Jack knows better than to try anything with strange women -- after all, he did once accidentally hit on a warrior nun who promptly kicked his ass into the next solar system, and that lesson has stayed with him very, very well -- and if/when he ever finds out her age, his headdesk will be chronicled as worthy of being set down for posterity by the universe's worthiest poets, balladeers, and yellow journalists. He will, in fact, headdesk without a desk actually needing to be present.
She's given him a lot of information in that burst. Well, it's too dignified to be a burst; more like a steady flow of precisely dictated syllables. There's the Thing She Did Outside, and talk of doors, now the offer of a drink from a mecha-servitor. Mecha-servitor thing. He thinks.
"I'll...take one," he says, cautious and impulsive at the same time (if anyone can do both simultaneously, it's Jack).
He sits down next to her at the bar.
"So. I ask this for a drink?" he says, tapping the top of bar with a gloved finger. "Dear magic counter, a glass
( ... )
She looked like she would have gutted him a second ago (or tried to). He's certainly been given the cold shoulder before, but her look was edging into 'swear an undying and eternal vendetta against your soul until death and beyond' territory.
In fact, he has to tamp down the fzzzz of spectacularly lumescent pink energy currently threatening to reflexively emerge from his fists.
"I'm sorry if I offended you," he offers, relieved. "I've made enemies quickly before, but in under five minutes is a record. Even for me." Touchy woman, he almost adds. Who gets offended over being dismissed because they're from -- let's face it -- the cultural wasteland of Los Angeles?
"You can say something dismissive about New York if you want, and I'll take it on the jaw. Are you sure you don't want a drink? A Pink Flirtini or a glass of chardonnay? Did you say that your family was in the wine business?"
"No, my Family isn't in the wine business, that I know," though considering some of the people in her family, they probably were. She didn't correct herself, though. No need to give out information.
There's wariness, amusement, and an icily analytical assessment in those eyes.
"Interesting emphasis you put on vineyards, then. My hands," he says evenly, "occasionally do this, yes."
No point in hiding it. He's out in costume anyway, and everyone knows who he is sooner or later because half-purple people just aren't that common in the multiverse. There's him, and there's the populace of Contraxia, and that's about it.
He lets go -- he has to put conscious thought into not always being fired up -- until he's covered with a transparent shell of coruscating pink energy, textured with flashes of white and other pale colors that flash by possibly too quick to see. There's a subtle sound, if you listen closely, to Jack's energy, but you have to be very, very perceptive. It's the sound of a thermonuclear reactor in miniature.
His fists, on the other hand, are holding flares of energy almost too bright for a normal human eye to look at for long without flinching.
"I'm a freak accident. If I fire this," and he pauses, to ball one of his fists in demonstration, "at most living things in the universe, they heat up, blow up, some combination of both, or die. Or they fight back, and I hit them again until they go down. There are plenty of exceptions, of course, but I have an arsenal of convenient abilities that make me very useful in a fight. So I light up in order to fly and in order to fight people who really don't deserve most people's respect, let alone mine or yours."
"I see," she said, obviously thoughtful but not quite willing to share what she thought about it.
"It's interesting that your body would be able to generate such a force. Also, that it would be unaffected by it."
She wanted to be suspicious but, oddly enough, his blatant nature made it far too difficult to pin him as one of her father's family. They were far more subtle, after all. At least, so she thought from meeting her father.
Beelzebub, on the other hand, had taken a good car to the torso amongst other things and as such, they hadn't really had time to chat.
"My body's not unaffected by it by any means," he notes, once again quite dry and deadpan. No point in hiding that, either.
"If I say 'now would be a good idea to run away,' it means that I'm about to explode with ehough energy to take out most of the Eastern Seaboard."
And that's about all he'll say about the toll his physiology takes on him mentally, physically, and spiritually.
"It's not unknown where I'm from to have people with energy-generating, energy-containing, or energy-draining abilities. No one like that back home? No mes walking around?"
"Count yourself lucky," he replies, with an undercurrent of tartness.
Jack has to spend seven hours a day in an isolation tank where the radiation is ripped from him cell by cell. The alternative is that his powers rage out of control enough to kill him. He gets a daily dose of thinking about how nice life would be without his ridiculously destructive abilities.
He is, though, being absolutely honest. While the thought of a universe without people like him is almost dismissed out of hand as a physical impossibility, he's aware of alternate Earths where his kind of people are rare. Maybe she's sheltered enough that she hasn't stumbled across any, or maybe they're all underground, or maybe they don't exist at all.
He tries another sip of Flirtini, suppressing a manic surge of hilarity. Flirtini. If Scott Lang finds out, he'll never hear the end of it.
"Can I ask how you wound up here and why you seem to be trapped?"
"I walked from my room in the hotel towards the den and found myself here instead," she said, crisp but not unfriendly. She's just used to giving clear, concise reports. Her mother expected nothing less.
"Once I entered, I turned around to find my door gone. I attempted to... make an exit" and oh, he has no idea how literal she's being "but was told going about it the wrong way was a sure way of causing harm to myself and others."
She didn't know WHAT to cut, which had happened to her before. Hence why she wasn't trying again.
Jack's been around enough frighteningly (and appealingly) intelligent, competent, and efficient women to not be put off by someone who can deliver information with clarity and concision. In fact, in his experience, it's pretty much all he knows at this point.
"What do you mean, 'harm'? You try to leave and you get hurt? Why do I see a door and you don't?"
His pushes his drink away a few inches, sliding it down the bar, and turns more on his stool to fully face her, impatiently flipping the stray strands of his ponytail back over his shoulder.
A flat look; not cutting, not angry, just tired. And she was young enough that it made her look younger instead of older.
"When I look at that piece of wall, there is no door there. One does not exist. If you'd like me to go over and let my hand wave through what you'd see as a 'doorknob' I can, but it's an irritating exercise.
"There is no doubt a way for me to cut a door. I just don't know what to cut yet."
"Cut with what, a homemade shiv? A blow torch? A glare? You've got a good glare."
Being held a prisoner here does not sound at all appealing. He has to grudgingly admire her apparent aplomb; were their circumstances reversed, he'd likely be firing at the walls with every ounce of power that he has, not to mention being thoroughly pissed off.
She's given him a lot of information in that burst. Well, it's too dignified to be a burst; more like a steady flow of precisely dictated syllables. There's the Thing She Did Outside, and talk of doors, now the offer of a drink from a mecha-servitor. Mecha-servitor thing. He thinks.
"I'll...take one," he says, cautious and impulsive at the same time (if anyone can do both simultaneously, it's Jack).
He sits down next to her at the bar.
"So. I ask this for a drink?" he says, tapping the top of bar with a gloved finger. "Dear magic counter, a glass ( ... )
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In fact, he has to tamp down the fzzzz of spectacularly lumescent pink energy currently threatening to reflexively emerge from his fists.
"I'm sorry if I offended you," he offers, relieved. "I've made enemies quickly before, but in under five minutes is a record. Even for me." Touchy woman, he almost adds. Who gets offended over being dismissed because they're from -- let's face it -- the cultural wasteland of Los Angeles?
"You can say something dismissive about New York if you want, and I'll take it on the jaw. Are you sure you don't want a drink? A Pink Flirtini or a glass of chardonnay? Did you say that your family was in the wine business?"
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"No, my Family isn't in the wine business, that I know," though considering some of the people in her family, they probably were. She didn't correct herself, though. No need to give out information.
"And your apology was accepted."
A pause, and then--
"Do your hands usually do that?"
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There's wariness, amusement, and an icily analytical assessment in those eyes.
"Interesting emphasis you put on vineyards, then. My hands," he says evenly, "occasionally do this, yes."
No point in hiding it. He's out in costume anyway, and everyone knows who he is sooner or later because half-purple people just aren't that common in the multiverse. There's him, and there's the populace of Contraxia, and that's about it.
He lets go -- he has to put conscious thought into not always being fired up -- until he's covered with a transparent shell of coruscating pink energy, textured with flashes of white and other pale colors that flash by possibly too quick to see. There's a subtle sound, if you listen closely, to Jack's energy, but you have to be very, very perceptive. It's the sound of a thermonuclear reactor in miniature.
His fists, on the other hand, are holding flares of energy almost too bright for a normal human eye to look at for long without flinching.
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"To what purpose?"
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"I'm a freak accident. If I fire this," and he pauses, to ball one of his fists in demonstration, "at most living things in the universe, they heat up, blow up, some combination of both, or die. Or they fight back, and I hit them again until they go down. There are plenty of exceptions, of course, but I have an arsenal of convenient abilities that make me very useful in a fight. So I light up in order to fly and in order to fight people who really don't deserve most people's respect, let alone mine or yours."
Reply
"I see," she said, obviously thoughtful but not quite willing to share what she thought about it.
"It's interesting that your body would be able to generate such a force. Also, that it would be unaffected by it."
She wanted to be suspicious but, oddly enough, his blatant nature made it far too difficult to pin him as one of her father's family. They were far more subtle, after all. At least, so she thought from meeting her father.
Beelzebub, on the other hand, had taken a good car to the torso amongst other things and as such, they hadn't really had time to chat.
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"If I say 'now would be a good idea to run away,' it means that I'm about to explode with ehough energy to take out most of the Eastern Seaboard."
And that's about all he'll say about the toll his physiology takes on him mentally, physically, and spiritually.
"It's not unknown where I'm from to have people with energy-generating, energy-containing, or energy-draining abilities. No one like that back home? No mes walking around?"
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Which was the truth, so perhaps a little bit of her Father's habits had rubbed off on her.
"I certainly can't do anything like that."
No, her own talents were... different.
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Jack has to spend seven hours a day in an isolation tank where the radiation is ripped from him cell by cell. The alternative is that his powers rage out of control enough to kill him. He gets a daily dose of thinking about how nice life would be without his ridiculously destructive abilities.
He is, though, being absolutely honest. While the thought of a universe without people like him is almost dismissed out of hand as a physical impossibility, he's aware of alternate Earths where his kind of people are rare. Maybe she's sheltered enough that she hasn't stumbled across any, or maybe they're all underground, or maybe they don't exist at all.
He tries another sip of Flirtini, suppressing a manic surge of hilarity. Flirtini. If Scott Lang finds out, he'll never hear the end of it.
"Can I ask how you wound up here and why you seem to be trapped?"
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"Once I entered, I turned around to find my door gone. I attempted to... make an exit" and oh, he has no idea how literal she's being "but was told going about it the wrong way was a sure way of causing harm to myself and others."
She didn't know WHAT to cut, which had happened to her before. Hence why she wasn't trying again.
...as to being lucky, she didn't say a thing.
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"What do you mean, 'harm'? You try to leave and you get hurt? Why do I see a door and you don't?"
His pushes his drink away a few inches, sliding it down the bar, and turns more on his stool to fully face her, impatiently flipping the stray strands of his ponytail back over his shoulder.
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"And I was told that cutting a door would have... unfortunate consequences."
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"You tried to 'cut' the door. As opposed to just opening it. Why?"
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"When I look at that piece of wall, there is no door there. One does not exist. If you'd like me to go over and let my hand wave through what you'd see as a 'doorknob' I can, but it's an irritating exercise.
"There is no doubt a way for me to cut a door. I just don't know what to cut yet."
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Being held a prisoner here does not sound at all appealing. He has to grudgingly admire her apparent aplomb; were their circumstances reversed, he'd likely be firing at the walls with every ounce of power that he has, not to mention being thoroughly pissed off.
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