Battle Vixens! - 85

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Episode 85: Quinn

Amory groaned softly, reaching a hand over to pick up her phone. This form's fox ears made it even easier for the soft buzz of it vibrating against the nightstand when a message came through to wake her, and it seemed to have been doing so almost nonstop for a moment. Squinting at the screen above her, she saw that there were not two, not five, but seven messages. Okay, six of them were all from Emma, which was close to being unsurprising at this point; the other one, however, was from Dr. Clark Quinn.

That last one, sent through the VI's app much earlier than the others, was carefully composed, gramatically correct, and straight to the point: I've had an idea regarding our powers and need your help to test. Call when you can, please.

Emma's messages were, to put it lightly, a bit less focused. The first was just DATE! and the second was the two-letter word um alone. Then, slightly more coherently: i fogrot i wanted to ask you if you wanted to go somewhere for lunch or something. Amory mentally corrected 'fogrot' to 'forgot' and continued on to the next: shopping for clothes this morning because, followed by another one-word text that just said reasons. Finally, the one which had forced her fully awake added: maybe we could see a movie after or sth? since the whole day off and all.

Well, it was already past nine. She sat up and changed back to a male, human form, mentally composing himself to reply before doing so. Texting Emma a reply back was easiest, just: Sure, where do you want to go? And while he was waiting to be bombarded by replies, he went into the VI app to call the physics professor.

"Hello, good morning," Clark said.
"Hmnh. You sound happier," Amory commented.
"I guess I am. Ah, I don't believe I told you this—yesterday afternoon, not long after we got back from fighting that big worm, Rory was able to remember enough to turn back!"
"Oh. That's great," he said, putting some effort into sounding happy through still being somewhat sleepy. "Guess, that means the same is possible for the others, too."
"Should be. Anyway, listen.

"Do you remember, when I was going to help Light fly around so she could track down where the puppeteer was with that..scientifically nonsensical light-filtering thing?"
"Sure..?"
"And you used your power on both of us at once."
"Yeah."
"At the time, both of us had the vague sense that we were supposed to say something. I think I know what that was, and why we couldn't say it. I've explained this idea to Rory, and we tried but had no success. So, I'm pretty sure your help is necessary. Do you suppose you could come over some time this morning so we can actually test it out?"
Well, he wasn't exactly busy this morning. "Should...be no problem, yeah. I need to get breakfast first, I just woke up."
"Sure, sure. No hurry. Well, I'll leave you to it."

"Bye." Clark hung up on the other end.

Oh, and there were another...five texts from Emma that had arrived during this brief conversation. Amory just chuckled, shaking his head. Today's schedule was filling up awfully fast, he thought—not that he really minded.

---

Clark answered the front door, already in fox-girl form, and smiled up at him. "Welcome! Please, come on in." The difference in her mood compared to the meeting with Magus two days before was huge. His smile then had been strained, a brave face masking turmoil; this looked like someone who hadn't been through anything terrible in the last week at all, who'd just had her first good night's sleep in a while and was eager to take on the day. After following her through to the living room, Amory found the other Dr. Quinn hopping up off of the couch in equally good spirits, also in fox form.

"Hey! How's Light doing?" she said.

"Uh..fine. Actually dealing with some frustration lately, but..handling it okay," Amory said. "We uh...last night we found out that she'd been unintentionally suppressing a power-up from having 'ownership' of some other people's powers."
Clark gave him an interested look. "How'd you figure that out?"

"Well, it refused to be suppressed anymore," he shrugged. "Don't be surprised if she looks..slightly different tomorrow, is all.

"So, what do we need to do to test this thing?"
"My theory is, you just need to 'boost' both of us at the same time," Clark said.

"Okay..." He shifted to a fox-girl too, and she looked at Rory for a second. "Uhh, actually—we haven't tested whether my power still works on you ever since the whole.." Amp twirled her hand ambiguously. "That is—not if it's functional, but like, we've established that someone has to 'know' me and 'like' me enough for it to work."
"Well, test it then! I'm a scientist, right?" She strode closer; it was hard not to see the 'old' Dr. Quinn's usual confidence in that, at least.

"Okay.." Amp reached a hand up and touched her ears, not trying to boost her exactly, just test her reaction. When Rory churred, leaning forward into it instead of recoiling or flinching, she dropped the arm back to her side, nodding.

"Awwh. That felt nice," she said.

"Which means it does work. Okay, let's try the thing, then," she said, waving Clark closer.

As with the last time she'd done something like this, Amp easily just pulled herself up into a close group hug, dedicating one hand to each pair of ears and pumping power into them. And, as usual, they both grew and shifted to their taller, curvier, stronger forms. The difference came at the end of it, when Clark spoke her wife's phrase—giving Rory's power some command, it seemed. Then, at exactly the moment that it happened, Amp became immediately aware of what it was Clark was testing.

The Quinns' bodies both glowed, Rory in a firelike orange and Clark especially brightly in the same blue as her strings and healing power usually were. They pulled closer together in the three-way hug, even though they should have already been as close as possible; the motion struck Amp as similar to Emma's bodies "stepping" together to combine. And, indeed, the end result was a single body still holding the short, blonde vixen up in the air, with her own hands now on each of this single body's ears. She let herself be gently peeled off and set down, far enough from the tall vixen to get a good look up at her.

She was a couple of inches taller than even Rory's enhanced form, about equally as curvy and visibly strong—which her outfit, an extremely revealing tank top and short skirt with some detached sleeves and thigh-length leggings that vaguely resembled pieces of a shrine-maiden costume, did little to hide. She had two tails, one identical to Clark's and the other to Rory's; her hair was nearly down to her ankles, both it and her ears in a gray-brown color. Her eyes looked to be the same colors as Rory's usually were—but then, Rory's right eye was always the same color as both of Clark's. She also had Rory's short spikes of horns coming from the corners of her forehead, the red cheek tattoos of Clark's, and her needle stuck into one of her ears. She was a...

"Fusion?"

"Yesss!" The tall woman grinned widely and fistpumped. The register of her voice was, predictably, in between those of Rory's and Clark's boosted forms—still a fairly deep, mature alto overall. "I knew it! I was sure it was a good idea, too," she added in a tone of voice that suggested this was a reply to the previous statement. "My hypothesis was that the thing we felt we should say was each other's key phrases, but of course neither Light nor I knew those," she explained excitedly to Amp. "Last night, we were playing a DBZ game and it just clicked. So I told me about the idea and uh—oh wait, that's probably confusing, isn't it?"
"A little," Amp replied. "So Clark told Rory about the idea, and you both agreed to try it."
"Mm-hm," she nodded. "Seems it just requires one person to know the other's key phrase, not both, which is great. Light could use this!"

"I'm not entirely sure she'd be happy to, but..yes."

Amp crossed her arms. "What should I..call you, exactly? Or anyone else, in case it ever comes up."
"I'll respond equally well to 'Rory' or 'Clark' I suppose, but..you're right, any good fusion needs its own name. Maybe Q? No, wait, Star Trek. Doctor Q—no, that's taken too," she said, shaking her head. "Ah! Just 'Quinn'. It's the name uh, both of me have in common, after all."

"Okay. I guess you..agree with yourself about everything you do?"

"Mmh, technically? I mean, you agree with yourself about most things, right?"

Quinn stepped back and began pacing excitedly. "Actually, this is kinda confusing now that I really think about it. I can remember everything that 'Clark' should, and everything that 'Rory' should..which means I have several memories from two perspectives at once. Oddly enough, that doesn't feel so weird. But then there's a bunch of things I remember that I don't remember, but they still feel familiar, like I should. Oh, sorry, confusing again."
"It's fine, I get it."
"We were both hoping this might help me remember some things I didn't before—Rory, I mean—but really considering it, it's most likely that I will only remember remembering on separation, and not have each person retain the memories of the other. That would be really strange, come to think of it."

"Do you know how to separate?"
"Oh, certainly!" she said, giving a half-dismissive wave. "If I want apart, I'll be apart. Or, of course, if I try to change back by saying either of my key phrases, or—I'm assuming that since this relies on your help, if that boost wears off then the fusion necessarily does also."

Quinn stopped her pacing, turning toward Amp again. "Ah. I'm sorry if I'm talking too fast, but I feel like—I can think twice as fast, if that makes any sense. Even though—" she patted her head a couple of times. "—Even though I'm quite confident I only have the one brain right now, at the same size, it's like I still get the resources of both. Ooh, if only we could do this for all scientists. Literally put heads together to collaborate. It'd be amazing!"
"Uh, one step at a time," Amp said, giggling softly. "Say, you actually 'look' more powerful in some way. Is there anything you can do combined that you couldn't..individually?"
"Oh, let's see!"

Retrieving the needle from her ear, she floated it pointy-end forward just between her hands. A bright blue glow spread out from it, forming the shape of a long warhammer with a gigantic head before solidifying into a mass of tightly-wound string. "Survey says: Yes!" she said, taking the handle into her hands and giving it a slow, experimental swing. "Feels like I actually know how to use this 'right', so, I don't think 'Quinn' needs to borrow weapons from anybody. Oh, and—" sweeping the hammer upward, she formed a pair of puppets on either side which were both a foot shorter than her—so, still fairly tall—and whose plastic bodies had particularly muscular, athletic-looking builds. "They got Rory's strength," Quinn said as the puppets both mimed flexing, "and I don't need to use my hands to control them. I bet I don't need to use my hands to control them in the first place, but it helps concentrate on more than one thing at once to focus the work that way. In this case I've got all this extra processing power I can use."

"So if you summoned way more than Clark can usually handle, you might need your hands after all," Amp suggested.

"Yeah. But also—" Quinn passed the glowing, string-built hammer to the one on the right, which held it at the ready as confidently as she had. "I could just have a puppet wield it anyway!" After this, she dismissed the puppets and hammer, leaving behind the needle, which floated back over to its place in her left ear with no apparent direction from her.

Amp nodded, crossing her arms. "I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that this is the 'fusion dance'. It's really annoying that I'm needed for it, though."
"Hey—come on, you're studying a science too, aren't you?" Quinn chided, sounding like Rory partially remembering things. "Test your assumptions! Or at least, doubt them. We know that it works with your help; we also know that it didn't work for me without your help, because naturally we did test it. But we also didn't know what it 'felt like', maybe. It could also be a matter of fusion being 'costly', and maybe the two of me aren't powerful enough on our own to sustain it. If Light is more powerful now than everyone started out, like you said, then she might be able to do it even without help!"
"Yyyeah. Maybe that is right. I may have some trouble convincing her to test it out, though."
"Allow me to suggest it, then! Or rather, perhaps we can find a volunteer among the possible candidates who'll insist on testing it out with her. After, being honest and letting her know about all of this first, of course," Quinn said with a nod. Amp felt like she could see the Quinns briefly arguing in her head over the course of these few sentences, but resolving it much faster than normal talking ever could have.

After watching all of the tall woman's pacing around, Amp thought of something else. "Hm..not that I'm one to talk necessarily, but your hair's really long. Like you might actually trip over it. Don't you actually have control over its length?"

"Well, sure, but let's not forget that I can fly too," Quinn said, gaining a blue glow around her body and hovering up a foot or so off of the ground before setting herself back down again. "But, yes, of course, 'cause Rory's power is over her body and it is part of my body. Actually.." She folded her arms and, for no apparent reason, her hair swept up on either side of her back, curling upward. Then it spread out, groups of locks twisting together into a number of almost hair-tentacles whose movements genuinely resembled those of limbs not made entirely of hair. "Just as I thought, that control runs far deeper than just the length. I think I've been subconsciously controlling it to not hinder my movements this entire time. Now let's see.."

Quinn went over to an end table; most of her hair untwisted itself and fell back to its natural position, save for one of the limbs. This last one reached forward and curled around a lamp, gently lifting it into the air a few feet before carefully setting it down again. "Yeah!" she grinned victoriously, looking back to Amp and having the hair-limb curl together in what seemed to be some imitation of flexing. "It feels..not nearly as strong as my actual muscles, of course, but I think it'd be enough to carry a dagger or short sword, easy." She reached up a hand and ran it through some of the hair on her side. "That kind of strength basically makes this really long hair essentially something like a reactive, controllable armor."

"...You know, out of everything I might imagine coming from combining your powers together, 'prehensile hair armor' really wasn't one of them," Amp admitted, deadpan. "Maybe I just lack your collective creativity."

"Heheh! Well, you've got to make the most of everything you get, right? Ooh, I bet my healing power is ridiculously strong like this, too; so I can basically self-regenerate in addition to having ridiculously good physical defense."

"Whoo!" The two-tailed vixen half-collapsed herself over onto the couch, staying leaning back for a second before sitting up again, drumming her fingers on the armrest. "Really, this makes me excited to see the kind of power Light's possible fusions could have. I'd bet combining with Emma would let her—through Minus—control shadows as powerfully as Light can, uh light. Or, along with Rowan she might be able to make a light-based version of that awesome water dragon thing, to say nothing of how Ning's help would likely give her broad control over the electromagnetic spectrum..."

"Uh, anyway, you don't need me around at this point, right?" Amp said. "I can go back and let him know about this before...well, I've got some plans for lunch."
"Ooh, a hot date?" she said teasingly, leaning up, and then immediately drew back again. "Excuse me, that was a bit much."

"Heheh, uh. You could say that." Come to think of it, how were they going to explain Emma's changed appearance to the Quinns? Even if most of Rory's expertise still wasn't there right now, it didn't take a biologist to know that a growth spurt like the one it sounded like Emma was going for should take much longer than just a day or two. Well..that was just something else to go over with Blake, she thought.

"Well, you run along and have fun, then. I might play around with this a bit more before splitting up," she said, hopping back to her feet to go get the front door. "After that, I'll let Rowan know so the VI in general does."

Amory shifted back before following. "Good. Um, should we worry about someone seeing you like that in the doorway?"
"Pfft. I'll stay out of view," Quinn said, pulling the door back out of his way. "But this will be seen eventually anyway, if we're gonna make tactical use of it, and we really should."
"I guess you're right about that."
"Well, thanks again!"

---

Amory came back into the apartment and heard the sound of typing. Blake was following through on his stated plans to catch up on some neglected homework. Well, hopefully this interruption wouldn't be long. He went and knocked on his roommate's door. "Hey, uh, I'm back."
"Hey." He turned the chair to face the door. "So, what was the idea?"

"Uhh..basically, it turns out that if you know someone else's 'name' you can use it to..well, does the word 'fusion' mean anything to you?"

He proceeded with a brief explanation of their findings and some of Quinn's powers. At the end of it, Blake just sighed. "Sorry."
"No, no—it's, good," he said. "Actually, it sounded like the 'owner's' mind doesn't have priority, right? Maybe it even doesn't work unless both people are willing. Maybe it's, actually better than ordering someone else's power around. It's just.."
"Yeah, I know." Blake didn't seem sure how to word the exact nature of his frustration, but Amory felt like he understood it well enough anyway. "But—we all pretty much thought you should know about it, since you've kind of got a lot of 'options' if it's ever..tactically relevant."
"Mmh. We should think about it. Tell Emma, and Ning, at some point—since Dr. Quinn plans to tell Rowan, we won't have to."
"Well, uh, I'm meeting Emma for lunch anyway. I can mention it then. Maybe you could just text Ning, once her whole..thing is done. Maybe late this afternoon?"

"Fine with me."

Blake started to turn back to the computer screen, under the assumption that the conversation was over, but he paused and looked back to his roommate when he pointedly remained standing in the doorway. "Something else?"
"Yyyes. It, occurred to me that we have an information problem."
"Who's 'we', and also—information problem, what?" He put his hands out to indicate his confusion with this choice of words.

"Uh..I guess it's more accurate to say that Emma has the problem, which we really should've thought of last night, but...we're sorta involved in it, too? It's just that I realized the Doctors Quinn, and Ning, know exactly what her 'human form' looks like."
"And they will all know she didn't have a growth spurt over the span of less than two days." Blake raked a hand down his face starting at the forehead. "Uuurrgh."

"Hey, don't worry, this isn't..I-I mean I don't want this to be your problem, and I don't think it has to be."

"Oh, yeah? Why not?"

"We didn't talk last night about who to tell about the whole..Beryl situation. But it would make sense for Emma to let Rowan know that was happening. And, conveniently leave out the part where we knew about it beforehand, maybe. I can suggest that to her. And, as long as we're doing that, also informing those other people also makes sense, and...there, done. Orr..if she doesn't want to do things that way, then I'm at least letting her know this is an issue and she can come up with her own solution to it."

"Okay. That sounds fine. For the record, being honest with the people who've saved our lives multiple times gets my vote, too. Even the part about us knowing beforehand isn't really that bad, since.."

"Yeah, but it does complicate things, and it's not really..important info, exactly, either?"
Blake just shrugged. "This is kind of mostly Emma's secret, so, I agree it should be her decision. Just—that's my opinion."
"A'right. Sorry to bug you."

"Hey, if I seem annoyed, it's not at you," Blake said, waving. "This stuff's important.

"..Anything else?"
"No. I'm'onna go now." He turned to leave.
"See you."

---

One comment said that in real DBZ, there would be 17 episodes before the fusion happened; in fact there were just 2.

And yes, we've had an episode titled "Dr. Quinn" before; in fact it was the one waay back at the start which properly introduced the two of them. But not just the single-word "Quinn".