ic The Best Offence

[Electra]

"I'm not very good at sarcasm," Danica admitted. "I mean, it's not like I don't get jokes, but I dunno, it's not what I think of first?" She shrugged. "They teach us how to do insults in our classes, but it always makes me feel dumb. Like, sometimes it's easy to insult people, but it has to come from the heart, you know? And saying bad things about people's families or how they look makes me feel kind of bad." She took another drink, then added reluctantly, "but maybe we don't have to go straight to pity? I don't like trying to get people to feel sorry for me, even if it works and they put me in their daycare and nobody gets hurt. I kind of would like to get away from that." 

[Gizmo]

There was a short pause while Ellie recalibrated her next words. "Mary Shelley... no, sweetie. I mean that you want them to think that you pity them. Like this." She adopted a cloyingly sweet expression of condescending encouragement, placing the fingertips of one hand lightly on her chest. "Oh, buddy! Is this your first big boy death ray? You must have worked so hard on this! Don't you worry, I'll ask the warden especially to make sure you get some nice arts and crafts supplies to keep you busy on the inside, okay? Does that sound good?" The young doctor gestured with the same hand to check for understanding from her mentee.

[Electra]

Danica's face cleared immediately as she understood what Ellie was going for. "So be nice, but be nice like the most obnoxious nice person ever. Like the sort who would pick you up and carry you without even asking because you aren't going fast enough and then act like they're doing you a favor!" Her smile was downright malevolent this time. "Wow, everybody will want to punch me in the face if I act like that!" 

[Gizmo]

"That's a pretty specific example," Ellie noted dryly, shifting to rest her chin in one hand, her elbow propped up on the table. "You get the idea though, yeah. Obviously I'm not condoning acting like that normally, it's super crappy. But I also wouldn't suggest punching people in the face in your usual day-to-day but sometimes an eldritch horror tyrant crawls out of the deepest depths and forces your hand. Somebody starts threatening people's safety, they're forfeiting their right to polite debate." She gave a laissez faire shrug then frowned and met Danica's eyes carefully. "If kids aren't respecting your personal space, that's a different thing. Are they still doing it after you told them you didn't like it?"

[Electra]

"No, not really," Danica explained, "but there's a lot of turnover here, with new kids coming and old kids graduating. Even if everybody only gets one, it's kind of a lot." She rolled her eyes. "I thought about just saying it preemptively when I meet new people, but it sounds kind of weird. 'Hi, I'm Danica, please don't pick me up and carry me!' I already have to explain the eight year plan and the scooter and everything else. It's like... people here are mostly nice, and I like to be nice to people, but it's hard to be the weirdest one even where everybody is weird." She picked up her cocoa and finished the whole thing. 

[Gizmo]

Ellie let out a noise that was somewhere between a chuckle and a scoff. "When I was a student here I had a double secret identity. Like, I had my hero name, then a fake normal name on top of that so I could go to classes without people knowing my real normal name. Which is to say I'd bet more than half the kids here are convinced they're the weirdest one for one reason or another. Because they've got famous parents or dangerous powers they don't have a handle on or they don't think they look good in the gym uniform." She finished her own cocoa in solidarity and gave Danica a small shrug. "Setting your boundaries and making sure people respect them, especially when it comes to touching you is never being an inconvenience. Anybody who acts like it is is a dirtbag and not worth worrying about being nice to anyway, so it solves itself."

[Electra]

"Why did you do that?" Danica asked curiously, more than willing to abandon self-examination in pursuit of a more interesting story. "I mean, I know some people do. I had a friend at Nicholson, we were emergency buddies because every middle schooler buddied up with a little kid in case we had to evacuate, and she had hero parents but couldn't tell anybody who they were or what they did. I thought that would be kind of a drag especially when the other kids were talking about their hero parents, but my parents weren't even heroes and I did okay, so I guess she did all right. But it seems like a lot of extra work to keep your secret identity with other superpeople. Did you have an archnemesis looking for you?" she asked, sounding excited by the possibility. 

[Gizmo]

Ellie waffled a hand back and forth in the air between them. "Not specifically but let's just say that the mask stuff is sort of a family affair and things get more complicated when somebody knowing your secret identity means they can figure out someone else's secret identity by association and it's never just yourself you're putting at risk. And, y'know, there's the intentionally ticking off violent criminals thing, it's a little different than if you're somebody everybody loves like Miss Americana or whoever." She reflexively traced and hourglass shape in the air with her hands as she said the name then realized who she was talking to and tried to play it off as another vague gesture for emphasis. "Well. Anyway. These days we've got a better support system. Anyone who comes for our family has historically not left with all their original teeth. Nice try changing the topic, by the way."

[Electra]

"Thank you, I did it on purpose," Danica replied modestly. "Although I kinda thought Miss Americana had like a triple-secret identity and was actually a robot but she didn't even tell other heroes about it? I'm pretty sure that's a weird level of paranoia even for superheroes. Wait a minute... your brother who keeps, you know..." She made a truly vague hand gesture with both hands, as though too embarrassed to even mime anything, "with the babies, that's Jack of all Blades, right?" she asked, dropping her voice to a whisper. It actually made sense, she'd heard other girls talking about how handsome the swordsman superhero was, but still, weird! "So you had to protect each other's identities?" 

[Gizmo]

"Okay, Miss A is maybe a bad example. She's very popular is what I'm saying!" Ellie waved away Danica's questions. "But yes, you've got the right idea. It's tough to have to keep things from people you otherwise trust but you have to think a couple of steps out, who you're protecting, who somebody else might tell, that sort of thing." She pause and regarded the high schooler with a vaguely apologetic look. "I get that you don't necessarily have the luxury of just putting on a mask. The cartoon jokes alone if you used a bandana would be the actual worst." Discussions of secret identities didn't seem more than tangentially useful to the girl with the tortoise shell.

[Electra]

"Well I mean, I can do this if I want to." Danica closed her eyes and scrunched her face up in concentration. The black and gold shell suddenly disappeared, leaving her in a puffy blue insulated vest, a white turtleneck, and blue jeans. Without the shell, her complexion seemed more olive than actually greenish, and she could've passed for a normal girl almost anywhere. She also looked even smaller and more defenseless than before. "But if I wish my shell away, it can't protect me, and I can't get out any of the stuff I keep hidden in it," Danica explained, crossing her arms. "And I feel kind of underdressed." 

[Gizmo]

Ellie made a small sound of muted surprise at the transformation. "Right, magic. Well, that's handy. And it also brings us neatly back around to talking about you feeling uncomfortable even when you're trying to fit in with what's quote-unquote 'normal'." She gave Danica a small smirk and folded her arms, unwilling to be deterred from the topic any further. "I've got a daughter who's way less talkative than you, Mary Shelley. Can't deflect forever. Are you thinking there's things about yourself you'd want to change or is it more how people are treating you? I know it seems easier to just grin and bear it but for you especially that could mean toughing it out for a very long time."

[Electra]

Danica's shell poofed back into place as quickly as it had disappeared, the better for her to scrunch up inside of it. "It's not really about changing anything, it's just weird," she explained over the top edge of her shell. "I'm almost thirty-five years old, but I don't feel- I don't even know how old I feel!" she exclaimed. "I'm supposed to be, like, seventeen now, but I don't want to date anybody and I usually don't want to yell at my parents and I definitely want to learn to drive but I probably can't because my reflexes suck, like, a lot. Sometimes I feel like I should be back at Nicholson and sometimes I feel like I've been in school foreeeeeeeever, and all my friends keep growing up and leaving." She smiled ruefully. "Grownups are always telling me that when I get older I'll appreciate slow aging a lot more, but if I could change anything, I'd change that. It's hard for the other kids to treat me normal when I saw them come in as freshmen and I'll watch them go as seniors but I'm still just here."

[Gizmo]

"Yeah, no, that sounds like it would majorly suck," Ellie agreed bluntly, idly brushing her bangs to one side with her fingertips. "Sure when you're sixty you'll look thirty but you could also just moisturize. The good news is that high school is fake and literally the second you get out of here nobody is going to care. But you still have to get through high school and that part sucks." She shrugged in a gesture of commiseration. "But if we're trying to be constructive instead of just enjoying my excellent bedside manner we can get specific. The driving thing's what my wife would call a solvable problem. Computer assisted whatever, you're in the world's greatest city for extremely specific science, somebody can make a Tortoisemobile." She tried to gauge Danica's expression carefully before proceeding in a less sardonic tone. "And you don't have to want to date anyone. Not now or even ever. Is it more that you're not interested in a romantic relationship or is it more the physical stuff you're not excited about? Could be both, also not weird."

[Electra]

"Do you think somebody could do that?" Danica asked, relaxing partway out of her shell at the idea of a tortoisemobile. "I don't really know anybody who does super-tech stuff. I met the old Master Mage a few times when I was little, and somebody looks me over every couple years to see how my magic is developing, but I never really needed, like, super-technology when I get around okay on the scooter." She nodded to her Segway. "But actually being able to drive would be totally rad."

 

As to the other question, she just shrugged. "I dunno?" she finally ventured. "I mean the idea of being in love is cool, but I don't think about it a lot, you know? It's something to do when I grow up. I love my friends, but the idea of picking one friend to spend all my time with sounds kind of lame. And kissing and making out..." She rolled her eyes. "I mean eventually, I guess? My mom and dad say that it's okay not to want to, but that I might just be too young still. I just kind of feel like it's a big high school thing and I'm going to miss out."

[Gizmo]

"Yeeeaaah... it's not, though," Ellie told her, leaning to one side in her chair so she could rest one elbow over its back and cross one leg over her opposite knee. "I'm gonna get a little elder queer on you here but the idea of a quintessential high school experience is bull$#!%. It sounds like you're less wishing it was something you were doing and more worried that you'll look back with regrets, yeah? But for some people, they look back on high school and the most important thing was being on the football team. Or starting a band with their friends. Or reading their favourite author for the first time. Or it was totally miserable and they're just glad they made it out the other side. None of them did high school more 'right' than the others because their four-or-more-years looked more like some movie with a bunch of grown-ass actors pretending to be kids." 

 

She craned her neck a bit to make sure she was looking Danica in the eye and made a little gesture parallel with the table between them. "This whole conversation you've been talking about protecting your friends and not wanting to make anyone uncomfortable and watching out for younger kids. You've got more love to give than just about anyone I've ever met and that doesn't have to include any combination of romantic or sexual or monogamous relationship to be valid and fulfilling."

[Electra]

Danica thought about that for a minute, looking contemplatively down into her shell and puzzling over the words. It was a hefty dose of knowledge to have to think about, maybe more than could be absorbed all at one time. She looked like she was going to give it a go, though. Finally, she looked back up at Ellie. "You know," she said contemplatively, "I guess that makes sense. Some of my friends are dating, but some of them aren't, even the older ones. I just have to, like, self-actualize and find what fulfills me." She paused another moment. "I think my high school years would be pretty fulfilling if I got to drive a cool tortoise van and make bad guys mad at me." She managed to hold the serious face for a moment longer before her entire face crumpled into an eye crinkling, nose-wrinkling giggle.