Light could feel the rays of the early sunrise coming in through the
cracks in the windows. It was still strange—it wasn't that she
could feel warmth, nor see any of the light through her eyelids; it
was simply the light itself that entered her perception. Amory
didn't seem to be up yet, or at least hadn't turned on the TV, but
her ears could pick up the radios of their neighors:
"...cold front coming in, we can expect scattered showers all day, and some severe thunderstorms in the late afternoon..."
"...shocking announcement that after yesterday's onslaught, there will be three attacks today. We reached out to the Initiative for comment..."
She groaned quietly, turning over to shove her face into the pillow.
It was going to be a bad day.
Thad had some strange questions to ask himself during his
early-morning run.
He was thinking back to the night before. After his roommate, in
adorable fox-girl form, had fallen asleep—she, a catgirl at the
time, hadn't felt right moving enough to risk wake her...especially
with her arm around Thad's waist in a light half-hug, and her head
resting on her shoulder. She'd just quietly returned the hug and
enjoyed things for a while without thinking about it too much—at
least until, nearly an hour later, she had the strange sensation of
her body starting to reverse its transformation.
It was this bizarre feeling, like something she hadn't realized she
was stretching out was getting tired and needed to withdraw itself.
She'd already lost a bit of size to her chest, and grown an inch or
so in height, when she realized it, and then she sort of pulled back
against that feeling, which seemed to slow the change—but the
return to her usual look was inevitable. She just wanted to carefully
get Magus off of her, and her head onto a pillow, so she wouldn't
wake up hugging a dude. It just—wasn't something she wanted to do
to her roommate. After that, she scooted over to the far side of the
couch and 'let go', and nearly instantly changed all the way back,
losing the tail and big furry ears just as swiftly as they'd
appeared.
He didn't wake her up until the food had arrived—or, really, it was
more accurate to say that the smell of the food woke her up. Marcus
was quick to change back, and seemed slightly awkward and embarrassed
the whole meal, hurrying back to his room to go back to sleep on an
actual bed as soon as he was full.
Thad had never disliked his looks. No, that wasn't it—he'd always
loved his looks. He worked very hard to maintain them, after
all, and he loved it when girls looked upon him with appreciation,
and other guys with jealousy. Being a fit jock was decidedly a part
of his identity, just as much as being a car buff and amatuer
mechanic, always taking good care of his baby ever since he'd first
gotten it. So...why had he enjoyed being a soft, literally
fluffy girl so much? It was a lot of new sensations that should've
been nothing short of bizarre and disorienting, but in the moment
she'd simply felt like it was..easy, natural, and even relaxing in a
strange sort of way. She'd liked having..the kind of body Thad
himself didn't really enjoy on girls; something about it simply felt
nice. Of course Marcus had admitted to liking busty girls—not that
that was any surprise anyway—but Thad's enjoyment was definitely
from more than just making the cute fox-girl blush.
And it had been with a profound sense of disappointment that he'd let
that look go. Even if Magus could turn him back, it didn't feel
entirely right to make her do that. Not if she had to exhaust herself
to do it; not if she felt even more awkward around Thad than before
as a result. It was frustrating to want something and not fully
understand why, and it was even more frustrating to know he
could have it practically any time, but also that it wouldn't really
be right.
So...what was he going to do about this? The easiest, safest
option was to do nothing: Don't make Magus turn him into a catgirl
again, and try to ease things back to relative normalcy with his
roommate. That was sort of why he'd come up with the dumb idea in the
first place, right? But...even though he liked how he was
right now, and didn't want to get rid of it or anything, the idea of
never being able to feel that way again...made him feel kind
of sad. Besides that, it felt like he'd never fully understand
even..why he wanted it in the first place, without being able
to experience it again a couple more times.
He ran back to the apartment complex, deciding: He could at least do
nothing for now, right? With even more monsters bearing down
on them, the fox-girls—including his roommate—had enough on their
plate without him adding to it. Maybe he could bring up the
idea of her turning him back again when that plate was a lot closer
to empty. Sure, it might be months or a year until then,
but...whatever weird part of him wanted to be a catgirl at least
didn't feel too impatient. As long as it was a reasonable possibility
in the future...that felt like it was enough for now.
"I'm glad you decided to talk to me again. I admit, I didn't
think we'd be doing a one-on-one so soon, though. You sure you're all
right with this?"
Cynthia looked the woman in the eyes, and nodded. "Yeah. I know
I'm screwed up in the head, anyway."
"Come on, that's not a healthy way to think about it at all. You've been through a lot in your life," she said. "These wounds take a long time to heal. To be honest, it's rare for them to go completely away. But every step you take to make things better is important, even when it's uncomfortable. Even when it hurts."
"Come on, that's not a healthy way to think about it at all. You've been through a lot in your life," she said. "These wounds take a long time to heal. To be honest, it's rare for them to go completely away. But every step you take to make things better is important, even when it's uncomfortable. Even when it hurts."
"Sure..."
She paused about as long as felt comfortable, then asked: "Well,
is there anything specific you wanted to talk about to start off?"
"...Maybe...what do you think of Donny and me? From seein' us
together and stuff? You, uh..you know what I'm askin'?"
"Sure, but...you might not want to hear my answer."
"I've had to hear and see a lotta things I didn't like lately," Cynthia said, gesturing her to go on.
"I've had to hear and see a lotta things I didn't like lately," Cynthia said, gesturing her to go on.
"Well. I can't say too much for sure from just one meeting,
after all. And I don't believe you two are doing each other any harm,
necessarily. But I did see a few signs that your relationship could
eventually hurt you—both of you—more than it helps. It
seems to me that you both needed each other, just to survive, for
such a long time that you have difficulty relating to others without
her. And she seems to badly want to protect you—now, there's
nothing wrong with that necessarily, but I'm afraid the need she
feels is stronger than is really healthy. At worst, it might make her
hurt people someday—including herself, or even you, without
meaning to."
"You're right...I don't really wanna hear that."
After a long silence, Cynthia sighed. "Since I uh..came back to
life or whatever. I been figuring out what she was up to since I,
died. She had...was startin' to have a..life. Folks who cared
about her, stuff she was doin' all on her own, you know? But then she
went and basically, killed herself by fightin' that crazy
woman all alone, I guess just so she could see me again, or have me
be somethin' vaguely like alive. I..."
She paused, feeling some tears come out and a slight sniff come in.
"I never wanted that! She oughta
know I wouldn't want that for her!" Then she took
in a slow, ragged deep breath, having felt her power lash out just
slightly, enough to form some small wisps of flame in the nearby air
and heat the air around her several degrees, and working to get a
grip on it again. "I...I made her promise to take my power and
do some good with it if...if anything happened to me. 'Cause, to make
up for what she..what we did, when we first got our powers.
But also I, I wanted her to live. Without me, holdin' her back
anymore..."
"It's not fair to yourself to say you're holding her back,"
the woman replied kindly. "You can't take everything on
your own shoulders, you know."
"I..I know. But I still feel like...since we both came back,
she's been obsessed with just—protectin' me, and nothin' else.
She's always, unless I tell her to go away, she just..follows me
around like a lost puppy or somethin'. It ain't right, for her to act
that way. I oughta be strong enough..I-I should be able to take care
of myself."
"There's nothing wrong with letting other people support you.
But you know telling me you feel that way won't do either of
you all that much good, right?"
"Sure...I know. I just...I dunno if I'm ready. If I can get the right words out...to make her understand. It ain't that I don't like her, it's...it's just..."
"Sure...I know. I just...I dunno if I'm ready. If I can get the right words out...to make her understand. It ain't that I don't like her, it's...it's just..."
"Just take your time. There's no hurry, right?"
It
will strike three times today, each at least two hours apart. Don't
allow this to discourage you; it has to get worse before it can get
better. And don't forget to eat!
Emma lay on her side, staring at the message on her phone. It wasn't
good news, sure, but it also wasn't nearly as abrupt as
yesteday's announcement. There was something almost...warm and kind
about those last couple of sentences, almost like...something Beryl
might say.
Beryl, and not the Watcher.
She shook her head, hopping out of bed and 'stepping apart' to have
four hands to make breakfast with. If the strange, immortal being
who'd handed out superpowers was getting more emotionally invested in
their survival, that could only be a good thing, right? That
part about it getting worse before it got better, however, was not
good. It sounded like something people said about incredibly
dangerous diseases, or like...radiation sickness. Was this the
worst it would get, or would it be even worse tomorrow? But they
needed to get through today to even find out, of course, so—she
wasn't going to let herself worry about that just yet.
Last night had been...fun. After meeting up with Amory and Light,
they'd introduced her to several more vixens (and, of course, their
powers), and she'd been able to help about half of them gain new
insight into just what their magic was doing. Even the ones who
already understood their abilities better than she could hope to
seemed excited to see her imitating them, like they were proud to be
helping her learn more. Or—maybe that was just how she interpreted
their happy or encouraging expressions, because it was what she
wanted to think.
Learning and using new powers was just as addictively fun as ever,
but it still came with the bitter aftertaste of worry: What if
they fall into the wrong hands? What if I get eaten again? What if
Light turns evil someday? What if I turn evil?!
She never felt like she had a good answer to any of those questions,
so she had to just push these thoughts out of her mind—and only one
of the more complicated 'culinary spells' from Beryl's books seemed
to occupy enough of her double-mind to properly distract her. At
least it looked like it would taste good, if she managed to make it
halfway work.
Rowan had been invited to an early-morning meeting of an unusual
combination from among the VI's various departments: Public relations
and tactical support. It was less of a conference, and more of a
direct presentation and announcement. Just as it was about to begin,
Simon rushed in and took up a spot standing next to the door, looking
very unhappy to have to be here so early—but, as second-in-command,
it was important that he understood this information too. Then the
person in charge stepped up to the front of the room, dimming the
lights so the projector screen could be more easily seen, and the
soft pre-meeting murmur quickly died down.
"Right. I don't want to use up too much of your time, so I'll
get to the point.
"Since the Giver began using the wiki we already had ties with
as a reference to identify the types of opponents the empowered would
soon be facing, we've been working with them to make the top matter
of the page for each 'species' as tactically-relevant and
quickly-readable as possible. The primary new feature we wanted to
make sure you are aware of is a 'classification system' which should
enable a more rapid assessment of the estimated threat, and necessary
level of response.
"Across the thousands of encounters we have access to data on,
our tactical department has noticed an unusually strong correlation
between a number of attributes: The amount of resilience a creature
has, its capacity to cause death and destruction, the difficulty
which empowered tend to have while fighting it...essentially, all of
these things appear to be tied directly to the creature's overall
'mass'.
"The strange black mist which they appear to be made out of
occurs in different concentrations in different creatures, and they
generally lose that material when they are harmed—that much is
obvious. It is clear that the amount of that material a creature is
made of, therefore, determines how much punishment it can take before
dissipating. But all of these other factors appear to be strongly
enough correlated to the amount of this 'mass' present to justify
classifying them quite broadly by entirely this metric. While, of
course, the true amount of danger one of them poses depends heavily
on the situation, this should again help to allocate resources
wisely. In order to make the information digestible, we have collated
all of the known types of creatures by estimated mass on a
logarithmic scale, and separated them into a total of four classes so
far...which means that each successive type is understood to be
exponentially worse than the last.
"The weakest of the creatures we have termed 'Class 0'. These
are generally too small to swallow anyone and become so-called
'nightmares', and also weak enough that a single one would likely be
survivable by an ordinary, unempowered human, especially if he has a
weapon handy. However, they have never to date appeared alone to
enable anyone to test this theory. At any rate, examples of these
include the small creatures that the dragon tends to spawn from
itself, or the smaller individual members of the 'swarm' last Friday.
"A notch above that in threat level are 'Class 1'. Examples of
these include the 'twins', gryphons, snakewolves, chargers,
bashers..and so on. A single one is generally not an issue for a
single empowered under ideal circumstances, but these also rarely
appear alone lately—and circumstances are even more rarely ideal.
Some of these are large enough to swallow an empowered, but in a few
cases have they actually managed to do so. Next...
"'Class 2' creatures tend to be a significant threat all on
their own, often requiring a few empowered apiece to take down. The
'shiva', 'razor lizards', and giant turtles are some local examples
that come to mind. These are the ones that most often become
'nightmares', probably because they both appear more frequently than
'Class 3', and are more capable than 'Class 1'. A typical 'Class 2
nightmare' has a threat level comparable to a 'Class 3'. Also, the
recent phenomenon of 'fused' creatures seems to tend to result in
either multiple 'Class 1''s becoming a 'Class 2', or a 'Class 1'
making a 'Class 2' even more dangerous.
"Finally, 'Class 3' creatures are the strongest we know of, the
kind that can quickly level cities if left unchecked. These include
hydras, dragons, gigaworms, hecatoncheries, and so on. Each one
requires sigificant, sustained firepower to take down. Some of the
creatures at this level can spawn 'Class 0' ones from their own
bodies. It is often inadvisible for individual or even small teams of
empowered to confront these head-on, rather than stalling them out
and waiting for backup. While these have occasionally been observed
to swallow empowered, they are already dangerous enough without doing
so that a 'Class 3' becoming a 'nightmare' is still not
enough—statistically speaking—to warrant a higher
classification."
"Apart from that announcement—since it pertains to the wiki
site, we would also like to make everyone here aware of
something...strange. Since it is playing an increasingly important
role in tactical support, the VI has been working with data companies
to secure and allocate more server space to the wiki, but some of the
sharpest bursts of activity, typically just as attacks in multiple
locations are simultaneously announced...should be too much
for it, enough to act as an unintentional denial-of-service attack. I
say 'should', because the servers have been observed to behave in
what our IT department has called an 'anomalous' fashion during these
times, with the load on the servers abruptly dropping to near-zero
when the site reports the highest number of hits, despite the site
remaining fully online. Despite some extensive efforts to track down
the source of this phenomenon, no real progress has been made...aside
from the suggestion that 'maybe the Giver did it', if that counts."
"Look.." Rory was at breakfast with her husband; he'd been
a little too tired to make something from scratch today, but as far
as she was concerned, the leftovers they were having were just as
good. "I should stay here today."
"You don't want to go back to the university? You got up and got dressed and everything," Clark said.
"Yeah. But there's supposed to be—like—three attacks today, right? I should stay on this end of town, where I can get to Ning more easily if she needs help. I'm still not much help to my students anyway—it was really nice to see them yesterday, and I am starting to remember a little more, but I think I might be better off sifting through my own research and all the basics I'm supposed to already know on a computer here than being distracted anyway. Since you and I share powers, if there's trouble at the university and downtown, we'll still have someone who can heal on both ends, right?"
"You don't want to go back to the university? You got up and got dressed and everything," Clark said.
"Yeah. But there's supposed to be—like—three attacks today, right? I should stay on this end of town, where I can get to Ning more easily if she needs help. I'm still not much help to my students anyway—it was really nice to see them yesterday, and I am starting to remember a little more, but I think I might be better off sifting through my own research and all the basics I'm supposed to already know on a computer here than being distracted anyway. Since you and I share powers, if there's trouble at the university and downtown, we'll still have someone who can heal on both ends, right?"
"That's true..." he nodded. "All right. I'll see if
one of the kids doesn't have classes this morning, maybe, to go
somewhere near downtown and support you two. And with the rest of us
on campus, we can get a group to anywhere in town reasonably
quickly."
"Sounds like a plan!" she grinned.
Around mid-morning, Blake finally came out of his room.
"Morning..."
Amory was on the couch. He sat up and turned around to face his roommate. "Hey, I thought you were gone already! Don't you have classes this morning?"
"Yyyeah...I'm skipping today." He must've just woken up, but he sounded exhausted. "I can't focus on school with..." and he made a vague gesture. "...going on."
"Well, hey, get something to eat at least!" he pointed emphatically toward the kitchen. "Have you looked at your phone yet?"
He started shuffling off that way. "Yeah. I said I'd go downtown, since uh..Gemma and Magus are on campus this morning."
Amory was on the couch. He sat up and turned around to face his roommate. "Hey, I thought you were gone already! Don't you have classes this morning?"
"Yyyeah...I'm skipping today." He must've just woken up, but he sounded exhausted. "I can't focus on school with..." and he made a vague gesture. "...going on."
"Well, hey, get something to eat at least!" he pointed emphatically toward the kitchen. "Have you looked at your phone yet?"
He started shuffling off that way. "Yeah. I said I'd go downtown, since uh..Gemma and Magus are on campus this morning."
"Hey, seriously—are you okay? You sleep alright?"
"Yeah. Going to 'that place' guarantees sleep, at least. I, uh, guess fighting fused yesterday took more out of me than I thought." He yawned. "Anyway, I really don't feel that bad. I think I just slept too much, you know? Plus, you know, the weather..."
"Yeah. Going to 'that place' guarantees sleep, at least. I, uh, guess fighting fused yesterday took more out of me than I thought." He yawned. "Anyway, I really don't feel that bad. I think I just slept too much, you know? Plus, you know, the weather..."
Amory could feel that this wasn't entirely honest, but he wasn't sure
if Blake was lying to him, or to himself. "Sure...uh, you want
me with you?" he offered.
"Nah. I can keep everyone safe, Rory can tank or knock over
basically anything, and Ning can do tons of damage fast with her
lightning magic. Between the three of us...I think the other team
needs your help more."
"Fair enough." It didn't evaporate his concerns, but at least Blake was thinking about the situation tactically. Anyway, based on his self-described role in any hypothetical fight downtown, he didn't seem intent on taking on more than he could handle right now. Amory would just have to trust his friend.
"Fair enough." It didn't evaporate his concerns, but at least Blake was thinking about the situation tactically. Anyway, based on his self-described role in any hypothetical fight downtown, he didn't seem intent on taking on more than he could handle right now. Amory would just have to trust his friend.
