Battle Vixens! - 134

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Episode 134: Vixen Party

Emma decided that she wasn't hungry enough to join the crowd pushing their way into the doors, instead waiting patiently for them to get through and planning to follow them inside afterward. Amory seemed to more or less have the same idea—or, maybe he was just waiting with her. "By the way, um...your dad has my number?" she half-asked him.

"Oh. Yeah—he, wanted it in his phone, in case of 'emergencies'. I guess he decided something was an emergency? Sorry, I guess I could've at least told you about it."
"I-it's fine, I get it. And...he didn't have anything bad to say, anyway," she said with a slight smile. "I shouldn't really be surprised you know him better than I do. Um...

"I'm probably, gonna call some of my family back, after this. Now that they know..."
"Yeah, that's probably a good idea," he said.
"It's just—would you, mind if I mentioned that we were um..I mean, that you...?"
"Not a bit. It's only fair anyway—since I told dad without even asking you."

"And..if they want to meet you..?"
"No problem at all."
"Okay. Although um.." She fidgeted with her hands a little. "A-april and Bev are both really pretty, so..."

"What, you're not about to suggest I'd fall for one of them over you?"

Emma blushed again. "H-heheh..I just, thought of it as a joke. But, didn't tell it right, I guess."

"Hey, we can go in," he said, pointing, and then hurried to catch the door and hold it open for her.

The restaurant had no single table large enough for even half of them, so instead they'd been given a cluster of tables all close enough to each other that even people sitting as far away as possible could still pretty much hear each other—fox ears or not. Light had more or less just taken a random empty seat, and so had wound up at the same table as Simon, Karis, and the Quinns. Simon had grabbed Cynthia on her way over to where Rowan (now back in human form) and Dawn were sitting, so she was here too. Emma and Amory wound up at one of the tables on the outside edges of the cluster, along with a couple of the city vixens.

Zeno waved to the two of them as they came and sat down. "Gemma! Nice to see you again."
"Um, i-it is?"
"Sure! Listen—you doing okay? I can't imagine spilling my identity unexpectedly like that, but you know..saving a life would be worth it, to me."

"Um, yeah. I guess I feel the same way..I just, kinda. It freaked me out a lot at the time."

"Well, you know—" she leaned back in her seat a little. "The VI's got people, for anything like that. If you need any help or whatever? But I guess you've already got someone to talk to, eh?" she said half-teasingly, gesturing at Amory.
"Y-yeah..." Emma just looked away shyly. Her face wouldn't show it, but...a thought, or maybe a suspicion, occurred to her. It felt like Zeno was deliberately saying that a certain way—a different way—but still badly wanted her to hear it..something which only one other person seemed to badly want her to know about. So was that really a different person, or...maybe it was the same one twice?

Well, she'd just said she didn't want her identity 'spilled'. Emma definitely wasn't about to confront her about it.

Thad was at a table with Warp, Sam, and Ning. "Say, Ning—what went down with you and the bank? I mean, I know you didn't get arrested or formally charged or whatever, but.."

"The VI has some very good lawyers," she said. "The money I stole had already been returned, of course, but there was the tiny little matter of the cost to repair all the damage done in the process. So we worked out a deal—a payment plan, pretty much. The VI's doing a little merchandising with my likeness, and all the proceeds from that pay the bank back with interest until it's all settled—then goes to me after. Think I'll put it in Nadia's college fund. In exchange, they don't press any charges or hassle me or anything. Pretty sweet, right?"

"Yeah, I guess most bank robbers wish they could get off that easy."

"You think that's impressive, how about me?" Warp said with a slightly vicious grin. "Guess dyin' and coming back helps matters, though."

A few waiters went around taking orders, interrupting the bits of chatter going on. Then Nico (who was over at Rowan's table) leaned back and waved. "Heeyy, those of you who are married—how'd you first meet? To get things started, my hubby and I were high school sweethearts~. Passing notes in our freshman classes, wanted to marry alongside graduation—but our parents said 'nope, you're going to different colleges. Pass the distance test, and then we'll see!' But we were among the lucky few who did pass!"

"Ah, yes.." Clark nodded. "Rory and I were in grad school—different subjects, but at the same university. She just, walked up to me one day a complete stranger and said, 'you're cute and you talk cute. Wanna date'?"

"'Talk' cute?" Cynthia questioned.

"He had this adorable British accent back then!" Rory said with a big grin. "You'd hardly know it now—but it does peek through sometimes."

"I pick up what I hear around me, is all. Can't help it," he said with a shrug. "Well, I'd never been on a date before, let alone asked to one, but my friends said yes for me. I suppose I should be grateful to them."

"You'd better!" Rory said, laughing.

"I met my wife overseas, during the war," Sam reported. Her table was a little farther off from Light's table, but close enough to comfortably participate in this conversation.
"Yeah, same," Ning said from right next to her. "Guess it's a generational thing."

"Well, Simon and I met at college too," Karis said. "I was halfway through my math ed major and saw this guy doing sketches at a table outside the cafeteria. I forget exactly what I said, probably something about his work looking good—which, of course, got his attention. And then I mentioned some manga I was reading at the time, and he was like: 'anime is not art!'" She gave this quote in a deep-voiced, mocking tone, practically spitting out the T at the end of the last word.

"So then she picked me up out of my chair and entirely off the ground by the collar of my shirt," Simon continued. "'Say that again, I dare you!' is what I recall. But I'm not much of a fighter—or rather, I wasn't one pre-superpowers—so I suggested that she please put me down, and we could settle the matter like civilized people instead."
"We debated for three entire months," Karis said. "Not—constantly, but we'd meet or run into each other off and on, and always have some new argument or piece of evidence to throw back and forth. Finally he gave up and admitted defeat, and we both announced relief that we'd never see each other again. 'Good riddance!' was your exact words, if I remember."
"Complete with throwing my arms up in the air," he said nodding. Then, after a pause: "We found something new to argue about two days later."

A little later, after drinks and appetizers had come out, Simon leaned forward slightly. "Say, Light—looks to me like you're in a pretty good mood for once!"
"You can tell?"

"I do have a lot of practice reading people. And you certainly seem more relaxed than the other day. Not to mention better than I'd expect from fighting to the point of fainting from exhaustion less than an hour ago."
"Yeah. I guess...I've let go of some stress. I'm gonna try to, do a little better at just accepting people's help from now on."

"Does that mean I can teach Rowan my keyphrase tomorrow?"

She tilted her head slightly. "You want to help that badly?"
"No, don't get me wrong. It's just—from listening to your friend over there," (he gestured to where Magus had been gushing about their recent fight for the last several minutes) "fusion is obviously amazing, and I am missing out on it! But I am willing to offer my support in exchange."

Simon seemed to like to box people's perception of himself in in this way, expressing a personality of "absolute selfishness" at every opportunity..but Light was starting to get the impression that it was just his strange, backwards way of being "humble". "I guess..if you want to do it that badly, it's fine," she said slowly.
"Excellent!" He then turned his attention to telling Cynthia his personal opinion about a bunch of different colleges' art departments..which she seemed a little confused and overwhelmed by, but didn't tell him to stop.

"Hey, boss?"
"Hmm?" Rowan sat up slightly, not even bothering to object to Nico calling him that. It was his own fault if he answered to it, after all.
"You've got a real serious look on your face. Something eatin' ya?"

"Uh..no. Just thinking about what I have to do tomorrow. Wondering if it'll be as bad as today, or worse..."
"Yeesh, I hope not. C'mon, let's not think about that! It'll spoil your supper. Have a fried green tomato!" she insisted, pushing the plate of appetizers at him.
"..Thanks." He'd lied, of course, but there was no way he could say what he was really thinking about.

During the fight earlier, shortly after they had fused...Light had taken an opportunity. She—rather, they together, as Wave—had deliberately thought about something, as a means of communicating it to him in a way nobody else could listen in on. An idea, a terrifying possibility that had occurred to her, and to Clark Quinn. And the Giver herself had confirmed this idea as a real possibility.

Vixens in general were capable of causing a disturbing amount of destruction. On a rainy day like today, Rowan himself could personally cause a localized flood. Ning could cause city-wide power surges, or strike an entire crowd full of people with lightning. Simon could make earthquakes; Rory could probably level buildings if she put her mind to it; Cynthia could turn a city block to ash with some effort. But this...this was on another level entirely: The possibility of nuclear annihilation in just one person's hands.

Light hadn't wanted to tell him about it just to let him know it was possible. She wanted help. It wasn't something she could do by accident. It wasn't necessarily easy; it wasn't even guaranteed to happen if she tried, and of course she never would try 'just to see'. But she wanted there to be someone else, who knew. Who she could trust. Who understood the ramifications, and could help assess whether the situation was serious enough. When was the risk worth it? And so...Wave had agreed/decided upon a term, a codename almost, for this particular use of Light's power, to be used if they ever needed to speak about it again.

"The Last Resort."

Even if tomorrow brought attacks that really were worse than today..it was still hard to imagine things escalating to that level, to where it would truly be necessary. Every other option would have to be exhausted. There would need to be a concerted effort to evacuate everyone in a wide radius to minimize the loss of life. If they did this in the city, there would be no city left afterward. The scar would remain for generations.

He certainly appreciated Light's trust, to want him to help her decide...but ultimately, he also wanted the same thing she did: To never have to think about it again.

---

It was fairly late into the evening. Dr. Brand walked out of his office, seriously considering abusing the powers associated with his mask to reach his car faster, and with less rain absorbed into his clothing. He paused several steps down the hallway, noticing a light still on nearby. It was one of the grunt workers for the research department's part of HR.

Out of a small burst of curiosity—and, certainly, concern for a coworker's health, he came and gently knocked on the door before stepping carefully inside. "Still hard at work?"
"Awwh, yeah," she nodded. "I know it's getting late—just got a bit more paperwork to fill out."
"I'm on my way out myself. You shouldn't stay too much longer." He leaned over the paperwork in question. "Are we hiring someone new?"
"Uh, well—not necessarily, but they like us to be proactive. These are a few potential contracts—different sorts of positions for Gemma," she explained. "Just in case. And—since we now know a legal name, I was asked to fill it in on all these."
Dr. Brand sighed. "I'm no lawyer, but this is almost certainly a breach of ethics. Nevertheless..I suppose this decision wasn't yours in the first place." He was about to turn and leave when the name she was writing on all of those papers caught on something in his brain.

"...Emma Hayes," he read it aloud, slowly.

"Yeah? Same last name as one of our consultants! Wild, right?"
"...Yes," Dr. Brand said slowly.

In the course of his scientific studies, Dr. Brand had gained a pretty good grasp of statistics. He knew, objectively, that with billions of people on Earth, and untold opportunities for them to run into each other in various configurations, well—any one specific coincidence might be unimaginably rare, but some coincidences happening to some people was practically guaranteed. But lately...he found that he didn't like it so much when events started to rhyme. It was just that he was all too aware of who might be the poet.

"How, exactly, did we come to employ Ms. Hayes in the first place?" he asked, trying to put some curiosity into his tone of voice.

She tapped her pen against her own head a couple of times. "Oooh, let me think...right!" she brandished the writing implement up in the air victoriously at remembering. "Frank's secretary—Opal? Biiig into fashion, said she was a huge fan of her designs. Naturally, she went through a much more rigorous screening process and everything, but that's how we first heard of her."

"I see...

"Well, I'll leave you to it. Be especially careful driving in the rain and the dark," he said, turning around to leave.

"Yeah, you too! See you tomorrow, Dr. Brand!"
"Likewise."

---

Simon stood up and waved. "Your attention please, everyone!" Then he sat down again, waving Rowan's way. "Okay, floor is yours."
He stood up slowly. "..Sorry about the interruption. I just thought it would be best to make you all aware—as I imagine many of you haven't been checking your phones much. The Giver made an announcement that there won't be any attacks tomorrow. However," he continued loudly, raising his hands to keep everyone's attention and cut off the start of a few cheers, "the same announcement also says the day after will be 'worse'. We should all, of course, spend some time resting and recovering from today's efforts, but don't forget to prepare for whatever 'worse' means." Then he dropped his arms again and sat down, allowing the people to resume the cheering and then get back to their conversations.

Not too much later, the dinner was over, Simon settled the bill in full, and everyone spilled out the front doors. Amory waved to Thad. "So, I guess you came from the same place I did, since Emma's from there?"
"Sure did. You wanna split passengers?"
"Yeah. I thought I could get Gemma and Light, and..?"
"I'll take Magus? That cool with you?" he asked the girl in the hat.
"Huh?" She seemed much more obviously tired than earlier, making even just following the conversation difficult for her. But she caught up after a second or two. "Oh, yeah—that's fine."

Light gently pushed Emma toward the front seat, taking the back for once. Just out of curiosity, she looked up how No Evil had dealt with the day's last attack. Some distant, blurry footage clearly showed the monster just barely failing to grab Lift before she'd had time to react and jump out of the way. She smiled slightly, feeling like she'd at least made the right decision when it came to that...

She was also reminded of something mildly important. "Oh, right. Braille helped us out this afternoon, and wanted help working out how her power works. We're, pretty sure we figured it out, but.."
"Yeah, if you wouldn't mind visiting her with me tonight?" Amory suggested. "Along with, maybe, the rest of No Evil or something."
"Sure," Emma nodded. "Um...excuse me a minute." She'd already been in the process of digging out her phone.

"Um..hi?"

"Emma, darling!" the woman on the other end said immediately. "Are you alright? Hurt anywhere?" She sounded decidedly mature, with sort of a 'high-class' sounding veneer to her inflection and choice of words.
"N-no no, just..tired. I, I wanted to thank you for the message...and um, also for not making it six messages."

"You really ought to thank Doris for that; it was her idea. You know how she hates to lose credit for any little thing."

"Mm-hm. I'll, call everyone back. It's just...a proceess, you know."
"Certainly! Say—I'll be coming pretty near you tomorrow for some business. This consulting job I've been doing remotely wanted me to look over some things in person. If you have some free time?"

"Yeah, I'd love to!" she said, seeming genuinely happy at the prospect.

"Uh—b-by the way uhm.."
"Yes?"
"It's just. I've recently um. There's." She blushed faintly, seeming to struggle to find the right way to introduce the concept.

"Goodness, dear, you sound positively flustered! Are you trying to say you're actually dating someone?"

"Uh—yes! Kinda, pretty seriously even. I-i-i-if you wanted to, you could maybe..meet him? ImeanIthought, he's like an only child of a single parent, so probably not used to so many people, but just, one at a time, might not be so overwhelming?"
"I would relish the opportunity to meet someone who's won your heart, love. So—let's talk scheduling, then?"
"Uh—sure!"