Battle Vixens! - 87

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Episode 87: Mutually Unfamiliar Territory

Emma's choice of restaurant was a casual place within easy walking distance of their apartment complex, where the clientele ordered at the counter and then sat themselves. It also wasn't very crowded, and once Amory got inside it was easy to spot a few corner booths far enough from all the other tables to speak without worry of being accidentally overheard. It was difficult for him to guess at this point whether she had thought about that or merely chosen this place some other way and been lucky. Either way, it seemed like they could talk in relative private here.

He turned back toward the front door, hearing its bell ring, and so came his first sight of her freshly-altered appearance. Even though she had changed a fair bit, what impeded his immediate recognition the most was the lack of glasses. However, it only took him half a second or so—since she had basically the same face as Plus that way—and it was after that that she stammered, "U-um, hi." That, and her slightly nervous expression, were even more recognizable.

Emma had added on to the changes she'd told them about last night. She was now maybe a full foot taller—enough for her eye level to be around his chin instead of his chest—and quite a bit curvier, maybe a C cup with hips to match. Her build overall seemed trim and athletic, like a long-distance runner or something. Her choice of clothes seemed basically the same, some knee-length jean-shorts and a t-shirt, although only the former seemed to be new; as a result the latter now was tight enough to show off the new curves and short enoguh to expose a few inches of midriff.

She was also blushing some. "Soo, whatdoyou, um..thiiink?" Even this much extra skin seemed to embarrass her a bit, and on top of that she obviously felt the immense strangeness of asking his opinion about drastic changes to her body.
Amory just smiled. "You look good. Especially if you like it better."
"Heheh," Emma giggled. "Somehow I knew you'd say something like that. Um..." She waved vaguely toward the front counter, and he nodded, leading the way over.

Once their orders were in, Amory went to the booth in the most deserted corner, and she followed, sitting across from him. From the time she came in to when they sat down, Emma was constantly looking around the room—or ocassionally at him—evidently trying to get used to being so tall. Of course both of them had experienced shifts in perspective before, between Amory's fox-form and her "boosted" or "combined" ones, but it had to be something else entirely for the body she thought of as the normal one to be so different.

"I uh, might still wanna make a few tweaks," she said softly. "But it's soo liberating just to not need glasses anymore!"

"I can't imagine," Amory said. "From out here, though, it does give a clearer view of your pretty face."
"Heheh.." Emma giggled nervously, flushing a bright red. "Th-thanks. I guess you know I haven't changed that."
"I don't think you need to, if you want my opinion. But, you're the boss."

"Mmnh, I dunno how I'd feel about looking in the mirror and not even recognizing myself," she said, shaking her head.

They paused for a moment, long enough to signal a change of subject, and then both attempted to say something at the same time. "So this morning—"
"I thought of—" she said.

Amory put a hand up toward her: You first.

"Um, okay. I kinda, realized while I was doing stuff this morning that I...have to tell some people about, what happened last night. Like, anyone who knows..'cause, like, Ning or the Quinns would find it kinda weird for me to suddenly look like this with no explanation."
"Yeah.." he nodded. "I was gonna bring that up at some point. It..might be a good idea to tell Rowan about that thing, too. I mean—at least give him a heads up that the Giver has, like, human bodies all over the place doing..things."
"Hmmh. I guess I should," she said. "It'd be good practice for telling, everyone else I guess."
"Light suggested you could also tell him how we knew before you did..just that uh, he prefers as much honesty as possible with our allies."
Emma nodded. "Maybe..he'll understand."

At this point their food came, and they thanked the server, watching her go well out of earshot before continuing.

"Soo uh, what was your thing?"

"This morning, uh, Clark called me. There's some good news, Rory remembered enough that she's able to change back to human form again like before."
"Oh? That's great," she said, smiling.

"Yeah. She's acting a little more like her old self, too," he nodded. "Um, which I know because—the reason he called me was he had this idea..."

Emma headtilted hard once he was finished explaining, visibly attempting to imagine what it was like to simultaneously be herself and another person. "That's...um..I guess it's good? I mean, like, 'Quinn' is way stronger than the sum of her parts?"
"Yeah. It's like..from what I can tell, it's like their powers 'resonate' and amplify each other. She could also do things neither one could do individually."

"Hmmnh. It's really weird to think about, buut..I kinda wonder what it's like to have Light's confidence, now that I think of it," she said. "What does uh..she think of it?"

"Her opinion seems to be that it's better than 'commanding' everyone else's powers arbitrarily, since both minds seem to get 'equal say' at least."

"We..don't really know how long it'll be, after today, before we get a chance to 'try things out' risk-free, huh," Emma said slowly. "You think, she'd be willing to try, um, later today or something?"

"Probably, under the same logic. We can ask."

They talked about some more normal things for a few minutes, until Emma abruptly interrupted herself. "I'm gonna call Rowan," she said, quietly but emphatically. "After—right after this. Before we go, uh, wherever else. Maybeee, I should probably stop by my apartment to do it."
"Alright." Amory didn't ask, but he was curious what brought this on.

"I just uh, don't wanna procrastinate about it, or especially forget about it...every time I think about it I feel a little worse about how long I haven't already said something."

"I don't think half a day is too bad," Amory said. "It took me, what, five days for me to tell you about the uh, 'Amp' thing..and that took you getting put into a coma."

"That whole thing was uh...complicated," Emma said. "You know I've never been mad about it."
"You are way too nice," he said, but smiled and nodded.

"But um..thanks."

When they were finished, Emma fidgeted uncertainly. "Um..so, we haven't said anything specific about what to do after this? Orr, after I go call.."
"I could walk back to the apartment with you," Amory suggested, pulling her garbage over onto his tray to dispose of. "Then anyone who sees us can wonder why I'm with such a gorgeous girl."
She turned her head toward a wall, blushing deeply, and softly giggled again. "H-heheh.."

"Uh..too much? Sorry." He got up, heading for the trash cans; Emma followed after a couple of seconds.
"N-no no, I'm just, not used to it at all, I guess?"

"Me either, really..."

Once they were outside and on the way back, Amory continued: "I haven't really...I mean, I've always thought of myself as kinda terrible with romance. I don't know how to flirt really, besides sounding like a total doofus. Before you, the only dates I've been on were a couple of times in high school when a friend set me up on a double-date with them, and..mostly I just had no idea what to say. The girls they picked out for me because we'd be a 'cute couple' or something..I didn't feel like I had much in common with. Or, maybe I just didn't know what to say to find out."

"Oh, um..I-I wouldn't know 'the right way', either," Emma said. "I've always been kind of a huge shut-in nerd type...which I guess is pretty obvious. A guy asked me out just once, sophomore year, and I pretended I was sick and ran into the bathroom. Uh..actually, I think I did feel sick 'cause I was that nervous. And, I never found out for sure, but I suspect it was a dare or something. Even though I thought that, I still, beat myself up over it for the rest of the day..heheh..."

Amory gave her what was hopefully a sympathetic look, but she just shrugged it off—this was far enough in the past that she didn't seem to feel any real pain from it anymore. "I guess I probably would've gotten over my crush without ever talking to you once, if not for..everything. So Beryl, kiiinda helped push me into it, in her own convoluted, psychopathic way..."

"I guess, but there had to be other ways she could've introduced us. Like: Literally coming up to me and saying 'hey, my friend over there wants to go out with you but she's too shy to say it herself'."

"Maybe...I might've just run away again, though. Not that I think her way was best, or the only way either. But, I imagine it's another thing where she saw results as guaranteed with this method, and that mattered more to her than what I had to go through to um, get to this point."

"I admit finding someone to..be with, wasn't really a priority for me, either," Amory said. "I've just always been focused on other goals. I thought it'd maybe fit into place once I had all the more 'important' things done."
"I um..I've fantasized sometimes, before, but never about anyone both specific and real," Emma replied. "I always thought meeting someone I really liked, who was also interested in me, was totally out of reach. So like, I didn't have many thoughts of being romantic with anyone in particular, even if I thought they were attractive, 'cause I'd already pretty much given up on the idea." She sighed. "I dunno if..I mean, I-I'm definitely infatuated with you, I admit, but the whole obsessive stalking thing was, maybe really about me? Like, I just wanted there to be one thing that I'd already given up on, that I could prove to myself I actually could do. I was..I mean I am definitely tired of telling myself 'I'll never ever'."

"Well, that's good, then. I'm happy for you," Amory said, cautiously putting a hand on her shoulder for a second. "In my opinion, you deserve to be happy."

Emma stopped in her tracks, turning to stare from his hand on her shoulder up to his face with an increasingly bright blush. "H-heh..thanks," she said, pulling up into a brief hug before abruptly jerking herself back out of it again. "Um." She looked around them quickly, seeming uncertain whether that had been appropriate.
"Hey..It's okay." Amory moved closer and pulled her back into the hug himself, letting her lean her head on his shoulder for a moment before disengaging a bit more naturally. They had been..equally close and then some before, but only when he was 'Amp'. This was a completely different experience, which he honestly really enjoyed. Going by her smling, giggling blush, Emma seemed to like it, too. But—she quickly turned to keep walking, about equally as embarrassed by it as she was happy.

A long pause later, as they came into the apartment building proper, she said, "Beryl um...seemed to think so too. To uh, want me to be happy. Or something like that. Isn't that kinda...weird?"
Amory shrugged. "From the reference point of what we knew about her before last night, yeah. She's always seemed to go out of her way to give the impression that it's only her own happiness she really cares about. But, if she wanted you to be her friend..or thought of you as one, then that just seems like a natural result."

"I guess that's right."

Emma stopped again in front of her apartment's door, looking between it and him nervously a few times, fidgeting her hands together. "Um...I guess, you wanna come in? It'd be kinda super awkward to have you just wait out here the whole time..."
"Sure," he nodded, and then followed her inside.
"Maybe you can um, help me remember what I need to say. I feel like I'm gonna drop the phone or something."

"I guarantee you, Rowan won't be angry, or even upset," Amory said, but nodded his assent anyway.

She changed to her fox-tailed form, the combined Gemma, to actually make the call. He stood over next to the couch, and she paced randomly around the room the entire time, occasionally looking at him. He didn't really need to signal any specific cues for her; she just seemed to intuit something he wasn't even thinking from briefly looking into his face, and that was enough to help her come up with the right way to say something, or remember whatever she thought should come next.

Gemma breathed a sigh of relief after hanging up. "Um, thanks, you were right," she said. "I mean—I think I knew it too, but it's so hard for me to really believe a situation's gonna go okay sometimes. I'll play the worst version of it in my head and get worked up about it, and just build up this pressure that starts to make it feel like I just shouldn't do it at all in the first place. That's kinda, what I meant about procrastinating too much, honestly."
"And, I guess that's what made it so hard for you to actually talk to me for a while," Amory said, putting a hand out toward her.

She nodded, "Y-yeah. Uhhm.." Her phrase came out, and she changed back to the, now taller, human form.

"M-maybe we could just..watch something here?" she suggested, gesturing toward the TV on a little rolling cart which was presently in viewing range of the living room couch. "Instead of going somewhere else..I mean, I've got some stuff we could watch, or play, I think.."
"Sure, if you want," Amory nodded. It was increasingly clear that she was a lot more comfortable in private than in public, like she felt dozens of eyes on her every move out there despite nobody really watching. This was particularly true for displays of affection, maybe, like that hug earlier.

"Um, okay. T-take a seat?" she suggested, going over to a shelf to pick something out. He nodded (to her back) and sat down on one side.

"Is, uh, would this be okay?" Emma said, holding out a DVD case for an old Disney animated movie.
"Sure." There were several other things on her shelf that Amory liked, but it wasn't like she knew that, and he could respect going for a relatively 'safe' option. Once it was in, she sat on the opposite side of the couch for a moment before nervously looking between him and the screen a couple of times and then sloooowly scooting closer. Amory just put an arm over her shoulder once in range to reassure her this was okay, and she giggled nervously again, pulling the last few inches to be up against him, leaning over onto his shoulder, and returning the gesture with an arm around his waist.

They stayed more or less like this for the rest of the movie's runtime, apart from some occasional fidgeting or their hands moving around some. Emma's focus clearly wasn't entirely on the movie, with the way she occasionally looked over at him for a second or two; Amory couldn't blame her, and he wasn't much better, either.

At the end credits she sort of mumbled, "Um..good..right?"
"Yeah. It's uh, been a while since I've seen it," he said, turning his head toward her. This gave him a view of her looking up at him with a terribly nervous expression, coupled with a bright blush.

"D'you uh..wanna...?" She trailed off, clearly afraid to actually ask, but it was kind of obvious—to him, at least—what she wanted. Amory responded by gently leaning down and pressing his lips onto hers."Mmnh!" Emma flinched violently, surprised at first by the gesture, but stopped short of actually pulling away. After a second or two, she even sort of leaned into it, putting her other arm around his front to pull closer. "Mm...mm~mh..." That sounded pleased, and soon after they carefully pulled apart again—but she still had both of her arms around him.

"How was uh..was that any good?" Amory said. Even though he thought he knew the answer, there was some doubt he couldn't quite dispel without actually hearing it from her. "I mean, I've never really.."
"M-me either!" she squeaked. "B-but uh, it was pretty great as far as I'm concerned." And, she had on the cutest, blushing smile he thought he'd ever seen. "Did I uh..y-you think I could use more um..p-practice?"
"Well, I don't think you need it, but I know I'd appreciate it," he replied, running his hand through her hair, which made her shiver slightly and giggle again.

This time, Emma seemed to physically push through her nerves to get her head up to his and go in for a second kiss. This one was decidedly more intense; breaking through her nervousness seemed to leave her with a lot of suddenly free energy, and she spent it pushing herself into him while steadily climbing around to his front side, one of her knees between his legs and her upper body pressed much closer against his than it had been in their previous couple of hugs that day—which gave him some firsthand, tactile experience with her new and improved figure. To be fair, he was holding on to her pretty tight now too, and putting about as much into the kiss as he was getting.

They basically stopped just to come up for air, and their faces didn't really pull very far apart while they both softly panted. Neither of them really seemed to mind the minor discomfort of all that hot air on their faces. Emma giggled giddily between breaths. "Uh, s-sorry, did I um..heheh..g-get a little carried away?" Despite the apology, she was grinning from ear to ear—expressing an emotion Amory felt he had very much in common.
"Well—if you did then so did I," he said after a couple of deep breaths, and brushed through her hair again. "If we are doing this wrong, then I don't want to do it right." Emma just laughed to show her agreement with this. But she did get a somewhat more serious, doubtful expression as she caught her breath.

"So um..a-are we..I mean, what are..?"
"Well, we're dating, yeah? There's no need to put another label on it for now. I mean, we can talk 'seriously' if you want, later maybe, but.." He leaned forward pointedly, drawing another giddy giggle from her.
"You want more?" He made the slightest motion of his head he could for a nod. "O-okay, yeah, me too actually." Emma pushed herself onto him again, and they shared an experience not unlike the previous one, again stopping only because of the mutual need to actually breathe. However, she did pull her head over his shoulder again afterward, giving them both slightly more space to get air from.

"Uh..heheheh...that, it uh..it feels, way way better than anything I was able to imagine," she said quietly, and then pulled her head back enough to be back in front of him.
"It's pretty great over here, too," he said, brushing through her hair again.
"Mmnh..still, I kinda almost wish I could—wait!" Her eyes widened slightly; she'd suddenly had an idea.
"What?"
"Can you uh—and maybe. Uhmm." She took a second to try to get un-tongue-tied, and still only succeeded at being partially coherent: "Fox. Amp. Uuuh, boost. Me."

"Sure..?"

Emma nodded and spoke her own phrase, shrinking back to the two-tailed form. Amory did similarly, and had the curious experience of the..excitement from the kissing and their continued embrace suddenly transfer over to a completely different, yet no less pleasant, sensation. Emma wasted no time in pulling herself as close against the small, blond vixen's body as she had been before, and Amp felt almost compelled to curl her one tail across both of the other girl's, continuing to brush one hand through her lengthened hair while rubbing all across her ears with the other.

She churred and nuzzled Amp, petting her back for a moment, as she grew into her enhanced form: Even taller, curvier and more muscular than her human form had become. After a moment of this she seemed to forcibly pry herself back against the instinct to keep nuzzling so she could talk. "I uh. Quinn has 'hair control', 'cause Rory's power includes 'complete' control over her body. R-right?"
"Um..yeah?"
"Can she like, shapeshift some too?"

"Mmhm..we found that out the first time I used my power on her. She was able to make some...pretty drastic changes actually."

Gemma grinned, seeming to find some satisfaction in her idea actually going somewhere. "Like, turning into a boy maybe?"

"Yeah..that exactly."

The two-tailed vixen just smiled down at her for a moment of silence, until Amp actually caught on to what her idea was. "W-wait, are you..?"

"I wanna at least try," she said. "Um, l-let's see.."

"Mmnnnngh.." She squinted, humming and visibly concentrating, tensing her entire body. It took a second or two, but Amp began to feel results before seeing them. Gemma's body actually shrank in height slightly—she had the sense that some size and strength was being 'sacrificed' to make this work—but, at the same time, her curves began to diminish. She steadily pulled herself closer against Amp as her breasts shrank to make room; her shoulders broadened slightly, and her voice didn't so much deepen as change in timbre to a more masculine-sounding one. Finally, at the end of it, Emma gasped sharply alongside a slight forward motion of her hips—his hips, as Amp became immediately aware of the person on top of her being actually male.

"Hhhh.." he breathed out slowly, and then, "Heheheh.." He didn't quite compare to the ultra-masculine form Rory had once achieved, instead retaining a very slim, effeminate build—though not without some solidness to the muscles—Gemma's usual, very long hair, and a not-much-changed face that was androgynous at best. "It worked!" He grinned, then frowned. "Aah, this sounds weeeird." His voice was a high tenor, just scraping the ceiling of adult male range. Despite all of that, Amp's body responded to the change with a sudden resurgence and intensifying of what she'd felt just after changing a moment ago—a fuzzy, deeply pleasant sensation down between her legs that was making her blush and causing her to desperately want to kiss him..again.

"Um, so uh.." The fox-boy leaned down toward her, going in for that kiss, but hesitating again; he wasn't sure if she would be weirded out by the idea or something. Amp just took over and pushed her face up onto his, reveling in the strange new sensations it provided her. There had been..hints of a feeling like this before sometimes, while petting Emma at night, but nothing that stayed long, nor that came anywhere near this level of intensity.

He let go after a long moment, heaving in air. Amp realized that her back was now against the armrest of the couch, her legs across the rest of the seating, with Gemma entirely on top of her. And—he was burning her granted energy very fast maintaining that form, so she gently rubbed his ears and teased his tails with hers some to pump him with more, drawing a high yip from him. "H-heheh," he giggled again in response to that. "I uh..m-maybe this sounds dumb, but I really wanted you t-to know um..h-how it felt for, for me. A-and, since you could, I wondered if maybe there was a way for me to—a-and so uh.."
Amp gently put a finger up to his lips, and he quit rambling, just blushing even brightre instead. "It does feel pretty good on this side of the fence," she said softly. "What do you think of that side, hmn?"

He smiled, but looked very flustered. "Uh, it's um. Wow. T-that, howdoyoueven control this thing?"

"It's not always possible, at least in the teenage years. Here.." She pulled his head down to kiss him again, knowing that even constant boosting wouldn't prevent him from burning through a lot of energy to stay male—and wanting to feel that at least one more time before he risked tiring himself out for real.

Indeed, about two-thirds of the way through this kiss, Emma made a slightly distressed "Mmh!" sound in his throat, and started shifting back toward a more feminine figure, regaining the lost height at the same time. Still, he managed to stay male just long enough for Amp to be satisfied, and she let him out of the kiss with a loud smack just before a high "Aa~aah!" came out and Gemma changed back to her natural sex. Both of them were left panting afterward, Amp from the excitement and the other girl from that and all of the exertion she'd just suddenly put herself through.

"Uuhhmm..this is pretty weird, right?" she said. "I-I mean, exchanging, like, going back and forth on. A-and, that we kinda really started after the second date with mostly both being girls and.."
"Well, it's not like most people get an opportunity to do any of that in the first place," Amp said, running a hand down through the taller girl's hair again. "Anyway, who cares if it's weird? It's, we're both doing what both of us want and enjoying it. And nob—aah, almost nobody is watching, anyway."
"H-heheh..y-yeah.." Emma paled slightly at thinking about who their audience might be—but then deliberately pushed it back out of her mind again. Amp didn't even feel concerned in the first place; this had to be positively passé to an ancient immortal being who'd watched the people of millions of worlds before.

"I guess um..the thing you said before about the whole wrong, and..right.." Despite having double the brainpower of an average person, Emma was clearly struggling with an overload of recent and still-persisting sensations to the point where she couldn't quite remember something said less than five minutes ago.

"If it's wrong, I don't wanna be right?" Amp helped her.

"Y-yeah! I uh..I guess I feel the same way about, this." She leaned down, nuzzling the smaller girl's cheek. "Mnnh. Oof, turning into a boy for even like thirty seconds was exhausting."

"Well, it's only like..two o'clock," Amp said, gently petting her ears. "We could take a short nap if you want. Or just..lie here and rest, even if it's not sleep."
"Tha'd be nice...mrr~rhh." Gemma returned the favor, her tails also twisting and running themselves across Amp's.

The intensity of feeling from all of the kissing faded off over the next few minutes or so, but Amp still felt a steady, calm afterglow of girlish pleasure now, as she continued to pet and nuzzle the tall vixen in her arms. With the way her power 'reached in' and touched the emotions of other vixens while petting them, it was easy to tell that how Emma felt about her had changed in some deep and profound way over the past few minutes or hours...and it seemed that shift was mutual, too.

She had hesitated to put a label on it before, and still wasn't so sure it was wise to try to just yet...but, maybe, this was what love felt like? Or something like it, anyway...