Battle Vixens! - 135

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Episode 135: The Cat Came Back

"Bro."

Once he had the car going down the road, Thad couldn't help asking.

"What even was that total choke earlier? I thought I set you up pretty well."

"I was surprised, and got flustered!" Magus said. "I've always been terrible at keeping secrets. Like, dude, back in high school people couldn't even tell me about a surprise party for someone else 'cause I'd take one look at that person and just get super awkward, just like that."

"That's kinda a problem if you're gonna keep maintaining a secret identity and all. You ever think about taking some acting classes or somethin'?"
"Uh..not before. It might be too late at this point, since we're kinda fighting things nearly every day.."

"Pssh, whatever. Anywho, check this out." One hand still on the wheel and his eyes still on the road, Thad dug the note he'd received inside a mask out of his pocket and thrust it over vaguely in the fox-girl's direction. "I was just chillin' on the couch, waiting to see how things were gonna go, and someone popped a mask on our doorknob. With that note in it."

"A mask?"

"Yeah, like one of those uh, Japanese festival mask things. That's how I really wound up giving Emma a ride, too."

He waited a moment for Magus to actually read the note in question. Then: "So, you think it's legit? Is it from who I think it is?"

"Well uh...so, 'Beryl' kinda is or was 'the Giver', Emma told us. Plus the capital-letter word 'Gift', and talking about like the exact probability of someone's survival like they computed it...it'd have to be a pretty elaborate prank from someone with super intimate knowledge of a lot of things to not be her," Magus said. "Did you..try that mask on?"
"Nah, I had a message to deliver. It's sittin' in our apartment now. You think I oughta?"

"Well...it probably can't hurt? I mean, uh...

"Okay, this is kinda, confidential. You won't say anything, right?"
"Sure. I mean nah, I won't."
"Okay, well, the guys who made this hat, were also working on a bunch of masks like that, that I think are supposed to do pretty much the same thing? Like, give people powers. I dunno if she maybe, stole one of theirs or made one of her own? But it might..do that. Besides, just making you look different."

"So I could end up with powers like you?"
"Well—maybe? I think it's different for every person, what kind of like, 'potential' they have, and it might depend a little bit on what you're, expecting?"

"So if I do expect it to make me look like your spell did last night, it oughta do that?"
"Y-yeah..? Probably. You really want that?"
"Sure."
"Wwwhhhyyy...?" She dragged out the word to try to express some severe confusion at the concept.

"Man, I dunno if I can explain it. Like—I like how I look now, but...I really liked that, too. There's just somethin'...nice about it. I barely understand it myself. But, just this morning, I was thinkin' about how I didn't wanna make you cast a spell over and over just 'cause of that."

"I guess it isn't really my business, if that makes you happy, dude. I can't help being a little weirded out by it, though."
"Yeah, it's weird to me, too. Still, though..."

They came into the apartment, and Thad picked up the mask, showing it to her. "So, here it is. Looks like a cat, right?"
"Huh..yeah, kinda," she nodded. "So..you're gonna try it on?"
"Sure, why not?"
"Let's, at least lock the door first."
"Oh, yeah—alright."

Soon they stood across from each other in the living room, and Thad carefully lifted the mask up to his face, pressing it on. He immediately felt a kind of rush, a pushing and pulling all across his body. It felt pretty different from how Magus's polymorph spell had, and it went much faster, but..he could definitely feel himself shrinking and softening, his hair growing out, his clothes shuffling around. In no time at all the thing between Thad's legs disappeared, a pair of panties pulled flat down there, and a skirt fluttered around some wider hips; her bust puffed out last of all, right after her ears grew big and fluffy and a tail spread its way out from her back.

She carefully pulled the mask down off her face and tossed it gently, underhand, at the couch, putting her hands together a bit nervously. Her clothes were slightly different from before too: No leggings, and a bowtied ribbon around her neck instead of an actual tie. "So uh..looks like it worked, huh?"

"Guess so," Magus said, nodding. "Do you..feel like you got any powers?"
"Hmmn..." As far as Thad could tell, her body was exactly the same as the night before: Same height and proportions, hair length, fur, and so on. She felt just as soft and fuzzy as back then, too. "I dunno? Nothing sticks out right away. I feel like I'd be better in a fight as a dude, still."
"But, it must've done something, right? Hmm..."

The fox-girl put out her hand and a shower of blue sparks had her sword appear in it. Thad couldn't help but stare at the weapon for a second, feeling her head tilt slightly. It was like it was...lit up with something, even after the sparks were gone.

Not really noticing her expression, Magus went for trying to cast some kind of spell in her general direction. "Scan?" The tip of the blade glowed slightly, then faded off after a second. Magus dismissed the weapon again. "Hmnnh..I thought I might be able to do He—uh, a thing I saw someone else doing," she said, quickly correcting herself mid-naming-someone. "But I don't really know the meaning of what I saw without something to compare it to?"

"Hey. Could you, pull that sword out again a sec? Lemme look at it?"
"Uh, sure."

Magus carefully handed the catgirl her sword, and she held it up in front of her for only a moment before flipping it around so the tip could sit on the ground and carry the weight instead of her hand. It wasn't as heavy as it looked, but holding it up like that for too long still felt like kind of a chore. Thad nodded. "Yeah, it's..there's somethin' to it. I dunno if I can really even explain. But I can, feel something, I think? Huh, hang on..."

After gently pushing the weapon back toward the fox-girl, Thad hurried into the kitchen, soon finding a butter knife. That felt 'right' somehow—another cutting implement. Magus followed her with the curiousity of someone who had very little idea of what, but knew something was going on. "Hmm~mnnh..." Holding it up right in front of her eyes with one hand, the catgirl brought the other hand up next to it and did...something that involved moving that hand's fingers carefully around. It felt like she was pulling at some strings, maybe, or tapping on a wall...after a moment, she was able to make the knife 'light up' in her eyes the same way as the sword had, only much more dimly.

"..I got a hunch. Here," she offered the knife over Magus's way. "This sounds dumb to me even sayin' it, but, try to cast a spell with it like it was your sword?"
"Um, okay?" Magus took the knife. "Uh, look away a sec." Thad shrugged and complied. "...Flash!" This word (and presumably some motions with the silverware) had an effect similar to a phone's camera in the dark. "It works. But.."

The catgirl turned around again, watching Magus put down the knife she'd worked on and pull out a different one. "...Flash?" Despite some theatric motion accompanying it, this didn't accomplish anything. She picked up the other one, and Thad had to think quickly to shut and cover her eyes. "Flash!

"So..that one doesn't work, but this one does. What'd you do?"
"I kinda..tried to do, somethin' like what was in your sword, I guess? Like, magic stuff?"

"Wait...are you saying..you enchanted this knife?!" The fox-girl's eyes lit up adorably with excitement. "Can you do something else!? Like make it glow? Or on fire?"

"Uh, whoa—heheh..I'm not totally sure I understand this stuff, but I can't do anything if you keep waving it around like that!"
"Yeah, sorry, here." She half-shoved it at Thad, who took it carefully and held it up in front of her again.

Fire sounded kind of dangerous, but a glow probably wouldn't burn the apartment down. When she'd done that thing earlier, she was just imitating what was already in Magus's sword, but this felt a little different. Her other hand 'pulled' and 'tapped' for a good thirty seconds or more, finding one configuration after another didn't work...but somehow, it still felt like she was making progress. After converging slowly on the idea of 'making light', she finally felt like she'd found it! She dropped the other hand with a grin.

"Um...did it work? It's not glowing," Magus poined out.
"Just a sec.." Thad pulled her thumb back, then tapped against the knife's handle, like she was hitting an invisible button. Immediately its blade began emitting a faint glow of light—not much compared to the kitchen's overhead bulb, but enough to find one's phone by in the pitch dark. With a similar motion, it turned 'off' again and quit glowing. She handed it to the fox-girl. "Here, you try."
"Okay.." With a similar motion, Magus achieved the same result. "..Dude!"

She turned the knife off and on in again in rapid succession, looking even more excited (and cute) than before. "You can really enchant things! Like, make non-magic things, into magic things!!!"

"So...you think this is a big deal?" Thad said uncertainly. There were plenty of people who could do magic, and apparently a pretty reliable way to make anyone able to do magic, already.
"It's huge! It's like, exactly what those magic research guys are looking for! I think! We should—I mean, you—like—" Magus had started waving the knife around frantically halfway through this, and at this point finally seemed to notice the catgirl flinching away from her in reply. So she took a deep breath, set the knife down, and visibly tried to contain her excitement.

"It's...I mean like...it's your, it's up to you if you wanna tell someone—anyone, about this or not. But if, I mean if I could do something like that, I'd be calling those guys right now to tell them about it."

"What, this late into the night?" Thad said, crossing her arms. "Those dudes must be in bed by now. We don't even have an attack to worry about tomorrow. Anyhow, you're gonna fall asleep on your feet at this rate, right?"

"I, might," she admitted, folding her ears down slightly. "If the adrenaline rushes ever stop coming, at least."

"Yeah. So, we can tell 'em in the morning. Schedule a meeting and stuff. But, for tonight...you gotta sleep.

"So—you could go back to your room, change back or whatever, or we could y'know...do things like last night?"
Magus's face flushed red. "Um..."
"Sorry—I guess that's making things weird again."
"No, that's..m-maybe just for a little bit? I, probably should actually sleep in a bed after though...lying on a couch isn't all that comfortable."
"Alright." Thad grinned. "I'll wake you up so we can both go to bed normally, then? Deal?"

"..S-sure..."

Thad spent the next couple of hours or so lying on her back on the couch with the fox-girl sleeping softly on top of her, her head over her shoulder so one of her ears occasionally flicked the catgirl's own. This was weird, sure, but...it was very nice. Curiously relaxing, even though she never fell fully asleep herself. It had taken a little bit of self-control at the beginning to not push Magus's head into her chest instead, or curl her tail up to touch the fox-girl's...but once she was asleep, Thad felt instead like this was more than good enough for now.