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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
"Well, this time around it happened because we were trying to get a gun away from a villain who was less concerned about civilian casualties than usual and its exotic energy source exploded," Marie says.
"The logic being that if anyone was going to get killed it should be the people who would be fine twenty years later," Helen contributed. "I know there's some viruses that do it."
"The logic being that if anyone was going to get killed it should be the people who would be fine twenty years later," Helen contributed. "I know there's some viruses that do it."
thinkering
"Just say no to exploding exotic energy," murmurs Lorica absently, punching a random-looking array of holes in a bit of sheet metal.
"The shrapnel from the gun's casing did some damage," she tugs the collar of her shirt down to show a thin white scar tracing up her collarbone, "but since we had dormant S-Factor to activate the energy didn't hurt us at all."
point_b
"Well, that looks sort of superficial, I hope it doesn't predict the weather or anything? We can be kind of careless about injuries because we can heal each other - and we strongly suspect that if only one of Alli dies she just reintegrates into the other one, although fortunately that hasn't been tested."
"Most of it got me lower on the torso, and thankfully Helen hardly got any at all, but it did need surgery. I'm just not showing the areas where most of the scarring ended up to a bunch of strangers."
"Healing sounds really useful. And yes, testing whether or not the death of one of the pair has lasting effects does sound like the kind of thing to be grateful hasn't been necessary."
"Healing sounds really useful. And yes, testing whether or not the death of one of the pair has lasting effects does sound like the kind of thing to be grateful hasn't been necessary."
alli_oop
"Risked it a little wrangle people into an orderly line for Bella to teleport back when we were doing evac. One of me would do the eating and sleeping and the other would shout at refugees. Could've blown any minute."
"Ah."
"My barriers are very close to indestructible. I wonder if I could have helped..." Helen murmurs.
"My barriers are very close to indestructible. I wonder if I could have helped..." Helen murmurs.
point_b
"Could you have covered an area all the way around Yellowstone National Park for several consecutive days?"
"...Maybe. If I had the help of enough relevant supers...when I led Vanguard I could have done it, we didn't have all the relevant powers on the team but we had contacts who did."
"Maybe I could still help," Marie says. "I bet I could clear up a little ash, anyway. I mean, you've got the robot for the scrubbing but my wind powers are pretty large scale, I could funnel a whole bunch of ash through the thing."
"Maybe I could still help," Marie says. "I bet I could clear up a little ash, anyway. I mean, you've got the robot for the scrubbing but my wind powers are pretty large scale, I could funnel a whole bunch of ash through the thing."
thinkering
"The ash robot will mostly only be able to cover a neighborhood-sized area and probably shouldn't operate under the high temperature likely around the middle of the explosion. I could make a bigger one but it might not fit through the door."
point_b
"I don't fully understand the meteorology involved but I think apart from being unpleasant to breathe the big problem is that it's getting between us and sunshine, or more to the point our plants and sunshine. If you could just blow a lot of ash in such a way that it would settle, ideally in one of the now-uninhabited parts of the world, that could be big."
"Oh. That's easy. Especially if...the bar arbitrarily conjures objects, right? And you mentioned borrowing things...can I borrow something and take it into her world if the door doesn't close at any point and I bring it right back when I'm done with it?"
"Fair enough. How long does it have to have been in production for, can I get something they discontinued a while ago."
"Marie, you're not seriously going to...?"
"I don't see why not."
"Marie, you're not seriously going to...?"
"I don't see why not."
"There was this power amplifier that some company managed to figure out how to make in 2017. It was clunky, expensive, and overpowered. They discontinued them because Gale Force stole one and managed to hold the entire American airline industry hostage for a week until it broke and it was deemed too much of a risk," Helen explains.
"I regret that part of my life so much. Nevertheless, it worked, and what better way to atone for my sins than by using the same thing to perform a major act of good?"
"I regret that part of my life so much. Nevertheless, it worked, and what better way to atone for my sins than by using the same thing to perform a major act of good?"
point_b
"And, to be clear, you will definitely not just kick up already settled ash, or anything, just put it down out of the air?"
"Unlike what exists in popular media in our world, the amplifier doesn't reduce my fine control while it's upping the scale. And I've had more than a lifetime to perfect my fine control. I...may stop paying attention to my body, though, so if it looks like I'm unconscious that doesn't mean I am."
point_b
"And your fine control is up to handling supervolcano ash without downing airliners, starting tornadoes, causing droughts, etcetera? I have no exposure to popular media in your world nor a background understanding of how powers in your world work generally."
"Gale Force was feared because she was good at what she did, not because she was a walking natural disaster," Marie confirms. "It's...Hmm. Okay, imagine your body was acting as a habitat for some kind of small person before you were abruptly inhabiting it. And you have experience abruptly inhabiting bodies, it's not a shock, you don't startle. And you're an Olympic-level gymnast. Can you lift your arm without randomly spasming, and then put it down again?"
"Right. When I'm like that...the wind isn't not me the way Helen's lightscreens aren't her. I do understand that this is a major concern, but I can in fact put everything back the way it was, minus the ash."
point_b
"Okay. Do you need me to put you anywhere in particular for you to do this? Is this thing going to be inside my weight limit?"