Chapter 55 : Tempus fugit (Sexier than Jeff Goldblum/A gifted child)
The Mirror Dimension, image of Manhattan, 10th of March, 14:24
“This is for me?” Jessica asks, a little perplexed.
“Yup.” Flash lightly answers as he hands her a massive briefcase which would favorably compare to a medium sized suitcase.
She takes it with some hesitation under the amused looks of two spider girls, one hugging symbiote and I.
Her arms strain a little under the unexpected weight that Flash’s arms had no difficulty to carry until now and she winces.
“What did you put in that?” She asks as she crouches on the ground next to it, “It must weigh as much as a dead donkey!”
“Why ask me when you can open the damn briefcase?” Flash deadpans.
Cindy and I chuckle while Gwen throws him a look.
“Fine, I’m opening it, smart ass.” Jessica grumbles while flicking open the briefcase’s locks.
Her mouth hangs open when she sees what’s inside.
Seeing her reaction, Cindy and Gwen clutter around her to watch over her shoulders.
“Wow.” Cindy comments, a little awed.
“That looks impressive.” Gwen adds, her eyes narrowing as she studies the briefcase’s content.
I, of course, already know what’s inside since I contributed to its design.
“How do I put it?” Jessica asks aloud, a little dazzled.
“This is a prototype so, for now, with a lot of elbow grease.” Flash answers with a smirk, “And a little help from my part.”
Two of his fingers fuse to form an automatic screwdriver that powers up with a shrill sound in the guise of a ponctuation to his sentence.
“Alright, do your worst then.” Jessica answers with an excited smile.
“With pleasure,” Flash jokes aloud, “Now stand back a little, spread your legs a bit… Like that, yes… And now make a T pose with your arms… Perfect.”
The briefcases’ contents start to levitate around Jessica’s body as she follows Flash’s instructions.
“This will take a few minutes, try to not move too much please.” He comments aloud as he steps next to her.
Cindy and Gwen step back next to me as the screwdriver is powered up once more.
“He already made a viable model in this little time?” Gwen asks, a little bit amazed at Flash newfound engineering fiber.
“Well, he told me he was getting extremely bored in class and tends to lose himself in new schematics while recording what happens with one ear.” I answer nonplussed.
The fact that he also kind of threw himself in his ‘work’ after the Hand incident is also to blame.
The others know that we did a ‘supply run’ that got ‘a little pear-shaped’, but Flash and I haven’t really talked about it at length with them.
“I wish I’d be able to do that.” Cindy grumbles, “High school is slowly killing me with boredom these days.”
Iris and I side-eye her judgingly.
She squirms a little under our gazes and Gwen’s amused one.
“I remember telling you that you needed to find something to do or you'd go crazy because of all the time you’re letting fly by uselessly.” I tell her in a monotone.
Cindy winces a bit.
“I know that, it’s just…” She hesitates.
“You don’t really know what to make of it?” Gwen offers, having relatively well pegged the girl after a month and a half spent talking with her regularly.
“Yeah…” Cindy concedes, eyes going downcast, “Sciences aren’t really my forte, I’m only in Midtown because mum forced me to after all.”
“Well, what would you want to do then?” I ask while gesturing in her direction with one hand, my other arm folded across my chest.
“I don’t know.” Cindy answers, clearly frustrated, “I guess I’ll have to think about it. I’ve spent so much time bemoaning my sudden lack of interest in sports and finding an outlet in web slinging that I haven’t really thought about it.”
“That and going out with Hector while you’re not training with us now that your mother isn’t on your back 24/7.” Gwen innocently points out.
Iris and I laugh as Cindy blushes.
“...Maybe a little.” She concedes, eyes shifting, “I can’t help but think he’s going to be disappointed when I’ll announce that I’m leaving the team next week, so I may have stuck closer to him than usual just in case before I make the announcement.”
“You’ve decided, I'll take it?” I ask archingly.
“Hell, I was already convinced after the first practice.” She sighs, “You were right, suddenly finding that you’re better than everybody else isn’t peak entertainment.”
“Oh, I have a vague idea.” I answer evenly, “My body’s specs are olympian athlete level and they can’t deteriorate since I’m constantly healing against them getting worse.”
That’s actually the reason why I have rather thick thighs, little lady abs and barely chiseled upper body muscles. Iris made it so I had a runner’s physique in case I ever needed to flee while powerless, which I consider a thoughtful touch on her part.
I barely paid attention to it at first since I was generally too busy looking at my hips and ass in the bathroom the first few days, but suddenly outperforming the feminine school team’s best track runner with barely an effort while unpowered on the tuesday morning after the most eventful week of my life clued me that something fishy was going on.
I was now trying really hard to underperform beneath her and constantly praying that everyone would forget about that particular performance.
I really, really didn't want to be forced to join the team.
“I too have a vague idea.” Gwen adds with a slightly pinched expression.
If Cindy and Flash had to be discreet about their speed and strength while pretending to be perfectly normal humans at school, Gwen definitely had it a lot worse.
Mind you, Flash technically is the strongest of the two but he definitely has an easier time fine-tuning his body parameters to appear human-like.
Gwen does not and her personal time dilation effect is more powerful that Cindy’s. Fifteen seconds to Cindy’s eleven, which is already very impressive in itself.
Let’s just say that our first sports’ class together after our respective changes had been full of surprises and mishaps and accept that we don’t talk about it anymore.
Iris still laughs about it from time to time when we enter the girl’s locker room on Tuesday mornings.
I do too.
“Yeah but both of you hate sports as a matter of principle.” Cindy scowls, “I’m the one who got her favored physical outlet ruined for life.”
“We get to learn spider kung-fu.” Gwen points out.
“And it’s amazing but I’m beginning to get tired of having my ass handed to me by a sparring partner who’s both faster and stronger than me.” Cindy deadpans as she pointedly looks at her, “What I used to appreciate in sports was the contest of skill, all other things being sort of equal.That feeling of having to push your limits even further to gain the advantage against clever opponents.”
“Now if I compete I’d be a total fraud that abuses her magical spider voodoo to rack up easy gold medals.” She complains while pinching the bridge of her nose.
“There, there.” I say soothingly while patting her on the shoulder, Iris mirroring me.
“The Ancient One said that you should catch up with my abilities soon enough since we managed to sync our matrices.” Gwen adds.
“I know.” Cindy answers while flicking her right wrist, manifesting one of her fangs, “Doesn’t mean I can’t be a little bit frustrated because you run circles around me in the meantime.”
“All done.” Flash comments aloud as he steps back, capturing our attention.
Jessica is looking at her armor-clad hands with her eyes twinkling in wonder.
The Fly-1 model, Flash’s designation not mine, is rather sleek looking. It is composed of interlocking metallic plates that slot together hermetically when the screws are tightened appropriately.
It’s actually rather close to the Iron Man Suit MK1 Stark built in the movie in how similar that aspect is.
The armor itself is matte gunmetal since I pointed out that it wasn’t worth it to paint a prototype that will double as a training tool to Jessica. It looks like it fit her like a glove and Flash blessedly forwent the boob armor trope. It isn’t blocky, favoring a quasi human-like freedom of movements for its user.
The armor is actually just that, an armor. Its inner layer isn’t even made of kevlar or any kind of bulletproof fiber for now since it’s Flash’s first try, just five millimeters thick metallic plates everywhere. There’s no built-in exoskeleton nor embarked AI.
But what kind of innate flyers with superstrength needs it anyway?
Is anyone thinking about the munchkin teaching Strange? Because I wanna see it.
I have plans! :'D
I already have Strange's 'introduction to magic' scene already written in my head, and it's gonna be a riot!
@Shmd I’m looking forward to it. >:D
@Shmd yong man go and reread your work and then correct the mistakes you made
@Tendo wut?!
@Shmd kitchen's home
It should be home's kitchen
@Tendo Hmmm, corrected, but I invite you to read the resume's disclaimers once again.
@Shmd I did read it, that one however was too much
@Tendo And I correct and will keep correcting any mistakes pointed out.
I would be extra appreciative though if it can be done without condescension nor misgendering me. I'm explicitly writing while using a gender neutral nickname to avoid those issues, and it sort of irks me to no end to be hailed as something I'm not.
Whatever. Let's put that on my sensibilities, I guess.
@Shmd I see I see, so we shall refer to you as they
@Shmd don't mind me as everything I do is for entertainment
@Tendo That's all I ask for :)
@Shmd 😎😎😎👍👍👍