...very unseasonable rains can be seen in the distance from the shores of Acapulco.
The Brockton Bay Protectorate starts organizing volunteers to be transported or teletransported in batches to it. Heroes, rogues, villains, anyone's assistance is appreciated. A rendez-vous point is set for non-Protectorate capes wishing to volunteer, and Protectorate capes are informed of the situation via communication devices.
"So there's a seagull, you could stick with a theme or you could do a whole menagerie, throw in a polar bear and a, I don't know, can you do an air-breathing levitating swordfish?"
"They'd probably pick at a dead one. Come on, why can't the swordfish fly? It is here at all by your sufferance, surely it can ignore gravity."
It does.
"Thank you."
Both of them glare at the swordfish before the copy lets it go. It insists on obeying gravity.
"Whyyyyyy."
It is now a flying fish.
It is also very dead.
"I would be much obliged if you were not dead," original says. It is no longer dead. It is flopping. "What are you even doing, you have a breathing device in your gills." It stops flopping.
Lorica giggles. "There you go. Okay, does 'throw swordfish at people' sound like a good backup skillset? Shaker-blaster can lean on the tinkery thing and hang out with me a lot, Master Swordfish can not happen to mention out loud anything as sophisticated as a "breathing device" and maybe come up with a flashy or hidden way to summon the critters to begin with and mostly pair with other people?"
"You didn't mean 'throw swordfish at people' literally, did you? Because that in itself is a pretty crappy power."
"I didn't mean it literally. If I were you I'd do a lot of snakes - nonvenomous snakes - for nice nonlethal capture, and ride around on a dragon."
They look at each other then at Lorica and then conspicuously do not say anything.
"It is not very wild."
"Let's not weird her out further, yes?"
"Let's not."
"Having two of me for some reason makes me want to do a lot of my internal post-processing out loud and I probably shouldn't be doing this."
"I mean, I can't claim to mind, it's fascinating, but it's up to you."
They look at each other, then at her, then at each other again, then at her. "I think you probably would mind if it was completely unfiltered."
"Yes, but it isn't. That, you should do on your own time."
"Anyway, if you like the 'animals' theme and want to go with it as your second powerset you should have a name ready unless you want Yates coming up with something for you."
"Well, not necessarily, but it'd still be funny."
"We should probably not do things just because they're funny."
"It's not a terrible idea but you might have to not swear in if you're going to tweak the bureaucracy's nose like that."
"Which. I probably will not do. I had been considering it but unless the rest of my year is absolutely amazing and fantastic beyond my hopes and dreams..."
"...both Yates and Piggot have managed to make it pretty unlikely that I'll want to stay."
"I don't blame you. Okay, so you can do flying swordfish, if anybody outside the org gets suspicious about how they do things I will claim to have made you accessories, and other you does shaker-blaster inanimate objects, and plants you can leave for Drupe because come to think of Yates won't like plants being your thing too and somebody would probably have to move."
"I don't mind leaving plants to Drupe, and having two layers of misdirection about my power sounds like something that will play out interestingly in the end."