Public... Approves!
(By CmptrWz)
Emily looked around the table at the various capes. They had just finished watching one of the many clips covering the 'spar' between Saurial and Assault. Somehow they had ended up with all the protectorate heroes, all the wards other than Shadow Stalker, and Dragon in the meeting. Most of those present were still stunned, despite most of them having seen this a couple of times already (the Wards were on their fifth or sixth viewing at least).
Huh, if all the capes were here...no, can't go down that train of thought. Therein lies madness. Or perhaps, more madness, given the reason they were meeting.
"We are fortunate that most of the reactions are generally positive," Emily finally said. "Most of those that aren't positive are calling it an outright fake, using CGI or tinkertech holographics to set the whole thing up."
"You are damn lucky that enough clips included her quip about my reaction afterwards for people to assume it was, at worst, an attempt to get you in trouble," Battery said, glaring at Assault.
"It may very well have been so," Assault finally admitted. "Though I doubt it was anything but an amusing idea on Saurial's part. I have no idea how the apparent limb severing trick worked, though."
"I concur that it was likely not intended to be malicious," Armsmaster said. "The Family doesn't tend to be quite that mean without really good reason."
"Yes, well," Emily said, glaring at Assault one more time. "We are very lucky that PR feels this likely belongs in the 'win' column. Assault, your ban on solo patrols still stands."
"As does your ban on comedy skits," Battery added, glaring at Assault.
"Moving on to the potential how," Dragon said. "Her armor changing color and materializing a helmet is already known, as is the sword creation. We presume that the 'blood' was faked with Saurial's matter creation ability. What we don't know is how she apparently severed her limbs."
"Spacial warping," Vista said with authority. "Not entirely sure of her exact method, but I bet it was spacial warping."
"While you are undoubtedly our expert on that subject," Emily said, looking at Vista. "I would like to know why you think that."
"Simple," Vista said, gesturing in front of her. A small pocket of warped space formed in front of her, which she stuck her hand through. Nothing happened for a moment, and then with look of deep concentration her hand moved forward, off of her wrist. After two feet or so she stopped, wiggling her hand. At both ends there were obvious distortions, but there was a full couple of feet of gap between her arm and her hand. "This method isn't nearly as seamless, granted, but I think it is a decent approximation."
"I have to agree," Armsmaster said after a minute or so. "Barring the distortions it looks remarkably similar. We probably need to increase her shaker rating based on this."
Vista carefully removed her hand from her warp and dismissed it while everyone gave it some more thought.
Miss Militia finally snapped out of staring at a couple of the still photos showing the cut-up Saurial. "I am not positive, but I think she slowed down after each severing. More so than the limb detachment is likely to account for."
"Probably had to divert some concentration to keeping the limbs severed," Vista volunteered. "Especially if she wanted to move around as much as she was while keeping the warps active."
"Makes me wonder if she has a multitasking style thinker ability," Clockblocker volunteered. He got some odd looks. "What?"
"That had not occurred to me as being a potential answer," Armsmaster finally admitted. "I suspect most of us were thinking something similar."
"Just because I goof off a lot doesn't make me stupid," Clockblocker grumbled. Vista patted him on the back.
"I would be telling everyone to avoid playing along with this kind of thing in the future," Emily said, grabbing everyone's attention. "But PR has recommended that I not. Apparently this kind of stunt makes us more approachable and/or relatable somehow."
"If it hadn't taken me two hours to stop laughing long enough to yell at you I would be yelling at you for freaking me out by looking like you had actually gotten seriously injured," Danny said. "But that was just too funny."
"Lisa and Amy thought so too," Taylor admitted. "Though I was hoping for more of a reaction to my Thing impression."
"That is a bit disturbing, though I was kinda expecting something like that after seeing the black knight impersonation."
"Of course, there are other uses for the derivative technique I used for the Thing impression," Taylor said, grinning. A moment later a mini-taylor, seemingly fully human but only two feet tall, appeared on the table next to her. "Look, a mini-me!"
"Hi dad!" the mini-Taylor squeaked. Then her head fell off. "Ooops, I lost my head!"
Her only answer was Danny's head bashing against the table, followed by a groan that sounded suspiciously like "why me".
"We seriously need to get her to do a haunted house," Kevin said, staring at the video. "I suspect however she did that works just as well with her head. I can imagine it now: her head being apparently cut off in front of people, only to then keep speaking a moment later!"
"To do a proper showing she would probably have to be in human form," Randall said. "Not sure if she would be willing to show off like that."
"Haunted house, everyone assumes there are tricks already anyway," Kevin replied, waving his hand in dismissal. "They would just be trying to figure out how she pulled that one off."