"The weird is all of us being there."

"Oh.  Well.  Huh.  I guess?  I certainly don't know."

She shrugs and smiles. "Yeah. We barely know, and we live it. But I like being me. I like knowing these four girls have had my back through wars and apocalypses and being street rats. I like the ways we've been sideways of human. I had wings in one life."

She stares up at the clouds.

"Wings do seem pretty neat!"

"Flying's amazing. Broom, wings, or jet, it's always brill."

"I'll have to get you something for that, then!  You've got your webs, but that's not quite flight yet.  Actually, speaking of equipment - is there anything you'd like to have, that you don't have already?"

"I don't off-hand, but I know who does." Hailey smirks. "Wanna meet another Pirate?"

"By all means!"

She smiles softly, blowing out a slow breath and leaning back away from the body into mindspace—

Their head tilts quickly but very minutely to the side, mouth falls open, they take a deep breath in—

And then Ruby sits up sharply, grinning wide and open! She turns to face Momo, bouncing a bit. "Hi! I'm Ruby Rose! Nice to meet you, Momo!" she greets her, flipping the beads over.

"Hi!  Nice to meet you!"  ...Where has she heard that name before...?  What does Hatsume Mei have to do with it?

"I have so many ideas. You don't know how mechashift works, do you?"

...Oh that's -

"...I think Hatsume Mei definitely tried to figure it out, if I recall correctly - she was trying to make a 'Crescent Rose' all through third year, and I didn't hear anything about it exploding, so I'm guessing it didn't go horribly wrong.  But I think that was a group project, and that it needed to be, because - well, she asked me if I could make her some custom parts, and a lot of the blueprints I saw were talking about spatial folding, and we don't have a non-Quirk way to do that as far as I know?  So whatever I might have, I don't think we can do.  Yet."

"Mei tried to make Crescent Rose!? I mean if anyone could recreate my baby it'd probably be Mei but yeah folds are a core piece of mechashift you can't do it without folds and even if Mei derived the fold math that wouldn't be enough without either a set of precision fold manipulators and fresh Gravity Dust crystals in 'em or a Quirk that could replicate the effect so I'm not surprised she needed help 'cause y'all don't have Dust."

She takes a big breath.

"Wow."

...Kami preserve her, Ruby's cute.

"Yeah, she did.  And I don't have the blueprints she was using - those are 'proprietary Hatsume Industries material, not for distribution' - but I do have the structural alloys recorded, at least."

"You have Huntress-grade alloys oh gods you're amazing. I have to relearn all the stuff I knew from scratch so I can make use of it I've got so much to do yes!"

"I mean, I don't want to get your hopes up erroneously - I don't know if the alloys are actually Huntress-grade - but they are heroics-grade."

"That's better than I've had until now."

"Then I hope they serve you well!  ...If the universe disappoints you like this I will never forgive it."

"I've already had a pair of gods I grew up looking up to turn out to be disappointments, so I'd cope. We've got access to the whole multiverse now, given time, so we'll find everything I need sooner or later."

She scoots closer. "Can I hug you?"

"...Yes, you can, and yes, you may."  (...She just can't make Ruby sad.  She has known Ruby for five minutes and she can already tell that Sad Ruby is a horrible tragedy.)

She blushes a bit and smiles and sits down next to Momo, pulling her into a tight, close hug. "We like you a lot," she whispers. "Hailey's the pickiest. Sable's the easiest. Maya follows them, Neo's playful and quick but takes time to really attach, and I guess I'm just... I get making things better than people, but I can tell I like you."

"O-oh, gosh...!  I, well, I already said that if the Company wanted me to uncomplicatedly like you all, it should have just stayed out of the way of my doing that naturally - and everything I've seen of you so far has convinced me more and more that that's true; that I do like all of you that I've met, and will probably like those of you that I haven't met, and that that's not the Company's doing."

"That's really good. I'm really glad we're getting to know you."

She squeezes Momo again, then leans back bouncily. "I definitely have gear ideas, though: web grenades, if we can figure out how to shoot the raw fluid without spinning it first so we can study it and fill them, or a wingsuit like you said, attached to our costume such that it folds out of the way when we're not using it, or maybe a longer term goal of some kinda HUD glasses and a version that integrates into our mask, such that it forms a shared tacnet with yours, or what about tranquilizers for non-lethal takedowns in gloves or in darts we could throw, or do you have anything for stealth?"

She takes a few big breaths.