Fox 'Em

John reflexively summoned Senka’s vessel but Senka herself proved to be quicker on the draw, a curtain of darkness manifesting between him and the approaching orange and crimson missile. Instead of hitting Senka’s Dark Veil, its momentum abruptly changed, bounding straight up to avoid the shadowy impediment. Once it cleared the top of the blockade, it rocketed back at John.

John swung his knife at it but the steel blade passed through it harmlessly. Now up close, John could make out that it was something fox-like, a muzzle and fur-tufted ears the most obvious amongst the swirling mass of warm colors.

‘Is this a spirit?’ John couldn’t help but think as he began to reach out and try to bring it to heel. Before he could, the likely animal spirit darted right for John’s left hand and bit down on the gem embedded on the back of the glove.

It wasn’t trying to rip into him and there wasn’t really any **** behind the bite. John felt a little bit silly, halfway standing out of his seat, knife arm extended and a spirit dangling from his other hand, a feeling that grew stronger when he realized that nearly all the other patrons were now looking in their direction.

“All right now, show’s over,” Cammie’s commanding tone, far larger than she was, rang out as she strode out of the back rooms, an annoyed and tired look on her face. Almost immediately, everyone’s attention went back to their food or companions.

“Looks like you’ve had a long day already, Cammie,” Aeolia remarked.

“I’ve had better,” the proprietor of the diner admitted before pointing at the bundle of energy using John’s glove as a teething toy. “That guy was making a right mess about an hour north. Fair number of off-the-grid sorts just keeping out of the way of the mover and shakers.”

“I’m going to assume there were attacked chickens,” Senka said.

“Got that right,” Cammie sighed and held her hand out. A glass of water floated into her outstretched hand atop a wind spirit and she quickly took a hearty swig. “Thanks, dear.”

“Think nothing of it,” Mason's voice came out of the spirit as more delivered their drinks to the table.

“It’s really going to town on this,” John said as he stowed his knife. “Not that it’s really doing anything. Is that normal?”

“Normal doesn’t really apply to animal spirits,” Cammie answered. “They all act differently depending on just what the conditions of how they were formed and what creature acts as the footprint. That guy must have some hunting instinct given what it got up to and how it’s using your glove as a chew toy.”

“I think it likes the fire part more,” John remarked. “It’s going after the crystal more than the hide.”

“That might explain why it was trying to run into the engine of the car, and went crazy when I went into the kitchen,” Cammie mused. “And magical fire probably resonates more with it now than chemical combustion. You feel up to taming it?”

“Wait, really?” John asked. “You don’t need to deal with this?”

Cammie shook her head. “John, dealing with a rogue spirit mostly involves taking it away from where it spawned and dispersing its energy. For me, that means basically feeding it to my main spirits. I only brought this guy all the way back as I felt trying outside of the city might leave enough environmental connection for it to come back.”

John made a thoughtful noise, as he lifted his hand closer to eye level. The fox spirit, seemingly content to gnaw on his glove, was now more concretely defined instead of being mostly a ball of whirling energy.

Fox Spirit
A frenetic spirit born from the long-used running trails that many enjoyed, both human and vulpine. Quite enjoys the warmth of fire.

“Observe isn’t giving anything away besides it forming along running trails, which would explain its energy,” John revealed. “So, same method to tame as the elemental ones, right?”

“I thought you were going to ask about a fire one,” Beth cut in.

“That was before I had this guy jump on me,” John said with a chuckle. “Plus, I don’t have an animal spirit and don’t know how one interacts with stuff. For all we know, if I Infuse this guy in the glove, he’ll gain a fire element at some point. He already likes the stuff.”

Cammie let out a brief snorting laugh. “You and your weirdness. Mason was telling me about that overlaying thing you can do. Think you’ll grow an extra set of ears and a tail if you use that on that guy?”

Beth was far less tactful with her display of humor. “Think you’ll start Naruto running when you use it?”

“Ha, ha,” John sarcastically laughed. “I don’t even know if I can Overlay with an animal spirit. The description says ‘Non-aware’ and while that clearly means spirits like Senka, I don’t know how aware spirits like this guy are. For all we know, Overlay and Infuse won’t work at all.”

“If that’s the case, we’ll still end up with a cute little pet,” Senka said, leaning over to pet the fox spirit. Its gentle gnawing paused for a second when her hand reached it, then resumed alongside vibrations that reminded John of a purr.

“Think he likes that,” John said.

“She,” Senka corrected him. “Getting the feeling this guy’s a girl.”

“Not like we can check, right?” Beth joked before a serious look crossed her face. “Right?”

“For the most part, they go the way of Barbie. No plumbing,” Cammie replied. “You can use whatever pronoun feels right.”

“No problem with ‘she’,” John said, carefully bringing up his hand to the spirit’s head as Senka drew hers back. It felt like he was touching a mix of warm cotton candy and a slight breeze. There, but barely and almost like it was going to crumble away into nothing.

Closing his eyes, John extended his mana and senses towards the spirit. He was nearly overwhelmed by the far stronger psychic presence he found. Beneath a singular and intense desire to get at the warm core of the fire crystal, there was a large constrained urge to run.

It was akin to the wind spirit’s drive to fly about, but far more nuanced. The simple spirit merely wanted to move about, an echo of the childhood sense of freedom that formed its core. This fox had something similar to that, likely the influence of imprints from the running path, mixed with the hunting instincts of the foxes that lived alongside the path.

That suppressed urge beat like a drum, a repeating series of thumpings more complex than just a facsimile of a heartbeat, quiet enough to fall into the background but with a mounting sense that at any moment it could loudly explode. John pulsed his mana along with that rhythm, like he was dancing along with it, promising to allow her to run wild under his command, to go see new things.

There was a slight shift to the beat, one that moved in time to the nibbling she was doing. After a moment of thought, John relayed his uses of Fiery Pursuit to the spirit, hoping that would further entice her to bend to his will, like a treat held high to compel her to sit.

“Whatever you’re doing, I think it’s working,” Beth suddenly remarked, the smile she wore clear in her voice. “Look at that tail wag.”

John fought his curious urge to open his eyes to see that, afraid his concentration would break and set him back to square one, or worse, cause the fox to snap out of her placid state. Instead, he increased the psychic transmission, worming his mana deeper into her being. He couldn’t help but envision it as placing a collar and leash on her, using a treat to ensure compliance.

Crude as that imagery was, it was an appropriate comparison, especially in this case. John had no illusions that if he hadn’t had the glove or something else with fire mana running through it, he’d have a harder time bringing the spirit to heel. With one final and careful push of mana and intent, John snapped the binding closed, feeling his link with the fox spirit solidify, along with a sudden drop in his mana.

Confident in his control, John opened his eyes to see the fox’s tail still wagging. As if she could feel his eyes on her, she tilted her head back as best she could, which wasn’t much given that she was still biting his glove.

“Guess she’s linked up?” Aeolia asked. “Your mana dipped.”

John glanced at his mana bar in the corner of his vision, finding it down around the same amount as Senka cost to keep out.

“Looks like she’s got a sustain cost instead of needing a constant feed,” John said, petting the fox’s head. “Hold on, let me check her sheet.”

“Yep, thirteen percent sustain cost,” John reported. “That’s about eighteen mana now.”

“You know, that sounds about right,” Cammie said. “When I got started I think I would have said it took about a tenth of my mana to keep one up and out.”

“Good to know I’m not that far from the norm,” John laughed.

“Well, if you’ve got her under control, I’m going to go and pass out,” Cammie yawned as she began to leave.

“Have a nice nap,” Aeolia called after her before she peered at the sheet. “Not a lot of powers.”

“She is only rank one,” John said, scratching the fox’s head. “Hmm, we need to think of a name for her.”

“Guessing Foxy won’t work?” Beth asked, a grin growing on her face.

“Vetoing that right away,” John answered, smirking back at her. “Maybe one of these will give us something that can work.”

Bonded Spirit: This spirit is tethered to you, allowing you to enhance its abilities. Likewise, it will be able to do so as well as it grows stronger. Time spent manifested will increase its rank.

Free-Spirited: This spirit was born with a strong sense of freedom, granting it the ability to operate a fair distance from you. (Rank*15) m.

Predatory Senses: This spirit possesses keen senses that can be enhanced further with mana. Cost: 1 MP/s.

“Nothing exciting or really anything to base a name on,” John said as he dismissed the screens. “I’d say Hunter could work, but that’s not really a ‘girl’ name.”

“Huntress just doesn’t really work,” Vivian agreed, tapping her chin with a finger.

“M-maybe something with ‘fire’,” Kiera suggested meekly.

“She does like that,” Senka remarked. “And it would fit the naming convention you already have.”

“Yeah, but I don’t really know any fancy fire-related words,” John said. “Only one that comes to mind right off the bat is ‘Ember’ and I don’t think that fits.”

Vivian hummed, “‘Spark’, ‘Flame’, ‘Flare’, ‘Blaze’, ‘Kindle’. Going into light terms, there’s also things like ‘Glow’, ‘Shine’, ‘Dawn’.”

“How about ‘Phoenix’ if we’re going with a fire theme?” Beth asked, a sly grin on her face, cutting off John before he could respond to Vivian’s litany. “Then we can pull the old switcheroo when we tell people we have a phoenix and hit them with the fox.”

“I don’t think naming her to act as a joke is a good idea,” Senka cooly said.

“Yeah, realized it was a dumb idea once I said it,” Beth admitted. “Still had to share it.”

“Getting back to the list Vivian was just giving,” John said, bringing the conversation back to the topic at hand, “‘Kindle’ made me think that ‘Candle’ might work.”

“Candle, huh?” Senka worked the name over. “I think that works. Gets the fire thing without it being right in your face. And her tail does sort of look like a candle’s flame.”

“How do you feel about that name, Candle?” John asked the spirit. The nibbling paused for a moment as if she was actually mulling over the name. John did feel a slight ripple in their connection as the importance of the name filtered through to her and seemed to take root. Then she let out a muffled yip and went back to gnawing the glove.

“Looks like she likes it,” he reported with a laugh, one shared by the rest of the table. “Now, let’s see if I can turn the glove into a Pokeball.”

John focused on Candle and triggered Infuse. A wave of panic bubbled out from Candle as psychic **** began to drag her into the glove and John quickly canceled the transfer before she could bolt.

‘Easy there, girl, easy,’ John mentally projected to the fox, his desire for her to calm down racing down their connection. The animalistic sense of panic abated, leaving in its place an alert tension, ready to spring into action should the need arise. ‘Not really the type to like going into the cage, huh? Guess that makes sense. Are you going to be difficult to dismiss too?’

John focused on drawing Candle into his aura, imagining it as her napping in his arms and lap. That proved to be a far more appealing notion for the spirit, and with one final playful nibble, she faded away. For a brief moment, it felt as if she was curled up in his lap.

“So that’s it?” Vivian asked.

John shook his head. “No, that was Candle going to rest in my aura. She wasn’t too keen on going into the glove. Have to think of a good visualization to make her not freak out about it. Used her sleeping on my lap to unsummon her.”

“Guessing ‘Pokeball’ wouldn’t be a good thing to beam into her mind,” Beth remarked.

“Too much like ‘cage’, I think,” John replied. “We can try later. Really should have asked Cammie just how much memory animal spirits can possess before she left. Anyway, enough about my various bullshit, does anyone else want to talk about something?”

“I had a thought about where I’d like to develop my arrays,” Vivian revealed. With his attention now on the redhead, John noticed she had summoned a notepad and had sketched out a number of arcane symbols and shapes. “And it involves working with that Arcane Residue stuff.”

“The stuff that might go boom if we use magic near it?” Beth asked. “That residue?”

“I’m not going about this all willy-nilly,” Vivian defended her proposal. “While its instability still gives me more than enough pause, I think there’s a way to limit what magic actually gets to interact with it.”

“There’s still the issue that the copy effect is random and Observe didn’t give what the activation chance is,” John said. “I’m not saying it’s a bad idea to figure out how we could use the stuff, just that we don’t know all the details about how it works.”

“Which is why I’m starting with the containment array,” Vivian attested. “One that can isolate the residue from all magical signatures until the right moment.”

“Might be a bit hard to test that without something that can let us know if it's working,” Aeolia pointed out.

“Thought about that,” Vivian said, excitement creeping into her voice. “I can put an array that depends on a particular magic signature present to activate in place of the residue. Then all we need to do is use that bit of magic with the protection on to see if it works.”

“Could you make it react to a not recognised magic?” Beth asked, her eyebrows furrowed in thought. “Like, have something that won’t trigger if any of us are close, but will go boom if we’re far enough away and someone gets too close with magic going.”

“That’s certainly an option,” Vivian answered, jotting down Beth’s idea. “Don’t even need to have another magic signature appear. Can just have the trigger be the lack of any friendly one close. Maybe on a time delay to prevent any misfires.”

“Vivian,” Senka spoke up. “Could you make an array that could contain a spell? Because a delayed version of many of John and my spells would make for rather effective traps.”

Vivian looked up from her notepad and grinned. “What magic did you think I wanted to copy with the residue? I’ll admit the initial idea was just to have an array that could reflect enemy attacks, but John’s ‘Infuse’ power up gave me a better idea. If this doesn’t work with the residue, we can still use this design to seal emergency spells.”

Vivian tapped her pen against her paper. “Best part is I think I can make the array amplify the power of the stored spell. So we can upscale the effects. Perhaps not to some ludicrous degree but still maybe ten, fifteen percent?”

“That would give us some flexibility,” John remarked, his mind racing as he thought about the applications. “Any idea how long the array could hold an effect at around full power? ‘Cus it would be really useful to charge up healing a good while before a fight.”

“I need actual numbers to figure that out,” Vivian answered. “And I don’t want to raise our hopes too much. Version Ones never reach the heights one aims for.”

“Sounds like you’re neck deep in some complicated stuff,” Mason’s cheerful voice boomed as he made his way towards their table, plates of food carried in his hands and spirits. “Going to need to fuel those brains.”

“Told you fries can be brain food,” Beth smugly said as she accepted her plate.

Talk of arrays, spirits and other ways they could improve their fighting abilities fell to the wayside as they ate, replaced by simple small talk. None of them would have it any other way.