secret identity | Glowfic Constellation

imeanforever

Have some more pretty pictures, fans. Look at all these interesting flowers.

Meanwhile: isn't it curious that both gates settled instantly when she made them for Canary to run an errand? And a couple in the chain, too, although only a couple.

She wants a gate from her current tree to her address. She leaves a flattener in her tree, turned on, and uses one in the house -

Instant settle. That's interesting. A few more tiny test gates later and -

She emails Armsmaster. I think I can instant settle gates. Which would be useful against Endbringers if there were anywhere in particular you wanted to put them. I don't suppose the Birdcage is designed to contain them.

wormcan

"No, the Birdcage could not contain an Endbringer. Could not survive an Endbringer, even. You could try throwing it into the Sun, but I'm not sure which one would be destroyed. Send it to interstellar space, maybe. How far away can you make a gate?"

imeanforever

"From myself? Not far. I need to see the area, and ideally have looked at it sort of like I had to look at the mouse. From the other end of it? Arbitrarily, I just need a sufficient specification based on geographical sorts of things. What's interstellar space?"

wormcan

"You know Earth is round? Space is everything else. If you put the other end of the gate straight up, enough distance that it would take light ten billion years to cross, nothing is coming back from that very easily."

imeanforever

"It won't just... fall back down sooner or later?"

wormcan

"Normally no. It's far enough away that Earth's gravity isn't a concern. And if it did, it'd take long enough to be a victory for all intents and purposes anyway. Of course, given that it's an Endbringer, it might have some other trick up its sleeve."

imeanforever

"Okay, well, if you can be really really specific about where in space you want me to put the next one to show its face, I can make the Fairyland-to-space half of a box of six gatepairs... I might want a flying cape to put me up too high in Fairyland for wingbeats to move enough air, in Fairyland. I'll have to leave them open for them to work instantly on demand, because I have to be near a gate to open or close it. I don't want to strand some innocent fairy in space, so up past the region where it's possible for fairies to fly is best."

wormcan

"I can give you approximate positions relative to other stars, or even precise but large distances from things on Earth.
How wide can a gate be? The largest Endbringer is about fifty feet tall."

imeanforever

"Relative to stars should be fine. And I can make gates that big. If you can make sure the entire place is harmonically flat."

wormcan

"Can do. I already knew you'd need a flat battlefield for the radiation shielding, the scaled-up version will be done in plenty of time."

imeanforever

"Excellent. When can someone take me high up in Fairyland for that half of the gates?"

wormcan

"You need someone who can fly with a passenger and handle low air pressure, any other requirements? If not, you could go now. Aegis is on console duty, I'll have another Ward replace him."

imeanforever

"That and the sense not to go haring off into Fairyland. And they have to be able to carry me."

wormcan

"Yes, it is still Fairyland. I don't like the idea of asking a Ward I'm responsible for to go into danger unnecessarily. Opposing Endbringers isn't unnecessarily, but can you at least ensure no other fairies nearby?"

imeanforever

"I can look first, as when Alexandria came to carry the haws. Or I can just wait for someone else to be available. I don't fully understand either how children work or how people expect them to work so I'll have to defer to your judgment about whether it's appropriate to ask one. Oh, also, the Fairyland area will need to have a flattener that can hover in place long enough to keep the area flat until the attack has been and gone."

wormcan

"Several of the Wards are old enough to be able to make their own decisions—if not experienced enough to safely be independent capes—but the Wards are in part my responsibility. I have to make sure it isn't more dangerous than it needs to be.

Kid Win probably does have something lying around that can enable hovering, I'll ask."

imeanforever

"Hovering in low air pressure. For a longish time. ...Also, I'm not sure I have the reaction time to close the Earth ends of the gatebox as quickly as I'll have to if it turns out any of them can turn around from space. I just googled 'stars' and apparently they're like suns? Are there any stars you don't care about as much as you care about the sun? That might be more effective. Unless it just means they turn around and are very much on fire."

wormcan

"If a designation is enough to open gates to it, try" he pauses, presumably looking up a good candidate, "fifty kilometers above Cygnus X-1. And do not put anything important through the gate under any circumstances.

The reaction time is more of a problem. Endbringers are faster than they look, sometimes much faster. If we pair you with Velocity he can speed yours up ten times or so."

imeanforever

"The name of the star is not enough. Can I get a picture or at least an artist's rendering of it? A map of nearby other stars? I have okay reaction time to start with; ten times might or might not make me capable of shutting Endbringers out."

wormcan

"They can be more than ten times as fast as normal people, but you only have to close a gate. It's worth trying. You should place an equivalent trap around the exit point in Fairyland, so if you only have time to close one gate it doesn't loose an Endbringer on your world.

It's a black hole, not a star. Enough matter close enough together that, due to physics Fairyland almost definitely doesn't have, space bends and nothing can leave.
I can give you a map of the nearby stars" one projects from his helmet, and simultaneously appears in her email, "but 'nearby' is measured in distances that dwarf continents. The same applies to an artist's rendering." And one of those.

imeanforever

"Can I get a scale?"

wormcan

"This star is 135 light-years away, the target is six thousand in the same direction." It's a three-dimensional map, and the few thousand light-years cover a small portion of it.

imeanforever

Promise peers at it, takes some notes. "I think I can hit that."

wormcan

"Good. We are moving, relative to the destination, is that going to throw you off?" A blown-up image of the Earth and its sun and how they're not stationary appears.

imeanforever