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Bella finds it.
"Alli!" she twines. "C'mere."
"You c'mere. Easier for you."
"No, you need to come look at this, seriously."
"Okay, fine, where are you?"
"Garage."
So Alli comes out to the garage. Their parents aren't home; Charlie's working, Renée is volunteering with some of the refugee kids at a shelter, trying to find which have parents who just wound up somewhere else, which need adopting, which are going to wind up coming of age adrift in the bursting-at-the-seams system. It's just them, not attending school, recovering.
"Whoa," says Alli. "So when you said you were at the garage, you meant that you were at the freakish restaurant that someone put in our garage."
"This isn't somebody's idea of remodeling," Bella says. "It's too big to be the garage."
"Do you think it's safe?"
"I think one of you should go in first, for sure."
"We don't actually know if I work that way," say two Alli voices, but Bella pushes one of them towards the door anyway.
Nothing happens.
The Allis converge, inside the bar. Bella follows.
point_b
"Who're the Wards?" Helen asks. "I'd ask if they were like the Young Guardians but you probably have as little idea of who those are as I have of who the Wards are."
thinkering
"...Wards are junior Protectorate. Protectorate being United States hero organization. Young Guardians sounds like it'd be some other country's version of same. So what worlds are you from, does it mean anything if I say I'm from Earth Bet?"
"Well, I live in Ohio. Sounds like the Young Guardians and the Wards are a rose by any other name, etcetera. We don't have a name for our world; we didn't even know for sure other ones existed until less than an hour ago."
thinkering
"There's some tinkertech that will go between Earths. Mine's Bet, there's Aleph, one can pay through the nose to get their version of various movies and so on. Sounds like you're from worlds we haven't contacted, which makes sense, there's certainly more of those. That leaves the door thing to explain. Is it just running on its own with its tinker or shaker not paying attention...?"
iamnotpolaris
"I'm guessing tinker means mad scientist? Because we're pretty sure Milliways is magic, not technology."
thinkering
"I'm not mad. Other than that, yes, you have the idea. Some capes ascribe their powers to magic but that's not conventionally accepted."
thinkering
"Mostly it's made of not revealing my identity to random people, but yeah, it also has my HUD and most of my kit's sensors in it."
iamnotpolaris
"We've got masks," she gestures with the hand still holding hers, "but we took 'em off when we came into Milliways."
"We have costumes with masks but we were caught in civilian garb," Ava-who-still-hasn't-mentioned-her-
point_b
"We have Junebug accessories but they don't even come with masks. I've gone on international television only slightly more dressed up than this."
thinkering
"Not literally every cape at home does the secret identity, but almost all do. And it's sort of an etiquette thing that you don't even unmask capes you've just beaten in a fight." She looks at Flicker again. "So if you don't do secret identities what are your names?"
thinkering
"...Why do you have two civilian names apiece?" She starts fiddling with some of the hardware affixing the helmet around her neck.
"Reincarnation. This is my third life, actually, I suppose you could call me Beatrice if you really wanted to."
thinkering
"Cape names are fine. I'm Lorica." She pulls her helmet off. "Seems like it'd be confusing if I went by my civilian one."
thinkering
"Well, I don't have a sister, so it's not particularly comprehensive. And you don't strike me as a tinker. Not enough gadgets on you."