Battle Vixens! - 145

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Episode 145: Steady as She Goes

Amp started the call, and they discussed the plan over speakerphone.

"We've got three spots to defend starting off, and after that they'll show up at various points around the city," Clark said. "I've spent some time plotting some fairly efficient 'lines' to use, but we pretty much need three groups no matter what.

"There'll be several of them in that new 'training area' of ours—you know, where the Gigaworm trashed the ground. Might be tricky to move around on."

"Hey, Light and I have some practice fighting there!" Magus volunteered. "I mean—not fighting monsters, but at least with like, how to get around the place and stuff."
"That works for me," Light agreed.

A gryhpon dove toward what it thought was Light, trying to rake its claws into her. "Photon Wall!" Magus called from the side, and the light making up the illusion joined some more light focused nearby, arranging itself into thin, pure-white rectangular barrier that the monster slammed into, shattering it while crashing onto the ground. The real Light came and slashed through its wings, while Magus fired another prepared orb of light out as a bunch of sharp spikes straight from the tip of her blade into its side.

The snakewolf that had arrived with it couldn't see either of them, but could hear Magus, so it charged at her. This was well anticipated, Magus silently transposition-ing out of the way while an illusion of her was left behind; behind it, a tangle of metal wires (a trap spell she'd set earlier) snapped up around the monster's limbs, making it crumple into a ball and tumble helplessly for a moment. Then Light was on top of it, slashing into its body with two swords, and Magus threw a few fireballs into the gryphon while it tried (with no success, thanks to shredded wings) to get back into the air.

"Would it be acceptable to lend us Ning?" Rowan asked. "Wide coverage is crucial for dealing with the swarm. We could trade out Tora, perhaps—she's very efficient at fighting Class 1's, and has higher mobility to easily maneuver from one target to the next."

"I've got a babysitter ready, so, should be fine?" Ning said.

In the city, a dark cloud began spewing out an array of small, flying or crawling red-eyed monsters. Almost as soon as they appeared, a branching bolt of lightning shot out from the roof of a six-story building near VI's headquarters. Ning had one hand gripping a 240-volt extension cord running out through a roof access door while the other one was spread skyward. Electricty arced all over her body, but most of it flowed through the arms and chest—from one hand to the other—to concentrate the charge on the outstretched hand. Whenever there was enough, she fired it out into the sky again.

Several more cords ran next to that one, continuing over to the other side of the roof. They were plugged into a huge speaker system, borrowed from a resident inside, playing some dubstep—and Hugo stood in front of that. The monsters missed by the periodic lightning strikes hit a wall of pressure waves going out in time with the bassline, knocking those that survived the impact itself down to the ground.

A rooftop garden between them had some unusual trees growing out of it. Nico was sitting on a conveniently-shaped branch of one of those near the center and humming along to the music.

"If I stick with Gemma to get plenty of weapons, then maybe Tora can go with my husband," Rory decided.

"Let's do that, then. Better get transport arranged pretty quickly, though," Clark said.
"Already on the way."

"Great. Rory, you'd better start toward the apartment complex, then."
"Alrighty~. Love, you dear!" She took a moment to audibly kiss his cheek, then left, the door-closing barely audible over the phone.

Rory punched a triplet at a nearby building, and the structure's shadow erupted into a short-lived spike to impale it. She caught the "handle" of another one's spiked-hammer-arm, using that to judo-throw it to the ground. Then she held out a hand. "Scalpel."
"You said that one already," Minus pointed out, handing her a longsword made of wind and shadow.
"Forceps?" Rory immediately plunged the weapon into the prone triplet's center mass, slamming it halfway into the ground with a fist and then stomping it the rest of the way down so only its handle was visible.

"We're not even near a hospital." The one she'd thrown at a building was running their way, and Rory accepted an axe from Gemma just in time to swing it straight through that body's middle, erupting black mist off of its body and sending it tumbling sideways.

The third "part" of the monster was trying unsuccessfully to hit an illusion of Plus, while the real one tossed some fire and lightning and rocks at it from one side or another of the fake.

"How about a jackhammer, then?"
"I can do a normal hammer." Electricity and steel wire formed into a sledgehammer, which Rory took and used on the still-prone triplet's head. Minus followed up the axe swing with a few daggers made of some elements not already in use. "We really—" "—need to get moving soon—" "by the way!"

"No worries; these are almost dead. Two swords and I should be able to finish 'em myself, if you wanna start toward the next set?"
"Okay!"

"It's raining monsters!" Karis ran around, jumping occasionally, punching a gauntleted fist through one stunned flying beast after another; her Stand did much the same thing, only slashing with her sword instead.
"Would you prefer it was raining men?" Petra asked. One of her stone fists was holding onto the last survivor of a group of chargers, while the other one exploded apart into a bunch of rock-shrapnel to bury into the front end of a freshly-appearing bear-monster, the combined momentum enough to knock it prone. She pressed the advantage, launching herself into the air by briefly shoving the concrete beneath her upward, summoning her sword into the hand not clenched into a fist to keep the charger held, and then plunged it straight through the beast's neck. She didn't linger, just planting the blade and then leaping back away to the side as it tried to swipe for her.

"I think that'd be more terrifying, but prolly less dangerous at least!" Remedy went over to keep the "bear" busy, slashing into its leg as it stood up and then hopping back just ahead of its attempt to grab her.

"Focus, please?" Zeno caught a few bits of the swarm with some arrows just as they began to get up off of the ground. then threw up a hard-light shield to block a swipe from the bear when it had nearly cornered Remedy.

"I am focusing!" both other vixens responded in unison.

"Send Tora to campus; that's where I'll be." Clark sighed slightly. "The courtyard, same as usual. At least there shouldn't be anyone congregating there this morning."
"Affirmative."

"C'mon!" The basher stumbled, its thin legs tripping over each other, when it tried to turn to retaliate. Tora leapt and slashed into its side, then landed her feet onto it and kicked herself off, the impact knocking its already-unsteady stance completely off balance and toppling it onto its side. "Gimme a real fight!!"
"Please don't ask the universe for a challenge," Clark said, tossing a net of prepared string around the beast's tangled legs. "It'll be all too happy to oblige."

"I know, just—" Tora went back to their first target—another monster of the same type—as it began to snap the strings holding it, and slashed her claws repeatedly through its side. "I really like to get the adrenaline pumping!"

"Well, there's plenty more 'excitement' on the way." Dr. Quinn's left hand was busy controlling a couple of puppets, using them to lure monsters toward them, while her right hand waved about alongside her needle, assembling thread to trap them with. Tora was very good at keeping the monsters' attention on her, allowing Clark to essentially stand still in the middle of the courtyard without much fear of attack. The only thing more reassuring would've been, maybe, Light or Gemma making her invisible too, but if push came to shove, she could always bring out another puppet to take the heat.

For now, a couple of the tentacled rats came along chasing those puppets. Tora seemed to know exactly where those tentacles' blind spots were, dashing in and out of what should've been a dangerously close range to them and slicing into their core masses with her claws without being so much as touched herself. The basher she'd just been working on stood up, so—freed as they were from the chase thanks to Tora—the puppets went to deal with that instead, one of them grabbing the net Clark had just finished weaving while the other picked up and threw a rock at the monster's head to get its attention.

"Miss the rain?" Fay asked, lightly tapping her staff against some surviving pieces of the swarm, each touch placing a point-explosion just big enough to finish that one off.

"Not particularly." Rowan was drawing water up from a nearby storm drain and forming it into some spinning blades to help keep her current opponent—a razor lizard—busy and make openings to slash into its body with her sword. When it backed her against a wall, she let Warp move her out of range; Fay took advantage of its overcommitment to an attack to tap it on the back with her staff, placing the largest explosion she could right inside of it.

It staggered briefly as black mist erupted off of its body, then whirled, starting toward her. Rowan regathered the water that had recently pooled all over the ground into some limbs to wrap around all six of its legs (and its tail), pulling it backwards and pinning it to the wall. Warp took this moment to appear in front of the monster and throw her weapon at it, retrieve it to the other hand, throw it again, and repeat in rapid succession until the mist bleeding off of it began to obscure her vision; then she disappeard again. Rowan tossed her sword at it, splitting it apart into the shape of her water-dragon's "teeth", and reformed some of the water holding the monster into the shape of a mouth just long enough to carry the weapon's momentum into a bite.

"Second one's on the way!" Warp reported; Fay came back to shove another explosion into the lizard's midsection, and then Rowan retrieved her blade to slash through it several more times as it turned indistinct and began to dissipate.

As things started to get more crowded, Magus began to feel like Light had an array of "spells" of her own. A shouted phrase brought down a bolt of lightning from the clouds to finish off the gryphon; another shot a fireball out from her hand to explode right in the middle of a pair of twins just as they formed. She caught the snakewolf's back head in a thin limb of water before slashing through the base of its "tail" with one of her swords, severing it completely and making that part of its body dissipate back into mist.

The mage vixen was hardly idle herself, continuing to use the provided orbs of light to toss out some efficient attacks, running or teleporting herself out of the way of retaliation, and occasionally setting off a prepared trap or two to hurt and stall their opponents. They steadily moved from one end of the ruined street to the other like this, drawing the surviving monsters along with them and constantly damaging them as they went. Soon they came close to the edge of the area, and Light leapt past a wide trench of lower ground, Magus using transposition again to get herself to the opposite side too.

"Ready?" Light asked.
"Feels like it—let's see!" Grabbing the brim of her hat in one hand, Magus swept her weapon in an upward arc with the other. A "seed" previously planted in that trench sprouted and grew out all at once, becoming a collection of thick, thorned structures resembling the roots of a tree, but colored in a similar blue to the "special effects" that tended to accompany Magus's magic. They spread themselves out rapidly thicker and longer, twisting around the limbs and bodies of the monsters that had been pursuing the vixens and holding them tight.

This was a summon spell she'd cast the "first part" of before the fight began, and had been channeling to give it plenty of power and duration ever since. Light went running along the branches once the beasts were caught in them, slashing her swords into one after another and occasionally following up with a "borrowed" lightning bolt or fireball. The mage just kept her sword held out at a forward-up angle, feeding the "Yggdrasil Roots" as much magic as it needed to remain stable against the monsters' struggles.

"Looks like the swarm's done coming out," Ning reported, yelling toward her phone, which was sitting several feet away on a small wooden table.
"Good. Are you feeling any exhaustion?" Rowan asked.
"Nope! Borrowing from the grid super helps, I guess."
"I may have to take a breather, though, boss," Hugo added, stumbling her way to behind the speakers before sliding down to sit on the concrete leaning against them.

"Affirmative. Ning, Warp is on her way to move you."
"Trap's nearly ready," Sam added.

"We're headed toward it!" said Karis. "Got plenty of guests!"

A scorpion tiger was advancing on Plus, while Minus kept a pair of chargers busy. Rory ran up next to the former, grabbing a leg and using it to toss the monster behind herself, landing it upside-down onto its back. She barely even slowed her run while doing this, and only stopped a couple of feet in front of Plus to hold out an empty hand.
"You lost the swords already?" she said, making another new one and handing it over.

"Extra weight. Needed to run fast!"

"Fair enough." The monster was already halfway to righting itself, so Rory turned and grabbed a limb with her free hand again, twisting to turn it over again. Then she hopped onto its underside, gripping the hilt in both hands to slash through it several times.

Plus had already made another sword, so she stuck it into the ground for Rory to get later and ran to attack Minus's opponent.

"Hey, don't these things usually screech sometimes?" Rory asked, sheathing her current weapon into the monster's underside before hopping off of it to get away from a stinger strike.
"I'm muting it.—" "—Have some sound." the noise of one of its vocalization was bent around to in front of Rory and then formed into a dagger, which she caught and then threw into the scorpion tiger's eye as it began trying to charge toward her.

"Great, thanks!" She moved aside, grabbed a limb and threw it into its back again before going to get the sword in the ground.

When the chargers ran toward "one" of her, Gemma had the other one strike them from the back or side. Then they would turn toward that body and start trying to charge, giving the other one a breather and another couple of shots. Since these monsters still couldn't learn anything, she had an easy pattern to follow, broken up only by Rory's next couple of requests for weapons. All three of their remaining targets were looking very indistinct before long, so it was just a matter of keeping them nice and far from each other so they wouldn't merge or do anything else nasty.

The city's vixens converged toward a certain park, letting the surviving monsters from their respective fights chase after them as they went. Sam stood in the middle, surrounded by several interconnected nets of thorned metallic wire, some of which had already closed around the monsters Phoneix and Dawn hadn't already dispatched. Ning was teleported next to Sam, and they exchanged a brief nod as everyone else began to show up.

Limbs of water and hands of stone grabbed and tossed any monsters whose own momentum didn't carry them onto the nets, landing them deeper into the park. Sam set each trap in turn, turning the park into a strange kind of zoo whose freakish collection would be (to everyone's relief) very temporary. The vixens stopped at the rim of the network, where Sam's pair of teammates had already gone a moment earlier, and once the last of them arrived (and the last few of their enemies were caught in the net), Sam yelled to double-check: "We got 'em all?"
A few separate voices called out, all saying some form of "yes".

So Sam put out her free hand—the other one holding on to one end of the wire—and Ning took it. "Light 'em up."

"Yeah!!!" She lifted her free hand to the sky, drawing all of the excess charge recently deposted into the clouds back down toward herself and having it flow through their two bodies and branch all throughout the wire nets, electrocuting all of the monsters at once. One by one they dissipated into mist, the most stubborn of them receiving some extra fireballs or chunks of ice from Cynthia and Don respectively, until they were all gone, the lightning fully spent, and the park was quiet.

"WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

At least Tora was having fun. Clark watched her dart from one monster to another, slashing through them each in turn. Her puppets played support, and she kept tying them up in string whenever possible to keep the heat off. Some of the earliest arrivals were turning indistinct by now, but the two of them they weren't meant to finish off this group alone anyway.

Her ears picked up the noise of two people running, and before long Magus's voice casting some spells. Light showed up near Tora, helping slash apart the "free" monsters while Magus focused on taking out the ones still bound up in string. It only took a couple of minutes for the four of them to finish cleaning up the first of the day's four messes.

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Amidst numerous reports of a successful defense against the day's first wave of attacks came one less-than-optimistic message:

Good work so far, but don't start thinking like, 'this is supposed to be worse than yesterday?'.

You know full well by now what the enemy is really capable of.

The words "You", "know", and "full" linked to news stories covering increasingly severe devastation and loss of life that attacks over the past couple of weeks had brought on; "well" was a map link, the coordinates pointing to a city in Mexico they had more-or-less completely leveled before Espadas could arrive.

Complacency is the tip of a blade in one's own chest. Be careful, and be ready.

So, if the Giver was impressed or satisfied by the vixens' performance so far, she wasn't showing it.

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We pretty much get a warm-up victory lap to show off how everyone has learned and grown throughout the story before things start getting bad. Some highlights include Rory fighting a scorpion tiger in a repetitive but effective way; Gemma comfortably playing along with her banter; Magus and Light showing off some of the results of the previous day's training; Ning trusting others to protect her grandkid to the extent of going over to the other town without her; and a whole lot of just "fighting smart" overall. I actually imagine this episode (in an audio/visual format) as being a montage, sort of like some of those scenes in Guardians of the Galaxy that have semi-diagetic music built in.

P.S. I don't know whether sending electricity up from the power mains up into the sky would ever actually "accumulate charge" that could come back down as actual lightning later, but Ning thinks it works that way, so her magic is helping make it so.