Fox

Dragonfly glanced over at the girl on the table, frowning, but she shook her head. [bg=#555555]"Am...fine. Needed to clear my head; initial shock of seeing her was...mmh."[/bg] can understand the concern - immediate reaction wasn't encouraging - would be concerned in her place - still [bg=#555555]"Not just seeing her. That, too, but was made worse by...personal reasons. Bad memories. Worked through it. Would have already removed myself if I couldn't manage,"[/bg] she added, and she meant it. [bg=#555555]"Personal drama or pride aren't worth even minor risks today."[/bg]

Dragonfly winced at the shot's ricochet. She'd only wanted data from a brain setting that was being actively employed, to compare with 'idle' data and the data from the actively-employed 'mad inventor' mode; she'd deliberately tried to set up a shot that couldn't damage anything, but hadn't predicted hidden spikes - much less a shot bounced off something else! She was about to say as much, too, when Miss Americana expressed her...displeasure. She winced again, and silently turned back to regard the incoming data, hands in her lap. note to self - note model - replace keyboard - and provide a spare? - just in case

Dragonfly raised an eyebrow, tilting her head and perplexedly mouthing 'full of beans' as she listened to Supercape talk. Apparently she decided that was a dark rabbit hole of a conundrum not worth investigating, though, because she just shook her head and - with the hand that wasn't pleasantly occupied with resting on her girlfriend's hip - pulled a ridiculously large beach towel out of nowhere. "Didn't know if you'd bring one," she explained to Jill, ducking her head a bit. "So figured I'd...it's big enough for two?"

Dragonfly was flying. Checking the hospital's power supply hadn't taken long, once she'd found somebody who spoke English (or, at least, understood what Dragonfly was looking for through pantomime) - as soon as she was satisfied that it would more than meet requirements she'd found a staircase that went to the roof and shot off into the skies to check on the progress of their gear and...well, mostly, to clear her head. Zipping through the air at a hundred miles an hour was pretty good for focus and for checking up on ground-vehicle progress, at least, so by the time she spotted the equipment on the road below and turned around to follow it she was considerably calmer. And a bit annoyed at herself for ducking out like that, but she could berate herself later. Right now there was a girl to save and science to do.

Dragonfly's heart just about broke seeing the little girl in the hospital bed; she wasn't the best at hiding her emotions anyway and it took most of her willpower and the help of her suit's full helmet to not betray her reaction as seeing the poor girl got piled on top of concerns about the risks, it in turn already piled on top of unease at being surrounded by medical equipment, on top of.... She took a deep breath to try to clear her head, with mixed success - though at least it made sure her voice was under control. [bg=#555555]"Will...leave you to checking on her. Should double-check the facility's systems, and check on the trucks' progress. Will let you know when they arrive."[/bg] She managed to stay calm, composed, and relaxed for about as long as it took to haltingly wave, exit the room, and make it partway down the hallway. After that there was a lot more fidgeting and a lot more urgent purpose to her step.

Dragonfly replied to her girlfriend's mumbling with a sympathetic squeeze, trying (and failing) to keep a completely straight face. "Hello, Supercape," she managed without sounding too amused. "Mostly just arrived, still...phrase...'settling in'. Unpacking or starting cooking or...." She glanced over at Jessica and her boyfriend, and raised an eyebrow, momentarily jealous that her choice of swimsuit had made that particular option unavailable. later maybe "....ensuring protection from sunlight," she continued, dryly. "Not...the time for cricket, maybe. Yet. Ever."

Yeah, a moon base is much more...high-end supergroup than down-to-earth science collective. As for the extra ep...I dunno. It's not really necessary, since the Lab's pretty kitted out already, but the docks and bonus-providing workshops and library would be most fitting. Defense systems scale with the max contributor's PL, the cells don't need to be supervillain-quality, generally, and what in the world would we use the space from Dual Size for when we already have a 30-odd story skyscraper? I'm not exactly oozing brainpower today, but I can't think of a lot to stuff in the space that'd provide....

Dragonfly put a pleased arm around Jill's waist, encouraged somewhat by the general non-reaction to their relationship. not that I care too much what they think - but I'm awkward enough already - care more about feeling of being judged than the actual judging? - annoying - should learn to stop worrying "Precision's important," she noted to CT, frowning a little - mostly at herself. "Difference between useful crime-fighting tools and things that explode when used. Sort of...leaks into other habits. And admit I'm not always sure what other people meant, or what the common use of a word is. Learning with experience."

Dragonfly looked around, her helmet disguising her expression of curiosity and appreciation. She had to admit that this was a pretty impressive facility; if she ever had to be sick, it would probably be a solid third choice of places to be - home and the Lab only beat it out by virtue of the latter being a state-of-the-art building she'd helped design herself, and the former being...well, home. [bg=#555555]"Would like to see detailed specifications on the building's power system,"[/bg] Dragonfly requested with surprising politeness. [bg=#555555]"Don't doubt your setup, just want to double-check requirements as gear arrives. Not exactly building bridges to other dimensions, but still good to make sure we don't blow fuses or switch to battery back-up if we don't have to. Building plans or general building data would do."[/bg]

Dragonfly opened her mouth to answer Cobalt Templar, but Gossamer beat her to it - she shut her mouth again and just gestured toward the chemist and let the woman fill in the answer for herself. "....so. Yes. The Lab - founded by Gossamer, Ironclad, Supercape, Miss Americana, me. They're all highly capable." She paused, and frowned. "Mmh - 'work with'...sort of. Not a paid position - for me, anyway - and work directly with Gossamer on relatively few projects. But part of the same organization, and run into each other often."

Dragonfly somehow managed to not pout as Jill finished with the sunscreen, blushing a bit at the peck and going back to covering her own arms and legs. "Not that magic's bad," she insisted, frowning. "Just...needs better rules. Less random. If a robot breaks it breaks in predictable ways. Magic breaking seems to do anything. Seems...disconcerting. And would hope it set fire to things," she added, directing that bit toward Jessica. "Or crushed them with iron legs, tank treads...no fire, no crushing, what's the point?" It wasn't entirely clear whether or not she was joking. She took a moment to wave to Gossamer, but apparently didn't want to interrupt the conversations the woman was juggling. popular - good - hope she fits in well - never certain with age differences - deserves to relax with peers - or as close to peers as possible?

Dragonfly didn't have a whole lot to add to that, though she was once more pretty glad there was someone around much better than she was at the intricacies of social interaction. not that that's difficult [bg=#555555]"Couldn't exactly turn the request down,"[/bg] she pointed out. [bg=#555555]"Little girl who needs help. Immediate priority. But Miss Americana is right - need you calm, rational, and rested if you're going to be helpful. Time isn't...kind, ever, and can't afford distractions or tired errors. Won't be able to do much until equipment arrives behind us, anyway - will probably be spending that time figuring out setup and looking at the most current information anyway. Good time to get sleep."[/bg]

Dragonfly gave the glass kitchen an appreciative eye - clever - likely to draw attention - but inventive - useful - responsible to have first considered reversing the process - and would probably have commented if Jill's hands hadn't reduced her to a contented look and barely-audible inarticulate appreciative noises in embarrassingly little time. She did, at least, crack an almost-closed eye back open to watch Warlock chase his...towel?...toward the ocean as it tried to clean the beach of sand. "If they were robots," she pointed out to no one in particular, "would know why they malfunctioned. Eventually. Less mystery."

Dragonfly frowned a bit, adjusting one of her gauntlets. "Cheated," she admitted. "Normally can only change between normal clothes and costume - so put this on as 'normal clothes', then changed into the armor. Had to adapt visor and gauntlets from prototype versions - not as powerful, but made them water-safe and sandproof. Would have to change back into armor to be any good in a fight, though." She'd pulled her own little bottle of sunscreen out of her dimensional pocket when Jessica had gone to the basket to offer protection to the others; the young engineer was trying awfully hard to keep a straight face as her gauntlets unlatched themselves to get set down in the sand for a moment. "Can probably get most of myself," she reassured her girlfriend, starting to spread lotion on her own arms. "But might need help with my shoulders and where the swimsuit doesn't cover on my back. Have to make sure no spots are missed, and all."

"Push," Dragonfly helpfully supplied, gesturing vaguely at the vertically-challenged hero with the pot-laden bike. "Have run into him once or twice. Don't let him near anything fragile," she cautioned. "And don't stand near him in a fight. If possible. Though, in fairness, has been a while since I saw him fight. Other one is....Nick Cimitiere?" She tilted her head, frowning, and wishing her visor had a proper image magnification system. "Haven't seen him in a long time...and out of costume. Hard to tell. Sounds like him." She shook her head, pulling some hair back behind an ear. "And...no, sunscreen. Not yet, anyway. Brought some, but wasn't sure I'd be changing - not used to exposing much skin."

Dragonfly had a rather dubious expression on her face when Jessica mentioned the boys admiring their swimsuits, and an uncharacteristically pleased one as her girlfriend pulled off her jacket; thankfully, both were hidden behind her helmet. Which really only reminded her that she still had it, and the associated suit, still on. "Suit is very comfortable," she noted aloud, glancing at the people near and far, "but...probably not appropriate to the event. Mmh." She carefully extricated her arm from Jessica's and, with a little hesitation, changed outfits: a ripple in space flowed outward from her torso, leaving in its wake not the usual casual clothes but a simple one-piece swimsuit and sandals. And, oddly, gauntlets and a visor, both sleeker, newer versions of the ones she'd used until only recently.

Dragonfly stretched a bit, inspecting the hand-held doodad she'd made with some small satisfaction. not perfect - not bad for a few hours' work - serviceable - can improve on design later It certainly worked, at least; she'd loaded the program into her own suit's systems for testing while still on the plane, and she was gratified to see Magnus' Swedish orders translated into subtitles at the bottom of her vision. Not ideal subtitles (they reminded her somewhat of a poorly-translated movie), but perfectly understandable and not too bad for having to use someone else's dictionary in her program. She folded her new toy away into her dimensional pocket and grabbed a large and heavy crate that she knew held fragile equipment, armor glowing a bit at the seams around her joints as she made her way toward the trucks with something several times her weight.

Dragonfly frowned for a moment at the scans, glancing up in Doctor Archeville's direction with a mixture of scientific curiosity and a curiosity that was decidedly more...impish. As the scans continued to come in, she pulled a piece of standard computer paper out of her dimensional pocket, folding it up into a little paper footboll. She took a moment to pick out an area of Miss Americana's lab that didn't have anything fragile nearby (and to wait until said scientist was distracted, as Dragonfly sincerely doubted she'd approve of the test she was about to conduct) before getting Archeville's attention with a gesture and a flat, "Pull," flicking the football through the air across his field of vision.

Dragonfly had just shut her wings down and was about to reply to Jill when Jessica started to drag her off. Whatever she'd started to say ended in a surprised noise as she was pulled toward the beach, glancing back at the truck and the collection of other party-attendees. odd timing - seems to happen a lot here - everyone shows up at the same time? - very strange - odds are unlikely "Could have helped unload before I change out of my armor," she insisted, when they were mostly out of ear shot of the rest of the bunch. "Can lift over half a ton...would have saved them some trouble carrying anything heavy."

Dragonfly would have been a little more annoyed with the apparent lack of trust in her self-control if the problem she'd been handed wasn't interesting (if, she had to admit, not terribly difficult). She spent the majority of the flight wrapped up in her language puzzle, developing and fine-tuning - with occasional questions and testing for and by Sharl 'thought' straight into his laptop - a program that would translate Swedish into English, projecting them as subtitles to any given computer simulation or heads-up display. Then she simply pulled spare parts out of nowhere, folding them out of her dimensional pocket and salvaging them for bits and pieces to construct a little hand-held device to house the program and function as a display for people without helmets, visors, or android bodies; the seat next to her spent the better part of three hours covered in a random collection of springs and screws that she didn't need, discarded as finely-crafted tools on delicate little arms deployed from her gauntlets to help assemble her project.

Because it didn't already exist! Still, pretty basic invention. Comprehend 2 (Understand Any Written or Spoken, Extras: Affects Others, Drawbacks: Common Earth Languages) 5pp The basic idea is that it's a doohickey with a fancy translation program on it; she 'borrowed' the translation libraries of a few translation services, and you can either translate by using the doohickey itself or loading its program into whatever convenient technological device you have (continuous duration, horray!). Both audio and text are translated into text; if you've loaded it into a computer world or a helmet or visor or somesuch, it looks like subtitles! DC15 Design check, taking 10 for a check of 25; base time of 5 hours, down to 3 minutes of design with mental quickness. I could drop that even further by taking penalties on the check, but at 3 minutes I'm really not going to bother, especially since she started designing before they even took off! DC15 Craft check, taking 10 for a check of 27; -10 to quarter the crafting time. Base crafting time of 20 hours, a quarter of which is 5 hours, so she should be done tinkering about when they land. :science:

"No," Dragonfly responded, a little flatly. "The lessons, I mean," she corrected, shaking her head. "Idea is...interesting, but dangerous, and have other, more...personal concerns about their application to my mind. Will pass, for now at very least." She honestly wasn't sure how her rather nonstandard brain would react to that kind of brain pattern manipulation, but she had a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn't turn out well. Or a paranoid suspicion. not really paranoid if you're usually right - mmh - focus "Curious, while you 'shift': how many...vocabulary, mmh....settings? Settings. How many 'settings' do you have, or use, of mental edits?"

"Not planning to give up my motorcycle, of course," Dragonfly noted as she flew through the air on four long, blade-like wings of neon blue energy. She'd had her helmet pull back the lower part of the faceguard: it just didn't seem quite right to use the 'electronic' Dragonfly voice around her girlfriend, so she'd opted to retract the lower part of her helmet and extend her force field a bit to protect them both from the elements as they made their way through the air toward the coast. "But have to admit flying is very...convenient." Very convenient indeed, it turned out; she wasn't going to go full speed while carrying something so precious if she could help it, but even still they'd made excellent time. Before she knew it she was spotting Jessica's Explorer and coming down for a (very careful) landing off to the side of the parking lot.

Dragonfly frowned as she listened, tap-tap-tapping her finger against her arm as she tried to wrap her brain around...Doctor Archeville wrapping his brain around Doctor Archeville wrapping his brain around brain-wrapping. "Am...impressed," she admitted, slipping a hand under the edge of her visor to rub one of her temples. "Very interesting technique, and can't have been easy. Even less easy to do without killing yourself or causing irreparable damage to brain functions. Demonstrates extreme intelligence and motivation and focus."

Dragonfly snapped out of her design work as her name was mentioned, blinking under her helmet as she tried to catch back up on what was happening in the world outside programming and internet architecture. [bg=#555555]"Mmh? No, don't think we've met. Dragonfly - I am, I mean."[/bg] She paused, grimacing. [bg=#555555]"Which Miss Americana already told you; sorry. Was lost in thought."[/bg] The armored engineer slid off the box and effortlessly picked it up, pleased to note that her design was putting up with the heavy lifting...and fairly pleased to be doing heavy lifting in general, since her normally average strength wasn't generally up to the task. [bg=#555555]"Should probably get going, for a five-hour trip. Will...try to maintain better focus while on the plane. Probably."[/bg]