plotting to unnerve her

[self_composed]

Bella finds Milliways in the moon palace instead of one of her balconies.

"Huh," she says aloud.

Then, to Alice, Libby, Elena, and Mary, and Lazarus except he autoreplies with a busy message, [Hey folks, Moonstone Palace grew a bar that I don't remember putting in, come check it out.]

Comments

[nonbird]

"I'm not sure... what you want me to be looking at, exactly," he admits. "I mean, his power's the same it's always been. What extra things did it do?"

[self_composed]

"I tried to teleport him somewhere. He didn't go anywhere. The ingot power isn't literally the only candidate effect that could've done that, but it's by far the most likely."

[nonbird]

"...That's... puzzling," says Lazarus, frowning slightly in concentration. "I guess there's no reason it couldn't have done that, I just don't understand why it would. It doesn't have a little tag on it saying 'defends against mental tampering', you understand; that's just shorthand. It isn't limited to defending against magic that is targeted at his mind. But I can't imagine how teleporting him somewhere could change his..."

He searches for words.

"Identity? Personality? Self? What Alice's power does is make him continue being Alice against all outside influence."

[self_composed]

"That's interesting," Bella says, chewing on her lip. "Er, what is its definition of 'Alice'? Can you tell?"

[nonbird]

"Alice," says Lazarus. "Alice is the definition of Alice."

Even though it doesn't strictly help, he does actually peer at Alice at this point.

"It seems, um... happier than last time I met it," he offers.

[edgeofyourseat]

"Why, was it not happy before?"

[nonbird]

"No, it was!" he says. "But now it's extra happy."

[self_composed]

"It's happier?" Bella says incredulously. "Powers can be amounts of happy?"

[nonbird]

"I wouldn't go around describing everyone's power as having levels of joy," he says. "I'm not sure I would even have described this one this way if I hadn't noticed the difference. That's just the first word that came to mind; I could also say it's, um, more settled. Like before it had a little bit of wavering around the edges, and now it's more solidly in one place."

[self_composed]

Bella isn't thrilled about what this implies.

"What else can you tell us?" she asks.

[nonbird]

"I don't know," he says. "Where were you trying to teleport him to?"

[self_composed]

"I was mostly trying to teleport him away."

[nonbird]

"From...?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"I was fucking a guy she's scared of and she was worried he'd hurt me," Alice puts in.

[self_composed]

"That," says Bella.

[nonbird]

"...I feel like that is already too much information," says Lazarus, "but it also tells me nothing about why Alice's power would have cared. Unless the... um, event... was very important to you in some way," he says, managing to look at Alice with only a slight blush. "Life-changingly important."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Yep," he says, a little defiantly.

[self_composed]

Bella plants the heel of her hand on her forehead. "Alternates," she mutters.

[nonbird]

"...What?"

[self_composed]

"We were in Milliways. I met an alt of Alice. For some reason, I decided to introduce them," she says.

[nonbird]

"And you...? Okay," says Lazarus, blushing again. "That makes a lot more sense, actually. I wonder... I wouldn't mind seeing the two of them in the same room," he says. "To see what Alice's power thinks of the other one."

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice gives Lazarus an appraising look.

"Yeah, not sure that's a great plan," he says. "He'd eat you for breakfast. The nice way, if you're lucky."

[ignorable]

Kolya snickers.

[self_composed]

"And he's currently stranded on an asteroid in his own world," says Bella tartly, "as he was going to escape from his mental institution any day and go back to terrorizing his city to get his crush's attention, and I met someone from the same world who was more than happy to get outside assistance towards not being blown up or set on fire. Maybe we'll find another one, one of these days, a less... like that... one."

[nonbird]

"Yeep," says Lazarus.