2014.03.29 - A Graser

It's Saturday night, and while Jocelyn often enough had some sort of plan for the evening, the young woman had actually decided to stay at the mansion tonight. Granted, she had later night plans, but today, she'd opted to stay in. Probably because most of the younger students would have likely gone off with some of the older students to go into the city for some purpose or another. Jocelyn, on the other hand, being alumni and not actually a student, could come and go as she wished.
She was just finishing up an evening run tonight, and is on her way back towards the mansion proper. The redhead hadn't seen many people, and that was fine with her. It gave her a bit of peace and quiet, and that was kind of nice. Too many people could sometimes get a little overwhelming for Jocelyn, and so when there weren't that many around, she treasured that time.
Roberto da Costa stomps out onto the back patio, wearing nothing but a pair of sandals, red gym shorts, and a surly expression. His muscular arms and chest are crisscrossed with raw electrical burns, which perhaps explains his mood, but not why he flops onto the nearest lounge chair and stares up at the sky expectantly. Sunbathing? At this late hour? He mutters the occasional Portuguese swear word, but then hears footfalls approaching and looks around, spotting Jocelyn. He waves and tries to arrange his features into a pleasant expression, but it's clear that he is not a born diplomat.
Jocelyn understands a smattering of Spanish from her time hanging out with Gloria, before she disappeared somewhere, but not enough to call herself fluent in Spanish, let alone Portuguese. And if someone from that country heard you saying that the languages are close enough, you'd likely get a tongue lashing at best! The woman takes note of his injuries however, and she gets the look of a doctor on her face. She walks forward. She's dressed in a grey tanktop and a pair of running pants.
"Hello there. New around here?" the redhead asks. She offers a hand. "I'm Jocelyn. Pardon the bluntness, but are you alright? You look like you got into a fight, and I hope the other guy looks worse if so". Because people at this school got into fights involving superhumans all the time. She takes note of the solar energy absorption, but doesn't speak about it immediately. Obviously he had some solar-related powers, or something like that, Jocelyn figured.
Berto returns the handshake, wearing a tight smile, but doesn't get up. "Roberto da Costa. Sunspot or Berto, if you want." He sighs. "You're right. Went to tackle a guy who burst into a lightning storm at just the worst time imaginable. Powers took the edge off of it, though." He glances down at his injured arm, which he quickly pulls back. "Well, mostly. He did get a lot worse. Not from me, though." He looks troubled, but shrugs it off and continues. "I'm an old student. Been away for a while, though."
"Channel. Graduated last year," Jocelyn adds as she provides her codename. Which should likely tell Sunspot all he needs to know about her status, if she's still around. An easy smile is given. "I can understand that. Listen, I'm a healer. I can fix those injuries up for you in about a minute if you want," the woman tells him. It was one of her abilities, at least, that fell within her powerset. "And lightning storm guys are a pain in the butt," she adds in agreement. "One of the worst hits I've ever taken was a guy who hit me with a dozen or so electrical bolts at one time".
The two are out on the porch, talking, with Roberto seated and Jocelyn standing. "Not uncommon for people to leave and come back, is kind of what I'm hearing these days," Channel adds.
"Really?" Berto brightens immediately at the mention of Channel's healing powers, sitting up on the lounge chair. Quick with the mood changes, this one. He points over at the setting sun. "I'm solar powered, so I was hoping I could catch the last few rays for a little healing boost, but that sounds much better." He winces sympathetically to her shocking tale. "This guy had some sort of energy harness. I was going to pry him out of it, but then this witch girl hit it with -- I don't really know what, actually. Thing went completely off the rails, lightning everywhere. Practically melted the guy inside." He shudders. "I should have stayed in Brazil."
The first inclination that anything is different, or changing, or maybe about to change, is the sense of Jocelyn's that there is a source of gravitic energy that has gone... well, not off the scale, or at least not off Jocelyn's scale. Some scales, sure! Allison has assembled the most basic chestpiece for the armor she's working on. But most notably, the emitter for the laser and the gravitic lensing which distorts the fabric of space just in front of the emitter. She's out a ways from the house... and the laser is test fired through the grav-lensing. This has the effect of compressing the beam further, causing it to be amplified tremendously in the thermal energy it can impart to -one- spot. There is a flash of light in the distance, and a much flashier explosion as the ultra thin laser strikes a large rock and the thermal energy it imparts causes the rock itself to superheat and explode. "It worked!" calls out the girl at the edge of the treeline, jumping up and down in the makeshift chestplate with wires all sticking out from the sides of the plate and attached to a large capacitor strapped to her back. This all flops around as she jumps in celebration.
Jocelyn nods to Roberto and reaches out to put a hand on his arm. "Here, let me". She'll then focus her powers, amplifying Roberto's own life energy and mixing with her own to rapidly heal Roberto's wounds. Not just the obvious ones, but the ones that he doesn't mention, or maybe that he doesn't even know about. It won't take more than a minute of her time. "Yeah, I saw you were a solar powered type. Absorbing it and all. I see energy, so I noticed it".
She's just finishing up the healing when Jocelyn picks up on whatever Allison is doing. "That's...interesting," Jocelyn says as she scans the treeline to see who or what it is. "Well, I'm glad it worked. Though you might go for subtle next time. We try to avoid attracting too much attention around these parts," Jocelyn comments with a small grin. "What've you done?" she asks, though not in a tone that is at all reprimanding, but more curious.
Berto's on his feet without any conscious memory of how he got there, an impenetrable shadow in the shape of a man, surrounded by a fiery corona. The effect holds for a few seconds, then slowly dissolves off his body as he realizes this isn't a fight. "Porra!" he blurts out, all irritation again. He takes a few deep breaths, then says in a controlled voice, "Allison, please don't blow things up like that without warning people. You nearly gave me a heart attack." He slumps a little, looking dejected and underdressed.
<You see, I told you that you should have warned...> says Julius in Ally's head. <<Yeah yeah, I heard you. But it worked!>> she exclaims psionically. Her head turns towards Jocelyn and Roberto and she inclines that head. "Sunspot, right?" she asks before her head swivels to Jocelyn. "Oh, I managed to actually assemble the micro-components and make the connections work without fizzling or shorting out." She trundles closer, weighed down a bit by the chestplate it seems. "But in the end, I was able to create a stressed gravitic field to exponentially increase the energy output of a standard laser!" Yeah, she's sixteen....
There's a tilt of Jocelyn's head as she spots the psionics going on, but as she can't hear what's being said, she just shrugs it off. Silly psionics. The woman pauses to try and parse all that out. "So, basically, you supercharged a laser. Cool. Though you might want to be a little more careful. Giving Sunspot a heart attack wouldn't be worth it," Jocelyn says as she looks over the young girl. Teen geniuses weren't that uncommon around here. Heck, she'd met Kid Omega already. Mind, Allison seemed to have less of an ego than that kid did.
"Jocelyn," she adds by way to introduction to Allison. "I'll admit most of that technological stuff isn't really my area of expertise. Most of it goes over my head". She shrugs. "But, then again, apparently the computers I was using in school were...outdated, to say the least".
"Oh, was that energy output increased? I didn't notice." The threat of a coronary past, Berto has calmed back down and has decided to be dryly amused at the situation. "Just make sure you keep that stuff powered down when you're not using it. Don't want any accidents." Taking stock, he flexes and stretches his bare shoulders, noticing that he can move easily and without pain. He inspects the bright new skin that has healed over his injuries and smiles. "You do good work, Jocelyn," he says gratefully. "Hope I won't have to ask for that favor again anytime soon. I'd heard Gotham could be a rough neighborhood, but wow."
Nodding slowly, Allison says in her best placating tone, "That's why I was using a capacitor. I drained the entire thing with that shot. It's dead now. Is that okay?" she asks... yeah, she's getting a bit snarky, and once again that psi-linked AI says to her, <Allison. There is no call for an attitude like that.> And she rolls her eyes at something. Jocelyn can likely guess it's got -something- to do with the psionic activity. "But yeah, I supercharged a laser. The easier one will be the pulse blasters. They are just going to accelerate literally, air or maybe projectiles, using gravitic fields.... It's a much simpler prospect than a Graser. Isn't that a cool name? A Graser."
"Just be glad you didn't get in the Bat's way. Got a bit of a reputation as being territorial. Someone helps out around there, he's just as likely to find you and threaten you, from the rumors I've heard". Jocelyn shakes her head. "And don't worry about it. Glad to help," Jocelyn adds. Then she turns to Allison. "It is. So, why the interest in making energy weapons anyway, Allison?" Jocelyn asks. "That's a somewhat unusual hobby. Or do you make other things?" Jocelyn could only assume it had something to do with the girl's powers, but what they were, the woman didn't know.
Berto crosses his arms, still looking amused. He's fresh enough off his own rebellious student years that he's not going to get his hackles up over a bit of snark. "Works for me. Last thing this place needs is more stuff blowing up, if it's anything like I remember it." He considers the new name, but doesn't look entirely satisfied. "Graser sounds like grazer. Like, 'it only grazed me.' But it's your invention -- pretty sure you get naming rights." He turns to Jocelyn and shrugs, still enjoying the feeling of uninjured shoulders. "It's not like I went looking for a fight. Things blew up right in front of me. If he's that mad about it, next time he can show up to get zapped and I'll be elsewhere."
"Just make sure to tell him that when it happens," Jocelyn comments to the man. "So, how was Brazil?" she asks. "Can't say I've ever been there. Hadn't left the US until this last year, actually. Hadn't left the Midwest much, to be totally honest". She'd been kind of city-bound for the most part, but that wasn't all that bad. At times.
"Brazil was family, so Brazil was complicated," Berto answers, sadness coloring his expression. "My father's company -- well, it's partly mine, now -- it's tangled up with some bad people. I was trying to get away from that, but I've sort of landed myself in the middle of..." He abruptly trails off, bowing his head and smirking. "I'm sorry. The word I'm looking for is 'overshare,' right? The climate down there is a lot more to my liking." He shivers slightly in the dusk chill. "As my, ah, wardrobe probably shows you, yeah?" He shakes his head. "Allison told me much the same thing -- stuck in the US her whole life. I swear I'm going to sponsor some kind of international trip. Mutant issues are as global as anything gets."
As Allison wanders off, Jocelyn nods. "Well, I'm a little more mobile, since I can fly now that I understand my powers a bit better". Jocelyn laughs. "I'm not exactly dressed for the weather either, but that's what a run will do for you". Not to mention messing with thermal energy, but Jocelyn doesn't immediately mention that. "Sounds like you need a shopping trip to get some New York appropriate clothes. And don't worry about the overshare," Jocelyn adds. "I'm sorry things were so complicated though". She doesn't know a lot about business, but she can guess the basics of it. "I take it everything didn't get sorted out".
"Not by a long shot," Berto answers. "Pai found out I was liquidating a bunch of what he entrusted to me, and assumed I was junking the business to buy a fleet of jets or something stupid. I'm back here to reinvest -- honestly, this time -- and prove that I'm not like every other rich spoiled brat in the world." He shakes his head, then smiles slowly. "Although I suppose getting some warmer clothes could be seen as an important business investment. Maybe you can fly me there." He grins. "That's a neat trick. I haven't had much chance to develop my powers while I was away, but the Professor always said I could do more with them if I set my mind to it."
"Well, here. In the meantime". Jocelyn concentrates, and tweaks the thermal energy around Roberto. It'll warm up a little bit immediately around him. Not a ton, but enough to be a little more comfortable. "Aside from healing, I'm an energy manipulator. That should keep you from shivering out here," Jocelyn tells the man. A nod is given with regards to the investing. "Well, how about we go pick you something up. But I'll borrow a car and drive us into town. Or at least into Westchester proper, so you can get something a little bit warmer," she suggests.
"I suppose that's a better plan. Most tailors don't have an entrance on the roof," Berto admits, smiling and relaxing a little as his personal airspace warms up. "Small world! Sounds like you have a lot more range than me, but I'm a version of the old 'absorb, redirect' too. Sunlight for strength, energy, and heat. And looking like the demon from Lord of the Rings, I guess." He tips his head toward the back door of the mansion. "I hate to strain your hospitality, though. Want to go inside? It's getting dark now, and with these all healed up" -- he runs one hand along his shoulder where the electrical burns were -- "there's really no point in me trying to get what sun is left." He heads for the door himself, holding it open for Jocelyn to follow.
Category:Log