So I run into this vic, first person I've seen.  Adorable five-foot-tall woman in a fluffy pink sweater, cool as a cucumber, tells me about her monster encounter - and listen, it was a first-time dungeon, but these monsters are gonna turn out to have been serious business.  She answers all my questions for me to call her in, her morale's even better than mine.  I start walking her back to base camp and she's making conversation, bantering about the dungeon's design sensibilities and the monsters, for all the world like we're on our first date.  I start to feel like she's the one keeping my spirits up.  And then we come to my first monster encounter."

"That is really impressive. I don't think I've ever had a vic that wasn't at least a little stressed out. Of course we don't see the really boring dungeons but I know form talking to the DRT guys that most people find even those pretty stressful. Being abruptly kidnapped will do that to people."

"Now, I don't actually have my power up at this time.  I don't like to have it on all the time, I'm pretty good at mundane stealth, and there don't seem to be a lot of these monsters around, so I'm fairly confident I'll hear one coming.  And on this occasion I do.  But that's me, with my esper hearing and my five years of professional experience.  I stop dead in my tracks overhearing this thing and she matches my energy perfectly, her first time in a dungeon and she takes cues as well as my partner Peregrine.  I don't have to say anything, I don't have to signal anything.

"I keep my power up all the time, but that's because mundane stealth doesn't work so well for me, at least once I'm already backlashed. Since again, I cannot shut up. I try to avoid making a ton of noise - that's part of why I don't really like to use guns much even though I do carry one but some noise is inevitable. If more people spoke sign language I'd learn that. I might learn it eventually anyway just in case I run into a deaf victim that doesn't read lips."

"So I take care of this thing fast.  It kicks my backlash a little but I'm okay.  This is the first good look either of us have gotten at one of the monsters.  Big seven-or-eight-foot tall four-armed boogeyman lookin' guy, slowly dissolving into black goo after he got shot.  And what do we discover but that it got its hands on one of our red spray paint bottles and tried to cross out one of our arrows with it.".

...She giggles "That is kinda funny, and yes kind of adorable."

He smiles with smug fondness at Kimberly, again, when Meghan calls her impressive, and giggles a little at "since again, I cannot shut up."  "I'm working on sign language, actually" he says.  "Kimberly and I learned Morse code, it would be kind of a tangent to explain exactly why, but it's come in handy once or twice in in dungeons that mess with radio transmissions without killing them altogether."

"Anyway, I grab the paint can and we get moving.  We're quiet for a bit, because this thing screamed as I killed it and I want to put some distance between it and us.  But eventually we get to talking again.  She's not rattled even the tiniest bit."  Squeeze, fond smile.  "We're still making small talk, still doing dungeon art criticism.  Base camp reported that the monsters have started spotting and attacking the SWAT guys, she takes it in stride - but not in a way where she's not taking it seriously, you know?  Cool as a cucumber, like I said.  She was even - so you can't talk people down from backlash obviously but mine in particular runs in parallel to my existing mental health issues, so there's the feeling of guilt itself and there's whatever I decide to spiral over, yeah?  And just by being there and being calm she's really helping ground me out of spiraling, keeping my head on straight.  I almost feel bad she's doing so much for me when I'm supposed to be there for her."

"So we put some distance between us and dead guy number one.  And this is when shit starts to get heavy."

He smiles with smug fondness at Kimberly, again, when Meghan calls her impressive, and giggles a little at "since again, I cannot shut up."  "I'm working on sign language, actually" he says.  "Kimberly and I learned Morse code, it would be kind of a tangent to explain exactly why, but it's come in handy once or twice in in dungeons that mess with radio transmissions without killing them altogether."

"I never thought of learning Morse code, but now that you mention it it might be a good idea. Though it does again run into the 'how many people know this anyway?' problem. On the other hand it's faster to learn than sign language."

She was even - so you can't talk people down from backlash obviously but mine in particular runs in parallel to my existing mental health issues, so there's the feeling of guilt itself and there's whatever I decide to spiral over, yeah?  And just by being there and being calm she's really helping ground me out of spiraling, keeping my head on straight.  I almost feel bad she's doing so much for me when I'm supposed to be there for her."

"Obviously I depend on having people to talk to but I think a lot of people benefit from having somebody to talk to, at least if they can stay calm."

It definitely helps him, he says, to have people to talk to.

"Two things turn up at once.  One is that we come to a corridor that I remember vividly from scouting, and I remember vividly that it was about a quarter as long as it is now.  And the other is that my radio transmissions stop working.  I tell Kimberly what's going on, and - it's not just that she was taking it in stride, she's practically talking shop with me.  I feel like I'm there with a scouting partner.  We're not sure how much the place has changed up - we figure it's a Hail Mary pass to set up an ambush, not an easy capability that it's been keeping in reserve - so we hunker down a bit in case base camp figures out what's going on and one of their scouting parties finds us.  And we're just chattin'!  Talkin' about nature facts.  This is when I really start trying to explain to her how badass she is, the first time I suggest she ought to do this for a living."

"But.  This goes on for a while," he says.  "Long enough that we figure something's delaying the scouting party, because we should be close to base camp by now.  We don't know if something waylaid them or if the route just got a lot longer somehow.  But it's still the best move, we figure, to stay put."

"Now, at this point I do have my power up, because it won't start backlashing me until I've got something to stop from noticing me.  I don't do that a lot, like I said, because I'm good at being stealthy without help and I like to be conservative with my backlash accumulation, but under the circumstances I want early warning if something hears me.  And it's around this point that I get that early warning."

"I tell her something's coming, and I can work out that it's coming fast, so we get ready to run.  And one of the monsters barrels around the corner.  Last time we saw one, it never knew either of us were there, and I could walk right up to it and put it down.  This time, it's already running at us."

"Now it's important to the story to clarify at this point, I don't shoot stuff with my power up.  Traceless can do that - can you do that, actually?"

"I can, though I really prefer not to do it with a moving target or if I'm otherwise not sure I can put the thing down in one hit. Being shot is really attention grabbing, turns out so I I want to take things out fast before they have time to do much noticing. Since I can cover other people I usually just prefer to go by or let them go by and radio the approximate location in for someone else to deal with. I most commonly end up shooting the ones that are guarding or tormenting victims since they already know the victims are there so it'd be a chunk of additional backlash to cover them right there and it works out to less backlash to just shoot the guard. Though depending on how fast they are sometimes I can just grab the victim and run until they lose track instead."

"That makes sense," he says.  "In more crowded dungeons than this one I do similar types of things.  But if I'm actually gonna kill something, I need to take my power down for a second to do it, or otherwise it'll hit me with more backlash than I generally get over a whole dungeon run.  So that's one reason I've got my power off, as we're running, and another is that I want to keep this thing's attention on me more than on Kimberly, because I don't know what it'll do if it thinks it's chasing her and it remembers chasing with intent to kill, right?"

"So we run," he says.  "Now, pause for a minute.  At this point I've got two cans of spray paint.  As we're getting ready to run, we figure, what if we get separated?  Either one of us might be the ones looking at the arrows back to base, and if the layout changed we'll want whoever it was to mark down on the walls that they're following the arrows home.  So I give one of the paint cans to her."

"Back in - my instincts are telling me run the gauntlet on the probable ambush, I think if I need to I can take down a couple of these things.  As we're bolting I get off a couple shots into the one that's chasing us, but it's not totally down before we round the corner.  We're in the too-long hallway now, our pursuer is still pursuing, and it turns out we were right, it was an ambush.  There's another one coming down the corridor toward us.  Blocked off on either end, no side exits to duck into.  So we gotta plant our feet.  I'm focused on the one cutting off our exit, but the one that chased us into the ambush in the first place is still on our tail.  So Kimberly plants her feet, too..."

He puts his arm around her shoulder, and smiles down fondly at her, and gives her an expectant sidehug squeeze.

"I gave it a faceful of spray paint."

...She giggles then gets serious "Very brave of you to stand your ground. I cheat and it honestly took me a few dungeon runs to get totally used to trusting my power and staying cool when there's big and nasty things about."

"She was a lot braver in the face of a scarier monster than I was on my first run," he says proudly.

"It doesn't feel from the inside like I'm doing anything special, when I stay calm like that. But everybody keeps insisting it's very badass of me."

"it really really is."

Sqz.  "So with this thing choking on DRT Issue Red, I've got a nice clear window to put it down.  But the story's not over there, because - after I shot the one blocking our exit, I spun around to check on the one chasing us, and I missed the second one blocking our exit, right behind the first.  It's Kimberly who spots it first - " sqz, again - "and by the time I turn back around it's already in the air, pouncing."

"Its mouth is open, its teeth are aimed," he tilts his chin up slightly, and places his thumb and his middle finger on either side of his Adam's apple, "right at my neck."

"I've got a split second, and in a split second I can't do a lot of detail work with my power, so I just slam it on as hard as I can.  We go tumbling, it struggles.  Kimberly," a quick smile, "keeps her head well enough to spray this one too, in the eyes this time, which distracts it more; but it still winds up with its teeth," he repeats the gesture from a moment ago, and then gently pushes his hand forward until the crook of his thumb and first finger is pressed against his neck, "right on my throat."

"I told you I have to turn my power off when I shoot something.  At this point in my career I've got that down to a split second, and I'm very good at working within that space, but this is beyond me.  I turn my power off and I get my throat ripped out, on the instant.  It might happen without turning my power off at all, if it thrashes the wrong way.  So I got no choice.  I shoot it."

"Three times.  This thick black blood that they melt into, it goes everywhere.  Its dead, I turn my power off."

"No more monsters nearby, but I'm more backlashed than I've ever been inside a dungeon.  This hasn't happened to me since power testing.  It's just her and me, we've got no idea how far we are from base camp, and I'm more backlashed than I can handle on my own."

(Sqz. Poor past Bryce.)

Wince. (She's thinking about That One Time she needed to be bailed out)

"If it were any other rescue there with me - I don't know what would have happened.  Probably nothing good.  I couldn't even keep my own head, and after an attack like that I'd have expected any first-time kidnappee with no dungeon running experience to be panicking too.  But Kimberly's some kind of prodigy.  ...Sometimes I'm still embarrassed to say it, that somebody I was supposed to be rescuing and looking out for was the one to calm me down and keep me going.  But - I'm really proud of her.  She was incredible."

"It really sounds like it.' She smiles at Kimberly. "Seems like Shadowcat was lucky to find you, and the dungeon victims are also lucky he found you."

"See, on the one hand, I always want to say you shouldn't feel bad about having a hard time. And on the other hand, I always want to say I don't feel that special just for being unreasonably chill. But putting those two things next to each other leaves me in a bit of a bind."

"Well," he says, "I know how I'd resolve that tension."  He stoops a little, to kiss her hair gently and briefly.

"Fiiiine, if you insist, I will admit that it might be pretty cool of me."

"You two are very cute."

Grin.

"And that's not even the end of the story. We get moving and very quickly it becomes apparent that the dungeon changed around quite a bit.  Hallways are the wrong length, there's doors where they weren't before with no arrows to mark whether they got passed by.  But the route's recognizable for the most part, we're able to muddle through together - until we're getting close to the end, and around a corner at the end of a hallway, there's an arrow pointing straight at a solid wall where there ought to be a door.  And here's where Kimberly comes through again, because while I've been barely keeping my head under a pile of backlash, she's been turning this whole situation over in her head and brainstorming.  So we talk it over, the way the hallways are stretched and squished, the way doors are appearing and disappearing, and we figure, maybe the only thing that happened here is there's a wall instead of a door - "

He gives Kimberly a gentle, friendly elbow-bump.

"And I'm like, you know, my best friend's always saying walls are a social construct."