badassprodigy | A Warehouse Called George

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A Warehouse Called George - Tuesday

There was a ton of swearing going on in the warehouse today. Of course there was always swearing when Barry was involved but in this particular case, Barry was swearing more than usual.

And yes. It was because of the tiny pumpkins that kept falling out of cabinets whenever he opened them and finding tiny pumpkins in all his drawers.

"I JUST WANT TO FIND MY FUCKING THERMAL PRE HEATER WITHOUT A FUCKING PUMPKIN SHOWING UP!"

Anyone walking into the warehouse would find Barry surrounded by circuit boards from a bygone era of computing that really no decent computer nerd would even think of using. Still, Barry was cobbling together some hybrid system that would eventually make his life easier. And possibly someone else's.

There was also a bunch of tiny smashed pumpkins against one of the walls of the warehouse.

[Open!]

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"Is this a bad time?" Annie wondered as she wandered in with her hands in her pockets, eyeing the mess of computer parts and the smashed pumpkin carnage.

Barry let out a long sigh as he turned around. "No," he said ruefully. "I just fucking hate it when the island gets all shitty like this."

Just to demonstrate, he opened a drawer in which he found yet another tiny pumpkin and tossed it against the wall.

"Not what I'd call an invasion of evil aliens but fucking irritating nonetheless. Anyway, Hi. How's it going Annie? If you're looking for answers on how it rains candy corn I got fucking nothing."

"That's the thing about this island that gets you?" Annie asked, letting out an incredulous little snort. "The candy rain and little pumpkins?"

Forgive her. She met the literal Devil last night.

"Look. I can fucking take aliens, gods and what-ever-the-fuck comes from parallel dimensions. That's a completely other world where some shit happens. But fucking candy falling from the fucking sky makes no fucking scientific sense whatsoever!"

Then Barry closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting out the air slowly. Centered a bit, he opened his eyes and forced a grin.

"Sorry. Laws of science not explaining weird fucking shit bugs the hell out of me."

"Maybe this is just a universe where candy does fall from the sky," Annie suggested, "like how in my universe people are born with superpowers, or, like, some people are just able to do magic or whatever. Maybe candy just evaporates here due to the atmosphere or something."

Look how far she'd come on the whole parallel universe thing!

"Okay, first of all I don't like magic because it completely ignores any kind of logical sense. So... yeah. When shit like this happens I tend to lose my fucking mind because I can't stop thinking how it's possible. I mean, rain makes sense. Water cycle! Evaporation! Precipitation! Candy can't fucking naturally rain from the sky!"

Okay he took another breath as he was getting ranty and he needed to not be a lunatic on this. "Let's change the subject because I could go on all day about this."

He took a deep breath. "So. How are you?"

"I'm fine," Annie said, and she wasn't stifling a laugh at you Barry, promise. It was just kind of an absurd week, and she still had jello shots to get through tomorrow. "I actually came to ask for a favor, if you're...you know, not busy."

Because there were computer parts everywhere. It seemed like he was maybe in the middle of something?

Honestly there was a lot to laugh at Barry about, Annie. Go right ahead.

"Oh, Jesus, fuck yes," Barry said eagerly. "Anything that keeps me from dealing with technology from the fucking 80's and what's going on-"

He motioned towards the door and gave the island a glare. "Out there."

Okay, yeah, stifling her giggle wasn't going to work, but she was moving on anyway. "So...remember how you offered to modify my outfit, if I needed? I don't need anything, but...my powers are really dangerous to normal humans, and I was wondering if you could help me figure out something in case I get into a fight alongside someone who needs their eyes."

Oh, eyes. Those luxury items.

Barry's brain immediately shifted into high gear. In fact he seemed almost giddy at finding something to do that didn't have to deal with pumpkins or ancient circuit boards. "Right. Your powers," he said turning to pull up a data pad to take notes. "That shouldn't be a problem specifically. Is this for anyone in particular or just general people hanging about?"

"Just in general," Annie replied, shrugging. "I kind of ran into someone I know from here on the mainland last week, and it got me thinking - I went easy on him, but it could've been really bad. I've blinded people before, you know?"

Or so she was told, anyway. 'Annie blinded the doctor when she was born!' was one of Donna's favorite stories about her super-prodigy.

"And I'm sure I'll have to use my powers in front of other people, and it just gets hard to tell people to close their eyes all the time."

Edited 2020-10-20 18:00 (UTC)

"Okay," Barry said nodding as he took a couple of notes. "I can probably handle that. I'm going to need to take some readings so I can figure out what exactly I'm blocking out."

He opened up a drawer... then sighed. Throwing a few tiny pumpkins (so irritating) into the pile by the far wall, he then pulled out a small device which looked like something he had designed to look like something from Galaxy Quest. Along with a pair of welding goggles.

"Anything you can tell me about your powers in general?" he asked. "Or should we let this be a surprise?"

Annie smiled as she watched him, giving the welding goggles an appreciative nod. "Smart. Um, my thing is energy manipulation," she supplied, keeping those deadly hands of hers in her pockets for now. "I pull power from things around me and can blast it out of my hands - which means that if you want a demonstration, we should do it where I won't fry all your stuff."

Barry paused a moment there as he took that in. "Hey Rube," he called out. "Shut it down except for the secondary generators."

One by one the monitors and various technology components began to wink out around Barry. "Thanks for the heads up. Can you pick and choose which power source you can pull from?"

He pointed to a small glowing item in the corner. "The generator over there would be preferable. And if you need a target-"

He pointed at the pile of tiny pumpkins.

"That would be ideal."

"Perfect." Annie closed her eyes, reaching out to find the generator's power and pull it into herself.

When she opened her eyes, they were glowing a bright gold.

"Let me know when you're ready." She pulled her hands out of her pockets and let them hang at her sides for the moment, palms facing out and already glowing slightly.

Barry pulled on the goggles and made some adjustments to the scanning device that totally wasn’t a rip off of a tri-corder. “Go ahead and let her rip!” He called out.

Annie was watching to be really sure those goggles were on before she did anything, since that was the whole darn reason she was here, anyway. Once she was confident that Barry would be okay, she turned her attention to the pumpkins, lifted her hands out in front of her, and slowly let them illuminate.

She kept glancing over at Barry, just to make sure he was okay even as her hands got brighter and brighter. After a moment, she shot a blast off towards the pumpkins, leaving a fizzling mess of pulp.

"I can go brighter. Are you still good?"

If Barry had any issues he certainly didn’t show it. “Pour it on. Use what you got. The generator can handle it,” he called out. “And if you get rid of the pumpkins you’ll be doing me a fucking favor!”

Melted pumpkin had to be a bitch to clean up, though, right?

Whatever, Barry, it was your mess.

Annie glowed brighter, shooting off a succession of blasts at the pile of pumpkin goo, each making a sort of hollow-aired whump sound.

Normally, she'd have drained whatever source she was pulling from by now, but the generator did indeed seem able to handle it. So, she decided to press her luck and pull all she could from it, lighting up in the middle of the warehouse like a star.

Her Supe name was one of the better ones for a reason.

The room began to smell like burnt pumpkin pie and now the generator began making a low thrum as the lights started to flicker.

Barry began to wave at Annie and then gave her a thumbs up. “All right! I think I got what I need,” he called out.

The glow Annie had emitted faded quickly, her eyes turning brown again in under a second. "Cool," she replied, letting out a content little sigh.

Then she looked over at the pumpkin destruction. "Oh, gross. I'm sorry."

Barry snorted in amusement. “Shit. That goop is nothing compared to some of the shit messes I’ve made. Hey Rube! Power on and initiate cleanup.”

A generator began to hum as all of Barry’s equipment began to flicker on. Small roomba like devices rolled up and started cleaning up the burnt pumpkin matter.

“You’re a fucking powerhouse,” Barry noted as he pulled off his goggles. “How did you get the powers? Born on another planet? Irradiated by gamma rays? Or are we too early in our friendship to learn your secret origin?

Annie snorted out a little laugh. "No, because it's not that exciting. I was born super-abled. Always been able to do this. I'm super-strong and really tough, too, if that's interesting."

She didn't really think it was, since it was part and parcel of just being a Supe where she was from.

"Well. Not exciting to you," Barry pointed out. "But it's fucking fascinating to me. The ability for people to evolve and achieve abilities like this-"

Barry waved the not-a-tricorder a bit for emphasis. "-without some kind of catalyst is pretty rare. That one kid who was jumping around Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago? Yeah, he got fucking bitten by a radioactive spider. That shit can't happen normally. It's strange and weird. But then again more people around here have incredible abilities so who the fuck knows?"

Barry just wants to know fucking everything.

"Where I'm from," Annie said slowly, digesting that, "like five percent of the population is like me. Or, well, not like me - we all do different things. I know one guy who can regrow his limbs, and another who can stretch his out like, fifty feet. But we all have really tough skin, and we're all strong. That's where the commonalities usually stop."

"Really? So with an approximate Earth population of 7.8 billion that rounds out to about 390 million people with abilities," Barry replied. "That's still a lot of fucking people. Then again some people probably have more powerful abilities than others. Did you guys have like a nuclear incident or something in the sixties or seventies?"

He paused and grimaced. "Sorry. I get nosy. If I'm getting too personal feel free to tell me to fuck off."

"You're fine," Annie said, laughing a little in spite of herself. "I can clarify a little - one, Supes are mostly an American thing, almost entirely a developed-country thing. Two, the first of us showed up during World War II, in nineteen...forty...."

Annie winced. "Damn, I should know this. Anyway, World War II. And three, yes some of us have stronger abilities than others. I'm...pretty good, but there's plenty of heroes who are stronger, tougher, and have better powers."

Barry tilted his head in thought and opened his mouth to say something but stopped himself.

"Interesting," he said abruptly changing the subject. "So is there a time you need to get these goggles done by? Or do you need anything else to go with them? Thermal or infrared vision? Night vision? Ultraviolet range?"

"Whatever you can hook me up with would be great," Annie said, raising her brows at that conversational whiplash. "Night vision would probably be good. I don't exactly do a ton of daytime work. And there's no deadline or anything - I mean, unless you have an idea of when the next time the island'll get something meaner than pumpkins and candy corn."

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A Warehouse Called George - Tuesday

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