As soon as Lorica hears this is in the works she reads up on who she might be getting added to her team, ranks them based on powers with Clasp-or-Glimmer followed by Transfer then Silica, with Mirage last (they're heavy on teleporters already and Mirage's limits don't dovetail very well with existing strategic affordances). But Clasp's the current captain, so he'd be a bad choice for other reasons; her list based on her limited information about the ages, personalities, and movability of the Wards in question requests Glimmer and either Transfer or Silica.

Her input is taken into account. After another couple of days' deliberation and negotiation, they settle for Glimmer and Silica, who will be arriving tomorrow, at the same time Chevalier will be departing the team, making this his last night in Brockton Bay.

Lorica bids Chevalier a polite goodbye, makes sure there's rooms available for Glimmer and Silica if they need to crash while they get moved, and makes ready to be Welcome Wagon.

And the following day, they arrive! Glam is in costume for their arrival, before they're shown around the private quarters, the common room, et cetera.

Silica's subdued, answers Lorica's questions about her power in a quiet voice, and would rather stay at the hotel with her family than crash here thanks.

Glimmer's quiet, as well, but more in a 'I don't really have anything interesting to say right now' way than anything. She wears contact lenses when in costume but prefers wearing glasses otherwise, and developed heterochromia when she got her powers. She says she will probably crash there sometimes but not often enough to warrant one of the permanent rooms.

Lorica gives them both handbooks and makes sure they have the rundown of the other team members' powers and says that if either of them are unsure about the parameters of their powers she's happy to schedule testing, and then she lets them be.

Glimmer, whose name turns out to be Annie, had been in her previous team for a year and has had her powers tested pretty thoroughly. She strikes up a conversation with Echo about a book she's reading, and seems to have a more serious demeanor, choosing her few words with care.

And one of these days, early enough in the morning that this is the first thing he does after leaving his room, he knocks on Lorica's workshop's door.

Bots let him in. Lorica's there eating breakfast. "Morning."

"Good mooorning, love. You know what day it iiiiis?" he says, hovering in.

"Tuesday?"

"Yes! Aaaaand it's been a month."

"Oh. So it has. How do you want to conduct the announcement?"

"I haven't actually thought about it, I'm mostly just very giddy about it and think I deserve a cookie for my having correctly predicted it. Not much more than a cookie, it wasn't such a hard prediction to make, we're meant to be after all."

"I'm fresh out, it's breakfast burrito time here."

"Oh, well. I'm sure I can find one in the cafeteria. In the meantime, a kiss is a great reward."

She pulls her helmet off and seizes him by the front of his shirt to pull him into her lap and kiss him.

Seized and pulled into her lap and kissed are very good things to be! Just look how appreciative the noises he's making are!

"Mmhmmmmm!"

"Good."

"You keep making these faces," he accuses.

"What faces?"

"Those! They're, like, the face equivalent of, of rope."

"What does it mean for a face to be the face equivalent of rope?"

"That when you make them I can't move and feel all warm inside and want to kiss you and you can do whatever you want with me."

"I see."

"Seeeeee, those faces!"

"I can't see, I am behind my face."

Bella attempts to replicate the face. "...Wow, I look like I'm planning to eat you or something."

"Yeeeeeees," he says, in what's the verbal equivalent of his pleased noises.

She snickers, squints the mirror away, and kisses him again.

Yaaay anniversary kisses!

"So, for secret identity reasons we can't just go kiss in the breakroom. Do you want to just let people know as it comes up in conversation or what?"

"Yeah, and I'll maybe be more obviously in love than I currently am when in public. Rewind has been teasing me about it since she joined the team, she won't be surprised at all and is probably the first one with whom the subject will be raised."

"She has? I didn't know this."

"Well, it's mostly something like what Boots used to do but less malicious and more playful, and also she's fifteen. Stuff like 'so when's the wedding?' and similar when I show up in the break room coming from here, that kinda stuff."

"We are not planning a wedding."

"No, we've only been together for a month, I'm not that prescient."

"I'm glad I don't have to disabuse you of any overconfidence there."

"My overconfidence does have some limits," he laughs.

She kisses him again, then puts her helmet back on.

He pouts but floats off her lap.

"Later," she says. "Right now I should be working on those comm things."

"Oh, right! How're those going?"

"Design's mostly hammered out, today I'll build the prototype and then patch bot assumptions about how it should copy me."

"What-all do they do?"

"They'll run on a non-bot AI - I really need to name the main bot - but network sort of like the flock, they'll take information about people's powers and direct calls for help appropriately, and the bots will talk to them and send people where there's civilians needing evac etcetera. They'll screen out or narrow down the audience for chatter."

"Awesome! Why different AIs?"

"Don't want random people needing to trust me far enough to be on my main network. Also, the more stuff I add to the main bot the more likely it is to wake up. I'm guessing, anyway."

"Yeah, fair enough. And I never did suggest names for the AI, did I. Do you have anything you definitely don't like or are currently considering?"

"Discarded a bunch of references like 'Galatea', sifted through Latin and didn't get anywhere."

"How do you feel about acronym names?"

"Neutral, why?"

"Well, that's a way to name it, find some cool title whose initials create a pronounceable word and there you have it. Like, Distributed Operational System for DistrOS or something."

"That doesn't come out to be a name."

"Well it's an AI, it could be named weirdly."

"It can, but like - in the way you can name a dog weirdly, not in the way you can name a committee weirdly?"

"I was thinking in the way you can name a piece of software weirdly. You could also give it a very normal name, like... Jessica or something."

"No, I'm not going to name it Jessica. I don't really want to imply a gender directly."

"Sam? Andrea? Something in Latin, maybe, to go with your cape name."

"I told you I went through some Latin; it's not a bad idea but I didn't find the right word."

"Right. What did you try? You're armor, what are the bots? Weapon, sword, action, control?"

"I actually started with the various kinds of historical, well, lorica, but the only one with a pleasing name means 'feathers', so. The bots aren't the same thing as the central software, anyway, the bots are eyes and ears and reach, the bot is like my assistant or auxiliary - self."

"Soul? That's Anima, isn't it?"

"Yeah, which I don't like."

"Hmm... And variations? Spirit, core, center, mind, self, I?"

"Do you know what any of those are in Latin, because I do and they all suck."

"I don't, I'm just brainstorming. What about Greek?"

"Not as bad but still not actually good."

"Hmm... What is it that Lorica has and the other things don't, or vice-versa, that makes you like it and nothing else?"

"It sounds namey. It sounds pretty, even. It doesn't directly evoke the English word for the same thing like 'spiritus' or 'ego' would."

"Anima sounds namey to me," he shrugs. "I'm gonna look stuff up later. Oh, what about mythological figures?"

"That would be fine if they were good mythological figures with good names."

"Yeah. I don't know much mythology either, though, will have to look that up later, too."

"Be my guest."

"You could name it after meeeee..."

"Do you really want me going around with a software assistant named after your civilian identity?"

"Probably not," he admits. "Besides, it might get confusing."

"A bit. And, no offense, but your name is not the most mellifluous of names."

"I think that might've been the best way anyone's ever called my name weird."

"It is weird but that wasn't what I was commenting on."

"Not being mellifluous is one of the ways my name is weird."

"Lots of people have normal names which aren't especially pretty. 'George'. 'Hortense'. Whatever."

"I suppose."

She scritches his hair. "So I'm not going to name it after you for various reasons but you're very cute."

He closes his eyes and makes both a noise and a face that are probably the human equivalent of a puppy wagging its tail. "I'm very happy you think so!"

"Yeah, it went pretty great, though a bit shorter than I'd hoped."

"Sure, su—wait, what? Seriously?"

Glam grins and nods, and Echo pauses her video to look up.

"Well, actually we're kinda dating," Glam explains.

"What, for real? Like, girlfriend and, and, what are you even?"

Shrug. "Genderfriend?"

Rewind rolls her eyes. "Sure, that works. Anyway! Don't change the subject!"

"You were the one who asked!"

"Whaaatever! You're evading!"

Another shrug. "We've been dating for a month. That's about it."

"Congratulations," Echo says, meaning it.

"A whole month? You've been hiding it from us for that long?!"

"Lorica said she wanted to wait until our one month anniversary before making it public."

"You can tell us what you're comfortable telling," Echo reassures them.

"Nothing to tell. We're dating. That's it," they repeat. "And I'm terribly in love with her and she's great and fantastic and—"

"Yeah, well, it is so you can deal."

"And what's she like with your gender thing?"

"I think further details about our relationship or her like that are entirely none of your business."

Rewind pouts. "No fair!"

Glam floats over to her and pats her head. "Deal."

Echo giggles.

"Oh, it's, I dunno, different. I think there are more history museums than here."

"Yeah, prolly. Are the teams very different? I've only been a Ward a couple of months, I dunno what stuff's like in other places."

"Lorica's kind of more standoffish than my old captain. And the tactics were all different too because different powers."

"Yeah, she's her own thing," Rewind agrees. "But she's been nice to me, when we talked. And hey, did you hear she's dating Glam?" she whispers conspiratorially.

"No, is that even allowed?"

"Yeah, as long as it doesn't 'compromise their judgment on the field' or something like that." She shrugs.

"Does it?"

"I dunno? Tee bee aitch I think if it was up to Lorica we wouldn't even know, and the Teeth fight went alright too."

"Huh. I wonder if she's friendlier with hi- them."

"Him? Huh, I kinda see Glam as more girly? Not that their gender isn't what they say it is, and stuff, but, you know," she quickly amends.

"Yeah I get it, I dunno, maybe it's 'cause - they're - dating Lorica? Why, is she gay?"

"No idea, gaydar's silent on that one, but if someone told me she was actually a robot pretending to be a person inside that suit it wouldn't surprise me."

"Ha, but then who would've built her? And doesn't she have like an uncle or something on the team?"

"Transit's her dad, yeah. And maybe he built her, maybe he's a secret Tinker and the reason she has her super secret mind protection power is really that she doesn't have a human brain."

"Wicked. It'd be weird to have a teleporter Tinker with such a weird power limit though."

"Power limit?"

"The thing where he can't control his distance? Did I remember that wrong?"

"Oh right yeah that. I thought you were talking about his Tinker specialty. Yeah I dunno what the deal with his power is."

"It'd be a stupid thing to build in is my point. If he tinkered it."

"Yeah."

"Maybe he's just pretending to be her dad so no one will suspect she's a robot that, like, Armsmaster built."

"Ooh yeah maybe. But I thought Armsmaster's thing was, like, lots of stuff together?"

"Wouldn't a robot be a lot of stuff?"

"...I guess? I don't really get it. Lorica doesn't really do much, it's her robots that do most of the work."

"Can she do much?"

Shrug.

"I mean I don't do a lot either. It's just the golems."

"They golems are pretty cool. But like, you're not a robot made by Armsmaster."

"Yup."

"Anyway, Lorica and Glam were already all close when I joined, and that was before they'd started dating according to Glam."

"I wonder why."

"...maybe Glam built her."

"They're not like a real tinker though?"

"No, but that's why they're always together, she's actually one of those things Glam makes."

"Huh. But then why is Transit pretending to be her dad?"

Shrug. "Maybe to make it really hard to guess the truth."

"Maybe everybody is a Glam thing except for me. Even you."

"No way, you're totally a Glam thing."

"Nuh-uh, I came from Philadelphia, they couldn't have been making me be in Philadelphia."

"You think you came from Philadelphia, but what if your memories are lying to you, huh? Huh?"

Giggle. "I have a family too though!"

"All Glam's!"

"Why would they even bother making my family instead of having me think I was an orphan?"

"They can't be having everyone be an orphan, or it'd get suspicious."

"Does Lorica have a mom or is it just Transit?"

"Dunno. She never talks about her if she does." Pause. "Not that she really talks about Transit either but."

"Hm."

"Well—" Pause. "Was that a scream?"

"I - maybe?" Silica poises her hand over the cap to the jug of sand on her back.

Silica makes a few golems and heads screamward.

So Silica hangs back with Rewind. "How do you know it's been less than three minutes," she whispers.

"I have a Thinker power, I can see stuff's past ten minutes."

Robots pass out comms to tuck in everyone's ears.

"NOW," snap the bots into her comm. "Glam, get me a Lorica copy and I will drag her if I have to!"

Bots attempt to tranquilize Purity. Other bots coordinate the rest of the fight as best they can, which is pretty well; but they bleed off extras to fly back to hover over their hurt creator and try to take out her assailant.

"Calling Transit to bring Miracle Max stimulants but he doesn't have a reliable path, if you can get her up before then -" says the shoulderbot.

Glam doesn't even wait for the bot to finish before a copy has conjured smelling salts to bring to Rewind. She doesn't even stir—apparently the squinting kicks in before they can have an effect. They keep watching the feeds, because someone has to, Night is still too threatening, but—" It'll be fine, it'll be fine," they repeat to themself over and over, whispering, not using the comms. "Do you have any ideas?" they ask the bots.

"Just Transit. He's on his way with Max's kit."

"Ugh!" The two other Glam copies are around Lorica, looking flustered. On the battlefield, Kaiser noticed the huge beam of light that threw Purity away and is quickly disengaging, and soon Fog starts draining himself away from the building.

The bots coordinate making sure that none of them think it would be a good idea to turn around and get a few more hits in, but don't send anyone to chase them.

"He overshot, he's doubling back, I'm trying to find him good series of appropriately angled roofs he can hit with his hover off," reports the bot.

Glam looks around anxiously—there must be something—is she breathing? "Is she breathing? Is the armor functional? How long has it been?"

"She's breathing but I'm helping. Some of the armor is still working and where it is it's applying pressure to the wounds. Seven minutes forty seconds."

They start hyperventilating. "Will she survive without Rewind?!"

"Maybe. I'm figuring a path to the hospital from here if Transit's not in time for Rewind."

"Considered and discarded fake blood transfusion," says the bot.

Glam is shouldered aside, in a daze, and Rewind takes a couple of seconds to wake up, feels pain, and is standing where she'd arrived when Purity blasted her. "Save her," Glam says in a pained voice, and Rewind's already on the move before even fully understanding what happened, running towards Lorica. She doesn't even bother talking to Charlie—they don't have time to waste—and she touches her—

"Jesus fuck," gasps Lorica.

Lorica hugs back, and leans her head on Transit who's behaving low-key similarly, and catches her breath while bots catch her up on what she missed.

Glam's shoulderbot tells Rewind what happened. Lorica squeezes Glam.

"Jesus fucking Christ that Nazi bitch," Rewind breathes. "I should go see if anyone needs my help downstairs." She looks at Glam, who seems to have given up on words, then at Silica and says, "Probably not a robot."

"Woozy. Otherwise fine," Lorica assures them.

"Well - I didn't." Pat pat.

Sniffle. "Good." More sniffling.

And Glam goes with, and opens the door for them.

He nods, burying his face in her hair. "I think both of us owe her our lives, now."

"Yeah."

"Relatedly, we really need to figure out a way to deal with the Empire without almost dying so often."

A copy floats over to the door and opens it.

Sadde watches this and somehow manages not to look incredibly, terribly guilty of some unspeakable crime against Bella's virtue or—something, with Transit there.

Bella chugs the rest of the juice, then flops back down on her boyfriend. Transit pats her head and departs.

Her boyfriend snuggles up, burying his face in her neck, and kisses her there.

She's a little too woozy to eeee, but she can mmmm.

Mmming is alright. He just wants to enjoy the fact that she's completely and totally not dead. He hugs her a bit tighter.

She might doze off.

That's alright. He'll be running one of his hands through her hair soothingly, not really doing or saying anything, sometimes making soft 'mmm' sounds.

Yup, there she goes. Zzzzzz.

Which wakes him up as well, smiling. "Mrng."

"I don't think it's morning." Kiss. Oh look, cookies. She opens her packet of cookies and eats them.

Mmm kiss! "Yeah, guess it's not," he says, sitting up. "How're you feeling?"

"Slightly weak, otherwise okay. What time is it?"

A copy appears to reach for the phone, say, "Five seventeen," put it down again, then disappear.

"Dinnertime. Be sort of awkward to go in costume or I'd suggest we make it a dinner date."

"Neither of us is in costume?"

"Narrows down who exactly would have to run into us, but only to 'anyone who knows either of us from school or knows you from the team'."

"Hm. We could order something and eat it here, with," and he conjures floating candles. "Maybe even," and he conjures a floating violin playing something mid-air.

She giggles. "I can send the surviving bots for Jewish deli, does that sound fun?"

"Yeah! What should the restaurant be like? I'm terrible at decoration."

"No need to go overboard. What deli stuff do you like?"

"Dunno. Surprise me?"

"The bot will guess, then."

And now there's a table and a couple of chairs over there by the window. Not overboard; still nice.

Snuggle! Snuggle to the sound of violins. And neck kisses.

Eee!

The sound of violins and eees! Sadde knows which one his favorite is.

Before they can get too carried away a bot knocks and, when let in, proves to be carrying delicious sandwiches on rye (one corned beef, one tuna) and knishes and cookies.

He disentangles from her and leaps off the bed, probably aided by temporary antigrav attachments to his clothes, then offers a hand and asks, "Shall we, my lady?"

She giggles and obligingly is led to the table. The bot puts half of each sandwich on each of their plates and distributes knishes similarly.

He smiles at her. "I love you," he says, before even looking at what the bots served them.

She leans over the table, and kisses him, and then sits back and says, "I love you too."

"That's an interesting face you're making."

"Nnnnnnnnnh can you say it again?"

"I love you."

He puts his hands on the table and breathes deeply. "We should probably eat this," he says, his voice a bit strained with barely suppressed emotion.

"Or what, you'll melt?"

"I already have, this is just a cleverly built copy. No, it's mostly because I need to kiss you really hard right now but I should mind my table manners."

"So the idea is that if we start eating, when you lose self-control you'll get a faceful of corned beef?"

"I won't lose my self control. If, however, you want to jump straight to the kissing without the eating..."

"I do want to eat. But you can kiss me first."

Kiss.

"Mmmm we should probably eat, this is not helping with my self control."

"All right. Siddown." She picks up one of her sandwich halves.

He obeys, shivering just a bit. And he does not wolf his food down because that would do no good, he is perfectly polite and restrained.

"You," he says, "are doing this on purpose. Aren't you."

"Doing what?"

"Stalling."

"Aren't you impatient to see what I'm going to do with you after we eat."

Bella takes a slooooooow bite of knish.

"You're so evil."

"You wouldn't have me any other way."

"Well, I would, but I am oh so happy you're this way."

"Good."

"You're the best," he says, and takes another bite of—whatever, he's not even playing attention at this point, the only reason he's not fidgeting restlessly is that he's keeping himself purposely as still as he can.

Slow agonizing dinner draws to an eventual close, and Bella looks contemplatively at her boyfriend.

Her boyfriend looks at her with a certain look she might recognize.

Various evil behavior ensues.

He is really happy about various evil behavior.

That's the point. Well, about half of the point.

And the other half?

The other half is the Bella is also enjoying it.

Well, the implication might or might not be more than coincidental, but...

She loves him too! She reminds him of this. Periodically. At opportune moments.

Oh good! Not that he's likely to forget, but my, does he like being reminded. He would also like to pay her in kind.

That is entirely permissible.

Maybe.

Well, then if he presents them to her she might have to see what the fuss is about.

She's in a mood. It is a compatible mood.

He might just have to kiss her a lot before they get to use it because she's just great.

Mmmmm, kisses.

She likes to exceed expectations.

He likes to have them exceeded!

They dovetail very nicely that way, then.

He'd also like to know if there's anything in particular she'd like him to do.

Fantastic. Why doesn't he go ahead and do that, then?

Good boyfriend.

He really likes being a good boyfriend.

Which is itself a good boyfriend characteristic.

Such recursion.

And other things.

Yes, definitely other things.

And eventually, once again: snuggles.

Mmm snuggles!

"Love you," she says tiredly.

He hugs her. "And I'm totally awake and not dreaming or hallucinating this in any way, my life's great. Except for the brushes with death part, those aren't that great, but the other parts: great."

"The brushes with death do seem to rev me up. I mean, there's other ways to do it, but still."

"Hmm, yeah, that's true, the last time it happened we started dating. This is a terrible incentive."

"Do not follow this incentive, Sadde."

"Well, now that we're already dating and I can already rev you up just by being cute around you at the right times, I think I prefer that."

"Good."

"Hm?"

"Half of it is in this afterglowy peace and warm fuzzy, and the other half is screaming and running around in circles that this is really happening, and it makes me want to giggle randomly."

She kisses his forehead.

This time Sadde doesn't pout, because 1. she should spend time with her family after a brush with death and 2. it'd feel ungrateful for—well, everything.

She is! The last thing she does is put her glasses away and put on her contact lenses because god she hates those things, but glasses are only partially covered by her forcefield and it's really annoying and hard to see with them when they interact, ugh.

And they're off, surrounded by spaced-out robots humming through the air.

Glimmer's fast, but she can't fly, so they're close to the ground.

Suits Lorica fine. Some of her bots range high to compensate.

Patrol patrol. Glimmer's pretty quiet, and when she does speak it's to ask, "What can you tell me about the city?"

"Layout, culture, criminal activity...?"

Shrug. "All of it, sort by relevance to our current activities."

"There's several major gangs, many with associated capes. Rewind can tell you more about the Asian ones than I can; Empire Eighty-Eight you've met but I don't expect to see them again so soon -" She summarizes the others. "The city's been getting poorer since all the boats wrecked in the harbor and cut off the place's status as a trade hub but nobody has a plan to fix that. I'm sure you've seen a map; we mostly confine patrols to higher-crime and higher-villain-activity in particular regions, although today we're taking a pretty low-trafficked route because you're new and I'm down a couple pints of blood."

Patrol. Patrol.

"So I had read somewhere you guys had captured that Purity."

"We had. Then the rest of the Empire came and pried her out of lockup. It's lucky we had Rewind by then or Glam would almost certainly be dead."

"Damn. These Empire people are tough."

"Very."

"She worked with one briefly and was nearly forcibly recruited by another."

"Oh." That gives her pause. "And she joined up just like that?"

"She wanted protection from the forcible recruiter and the Protectorate provided. She's technically probationary, but I have no complaints about her performance since she signed on."

"Did she say why she was with a gang before?"

"You'd have to go to her for details, but apparently the gang saved her from an Empire Eighty-Eight attack once."

"...we really need to find a way to deal with them."

"I'm open to suggestions."

"I'll tell you when I come up with any."

"Yeah. There's a bunch of them and they have some pretty lethal powers and most of them are already down for the Birdcage, which makes them a little more willing to dish it out. It's a problem."

"I can believe that. The Birdcage part."

"Yeah, it's kind of an incentive problem."

"Mmhm."

Patrol patrol.

Patrol.

A few hours later they get back, and Lorica works on mass-producing comms, enough to get everybody at a typical Endbringer fight one of their own.