"...Bullshit. You're not a tinker. Are you secretly Eidolon's kid?"

They make the forcefield disappear. "I'm not a tinker, but I can make anything! Like your headcrab." They demonstrate.

"Yeah, but can you use it?"

"Well, if I can't use this one I can make one that looks just the same and that I can use."

"But then it's not the same. There's no spare space in there and the control systems are all interconnected."

Shrug. "Then if you teach me how to operate the headcrab I'll be able to make the same and use it."

"That could be powerful! If you can duplicate my gear and actually use it, or let others use it. Too bad I don't trust you enough to think about teaming up yet."

"When I'm not paying attention to the stuff I make it disappears after a while, though, so there's limited use for other people. Also it might be a good idea to... not be that directly blunt at other capes, I'm cool but capes are notoriously ill-tempered."

"If someone can't handle the truth maybe they deserve to be upset. But I'll keep it in mind."

"I mean, if the only consequence were their being upset and not them trying to put holes in you I'd be inclined to agree."

"I think this little fight has shown I have half a decent chance in a fight though. I'm keeping some tricks up my sleeve of course."

"So'm I, of course. But yeah you do, that was real good with so little preparation."

"You mentioned sites and forums I could lurk on a few days ago, I think...?"

"Yeah?"

"So what are they?"

"Well there's the Parahumans Online community, they got a wiki and a forum and pretty much everything official ends up there one way or another. They got really good mods, too, and if you create a cape account they'll recognize you."

"Alright. Kind of scared of being tracked. Cookies or whatever. But maybe."

"Supposedly the people in charge are very very good at making sure no one's traceable, even Legend has an account."

"Supposedly. Supposedly the police shut down extortion rackets, right?"

"I mean, I can't personally verify that they're good except by noting that high-profile capes have accounts."

"Oh well. I found it while googling earlier, actually. Thanks for the info, I guess?"

"You're welcome! There are other forums, some more specific, but you can find everything starting from that."

"Let me pick up my ammo and then show you how this thing can climb and run. We didn't actually do much of that."

"Alright. I'll set this suit and the forcefield to be immune to your stuff though."

"Uh huh."

She's beginning to think he doesn't understand his own power and is bluffing half the time. Or that it's not good at unexpected threats. Why else would she have gone through the first time with two separate things?

She picks up the flying nets that bounced off that forcefield and packs them away.