Battle Vixens! - 61

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Episode 61: Assurance in Dreams

"Listen, I don't like to make a request like this..."

Rory (if that was really who she was) sat on the couch, trying not to listen in to the 'call'. She had briefly distracted herself with looking up what that was, but exhausted the subject fairly quickly: Just a way to use a device like the laptop to communicate with someone far away, but by voice instead of making text appear.

"...under usual circumstances. But I really need you to understand. I saw her die. Right in front of me. And right now she is in no condition to teach. I just need, one day. To get her where she can at least, baseline function on her own."

He was bargaining for something, that much was clear. There was a sort of quiet, desperate edge to his voice that was slightly scary to hear, and probably enhanced his persuasiveness much more than intended.

"..Yes, I have contact with the other ones. I'll make sure the school is protected in my absence. It probably would be even without any special arrangements, but sure. If it pleases the higher-ups, I'll make certain.
"...Thank you for your understanding. Yes, I'd appreciate that very much. Call me back if they give you any trouble, but..well, if I'm being honest I may be asleep for a long time once I lie down tonight. Yeah, thanks."

Clark's device beeped and he exhaled a sigh of relief before making his way into the living room, seeing her there, and coming to sit next to her on the couch—with a seat between them. Rory felt her ears fold down slightly in disappointment at about the same time as she realized she'd wanted him to sit close and maybe put his arm around her. But...at least he was here, and wanted to talk.

"Okay. I want to start with a few basics I don't know if we've covered yet," he said. "You and I are teachers. We teach, and do research, at the university. Which is...a place where people teach, learn, and study things," he said, waving his hand vaguely.

"I can look it up later," Rory offered, nodding.

"Alright. That call was to..let them know our situation. I bought a day off tomorrow, so I can be with you then and help you relearn some basic stuff. Obviously you're in no condition to teach when you..don't remember your subject at all, so they'll probably apply some of your sick days to this." He shrugged. "I don't think there's anything in our contracts about sudden-onset retrograde amnesia, but it's at least as debilitating as the flu."

"Okay." She nodded, making a mental note of the several words she didn't recognize to look up later.

"So..is there anything you want to ask me about right now?"

"Yes," she nodded. "Um..can you tell me about..me?"

"Absolutely. Anything specific?"
"Well, um..what am I..that is, my personality..supposed to be like? I have..some idea from the videos, but am I really like that all the time?"

"More or less," Clark shrugged. "You're confident, dominant and generally don't let anyone tell you what to do. You like being in control, or at least feeling like you're in control. I mean—you're not totally tactless..most of the time, and you can deal reasonably with legitimate authority figures and even put up with some orders you don't like, or you wouldn't have your job, but...as much as you can get away with, you do whatever you want."

Her head tilted a bit. "Is that...good?"

"Well, I admit I've always liked it," Clark said. "I'm sure there are some people who'd disagree, but..you've always used those 'powers' for good much more often than evil."

"Do you know...why?" Since he seemed confused by the question for a second, she clarified: "Why I'm, like that, I mean."
"Oh. Well, I'm no psychoanalyst or anything, but..what you've told me before is that it's because of your parents. I feel like you'd have something of a rebellious, dominant streak no matter what, but your dad was—in your words—very, overcontrolling. He ruled his household with an iron fist, and even when your mom didn't agree with him, she just...let him win every argument anyway." He put up a hand quickly. "I never—got the impression, that there was any kind of abuse there. Just, that's how their relationship worked. And you were the unstoppable force to his immovable object, so you two never really got along."
"Um.."

Noticing her expression (worried frown, ears down), Clark said, "What's wrong?"
"Just..I don't know. The way you described me before..am I 'overcontrolling', too?"
"Well, I've never thought so."
"But I'm...'dominant'. And I get mad if I don't get my way, don't I?"

"It's, different," he objected, and let out a small sigh. "I'm afraid I'm oversimplifying things, but..I'm sure once you remember it'll be a lot clearer."
"Well..I hope so."

---

Blake was supposed to be the tired one, but after the conversation with the new, "artificial" vixen, he got up and went straight to fixing something for both of them to eat. Amory got up listlessly and made himself help, made himself eat. His roommate seemed to sense he didn't really want to talk, and actually was exhausted enough to just eat and wander off to his room, briefly calling his own family before going to bed.

Amory sat in the living room and turned on the news. He wasn't sure why; some long-standing Pavlovian reaction to being stressed, maybe. Naturally they were still talking about the day's events: The battles, the death toll..that video the Giver had uploaded more or less taking credit for the kill and encouraging more death with the promise of a reward. He buried his head in his hands for a moment and quietly groaned, then turned the TV off again. More than anything, he just wanted today to finally be over. Hadn't everyone been through enough? So, even though he didn't feel tired, he went to his own room and lay down in the bed to stare up blankly at the ceiling for what felt like an hour. Staying still for so long made the bed feel uncomfortable behind him, so he turned to one side and saw his alarm clock.

It had been about ten minutes.

He sat up and half-growled, half-sighed. He wasn't in a good mental state to do homework; he didn't feel like playing or watching anything. He just felt trapped in his own head, and wanted desperately to stop thinking for a while. It was a shame he couldn't use his power to hack his own brain into artificially feeling better for a little while...but, the thought occurred to him, maybe that form could at least just will itself to sleep.

Even though he hated the idea, the way it had come to his mind had a certain familiarity to it that made it seem more than likely that it would work. Well—what could it hurt to try, anyway? Amory changed forms, and she lay down again, finding the bed strangely comfortable again. And indeed, no sooner did she close her eyes with the goal of sleep than she effortlessly drifted off.

The small fox-girl sat up, waking up in her "room" in the dream area, and frowned, folding her ears back and feeling like she had just been tricked. Again. Somehow she'd just mentally overlooked the fact that sleeping in this form wasn't "normal" sleep, even though that was more or less the exact reason why she thought it would be possible to do it at will. That logic being: It was a way to contact and maybe negotiate with other people who were also asleep, so being able to do it on command would presumably enhance its usefulness.

Of course, she could just force herself awake again and effectively turn this into normal sleep. But now that she was here...she swung around and sat up, and slowly walked to the door. She wanted to know...if Emma was okay. That was all, really. There were other people she could be talking to right now, a few theories to test, maybe, but she was very much not in the mood for that. Instead, she put her hand to the door handle and pulled, thinking of Emma.

It opened, and—somewhat to her surprise—Amory found Emma's two bodies already standing up looking at each other a short ways from the foot of her bed. They both turned their heads toward the door when it opened, clearly 'alerted' to the visitor in a way that grabbed attention even better than just hearing the door. "Oh—" "—hi!" Minus waved, smiling slightly; Plus was holding what looked like a plastic doll a bit bigger than a hand.

"Hey. Uh..?"
"Surprised?—" Their bodies turned the rest of the way toward the door as Amory came in and let it shut behind her. "—I wondered if, maybe, since you could 'bring' me to this place—" "—and it's supposed to be 'my room', maybe I could just..go to sleep in fox form—" "—and be here if I just wanted to.—" "—And I can!—" "—But I can't leave this room or anything, the door's just stuck for me."

"Oh. Neat." Amory put effort into smiling, but her ears weren't very cooperative.

"I guess, you're okay then?"
"Huh? Oh, uh, yeah.—" "—I mean, as much as ever," Plus added. "I guess having someone else yell at me—" "—figuratively speaking—" "—kinda skipped the part where I yell at myself.—" "—Or something. I just, need to do better tomorrow, right?"
"Hmm. What's that, there?" she said, pointing to the doll—to change the subject. "Puppet power?"

"Yeah. I can make two or three of these.—" "—Minus's sort of run around on their own, but Plus has to use a hand to directly control them.—" She dropped the one she was holding and lifted her left hand, twitching the fingers a bit to make it run in a small circle. "—Still, it's surprising how much control I have over two of these with just one hand. Oh, and—" "—I can 'give it' one of my other borrowed powers to use." The puppet briefly grew white hair, fox-ears and a tail, and waved a hand, making the light in front of it bend around slightly. "But it isn't really any better than using it myself.—" "—Mostly worse, since they're so small." She closed the hand controlling the little puppet, and it disappeared.

"Um...a-a—" "—Are you okay?" she said, Minus interrupting Plus's visible hesitation.

"Yeah, I...not really," Amory said, aborting the lie halfway through. "Sorry, I..shouldn't have come in here."
"Why not?—" "—What's wrong, then?"

"Uh, it's—" Her brain briefly locked up from trying to answer both questions at the same time, and then settled on just doing the first one. "I don't wanna bug you with my stupid problems."

Both of Emma frowned, Minus putting her hands on her hips. "Well, it's not stupid if it has you feeling like that.—" "—And I wanna help. So what's wrong?"

"I just, uh.." Amory looked around for an excuse to delay and think of a good way to put it, and settled for walking over to a chair to slump down into it. "I feel like, ever since I turned into this, I haven't really been in control. I've just let, 'being like her' take over. Or, thinking like her, or thinking what she wants me to think."

Plus followed her, while Minus went and grabbed a couple of other chairs to sit in. "That's just, like everyone else's 'price', right?—" "—Since you can't actively fight those things, yours is something like 'help us do it'."
"Sure, but..." She put up a hand for a second and dropped it on the armrest again. "Not help you the way I would think to, unless I fight against it. Just how she would. And, since it makes me think like that all the time, I just..feel like I haven't even been me lately. And it disgusts me. Today it really hit me hard. It got people killed. I...I hate what I've turned into."

---

As their conversation continued, Clark yawned with increasing frequency. It was clear a brief nap was never really going to do it; he needed to get a full night's sleep to fully recover. "Look, I need to go to sleep. I'll be a lot better in the morning," he said. "I'm guessing you're not too tired right now, so..maybe go use the desk in the bedroom, and I can sleep here on the couch?"

"Um.." Rory's head tilted slightly. "We're 'married', right? So aren't we supposed to sleep in the same bed?"

He gave a slightly exasperated sigh, realizing that he probably should've expected this. "Did you..happen to look up consent at any point?" he said. Then, since she appeared confused by that: "I just...no. We can't..until you get better and know enough to make an actually informed decision, we need to sleep separately. Okay?"
"O-okay," she said, seeming confused by his consternation. Maybe she really just thought it was literally sleeping in the same bed and nothing else, which..only solidified Clark's resolve.

"Uh, do you..I can sleep here though, tonight, if you wanna use the bed? And then we could swap tomorrow night?" she offered.

"That's..fine," he said, nodding, and got up. "Better, actually. Thank you." Rory nodded, looking very slightly pleased with herself.

"Good night!"
"Likewise..."

Well, now she was going to look up consent for sure, he thought, putting some minimal effort into getting properly ready for bed. That was equal parts worrying and relieving since his outburst would make more sense afterward, but he wasn't really sure how she'd react to information regarding...that. Still, that was a problem for the following day, not for tonight. All he had to do for now was lie down, shut his eyes and fall asleep...

...And, almost immediately, wake up somewhere else. Clark's mind woke up at the same time as he shifted to the smaller, fox-eared form, and as she sat up and looked around at the alien, lavish bedroom it became immediately clear what was going on. It was another thing she really should have expected at this point; being the one to...kill Tobias Mond was more than enough to have the Giver's eye on her in particular. And, like Light and Rowan Shepherd, she just loved to talk to people she had her eye on.

Well, at least she didn't feel tired here—if this was a physical space, anyway, and not some kind of shared mental space or something; all bets seemed to be off when it came to 'magic'. Clark dropped out of bed and went over to the door expectantly, wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible. She managed not to jump when a knock came, and then just gently opened the door and stepped back for the visitor to come in.

"Well, hello there," she grinned. "You seem eager."
"I'm not."
"Shall we..take a seat?" the tall woman suggested, floating over to a nearby chair and just sort of waving her hand to make another one scoot up to a few feet in front of that one.

"Fine."

Once they were both sitting down, the Giver held up one of her hands and moved her fingers a bit, in a distressingly familiar sort of irregular twitching motion. "Have you ever noticed, your hands are like the original puppets? Every little motion they make starts down here, in the forearm," she said, pointing with the other hand.

Clark's ears lowered. "You didn't 'call' me here to give me a science lesson, did you?"
"Heheh, no, I just thought you'd appreciate one anyway," she said, dropping both arms to her sides. "No, I'm really here to settle any issues with our deal. I can't guarantee I'll free you of all doubt, but I'd like you to at least only wonder whether you made the right decision for the right reasons. The way I was 'communicating' with you today isn't very stable, especially for me, so our 'time' there was much more limited than you might realize."
"..Why is that?"

"Hmm? I thought you didn't want a science lesson," she said, giving a smug grin. Clark wasn't really the punching sort, but it was easy to understand why Light would want to, seeing that. "Well, it's fairly simple: I was using a spell to speed up your brain's processing and force the majority of it to be used on a mental communication link for a second or two. Ordinarily that'd have a risk of overloading your brain and giving you a headache or worse, but since I can't hurt you, it would've cut off before that could happen."

"Anyway, I know you're wondering: 'Is that really her? Is it even possible for it to be?' That's what I'm interested in explaining," she continued without much pause. "Maybe you won't believe me, but remember that I'm not allowed to lie, so at least I believe what I'm saying to be true—and I'm the expert on this, after all."

Clark sighed slightly; she'd had plenty of professors like this, and tried pretty hard not to be one of them. "Go on, then."
The Giver nodded. "As I told you then, this is not so much undoing death as it is cheating it. The key to that is my gift to each one of you, my blessed ones. It's magic, and of course the power comes from me to begin with...But as I've explained to Light, it's designed to eventually become yours over time, with effort. Fundamentally, it's not very different from the magic most beings in other worlds naturally have on their own, aside from its connection to me which gives it an enormous initial boost. And that means..well. Do you believe in souls?"

Clark's ears folded down slightly. "I have a hard time believing in something for which there is no experimental evidence," she said.

"Well, that is what a lot of people call it. The people of most worlds, yours included, have something that persists after death, and has a sense of identity and individual personhood. If anything can be considered 'you' apart from your literal, physical body, that thing is it. And, all of a person's magic is tied intrinsically to it, in some sense powered by it. You do have evidence, at least, that your emotions can affect your powers. That' thing' is the intermediary for such an effect: it feels the emotion, and that emotion drives the power of your magic. Are you with me so far?"
"I comprehend your meaning," she said, without commenting on her level of belief.

The Giver nodded. "Of course, taking another's power by killing them involves transferring something which was tethered to their soul, and making it your own. That is, essentially, why a newly taken power tends to be very weak. Its tie to its previous owner has to be purged, and even then it tends to remain 'damaged' forever afterward without some kind of external help.

"Usually the connection to the old owner is destroyed fairly quickly, but the person you took those powers from chose to wield them in a way which kept the 'identity' tied to them still very much attached. This actually allowed her to use those powers much more effectively than most could, but at something of a price. As for the one exception to that—well, you might not be surprised to learn that Dawn never even thought of that power as 'hers'. Therefore, the link to its original owner was relatively weak by the time she died, but still strong enough to be dredged up and used in a puppet just like the others."

She paused again for a moment, seemingly to allow Clark to ask questions. Instead she drew her own conclusion: "So what you're saying is, the powers were still tied to their 'owners', and also to you."
"Right! I knew you were a bright one," she said, grinning what looked like proudly. At the same time, there was something condescending and sarcastic about the way she said it. Clark wasn't sure she'd ever had a professor like this, but if she had then she probably would've dropped the class and taken it under someone else later. "So all we had to do, really, was sever your connection to those powers, pump them into bodies that the souls they belonged to would feel matched them, and...pull." She accompanied this last word with a motion like yanking a rope upward. "I shouldn't understate the difficulty of that last step—pulling a soul up into a body like that takes a lot of power—but fortunately you had me to do the heavy lifting." She also flexed one of her (actually very scrawny-looking) arms with this; Clark declined from commenting on it. "Well, technically any body with a sufficiently powerful brain would've worked, but the cost of pulling the souls in was minimized by using bodies that were 'theirs', and which at the same time symbolized that connection to me we were pulling on."

---

"Amory!" She jumped, not having expected Emma to both raise their voice at once. "You can't—" "—You're—" "—You don't—!" she talked over herself with five or six sentence starts, before the two bodies looked at each other (like two different people silently agreeing on who got to talk first) and Plus properly continued: "You are the best person I know. And that hasn't changed. What you want, hasn't changed.—" "—Just, just because you were tricked into doing it wrong, what difference does that make? You still helped.—" "—And you still really, really wanna help, more than you already are! Or you wouldn't be mad at yourself right now.—" "—Right?"

In a lot of ways, this felt wildly out of character for Emma; at the same time, it felt like something that had been there all along. Amory just quietly nodded, the surprise she felt still enough to stun her momentarily.

"Do you know, today I—" "—I really, really didn't wanna fight her at all. I mean, deep down—" "—I didn't want to have a part in k-killing someone, even...someone like that. But I—" "—I mean, the reason I went, and did everything I could anyway, is because of you."

"Me?"
"Yeah! You, um—" "—even before all of, any of this happened. You're, my hero." Both of her blushed slightly in embarrassment from putting it quite this way. "—I mean, you're super smart, you're good at basically everything you try—" "—but you don't, I mean you never treat other people like they're stupid for not understanding things as fast as you do. You just want to help.—" "—And you do help! A lot!—" "—Way more than you know. So, so—" "—so don't talk like that!"

Amory was still in stunned silence for a moment, and during that time both of Emma looked increasingly embarrassed by the entire outburst. "Um—" "—Sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you or anything, I just—" "—don't like seeing you like that. I know you—" "—I mean I guess not that well but I, I know you're—" "—way better than that."
"Um..well, I guess I must be, if you say so," Amory said, feeling a little embarrassed herself. "Thanks." For the first time since Rory Quinn's death, she felt a genuine smile on her face. "You know, maybe I needed being yelled at."

"H-heheh.." They nervously giggled slightly out of phase with each other.

"Did you, uh, figure anything else out?" she asked after a moment of silence, wanting to keep talking but feeling that a change of subject was the only way to achieve that.

"Oh, yeah! Um, so—" "—I realized during the fight today, that when I'm in the uh, 'bigger' form I can make swords, right?—" "—But I can also still make daggers," Minus continued, producing one from the light in the room into her hand. "Because I did. But then: Duh, why wouldn't I?—" "—But then, if I can make them swords or daggers, why only those shapes? And, why doesn't making a weapon out of shadow make a little scythe since that's what the person with real shadow powers got? And it turns out, there's nothing special at all about it being a dagger!" The weapon in her hand glowed, shaping into a kunai, then a miniature scythe, a hand axe, a little club, a brass knuckle. "It's just 'make a weapon out of'—" "—in this case—" "—'light'. What the weapon is is totally up to me, but I was going for something sword-shaped until now 'cause that was what I saw the person I learned it from doing."
"That's...really impressive," Amory said. "I guess if you're 'bigger' then you can make all kinds of weapons."
"Yeah! And uh, also—" Plus made a shorter version of Fay's staff, then held onto the top, pressing the bottom into the floor, and pushed at the middle, causing it to curve forward. Then she pulled some multicolored glowing string out of her wrist (imitating Clark's 'weapon') and somehow made it attach itself to the top and bottom, then pull taut. Finally, she semi-proudly presented the combination weapon. "A bow! I dunno, how useful this really is since I seem to be pretty good at throwing things, but it might be useful for long-range, like, arcing things over stuff.—" "—Especially if I use it with Zeno's arrows."

"Cool. There must be all kinds of things you could do by combining together different weapons," Amory observed. "Actually—is there any reason you couldn't put, like, a fire dagger and a light dagger together and get a full-size sword, even like that?"
"Um..—" "—maybe not!"

---

"So, I'm not sure how to give you more compelling evidence than that," the Giver continued. "Each of the people we brought back is just about as much 'themselves' as it's possible for them to be, after the death of the original bodies. But I suppose if you don't believe anything persists after death, then that was already true, wasn't it?"
"Hmm. I suppose this explanation also covers the amnesia," Clark said.

"Oh, why yes, of course," she said, appearing (probably pretending) to remember that bit. "The soul in a new body is confused. Deep down, it remembers 'who' it is, but it's used to pulling memory from the mind—in the physical brain—and that information isn't there in the new bodies. Over time, things the soul 'knows about' will allow it to reshape that mind, and ultimately rebuild the memories it should have there. However...as I'm certain you can imagine, the experience of forgetting who you are and needing to rebuild it more or less from scratch is somewhat traumatic. Trauma, and new experiences in general, bring change, so..even after everything comes back, you shouldn't be surprised if the person's thinking and behavior is different from what it was before. I hope that won't be too disappionting." The Giver didn't look very distressed to share any of this information; if anything, she still appeared just as confidently smug giving it out as before. At the same time, her last statement felt unusually sincere; Clark supposed that she was for some reason genuinely concerned that her 'reward' be well-received.

"That only makes sense, anyway," she said aloud. It was obvious that Rory was questioning the way she'd acted before; if she woke up the following morning with all her memories returned, it was difficult to imagine someone as smart as her not reevaluating things in light of that new perspective. Clark had reason to hope the result would be a change for the better—if it was even possible—or not much visible change at all in the end. Whether the same could be said for the others was much more difficult to determine, but...at least they were alive. However, there was one concern with this: "...Does 'rebuilding the mind' cover knowledge, or just memories?"

"More or less," the Giver said with a slight shrug. "There isn't really a distinction, as far as your 'storage device' is concerned, between remembering learning something and remembering experiencing something. If someone was an expert at something before, they'll be an expert again after getting their memories back. But it's not completely perfect, by which I mean that person may not recall every single fact they knew before, just as they may not remember every single conversation they had. For..complicated reasons—you understand I'm giving a 'layperson's version' of a rather complex topic—memories especially close to the moment of death will be the most difficult to recover, and the experience of dying itself is close to impossible."

"Maybe that's a good thing."
"If that's what you think," the Giver said, her tone one of cheerful ambiguity.

"...Is that all, then?"

"Hm? Well, there is one other thing I'd like to tell you about," the Giver said, visibly pretending not to care if she got to say it. However, it was rather obvious she was going to tell her whether or not she wanted to hear it. "How familiar are you with the life of Tobias Mond?"

"...Not much." Oh, she was doing this. She did this for Rowan, too, and maybe it was something she considered a 'service' to people who'd taken powers, which she would do if she liked them enough. "Some rich kid, son of a big-shot CEO. I think I'm much more familiar with her death than her life," Clark remarked dryly.

"Heheh," the giver chuckled, seeming to actually find this statement both surprising and funny. "Well, of course there's more to it than that. Tobias was his father's only son, and like fathers do, he wanted the 'best' for him. That meant grooming him as a sucessor, which in his mind meant tightly controlling every little aspect of his life. The closest thing he had to a friend was a personal bodyguard he'd been assigned as a teenager, someone unusually young for such a profession and chosen for that reason—so he'd be inconspicuous when nearby, and look like a friend of Tobias when he was really busy guarding him and—maybe more importantly—acting as his father's eyes and ears on him at all times.

"When my gift came, Tobias wanted control more than anything. His friend, empathizing with his plight and feeling by then just as under the thumb of Mr. Mond as his son, wanted a way for them both to escape. Both received a blessing along those lines, but remained dormant, doing little more than playing around with them in private, until the enemy appeared. That was when Tobias's friend had an idea.
"'We can save the world,' he said." She lifted a hand slightly. "'The people those things put into a coma are as good as dead anyway. If we sneak in and kill them, then I teleport us out, no one will be the wiser. Then, we can take turns and each become powerful enough to take down a bunch of those things alone.' Tobias...decided that he didn't want to take turns."

"The teleporting puppet," Clark said. "With the knives." The Giver nodded.

"She pulled out her strings and used them to strangle her friend to death from behind. That was when she got my attention. And after one blunder—using a puppet to kill someone, as you've suspected, didn't count—her first successful venture was when I contacted her the first time. I expressed some support, helped her understand the nature of that girl's power to better control it, and left it at that. At the time, of course, I had no objection to her behavior. Taking powers that way was intended all along as a way to keep them in the fight after they were put to sleep by the enemy; she was just being efficient about it."

"And after that," Clark continued for her, "she got impatient. She decided that not enough, or not the right people, were becoming coma victims. Right?"
"Exactly," the Giver nodded—the previous condescension not present for the moment. "The following night, I made it as clear to her as I did to Light just what the enemy would do to your world, and why I want it exterminated. That was my way of warning her, my hint that I'd let her off the hook for that one time—but I was careful not to let my displeasure show, just in case she didn't take the hint and I needed to lead her into a trap."

"...Which you did."

"Yep! And I think you're about caught up after that. The VI provided some very convenient bait by starting to put all the coma victims in one place. Once they were gone, I gave her a 'gift' to convince her I was still on her side and told her about the other bait I'd set in place nearby. From the perspective of keeping her around, I doubt the former was even necessary, but I knew Dawn would be delighted to see her friend brought back to life."

"That's not going to make anyone more forgiving of you for getting her killed," Clark stated.
"Oh, I know," the Giver nodded, taking on an exaggerated faux-sad tone, "but that's a burden I'm willing to bear.

"Anyway," she continued, not missing a beat, "Your expression of her power should let you command two or three, maybe up to four puppets most of the time. They'll be able to produce string just like you can, and even use a weaker version of your healing through their hands. It's up to you to decide what else that power of control means to you, but I'm confident a creative mind like yours will be capable of some interesting feats."

---

"Are you uh,—" "—better?" Emma said. "I mean, we did just kinda suddenly change subjects, but..."
"I'm..okay," Amory nodded. "I still need to sort some stuff out, but, it doesn't feel as hopeless as it did before, I guess."

"Well, that—" "—that's good. Um.."

"Yes?" Emma seemed hesitant and embarrassed, but that only made her more curious what it was.

"W-well, uh, last night—" "—I said I wasn't sure I could imitate your 'making people stronger' power, right?—" "—But, there's, more to it than that, isn't there?"
"Sorta," Amory shrugged. "How do you mean?"
"Uh, it can—" "—I mean, you can just make people 'feel better' with it, too, right?—" "—So I wonder if—" "—um, c-could I do that, you think?" Both of her looked slightly upward and away, blushing.

"Heheh," she giggled slightly, feeling a faint blush on her own cheeks. "I dunno if it'd be imitating my power per se, but I know you can make me feel better regardless."
"Oh!—" "—S-so uh. You want me to..?—" "—P-pet you?"

"I'm...sure I wouldn't turn down the offer," she nodded.

"Well, then, so—" "—consider it offered!" Both of her gave a sort of nervous over-grin at saying this, maybe relieved to finally get it out.

"Sure." Amory stood up. "Uh, over at your bed..?"
"Yeah!" Emma (both at once) said, hopping out of her seats also.

She combined into a single body to hold Amory in the arms of, with an end result similar to the night before. Although they weren't doing it for the express purpose of "powering" Emma up, Amory could feel after a moment that she wanted to grow into the "larger" form, and did so—much as she had for Light, before.

And, maybe Emma did succeed in imitating her. Even if her problems were still there, the embrace and the gentle rubbing of fingers against fur—not to mention their tails running across each other—made them feel pretty far away for a while. It was easy to just lose herself in that pleasant, animal haze of a feeling for a while, and she eventually woke the next morning feeling especially refreshed.

---

"Now, is there anything else you'd like to ask me?" the Giver said.

This was unusual, Clark thought—no games, and apparently no sneaking over to pet her ears. But she also had the vague impression that she'd been 'rewarded' and powered up enough by gaining the puppeteer's power today, and also that maybe the Giver just preferred Light's ears anyway. Well, she still had one more question: "Will everyone be able to turn back to normal?"

"Take their original forms, you mean? Hmm, loaded question." The Giver put up an index finger briefly. "Mainly the 'everyone' part. Any of those we brought back can become capable of reshaping their form back to the human ones they had before, if enough of their memories have returned and their soul feels enough of a connection to their mind and body. At the very least they must remember their original appearance and feel it really is theirs. I can't guarantee that all of them will meet those conditions, of course."

Clark nodded; she might have guessed it'd be something like that. And she thought of just one last question: "Rowan could've hit her, at the start of the fight. Just when we were dropping from the helicopter."
"Mm-hm," she nodded.

"Did you make her miss?"

"Nope!" the Giver shook her head. "It would've been hilariously anticlimactic, and I might've needed a moment to roll around in laughter before offering her the same deal I did you. But it was a good idea, she's a really good shot, and I had nothing to do with that particular one missing. In the end that was just luck, plain and simple—and whether it's good or bad depends on one's perspective. Unless, of course, you believe in fate." But she knew the answer to that.