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]

Lorica's armor departs her of its own accord except the helmet, which she has to detach herself.

Flop.

"I promise my dad won't kill you if he catches you snuggling me."

[mrglam]

"Okay."

Snuggle!

(He has clearly been crying. That is. Pretty obvious.)

[thinkering]

Snuggle.

"Rewind needs like a fucking medal."

[mrglam]

He nods, burying his face in her hair. "I think both of us owe her our lives, now."

[thinkering]

"Yeah."

[mrglam]

"Relatedly, we really need to figure out a way to deal with the Empire without almost dying so often."

[thinkering]

"That'd be nice."

Transit knocks.

[mxglam]

A copy floats over to the door and opens it.

[thinkering]

In comes Transit. He gives Lorica grape juice and cookies and an iron pill.

"Thanks, Dad."

"No problem," he says. "Let me know when you want to go home."

"I will." She props herself up to swallow the pill with a swig of juice.

[mrglam]

Sadde watches this and somehow manages not to look incredibly, terribly guilty of some unspeakable crime against Bella's virtue or- something, with Transit there.

[thinkering]

Bella chugs the rest of the juice, then flops back down on her boyfriend. Transit pats her head and departs.

[mrglam]

Her boyfriend snuggles up, burying his face in her neck, and kisses her there.

[thinkering]

She's a little too woozy to eeee, but she can mmmm.

[mrglam]

Mmming is alright. He just wants to enjoy the fact that she's completely and totally not dead. He hugs her a bit tighter.

[thinkering]

She might doze off.

[mrglam]

That's alright. He'll be running one of his hands through her hair soothingly, not really doing or saying anything, sometimes making soft 'mmm' sounds.

[thinkering]

Yup, there she goes. Zzzzzz.

[mrglam]

Awwwww.

The repetitive motion and quiet environment might just cause him to fall asleep as well.

[thinkering]

Lorica yawns awake about an hour later.

[mrglam]

Which wakes him up as well, smiling. "Mrng."

[thinkering]

"I don't think it's morning." Kiss. Oh look, cookies. She opens her packet of cookies and eats them.

[mrglam]

Mmm kiss! "Yeah, guess it's not," he says, sitting up. "How're you feeling?"

[thinkering]

"Slightly weak, otherwise okay. What time is it?"

[mrglam]

A copy appears to reach for the phone, say, "Five seventeen," put it down again, then disappear.

[thinkering]

"Dinnertime. Be sort of awkward to go in costume or I'd suggest we make it a dinner date."