Dashing devil 2 a superh.., p.7
Dashing Devil 2: A Superhero Harem Adventure, page 7
The silence is broken when Tinker pushes her half-filled plate away, apparently full. She drinks the rest of her wine in a single, long pull before saying, “Um, so Boyd, I was hoping we could do a fitting of your suit so I could make any adjustments before the press conference tomorrow. The weaver should be done with it by now.”
Boyd, a much quicker eater, has already cleared his plate. Kitsune finished before him again, and Silvie was just about done. “Sure. We can check it out once I clean up.”
“Kitsune and I will handle the dishes tonight, Darling.” Silvie says before popping her last morsel of fish in her mouth.
Boyd frowns, “No, I’ve got it.”
Kitsune rises smoothly and picks up her and Boyd’s plate before he can react. “Go check out your new suit, big guy.” She bends at the waist to plant a soft kiss on his cheek near his ear, before whispering. “That way the three of us can start the proper celebration sooner.”
Just like that, Boyd abandons any thoughts of resisting Silvie and Kitsune cleaning up the kitchen. It’s not like he left a major mess, anyway. He’s just used to doing both the cooking and the cleaning because Silvie was the only one in the field. After the last two days and being assigned to the field himself he can rationalize splitting up the work. “Fine.” He sighs, turning an awkward smile to Tinker. “Just so you know, I am excited to see what you’ve made for me. I just don’t know what to expect.”
“I really hope you like it.” Tinker says so quickly the words almost blend into one. She has a tendency of speaking faster than Boyd can comprehend when she gets nervous. She averts her eyes and taps her fingers together in a nervous gesture. “I think you will and Silver said you will but I don’t know.”
Boyd smiles ruefully as he pieces together the sentence that came out more like a long word. He is convinced she has some speed enhancement, at least for her tongue, even if her file says her Power is a hundred percent mental retention and processing based. “Silvie knows me. If she thinks I’ll like it, I will.” He assures before he downs the last of his wine. He notes no one refilled his glass when he wasn’t looking this time. At least they aren't trying to get him drunk again.
Tinker pushes herself back and hops down from her seat. “Okay. Well. We will see. Follow me.” She says nervously as she walks around the table and towards the living room. It throws Boyd off a little. He assumed they would go down the hall to the elevators to reach the lab on the level below. Instead, upon entering the living room, he finds two new archways next to the stairs that go up to the suites' second level that wasn’t there before. It looks like the wall opened up and revealed hidden doors.
One has a handle dangling from a thick metal cord beyond the archway. Boyd recognizes the setup from training, a quick way to descend a level. Grab the handle and drop, it’s counterweighted too quickly but safely delivers you to a set point below. The shaft is more than wide enough to fit Boyd, even with his wings partially extended. Tinker walks past it towards the second archway, which leads to a more standard staircase that goes to the floor below.
Chapter 5
He follows her down the plain gray-walled staircase. There are lights built into each textured metal step that illuminate their descent. At the bottom of the stairs is a solid-looking blast door that slides open as they approach. Boyd follows Tinker through that foot-thick security door into the lab beyond. The first thing he notes is a second staircase leading down another level and no opening for the drop rope to exit here. Given that Royce mentioned a vehicle bay, Boyd assumes the drop rope leads down another level to where the bay can be found.
Making a mental note to ask about it later, Boyd looks around the large lab they have entered. Boyd can identify some of the equipment from the familiarization training. Most of that focused on what not to damage or throw around because it might explode dramatically. The rest of the tanks, boxes, mechanical arms, tubes, and industrial-looking equipment escapes his identification.
There is a lot of it too. It looks like the lab has a larger footprint than their suite, which takes up the majority of a floor in The Tower, which is a massive construction. It may just be an effect created by the open floor plan though. As far as Boyd can tell the only walls in this room are the ones at its borders. Their suite’s rooms are large with a lot of open space to account for the Powers or those that might reside there.
There are also work benches scattered throughout the room and plenty of rolling or floating tables. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Tinker asks with a high degree of wistfulness. “It has everything, the highest tech you can find in one of The Authority’s R&D labs. Huge stockpiles of any resource I could need on the level below, too. Press a few buttons and I can have everything I need to make anything.”
Boyd smiles down at the small woman as she surveys her new lab with an overjoyed expression. It’s almost enough to make him wish they shared a Bond so he could experience her joy. He scolds himself internally for the thought before saying, “I’m glad you like it.”
“Like it?” She shakes her head and makes a tutting sound. “I can die happy even after only working here for a few hours. Like doesn’t begin to describe how I feel about this lab. I don’t want to sound weird, so I won’t say I love it, but that’s probably the closest description.”
Boyd chuckles and rumbles his response. “I won’t judge you for loving your lab, I promise.”
“Yeah, well, maybe you won’t. I’d still get weird looks from other people if I went around saying I love a piece of equipment, no matter how efficient or useful it is. You’re just more open-minded than most.” Tinker grins up at him. Which is a pleasant expression on her open doll-like face. When Boyd met her, it was brief and amid a crisis. Their second encounter happened within hours of losing most of her team. It hasn’t been a full day since those events, so he is surprised but pleased that she can smile with so much happiness.
Then again, she did express not liking her time with the Bionics as well as something about them not treating her well. Boyd wonders if it was worse than she has let on, but decides now is not the time to ask. She is happy at this moment. No reason to put a damper on that.
Boyd carefully doesn’t pay attention to the way she arches her back to look up at him. Or the way it makes her breasts press against the tight fabric of her peach-colored romper. He also doesn’t notice the way their height difference makes it very easy to look down at the unbuttoned top of her pajamas. Or the fact that she is either wearing a very small bra or has chosen not to wear one at all. The tight-fitting romper must supply some support. That or her breasts are just exceptionally perky, which isn’t all that uncommon for Powered women.
Nope, Boyd doesn’t notice any of that at all. Certainly not enough to stare and cause Tinker’s cheeks to flush bright pink again. “Ahem.” She coughs into one of her small hands, shifting to one hip and playing with one of her braids with her other hand. “Dinner was really good.” She holds eye contact with Boyd, but he can tell doing so is a struggle for her. A conflict with her natural shyness.
“Thank you.” He smiles warmly at the distracted inventor. “I believe the time to compliment my cooking has passed, though. Don’t you have something to show me?” He is impatient to see his new suit but doesn’t want to be rude about it.
“Oh!” She jumps in place, which causes interesting things to happen under her romper. “Yes, right over here. It should have finished while we were eating.” She leads him down an aisle formed by multiple tables and pieces of equipment Boyd can only vaguely guess the uses of. He keeps his wings tightly folded and pays attention to where his tail is. Knocking something over may have disastrous consequences. Boyd keeps his eyes firmly up after the third time they drifted down under their own accord. He does not need to pay attention to the sway of her hips or the way her romper struggles to contain her round ass.
Tinker leads him down several similar aisles before coming to a stop in front of a large piece of equipment that looks like a massive, round chemical tank with several box-like protrusions. She taps a few buttons on one of the protrusions and two panels slide out, then to the side revealing the interior. It lights up with thousands of LEDs from the top panel casting a bright light on its contents.
At the center of the round chamber is a Boyd-shaped and sized mannequin, complete with folded wings, horns, and tail. It’s made of white plastic, or maybe stone, or plaster. Boyd can’t tell just by looking at it.
He is too distracted by what is on the mannequin to care much anyway. It’s a partial set of Old-Earth medieval period-looking armor. It isn't a body-covering full plate set, which would have been Boyd's preference. Such a suit of armor would not have much sex appeal, which is as important to male Heroes as the females.
With that in mind, his new suit consists of a set of bulky pauldrons that will cause his already wide shoulders to seem even bigger. Straps descend from them, crossing over the mannequin's chest before connecting to a belt just forward from the sides of his hips. A pair of bracers for his wrists and forearms. A set of greaves to protect his knees, shins, and the tops of his feet. Completing the look are three sections of tasset plates hanging from the belt to protect his groin, hips, and the front and sides of his upper legs.
The straps that cross the chest and the belt appear to be black leather. While he would have expected the metal portions of the armor to be black or red to match his demonic visage, they are not. Instead, they are made from a shining silver-like metal a little too bright to be steel with pale gold accents. The metal also has a woven textured look to it instead of being pressed or cast. The apparently woven metal makes the armor a combination of high-tech and classical looking. There is some gold line work worked into the shining plates, nothing too complex, but it adds a little flair.
Boyd finds he approves. He wishes it covered more, but that was never truly an option and even if it was, they would cover him in a skin-tight and very thin fabric that didn’t hide anything.
“Umm, so, what do you think?” Tinker asks after a moment of Boyd staring at his new suit, taking in every detail. This is a moment he never expected to come, and the suit is nothing like he imagined it would be. He always figured the design people would play up his demonic appearance and he would end up with a suit more befitting a Powered Criminal or a villain from an old-earth story. Something dark and menacing, maybe even a little evil-looking.
This armor doesn’t look evil at all. If anything it looks like something the hero would wear as he rides in on a white steed. No spikes. No horns. No light-consuming blackness. “I… I love it.” Boyd mutters, transfixed.
“You do!?” Tinker chirps excitedly, picking up speed as she continues. “Oh, I’m so glad. I thought I got it all wrong! That you would want something darker and scarier but it just didn’t feel right for you. I looked at the initial ideas and guidelines the design team sent over and they were terrible! They wanted you in black and red spiked leather armor that looked super intimidating. It sounded like something a villain would wear. Kitsune said something about BDSM porn! Oh, I’m so glad you like this. I was worried you would want something like that! This is so much better for you. You aren't dark or scary at all!” She gasps at the end, somehow managing to fit the deluge of words into a single breath.
Boyd blinks a couple of times, both to break the hold his new suit had over his attention and to kick his brain into gear so it can process the rapid-fire words. Luckily for him, Tinker ran out of breath which gives him the time he needs to catch up. He turns to the diminutive genius and grins at her. “You don’t think I’m dark or scary?” He unfurls his wings to reveal the crimson interior while flicking his long spaded tail back and forth.
She gasps in a breath before insisting, “Not at all!” with a firm shake of her head that makes her braids bounce against her shoulders and chest. “Okay,” she hesitates and continues a little more slowly, “maybe a little scary. Certainly not dark, though. Not at all. You’re not the ‘he came out of the shadows, dark avenger’ type at all. No, you're a protector through and through. Much more knight in shining armor than a black knight. Anybody can tell. So once I decided on armor, the rest was easy. Kitsune and Silver both said I had to get rid of the breastplate though. Made mounting the propulsion pack a little harder, but I made it work.”
“Of course they… Wait, there's a jetpack?” Boyd starts with a sigh but excitement takes over as he catches up with Tinker again.
“Mhmm.” She nods excitedly, her hazel eyes sparkling. “Well, not a jetpack, a propulsion pack. The same general idea, just no fire shooting out of it. Has a mini grav drive instead. It will take a little practice but it only applies thrust in one direction so it shouldn’t be too hard for you to master. You’ll still use your wings to direct your flight. You just won’t have to depend on them for thrust. Initial estimates are that it should double your straight-line flight and your ascension speeds while nearly tripling your dive speed. That’s without the shield, though. Might be a bit lower due to aerodynamic complications if you have your shield on your arm.”
“Shield?” Boyd asks, looking around for it.
“Yeah. I didn’t mention the shield?” Boyd shakes his head. “I ordered it before I had access to the lab. It’s over there with the sword.” She points in a direction away from the way they came.
“Sword?” Boyd asks again, grinning at the distractible newest member of his team.
“Oh no! I must have dreamed I told you about them at the hospital.” Tinker returns to the rapid staccato speech pattern with a dismayed expression. “You were so excited too!”
Boyd chuckles and smiles reassuringly before responding. “Now I just get to be excited twice. I can’t wait to see them.”
“Oh. Yeah?” She asks shyly, hiding her face in her hands. “I made the sword the same way as the dagger, just bigger. The shield should have similar functionality but as, ah, you know, a shield.”
“Oh yeah. I am excited to see those. Should I put this on first?” He indicates the suit with a hand gesture.
“Yeah!” Tinker cheers. “Oh. Um, you can’t wear your shorts though. I’ll, ah, I’ll turn around while you put the bottom part on. I can help with the rest though!” Tinker promptly and resolutely turns around. Boyd steps into the large chamber and up to the mannequin.
“How do I unfasten it?” He asks as he examines the strange belt with the hanging plates. He also notices for the first time that there is a pair of black leather shorts under it. Although calling them shorts would be generous. They are more like briefs.
“Oh, the belt clasp is on the back. You have to twist it. The cross straps from the pauldrons also connect to the belt under the hip tassets, twist those to release as well.” Tinker answers with her back still turned. “The shorts unfasten on the sides, just pinch the seam and run your fingers down. There are also functional lacings on the front. Don’t know why, but Silver insisted on them even though it will be under the tassets and out of sight. We can change that if you want.”
Boyd shakes his head at the liberties Silvie has taken, knowing exactly why she would want lacings on the front. He's just happy that it’s not a zipper. Or something worse he wouldn’t consider. Boyd wonders if tear-away Hero Suits are a thing. “I’ll let you know if I want to change it. We’ll humor Silvie for now.”
It doesn’t take long for him to figure out the clasps on the sides or back, which hold a vertical strap in place, as well as the belt. That strap runs straight up the spine where it forms a Y connection just above where his wings join his back, where a normal person's shoulder blades would be. There is an aerodynamic pod-like object, about the size of both of his fists, mounted to the strap. It sits in the space between the wings and lays mostly flat on its back.
Another strap runs along the upper back, just below the neck, likely there to stabilize the large shining pauldrons. Twisting a simple knob on the clasp disconnects one strap of the belt and the vertical strap with a click. He catches the belt as it falls away, slowly lowering it to the ground. As he does, Boyd realizes it is not the leather it appears to be.
Examining it more closely reveals it is made similarly to the metal plates, just with a finer and less obvious woven pattern. “What are the straps made of?” Boyd asks, without looking closely, as in holding it up a couple of inches in front of his eyes, it looks exactly like high-quality black leather.
“It has the same composition as most Hero Suits. There's a bunch of titanium, a decent amount of crystalline carbon, some iron and tungsten, then tiny amounts of a bunch of other stuff to make it work and adjust the appearance and other physical properties. Essentially it’s a metal that the weaver has tricked into looking and behaving like leather. I could go into the science behind it, but most people find it boring.” Tinker explains with her back still firmly turned.
Boyd sets the belt down. The thick tassets click together, but the sound seems muted, which is likely an intentional feature. Boyd wonders if there may be an unseen layer of rubber at the strike points. Pushing a finger between the plates doesn’t support the hypothesis. It feels like smooth metal. Shrugging it off, he doesn’t need to know how it works as long as it works. His mouth betrays him though. “I can’t promise I can follow along, but if you like talking about science, I’ll listen anytime.” Boyd bites the last word off, unable to stop the words once they began.
He starts examining his mind, seeking the source. Boyd did not choose to say those words, not consciously. While the words were not untrue, and he considered saying something along those lines, he chose not to. He discarded the thought because it came from the part of his mind that was interested in seeing things progress further with Tinker. His Changed mind, although he cannot be certain of that.
