"Yeah, that'd look cool... Part of it, like, I would kick this part out for a moment to use the inertia to help move some other part... I can probably get the twitchiness down, make it move more smoothly. There's always tradeoffs though? Making it look good will probably make it do less even with better materials?"

"There's the image tradeoff, though. You're a hero, now! People won't trust that if you look like the creation of some villain from a hedgehog cartoon."

"I'd like to think I was a hero before. I figured out a new villain - teleporting clones guy. I brought someone he stabbed to the hospital twice as fast as an ambulance could've. I rescued people from Leviathan and used my scanner - totally destroyed, by the way - to help other capes dogpile him."

"My point stands. Part of being a hero is people trusting you and feeling reassured by your presence."

"I guess so. Oh, I can't do anything with computers, by the way. My old suit was one hundred percent simple circuits, clockwork, and manual controls. If the translucent plastic techy look doesn't turn out well... Have you heard of 'steampunk'?"

"Yes, I have." Her expression is carefully neutral.

"I bet I could make stuff steampunk without compromising much."

"I'm not sure..."

"Well, the white plastic thing will work okay. I'm not looking forward to it but I can do it, if that's what you say I should do."

"You named yourself Vertigo, right? What made you choose that name?"

"Because when I make stuff that moves, it's all janky, like I said. I can go places, vertically. And I actually don't get vertigo as easy now, I think."

"Would that be hindered by the plates?"

"...I think I'd have to try it to be sure. I don't think so. The white would be a bit odd with the Vertigo look maybe?"

"Odd how?"

"Vertigo is... The Vertigo look needs to be imposing and slightly disorienting. White's not as much of that as neon green."

"...slightly disorienting. That's inspiring."

"I... Can't tell if you really mean that or you're being sarcastic? Sorry?"

"No, dear, not sarcastic at all. I'm having a vision in mind. Tell me more about it."

"Okay. So, I sort of think I have two specialties? One is electrical... Sorta. One is moving around. I can make things that climb, run, jump, leap, scuttle, change directions, whatever it takes. And it's - I heard in World War Two ships used dazzle camoflauge? Jagged lines everywhere. It didn't actually hide the ship, it just made it hard to tell where it is and where it's moving, so submarines would miss 'n stuff? Bright green, maybe red or blue, zig-zags... I don't know. Can you look up the pictures I put on PHO?"

She does.

The early ones are very much 'junkyard nightmare', but later versions find a jarring sort of aesthetic of neon lines and zigzags. Mostly once she started painting them.

"This has style. I think we can do better with better materials and paint, but it definitely has style."

"Oh, great! Yeah, if I had some really shiny paint... This is literally just spraypaint."

She politely refrains from grimacing in a way that makes it extremely clear that is exactly what she's doing.

"How much control exactly do you have over how these... protruding bits... move?"

Grimacing? She did something wrong didn't she.

"Hmm. They need to move a lot for it to work right. I can try to keep it down but that cuts performance big time. I can, like, move them behind a big panel instead of in front of it like we talked about? I could probably do multiple modes, not-creepy-mode and full throttle mode?"