glam, meet your new best friend

[mrglam]

With Armsmaster's death, Miss Militia is promoted to team captain. Even with the losses, however, the Protectorate ENE doesn't get new capes - all teams got hit hard by the last Endbringer attack, and even though it was by all accounts a major victory, it did not cause capes to start lining up to join.

Days pass, and winter hits Brockton Bay. It's pretty mild, as winters go, but it's enough to drastically reduce criminal activity. The heroes have an altercation with white supremacists the following week, but nothing much comes of it, as cape muscle seems to prefer to remain comfortable inside. Capes nationwide are somewhat subdued, perhaps as the aftermath of the victory against Behemoth. Nothing much seems to change, however - the Simurgh continues to fly around in her unpredictable pattern, Leviathan continues to be impossible to locate, lurking in the depths of the ocean. The public gets hopelessly contradictory information about what really happened during the fight from unofficial sources, secretly fed from official ones to make sure people don't jump to the right conclusions, and the topic loses its momentum.

And all of this completely fails to distract Sadde, who seems to not be getting better from the post-battle funk. Or, at least, not straightforwardly better. The depression and fatalism turn - maybe not completely, but at least a bit - into unease and anxiety, or perhaps stir craziness. It is, after all, true that, other than for class, Sadde doesn't really leave HQ a whole lot, not since they reached the comfortable position of being able to patrol from the comfort of the console - of, in fact, being more effective when doing that, for the average uneventful patrol.

Fatalism, depression, anxiety, and unease, all combined into a Sadde-shaped ball, are currently floating upside down in Lorica's workshop, failing to read a book while she fugues.

Comments

[mrglam]

"Hi, love."

[thinkering]

"Hi. Have a good day?"

[mrglam]

"Yeah, I needed that."

[thinkering]

"Good." The bot nuzzles up to his cheek and settles down on his shoulder.

[mrglam]

He opens his mouth to tell her about it but... does she strictly need to know? Well, of course not, but he doesn't just tell her things she needs to know, and he never really hides anything from her. On the other hand, she's not really likely to care much about it, is she? So he met a random new person and they hung out and he played tour guide. Sadde's sociable enough that the names of people he spends time with, like from school and such, are probably getting mixed together in Bella's brain by now. Or, well, not really, because her bot is a very good memory aid, but the point is that it's not really noteworthy.

Instead, he asks, "How about you?"

[thinkering]

"Lot of fugue. Bot is now authorized to moderate more sections of the forum."

[mrglam]

"Oh, that's nice, what changed?"

[thinkering]

"It's just got more proof of concept under its belt now."

[mrglam]

"Fair enough."

[thinkering]

"Do you want bot takeout or did you fill up wandering around all day?"

[mrglam]

"I already got some takeout. You could join me if you want. Or I could join you, if you project what a copy me's seeing so that I can man the console remotely."

[thinkering]

"I'll come to you." She does, and does the eating with her helmet slightly flipped up thing.

[mrglam]

...he doesn't really feel the need to fill this silence with anything. Which is somewhat strange. But oh well. They'll eat in companionable silence, he guesses.

[thinkering]

"You're all quiet."

[mrglam]

"Hmm? Yeah, guess I don't really have much to talk about."

[thinkering]

"'kay."

[mrglam]

Patrol patrol.

(Remotely.)

(...he needs to think. But for some reason he needs to do that without Bella right there. And that's one of the things he needs to think about.)

(Just what's going on in his head?)

[thinkering]

Bella obliviously continues being right there. Inconsiderate.

[mrglam]

Well he did invite her, and it's not her fault he wants to think without her around, and besides this is a public room any of the Wards or heroes can go to so.

(Is it even reasonable of him to expect her to notice? I mean sure they've been dating a while but perhaps it's not really obvious on his face that he wants to be left alone, and that would be rude probably, making faces.)

[thinkering]

She finishes her food and clicks her helmet back down and leans back in her chair. She's probably browsing the internet in her helmet or something.

[mrglam]

Probably. That's a reasonable thing to do when you're bored. Maybe he should do that to while his time, except probably not because he needs to focus on patrolling.

(Good thing Silica's one of the quiet ones, she doesn't really demand much attention while patrolling.)

[thinkering]

(Yep, Silica's pretty much just wandering around not saying anything.)

"Whoa," says Lorica, "Hatchet Face died."

[mrglam]

That startles him right back into wakefulness. "What, really? How? Did he spend even two months with the Nine?"

[thinkering]

"Just shy. Apparently he was separated from them and some random Midwest townful of unpowered people mobbed him. His power wasn't really in play considering, but there were still casualties. They got him though. They suspect cape involvement but can't figure out who, they didn't know there was one there."

[mrglam]

"Unpowered people? Didn't he have, like, super strength and super endurance? I guess if there were enough people..."