philadelphia, meet chevalier

[peterxy]

The next few days proceed as normal.

Until they don't: the Philadelphia and Brockton Bay teams have been talking, and they're thinking of trading Chevalier with a couple of Wards. Philadelphia has quite a selection of them, including a couple who triggered during the Behemoth attack on Pittsburgh, while Brockton Bay has the opposite problem.

The current Philadelphia Ward lineup is:

• Laser Tag, a Tinker who specializes in weapons that have cumulative effect. He has a laser gun that causes various conditions on its targets each time they're hit, usually taking them out on the third or fourth hit.
• Clasp, a Breaker-Blaster-Striker who can cause objects to be almost weightless and much more resistant to damage for as long as he's holding them. He can only do that to one object at a time, and the weightlessness of the objects he holds means he can both throw them very far or use them to hit things. He can also apply this property to his costume, rendering him much more resistant.
• Mirage, a Mover-Stranger who can toggle invisibility for a very short time when no one's looking and can teleport within her line-of-sight while in that state.
• Glimmer, a Brute-Mover who can create a forcefield around her own body that makes her glimmer and become very resistant and slippery.
• Transfer, tentatively rated as a Blaster-Striker who can draw heat from a source and then dump it somewhere else, or conversely dump extra heat somewhere that he'll later have to replenish.
• Blockage, a forcefield Tinker whose forcefields can absorb any impact but disappear upon doing so.
• Lightbulb, a flying-artillery type of Mover-Blaster that can shoot balls of kinetically charged light whose path he can influence as it flies through the air.
• Iter, a Thinker precog who can see where objects are slated to be up to ten seconds in the future, similar to the way Rewind sees the past.
• Silica, a Master who can animate statues made of sand. There's no limit to how many statues she can animate, but there is a limit to the volume of sand she can control at a given time.

Comments

[mrglam]

[thinkering]

"That's an interesting face you're making."

[mrglam]

"Nnnnnnnnnh can you say it again?"

[thinkering]

"I love you."

[mrglam]

He puts his hands on the table and breathes deeply. "We should probably eat this," he says, his voice a bit strained with barely suppressed emotion.

[thinkering]

"Or what, you'll melt?"

[mrglam]

"I already have, this is just a cleverly built copy. No, it's mostly because I need to kiss you really hard right now but I should mind my table manners."

[thinkering]

"So the idea is that if we start eating, when you lose self-control you'll get a faceful of corned beef?"

[mrglam]

"I won't lose my self control. If, however, you want to jump straight to the kissing without the eating..."

[thinkering]

"I do want to eat. But you can kiss me first."

[mrglam]

So he gets up, walks toward her, and leans down to kiss her.

He is clearly holding back.

[thinkering]

Kiss.

[mrglam]

"Mmmm we should probably eat, this is not helping with my self control."

[thinkering]

"All right. Siddown." She picks up one of her sandwich halves.

[mrglam]

He obeys, shivering just a bit. And he does not wolf his food down because that would do no good, he is perfectly polite and restrained.

[thinkering]

Is Bella deliberately lingering over her supper?

[mrglam]

"You," he says, "are doing this on purpose. Aren't you."

[thinkering]

"Doing what?"

[mrglam]

"Stalling."

[thinkering]

"Aren't you impatient to see what I'm going to do with you after we eat."

[mrglam]

"God, yes."

[thinkering]

Bella takes a slooooooow bite of knish.

[mrglam]

"You're so evil."

[thinkering]

"You wouldn't have me any other way."

[mrglam]

"Well, I would, but I am oh so happy you're this way."