Only the Lonely, chapter 13
Mar. 20th, 2012 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lirillithTitle: Only the Lonely
Fandom: Tiger & Bunny
Characters/pairing: Karina, Nathan, Barnaby, Kotetsu, Saito
Length: 3500 words
Rating: T
Summary: When Kotetsu returns from retirement and starts coming to Karina's performances again, she thinks she has her chance to get closer to him at last... but that also means getting to know his partner.
****
No one seemed to notice anything different about her, except for Nathan, which wasn't that surprising. He promised her some concept sketches for a Helios costume, and then they got called out in the middle of the day for a bank robbery.
So she had no idea what to expect as she headed into Helios headquarters for the meeting the next week. It felt weird to be there in her Blue Rose headwear and a perfectly ordinary outfit - she'd chosen the blue dress she'd worn on her birthday - wearing a guest ID on a lanyard. Normally when she was in the Helios offices, which wasn't often, she was trailing in Nathan's wake, and her guest ID had her real name on it. Or if she was Blue Rose, she had the full costume.
Karina was a little surprised to find that Nathan was the only one in the conference room. And Nathan was also wearing a button-down shirt, which didn't even sparkle, and tie, which did. The tie was at least pink, and he was fully made-up, but she was so used to seeing him at times when he was just "dropping into the office for a second" that it had never occurred to her he must sometimes spend quite a while in it. "The designer's not here?" she asked.
"Sweetie. Are you underestimating me again? I'm the designer." He waved a handful of papers at her. "Helios used to have one, for whoever they were sponsoring before - the Firecracker, wasn't it? - but she didn't believe in capes, so I fired her."
"Your cape is pretty epic," she admitted. "So what have you got?"
"Take a look at these while I set up the presentation," he said, handing them to her. She sank into a cushy chair that seemed to be real leather, and shuffled through the sheets, glancing at each before starting over at the beginning.
"Are these feathers?" she asked.
He glanced over for a second. "That's the concept. The final version - well, think of what my suit looks like."
"Right," she said, not wanting to remind him about that heated discussion they'd had when she admitted she didn't really see the chest pattern as feathery. She could see the general Phoenix theme, especially the beak effect with his cowl, but the chest pattern just didn't look that feathery and she was not going to spend that much time contemplating the codpiece. "And this one's... is that a cape?'
"Here," he said, and holo-screens sprung up around the projector in the middle of the table. The one closest to her showed a 3D model with roughly her measurements in an outfit that didn't look too different from her current one. The blue was a different shade.
"Oh, that's the blue from your outfit!"
"Yes!" He started typing, but she was still studying the model. The headgear was around the same, but there was a visor over the face. Probably for some of the informational systems she knew the guys had - Kotetsu and Barnaby and Sky High - but she'd check. The skirt arced out from her hips, looking like a lot of drapey fabric that might just get in the way in action. She didn't do too much punching and kicking, but she did a fair amount of acrobatics, not to mention dancing onstage. The bodice didn't have the cut-out, which could be very nice, and had a pattern going up the center with the red, orange, and gold of Nathan's outfit. The model of him turned up next to her, for comparison. She reached out to the UI on the bottom of the screen to rotate herself - the cape on the model was similar to Nathan's, though the scalloped bottom was pointier - like icicles rather than feathers or flames - and when he pushed another button on the keyboard, it animated. Blues and whites, of course. She realized she was grinning. So was he.
"Admit it, that's just too cool to pass up."
"True," she said. "It's not built into the costume like yours?"
"So you can take it off onstage. Think about your entrances. Walk on wearing it, take it off for a couple of your royal attendants to take away..." Yes, she could see it. Easily.
"How would the skirt model work?" The computer version still looked kind of feathery. "I worry about the final version looking like a tutu."
"Aw, you didn't want to be a ballerina when you were five? That was just me?"
"No, I totally did, but it doesn't fit Blue Rose at all."
"Fair," he said. "We'll see. I wanted to keep the general silhouette but ditch the vines."
She nodded. "The visor, that's for the computer setup?"
"Exactly. I'd been looking into ways to add something like that to mine, but yours is much easier."
"So that other one..."
"There are several others!" He took over, running her through a couple of alternatives; she offended him by describing one as "Vegas showgirl," but then he pulled up the other costume she'd meant, proudly, all offense forgotten.
The cape in this one attached to her arms, more like very long sleeves than anything. The sleeves themselves, all blue, covered her whole arms - this outfit covered a lot, really, with only a small cutout on her chest. The bodice had a recognizable ice-crystal pattern. She rotated it, and shot a look at Nathan, who was smiling serenely. "I notice this still doesn't cover my ass," she said.
"You've gotta work something, sweetie," he said. "You're still Blue Rose, even if Pepsi and Suntory pull out and we have to change your name."
"Oh, fine..." The boots were about what she was used to. He'd concentrated the flame colors on the headdress and the trim of her bodice. "Is that a peacock feather?"
"If it's too showgirl for you it can go," he snipped.
"I'm sorry! It was the first thing that popped into my head. Obviously I should have waited for the second."
"Well, if I'm the phoenix, it makes sense for a blue-themed partner to be a peacock. I thought so, anyway."
"It actually does..." She frowned, thinking. "Nathan, what if I end up accepting the Apollon offer? Are you going to be offended?"
"Oh, honey. Of course not! A decision like this is about a lot more than what you think of my costume designs, or your partners. And you've got a pretty good reason to choose Apollon."
"I dunno," she said. "I mean... I don't want to force Kotetsu and Barnaby to work with me. And I'm used to working alone. It might be better for me to go here, where we'd both be working on teamwork from the ground up."
"Or you could turn down all the offers, wait for me to scoop Bison up from Kronos, and approach them. You could pretty much write your own contract under the circumstances." He stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Under certain circumstances. Around the beginning of their fiscal year, at least."
"And when's that? No, I want to get away from Titan. If nothing else, I think things could get pretty unpleasant there if they knew I was trying to quit and then I didn't follow through."
The Apollon meeting couldn't come soon enough, because Barnaby and Kotetsu had both seen something relating to a suit for her - design documents or a prototype or a model or something - and they wouldn't tell her anything about it except the fact that they had seen it, because Barnaby still loved to torment her. He wouldn't talk even when she tickled him. "Oh my God," Kotetsu said, delightedly, sipping a beer and watching. "He's ticklish?"
"Yes," she said, as Barnaby gasped "No!"
"I don't think I've ever seen him laugh that hard," Kotetsu said wonderingly. "How did I never know about this?"
Probably because no one had ever tickled him before. "Because you're not a sadist," Barnaby said, then convulsed when she got his side again. "A little help here? I'm defending our secrets!"
"Oh, hey, good point," Kotetsu had said, then "Um, I can't hit her," so Barnaby powered up and grabbed her wrists to fend her off. Karina gave up, pouting, and Kotetsu appeased her by admitting it was a full prototype suit. So at least she had some idea what she'd be seeing, but not what it looked like or anything else.
It'd probably have an ass cutout or something.
It did not have an ass cutout. It did have high heels, but she was used to that. It looked a lot less bulky than their armor, but otherwise pretty similar, with blue and white plates for the chest, arms, and legs, a lot of the rest of it black. The shoulders on hers were different, more ornate - several layers of blue metal with scalloped edges, about as floral as Nathan's suit was feathery. The headpiece on the gray dummy modeling it was similar to her old one, but with three points, so it was more crown-like. There was a semi-transparent visor extending down from that - she wondered if all the sponsors ordered their parts from the same sources - and she suddenly realized that the room was really quiet.
"I don't think she heard you, Dr. Saito," Kotetsu said. "You might need to speak up. She's not used to you, remember?"
Oh right. They'd warned her about this. She bent over and the engineer leaned in very, very slightly and began speaking again. If "speaking" was the right word for it.
"The suit is made of the same alloy as Tiger's and Barnaby's, but it's lighter and more flexible. You rarely fight hand-to-hand, but you still need to be able to dodge. It's also designed to match the contours of your body, since fanservice is a big part of your act, without sacrificing any protective capacity."
"Fanservice?!" She sighed. She liked the idea of "working it" much better.
"That's the reason for the high heels, as well. But like the heels on their suits, it should give you some height while remaining stable, though I'm told you're accustomed to high heels." Hey, that was true, they both kind of had stacked heels. Part of why they both seemed so huge. "The headpiece resembles your current suit's headgear but includes all the informational systems and displays available in Tiger and Barnaby's suits. The controls for all of the information systems are the buttons on the right and left side of the tiara. I've already prepared the documentation. I was also told you need a water supply to use your powers?"
"Yeah, kind of. I can use atmospheric moisture when I need to, but if it's too dry - like if we're going into a fire, or if the area's been de-humidified..." Like Rotwang's cells had been.
"The sleeves conceal a water supply within the suit, and can be shifted if you need access to it. Your suit will naturally be resistant to cold, as well as temperatures up to a thousand degrees fahrenheit, pressures up to--"
"Oh, geez, I can't watch this," Kotetsu said, turning to leave the room. Barnaby snagged him by the collar.
"--completely bulletproof, of course."
"What's going to happen?" she asked, when she realized the scientist was done talking. He made a sort of squeaking noise that might have been a laugh, and smirked crookedly in a way that she didn't find at all reassuring. He pushed a button, and a gray dummy wearing a logo-less version of her suit dropped down next to the prototype that had been rotating the whole time.
And then a bunch of guns appeared from the corners of the viewing screen and started firing at both suits.
Five minutes later, Karina had seen her old suit swiss-cheesed by bullets, burnt to a crisp, crunched and flattened like a soda can, and shredded by blades. She might never have really liked it, but it was still pretty nerve-racking to see. Especially with Saito smirking proudly after each trial left his creation untouched. "Some of those were new!" Kotetsu said brightly, as Saito pushed a few more buttons. "He didn't do the thing with the knives to my old suit! He used chainsaws on my wires, though, so I guess it's sort of the same principle..."
"That makes me feel a lot better," she said. The viewing window opened up, bringing the prototype into the main room. She backed away from it. "Is it still hot?" she asked. Saito's lips moved. She sort of whimpered, and he had mercy and shook his head. No.
"Okay, so what do I need to do to put it on?"
She leaned in to hear. "You'll need to put on an undersuit. There's one ready for you in the room down the hall and to the right."
When she came back, holding it up on her chest and needing someone to zip her up, the scientist blushed and Kotetsu made some kind of noise of protest, though he didn't actually succeed in looking away. "I show more than this on billboards!" she said, exasperated. "And in my Titan costume. Barnaby, will you help?"
"There's actually an automated feature for that," he said, guiding one of her hands to the small of her back. Sure enough, she found a button and her suit did itself up.
"That's a very weird feeling. Thank you." Having something that covered her neck and didn't pad her boobs was a weird feeling too, but if it was Puritan day in the lab she'd better not point that out. "So now what?"
Next step involved Saito bringing a large metal box into the test chamber. It swung open, revealing a bare metal framework. "Okay, that's about like what we use to get armored up," Kotetsu said. "I guess ours looks a little more polished."
"You need to stand in that," Saito told her. "We don't have a full version fitted to you yet, so this was the best we could do to adjust the size. Naturally one will be built for you if you sign on at Apollon."
"So I need to go in there?" Into the test chamber, which was apparently filled with flamethrowers and machine guns. "You guys will avenge my death if he hits the wrong button, right?"
"Karina!"
"Don't worry. We'll bring him to justice," Kotetsu said. She walked to the big metal box, doubtfully. "He thinks they should build an adjustable version for future heroes," Kotetsu said. "Hey, don't get rid of us yet! Anyway, the full versions have handholds, so they're easier to stand still for."
"So you're saying don't move?"
"Right."
That wasn't as hard as it could have been. The machine worked fast. When she stepped slowly out of the machine, she flexed her hands, looking through the visor as it evaluated her hands, then re-adjusted to target Kotetsu, then Barnaby, then Saito. Two NEXTs, one human, rough estimates of height, weight, threat level-- "Threat level?"
"He says it's based on body language," Barnaby said. "Aggressive posture... oh, concealed weapons. That could be useful. Was that in the latest update?" A pause. "I'll turn it back on, then."
"And the controls are on the crown?" She felt around her head for the button. A clock appeared, then the armor plates on her armor moved with a noise like her digital camera focusing. The other side of her head made the target info disappear for each of the three men in turn. She flexed her hands and took a few steps. The suit didn't feel heavy at all - if anything she felt kind of springy and powerful. No wonder Barnaby had burned his way up the charts that first season. "This is pretty nice." She shot some ice at one of the gun locations, then rode a crest of it across the room and dismounted with a flip. "Nice!" she said, approvingly, and this time Saito smiled. "How long do I get to mess around with this?"
"AS LONG AS YOU WANT!" She winced. "THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF A SUIT TEST!" Kotetsu was hiding his mouth, like that was enough to keep her from seeing that he was grinning, and Barnaby was very obviously trying not to smile. This must be a thing with Saito.
She braced herself, and asked "So what else can this do?"
"I'M GLAD YOU ASKED!"
If they found this so funny, they could wait around for her to get the whole geeky rundown before they got lunch.
Lunch was sushi, after Karina had spent the better part of an hour putting the suit through its paces and getting Saito's improbably loud commentary on the paces. "Even though I'm starving, it's good you got to do that," Kotetsu said over the meal. "Timing wasn't so good with mine, so they just kind of threw me in at the deep end."
"I wish I could have tried it out in a simulation," she said. "It's not quite the same when you're just running around with it. Maybe if I could have sparred with one of you guys..." She popped a roll into her mouth.
"It's not a good time for either of us to power up, though," Kotetsu said. "And you can hit pretty hard."
"Be sure you read the documentation if you take Apollon's offer," Barnaby said. "He never did."
"It was long! Lots of words." Barnaby rolled his eyes, and Karina snickered.
"So if I did sign on at Apollon, would it necessarily be a partnership thing? I mean, I'm used to working alone." And she wasn't totally sure about impinging on their working partnership. They made a really good team, and she operated completely differently than they did.
"That's... a good question," Barnaby admitted, swiping some sashimi from under Kotetsu's reaching chopsticks. "I don't know."
"When I came on they just told me upfront -- Dammit, Bunny! -- I was the sidekick, all that. You're in a stronger position there. "
"Not that we'd mind working with you," Barnaby added.
"You might," she said, smirking at him. "After I've grabbed a few arrests just before you could reach them."
"Karina, that happens all the time anyway. Wednesday, for instance."
"Well, if you look at it like that, we're still ranked separately," Kotetsu said. "It's more just that we aren't getting in each other's way... Or maybe playing to each other's strengths, I dunno. It's kind of automatic." Kotetsu tipped his soda back, crunching an ice cube thoughtfully. "But it's not like any of us are as cutthroat as we were a while back. It wouldn't be that much of a change."
"Maybe not." It was true; back in her rookie season, things hadn't been as casual. The older heroes had been friendly enough, and from what Nathan told her, he'd befriended Sky High and Bison by then, but they kind of kept to themselves. There hadn't been as much chatter in the training center, definitely, however the older heroes might have socialized outside of that. Nathan had sort of intimidated her at first. Sky High had been friendly, but so busy he wasn't around much, while Origami barely spoke to anybody, Kotetsu had kept his distance from everybody except Bison until Barnaby came along - she hadn't even known his real name when she'd spotted the two of them in her bar - and Karina herself had seen everyone as a rival. Kotetsu had always had his tendency to pry and give advice, but part of the reason it never worked was that he hadn't talked to anyone otherwise. "I wonder why that changed?"
"Having to work together against Jake, maybe?" Kotetsu suggested.
"Maybe," she agreed. It hadn't hurt.
"I think it started before that," Barnaby said. "I'm not quite sure when."
No, he was thinking of when he and Kotetsu had started to work together, she thought. And she would bet he knew exactly how and when things had changed between them. But that might be it. It was the two of them, somehow. Kotetsu had changed right around when Barnaby showed up, like arguing with his partner had recharged him or something, and Barnaby... it had been slower, but he'd changed because of Kotetsu. And that was what had sort of drawn everyone else out, the two of them. "Remember that birthday party?" she asked, not caring if it sounded like a non-sequitur. Kotetsu laughed, and Barnaby went for a long-suffering sigh, but he was smiling.
****
Fandom: Tiger & Bunny
Characters/pairing: Karina, Nathan, Barnaby, Kotetsu, Saito
Length: 3500 words
Rating: T
Summary: When Kotetsu returns from retirement and starts coming to Karina's performances again, she thinks she has her chance to get closer to him at last... but that also means getting to know his partner.
****
No one seemed to notice anything different about her, except for Nathan, which wasn't that surprising. He promised her some concept sketches for a Helios costume, and then they got called out in the middle of the day for a bank robbery.
So she had no idea what to expect as she headed into Helios headquarters for the meeting the next week. It felt weird to be there in her Blue Rose headwear and a perfectly ordinary outfit - she'd chosen the blue dress she'd worn on her birthday - wearing a guest ID on a lanyard. Normally when she was in the Helios offices, which wasn't often, she was trailing in Nathan's wake, and her guest ID had her real name on it. Or if she was Blue Rose, she had the full costume.
Karina was a little surprised to find that Nathan was the only one in the conference room. And Nathan was also wearing a button-down shirt, which didn't even sparkle, and tie, which did. The tie was at least pink, and he was fully made-up, but she was so used to seeing him at times when he was just "dropping into the office for a second" that it had never occurred to her he must sometimes spend quite a while in it. "The designer's not here?" she asked.
"Sweetie. Are you underestimating me again? I'm the designer." He waved a handful of papers at her. "Helios used to have one, for whoever they were sponsoring before - the Firecracker, wasn't it? - but she didn't believe in capes, so I fired her."
"Your cape is pretty epic," she admitted. "So what have you got?"
"Take a look at these while I set up the presentation," he said, handing them to her. She sank into a cushy chair that seemed to be real leather, and shuffled through the sheets, glancing at each before starting over at the beginning.
"Are these feathers?" she asked.
He glanced over for a second. "That's the concept. The final version - well, think of what my suit looks like."
"Right," she said, not wanting to remind him about that heated discussion they'd had when she admitted she didn't really see the chest pattern as feathery. She could see the general Phoenix theme, especially the beak effect with his cowl, but the chest pattern just didn't look that feathery and she was not going to spend that much time contemplating the codpiece. "And this one's... is that a cape?'
"Here," he said, and holo-screens sprung up around the projector in the middle of the table. The one closest to her showed a 3D model with roughly her measurements in an outfit that didn't look too different from her current one. The blue was a different shade.
"Oh, that's the blue from your outfit!"
"Yes!" He started typing, but she was still studying the model. The headgear was around the same, but there was a visor over the face. Probably for some of the informational systems she knew the guys had - Kotetsu and Barnaby and Sky High - but she'd check. The skirt arced out from her hips, looking like a lot of drapey fabric that might just get in the way in action. She didn't do too much punching and kicking, but she did a fair amount of acrobatics, not to mention dancing onstage. The bodice didn't have the cut-out, which could be very nice, and had a pattern going up the center with the red, orange, and gold of Nathan's outfit. The model of him turned up next to her, for comparison. She reached out to the UI on the bottom of the screen to rotate herself - the cape on the model was similar to Nathan's, though the scalloped bottom was pointier - like icicles rather than feathers or flames - and when he pushed another button on the keyboard, it animated. Blues and whites, of course. She realized she was grinning. So was he.
"Admit it, that's just too cool to pass up."
"True," she said. "It's not built into the costume like yours?"
"So you can take it off onstage. Think about your entrances. Walk on wearing it, take it off for a couple of your royal attendants to take away..." Yes, she could see it. Easily.
"How would the skirt model work?" The computer version still looked kind of feathery. "I worry about the final version looking like a tutu."
"Aw, you didn't want to be a ballerina when you were five? That was just me?"
"No, I totally did, but it doesn't fit Blue Rose at all."
"Fair," he said. "We'll see. I wanted to keep the general silhouette but ditch the vines."
She nodded. "The visor, that's for the computer setup?"
"Exactly. I'd been looking into ways to add something like that to mine, but yours is much easier."
"So that other one..."
"There are several others!" He took over, running her through a couple of alternatives; she offended him by describing one as "Vegas showgirl," but then he pulled up the other costume she'd meant, proudly, all offense forgotten.
The cape in this one attached to her arms, more like very long sleeves than anything. The sleeves themselves, all blue, covered her whole arms - this outfit covered a lot, really, with only a small cutout on her chest. The bodice had a recognizable ice-crystal pattern. She rotated it, and shot a look at Nathan, who was smiling serenely. "I notice this still doesn't cover my ass," she said.
"You've gotta work something, sweetie," he said. "You're still Blue Rose, even if Pepsi and Suntory pull out and we have to change your name."
"Oh, fine..." The boots were about what she was used to. He'd concentrated the flame colors on the headdress and the trim of her bodice. "Is that a peacock feather?"
"If it's too showgirl for you it can go," he snipped.
"I'm sorry! It was the first thing that popped into my head. Obviously I should have waited for the second."
"Well, if I'm the phoenix, it makes sense for a blue-themed partner to be a peacock. I thought so, anyway."
"It actually does..." She frowned, thinking. "Nathan, what if I end up accepting the Apollon offer? Are you going to be offended?"
"Oh, honey. Of course not! A decision like this is about a lot more than what you think of my costume designs, or your partners. And you've got a pretty good reason to choose Apollon."
"I dunno," she said. "I mean... I don't want to force Kotetsu and Barnaby to work with me. And I'm used to working alone. It might be better for me to go here, where we'd both be working on teamwork from the ground up."
"Or you could turn down all the offers, wait for me to scoop Bison up from Kronos, and approach them. You could pretty much write your own contract under the circumstances." He stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Under certain circumstances. Around the beginning of their fiscal year, at least."
"And when's that? No, I want to get away from Titan. If nothing else, I think things could get pretty unpleasant there if they knew I was trying to quit and then I didn't follow through."
The Apollon meeting couldn't come soon enough, because Barnaby and Kotetsu had both seen something relating to a suit for her - design documents or a prototype or a model or something - and they wouldn't tell her anything about it except the fact that they had seen it, because Barnaby still loved to torment her. He wouldn't talk even when she tickled him. "Oh my God," Kotetsu said, delightedly, sipping a beer and watching. "He's ticklish?"
"Yes," she said, as Barnaby gasped "No!"
"I don't think I've ever seen him laugh that hard," Kotetsu said wonderingly. "How did I never know about this?"
Probably because no one had ever tickled him before. "Because you're not a sadist," Barnaby said, then convulsed when she got his side again. "A little help here? I'm defending our secrets!"
"Oh, hey, good point," Kotetsu had said, then "Um, I can't hit her," so Barnaby powered up and grabbed her wrists to fend her off. Karina gave up, pouting, and Kotetsu appeased her by admitting it was a full prototype suit. So at least she had some idea what she'd be seeing, but not what it looked like or anything else.
It'd probably have an ass cutout or something.
It did not have an ass cutout. It did have high heels, but she was used to that. It looked a lot less bulky than their armor, but otherwise pretty similar, with blue and white plates for the chest, arms, and legs, a lot of the rest of it black. The shoulders on hers were different, more ornate - several layers of blue metal with scalloped edges, about as floral as Nathan's suit was feathery. The headpiece on the gray dummy modeling it was similar to her old one, but with three points, so it was more crown-like. There was a semi-transparent visor extending down from that - she wondered if all the sponsors ordered their parts from the same sources - and she suddenly realized that the room was really quiet.
"I don't think she heard you, Dr. Saito," Kotetsu said. "You might need to speak up. She's not used to you, remember?"
Oh right. They'd warned her about this. She bent over and the engineer leaned in very, very slightly and began speaking again. If "speaking" was the right word for it.
"The suit is made of the same alloy as Tiger's and Barnaby's, but it's lighter and more flexible. You rarely fight hand-to-hand, but you still need to be able to dodge. It's also designed to match the contours of your body, since fanservice is a big part of your act, without sacrificing any protective capacity."
"Fanservice?!" She sighed. She liked the idea of "working it" much better.
"That's the reason for the high heels, as well. But like the heels on their suits, it should give you some height while remaining stable, though I'm told you're accustomed to high heels." Hey, that was true, they both kind of had stacked heels. Part of why they both seemed so huge. "The headpiece resembles your current suit's headgear but includes all the informational systems and displays available in Tiger and Barnaby's suits. The controls for all of the information systems are the buttons on the right and left side of the tiara. I've already prepared the documentation. I was also told you need a water supply to use your powers?"
"Yeah, kind of. I can use atmospheric moisture when I need to, but if it's too dry - like if we're going into a fire, or if the area's been de-humidified..." Like Rotwang's cells had been.
"The sleeves conceal a water supply within the suit, and can be shifted if you need access to it. Your suit will naturally be resistant to cold, as well as temperatures up to a thousand degrees fahrenheit, pressures up to--"
"Oh, geez, I can't watch this," Kotetsu said, turning to leave the room. Barnaby snagged him by the collar.
"--completely bulletproof, of course."
"What's going to happen?" she asked, when she realized the scientist was done talking. He made a sort of squeaking noise that might have been a laugh, and smirked crookedly in a way that she didn't find at all reassuring. He pushed a button, and a gray dummy wearing a logo-less version of her suit dropped down next to the prototype that had been rotating the whole time.
And then a bunch of guns appeared from the corners of the viewing screen and started firing at both suits.
Five minutes later, Karina had seen her old suit swiss-cheesed by bullets, burnt to a crisp, crunched and flattened like a soda can, and shredded by blades. She might never have really liked it, but it was still pretty nerve-racking to see. Especially with Saito smirking proudly after each trial left his creation untouched. "Some of those were new!" Kotetsu said brightly, as Saito pushed a few more buttons. "He didn't do the thing with the knives to my old suit! He used chainsaws on my wires, though, so I guess it's sort of the same principle..."
"That makes me feel a lot better," she said. The viewing window opened up, bringing the prototype into the main room. She backed away from it. "Is it still hot?" she asked. Saito's lips moved. She sort of whimpered, and he had mercy and shook his head. No.
"Okay, so what do I need to do to put it on?"
She leaned in to hear. "You'll need to put on an undersuit. There's one ready for you in the room down the hall and to the right."
When she came back, holding it up on her chest and needing someone to zip her up, the scientist blushed and Kotetsu made some kind of noise of protest, though he didn't actually succeed in looking away. "I show more than this on billboards!" she said, exasperated. "And in my Titan costume. Barnaby, will you help?"
"There's actually an automated feature for that," he said, guiding one of her hands to the small of her back. Sure enough, she found a button and her suit did itself up.
"That's a very weird feeling. Thank you." Having something that covered her neck and didn't pad her boobs was a weird feeling too, but if it was Puritan day in the lab she'd better not point that out. "So now what?"
Next step involved Saito bringing a large metal box into the test chamber. It swung open, revealing a bare metal framework. "Okay, that's about like what we use to get armored up," Kotetsu said. "I guess ours looks a little more polished."
"You need to stand in that," Saito told her. "We don't have a full version fitted to you yet, so this was the best we could do to adjust the size. Naturally one will be built for you if you sign on at Apollon."
"So I need to go in there?" Into the test chamber, which was apparently filled with flamethrowers and machine guns. "You guys will avenge my death if he hits the wrong button, right?"
"Karina!"
"Don't worry. We'll bring him to justice," Kotetsu said. She walked to the big metal box, doubtfully. "He thinks they should build an adjustable version for future heroes," Kotetsu said. "Hey, don't get rid of us yet! Anyway, the full versions have handholds, so they're easier to stand still for."
"So you're saying don't move?"
"Right."
That wasn't as hard as it could have been. The machine worked fast. When she stepped slowly out of the machine, she flexed her hands, looking through the visor as it evaluated her hands, then re-adjusted to target Kotetsu, then Barnaby, then Saito. Two NEXTs, one human, rough estimates of height, weight, threat level-- "Threat level?"
"He says it's based on body language," Barnaby said. "Aggressive posture... oh, concealed weapons. That could be useful. Was that in the latest update?" A pause. "I'll turn it back on, then."
"And the controls are on the crown?" She felt around her head for the button. A clock appeared, then the armor plates on her armor moved with a noise like her digital camera focusing. The other side of her head made the target info disappear for each of the three men in turn. She flexed her hands and took a few steps. The suit didn't feel heavy at all - if anything she felt kind of springy and powerful. No wonder Barnaby had burned his way up the charts that first season. "This is pretty nice." She shot some ice at one of the gun locations, then rode a crest of it across the room and dismounted with a flip. "Nice!" she said, approvingly, and this time Saito smiled. "How long do I get to mess around with this?"
"AS LONG AS YOU WANT!" She winced. "THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF A SUIT TEST!" Kotetsu was hiding his mouth, like that was enough to keep her from seeing that he was grinning, and Barnaby was very obviously trying not to smile. This must be a thing with Saito.
She braced herself, and asked "So what else can this do?"
"I'M GLAD YOU ASKED!"
If they found this so funny, they could wait around for her to get the whole geeky rundown before they got lunch.
Lunch was sushi, after Karina had spent the better part of an hour putting the suit through its paces and getting Saito's improbably loud commentary on the paces. "Even though I'm starving, it's good you got to do that," Kotetsu said over the meal. "Timing wasn't so good with mine, so they just kind of threw me in at the deep end."
"I wish I could have tried it out in a simulation," she said. "It's not quite the same when you're just running around with it. Maybe if I could have sparred with one of you guys..." She popped a roll into her mouth.
"It's not a good time for either of us to power up, though," Kotetsu said. "And you can hit pretty hard."
"Be sure you read the documentation if you take Apollon's offer," Barnaby said. "He never did."
"It was long! Lots of words." Barnaby rolled his eyes, and Karina snickered.
"So if I did sign on at Apollon, would it necessarily be a partnership thing? I mean, I'm used to working alone." And she wasn't totally sure about impinging on their working partnership. They made a really good team, and she operated completely differently than they did.
"That's... a good question," Barnaby admitted, swiping some sashimi from under Kotetsu's reaching chopsticks. "I don't know."
"When I came on they just told me upfront -- Dammit, Bunny! -- I was the sidekick, all that. You're in a stronger position there. "
"Not that we'd mind working with you," Barnaby added.
"You might," she said, smirking at him. "After I've grabbed a few arrests just before you could reach them."
"Karina, that happens all the time anyway. Wednesday, for instance."
"Well, if you look at it like that, we're still ranked separately," Kotetsu said. "It's more just that we aren't getting in each other's way... Or maybe playing to each other's strengths, I dunno. It's kind of automatic." Kotetsu tipped his soda back, crunching an ice cube thoughtfully. "But it's not like any of us are as cutthroat as we were a while back. It wouldn't be that much of a change."
"Maybe not." It was true; back in her rookie season, things hadn't been as casual. The older heroes had been friendly enough, and from what Nathan told her, he'd befriended Sky High and Bison by then, but they kind of kept to themselves. There hadn't been as much chatter in the training center, definitely, however the older heroes might have socialized outside of that. Nathan had sort of intimidated her at first. Sky High had been friendly, but so busy he wasn't around much, while Origami barely spoke to anybody, Kotetsu had kept his distance from everybody except Bison until Barnaby came along - she hadn't even known his real name when she'd spotted the two of them in her bar - and Karina herself had seen everyone as a rival. Kotetsu had always had his tendency to pry and give advice, but part of the reason it never worked was that he hadn't talked to anyone otherwise. "I wonder why that changed?"
"Having to work together against Jake, maybe?" Kotetsu suggested.
"Maybe," she agreed. It hadn't hurt.
"I think it started before that," Barnaby said. "I'm not quite sure when."
No, he was thinking of when he and Kotetsu had started to work together, she thought. And she would bet he knew exactly how and when things had changed between them. But that might be it. It was the two of them, somehow. Kotetsu had changed right around when Barnaby showed up, like arguing with his partner had recharged him or something, and Barnaby... it had been slower, but he'd changed because of Kotetsu. And that was what had sort of drawn everyone else out, the two of them. "Remember that birthday party?" she asked, not caring if it sounded like a non-sequitur. Kotetsu laughed, and Barnaby went for a long-suffering sigh, but he was smiling.
****
