There's a truck, a worktruck with the bed gate down and boxes of materials and toolboxes. There's even a portable whiteboard - maybe two feet by two feet, on which B-Ray is scribbling with a marker. Trucker cap on, overalls with a gun belt and tools hanging from it, sunglasses on and a cooler of beer that's open. He asked Dielle and of course others to come out with her new bow, promising some 'awesome stuff'. What's he working on? There's a shop towel on which he has several arrow heads, color coated with spray paint - red, green, blue, orange. "Now ah couldn't sleep f'er like, the last two days, cause ah tried on'a those five hour energies? It's not five hours, it's like, thirty, then there wuz Armageddon on the tv? Great movie, anyway, ah got thinkin' Miss Dielle, y'see, that bow ah made ya, it's good n' proper an' all but that arrow head, it's jes' a plane jane spread broadhead. No no no no no. A bow that fine needs somethin' more ... awesome. So ah'm thinking, flashbang heads. Explosive heads. Mebbe somethin' thermobaric, ah dunno. So ah'm workin' on my ideas and ah figured we c'd shoot some. OH! And ah got an idea for," he presents the scribbles - it looks like a huge gun, mounted on a wheeled cart, "Railgun. Need a pulsed DC supply capable a' like, two megajoules, which may be a 'thing' but he'll find it. Anyway, now thanks to Lorentz's force law an' setting bounds of integration t'a r and d -- r ah think ah can get upta three kilometers a second on this sucka! How great is that!"
The stoic ice render arched an eyebrow over his shades and had a rare emotional/religious moment responding, "Sweet fucking of the Virgin Mary! Billy Ray what are you hoping to hit with THAT?!" Okay it sounded terrifying, impressive...and the big guy kinda really wanted to try it out.
Dielle is there with Jon, and she's staring at Billy Ray. "You mean, I'm gonna get to be HAWKEYE?" She's damn near bouncing up and down. "Best part of every fuckin' Avengers movie is Black Widow kickin' ass and Hawkeye just generally bein' awesome! Jon can tell you, I didn't even have a crush on anyone but Hawkeye's bow! Oh! My! Gawd!" It's probably just as well that Dee hasn't gotten a third kith yet, if she were a Bright One at this point, everyone would be blinded. As it is, she's just all glittery and she's always that.
Etsy looks sleepy until Billy Ray starts talking about arrows that explode and the like, and then her sea-change eyes open slowly. She's spread out a blanket on the ground -- one that she undoubtedly thiefed from inside the trailer -- on top of a tarp, too, mind you. She's a wild animal, not a savage. "I am a wantings of a bow of like that," she voices, yawning broadly. It's a weird thing when someone looks entirely rested, as though they've been sleeping an awful lot, but also, like they're still tired. Etsy's flopped down on that blanket on the tarp, with an otter hedgebeast for a pillow. Tick and Tock, the junkyard dogs, are flopped around her in a veritable puppy pile, and she's absently scratching Tock's ears with her webbed hand. "Can have a makings of a bows that is made for an underwaters?" she asks of Billy Ray.
Someone should really revoke Nana's driver's license. Because the nutty old bitty is driving her beat up, yet miraculously well-tuned old Ford pickup... from the 1940s. Its AM radio is blaring some barely in tune talk radio station from the next town over. (OBAMACARE IS RUINED!) It bounces and trundles over the ground as she veers off the road and into the junk yard, skidding to a lock-braked stop next to a pile of sorted metal, which her bumper clips. This causes a cascade of tumbling metal and scrap to more or less bury the front half of her vehicle, right up to the windshield. She promptly turns on the wipers, which really only serves to scatter more scrap metal this way and that. The truck is put in park, then she takes a moment to check her teeth in the rear view mirror, followed by her 'face'. It's very important to look presentable when stepping out of your car into an insurance claim. Of course, then there's the whole 'getting out of the truck' production. Filled with many starts, stops, hesitations, and general uncertainties as to whether this will be the time her hip finally gives out.
"Miss Nana!" calls B-Ray, putting down the whiteboard. A grin at Jon, "Anything we wanna! Ah imagine the Summers gotta have bad guys in the Hedge ah could Hedgespun it for! Put it on the wall at th' Freehold!" Then to Dielle, "See, Hawkeye's awesome, ain't got no super soldier whatnots or fancy pants armor." A grin then at Etsy, "Y'look comfy, Miss ETsy. Now underwater. Hrmm. Tha's a good question. Now, Hedgespun, ah'd have t'figure out how t'get past the natural impedence of th' water, 'course y'd have decreased force of motion 'cross the x - access ... mebbe Miss ETsy? Ah got a library pretty darn fulla Hedgespun knowledge, lemme dig int'a it an' see!' he says as he hustles his way over to Nana, "Can ah help ya, Miss Nana? Y'know, damn gub'mint ruinin' everythin'. President Eisenhower, bless his heart, told it right - mili-it-ary industrial complex, yessiree bob. Now, y'know Jon over there, doc, Misss Dielle and Miss Etsy? Y'all know Miss Nana?"
-> >> Etsy to Here << <-==============================================
Rolled 4 Successes
< 2 3 4 5 6 8 8 9 9 >
===========================-> >> Manipulation + 2 + 3 No Flags << <-
Dielle waves at Nana from where she is, and says, "We know Nana! Haven't seen you around much, ma'am, it's good t'see you again! How've you been?" But she's a bit distracted, thinking about how one would shoot a bow underwater and if that could work without being an energy weapon and how. And she's not even an inventor.
When the truck comes crashing in to the junkyard, whatever other thoughts Etsy had in her head go flying out. She jumps up to her feet -- literally leaps up! -- and is grabbing for the collars of both Tick and Tock. "Sit! No! No eatings of the lady in the trucks, doggos!" Etsy scampers to get out ahead of the dogs -- one a Rottweiler, one some sort of Peruvian hairless thing -- and gives them a single scolding finger. "No! Sit! Stay, Tick! Stay, Tock!" And despite the fact that she kind of looks like a two-year-old telling a stuffed animal that it's being bad, it... works. Tick and Tock plant their butts down on the ground and start wagging their tails at her, in that 'tiny wiggles because I am a good dog' way. "Good doggos," she praises, patting each of them on the head. Then she turns to face the incoming Wizened, who, indeed, she has not met. "If anyones can solve problems of an underwater bows and arrows, is a Billy Ray," she asserts simply. "Helloandgoodafternoon, Miss Nana Person! I am not a knowings but if a Dielle and a Billy Ray has a knowings, then is a goodness."
Jon got the gist of what Etsy was putting down and hesitated before speaking up. "Might... be able to help you out with a harpoon launcher actually. We've used em." He gave Billy Ray that look of eh? Maybe? Though there was the rattling of a old lady on the premesis. He looked to Dielle, and got a cue off her. "You'll be frightening as Hawkeye." Instead, he walked over towards Nana to meet her half way. "M'am." Boy had manners when prompted apparently.
Nana is, in addition to being out driving, wearing her old coveralls from her days spent banging metal into the shape of airplanes. They were probably blue once. Now they're several colors all at once, in precisely the way human vomit tends to be. Lovely! "Oh, hello, dears! So good to see you, Dee Ell. And hello, Jon. So nice to see you both." She makes it a point to call out the abbreviation for what it is. "Oh, and Billy Ray! You're looking healthy, aren't you. Been getting enough to eat? Big strong boy like you must take a lot of feeding!" She pulls her collapsing cane out of her coverall pocket and begins limping her way up towards the porch. It's going to take some time, so you all may want to grab a drink and come back later. "Oh, and who do we have here?" She's making her way towards Etsy, her beady eyes made somehow hungry and overlarge by the spectacles she's wearing. "Etsy, is it? Oh, aren't you just a precious thing. Come let Nana have a look at you."
Billy Ray sent Maddox out to try to find a 'big nuff DC engine', talking about 'two megajoules' like that wasnb't enough to power a small apartment complex. He's grinning at Etsy and the dogs and the others - near his truck where he has some prototype arrow heads for Dielle and some drawings that look suspiciously like a railgun on wheels. Nana just arrived.
Dielle just gives Nana a look that says it all: 'why aren't you MY grandmother, you're awesome.' It's a running theme. "Can I bring you a drink or somethin', ma'am? We got some iced tea over here, and Billy brought beer that I will happily volunteer for him."
Patting Tick and Tock on the head again, Etsy repeats, "Good doggos, best doggos," in her effusive sort of praise. The mrbl -- a silvery-blue otter sort of hedgebeast with feathery fur along its browlike that gives it the most expressive eyebrows any otter has ever had -- skitters up alongside Etsy, chittering softly. "You haven't met her before," the mrbl offers quietly, only really audible to those right up close by Etsy, and the mermaid pets the head of the otter, too.
The mrbl does try to not look like it liked that an awful lot. She fails.
"Helloandwelcome to a World's A Part, Miss Nana Person," Etsy trills; her expression's wide and innocent, her voice a sweet siren's song. "We have many parts like for your truck which had a little crashings just there. A Maddox will be a comings and he can tell you a parts." She blinks widely, adjusting her many layers of thrifted clothing absently and the white Courier's sash which she always wears on top of them. "Maybe is a harpoon guns, yes, Jon, is a goodness. A hedgespins is a goodness." Since people who know Nana are talking in front of her about this stuff, it is obviously safe!
Tick and Tock are getting familiar with the crowd, with the Lost and mrbl and everyone else. They seem to enjoy the company a lot more than Maddox does most of the time, really. As for Maddox, where is he? Tehre's no explosions coming from the shop. The trailer's not set on fire. Is he even around?
Ad then there's a comotion from a little ways away, from an old rusted out VW bug. The dor bans open and suddenly there's Maddox's hindquarters sticking out of it. There's some cursing and banging and struggling. "God damn you, Billy Ray!"
And finally he maanges to get whatever it is through whatever opening he's trying to get it through, and he's tumbling back, splaying in the gravel, a large chunk of metal falling on him. It looks like an engine of some sort, the Glamour from the Hedge dissipating quickly - it noly travelled on the boat, it wasn't from the Hedge itself.
Maddox wrestles with it a moment, finally getting himself on top of it. He's in his usual jeans and t-shirt, grease and grime and sooth smeared. His hair stands on end, electric. The heat of Summer bellows off him in waves. And only then, straddling the engine, does he realize that he's not along. He looks up. If he had ears, they'd go upright, perked.
"Who? What? What the fuck's going on?" He's not on fire this time, at least.
"Miss Nana, this be Maddox, a good friend an' he runs this joint. He c'n totally help if'n y'need parts. Maddox, Miss Nana, she's a builder like you an' I," says Billy Ray. He will snag a beer and walk over to offer it to Maddox, crouching to check out the engine. "This'll do," he allows, "Miss Nana, ah been doin' alright. Got m'self a puppy an' a new business an' fitting in right good. We was jes' goin over an idea ah ahd for a railgun. Ah hope you been well!"
Jon walked with Nana letting her do as feisty old ladies do. Really that's what having a big side of frozen meat is for: playing body guard if the earth decided to try to cop a feel by tripping her. Not cool, Earth! Not cool. HE chimed on then end of Billy Ray's update, "Yeah Sport's pretty boss. You didn't get a chance to meet him yet?"
"Oh, I've been fine, dear. When you have as many little ones to chase after as I have, the days just drift by! The trick with a rail gun is finding efficient enough electromagnets that won't wipe out any other electronics that get near them. Or pull the zippers right off your dungarees. I've been having a lot of success with compressed air ballista hurling giant spears through things! You'd be surprised the PSI you can squeeze out of aftermarket compressors run in tandem. Nice thing is you can run a rig like that off of a car battery!" Nana finally makes it to the stoop and begins the arduous process of climbing them one step at a time, trying to get near enough to Etsy to allow herself a proper inspection of the mermaid. This, too, may take a while. She offers Maddox a distracted wave as she's hobbling along, "More new faces! Oh, heavens me. And me without my Christmas card list..."
Dielle retreats back to the arrowheads and stares at then, waving to Maddox as he comes in, and again later. She's running her fingers about an inch on top of the things, not actually touching them, just over them. It's like she's afraid they'll explode, so she'll...caress their aura or something? Maybe she's just bouncy about getting to be Hawkeye.
-> >> Etsy to Here << <-==============================================
Rolled 3 Successes
< 2 3 4 6 8 9 9 >
=============================-> >> Resolve + Survival No Flags << <-
When Maddox arrives, Etsy peels herself away from the arriving Nana to flutter over and examine the engine, and then also the robot. She comes right on up to where he is sitting on the engine, and squints, looking him over from toes to head. When she is satisfied that he is not, in fact, currently on fire, bleeding, bruised (too much), and that all of his bones/pistons are unbroken by whatever he's been up to, the mermaid leans up on what passes for her toes and kisses his cheek. It's a good thing for Maddox that he feeds the mermaid daily, because all his shop-made lacerations and bruises, all his work-weariness, is washed away in a sea-scented flare of Spring warmth. She offers the robot a small, close-lipped smile, and says, rather quietly, "Spanner," without any context at all, before patting his arm once and fluttering back to where Nana is. I mean, the old lady spent such a long time getting to that spot, she wouldn't want to not come back! "I am not a knowing about any of those things, but Billy Ray and a Maddox are knowing about those things very muchly. Billy Ray makes a guns and a bows and Maddox makes a things that are hunting other things, Automatoes, and things, and tanks, both kinds, waters and pew pew explode, and sometimes he is on fires but that is okay because Leos puts him out and so do I." Only once that whole roll of words has tumbled out of her mouth does the mermaid stand still... sort of... and allow Nana to inspect her. Etsy is a tiny pale ball of manic energy on the best of days.
GAME: Maddox spends 1 Glamour
-> >> Maddox to Here << <-============================================
Rolled 3 Successes
< 1 1 3 4 5 5 5 7 9 9 10 >
================================-> >> Wyrd + Strength No Flags << <-
That was a /lot/ of work, to get that stupid engine through the door. When Billy Ray starts poking at it, he wraps his arms around it, amost protectively. Glamour flares as he strengthens himself. No one's getting this engine away from him, not without a fight. He pushes himself up, somehow hauling the chunk of metal with him.
As Etsy pats at him, he grunts, "I'm fine, fine! Stop that!" Yet something she says catches him. He grunts, "It's a goddamned wrench, ok. It's a /wrench/. Just a fucking wrench." it has no meaning whatsoever. It's just a word. Blurted out because it was the first word to come to mind in an otherwise wordless situation. He grumbles to him. "I be back."
And then he looks at Billy Ray, electric gaze challenging, and he starts to actually... book it. With the engine. Glamour-reinforced stretngh is great. There's a look at Nana, a grunt of greeting, but he'll have to deal with that later. Right now, Billy Ray's going to have to work if he wants that engine, dammit. The chase is on.
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