Battle Vixens! - 21

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Episode 21: Sheathing the Sword

They slowly walked their way off campus. "How's your head? I hit it what I thought was pretty hard, but I guess I didn't hear the skull break or anything..."

Gemma said, "I, um, it's a little sore but...—" "—I think I'm okay. I was using Rory's trick to be tougher."

"Her 'trick', huh? Is it something you could explain to someone in words, out of curiosity?
"I don't...think so.—" "—And, I can't remember it right now, at all. Umm..—" "—what, happened, exactly? I don't...—" "—I can't remember the, thing to merge back or anything! But it was—" "—it felt so obvious before..."
"Hidden rule of our powers. I beat you in honorable combat or whatever, which gives me 'command' of your powers. Once we're sure you're stable and not going to fly off the handle again, I'll give everything back and it should work just like it did before," said Light. "It's.." she seemed briefly conflicted. "It's only fair I warn you that the 'owner' is supposed to have an increasing amount of control over people the more there are, possibly including mind control. I hate the whole idea of that, but I don't know how much control I really have over it."
"Well, um—" "—it was my fault anyway. I don't, even now,—" "—fully understand what I was thinking..."

"Maybe there's some kind of subconscious knowledge of the rules put in us and you wanted this to happen. It's hard to tell once the door's open for our powers to alter our minds."

"Here we are." Light pointed to a house they were approaching. "This house belongs to Dr. Quinn. And her husband, Dr. Quinn. Rory and Clark, for short."
"O-oh! Er.." She hadn't known they were doctors, but they had been at the hospital. And one had literal healing powers.

"They're professors at the college we were just at. I was under the impression you went there too?"

"Yes, but—" "—I don't know everyone. I'm, mostly only familiar with people from the—" "—English department."

"That'll explain it. Yeah, they're scientists. But, you didn't already see them on the news?"

"I haven't watched much TV at all lately," she admitted. "Or really paid much attention to the rest of the world." Another thing to feel slightly terrible about. But it could only be good for her to know her mistakes.

They were in front of the door; Light pressed the doorbell. "Also, Amory's here."

That got her attention, both of her bodies immediately jolting upright in surprise.

"Well, I didn't fully trust that woman's announcement of no attacks, and I was gonna be busy with you, so we decided it'd be best to make sure he was with someone who could protect him if another of those things showed up."

Emma thought about that that. She hadn't even considered the possibility that there would be an attack today, even before the announcement! The first one, the one that almost got Amory, was in the morning like now, too! She'd been so focused on her own stupid problems, even the one good thing she'd been consistently doing until now had broken down...

Rory, in human form, answered the door. "Hi there! You're done having a tantrum, right? I got breakables in here."

Plus looked down in shame, running one of her feet across the ground. "Um, yes...—" "—Sorry," Minus whispered.

"I'm holding onto most of her powers right now," Light clarified.

"Okay, come on in! We've got a lot of room in here anyway." Rory turned around and went back inside without further comment, leaving the door open.

"Um—" "—Light." She stopped on her way into the door.
"Yeah?"
"Could you—" "—turn me, back to normal? I, I don't really want to do this—" "—like this."

"Are you sure? It'd tell everyone here what you really look like," she said, appearing concerned.
"Yes," she nodded. It didn't seem like it would make any difference with this group, and Amory was who mattered to her right now...
"Okay." Light said something incomprehensible yet deeply familiar, and Minus flickered out of existence, Plus's clothes ruffling slightly, reshaping themselves while her ears and tail retracted. Eventually a pair of glasses found normal ears to hang themselves on.

"Um, m-my real name's Emma," she said, carefully following inside.

"Nice to meet you."

Once they were inside, Light came back to shut the door, and they went into a short hallway; she stopped at a doorway and pointed inside to a kitchen/dining room area, where Amory was sitting at the table with a bunch of papers spread out in front of him. "Go on," she waved, "I've got someone else to talk to, if he's awake." Seeing Emma standing paralyzed in place, she gently put her hands on her shoulders and directed her into the doorway. "Go."

Emma awkwardly shuffled inside, Amory of course already looking at her. "Um, h-hi. I'm, Emma," she said quietly.
"Hey." He stood up and came over to her, offering a hand. "Amory. I think we've met before, right?"
"Y-yes, I'm..um," she fumbled her hand into a weak shake, getting even worse butterflies from even this much physical contact. "I was, I-I mean..yesterday at the hospital, and the day before that," her voice faded out of audible range.

"I mean I recognize you from sometime before that," he said, tilting his head slightly like he was trying to recall. "But thanks again, though. I dunno how to feel about those things wanting my head but at least someone was around to protect me, huh?"
"Y-yeah! You um, you helped me with my c-chemistry homework a few times, um, last s-s-semester," she said.

An awkward silence. Emma took a small step back, looked at the floor. "Um..I, I haven't been..I've been s-sort of terrible lately. I, uh, I, tried to kill your f-friend. Seriously tried. A few minutes ago even."

"Well, we can both be thankful you failed, right? Or do you still wanna do that?"

"No. I-I, don't think I ever did." As bizarre as the conversation was, it seemed to be going okay. It was time to put all of that practice to some kind of use! Emma was determined; she forced herself to look up at his face for this part. "I..I um, I was following you before, because, I wanted to a-ask you on a, date," she squeaked. "It's, I know I wasn't acting normal, but...I'm sorry. J-just, I was too nervous for a while, and then.."

"Then the whole world went crazy, right?" He gave a sardonic grin. "I know, somehow I wound up staying over at this house of all places for safety. If anything I'd expect to need to hide from Dr. Quinn."

"I heard that!" Rory said from a room or two over. "Why don't you two just kiss already?"

"Umh—!" Emma looked down again, her face burning at the very thought of it.
"Did you give yourself fox ears just to eavesdrop?" Amory yelled. "We're trying to have a serious talk here! ...Sorry about that."
"I-it's okay."

"So, I dunno if the world's gonna be any less crazy any time soon. I'm not sure we really even know that much about each other," said Amory. "Well—depending on how long you've been following me around, I guess."
"N-not that long! Just the...past week or two.." she said, her voice fading off again. "I know some stuff about your, uh, schedule and major, but n-not really about you, no.."

"A date's just fine then," he said. "You're cute enough. We could have dinner somewhere and talk for a while, if you want. At least I won't have to worry even if there was another attack then, yeah?"
"Y-yeah!" She just barely choked the answer out past an actual swarm of butterflies from him calling her cute.

The conversation had reached a logical conclusion, but they stayed standing there for what felt like another half an hour (probably a minute or so of awkward silence). Then Rory Quinn barged into the room and grabbed Emma by the shoulders, easily picking her up and turning her around to face the doorway before setting her down again. "You, go get your powers back from Light. Chop chop, you're distracting him from his homework and there's a lot of it!"

"Um—!"

"We'll talk about where and when later I guess," he said. "I'll get your number in a bit."

"O-okay!"

---

After some very unsubtle directional waving from Rory, Light found Clark in fox-form in the bedroom, sitting on top of the bed in a slightly childish-looking pink nightgown with a pattern of clouds on it, eating a bacon-egg-cheese biscuit from a plate in her lap. "Hey, sorry I didn't get up to welcome you," she said.
"Um, that's fine. I guess you just woke up?"
"Mm-hm." She swallowed the bite. "These powers are amazing, but they really wipe you out when you push them to the limit. I'm wondering if its some kind of intended 'rule' with them, or just something about using the powers naturally causing physical strain...I guess that's more my wife's territory." She waved at a computer chair, inviting Light to take a seat, which she did.

"Breakfast in bed. I had to move it off of me to get up anyway, though. Waking up in a female form is just weird; I dunno if you've noticed certain disadvantages yet..."

"Yeah, I have." It was a terse response to the obvious meaning; after all, Light was the one who'd woken up in this form three times now, not even counting the one where she went to sleep in it.

After another bite, Clark said: "So, as far as I've heard you went to fight our mystery friend from yesterday?"
"Not—specifically. It was more like she attacked me and I had to defend myself. But it was also helping her, in some kind of weird way."

"I can't believe how cavalier everyone's being about this. Life-or-death fights," she said. "Or—pretty close anyway. Risk of serious harm that would compound even if you survive because a weakened person is easy for people who want to collect more powers to prey on. If I was up I'd have insisted Rory go with you to just knock her out—both of her—if things get too dicey."

"In this case, I think that might've made things worse. She wanted me to come alone and she could sort of see through invisibility—shadow powers I think. Anyway, we're okay now. She must be talking to Amory by now."

"You let her in to see him?" Clark took a sip of orange juice. "Talk about rewarding bad behavior..."

"I'm not—it's not about rewarding anything! It's just, she was going crazy from thinking about him, and wanting to talk to him was one of the things behind her power, I think. I'm looking for, you know, psychological stability—not, treating people like a dog where you only give them what they want if they do the right trick for you," said Light. Her tone was more upset—angrier—than expected in some places, though she made an effort to keep it under control when she noticed.

"Easy there, I was trying to make a joke," said Clark. "I'm no psychologist but I don't think telling her she can't see him would've ended well, either." Why so mad at the idea? Right...she was worried about the thought of "pets"—on that topic,"one, maybe two" was just a hilarious way to refer to one person in two bodies, or an annoyingly, intentionally ambiguous reference to the nebulously-scheduled second meeting with Rowan Shepherd.

During the silence for Clark to take another bite of food, both of their ears could pick up what Amory was saying a few rooms over. "Sounds like their conversation's going well enough. I was starting to wonder, though, when you're gonna look in the mirror and notice your life has turned into the incarnation of 'defeat means friendship'. You know, first Ning, then that cop—I mean, you didn't technically defeat her but there was a possibly-lethal fight, now...this one."

"I've realized it all right. I can't say I love it exactly, but it's, you know, it's better than defeat meaning death as far as I'm concerned." She leaned back and looked at the ceiling for a moment. "Or me losing and getting killed. Look, are you awake enough to talk about science?"

Clark grinned. "There is no such limitation. I'm guessing you're looking for new ideas on how to use your arbitrary control over photons, and let me tell you, I've got some. Lemme finish eating to free my hands up and we'll get us a whiteboard out. My wife's ordering Emma around out there, so you should probably deal with that first."

"Yeah, I'll go see what that's about," Light stood up and headed to meet her rather than crowding the bedroom.

They stopped in front of each other in a hall. "Um.."

"So, how'd it go?"
"G-good. He said yes," she half-whispered, looking genuinely happy for the first time Light had seen.

"Okay. Now: Do you solemnly swear not to attack me or anyone else in this house. Or my friend Ning for that matter. And..actually, to do your best to not attack anyone without a good reason."
"..Yes," she said, making an expression that appeared intended to be a serious one.
"Good." Light spoke her phrase, and a gray cloud (combining the white and black, maybe) travelled from her head back into Emma's, returning her powers to full function. At this point it finally occurred to her that she had casually used someone else's power's in the middle of their fight.
"What?" Emma saw Light's expression at that realization and thought it was directed at her.

"Oh—sorry, not you, I just, need to call someone real quick. You be good," she pointed authoritatively. "Also ask Clark to please have a look at your head? Concussions are supposed to be able to sneak up on you and I don't want you to collapse on the way home or something." Light rushed off to see about borrowing Rory's or Amory's phone, hers still back in his car.

"Hello. Gerald Nelson speaking."
"Hi, this is—you know. I um, did you notice anything happening in the last hour or so?"
"Anything...like what? Another attack?" His tone of voice indicated he was looking out the window, probably.

"No no no. Like with your powers? Any feeling of something happening?"
"...No. I've just been taking care of the shop."

"Okay, I might have—called on them a little bit ago, because I needed a second sword and to deal with someone else using lightning powers. Don't worry—I'm fine, they're fine, the whole thing's basically taken care of. But I wanted to find out if it was something you noticed happening, or if there was any after-effects or something."

"Give me a minute, I'll try changing back and forth..."

A little later: "...Everything seemed normal enough. The sword was still there."
"Okay. Good, I think. Hang on—you've been talking about how your power feels totally out of your control, right?"
"Yes..."
"Well I was able to call lightning and make it do basically exactly what I wanted every time: Go where I want with exactly as much power as I want. It makes sense, I'm supposed to have 'full control' over it. But maybe...if there's some time you could meet later this afternoon, I could just order your powers to be more controllable so we wouldn't have to worry about that."
"It's, worth a shot I guess," he said. "Needs to be pretty early, so I can pick up Nadia still."
"Okay. Um—about one? I have a lot more talking to do here first probably."
"...That's fine. Come in the back."

---

When Gerald returned from lunch he came in the back, letting any would-be customers believe he was just taking a longer lunch break. With everything that was happening lately, it seemed like it would be good to try and hire someone to man the store when he was away...but it'd have to be someone extremely trustworthy, all things considered. Well, if business picked up enough to make it feasible he'd think about it more seriously, he thought.

A little after one o' clock, Light put a message on the wall in front of him: "I'm here." He got up and opened the door, letting it close itself after she came in.

"What exactly were you talking about?" he said. "Who's fine?"
"Uh, you remember the girl—or, girls, who saved Amory the other day just before you showed up? They're one person in two bodies, and she was having some...problems." Light fidgeted with her hands. "We had an encounter kinda like you and I did on Saturday, except it was entirely her idea."

"So...you 'control' her powers too?" he said, curious.

"Yeee-eah."

"Well, I'm sure you'll be perfectly responsible with handling that," He smiled, trying to reassure her.

"I sure hope so." She looked away, less certain. Then back at him, eager to change the subject: "So, um, you're ready to give this a try?"

"Yes," he nodded.

"Okay..." Light spoke Gerald's phrase; there was something in the way she said it that seemed louder almost, with a slight echo to it, and he wasn't sure whether that difference was something physically audible or his mental perception of it. Either way, the effect was the same.

A little bit of electricity arced from Light's hands to Gerald's body, which seemed to react to its touch by amplifying it and turning into more. Gerald had the familiar feeling of his body starting to change into lightning itself, electricity sparking around and through him before he began to reshape. He shrank upward rather than downward, his arms spreading themselves out as he floated in the air. The electricity form his hair gently tugged out a little longer than before as his body softened and thinned; his clothes reshaped into leggings, a skirt, belt, top, and cape, just as usual, and before long he felt the change to a youthful female finishing up.

Her tail sparked outward, a jolt of lightning spreading it out longer and thicker than before, and her ears stretched out into place. In her hands appeared two bolts of lightning: A long one in the right, a short in the left—normally her two weapons. But on some unfamiliar instinct she pulled her hands together, her body still glowing and sparking, and held the two together, placing the shorter one against the tip of the longer and pressing, molding it around the blade as it began to form.

The random, dangerous sparks that had surrounded Ning from when she first transformed until Light removed them were back, but as the lightning in her hands reshaped into a single sword and a black sheath around it, the sparks drew themselves inward, joining her body as if they had always been meant to be a part of it. She felt a kind of confident calm settle over her as she floated down to the ground, pulling the sword partway out of the sheath to examine it, and couldn't help but smile at the feeling.

She re-sheathed the blade and let go of it, allowing the electricity to fade away harmlessly. "So, um, did it work?" said Light, seeming uncertain about what all of the excess special effects had meant.

"Yes! It totally—" Ning paused, mildly confused at her choice of words "—uh, worked, yeah! I mean as far as I can tell, hang on, step back a little." She held up her hands and tired to get just a tiny bit of lightning to dance between her fingertips in a very specific pattern; the test succeeded. "Yes! Is this how easy it's been for you all along?"
"I, uh, guess so." Light headtilted slightly. "It's hard to tell, but you look slightly taller I think. And your tail looks...bushier. I didn't tell it to make any physical changes—wait, your hair color's back to gray, too!"

"It is?" She tried to pull some hair in front of her face, failed, and instead turned herself around to look at her tail, which in addition to being thicker did seem to have turned back to its original color. She gave a small gasp. "It is! So maybe this is like some alternate version of my powers that naturally comes with a different look or something?" She looked back up at light, smiling. "Either way, who cares? It worked!" Ning obeyed an impulse to tackle-hug Light before her brain could catch up enough to question it, and both of them were just as surprised at the gesture, though Light did gently return it before carefully setting her back down.

Ning rocked back and forth on her feet a bit. "I actually think it feels a little less..like not having it in control gave me more, like bigger lightning I could use? But this is way better even if it isn't quite as powerful. I actually feel like I can use it without risking hurting someone!" She pointed at a nearby electric socket and drew a tiny stream of electricity out into her finger for a second. "And I can use those, too, without burning anything down!"

"Are you...sure you're okay? You seem, uh, kinda hyper," said Light.
"Oh, I.." She paused, thinking about her actions over the last minute or so. "I..yeah. I am kinda. I dunno, I just feel so excited all of a sudden. I'm happy I can control it I guess, but...more than that, yep. I feel like I've just had six cups of coffee or something. It's hard to even stand still."

"..I can tell." Ning realized she had been gesturing rather wildly that entire time.

Light had a concerned look. "I'm a little worried 'power control' costs 'self control' for you or something like that..."

"Well, I—I can control myself fine," Ning said. "I just, feel different is all. The best way I think I can put it is that I actually feel young and it's amazing after being as old as I am for as long as I've been."

"You didn't feel young like that before?"

"Hmm..no, I did, but like, not as much? Or...I felt like, I don't know, I couldn't act out that part of how I felt as much or I'd hurt someone. Or something like that?"

"I see." Light seemed to have an idea about it, but if she did, it wasn't one she wanted to share. "So uh, your weapons changed?"

"Ohh, yes! They did!" Ning resummoned the sheathed sword, and moved into a stance that felt familiar, holding it as if the sheath were attached to her left hip with the right hand on the hilt and the left holding the sheath. "Feels like I know how to use these, too," she said, making a slow-motion version of attacking, pulling the katana out of the sheath in a slice and then dancing around the target and hitting it with the sheath in the other hand too, then re-sheathing it to the same position at the end of the motion. "That kind of thing, but fast. Like—I could use the sheath to block a lot more effectively than I could when it was a knife."

"Well, as long as we're here I want to try and test something about what happened this morning," said Light. "Do you mind?"
"No..probably good to know about," said Ning.

"Okay..."

Light tried saying her phrase, and immediately the katana seemed to slip out of Ning's hand, turning into electricity and bolting over to Light's hand. While she was holding it, Ning couldn't get the blade to appear; it just felt like it wasn't "there", wherever "there" usually was. Then she let go of the weapon and, holding out her hand, Ning was able to immediately take it again. The same could be done with the sheath, or with both of them at the same time, and with the same kind of effects. When Ning let her weapons dissipate, Light was able to simply make them appear in her hands right away.

"So I can borrow your weapon, I guess. But if you're not using it then you don't really notice that I'm doing so. What about.." Light said Ning's phrase again, and made a small burst of electricity jump out of her hand. "Did you...feel anything when I did that?"
"Kinda? I mean I think I felt a tiny bit of my power being used, like if I go zzzt!" she said, making a quick jolt of electricity jump up from her index finger, pointed upward. "...Yeah, about that much. It feels a little weird to feel it being used and know I'm not using it myself, I guess."

"It's just weird, this isn't how it looks like it should work," said Light. "I mean—when I order your power out of you it visibly moves from you to me. Or your weapon. But if I order it to just work then apparently it just works—even if you're nowhere near me and still in human form."
"Well, at least it's more convenient that way," said Ning. "I guess just make sure I'm not in the middle of some really important fighting when you wanna borrow my weapons and stuff."
"I'm...a little hesitant about using your power at all. I mean, it could wear you out all of a sudden or something like that—even if you're not fighting something just then, that's sorta dangerous."

"Liiiight.." Ning put her hands on her hips. "If you need my power for something, and you know it won't immediately put me in danger to do so, then you use it. You have my permission and I'm ordering you to do it as your elder. For your own good."

She blink-blinked. "Um, okay, I guess."

"No 'I guess!' You need to keep yourself and whoever you're protecting safe. If it helped you today it'll be helpful in the future, and there's nothing I want more than for you to use it if I'm not around to help you out myself."

"Okay, okay! I get it."

"Heehee," Ning giggled. Then she realized she'd just done that, and blushed slightly. "Errm."

"That form is definitely messing with your head..."

"Okay, change me back and—oh, I'll change me back, whatever—and I'll tell you the same thing again. Completely serious here."

Battle Vixens! - 20

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Episode 20: A Fractured Gem

Blake woke to the loud, blaring alarm sound that tends to precede weather alerts. It was coming from a neighbor's radio, and was quickly and apologetically muted by its owner about halfway through. Curious, he turned over and tried turning his own radio on, the volume already pretty low.

It was no weather alert. A slightly muffled voice spoke: "This is the Initiative. We remind those who know to remember the pact. If you have no pact with us, know this: Break our peace and we will destroy you. That is all." Then the same noises again, ending the emergency broadcast.

"Mrrngh.." He drew a hand back under the covers, and started to turn onto his back, but found it strangely uncomfortable; there was something in the way. After a second or two Blake realized that the wrong voice had just grunted out, and there were fuzzy ears and a tail under the covers, among other things. Right—of course the dream had compelled everyone to change. Well, it was still too early to wake up on what was supposedly a free day, so she turned onto her front instead and pulled the covers up a little more, finding it too much trouble to say the phrase and make a big flash of light.

A little while of keeping her eyes closed but not actually sleeping later, Light inwardly sighed to herself and pushed herself up, letting the covers slide off as she turned and maneuvered around to sit on the side of the bed before finally standing up, her tail gently pulling itself free behind her. Well, she could feel that the sun was at least starting to come up; it wasn't all that early. On the other hand, her ears didn't pick up Amory playing the news, which they certainly would if he was up.

She walked into the bathroom and turned on the light, having a look in the mirror. She really was pretty cute, all told, even in a baggy t-shirt with messy bed-hair. It was such a strange experience for someone used to being male to look in the mirror and see someone like that standing there. She took a moment to play around with her hair, run a hand down her side, poke at her chest a bit out of curiosity. It was...less exciting than it seemed like it should be, maybe, something to do with the general sense of girliness she felt whenever in this form. Well, then...!

After that she flipped her shirt up and over her head, off, and tossed it in the nearby laundry basket. How was that? Well, she was blushing a little bit at seeing her bare upper body, but more at a feeling of being exposed than anything to do with what she was seeing. A certain part of her said, Okay, a pretty girl in the mirror. So what? It's just me. And if it was just her, then the mental image of this in her memory was perfectly fine to recall later, while male. That might at least cause some kind of reaction.

Light's eyes narrowed, one of her ears drooping slightly. What, was she insulted that...she wasn't attracted to herself? It was as if she was thinking of Blake just slightly as a different person and hoping he would find her attractive. It was truly absurd, with the least bit of thought, but at least it seemed relatively harmless. As long as she was messing around with her form this way, how about going through a whole morning routine with it? Well—maybe not washing hair, since the near-hip-length and all the extra on her ears and tail would demand probably the entire rest of the bottle of shampoo, but everything else, sure. She could see whether or not her usual singing abilities carried over to this higher voice, maybe.

The only real hiccup was putting on clothes after toweling off. After all, everything was Blake's clothes and therefore Blake-size. On a kind of instinctive hunch, Light tried holding an outfit in her hands and saying just part of her phrase, something like 'the first part'. The clothes glowed white and shifted: Underwear split into a bra and panties, jeans shrank into shorts, the t-shirt just plain shrank. And unsurprisingly it fit her just fine. What was a little bit surprising, maybe, was that she apparently just knew how to put the bra on; that was...supposed to be something someone had to learn in this kind of situation, right? It was more of the territory of feeling 'girly', apparently. This was an entirely new and weird dimension to the mental effects of these powers to probably sort out...but, later maybe. In the meantime it might be good to report to the Quinns that she'd just discovered a way to immediately make clothes that fit this form, that was maybe kind of interesting.

Rest sounded like a good idea. Hopefully nobody would "break the peace" and Rowan wouldn't need to call her or anyone else in to go fight some murderous jerk attacking a bunch of fox girls. Hopefully today wouldn't be the day someone attacked the ones in their town, particularly the ones who had publicly announced their real identities on the news. It seemed a little like that kind of thing was what the woman wanted, but maybe the warning over the radio would be enough to stymie those kinds of attacks, at least in this country, for now.

After a quick breakfast, Light lay across the couch playing a handheld for an hour or two. Periodically her ears would twitch around, hearing the noise of someone else nearby getting out of bed; eventually one of those people was Amory in the bedroom right in front of her. Part of her thought maybe she should change back before he came in here, but another part was thinking the exact opposite. In the middle: Did it really matter that much? It shouldn't; this appearance was the same person as the other one in the end, after all. That convinced her to just continue what she was doing and not bother.

He came out and (somewhat predictably) stared for a second or two. "Um...morning. You're, uh, up early." Then he slid sideways in the general direction of the kitchen, his eyes not leaving her for a good several more seconds.

"Yeah, there was a new emergency announcement thing on the radio. She appeared in everyone's dreams last night and announced we wouldn't have any monster attacks today. So someone called the Initiative—I think probably who Rowan's working for—made an emergency broadcast asking everyone to play nice."

"Well, that's cool of them I guess," he said, finally turning around to go look for breakfast. "Uhh, I'm sorry for staring, I'm just still not used to living with a cute girl. Or—someone who can be one at will."

"Heheh," she giggled lightly.

Along with breakfast-making noises: "So do you believe her? It sounds like you believe her, like at least Rowan and whoever took the announcement seriously."
"I mean, technically she hasn't lied to us, or to me at least, once yet. She was able to predict those things would attack in the first place, soo...Also, she specifically said the enemy had 'overexerted' themselves, which matches pretty well with everyone getting about a double dose of attacks yesterday."

"You had a look at the news?"
"No, I didn't really wanna think about it for a while. I guess I probably should." She started to lean up to get the remote from the table on the side her feet were on, but paused, thinking. Remotes worked by infrared light, right? Maybe she could just imitate that. Light tried pointing a finger at the TV to make some light that would turn it on with no apparent success. It did feel like she got some non-visible light to appear and hit the TV, but it was maybe not the correct signal or whatever. It would probably require her to learn precisely how the remote worked to imitate it, which on the balance was far more effort than just picking the stupid thing up. So she rolled forward onto her front to face the other way and push the power button.

Neither of them had really watched anything but the news lately, so that was what channel it was on. The report was, conveneintly, about the alert that had gone out that morning. Amory came in and Light finally picked herself up to a sitting position to give him the other half of the couch.

The Vixen Initiative, they reported, was an American organization formed in the wake of the recent crisis. They had no direct, governmental power yet—lawmakers being glacially slow as always—but reported having numerous of the "empowered" in their employ and several times as many in alliance agreements with them. Their goals were simple: Organize fights against the mist creatures that had appeared recently to reduce casualties and risk to ordinary people; keep the peace among the "empowered". Hence the emergency alert this morning, a somewhat more abrupt public introduction than they had expected to make, in light of an announcement made by "the Giver" in dreams the night before. That led to questions to which Amory and Light already knew the answer, with reporters naturally skeptical of someone contacting a large number of people through their dreams simultaneously. But, the person representing the Vixen Initiative said, was that really any less believable than all of the things they already had direct, filmed evidence for? After a brief silence he said, I thought not. Of course the message for any "empowered" watching was the same as it had been in the alert: Remember the pact, and keep the peace, or the Iniative and everyone with them would destroy the offending party. They were also now starting to publish recommended actions for various kinds of businesses and government agencies in case of an attack, in an effort to restore some level of normalcy and safety to the situation.

"They really like the word 'destroy', huh," said Light.

"Yeah..I guess they're really worried about the people who did all that killing the first couple of days. Fear of death from an overwhelming assault is the only motivator they can even be slightly sure of in these circumstances, seems like."

"Hmn?" Light turned around, having heard something odd.

"What?"

"...Paper." She hopped over the back of the couch and quickly up to a piece of paper she had just heard being slid under the door. While picking it up, she also redirected some of the light from outside to try and see who had left it. They were gone already, but rolling her vision back through time slightly..."Gemma. Oh boy." Light carefully unfolded it, uncertain whether there was some unknown 'make a bomb out of paper' ability the megaman girl had managed to learn lately.

It was a different kind of bomb, maybe:

"Light-

I know who you are and where you live. I need your help." ("This will get ugly" was scribbled off in the margins) "Meet me on the quad ASAP. Come alone please please. I don't know what will happen otherwise.

-G"

"Well, that looks like a trap." Amory had taken the slower route to read it over her shoulder.

"Do I really have much of a choice, though? I need to meet her to explain she's misunderstood everything anyway. And she says she needs help..." Light's ears drooped a bit, thinking of the expressions the poor girl had shown near the end of their last meeting.

"You better not get yourself killed. But if you do go, then do you have enough faith in that woman to leave me alone here?"

Light thought about certain events in her 'personal' dreams: The ear touching and tail grabbing in particular. "...No." She sighed. "Any objection to paying the Quinns an visit?"

"Dr. Quinn will definitely force me to actually work," he half-complained. "It's better than risking being attacked, though. How do you want to do this?"

A minute or so later, Rory picked up the other end of the line. "Yo, what's up?"

Amory explained the situation in brief.
"Uh-huh. I guess I can babysit for a little while. My husband's still in bed after tiring himself out all of yesterday. I'm gonna make you do your homework, though."
"Yeah, I knew that already. I've got my backpack."
"You've always been one of the smart ones. And tell Light she should really come for some lessons too, especially once Clark wakes up! When you have control over electromagnetic radiation the first thing you should do is pick a physicist's brain for ideas of what it can do."

"Oh, yeah..duh." Light, walking next to him with an image of Blake overlaid for the cameras, could of course hear the entire conversation with her fox-ears. "I guess I really have a reason to survive whatever's gonna happen now."

"She says sure, if she lives."

"Well you'd better live then! You kn—you do know this is gonna turn into a fight no matter what you do or say, right? Couldn't be more obivous?"
"I mean, maybe she could resolve it peacefully," said Amory.

"You saw the way she reacted yesterday. That girl's not stable right now. You just don't kill her either, hear Light?"

"Wasn't planning to," she said, annoyed at the accusation.

"She says—"
"—she wasn't planning to, yeah. I wasn't planning to have guests over today, either. You'd better have some interesting questions or something, seriously. Don't make me give you something harder to do just so I'm less bored. Actually, are you sure you don't want me to come in as backup once Clark's awake." Light shook her head.

"I..think not coming alone could really make things even worse," said Amory. "Anyway, we're getting in the car now, and I'm not gonna talk and drive."
"Ooh, responsible. See you in a few, then."

---

After getting off at Rory's house, Light went invisible and took the short walk from there to campus. Then she made her way over to the courtyard. Gemma's two bodies were standing there, side by side, looking tense with their fox parts twitching impatiently.

"...I can see you—" "—especially this body," she said, starting with the white-haired one and ending with the other, which was looking right at her.

Light dropped the invisibility. "Why do people keep announcing they can see through the illusions? Wouldn't it be better to let me think I'm fooling you?"
Plus looked nervous, flustered by the question. "Well, I, I'm just—" "—a little insulted you decided to try and hide from me," said Minus, who looked confidently angry.

Light looked back and forth between the two of them. "...Are you sure you're both the same person?"
"Yes!" they both said at the same time.

"So, um—" "—I called you out here for a fight," Plus to Minus again. A short blade appeared in each of her four hands.
"I'm getting some really bad deja vu here. Aren't you still like...half injured from yesterday?"
"I fixed it," Plus said. "...mostly," the other body added more quietly.

"Look, before you attack me can I mention that I am not interested in Amory, like, at all? I mean—you must have noticed since you know where I live and all, I'm a guy."

"That's, even worse," said Plus by herself, looking kind of hurt. "You'd know what he wants even better," said Minus, pointing one of her weapons at Light. "Can you honestly say he's never touched you?—" "—You've never thought about it?"

Light put up her hands. "Well, yeah, I mean..." There was that one time, as far as touching went, but it was just...she was really tired and it felt good. It wasn't some intimate part of her body, and it wasn't romantic at all! "That's a little extreme, isn't it? Thinking's too much?" Minus responded by throwing a knife at her, which she jumped to one side of. "Whoa! Hey, look—you said, you needed my help with something right? Is us trying to kill each other really the only option here?"

At this point, Minus made to lunge straight at her, and Plus, bizarrely enough, got in the way, letting go of her own weapons to grab onto the other body's wrists and hold her in place. "I hate you. I want to kill you," Minus said, glaring. Plus, half-turning around, had a pleading expression instead. "I-I don't want you to die! You deserve to live way more than I do, so—fight back, please! Stop me!"

Light summoned her sword anyway, just in time for Plus to get pushed off to one side and the other body to start a series of wild slashes, each of which was easy enough to block. Then the body that had just been defending her threw a spike of ice, which she backflipped away from, turning to face them both. "Really getting mixed messages here."

Gemma made a blinding flash, which caught her off guard; she put up her sword reflexively and blocked a follow-up attack, and her vision came back quickly enough to continue, slowly pulling back from the flurry of blades, keeping them from flanking her as best she could. "Shouldn't you be—" "—immune to that?"

"I know, right?" This wasn't helping the sense of deja vu. But while they were coordinated, they weren't quite as fast, and every once in a while Light could swear that one of them feinted deliberately to give her a signal to block the other one's attacks. Light was able to draw some of her focus to quickly set up a filter on her eyes and block any more bright flashes, and then make a couple of aggressive shots at one or the other girl's weapon to try and knock it out of her hand—another possibility denied her the first time around.

Plus was hitting with much more force, and Minus's grip looked kind of awkward, so it wasn't much of a surprise when Light eventually managed to knock her weapons away while Plus was busy ducking a feint. The disarmed body hopped back and immediately drew her hands upward, doing some kind of magic attack. Light jumped back just in time to not get impaled by a spear made from her own shadow, and then had to block a particularly hard two-handed strike from the other body.

Shadow: Opposite of light. Also apparently very good at being sharp. Light drew in sunlight from the surrounding area, making light sources everywhere to mute out the shadows; the glare would hopefully make it a little harder for Gemma to see, too. Plus fired some electricity from one of her knives and threw the other; Light ducked just aside of the physical attack while swinging her sword, the blade catching the electricity and dispersing it away somehow. That was...new.

There were tears coming from Plus's eyes again. "What are you doing!?—" "—Stop just running away and attack!" Minus, of course, punctuated this with a strike of her own, throwing some compressed ground at Light's head.

"Okay..." Ducking under that and forward, Light flipped her blade around and aimed a strike right at Plus's head. The move seemed too fast for her to react to, and made a really uncomfortable CLACK; she winced and flinched to the side slightly but immediately responded by trying to stab Light in the side with an ice spike. Reflexes alone allowed her jump away from it, having expected at least some stunning from the attack. And then Minus was throwing her own weapons at Light again, which she deflected with a couple of sword swipes.

The collected, glaring light was easy enough to turn into more attacks; while she was starting to dodge another several swipes from both bodies, Light tried some lasers. Minus moved in the way of each, putting her hand up to block it and apparently not being hurt much at all by it. With Plus still charging her, Light couldn't take advantage of the distraction all that well, but did eventually manage to catch both of Plus's blades on her own while Minus was busy blocking. Minus growled with effort while Plus drove Light's weapon down with an unexpected burst of strength, but Light just unsummoned the weapon to let her stumble forward and then kicked her hard in the stomach, making her fall back with a pained whimper.

"RrRRraAAAh!" Minus roared, holding her arms out before suddenly drawing them in. Shadows pulled themselves in from outside the glare, racing toward Light's feet. One after another she jumped over and aside of shadow-spikes, just missing her feet every time. Okay, apparently maintaining all this light wasn't actually very useful; Light dropped it to save on the concentration.

Minus could see her 'especially'. So maybe Plus wasn't so good at it...Light tried tossing her blade at Minus, trusting quite accurately that she would dodge around it. At the same time, she made herself invisible and an illusory Light charged at Plus, who was just now standing fully up. Plus tried firing some more electricity at the fake one, allowing the real one to get around and smack her in the head again. "AAAAAAAH!" She fell over again, holding the hit spot; both of her bodies screamed in pain. Before Light could get over some hesitation from seeing her in that much pain, Minus recovered enough to start trying to pull the ground out from under her, forcing her to jump away. So that physical immunity required her to be 'prepared' for an attack...

Plus was up, and electricity crackled wildily around her hands as her weapons re-formed; both bodies came at Light for another assault. This was starting to wear her thin, and even if she was tired from yesterday, Gemma apparently had two bodies' worth of stamina to work with. Plus electrifying the blades was a new trick, and it would probably conduct through her sword from a direct contact; the 'waving it away' earlier didn't seem likely to work in this situation...

Light held out her left hand and spoke a phrase—not her own, Ning's. Electricity arced out from her wrists into a second blade, Ning's longer sword, and it met Gemma's strike, drawing even the farther-off electricity into itself. Light blocked Minus with the other sword, her usual one, and began the dance anew.

There was another whirlwind of blades; Gemma hadn't been this fast or focused before. She was angry—both of her—and it was all Light could do, even with the extra blade, to keep from getting cut or stabbed. Oh, also she was talking through the attack.

"It's not fair—" "—it's not right! I'm the one who saved him—" "—twice! You, you don't deserve to—" "—be the one who gets to be with him!" If not for the fox-ears, it seemed like it would've been drowned out by the noise of blades clashing against each other.

Light only spoke Ning's phrase again, sending a quick explosion of electricity out from the sword and forcing them both back for a breather. It lasted barely an instant, as Plus immediately charged again and Minus hung back, drawing shadow up into her hands, forming flat crescent-shaped blades with it and throwing them at her like boomerangs. These had to be met with Light's own sword, drawing some of the light forming it outward to shine directly through and destroy each one in turn.

Now they were talking over each other instead of going back and forth: "I'm a stupid, horrible, useless person, I shouldn't be doing this," said Plus while Minus yelled "I'm better than you! I'll kill you if I have to to prove it!"

Gemma was really losing it. Light decided to do the opposite, steadily tuning the self-argument out to focus on what needed to be done. Duck, destroy a shadow-blade, smack Plus's knife, aim the flat of this blade at her wrist—she dodged, force her to block this and then try that again. Even though Light's reach was better and she was faster, Plus just no-selled most of her strikes using the same kind of physical immunity as before, besides Minus continuing to find new directions to make bladed and spiked shadows come at her from.

Wait...Minus was getting pretty far away; she wouldn't be able to block like before! Just take the next few dodges backwards, get the right amount of distance. Light clashed her weapons against Gemma's, pushing against them to distract her. Minus would be focused on taking advantage of this pause in motion to attack, which was a perfect opportunity to make a searing-hot laser at each of Plus's hands.

She doubly screamed in pain again, the dark-haired body dropping her hands and losing whatever she'd been about to throw, and this time Light didn't hesitate. With her opponent's weapons dropped and her focus gone, Light spoke Ning's phrase one more time, commanding just enough electricity to get past that resistance and stun and pointing it right at Minus. The bolt struck and that body convulsed to the ground; the other one took a hit in the uninjured side of its head, knocking her over too.

Light dropped Ning's sword, allowing it to disappear, and jumped at Gemma's prone body, kneeling on top of her chest and placing the flat of the blade against her throat. It wasn't entirely clear what the rules were for "beating" someone with two bodies, so she kept herself tense until something like a white cloud floated out of Plus's head and toward her own; a dark cloud also came from Minus, much faster so that it arrived at the same time. A new phrase appeared in Light's head; like it or not, another person's power had become "hers".

Light took a deep breath and rolled herself back, releasing the sword out of existence and sitting on her knees just past Plus's feet. She was panting heavily from the nonstop running around and fighting of the fight, and tried to start getting her breathing back to normal.

Gemma's bodies both mumbled incoherently, both sat up in exactly the same way. When her eyes opened she immediately closed them again, tightly as if whatever she saw was giving her a headache (or two). Both of them said, "I, I can't.." Evidently the ability to control and comprehend sensory input from two bodies at once was considered part of her power. That would make it a little hard to hold a conversation. Light decided it was worth the risk to give her back at least a reasonable level of coordination, and ordered that much of power back with the new phrase.

Plus slowly opened her eyes again, looking afraid the results would be the same as before. Then she realized Light was sitting right in front of her and gave a sad, wide-eyed look, her ears drooping nearly across her cheeks. "I'm..sorry. I'm so sorry," she half-whispered. "I should just...I should've just gone in a pit and died...but, I'm too much of a coward to..."

"Stop that," Light snapped.

"Hmmh?"

"Stop talking about dying! Stop thinking about hurting yourself! It's not even that bad, sheesh! You're like the third person to try to kill me this week, you know, and the last two turned out just fine."

"B-but I—" "—I've been selfish, and awful," the other body finished. "I made you deal with my problems instead of figuring it out myself,—" "—in a way that could've killed you. And I'd be the one doing it!—" "—This whole time I've only thought about what I wanted, or thought I should have, and didn't care about anyone else..."

"Well, not totally. I mean, you really did protect Amory when he got attacked. And warned us about the second one, which would've hurt a lot more people..."

"That was just because I didn't want him to die, before I—" "—even got a chance to talk to him. It was still all about me." Both of them looked away.

"Okay, let's...take a step back here. Why did you want to talk to Amory in the first place? You like him, right?"
"Um, y-yes."
"Why?"

"Because!" she stated as if that was the entire thing. The farther-off body managed to fill in some details: "He's cute, and smart, and, he's really nice. He's always helping everyone else. I-I just, I guess I wanted to be the one to help him..."

"So helping him would also help other people. It wasn't just about having him all to yourself, by the sounds of it."

"N-no—" "—it wasn't supposed to be. I just.."

"You got confused," said Light, carefully leaning forward to put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm increasingly convinced these powers make people a little crazy. You asked me to help you because somewhere in there, you figured out you were going way off-course, and wanted someone to snap you out of it, right?"
She turned to look at Light, apparently surprised at the physical contact. "Y...yeah. I-I guess so.—" "—The idea of me, wanting to kill someone, it's insane. I'm not..that isn't supposed to be me."

"..I'm still really sorry. You're being way too nice for this...for how I acted..."
"Yeah, I think that's my insanity showing," Light tried for a winning grin. "But I still want to forgive you and help you out so this kind of thing won't happen again." With that, she let go of the shoulder and hopped onto her feet. "For that, I think the first thing is for you to actually get to talk to Amory for real."
"Um, b-but, I...—" "—after this, I don't really deserve to even.."

"Look, stop worrying about what you 'deserve' and let's focus on what's good for you. You've built this up into some big dramatic event, right? Probably about half the time you imagine it'll be the biggest disaster possible, and then you're traumatized at a totally hypothetical event! It needs to happen so you can see it's no big deal, one way or the other." She offered the nearest Gemma a hand. "If nothing else, the fact you've saved or help save his life a couple of times gives you something to talk about. C'mon." She took it after a second, and let Light get her back on her feet. The other one pushed herself up.

She brushed off her clothes nervously. "B-but I...with what I just did, how...?" she half-muttered.

"You know, I'm pretty sure he'll understand at least as much as I do. If not, okay then. At least you'll know. And maybe it even is your fault in that case, but there's more fish in the sea, right?"

"..Y, yeah..."

Minus walked slowly closer; Plus looked around, her ears twitching slightly. "Why am I not hearing any news cars, or...anything?"
"Well, campus is closed and even folks who would be here anyway have a pretty good reason not to be, so nobody close enough to hear all that noise I guess. It might also have something to do with the illusion of absolutely nothing happening that I put above us right when I got here."
"Y-you've been—" "—this whole time?!"

Battle Vixens! - 19

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---

Episode 19: The Planning Stage

"She thinks what?!"
"Yeah, that's what I thought," said Amory.

"How can—we're not even—I mean, I'm a guy for one thing!"
"You don't exactly look like one right now," Rory pointed out. "Pardon me, I'm gonna go talk to the news." She headed outside.

"Ugh, I wish I'd known that five minutes ago!"

Light sighed, looking at the door for a moment. "I could track her, find where she went—I've done it before—but she really doesn't want to see me again. I got that much. Anyway, if I did that I might accidentally unmask her, and that would probably make her even angrier with me."
"Also, you need to check on Ning," said Clark.

"Why, what happened?"

"Another monster attack," said Amory. "We got two today. Someone else calling themselves Dawn helped her kill it, but she looked pretty wiped out a minute ago."

"Well, now I just feel terrible." She paced around. "We had two attacks and I didn't fight in either of them, one of our potential allies specifically hates me and there's no way to tell her she why shouldn't, and—I don't know, anything else?"

"You didn't meet the other newcomer," Clark suggested as if trying to be helpful. "Actually, the report said she's from the next city over, so there's no telling why she was even there."

"Alright. I guess I'm going to see if she told Ning anything else before any new disasters pop up."
"Seems like a good idea. Do you know where Mr. Nelson's shop is?" said Clark. "It looked like she was pretty close to there, so holing up inside for a bit would make the most sense."
"You know, I might have an idea," said Light, thinking of the odd stopover Ning had made just after robbing the bank; not that store exactly but it would probably be close. "Tell me anyway."

After giving the directions: "Right, I need to go back to that room for more 'testing'."

"You gonna shoot for another fifty? You already look worn out," said Amory, concerned.

"No, I'm pretty much done. But we need a pretense of finishing up. I suspect we'll join you after that if there's anything worthwhile to discuss." Clark changed back, and walked out of the room into the hall, headed back.

"What do you think, should I guard him until Rory's done outside?"
"I really think he'll be fine, but as soon as you don't something horrible will happen. Don't tempt Murphy."

"Yeah, okay. Let's go after him."

---

Once Light was gone—really gone, she appreciated that she didn't just go invisible and stop to watch or something, not knowing Gemma could see right through it—Plus spoke Gemma's phrase and Minus disappeared, leaving behind just Emma. She felt..badly winded, but with some stretching and poking it became immediately clear that Minus's injuries hadn't "merged" into her whatsoever. She could've saved all that pain by just turning into one person for a couple of minutes.

Then again, Amory would've seen the real her. That was...unacceptable right now. She took a slow, tired walk the rest of the way to the garage to drive home in silence and probably sleep another twelve hours, until her body was so sick and tired of sleeping that it just wouldn't anymore. What was happening? Why was she starting to say things she didn't mean to say aloud? It was usually so easy to control the two bodies separately, together, simultaneously—why couldn't she control her expressions, or her words, just then?

About halfway to the apartment, at a stop sign, she forced herself to make the connection. It wasn't that she wasn't in control of both bodies, it was that she wasn't sure what she wanted to do or say, and somehow that came out differently for each body. Always opposites—Plus was acting the way Emma would normally act in that situation, keeping as much inside as physically possible, so Minus, of course, blurted everything out like an idiot. It almost felt good, in a way. At least, it did when she didn't think too hard about the consequences.

She had half-warned, half-threatened Light. What was she going to think about Gemma after that? Would she tell Amory about it? Emma wasn't sure where or when Light had suddenly appeared in the hospital; she had been focused on Amory while warning him about the attack and then run off with Rory afterward. Her concentration had been pretty far split toward keeping Plus alive and the hospital not-crashed-into with just the bare minimum for the other body at the time. Think, think...Amory had left the apartment with his roommate. There was only one car they had used, apparently both going to the same place. Obvious conclusion anyone halfway intelligent would have made five minutes ago: Light was his roommate. So they were..already living together. Maybe 'enjoying' the fact that he could turn into a girl.

Emma felt as if she was going to burst into flame for a moment; it passed. She tried to remind herself that she didn't have any right to be angry in this situation; it was her own stupid fault. Right? She had just been too slow, like usual. But at the same time, this made a second time her actions alone had saved him; even Light admitted to that. Light was really...she was...

The walk from the garage into her apartment, which was thankfully absent of her roommate for the moment, was silent. The crossed, scrambled, confused wires in her head that had made her speak in a confusing, contradictory manner were hard at work fighting to get a thought the entire way through to having words for it. The fundamental contradiction hit her once she was standing just inside, turning around after locking the door.

She wanted to kill Light, but she did not want Light to die.

The former had been building ever since the realization that it was a name; the latter had been established in the very brief moment of conversation with her. Emma had never wanted to kill someone before, in her entire life. She had never felt something like this, and it terrified her. The worst part was that who she wanted to kill was an impossibly good person, a better person than she had any hope of being. The act she was contemplating, if successful, would make the entire world a worse place.

Somehow, Dawn had seen this in her...eyes, or her tone of voice, or—something, within a minute of meeting her. That stranger's advice had been to go ahead and do it, but limit how stupid she was going to be. You can't take killing a person back. You can apologize for all kinds of horrible things and a good enough person might even be able to forgive you, but a corpse is incapable of forgiveness.

Another worst part—there seemed to be a lot of those—was that she now knew exactly where Light lived. If the part of her that really wanted Amory's roommate dead won the war in her head eventually, it would be so easy to just wait until a time they were both asleep and do it. She couldn't let that happen. Somehow, this needed to be dealt with as soon as possible.

Emma took a moment to clear her head, taking a few more steps into the apartment. A plan started to form while her mind reached back to something she hadn't been paying that much attention to at the time. Clark, Rory's husband, had healed her. Even now, without having watched it all that intently, she could clearly remember how it worked. Possibly because it had been used on her, so she understood it from the inside instead of just having to watch it happen and work out what was happening.

She split herself again, Minus wincing from the pain of the bruises still there. The way the healing worked was a little strange; it wasn't some kind of physical manipulation at all. It was more like, it pulled something out of the person that was already there, amplified it a little bit, and put it to work. Plus could do this, but felt exhausted in a strange, non-physical kind of way. Using Rory's trick to put what little there still was in the other body to work, she tried to "heal" that. Minus instinctively picked up Plus's wrists and concentrated; a white aura flared around her for a second, and she felt vaguely better.

Then it was Plus's turn. She held her hands up to the highest-ranking bruise in terms of how much it hurt, and gently pulled, pushed, coaxed. After a bit she got a weak bluish glow around it and it hurt less. This process was repeated a few more times, and on removing Minus's shirt it was clear that there was just minor bruising left.

Both of her were exhausted after that; it was time to possibly eat something and then have a small coma. But there was one other thing she hadn't tried before now. Instead of the original body saying her phrase, Minus said it. And...to her surprise, Emma found herself still in Minus's position, watching Plus disappear. Her body morphed down to Emma's usual appearance, complete with glasses, and her shirt was still off; the bruises were still there even! She stared at this in disbelief for a moment before beginning to understand.

There was no original. Gemma was Gemma. Plus and Minus were Gemma's two bodies, equally valid. When they needed to go back to being Emma, she took the place of the one who spoke. Saying her phrase again, it appeared that Plus's body popped out instead, confirming the idea. It made a strange kind of sense; she wasn't one body and then another extra one, she was two bodies.

On top of making sense, it had a nice advantage: If she wanted, she could spread her two selves out pretty far, then make both appear in one place by just re-merging and separating real quick. It would be convenient if she ever needed to watch for disaster in two different places at once and be at full strength to deal with it in whichever place it actually appeared, or something like that. In theory she could hide one of herselves somewhere convenient and just teleport the other one in. A body still needed to travel to wherever she wanted to be, but only one, and it could be at as convenient a time as she wanted.

Right: Also, if one body was injured she could enjoy being not injured by merging into the one that wasn't. This was an advantage she was pretty sure other people with powers didn't have a match for. On that note, she was exhausted and would be starving, so it was time to go back to normal and shove something down her throat before collapsing into bed. And then the half-formed plan in her head could finish forming when she wasn't taking twenty minutes to realize the obvious. She was going to be very stupid tomorrow, but if things went well, not too stupid. It just had to work...

---

---

"I'm really sorry I wasn't there to help."
"It's..alright." Ning was sitting in a folding chair in the back room of her store, with her two guests standing up. "I learned something: I actually do 'recharge' from absorbing lightning."

"How'd you get a chance to test that? An electro-squid?" said Light.

"No, I...I was tired, and my first instinct was to do this," she summoned her sword and pointed it vaguely upward, "and strike it from the sky. Felt better right away, buut, it was kinda temporary."

"You could probably pull from the power lines or electric sockets too, right?" said Amory.

"Maybe? Probably, but..I think I would burn the building down if I tried."

She dropped her arm, letting go of the sword so it disappeared again. "Even though it's not leaking out of me anymore, I still feel like I have no real control over my power. I'm terrified I'm gonna hit someone nearby every time I really let it loose. To be honest, it was...kind of a huge risk I took when I stunned the policewoman, I wasn't sure I could keep it weak enough to not just..."

"Well, I guess we're lucky about that, then," said Light, crossing her arms for a second. Ning looked briefly like an ashamed child, which reminded Light she was an adult so her own expression softened again.

"I don't get why your powers would be that hard to control. It's not like that for anyone else we've met. I mean, for me it's just.." she waved a hand and easily made some light dance around in a complicated fashion for a couple of seconds. "...easy."

"Maybe it's just the nature of electricity, or especially lightning I guess?" said Amory. "It's not really feasible to try and control where lightning's gonna strike, the best we can do is make some things more likely to be struck and stay away from them."

"Yeah, but on the other hand we have tamed lightning," said Light. "I mean..." She waved at the lightbulb in the room, some of the electric sockets. "I wonder if hauling around some copper wire would help..."
"The really bad thing about this is I can't even practice, at least not anywhere there's the smallest chance of someone coming by or something getting set on fire...which is mostly everywhere. It's just too big of a risk."
"Well, I'm glad you're okay at least. Wish Dawn had stuck around long enough to thank her, too."

"Oh!" Ning's ears perked and quivered slightly as she abruptly sat up, apparently remembering something. "She had a message for you. Or—really, mostly just a phone number."

"Huh. Whose?"

---

Rowan Shepherd was sitting in his apartment again after a long day. The bruises were almost entirely gone, and he'd slowly learned to encourage them to heal faster, what his limits were. There was some rapid-fire tactical coordination he'd had to help with that afternoon, when nearly twice as many mist monsters as usual showed up in the city. The story seemed to be the same everywhere, like the enemy—whoever they were—were ramping up their assault. All of their known fighters were alive but exhausted after this one; it would prove a pyrrhic victory if they were going to have to face as much or more tomorrow. At least he would be able to be one of the ones fighting now.

The news reports suggested Don (or maybe it was Dawn in that form) had succeeded in making contact; there was a lot of evidence that the purple-haired young woman had frequent contact with the one called Light. So he was sitting next to his phone today, as long as it took, until the call came.

It didn't take too long after the report that Don was on his way back. He picked up a call from a number he didn't know. "Rowan Shepherd, hello."

"Hi, this is Light. I'm calling from Rory Quinn's phone at their house, for the record."
"I'm glad to hear you got the message," he said.
"Yeah..about that, how do I know you're you? The way of getting your number to me was kind of indirect."

"Would you recognize my other voice? Listen." He spoke his phrase, and shifted like flowing waters, back to a blue-haired girl. Curiously, her clothes reshaped into some light blue pajamas with a pattern of pink fish all across them. After taking a moment to be mildly confused and prod at the attire, she said, "Here, this is still me. Is this approaching sufficient proof?"

"Um.." There was another voice just out of hearing range of the other phone. "Yeah, just to be sure, say something you said the other day. Like: 'You know something about the robbery two days ago'."

"You know something about the robbery two days ago. Someone with abilities matching yours was involved in a later, related incident," she said, continuing with the next sentence as further evidence. They were probably the only two people who heard that the first time around.

"Okay, that's—yeah, I believe you. So, your friend said something about coordination?"

"Correct. Well, to begin with I wanted to apologize for your treatment when we first met. I wasn't thinking clearly, and I know that is no excuse."

"We, uh...have some reason to think the powers make people slightly crazy, in a way. It's—you know, just don't shoot at me again and I think we'll be good."

"I should also thank you for saving my life. Are you aware of what happens to people who are eaten by them?"

"Yeah...saw some of that on the news."
"I am immensely grateful for your sparing me that fate, at great risk to yourself." Rowan leaned back, crossing her legs instinctively. "I've been brought on to a team focused on dealing with the present crisis. We've been taking people put into comas that way to a secure facility, but none have awakened as of yet."

There was a slightly longer pause. "Listen...she...you know who I mean?"
"It would really help if she'd bothered to introduce herself. At the moment we're using the nickname 'Giver'."
"Yeah—I dunno if you know this yet, but she makes some kind of personal visits to people's dreams sometimes. At least, she has to mine."
"The night after my powers were gained, I was visited too. You're the first person to corroborate," Rowan said, feeling slightly excited about the news; it didn't really show in her voice.
"Okay, good. Last night I got a chance to ask her what we can do to help the people in comas. She gave kind of a roundabout promise that help would show up eventually. I'll try and remember exactly how it went..."

"Hold on a moment." She leaned forward, picking up a pad and a pen from the table in front of the couch. "Go ahead."

"...I see. Do you know what she meant about the powers being tied to..?"
"We have...a theory. It's not a very comfortable one, if it's right. Uh, this is what I meant about the powers possibly making us crazy," said Light. And then explained the theory and some of the evidence she had, though there was probably more.

"This may tie into some of what I've felt while in this state," Rowan suggested.

"Yeah, you do talk kinda..I'm not sure how to describe it. Like, way too calm, except for when you were angry you just suddenly were really angry. You didn't sound like that when you first picked up, either."

"I have indeed noticed it. I seem able to stop and speak normally with enough effort, but it's a difficult habit to break for some reason. However, it's been more beneficial than harmful, so my superiors have encouraged me to not fight it too hard. I suspect that possessing powers tied to someone else's identity and desires is what causes it, based on your theory. We'll get to work on seeking more evidence for or against it, and I will get back to you on it later, if it's all right to leave messages at this number?"

More talking away from the phone. "Um, yeah, I think so."

"Thank you. There are some further matters, regarding coordination. I think I should tell you that your local law enforcement is well aware of the events of last Saturday, or at least a reasonable approximation of them. In view of the circumstances, and with some encouragment from the group I'm working for, they won't be pressing any kind of charges. Not ever. I would appreciate it if you would pass that on to whom it is most relevant."

"Oh. I, I see. Yeah, okay."
"You didn't think they were just incompetent, did you?"
"Nooo, honestly we mostly stopped thinking about it entirely once we started having to deal with the monsters and the possibility of more people with powers showing up to try and kill us..."

"That is understandable."

"So, thank you. Also thanks for sending Dawn, she kinda saved Ning's life probably."

"Light, the group I'm working with feels it's best not to behave as too much of an authority in this situation, for a number of reasons both practical and moral. We have been steadily reaching out to groups or known leaders of groups that have formed across the US, merely asking for a kind of pact of alliance. We don't come into each other's towns to attack and kill for more powers; we stop chaotic behavior like killing and looting in exchange for some measure of forgiveness of such behavior in the past. And if someone does attack, irrespective of these pacts, then anyone and everyone available will come to help fight back and make that person pay. The evidence I have in front of me strongly suggests that you aren't one to cause chaos or start unnecessary fights in the first place."

"Yeah, but, I dunno if I speak for everyone. There's at least one of us around here I don't really even have a way to contact right now."

"That's alright. If you can convince at least the people you do have contact with to agree to this, it would be good enough. Either way, if you need help for any attack or intrusion, you can call this number. I will do my best to send help, or to come myself. Consider it personal gratitude, or an extension of the apology if you want."

"..Thanks, I'll keep it in mind." Of course, Light was thinking about the travel time making the offered help moot in such an emergency. But there had been a few successful support efforts so far, so it wasn't completely outlandish.

There was some more talking on the other end, for almost a full minute. "Well, the Quinns and Ning like the agreement just fine. I think you can consider us in on it. Also, we—well, at first just me, found something else out about the rules for our powers," said Light. "On Saturday night was the first time she visited me—the uh, Giver—to explain: Fighting someone, winning where you could kill them, and then not killing them, teaches the winner the loser's phrase." A brief interruption from someone else present. "Key phrase, whatever, you know what I mean. It gives the winner control over the loser's power, supposedly complete control. Rory and Clark found out that the same thing happens nonviolently if one person teaches the other their phrase. But with the whole 'total control' thing it's not really the kind of thing to do on purpose, you know, it's a lot of trouble."

"It puts the loser at a great disadvantage," Rowan intoned, mostly to herself. "...Light, I may have to pay you a visit soon."
"Sure...but, why, all of a sudden?"

"When she visited me, she told me there were two ways to gain full use of my powers. The first 'wasn't worth mentioning', the second was to kill someone and take their power. I...have denied it to myself, but a part of me was drawn by that temptation, how much more use I could be if I had their full extent. Even...that there might be someone I could 'get away with' killing to accomplish this. You helped me understand why that line of thinking was unacceptable."

"Uhm, I see what you're getting at but it's really the kind of thing to do with someone you really trust, like a lot. We've, barely met, right?"

"I can't think of any superior choice at the moment, and the sooner the better. You did save my life, besides which I am to understand you're already in possession of someone else's power, and handling it just fine?"
"Uh...y-yeah, I, guess?" Light had suddenly gotten very nervous. "I'm just, I'm worried about what happens if I go grabbing up a lot of power. She said—she said that collecting more gives a person more control, possibly even as far as mind control, and I, I don't know if that's something that has to be intentional to work or if it might happen unconsciously."
"I'm willing to take the risk. Light, with full powers I would be able to fight far more effectively against our enemies." The calm bled quickly out of her voice, the real desperation behind it showing through. "I may even be able to heal otherwise deadly wounds; it's that important. Please."
"Uugh...I don't really have much of a choice when you put it that way."

"Thank you. I'll call you back when I have an idea of a good time to show up."

---

"My...blessed ones. My...children."

She stood atop the stage, in full opulent royal garb, once again. The crowd seemed so very thin compared to that night nearly a week ago. "Look at you. Some have fallen, some have been taken out of the game...but many of you conquer, fight, and survive. That is who I speak to tonight, and I am proud of your efforts so far."

"I have some good news for you." She smirked. "Our enemy has overexerted itself today. Tomorrow, it will not be able to attack. So you have a free day: To rest, to plot, to...expand your territory. In time you won't need my help to see when a day like this has arrived, but I wanted to congratulate and reward everyone just this once. Have fun~."

As suddenly as it had begun, the shared dream was over.