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

[thinkering]

As soon as Lorica hears this is in the works she reads up on who she might be getting added to her team, ranks them based on powers with Clasp-or-Glimmer followed by Transfer then Silica, with Mirage last (they're heavy on teleporters already and Mirage's limits don't dovetail very well with existing strategic affordances). But Clasp's the current captain, so he'd be a bad choice for other reasons; her list based on her limited information about the ages, personalities, and movability of the Wards in question requests Glimmer and either Transfer or Silica.

[peterxy]

Her input is taken into account. After another couple of days' deliberation and negotiation, they settle for Glimmer and Silica, who will be arriving tomorrow, at the same time Chevalier will be departing the team, making this his last night in Brockton Bay.

[thinkering]

Lorica bids Chevalier a polite goodbye, makes sure there's rooms available for Glimmer and Silica if they need to crash while they get moved, and makes ready to be Welcome Wagon.

[mxglam]

And the following day, they arrive! Glam is in costume for their arrival, before they're shown around the private quarters, the common room, et cetera.

[thinkering]

Silica's subdued, answers Lorica's questions about her power in a quiet voice, and would rather stay at the hotel with her family than crash here thanks.

[peterxy]

Glimmer's quiet, as well, but more in a 'I don't really have anything interesting to say right now' way than anything. She wears contact lenses when in costume but prefers wearing glasses otherwise, and developed heterochromia when she got her powers. She says she will probably crash there sometimes but not often enough to warrant one of the permanent rooms.

[thinkering]

Lorica gives them both handbooks and makes sure they have the rundown of the other team members' powers and says that if either of them are unsure about the parameters of their powers she's happy to schedule testing, and then she lets them be.

[peterxy]

Glimmer, whose name turns out to be Annie, had been in her previous team for a year and has had her powers tested pretty thoroughly. She strikes up a conversation with Echo about a book she's reading, and seems to have a more serious demeanor, choosing her few words with care.

[thinkering]

Silica takes her handbook, reads it right then, asks a couple questions about Lorica's secondary power, does not disclose her name at this time, and slips out to go join her family at their hotel.

And Lorica considers her welcome wagon duty handled.

[msglam]

And Sadde socializes with Annie, as well, because that's what she does. The new Wards spend the following few days getting acquainted with the other team members, going out patrolling or just being shown around. Sadde tries to be as welcoming and friendly as she can, making sure the other two are feeling comfortable and all that.

Rewind is her somewhat boldly irreverent self, acting as if there was nothing new and as if Glimmer and Silica had been there since always, to varying types of reactions from each of them.

[mrglam]

And one of these days, early enough in the morning that this is the first thing he does after leaving his room, he knocks on Lorica's workshop's door.

[thinkering]

Bots let him in. Lorica's there eating breakfast. "Morning."

[mrglam]

"Good mooorning, love. You know what day it iiiiis?" he says, hovering in.

[thinkering]

"Tuesday?"

[mrglam]

"Yes! Aaaaand it's been a month."

[thinkering]

"Oh. So it has. How do you want to conduct the announcement?"

[mrglam]

"I haven't actually thought about it, I'm mostly just very giddy about it and think I deserve a cookie for my having correctly predicted it. Not much more than a cookie, it wasn't such a hard prediction to make, we're meant to be after all."

[thinkering]

"I'm fresh out, it's breakfast burrito time here."

[mrglam]

"Oh, well. I'm sure I can find one in the cafeteria. In the meantime, a kiss is a great reward."

[thinkering]

She pulls her helmet off and seizes him by the front of his shirt to pull him into her lap and kiss him.

[mrglam]

Seized and pulled into her lap and kissed are very good things to be! Just look how appreciative the noises he's making are!

[thinkering]

It's good that there's such clear feedback here.

"Do you feel rewarded?" she inquires, after having kissed him.

[mrglam]

"Mmhmmmmm!"

[thinkering]

"Good."

[mrglam]

"You keep making these faces," he accuses.