Battle Vixens! - 74

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Episode 74: The Energy Nightmare

Clark drove up to where the police had hastily cordoned off the impromptu battleground, stopping in the middle of the street to get out. This was still around a corner and too far away to see the fight, but people had been strongly advised to evacuate the area if possible since there was a risk of getting electrocuted otherwise; what remained here were just a few police officers, and they didn't seem inclined to ticket him for illegal parking right now.

After changing form, she went and hopped over the tape, taking just the few steps the forward momentum forced her into before stopping to summon a pair of puppets. Aside from the ones representing stolen powers, Tobias Mond's puppets had looked fully "human", at least as much so as plastic or porcelain-looking featureless mannequins could. By contrast, Clark's puppets had a soft, clothlike material forming shoulder-length hair and mobile, foxlike ears and tails, and while both of these had pitch black "hair" for all of the above, it seemed she had the option of "customizing" them. For the moment, however, utility was the important thing.

With just two, her left hand was sufficient to control them; she had them start running in the direction of the giant worm. She could actually see and hear from both their perspectives as well as her own, despite their lack of actual eyes and ears, and the result was much less disorienting than she knew it should have been. This had to be something like what Emma experienced most of the time, except that her coordination and control of these "extra bodies" didn't feel as precise as that of her own—which made sense for puppets, after all. Still, they seemed to have a somewhat automatic 'run' function so she wasn't playing a very personalized form of QWOP just to make them move quickly.

The worm wasn't visibly present when they arrived, but there was a faint rumbling in the ground, and a great deal of well-tilled concrete, complete with several holes, to indicate its recent and impending presence. Emma's two bodies were on opposite sides of a giant hole near the center of the road, the dark-haired one farther off and currently panting while the light-haired one looked very alert, like she was getting ready for something. Plus turned toward the sound of someone running up to her, and let out a short "WUAAH—!" while hopping back, away from the one headed her way—the other one making its way around the hole now toward Minus.

When the puppet stopped a few feet away, arms at its sides, she relaxed slightly. "Oh—wait. Uh, Dr. Quinn?" The puppet nodded as its partner reached Minus, both of them coming closer to put a hand out toward her chest and 'feel' for injuries.

Clark shook her head slightly, mumbling mostly to herself: "What'd you do to twist your wrist like that? And, where'd those burns..?" She got to work on the injuries quickly, suspecting the monster might pop out at any moment.

"Uh, hey—" "—tell anyone else who comes—" "—I can sorta hear where the monster is coming up—" "—so if I tell them to like—" "—run or move away, then um—" "—do it, fast!" Both puppets nodded. Even though Clark also had two perspectives to hear from, she couldn't work out where the worm was exactly; with some effort, she thought, it was enough to make out a vague area at best. Emma's powers were probably helping her brain(s) do some impressive calculations totally unconsciously. In fact, looking closer...

Both of her were glowing a bit, like when Light went "super saiyan" before. Except that Emma seemed relatively calm, and didn't seem to be wearing herself out quite so much...a little, maybe, but during her earlier checkup, the amount of exhaustion hadn't even registered to her as abnormal given the circumstances. "Also, I, I don't really know what you guys should actually even do.—" "—I can sort of, block its lightning, just barely, but..—" "—anyone else, it could just hit them, anytime!" There was a little bit of rising panic in both of her voices there, but it was strained, like she was deliberately holding it back somehow. Unsure what else to do, Clark had one of her puppets put a hand on Plus's shoulder for a second, "looking" into her eyes, and nodded to let her know they'd get through this somehow. Light, at least, could probably teleport out of the way of lightning..and with enough puppets for that thing to target, maybe...

Plus nodded back, sniffing just slightly, and then her eyes widened. "I-it's coming, move!" She dove over to one side while—not having more specific directions—Clark had both her puppets run away from Emma's bodies in random directions. The worm burst out from under where Plus had been a moment ago, rocketing into the air. It reached two or three times the height of the nearest puppet, its body still not entirely out of the ground, when the electricity spiraling around it seemed to flicker strangely, and the worm thrashed back and forth in the air in a manner which seemed unintended, some mist rising off of its body.

With the other puppet busy going to help Plus up and heal some scratches from hitting the concrete during that dive, the one by Minus gave her what Clark hoped was a questioning look with an arm waving up toward the worm. "I-I don't know, it just..hurts itself sometimes, randomly? Maybe it's 'cause Ning's power is so hard to control?" Well, that was at least one good thing, except that it made the monster's movements a bit less predictable and regular than they otherwise would be...

Her actual ears picked up the sound of a police siren coming up, and she turned in the direction it was coming from in time to see its origin skidding to a halt next to her own car. Rory came out of the passenger seat, and while she briefly thanked the driver, Clark felt a mixture of anger, frustration, panic, fear, and...whatever emotion is best described by the phrase, Of course she would.

"What are you doing here?! I told you to stay home!"
"Yeah, well—" Rory came up to the other side of the tape. "I don't do what people tell me to. Isn't that what you said? Especially when it's stupid! I can help, so I'm gonna help whether you want me to or not!" Each sentence came out angrier than the last one, and it was hard not to see the 'old' Rory in that anger. She certainly wouldn't have stayed on the sidelines before no matter how, or who, begged her. "And anyway, I'm not being reckless, I have a plan," she added, putting her hands on her hips. "That thing has lightning powers, but my powers let me control my body, right? So I'll just tell it not to conduct electricity!"

It was something, at least; it proved she was thinking. Before, Rory had always used her power to do things like be stronger, faster, tougher, or 'resitant to magic' in general. This was a new idea, using it to instead change certain physical properties of her body—but in line with what the Giver had told Light, it sounded plausible enough for her powers to let her do it. "Rory, that..." Clark paused; her concentration somewhat strained as she was busy keeping her two puppets away from the worm's massive, circular maw as it came back down to earth. "That's a terrible plan. Look, resistors output heat when you force electricity through them. That worm's just gonna hit you with 20,000 volts and fry you alive."

She looked like she was going to argue, but Clark wasn't finished, and continued over her: "No, no, look..you should make your body work like a Faraday cage instead. Tell your, uh, skin and hair and, fur I guess to conduct electricity really well, make the rest of you an insulator, especially around your nervous system, and focus anything else you've got into heat resistance. Then most of the electricity should pass harmlessly along your surface and into the ground." By now Rory was smiling, and maybe tearing up a bit...which Clark was trying hard not to imitate. "That'll make you a lightning rod, though, so we need to make sure everyone else stays well clear of you when that thing tries to shock you anyway. You might as well ask Gemma for a huge sword while you're at it."

"You got it!" she said, jumping over the barricade to pick Clark up into a brief hug, which she returned with the hand that wasn't busy running puppets around. After setting her down, she looked around. "So uh, which way to the—"
"Around the corner that way," Clark pointed. "And if Gemma tells you to do something, do it, she can hear where the worm is underground and will know if it's trying to pop out from under you."
"Okay!" Rory took off at a run. The same fear that had made Clark yell at her before was still there, but balanced for the moment by happiness, pride, and most of all, logic. Now there was something to help protect the rest of them from being electrocuted. Anyway, during that conversation she had seen Emma's method of protecting herself from lightning, which basically seemed to amount to letting it hit her, but then catching it and throwing it down into the ground at the very last nanosecond. That was why her hands were burned, and...it looked unbelievably risky; one mistake meant actual, possibly-fatal electrocution.

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"So, that sounds to me like the Gigaworm," Marcus said. "One of those showed up in Italy a few days back. From what anyone can tell, they don't got eyes, or even ears really."
"Ooof course," Light said, crossing her arms in the front seat.

"They're a huge problem 'cause they don't make a lot of noise and they like to just pop out from right under people. The team that beat that one had an earthbender, uh—kinda like Petra, but a little different in 'execution'—and they won because she just kept yanking the ground out from under the worm until there was this huuuge pit," she continued, spreading her hands apart to convey the size.

Amp (in male/human form again, driving) exhaled a half-sigh. "And this one's got lightning powers, too."

"It prolly, like, detects what's above it by vibrations or somethin' like that? So standing still miiight be a good idea...unless it already knows you're there?"

"I think staying in the air would be better," he said. "Or maybe on top of a building, where it's farther away, and giving it lots of closer targets to 'feel'. Dr. Quinn has the power to make puppets now, so if she can make a lot of them..."

Light nodded. "Her power lets other people fly, too. I think I should just carry you to the top of a building right away, since you don't need to be close to anything to hit it with spells," she said, turning back toward Magus.

"Uh, yeah, that'd be good."

"I'm going in too, by the way," Amp said, staring straight at the road while Light gave him a questioning look. "It literally can't hurt me. Maybe it'll try, though, and waste its energy. I need to be there right after to wake Ning up anyway. I can 'top people off' if they need it. And..."

"I know you're worried about her, and I will try to keep you hidden, but..." she sort of half-argued back.

"They've got the place mostly evacuated anyway. I'm not worried about that right now, Light."

"Yeah, that's what I'm worried about. But, it's up to you."

---

It was a curious thing to see Dr. Quinn's version of the puppeteer's power.

Even the puppets who had personalities had felt like a cold expression, just a tool or weapon being manipulated by their owner's hand. The faceless ones were even more so, just an army of soulless pawns, like meat shields without the meat. Even though the two who came to Emma were just as faceless and physically cold, bearing only the slightest of features, there was a clear sense of emotion and warmth channeled through them. It seemed easy to understand what the person controlling them was thinking, even without words. Something conceptually just clicked together between this power and her original power to heal, making them feel less like two separate powers and more like two pieces of a greater whole.

After the worm went down again, Emma stood up and circled slowly, listening. It was hard to predict just what it would do now that there were four apparent targets instead of just two.Since they were finished healing her, the puppets stood apart from her two bodies in a deliberate bid to make it go after them instead of her. After a moment, she could hear it getting louder; it was a slow rise, like it usually did to chase from behind, and it was coming from...

"Uh—" "—that one!" she said, pointing with Plus. Since they both looked identical, this was about the most efficient way to express it. Unfortunately, the puppet ran directly toward where the worm was coming from, and there wasn't really enough time to warn it. But—Emma reminded herself—losing a puppet was fine, even if they did seem a lot more like people than Tobias's "normal" ones had. They were ultimately just like her own weapons, merely an expression of Dr. Quinn's will, and mroe importantly one which could be unsummoned and reformed more or less effortlessly. So she just got the closest body (Plus) moving away and let it happen, the worm bursting out of the ground and swallowing the puppet whole almost right away before turning predictably toward said body to chase after her.

Minus tossed a few weapons at the worm's side from a distance, and Plus made for the closest building, taking advantage of her lead to make it to a sufficiently dark shadow to drop into without having to sprint for too long. The worm twisted around the area in seeming confusion and sank back into the ground after firing a forking bolt of electricity out toward Minus and the puppet; the latter convulsed briefly from the shock and had cracks running across its surface afterward, but didn't quite turn to dust.

While Plus came back out of the ground, she heard someone running up, a different gait from one of the puppets, and turned the nearer body (Minus) to look. "Uh—" "—Dr.—" "—Rory?!" she exclaimed over herself saying 'Quinn'.

"Hiya! I'm a lightning rod!" she said cheerfully, stopping a short distance off. "I should be able to, uh, get shocked without getting hurt much right now, but also I might attract it? So don't get too close. Oh but uh, Clark told me to ask you for a big sword." The puppet waved at Plus and nodded to her to confirm this information was trustworthy.

"Rrright. Okay, um.." Minus made a wide, long sword out of some fire, shadows and concrete; it took all the strength in both arms just to hold it upright long enough for it form, but after she set it on the ground and backed away, Rory picked it up one-handed no problem, giving it a couple of test swings.

"Alriiight." Between this and the confident grin she had on now, it was hard to believe she was still missing most of her memory.

"Oh, uh—" "—it's coming up from under the puppet! Run—" "—forward!" she said quickly. It ran, and at the same time another one—with red hair—came up from the same direction as Rory and the other two had. This one was carrying Clark's needle in one of its hands. Plus and Minus both scattered away from the worm; Rory seemed to take a moment to watch it chase the damaged puppet before running up to the side of the creature's middle, chopping down hard through its body. True to her word, the electricity flowed through the blade to her hands, right across her body and into the ground, all without seeming to affect her in the slightest—so she lifted the blade and sliced again, a two-handed diagonal one this time—before leaping back away as the worm shifted its momentum sideways to try to slam into her. Rory managed to twirl in midair so she landed facing the opposite direction and hit the ground running, easily outpacing the awkward sideways momentum.

The redheaded puppet tossed Clark's needle up into the air, directing it the same way she usually did in person to form a beachball-sized bunch of blue string and then toss it toward the worm, landing a direct hit as it slid into the ground. More electiricity fired out from it at every available target, destroying the remaining black-haired puppet, damaging the redhead, and forcing both of Emma to block it again—but, again, flowing across Rory harmlessly.

"Under you, Rory—" "—just jump away!" she waved. While the superstrong vixen did just that, achieving a height and distance with the leap that was hard not to be jealous of, the redheaded puppet threw another ball of glowing blue yarn right at the spot, just in time for the worm to burst up from the ground and swallow it whole, thrashing from side to side in pain on its way up. To make matters worse for the monster, it lost control of Ning's power once again and flopped sideways to crash into some unoccupied ground as the electricity seared the entire length of its body. Now that it was down, it elected to immediately dive again, only allowing time for Plus (the nearer body of Emma's) to toss a few weapons into it before it was back underground.

More running in their direction, this time at an inhumanly fast pace, which had to be...Light. Currently in "Amp-lified" form, and carrying Magus in her arms. It was hard not to feel some relief seeing her, and knowing that it meant Amory was fairly close by too—but Emma balanced that feeling with her characteristic pessimism, reminding herself that things could still go horribly wrong at any time in a million different ways, and successfully maintained the edge of panic that was presently enhancing her powers.

"Just play support, don't risk any big spells you can't recover from, and be ready to block or turn and book it at any time." Light ran vertically up a nearby building's wall, hopped across a couple of rooftops, and gently set down her passenger near the edge of a shop's roof which was centrally placed on the line parallel to the shattered road. "If you can come up with something that blocks on all sides, that might also help."
"You got it!" After that, the white-haired vixen zapped herself down to a spot just above the ground.

More puppets ran up on Light's heels, one with blue hair and a new black-haired one. Red tossed the needle to Blue, who got to work forming it into a clublike shape, and Red and Black ran toward Gemma's bodies to heal the burns from her most recent lightning blocks. Emma listened carefully for the worm, and..."Uh—" "—Red!—" "—Run to your left!" The puppet turned and ran that way as the worm came up, and Light moved a few feet up into the air, forming two of her blade and throwing each one overhand at the monster so that it cut into its body as it landed. As soon as one had buried itself into the body it vanished, reappearing in her hand to be thrown again.

The Blue puppet came and swung its "club" into the beast from one side while Rory slashed it a few times on the other, quickly stepping back and letting the string break off of the needle immediately and twist forward to land all across its body—avoiding a shock in the process. Magus threw some fireballs in an upward arc, each one landing on top of the beast, and Minus concentrated her own power on each of those after the first one for just long enough to double its size. Plus went for a throwing a few point-explosion-tipped daggers at the worm, keeping one hand free at all times in case it shot more electricity out. Eventually the worm caught up with Red and closed its mouth right on her, crushing the puppet into dust, before twisting up and around to try to get Light. She easily lightsped far away and behind it, and—not knowing where its most recent target had gone—it just gave up and dove back into the ground.

Emma didn't hear the other Quinn coming, but Minus could see her floating up into view, summoning another four puppets—White, Purple, a new Red, and Green—around her and setting them all down to go running randomly around the battlefield. Just behind her, also benefiting from the power of flight, was Amp. She floated over toward Magus's position herself, and Emma could feel her own bodies gain a sense of weightlessness, an ability to freely float up into the air if she wanted to—which she took advantage of to move just slightly off the ground right away.

Amory came toward Minus, looking concerned. "You okay?"
"I, uh—I'm fine," she half-lied. "I just, um, don't!" She put up a hand, seeing that Amp was going to try to use her power on her. "Sorry," she folded her ears down. "I, I need to focus, really really hard right now."
"...Okay." Amp nodded. "I'll be here if you need me." She set herself down by the wall of the nearest building.

"Hey, Gem!" Magus's voice came from above.
"Uh—" "—me?" Plus ended.
"Yeah. You got Nico's power, right? I'm actually kinda low on MP, if you take requests?"

"'M'—? Uh, oh, okay." Plus flew over near the base of the building while Minus headed for the opposite end of the road, and she tossed a few seeds into the ground—figuring that, since she couldn't grow particularly large trees, a few with the same effect would still be better than just one.

The sound of rumbling from below wasn't getting much louder, but she could now just make up a familiar humming. "Hey, uh—" "—it's gonna shoot a bunch of lightning from below!—" "—Get ready!" she said, already starting to form a dome of rock around her own two bodies. Light moved to behind Plus's pile of rocks, and she quickly readjusted its shape to cover her too. The various puppets were busy tossing the needle back and forth between each other, setting up a network of braided blue-glowing rope, and they carried on as though nothing was wrong.

Magus did some kind of incantation-type thing: "Shield of crystal, block from all sides. Barrier!" This came with a motion that drew a thin, blue-glowing hexagon with the tip of her sword, and the spell formed a shield out of blue light in some 3D shape made out of more such hexagons all around her. Clark pulled her arms around the spellcaster from behind while she cast this, letting her benefit from this spell's protection also. Rory stood still, planting her feet and raising the tip of her sword skyward with presumably the intent of attracting some of the attack. Amp took a few steps in toward the middle of the road, seeming to have a similar idea, and Emma had to remind herself she was 'magic immune' in general to keep her own panic down.

Everyone was ready not a moment too soon. This series of lightning strikes was much more intense and rapid than before, each one seeming sufficient to vaporize a normal human. Emma had to carefully maintain and rebuilt her own shields as each strike which hit them melted partway through; Magus's barrier had visible cracks all across it by the end of the attack; and none of the puppets survived. Despite catching more strikes than any other target, however, Rory seemed to be perfectly fine. Amp, of course, was also untouched.

Minus yelled, "Light, move!—" "—coming for us." Plus burst apart the roof of her shelter, flying up and forward as fast as she could while Light zipped clear to the opposite side of the street. Clark let go of Magus, pulling her needle up from the ground with a gesture, and as the worm burst out from the ground all of the string her puppets had set up converged toward it, wrapping around it in a twisting spiral in the opposite direction from the electricity that covered it. The needle floated over to Rory, who stabbed her blade into the ground to free up both hands to hold it, yanking hard and pulling the giant beast crashing down to earth with her own immense strength. Electricity pulsed across the string into her, but she growled and held on, continuing to channel it harmlessly down into the ground.

The sky grew dark as Light focused much of the light around them into a single laser aimed straight into the monster's mouth. Seeing an opportunity, Minus lifted the resulting deeper shadows up into thorns and spikes, twisting them into the worm's body, while Plus turned to toss some more exploding weaponry at it from above. Magus arced some water blades and spikes made of ice down from her position into its body, while Clark kept her hands spread forward, evidently busy keeping the rope binding the beast from dissipating.

Amory strode closer to the worm as it thrashed around, and it seemed to notice her, twisting partway toward her as if to slam the side of its body into her. What little electricity wasn't flowing through the ropes into Rory sparked out at Amory, passing harmlessly through her as though she wasn't even physically present to them. After a moment of this sustained attack, the beast flinched and spasmed as it again lost control of its power, the electricity ceasing to flow outward and flickering randomly across it instead, making even more black mist erupt off of it.

By the time Clark's string finally broke, the worm was looking very indistinct, and its control over Ning's power had not returned like it did before. Rory let go of the needle as the string disappeared and grabbed her sword, throwing it sidelong at the beast to spin in the air and slice through the side of its body, burying its edge deep in in the process. Emma broke the weapon back into its elements, especially amplifying the fire into an explosion, and in so doing dealt the monster its final blow before it could even get its head back into the ground.

It fell apart, leaving just Ning behind. She seemed to float a few feet off the ground for a moment, until the monster's substance was gone and she fell down onto some broken ground, lying on her back. "Rr..rraaAAAaahh..!" After the landing, Ning yelled angrily, her body thrashing slightly like someone caught in a violent nightmare. Amp hurried up to her as electricity pulsed around her body, sparking unstably all around and making it extremely dangerous for anyone else to get close. She knelt and gently lifted her upper body into a gentle hug.

"Sshhh, it's okay. The fight's over," Amory said quietly, sounding like a mother comforting a terrified child. She ran a hand through Ning's hair as she convulsed violently one more time, a bolt of lightning shooting up into the sky from her body, and then she gasped, pulling herself the rest of the way upright and opening her eyes all at the same time.

Her expression seemed equally angry and pained at first, her eyes wide and looking everywhere at once like she had no idea where she was before focusing on Amp. "Oh..." Ning's breathing stabilized, and the sparks flickering out from her body died down. "It's you. That means.." She turned her head back and forth quickly while Light landed nearby, the others floating up a bit closer too. "We won! Right..?"

"Yeah," Amory nodded, letting her go and getting up before offering a hand to help Ning up too—which she took happily, hopping onto her feet as energetically as ever. "It made, kinda a huge mess of the area, though."
"Yeesh, no kidding. I wouldn't recognize the place if not for..."
"Are you okay?" Light said, while Amp went toward the nearest of Emma—Plus—with an expression that said much the same thing.

"Yep, I'm actually feeling pretty good for getting swallowed! I think..I actually fought back, too, even while I was in there."

"..How?"

"Well um, it's like..." she gestured incoherently. "I felt like it was trying to tell me what was gonna happen. Like, everyone was gonna die or get eaten because of me. But I...I argued with it. I knew you'd be able to stop it, and get me outta there, and I told it that, over and over again: 'You're gonna lose'. It was...it hurt, a lot, but...I felt like it was really angry too, 'cause...I was hurting it back."
"..Huh."
"It seemed to periodically lose control over your power and take some hits from the electricity instead," Clark observed. "So maybe, that 'arguing' worked?"
"Dude, I've never heard of anything like that!" Magus said exuberantly. "That's awesome!"
"H-heh, thanks I guess? Better if I didn't get chomped in the first place, though..."

Minus went over to her other body, merging back into one while she watched this. Amory looked like she wanted to say something comforting, but wasn't sure exactly which words to use. Emma just drew in a particularly ragged breath and finally, mercifully, let go, the panic and fear and guilt and fury all pouring out of her at once. Physically speaking, it came out as a loud, high sob and collapsing forward into a desperate, tight hug, leaning her head over Amory's shoulder. It wasn't the same as getting eaten by a mist monster, but straining her very emotions like that, for so long, had hurt in its own way, too. Amory returned the hug, gently rubbing her back with one hand, wordlessly communicating that everything was okay now, and it was because of her. Emma sniffed hard, the tears steadily drying up, and pulled out of the hug with a smile. For once in her entire life, it felt like she had actually done something right, and everyone knew it.

Clark exhaled audibly and pointedly while they disengaged from the hug. "Alright, so now we need to contact the VI to help cover up the fact that Ning is already awake by bringing her to them to 'wake up' and then back again."
"Oh, yeah..I'm gonna check on my little girl first, 'kay?" Ning ran for her store's front door. "Ya'll figure out who's gonna watch her while I'm gone!"

Everyone looked at each other for a second or two. "Um, I would, but I'm s'posed to visit them to maybe learn a few powers today," Emma said. "This is probably a good way to go about that, just riding along with Ning and I guess Light...?"

"I can take care of it," Amp said. "She knows who I am; I actually babysat for Ning once before."

"Good, good.." Clark nodded, digging her phone out and starting to navigate to her contacts to make a call.

At this point, Light made a kind of a face: Confusion at first, and then some visible distress. "Um..s-something wrong?" Emma said, trying hard not to imagine all of the worst-case replies she could at once.
"I just learned a new phrase," she said slowly, quietly. "Like—someone else's power, another one. And I don't even know whose, or how!" Some clear frustration came out in her voice at this point, as well as in the gesture of yanking her own ears in her hands.

Clark looked mildly surprised as her phone rang before she got to the point of placing a call, and just picked it up, bringing it to the side of her face. "Hello?"