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!"

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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.