[Nov 2010 Vignette] Victory & Wander

[Dr Archeville]

Public relations gigs were not Wander’s forte. Saying that was a little bit like saying that the abominable snowman didn’t hang around tropical beaches, and yet here she was, waiting to meet the representative from AEGIS on behalf of Young Freedom. She wished mightily that someone else had been able to do this, but everyone else had been busy. Plus, as Alex had pointed out with her sometimes-annoying wisdom, Erin had better get used to making a good impression on strangers if she was going to be going on job interviews. With the inarguable wisdom of that in mind, Erin sat in one of the conference rooms in Claremont’s main administration building, with Oliver purring on her lap. She hadn’t invited him, but that never mattered to the sneaky orange cat.

On the other hand, Victory-or rather, Lance- was quite used to them. A bit too used, to be honest. So many meetings with cameras and microphones have gotten a bit....tiresome. He’s a good sport, and knows it’s part of the deal, but still, it’d be nice to have a less crowded meetings. And he dressed appropriately. Instead of just showing up in his on-duty gear, Lance went in his more casual clothes. His hair was left to hang down over his ears, touching his brown leather jacket, adorned with all manner of patches. He kept his hands in the pockets of the jacket, so no one would be distracted by his metal hand as he walked through the school. He just looked forward, counting the room numbers, his heavy feet clanging against the floor. Eventually, he finds the room, and knocks. With his flesh hand, of course. he wouldn’t want to smash the glass.

“Come in,” Wander called, rising to her feet as the door opened, spilling Oliver unceremoniously to the floor. As the AEGIS hero came in, she gave him a thorough once-over, looking for potential strengths and weaknesses. He was certainly big enough, and probably quite strong, and definitely more well-versed than she was in the diplomacy of this kind of meeting. But she had an odd sort of seniority at least, since she’d been doing hero work longer. That was vaguely comforting. Not comforting enough, though, to suppress the little tingle of worry she felt every time she dealt with the government. The League had granted her asylum, helped her work through the red tape, gotten her a new identity, but that wasn’t necessarily the end of the story. She wasn’t sure what would happen if a government agency took an interest in her.

Lance pushed the door open, a polite smile put on his face. The one he always used when he’s meeting someone in a business capacity. It’s very practiced, but he’d prefer to have it be genuine when he can. Victory took his metal left hand out of his pocket, and brought it forward to greet Wander. “Hello. I’m Lieutenant Factor. Or Victory, if you prefer. I assume you are my contact today?” He’d been given a dossier on Young Freedom, but he’d prefer to learn about them more from speaking with the members personally. He did, however, check out what it had to say on their powers. Wander, for one, is supposed to be extremely strong. Which is why he decided to use his metal hand for the shake.

“Yes, I’m Wander.” Erin extended her right hand automatically, then withdrew it and awkwardly extended her left hand for a backwards handshake. Her handshake was firm for a girl her age, but didn’t seem unusually or painfully strong. All the members of Young Freedom had extensive training in their own powers. “It’s nice to meet you. I, um, I’ve read some of the news articles about the things you’ve done in Freedom City. It’s very impressive, even though you haven’t been around for very long. I guess you asked to meet with a representative from Young Freedom?”

The left handed shake had thrown a few people off guard, since it wasn’t a normal thing for someone to do. Although he used the right hand for normal people, against those with significant strength, he would use the left one instead. However, he found that she didn’t use any of that strength in her shake, so perhaps it was unnecessary. Either way, he kept the smile on his face. “Ah, thank you! I always feel kind of weird introducing myself to people who have been doing the hero thing longer than I have, in case they don’t know who I am. But yes, I’ve heard of the exploits you and your group have been through. I just hope I can have such success of my own.” If she were older, he probably would’ve felt more awkward. But, in his mind, her young age balanced out her greater experience. At least as far as being able to relax goes. “But yes, I had asked to meet with one of your group. They didn’t tell me who I was going to meet, though. Figures, doesn’t it? Shall we sit?”

Erin sat down, trying to ignore Oliver as he leapt up onto the table and sat, sphinxlike, watching Victory. “It was sort of a last-minute thing,” she told him. “We’ve been out of the country for a little while, and a couple missions popped up back to back, plus the holiday and everything.” She shrugged one shoulder. “You’d probably be better off with one of the others, but you can always meet them some other time. I wrote down one of our transponder frequencies for you, I figured that was something you’d want to know if you needed to get in touch with us in the field.” She pulled a piece of paper out of her backpack and handed it to him. That was about the extent of her prepared remarks, so after that, she just watched him like the cat.

Lance took a seat, as well, but tested it for sturdiness first. It looked like wasn’t going to be quite strong enough to hold him. However, he knew it could be awkward if he stands the whole time, so he pulls the chair up and pretends to sit, but actually kepthimself raised over it half an inch, his mechanical legs able to hold up the weight for very long periods. He checked the paper, before he nodded and stuffed the number into his coat pocket. “Thank you very much. I’m sure I’ll have use for this some time or other. It’s not impossible to find yourself in over your head without realizing until it’s too late, after all. Especially in our line of....well, I’d call it work, but I don’t think that would be quite correct in your case, hmm?” Lance, as he spoke, couldn’t help but notice the cat staring a hole through him. He quirked his brow, looking at it. “That’s a nice cat. Kind of surprised you’d bring him to a function like this, though...”

Even though she hadn’t actually invited Oliver along, Erin bridled at the implied sting on her professionalism, especially on the heels of him implying that what she did for Freedom City wasn’t work. “I thought you said you wanted to meet representatives from Young Freedom,” she said, her voice chilly. “Today, that’s Oliver, my valued teammate, and me. If you’re uncomfortable about who was chosen to come and meet you, I guess you could always try making another appointment to see if one of my friends would be willing to come and talk to you instead. I still don’t even know what you’re hoping to get out of this meeting that you couldn’t have gotten in a phone call.”

That seemed like a bit of an overreaction, Victory thought. And at the same time, his eyes widened a bit. He hadn’t heard anything about a cat being part of Young Freedom. Maybe it was a mascot? Or perhaps the cat itself had powers of its own? It wouldn’t have been the first time something such as that happened. Lance cleared his throat a bit, and looked apologetic. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t told that one of your members was a cat. I guess that’s something they left out of the dossier. I’ve heard of animals getting powers, as well, but I’ve never seen it myself” It seemed meanings of words were getting crossed. Not just with the cat, but also with the other comment. Victory had meant that since she did her heroics completely on her own time, it was a different situation for the two of them. He had to try and salvage the mood. “Well, Wander, I don’t think that a phone call is really the best way to meet someone. I didn’t just want a receiver number or something like that. Although it is much appreciated. I wanted to know what the members are like. If I’m going to be joining the fight to protect the people of this city, I want to know what the other heroes who have already begun the task before me are like, if we’re all serving the same cause.”

Wander pursed her lips and looked reluctant, but she didn’t want to be the one to screw up the meeting and have to explain it was because he’d insulted her cat, among other things. Somebody might agree that she should’ve conjured up some magical power to make Oliver leave somewhere he wanted to be, and then she’d be in detention. Again. The only good thing about graduating in the spring was going to be finally being done with detention. “Edge is the leader of Young Freedom,” she told him, describing the team as she would to any curious person. “He’s a luck controller, he can make things go his way most of the time. Psyche is a psychic, obviously, Phalanx can fly and lift amazingly heavy stuff and punch through a tank. Hellion is a teleporter and has a lot of magical talents, but he’s on call a lot doing other things. Midnight is a tactician and the team engineer. Rift controls soundwaves. And I hit things hard.”

A...luck controller? As a pilot, Lance always had some superstitious habits, but he never thought someone actually could have a power to control luck itself. Maybe it was similar to those reality warpers he had been warned about by his trainers? He tried not to dwell on what such an ability entailed too long, though, and tried to keep his expression friendly. “Well, I can certainly appreciate getting a good hit in on someone. For all my fancy cybernetics and jets, that’s essentially what my own combat strategy comes down to. Leave the energy beams to those who can’t take a hit, right?” Lance’s hand had begun to do its tick, opening and closing, the gears in his hand audible in the small room. His eyes moved back to the cat, and his finger casually points to it. “What about Oliver here?”

“Morale,” Erin told him dryly. At the question, Oliver got up and padded across the table on silent paws, studying Victory with a look that seemed to have more than animal intelligence behind it. Then, in a gesture that was entirely catlike, he lowered his head and gave the lieutenant a firm boof on the arm to demand petting, then settled down, absolutely sure he would be accommodated.

The cat was correct, as Lance smiled when he came up to him. “Well he certainly is cute, that’s for sure.” With the little fuzzball rubbing against his arm, Lance began to reach down with his metal hand, but took a look at it and stopped himself from using that one. Instead, he closed it, and used his flesh hand instead, beginning to stroke Oliver’s fur. He guessed there’s probably more to it than just one word, but he was alright with not knowing specifically. His smile grew a bit more, as his fingers ran through the fur. “So, might I ask how you found yourself joining the group? I’ve always been curious how these superteams form.”

Erin hummed, not quite sure how much she wanted to say. She wasn’t ready to talk about Claremont with this guy, that was for sure. But she could say some things without being dishonest. “Last spring a couple of supervillains tried to take the baseball stadium hostage, and froze almost all the people in their seats to show how powerful they were. I don’t know if you remember seeing it on TV, it was big for a few days. We were all there, but we’d never really worked together before. We got together and gelled really well as a team, so we decided to stick together. Sometimes it’s just that easy.”

“Really? Just like that, huh? I suppose that makes sense. Getting through something like that is a quick way to form bonds, to be sure.” His hand kept petting and lightly scratching the cat, and his mood had gradually lightened. Became more calm, more relaxed. “Well, if it’s that easy to just kind of have happen, maybe I’ll end up with something,too. I’m the only guy AEGIS has out in the public face, so it’s just me going solo. Sometimes others happen to be around to give me an always-appreciated hand, but nothing official. Although sometimes I let my superiors know that some cape or other has helped out, and see if there’s any way we can repay them in some form or other. Kind of hard to do when everyone has a secret identity, but oh,well.” Although he was fine with just petting, he looked down at Oliver an smirked. “Did you sign up at the same time, fella?”

“He came along a little later,” Wander told him, relaxing just a fraction when he didn’t push her on the story or ask for more details about her friends. Having Oliver along really had helped, in the end. She was about to say something, when suddenly her communicator beeped an alert! Lifting it to her ear, she listened to what was being said on it with an expression of growing concern. “There’s been some kind of accident downtown,” she told Victory. “They’re reporting casualties, but there’s not much to go on. I have to go.”

At the same time, Victory had gotten a call of his own. He was half-listening to Wander as he was getting his own, through a receiver build into his ear. He shot up, and started to remove his jacket. “I’m getting the same info. Looks like I’ll get to see first hand how a member of Young Freedom operates, eh?” Raising his hand, he shrugged off the jacket, as his helmet materialized in his hand, and the armor encased the rest of his upper body. “Need a lift?”

“You’ll see more than that, my team’s already on its way.” She rose, shaking her head as she set to activate her teleporter beacon. “My way’s faster,” she told him. “Do you want one?”

Victory laughed, and shrugged, as his jet ports opened quickly,to tear the pants off, allowing him his full movement. He put his helmet on, and did a quick diagnostic to make sure everything was good to go. “Sure, why not? I’ve never tried teleportation before.”

“All right, hang on, then.” She stepped up close to Victory, then turned her attention momentarily to the cat. “Don’t play with my computer,” she told Oliver, “it’s got my homework on it. At least save it first.” The cat washed a paw in complete disregard, as Wander sighed and teleported them downtown.