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It is the first day of the Swan twins's second year at the Phoenix Gemini School, Apollo High, and this time around Alli isn't soliciting reassurance from her sister about conspiracy theories that the schools are designed to brainwash, de-power, or otherwise mishandle their charges. It's basically just high school, with unconventional gym requirements and an above-average proportion of superpowered faculty. And way more money than most public schools, and excellent diversity because the entry requirement cuts neatly across all demographics.
Well, in most conventional demographic respects.
There are no only children here.
Alli and Bella have all their classes together, which is nice - that wasn't always possible in elementary and middle school; here it's a matter of course.
This year they're signed up for gym but they can skip until two weeks into term, at which point they'll have their basics and Bella will be just as competent as anyone else. More so, relative to the general population. She has no idea what bonus she'll get and she's excited anyway. She's going to be able to actually go to dances, and dance at them, if she wants. Not the homecoming dance because that's not for underclassmen, but there will be others.
"Uuuugh," says Alli, "math first thing in the morning."
"Wouldn't it be funny if you said that and you got a math boost of some kind for your bonus?"
"No, that would just be horrible. And sad. Be sad for me if that happens, Bella."
"All right. What do you want to get?"
"I don't even know, is there a point? I'll just get something and so will you and that'll be that."
"Suit yourself."
The bus pulls in and out they get, uniform skirts swishing around their knees, swan emblems matching on their sleeves so everyone can tell who is whose twin.
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point_b
point_b
"If you feel clinging adds something to the experience. I don't have to be touching you to take you as a passenger, or not-touching you to leave you behind. The latter of which I promise I will not do. If the experiment goes well you will not need to portal us at all."
blink_and
"In that case, no clinging. Yeah, I know, just nervous. Let's go before Savannah expires of boredom on the spot."
point_b
"Okay. Here goes nothing."
Up. A moment's hangtime, a little lurch of freefall - over a bit clockwise, and then again, and again, and again, and by the end of the circle Bella has cut her reaction time enough to make the ride, not quite comfortable, but tolerably smooth.
She sets them back down by their respective sisters and takes a deep breath. "Okay, I can fake-fly."
Up. A moment's hangtime, a little lurch of freefall - over a bit clockwise, and then again, and again, and again, and by the end of the circle Bella has cut her reaction time enough to make the ride, not quite comfortable, but tolerably smooth.
She sets them back down by their respective sisters and takes a deep breath. "Okay, I can fake-fly."
blink_and
Adana remains calm, no flailing about or screaming. She focuses on her job - checking in case they need portals (she will need to be fast with them if something goes wrong) and is otherwise not very emotive. Nothing goes wrong. They are both returned to their sisters, safe and sound and with no portal required.
She grins at Bella. "A bit freaky, but yeah!"
She grins at Bella. "A bit freaky, but yeah!"
point_b
"Yeah, I don't expect to use mine much, I should usually be able to get wherever I'm going without the intermediate steps and if I have to search an intervening area or chase a moving object I will typically be able to do it from the ground. I'd want to use it if I were looking for, like, a lost boat. If I ever look for a lost boat. I wanted to make sure this was an option."
blink_and
Nod. "Yeah, wasn't questioning the why, it's a good thing to know."
Pause. "... Also, if there's, say, an emergency situation where things need to be evacuated - want to team up and help people?" Grin.
Pause. "... Also, if there's, say, an emergency situation where things need to be evacuated - want to team up and help people?" Grin.
blink_and
"Yup! They can be summarized as 'quick transportation with me and Savannah moving from one key point to another separately' - transporting vital organs to places, evacuations, help with construction in, say, third world countries where it's hard to get supplies to the right places to do the most good... That sort of thing. Except if it involves transporting armies, that I am not doing unless someone has a doomsday device and the only other option is 'world explodes.'"
point_b
"Ooh, the organs idea hadn't occurred to me. If somebody had a doomsday device and you could get an army to it why wouldn't you just portal the device into space? ...Can you not access space? I'm not sure if I can access space, for obvious reasons I haven't tried."
blink_and
"Atmosphere blocks my vision to actual space, I can only get a portal so high up before there's just to much air and moisture and stuff in the way. I could access space if I or Savannah went up in a rocket, I think. But if I could right now, I'm really concerned about opening a portal from a vacuum. It's not like I can tell it, 'No, only suck the device into space, nothing else that's nearby, especially not those hostages right there.' Maybe if I got the timing right. But obviously I haven't been able to test that one. Nor have I wanted to."
point_b
"Yeah, fair enough. I can drop Savannah off at home if the desert is boring and terrible, by the way, I seem to be able to do intersections."
you_miss_it
"Eh. I'll see if I can get there on my own. Adana, I'll do the twined twin thing if I give up! Toodles!"
There is a cloud of dust and sand, and then she is gone. Off to find her way home at super-speed.
There is a cloud of dust and sand, and then she is gone. Off to find her way home at super-speed.
blink_and
"Interestingly enough," says Adana, obviously geeking out a little, "I can transport liquids just fine - rather than dumping the device out into space I could flood the room with seawater. Probably more viable than the rocket, though still not very safe. I originally thought of it in the context of transporting drinking water."
point_b
"...Does she even know what direction Phoenix is in from here?" wonders Bella. "...Anyway yeah it makes sense liquids would go through, but if there were hostages you might just wind up drowning them and I imagine doomsday devices could be shielded against water damage."
blink_and
"She's going to try and figure it out. She does that," shrugs the twin.
"Flooding a room's got the same downside as spacing it. Mind you I could put one down right under it if it's small enough and dump it outside for the authorities to handle or something, but in all honestly... I am probably not the most equipped to handle delicate doomsday device hostage situations." Wince. "Considering the collateral damage that's likely to result if I tried. Thus, why I would go with the military instead."
"Flooding a room's got the same downside as spacing it. Mind you I could put one down right under it if it's small enough and dump it outside for the authorities to handle or something, but in all honestly... I am probably not the most equipped to handle delicate doomsday device hostage situations." Wince. "Considering the collateral damage that's likely to result if I tried. Thus, why I would go with the military instead."
point_b
"Yeah. You're probably more efficient than I am at transporting large groups of people."
blink_and
Nod. "But you're better at getting to far-away places. I can actually move faster than Savannah if I really want to book it, but oceans are kind of a problem. I'm stuck on a continent unless I start flinging myself and then I'm not sure if I can safely stop myself."
point_b
"I guess if you want to brake you send yourself straight up and then when you're at the apex you make a portal right under you and the far end very close to the ground, so it's like a short fall?"
blink_and
"Yup! That's the general idea. Scarier than it sounds, though. And if I mess up at any point over an ocean without being hundreds of feet in the air - hello, sea water. Which, of course, screws up the rest of my portals because water's annoying."
blink_and
Adana shrugs. "Well, I'd have to get into a portal to get speed up again, and I can't pull myself up into a portal - I tried, the edges don't work like that - so I have to add water. Which I would be flinging myself and the water, and that would get annoying." Pause. "I'm not picky on where I go, home, I guess. I'm having fun talking, though, no one geeks out with me about portals unless I'm filling out one of the forms, which isn't very fun."
point_b
"I'm happy to geek out with you. I just should drop my sister-and-a-half at home first and it seems impolite to abandon you in the desert when your other vantage point is running in a semirandom direction through said desert."