Chapter 177 - Selfishly Motivated Goodwill

After a bit of time spent peacefully playing phone games, Miss Chievous’s attention is pulled over by her sister indirectly mentioning her vitzlite tool technology. She keeps quiet as their conversation continues, but decides to chime in after Miss Calculated is struck silent from Mark dragging Alley Cat’s powers into the mix.

“You wanna use my knife first, or are you gonna go straight to using yours?” When Miss Chievous suddenly asks this in a slightly raised voice, both Jonathan and Miss Calculated flinch with surprise. Amused by Jonathan’s startlement, Miss Chievous elbows him once while snickering, earning a brief side-eyed glare paired with a huff from him.

The M & M couch had quieted down ever since Mark finished his happily scheming laughter. As both of their attention is perked up by the mentioning of a knife; they’re looking over at Miss Calculated and Miss Chievous curiously, and Mark makes an inquisitive “Oh?” with a raised brow.

It’s not that they are at all surprised by them mentioning the fact that they have knives with them, it’s just that they’re genuinely curious about what it is that makes their knives special. After all, Jonathan’s chosen villain name is Jackknife, and everyone involved feels far more threatened by a speed supe zipping around with a knife than an intelligence or invisibility one, but they haven’t done anything about him either.

Though, in the right sets of circumstances, Miss Chievous being fully capable of doing a 100% stealth kill could certainly be considered fairly frightening. And, it could potentially be more than just one target, too, if she can catch the others before they react in such a fashion that she needs to back off from them.

Regardless, back to the scene at hand.

Miss Calculated recovers from the minor spook of her sister suddenly addressing her rather quickly, and she turns her attention over to look at Miss Chievous before answering her question.

“Oh, I will just use mine. I’d like to conserve the samples as much as possible for further testing, so I’ll only do a minimal amount of incisions during the initial proof of concept test.” As soon as Miss Calculated finishes saying this, she turns to face Mark once again before continuing.

“That is, if I may? Do you mind if I bring them back home for additional testing? I understand if you want me to wait until after the NDA is finalized before letting me take any enhanced materials away from the premises...” Before Miss Calculated has even finished preemptively capitulating to any potential dissent, Mark has begun waving a hand back and forth dismissively before sinking back into the couch once more, aware that she doesn’t seem likely to take the aforementioned knife out anytime soon.

Now that Mark is sprawled out lazily across the couch once more, when he speaks up his positioning makes it seem more like he’s addressing the ceiling, rather than answering Miss Calculated’s question. The time for formalities has passed, standing around so long in those heels has taken its toll.

“Of course it’s fine, take it as a sign of good faith, or what have you. I know if you wanted some badly enough, Maria could just go sneak away with some of the sample suits. I’d rather not need to run inventory just to figure out which ones went missing. The process with which the materials are imbued with their enhancements will need to wait, though, but I think that is more than reasonable.” After Mark points out how he’s aware of how easily Miss Chievous could just walk out with potential experimental subjects, she snorts with amusement. After a slight delay, Mikah snerks too, accompanied by a grin and a brief fit of repressed laughter.

Even though Miss Calculated obviously would have already considered such an event, she quietly sighs with relief thanks to Mark casually handing over the materials. It’s certainly much better for everyone involved to keep everything mutually beneficial, and above board. It could turn into a slippery slope once one of the relevant parties begins any sort of… unprofessional behavior.

Content with the conferring of consent, Miss Calculated turns to look at her sister once more.

“And besides, Maria, if my precision blade can’t cut through when applying only light pressure, I don’t think a needle would handle the force required to drive it through, considering how fragile vitzlite is. I might be able to do a nanogel treatment, but I have a feeling it will wear off rather quickly during use. Though, perhaps, regularly oiling the needles would still be more cost-effective than them wearing down and breaking that much faster during active use… And, it’s not like there’s any downside to further reinforcing the stitching with the residual nanogel that rubs off when sewing. I haven’t exactly done all that much extended-use testing though, considering the sheer amount of electricity required, so perhaps such measures are unnecessary. Ahh, this is all assuming it will even work in the first place, of course.” Shortly after falling into problem-solving mode, Miss Calculated ceases her musings and backpedals upon remembering that someone who may attempt to hold her accountable to her proposals is still listening.

Mikah stifles another chuckle and rocks his head from side to side, not quite shaking it properly since he’s still leaning heavily on his arm propped against the arm of the couch. With his free hand, he reaches up and slowly fans out a ‘slow down’ gesture a few times in Miss Calculated’s direction.

“Really, it’s okay. We know that you’re not some sort of wizard, and that you can’t just casually change physics to suit your needs. It’s in all of our best interests for it to work out well; considering you’ll be seeing a notable portion of the increased profits for your reactor project. So, we already know that you’ll be working hard at it.” While Mikah tries to help soothe Miss Calculated, Mark makes an agreeable grunt and throws in his own two cents, too.

“Look, we know all too well that stress stifles innovation. Just come up with what you can, and we’ll pick what we like. Well, more like Erik will decide, but still. We’re already used to not having them, so if any of the designs you come up with work at all, then it’s an improvement. Even if it’s pricey, there’s still a chance it will be worth it, Erik’s good at coming up with projections for those sorts of things, just give him the most accurate data you can.” Mark similarly waves a hand around in the air, but it is too vague of a gesture to really attribute any meaning to.

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Lucas total kills: 7

Lucas total deaths: 11

Lucas total assists: 1

Lucas current GDV: 17.35

Lucas's fame level: 6.0* (The Brotherhood of the Silver Spoon’s website has gone live!)

Lucas's hero suspicion level: 2.25* (Being high-profile with the website has made many people decide that it’s unlikely for him to be so brazenly attention-seeking as a hero in this day and age. Of course, there are a few that see it as the publicity stunt it is; therefore feeling unswayed, or even further convinced of his hero status.)

Jonathan total kills: 7

Jonathan total deaths: 2

Jonathan current GDV: 6.05

Jonathan's fame level: 4.0* (The Brotherhood of the Silver Spoon’s website has gone live!)

Jonathan's hero suspicion level: 2.5* (Being high-profile with the website… yada-yada same as Lucas.)

Willy's fame level: 4.5* (The famous meme dog’s portion of the new image gallery has led to a new wave of memes, and now more people involved know who he is, rather than just a niche portion that saw the original streams.)

Mr. Quacks’s fame level: 5.0* (The world has been taken by storm. The massive Mr. Quacks gallery has spawned even more memes than Willy now has in his honor.)

Supervillain social circle size: 15

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Little character theater:

Jonathan didn’t even notice when the scene ended, he’s all in on smashing shiny colorful gems: Ooh, 4 combo, nice!

Not only Lucas, but even Willy didn’t bother showing up today. Actually, Lucas isn’t being completely lazy, surprisingly, as he brought Willy to a dog park, at least.

Sorry, 427, only Lucas can hear you.

Author, standing behind Jonathan and Miss Chievous’s armchair, quietly debating if they should point out that they can leave now: ‘Hmm, nah.’

Mr.. Quacks, debating if he should go check on what is taking Lucas and Miss Masher so long to rejoin the scene, but having a similar thought as the author: Quack.