Battle Vixens! - 110

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Episode 110: Someone Else's Nightmare

Amp sat down against a building, leaning back on the wall. Plus stood next to Light, both of them waiting. "So uhh, are you two gonna fuse or what?" Rory asked after a moment.

"As last-minute as possible," Light said.
"It um..maintaining a fusion is kinda tiring," Plus added.

"Really? I hadn't noticed. Then again, Quinn didn't exactly do anything too exhausting and..."
"You have an unreal pool of energy to work with in the first place," Light said.
"Hahah..yep."

"..Anything specific I should call the fusion? Orr, tell the news about later, if that happens?"
"Uhh, sure..'Prism'," Minus said. "'Pitch' and 'Bright', if you need names for the two separate bodies for...some reason.—" "—I feel a little silly saying all of that aloud, though."
"Don't do that, own it! Cool fusions should have their own gimmicky names!"

"Sssh!" Light interrupted this conversation, pointing in a direction. All of the foxlike ears in the vicinity turned to listen that way, and heard a rush of air gradually growing in volume. Plus turned toward her and nodded; Light tried putting an arm over her in a side-hug and whispered the appropriate keyphrase, her body seemingly shifting into a brilliant white glow and entering Plus as a result. Minus's appearance changed through what seemed like a brief pulse of darkness surrounding it, and then each body had two tails and a certain mixture of traits.

Bright and Pitch alternated taking deep breaths for a moment, both looking up into the sky in the general direction of the monster's audible approach. Before long it arrived: a giant black winged shape against the sky, bringing with it a sonic boom as it passed by above. The clouds it passed by seemed to be twisted and thrown out of shape well ahead of the front of its body—pulled toward it, like it was somehow disturbing the air in front of it before it even arrived.

The first thing Prism did was grab the sound of the sonic boom as it came from above them, turning it into some electricity and sending it up through the recently-twisted clouds. Something about Ning's power and the way she used it seemed to make it easier to amplify a pulse of electricity up there rather than doing it in one's hand, and when the giant bird twisted around to come in for a dive, a flash of some ten bolts of midair lightning converged in on it, the noise of resulting thunder recycled into some accompanying flames.

By now she had a good enough idea of how it was moving so fast. Whoever it had eaten had a "vacuum" sort of power, similar to the opposite of Serra's wind blades. It used that to force air from in front of it back into it and along its wings, catching that to pick up more and more speed. Normally, a 'natural' power would have too strong of a grip over its own element for her to do anything with—but with the combined effort of Bright imitating this newly-seen power's "trick" and Pitch using the opposite of Serra's, she was able to catch the 'air-pulling' effect just after the big bird had used its power on that air and redirect most of it into a wind pushing the other way, resulting in a chaotic turbulence that made its outspread wings nearly useless. In this way, its very first attempt at a dive turned into a clumsy, twirling crash toward the ground, and Prism and Rory had to scramble to stay out of the way of the resulting rough landing.

After crashing and tumbling along the road briefly, it quickly picked itself up where they could more easily see its features. It had managed such a fast recovery in part due to having not just two, but five legs, attached in scattered places along its underside, and all ending in giant, taloned feet. It opened its wings and raised its head and screeched, its "beak" opening sideways (left-and-right rather than up-and-down) and revealing giant, razor-sharp teeth all along its inside.

"Why does it have teeth?!" Bright asked. "They always have teeth," Pitch answered. She was already busy muting its screech and putting illusions of all three of them right in front of it for it to attack while remaining on both sides of it herself, looking out for whatever it was about to do next. Rory seemed to be headed for its back, and—having quietly grabbed her husband's power—was now using that to weave up some glowing orange string into a rope.

It flapped its giant wings, sending a gust of air out in front of it with enough force to knock a car sideways, then "un-flapped" them, using the air that whipped in towards it when it did so to make a multitude of nearly invisible vacuum-blades at all different angles and locations shoot forward. The combination of these two should have sent anyone standing there flying and then immediately diced them into little cubes midair, but the illusions just sort of dove to the ground in a semi-plausible move to avoid it all.

"Oookaaaay..don't stand in front of it," Bright said quietly, bringing out a couple of swords to lightspeed herself next to a wing and slash away at it for a moment. This had the intended effect of getting its attention, and when it swept that wing to try and knock her away, she lightsped next to her other body—which was now behind it, and which was busy grabbing as many vacuum-blades as she could to convert into sonic pulses and sparks of flame going back the other way to hit the monster's center mass. What she didn't catch left some visible marks in the side of the building they hit, but not so deep as to require worry about its structural integrity...yet.

By now, Rory was apparently ready, and made that obvious to everyone by shouting. "Hey big bird!" She had..made herself a big lasso out of rope woven from the glowy-orange string, and was swinging it around over her head. The bird turned toward her because it had heard some potential prey, of course. "Sesame Street called, and they—uh..something about spelling?! I dunno! Yyah!" She threw the lasso, roping it square around the big thing's neck, and then pulled it tight and yanked it down, forcing the giant beast down onto the ground. It fought her, of course, thrashing and whipping its wings all over the place, but didn't seem to have the intelligence to just use a vacuum blade to cut her or the rope—thankfully.

Both of Prism descended on it, using some ranged weaponry and magic attacks to make its life miserable. "You had a lot of time to think about how to use that reference," Pitch observed.

"I know, I know, and I still totally choked it! Just like this guy's throat, hahaa!"

"They don't actually need to breathe, though?" Bright said.

"Yeah, and that is an affront to biology as a whole that I will not stand for! Whoop—!" At this point, the giant bird managed to thrash hard enough to snap the rope around its neck apart, and it immediately started skittering right toward Rory, snapping its sideways beak down to bite at her over and over again. Thinking fast, Prism pulled the light from around her, dropping her into the resulting shadow, and gave the big bird an illusory Rory (which rhymed, a tiny part of her brain(s) noted) to chase, having her go off to its right.

Closing the portal again, Bright appeared next to Rory. "You okay?"
"Yep! Never thought I'd be grateful to be banished to the shadow realm, though." Rory tried her hand at making a few puppets this time, seeming to visibly concentrate on doing..something before having them run off in the monster's direction. Pitch twisted some shadowy thorns up around its legs and tossed some exploding spores into its right wing, making it do another turn to the right to come after her and rip itself through the thorns in the process of trying to move.

By now the puppets had reached it, and they each grabbed one of its legs near the talon, working together to throw it end-over-end, from in front of them to behind them. Seeing what was going on, Prism took a moment to place every kind of spiky hazard she could think of where it was about to land, and it slammed down onto them at full force, hitting hard enough to make an impression in the concrete below.

"You can—" "—'gift' them your strength?"
"Yep! Quinn could do it, so I thought—why not me? It does take a little more effort this way, though!" The puppets went limp as soon as they'd finished the throw; Rory was already busy weaving herself a new lasso. The giant bird stood up and grabbed the limp puppets in two of its talons, crushing them into dust before starting to chase after another illusory vixen in front of it, trying repeatedly to catch her in its giant beak. "Hey, uh, how come I can talk now without it noticing?"
The area around them briefly darkened as Prism grabbed a bunch of sunlight, converted it into electricity, and sent it up into the clouds. "Sound magic.—" "—Muting you. Unless you want its attention?" Several lightning bolts rained down on the giant bird's head from above.
"Not just yet, thanks!"

It raised its beak skyward and screeched again at this point, then spread its wings, starting to pull the air around it in a way that would give it a rapid liftoff. "Nooononono...!—" "—Ohh no you don't." Prism picked up whatever air the bird's stolen power wasn't dominating and gave it a turbulent mess to go up into, so when it flapped its giant wings and lifted off it couldn't get very far skyward. It struggled against the hostile winds and managed to slowly ascend anyway, turning before going for a dive. However, it was diving in the opposite direction of the vixens because they were invisible and Bright had placed a few illusions of them off in that direction. She twisted and pushed the air around it as it dove, forcing it into another crash landing and lightspeeding Bright over to capitalize, slashing through its wings some more before it began to make its way to its feet and then going back to her original position, placing an illusion of herself in her place for it to swipe back at and try to grab.

Throughout this, she could hear the sound of a car coming up from somewhere a fair distance behind them and hastily pulling to stop, doors opening and closing, and some feet running up. It was Ning and Sam, of course. "We're here!" the former announced. "Uh..Prism, right?"

"Uh—" "—Right. Sooo,—" "—Don't stand in front of it, and keep your distance from its beak.—" "—Which is full of teeth."

"Got it~!" Ning drew out her sword and raised it skyward, sending some lightning up into the air to strike down onto it.

"Hmmn, flyer," Sam nodded, starting to pull out some wire. "I can get some net together to tie its wings up if I got the time."

"No rush—" "—we're invisible to it right now," Prism said.

"Sure, but there's the property damage to consider."

"Well, I'm ready!" Rory said, brandishing her bright orange lasso and charging off in the bird's direction.
"I'll..get you a clear shot," Bright said, carefully maneuvering the giant bird with illusions while both of Prism followed behind Rory.

"You know, you don't seem as surprised as I'd expect," Ning said, still sending the occasional bolt of lightning down on the bird.
"Fusion is...priveleged information, sure, but ain't completely unknown by now," Sam said quietly.

Ning followed the others, getting out her sheath and "loading" the sword into it. Once Rory's rope tightened around the monster's neck and she pulled it thrashing and writhing down to the ground, both of Prism started wailing on the thing with all the myriad powers and weapons at her disposal. But she stayed out of the way—anticipating what Ning was planning—so she took aim, arcing electricity around the sheath for a moment, and fired the "railgun", her sword piercing straight through one of the monster's wings to the other side, grazing along the top of its body and traveling some twenty yards farther before falling to the ground and clattering about half as far again along the road.

"You kinda missed the center mass there," Rory said.
"It's got a person inside, remember?" Ning said. recalling the blade to run up and slash into a wing a few times.
"Oh...right." Her expression was that of someone just now contemplating the potential results if the sword had gone through it just wrong.

When the rope around the beast's neck snapped apart this time, Prism was ready, and immediately pulled the light from around Rory and dropped her into the resulting shadow, out of the way of the monster's immediate retaliatory biting and grabbing. Not wanting to waste all of that gathered light, she converted it to electricity and sent it Ning's way. While slightly surprised by the sudden appearance of a bunch of sparks, the tall vixen knew exactly what to do with them, arcing them around behind her while amplifying them and then tossing them out as a massive, multi-forked bolt that landed all across the monster's body and sent black mist streaming up from it. It swept a wing at her, sending a bunch of vacuum-blades her way, and she followed a hastily placed light-prompt from Bright, diving to the ground to avoid them. An illusion of her ran off in another direction for it to chase after.

Bright lightsped next to Sam, who was nearly finished making a big net. "Listen—" Pitch waved at Rory, starting off in Sam's direction. "—Follow me." Both said: "I've got a plan."

"Ooh, a plan from the computing power equivalent of three brains?" Rory said, easily catching up as she broke into a run. "This should be good."

"It's..not really all that complicated. That bird's gonna try to fly up and dive at us again, and this time I'll let it into the air. Then slam the brakes on it when it comes in to attack, and we throw the net. Sam will have it from one side, you hold the other. Use some string to keep it together longer if you feel like it. You should put on some lightning damage resistance, though."
"Ooh, got it!" she said with a big grin and a thumbs-up.

Just about on cue—as Pitch and Rory stopped on the opposite end of the street from Sam—the bird took off into the air in the direction away from them. Both of Prism turned around, giving it some suitably-placed illusions and watching out for any surprises. Ning had stood up and dusted herself off, and now followed some not-very-subtle illusory arrows Prism had placed to go stand up against the nearest building and well out of the planned flight path.
"How'd you know it'd do that now?" Sam asked.
"You kidding? Every one of these things is like a boss in a video game,—" Bright said. "—Repeating the same pattern over and over again," Pitch finished.

"Hmn. Maybe I oughta try one of those sometime."

"They're way more fun than they look!" Rory said cheerfully.

It rose into the sky and dove down, a sonic boom roaring out that Prism had to suppress so everyone could still hear her. "Now!" both of her yelled, even though it might've looked like several seconds too soon to a casual observer. Sam and Rory threw the net up anyway, and she started making flight difficult as the bird approached the ground and tried to grab several illusory vixens in its talons, grasping only air instead. Whether it saw the net, or perceived it as an obstacle, was irrelevant, because its own momentum was too strong for it to not careen straight into it, the spiked wires digging into its body and feathers as Sam wrapped it tightly around the beast, her and Rory dragging several yards along the ground along with the net in their hands.

"Hey—I'm not dumb, and I got ears, you know?" Ning yelled over the thing's screech, pointing emphatically to one of them—in response to some more helpful arrows and lettering which Prism had placed in her vision suggesting that she have electricity flow through the net and down through Rory into the ground.

Prism ran her bodies toward each other. "Then—" "—Light it up!" Then she dove together, merging, and planted her feet, raising both her hands skyward.

The entire city block went nearly pitch dark, a flow of light from all over pouring in toward a spot a yard or so above Ning's head. An orb of light rivaling the brilliance that the sun above should've had rained electricity down onto the white-haired vixen, who reacted to this initally with surprise.

"Waaah! What, you felt the need to tell me the obvious stuff, but not that you were gonna do this!?"

She recovered before her third wird or so, putting her arms out in front of her to reflect the bolts forward instead of letting her body continue to absorb them, amplifying them substantially along the way. The electricity spread through the net, making the giant bird erupt in a plume of black mist that would've threatened to block out the nearby sun if its light weren't already being redirected elsewhere. The booming thunder and the monster's cries were both redirected into more concussive weaponry turned in toward it, slamming into its body repeatly alongside the electricity. In a matter of thirty seconds or so, the thrashing bird was looking terribly indistinct, and Rory tossed some orange string up around its body from the hand not busy holding onto the net as it threw out vacuum blades wildly, cutting pieces of the net apart. What damage it managed to do to its bindings this way, however, was too little, too late, and it gave one more pitiful cry before falling apart.

The surrounding light returned to its normal state, making it easier for everyone else to see that the monster was dying. "Hey—dismiss the net thing!" Rory called, and when Sam did so, she hurried over to catch the girl the monster had swallowed before she could fall on the concrete.

Prism had dropped her arms to the sides, and now bent over, hands on her knees, panting somewhat heavily. That...was a cool plan, and extremely effective at killing the thing efficiently and with minimal harm done to anyone, but not one to have done if they'd needed to fight something else today. In fact, there was no good reason to keep burning through energy staying together like this, so she tried to 'push'/'step' Light out, and succeeded in that person stumbling sideways out of Gemma and falling awkwardly onto her seat on the ground.

"Oof!"
"Uhm..hff..sorry!"
"No, no, we both did that," Light said, turning her head toward Rory. "She okay?"
She had in her arms a girl with dark gray hair, part of it done up into side-ponytails, wearing tight jeans and a black T-shirt with what a logo on it."Yep! Nothing but some minor bruises, and I've already patched those. Well—you know, that and the whole 'coma' thing." The logo was a white picture of an ear with a red "no" symbol stamped over it..like a 'no hearing' sign? She convulsed briefly, crying out incoherently, but of course Dr. Quinn knew how to properly hold someone having a seizure—much less something this minor. And Amp was already up and running toward them, Light keeping her activity invisible to the rest of the world.

"Hahaaa..that was awesome!" Ning had run up, and was already celebrating. She spoke between some moderate panting, obviously fairly winded from that final attack, too. "Teamwork makes the dreamwork, amiright?"
"Where'd you...hear that?" Gemma said, tilting her head well to the side.
Ning put her fists on her hips. "I do have the occasion to see lots of kids' television, remember?"
"Oh..y-yeah."

The girl who'd been inside the big bird yelled again, briefly, as Amp gently hugged her to wake her up. Rory set her carefully on the ground while she opened her eyes and blinked a couple of times, Amp kneeling to lean toward her. "Hey there..you feeling alright?"
"Uuh..." She sat up and looked around at some undoubtedly unfamiliar people and surroundings, fidgeting with both of her hands for a second before seemingly deciding against something and saying, "Hello? Where..? Uuh. Sorry." She had...kind of a strange accent, sometimes drawing out odd parts of words or emphasizing the wrong syllables. "Words, I don't know very many. Human foorrmm...'s deaf," she said, pointing at one of her ears. Well—that explained the accent.

"Oh. Lemme help," Light said, giving her some 'subtitles' saying the same. While she was at it, she briefly showed the girl an arrow pointing at Amp with a label that said this person is a BIG SECRET.

"Uh..yoouu..wake me?" she said.

"Mm-hmn!" Amp nodded. "Are you okay?" Light continued providing her with subtitles.
"Thank you..yes.." She turned her head Light's way. "..Oh. Lllight, yes?"
"That's me."

"Thanks for..text." She raised both of her hands briefly, then dropped them again. "How...here?" she said, using her right hand to point down at the ground anyway.

"The giant bird monster you were fighting swallowed you and took off our way," Ning said. "Not too sure why it did that exactly, but as far as I know the rest of your team's okay."
"Oh. Good news," she nodded. "Void..is my name," she said, pushing up onto her feet and dusting herself off. "Thank you all. All okay?"
"Yeah, that thing couldn't get the better of us!" Rory said confidently, then quickly backpedaled: "Uhh, not that that's anything against your team."
"None taken." She was following everything just fine with the subtitles. It seemed Light was right to guess that she'd just meant she didn't recognize how very many words sounded yet, and maybe also not how to physically pronounce them—not that she didn't know the words themselves.

She looked at Amp again. "Sooo..'big secret'? How everyone else wake—uh, woke up?"

"Right," Amp nodded. "Appreciate if you don't spill the beans, either. Annd, because of that, we'll have to make a show of carting you to the VI to 'get woken up', to keep up appearances. If that's okay with you?"
"Okay," she nodded. "Let No Evil know I'm okay."

"Is that uh...your team's name?" Emma guessed, and Void nodded.

"Heey, why doesn't our team have a name?!" Ning said.
"We don't need one, do we?" Light said.
"It'd be cool if we did though, riiight? We could be 'the Light squaaad'."
She was obviously joking with that one, but Light quickly said "No." anyway.

"'Quinns and friends'?" Rory pitched in.

"Seriously?"

"Hahah, not really, no."

Void, meanwhile, had turned her attention to Sam, who was just standing there watching the conversation with a neutral expression and crossed arms. Seeing the other gray-haired vixen walking up, she said, "Can I help ya with somethin'?" Even though she was mostly paying attention to her own conversation by now, Light continued providing subtitles.

"You..no leg, right?" she said, pointing at one of her own.
"I lost one, sure. Got me a prosthetic, in human form."
Void placed a hand on her shoulder. "Hon-or-ar-y member," she said, seeming to feel the need to pronounce the first word carefully. "Later, send you a t-shirt."

"Err..thanks."

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I'm not personally very fond of the narrative cliche where every stated plan has to go wrong somehow, and the ones that work aren't explicitly told to the audience ahead of time. I'm of the opinion that there's a certain kind of narrative satisfaction in seeing a plan work that's worth not having the surprise/drama sometimes. It's not even a surprise anymore if every plan fails, right? Anyway, even if a plan works perfectly, there can still be costs and consequences to its execution.

I tried to think pretty hard about how to portray Void properly, but I'll be the first to admit that I have no inkling of what it's actually like to be deaf. The "No Evil" team would have their own series if Battle Vixens was a giant franchise. As it stands, the best I can do is include them as some minor side characters. Oh well.