Battle Vixens! - 106

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Episode 106: Thoughts Into Words

Because of demand—in the form of a crowd of people forming outside the new location of Ning's shop for one reason or another—the specialty grocery store had a couple of hours' special opening, selling things out of boxes instead of properly-stocked shelves. Sam's car pulled up in the midst of this, and she got out and walked in, more or less ignoring the attention of some passers-by and customers on the way. She waited patiently for someone to finish a transaction, then walked up to the now-empty space in front of the counter.

"Miss Nelson. Or is it Gerald, or 'Ning' now?"

"Makes no difference to me," she shrugged. "Good to see you again, Corporal Langdon," she added, offering a hand across the counter. They exchanged the kind of firm, proper handshake that older gentlemen always expect.

"Just Sam's fine for me," she said. "I'm retired, after all. Anyway, feeling's mutual, even if you don't look the same as last time."

"No one ever looks the same for long, anyhow."
"Ain't that the truth."

"You wanna take up a seat back here? I think it's still at least another hour before any action."
Sam nodded. "Thank you kindly."

The ex-military vixen watched impassively while Ning cheerfuly conducted her business, speaking with old regulars, curious newcomers, and folks who were obviously only there to gawk at the famous fox-girls alike, all with a certain kind of friendly politeness that made anyone she spoke to feel like a friend. After a while, things quieted down and the store was temporarily empty aside from the two of them. Ning took the opportunity to open up the cash register and count and reorganize things, thumbing through bills like it was second nature—which it probably was. She wouldn't mind some conversation during this, Sam decided.

"Everyone wants what the other one's got," she said as an opener. "I could've taken up a nice, peaceful occupation like this if I hadn't been so stubbornly committed to my job. Wouldn't have felt so lost without my leg, maybe."

"I've found it to be a good life, for sure. I admit I was starting to get worried how long I could keep it, before—well."

Sam nodded. "They say everyone wanted something, to get these powers. Not that I couldn't hazard a guess, but—what was it you wanted?"
"The only family I had left had been kidnapped 'cause of some extra stupid criminals and a case of mistaken identity. I wanted to get her back. Not only that, but I'm sure I was having thoughts like...'if I was just younger and more full of vigor'...that sorta thing. Turns out, I couldn't even come up with a good plan after being gifted superpowers."

"Hmmh. If it ain't too private. Her parents?"

Ning exhaled in a way that said she didn't want to think about it too much—didn't want to remember—but she answered anyway: "Car wreck. Dementia took my wife. Other grandparents were already gone, and she's an only child of two only children."

"Grass always greener," Sam half-repeated. "All I wanted was my darn leg back. That, and maybe to not lose it so quick again. I've got family in spades—should've seen how blessed I am, been satisfied living out a retirement with all of them. But I just couldn't get over a bit of a limb missing."

"I can't say I know what it's like, but it's easy to imagine how irritating it'd be to suddenly lose the use of a leg," Ning said, shrugging. "Anyhow, nobody's ever really satisfied, y'know?"
"Hmmh."

"Guess I ain't the only one who wanted something that'd been missing," Sam ruminated further. "There's vixens who were blind or deaf from birth, mute for one reason or another, never even had this or that limb in the first place. You talk to someone like that, they're usually happy enough with their lot. Can't really miss what they never even had, after all. But.."
"If someone told me there's a whole extra sense that I've never gotten a chance to experience, I'd at least be curious what it's like," Ning agreed. "I wouldn't be surprised if folks are a little jealous of how good we can hear, or smell."
"I don't know about better smell being enviable," Sam said, shaking her head. "My nose picks up plenty of things 'standard' humans don't got to worry about. Back 'round the base, I could never get the smell of blood and sweat out enough to not taste it in my food. Made me not want to use this look so much."

The bell at the front rang as another few customers came in, and their conversation cut off without really ending—not that Sam had really been going anywhere with it in the first place.

---

Marcus's phone rang, and after looking for a brief nod from Dr. Bridges, he picked it up. "Hey, 'Hat'! Petra here. What up?"

"Uhhh." He hadn't really met Simon, or 'Petra', properly, so this was a fairly strange introduction. Not necessarily out of character as far as he knew, just—strange. "Not muuch...?"
"Are the research guys done with you yet? You still with 'em?"
"I don't know, and..yes?"
"Great! Put me on speaker for a sec."

Marcus gave a very confused shrug toward Ezekiel, holding the phone out toward him and pressing the speaker button. "Hey, who've we got on the line there?"
"Dr. Bridges. My colleague is busy elsewhere."
"Ezekieeel! My man." One could almost hear him pointing two finger-guns at the person he was addressing.
"We, have..met the once, I think?"

"And I'm sure I made a great first impression! Listen, listen. I'm taking Dr. Quinn and my wife—who is no longer on the brink of death anymore, thanks to him—out to lunch, and thought I should invite our other guest along while I'm at it. And, we have some news, Dr. Bridges, that you guys might find really interestiiiinnng. If you come with us, we can call it a working lunch and bill the research department."

"Uh, I actually already ate," Marcus volunteered.

"No problem! We'll just buy you a dessert or something. What do you say, 'Zeke?"
"..Don't ever call me that again. I suppose I'm game, especially if this 'news' turns out to be useful."
"Excellent! We'll meet you guys out at the entrance!" Simon hung up.

"Ssssooooo...that was a thing, huh."
"He's always like that," Dr. Brand said, standing up, "anything for a free lunch. I suppose he's never gotten out of the mindset of a broke artist, even after becoming a moderately wealthy one."

"Didn't you just say you've only met him once?" Marcus said, getting up to follow the researcher out.
"I meant that's his reputation," Ezekiel corrected himself. "Speaking of which, he'll probably ask to paint you. You don't have to say yes, but he might get annoying about it."

"Uh...paint me. Like cover me in paint?"

"No no, just..make a portrait, specifically of your vixen form. A personal project of his...which I've heard about," he added after an odd, brief hesitation. "He doesn't even necessarily want to keep or sell them; I think some of the vixens have accepted his portraits as gifts."

"Ohh. That's kinda sweet, actually," Marcus grinned. "I've never had any kinda painting of myself to hang up. Maybe I'll take him up on it!"

---

Amory and Emma found an opportunity to have lunch together. Strictly speaking, this probably didn't count as another 'date'—just two college students sharing a small table in the cafeteria in the short span between classes. She should've been hungry after the morning's exertion, but got distracted halfway through the meal and started picking at her food.

"You okay there?"

"Hmn?" Emma looked up. "Oh, u-uh. Yeah."
"Today's close call too close?"
"..Little bit. I..." She spoke significantly softer, even though nobody was eavesdropping on them in the middle of the loud, crowded eating area. "I guess it's worse in hindsight than it was in the moment? I mean, I was terrified but I knew what I, what we needed to do to get out of it. There was some panic, but it wasn't so bad.

"But now, I really think about it, and it's—what if that thing got my powers as they are now? It'd be worse, so so sooo worse than last time. But it's also, I just—feel a little selfish. 'Cause the thing that makes me feel the worst is just how close I came to having to, experience it again. Th-that...pain..." She sniffed, and wiped her eyes on a sleeve, shaking her head as if hoping to physically throw the thought out of it. "I'm, glad you're immune to them, and can't get eaten like that, and never have to really know what it's like. But I, I just can't really even find a way to fit it all into just words. I dunno how Ning was brave enough to, to fight back from the inside like she did."

"You're brave too, you know," Amory said, putting out a hand to place gently on a wrist. "Don't forget that. No matter how terrified you are, how much pressure you're under, you just keep going anyway."

She put her opposite hand over his, blushed, smiled slightly, giggled. "H-heheh...I do, huh? But, I think the terror drives me as much as anything else."

"Yeah, but the important thing is that it doesn't drive you away when everyone else needs you."

"...Thanks."

"Yoo!" Their moment, such as it was, was interrupted by a tall, blond guy coming up and loudly greeting them, making them both jump and jerk their hands back. Well—he probably wasn't trying to be especially loud, just to be heard over the crowd.

"Hey, sorry 'bout that," he said at a somewhat lower volume. "Hey, Emma, those guys leaving you alone?" Looking closely for just a second, Amory was pretty sure he recognized him.
"Uh..y-yes."
"And you weren't kidding about being taken, huh? Lucky guy, Amory!" He held a hand out to offer a fistbump, which Amory gave him.
"I'll agree with that. Thad, right? Still doing okay in your classes?"
"Yeahp, yeahp—since you got me past that wall, man. Some of the team were a little too friendly this morning, soo, wanted to make sure they'd backed off for real. Guess now I can tell 'em there's really no hope, huh?" he said with a huge, half-teasing grin.

After briefly glancing Emma's way and not getting any objection, he shrugged. "Sure."
"Well, I'll leave you two alone, then. But hey, you be careful girl—this one's a charmer!"
"Uhhmm, I've n-noticed," she said, blushing. Thad laughed it off and left, as promised.

"Soo..you know him?"
"From tutoring, yeah. I know a lot of people," Amory shrugged. "Actually, I'm pretty sure he's Marcus's roommate."
"Marc—ooh, him?" She leaned in slightly closer. "You..think he...knows...anything?"

"If he does, he didn't show it."

---

After meeting with another grad student and half-remembering the research she was doing just enough to give her a couple of gentle nudges in the right direction, Rory got up and made her way back to the faculty lounge, unlcoking the door with her key and pushing it gently open, coming inside and shutting it as quietly as she could too. It looked to be empty. "..Huh."

"..Oh, 's just you." Light appeared still looking half-asleep, curled up on a couch in the one spot hit by the most sunlight from the windows. "Hmmh." She shut her eyes again.

"Hey, hey, don't go back to sleep!" Dr. Quinn hurried over to her, prodding her in the back a few times as she spoke. "Don't you have any classes this afternoon?"

"'M skipping." Light kept her eyes closed. "Already did all my work anyway."

"Hmph." Rory knelt in front of her, reaching over to brush some hair off her face. "Not that I entirely remember, but I never got the impression you were such a delinquent. You're lucky someone else didn't come in here and try to sit on you!"

"Guess I'd get up then."

"Don't tempt me," Rory frowned disapprovingly. "Look, I came here in the first place to wake you up and remind you to eat before the next fight—preferably early enough that the exercise won't give you cramps."

"Mmmhhgh," Light softly groaned. "Auugh, I am hungry."

Rory stood upright again and offered her a hand to help her up as she rolled over, sat up and stretched her arms, ears, and tail. "Here, c'mon, I'll take to lunch somewhere close to campus. I haven't eaten yet either—too much in demand."

"Won't it look weird for you to take a student out somewhere?"
"Nonsense, I'm taking Light out somewhere. That's not weird at all, if you think about it."

"...I, guess that's fine." She took the hand and stood up, going for another, full-upright stretch afterward.

"Oof, just look at all the shedding you did. Even if nobody else finds out, I'm sure the janitors know we hold our meetings in here!"

---

Simon spread out his arms welcomingly as Marcus and Dr. Bridges approached ."You made it, great! Now look—between me and Dr. Quinn being known vixens, my wife having a tail 'cause her human form is still a little sore from getting a building dropped on it—there's no way we escape at least a little bit of attention out there in public. So the way I see it, there's two ways we could play this. Either we pretend you're a temp with the research department or something, or you could just head out with us as 'Magus'." It only became clear near the end of this speech that he was talking to Marcus.

"Uh..I guess I'll just wear the hat, then. There's totally people who might recognize me from news footage and wonder, y'know, what I'm doing way away from campus? Yeah..." He got out a hat and put it on, changing form.

"Great! Now, let's go before the next attack gets any sooner," he said, waving excitedly for everyone to follow and sweeping his way out of the VI headquarters.

"'The other two are classified', huh?" Karis remarked while they followed. "Good job keeping a lid on things, dear."
"Hey, I don't know who that is besides 'Magus'," he retorted.

---

The next lull in customers wasn't long after the first one. Ning sat back in her stool, swiveling it around to face her guest. "Do you ever regret it? Letting the military know you got powers? Letting them tell you what to do with 'em?"
Sam shook her head. "I can't regret somethin' like that. Using whatever power I find myself with to protect my family and my country—ideally the world, although that's hardly ever been possible before—is my duty. I suppose you could say I regret wanting somethin' as petty as part of my leg back badly enough for that woman to offer me power, instead of..someone who wasn't already retired."

"You're not happy getting to be young again?"

"Can't say I've really thought about it that hard," Sam said. "I suppose I have ta count that as a silver lining, at least, if nothin' else. That seem odd to you?"

"Not particularly.

"While I do quite like being young, having an opportunity to see my girl grow up into someone amazing..to be relevant and useful...I can't deny I'm paying a price for it. Everything was peaceful, and my worries were few, before she got kidnapped. Now on top of us all trying to prevent the end of the world, I've got all these other young folks to look out for."
Sam tilted her head for a second, then realized who she meant. "The rest of your team?"
"Yep. I guess it must look like they're takin' care of me sometimes, but..in the end, we all watch each other's backs."

"As it oughta be," she nodded. "Ain't so bad having more people to care for, though, is it?"
"Under saner circumstances, I'd welcome it. As it is—they're all carrying the world on their shoulders, and it does worry me a bit to see it. I dunno how anyone can be ready for that, but especially not college students barely outta high school, who prolly don't even fully know who they are yet. Rory's the only one I felt like I'd never need to worry about, and...look what happened to her."

"She died a hero, and still got to live again afterward. Not the worst fate in the world."

"You know what I mean, though."
"Sure."