Battle Vixens! - 95

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Episode 95: Iron Sharpens Iron

Ezekiel was pacing. It was an irritating and distracting habit of his: He thought on his feet. Dr. Brand tended to prefer to think on paper, or on a computer, but he'd always had colleagues like that. None of this would be a problem if the rest of the research division weren't busy packing the masks and carefully gluing together the ones he'd broken the night before—and, particularly, if the two of them weren't in the younger researcher's office supposedly working to develop modifications to their baseline theories that would make a ring or glove or somesuch actually work as a key. It wouldn't be as much of an issue if he was actually thinking about that, either.

Dr. Brand sighed. "What is it?" Getting him to talk tended to be the only cure for this malady.

Ezekiel stopped to look at him. "The stolen masks..seem out of character. I just can't figure it out."

"Out of character," he deadpanned. "For a capricious entity to do...something chaotic."
"Her actions aren't arbitrary and random," Ezekiel said. "They usually have a purpose."
"She wants humanity to survive; we were planning to dispose of the masks. Her predictions can't have a hundred percent accuracy, so she couldn't be certain we'd give them out even if we realized they were functional. It's logical enough for her to take some and distribute them herself. Really, I'm surprised she didn't take more," Dr. Brand said.

"True. But." Dr. Bridges adjusted his glasses, busy formulating his words.

"The Giver's mind clearly doesn't work like ours. It can't, not even physically—but, that's beside the point. What I mean is, she doesn't particularly appear to have a conscience as we know it—a sense of 'right' and 'wrong'—but I believe she does have something roughly parallel. Perhaps..a sense of 'fair' and 'unfair'. It's 'fair', for example, to give help only to those who accept it, regardless of how badly those who refuse it, or who are incapable of accepting it, need help. It's 'fair' to offer her power evenly across every demographic—including people who will almost surely be irresponsible with it, causing untold harm. It was only 'fair' for her to arrange the Puppeteer's death if she then clearly explained, to everyone, the rule change to her 'game' which 'justified' doing so. But on our way back to the office, I thought: Is it 'fair' to take any of our work and decide for herself how to distribute it?"

"In summary..you think she only took a few because her personal 'sense of morality' rankled at the idea of taking any at all?"
He sighed. "I don't know. I can't pretend to fully understand any human, much less an ageless..whatever the Giver's species is, but...well, giving us a hint is one thing, but 'forcing' power on even just you without asking first seems...like something she would feel to be 'wrong'. The more I think on it, the more I feel that something is off..."

"Do you think somebody else did it?" Dr. Brand asked.
"No. I just can't make sense of why she's acting...even only slightly against her 'conscience'."

"Far be it from me to dabble in your field," the physicist said, "but—perhaps she's simply changed her mind."
"I suppose so. But there must still be some reason for it."
"If she observes countless worlds at once, then practically anything could have convinced her to behave differently. Even if the reason were something she witnessed on our world, it could still very readily be impossible, for anyone on Earth, to discern what it was."

"Mmmnh. I guess that's right."
"Whatever the reason, it isn't our job to work out our 'benefactor's' psychology or motivations," Dr. Brand said.
"True. You know how it is to be stuck on a problem, but—I'll try and focus on the matter at hand, sorry." Ezekiel nodded.

---

Tora came out into a courtyard to find army man hard at work, practicing control of her weapon with a routine of swinging it around on a variable-length string of wire. She walked far enough out to make her presence known and stopped, crossing her arms and watching Corporal Langdon swing the thing around like a nunchuck or something, eventually ending with releasing the knife out at a training dummy, making it spin end-over-end until it planted itself firmly into its target's chest.

"Yo."
"Hey there," Samuel turned toward her—not surprised by the greeting at all, which probably meant she'd noticed Tora's entry but just not reacted to it.
"You getting tired of just hitting the air, and dummies?"

"Tired? Can't say so. Drills are good for keepin' oneself sharp," army man said. "This body don't seem to do 'tired' anyhow."
"Yeah? I haven't seen you turn back since you started working with us. Planning to do like Ning and stay that way for good?"
"Hmmn.."

The gray-haired vixen shrugged. "Ain't really thought of that before. My 'real' self's healthy enough, but I certainly don't miss missing a leg. I imagine I'd go back when I'm on leave, seein' my family..'least at first. That, and I'm a long way from ready to look at this face in the mirror and think it's 'me'."

"You're not...technically forced to stay here, right? You could go home and protect your family wherever they live instead of hangin' around with us, if you wanted?" Tora said.

"Could, sure; won't. Folks back at my hometown are doing a fine enough job keepin' things stable there, and nothing good comes from soldiers abandoning their posts in wartime," Sam said. "We've got a fine team here, and I seem to be pretty well needed. If there was an emergency back home, I might ask leave to go help once my job here's done, but—for the next little while, this is my post, and I'll stick to it."

"Fair enough," Tora shrugged. "I guess someone like me, who's just protecting my home, has gotta respect that."
"The way I see it, I'm doin' that too. If the VI falls apart, coordination across the US, maybe the whole world—'ll break down."
"Maybe. I like to believe the VI is more than the head offices here, though.

"Aaanyway, what I was getting at earlier was—" Tora formed her weapons onto her hands and held them up demonstratively. "You wanna try something a li'l more dynamic?"

Sam crossed her arms. "I suppose that ain't a bad idea. Feels pretty foreign to spar with folks, compared to how training gen'rally goes in the military."

"Yeah, you can't exactly 'just scratch' someone with a bullet to the head, eh? But I bet I can't even scratch you with these," Tora said. "Still, a little practice wouldn't hurt, right?"
"Sure," she reformed her knife in a hand. "Though, you look a bit too happy to get in a tussle, if I'm being honest."

"I've always been a bit of an adrenaline junkie," Tora shrugged, feeling herself grin a little wider.

"Just don't be reckless."

"Yeah, no prob."

Tora signalled the start of the fight with a leap up and forward, pouncing down on Sam's position with her claws ready. The other vixen stepped back out of the range of a first swipe on the way down, but wound up having to continue stepping back as Tora comboed this into a continual assault. Speed wasn't one of Samuel's strong suits, so she improvised, forming 'gauntlets' out of twisted wire around her hands up to the wrists before catching a pair of consecutive swipes in her hands, making the wire jump off and wrap around the claws before yanking back, pulling them off of Tora's hands with her impressive strength.

Tora rsponded by leaning back and lifting off, first directing her motion Sam's way to kick her square in the stomach with both feet and and then using that to liftoff in the opposite direction, rolling and bouncing up into the air. Despite the considerable momentum behind the blow, her target barely stumbled back and didn't seem to register any pain, as expected. Tora reformed her claws on the way upward, wearing one on the right hand while holding the other in her left, and spun around to throw the latter down from her position in midair at Sam. It was knocked away by a knife on a string, which was then tossed (while still tethered) out into the air toward Tora.

Tora tucked and turned her momentum diagonally sideways-down, dodging the swinging knife and going over to the nearest wall, running along it while re-forming and throwing her left claw at Sam, where it was blocked by more metal thorns. Then she kicked off the wall and upwards, cartwheeling through the air and throwing both her weapons in succession down at Sam around the peak of the jump. The first of these was sidestepped, and the second almost evaded the same way—but bounced off of some hastily-spun wire just over Sam's shoulder instead. The other vixen swung her knife toward where Tora's trajectory was headed, and she responded by slowing her descent just enough to put the sole of her shoe on the flat of the blade and kick it in a down-away direction relative to its owner, pulling Sam just slightly toward Tora's position as a result.

The kick's equal-and-opposite force was used to send Tora straight at her opponent, capitalizing on the tiny stumble to punch Sam square in the cheek. Despite all of the momentum behind the maneuver, it felt very much like punching a wall made of solid diamond, and Tora's fist felt like it suffered far more damage than its target. She twisted aside to continue past Sam, going to land on the ground behind her, facing her.

"Aah, time out! Ow ow ow." She shook her right arm; it wasn't broken or anything, but it would sting for a bit.

Having just finished turning toward her, Sam relaxed her stance, dropping her weapon out of existence. "..Fair enough. I'd say if we we're in a real fight you'da used your claws instead of punchin' me, right?"

"Yeah. As it is—shoulda kicked, I bet."
"I'd go so far as to say you 'won' this little scuffle."

"Mmh, maybe. But if we were no-holds-barred, you could prolly just wrap me up in a cocoon of sharp wire, pull it taut, and call it a day."

"That's if I could catch ya. My eyes had a hard enough time followin' your movements, I more or less gave up on 'em after a bit. Had to trust my..ears or somethin'."

"Yeeah," Tora nodded. "I don't get fancy elemental powers or whatever, so I gotta rely on moving fast and trying to come in from unexpected angles. But it sure doesn't help that your entire body's like a concrete wall."

"Yep. I can take small-arms fire no problem," she reported. "Though Rowan gave me the impression that any vixen's weapons might be able to pierce that 'armor' much more effectively."

"Mm-hm. We gotta be careful with our 'real' weapons. I guess I could get me some 'mundane' claws for a more 'realistic' fight with ya, but then I couldn't poof them in and out of existence. It's all a big balancing act.

"So, you learn anything new from this little bout?"
"Sure," Sam said. "Don't hold on to my weapon too tight. Ain't any reason I can't recover it after."
"Yeah, and if you're fighting anything smaller than a tank, just throw a net of wire around it first and ask questions later."

"Sure 'nuff."

"I'm really itching to have a go with Warp," Tora admitted. "We've got pretty similar styles—short range weapon, powerset all about moving fast. But I can never seem to find her around."

"From what I know of her background..tough to say if she'd ever agree to a 'recreational fight'," the gray-haired vixen said. "Might be she'd worry 'bout her body defaulting to 'shoot to kill'."

"Well..maybe we could just set 'rules', like Rowan did with fire girl," Tora said. "Not including one of us 'owning' the other after, obviously."
"Might should oughta test the bounds of 'rules' like that in a less deadly way first," Sam suggested. "If it works well enough, setting 'rules' could make sparrin' safer in general, though."
"Hey, yeeaah," Tora pointed at the other vixen. "We should bring it up with Rowan or, maybe Zeno first. She's pretty receptive to weird ideas, might even know how to do that kinda 'test'."

---

With the living room otherwise unoccupied, Amory was watching the news again. It wasn't a slow news day exactly, but they didn't have any monster fights of the day to report on, which one or two stations took as a cue to catch up on a variety of "normal" news. One station decided instead to launch into an in-depth analysis of various groups of vixens throughout the country and/or world, going over their members and powers and readiness, notable past battles, what was known about them, and so on. He flipped back and forth between these options, leaving one station for another whenever a commercial break started. It would be difficult to explain it to somebody else, but—for him, this was relaxing. It felt somewhat like a return to normal.

He also traded some texts back and forth with Emma.

Rowan said there were some people who wouldn't want you around to "steal" their powers. i'm not sure they all get exactly how you "work"

um

thats okay

i mean i dunno what id do around so many people anyway!

i feel like learning T H A T many powers at once would make my head xplode x_X

heads even

anyway we had plenty of time to hang out during the day today ^_^

We did! should have a repeat performance some time

>////<

ye

Then, after a pause:

hey is l

uh

is blake gonna be ok?

He glanced at the bedroom door, still shut. Probably.

just needs some time to clear his head, i hope

---

"Hey, are you going easy on me?"

The Quinns were playing one of the numerous Street Fighter games. "Not at all. Aah, I thought I was pretty good with Akuma, too. When'd you get so good?"
"I'm not doing anything special! Just, mashing buttons!" Rory held up the controller to demonstrate her technique.
"Then I guess you have a talent for that, m'dear."
"Heheh. Isn't it just what you call 'beginner's luck'?"
"Could be. Let's have a sixth rematch, then..."

Rory pumped her hands up in the air. "Yeeaah! Best two outta three again! You're uh, doing a little better, though."
"I don't know that just barely edging out a tie on the first match qualifies as 'better', or just 'lucky'," Clark said.
"Heh! Man, I can't believe I spent my whole life missing out on this. When the whole time it was like, right here, in our house? It sorta makes me wonder what else I might've just..not paid enough attention to."
"Well, a person only has so much time to dedicate to their hobbies," he shrugged.

"I think I know the answer, but, are you at all nervous about meeting your students tomorrow?"
"Nope! I mean, what's there to even be nervous about? They know I have post-resurrection amnesia syndrome and won't know a thing, and maybe seeing their shining young faces will even jog my science memories or whatever."

"'Science memories'," Clark shook his head. "You have a way with words sometimes."

"Is that a good way or a bad way?"

"I won't answer that."

"...Are you getting bored of winning yet?"
"Eh, a little, maybe."
"You want to try playing against the CPU for a while? I need to make us some dinner."
"'Kay," she nodded. "And uh, thanks! And let me know if you want some help!"
"I should be all right, dear," he said, hugging her on his way past that side of the couch. "Thanks for the offer all the same."

She came into the kitchen a only few minutes later, huffing: "The computer cheats!"

"Heheh! I suppose the button-mashing strat has its limits."

"You sure there's nothing I can do in here?"

"Oh, let me see..."

They sat at the table—which thankfully had been vacated of boxes of armor a few hours ago—to eat. A short while into the meal, Rory suddenly paused, staring pensively down into her plate.

"Something wrong?"
"Hmn? Oh, uh, no." She looked up at him and shook her head, deliberately grinning. "I'm okay."
"Well..what're you thinking about, then?"
"Uh, just..something a little dumb, I guess."
"I'm still curious."
"Hmmnh."

"Is uh...do you know...? How much of my family's still around? I mean, my parents..?"
"You, uh, never really talked about them much. Your father refused to attend our ceremony, as far as I understood, so your mother walked you down the aisle."
"Yeah..." Right, she'd seen that on the wedding DVD.
"That is, also the last time I recall seeing her for myself. But I think you probably would've mentioned it if you'd heard about either of them being in poor health, much less dying," Clark said.

"I wonder if I have any way to contact them around here," she said slowly.

"I...can't even, remember his face, and right now...I don't remember any of what it was like growing up with them. So it makes me wonder if things were ever really all that bad, or..if it was actually just me the whole time, and I gave you a..distorted idea, from my own perspective, of how things were. Or—if he really was that bad, maybe things have mellowed out a little? I just...even though I dunno if it'll be a disaster, I'd still like to try. And...talk. Before, it's too late. I mean—if it's, not, already."

He nodded, slowly, and put a hand out onto her arm. "I'll try and help you get in touch with them. There must be something we can figure out."
"..Thanks," Rory nodded.
"Well, what are husbands for, after all?"

---

Amory recoiled slightly, sitting up and pressing into the couch cushion, when he changed the channel again and immediately saw an image of himself. Or...herself, technically.

It was one of the few frames from the Giver's youtube video, zoomed way in on the 'unknown vixen', and they were busy speculating who it might be, what her powers could be, and so on. Running with the assumption that it was a real person, they speculated she had some kind of power that made her undetectable to cameras, but whatever 'method' the Giver had used to 'record' her video (as there were obviously no cameras present at the scene) had been able to see her. Since she hadn't publicly announced her presence, they further guessed that she might even be invisible to other people in general most of the time, and had been either watching the fight from the sidelines or trying to help in secret somehow. On the pessimistic side, one of the hosts wondered if she was an ally of the Puppeteer who fled when things went south.

He relaxed and breathed a small sigh of relief. They were way off the mark; it seemed like they were also making the more tacit assumption that the VI would've publicly announced the mystery vixen's presence if they were aware of it. That would probably be what happened for anyone else—or, anyway, if Amp could fight, then she'd have been visibly present several times before now.

The bedroom door opened, and Blake walked out, crossing behind the couch toward the kitchen. Amory turned to face his roommate as he got past the couch. "Hey, are you okay?"
"Hm?" He half-turned backwards, enough to see the concerned look. "Oh—yeah, uh. Took a nap." Then he turned forward again continued toward the kitchen.
"Any uh..interruptions?" Amory called.
"Nope. Sorry, really hungry right now," he answered from inside. " I think fusing three different times took more out of me than I thought, especially with the three-way in there, and staying Lightning the whole time we waited for Emma to show up."

While it wasn't for the same reason, Amory realized he was actually fairly hungry too, and got up to prepare some supper for himself. By the time he got there, Blake already had a sandwich mostly put together.

"Anyway, sorry about earlier. I was more mad at myself than anything. Felt..kind of like I'd been tricked, but it was just my own assumptions. Or..something like that. I want to believe anyone can change, you know, but.." He shrugged. "Facts say otherwise. There's at least one point of no return, if you die."

"Well...sure."

Blake went back to the living room to eat. Amory waited until his own food was ready and he could return to the couch to join him to continue the conversation. "You, wanna change it to something else?" he offered first.
"Nah, this is fine." They'd gotten off of the subject of the 'mystery vixen' and now they were talking about 'Light's team'. "It's kind of funny watching people talk about you, who don't know you at all," he said after a few more bites of food. "Or, other people you know. Like, when they're way off?"

"Uh, I guess so. I've just realized I'm not so used to the idea of the news talking about me, either," Amory admitted. They were talking about how Light had been 'making herself look more buff lately' with illusions, and speculating why it suddenly mattered to her—if it was because she was trying to get a better public image or something. "Hey, haven't you been hiding the uh...'boosted' traits?"
"Thought I was. Well, the illusion-me was wearing those more..revealing clothes some of those times, so I guess I didn't hide the abs? Or, more accurately the illusion-body showed them? Like, I never really thought about that specific detail, so it might've 'filled itself in' with something closer to the truth, I guess," he said. "And now I actually have them in 'default' form too, so..."

"...I guess this is what everyone else sees," he said, gesturing at the TV. "If I try to imagine that's someone's only window into my life, it's...not as hard to imagine why they'd think I'd be interesting to talk to. I'm just worried I'll disappoint them. Or maybe worse, bore them."

Amory looked over at him for a second. "Still not feeling great about tonight, huh?"
"I've accepted it, it's just—still annoying. Like, oh, it's not enough that every day is stressful lately—I mean, I already had one reason to worry about going to sleep every night, and this isn't something that just might happen, it's guaranteed. But it's one night, and I..still want to help much more than I want to just find a corner to hide in somewhere."

"You won't be dealing with it alone. I'll stick with you," Amory said. "Really, I expect to pull some of the attention just from being there. I imagine just about every single person attending the 'summit' is gonna have to stop to say how cute I look."
"Pffheheh," Blake stifled the laugh, and shook his head. "Sorry."
"No, I agree, it's bound to make like half of them feel a little stupid. May break the tension a tiny bit, I hope.

"And, Rowan said sh—." He shook his head quickly for a second. "Said he'd introduce you to them too, so he'll be there to direct the subject away from anything you obviously don't wanna talk about. Either way, you're not alone. Not with the bigger stuff, either."

"I know.

"...Thanks for the reminder, though."
"No problem."

"It's really easy for me to look at it all as my problems to fix. 'My' monsters to slay, 'my' people to save. I guess, that's a little selfish too, huh?"

"I wouldn't go that far. Just remember: There's a lot of people on your side that aren't..."
"Yeah," he nodded. "That's the nice thing about being a superhero instead of a villain. You don't end up fighting alone."