The drawers contain some leftovers from the room's previous occupant. Crumbled up paper with drawings. Broken pencils. A pencil sharpener. An agenda with no writing, just crossed out days. A notebook with most of the pages torn out. And, at the bottom, a necklace - bronze, possibly, depicting a cat with odd swirls and stylized wings.

Trash, trash, trash, trash- huh. That's interesting. She picks the necklace upt to examine it more closely.

It's warm, and a lot heavier than it looks. Smooth to the touch. And very aesthetically appealing, though it's hard to call it pretty - this is a cat on the prowl, one that remembers its ancestors were wild.

Finders keepers.

She puts it on.

An odd electric tingle starts in the tips of her fingers. The necklace isn't heavy to wear, not at all. The chain's comfortable.

The pendant is also noticeably a lot warmer.

That's kinda weird. She holds the cat up to examine it again.

Its eyes are maybe glinting a little - though they hadn't seemed to be made of gemstones earlier.

Focusing on it - thinking about it - increases the tingling in her fingers.

What kind of thing is this? She can't see any obvious switches and it's not really big enough for a battery...

There seems to be a breaking point in her examination, in the extent of her focus on the pendant -

It glows and sparks, little arcs of electricity jumping around it. It doesn't hurt. On the contrary - it feels nice. Correct.

The tingling is now spreading from her fingers, over her whole body.

Wow. This is really cool.

Lightning arcs around her, wrapping her - changing her, or at least her view of the room.

Oooh.

The room: only has hints of shadows. She can see in the dim light far more clearly. She can see-feel-hear-smell- taste the electric light over her head, the outlet in the room, the wires in the walls...

She also appears to now be a glowing cat. The pendant is still around her neck, the cord adjusted perfectly to her new shape.

Okay this is really cool. Everything is humming. And also maybe kind of weird. She examines her paw.

Sleek, golden, with claws that smoothly emerge when she flexes it, and electricity dancing among her fur.

She sheathes and unsheathes her claws a couple times, then slashes across the air experimentally. She half-expects this to cause some kind of lightning bolt.

It causes a crackle and a small flash, the afterimage lingering for a second.

Ha!

...It's probably a bad idea to go outside like this.

She has, indeed, never seen anything obviously magic before now. No glowing lightning cats anywhere to be found.

Still, the campus isn't that crowded yet, and the dorm does have a roof... And there are all those weird half hidden walled gardens...

That is true. But if she's stuck like this it'll be hard to attend class, so she'll need a different plan depending on if she can transform at will or not.

First she'll try taking the necklace off.

Taking the necklace off seems to suddenly (and a bit disorientingly) turn her back into a human, with a small light show.

Bleh. Okay.

And now if she puts it back on...?

It's warm but doesn't immediately transform her back. Feels like it did when she first put it on.

And so if she concentrates on wanting to transform-

-and then on wanting to turn back?

That works! It takes a bit of sustained concentration, but it's also a lot less disorienting than taking the necklace off.

Great. She tucks the necklace under her shirt, and then she's going to go for a little walk to find somewhere she can stretch out a bit.

Options: a tangled section of gardens usually used by clubs for luncheons, which all have low walls but non-zero traffic and might be hard to let loose in; a walking trail going into the woods, which doesn't seem to have traffic right now; a deer path going up a hill into the woods which should have zero traffic; various lots in towards town, variously abandoned; the dorm basement slash mechanical room which is only technically locked; actual national parks a drive out...

There's probably some kind of interaction she can do with electricity which she should explore at some point but right now she'd really rather do something moving, so deer path it is.

She's able to rather quickly get over a ridge and out of sight of campus, into a little valley with a stream. No deer currently in sight - just some birds chirping.

She shifts form, taking a moment to notice any sense differences out here.

Her smell's definitely better. Her hearing seems keener, tiny rustles in the forest floor suddenly discernible - there's rodents in this forest. The world looks a bit odd, with dull colors and fewer fine details up close, like she's trying out someone else's glasses - but her depth perception's much better, and movement stands out more than it used to. Her peripheral vision is much better, which is probably the most bizarre change - a leaf drifts to the ground off to the side of her head.

Also, she can see a sort of odd humming light layered over the world. There's not a ton of consistent variation in it - mostly static noise - but there's a little bundle of hum under that leaf, which is making scratching sounds, and a hum overlaying those birds who just startled and flew off, and a diffuse something running up the other side of one of the trees (with little scrabbling sounds).

She pushes the leaf aside.

There's a very scared mouse! Which freezes when it sees her.

What is it cats do with mice? Ah, yes.

Lift paw, claws out... and strike.

This is a very quick mouse; it makes a break for it when she lifts her paw, dodging as it comes down -

And dying when lightning flashes from Ellie's claws.

She hadn't meant to do that. At least not consciously.

Can she make the same thing happen to other targets?

Yes. The lightning seems to happen by default if she just wants to hit or kill something, but she can focus on 'without lightning' to use just her paws.

The next thing she wants to try is moving around as a cat. Running, jumping, abrupt movements, testing physical strength and agility.

This is all very intuitive to do. Her strength and agility are both high, and she doesn't seem to get tired - so far, at least. She's fast, too, especially on a straight away. The increased depth perception helps a lot with judging jumps.

This is a very nice body.

Is it getting dark yet?

The sun is jjust starting to set. It'd probably be a lot noisier in her section of the woods now thanks to twilight activity if there wasn't an oversized glowing cat running around.

She should go back, then. Before it's dark enough people ask what she was doing without a flashlight.

She'll go most of the way as a cat, though.

Avoiding being seen is non-trivial but possible. She does get to a point where she can't sneak past people, though.

Does she get the same blur with people as animals?

Yes. Doesn't seem to correlate with much else, though - everyone has roughly similar light blurs.

Hmmm.

She concentrates and turns back into a human, and goes to find the dining hall.

The dining hall is fortunately pretty close to the dorms, and not extremely crowded at twilight.

After food is acquired, she goes back to her room.

Can she see electricity if she tries without turning into a cat?

...Maybe? If she has the necklace on and thinks very hard about electricity without thinking about cats (or the necklace) too much, she gets a faint something. It's hard, though, and looking at it too long gives her a headache.

Blehh.

...Messing with her computer is probably not a good idea at this point. She doesn't have enough money to replace it. The light, on the other hand, is Facilities' problem if she breaks it. She spends some time studying the circuit when on, then turns the light off and tries to make it come back on without flipping the switch.

It doesn't turn on at first.

But, as long as she's cautious, she can slowly amp up the power until it does flicker on. Without breaking, even.

Haha! So many possibilities are now unlocked to her, if she can get better at this.

Yawn.

Maybe tomorrow, though. She's tempted to just curl up like this.

She doesn't seem to set things on fire at random or anything, and if there's something like mana being run down from holding the shape it's not obvious. Not much to stop her.

Then she makes a nest out of blankets and gets comfortable.

She appears to still be a lightning cat in the morning! And not have significantly electrified her blankets.

That's good.

But she has (ugh) obligations today. Orientations.

The school wide orientation is very, very boring, and very hard to focus on. The people hosting it are wrong about how funny they are.

There's a prospective STEM majors get together afterwards, though, in the gardens. Several people seem to already know each other, or be milling about aimlessly, or be practicing their speed introduction skills.

Networkers. Sigh.

At least there's free food.

She finds a shady tree to sit under, working on restraining herself from caressing the necklace.

One girl seems to be making a game of either befriending, seducing, or royally pissing off everyone there. She leaves several people spluttering with rage, and more than a few falling over themselves to flirt with her.

She eventually meanders over to Ellie's shady tree, a friendly grin on her face.

And?

"Not feeling the networking mood?"

"Not my favorite activity, no."

"I'm entertaining myself by seeing if I can't find an archnemesis. Seems a better use of my time."

Ellie blinks.

"That's novel."

"Archnemesi are the spice of life! Though a proper archnemesis needs to be a genius, or lacking that have interesting superpowers."

"Which are you?"

"I like to think both. Makes for a good challenge for whoever I find."

Snrk.

"What are you doing here, then?"

"Well, if I'm going to be an appropriately dramatic villain, I need to be a doctor, right? Of some kind or another."

"You could just change your name. Doctor Whatever, Nothing D."

She laughs. "But none of the superheroes would respect a Doctor Whatever. Need to keep it classy."

Serious, considering face: "Unless I decide to overthrow the oppressive institution of academia."

"New plan! I get up to submitting my doctorate thesis or whatever, get rejected because my ideas are too radical for The Man, and then descend into eccentric villainy. Perfect."

"Good luck with that."

"I think I'm clever enough to pull it off."

"What about you? Any grand plans? Fascinating superpowers? Ideas for world domination?"

"If I did have any of those, telling a self-proclaimed supervillain wouldn't be very smart."

"Supervillain in training! It's a process. I have the super, but it's hard to really be a villain without a hero, you know. Us nemesi are narratively defined by one another."

"The plural is nemeses."

"I stand corrected. Clearly I need to avoid a linguistic doctorate."

"Or seek one. To be sure your plan works."

"Hm, a poor grasp of languages does impede public relations... And I'd hate to be a villain with bad PR."

"I meant more the linguistics department would kick you out."

She giggles uncontrollably.

Once she has a bit better grasp on talking: "I'm not that bad! I haven't even mixed Latin and Greek roots in a whole month."

"A whole month. Wow."

Teasingly: "In my defense, the guy I was talking to was pretty stuffy. Deserved to have his nose tweaked."

"Far be it from me to critique your nose-tweaking practices. We've only just met, after all. Though I don't think I got your name?"

"The name on my registration is absolutely horrid. I decry all knowledge of it."

"If you make me call you Doctor Whatever, I will refuse to be your archnemesis."

"I'll behave! How about... Ruby." Something about the name seems amusing to her.

"All right, Ruby. I'm Ellie. It's nice to meet you."

"Same. You're the most interesting person I've met today, Ellie."

"That's not saying much, given," she waves a hand vaguely, "all these."

"True. Still, I suspect you'd stand out even in a more refined crowd."

"If you like. What are you studying?"

"Pre-med."

"Ah. I'm doing computer science."

"I hear AI minions are coming into style."

"It's the cutting edge. Flesh is so last century."

"Oh, I think adorable genetic engineered monstrosities have their place in the glorious transhumanist future."

"You don't have to feed a robot."

"But there's just something delightful about a predator."

"I suppose..."

"Though I suppose you could make a cyborg tiger. Still, I can't imagine you could feed impertinent enemies to your robots."

"I'd make a big one, with an incinerator inside."

"Hmmm... I will admit, that has quite the aesthetic to it. Of course, you could also just get a jealous archnemesis with tigers, who'll pick off the pettier of your enemies for you..."

"Do you like tigers?"

Completely straight faced: "Quite a bit. My superpowers involve turning into one, you know."

It abruptly occurs to Ellie that this would have sounded less plausible yesterday morning.

"Having pet tigers seems a bit redundant, then."

"That's why they're called minions! They'll be intelligent genetically engineered monstrosities. Do the grocery shopping for me."

"With credit card chips implanted in the paws, so they don't have to mess around with cash."

"Oh, that's clever." She pulls out a small notepad, flips it open, and writes something down.

"Each good idea I give you entitles me to a half percent of your gross earnings."

"That'd be a bit hard to arrange with an archnemesis. Unless you'd rather be a consultant?"

"You're the one who was looking for one, not me."

"Fair! And archnemeses never seem to get paid what they're worth."

"Maybe you should start a union."

She laughs. "Would it welcome archnemeses from all sides of the conflict, though, is the real question."

"That's only fair. You'd be able to extract better concessions if everyone's getting them."

"We'd need special regulations to keep the union as neutral ground."

"Have your tigers eat anyone who breaks neutrality."

Giggle.

"Sadly, I think administering a union is rather beyond my interests. After all, to a tiger, people who don't pay fair market price for services taste just the same as impertinent supers."

"Fair enough."

"Still, I imagine some supers would be interested in that idea. Some crusading sort."

"Is there a big community I'm not aware of?"

"Maybe, maybe not. It'd certainly be a secret if there was."

"You got me there."

"Maybe you can be the hard hitting investigator. Hack all of our secrets, if we have any."

"Only if you were foolish enough to trust any of them to computers. Shouldn't you make biological recorders or something?"

"Perhaps! Unfortunately, I think the modern lab has quite a bit of reliance on computers... Maybe I should make an organic computer."

"And then get kicked out for ethics violations," Ellie nods.

"Pretty sure I can work some in there."

"Making things that think is easy mode for that."

"If I treat them nicely it really shouldn't be an ethics violation. People make random other people all the time, with less care."

"Those people aren't usually watched by committees with a vested interest in finding problems."

Giggle. "A good motive for me to overthrow academia! No gods, no masters, no oversight committees."

"I think I'm a bad influence on you. You're sounding less villainous already."

"Revolutionaries with a point can be villainous, too!"

"Ah, the Robespierre defense."

"Exactly! Still, I suspect there's room for some pointless villainy in my plan. For the aesthetic, you know."

"Feeding people to tigers, and so forth."

"Kidnapping pretty girls, stealing from the obscenely rich and spending the money on my tigers, assassinations, colorful explosions... There's a lot of fun I could get up to!"

"That does sound like fun..."

"You know, I hadn't been in the market for a partner in crime, but... You're quite exceptional."

"I'd want a bigger share than a half percent."

"Business partners should split profits on joint ventures equally, of course."

She makes a show of considering it.

"That sounds acceptable." She holds out a hand to shake.

Firm handshake!

"It's a deal, partner."

"Do you want to, uh, go somewhere else? I think we're allowed to leave now."

"Sure. My room, how about? I've got some interesting things to show you."

She brushes a hand through her hair - and there's a charm bracelet on her wrist, bronze or a burnished gold with teardrop rubies and flat metal disks and a single prominent tiger charm, that almost certainly wasn't there a second ago.

...Huh.

"How forward. Okay."

"I've never been accused of being shy."

She stands, offering Ellie a hand up.

She takes it.

And off! Ruby's not in Ellie's dorm, but she's close - of course, the first years are pretty grouped together - and closer to the gardens, anyways. Her room's on the top of four floors, apparently a converted attic of an old row house - a single, though still about as cramped as Ellie's room, with less headspace in exchange for a bit more floor at the edges. The only places to sit are the bed and desk chair.

"Welcome! My place is your place, make yourself at home, etcetera etcetera."

She takes a seat on the floor, cross-legged. The ceiling is lower than she'd like.

She grabs something from under the bed - a small jewellery box.

"Do you believe in magic?" she asks, only a bit teasingly.

"I believe in things that have evidence supporting their existence."

"What sort of evidence would you like?"

"What sort of magic are you proposing to show me?"

"Hm... It's quite a broad sort. But I suppose there's some very obvious basic elements..."

She stretches -

And rather smoothly turns into a tiger.

"-Whoa."

"I know! It's cool." She stretches, and her black stripes curl into smoke, and her eyes blaze red. "And quite the nice super power."

"I... guess I have a confession to make."

"Oh?"

She concentrates a moment.

"Yeah."

She makes a delighted noise.

"I hadn't smelled an artifact on you! And a pretty one, too."

"I only found it yesterday."

"That explains it. You won't have had time to bond, yet."

"Congratulations."

"So you've had yours for a while? Do you know- more about how they work?"

"About a year. And, yeah, though I don't know everything - the ones I've gotten for experiments vanish if I poke them too much."

"How many have you found?"

"I have mine, three in that box, and five I've destroyed. I also know more than a few active wielders - there's at least one among the upperclassmen here, but if there's any others they're being better at hiding themselves. I've met at least a dozen wielders beyond the ones I got the artifacts from, but I also travel really widely."

"Are they all- cats?"

She laughs. "No. There's two artifact types, far as anyone can tell - magical girls and monsters. We're monsters, which can look like pretty much anything not classic humanoid. Usually something humans might find scary."

"Why doesn't anyone know about this stuff?"

"The rumor's that anyone who tries or even plans to break the masquerade in a big way - go to the press, try to collect money for proving magic exists, use magic in a crowded area without hiding it - vanishes without a trace."

"Rumors."

"I've fallen out of touch with people before, but haven't actually known anyone who definitely just vanished instead of moving or retiring."

"Retiring? Why would you give up- this?"

"Don't know. There's fighting, between magical girls and monsters, but that's fun."

She wrinkles her nose. "Why fighting?"

"Lots of reasons. We have been for as long as anyone knows. Magic potential selects for being inclined to violence, though, I'm pretty sure - and monsters tend to be disobedient or non-conformist or independent, and magical girls tend to be conformist and obsessive and cliquish, and both groups are apparently willing to enforce that violently."

"Hmm."

"The fight's fun, too. Magical girls are a pretty good challenge most times."

"I haven't really tried fighting anything. Except some small wildlife."

"You can practice against me, if you want. And I can teach you magic! That'd be exciting."

"How much do capabilities overlap?"

"Varies - with individual artifact, actually. Magical girl artifacts have really strict restrictions on what powers are easy or hard to use with them, but monster artifacts tend to just have an aesthetic they make easier. Most everyone can learn how to hide themselves and their magic, for one, even when in human shape, and most monsters can change their avatar within their theme."

"I'm pretty sure my theme is electricity. What's yours?"

"I started with a tendency for pyromania - my artifact name's the Burning Ruby Tiger. But I quickly learned how to be free and swift as smoke, how to divine things via fire, how to feel and increase or decrease heat... Also learned how to reinforce my body. My claws are rubies, sharp and hard, and they burn when they cut, but I'm as hard to strike as a flame. I could probably summon fire creatures pretty easily, but I haven't put a lot of effort into that - my usual fighting strategy's more of a there and gone flash strike. I've also picked up some generalist stuff, mostly whatever's useful for hiding."

"That sounds very poetic."

"Often is! And some avatars also have abstract themes."

"Poetry is not really my strong suit."

Shrug. "I don't think knowing the metaphors in stuff is required to learn how to use magic."

"Oh, good."

"It's mostly fun and intuitive. Hard part for most people is thinking creatively."

"I noticed yesterday that I didn't have to try very hard for most things."

"That's generally pretty true, yeah, though it's easier for some people than others."

"Do you know a place to practice around here? I was out in the woods last night."

"I think there's some fields, but the best way's to learn how to cloak and then just let loose wherever you won't hit someone you don't mean to hit."

"So cloaking is the first thing to work on. Okay."

"Not as exciting as speeding around or setting things on fire, but it's probably the most broadly useful skill, yeah."

"Any tips? Or should I just think invisible thoughts."

"It's mostly about wanting, and about story, for me. I keep my bracelet invisible, usually, by constructing a story where most people can't see exceptional things - the same story expands to magic, too. Grown ups don't see Neverland, the disbelieving don't see fairies, and all. When we were walking here I constructed a story where we weren't walking together, just in the same direction - so no one who saw us thinks you were walking with me. You need to be aware of what people might think, and what you want them to actually think, and a firm enough justification for that that it sticks."

"That sounds almost like mind control."

"I suppose? I've never tried actually just puppeting someone..."

"Have you heard of anyone doing that?"

"Hm... Yeah. I don't know if monsters often can, but a rare magical girl type is Enchantress. One of the early ones I killed was rumored to be one - she had some mundane slaves, and could possibly take down artifact wielders, so I snuck up on her. I couldn't figure out the powers when I tried on the artifact, though."

Ellie nods.

Hiding thoughts. Not beneath notice, but above it, beyond it. She and the things she's doing are beyond comprehension so it's better not to even try. She might as well exist in a different world.

Ruby looks surprised and briefly confused, then squints.

"Huh. That's really good."

Ruby is allowed to exist in her world.

"Thank you," she says, a little smugly.

Heeee. "I like having a genius for a student."

"Certainly makes your job easier."

"And it's delightful!"

Hee.

She helps Ellie tweak her aura a bit - especially so it'll work better against other wielders, who are usually full of themselves (Ruby says, face completely straight), then: "Want to go have some fun, now?"

"Okay. What do you have in mind?"

"Hmmm... Maybe a race?"

"Sounds like fun."

She proposes a path through the campus streets. They won't be able to avoid people - it'll be a serious test of Ellie's ability to keep hidden, too.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. She's up for it.

Heee.

Starting from the dorm front step, then (a small test of Ellie's abilities; no one in the stairwells seem to register the two big cats as really there) - and one two three go.

Ruby's off like a shot, springing down the road in a rush of smoke and ember.

Ellie runs. Part of her mind is focused on maintaining her hiddenness, the rest focusing on how electricity flows down the path of least resistance, fast as light.

Ellie is fast, able to apparently hop in a straight line - though some people glance up and mutter about thunder as she races by.

Ruby keeps up with her though, laughing, moving like a wildfire in a drought-stricken land.

It's her second day practicing. If she keeps up without giving herself away, that's good enough for now.

Ruby pulls ahead a bit when they get into the tangle of streets in the older part of town, rushing with the wind. She doesn't seem to be taking the race exceptionally seriously, but she does seem likely to win here.

Grr. She tries for a little extra agility on the corners.

Hard without overbalancing, but possible. She can catch up to Ruby's tail.

They get to a small park with a lake - Ruby splashes through, running over the water and laughing.

Water is conductive. She should be able to zip right through the lake and over to the other side.

She gains on Ruby doing that; Ruby doesn't seem to agree with water as much - they're quickly neck to neck, and the finish line is just a few bends away.

Almost there almost there-

Ruby's straining, next to her, muscles rippling under her smoking fur -

They slam past Ruby's dorm, completing the loop - impossible to tell who was ahead.

Ellie twists around into a halt.

Ruby slows down too, still laughing.

"That was fun!"

"Yes, it was. You're pretty fast."

"You're really fast! I've been training at speed for a while, and don't often meet people who can keep up with me."

"Lightning is noted for being quite speedy," she teases.

Heh. "So is wildfire, but I suppose lightning has it beat."

Smugly, "Yep."

Teasingly: "You still have quite the way to go before you best the master, my young student."

"Well, it's only my second day. I think I'm on track."

Still teasing: "I'll just have to get back on my game to stay ahead, then. Can't let a kitten overtake me."

"I'm not a kitten!"

"Really?"

"Yes!"

"What are you instead, then?"

"A normal cat. Fully grown and adult."

"Hmmm... 'Cat' doesn't have quite the same ring to it."

"That is rather the point."

"Only serious nicknames, got it."

She sticks her tongue out at Ruby.

She sticks her tongue out back. The effect is slightly ruined by her relaxed ears and friendly expression.

"That looks kind of silly."

"I am very exceptionally good at looking silly, it's true."

"It's nice to have talents."

"I have quite a few!"

"So I am seeing."

"We're a talented pair!"

"So what now?"

Shrug. "Practice more. Fighting, especially, and knowing your surroundings - that upperclassman I mentioned's a magical girl. She hasn't attacked me yet, but who knows if she's friendly."

Ellie nods.

"Probably best place for that's not in the middle of the street," she says with clear amusement. "Let's go find a park or something?"

"Okay. I don't know the area too well, but I have a car if that's relevant."

"I'd bet on myself against a car for speed - so that depends on if you're feeling tired."

"Not yet, I don't think."

Teasingly: "If you get tired later, I can always carry you back, too."

"Riding on a tiger's back like some fairy tale mightn't be so bad..."

"I'm a very trustworthy and noble steed!"

"I'll be the judge of that, if we come to it," Ellie says, suppressing a laugh.

She does laugh. "I'll just have to impress you, then."

"Shall we go?"

"Let's! I don't know the area all that well, either, but exploring's fun."

Off to adventure, then.

Ruby zooms around a lot, usually keeping in earshot of Ellie - and, a good bit out of town, there's a rocky clearing by a stream that Ruby declares 'perfect'.

"I've never sparred before!" she says, cheerfully. "So this'll be an adventure."

"Neither have I. Try not to kill me, I guess."

"Fortunately I know how to heal people. Somewhat. A little."

"Oh that's comforting."

She laughs. "Healing yourself is actually really easy - just drop out of shape then back in. Doing it mid-fight's harder, though."

"I can see how it would be. Does that work in reverse, too?"

"Yup."

"Neat."

"It's pretty useful. Makes experimenting with magic less risky, too."

"As long as you don't kill yourself right away."

"There is that! Don't know how likely it is, though..."

"You've made it a year, so I think the chances are pretty small."

She laughs. "If anyone would stumble on how to blow themselves up with magic it probably would be me, yes."

Ellie bumps her shoulder playfully.

She bumps back, then swipes with her claws. Slowly enough Ellie can dodge, but definitely in a mood for play fighting.

Okay, here we go.

Ellie's answering attack is accompanied by its customary lightning trail.

Her shoulder turns into billowing smoke. She speeds up for her next few attacks, testing Ellie's reflexes.

She flashes around them, making a few probes of her own.

Ruby's quick, and good - she turns entirely into smoke, reforming behind Ellie, at one more forceful strike.

She doesn't manage to track Ruby quickly enough to dodge that.

She laughs - the scratch burns, hot - and keeps dancing around Ellie, refusing to stay in one place to be hit.

Then she'll just have to hit everywhere at once. The scratch on her back hurts, but she has to focus around it.

Her next attack is followed by a multitude of other lightning-paws, saturating the space.

Ruby laughs and retreats, getting a good bit of distance on Ellie and her lightning paws. Still, her fur's standing on end, and she has a few scorches.

She takes the opportunity to dip out of and back in to her cat form.

Ruby flashes through her human form, too, before pouncing - and the fight's back on.

Ellie tries out her own variation of Ruby's smoke trick, willing herself to fuzz out into a cloud of sparks. She should be able to avoid injury and hurt the attacker, this way.

Ruby pulls up short, yelping a bit when her nose gets stung, and then swishes to the side, away from the cloud of sparks, and breathes out fire - and the 'cloud of sparks' trick is apparently hard to maintain for more than a second. Being a cloud of sparks feels exceptionally weird, too.

It works, though!

She ducks low under the fire and springs for Ruby.

Ruby ducks into the fire, swirling into flame and smoke vaguely shaped like a nightmare image of a tiger.

Smoke starts filling the clearing pretty rapidly.

Can she still track her with the life-sense-buzz?

Yes, though tracking anything else is a bit hard - Ruby's not particularly bothering to hide, and seems to be using the smoke more because it's choking and noxious.

She is made out of lightning she shouldn't need to breathe-

That seems to work.

After the next clash, Ruby fades into the smoke - and keeps fading, her glowing pulse going diffuse.

Ellie jumps up, above the smoke, to see if there's anything a higher perspective can offer.

She can spot some suspicious swirls.

Suspicious. Good targets for pouncing.

One of the swirls contains: a Ruby! She rolls with Ellie's pounce, trying to bite her.

She fuzzes out, then bites back.

Smoke!

Ruby's speeding up, leaving fewer gaps between strikes.

This is fun.

She pushes herself to keep up.

Ruby seems to be enjoying herself, too, leaving behind entirely unnecessarily dramatic swirls of flame, jumping in and out of smoke form as needed, sometimes baiting Ellie to pursue her, sometimes rushing past, sometimes moving unexpectedly.

They both get in a few minor hits - Ruby's more skilled, but she's also a lot more reckless.

Still, Ruby seems to be hitting a bit more often than Ellie is.

That is displeasing. But not unexpected.

She is learning new tricks, though.

Ruby's not quite keeping just ahead of her - she's clearly mostly used to either playing with prey or trying to full on slaughter someone - but she's definitely holding off on adding some tricks until Ellie catches up with the prior tricks.

Like, for instance: apparently she can fly, standing on four little swirls of flame. She mostly uses this to add another dimension to her mobility.

What! That is incredibly cheating!

Ruby laughs.

"What, lightning's just a ground thing now?" she calls down.

Oh, it's on.

Let's see... Little rockets doesn't really make sense with lightning, but- she should be able to just zap through the air, right?

She is lightning, after all.

She actually seems faster zapping through the air - Ruby barely dodges her.

Or Ruby's slower. Either way, advantage: Ellie.

She laughs and picks up her game - Ellie's definitely challenging her, though.

Also the clearing up to the height of the trees can be filled with fire now. Nyah.

Good thing she can fly. Attack!

Fire tornadoes follow her, and Ruby seems to have more aerial manuerverability - and more ability to actually hide in the flames.

Still, Ellie gets a few blows in, between Ruby's return slashes.

Fighting in the sky: more fun.

Ruby seems to agree, by how much she's laughing and doing entirely unnecessary aerial tricks. They can get quite high up, too, since Ruby keeps trying to get the higher position.

Ellie will encourage this; she's curious if they have a height limit.

They hit cloud height well before any limit -

There's an awful lot of electric potential up here.

Thunderstorm time? Thunderstorm time.

Thunderstorm time!

Ruby gets caught in one of the flashes and has to flip back to human briefly, laughing all the while. She rockets up, trying to get above what's clearly Ellie's domain.

Ehehehe. She won't make that easy.

The thunderstorm Ellie's building is massive - it spins out as she builds it, growing in size horizontally as well as vertically.

She hits Ruby a few more times - Ruby's going fast enough to break free in about a minute and a half, which is plenty of opportunity for Ellie to surround her with layers of lightning.

Dimly, she wonders if she should really be letting it get this big. On the other, stronger paw, this is fun and she wants to see how big it gets before she loses control entirely.

Fortunately baffling meteorologists doesn't seem to get her instantly struck down by mystery masquerade police.

She doesn't have a reference for a cloud's natural size, not by feel, even if she could remember the technical specs - lightning cares a lot less about distance than legs. Still, this feels big, big enough she's having trouble keeping track of everything, and the core she's manipulating is creating its own weather systems at the edges.

Ruby also seems to be continually accelerating -

The limit Ellie hits first is height. The air's too thin, eventually, to support a thunderstorm or natural lightning, and thin clouds of ice crystals don't seem to be in her domain.

Bah.

Well, if Ruby wants to keep playing, she can come back down.

Ruby circles around a bit, laughing -

Then rises, higher and higher -

And breaks the sound barrier on her dive.

Right on a collision course with Ellie, too.

Yikes. Time to see if lightning is faster than thunder-

Definitionally so.

Ruby pulls out of her dive as soon as she misses - though it's close, the shockwave building up in front of her clipping Ellie.

It takes her a moment to correct from the knockback. But now Ruby's back in her thundercloud! Zapping time.

Bzzz!

And Ruby soars back up - then cuts sideways at speed.

Where's she going?

The nearest edge of the thundercloud, apparently, though she's also curving her flight path a bit weirdly.

Is she trying to... manipulate it somehow? Stir it up?

After her, loyal lightning bolt minions!

Ellie's able to keep up with her, especially following in the thundercloud - Ruby avoids most attacks, and returns with fire some, but is having trouble overwhelming Ellie as long as Ellie stays out of the upper atmosphere.

Ruby circles back eventually - her movements seem frustrated, actually.

Victory?

It's hard to communicate up here. If Ruby lands, Ellie will follow her down.

Ruby seems fairly intent on landing, especially once she speeds up enough to get past the edge of the thundercloud.

Down we go.

Ruby turns back into a human when she lands, stretching. She doesn't seem too upset by having given up.

"I couldn't figure out how to get you in there without creating a stupidly big firestorm, and I didn't feel like waiting you out," she says with a shrug. "Sticking to the thundercloud was smart."

"Yeah. I dunno how practical it is as a tactic, though. Have to get up pretty high."

"If you get a magical girl mad at you, I bet she'd follow you up there without thinking through it - especially if she's got buddies, and you'd have an advantage even against a group with that."

"Oh, good point."

"Speed's a pretty easy boost to get, too, once you wrap your head around flight - no one I know of's making day trips to the moon, but I've gotten girls who never practiced low oxygen environments to overshoot into the upper atmosphere before. Makes them easy pickings."

"...These power levels are kind of absurd."

She laughs. "The dubiously extant mystery masquerade enforcers definitely have their hands full. But, yeah, low Earth orbit: gorgeous, I bet if we really pushed ourselves and were smart about it we could do a moon trip over summer vacation, and artifact wielders who can't have giant atmosphere spanning fights if they feel like it aren't being creative enough. Which's why assassination is my jam if I actually want someone dead with minimal fuss."

"A moon trip sounds like fun."

"There's a lot of skills that go into it apparently, including being willing to deal with the tedium of flying for a few days, but the moon'll give us something to shoot for."

"It is a traditional target."

"...Now I'm imagining that in a supervillain plan sort of way."

"What, are you going to hold it hostage against the world's governments?"

Mock seriously: "The dividing line between a villain and a supervillain is presentation. The question is not whether stealing the moon is useful; the question is whether it is grand."

"I am enlightened."

"What would you do with a moon, though?"

"Hmmmmm... Haven't thought that far."

Ellie laughs.

"You seem like someone who'd do something useful with a moon. Perhaps I'd gift it to you."

"I have no idea what I'd do with a moon either. Build something out of it or in it, maybe."

"The moon is a great place for a supervillain lair, you know. Very classy."

"We'd have to install a weather system. I wouldn't want to live somewhere without thunderheads."

"Hm... Good point. And Venus is rather out of our way. Jupiter's even worse."

"I bet we could figure out some way to do it."

"It'll be a fun experiment, if nothing else!"

"Yeah."