"First things first" Lawrence took off the black jacket he had been wearing up until now, courtesy of Worne YK's chilling climate, even in the middle of summer. He threw it over one of the sofas now set in a side of the room.
"You know how to make people other people see your status, right?" he asked, almost rhetorically, turning to Mika.
"No?" she tilted her head. "I mean, I got these super-cool powers about a week ago, so mostly I've been focusing on tasks and such. Only managed to complete a couple of those, though..."
"Right" Lawrence nodded. It did make sense that someone uninformed and with no means of gathering information would set their goals on the most obviously rewarding parts of the metaworld~ like tasks. Fortunately for him, he had taken that university course, but other people weren't as lucky. Even those with free access to Glasses would be eventually tracked down if their search history was infested with questions like "what does a villain have to do to level up?" or "which are the best places for beginners' to heist". There was only so much "got curious" one could use as excuse.
"Let's see..." wracking his brain for the right lesson, he walked in circles looking at the floor. The gesture helped him to concentrate.
'Uh..." he closed his eyes for a few seconds, the vague recollection of his meta-society class in his mind. The fact that she was a sexy woman in a tight teacher suit didn't help focusing on the matter.
"I recall a vague, voice command to do that..." he frowned. "It was... Show status...?" Nothing happened. "Then... Toggle status?"
A semi-translucent screen appeared from nowhere, displaying Lawrence's current status for the world to see.
----------------------------------------
Lawrence Lakewood --- Villain
Meta-ability:
Criminal Mastermind --- Certain actions you make trigger a chain of coincidences that will eventually act on your favor. (Grade: C)
---
Features:
-Facade: While interacting with others, unless purposefully avoided, your thoughts will be unreadable. Affects language and body language as well.
-Silver Tongue: Become an excellent negotiator. Effect wears off after negotiations are done. Cooldown: 2 hours.
---
Pending Tasks:
-First Stain
---
20 FP
----------------------------------------
Lawrence nodded. It was the same as he remembered it. He repeated the words "Toggle status" once again.
"That's your power?" Mika stared at him in disbelief. "It's so... boring."
He wasn't offended. Just... a little pissed at her ignorance. Yeah... Yes, that was all.
"Maybe." he said, venting his fumes "But it's quite useful, and it's passive with no needs for cooldown. And it fits the image I'm trying to give."
"Which would be...?"
"After considering it for some time I've... decided I will focus on the background work. Mostly moving the strings here and there, maybe extending my reach to a couple of important people... You know what I'm saying. Start with a couple of business first, a gang or two... then get a little of grasp in the city's government... And keep up until I dominate the whole world...!" He had in fact just thought about it now, but he still liked the idea. The name of his meta-ability did fit that image, after all. Besides, although it was the most slow and tedious path a villain could take, it was also the safest one. And more important: it was the coolest.
"Right, right" she gestured that she wasn't interested in pursuing the topic any further. "So I just have to say the magic words?"
"That would be it, yes..." a completely not at all bothered by Mika's lack of interest on his plans answered.
"Uhm... Toggle... Status?" She said, more as a question than as an affirmation.
----------------------------------------
Mikaella Brown --- Villain
Meta-ability:
Shadowbender --- Enter an shadow dimension for a maximum of five seconds before being forced out. Distance traveled will be taken in consideration at expulsion, while time won't. (Grade: D)
---
Features:
-Nighteye: Increases visibility in the dark.
-Pick from your Pocket: Store items in the shadow dimension.
---
Pending Tasks:
-Steal the Spotlights
-Super Minion
---
15 FP
----------------------------------------
"Neat" Lawrence nodded at the sight before him. It was then when he realized just how useful Mika would be in a not so distant future. First things first, this Shadowbender power seemed extremely fit for infiltration and trespassing. Unless he got it wrong, it was simply a short teleport ability with a 20 sec cooldown. Guessing Mika sprinted inside the shadow dimension, that would make for a five to six meter teleport radius... Which was, to be fair, a broken skill.
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Then there was the Pick from your Pocket (such an obvious pun) feature. Just imagine it, he said to himself. Pop inside a bank chamber, smuggle a backpack's worth of gold ingots inside that, and come out in a nearby bathroom or phone booth. The perfect heist...
Of course, he wouldn't put her powers into something like that. As cool as a bank robber could look in movies, they were thieves in the end. Lawrence was aiming higher than that.
She could, however, serve as the perfect spy. Breaking inside the rival organization's safes, loot them out of cash (which for obvious reasons was completely not stealing) and drown their finances; scouting bases; stealing important documents... possibilities were endless.
Of course, he also needed to know her weak points.
"This looks incredibly useful." He faced Mika with a pleased smile. "No doubts you will be a great minion."
"You're making a creepy smile. Cool."
No he wasn't! Or maybe he was. Whatever...
"Ahem" he cleared his throat and looked away, definitively not embarrassed of how he was caught acting up his inner villain. "Setting that aside, do you know of any restrictions your meta-abilities could have?"
"Nah. Haven't found any up until now. I'm invincible!" She grinned and made a pose. Lawrence sighed again. it was hard looking at her like a minion and not like a... nephew he had been asked to take care of...? Yeah, he remembered doing that once. His big brother was usually busy with his work, so he got home really late sometimes. He would ask Lawrence to watch over his daughter some times. This reminded him of that...
Speaking of which. Laurent had woken a meta-ability last Wakening Season too, hadn't he? The lucky bastard. Lawrence was so glad for him. He even got a cool heroic power. Of course, he had the Hero alignment. He was working for the LHU now, right? Although, he had been temporarily assigned to a different state, so there was no danger of that getting in the way of Lawrence's domination plans...
But once again, he digressed.
"Don't get too fed up. If any professional hero with a couple of week's worth of training catches you, you'll be as good as locked behind bars."
"But I can warp out of jail!"
"If it was a regular jail, sure. But Villains more often than not end up in special cells that keep them from using their powers. There are some materials that can interfere with the Root's links, after all. Moreover, most of those cells are in Albatroz, and I believe you wouldn't like your first ride to San Francello to be in a prison van."
"Hmph" she looked away indignant. "That's if they catch me. I'll warp in their ugly faces and kick their ass from behind."
He put his hand on his head, feeling a headache coming. There was no convincing this girl, was there?
"Look. As long as you follow the rules, you can do what you want. But no pissing heroes or the police, understood? We'll get to that later on."
"Fine. When do we get to kick hero butts?"
"We'll see. But you've got to behave now, we need to every single thing about each other if we're going to do that..." Lawrence shut up, noticing how poorly phrased that was. Mika, fortunately, was denser than rock, and never noticed. "Ahem~ I mean, I still have to see your skills put into action."
"Right. Let's show you how super-cool I am." She snapped her fingers and neck, walked up to the room and... returned to her place. "Eh, quick question... what exactly is that I have to do?"
Lawrence shot her an unamused look. "Let's try warping first. Anywhere is fine, I just want to see you in action."
"Sure. Alright, here I go~!" As it had happened before, when Mika first used Shadowbender, there was a puffing sound and then a mantle of dark smoke wrapped her silhouette. Her outlines faded, and the smoke dissipated just as fast as it appeared. With another puff, a new cloud of smoke and the thud of something hitting the ground, she reappeared almost instantly a couple of meters ahead, apparently running as she slowed down to avoid crashing against the wall.
"Perfect" Lawrence muttered. The process of disappearing and reappearing was nearly completely silent, and left practically no traces behind. As he said: the perfect infiltration skill.
"Now try warping to the exact same spot."
"Say what?" she stopped on her track to look at Lawrence as if he was some kind of dumb animal.
"Like I said. Warp in the place. Enter the shadow dimension or whatever that is, and turn your power down without moving. You can't do something as simple as that?"
"Bruh. Of course I can... I think? But why do you want me to do that?"
"Isn't it obvious?" he said. "Imagine someone tries to stab you with a knife and you instant teleport in the place. The knife goes right through, and you're still standing without a scratch. Wouldn't it make your ability look like invulnerability instead of warping?"
"That is..." she stared at Lawrence, still digesting his comment. "...awfully clever of you. And evil. And I like it!"
"Cool" he nodded. At least he found a motivation for her. And discovered a surprising side effect for the Silver Tongue skill he had used right now. It was a couple of hours cooldown waste, but he figured saying "I just want to because I can" would be way less preferable.
"Lets go~!" The sound of the expanding smokescreen muffled her voice for a moment. Then, another smokescreen reappeared in the exact same spot, and Mika inside it in the same silly pose she had posed to start. "Looks like I can. Yey!"
"Nice." He was more relieved that he hadn't been figured out, but thanks to his Facade ability, Mika would never have to know.
"Let's move to the next topic..." he moved over the fridge, opened it and took another bottle of beer. He placed it right next to the empty one "...and that is your Pick from your Pocket feature. Personally, I find that one way more ambiguous."
"Ambi... what?"
Lawrence sighed for what could've been the third or fourth time of the day.
"It means you you don't really know what it's saying. All it says is 'store items in the shadow dimension', it doesn't specifically say what kind of items, or if there's an item limit. So that's what we're going to check now."
"Ah, I get it. You want to know how many gold ingots I can stuff in my pockets when we still a bank!" That was... not entirely off, but also not the truth.
"Here" he pointed the unopened beer bottle. "Try using the thing on this." He stopped Mika from coming closer. "From a distance first, I want to know what the effective radius... is"
She nodded, then concentrated back to the bottle. She closed her eyes, stretching out her hand... but nothing really happened. "I guess I have to touch it to store it. I can't get anything out of my real pockets without grabbing it though, so it makes sense..."
Lawrence held back the urge of telling her the Pocket thing was a metaphor, and instead tossed the bottle to her. The moment her hands touched it, a smokescreen just like the effects of Shadowbender engulfed the bottle. By the time it dissipated, the bottle was gone.
"Can you feel anything different?" Lawrence asked.
"Uh... yeah? I mean, no, but there's a new screen thing there. It says... 'Stored 1 Beer Bottle (full)' and that's about it."
"Right. Now stuff this inside too" he threw the empty bottle, which was also covered in dark mist before Mika said "Another pop-up. This one says... 'Stored 1 Beer Bottle (empty)' too."
"Now try stuffing in the fridge."
"Why would I want to steal a fridge?"
He smacked his forehead. "You don't this is just a test. Remember?"
"Ah, right." She touched the portable fridge. More smoke puffed in, but this time it wasn't enough to cover the whole thing and it never disappeared.
"Says that the fridge is too much to store."
"Hmmm..." So there was a limit. Was it the size or the substance? To check, he asked Mika to store the rest of the bottles inside the fridge instead.
Around the thirty-odd bottle, she said she had received the same message again.
"Can you feel how many bottles you have stored?"
"Thirty...six, counting the one you emptied. I can pull whichever I want out" she said as she took the empty bottle and a sealed one in each hand, then threw them back in.
"I see." That saved him some trouble. To empty the whole storage just to get something out of it wouldn't be too efficient.
"Now, let's do some math." He plucked out his phone, Glassing some things, before turning it off and putting it back into place. "So, you can carry around approximately fifteen kilos, based on rough calculation. I could be completely wrong, though."
"Fifteen kilos of beer..."
...
Lawrence looked at her, who was staring at him.
"What" he asked.
"I am the best portable fridge ever!"
He stared at her in utter disbelief, digesting what she had just said. Then, he once again sighed, deeper than ever before.
"Yes, Mikaella" he patted her head absentmindedly as he stared at the distance. "you definitively are..."