Vixen Society - Cycle 12

Vixen Society

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  Beginning / Before / After / Last

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Cycle 12

"Why are you—"
"Bwuaah!"

One second, the catgirl had been way off in the distance, sitting on a bench with her friend, and then suddenly she was a foot or so away from Miles, looking very angry and saying something loud. He didn't take this jumpscare well at all, immediately jumping, flailing his arms, and falling over backwards onto the ground. Thankfully he didn't hit anything too hard when he landed flat on his back, but even the relatively soft ground was enough to make him want to sit up slowly and rub his head groaning.

"Oww..."

The girl who'd been a guy a couple of weeks ago was looking down at him with an angry expression on her face, but her ears folded down in a way that almost seemed like concern. She sighed. "You're not that hurt, are you?" Beyond that, he could hear the other girl—her roommate—laughing uncontrollably back at the bench.

"Uh..no...what..?"
"'Kay, so as I was saying—" She put her hands on her hips, appearing to need some effort to be as angry as she'd been at first. "Why are you staring at us? Huh?"

"I just—uh..." Miles stammered incoherently for a moment, noticing that the catgirl was hissing the way Beth would to say he'd better not get close or she'd claw his face up. "Y-you guys uh. Used to be guys, right? And..I mean like, how..?"
"You wanna know how we got turned into girls? Why, so you can change one of your friends and actually get a date?" Oof, she was a vicious one.
"Gawh, uh, no. I-it's for me," he said, and then completely fumbled a fuller explanation: "I-I mean, look at me. E-every time I—I mean, everyone always gets the wrong...but, if I at least looked not so..y'know, scary, then..."

The catgirl's expression softened a little bit; she let out a small sigh, dropping her hands to the sides. "I guess I can kinda see that. Well, sorry—we didn't find a magic thing that can just turn guys into girls whenever. I 'awoke' as a Neko for this to happen to me, and..something similar for Ella."

"C-could you uh, help me 'awake' or something, then?"

"I don't really..look, it's something that happens on a super individual basis. We didn't even expect it to happen, and we definitely don't have any consistent method or anything. Anyway, there's no guarantee even if you did awaken thaat you'd transform into a cute girl, and not like, stay looking mostly the same while turning into a fear demon or something...is that a thing?" she added in a small mumble afterward. "A-anyway!" She pivoted back to being angry, although still not nearly as much as before. "That still doesn't excuse you for acting like a total stalker!"

"Y-yeah..I'm sorry. Gawh, I just...you know, it's not just my looks...I'm real, bad at just..talking to people. A-and it's such a weird thing, I didn't know how to..come up to some total strangers just to.."

"Oh, stop looking so freaking pathetic already!" she interrupted him just as he trailed off. "At least get up off the ground." She struck out a hand and, when he took it, showed some surprising strength for her apparently slim build in yanking him upright. "We can..try to find something that'll help you if you're that desperate, I guess, but like..no guarantees, got it?"

"Uh, s-sure..."

---

The lawyer couldn't meet with Olivia until Tuesday, but insisted that everything would be very straightforward, and their business could be concluded within an afternoon or so. So she went about her usual routine Saturday—including having supper with Angus, but she didn't feel like it was right to mention the house to him yet. After all...it was, possible, that her mysterious Kitsune benefactor was just pulling a prank on her.

On Tuesday, she went to see him after work. He noted a few 'irregularities' and 'unusual requests' in her supposed uncle's will, but also that none of it was illegal—particularly he, the executor, wasn't supposed to enter the estate, just keep the keys, the deed, and a sealed envelope with its address and then hand them over to the beneficiary. He also mentioned that said uncle's money had been donated to various charities; the will had been quite clear that the property and its contents were the only things she was supposed to actually inherit. She just played along, signed all of the appropriate paperwork, and then drove out to the place after leaving the office.

From the outside, it just looked like some ordinary house in the suburbs, with a nice little garden and porch in the front and a fairly big, fenced-in backyard. But when the fox-girl opened the front door, she could feel the pressure of some kind of ambient magic acting on the entire building. Simply put—the inside was obviously bigger than the outside. Calling this place a house did it a disservice; it was more of a mansion.

A brief tour around found a big antechamber just inside the front door, a hallway which had several bedrooms on one side and two particularly large bedrooms on another, a library, some kind of ballroom, two of what were probably supposed to be lounges, a big kitchen, and a huge dining hall...all of which was fully furnished. Olivia couldn't believe at first any of this was real, or was really hers, but it slowly sank in throughout the tour. It also became quite clear what her benefactor had meant about needing assistance with the upkeep—it was hard to imagine how even a powerful Kitsune like herself could keep everything here tidy on her own.

Eventually she happened upon a room in the back of an upstairs hallway (because of course the place had two stories, plus a basement with what looked to be an empty wine cellar in it). The door to this room had an envelope taped to it with a letter inside; Olivia took the envelope down and opened it on her way into the room to take a look at both. The room itself was mostly empty, seemingly sized to be some kind of storage closet but with no shelving or furniture of any kind inside. It had the same kind of ornately-decorated walls as much of the rest of the house, a window in the wall across from the door, and what appeared to be a false fireplace over on one side. Most of the floor had a big, faintly glowing symmetrical symbol drawn on it, the obvious center of that symbol precisely in the center of the room. Looking it over, Olivia could feel a faint trace of magic from that symbol, which the glow seemed to be a visible expression of.

This seemed like a good time to consult the letter.

Olivia,

As previously stated, this estate requires assistance to keep up and running. The warlock who originally built it created this glyph for that very purpose. If a person stands in the center and sufficient power is channeled into the glyph, it will grant that target the knowledge, skill, and physical capabilities necessary to cook, clean, and otherwise maintain this house alone. As originally created, the spell would also cause the affected person to refer to the house's owner only as 'master' and to obey his or her commands by compulsion; I have modified the glyph to remove these unsavory effects. Such things were made highly illegal as soon as the veil was lifted, and have been frowned on for a very long time prior to that. I have detailed the full extent of the glyph's effects as it is now on the next page for your reference.

Note that the glyph will not endow its target with any particular motivation or work ethic. While it grants all of the qualifications one would need to be capable of doing the job, that job remains rather hard work, including cleaning and other such tasks which, while necessary, some people find demeaning, and so you may have some difficulty finding someone in this day and age who is willing to do such work. If you are unable to find a suitable candidate, there is an alternative method of upkeep, but you will have to supply some of your own power on a regular basis to keep it going, and will still have to manually handle a number of things yourself. I had minimal difficulty managing this estate myself, but it still consumed some of my time which I now prefer to spend elsewhere.

Enjoy your new den.

There could have been a signature at the bottom of the page, but there wasn't one. Whoever the real previous owner was evidently didn't want Olivia to know his or her name still, at least not yet. Regardless, this meant...

She was in a position to seek someone for a job. Or at least, she would be, if she could afford to pay them. Olivia frowned, crossed her arms, and thought about it for a moment before she realized: What she was paying for rent at her apartment right now would at least be a decent paycheck. That, plus full room and board, could at least be attractive to...someone sufficiently desperate. And when some of her debts were paid, or when she got a raise at her own job, then that person's paycheck could go up.

But who would be willing to work so hard for only room, board, and a somewhat meager paycheck? Who would be desperate enough for the offer to be attractive, yet also have enough of a work ethic to actually get everything done? These questions never actually crossed the seven-tailed fox's mind, because she already knew their answer. There was a fair chance that her benefactor had known the answer all along too, and was just being oblique about it as a bit of fun.

---

"Come here, c'mere!" Troy took Dennis's hand and eagerly pulled him with her to her bedroom. "Let's do it in here. Just—lie down there," she said, pointing.
"Uh, o-okay." He went to carefully sit on the side of the bed. "You seem r-really excited. Should I be uh..worried?"

"Not any more than you were before," the wolf-girl said teasingly. "I mean—if you don't want me to try this, that's fine. Let me know now and we can back out. I'd definitely hate to curse you without your permission, after all!"
"Uhh..." Still sitting, he looked around briefly, then back at her. "I mean..as long as you're pretty sure you can undo it. A-and will make sure it's undone even if you can't."
"Absolutely," she nodded confidently.
"O-okay then...you just, want me to lie down?" He turned around onto his back.

"That's it! Now let's see here..." The wolf-girl went and turned on a lamp on the nightstand, then turned off the overhead light. And then she more or less pounced, landing in a kneeling position with her knees on either side of his.

"Uhhhhhhh."
"Sorry, sorry. I'm just excited, is all," she said, grinning down at him with her tail wagging. "You're still okay?"
"S-sure...."
"Heheh..okay! Now then~..." the wolf-girl murmured in her deepest, sexiest voice, leaning down over her friend. She placed a hand on his hair. "Let's see..ah, got it! My canine curse I share with you~, so you can be a dog-girl too~." As she spoke, she slowly ran her hand through his hair.

To be perfectly honest—even though she was following along with some unaccountable instinct from start to finish—Troy wasn't completely sure this would do anything at all. Dennis's logical objections to this even being a possibility were right, they made rational sense—but it just felt to the wolf-girl like it was going to work anyway. She had allowed that feeling carry her all the way to this crucial point of actually testing it out, but she wouldn't have been too surprised or disappointed if she turned out to be wrong the whole time. Teasing Dennis this much alone would be worth it! However...it did work.

The same kind of bright red, fire-like glow that had come with the initiation of Troy's curse appeared in her hand while she brushed it through Den's hair. It spread onto his body like it was kindling and the glow was an actual fire, and by the time her hand reached what had been the end of his hair, it had already grown several inches longer. He was leaning his head up slightly, so she was able to keep her hand going, stroking its way down through his hair as it grew longer and longer, feeling its texture turn silky-soft and smooth as it flowed its way down. She even brought her hand down behind his back to keep going as it grew past his chest and waist, only taking her hand out from under him when the hair growth finally came to an end.

Now the glow pulled itself into Den's body, and he shuddered violently for a second. "A-aah..?!" Troy could see his face changing, losing all of its hair and turning soft and smooth, and she had a strong suspicion that the rest of his body hair and skin was suffering much the same fate. "Ah, m-mnnh..?!" She decided to gently stroke the hair trailing across the side of his face next, making his blush brighten even more, and watched as the next step of the change hit him.

"M-mnnn...ah, aa~aah...!" He squirmed awkwardly around as his body began to shrink, slowly at first but then going faster and faster. "Aa~aa~aah..!" As his face grew small and round, his body shorter and slimmer, his shoulders narrowed and his arms and legs thinned, Den's voice also went through a rapid change, its pitch rising higher and higher each time he cried out. "O-oh, mm~mmnnh, aa~aah..!" By the time his loss of height tapered off, he had shrunk to nearly a foot shorter than the big wolf-girl, and his voice was pushing its way out of tenor range and into the feminine. And, indeed...
"Ah, w-wa~aah..!" Troy was positioned in a way that made it easy enough for her to know that Den was..pretty excited. But that part of him that displayed his excitement—that made him male—had already shrunk considerably alongside his overall shrinking, and now it was getting even smaller. "Ah, aa~aah...!" His face turned beet red as his voice lilted up into a high, cute soprano tone, and Troy could see some adorable fangs growing into place in his mouth as he continued to cry out.

"Ah—ahh, ahrrffh..!" Den let out his first canine sound, a high, cute bark, as his left ear suddenly popped itself out past his hair, immediately becoming a soft, fluffy dog ear covered in dark fur. "Rrh, rrfh!" The next adorable bark came with a matching burst of growth and change to his right ear. "Aah, aa~aah, aaah..!" By now, his voice had settled at a high, cute soprano which was nonetheless definitely the voice of an adult woman. His manhood was nearly gone by now, and the way he was squirming around made it quite obvious that he was feeling some rather extreme sensations from it as it threatened to vanish away for good.

"Aaa~aaAAaaA~aaaAAahh...!" And, indeed... "Y-yip, yip! Oh, aa~aaAAaaahhnnn...!" Den's sex now changed, at the same time as a tail slowly pushed its way out from his lower back—a short, soft, adorable puppy tail that matched her dog-like ears and the cute, high doggy sounds she'd been making.

Troy couldn't resist. She leaned down, putting her hands on the new girl's ears and starting to play with them between her fingers. "O-o~ooh..y-yip, aa~aaAAAAahhnn..!" Den squirmed violently under her, her body rapidly growing wider, more womanly hips.

As the now much bigger girl leaned down some more, she could feel the softness of some tiny breasts adorning the dog-girl's chest, and couldn't avoid making a little noise of her own as she felt them suddenly push out bigger, squishing against her own enormous pair of globes. "O-oh, mm~mMMmmn~nnnh...!"

"Ah, aah, aa~aAAAa~aaahh...!" Her slender little arms reached up, pulling Troy willingly into a close hug that pushed her growing chest even closer to the bigger girl's own. "Aah, rr~rrRRfh..! AaaAAaaA~AAAHHHNNNnnnh...!" Den squirmed and thrashed violently under Troy, helplessly crying out as her breasts grew bigger and bigger, obviously enjoying the way their new sensitivity highlighted the feeling of the wolf-girl's body now pressed down close against her own.

"W-waa~aah..rrfh, rr~rRRfh..ah, aah, AAH..!" The steady growth slowed down, giving way to a few sudden bursts that came one after another. Finally, Den's breasts gave one last push of growth, drawing from her lips an adorably high-pitched "AWROOOO~OOO!" of a howl. Troy couldn't help herself, joining in midway through with her own sexy, deep-voiced howl.

Den was left panting heavily under her as the change came to an end, and Troy found herself a little bit out of breath as well. "W-wah...T-troy..! M-mnnh..." Her cute, high, breathy voice murmured incoherently, and she lifted her head a little bit to start nuzzling the tall, curvy wolf-girl still on top of her—and still held in her slender little arms.

"O~ooh..oh, m-maa~aahnnNNNnh..!" Troy had thought it felt good being a girl when she'd first changed, but this was on another level. She pushed herself down, close, against the dog-girl, petting her ears all the more vigorously, and letting her own tail curl down to twist itself around Den's, drawing some more adorable yips. She started to return the eager nuzzling too, as she felt the dog-girl's small hands running their way slowly through her hair and along her generous curves.

"Ah, aaa~aahnn...rrfh, y-yip!" From the way Den squirmed and blushed, she was clearly enjoying it just as much as the wolf-girl. Troy leaned her head up and gently nibbled the smaller girl's ear, drawing another soft "W-wah!" from her in reply, then some soft barking, and then a reciprocation of this gesture.
"M-mm~mmMMmmnnh..!" her deep, sexy voice came out once again to let Den know she was pleased. Troy was starting to feel very different about the short, curvy girl in her arms by now—no longer as a boy she was teasing, or someone to help her with an experiment, but as hers. She felt possessive and dominant at the very same time as she mentally begged the little dog-girl for more petting, more pleasure—which Den seemed to instinctively want to provide her anyway.

They went back to nuzzling, and this time one of Den's hands found it way to Troy's ears, and the other one started stroking her tail from the base to as far down its length as she could reach. "Ah, AWH YEAH! Mmn, oo~oo~OOO~ooh...!" The wolf-girl squirmed and thrashed, suddenly feeling helpless in the face of the bliss that the gentlest touch of smaller girl's tiny, delicate hands were giving her. For as much as Den was now hers, she was starting to feel like she belonged to the dog-girl right back. That feeling got stronger and stronger the more Den pet her, the more she cutely barked and yipped and made pleased little girly sounds, the longer Troy got to feel that soft, curvy body held tight against her own...

Before they knew it, both girls were completely spent. Troy was panting heavily, her nose on top of Den's cheeks, and the dog-girl was panting right back, her face and body feeling terribly hot underneath the bigger girl's. "M-mnnh...rrfh..." she barked softly between pants, and Troy couldn't respond with much either.
"Rrufh." She gently nuzzled the smaller girl's cheek, and pulled her along as she tumbled over onto her side. Their legs had gotten as tangled together as their tails were at some point, and she could feel soft cloth hugging tightly against Den's slender, shapely legs. There was a sleeveless sweater on her now instead of a shirt, hugging tightly against her big, soft breasts and falling far enough down her hips that her tail was flipping it up in the back. It was..pretty cute on her, probably, but Troy wasn't going to get to see it tonight. Both of them were just...far too exhausted to pull the slightest bit apart from each other.

She awoke the following morning to the feeling of sunlight on the side of her head, Den now on top of her, with both of them still holding loosely on to each other. "Rrfh," she barked low and soft, tumbling the smaller girl onto her side before peeling off of her to quickly make her way to her feet.

The dog-girl made a soft, confused "Mmnnh" sort of sound, falling onto her back without Troy holding her up, and her eyes slowly fluttered open, her face seemingly still alight with the remnants of all her blushing the night before.

"U-uh...wha..t...happened..?"

"Heheh!" Troy giggled, reaching her hands up to stretch before grinning down at the small, curvy dog-girl. "You mean you don't remember? I know I will, maybe for the rest of my life!"

"U-uh..." Den's blush immediately brightened. "Oh...uh...yeah. No, I-I remember...just."

She slowly sat up. "R-really weird, suddenly..waking up as a tiny..what? Dog girl?" She turned half-around to look at her tail, gently picking it up in a hand, as she said this. It slid off the hand and into a wag as she looked up at Troy again.

"Guess so!"

"Mmh..m-maybe it's just the...everything from l-last night talking, but...I know you said you'd take the curse back in the morning but uh..m-maybe you could leave it on me, uhm, 'till after breakfast?" Den said.
"Oh, you got it!" Troy said, grinning like she'd caught a big rabbit. "You're gonna have to wait on the shower, though!"

"H-hey!" The wolf-girl had already run into the bathroom and shut the door before Den could raise any real objection, leaving her alone with her new body for a little bit.

---

After work, Vincent waited in the parking lot for a minute or two, until she spotted her catboy approaching with another guy, a brown-haired man slightly on the tall side who looked fairly fit. He was wearing a t-shirt with what looked to her like a brightly-colored cartoon animal character on it, and he looked very excited to see her.

"Hiii! So, so...! This is Ryker. Ryker, Vincent."

"Hey."
"H-hi!" He was also fairly nervous. "D-dude, you're like, a Kitsune?!"
"Pretty much."
"Four tails, too? You guys're supposed to get super powerful after like, two."
"I do have some power," she said. "Luca told me you were hoping I could give you furry ears and a tail."
"Y-yeah!?"

"Well, I can do that. But I'd like you to do something for me first."
"Anything!" She wondered: Was every person in their graphic design department as excitable and gullible as Luca? Oh well, it was to her advantage in this case...and he'd be getting what he seemed to really want anyway.

"Well, Luca's moving house, and you look like you've got some muscle to spare. If you wouldn't mind doing a little of the heavy lifting?"
"Oh, dude, not at all! I work out," Ryker said, flexing one of his arms. "Plus I'm pretty good at packing stuff into boxes. I'm totally your guy!"

"..Good. Luca's place is a complete mess, so we could use an organizer anyway."
"H-hey!" the catboy protested; she reached across to tease one of his ears between her fingers, making him softly "mrow".
"Shush, you know it's true. Anyway—we're hoping to get the move done this weekend. I've already got a truck rental lined up. Once everything's out of his apartment and in the new place, I'll give you what you want."

"Awesome! You got a deal!" Ryker grinned excitedly. "Hey, can we shake on it?"

"Hmm...a 'Deal', huh? Sure." She took his offered hand, getting a strange feeling like she was signing a legally-binding contract with him. This...could be some kind of magic thing that was happening because of her being a Kitsune now. But it wasn't like she had any intention of going back on her word here in the first place. If he helped them move everything, it'd be trivial enough for her to make him furry like he apparently wanted to be. Maybe she could even offer to make him look however it was he specifically wanted to, as an extra reward.

---

The first thing Olivia had to do was move out of her old apartment, of course. With her ridiculous powers, it was pretty easy: She could practically reenact that scene from The Sword in the Stone of Merlin packing, but with less singing, dancing around, and shrinking objects. Well—she did make her furniture temporarily smaller so it'd fit in her car. At any rate, she only had to make a few trips to get everything over, and even after putting everything in what seemed like the most sensible location and re-growing her old furniture to normal, it felt like an awfully tiny amount. An emotion came to her, looking on it all, which was something like—Is this really all I had? It just felt so small all of a sudden, compared to the giant mansion.

Thinking about it, her old bed wasn't needed; she had already dove onto the huge, soft one in the main bedroom and immediately fallen in love. She had a certain attachment to her chair, but the couch seemed similarly inferior to what was already set up in the mansion, so it could go too. Since that excess furniture was more or less functional, she thought: Maybe there was somewhere it could be donated to? She'd have to look that sort of thing up; she hadn't really been in a position to donate a whole lot of anything for a long time, if ever.

Olivia then spent Wednesday night in the new place, getting accustomed to its big rooms and hallways. She didn't really have a way to use quite a lot of this space, she thought, and it was a little sad to see it all so empty. It was perhaps even a little bit lonely. Even...even with what she was planning to do soon, it still felt like it would be a waste to not use this big place for something. Well, she'd just have to think about what to do with it all...

Even though she'd turned in the keys as soon as she was done moving, the apartment wouldn't let her stop paying rent until Friday. Well, two more days wasn't too long of a wait, and then she'd finally have the former rent money free for something else. That meant she had to wait until then to hire someone to take care of this place. It didn't seem too bad after only a day or two of use, but it was easy to see how the dust could pile up. She was also quickly becoming familiar with some unusual, magic-based amenities that required their own manner of unusual upkeep. Even the whole 'bigger on the inside' thing that the building had going on apparently came from a big enchanted crystal in a hidden room in the basement that required its own special sort of maintenance now and then. If it failed, it wouldn't be in a manner which was dangerous to life or anything—but it would still be very inconvenient.

She didn't really know where to look, of course; she just set out from the gym Friday afternoon to go looking around the usual places, occasionally sniffing the air for a particular familiar scent. There was a kind of eager happiness welling up in her as she thought: Soon enough...she'd be able to make good on her Deal.

Battle Vixens! - 112

First / Previous / Next / Latest

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Episode 112: Cats in Bags

Zeno stayed with their 'test subject' on the way back to the VI headquarters, thinking to keep an eye on her until she could leave. Since the vixen who could wake people out of comas was coming, some sort of agreement had been made that that person would ride back with Dr. Quinn—so Magus would have to wait until her business here was concluded. It probably wouldn't take all that long, and just lying back on a couch taking a real nap seemed to be doing the 'artificial' vixen some good anyway.

It didn't escape her notice that something was still bugging Rowan. He watched Simon and his wife leave for home (the former promising to come back and "do his job" within an hour or two) in a way that made it clear it had something to do with them. And, while he was in between that and receiving coma victims for "treatment" and should be resting, he headed for his office instead. After seeing that Clark was going to be keeping an eye on Magus anyway, Zeno went to check on him.

He was making a call in the soundproofed room across from his office when she arrived, and then she watched him cross back to his office with the kind of focus that prevented him from noticing anything other than his next destination. So...it was probably time for an intervention, or at least an attempt at one.

Zeno stepped halfway in and knocked on the door; he'd already gotten behind his desk and started to use his computer for something, and looked up only in response to the noise. "Yes?"
"Not that I'm one to talk, but you're not exactly following your own directive to spend the rest of the day resting," she said. "You need some more coffee?"
"...No, I've had enough," he said, shaking his head.
"You wanna let me in on what's bugging you, then?"

He stared mostly in her direction for a moment, deciding whether or not he could trust her with it. Then he sighed, gesturing to close the door, so she did, leaning back against it with her arms crossed. "I don't think Simon noticed, but the monster that hurt his wife—wasn't acting normally."

"In what way, exactly? It knocked down the wall of the high school, right?"
"Yes, but—there was almost no one in that part of the building by the time it did. Karis only got caught because she had gone back to check for any stragglers, just in case. And she was already buried in the rubble—as good as dead if we hadn't arrived. But it wasn't headed inside through the hole it had made to find more people to kill. It was digging at the rubble like it knew she was alive in there. Like it was looking for her in particular."

"Huh."

Zeno thought about it for a moment. "All of the info we got from the Giver says that the monsters are extremely simple-minded. They basically act on instinct, and have no concept of strategy..nor even the capacity to learn from their mistakes. All of the data and experience we know of supports this. They attack in clear, distinguishable patterns, and often knowing the pattern of a particular 'variant' is a huge step towards fighting it effectively."

"They want to cause as much destruction and death as they can," Rowan continued for her, "inasmuch as the idea of 'wanting' applies to them in the first place. They prioritize those who can fight back. Karis was in no position to fight back. I just wanted to know whether this has happened before."
"Well, of course it has," Zeno said. "Remember the second wave? Literally everyone, including our own Petra for example. And me? Those who got powers then, were targetted beforehand. Clearly the monsters 'know' if someone has a lot of potential, or at least they can 'sense it' or something. And, at least ex post facto, I think it's obvious that Karis had a decent amount of potential."

Rowan nodded, slowly. He was agreeing with what she'd just said without agreeing with her point. "Every person I've heard of that they have targetted recently has been close to someone already empowered. Family, close friends, romantic partners. No one else I've heard of, since the 'second wave' got their powers, has been specifically targetted. Does being close to someone the Giver handed power to automatically translate into having potential? Or vise versa?"
"..Not that I know of. Well—magic isn't entirely logical in the first place, but I agree that such a correlation wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. I certainly don't see how the other way around possibly could." He nodded again—agreeing with her completely this time, because that was his own point he was hearing back.

Zeno raised a hand up to her face, placing an index finger on her cheek. "You knoooow. Maybe instead of us wringing our hands over this, you should just ask the expert?"

"What expert?"
"Theee expert?" She made a forward gesture with both hands. "You know. Just take a nap."
"Oh."
"It can't hurt to ask, right? Worst case, she doesn't show up and you still get some shut-eye."

"I suppose so..."

At this point, their coversation was interrupted by a message on Rowan's phone. After a brief glance at its screen he nodded, standing up. "But it'll have to wait until we're through waking people up."

---

Dawn had...killed her father.

Cynthia spent a few seconds confused. In the abstract, killing someone's father sounded like a bad thing—downright villainous, even. But the news didn't hit her as hard as it should have. There was something...there had been something at the edges of her thoughts and emotions for a while now, too faint to make any concrete thoughts out of, and yet sharp enough to be a constant influence on her emotions. She never felt quite right trusting anyone, especially if that person was older, or an authority figure. Even now, after fighting alongside the others and seeing what sort of people they were, the suspicion that someone was going to stab her in the back hovered permanently in the back of her mind. Dawn was the only exception to this feeling.

But she had...killed Cynthia's father.

After a second or two, there were some tears coming down her cheeks. It progressed into quietly sobbing after a moment, mourning for someone she didn't quite fully remember. It was a complicated feeling, like a stabbing pain in her heart mixed with an overwhelming sense of relief. It was also..very familiar. Right, of course—she'd known this before. Back when she fully remembered him.

She reached a sleeve up to wipe her face. Dawn looked sad and worried, but not particularly sorry. At least, not for the act itself. Sorry she'd had to admit to it—probably a second time—for sure. "I said you'd hate me for it."

Cynthia sniffed hard, some immediate anger helping her pull out of the sobbing just enough to shakily speak. "You—s-stupid idiot! I don't hate you! I'm just...sad."

"I dunno how much you remember...he was a monster," Dawn said.

"He had a monster in him...but he was still my dad," she answered back, quietly. She still didn't quite have a full grasp of any specific memories, but the picture felt much closer to being clear.

Cynthia pushed up from her seat and sort of stumbled forward, hugging the other vixen forcefully. "I know...you only did it 'cause you wanted to protect me. It still..hurt. It still hurts." Dawn returned the hug gently and uncertainly, like she was afraid it would turn into some kind of judo throw. Cynthia waited until her sobbing quieted down before letting go, standing up straight briefly before putting a hand on the table next to her to steady herself.

"...I ain't mad anymore," she said. "I just...need a little time alone. 'Kay?"

Dawn nodded, slowly. It felt like...maybe she understood better than she used to what it was like to lose someone. Cynthia put a hand on her shoulder for a long moment, then turned and walked away, in the direction of their room. There was a gift from that morning that she wanted to retrieve, and then...hopefully find some corner of a room in the complex where nobody would notice her.

---

Rowan showed up to welcome the two vixens in the van once it got to the VI headquarters. After this, Amory was brought through some suspiciously empty hallways to a small sort of infirmary room where around ten comatose vixens were waiting. Presumably there had been some excuse made to clear people out of this particular route so that nobody who didn't "need to know" would see her. Void followed too, since she was supposedly being awakened at the same time. This way the others would presume that she'd simply been brought here like them, and woken up before them.

She stood in a corner and watched Amp work, the group of strangers in the room quickly striking up conversations—at least, those who spoke the same language. Even though some of the girls Amp woke up didn't seem to understand the words she was saying, it at least seemed like they understood well enough what was going on: She had awakened them after they'd been eaten, and now everyone was waiting here for a few minutes. Once the work was done, Rowan gestured for Amory to go to a back room and then brought in some VI office workers, including interpreters for those who didn't speak English. In the span of a few minutes or so, it sounded like everyone cleared out except for Rowan and Void...so she poked her head out the door, and confirming this was the case, came the rest of the way out.

"Everyone's left already?"
"Not quite," Rowan said. "Most are still arranging transportation. Void's team lead is on her way here to pick her up." His phone buzzed and he paused to briefly glance at it. "...She's arrived; I'll bring her here. Lift is sworn in on your existence already," he noted, then briskly left.

"...Efficient," Void commented after a moment of silence. "Done this before?"
"Well uh..I've woken people up before," Amp said. "But this is only the second time we've done a bunch of people. I guess Rowan must have made a plan for when my help was needed again, after that. Or...if not him, then someone in the VI, at least."

"Not tired?"
"Hmn?" Amp tilted her head slightly. "Oh, me? No, my power gets refreshed when I wake someone up. And...it doesn't really seem to tire me out to use it in the first place. I guess it's an advantage of having a non-combat power," she shrugged.

Both of them paused, hearing footsteps and conversation in the hallway. "..up to your discretion," Rowan's voice finished a sentence. "If you don't want to use it at all, that's also fine. But in that case, it'd be best if you send it back—we only have so many, and I'm told they aren't exactly easy to make."
"Cool, cool.." Lift's voice (which Amory recognized from the phone conversation with Light). "Well, I haven't got an answer for who to give it to right on the spot, but I'll put some serious thought into it."
"Good."

He opened the door at this point, and the blond vixen ran straight to Void, half-tackling her with an excited hug. "Void! My gosh, we really thought we'd lost you this time!"

The formerly-deaf vixen returned the hug gently, patting her on the back a couple of times. "Good to see you too, Lucy. Have some news..."
"Oh, yeah?" Releasing the hug, Lift took a couple of steps back, seeming to very deliberately create a specific amount of space between them. The reason for this became obvious when Void lifted her hands and started rapid-fire signing at her team lead, who nodded—appearing to understand it perfectly—and then signed back just as quickly. Despite her crash course earlier, Amp couldn't follow this silent conversation at all.

After watching this for a few seconds, Amp turned back to Rowan. "So uh..guess my work's done here?"
"Right," he nodded. "It would be best for you to use human form in the more public areas."

"'Kay."

Seemingly done talking to Void for the moment, Lift came over to the two of them. "Hey, thanks for waking her up," she said to Amp. "No need to worry, I'm sworn to secrecy about you and all."
"No problem~," she replied cheerfully.
"Hah, seems to me like you're more of a 'Waker' than a 'Dreamer' though, eh?" She then immediately changed both her subject and who she was addressing: "Yo, Rowan—Void tells me you've got a vixen here with a disability? By the name of Sam? Think you could introduce me real quick?"
"I'll have to see where she is..but that shouldn't be an issue," he said.

---

Once all of the VI's visitors had been seen off, Rowan headed to his room for a much-needed nap. There was still a lot more business to conduct today, but it wouldn't do any good to run himself into the ground. Besides which, there was one bit of business that he could only conduct while he slept...

Standing over the bed, he spoke the phrase to change back into a blue-haired fox-girl. It always seemed like the magic that changed them had some sense of context; in this case, the clothing she wound up in was a simple nightgown, appropriate for sleep. It was a little odd, but it did save the trouble of changing clothes—or changing back after she woke up. For now, she lay down, willing herself to go to 'her' room in the strange dreamspace.

Rowan wasn't the kind of person who normally had a lot of difficulty getting to sleep, and it was doubly so after a hard half-day or so's work. She sat up in the strangely large, archaic, ornately decorated bedroom in no time at all, and turned to hop down off of the bed, instinctively stretching for a moment before remembering her surroundings again.

There wasn't any knock at the door, nor any large, many-tailed fox-woman already waiting for her in the room. The Giver probably knew that she had a question to ask, so..did this mean that she didn't want to answer? Or that she'd prefer to answer over twitter, maybe? It was just as likely that she was simply waiting a while before showing up to mess with Rowan.

She went up to the door, thinking: When Amory wanted to connect two people's dream spaces, all she had to do was knock on the door. What would happen if somone else knocked, from the inside? If nothing else had gotten that woman's attention, then maybe this wouldn't either...but it couldn't hurt to try. She raised her hand and tried a formal, loud few knocks, and then waited, crossing her arms, for a moment.

Even though it was the result she wanted, and perhaps even expected, Rowan was still slightly startled when the door opened. She recovered quickly enough to take a couple of steps back as the tall woman who owned the dream space stood on the other side, placing her far enough away to look up at her face. "Hello there~." She had the usual kind of smug grin on. "You wanted to ask me something?"

"Correct." Logically, there should be something—somewhere on the other side of the door for the Giver to be standing in. But Rowan couldn't make out anything other than the fox-woman herself. She'd gotten a little more used to the lack of logic in this dream space since her first couple of encounters with it, however, and so continued without much pause: "I assume you also already know what it is."

"Well, sure, but just spitting information at someone isn't nearly as fun as having an actual conversation," she replied. "Won't you invite me in?"
"..Please come in." Rowan made a point to move aside. "I was under the impression this place was entirely 'yours' to begin with."

"For now, but it won't be that way forever," she said, gliding inside and seeming to close the door behind her with a flick of one of her tails. "Even so—landlords don't usually barge into their tenants' bedrooms uninvited, now do they?"

"I'd offer you a chair, but..oh." Rowan had gone to gesture at the complete lack of chairs in the room, but found that two of them had suddenly materialized while she wasn't looking that way.

"How kind of you~," the Giver said teasingly, then seemed to disappear from standing next to Rowan and appear already seated in the larger, more comfortable-looking of the two. The blue-haired vixen just shrugged and went to sit in the other one.

After this, she went straight into her question, starting to get impatient with all of the theatrics. "It appears that the monsters are targetting those closest to people you granted powers to, to the exclusion of others who are equally incapable of fighting back effectively. This does not match any previously known pattern of their behavior, unless such persons all possess high levels of potential. As our primary source of information on the way that this threat to our world operates, I assume that you have some explanation?"

She briefly pretended to need to think about it, putting a finger under her lips. "Hmmn...why, of course I do.

"The enemy instinctively seeks out those with power, because they are the greatest threat to its aim—and because consuming them gives it access to that power, at least temporarily. It also has a sense of potential—it can 'smell' those who could soon become a threat to it, and just as instinctively seeks to eliminate them, when it finds itself in absence of any immediate threat. That is how and why it targets those with potential."

"That does not answer my question."
The Giver chuckled condescendingly. "Patience, dear, I'm getting there! You see, when someone has a large amount of magical power, and especially when they display or use it on a frequent basis, it leaves a 'trace' of itself on everyone physically near that person. It is quite faint, but in some worlds can still be used to track powerful magic users: Find where they have been and who they have been with. The enemy can 'smell' this as well, once the trace has built up on an individual for long enough.

"Now, don't misunderstand me. It isn't the least bit intelligent; it lacks the capacity to have a concept of 'friends' or 'family' or 'love'. Rather, the enemy tends to target those who it senses such a trace upon because it is too stupid to tell the difference between a trace of another, stronger power belonging to someone else, and the potential of the person the trace was left upon to possess something similar."

"In other words...it targets those closest to people who have powers, because they've left a 'trace' on the people who they are physically nearby for long periods of time."
"That's right!" She was smiling like someone who had just helped another person realize something extremely obvious. Rowan was not smiling.

"...Why did you not warn us? We could have taken measures to prevent the loved ones of those empowered from being attacked!"

"Oh, don't be ridiculous.

"What would you have done if I had? Tell every single person I gifted power to to avoid close contact with those they cared about the most? To avoid frequent contact with anyone whatsoever? How would they do that? How would you make them do that? You require food and drink largely produced by others to survive; you lose your minds from long-term isolation; your entire society is structured around living in close proximity to others.

"And even if you could find a way to make it all work in practice, do you honestly think that people who chose to quarantine themselves off from their own support systems would be better warriors for it, or that you could keep those unwilling to do so from reaching their loved ones by force? Your world would not survive such massive wastes of energy by the only ones capable of defending it, and if those in charge were halfway intelligent, then they would very swiftly realize this.

"In short, there was no use in tormenting you all with such a decision when the end result is so obvious. At least, not when it would be so tedious to watch you slowly and agonizingly make."

"..And yet you chose to tell me now."
"Well, you were curious, weren't you?" she shrugged. "Anyway, you more than most humans know what to do with dangerous secrets, now don't you?" With this, she winked, then vanished, leaving Rowan alone again in 'her room'.

It seemed much more clear to Rowan now why the Giver had gone out of her way to make her ask, instead of just telling her. She had her own sideways kind of ethics, all centered on her every action being 'fair'—was Ezekiel's opinion, at least. In this case it meant that, to her, it was Rowan's own fault for asking, and her hands were completely clean in answering that question. So what did she expect Rowan to do with this 'dangerous secret', exactly?

This didn't prove a difficult question to answer, upon giving just a little bit of thought: Bury it.