a bug? Or, you too pampered to ever see one in the first place?"

"Oh, come on, I've killed bugs."

A pause to take another swig. Awful smell, rancid taste. "From a distance, that's just wha' it's like. Something small and far-off, totally unlike you, falls over dead. Much harder, much worse from up close. It's meant to be easier after the first, but...never is, really. Better if you don't ever look 'em in the eyes."

"Not much fun, then."
"No." Another long draw from the bottle. "Not 'less you're a psychopath."

It felt like not a single event, but something that happened over and over again, with all of those times blurring together into one. "...wanted out. But really, this isn't much better."

"Hey now, I thought you liked me."

"Eeah, you're tolerable." Some mutual laughing. "If neither of us was tethered to the other, sure. As is, this's a rotten job."

"If it were up to me, I'd cut you loose. I don't need a babysitter. Maybe we could go somewhere nice, drink something besides cheap beer."

More 'muffled' speech, and then: "...new name?"
"Yeah?"
"Tell you a secret. My old one..."
"I like Warren better..."
"...need more than that, to really get away. New face, maybe a whole new body too. Better done without your dad's help so he won't recognize it either."

There were echoes of something being said, first by another voice and then by his own. It was something deeply familiar, yet incomprehensible. He sat up on the couch in another hotel, looked around, and the phrase echoed again, from his own mouth. The result was disorienting despite not being particularly uncomfortable. It felt like his body being bent and stretched by the space around it, molded into something else. That other thing was slightly shorter, longer hair, wider hips...breasts. Gigantic, triangular ears, and a huge tail. What he'd worn to bed became a tight pair of shorts, long socks, gloves, and a top that was halfway unzipped.

She tripped forward, caught herself and sat up, trying to make sense of it all.

"I'm..."

A desire to get to a mirror quickly prompted her first teleportation, making it immediately clear that this body came with advantages other than being different. She changed back before he woke, but when it became clear that something very similar had happened to him...

Warp woke up and saw that it was early in the morning, still. She got up and began to pace, putting together the events of the dreams into something like recovered memories. It was becoming increasingly clear...

---

"Excuse me, everyone..."

It was supper time in the VI's cafeteria. Kagee-Shibai raised her hand, getting the attention of the other amnesiacs. "Sorry," she said (through an interpreter), immediately worried about having disturbed the other's conversations. "I have been informed that I will fly out to Japan later tonight, and I wanted to take this opportunity to say my goodbyes."

She stood and briefly bowed in a few different directions, to cover all of them. "We have not known each other long, or maybe not at all, really, but it was still encouraging to know others in a similar situation to my own. It helped me to not feel quite as lost and terrified. I hope that we can meet once again, when we know who we all are," she continued.

"Hear, hear!" Serra said, getting up herself. "Yeah, uh, likewise I guess? Theeeyy found my family, so..I'm supposed to catch a plane out really early tomorrow morning, myself. But it's been—I dunno, fun? You guys are all great. We should have a reunion some time after we get done kicking those monsters to the curb."

Warp at quietly as she watched the ensuing chatter; it sounded like everyone but Dawn and Cynthia would be gone by the end of tomorrow. Actually, a few of them had already left, and not all of them with proper goodbyes. Eventually it died down somewhat, and the green-haired vixen said, "Hey, Warp. They figure much out about you, yet?"

"Not much to figure out, really," she said. "They know who I was working for, and I'm not going back that way. What came before that, I don't remember much specifically, but...

"No use sugarcoating it, really. I was a killer for hire," she said, putting up her arms, "for years. Fair good at it, too. Looks like I was getting tired of that life, for one reason or another, and then I got blackmailed into playing bodyguard for our mutual murderer."

The shadow-wielding girl seemed to decide not to dwell on the first part, instead saying: "I thought you said you were his friend..?"

"Yeah, pretty much. We weren't like each other at all, really, but..we were both trapped in the same cage together. Guess that does things to people.

"...But hey, now that I've got this power, no prison can hold me," she said, sporting an unintentionally dangerous-looking grin. "Cell door, or window bars?—just teleport it outta the way. Or, move a wall one brick at a time 'till I can see through it to send myself outside. And I can go wherever I want, all on my own. Still might wanta stay here for a while, maybe. The VI's doors could keep people who might come after me out, 'till I can remember who they all are."

"Hey, you're uh...not gonna start killing people again any time soon, are you?" Serra asked.

"Hope not," Warp shrugged. "Pretty sure that's what I was getting sick of."

"Well, that's a relief. I mean—it did occur to me that you'd be really good at it now, with those powers and all, and that's a terrifying thought."
"Heh, well, lucky you then.

"...At least everyone hates those monsters, so, figure I might get in the good graces of the public if I help out with 'em. I'm hoping the statute of limitations wears out after you die and come back to life, but if it don't, maybe I'll make a big enough hero of myself to earn a few pardons. Or, maybe one of them will get me, and I can at least die well-liked instead."

"Anyway, best of luck to you all. Maybe I'll come visit when you least expect it."

---

Just a small break to focus on another minor character before we move on to the next day. While it's often written "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)", the one-word title "Escape" is still technically the song's actual title. Or at least it was originally, anyway, which is good enough for me.