"I think that's a good plan.  I'm happy to guide you, but I think I might duck out if they find someone who can combo with me?  Since you have a local guide?"

"Ah, yeah, definitely. If there's other people lined up that you can team up with to increase our overall throughput here while I'm out of commission, absolutely do that. I'm about as compatible with the guy I found as I am with you, so I'll be okay."

She keeps wanting to find a way to offer to guide Sinkhole if none of those other espers are compatible, but the grief counselor she spoke to kept emphasizing that she should take things slow and not overextend herself. The girl just kinda reminds her of herself at that age, except at that age she had Connor, and. Well. Now is not the time to dwell on that.

"Sounds good.  You want to grab one more, and maybe do more body contact while we get the next one?"  Do not get your hopes up, do not get your hopes up...

"Yeah, let's. More body contact for the next one would be great, I'm going to be wrecked after it. Do you wanna try the jump seat, or just try and smoosh our arms together more, or?"

"I'm okay with the jump seat."  She pauses, a flicker of hesitance crossing her face.  "You're sure you're OK with taking on that much backlash?"

"It'll be close to the top of what I can do safely, but I've got a lot of safeties in place. I'll be okay. All things considered, it's actually a near-ideal situation for using my powers without any actual danger to me." And getting close to her upper limit on backlash and getting guided back down without Connor is going to be an important part of... adjusting, she thinks. It'll probably suck, but once she's done it once she'll never have to do it for the first time again.

"Um. I guess I should say, just in case - I may get a bit emotional, but don't take it personally, and don't feel like you have to deal with it. I'm just going through some stuff right now, and that might not play nice with being backlashed. But that's not your problem, and I'll be okay. I'm still all-in on stopping these cars."

A lump form in Sinkhole's throat.  She swallows, twice.

"It's okay."  Her voice is so, so gentle.  "It won't come up today, I think, but my backlash is - not going to play nicely with that.  I'll try and keep it low, with you."

"Yeah, I'd probably play it differently if our relative backlash rates from this were reversed." She gives her best attempt at a reassuring smile (her facial muscles are a bit slack). "I appreciate it, but also, if you need to nope out, please do. So long as I can get to a teleport to my silo, I'll be fine."

"Yeah, I can't blame you.  Here, I think I should be able to get this unfolded, let me know if I start to get something wrong, here..."  Carol will do her best to get the seat deployed for cuddling.  How hard can it be, anyhow?

It's pretty user-friendly! There's a heavy pin you can pull out which lets you fold/unfold the jump seat, and then lock it back into position after.

Boom!  Easy-peasy.  "D'you mind lifting your shirt a little, so I can touch you?  Or would it be easier for me to do it?"

"If you don't mind, it'd be easier if you did it. Feel free to go up as far as my bra band."

"Of course."  Sinkhole's a Professional, she's not going to be grabbing at anything spicy right away.  Pinion feels little spikes of backlash as Sinkhole checks to see how little force it would take to disassemble Pinion.  These futures are rejected, of course.  But they show Carol what not to do.  Wow.  How did she ever do a dungeon in her life?  She settles in with her fingers gently interlocked over Pinion's navel, and a little popsicle stick clutched in her left hand.  "That okay?"

She's a little confused about the backlash spikes. Maybe she's doing some kind of invisible power use to try and match her better? That's kinda sweet.

"Yeah, that's fine." Sinkhole is honestly being impressively careful with her - she hasn't so much as bumped Nora's elbows in the process of getting her arms snaked around her. Certain other people who've guided her before needed a lot of practice before they could reliably remember that squeezing too tight can dislocate her ribs. Not that she's naming names.

Once they're in position, it's just a waiting game until the rev of redlined engines can be heard again.

For better or for worse, Carol has a lot of practice not smashing things.  And also smashing things, but that's extremely NOT the plan today.

She lives about 1.2 seconds per second, racking up little bits of backlash.  Not enough to get her in trouble or to seriously compromise her.  She just asks her power, over and over again, how to destroy the popsicle stick in her hand.

"Let me know if it gets too much.  And you can hold my hands, too.  If you want to."  And if it won't break you.  I know there are worse backlashes than mine, but I don't see ones this much worse...

More skin contact would be good. If she leaves her elbows on her armrests and rests her hands on top of Sinkhole's, that shouldn't put too much force on anything that'll want to slip out of place the moment she uses her powers again.

"You're doing great so far. If anything starts to hurt, I'll let you know right away." Right now, it's very much the opposite of painful. She missed the feeling. Some things about it may be different from what she's used to, but in some ways, it's just the same.

Sinkhole hums in acknowledgement.  There's a little gap, between the headrest and the backrest of the Sick As Fuck All-Terrain Power Chair.  She leans her head forward, and gently nestles her forehead against the back of Pinion's neck.  She's not putting pressure on it, the headrest prevents that.

She doesn't say anything.  She just plots the destruction of the popsicle stick in her hand and waits for the carnapped cars.

Whiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Two cars drift the corner, pursued sharply by a minivan.

Kind of a pain how fast they are, floats through Sinkhole's mind.  She'd really prefer against trapping the minivan, it's heavier - but if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

She lays down more purple sticky traps.  More than last time.  Twice as many weaker ones, to give the vehicles a chance to slow down.  Then medium ones, then finally stronger ones.  By the time it gets near-ish to Pinion, it's going around 45 MPH.

Arresting 45MPH in a minivan's worth of mass is going to put her quite near the top of her safe threshold, and she would very much like to continue being able to breathe under her own power. She rapidly assesses how much of the van she can get away with not pinning without putting any passengers at risk. She anchors herself to the earth, and then, before it's too far gone -

- she pins just the steel unibody of the van. Here's hoping everyone in there's buckled in.

She can't really tell, though, because even if the muscles in her eyes that let them focus were still working, the muscles in her eyelids that would keep them open aren't, and neither are the ones in her neck that keep her head up.

Holy shit that's a lot of backlash what is she oh fuck - 

THIS ISN'T FAST

The unibody stops.  The wheels do not.  Thankfully the unibody is mostly invulnerable, thanks to Pinion's power.  The panels aren't part of the steel unibody, and neither are the mirrors.  The rearview mirror continues through the windshield, which shatters.  The airbags go off.  Alarms in the car go off as well.