Ventus growls every time Senta attempts to jerk away. “You’re coming with me and taking responsibility.”
Attempting to jerk away again, Senta yells out, “I’m being taken away. Anyone, please help me.”
A few nearby awoken start towards them before a glare from Ventus stops them in place”
Ventus growls again, and one of her tails hit Senta’s head. “You will behave, we’re almost there. Savor your last taste of fresh air, because I don’t know what Lamu will be ordering to have happen to you.”
Senta keeps struggling, but with her mana bound, her strength is that of a normal human. Completely unable to resist Ventus’ rage as she drags her onward. Upon reaching the entrance to the dorms, Ventus waves at Todd. “Hey Todd, could you let Lamu know everything has been handled?”
Looking a bit down, Todd nods, “Sure thing Ventus. Also, could we talk later?”
Tilting her head in surprise, ears folded in half while her tails twitch aggressively behind her. Without even noticing the thrashing Senta, she responds, “Sure thing Todd, I’d be happy to help you out.”
Senta screams, “Let me go you barbaric fox. I have important meetings to get to.”
Flicking her tails in agitation, Ventus leans in close, hissing. “You do not get to call me a fox. You will accept your punishment. I personally hope you get fed to a beast, since you were a beast due to controlling others.”
Nodding, a sigh of relief emanating from Todd,. He then contacts Lamu. “Yeah she’s here, yes she has Senta.”
Ventus starts marching Senta up the stairs,at times lifting her up due to Senta struggling even now. Arriving at the top of the stairs, she shoves Senta through the door.
Senta trips over the suited men and falls, only to be caught right before hitting her head by a solidified space.
“You’re not getting away from this so easily, Senta. Lamu, all afflicted on the base have been subdued and Senta is here, mana bound.”
Blinking in surprise at the last bit, before noticing the lines of mana around Senta. “How did you manage this? It seems much more effective than the cuffs.”
Shrugging, Ventus answers, “It was the other me. She promised to teach me once my combat skills were up to snuff, though I don’t exactly know her standards.”
Lamu frowns, “And how does she know? Isn’t she just your clone?”
Ventus chuckles while she shrugs, tails lifting as well as though they were also shrugging. “I don’t fully know how it works, just that I drag a copy of myself from somewhere else.
Lamu sighs before turning to Senta. “Why did you orchestrate all of this? There was absolutely no reason to do this.”
Senta laughs, a short, harsh laugh. “You say there was no reason? My ability was useless until Ventus showed up. None of the other altered awoken had inherent abilities useful for anything other than combat. Of course I would experiment with it once I had a proper use for it.”
Lamu stares at Senta. “What do you mean by inherent abilities, you waste of mana.?”
Senta scoffs, her tiny ears wiggling. “I mean abilities inherent to the species that the awoken changed into. Most that have them are only combat focused, like a dragon’s fire breath. Ventus has so many locked up in her, but I could only draw out the charm ability, whatever it is.”
Lamu sighs, rubbing his horns that emerge from his temples. “So you’re saying Ventus could cause this some day? Hah, you must not know her well. She only wants to be herself and protect those she cares about. Easy enough to observe if you aren’t blind, even with the limited amount of time I’ve known her.
Ventus chuckles, a silver blush slowly emerging. “You’re right, I’d rather die than control another human, even if they are no longer fully human. As for beasts, that’s a different matter. If I can control them to help hunt down other beasts, I would. If anything, Senta’s actions were akin to a beast, not caring for the harm she would inflict.”
Senta turns to run, hoping that the two are distracted, but slams into a wall of solidified space. “Ah, what is this?”
Ventus chuckles, her tails waving in glee. “You thought I wouldn’t see you escaping, little thief?” She then turns more to Lamu, keeping Senta in the corner of her eye. “What’s the plan for her? She’s got mana even if it is sealed. I don’t know how long the seal will last though, and I can’t resummon Echo right now. I need to recover mana.”
Lamu nods, a slight grin on his face. “You called her a beast, so she can die to a beast. We just need one to emerge from the cavern so she can be dealt with. Given the recent flood of mana, it likely will be a bit.. Either way, you’re off duty, and you can dive into the cavern again tomorrow. We never would have managed to deal with this if not for you.”
Ventus nods, stretching, her body emitting numerous pops. “I think I’ll go clean up again, touching Senta made me feel disgusting.”
Lamu nods, before seeing a notice on his comms. “Delay that, we have one of the new awoken, Lily, coming with something for you. She was part of our recovered artifact research unit, but now she is training to be a fighter.”
Ventus nods, and sits down in one of the chairs, not minding the still knocked out suits. “So, what’s going to happen to them?”
Lamu sighs, typing some information onto his computer. “They’re going to be sent to our medics to recover. They were under orders, and only obeyed them. The root cause is Senta, who you dealt with personally.”
Ventus starts to nod as a woman with rabbit ears and a smoothed out nose bursts into the room. Looking around, this new woman gasps upon seeing Ventus. “A Kyuubi! That’s amazing, I had heard the rumors but I didn’t expect to actually see you in person.”
Ventus blinks, the words crashing into her mind, causing a purr to emit as she feels that the term is right. “I always thought of myself as a Kitsune, but the term you used fits better somehow.”
Laughing nervously, the new woman replies, “Kitsune is just Japanese for fox. Sure it’s how many westerners view Youko, with some of the most powerful Youko being Kyuubi no Kitsune, but it isn’t fully correct.”
Lamu chuckles before speaking up, “Lily, I appreciate the linguistics lesson, but you came here for a reason. Correct?”
Blinking in surprise, she nods. “Indeed, sorry about that. I have the new phone, all possible data transferred to it from the interesting device that was brought to us.”
She reaches into her pocket, takes out a sleek looking phone in a durable case, and starts to hand it to Lamu who just points to Ventus. “Oh, it’s the Kyuubi’s, that’s great.”
Reaching over to grab the device, Ventus inputs her usual pin, which causes the phone to unlock. Scrolling through, she smiles as she notices the message threads. “Good, you managed to save my conversations with Desi and Lilith. Was this all you needed Lamu, or was there more?”
Chuckling, Lamu shrugs. “Well you’re off for the rest of the day, so it is up to you on what to do. You will find a surprise in your room though. One last thing though, when you learn how to do what your clone did… teach it to us, please.”
Ventus laughs before shaking her head. “I don’t think you can do it in the air like Echo can, she literally scribes it onto space. With permission though, I’d be glad to teach you the basics, and then let the researchers do their thing.”
Without letting Lamu get in another word, Ventus teleports to the baths. Shifting her clothes and removing her shoes, she sights in relief as the hot water soaks into her body upon her entering the tub. “I needed this.”
Avery coughs, causing Ventus’ eyes to open and dart to her while her ears flick. “So Ventus, I see you’re safe. Good.”
Moving through the water, Ventus approaches Avery, staring into her eyes. Upon seeing a slight gloss she stops. “Are you okay to be here with me Avery? If not I’ll leave, find another bath somewhere.”
Avery shakes her head, “No need. While the draw is there, it isn’t enough to overpower my mind. I don’t know why it suddenly weakened so much, but I’m glad for it.”
Ventus sits down near Avery. “Good to hear, and I’m glad as well. Maybe we can start things fresh once it is gone completely? Until then, we’re only friends though.
Avery laughs before asking. “Can friends tend to their friend’s tails and ears?”
Ventus smiles, before shrugging. “Ears sure, but tails are a no go for now, you don’t know how to properly care for them, if your plushie was any indication.
Avery nods and then scoots over, reaching for Ventus’ ears, and scratching behind them carefully before rubbing them, not paying attention as Ventus’ face blushes silver and she starts to purr.
Leaning into the ear rubbing and scritches, Ventus only barely manages to keep herself aware enough to care for her tails, entirely enjoying herself.”
Avery leans in and whispers, “I can’t wait for you to start reciprocating my affection.”
Blushing more, her face going from silver to black, Ventus teleports to the other side of the tub. Breathing deeply, she tries to calm down as she focuses on her tails.
Laughing, Avery stands up, not bothering to cover herself as she heads to the shower to clean up the rest of the way. “I’ll be going back to solitary soon, Lamu had wanted to keep an eye on me for the day, hence why I’m still here. I’ll see you in a few days, cutie.”
Flustered, Ventus sinks further into the water until only nose and ears are visible.
Wasting no more time, Ventus finishes caring for her tails and then washes herself off. Heading to her dorm, she dons her last outfit, the other two being in the wash still as far as she knows. Wincing as she pulls on her shirt, her breasts aching mightily, she sighs while muttering, “Well that’s uncomfortable, but it’ll be fine.”
Opening her room she blinks as she sees a new computer tower gleaming on her desk, a note beside it reading, “Your computer has been upgraded. We couldn’t keep your storage due to driver conflicts, but we did redownload everything you had on your original desktop. Enjoy.”
Her tails start to stir the air as she grins. “Let’s see if Desi and Lilith are on.”
Loading up the chat software she sees that both are offline, so she puts that she is okay and that she hopes to talk to them soon.
Moving on to her family chat, she sees overwhelming relief at the fact Brad was alive, and asking for his whereabouts.
Wincing at the misunderstanding, she responds. “I’m at the military base near the crevice. I changed appearance to a major degree, and I no longer am stuck in the body of a male. Please refer to me as Ventus.”
Notifications flash as she rapidly gets happy responses, though several make mistakes. Shrugging, her tails lifting with her shoulders, she uses her new phone to take a few pictures of herself before sending them to the family chat with the caption of, “The real me.”
Just took someone more familiar to mention it lol