Gizmo
-
Posts
11,085 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Freedom City Guidebook
Freedom City PBP: A How-To Guide
Gallery
Events
Everything posted by Gizmo
-
Trevor went very still as Erin stepped into the hot tub room, the stoic expression on his face sliding into a totally unreadable mask as the gears in his mind abruptly slipped from their places and spun freely. "Uh," he managed to articulate finally before clearing his throat lightly and elaborating, "Wow. Hey." Unconsciously he stood a little straighter and squared his shoulders as his mouth remained open slightly, one corner tugged upward.
-
"I like the implied confidence there'll be more than one round," Jack told her with a sly grin, self-assured charm backing up his words. "I'm nothing if not a good sport." He tilted his chin upward slightly and let the hand on her back slide in the same direction, pulling some of the fabric of her trenchcoat up with it. "Wine's coming out of the doors to your right," he murmured quietly as the breath from her suggestion blew lightly over his throat. "Convenient; could really use a drink just now."
-
Trevor murmured in thanks, letting the cup sit for the moment. "Hrrn. Telepathy," he said in barely more than a grunt, tilting his head forward in a slight nod of sympathetic agreement, as though that conveyed his full position on the subject. There was a lull in the conversation, long enough that he picked up the cup of coffee and took a sip. "So..." he attempted with a subdued awkwardness, "...have any hobbies?"
-
It's total bull," Jill insisted hotly, bangles clattering as she gestured emphatically. "There's zero reason you should have to put up with that. I mean, hello! Superhero!" Letting out a short breath, she blew a few unruly bangs off of her forehead, brushing them back with her hand. "Ticks me off. Anyway. It's cool that you still find time to do so much stuff. I'm still figuring out how to balance all this new stuff." Illustrating her point, the teen stifled a yawn.
-
Trevor unfastened his seatbelt and smoothly moved to stand with a speed that would have been suspicious if the young man wasn't prone to sudden bursts of movement after long periods of stillness anyway. "Right." Grabbing his carry-on from nearby the seat, he strode purposefully to the nearest washroom and slipped inside. Evidently practice changing into his costume had paid off, as it wasn't long before he emerged, bag slung over a lean, pale shoulder. It wasn't terribly surprising that his board shorts where a familiar matte black, nor that they appeared to be feature cargo pants style pockets. His hat rested atop the carry-on, and he'd placed his sunglasses somewhere safe, leaving his discoloured eyes undisguised as he ran a hand through his dark hair.
-
"Oh, I can get myself into all sorts of positions, with the right motivation," Jack assured her, letting his voice drop the better part of an octave and slipping a bit more accent into his enunciation. "Course, I do my best work when I've got some space to stretch, move around." The swordsman's free hand found its way to the small of the ex-thief's back, pulling her toward him with just enough pressure to be encouraging but not confining.
-
Jill was considerably less apathetic to the reactions of their classmates to Erin's polite greetings. "Well, that's comforting, in a 'people are jerks no matter where you go' sort of way," she grumbled darkly, glaring at an unfortunate young man you attempted to flinch again in the middle of his first flinch and nearly tripped over his own feet. "Yeah? You didn't really strike me as the math type." Almost as soon as she'd said it, the coltish girl was rubbing the bridge of her nose with a wince. "Wait, lemme phrase that in a way that doesn't sound ridiculously condescending."
-
"Well, frisk really implies you'd be wearing-- ...aheh," Jack began then trailed off with a broad, rueful grin, closing his eyes for a moment as he tipped his chin downward. "Dios, I am not used to being the one corrupted by a bad influence." Depositing the remaining cheese atop the fresh platter of a disgruntled caterer, he shrugged. "Well, I've always been a hid in plain sight kinda guy. I say we go with 'inappropriate PDA couple' until we spot a good place to hole up past closing."
-
"Work, work, work," Jack sighed, deftly snagging a trio of toothpick-skewered block of cheese from a the tray of a passing waiter who clearly had no intention of stopping for the stubble wearing anomaly. Popping one of them into his mouth and twirling the leftover splinter of wood around his fingers, the swashbuckler nodded amiably. "Alright, shenanigans have been called. But I'm going to notice if anything else is missing when we're done," he warned her.
-
Trevor reflexively gave Alex a subtle look of question. He was reasonably sure that he should absolutely 'do something' for Erin's birthday, but was admittedly out of his depth. Life at the Hunter Estate had never been punctuated with grand gestures, and the dark haired young man was as concerned with overdoing it as not doing enough. In comparison, studying a volcano an ocean and continent away seemed a rather pedestrian challenge.
-
Jack may have been woefully underdressed for the event, but he had the feeling that there weren't many places he wouldn't be admitted to with Talya on his arm. "Pfft, yeah, Sew-rah, hate that guy," he nodded with an exaggerated scoff. "I like that one who paints the soup cans." Hopefully Bombshell hadn't brought him along for his keen insight into classical painting, but he did manage to catch onto her meaning from the context. "So the painting's not just a painting, then."
-
"I like my brain, 'Shelly," Jack insisted despite the smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. "It's where I keep all my best witty banter." Admittedly, the little ball of lapsed Catholic guilt was less about fear of telepathic repercussion and more about discomfort at being, charitably, the 'other woman' in this scenario. Being the only person involved who wasn't entirely fine with it didn't actually help much. "To be fair, I wasn't thinking that much about your clothes in the first place."
-
"Advanced Biology," Jill replied, stepping back from the doorway to give Erin room to close and lock it. "The prerequisite exam wasn't too bad, but I'm a little worried about the xenobiology chapter. Two hearts make things really, really complicated when you're trying to control blood flow." The curriculum at Claremont was fairly standard, but the teachers clearly weren't afraid to take advantage of the wealth of esoteric information such a gathering of metahumans and non-humans created.
-
"I get the impression I'm about to develop really strong feeling about them," Jack replied smoothly, only his ingrained dexterity preventing him from tripping over his own feet at the question. Hoo boy. Keep it together, Espadas. Tucking his free hand into the pocket of his coat against the cold, he gave the knockout blonde a sidelong glance. "Speaking of which, don't you think 'my girlfriend can turn your brain into rice pudding' is something that maybe should have come up before Lynn's party?"
-
"Exactly," Trevor replied with surprising emphasis, absently brushing some dust off of his hands. The fixation some of his peers had with bright, primary colours simply escaped his comprehension. "Well. It's thematic," he responded to Liz's question with a light cough. He was pretty sure Chris hadn't explicitly told his girlfriend which of Young Freedom's associates was visiting the base, and hesitated to make that leap. "Black is good. Functional and elegant."
-
Jack had been planning on fitting in a training session before his nightly patrol, but of late he'd hit a plateau with the Wreck Room's automated sequences and the rest of the team were otherwise occupied. "Mama Blades' favourite son never could say no to an invitation from a beautiful lady," he replied, spreading his arms in a wry flourish. He didn't completely trust Bombshell, but he didn't completely trust most people and in her case, she made it work for her. "Lead on."
-
Trevor boarded the jet with his usual lack of fanfare, slightly more consciously cautious being the guest of such a high profile host. The quality of the plane was mostly wasted on his particular sensibilities, but he did catch himself keeping a curious eye out for any of Dakana's famous technological advancements. While Mark recounted bits of history and trivia gleaned from the decor, Trevor buckled in next to Erin for the take off. "You're okay doing this for your birthday?" he asked quietly, one eyebrow lifting subtly above his sunglasses.
-
"I, uh, like what you've done with the place," Jill said carefully, peering back and forth from the doorway, hesitating to actually intrude into the physical space. To be honest, she liked Erin's side of the room a lot more than the bright colours and enthusiastic chaos of her roommate's portion of the dorm. "I keep pretty busy most of the time, but ah... yeah, that might be pretty cool, actually," she allowed, downplaying her minor surge of victory at the invitation.
-
There was a short pause, followed by muffled sounds of movement and loud voices, moving upward through the brownstone apartment building. After another pause, wood scraping against brick drew Bombshell's attention upward as a second story window slid open and a lithe form smoothly stepped out and into the air. Finishing tugging on a light brown coat with a thick wool lining as he somersaulted downward, the young man known as Jack of all Blades landed lightly at the base of the short stairway in front of the door, just behind the classically disguised heroine. Straightening immediately, he nonchalantly smoothed the white, sleeveless shirt under the heavy jacket and ran a hand through his dusty brown hair with a boyish grin. "Oh, hey 'Shelly. Fancy running into you here."
-
"Lead on, birthday girl," Jill agreed amiably, following behind Erin down the hallway. She was vaguely pleased that the other girl was of a comparable height; her legs had lengthened considerably in the past few years, and she'd felt uncomfortably noticeable among Claremont's curiously petite female population. "So, what's the dorm like here? Sounds like all the cool stuff happens out of class."
-
Jill gave Stesha a sidelong glance, still not convinced the the newcomer wasn't putting her on. "Uh, yeah, it's based on my bioelectric field, I think. Only, y'know, magic. It's a little like what my brother does." With another wave, the globe collapsed in on one side, forming a partial dome, and expanded in size. "I've mostly been making shields. I tired pushing it a couple of times, got maybe thirty yards across each side?"
-
"Heh, well good!" Jill responded with a broad grin. The coltish girl gently picked up the cat in her lap so that she could swing her legs down, moving over to when Erin was unwrapping her presents and setting Oliver back down on the ground with a final scratch behind his ears. "I've gotta say, I was expecting you to be a lot more 'grr, argh'. Serves me right for listening to gossip in the first place. Clearly some haters jealous you're already doing what they're training for."
-
Jill felt her stomach rumble against the purring cat in her lap. "Dios, I could murder a waffle with fruit on it right now," she admitted with a short, brassy chuckle. "I like to think I'm in pretty good shape, but all this running and jumping from rooftop to rooftop all night is a bit insane." She'd always been fairly athletic, but she hadn't fully appreciated the level of pure endurance her brother had developed until she started joining him on patrol.
-
Trevor hung to the back of the group, leaning against the far wall of the office with his arms crossed over his unbuckled jacket. He'd opted to conceal his eyes behind his customary sunglasses, though he held his beaten fedora by the brim rather than wearing it out of deference. He responded to the king's nod with one of his own, deep enough to qualify as a respectful bow in the subdued lexicon of his body language. He felt a little odd taking advantage of the offer having not been present for Young Freedom's previous interaction with M'Balla, but apparently he was the only one who didn't already consider the second Midnight a full fledged member of the squad. Objectively, he had to admit they had a point. Although he said nothing and his expression remained typically difficult to read, the squaring of his shoulders and slight tilt of his head suggested definite interest.
-
Seeing Erin blush only deepened Jill's own flush, darkening enough to show even on her darker complexion. "Hey, no, that was a ridiculous info-dump there, sorry." She absently continued to pet the cat curled up in her lap and smiled in spite of herself. "Heh, what a sweetheart. Anyway, don't worry about it; the ol' home life is actually pretty good, evil wizards not withstanding. I'm just super lousy at meeting new people." Her smile widened into a lopsided grin framed by the dark bangs which refused to stay tucked behind her ears. "I've actually been paper bagging it so far, but I heard the caf here isn't too bad. True?"
