Chapter 2: Karate Fox
Crystal awoke in a dark room. Using her photomancy, she shed light from her hands. The now gently illuminated room was full of basket balls, baseball bats and other sports equipment [Author's note: I'm going to assume here that mobians also play Earth sports so Crystal knows what those items are]. Crystal wondered where she was and how she got there, then she remembered the urgency of her vision and knew she couldn't stick around. She found a door and opened it, but noticed that the door was made for someone a lot taller than her. On the other side was a room full of strange creatures. She smelled a variety of smells. One of which was food, though she couldn't identify what kind of food. A banner on the wall read: "Station Square Elementary Costume Party". Crystal ventured into the group of what upon closer inspection was humans in costumes and deduced that the other smell was the scent of human. She got occasional comments like "Nice fox girl costume, where'd you get it." and "I haven't seen you before, are you new here?". Crystal reflected that her figure was slightly feminine so they knew her gender without asking. All the humans seemed to be socializing. Crystal figured that the humans must think she was human in a costume as well but decided not to respond to anyone. She wandered around a bit when she noticed that the adult humans in the room who didn't have costumes on were starting to notice her. Then she had another vision. It showed her being questioned by those humans and then they tried to grab her. Her divination sense told her that this vision was a warning of something to avoid.
Sure enough, Crystal saw one of the costumed humans talking to an older human and then pointing at her. Crystal looked for a way out and saw a door with red neon sign above it that read "exit". She slowly made her way toward it, trying to blend in. She was almost there when one of the adult humans was in her path and approaching her. Crystal considered, and then ran up to the human and jumped over its head. It looked shocked and suddenly everyone was looking at her. Knowing the chase had started, Crystal ran to the exit door and pushed it open. One of the stricter looking adults yelled "Come back here or you're in trouble!" but she went through the door and closed it behind her instead. Then Crystal noticed that the door didn't have a lock. She pointer her palm at the handle and shot a laser at it using her photomancy, welding the door shut. Crystal reflected that her skills had improved since she was younger, shooting even a single laser used to wear her out immensely, but she knew that even now she still couldn't be trigger happy. As she heard the humans trying to open the door, Crystal noted that she was behind a building and it was night time. She quickly ran from the door but stopped behind some bushes when she heard voices.
"Give it back" one small voice said and sniffed as if its owner was crying. "Aww is baby Timmy crying" taunted another voice that sounded bigger and meaner. Crystal peered through the bushes and noticed two humans, one was about her size and in tears, and the other was bigger and mean looking. The bigger human was holding a backpack that looked like it would fit the smaller human. He spoke again "I'll come back for you Timmy, I've got some trash to throw out first" and started to walk off with the backpack. Crystal saw the smaller human's eyes tear up even more. Then his look started to change to anger. Crystal thought back to bullying incidents that had occurred in her village on mobius, including one incident where an actic fox kit was hurt by a bully when she tried to stop him from tormenting her. The bully was quickly disciplined but it took the kit years to psychologically recover. Crystal guessed what was going to happen and made her move to prevent it. She jumped out of the bushes and landed in front of the bigger human. "Give that back to him" she said firmly. The bigger human didn't look impressed. He jeered "Where'd you get your girl friend Timmy, the pound?" Timmy didn't respond. Crystal didn't know what the pound was, but she guessed the expression was an insult. She said more firmly and deliberately then before: "Give that back, now". The big human laughed and said "Or you'll do what, tell your mommy?" Crystal had had enough. She declared "I warned you." and then leapt at the bigger human. She punched him in the face and then kicked him in the stomach. He staggered back a few steps as if he didn't believe what just happened. Crystal didn't want to do more harm then she needed to, so she stated in a venomous tone "Had enough yet punk?" Timmy did a double take when he noticed that her mouth was moving with the words as she spoke them. The bully threw the backpack in the air and ran. Crystal caught it and presented it to the smaller human who she assumed was named Timmy.
Timmy accepted the backpack and got a good look at his rescuer. She didn't have any clothes over her thick white fur apart from practical looking azure shoes. Her head looked vaguely like that of the arctic fox he'd seen in his animals of the world book. Her eyes looked kind, though before they had looked firm and a bit angry. He also noticed she had fox ears and a white tail. Timmy suddenly became exited. "You must be a superhero if you can fight like that!" he exclaimed. Crystal smiled at the complement. Timmy continued, "My name's Timmy, what's yours?" Crystal replied "I'm Crystal, Crystal the Arctic Fox". She was about to explain that her fighting skills were not a super power: she had trained for years to become an expert martial artist when she heard a woman's voice say "Timmy come on! We need to get to the mall and have dinner!". "Come over here Mom," Timmy responded, "I want you to meet my new friend!" From around the corner of the building came another human. Timmy said, "Mom, this is Crystal" and turned to perform the other half of the introduction only to find that Crystal was gone. "You're a little old for imaginary friends Timmy, now come along" Timmy's Mom said dejectedly. Timmy started to cry a little, "but she was right there..." he mumbled to himself. Once they were gone Crystal reappeared, she had used her photomancy to turn herself invisible. She didn't like embarrassing Timmy in front of his mother but knew that she didn't want to be found. She felt that she'd completed her task of saving someone small so then she wondered, "Where am I and what's next?".