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]

Well, then if he presents them to her she might have to see what the fuss is about.

[mrglam]

Might she.

Well, there is this one he'd love her to use on him...

[thinkering]

She's in a mood. It is a compatible mood.

[mrglam]

He might just have to kiss her a lot before they get to use it because she's just great.

[thinkering]

Mmmmm, kisses.

[mrglam]

Yes!

But then, they do get to use it, and. It is so much better than he could have ever hoped.

[thinkering]

She likes to exceed expectations.

[mrglam]

He likes to have them exceeded!

[thinkering]

They dovetail very nicely that way, then.

[mrglam]

He'd also like to know if there's anything in particular she'd like him to do.

[thinkering]

Maybe.

Yes.

[mrglam]

Fantastic. Why doesn't he go ahead and do that, then?

[thinkering]

Good boyfriend.

[mrglam]

He really likes being a good boyfriend.

[thinkering]

Which is itself a good boyfriend characteristic.

[mrglam]

Such recursion.

[thinkering]

And other things.

[mrglam]

Yes, definitely other things.

[thinkering]

And eventually, once again: snuggles.

[mrglam]

Mmm snuggles!

[thinkering]

"Love you," she says tiredly.

[mrglam]

He hugs her. "And I'm totally awake and not dreaming or hallucinating this in any way, my life's great. Except for the brushes with death part, those aren't that great, but the other parts: great."

[thinkering]

"The brushes with death do seem to rev me up. I mean, there's other ways to do it, but still."

[mrglam]

"Hmm, yeah, that's true, the last time it happened we started dating. This is a terrible incentive."

[thinkering]

"Do not follow this incentive, Sadde."