[INDENT][COLOR=SLATEGRAY] [CENTER][img]https://i0.wp.com/nevermoreniche.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/dispatch-torrance.png?resize=1024%2C514&ssl=1[/img] [color=#D4AF37][h1]S D N C L A R E M O N T[/h1][/color] [sup][i]Friday · 13:01 · Break Room[/i][/sup][/CENTER] [hr] [COLOR=darkgray][indent]Lightning Girl filled the silence well enough that Nadia didn't have to. She stood in place as her wings settled, and let the introductions wash over her. Blackstar, Hat Trick, Asteroid, the names attaching themselves to faces with the mild efficiency of someone who'd done this before. She looked at each of them in turn when they were named, just long enough. Not unfriendly. Not much else either. Some might have been rushed off their feet, bemused or even intimidated by the rush of introductions. Not her though, she was rather used to suddenly being the person everyone wanted to talk to. Nadia mimicked the greetings with just slightly less enthusiasm than was thrown her way. A momentary pause before returning the fist bump, a wave that only used one wiggle of her fingers, that sort of thing. It wasn't the finest assembly of powers and heroes she'd encountered but it could be worse. The suit compliment she received with a small tilt of her chin, the barest acknowledgement. The envy she left where Lightning Girl had put it. When the dispatches started pulling people out she didn't move to fill the gap they left. She checked her phone instead, thumb moving from muscle memory more than active thought. She'd long ago turned off the cascade of pings from social app notifications, but murmured in slight frustration at the sudden cascade from a source that was far harder to ignore. [i]Family.[/i] [color=#40B4C4]"Good job I had an invite to the Gala already or I'd need the rest of the day to pick out a dress."[/color] Nadia popped her gum a second time. She didn't add that she hadn't planned to attend at least until she'd been moved to Claremont. Her social calendar was rather less full than it had been a few weeks ago.[/indent][/COLOR] [hr] [CENTER][color=#D4AF37][h1]S D N C L A R E M O N T[/h1][/color] [sup][i]Friday · 13:10 · Break Room[/i][/sup][/CENTER] [hr] [COLOR=darkgray][indent][quote]"Hey up, Ikret. I'm James, the Dispatcher from the Slack channel. Before you go, mind sorting this paperwork before you go? Admin stuff. And I believe you're still on standard SDN comms and tracking, right? If so, I've already got you on the line." "I know this wasn't what you expected. But look after the branch, I'll look after you. We can see about when we get you back to DTLA if you behave on the Phoenix Programme. The results should come easy for you, yeah?" "So don't worry, plenty of room for fame here. Clean start and everything!"[/quote] The clipboard she accepted without comment, scanning it in the way of someone who reads contracts by habit rather than trust. She signed where indicated with her own pen, capped it, held the board out for him to take back. [color=#40B4C4]"Look after the branch."[/color] She repeated it back with a fraction more air in it than he'd used, not quite an impression, not quite not one either. [color=#40B4C4]"Very inspiring. Do they teach you that one? Sounds a bit less soulless in the accent, I'll give you that."[/color] Her tone was taunting, but it came with a slight smile that wasn't entirely acting. [color=#40B4C4]"Never been any good at behaving, Chief."[/color] Her last comment she delivered in passing from over her shoulder as she swept away, wings already beginning to unfurl from the small of her back.[/indent][/COLOR] [hr] [CENTER][color=#D4AF37][h1]L O S A N G E L E S A I R S P A C E[/h1][/color] [sup][i]Friday · Afternoon · Airspace[/i][/sup][/CENTER] [hr] [COLOR=darkgray][indent]The aircraft was already visible on the horizon, a small pale shape making its slow unhappy orbit, when Nadia's phone rang. She answered it on the second ring, which for Auntie Dina counted as eager. Adding controls for her phone to the headset of her visor had been one of her earliest demands. [color=#8B7355]"Habibti. Are you eating?"[/color] [color=#40B4C4]"Yes."[/color] She banked left, adjusting her angle against the wind. Flying was second nature, but the presence of the aircraft and meeting it in mid air added levels of complication she actually had to think about. [color=#40B4C4]"You're both terrible, you accuse me of starving and getting fat in the same sentence."[/color] [color=#8B7355]"Your mother says you didn't call on Tuesday."[/color] [color=#40B4C4]"I was busy Tuesday."[/color] [color=#8B7355]"She says you're always busy."[/color] A pause that had been carefully constructed to carry weight. [color=#8B7355]"She worries, Nadia. We all worry. This new place, this program—"[/color] [color=#40B4C4]"It's fine."[/color] The aircraft was losing altitude in small increments she could already see weren't intentional. Two people inside, James had said. She calculated the approach, adjusted her altitude without breaking her conversational tone. [color=#40B4C4]"It's the same job, different postcode."[/color] [color=#8B7355]"Your cousin Hana says she saw something online, that there was—"[/color] [color=#40B4C4]"Hana talks too much."[/color] [color=#8B7355]"Nadia."[/color] The plane dipped. She folded her wings and dropped two hundred feet in four seconds, the wind tearing past her ears, then spread them again in a hard brake that left her perfectly level with the cockpit. Through the glass a man in his fifties was wrestling with a yoke that wasn't responding the way it should, and next to him a woman with both hands braced on the dash had her eyes shut. The man reacted to her presence with a sudden look of relief, to which she offered a wink. [color=#40B4C4]"Auntie."[/color] Her voice came out different then, not hard, just stripped of the performance. [color=#40B4C4]"I have to go. I'll call you tomorrow."[/color] [color=#8B7355]"Promise me."[/color] A half-second. Longer than she meant. [color=#40B4C4]"Yeah,"[/color] she said. [color=#40B4C4]"I promise."[/color] She didn't wait to hear the sound of the call disconnecting. She pulled alongside the aircraft's wing, close enough that the pilot turned and saw her movement, and whatever expression crossed his face she didn't wait to catalogue. She was already moving to the undercarriage, hands finding the landing gear housing by feel, fingers closing around steel. The underside of the vehicle proved an even more mentally stimulating challenge. In the air her natural inclination was to unfurl her wings as much as they could, to make the most of thermal currents to lift her. Here, dangling thousands of feet above the abyss though, if she did such a thing her feathers were likely to catch on the blades of engines and she definitely didn't want that. So she let her wings go dead and hang below her, the sudden relief of tight muscles around where they joined with her lower back replaced a moment later by the strain of holding their weight. They weren't the only divine gift she leaned on now, her fingers biting into metal with the strength gifted to her by the same cycle of rebirth that had given her wings. With a slight grunt of effort she ripped the bay doors open, checking herself just in time to avoid pulling them entirely free of the plane. She didn't want someone brained far below to impact her efforts at rehab on the first damn day. With the doors gone, the previously jammed gear fell down with enough speed to almost cast her away. Funnily enough this sort of gig had happened to her before, and she'd become well aware of just how to trigger the mechanical failsafe of the landing gear, even when controls weren't responding. She heard the satisfying click of the locking mechanism and whispered a thanks for good fortune in Arabic, before allowing herself to fall free of the stricken plane. As she fell the comforting rush of air wrapped itself around her. Some part of her mind lingered on this. She didn't entirely believe the mythology that was meant to grant her these abilities, but her past lives clamoured in her mind to do so. The embrace of the god of the sky. Her eyes snapped open, and so did her wings, the immediate soar lifting her up and above the plane. She landed lightly atop it this time, spreading her wings as wide as they'd go as she anchored herself in place. Doing her best to mimic the structure of the vehicle, by adjusting her grip and weight she could steer the small plane. It was a bit more thinking than she'd have liked to do with a lingering hangover, but such was the sacrifice of heroism. It was some time before she found a place to put the plane down, and a little further time of accepting thanks from two very relieved ex-flyers before she called in her success.[/indent][/COLOR] [/COLOR][/INDENT]