Nick and Gwyn watched Cait demolish another wave of simulated enemies, nearly as fast as the room could generate them.
“Does she do this a lot?” Gwyn whispered to him. Nick shook his hat back and forth, the motion he’d found people translated best to him shaking his head.
SOMETHINGS UP
Cait launched into the air, then slammed a Boomkick downward to completely shatter a sim-Roidrage. Nick splayed his tentacles to cover Gwyn from the shrapnel. Probably not necessary, he knew the girl was tougher than she looked, but it seemed like the boyfriendly move. Once the rain of material subsided, he clapped eight of his tentacles together in a rhythm, forming a one man round of applause.
WHOOO
NEW MOVE!
“Heh, you like that?” Cait shot the pair a grin that was, frankly, a little terrifying. “Gwyn, can you make these any tougher?”
“Literally, no, Cait. They’d have to be made out of Onyxir-,”
“FUCK!” Cait shouted, venting her rage into a wall of the very metal in question. Her fist left a dent in what, prior to her, had been the toughest material on earth.
Nick watched her shoulders, rising and falling quickly, shaking with rage. He tapped Gwyn’s shoulder, and she nodded, stopping the waves of enemies. Nick slithered over to his friend, snaking a tentacle into her armpit and tickling.
“Wha-, hey! H-Hey! Heh, ehehhe-,” she tried to slap him away, but Nick was infinite, or at least he had 13 angles of attack. More than she could deal with.
ILL STOP
WHEN YOU TELL US WHATS WRONG
Cait managed to stop laughing long enough to glare at him, but stopped fighting back. She slumped, sighing as something left her.
“Got Kennedy’s tragic backstory today. It’s worse than I thought, man. And there’s nothing I can fucking do about it.”
It felt like her eyes should have flashed with anger there, but instead she looked defeated. He could see the rage was still there, but venting it hadn’t helped so far. He reached up, squeezed a shoulder with a tentacle, and made her look at his ‘face’ with another.
THAT SUCKS BUDDY
Cait glared at him, but he watched as some of the anger fell away into amusement. Eventually a reluctant laugh forced its way past her pursed lips.
“Dude, you are the fucking worst at comforting people,” she laughed, patting the tentacle on her shoulder, and slumping back against the wall to sit.
WHAT
IT SUCKS
BUDDY
“Oh my god, stop.” She slapped his tentacle away, but another one took its place the instant her hand was past.
WHY ARENT YOU WITH HER
Nick didn’t know exactly what had happened, but it couldn’t have been good to get Cait this worked up. He might not have been a relationship expert, but running off to vent impotent rage on inanimate objects seemed like the wrong move.
Cait held her face in her hands, and let out a frustrated sigh.
“Lira and Swan have her. I didn’t think Kennedy needed what I had to offer right now, I doubt stupid barbarian anger is particularly healing. She fucking refuses to drop her link with me though.”
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SHE WANTS YOU THERE
Cait glared at him through her hands.
“Weren’t you an incel before this?” she asked, smirking.
FUCK YOU
“He was close,” Gwyn said, taking the opportunity to approach. “But now his girlfriend is. His current celibacy is very voluntary. You should listen to him Cait, you know how perceptive he’s gotten, and he’s an excellent partner. Go find your people.”
Nick saw an actual tear escape from Cait’s eye.
Shit, what the fuck happened.
She nodded, and got to her feet. Then she yanked him into the air by a tentacle, catching him between herself and Gwyn, who she pulled into a tight hug.
“Thanks, you guys.”
The air rang as she shot off, back towards the Pantheon.
“Man, what the fuuuuck?” Gwyn groaned, plopping down in the spot Cait had vacated, pulling Nick into her lap. “I did not sign up to AEGIS to talk to people. Especially upset people.”
DICK
SHES HURTING
“I know! Makes it worse! Fuck are we supposed to do about it?”
WHAT WE DID
I THINK
Gwyn sighed, stroking along the brim of his hat. It had become her most common fidget when she was stressed.
“You think Kennedy’s okay? I mean, she can’t be hurt too bad, Cait said they were still linked. Its not like we were friends, but she was always nice to me, and I like the way she keeps Cait and Lira in line….”
Nick wrapped an arm gently around her neck, pulling himself up to stop her verbal waterfall with his tongue. She looked small and scared when he pulled back.
“Breastman, I don’t like any of this. Things are worse than they’ve been in a long time. Even with people like you, Cait and Kennedy on our side, its fucking scary.”
He wrapped her up tight.
ITLL BE OKAY
WITH CAIT
THEY LITERALLY
CANNOT KILL
ALL OF US
“Hah!” Gwyn croaked, but her throat was clearly tightening in stress. “Small comfort, babe.”
She returned his hug as best she could, bound as she was. He was good at this part of the relationship. Gwyn had said he was a good partner, and, ego non-withstanding, he thought she was probably right. He’d always been a cheerleader, always supportive, but easily discarded. He didn’t think his new friends saw him that way, shit, Gwyn had named him alongside Cait and Kennedy, people who felt like GODS when they got going. A lifetime of being picked last was a tough thing to shake though, especially when he’d almost made a point of internalizing it when he was human.
Cait wouldn’t dwell on that.
WANNA LET LOOSE ON SOME OF THESE TARGETS?
LONG AS WERE HERE?
Gwyn returned a wicked grin.
“Heck yeah I do. Lets see if Cait was on to something.”
Nick took it pretty easy. Since the change, he simply didn’t get as stressed and anxious as he used too, it was more like he knew he should feel that way, and used that to hold himself back. Due to that, he just didn’t have the same amount of aggression to let out as either of the girls.
Gwyn, though, was terrifying. She was still adorable, lab coat over green hoodie and black leggings, giving just a hint of her killer curves, but DAMN. Back in his DnD days, Nick had gotten to level 20 with a Sorcerer, pure blaster caster, Disintegrate for everyone. When he’d pictured the fights in his mind, they looked a hell of a lot like it did when Gwyn took down these targets.
She directed a cloud of her nanobots, almost dancing as she waved them through simulated enemy after enemy, all of which were eaten down to nothing. On tougher foes, she pulled back, forming the cloud into a superheated lance to pierce the skin, and letting her bots eat the thing from the soft insides. That wicked grin never left her face.
Again, Nick found himself giving a one-man round of applause.
WHY THE FUCK DO WE NOT HAVE YOU IN THE FIELD NANO SMITH?
He twisted his tentacles up to flash the stylized NS logo Gwyn put as the startup screen on all her tech.
“Heh, that felt goooood,” she said, mood buoyed as she bounced over next to him.
Look at those go.
HARD TO BELIEVE YOURE SCARED
YOURE SCARY
“Coming from you?” she said, teasing him with a smirk and a cocked eyebrow. She let out a resigned sigh. “I’m not in the field, partly because of my own fears and partly because Swan doesn’t want to risk me, both as a tech asset and a relatively sane mouthpeice for the other Meta-Brains. Honestly, she’s probably right, without me nothing would ever get done, at least not in any way useful to Guardians or the general public.”
She summoned a cloud of her nanobots, flowing out of a lab coat pocket to swarm above her hand.
“These are the other reason. Obviously, also what makes me useful. But fuck me if I don’t think a Grey Goo apocalypse scenario is one of the most likely, even in the world were in now. I really, really, don’t want to pull a Ted Faro.”
OH!
FINALLY PLAYED HORIZON
KICKED ASS
BUT YEAH
ITS HIM
HES YOU
Gwyn grinned at him, slapping at the tentacle stroking her hair.
“Ass,” she chuckled. “IDK, B-man. I want to try them out in the field. 90% sure Swan is going to send me to Technocago soon, to figure out what the fuck is taking that backup so long.”
Her light hazel eyes sparkled as she fixed them on him.
“Feel like a vacation?”
