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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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 Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 10:32 am
The agent raised an eyebrow. "...honestly though, you really shouldn't do crap like that. You could make it worse and end up with a permanent limp or something." Not that limping all the time was a bad thing - Aulus limped half the time - but still, she was sure he wouldn't want to injure himself like that. ...hopefully. She really couldn't tell with this guy.
"But," she said suddenly and in brighter tones before she sat down in the sand as well a couple feet away, focusing violet eyes at the lanky man, "if you're going to be here a while, you could tell me more about that helmet. I'm really very interested. Flying is a hobby of mine, as well."
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 10:54 am
Looking satisfied, Scream refolded his wings and settled down to sit beside Star.
"I know what I'm doing.. I've sustained injuries worse than this." He muttered in response to Claire, sounding annoyed. When she started talking about his helmet again he arched an eyebrow and eyed the helmet, still clipped to his hip, now sitting in the sand. "Well.. it's one of a kind. Completely unique design." He nodded. This close to the helmet Claire would be able to see it very obviously incorporated Star's sense of aesthetics. From the gunmetal gray to the thin red stripe along the top. It didn't take a lot of imagination to guess what that was based on.
"It can't protect the wearer from g-forces, of course.. those take time and training, building up resistance, but it does protect from the considerable air pressure of high speeds, preventing eye damage, breathing difficulty and black out. That isn't to say sustaining supersonic flight is any easy feat." He smirked and shook his head, "The rest of the body is still subject to the change of air pressure and temperature. It's taken years to train my body to tolerate the conditions of supersonic flight." He sounded very proud.
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 11:05 am
She didn't comment on his statement about injuries, preferring to listen with rapt attention to the details about the helmet. It didn't look gorgeous, really, but it was obvious Star had designed it to fit his overall color theme - his heeled boots, too - but the construction and what it actually did enthralled her. The thought of supersonic flight... She was suddenly rather jealous, and couldn't help but wonder how it felt, what it was like...
"Could I.. look at it, do you think?" She asked, trying to hide her hopefulness as she held her hands palm-up above her lap. She wasn't about to reach forward and present her hands so he could hand it to her, of course; that would be pretentious and rude, and if he said no that would be fine. She was perfectly capable of looking at it from here, after all. "It sounds amazing.. Were you flying that fast earlier?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 11:24 am
Star blinked at the request. He and Scream exchanged glances. On the one hand he was very picky about his gear.. he wasn't sure he liked the idea of other people touching it. Especially some random Rocket. On the other hand, he literally could not remember the last time someone openly expressed so much interest in his work. He missed this kind of attention desperately.
".....I suppose." He relented, if only so he could hear more compliments about his design. He reached down to unclip the helmet and offered it to Claire, eyeing her cautiously, "Be careful with it.."
The helmet had a decent weight to it, but it wasn't too heavy. It was a comfortable weight that wouldn't strain the neck. But for the occasional groove and seam, the metal surface was smooth and untextured. The glass-like substance that made up the red eyes was thick and tough, but clear enough to admit a view of the helmet's interior. The inside was coated with a soft leather-like lightly padded material.
The sides of the helmet had vertical constructions that looked a bit like air vents. Holding the device Claire would be able to hear the soft whirr of a fan or motor and feel the pull of air if she placed a hand in front of the vents. Star had mentioned that the helmet supplied oxygen to its wearer. Of course it didn't have any air tank hanging off it, so it stood to reason that it was constantly pulling air via these vents.
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 11:52 am
His hesitance was obvious, painted all over that pointy face of his and the way he looked to his Pidgeot for input, but Claire could understand that. Star must have spent months designing, planning, building and perfecting just this one piece of technology, then more months testing and tweaking it and building up a tolerance for high-speed flight. If she had to guess, she'd say at least a full year from start to the first test run. But then again she wasn't good with machines, so her guess was as good as anyone's.
As he held it out to her, she took it with both hands. As with any fragile or irreplaceable piece of equipment, her movements were slow, gentle, and very careful. She was mildly surprised at how little it weighed, but it made sense - a helmet built for supersonic flight shouldn't be heavy or bulky; it wasn't meant to protect from impact, after all. "It is very impressive," she murmured as she turned it over in her hands carefully, studying every inch of its surface, "it's a great deal lighter than it looks, and it seems like it would be very comfortable besides.." The change of airflow near her fingers caused her eyebrows to lift as she turned it over again, putting her hand over the vents several times but never completely covering it. She didn't know what that would do to it, but she assumed it wouldn't be good and she had no intention of damaging something like this by smothering the air vents. "I think it's brilliant," she said finally as she carefully handed it back - still with both hands. "How long did it take you to make? And how did you come up with the idea for it?" She really, really wanted to be able to achieve supersonic flight now too.
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 12:09 pm
Star watched Claire inspect the helmet. When he saw the amount of care she was taking his shoulders relaxed a bit. When she started talking about how impressive it was she managed to coax a genuine smile from the lanky ex-Galactic. Not a smarmy grin or crooked smirk. Just a smile. "It's decently sturdy." He added when she commented on the weight, "I mean I wouldn't rely on it in a severe crash but.. it's protected me from some considerable blows..." He thought back on the fight with Virizion. The light-weight helmet had been completely ruined in the encounter.. he had to rebuild about 60% of it... but better the crumpled metal than his skull.
He took the helmet back and turned it over in his hands. When she asked about the length of the build his smile faded, "Well.. I wasn't exactly allowed a lot of time to devote to personal projects at Team Galactic...." The resentment in his voice was blatant, "I always had at least two or three ongoing projects at once. So work on the helmet overlapped my boots and gauntlets. From start to finish it took about four years." He sounded angry. Had he been working on such a prototype at the original Galactic with a team and time at his disposal it would have been done in months.
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 2:21 pm
The smile on his face for that brief period caught her attention - it wasn't how he usually looked at other people. Normally he looked like others were either dirt or someone to suck up to, and he seemed to smirk a lot. This expression was... different. Better. She was sure if he smiled more often people wouldn't dislike him quite so much. ...maybe. She wasn't sure at this point, given the general opinion of Galactics that the majority of the team had...
"I'm sure it's sturdier than it looks - it looks very lightweight and made just for supersonic flight. It's good that it's fairly good protection, too," especially if for whatever reason he fell off or something. Better than nothing, at any rate.
Oh boy, maybe she shouldn't have asked how long it took.. It seemed that was a rather sore subject for the spindly man. "That's.. unfortunate, but given what I know of Galactic, understandable. I can't imagine they left you with much time on your hands to do whatever you liked.. Boots and gauntlets? You mean the boots you have on?" Gauntlets she had no idea about - if she'd seen them, she didn't remember them - but the boots were more than likely the ones he was wearing right now, and she couldn't help but study them from where she sat.
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 2:41 pm
Star nodded, following Claire's eyes to the boots. He stared a moment, considering how much he liked the way they made his legs look, then looked back at the female Rocket, "Mmmyes, these. The gauntlets, on the other hand, aren't flight accessories." He held up an arm as he explained, despite the fact he wasn't actually wearing them at the moment, "They're for combat. The fingers are elongated into thin ten inch claws.. with a variety of applications." He moved his fingers appropriately to the description, "They enhance grip strength and wrist support. Typically the forearms hold downsized launch missiles but your security had those removed..." He shrugged and lowered his arm. The smirk and superior tone had come back. Whatever fleeting glimpse of the earlier smile Claire got was brief.
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 7:07 pm
"I can imagine why," Claire murmured when he raised his arm to help his description, even though it didn't really help at all. "Well," she went on after a moment before leaning back a bit, and raising a hand to stroke Odette's soft feathers, "they all seem very impressive. The helmet's still my favorite, though." Aaand he was back to looking like a smug b*****d. That was fast.
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 7:28 pm
Star nodded his agreement. They were very impressive. He watched as Sky fluttered over and landed on the pointed toe of his right boot.
"Star star!"
He sighed, eyes drifting from the ball of feathers to the towering building nearby. "I should be returning."
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 7:47 pm
"Mm.. I should as well," she said with a bemused glance at the little Starly before she stood up and dusted herself off. She got on Odette with practiced ease and was about to take off when she focused on Star again. "Oh, I've one more question... That loud noise earlier - was that you?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 8:32 pm
With a grunt he climbed back to his feet. Sky fluttered to his shoulder. "Loud noise?" He thought for a moment, "Oh.. you probably heard the sonic boom when we hit mach one earlier.." He took hold of the strap around Scream's neck and hauled himself onto the pidgeot. Once he was situated he smirked and tilted his head, "Would you like to hear it again?"
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 8:38 pm
"Sonic boom?" Well that made sense... She thought for just a brief moment before a smirk spread across her face and Odette lifted into the air, but didn't take off just yet. "I'd love to." And everyone on the base that was still sleeping would, too, she was sure.
With that, the gold Pidgeot took off into the air to avoid being caught up in whatever repercussions there could be from the spindly man's flight.
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 9:55 pm
Grinning, Star exchanged a glance with Scream, who looked to be smirking himself. The lanky roboticist pulled on his helmet and leaned forward as the gray and red pidgeot shot into the air. The pair rolled as they climbed skyward, then took off east, away from HQ, going very fast, though not supersonic. Once they'd reached a considerable distance, the dot that was the bird and man reversed course and shot back in the direction of HQ going much faster. Star was laying flat against Scream's back, legs drawn in. On approach they were silent. They passed in a blur and a split second later an echoing bang that both Claire and Odette would be able to feel in their chest cracked across the desert like a whip.
Shortly after they circled back around and, at a casual glide, approached the other trainer/pidgeot pair. Star'd removed his helmet and looked like he thought he was pretty much the best thing in the world.
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 11:20 pm
The resulting sonic boom jolted the pair - Claire moreso than Odette, who was more used to such speeds and the repercussions than her trainer was - and after the initial reaction, the agent grinned and chuckled. The former had faded to a smirk when Star and Scream had glided back over. "Very nice," she commented with a few claps of applause, although it was slightly more sarcastic than real applause. Regardless, it was still impressive. It had seemed rather a lofty goal at first, supersonic flight, and he could have been bluffing... but after that demonstration, it was obvious he was completely serious. "And I'm sure everyone else appreciated that nice wake-up call, as well." The walls weren't that thick, after all. "Well, I do agree - it's time for me to go, I have to start work in an hour or so and I need to get ready. I'll see you around," she said with a wave before the pair shot off, did an obligatory flip because Odette couldn't not show off at least a little, and disappeared behind the tall building.
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