(this episode, I think is the worst I've ever written for this series)
"Foolish foxes!"
Never, but never, ever, underestimate your enemy. Djinn who for one reason, or another,
been bonded for any length of time and made to grant the wishes of mundane humans, all
knew the fine art of utterly destroying anyone from the wish of a sandwich to the curing of
the illness of a loved one. How easy it was to utterly abuse and grotesquely twist the crude
languages of man to all mean more or less the same thing 'bring death and/or misery
upon me and/or those I love.' The haughty attitude unbound djinn showed towards
humans was legendary, 'I Dream of Genie' be damned!
Considering that all of the kitesune slaves and creatures were all at one point human, this
superior attitude had carried over. And left large openings for mistakes.
----------
"Your majesty!" Lucy had vanished from the city walls in a burst of sand and reappeared in
much the same manner within seconds in Tamthis' throne room, the throne for her King
currently unoccupied. "Your majesty! I've sensed it! The ones we sent out in the name of
peace! They have been attacked! Taken! Amused! By things not our kind or humans!"
"I know." Her towering wolf/vixen queen replied.
"You know?" Lucy asked shocked.
"You are all mine, I sense and feel through all of you," 'Strange that I can't sense or feel
through Alexandra or my King, no matter, their guardian provides me eyes and ears
enough for them. If only not for the taint infecting my second body, then I could merely
sense her out!' "I sensed through them where they were taken, who had taken them, what
had taken them, through their senses, those of my loyal subjects I sensed it all... then,
another invader cut my connection to them, they are lost to us."
"No!"
"Yes. But their sacrifice is not in vain, I now know of the existence of this second enemy
besides my second body... and they have violated those moving in the name of peace... "
"Criminals!" Was the only thing Lucy had to say to that.
"Precisely. Beware, our enemy is numbered in ten thousand, each one creatures who are -
living- magic, rather than living containers of magic, and those ten thousand are led by
one more who could very well be as powerful as my second body."
"Ten... ten THOUSAND?" Lucy felt small.
"Yes... but I shall converse with our King, I sense in the knowledge he gave me when I
became his queen," What she took from him, "What these beings are, and I shall ask him
for what strengths and weakness they have. We do not know if they are in league with my
second body or not, but the nature of the one leading the ten thousands suggests they
are! Natalie! Roberta! Your queen in the name of your king calls you!" Someone else might
have accused the Kitesune Queen of having planned the capturing of her own 'citizens',
but she was far too mad to conceived such a thing.
The Alpha Natalie wolf beast, and the Shiva Vixen soon enough joined Lucy in front of
their queen.
"Redirect all resources at once! Fortify the city! Arm our citizens! Rally the troops! Prepare
our defenses and weapons! We! Are at war!"
++++++++++
Janice however, had one last thing to say, "And if you didn't really want any of them to
become angels, why did you offer the option in the first place?"
"Let me answer your question WITH a question: if God didn't want Adam and Eve to eat
from the Tree of Knowledge Of Good And Evil, why did he place it in the Garden to begin
with?"
"Part of the Great Plan?"
"No, so that even in a perfect paradise like the Garden, there would still be a choice. If I
pretended that option didn't exist, I'd be no different from the illusionists who want to
keep up the veil that the so-called 'super natural' doesn't exist. And I noticed you didn't
ask why, if I secretly wanted them all to become Angels, then why did I even offer the
option of them becoming true kitesune?"
"I... I guess I didn't really give it much thought. ... By the way, if Jasim is the species as you
and my sisters, why is he working with genies anyway?"
"Djinn and Angels are cousins of sorts."
That was when they both heard it. In Jasim's voice. In their minds.
'Attention Tabra and his spirit double. You are invited to witness the interrogation of
slaves of the kitesune prince who my loyal djinn have freed. Weather you come or not is
your own business.'
Tabra thought for a minute, "We better get Julio to have them warm up while we're gone."
"You don't think it's a trap? I'm surprised."
"Jasim at the end of the day is still a loyalist, not a devil. He's too -honest- to do
something like that. Heh. If I had ten thousand buddies with me I wouldn't be as scared at
making broadcasts over open radio either."
"I suppose we need to get Julio to get the girls awake and what not before we go right?"
"Yep."
----------
When Tabra/Janice appeared at what was apparently Jasim's base of operations. Janice had
expected something grand and otherworldly, but seemed to be much a safe haven as
Tabra's was. Only there were.... GENIES! Everywhere! Janice had never seen one outside of
TV but knew exactly what they were! Their aura alone that she saw with their body's
second sight spoke volumes of them. These beings -were- power. But at the same time...
Janice had the strange image pop into her head at being at a powder cake convention.
When a smaller genie floated along and said was their guide, Janice couldn't help but
noticing the... condescending attitude they held towards them.
"You took them into your base of operations, THEN de-brainwashed them?" Tabra
confirmed.
"Yes." Jasim said wondering what the idiot was going on about now.
Tabra stared at Jasim for several seconds before shouting, "You idiot~!"
"You dare-"
"Shut up! For once in your life SHUT UP! You just -handed- Tamthis every single thing
these people saw and heard before you broke their brainwashing! You've lost your element
of surprise!"
"What are you babbling about now you-"
"Tamthis can see, and hear, everything her creations do! She can't focus on all of them at
once, but I think she'd focus on some of her creations getting rescued from her!"
"How could you even know -any- of this your fraud?"
Tabra/Janice jabbed their own temple with their fingers, "-WE- were inside her head! We
-were- her for a short time when we turned us into a copy of her! If Tabra hadn't done
what she had we'd -still- be her! Her power comes from having absorbed Karther's castle!
That means anything she transforms has a small part of it made like her! Meaning she can
sense and feel through them like -any- body part!"
"BAW!" abu Haj boomed, "The kitesune and his abominations will tremble in -fear- when
they learn an -army- of dijinn is about to descend upon them!"
Tabra/Janice looked at the djinn, "You think -rational- and logical fear applies to someone
whose completely lost in conflicting essences, conflicting magics, and several layers of
conflicting brainwashing?!"
"You jest, the kitesune is a coward," Abu Haj objected, "Why else would he have his slaves
carry a white flag when outside his stolen land?"
Tabra and Janice said together, "Oh no you didn't!"
"What of it?" abu Haj asked annoyed at this Nazarene.
".....You have to ask? It might not be anything in of itself, but you've opened a -lot- of
dangerous doors! Tell me, did you try to speak to Tamthis' victims before rescuing them?"
"Why would we?"
"AGH! Cause that's what a white flag is for!"
"I do not need to answer or explain myself to you Nazarene!"
'A what?' Janice asked.
'Judo-Christian.'
'Oh.'
"You technically committed a war crime! Yes! Under most laws of common sense it won't
hold up -but- that doesn't mean Tamthis can't use it to her advantage somehow! Taking
advantage of a situation is what kitesune do! Even a mad one."
"There's any other kind?"
"There are degrees of insanity, some constructive, some not."
======
At the interrogation, more like a debriefing with Tamthis' victims now having their own
minds, one thing that surprised and confused Jasim to no end, was how kitesune prince
was apparently now king, had no harem, made no public appearance (impossible for such
a grandstander) and this 'Tamthis' queen or something or other, apparently was trying to
get their fake little kingdom to function as a genuine society, baw! It would be gone soon
enough!
Tabra and Janice were alarmed and concerned as they managed to learn the fate of their
two lost sisters, yes, it seemed they would have to fight them to save them and Tammie as
well.
'HUH?' Jasim had stood there stupified when Tabra had APOLOGIZED to the family for this
happening to them. Of course it was the Nazarene's fault totally and utterly, but he was
actually APOLOGIZING for something? The fact Tabra regularly apologized for his mistakes
when they occurred did not occur to Jasim in the slightest.
T could only exist as an immature, ineffective, vain, cowardly, proud, selfish creature in his
mind, anything else he quickly wave handed as being due to his spiritual double.
"You and your Project return."
"-Our- project return Jasim, all divinities, all divine powers agreed to this, with only one
vote being enough to stone wall it all... Jasim, people are SICK of having to hide their own
nature like criminals."
-----------
Back at their safe house, Julio putting the girls through what would be their last -normal-
training session, Janice said, "Well." Their body smirked and swayed, "We do have one
added advantage now."
Tabra moaned, "And what, precisely, would that be?"
Janice laughed, so much at stake, and she was able to laugh. 'They're expecting us to
show up with a very visible and very large army of ten thousand beings with enough power
to make even a dime store magic meter break right?... They're not expecting a MUCH
smaller group of five angels to sneak in. And even if they spot us... they'll be get up in
arms looking around for the REST of 'our army' right?"
Tabra thought for a minute, "You have a point, and they'll figure on us attacking with the
rest of the force, so they'll won't be putting as much effort trying to sense us on our own.
No many notice bugs when you're on the look out for a herd of grizzly bears. But being
able to outfox the Queen of Kitesune, won't be a game, and we only have a day to plan it."
They smelled it, the sent of leafs.
"Then maybe," A neither male nor female voice said.
"You need two foxes," Another neither male nor female voice added.
"To out fox," The first one added.
Then together, "The big fox!"
Tabra/Janice recognized their auras even before they even made themselves visible from a
swirl of leaves. They were too familiar not to.
"Anna! Keiko!"
"Actually it's Akira right now," Said one of five tailed foxes.
Janice wondered, "What are you DOING here? I thought you guys wanted -out- of -all- of
this? How'd you get in?"
Keiko, showing herself being more aloof then Janice had ever remembered, waved her tails
back and forth, a slight glint in her eyes, "We let ourselves in."
"I think this place considers us on the guest list." Akira/Anna said. The two kitesune
circled the angelic fox, always moving their legs and tails.
Keiko, "As for why we're here, if we're really kitesune now, that makes Karther our
responsibility too right?"
"And meh I thought," Anna/Akira said, "It'll make a good coming out party for us too.
Besides, who better for you to prepare to gate crash a trickster's house, than a -pair- of
tricksters?"
Janice wanted to say, "You two guys aren't tricksters." But she saw the look in her sisters'
eyes. It was not tainted with carnal desire like Karther, or delusion like Tamthis, but she
saw it. That slight glint in their eyes, that mark of slight insanity that all kitesune had.
"Welcome back home little sisters." Janice finally gushed and hugged the two five tailed
foxes.
They say that in war, one must get inside the head of your opposition, think as the enemy
thinks. And Tabra knew a very true statement. Only a kitesune, could think like a kitesune.