To Glam's continued delight, more kissing sessions happen on the following days (when they're feeling like a boy). They haven't met her parents as her official boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever yet, and don't mind it too much.
News about Purity's escape surprises exactly no one, but the Protectorate's reputation suffers a blow because of the attack; after all, the heroes were beaten on their home turf. The PHO forums are abuzz, though rumors of Glam's death at the hands of Hookwolf (probably started by same) prove largely unfounded.
And Glam really should get to their webisodes and start building a steadier rep. And that's (one of the reasons) why they're in Lorica's workshop a few days later.
"So what should I do? I haven't posted anything since Purity, should probably make this more of a habit."
"Didn't you have a plan scheduled? Leviathan footage, there's Behemoth footage now, interspersed with more show-and-tell kind of stuff."
"Not a plan, more like a list of things? And I'm thinking those two should maybe be used so I could exemplify the gun I'm about to show them, and then I show them the gun and it shoots stuff. Oooh, aah, such an impressive, except it needs upgrades, yadda yadda, it gets stronger over time."
"You were going to disintegrate a fake boat wreck."
"Mmhm. Right. Can Legend's lasers disintegrate a fake boat wreck? Or, a single beam, perhaps if they fork he can."
"I don't know, he doesn't have a webseries."
"Right," they sigh. "It's mostly 'cause my laser wasn't doing significantly more damage than he was, against Behemoth, and I don't know what an equivalent amount of damage to a boat wreck would be."
"Just disintegrate it instantly, you can't get much better than that. Say it's new since the Behemoth fight."
"Won't that be too unbelievable, though? I mean, if people know that I can conjure giant boat wrecks it wouldn't be unthinkable of me to fake it for nefarious reasons."
"Hmmm. Okay. Cut the wreck neatly in half. Aim for laceration instead of drilling next time."
"Oooh, yes, laceration's fun. And if I make it a really neat thin-looking laser with appropriate noise effects... Hmm, by the way, how do we deal with that part of it? The no-one-pays-attention-during-Endbringer-f
"It's - not something you've got a lot of flex on. We're already flirting with official reprimand about chatter. I wonder if you could get civilian help? They're as good as capes expectation-wise - I'm assuming - and you've got more leeway to warn them about things like 'cover your ears' or 'don't look directly at the beam' or whatever cover you have that day."
"But most civilians are pretty busy trying to get to shelter or actually in a shelter, I'm not sure they'd spare any more attention than capes do."
"Yeah. And there's all kinds of restrictions about live feeds of Endbringer fights, they're considered demoralizing, and it's absolutely out of the question for Simurgh fights not that this matters for your purposes..."
"I mean, maybe the best way to do it is to actually become as notorious as Eidolon so that people actually do recognize me and do expect me to do incredible stuff."
"Notorious is not the word you're looking for."
Pause. "Famous? Uh, what's a word that means what I mean? Well-known for my ability to kick butt and take names?"
"Respected? I don't know if there's a single word that's exactly it."
"Well. Anyway, yeah, be that. I wonder if the best idea mightn't be actually staying in the Protectorate and working up the ranks."
"It's a solid default, if you don't have a better idea."
"Mmhm. Well, the way to achieve such status would be actually doing status-worthy things. Helping catch Purity certainly didn't hurt, but she's too local. I'd need to do something really incredible, like taking out the Nine or something like that. That would definitely bring me up there in—we really need a word for that."
"Notoriety?"
"Didn't you just say that's not a good word?"
"Notorious isn't, because it means you're famously bad, but notoriety doesn't have that connotation."
"If you say so."
"If you don't believe me look it up!"
"'Course I do. Anyway, not about to go chasing after them, even if they are down a member. Maybe wait until they're down to seven, or even six."
"I don't recommend it. I mean, I don't know how Jack's survived this long, his power is having knives, but that doesn't mean that if you kill him the Siberian won't hunt you down."
"...right. Her."
"Right, her. I mean, I'm tempted to assassinate Jack and anyone else relatively easily assassinated anonymously by drone, turn in footage to the Protectorate so I can collect the bounty, etcetera, but it's no good for you if nobody knows it was you."
"Mmhm. And I mean, if Jack really is the linchpin of that group I'm not quite sure I want to see what happens to the others when he's removed. Even if the Siberian doesn't come after me, she, like the Endbringers, could reasonably cause much more damage than she actually does."
"Yeah, that's one of the reasons I haven't done it yet."
"We really do need to figure out a way to stop her. I wonder if throwing her into the Sun would work."
"Throwing her how?"
They shrug. "Dunno. That really is a very broken power."
"And there is a point at which you have to ask 'at what cost to the Sun'..."
"Yes. Also that."
"Although just getting her into space would do the important part, namely keeping her away from everybody."
"Mmhm." Pause. "I wonder if I could conjure a copy with her power."
"Uh. Wow."
"That. That would be. A pretty good thing to do, actually. If it were possible. I... did manage to create a copy that mimics a Breaker power of turning into a super-hard statue."
"Okay, so - try it."
"...what should we test it on?"
"...Good question. I don't have anything around I would like annihilated. Maybe have it beat up some other copies so you're in the right frame of mind and then take it out to the boat graveyard."
"The... kind of beat up that distinguishes the Siberian from other Brutes or Breakers tends to be the more gruesome kind."
"I don't mind if you get imaginary blood on the floor, I can clean it up by glaring at it."
"I'm so glad you're not sentient," says Glam right before the Siberian copy pinches the other copy's hand off.
"Like butter," Lorica pronounces, glaring the blood out of existence.
"Yeah. It's cheating, doing it with my copy, though." The copy is not expressing signs of pain—it is just passively bleeding. Until it's dispelled, blood and all.
"But your power works on the subverbal level. So why shouldn't it work? Put your copy in something that won't let the stripes distress the neighbors and let's have it walk through some boat wrecks like they're not there."
The copy is now wearing something that won't let the stripes distress the neighbors. "...you know, if this works, we don't actually have an excuse not to go kill the Nine."
"Yes we do. If your unstoppable force meets their unstoppable force for all we know the result is 'the fight goes on until she squints and in the meanwhile there's a crater where some innocent Midwestern farm town used to be'. But if you can produce tame Siberians on demand you just jumped ridiculously in Endbringer-related combat effectiveness, fuck guns you have a Siberian just have her go give them a hug."
"Well, I mean, if I can up and believe a Siberian copy into existence there's nothing saying I can't believe something better than the Siberian into existence. Unless the Siberian's the very top of what's possible when it comes to unstoppable forces and immovable objects. But in any case, yeah, Siberian hugs."
"The Siberian's recognizable. I mean, maybe you should make her bigger or something so she can be seen for farther away, but everyone knows the stripes."
"Yeah. I wonder what the capes would actually do if they saw the Siberian at a fight like that." Pause. "What would Jack do if he saw something like the Siberian fighting an Endbringer on the news?"
"Nnnnno idea. But like I said there usually isn't much recording going on."
"Sure, but I don't think this news could be kept silent, especially if she does as much damage as I want her to, i.e. enough damage that Leviathan decides to give up the attack after ten minutes."
"Yeah. So then you might get a fight with them whether you liked it or not. And the Siberian could just go around your copies and kill you, whereas you don't really have a win condition like that."
"So I don't ever, ever let her know where my real self is. I mean, there really is no reason why I would, even the binoculars are too large a concession, I could watch what the shoulderbot perceives from a secure, remote location while a copy has all my powers and then some because I can actually perceive them."
"Yeah, I should upgrade your shoulderbot so it's better equipped for that but it could do it even now."
"Mmhm. Hmm..." Think. "Should the Siberian copy be something known to be, you know, mine? Or a secret weapon?"
"Good question. Does it matter why people believe in it, does it have to be by way of you or can it just be 'that sure looks like a Siberian copy'?"
"The latter, I'm pretty but not wholly sure."
"I'm not sure what a good way to test that is."
"Well... maybe I make something that's supposed to do a thing, like not a floating ping-pong ball but maybe something like a remote-controlled toy car or something, and then we tell someone else what it's supposed to do while I'm not around nor mentioned at any point, and then we see if their being around makes it do whatever-it-is better?"
"Or you could make a robot that looks like one of mine..."
"...and then what?"
"And then a real one can say what 'they' are doing and they do a thing. It's a little more controllable than people's expectations of remote control cars."
"How would that measure another person's belief in it?"
"Have it and the real bot try to pick up a thing that they couldn't lift if the fake one was the chassis it looks like?"
"Ooh, okay, yeah, that sounds good. But it should be something I can't believe it into lifting on my own."
"Do you have to know how heavy it is? If it's a box filled with parts or something and I know how heavy it is but you don't, does that mean you can't get your bot to lift it, or do we need to do something more complicated?"
"Well, like you said earlier, it's subverbal. I'm pretty sure if I don't actually know how heavy it is, how heavy I expect it to be will have a role to play there. Not a simple role, though, because I will also be taking that fact into consideration, there'll be a short feedback loop."
"Well, we make sure you can't get it to lift the same box when nobody else is watching, then have someone else watch? And compare between whether you think they're watching or not etcetera."
"Yep. And then if all goes right, the Endbringers will be getting Siberian-hugs!"
"Mm-hm. It's probably too early for me to augment the bot to do video filtration so you don't get contaminated by the Simurgh through the feed, isn't it..."
"Um, I dunno, I'm outsourcing all my Simurgh-related reasoning to you. Also can you even do that, how does it work, what's it do?"
"Uh, I was imagining the robot would show you your own copies but edit out the Simurgh and her activities except insofar as you needed them to aim. In real time."
"Mightn't she take that into account, though?"
"Yeah, but, like, you know the fact that she exists, etcetera, we don't have a complete information vacuum. Narrowing it down to really low bandwidth is the compromise position that lets us get anywhere."
"True. Well, you could work on it, if you like, but I think we should still probably stick to the no-engaging-the-Simurgh-until-her-older-b
"Yeah. And it won't take me that long to write, pure software's firmly my comfort zone and pure software that tells my software how to decide to do things is even more so."
"Mmhm."
"It's more likely to be her next. But maybe it'll be Leviathan again and you can get your stripey copy's rep established."
"Yeah. I just wish we knew more about her."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, a lot of the stuff we talk about is just assumptions, really. Like, we don't know if she can read minds or not, we don't know how far into the future she can plan stuff, we don't know the extent to which her scream can affect anything, whether she even needs it. Leviathan's been around for eight years, Behemoth almost twelve, even if we don't know exactly why they're holding back, whether it's some inherent limitation or what, we still know a lot more about them."
"Well, and they're less complicated. They might be holding back but they're probably holding back on the same theme; the Simurgh's theme is farther-reaching."
"Exactly! And it's frustrating to try to plan around that."
"Very."
"Anyway, what should we do first, shoot a webisode or try to test the whether-belief-has-to-go-through-me thing?"
"I feel like there must be a better way to design the latter experiment and we have time until the next Endbringer. Webisode first. What do you need me for, though?"
"...nothing, really, I just enjoy your company."
"Well, you can sit in here with me while you work on it if you like but I'm going to be programming the bot and please don't have any of the projection screen in the shots."
"But first I should shoot it! I could explain the public face of my power on the first webisode, before actually cutting a boat in half?"
"Makes sense, yeah."
"Awesome!" They grab their shoulderbot so it's "looking" at them and ask, "Can you record?"
"Sure," says the bot. It hovers in front of them.
"Alright, camera, lights, action!" they say to themself. "Hi! I'm Glam. I'm a Brockton Bay Ward that joined about three months ago. I also caused quite a bit of damage against Leviathan and Behemoth in the past two fights! I'll publish some more footage of it later, but here you can enjoy a snippet of me making lizard butt burn." They grin at the camera, probably giving it some time to display the snippet they'll add when editing later.
Lorica's giggles are silent through her helmet filtration.
"So, the thing I can do is conjure things, things that do whatever I want them to do. This mirror reflects energy and light blasts. This is a seeking stun gun whose bolts follow its target. This is a golf ball. It floats." They conjure the named things, demonstrating the floating golf ball.
"The more I do something, the better it gets, and the more it can do, forever. When I invented this gun, it wasn't a seeking gun. And even if I don't do something, doing other things helps, too.
"The goal, here, is of course to kill the Endbringers. The plan: practice enough that I get to do that! So I'm gonna do that, and show you guys my progress, and keep fighting them, until they're dead and gone. Aaaand cut."
Lorica's mid-fugue, but the bot says in her voice, "Cute."
"Mmhm! I am that," they agree. "I'ma need to edit this and stuff, and then publish it. I'll go grab my laptop."
Shoulderbot: goes on shoulder.
Glam: goes back to their room. They return a few minutes later, with their laptop. "Send me the video?" they ask the bot.
Here it is!
Editing takes a while, and is fiddly work. They're not a software Tinker like Lorica, so they use various video and audio editing tools to make it look and sound good. They record a few parts again, changing phrasing or intonation or speed, and bring it all together.
"Do you want to wait until Lorica can watch before you publish? Do you want your own domain?" the bot asks.
...
"Uh. I haven't. Actually thought of a name for it."
"Glam dot com is taken," apologizes the bot.
"Yeah. That'd have been cool, but I'm not surprised. I think I'll wait for her to defugue to brainstorm."
"Estimate twenty minutes."
"Okay! What's she building, today?"
"She's going through my reactions to recent data sets and refining my algorithms based on that."
"That sounds cool! I'm kinda really curious about what your code even looks like."
"It's all in Lorica's own programming language."
"And that is kinda hot. Having invented a programming language, that is."
"It's pretty typical for software Tinkers."
"Maybe so, but I'm in love with this particular software Tinker, so. Hot."
"I'm telling her you said that," singsongs the bot.
"Please and thank you."
It giggles Lorica's giggle.
They hug the shoulderbot and wait.
Eventually Lorica comes out of fugue. She laughs when the bot relays the assessment that her programming language is hot.
"I gather it's told you?"
"Yes. The programming language, like the bot, still lacks a name, alas."
"Still hot. And speaking of names, I haven't actually thought of one for the webseries."
"Hm. Would you say it has a theme of any kind? A public one, I mean."
"Power testing? Power showing off? Practicing stuff so that it becomes good enough to murder Behemoth? I mean, there'll be that, and also commented footage of stuff."
"'Kay. Tone?"
"Me, probably. Light-hearted, somewhat whimsical—maybe you want to watch what I have so far?"
"Sure."
They grab their laptop and play the edited video.
"Okay, well, we've established that I'm not very good at naming things, but you could just go with calling the series 'Glam'."
"Glam dot com's taken, apparently. I would prefer Glam to be in the name or something, people looking my name up and finding the videos should be common."
"You can call the series Glam even if you can't get the domain."
"I gueeeeesssss. What would the domain name be?" They look at the robot. "What about Glam dot net?"
"Open," reports the bot.
"What's even on Glam dot com?"
"A redirect to a fashion magazine website."
"...hm. Could be worse. I wonder if they'd be willing to sell that domain."
"They bought it for several thousand dollars."
"Riiiight. Guess not. Yet, at any rate." Sigh. "Now even if I do get Glam dot net, or any other domain, there's the problem of actually designing the website. I'm terribly not very art... istic..."
"Me either," says Lorica. "Does it have to be fancy? You could just slap the videos up there, centered, most recent on top. Maybe publish an email if you want."
"Fancy's better, people will be more likely to want to watch it if it looks fancy. And two ideas occur to me: branding and Echo."
"I hear they've narrowed the candidates down to two for a new Branding person. And, yes, Echo, definitely talk to Echo."
"Two? Having a Branding person for ourselves would definitely help. Any idea when they'll pick?"
"Probably soon. Maybe within a day or two."
"Well, it can wait for that, then, I can release it next Saturday instead." Pause. "...I wonder if they'll react well to me, after the Yates incident."
"No idea."
Sigh. "Well, no use worrying about it now, and in the end this is their job."
"Yeah."
"I think I'm gonna go find something no one will miss and have the Siberian break it."
"Do you want me to come?"
"There are very few times when the answer to that question will not be 'yes.'"
"Are you making crude jokes, Glam?"
"I am making innuendos!"
"On a more serious note when I got sick of people making the 'I've had several hairs cut!' joke I started completely rephrasing my remarks on people's adjusted hairstyles, so don't overdo that kinda thing."
"Sorry," they laugh. "But innuendo or no, it was a true answer."
"All right, off we go then."
"Alright!" Pause. "...where? Boat wreck?"
"Seems like a reasonable choice."
After reaching a reasonably isolated spot and making sure no one was looking, Glam conjures a striped copy, appropriately covered. It touches the hull of a boat. "Here goes nothing," says original, and the copy pushes, causing the boat to get a hand-shaped dent.
What does not happen is the copy's hand going through the hull like it was made of butter.
"I don't know how to tell if this is a real limit or you not believing hard enough."
The copy shrugs, and tries again. Still no butter.
"Make a boat wreck, send the copy through it and straight into a real one?"
That's quite a large dent. But it is still just a dent.
"Well, that's frustrating."
"Yes. Yes it is. And it doesn't actually tell us whether it's believing hard enough or an actual limitation."
"There might not actually be a way to distinguish the two."
"Perhaps..."
"Perhaps?"
"What... What if I tried some form of hypnosis?"
"...This would mean I would have to learn how to hypnotize you, wouldn't it."
"Yes, that's probably the only safe way. Would you?"
"I don't know if I'd be any good at it, but I can look into it, I guess."
...
"What?"
"Um."
"What, Glam."
"I am. Kinda turned on by the idea."
"Well, that's unsurprising in retrospect."
"I hope that won't be a problem."
"No, I don't think so. Am I just going to keep discovering new details of what turns you on forever or does this bottom out somewhere eventually?"
"Well, there is a running theme here, right."
"Yes."
"Would it be a bad thing if new ways to apply it kept turning up?"
"Not necessarily."
"Good!"
"...I think we're done with the boats unless you want to take the footage of slicing one in half now?"
They think about it, but eventually shake their head. "Not feeling too inspired, I'll do that later."
"Okay." Back to HQ, then. "...I should probably mention that, like, I'm on board with the whole I'm in charge thing but it isn't actually a kink on my end? It's like, I basically think I should be in charge of everything and suppress this opinion when it's socially unacceptable. I don't know if that makes a difference."
"I'm fine with that," they say agreeably. "I count myself pretty lucky that you're even as on board with it as you are. Lucky, or perhaps terribly observant."
"Observant?"
"Well, there's always the possibility I on some level knew all along you'd be on board with it."
"I will have to work harder to tone down my socially unacceptable opinions."
"Yes. It wouldn't do to get me all hot and bothered in public like that." Pause. "Unless it would..."
"It wouldn't. And most people would have other reactions."
They laugh. "In any case, you can definitely be in charge of me. Well, I'll still have opinions about stuff and make decisions, but, you know."
"Yes, having opinions and making decisions is a recurring feature among my possessions."
"I want to kiss you so badly right now." Pause. "And other things."
"Too bad, we're outside. Wait."
They make a noise whose best written equivalent is probably between "hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" and "rrrrrrrrrrrrrr."
"Ooh, do you always make noises like that when you're impatient?"
"...maybe."
"Maybe? I have to check if I want to find out?"
"...mmmmaybe?"
"How informative."
They make the noise again.
"What?"
"My brain is going places," they moan. "And we are not."
"Better hurry home then."
They flail a little in the air. "Yes? Do let's?"
Lorica speeds up a bit flying through the air.
"I am positive you could be going faster than that!"
"Maybe I want you to make more impatient noises."
They do, at that, for a couple of seconds longer than the previous times.
"Excellent. Clearly you should spend more of your time in deprived torment."
They flip in the air, ending up upside down, and now the noise is something closer to 'hhnnnngggghhhhhhh.'
"What is it like in there."
"Where?" Still upside down.
"In your head."
"At this exact moment there are various images going through my mind, with the concept of distance and time making them pulsate, all surrounded by an affective halo of the reason behind all of those. And it may all be colored pink. And there's definitely an overtone of what can only be described as a very long series of exclamation points."
"...Well, that's vivid."
"I am pretty good at verbalizing what's going on in my head."
"I don't understand the part where it's pink, though. ...And may want you to specify some of the images."
"The pink is because I'm ridiculously in love with you. The images... do you want me to specify them now?"
"Is anybody listening?"
They're in the middle of the air going back to the HQ, so: "Probably not. I had just mostly been planning on suggesting them when they were more actionable. How much detail do you want?"
"Eh, start me off slow, virgin ears and all."
They crack up. "Hmm... alright. Well, all of the images start with you, me, a bed, and an absence of your armor or my costume."
"It's been done," she points out.
"Yes. Yes it has. And so has the next part, where shirts are gone. It starts branching off in a few directions from there."
"Pick your favorite."
"My favorite... That's actually pretty hard. Hmm, I guess the one where you actually use those things I suggested the first time."
"I don't actually know knots," she remarks.
They shrug. "They're imaginary. If I expect them to hold, they will. The blindfold would make an appearance there, as well."
"All right. I'm not sure I'm ever going to be super into the blindfold. I like how you look at me."
They squirm in the air a bit, making more noises, then clear their throat. "Well, we can not use the blindfold, or start with the blindfold and then remove it. The main appeal there was that I don't actually know how the next part would unfold, because. You'd be creative. While I was blindfolded and couldn't really anticipate anything."
"I'm worried you're overestimating my applicable inventiveness..."
Shrug. "The being-unable-to-anticipate-it part was most of it, even if I am. And. I am reasonably inventive, I could at some point suggest some things. Though, well, many of them actually go, uh, a bit further than we've gone. And. Are part of these images, as well. Because they're not exactly expectations of anything."
"Yes, I have heard the you-are-a-teenage-boy spiel."
"Right. Should I stick to images that I could reasonably expect to happen, or let my wildest dreams carry me?" Pause. "Probably not those, I'm pretty sure those will still take a long time."
"...What, how wild are they?"
"Um. That actually entirely depends on how wild I'm allowing them to be. And on more data about how our dynamics there will be than I currently have."
"Dynamics here meaning...? Hold that thought." Here is HQ.
There is HQ. Where do they go?
Glam's room, looks like.
Glam is clearly happy about this. There may be bouncing in the air.
And the door is closed and Lorica's helmet comes off and she stalks up to Glam until their back is to the wall and says, "You were saying?"
"Our dynamics." He clears his throat. "I meant mostly, like, what you're comfortable with. Like you said, not your kink, soooo..."
"So?"
"So my wildest dreams might be a bit wilder than you'd be completely comfortable with."
"Well, if my virgin ears start to bleed, you will know to back off..."
Sadde spends a few seconds processing this, his brain apparently having to reboot. "Well. Okay. Where were we... ah yes, I still had pants on. That. Would definitely not be a thing anymore."
"I'm not given to understand states of undress as a dynamic thing."
"No, indeed not, but there's some ground to cover before getting to that. The very wildest of the dreams would involve... implements. Other than ropes." They swallow. "Bearing in mind that these things vary from one time to the next, the images include stuff ranging from edging to... other forms of. Punishment."
"When I'm not wearing my helmet the bot can't look things up for me," Lorica says, shrugging out of the rest of her armor.
His eyes trail her body, and it's not like she's wearing anything more suggestive than jeans-and-a-t-shirt, but still. "Edging is when you bring me to the... edge... and then stop. In this case."
"...That's a weird thing to be into. On your end."
"I'm into weird things. We'd determined that already."
"Yes. Anyway. Punishment as in for a thing or as a general category of interpersonal mistreatment?"
"Either. Both. If the scene can give it something to be for that's best, but it's not particularly necessary, you know, it still being you."
"...So, punishment on trumped-up charges?"
"Mmmmm yeeees."
"Is it all corporal in nature or should I be forbidding you desserts too?"
"The corporal is mostly just an extension of the psychological. My thing here's about... power and control."
"That's not quite an answer on the dessert thing."
"Yes, on the dessert thing."
"I see." She's still standing very close to him, right up next to the wall. She has to look up at him, but she's managing to make it more appraising than anything. "Anything else I should know?"
He is very intimidated by her. "The edging was... the more vanilla end of it all. And there's, you know, more stuff that isn't quite covered by just punishment."
"I'm waiting."
He glances at the object that's on his bedside table and had not been there a second ago.
"I do hope you haven't gotten too far ahead of yourself in the expectation department. All we're doing is talking," she murmurs, smirking at him, after she has parsed its function.
That smirk causes more noises to be produced. "You did ask me not to limit myself to only what I could reasonably expect."
"Just checking. Anything else?"
"Variation?" A few more objects with similar functions appear. "I like variation. And there are many different ways of doing the same thing. But, hmmm, underlying it all, I think the power-and-control thing, plus the everything-pleasurable thing, probably cover it all. Anything else I explained would probably just be new applications and combinations of those things."
"All right. Shoo," she adds, waving at the objects.
They shoo.
"Where's my rope?"
That causes him to make more noises, and rope appears on his bedside table.
"Take your shirt off."
Shirt: is gone.
And then she ties his hands together behind his back.
Which causes him to shudder a bit.
"What's going on in your head?" she murmurs against his spine.
"A-at the moment pretty much just white noise. Well, maybe pink noise. Or maybe some other color. ...also the exclamation points. And. Wild imagination."
She kisses his shoulderblade and tugs him by his tied hands over to his bed and pushes him to flop thereupon.
The kisses cause more shuddering, and then he flops, looking up at her in what probably is the aforementioned way she likes.
He gets a kiss on the mouth and some hands roaming around in shirtless locations.
She's rewarded with more noises!
Hm. If she doesn't tell him what she's aiming for how hard is it to get him to swear? That might be an interesting benchmark.
That... pretty much depends on what she actually tries.
Nothing below the belt...
In that case it's a harder goal. Not that it's impossible, but, you know, she'll have to do some exploring.
She's feeling exploratory. And nibbly.
Ooh. Yes. Yes, she's on the right track. If she manages to surprise him, she'll draw a "Ssshiiiiiiit," though mostly she'll hear her name a lot. Both her cape name and her real name, though the former happens more often.
It might be surprising if she, say, decides to suddenly bite down rather hard on his ear, mightn't it?
Yes! Yes it might! There are both verbal and nonverbal expressions of surprise and appreciation.
"Was that a swear word?" says Lorica, mock-gasping.
"Nnnnggghhhooooo?"
"Was that," she says in his bitten ear, voice low, "a lie?"
He doesn't answer it, his throat is too busy producing non-word noises for him to.
"You're not answering me. You should answer me," she purrs.
"...yyyyes?"
"You lied to me. I'm hurt, Sadde. You should know better," she murmurs.
"'M sorry..."
"But are you sorry enough, I wonder?"
"Mmmaybe?"
"I'm just not buying it. I think you need to be a little sorrier." She has her hand on his waist. Her nails bite in suddenly.
He cries out, his body jolting and his back arching a bit.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes, please continue."
The nails drag up along his ribs and around to his back and rake down again.
His body contracts and he squirms against her nails, and the noises have a more distinct quality to them, now, involving more actual voice than before.
"You're squirming," she says. "Do I need more rope?"
There is more rope available on his bedside table if she wants it. He shrugs, looking like he'll accept whatever she decides, somewhat helpless in his binds.
And then more scratching. Simultaneously with the kisses. She likes kisses.
And oh, does he enjoy the scratching and the kissing. He returns each and every kiss as if it was the last, as if he was surprised and delighted each time a new one came and decided to make the most of it.
And he continues making quite interesting noises.
Everybody's pants are still on but she is sitting on him, optimizing for accessibility of shirtless parts and appropriate kissing reach. And he can still squirm a little bit.
There may be some more swearing.
"Such language."
He completely fails to squirm, but not for a lack of trying.
Kisses.
So many of those!
"You're adorable," she tells him.
He beams. "So are you. And hot as all hell. And oh my god do I love you."
Kiss!
Kiiiiissss!
And she starts untying him. She wants snuggles.
He can definitely provide those!
Good. Snuggle.
...snugglekiss?
Snugglekiss.
........snugglekissnecknibble?
Eeeeeeeeee.
Eee! Yes, good reaction, he wants to cause some more of it.
No complaints!
But soft kisses also, on her lips and the tip of her nose and her forehead and her cheeks and her chin and then her lips again, followed by something that could only be described as an 'adoring gaze' holding her face in both hands.
Awwwwwww. Yay.
They snuggle for a bit. Sadde likes burying his face in her hair and making occasional contented noises, apparently.
It's sweet. "You're sweet," Lorica accuses.
"Guilty as charged."
Eventual disentanglement.
Followed by some pouting and pitiful noises.
"If you're always going to be pathetic about it when I need to do things other than drape myself over you it will mean I have to factor that in when deciding to even start."
"Ffffiiiiiine, I'll stooop," they say, dramatically.
"Will you really."
"If you want me to, I will."
She leans over to kiss his forehead. "It's cute in moderation but only in moderation. I'm going to go look up hypnosis, anyway, don't despair."
He has some business to take care of, as well.
Lorica gets into her armor and out the door.
And he goes take a shower.
It looks like at least the first bunch of times performing a hypnotic induction takes forever and is really really repetitive. How much will it ruin all your fun if the bot imitates my voice for that part?
A bit, but the goal here's killing Endbringers not turning me on, there are other ways to do that.
I mean, I'd take over once you were under and I could make you bark like a chicken and so forth. And it's supposed to speed up once you're accustomed? I'm not sure how much I buy some of this stuff but that's the idea.
Now my mind's gone to the gutter again.
Of course it has.
That's for the future, though. Any idea what the progression rate's like, whether there's any difference in suggestibility if it's the first or hundred-and-first time?
Seems to vary person to person, I don't know how suggestible you are at baseline.
Probably more than most, due to power, but I was asking more whether there was an actual change over time or something, or if it doesn't work the first time we might as well give up.
It seems to think it can change over time and if you're suggestible enough to start and we practice a lot I should eventually be able to put you under in like two seconds.
One, good; two, gutter.
I suppose your willingness isn't in question, which is good, this is supposed to help.
Yes, I have two entirely different and very compelling incentives, I'm covered on that part.
I'd be freaked out, frankly.
I'd be freaked out if it was anyone other than you.
Anything I should be watching out for, avoiding, etc.?
Not sure, what kind of thing do you mean?
Like - what would you be worried about someone other than me doing, which I, even though I am me, should not do.
If it was anyone other than you anything they did at all would freak me out. Being you, I think other than grievous physical harm and revealing my identity or power, I don't mind.
Okay. I will not grievously physically harm you or reveal your identity or power.
Thank you!
You're welcome.
Glam schedules an appointment (is that even what it's called?) with them.
New branding person is a stylish gentleman in his thirties with one earring and a very nice haircut. Maybe somebody was trying to earn back diversity points. "Hi, Glam, what can I do for you today?"
Diversity. Right. "Hi! I need some help with a little project of mine," they say, looking for something that might clue them in to what his actual name is.
Well, his nameplate says George Saunders. "What kind of project?"
Noted. "A little... webseries, of sorts. With battle footage, power testing, stuff like that."
"That's not a bad idea," nods George Saunders. "As long as it was all scripted carefully and edited well; I'm not sure your budget will cover even student videographers."
"Yes, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. The first one, with footage of the Purity fight, got cleared by the person in charge of branding in Boston, so there's something to go on. I made another one, and did some editing, but all I know how to do was what I learned over the past month or so with the internet, so maybe not terribly good." They look at their shoulderbot. "Can you email it to Mr. Saunders?"
"Done," chirps shoulderbot, and Saunders pulls it up and watches the video.
It's actually fairly decently done and edited, considering. Glam is definitely not a pro, but Lorica's bots are good at recording stuff, and the mysterious ethereal light their costume generates doesn't look bad on camera. They seem to have also dedicated a reasonable amount of time to learning how to use a few of the lower-end video and audio editing tools available.
"It looks amateur, but not bad," George says. "How long did you spend on it?"
"Hmm, about four or five hours total, I think?"
"Did you script it or is this off the cuff?"
"Off the cuff."
"You might want to consider a script. You sound friendly and spontaneous, but at the expense of a fair amount of polish, and I think you could keep the friendly spontaneity with a script if you worked at it."
"You're probably right," they agree. "Is this the sort of thing you think ought to be done by someone who knows what they're doing? And if yes, would you be willing to help me with it? Maybe I write stuff, you comment on it, I fix it, we back-and-forth until we're both satisfied? If you're too busy or don't want to do it you don't need to worry about it."
"That seems well within my purview," smiles George. "I'd be happy to edit your scripts."
There is quite a bit of second-guessing going on in Glam's head. Is he acting like that because he's afraid Glam will cause him trouble like they did Yates? Is Glam being unreasonable, or threatening? Is...
"Well, thank you! And about the editing, any tips, is the current style good, what do you think I could change...?"
"It's, hmm. Like I said, spontaneous and friendly, but there's not a clear structure to the video as a whole and it's not clear why you're making one in the first place - an audience member could guess at motivations but only guess."
"Right! I'll work on the scripting there, but I meant the actual video and audio editing part, effects, lighting, sound, those."
"Ah. It's, again, good but amateur - this looks like you filmed it in a randomly chosen room which happened to have good lighting but it would only take a little setup to have something more studio-like arranged. There's not very much background noise but there's a little. You didn't abuse Powerpoint transitions between parts, so that's good."
They giggle, but nod. "Something more studio-like, alright. Can be arranged. Do you think anything in specific should be in the background?"
"You could just go with a blank drape. The outside of HQ would send a certain message; if you want to create assorted sets, different each video, with your power, that would add a kind of whimsy I suspect is part of what you're going for."
"Ooh, yes, good idea, I like it!"
"Ideally it would be tied in to the video in question, but you could also just set one in a power-generated Alps for no reason," shrugs George Saunders.
"I'm gonna do one in candyland."
"...I suppose that's also an option."
"The whimsy is only mostly a character," they say, grinning, before turning a bit more serious again: "Why, do you think candyland's a bad choice?"
"It strikes something of a contrast with the Endbringer-killing ambition."
"True, I guess, but it's already a heavy subject, doing it with a desolate wasteland as background would be kinda depressing."
"The Alps are very pretty," says George. "I assume you want people to think you're taking your goal seriously."
"Yeah, fair enough. Alps, no candyland." Pause. "Is the Moon okay?"
"It's better than Candyland."
"Alright."
"Do you want to script and re-edit this one? You could release it as-is, jumps in quality aren't unheard of in web series, but it might be worth the time."
"I'll script and re-edit, there's some more free time now that school's out, and I was planning on doing this weekly or bi-weekly, on Saturdays. What do you think I should use as backdrop?"
"A skyscape, perhaps. But it could be almost anything."
"Alright, sounds good."
"Anything else you wanted to discuss?"
"N—yes, actually, I almost forgot! There's the name of the webseries, and where it'd be hosted. Glam dot com is taken but mxglam dot com isn't. And there's also the matter of the actual look of the site, I was planning on getting Echo to draw me something."
"How is 'M X' pronounced?" wonders George. "Enlisting Echo's a good idea if she's interested in helping. I can do a little web design if she isn't."
"Mix," they provide helpfully, unable to stop themself from imagining how they don't expect Yates would ever ask them that. "I don't know if she can do the actual web design, but she's really really good at drawing and has an artistic eye."
"It wouldn't necessarily be a bad move to go with a minimalist look for faster loading times and to match your costume," adds George.
"Yeah, but there's minimalistic and then there's a video on a featureless white background, and I definitely do not have the skill to turn the latter into the former."
"Well, mention to Echo what you're going for and I'll see if I can't whip something up."
"Okay! And the name? Any suggestions?"
"Mx Glam isn't bad. Hmm... some capes wind up with specialized vocabulary to talk about the details of their powers, do you have anything like that?"
They shrug. "Conjure? That's about it, and I only really use that 'cause Lorica started using it, I used to just say variations of 'make stuff appear.' The only other thing specific to my power I can think of is the... effect when I conjure or dismiss stuff."
"So you could pivot a title from the word 'conjure', if you preferred not to just use your cape name."
"I don't particularly mind using my cape name, if I didn't like it I wouldn't have chosen it." They grin. "I'm just, you know, not in fact in the business of making people look good, so you know better."
"Glam or Mx Glam would be a fine title," George assures them.
"Alright! Then I think that's all! Thank you very much for your help, you're awesome. I'm sorry if I intruded too much or took too much of your time or something."
"This is my job, Glam, don't worry about it," smiles George.
"I know, but still." But still, you could've made life so much harder for the both of us, and you didn't, and I'm really happy about that, so "Thank you!"
"You're welcome."
They wave and leave, floating over to Lorica's workshop.
Inside is Lorica, working on her dad's suit.
"Fugue?"
"Yep," says the bot. "But you can sit with her if you want. Estimate forty minutes."
"Alright, that works." A copy appears. "Go grab me a book," they instruct it, and it goes.
Lorica fiddles with Transit's armor and doesn't acknowledge Glam's presence in any way.
Glam's used to it. Their copy returns with the book and promptly ceases to be. They start reading.
About twenty minutes later, the bot says, "Given certain assumptions it may be that I could have you hypnotically induced at roughly the time Lorica completes her work. Would you like to start?"
Glam blinks and looks up. "Uh. I—Actually, yeah, sure, why not."
"You will wish to be comfortable in a way that doesn't rely on power use," advises the bot.
They nod and float over to the loveseat—
—and the costume's gone, causing her to flop onto it.
"Your current choice of shape will limit what Lorica might decide to do with you," the bot points out.
She shrugs. "Can't be helped. We'll focus on creating a Siberian for now."
Shoulderbot lifts off and hovers over Sadde's face and starts drifting back and forth and issuing instructions in a low, soothing, level imitation of Lorica's voice.
She relaxes. And listens. And focuses. And breathes. She thoroughly gives in to the voice, in a way similar to how she does to her own power, to her beliefs. There is nothing but that voice, nothing at all, and what it says is the sum total of things in the universe.
And when Lorica comes out of her fugue she has a surprise.
The bot briefs her. And then she scoots her chair over to the loveseat and says, "Can you hear me?"
"Yes."
Okay now what. Um. The bot finds her something. "You're in a forest," Lorica asserts, because if she says 'beach' and something goes all capey she doesn't want water damaged hardware to deal with. She goes on about the forest in detail roughly parallel to the website's beach example and then says, "Describe the forest to me."
Well, isn't it good she didn't choose to say 'beach'? Because there are in fact things appearing as Sadde describes it, in much more detail than Lorica started with.
As long as it's not raining. Okay, Glam's probably hypnotized. Lorica picks up a twig and inspects it, wondering if the stuff is any more robust against squinting than usual.
The ground is covered with earth, dry leaves, rocks, fungi. The trees start surrounding them, simultaneously taller than her ceiling should be but somehow still fitting inside the room. There's sunlight mysteriously being filtered by the branches, and a breeze blows softly from the distance.
This is more stuff than Glam can usually track at once, isn't it...? And the light from no source is new, too. And the distorted space effect.
Yes to all, but squinting at the space-distorted trees works from a greater distance than it does on regular objects. Furthermore, this accidental squinting clearly disturbs the trance, as Sadde frowns and expresses confusion about the absent trees before another one replaces them.
"The trees are fine," Lorica tells her. "The trees are just how they should be."
Sadde is reassured, as long as Lorica doesn't look at them too much.
Lorica lets robots look at everything for her and focuses on Sadde. She grabs a decommissioned plate of Transit's armor which she's replaced. "In the forest," she says, "is another you. The other you is white with black stripes, and won't go through the floor, or hurt anyone or damage any equipment, but when I give them something, they can destroy it, going through it like it's not even there."
The other her appears there, amidst the trees, half-hidden. She doesn't really do anything, not even blink.
Lorica gingerly hands the stripey copy Glam the old armor plate.
The stripey copy takes and looks down at the armor plate, but doesn't actually do anything to it.
"When they clench their hand the armor plate they're holding will fall to pieces," Lorica predicts.
And that is, indeed, what happens.
Lorica starts rummaging around for other things to offer the Siberian-copy. She comes up with some scrapped robot bits she couldn't salvage and repeats the experiment.
The Siberian copy drops the stuff it's destroyed and grabs new stuff, destroying it with just as much ease.
Lorica says with perfect confidence that whenever Sadde conjures a stripey copy, that copy will be able to destroy things just like that, however big they are, no matter what they're made of. The copy will have [insert list of the Siberian's known power parameters], whenever the copy has stripes like these, but Sadde will always be in perfect control of what things will and won't be destroyed. Etcetera etcetera. She rambles a bit, you're supposed to be sort of lengthy according to the internet.
And then she says that when she counts down from ten to zero, with every number the forest will fade away and Sadde will feel awake/refreshed/aware/more adjectives.
"Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Zero."
The forest slowly disappears, and Sadde blinks, looking around, then at the stripey copy and the remains of... stuff... at its feet. "It worked," she breathes.
"You remember all the everything, I take it?"
"Nnnot... exactly. Vague memories. There was a forest? But mostly," she gestures at the remains of destroyed things.
"Yep. I'm very glad I told you it was a forest. The example I was working from said beach and you'd probably have flooded the workshop."
Blink. "Wait, I actually conjured it?"
"The space distortion was not traversible," reports the bot. "It was an illusion, but when I tried to send a chassis to investigate the ceiling was where it normally is."
"Yeah, a video would be cool. Did you record the illusion from up close?" she asks the bot.
"Yes." It projects several cameras' views of the entire thing, overlaid with Lorica's voice as she talks the forest into existence and the bots start to investigate.
She notes the suggestion at the end. "So... Then it could actually work, now. Wow."
"I don't know if the suggestion about stripey copies will hold up out of trance, especially without being reinforced, but - yeah, your power amps up considerably when you're under, looks like."
"Which basically means my own expectations are holding me back."
"Yeah, there was nobody else who even knew we were doing this."
"...I wonder if I can harness that. Maybe induce something like a trance or whatever on myself, at will."
"I think self-hypnosis is a thing."
"Yeah, I should definitely look into that. But worst-case, you bring me under and we send lil' stripey me to give Behemoth a hug."
"I'd probably make it a bigger stripey you, but yes."
"Other people's expectations might still be a problem, though. The Siberian is not in fact big, it might break their suspension of disbelief."
"Well, the Siberian also doesn't come to Endbringer fights and is not you," Lorica says. "Maybe start with a small one and make it bigger if it seems like the problem is nobody can see it?"
"Yeah." Pause. "Is there a particular reason why this copy should look like me instead of the Siberian herself?"
"So you don't scatter the front-liners besides yourself who don't think she'd honor the truce and then have to solo the Endbringer. But you could try it that way if you think the recognition boost is worth it? As long as the stripes are there I think you're set, nobody knows what her nose is like..."
"Well, I don't mean the fine details, mostly the overall shape, the long hair, et cetera."
"Yeah, any tweaks you make in that direction make it more likely someone will think it's the real Siberian and this has both drawbacks and advantages. Maybe people trust the truce enough. Not sure."
"Yeah, but if they don't think it's the real one they're less likely to expect it to be as unstoppable and unmovable as the real one. I'm sure I'm not the only cape who can create an illusion like that."
"Yeah. So maybe do make it look like her."
"All I need is one public display of Siberian to become Eidolon levels of notorious—er, get Eidolon levels of notoriety, anyway. Should be enough to at least convince people I can do that, then it doesn't need to be Siberian-shaped anymore, and I can go ahead and kill Endbringers and stuff."
"Are you planning to show this off on the Internet? I mean, I somehow doubt the Siberian hangs out on PHO, but I'd still worry about it."
"...no, not for now. And yeah, I won't do that until I'm ready to take the Nine on, there's no way Jack will leave me be when I do."
"Yeah."
"Definitely need to prepare and learn how to use this, though, it might actually give me a fighting chance."
"Yeah. And it's a good way to check for other things your power might be able to do."
"What do you mean?"
"Like the light from nowhere and the spatial distortion illusion. That just happened because I said you were in a forest, I wasn't trying to get you to do it, but I could try to get you to do stuff."
"Ooh yes, definitely!"
"Any ideas?"
"Hm." Pause. "Teekay with stuff I didn't make," she suggests. "That seemed to be the most obvious limitation when testing."
"Okay, so we'll work on that. You did manage a nice breeze with the forest."
"...that's interesting. That's very interesting. I wonder if I could add mastery over the weather to my list."
"That would be fun! All kinds of excellent applications between fights for that. That reminds me, I got the paramedics on board at last, need to email Piggot about Rewind's extracurricular today."
"Ooh, fun! I wonder how she'll react."
"Good question! Email sent. We'll see."
"Let's see, other ideas... I wonder what kinds of powers my copies can actually have."
"Breaker stuff, obviously, what else have you done so far?"
"Vanilla Brutes, I simulated this one Mover-Blaster by giving it boots that shot energy blasts but I bet I could've done that without the boots. Teekay of stuff I make, telepathy with each other..."
"I'll just - have the bot compile a list of some known powers and run you through them next time you're under?"
"That sounds reasonable. There are a few we can rule out, though. Stuff like what Windflower can do, for instance."
"...Well, not necessarily. I mean, I wouldn't want to test that one without having a plan for doing anything useful with her power, but you can do wind, and you can do things with lasting effects even if the stuff itself disappears."
"I was thinking mostly that airborne poisons sound like they can be easily squinted away, but, hmm, maybe not, actually."
"Oh, yeah, Windflower's stuff has colors but that's not functional except to let teammates know which one it is."
"Does it feel like anything?"
"I've never been poisoned but I assume the damage feels unpleasant. I haven't heard anyone say it smells like anything?"
"Hm, then yeah, maybe the squinting wouldn't kick in until damage was done."
"But of powers you could copy Windflower's got limited utility - you are known to have some trouble controlling lethality..."
"...yeah. Although, I mean, I don't think it's actually public? But in any case, yeah, not going there."
"Poor Windflower. She's really hard to deploy as a hero but she's too easy to defend against to make it as a villain even if she wanted to slaughter the occasional city block and there's no really good civilian applications - even if she went into extermination you don't want her stuff lingering any more than you want standard pesticides."
"Yeah," she sighs. "I wonder why she's even here. Why not just be a civilian, why use her power at all?"
"I've never asked. It's not quite as personal a question as 'what was your trigger event' but it's up there."
"Mmhm. I mean, she can now be used at all, with the contact darts, which is better than before, I guess, but still."
"She's useful in some situations; not every opponent is a person we need to take alive. Especially since you can outfit people with gas masks. But it's definitely awkward. Maybe she's here because she needs a team to handle more than like three kinds of situation."
"Well, I mean, if she's gonna be a cape at all then yeah, but I think if I had her power I'd probably just try to quietly pretend I didn't have it."
"Maybe she can't."
"Her power's voluntary, isn't it?"
"Yes, but I meant for some kind of social reason."
"Oh. Like what?"
"I don't know, I've never met her folks."
Shrug. "Yeah, I honestly don't know."
"Anyway, I'll get a list of powers that are better than Windflower's and ideally come with recognizable color schemes or something so you can get audience participation for you to try imitating next time."
"...audience participation?"
"If they recognize the stripes you get a boost for a Siberian, if you put one in Legend's costume..."
"Oh right! Yeah, for sure." Pause. "And one in Eidolon's..."
"I'm not sure Eidolon gets you anywhere much - people think he might do anything but don't expect anything in particular and often can't identify what he's doing in the moment."
"But on the other hand the passive not-expectation everyone has is basically absent, there, and that might do more good than actions that might actually polarize people into active expectation. I mean, it shouldn't be a first or main strategy or anything, but testing would be useful."
"Maybe you could mush a few different copies into an Eidolon."
"What do you mean?"
"Like, you make a Siberian and a Legend and whatever and then they all run into each other and produce an Eidolon and you get some background expectation that they'll have those combined powers but you can flex on them as-needed."
"That'd imply people already knew those were me, though, and I don't know if I want people to know I can do those things before I have enough control over Siberian me to actually show her off and tell people she was me and go all like 'yeah I can make Siberians.'"
"Oh, right, different implied trajectories."
"Mmhm. I mean, what do you think I should do?"
"I'm not sure. You've got a lot of options and I have no PR expertise."
"The current plan is sorta shock-and-awe, I don't need people to like me as long as they actually believe I can do pretty much anything. I mean, I prefer it if they like me, of course, but that doesn't enter into it, the PR I need is one of power, you know? So, make the fake Siberian show up, then publicly reveal I was responsible for her, and thenceforth use a Siberian copy that looks like me so it's not as spooky."
"Okay, reminder of the thing I said when you first signed on, you don't strictly need to be liked but you do need people to expect that you don't go around committing collateral damage. If I saw the actual Siberian at an Endbringer fight and didn't know any better I'd think she was there to slaughter civilians. Or take in a concert, you know?"
"Yeah, but—" Pause. "Do you mean that if enough people expect it my copy could start slaughtering civilians? Wait, that's. I had not thought of that at all."
"Well, I don't know, it's a little different from expecting a gun you're actually shooting to be lethal - the onlookers wouldn't be coordinating and wouldn't expect a specific trajectory the copy could take, wouldn't expect a specific civilian to be first, etcetera, they might not be able to agree on enough to ouija-board her around, but it would seriously worry me."
"Yes. Yes you're right. Fuck."
"...So, publicly acknowledging your Siberians?"
"How to make people even believe them, though? Like, it's one thing to have her tear lizard butt a new one and then admit responsibility, it's a whole 'nother to just show her causing destruction, any video could be faked, and with my power we already know for a fact that the Siberian destroying something I've conjured does not imply she can destroy something real."
"Yeah, awkward catch-22. Maybe you could tell a handful of Protectorate higher-up so they don't assume they need to protect anybody from her and can coordinate anyone else who looks like they're going to try, and then just keep her away from civilians - works better at Behemoth fights than Leviathan one, Behemoth is basically never technically near live civilians."
"Hmm, yeah, that could actually work. Tell the movers and shakers she's an ally, maybe tell people that over the comms during the fight, something like 'we have an ally who can conjure someone with the Siberian's powers to give Behemoth a hug' and then the capes actually expect her to do it. Problem is the diminishing returns and the people who don't get comms. We really should find a way to give everyone in an Endbringer fight a comm."
"Yeah, it's kind of tricky. But so many people show up and don't report to any of the impromptu headquarters before running off to do whatever."
"...couldn't maybe your bots do it? A... very large number of them go around, giving people without comms a comm?"
"If there were enough, yeah. I don't have the budget to consider that many bots buildable and expendable even if I make them tiny and I dip into Dad's for it, though, and I'm technically only supposed to use his budget for his suit."
"How many people know how many bots you can actually make with your budget?"
"I don't think anybody's tracking me that closely but they know what parts and materials I order and how many bots I have around, why?"
"I could conjure some, staying below the threshold, they'll live for probably a bit less than half an hour but they could do that. Maybe not enough, but some."
"Will they network right...? Like, I know no people would be looking at their inner workings, but they'd still have to work like a bot to talk to the bots correctly. I don't get where your power even gets that information; you're not a tinker and it can't be coming from my head and the bots don't self-design at this time."
Shrug. "I don't know either, but maybe it's just mimicking the communication protocols or something. I mean, I don't actually know how a stun gun works, or a brain, or internal organs, and yet," a copy appears holding a stun gun.
"Well, we should make sure it works beforehand anyway, but if you can get me a big flock I can boost the software to handle it."
"Yeah. We'd also need to get the higher ups to give us more comms to distribute. And hm, wouldn't they give you more money if it was meant to help with that?"
"Maybe."
"Worth asking. Getting people to actually coordinate would help a lot."
"Yeah, and the bots would be a good comm system, they could get everything where it needed to be without excess chatter."
"Yeah, that'd be pretty grand. Does it even need to be the bots? Couldn't you hook the comms themselves to the AI?"
"Then we have the distribution problem. The bots can find people who don't have comms."
"No, I mean, do both, have the bots distribute comms connected to the AI."
"Oh. Could do, but then I have to build comms too."
"Yeah, but the total number of bots you need to build gets lower."
"Yeah, the comms could have fewer parts, I could probably crank them out cheap."
"Exactly. And comm location could be used for centralized planning and organization, strategizing, that stuff."
"Yeah. Right, I'll clear it with some people and then tinker up comms."
"Awesome!"
"And you get to practice copies of assorted powers while hypnotized, and I need to talk to Piggot about Rewind and paramedics..."
"Mmhm. Also I was just with the new Branding person, guy called George Saunders."
"How is he?"
"He was so helpful and friendly I'm kinda worried he might've been spooked of me," she admits.
"Oh dear."
"I mean, he was okay with hearing me out, he gave me useful suggestions, he said he'd help with scripting and even offered doing web design after I asked Echo to draw it."
"Well, that does sound useful."
"Yeah, he seemed pretty nice."
"It is possible he doesn't even know why the position is open."
"Yeah, I suppose, if Yates resigned."
"Even if she didn't I don't think the information comes standard in a job interview."
"No, but I think he'd have researched it, wouldn't he? His position? I would."
"The job, yes, the ways people come and go? Not necessarily."
"The reason why the previous person left, whether it was something I should be worried about myself, general PR problems and challenges of the location. I'm not sure how public the Youth Guard's thing a few months ago was, though."
"Not very. Like, you'd have heard of it if you subscribed to their newsletter, but likely not otherwise."
"Mmhm. Yeah, I guess it's possible he didn't learn of it." Shrug.
"Ooh, email from Piggot -" Pause. "And we're go on the Rewind thing, I've got some logistics to figure but shouldn't be too hard."
She's interrupted by Armsmaster's voice over the speaker: "All Wards are to report to the briefing room immediately."
"Later," sighs Lorica, rolling to her feet and trailing a line of robots towards the briefing room.
"We've just received a report that the Teeth are robbing the Central Bank," he says without preamble one everyone's arrived. "Butcher, Flamethrower, Boost, and Warp, with ten thugs."
Lorica promptly looks up available intel on the capes.
Flamethrower can shoot fire from her hands, and the shorter and thinner she makes the jet, the hotter and more powerful it is. She can reduce it to a laser-like weapon that can be used to cut through diamond.
Boost chooses volumes of space inside which everything is accelerated. She can control the intensity, direction, location, and size of these areas, but they are short-lived and she can only have one up at a time. She frequently uses them to simulate flight and to throw knives and other projectiles at people at the speed of bullets.
Warp has the ability to modify and reshape any objects he can see in their entirety. He frequently uses small metal balls that he reshapes into restraints and weapons.
The Teeth are a gang operating in Brockton Bay. Known for their high turnover rate, very few of their leaders have lasted more than a year and a half. Ruthless, bloody, and casually violent, they usually attack targets from which they can draw money quickly, using the threat of violence and following through when necessary to guarantee success, holding while buildings hostage and sometimes selling their services.
Armsmaster quickly summarises all of this, and finishes with, "Now we have something that can help turn the tables." He looks at Rewind, who seems surprised, then continues: "If we can undo the damage they cause and rescue the civilians, their main strategy fails."
"Rewind, you should bring a bot along," Lorica advises. "It can keep you apprised of the situation if you have to rewind yourself. Glam's going to try to expand my flock with functional extras so I have them to spare."
Armsmaster eyes Glam for a fraction of a second before saying, "Those are both good ideas. I'll defer to your expertise about how to best use the Wards."
"Glam can make duplicates with their own powers, the extent of which isn't quite tested but they can at least be decoys for anyone who's going to be in particular physical danger. Glam themself should hang back with a bot as much as possible to monitor the action and coordinate the copies. Rewind is best as a healer but won't be able to get anyone simultaneously healed and out of danger so she'll have to be in the thick of it - where are you putting Dad?"
He outlines their strategy, not very detailed because no plan survives contact with the enemy and because they have very little time, asking Lorica some questions about how to best employ the other Wards.
Lorica recommends leaving Windflower behind - it's going to be crowded chaos, killing Butcher is an unacceptable risk, and keeping her covered will divert cape attention. She wants Echo sniping nonlethal ammo from a nearby roof with a bot, Glam ready to pop a copy to cover her if Butcher teleports up there, and Lorica herself will take a coordinator role - she thinks her bot network can control an appropriately hardwared decoy of her body, though.
Armsmaster adjusts their strategy, and then they're ready to go.
While they're riding there Lorica wants to test Decoy Lorica, please, Glam.
There she is!
Bots attempt to move her via the usual feedback mechanisms in the armor that amplify Regular Lorica's movements.
It works! A bot looking at her might be able to tell them apart, but a human probably wouldn't.
Transit's a little ahead of them, getting neighbors of the bank away from it so if the Teeth make a casually violent getaway there won't be anyone to be casually violent at who they don't already have. If he can do this without being noticed for a minute or two so much the better.
Boost, Warp, and eight of the nonpowered Teeth are visible from the window. The civilians are on the floor, with the nonpowered pointing guns at them. As expected, Boost has an impenetrable area in front of the building, and as soon as one of the heroes tries to get in, one of the civilians inside is summarily executed. A "warning."
Once Boost is distracted, robots go in and summarily shoot tranquilizers at all the Teeth they can identify. (Lorica's robots are pretty good at identifying things.)
The Teeth the bots can identify are all wearing hodgepodge pieces of armor, so they're actually pretty easy to recognize, but not that easy to tranquilize. Three more civilians die before they start gunning for the bots.
"Rewind, can you get the civilians out of the metal things?" Glam asks as the heroine starts resurrecting the dead.
"What the - they're not even in anything," says a bot in Lorica's voice. "The - it's just an illusion, they're not really - they're just marbles sitting on people!"
they're free. Restraints gone, just marbles, really.
Without further ado, a Glam copy and Rewind start getting the civilians out. Dauntless uses his speed-giving boots to evade and his shield to block shots from the nonpowered Teeth while reaching them with his Arclance and trying to electrocute them.
Boost struggles against Velocity, trying to keep him away, and Warp tries creating new illusionary obstacles for the heroes. Armsmaster and the other Glam copy storm through them to go after Butcher, Flamethrower, and the two remaining nonpowered, who are probably holding the rest of the bank's staff hostage.
Miss Militia's got rubber bullets and is willing to aim them at Boost in melee because Velocity's sped up enough that he's barely interacting with matter. When she's alerted that there's not really anything between her and Warp and a robot helps her aim she can shoot at Warp too.
Suddenly, an explosion hits the civilians, the Lorica-copy, the Glam-copy, and Rewind. Butcher is suddenly among them, and instead of healing herself or the civilians, Rewind starts mindlessly attacking him.
Half a second later, Boost boosts herself back with enough strength that she hits the wall just before Butcher explodes there, hitting the nigh-immaterial Velocity with the blast.
"Stranger protocols active on Butcher!" Rewind calls on the comm, too injured to be proud of remembering this tidbit of the book, before rewinding her memory and damage away.
Velocity is hard to buffet but he's not invulnerable to burning. He's down. Rewind's bot directs her his way.
Miss Militia directs her fire at Butcher, aiming carefully so as not to put the lie to "nonlethal ammo".
Glam's bot alerts them to the need to reassemble the exploded decoys.
Dauntless drops his assault, leaving the two remaining nonpowered Teeth to the bots and going after the civilians to cover them with his forcefield-generating shield.
Butcher teleports right up to Dauntless-
—whose forcefield protects him from the fire, but is dropped a moment later so that he can attack Butcher with his Arclance.
Other bots are being knocked into each other by Boost as they try to tranquilize either her or Warp, who are standing together and very hard to approach.
Dauntless seems unable to stop it, he just keeps attacking, but Butcher has apparently decided that the Arclance causes too much damage because he teleports right up to Miss Militia, ending Dauntless' mindless rage—
- and Miss Militia's rubber bullet gun becomes a machete and she swipes it at Butcher - (bots start desperately trying to tranquilize the villain, abandoning the prospect of getting past Boost for now) -
Butcher teleports out of the way just as an electrified metal ball connected to a chain flies through where he'd been standing, coming from the door to the back of the bank where Armsmaster's standing.
Freed from that responsibility, Glam conjures their copy a following stun gun. The copy shoots at Butcher, and the energy blast bends and curves, trying to catch him.
"Stay back from Butcher, the mind control shit might have a range limit!" a bot advises Armsmaster. "Rewind, get you and Velocity and Miss Militia out!"
"Already on it!" Rewind says, continuing to zigzag towards Velocity, who's the most hurt of them and also the one who's been hurt for longer.
Glam continues shooting, missing nearly enough that Butcher is forced to continuously teleport to avoid them and Armsmaster's blows.
Rewind reaches Velocity and boops him out of the building.
A bot updates Velocity on the situation when he lands.
When a Glam-copy shoulderbot drops from the network another one heads for its last known location.
Rewind reaches Miss Militia and sends her, then herself, back to the rooftop outside.
Between his escape attempts, Butcher lands near his two underlings, burning them with his explosion, before disappearing away again. Dauntless is far enough away that he can use his shield to protect himself from the blast.
The Lorica-bot who went after the shoulderbot that disappeared is consumed by fire just before Flamethrower appears from where Armsmaster had, and surveys the scene.
"Glam, fireproof my copy bots!"
They do, then look at the spot where Flamethrower's come from—
And then the fire's gone. The copy-bots were fireproofed, and they caught the way Flamethrower used one hand to block the heroes' vision, trap Butcher, and slice his throat with a concentrated laser, then grabbing the money and teleporting away.
"Flamethrower's the new Butcher. Got the money."
The Glam copy is restored to pristine condition and says, "Grand. But at least we got them," gesturing at the unconscious thugs and burnt parahumans.
Armsmaster looks around and nods. "And all civilians were rescued, none harmed. This is a first when dealing with the Teeth." He taps the part of his helmet where his ear would be twice, and says into the comm, "Rewind, can you come here and heal them before we take them in?"
Bots stand ready at pre-injury locations of the captured to tranquilize them immediately.
Armsmaster calls a PRT van to foam the parahumans and transport all of them.
In go Lorica and surviving real bots.
They take everyone in, return to HQ, and debrief. From the footage and Dauntless and Miss Militia's descriptions, it appears Butcher IX had an unidentified power of causing mindless rage on people nearby. Dauntless describes it as "being unable to really think about anything other than hurting, causing harm, destroying."
"Probably won't work on me, definitely doesn't work on bots, Armsmaster's thing seems to fend it off..."
"Yes, though apparently it wasn't enough to fend off whatever it was that Warp actually does. Explain?"
So Lorica's bot shows footage of the marbles. Sitting on people. "I'm afraid I don't have both perspectives, here, me and bots both just see what's actually there."
Armsmaster nods. "The powers on record for him had him as being able to warp objects he can perceive on the battlefield."
"Well, he can't, but it's possible he thinks he can - or did before I told everybody - not everyone's self-immune."
Armsmaster nods, and starts standing up. "In any case, congratulations." And he starts leaving.
Dauntless realizes that's all Armsmaster is going to say, so he goes with, "Yes, it was very good, we apprehended two parahumans and stripped the Teeth of much of their strength. You all did amazing!"
"Thank you, Dauntless."
"Thanks! And Lorica arranged for me to go out with paramedics to help, too."
"Oh, that's a great idea!" he says, beaming at Lorica.
"Thanks," says Lorica. "I was just in the middle of working out some of the logistics when the alert came in."
"Now, I don't know about you but I'm starting to feel today's bruises, and I have patrolling later, so I'm gonna go rest a bit before that," Dauntless pipes in.
"Bye!"
"I just want to reiterate what Dauntless said. You are - in the card game and not the ratings sense - and enormous trump card and we're really lucky to have you."
She grins widely. "Thank you!"
"Glam, you did good too. Echo, I know you didn't see a lot of action today but it could have been important to have you covering the exit if something had gone pear-shaped, thank you."
Glam really, really shouldn't say something like, 'So, do I get a reward?'
...so they don't. What a feat of self-control! "And of course we owe a lot to our Captain's awesome bots and mind powers."
"Thank you."
"You could do that on the console in case anyone needs you," suggests Glam.
"Yeah, sure."
"Don't shower on the console. Just browse there."
Glam floats and asks, when Rewind's far enough that she won't hear: "So, I do think we both deserve a reward for our tremendously competent handling of the villains today," they say, because self-control only goes as far as it absolutely needs to.
"You think so, huh?"
"Yes! I do! I even have a few suggestions!"
"Well, let's go and I'll hear your proposal out."
They do, and she does. They're quite interesting suggestions, too.
And then she puts her helmet back on and says, "Uh, my parents want you to come to dinner?"
Blink blink.
"Uh, today?"
"Today is available later is also fine if you'd rather."
"No, today is fine." He sits up and looks around. "I should, uh, probably get more presentable."
"Possibly. Dad'll want to go home in the next twenty or thirty minutes."
"I will have to look presentable really fast!" he says, getting up with alarm. "What should I wear?"
"You don't have to dress up," Lorica says. "And I can delay him if you need longer than that."
"Um, alright, uh, thirty minutes should be good, I'll need a shower and I can conjure clothing on me if I need to." He pauses. "Behavior? What should I behave like?"
"If I wanted you to act like a chicken I'd bring you hypnotized. They're not going to bite you, Sadde."
"I am in a slight panic here. No biting. Right. Um. Shower."
"They're nice!" says Lorica, as he heads into the shower.
So he takes a quick long shower (because he kinda always needs to, after these times with Lorica), then looks for something nice to wear.
Lorica has left his room by the time he's out of the shower.
Soon after he's knocking at her door, wearing a white polo shirt and his best jeans and nicest shoes.
"You all set? You'll want your costume over that for the trip in case anybody's looking at the intermediate points."
"Yeah, and alright, I can conjure it."
They go meet up with Transit, who's waiting by a window.
It occurs to them that they don't know Lorica's last name a second before they say 'Hi Mr. whatever,' and then it occurs to them that they're in costume anyway, so they settle with a "Hi."
"'Lo," says Transit. "You ready?"
"Yup."
Lorica and Transit get out of their armor and box it up and put it in a closet, first thing.
And Sadde becomes a real boy!
"Yeah, Mom!" calls Bella. "Brought Sadde!"
He looks at Transit, who's not Transit here, and smiles, then waits for the Bella-mom.
Bella squeezes Sadde's hand and leads him down the stairs. Transit, who probably has a name, follows after. (Sadde's shoulderbot goes in the closet with the armor.)
Bella's mom looks a lot like her and is pulling some kind of potato casserole out of the oven. "Hello!" she says. "It's so nice to meet you."
"Hi! It's really nice to meet you, too," Ms. I don't know your first or last name oh my god what do I do, be cool, be cool.
"I hope you like potatoes."
Unfortunately Sadde cannot project thoughts, and even if he could Bella would probably be immune to it.
"Great!" says Bella's mom. "Because that's what's for dinner, that and hot dogs and salad. Have a seat!"
Bella sits down and points out a chair for Sadde. "What's for dessert, Mom?"
"Nanaimo bars!"
Oh, okay, there's a subject he can actually contribute with, namely: his insatiable curiosity. "What are those?" he asks as he takes the seat and very much does not take Bella's hand in his, he can deal with his nervousness on his own, he'll probably even hurt her by squeezing too much and then Transit—what's his name?!—will send him to the Birdcage and then kill him-
"Wafer crust, buttercream middle, and melted chocolate on top. They're delicious."
Did that sound stupid? It sounded stupid. He looks at Bella, keeping the smile plastered on his face with the eyes of a hunted animal in front of a bird of prey.
Bella pats his knee reassuringly. "They're great, Mom makes them all the time."
Transit starts serving himself potato casserole and passes on the spatula.
Bella, meet spatula.
Bella serves herself casserole and accepts salad and takes a hot dog and digs in.
...his brain is going kaput now. Especially because, well, he's meeting his girlfriend's (obligatory pause for squealing about the fact that she's his girlfriend, Sadde still squeals internally about that fact) parents, and there's no conversation going on and he's not actually talking to them or meeting them it's just food! Sadde does not deal terribly well with a lack of conversation.
Once everyone has served themselves food Bella's mom fills this gap. "So Bella wasn't able to tell me very much about what you like to study in school because apparently you're very secret-identity about talking to each other there?"
"Oh, yeah," well mostly she's very secret-identity, but. "Um, math? I like math, and music, too." Stop sounding like a moron! "Physics, as well, it's fun."
"Ooh, a quantitative type. What sort of music do you do?"
(Meanwhile, Transit discovers that the casserole is a little cold in the middle and goes to brush aside a dishtowel that is hiding the microwave. Bella shuts her eyes.)
"Choir—" he starts, but then notices Bella. "Everything alright?"
"Yes, I'm fine, I just can't look at the microwave because Mom needs to have guests over and cannot have a Tinkertech microwave."
"You can't look at it? That's adorab—er."
"It has a potato setting and can't identify a potato!"
Sadde starts giggling helplessly.
Lorica is carried along enough to giggle slightly.
"There, there. We can identify potatoes for it," Lorica's mom says.
Sadde looks at Bella like—like he thinks she's adorable and amazing and fantastic and lovely and all that jazz. "Anyway, yeah, choir. I like singing a lot, actually, and if Bella ever finds the time in her busy schedule I should probably get her to watch a musical or two with me." His nervousness seems to be somewhat gone, now, at least while he's looking at her.
"Are you going to sing along the whole time?"
"...well if you don't want me to I'm not."
"It might make it harder to hear the original performance."
Seriously, brain? I'm supposed to be feeling nervous? What the heck?
Well, Bella's mom seems to think they're precious, and then she says: "You two are just adorable. Dear, are they like this all the time?"
"Not usually in the room with 'em," Transit says. "They do work together a lot, though. Haven't told the rest of the team they're an item."
Sadde doesn't blush, but that's mostly due to an inability to feel actually bashful. Nervous, yes, embarrassed or the like, not in a million years. "She wanted to make sure we were still an item after a month was up."
"Reasonable."
"If you say so."
Conversation! Yes, conversation, he's good at that, he can actually do that. "It is reasonable, though I'm pretty sure we'll far outlast that month, and had it been up to me that month would've been up a while ago."
"Hmm? Oh, were you chasing her?"
"I wouldn't put it quite like that. Mostly I expressed interest in a relationship and then worked toward getting her to like me enough to want to give it a shot."
"I see," says Bella's mom, raising an eyebrow.
Bella puts hot dog in her face, blushing a little.
Sadde blinks. "I think this is probably the first time I've seen you blush. I'm a little bit more in love with you now."
"Well, I usually have a helmet on!"
...he's being maybe a little bit bolder than he ought to. He'll surely realize this once he's reminded Bella's parents are there, too.
"Is he always like this?" wonders Bella's mom.
"The poetry varies."
"Um, sorry," he says, and puts some more food in his mouth to make sure words won't decide to escape from it again.
"Is it 'he'? Bella's been using both 'he' and 'they'."
"Uh, right now it is. But it varies. Sometimes 'she,' and when I'm in costume it's 'they.' Although 'they' all the time works, too."
"All right, I'll try to remember that."
"When I'm with her it's usually 'he.'"
"That was the impression I got."
And he still doesn't know their names.
Food. Food food.
And eventually he's done eating, the creeping dread in his soul making him sure he won't be able to swallow dessert.
But Nanaimo bars are delicious-looking and Bella cuts one for him!
...well, he'll just have to accept it, then, won't he?
Munch munch.
"Is the rule about having my door closed still within date?" Bella asks her parents.
"Yup."
"The... rule?"
"If there is a boy in my room the door must remain open."
...hadn't Transit-or-whatever-his-name-is mentioned Bella and he spent a lot of time together in one of their respective rooms? Why... why would this room be any different?
And it's really great he can't blush because the next thing he thinks is, well, that ship has kinda sailed.
"Is it really."
"Now, Bella."
"The door will remain open, Mom."
Sadde smiles very innocently.
And then Bella excuses herself and leads Sadde up to her room.
And Sadde follows, and when they get there he conjures a pillow to bury his face in.
"...You okay?"
"...for a given value of okay. How was it? Was it awful? It was awful. Your mother thinks I'm a creep doesn't she? And your father's just as inscrutable as you are. And I don't know their names. Or your last name."
"Swan. Renée and Charlie. Would it help if I pretended I did that to you on purpose."
"...it would help if you actually had done it on purpose. Now I just feel lame."
"I'm sorry, I could have sworn I told you my last name at some point but I guess I didn't. But you were fine! Am I inscrutable?"
"Yes! Very! ...kinda. I mean, you're... much less scrutable than most people? It took a while to actually start being able to guess what you're thinking, and even than I'm only marginally better than chance."
"This even when you're looking at my face? I thought I had a readable face."
"Looking at your face helps, sure, but it's still... how can I explain this... I often can tell when you don't want to say something, but I can't tell what you don't want to say? That's sort of what I mean."
"...Can you usually do that? Because that's kinda creepy."
"Well, there's, you know, nonverbal communication, flavor to what people say and don't say, meaningful pauses, et cetera. It's not like I can read minds, but you know, I can't tell at all whether your father actually approves of me or not, even if I'm pretty sure he had some opinion of me going on in his head while we were talking."
"He thinks you want to make merry with my virtue but that if someone has to you're probably okay."
"What."
"...What?"
"That is completely not the thing I want to have your father thinking about me!" he practically hisses in panic. Then he amends, "Not that I'm not relieved I'm 'probably okay' but the other part!"
"Would you rather he think you're leading me on and have no genuine interest in me at all, because he knows I would have told him if I were asexual."
"I'd rather he not think about 'your virtue' and me at all! Oh my god is he wondering about what we've done or are going to do or—?"
"Oh my god, Sadde, relax, it's fine. He has less than no interest in the details until and unless I complain."
"Relax. Relax. Right." He breathes in deeeeeeply, and then eeeexhaaaaaales... "Okay. I'm cool. There is absolutely no reason to freak out—what did your mom think of me? Why'd you blush at that specific time?"
"Because my mom is wondering about the romance angle and I am less resignedly filial about that. Mom thinks you're cute. She said it."
"...wait, I'm confused."
"What?"
"Why would the romance be—um? Why are you 'less resignedly filial' about that?"
"Because I knew in advance my dad would have fatherly opinions about things but I didn't know in advance that Mom would be all curious about whether you perpetually sing my praises in free verse."
"Do... you not like free verse? I am actually in love with you, I'm pretty sure that part's not just being a teenager."
"I like it! I was caught off guard by my mom thinking it was precious!"
"What else would she think? I mean, I was the one who said it and from an outside perspective I think it's precious. Don't you think it's precious? And it was spontaneous, I'm actually pretty proud of that one."
"I'm not making a value judgment, I'm saying why I blushed."
"Oh. Yeah, alright. It was really cute, I wanted to kiss you then." Pause. "I want to kiss you now, can I kiss you now?"
"Only if you're not going to get carried away."
In short: kisses!
Kisses!
"The microwave thing was also utterly precious. Do you have to go around not paying attention to electronics all the time?"
"I'm fine with, like, lights, and I start to have trouble around the level of a coffeemaker. Anything with settings that can't change them on its own bugs me. Dimmer switches are sort of a gray area."
"Are they supposed to figure the right dimness out on their own?"
"It would be nice! But it requires discernment out of proportion to the complexity of the task itself so I can live with it."
"Mmm, yeah, you're about the cutest thing in this universe."
"Because I can't look at microwaves."
"Among other things, yes."
So she kisses him.
So he kisses her back!
But no getting carried away. There is a boy in her room and the door's open.
"...so what's up with the door rule?"
"It's stupid, because they're not policing whether we're alone in my workshop or your room, but there you go," she shrugs.
"But, I mean... Does it just not occur to them, or what? Your dad—Charlie—even mentioned that he doesn't know what we do when we're in your room."
"That's not what he meant, he just meant we hang out a lot and he's usually not around. I don't know if it doesn't occur to them or what but my guess is they're just doing The Parent Thing and the Parent Thing involves the door rule but does not involve requiring me to be chaperoned at all times."
"O...kay, I guess," he says dubiously.
"It's dumb, but it's not worth it to fight them on it."
"Yeah, and my room's pretty comfy, too."
"Yep."
So now is probably time for more kisses!
Kisses are good.
"I know I said I wouldn't mind if you had spider mandibles and we couldn't kiss, but boy am I glad we can."
"I remember you claiming you didn't care that much about makeouts," accuses Bella. "I think I have to differ with you on how much you care about makeouts."
"Well... I mean, it's not that I don't care about makeouts, really, just like it's not that I don't care about... movies, or musicals, or dates, or discussing strategy. It's that those are nonessential but desirable features of any arrangement where you and I are together."
Giggle.
"I was crushing on you long before I knew what making out with you was like, or what you looked like, and we still haven't technically gone on a date. All of those things sure are nice to have with you, it's the 'having things with you' part that makes me happiest." He plants a peck on her lips.
"You're too cute," she accuses.
"I am! I hope that's not a bad thing, I'm not sure I could in good conscience stop."
"Couldn't you? What if I told you to?"
"...I mean, I guess I could try. I'd need a list of the behaviors you find cute to know what more specifically to stop, or how to screw them up enough that they're no longer cute."
"Good thing I like you being cute, that sounds like a lot of work."
That earns her another kiss. "Yes, it does. I'm happy you like me being cute, as well."
"Good, that works out nicely then."
More kissing?
Kissing!
Are neck kisses and nibbles off-limits while the door's open?
- yes if he keeps going too long. She will pull his hair and drag his face off her neck, giggling.
Ooh, hair pulling! That may elicit unanticipated pleased noises.
"No getting carried away," she laughs, letting go of his hair.
"Sorry," he grins. "It's just so hard when you're so gorgeous and tasty."
"But I'm always gorgeous and tasty and I'm not always in my room at home."
"I know, that's why I said 'hard' and not 'impossible.'" Pause. "Well, it wouldn't have been really impossible, given aforementioned considerations, but much, much harder, especially now that I know that."
"Know what?"
"That you're gorgeous and tasty."
"Did you not know it before?"
"I didn't know it before I had actually seen and kissed and nibbled on you. If I had only found this out when you were in your room, simultaneously with the fact that I can't get carried away here and that 'here' is all there is, then it'd be harder not getting carried away."
"Ah. That would have presented a problem."
"Yes. Thankfully that is not the case."
"Yeah, I hate being presented with problems."
"Do you, really? Wouldn't you get awfully bored without those?"
"Oh, I'm perfectly capable of going out and finding problems at a convenient clip. It's when I'm presented with them that I lose control of which ones they are and how many."
"If you face enough problems that that's a problem, you could write them down."
"It's not remembering that's the trouble, it's the short-term nature and lack of freedom to prioritize. If I am presented with the problem 'now this supervillain is trying to eat my face' I can't stop, write it down, and pencil him in for next Thursday."
"Ah, yes, indeed. Thankfully we've been short on the face-eating supervillains front, lately. Though I suppose this kind of problem can be easily defined as the highest priority for its duration even without written consideration of it, given that all other problems will go unsolved if that particular one does."
"Yes. But I do still hate being presented with them."
"That's fair."
"I can't wait until I'm eighteen," she sighs. "And a half, if they hang on to me. Which they might. Captain. Christ."
"When do you turn eighteen? I'm November six, by the by."
"Year from September thirteenth. They could've made Echo captain, why didn't they make Echo captain? I apparently know so firmly in my own head that I'm not in it for the long haul that I don't remember that I might be pretending convincingly to other people."
"Or they might know it and might be trying to get you to stay by... giving you more responsibility? A challenge? Maybe they think being in command would appeal to you enough to get you to stay?"
"Do they think I'm going to forget that as soon as I graduate I bump back down to being low on the totem pole relative to my shiny new peers?"
Shrug. "Or maybe you do pretend very convincingly, I'm biased because you kinda all but told me up front within a month of us knowing each other but I'm pretty sure you don't other people."
"Yeah, doesn't usually come up."
"Or maybe they thought you were drifting away from the team and thought being captain for a year and change could change that."
"I do like many things about it better than not being captain, but I'd still rather quit, make a shit ton of money selling virtual reality procedurally generated video games or something, and use that budget to do infrastructure and stuff."
"Ooh, that sounds fun! Can I help? In between sessions of kicking Endbringer butt?"
"I'd still show up to Endbringers. And maintain Dad's suit. I'd even take other consultant-type work for the Protectorate if they could be not terrible about it. What do you bring to the video games and infrastructure table?"
"I have absolutely no clue!"
"Then the answer is maybe."
He giggles. "I love you."
Kiss.
Kiiissss!
"I mean, I can probably think of uses for you but temporary objects aren't particularly infrastructural and once I've got mass production running I won't have that much need of bot flock padding either."
"I can provide imaginary advanced tools which might speed up the whole process. Maybe."
"Maybe, but bots aside I mostly do software stuff."
"...super advanced and fast processors? Dunno if they'd run into the squinting problem."
"They might help for stuff the bots were coding on their own, maybe."
Shrug.
"We make a good combat team but not necessarily a good capitalism team. But you don't have to work for me to date me."
"That's true, and I guess you can boss me around in non-work-related contexts."
"Yes I can."
"This topic isn't very conductive to my not getting carried away..."
"But Sadde, I told you not to get carried away."
Another kiss! "You're an endless source of delight."
"Thank you."
And more kissing ensues!
Eee.
Eee, very eee, and Sadde makes an effort to not let himself get carried away.
Good. Bella herself is the picture of restraint.
Well, one of the things, anyway.