"I'd like all of you to welcome your new teammate Shadowstalker." said Armsmaster before he turned around and promptly left.
What... Really... Armsmaster… here's your new teammate, bye?
How about a "play nicely" and a pat on the head at least?
I'm not sure if I should feel violated by watching him try to interact with people. I'm better than him and I don't really care about what other people think about me. Ontop of that, most of my social interaction with the rest of the Wards is 'sit on the couch and cram my head into someone's side until they start petting me' or lay down on someone's lap until they start petting me.
Vista squealed with joy and jumped off the couch, dislodging me from my seat beside her and bounced up and down in the middle of the room, "Yes! Yes! another girl! Finally!"
The cape in question snorted dismissively at the bundle of energy formerly known as Vista and walked over to the couch and sat down on the exact spot Vista had just vacated, next to me. Where Vista had just been sitting and rubbing my back, head and ears while watching Saturday morning cartoons.
Well, guess that's my cue to leave, "So sorry I have to cut this meet and greet short, but I'm working on something delicate in the lab. Anyways, nice to meet you Shadowstalker." before running out of the room as well.
Ugh, I was enjoying that petting... I mean head massage.
All my hate for you Shadowstalker, I love pet-massage time and you just cut it short.
Armsmaster was secretly pleased, looking over the latest schematic that Six-Two-Six brought to him before the "incident". Incredibly useful, the plans for the portable shield generator would increase his own defensive capability significantly. However, far more important was the fact that these plans showed a standard tinker device, a non-mass-producible tinker shield. His own tinker abilities worked just fine on it, improving its design even further, reducing the power requirements and increasing its durability.
Not only would it be fairly easy to add into his own armor but he could also add it into some of his peripheral and ancillary devices. His motorbike for one could use a nice shield, maybe a backup shield unit in his halberd...
no, no, that would require too much power to…
Colin sighed and got to work.
Sparring session with the new team member, nope.
I'm "busy"
"Mandatory" team sparring with the new member.
"Oh my god, stop hitting the door it's going to blow up unless I concentrate on this!"
Increase music volume, work on the police cruiser.
Someone started pounding on the door. Bang Bang Bang "Six-two-six get out here! You need to exercise and participate in team building exercises! I know you can hear me over that music!"
I shouted back, "I'm busy now, can I ignore you some other time?"
Apparently I'm also neck and neck this week with Armsmaster for the most-time-spent-in-lab.
After toweling off, I walked over to look in the mirror and brushed my teeth. Honestly, I wasn't sure if I needed to brush, but a lifetime of habits still made it feel weird not to. Though being able to brush my head-fur at the same time with the other arms made up for the additional time, it took drying my fur with the towel. It's been weeks and I still smelled like that old-spice cologne, it seems to be my "natural" scent though it did lead to some awkward moments when people would audibly sniff at me.
My BO is old spice and I'm not sure how I feel about that, guess I shouldn't complain about it.
With all of the activity going on in the past few weeks I'm sure some of my paperwork was "delayed" intentionally. Unfortunately, after the PR event (and likely the reason why the PR event was delayed as well) they couldn't pretend to not to have the paperwork finished.
So off to school I go.
Joy.
I thought about requesting to going to Winslow for about a minute before nixing it. Sorry Taylor but Winslow is a dump and you do need awesome, underestimated bug powers. Something that a lot of people seem to miss is just how much abuse it took to get her to trigger. Her mother's death didn't cause her to trigger, being emotionally abused and bullied for a year didn't cause her to trigger. No, it took her almost dying, trapped in a tiny locker filled with biological waste products to trigger her powers, If I did "save" her before the locker event it's unlikely that she would ever trigger, thus removing one of the linchpins of the original timeline.
Frankly, I'm just going to leave that whole mess alone, for now, maybe do something after she triggers, maybe make an anonymous phone call to get her discovered earlier and see If I can't get Shadow Stalker kicked out of the wards. I know I'm a horrible asshole for not doing anything to prevent it, but she is the one who eventually takes on Scion and kills him, her power is needed. Maybe get her a cake or something...
Sorry, you've been tormented for a year and put into the hospital then slipped into a power or injury-induced coma, here's a cake.
Hah
On second thought showing up at the hospital while she is in the coma might actually be a good idea, get some PR pointed at her. Maybe do a one-on-one interview and request a favor from the news station in exchange to do a report on school bullying and point them at the in-a-coma Taylor. It'd be an interesting way to get introduced to her, by the time she even wakes up they might even have discovered who did it... with a bit of nudging and anonymous phone calls of course.
Plenty of people came up to me and greeted me at school, I also had a brief tour of the facility before being introduced to the homeroom teacher. And wow, school is now even more boring than it was the first time, first day at class and I've read through each book and memorized them instantly, thank you eidetic memory. The stares are a bit unnerving as people stopped to watch me walk down the hall and conversations froze at my approach as people noticed me.
Lunch smelled pretty good and the scent of it drove me crazy, I could smell it throughout the entire school. I guess this is how a dog must feel, smelling food for hours but unable to eat it. I must give my sympathies to my fur-covered brethren, I understand your anguish now.
As the lunch period actually arrived, I had to crawl up the side of the display and walked on top of the tray-carrier to see anything, but that made it fairly easy to hand over the tray to be filled at least. Though I'm not sure if that's because of my different taste buds which seemed to be disturbingly indiscriminate about what constitutes "food" or if it's just that Arcadia is a better public school than the one I grew up with and simply has a higher budget for everything including the food.
I spotted Victoria and Amy Dallon, well I spotted the softly glowing Glory Girl seated at a table and assumed the other female next to her was her "sister" Amy. Of course they had a bunch of people in front of them at the table. Interesting enough as I got closer I couldn't feel any effect from her "aura" at all. Not that I'm complaining mind you but after Gallant's beams I was expecting to feel something.
Come to think of it I don't think her aura worked on Bitch's dogs or on Skitters insects when she was at the bank. Maybe it's an effect just limited to humans, which is a bit depressing to think about.
"Hhhiiii, your Glory Girl and Panacea right?" I finally said after I made my way over to them, with only half the lunchroom watching me. I know, I'm just so eloquent speaking in front of crowds.
'Amy' looked incredibly uncomfortable as she caught sight of me heading towards me and shrunk back against her sister, "I'm sorry I can't..."
Glory girl's aura increased in brightness as Amy retreated away from me and got closer to her sister.
"What I can't sit here?" as I hopped up on the bench seat and put my tray down on the table
"No I can't... fix you" Amy replied tiredly
"I assure you that I'm uninterested in being neutered." I replied with a disapproving look at her.
Glory Girl started with a chuckle, looked at my face and quickly broke out into an all-out laugh and pounded the table with a fist.
"No" she replied, obviously flustered "I can't make case fifty-three's human again, I've already tried."
"Why would I want to look like a boring human, I'm a cute and adorable blue ball of fluff." I said and widened my eyes and pressed my hands together and looked shy and mildly sad.
Glory Girl snorted and said, "That's just disgustingly cute, you look like a blue koala in need of a hug. Do you need a hhhuuuggg?" she said mockingly.
I stopped posing and replied "Well that's somewhat close to the problem I'm having. Joined the Wards, of course. But I can't hang out with… well, I'm sure you can guess. But they are the only ones I know, so I need to make some friends while avoiding the cape groupies when possible."
Honestly, I could give a Bliznak about anyone else in this school. I'm being selfish and an asshole I know, but I didn't really want to waste my time on befriending teenagers. However, I might need Glory Girl and Panacea's help in the future once I figured out what I wanted to do. Best to have them as friends even if I never end up having to ask for favors.
I continued "It's not like I can hide behind a mask and have a life separate from cape activities like the other wards, a situation which I've been told is similar to yourselves." I said while sitting down and promptly realizing that I couldn't reach the food tray like this.
As I awkwardly stood up on the bench seat to reach the tray and food. I continued "Anyways, I'm Six-Two-Six a brute-tinker mix or so they say in the PRT. Only been here for a couple of weeks, woke up in an alley and remembered Brockton bay so I headed here. See, look you already know my entire life story."
I pointed at them with two hands, "So was I right then? You're the dynamic duo, The Super Girl and the Super Healer, the Guts and the Glory. Also known as Glory Girl and Panacea."
Glory Girl placed a finger on her chin and replied, "Guts and the Glory.. never heard that one before.. I like that. Anyways, yeah I'm Victoria and my sister is Amy."
"Pleasure to meet you two, I hope we can be friends." I stuck out a paw for both of them and got to enjoy seeing Panacea's eyes light up in wonder as she shook my hand and then didn't let go for an uncomfortable amount of time.
Glory Girl grinned as she shook my other hand and squeezed it hard, "Sooo... you're a brute, right? you wanna have some fun sometime?"
"Sure, so long as I get to use some of the toys I've built." I grinned back, Squeezing her hand in return and increased the pressure until her shield flared up brightly. Fun for her is definitely going to be a fight.
Amy relaxed and sat next to me while we all started eating food. Some small talk, introduction to their other friends and "Dean" who 'I have never' met before. I answered some questions and let them touch my fur and so forth (ladies can't help themselves what can I say?).
The initial greetings do tend to be awkward when you're nonhuman and the questions boil down to, how does your fur feel, how does it feel to have four arms... etc.
Or in Clockblockers case, "can you sniff your own butt, do you want to sniff mine?"
After lunch it was just one short class before heading back to headquarters, the Wards only had only partial school days thankfully.
On second thought, Questa school, that thing just wastes too much of my time. I'll just make arrangements to get my GED instead. I'm sure Piggott will be happy and I've already got what I wanted, Glory Girls and Pancea's personal cell phone numbers.
I could probably have gotten them from "Dean" though... ehh. It was still nice to meet them!
Hmm, better text them about the GED idea and see if they want to hang out sometime and go punch something with Glory Girl, bet Panacea will enjoy firing a cannon at some rusting ships.
Hang out now?
Ok.
I'll bring guns
Panacea enjoyed firing guns at the ships too much… and starting shooting things that were not ships. Now we get to evade the police and the PRT which is fairly easy to do in the air usually. Unfortunately, now some of the PRT Officers are using my jetpacks, wow this has turned into a great day!
Note to self, make my jetpack faster than the PRT jetpacks and stop trying to collapse sewers while you're running through them, that's a bad habit.