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

[thinkering]

"Sure, although I will totally have the bot digest it for me so I don't have to pick through jargon."

[mrglam]

"'Course." Copy: is conjured. "Can you go do that?" The copy nods and goes.

[thinkering]

"Handy."

[mrglam]

"Isn't it just? I love my power."

[thinkering]

"We have very lovely utility powers, we two."

[mrglam]

"Yes, we do. Best couple."

[thinkering]

"Most utilitarian."

[mrglam]

"Yes, that is one of the ways in which we're the best couple."

[thinkering]

"What else?"

[mrglam]

"D'you want me to make you a list? We're both smart, pragmatic, altruistic, ambitious, have similar tastes, similar personalities but not so much that it gets boring, typically good at dealing with our thoughts and emotions..."

[thinkering]

She giggles.

[mrglam]

He floats over to her to hug her. "So, like I said, best couple."

The bot receives copy's email.

[thinkering]

Hug!

The bot observes, "This paper would not have been published if Behemoth had made more progress in Pittsburgh."

[mrglam]

"...huh. I don't wanna read into that."

[thinkering]

"Why not?" asks Lorica.

[mrglam]

"I mean, Behemoth was apparently making for the universities, but it's very easy to think that gives their papers some significance when it might not be the case."

[thinkering]

"Yeah, I guess. It's not evidence against and it's not nothing, though."

[mrglam]

"Yeah. But for all we know Behemoth was going for something else entirely or, I dunno, so. It's very weak evidence."

[thinkering]

"Sure, that I'll give you."

[mrglam]

"But still... Interesting."

[thinkering]

"It is."

[mrglam]

"I think I'm gonna reread it and pay some more attention just in case, though."

[thinkering]

"Sounds like a plan."

[mrglam]

His copy is back! "Can you bring me my phone?" And back to his room the copy goes.

[thinkering]