shaker, meet stranger

[mrglam]

Sadde is home; it's a Friday evening, his shift is over, and there's no school. He's reading a book, lying on his bed in his small-but-tidy apartment.

He is also quite naked, because it's his place and why not?

Comments

[first_and_final]

"I can learn! I'll fill out as many forms as it takes!"

[msecho]

"I could try to teach you, then. It took a long time to get mine, I had to convince everyone I was much more effective with it."

[first_and_final]

"I will be the best student you could dream of."

[msecho]

She giggles. "If you learn that as fast as you learned how to speak English, I'm sure!"

[first_and_final]

"I learn fast when highly motivated!"

[msecho]

She giggles.

[first_and_final]

"And the way you get around with that thing is highly motivating."

[msecho]

"It's lots of fun! I was inspired by this old comics superhero - before there were actual superheroes those used to be a thing about fictional ones."

[first_and_final]

"Well, now I'm intrigued."

[msecho]

"Well, in the comics superheroes would get powers for like all these weird reasons, like this one was called spiderman and he got bit by a mutant spider that gave him super-agility and super-strength and super-senses and a bit of danger precognition, and he was also super smart so he made these super spider web shooters on his wrists which he activated like so, and they'd shoot spider webs which he'd use to swing from building to building."

[first_and_final]

"Sounds like tremendous fun."

[msecho]

"That's why I got this! He could also climb walls because his fingers had super sticky spider hairs or something, so I learned how to parkour and how to use the grappling hook and now I'm spider girl, but Branding didn't let me be spider girl so I'm just Echo."

[first_and_final]

"I have no particular desire to be any sort of spider person, but I so want a grappling hook."

[msecho]

"Yeah they're fun!"

[first_and_final]

"I can tell!"

[msecho]

She giggles, and grapples.

Whoosh!

[first_and_final]

Patrol patrol.

[peterxy]

Miss Militia's voice is heard on the console: "Need backup on," and she gives an address, "Empire attacking the PRT truck transporting Cricket."

[first_and_final]

"Damn," says Ashras. "And here I was hoping for a quiet night. Lance, carry me?"

[apprivoise_moi]

"Of course," says Lance. She swoops down to pick him up.

[msecho]

"We're on our way," Echo says over the comm.

Whoosh!

[apprivoise_moi]

Lance keeps pace with Echo, but she and Sokoreth have the better vantage from which to spot the disturbance. What's going on?

[peterxy]

Hookwolf and Stormtiger are harassing a poor Miss Militia and Velocity. Miss Militia is failing to have much of an effect on Hookwolf, and Velocity is keeping Stormtiger from the back of the PRT van while simultaneously avoiding his air blade.

The back of the van is open, showing a foamed inside, presumably where Cricket is. And that spot seems to be the origin of the occasional really irritating noise that pulsates sometimes and only Ashras can really hear.

[first_and_final]

"I hate that noise," he mutters, pulling a wand. He hasn't had time to come up with that many variants since the last testing session, but...

A thin, perfectly straight bolt of lightning flashes from the end of the bronze-and-copper wand and strikes Hookwolf. It makes a loud noise. If he's lucky maybe it'll annoy Cricket as much as her echolocation annoys him.

[msecho]

If Cricket's annoyed, it doesn't show, probably because she's completely trapped by the containment foam that occupies the entire volume of the back of the PRT van. Hookwolf staggers and collapses before recoalescing into wolf form and looking for the source of the strike. Upon finding it he seems to decide he's tired of toying with Miss Militia, so he circles around the van so it's between him and Sokoreth and starts attacking the outside of it, ruining its shiny paint job.

Echo uses the grappling hook and some parkour and running along walls to reach the top of a building and look at what Sokoreth just shot at. "Sokoreth is engaging Hookwolf from a distance, I'll try to tranquilize Stormtiger, a sniper tranquilizing rifle would be useful," she says into the comm.