Battle Vixens! - 133

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Episode 133: How to Save a Life

Petra clapped, giving everyone present a brief applause—and also gaining their immediate attention thanks to most still having highly-sensitive-to-sound fox ears. "Alright alright! Excellent job everyone! Now then—dinner's on me!" she said, sweeping her arms out dramatically.

Karis turned to face her. "Wait, whose dinner?"

"Everyone! All of us who contributed something to tonight's victory. There's a place in this town I've been wanting to try for a while, so if they're still open—or if they'll open for us..."

"And, we can afford to treat this many people?" Karis said, waving at the multitude of vixens around them—not to mention, probably, Light, Rowan, Magus, and whoever else might happen to be on that end of things.

"Just this once? Absolutely! Anyway—I'm rich, I'm famous, I promised you already, we all deserve it, and I want to!"

"Pfft," Karis giggled briefly. "All right then, I guess there's no arguing with that."

"It's decided then! But while I arrange things, let's just get outta this rain!"

Miraculously, a nearby community center was one of the buildings recently saved from the tank's efforts to trample over the town, and it was even unlocked. Several of the vixens changed back as a means of drying off, and Emma did the same even though she could've used Rowan's power to do it. This was, at least, one convenient thing about not being able to hide who she really was...

Clark came in shortly behind the rest of the group, Thad trailing behind her while he shook off an umbrella, and immediately went in Rory's direction, shifting back to human form before speaking: "Are you alright?"
Rory had been sitting in a folding chair hunched over, and she sat up enough to answer. "Yeah...yeah. A little winded, I guess. Emma saved me a little trouble...eh, maybe just plain 'saved me', actually."

"That's good. Were you, going to thank her, then?"
"Uh-huh. I was..getting to that. HEY!" she sat suddenly upright and belted, waving. "EMMA!"
She jumped. "Eep! Uh..."
"My wife would like to thank you," Clark said after a brief facepalm—in a voice raised only enough to be heard. "Preferably not at this volume!"
"O-oh."

Thankfully, everyone was staring at Rory instead of her, and that only briefly before resuming their prior conversations. Simon didn't even look away from his phone. So Emma had a relatively stare-free walk over to the Quinns.

Rory gave her what was probably supposed to be an encouraging smile, although she still looked pretty weary. "Hey, I dunno if I said it properly before, so—thank you. You really, really helped, showing up when you did."
"Um..y-you're welcome. I just...I didn't want you to have to face that thing alone."
"You don't think I could've—uh," Rory interrupted herself, pushing off some kind of instinctive need to put on a bunch of bravado. "I mean, yeah, it was probably too much for me.

"..Say, I hope I haven't been too hard on you or anything."
"Uh—no? Not that I can think of," Emma said.

"That's good. I just haven't always had the nicest thoughts directed your way, I guess. I've never had any real mental issues myself—I mean, at least not before 'widespread retrograde amnesia'. So—nothing like depression, panic attacks, or whatever. And, as a scientist I'm objectively aware the people who have to deal with that kind of thing, can't always control it. Literally can't. Even so, I've got this emotional knee-jerk reaction about those issues if I don't think about what I'm doing first, like: 'why don't you just fight harder and will yourself better'? It's just that I really don't know what it's like to have your own brain sabotaging you. Sooo, if I say something out of turn in the future, sorry in advance. You can bop me on the noggin for it if Clark's not nearby to handle the job," she said, lightly knocking her fist against her head to demonstrate this.
"Uh..th-that's okay," Emma said. "It's..I think in my case, I know what makes me worse and sometimes I just, slip back into bad habits. I really could've done better today, but beating myself up over it, is one of those. So there can be this, awful cycle where I tell myself I should be doing better, and it makes me feel guilty that I'm not, so then I do even worse. But—you shouldn't ever, um, take something like that as an excuse. People still choose to do things, whatever their brain is doing. I'm still responsible for what I've done wrong."

"Eh, maybe in your case," Rory said, shrugging. "I guess Light already forgave you for trying to kill her, and it's hardly my business in the first place, right?"
"Um, I guess?"
"But you remember—when it comes to other people, the insanity defense exists for a reason."

---

Light jolted awake, all-at-once realizing that she was sitting down and trying to get up, only to bump her head against a very low-seeming ceiling. "Ow." She winced, properly sitting up as it became clear that she was in a car seat.
"Uh, sorry about that." She was, more specifically, sitting in the front seat of Amory's car, with him in the driver's seat. "You okay?"
"Yeah..just...what happened?"
"The last monster died, and then you fainted."
"Right...and, after that?" A brief look around the car found Magus, still unconscious, in the backseat.

"Ning carried you and put you in here. And I helped put Magus in the back, while Rowan got rid of all the water on everyone."

It hadn't even occurred to her at first that she was completely dry—fluffy tail and all—despite the rain still hitting the windows of the car fairly hard. "And...where'd they go?"
"Well, Simon invited 'everyone'" (he used his hands to make air quotes) "out to dinner. So they're headed that way. It's up to you if you want us to join? Or, I guess, when Magus wakes up I could drop her off if she doesn't."

Speaking of, a faint groaning could be heard from the backseat. Turning that way, Light said: "Hey, don't—!" but this warning was interrupted by what it was supposed to prevent as the mage vixen's head audibly hit the car roof.

At least it woke her up, anyway. "...Ouch." She rubbed her head through her hat.

One brief, repeated explanation later, she said: "Oh, sweet! Like a vixen party? I wanna go! Are you guys going?"
"...I guess it doesn't sound so bad," Light said. "Just remember—Amory is a friend of ours who drove us here, and nothing else."
"Uh..right, yeah. I can stick to that," she nodded. "...I think."

"Okay, settled!" Amory cranked the car, the vixens buckled up, and they started on their way.

A minute or two of quiet driving later, Magus said: "Uh, hey—Light?"
"Yeah?"
"What was the, glowy thing you did, right after I cast Sunblaze?"
"'Glowy thing'?"
"Uh—yeah. Like, with your swords? It was, blue, like on the blades."
"Blue?" Light waved her hand to one side where Magus could see it, holding it palm-up and making a small ball of blue light over float above it. "Like this?"
"Uh, no, it was—like it wasn't just the color blue, it was—and it, like.." she gestured incoherently with her hands, not quite finding the words for what she was talking about. "And! It, like, cut through the army, like they weren't even there."

"..I noticed that, but I thought it was just a strength boost or something," Light said. "Everything felt practically weightless once I was absorbing your light."

"...Huh. Maybe it was just—I mean, I was tired enough to be kinda delirious, I was still dealing with Emma's power all running around in my head...there was a lot of light around to maybe reflect off of things, including all the rain...did you see anything, Amory?"

"I was too far back," he admitted. "This was when you were both surrounded, right? Just before Rowan's car pulled up, and then I was busy with her."

"So—you don't remember putting like, a cutting blue light on your swords, then?"

"I, can't make 'hard light' like Zeno does—at least, not alone; apparently Wave can do it to some extent. So, I wouldn't even know how to make a 'cutting light'," she said.

Magus shook her head. "Maybe it was just my imagination or something..but hey, either way, you were amazing!" She launched from this into gushing about the part of the fight she'd been able to witness before passing out, and eagerly asking how the rest of it had gone.

---

The restaurant staff needed some time to get things ready, so everyone had to stand or sit around for a few minutes. The indoor waiting area was slightly crowded, not built for quite this many bodies at once, so Emma joined a few other people in waiting outside under an awning instead. It wasn't perfectly dry out there, but it was better than nothing. After a few minutes, Rowan's car showed up and—Ning walked out of the passenger seat?

"Ning? Are you okay now?"
"Yep! Doin' pretty good," she nodded, hurrying up to Emma before suddenly grabbing her into a big hug.
"Aack!" It didn't help that Ning was a little wet from running over through the rain.

"Heheh—sorry, sorry," she let go and hopped back out of personal-space range. "I heard you had a pretty rough time today—thought you could use a hug?"
"Um—that's. True. Thanks. H-how's Nadia?" Rowan walked by, casually waving her hand to pull the water back off of both of them and toss it away to one side.

"She better be asleep by now," Ning said, putting her fists on her hips. "One of my neighbors volunteered to babysit and house-sit. He can be a little soft about bedtimes, but I couldn't say no under the circumstances."

While they were talking, another car pulled into the lot, and three more people stepped out. It took a lot of restraint for Emma to not run back out into the pouring rain, and instead wait right near the edge of the awning until Amory came close enough to pull him into a hug. He was a little surprised by this gesture, but returned it after a couple of seconds, both of them staying silent for a long moment before letting go.

"Um. S-sorry," she said, "I just. We kinda. Left on bad terms, a-and.."
"It's alright. You can always come to me for a hug," he said. "Any time. Are you..feeling a little better now?"
"Y-yeah. I really just, needed to sort some things out in my head. A-and...um." She paused, deciding on the best way to put it with other people around who might overhear. "'Beryl' told me, that my help was really badly needed—in kind of a convoluted way involving..."

At this point, Emma noticed Magus awkwardly talking to Thad—who'd also come outside when she had. He'd started with: "Heyy, Magus! I'm a huge fan."

And then her response was an absolute disaster: "Uh! Y-yeah. Nice to, um. Meet a fan. Who I definitely, have never met before. Hoooww are you uh, here?" Emma could tell that this was someone Marcus knew at this point, and it seemed like it was only going to get worse if Magus kept talking.
So she hurried over to cut into their conversation. "ThisisThad!" she said, rapid-fire introducing him with an excited wave. "He gave me a ride over to help fight the tank."

"Hah, yeah. We're, acquaintances I guess? And she knew I had a sports car. You know, that could go real fast."
"Yes! That."

This seemed to break up the awkward moment, and Magus hurried to go talk to someone else, so Emma went back to where Light and Amory were. "Anyway, uh—she sent the message through him for some reason," she said at a low whisper. "Mmaaaybe just because he has a fast car and was willing to drive it really fast?"

"What exactly was this message?" Light asked.
"Um..something about the uh, 'probability of Rory surviving alone'..being really low. That's what I remember of it..."

"Hey, Gemma!" She jumped, then turned—Magus had come her way now. "Uh, sorry—didn't mean to scare ya. Just, like, I kinda sorta borrowed your power without permission? I mean I didn't exactly get a chance to ask you, I just—came up with the idea, spur-of-the-moment like, when I was talking to Light before our fight. Didn't even think about it 'till right now, to be honest."

"Um—that's okay. I told her to use it 'however she needed', and that includes lending out. I, didn't think I'd be really using it for a while, at the time. Anyway...did you find it, helpful?"

"Oh, definitely! It's really powerful."

"That's good," she nodded.

"But also uh—super overwhelming and insane! Like dude, how do you keep all of that from giving you a headache or something?"
"Well uh...I guess, maybe, having 'two brains' helps me process it all? Oh, and...I didn't get it all dumped on me at once, too. It's, a bunch of different things that I learned gradually, one at a time."

Magus nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense. Oh yeah, I did this awesome thing with like, all your weapons, where they fought the monsters off on their own all at once!? Dude, I really hope someone took some video of that I can watch back later!"

She noticed some of the city vixens milling around at this point, and hurried inside to talk to one of them. "Well..I guess she's a ball of energy...even after all that," Emma said.

"I think Magus is one of those people who runs around faster the more exhausted she gets," Light said. "We did both spend some time 'asleep', and then had some time to rest in the car. Anyway, let her have her fun. She...saved us both. Came up with a spell to make a light for me so I could keep going, and..." She sighed. "I'm aware how stupid it sounds, but that spell—the big ball of light it made, taught me something. Or...reminded me, I guess.

"I've been thinking that I needed to hold everything up on my own...that people who tell me to use their powers, or who offer to help me, or just say they want to see me succeed, are..expecting something out of me. When all they want is, to put something in."

Emma nodded, slowly. "It's, not exactly the same thing, but...I felt like I was alone, too. You...helped a lot with that, actually. With what you said before, and...also, giving me back my phone."

"Well, that's...good. I'm glad you're doing better."

"Mm-hm," Emma nodded. "You too."

"I'm...gonna see if someone will vacate a seat for me." With that, Light headed for the door to go inside.

She looked back at Amory, who had a slight smile on his face—maybe from seeing that exchange. "Soo uh...you've kinda, seen me at my worst now," she said, moving slightly closer. "I guess when I'm—when I have things together it must be kinda nice to be around me? But..."

"You don't seriously think I'm gonna give up on you just because of that, do you?"

"I'm just saying...I don't know, if it's gonna get better or worse, over time." She looked down at the ground. "Especially if I..decide to 'stay a vixen' at some point, and never actually grow older after." And if you do the same thing...

"Hey, if beating yourself down and needing someone to pick you back up again is your worst, I think I can deal with that. The best is so good, after all," he said, gently taking her hands in his and picking them up to a spot between the two of them. "Who knows? Maybe I can learn to help you out of it a little better than I did today."

Emma looked up again, feeling a slight blush come on from his touch, and giggled slightly. "H-heheh..we're both, such dorks, you know?"
He had on the sweetest, warmest smile in the entire universe. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

Both of them were jolted out of this moment by Simon yelling from a just-opened front door of the restaurant: "ATTENTION EVERYONE! WE HAVE TABLES!"