ic Monkeys on Parade

[Fox]

Nocturne

 

Nocturne tilted her head, looking at the small pile of still-breathing bodies Chitin had left in his wake. "Somehow," she said, "I think you would have managed."

 

Somewhere off to the side, a masked gangster made a distressed noise, bereft of an escape route; he caught Nocturne's eye just in time to watch him get clubbed over the head by the loud reporter and a fire extinguisher.

 

"Still, I'm sure you're pleased to have had me along, as you should be. I suppose the police will be here before long," she mused, glancing toward the front doors and the no few civilians who had already pulled their phones out. "You're welcome to stay if you like but I can't recommend it, and I don't plan to myself. If there was anything you were wanting to do before leaving, I'd do it now before security gets back up or the press closes in."

[Gizmo]

"Still kinda want to find that guy in charge and-- alright, alright." Chitin gave a little huff as Magenta disengaged from his helmet's faceplate, the additional armour components of the Mantis Instar returning to their dimensional pocket to recharge, leaving him in his suit's base state. He nodded to the little robotic insect and tilted his head toward one of the booths left in shambles by the fight. She raised a curved forelimb in salute and scuttled off to perform some task. "Let's just check in on May real quick and then we can get out of here."

 

Jogging over to robotic ex-gorilla display, he gave the disaffected inventor a wave. "Hey! Told you I was going to check-in, right?" Scanning the room to make sure none of the remaining journalists were too close by he lowered his voice to add, "You didn't actually hurt your leg too bad playing it up for The Man, did you?"

[Fox]

GM

 

May didn't respond immediately; she'd settled down to sitting on her platform, back against a robot gorilla's forearm with her injured limb flat against the floor in front of her. The corresponding pant leg was lying in a somewhat-bloody pile nearby; the leg itself was competently-bandaged and awaiting professional review. A little pale, more tired than even her default state, but all things considered one could look a lot worse after getting shot.

 

That wasn't why she took a moment to respond, of course - she looked at Chitin, then at Nocturne, then at Chitin, then at his bugs, then at the space between him and his bugs. Then, and only then, did she look back at the hero himself. "A bullet made it through my shield," she said, very deliberately not answering the question as asked. "The trajectory missed arteries, barely touched the bone. I pulled it out myself. I don't expect any real long-term damage, and if I'm lucky I can call in a favor to recover faster. I couldn't have planned it better...if I'd planned it, of course. Which, officially, I didn't, and the shield fried itself so no one can prove otherwise anyway."

[Gizmo]

Chitin gave a brief laugh and nodded amicably. "Ha, well that's lucky! Officially." He glanced over at Nocturne's impatient expression and bobbed his head. "Alright, we better get going but since the, uh, monkey guys are wrapped up - and boy I have a lot of questions about those two - and you're probably getting out for good behaviour soon can I convince you to hold off on kidnapping anybody or taking crime jobs at least for a bit? Maybe see if some other job offers turn up?" There was a silent pause, then he pointed to the upper portion of his helmet's large eye pieces. "You can't tell but I'm doing a suggestive eyebrow thing."

[Fox]

GM

 

There wasn't a scientific instrument sensitive enough to be sure, but it was entirely possible that May almost cracked the ghost of a corner-of-the-mouth twitch that could have one day become a smile. "I'll take your word for it."

 

She settled back, wincing a bit as she adjusted her leg. "I can't do crime jobs for a while anyway," she said, which still wasn't quite answering the question she'd been asked. "Not without risking too much. They don't let people like me out and then forget about us. I'd really like to not have to get shot again."

[Fox]

Nocturne

 

"And nobody will trust you for a while," pointed out Nocturne, who'd been standing somewhat behind Chitin to listen. "You worked with the feds."

 

May shrugged. "I did. They'll forget. Until then, I'll find something tolerable. Your offer's...not nothing, but you seem young for a hiring manager."

 

Nocturne almost suppressed an undignified snorting noise in time. "He could always be secretly rich," she said, instead of whatever thought was trying to betray her. "We really should go, though, Cricket. Tick-tock."

[Gizmo]

"I am rich... in friendship," Chitin quipped, raising an index finger in the air and placing the opposite hand over his heart. "But yeah, anyway! Stay safe, May!" With a quick wave he took off for the nearest exit, hopping over ruined booths and broken tables, flashing a thumbs up to the reporter still holding her fire extinguisher over the unconscious criminal. Ignoring the protestations of a still disoriented security guard getting unsteadily to his feet the armoured hero slipped outside with Nocturne close behind.

[Fox]

Nocturne

 

"He actually is, it's disgusting," confirmed Nocturne. She wasn't far behind Chitin, though she did pause long enough to wave a hand toward a mostly-broken booth; a black bag untangled itself from the wreckage and fell through the air after her as she exited.

 

----------

 

At a safe distance and position of probable privacy, Nocturne paused to check her bag and make sure she wasn't missing anything. "Well, Cricket, I never did get to see my promised tank, but all in all I think it was at least an interesting afternoon."

[Gizmo]

Inside her bag Nocturne found not only her expected belongings but also Magenta triumphantly holding the 'force multiplier' gauntlet the faux 'Gravi-ton' had been displaying at his booth. She managed to convey an attitude of impish satisfaction with the tilt of her triangular head as she presented it.

 

"You knew that guy was fake right away and y'know, that's a gravity thing, you've got a gravity thing," Ryder explained his reasoning as his base armour disappeared in a burst of wind and flash of light. His own bag descended the wall of the building to which they had their backs, Cyan and Black each holding up one side as they crawled down the bricks, Yellow hovering nearby to supervise. "I won't bug you with questions but I figured you might like a souvenir! Good work, Mag."

[Fox]

Nocturne

 

Natalia was, for once, completely at a loss for words. She'd only just pulled her hood back and removed her mask, going to put the latter in her bag when she'd encountered the gauntlet instead of what she'd assumed to be some captured debris. She froze, then, before ever-so-gently retrieving the oversized gauntlet and turning it over in her hands to inspect it properly.

 

"....they got his name wrong," she said, the smallest hint of Russian lurking somewhere in the back of her accent as her thoughts went elsewhere. "'Gravi-ton', with a dash, like the pun is a cheap joke that needs explaining. It's a good thing he's in Russia, if he was here he'd have shown up to crush them for the insult. I was wondering if the gauntlet was even real."

 

She reached inside, hand dwarfed by whatever hand should have held such a thing, and touched something; a plate on the back popped open, extending two empty vials. She held one up to the light, something glittering in the nearly-empty glass. "But it is real. I wonder where they got it. ....thank you, Cricket," she said, turning an eye back his way. There was a real sincerity there, uncanny as it might have been coming from Natalia. "This was...thoughtful, and it is better that they don't have it anymore."

[Gizmo]

Ryder cocked his head slightly to the left and responded with a warm but uncharacteristically understated smile in deference to Natalia's quieter moment. "I'm glad! It's a good pun." Magenta pressed her forelimbs to either side of her head like a human placing their palms on their cheeks at the sight of something cute and had to be herded out of Natalia's bag and over to Ryder's with the rest of the Robugs. "I wouldn't really trust that jerk in charge with a disposable lighter. Hopefully the penguin guy who got away doesn't cause too much trouble but I think we made the best of a really dumb set up."

[Fox]

Nocturne

 

"I think it would have been a fair trade just to see the jerk in charge disgraced," Natalia confirmed, a perfectly normal American accent reasserting itself as her personality iced back over. "I hope the media tears him into tiny pieces."

 

She peered at the vial a moment long before snapping it through the air toward Ryder. "A gift for a gift, then," she said, busying herself with changing back into a more civilian outfit. The gauntlet, and its remaining vial, disappeared into her bag. "It's old and will decay quickly, and there's barely anything left, but Graviton always respected people who could start to figure out what he'd made. Maybe you'll have better luck than the rest." There was a challenge buried somewhere in that, but her pointed eye contact disappeared as she slid her sunglasses on. "If nothing else, maybe it will distract you for a day before you destroy the sample."

[Gizmo]

"Ooh, science!" Ryder exclaimed without irony as he caught the vial in both hands, cradling it against his chest. Rolling it around he held it up much the same way Natalia had to inspect it before gingerly placing it into his bag. "I've got a pretty good track record at reverse engineering, y'know, unusual tech. Plus, I'm motivated." It probably should have come across as overconfidence but landed more on self-assured optimism. "Am I allowed to research Graviton himself or are we doing like an unspoken agreement to preserve your carefully maintained mystique?"

[Fox]

Nocturne

 

Natalia arched an eyebrow clear over the top of her sunglasses. "Cricket," she admonished, "my carefully-maintained mystique is not so fragile. I'm not going to give free answers to the lazy, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't either, but you can do whatever research you please."

 

She shook her head, hair spilling in front of her face a bit as she picked up her bag. "Frankly I'm amazed nobody's done it already. It's hardly a difficult connection to make, and hiding it would be far more trouble than it's worth. Was there anything else you wanted to do, or should we head back?"

[Gizmo]

"In their defence, most of the other kids are probably a little too, y'know, intimidated to ask a lot of questions," Ryder reasoned, looking more amused than put off by Natalia's chiding. "Or just wrapped up in their own stuff! Like that thing with Cahill's daughter? All kinds of secret relatives!" He led the way back out the street while reassuring her, "Probably not a lot of Russian gravity glove making people though! I assume, anyway. That's be a wild coincidence, ha!"

 

Bag slung over his shoulder and hands on his hips he considered the time of day. "I didn't really have anything else penciled in after 'fight monkey mobsters' but I'm sure we can think of something to do. If you're not sick of me for the day yet?"

[Fox]

Nocturne

 

"Intimidated? Such compliments, Cricket."

 

Natalia ran fingers through her hair, brushing it back and surveying the street to find it lacking. "I suppose," she said, "that I could rearrange my schedule. If it's important. Fighting monkey mobsters did take a while, but less time than we originally thought it might. I am busy, Cricket," she added, mentally compacting a schedule that was by no means full, "so if you had something in mind  it had better be worth my while."

[Gizmo]

"I did take you away from sitting around your dorm in your pyjamas, true. I appreciate you shuffling your schedule for me." Ryder nodded along agreeably with Natalia's assertions. He said it so cheerfully it was hard to even interpret it as actual teasing. "Hm. Well, are we at a point yet where I can suggest going to my family's place without it being like a whole point of principle that you can't eat free food because poison or betrayal or whatever? Because after hanging out invisible on the ceiling for that long I am actually super hungry."

[Fox]

"What I choose to wear in the comfort of my own dorm room is my own business, Cricket," Natalia admonished. There was no real malice to it, but she could pretend there was. "It has no reflection on what I was actually doing. Besides, pajama time is vital." This she delivered as great wisdom, handed down from on high. "That you would question such a thing is a sad reflection on what you wear and when."

 

And that was about all the stalling she could manage; she took a deep breath, looking at nothing in particular. "If they raised you I cant imagine they're capable of poisoning someone through anything but an over application of enthusiasm. I admit that I'm a little curious what kind of people would create...." She didn't finish, but she did wave a hand vaguely at Ryder's....Ryderness. "I suppose I'd have to be on my best behavior."