November 2nd, 6:13 PM
Atlantic Ocean
”I wonder if it’s a good idea for Super Fish to swim to us through this guy’s … body? Then again there’s not a myriad of dead fish in the area so I suppose it’s not that concentrated. Perhaps a two headed fish will be born in the future.” The low rumbling of a deep, modulated voice couldn’t help but muse aloud as Grim waited patiently, sitting on the nose of her hovering jet with her legs crossed. It was a rather feminine way of sitting, which was quickly corrected on realizing it. She was getting too comfortable.
A few feet beneath the hovering aircraft the waves of the Atlantic Ocean rolled gently - as gently as it could for the large body of water, anyway. There was nothing but blue in every direction, the occasional bird overhead with their annoying squalls. No human for miles but the two women waiting, and the disembodied… ‘man’ beneath them. Which was, of course, their reason for being there. Behind Grim, resting over the back of her pilot’s chair in the open cockpit, was the newly completed radiation suit. The testing for it was just finished that morning.
It had taken a little over a week, which was honestly surprising that Zoey had gotten it done that quickly considering the
other events going on in the Castle. First bringing a little boy into her home, then being
bombarded by literally
hundreds of others. It was a good distraction to work on, considering.
”... Do you think it’d be inappropriate to ask if he’s part fish?”Lady Arcana’s eyes shifted slightly to the masked woman, her arms folded beneath her chest as she hovered in midair.
”Something tells me he might get just a little bit upset.””He might even ask if you’re part dog,” She noted.
”I have been called a bitch on occasion.”Lady Arcana smiled.
”I know.”She had called Orin ahead of time, telling him where she wanted to meet and what she needed from him. Hopefully, with all the technology
and magic at the disposal of his Kingdom, he would be able to think up some way of retrieving the now impossibly massive body of Bang the nuclear fuckboy.
”There’s no telling how far he’s been spread out by this point, I just remember this being where I dunked him originally,” she explained with a light huff.
King Orin piloted a skimmer under the water’s surface, sparing a glance at the various filtration systems his people had loaded onto the shuttle before taking off. It had taken a bit longer than he’d hoped to arrive at the otherwise unremarkable spot in the Atlantic, but as he approached the dashboard of the skimmer lit up with sensory readings, confirming a high level of background radiation. This was certainly the spot. Pulling up on the helm, Orin felt the pressure shift as the craft rose, breaking the surface a moment later. Pressing a button to open the top hatch, Orin climbed out of the skimmer and looked up at the hovering jet and floating Wizard.
”Apologies for being late, I had to track down some of this equipment.”Lady Arcana’s face brightened slightly upon seeing the submersible break the ocean surface, quickly raising her hand to wave to the King...only to remember herself and grant him a proper curtsy in respect.
”Hello, King Orin! Really, thank you so much for coming out here! I really couldn’t think of any way to get him out,” she explained, a hand moving to scratch the back of her hood.
”A pleasure to see you again, King Orin,” From her position sitting on the jet Grim politely bowed her head, bending just slightly at the waist in respect for the man’s position. Still couldn’t remember what monicker his ‘hero’ name was, though. Aquarius? Ocean Pal? Sea Man? Eh, safer to just go with his title.
”I hope you’ve been doing well since July.”Orin returned the motions towards the pair of heroes that had called him here, bowing slightly before heading towards the rear of his craft to open the back hatch and start getting the equipment out.
”I suppose I have been, Grim. No more giant sentient jellyfish intent on wiping out my civilization, so that’s a plus.” He said with a chuckle before sparing a glance towards Lady Arcana.
”Though I must say, it’s slightly concerning to hear that there’s a radioactive cloud-man that’s been drowning here for the past week. I’m not a big fan of ocean dumping in general, and nuclear radiation is among the worst kinds of dumping, as far as I’m concerned. However, what kind of steward of the seas would I be if I didn’t help clear the waters?” He said with a small smile as he began to pull out folded nets and bolts of nanotech cloth.
”I’d appreciate if the two of you could keep this under wraps for now, I’m not quite ready to show Atlantean tech off to the world at large. But essentially, these nets are controlled by the skimmer here, and will be instructed to seek out radioactive waste and collect it, essentially herding it back to a set point. Once here, I can instruct the nets and the currents to sort of… Squeeze it back together enough that you two can work your own magic.”That caught Grim’s interest, the hero leaning slightly forward to examine what she could see of the materials King Orin had produced.
”Interesting. What are they made of to detect and collect such small molecules? Do they have a range? What’s the technology your craft uses to direct them?” She asked with interest, voice once more rumbling through the mask. Couldn’t help herself, really, in the face of new technology.
Lady Arcana quickly floated closer to Grim, reaching out to place a hand on her shoulder as she began to grill King Orin with questions. Leaning in close, she whispered,
”Nerd. He wants to keep it to himself for now, he just said.”Grim bristled.
”I am not the world at large and I am not a nerd!”Orin chuckled and shook his head as he tossed the nets into the water, watching them unfold and start to slowly sink. He turned back to Grim and smiled, shaking his head.
”Atlantis has a series of communication nodes embedded throughout the ocean floor we use for communication and direction of technology like this. So there’s really no range to it no, I could theoretically send these things around the planet to come back here. As for what they’re made of, I unfortunately don’t know the specifics. My scientists developed them, and I only got the most basic of rundowns. I know the base structure is built on a carbon nanofiber mesh, and I think it may use some integrated magic to detect and draw in impurities. Now if you’ll excuse me for just a moment...” He said before clambering back down into the cockpit of the skimmer, setting the nets to detect and collect the invading radioactive energy.
Climbing back out of the ship again, Orin nodded to Lady Arcana and Grim.
”Right, it should be set up to go.”Grim merely bowed her head at the explanation having finished, a grin lighting up her features - hidden by the mask.
”I’d love to examine one, Lady Arcana has told me how advanced your civilization is. Ah, let me get my part,” Flashing the other heroine a smug look at having been trusted with the information, once again regretting that her mask covered it up, the Gotham Hero finally rose up to climb back into her own craft.
Retrieving the bright white suit lined in metallic grey Grim emerged quickly, once more standing confidently at the nose of her jet as she tossed it to Arcana.
”One completed radiation suit, no leaking - guaranteed. You can fit lover boy into it, not all of us are immune to radiation.”Lady Arcana caught the suit with a broad grin, happy to have the weight of this pervert’s fate off her conscience at last. Holding both it and the helmet in her hands, she stared down at the ocean patiently as the net filtered Bang from the incalculable tons of water beneath them. After several minutes had passed, she easily slid into the high tech hazmat suit, her form obscured completely by it upon pulling the helmet down over her head.
This wasn’t for her protection, of course. She just needed to free her hands for the next stage: the actual retrieval. Drifting down to wear the nets had descended, she grasped the end and began to pull it to the surface. She was certain the vehicle Orin was in could’ve done so as well, but she wanted to be the first thing Bang saw.
Just in case he was angry.
CheckmateGoddammit he lost again, he sucked at this.
But he was also really good at this. How did this even work? He put the big piece in the black square and hit it with the horse, that was how you won right? His other self seemed displeased enough.
Oh, sensation, that was weird, he’d become so used to the feeling of the waves pulling his body around, but this was something different, something actually touching him. It had been weeks since he’d felt that!
Bang re-entered reality from his self-created happy place and examined his surroundings. Water. Yep, seemed about right. The net was weird though. He scanned his surroundings once more, but he could see nothing in the dark abyss of water except for the quickly closing sheet of light that was the surface.
And a… hazmat suit? It was pulling him up from the water, rescuing him. Had one of his split personalities broken off and gotten into a suit? As he could only see it from below, he was unable to see through the visor and spot the face underneath, so he quickly assumed that he was rescuing himself… somehow, made sense, he was the only person he knew who was caring enough to do such a thing.
”Welcome back!” Lady Arcana exclaimed as she yanked the rapidly retracting net from beneath the waves, quickly releasing her grip on it. It immediately started falling back towards the water, but she figured that Bang would just float like he had before in order to avoid taking another dunk. It would be pretty annoying to have to fish him out again.
Placing her hands on the helmet, she casually removed the headgear - it hadn’t been properly secured - before sliding back out of the suit, holding the two pieces in her hands.
”I’m really sorry about what happened before, but I didn’t know of any other way to keep you from hurting people. You were leaking radiation everywhere and were a danger wherever you went.””But that’s why I had this made, just for you!” Lady Arcana held up to the suit with a slight smile. She wasn’t going to toss it to him, though. Not yet. Not until she made sure he wasn’t going to just turn around and attack her in rage.
”It will let you use your powers, but only when you want to! You’ll no longer accidentally melt people just by being near them.”At least, that's what Zoey had told her.
Bang smiled as he was pulled out of the water, but that all-encompassing smile quickly faded as he heard the voice coming from within the suit. That… that female voice, it was familiar… it made him… angry.
The net dropped away around him as Bang floated up into the air, frowning intensely as a large electrical storm went off in the cloud of energy that made up his body. Then she took off the helmet, and a wave of pure fury ran over him as the electrical storm transformed into a cacophony of small popping explosions.
But… she apologized, and Bang felt the wave of rage weaken, not entirely, but he felt calmer in some small way, well, maybe calm was the wrong word, more “Confused”. She phrased it like what she had done to him was a necessity, something that had to be done. This only made Bang angrier, was it necessary for her to trick him? To lead him on? The bitch!
He barely heard the next words out of her mouth as his mind became clouded with rage-fueled white noise, but she said something about the suit in her hands being made for him and him alone. Perhaps… there was a bit of truth in her flirting. Yeah! That was it, she was… so intimidated by his dashing good looks that she had to get him out of her vicinity! But now...
Wait, he shouldn’t come on too strong, that’s what got her to do this in the first place, the suit
was cool as hell, but he couldn’t just jump at her offer, nah, that was crazy talk.
Bang would have crossed his arms had he a pair, and he turned and dismissively looked off into the distance.
”Well, I guess I’d oughta thank you, but that don’t mean I’m just gonna hop into that there suit. After what you did to me before, pard’n me for bein’ a little… cautiousitory,” he said in the most venom filled tone he could muster.
“You’re still a…”He struggled to call her names again, knowing now the depths of her love for him. With a hidden sigh, he said the word, each letter burning on the cloud that had taken on the role of tongue.
”Bitch.”Beneath the black goggles a perfectly sculpted red eyebrow twitched, Grim’s face halfway between annoyance and amusement. However, seeing as the …
man was being difficult, and it was a chance to rib the younger woman, finally a sigh rumbled out of that modulator.
”You should tell him about how worried you were this entire week about leaving him here, while I made the suit,” Grim finally drawled. Okay, maybe she was enjoying this a little
too much, knowing how Arcana reacted last time to the cloud’s advances. It was kind of funny, actually, now that her own irritation had cooled from the retelling of the story.
Slowly her goggles slid back to the floating cloud, head moving slowly up and down as she took in the appearance of ‘Bang’. It really was quite fascinating, and to be frank he was likely quite powerful.
Just stupid.
”Intriguing,” The vigilante muttered, the words rumbling deeply from her modulator as her gaze roamed over his cloudy form.
Lady Arcana’s head snapped towards Grim in an instant, a mortified expression settling on her face at the words the other woman spoke. Et tu, Zoey? Seriously, that was the
last thing she wanted right now. She was trying to apologize, not get his reactor running again!
Exhaling sharply, she allowed her shoulders to sag. Turning back to him, regarded the Fedora Nukebeard with a somber expression.
”You’re right, manipulating and tricking you was a bitchy thing to do regardless of my reasons, and I really am sorry. I made this suit as both an apology and peace offering, as it will let you finally be the hero you wanted to be by giving you control over your powers!”She hoped that would be a reasonable, non-flirtatious apology that wouldn’t get her in deeper radioactive water. It was impossible to predict how he would take any act of kindness from a woman, however.
Bang noticed the vehicle that Arcana had used to pull him up earlier, there was a movement within, and he noticed a man standing there, yelling up at them.
”Worried”? She was worried about me? The whole week?!The storm inside Bang’s body only got fiercer.
As he ruminated on this the storm inside Bang’s cloud-like form turned into a series of small pops, that released fireworks patterns that twirled and spun around his form. His eyes shone a bright yellow far brighter than anything ever before.
He didn’t manage to catch a word of her response afterwards, he was too focused on the flood of feelings that ran across his brain… er… his brain cloud.
A snapping explosion sounded inside his core, and he shot forwards with a sudden burst of speed.
”I accept your apology, now suit me up!” he yelled as he spun around in the air, leaving a small tail of nuclear residue as he did.
Lady Arcana nodded, a slight smile returning to her face as a feeling of relief rushed over her. At least, regardless of what happened afterwards, they weren’t going to have to fight. The last thing she wanted was to mess up this new suit after Zoey had busted her ass to build it in such a short time.
Tossing first the helmet, and then the main portion of the advanced hazmat suit over to the swirling cloud of atomic death, she pursed her lips slightly in anticipation. She honestly didn’t know how he would react to whatever differences existed between this suit and his old one, given that it was bound to “feel” differently.
Hopefully in a good way.
”There you go! Enjoy!”Bang watched the suit and helmet as they approached him… and passed right through him, falling to the water below. Before it hit, he managed to slip into the helmet, the empty suit floating on the water.
”Thanks,” he said smarmily as he flew down and found his way into the suit. He pulled the disconnected parts of the suit up with him as he flew, holding up a hand and batting the helmet into place, well, he tried, smacking his hand weakly against the bucket-like helmet like a dumbass before finally clicking it into position.
This felt different for sure. Heavier somehow, but not in a restrictive way, he felt less of the wind, in fact, his sense of touch seemed weakened a bit, but he felt a lot more… solid, if that was the right word.
He lifted up his hands, examining them, breathless in excitement. Finally he looked up at Arcana with a wide grin on his face.
”This is awesome! I love it!” he yelled out as he stretched around and smacked at the air.
Lady Arcana sighed in relief upon seeing his enthusiasm for his new container. Nodding gently, her eyes darted down to Grim.
”S-err, he built it. He can explain all of its features better than I can.”Grim brought her arm up, tapping at the computer on her arm. Obediently the jet floated a bit closer, a little wobbly without someone
actually at the controls, but it did the job. Now close enough to look upon them easily, a thoughtful hum rumbled out of her modulator like a growl.
”Well first of all, the seal,” The vigilante reached out, hands moving along the collar of Bang’s new suit, where it met the helmet. Finding a particular clip at the very back she pressed down, allowing the suit to leak air and ‘compress’ around him.
”I wasn’t sure of how tight to make it or how much space you took up, this should make it more natural feeling. And here-”The black gloves of Grim’s hand trailed to tap against the compartment against the chest of the suit.
”Is a port. I studied your old suit and did some deductive reasoning from the uranium along parts of it that you … use it, to fuel yourself, perhaps? You don’t eat, right? Tell me if I’m wrong - but this will help it from leaking everywhere. Just place it inside and it can feed it to you either at once or to be stored for later. Just tap this button to inject it.”Seemingly quite pleased with herself Grim crossed her arms, leaning back slightly.
”And everything is of course sealed perfectly to prevent leaks, which your old suit was doing in abundance.”Bang watched in awe as the man showed him every little function of his suit. It was fascinating, not that he understood a word. He did, as a result of being so close, notice how lithe and thin the man was, it was strange, but the guy seemed more of the tech type than the punchy-kicky type anyway.
This guy… he was clearly friends with Arcana…
Or maybe something more.
Just the thought of it brought Bang to an overly emotional state. He had to figure this out, his future with this woman depended on it. He watched Arcana with a furrowed brow as he brought his head closer to the man.
”I really ‘preciate all of this, the suit, you even knew about my Uranium habit, real nice of you to give me a chance to fuel myself without having to take the darn helmet off. But, even if I really do have to thank ya’ for all of this, I need one last fav’r from ya’.”Bang cupped a hand over his mouth as he whispered into the man’s ear.
”It may be hard to tell, but I really like that there girly, and I was just wondering… are you two…”Instead of finishing the sentence, Bang simply swayed in place, getting across the main idea of the statement.
”I won’t get mad I promise, I just… I just don’t want my heart to get all… achey breaky, as said by Billy Ray Cyrus.” Slowly, Grim tilted her head as she watched Bang come closer, whispering to her like he held the secrets to the universe. Of course, the words that came from his mouth only made her eyebrow twitch further. Did magic just make everyone insane? She felt like she was taking crazy pills.
The vigilante tilted her head, glancing to Arcana. Hovering there. Watching. Karen really didn’t enjoy Bang hitting on her, and he didn’t seem like the type to give up easily. It wasn’t like Grim could just tell him that Lady Arcana over there was thirteen and off limits for a relationship - that was kind of part of the whole secret identity thing.
”...Yes?” Grim finally said, trying to keep the discomfort from the word. She cleared her throat, it rumbling through the modulator like a crash.
”Yes.”A massive weight felt like it had just crashed onto Bang’s shoulders. She was spoken for, out of the breeding pool, not open for business. Bang floated back slightly and tried to hide his heartbreak by grimacing.
”...Well.” he finally managed to say.
”I wish you both the best.”He knew better than to try to do something like that to someone, especially someone who had made him something so great. He sighed and tried his hardest not to look shattered as he floated back over to Arcana.
Wait.
But… the flirting.
The worrying for him.
That wasn’t just something that a taken woman did.
Was she…
Oh the dirty girl.
Bang smiled as he offered his hand for Arcana to shake.
He felt bad, he really did, but he knew now what had to be done.
She will be mine.Lady Arcana felt no small amount of relief on hearing that he was “giving up” on her. With everything that had been happening to her as of late, this was definitely one thing she did
not need in her life. Wars, zombies,
super zombies and...well, this guy. All of that, on top of her school work. Yeah, to say she was feeling the pressure would be a colossal understatement.
Offering him a warm smile of gratitude when he approached and offered her a handshake, she happily accepted it. Shaking it firmly, she lightly inclined her head in a bow.
”Thank you very much. I wish the best for you, too! I know you’ll become a great hero!”She...actually felt
good right now! Like she had really done the right thing, here. It was nice, knowing she could protect people while still making sure not to dehumanize potential “threats”.
”No,” Bang responded quickly.
”Thank you.”He purposefully didn’t end that sentence, he could have said what he was thinking; “Thank you for giving me the chance to be a true hero,” or what he was
really thinking; “Thank you for proving to me that the country I love isn’t just a dream anymore,” or what he was
feeling; “Thank you for awakening my heart.”
He didn’t say any of those, it was a true test of willpower not to do so, but he succeeded, and turned to leave, looking one last time over his shoulder to see if there was anything he missed.
As he turned to leave, Lady Arcana gave him an energetic wave; her eyes closed as she smiled brightly. Beside her, Grim’s shoulders sagged as she sighed.
”The Wizard really fucked up giving you the body of a twenty year old.”Lady Arcana didn’t stop waving, her face forcibly locked into its pleasant state.
”I know...I know.”
Midna-Phobia