It is! He waves.

April follows Sean's eye and also waves.

"Hey, Sean, April.  I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long.  Dungeon portal re-route on the way, you know how it goes."

"Yeah, no problem."

"Okay, let's go find out what the fuck I'm all about. Or do you wanna snuggle first? How bad did the dungeon take it out of you?"

"Uuuggghhhhhh.  Maybe we can hold hands while we go in?  Just - rough teammates today.  I think it was a case of psych backlash, or something, I had to keep shielding this one guy and he kept hiding from me."

Sure, he can have a hand.

Ahhhhhh.  "So much better.  Okay.  Let's figure out your power."  It's nice that these two have stuck together.  He's a little clingy, if she doesn't push back he's going to press their forearms together as well as their hands.

"Let's!"

She's happy to keep their forearms together while they walk, though it takes some doing as she's quite a bit shorter than he is.

All right, what does this place look like?

Well, they definitely didn't design it for looks.  It's oddly reminiscent of a dingy mechanic's shop.  Concrete floors that have had quite a few repairs made over their years, similarly-patched sturdy concrete walls and steel I-beams are the order of the day. There are a few posters on the walls, but they're all themed about being safety conscious and warnings about power use and care regarding backlashes.

After entering the reception area and glancing around, they're flagged down by a middle-aged woman with a kind smile.  "April Turnberry, correct?  For initial powers testing?"

"That's me! Fully prepared to find out that my power does nothing but make fart noises at varying pitches and volumes!"

The kind smile graduates to a hearty chuckle.  "Well, dear, you've already gotten to one of the things we have to tell people.  About half of all esper awakenings result in a D-ranked power.  That's not to say that those powers are useless, just that they're not sufficient to make someone capable of running dungeons with nothing but that power and support.  My name is Dr. Rosanna Canto, but you're welcome to just call me Rose."

"Aumento on the paperwork, ma'am.  But you're welcome to just call me Tim."

"And I'm Sean."

"I'm definitely hoping for more than fart noises, because dungeons fucking suck, but I have had a heck of an education in how much I can get done just as a professional partner."

"You're not wrong about that.  There's no such thing as an independent esper - every one of them requires guiding, and it doesn't matter how good your power is if you don't have someone to guide you.  Many powers come with intuitions, does yours have anything?  A targeting component, a sense that it can be used for a specific thing, anything like that?"

"I get, uh, the opposite of targeting? It feels like it's something in me, or on me, or about me."

"Okay.  So we'll need Test Chamber Four.  Follow me, please?  It's just right this way."  Pretty soon, April's brought to Test Chamber Four, which can be described pretty accurately as an empty concrete bunker with a lawnchair in it.  "Tim, Sean, you'll need to stay outside.  We have a live intercom here, so you'll be able to talk to your friend while she tests her power.  Okay?"

"Yeah, sure thing."

...she's kind of endeared by the lawnchair.

It's a standard DRT lawnchair!  They have dozens of the things.  Very comfy, big enough for two people who're willing to share, slightly tougher than a standard lawnchair, and trivially modular.  You can replace any part of it in under three minutes if you have a screwdriver.  Helps keep overhead down.

"Okay.  Whenever you're ready, April, go ahead and activate your power.  Probably nothing will happen, and that's okay.  You're in good hands."

She gives a thumbs up, double-checks that the door is closed, and...

...activates her power?

"Well it's not doing anything yet..."

She takes a step toward the lawn chair and gives it a gentle nudge. That also seems pretty normal; the lawnchair shifts just a tiny bit, as a nudged chair ordinarily might.

"I definitely feel different somehow," she reports. "I feel... not stronger exactly, but... something like it?"

"Okay.  Deactivate your power.  Once you do, I'll let you back out and hand you a series of test objects.  I'll also have you wear PPE.  Usually powers like this have protections, but better to be safe."

Tim is not by any means the Great Stone Face.  He's definitely something.  A little anxious.  Definitely tense.

...Sean stands a little closer to him, in a supportive, leanable-on sort of way.

April lets go of her power, steps out, and goes for a handsqueeze with Tim before taking receipt of any test objects. (Her backlash is pretty low, hardly a whisper; apparently poking the lawnchair was not strenuous.)

He glances over towards Sean and gives a slightly less tense grin.  Shoulderbump of support?  That's a plausibly deniable form of affection, right?

The focus on Sean leaves him a little blindsided by April's handsqueeze.  She also gets a smile.  He's still tense, but he's a little less, now.

Well, safety first!  It's not quite a full blast rig, but it is a set of sturdy torso protection and a helmet not completely unrelated to a welder's mask.  Rose also wheels in an odd contraption - it's a wheeled sheet of bulletproof glass, with two wrist-sized holes in it.  April will be able to manipulate the following items:

A rod of copper.
A rod of iron.
A rod of highly-ductile steel.

"Go ahead and try to bend these, dear, whenever you're ready."

Feels excessive, but powers are powers.

Okay, first things first: bending the copper rod with no powers? Hmm yep that's hard because she does not have superstrength. She's esper strong but she's not Aumento strong.

Bending the copper rod with light power use?

...still hard, but... less hard, maybe? It feels like she has better leverage or something. It's definitely budging in a way it wasn't before. It's not origami but it's going places.

She tentatively increases the amount of Self. That's what it feels like, like she's making herself more, somehow - more dense, more present, more real, more April.

The copper rod isn't bending any faster, but it actually almost feels like...

She tightens her hands, and slowly but surely the copper molds like clay, getting quite warm in the process. Kind of pleasantly so. She ends up with a slightly bent rod with two copper handgrips like lumps of squeezed Play-Doh.

"I don't think I'm stronger but I'm definitely more something," she reports. She puts the copper rod down before backing off her power, and then geeeently pokes it with one finger— "More heat resistant for sure," she adds, pulling the finger back.

Timothy Bartholomew Delgado, it would COMPLETELY DEFEAT the point of the tests to throw your power over April like a security blanket.

"Interesting.  Can you hold that up clearly, please?  We have an infrared camera in the room."

She lightly activates her power so she can pick it up and hold it at a hopefully more visible angle. It's quite warm, though maybe not quite as warm as you'd expect copper to be if it was recently soft enough to act like clay in her hand.

"That's perfect, thank you.  Friction from the increased pressure, do you think?  Or do you think a heat-based power?  Copper melts at about a thousand degrees Celcius, but it's nowhere near there."

"I'm not exactly an expert here... This strength thing is weird though. Like I could swear it's not superstrength but if it's not superstrength then what the heck did I do to that piece of metal?"

She tries one of the other rods. How much harder to bend is iron than copper?

About a third stronger!  A baseline human can bend the copper bar with effort and gloves.  A baseline human can still bend this iron bar, but it's really notably harder.

She ramps up her power, a bit more than before, and the iron rod sure does bend.

Then she tries to crush it like she did with the copper. It goes down just the same - a bit faster, even? Oh, she instinctively pushed harder with her power. She bites her lip a little. It's going to be so embarrassing if she starts crying during powers testing. Okay, cool your jets, April, you can do this.

She puts down the (warmed) iron rod, scales her power way back, and picks up rod number three. What's its deal?

It's harder than iron!  Not that much, about one and a half times as hard as the iron used.  This is a mild steel, since a harder steel would be brittle and more subject to snapping suddenly.

Huh. It's noticeably harder to bend, but barely harder to crush. Did she increase her power use again? She was trying not to. Maybe she's just very good at crushing things efficiently?

"Excellent.  Okay.  It looks like you're deforming the material really quite excellently.  It's promising as a potentially dungeonworthy power, although I don't want to get your hopes up, yet.  Do you have a feel for how intense your backlash is, yet?"

"I'm sure not as badly off as I was last week, I'll tell you that. I think I could go a while longer like this?"

"Oh, you just wrapped up with awakening?  You're really off to the races!  At any rate, we need Test Chamber Three for this one.  You're more than welcome to call for a break at any time, for any reason or none at all.  Go ahead and leave everything in there, we'll tidy up later."

She puts down the third rod, carefully extracts her hands from the bulletproof glass, and turns toward the door, absently reaching a hand up behind her back to scratch an itch under the rather silly-feeling protective gear. It's hard to get at, and without thinking, she flares her power a bit as she digs in her fingers.

Ah, that's bett—

Oh.  Another one.  "You'll need to be more careful with your power, dear.  You seem to have put a hole in that shirt.  Did you happen to pack a change of clothing?"  If not, they have extras.  This is not the first time and it will not be the last.

Tim offers her a look of utterly boundless sympathy.  He's been there, too.

"Yeah, we did think of that." Sean pulls a t-shirt out of his backpack.

"...hey, Tim, you've got a special course for learning how not to break stuff by accident, right? I might be in the market..."

Very carefully not using her power at all, she comes out to hand in the busted protective gear and put a new shirt on over her now slightly torn shirt.

”I sure do, and you’re welcome to take it.  Here, let me get a sense of how bad your backlash is?”  And let me guide off a little of mine while we move rooms.

She squeezes his hand. It's definitely not too bad at all! Noticeable, but not major. It does help her guide him a little faster as they walk.

Tim will relay this information faithfully!  “I think your efficiency is going to be pretty reasonable.  And you almost certainly have a durability power, if you can, er, ruin your shirt but leave your skin intact.”

“Right this way, dears.”  The next testing chamber could be confused with a weightlifting gym, if the weightlifting stations were overengineered with safety in mind.  The machines are all resistance-based, and the only exposed moving parts are the ones that absolutely need to be for the equipment to work.  “I’d like you to do a baseline test first, for each machine, please.  Nothing should be a personal record attempt.  I just need an approximate baseline.  Then on each machine, use a little of your power, then whatever feels like a medium amount.  Don’t go all-out, this is just a class 3 facility.  Do you have any questions?”

"I don't actually know how much I can lift, but I guess I'm about to find out..."

The answer, of course, is 'an esper amount', but once she's gotten that baseline, turning on her power has surprisingly little effect—except that, out of curiosity, she pauses midway through a set and just holds the weight there, and... "I feel like I could do this all day. It's not even that bad on backlash. It's just kind of chill." She lets go of her power, winces, and finishes the motion properly. "And yeah, that is not fun to hold like that when I don't have my power up."

Well.  That's puzzling.  Strong enough to leave fingerprints in steel, to heat up the steel in question.  But this incredible strength somehow doesn't apply to the act of picking up heavy objects and setting them back down.  And the endurance to hold a weight at what would be an uncomfortable extension baseline?

"Not a standard strength power, I think.  Not that there are really standard powers, of course, but some are more standard than others.  I think you're going to be at least a Melee 2, possibly a 3 if we can figure out how to leverage your strength."

"It really feels like I'm doing something that's not superstrength, it just looks like superstrength some of the time..."

She tries another set at a slightly higher weight, this time pushing a little more with her power. It does make it easier than when she wasn't using her power at all, it just doesn't... quite...

"...I feel like I'm gonna break something if I push any harder." She doesn't push any harder. "It's like, I don't know, like I'm making myself... not exactly heavier, but harder to push around? Harder to push around but not that much better at pushing."

"Ma'am, I'm a Melee 3 with Healing 2 and Buff 3.  I do regen, and I can give it to other people.  Is it okay if I try to push her?  In another room?"

She thinks about it for a moment.  "Okay, we can do a setup for it.  If you're quite alright with that, dear?  I don't think the strength tests are going to get us anywhere else."

Thumbs up. She has seen Tim unfuck some truly fucked limbs; in a sense, right next to him is the safest possible place to be, even if he's using the Don't Move You'll Break Stuff power on her.

On to Test Chamber One, then!  This one's got a grippy yet plush floor, with excessive amounts of padding on every surface, including the ceiling.  The plan for them is to stand with a protective bulletproof glass shield between the two of them.  They can stick their hands through the holes in the shield and just push back and forth.  All set?  Okay!  Tim, you're up first.  No power use on either end.  Go ahead and try to push April back.

Tim is bigger, stronger, and trains in grappling on his days off.  April, how are you doing?

Poorly!

Yeah, nobody's surprised by this result.  How about with a little bit of power use from April, nothing from Tim?

A little bit of power use is enough to have a subtle effect on how it feels to push on her hands, but not to majorly change how much pushing on her hands sends her backward overall. She reports that she doesn't have that 'hard to push around' feeling yet, though.

"Huh.  Okay, keep the power activated, dear, let's see if it has a slow startup time.  Same strength?"

"It feels like I'm pushing on a brick, or something.  Your hands are, uh, pretty soft, you must lotion pretty well or something.  But they just don't...I'm not sure.  It's a little weird."

Yeah, he can keep pushing April around for a few minutes.  Just normal esper things!

It's a little hard to tell, but she does seem to have slightly better grip on the floor, or something, and maybe an easier time not bending under pressure. It isn't ramping up at all as she holds her power at its lightest level, but it's there.

Huh. “You’re not standing differently or anything?”  He’s morally certain she isn’t.  But.

"I mean, I'm no expert at shoving, but I'm trying not to... Should I try a little more power?"

“Yes, please.  Ramp it up slowly, and if either of you feel even a little bit concerned, we can end the test there.”

"Mhm!"

Now, let's see...

Hey Tim, quick question. Ever wrestled a mountainside?

There was this one attack boulder dungeon once!  But that was easier than this.

She is Simply Not Budging. It's pretty fun!

When she ramps up her power a bit more, she starts sloooowly pushing him back.

Well.  This is weird.  He flares his power for a second, because he’s competitive has reflexes tuned for combat.  But even with his power, he’s being pushed back.

Flaring his power tangibly increases how much backlash this is costing April, but does nothing to affect the outcome.

“Well.  I think you’re going to be at least a melee 3, I accidentally tried to resist a little with my power and it didn’t do anything.  Maybe you’re going to be the new Skybreaker after all.”

"Huh. That's cool. Want to try pushing a little harder?"

“Yeah!”  Okay, let’s see how April responds to a little more power.

“Be careful, dears.”

The harder he pushes, the faster April's backlash goes up, but her ability to slowly shove him backward seems roughly unchanged. She's keeping her power level pretty steady, though, not trying to push any harder herself.

Well.  He’s not going to go all out, this is just a test, not a fight to the death.  But he can push a little harder than that.  He can adjust his posture, wedging himself against the ground.

It doesn’t do any good.

This is, honestly, really fun.

Hey, bulletproof glass sheet allegedly set up for safety reasons, quick question—

Yes?

Wrestled any mountains lately?

Um.  No?

Uh oh.

In an ideal world, April would be paying slightly more attention.

In this one, her wrist brushes against the side of the hole in the glass.

Well, I had a pretty good run.  Being one solid piece of material was nice while it lasted.

C-CR-CRACK.

"Shit!  Drop your power, April!"  Reflexively, Tim throws his power over April.  She's now functionally immune to anything that a shattering sheet of bulletproof glass might do to her.  She's also monstrously strong and has no way to tell that she's augmented.

She pulls back, startled, not dropping her power because her power gives her durability, Tim, and—something feels off about her footing—

Where her fingertips trail through the glass in the course of her initial flinch, it turns to a spray of powder being violently launched across the room by her body's refusal to brook the slightest resistance from any intervening object. Her footing, on the other hand, remains solid; despite her unexpected augmentation, she does not scour the padding off the floor or crack the concrete below in the course of stumbling back a couple of steps.

Still not as bad as the average accident.  "Alright, dears. it's okay.  Neither of you are injured, are you?"  Thank goodness Aumento's here, or else I'd've had to raise my voice and call for the medical team.

She takes another careful step back. "I'm fine. Note to self, arm-wrestle Tim exclusively in padded rooms without anything breakable nearby."

"No issues here, ma'am.  You want to arm-wrestle, we can do that next?"

No the fuck you can't.  "Not here, dears.  We're only a level 3 facility, and I think you're going to need a level 4 or 5."  Also a precog would be nice, things can get dicey at that level.

"Yeah that's pretty fair. I want to figure out what's going on with this thing I'm doing, but I'm not sure I can do that without, uh. Breaking a bunch of your stuff."

"We CAN get you a grip strength tester.  Would you like to take a guiding break until it arrives?"

Tim isn't going to say it but he's probably racked up more backlash than he's guided off during this little excursion.  But he can soldier on, this is April's time in the spotlight.

"A guiding break sounds great, yeah."

"Perfect.  Are both of these gentlemen going to guide you?"  How big a couch will you need?

Heh. "Nah, just Tim."

"Right this way, then."  And they're led to a surprisingly comfy room - it's got a deep plush carpet, a desk  suitable for one person and a chair to go with it.  The room is dominated an old and slightly beaten-up yet plush couch.  It's lit by a ceiling-mounted lava lamp(soft orange), along with an adjustable lamp at the desk.  There's a minibar with a glass front, and a variety of snacks on a table next to the bed.  The cozy vibes are extremely at odds with the rest of the facility.  "If you need anything, just let me know.  The intercom's right there, and it goes right into my earpiece."  The intercom in question is actually covered by a clear plastic cover, so it cannot be activated accidentally.

Sean, though he will not be guiding, does accompany them to the room.

April is pretty eager to - actually no, she is pretty eager to wash her hands, which might have glass dust on them. But after that she is pretty eager to cuddle.

There's an attached bathroom that the narration neglected to mention, complete with stand-up shower.

"OK if I take my shirt off?  You don't have to, if you don't want to."  Tim's expecting it to be a yes, his hands are down around the bottom of his shirt.  But he's gotta ask.

Distracted thumbs up from an esper who is mostly thinking about handwashing.

Well.  Sounds good.  He'll strip off and - sit on the couch?  "Doing alright, Sean?"  He usually tries to keep better track of people, but between April being able to manhandle him and their teamwork at shattering bulletproof glass, well.  He's been distracted.

"I'm chill. That was pretty wild, though. Did you have your power on her or did she splash that stuff across the room all by herself?"

"As soon as I saw it was breaking, I buffed both of us pretty hard.  Might've been too much, but.  Eh.  Not like efficiency matters, not for a split-second thing like that.  It didn't...really seem like what glass looks like when it breaks, though?  I don't think?"  One material I haven't busted yet!  Yay!

"Yeah, I'm not sure what was going on. Maybe the powers testing people will be able to explain it."

April returns from her handwashing expedition minus her second layer of shirt, leaving her in just the torn one. (She tosses the spare to Sean to put back in the backpack for now.) In combination with the sturdy sports bra beneath, her modesty is overall preserved, though honestly she might look less risque if she took the first shirt off too. Anyway she'll be flopping on Tim now.

Whoah she's cute.  Wait, don't make it weird.  "Hey.  Sean and I were just talking, did you have your power up when you went back through the glass?"  He'll...carefully embrace her?  That's a thing he can do.  Normal embrace.  Oh.  That's the skin of her back, through her shirt.  Well.  It's guiding, and that's...what they're here for.  Very normal.

Shirtless Tim makes an excellent pillow, it is known.

"Yeah, I did. Why'd you tell me to take it off? I don't know what it does exactly but I do know it protects me, right?" She tugs on the hem of her shirt, demonstratively. The rip in the back gapes further.

"I uh.  I had buffed you, both of us, pretty heavily.  And we don't know what your power does, and I know what mine does.  I was - afraid you'd somehow get hurt, some powers are better on offence than defence."  He pauses for a second.  "Or that I'd get hurt, I guess?"  Well.  Looks like Tim's whole hand is just going to be touching April.  April's back.

"Something weird definitely happened when my hand went through that glass. It like, turned to dust or something? Your power shouldn't do that, right? So it was something about mine, or the combination..."

"Yeah, I think it had to be yours.  I'm really not sure why you were heating up that metal, either - maybe the power is related to forces, instead of strength?  Heat's a force, right?"  Distracted by the puzzle, Tim's traitorous arm sneaks in for more skin contact.  He's so tired, and it's not the kind of tired that sleep will fix.

"I don't know what I was doing to that metal, besides squishing it... yeah, this shirt is a net negative contribution to this situation, isn't it."

"Um."  It's hot as shit but it's not contributing to guiding, no.  "It's, uh.  Up to you two?"

"I was like 'might as well leave it on, it's not like it'll get in the way much' but it is totally getting in the way." Off with the shirt. She still looks pretty cute in her sports bra, but achieves both increased guiding surface area and increased respectability.

Now, normally Sean would not be dwelling on how cute she looks. However, he can't help noticing Tim noticing how cute she looks, so he is maybe doing a bit of looking himself.

She rolls her eyes fondly and tosses the torn-up shirt at his face.

Well, everyone's on board with April being cute.  It is Known.  He'll just.  Have to embrace her again.

Any second now.

Ugh.  Just do it.

"Ahhhh."  It's such a relief.  He's been so TIRED and April's better than a cup of morning coffee.  He pulls her back down atop him, before he can think twice about it.

"Best pillow."

"Best backpack."

She giggles.

He laughs, too.  "Did they ever figure out how many lives you saved?"

"If anybody's done the math, I haven't seen it yet."

"Hope they do."  He pets her, thinking.  His hand runs down her spine over and over, absentmindedly.  "I'm - really glad we found you, that day.  I mean, obviously, you awakening was great for everyone, but.  I'm glad I met you."  He nods at Sean.  Both of you.  "You're cool."

"...yeah. Same," she admits, a little awkwardly.

Sean is not awkward at all, he's just smiling. "Yeah. You're cool. Let's be friends."

Fistbump for Sean!  It's the plausibly deniable show of affection for manly men everywhere, and also for Tim.

Heh, sure. Fistbump for Tim.

"Cool.  Friends, we bumped on it, now it's official."  He's just going to relax for a minute.  It's been stressful, and he's probably actually tired underneath his pile of magical tiredness bullshit, too.

Relaxing is a great plan. April has a headstart on him there.

Very cozy.  April's comfy, and the guiding is great, and he's safe among friends.  Maybe he'll just close his eyes for a minute.

Also a great plan tbh.

Sure, Sean can watch over this heap of nap for a bit.

A little while later, a soft 'ding-dong-doong-dang' chime resonates through the room.

"Weh?"

"Mmmhh."  April, movement is impossible*.  There's a Tim clinging to you.

*it's probably possible.

"Sean, help, we're too cozy."

He throws the intact shirt at her face.

"This is your idea of helping?" she asks, slightly muffled.

The shirt brushes over Tim's chest and he blearily blinks, looking down at his partner oh, that's April.  Is April...putting her shirt on???  Sideways??  She shouldn't do that.  His other arm loops under April's armpit and his hands clasp together behind her back, trapping her further.

"I've got a barnacle. A very cozy barnacle." She wriggles determinedly, but doesn't make much headway on freeing herself. "I assume the ceiling beeped because they want to know if we're decent and I would like it if the answer was yes."

"Oh.  Oh."  He...slowly lets go.  "Sorry.  I, uh.  Really like not being tired."  He's still got a pretty good load on him, but it is some better.

"And I really like being emotionally uncompromised. We can finish naptime later." Is the intercom by any chance displaying some kind of notification light indicating they should use it to answer that chime?

A softly-blinking green light, yes!  Before it was solid red.

Cool. Shirt: on. Intercom: answered.

Definitely not watching that shirt be put on, no sir.

"Are you ready for the next test?  We've got the next room set up for you, whenever you are."

Fully ignorant of any awkwardly averted gazes, April answers, "Yeah sounds good."

"Yeah, I'm ready."  Will April hold hands on the way to the next test?  A very tired esper would like to know.

Oh for sure.

Then they can rack up a little extra guiding.  The next test is all about compression strength.  April, how's your grip strength?  Baseline, light, medium, and then feel free to go all-out, this tester is disposable for a reason.

At baseline she's, you know, an esper.

Light power use has her making significantly more headway. These are levels of grip strength that begin to explain how a person could mold metal like clay.

Medium power levels begin to strain the device's structural integrity.

But they said she could go all out, so...

Hey, grip strength tester, quick question.

What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?

No idea!  Let me know when you find one!

Crunch.

Well.  That's...not...literally unprecedented.  "Congratulations, April.  We can't officially rate you any higher than Melee 4, here, but I would be shocked if you rated anything other than 5.  Depending on your backlash efficiency, of course."

"Do you guys have any theories about what's going on here besides durability and oddly specific forces? Maybe I should get in front of one of those high speed cameras and break some more glass, or something."

Rose purses her lips.  "I want to be clear, these are just guesses.  But I think it's something about self-focused inertia manipulation, rather than strength.  At some point, I'd like to see you jump, to see if you can make yourself go further as well as not be moved."

"Yeah... I think I want to test the durability thing more, too. I want to have a better idea of what it's good for."

"We can do some of that, dear.  How are you with pressure?"

"Pressure as in...?"

Rose illustratively brings two palms together, visibly pressing them firmly into each other.

"Yeah, seems like a place to start."

Alright!  The next step is Test Chamber Nine.  In it, April will be squished at precisely measured amounts of pressure.  Unless and until she lets go of the dead man's switch, or if any of the people in this room feel remotely sketched out and slaps the e-stop, or a noise above 85 decibels happens.

Alright, April!  How do you feel under pressure?

Pretty chill tbh. Emotionally speaking, she is hanging out with a guy who regrows people's bones for a living and really doesn't expect this place to get her in any trouble he can't get her out of.

...and physically speaking, the answer to whether she can be squished if she does not feel like it appears to be a very conclusive 'no'. At sufficiently dire levels she has to turn her power up a bit, but it seems to be really in its element here.

"Very good.  Are you okay with checking how well your power deals with extremes of temperature?  Or do you need a guiding break?"

"I should proooobably take a guiding break, it hasn't been that bad but for all I know tanking temperatures might be more expensive."

"If you like, you can have your friend guide you during the temperature section.  But we can certainly take a break - I have nothing on my plate aside from making sure that you're tested and safe."

Back to the Lava Lamp Cozy Guiding Room with them!

This time she doesn't even have to wash glass dust off her hands before she takes her shirt off and flops on Tim!

Tim is comfy.  Tim is flopped.  Tim is normal.  Not being tired is so great, he's still got a few hours' worth of backlash to work off but even a little bit less backlash is great.  And so is April!  April's pretty great.

"The sound that machine made trying and failing to crush me was pretty funny," she muses.

"It really was."

"Yeah, just all slow-motion cronch.  It didn't know what it was up against."

"Darn right it didn't."

Tim should be talking, should be entertaining.  Tim can't quite manage it right now.  He can just about manage to pet April.

That's plenty good enough for her.

Then about half an hour later, a familiar ding-dong-doong-dang will interrupt their cozy time.

She's less sleepy this time, more of a pleasant half-doze than an outright nap. How's Tim doing? Will he permit her to escape?

Resentfully, yes.  He's definitely feeling better more alert after Guiding Cuddle: Part 2.

Cool cool. Shirt: resumed. Temperatures: anticipated.

Shirt resumption: watched, this time.  And he'll put his own on, too.

"Alright, dear.  This next section is heat and cold.  We have a series of heating and cooling elements set to specific temperatures.  Touch whatever you comfortably can to the back of your forearm, not your fingers.  We don't perform this test without a medical esper on-hand, but your friend Aumento is here, so we're good for this one.  You can stop for any reason or none at all, and if you don't want to do this after all, please don't force yourself to.  Any questions?  And you're sure you want to test this?"

"I'm good," she says cheerfully, approaching the heating elements.

With her power on its lightest level, some of the more extreme temperatures are a bit uncomfortable, maybe even to the point of being painful. She's not injured but she definitely doesn't enjoy touching them. She debates with herself a bit, and then tries the next few steps up from there, which is how she finds out that her power does not like being held down to this light a level when her safety is on the line; once she gets it under control, a mild scorching ensues, no worse than what you'd get from incautiously touching a recently used frying pan and nothing Aumento can't handle in short order.

Aumento is not exactly pleased to have a lightly-fried April, but he will gracefully accept her personal safety decisions.  It's not like he was any better when he was figuring out his power, honestly.

Rose isn't, either, but teenagers are bad and teenaged espers are worse.  "Do you think you can go all-out without damaging anything, dear?"

"I mean, first let's find out what medium power can handle, right?"

The answer is: all of it. She reports that she's starting to get uncomfortable again toward the upper end of the range, but the facility does not offer any temperatures capable of harming her through a "medium, maybe medium-high" level of power use. She would sure like another guiding break now, though. "I think temperature is more expensive than pressure. Or at least the most temperature you can give me is more expensive than the most pressure you can give me."

"That makes sense, dear."  Back to the guiding lava lamp room!  She's going to make a few calls in the meanwhile, she has a bit of a hunch.

Tim's fussing a little bit over April's arm, despite the fact that it's nearly healed. "You scared the shit out of me when I heard that hiss, April."  This time, he flops on April, his head on her stomach.  His hands are turning her arm left to right.  His eyes are glaring the burn away.

"It's literally fine. I was going step by step and being careful. If I don't find out now what my limits are, I'll find out in a dungeon and it'll be worse."

"I didn't say it wasn't fine, I said you scared me."  It also was pretty stressful, watching someone hurt themselves when I could have just.  Stopped it.

"I guess that's fair." Can't give him snugs while he's holding her arm captive, so she gently bonks her head against his shoulder instead.

He sighs.  “Not your fault or anything, you’re just testing.  It’s fine.  Just - my whole job in a dungeon is to protect or heal.  It’s hard to not do that.”  The burn’s basically done.  She can’t have her arm back, though.  That’s still being clutched, like a teddy arm.

"Yeah." She makes the best teddy bear, it is known.

"I don't think you're gonna have that problem in a dungeon, though.  We probably want to get some safety kit before we go all-out, but I think you're going to win and I don't think it's going to be close."  He sounds a little thoughtful.  "Funny how so many of the people I'm compatible with have protective powers of their own."

"What safety kit?" she snorts. "If you and I go all out, we're gonna obliterate everything we touch except each other. I'm still surprised I didn't step straight through the floor when you had your power on me and I was swatting glass shards like flies. ...actually, I should test that, try breaking stuff selectively and see if my power is protecting things somehow... woulda been nice if it had protected my shirt, if so..."

"Yeah, tell me about it.  I've gone through so many shirts.  I was thinking...man, I don't know.  Maybe we push a log or something, like reverse tug of war or something.  Because I don't want to get obliterated, you know?"

"I definitely don't want that either. But if I can be selective about it then maybe you won't have to worry. Should definitely test that, then."

He grins a little.  "Try a foot first, maybe.  Definitely something to check before you run your first dungeon.  And uh, when you get an agent, you should make sure you get plenty of my style of clothing.  Just in case."

"Yeah, no kidding. Wardrobe malfunction central."

"It was every day of my life for a week.  I'd get caught on something and I'd just keep walking, or I'd flex a little bit and the new muscle would just.  Well, my shirt didn't stop it.  It was about a month before I got the hang of it all."

"I'm gonna have such a headstart, already knowing a guy with a super-shorts supplier."

"Just wait until you're doing the Chopsticks Thing.  The physical therapist we hired suggested it and it's awful.  It works, but I hate it so much."

"Chopsticks?"

"Ugggghghhhhggghhh."  He rolls away a little bit, and makes a 'using chopsticks' gesture with his hand.  "It's something that people who've had nerve damage or a stroke or whatever do, to improve their coordination.  Same principle applies for us, it gets us used to calibrating strength levels.  You pick up like, grains of rice or whatever without breaking the chopsticks.  I broke so many chopsticks getting used to it."

"Huh. Neat! Yeah, I should try that."

"Is it really that bad?"

“It’s…probably not…”  He’s very reluctant to admit it.  “I just sucked at it, and I got so sick of it.”

"Makes sense. But it still helped?"

"Yeah.  You have to sort of relearn how to do everything at different levels of power use.  A little bit that I use for diagnostics is just a little extra force, but if I ramp it up I'll break the faucets trying to wash my hands.  For example."

"That's a hell of a thing."

"No kidding, yeah."

"Man, I'm being kind of a downer, aren't I.  Sorry.  Look on the bright side, you'll never have to worry about a car crash again."

"Hah! Yeah, that's pretty sweet."

Ding-dong-doong-dang!  Is April ready for the next few rounds of testing?

She sure is!

Well, electricity is a little dangerous to play with.  But they do have a reasonable testing setup, where current can travel from the left side of April's left foot to the right side of April's right foot.  Rose has the AED on standby, and Aumento's here as a fallback in case of Accidents.  "Don't bother trying it at light levels, dear.  Electricity is a little too dangerous to play without a precog on hand, or someone like Uisa."

At medium levels of power, it turns out, April's body has perfect electrical resistance. She doesn't even feel all that backlashed about it.

... huh.  "Okay.  If you feel comfortable with it, slowly decrease your power use until you feel the slightest bit different."  Scribble scribble.

Sloooowly turning it down, down, down... and up again with a flinch. "Well that was mildly uncomfortable. I had to go really low first, though."

"Excellent."  Note note.  "And then for cold?  We have some supercooled tubes over here.  Use your best judgment, and you can always walk away whenever you don't feel comfortable."  I doubt she will, though.

Her body's relationship to cold seems comparable to its relationship to heat. "Anybody wanna talk me out of the same test I did last time?" she wonders, on that note.

"Testing to failure?  You certainly don't have to, but with Aumento around, we can if you're really quite certain you'd like to."

"Yeah, I wanna know."

She can have a mildly frozen spot to go with her previous, already healed (thanks Tim) mildly scorched one.

It's fine, because it's a little more expected this time.  Not that he has any real right to dictate terms to her, but.  It's more fine than last time for sure.

Cool cool cool. So to speak.

She would like another guiding break and then she would like to figure out more about this selective obliteration situation she's got going on. What can they give her for that?

A WIDE variety of materials.  It's an enormous warehouse of materials, and includes the material's scale on hardness, ductility, tensile strength, and other measures of durability this narration is too narrow to contain.  What's she looking for?

She thinks she would like some stuff that will not Become Horrible if she breaks or deforms it. So glass is out. What's out there that's more eager to deform than to shatter into a million little sharp bits? Clay? Does clay secretly become horrible if you break it too hard?

Fired clay is actually extremely prone to fragmentation, but they have a batch of soft clay available.  Soft woods would work, copper is quite safe, stone is frequently prone to fragmentation.  Not to say that she can't, but they'd want her back in a test chamber for some of the riskier ones.

Since the point of this test is to break a bunch of stuff, she'd really rather go with stuff that she can safely break. Soft clay sounds great; soft wood sounds like it would make splinters? If they say copper is fine she'll trust them.

Okay, now she would like samples of all these things held firmly in place while she pokes them at varying levels of her power, and... actually, she has thought of a use for soft wood: she wants to test if her power has a hard limit about not destroying the surface she's standing on, by attempting to deliberately destroy a surface she is standing on.

They have a pretty good...well, workshop isn't exactly the phrase.  But it's got adjustable clamps and a flat surface, and that's probably good enough for April.

It'll do.

Testing reveals:

Yes, she absolutely can be selective about what she pushes around relatively gently (by default, floors, among other things) and what she simply goes Through (by default, only things she's attacking very deliberately at lower levels, but at higher levels she seems to treat more and more things as obstacles to be destroyed).

Yes, she absolutely can destroy the surface she's standing on. She can even do it without destroying whatever is underneath the carefully constructed disposable platform after she falls through it!

She can do some mildly odd things with momentum when jumping, but her reluctance to risk blasting herself through the facility walls and her inexperience with coaxing her power into unintuitive configurations combine to make this one an underexplored area for the moment.

After some careful testing involving a dozen eggs with little smiley faces drawn on them in Sharpie, she's pretty confident that she can avoid directly obliterating Tim in even a very intense shoving match, though her power does not protect things so much as nobly refrain from immediately breaking them and anyone without durability buffs is best advised to simply not get into a shoving match with her, especially not in the presence of, like, objects. Objects in the vicinity of April using her power have a tendency to become shrapnel.

And now she would really like to wash her hands and take another guiding break. Do the testing facility people have any further suggestions about how to investigate her power with the tools they have available?

Frankly, at this point they're going to have to refer her to a level 5 facility and strongly recommend that a precog be employed.  It looks like she can already pulverize arbitrary material objects, and at this point the next step is to test her durability.

Which, to be clear, is often done by counterfactually shooting her.  She's got a provisional ranking of Melee 4, which is given with the understanding that if April doesn't wind up ranked Melee 5 at the end of the month Rose will first acquire a hat and then eat her hat.

Safely back in the lava lounge for another quick guiding session before they head out, her opinion on this is, "Hrreghfblrghfgl I really don't like my backlash."

"Yeah, they all suck differently."  He pauses for a second.  "Well, except for one.  You're going to make it to zero before we leave, though."  This is not, actually, a question.

"Ehhhh, I know powers testing is government sponsored but this place gives me a very unrestful 'you're paying a lot of money to be here' vibe. I just need, like, ten minutes to get my head on straight, and then we can all go to some other, less well decorated location to cuddle until we're both at zero."

"Heh.  Yeah, it's...kind of weird."  Poor April.  She can get petted, that helps sometimes?  "You go from low-budget workshop kinda vibes everywhere else to...whatever you call this."  He gestures around at the love hotel-coded room.

"It's a lot. But they've been very helpful! I feel like I have a handle on my power, and it's decidedly not shit! Now I just gotta figure out the fastest route from here to it not being a godawful idea for me to run dungeons."

"Well.  For you, that's a straight line with your power up.  I mean, please don't, but with that power you could probably solo a simple C-rank today.  Literally right now.  Just walk in and hug the monsters to death."

"No, see, then I run into a little egg with a smiley face on it, and then they are perforated by monster shrapnel and I am very sad."

She's so adorable???  "Well, can't be having that.  Uh.  An, uh, old friend of mine wound up using therapy to get a handle on their psych backlash.  They said it worked pretty well.  Took a few months, though."

"Uuuuuugh. I probably should. Being really grumpy about it is just so much more appealing, though."

"Um.  Don't say that around the Dwarves, they might decide that "Grumpy" sounds better as a nickname than Big River.  Especially since you're going to be inducted soon."

"Hah!"

"...wait, were the eggs with the smiley faces on them supposed to be dungeon victims the whole time?"

"Oh, no, I just kinda have 'egg with a smiley face on it' in my head as 'generic thing I'm not supposed to break' now. But the thing you're not supposed to break in a dungeon is dungeon victims, so..."

"There are espers out there who're deployed to boss fights only, you know.  You could just only run dungeons that don't have concerns about hurting anyone or anything in there."  It's a lot easier than chivvying victims out.

"I'm pretty sure there's still something to learn before I go charging off to deliver my murder hugs."

"Oh, tons.  How to not rip your clothes up.  Getting vics out.  Reports.  Small-unit tactics.  Common esper powers and how they usually work.  How to shoot.  You'll probably need to, and you might be one of a few dozen people who can use my wristbreaker.  If you can avoid breaking it, that is.  You'll need an agent, and a formal partner.  I mean, Sara and I are happy to, uh, guide you?  The NATO alphabet, if you don't have that yet.  How to activate your power because you deliberately choose to, not because someone spooked you."

Tim can go on like this for quite a while, if not interrupted.

Sean may be taking notes on his phone.

Sean is so weirdly good at being a PA.

"Yeah. That stuff. I need to get that stuff figured out so I can get out there and start hitting dungeons."

A fellow note-taker!  “You mean Sean needs to figure it out for you, or figure out how to get it to you, or how to sign you up for it.”  His tongue darts out at April for a moment.

"Pbbt."

He's really glad April's stuck with him this long.  Admittedly, compatibility is pretty tricky to find, but.  It's nice, anyway.

Who could possibly be calling April May Turnberry at this time of night?

Whoever they are, they'd better be prepared to talk to Sean. "Hello?"

"Hi, my name's William Moore, with Moore, Lotte, and Lowed.  I'd like to speak to...April Turnberry, if she's available."  I swear this is the right number?  It's correct.

Moore, Lotte, and Lowed, where has he heard that one before... "I'll ask her, one sec."

"Where have I heard that one before?" she wonders. "...also, wow, they truly are not kidding about esper hearing."

"Yeah, that's Bill.  He's legit."  He's not offering her a representation deal is he?  She's Canadian?  And we'd have a conflict of interest if we partnered she can make that decision if she wants.

"'k. Pass me the phone?" She holds out her hand.

He passes her the phone.

"April speaking. What's up?"

"Good evening, April.  You were the one guiding Aumento on the barge in Toronto, correct?"  He knows she is, but he's got to Follow the Procedure.

"I mean, there were a lot of people in that pile, at various times. But I was the one who was awakening, yeah."

"Excellent.  Because this is an international transaction, there's going to be a little bit of hassle releasing payment to you.  You'll need a valid photo ID at a bank of your choice.  In-person confirmation is going to be mandatory, I'm afraid, although you should be able to set something up for this sort of thing going forward.  Unfortunately, transactions of this magnitude set off a quite a few red flags, especially internationally."

"Not gonna lie, that sounds really annoying. And you're gonna have to wait until I get my ID back, it's currently buried in rubble and I haven't heard back about whether I should just go get everything new."

“Well, we can manage a partial payment if that would make things easier on you while you get your life sorted out.  I can’t offer any advice to a Canadian citizen, of course.  But if you’ll listen to an old man ramble, it could be a good idea to consider an expedited ID reissue, and I might also consider a financial planner.  And getting an agent as an esper would also be a good idea, that’s just common sense.  I…have heard of espers representing themselves, and once or twice I heard of it ending well.”

"I mean, I could also just go back to my house and dig up my passport. —just came out of powers testing, turns out I'm invincible."

He’s smiling, you can tell from his voice.  “I’m very glad to hear it.  Were circumstances different, I might make you a pitch on my agency.  I imagine Aumento would not be happy about it, though, conflicts of interest, you understand.  But I’m sure you’ll get a fine agent.”

"Uh-huh. So I should call you back when I have ID one way or another, and we can figure out the money transfer thing then?"

“No need, although you certainly may.  I have a link for you, if you’re ready for it.”

"Can I pass you back to Sean for that? I'm not in a good spot to write things down right this second."

“You’re authorizing Sean to make financial decisions for you at this time?”

"I mean sure but what's happening here is I am saying 'yes please give me lots of money' and Sean is writing down the details for me."

“I have to ask!  That’s fine, please pass him over.”

She passes back the phone.

Sean is on the ball. "Hi, what am I writing down exactly?"

“I just need to send a link for Ms. Turnberry to claim her payment.  Is there a particular email address you’d prefer, or would this number work?”

"I can give you her email." He does that.

“Alright.  Done.  If you need anything else, I’m just an email away, or a call away during business hours.  Do you have any other questions before I let you go?”

He glances at April to make sure she is not raring to talk to this guy more.

"Nah we're good, thanks."

“Perfect.  You know how to get through to me if you need anything.  Take care.”

"You too, bye." He hangs up April's phone. "He seems nice."

“Well, I like him.  Very straightforward guy, he gives you exactly what you want.  But he’s my agent, if I didn’t like him I’d fire him.”

"Exactly what you want, huh?"

"Or at least, exactly what you ask for?"

"More, uh, what you ask for than what you want.  By default, anyway.  I uh, asked for some things I shouldn't have, once or twice, but I can't say it was his fault."  Mostly.

"Yeah, I could never. I mean I guess unless I had Sean translate everything I say. I'd end up being like 'ugh it's so hot out I want like a hundred popsicles' and Bill Careful What You Wish For would be like 'right away ma'am' and then I would feel like a dumbass and that would not stop me from saying the next dumb thing."

Her description is so charming!  "It's not that bad.  But.  Yeah.  If you tell him you really, really want something and he asks if you're sure and you say 'yes', he'll make it happen."  Pause.  "D'you think you're close enough to want to head out now?"

"Yeah. Lemme get my shirt back on and we can go."

Ugh, the predicable consequences of his own decisions.  Fine.  He'll put a shirt on as well.  "Where'd you have in mind for finishing off?"

"We've got a real hotel room now that nobody's worried the hotels will fall down, we could go there. It has a couch and everything."

"Yeah, that sounds good."  Hyup.  And handhold?

Definitely handhold! They can snuggle in the back of the car, too.

It's Sean's car, so it's extremely fancy. He's very lucky he sent it home instead of leaving it parked outside April's house. He sits up front so the two of them can have more room to be cozy.

Tim is still new enough at being an esper to be impressed by fancy cars!  He likes the snuggles better, though.  He's chunking through a good amount of backlash!  It's great.

Also he's very cozy.

When they get to the hotel, there sure is a long elevator ride before they reach the room.

Huh.  Must be a big hotel.  Oh well.

The room does indeed have a couch. And a separate bedroom and lounge area, and a fancy luggage rack, and a huge TV with several game consoles attached, and a stunning view of the lake.

April applies herself to the couch, ignoring the rest.

Well, Tim doesn't have a lot of time to appreciate the view.  He's attached to the April, after all, so he's going down with her.  "Big spoon, little spoon?  Or d'you want to lay on top of me?"

"Hmm." She considers. "Tim pillow best pillow."

"At least you're consistent."  This time, he strips out of his shirt without asking, then worms his way beneath April.  "Much cozier than the weird lava lamp room.  They did try, but."

"I think I would've liked the lava room if it was, like, a friend's living room or something. Somewhere where putting so much effort into looking cool and fun and comfy comes across as friendly instead of intimidating."

"Intimidating, really?  Why was it intimidating?"  Creepy, I could get.  But not intimidating?

"It just felt like someone was spending a lot of money to make me feel comfortable and they were probably going to expect some of it back!"

"Ahhh.  Evil reciprocity.  That makes sense.  I - so, I have a few rules that I live by?  And one of them is that if someone offers me a hand, I have to take it, even if it's - scary.  So it kinda makes sense, if I look at it like that."  Kind of makes me wonder about the hotel room, but maybe that's a sore spot for her?

It's not exactly hard to tell that he's curious about something.

April is not paying attention to that sort of thing.

However, Sean is also here. "Hmm?"

"Oh, just.  You don't get - twitchy, about that kind of thing unless someone got you.  But it's not - I don't want to be nosy, you know?"

"Heh. Nah, I'm just naturally grumpy and cynical."

He props his head up so he can raise an eyebrow at April, then gestures at the rest of the hotel room.  It's way too rich for my blood, and I'm an esper!  And there's no way a kid our age is going to be affording this without good taste in parents.

"Ah! This is from Sean's parents. They freaked out a bit when it turned out my house had fallen down on him. I'm not intimidated by Sean's parents."

"That's a pretty good reason to freak out, I think.  Thankfully you're invincible now."  Little grin?

"Being invincible is pretty cool," she agrees.

He could be a Donny Downer and remind her that it's only invincibility until it isn't.  But it's her testing day, and you only get one of those.  Except for how she's too bullshit and has to get two.  And she's so bullshit that she needs a a precog to figure out exactly how bullshit she is.  Point is, she should enjoy feeling invincible while she can.  

So.  He'll lay here and cuddle April, while being the best possible pillow.

If she was going to talk about downsides to her invincibility, the fact that it might fail her someday would not be the first thing on the list.

Well.  It'll be a few hours yet before Sara's done, so he's happy to cuddle April as long as she's willing to lay on him.  He can pass the time by absentmindedly petting her with one hand and doing his dungeon paperwork with the other.

Tim pillow best pillow.