[quote=@Tatterdemalion]
POTENTIAL 2

"Locker," Sara says, intense. "I need to hear your Comstar. I have never needed anything more in my whole life." This is a lie, obviously, but what's a little hyperbole between friends? "Let me hear the Commy or I'm calling Angel again with directions for exactly how to come pick you up. I [i]need[/i] this."

She's grinning, much like a tiger that's learned that it can get fish by padding up to fishermen and asking politely while flexing its claws casually, and commenting on how isn't it such a nice day with nobody getting mauled?[/quote]

"Hey @Sarahphim!" said Locker, bouncing up on his heels in the bubbliest voice he had. "I was going to fight you but I didn't have any ideas for how to do it so I was hoping [i]you'd[/i] suggest something! It should be something that shows off how amazing I am and make you into a puppet, and it should be kinda hot but not so hot that it distracts me enough for you to break free again. Oh! Maybe I should ask my audience! They'll tell me exactly what they want me to do! That's the move of a [i]real[/i] puppeteer who is good at controlling other people!"

[quote=@Phoe]"Ok, maybe another crazy story would be good tonight. Did you hear how Victoria Messermitt bought a controlling interest in AEGIS a little while ago? Well anyway, she tried to use the company to strong arm me into hunting down my teammates like a psychopath. I refused, and she turned the entire complex into my enemy in a second. Imagine it, right? Hundreds of people, all highly trained professionals, suddenly trying to gun me down. Bullets flying everywhere, Maria from BlackSun coming at me with a sword the size of me. I have to fight my way through the TAG hangar, alone. I get chased by the god damn Turbo Knight armor and have to break away from it [i]twice.[/i]. There are bullets flying everywhere, EMP weapons going off all over the place, everything that everyone can think of to stop or even kill me, all happening at once. I broke through it. The @SARAHPHIM stream at the high school in Neo Chaos Spire happened less than an hour later. And then right after that was the big fight at the starport. All of it, on the same day. I ate two cakes and managed half a cup of coffee and maybe an hour and a half of napping. That's all I had to run off of that entire time."

Errant sets the tablet down on her lap, screen side down. She shrugs. 

"You can see the arms and legs. Everybody knows about those. A few more people know about the armor mesh that's been implanted under my skin because they've seen what it looks like when somebody blows through it on a camera. But I also had them remove my non-essential organs to clear space in my body cavity so I've got fewer soft targets when something [i]does[/i] go through me. Most of my ribs are metal, and I've had to have my spine reinforced several times so it doesn't shatter when I do something stupid. And I've trained obsessively after every surgery so that my body has muscle memory of all of my fighting styles at each new level of capability, so that I don't have to waste skillwire space on combat programs. They're not fast enough. Besides which, novel programs like decryption, bomb disposal, cooking, and motorcycle repair are all much more useful.

And I'm not telling you all of this to scare you, by the way. It's just... when I signed on, I had no idea what it really meant. But I think that you should. This is kind of stuff the movie-level stories are made of. And I mean, you don't have to be exactly the same as me, but... do you understand me, Cinders? This is really important."[/quote]

"I, uh..."

The confidence falls away. She looks down. Looks sad. Bites her lip. There's only one thought that could possibly be happening there - have I already failed? A real hero would accept without even thinking. If the stakes are that high, that... permanent then how could just hearing about them get me to flinch? There's a whole whirlwind of thoughts happening behind those eyes, all the more intense because she's on the spot and aware of every passing second.

It's a lot you've put on her. But so is what she's thinking about doing. It's only fair she gets to think about it before she commits.

"Do you mind if I think about it, for just a little while?" she said in a small voice. "I don't want to say something dumb."