A Statue in the Woods 8: Introduction

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After getting out of the car, Tyler paused to just stare at the house for a moment. "Is something the matter?" Elise asked after starting toward the door, pausing upon realizing he hadn't moved, and then turning to face him.
"Uh...no. It's just..." The house looked perfectly ordinary. It wasn't some gothic mansion; it didn't even look particularly big. It was just...a plain, average, everyday suburban house. "I didn't expect a place where super-rich demons live to look so...normal."

"I admit, it hardly fits their tastes from back when I knew them," Elise said, turning back to look at the building herself. "They must have been living here before the veil was cast off. Blending in used to be an absolute necessity, you know, at least if one wished to live around 'enveiled' humans."

"I guess that makes sense.."
"You may be surprised by the interior, however. Come, let's not keep them waiting!" she said, eagerly starting off toward the door again.
"Yeah, sure."

He'd barely pressed the button for the doorbell when the door opened. And the person waiting behind it...well, definitely fit his idea of a 'demon'. It was a very tall woman with dark green skin, bright red eyes, big curly horns poking up through some bright, grassy-green hair, and also a long, medium-thick tail ending in a sharp spike that waved back and forth behind her. Aside from all of that, her clothes were the same kind of stylish dress as Valencia had been wearing the day before, minus any jewelry. "Hello there~!" she said cheerfully. "Welcome, please come in. It's wonderful to see you again, Shigenori, and—Tyler, was it?" she said, smoothly offering him a handshake.

"Uh, yeah." The shake was a very brisk sort Tyler would expect from a high-power CEO or something like that.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance. Azlathoth—or just 'Azla', if it's easier to remember," she said. "And—that's a lovely form you've got there, Elise."
"Thank you~," the fox-girl said.

They were guided into and through a fairly big antechamber with...a bit more of the kind of thing Tyler had expected at first: Gargoyle heads and banners on the walls, and other bits of fancy, decorative stonework. When they proceeded from this room into a wide hallway with several paintings (a mixture of landscapes and portraits, the latter featuring humans, demons, and a few people of other various races) lining its walls, then eventually took a left turn into a huge dining room, his brain started screaming at him that this space didn't fit inside that house. But then, if magic could bend space to make Elise's forest a real-world lost woods, then why couldn't it make someone's house bigger on the inside?

Another demon around Azla's height—so, probably her husband—awaited them in that dining room. "Greetings," he said. He was slightly on the thinner side build-wise, had short, spiky horns rather than curly ones; his tail was thin and ended in a kind of spherical bulb; and his skin and hair were dark red rather than green. "Tezalel, at your service." He was dressed in old-school men's formal wear, and he spoke a bit more formally than his wife, with kind of a posh accent. "Dinner should be ready soon. Until then, we were hoping to entertain with some conversation. There's much catching up to be done."

"Yeah—that'd be fine. Right?" he asked Elise, who nodded. So the four of them wound up sitting, each pair across from the other, near one end of the long dining table.

"To begin with, this is Tyler," the fox-girl said, gesturing his way to introduce him once again. "He freed me from my stone prison, so I've decided to make him my Master for the time being~."

"We're more than pleased about that," Azla said. "To think we played the 'lottery' for years and came up empty..but it really only matters that someone cured you. On the other hand, I was under the impression the curse could only be lifted by a human?"
"Uh, yeah?" Tyler said, then paused. "Oh, wait—Elise transformed me after we met. The ears and tail are, uh, part of that. Does that make me...not human?"
"Not necessarily, but..I thought..." The demon woman tapped her index finger against her chin a couple of times.
"You have the aura of a Celestial," Tezalel said. "It isn't really possible for demons such as us to miss it. Perhaps Elise accidentally awakened you by way of that transformation?"

"Oh...uh. Is that, bad?" Tyler asked.
"Not at all. Intriguing, but not all that surprising. The persons who sealed her were, themselves, the descendants of Celestials," he replied.

"It would explain why I was unable to shift those fuzzy parts back to normal," Elise said. Then she reached up and gently stroked one of Tyler's ears. "I'd apologize if you didn't obviously like them~."
"Uh, w-well..."

"Still, you finally took on a Master after all," Azla continued. "Back when we first met, Shigenori said the practice was 'utterly ridiculous' and he'd 'never be caught dead with a master'! Hahah.."

"You needn't have brought that up," Elise said, folding her ears down slightly in embarrassment.

"It's, still a little weird for me," Tyler said. "A-anyway. So you've been adopting human kids, for years, just to try to unseal her?"
"Hardly that reason alone," Tezalel said. "It just seemed like something convenient to try, so long as we were already adopting."

"I take that to mean, you are still not rid of that curse?" Elise said.

"Uh, curse?"

Before the demons could answer him, their conversation was interrupted by a child's voice yelling "MOOOOOOOM!" Its owner, a little girl, ran into the room, followed by a...maybe thirteen-year-old boy, shuffling slowly in behind her. She ran straight up to Azlathoth; Tyler couldn't help but feel it extremely surreal to see a perfectly normal human child jumping up into the lap of a literal demon woman. But clearly this was 'normal' for them. Azla caught her into a hug like it was second nature.

The young girl continued her complaint: "Richard kidnapped Ken and is gonna cut his head an' all his limbs off!"

The teenage boy, who had black hair, eerie red eyes, and (even in this situation) a calm demeanor that made him seem even creepier, defended himself: "You very clearly said you 'didn't ever want to see him, ever again'. I saw no reason to let it go to waste."

"That was pretend! Barbie didn't wanna see him again! But he was gonna make it up to her with cake and diamonds and flowers!"

"Rich, dear, give Nancy her doll back. You can buy your own Ken for your art project," Azla said gently.
"Very well." He held out the doll in question (which he'd apparently been carrying) and Nancy hopped back to her feet to snatch it from him. "Perhaps Barbie can rescue him from a kidnapper."
"Hmph!" The girl just stormed off.

Richard finally seemed to notice Tyler and Elise's presence at this point. "Oh, excuse me..you had company?"

"We do indeed," Tezalel said. "This is our son Richard; Richard, this is Shigenori—now going by Elise—and Tyler."
"Shigenori?" He stared at Elise for a second, tilting his head slightly. "I was under the impression you were a man?"
"I was for a long time. But it's no trouble at all for a fox as old as I am to change every bit of my appearance," Elise said.

"I see..." His response sounded kind of neutral, but also slightly interested. After that he said, "Well, I'll get out of your way," and shuffled out of the room at about the same pace as before.

"Aah, kids," Azla said after he left, a kind of happy sigh in her voice. "They can be a handful, but they are the very best of investments."
"That's...not the word I expected you to go for," Tyler admitted. He decided it wasn't a good idea to tell them that that Richard kid seemed like kind of a weirdo—first of all because they had to know that already, and second because he couldn't think of a way to say it that wouldn't sound insulting.

"The two of us are specifically Mammon—greed demons," she explained for him. "It's hard for us to not think of most things in terms of money."

"Okaaay...so anyway, you said something about a curse?"
"Indeed. We are cursed to be unable to naturally have children," Tezalel said. Then he stood up, as if responding to some cue invisible to everyone else. "Pardon me. Dinner is prepared. I'll have it out in just a moment." And he headed off toward a doorless opening that..probably went to a kitchen or something.

"I'm astounded you've been unable to break that curse in all these years," Elise said.

"Oh, it's not that we can't, but we've chosen not to," Azlathoth said. "In the years since our wedding, we've studied curses quite extensively—hence why we were also hoping to take care of yours."

"So, I guess..someone cursed you at your wedding?" Tyler said.

"From one point of view, certainly," she said with a nod. "I should explain from the beginning: A very long time ago, before either of us were born, there was a certain megalomaniacal demon. He wanted to rule the entirety of Earth—just imagine that! When he inevitably failed, it involved some of those who'd originally supported him turning against him, and with his dying breath he cursed those 'traitors'. It was in the demons' language, but you can think of the curse as pretty much saying, 'you deprived me of what I wanted the most, so whatever it is you want the most, may you never have it'. And since it was cast with his death, it had staying power across generations. Both of us are descendants from different lines of those 'traitors'."

While she'd been speaking, Tezalel had come back with a plate of food balanced in each hand...and some kind of magical reddish glow holding up two more plates, and four cups, all floating in the air around him. He got to work setting them down one at a time, and also continued his wife's explanation: "The curse didn't appear to do anything at first; some thought it had failed entirely. But it turns out that it's simply not as well directed as he might have hoped, due to being cast by someone with the concentration of a dying man. But it's lingered in our bloodlines, and every once in a while it comes out to strike, causing some inconvenience or other for certain demons. Really, most of us demons are descendants of the traitors in some way or another by now. Azla and I made the mistake, perhaps, of declaring together that we wished to have many children, and that's when the curse struck us. It was quite a theatrical affair; some even thought it was part of the ceremony."

Azlathoth said, "The thing is, though, even a curse created by something as potent as a dying wish still only has limited 'fuel'. The more 'effort' it must expend to achieve its desired effect, the more of that 'fuel' it uses up. So, we figured, rather than forcibly breaking the curse off of us, why not instead try to use up whatever it has left by forcing it to keep working? Do the rest of demonkind a favor. And in the meantime, we can have all the kids we want by finding human children who don't have anyone else to take care of them, and adopting."

"If, one day, we do succeed in having a child who is biologically ours, then we can declare the old fool's curse finally, fully, and completely broken," Tezalel finished, sitting down next to his wife again.

"So, uh...I guess that means you're. 'Trying' to have kids pretty often, then," Tyler said.
"Indeed," Azla said with a fairly big grin. "I would dare say that the curse isn't really causing us the unhappiness it was supposed to."

"All the better for it. Now then, the first course is served."

They had some more conversation throughout the dinner—which had, as it turned out, three courses: appetizer, main dish, dessert. It was mostly casual stuff, including the Tanners trying to help Elise catch up with modern day a little bit (although she'd caught on to most things already). They listed off their children at some point: Valencia—who was running her fashion business alongside another Mammon nicknamed 'Val', which had to be confusing—her younger brother who was some kind of avant-garde artist; then a girl close to graduating high school; then Rich and Nancy, who they'd met earlier; and, finally, the (currently) youngest, Frank. They hadn't had all those kids come to this dinner to avoid overwhelming Elise and her new master—and because it'd be hard for adults to talk much with so many kids around.

The subject of jobs came up, too. Tezalel offered to find Elise some 'more gainful employment' if she wasn't satisfied with the job the Rejuvenation people had come up with for her, and made a similar offer to Tyler. When he insisted that he liked his current line of work, the two demons seemed very happy to hear it, and didn't press the subject any farther. The Kitsune said she'd keep the offer in mind, but she still wanted to at least try this job out before hopping to another one.

Eventually, the dinner was finished. They exchanged various contact information, and Azla escorted them back out the hallway and the front door. "Don't be strangers—come visit again sometime soon!" she said.
Tyler said, "Uh, sure."
"Most certainly," Elise added.

Back in the car, as they drove back home, Tyler said, "Well...they seem like a pretty happy couple."
"Indeed they are~. But is something troubling you?"
"I guess it's just, out of everyone I'd imagine having a marriage stable enough to last over half a century, demons aren't the first thing to come to mind..."

"You're thinking of lust demons, maybe—it's far more difficult for Incubi and Succubi to remain so loyal for so long, so their spouses must have quite a bit of patience and understanding. For Mammon, the mere fact that married pairs get a tax break is enough to make the idea of separating feel unpalatable. Not that that is what keeps Azla and Teza together. The two of them have been in love practically since they first met."

"Love, huh..?"

"It's a wonderful thing—or so I've heard," she said.
"Yeah. People talk about how amazing it is...I've never been sure if a feeling like that is real."

"I'd be delighted to learn that it is~."

It was...surprising, at least, for the woman who'd advanced on him so hard the past couple of days, including petting him into wolf-girl form, shifting her back into a guy so they could kiss, teaching him (her?) to dance, and plenty more petting besides...to still seem so unsure. But, it was also kind of reassuring for Tyler. Like he wasn't the only one who wasn't completely certain what he was getting himself into...

After a moment, his mind went back to a different concern. "So, uh..does being a 'Celestial' mean I have any, special powers ooorr, weaknesses, or anything?"

"Any Celestial is able to effortlessly cast 'holy' magic, which is especially effective against demons and other unnatural threats," Elise said. "And since you have the traits of a wolf, you must be more specifically an Ookami. I've never actually met one before, so I'm uncertain what abilities that entails. There are tales of Ookami being capable of incredible physical feats; making plants grow near-instantly; healing the wounded even from the point of near-death...but there is no telling which of those stories is actually true, if any."

"Okay, but uh, when you say 'effective'..."
The Kitsune nodded. "Demons such as my—shall I say 'our'?—friends back there can easily sense Celestials for the same reason prey can sense a predator. You've no need to worry about injuring them accidentally, but if we encounter any lesser demons—which are not people, are never friendly, and do not belong in this realm—that power would be a great help in getting rid of them."

"Okay, that's..good. But there's, like, no way to tell what I can or can't actually do?"

"I'm uncertain. As a fox, the powers I possess came naturally to me, or even instinctively. I suppose there must be some way to test or train one's magical abilities when they aren't so obvious. Ah—perhaps my recent employers would have some idea? They must have accidentally awakened some of those who they made young again—especially considering that the power they rely on is evidently known to be 'chaotic' and 'unpredictable'."
"Okay, cool. I guess I can, reach out some time?"

"I'd be delighted to see what my Master can do," Elise said with a sweet, winning smile.

Once they were inside the house, she followed him as far in as the living room before asking: "Say, Master—are you finished with your work for the day?"
"Huh?" He turned around to face her. "Oh, yeah, I'm pretty nearly caught up. Should be okay to take a break the rest of the night."

"Wonderful~." With that, the Kitsune hopped up at him to hug him, and he caught her into his arms more or less by reflex. There wasn't much time to think about that before she'd pushed her lips onto him for a long, passionate kiss. He paused only a couple of seconds out of surprise before joining in on it, and both of them were left somewhat breathless by the end. Then, Elise reached her arms up and gently rubbed Tyler's ears, causing a rush of tingling to spread down from them all across his body...

"R-rrfh..!" He began shrinking pretty quickly, even as he leaned in to start nuzzling her face, and began petting her ears back. "Mm~mh, aah—aa~aaAAaa~aah..!" Tyler's voice rapidly shifted higher and higher in pitch, as he shrank down more and more...Elise's weight soon left his arms as the balls of her feet landed on the floor.

His body had grown slim and soft, his voice high and cute like the first time he'd turned into a wolf-girl; at the same time, his shirt had kept on pulling itself tight against his upper body, while his pants split apart into a skirt fluttering around his upper thighs and a pair of tight leggings pulling close against some now-slender legs...not to mention his underwear shifting into a pair of tight, feminine boyshorts. It was only a couple of seconds from this point to him turning the rest of the way into a girl, letting out a soft, high "R~rrfh..!" in the process, followed quickly by a girly "Mm~mmnngh..!" as the fuzzy feelings down there started up.

Of course, Ty's chest and hips sprang to life right about then, giving her body some curves; her breasts pressed into Elise's small bust as they grew out, expanding out to just a bit bigger than they'd been her first time as a girl. All the while she was letting out some soft, cute barks and yips, while Elise quietly churred in response.

After a little bit more petting, Elise let go and gracefully pulled back a few steps—probably just far enough to get a really good look at her 'master' now. "Well? Did I surprise you?" she asked.

"Uh, y-yeah..heheh..!" Ty felt around her body a little bit; her hair seemed to have gotten pretty messy from Elise's hands running all over it. But..this wasn't bad. They were close to the same height now, and the cute fox-girl being right across from her instead of below was a pleasant change for the moment. "N-not bad, though.."

"I'm glad if you enjoyed it~," Elise said. "Perhaps we could dance for a little while?"
"S-sure!" Being around the same height would make that easier too, probably...

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Having a shared universe is fun. Although part of me does wonder whether anyone reading this actually finds this connection interesting. And the other "Val" is a considerably more obscure connection you might not get without a direct link to something relevant.

Battle Vixens! - 141

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Episode 141: Training Montage

Emma said, "So, um..."

"Yeah?"

Her face flushed a little bit, but she was also smiling. "Y-you wanna come to my place for a while?"

With that expression, she probably had more petting in mind. Not that Amory was opposed to the idea. "Sure. I'll just let Blake know I'll be gone a little longer," he added, getting his phone out.
"O-okay."

On the way out of the city, Marcus and the catgirl picked up some drive-through, and they ate it on the drive back. After he pulled his car into a parking spot in the apartment building's garage, Thalia hopped out and briefly popped the cat mask on to turn back into Thad. Then he said, "Welp. I'm 'onna go work on my car for a bit."
"'Kay. See you later," Marcus said, and his roommate nodded before heading off. He then started toward their apartment, taking several steps before stopping. "Hmm." He got out his phone, acting on an idea he'd just had—or at least hoping to.

Blake finished his lunch, got up and stretched for a moment, and then his phone started buzzing with texts. Going over to check, there was one from Amory saying the meeting with Emma's sister had gone well, and that he'd be hanging out with Emma for some more of the afternoon. The rest were several in succession from 'Magus'. Marcus didn't quite send messages in the extreme-rapid-fire way Emma did, but apparently he did have a similar habit of needing several texts to finish a single thought:

you want to like

since there's no monsters to fight today i mean

and they just opened a place for us in town

i could use maybe some training to not be

to do a little better up close

when not borrowing someone else's

if you're not busy i mean

After digesting the contents of that entire paragraph, he shrugged. It beat the tedious work of debugging a program, which he'd been at for the entire hour or so before taking a break for lunch. And...they really needed to be as ready as possible, before tomorrow. Sure. I'll meet you there.

The VI had a few staffers watching the entrances to the new "outdoor training area". It wasn't a bunch of armed guards making the place super-secure like the actual base in the city; their job was more or less to wave off bystanders and media (unless whoever was using the area wanted an audience). At any rate, when they saw Light and Magus walking up, they just waved hello to the two of them and let them through. A short walk later (around/away from some construction workers still making repairs to the recently-damaged underground infrastructure), they were in the section of former street which had been destroyed a couple of days ago by an electric shadow worm.

Light got out her sword. "I have to admit, I don't really know how to teach swordfighting. I mean—my powers just come with knowing how to do it, so it's not like I ever actually learned it. So maybe, if we just spar really slowly, you'll..pick something useful up?"

"Yeah," the girl in the hat nodded, getting her own weapon ready. "If I can at least know how to defend myself a little bit, that'd be sweet."

"Okay."

It turned out that what felt 'really slow' to Light was still a little bit too fast. She had to pull back even more before Magus could properly keep up using only her sword. They went several rounds after that, and there was some improvement; Magus was starting to hold her sword in a little less of a clumsy, loose way, and seemed to be picking up on some useful stances and movements even if she couldn't do them very fast. When it seemed like she'd made some progress, Light deliberately sped up just a tiny bit. This clearly made things more difficult, but Magus toughed it out, and started to get somewhat better.

Light stepped back, and let go of her sword, unsummoning it. "Let's take a break." The other vixen was out of breath and barely holding her hilt at this point, and she let in and out a loud breath in response to this suggestion, dropping the weapon to loudly clatter on the ground and doubling over to pant for a moment.

"You should uh..sit down or something. Want some water? I think I saw they had some bottles back where we came in."
"Yffh...yeah..hff.." Magus managed the presence of mind to dismiss her sword before collapsing over onto her back on the ground. Light ran off and was back in under a minute with a few water bottles, squatting to hand one to Magus (who was now sitting up and no longer completely out of breath) before sitting cross-legged in front of her.

After chugging around a third of the bottle's volume, she said, "Maaan. It was so easy to fight when I was borrowing Emma's powers. Like, everything was just a reflex."

"I know what you mean. But..those 'reflexes' can get in the way sometimes, too. It's not hard to fool someone who's relying entirely on them, into making a mistake."

"It felt really awesome too! Super exciting. But, uh, terrifying at the same time. Or—maybe that was just after it happened, and I really thought about how many times I was this close to getting cut up into itty bitty pieces."

"Well, that's what you have defensive spells for, right? Blocking things with your sword is nowhere near as effective."

"Yeah, I know. It's more like—I just don't wanna be in that position and have nothing I can do. Just, enough to fight back a second, get some space to cast a spell to get away—that'd be enough."

Light remembered something from reviwing some of Monday's news footage. "By the way..."

"Yeah?"

"Think you can stand up and cast the block spell for me? I wanna test something."
"Uh, sure. I think I'm better now." Magus hopped up to her feet. "Hah. My uh..'human form', would still be in bad shape after that workout, but I feel totally fine already. Guess it helps to start from being fit."
Light just nodded, getting her sword out.

"Uh—right!" Magus got her own weapon out, and cast the spell. "Block!"

"Keep it up." The other vixen advanced on her, striking the barrier several times with her sword, then stepped back and threw the sword into it; the weapon bounced off, and she dismissed it. Then she jump-kicked the barrier herself, kicking off of it into a backwards leap, flipping in the air and landing back on her feet a short ways away.

"Hm."

Magus leaned her head out sideways a little bit, trying to look at Light's face. "So, uh...what're we testing for here, exactly?"

"You didn't feel any of that, right? Didn't get pushed back at all?"
"Nnnope. Pretty sure I'm still in the same place."
"Uh, you can drop the shield." She did, and also dismissed her sword again. "It's just—when the hecatoncheries hit you, you got thrown into the air, and backwards."

"Oh. Yeah." Magus's ears folded back a little bit, remembering the experience.

"But that spell usually doesn't carry any momentum into you. Why'd it do it that time?"
"W-well, maybe...I was super tired then, and barely managed to cast it at all. And that thing hit the shield ultra hard. It totally shattered!"
"So, it hit harder than any of what I just did...I guess we'd get a better test if we had Rory punch it or something. But I have a guess anyway."

"Yeah?"

Light paced back and forth a little as she spoke: "The spell's supposed to make an impenetrable barrier—at least, that's what it'd do ideally. But it can only block so much. Still—it's supposed to protect you. So if it gets hit by something it can't handle, it shatters to spend up as much of the hit's energy as it can...and if there's still more, then it turns the energy into momentum and transfers that to you, instead of letting you get hit. If it didn't do that...the hecatoncheries's hand would've gone right through the shield and made a direct hit."

"Oh. Oof," she winced, "I hadn't thought of that."

Light stopped pacing, turning to face Magus again. "Sorry, I'm not trying to bring up something painful. It's just—did you design the spell to do all of that?"
"No way! I made up the spell in like half a second—when Rowan came at me with a sword!"
Light nodded. "You just wanted to block an attack. But the spell carries that intent to its logical conclusion without you having to tell it to."

"Uh...yeah, I guess so."
"I don't think it's likely that only your block spell does something like that," Light said, trying to finally make her point clear.

"Oh. Oooh! Okay," Magus nodded. "So, like, some of my other spells might have hidden benefits!"
"Right. And, if you make a spell with a certain intent...you don't need to understand everything, or maybe not even much at all, about what that intent requires, for the spell to do it anyway."

"Ooh! We could also like—if I wanted to get away from something fast, maybe I could make an impact wave that reflects back at me and block it, or like use a modified block that's super easy to break, and I could go flying! And if I block the ground or do like a featherfall spell then I can land without getting hurt. Or I could just make a fly spell in the first place, like the way Doc Quinn can make us all fly around!"

"Uh, yeah. That also works," Light said.
"You, were thinking of something specific?"

"It's just—you've done a 'haste' spell before. You can do buffs."
Magus nodded, "Yeah, totally."
"So, if you really need the kind of instinct that 'normal' vixens have—which is obviously something magically granted to us by our powers—then you don't need to actually understand anything about how to fight with a sword..." she said with a 'continue the thought' gesture.
"...to do a buff that lets me fight better with a sword! Oooh!"

"But maintining a buff requires you to keep concentrating on it, right?"

"Yeah. Or a summon, or anything else that's supposed to stick around."

"So you'd just need to be careful. Practicing with that might help."

"Yeah! Totally!"

"You want to try that now? Have an idea for how the spell should go?"
"Uh-huh!" Magus nodded. "I think I've got it. Uh..." She drew her sword again, and moved herself into a reasonable sort of 'ready' stance, with both hands on the hilt. This was, apparently, the motion necessary for the spell, because she then recited its name to cast it: "Martial Mastery!" The effect of the spell presented visually as a faint blue glow around her, swirling around and upward as if carried by some invisible wind—which also seemed to pick up her hair and the brim of her hat, making them flutter around.

Naturally, they sparred for a couple of minutes after that. Light still didn't get up to her full speed, but it felt like she was at least dealing with a genuinely competent opponent this time. Magus was effortlessly finding some false openings she left, but didn't seem to pick up on the fact that they were false even after she blocked the fifth or so attempt at taking advantage of them. She was also doing a pretty good job of not leaving any obvious openings herself. However, they had to stop after those couple of minutes because Magus's breath started to come a little loudly, and not long after that she dropped her sword loudly to the ground and staggered back a couple of steps, putting out a hand palm-forward before doubling over, both hands on her knees, and heaving for breath.

Light just dismissed her own weapon, picked up the water bottle Magus had partially drained before, and offered it to her after she sat down again. This time she chugged maybe half its original volume, leaving it almost empty when she capped it again and set it down.

"Haffh...nearly forgot, doing magic costs stamina. And fighting, hff, costs stamina too. And my stamina, iiisn't super great in the first place!" she said, the last clause coming out at a higher pitch than the rest.

Light sat across from her. "Still, it worked. And stamina is something you can build up, over time, right?"
"Y-yeah...it was pretty awesome...actually doing that myself...fffffh...with just my own powers."

"Just don't let it carry you completely. It's easy for someone to fool that 'instinct' if they've got some practice."

"Haah...that's the second time you said something like that, you know? I guess it's pretty important."
"I've..fought more vixens than I'd like to," Light said, folding her ears down for a second. "You come to realize pretty quick, it's a battle of your minds just as much as your bodies."

Magus grinned. "Cooool. I mean—not you having to fight people, but, what you said just now. Was pretty cool!"

"Uh, thanks, I guess..."

Sensing Light's slight bashfulness, Magus just moved on to a different topic: "You think—we should try to make some kind of plans ahead of time? Like, coordinated attacks and stuff?" She was probably thinking of how the city's vixens, and several other teams, did things, sparring and training together during 'off hours' to be more ready for the real fights...which was admittedly very effective.
"We could try. Although..one of your big advantages is improvising, making up a new spell on the spot to deal with whatever the situation is. Trying to plan around that feels like...trying to compose melodies for a jazz band."

"Well—I haven't done much jazz, but that's still not too bad. It's way easier to improvise if everyone already knows what the key, and time signature, and tempo are. And having a base melody to work off of is pretty helpful too!"

"That...makes sense." She'd almost forgotten Marcus was a music major. Not that that made her interpretation of the melody automatically correct, but she absolutely had a good point.

"You okay to stand up again?"

"Yeah, I'm good!" Magus hopped to her feet, so Light followed suit.

"Hmm..can you use 'material components' for your spells? Like last night...it seemed like you had an easier time doing things with water since there was so much of it around. I'm not clear how much of it was Emma's power, or if that's just something you can always do."
"Hmm..I'm pretty sure I can! I mean, it's easier to pick up a chunk of concrete and throw it than it is to 'summon' a rock outta nowhere. Or, yeah, the rain definitely helped back then."
"So, if you have a good catalogue of spells that use a specific element, and there's someone around who uses it all the time—like me with light—then you can have them lend you some of it in concentration to cast with. And, either make those spells cheaper, or more effective."

Light spread her arm out to her right, that han'ds palm facing outward, and gathered an orb of light just past her hand. "There's a limit to how much I can concentrate light into 'lasers' to burn things with. I usually have to stetch to even do it at all. I bet a spell can do better."
"Oh? Yeah, maybe! I'll try." Magus quietly cleared her throat once, getting her weapon out. As she spoke and motioned for a spell, Light could feel a slight 'pull' from her trying to 'take hold' of the orb of light, and gave it over to her to cast with. "Rays of light, sear and burn. Laser Lance!" The orb formed itself into a thin spike, turning bright red, then shot off to one side, disappearing as it hit the ground. Right before the point of impact, Light could sort of feel that bit of light's wavelength shifting out of her control, past red and into infrared so it would convey as much heat as possible. The bit of concrete the spell hit briefly gave off visible heat waves; it was hard to be absolutely certain how hot it had gotten since it was concerete, but the effect definitely seemed stronger than what she could have done alone.

Magus was grinning. "Awesome! What about hard light? Like Zeno's arrows and stuff?"

"I can't seem to do it on my own...somehow Wave was able to, though. But it does still feel like 'light'." Light gathered another orb of light and floated it over into the space between them; Magus came up with another spell.

"Luminal Volley!" The orb exploded into a lot of short, thin pieces, each one pointed at both ends, and they went out one-after-another in the direction Magus pointed the tip of her sword. She even seemed able to adjust the aim as the shots continued, and the little spikes buried themselves into the ground where they landed deeply enough to make it obvious they'd become solid and carried quite a lot of momentum with them. "Ah, man, this is too sweet!" As the spell ended, all of the 'hard-light' projectiles disappeared again, returning to normal, physical light.

Light nodded. "This is just with light, too. You should figure out some signal with Gemma to ask for a little of whatever element you need."

"Yeah!"

They spent a few more minutes of Magus coming up with spells using light for material, including making a hard-light shield she could hold in her free hand to block with, until the excitable mage started to get winded again.

"Ha~aah...hoof. Phew."
"You okay?"
"Yh, yeah. Just, gonna need another little break." They both sat down again. "Using a 'material' like that totally makes the spells cheaper to cast, but it's still not free," she said.

"It seems like that's just the way it always is. Everything has a cost, when it comes to magic."

She nodded. "Uh-huh."

"...I don't know if I ever really thanked you."
"Huh? What for?"

"Last night. The, 'Sunblaze' spell."

"Oh, that? I mean, that was just as much so I'd survive as for you. I was way too tired to really fight anymore at that point, so I thought I'd spend everything I had left to keep you going."

"I don't just mean the spell itself. It...there was. It's, gonna sound pretty strange, but—I could feel your emotions, through the light itself. It, helped kick me out of a funk I'd been in lately."
"Really?" she seemed surprised at the idea of Light, of all people, being in any kind of 'funk'.
"Yeah. I'd been...trying a little too hard to do everything on my own. Heroes are supposed to work together, and pick up after each other. When one can't do it, another's supposed to take over. I didn't have any problem with being the one to take over...but, accepting help—it's a little harder for me than it should be sometimes."

"Hahah, you got all that from me? I don't think I was thinking anywhere near that deep. I just wanted to help out, you know?"

"That's just it. I get lost in my own head way too easily sometimes, and, I guess—you don't, so much. Or at least didn't right then, when it really mattered. So, I really appreciate it."

"Awwh..um...h-heheh." Magus blushed slightly and looked away for a second—apparently it was her turn to be a little bashful. "You're welcome, I guess? Anytime!"

"Uh, you know—" Magus picked herself up to her feet, a little more slowly than the last few times. "I can still feel a little bit, uh, starstruck around you guys. Like, I still feel like—when I go out to fight monsters, I think: 'I get to fight with heroes!'

"...But I guess, that could be kinda awkward on your end. A-and it makes me really want to do something impressive all the time, to try to keep up."

"You don't have to worry about that," Light said, standing up herself and then reaching her arms up to stretch briefly in the pause between sentences. "You're one of us. Fight just as hard, and deal with all the same risks. Besides, some things like 'channeling', that came from you, have helped vixens the world over."

"Y-yeah...thanks."

"..I feel like we got off-track from what you wanted to train for," Light said. "I guess I started having ideas, and we didn't stop."
"That's okay—maybe the problem of me fighting up-close is kinda solved now. And like, anything that'll help us out later is good. And you have really good ideas, too!"

"I guess you were right about it being helpful to 'play' with our powers sometimes. But, you do seem a little tired. We shouldn't overdo it."

"Uh, yeah, I'm feeling it a little from all the fighting and casting and stuff so far. But I can keep going! Build up that stamina some, you know, for a tiiiiny bit longer?"

"Okay," Light nodded, trusting her to know her own limits. "Then—you should be able to cast healing spells, right? Have you ever tried?"
"I..uh, haven't, no. I'm usually around someone else who can do healing, I guess. But, like, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to, right?"
"Right. Do you need someone to be injured to cast one?"
"I..dunno why I would."
"Then, let's try and come up with a few. Quick and weak, slower but stronger...maybe a regen, or something to help people feel less exhausted?"
"Oh, yeah," Magus nodded, "like what some of Nico's trees can do!

"Let's try it out!"

---

One of Light's big advantages has always been the ability to think up creative uses for even very limited-seeming powersets. Magus, on the other hand, has an insanely versatile powerset. Putting those two together...might be an overpowered combination.

Practical Test

See also: Delicious Dream.

A Statue in the Woods 7: Reconnection

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---

A little while after they got back to the house, Elise cheerfully made dinner for both of them. It was as good as the breakfast had been, although it was certainly much more "Asian" this time...or maybe specifically "Japanese". Perhaps the Kitsune had wanted to hide her country of origin initially for some reason, but figured it didn't matter now that that was out in the open?

"What'll we do tomorrow, Master?" she asked cheerfully, once they were about midway through the meal.

"Uh..well." Ty took a second to scratch the back end of one of her ears. "I kinda need to get back to work. I mean—I originally planned on getting some work done after Ronan's whole, adventure, or else today..but that, didn't really happen. I'm not really..like, in trouble yet, or anything, but I will be if I don't get a good amount of writing done tomorrow. And—I do need that job to pay for, y'know, all those clothes we bought today—besides food, bills, taxes, and..so on."

"I see.." She didn't look particularly upset by this information, just cheerfully nodding. "Well, don't worry about me—I'm perfectly capable of entertaining myself."

Ty wondered whether the fox-girl would do more damage playing more of her video games, or going outside and finding people to 'play' with. But..that wasn't really her problem, right? "That's..good. Yeah," she said kind of lamely after thinking through all of that.

Elise leaned forward slightly, seemingly inspecting the wolf-girl's face. "Is something the matter? You seem concerned," she said.
"Uh, well—it's just." This wasn't exactly what she'd been concerned about a moment ago, but it was something that had been in the back of her mind nearly all day. "I don't, really know how to feel about this situation at this point? I mean—I don't get why you want to..stay with me? Or, just suddenly decided to take me on as a 'master' and try so hard to get me to accept it—including turning into a girl for, maybe the first time? I mean, I get that you're 'grateful' I freed you, but that was basically an accident. It just seems, kinda more like you're doing all this on a whim?"

"Ah, well. There's nothing to worry about, then," she said with a small nod. "My friend...all of life is built out of whims and accidents. A young man decides on a new hobby, and enjoys it enough to keep at it—and one day he finds it has become his lifelong passion and occupation. Two people accidentally bump into each other at a party, one spilling the other's drink—and they come to enjoy each others' company enough to become companions forever afterward. It isn't all quite so positive, of course: A whim can lead to one's death, or an accident to a crippling injury, or a generations-long blood feud. But accepting that everything in this life comes down to accumulations of such small events has allowed me to live in general contentment so far. And—I find that I like this whim and accident in front of me all the more, the longer I spend with it," she said, gesturing Ty's way with one hand. "I hope you'll forgive my impertinence in saying, I think you're enjoying it just as much?"

Ty's face felt a little red after this last part, her heartbeat picking up a little bit. "Uh...y-yeah." It was pretty surreal—in a way, Elise's speech had betrayed her age, seemingly showing off some kind of wisdom from a long life of experience..but it also, somehow, made her even more attractive than before.

As they worked to put away the dishes, Elise said, "Master, do you dance?"

"Uh—well." Ty had to think about her answer for a second. "Not—I mean, I don't really know how to do..anything I think you'd recognize as 'dancing', at least."
"Oh?" she said, tilting her head a bit to show curiosity.

"Like—a lot of 'dancing' these days is just, people kind of twitching or jerking to the beat of the music. Or—some songs just give you a list of basic moves to do, like 'step to the right' or whatever."
"Ah, like square dancing?"
"A..little bit, I think? Anyway, I definitely don't know how to do like, any real dancing."

"Well then—perhaps I could teach you a little? I was able to find recordings of some of my old favorite songs, you see..and since you were kind enough to share your games with me last night...?"
"Uh, well." The expectant expression Elise had on wasn't the usual, irresistible one; Ty felt instead like she'd be rejecting a lavish gift to say no to this one. Anyway—it couldn't hurt. "Sure, I guess?"
"Very well," she nodded, looking beautifully pleased.

A little later, they stood in the living room with the coffee table moved aside to make space. Elise set her phone down on the couch, already playing some sort of classical music. "Hmmn.." She looked the wolf-girl up and down, then suddenly grew back up to her taller, 'original' form, her clothes shifting with her to still fit. "I shall lead you through a few simple steps. Please don't be nervous, now—I'd hardly expect you to be an expert at your first try." With that, she took hold of Ty's hands, and began guiding her slowly through the dance.

"...Uh—like this?"
"Yes, just so. You're doing very well!"

It probably shouldn't have been very surprising, but for as impressively good of a learner as the Kitsune was, she was also an exceptional teacher—at least, it seemed so when it came to dance. Ty seemed to have some of the basics down (at least enough to no longer step on Elise's toes) by the end of that first song and the start of the next.

"Listen a moment, this is a waltz—groups of three. One-two-three...you hear it?"
"Yeah."

"All right. I'm certain I don't have to tell you, you've only got two feet. So don't get tripped up now—"

They spent an entire hour dancing like this, but it only felt like a few minutes. Elise seemed satisfied to stop the lesson just when Ty was physically tired enough to start making clumsy mistakes. She led the way over to the couch, gracefully picking up her phone to stop the music and then setting it down out of the way on their way down.

"Well, Master~..did you enjoy yourself?"

"Uh...hfff.." She was surprised to find herself slightly out of breath, and had to take a second to catch it before she could answer. "Yeah. Definitely. But it's way more of a workout than I expected.."
"Eheheh—I thought the same thing when I was first learning. I believe the expert's trick is, as in many things, to make it look effortless."

The fox-girl grinned mischievously for a moment, seeming to wait for something. Then, just about when Ty felt she had her breath back, Elise pounced on top of her, knocking her over onto her back on the couch. "Wha—aah!"
"Heeheehee~!" Elise giggled, pulling her arms around the wolf-girl in a close hug. After that, she lowered her ears slightly, still smiling. "Well, Master—you know by now the price of keeping a fox around."

"Oh, uh.." Ty's face flushed, her tail starting to wag and her own ears going a bit lower. "Y-yeah. Not that that's really, costly or anything..." she said, the last few words trailing off into a low, quiet mumble while she reached her hands up to start rubbing the Kitsune's ears.
"Mrrrh~.." Elise churred happily and pressed her nose into Ty's cheek. She muttered: "Feeling that way is a mark of a good Master..."

---

After a fairly early breakfast (and having Elise turn her male again), Tyler went to work. The Kitsune headed outside to..probably explore the neighborhood or something, so the house was quiet and he was able to concentrate very well for a few hours.

It was somewhere close to lunchtime when the doorbell rang. He finished writing the sentence he'd been on before getting up, a part of him hoping that it was some kind of salesperson and, further, that his delay would make them give up before he got to the door. But he opened it anyway, and the visitor was still there.

"Hiya." Tyler was faced with the sight of a woman, about average-height, fit and reasonably pretty, dressed in a combination of stylish clothes and jewelry that his vague sense of fashion gained through his friendship with Ronan informed him might actually cost more than his house. She'd said this greeting with a brisk, friendly wave, and then continued: "Is, this where Shigenori is staying?"

"Uh..I don't know anyone by that name," he said.

"But you are Ronan's friend Tyler, aren't you? Allow me an introduction—" She produced a business card seemingly from her sleeve and pushed it at him. "Valencia Hammond, maiden name Tanner. Ronan works at my company, and he—or she, I guess—posted recently about accidentally 'waking up' a fox sealed in a statue."

"Uh-huh.." Glancing at the card, she wasn't kidding about it being 'her company'. It would be accurate to describe this person as, maybe, Ronan's boss's boss's boss...or maybe five or six levels higher than that. "So..you have a special interest in that fox, then?"
"I sure do. See—my parents, Azlathoth and Tezalel Tanner, would be very happy if she'd come over for supper tonight, or whenever's convenient, to catch up."

"Could I bring one more with me, then?" This was Elise's voice, coming very unexpectedly from behind Tyler, and causing him to jump and make a slight 'aack!' sound of surprise. Turning to look, he found her to have just appeared right there, leaning in past his shoulder. Valencia also jerked slightly, betraying some surprise, but managed to maintain most of her composure.
"Oh, certainly! Plus ones welcome," she said after only a brief hesitation. "Shigenori, I presume?" She put out her hand.

"Indeed." Tyler turned himself slightly sideways to make way, and Elise moved into that space to shake the offered hand. "Although I am introducing myself as 'Elise' most recently."
"Got it."

"So uh—you know this..Azla...whatever?" Tyler asked the fox-girl.

She nodded. "A couple of demons, good friends of mine from back...what must have been long ago, now. I attended their wedding, but they had no children before I was sealed."

"Yeah—me and my siblings are all adopted," Valencia said. "And we have this weird family tradition of going off to a forest on the tenth birthday to go poke some statue in a forest somewhere. Guess we'll have to come up with something else to do now though, huh?"

"I see..are we busy tonight, Master~?" Elise asked.
"Uh, I guess not. So—where, exactly..?" He trailed off, seeing that Valencia had already produced another card seemingly from her sleeve and was offering it to him. This one had a phone number and address handwritten onto it.

"Only like a half-hour's drive from here," she added. "Shall I tell them, around six PM maybe?"

"Uh..sure."

Once Valencia was gone, he shut the door. "So...'Shigenori', huh?"
The Kitsune shrugged. "A fairly common name, where I was born—but also a masculine one. I chose 'Elise' after the title of a song I'm fond of."

"Got it," he nodded. "And, how long were you here but invisible?"

Elise grinned. "Not more than half an hour; I thought it best to not disturb your work. Are you hungry for lunch, Master?"

---

"So, like...did you have any idea your company was owned by the adoptive child of two literal demons?"

"No way! That's awesome!" Rona said, over the phone. "I'm kinda jealous, too..."

"Do you really want to hang around the person who could decide to fire you if she just felt like it? Let alone her whole family?"

"Eergh, okay, maybe not, if you put it like that. Then, like, you better not make a bad impression either!"

"I'm sure we'll be fine...I mean, unless Elise goes out of her way to antagonize them or something."

The fox-girl gave Tyler a look like, I'd never do such a thing! But he figured that came with the disclaimer: '...If it wasn't funny enough.'

The doorbell rang. "..Hang on, I've gotta get the door again." Tyler stood up, setting his phone down. "I mean—unless you want to." Elise just shrugged, so he headed that way.

A fairly familiar face was waiting...that of the cashier from the day before. She was wearing an oversized shirt rather than the dress, but the face and hair were exactly the same. "Er, hello there," she said a bit nervously. "I don't suppose you've got a..sister or such? Someone with the same hair color? Or, know a redheaded young woman with, er.."
"Fox ears? Yeah." Tyler turned half-around. "Eli—oh." The Kitsune had already come up to just barely behind him, and had also shifted herself back to the smaller form so the cashier could more easily recognize her. "This is who you meant?"
"Yes," she said.

"It's just that, err..how do I put this?" It had to be a little more awkward to explain this to Tyler, who as far as she knew 'hadn't been there', but she pressed on: "'Fore yesterday, I was an old man, and all of a sudden I'm looking like this? And after reviewin' some security footage and thinking about the evidence, it seems like you" (she was saying this to Elise) "or one of your two friends who were there must've been responsible? 'Specially since you said somethin' about a reward..."
"How ever did you find this house?" the fox-girl asked, and Tyler immediately realized that he probably should've had the same question.

"Well, that's eh—let's say, the store's owner was keen to help me out once I explained the unusual situation and all..."
"Surely nothing illegal was involved, was it?" Elise continued in a kind of innocent tone of voice..but Tyler could tell she was just teasing her.

"Errm."

"Uh, that aside," Tyler said quickly. "If that did happen, you...want to be turned back or something?"
"Well. Er. N-not necessarily. That is, I'm awful grateful to get to be young again, it's just that this has made things awful strange with my wife..."
Those last two words made Tyler's ears jump upright. From what the old man had said that day, he'd assumed he was single, or at least a widower..but apparently not. So that did make things really awkward, when neither of them was, say, a magical Kitsune with the power to shift them back and forth at will.

"Okay, yeah," he nodded after that, and turned toward the fox-girl. "Elise."
"Yyyes?" she said with a winning smile.
"As your 'Master', I'd like you to fix this. Do what you need to to make her and the wife actually happy with the results. You wanted to reward him yesterday, not punish him, right?"
"True enough. All right then~," she said, looking very pleased. Maybe just at him claiming or using the title of 'Master' himself for once. "Could you bring me to meet with this wife of yours, perhaps~?" she suggested, moving past Tyler to speak to the short, young girl.

"I, suppose so," she said, seeming fairly surprised by how quickly the decision to 'fix' things for her had been made.

After they left and Tyler shut the door, he took a deep breath and let it out. This would probably take at least an hour, so...he could get the rest of his work done undisturbed. Once he finished talking with Rona on the phone, at least.

Elise showed up again with still an hour to go before they'd need to leave and meet her demon friends. She didn't really seem to need a key, or even to open the door apparently—she simply walked into Tyler's office-slash-bedroom and said, "I'm back, Master~!"
"Uh, great. So, you fixed things? Everyone's happy?"
"They are indeed! That young woman's husband couldn't be more pleased," she said with a big grin. For her to put it that way...well, Tyler could've guessed she'd offer to solve the problem like that. But, as long as they were happy with it...