Lorica finishes her boot, and polishes her other boot, and then it's time to go.

Glam makes their mask appear—not a boy anymore, good—and it's time to go. They float after her.

"...They swearing you in?"

"Well, thank you for ruining my speech!" he laughs. "Yes, I'm graduating today. We all knew this day was coming soon, I turned eighteen two months ago, and they wanted to announce it today at the fundraiser. They will also be announcing Lorica as the new Captain."

"Guess I should've seen that coming."

"Hey, that's cool, congrats!"

"Yes, congratulations! It has been a great honor working with all of you, and I hope I will see you all continue on to join the Protectorate with me."

"Got any captaincy tips?" Lorica asks, not commenting on the likelihood that she'll continue on.

"Oh, several, but I'm sure you know them. Play up your teammates' strengths, always take their input into consideration—especially when it comes to themselves and their own powers -, organize them in ways that will complement one another, always be there for them, et cetera."

"Thanks."

He puts his helmet on, then. "Everyone ready?"

"Yup!"

Glam nods.

Well, Glam thinks so! They look pretty excited about it.

Lorica gets promoted. Dauntless's speech is longish; hers is a brief assertion that she'll do her best to coordinate her team as well as he did and a perfunctory thanks for the various funders who make their mission possible.

"Such emotion. I'm smitten."

"You need further smiting? Since when?"

They laugh. "Okay, fair point. Still, you could've tried winning them over a bit, maybe saying one of those sexy things you say sometimes."

"I don't particularly want attendees to find me sexy, and also your tastes may be niche."

"Right. In other people those things inspire respect, I just happen to find a mind that could bend steel sexy." Pause. "It occurs to me I have not informed you of all the times I found something you said sexy and you may have an incomplete and unrepresentative picture of what I mean."

"Well, I suppose I wouldn't formally reprimand you with my shiny new captaincy if you were more complete in your picture."

"Well there's the obvious 'expressing very strong preferences about my behavior,'" they start. "But in general whenever you demonstrate having really thought about something, beyond what other people would normally do. When you're... I guess confident's too euphemistic and not quite what I mean." Air quotes: "'Badass'? Something like that? Competent. That's the word I'm looking for. You make me all melty inside when you're competent." Pause. "Also the thing you said on the boat about people only finding out that thing in case you disappeared and your bots suspected I was involved in that? Hit all the right buttons."

"So basically you like it when I act like I could squish you if I felt like it."