Battle Vixens! - 88

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Episode 88: Mask On/Mask Off

About an hour after Amory's return, and not long before he was set to leave for his date, Blake leaned back in his computer chair and sighed. This should work. That was the hard part done, maybe...but not it was time to do the other hard part. He stood up and stretched, thinking a short break might help. How did one write something like ths? There weren't really any good precedents to draw on, as far as he knew. Maybe that unspoken speech which had been prepared in case the men who went to the moon didn't get back. No, that was completely different...

He'd had the news on the TV since getting up, just in case. And...this was supposed to be about the time for Ning's announcement alongside the VI. And—pushing his bedroom door open, he could see it going over to an interview. He went in long enough to turn on the volume.

"Uhh, hi. Yeah, I'm sure you noticed I look a li'l different." She put up a hand. "This..happened when I woke up from the coma the monster gave me. I dunno exactly why, but, I'm not really complaining either. I like this look better, honestly, and..maybe that's got somethin' to do with it. You'd have to ask them, though; they're still workin' on it. Anyway..."

Amory came out of his room, watching her talk for a moment. "Looks like it's..going well?"
"Yeah, go on ahead. I'll text you if things somehow go south," Blake said. "See ya."
"Bye!"

"...is 'cause, well...I'd like to tell you all my story. I mean: Much more than I was able to before. Um..that is, I want to make my secret identity...not so secret." This drew a burst of noise and questions from the reporters around, which Ning just waited patiently throughout.

After the door shut, Blake went back to his computer, stretched his fingers and went to typing. He decided that the first draft could just be whatever came to mind, and after that he could revise it as much as necessary.

The first draft begin: I sincerely hope you're not reading this, because if you are, I'm probably dead. If everything is working proprely, I've set up this message to go out if I don't log in at least once every twenty-four hours. I did that because I want you to know the truth. If you read this, and you know for a fact that I'm still alive, there was a mistake. I have to ask you to keep my secret, and I'm sorry for that. I'm even more sorry if I died, though. And if I did, then you can tell whoever you want. I don't care, I'm dead.

...Too blunt. Too casual. Blake shook his head, forcing himself to keep writing and at least get to the main point before he went back to edit things.

---

"Lemme just get to the point. My name is Gerald Nelson. Some of the folks around this town know me as the old man who runs a small-time grocery store down at.." She shook her head. "Well, I did anyway; that big worm tore things up pretty bad, and the utilities don't work now. I'll get into that later. But, you might also remember me from the news a couple of weeks ago. I'm the man whose granddaughter was kidnapped, and..I hope you can understand, I was pretty desperate to get her back..."

Simon watched from one side of the stage, along with the group from the VI's PR department tasked with making sure this interview went smoothly. He just shook his head and grinned; they'd never really had anything to worry about. This girl—or maybe woman was the better word—was a natural. If Mr. Nelson had never done public speaking before, then perhaps the empowered body's personality shift was supplying some of that confidence.

"...no involvement whatsoever. In fact, she helped me see how dumb that plan was. Then she helped me rescue my granddaughter. I didn't feel safe telling the whole truth right then, for a number of reasons...yes?"

"Sorry, this is a little off topic but—I've been wondering..."

---

"Aww, what the heck?" Thad glared at the TV screen with his arms crossed. "So like, they can just grow suddenly like that?"
"I dunno, maybe this is some kinda special case," Marcus said. He really wanted to be surprised that this was his roommate's reaction, but he was only mildly disappointed instead. He also felt an inexplicable compulsion to console him about it all the same. "Hey, uh..at least she's like, eighty-something, too. So, not really..in our age group or anything in the first place."
"Yeeaah, I guess so..."

Ning giggled softly; it was hard for Marcus to see how that wasn't still extremely cute. "Yes, the pun is intentional. And, totally my idea. I mean—Light was Light before we met, but I was just..a girl with lightning powers, my real name notwithstanding. Anyway, like I was saying. I knew—I know that I committed a crime, stupidly and ultimately for no good reason. It don't matter that I meant to give the money back, or whatever. Under normal circumstances...I dunno. I wouldn't have been able to do it, for one thing, but I would've still been just as desperate to save her. Maybe I wouldn't have survived whatever I would've done. And..admitting to it sooner than this, could've meant losing her." Her ears sank. "We're..both the only family the other has left, you know."

"What do you think?" Marcus said, redirecting the conversation a bit. "If you woke up with wicked lightning powers, would you go short out a bank's security system and magneto the vault open?"

"Pssh, totally. I'd empty 'em out. They got the FDIC and stuff, right?"

"I'm..not completely sure that's what that's for," he said, shaking his head.

"All I know is, money don't disappear from anyone's account just 'cause some dude swiped a buncha cash," he said. "It's basically like stealing from nobody. I mean, she coulda gone from some cash registers or somethin' and screwed some people over real bad instead..."

---

"Anyway, I'm very sorry about my actions that day. If anyone was harmed by them, I would like to do what I can to make it up—understanding that, that really isn't a lot. I'm not exactly rich or anything."

Hugo came up behind the couch Dawn and Cynth were on, putting a hand on the backrest. "You kids watching the news again?"
"Ain't much else to do," the redhead said, turning her head up to him from on top Dawn.

"Bah. You oughta ask for some books or something. Or at least tune cartoons sometime. 24-7 news is..fine lately, but typically a pretty good way to rot your brain."

Dawn wasn't really listening, to this instead just watching the interview as it played out. "I hope you'll understand if I don't want to give too many details," Ning was saying. "Not that I expect folks won't figure it out anyway, but at least I think this makes it clearer we'd like a bit of privacy. Like I said, she's my only family, and I mean to raise her right..."

"Think I fought with her once," the dark-haired vixen said finally, which made both of them look at her. "I mean—on the same side. Against one of the black monster things. Not too sure when it happened exactly, though?"

"Well, that's gotta be a matter of public record," Hugo said. "Just google your name and hers."

"...Do what?"
Hugo crossed her arms, looking down at both of their blank expressions with something like annoyed shock.

"Did nobody 'remind' you two how to use a computer!? Does Warp not know, either? No wonder all you're doing is lazing around or..whatever it is she does. C'mere!" She waved aggressively, turning to lead them off somewhere. After exchanging a brief glance, the two of them got up to follow her.

"...Right, gettin' back to that. I'm gonna need to move my store elsewhere. Since that whole area needs some serious repair now anyway, some anonymous party offered to buy it from the owners at better than market price. I dunno much about it, but I guess they've got some sorta plan for it. That means I've gotta move out, so I'm having somethin' of a fire sale later today. Just be real careful around the uneven pavement if you come, and remember that I'm sellin' food, not autographs or pics, 'kay?"

---

Ezekiel was up bright and early, and for once he was able to go straight to his "real" job at the VI's research department. Of course, his older colleague still put him to shame by already being at the front door by the time he drove up. Dr. Brand just nodded curtly toward his car and strode inside, letting Dr. Bridges open the door himself a moment later and follow through the hallways as the lights were turned on one-by-one by the theoretical physicist's hands.

The sound of footsteps ahead stopped abruptly at about the time he reached the back hall housing their offices. "Ezekiel!" He sped up to turn a corner and found Dr. Brand pointing at a sticky note affixed to his door. "Did you write this?"

"Nnoo..and it wasn't there when I left last night. Very strange." He leaned in to read it, adjusting his glasses. "Don't think I recognize the handwriting, either."

What is a hat?
What is a mask?
What is a man!?

Dr. Brand's arms were crossed and he had on the scowl that was the closest his face went to expressing worry. "This had better not be some manner of prank."

"Personally, I would be relieved if it were," Dr. Bridges said, leaning back to upright again. "And I'm tempted to reply, 'a miserable pile of secrets'...but I know that isn't very helpful."
Dr. Brand gave him a confused look for a moment, finally saying: "..What?"

"Err, never mind. We could have this note swept for prints or something..."

The older researcher paused for a moment, before jolting slightly in realization and turning toward him. "The masks! Were they left in my office last night?"
"..Yes," Ezekiel nodded. His colleague already had his key out, turning it to unlock the door (proving that it was still locked) and then pushing it to enter. The door seemed oddly stiff for a second, until Dr. Brand shoved it impatiently and burst his way inside on the resulting momentum. It took about that long for him to notice some motion in the upper doorframe. "Hey, wait—" Dr. Bridges put out his hand to try and pull his colleague back, but he was too far behind him to reach him before something white popped out from being wedged in the doorframe and managed to land itself directly on top of his head.

"Ow—what—?" It was one of their masks, white with mostly-black decoration; Ezekiel recognized it as one of the last he'd checked on the night before. Dr. Brand was reaching a hand up to remove it from the top of his head, but at the same time it slid itself down onto his face; it was difficult to tell if this was normal physics or if it was actually moving itself. Either way, by the time his hand was as far up as his face, it was already on top of it, and—more importantly—his body had a faint white glow around it, indicating some sort of magic at work.

"Mn—grrfh—" First with one hand, then both, he attempted to pull it off of his face, but it appeared to be stuck. The glow brightened steadily and then finally culminated in something of a flash—yet, not a blinding enough one that Dr. Bridges couldn't see what happened during it. The older researcher's hair shifted all at once, the dark part of the gray seeming to drip down to the very tips, turning them black and leaving the rest white, then those tips streaming out and down as his hair instantly grew out to nearly waist length. The rest of his body quickly shrank two feet or more downward, his clothes rearranging into a sort of kimono top, shorts, and leggings as it kept close to his increasingly slight frame. A muffled "Mnrrgh!" came out in a high soprano voice as Dr. Brand's ears grew into big white triangles, and a predictable huge, fluffy white tail with a black tip spread out behind..her.

Her hands popped off of the mask, and it immediately pulled itself over to the left side of her head (below the ear), growing a string up around her head to keep itself in place. Finally, a line of white light and a line of shadow-like black appeared behind her back, each one resolving at the same time to a katana within a sheath of the same color which was affixed to her back.

The short fox-girl let out a long, slow sigh, and turned around. Her face looked young and cute, with bright golden eyes and an uncertain but faintly annoyed expression. "Are you all right?" Ezekiel asked her first, as she put a hand up toward the hilt of one of the swords to trace her fingers across it.

"I'm..unharmed. Though—unintentionally testing my own research...I was really hoping this sort of thing would happen far later." She dropped the hand, closing her eyes, and seemed to succeed in dismissing the swords in a similar effect to their creation before opening them again. "It was a prank, but not by a human, I think."

"Not human?" She turned quickly to turn on the light and walk into the room, assessing its state, and Dr. Bridges followed. Aside from that one mask having been wedged into the doorframe, it looked like nothing else had been disturbed.

"The Giver."

She turned around to face him again. "How she got in here is irrelevant I suppose, but I believe the note was a hint—given in her usual, irritatingly capricious way. A hat is adornment for the head, and shelter from sunlight. A mask—" she tapped the one which had changed her, "—covers the face and obscures one's identity. A man.." she shook her head. "I'm reasonably certain she left that as a joke for you, so you wouldn't feel left out."

"I don't know whether or not I ought to be grateful for that," Ezekiel said, following her again as she whirled to go pick up one of the masks from the stack, staring at it. The yellow coloration of her eyes seemed to glow faintly, and continued to do so as she turned her head down toward the rest of the stack.

"I can see it. Every one of these masks is a viable key, including the broken ones—if the pieces are matched and placed on someone's face together. Our scan was returning the opposite of the truth because they are masks, and so they disguise themselves." She turned back up to look at him, and the glow disappeared.

"Rings."

He didn't follow his colleague quite as well as usual on this one, and so had to ask: "...Rings?"

She set the mask down on her desk. "We should be making rings, bracelets, gloves..anything for the hand. Your head, your face, is what you look like, who others see you as. You perform actions. With your hands. Therefore, if we want to avoid this kind of side effect," (she swept a hand to indicate her appearance) "we should be applying the methods which consistently made keys of these masks to instead produce those sorts of keys."

"You said you could 'see it' a moment ago?" Dr. Bridges said while his colleague carefully pulled the mask back around her face. This succeeded in quickly shifting her back to human form, and he breathed no small sigh of relief.

"Yes," he nodded. "I was.." He shook his head. "When I glanced at them, it was as if I immediately knew the results of our usual tests, and much more. The information simply entered my head unbidden. It ought to be overwhelming, but it isn't."

"And you feel it's trustworthy, too?"
"It must be. It's only a stronger, more immediate form of the methods we were already using, so it can be trusted at least as much as them." He didn't sound terribly pleased to say so; if anything, he seemed annoyed.

"Well—that's good news, then, isn't it?" Dr. Bridges said. "You have access to..magic-scan-vision, essentially?"

His colleague sighed. "Imagine if you could look at water and know what was dissolved in it instantly. You tell someone there is ammonium chloride in some particular glass, and they ask how you know, and you say 'I can just see it'." He shook his head. "Useless for rigorous inquiry."

"I mean...certainly, it's no use for testing your observations, but it's very good for making them," Ezekiel replied. "If we develop tests that should be better, you could help verify they work—or, if we have tests otherwise verified, that could be used to double-check that your vision 'works'. Additionally—if we get the help of a certain two-bodied vixen, she might also be able to help verify your observations."

The old researcher crossed his arms, looking annoyed, but eventually sighed again. "...True enough. I just..dislike the idea of being 'given' this, especially by her."

"I'm reasonably sure she doesn't help anyone who doesn't want help," Dr. Bridges replied gently, adjusting his glasses. "You know you can't have it both ways."
He looked between his younger colleague and the white fox mask still in his hand, lifting the latter up to eye level again. "...You're right. Her methods and personality are what I find most irritating of all." Then he put it on, shifting to a short, mostly-white-haired vixen once again. "We should check what else I can do."

"Well, it seems that did come with swords," Ezekiel observed. "Does anything besides scan-vision immediately occur to you?"

She made one of the sheathed katanas—with a white hilt and sheath—appear in her outstretched hands, looking at it for a moment. "This feels unaccountably familiar, as if I know how to use it. But not like this..." Taking the hilt in her right hand, the rest vanished, and the other one—whose sheath and hilt were pitch black—appeared through a line of shadow in her left; then she moved both into a ready-looking stance. "...This feels more natural. Although I have never held a sword before in my life. And..." She looked around for a moment. "There is not much room here to work with. Step back."

"Got it," Ezekiel took a couple of steps backwards, and then kept going as she gestured with one of the swords to do so until he was nearly in the doorframe. Then she turned toward the emptiest part of the office and swept both swords in quick succession—the white then the black—in an X shape that seemed to leave a trail of each color hanging in the air. From the place the two trails crossed the air—or maybe the space—seemed to curl open like a piece of paper which had been cut this way, and she tensed for a second before jumping through. Dr. Bridges heard feet softly landing behind him, and turned to see a similar 'seam in the air' closing behind her as she briefly flourished the blades before placing them into their sheathes—which were now hanging off of her back again. "That may be the extent of it," she said. "I can't think of much else."

"Well, it's essentially teleportation, I suppose?" Ezekiel said, moving out of her way as she strode back into her office. "Looks like you could toss things or have people go through those portals. Factor in that you can probably use those swords rather effectively, and it's not too bad overall, if it came to a fight. Although I assume—"
"I have no intentions of fighting myself," she said, nodding. "Apart from self-defense, or if things become particularly desperate. We already have one of us playing superhero instead of dedicating all time to research...not that I fault you for it."
"I'm grateful for that," he said. "Anyway—we have a lot of other work to get to today."