driftfleet | (no subject)

Hey. [She smiles as she steps into the hold with him.] Want a tour first or down to business?

Business before pleasure. Do you want to do this somewhere more private?

Sure. We can go to my room as long as you didn't develop claustrophobia in your reality. [She smiles a little. The place is small. They have divided bunks and little more. It's really the only private place on the ship though. The bridge may be largely for piloting, but it's hardly a place you keep others out of.]

[The irony of that statement isn't one he'll confirm. It's not a stone cell; he'll be fine.]

I'm sure I'll manage. Lead the way.

[She leads him down to her bunk. Just room for the bed and the dresser really, so she takes a seat on one end of the bed. He's welcome to the other—the same way she and Kurt had their heart to heart. Though this is about claws, not hearts.] So, what's in the jumper suit? The one you're carrying anyway.

[He sits down on the other side, setting the bundle down between them. As he talks, he starts unwrapping it.]

That would be your prototype claws. Thank you for the plans - they made it a lot simpler to work out the details.

[It doesn't take long for him to unfold everything, and sitting in the middle of it is a gleaming brass contraption, intended for wearing on the hand. It's been modelled closely on the blueprints Kitty gave him, but with some deviations - most notably the material it's made from. The raised outlines of gears can be seen across the handplate in places, a clue as to wear this might have sprung from. The claws, for now, aren't out.]

Where did you get the materials? [The color and faint lines indicating gears are looking familiar as she reaches out to pick it up, careful not to get in the way of where the claws would release.]

I took apart some of those robots on the Maldua. It was a readily available source of metal. [And he cared nothing for the property of others.]

It actually took longer than I thought it would to get it into shape.

Did that cause any trouble for you or your crew? [More curious than worried.]

Hmm, do you think it took longer because of the limitations they put on you or something about the metal itself?

Not that I could tell.

I'd say the former, even if brass tends to dent easier. I don't routinely build things like this, but it still proved harder to put together than I would have thought. It took a number of tries to get it into working condition. [The mechanics of it, in particular, kept eluding him in places even though he understood the plans just fine. He taps the wristguard of it, continuing in a lighter tone.] Nothing worth doing comes easy, though.

Maybe things are coming full circle, and now I'm helping you hone your powers. [Not that her Magneto did a lot of that with her directly. Though he saw to it others were.]

Anything I should know before I try it on?

[It's a strange thing to consider. Not unappealing, though. It wouldn't be the first time he's had the help of others.] There would be a kind of symmetry in that, if so.

Don't us it on harder metals. I've tested it a few times and while it's strong for the material, it is still brass-like.

[She smiles softly.] There would. I feel like I should have run into a precog at some point who would have told me my future would be extra bizarre.

[She slides her hand into the gauntlet. The fit is different from the last one, but not bad. Just not exactly what she'd gotten used to. She flexes her fingers. She points it outward, clear of an obstacles, and triggers the release mechanism to see how they pop. Two claws come flying out while the third sticks at the half way point.]

(OOC: I can always rewrite if you'd like it work more cleanly!)

[That one again. It had given him problems during the build, too. Without asking, he takes hold of Kitty's hand and pinches the stuck claw between his fingers. He runs them down the length of it, which fully extends in his wake.]

It's things like that that kept happening while I was making it.

[Wow, Erik, take a girl out to dinner and a movie first.] It's a pretty elaborate system. There are bound to be a few hiccups especially the first time through.

True. If something like that happens, bring it back to me and I'll fix it.

Will do. You did say it was a prototype after all. [And brass won't stand up to nearly as much as she'd like. Plus, she really looks better in silver, okay?] I'll need to give it a good work out to find the bugs if there are any. Probably not in this room though. Or even the ship. Hopefully we reach another stop soon.

Suitable targets are in short supply out here.

I've heard it happens frequently enough. [Though it's alarming to think he's already been here for most of a month.]

They are. I do my training on the Iskaulit, but it's still limiting.

[The comment on other stops makes her nod.] That's what I hear too. I'm used to something big and unexpected happening every few days. You could practically relax at the pace this place keeps us. [Not that she hasn't been busy adjusting to all the mutant arrivals or experimenting with the augments. But she's surprised they aren't throwing more at them. She feels like it's all about a false sense of security because it couldn't possibly be a real one, right?]

Yes... it's a lot of empty time. [Comparatively speaking. If this were Kyriakos, he would have been summoned to half a dozen games by now, and witnessed death at least once. It could still happen. He stays alert.]

But I read on the network that you found time to look into the augments.

You caught that, huh? [She reaches up with her non-clawed hand and brushes back her hair.] My power disrupts electronics. I figured I had to try it on the augment. We thought trying on Logan was the safest play.

[She'll get no arguments on the safety of it from him.]

It still sounds like it didn't go according to plan.

[She shakes her head.] I was afraid. Deeply afraid. I don't really do fear. Not like that. [She can still remember the way her arm trembled as she held it out, ready to do something that normally comes with decisive ease. Her battle instincts are well trained and experienced even at a young age. And for so long she's had so little left to lose. Fear usually only comes into play when worried about someone else and in that moment she trusted Logan's healing factor. There was no reason for any of it.]

Fear wasn't the worst of what happened though.

[He had tasted some of that fear himself, a few days after being shuffled onto the Heron. Purely as a test, he'd tried to place the point of a sharpened screw against the augment. Found he couldn't do it, was nearly paralysed at the thought of it.

He breathes out, nodding at Kitty's recounting of the sensation.]

"Minor to major injuries", wasn't it?

[She nods.] My part went easily enough. I managed to phase through the device and it did a lot of nothing. Either they did something to my powers or the augments work in some way I can't disrupt that easily.

Laura moved on to trying to cut it out of him. That's when things got messy. The panic it sets off is in the person with the augment and the one trying to tamper with it. We had Logan chained up just in case, but it wasn't enough. Laura passed out before she could remove it and Logan went into a rage. A chain snapped and the next thing I knew he was stabbing Leia before I could get to him.