(no subject)

[electro_kinetic]

There is a Noriko on a couch today, bundled in a black hooded leather jacket, with a discarded sign (reading Mutant And Proud, at least from halfway being tucked behind the couch) and a recently-bloodied nose she's trying to stem. She also has a piece of thin plastic on which is pasted a printed Guy Fawkes mask, that she's busy constructing so it will fit around her face.

Once or twice (or in her case, six times) of getting elbowed in the face notwithstanding, her last one got kind of destroyed and she is not participating in a protest without something over her face.

Comments

[runningred]

Jay spots what she's working on as he heads to the bar. "You know I could make you something a little sturdier than that?"

[electro_kinetic]

"Yeah, I know," she says, speaking casually back over her shoulder, in an effort to hide the bloody nose and likely bruise from the edge of her mouth up to an eye socket. "But I don't want it so well made that it identifies me either."

Normally, when she's expecting it, she can block blows aimed at her with relative ease.

[runningred]

Yeah, Jay's had too much experience with punches in the face not to notice. But he doesn't say anything. "I could make it look like a cheap bit of shit if you want?"

Come on, Noriko! Give a guy something to do.

[electro_kinetic]

"Hey, I don't think it looks that bad," she defends.

[runningred]

"It doesn't but it's not going to protect your nose if you cope another elbow."

[electro_kinetic]

"Usually I'm better at dodging or blocking them, but in my defense they weren't aiming it at me, they just didn't think about the people around them," she says, making it somewhat dry--in the sense that the Sahara is somewhat warm.

"Besides, I'm not sure I'm going to any more protests yet. The amount of armed riot police at the last one sort of sucked all the energy out of everyone."

[runningred]

"Yeah, riot police are only fun if you take the time and room to get messy with them." Jay mutters darkly. "What sort of protest was it?" He hasn't noticed the sign.

[electro_kinetic]

"Which I really don't want to," she supplies.

"Social. Political. Protesting the proposed Mutant Registration Act."

[runningred]

"Fair call. I've only done it when the police got seriously violent and someone had to step in."

"Ah, fair enough. They tried something like that with the masks from my world. Didn't work out all that well."

[electro_kinetic]

"Police are always violent," she says offhandedly. "At least to us. They make no secret of not liking us."

[runningred]

Jay nods, he gets that. Bias from the police is nothing new. "So what do you need, other than a new faceplate."

[electro_kinetic]

"People to quit bringing up this stupid idea of registering mutants?" she asks. "I mean, other than that we'd be peachy."

[runningred]

"Yeah, can't help you with that, sorry." Jay shrugs. "They tried Meta-human registration where I'm from. It didn't end well. Mostly because the really scare capes are aren't metas and are a little precious about their identities."

[electro_kinetic]

"Yeah. Well," she says, sighting. "What can we do about it but protest."

[runningred]

"Without making things a whole lot worse or backing their claims?" Jay asks, "Yeah, sorry. I'm not sure I'm the guy to help you there. I tend to make things worse in that department."

[electro_kinetic]

"Hey, don't look at me, I'm not Miss World Peace either," she says. "Hence the mask."

[runningred]

Jay chuckles. "Let me know if you need anything before you go back in."

[electro_kinetic]

"Oh, aside from all the luck you can give me?"

[runningred]

"Don't believe in luck, just having better gear." Jay shrugs.

wow sorry this is so late, work ate me.

[electro_kinetic]

"So what'll you do for a girl who believes in both?"

Don't worry, I've been the same.

[runningred]

Jay shrugs. "Invite you down to my workshop and build you better gear and leave the luck up to you to find?" He offers, nodding towards the garage.

<3

[electro_kinetic]

"Only if you feel up to helping me with some photosensitive goggles. Glasses. Whichever," she decides. "I have them, have the light-film, and I've cracked like three pairs trying to cerve out the sides."

[runningred]

"You know, I think I've still got the lenses from the first three prototypes of Cat's goggles." Because why do something when you can over do something? "How sensitive do you need them?"

He gestures her towards the lift and the garage.

[electro_kinetic]

"Who's Cat?" she asks, turning midstep and heading towards the lift, and thus wherever his shop was. "Ideally, ranging from clear or barely tinted to welder's mask intensity."

[runningred]

"Friend of mine. We're from parallel versions of the same city, only I'm from... well, forward of her. I learnt a hell of a lot from an adult version of her when I was a kid. The version of her who comes here is in her early teens. I try to look out for her," He shrugs, "when she lets me."

His workshop is a large, canvassed off area to the left of the lift, mostly made up of beaches, lockers and motorbikes. He pulls a set of goggles from one of the lockers and tosses them to her. "They'll be a bit small for you but I've got more of the lens material. There's a halogen lamp on the work table there if you want to test the tint speed. If it's not fast enough for what you need, I can up them."

[student_of_impossibility]

While Tavi has no idea what the mask is, he has more than enough experience with bloody noses.

And when one has a project, be it writing or art, bleeding all over it is really the last thing anyone wants. And bloody noses are easy, anyway. So he wanders in her direction. He needed a break from legal language anyway.

"Do you want that nose taken care of?" he offers as he tucks the papers he was working on safely away.

[electro_kinetic]

"Does it seem that bad?" she asks with a wet sniff, holding two pieces together to let the glue between them set, making a line that curves the cheek of the mask.

"I caught a rogue elbow. It's not the worst thing that's ever happened." He might remember the hell of a shiner she had a couple years back from a coworker that looked worse than this really does; her nose isn't broken, thankfully.

[student_of_impossibility]

"Not that bad, no," he admits, peering at her work.

He thinks back to the Academy years, and many varying levels of bloody nose from training and bullying alike. "However light the damage may be, as I recall, keeping blood out of projects--to say nothing of getting it out--is a pain in the ass."

[electro_kinetic]

"I meant the nose," she says. "It's not a whole lot of blood anymore. I stemmed most of it."

[student_of_impossibility]

"So did I," he says, holding up his hand with a faint smile. "Though the offer to fix the nose remains open. I didn't mean to cast aspersions on your work. What is it for?"

[electro_kinetic]

"I don't want to show my face at a protest where there might be cameras," she supplies, and after a heavy sniff leans her head back.

"Go ahead."

[student_of_impossibility]

Tavi reaches out to touch her face lightly--this close, Noriko might notice there are ink stains on his fingers--and with a few moments' effort heals the damage. "There. It will be sore a few more hours." But it is otherwise all set to go.

"Protesting what?"

[electro_kinetic]

Her eyes focus in on his fingers when they get close to her face, crossing a little when his fingertips blur before he touches her nose.

That's never gonna not feel weird. Ever.

"Did you get ink on my face?" she asks, completely ignoring the bit about it being sore; sore she can handle, bleeding was kinda more sucky. "The idea that we might be forced to register. That sort of big move never ends well--we have evidence of that." In the form of somewhere between eight and eleven million people having been murdered.

[student_of_impossibility]

Bleeding being more irritating than sore is why he made the offer at all. "No, I didn't," he replies with some amusement--which swiftly fades.

Taking a step back and locating a seat across from her, he frowns. "'We'--meaning mutants? What happened last time?" Not that he can't guess, but he likes complete information.