Omega Zeta Kappa 1: α

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I'll do my best to explain what this is. Basically, I had a dumb idea for a series of captions a couple of weeks ago, but once I started actually writing it, it spiraled partially out of control. The end result is a story whose parts could each very well be a caption inside a series, but there's so many of them now that I'd rather just make an "ongoing story" out of it and avoid the work of assembling so many caption-images. So..ultimately, this is something in between, say, what the "Miranda" stories were and a "proper" story like Battle Vixens. I've tried to set myself some hard limits on what will be in this story so it won't go on and on forever, like said "proper" stories do, so it's reasonable to think of it as a "series of standalone would-be-caption stories based on a single premise." The premise itself is best expressed within the story, so...here goes nothing. You can expect at least the next couple of these to come out this week, I think.

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In a small room on the top floor of the Omega Zeta Kappa fraternity house, five young men sat around a large circular table with empty wine glasses set before them. In the center of the table was a big, clear solid-plastic container with a spigot on it which one might expect to be full of alcohol—but the multicolored, faintly glowing liquid inside would run counter to any such expectation. It was a Saturday morning, just after the sort of late breakfast that befits the weekend.

"Good morning, gentlemen," one of them said first—Richard Tanner, or typically "Rich" for short. He was a tall, somewhat skinny guy with shoulder-length pitch black hair and bright, piercing red eyes which some people swore glowed in the dark. He had on a friendly, calm smile for his fellow members of the fraternity's "high council", and there was nothing even slightly negative or forceful about the tone of his voice, but even now he seemed to exert a kind of intensity and pressure on anyone those eyes focused toward for even half a second.

His nickname was more than a shortening of his first name; his family was notoriously, fabulously wealthy, his older brother having founded the OZK fraternity as a freshman and put up the funds himself to have the house they were sitting in built. Following the elder Tanner's tradition, Rich didn't officially rule over the fraternity—as much as his own continued "donations" did to keep it alive—but shared power equally with the other four seated at this very table. Nonetheless, it was him who tended to have the unusual, bizarre, or sometimes visionary ideas that maintained the fraternity's reputation throughout the campus, with the others often providing excellent suggestions to improve on his ideas, or to make them even the least bit practical in the first place.

"I know you're all familiar with the matter at hand, so I'll get on with it. As of yesterday, the vote still stands at four-one. We unanimously agreed at my initial proposal that a unanimous vote would be required. Jeff?"

Omega Zeta Kappa was no ordinary fraternity. There wasn't an abundance of dudebros and jocks; there was hardly ever any alcohol at all in their building. Rich's elder brother started the whole thing as an elaborate sort of performance art, inviting a bunch of his artistically-oriented friends as the charter members. Since then, its membership had grown and diversified a bit, taking in mostly the kinds of guys who wouldn't join normal fraternities: More artists of all sorts, of course, but also nerds and 'losers' and 'weirdos' and loners. It was common for them to actively seek out people with those sorts of reputations to join them. A relatively recent development for OZK was a few of the more typical "frat" types joining the group, beginning with Jeff.

Jeff looked fairly out of place among the council, especially when he quit slouching and sat up as he did now. "C'mon man.." He was tall, blond, broad-shouldered, muscular—in fact, he was on the football team. As a freshman, some of his friends had dared him to join the "weird frat" for a year, but he'd grown to like those "weirdos" so much by the end of said year that he basically ditched his former friends in favor of them. On the council, his voice was representative of the organization's minority 'normie' population—if people willing to associate with OZK at all could be called that. "This is ridiculous! I'm not the only one with a scholarship to think of, either. Yo, Mylar!" He elbowed the guy next to him. "How'd Rich get you in on this? You were with me two days ago!"

"Eh, well, y'know," he shrugged. Mylar was a bit on the short side, skinny, with light purple hair and darker purple eyes. Also, he had the ears and tail of a cat—being one of the two "magic folk" on the council, a Neko in fact—with all of the fur in the same shade as his hair. He was probably the biggest nerd in the group, halfway through a software enginnering degree and constantly playing video games or screwing around with programs on his laptop. However, he was also one of the school's star gymnasts, with the sport paying a hefty portion of his tuition. "I asked the coach and she was like, 'If that's what you really want, you're still set with us. I'll just set up another tryout or whatever'."
"In those words." Rich asked flatly.
"Well—no, but, pretty much," Mylar shrugged. "Anyway, it's not like it's irreversible, right?"

"Anything's reversible with enough magic," another member chimed in.

Tielo was the other "magic" member of the council, a blue-eyed, light-brown-haired Kitsune who swore up and down to anyone who asked that he only had one tail..but he probably had two or three by now. He was in charge of OZK's "hazing", which largely consisted of having initiates help him pull reasonably harmless pranks on other fraternities. He was probably the most laid-back and chill of the bunch; if an initiate didn't want to participate in the "hazing" he would tell him he'd "passed the test", possibly throwing in some halfhearted nonsense about not giving in to peer pressure, and then let him join anyway. At the moment he was leaned way back in his chair, his fluffy tail poking through the big gap between its seat and upper back to swish back and forth through the air. "I could've taken some already and changed back, and you guys wouldn't even be able to tell."

"If anyone's truly uncomfortable after-the-fact, I don't mind buying a batch to undo the work," Rich said, nodding. "Is that your only objection?"

"No way!" Jeff leaned in, putting his fists on the table. "Do you have any idea how many guys are gonna quit over this? How many parents are gonna freak? The whole school's gonna be weirded out, man."

"Erm..isn't that the idea?" A softer voice came. The fifth member of the council, Erwin, rarely spoke up at all. He was a nice, gentle sort who Rich tended to refer to as their 'conscience', and many of OZK's non-council-members called him the "team mom". He was average height and well-above-average weight, with short dark brown hair and deep blue eyes. He had intentions of being a more conventional artist—"a painter or something", he would say when pressed. His talent and work ethic were ridiculous; some of his works adorned the fraternity's halls, and newbies or visitors sometimes failed to believe a mere student had produced any of it. Now that everyone's head had turned his way, Erwin had somewhat more difficulty speaking. "I-I mean, the first thing Rich said to me was 'when was our last big stunt'?"

"Maybe the 'great sobering'?" Tielo said, referring to his most recent "hazing" prank of temporarily replacing a few other fraternities' beer supplies with identical-tasting, non-acoholic drinks. "Meh, most of 'em didn't even notice."

"Indeed," Rich said, nodding. He leaned in toward the group with a characteristically mesmerizing expression, a half-vicious, half-mischievious grin that made staring into his eyes feel like watching the blazing sun at midday. "It's time we do something they can't so easily ignore. I want to shake our members and anyone who sees us alike out of complacency. Remind them that the world is a bizarre, absurd, nonsensical place, and sometimes authority figures can be tyrannical and arbitrary for no apparent reason."

Rich leaned back again in his chair. "..Besides that, I want to know if it's true."

This was the first time Jeff had heard this part of his reasoning. "If what's true?"

He crossed his arms and chuckled. "If sororities have more fun, of course!" The other council members (except for Erwin) laughed with him, before they all (including Erwin) turned expectantly to the holdout again.

Jeff crossed his arms and frowned. "Yeesh. Okay, look, it's the off-season anyway. If I can't find a way to make this work, you change me back and I'm quitting. I mean, I don't wanna, but if I have to stay a girl to stay in, stayin' on the team comes first."
"Understandable," Rich said, nodding. "Then, do we have a decision?"
He sighed, shook his head, then sort of shrugged. "Sure, fine, I guess. I'm just tellin' you, we're gonna get a lot of quitters."
"Well, they'll make room for some new candidates, then," he said. "Shall we?" Rich gestured toward the table's centerpiece before standing, leaning forward and filling the glasses about three-quarters full of the liquid inside, offering a glass to each member of the council before taking the last one himself and holding it up.

"Cheers, my friends." They tapped the glasses together with whoever could reach, and then all drank the strange, magical contents at about the same time.

"Myugckh, that tasted weird," Jeff said, wiping his face with a sleeve.

"I thought it was kinda sweet?" Erwin said.

"I was told it tasted different to just about everyone," Rich said, shrugging. "A bit on the spicy side for me; not bad at all. Don't believe I would seek it out often, however."

"So, like, how long does this stuff take to work?" the Kitsune said, leaning in to place his empty glass back on the table after staring into it for a moment.

"I was told the potion could begin taking effect immediately, or take up to twenty-four hours to start, depending on the individual," Rich said. "Once its effect begins, it's supposed to be pretty swift."
"Oh," Mylar said. "Well, uh.." He gestured vaugely to their red-eyed leader. "I guess you'll be the first, then?"

"Hmmn?" Rich looked down to examine himself and then back up again before noticing some hairs trailing down into his eyes, the bangs he usually kept fairly short sweeping down to frame the sides of his face. At this point the hair coming from his back trickled onto his shoulders too, before rapidly streaming its way out down his back and stopping only once it was just long enough for the tips of the locks to slightly touch the seat of his chair. "..Ah." He ran a hand down through some of that hair, finding it pleasingly soft if a bit unkempt...rather nice, he thought.

The next thing to come was a gentle tingling across his face, and moving the hand up from midway down his hair to that he briefly brushed a bit of facial hair before feeling it pull back into his skin, leaving it soft and smooth in his hand. The tingling rushed down the rest of his body and he shuddered slightly in its wake, feeling the rest of his skin turn just like his face as he lifted his hand back off of it again.

By the time the tingling had stopped, Rich could already feel a gentle pressure running all across his body, causing him to slim and shrink slowly. "Hm~mn..." His neck felt kind of strange for a second, and he gently prodded at it to find his adam's apple gone. "Oo~oh..not bad." His voice came out in a low, mature alto tone, as decidedly female as his small, soft face now looked framed by long black hair. Raising the hand from his neck to before his eyes, he could see it shrinking too, becoming smaller with slim, delicate fingers and longer, much better-kept nails. Looking down again, he could also see his shoulders narrowing, waist trimming, arms and legs slimming down—resulting in his shirt and pants growing awkwardly large and loose on him. He didn't really lose much height in the end, but his frame had collapsed in to an extremely effeminate one by the time the transformation moved on to its next phase.

"Hm~mnnh.." Rich couldn't resist a slight wriggling of his hips in his seat, his face warming with a blush, as he felt has manhood tingling, slipping, tugging—rapidly reducing in size the whole while. He had a feeling he was going to enjoy being a girl right off the bat, and that feeling proved itself true as he let out a soft, high, breathy "Aa~aah" and it melted completely away, leaving behind a fuzzy, tingly sensation down there as something new pressed its way upward. Womanhood came quickly to her, and it brought with it equal parts relief and excited pleasure.

She let out a couple of slow, heavy huffs of breath as she felt her hips pressing out gently, growing the lower third of a girlish figure. At the same time, her chest gently puffed out a tiny bit, gaining preteen-size breasts immediately.

Now another part of the potion took effect, causing her clothes to glow and begin to rapidly reshape. Her pants slid up off of her slim, shapely legs, spreading apart into a very short pink skirt; her underwear shrank immediately into a soft, snug pair of panties. Her shirt, already having slipped mostly off of her shoulders, pulled itself down the rest of the way to fully expose her neckline and shoulders, then split off some material which became a bra as it shifted itself into a neckless white camisole with some short, frilly sleeves attached on either side. Her tiny breasts gently pushed outward now, swiftly swelling to fill the bra and letting her experience a newfound sensitivity to their skin as they pressed into the soft cloth. Rich had control over herself by now, letting out only a soft, low "Mmnh~" in response to another pulse of girlish pleasure, but her lips were turned up into a smile and her face still fairly red with a blush for a moment as she took a few slow, deep breaths in the aftermath of the sudden change.

 

 

The red-eyed girl stood up, placing one hand on the side of her hip and letting the other hang down by her side. She had a slender figure with a narrow waist and somewhat generous hips, and about an average-sized bust which nonetheless contributed enough to her overall figure to make her quite a beauty to behold. Her long, slightly wild black hair swished behind her, teased into motion by the smallest movement of the surrounding air. "Well, soon-to-be-ladies. I think you'll all have something to look forward to," she said, her half-serious expression settling back into the same commanding grin as before—an expression which retained if not enhanced its power compared to how it had looked on her as a boy. "I'll go make the official announcement to the rest of our members." With that, she turned and walked out toward her bedroom, her hips gently swaying and her shiny black hair swishing back and forth in reply.

"Uh..." The four boys (for now) still sitting around the table were briefly stunned, Jeff the first one to speak up. "I-is it just me, or did Rich look kinda...turned on, a little, by the change?"

"I-it uh, might be good to be in private when we change...if possible," Erwin suggested, getting up to head to his room as fast as he could.

"Heheh, I hope it feels good," Tielo said. "I also hope I turn out at least as cute as Rich did."
"Dude, how can you even—gaah!" Jeff stood up, raising his arms to the air in exasperation, and then stalked off too, leaving the two with animal ears at the table. "This is gonna be ssso weird..."

"Well, who do you think changes last?" Mylar said. "Wanna make a wager?"
"Hmn, no money on it, but I would guess it's you or me," the Kitsune replied. "For such an extreme effect, higher magic resistance is likely to be the main factor. And, that scales with power."
"You think Rich doesn't have high magic resistance?" The Neko spread his hands in the general direction of the door she'd left through. "His—uh, her willpower is prolly ridicu-donk."

Tielo shrugged. "There are exceptions. He's been looking forward to this for a while, I think, so maybe he 'invited it in'."

"Hmph. If you turn into a hottie, I'll invite you in," Mylar joked, getting up and heading toward the stairs to go down to the community game room.

Battle Vixens! - 91

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Episode 91: Suiting Up

"Hey, where ya headed, brah?"
Marcus had almost made it out the door of their apartment before being caught. He turned around to face Thad leaning halfway out of his bedroom door; it wasn't necessarily his roommate's business where he was going, but of course it was against his prior habits to leave the apartment at all over the weekend, and this was the second time. Fortunately, he had an excuse prepared. "Study group. A test got shoved around to tomorrow after all the closures last week."
"Aah, that's harsh, man. Well, see ya," he waved.
"Yep. I don't think it'll take too long, anyway."

With that done, he drove out to near the Quinns' house again, taking a path Clark had routed out for him across some sidewalk behind their neighbors' buildings to reach the gate in their backyard's fence. He glanced around once or twice on the way, but it really didn't seem like anyone was watching or following him. Really, he couldn't recall a single time that footage of their house had even been on the internet, much less the news, so maybe all of this caution wasn't necessary. But—he couldn't see any reason not to do it. It maybe made him feel a little more like a superhero or something, which was nice.

Clark opened the fence, looking at him for a moment. "..Magus?"
"Y-yeah, that's me." It occurred to him only at this point that the Quinns hadn't seen his 'human' form before. Well—just more evidence that he wasn't so great with secrets.

He nodded and led the way to their backdoor. "You have your key?"

"My uh—"
"The hat."
"Oh. Yeah, in my pocket," Marcus nodded.

"Good. Hopefully you can 'adjust' clothing with it in a similar manner to our method."

They came to the kitchen, where a large box was open on the table, several clear-plastic-bagged piles of clothing littered around it. Rory was sitting in fox-form wearing one of them, a sort of lightweight version of modern combat armor—except the one she was wearing seemed more colorful than the others littered around, and appeared to fit her perfectly. Another outfit out of its plastic was hanging across a chair, this one not only more brightly colored but reshaped noticeably. The result was reminiscent of the shrine-madenish style of clothes that Clark's fox form often had; it even had sort of a skirt part to the pants.

"Hi!" Rory waved cheerfully, seeming to be in a very good mood. Marcus waved back as he came in.
"So uh, just pick one of these?"
"One was labeled 'Magus', actually—hang on.." Clark went around the table, briefly picking up and examining a few of the bags before finding the one he was looking for and offering it over. It was surprisingly heavy, enough for Marcus to nearly drop it at first.

"Thanks. I guess uh, could I use your bathroom to change?"
"Certainly."

It was hard not to feel a bit embarrassed that the armored outfit's weight was noticeably easier to manage after putting on the hat to turn into a slim girl. She pulled the plastic open and got out several pieces: A bulletproof vest, pants, a sort of coat, and a..helmet. It hadn't looked like the Quinns' armor had helmets, but maybe they'd just set them aside? This was particularly silly for her, though, with the whole hat thing...but then, maybe it could be small enough to fit a helmet over?

She took off the outergarments her t-shirt and pants had turned into and kept her eyes off of the mirror as best she could while she pulled the armor on; it was, unsurprisingly, slightly loose, not having been particularly tailored to this slim form. The helmet she just held in her hand, looking at herself in the mirror and feeling kind of ridiculous. So—'normal' vixens, it seemed, just had to say part of their phrase to adjust their clothes. But Magus had already found it necessary to pull her hat around in her hands to make it change shape. Yet...her clothes did change with her, after all, so whatever her magic 'was' still had that component in in somewhere. Reaching a hand up, she tapped the hat a couple of times in hopes that it might somehow jostle that component to activate, to no avail. Tugging at the armor and stretching herself around didn't work either.

"Rrgh." Her face in the mirror looked frustrated. Was Magus going to be the only person on their team without armor tomorrow? It'd look weird for sure, maybe a little suspicious, to say nothing of the fact that she'd be in more danger and maybe waste the others' time protecting her. No, she couldn't accept that. Shifting around their clothes was just a thing their magic did for free, apparently, but since she didn't know it could do that at the time, her own 'imitation' of other vixens' powers hadn't been 'set up' to do more than change what she was already wearing. So...

This armor was...defintely too small for 'Marcus' to successfully wear. If she took off the hat, there was no telling if she'd find herself squeezed into it mid-transformation, or if the change would exert a force that would burst the armor apart or something...it wasn't worth the risk. Taking the armor off to change back and then squeezing it on himself before putting on the hat was...possible, but having to do that every time he was going to go out and fight monsters just seemed like a huge waste of some extremely limited time. There had to be something else she could do...

At this point, Magus finally had an idea. Shifting the clothes around was a magic effect, and 'natural' vixens basically said 'magic words' to do it. Well—she had her own kind of magic words. She drew her sword, carefully turning herself around so there was nothing in its path to get whacked, and invoked a simple spell: "Tailor." The gesture ended with the blade held right in front of her, pointed up toward the ceiling. Immediately some blue sparks similar to the ones that her sword usually appeared from rushed out from the blade across the armor, pushing and reshaping it. Before long, it properly fit her—having changed its color scheme to a lot of white and dark blue, similar to the outfit she'd just taken off.

At the same time, some of the sparks rushed over to the helmet she'd set on the sink counter to cast the spell, seeming to burst it apart into more sparks which rushed up onto her hat, not reshaping it but seeming to add a layer of...something. It was difficult to tell visually, but once the spell had done its work she had the distinct sense that the hat was sturdier now—more able to protect her head—despite looking pretty much the same. She tapped it a couple of times with an index finger and found it decidedly more solid than the soft-looking cloth had any right to be, from how it felt to the noise the tapping made. "Well uh..that works, I guess."

She picked up the clothes she'd taken off, hanging them over an arm, and opened the bathroom door to go out and report her success. Her vulpine ears picked up a light knock on the house's front door, and she continued out to the living room to see who it was. She arrived just in time to see Clark opening the door to Gemma, in her combined form, looking..moderately nervous, which Magus figured was about the baseline mood for her.

"Uhhh, hi."
Clark tilted his head slightly. "You look about the same to me."
"Well um, I wasn't talking about this form," she said, wringing her hands. "A-and then I thought, if I was just gonna walk up and knock, it would probably be better to either look like this or be invisible, so—"
"I think I get it. Come on in," he waved her through and shut the door behind her, and she finally noticed the vixen in the hat.

"Oh, uh, hi Magus!" she waved, seeming slightly more cheerful. It was difficult to tell if Magus's presence actually made her feel better somehow, or just distracted her from whatever she was worried about.
She put up her free hand in reply. "Yo. You here to pick up armor too?"

"Yep! But uh..also for other reasons." Back to the hand-wringing with her ears down. Okay, it probably had just been a brief distraction.

"Rory's in the kitchen with the rest of the armor," Clark reported. "So, you found a way to make it work?" he added, to Magus.

"Oh, yeah. Turns out I had to use a spell instead. It did something sorta weird though," she said, tapping her hat. "The helmet kinda..'combined' with my hat?"

This distracted Gemma again, making her pause halfway to the kitchen to stare at the hat and, after a second or two, squint her eyes. "Huh." She resumed her walk at a faster pace afterward, and Clark shrugged at Magus before following. It felt like a cue to join them and see whatever the two-tailed vixen had in mind.

"This one's yours," Rory said cheerfully, offering her one of the bags. Gemma nodded, carefully pulling it out of the plastic. "Actually, it's one of the two they sent in case you needed one for each body..." She trailed off. Then: "You look like someone who just had an idea. Care to share?"
"Well uh—it'll be pretty silly if it doesn't work, I think," she said, holding the full set of armor in her arms. After this she said a few syllables Magus couldn't understand—part of her phrase, no doubt—and the armor in her hands glowed gray before flowing up across her body and settling onto what she was presently wearing: A short-sleeved blouse, skirt and stockings. The result seemed to be a slightly thicker version of the same outfit which showed a bit less skin and had a white-and-black beret added on top of her head, between the ears. Once this was done, Gemma took a moment to pat a few parts of the outfit, and it certainly sounded more solid than it looked, especially the hat.

"So...what exactly was that?" Clark said.
"Well uh—it looked like Magus 'layered' the properties of armor on top of her hat's usual properties somehow...I'm not sure it can stay like that forever, like there's a tiny bit of uh..'something' going from her into her hat to maintain it. I thought maybe we could do that too?" she said, shrugging.
"Looks like you were right!" Rory said. "This'll make armoring up way quicker."

"What's the 'cost' of keeping your whole outfit enchanted?" Magus said.
"..Barely even noticeable. Like, I can't feel it and can just barely see it if I'm looking for it."
"Awesome!" Rory said, "So, what was that thing about you looking 'different'?"

"Uhhm. I guess I can show you first."

Rory waved Magus toward one of the chairs, so she went and took the offered seat. Gemma, meanwhile, said the same piece of her phrase again to evidently 'unstick' the armor from her regular clothes, and they came off looking quite different: Obviously sized to fit her, and complete with a split-down-the-middle color scheme like all of her combined form's outfits seemed to have. The helmet remained a beret. After setting the armor down, she went through her entire phrase to change back.

Magus hadn't actually seen Gemma's human form before, but if anyone had asked her what the chronically anxious vixen probably looked like as a human, it certainly wasn't this. She was a tall (for a girl at least), athletic bombshell that any guy (other than maybe Thad) would ask out on a date in an instant. At the same time, she seemed slightly nervous and uncomfortable, fidgeting while the Quinns looked on in evident surprise for a moment.
"Wow, you grew up!" Rory said first, grinning and putting out a hand toward her. "Have you been working out or something?"

"It..doesn't take a biologist to know that shouldn't be possible in such a short span of time," Clark said. "I can see why this requires an explanation, at least."

"Well uh. I mean, I kinda have to start a little back to explain this," Gemma said, still blushing profusely from some combination of the attention she was getting and how she (now?) looked. "It's...maybe a little long?"
"Hey, take a seat then!" Rory invited her. "You too, quit hovering over everyone," she added to her husband.
"I'm not 'hovering'." He went and sat at the available chair next to her anyway, and after a brief hesitation Gemma sat down too, across from them.

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Out of all of the departments of the VI to call an 'emergency meeting', the research department was certainly an unexpected one. Rowan made his way out to Frank's office, and found that the only others invited were Dr.'s Bridges and Brand themselves, and Chandra—who arrived last.

"We'll keep this brief," Dr. Brand said, standing. "My office had an intruder sometime prior to our arrival this morning. Said intruder entered without unlocking the door or disturbing anything inside, with the exception of taking four of the masks stored inside. The office was left in a sufficiently neat state that the three missing masks were not immediately noticed, in fact not until we took inventory about half an hour ago."
Dr. Bridges cleared his throat. "The fourth mask was not, in fact, missing, but had been wedged into the doorframe in a deliberate effort to have it fall on whoever opened the door first." His partner nodded, holding up a white fox mask he had been keeping by his side and putting it on. The effect was fairly similar to Magus's hat, transforming the old theoretical physicist into a petite fox-girl with white hair and fur aside from a few black accents—the inner ears, the tips of her tail and locks.

"Our first and only realistic suspect for this action is the Giver," she continued without missing a beat. "She also left a note on my office's door which appeared to be intended as a hint to further our work's progress." Without changing back, Dr. Brand sat down again.

"It was a very effective hint," Ezekiel said. "We had intended to report on these events before the end of the day, until we noticed the three missing keys."

"Well," Frank spoke up for the first time. "What do you think she'll do with them?"
"And are you absolutely sure she is the only possible culprit?" Chandra added. "We know of vixens with the power to bypass locks and walls of all kinds."

"None local to us but Warp," Rowan chimed in. "Her capability is line-of-sight, so she would be seen by our headquarter's cameras if she went anywhere last night. Most likely, someone on duty would have seen her—besides which, she has no motivation to steal from us at present. Much less do that," he waved toward the fox-girl.

Dr. Bridges nodded, adding: "She also would not have the information needed to give us that 'hint', even if she knew what the masks were for—which I also consider unlikely. As for what the Giver will do—I suspect she intends to offer them to people, of course, possibly targeting persons in need of an immediate way to defend themselves."

"Does that form have any particular powers?" Rowan asked the fox-girl.
Dr. Brand nodded. "I believe this form has limited combat usefulness, and my time and energy will still be best served with the research department. Its primary capability appears to be a kind of instantaneous scanning of anything I perceive with my eyes."
"Specifically for magical properties," Ezekiel clarified. "Thus far, we have been able to confirm that she can instantly identify valid keys, as well as discern various details about the powers of a 'natural' vixen that are not usually visually obvious. While the weapons vixens produce can look identical to ordinary weapons, she can not only tell the difference, but precisely the 'elemental makeup' of any that came from a vixen."

"Well, that at least sounds useful for us," Frank said. "As with any other empowered, you of course don't have to fight if you don't wish to," he added to Dr. Brand.

She nodded. "...I am willing to fight in the event that a confrontation is inevitable—either an extreme emergency or a threat to my own life. Should that happen, I would still prefer to keep my actual identity confidential if possible. In that case, this appearance should be identified only by the codename 'Hephaestus'."

"Loud and clear," Frank replied, nodding. "Well, as you're both already here, what did the Giver's 'hint' help you learn?"

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"Um, so then she was like, 'I know what's a good prize, what if I just make it so you can customize your body?' I-I mean, not like exactly in those words, but.." Emma gestured excitedly throughout her story, unsure whether to take her audience's rapt silence as a good or bad sign. She just pushed through, going over all of the relevant information she could think of but leaving out the part about Beryl 'liking' Light since that didn't seem particularly relevant.

"...Soo, that's why I look...like this," she said. "I thought—besdies people um, 'in the know', most people who aren't my family don't really pay much attention to me. A-and they haven't seen me in months, and a growth spurt like this isn't totally unheard of, like, as far as naturally occuring..?"
"And you like the results?" Rory said.
"Well—yeah! I mean, I've always wished I could um..'grow up' a little more, physically speaking, like this kinda," she said.
"Then go for it, girl! Right?" she looked back and forth between the other two.
"Nobody knows of a way to change how anyone's human forms look, so they'll see something grounded in 'mundane' science as obviously correct," Clark agreed. "It's not as if anyone will guess a reason as implasuable as the real one."

Magus gave a small nod, sort of staring off into space—thinking about something, maybe?

"So uh, I told Light and Amp about this last night," Emma said, "and Rowan. I still need to tell Ning some time. But—besides that I think this should really stay a secret."
"Oh. Uh." Magus mumbled, seeming nervous. "I-I'll try, at least?" Oh...whoops. She'd said before she wasn't so good with secrets, right?

"Really, how likely do think it is that someone will ask something specific enough for you to spill these particular beans?" Rory asked her.
"Uh—that's a good point, actually. I guess I just need to not like, tweet about it outta nowhere, huh?" She cheered up a bit, but this didn't seem to relate to whatever she was thinking about before the word 'secret' came up.

"There's an entire chain of other knowledge someone would have to have to think you were writing anything besides a sudden burst of bizarre fanfiction," Clark pointed out. "Still—please don't."

"Hey, speaking of things you should know about!" Rory interjected (toward Magus). "Since you're gonna see it tomorrow anyway, it's not really something we can keep from telling you."
"Uh—yeah?"
"We found out we can fuse," Clark said, "under certain conditions. You know how Light has 'access' to certain other vixens' powers?"
"Uh-huh..?"

He went through a brief explanation of how fusion seemed to work, its cost and results, in terms of 'Quinn'. Magus seemed stunned a little excited by the news.

"Duuude," she said, leaning in a bit with her tail twitching around behind her. "What's it even like to like, be another person? I mean—while also being you?"
"It's uh, pretty weird," Emma said. "I tried it with Light—um, only one person needs to know the other's phrase. We freaked out a little bit at first."
"So—wai-wai-wait. Light could fuse with Ning, or Rowan, or uh—" Magus visibly grasped for a name she didn't know. "Phoenix, too?"

"Uh, in theory, yeah. She'd planned to try it with Ning sometime today."
"Rowan knows about it, but he's a bit busy," Clark said. "And Cynthia..."
"Might not really understand the whole concept," Rory said. "Still being at least as much an amnesiac as I am at the moment."

"Still, that's awesome!" she said, spreading out her hands. "The whole fandom is gonna go nuts when they find out!"
"I fully expect pornographic renderings of every conceivable pairing by the end of the week," Rory said, nodding.

Clark cleared his throat. "That said, you also shouldn't mention that to anyone until it's already public knowledge."
"Well, uh—yeah. Obviously," Magus nodded. "I don't think I'll run into anyone I'd blurt that out to before tomorrow."

"So now we just need to get the news out to everyone that you can just paste armor on top of whatever you're already wearing," Clark said, abruptly rolling the subject back to before Emma's story. "Courtesy of Gemma, again."

"Well—um. I-I mean I wouldn't have thought of it if Magus hadn't.."
"This was pretty much an accident," the wizard vixen said. "But, hey, glad I could help anyway!"
"H-heheh..uhmm, same.

"...Oh!" Emma suddenly remembered. "Uh, there was one other thing, she said. Like, right after the whole...apologizing part. It was like, 'tell Clark Quinn he should be careful what he says, he might have a gift for prophetic curses'. I dunno, what she meant by that?"

Clark's expression turned serious and thoughtful, and he stared into space for a moment. "...When, she was offering me a choice of whether I wanted everyone's powers, or to bring them back to life. I told her that I hoped she would find out what it's like to care about someone else," he said finally. "...I wonder if she really did."

Battle Vixens! - 90

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---

Episode 90: Following Through

Light glanced at Emma's 'new and improved' appearance on their way back to her apartment—now that she had gone back to human form. It was strange to see some of the exact same traits she despised in her present form and know that Emma loved them, had wanted something like it for much of her life, and saw it as an outward expression of, and/or reason for, some newfound confidence.

She hadn't really cared so much about her 'superhero identity' being female at first. There was immediate shock and incredulity, but it felt as natural as being male—being Blake—after the first few minutes or so, and fell away from importance entirely before long. If anything, it seemed to have some prospect of making her secret identity even more difficult to guess. But getting to know the person responsible for making that decision, coming to understand that it had been a deliberate choice as well, not some consequence of her way of giving power, and especially seeing her attitude and wants as expressed by this body's 'development'...it made Light now feel a profound annoyance that bordered on disgust if she didn't push it out of her mind.

"You said goodbye in a hurry," she said quietly.

"Yeah, but um, I-I got to be with him long enough, heheh!" Emma giggled softly, clearly still a bit giddy. Being Prism had felt nice, honestly, once she was over the shock of how her brain worked. All of that worry had been Light's in the first place, it seemed, amplified into the brief panic by Emma's general nature. She was also still, understandably, happy from..however the date had gone. "A-anyway, I've got a journal to start."
Light nodded. Prism had resolved it for her, but it was up to Emma to do it. Actually, it seemed like she'd been trying to use Light's confidence to help her make that resolution, but it was all something that Emma wanted to do.

They came to her door. "Uh, hey, if you're.." Emma rapidly tapped her index fingers together a couple of times. "—With Ning later today and wanna test whether fusions can fuse, lemme know."
"...Sure." Light nodded after a second.

She took a deep breath. "Okay, I'm gonna do it," she said, turning and fumbling her keys out to unlock the door.
"You'll be fine."
"Thanks," Emma whispered, heading inside.

---

"Well, here we go." Hugo waved the two girls into the VI's public computer room. "Didn't see Warp on the way, maybe I'll track 'er down in a bit. Anywho.." She followed them inside, pointing to the nearest unoccupied desk.

"These aren't exactly the latest model...well, they're about at the level of the public library." She went and grabbed a second chair, offering them to Dawn and Cynth. "I think they got 'em surplus from some school or something. Anyway, they got internet and speakers, at least...maybe I can ask if somebody can get you three some notebooks at least. Dunno how Rowan didn't think-a this." They just exchanged a brief, mutually confused glance once seated, and let her keep talking.

Hugo went through some of the basics, demonstrating how to get the web browser open and use the search engine, leaning in between them to use the mouse and keyboard the whole time. "Now, let's see...Dawn, Ning, fight...mm-hmm, pretty much the first result. There you go." She opened the link. "Nothin' but a bunch of shaky long-distance phone footage, but..prob'ly for the best no one got too close, I guess.." She stood upright again, crossing her arms as she watched it with them.

"That's me an' her, alright," Dawn mumbled.
"When was this, anyway?" Cynthia said.

"Oh, date's down there, in the description," Hugo pointed. "..Thursday 'fore last."

"...Fire," Cynthia leaned in slightly. "Did I see that right? You, throwin' fire?"

Dawn's ears folded back, but she didn't answer. Hugo tried to help out: "Far as I know, she had fire powers from the day she first joined up with the VI."

"How...why did you...?" She turned toward Dawn, trying to understand. It wasn't like she knew of any other answer to the question, but she didn't want to believe that answer.

Her answer was barely audible. "I had to." Cynthia shivered; finding the room suddenly fairly cold. "Y-you were already.."

"What?!" Cynthia stood up hard enough to knock over her chair, advancing on Dawn about a half-step despite the air that way feeling like the inside of a freezer. "You killed me?! For real!?" She was looking down at the floor, dripping icicles from her eyes.

Hugo had taken a step or so back from the sudden, violent movement. "Uh, hey you two—"

"LOOK AT ME! I was already WHAT!?"

"Dying!" Dawn snapped, turning her head up to face her. "You were—th-that thing tore off your arm, and it—y-you weren't moving! Everyone who—a-and you made me promise! I—" she buried her head in her hands, sobbing loudly. "I'm sorry," she choked out after a moment.

Cynthia put a hand on her opposite arm, just below the shoulder; the idea of her arm coming off seemed to make her imagine an excruciating pain there, and the bizarre experience of being simply unable to move or feel anything past that point. The idea of the physical sensations was extremely faint, with the more prominent memory—if that was what it was—being the combination of shock and confusion resulting from them. Maybe she really was just imagining this, but...

A promise? That she remembered. If I die...take my power, and use it to keep fighting. Maybe those weren't the exact words she'd used, but...Cynthia knew it was true as soon as she heard it. There was a vague sense that she had already been angry with Dawn when they'd had that conversation, a mood of intense loss and despair, of having nothing else left. Whatever had happened to them just before must have been horrible, and not just for her.

"Dawn...I'm so sorry. I..dunno exactly how it happened, but, I never shoulda made you swear to somethin' like that..." She knelt, reaching her hands out through the frigid air to put them on her shoulders and try to make the taller vixen look up.

"I-it's.." Dawn sniffed, barely turning her eyes up enough to look into her face. "It's not just that. I-I knew, before this...d-didn't know how to tell you.."
"What, that you're the one who'd killed me? Yeah, I think I can see why that'd be tough for ya," she said.

"That a-ain't even the worst. I-I did somethin' else awful before that, an' I can't even remember..." It had to be whatever Cynthia was angry about when she forced Dawn to make that terrible promise. But, even though she could grasp the memory of that rage, she still felt far from placing its origin..

"Uh, hey, you two." They both looked up, being reminded that Hugo was still there. "Sorry, I didn't mean to dredge up somethin' awful like that." She squatted partway down toward them. "I, uh, forgot how bad you had it before this whole disaster started. Like—I think I heard Dawn had cancer or something, too?"

"You—" Cynthia looked at her for a fraction of a second. "That's right...you were real sick, before.."

"Anyway, do you need me to get someone? I'm not—grreat at handling this kinda thing."

"Um..I think we might be okay." She pulled forward, hugging Dawn, who was already starting to feel a lot less like a human air conditioner as she slowly returned it.

"Y-yeah..."

"Uh, still. I think you two might want some professional help or something, if you start getting a lot more awful memories back. It's, nothing to be ashamed of, just like..how you gotta take care of your body, you know?"

They both gave her a confused look; Dawn didn't seem to know any more about whatever Hugo was referring to than Cynthia did.

"Well, I knew I was pretty bad at this. Maybe ask Rowan or someone? Iii should-oughta leave before I make any more messes, I think."

---

Once he was back to himself again, Blake sighed and took a seat, feeling mildly tired once more.

"You alright?" Amory was also back to human and male, and came to sit across from him on the couch.
"Yeah," he nodded. "Being Prism was..weird. It's like I—or I guess, Emma—thinks about things so fast. I'm used to chewing on my thoughts for days when I'm trying to make sense of things. She either comes up with a solution right away or throws it off in seconds so she can worry about something else. It felt so normal to do it that way once I started."

"You're not gonna tell me you can't think fast," his roommate said, leaning forward slightly and looking at him.
"No, but it's—" Blake gestured vaguely. "I only think fast when I need to. If I think something's important and I have time to think about it, I take time. It didn't feel like I...could then. I'm still not completely sure if that was a relief or it just worried me more. Anyway..."

He picked up his tablet and put it where they could both see it. "I spent some time setting something up. It's uh..a dead-man switch message, in case...anything happens. Just, an email to my parents, basically." He typed in the address to open it, showing Amory the login screen, which just asked for a password. "I'm gonna give you the password, in case I'm alive but can't log in for some reason or whatever." Typing it in quickly, he brought up a simple display.

"Here's the timer, and you push this button to refresh it," he said, pressing the button in question and resetting it to 24 hours. "It can also be turned up in 24-hour increments, or back down to 24; past a full week it switches to saying 'infinity' which basically turns the whole thing off." Then, pointing to more of the interface: "That's for editing the message and who gets it; I already finished doing that part. There's no button to send it right away because it'd be really stupid if that got pressed by accident."

"You think you might die?" Amory said, looking up toward his face.
Blake shrugged. "I dunno. I just thought—just in case. I mean, I..we saw what happened to everyone Tobias killed. Even back to life, nobody knows who some of them are. If something else happened that wiped my memory and kept me as 'Light', maybe something big enough that nobody else who knows could say either..I want a backup. And..if I did die, they at least deserve to know." He sighed. "I feel...really guilty keeping it from them this long, when I really think about it. But I don't know how I'd tell them right now if I had to."
Amory nodded. "Same with my dad, I guess."

---

"Hmmmnn...." While Clark went around taking care of some household chores, Rory was at the kitchen table with the computer to try to re-learn or remind herself of a few more things. At this point he caught her leaning in toward the computer screen, staring deeply into it.

"You really might hurt your eyes doing that," he said.
She jumped a bit at his voice, not expecting it to suddenly come from so close, and leaned back again, looking at him. "Oh, sorry! It's just uh. I feel like I mostly remember something that should be super important. Up here..." she pointed to the URL bar. "I think it's like.." After hovering her fingers over the keyboard for a second, she typed out the address to log into the school email server. "Aaand then, this box gets...RQuinn5, and uh...that one?" she pointed.

"That's your username and password for emails from work," he said. "You don't really need to see that since you're not working right now."
"Well—yeah, I guess, but..I just—feel like I almost remember what the password's supposed to be too. And anyway, it still feels important to check it!"

"Hmnh. You never told me what any of your passwords are, so I can't be much help here."

Rory stared at the screen for another several seconds, before typing a series of letters and numbers without looking at the keyboard. "That uh—feels right, except I have no idea what I just typed."

Her husband shrugged. "Try it out, then?" He pointed to the 'login' button.

"Uuuum, right!" After clicking that, she said, "..Wow, that's a lot of new messages. Uh, looks like a lot of people are hoping I'm okay! That's good, right?"

Clark sighed. "Since our emails are publicly displayed on the school website, all our 'fans' know them." He leaned over and clicked through a few options to filter out anything not internal to the school. "These'll be the actually important ones..mostly. Those are just outdated announcements..."

"Oh, hey, I know this name!" she pointed. "Aaand, that one too."
"Your grad students." Rory clicked to open one of them. "They'll have been working with you on their research."

"Hmm. She wants to meet with me tomorrow, in my office."
Clark leaned in to try and read it himself. "..Even though you don't remember anything about that research yet?"
"No, it looks like she gets that." The gist of the message was that regularly going over her progress with Rory helped this student stay motivated and organized, even if Rory wouldn't be able to give much meaningful feedback. "Hey, maybe it'd help me remember that sutff I'm supposed to be an expert in?"
"At the very least, it might be a learning experience for her to have to 'teach' it to you. Well, you can certainly come to campus to meet students if you want to," he said, shrugging. "Just be prepared for a lot of people asking how you are and especially how soon you can get back to regular work."

---

It had to be counted as a victory when Emma only stared at a blank document for five minutes or so before writing her first word.

Everyone who got a power wanted something. Lots of people wanted things anyone can relate to, or really good things that nobody could fault them for. What I wanted was very selfish, and a little stupid and silly.

She also made it two whole sentences before getting into self-deprecation. This sort of thing was why she didn't usually like to write about herself. But—she took a deep breath and reminded herself of everything she'd ever learned about writing in general. Keep it going, and make edits later. The timeline of events ever since the day everyone got their powers was essentially her outline, particularly her own experiences during that time.

After a few minutes, she felt the simultaneous need to pace and to keep going. She used her key phrase to split into two bodies and accomplish both needs at once. This was about at the same time that she was gushing about her first realization of how her power worked—how it let her do two things at once, just like this.

Several pages later (and after swapping out which body was pacing around), her phone buzzed, and Minus grabbed it to look. It was through the VI app, from the male Dr. Quinn: We just got armor for everyone delivered from the VI. Let me know when you can pick it up today.

Armor? Right...hadn't Rowan said something about that? The events at the VI felt terrifically distant, with that confrontation with Beryl, talking about it that night, and all of today in between, but it really had been just yesterday. And..it certainly made sense for the publicly-known vixens to be the ones who it got delivered to.

Emma made a quick estimation, based on prior experience, of how long her momentum with the writing would last, and settled on a time slightly after that—long enough to drive over, plus half an hour's worth of padding. Only...

She sent back first that she would be there around that time. Then, immediately after:

but uh

theres a Thing

I need to explain about

A 'Thing'?

yes

better in person, btu like

I will look

different

so be ready for that i guess

Different?

Emma didn't reply to elaborate, and after another several seconds Dr. Quinn seemed to shrug to himself and finally sent: Okay, see you then.

---

I haven't had much time to do anything resembling writing for the past month or so, sorry about that. I also had a massive writer's block on this story before that which resulted partly from some difficulty organizing things. This was mostly written for a long while, but I needed to move some things into the next episode to make things line up the way I wanted them to and actually finish this.

The "Best" RPG Ever-112

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---

Before long, Mira pulled into view of the source of the distress signal. There were four people and no monsters present, which was immediately a bit worrying. She dove as steeply as seemed safe to get a clearer view and hopefully figure out what was going on.

A Vulpin woman in light armor was the only one of the four the witch was absolutely sure she didn't recognize. She was holding her arms out, seemingly generating a translucent green dome of magic stuff in front of her—a shield, in fact, which was busy absorbing a volley of bolts from a crossbow in the hands of a purple-feathered avian woman wearing a lighter version of the town guard's uniform. The other two people were Rast and his partner, Pirr, and he seemed to be on the defensive, backing away from her strikes while evidently restraining a trained reflex to counter them.

As they pulled up between the two pairs, Rast happened to catch sight of the broom. "Mira!" This got the attention of the Vulpin woman, who turned her head to see them and seemed immediately distressed by the witch—enough so to distract her from keeping the shield up. Nora raised one hand as she jumped in that direction off of the broom, raising some rock in the way of the avian's next few bolts.

"Oof—gods it's good to see you," Rast said. "Little help?" Mira moved in, blocking one of Pirr's strikes with her scythe, hooking the blade around her spear's shaft and yanking it to one side to send her stumbling off balance. Both she and the avian seemed extremely slow to acknowledge their presence at all.

"Why are you fighting?"

"Wish I knew! Kayriel 'ere saw somethin', went all silent and landed, then just stared around at everyone for a minute. Then she an' Pirr started rambling and shoutin' and then attacked."

Nora came closer, using the bracelet in her left hand to shock the avian—Kayriel—with enough electricity to stun her momentarily but hopefully not injure. "Are you hurt?" she asked the stranger.

"..No." The Vulpin was looking right past her at Mira. "Does Kyzerath employ witches and warlocks now?"

"Nope, just me!" Mira replied cheerfully. "D'you know what's going on here?" Once she had her balance, Pirr seemed to have paused her attack to stare at the witch.

"I don't, although it's...familiar," she half-mumbled the last word. "Their eyes are..wrong."
"Eyes?"

Mira glanced more closely at Rast's partner. There was indeed something unusual with her eyes. At first it was—sort of like TV static, or the visual effect that appeared in Aria's dreamspace before it got filled with other people's dreams. But it was more than that; there seemed to be something too deep inside for it to possibly fit inside her skull. It was a nauseatingly rapidly warping and twisting of colors that ultimately resulted in the TV snow-like appearance on the surface. "..Yep, thaat's pretty weird."

"EMPTY!" Pirr suddenly screeched, advancing on the witch spearheard-first. While she wasn't strictly expecting this, Mira still had enough time to move aside, grab the spear in both hands and several shadow-tentacles and yank it out of Pirr's hand. This didn't deter the guard, as she went for the witch's throat with her hands and had to be shoved away hard, onto her back, by her scythe's handle.

Kayriel had also recovered by now and advanced exclusively on the weaver, spewing a series of words too rapidly to fully parse. Some highlights included 'abomination incapable of receiving the gift' and 'purge from this world'. Nora just backed away, drawing more electricity and using it to knock the avian down again.

"How did just seeing something drive 'em mad?" Rast said.

The stranger was mumbling, "..seen it before, but.."

Pirr was getting back to her feet again, looking enraged and ranting about the same way Kayriel was. "Yeah okay, I know what we'll do," Mira said.

The witch planted the base of her scythe on the ground and rapidly chanted, focusing demonic energy through it. Then, as the elf started to come toward her again, she stuck out her hand toward her and a stream of shadowy black magic hit her, enveloping her body briefly before seeming to be absorbed, with the result that she collapsed onto the ground, eyes closed. She immediately began chanting the same spell again, tracking Kayriel's position as she shot some bolts Nora's way and had them blocked by more raised dirt, and sent a cloud of black magic into her to put her lights out, too.

"...Phew."

The Vulpin woman took a moment to look between the two unconscious guards, then to Mira. "Not that I don't appreciate the rescue, but—what was that, exactly?"
"Basic sleeping curse I just whipped up," the witch said, putting her weapon away, "I made it a bit stronger by giving it a keyword that'll wake them up right away if they hear it, but an average mage should still be able to dispel it. Oh, no need to worry about saying that word accidentally though—it's like over ten syllables long. And, possibly made up. Soo, who're you, now?"

"Uh, this's Hyacinth, a guard from one of our neighborin' towns," Rast said. "We were just escortin' her back. S'pposed to be an easy job, just take a safe route with me an' Pirr, and Kayriel to scout."

"I'm beginning to think whatever threat we are facing has a grudge against me personally," Hyacinth said. "So..you are a witch, then?"
"Never said I wasn't! Name's Mira, and this is Nora." She turned toward the sound of running. "Oh! Aaand that'll be the rest of our party, Aria and Lupa," she swept her arm out toward them.

---

After lunch, the caravan reassembled, the soldiers rotating out duties: Those who had driven the horses before now flanked the caravan with the prince and the adventurers, while others who'd been on their feet took over that task. Rayna stayed near the front of the group, and Zack remained on the opposite side from the prince.

An hour or so down the road, they came to a fork and paused. Peregrine came up next to the illusionist. "What do you 'see'?" he said.

"Hmmn. This way will take a bit longer, but there's a lower chance we'll get attacked on it," she said, pointing. "Buut..." She mentally communicated the time and probabilities through Katherine to some of the others, especially Lynn.

"Is the difference in the risk worth it?" the prince said, while the archer got back to Rayna with an answer to this very question.

The fox-girl crossed her arms, easily making it look like she was thinking about it for a moment herself. "The difference in probability isn't very big, and the time difference is a couple of hours. So, I don't think so. Also, they're both over fifty percent—I don't think we're getting through without dealing with something else either way."

He nodded. "On your advice, then, I propose we take the shorter road." Then he turned toward the rest of the caravan. "—Unless there are any objections to that?"
"Sooner we get to safety the better, sire," one of the soldiers spoke up.

Katherine nodded. "Our group agrees, too."

As they started off again, Lynn asked: You can't see exactly what will attack us, can you? I mean, a hundred percent chance of more weak goblins is way better than a fifty percent chance of another fire giant or something...

Sadly, I don't get that much detail. To put it in DND terms, though, the 'challenge rating' looks about the same either way.

There better not be a fire giant on our route, Clera said, in a rare interjection. We very much lack the tools to deal with one.

---

"Aww, we missed the whole fight? Waait.." The shifter looked around.

"No monsters to begin with," Mira said, coming closer. "Something made these two instantly crazy." She gestured toward Pirr and Kayriel.
"Oof, a high-level confusion spell or something?"

"Worse, it's infectious, maybe transferred by sight. But some people are immune, or at least resisted it, I guess?"

Hyacinth did not look reassured by this conversation. "Do you..deal with things of this nature often?"
"Oh, nah, we just..you know..." Aria predictably struggled to come up with a good excuse.
"Sometimes we'll think up theoretical types of spells or effects we might need to deal with," Mira said, "and make plans for, just in case. I mean, mental magic is rare but not unheard of, right?"

"...I, suppose so." She looked to the man Lupa was carrying. "Who's..?"

"Hi, this one's Lupa!" the wolf-girl answered helpfully.

"We don't actually know who that guy is," Aria said. "He's still unconscious from the spider venom."
"Spider—dire spiders?"

"I presume so," the witch replied. "We went into the forest looking for monstrous lizards, but the spiders already ate them all, so we killed those instead."

"With four people? How?"
"Well, we had the element of surprise, and Nora can throw fire around," Mira said; the weaver just sheepishly looked away.
"Yeah, and Lupa here could win a weight-lifting championship with her pinkie finger!" Aria said.

".....Including the queen."
"If that's the big one, sure! Aria killed it." The shifter waved cheerfully, giving the kind of innocent grin that can still be terrifying under the right circumstances.

Hyacinth stared at this for a second, and looked back and forth between the group again before continuing: "Did you get rid of the eggs?"
"We uh, didn't see any eggs," Aria admitted.

"They lay 'em in their prey, and hang 'em up on webs," Rast said.

"We...have no experience or knowledge fighting, sp-spiders," Nora spoke up. "So, we were..unaware of this detail."
"That sounds like a job for more than four people anyway," Mira said.
"Yep," the wolf-man agreed. "Guard oughta be able to take care of it if all the adults're dead."
"Soo anyway, do you still want an escort the rest of the way to your town?" the witch said. "I could prolly just fly you there on my broom or something..."

Hyacinth exhaled audibly, not seeming thrilled with this idea. "No, I believe it would be best to report this to Captain Ezra first, and send a message to my town explaining the change of situation. Depending on the strength of your...curse, and the nature of whatever magic is affecting them, they should be seen to as quickly as possible."
"Fair enough," the witch said. "Well, I can get one of these guys..I guess Pirr? Rast, can you take Kay for a while?" She figured that avians, having hollow bones, might be lighter to carry.
"Sure," he said.

---

If there was one bad thing about being instantly teleported to the caravan's position, it was that it gave the group of adventurers no opportunity to scout possible routes for the caravan to take to town on the way out to it. The direction they were approaching from was nowhere near the way any of them remembered using, with most of them having foregone wider, more vulnerable roads which carts like these could use in favor of smaller, shorter paths that were easier to find hiding places on, or else rough but open terrain that made it easy to spot trouble from far off. In short, none of them could've known that the shorter route Rayna suggested would cut through some fairly thick, low-visibility woods.

By the time the trees began to close around them, it had been long enough since the fork for turning around to feel absolutely foolish—besides which, the other route could be just as bad or worse. So instead, everyone tightened their formations and continued forward with as much haste as their caution would allow. Anyway, there was still enough light from the gap the wide path made between the trees for even the humans to see reasonably well.

Zack stopped, putting out a hand to signal a halt. Something's coming. Up in the trees, both sides of us. The psion passed this message to everyone, hearing the movement herself now that the noise of the caravan had stopped.

Just feels like 'animal' minds—some kind of beast-type monsters, I guess.

Senses? Rayna asked while everyone drew weapons and pulled back to the sides of the carts, facing outward.
...Sight, sound, smell...heat? Like how a snake 'feels' for things.

No experience fooling that one, I'm afraid. I'll try to put everyone off to one side a bit to at least try to throw off their aim.

The sound Zack had first picked up over the trees cut out just to either side of the caravan, and then there were a few seconds of complete, tense silence. After that, something bright green and taller than a man pounced downward in a blur toward the knight. He struck Enceladus up-forward and succeeded in impaling it through the glowing blade: a gigantic lizard with a narrow, almost snakelike head, big claws on its four feet, hind legs long enough to use for both bipedal and quadrupedal movement, and a pattern of green and brown to its scales that had made it impossible to pick out from the trees above.
At the same time, more such lizards came out on both sides, one of them narrowly missing its effort to bite through the prince's shoulder before quickly skittering back into the trees, easily avoiding his effort at a counter-swing. The one that came for Katherine was not so lucky, a telekinetically-thrown knife landing in its back and shocking it, stunning it enough for another to swoop around its head and catch it across the throat. Lynn also made a successful dodge, though the arrows she sent after her attacker missed.

One of the giant scaly monsters, however, did make its mark, biting down on the right arm of one of the soldiers—Karl, who had been standing right next to Clera. It stayed on him for a couple of seconds, long enough for the winged girl to cast a spell which wreathed it in flame when it tried to run away, hurting it badly enough for it to fall down dead halfway to the trees. Karl also collapsed, crying out, and the Empath was kneeling over him almost before he hit the ground.

Any idea of their numbers? Peregrine asked, trying his best to distinguish between the remaining lizards and the wind going through the treetops.

Four now, the psion reported. One didn't attack. Zack pointed his blade to the ground and kicked the lizard off of it, going over next to the Empath and raising his shield to protect her and her patient.

"GaaAAah..!" Karl writhed violently. Clera made a silent request for a knife, and raised her hand to take one Katherine sent over the caravan to her in response. She cut across the wound from the lizard's bite, trying to bleed out as much of the poison as possible, and then dropped the blade, keeping a firm grip with the other hand on his arm despite the rest of her shaking.

Fast-acting neurotoxin. I can pull off the effect to keep it from killing him, but I can't process the poison for him.

You should maybe get inside for this one, Katherine advised, coming next to the prince and raising several daggers out in front of them to deter an attack. He hesitated briefly, but complied—not necessarily knowing what a 'neurotoxin' was but understanding the danger of a fast-acting poison all the same. The rest of the soldiers—who her message had been equally directed toward—each turned and clambered into the nearest cart, not wanting to share Karl's fate.

Lynn used visual information from Rayna—showing the actual location of the monsters—to track one and shoot it with an electrified arrow when it tensed to pounce. The electricity arced across to another, dropping both of them to the ground and giving her and the catgirl easy targets to finish off. Zack met another pounce with his shield, bashing the lizard's face to stun it and slashing into its side before it could recover enough to attempt to flee.

That leaves the one that hasn't attacked, I guess? Lynn thought, looking around. Where is it?

Other side of us, the catgirl replied. And running away, but it doesn't read as 'scared'. Not a good sign.

---

Around half of the distance back to town, the three unconscious people were set down and everyone took a brief break. "You holding up okay?" Mira asked Rast, who seemed to be panting fairly hard.
"Oughta...ffh..make it fine, once I catch my breath."
"..I can carry her the rest of the way," Hyacinth said. "So long as she doesn't wake and start trying to kill me again."

"If she does, it'll be way tougher without this~," Aria said, waving Kayriel's crossbow before stowing it back in her inventory.

"Do you...need a break?" Nora asked the witch.
"Hmmn, I'd appreciate it, if you don't mind." The weaver nodded, switching to her stronger wolf form.

"Are you...both shifters?" Hyacinth asked—having already seen Aria change shape during their trip.

"Nah, Nora's an elf," Aria said, with a big, trolling grin.

"Haestra's g-gift allows me to t-take certain, b-beastfolk-like forms," the weaver said. "Each with c-certain advantages. Th-this one emphasizes strength."

"I've not heard of her power being able to do that before," Hyacinth said. "This must be a particularly advanced technique." She sounded impressed, not skeptical.

Nora nodded. "Its p-prerequisites are also..c-complicated."

The mage then looked at Lupa; in fact she'd been stealing glances the wolf-girl's way for a fair bit of the trip.

"Hii~! This one is fine," she said.
"Right. What...manner of magic are you using?" Hyacinth said. "That is—I can see that your physical capabilities are being enhanced, but I cannot make sense of the source of most of the energy. Your aura looks almost like some sort of inward spiral, but it isn't actually drawing anything in?"

"Lupa is a personified dire wolf," Mira said. "We were just as surprised that could happen as anyone else. An expert in chaos magic said she's somehow drawing it in—which is probably that 'funnel' you're seeing—and converting it into normal magic for her own use."

"I see...chaotic magic is notoriously difficult to detect. Perhaps I could meet this expert before I depart again."

"The important thing is that this one is super strong!" Lupa helpfully informed her, flexing an arm. "If anything attacks, this one can protect all!"

"...Yes....good to know."